”...holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience.”
-Holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. This is a lengthy descriptor, but the focus here is on this idea of a pure, or a clean, conscience. Paul talks about this quite a bit (2Timothy 1.3; Acts 23.1, 24.16; 1Timothy 1.5) - this is one of the desired outcomes of our instruction, of all our much ado about Jesus. A pure conscience is my internal sense of right and wrong telling me that I have done my level best to do everything right - including making it right when I didn’t quite do it right. ‘Cuz nobody’s perfect. We all mess up. We all make mistakes. But I can fess up when I mess up. I can apologize. I can make restitution. And I can always endeavor to do the right thing, even and especially when no one is looking or the cards appear to be stacked against me.
-The challenge becomes living this way and serving a Master Who knows all and sees all when in fact you don’t see Him. We're entering this realm of the mysterious. Doing the right thing even when you don’t totally understand or have all the answers. Doing what you know is right even when it may not make sense from a worldly standpoint. And serving and laying it down for a King and a Kingdom which you cannot see may not make sense - but the eyes of faith fill in the gaps and make sense of what is unseen. Faith supplies the requisite assurance and conviction of things not seen such that I am ready and eager to do it right, to do right by the God Who is, and to live into what He wants, even and especially when it conflicts with what the world and the enemy and my flesh might want. To live for Him and serve others for His sake. Those who live and serve like this, who do it right and make it right and cultivate this conscience clean and pure, these are the ones who would make good deacons - those who have demonstrated the kind of sincere faith, a genuine relationship with the Lord such that they are motivated to serve and to do what is good and right not as a meritorious work or out of guilt but rather because they want to please the God Who is and Who sees while being unseen.
-And while faith solves mysteries and sees through that which is unseen, there yet remains an element of mystery to our faith. We serve a God of mystery, sublime Majesty, lofty high and exalted, a God of wonders, unfathomable wondrous works without number (Job 9.10), wonderful impossibles, great and unsearchable things (Job 5.9), Who has prepared for those who love Him what no eye has seen and no ear has heard and no mind has conceived (1Corinthians 2.9). As Elihu said to his friend Job, “Stand and consider the wonders of God” (Job 37.14). Indeed - stand, be still, and know that He is almighty God, and there is no other (Psalm 46.10). There is no one like Him - incomprehensible, inapproachable, inscrutible - apart from His benevolent, gracious revelation and intervention. And even then, the mystery of the Infinite Eternal remains, embraced by faith yet never completely revealed or uncovered or understood this side of eternity - if ever. His ways are so much higher, and there are secret things which belong only to Him (Deuteronomy 29.29), marvelous mysteries at which even the eyes of faith can only stand back in awe and wonder. This is the deeper magic from before the dawn of time in Narnia, that which confounds the worldy scholar and trips up the cynical skeptic. But your would-be deacons, they’re okay with the hidden things of God, the unsearchable ways, the unanswered questions and the simple faith which declares with Job, “Though He slay me, I will trust in Him” (Job 13.15). Now that’s faith. And it’s NFDO - Not For Deacons Only. Got faith?
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