Have you ever heard the expression "life's not fair"? Have you ever said it yourself? That promotion that you wanted and worked so hard for is given to an undeserving co-worker. I have uttered it while watching Bridezillas one afternoon: these beastly, BEASTLY women have somehow convinced a man to marry them; and here I am, single. Life is just not fair! Sad but true, people do not usually get what they deserve.
That is the bad news. Are you ready for some good news? OK, here it is: God is not fair, either.
There is a parable Jesus tells His disciples about a certain landowner who needed help harvesting his field (Matthew 20:1-16). The man goes out at 6am and finds some unemployed folks standing around, and promises them a full days wage for a full days work. They agree and head off to his field, or vineyard, depending on your translation. But they aren't enough. He goes out again at 9am, 12 noon, and 3pm for more folk, promising them that if they go work in his field he will give them whatever is fair. And still he needs more men. He goes out one last time, around 5pm, and tells some guys standing around to go and work for him. No promises of payment he gives these men, just directions to his field.
At 6pm the day is over, and it is now time to pay everybody. The landowner gives instructions that the last guys, the 5pmers, should be paid first. Imagine their surprise when he pays them a full days wage! Did they earn it? Did they deserve it? Absolutely not!!!! Look closely at verses 13-16: What was the landowner's reason for giving the 5pmers more than they had worked for, more than what they deserved? He was generous! He wanted to give them what they didn't deserve!
What do we deserve, according to Romans 6:23? "The wages of sin is death, BUT the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." We deserve death; but God is generous and gives us what we do not deserve: life! And not just regular life, eternal life! Do we deserve it? Have we done anything to earn it? Can we ever do anything to earn it? No, no, and no. If a gift could be earned, it wouldn't be a gift, would it?
Praise God today that He is not fair, that He is generous and gives us undeserved eternal life!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Zombies of the Bible
No, there is nothing wrong with your eyes; it really does say ZOMBIES. Now before you get all upset and start to call me some not nice names, finish reading the rest of the post, please. I think you will enjoy it as much as my Sunday School class did.
I am not a fan of the horror genre-I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is, I do not need anything else keeping me up at night. I do know just a little bit about zombies, thanks to the first half of Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies. Zombies are defined and depicted as the dead walking, the undead, the living dead (anyone else notice all the definitions include the word dead?). We see them stumbling around in search of a nice meal consisting of human flesh or brains. Do we see them having any thoughts and feelings? Nope, just hungry...
Now, what does all this have to do with the Bible? I am so glad you stayed with me this far and want to know. Look up Ephesians 2:1-5 and Colossians 2:13. What do these verses say about us before we came to know Christ? We were dead. "And when you were dead in trespasses and sins"(boldness added by me). Is he, Paul, talking about a spiritual death or a physical one? Seeing as how you are reading this, he's speaking of a spiritual death. I mean, you are alive, right: your brain is waving and your respiration system is working all by itself? According to Ephesians 2:1-5 and Galatians 5:19-21, what does a Biblical zombie look like? Both speak of living out the lusts of our flesh and desires of the flesh and mind (just to name a few: immorality, impurity, idolatry, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, dissensions, envying). Just as a fictional, physical zombie is controlled by the fleshly desire to nom brains, the Biblical, spiritual zombie is controlled by the fleshly desires and lust of it's body and mind. Let's look at them together.
Fictional Zombies
-physically Dead
-controlled by hunger (brains)
-unable to resist hunger
-No cure, No hope
Biblical Zombies
-spirtually Dead
-controlled by lusts of flesh and desires of the mind
-unable to resist lusts/desires
-Cure: Jesus
What does Jesus Himself say is our cure in John 5:24-25? "...anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to LIFE."(again, the bolding and caps are added by me).
I used to be a zombie, stumbling around aimlessly trying to satisfy my unending hunger. If you weren't looking closely, you wouldn't have known. I mean, I'm wasn't walking around with my arms pulled in like a praying mantis, bent slightly to one side with clouded-over eyes in a decomposing body and moaning (I am not counting in the morning before I have had my second cup of coffee). I looked normal on the outside, but the inside was dead. But God loved me so much that He had mercy on me and made a way for me to be cured. I am a zombie no longer; I am alive!
I am not a fan of the horror genre-I have a hard enough time sleeping as it is, I do not need anything else keeping me up at night. I do know just a little bit about zombies, thanks to the first half of Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies. Zombies are defined and depicted as the dead walking, the undead, the living dead (anyone else notice all the definitions include the word dead?). We see them stumbling around in search of a nice meal consisting of human flesh or brains. Do we see them having any thoughts and feelings? Nope, just hungry...
Now, what does all this have to do with the Bible? I am so glad you stayed with me this far and want to know. Look up Ephesians 2:1-5 and Colossians 2:13. What do these verses say about us before we came to know Christ? We were dead. "And when you were dead in trespasses and sins"(boldness added by me). Is he, Paul, talking about a spiritual death or a physical one? Seeing as how you are reading this, he's speaking of a spiritual death. I mean, you are alive, right: your brain is waving and your respiration system is working all by itself? According to Ephesians 2:1-5 and Galatians 5:19-21, what does a Biblical zombie look like? Both speak of living out the lusts of our flesh and desires of the flesh and mind (just to name a few: immorality, impurity, idolatry, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, dissensions, envying). Just as a fictional, physical zombie is controlled by the fleshly desire to nom brains, the Biblical, spiritual zombie is controlled by the fleshly desires and lust of it's body and mind. Let's look at them together.
Fictional Zombies
-physically Dead
-controlled by hunger (brains)
-unable to resist hunger
-No cure, No hope
Biblical Zombies
-spirtually Dead
-controlled by lusts of flesh and desires of the mind
-unable to resist lusts/desires
-Cure: Jesus
What does Jesus Himself say is our cure in John 5:24-25? "...anyone who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to LIFE."(again, the bolding and caps are added by me).
I used to be a zombie, stumbling around aimlessly trying to satisfy my unending hunger. If you weren't looking closely, you wouldn't have known. I mean, I'm wasn't walking around with my arms pulled in like a praying mantis, bent slightly to one side with clouded-over eyes in a decomposing body and moaning (I am not counting in the morning before I have had my second cup of coffee). I looked normal on the outside, but the inside was dead. But God loved me so much that He had mercy on me and made a way for me to be cured. I am a zombie no longer; I am alive!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
