The words Amos speaks should haunt us. "Woe to you who desire the day of the
Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord?" Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom to
come, His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We should want that day to come, we should
pray with John, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!" The problem is that we don't have a good
conception of God's righteousness and how much of what we take for granted in
our lives is simply sinful. We pursue
all manner of things in our lives and tolerate thoughts and conduct that are no
more than sin. We fail to pursue the
things of God, that is the very reason Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, tells
us to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, lays out in the Beatitudes
the contours of blessedness that sound so foreign and counter-intuitive to
us. Our prayers for the kingdom to come
should always include confession and should be filled with deep sorrow at the
lack of God's will being done in us.
The answer Jesus gives to the question regarding paying
taxes is both brilliant and damning. It
points to the underlying motive for the question and to the true answer, the
problem is spiritual but not in the way the questioners mean. Issues about money never seemed to interest
Jesus much, it was simply a commodity.
There was a religious objection to paying taxes, the recognition of a
foreign king and His claim on the resources of Israel. The real problem is that they are putting
second things first, worrying about things of earth. Has God not been sovereign in all these matters
of rulership in Israel? The coin has the
icon of the king on it so Jesus says it belongs to the king. You bear the image of God, so give back to
Him what belongs to Him. We belong to
an earthly kingdom and a heavenly
one. Our citizenship is in heaven, we
are but aliens and strangers here. The
more important issue is what we do with our lives, not our money.
Advent is a time to remember that we have been
redeemed. The kingdom of God has come on
earth in the form of Jesus. Lest we have
any doubt about who we should be God has sent His only begotten Son, His
perfect icon, to show us what it means to render to God what is His own. We are to be like Jesus in every way,
crucifying those ungodly passions in order that our passion might be His
glorification in all the earth. Today,
try and pay attention to your passions and where you are seeking His
glory. You bear the image of God, you
belong to Him, you were bought with a price.
Seek Him while He wills to be found.
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