It's been well over a month since I last posted. There is reasoning behind this, and I hope to get back on track now.
The reason I haven't posted in a while is because some people got upset over some things that I have posted, and I had to wrestle with the idea of "Is it okay to talk about my past to total strangers?"
Yes.
Acts 5.29: But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than man."
Galatians 1.10: For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
1 Thessalonians 2.4: but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.
1 Corinthians 15.10: By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me has not been without effect
There's a lot more verse I could use to make my point, but these will suffice.
The reason I point out these verses is because there are a lot of times where what I preach will probably be offensive to people. The things I talk about people will tell me I should keep to myself. I speak about my past a lot, and I have a rough one. Not that my family was poor, or that I lived in a car for months on end. but there have just been situations, some I was unwillingly put in, and many that I created myself, that many believe I should not talk about. Ever. But why is that? To guard the reputation of a church or minister? Or make sure people don't know that a "man of God" has been to the other side and wasn't always a perfect lil church boy?
I'm in the camp that we all have choices to make, and I've made plenty of choices in my life, most of them bad. But God can take any bad thing and turn it around for his purpose (Rom. 8.28). And because he uses all things for his purpose it is by his grace that I am who I am, that I am redeemed, that I have been liberated from the bondage of slavery to sin, and that I am now alive in Christ, having been brought back from death that is sin.
So if I speak on my past, it is because God has pulled me out of that pit of filth and it has become a part of my witness. And I am called to witness. The difference (for me) between witness and evangelism is that evangelism is presenting the gospel, while witness is presenting the effects of the gospel in my life. And we all are called to witness.
So if I offend you with something I say, good. The gospel is offensive. Christ is offensive. The truth is offensive.
My past no longer effects me. There are still things that I wrestle with, as do we all, but the old me is dead. No longer do I live in my past nor am I tied to it, but it is a part of me and has made me into who I am today. And all of that is by the grace of God, for his glory.
Find what God can use in you and your past for his glory. And don't be scared to be transparent.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
And Your Point Is?
I may be going on a rant here, but I think there is some truth behind what I'm going to be talking about today.
Also, I apologize for the lack of posting lately, been a busy guy and also had some things I had to deal with.
I got class this week, Old Testament Research. It's a required course else I wouldn't be taking it. But one thing that we're dealing with is authorship of the OT. This issue of authorship is highly apologetic, and has some theological conversations come from it, but as for practicality I believe there is not much use for that conversation. So we sit here in class and argue about who wrote the Pentateuch, who wrote Isaiah, and a bunch of other issues along those lines. Interesting conversation, but we're missing the point of scripture. It's not so much as who wrote it, but who it is written about.
The main character of the entire Bible is God. His character is described on every page, his love is dripping off of every letter, his majesty is proclaimed in every book. The main point of the Bible is that God loves us and that he reigns.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Yes, there are some thing that should be discussed about the Bible, authors, discrepancies, does it have errors? These are questions for greater minds than mine. My main concern is that I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that he uses it to speak to us and reveal himself to us, and that is the main thing.
This is a short one tonight, but I wanted to get that out of the way. God is the center of all, and that should be remembered in all we do, especially when we study the Word.
Also, I apologize for the lack of posting lately, been a busy guy and also had some things I had to deal with.
I got class this week, Old Testament Research. It's a required course else I wouldn't be taking it. But one thing that we're dealing with is authorship of the OT. This issue of authorship is highly apologetic, and has some theological conversations come from it, but as for practicality I believe there is not much use for that conversation. So we sit here in class and argue about who wrote the Pentateuch, who wrote Isaiah, and a bunch of other issues along those lines. Interesting conversation, but we're missing the point of scripture. It's not so much as who wrote it, but who it is written about.
The main character of the entire Bible is God. His character is described on every page, his love is dripping off of every letter, his majesty is proclaimed in every book. The main point of the Bible is that God loves us and that he reigns.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Yes, there are some thing that should be discussed about the Bible, authors, discrepancies, does it have errors? These are questions for greater minds than mine. My main concern is that I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that he uses it to speak to us and reveal himself to us, and that is the main thing.
This is a short one tonight, but I wanted to get that out of the way. God is the center of all, and that should be remembered in all we do, especially when we study the Word.
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Grand Ol' Topic of Faith
Something I'm big on is faith. Now this doesn't mean I believe in faith only salvation, I believe in Christ only salvation, that is, only from Christ does salvation come. It's not baptism that saves, it's not faith that saves, it's Jesus that saves. You want to argue about how that salvation comes about, have at it. Just don't tell me I'm wrong unless you're willing to admit you're wrong. But that's all besides the point.
I think faith does a lot. Others will say it doesn't, but then I have to counter with scripture and show them that it does. What I mean is that faith requires action.
James 2 is a favorite chapter of mine. First off James tells us not to show favoritism between people. Now there is a difference between showing favoritism and helping people who need it. I give some people more time than others, but that's because those particular people actually need it. I've had people try to take my time who only wanted it, which would have taken it away from the people who needed it, and I chose those who were in need over those who just wanted. A child who breaks their arm needs more attention than a child with a paper cut. That's the mentality that I had, and I think it worked and was still in line with what James is talking about there.
But then moving on to the next passage in the chapter, James talks about how faith without works is dead. This is what I really want to get into today. This tends to be something I come to a lot because I see this problem a lot.
There's a preacher that said one time something along the lines of, "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian just as sitting in a garage doesn't make you a car." I just tried to find the source and failed, but someone did note on that idea that a more appropriate phrase would be, "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage would make you a mechanic." This I think is more spot on. Going to church can, over time, bring you into true Christianity, just as being at a shop could slowly turn you into a mechanic.
I've talked about my mechanic friend before and I've had this happen to me. I hung around, watched, had some people show me how to do some things, and I'm no mechanic, but I can change oil and brakes and do a few other easy things. That's what we call the discipleship process. A master teaches an apprentice so that the apprentice can become self sufficient enough to eventually become a master and do the same.
So what does this do with faith?
You have faith, you want to do something about it, you find someone older and wiser who has been in the faith a while, and follow them, learn from them, grow to the point where you can do like wise. That's what Jesus did, that's what he told us to do, that's how the Church really got kicked off in Acts, those are the people that followed Paul, and that's what a lot of churches today have lost.
Faith has to lead to action. It's not always discipleship though, some people think that only good works matter. "I tithe every week, I pray, I read my bible, I give extra to the homeless, I volunteer at a food pantry, I even lead a bible study for people in the church." That's all great. And I have no problem with that. But how many people have you helped lead to Christ? How many non-Christians do you tell of the Gospel? Your faith breeds actions, which is good, but does it breed discipleship?
I guess what I'm saying is that Faith without works is dead. But what works need to happen? What works show that you have faith? Why do works show that you have faith? I'll try to answer these three questions real quick.
Why do works show that you have faith?
Let's say you love someone, boyfriend, girlfriend, parents, whatever. You tell them to their face, "I love you." But then when they're around you ignore them, never do anything to make their life just a tad bit easier, never show them that you love them in anyway possible. Is that love then? No. Same goes for faith. You say you believe God exists, that Jesus is his son and died for your sins, and you say you accept him as your savior and Lord. But you act no different from before that faith and after it. You still complain about everything because you're life is sooooo terrible. You still pick on people, mouth off to your parents, give your younger siblings hell, break laws, and really just do whatever you want because you're grown and no one can tell you what do to. Do you really have faith then? If you did believe all of that then you couldn't help but change your life because of what Christ did for you.
What works show you have faith/ what works need to happen?
As I said, yes, there are easy things to do in response of having faith. We can give, we can volunteer, we can lead Bible studies, what have you, but serving can turn out to be pretty easy. For most people that's in their comfort zone, and others it's just on the edge of growth. I serve a lot, because I enjoy it. I don't do it for praise for myself, I don't do it because I think it'll show my faith. I do it because I want to love everyone as God does, and it doesn't matter who needs help I'll go out of my way to help them whether I like them or not, because I show no favoritism. But that's not me showing my faith. Me showing my faith is sitting down with a believer or non-believer and giving them time, not service, but time, even if I don't know them. I show interest in them because I am interested in them. We'll talk about whatever, maybe we'll get to a topic about Christ, maybe we won't. Doesn't matter. But I actually care about that person and that's what matters. I may not know the person like I said, but they're as much one of God's children as I am, they just may be lost, or they may not. I have that faith that Christ died for me, but not only for me but for them also. And I live on that faith.
So go out, and live your faith.
Monday, July 28, 2014
You've Already Been Paid For
You and your family decide you want a dog. You're not worried about breed, sex, color, none of that, you just want a dog. So you up and go to the pound, might as well save one right? You go in there with intent and a purpose. "I want a dog." You're looking through the choices and find the one that you want, picking it out. To take this dog home though you have to pay X amount of dollars. It's worth it to you because you and your family want a dog that bad. If you don't do all these things, taking time, picking out a dog, and paying for it, the dog will be put down.
You have just redeemed a dog.
Redemption is a word that we use in church that isn't always understood. I think this dog analogy works great for the idea of redemption. But to put it even plainer I'll do a couple more examples.
You redeem coupons, giving them to someone in exchange for something.
You redeem a wage, working throughout the week in exchange for money.
You redeem items, giving someone money for that particular item.
Redeeming things is a lot like bartering. I have this, I think it is worth this much. You have that, and it's worth this much, we can trade these things, I give you this, you give me that. I just redeemed that with this.
In the Old Testament God goes to a man Hosea and says, "You're going to go marry a prostitute." So Hosea obeys. They marry, have some kids, then his wife (Gomer) runs away back to her old life. God comes back to Hosea and says, "Go get her back. It's going to cost money, but it doesn't matter. Go get her." With God telling Hosea to do this it can be assumed that maybe Hosea didn't want her back. And if her own husband didn't want her back, why would anyone else really want her? But he goes and pays to get her back, despite the fact that he has to pay for what is already his. She was already his wife, yet he had to go buy her back. He had to go redeem her from her old life to bring her into the new one. But Hosea got off easy. Yes he had to pay something for what was already his, but you can't really place value on a human life, so whatever he paid to have her back was less than he should have paid.
God had to do the same thing as Hosea, he had to redeem us. Last time we talked about sin. We see throughout scripture, and right now Romans is coming to mind, that we are slaves to sin. Sin owns us. We can do nothing that sin doesn't tell us to do. That is essentially what it means to be a slave to sin.
Yet we are God's creation, his masterpiece. But he still had to buy us back. So what he did was sent his son, putting on flesh and bone, to come and pay for our sin. Romans 6.23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, that is sin is paid for with death. You work a job, getting paid $8.00/hr for 20 hours a week. Before taxes that's $160/week. Those are your wages, money you have earned for the time and work you have done. Exact same concept with this verse. We have done sin, one single sin, and we have earned death for it. Our actions have only gained us death. But the rest of the verse says that the free gift of God is life, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
We have been offered a free gift of life, countering the wages of sin that we have rightfully earned. The gift of grace and life is free to us, but it cost God something so that he could reclaim us. It cost him his son. Jesus was the currency paid so that we could be brought back to God and be redeemed, so that we can be reconciled and receive grace and life.
God paid for us, his own creation, with his sons life.
That's like if Bill Gates wanted a computer that ran Windows, he would have to give up his firstborn for it. It's already his, he's the one that started Windows. Why should he have to give up his son for it?
Well why would God have to give up his son for us then?
So by now you should have an idea of what redemption is, but I want to get a little further into what it does.
Ephesians 2.8 says that we have been saved by grace. We can change the word saved there to redeemed. (I've talked about this before and haven't been struck by lightning so I think I'm good.) So then we have been redeemed by grace, or the grace of God. This is saying that God did all of the work.
This grace of God allows us to be redeemed then.
He had enough love for us to be merciful to us despite our sin.
He had enough mercy on us to not just straight up kill us but instead to extend grace to us (seen in Titus 2.11)
And he had enough grace for us to save us from our sin which is death (Hebrews 2.9 is a fitting reference here).
How he saved us then was with his son Jesus, bring us back to the idea of redemption.
But just above I stated that grace has been extended to all. This means that we all have a chance to take it, but not everyone does. Read Titus 2.11 and tell me that God has extended grace to everyone. And it is grace that saves/redeems us. All we have to do is consciously take it, you cannot accidentally accept the grace of God.
Well how do you accept it? It's been said, "Grace is free, but not cheap." This is a true statement. Grace is a free gift of God. If it wasn't free then we'd have to give something of equal value for it or else it's a steal, and you can't steal from God. But we don't have anything of equal value of God's grace. That's why it's free. But it's not cheap, it costs us everything. What do I mean by that?
When I got baptized at school, I was talking with a professor about it and he told me that the only thing that we own is our sin. This is also a true statement. Think about it. You die right now, what goes with you? Your cell phone? Nope. Friends? Nope. Clothes, money, xbox, dog, bed, boyfriend, girlfriend? Nope to all of the above. Not even your body is yours, you cannot control what it does. From the time you're born it starts to die and you can do nothing to stop it, only further it along.
The only thing you'll take with you after life is your sin, because no one gave that to you. You chose that for yourself. That is all that you own, that is everything you have, most people find their very identity in their sin. I used to always put relationships before God and I found my identity in that. That was my sin, and it controlled and owned me, much as I owned it because it was mine, and I chose to do those things. Yet to receive this grace we must repent of our sin, turning our back to our own lives and handing all we own to God.
For our sin he gives us grace, and by his grace we are redeemed.
Yet he gave us his son for our sin, giving something invaluable for something worth less than excrement in the yard.
This is what it means to be redeemed.
You pay for your dog, you bring it home, and becomes part of your family, it's valuable to you.
God has already paid for you, and he asks that you come join his family, leaving your past life behind, giving him all you own so that you can find joy in this new life, joining his family.
You have just redeemed a dog.
Redemption is a word that we use in church that isn't always understood. I think this dog analogy works great for the idea of redemption. But to put it even plainer I'll do a couple more examples.
You redeem coupons, giving them to someone in exchange for something.
You redeem a wage, working throughout the week in exchange for money.
You redeem items, giving someone money for that particular item.
Redeeming things is a lot like bartering. I have this, I think it is worth this much. You have that, and it's worth this much, we can trade these things, I give you this, you give me that. I just redeemed that with this.
In the Old Testament God goes to a man Hosea and says, "You're going to go marry a prostitute." So Hosea obeys. They marry, have some kids, then his wife (Gomer) runs away back to her old life. God comes back to Hosea and says, "Go get her back. It's going to cost money, but it doesn't matter. Go get her." With God telling Hosea to do this it can be assumed that maybe Hosea didn't want her back. And if her own husband didn't want her back, why would anyone else really want her? But he goes and pays to get her back, despite the fact that he has to pay for what is already his. She was already his wife, yet he had to go buy her back. He had to go redeem her from her old life to bring her into the new one. But Hosea got off easy. Yes he had to pay something for what was already his, but you can't really place value on a human life, so whatever he paid to have her back was less than he should have paid.
God had to do the same thing as Hosea, he had to redeem us. Last time we talked about sin. We see throughout scripture, and right now Romans is coming to mind, that we are slaves to sin. Sin owns us. We can do nothing that sin doesn't tell us to do. That is essentially what it means to be a slave to sin.
Yet we are God's creation, his masterpiece. But he still had to buy us back. So what he did was sent his son, putting on flesh and bone, to come and pay for our sin. Romans 6.23 tells us that the wages of sin is death, that is sin is paid for with death. You work a job, getting paid $8.00/hr for 20 hours a week. Before taxes that's $160/week. Those are your wages, money you have earned for the time and work you have done. Exact same concept with this verse. We have done sin, one single sin, and we have earned death for it. Our actions have only gained us death. But the rest of the verse says that the free gift of God is life, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
We have been offered a free gift of life, countering the wages of sin that we have rightfully earned. The gift of grace and life is free to us, but it cost God something so that he could reclaim us. It cost him his son. Jesus was the currency paid so that we could be brought back to God and be redeemed, so that we can be reconciled and receive grace and life.
God paid for us, his own creation, with his sons life.
That's like if Bill Gates wanted a computer that ran Windows, he would have to give up his firstborn for it. It's already his, he's the one that started Windows. Why should he have to give up his son for it?
Well why would God have to give up his son for us then?
So by now you should have an idea of what redemption is, but I want to get a little further into what it does.
Ephesians 2.8 says that we have been saved by grace. We can change the word saved there to redeemed. (I've talked about this before and haven't been struck by lightning so I think I'm good.) So then we have been redeemed by grace, or the grace of God. This is saying that God did all of the work.
This grace of God allows us to be redeemed then.
He had enough love for us to be merciful to us despite our sin.
He had enough mercy on us to not just straight up kill us but instead to extend grace to us (seen in Titus 2.11)
And he had enough grace for us to save us from our sin which is death (Hebrews 2.9 is a fitting reference here).
How he saved us then was with his son Jesus, bring us back to the idea of redemption.
But just above I stated that grace has been extended to all. This means that we all have a chance to take it, but not everyone does. Read Titus 2.11 and tell me that God has extended grace to everyone. And it is grace that saves/redeems us. All we have to do is consciously take it, you cannot accidentally accept the grace of God.
Well how do you accept it? It's been said, "Grace is free, but not cheap." This is a true statement. Grace is a free gift of God. If it wasn't free then we'd have to give something of equal value for it or else it's a steal, and you can't steal from God. But we don't have anything of equal value of God's grace. That's why it's free. But it's not cheap, it costs us everything. What do I mean by that?
When I got baptized at school, I was talking with a professor about it and he told me that the only thing that we own is our sin. This is also a true statement. Think about it. You die right now, what goes with you? Your cell phone? Nope. Friends? Nope. Clothes, money, xbox, dog, bed, boyfriend, girlfriend? Nope to all of the above. Not even your body is yours, you cannot control what it does. From the time you're born it starts to die and you can do nothing to stop it, only further it along.
The only thing you'll take with you after life is your sin, because no one gave that to you. You chose that for yourself. That is all that you own, that is everything you have, most people find their very identity in their sin. I used to always put relationships before God and I found my identity in that. That was my sin, and it controlled and owned me, much as I owned it because it was mine, and I chose to do those things. Yet to receive this grace we must repent of our sin, turning our back to our own lives and handing all we own to God.
For our sin he gives us grace, and by his grace we are redeemed.
Yet he gave us his son for our sin, giving something invaluable for something worth less than excrement in the yard.
This is what it means to be redeemed.
You pay for your dog, you bring it home, and becomes part of your family, it's valuable to you.
God has already paid for you, and he asks that you come join his family, leaving your past life behind, giving him all you own so that you can find joy in this new life, joining his family.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Saved from What?
So the past two day's I've basically been talking about Jesus as King and the Gospel message. Both of which are closely tied to the issue of salvation. Salvation=Saved. The person who saves us is our savior. And our savior is the Messiah, the king who came to save. Now I'll get into salvation at a later time, but right now I want to talk about why we need saving, and hopefully I can get some people out there who don't think they need saving to realize that they really do.
In the beginning God made everything, and it was all good. It was exactly as it was supposed to be. Then came the Fall. The serpent came and tempted Adam and Eve, we're not going to get into whose fault it was or anything because it doesn't matter, and they sinned. Now it is to be noted that being tempted is not a sin. Jesus was tempted yet he was still perfect. Adam and Eve were tempted and they failed the test, and sinned.
Now in this moment in human history there are a lot who say that Adam and Eve never had any real knowledge of how to handle a situation like that; being tempted. While they have never been in a situation like this, they did have knowledge how to handle this type of situation. They were given two rules: Take care of everything, and don't eat THAT. Pretty simple. the Fall hasn't happened, things don't die, should be pretty easy to take care of the Garden. Don't eat from that particular tree? Well there's tons more stuff around here to eat, shouldn't be that hard. It should be ingrained in their minds by this point that they're not to eat of that certain tree. And that's shown in the dialogue between Eve and the serpent. "God said, 'You shall not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Eve has that memorized so she knows that she is not to eat of that tree. And God had made them a promise: Eat of that tree and you die. Now he wasn't talking physical death, but spiritual. The serpent tricks her and reverses her thinking though, getting her to eat from the tree, going against what God has told them not to do. They knew this thing wasn't God, he spoke about God in the third person and said the exact opposite of what God did say, therefore they questioned God and his wisdom, then went and acted on that questioning doing what he said not to and therefore sinning. It wasn't because they wanted to go against what God said, but they wanted to be like God (Gen. 3.5-6). In that moment she put herself before God, wanting to be like him and maybe even hoping to be better than him.
Because of that single moment in history, one bite, everything changed. And the world has been declining since. I've spoken about it before, the Law of Entropy, how everything is dying. This is a result of the Fall, of sin entering into the world. Everything started to die then, everything began to decline, all as a result of sin.
Now we all have sin in our own lives. Think about the best person you know, whether it be your parents, pastor, best friend, grandparents, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Liam Neeson, whoever, they have sinned. The only person that hasn't sinned is Jesus, which is why his sacrifice was perfect, but we'll get into that later. Paul tells us in Romans that all have sinned. Solomon tells us the same in Ecclesiastes. There are all types of ways to sin: Actions, inactions, seen, unseen, thoughts, conversations, even letting your emotions out of control is a sin (example being Matthew 5.21-22). Go look at the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7 and tell me that you haven't done at least one of those. Have you looked at a guy or a girl and thought, "I'd hit that"? Guess what, you've sinned. You've committed adultery. You ever been driving and someone cut you off and you thought about running them off the road? Well you just basically murdered them.
Now these things don't mean we might as well go out and do them. Let me be very clear about this.
In the beginning God made everything, and it was all good. It was exactly as it was supposed to be. Then came the Fall. The serpent came and tempted Adam and Eve, we're not going to get into whose fault it was or anything because it doesn't matter, and they sinned. Now it is to be noted that being tempted is not a sin. Jesus was tempted yet he was still perfect. Adam and Eve were tempted and they failed the test, and sinned.
Now in this moment in human history there are a lot who say that Adam and Eve never had any real knowledge of how to handle a situation like that; being tempted. While they have never been in a situation like this, they did have knowledge how to handle this type of situation. They were given two rules: Take care of everything, and don't eat THAT. Pretty simple. the Fall hasn't happened, things don't die, should be pretty easy to take care of the Garden. Don't eat from that particular tree? Well there's tons more stuff around here to eat, shouldn't be that hard. It should be ingrained in their minds by this point that they're not to eat of that certain tree. And that's shown in the dialogue between Eve and the serpent. "God said, 'You shall not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" Eve has that memorized so she knows that she is not to eat of that tree. And God had made them a promise: Eat of that tree and you die. Now he wasn't talking physical death, but spiritual. The serpent tricks her and reverses her thinking though, getting her to eat from the tree, going against what God has told them not to do. They knew this thing wasn't God, he spoke about God in the third person and said the exact opposite of what God did say, therefore they questioned God and his wisdom, then went and acted on that questioning doing what he said not to and therefore sinning. It wasn't because they wanted to go against what God said, but they wanted to be like God (Gen. 3.5-6). In that moment she put herself before God, wanting to be like him and maybe even hoping to be better than him.
Because of that single moment in history, one bite, everything changed. And the world has been declining since. I've spoken about it before, the Law of Entropy, how everything is dying. This is a result of the Fall, of sin entering into the world. Everything started to die then, everything began to decline, all as a result of sin.
Now we all have sin in our own lives. Think about the best person you know, whether it be your parents, pastor, best friend, grandparents, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Liam Neeson, whoever, they have sinned. The only person that hasn't sinned is Jesus, which is why his sacrifice was perfect, but we'll get into that later. Paul tells us in Romans that all have sinned. Solomon tells us the same in Ecclesiastes. There are all types of ways to sin: Actions, inactions, seen, unseen, thoughts, conversations, even letting your emotions out of control is a sin (example being Matthew 5.21-22). Go look at the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5-7 and tell me that you haven't done at least one of those. Have you looked at a guy or a girl and thought, "I'd hit that"? Guess what, you've sinned. You've committed adultery. You ever been driving and someone cut you off and you thought about running them off the road? Well you just basically murdered them.
Now these things don't mean we might as well go out and do them. Let me be very clear about this.
THOUGHTS LEAD TO ACTIONS
THOUGHTS ARE AS BAD
AS ACTIONS
BOTH CONDEMN THE SAME
WE ARE CALLED TO BE CHRIST LIKE
WHO WAS PERFECT
WHO KEPT HIS THOUGHTS
EMOTIONS
AND ACTIONS IN CHECK
GET YOUR IN CHECK AS WELL
MESSING UP BY THOUGHT DOES NOT MEAN IT'S OKAY TO MESS UP BY ACTION
What this really comes down to is: Have you repented? Have you been saved? If so act like it. But if you're still a slave to sin then continue to reap judgement on yourself. Pile it high and see where that gets you on the other side. If you're a Christian: Act like it. If you're a pagan: Do whatever.
You may not think you sin, but that's you turning from the truth. We all sin, saved and unsaved. The difference is those who are truly saved make an attempt not to sin. They don't always succeed, I sure don't. They stumble, probably a lot. But they try. They act like their saved.
A guy smokes from the age of 14 till he's 40, pack a day kind of guy. Finds out he has stage 3 lung cancer. He goes and gets treated, and by the grace of God the cancer goes into remission. Now do you think after that he's just going to go out and start smoking again? Probably not. He realizes that he has a second chance and he's going to honor and respect it.
It's the same thing with sin. We have this cancerous thing in our lives which is killing us. We finally realize it after a while and realize what it's doing to us. We go to have someone take care of it, we go to God. He says that he's already done everything to take care of this cancer in our lives, all we have to do is believe that he and his son did all the work. We do that, we turn our back to the life that we lived, and start over again. Since we've had the problem taken care of do we then go on living the way we did? By no means! We died to sin and found a new, better life in Christ!
The point of all of this is: We all have sin in our lives and it's killing us. Murder, rape, abuse, bullying, obesity, hurricanes, earth quakes, wild fires, depression, fear, hate, suffering; it all comes back to just sin in the world. Those in the world continue to sin more and things get worse. I think there's something to that. We all do it, we can't get around it. There is absolutely nothing we can do to take care of this sin problem.
But luckily for us, someone who could do something about it already did. And he did everything required. Jesus lived a perfect life. He went to the cross in our place. He took on our sin. He died then rose again. This defeated sin, defeated death, and brought life back into the world, and pouring out grace. This grace has appeared to all of us, as has God. Accepting is the only way to gain this grace and the freedom that comes with it.
For sin is paid for with death, but God gives the gift of grace for free, giving us life.
Sin is why we need a Savior.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
The Clearing of Issues
So I was going to title yesterday's post "Step One" but realized before I posted it that that's a horrible title. I'm working on leading people to Christ, who is our salvation, and it is in my theology that salvation is not a process, but a culmination of events at once.
When I was working for Enterprise I ended up talking with some baptists who believed whole heartedly what they were taught without thinking about what it was. I know this because they stuck to their beliefs even after I thoroughly questioned them poking some pretty big holes in their theology. This also happened with some other baptists who randomly showed up at my house because I visited their church. Those were some fun conversations.
But the real conversation and banter found itself centered around one particular issue: Eternal Salvation.
For those of you who don't know, this is the idea that once you are saved you will always be saved no matter what you do. If you want to believe that, go for it. That's incredibly dangerous territory to be and isn't supported by scripture, but you go right on ahead and believe that.
So when I was talking with the guys from Enterprise, I asked if one of the men believed in predestination like other baptists. He gives some answer that sounded a lot like predestination but made even less sense. But then he stated that he believed in Eternal Salvation. I start asking him questions, poking here and there, and he holds to it with all he has. I look at the other guy there and ask if he believes in it to which he replies, "Eternal Salvation? Oh yeah of course. As long as you're fully saved."
Fully saved? Does this mean you can be partially saved? If you die and you're not fully saved does only part of your soul head on to heaven while the rest goes down to hell? By saying "fully saved" what he was saying was that salvation is a process and that there are hoops you must jump through in order to be saved. Does this sound like how God works? That's how it was in the OT, but once Jesus came the things that we did became meaningless for salvation because Christ did all the work. That's the point of Jesus coming to earth. So by saying that salvation is a process then we are still saved by ourselves and the of Jesus was for nothing. Not only that but scripture points to not a process of salvation, but an event of salvation.
I take this idea of salvation as a process from something that was started in the 60's or 70's I believe called the five steps of salvation. I could have those dates completely wrong, but the five steps were: Hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized. Yes, all of these things lead to salvation, and it cannot be had without these things, but these are not hoops that we must jump through to be saved. They are not entirely separate actions. I see them as chain reactions.
Now in the rest of this I may make some older and fundamental people mad, but oh well. This is how I see scripture, you don't have to believe it. Just don't outright say I'm wrong without proof and don't try to shove your beliefs down my throat. I'm not making anyone believe what I say, I'm only sharing what I think.
So what makes us "saved?" Is is being baptized? Living a good life? Praying, reading, and singing on Sunday's? Am I saved simply because I went to a Christian college or am in ministry?
Absolutely not. It doesn't matter what we do, none of these things will save us.
The biggest issue with churches that I've ran into on this topic is baptism. I once baptized a guy in my youth group and his elbow was sticking out and the minister there wanted me to do it again because of that. He thought he wasn't saved because he wasn't, by definition, "Fully immersed." If God keeps a person out of heaven for that reason me and him are going to have some issues. But if it's baptism that saves us, then why was Jesus baptized? Did he have sin of which he needed to be forgiven? Did he need saving as well? What did he need to repent of? Does anyone else see the issue behind the statement of, "baptized for salvation?"
Salvation is being saved. Saved from sin and the death that comes with it. You cannot be partially saved, that makes no sense. You cannot save yourself, you can only be saved by outside help. So being saved washes away our sins, if it didn't, we couldn't have the Holy Spirit, God himself, with us because God can't be in the presence of sin. In Acts 10 we see Cornelius, a God fearing Gentile with his family and Peter when the Holy Spirit, God himself, comes upon them. To which Peter replies, "Can anyone stop them from being baptized?" Now how can God come upon people, full of sin, if they haven't been baptized for salvation? How many times throughout scripture do we see people receiving the Holy Spirit at baptism? Once. And that was with Jesus. Ever other time we see baptism there is no sudden coming of the Holy Spirit, it either comes before or after baptism. This leads me to believe that baptism is but a symbol. It's necessary for all believers, being commanded by Jesus, but it's not what saves us.
So what does save us? Ephesians 2.8 says that is is grace that saves us. Well how do we get grace? Through faith. Faith for me is incredibly powerful and essential for all Christians. We have faith in the point of yesterday's post, that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of the only and living God. Not only that but we accept him into our life as our personal King and savior. When we have that faith we have all of the things that salvation will include: It causes us to be humble, repent, acknowledging the supremacy of Christ. We receive grace, redemption, righteousness, sanctification, justification. In a simple word, through this true and actual faith, we are saved. If we have this faith then we will act on it. All that comes from this faith is a process. we are not 100% righteous, but Christ continually works at making us righteous. We have not 100% repented, we still fight our demons, but now with the help of Jesus. We are not 100% sanctified, but are continually being made holy.
The only two things that happen 100% when we come to this faith is that we receive that Grace of God and are saved by it. But it will not remain if do not allow ourselves to be transformed. God doesn't want you to come to him perfect, he wants you as you are: Broken. He'll put you back together again and make you into something new and better. But you have to let him do this. This is where we humble ourselves and repent.
All of this is what I will be getting into through the next week or so. But this is what I felt like I needed to talk about today. The main thing to remember is Jesus did all the work. And in the words of the fantastic Dr. Girdwood, all we have to do is ride his coat tails up to heaven.
When I was working for Enterprise I ended up talking with some baptists who believed whole heartedly what they were taught without thinking about what it was. I know this because they stuck to their beliefs even after I thoroughly questioned them poking some pretty big holes in their theology. This also happened with some other baptists who randomly showed up at my house because I visited their church. Those were some fun conversations.
But the real conversation and banter found itself centered around one particular issue: Eternal Salvation.
For those of you who don't know, this is the idea that once you are saved you will always be saved no matter what you do. If you want to believe that, go for it. That's incredibly dangerous territory to be and isn't supported by scripture, but you go right on ahead and believe that.
So when I was talking with the guys from Enterprise, I asked if one of the men believed in predestination like other baptists. He gives some answer that sounded a lot like predestination but made even less sense. But then he stated that he believed in Eternal Salvation. I start asking him questions, poking here and there, and he holds to it with all he has. I look at the other guy there and ask if he believes in it to which he replies, "Eternal Salvation? Oh yeah of course. As long as you're fully saved."
Fully saved? Does this mean you can be partially saved? If you die and you're not fully saved does only part of your soul head on to heaven while the rest goes down to hell? By saying "fully saved" what he was saying was that salvation is a process and that there are hoops you must jump through in order to be saved. Does this sound like how God works? That's how it was in the OT, but once Jesus came the things that we did became meaningless for salvation because Christ did all the work. That's the point of Jesus coming to earth. So by saying that salvation is a process then we are still saved by ourselves and the of Jesus was for nothing. Not only that but scripture points to not a process of salvation, but an event of salvation.
I take this idea of salvation as a process from something that was started in the 60's or 70's I believe called the five steps of salvation. I could have those dates completely wrong, but the five steps were: Hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized. Yes, all of these things lead to salvation, and it cannot be had without these things, but these are not hoops that we must jump through to be saved. They are not entirely separate actions. I see them as chain reactions.
Now in the rest of this I may make some older and fundamental people mad, but oh well. This is how I see scripture, you don't have to believe it. Just don't outright say I'm wrong without proof and don't try to shove your beliefs down my throat. I'm not making anyone believe what I say, I'm only sharing what I think.
So what makes us "saved?" Is is being baptized? Living a good life? Praying, reading, and singing on Sunday's? Am I saved simply because I went to a Christian college or am in ministry?
Absolutely not. It doesn't matter what we do, none of these things will save us.
The biggest issue with churches that I've ran into on this topic is baptism. I once baptized a guy in my youth group and his elbow was sticking out and the minister there wanted me to do it again because of that. He thought he wasn't saved because he wasn't, by definition, "Fully immersed." If God keeps a person out of heaven for that reason me and him are going to have some issues. But if it's baptism that saves us, then why was Jesus baptized? Did he have sin of which he needed to be forgiven? Did he need saving as well? What did he need to repent of? Does anyone else see the issue behind the statement of, "baptized for salvation?"
Salvation is being saved. Saved from sin and the death that comes with it. You cannot be partially saved, that makes no sense. You cannot save yourself, you can only be saved by outside help. So being saved washes away our sins, if it didn't, we couldn't have the Holy Spirit, God himself, with us because God can't be in the presence of sin. In Acts 10 we see Cornelius, a God fearing Gentile with his family and Peter when the Holy Spirit, God himself, comes upon them. To which Peter replies, "Can anyone stop them from being baptized?" Now how can God come upon people, full of sin, if they haven't been baptized for salvation? How many times throughout scripture do we see people receiving the Holy Spirit at baptism? Once. And that was with Jesus. Ever other time we see baptism there is no sudden coming of the Holy Spirit, it either comes before or after baptism. This leads me to believe that baptism is but a symbol. It's necessary for all believers, being commanded by Jesus, but it's not what saves us.
So what does save us? Ephesians 2.8 says that is is grace that saves us. Well how do we get grace? Through faith. Faith for me is incredibly powerful and essential for all Christians. We have faith in the point of yesterday's post, that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of the only and living God. Not only that but we accept him into our life as our personal King and savior. When we have that faith we have all of the things that salvation will include: It causes us to be humble, repent, acknowledging the supremacy of Christ. We receive grace, redemption, righteousness, sanctification, justification. In a simple word, through this true and actual faith, we are saved. If we have this faith then we will act on it. All that comes from this faith is a process. we are not 100% righteous, but Christ continually works at making us righteous. We have not 100% repented, we still fight our demons, but now with the help of Jesus. We are not 100% sanctified, but are continually being made holy.
The only two things that happen 100% when we come to this faith is that we receive that Grace of God and are saved by it. But it will not remain if do not allow ourselves to be transformed. God doesn't want you to come to him perfect, he wants you as you are: Broken. He'll put you back together again and make you into something new and better. But you have to let him do this. This is where we humble ourselves and repent.
All of this is what I will be getting into through the next week or so. But this is what I felt like I needed to talk about today. The main thing to remember is Jesus did all the work. And in the words of the fantastic Dr. Girdwood, all we have to do is ride his coat tails up to heaven.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
The Rock King
Class one day I was given a challenge: Completely relay the Gospel message in 30 words or less. Needless to say, that wasn't too easy, but I think I got it down.
God came to earth in human form as Jesus. He lived a perfect life then died for our sins, then rose again three days later defeating death and sin.
Bam. 29 Words.
That is the essence of what I wanted to get at yesterday, telling of what the Gospel is. I went a bit deeper than just 29 words last night, but I still told of what the Gospel was, the Good News of Christ. With that we began to lay down a foundation that we can continue to grow and build on.
To recap, the foundation is Jesus, with the cornerstone being his identity as Messiah, leading to him as Savior, which is the Gospel Message. That's where we're coming from, the foundation on which we will not only begin building on, but also be putting together.
Today we go to step one of that task.
Step one is defining what it means to Jesus as King, Messiah, or Christ.
Jesus' main teaching in the Gospels, and we see this especially in Matthew, is the Kingdom of God/Heaven. What exactly does this mean? Well going back to yesterday, Israel had no human king for a long time, with God being their only king over them. Eventually they wanted to be like the countries around them and have a human king over them. So God gives them what they want, and they get a King over the nation of Israel. This comes at a price, the king will abuse and extort them, ultimately being a regrettable decision for them. They say, "Oh well! Do it anyways!" and get their new king, Saul. He goes nuts, dies in battle at his own hand (or someone else's depending which book you read), and David becomes king. Then there's a long line of kings eventually ending in them being taken over by numerous enemies throughout the years, finally leading up to the Roman Empire taking over and the only king that they have then is Caesar.
This brings us to Jesus who comes up and says that he is the promised Messiah, the promised King of Israel, saying that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Now looking back to the previous paragraph we may be thinking that the Kingdom of God is a nation with God as king. Yes and no. When we come into the family of God we become a part of the new nation of Israel, with God as our King yes, but there is more to it than that.
Back to the beginning of time Adam and Eve have a personal, intimate relationship with God, where they walk with him every day, talk with him in person every day, and he is physically there with them. Not only was he their God, but their King and Friend. This is the original Kingdom of God: Having God as a personal King in your life whom you can go to at any time about anything. Israel's kingdom needed people to go between God and the people, they couldn't go to God themselves for fear of death. Yet with Adam and Eve, they could be around God before the Fall.
So with Jesus coming as Messiah he came to usher in the Kingdom of God, with him being King over our lives. No longer do we have intercessors between us and God. The only intercessor that we have is a form of God himself (Rom. 8.26). Not only that, but that form of God that intercedes for us is constantly with us, meaning part of God, which is fully God, is always with us. God is always with us. How much closer to the original Kingdom of God can we get?
This is what it means to have Jesus as Messiah, as King. That he brought the Kingdom of God to us, allowing us to be personally under the Kingship of God as our personal Lord and savior. Any of you baptized? Remember saying that? "I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and my personal Lord and savior." A lot of good stuff there we'll probably look at later. But if you repeated this phrase you are saying that you are making Jesus the only God, the only King in your life, and you will serve him to the best of your ability, which can only happen when you lean on him, which is why we need him to be personally involved in our lives.
All of this is the cornerstone which the rest of the foundation will be laid in relation to.
The rest of the foundation is pretty easy. We see all through scripture who God is, and we see through the New Testament who Jesus claims to be: The Good Shepherd, the True Vine, the Living Water, the Bread of Life, etc. It is your job to go look at these and see who Jesus is. Compare it and relate it to him as Messiah, and lay that stone down to build the foundation for your life.
Now since we know the basics of the Gospel message, we'll be getting deeper into it throughout the time it takes to get all these things out of the way. I don't know how long this is going to take, but it'll be worth it. Today's post is only a part of the Gospel. Tomorrow I think I'll talk about why we needed Jesus to come bring the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we'll see where it goes from there.
God came to earth in human form as Jesus. He lived a perfect life then died for our sins, then rose again three days later defeating death and sin.
Bam. 29 Words.
That is the essence of what I wanted to get at yesterday, telling of what the Gospel is. I went a bit deeper than just 29 words last night, but I still told of what the Gospel was, the Good News of Christ. With that we began to lay down a foundation that we can continue to grow and build on.
To recap, the foundation is Jesus, with the cornerstone being his identity as Messiah, leading to him as Savior, which is the Gospel Message. That's where we're coming from, the foundation on which we will not only begin building on, but also be putting together.
Today we go to step one of that task.
Step one is defining what it means to Jesus as King, Messiah, or Christ.
Jesus' main teaching in the Gospels, and we see this especially in Matthew, is the Kingdom of God/Heaven. What exactly does this mean? Well going back to yesterday, Israel had no human king for a long time, with God being their only king over them. Eventually they wanted to be like the countries around them and have a human king over them. So God gives them what they want, and they get a King over the nation of Israel. This comes at a price, the king will abuse and extort them, ultimately being a regrettable decision for them. They say, "Oh well! Do it anyways!" and get their new king, Saul. He goes nuts, dies in battle at his own hand (or someone else's depending which book you read), and David becomes king. Then there's a long line of kings eventually ending in them being taken over by numerous enemies throughout the years, finally leading up to the Roman Empire taking over and the only king that they have then is Caesar.
This brings us to Jesus who comes up and says that he is the promised Messiah, the promised King of Israel, saying that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Now looking back to the previous paragraph we may be thinking that the Kingdom of God is a nation with God as king. Yes and no. When we come into the family of God we become a part of the new nation of Israel, with God as our King yes, but there is more to it than that.
Back to the beginning of time Adam and Eve have a personal, intimate relationship with God, where they walk with him every day, talk with him in person every day, and he is physically there with them. Not only was he their God, but their King and Friend. This is the original Kingdom of God: Having God as a personal King in your life whom you can go to at any time about anything. Israel's kingdom needed people to go between God and the people, they couldn't go to God themselves for fear of death. Yet with Adam and Eve, they could be around God before the Fall.
So with Jesus coming as Messiah he came to usher in the Kingdom of God, with him being King over our lives. No longer do we have intercessors between us and God. The only intercessor that we have is a form of God himself (Rom. 8.26). Not only that, but that form of God that intercedes for us is constantly with us, meaning part of God, which is fully God, is always with us. God is always with us. How much closer to the original Kingdom of God can we get?
This is what it means to have Jesus as Messiah, as King. That he brought the Kingdom of God to us, allowing us to be personally under the Kingship of God as our personal Lord and savior. Any of you baptized? Remember saying that? "I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and my personal Lord and savior." A lot of good stuff there we'll probably look at later. But if you repeated this phrase you are saying that you are making Jesus the only God, the only King in your life, and you will serve him to the best of your ability, which can only happen when you lean on him, which is why we need him to be personally involved in our lives.
All of this is the cornerstone which the rest of the foundation will be laid in relation to.
The rest of the foundation is pretty easy. We see all through scripture who God is, and we see through the New Testament who Jesus claims to be: The Good Shepherd, the True Vine, the Living Water, the Bread of Life, etc. It is your job to go look at these and see who Jesus is. Compare it and relate it to him as Messiah, and lay that stone down to build the foundation for your life.
Now since we know the basics of the Gospel message, we'll be getting deeper into it throughout the time it takes to get all these things out of the way. I don't know how long this is going to take, but it'll be worth it. Today's post is only a part of the Gospel. Tomorrow I think I'll talk about why we needed Jesus to come bring the Kingdom of Heaven. Then we'll see where it goes from there.
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