Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. – Ephesians 6:10-12 (ESV)

Do you notice in this passage, this “finally” passage of Ephesians as Paul wraps up that glorious epistle, the “embiggening” of the battle we face as Christians?

We are more than conquerors, but we still have a battle to fight within which we will conquer. Paul is here reminding us of this, but, at least for me, he is also attempting to lift our eyes; he is getting us to see how big this battle really is.

The battle takes strength. And not our strength. We’re to be strong in the Lord, and in his strength. This battle will require armor for protection. But not our armor. His armor. And not just part of it. The whole armor of God is called for.

We’ll have to stand against our enemy. And not just any enemy. We’re standing against the evil one, the devil. And not just against the lesser parts of his power. It’s not the popularized head-spinning, green spewing, “Gettttt Outtttt”ing of pop culture demon-lore that we’re to fight, at least not usually. We’re to stand against the schemes, the “wiles” of this being who, in the category of evil brilliance, towers over every would-be human schemer and planner of evil. This enemy is Satan, who schemed Adam and Eve right out of the garden and right out of fellowship with God with a piece of fruit. That’s who we’re to stand against.

And, on a wider scale, we’re set against not just any set of enemies. Certainly not enemies of flesh and blood. If our enemies were other people – and, tragically, a lot of us live our lives as though other people are our enemies – well, that would be a battle we could probably handle on our own. But our enemies are the unseen rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, immortal and unfathomably wicked demonic forces of evil that Satan took with him when he rebelled against the Lord. And they positively hate us.

This is a big battle. Do you feel small? Powerless? I think that is half of the Holy Spirit’s desire in this passage penned through Paul. The other half of his desire is to cause us to lift our eyes to our mighty Captain, our great Savior and Lord, who has put our enemies under his feet. In him, and only in him, we are more than conquerors.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. – Colossians 2:13-15 (ESV, emphasis mine)

I have an end of year devotional up, at Thinklings: On This Last Day of the Year.

May you have a wonderful, God-filled 2011.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

– Ephesians 1:1

So Paul opens his letter to the Ephesians, and to our modern ears this would seem like a polite introduction before launching into the masterpiece that is this epistle. Yet there is something hidden (to us) in this introduction that was a blessing and a scandal to those who read it.

Paul uses the word “saints” to describe the Ephesians. For many of us, this word poses a problem due to modern baggage that has been applied to the word “saint”. For many of us, the word conjures up a whiff of incense, or perhaps robes, martyrdom, cathedrals, or visions of medieval times. But to Paul’s readers, be they Jewish or Gentile, this word communicated something entirely different, and far more revolutionary.

R. Kent Hughes, in his book Ephesians – The Mystery of the Body of Christ, puts it this way:

[I]n the Greek translation of the Old Testament the people of Israel, and sometimes even the angels, were given the honored title “saints.” Therefore, as Marcus Barth explains, “By using the same designation . . . the author of Ephesians bestows upon all his pagan-born hearers a privilege formerly reserved for Israel, for special (especially priestly) servants of God, or for angels.” Applying the privileged word “saints” to pagan Greeks was mind-boggling to those with a Jewish background. Hebrew detractors considered it a rape of sacred vocabulary. But from the Christian perspective it was a fitting word to celebrate the miracle of God’s grace.

The word is hagios in the Greek, and it means “holy and called out ones”. And here Paul is using this high word, in the past reserved only for God’s chosen people, the people of Israel, to address formerly pagan Gentiles! As Hughes states above, to many Jewish people of the time, this was “mind-boggling”.

The Gospel does this: it boggles the mind. We think of ourselves as being more tolerant than God, don’t we? I know I do at times. And yet there He goes, welcoming into the Kingdom those that I would never have given a chance! And He doesn’t distinguish levels of sainthood; He calls them saints too! Holy and called out ones, indeed, having been made holy by Christ’s atonement and called out to a life of service to the King.

Saints. This word, if you take the time to look at how it is used in Scripture, will kill “Us and Them” Christianity.

If you’ve been rescued by Jesus, there is no “Them” when it comes to your fellow rescue-ees, regardless of background, ethnicity, political beliefs, denomination, class, social status, sin-background, family dysfunction, or any other division you can come up with.

In Christ, it’s all “Us”.

He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

– Matthew 13:24-30

In studying this parable, I reached for a commentary (which is sometimes a bad habit of mine). It was interesting to me that the commentator didn’t provide any commentary. He just noted that Jesus fully explains this parable a few verses later:

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

– Matthew 13:36-43

We’re not used to Jesus explaining the parables, so this full explanation comes as something of a shock! But a welcome one.

In thinking about this parable, several things hit me. First of all, I’m a bit ashamed. I have for years talked about this parable as if the “field” represented the church. Which, as Jesus points out, it doesn’t (or not necessarily). The field represents the world.

And in this field an epic agricultural battle rages. The Son of Man has sown good seed, which is those who are his true children. His enemy comes up behind him and sows bad seed – called “weeds” or “tares”. I’ve always been a bit intrigued by this. I know about wheat, having helped harvest it in the western panhandle of Nebraska as a teen. And I know about weeds, as anyone who’s looked at my flowerbeds recently can attest. How could they be confused? If green weeds as I know them were taking over a field of wheat, it would seem straightforward to go in there and carefully pull the weeds.

The Complete Bible Commentary has this to say:

The enemy is satan and the tares (Gr zizanion, denoting “darnel.” Iolium temulentum) are false converts. The darnel was a weed that resembled wheat but did not come to fruition.

Ah, darnel. From what I’ve read, it looks a whole lot like wheat when it’s young, and it’s also troublesome because it can be host to a poisonous fungus. In addition, it’s roots tend to go deep and intertwine with wheat roots, which makes pulling darnel a dangerous business. And – most importantly – darnel doesn’t produce wheat.

In Jesus’ parables we often see this repeated theme of fruit-bearing. It is a sign and a characteristic of a true son or daughter of the Kingdom of God. Not perfection. But fruit.

And, really, when you think about it, bearing fruit should be natural to us. If we are a child of God, we are the “good seed” – we are the wheat. Stalks of wheat don’t have to strive to bear their golden crowns of wheat kernels. It just happens. Naturally. That’s what wheat does.

There’s a lesson here. We’re in a world (and, often, in a church) filled with our brother and sister wheat-stalks and also darnel. Lots and lots of darnel. Sometimes that gets us confused, doesn’t it?

This parable has been wrongly used, I think, to teach that we are not to follow other Biblical commands to root out the darnel weeds in our midst (in the correct, Biblical way, of course), to purify the church. We are. But we can’t forget that we will still always have weeds with us. And sometimes we won’t even recognize them. Frighteningly, some of us may be darnel ourselves and not know it.

But in the end God will straighten it out. Our job is to bear fruit, to do what comes naturally to a child of God.

[Note: cross-posted over at HNW Gap Singles]

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

– Hebrews 5:14 (ESV)

Recently I've been thinking a lot about maturity. From my perspective, maturity is not much valued in our culture. It is synonymous with "no fun", and when one thinks of maturity, the vision that presents itself is of a buttoned-down and proper dullness. We live in a culture that celebrates youth, celebrates success (however gained), and celebrates excess. Our televisions are rife with images of men behaving like boys and women fulfilling those boy's every fantasy. There are a lot fewer images of people who demonstrate maturity. You see, maturity lacks "spice".

But the image of maturity found in the Bible is anything but dull. The word translated "mature" in Hebrews 5:14 is the greek word Teleios, which signifies full development, completion. Teleios means readiness; something that is fully prepared to accomplish its purpose.

God's desire for you and I is that we be mature. And this is not a boring state. A person who is mature in God's eyes is someone who is battle-hardened; they are a useful weapon in God's hands, someone who has their powers of discernment honed through long training in the Word and who is thus able to distinguish good from evil. In my view, people who are mature in this way are rare. I certainly don't count myself among them (just follow me around on any given day and you'll know what I mean), but I hope to continue training and honing my God-given powers of discernment. So that I can be fully mature, complete for the task God has set before me, having the ability to digest and put into practice the solid, hearty food of God's Word, which is the sustenance that every warrior needs for the battle.

Maturity was certainly a calling Paul took seriously, both for himself and those he was charged with. As he writes in Colossians. "Him [Jesus] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me." – Colossians 1:28-29.

For Paul, maturity was worth the toil and the struggle he went through, with all the energy that God would supply. If you're a redeemed child of God, maturity is your destiny! You and I need to embrace that, and press on toward that goal.

“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”

– Hebrews 2:1 (ESV)

We are drifters, every one of us, in our natural state. The writer of Hebrews here delivers an exhortation that I wish was written on the sky every morning. We must pay close attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it!

Have you ever been filled with the very joy and knowledge of God? Remember what you told yourself then: “I will never leave this! How could I ever leave this?” But, if you were not diligent to continue returning to the Lord, you most likely have discovered a great truth about this tribe, fallen humanity, that you are a part of: we leak.

We are leaky vessels, prone to wander, prone to leave the One we love. We are drifters, and but for the anchor of the solid rock of Christ we will be tossed to and fro, everyday swayed by whatever is on our minds.

I hope this Sunday morning finds you in a church where the Bible is taught, where the Body is active, and where the community of Christ is in unity. If you don’t go to church anymore because you found that church is imperfect, (I say this carefully) please lower your standards. Because you might find in doing so that your standards are not God’s standards, and that he really is working through his sometimes irritating, often clumsy, frequently disillusioning, yet ultimately beautiful Bride that we call the church. He loves the church and wants you to be part of it. Not just a seat-warmer, but actively part of his Kingdom.

If you call yourself his child you need to be with his people. Today. Because if not you might find yourself in a far country tomorrow, wondering how on earth you got there.

For we, you and I, are drifters.

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him . . .

– Colossians 1:21-22 (ESV)

The straightforward drumbeat of truth from Colossians continues.

Notice how Paul points to the state of our minds when we were unsaved; alienated and hostile. Before I became a Christian I often wondered what it was that people who loved Jesus were getting at. I think I admired them, somewhat, but I didn’t quite get what they were about, and I certainly didn’t understand what Jesus was about. Something about a cross and “dying for my sins” (whatever that means, I would think to myself), but I didn’t really understand.

I don’t claim to fully understand now, but one of the most striking things about redemption is that when Jesus saved me I began to understand. It wouldn’t be too dramatic to say that it was like blinders coming off my eyes. My mind, which had been alienated, separated, foreign to God, began to see him. And the wall of hostility and incomprehension toward the Dying Savior was demolished.

Now it seems that I can’t understand why people who don’t know Christ don’t see the truth! It seems so plain . . .

Of course, redemption isn’t a psychological exercise and Paul is writing here about more than our depraved and broken minds. The alienated and hostile mind that he describes produces evil deeds. And that’s another thing I never knew before; I never realized that I was evil. But the moment I finally saw the truth of my own depravity was the moment I began to seek for Jesus.

We’re all fallen and evil, by nature. In College my friends and I used to listen to a song called Am I Evil by the band Diamondhead. The chorus went like this:

Am I evil?

Yes I am.

Am I evil?

I am man.

Now there’s some straightforward, spot-on theology in the lyrics of an (as far as I know) un-Christian band. But the symptoms and proof of our evil permeates our world; it is in every newscast, nearly every bit of entertainment, it languishes on the pages of our books, is the subtext of most of our conversations and dwells deep in our inner thoughts. Without the redemption of Christ we are hopelessly evil. And all through the sanctification process we still struggle with our fallenness.

At least I do. Daily.

Thank God for the gift of reconciliation through Christ that he has given us! Becoming a Christian isn’t “turning over a new leaf”. It is becoming a new leaf! And one finally, finally capable of bearing good fruit (to strain a metaphor a bit).

“. . . he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him . . .”

Examine that sentence fragment for a bit. Meditate on it. Notice the finality with which it is stated. He has now reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death.

He died for a specific reason. And the death of the only begotten Son of God is not something that God chose lightly. It was for a particular purpose: “in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him”.

I’ve struggled with shame most of my life. Whenever someone asks that classic ice-breaker question “So, what’s your most embarrassing moment?” I often want to respond “um, all of them.” I am, in my natural state, full of reproach, full of blame, full of shame.

But my destiny in Christ, and yours too if you are his child, is to be presented to the Father holy, and blameless, and above reproach!

That’s why Christ died. To reconcile you to God through his death and to sanctify you and redeem you beyond what you can imagine. And, I’ll hazard that for many of us the goal Christ has for us goes beyond our desires, because most of us desire to hold back some of what we call ourselves. But our destiny in him is to be fully and completely his. He died to redeem all of us, and he will settle for nothing less. He will make it so.

Holiness, no blame, no reproach . . . child of God, that is your destiny!