(Further reflection on “Faceless”—Sunday 15-May-2022)
God’s words are not only life-giving, life-saving, and life-changing, but also enabling us to live a life with His wisdom. Since the Fall (cf. Genesis 3), fallen humanity is prone to anger. The first murder case was Cain-killed-Abel (cf. Genesis 4:5-7). It was an anger which was perhaps triggered by a feeling of rejection, perhaps mixed with jealousy or envy. Human emotions are complicated. The Bible does not give a detailed analysis of the human psyche, but in God’s sovereignty and wisdom, He gave us His Word that is plain, clear, and practical to everyone at any given level of education in any given community in regard to dealing with anger, that is, “…let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls (James 1:19-21).” Reflecting on this in connection with the “Cain-Abel” homicide case, we saw the Lord asking Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?” (Genesis 4:6). When God asked, it wasn’t because He didn’t know, but wanted the person who was in trouble to be aware of the cause/trigger/reason of anger. The Lord then explained to Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it (Genesis 4:7).”
God’s words (from difficult questions to encouraging or rebuking statements and anything in between) are like the perfect 'mirror' which shows us how sinful and unrighteous we are and how godly and righteous we can become—being identified with God’s Son—Jesus Christ who is our firm identity regardless of the many roles we might have been called to in this earthly life - teachers, office/factory workers, doctor/nurses, engineers, homemakers, missionaries, pastors, etc. From the above passages, we see sin is active and aggressive. It crouches at our ‘door’. It is not a mile but an inch away. It’s right at our door every time we walk in/out of our home. In fact, it’s right at the “foreskin” of our heart which needs to be “circumcised”- cutting it off (cf. Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6; Romans 2:28-29). We are instructed that we must put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness which is caused by anger. God’s word does not tell us to do ‘anger-management’ which is very popular but ‘getting-rid-of-anger’. "How is that possible," some may ask. Well, ultimately it is not possible with man but very possible with God who has enabled each of us to the ‘impossible’ in Christ Jesus, who obviously triumphed over not just anger but death. He is the only hope and solution to our anger issue. But wait, practically speaking, how can we do that. Well, we need to understand two big words: salvation and sanctification. The former was established at one point in life, but it does (and should) not stop there, it needs to keep going and growing into the process of being sanctified—being made holy the Lord our God. Being Christlike is the goal. Repentance and surrender are required. The road to that is following Christ. The practice of that is to be doers of His word and not just hearers only. But “I tried, it didn’t work,” some may blurt out. Well, God did not promise an instant fix (most of the time), but He does call us, all the time, to follow Him as we will learn to live His way, think His thoughts, speaking His words, go through Christlike trials, and overcome it Christ’s way. The key is not fixing it, but keeping it ‘crucified’ at the cross, walking out of the ‘tomb’, and keep following Jesus by abiding in Him and growing in His Body—the local church, and continue to devote our life to prayers, reading+living+practicing of His word, and fellowship with our fellow Christ’s followers. Transformation, which can be overnight as well as over decades, will come. Keep looking in the Word, believing in God, trusting Jesus, hoping in His faithfulness, and persevering in the Holy Spirit together with the saints (‘sinners saved by grace through faith in Christ) are what we all need on the road to Christlikeness. Transformation is the by-product of that. Otherwise, we are prone to become ‘half-baked’ or ‘lukewarm’ or ‘religious/cultural’ or ‘faceless’ christians whose security is not secured by two main factors: (a) the identity in Jesus Christ and (b) the implanted Word in our life. And these can only be received (obviously by faith) with humility/meekness (cf. James 1:19-24).
My prayers for us is that we continue have our eyes fixed on Jesus and persevere, lest we forget how our ‘face’ in Him looks like.
Love and blessings,
—
Pastor Lap
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