Romans 5:1-4

The list called “fruit of the Spirit” includes “patience” (Gal. 5:22-23), but that doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit wills it into the believer’s life. Instead, He acts as our ever-dependable teacher and the one who enables our growth. Spiritual fruit matures over time as we obey the Lord and surrender to His will.

Patience with both God and our fellow man is an outgrowth of deepening faith. The Holy Spirit urges believers to take note of the Lord’s handiwork on the journey through life. Our confidence in Him is nurtured by answered prayer, the rich blessings that arise unexpectedly from difficult circumstances, and every trace of good that God salvages from a bad situation. As our trust in His goodness and sovereignty grows, we find ourselves more willing to wait for God’s solutions and outcomes.

In fact, I believe that recognizing God’s sovereignty is key to developing patience. A significant part of surrendering to His absolute control is waiting upon Him to do what He will. We are wise to realize that our lives unfold according to His master plan–exasperated toe tapping doesn’t bother Him a bit. God expects His children to step into His timeline and practice patience no matter what pace He sets.

Patience doesn’t come naturally. That’s why we have the Holy Spirit. He strengthens our resolve to endure without complaint when progress seems sluggish. After all, God is slow only from a human standpoint. From a divine, eternal perspective, He’s always working at the perfect speed

While many industries continue to struggle from economic downturn, the identity management industry, a trade emerging from the realities of the Internet Age, continues to gain business steadily. As one company notes in its mission statement, they began with the realization that “the line dividing people’s ‘online’ lives from their ‘offline’ personal and professional lives was eroding, and quickly.”(1) While the notion of anonymity or the felt safety of a social network lures users into online disinhibition, reputations are forged in a very public domain. And, as many have discovered, this can come back to haunt them—long after posted pictures are distant memories. In a survey taken in 2006, one in ten hiring managers admitted rejecting candidates because of things they discovered about them on the Internet. With the increasing popularity of social networks, personal video sites, and blogs, today that ratio is now one in two. Hence the need for identity managers—who scour the Internet with an individual’s reputation in mind and scrub websites of image-damaging material—grows almost as quickly as a high-schooler’s Facebook page.

With the boom of the reputation business in mind, I wonder how identity managers might have attempted to deal with the social repute of Jesus. Among officials, politicians, and soldiers, his reputation as a political nightmare and agitator of the people preceded him. Among the religious leaders, his reputation was securely forged by the scandal and outrage of his messianic claims. Beyond these reputations, the most common accusations of his personal depravity had to do with the company he kept, the Sabbath he broke, and the food and drink he enjoyed. In two different gospels, Jesus remarks on his reputation as a glutton. “[T]he Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!'”(2) In fact, if you were to remove the accounts of his meals or conversations with members of society’s worst, or his parables that incorporated these untouchables, there would be very little left of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. According to etiquette books and accepted social norms, both from the first century and the twenty-first, the reputation of Jesus leaves much to be desired.

Ironically, the reputation of those Jesus left behind does not resemble his reputation much at all. Writing in 1949 with both humor and lament, Dorothy Sayers describes the differences: “For nineteen and a half centuries, the Christian churches have labored, not without success, to remove this unfortunate impression made by their Lord and Master. They have hustled the Magdalens from the communion table, founded total abstinence societies in the name of him who made the water wine, and added improvements of their own, such as various bans and anathemas upon dancing and theatergoing….[F]eeling that the original commandment ‘thou shalt not work’ was rather half hearted, [they] have added to it a new commandment, ‘thou shalt not play.”(3)  Her observations have a ring of both comedy and tragedy. The impression Christians often give the world is that Christianity comes with an oddly restricted understanding of words such as “virtue,” “morality,” “faithfulness,” and “goodness.” Curiously, this reputation is far more similar to the law-abiding religion of which Jesus had nothing nice to say. “Woe to you, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 23:23).

When the apostle Paul described the kind of fruit that will flourish in the life of one who follows Jesus, he was not giving the church a checklist or a rigid code like the religious law from which he himself was freed.(4) He was describing the kinds of reputations that emerge precisely when following the friend of tax-collectors and sinners, the drunkard, the Sabbath-breaker, the Son of God. Jesus loved the broken, discarded people around him to a social fault. He was patient and kind, joyful and peaceful in ways that made the world completely uncomfortable. His faithfulness was not a badge that made it seem permissible to exclude others for their lack of virtue. His self-control did not lead him to condemn the world around him or to isolate himself in disgust of their immorality; rather, it allowed him to walk to his death for the sake of all.

There are no doubt pockets of the world where the reputation of the church lines up with that of its founder. The prophets and identity managers of the church today pray for many more. Until then, in a world deciphering, critically or otherwise, the question of reputation, “What does it mean to be Christian?” perhaps we might ask instead, “What did it mean to be Christ?”

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) From the website ReputationDefender.com/company, accessed Jan 15, 2009.
(2) Luke 7:34, Matthew 11:19.
(3) Dorothy Sayers, “Christian morality” in The Whimsical Christian (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 151-152.
(4) “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Morning    “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.”  Psalm 119:49

Whatever your especial need may be, you may readily find some promise in the

Bible suited to it. Are you faint and feeble because your way is rough and you

are weary? Here is the promise–“He giveth power to the faint.” When you read

such a promise, take it back to the great Promiser, and ask him to fulfil his

own word. Are you seeking after Christ, and thirsting for closer communion with

him? This promise shines like a star upon you–“Blessed are they that hunger and

thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Take that promise to the

throne continually; do not plead anything else, but go to God over and over

again with this–“Lord, thou hast said it, do as thou hast said.” Are

you distressed because of sin, and burdened with the heavy load of your

iniquities? Listen to these words–“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy

transgressions, and will no more remember thy sins.” You have no merit of your

own to plead why he should pardon you, but plead his written engagements and he

will perform them. Are you afraid lest you should not be able to hold on to the

end, lest, after having thought yourself a child of God, you should prove a

castaway? If that is your state, take this word of grace to the throne and plead

it: “The mountains may depart, and the hills may be removed, but the covenant of

my love shall not depart from thee.” If you have lost the sweet sense of

the Saviour’s presence, and are seeking him with a sorrowful heart, remember

the promises: “Return unto me, and I will return unto you;” “For a small moment

have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee.” Banquet your

faith upon God’s own word, and whatever your fears or wants, repair to the Bank

of Faith with your Father’s note of hand, saying, “Remember the word unto thy

servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.”

 

Evening  “All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.”   Ezekiel 3:7

Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favoured race are thus described.

Are the best so bad?–then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how

far thou hast a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be

ready to take shame unto thyself wherein thou mayst have been guilty. The first

charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a want of holy shame, an

unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin and feel no

compunction, hear of my guilt and yet remain unhumbled, and even confess my

iniquity and manifest no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go

to God’s house and pretend to pray to him and praise him argues a

brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have

doubted my Lord to his face, murmured unblushingly in his presence, worshipped

before him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning

it. If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint, I should have far

more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me, I am one of

the impudent house of Israel. The second charge is hardheartedness, and I must

not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and

although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former

obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I

ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of

the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures, as I

should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Saviour’s sufferings

and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me, this

hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not

incurable, the Saviour’s precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even

me, it will effectually soften, till my heart melts as wax before the fire.

 

The Lord is king forever and ever.   Psalms 10:16

Jesus Christ is not a tyrant claiming divine right, but He is really and truly the Lord’s anointed! “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”1 God has given to Him all power and all authority.

As the Son of man, He is now head over all things in His church, and He reigns over heaven and earth and hell with the keys of life and death at His belt. Certain princes have been glad to call themselves kings by the popular will, and certainly our Lord Jesus Christ is such in His church. If it could be put to the vote whether He should be King in the church, every believing heart would crown Him. We ought to crown Him more gloriously than we do! We would regard no expense too great if we could glorify Christ. Suffering would be pleasure, and loss would be gain, if through that we could surround His brow with brighter crowns and make Him more glorious in the eyes of men and angels. Yes, He shall reign. Long live the King! All hail to You, King Jesus! Go on, you virgin souls who love your Lord. Bow at His feet; cover His path with the lilies of your love and the roses of your gratitude: “Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all.”

Our Lord Jesus is King in Zion by right of conquest: He has taken the hearts of His people by storm and has defeated their enemies who held them in cruel bondage. In the Red Sea of His own blood, our Redeemer has drowned the Pharaoh of our sins: Shall He not be Lord and King? He has delivered us from sin’s dominion and from the heavy curse of the law: Shall not the Liberator be crowned? We are His portion, whom He has taken out of the hand of the enemy with His sword and with His bow: Who will snatch His conquest from His hand? All hail, King Jesus! We gladly own Your gentle sway! Rule in our hearts forever, You lovely Prince of Peace.

1Colossians 1:19

The family reading plan for April 27, 2012

Song 2 | Hebrews 2