He Must Increase

He Must Increase.  In more highly liturgical churches across the globe, today marks Ash Wednesday, the formal beginning of Lent (derived from the Latin word for fortieth). Last year’s palm fronds from Palm Sunday have been burned, their ashes are smeared on the foreheads of the penitent ones who will observe the 40 days leading up to Good Friday (not counting Sundays) in mourning over their sin. Such is a worthy gesture, especially if the day before Ash Wednesday, Mardi Gras (from the Latin phrase meaning Fat Tuesday), was raucous. Traditionally, people give something up for Lent: meat, one meal per day, etc. Modern examples often include giving up chocolate, booze, sugar, social media, etc.

Yet, on a basic level, giving up to gain something is faulty logic. I can’t subtract my way into addition. I can’t decrease my body fat index by simply tightening my belt. I can’t balance my family budget by solely turning off a few lights in the daytime. So then, why would decreasing my luxuries for six weeks increase holiness? We need holiness, for sure, but holiness isn’t added by subtraction. Only because Christ’s holiness has been added to our account (i.e., imputed)—by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8)—can unholiness ever be subtracted from our account. Ultimately, we need Christ, not math.

According to faith, we can and should sometimes fast from certain rights and privileges, as Christ assumed was normal in the rhythm of faithfulness. “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matt. 9:15). We fast not that Christ might sanctify us, but because Christ has sanctified us, is sanctifying us, and will sanctify us. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

When John the Baptist spoke his wise words as almost a prayer, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30), the increase of Christ was not the result of John’s decrease, but the cause of John’s decrease. In other words, the only way John could possibly decrease was that Christ had arrived in a state of fullness. The increase that John desired was not for Christ to increase in essence but in recognition. Christ was already preeminent; John wanted everyone, including himself, to see Christ as the Preeminent One. “He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all” (John 3:31). Recognizing Christ as maximum displaces all other ambitions, desires, and rivals.

By Faith Abraham Obeyed When He Was Called

By Faith Abraham Obeyed When He Was Called.  When the kids were little, we would say to them as often as the situation required, “Slow poking is not obeying.” Unnecessary nonchalance in compliance to a direct instruction, to maintain plausible deniability and perhaps to avoid discipline, did not fit the spirit of obedience. For instance, picking up toys while playing with said toys on their way to the toybox was slow poking, dragging feet on the way to the car when we were late for church was slow poking, reading past Lights Out time was slow poking. Abraham was non-compliant in some ways, unwise in other ways, and dreadfully wrong when he lied twice about Sarah being his sister to save his own skin (Gen. 12:13; 20:2), but he did not slow poke when God initially called him (Gen. 12:1-3).

The quickness of Abraham’s initial obedience is emphasized in Hebrews 11:8: “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.” By using a present tense participle—when he was called—with a past tense verb—obeyed—the grammatical effect is spontaneous action. His obedience virtually accompanied his calling, as if while God was calling him Abraham was already packing. He had an eagerness to obey despite a lack of knowledge about where this journey would take him.

Making application to our faith response to God’s calling could be endlessly varied, but the eagerness of our faith response is worth evaluating. Do we slow poke? Will we get around to it, whatever it is? Or will we masterfully construct excuses like the potential followers of Jesus? 

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:57-62).

God, who sees the end from even before the beginning, says that Abraham, despite his many fumbles, is “the father all who believe” (Rom. 4:11). Sarah also, who might have been pigeon-holed by humans as the mother who doubted, since she first scoffed at God’s announcement that she would have a baby at 90 years old (Gen. 18:12), is honored by God to be as important in faith as Abraham. “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11:11).

You Have Need of Endurance

You Have Need of Endurance.  Without checking our heart, biting our tongue, and pumping the brakes on our pride, we are prone to misinterpret advice and encouragement as meddling. Granted, unsolicited advice often is meddling, but not always. In those cases when it is meddlesome, we react nearly automatically with: “Who asked you?” or “What gives you the right to speak that way to me?” or “You don’t know me.” If manipulation happens regularly enough, then we will always suspect advice as an external force attempting to bend us toward somebody else’s agenda. But God’s advice is never less than good and always welcome because we have, in fact, asked him for wisdom, because he does have the right to speak that way to us, and because he knows us intimately, far better than we know ourselves. How easily we receive biblical instruction parallels how spiritually mature we are.

Twice in the book of Hebrews the author tells his audience what they need. Is he rude, or is he right? His instruction is quite forceful, especially in contrast to the two times that Paul tells his audience in Thessalonica what they do not need. “Your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything” (1 Thess. 1:8). “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another” (1 Thess. 4:9). But to the Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem, the author admonishes them to grow up spiritually. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:12-14). “For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Heb. 10:36).

Immediate defensiveness to the revelation of God is a symptom of spiritual immaturity. Pliability or receptivity to the revelation of God is a mark of spiritual maturity. It’s not personal, it’s spiritual! You have need of endurance! You are in the crucible of suffering which lays bare your underdeveloped receptivity to the word of God. That said, endurance itself is not the point, per se; it is the means to the point, which is doing the will of God. Survival is not the goal; it is the way toward the goal, which is receiving what is promised. Stay in the battle; continue with the struggle; persevere so that you can obey. Endure the race so that you can glorify God in the running of the race that was set before you. No one else’s race is exactly like your race, but everyone else’s race needs the same endurance. “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Heb. 12:1-3).