Covenant Presbyterian Church

When you have a moment to reflect beyond your own experience, daily duties, and family needs, your thoughts may have drifted to the church, its present condition and future prospects. Why is it so fragmented, with many and widely divergent beliefs and practices? And, does it matter? Is not the important thing that we love God and serve men? Doctrinal details and practical differences are divisive, after all, and to the degree that we emphasize them, we create walls and isolate ourselves from one another.

The essence of Christian discipleship is cross-bearing. Cross-bearing is not stoic acceptance of the creaks and pains of advancing age. It is not bearing the morning drive, doing without because the credit cards are maxed, or trying to please an implacable boss. Such things, great and small, are the common lot of fallen humanity. Cross-bearing is not finding that Starbuck’s has run out of your favorite latte flavor or that someone snatched up the coveted EBay item right before the auction closed. Such trivialization of cross-bearing is exerting a baneful influence upon the church.

Students of religion and culture have traditionally divided American society into two camps: liberal and conservative. Liberalism, whether in modernistic or post-modernistic garb, believes that truth is time and culturally conditioned; to the degree that transcendent truth exists or is discoverable, it should be interpreted and developed in the light of the beliefs, desires, and needs of each generation.

Over twenty years have passed since my father went to be with the Lord. Memories of him, real memories rather than hagiographic symbolism, remain important to me. I can remember him hitting fly balls to me, playing basketball in the backyard, and reading the Bible to us. I have a distinct memory of seeing him on his knees early one morning when I interrupted his devotions. Beyond these, the physical sensation of his whiskers, the delightful scraping of his face against mine, has lingered strongly.

The heart of the gospel is imputation. The "impute" (logi>zomai) word-group has a range of meanings that include to reckon, count, calculate, take into account, or credit to one’s account. "Impute" is the word often used to describe the means by which the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ is given to us, a gift that involves a change of status before God and that is received through the instrument of Spirit-produced faith (Rom. 4:8,10,11,22,23,24; 5:13; James 2:23). Our Savior’s righteousness is imputed or credited to us; our sins are imputed or credited to him (2 Cor. 5:21).

Almost two thousand years have passed since Jesus Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the Father. Since then believers have ardently longed for his return, for the consummation of all things, when the living God will be "all in all." As you grow in sanctification, the frailty of your flesh coupled with a deepening love for the Savior will have the effect of intensifying your desire for communion with the Father through the Son. You will feel firsthand in your soul that to "depart and be with Christ is better by far" than anything we experience in this life.

In several Old Testament texts, the reader of holy Scripture is given a glimpse into the seedier side of paganism. For example, you may remember several references to the fertility cult of Baal, the supreme male deity of the Ancient Near East, who together with his female consort, Ashtoreth (called Ishtar by the Assyrians) was sexually depicted and similarly worshipped (Jud. 2:13; 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:3,4).

I can still remember the impression Romans 2:24 made upon me when I first read it interactively and personally: "For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is written." I was about sixteen. I started thinking about my own life and decisions, about the impact my life was having upon unbelievers. What was I communicating about God to the world? Was I the cause of God’s name being blasphemed? Was I giving the unbeliever, my next door neighbor, an excuse for remaining an unbeliever?

Because we live in a universe that is purposefully created, fully interpreted, providentially directed, and absolutely controlled by the triune God, life will always be frustrating and ultimately futile for the unbeliever. Like the toddler that continues sticking his finger in an electrical outlet, the unbeliever cannot escape the shock of failure. Same result every time. The toddler learns; the unbeliever does not. Unbelief, of whatever form, religious or irreligious, high-brow or hoi polloi, simply does not work in God’s world.

Older Americans often express their amazement at the negative societal changes of the past few decades. Born in the thirties and forties, their world bears little resemblance to the present. Young people no longer greet parents and their "elders" with respect, make eye contact, and smile. Few families eat together, and fewer have meaningful discussion around the dinner table. Activities once reserved for the back alley with prostitutes are now the daily fare of millions through television and the internet.