Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Education and Redemption”. Our redemption (“to offset the bad effect of”) is contingent on our education (“the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life”). God will not override us or coerce us. So in order to “offset the bad effect” of our sinful life of self-focus, it is imperative that we “acquire knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgement”… become educated in the school of God… not in the school promoted by this world.
Christ spoke of this to the Jewish listeners of His day. “My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 5:30). The only way for us to understand and judge rightly, even know anything rightly, is to seek the will of the Father. But this is not the way we were educated in this world! We were indoctrinated into a “religion” (called human secularism… what the natural man believes and holds-to apart from belief in our God) and largely taught to seek our own will. To advance self. To strive to be first. The school of God is truly diametrically opposed-to and is so foreign-to us sinners. God’s education in His “school” educates us in the truth about Himself, the truth about our true condition AND in the ways of true love. And until we are educated in His school (the school of truth and love) and then submit to His will as revealed in that school, we will never rightly understand, never be “offset from the bad effects of” our worldly ways (redemption). Until we are taught of God, we will never seek His will but seek our own. Here is an example…
We sinners, as we approach Christ and His singular life and selfless giving, are so prone to interpret it all from our own self-centered attitude. We believe we have a God who is angry and needs appeasement (our guilt inspires this idea… sin itself condemns us and makes us feel guilty… God does not condemn or motivate us with guilt). So we fabricate a reason (a very, very false reason) for the Incarnation and for the Cross. A reason that assuages our guilt and appeals to our sinful need to preserve self at all costs. We have Christ coming to make amends for our wrong-doing and to die our death so that we can have eternal life.
This explanation is fraught with so many sinful self-centered misconceptions, because we create it from a mind and heart that has refused to be educated in redemption. Our original explanation makes the issue to be God and His law. That Christ’s death pays what is due for our misdeeds and “redeems” us from the Father’s righteous wrath. Redeems us so that self can stand clean before Him and self can live eternally.
Yet this is not the issue. The “bad effect” that needs to be “offset” is our self-centered heart and mind. This is the real issue. A self-centered heart and mind that has been educated in the world and strengthened by years of selfish reinforcement. The issue is not with God but with us. “Self” has it all backwards. Christ did not come, live His matchless life, die His ignominious death and rise to newness of life in order to change the Father but to change us. Not to enable self to live eternally but to enable self to die with Christ.
This is but an example of our skewed thinking and the “education” we truly need. We need the education that comes from the school of God. Education that is encouraged by the life of Christ, “because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). It is His love that leads us to enter that school, to see the truth about God, to see the truth about ourselves, and to see the ways of true love. It leads us to learn of Him and come to the spot where we are finally willing to have the true redemption that only an intimate relationship with the God of love can bring.
But like all education, it comes at a price. And like all valuable education, the price is high. God’s education costs you all you have and all you are. A submission of your will so total, so complete that “crucifixion of self” aptly describes it. A total willingness to die with Christ and to live for others. Even to the sacrifice of your own eternal security. That is the price of God’s education. The price of offsetting the bad effects of sin (redemption). Submission so complete it is like being “born again” (John 3:3,7).
May we each be willing to engage and STAY in God’s school. It is an eternal school… a never-ending education. Because we are learning the bottomless depths of love. Learning the lessons of infinite self-sacrifice… the lessons of infinite giving, infinite loving, infinite joy. And as we learn and as we submit, we “offset the bad effect of” our lives devoted to self (redemption). May it be so for each, is my prayer.
With brotherly love,
Jim