19 October 2013 - the first step to recovery isn't denial

19 October 2013 - the first step to recovery isn't denial

But whoever denies me before others
will be denied before the angels of God.
These are words we prefer to hurry past as we read.  But here they stand in stark simplicity.  Is this reasonable and fair?  Doesn't it seem like a human response: petty and emotional?  Yet, assuredly, he is always faithful to his people. 

The Lord remembers his covenant forever.
Does he even remember his covenant even when we deny him?  Yes.  Is he faithful even then?  Yes!  And yet we still risk being denied before the angels.  We hear that, "if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself" (cf 2 Tim. 2:12). 

There is only one essential condition to not be denied before the angels.  It is the living faith in him which will not deny him. 

For this reason, it depends on faith,
so that it may be a gift,
and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants,
not to those who only adhere to the law
God gives this promise to us as a choice.  It isn't dependent on our strengths and weaknesses.  Our pedigree doesn't matter.  It isn't something to be earned.  God's love is content with nothing less than our love freely given in return.  For this reason, even though he hates to see people deny him, even though Hell breaks his heart, he has no choice but to allow them this freedom because "he cannot disown himself" and to freely love is his very nature.

But even if we fall he invites us to get back up.

“Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,
But the only way to get back up is to come to him and rely on his grace.  If we deny his power to help us we will find ourselves denied before the angels.

but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven.
This faith that he enables and empowers is so real that if it doesn't drive us to speak up for him, or if it doesn't keep us from denying him, then it isn't a saving faith. 

Yet we must understand that faith isn't just something that pushes us to the uncomfortable choices we must then take on our own.  When we choose not to deny him and give testimony in spite of what may come it is him working within us.

For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”

Let us rejoice, then.  He wants more for us than we want for ourselves.  But if we embrace his will we will experience the joy of the psalmist:

And he led forth his people with joy;
with shouts of joy, his chosen ones.