This New Man Idea

I try, best I can, to be candid about my lack of piety (at least with you the reader, if not truly with myself).  I'm not as diligent as I "should" be about reading my Bible...my prayer time is often the few minutes I can focus on the Lord as I drive to work (or the even fewer minutes I can steal away from my cell phone as I run between appointments throughout the work day).  Yet I am continually surprised, regardless of my commitment, by how committed the Lord remains to me.

This morning my wife and her mom took our infant son and my daughter (the oldest) with her on a trip to Richmond for the weekend.  I'm left with the two boys (three and five) to brave the elements together -- a boy's weekend! As they build a fort out of the pillows from the family room couch, I'm also left with more free time on a Saturday morning than I'm usually afforded...and as I try to steer them away from the television, I find myself unable to break my own rules by preparing for the college football day with ESPN - what better time to crack open the Good Book?

On a  hunch I went to our church's website to find today's reading - for those who are better committed - in the "read the bible in a year" plan.  The first, and longest, recommendation comes from Isaiah chapters 48 through 50.  While I am no scholar, I was deeply struck by warnings like, "I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine (Isaiah 49:26)."  I'm sure these can be applied directly to Israel's historical enemies...but isn't it poignant that the Lord's warning is that we will feast upon ourselves...and find the feast sweet?  Grotesque but perfectly on target, for me at least.  Even today, this morning, left to my own designs, how easily can I look inward...how readily can I be lured to my own lustful desires that offer the promise of life, but only result in sluggish destruction?  (Particularly with no good wife to reign me in.)

Contrast that with today's corresponding verse in Ephesians 4:17-24.  The Message calls this "The Old Way Has to Go," but for once my wife's New King James speaks more clearly to my heart when titles this section "The New Man:"

"This I say...that you should no longer walk as the rest of [them] walk, in the futility of their mind...alienated from the life of God...because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness...that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."

Oh that I could keep my heart from being blind!  And to whom is Paul speaking but to me, to us, to the church!?  He doesn't assume that we are living as "new men" but that we need to be encouraged to do so. That we are ABLE to do so!  He recognizes - God recognizes - that we all too readily feast on our own flesh even as we sit at the foot of His table...and so He takes the time to remind us NOT that we are messing up, but that we are CAPABLE of so much more.  That we don't need to look at the feast He has prepared - the desires and promises He offers us - and yet settle for the hyphenated and false desires that would have us drinking our own sweet wine.

He has better wine for us. 

He is faithful to invite me into the new life He promises; inviting me to be the new man He knows and loves.  Does He blame me for my blindness?  Or does He rather understand and shine a light...even offering me new eyes AND a new heart?

Maybe there is more to this "read the Bible every day" thing than just duty and obligation after all.  I think I'd like some more of this...