7:20 PM Well, it’s April, and I’m reminded of a scene in Elizabeth and Her German Garden. In case you haven’t heard of this book, it’s a semi-autobiographical look into the life of a British woman who marries a German and moves to her wealthy husband’s estate in Germany. Visitors come and go, even when she wishes they wouldn’t. Elizabeth can be snarky at times, but she’s always honest. I love this quote about “New Year’s resolutions” made by one of her visitors:

I find my resolutions carry me very nicely into the spring. I revise them at the end of each month, and strike out the unnecessary ones. By the end of April they have been so severely revised that there are none left.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions for 2019? If so, what’s their status as of April 7? Someone once said (probably George Washington or Beyonce) that the trouble with our “resolutions” in the plural is that we lack “resolution” in the singular. We lack the determination and the motivation to carry them out. So we struggle to make our resolutions more resolute, if you will.

Well, there’s one resolution I made in the New Year and, though I’ve only been partially successful at keeping it, I’m trying to make it a daily habit. It’s based on Rom. 12:1-2 and it involves doing 3 things every morning before getting out of bed:

1) Thank God for His mercies. Paul writes, “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God’s many mercies to us, to present your body as a living sacrifice unto God.” The mercy Paul has in mind is the culmination of 11 chapters of argument. These 11 chapters describe both our need for God’s mercy and His provision of mercy. Here Paul demonstrates our sin and our guilt, and then he shows us how God has made provision for our sin by sending His Son to identity with our sin and guilt. In this Jesus, this God-man, God condemned sin when He took our flesh. He bore our condemnation, became our substitute, and paid the penalty for us. That’s the very essence of the Gospel: Jesus died in our place. And if we run to Jesus and put our trust in Him as the only refuge there is for sinners, God pronounces us righteous and adopts us into His family. Not only that, He begins to transform us into the likeness of Christ. All we have in Christ is the result of the mercies of God, and these undeserved blessings from the hand of God should motivate us to live our lives day by day for Him and not for ourselves. Could it be that our resolutions are so quickly abandoned because we have forgotten the mercies of God? No wonder we’re so irresolute. But it’s God’s mercy that draws out our commitment to Him.

2) Present my body unto God. Not only my “spirit” or my “heart.” God wants the whole of me, including my body. The New Testament knows nothing of the Greek disparaging of the human body. We are embodied spirits, and our bodies are vehicles through which we love and serve and find our pleasure in God in the midst of all our earthiness and physicality. God has given us feet to go places. He’s given us hands that can create and paint and caress and serve and cook and clean and play musical instruments with. And even if our hands can’t paint a beautiful picture, our teeth can.

God has given us ears by which we enjoy music and listen sympathetically to one another and find pleasure in the sounds of nature and the cooing of a newborn baby. God’s given us eyes with which to see His handiwork in creation and in each other’s faces. And I am to present it all to God for His direction, blessing, and control. Have you ever done this? Have you ever examined your bodily parts and asked God to direct, bless, and control each one? When and if we learn to do this, it will result, says Paul, in the true worship of God. The question is, “What am I going to do with this body of mine today?”

3) Pray that God would help me not to be conformed to this world but to be more and more transfigured into the likeness of Christ. The fashion of the world never loses its allure. It will always pull us away from God and seek to direct our lives. Will we live according to the will of God or according to the pull of the world? This question presses upon us every day. The world says, “Get.” God says, “Give.” The world says, “Get even.” God says, “Do not repay evil for evil.” The world says, “Seek to be first.” God says, “If you want to be first, you must become the slave of all.” The world says, “Greatness is measured by one’s accomplishments.” God says, “Greatness is measured by one’s service.” The world says, “Don’t let anybody push you around.” God says, “The meek will inherit the earth.” We have to choose. None of us can serve two masters.

So there you have it. Each morning my desire is to 1) thank God for His mercies, 2) come to Him in prayer and present my body to Him and say “Take all of me as a living sacrifice,” and 3) ask Him to protect me from a world that is determined to squeeze me into its mold. I know this sounds simple. And it is, in theory at least. It’s putting it into practice that gets tough. As I wrote this morning, I believe the greatest work of God in our lives is not in the occasional burst of the miraculous but in the day-in and day-out testimony of Christian living in the mediocre and mundane and monotonous. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to make all this possible, every day of our lives. The Bible teaches that our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked and that our carnal minds are in rebellion against God. Hence we must seek His grace if we are to see His power released in our lives.

In Rom. 12:1-2, Paul begged his readers in Rome: Present your bodies to God and allow yourselves to be transformed by a renewed mind. Thomas Schreiner believes that these verses encapsulate the themes of all of chapters 12-15: “If all the exhortations contained here could be boiled down to their essence, they would be reduced to the words: Give yourselves wholly to God; do not be shaped by the old world order, but let new thought patterns transform your life” (Romans, p. 640).

The Holy Spirit dwells within but we have the power of choice. We can obey or disobey Him. But if we obey Him, there is not bondage but glorious liberty. The Christian who accepts Christ’s daily control is under no cold dictatorship. For our God is also our loving Father.

1:12 PM Last week in Greek class we learned some additional pronouns, including the possessive pronoun/adjective emos. This word is perhaps the most emphatic way of saying “my” in Greek.

Here’s an example from our textbook. 

The speaker is Jesus. Not only does He use a form of emos here, but He postpositions it, which tends to add even more emphasis. We had lots of fun in class trying to come up with a way of translating this nuance into English. “It is My judgment that is just” came in a close second. But the class’s favorite was, “It is My judgment, and Mine alone, that is just.”

I thought of this during our communion service today. Here’s the text of the Lord’s Supper from 1 Corinthians 11.

Notice how Jesus uses an emphatic form of emos when He refers to eating and drinking “in remembrance of Me.” Hence my scribble, “Jesus is the focus!”

Friend, we don’t come to the Lord’s table to remember our sins. We come to remember our Savior. We come to remember His mercies. I say this because I grew up in a church in Hawaii that asked everyone to examine themselves before the Supper to see if they were “worthy” that day to partake of the bread and the cup. But Jesus never invited anyone to His table. The word “Do” in the expression “Do this” is in the imperative mood. Besides, no one is worthy to take the elements. That should go without saying. What Paul is referring to here is eating and drinking in an unworthy manner — in this case, eating and drinking before the whole body has assembled, including the poorer members.

Could not our Lord’s Supper observances — where Christ is front and center — be a weekly occurrence in our churches, as they apparently were in the churches of the New Testament (see Acts 20:7)? When Paul insisted that Christ have the preeminence “in all things” (Col. 1:18), I wonder if that included the times when the church was gathered. Our Lord certainly deserves to have the preeminence, but He is a gentleman and will not demand it of us. We must offer it to Him willingly. Are our churches eagerly granting Him the “first place” when we gather as His body? We can and we should.

7:45 AM Happy Sunday! Let’s sit down over a cup of coffee and get caught up. I think we all have a tendency to see life in polar opposites. We are either weak or strong, healthy or ill, rich or poor, successes or failures, etc. We often look at the person with the largest portfolio or the biggest church or the most publications or the bulging muscles as a hero. I’m beginning to think that the opposite is true. I believe weakness is our greatest asset in life. Let me explain.

Not too long ago I was invulnerable. Nothing could slow me down. I was able to schedule dozens of races every year, and I never once had a DNS (Did Not Start) or a DNF (Did Not Finish). I won some age group awards and took home lots of prizes. Running brought me joy and pleasure, even though it wasn’t (and still isn’t) the biggest part of my life.

Then I was struck down with an infirmity after my last marathon. I still don’t exactly know what the problem is, but I’m almost positive it’s an overuse injury. I’ve had to cut back on my running. In fact, right now I can only engage in walking until my body begins to restore itself through rest and healthy eating. What once brought me so much enjoyment is now a source of frustration.

An injury will humble you. It will make you realize that you’re not invulnerable. It will force you to look inside for a source of strength you realize you don’t possess. You begin to understand what Paul meant when he said, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Last week, in our NT class, we talked about miracles. I suggested to the class that God’s primary means of displaying His power in this age is not through the overtly miraculous (although He’s certainly capable of healing us miraculously) but through perfecting His strength in the midst of our weaknesses and infirmities. Rather than focusing on the external, it is far better to cultivate inner strength. The thought occurred to me that right now, this very moment, I have everything I need to handle whatever life throws at me because I have Jesus. My strength is nothing less than my vulnerability.

I recall Joni Earickson Tada once being interviewed on a Christian TV show. The interviewer asked her, “Why are you still in your wheelchair? Don’t you have enough faith to be healed?” I wanted to scream, “You fool! Can’t you see a miracle even when it’s staring you in the face? Which is more miraculous — Joni standing up and walking, or that big smile on her face while sitting in her wheelchair?”

My friend, you have that same strength inside of you right now. You don’t have to wait until you’re injured or broken to experience it. Going through times of testing and divine discipline make us stronger. Alas, that’s a truth I need to relearn time and time again. You would think that as a New Testament professor I should know better, right? I am ever so human, but residing within me is all the strength and hope that I could ever need. Vulnerability and humility are two traits I don’t want to live without in my senior years. If we could only see what setbacks are giving us, we would appreciate them more.

As you know, I’ve been working hard at eating decently. I’ve recently made several gignormous changes, including cutting out all junk food and unhealthy sacks. No donuts, no burgers, no fries, no chips, no cookies. For snacks I eat veggies. I have no huge plans for weight loss, but the doctor did suggest I lose 10 pounds to attain my optimum BMI. In a couple of weeks I’m going in for a treadmill stress test so that I can have a better idea of what my VO2Max is before I start running again. I’m trying not to eat out, but when I do dine in a restaurant I try to pick healthy food choices like Korean. I fully understand that if I want a permanent change in my body I have to make permanent changes in my attitude. It’s a long, steady process, but I’ve already seen movement down the scale. “Slow and steady” is my motto for sure. I started my exercise journey just after Becky died 5 years ago, but I still have a long ways to go.

Some things grow mellow just before they spoil. I don’t want to make that mistake as I grow older. Paul kept fighting the good fight of faith to the finish. We should grow easier to live with as time goes by, but we must not mistake gentleness for apathy. It’s so easy to say, “I’ve had my day. Let the younger generation take care of everything.” But I have not “had my day” until my day is over. No Christian is retired from duty to God and others as long as he or she is still on planet earth.

For me, Paul is the best example of this truth. He did not live for fame, pleasure, or success. He sought the “Well done” of his Master. A true Christian is conformed and not merely non-conformed. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds to prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Let me say this again: Don’t be afraid of your vulnerability. Thank God for the crisis of faith you are now going through. Suffering does not allow us the luxury of self-pity. Continue believing in God. Even if suffering makes belief in God more difficult, at least for a time, it can give us the security of knowing that He is in control, even when we are not.

Saturday, April 6