Black Saturday Reflection: Every Day is a Holy Day For the Christian Life
Good Friday 2018 is over and it's now Black Saturday 2018. That means it's just one more day and it will be Easter Sunday. It's such a sad thing that when Black Saturday ends and the Easter sunrise happens that so many people return to being worldly. That's why Lent is really more of a license to hypocrisy. But that's not the Bible way.
Holiness is a characteristic of the Christian life To be holy means to be set apart for God. Just today, I decided to check out my Charles H. Spurgeon devotional which had written this entry dated for March 30:
No, the end of Black Saturday (which is today) should never be the time to end that Lent. Have a true Lent! This doesn't mean not eating meat anymore (unless doctors advise you to due to health problems) but seeking the kind of fast God wants. What kind of fast does God want?
The problem people today have been so focused on the externals like the Pharisees. How often do I see the same people who "mourn" during the Lenten season return to a wicked life almost every day when it's no longer the Lenten season? God has renounced such externalities when the heart is far from him. Self-affliction is not repentance. Going to the Roman Catholic priest for confession of one's sins is not repentance. Going to a Roman Catholic Mass is not repentance. Repentance starts with a change of mind which results to a change in purpose. You can do all the good works to make up for your bad works and not have repented at all. But you can't repent without resulting to the fruits of repentance.
Easter Sunday is coming by tomorrow's sunrise and this should be a reminder. Easter reminds us that you can't receive Jesus Christ as your Savior without Him as your Lord. You can't be saved and remain the same. He had died for your sins so you will be free from them not free to indulge in them. Everyday should be a holy day and not just the days of the holy week.
See also:
Hebrews 12:14-15
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: [15] Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
1 Peter 1:15-16
But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; [16] Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I Am holy.
Holiness is a characteristic of the Christian life To be holy means to be set apart for God. Just today, I decided to check out my Charles H. Spurgeon devotional which had written this entry dated for March 30:
The spouse who fondly loves her absent husband longs for his return; a long protracted separation from her lord is a semi-death to her spirit: and so with souls who love the Saviour much, they must see his face, they cannot bear that he should be away upon the mountains of Bether, and no more hold communion with them. A reproaching glance, an uplifted finger will be grievous to loving children, who fear to offend their tender father, and are only happy in his smile. Beloved, it was so once with you. A text of Scripture, a threatening, a touch of the rod of affliction, and you went to your Father's feet, crying, "Show me wherefore thou contendest with me?" Is it so now? Are you content to follow Jesus afar off? Can you contemplate suspended communion with Christ without alarm? Can you bear to have your Beloved walking contrary to you, because you walk contrary to him? Have your sins separated between you and your God, and is your heart at rest? O let me affectionately warn you, for it is a grievous thing when we can live contentedly without the present enjoyment of the Saviour's face. Let us labour to feel what an evil thing this is-little love to our own dying Saviour, little joy in our precious Jesus, little fellowship with the Beloved! Hold a true Lent in your souls, while you sorrow over your hardness of heart. Do not stop at sorrow! Remember where you first received salvation. Go at once to the cross. There, and there only, can you get your spirit quickened. No matter how hard, how insensible, how dead we may have become, let us go again in all the rags and poverty, and defilement of our natural condition. Let us clasp that cross, let us look into those languid eyes, let us bathe in that fountain filled with blood-this will bring back to us our first love; this will restore the simplicity of our faith, and the tenderness of our heart.
No, the end of Black Saturday (which is today) should never be the time to end that Lent. Have a true Lent! This doesn't mean not eating meat anymore (unless doctors advise you to due to health problems) but seeking the kind of fast God wants. What kind of fast does God want?
Isaiah 58:5-7
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? [6] Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? [7] Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
The problem people today have been so focused on the externals like the Pharisees. How often do I see the same people who "mourn" during the Lenten season return to a wicked life almost every day when it's no longer the Lenten season? God has renounced such externalities when the heart is far from him. Self-affliction is not repentance. Going to the Roman Catholic priest for confession of one's sins is not repentance. Going to a Roman Catholic Mass is not repentance. Repentance starts with a change of mind which results to a change in purpose. You can do all the good works to make up for your bad works and not have repented at all. But you can't repent without resulting to the fruits of repentance.
Easter Sunday is coming by tomorrow's sunrise and this should be a reminder. Easter reminds us that you can't receive Jesus Christ as your Savior without Him as your Lord. You can't be saved and remain the same. He had died for your sins so you will be free from them not free to indulge in them. Everyday should be a holy day and not just the days of the holy week.
See also: