Skip to main content

Righteous

One night, several years ago, when we lived in Belleville, I woke up at 3 am. I was wide awake, so I got out of bed so I wouldn’t disturb Melanie. I went downstairs and read Leviticus. By the way, Leviticus is not the protagonist in To Kill a Mockingbird. It is the third book of the Pentateuch in the Bible; 3 am, reading Leviticus. Draw your own conclusions from that.

It quickly became clear that God had an agenda. As I read the descriptions of law and sacrifice and atonement, the Holy Spirit revealed the fulfillment of all of this by Jesus. “Read this”, God said, “as if it has been fulfilled.”  But the Holy Spirit did not stop there. Jesus did this through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that same Spirit dwells in me, empowering me to receive the life of Christ within me. This means that Leviticus is fulfilled by me because Jesus is in me. This means I am righteous. But the Holy Spirit didn’t stop there.

The Spirit reveals this about Jesus to people all over the world. It is God’s desire that the people of the earth not only know this but experience living as righteous people. This is possible because Jesus has fulfilled all of God’s righteousness which I read about in Leviticus and extends that to people in whom he dwells. But the Holy Spirit didn’t stop there.

The Spirit localizes these people. In other words, there is not one here and one there. God does this for people according to their local identity. We call these localized gatherings of righteousness churches. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t stop there. He also organizes these localized gatherings of righteousness so that they have a certain character. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t stop there. He also functionalizes these organized local gatherings so that they can do certain things. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t stop there. He also de-centralizes these local gatherings of righteousness so that this cycle is reproduced in other local places and peoples.

This was given to me one night while I read Leviticus. It is an example of revelation; God revealing truth. You can see that it is very raw and undeveloped, even clumsy, but this is what I was given and how. I do not think I should expand on it because it is perhaps an example of how God gives us broad descriptions of how he works that are also broadly applicable, even globally applicable. It is just enough to be reproducible to everyone, everywhere, sort of like DNA.


This philosophy is very precious to me because I believe that God gave this me so that I would understand his ways and experience it in my life. I have seen this over and over in many different contexts. It is wonderful as it happens.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Conversion or Devotion?

Can you imagine Jesus telling his disciples to get a divorce or abandon their children so they can can follow him?   Can you imagine your pastor preaching a sermon like that in an attempt to convince lukewarm Christians to surrender their lives to Jesus?   Of course not; that would immediately qualify Christianity as a cult wouldn’t it?   Every Christian understands that Jesus would never affirm that Christian conversion or discipleship implies abandoning your spouse and children, destroying your family, to follow him.   Why, then, do we Christians sometimes expect non-Christians to risk destroying their family to convert to Christianity or serve Christ faithfully?   Usually, we quote this scripture from Matthew 10: 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law — 36 a man’s enemies will be t
3 comments
Read more

Outside In

" You too were included in Christ." This small phrase was written by an old man to a group of young people who were whole hearted yet recent believers in Jesus. The old man had lived through times of disorienting religious and cultural change. These changes had made it possible for someone like him to connect to this group of new believers. He eventually accepted the changes and was transformed by them, becoming a master of his time whose teaching became the basis of mentoring the new generation. Old men almost never talk like this. The sincere faith of these new believers meant that they were no longer outsiders to the Jesus movement because faith in Jesus is what created and sustained it, but they were very different than just about everybody else who was already inside the new Church. The older more established churches within the movement weren't quite sure what to make of these newcomers. The insiders stood back from them, watching, waiting, judging. As a
2 comments
Read more

MIssional or Missions

This post is from my friend, Frank Daugherity. I liked it so much I posted it here. It is serious ( you know me, Mr. Happy Go Lucky! ) and important. I hope it speaks to you. If you want to explore this further, see more of Franks writing about mission and missions at http://daugherity.com/frankly. Has it come to a contest between "missions" and “missionality” in our churches today? What has happened to "missions" (traditional cross-cultural evangelistic and church-planting ministry) since the "missional" emphasis has really began to gain traction? Is it dying out? I was a cross-cultural missionary for 21 years (8 in Japan, 13 in greater NYC among Japanese expats), and contemporaneously a missions pastor in a large church in northern NJ for 8 years, so I know the older traditional picture pretty well. My oversight responsibilities included liaison with 66 missionary families. When I was asked to give my perspective on what's going on now
Post a Comment
Read more