Okay, it’s pretty obvious by now that I’m playing catch up with my writing… And just so you know, I’ve also been playing catch-up on other fronts: That is, in my reading, and in my working out.
Regarding the latter I’ve gone ahead and did 2 light workouts today… involving shadow boxing and bodyweight exercises. It wasn’t enough to get me winded, but I got a good sweat on.
And my reading? Well, for one thing, I’ve been coursing through The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, and I’m saying as early as now that I’m definitely going to be re-reading it again – There’s just so much value in the book that couldn’t be taken in at one time… rivaling the Bible, but the one thing, no two things Scripture has over the Almanack are (1) It’s been in existence a heck of a lot longer, and (2) unlike Naval it’s written by countless authors coming together under one Inspiration, and one Foundation – Christ.
One other thing. It’s not as if the Bible holds mere superiority over all the proverbial ‘she’ wrote. In fact, I don’t even want to project that it’s ‘superior’ in that it’s better… but, being inspired by the eternal and infinite Spirit of Truth (that leads us into all truth), I personally believe that it has an equally eternal and infinite impact towards us mortals – one that is, first, indeed ‘superior’ in that connotation to any impact we may get from our own compositions; Second, and more importantly, it’s an impact that is not separate from anything we learn from this reality.
All I’m trying to say is that the Scripture is not separate from anything we write in this reality. In one way or the other, all points to the Scripture, just as all Scripture points to Christ.
And if none of this is making any sense, look at it this way:
Any bad news or lecherous content in print, or even absolutely blasphemous and even anti-Christian noise online would have us lamenting over our hopelessness as creations in sin – precisely the godly sorrow that leads us to repentance.
Any news of progression or success, or beautiful landscape paintings, or even just the news of rain after so many days of summer would have us in awe of God’s greatness and in gratitude towards His benevolence – precisely the goodness of God that ALSO leads us into repentance.
Naval writes about how our happiness is a choice, one we make independent of our identities. It’s also a present happiness, meaning it is here and now, independent of our past regrets and our future worries.
And I agree with all of this, only I say that those of us in Christ have happiness from an eternal narrative, and from an infinite worldview. Naval DOES say that he’s more inclined to agree with those who say that peace is their present definition of happiness, and I agree with him – simply because, for those of us who have come to believe in Christ, we DO have a peace which we are all aware is beyond human understanding, but apparently also one that serves as the grounds for our happiness.
For the ‘bad’ we experience, we’re led to repentance. So it is with the ‘good’ circumstances. But in any case, we’re reminded that our peace is not found from external factors, nor is it generated from within our own finite and limited beings; We’re happy because the Peace we have is a living Peace – a Prince of Peace, actually – who is with us first and forever.
I don’t necessarily know if Naval believes in God, much less Christ and His finished work (though it’d be awesome if deep down, he does), but by his words, his tweets – I’m reminded, in more ways than one, of God’s goodness and/or greatness, bringing me to awe, wonder, and gratitude to Christ for all He has done.
Gosh, I spent a little more time and words on that than I would have wanted – but hey, I just hope it made sense, one way or the other. Pretty sure I’m going to make myself feel better about all this by running it through ChatGPT and having it ‘criticize’ my work by telling me it all makes sense, in one way or the other.
Anyway, what I really wanted to share – or, at least I wanted to share sans the ‘really’ – was how I really fell behind with my Bible reading, being more than just a few chapters behind in the Old Testament. I sloppily went through 1 and 2 Kings today, being pleasantly reminded of the goodness of God through the events concerning Elijah and then Elisha, and through the Kings who obeyed and disobeyed Him.
There’s something to say about that, sure, but I’m not really keen on sharing anything from that side of the Bible for now. Also, while I was super behind on my Old Testament reading, I was super ahead in my New Testament obligations – the Daily Bread is telling me I should be reading through Luke right now, but I’ve been reading Romans 4 more than once today, for some reason:
What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”
Now before anything else, I’d like to share that a fellow brother from another mother and I tried to read through this and explain it to the youth, oh, around 10 years ago. We failed miserably – or, well, in my mind we just failed to get any good points through.
Anyway, going through it now, as I’ve gone through it throughout today again and again, I have this to share at this point – that any ‘blessing’ we work for is no ‘blessing’ or gift at all, but rather a wage.
More importantly, we ought to realize that our only option as Gentiles (or, in this case, Romans) throughout all this time was to believe, as Abraham believed before Jacob (and before Israel and the Jews), and before the Law. I say to believe is our only option only because we were never born under Jacob, and as such, have not been subjected to the Law of Moses.
We believe as Abraham believed. We believe in the One who justifies the ungodly, and it shall be counted to us as righteousness. We believe in the One who forgives our lawless deeds; We are, indeed, blessed, because through Christ we are confident that God will not count our sin, because our sins are covered.
Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
And here, I remember, is where we made a whole mess of things when we tried explaining the entire chapter to the youth back in the day. We talked about circumcision, when the simple point in all this is that our faith is counted to us as righteousness, just as Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness, even before he was circumcised.
His circumcision was ‘a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith’… ‘to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised.. (and) of the circumcised.. who also walk in the footsteps of the faith .. Abraham had..’
Taking this all in now, Abraham was circumcised, and effectively sealed with righteousness, making him the father of all who believe and have faith, regardless of their being circumcised or not.
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”
He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”
Through this long passage we can derive today that the faith that we have precedes our circumcision, sure, but it also entails that we believe as Abraham did: That God does not merely exist, but in spite of the unbelief rising from his own body (good as dead) or from that of others (the barrenness of Sarah’s womb); No, we ought to be as Abraham in faith, giving glory to God, ‘fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.’
It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
I believe that as Abraham was fully convinced of God’s promises, so we have the same faith; we know that God’s promises have been fulfilled, are being fulfilled, and will be fulfilled in our lives now and forever, because Christ rose from the dead.
And with all this being shared today, I come to the conclusion that we will always have the option, as Christians, to be happy, or to be at peace at the very least. Just as Naval says, regardless of our past and future, we can make that choice.
But unlike how I understood what Naval was and wasn’t saying, I think the happiness we do have goes beyond merely placing our identity and our past and future as second priority when it comes to focus – No, I believe what we have is truly a peace that goes without understanding – One that doesn’t have us ignoring, but facing the past and the future just as much as the present, knowing that through it all, and beyond the confines of time, we have the Prince of Peace with us.
And we’re so sure of the Peace that we have, we believe we have it now and always, because it is a promise fulfilled to us by God, made possible not by our works, not because of our circumcision, but because of the finished work of the living Christ, who died for our sins, and rose for our justification.
To Him be all the glory and praise, both now and forever. Amen.
127462/365000
#Peace #Happiness #PrinceOfPeace #JesusChrist #NavalRavikant #HolySpirit #Scripture #Bible #BibleStudy #BenefitsOfSalvation #PracticalChristianity #God #Revelations #Reflections
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
Leave a comment