As a continuation of our discourse on wrath and vengeance, I wish to appeal to all those who believe in God and understand that we are sojourners, pilgrims, or strangers on this earth – (Phil. 3:20, 1 Peter 2:11) Say you were visiting a foreign land, you will not be as quick to get caught up in establishing rules and laws for the land. You realize your time there is temporary. You’re willing to put up with things that are uncomfortable and even outright wrong. You will endure and make the best of your time there while adhering to laws you may not think are necessary or useful. Your consolation is in the fact that this is not your permanent home. You anticipate getting back home where things are different, better and more conducive to what you prefer. Well, we are visiting this land called earth for a period of time and soon our time will be up and we will go to our permanent home.
For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
– Phil 3:18-21
This type of thinking gets our focus off of making this the best place to have the greatest life for the longest amount of time – even though we should make the best of our time and desire to live long – Our focus shifts to making this the place where we make God’s Kingdom known so we can bring more people with us to our eternal home.
Scripture tells us that ‘the letter kills and the Spirit gives life’ (2 Cor. 4:6) yet we constantly seek justice through the letter of the law. Don’t get me wrong, we need laws and we need to have an orderly society. God is a God of order. He Himself gave His people laws to live by…but that was not His ideal. The problem is when our pursuit of these things overshadows our pursuit of our Heavenly Kingdom. We may be comfortable and happy here on earth, have our best life now, and end up worse off in the end.
The law serves a purpose, even God’s law – as they say, the law cannot change a person’s hateful heart but it can keep them from acting out their hatred – God prefers that we walk with Him closely, know Him, and love Him, so we intimately understand His ways and His desires. This way, we do the right thing out of love and not out of the threat of punishment from the law. Loving God and one another fulfills the law without creating condemnation (Mat. 22:37-40) Fulfilling the law creates failure the moment we miss just one little piece of it (James 2:10).
Let us pursue that which gives life and watch that our love for one another encourages others to love everyone too. That our joy may be full, as scripture says. Jesus prayed this prayer for his disciples on His way to the cross, leaving them with the command to love one another (John 15). We could change all the laws in the world to suit everything we want yet the moment a sinner discovers a new way of evading the law, we’ll be back to the same drawing board. Why not call sin for what it is and work on a Kingdom that has no earthly limits.
The letter kills! Let us seek what the Spirit says and stick to that for its life giving power as we sojourn through this earth. Our Heavenly home will be free of sickness, injustice, oppression, and confusion.
Nelson Masinde 