1342AFC101813 – Undeniability
Read it online here, please
Feast Day of St. Luke, Apostle and Evangelist
Luke 12:8-10 – I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.”Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”
Matthew 10:33 – Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.
2 Timothy 2:11-13, 19 – This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him;if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us.If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands, bearing this inscription, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord avoid evil.”
The main text for this post is “But if we deny him he will deny us.If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:12) This text also fits in with Romans 10:6-11 where we read “… if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
When we publically admit that Jesus is the Christ of God, we confess – assert, affirm, acknowledge, profess, and declare – that he is Divine, and that he is God as the second Person of the Holy Trinity. Our confession of Christ is not the only criterion Paul describes as a basis for Salvation; we must also believe Jesus’ resurrection in our hearts; that is to say we profess our faith not merely in words, but also in deeds, in other words in our actions. For this public confession of faith in Christ we know, because he himself told us, that we will bear persecutions, hardships, and rejection by the World. As his disciples, we are told to expect to suffer as he suffered. Most of us, nearly all of us I’d say, will not suffer a passion as egregious as what he endured, but we do know the World will not accept us if we are clearly “in the world but of the Kingdom of God.” If we are believers in our hearts that God has raised Jesus from death, then our actions – which are to be based in the same kind of Love (agape) Jesus gave to us – should conform to the Kingdom and not to the World. Perhaps you’ve seen this story before; it makes its rounds on the Internet fairly often:
An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard.
Suddenly, just in front of him, the light turned yellow. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman hit the brakes, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection with him.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station, where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk, where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, “I’m very sorry for this, Ma’am. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, a ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ placard in your rear window, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.” So again we see that what we do says who we are; actions speak louder than words.
This is certainly true as well when our words and actions do not testify to our faith in Christ. In these passages at the top of the page, especially those spoken by Jesus, we see the word “deny.” A very good synonym for this word is “repudiate.” This is one of those words we hear once in a while and we kind of know what it means. Nonetheless, I want to explore this word a little deeper. Repudiate is associated with the idea of divorce, to cast off, to put away, to reject, to scorn, to contradict, to disown, to disdain, to refuse to acknowledge in the sense of the Latin root word pudere ” to cause shame to.” The Greek root for this is ἀρνέομαι [arneomai] (ar-neh’-om-ahee). If I use repudiate as a replacement for deny, I get whoever repudiates me before others will be repudiated before the angels of God and whoever repudiates me before others I will repudiate before my Father. Who would repudiate Christ, and how? What does it mean “to deny Christ?”
Our most familiar example in recorded in the Passion of Jesus when Peter denies him three times. He denied he had been with Jesus, denied that he was a follower of Jesus, and finally denied that he even knew Jesus at all. We know the ending of that part of Peter’s story – the rooster crowed and Peter recalled Jesus’ prediction, and we also know the continuation of Peter’s story – repentance and affirmation of his faith in Jesus as The Christ of God just as he had previously confessed among the Apostles. We have ways of denying Christ, too.
- He was only a man. Nothing divine about him.
- He wasn’t even real. It’s just mythology constructed by people who wanted to overthrow Rome.
- He cannot be the Son of God because there is no God.
- Jesus? I don’t know. I don’t have time for that religious stuff. Besides all religions are pointless anyway.
- Jesus may have been a real person, but it doesn’t matter. He angered the wrong people and they killed him, then his followers made up the story that he was alive. It never happened.
- How can I believe in a Jesus who sends people to Hell just because they don’t agree with him? If Jesus was real, Judas Iscariot would be a Saint because Jesus forgave him.
- Organized religion is so fakey! If I wanted to get in touch with “God,” I don’t need a bunch of hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo to tell me how.
- Anybody who claims to know what God wants, or thinks, or does is delusional.
- Why would anyone want to live forever doing the same thing day after day? It just doesn’t make any sense.
There are many other statements, some too blasphemous to even consider, used to repudiate Jesus. And what of this unforgivable sin Jesus mentions – blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? In the context of that passage Jesus’ enemies are trying to make others believe that Jesus is using demonic powers, the powers of Satan, to cast out demons, thereby giving credit to Satan for what the Holy Spirit did. Of all the explanations for this passage I’ve heard over the years, that one best fits the context in which it is expressed. What Jesus says and does is precisely what his Father says and does. Even within the Holy Trinity, saying is actualized through doing.
If we truly are with Jesus, we are not against him; however, sometimes our actions appear to contradict that. We can be forgiven if we “speak against the Son of Man,” we can be acknowledged before the angels of God and God the Father if we acknowledge Christ before the World, we will experience suffering in the World for living in the Kingdom, and we will share eternal life with him when our suffering is over. That is, if we don’t persist in repudiating Jesus in every moment of our lives. Even if we reject, disdain, and refuse to accept Jesus nearly all our lives, we can still end that rejection, accept him as Savior and God, and thereby acknowledge him before others. If we spend our whole lives confirming and affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord, but are sometimes unfaithful, on the Day of Judgment and always he will keep the promise to assert, proclaim, remember, and defend our loyalty to him.
What shall we do then? How shall we know him and acknowledge him? As he himself has shown us it is by our words as well as by our deeds. If we deny him, repudiate him, we end up replacing him. We were created with an innate need to worship God, and when we worship someone or something more than God we replace God. Here we see the meaning of Paul’s statement – Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands, bearing this inscription, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord avoid evil.” Almighty God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – knows those who are his; therefore, because we have professed our faith in him we must avoid the evil of denying Christ – that is, denying God – which we do by replacing our love of and service to God with love of and service to any worldly passion for persons, places, things, activities, or spirits.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved.
Share-A-Prayer
GLC – extensive joint surgery coming up soon. Pray for courage, strength, and a quick recovery.
GW – Pray for peaceful hospice.
CML – Fractured C1 & C7, mild dementia. Peaceful hospice and decrease in pain and hemiplegia
Our President and our Congress – Wisdom and courage to do the right thing quickly and well.
1342AFC101813 – Undeniability
Read it online here, please
Feast Day of St. Luke, Apostle and Evangelist
Luke 12:8-10 – I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.”Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”
Matthew 10:33 – Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.
2 Timothy 2:11-13, 19 – This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him;if we persevere we shall also reign with him. But if we deny him he will deny us.If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands, bearing this inscription, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord avoid evil.”
The main text for this post is “But if we deny him he will deny us.If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 2:12) This text also fits in with Romans 10:6-11 where we read “… if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
When we publically admit that Jesus is the Christ of God, we confess – assert, affirm, acknowledge, profess, and declare – that he is Divine, and that he is God as the second Person of the Holy Trinity. Our confession of Christ is not the only criterion Paul describes as a basis for Salvation; we must also believe Jesus’ resurrection in our hearts; that is to say we profess our faith not merely in words, but also in deeds, in other words in our actions. For this public confession of faith in Christ we know, because he himself told us, that we will bear persecutions, hardships, and rejection by the World. As his disciples, we are told to expect to suffer as he suffered. Most of us, nearly all of us I’d say, will not suffer a passion as egregious as what he endured, but we do know the World will not accept us if we are clearly “in the world but of the Kingdom of God.” If we are believers in our hearts that God has raised Jesus from death, then our actions – which are to be based in the same kind of Love (agape) Jesus gave to us – should conform to the Kingdom and not to the World. Perhaps you’ve seen this story before; it makes its rounds on the Internet fairly often:
An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard.
Suddenly, just in front of him, the light turned yellow. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
The tailgating woman hit the brakes, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection with him.
As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station, where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk, where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. He said, “I’m very sorry for this, Ma’am. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the guy off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘What Would Jesus Do’ bumper sticker, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday School’ bumper sticker, a ‘Honk if you love Jesus’ placard in your rear window, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.” So again we see that what we do says who we are; actions speak louder than words.
This is certainly true as well when our words and actions do not testify to our faith in Christ. In these passages at the top of the page, especially those spoken by Jesus, we see the word “deny.” A very good synonym for this word is “repudiate.” This is one of those words we hear once in a while and we kind of know what it means. Nonetheless, I want to explore this word a little deeper. Repudiate is associated with the idea of divorce, to cast off, to put away, to reject, to scorn, to contradict, to disown, to disdain, to refuse to acknowledge in the sense of the Latin root word pudere ” to cause shame to.” The Greek root for this is ἀρνέομαι [arneomai] (ar-neh’-om-ahee). If I use repudiate as a replacement for deny, I get whoever repudiates me before others will be repudiated before the angels of God and whoever repudiates me before others I will repudiate before my Father. Who would repudiate Christ, and how? What does it mean “to deny Christ?”
Our most familiar example in recorded in the Passion of Jesus when Peter denies him three times. He denied he had been with Jesus, denied that he was a follower of Jesus, and finally denied that he even knew Jesus at all. We know the ending of that part of Peter’s story – the rooster crowed and Peter recalled Jesus’ prediction, and we also know the continuation of Peter’s story – repentance and affirmation of his faith in Jesus as The Christ of God just as he had previously confessed among the Apostles. We have ways of denying Christ, too.
- He was only a man. Nothing divine about him.
- He wasn’t even real. It’s just mythology constructed by people who wanted to overthrow Rome.
- He cannot be the Son of God because there is no God.
- Jesus? I don’t know. I don’t have time for that religious stuff. Besides all religions are pointless anyway.
- Jesus may have been a real person, but it doesn’t matter. He angered the wrong people and they killed him, then his followers made up the story that he was alive. It never happened.
- How can I believe in a Jesus who sends people to Hell just because they don’t agree with him? If Jesus was real, Judas Iscariot would be a Saint because Jesus forgave him.
- Organized religion is so fakey! If I wanted to get in touch with “God,” I don’t need a bunch of hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo to tell me how.
- Anybody who claims to know what God wants, or thinks, or does is delusional.
- Why would anyone want to live forever doing the same thing day after day? It just doesn’t make any sense.
There are many other statements, some too blasphemous to even consider, used to repudiate Jesus. And what of this unforgivable sin Jesus mentions – blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? In the context of that passage Jesus’ enemies are trying to make others believe that Jesus is using demonic powers, the powers of Satan, to cast out demons, thereby giving credit to Satan for what the Holy Spirit did. Of all the explanations for this passage I’ve heard over the years, that one best fits the context in which it is expressed. What Jesus says and does is precisely what his Father says and does. Even within the Holy Trinity, saying is actualized through doing.
If we truly are with Jesus, we are not against him; however, sometimes our actions appear to contradict that. We can be forgiven if we “speak against the Son of Man,” we can be acknowledged before the angels of God and God the Father if we acknowledge Christ before the World, we will experience suffering in the World for living in the Kingdom, and we will share eternal life with him when our suffering is over. That is, if we don’t persist in repudiating Jesus in every moment of our lives. Even if we reject, disdain, and refuse to accept Jesus nearly all our lives, we can still end that rejection, accept him as Savior and God, and thereby acknowledge him before others. If we spend our whole lives confirming and affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord, but are sometimes unfaithful, on the Day of Judgment and always he will keep the promise to assert, proclaim, remember, and defend our loyalty to him.
What shall we do then? How shall we know him and acknowledge him? As he himself has shown us it is by our words as well as by our deeds. If we deny him, repudiate him, we end up replacing him. We were created with an innate need to worship God, and when we worship someone or something more than God we replace God. Here we see the meaning of Paul’s statement – Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands, bearing this inscription, “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord avoid evil.” Almighty God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – knows those who are his; therefore, because we have professed our faith in him we must avoid the evil of denying Christ – that is, denying God – which we do by replacing our love of and service to God with love of and service to any worldly passion for persons, places, things, activities, or spirits.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Beloved.
Share-A-Prayer
GLC – extensive joint surgery coming up soon. Pray for courage, strength, and a quick recovery.
GW – Pray for peaceful hospice.
CML – Fractured C1 & C7, mild dementia. Peaceful hospice and decrease in pain and hemiplegia
Our President and our Congress – Wisdom and courage to do the right thing quickly and well.
