Remember the Deeds of the Lord

"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of you evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel . . . . , the glorious riches of this mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:21-23; 27)."

“I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands …. ‘Will he never show His favor again? Has his unfailing love vanished forever? Has his promise failed for all time? Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion? . . . You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples . . . . Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, through your footprints were not seen (Psalm 77:1-2; 7-8; 14; 19).’”

We want to see "footprints." As we travel through our “seas” and the “mighty waters” rising threateningly around us as they did around ancient Israel in their “Isra” (striving-contending) with “El” (God), we desire visible signs of God’s presence, God’s hand, God’s keeping power. Yet Jesus was to say again and again, as far as God is concerned, physical signs of security, success and comfort are deceptive, and are natural for the common/ordinary person to want ( —John 4:48 “Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never believe.”)—but ultimately produce only a momentary, temporary faith experience.”

Paul writes to the church at Colossae, reminding them that they are not "common and ordinary" any more, because God has reconciled, has recovered the relationship between God and us, through Christ’s physical offering of himself on the cross.

It does not matter what we have done to end up in the circumstances we find ourselves in. It does not matter that we were “alienated from God and had our minds conditioned against him resulting in evil behavior.” Through faith in Christ we are presented “holy in God’s sight without blemish and free from accusation.”

I don’t know about you, but that’s good news for me! It is good to know that my success or failure in life is not dependent on my own flawed and faulty moral compass. Sin makes it impossible for me to please God, to live a life of moral rectitude before God. My hope is not in my stellar past, my great moral rectitude in the present. “All have sinned and come short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23-26).”

“If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we agree with God what we are sinners, God is faithful and just to continue to forgive us, to overlook us, and to keep us cleansed from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:1-9).

Given this truth of the Gospel, it is amazing that we find people who claim to know that their justification in Jesus Christ alone, demanding that others who come to Christ adjust their behavior to the moral code of Moses. Early in Paul’s ministry, (especially evident in 1 Corinthians), it was clear that he still struggled with having Gentiles live according to the Mosaic codes. I am not referencing the actual “Ten Words (commandments),” but rather all the religious rituals, prohibitions, curses and judgments set up for those who belonged to the community of ancient Israel. These were established in opposition to the Gentile communities all around them as they settled in the “land of promise,” so that they would remember who they were and whose they were. I believe that God raised up the legalistic spirit of error called "Judaizers=people who demanded that Christian converts be circumcised and follow all the rituals of the Jews" and the conflict that followed, in order to help the early apostles (including Paul) who were Jews. make the needed transition to "our acceptance before God by grace and grace alone."

The extensive and laborious Law codes of Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy have nothing to do with us, for in Romans that same apostle, informed by his own struggles with those who wanted to turn the faithful back to Pharisaic Judaism, what Paul, himself, had been a part of, writes these words:

“But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the law and prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:21-22).”

When people saw Jesus feed five thousand men (apart from women and children) with five barley rolls and two fish, when they saw a man healed who had lain on his back for 38 years, when they reasoned that since he was not in the boat when his disciples traveled to the other side of the sea of Galilee and yet he was there with him, concluding that the story of the disciples was true, that he had indeed walked across on the water, they asked him, “What shall we do in order to work the works of God.”

Jesus’ response was clear. “This is the work of God, to adhere to, trust in and rely on the one God has sent (his efficacy, his righteousness, the power he is demonstrating).” It comes through faith. We believe that no matter what our circumstances, as the old Black saints used to say, “God is able.” Jesus had prefaced these events and questions with the following declaration:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes
God who sent me has eternal life and will not be
condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
(John 5:24)

A song I learned many years ago comes to mind:

My heart can sing, when I pause to remember
A heartache here is but a stepping stone
Along a trail that’s winding always upward—
This troubled world is not my final home.

The things of earth will dim and lose their value
If we recall, they’re borrowed for a while;
And things of earth, that cause the heart to tremble,
Remembered there, will only bring a smile.

This weary world with all its toil and struggle
May take its toll of misery and strife;
The souls God gave us, like a waiting falcon—
When it’s released, it’s destined for the skies.

(refrain)
But until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then my joy I’ll carry on—
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.
(“Until Then” by Stuart Hamblen, 1958)

In Psalm 177, we are instructed to “remember the deeds of the Lord," and the Psalmist responds on behalf of Israel, “Yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on your works and consider all your mighty deeds (11-12).”

Whatever our trouble, our loss, our disappointment, our failure, our longing—through faith in the power that raised Jesus from the dead, we who have been separated, made not guilty, without blemish and complete through the cross, have another day, another future, miracles to look forward to, deliverance to come, joy to replace sorrow, healing to replace heartbreak and loss, and a glorious reception in God's eternal kingdom of life and light, even according to our faith.

No one, no thing, no situation can bring what God offers us to pass. Nobody but Jesus, the Christ of God. All that God has for our goodness, out of love, comes not from our efforts, our attempts to atone and reconcile, our attempts to improve and make amends. All comes from God and God alone, who is indeed UNCONDITIONAL LOVE to us in Christ, forever and ever. Amen.