Walking A Christian Path by Graham Pockett - HTML preview

When We Are Saved?
– what should new Christians expect –

“God didn’t save us for a life without pain,
He saved us from a life without meaning!”

Our lives are a trip, sometimes peaceful but, more often, taken in turmoil. In our lives we travel through deserts, over hills, across canyons, up and over crags, through swollen streams – until we sometimes despair and, in that desperation, cry out to God. We look for an easier road, the flattening of the hills, an oasis in the desert, the abating of the flooded stream so we may cross safely – we are looking for a haven, a peaceful meadow in our lives.

In our desperation we reach out to Jesus and often the problem that confronts us eases, and we are able to continue on our journey again. We expect that all future problems will be eased, but they aren’t, the easing was temporary and soon the crisis of our life resumes. We cry: “Where are You now, God?” Some fall away, forgetting that they have already received one miracle, but they expected a succession of miracles. Now we are Christians, they reason, shouldn’t our paths be easy, our burdens light?

No, that is not the path to faith. It requires no faith if we are not challenged, if we are not tested, and strengthened by those tests. Anybody can simply accept ‘gifts’ from God, but it requires no faith to expect those gifts, only an attitude of gluttony. God hasn’t promised us an Eden upon this Earth, but He does offer us many wonderful things if we can grow and overcome the barriers against our faith.

“How do we grow in the Lord if we are not tested and, in that testing, strengthened?”

I see this like a mountain of broken glass – a mountain that will be hard to overcome, and one that will cause us pain and hardship as we traverse it. Of course, we could always walk around the base of this mountain and continue our journey, but we gain little in the process. However, if we clamber over this mountain of broken glass, we will find that, nestled on the other side, riches beyond our imagination. How do we grow in the Lord if we are not tested and, in that testing, strengthened? Like our muscles, our faith starts off weak and requires strenuous exercise to develop.

If we walk around the base of this mountain of faith, we miss the treasures that God has for us on this Earth but, if we tackle the hard road, we are rewarded beyond belief. These rewards are not always in gold or silver, but can be other things – like the ability to be able to handle death (especially that of a loved one), or through a peace in our hearts that passes all understanding.

In this world of instant gratification, we expect to be able to put the money on the counter and walk out with the goods. God is not an ‘instant gratification God’, but one who works slowly to prepare the dough used in the bread of life, to allow it to rise without hurrying, to cook it long and slow so that the finished product is like God Himself – perfect! This takes time and patience. He is not a ‘microwave God’ but a ‘slow cooker God’. Things move at His pace, slowly and with purpose.

Strengthen your faith and strive to overcome the greatest obstacles in your life. As you strive, you are strengthened in many ways, and your rewards that much more valuable.

Jesus highlighted two major things – to love one another, and to forgive your enemy. In the Lord’s Prayer, He said:

“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” [Matthew 6:12]

A couple of verses later He repeated this by saying:

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” [Matthew 6:14-15]

Could Jesus have said it any clearer than that? He did not say: “forgive your enemy if he is sorry and apologizes to you”. No, Jesus told us simply to forgive – no strings, no ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. He also told us that if we did not forgive our enemies, then God would not forgive us. Period.

Has someone hurt you and never been forgiven? Maybe you intend to forgive someone when it ‘feels right’, or when it doesn’t hurt as much as it does now.

Forgiveness is not a feeling but an action. You need to forgive the drunk driver who kills your brother, or the rapist who attacks your daughter, now – even if they never show remorse.

Forgiveness may not heal them, but it will definitely heal you!

“God will not forgive you unless you forgive others? Scary stuff.”

It isn’t a matter of waiting until the hurt has abated, it isn’t a matter of waiting until you feel that it is ‘right with God’ for you to forgive them. Forgiveness is an action of the head, not the heart. Remember what Jesus said:

“...if you do NOT forgive men their sins, your Father will NOT forgive your sins.” (emphasis added)

God will not forgive you unless you forgive others? Scary stuff.

The other core teaching of Jesus, closely allied to forgiveness, was that we should love our neighbour. When asked which were the most important Commandments, Jesus said:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” [Matthew 22:37-40]

In Romans 13:9, while talking about how Christians should behave, Paul says:

The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery’, ‘Do not murder’, ‘Do not steal’, ‘Do not covet’, and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.

Do you love your neighbour? Do you love the kid who drives past your door at 3am with his stereo playing at full volume? Do you love the owner of the dog who allows it to mess on your lawn and then doesn’t clean it up? Forgiveness and love aren’t just about the big things, but also about the little things too.

Maybe the only saving factor is that, while Jesus told us to love and forgive our neighbours, He didn’t say that we had to like them...

Paul sums up nicely how Christians should behave. In Philippians 2:3-7 he said:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.