JUST IMAGINE

 

JUST IMAGINE

You come to a particular church and decide it is the church you want to join. You go to the pastor and tell him your decision, and he says, “I am glad you want to join this church. Let me be clear about the main requirement for membership. You will have to surrender your eldest child (and if you do not have children, then you or your spouse) to a certain foreign legion military group for service, where the fatality rate is rumored to be near 100%.

Can you imagine your astonishment? You might think the pastor has lost his mind, is making a bad joke, or the church is some kind of cult? But he reassures you that is the main requirement.

Of course, this proposition is beyond ridiculous. No pastor or church would ever imagine or allow such a thing. But this is similar to what God has done for you.

But listen to this: God sent His son to seek and save and to die for the lost – you and me. And by that act, Jesus set the framework for the establishment of His Church. The main prerequisite was that God gave His only Son as a sacrifice. Our main requirement is to believe in faith that God gave His only son as a sacrifice for many, and that if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.

Thankfully, the only sacrifice we have to make is putting our mortal flesh, our old life to death. But that is not an end, it is just the beginning of a new life, so we can live in and with Him forever!

So, why all these requirements of death in trade for life? There are three ways to view this. One is complicated and two are simplistic.

(1). The idea and practice of exchanging or sacrificing a life of one for the life of another – in other words, one must die so another can live, is this: Before there was a Law (the knowledge and boundaries of right and wrong) humankind was sinless. Then at some point they gained the knowledge of right and wrong, and they chose to do wrong and experience the pleasure and the pain of sin. (See the story of Adam, Eve, Satan and the apple of the fruit of knowledge). Then came death. First the death of animals so Adam and Eve could begin to clothe themselves. Then the son of Adam and Eve, Caine, killed his brother Able in a fit of jealous rage. And so sin progressed.

In the Jewish Law (Old Testament or the more accurately, the Torah) God established a law that said that lawlessness, rebellion and sin could be forgiven and the effects could be erased or mediated only if the sinner (the perpetrator) died or paid an equal price for his or her sin. This was supposed to relieve the anger and the pain and soothe the grieving conscience of the offended parties. But in the mind of the Jew, God needed to be satisfied and ameliorated also.  The Jew correctly believed that since God is perfectly sinless He cannot tolerate sin in His presence nor among His people. So, in order to satisfy God and the Law, someone had to die in order to keep the presence and peace of God with His people.

Therefore, this Law said that animals would be sacrificed each year so as to satisfy the unseen sins or lesser sins of the people in general. Additionally, the High Priest of Israel prayed over a goat (the “scapegoat”) designated to bear the sins of the people during the Yom Kippur ceremony, which occurred once a year. This ritual involved confessing the sins of the people over the goat before it was sent into the wilderness.

(2). God put an end to the endless, repetitive and largely ineffective sacrificial system with the sacrifice of His Son Jesus for all the sins of all humankind. The only difference being is that only those who confessed their sins and would confess Jesus as their risen Lord would be washed clean of their sins, forgiven and saved from a coming final judgment of the sinner.

Even for the Jew, it wasn’t until 70 CE when the Roman army destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem that sacrificial system ceased. The Temple was the only place where sacrifices were permitted according to Jewish law. Today, no Jewish community practices animal sacrifices. Instead, prayer and good deeds have taken the place of sacrifices in seeking forgiveness and drawing closer to God.

(3). On a more practical level, God created a conscience in all of us. Some may call this the heart or soul of a person (pseuche), where our emotions reside and from which they emanate. When we feel that we have been injured unjustly, treated unfairly or mistreated in any of hundreds of ways, it is built within us to want justice or for things to be made right. We want a sense of being made whole again, to be repaid physically, mentally and emotionally for any and all harms. Without things being put back into balance, we may very well carry a sense of a need to get even or to pay someone back (an eye for an eye) for what has happened to us. Or perhaps these emotions stem from anger, greed, vengeance or selfishness or dozens of other responses. In any case, and as strange as it may sound, they can and do lead to sexual immorality and addictions, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, murders, wars unless they are satisfied or recast in the mind of the beholder.

Can you see it? Do you get it? Any kind of betrayal, disappointment, failure, or harm must be put right in the heart and mind of any individual. Without that, we cannot live a productive, useful, satisfying and healthy life. This is simply how we are made – as a faint copy of the image of God.

God has made a way, if you are willing. God sent His Son, Jesus to speak directly to you, that is to your mind, heart, soul and spirit. The very mind, heart, soul and spirit He created and put within you. He is saying your sins – all of them, no matter what you have done – can be forgiven you, and you can be made whole, safe, healthy and well with a new start in a new life with Him. He was sacrificed on your behalf. He repaid the debt that you owed God. The same debt you may have felt you were also owed. But you must first step away from the tangled mess of the power, pleasure and pain of sin that has entrapped and enraged you for so long.

You can now be set free to live, maybe for the first time. Leave all that behind and God will satisfy your need for revenge. Believe me when I say that He will repay the vilest of offenders. (And if you could see it, you would wish you had not seen it. You would feel compassion on them for the severity of their punishment if they do not also repent of their great offenses).

Just like Adam and Eve, we all have been deceived at one time or another. It isn’t our fault! But now that it is done, it is our responsibility to turn to God and make things right once again. It is our responsibility to accept the balance that God brings. It is our right and our responsibility to become whole, safe, healthy and well at last.

In the simplest of terms, just turn to Jesus, right now, and ask Him to show you the way. Give Him your past and accept His future for you.

Just remember that you cannot bring your past with you. You cannot pass through that “eye of the needle” with the baggage and burdens of the past. You just will not fit through the “narrow gate” with all the additional baggage and weight of the past.

There is only and just enough room for you, empty-handed, unburdened and free.

Come now.

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young