A tent and a building

 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,  for we walk by faith, not by sight.  Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (II Corinthians 5:1-10)

              For centuries, thinkers and philosophers have tried to figure out what it is that makes us the people that we are. What is it that makes me me? What is it that makes you you? We have many words to describe that unique individual experience that belongs to each of us. We speak of the spirit, the soul, the mind, the heart, and the self. In India it is called atman; in China it is called chi. Some people think that only human beings have this individual self; others see the life force flowing through animals, through plants, even through rocks and rivers and mountains. Science has tried to find this self, but it cannot be located or measured or described scientifically. We generally assume that we have a soul or a spirit. Most religious descriptions of people include a soul or a spirit. It’s hard to imagine ourselves without a soul or a spirit. But the information we have about our souls and spirits comes, not from scientific investigation and study, but from the Bible, the Word of God. Since God created us, we willingly learn from him how we are made.

              Since we each have a soul or spirit, we want to know: what happens to that soul or spirit when we die? Does it disintegrate, as a dead body falls apart over time? Does it linger in this world for a while, haunting places as a ghost or a phantom? Does it come back again and again, born in a new body each time, experiencing the world repeatedly through history? God’s Word assures us that some part of us survives the death of the body. It does not return again and again—it goes somewhere to wait for the resurrection at the end of time and for the new creation. For believers, that waiting place is called Paradise. We are with Jesus in Paradise, in the hands of God the Father. For unbelievers, that waiting place is called Hades. The Bible describes Hades as an uncomfortable place, but it still involves waiting until the resurrection and the final judgment. On that Day Jesus will divide us into two groups, welcoming his saints into the new creation where we will live with him forever. The other group, the sinners who refused to believe in Jesus, will be locked outside of that new creation, stuck forever in the outer darkness.

              The apostle Paul describes our current bodies as tents. We are camping on a battlefield, dwelling in tents, surrounded by a world polluted by sin and evil. The only existence we know is life in these bodies, but we know that this life is temporary. Even if we survive in this world and make it to one hundred years, that century is merely a drop in the ocean of eternity. We have been promised eternal life in a better world, a world without sin and evil and death. We are looking forward to that new creation. We camp in tents today, but God has prepared buildings for us in the new creation, bodies that will last forever without sicknesses or injuries or allergies. Paul says that today we walk by faith, not by sight. Our hope is not merely to leave these bodies behind and to live as spirits with God in Paradise. Our hope incudes the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. We eagerly await our final destination, the new bodies God will raise from the grave, changing them so they will last forever.

              Today we cope with what we have. We take care of these bodies, these temporary dwellings, these tents. Consider how much time we invest in our teeth, our hair, our faces. We clean these bodies and then we cover them with nice clothes. We prepare food and eat food and then wash up after each meal. We give these bodies rest and exercise. We shelter them in buildings, and we keep those buildings at comfortable temperatures in the summer heat and the winter cold. God gave us these bodies. Good stewardship includes caring for these bodies, making them fit for the good works that God intends us to do in this world. But many people become obsessed with their bodies, their earthly tents. They forget that we have a heavenly dwelling, prepared by God. While we are in this tent, we groan. We are vulnerable to the many things that go wrong in us and around us in a sin-polluted world. We think about our health and comfort today and tomorrow, investing our time and energy in maintaining these current tents. Meanwhile, we neglect our purpose in this world. As Paul says, we should make it our aim to please God today. We will receive what is due us for the way we have served God while camping in these bodies. Stewardship is more than keeping our bodies fed and clothed and clean and healthy. Stewardship is also living actively in these bodies, loving God and loving our neighbors. Stewardship includes using these bodies to do good works, works that help the people around us and bring glory to God, because we are God’s people. We are Christ’s body, doing his work in this world.

              Doing good works is half the struggle. Camping on this battlefield, we also face temptations to sin. The devil and the sinful world around us are constantly showing us where we can do things for our pleasure rather than for God’s glory. The sin still within each of us would like to follow the path of temptation and sin rather than following God’s path. Different people are tempted in different ways. For some of us, the temptations are different at different ages, different stages of life. But temptation is always available. We aim to please God, but our aim can be diverted by the cloud of temptations that surrounds us.

              We have learned how to protect ourselves from viruses in this world. We wash our hands for twenty seconds; we wear masks in some situations. But how do we protect ourselves from spiritual danger? How do we purify ourselves from threats to the soul? We are under attack. We are constantly being threatened with evil. What mask, what sanitizer, will keep us safe from temptation?

              Martin Luther said this about temptation: you can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair. Temptations will surround us as long as we live in this world. Jesus was tempted as we are. How we respond to temptation is what matters. We realize that we should just say no. Many times a day, that is exactly what we say. But it is one thing to say no; it is another to move on past the temptation and not linger in the thought and imagination of what we could be doing. Holding on to our anger can be as sinful as striking out in anger. Remembering and reliving a temptation can be as sinful as giving in to that temptation. But even when we resist temptation, the devil has not finished with us. He can still battle us with the temptation after we have said no. He can make us feel guilty for being tempted. When he tries that attack, we remind ourselves that Jesus was also tempted, that Jesus said no, and that Jesus has given us the strength to say no. We should not feel guilty for being tempted; we should only feel guilty for surrendering to the temptation, for sinning, or for hanging on to that temptation and enjoying the thought of sin.

              When we have resisted temptation, when we have moved on to good works instead of living in the temptation, Satan’s other attack is the sin of pride. He wants us to keep score of our goodness. He wants us to measure how good we are, how many sins we have avoided. When he has us measuring ourselves and taking pride in ourselves, he helps build barriers that separate us from God. Even though, at first, our aim was to please God, soon we are pleasing ourselves by our goodness. We will be in big trouble on Judgment Day when we stand before the throne of God, boasting in our goodness, because our goodness never will be good enough to bring us into God’s perfect new creation.

              We will receive what is due for what we have done in these bodies, these tents, whether we have done good or have done evil. But God’s standard calls for perfection. The smallest sin, the smallest surrender to temptation, can bar us from the new creation. When we think of that Day when we will stand before the throne of God, we must remember how Jesus prepared us for that Day.

              Jesus lived among us as one of us. Jesus resisted temptation in our name. Jesus lived the perfect righteousness that earns a place in the new creation. Jesus then exchanged lives with us. Jesus took upon himself the guilt for our sins. Jesus paid our debt in full on the cross. Jesus has sanitized our lives to make us pure and acceptable in the sight of his Father. What we receive on Judgment Day is shaped by the work of Jesus. God will see no evil in us, because Jesus has removed every sin. God will see only good in us, because Jesus has credited each of us with his righteousness.

              Paying attention to Jesus and not to ourselves, we begin to imitate Jesus. We do good things that help our neighbors and bring glory to God. Again, the devil tempts us to take credit for those good things, to focus attention on our selves, to forget Jesus and the changes he has made in our lives. Our growth comes, not from our efforts to imitate Christ, but from his power working within us. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, is like seeds that grow. The seed is planted, it sprouts, it produces roots and stems and leaves; eventually a crop appears, whether grain or grapes or mustard or apples or figs. A healthy tree produces fruit: the fruit does not give life to the tree, but the tree naturally produces fruit if it is alive. In a similar way, a Christian life is recognized by good works. Good works do not create Christian faith—faith is God’s gift, and life and growth come from that faith. When we focus on Jesus, these good things happen in our lives. When we focus on ourselves and forget Jesus, whatever good we accomplish is tarnished with pride and self-righteousness.

              Jesus Christ defeated sin and all its consequences, including death. Jesus Christ grants new life to his people. Jesus Christ lives in us, working in us the good things that God had in mind when he created us. Jesus Christ also sustains us in this new life. As seeds, when they have sprouted, need sun and rain and soil and tending, so we need the continuing work of Jesus in our lives. We need his Word, which guides us and also gives strength for our faith to grow. We need his Church, as Jesus works in us to build our faith and to make one another strong in the faith. We need his Supper, as Jesus nourishes us by his own body and blood, removing our sins and guaranteeing us eternal life. God’s Holy Spirit, given to us as a guarantee of all his promises, works through the Word and the Church and the Sacrament to give us faith and to help that faith grow and remain strong.

              We are always of good courage. We live today in tents on a battlefield, at home in the body and away from the Lord. One day we will leave these tents behind—we will be with the Lord and away from the body. We will be with Jesus in Paradise. But the best is still to come. God has eternal mansions for us, new bodies that will live forever in a new creation. Our place there is guaranteed, not by what we do for Jesus, but by what Jesus has done for us.

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Come to terms quickly

“Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny” (Matthew 5:25-26).

Clearly these words relate to those that precede them, the teaching about leaving a gift at the altar and going to reconcile with a brother. Jesus seems to be illustrating the dangers of allowing a wrong to fester uncorrected for too long. In this world, punishment—such as the debtor’s prison Jesus describes—follows our sins and mistakes when we fail to get along with one another and when we do not correct the wrongs we have committed.

Punishments in this world remind us of the final Judgment of the Day of the Lord, as well as the punishment of sinners that will result from that Judgment. Perhaps this lesson of Jesus is a parable about Judgment Day. Jesus already explained that the commandment not to murder covers more territory than the simple act of taking a life. With that in mind, Jesus says, we had better consider how the lives we live measure up to the standards that he will use at the final Judgment. We must change our lives today, making sure that we are not found guilty on that Day, because hell is a prison from which there is no escape.

Most religions dedicate themselves to this proposition: we must become better people, causing less harm to one another and to our world, accumulating less guilt for that final Judgment. Goodness, though, is not only motivated by escaping punishment. Goodness is sought for its own sake, to please God, and to be the people he intended when he created us. We want to be better now. We want to turn our lives around so we walk on the paths that God has provided us.

Who will be our adversary on that Day? The people hurt by our sins and wrongdoing might testify against us, but the real Adversary is the one whose rules we have broken. We take sides against God whenever we do what he told us not to do, and we also take sides against God when we fail to do the things he commands. Our Maker, who knows what we are meant to be, has given us clear instructions about how to live. This Maker will also be our Judge. If Jesus is the Adversary and the Judge and the Officer of the prison as well, we have no hope of escaping punishment on that Day.

Therefore, we seek to be right with Jesus today. We try not to be angry at our brother. We try not to insult the people around us. We try to meet the higher standards of Jesus, but we fail. The good deeds we manage to perform cannot balance our shortcomings. Our best intentions, our worship and prayers, and our efforts at holiness all might seem to help us come to terms with Jesus quickly, before that Last Day comes when it is to late to come to terms. Left to ourselves, though, we cannot be right with Jesus. Left to ourselves, we still find ourselves facing an eternal prison sentence.

Is there no answer to this problem? The answer has already been given; the answer was found in the blessings which Jesus spoke at the beginning of the sermon. Jesus has fulfilled the Law and the Prophets. Jesus has given us a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees—Jesus has given us his own perfect righteousness. He gave it as a free gift. Now we are right with him. He is no longer our Adversary, because he has paid our debt in full. Not a penny remains to be paid.

If we are right with Jesus now, we will be right with him on the Last Day. He will not be our Adversary; he will be our Defense Attorney, reminding his Father why have a place in his kingdom, as Jesus also is doing today. On that Day, we will not be thrown into prison. On that Day we will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven; we will inherit the earth.

If that is the case, why does Jesus spend so much time teaching the commandments of God and explaining what they mean? Jesus explains the Law to show us how badly we need his gift. He explains the commandments to open our eyes, so we will see that our righteousness is not good enough for his kingdom. Jesus does not want us to try our best and fall short. Therefore, he is brutally honest with us today, telling us how far we are from his kingdom when we try to get there on our own. Some people, when they read the teachings of Jesus, try to tone them down, making them practical and achievable. They miss the point. Jesus was not exaggerating; he really wants everyone to be as good as he describes. He also wants us to despair of reaching that goal on our own. Only then will we treasure the gift of forgiveness he gives to us.

Forgiveness is no license to sin. We still try our best to live up to Christ’s high standards. We try to be good, and Jesus tells us what “good” looks like. He even shows us what “good” looks like, because the standards he teaches match the life he lived. Because we are forgiven, because we are on the path to heaven, Jesus helps us become more like him. His love and his forgiveness transform our lives so we can bear his image. We are not doing it for him; Jesus is doing it for us. J.

On light, windows, and living backward

Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world” (John 8:12). He also says to his followers, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). I consider Christians to be windows through which the true Light shines. The Bible also is called “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105); but—as I heard in several sermons when I was a child—“Today you may be the only Bible that some people read.”

Some windows exist only as decorations, but most windows exist to allow light to shine into a room. For this reason, people try to keep windows clean. A window coated with dirt and grime cannot do its job. The dirt must be removed so light can shine through the window.

The brighter the light shines, though, the more visible the dirt on the windows becomes. Clean the windows on a cloudy day and they may seem completely clean. Look at the same windows on a bright sunny day and you will see every streak and every spot that you missed. Literal windows do not care if they have spots and streaks, but figurative windows like us are embarrassed by every mark that shows that we are not perfectly clean.

One response to that embarrassment is to hide from the light. If the light does not shine so brightly, the streaks and spots will not be visible. The problem with that approach, though, is that a window cannot do its job apart from the light. The only other response is to let the light shine through the window, but to pay attention to the light and not to the spots and streaks and stains. Jesus, the Light of the world, is a light that actually cleanses windows by shining on them and through them. Those who look at themselves or at each other can still find the spots and streaks; but those who bask in the Light know that he is cleansing and purifying his windows.

For this reason, I often say that Christians are people who live backward. In T.H. White’s novel The Once and Future King, and in the musical Camelot which is based on that novel, Merlin is said to live backward. In the musical, Arthur says that Merlin “remembered things that hadn’t happened better than things that have.” People who live life forward are convinced that the past shapes the present, but in the present we can shape the future. We cannot correct the mistakes we already made, but we can create a better or worse future for ourselves by the choices we make today.

Not so for Christians! Our past sins are erased by the purifying work of Jesus, the Light of the world. Those sins no longer trouble us in the present or in the future, because Jesus has removed them from our lives. At the same time, our future is guaranteed. When Christ appears in glory to raise the dead, to announce his judgment, and to make everything new, he will welcome us into his Kingdom, the inheritance he earned to give to us. We do not need to doubt our place in the new creation: it is guaranteed to us, not because of anything we do for Jesus, but because of what Jesus has done for us.

For this reason, we live lives of confidence today. With past sins erased and future glory guaranteed, we do not need to fear the present. This good news is not license to sin. This good news is power to resist temptation and evil. The Light of the world shines on us and through us. Rather than adding streaks and stains, we use his energy to be windows, so his light can be seen wherever we are. To Jesus, not to us, be the glory. J.

Seven Mysteries of the Christian faith–Chapter six: the mystery of Christian living

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).

God created people to do good things. We are to love God and to love our neighbors, and our love is intended to be active, making the world a better place. God does not need anything from us, but he wants us to take care of each other. When we help someone else, we are helping someone God loves. We serve God by helping each other. In this way, we accomplish the plan of our Maker. We do what we were created to do.

We do not always love God as he deserves to be loved. We do not always help our neighbors as they need to be helped. We have fallen short of our Maker’s plan for our lives. Because we have failed, God could reject us. Instead, he redeems us. He pays to fix what we have broken. We ran away from him, but he brings us back to himself. We were buried in our wrongdoing and in a world filled with sin and evil and death, but our Redeemer entered this world and got himself dirty, enduring even death itself, so we could have eternal life in his new perfect creation.

We contribute nothing to our redemption. Jesus has done all the work to redeem us. Even the means of grace that create and strengthen faith are God’s work in our lives, not our work for God. Being redeemed, though, we do not sit on our hands and wait for Jesus to appear in glory. We are his Body doing his work in the world. The plan of our Maker, that we should do good works in love, remains his plan for us. He did not redeem us so we can do good things; he redeemed us because he loves us. One result of being redeemed, though, is that we now have the power to do good things, showing our love for God and our love for the people he loves.

Jesus lived a perfect life. He always did the right thing and never did the wrong thing. Now, redeemed by Jesus, we imitate Jesus. We obey God’s commands. We help the people around us. We strive to make the world a better place. Our ability to do these things does not come from the commands of God; our ability to obey his commands comes from his work of redemption. We do not transform ourselves; we are transformed by God’s forgiveness, changed back into the people that God wants us to be.

One of the paradoxes of Christian living is that every Christian is both a saint and a sinner. We do not go back and forth between one and the other—at every minute each of us is a sinner who needs a Savior and a saint who knows the Savior. In Romans 7, Paul describes the paradox of being both a sinner and a saint. Like Paul, we do not understand ourselves. We cannot explain why we break God’s commands. With Paul, we say, “Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24-25). Every day we repent, and every day we believe the promises of redemption. Every day we are made new, transformed by the forgiveness of God.

Some Christians think they can stop sinning and can become perfect in this lifetime by the power of God’s redemption. To convince themselves that this has happened to them, they have to ignore their sins, redefine them as mere mistakes, or blame other people for any time they do not act like Jesus. Our Lord would not have taught us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses” if he did not know that every day we would trespass, and every day we would need his forgiveness. Even more than we need daily bread, we require daily forgiveness. We are sinners while also being saints. We strive to be like Jesus, but the harder we try to imitate him, the more we realize that we are falling short of the glory of God.

Christian living is a challenge. We contribute nothing to our redemption, but our imitation of Jesus does require effort on our part. Some people call Christian living sanctification, while others call it discipleship. Jesus told the Church to “make disciples.” No one can be a disciple of Jesus without first believing his promises of redemption; but no one can believe those promises without beginning to be transformed by those promises. As James wrote, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17).

A living faith produces good works, as a living apple tree produces apples. Apples do not cause the tree to live, and good works do not cause redemption or faith. We cannot judge our redemption by what we do—when we make that mistake, we have room to doubt the truth of God’s promises. Our good works are never enough to balance our mistakes. If we judge ourselves by God’s standards, we are failures. Only when we see ourselves through the promises of God do we see that we are saints, citizens of the kingdom of heaven. God sees us through those promises; he sees us through the good works of his Son. Our sins were removed when Jesus suffered and died on the cross. Now all that remains on our record in God’s book is the perfect righteousness of Christ, accompanied by those times that we succeeded in imitating Christ.

Jesus compares our good works, not to apples, but to grapes. He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). These words describe a second paradox: nothing we do is counted as good apart from the presence of Jesus. Many unbelievers have done great things in the world, showing deep love for their neighbors and making the world a better place. None of those good things, done without faith in Jesus, counts in God’s book, because even the greatest of good works is still tainted by sin. On the other hand, the smallest good deed of a believer—even giving a child a glass of water—is a good deed recognized by God. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing, but with and through Jesus we do many things that are recorded as good.

God does not need our help. He made the world and it continues to run according to his rules. Every day God is active keeping his creation running according to his plan. Now God allows his people to cooperate with him. He tells us to pray for daily bread. When we gather for a meal, we thank God for the blessings we have received from his generous hand. Yet the food we eat, a gift from God, also involves the labor of many people. Farmers planted the seeds and tended the fields and harvested the crops. Millers ground the grain into flour. Bakers added other ingredients to the flour and put the loaves in the oven. Truck drivers moved the grain to the mill, moved the flour to the bakery, and moved the bread to the store. We then went into the store and took some of that bread, exchanging money we earned by doing some other kind of work so we can have the bread on our tables. God created the seeds and the fields where they grew. God gave the farmers and millers and bakers and drivers the ability to do their jobs. He gave us the ability to do our jobs. He will not send us manna every morning as he did for the Israelites between Egypt and Canaan. He expects us to work, as he expects the farmer and miller and baker to work. We cooperate with God, and we receive the good things he wants us to have.

Every good thing done by a Christian is done by the power of Jesus, who reminds us, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” In doing good things, though, a Christian cooperates with Jesus. We cannot make anyone a believer in Jesus; we cannot even make ourselves believers. God makes us his partners in redemption, though, by giving us the keys to the kingdom of heaven. When we tell other people about Jesus and what he has done, we use the keys that Jesus gave to his Church. We are cooperating with God to bring redemption to other people, even though no effort on our part can cause the redemption of any person.

Christians pray to God. God does not need our advice. When we mention problems to him, whether our problems or the problems of other people, God is never surprised. He knows everything; he knows all about those problems. God wants us to pray. He wants to hear from us every day. He wants us to praise him and thank him, not because he needs our thanks and praise to feel good about himself, but because we need those reminders of the goodness of God. He wants us to confess our sins. Our prayers do not earn his forgiveness, and a sin will not be unforgiven if we forget to confess it to the Lord. God wants us to pray to him about the things we want and need. God already knows what we want and what we need. He will not refuse to give us something that we need if we forget to pray and ask him for it. God wants us to love our neighbors and pray for their needs. He knows what they need and will not refuse to give them what they need if we forget to pray and ask him for it.

God does not need our advice, but he loves us as a Father and wants to hear from us. Imagine spending an entire day with someone you love and never hearing that loved one speak one word to you. Some days we treat God that way. To keep that from happening, God commands us to pray. He promises to hear our prayers and to answer our prayers. As we pray for daily bread and receive it from God with the cooperation of the farmer and the miller and the baker, so in our prayers we cooperate with God. We become his partners, making the world a better place through our prayers as well as through our other good deeds. A Christian who is so ill that he or she cannot leave the bed can still do good things by praying for other people.

Sometimes a Christian is aware of the good deeds he or she is doing. Often that Christian is not aware that he or she has done a good deed. Imitating Jesus becomes easier over time, just like any other activity. When you learned to walk, when you learned to ride a bicycle, and when you learned to drive a car, at first what you were doing took effort and concentration. After a while, the task became easier, and eventually you could do these things without thinking hard about the details of what you were doing. The good deeds of a Christian are selfless, done without awareness. They are not done to earn rewards. Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). In the same sermon, Jesus spoke about helping other people, about praying, and about fasting, each time saying that such things should be done secretly. The good things done by Christians are part of their relationship with the Lord; they are not done to impress anyone. When we help others, Jesus says, “do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matthew 6:3).

Jesus promises that God will reward our good works. But Jesus does not want us to keep score of our good works. In his parable about Judgment Day (Matthew 25:31-46), those entering God’s kingdom are surprised to be rewarded for doing good things. “When did we do all that?” they asked. They had done those things without keeping score, but Jesus remembered every good deed and treated it as service to him. Likewise, those barred from the new creation asked, “When did we fail?” They thought they had done enough good deeds to win God’s approval. Because what they did had been done without faith, every failure was remembered and they were treated accordingly.

Christians do good things without keeping score. Often the best things Christians do are not noticed as good deeds. They are simply the result of love. No one enjoys changing a baby’s diaper. Some people consider changing a diaper to be about the most revolting thing they ever had to do. Yet people change diapers. They do these good deeds because they love the baby and want the baby to be healthy and comfortable. When a Christian changes a baby’s diaper, God sees that good deed and remembers it.

Most Christians recognize the saintliness of others more than they recognize their own saintliness. Acting selflessly out of love, a Christian is serving God by helping others without keeping score. For that matter, every Christian knows his or her own secret sins. Being aware that we are sinners, we continue to repent and continue to be active doing works of love. Other Christians inspire us to do more, because we are all working to imitate Jesus and do things as he would do them.

Some good deeds are done in the church building or as church activities. Many more good deeds are done in other settings. Members of a family do good deeds for each other. Friends and neighbors serve God by helping each other. Even someone working for a salary is still doing good deeds that bring glory to God (unless, of course, their chosen career is sinful or they are doing corrupt things on the job). Paul’s letters follow a similar pattern: he addresses problems, shows the answer to those problems in Christ’s redemption, and then urges his readers to do good things. Many of those good things involve husbands and wives, parents and children, and workers and employers. “Whatever you do,” Paul wrote, “in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

As members of the body of Christ, each Christian has unique ways to serve God by helping others. In the congregation, different Christians do different things to serve the entire body of Christ. Every day of the week, in homes and workplaces and schools and neighborhoods, Christians are doing good things that help others. Because they have different resources, different abilities, and different opportunities, Christians do different good works. If we were all the same, many good things would never get done. Because of the diversity God created, his Church is filled with many different people doing many different things, all for his glory.

God’s commands tell Christians how to live, but God’s commands do not address every situation a Christian will face. The attitude of a Christian is not slavish obedience to rules, but freedom to be like Jesus. Different Christians make different decisions about their personal lives. Some drink no alcohol, and others drink in moderation. Some Christians are vegetarian, and others eat meat. Some listen only to certain kinds of music, while others enjoy many kinds of music. Where no command has been given by God, Christians are free to serve him in various ways. God has forbidden his people to judge each other for their personal decisions. To the Romans and the Corinthians, Paul stressed this diversity. He warned Christians not to offend each other by openly doing things that trouble others. The Christian who eats meat willingly forgoes meat in the presence of the Christian who eats no meat. However, when the vegetarian is not around, the other Christian is free to eat meat. Neither one judges the other, but both act in a way that shows love for God and love for each other.

The good things done by Christians do not earn for them a place in heaven. Redemption is accomplished only by the work of Jesus Christ. His redemption which opens heaven to Christians changes the lives they live on earth. As an additional mystery, one could say that Christians live backwards. Everyone else in the world assumes that the present is shaped by the past and that the future is shaped by the present. For the Christian, though, past sins are erased and do not shape the present or the future. Eternal life in the new creation is guaranteed and is not shaped by what we do today or by what we did yesterday. Instead, what we do today is shaped by our future. Because we are citizens of the new creation, we are transformed today. The forgiveness of Jesus changes us, making us able to do good things today.

We do not know when that Last Day will come, the Day Jesus will appear in glory and we will enter his new creation. Only God knows that mystery; he has not revealed it to anyone. This creates a paradox for each Christian. We live each day as if it were the Last Day. We spend our time doing the things we want to be doing when we see Jesus face to face. Yet we also plan for the future. We do not waste our resources, because we want them to be available for future generations. Even if a Christian was firmly convinced that the world was going to end tomorrow, that Christian would still plant a tree today.

We are not yet perfect. We still sin and fall short of God’s glory every day. In the new creation we will be perfect. Today we practice for that perfection. Loving God and loving our neighbors, serving God by helping our neighbors, we remind ourselves of the redemption that is ours through Jesus Christ. We remind ourselves of the home Jesus has prepared for us in his new creation. And we teach others about Jesus, not only by our words, but also by our loving examples.