Our Center for Praying, Sacrificing & Living

  When we think of the place that can be called the center of our Faith where we pray and worship our Lord, we think of a Sanctuary. The Jews had the Temple as the place, indeed the center, of their praying and sacrificing. Jesus honored the Temple in Jerusalem with His many visits for teaching and proclaiming the Heart of the Faith, the Good News in Him. He also clearly showed how the Jewish people’s and the leaders of the Faith had perverted His Father’s House of Prayer and had changed it into a house of trade, a den of thieves. The prayer center had to be cleansed out and returned to its rightful purposes. At His Death, the veil/curtain that hung in front of the Holy of Holies (the Sanctuary and Holiest Place on earth) was torn from top to bottom. This opened the Sanctuary making it accessible from all who come to our Lord with faith: total access to Almighty God! Indeed, the Heavenly Sanctuary was opened to believers to enter into worship-filled union with our Lord through faith.

   In Jesus Christ and through Faith in Him, the center for praying, sacrificing and for living becomes the Living Sanctuary on earth which is in the midst of the people of Faith. Through faith, believers are joined as a Spiritual House, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:14-22, 1 Cor.3:16-17, 1 Peter 2:4-5).

Indeed, as a believer our body is transformed into a temple of the Holy Spirit within us (1 Cor.6:19). The Center for praying, sacrificing, and living is within our souls, within our bodies personally, amidst fellow believers corporately, united with God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit within us and united with God in Heaven…

Therefore let us do as is stated in Hebrews 8:19-25

¹⁹ Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; ²⁴ and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The Reality of New Life in Christ

  For Lent this year I am led to share with you news about the new life we have here and now, in and through our Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus stated that he came that we who come to him will have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). Our experiences in this world, however, often seem so far from that reality of abundant living. What will help us to awaken to the greater reality of victorious and abundant living in Christ? I believe that the answer is that Jesus wants us to have a Christian perspective and live into the faith realities in his presence as our Risen Lord, here on earth.
  In praying about having new life in Christ, I find the story of Lazarus most helpful. Have you ever thought about what perspective Lazarus gained in his faith after he was raised from the dead and brought out of the tomb by Jesus? How did this life-transforming event affect his life and faith as he lived "beyond the grave" in new life? He would have come to know through personal experience that Jesus was truly the Resurrection and the Life. He must also have gained an eternal perspective and must have encouraged many others to believe in the reality of new life in Christ, even while still living on this earth (see John 12:9, 12, 17). How may we have the same faith and how may we live in this new life here on earth?
  To understand what we must do, it will be helpful to review the story of Lazarus so that it is fresh in our minds (see John, Chapter 11). Both of Lazarus’ sisters exclaimed to Jesus: “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Does believing in Jesus mean that we won’t experience physical death? Of course not. Yet, true faith in Jesus will mean that we will live in new life beyond the grave. As Jesus says: “He who believes in me will live even if he dies.” This was the essential lesson we learn from Jesus' conversation with Martha, Lazarus' sister. Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, even he who comes into the world”(John 11:23-27).
  Once Jesus, himself, was raised from the dead and had revealed himself as the Risen Lord, all of life changed. Believing in the Risen Lord means that we are invited to live in the Kingdom of God now—here on earth—and forever. Living into the new life in Christ means that we are meant to be currently living into the reality of life beyond death. We are to be living in our earthly lives more and more with the faith perspective of God’s will being done and his kingdom coming forth on earth as it is in heaven. Yes, as we consider what we are praying in the Lord’s Prayer we gain new life perspective in faith: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," NOW! That is a prayer that is meant to be answered here and now on earth—not just a prayer for the future! Let us learn to live the new life here and now! Let us live with whole-hearted faith in our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, NOW, not just with hopeful thoughts focused on the future.
  The story of Lazarus brings forth an important faith lesson: death is not the end for the believer. Jesus has the final word in the believer's life. He is the Resurrection and the Life. Though we die (and we experience death in so many ways while living in this world)
yet shall we continue living eternally, with heavenly perspective now here on earth. We are meant to live abundantly through realizing the presence and life-giving power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Our Lord Jesus Christ is life himself, and through living faith he is living and working in us. We are more than conquerors through him (Rom.8:37).
  Today let us consider what new life was like for Lazarus once he was raised from the dead and brought from the burial tomb. At that point he was already living the new life reality in Jesus. He lived the rest of his earthly life in the new life after death through Jesus. May we live into this same reality. May we know that we have, now, real new life in our Risen Lord by trusting Jesus: that he is risen, that he is the Resurrection and the Life, and that he calls us from death into new life, eternal life, abundant life! (see Romans 6:1-13 & 2 Corinthians 4:7-11).
  May we have the faith that allows us to truly trust Jesus: he is with us, he is alive in the new life beyond death, and he calls us into the same reality now—even before our own
physical deaths.
  In his holy love, David+

Present your bodies as a Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1 states:  I appeal to you therefore, brethren,  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice’… What does this mean?

What are we doing when we are presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice?

In seminary, my classmates and I discovered during a bible study that knowing the Greek adds greater meaning for this passage: all of you (plural), each and every one of you, offer/present your bodies as a (ONE) living sacrifice (singular). We see that this commendation is made to the community of faith, telling us to unite as one in our offerings and worship. The presentation of our bodies is about our devotional offerings to the Lord. We are not to make burnt offerings but to join together in our reverence for the Lord as an offering and expression of our lives. Our sacrifice is to be Living  in the sense that we can use all that we are and all that we have (our time, treasure and talent) in our offerings joined into one Living Sacrifice. Our worship and offering is a Sacrifice  which means it is a sacred offering that truly costs us something of our time, effort, and commitment in using our God-given gifts as a thankoffering returned to the Lord in our worship of Him. We are to remember that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and that we are to spiritually join together as one spiritual household in our offerings. You can see that this worship-filled activity of presenting our bodies needs to occur daily, throughout our lives and therefore not just on a Sunday morning… Finally, we need to remember that the only truly acceptable offering to God is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. This means that we need to learn how to join our efforts with each other and with the Lord’s One Offering as we present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

~~~…~~~

1 Corinthians 6: 19-20  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Peter 2:4-5  Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious; ⁵ and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

Here are a few other relevant passages:

 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?  If any one destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and that temple you are.

Hebrews 13:15  Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Ps. 51 :17  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Here is the passage in its context:                     ROMANS 12:1-8

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brethren,  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

² Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. ³ For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him.

 ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵ so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

⁶ Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Faithfulness and Salvation: Together in Christ

Faithfulness and Salvation: Together in Christ

The Rev. David J. Harnish

Rector of All Saints Anglican Church of Rochester

Easter Season 4/16/13

In the great litany of faithfulness and in witness to the faithful, Hebrews chapter 11 ends with this amazing summation ( Hebrews 11:32-40 (RSV) ):

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets-- 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated-- 38 of whom the world was not worthy--wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Did you notice that last verse (verse 40) and what it is saying? (look again!)

We are inextricably united with the faithful of old…  and they are inextricably united with us.

Indeed, the saints of old are linked with us for their salvation!

They will not… nor should they be… made perfect apart from us!

All the wonderful ‘giants in faith’ who have gone before us into eternity have not received what was promised to the faithful and shall not be made perfect UNTIL we ALL are made perfect in Christ… since as God has designed it: ‘apart from us they should not be made perfect’.

This means that the salvation of others is directly related to each of us completing our faith journey as we live out our lives in faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Ponder this great mystery and realize that no believer in Jesus Christ is alone: we are joined with each other eternally. Our current life of faith is interrelated with the lives of faith of fellow believers in all time. Believers: our loved ones in Christ who have gone before us, our loved ones in Christ who are living now, and our loved ones in Christ who are young and yet to be born… we are all through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to be made perfect TOGETHER. Verse 40 is saying: apart from us they should not be made perfect. This unity of the faithful is what God has seen ahead of time for each and every one of us who believe in Him: we are joined as one in faith and will enter salvation in relation to and directly connected with one another. What we are doing here and now in our faith is important to the whole Body in all time.

Can you fathom the immense importance of this Biblical and Sacred Truth?

(Let me know your thoughts! May our Lord bless you!)

For further study:

If you would like a little further treatment of this passage please consider the following comments from the commentary prepared by Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown which was  published in 1871. The Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible is in the public domain and may be freely used and distributed. This excerpt is on Hebrews 11:39-40):
39. having obtained a good report--Greek, "being borne witness of." Though they were so, yet "they received not the promise," that is, the final completion of "salvation" promised at Christ's coming again ( Hebrews 9:28 ); "the eternal inheritance" ( Hebrews 9:15 ). Abraham did obtain the very thing promised ( Hebrews 6:15 ) in part, namely, blessedness in soul after death, by virtue of faith in Christ about to come. The full blessedness of body and soul shall not be till the full number of the elect shall be accomplished, and all together, no one preceding the other, shall enter on the full glory and bliss. Moreover, in another point of view, "It is probable that some accumulation of blessedness was added to holy souls, when Christ came and fulfilled all things even as at His burial many rose from the dead, who doubtless ascended to heaven with Him" [FLACIUS in BENGEL]. (Compare Note, perfecting of believers in title, and in respect to conscience, took place once for all, at the death of Christ, by virtue of His being made by death perfect as Saviour. Their perfecting in soul at, and ever after Christ's death, took place, and takes place at their death. But the universal and final perfecting will not take place till Christ's coming.
40. provided--with divine forethought from eternity (compare Genesis 22:8 Genesis 22:14 ).
some better thing for us--( Hebrews 7:19 ); than they had here. They had not in this world, "apart from us" (so the Greek is for "without us," that is, they had to wait for us for), the clear revelation of the promised salvation actually accomplished, as we now have it in Christ; in their state, beyond the grave their souls also seem to have attained an increase of heavenly bliss on the death and ascension of Christ; and they shall not attain the full and final glory in body and soul (the regeneration of the creature), until the full number of the elect (including us with them) is completed. The Fathers, CHRYSOSTOM, &c., restricted the meaning of Hebrews 11:39 Hebrews 11:40 to this last truth, and I incline to this view. "The connection is, You, Hebrews, may far more easily exercise patience than Old Testament believers; for they had much longer to wait, and are still waiting until the elect are all gathered in; you, on the contrary, have not to wait for them" [ESTIUS]. I think his object in these verses ( Hebrews 11:39 Hebrews 11:40 ) is to warn Hebrew Christians against their tendency to relapse into Judaism. "Though the Old Testament worthies attained such eminence by faith, they are not above us in privileges, but the reverse." It is not we who are perfected with them, but rather they with us. They waited for His coming; we enjoy Him as having come ( Hebrews 1:1 , 2:3 ). Christ's death, the means of perfecting what the Jewish law could not perfect, was reserved for our time. Compare Hebrews 12:2 , "perfecter (Greek) of our faith." Now that Christ is come, they in soul share our blessedness, being "the spirits of the just made perfect" ( Hebrews 12:23 ); so ALFORD; however, Hebrews 9:12 shows that the blood of Christ, brought into the heavenly holy place by Him, first opened an entrance into heaven (compare John 3:13 ). Still, the fathers were in blessedness by faith in the Saviour to come, at death ( Hebrews 6:15 , Luke 16:22 ).