November 2017

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Great is his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, "The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!"
Lamentations 3: 23-24


Remedies

Cough, cough, hack. Cough, hack. That's all I'd been able to do for weeks every time I tried to talk, especially for long periods of time like when teaching. I finally went to an urgent care doctor between classes one day last week. I had time to see the doctor, hear his diagnosis (bronchitis), and drop my four (yikes!) prescriptions off at the pharmacy, but I didn't have time to wait for them to be filled. I had to hurry back to campus to find a parking space (no small feat at midday), so I could be on time to teach my last class of the day.

So, there I was in that last class of the day, still coughing and hacking. I apologized and explained, jokingly to this set of students, "I know what's wrong with me and technically, I "have" the medicine. I don't know why it's not helping me yet!" A few of them chuckled at my lame attempt at humor. The others just looked at me like I was a little bit off my rocker. So, what's new? Anyway. . .

On my walk back to the car after that last class, I thought of Jesus, the Great Physician, who says to us:

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30

I thought of how we go to Him, broken and tired and sick, and He gives us a diagnosis (sin) and prescribes the remedy (His sacrifice, and our repentance which includes living a changed, holy life), and how so often we don't follow through. We know what's wrong and how to fix it, but we stop short. Why? Because we don't want to give up something? Because we don't want to do something new? Because we're trying to appear to be holy without really being holy?

"Churched" all my life, that last one was me for many years. I "act[ed] religious, but . . . reject[ed] the power that could make [me] godly," as Paul writes in I Timothy.  But please understand. This is so important.

I didn't know I was rejecting anything!

For many years, well into adulthood, I thought I had put my faith in Jesus and was a Christian. I knew so much about Christianity! Its precepts appealed to me, but I found its practice almost impossible. Why? Because I didn't have "the [same] Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead" living in me (Romans 8:11a). I knew some truths, yes, but I didn't yet know the truth that could really set me free. What truth was that? That I was a sinner. Jesus died to pay for my sin, not just the sin of all those other "bad people" out there, of whom, of course, I thought I was not one. Being a good little church girl all my life had given me a false sense of my own identity. Now, don't get me wrong, being churched all one's life is a gift. It can preserve you from a lot. I'm not suggesting parents stop taking their children to church!

But I am offering this warning--being churched all one's life can lead sincere, well-meaning people into believing they have something they don't. People who've been churched all their lives know all the right "church-y" answers, and how to repeat them convincingly, so convincingly, in fact, that they can convince even themselves that they believe. That's what happened with me. But what I believed in was belief. Believing in belief feels good, but it's not true faith or relationship with Jesus.

It does us no more good to only know a thing, and not desire above all else to put it into practice than it would for me to have gotten that diagnosis, dropped off those prescriptions, and never gone back to pick them up. Or to have gone back and picked them up, but then taken them home and never opened the bottles. Look at those remedies, there on the shelf, I'd say to myself. Isn't it pretty how they all match and line up so nicely? I should be feeling better soon! How off my rocker would I really have to be to do that? And yet, without even knowing it, I did that for years with Jesus.

So, here's my question, a test of sorts, if you will. How hard is it for you to live a holy life? Not a perfect life. No. I'm not saying that. Perfection is not possible. Only the Man called Jesus was capable of that. I mean, a holy life, a life of wanting and trying, above all else, to please and honor Jesus. Is that what you live for? If not, do you want to be made well?

I offer you this remedy from the Great Physician himself:

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30

 I'll leave you with this song by Jason Gray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rzOdXJu5UA

Daye Phillippo

November 2017