Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


11.30.2006  

Be What You Are

If Donald Trump came down from one of his buildings and lived on the streets like a beggar, what would we think? If Shaq were to try his hand at gymnastics, how seriously would he be taken? If a dog were to walk out of a house on two legs, leash in paw, leading its owner by that leash around the block, would we think nothing of it? If a decrepit old man, an invalid for years, were to tell his caretakers that he wanted to climb K2 in several months, would his caretakers let him? If an old woman, joyfully married to her husband for over fifty years, were to wake up one day to hear him say, "I don't love you anymore," how would she feel?

F.F. Bruce observes of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians that 4:22 - 24 is an exhortation to "be what you are!" The effectual call of God has made us new, made us holy. Therefore, we are to be holy, we are to live in holiness.

Just as we would be shocked to see a dog walking its owner, so it should be shocking to us that we do not live as the holy saints we already are. Just as it would be absurd for an invalid to think that he could climb K2, so it is absurd for the believer to think the he no longer has the right to kneel down at the cross with every other wretched, broken sinner found there. Just as it would crush and grieve a woman to hear her husband tell her of the death of his love for her, so it crushed and grieves our Savior because we did not and still do not always live in accordance with the love with which we are loved.

The reason these things are shocking, absurd, crushing, and grievous is not because we fail and cannot please God, but because we have already been saved from our failure, yet fail to accept God's pleasure in us because of Christ. Be what you are!

posted by Bolo | 9:11 AM
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