“Where are the nine?”
Luke 17:17 (ESV)
God requires nothing of an individual to receive some of His benefits, for they are gifts given upon His merit alone. And like the nine lepers, the healing remains unaffected by their response. However, to those whose hearts have been captured by His beauty, His wonder, and the ministration of a mercy that is beyond our comprehension, He becomes precious.
Though the ten were shown such mercy, only one responded correctly. God’s mercy, if rightly received, will produce a lifelong pursuit of Him, by which we become servants (doulos, Greek, the lowest form of a slave in the Roman Empire) unto Him.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, BY the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Romans 12:1 (ESV)
Servanthood to Christ is rigorous and costly. It is a walk that is often characterized as lonely and uncompromising. Relationships with things, people, movements, and the cares of this world are to be governed by His lordship. He must occupy our whole heart. There can be no room for anything other than His Will.
“If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me;
and where I AM, there will my servant be also…”
John 12:26 (ESV)
In the estimation of Jesus, His servants follow Him. They are not tied to an organization, a teacher, a prophet, or some other man who may or may not be following God. Regardless of what others may be doing, the servant of God follows Him. Peter had to step out of the boat regardless of what the other eleven were doing. God’s call to Peter was to step into the deep; a personal response that had nothing to do with the others. The others were not to feel negated, as each one needed to heed His purposes for them.
“…where I AM, there will my servant be…”
True servants remain current with Jesus. Too many lose sight of the relevance of His Will and end up living a life that has lost His Present Tense Will for them. They sit in a stagnant place waiting for His leading while day after day passes without meaning, direction, or purpose. To remain in the present truth, as Peter declares, involves a daily touch of His Will and His presence through a faith that is sensitive and exercised in the reality of life. A faith based on words and teachings cannot move the will. It lacks the power of His life in the present tense; its foundation is historical, not rooted in the hearing of His Word today (Hebrews 3:7).
David and Goliath
David, coming into the camp of Israel as they were in a heated battle with the Philistines, saw and heard the challenge of Goliath. He was able to respond because he had a history with HIS God in the backwoods of his own personal experience while tending his father’s sheep.
“And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”
1 Samuel 17:37 (ESV)
Because David served God in the challenges of life, far and away from the sight of men, his faith was ready to serve God in the matter before him. The servants of Jesus “follow Him.” They do not shy away from the crucible of faith. They step into the fray; they deal with the undisciplined areas of their own life. The cross they carry is not a doctrinal one. It cuts deep into the core of their being, and in Christ, they find victory!
“For if, being enemies, we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we will be saved in His life.”
Romans 5:10
Paul sets before us two stages of the Christian walk. Many touch the glorious truth of our reconciliation through the death of the Son bearing the penalty of our sins. May we ever marvel at the revelation of His mercy on our behalf! This reconciliation is based on the transaction of Him, who knew no sin, becoming our sin. Nothing can be added on our part; it is God’s supreme sacrifice.
As the nine lepers, many graciously receive the wonder of His mercy in reconciliation by His death, but fail to pursue a relationship where they experience the ongoing and ever-deepening aspect of being “saved in His Life”.
It is only by a vital relationship with Him, as a branch drawing the life and power of the vine, that we begin to experience victory over the propensities of the flesh, the temptations of the world, and the vain reasonings of the natural mind.
Saved By His Life
To live a Christian life based on a transaction will leave us stranded in the Romans 7 experience, where “the good” we would aspire to is always beyond our grasp and the evil we seek freedom from will always be a shadow haunting us at every moment.
“For I do not do the good I want,
but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
Romans 7:19
God, of course, has an answer for the Romans 7 experience: Relationship. It is in the Law of the Life of Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2), lifting us, freeing us from the beggarly law, the perpetual angst of seeking to do good yet falling into the “pit of despair” as Bunyan depicted it.
To be “saved in His life” requires a relationship with Him and, more importantly, IN Him who is life. This life is not available apart from having a (present tense) connection through which we are abiding in the Son. The word emphatically declares “he who HAS the Son has (this) Life and he who has not the Son has not life” (1 John 5:12). This LIFE can only be experiential in proportion to our relationship with Him.
Reconciliation is one thing; relationship is quite another.
We have forgiveness of sins through the transaction of His death on our behalf. We have victory OVER sin by partaking of His life through the vitality of relationship.
Where Are The Nine Series:
Where Are The Nine – Part One
Where Are The Nine? – His Word
“Brethren, the Deity was not revealed to gratify our curiosity,
or to increase our pride of intellect, but to bring us into relations of affection,
submission, and communion with Him.”
— E. N. Kirk.
Brian Troxel
Seeing our safe Savior and sure Sanctifier as He is, ourselves as He sees us, individually, and others, saint and sinner, as He sees each of them, chiefly as cherished and compassioned, of certainty conforms us to the character of Christ.
Pray habitually the holy fire of this Deific desire!
The Three-Person’d Presence of Love Almighty we must practice is being still spirit and soul before the Father of mercies, sitting at the feet of ceaselessly compassionate Jesus, being honest, humble, open, and burning with the yearning of His gracious, tenderizing yet strengthening, ennobling Spirit, to know and go ablaze with Him, ever more adoringly intimate in worshipful, loving obedience.
Step out of the traffic and turmoil, away from the spirit’s seduction and soul’s suffocation. By Christ Jesus, the omnipotent Lord of history, including yours and mine, and the nations, the omniscient King of glory, constantly be royally ravished, thus, richly regenerated by beholding the boundless belovedness that is the brilliance of His beauty and the becoming beneficence of His Being. By beholding Him, we become like Him!
Psalm 46:10 (AMP)
“Be still and know (recognize, understand) that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth.”
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NJB)
And all of us, with our unveiled faces like mirrors reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the image that we reflect in brighter and brighter glory; this is the working of the Lord who is the Spirit.
Martha and Mary
Luke 10:38-42 (AMP)
38 Now, while they were on their way, Jesus entered a village [called Bethany], and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. 39 She had a sister named Mary, who seated herself at the Lord’s feet and was continually listening to His teaching. 40 But Martha was very busy and distracted with all of her serving responsibilities, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, is it of no concern to You that my sister has left me to do the serving alone? Tell her to help me and do her part.” 41 But the Lord replied to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered and anxious about so many things; 42 but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part [that which is to her advantage], which will not be taken away from her.”
Our culture seems bent on keeping “relationship(s)” as transactional as well as self merit based. What you are presenting here needs time to soak and stew enough to be actually lived out a life only because of Christs merit applied to us because of a deep relational walk with God that fruits our branch till its big and ripe and desirable to have by those around us. Good stuff Brian. i could see this series being a good study book for small groups or personal study.
Always good to hear from you, Gary. I think of your family often, and I think I may follow up with you on the study book!
God’s promptings often come from good friends
Blessings
BT