What I’m not aware of sometimes comes back to bite me.

But I’ve also learned that unintended consequences don’t always have to be bad. They can even be a blessing.

In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the church of God which [was] at Corinth, he unveiled a remarkable outcome of being set apart to God for those bound by the marriage covenant.

“For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband, for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy… For how do you know, O wife, whether you shall save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you shall save your wife?” [1Cor. 7:14,16] [my emphasis]

[σῴζω: (sō’-zō) to save in regard to Christian salvation; save, rescue, deliver, keep safe, preserve, cure, make well]

[ἁγιάζω: (hâ-gee-âh’-zō) to set apart as sacred to God; make holy or sanctify, consecrate; regard as sacred; purify, cleanse]

It’s interesting that Paul indicated these sentences to be his opinion as opposed to being a revelation from Christ, something he noted in the previous sentence. But that shouldn’t discount the weight of his words. He seems to be suggesting that a bond of mutual purity is just one of the many things the marriage covenant is intended to establish, and that honoring that commitment is, in fact, one avenue to sanctification in itself.

So, do I have the means to actually keep my wife clean? Not necessarily. But I can keep my marriage intact simply by guarding it. And by doing that, I’m preserving her purity and my children’s as well. That’s regarding them as sacred [see: ἁγιάζω above].

However, I’ve learned that becoming holy isn’t a spectator sport. The Spirit sets me apart as I also set myself and my family apart.

It’s a partnership.

To fully grasp how I, as a believing husband, should be able to accomplish this purification process in the sight of God, I must understand the relational paradigm of the family—and particularly how a husband and wife should model themselves after Christ and His church. [see: Eph. 5:25-27; 1Cor. 11:3, 7]

[How can I be like Christ in my marriage? see: A Recipe for Confusion]

Being a Godly father and husband is a tough job. The foundations of our families must be laid, built upon and guarded by holy [see: ἁγιάζω above] husbands in order to keep their families clean, thereby saving them [see σῴζω above] from contamination by the world.

Fathers, don’t let the world diminish your role as a sanctifier!

Wake up, gentlemen.

It won’t be long before it starts surging over the top of the dam. When that happens, you won’t be able to just shut your door and ignore it any more. It’ll quickly invade every part of your home—and your life.

But it’s not like you didn’t see it coming.

You were just hoping it’d go away or that maybe somebody else might come up with a plan to ward off the septic mixture of corruption, immorality, perversion and lawlessness that’ll soon be flowing rampantly in the streets.

It’s too bad you didn’t have the guts to put your foot down, though.

Remember?

When your public school system began testing the waters to see who would object to teaching about and encouraging homosexual behavior among your children, you said, “Well…I’m not so sure we should be doing this.”

And when the school boards decided to appropriate tax dollars to fund programs to enlighten your children and the community to the notion that boys could become girls and girls could become boys if they so desired, you said, “Well, that’s ridiculous…”

But you didn’t say no.

In fact, most fathers couldn’t even to find the time to show up at the school district’s board meetings to express any anger over what was happening. But there were plenty of mothers present whose pleas were arrogantly dismissed.

You didn’t even have sense enough to watch out for yourself.

Because when your state’s regulators and legislative body realized they could siphon off more revenue by legalizing illegal marijuana for recreational use, you said, “Aah…no big deal, I used to smoke some pot.”

You chose to ignore the data that verifies the harmful physical and mental effects of marijuana over time—but more importantly, how the noxious consequences of legalization has eroded the moral fabric of our communities.

Maybe you aren’t actually a pothead, but you’ve been thinking like one.

Because you couldn’t find a reason to be outraged about “health-care professionals” murdering unborn children either. Nor did you and any other male guardians dare come together with a loud voice to insist that your elected officials enforce the unalterable civil statutes which were designed by God to protect them.

Your subtle acceptance of the social malignancy of cohabitation speaks volumes about how little you respect the sacred institution of marriage that God created for us. You caved in to the popular opinion that financial security and actual obedience to Christ’s commands are hardly compatible. You accepted the convenient lie that a legally binding covenant between a man and a woman is merely a formality that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Remember the credible evidence of electoral corruption and ignorance demonstrated at every level of governance a couple of years ago? Your response was pathetic: “Hey, wait a minute…I don’t think they should be able to get a way with that…”

As one of God’s authorized image-bearers who was created to both rule and subdue the Earth, why haven’t you, along with other courageous fathers, demanded [and verified] that integrity be restored to your county’s election process—and everything else, for that matter?

Is it because someone has convinced you that showing a little more love and tolerance in the face of evil will transform you into a more realistic image of Jesus—one your family and the world will like a lot more?

Way to go.

Your children and grandchildren are watching you very closely. And, just in case you were too stoned to notice, they’re establishing moral parameters for making sound decisions based on those observations—just like you did.

When did you abandon the ones you’d once established?

Don’t get me wrong, you’re all for goodness, propriety and justice. The problem is, you refuse to allow any testosterone remaining in your body to eliminate the chronic idleness which enslaves you.

You vacillate between apathy and cowardice. You stay at home with the kids while your wife and a few of her friends take the time to go scold the reprobates sitting on the local school board, or representing you in the state legislature, or to confront any other moral atrocity threatening your community.

It’s time to man up and start throwing sandbags on the dam. If you don’t, you’re not gonna have a chance to prevail over the things you’ve seen coming—let alone destroy them.

Because, once they get over the top, they’re just more water under the bridge.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” [Prov. 12:15]

I appeal to every brother in Christ Jesus.

Unless I first understand and then develop a model of God’s kingdom in my life as His disciple, I can be sure of two things: 1] I’ll be satisfied believing things about the Bible which are simply not true, and 2] the focus of any hope I might have to live again with Him will be seriously misguided.

The very first words spoken by Jesus after He was tempted in the wilderness for forty days as recorded by Matthew and Mark seemed to amplify the immediacy of God’s plan for the ages:

“From that time [on], Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has come near’” [Matt. 4:17]

“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe in the good news.’” [Mk. 1:14-15]

[What does it actually mean to repent? see: Climbing the Ladder of Repentance]

The intended audience of Matthew’s gospel account was largely Jewish. Hence, the phrase “kingdom of the heavens” was recorded instead of “kingdom of God” so as not to offend some of the devout factions of Jews who considered His name so holy that it could not be spoken or written.

However, the desire not to offend has always had a cost. The term “the kingdom of the heavens,” has probably been more misleading than anything over the centuries. For neither Jesus Christ nor any Biblical author ever suggested that resurrected life would exist anywhere outside of God’s kingdom.

The heavens, on the other hand, is a term that defines the unlimited expanse of space in God’s universe and what’s in it. Not only that, the word “Heaven” translated as a proper noun in the Bible is actually recorded in plural form in most instances with an article [i.e., the heavens] in both original languages.

[Greek: οὐρανός: (your-â-nôs) sky, air, firmament; any area above the earth; heaven(s); the place of sun, moon, and stars; heaven in which God dwells.]

[Hebrew: שָׁמַיִם (sha-may-im) from an unused word; heaven, sky]

So Biblical literacy understands “Heaven” or “the heavens” as what exists above us and is somehow able to conceal from us an unseen realm before which the Lord God is currently revealing His purposes. [Eph. 3:10]

His kingdom, though, exists now in a form that is presently being augmented [Lk. 17:21] and will soon be fully inaugurated in glory on the earth [Dan. 12:2; 7:13-14; Rev. 11:15] when Christ Himself returns [1Thes. 4:13-18] to raise the righteous dead! [Ac. 24:14-15; 1Cor. 15:22-23]

I urge Jesus Christ’s disciples to hold teachers and pastors accountable to Biblical accuracy.

[How can I tell what Biblical accuracy is? see: Sharing in the Divine Nature]

His good news calls upon all of us to repent in order to enter into and be partakers of the riches of His inheritance in God’s kingdom [Eph. 1:17-19; Matt. 25:31-34].

[So what’s “inheritance” all about? see: Birthright Through Redemption]

There’s no offer to secure a free ticket to a place called heaven.

How positive was the apostle Paul that he’d be raised from the dead?

It seems that no other man could have ever been more positive based on the Biblical testimony of his conversion and his claims of having had more than one personal revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Why, then, would he have recorded something that seems so uncertain in his letter to the saints in Christ Jesus who [were] in Philippi?

“…[that I might] know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, in some way, I shall attain to the resurrection from among the dead.”  [Phil. 3:10-11]  [my emphasis]

“If, in some way?”  Seriously?

Think about that.  If Paul believed the coming resurrection of the righteous dead wouldn’t include everyone who belongs to Christ, that would contradict what he wrote in his letter to the church in Corinth: 

“For as in Adam all die, so also, in Christ, all shall be made alive.” [1Cor. 15:22]  [my emphasis]

Perhaps the key to understanding his attitude can be found a couple of sentences later:

“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”  [Phil. 3:14]  [my emphasis]

In context, the “upward call” would literally define the voice of Jesus Christ when He calls forth the dead from their tombs.  [see: Jn.5:28-29, 1Cor. 15:51-52, 1Thes. 4:13-18, Rev. 20:1-6]  And the Greek expression “εἴ πως” (ā-pōs) [in Phil. 3:11 above], meaning “if somehow,” or “if, in some way” has to be taken at face value.  The grammar here doesn’t allow for a loose interpretation.  

Consider then that being raised from the dead wasn’t the goal Paul was seeking at all.  That was a certainty, given that he belonged to Christ. [Eph. 1:7-8, 13; 2Cor. 4:13-14]  He wasn’t pressing on for the upward call itself, but rather for God’s prize of that upward call . 

But what exactly was it?  

The grammar in Phil. 3:11 implies that the resurrection will  function on two levels.  The Greek word “ἀνάστασις” [âh-nâ’-stâh-sîs: resurrection] is recorded forty-two times in the New Testament, but only once here in the Accusative Case using the prepositional prefix “ἐξ,” [êks], meaning “out of:”  ἐξανάστασιν.  This suggests that, not only will the dead rise from the dead, but then some will also emerge out of that group to claim a winner’s prize.

Imagine that.  Unlike kid’s soccer today, the winners take the prize!

Remember, everyone who belongs to Christ has already been brought into fellowship with Him on an equal footing. [Gal. 3:26-29]  However, striving not to be disqualified from a race by running to win it rather than to merely finish it was an important concept in Paul’s mind:

“I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.  Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win…but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”  [[1Cor. 9:23-24, 27]  [my emphasis]

Not only that, in his second letter to Timothy, Paul seems to reveal more fully the extent of winning the prize in the race.  It appears that I will live with Christ [be resurrected] if I have died [to sin] with Him.  But there’s a condition to reigning with Him:

“…if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules….for this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory. 

It is a trustworthy statement:  

For if we died with Him, we will also live with Him.

If we endure, we will also reign with Him.  

If we deny Him, He also will deny us.  

If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”  [2Tim. 2:5,10-13]  [my emphasis]

The idea that obedience and hard work will be rewarded proportionally at the coming resurrection of the righteous dead at the end of this age can hardly be disputed.  [see: Dan. 12:2; Matt. 22:1-14]  Some of God’s people will be raised to experience an abundant life—others, shame.  

And indeed, some of them will shine like the brightness of the expanse.

“Therefore, as many as are mature, let us have this attitude.”  [the apostle Paul, Phil. 3:15]