The first time where the word “practice” is used in the New Testament is in Matthew 16. In verse 24, Jesus tells his disciples, If anyone desires to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
To follow Jesus means a woman or man chooses to leave behind the desires of the flesh, and choos the Desire of following the sacrificial life and death of Jesus.
Jesus then says in verse 27: For the Son of Man is coming in the Glory of His Father with his angels, and then he will repay each according to his practice.
What we do — literally, our practice — will be revealed.
Jesus uses the noun, “practice.” And it’s singular.
It’s not that our lives are put on some kind of cosmic judgment scale; rather, I think it’s that what we Desire will ultimately be revealed. Not that we live perfectly what we believe, but are we desiring the One True Good, of God — or the imitation goods of this world?
No matter what your mistakes say about you — or, for that matter, your Sunday best — your Practice will be revealed.
And here’s the cool thing. In this saying in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is referencing Psalm 62.11-12 (NASB):
God has spoken once;
Twice I have heard this:
That power belongs to God;
And faithfulness is Yours, Lord,
For You reward a person according to his work (practice).
God has the Power. No one else. God also has the Unfailing Love. And he sees you, he sees your walk, he sees your stumbles, he sees you — through the perspective of his powerful, unfailing love.
Our faith is not in our practice. But we practice, we do, we live, because of the One who is faithful — and in whom we put our faith. The one who is perfectly to be desired. For he is the God who has walked the path, carried the cross, lived the Practice we could not. He has died the death we needed, to overcome our broken desires and the Power of Sin that has overwhelmed and dominated us and our world.
And by walking out of that tomb, Jesus defeated our deathly desires — and in him, we find the answer to our deepest longings. For what we need, what we Desire, what we have got to have is life. It’s found in Jesus
And is there any better time than now to turn from desires, to Pure Desire?
These are some extra thoughts that didn’t make it into a recent message I shared on the “little-d” desires that consume us, vs. the True Desire we have been made for. To hear me share more around this theme — including how all this fits in with hungry pigs, western prairie dogs, and leaky boats, scroll up and give a listen.
Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash
