A New Heart

by Susan Sampson

God made His covenant with Abram.  Abram was asleep and the Lord alone cut the covenant.  Abram did nothing.  He had been an idolator like all the rest of us.  God mercifully chose Abram as He chose each of us. It is God who has to work first.  This is His covenant with us.  In Ezekiel we see one of the most amazing promises in all of Scripture: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek. 36:26-27).

I’m reminded of my recent shoulder surgery.  Just like Abram was asleep as the Lord cut the covenant, I was asleep as the surgeon removed the scar tissue from my shoulder.  This calloused tissue was preventing me from having full range of motion with my arm.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t lift my right arm as high as my left.

The Lord is the Great Physician and He does the very same thing.  “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deut. 30:6).

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Will There Be Taxes in Heaven?

by Scott Kaczorowski

If you are anything like me, you don’t enjoy tax season. There are probably few people who do. Even those of who end up getting refunds still have to go through the process of filling out the paper work (or hiring someone to do it for you), making sure everything is correct, and getting it all sent in before the deadline. And all of this is potentially complicated by the fact that we live under one of the most complex tax systems in history, where sometimes even the tax professionals themselves don’t fully understand it.

But I think that there will be no taxes in heaven. This is not just because, as the lyrics go, “heaven is a wonderful place, filled with glory and grace” and taxes would ruin all that.1 Rather, this thought is based on something Jesus said when He was questioned about paying the temple tax.

When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.” (Matt. 17:24-27)

So Jesus’ reasoning here is that subjects pay taxes, not sons. But in Christ we are sons of the Kingdom: “in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal. 3:26). There would be something incongruent about taxing sons.

But there does appear to be a giving of wealth in heaven: “They will bring into it [the new Jerusalem] the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev. 21:26). But we might very well think of this as the type of freewill offering envisioned in Deuteronomy 16:10: “Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.” The economy of heaven will most likely run on offerings freely given, not a compulsory system of taxation.

Although we are sons of the Kingdom in Christ Jesus, we still have responsibilities in our earthly citizenship. So please don’t misunderstand any of this to mean that you don’t have to pay your taxes here and now. The Lord commands us to pay our taxes (Rom. 13:7). But we can look forward to a day when the most complex tax system in history will be replaced by the freedom of the rule of God. And how amazing it is that the two certain things in this life—death and taxes—will both be abolished in the Kingdom of God!

Footnote:
1Another writer may have made a point like this.

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Compare

by Susan Sampson

“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4).  Do we tend to think lightly of the riches of His kindness to us in Christ?  Thank you, Lord, for reminding me again who I once was and where I once was — without God, without hope, rejected, excluded. and very far off.

Matthew Henry’s words quoted in the recent Who Am I in Christ lecture spoke to my heart: “You should remember what you have been, and compare it with what you now are, in order to humble yourselves and to excite your love and thankfulness to God.” Compare:

Ephesians 2:12 — “remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Ephesians 2:13 — “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

Jesus brought us near.  Jesus brought us in.  Jesus made us one.

I am reminded of a passage from Lesson Seven of the Who Am I in Christ study, “By Grace You Have Been Saved.”  It says, “All we have and all we have become are all from God!  It is because of God’s amazing grace that we have been saved through faith, which is not a result of anything we have done or anything we would do.  Even our faith is a gift, so none of us can boast that we are somehow more holy, more righteous, or more humble than those without faith.  Out of the treasure of His merciful heart, God gave us faith as a gift.” Amazing grace. “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace”  (Rom. 11:6).

Jesus did it all, all to Him I owe.  It is because of this mercy and grace we have been shown that we are moved to love the Lord and one another.  But again, apart from the Lord we could not love with a sacrificial love.  We love because He first loved us (I John 4:19).

God is glorified.  He has done it all.  We were far off.  We were His enemies.  He brought us near.  He brought us in.  He made us one.  One new man, one new body, one Spirit in Christ!

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