A friend and I are getting together this morning for a walk in the cemetery. Meeting in front of the mausoleum. A sepulcher. It's beautiful marble on the outside.
Inside it's full of dead bodies. That's what Jesus called the Pharisees. Whited sepulchers. Marbled mausoleums. Outwardly beautiful. Inwardly unclean. Outwardly righteous. Inwardly not.
It's easy to be like a Pharisee, to clean up the outward and neglect the inward. I like to make lists. It keeps me on track and gives me a sense of accomplishment when I see the check marks tally up. It's too much of a tendency to transfer this to the spiritual. I can check off the outward: right words, right actions, right place at the right time. The inward requires more. It's a matter of the heart.
I want my heart to be in tune with God. "How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart" (Ps. 119:1-2). I have a longing to know God. One of the ways I learn to know him is by responding to Him through His Word each day.
Another way is going to church and listening to our pastor teach God's Word. We're in a series on the Seven Churches in Revelation, and not long ago he talked about the church at Sardis, which had no commendation given to them. I've been thinking about that.
"To the angel of the church in Sardis write: ...I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die..." (Rev. 3:1-2).
I don't want a name, a reputation. I want Christ-like transformation in my life. I want to know God. I've been reading Knowing God Through the Year by J.I. Packer. I especially like through-the-year books that I can jump into anytime and ponder day by day. One of the readings is "Law and Love," based on Psalm 119:97, 10, 125.
"Oh, how I love your law! How sweet are your words to my taste!... Give me discernment that I may understand your statutes."
Packer begins with these questions: "Do not all children of God long, with the psalmist, to know just as much about our heavenly Father as we can learn? Is not the fact that we have received a love for this truth one proof that we have been born again? And is it not right that we should seek to satisfy this God-given desire to the full?"
Knowing God through His Word--so that my heart might respond to it and my life be transformed by the renewing of my mind. And so I strengthen that which remains to be strengthened.
Walking with my friend today. Walking with my God today and tomorrow....and into eternity.
Image ~ Cemetery, by Stockvault
via Freepik
