September 15, 2022
Make sure you have read the previous post, “Is This Heaven?” before reading this post. It is foundational.
1 John 5:18: “We know that God’s children do not make a practice of sinning, for God’s Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them” (NLT).
“Don't get weary in your well-doing.
You were doing well until you let your well ruin and
Run dry trying to fulfill them selfish ambitions…
I haven't been girded with the full armor
I've deserted your word it turned to nervousness and then full drama
It's better for me to have never known
Than to know the truth and turn back to what is wrong
That's like spewing from my own stomach
Then turning around and eating my own vomit.”
-FLAME
Just trying harder doesn’t work. Period. Yeah, it might get you a few steps forward, like a New Year’s resolution, but it won’t last, and it won’t be rooted in the heart–only the will. That’s like planting a seed in a crack in the rock. When the sun beats on the sprout, it’s history. I suspect that many Christians approach religion that way. Generally, if they call themselves a Christian, they understand the basic foundation of the gospel–that they need to call on the name of the Lord Jesus to save them from their sins and give them a new heart and eternal life, and that if they believe in His sacrificial death and perfect, substitutionary life to be rendered to their account, they will be counted as righteous before God at the judgment and will be saved.
In Tabitha’s tour of “heaven” (aka, eternal life), she started in a mansion, which probably all my readers agree was expected. This mansion represented the place where all Christians seem to have common footing: you get saved, you get your name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. That means, you have a room reserved for you in the mansions of heaven! “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (KJV). Glory to God!
Unfortunately, after this “mountaintop” realization, I wonder how many of us haven’t utterly fallen on our faces into the slough. I suspect that we have fallen into one or both of two ditches: self-perfection and then “penance” when we fail at our self-assessed standard of perfection, or complete carefree worldliness springing from a false idea of salvation. After all, “once saved, always saved!” Tabitha ran into both in her tour: she ran into seemingly “upstanding” people who were obviously unhappy she was there; this was to demonstrate their heart attitudes of selfishness, a lack of true grip on how much sin had been forgiven them, and therefore, a lack of compassion and mercy toward others. Tabitha felt she needed to “buy” their friendship. Jesus talks about using goods as means to befriend the world, but Scripture is clear that genuine “agape” (familial, God-given) love is a recognizable fruit in a changed heart. The people might have cleaned up the outside but failed to change their hearts. If they recognize this, they might try to make themselves feel better by “penance,” meaning, they work extra hard in the church programs or volunteering to help the needy or giving money to missions. Perhaps they make themselves feel depressed and force themselves to mull over and over upon their sins so that they don’t experience “undeserved” joy. But this is a false gospel. You are either forgiven or not; continually flagellating yourself over your confessed sins is telling God that He’s mistaken to say that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). You doing good works to “prove” that you’re sorry for sin is trying to “work” favor from God. You either get saved by perfect law keeping or by pure grace. Nothing in between. Spirit-filled good works spring out of Spirit-driven power and purpose, and that’s another discussion.
Tabitha secondly ran into at least the rumor of out-and-out idolatry. When the shopkeeper told her about those who were practicing divination, this means they were using their religious “goods” to actually serve the devil. They thought they could “buy” the “bread of life” (Jesus and salvation) by their religion. People can do that without out-and-out having a seance, just by who and what they live for. “What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?...What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! 16Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness?” (Rom 6:1-2, 15-16)
Do we think that eternal life is a miracle of God’s grace to us the first time we believe, but then, well, we just have to wait to die after that, since we really can’t experience that life here in this world? In the meantime, we might as well “eat, drink, and be merry” or else, if we feel that doesn’t quite fit the bill of being a Christian, then the opposite approach should be safe. Meanwhile, if we are indeed a child of God, we are either laden down with guilt or overwhelmed with failure and the realization of our impotence because of the Spirit’s conviction of a lack of heart change and unbroken sin addictions.
In these scenarios, we’re not experiencing eternal life! We’re experiencing hell on earth! What happened? I guess this is what we should expect, right? After all, Scripture says God’s people would experience many troubles. (I go into this much more in depth in the two posts on hell). But oh! Have we ignored or inadvertently twisted the promises because we have failed to understand the reality of our salvation? “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him from them all” (Ps 34:19). “No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it” (Heb 12:11). “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore you, secure you, strengthen you, and establish you” (1 Pet 5:10). I suspect that most Western Christians have given up the hope of that for this life.
The problem is, we’re supposed to be the Tabernacles of God on earth. We carry His glory within us! The world looks at us and sizes up just how glorious or foolish, powerful or impotent this God is–not by human standards but by how brightly we shine in the darkness, how countercultural (in the world system contrary to God’s Word) we stand in the spirit of meekness and love, how securely we are walking in Christ without the smile of our peers upon us, and how sincerely we live or even die by the rock-solid convictions that come out of diligent study and application of Scripture coupled arm in arm with desperate prayer, as we realize that only by the Holy Spirit opening our minds to the right understanding can we properly apply it.
The world understands conviction. For example, they greatly admire athletes who pour their hearts and souls into their sport. The world can smell a fake as skillfully as hounds can smell a scent. There is only one remedy: true, genuine heart change that empowers transformation. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God” (Rom 12:2). The transformation of understanding and conviction through the Word of God leads to the embracing of a vital reality in the concept of “eternal life.” God does it. It’s true that He acts upon our desires. If we show no interest in pursuing Him or reveal a half-hearted appetite for His Word, He won’t reward that, any more than He would have healed a lame man that didn’t obey His command to “get up.” Tabitha noticed the lackluster approach of the “heavenly” townsfolk toward variety or involvement in their cuisine. Just going to the “cafe” once per week at the church sermon table isn’t going to cut it. God sees what you really want. “Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 13For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose” (Phil 2:12). Chew on that.
You got a miracle at the moment of salvation. You need ongoing miracles until heaven. The Christian life is the walk of eternal life; it requires miraculous intervention on a continual basis to mortify sin by supernatural change of appetite and by supernatural training in knowing God through a proper understanding of the Word. How can we somehow think that we can strong-arm our way into heaven in the natural (not entering the spiritual war) or else traipse through the pearly gates without a care, when we know that Scripture says that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12) and that “the kingdom of heaven has been subject to violence, and the violent lay claim to it” (Matt 11:12)?
We need the power of God to teach us in the spirit who He is, since He is Spirit. We need the power of God to fight the demonic blinders that keep us from knowing Him, since we are profoundly impacted in the natural by the spiritual. Eternal life is God making Himself known to YOU.
“Now this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
“Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? (Mark 8:18).
“Then the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Why do You speak to the people in parables?’
11He replied, ‘The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. 13This is why I speak to them in parables:
“Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”’” (Matt 13:10-13).
“And as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But just as His true and genuine anointing teaches you about all things, so remain in Him as you have been taught” (1 John 2:27).
(Just to clarify, this does not mean that God does not use the many pieces to the puzzle that He gives His other people to properly round off our understanding, and that is why we need the church, His body. But that is another discussion.)
Suffering doesn’t prove we’re not living eternal life. It is meant to train us for godliness. It is meant to go somewhere. It is meant to burn the dross of worldliness out of us so we can actually think the thoughts of Christ and walk with God by the Spirit without fear of the world. It is meant to give us true fear of God while increasing our awe and joy over the salvation He’s given us from His wrath. It is meant to bring us to such a hatred of sin and love for joy of Jesus’ righteousness, that temptations no longer even allure us, any more than lima beans allure us. “But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed” (James 1:14).
In the next post, let’s go back to the mansion, where Tabitha was given a “celestial” phone. What does that mean for us? We will discover that it is a key in further understanding the goal of suffering.
DON'T FORGET TO GO TO THE FORUM AND REFLECT WITH US!
Excellent supplemental material: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/better-to-have-a-burden?fbclid=IwAR346MfY8qxMW5YsEwQEwTO3E67PEDsuS8jXSwM5XDnLhAlqG_ZFUXdHZmE
*All Scripture is cited in the BSB version, unless otherwise noted.