What a bright lesson to start the day! Not! Enjoy your youth while you've got it to enjoy
because soon enough it will all catch up with you, your eyesight will fail,
getting around will be the highlight of the day, your senses of taste and smell
will diminish and life will generally be a misery until you die. Why does Solomon write such things? Is Ecclesiastes the ultimate buzzkill book
right in the middle of the Bible?
Solomon had it all, in spades, and what he seems to have discovered is
that none of it satisfied either by itself of taken together. Having it all still left him with a vast
empty hole in his life, the hole he was trying to fill with all the
possessions, women, power and pleasure he could shovel into it. He started well, only desiring wisdom and
receiving everything else into the bargain.
So much of our modern church encourages us to seek to have more in this
life and I wonder if this book is ever in their sights. Solomon's summary judgment of life is right,
"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." In keeping that idea ever in mind, you
will find contentment and joy no matter what life throws at you.
Peter went from commendation to condemnation in only a few
minutes. Jesus gladly accepted his
confession of Him as Messiah and praised him more highly than He praised anyone
else, ever. Now, however, Jesus is
prepared to reveal further truth to the disciples but they aren't ready to
receive it and in fact, Peter outright rejects it. Where the Spirit revealed the truth about
Jesus as Messiah to him, now satan is operating in him to keep him from knowing
and accepting the truth about what is to come.
Peter wants Jesus to come into not the kingdom the Father was offering,
the eternal kingdom, but an earthly kingdom, the same kind of kingdom satan had
offered in the wilderness after Jesus' baptism.
It seems simple for us now to understand Jesus' words regarding taking
up our cross and following Him but this was before the cross was a symbol of
victory. His words would have been
nearly incomprehensible to them at the time, shocking words. No one could imagine Him or themselves taking
up a cross, the most hideous idea imaginable.
Life matters. We are
to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
The fruits of the Spirit that Paul enumerated for us are to flow out in
life. The Christian life is not merely
an inner experience to be cherished. It is to be lived and embodied. Others
should know your inner life by observing you.
We are not meant to be hermits but to be like Jesus, publicly living out
the life of the Spirit. When we do,
people are drawn to us and we will extend ourselves on their behalf when they
are burdened. We do not look down on
others in judgment, we first judge ourselves and find that we are two things at
once, deeply loved and deeply and fundamentally unworthy of that love. Living as the beloved who receives that love
as a gift rather than a right allows us to live with joy and not fear. Knowing
that His love is not based on performance frees us to love as well. Knowing that He is sovereign frees us to give
generously. The cross is the way of
self-sacrifice and the lack of self-regard.
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