"You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness (sin); therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions." (Hebrews 1:9)
Hating lawlessness (sin) and loving righteousness brings, "the oil of gladness." I wonder if this could be the reason so many Christians have no, "anointed...oil of gladness." The difference between the Follower of Jesus Christ and the world is, "righteousness," and, "lawlessness" (sin.) One constantly hears the excuse, "Well, nobody's perfect, and yet the command and the power to walk in the command is still there, forever written in the universe, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." By the way, the word for, "perfect," could be translated, "grow up." The Bible says that, "we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ...."
Not long ago I was having a conversation with another believer about all the wars, killings, etc., in the Bible. The commands to wipe out men, women, children, babies, even animals was always related to judgment against/on sin. We are appalled at such pronouncements because we are too dominated by sin ourselves, still have too much sympathy with the sinner, not a grace or mercy sympathy, rather an "I'm-one-of-them" sympathy. In Jesus Christ, however, I am not one of them; I am of Him. Okay, "sinner saved by grace," and, "work in progress," and, "hate the sin but not the sinner," but we have simply used such cliches as excuses for our all too often flirting with and even participation in sin. It seems to me that a reason Father speaks so grandly of the Son, Jesus, in our text is that Jesus loves what Father loves and hates what Father hates.
I have heard many times over the years people express disapproving alarm at God's judgment on sin, especially as expressed in the Old Testament. Yet what they are doing in fact is making a moral judgment on God. When people make moral judgments on the way God runs things, do they ever consider the awful, awful price, and the seeming unjust, "immoral" act of the death of Jesus on the cross------------ for me, the sinner?!?!
Father, in Jesus' Name, may my greatest "shock" always be the Cross of Jesus. Amen.
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When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking Unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking Unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
