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January - February 2000 The Sabbath Sentinel
It's the Shoes
Ernest P. Bergmann
Many of us "come to Jesus" with preconditions for
"coming." We bring to Christianity a load of
non-Christian attributes and expect them to be
acceptable to God. We are proud of our worldly
accomplishments and expect God to be joyful in receiving
such a worthy citizen into His kingdom.
Such is simply not the case with God. We are saved
solely on the basis of God's grace, but to live as
Christians we have to get rid of some baggage before we
are mature in God. God does not force changes on us. If
changes are to be made, the Holy Spirit works within us,
aiding us in getting rid of worldly baggage, but without
direct force. God may place us into situations, and give
us trials, that let us know we are doing something that
needs changing, but we can "out-stubborn" God to
continue life as we chose to live it.
Yet, if we choose to go God's Way, there will be many
growth changes along the way. We will make those changes
because God will make it clear to us changes are needed,
and because we love God. At that point in our Christian
walk we begin to see the spirituality of God's laws and
place them into our lives to let the Way become a path
illuminated by God's light. In this article we will look
at some of the things we remove from our lives, as we
begin our journey in the Way of God.
In the beginning, it's the shoes.
Exodus 3:5 states,"And he said, Draw not nigh
hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground."
Moses wasn't looking for God, but God was looking for
Moses. He got Moses' attention by using a burning
bush. Moses, a Hebrew-born prince of Egypt, was raised
as part of the elite class of the country. He had few
legal or moral restraints to life much like today's
youth. God let Moses understand he was about to
embark on a whole new way of living. For Moses, the
shoes symbolized worldly baggage of uncleanness and
pride. If Moses was to be changed to serve God, he had
to rid himself of personal priorities and take on God's
priorities.
For us the lesson of the "shoes" tells us we cannot come
to God with our pride, love for wealth and a residue of
worldly values. Self-focus has to be turned into a focus
on God. We must rid ourselves of personal priorities to
stand before God. We are to come to God with humility,
repentance, submission, and expectation. Humility breaks
down the barrier of pride. We acknowledge that God is
omniscient and has knowledge that is vital to our
Christianity. Repentance acknowledges our sinful state
and our inherent unworthiness to be saved and be called
a child of God. Submission acknowledges Christ as our
Lord and our state as servants (Paul gladly considered
himself a slave), without any power to do as we
please. Expectation is the "hope" of eternal life, a
gift of God, freely given to all who believe on the
position, word and power of Jesus Christ as our personal
Saviour.
That is when we willingly become God's servants. Too
often we think of God as our servant, our personal genie
who provides all our wants. As with many of the Jews
healed by Jesus, there may be an expectation of, "name
it and claim it." Fortunately, God doesn't work that
way. God supplies our needs, not our wants.
Micah shows that removing shoes requires attitude
adjustments: Micah 6:8 "He hath shewed thee, O
man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God?" Our attitudes toward
others are important. If we let Him, God slowly changes
us from self-centered attitudes to a God-centered
attitudes. As this is done, we will begin to act justly
and respect the rights of all. Too often we are
concerned only with our rights, real or
imagined. Nothing can excite us as quickly as one of our
inherent rights violated, like someone moving into OUR
twenty feet at the front of our car on the freeway.
We are told to love mercy. This is a respect for the
needs of others. We expect to receive God's
mercy. Shouldn't we expect to pass God's mercy to others
as well? Walk humbly. Too often pride is emphasized. Are
we to be proud of attributes which we did nothing to
develop? No; we are to respect and obey God's rule; let
Christ be the Lord of all things in our lives; then, we
can see His majesty and our lack thereof. Maybe then we
also develop the proper perspective about what our worth
would be without Christ: as clay vessels devoid of any
inherent value.
If we accept Christ as Lord we can expect a change.
"And when Abram was ninety years old and nine,
the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the
Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou
perfect." Throughout the Bible we see God
working on the weaknesses of His servants. If God were
to work on our strengths we might think that we had
something to do with our successes. God called Abram
when he was ninety-nine years old. By that time most of
us consider ourselves somewhat over the hill. God was
just starting with Abram.
Don't place barriers to God's service that aren't
there. Let God use us as we are and mold us into what He
wants us to be. To God, age is no barrier - there is no
comparing our life span to eternity. God tells us to
walk the path He lays out before us. Each of us has a
unique path which God lets us see one step at a time. We
are to let God mature us. Times will be hard, sad,
joyful, easy, etc; each "time" is for learning about
ourselves and about God.
However, God doesn't work through our noise.
Isaiah 32:17"And the work of righteousness
shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness
quietness and assurance for ever." Too often
our internal noise is so great that we cannot hear God's
promptings. The outcome of walking with God is peace -
not physical peace, but spiritual peace. The peace
process is internal to us. God gives us peace if we are
quiet enough to receive it. There are benefits to having
a "quiet spirit." A quiet spirit feels God's
promptings. A noisy spirit only feels the natural
promptings within us. If we try to go to sleep in an
angry mood, we may spend a good bit of time in a fight
that need not be fought.
A quiet spirit hears God's promises. A noisy spirit
imagines "God's promises" and gets upset when the
promises aren't met. Search the Scriptures. For each
promise of God there is at least one condition that we
need to fulfill first. A quiet spirit is pliable to
God's words. His words are for each of us individually,
as well as for a collection of believers. If we hear
God's words we have the choice of obeying or
disobeying. Each disobedience has a consequence which is
typically not salubrious.
God prompts us that sin is to be removed from our
lives.
Romans 6:1-2 "What shall we say then? Shall we
continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How
shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer
therein?" God and sin are incompatible. As
much as is in us, sin must be removed from our lives. Be
assured, with the help of God, each sin in our life can
be identified and removed. Hidden sins are typically
hidden from us because we choose to hide them. With the
help of God we become dead to sin's eternal
consequences, but not to its lure, or to its earthly
consequences. Sin will always be in front of us, and to
some extent part of us, but we can work at minimizing
such sin.\
Let God remake us by becoming a living
sacrifice.
Romans 12:1-2 "I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed
to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect, will of God." God
gives us a way to become mature in Christ. We are to
give ourselves to God. If we have no will of our own, we
have only the will of God within us. We are to become
holy: separated from the values of this world. As Moses,
we are to remove our worldly shoes and stand before God
on His holy ground. We are to let God transform our
minds to be like Christ's mind. We shouldn't be so smug
as to think we can do it ourselves. God does it through
His word and through the Holy Spirit teaching us how
each word applies to us. The transformation is not an
easy process. We need to let go and leave behind many of
our preconceived notions and pet rules for life.
We can let God drive out the evil and fill us with
good. Driving the evil out of our lives is too big of a
job for us, since Satan is stronger than we are. But,
through Christ, God gives us His power and His armor to
resist Satan. Then we can become holy ground.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 "Know ye not that ye are
the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth
in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall
God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple
ye are." If God lives in us we become a
temple of God. God cannot live in a sinful place. The
process is simple. We make the choice to be in Christ or
be in the world. The options are simple to define, but
hard to make.
We are not black or white. Most of us are grey. We have,
among our patterns of living, some things that are
worldly and some that are godly. If we truly give God
His proper place we will develop into godly people. As
the people of the world become more interrelated,
keeping worldly choices and values out of our lives
becomes more difficult.
Returning to the theme, "It's the shoes!"
1 Timothy 6:11-12 "But thou, O man of God,
flee these things; and follow after righteousness,
godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the
good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto
thou art also called, and hast professed a good
profession before many witnesses." As best
we can, we are to allow God to remove the impurity from
our lives. He does this in all kinds of ways that make
our lives uncomfortable. My sister-in-law called it
making Jello. You put the contents of a package of Jello
into a pot of water and you put a fire under the pot. As
the water heats the impurities rise to the top of the
water. They must be skimmed off for the Jello to reach
its potential. Similarly, God puts a fire under us. We
call that fire a trial. Each trial removes part of our
impurities and cleans us more for God's
service. Impurities in our lives are replaced with
virtue, devoutness, hope, commitment, endurance, and
humility. Over time we learn to walk God's path, without
the impure "shoes" of our lives. As we walk the walk,
the path is not easy, but it is sure. We may grumble
along the way, but a little heat added to our lives is a
good thing. God cares about us and He is with us every
step of the way.
TSS
January - February 2000 The Sabbath Sentinel
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