Paul followed the statement of great doctrines in Romans I-11 with practical applications for everyday discipleship in 12-16. He followed the same procedure when writing Ephesians. The testing Jesus endured after hearing God’s admiration of him when baptized by John follows the same principle. What can we learn from it for our discipleship?
First: We should consider any trying circumstance as God’s confidence that we’ll rise to the challenge of being worthy of him! If we lack that perspective, any test that could prove our persevering faith in God instead becomes a temptation to fail. A failure that turns what could be a robust Reality in us into a colossal Illusion. Second: Since God in Christ is our only HOPE, he is Just when he lets us bruise, break or otherwise damage ourselves in SELF-WILL. Since Jesus embodied SELF-SURRENDER to God, we find his correction, healing, wholeness and reconciliation with God only through SELF-DENIAL. That’s what God has decided, so it cannot be changed; what he has proposed, so it cannot be disposed; what he has ratified in Heaven, so no decision on earth can annul it. Read Matthew 21:42-46. Third: Since self-denial is a specifically Christian demand, and Jesus never said anyone outside his grace had to accept it as the basis of their religion, those who lack it have the infinitely heavier burden of unforgiven sin, which receives only God’s Justice, not his Mercy. Fourth: Jesus endured his cross, despising its shame, so he could inherit the Joy beyond Hebrews 12:2. Since the only cross Christians bear is Self-Denial—all other “so-called crosses” are merely burdens common to humanity—we can’t avoid self-denial and still expect to receive the glory issuing from it. See Colossians 3:1-4. Note that our pleasure/glory/delight comes after a life “hidden with Christ in God.” Fifth: A summary thought. Jesus learned obedience by suffering Hebrews 2:10. Christians can’t expect to learn it by praise, success, applause or any of the other ways disciples WANT to LEARN it. God values his Son so much he subjected his life to trials Luke 22:28. Let us be bold enough to think he so values righteous disciples—those right with him by Grace alone, Ephesians 2:8, II Corinthians 1:21-22, 33—that he dares use them as witnesses to those lost without him. Why wouldn’t we consider enduring any hardship an honor to be in that host? Fini
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