Is Life Our School?

It's that time again. Students, some of them reluctant, are heading back to classes. All the school supplies have been purchased and the names of the children enrolled. I dare say that many parents are glad to have the house to themselves during the day too.

I liken this world as our boarding school where we are prepared by God to enter heaven. Sanctification is the ongoing process of making us like Christ. As with microwave cooking, it works from the inside out. That's why we seem half baked to the world.

Through the Bible, we can see a progression from the primary law given from God to Moses to the advanced teaching of the apostles. Look at what Paul wrote in Galatians 3:24 (KJV), "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Though Old Testament saints were justified by their trust in God, the law guided their understanding.

Christ's sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit have allowed us to advance from rule-keeping to intuitive principles of obedience and love. Paul continued his thought in Galatians 3:25 (KJV) when he explained, "But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

Christ also obeyed the law perfectly, the first person on earth to do so. As Hebrews 5:8 (KJV) states, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;" This is our example on how we should obey God.

When Christ returns, this school of hard knocks will be over. I long for his appearing like I yearned to go home from Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind. As I joyfully returned to my parents and siblings during Summer, Christmas, and three Easters, so will those who place their trust in Christ go to our heavenly Father at death or when Christ returns.

By the way, I wrote about how I was sent to that blind school for six years and how I coped with that exile. Write to me for details regarding my memoir of those days.