Just Lip Service
March 12th, 2010 by Angela
Some verses are just ‘refrigerator verses,’ you know? I mean the kind like John 3:16 which gives a great message, makes you feel good, and you’re not afraid to post it for all to see. People post verses on bumper stickers, t-shirts, refrigerator magnets, Facebook statuses, and I even have some stenciled on my walls. I love the reminder of God’s words being everywhere my eyes might happen to fall. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 comes to mind, which says, “And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
But what do you do with a verse like this one: “You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.” Hebrews 12:4.
Pow. That simple sentence carries a lot of punch, doesn’t it? That verse hit me between the eyes this morning like ice water (or gatorade) dumped over the football coach on a cold winter day. It just seems like lately that there are all these little things that God seems to be chipping away at me, all at once, and it’s not been pleasant. At all. I like to think that I’m somewhat of a mature (yet humble!) Christian, who has worked through some of my junk and gotten passed some of these things that the Bible would call ‘sin.’ Yet, here I am, still struggling with things, and God is making it more and more clear that it’s time that this junk leaves and makes it’s home somewhere else. He seems to be bringing out all kinds of stuff that I didn’t even know I had a problem with. Wow. I wonder, how could I not see that? Did I have some huge plank in my eye, or what?
I know humility, brokenness, and repentance leads to revival, healing and righteousness. It’s just not my idea of fun as Hebrews 12:11 tells us: “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” You aren’t kidding me. It is definitely not joyful. The reason being is, we’re crucifying ourselves, dying to our own will and instead, submitting to God’s will for us. Death to one’s flesh & will is not going to be a joy ride, but rather a painful ordeal. Romans 8:13 says, “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must DIE; but if by the Spirit you are putting to DEATH the deeds of the body, you will live.” When we can see the end result of what we can be when God is completing us, it’s worth it. When God works on me, I am still ‘me,’ just a better me, that more people will enjoy being around! When we read in Romans 8 that if we are led by the Spirit of God, then we are ‘sons of God’ and if children of God, then heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, to inherit the world (Romans 4:13), then that hope of our future reward can also pull us through the painful cutting off of one’s eye or arm that has caused us to sin or the elimination of some habit or stronghold that we are having problems saying ‘goodbye’ to.
Today’s Scripture of Hebrews 12:4 is a great reminder, without beating around the bush, that maybe we aren’t striving against sin enough, if we aren’t sweating out drops of blood. Perhaps we are too accommodating and accepting of sin in ourselves, overlooking it, allowing it to move in and take up permanent residence, when we should be instead, battling it with a fierceness and determination that proves that we really don’t want that sin in our lives. Otherwise, our actions contradict what we say, and instead reveal the truth that maybe we like that sin and want to keep doing it.
Jesus said it well in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Obedience to Jesus is not easy, but if we truly love Him, we will obey Him. If we are having difficulty obeying, then it is becomes a heart issue and we need to wrestle that out. “Then the LORD said, ‘Because this people draw near in their words, and honor me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,” Isaiah 29:13. The more I love the LORD, the more I have a desire to obey Him, not only in my words, but in my heart, thoughts and behavior. I must remove that sin and quit wallowing around with it, like a pig in the mud pit, and claw my way out if I have to. Otherwise, I’m just giving Him lip service.
I don’t know about you, but maybe Hebrews 12:4 needs to become my refrigerator verse and a daily reminder that I need to constantly be striving against any sin in my life, and focus on my obedience to my Heavenly Father and my Lord Messiah, to know that my love is in my heart, and not just on my lips. It’s easy to talk the talk, but it takes a lot more effort to walk the walk. I have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in my striving against sin. Today, I will resist sin a little harder and fight the battle, as if my life (both my life now and my future eternal life in the age to come) might depend upon it.
You don’t have to resist sin if you keep your eyes focused on Jesus Christ’s finished work at calvary. He is the only one that could shed His blood and have it be beneficial to us. He alone was God’s perfect and acceptable sacrifice for the sin problem and He alone can cleanse us from all unrightousness. So long as we trust in Him saying, “it is finished”, and follow Him, we no longer struggle but rest in Him knowing that we are acceptable to God through our Lord Jesus Christ… without the shedding of innocent blood, there can be no remission of sin.