Life Matters - April 9, 2025
“A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” – Mark Twain. To Mr. Twain’s point, it does seem that the nature of us people is to ignore any truth that requires effort to ‘put on’ and to repeat sensational / hurtful ‘news’ that runs on its own momentum, otherwise known as gossip. Gossip has a fascination all its own and therefore has a propellant all its own as gossip is often, if not always, propelled by the gossiper feeling superior to the one being gossiped about. Feeling good about oneself is a natural desire. We all have it. Feeling good about oneself—at the expense of other people—is, well, sin.
Because of this natural dynamic, among others, it is imperative that we always and continually face the truth about ourselves in the light of God’s Word and in that light of God’s Word all “confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3) is always and continually stripped away, leaving us with only one hope, one confidence, one comfort, one source of ultimate courage, one source of ultimate joy, one source of ultimate love, and one ultimate identity.
One description of that ultimate identity is in Galatians 2:19-20; “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me, that I might live unto God.”
While it is okay to be identified by how we make a living, by something we do besides, by our familial status and family ties, yet our ultimate identity needs to be in our Redeemer and King, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Identity is only safe in Him, all else is superficial, it is temporary. In the light of eternal value it can become a lie. Naked came we into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. (Job 1:21)
To follow God, to walk with Him on the pathway He has put us on feels good, as well it should, if we have surrendered all to Him. But if our ultimate identity shifts from the gift-Giver to a gift He has given, then that gift may well become a snare. Jesus taught us that lesson by new, and old, examples.
One of those Old Testament examples is the serpent on a pole. (Numbers 21:8-9) When the Israelites fell to complaining—again—about their present condition, having lost sight of their Promised Land goal, the purpose of this trek, God allowed serpents among them and many of the people died. In desperation, the Israelites cried out to God. God gave them instructions to form a bronze serpent on a pole and whoever looked upon it was healed of their snakebite. Miraculously healed.
The bronze serpent on a pole was carried into the Promised Land by the Israelites as a remembrance of the salvation of God. Many years later (II Kings 18:4) the serpent on a pole was destroyed by King Hezekiah, in his zeal to serve the one true God, as the serpent had become an idol (a snare) to the Israelites as many fell into forming ultimate identity around the gift instead of the gift-Giver.
Is this not a temptation to all of us? For our ultimate identity, our allegiance, to shift away from God to a gift He has given? “Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”(James 1:17) Every good and perfect gift, except One, are not like God, they come and they go. God only is forever the same. He is ultimate. May our ultimate identity be formed in Him.
Sometime in His ministry from 30 to 33 A.D. Jesus identified the serpent on a pole as a foreshadowing of Himself and the means by which he was to die for the sins of the whole world, for the healing of a snake-bitten humanity. (John 3:14) Establishing—again—the identity by which we should live. Jesus is the ultimate gift. He is also the Gift-Giver. Being the Gift as well as the Giver gives us a refuge in Him where our ultimate allegiance, our ultimate identity, is safe. In Him. We are as the negative battery terminal and He as the positive. The positive sparks power on its own, while the negative moves the flow of current. The two attract each other.
Earthbound identities are not safe as they are only for this time. Lies, in the form of rumors, gossip, or political propaganda, travel fast. But let us never forget, always remember, that once the truth has its ‘shoes on’ it is then foundationally prepared to overtake all lies and to bathe this entire globe in its light. As we are instructed in Ephesians chapter 6 let us take the time needed to “put on the whole armor of God” including having our “feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.”
Spreading the Gospel from a place of identity and refuge in the ultimate Gift and the Giver of all good gifts is a spiritually safe place. A safe place that feels truly good.
A Galatians 2:19-20 identity is a safe place of Truth and Love. With shoes on.
Life Matters!