During
that time, I also began to visit with Aaron in some of the regular visitation
periods of the jail. Mostly we talked about the complex life issues
precipitated by his new-found faith.
Eventually,
however, Arron was moved to the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville to serve
out the remainder of his sentence. Before
he left for Huntsville, Aaron told me that once his sentence was completed, he
would return and attend my local church – which he did. Though, by that time, I had moved to another
ministry location.
Nevertheless,
we remained long-distance friends over the years; and, he eventually became a
fine minister in my denomination. And,
through Facebook, he also became and remained a significant friend to some of
my grown children.
On
Saturday morning (August 1, 2026) my youngest daughter called me and
said, in a very somber tone, “Daddy, I’m so sorry to tell you that Aaron passed
away last night from his illness.”
Aaron
was sixtyish when he died. But when I
heard the news of his death, my mind involuntarily went back to that courageous
younger man who, all those years ago, so humbly and whole-heartedly embraced
the Lordship of Christ, including Christ’s values, truth, and daily directions
for his life.
And,
as Aaron’s devoted walk with the Living Christ unfolded over time, I was so
often blessed by the observation of two significant things. The first was my long-distance
view of Aaron’s growing friendship with the Living Christ as the years passed. And second, was watching Christ faithfully
keep, in Aaron’s life, that seminal redemptive promise which He offers to all
mankind.
It
is the promise so acutely expressed by the apostle, Paul, in his New Testament
writings. It is this promise, “Therefore,
if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.
Old things are passed away – behold, all things are become new.”
Indeed,
I knew Aaron back when. And, I knew him at the end. And, his Christ-empowered transformation is
precisely that same fulfilling rescue which the Gospel of Christ offers to
every desperately broken human being – no matter how shattered they may
actually be.
And
another scripture in Paul’s New Testament writings describes that transformative
process perfectly. Paul writes, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as
in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
That’s
it! That is the very essence of the true
redemptive process. As we are allowed to
view the heart (character essence) of the Living Christ through the lens of our
changing daily life circumstances when we encounter them together, our own
character essence is wonderfully and quite spontaneously renewed and elevated.
This
is the ultimate intent of God’s authentic redemptive plan. In the end, it is the believer’s thoroughly
Christ-renewed heart and life. Indeed, this
is God’s simple Day Plan for every single day for every sincere believer.
And
again, the Apostle, Paul, reveals this in crystal clear language in his second
letter to the Corinthian church. There
he writes this, “And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For
you are the temple of the living God. As
God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My
people.’”
It
is a truly short-sighted mistake to conceive of Christian redemption only in
terms of the mere preservation of the soul.
That is only the necessary requirement which sets the stage for God’s
real redemptive end game – an amiable and intimate daily companionship with His
heart-evolving people.
And,
in anticipation of enabling that consummate redemptive intention of The Father,
the vibrant sufficiency of the Living Christ serves to empower that liberating
evolution of the believer. In general
terms, it is a thorough liberation from the depraved gravity of that
delusional, self-determined and self-indulgent life approach that we are all
born into. And again, this
Christ-empowered liberation is the seminal hope which the Living Christ offers
to every believer.
The Lord Jesus, Himself, gave us a pivotal New
Testament promise in that regard. He
promised that the believer would be given access to a life transforming power
beyond his or her own. He said very
clearly, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and
Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
This
very real power is obtained through a Holy Spirit brokered metaphysical
integration of the believer’s character essence (heart) with that of the Living
Christ. This metaphysical merger with the Living Christ’s character essence is
what the Church refers to as the believer’s “Spiritual baptism.”
And,
the personal empowerment which flows out of this quite distinct redemptive
event has a very tightly targeted purpose.
It is specifically intended to enable that elevating renewal of the
believer’s inner being, his or her very essence. And, in turn, flowing out of that inner
renewal is the renewal of his or her lifestyle reality.
Sadly,
this promise of power that Jesus gave to the New Testament believer has often
been misrepresented by errant teachers as being meant to serve every contorted
sort of material and social self-gratification.
But, the plain language of the statement clearly indicates its much
higher and truly authentic purpose.
Its
specific purpose is to enable that new core nobility in the believer. And, the larger context of the New Testament
clearly affirms that this nobility is thoroughly informed by the values and
truths contained within the divine character essence of the Living Christ –
again as noted in Paul’s earlier words. “But
we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
And,
just as Jesus indicates in His promise of this symbiotic empowerment, the new
and very observable nobility within the believer’s heart and life then serves
to validate the claims of His “witnesses.”
Indeed, in very real terms, the elevation of their own character and
behavior validates their claim that Christ, is the one true Savior of the
world. This is the real and compelling
evidence that Christ can, indeed, redeem, not only the soul, but the believer’s
quality of heart and life as well.
Thus,
New Testament believers are reborn to be a truly Christ-renewed people, a
people slated to ascend far beyond the antiquity of the mere practice of
religion to the rarified atmosphere of a warm, amiable and deeply involved daily
relationship with God. This is God’s
simple restorative plan. And what, after
all, could possibly be better, more natural, or more fulfilling.
“As
God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God. And they shall be My people.’” What Paul describes with these words is nothing more
and nothing less than a transformative friendship with God – made so through
the sharing of all of life’s needs, issues, challenges, victories, heartbreaks
and achievements.
It
is a shared daily journey ever steeped in love and distinctly marked by a
growing heart-oneness with God. And, all
of this daily closeness ultimately results in a mature relationship which is made
both durable and mutually fulfilling to God and man by the sustaining
sufficiency of the Living Christ.
I
saw this faith journey work it’s wondrous work in the life of my friend, Aaron
from beginning to end. And, I have
personally encountered tens of thousands of others who are experiencing the
same.
And,
long before these contemporary generations, multitudes have preceded us in this
transformative daily walk with God.
Indeed, the world should well-know by now that God absolutely keeps His
promise of a Christ-enabled newness of heart and life – if we will simply allow
Him to do so, if our individual faith is big enough to comprehend the worth of
this divine gift and pursue it with abandonment.
So,
the redemptive overview is just not that complicated. God is simply about the daily business,
through Christ, of creating truly meaningful and absolutely trustworthy
interpersonal relationships with those who would share His Heaven. And the real line of demarcation between
those who will and those who will not do so is the willingness to seriously
invest in the creation of that intimate daily friendship with God.
And,
Christ left a clear conformation of that necessity as being the supremely
important pursuit of this life when He said this. “Not
everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but
he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will
say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast
out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And
then I will declare to them, ‘I never *knew you; depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness!’” [* Knew:
in the Greek: Genosco = A deep and intimate awareness - as in a vibrant
interpersonal friendship.]
Our redemption has a spectacular beginning point as we
wholeheartedly surrender to the Lordship of Christ. And, from that point, the authentic flow of
our redemption is ever toward a growing “heart-oneness” with our loving
Creator. And this validating
relational journey springs from a Living Christ-involved relational
discovery process across a lifetime of days. For God, redemption is ultimately always about a
substantial inter-personal relationship – as Jesus clearly indicates above.
Thus,
our matchless Savior, as both the Dying and the Living Christ has brought us
full circle to finally make the Heavenly Father’s long cherished hope for His
people to be a truly vibrant and unfailing reality. It is this hope. “And you shall love the
Lord, your God, with all your heart.”
Promise Kept - Part 2
The Larger Picture
“For
you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the
Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” ~Romans 8:15
~ The Adoptive Journey: The reality is this. The adoptive journey which finally establishes
us as true children of God is a really long one. Indeed, it is much longer than
most estimate and much more sophisticated than that majority is commonly willing
to admit – even at this late hour of redemptive history.
The
divine adoptive process for mankind does not begin on the night of that first
Christmas. It does not begin in the
Garden of Eden. It does not even begin
with these words, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.”
~ The Headwaters: The real headwaters of mankind’s relationship
with God actually lie in the moment, far back in the eons, when God’s graceful
heart determined to establish a higher plane of existence, a consummate reality
which would be perfect in every way. It
was to be a wondrous life plane that was entirely joyous for its inhabitants, and
completely stable and enduring in its forever existence. It was to be “Heaven.”
~ The Outflows: And, God’s now clearly expressed intention
for this consummate dimension of life is to appropriately populate it with
worthy creatures who rightly belong in this rarified metaphysical environment. And, it was this divine intention which, in
turn, actually gave birth to this present physical dimension of reality and,
indeed, the existence of the human species, itself.
~ An Accommodation: The primary purpose of this physical
dimension of life is to accommodate the populating of that that higher
plain. And, the simple reality is that this
divine intention to populate the Heavenly Reality necessarily involves a selection
process which does, indeed, key on the worthiness of the human candidate.
~The Basis of Worthiness: In a nutshell,
that worthiness rises and falls on an easily understood criteria. It is simply
determined by one’s good-faith embrace of the Lordship of Jesus Christ which,
in turn, prescribes an amiable redemptive relationship with Him that is thoroughly
transformative and preparatory for that higher life plane.
~ The Superseding Purpose: So, while there are many lesser purposes involved
in this present physical life plane, the supremely consequential purpose of
this present reality actually revolves around that metaphysical plane of life. This present physical life is simply the
space given to humanity to individually decide whether or not to seriously
pursue the wondrous bliss of that higher reality through a vibrant daily relationship
with Christ.
~ The Varied Human Response: Obviously, some individuals will choose,
in the course of this physical life, to devotedly embrace this interpersonal
daily walk with the Savior. And
certainly, others will choose to simply ignore this opportunity for a true
newness of heart and life.
And
still others will prefer a more twisted middle course, choosing rather to
follow their own self-determined theological delusions of the nature of what
redemption involves. These will choose, in
various ways, to intellectually corrupt God’s criteria of worthiness, often to
the point of absurdity, in favor of their own easier, and less invested ideas. So obviously, it’s these varied human responses
to God’s benevolent offer to make us truly new through Christ which gives rise
to the need for divine selection.
~ An Immutable Necessity: But while the
human response to God’s authentic redemptive offer may vary; nevertheless, this
remains true. As surly as the
caterpillar must become a butterfly to reach its divinely prescribed fulfillment
as a creature. So also, in the course of
one’s normal, unabridged lifespan, must the human creature experience a
similar core metamorphosis through Christ.
Thus,
Jesus would express this sentiment recorded in the New Testament. “Enter in at the strait gate: for wide is
the gate, and broad is the way, which leads to destruction, and many there be
which go in there. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which
leads to life, and few there be that find it.”
This
statement indicates the Lord’s keen awareness of the challenging redemptive
reality which all New Testament believers would face. He was very cognizant of the false teachings,
the material distractions, and the personal druthers which would beset the
individual believer.
~ The Present Widespread Mistake:
The sad contemporary
reality is that far too many in the modern Church do not view this ultimate
redemptive intention of God, a believer’s profound personal transformation, as
a precious opportunity. Instead, an
attitude of nonchalance is often the response to this invaluable gift of
newness.
Sadly,
many believers are happy to simply function as they did before their embraced
the Lordship of Christ. They merely
continue to live in a self-determined, self-indulgent way – essentially removing
God from the broader context of their lives, limiting Him only to their more convenient,
needy, and/ or desperate moments.
~ But When Faith Truly Blossoms:
The New
Testament promises believers a new birth and a resulting new and abundant inner
and outer life quality. And, when we actually
embrace, as devout believers, this God-prescribed and Living Christ empowered
redemptive life-course, spectacular changes do, indeed, begin to occur.
A heightened
sense of God-awareness blossoms in our psyche.
And, flowing out of that heightened sensitivity to the divine heart, a wondrous
process of relational discovery begins. And,
Jesus clearly described the end result of that process as He prayed to the
Father for His faithful followers on one occasion.
At
that time, He said this. “I do not
pray for these alone, [those followers standing immediately before him] but
also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be
one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in
Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I
have given them, that they may be one just as We are one…” [Brackets
Added]
So, our
redemption does, indeed, have a spectacular beginning point as we wholeheartedly
surrender to the Lordship of Christ.
And, from that wondrous beginning, the natural, Living Christ-driven flow
of our redemption is ever toward a growing “heart-oneness” with our loving
Creator. And the reality
of this validating relational process then recreates
us over time as true and deeply devoted children of God.
