Today the funeral of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope, took place. He was much respected.
But the Pope was as mortal as any of us, and undoubtedly just as fallible. We are all made in the image of God, but we are also subject to the dictates of our sinful nature since the Fall from Grace depicted in Genesis 3. Jesus Christ came to reverse that spiritual catastrophe, to restore relationship and hope in God our Creator, our Sustainer, and our King. I take that as fact, and endeavour to live my life accordingly. I fail persistently, but I know that God exists, and I know his intervention of love, grace and fatherly correction in the here and now.
The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, wrote the apostle Paul to the Galatians. That is the Gospel message in its essence and that is the reality which the Christian is called to live out daily. Death is of the essence in the Christian life – death to self, and learning to live instead in the resurrection life of Christ accorded to those who trust in the gospel message and and turn their back on their corrupt Adamic nature.
It is by the faith God has granted to me and to every gospel believer that I say this; it is not of my natural, fallen, self which still gainsays God. To that fallen, Adamic life I must die, daily, to learn instead to live the new life in Christ. That is the ‘contract’, as it were, which I entered into definitively when I was baptised by full immersion in water. I forsook the Adamic nature with its selfish impulses, I forsook the anti God thinking and practices of this world, and I refused Satan the right to be God in my life. Henceforth I acknowledged that only Jesus Christ had the right to rule my life, and that one day I would be with him in eternity. Hallelujah !
Death in this life is merely a gateway to the eternal life in Christ which awaits those who belong to Jesus. But for those who live without Christ, there is permanent exclusion from the blessing and knowledge of God – an exclusion embracing eternal damnation. Such a terrifying prospect should make us flee to Christ to be saved !
You may wonder, of course, how I am able to speak in such Biblical terms about my life ?
Or to put that question in the terms which most people in western society today would phrase it:
Why are you such a religious fanatic ?
The answer to that is simple and Biblical. I started to take the Bible seriously in early 1979 – so seriously that I got on my knees before God on Maundy Thursday that year: I surrendered the rights to my life to God my Maker. Now, God already possessed those rights, but I now realised that I had to live on God’s terms, not my own: henceforth, neither I, nor the World system of Self, Self, Self, nor Satan its god, had any right to govern me. Jesus Christ had purchased that right when he took my condemnation upon himself at the cross. God alone has the right to order my life – and I would suggest yours too. Consider the godless, worsening world today for the alternative without God.
Over 40 years ago, I read and I absorbed the words of Psalm 119. Verse 11 was among those verses which I took to heart:
Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee
Psalm 119 is rich in eternal spiritual truth which – when sown in a receptive heart – feeds that eternal spiritual life found in Jesus Christ alone.
The wellspring of my heart has been consciously channelled by God’s spiritual truth recorded in the Bible. I took to heart strategic passages of the Bible as vital truth and wisdom. In Psalm 119 alone we find key guidance like:
Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path – verse 105
the entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple – verse 130
There are several key, strategic Biblical scriptures which I imbibed as a young man in my twenties, and by which I have endeavoured to live, albeit at times not very successfully! But then I am a disciple – a learner. The worth of those scriptures is aptly described by Solomon in chapter 3 of the book of Proverbs in the Bible:
Happy is the man who findeth wisdom ….. length of days is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life [ref Genesis 3 and Revelation 22] to them that lay hold upon her and happy is everyone that retaineth her
This world honours mere human beings – from concert singers and actors to sports personalities and political personalities. Such reverence often amounts to deification – in spiritual terms, it constitutes idolatry.
I thank God almighty that I discovered many years ago the vital need to live by the truth expressed in the Bible, such as:
the fear of man brings a snare but whosoever putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisdom and instruction
This Biblical perspective and its paradigm explain why there is so much evil and disorder in this world. Only God our Maker should be God in our lives. To allow any person or any ideology such spiritual authority is to wander on the broad way to destruction. The path to life in Christ is narrow, and that narrow way is via the cross: that is death to Self ie stop obeying your own selfish instincts and instead obey Jesus Christ and God’s spiritual truth recorded in the Bible. It works !
DEUS ERGO SUMUS 