April 17, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Find out what pleases the Lord. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the Church; His body of which He is the Savior. Now as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5.10; 22, 23,24)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

As I asserted yesterday, one of the most interesting consequences, in my estimation, of sin is this “it makes people stupid.” As I attempted to illustrate using the very first acts of stupidity there in the Garden, I offered that there was no lack of information. What was lacking was the desire to make to make good decisions. And while there may have been no motivation apart of “do not eat from this tree or you will surely die,” there is also the consideration that there was no desire to make a bad decision either. Adam and Eve were left at the crossroads we all must meet in our life’s journey. In faith, we are aware of what lies far down the road of life. Even for Jesus in His earthly existence, the end was unavoidable. Jesus was going to face the troubling consequence of living in the world. That consequence was death. Knowing this, Jesus accepted the consequence because of the reward. I am not speaking of the reward of eternal life but of the salvation to be made available to all of God’s people. Our decision to “die to self and live for Christ” is all the reward Jesus truly wanted. It is what God wanted as well. He was willing to enter into the fray of living in a world that was broken by sin to help us see our way to the very end we truly desire. Our desire, is it not, is to be free from death. And death comes into our lives in many ways: emotional, physical, financial, relational, sociological, psychological and spiritual. The greatest of these is, though it is sometimes hard to see it when we are in the midst of the others, “spiritual death.” The result of “spiritual death” is the separation from the love of God who saves us. Hell is that place which now, because Christ has already gone to preach and liberate those who had died from He arrived, cannot experience the saving grace of God.

Don’t misunderstand. It is not that God does not and cannot hear the laments of those who have heard the Word and rejected it, and thus rejected the testimony of the Holy Spirit sent into the world to lead, guide, direct, empower, engage and instruct us in the path of righteousness. He most certainly can hear them as surely as He heard the Hebrews in Goshen who after 400 years away from their home in the Promised Land cry out for liberation and deliverance. Of course, His answer to their prayers is not what they exactly wanted to listen to. They were glad that God had heard them, but listening to God was a whole different matter. Even after all they experienced in the midst of 9 plagues which impacted all who lived in Egypt and the one plague which impacted only those who did not “cover” themselves with the sacrificial lamb, the fiery presence of God night and day by fire and smoke, the parting of the Red Sea and the closing of it which consumed the vast majority of Pharaoh’s army, they still showed themselves to be “stupid.” They allowed the world to swallow them up in fear and doubt both literally and figuratively. If you are not remembering that “phraseology,” then go back and read the recollection of Moses concerning the events at Mount Sinai. Those who refused to repent and trust in God made a decision whose consequence was far worse than returning to slavery in Egypt. They became slaves of darkness where the petitions of deliverance were heard but no listened to. They submitted themselves to their own passion and desires instead of trusting the Word of God as He decided to make it known to them.

This leads me to offer another disastrous consequence of sin: the absence of listening. Sin does not stop us from hearing, but it can keep us from being good listeners. Even the demons hear God in all His manifestations of Spirit and Truth. In part, they even listen to the reality of deciding to confess and profess the truth of God which saves before only giving it a cursory hearing deciding to forsake the hope which can be theirs. Hearing is, as I would define it, the experiencing and taking in of information through the use of all the senses available to us: hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, smelling and knowing. “Knowing” is that sense of inner awareness which cannot be fully identified as to its source or its purpose but nonetheless real. Call it intuition or conscience or that “sixth sense” (far more than “I see dead people.”) Our brains are collecting information consciously and sub-consciously. In our waking in our sleeping, in our coming in and in our going out, as the psalmist David declared (121.8), God’s presence is revealed all around us by what it is and by what it is not. Sadly, we tend to learn things better by failure and not listening, giving only cursory hearing to the instruction offered for our benefit and welfare. In light of these two terms, I find the theme of “submission” at work. Perhaps it is so difficult for us to “listening” because to do so we must submit ourselves to the effort of focusing on the message (its sender, its vocabulary, its expression, its presumed and real intent) and learning from it what is needed to make the next step in our journey with confidence, abiding trust and faithfulness. It takes nothing to “hear.” It takes everything to truly “listen.” I still wander about the rich young ruler, for example, who came to Jesus to “hear” what he wanted to hear to affirm his life decisions and still gain the ultimate blessing of Heaven. As Jesus spoke to him, he heard what was said but listened only when Jesus said, “In order to be perfect, there is but one thing you must do.” In the arena of options, we hear. When the field is narrowed to two and ultimately to one over the other, we start to listen. The rich young ruler heard, listened and then chose. Sadly, in that moment it was a choice which put him in a place where the forgiving love, mercy and grace of God could not reach him.

Returning to Paul’s words to the Christ community of faith in Ephesus, the call to submission and listening becomes more clear. He draws all their attention to the “one option” that leads to peace, harmony and eternal life. That option is to become wise listeners with a focus on the channel through which God’s favor passes. And Paul does not limit that channel to the marital relationship of husbands and wives but expands upon it to all relationships; especially to the relationship within the community of faith. That community of faith is the Church, called the body of Christ with Christ as the Head of the Body. The act of submission is the call to listen, to put aside the distractions of the world and to respond in the manner of spiritual truth and wisdom which glorifies God and exemplifies the answering the call of discipleship. Judas of Kerioth fell short of truly listening to the Word of God in Jesus the Christ. He made a choice to listen to another voice he heard echoing in the chaos of his own heart, mind, body and soul. He put himself in a place where the saving grace of God could not reach him. Mind you, it was not because God would not reach him but because Judas would not reach out to listen, trust and obey.

Mighty ones of God, in all of our relationships we must practice submission and listening, It is difficult without the grace of God, the love of Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit to be submissive and listening. In truth, I believe it is impossible. Authentic listening, and thus authentic submission, happens when we understand there can be only one voice that we focus on at a time. Paul will say this, “In all things, pray without ceasing.” Every step of our lives is strengthened and made successful when we walk by faith, not by sight, praying at all times, believing in God alone as disciples of Jesus who is the Christ. It is then our relationships horizontally and vertically are enhanced and made more full drawing nearer and nearer to the end we truly desire: heaven!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.