In another sense, it costs everything. True Christianity is not a Sunday-only affair or a superficial decision. It involves giving up every idol, submitting every priority, rooting out every sin, and loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as we do ourselves. The same Jesus that Christians trust as savior is the sovereign master over all areas of life. There is no taking one without the other.
Nothing and Everything. One need give up nothing in the sense that there is no act, no work, no offering or sacrifice that does or can merit “entrance” into the Christian life. The heavy cost of a right standing with God was fully paid by Jesus Christ. To those who believe, the whole of salvation, from start to finish, is a free gift of God, including the faith to believe. So in that way it costs nothing.
In another sense, it costs everything. True Christianity is not a Sunday-only affair or a superficial decision. It involves giving up every idol, submitting every priority, rooting out every sin, and loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving our neighbor as we do ourselves. The same Jesus that Christians trust as savior is the sovereign master over all areas of life. There is no taking one without the other. We certainly like to get revenge, to extract our pound of flesh from anyone who has done us wrong. The teaching of the Bible, though, is crystal clear, seeking revenge is never right for individuals; “Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). God’s will for us, rather, is to love those who hate us; to pray for those who mistreat us; to do good to our enemies; to turn the other cheek.
Some will answer, doesn’t the Bible advocate an eye for an eye? It does, but only in the context of the state. That is, the government is to operate under the principle of strict justice, the individual never is. We are to relate to people in the knowledge that God will make all things right in the end. The Westminster Confession of Faith, in speaking of the necessity and sufficiency of God’s written word says, “those former ways of God's revealing his will unto his people (have) now ceased,” which is to say that reformed churches understand the Bible to teach that God speaks to Christians not through dreams, or visions, or “words of knowledge” but through his perfect, and perfectly sufficient, written word.
The biblical book of Hebrews opens by stating that in the past God spoke through various means, but in these last days, which began with the birth of Christ, he “has . . . spoken to us by his Son.” God’s written revelation of his Son is his final and sufficient word to us. Therefore, reformed believers deny all additions to the once-for-all delivered word, through whatever means they may be claimed to come. Intercessory prayer is prayer on behalf of another person. As with all prayer that fits the biblical model true intercessory prayer comes from the heart to the one true God for such as He has commanded us to pray. Intercessory prayer has nothing to do with praying to or through dead saints. Our requests are rather made directly to God our Father who hears us because of Christ.
Though the Bible speaks of vitally important intercessory prayer offered on our behalf by Christ (Romans 8:34) and the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:26), when we talk about such prayer, we are normally referring to one human’s prayers on behalf of another, and the Bible speaks volumes, both in instruction and example regarding such prayer. The reason that intercessory prayer “works” is that God, to whom it is offered, is divinely powerful to act, and has chosen to answer the rightly ordered and offered prayers of his people. |
What is
|