Dear Gracyn,
Someday your Mom and Dad will give you a book. It will be from me – your Pop. It will probably be called In The Middle With Mystery. If you read it, you will hopefully see that your grandpa had not just thrown up his hands, frustrated with some mystery, rather he abided in that Mystery the best he knew how. Today’s passage contains one of the great mandates of the New Testament Church. Let’s use it to talk about Mystery.
Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. (Romans 13:14)
You have grown up attending Christian schools. If you have stayed on the same course, you have also attended Sunday School and church; so did your Mom and her siblings. I am so grateful to those people who gave themselves to you (and them) as teachers and mentors over the years. Whether you are fully conscious of it or not, you have already assembled a number of ideas about what this command means. It would be quite natural for you (depending on your age) to conclude that education is required to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The logic imparted in your classic Christian education would equip you to reason; “Isn’t putting on the Lord Jesus Christ what I have been doing all these years in school?”
Here is a question for your beautiful and logical mind; “What education did those people have to whom the Apostle Paul was speaking?” My point? Even the best education is not how this command is to be fulfilled. Next to Jesus, Paul has been the most influential of all people to me, but this metaphor of “putting on” has mislead many a saint, including your Pop.
Putting something on implies that that something is external to you. You asked Jesus to come into your life when you were six years old. Neither you nor I should doubt that that was exactly what Jesus did. From that day forward Jesus has not been external to you. Far from it. Believing he is external to you is a subtle notion that is unintentionally reinforced by us teachers and mentors. This idea is so destructive it can even make an elder brother out of a prodigal son. Let me explain.
I didn’t invite Jesus into my life until I was twenty three. And for the record; I did not technically invite him into my heart. It would be more accurate to say that I gave my life to him to do with as he pleased. (I knew I was wrecking it.) That eventful morning, the worship leader was desperately trying to get me to pray-the-prayer, to repeat after him; “Lord Jesus I know I am a sinner and I believe you died for my sin. I invite you into my heart.” I had a revulsion for formulas as did most of my baby-boomer generation. I recall saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about but I am willing to give my life to Jesus to do with as he pleases.” I recall the aspiring evangelist (with a bit of frustration) saying, “Then pray it.”
I was the classic prodigal. Read Luke 15:11-24 and you have my story. I was spared worlds of sorrow by the Man of Sorrows. I owed him my life. With all my heart, I aspired to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Because, regarding those lusts, they seemed to have survived my conversion! I endeavored to put on the Lord Jesus Christ with all my might. I read and studied the Bible. I memorized passages and verses. I was trying to educate myself; to renew my mind; to wash it with the water of God’s Word. God knew a wretch like me needed this (or so I thought).
I put on the Lord Jesus Christ in this vain for the next few decades. What did this produce? Read Luke 15:25-32 and you will have the rest of the story. I became an Elder Brother. Dear Gray. I write to spare you (if this is possible) from the fruitless religion of putting on Jesus Christ as though he is external to you. He is not. We who are trusting in Jesus are the temples of God. Christ is in us. Jesus Christ is our Life. This is the Mystery of the ages. This is not learned in classrooms built with bricks and mortar; it can only be learned in the classroom of our hearts. Paul knew this.
Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. (Colossians 1:25-29)
I have written “In The Middle With Mystery” to dislodge the myths and undermine the ideas that I have found to be destructive to the simplicity of life in Christ. By all means continue to read and to study and to learn. God gave you a good mind. Just try and avoid the idea that Life Himself is in the ideas you encounter. Life is in Jesus Christ and he is in your heart. Bless you dear sweet child.
Father, I pray that our hearts would be awakened to the fulness of glory in Christ. May our hearts and minds work as quickly as possible through all the lies that prolong our search. May we work through our religious strivings and find ourselves safely at rest in your arms. For Your name’s sake. Amen.