First, let me indulge in a moment of shameless self promotion- here is a link to my new blog (launched Jan 15th 2010) and I would like it if you subscribe to it. http://steveburgess.blogspot.com
Second, we (my wife Dawn, my daughter Sacha and I) are very much looking forward to the Awakening conference in a couple of weeks time. Make every effort to get every young adult that you know there; it is bound to be an edifying time.
Hopefully, you will find the following thoughts edifying as well.
1 Peter 2:1-3- Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Here’s how Peter sees this salvation working.
When you were born, you inherited a sinful nature; everybody that is born is born of perishable seed.
When we taste and see that the Lord is good and respond to His goodness by surrendering to His Lordship, through Jesus and by His living and enduring word, we are born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed.
His immortality clothes our mortality and we have new life.
This is salvation.
Peter than instructs those that have been saved by His goodness and grace to now ‘grow up in your salvation’.
All of you will know that there is a difference between ‘growing older’ and ‘growing up’. You don’t necessarily grow up as you grow older.
In the same way, there is a difference between ‘growing older’ in your new life and ‘growing up’ in your new life- and, tragically, people don’t necessarily grow up in their salvation as the years since their salvation increase.
This is what Peter teaches- since you’ve been gifted salvation and since you have been gifted new life, now grow up in your salvation; grow up in your new life.
And the evidence of your ongoing growth in your salvation is the ongoing riddance of your sin.
All of us get that, I presume. All of us get that we shouldn’t sin. But the important question is this- how? How do we rid our lives of sin?
Let me attempt an analogy.
I love steak. I have always loved steak. When I was a child, we used to have steak once a week- it was my favourite night of the week.
My dad used to buy ‘tenderised’ steaks (I’m not sure what you call these in Australia). Tenderised steak is basically the toughest cut of meat that can be found, which has been hammered into submission by being backed over repeatedly with a lorry in an attempt to make it what it is naturally not- tender.
My dad used to get these steaks and he’d cook them at a low heat for about half an hour, just to ensure that there was not a trace of flavour.
To a steak lover, a well-done tenderised steak is an abominable sin- but we loved it. We craved it. We didn’t know any better.
When I was 13, I got a part time job at a steak house. This was my moment of steak salvation. I tasted and I saw that a medium-rare sirloin was good. The steak cravings of my heart changed. I said good riddance to the well-done tenderised steak that I previously had craved- not because I wasn’t allowed it, but because I no longer wanted it. I had tasted something better.
Every once in a while, when I stand and compare prices at the meat section of the supermarket, I find myself being tempted to return to the sinful ways of well-done Tenderised steak that I inherited from my father, even if just for a moment. In that moment, what I need to do is remember the times that I have tasted the goodness of a well-seasoned, well-cooked, medium rare Sirloin steak and this remembrance stirs me to crave and long for that goodness and shun the Tenderised steak of my former ignorance.
That’s the way that it is with us and sin.
We don’t rid our lives of sin by trying harder; doing better; feeling guiltier; getting on that treadmill of works and religious effort- that’s like backing over your humanity in a lorry repeatedly to try to make it something that it is not- righteous. We rid our lives of sin by the ongoing process of tasting that the Lord is good and gracious and we then crave the goodness that we have tasted, instead of craving the desires of our sinful nature.
God wants to give you a new heart and a new mind, which bring a hunger and a thirst for His righteousness. That is the work of His spirit and His word in us- that we would desire Him.
And the more that we taste that the Lord is good by His living and active word, the more we will develop a craving, not for the perishable, empty way of life that we are to abandon, but for the imperishable, abundant life of Christ which we are to embrace.
Through His word and by His spirit, we taste the goodness of the Lord; and, having tasted his goodness, we crave for more; and we will wilfully abandon ‘malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander and sin of every kind’ in pursuit of his goodness- that’s maturity.
So, young adult, grow up in your salvation.
See you soon,
Steve
www.steveburgess.blogspot.com
Second, we (my wife Dawn, my daughter Sacha and I) are very much looking forward to the Awakening conference in a couple of weeks time. Make every effort to get every young adult that you know there; it is bound to be an edifying time.
Hopefully, you will find the following thoughts edifying as well.
1 Peter 2:1-3- Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Here’s how Peter sees this salvation working.
When you were born, you inherited a sinful nature; everybody that is born is born of perishable seed.
When we taste and see that the Lord is good and respond to His goodness by surrendering to His Lordship, through Jesus and by His living and enduring word, we are born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed.
His immortality clothes our mortality and we have new life.
This is salvation.
Peter than instructs those that have been saved by His goodness and grace to now ‘grow up in your salvation’.
All of you will know that there is a difference between ‘growing older’ and ‘growing up’. You don’t necessarily grow up as you grow older.
In the same way, there is a difference between ‘growing older’ in your new life and ‘growing up’ in your new life- and, tragically, people don’t necessarily grow up in their salvation as the years since their salvation increase.
This is what Peter teaches- since you’ve been gifted salvation and since you have been gifted new life, now grow up in your salvation; grow up in your new life.
And the evidence of your ongoing growth in your salvation is the ongoing riddance of your sin.
All of us get that, I presume. All of us get that we shouldn’t sin. But the important question is this- how? How do we rid our lives of sin?
Let me attempt an analogy.
I love steak. I have always loved steak. When I was a child, we used to have steak once a week- it was my favourite night of the week.
My dad used to buy ‘tenderised’ steaks (I’m not sure what you call these in Australia). Tenderised steak is basically the toughest cut of meat that can be found, which has been hammered into submission by being backed over repeatedly with a lorry in an attempt to make it what it is naturally not- tender.
My dad used to get these steaks and he’d cook them at a low heat for about half an hour, just to ensure that there was not a trace of flavour.
To a steak lover, a well-done tenderised steak is an abominable sin- but we loved it. We craved it. We didn’t know any better.
When I was 13, I got a part time job at a steak house. This was my moment of steak salvation. I tasted and I saw that a medium-rare sirloin was good. The steak cravings of my heart changed. I said good riddance to the well-done tenderised steak that I previously had craved- not because I wasn’t allowed it, but because I no longer wanted it. I had tasted something better.
Every once in a while, when I stand and compare prices at the meat section of the supermarket, I find myself being tempted to return to the sinful ways of well-done Tenderised steak that I inherited from my father, even if just for a moment. In that moment, what I need to do is remember the times that I have tasted the goodness of a well-seasoned, well-cooked, medium rare Sirloin steak and this remembrance stirs me to crave and long for that goodness and shun the Tenderised steak of my former ignorance.
That’s the way that it is with us and sin.
We don’t rid our lives of sin by trying harder; doing better; feeling guiltier; getting on that treadmill of works and religious effort- that’s like backing over your humanity in a lorry repeatedly to try to make it something that it is not- righteous. We rid our lives of sin by the ongoing process of tasting that the Lord is good and gracious and we then crave the goodness that we have tasted, instead of craving the desires of our sinful nature.
God wants to give you a new heart and a new mind, which bring a hunger and a thirst for His righteousness. That is the work of His spirit and His word in us- that we would desire Him.
And the more that we taste that the Lord is good by His living and active word, the more we will develop a craving, not for the perishable, empty way of life that we are to abandon, but for the imperishable, abundant life of Christ which we are to embrace.
Through His word and by His spirit, we taste the goodness of the Lord; and, having tasted his goodness, we crave for more; and we will wilfully abandon ‘malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander and sin of every kind’ in pursuit of his goodness- that’s maturity.
So, young adult, grow up in your salvation.
See you soon,
Steve
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