Tag: Coram Deo

Asking Ourselves the Easy and Hard Questions About Walking Upon the Broad or Straight and Narrow Paths. Matthew 7:13-14

Matthew 7:13-14The Message

Being and Doing

13-14 “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.

The Word of God for the Children of God.

Adeste Fidelis! Venite Adoremus! Dominum

Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

When given the chance, I will argue to no end that much of life’s success boils down to one simple maxim: do the real thing and stop doing fake alternatives.

DOING THE “REAL THINGS” NOT THE “FAKE ALTERNATIVES”

Knowing the “differences” always begins by our daring to ask ourselves:

“How would I do this, if doing it well and good were all that mattered?”

“How would I do this, if convenience made all the difference in doing it well?”

“How would I do this, if I had all the time in the world to draft the best plan?”

“How would I do this, if I had a matter of a few hours to draft the best plan?”

“How would I do this, if this situation was life or death and I need a plan now?”

Do I still do the absolute best that I can or do I start looking for “shortcuts”?

Do I throw all caution into the tornadic whirlwinds of inconceivable change?

The Easy Way or The Hard Way?

The High Road or the Low Road?

The Paved Road over the Mountains or the Rained out, Rutted out Dirt Path?

Which will get me to the place I want to be? I need to be? – with the least risk?

How desirous, am I to going all out to get there, risking life, limb and liberty?

Which will get me to the one single place which Jehovah God requires me to be?

My asking each of us these poignant questions this soon in the New Year ….

Now, in answering them, you might object: “You don’t have enough time. You have two jobs, kids and responsibilities – Doing it well sounds too daunting.”

This is okay.

The point of this thought experiment is not to deny that obstacles to living into the Christian life under the all watchful eyes and presence of God do fully exist.

Rather it is an effort to open your eyes, in this moment, to begin thinking about how connected to God or distracted from God, to stop and consider the road you are on, the road you need to be on, the road which Jehovah God requires of you.

Rather, it’s to start with the best plan and make accommodations as needed.

The “Christian life” never remains an easy one.

The “Christian life” is never going to stop happening.

Sometimes, our “Christian life” is absolutely going to spiral out of our control.

Apathy and Complacency become a threat, what results is usually much closer to not the ideal than if you simply start with something that feels easy enough.

The Good News is this:

JEHOVAH GOD IS ALWAYS IN CONTROL!

As we seek out our God, as we meditate daily (do we meditate daily?) about our immersing ourselves in our life journey with Jesus, the Way, I so fervently pray that we find that Rabbi Jesus offers to each of us lots of helpful guidelines for us.

Our Scripture for today from Matthew 7:13-14, comes at the end of his “Sermon on the Mount,” which is like a guidebook for everyday living in God’s kingdom.

Sometimes this style of living is called “the Christian counter-culture.”

That’s because the God-honoring lifestyle of following Jesus often goes against popular opinion – In other words, reality check – we take the road less traveled.

Taking the narrow road doesn’t mean we are narrow-minded or we just prefer to go against what “everyone else is doing.”

It means, simply, we do what we do because God calls us to do what is right.

Jesus indicates that many people want to follow an “anything goes” lifestyle.

But in that kind of world people tend to be selfish, uninhibited, putting their own desires ahead of everything else, and lots of other people will get hurt.

Eventually that kind of life leads to self-destruction, so, in the end, it hurts the selfish individual too.

How many lives, marriages, families, communities, and societies have been harmed, even destroyed because people have insisted on going their own way?

Rabbi Jesus calls us to choose which way we will walk

…..“the seldom taken high risk, straight and narrow gate … that leads to life.”

….”the easiest path with least amount of risk and the least level of resistance” which will inevitably lead us down the pathway to our inevitable destruction.

In John 10:7 he calls himself “the gate.”

He alone opens the way to life—now and for eternity!

“Outside” the Presence of Jehovah God ….

FIRST:

Ask yourself the easy, easier and the easiest questions.

Ask yourself the hard, harder and hardest questions.

THEN ULTIMATELY – IN THE PRESENCE OF JEHOVAH GOD ….

Ask yourself the “easy, easier and the easiest” questions.

Ask yourself the hard, harder and hardest” questions.

Now contemplate ….

Choose this day where your heart and soul genuinely rest ….

Self …. Now you’ve got my feet on the life path,
    all radiant from the shining of your face.
Ever since you took my hand,
    I’m on the right way.

Jehovah God …. Now you’ve got my feet on the life path,
    all radiant from the shining of your face.
Ever since you took my hand,
    I’m on the right way.

WALK ON THE PATH THAT SERVES YOU BEST!

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray,

Most Merciful God, You are invisible to us, Your salvation is opaque to us, and Your grace is an enduring mystery. Who is it who can actually plumb the depths of Your wonders? Who has seen Your face and yet lived? Lord, let me comprehend You. Help me to understand the astonishing depths of Your love and grace. Forgive us, Lord, for wanting to go our own “easy, easier, an easiest” way. Have your way with us; mold us and remake us, guiding us to do what is right in all we do. Help me to continue to grow up into this infinite affection, that I may walk upon Your pathway to life, that I may serve you and your neighbors more, and become “more” pleasing to You. Amen.

Adeste Fidelis! Venite Adoremus! Dominum

Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

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We Are All A Sermon in Shoes – “Coram Deo” – Our Living Into the Abundance of Our Lives in the Presence of Our God Who Is Our Savior. 1 Corinthians 3:1-4

1 Corinthians 3:1-4Amplified Bible

Foundations for Living

3 However, brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as to spiritual people, but [only] as to [a]worldly people [dominated by human nature], mere infants [in the new life] in Christ! 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Even now you are still not ready. 3 You are still [b]worldly [controlled by ordinary impulses, the sinful capacity]. For as long as there is jealousy and strife and discord among you, are you not [c]unspiritual, and are you not walking like ordinary men [unchanged by faith]? 4 For when one of you says, “I am [a disciple] of Paul,” and another, “I am [a disciple] of Apollos,” are you not [proving yourselves unchanged, just] ordinary people?

The Word of God for the Children of God.

Adeste Fidelis! Venite Adoremus! Dominum

Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

I remember very vividly those moments in my young life when Mama standing in front of me, her hands poised on her hips, her eyes glaring with hot coals of fire and saying in no nonsense tones, “Just what is the big idea, young man?”

Instinctively I definitely knew that my mother was not asking me an abstract question about any theory outside of her own regarding right versus wrong.

Her question was not a question at all—it was a thinly veiled, soul piercing, “wait until your father gets home” accusation.

Her words were easily translated to mean,

“Why are you doing what you are doing?”

She was challenging me to justify my behavior with a valid idea.

Obviously, I had none – and knew better than to even try and offer one.

Some years ago, several “friends” asked myself and a whole “likeminded” group of “interested Christian’s” – in all earnestness – essentially the exact same question with the same exact intensity and purpose of the stare.

It was just the beginning of the New Year ….

They asked, “What’s the big idea of the Christian life anyway?”

They were interested in the overarching, ultimate goal of the Christian life.

To answer his question,

In my lay person’s mind, several thoughts came to the forefront as I just “watched” this group of people espouse their individual thoughts and those of their friends and their Pastors.

I fell back onto the theologian’s prerogative and gave them a Latin term I had just encountered, but not yet began to understand, in my own personal studies.

I said, to myself and to “them” as I read the Facebook conversation unfold:

From my own “youthful” Christian experience, I commented back to them;

“The big idea of the Christian life is Coram Deo – Life in our Savior Christ Jesus. 

Coram Deo captures the essence of the Christian life.”

It was not long before that group of “like-minded Christians” had me banned entirely from commenting or posting any further – clearly, I got someone mad.

Clearly, I got a whole bunch of somebodies mad, offended a whole lot of souls.

In all likelihood, I offended people with what they perceived as “my hypocrisy.”

Clearly they were not going to give me any chance of redemption, were not the least bit interested in offering me mercy or forgiveness so to God be the Glory!

Over the intervening years of independent study of the scriptures and also the writing of these devotions, and an abundantly fervent effort at my prayer life,

I have since learned more about “Coram Deo”

It is nowhere near a thorough understanding because it is such a broad term.

It will mean different things to different people based on their experiences.

If you are reading this and you have been academically trained, and educated through Seminary or Schools of Theology and also have your degrees and your ordinations in hand – you will obviously have a higher understanding than I do.

Please feel free to enlighten me further on my “understanding” of this matter if my own “uninformed” and “uneducated” efforts at explaining it here fall a bit short.

What I have “discovered” is briefly this ….

This phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God.

To live Coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.

To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are all acting under the all judging gaze of God.

God is omnipresent.

There is no place so remote, so invisible to the naked eye of human kind, that we can escape His penetrating gaze. (Psalm 139:1-13)

To be aware of the presence of God is also to be acutely aware of His complete sovereignty.

The uniform experience of the saints is to recognize that if God is God, then He is indeed sovereign.

When Saul was suddenly confronted by the full refulgent glory of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, his immediate question, “Who Are You, Lord?”

He wasn’t the least bit sure who was suddenly speaking to him, but he knew that whomever it was, was abundantly and certainly far sovereign over him.

Our Living under divine sovereignty involves more than a reluctant submission to sheer sovereignty which is suddenly motivated out of a fear of punishment.

It involves recognizing that there is no higher goal than offering honor to God.

Our lives, in that very instant of being in the Presence of our Savior are to be, become living sacrifices, oblations offered in a spirit of adoration and gratitude.

To live all of life Coram Deo is to live a life of integrity.

It is a life of wholeness that finds its unity and coherency in the majesty of God.

A fragmented life is a life of disintegration.

It is marked by inconsistency, disharmony, division, divisiveness, disunity, confusion, conflict, contradiction, spiritual immaturity, hypocrisy and chaos.

The Christian who compartmentalizes his or her life into two sections of the religious and the nonreligious has failed to grasp the big idea.

The big idea is that either all of our life is religious or none of life is religious.

To divide life between the religious and the nonreligious is itself a sacrilege.

I believe this means that if a person fulfills his or her vocation as a steelmaker, attorney, or laborer or homemaker Coram Deo, then that person is acting every bit as religiously as a soul-winning evangelist who lives to fulfill his vocation.

It means that David was as religious when he obeyed God’s call to be a shepherd and Warrior as he was when he was anointed with the special grace of kingship.

It means that Jesus was every bit as religious when He worked in His father’s carpenter shop, ministered to people, as He was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

There is much truth in our making the statement that integrity and maturity is found where men and women try to live their lives in a pattern of consistency.

It is a pattern that functions the same basic way in church and out of church.

It is a life that is open before God.

It is a life in which all that is done is done as “unto the Lord.”

It is a life lived by principle, not personality or expediency; by humility before God, obedience to the covenant precepts of God not prideful, blatant defiance.

A life lived under the tutelage of conscience, imprisoned by the Word of God.

Coram Deo . . . before the face of God. That’s the big idea. Next to this idea our other goals and ambitions become mere trifles.

Life lived fully, completely, abundantly in the presence of Savior Jesus Christ!

We are each “Sermons in Our Shoes” ….

Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes?
Do you know, Oh Christian, you’re a sermon in shoes?
Jesus calls upon you, to spread the gospel news,
(1) So walk it, and talk it, a sermon in shoes.
(2) Live it, and give it, a sermon in shoes.
(3) Teach it, and preach it, a sermon in shoes.
(4) Know it, and show it, a sermon in shoes.
(Ruth Harms Calkin)

A “Coram Deo” reminder courtesy of the Holy Spirit, that where ever a Christian walks, whenever he or she talks, is expected to share the Gospel news to others.

Whether it be by one’s actions, attitudes, or personal testimony,

Coram Deo – by their baptism, a Christian is always “A Sermon In Shoes.”

Again and again as it is necessary in our immaturity to repeat it It goes along with something American evangelist Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899) once said:

“The preaching that this world most needs most is the sermons in shoes that are walking and talking with Jesus Christ.”

Coram Deo . . . in the presence and under the max authority of Jehovah God ….

Coram Deo … looking square into His eyes and lived before the face of God.

That’s the big idea.

Next to this idea all of our other goals and ambitions become mere trifles.

So, from within your own life experiences what is your understanding of;

“Coram Deo ….”

Is it what you “thought it was?”

Is it where you believed it was?

Be it RESOLVED then, this is what needs to be addressed to make it RIGHT …

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray,

THE COVENANT PRAYER IN THE WESLEYAN TRADITION ….

“I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”

Adeste Fidelis! Venite Adoremus! Dominum

Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

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