The Grace-Filled Life. Maxie Dunnam
FOR REFLECTION
Where have you been treated unfairly? God is for you and for me. How can this promise help you meet life's difficulties? Where do you need God's friendship today?
5
THERE IS A PRICE
JOSHUA 23:14-16; JOSHUA 24:19-27; MATTHEW 13:44-47
There is an old adage that has God saying, "Take what you wish . . . and pay for it!" It's true. There is a price for everything.
To be sure, the beauty of God's creation is a gift. Yet there is a "price" to pay if we are going to really enjoy it. We are often dull to beauty, with no eyes to see, because we don't take time to sit quietly and take in the beauty that God is offering us through his creation. The fact is those things we think are free, indeed, those things given as gift, require something from us to fully appreciate them. There is a price—a price for everything.
In chapter 13 of his Gospel, in just four verses, Matthew records three parables of Jesus. In these three brief parables, there are two big lessons. One, no entrance price to the Kingdom is too great, and two, there will be a time of judgment.
In the first parable, a man, by chance, found a treasure hidden in a field and sold everything in order to raise the money to purchase the field. In the second parable, a merchant seeking fine pearls found one pearl of such value that he sold all he had and bought it.
Jesus is talking about the Kingdom, our living in the realm of the Lordship of Christ. There is a price for that. Whatever it takes to enter, whatever cost may be exacted from us, the Kingdom of God is worth it.
WHERE IS YOUR TREASURE?
The overarching lesson of the parable of the treasure in the field and the pearl of great price is that no entrance price to the kingdom is too great. The merchant seeking fine pearls demonstrates this lesson differently than the farmer. Two truths loom large in the story: one, we are likely to find what we search for persistently; and two, we are likely to receive what we want passionately.
Now back to the central point of these parables. Why did Jesus tell two parables at the same time with the same message? He didn't want anyone to miss the point. Anyone, everyone, the rich and the poor receive the Kingdom the same way—by making it the priority of their lives.
Joshua had a vision of this as it related to Israel and Israel's faithfulness. As he came to the end of his life, he reminded the people that what appears to be an unconditional promise of faithfulness on God's part is, in fact, conditional. This is the message of the whole of Scripture. God's promises to act in our individual lives and in history are often connected with conditions we are to meet. So Joshua reiterated the case: Israel's devotion or lack of devotion will determine whether or not the Lord's promise will be realized. "You know in your hearts and souls . . . that not one thing has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you" (Josh. 23:14).
But it might not always be that way. If Israel turned away from God to idolatry, "just as all the good things that the LORD your God promised . . . so the LORD will bring upon you all the bad things" (23:15). And just before his death, Joshua reaffirmed Israel's covenant with God and put a huge stone of reminder in the sanctuary and announced to all the people,
"See, this stone shall be a witness against us; for it has heard all the words of the LORD that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you, if you deal falsely with your God." (24:27)
The stone would be a visible reminder and witness against the Israelites if they strayed from the Lord.
Jesus' third parable about the Kingdom, then, should not be a surprise. The parable of the fishing net tells us there will be a time of separation, a time of judgment. Jesus' language is as "hard" as Joshua's. The angels will "separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:49-50). It's a sobering picture, and it leaves us with a searching question: Is the way we live affected at all by the fact that one day we are going to stand before the judgment bar of God and give an account of our deeds?
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
What good things have come your way that you didn't expect or plan? God is your friend, but how good a friend are you to God? What steps do you need to take to live a life more pleasing to God?
6
CURIOSITY OR CONSECRATION?
GENESIS 22:9-19; MATTHEW 16:24-28; ROMANS 12:1-8
In the second act of the play Gideon, by Paddy Chayefsky, an angel of the Lord recognizes that Gideon has rejected him. Gideon vacillates between love and disenchantment, between a desire to serve and a longing to be served. Finally, he turns away from the Lord's representative, and the angel speaking for the Lord says, "I meant for you to love me, but you were only curious."
FROM THE TOP OF YOUR HEAD TO THE BOTTOM OF YOUR HEART
Could that be a personal indictment against us? We have been curious but hardly consecrated. We have been flabby in our commitment. The Christian faith and way has been a matter that caught us at the top of our heads but not at the bottom of our hearts. We have time for everything for which those who are not dedicated to the cause of Jesus have time. We surround ourselves with the same luxuries with which those who make no Christian claims surround themselves. What can be said of our Christian faith and commitment when we seek to serve the Kingdom of God with spare money in spare time?
Paul presents a tough challenge. In the first eleven chapters of his Epistle to the Romans he spells out in a clear and convincing way his understanding of the heart of the Christian faith, justification by grace through faith. Now, as he begins the twelfth chapter, he begins to offer practical instruction for how we are to live the new life we have been given by Christ.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:1-2)
One wonders if Paul is remembering the most vivid demonstration of faithfulness and trust in God we have in all history: the story of Abraham's sacri-fice of his son Isaac. It is one of the most powerful, profound, and disturbing stories in the Bible, and in all of literature for that matter. The story of Abraham is the story of a promise. God promises Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child and that their descendants from this child would be as numerous as the stars. Isaac is the promised child.
The story is filled with drama. Abraham is seventy-five years old and Sarah is sixty-five years old when the angel first visits them and tells them they are going to have a baby (Gen. 12:4-8). They trust and follow God's lead, though it is twenty-five years later when the angel returns to tell them, "Get ready; the baby is coming." Abraham is now almost one hundred years old. Sarah is ninety. Abraham and Sarah could not possibly, through biological processes, produce this child.
It would be wonderful, as stories go, for the story to end there—an old couple having a baby! The promise is fulfilled. But it doesn't end there. Now God's word is not a promise but a command that must have taken Abraham's breath away: "Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you" (22:2).
Perhaps more surprising than that horrific command is Abraham's response. He does what the Lord tells him to do. In an almost matter-of-fact way, Abraham follows through to the point of being poised with the knife over the altar where he has bound his child of promise, ready to take the life of his beloved son, his only son. But the Lord intervenes. Abraham has proven his faith and trust, and God provides a substitute offering.
That's our ultimate test. Are we able to let go of everything in the trust that the Lord will deliver on his promise?