Appeal... in all purity!

"Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father, to the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity." (1Timothy 5:1-2 NAS95S)

Observation:  Dealing with people is an issue of purity.  And how we do it is just as important as what we do.  The attitude of our actions is critical.  As Paul says:  "Appeal.... in all purity."

And a pure appeal is one which treats our elders as father and mothers, and our pears as brothers and sisters.  A pure appeal considers others as people and not objects.  A pure appeal is what the book Leadership and Self-Desception would call leading outside the box.  Rather than viewing others as a threat, those who make a pure appeal see them as people with very real needs, and very real problems.

Application:  This morning's text is an affirmation of all I experienced yesterday.  We celebrated my wife's birthday at Trujillos in Alamosa, and afterward drove around to look at houses.  All the while, my seven year old son kept saying, when are we going home... I want to go home... let's go home.  After about an hour of this, after repeatedly saying, this is your mom's day and we're going to be driving around and looking at houses, I lost it.  I blew my lid.  I hate it when I do that.  

Fast forward to bed time.  I tuck my kids in and I say to my oldest, "Son, forgive me for blowing up.  It is not the way I should have handled the situation."

Then I sat down to read from Leadership and Self-Desceeption, and I'm hit with the reality that I had been treating my son as an object and not a person.  Seeing him as a threat to my time and conversation with my wife.  Man, this practical Christianity stuff can be tuff.

Prayer:  Lord Jesus give me Your heart.  It's a prayer I've been praying for a while now.  Not only do I need Your heart for the lost, I also need Your heart for my family.  I need a pure heart.  Not a heart that is deceived with the lie that my kids are a hindrance to my marriage and my work.  My kids are a blessing.  O Jesus give me your heart:

Matt. 5:8   "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 

His Gems

""Remember the days of old, Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, Your elders, and they will tell you. "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the sons of Israel. "For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. "He found him in a desert land, And in the howling waste of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the pupil of His eye. "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, That hovers over its young, He spread His wings and caught them, He carried them on His pinions. "The LORD alone guided him, And there was no foreign god with him. "He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And He made him suck honey from the rock, And oil from the flinty rock, Curds of cows, and milk of the flock, With fat of lambs, And rams, the breed of Bashan, and goats, With the finest of the wheat— And of the blood of grapes you drank wine." (Deuteronomy 32:7-14 NAS95S)

Observation: We are his inheritance!  What does that mean?  What does it mean to belong to God?  To be His?  Inheritance in Biblical times and today is the idea of that which is passed down through permanent succession.  It is that which stays in the family.  In God's case, He always is... so we are always His!  As Yoda might say: "His permanent possession always You are!"

Inheritance is an ancient right.  A possession from ages past.  And that is what we are to God.  Not because we have some pre-mortal existence.  But because "he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love" (Ephesians 1:4).  And because before He formed us in the womb before He knew us, and before we were born He consecrated us (see Jeremiah 1:5).  Glory!  We are His inheritance.  His permanent possession:

"Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." (1Corinthians 6:19-20 NAS95S)

We were bought with this price, the very blood of the lamb, before earths foundations were laid; bought with the blood before our very first breath.  For our Redeemer is:

"the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8 NKJV)

Yes, Jesus' inheritance was people, not things.  Worship, not wealth.  Relationship, not riches.  This is what satisfies His heart.  This is what thrills His soul.  To be with us.  To dance with us.  To run, and skip, and jump with us.  To watch a sunset, to pick a flower, to eat an ice cream cone.  Jesus just wants to joy with His people.  

To serve, to minister, and heal with us.  To bind up the broken hearted, to set the captives free, to open blind eyes, and give bread to the hungry.  All of this He longs to share with us.  To have us enter into the joy of our Master... that is our Master's inheritance.  To have us experience all that delights Him, To share it all with us.  This is His inheritance:  

""Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him... I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me." (John 17:1-2, 6-8 NRSV)

Some may refuse to be His inheritance.  For He does not force us to be His prized possession.  He chooses but He does not coerce.  As He chooses us, we must in return choose Him.  But for all who do choose Christ, for all who receive Him, they shall be called the Sons and Daughters of the Most High... They shall be His inheritance, His permanent possession:

"He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:11-13 NAS95S)

Prayer:  Lord Jesus, I thank You today that I am Your inheritance.  That my life is Your greatest pride and joy.  That I am a jewel amidst a collection of gems.

""They shall be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.""

(Malachi 3:17 NKJV)