Study 56 – It’s a Passing Age
Grace teaches me that I should view the world as ‘the present age’ (Titus 2:12). It’s not permanent; rather, it’s passing away. What happens here takes place only for a short while. If I thought that this life was going to last forever I might live differently, but I know that it’s transitory. I’m like a flower that buds, opens, fades and falls. Eternity awaits. The new heavens and the new earth are ahead. Grace opens my eyes to this reality.
I’m an Alien
I often travel internationally and stay briefly in other countries. Often I don’t fully unpack my case or learn the language. Sometimes, if I’m on a quick visit to continental Europe, I don’t even change any money or adjust my watch. Walking down the street I probably look like anyone else, but actually I don’t fit in. I don’t fully identify. In a few days or hours I won’t be there; I’ll be flying home again. I belong somewhere else.
Grace teaches me not to get my roots down too deeply in this temporary scene. It tells me that it’s easy to say ‘No’ when I’m not really part of the culture, when I’m a visiting alien whose citizenship is elsewhere.
I’m a foreigner; I don’t belong; grace has appeared to me (Titus 2:11), but I’m anticipating another appearance, ‘the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ’ (Titus 2:13). One day this full revelation will burst upon the world. He’ll come ‘to be glorified in his holy people and to be marvelled at among all those who have believed’ (2 Thess. 1:10).
I Adopt Alien Behaviour
When grace instructs me, it makes good sense to say ‘No’ to the world, the flesh and the Devil. When I’m told, ‘You’re an heir of eternal life’ (Titus 3:7), I tend to lose interest in the ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ mentality. Instead I feel like fixing my hope on the grace that’s coming to me at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
People instructed by grace will make decisions that emerge from their renewed hearts. Grace teaches us to say ‘No’. This is very different from reluctantly yielding to an external law, which forcefully and unyieldingly communicates, ‘Thou shalt not!’
Sadly, when Christians haven’t discovered the riches of grace, they often give the impression that they’re externally bound and even reluctant in their law keeping. Then they communicate to the unbeliever, ‘Christians simply don’t do those sorts of things. I’m not allowed to do what worldly people do any more.’ But maybe they also betray a hint that they only wish they could.
Often our failure to demonstrate wholehearted and joyful acceptance of God’s holy standards communicates to the onlooker that we’re unhappy and frustrated people, chafing against the imposition of religious rules, which we’re obliged to keep. The transformation which grace accomplishes is altogether different. Grace persuades and instructs us inwardly. It opens our eyes to the wonders of God’s kindness and the attractiveness of his ways.
Grace doesn’t drop the standards and fudge issues. It doesn’t tell us to forget about righteousness because God has changed the rules and accommodated our weakness, turning a blind eye and making do with compromising Christians. In stark contrast grace liberates, instructs and calls us higher. It enables us to live an altogether different life flooded with gratitude, revelation and the enjoyment of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he spoke of a righteousness that surpassed the righteousness of the Pharisees and teachers of the law (Matt. 5:20). His kingdom brings in a different righteousness altogether.
To Meditate On
We don’t belong to this world.
‘Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies to that they will be like his glorious body’ (Phil. 3:20,21).
‘They admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth’ (Heb. 11:13).
‘Here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come’ (Heb. 13:14).
‘Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul’ (1 Pet. 2:11).
Food For Thought
To what is a person’s life likened in the following verses:
Job 7:7; 14:1,2; Psalm 39:5,6; 78:39; 89:47; 90:3,5,6; 102:11; 103:15,16; 144:4; Isaiah 40:6-8; James 4:14
How is God described in the following verses?
Genesis 21:33; Psalm 9:7; 90:2; 93:2 102:12; Isaiah 40:28; 60:20; Daniel 6:26; Revelation 10:6; 15:3
To Ponder
Read Psalm 90:12.
In practical terms what does this verse mean for you?
To Consider
What would you consider to be alien (Christian) behaviour in the eyes of the world?
(e.g. refusing to listen to gossip, being friendly to the least likeable person in the office, etc.)
Is there any area in which you need to demonstrate more ‘alien’ behaviour?
To Be Inspired
‘He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.’
Jim Elliott
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