Part One     Part Two     Part Three

Being Intentional

When you intend to do something — some people today call that “being intentional” — you might plan it or schedule it.  Does scripture regulate or legislate intentionality?  This thing of being intentional even has a definition:  “making deliberate choices to reflect what is most important to us.”  King David begins Psalm 101 with intentionality:

1 I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O Lord, will I sing.

2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. O when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart.

3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.

When you intend to do it, you might schedule it.  That’s good.  It’s how you ‘redeem the time’ (Eph 5:16).  How do you seek something first?  You’ve got to move it up in priority on purpose.  You will and then do of God’s good pleasure.  This is sanctification.  It’s how you keep something holy.

If I want to ensure I do something, I put it on a “to-do” list.  For the year, I write those actions on a calendar.  For an entire church, as a church leader, I have a church calendar.  What goes on that calendar?  I could put a “Jumper Day” on the calendar with intentionality.  Jumpers are those inflatable fun houses, serving as a kind of trampoline.  Let’s say instead, I intentionally schedule into the year of the church a spiritual emphasis.  Let’s call it a “liturgical calendar.”  Every year the church emphasizes scriptural events in the life of Christ and other biblical themes.

Using the Calendar

The Psalms are a guide for writing hymns.  The prayers of the Bible are a guide for what to pray.  In the Old Testament, God weaves into the year a means by which Israel will remember what God did.  This included the weekly Sabbath and then festivals.  This is a model, not for continuing to follow a Hebrew calendar, but for what to do with a calendar.

Israel began to observe also an event the occurred after the completion of the Old Testament, the Feast of Dedication.  It celebrated an event in the intertestamental period. Israel then added that Feast to the Hebrew calendar.  Jesus too observed the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22ff).  Like the other Feasts, the Feast of Dedication helped Israel remember what God did in saving Israel during the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Macccabees.

The New Testament church schedules services on Sunday.  Scripture doesn’t say how many, but many churches meet three times on Sunday:  Sunday School, Sunday morning, and then Sunday evening.  They might hold a midweek time too.  Through example, scripture regulates a Sunday gathering for the elements of New Testament worship.  It does not regulate how many meetings.

Keeping Holy

A believer can keep his speech holy.  He can keep his deeds holy.  A true Christian can keep his thoughts holy.  He can also keep his motives holy.

Paul says the believer can yield his members, his body parts, as instruments of righteousness unto God or yield them as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin (Romans 6:13).  Yielding his body parts as instruments of righteousness unto God is how he presents his body holy unto God (Romans 12:1).  Someone can “worship God in the spirit” (Philippians 3:3) or not do that.

Sanctification in the Truth

Sanctification in the truth starts with thinking and understanding what God says in His Word.  More than a hearer, he must also be a doer.  This requires volition, a readiness of will.  It also means a delight in what God said, a holy affection.

Sanctification in the New Testament follows the example of Jesus.  In John 17:19, Jesus prayed to God the Father:

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

Jesus provided the perfect example to follow, and the Apostle John writes in his first epistle (2:6):

He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

Walking as Jesus walked is not arbitrary.  It is looking to the scriptural example of Jesus.  Also as John Owen wrote:

To see the Glory of Christ is the grand blessing which our Lord solicits and demands for his disciples in his last solemn intercession, John 17: 24.

The Glory of Christ

In 2 Corinthians 4:6, regarding sanctification, the Apostle Paul writes:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

A church centers on the Person of Jesus Christ and Christ changes the church by its seeing of Him.  To conform to the image of the Son a church must see the image of the Son.

I’m contending for purposeful, intentional seeing, thinking, and understanding the glory of Christ.  The New Testament emphasizes certain events in Christ’s life.  To be sanctified by the example of Jesus, to walk as He walked, and to see His glory, you must focus on Him.  Jesus appeared on earth in real history in real time.  He was here.  In His time here, He accumulated important events in His life.  The gospels, Acts, the epistles, and Revelation talk all about them.  Put those on the calendar.

Keep Your Year Holy

Validity and Value

Don’t emphasize the events of Christ’s life according to their traditional dates on the calendar.  Do emphasize them on their traditional dates.  I like my emphasis on the calendar better than your no emphasis.

Putting the events of Christ’s life and other important biblical themes on your calendar is a way to keep your year holy.  I’m saying there is a value to it.  It is a means by which to accomplish many requirements for the believer from the New Testament.  It’s not the putting it on a calendar that accomplishes the seeing, thinking, and understanding of the truth.  It is the actual doing of seeing, thinking, and understanding.

Words mean things.  The keeping in keeping something holy means something.  This year I handed out a Bible reading calendar.  Scripture doesn’t regulate the calendar I handed out.  The calendar is how someone might keep things holy.  Someone can have a calendar and remain unholy.  I’m saying a calendar is valid and of value.

Remember and Emphasize

I didn’t hand out a fun-time-a-day calendar to our church.  Our calendar did have one verse for each week for scripture memory. Scripture doesn’t regulate that.  Does scripture regulate scripture memory?  I’m guessing people won’t be arguing over a Bible reading calendar and a scripture memory calendar.  Neither are in the Bible.

Believers should assume that they can keep something holy.  They are told to keep things holy.  Yes, in the Old Testament God instructs Israel to keep the Sabbath holy (Exodus 20:8).  By what I read some people write, you might think that I’m writing this series for the purpose of keeping the word “Christmas” holy or keeping a date for Christ’s birth holy.  I’ve not written anything like that.

I believe it’s been clear what I’m advocating.  Some argue against it with what seems to be red herrings and straw men.  I say, let’s be purposeful about remembering or emphasizing the events of Christ’s life during the year.  A church can schedule more than that, but I support the use of a liturgical calendar to keep the church year holy.