Westford Congregational Church, Ashford CT Weekly Messages

HOPE, OR WISHFUL THINKING?

2006-10-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

If we were to ask the average Christian what is the most important thing there is about being a Christian, almost everybody would say "having faith." Of course, faith is important, but it is not the only thing that is important for Christians. Hope is also important in Christians’ lives. The Bible says that faith is being sure of what we hope for. It also says now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

Sometimes, we might get the impression that hope is not really as important as faith, in spite of what the Bible says. Perhaps one of the challenges we have is that there may be something of a difference between what the Bible means by hope and what some people generally mean by it. The dictionary defines hope as "a feeling that what is wanted will happen; a desire accompanied by expectation."

Meaning no one any disrespect, "a feeling that what is wanted will happen; a desire accompanied by expectation" sounds an awful lot like wishful thinking. "Why do you hope that something will happen?" "Because I want it to." We might hope to become taller than we are, or to switch career paths into some area that is up and coming or pays better than our present job; but if all we do is hope that will happen, we are merely engaging in wishful thinking.

When the Bible speaks of hope, it refers to something other than wishful thinking. The hope the Bible speaks of is something that has reasons to support it. Biblical hope is primarily based upon one or two reasons, God’s character or God’s promises, and often, both. Stated simply, we hope for something because of who God is, or because of what He has said, or both who He is and what He has said.

Faith and hope go hand in hand, but there are some distinctions between them. For one thing, faith gets us through the present or day to day activities of our lives. While faith rests on who God is and what He has promised, it rests primarily on what God has said and done in the past. For example, the Bible says we can have faith in Jesus because He was raised from the dead. It also says we can have faith in God, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus. In other words, since God did something, we can count on Him doing something else.

Hope, on the other hand, is more forward looking. The Bible says that hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? Hope looks to the future expectantly, based on solid reasons. Our hope is based on who God is, that is to say, His character. He is loving, wise and capable. Those character traits give us reason to look forward to our futures optimistically. God has made many promises to His people in the Bible, which give us solid reasons to anticipate our futures with confidence.

That Biblical hope is based upon reasoning rather than being merely wishful thinking is illustrated for us in the Book of Romans. The Bible tells us that Abraham was a man of great faith, but he was also a man of great hope. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.

Actually Abraham was functioning with two sets of facts, each of which gave him solid reasons to believe something. His problem was that the two sets of facts gave him reasons to believe in opposite things. One set of facts was that Abraham and his wife were too old to have children. The other set of facts was that God had made a promise, and God’s character is such that His promises can be relied upon.

The choice of which set of facts to focus on was fairly clear cut for Abraham, and he made the right one. Against all hope, that is to say the fact that he and his wife were beyond child bearing years, Abraham in hope believed, based on the fact that God had made a promise. Sometimes we also have reasons to believe things, even if they are not as dramatically clear cut for us as they were for Abraham.

In the Bible, there is a story about a man who acted upon his hope that Jesus would heal him. We often think of "Blind Bartimaeus" as being a man of great faith, and that he was. But he was also a hopeful man. Bartimaeus’ faith no doubt sustained him while he sat by the roadside each day, without sight. It was Bartimaeus’ hope, however, that sprang into action when Jesus crossed his path one day.

As Jesus and His disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see." "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

The Bible says that faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. Perhaps Bartimaeus was familiar with God’s assertion about Himself in the Book of Exodus that "I am the LORD, who heals you." He probably heard that Jesus was healing people wherever He went. Bartimaeus had a lot of faith, which was formed by what he knew and heard about God. Bartimaeus also had a lot of hope, that maybe Jesus would travel close by him someday, which then happened. It was Bartimaeus’ hope that propelled him past the objections of the many (who) rebuked him and told him to be quiet.

Job was a man of faith and also a man of hope. Job’s faith enabled him to say, "If He slays me, still I will praise Him." It was Job’s hope that enabled him to believe that in spite of his dire and declining circumstances, his future was better than his past. That was saying something, because Job had enjoyed great prosperity before his trials. In the end, Job’s future did turn out to be better than his past. The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years.

Our hope should be in God rather than what we think He might do or not do. In the Bible, God makes some promises which are general in nature, while others are made to specific individuals. We are setting ourselves up for possible failure if we try to claim as our own a promise that God made to an individual. However, we can bank on God’s general promises, as though they were made to us personally.

Some of the general promises of God that give us hope are that God loves us unswervingly; since He never changes He won’t stop loving us. Romans chapter 8 promises us God uses all the challenges of our lives for a redemptive purpose, to help us become the types of people we should be. As well, the Bible promises us that our challenges will not exceed our ability to endure them.

Christians can and should be hopeful people, because Jesus lives forever, (and) He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Jesus provides us with solid reasons to hope.

Like faith, Biblical hope is our inheritance if we have entrusted ourselves to Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Instead of being "a feeling that what is wanted will happen; a desire accompanied by expectation," Biblical hope is an expectation that what God wants or desires will happen, and looking forward to that with confidence. As we wait hopefully for God’s will to unfold in our lives, He encourages us to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

THE PERILS OF PRIDE

2006-10-29T20:57:00.000-08:00

The Bible says that pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. There are dozens of passages in the Bible that warn us about the perils of pride. Jesus Himself said that pride is among the evils that God considers to be sin. Jesus said that pride is not an exterior evil. He said, "All these evil things come from within and defile a person."

Each of us, in varying degrees, are filled with pride. Pastor Jack Hayford’s commentary on Mark chapter seven says the following about pride: Pride is the twelfth on the list of thirteen inner vices (that Jesus listed), the word means haughtiness, arrogance, ostentatious pride bordering on insolence, and a disdainful attitude towards others. It is a pharisaical sin characterized by superiority of attitude. It is a state of pride that is the very opposite of Jesus’ claim for Himself, which was meek and lowly.

When we think of pride, we might often associate it with people who are particularly wealthy, or beautiful, or who we think are especially vulnerable to pride; but certainly not ordinary people like us. However, pride abounds in all sorts of people. Even Jesus’ closest friends demonstrated pride on occasion. One Biblical account in particular illustrates this clearly for us.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him. "Teacher," they said, "we want You to do for us whatever we ask." "What do you want Me to do for you?" He asked. They replied, "Let one of us sit at Your right and the other at Your left in Your glory."

"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?" "We can," they answered. Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at My right or left is not for Me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared."

Although with the hindsight afforded to us by 2000 years of history we might hold the disciples of Jesus in high esteem, the fact of the matter is they were pretty ordinary people. Jesus did not summon the religious elite to be His disciples; most of the people He picked came from the working class. For example, James and John were fishermen before they met Jesus.

Of all the people one might consider for the honor of sitting at Jesus’ side in His glory, how many of us would immediately include a couple of fishermen? We could choose from Moses, Elijah, Abraham, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel or a host of prophets and other Old Testament heroes, not to mention the giants of the faith who would follow. Why would James and John put themselves at the top of such a list? Pride is the first and best answer. Not only that, but they also assumed they could do whatever Jesus did.

James and John were not the only of Jesus’ followers to be driven by pride. We can be too. How many times have we thought that we should "help God?" We are thinking we can "help God" when we try to make our prayer requests come true. We are being proud when we get in front of what we think God may be doing and try to anticipate and facilitate the next move. Instead, we should be responding to what God does. The Bible says that they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…not the people who are trying to push God along.

Pride not only distorts our sense of who we are in comparison to other people, it distorts our perception of how we relate to God. In the Old Testament, Job (pronounced "Jobe") was not only a bit impatient, he also had more than a touch of pride in him. Job did not hesitate to insist that he should be able to challenge God about what God was allowing to happen in Job’s life. Admittedly, Job was getting reamed left and right. Job demanded an audience with the Almighty.

He got that, but probably not much more of what he expected. Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that darkens My counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell Me, if you understand.

The Lord went on to ask Job a series of questions which highlighted that Job was not exactly in a position to put himself on equal footing with God. There are plenty of people who make similar mistakes today, thinking that they deserve certain treatment from God. For instance, people who think that on the Day of Judgement they’re going to be able to demonstrate that they deserve to live eternally in heaven because the good things they’ve done outweigh the bad, are going to be severely disappointed.

Another peril of pride is that even people who should by definition be humble are sometimes not. The Book of Hebrews says that every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people. No one takes this honor upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was.

Would that it was so that every cleryperson and church leader was as humble as the Book of Hebrews says we should be. The Church would certainly be better off, and no doubt the world would be also. Such is not the case, sadly. Some clergy and church leaders are actually pretty full of themselves. Their pride not only interferes with their relationship with God, it may be detrimental to the people around them.

If anybody in all of history ever had reason to be proud, certainly that would be Jesus. Yet Jesus was far from proud. The Bible says Christ also did not take upon Himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to Him, "You are My Son; today I have become Your Father. " And He says in another place, "You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek."

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Although He was a son, He learned obedience from what He suffered and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.

If we are going to overcome and avoid the perils of pride, we need to be determined to do so. It won’t happen on its own. The Bible says therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose. The fear and trembling the Bible refers to here is a fear and trembling about ourselves – in other words, not being proud of who we are or any of the good things we do.

The antidote to our pride is not low self esteem. Rather, the antidote to our pride is to keep a mental picture of Jesus first and center in our minds. The Bible also says "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.

There is no greater source of wisdom, regardless of the topic, than Jesus Christ Himself. If we want to avoid and overtake the perils of pride, we should keep His words close by. Jesus said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many."

HONESTY WITH GOD IS THE PATH TO SPIRITUAL GROWTH

2006-10-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, when people think of spirituality, we might tend to think in terms of "other worldliness." That is to say, we think that we or somebody else is being spiritual by seeming to be disconnected from this world. That disconnected-ness can even extend to interpersonal relationships, with some seemingly spiritual people keeping an emotional and relational distance from the people around them.

Is that what being spiritual looks like to God? Almost assuredly not! We can say that, because we can observe the behavior of Jesus and the interpersonal relationships that Jesus enjoyed with people. He was the farthest thing from being distant with people. Even a cursory observation of Jesus’ interactions with people demonstrates that He thoroughly enjoyed being involved in people’s lives.

The New Testament gospels provide story after story of Jesus’ warm interactions with people. Among them is the account of Jesus’ conversation with a person who, on the surface at least, appears to have been more than a little self-righteous. If there were ever a time when Jesus might have been tempted to be haughty, this encounter would likely have been one of them.

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said, "You know the commandments: 'You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'" He said to Him, "Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, "You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow Me."

Two things jump out of this story about Jesus’ encounter that day. The first is the phrase, Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said… . Jesus was not being distant, distracted or any of the other things that some seemingly spiritual people do. His interactions were always close and personal. As well, Jesus might have sensed a certain disconnected-ness in this man’s heart when it came to spirituality.

We cannot know what the man in this story thought about spirituality, but the phrase "other worldliness" comes to mind. He thought of himself as a good person, and perhaps he was. Jesus did not dispute the man’s claim of being well behaved, but He did look into his heart and perceived that this man wanted to "have his cake and eat it too," as many people do. He wanted to be spiritual, but not in a way that his spirituality would have a meaningful impact on his day to day life.

When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, "How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." They were greatly astounded and said to one another, "Then who can be saved?" Jesus looked at them and said, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible."

Jesus seemed to be implying that being spiritual is not a matter of "other worldliness." If we are really going to be spiritual people, we cannot put God in a box, so to speak, and only let Him out when it is convenient for us to do so. That is not spirituality; most people would call it hypocrisy. Hypocrites say one thing, but actually believe or do something else.

The dictionary defines hypocrisy as "pretending to be what one is not, especially a pretence of virtue, piety, etc." In other words, we are being hypocritical when we say we believe in God and His goodness, but then try to exclude Him from our day to day lives. We should keep in mind that nobody is perfect, nor are we even good all the time; but are we being genuine or pretentious in our relationship with God?

The man who asked Jesus, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" did not want to interact honestly with God. We know that, because when he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions. While we might feel superior to this man, we should keep in mind that we don’t have to be wealthy to be tempted to engage in hypocrisy when it comes to God. Any time that we box God out of our lives, we are essentially being hypocritical.

It sounds almost foolish to say that hypocrisy is not the path to spiritual growth. Since hypocrisy isn’t, what is? Obviously, honesty with God is the path to spiritual growth. No matter where we are on our own personal journeys with God, the way for us to grow closer to Him and become more spiritual ourselves is to interact honestly with God, no matter what.

People sometimes mistakenly refer to "the patience of Job" (pronounced "Jobe") as though Job was an exceptionally patient person. Actually, the opposite is probably more true. However, whatever Job lacked for in patience, he more than made up for in honesty, especially honesty with God. At some point in Job’s life, God allowed him to be severely tested, much to Job’s dislike and consternation.

Then Job answered: "Today also my complaint is bitter; His hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find Him, that I might come even to His dwelling! I would lay my case before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me.

"Would He contend with me in the greatness of His power? No; but He would give heed to me. There an upright person could reason with Him, and I should be acquitted forever by my judge. If I go forward, He is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive Him; on the left He hides, and I cannot behold Him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see Him. God has made my heart faint; the Almighty has terrified me; if only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!"

When Job’s back was up against the wall, he did not pretend that he was okay or that all was right in his part of the world. Job was radically honest with God. If what happened to Job happened to us, we would probably feel like Job felt, but would we be honest enough with God to say so? Sometimes, Christians aren’t. They pretend that they’re fine and their world is good, when the exact opposite is true.

There are at least a couple of problems with not being honest with God. One of them is that we might make our problems bigger than they actually are, by exaggerating them as we preclude ourselves from honestly reviewing them with God. Job said, "I would learn what He would answer me, and understand what He would say to me." Are we willing to let God show us our problems from His point of view?

Along those lines, every experience in life, whether it is to our liking or not, is an opportunity to share our moments with God. For most of us, our joys are more joyful if we can share them with people who care about us and celebrate them with us. Our friends’ love and support carry us through dark days. Sharing our lives honestly with God invites Him to celebrate our joys with us and to comfort us in our sorrow.

We learn over time who we can trust. It may be that we do not feel comfortable sharing our inner most thoughts in a radically honest manner with some people, for fear of rejection. That is probably reasonable, but it is not applicable when it comes to being honest with God. God knows it all already; He will not be shocked. More than that, we will find that He is compassionate towards us.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before Him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. We should note that the Gospel of John calls Jesus the Word of God; this passage more likely refers to Jesus, rather than an inanimate object.

God’s compassion compels us to be honest with Him. Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

TREATING OUR SINS LIKE WE SHOULD

2006-10-01T20:56:00.000-07:00

There are a few things that are fairly common among most people when it comes to sin: everybody does it, but nobody likes to talk about it. To be exact, most people are all too happy to talk or even gossip about somebody else’s sin, but when it comes to our own sin, it’s like the old adage: "see no evil, hear no evil, speak (of) no evil." In reality, though, that is not treating our sins like we should.

Jesus was unapologetic about insisting that we will never be the people God made us to be, that we most likely want to be ourselves, unless we are sincere about treating our sins like we should. When it came to the subject of treating our sins like we should, Jesus was not at all politically correct. He advocated a "no holds barred" approach that might have seemed offensive to some people.

Jesus said, "If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.

"And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other."

Most people would immediately recognize that Jesus was not advocating self mutilation. He never intended that people would literally chop off a body part or pluck out an eye. Jesus was no doubt employing a form of speaking that we refer to as hyperbole, which is using an extreme statement to make a point. We do that all the time ourselves. When we say something like "I’m so hungry I could eat a horse," we don’t mean that literally, we are using a figure of speech to make a point.

The point that Jesus was making about sin is that it is really awful and should not be treated lightly. That is the opposite of how many people treat sin, especially their own sins. Sometimes some people appear to be tolerant of other people’s sins, but as often as not they may be condoning sins they’ve either committed or at least would like to commit.

Jesus said we have to be ruthless if we are going to be treating our sins like we should. We should be willing to give up comforts and pleasures to do that, if it is necessary; "it is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell." How many times have we thought that there are some things we either should be doing or not be doing as the case may be, but we go right ahead and sin anyway, because sinning is more comfortable or easy at the time, rather than exercising restraint?

We should realize that it is not just our creature comforts that we should consider when we contemplate sinning. Deliberate sins are a one way exit ramp out of God’s presence and away from His blessings. "It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell." One of the great tragedies we will have to face in heaven is the realization of how many times we precluded God from blessing us, because we insisted on sinning when He was wanting to bless us.

Even though our sins are usually temporary, that is to say we sin for a little while and then go back to behaving ourselves, our sins often if not always have longer term consequences for us. It’s like what they say about eating sweets, "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips." Jesus posed this awesome question for us: "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again?" Indeed, how?

How do God’s people lose their way and indulge themselves continually in sinful behavior? It is not usually ignorance. Our problem with sin is not that we don't know it is sin. "You mean to say that when I take something that doesn’t belong to me that the Lord calls that stealing?" No, for the most part, we know all too well how to distinguish between sinful and righteous behavior.

Among the various reasons that Christians engage in persistent sin is that we are influenced by other people, particularly by those who don’t know the Lord. Even though we are supposed to be a positive influence on people, we nonetheless allow others to influence us instead. The people of Israel were blessed by God with food that He divinely provided without any effort on their part, which for a while was appreciated, until the non-Israelites provoked them to sin by complaining against God.

In the Book of Numbers we read about how the people of God fell under the influence of others. The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"

One of the great ironies of this account is that the collective memory of the rabble and the Israelites was completely faulty. First of all, they did not have all that glorious food in Egypt, and secondly, it cost them dearly. They were slaves in Egypt! Even if their lives in the desert were not that great, it had to be better than when they were back in Egypt, under the harsh and oppressive rule of Pharaoh’s taskmasters.

There are a number of reasons why we should be treating our sins like we should. We have already considered what Jesus said, and that ought to be enough. But if what Jesus said is not enough to motivate us to be treating our sins like we should, yet another reason is that if we don’t, we will compromise our effectiveness as Christians. We won’t be the blessing we otherwise could be, to our families and friends.

The Bible makes it clear that God takes our behavior into account when it comes to hearing and responding to our prayers. We may not like that, but that is the way it is. In 2 Chronicles 7:14, the Lord says, "if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." Being heard by God when we pray depends on us treating our sins like we should.

In the New Testament, the Book of James also stresses the importance of treating our sins like we should, so that our prayers will be powerful. Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord.

Treating our sins like we should can also release God’s healing power. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

James used an Old Testament example to illustrate that treating our sins like we should has always mattered to God. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

God knows that we are not perfect, and never will be in this life. He does not ask us to be more than we can be, but He does want us to be treating our sins like we should. He offers a wonderful promise to any of us who do: If one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

CHRISTIANS SHOULD BE DIFFERENT

2006-10-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

The last full weekend of September marks not only the end of Summer and the first day of Fall; it also marks the beginning of the Feast of Ramadan for Muslims and Rosh Hashanah for the Jewish people. By participating in their respective religious celebrations, Muslims and Jews distinguish themselves from the general populations where they live, if they reside outside their homelands.

In many cases, it is not that difficult to recognize Muslims or Jews who are orthodox in their faiths, because some Muslims and Jews attire themselves in distinctive clothing that serves to identify them as observant participants in their faith. By way of contrast, Christians for the most part tend to blend into whatever population we live among.

There is something commendable about people who are authentic about who and what they are. This is especially true if the people happen to be part of a minority group, when it might be easier to try to fit in with the culture around them instead. It always requires a measure of courage to stand apart from "the crowd."

Christians should also be different. We ought to be different, not in our appearance, but rather in the way in which we live our lives. We should distinguish ourselves by following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, and becoming more and more like Him with the passage of time. Simply stated, we should be different from what we otherwise would be, apart from our relationship with Jesus.

It is vitally important that we be clear, and that we fully comprehend ourselves, that in being different we in no way consider ourselves to be superior to other people. We are not. The Bible says there are none righteous, no, not one. The Apostle Paul, who was second only to Jesus Himself in spreading the Gospel, had no illusions that he was better than anybody else.

In writing to his friend Timothy, the Apostle Paul proclaimed, here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

What hinders Christians from being different? To the extent that we are not different from what we otherwise would be apart from Christ, it is not God’s fault. One thing that certainly holds us back from being different is our determined insistence on staying the same. There is an old saying that "if Jesus Christ is not Lord of all, He is not Lord at all."

Oftentimes, we want it both ways. We want the blessings of the Lord, but we do not want to pay the cost of receiving those benefits. While salvation is a gift from God, it is sort of like inheriting property. The inheritance is passed to us freely, but if we fail to maintain the property, it won’t take long before it is in shambles. The same is true about our Christian lives.

We were all born into this world, which sounds like a redundant statement; except that we all have the ways of the world ingrained in us. God’s goal for Christians is that over time we are less oriented towards the world, and more oriented towards His kingdom. Throughout the Scripture, the Holy Spirit implores God’s people to be different from the world and from ourselves.

Psalm One states clearly that there is a difference between the world’s ways and God ways, and that God’s blessings flow to people who appreciate those distinctions and demonstrate that by living accordingly. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the ungodly! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the ungodly will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly will perish.

Today’s generation of Christians are hardly the first Christians to struggle with wanting to have it both ways – to enjoy the benefits of being different without actually being different. Christians in the early Church were admonished by the Holy Spirit, speaking through James, to be different from themselves and from the world around them.

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Even Jesus’ own closest friends seemed to have a hard time "getting it," and were slow to realize that He was challenging them to be different. Jesus often pointed out the differences between the way this world works and the way things work in the kingdom of heaven. For example, Jesus gained His victory for us when He appeared to be defeated in the eyes of the world.

Jesus’ disciples were slow to grasp kingdom truths. They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, because He was teaching His disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill Him, and after three days He will rise." But they did not understand what He meant and were afraid to ask Him about it.

Perhaps one of the reasons Jesus’ disciples were slow to grasp kingdom truths is similar to why we are today, because we often have our own agendas occupying our attention. They came to Capernaum. When He was in the house, He asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

There are many reasons why Christians should be different, and why we should want to be different. One of the more compelling reasons Christians should want to be different is that living with our feet firmly planted in this world while trying to live kingdom lives does not work.

Speaking through James, the Holy Spirit puts it directly to us, while graciously offering the best of invitations. Don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. In other words, dear Christian, be different.

WHAT'S IN YOUR HEART?

2006-10-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

If we have watched more than an hour of television within the past year or so, each of us must have seen the corny commercials put out by Capital One Credit Cards, where extreme characters ask the same punch line question: "What’s in your wallet?" The idea behind the commercials is that it is bad if we have anything but a Capital One credit card in our pockets.

Taking a cue from the Capital One commercials, a better and more significant question might be put to each of us: "What’s in your heart?" Each of us would like to think of ourselves as good people, and for the most part, most of us probably are. At the same time, we’ve also probably had times in our lives when we’ve said or done things that were just plain wrong.

Some people think that there is some sort of a universal conscience out there somewhere that governs our overall behavior. After all, there are some behaviors which are universally applauded and others which are universally condemned. For example, even though most of our politicians seem to lack the moral stamina to say so, torturing people has been universally condemned in civilized society for thousands of years; the Romans did it and we are appalled by what they did.

The universal conscience "somewhere out there" has a name: God. It is God who has established that some things are right and other things are wrong. That is but one of the several ways in which God reveals Himself in a general way, which is to say that we can detect His existence. We know that God exists, in part because He has instilled within us a sense of right and wrong. Another way we know God exists is by observing nature. In Psalm 19 we see these revelations combined.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat. Simply stated, God reveals His glory to us in and through His glorious creation.

God also reveals Himself to us through His laws. The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

There are a couple of observations we might make about God’s laws. God’s laws are intended to be a blessing to us, not a means of stopping us from having fun. For example, haven’t each of us had times when things have not turned out as we had hoped, and yet strangely enough, we have had the satisfaction of knowing we had done the right thing in the meantime? That happens, because the precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.

Another observation that we might make about God’s laws is that we lack the capacity to abide by them on our own. While many other religions seem to indicate that people’s behavior might need a little modification, God says we need a change of heart. When God asks the question, "what’s in your heart?" the answer is that evil lurks within each of us.

The Book of James lays it all out, very straightforwardly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect person, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.

Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by people, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. This should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? Can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Although we might not like being confronted quite so boldly by the Bible, we must also admit that it is not wrong in describing us. While we do right things, maybe even most of the time, we do stumble on occasion. We have all done and said things that surprised even us. At such times, we don’t need an extreme character to ask us, "what’s in your heart?" We already know.

The standard religious answer to our maladies is that we need a little tinkering here or there, to do a religiously approved activity to make things right. Jesus would say, "Wrong!" Typical religion addresses sin from the outside, with rules and regulations, which have little or any impact upon the heart. Jesus says, "Let Me give you a new heart altogether."

Jesus’ closest followers would have been content with typical religion, but Jesus thought that was not good enough for His followers, then or today. Then Jesus called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul?"

It is important that we not forget that the rules do in fact matter, but of even greater importance is what is in our hearts. If we observe God’s laws hoping to get Him to accept us, that won’t work; and besides, we don’t need to: He has already offered to accept us through Jesus Christ. If we observe God’s laws as a substitute for having a real and vital personal relation with Him, that won’t work either. It will only frustrate us, and probably God as well.

On the other hand, if our hearts are right before God because we are opening them increasingly to Him, then we may honestly join with the Psalmist as he concluded Psalm 19: By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

WHAT'S IN YOUR HEART?

2006-09-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

If we have watched more than an hour of television within the past year or so, each of us must have seen the corny commercials put out by Capital One Credit Cards, where extreme characters ask the same punch line question: "What’s in your wallet?" The idea behind the commercials is that it is bad if we have anything but a Capital One credit card in our pockets.

Taking a cue from the Capital One commercials, a better and more significant question might be put to each of us: "What’s in your heart?" Each of us would like to think of ourselves as good people, and for the most part, most of us probably are. At the same time, we’ve also probably had times in our lives when we’ve said or done things that were just plain wrong.

Some people think that there is some sort of a universal conscience out there somewhere that governs our overall behavior. After all, there are some behaviors which are universally applauded and others which are universally condemned. For example, even though most of our politicians seem to lack the moral stamina to say so, torturing people has been universally condemned in civilized society for thousands of years; the Romans did it and we are appalled by what they did.

The universal conscience "somewhere out there" has a name: God. It is God who has established that some things are right and other things are wrong. That is but one of the several ways in which God reveals Himself in a general way, which is to say that we can detect His existence. We know that God exists, in part because He has instilled within us a sense of right and wrong. Another way we know God exists is by observing nature. In Psalm 19 we see these revelations combined.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat. Simply stated, God reveals His glory to us in and through His glorious creation.

God also reveals Himself to us through His laws. The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

There are a couple of observations we might make about God’s laws. God’s laws are intended to be a blessing to us, not a means of stopping us from having fun. For example, haven’t each of us had times when things have not turned out as we had hoped, and yet strangely enough, we have had the satisfaction of knowing we had done the right thing in the meantime? That happens, because the precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart.

Another observation that we might make about God’s laws is that we lack the capacity to abide by them on our own. While many other religions seem to indicate that people’s behavior might need a little modification, God says we need a change of heart. When God asks the question, "what’s in your heart?" the answer is that evil lurks within each of us.

The Book of James lays it all out, very straightforwardly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect person, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go.

Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by people, but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. This should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? Can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Although we might not like being confronted quite so boldly by the Bible, we must also admit that it is not wrong in describing us. While we do right things, maybe even most of the time, we do stumble on occasion. We have all done and said things that surprised even us. At such times, we don’t need an extreme character to ask us, "what’s in your heart?" We already know.

The standard religious answer to our maladies is that we need a little tinkering here or there, to do a religiously approved activity to make things right. Jesus would say, "Wrong!" Typical religion addresses sin from the outside, with rules and regulations, which have little or any impact upon the heart. Jesus says, "Let Me give you a new heart altogether."

Jesus’ closest followers would have been content with typical religion, but Jesus thought that was not good enough for His followers, then or today. Then Jesus called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: "If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a person give in exchange for his soul?"

It is important that we not forget that the rules do in fact matter, but of even greater importance is what is in our hearts. If we observe God’s laws hoping to get Him to accept us, that won’t work; and besides, we don’t need to: He has already offered to accept us through Jesus Christ. If we observe God’s laws as a substitute for having a real and vital personal relation with Him, that won’t work either. It will only frustrate us, and probably God as well.

On the other hand, if our hearts are right before God because we are opening them increasingly to Him, then we may honestly join with the Psalmist as he concluded Psalm 19: By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep Your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

EXERCISING FAITH DOES NOT ALWAYS FEEL COMFORTABLE

2006-09-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

The story is told of the young boy who was nervous about going to an overnight camp for the first time. It turned out he wasn’t worried about missing his family or home; he was afraid the other children would find out he is a Christian and they would make fun of him. His parents shared his concerns, and when he returned home at the end of the week, they anxiously asked him how he had been treated for being a Christian. "It went great!" he exclaimed, "nobody found out the whole time!"

The boy in this story is not the only person who is hesitant to acknowledge his or her faith. It is not at all surprising these days for people to indicate that their faith in God "is a private matter". They rarely if ever speak about their faith in God. They may be good people, but don’t want to connect their good behavior or good deeds to having faith in God. They might suggest it is unseemly "to wear your religion on your shirtsleeve."

There are at least a couple of reasons that holding to "a private faith" might not be a great idea. First of all, people tend to be vocal about things they have a passion for, particularly if they feel that they are in a safe place to express themselves. For instance, people seem to want to express their political opinions if they have any, especially if they are among like minded people.

More importantly than that, the Bible suggests that we should be expressing our faith, with both words and deeds. The Bible says that faith, by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. We might want to think about this in human terms for a moment. Imagine a husband who never expressed or demonstrated any affection for his wife. It might be difficult, to say the least, for anybody, including the wife, to believe that the husband has any affection whatsoever for her in the first place!

Generally speaking, marriage should be a haven in which the expression of affection feels safe. A wife or husband should not feel constrained by anybody, inside or outside of the marriage, to acknowledge their affection for one another. Indeed, some of us are aware of marriages where that doesn’t happen, and that seems wrong to us. So why should it not seem just as wrong for people of faith to not acknowledge it?

Jesus warned His followers, and us by extension, of the perils of not exercising our faith openly. He said "whoever denies Me before people, him also will I deny before the Father." It is unlikely that Jesus was saying He would withdraw His offer of salvation to those who accept Him, because the Bible says that our salvation is a free gift from God. The Bible says that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us. Is it possible that Jesus was saying that if we deny Him before people, He would not be making intercession for us at the right hand of the Father ?

Sometimes Christians want it both ways. We want to avoid the possibility of being embarrassed for or about our faith, but we also want the benefits of our faith. It generally does not work that way. The Bible tells the story of Jesus visiting one town where not much faith was being exercised, and it says He could not do many miracles there, because of their lack of faith.

The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God… that those who come to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. At the risk of reading too much into one word, it is worth noting the word earnestly. While one does not have to be exceptionally verbose or demonstrative to do something earnestly, it is likely that one would not normally or regularly be secretive or especially private about an earnest endeavor.

Having said that, perhaps some people are naturally shy or reticent. Through Isaiah the prophet God speaks reassuringly; say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution He will come to save you." Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. The lame will leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In other words, "Step forward and be blessed!"

There is a story in the Bible about a man who appears to have been hesitant, perhaps because he was shy, or maybe embarrassed, or possibly ignorant, to be blessed by God. Some people brought to Him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Him to place His hand on the man. After He took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put His fingers into the man's ears. Then He spit and touched the man's tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Be opened!" At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

Some people might object and say that Jesus blessed this man, even though it appears that he did not earnestly seek God. That would be true, but that’s not the whole story. Some people brought to Him a man…even though the individual might have been hesitant, others were not, and they exercised faith on behalf of the deaf and mute man. It may even be that this poor soul did not even understand what Jesus could do for him, due to his disability. But his hearing friends knew enough to bring him to Jesus.

Whether the disabled man was deliberately hesitant, or was ignorant about what God could do for him, it may be that it was uncomfortable for his friends to bring him to Jesus. Exercising faith does not always feel comfortable. Sometimes, exercising faith means going out on a limb. Things might not turn out as we expect them to. Our friends or family members might think we are foolish.

We never have to worry about God making us look or feel foolish. He says that if we lack wisdom but are willing to do His will, He will never chide us. In this account of Jesus with the deaf and mute man, we see Jesus demonstrating great sensitivity, when He took him aside, away from the crowd. Sometimes people with disabilities feel awkward, so Jesus did not make this man a subject of a show. God would not want to embarrass anybody who earnestly seeks Him.

Jesus once told a story about a woman who pestered an unjust judge, even in the middle of the night, demanding that her rights be upheld. The Bible’s own commentary about that story is that Jesus told His disciples this parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. While exercising faith does not always feel comfortable around some people, it should always feel comfortable around God.

The Bible recounts the story of a woman who, by all social accounts, should have felt uncomfortable exercising faith by approaching Jesus. In some ways, she was the mirror opposite of the deaf and mute man, who for his own reasons, did not go to Jesus on his own. This particular woman felt no such hesitation, seeking Jesus out and marching right up to Him. It would have been an awkward moment, except for the graciousness of Jesus.

The woman was bold. Jesus entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet He could not keep His presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about Him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

The woman was not about to take "no" for an answer. "First let the children eat all they want," He told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." "Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then He told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter." She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

There is a certain irony in this story that may be worth mentioning. The woman who apparently felt no discomfort barging into where Jesus was visiting was not only a woman, and therefore her status in that society was not as high as a man’s; but she was also a foreigner to Jesus, coming from outside ethnic Israel. Yet she did not hesitate to exercise faith in Jesus, and was richly rewarded for having done so.

On the other hand, the disabled man not only lived in ethnic Israel, he was from the region that Jesus had grown up in. That might not mean much to us, but the fact of the matter is that the region around the Sea of Galilee was what we might call "the wrong side of town" or "the wrong side of the tracks." Between the two people, the disabled man had much more of an obvious or natural "in" with Jesus than the woman, and yet he lacked the same determination to call upon Jesus for help.

How about us? Would we let the fact that exercising faith does not always feel comfortable keep us from earnestly seeking God? It may be that some of us are by nature bolder than others in exercising our faith, but that should not deter any of us from exercising faith; because the Bible says that faith without works is dead. When we think about it, how attractive is the alternative?

WHO NEEDS GOD'S LAWS, ANYHOW?

2006-09-03T20:02:00.000-07:00

Has it ever happened to you? You’re driving down a long road, and when you glance into the rearview mirror, you see a police car is behind you. What is your first reaction? To look at your speedometer, isn’t it? But suppose you don’t know the speed limit of the road you’re on?

The next thing you do is look for a speed limit sign, but they’re not always there when you want them. If you’ve been on that road before, you might try to remember what the speed limit is. But what if you can’t? You might resort to trying to figure out what the speed limit should be, but that can be tricky. And all the while, that cruiser is keeping pace with you.

In many of life’s circumstances, it is essential that we know the law. We’ve learned most of the important laws that impact our day to day lives without even knowing how, in most instances. In many cases, our parents taught us basic rules of living, like not taking things that don’t belong to us, which is the law of the land. We may have learned other laws along the way unconsciously.

Imagine what life would be like if there were no laws. The roadways would be nothing less than a huge car crash. So would life in general. Sometimes people don’t realize that when their friends are bragging about flaunting the rules of life, they’re exaggerating or perhaps just lying outright; and then they follow in their friends’ tales of fancy and get themselves into big trouble.

When considering the spiritual laws of life, some people contend that "being a good person" is or should be good enough. Generally speaking, the people who matter to us are happy with that. Shouldn’t God be content with that? Who needs God’s laws, anyhow?

Apparently, God thinks we need His laws. If He did not think so, why would He have given them to us? As the people of Israel were getting ready to enter into the Promised Land after living as slaves for over 400 years and wandering through the desert for another 40 years, God decided it would be a good thing to take a little extra time to deliver His laws to Moses.

Moses said to the people, "Hear now the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’"

Some people might wonder why God decided to give us His laws. The Bible suggests that God gave us His laws for two basic reasons. One reason was so that sinners could know that they were not living according to God’s ways. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God gave us His laws so that people could see that clearly.

The second reason that God gives us His laws is so that His followers could know the difference between right and wrong on an ongoing basis. Each of us is endowed with a conscious that informs us that we are not perfect, but we can easily distort how we are sinning, either by overstating our sins or by understating them. People have a tendency to do both.

Some people overstate the problem of sin by saying that people are no good at all. The reality is that most people are somewhat good. It is rare to find somebody who is absolutely evil. People are not sinners because we always sin, but rather because we sometimes sin. On the other side of the equation, we all have a tendency to understate our sin by saying, "everybody else does it."

Believe it or not, God gave us His laws as a gift, so that we could live blessed lives. The Bible says every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all He created.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a person who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the person who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

Who needs God’s laws, anyhow? We all do, because we are all prone to sin, at least from time to time. Ever since our earliest ancestors rebelled against God, we have a tendency towards sinning. Some people may doubt this, but human experience confirms it. What parent ever had to teach his or her child to sin? They seemed to pick that up naturally. A parent’s task is to counteract that.

God gave us His laws because He fully understands where sin comes from. It does not come from "out there" somewhere. We all have a sinful nature. In a sense it’s like when a computer gets one of those viruses with the awful pop up ads. The computer doesn’t even have to be turned on to the internet for those ads to appear, because they become imbedded in the computer itself.

Jesus said, "Listen to Me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that makes him 'unclean.' For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a person ‘unclean.’"

It is as though Jesus is offering to us the speed limit signs we need to navigate the roads of life. We live in a world that sometimes trivializes sin, saying that what happens between consenting adults is fine and is their own business. Not so, according to Jesus! As well, some people may not realize that what we call character flaws like greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly are sin in God’s eyes.

Sometimes we might think that God gave us His laws just to crimp our style or to be a killjoy. Nothing could be farther from the truth! The Bible says that God’s laws are a great blessing. Moses declared, "What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to Him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?"

Who needs God’s laws, anyhow? Anybody who wants to do God’s will and to be blessed by God. It is not a matter of figuring it out on our own or having an innate sense of these things that come naturally to us. The only way to know how God wants us to live is to let Him tell us, which he gladly does, through His laws.

"I WILL GIVE YOU A REAL CHOICE"

2006-08-28T17:19:00.000-07:00

As yet another election cycle draws upon us, voters will once again see the phenomenon of political morphing. That’s when the otherwise distinct differences between candidates becomes so blurred that a reasonable person cannot distinguish between them.

In Connecticut, we see Senator Joseph Lieberman, who lost his primary to an ardent anti war candidate, morphing himself into a Ned Lamant. Congressman Christopher Shays, who until just recently has been ardently pro war, is now morphing himself in a Dianne Farrell, going so far as to call for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, in opposition to his party’s position.

Whether or not all of this morphing will actually enable the incumbent politicians to hang onto their jobs for another term is yet to be seen. What is very clear is that they have no intention of offering voters a real choice when they go to the voting booths in November.

Even though politicians seem to think it is in their best interests to blur the distinctions between themselves and their political opponents, God does not do that. God wants us to perceive that there is a clear distinction to be made between Himself and alternate choices. Time and again throughout the Scriptures, God says "I will give you a real choice."

The Bible indicates that it all boils down to a choice between gods. We can choose to align ourselves with the Lord, or the one whom the Bible calls the god of this world or the god of this age. Some people think the choice is between God and nothing. The Bible says that is not so.

It is easy to forget that even as we live in a three dimensional world in a continuum of time, we also live in a spiritual environment. We may think our challenges are either between ourselves or nature, but there is more to it. Some people call it "fate." The Bible says our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the spiritual realms.

We live in a post Christian, or post religious, world. It was not always so. Our earliest ancestors were not ignorant fools attributing confusing or mysterious phenomenon to non-existent deities. Until relatively recently, people perceived the world as being under the jurisdiction of God. It made a lot of sense to people for thousands of years that God put things together and sustains them, rather than to view a highly complicated world as self derived.

When God says "I will give you a real choice;" He asks us to choose between Himself and other gods. As the Israelites were about to enter the Promised Land after their forty year sojourn in the desert, their leader Joshua laid out their choices simply and directly, on behalf of God.

"Now fear the LORD and serve Him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your fore-fathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

The Bible uses various pictures to describe our lives in this world. One of those pictures is that of a cosmic battle between God and Satan. The battlefield is our hearts and minds; our lives are like a battlefield between God, the force for good, and Satan, the force for evil. Unlike battlefields like Gettysburg, we not only have a stake, we have a say, in the outcome.

The battle is lopsided, in our favor. By aligning ourselves with Jesus Christ, we can experience real and lasting victory over the world, the flesh and the devil. Even though Martin Luther aptly wrote "and though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us;" he went on to say "we will not fear, for God hath willed, His truth to triumph through us."

The Bible affirms that the battle is lopsided in our favor, in the account of when Jesus’ disciples returned from a preaching tour. The seventy two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name." We can, as Joshua admonished the people of Israel, serve the LORD, because Jesus has deputized His followers with real spiritual authority.

Even though we have embraced Jesus Christ as our Lord, we are still vulnerable to temptation. Here again, God has given us the means of victory. For though we live in this world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have the power to demolish strongholds.

Jesus warned us that our hearts can be a seedbed for all sorts of evil. Left to their own devices, little sinful thoughts can easily mature into wicked "thoughts of the heart," or mindsets. It is best to catch such thoughts early. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Let’s face it, temptations can be luring. They could not tempt us otherwise. That is why it is so important that we comprehend who is behind the temptations. The Bible assures us that God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. Satan tempts us by appealing to our lusts and other unholy desires. We must keep in mind that Satan’s goal is to kill us, not to bless us.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever.

The Bible offers us a list of things the devil would like to tempt us with, but which we should avoid. That list includes the acts of the sinful nature (which) are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, rebellion, heresies and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Perhaps it might help us to picture Satan as a pedophile, luring the child with candy or toys. It is not a friendly gesture. It is the exact opposite; it is monstrous. It is the same old story since the earliest days of humanity. God warned Cain, "if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

God’s plan for us is that we draw near to God and He will draw near to you; resist the devil and he will flee from you. Part of resisting the devil includes fleeing youthful lusts ourselves. We must constantly reclaim our hearts and minds for God and ourselves, as we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

The Bible says I urge you, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s is; His good, pleasing and perfect will.

God says, "I will give you a real choice." As we make the choice for God instead of the devil, over time we will see a change unfolding in ourselves. It won’t happen immediately or overnight, but it will happen. We will notice that we see things differently; that we are being transformed by the renewing of our mind; and that God is winning the battle for our hearts and minds.

God says, "I will give you a real choice." And so, each of has a real choice to make. The good choice is available to anybody who is willing to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and in obedience to the Holy Spirit. God’s grace will see us through, if we are willing to choose Him. The choice is real, the stakes are high, let us choose wisely.

"I WILL GIVE YOU WISDOM"

2006-08-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

For many Christians, perceiving God’s will is the equivalent of "throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks" and "running it up the flagpole and see who salutes." In other words, perceiving God’s will is a matter of a mixture of trial and error, or just plain guessing.

The Bible indicates that we can do better than that. The Bible suggests that God would say to us, "I will give you wisdom." Wisdom is more than knowledge. From a secular perspective, there are some people who have a lot of knowledge about a subject, but lack the wisdom to use it.

Wisdom might be characterized as the ability to make good choices. It is more than knowing the difference between right and wrong, but knowing what is the right thing to do in a given circumstance. The highest form of wisdom would be to perceive God’s will accurately.

The Holy Spirit encourages us to pursue wisdom. Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That may actually mean being afraid of God. Jesus said we ought not to fear people, but rather to "fear Him who has the power to destroy your body and soul." Being fearful may also mean more than being afraid; although it may mean that, it might also mean being "very respectful."

God is not the only source of wisdom. The Bible warns us about wisdom that is not from God when it says who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth.

Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

The wisdom of the world does not always bear good fruit or result in good behavior. Although we must be careful not to judge other people, the Bible says we should judge, or monitor, ourselves. We can determine if we are employing God’s wisdom by what kind of fruit flows from our behavior. Jesus said that "wisdom is proved right by her actions."

If we are drawing our wisdom from God, the result should be that we and those we affect tend to look more like Jesus, not in our outward appearance, but in our character. That is probably one of the things that most distinguishes godly wisdom from worldly wisdom. Worldly wisdom often looks for results at all costs; think Machiavelli; while godly wisdom forms character.

The kind of character traits that flow out of the exercise of godly wisdom would include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. When we are out to accomplish a goal these traits might not seem important, but at the end of a person’s life what really counts is what kind of person he or she was, not how much money they accumulated or how many accomplishments may be attributed to them.

Before we can tap into God’s wisdom, we must determine ahead of time that we are going to do His will. The Bible says if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded person, unstable in all he does.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Lord insists on us determining ahead of time that we will employ His wisdom is that we probably would not otherwise. Employing God’s wisdom as often as not will be at least as challenging, if not more challenging, that any other alternative. The results are much better, but it is rarely easier to employ God’s wisdom than not.

That being said, one might reasonably wonder if it is such a good thing to employ God’s wisdom in the first place. Might we not be better off just using worldly wisdom instead? As an example, over the very short term, drinking to excess may seem like a lot of fun. Uptight people often loosen up, and gregarious people laugh louder and longer.

But ultimately, there is a price to be paid. Drinking to excess destroys the human body in many ways. It often destroys relationships. Our inhibitions protect us from behavior that we will later be embarrassed by and quite often hurt by. Drinking to excess is not a wise choice for anybody.

Another very good reason to choose godly wisdom over the wisdom of the world is that doing so pleases God and blesses us and the people around us. A basic principle throughout the Bible is that if we can be trusted with a little, God will give us more. That principle stands with wisdom.

The Bible illustrates this point in the story of when Solomon succeeded his father David as king and prayed that God would give him wisdom. The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked.

As the Bible says, God will give us His wisdom if we really want it and ask for it; and He will often give us more. "I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for, both riches and honor, so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings."

The premier cardiologist Dr. Jarvik says that the average heart beats two billion times during the course of a person’s life. There are 1,440 minutes in every day, and 168 hours in each week, and 365 days in a year. We might get more or fewer heartbeats, but we are each allotted the same amount of time for each day, week or year that we live.

Each of us is also given the choice of how we will live each day, week and year that our hearts are beating on this earth. Will we choose the wisdom of this world, which so often is really foolishness, or will we determine to live by God’s wisdom? God says to us, "I will give you wisdom." How will we answer Him? The psalmist suggests that we our prayer should be, teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

"I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEED"

2006-08-14T18:09:00.000-07:00

Although some people may not think of the movie The War of the Roses as an epic film, it certainly fits that description. Starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, The War of the Roses is a humorous depiction of the lengths some people will go to in order to get what they want. Indeed, it would be nothing short of hilarious, if it wasn’t so close to being true.

The Bible asks, what causes fights and quarrels among you? It then answers its own question: Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

In The War of the Roses, the characters portrayed by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner engage in a huge battle over real estate, their home. In the world in which we live, can we think of a significant conflict that ultimately is not about territory or resources, or both? The craving desire to take possession of what others have can lead us to do things we otherwise would not do.

The Bible says, "In your anger do not sin." Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Another and perhaps more accurate way of rendering "In your anger do not sin" would be "when you are provoked to anger, do not sin." The fact of the matter is that every last one of us is provoked to anger from time to time. One of the major provocations for anger among people is the dispute over the allocation of resources. Simply stated, we want something but don’t get it.

For Christians, there really is no excuse for yielding ourselves to anger because we want something but don’t get it. That is because we have a wonderful promise from God, who in so many ways throughout the Bible assures us, "I will give you what you need." This promise is from the One of Whom the Bible says, every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

There is nothing that we really need that God has not already anticipated and fully provided for. Although we are often caught by surprise when a need arises in our lives, God isn’t. He saw the need long before it formed. And it isn’t like God is broke. He has ample resources to provide for our needs. The Bible assures us that God wants to provide for our needs.

The Bible says God will meet all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus. It also says, He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all – how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?

Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!

While there is probably a correlation between our level of obedient faithfulness and God blessing His people, the Bible suggests it is not an exact, one to one correlation. A classic example of this would be the Exodus sojourn after Israel left Egypt and before they got to the promised land. The Israelites were hardly perfectly obedient and faithful during that time, but God still supplied their needs. Moses put things in perspective for the Israelites in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.

He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in His ways and revering Him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills. When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land He has given you.

Although God promises us that "I will give you what you need;" most Christians have had occasions in our lives when we needed something but the need was not met immediately. However, looking back we might be able to perceive that while we sensed a need at a given point in time, it turned out that God did meet the need in time. He might have let us get the edge of the cliff, but not actually fall over it. Still we might wonder why we had to wait it out.

Moses told the Israelites, and by extension, us, why we might have needs arise in our lives that are not immediately addressed. The first thing Moses said is that God allows temporary deprivation in order to test us. If push comes to shove, will we trust God or curse Him? Are we going to trust God’s character or our circumstances? We won’t know unless we are tested.

The second thing that Moses said is that God allows temporary deprivation in order to humble us. Just think what spoiled brats we would be if every need is addressed immediately, without our having to wait. A good example of that is ordinary citizens who rise in politics, particularly those who go to Washington. Some of them develop a mentality of entitlement. God may be thinking to Himself, "I’d like to meet that need today, but it will take Me ten years to offset it if I do."

Moses also said that God allows temporary deprivations for His people in order to create a disconnect between us and this world. He pointed out to the Israelites that they were headed for a far better place than the desert. If we are trusting Jesus Christ for salvation, our citizenship has already been established in heaven. Our final destination is not this life or this earth, it is a place where they pave the roads with gold! Do we perceive that, or are we still too focused on this life?

Finally, Moses also observed that God had in fact met the Israelites’ needs all along during their trek through the desert. "Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years." The Israelites were certainly not the only of God’s people to fail to appreciate what God had done for them. How quickly we can forget the 99 blessings while we wait for the 100th! Yet God is faithful and tells His people what He’s said all along, "I will give you what you need."

"I WILL GIVE YOU GUIDANCE" ("BUT I WON'T DO IT FOR YOU")

2006-08-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, the floor of our back porch needed replacing. Although I am neither a carpenter nor the son of a carpenter, I figured I could handle the job myself. I guessed it would take as much as the better part of a day to rip up the old floor and put down the new floor.

When the time came to commence working on the project, I had everything I needed. In fact, I had even more than I needed. In addition to the tools and supplies that the job called for, I had two "helpers." My "helpers" were a five year old boy and a seventy five year old man.

From a time management specialist’s point of view, the job of replacing the porch floor was something short of a great success. That is because the one day job wound up taking about four days. In all honesty, that did not matter, because we all had a great amount of fun doing the job together, even though it also called for a measure or two of patience from time to time.

Sometimes, we make the mistake of thinking that a given task is more important than the people who are participating in doing the task. That may actually be true in business, but not necessarily in other parts of life. It is almost certainly not true when it comes to God building His kingdom into the lives of His people. Then, the people are themselves the priority.

It is not unusual for Christians to be impatient with themselves, other Christians, and even God Himself in matters of God’s will being done. We live in a world of instant gratification, where with the click of a remote our TVs change stations and with the click of a mouse our computers take us all over the world wide web. So how come God or His people can’t move as fast?

Sometimes, we wish that God would simply reach down from heaven, and make things happen. We wish He would move us to the place, spiritually or physically, that we are supposed to be. Why can’t God be as instant and efficient as a TV remote control or an internet web browser?
Maybe the answer to our question is that God might want to say to us, "I will give you guidance, but I won’t do it for you." When we want God to change us or our circumstances instantly, what we are really asking Him to do is to live our lives for us. He won’t do that. We have to live our own lives. He will give us guidance, but He won’t do it for us.

Most of us have seen parents who seem to be living out their dream vicariously through their children’s lives. They are present at every baseball, soccer or football game. We can spot them a mile away. We also view them with disdain. We wish they would give their kids and everybody else a break and let their children live their own lives.

When God made people, the Bible says He made us in His image. Among other things, that means we are not robots that simply follow instructions, or animals that function almost only on instinct. He gave us the power of independent thought and the ability to make choices.

If God were to do what we sometimes want Him to do, and live our lives for us, it would violate His original plan for us. Besides that, we are the ones who need to learn how to live out our lives in accordance with God’s will and purposes, not Him. He already does that perfectly well.

"I will give you guidance, but I won’t do it for you." God provides people with all the guidance we need, primarily in three ways. The first way that God provided guidance to His people was through the Bible. Starting with the Ten Commandments, and expanding from there, God’s laws provide us with ample guidance for living successfully for ourselves, and pleasingly for Him.

God went to a lot of trouble to give us the Bible. He did it all out of love for us. The Bible tells us that we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

The Bible is not strictly a human work. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Another way that God gives His people guidance is through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, specifically the gift of prophecy, the gift of the words of knowledge and the gift of the words of wisdom. These are gifts that God promised long ago, and are intended for our benefit.

700 years before Jesus was born, God promised through the prophet Isaiah that whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, "this is the way, walk in it." The Bible describes that voice as a still small voice or a gentle whisper.

Over 500 years before Jesus was born, the Holy Spirit impressed a similar message upon the prophet Jeremiah. "The day is coming," declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with My people. I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts." In each prophecy, it as though God is saying, "I will give you guidance, but I won’t do it for you."

It can be easy for Christians to err by embracing one form of God’s guidance to the exclusion of the other. Some Christians effectively use the Bible as a set of rules, almost in a wooden fashion. On the other side of the spectrum are Christians who function "spiritually," but have no real use for the Bible, as is demonstrated by their ignorance of it. Neither side gets it entirely right.

It is best for Christians to avoid embracing only one form of God’s guidance. A possibly good analogy might be to consider table salt. We all need some salt in our diets so that our bodies will function properly. Salt is the combination of sodium and chloride. Ingested separately, either one of these components can be harmful, but together they are a blessing.

The Bible tells us that the Law and prophecy are intended to lead us to Jesus Christ, who among other things is one of God’s ways to give us guidance. When we wonder what we should do in any given situation, we can always consider; what would Jesus do if He were me?

The Bible says that the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ; in Whom we should trust, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. In the Old Testament, Moses represents the Law of God, while Elijah is considered to represent the prophetic ministry. They appeared together once in the New Testament with Jesus and several of His followers.

About eight days after Jesus said this, He took Peter, John and James with Him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about His departure, which He was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.

A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is My Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him." When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at that time what they had seen.

Living out the life of faith is not always easy for us. Sometimes our impatience can erupt, and we might wonder why God isn’t more timely with us. That does not seem to be an area of concern as far as God is concerned. Consider, for example, how God poured out His blessing upon the people of Israel during the Exodus sojourn.

The Bible tells us that whenever Moses entered the LORD's presence to speak with Him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

The trip out of Egypt to the Promised Land should have taken about eleven days. It took forty years. All that time, God blessed the people with His presence. God manifested His presence to Moses so powerfully that Moses’ face would literally shine with God’s glory.

In some cases it may take us four days to grow spiritually in some area while it takes others only one. However, chances are most of us will not best Israel’s "record" of an eleven day journey lasting forty years. Even if we do, God’s got so much time and patience that He isn’t about to simply do the growing for us. We have to live out our own lives before God. It really is as though God would say to each of us, "I will give you guidance, but I won’t do it for you."

"I WILL GIVE YOU PEACE"

2006-08-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

The recent flare up of hostilities in the Middle East brings to mind the profound statement of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who said, "You don’t make peace with your friends." At the heart of Mr. Rabin’s assertion is the suggestion that peace does not necessarily come easily to people. The history of humankind would tend to back up Yitzhak Rabin’s observation.

Although most of us think of peace in positive terms, in many ways human peace is actually an absence, rather than a presence, of something. For example, peace is the absence of hostilities between people or groups of people. Peace can be the absence of calamity. Peace is also the absence of disease; we say that a departed person "is at peace."

On the other hand, God’s peace is by its very nature a positive force in our lives. It is not the absence of anything, but rather it overrides any challenges we might have. One way the Bible describes God’s peace is that it is the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, (which) will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Some people find it hard to reconcile that the path to peace is sometimes violent. Bloodshed is never pleasant, but sometimes it is necessary. God saw it that way when He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. The Bible says that now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

The cross was the way that God made peace with His enemies. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

When people make peace with their enemies, it is always a perilous thing. The reason people need to make peace in the first place is that hostilities of some sort have broken out, and there is a lack of comfort and trust between the parties. Contingencies must be anticipated. Everything needs to be spelled out. If issues are overlooked, that may spark still more hostilities.

On the other hand, the peace of God surpasses all understanding. When people make peace, usually one or even both parties feel like they need to be in charge. They intend to enforce the peace that has been hashed out, and expect to hold the other party accountable. When we experience God’s peace, we let Him be in charge instead. Since He knows all the pertinent details of the problem, we don’t have to anticipate the anticipations, which nobody can do anyway.

Some people think that hostility between people is a normal part of our functioning. To some degree that may be, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The natural suspicions between different kinds of people can be diminished and even eliminated by Jesus. The Bible says that He Himself is our peace; Jesus is the greatest positive force that ever lived.

The early church had problems with the natural divisions that cut across society. Addressing the wall of separation that existed in the early church between the Gentiles and Jewish followers of Jesus, the Bible says Christ has made peace between Jews and Gentiles, and He has united us by breaking down the wall of hatred that separated us. They did not always understand each other, but they could still enjoy the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.

While it is God who does "the heavy lifting," we still need to do our part. If we are in conflict with somebody, we need to be willing to be reconciled. If our friends are in conflict, we need to avoid taking sides and do what we can to facilitate reconciliation. In one instance, the Apostle Paul wrote, I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.

Although we think we want peace with God, sometimes we might want a piece of God. That is to say, we might be experiencing inner turmoil because there is a conflict between what we want to do and what God wants us to do. We would do well to step back from the situation and try to gain an eternal perspective, contemplating our eternal well being rather than our immediate future.

God already has our eternity in mind, because God inhabits eternity. That is why He sent Jesus to be our Savior. The Bible says Jesus’ followers are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Sometimes our lack of peace is not between ourselves and somebody else, but between us and the world in general. Most of us have had times when we have felt thwarted by life’s circumstances, although it is not necessarily anybody’s fault. We just can’t catch a break. We can be consumed by our frustrations, or we can embrace the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.

There is a simple and practical way to enter into God’s peace when that happens. That is not to say that obtaining God’s peace is always an easy thing to do. It may mean giving up cherished dreams or goals. It is up to us to enter into God’s peace, and it is possible. The Bible tells us how we can do that. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

One of the ways we can be anxious for nothing is to determine ahead of time that we will yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit. The Bible says cast your cares upon Him, because He cares for you; we do that by prayer and supplication. As we do that, the Lord gives us the peace of God which will guard our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. An apt description of that peace is that it is like a referee or umpire, guiding us to sense when we are living according to God’s will.

Sadly, the best that the people of the Middle East can hope for is a brokered peace, cobbled together before too much longer. It won’t be real peace; at best it will be a temporary cease fire. That’s about the best that people can do. Alternatively, God offers people who embrace Him a real and lasting peace that does not have to be subject to circumstances.

Whether we need God’s peace for our interactions with other people, for the comfort of our own minds or to simply function in a sometimes dysfunctional world, we ought always to remember the promise of Jesus, who said, "I will give you peace." Jesus said the peace He gives us is not like the world’s peace – among other things that is to say the absence of something – He also said that "in the world you will have troubles, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world."

"I WILL GIVE YOU RICHES"

2006-08-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

Who among us has not dreamed of winning the lottery? We drive down the highway and see one of those billboards advertising this week’s mega lottery for 261 ga-zillion dollars, and we’re tempted to think, "I could go for that." We begin to imagine how much better off our lives would be if only we could hit "the big one." They tease us even further by reminding us that "you can’t win if you don’t play."

The last of the big time spenders plunk down a dollar or two so as not to deny fate the opportunity to give us riches beyond our wildest dreams. For others, maybe it’s more like $25, $50 or even $100 reaching out for that "brass ring." When the fortune gets big enough for a lottery, people line up around the block; in spite of the fact that for every winning ticket in the lottery, there are countless losers.

Let’s be honest with ourselves. Most if not all of us have a strange fascination with money. We tend to think of it as the solver of all problems. We think it can be our source of happiness. Even though the Beatles sang "Money Can’t Buy Me Love," money may "buy" you friends; especially in Washington DC, where they prefer to listen to Willie Nelson instead, who sang "If You’ve Got The Money, Honey, I’ve Got The Time."

Our fascination with money is somewhat counterintuitive. As they say, "you can’t take it with you." In Ecclesiastes, Solomon observed that we strive to accumulate wealth so that it can be left to heirs. In the meantime, there never seems to be enough of it anyway. When asked how much money does a person need to feel like he’s got enough, John D. Rockefeller answered, "about a nickel more than he’s got."

God has a better plan for us than that. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God says, "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." The Book of First Corinthians tells us that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, the heart of man has not conceived, of the great things God has in store for those who love Him. In other words, God is saying to us, "I will give you riches."

The heart of God towards us is reflected in a pastoral prayer that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to pray. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

When it comes to riches, sometimes the pendulum between spiritual concerns and worldly concerns swing widely for some Christians. Some Christians tend to emphasize the spiritually oriented blessings of God, while others focus on the more materially oriented blessings. As in many cases, there is probably a good balance somewhere between the two extremes. God can and will bless His people in both ways.

It is no big deal for God to supply our material needs. Since God made the world in the first place, and the Bible says the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, it makes sense that God is able to meet our day to day needs. Indeed, Jesus said so when He said that God clothes and feeds His people, and that our concern should chiefly be to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Many people are familiar with the stories of Jesus feeding thousands of people with just a few morsels of bread and fish. Those are not allegorical or otherwise made up accounts, they actually happened. The prophet Elisha did pretty much the same thing. One point we can derive from these historical accounts is that from God’s point of view, caring for our material concerns is really no big deal at all. When it comes to our material needs God can easily say, "I will give you riches."

As important as our day to day needs are, the fact of the matter is that they are temporal, meaning that they won’t last. Most of us can recall how we once thought that some material concern was of overwhelming importance to us, but that now we give it no thought. We might not even remember it! At the same time, our material needs vary from time to time as our circumstances change. We can go from "boom to bust" more than once; just ask Donald Trump.

The proclamation of the "health and wealth gospel" has always been popular, and still is today. It is the basic message of one of the largest churches in America today. But if our focus is only on what material riches God can give us, we will be missing out on a lot. The spiritual riches that God wants to pour into our lives are of a kind that simply cannot be obtained anywhere else or from any other source.

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It is absolutely astounding to consider how much power poured into our lives when we embraced Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Jesus knows and understands; He said "greater things shall you do, because I go to the Father."

It may be that Jesus was suggesting that His followers would perform even more spectacular miracles than He did; alternatively He might have been saying that since we have more time than a brief three year stint that we would accomplish more; or He might have been indicating that collectively we as a group would do more than He did. However we understand what Jesus meant, the fact is that He was conferring power to His people.

Each of us wants to have power, and for most of us most of the time, we desire power for good reasons. We want to be able to do things for the people around us as well as ourselves. Followers of Jesus have more power than we generally realize. For example, we have the power of prayer. The Bible says that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Christians have power over demonic forces. The disciples of Jesus were stunned and thrilled to report to Jesus that "even the demons are subject to us in Your name." The Bible reminds us that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers of darkness in spiritual places. That battle is lopsided in our favor. Scriptural accounts, as well as personal testimonies of Christians around the globe and through the years, affirm the truth that Martin Luther wrote about in the wonderful hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. "And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed, His truth to triumph through us."

It may be that some Christians would have to admit that they lack much personal knowledge or experience of His glorious riches in their own lives. That is not God’s will. One reason some Christians may be lacking in God’s blessings is that they don’t think or know to ask for it. One good way for each of us to experience more of His glorious riches in our lives is to personalize Paul’s pastoral prayer, substituting first person pronouns in the place of second person pronouns, as follows:

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen me with power through His Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. AMEN!

"I WILL GIVE YOU JOY"

2006-07-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

When a baby is born, invariably one of the primary goals of his or her parents is that the child be happy. We wish happiness upon our children, more than we wish wealth or success, or even health. Why do parents desire the happiness of their children so much? Is it because they love the child? In part, the answer is yes. But another, perhaps more fundamental reason, that we desire that our children be happy, is that we value our own happiness so much.

On the one hand, some people might think that happiness is an overvalued goal. They might think that success or virtue are more important. As often as not, it all comes back to happiness. One of the benefits of success or virtue is that they make the person and the people around them happy.

Happiness is important. Happiness is an important source of strength for us. The more happy a person is, the better he or she functions in life. People can still function even if they are not happy, but probably not as well as when they are happy. In the meantime, it takes a lot more of our energy to anything when we are unhappy.

The problem with happiness is that it can come and go. Happiness can be like the weather, which fluctuates somewhat unpredictably. Like the weather, we cannot control our happiness. Maybe we’ve tried to be happy, maybe we’ve been determined to be happy. Maybe we’ve been told to be happy. But we cannot manufacture our own happiness.

The Bible provides an example of somebody who tried to manufacture his own happiness, but in the end, he failed. King Herod had stolen his brother’s wife, violating a cardinal rule of God’s, who had said, "thou shalt not commit adultery." It is amazing to consider the lengths that some people will go to in seeking their own happiness. Herod still wasn’t happy, though, and was driven to imprison, and then kill John the Baptist, for calling him on the carpet.

Our happiness depends upon our circumstances. If our circumstances do not warrant our being happy, it would be a sign of something being really wrong with us if we are happy at the wrong times. When we or our loved ones are stricken with a major illness, if we lose our job or a loved one dies, it would hardly be appropriate for us to be, or to act, happy.

Our happiness is also dependent upon other people; friends and strangers alike. Maybe that is why so many people strive to control the people around them, in an effort to get them to behave in a way that makes us happy. That is generally a losing proposition. We cannot make all the people around us make us happy. In fact, the only person we can control is ourselves. That is as it should be; the Bible says the fruit of the Holy Spirit is self control.

Even though our happiness is dependent upon circumstances and other people, we still prize happiness. That is because in spite of its inherent weakness, happiness is better than unhappiness. But there is something that is even better than happiness. That is joy. Joy feels a lot like happiness, but joy is not dependent upon circumstances. Jesus said, "I will give you joy."

The Bible says that the joy of the Lord is your strength. Throughout the Bible, the people who experienced the joy of the Lord experienced it in spite of their circumstances, rather than because of their circumstances. For example, the prophet Nehemiah was weighed down by internal as well as external opposition to his service for the Lord. The Bible indicates that Nehemiah was not happy about his troubles, but even so, he experienced the joy of the Lord.

King David experienced the joy of the Lord even while he experienced the wrath and contempt of his wife. After leading a procession of worshippers, David was "greeted" by his wife. Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, "How glorious was the king of Israel today, uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!"

David was most likely not happy by his wife’s scolding, especially if she did it in front of his friends. But David was too filled with the joy of the Lord to let her get him down. So David said to Michal, "It was before the LORD, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the LORD. And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, by them I will be held in honor."

Jesus said, "I will give you joy;" and not only that; He also said "your joy will be complete." But that does not mean that we will automatically experience it. Sadly, many Christians don’t. So how can ordinary people, who are not prophets or kings, experience the joy of the Lord?

One thing we can do to experience the joy of the Lord is to come into God’s presence, because the Bible says that in His presence there is fullness of joy, at His right hand, there are pleasures evermore. That is not actually as hard as it sounds. The Bible says we come into His presence with praise and enter His gates with thanksgiving.

Even though joy is not dependent upon our circumstances, it can still be elusive to us. We can either choose to focus on the good things that God is doing for us, or we can focus on what is not going well at the moment. The Gospel singer Andrae Crouch had a song that said, "if I never had a problem, I’d never know that God could solve it."

The Bible tells us how to experience the joy of the Lord: Rejoice in the Lord always. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.

Along these lines, if we want to experience the joy of the Lord, we need to get on board with God’s will for our lives. Christians often struggle with the conflict between what God wants for us versus what we want for ourselves. The Bible says God’s ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. God knows what is best for us, and the sooner we give up insisting on having our own way, the sooner we will experience the promise of Jesus, when He said, "I will give you joy."

WHEN GOD BLESSES OTHERS

2006-07-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

We have all heard the phrase, "always the bride’s maid, but never the bride." We say or think that about people who perpetually seem to come in second place in the game of life. At times, each of us has been there. We are hoping for that job, a new home or car, maybe to fall in love; our friends and the people around are being blessed, but we feel left out, maybe forgotten by God.

At such times, our disappointments may become compounded by feelings of jealousy, and possibly even anger. For most people, we can toss a measure of guilt into the equation by that point. It can be so troubling when God blesses others, while we feel like we’re being left behind. We want to be glad for our friends, but we’re compromised by sadness for ourselves.

Perhaps one difficulty for some of us is if we grew up in homes where we felt like one or more of our siblings were favored over us by our parents. While that might sound like the old story of somebody blaming their parents for their problems, it may nevertheless be a real issue. People might not dwell on those thoughts, but they may still be lurking beneath the surface.

It can be bad enough when the breeze is at the back of one or more of our friends and life is good for them but not for us. How about when it appears that a person we consider to be undeserving of being blessed is being blessed by God, while we wait and watch on the sidelines? We may still feel sorry for ourselves and angry with God or at the situation, but we may not feel guilty. Instead, we may feel contemptuous. How dare God bless him or her, and not me?

There is a story in the Bible where one man probably felt at least that way, and maybe even more. When Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him. And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet and begged Him earnestly, saying, "My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live."

So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him. Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment.

For she said, "If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well." Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My clothes?" But His disciples said to Him, "You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’"

And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction." While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, "Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?"

Let’s try to put ourselves in Jairus’ place for a moment. He was a ruler of the synagogue. The rulers of the synagogue did not like Jesus, and wished He would go away. Jairus probably felt that way too, or at least respected the views of those who did. Maybe one of the last things Jairus ever wanted to do was to support or affirm Jesus, especially not publicly.

But then, Jairus’ beloved daughter fell terribly ill. Jairus had heard about Jesus’ healing power. Jairus was a good servant of God. It may be that Jairus had a quick or sudden conversion to believing that Jesus really is the Son of God. If there was ever a time Jairus needed "to cash in his chips" with God, it was now. If God ever blessed anyone, Jairus needed his blessing now.

Much to Jairus’ relief, Jesus was willing to drop everything to go to Jairus’ house. Maybe Jairus felt, at the bottom of his heart, that this was as it should be. Or maybe Jesus didn’t hold grudges. In any event, help was on the way and Jairus’ heart and hope were soaring. That is, until this undeserving woman, whose illness rendered her repugnant to civilized society, appeared.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that this lowly woman had actually touched Jesus, and that some of Jesus’ healing had relieved her, now Jesus was stopping the procession to Jairus’ house to have a conversation with her! The range of Jairus’ emotions at this point must have made a racket ball look like a ball of yarn. And then the floor came out from under Jairus’ feet: his daughter died.

One could not really blame Jairus for resenting this woman, to put it mildly. But Jairus would have been wrong to hold her in contempt, if he felt that he was more deserving of being blessed than she was. The Bible says that God shows no partiality. Jairus would have benefited from the wisdom of Tim Russert’s father, who taught him that "he was always loved, but never entitled."

It would not have been surprising if Jairus thought that somehow or other all of Jesus’ healing power had been spent (misspent?) on this woman. He might have forgotten what the Bible says, that the arm of the LORD is not too short to save. People sometimes forget that God’s resources are infinite; we may mistakenly think they are limited, much as ours definitely are.

Perhaps Jairus wondered, as we so often do, why God doesn’t simply bless people immediately whenever a desire or a need arises in our lives. After all, it is not as though God did not know the desire or need would be there long before it appeared. If God is God, why do His people ever want for anything? When God blesses others, why do we have to wait to be blessed ourselves?

Perhaps one reason we must wait for some blessings is that we want the wrong things. That is not necessarily to say that our desires are sinful, although they sometimes are. It might just be that God wants to give us a different life partner, or another job, than the one we have set our sights on. It is helpful to keep in mind that God’s ways are higher than our ways; His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. It would also help us to distinguish between our needs and our wants.

Sometimes we make the mistake of focusing on what we think is missing from our lives instead of appreciating how God has already blessed us. Living in a consumer driven economy and being constantly told through advertisements that we need this or deserve that, it is not hard to get confused. If we think about it, we realize that God has blessed us abundantly already.

If we have committed ourselves to God by embracing His Son Jesus Christ, we are part of God’s covenant community. Although God is under no contractual obligation to bless His people, He does so because He wants to. Psalm 37 says, I was young and now I am old, but I have never seen God’s people forsaken, and I have never seen their children begging bread.

Although Jairus "went through the ringer" when his daughter fell ill, ultimately he and his family were blessed by God. It is not hard to imagine that whatever anxiety Jairus endured while waiting for that blessing did not match up to the elation he experienced when the blessing finally came to him. When God blesses others, we should keep in mind that He can and will bless us too.

OH, TO BE AN AUTHENTIC MAN OF GOD

2006-06-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

In America these days, the word “authentic” has developed a certain elasticity. Take for example the word “organic.” One might naturally assume (no pun intended) that when one buys organic products, they meet the standards of authenticity. Not so. It turns out that FDA guidelines provide for some degrees of variation when it comes to organic food; and there are also variations when it comes to women’s makeup.

Buyers of organic food must be astute enough to distinguish between food that is “100% organic,” which can contain only organically grown ingredients, and “organic foods,” where only 95% of the ingredients must be organic. The FDA also allows companies to label their products “made with organic ingredients” if only 70% of the ingredients are actually organic.

In some ways, it might be said that “authentic manhood” has developed a certain elasticity these days. It used to be that the man of the house, in partnership with the woman of the house, was legitimately revered. We think of “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It To Beaver” as classic examples of authentic men fulfilling their roles in society. For some men nowadays, what it means to be a man may well be summarized by the Rev. Robert Lewis of the Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, Arkansas:

“It’s great to be a man. Your last name stays put. The garage is always yours. You don’t give a darn if someone notices your new haircut or not. One mood, all the time. You never have to drive to another gas station because this one is icky. Wedding plans take care of themselves. You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness. If someone forgets to invite you to something, he can still be your friend.

“Your underwear costs $8.95 for a three pack. You can quietly watch a game with your buddy for hours without ever thinking, “Is he mad at me?” Christmas shopping can be accomplished in thirty minutes on December 24th. If another guy shows up at a party wearing the same outfit you have on, you might just become friends for life.”

Does anybody really think that this is God’s ideal plan for a man? Rev. Lewis’ spoof on “It’s Great To be A Man” is basically that boys can transition from being small children into being big children. While it is no doubt a good thing to retain some youthful vigor, at the same time we recall the Scripture that says, when I was a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Rev. Lewis would agree with that. He went on to say:

“There are other reasons it is great to be a man. We each have the opportunity to lead one of the most challenging and influential organizations on Planet Earth, the family. We can be a little boy’s or a little girl’s hero. We have the honor to stand for an eternal kingdom. We have the privilege of summoning the young men around us to an authentic masculinity that can make them real men. We can make our part of the world, wherever we may be, a little better. And in time we can be like Jesus.”

Oh, to be an authentic man of God! Is it really possible to be an authentic man of God, and if so, how? The answer to the first question is yes, but it is not easy. There are at least three elements that are required of anybody who wants to be an authentic man of God, The first is a willingness to be an authentic man of God. The second element is a determination to be an authentic man of God. Finally, it takes time to become and to be an authentic man of God; one does not become an authentic man of God overnight.

If we are willing to be an authentic man of God, that is good enough for God. There is an old saying that “God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called.” We don’t have to come from a certain social background, or have a certain standard of education, to be an authentic man of God. For those of us who “have a face made for radio,” we can take comfort that our appearance is not important to God either.

The Bible tells the story of God seeing in King David a person with the potential to be an authentic man of God. God was displeased with the first king of Israel, Saul, because he was more interested in being his own man than in being an authentic man of God. So the Lord dispatched His prophet Samuel to anoint a new king for Israel. The assignment did not turn out as Samuel would have initially expected.

Samuel expected that an authentic man of God would be recognizable by his appearance, but he was wrong about that. While Samuel would have selected David’s older brother, the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

It would turn out later that David’s older brothers all demonstrated a haughtiness of heart that would make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to be authentic men of God. Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” An authentic man of God must never get carried away with himself. God said of David, “Here is a man after My own heart.”

God does not make a person to be an authentic man of God against his will. In fact, just the opposite is true. We must really want to be an authentic man of God if we expect to be an authentic man of God. There are some people who mistakenly think that if God wants to accomplish something in their lives, it will sort of automatically happen, regardless of their intentions or effort. They confuse fatalism with faithfulness.

The Bible says therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

The Bible goes on to say that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. While it would be great if all of our potential as a new creation would materialize in our lives the moment we embrace Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, Jesus indicated that it takes time for a person to develop or mature into being an authentic man of God.

And Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Any grown up male by definition is a man, but it takes more than that to be an authentic man of God. It is not the easiest choice in life to take, but in the end it is worth it. The choice to be an authentic man of God is available to anyone who wants to choose it, even if we or other people around us might doubt that from time to time. There is a Christian song that says, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.” Jesus would concur.

Then Jesus said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seen which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the earth may nest in its shade.”

THE "AH-HA!" MOMENT

2006-06-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Most people have them, but not all the time. The "Ah-ha!" moment is when something that was confounding or confusing now makes sense. Some "Ah-ha" moments can be meaningful and significant, while others clearly aren’t. "Ah-ha" moments that are significant are those which have the potential to change our lives. "Ah-ha" moments can be dramatic and sudden, as when "the lights go on." Some may be more gradual, as when we say "it began to dawn on me… ."

One of the more famous Old Testament prophets had an "Ah-ha" moment that he went on to describe for us. Isaiah the prophet wrote that in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!"

So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts." Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged." Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."

Some people speculate that Isaiah and King Uzziah were friends or at least acquainted. That may be, or it might just be that Uzziah’s death was a traumatic event for Judah. He had been king for a very long time. It might have been like when Franklin Roosevelt passed away towards the end of World War II. The Nazi regime was at the breaking point and the Pacific war looked hopeless, and then the president dies! When a country’s leader dies, it causes uncertainty at best and more likely it is a traumatic event.

Each of us has faced times of uncertainty and possibly trauma in our own lives. There is an old saying that God wants to use the difficulties in our lives to make us better, but Satan wants to use them to make us bitter. Whether the challenges of our lives make us better or bitter is pretty much up to us. Would we see them as "Ah-ha" moments or "Oh-no" moments?

The Bible says consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Simply stated, God can use the trials of many kinds to make us better. We, on the other hand, would rather not have adversity in our lives. We would rather watch the exercise video instead of actually following the leader on the tape or DVD. But people who only watch look like the coach potatoes they are, and not like the fit and trim people who produce the exercise video.

In the midst of a difficult time, Isaiah had an "Ah-ha" moment when he beheld God’s glory. Even though the king had died, God was still watching over His people. The same is true today. The Book of Hebrews says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Lord does not change because our circumstances change. The Bible also says that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion on the day of Jesus Christ. He did not bring us this far to drop us.

In adverse circumstances, do we tend to have "Ah-ha" moments or "Oh-no" moments? A Gospel singer sang "if I never had a problem, I’d never know God could solve it." Do we realize, not just in our heads but also in our hearts, that His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness? We already have whatever we need from God! It is like checking our account balance for our ATM cards, except that in this case the balance is always sufficient to meet whatever need comes our way.

There are some very smart and well educated people, even in the religious field, who know more about something than really knowing something. Jesus encountered people like that. One such person was a man named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, who came to Jesus and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."

It is apparent that Nicodemus had an inkling of who Jesus really is. He was all but saying that Jesus is the Messiah that God had promised through the Old Testament prophets. But Nicodemus was still wandering around in spiritual darkness. Jesus gave Nicodemus an "Ah-ha" moment when Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Significant "Ah –ha" moments are usually profound, even if they seem to be simple. It was that way when Jesus gave Nicodemus an "Ah-ha" moment. It was a simple truth. Perhaps it might seem to be too uncomplicated for some people. God loves people and wants to give eternal life to each of us as a gift. The Bible says we deserve otherwise; that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

It must be acknowledged that some people don’t believe in Jesus because they are not terribly impressed with some of the people who do. Although they do themselves no favor when they do so, some people’s only version of the Bible is what they see of the Christians around them. Some people in the world say the Bible is full of contradictions. That’s not true. Perhaps the problem may be that some Christians’ lives are full of contradictions. As they say, "actions speak louder than words."

Having noted that, it would be extreme to accuse Christians of hypocrisy just because there is a gap between how we should live ideally and how we really live. After all, we must allow room for error and recognize that different people are at different levels of spiritual maturity. As well, seasoned and young Christians alike need "Ah-ha" moments from time to time, to clear the dust from our lives.

Throughout our lifetimes, people need "Ah-ha" moments. Sometimes we need big "Ah-ha" moments, like when Jesus told Nicodemus about God’s love or when Isaiah beheld the glory of God. The Bible says that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. When we consider "Ah-ha" moments in combination with revelations like that, we ought to be in awe of what God can do in us, for us, and through us. "Ah-ha!" moments can lead us to a brighter future.

Changed and improving lives, not as the world measures improvement by a so called increased standard of living, but where love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control increasingly characterize our lives, signal that we are getting it when God delivers "Ah-ha" moments into our lives. It means that we comprehend who we are and sense God’s destiny for us.

If we have embraced Jesus Christ as our Lord we have promises from God that serve as a continual "Ah-ha!" moment. The Bible says that we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. "Ah-ha!" Do we get it?

WHERE THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS

2006-06-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

We live in an age of advanced technology, and most of us have come to be very dependent on the technological tools that we use daily. It used to be just the telephone or television, and now we’ve added the internet and cell phones with all sorts of capabilities. We are almost paralyzed if one or more of them breaks down on us. It is hard for some of us to imagine how we ever managed to get by before we had these newer tools, which for many of us was only about ten years ago!

Suppose for a minute, though, that all of the technological tools we have become so accustomed to were to be taken away from us permanently. Even if we were reduced to living only without the technology that was developed in the past quarter century, and had only the land based telephone and network television, we would still likely feel deprived.

To some degree, there are some Christians who have in a similar way deprived themselves of the full blessings of the Holy Spirit. Some Christians think they should be content with the equivalent power of land based telephones and network television when it comes to letting the Holy Spirit empower their daily lives as well as their service to the Lord.

Dwight L. Moody, who was the preeminent evangelist of the nineteenth century, had been like that for a while. Moody related how he had at one point been offended by a couple of women who attended his evangelistic services and who were praying for Moody to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. He thought he had enough power of the Holy Spirit, but later on, when he really was empowered in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he realized what he had been missing out on.

The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel had a vision about the Lord’s people trying to function apart from the Holy Spirit. The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"

So I answered, "O Lord GOD, You know." Again He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD."’"

So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them. Also He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live."’"

So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.

"Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it," says the LORD.’"

There are at least two lessons we can draw from Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. One lesson is that without the Holy Spirit actively functioning in our lives, any of us are "dry bones." Notice that the Lord said, "these bones are the whole house of Israel." Believe it or not, there are some Christians who actually think that if the Holy Spirit does not guide them, they can rely upon themselves. That is like saying a car can be driven with an empty gas tank. Not!

Secondly, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to and through individual people. Some Christians wish the Holy Spirit would move more dramatically in their churches, but they themselves are not willing to yield to the Holy Spirit individually. A church is only a collection of individual people. We can’t pray for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then sit back and wait for something to happen, as though we were watching the rain fall from the safety of the house or porch.

Indeed, when the Holy Spirit stirred the early church on the Day of Pentecost, He moved, not on the group, but on individual people. When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Some Christians are hesitant to yield themselves fully to the Holy Spirit, because they have seen some Charismatic Christians acting in ways they consider to be odd. Perhaps such Charismatics are as much "enthusiastics" as anything else. There is a song that pretty accurately describes what happens when we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit. It is called, Where The Spirit of the Lord Is.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is peace. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is love. There is comfort in life’s darkest hour, there is light and life, there is help and power, in the Spirit, in the Spirit, of the Lord." (Words and music by Stephen Adams, 1973)

Rather than be frightened away from yielding ourselves to the Holy Spirit, we ought to realize that we need the Holy Spirit to guide us. The Bible says the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

There is really no reason to be hesitant to yield ourselves fully to the Holy Spirit, because Jesus Christ, who was Himself fully yielded to the Holy Spirit, commends the Holy Spirit to us. "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

"When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you." Jesus went on to reassure us when He said, "I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you."

TO WHOM DO WE BELONG?

2006-05-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

One of the things that unites Americans is that we celebrate rugged individualism. Having said that, the truth of the matter is that virtually all of us belong to certain people groups. We are members of our families. We are citizens of our communities. We may belong to clubs or organizations. We may be part of a church. Indeed, we consider it to be a cause for concern when somebody is truly "a loner," a person who does not appear to be connected with anybody else.

Most Americans became Americans through the accident of birth. That is to say that we did not do anything to be Americans except be born here. Although we sometimes think or speak of some people groups as being minorities, that is probably actually a misnomer. Americans of African or Hispanic decent who were born here are just as much Americans as anybody else. The only real minority among us are the people who become Americans through the process of naturalization.

While we are Americans and very happy to be so, some of us are Christians as well. People do not become Christians by the accident of birth, or by default, that is to say by not being Jewish or Muslim, so that one is a Christian by default. Christians are sort of like naturalized Americans in that we must make a deliberate and intentional choice to become a Christian.

Being a Christian means that we belong to Jesus Christ. It is really not a lot different from being a member of a family or other people group. While we have the ability to choose which groups or organizations we want to be part of, our family is our family. And so it is with being a Christian; on the one hand, we choose to be Christians, on the other hand, Jesus says God chose us.

The Bible records for us what some people call the high priestly prayer of Jesus. Looking up to heaven, Jesus prayed, "I have made Your name known to those whom You gave Me from the world. They were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.

"Now they know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words that You gave to Me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom You gave Me, because they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them."

There are other similarities between being Americans and being a Christian. We live in a free country because other people died for us, in order to secure and maintain our freedom. Christians live in freedom from the power of sin and fear of the grave, because Jesus died for us on the cross. Just as we could not live in freedom apart from the sacrifice of the soldiers who died for us, people cannot live in spiritual freedom apart from the sacrificial death of Jesus for us.

Most of us are pretty happy being Americans. While some people insist they are going to move to Canada if this or that candidate is elected President, most of them stay put. Alec Baldwin is still here. We would rather be Americans than something else. The current uproar over immigration policies reminds us that these sentiments are shared by other people around the globe.

America is not a perfect country. There are certainly many ways in which life could be better for the average person. Even so, a recent poll indicated that Americans are among the most content people in the world. While seventy five percent of the Americans polled by the University of Chicago strongly agreed with the statement, "I would rather be a citizen of my country than any other;" about one third of French people and less than twenty five percent of Germans agreed.

Similarly, people who have tasted the goodness of the Lord know that there is nothing better than belonging to God. Perhaps the Psalmist said it best when he wrote, how lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere. While no church is perfect, sometimes Christians make the mistake of focusing on what is wrong with being part of a given congregation, instead of pondering the positive aspects of the church.

On Memorial Day, we honor the memory of the brave men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. There is truly no adequate way we can begin to express our appreciation for these people and to their families. And yet, sadly the attendance at Memorial Day parades and festivities is not nearly what it should be. Is it too much too ask the beneficiaries of our heroes’ self sacrifice to give up an hour or two at the beach or in the backyard, to say "thank you?

We cannot look back to a specific date or event in American history to find a trigger point or event that caused the apathy about Memorial Day in modern America. While such apathy would have been unimaginable a couple of generations ago, it is not considered to be unusual these days.

It is not improbable to suggest that if Memorial Day observations were more entertaining in nature, that more people would show up. Fill in the blank of which headliner or what sports star one could name, and think about how different Memorial Day observations would be if that person or group provided the entertainment.

Modern day apathy about Memorial Day celebrations occurred gradually, almost imperceptibly. For some Christians, there is a sad parallel in this area. Fourteen percent of the people who don’t attend church services describe themselves as evangelical Christians. They drifted away from church for various reasons. Some may have been hurt or offended by a church member or even the minister. Others may have been distracted by competing events. Others just got bored after a while. Whatever the cause, does this apathy not pain the heart of God?

Jesus often used the current events or locales of His day to illustrate kingdom truths to His listeners. "The Parable of the Sower" is but one example. The Bible says seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. One wonders if Jesus might not use the present day saga of Memorial Day observations to awaken His Church and ask us to rededicate ourselves to Him. He might ask us to ponder to whom do we belong, and if the answer is Him, to act like it.

DOING IT GOD'S WAY

2006-05-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

The Bible tells us that there is a way of doing things that seems right to people, but it only leads to death. It also says that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Sometimes people like to come up with "spiritual meanings" for words or phrases in the Bible. For example, the word "death" is one of them. Some people say that when the Bible refers to "death," it really means "continued life, but without the presence of God."

Actually, the term death is fairly easily and well understood. It means "without life." We use the term "D.O.A" to say, "Dead On Arrival." People can be "D.O.A". as a result of an accident. In politics, a governor or president can send an unpopular bill to the Legislature, where it arrives, "D.O.A". Most people would agree that death is not a desired outcome for us, or our activities.

When the Bible says there is a way of doing things that seems right to people, but it only leads to death, it is indicating that there are at least two ways of doing things. In virtually any activity, we can either be doing it God’s way, or doing it our way. On occasion, the two may happen to coincide, but not always, and perhaps not often or even usually.

People’s ways of doing things are most often expressed in terms of domination, power, control and success. We often feel most comfortable if we feel like we are in control of the situation we are in. For instance, think for a moment about riding a motorcycle. Even if we don’t know how to drive a motorcycle, many of us would still prefer to be the driver rather than the passenger.

People define success in various ways. Some people define success as the accumulation of wealth. Others define success in terms of personal or professional achievements. However any of us defines success, success is important to most of us. One of the challenges of success is that sometimes people may be compromised or even corrupted in seeking it. Jesus said, "What good is it if you gain the whole world, but lose your soul in the meantime?"

While the world’s way of doing business typically revolves around domination, power, control and success, God offers us a better way. Jesus said to His disciples, "As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. I have said these things to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."

The sad truth of the matter is that some people who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus and who are sincere in their faith have in some ways adopted the ways of the world, particularly in the realm of some social matters. Some Christians opt for domination, power, control and success through the political process instead of embracing Jesus’ commandment to love.

The Bible is clear in saying that there are some behaviors, which if followed, preclude people from inheriting the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is defined in the Epistle to the Romans in terms of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It should go without saying that to be precluded from the kingdom of God would be a great tragedy for anybody.

Knowing what the Bible says about certain behaviors or lifestyles, how do some people in the evangelical community react to people whose lifestyles may be contrary to Scripture? Is prayer and "loving the sinner" always the response? Sadly, no. Sometimes the reaction of evangelicals is to gather at state capitals, sign petitions banning the behavior, and hiring well heeled lobbyists.

We might very well ask what Jesus thinks about the way some of His followers handle "sinners." No doubt, He is not pleased. We can say that confidently, because we know how He handled "sinners" when He sojourned here in His day. The religiously self righteous people of Jesus’ day were horrified by Him. Jesus did not treat "sinners" in the same way some evangelicals do today.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with Him and His disciples. The religiously self righteous people made no effort to conceal their contempt for Jesus as well as for the "sinners." When the Pharisees saw this, they asked His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?"

Everybody who knows anything about the relationship between the evangelical community at large and "sinners" knows that there is at least a lot of tension at best; in some cases even hatred. Some Christians might think that is the price of standing up for the truth. But Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." Yet, of all the dispersions that were cast against Jesus in His day, nobody ever suggested that He hated anybody.

In the personal realm, it might sometimes be easier or more convenient to seek domination, power, control and success than to do things God’s way, but we do so at a lofty price. Jay Gould was the wealthiest man in the world at the time of his passing in 1892. He was also the most despised, because he not only compromised principles in order to achieve his goals, he was most likely corrupt. It was not worth it. His inheritance did not last. His grandson lived in poverty.

God invites us to do things His way. It is not hard for us to know God’s ways, because He has chosen to tell us. Through Isaiah the prophet God says, "I am the LORD, and there is no other. I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, "Seek Me in chaos." I the LORD speak the truth, I declare what is right." Jesus said, "I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from My Father."

In God’s realm, love is our guide and life is the goal. One way we can love people is to realize that in any relationship, not every thought has to be expressed. This is particularly true when we observe somebody doing something wrong. If it does not directly effect us, there is probably no reason to comment on it. Our criticisms may feel like condemnation; and the Bible says there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Loving people does not mean being a doormat or a co-dependent person. If somebody harms us, Jesus said we are supposed to "go and show him his fault. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." It is important for us to appreciate that according to Jesus, love is our guide and life is our goal. We should be seeking reconciliation and restoration, not retaliation.

Probably one of the greatest challenges when it comes to doing things God’s way is that we must give up domination, power, control and success. God commands us to love your neighbor as yourself; He does not command us to be loved. To paraphrase Jesus, "it’s no big deal to love somebody who loves you; anybody can do that." Loving without guarantees is not always easy.

While doing it God’s way is not always easy, it is the best way to do anything. God knows what He is talking about much better than any of us do. Thus says the LORD: Will you question Me about My children, or command Me concerning the work of My hands? I made the earth, and created humankind upon it; it was My hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. We can also be encouraged that while it is not always easy doing it God’s way, the Bible assures us that we can, because His commandments are not burdensome.

GOD LOVES US LIKE A MOTHER

2006-05-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

When Jesus described the kingdom of God to people, He often used analogies or drew comparisons. He would often begin a description or discussion about God or His ways with the phrase, "The kingdom of God is like… ." We do the same thing on occasion. We employ "like" phrases to illustrate a point we are trying to make. "Run like the wind." "Crazy like a fox." "Squash (somebody or something) like a bug." "Dropping like flies." These phrases are pregnant with illumination.

In one way, it must have been hard for Jesus to get people to fathom God’s great love for us. Jesus typically drew His illustrations from the world around Him and what was going on in His vicinity. He even used a tragedy to warn His hearers not to be complacent about their relationship with God.

People in Jesus’ own day, as well as today, often function with a sense of disconnect with the Almighty. We tend to think in terms of religion rather than relationship. Jesus’ point was always that we can and should have a personal and powerful relationship with God. Although He did not actually say it this way, Jesus might very well have said to us, "God loves us like a mother."

Good mothers all share at least one thing in common. Good mothers’ love for their children is sacrificial in nature. Good mothers care more about benefiting their children than whatever reward the mother might receive in the meantime. Good mothers know we don’t need another friend, particularly one who always affirms us regardless of the truth, to be co-dependent with us. Good mothers mother their children.

"I won’t mind if you never send me a (greeting) card from the White House, but I really don’t want to hear from you in Sing Sing." If my mother said that to me once, she must have said it hundreds of times. Sing Sing is a maximum security prison located in Ossining, New York. My mother’s point was that she was willing to risk my affection for her, in her quest to turn out a man of good character. Such is a mother’s love; she will risk everything for the real benefits of her child.

In that way, God loves us like a mother. While none of us liked to be disciplined while we were being disciplined, think of how awful our lives would be now if our mothers had neglected to discipline us. The Bible says no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

God knows we may resent His discipline, and in fact many people do. But He will discipline us anyway, for our own good. Of course, God cares about our feelings and He doesn’t want our hearts to be hardened against Him. The Holy Spirit says, "My child, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those whom He loves."

Sometimes people think of discipline as involving punishment only. While discipline often does involve punishment, it is not restricted to that. As well, we must always distinguish between the Lord’s discipline, which is meant to ultimately build us up, and the condemnation that the devil heaps on people. If we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior, the condemnation we deserve was addressed at the cross. The Bible says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

People often feel condemned for good reason, from this world’s perspective. Let’s face it, all people sin. At the same time, the promise of forgiveness is offered to anybody with the good sense to accept it. In the Book of Acts we’re told the story of a person whom many Christians and Jewish people of the day would have thought was beyond the reach of God’s love. That wasn’t true, for him or for any of us either.

The Bible says that Philip began to speak, and starting with this Scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?" He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

God’s discipline leads us to His guide and His goal for our lives, which is love. The Holy Spirit makes this point clear in the Bible. Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is perfected in us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us.

A good mother who is really on her child’s side doesn’t always side with him or her in the immediate moment. How could she? Her child is not always in the right, and the good mother tries to keep the bigger picture in mind. Her question is not "will this make my child happy today?" She knows the better question to keep in mind is "is this good for my child?"

Jesus tells us that it is the same way with God. As much as God loves us, and He truly does, He does not love everything we do or every aspect of our characters. How could He? After all, God is perfectly holy, and while we might not be the most wretched sinners that ever came down the pike, we are still a far cry from being holy. Jesus says that God loves us too much to leave us as He finds us.

Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in Me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit He prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.

"Abide in Me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in Me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from Me you can do nothing.

"Whoever does not abide in Me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become My disciples."

Of course, Jesus is not naïve enough to think that every mother is actually good. Unfortunately, some mothers are really not that good, for a variety of reasons. In some instances, that has caused a lot of pain that may continue to this day. In those cases, the children of those mothers can take heart that God loves us like a truly good mother, even if we did not have one ourselves. Psalm 27 says, though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me; I am confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord.

IT'S ABOUT THE SHEPHERD, NOT THE SHEEP

2006-05-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away-- and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father.

"And I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from My Father."

Some people struggle with Jesus’ characterization of Himself as the good shepherd, because they object to themselves being characterized as sheep. While we might not object to being thought of as cute and cuddly, not all the connotations about sheep are necessarily positive. As we learned so well from the movie Babe The Pig, "sheep are dumb."

It might be that one of the problems some people might have with Jesus calling Himself the good shepherd is that they are focusing on the wrong subject in His statement. It is more likely that Jesus’ focus, in calling Himself the good shepherd, was on the role He wishes to play in our lives, rather than offering His assessment on other people. Jesus might say to us, "It’s about the shepherd, not the sheep."

When Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd, one of the things He is declaring to us is that He is committed to us. We often hear the challenge to "commit our lives to Christ," but do we realize that He has already committed His life to us? The Bible says that God demonstrated His love for us in this; that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus tells us the same thing, when He says, "the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep."

When Jesus calls Himself the good shepherd, He is also saying that He is dependable. Jesus can be counted upon. His faithfulness does notgood shepherd waver and is not subject to circumstances, not even death itself. "I lay My life down in order to take it up again…I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." Even the best people eventually leave us due to death, but not Jesus! Under no circumstances will Jesus ever let us down.

On the other hand, people’s faithfulness is vulnerable. Some of us may have found ourselves in the unfortunate position of not being faithful "in the crunch." We may have been surprised that we could be unfaithful in this way or that. We may have disappointed other people who were counting on us. Is there anyone among us who has not been the hired hand at least once?

Of course, few people are as bad as the wolf, but none of us are as good as the good shepherd. Even the best people in our lives let us down sometimes. It is really not fair to expect otherwise. When we think about it for a moment, God’s shoes are really much too big for any mere mortal to fill. We need to give ourselves, and other people, a little breathing room in this regard.

Although Jesus might not have meant to directly imply that people are too much like sheep, we ought not to discount the possibility that some people are. Sheep may or may not actually be dumb, but observations indicate they may be all too easily swayed. It is not terribly hard for a skilled sheepdog to herd an entire flock of sheep.

It would appear that at least some people are all too easily swayed as well. If we doubt that, we might ponder why anybody would buy the beat up jeans they call "grunge jeans." And why do some women wear those pointy toed high heeled shoes? They can’t be comfortable, and they’re no good for the feet either. Some women are even having surgery to accommodate those things!

"Grunge jeans" may not be great fashion statements, and pointy toed high heeled shoes may be difficult to walk in and not good for the feet, but there is no eternal consequence to wearing either. However, there are some dangers that could have serious consequences in our lives today and also into eternity. The Bible warns us that your enemy the devil prowls around looking for someone to devour. Jesus described the devil as the wolf (who) snatches them and scatters them.

In the 23rd Psalm, King David wrote Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Sometimes people mistakenly think of "the rod and staff" as instruments of violence. It would be strange if David said he was comforted by being hit. They could be used to exert a harsh form of discipline if necessary, but they were used much more often to guide the sheep in the right direction.

Let’s face it, we all need direction from time to time. Nobody’s foresight is 100% accurate, and none of us always acts the right way all the time. The Bible says there is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to death. Whether we’re considering the death of a lifestyle or a relationship, or eternal death itself, death is not a desirable outcome of any activity.

Jesus gives His followers the option of life. He said, "I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." What did Jesus tell His followers, that gave them the option of abundant life instead of death? "If you obey My commands… ." The option of life that Jesus offers us comes at a price: obeying the good shepherd.

It is a good thing that it’s about the shepherd and not the sheep. People may let us down, and we will let ourselves and other people down, but God will never let us down. He won’t do everything we want or might expect, or give us everything we want or think we need. We might be disappointed that God allows some things to happen in our lives, that are absolutely not our fault but nevertheless harm us. But He will do right for His people according to His wisdom and commitment to us.

King David learned over a lifetime of experience that it is wise to entrust our lives to the care of the good shepherd. He wrote, The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over. Surely Your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

IS IGNORANCE REALLY BLISS?

2006-05-02T08:55:00.001-07:00

Even though some people have a saying that "knowledge is power," we also have an older saying that "what you don’t know won’t hurt you." We’ve also heard about "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." Then of course there is the famous comment that "ignorance is bliss." But is ignorance really bliss? Is it ever really true that we are "better off not knowing?"

Just think of all the simple, and perhaps in some cases even unimportant things, that we appreciate knowing. Obviously our world will not end if we don’t know what is on television, but don’t tell that to the publishers or the buyers of TV Guide, or the newspapers that carry TV listings every day. And while not everybody cares about the personal lives of celebrities, obviously some people do.

There is also important trivia that is worth knowing. Family histories that mean nothing to the wider population are nonetheless valued by family members. We would all be poorer without them. We would also be less fortunate if we were to miss out on some of "Grandma’s recipes" of this or that. So in some ways, it is obviously not true that ignorance is bliss.

On the other hand, the Bible does indicate that there was a period of time in the history of humankind when ignorance really was bliss. In the earliest days of humankind in the Garden of Eden, God had warned Adam and Eve that they could "eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

Among other things, God was saying that He and He alone is the arbiter of right and wrong. Such determinations would weigh too heavily on mere mortals. God was right. Throughout history, people have not been able to agree on what is right or wrong. Does might make right? Some conquerors have insisted on that. Yet still others believe that there are some things that are right, regardless of might.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in a world that is not stained by sin, our own or anybody else’s! But that option is off the table. Like it or not, we no longer live in an age of innocence. Adam and Eve "bit from the apple" so to speak, and the world has never been the same since. Ignorance is not only not bliss, it can often be a great liability.

Many people of Jesus’ day chose to be ignorant of the things they either knew or should have known about Jesus, when they turned their backs on Him when He was crucified. Jesus’ crucifixion was obviously the central piece of God’s plan of peace for humankind. Even so, from the human perspective, it was the most treacherous murder in history, and the people came to regret their ignorance.

The risen Christ empowered His followers to carry on where He left off. The joy of people being healed and otherwise blessed was mixed with shock, awe and a deep regret at how horribly Jesus had been treated. When Peter saw the astonishment of those who had seen the lame man healed, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

"The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified His servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though He had decided to release Him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead.

"To this we are witnesses. And by faith in His name, His name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what He had foretold through all the prophets, that His Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out."

Obviously, ignorance was not bliss for the people of Jesus’ day, who because of it became complicit in Jesus’ death. Many of them no doubt wished they could go back in time and reverse the most horrible decision they had ever made or would ever make. In our own day, we can only imagine how we might feel if we had been among the crowd that had cried out, "Crucify Him!"

For Jesus’ own closest companions, ignorance was not bliss. Even though Jesus had gone to great lengths to explain to His friends the sequence of events that would culminate in His death and resurrection, they remained ignorant. They finally came around to believing He was alive when He appeared to them on a couple of occasions, but it seems that they then had trouble convincing His wider group of followers.

While the disciples were telling how they had seen Jesus risen from the dead, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at My hands and My feet; see that it is I Myself. Touch Me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."

And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate in their presence. Then He said to them, "These are My words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-- that everything written about Me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."

Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."

Jesus had warned the religious leaders of His day that "you are mistaken, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God." It turned out that the religious leaders were not the only ones. It was also true of His closest followers. That is why He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. They did not know the Scriptures or the power of God either. For them, ignorance was not bliss.

We heard this week the details of the final moments of the miners who were trapped in the Sago Mine in West Virginia earlier this year. The sole survivor, Randal McCloy Jr., reports that "We were worried and afraid, but we began to accept our fate…Junior Toler led us all in the Sinners Prayer." Many Americans hoped and prayed for a better outcome for the miners. Their story is tragic beyond words.

Imagine how much worse it would have been had Martin "Junior" Toler been ignorant of the Scriptures or the power of God. He would not have known that repentance and forgiveness of sins were only a "Sinner’s Prayer" away. Thank God that Junior Toler was not ignorant in the hour of need! For Junior Toler and his friends, ignorance would not have been bliss, indeed, just the opposite.

How about us? Do we live like we know the Scriptures or the power of God ourselves? Are we living the victorious lives that Jesus promised us as God’s children? Or is it possible that to some degree at least, we are ignorant of what the Holy Spirit says about the people who follow Jesus?

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when Jesus is revealed, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And all who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.

THE RESURRECTION: OUR STORY AS WELL

2006-04-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed how some people identify themselves pretty closely with their favorite sports teams? It doesn’t matter whether it is baseball or football, basketball or hockey; to the real sports enthusiast, it’s "we" or "us." It’s not the Red Sox or the Yankees, it’s not the Patriots or the Cowboys, it’s "our team."

The sense of identification of some fans with their favorite teams goes well beyond putting a bumper sticker on their cars. They often wear clothing with their team’s logo on it. More than that, for some of them, their moods and sense of well being can rise or fall with their team’s fortunes on the field or on the ice.

Even those of us who do not so closely identify ourselves with a favorite team can understand in some way the feelings of those who do. We do not think of them as kooks or as being in any way unstable. We might even harbor just a little bit of envy, that they can enjoy a sport so much.

Of course, all the fans who so closely identify themselves with their favorite teams that they chortle about "us winning" or somberly speak of "us losing" know full well that they themselves have nothing to do, for better or for worse, with a given team’s performance. The fans don’t win and they don’t lose. Winning or losing is the sole province of the players of the game.

On the other hand, Christians can truly identify with the one who won the biggest prize of all. Not only can we identify ourselves with the winner, we can participate in the spoils of His victory. The Bible says we were therefore buried with Him through baptism…in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Sports enthusiasts can really only identify themselves with their favorite teams and their favorite teams’ fortunes vicariously, but Christians can and should identify with Jesus actually. Red Sox fans who have lived in or around Boston all their lives are not Red Sox players, unless they can make the team by qualifying to do so. Christians qualify for being on Jesus’ team through faith.

The Bible says that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments.

For the love of God is this, that we obey His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

People who really believe in somebody or something should act like they believe in somebody or something. How can we say we believe something if we act like we don’t? As they say, "actions speak louder than words." While Christians might differ on some of the doctrines or other things we believe, Christians all agree that Jesus’ death on the cross means our sins are forgiven.

God’s plan for us is to live lives unencumbered by sin. This is the message we have heard from Him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Walking in the light does not mean that we behave perfectly. That’s a good thing, since none of us are perfect. Identifying with Jesus’ victory frees us from needing to be self-deceptive and say or think that we don’t sin, because we all do. That does not mean that sin does not matter, or that we should not care about our sins. Believing in Jesus enables us to deal honestly with our sin.

We must be honest with God and ourselves about our sins. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

The Bible says that God has more in mind for His people than simply being forgiven for our sins, even though that is quite something in itself. He not only will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but He will also give us power to live the kinds of lives we should want to live and which would please Him. God empowers His people to overcome sin.

The Apostle Paul wrote, "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection." The Bible says that His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Furthermore, the Bible says God has given us His incomparably great power…that power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.

The word for power in the New Testament is dynamis, from which we get the English word dynamite. God’s power does not come neatly packaged in sticks and it is not something that can be contained or stored up. It does, however, have the ability to truly change people’s lives. God’s power cannot be measured in megawatts, but we can truly experience it.

The key to us experiencing God’s power in our lives is faith. The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God…we must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. The Bible tells us of a visit Jesus paid to Capernaum, where He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Some people dismiss faith as being archaic. Others even ridicule faith, describing it as "believing in something you know isn’t true." Faith is neither archaic nor anti-intellectual. Biblical faith is based upon intelligence and facts. Jesus’ disciples’ faith was based upon the fact that He was risen from the dead, not fantasy.

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in His hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in His side, I will not believe."

A week later His disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then He said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it in My side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered Him, "My Lord and my God!"

God passionately wants each of us to have faith, so that the resurrection story can be our story as well. But He also appreciates that we cannot be in the Upper Room with Thomas, so He inspired the writing of the Bible. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in His name.

HOW CAN ONE SOLITARY LIFE AFFECTED US?

2006-04-18T06:56:00.001-07:00

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.

This one hundred year old commentary about Jesus Christ is both profound and inspiring. Not only that, it is also true. Nobody in all of history has affected the world to the extent that Jesus did. None of our 43 presidents, whom we routinely refer to as "the most powerful man on earth," has even come close to affecting our world the way that Jesus has. Nor has any other world leader.

Jesus is also in a league of His own when it comes to the realm of religious figures. The Buddha, Muhammad, and others have all made their own contributions, but not to the extent that Jesus has. Generally speaking, they have impacted certain nationalities and cultures. By way of comparison, Jesus Christ has affected the entire world. His influence transcends nationalities and cultures.

Jesus Christ continues to draw the attention of the world in ways that other leaders, from the religious or political domains, simply do not. President Bush used to say that a truism of politicians from West Texas is "you can say good things or bad things about me; as long as you’re talking about me." The world is far more interested in talking about Jesus, sometimes saying good things and other times not; but they’re still talking about Him, rather than other religious or political leaders.

Jesus Christ deserves all the attention He has received for more than two thousand years. Not only did Jesus live an exemplary life by being completely sinless, He is the only religious leader who died a substitutionary death for His followers and on behalf of all those who put their faith in Him. The same cannot be said of the Buddha or Muhammad.

The King James Version of the Bible says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. Simply stated, that means that Jesus died in our place. He did not do that because He was trying to make some sort of symbolic statement or make a point. The Bible tells us what we already know about ourselves, that we are not perfect. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The Bible also says that the wages of sin is death. Some people might want to argue the point, but they would find themselves on the wrong side of an argument with God. He gets to decide that sort of thing, not us. At the same time that God says that death is the penalty for sin, He also says that we do not necessarily have to be the ones who actually die. That’s where Jesus comes in. He died for us.

Muhammad, the Buddha and others offered religious guidance on how to live appropriately. To his credit, Muhammad told his followers that they had to live a certain way to please God. The Buddha seemed to be suggesting that people can live a certain way in order to please themselves and achieve a high level of spirituality, more or less on their own. However, they didn’t absorb our penalties.

Another appealing part of the affect that Jesus has had upon His followers over the centuries is that while His followers are united across culture and even time by a common faith, we retain our individual natures. People who become truly absorbed in the Islamic faith or the Buddhist traditions look like Muslims or Buddhists. Christians look like themselves. Christians in China look like ordinary Chinese people, and Christians in India look like ordinary Indians.

There is without doubt one reason above any other reason why Jesus has affected the world the way He has. It is a simple and yet profound reason. He is alive, while the others are not. The affect that other religious leaders, as well as political leaders have had, is in many ways similar. It is the affect that people have on their times, with a ripple affect afterwards. Jesus is different because He is alive.

The Bible states it all very clearly. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Although some people think of Jesus primarily as a teacher or great religious leader, He was that and much more. Jesus did not come to only teach people about God or to inspire people to be more godly. He came to change people’s lives. Many of us are aware of the dream of medical science in the realm of stem cell research, which is to regenerate human cells. God has a dream for us as well, which is to regenerate human souls. Jesus’ affect on people is to see God’s dreams for people come to fruition.

It is possible to be impressed by Jesus, but not to benefit from that. The Bible warns us not to come to believe in vain, which among other things is to believe in Jesus only in an intellectual, but otherwise disinterested, sort of way. One solitary life has indeed done more than all the armies, navies or any form of government, to affect the world for some two thousand years now. He has done it one life, one person, at a time. How has one solitary life affected each of us?

CHRIST'S PASSION WAS FOR OUR WELL BEING

2006-04-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

Each Easter season, it seems we get "treated" to new explanations about Jesus Christ and His activities. Usually, we get only one revisionist theory about Jesus being offered, but this year, we have a couple of them. It seems that some people will go to whatever lengths are necessary to try to minimize the value and significance of what Jesus did. Although there is a variety of revisionist theories that are put forward, they all have the common theme that they claim that there was no benefit for us in Christ’s passion.

One professor from Florida State University suggests that when Jesus walked on water, it was not quite the miracle that the Bible describes the event as being. Instead, Professor Noron Dof speculates that Jesus might have been walking on a large chunk of ice. He claims that his study of climatic conditions between 1500 and 2600 years ago might allow for the formation of ice on the Sea of Galilee during the period of Jesus’ ministry. Apparently Mr. Dof didn’t hear about the story that Jesus walked on well placed rocks!

We are also being "treated" to a revisit of a previously discredited "Gospel of Judas," which purports that Jesus and Judas had made a secret deal for Judas to turn Jesus over to the authorities. So, instead of Judas being a villain, he was somehow a hero who helped Jesus, rather than a traitor who turned against Him. The logical conclusion of this theory is that Jesus was a suicidal maniac and not the Savior.

Other revisionists have tried to minimize the value and significance of Jesus’ crucifixion by suggesting that Jesus was the unfortunate victim of circumstances that were out of His control. Their interpretation of Jesus’ passion leaves out significant and important aspects of the historical record. For example, Jesus Himself told His alarmed followers, "Do you think that I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen this way?"

Perhaps one of the greater ironies of the revisionists’ allegations that Jesus was caught up in some sort of cosmic whirlwind that got away from Him is the fact that Jesus was actually the only participant in the drama of His passion who did what He purposed to do. Jesus said "it was for this very reason that I came to this hour," and so He stuck to His plan. The other significant actors in the saga of Jesus’ crucifixion all failed to stick to their plans. Pilate, as well as Peter, and even Judas, did what they did not want to do.

One person who was certainly not in control of events when Jesus was crucified was the man who ultimately gave the order for it to be carried out. Pilate most certainly got caught up in the whirlwind of events that day. It is apparent that Pilate’s first attempt to extricate himself from the circumstances he found himself in was when he questioned Jesus. He was evidently hoping that Jesus would exonerate Himself and that Pilate could then chalk everything up to a big misunderstanding.

Next, Pilate tried to de-escalate the tensions by going around Jesus’ chief accusers and addressing the crowds directly. Politicians know that most of the time, the general population prefers the status quo as opposed to doing anything dramatic. Pilate already had a political prisoner in custody who was scheduled to be executed. Jesus enjoyed widespread popularity and many people considered Him to be the Messiah who had been promised long ago. Surely, the crowds would bail Pilate out. But it didn’t work out that way this time.

Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did. "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

"What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them. "Crucify Him!" they shouted. "Why? What crime has He committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify Him!" Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed Him over to be crucified.

If Pilate was the epitome of failed political leadership during Jesus’ passion, Jesus’ own friends did not shine in the darkness of this event either. Judas and Peter each let Jesus down in their own way, by acting in ways that appear to be contrary to their intentions.

In spite of the discredited "Gospel of Judas," Judas goes down in history as being perhaps the worst of the worst in terms of personal betrayal. Whatever good Judas may have done in his life is overshadowed by his betrayal of Jesus. Having said that, Jesus had seen it coming and stayed in control throughout the ordeal, saying, "the hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes My betrayer!"

Just as He was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest Him and lead Him away under guard." Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Rabbi!" and kissed Him. The men seized Jesus.

Conspiracy theorists have long loved to speculate about Judas’ motives in betraying Jesus. Was Judas Iscariot, the Zealot, trying to force Jesus to embrace his (Judas’) messianic vision for Jesus? Was Judas jealous of Jesus’ popularity? Was he greedy for a bribe? Nobody knows for sure. Most of Jesus’ friends didn’t care, either. Only Matthew mentioned that Judas did what he did not want to do; and if Matthew had not mentioned it, we wouldn’t know this about Judas.

Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound Him, led Him away and handed Him over to Pilate, the governor. When Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility." So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

Many people are familiar with how Peter let Jesus down and in the process disappointed himself. Peter had promised himself and Jesus that if events unfolded as they eventually did, that Peter would stand up for Jesus. He didn’t. When the chips were down, Peter refused to acknowledge that he was Jesus’ friend. At one point, Peter even denied knowing Him at all! Peter was distraught at his failure to do what he had planned and wanted to do. The Bible says that Peter broke down and wept because of this.

As anybody who has seen The Passion of the Christ knows, Jesus’ suffering on our behalf cost Him dearly. Christ’s passion was for our well being. To try to minimize the significance of Christ’s passion in any way, by suggesting that Jesus was somehow not in complete control of not only Himself but His circumstances, is not only an insult to Him but an affront to us. How could any reasonable person place their faith in Jesus if the various revisionist theories are correct? Fortunately, they’re not.

Throughout the entire crucifixion ordeal, Jesus was the only one who did what He intended to do, which He did on our behalf. We can therefore have complete confidence in Him. The Bible tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

"LOVE GOD, AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT"

2006-04-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

Saint Augustine once said, "Love God, and do whatever you want." To some people, indeed to perhaps most of us, that sounds like an invitation to live without any boundaries whatsoever. It sounds like it is too good to be true. Perhaps for most of us it is. But in a sense, Saint Augustine’s admonition is actually what God wants for us. Surely, God does not want us to sin. His long term goal for us is that we would live righteously for Him because we want to, not because we have to.

Many people, including many Christians, tend to think of Christianity as basically being a series of rules to live by. Denominations have been formed by groups of Christians who are convinced that certain rules must be followed, or else. One wonders what Jesus would say to us about that. He certainly expressed disdain for the rules loving Pharisees of His day.

We must remember that Jesus was not a religious rebel who advocated shucking the laws of God. In fact, just the opposite is true. Jesus strictly validated the laws of God, but not in the way that many religious people, of His era or ours, would. He said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

On the other hand, Jesus invites people who feel like they are beaten up by the world and even by religious programs to try something new: to follow Him instead. Jesus said, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

Those of us who know next to nothing about farming might not understand what a yoke is or what the significance of what Jesus was saying is. A yoke is an instrument, often constructed of wood, which attaches two farm animals, such as oxen, to each other. Where one goes, the other also has to go. Jesus graciously offers to attach Himself to each of us as we walk through life.

Was Jesus contradicting Himself? Was He like some people who will say one thing to someone but then say something else to another person? Not at all! Indeed, Jesus was being entirely consistent in what He was saying. So what are we to make of what Jesus said? He says the Law and the Prophets count, but then He seems to be saying, "don’t worry about that."

The key to understanding Jesus’ comments about the Law is when He said, "I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." There is a story about one woman with two husbands which illustrates what Jesus meant when He spoke about the Law of God and its application to us.

The story is told of a woman who married a man who had wooed her as many men do, with all sorts of promises about their bright and rosy future. He forgot to mention that the bright and rosy future he envisioned was actually his, but not necessarily hers. The bottom line is that the man was really seeking a slave rather than a wife, and not long after they were married, he starting writing lists of chores for her to do each day.

The new wife was disheartened but thought she had no alternative but to do as she had been told. She worked hour after hour each day to do what she had been instructed. Usually, her work was not up to her husband’s standards, and he let her know it was so. Needless to say, the woman was miserable and her outlook on life became weary and hopeless, until mercifully one day the husband died.

Although many people in her circumstances would determine to never again subject themselves to that kind of torment, eventually the woman remarried. It had taken her a long time to be convinced that the new man who sought her hand in matrimony could be trusted to actually be the man he seemed to be. Some would call her remarriage an act of faith, while others might call it the triumph of hope over experience. Either way, the woman became a wife again.

It turned out that the woman had made a good choice the second time around. Her husband adored her and demonstrated his affection in many ways. The woman was unbelievably happy with her life and thoroughly enjoyed being married. She was so happy that she almost forgot about how miserable she had been with her first husband.

One day, the woman decided to do a little spring cleaning, and to attack the accumulating piles in the attic. As she sorted through the piles and the papers, she came across several of those lists of instructions her first husband had written out for her. At first, she trembled at the very thought of him. How glad she was that he was gone forever!

But then, she was stunned by surprise. She realized that she was now doing just about everything that wretched first husband had demanded of her. In fact, she might even be doing more! But there was a stark contrast in her own heart. In her first marriage, the woman did what she was told because she had to. Now, she was doing the very same things, if not more, because she wanted to.

God would rather we do the right things because we want to please Him, rather than because we are afraid of the consequences of disobedience. That does not come naturally to us. For example, why do we sit at a red light at 3:00 in the morning, when nobody else is around? If we sit there, isn’t it because we are concerned that there might be a police officer nearby who we can’t see, but who is watching us? We obey the law because we think we have to, not because we want to.

It has always been part of God’s plan to bring His people to the place in life where we do what we are supposed to do, because we want to do it in order to please Him. The Bible tells us that the Law was put in place to lead us to Christ, so that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the Law.

The Holy Spirit had announced God’s plan centuries before Jesus came, through the prophet Jeremiah. "The days are surely coming," says the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband," says the LORD.

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," says the LORD: "I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest," says the LORD; "for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more."

God’s plan for us is nothing short of ambitious. It is not accomplished easily in any person. That is because we all sin so naturally. Those of us who are parents know that we never had to teach our children how to sin, they came by that knowledge all too easily and all too naturally. Even so, the Bible says it is possible for us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The Bible says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" – even get the point where we can "Love God, and do whatever we want."

THE PURPOSE OF GOD'S LAWS

2006-03-19T20:34:00.000-08:00

During the season of Lent, Christians often think about God’s laws. Specifically, we might think about how we fail to live according to God’s laws. It is all too easy to think of God’s laws as markers or measures that we fail to live up to. But is that God’s purpose in giving us His laws in the first place? Did God give people His laws only so we could know how poorly we obey them?

Psalm 19 provides us some insight into the purpose of God’s laws. It says the law of the LORD is perfect and revives the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure and gives wisdom to the innocent. The statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear and gives light to the eyes. God’s laws are not meant to make us feel defeated or depressed in any way. In fact, just the opposite is true. The purpose of God’s laws is to bless us.

We have all seen skits on TV or the stage where there are two people and one of them is upset, but refuses to tell the other person what is bothering him or her. Living life as a guessing game is not only frustrating, it is exhausting. God does not do that to people! We do not have to wonder what God wants us to do or not do. He has told us what we need to know in order to please Him.

The Gospels tell us of a time when Jesus was asked, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," Jesus answered, "is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these."

When Jesus was being asked His opinion about which was the most important commandment, there is little doubt that He was being asked about the Ten Commandments, which God had delivered to the people of Israel through their leader Moses. It is likely that most religious people, from the period of Moses and even into today, thought of the Ten Commandments as a series of rules against which they could measure their lives. How good or badly did they behave?

Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to have a different sense of the purpose of God’s laws. God’s laws were not intended to be a yardstick of some sort for measuring our behavior, they were given to us to revive the soul and to give wisdom to the innocent. Jesus summarized and paraphrased the Ten Commandments into two easily understood and memorable rules of life for people who care about what God wants and who seek to please Him: "Love God. Love people."

The Ten Commandments that God spoke through Moses are as follows: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject Me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses His name. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work-- you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

The Ten Commandments are easy to understand. We might wonder why God gave us some of them, like the Law of the Sabbath, but nevertheless, we can easily understand what God expects of people; the commandment of the LORD is clear and gives light to the eyes. Because the Ten Commandments are so easily understood, the statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart. We are not frustrated or exhausted, guessing what is right or wrong in God’s sight.

Having said that, it is also true that each of us have parts of our personalities that resist doing God’s will all the time. We may be amenable to doing God’s will some of the time, just not all of the time. What part of us resists God’s will? It may be different things for different people. For example, some of us have a pride component that bucks against God’s will. Our pride insists on us always being right, always winning, never being humiliated, maybe not even being willing to wait patiently for something we want.

When our pride component or other personality factors collide with God’s will, it is often not a pretty sight. The Bible, in Romans chapter seven, describes this phenomenon fairly well for us. Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

Wouldn’t it be great if God would simply wave a magic wand and eradicate all sin from us? But He doesn’t do that. It took us a long time to develop our sinful natures and ways. God’s goal for us is not to simply change our behavior, but to change our hearts. Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and that a good person brings good things out of the good stored up in him, but the evil person brings up evil things from the evil stored up in him.

In Psalm 19, the Psalmist asks, Who can tell how often he offends? Cleanse me from my secret faults. Above all, keep Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not get dominion over me; then shall I be whole and sound, and innocent of a great offense. The purpose of God’s laws is to draw us closer to Him, so that with the Psalmist we may pray, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.

WHAT HOLDS US BACK?

2006-03-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

Most people are by nature dreamers. That is yet another thing that separates us from animals. Animals don’t have goals and dreams; their interest is usually in what they’re going to eat next. People, on the other hand, have dreams and goals. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" is not considered to be an unusual question. God has dreams for each of us too. God has dreamed up perfect plans for every person. God said through the prophet Jeremiah, "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

No child dreams of growing up to be a failure. No parent wishes failure upon his or her child. We don’t set out on our endeavors with the goal of failing. And yet, many of our dreams do not come to fruition. Worse yet, some if not many of the dreams that the Lord has dreamed for us fail to materialize. How can that be? God wants people to be blessed. What holds us back?

Sometimes our dreams don’t come true because they are unrealistic in the first place. For example, if we have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, it is highly unlikely that we are going to become star athletes. In that case, we’re really not dreaming. We are indulging ourselves in delusions of grandeur. In theory at least, we live in a land of equal opportunity. In reality, we do not live in a land of equal abilities.

On the other hand, sometimes our dreams do not come to fruition because we lack the willingness to make the sacrifices necessary for them to come true. There are some people who have a great amount of innate athletic ability, but lack the gumption to put that talent to work. That is too bad, but in the scheme of things, probably not tragic. However, it is tragic when God’s plans for us don’t materialize for us because we refuse to accept the sacrifices He might ask of us.

God is not like managers in business who make heavy demands on their employees while they themselves refuse to lift a finger. We all know how we feel about people who are like that. The Lord may very well ask us to make sacrifices so that His bigger plan for our lives can come to fruition, but He made the ultimate sacrifice first. He did it knowing full well what He was doing.

Then Jesus began to teach His disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning and looking at His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."

Jesus knew that God’s plan of redemption for humankind meant that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering. We know from Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethseme, when He prayed, "Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done," that Jesus did not want to suffer any more than any of us would have. But He did it anyway, because He knew that was how God’s dreams for us would come true.

Jesus also knows that if we are going to see God’s plans for our lives materialize, it is going to require sacrifices on our part too. We don’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice, because Jesus did that for us. He did the "heavy lifting" for us, but that does not mean that we can escape without making any sacrifices at all. Sacrifices go with the territory of being a follower of Jesus.

He called the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

"Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

When we consider these words of Jesus, we might have more than one reaction. On the one hand, noble thoughts of living faithfully for God might come to mind. We think we want to be willing to follow Jesus, no matter what the cost. But then on the other hand…accepting limitations or sacrifices is not exactly appealing. We might wonder, just what does God have in mind when Jesus challenges us to take up our cross and follow Him?

We would all like it very much if the sacrifices the Lord has in mind for us were not really all that challenging. The truth is that sometimes they are. In Jesus’ day and in Jesus’ mind, the cross was not a sentimental religious emblem. The cross was a tool for executing people. There was nothing pleasant or sentimental about it.

What holds us back from God’s dreams coming true for us? There are at least three factors that commonly hold people back from letting go of ourselves and agreeing to let God move unfettered in our lives. The first is the comfort factor. Most of us are more comfortable with the status quo than with the uncertainties that might replace it. We need to realize that change is inevitable. Nothing stays the same for long anyway, so we might as well embrace God’s unfolding plan for our lives because it is certainly better than any of the other options that could come our way.

The second factor builds upon the first. Many people are afraid of the unfamiliar. Although we might want to have faith and exercise it, we are afraid of what is around the corner. Christian faith is not being confident about what is going to happen next in our lives, it is being confident in the One who not only knows, but is steering, the next events in our lives. The heroes of faith in the Bible all had one thing in common: they didn’t have a clue about what was coming next, but they all had a growing faith in God. Their faith increased as they stopped holding back on God.

Yet another factor that holds some people back from God’s dreams coming true for them is past defeats or failures. If God decided to limit His dreaming to those who never sinned or made mistakes, He would have to limit His dreaming to Jesus. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and there are none righteous, no not one. Nobody deserves to have God dream big dreams for them, but that does not stop God!

The Bible says that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, the heart of man has not conceived of the great things that God has in store for those who love Him. It does not say that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, the heart of man has not conceived of the great things that God has in store for those who... always obeyed His law, always followed the rules, always did it right the first time. We should not let a poor past hold us back from a great future.

The missionary Jim Elliot said, "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." It is much as Jesus said, "For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?" What holds us back from receiving what God has in store for us? Nothing should!

THE FINISHED WORK OF THE CROSS

2006-03-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

During the season of Lent, which commences on Ash Wednesday and continues until Easter, some Christians will give up certain pleasures. It might be something like eating chocolate or watching TV or certain favorite TV shows. For most Christians who do this, the rationale behind their sacrifice is to in some way identify with Jesus Christ, who made the ultimate sacrifice for us.

One thing about religious activities that each of us should be aware of is that they are two edged swords. On the one hand, they can definitely be helpful to people in developing their relationships with God through faith. At the same time, religious exercises have the potential to become a substitute for having a relationship with God. The Bible warns us about the possibility of having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

A Lenten observance that serves to focus our hearts and minds on the finished work of the cross is most likely a good thing. The Bible constantly points us to the finished work of the cross. The prophet Isaiah, writing some 700 years before Jesus was born, wrote about the finished work of the cross. Isaiah chapter 53 provides a fairly detailed description of Jesus’ life and ministry, and notes that after the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.

What is "the finished work of the cross?" For some people, it might sound like one of those religious phrases that we’re supposed to be impressed by, but not really understand. That is not true. The finished work of the cross means primarily three things. First, that all of our sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ when He died on the cross for us; and secondly, that there is absolutely nothing any of us can do to add to that. Finally, our lives don’t have to be dominated by sin anymore. God sets us free from the burden of sin as well as the bondage of sin.

Looking into the future and contemplating the finished work of the cross, the Psalmist cried out, To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in You; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me. Let none who look to You be put to shame; let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes. Show me Your ways, O LORD, and teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; in You have I trusted all the day long. Remember, O LORD, Your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting. Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to Your love and for the sake of Your goodness, O LORD.

The Psalmist affirmed that there is nothing he could do to motivate God to look favorably upon him. The only reason God looks favorably upon us is because He chooses to. It is only folly that would prompt us to try to convince God that we deserve His favor. It is also only folly that would lead us to convince ourselves that any religious activity would wash away the stain of our sins.

At the same time, the Psalmist also acknowledges that each of us must respond to God’s kindness towards us, if His grace is going to have a real impact upon our lives. Show me Your ways, O LORD, and teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation; in You have I trusted all the day long. Living in our own ways or the ways of the world is what got us into the mess of being separated from God in the first place. Once we put our trust in God by accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, we must also embrace Him as our Lord.

One aspect or theme that dominates the season of Lent is temptation. If we engage in religious exercises that are in effect "pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps" in order to overcome temptation, we are likely wasting our time. It’s kind of like when people go on one of those starvation diets. After they go off the diet, they more often than not regain the lost weight and possibly more as they gorge themselves on what they denied themselves. It is not unusual for people who have forsworn a certain pleasure to hastily embrace it when Lent is over.

Self denial and subsequent gorging is not the Christian way to address temptations. That is not how Jesus handled temptations, either. The Bible says that He was tempted as we are, and yet was without sin. The Bible describes Jesus as a sympathetic High Priest, because He allowed Himself to experience temptation so that He could truly understand what we go through when we are tempted to sin. After Jesus was tempted, He moved on. He did not return to the temptation.

The Bible tells us how that happened. In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as He was coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on Him. And a voice came from heaven, "You are My Son, the Beloved; with You I am well pleased."

And the Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on Him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." Jesus overcame temptation, put it behind Him, and moved on to do God’s work.

Rather than concern ourselves with denying ourselves pleasures, wouldn’t we be better off if we addressed the issues in our lives that are holding us back from growing spiritually? Do we insist on having our own way, regardless of the cost to others or ourselves? The Bible calls that selfish ambition, and says that it will keep us in the "slow lane" spiritually speaking. God has better plans for us than that.

The word repent is the combination of two Greek words that essentially mean "come to your right mind," or "think correctly." When Jesus said, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news," He was saying "come to your right mind" and "think correctly" about the finished work of the cross. The essence of the good news, or the Gospel, is that Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. This is the finished work of the cross.

WHEN THINGS FALL APART

2006-02-26T14:03:00.000-08:00

They say "into every life a little rain must fall." Sometimes it rains in our lives because of things we have done, or because we have neglected to do something. At such times our troubles are of our own making, and one of the first things we should do is recognize the error of our ways. As we do that, we may find there are things we can do to restore order to our lives. We can apologize to those whom we’ve hurt or otherwise fix what we have broken. But then there are the times when things fall apart on their own.

That can happen to any of us at any time and for any reason. No amount of planning will prevent it. We might think that if we are careful to do everything God wants us to do that things won’t fall apart. They may anyway. Things falling apart on their own are not necessarily a sign of God’s displeasure. It could in fact be just the opposite. Does anybody remember Job?

If any of us need further proof or convincing that things can fall apart on their own in anybody’s life, even people who are living in accordance with God’s will, we need to look no further than the prophet Elijah. It has been said that Elijah was to the prophetic ministry what Moses was to the law of God. Moses and God’s law are bound inextricably in the hearts and minds of God’s people. In a similar way, the prophet Elijah is the "cream of the crop" of the Old Testament prophets.

There is a story in the Book of Kings in the Bible about when Elijah, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, took on the corrupt spiritual leadership of Israel. After years of idol worship, God had said to Elijah, "Enough is enough," and sent him to settle the score once and for all. Elijah challenged the false prophets who were promoting the worship of the false god Baal to a contest to demonstrate who is really God. Needless to say, God won and the Israelites forsook Baal and recommitted themselves to God.

Not everyone was happy about how things turned out in the contest between God and Baal. Ahab the king seemed to be a little ambivalent about it all, but his wife Jezebel was furious. Jezebel was in many ways the real power behind the throne in Ahab’s government. She vowed revenge upon Elijah and to kill him. What would otherwise have been a highlight in Elijah’s life became instead a nightmare.

Even though Elijah was a mighty prophet of God, his initial reaction to this adversity was much like we might react. The Bible says Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. We all have a "fight or flight" reaction when we feel threatened. Apparently Elijah did not feel like he could on the political establishment of Israel in addition to the corrupt religious leaders, so he fled. After he had run a while and had time to calm down a bit and think about things, his next reaction was not surprising. Elijah became depressed.

Elijah’s story might have ended there, as it does for some people who get depressed, not because of chemical imbalances, but in direct reaction to adversity. Understandably, Elijah felt miserable. In the same set of circumstances, any of us would have too. Fortunately for Elijah, he did not allow his feelings or his miserable circumstances to dictate his next steps. Elijah decided to overcome everything he felt and the oppression of his circumstances, and to seek the Lord.

At Horeb, the mount of God, Elijah came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."

God did not need to ask Elijah "What are you doing here?" God already fully understood everything Elijah had been through and the way he was feeling. But Elijah needed to tell God what had happened and how he felt. The Bible says cast all your cares upon Him, because He cares for you. Even if it seems like we’re all alone with our troubles, we are not. God is with us. God cares. God will listen to us.

After Elijah finished pouring out his heart to God, God spoke to Elijah. The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

Although sometimes people call natural disasters "acts of God," we should not blame Him when things fall apart. The Bible says that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. Other Biblical depictions of God present Him as the solid rock to whom we can cling during periods of adversity in our lives. God can be counted upon. His is the calm, still small voice in the midst of the noise and the shouting.

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."

When things fall apart for us, sometimes we cease functioning properly and our perceptions become distorted. God restored Elijah by getting him back into "the game of life;" and by correcting some of Elijah’s misperceptions. Then the LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also you shall anoint Jehu as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha as prophet in your place. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him."

God wants us to seek Him all the time and in all circumstances. Psalm 24 says, You speak in my heart and say, "Seek My face." It is especially important for us to seek the Lord when things fall apart. Imagine what would have happened to Elijah had he not sought the Lord in his distress. The Psalmist asks, What if I had not believed that I should see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! Indeed, what would become of us? When things fall apart, the Bible says O tarry and await the LORD'S pleasure; be strong, and He shall comfort your heart; wait patiently for the LORD.

MIRACLES ARE A WAY FOR GOD TO SHOW HIS LOVE FOR US

2006-02-19T15:12:00.000-08:00

The Bible says that God demonstrates His love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. If we ever doubt that God cares about us and is favorably inclined towards us, that declaration should resolve all our doubts. And yet, many of us still wonder, at least from time to time, if God is really all that interested in our well being. The world we live in has a way of creating such doubts in our hearts.

Jesus coming into the world is the ultimate sign of God’s love for people. The Bible says that for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life. But God doesn’t stop there. Just like we show our love for the special people in our lives in ways both great as well as small, so does God. Of course, anything that God does is by definition big; but even so, God finds ways to show us how much He cares for us.

There are many ways in which God shows His love for people. One of them is when He overrides natural laws to bless us. He does not do that very often, and probably not nearly as often as some people might like. Miracles are not typical or regular events; if an event is typical or the expected outcome from some activity, it is not miraculous. In any event, miracles are a way for God to show His love for us.

There are some people who refuse to believe that miracles can occur or that God would make miracles happen for anybody. One problem with that approach is that virtually every book in the Bible has at least one account of a miracle. It is hard to say we believe in the Bible if we don’t believe in miracles. It also doesn’t make sense. Why would we think that God can’t perform miracles if He wants to?

Another problem with taking the position that God does not make miracles happen for people is that the Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God, for we must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. It is hard to say we believe God rewards those who earnestly seek Him if we exclude the possibility of God making miracles happen for people. Why wouldn’t He?

Just about every person can think of a time or a situation when we could have used a miracle in our lives. We might have family difficulties or health problems or financial woes. The problems we have in one area of our lives might have some impact on other areas of our lives, but not always. Imagine how hard it is for people whose problems dominate every aspect of their lives, and even define them as people.

The Bible tells us the stories of two people whose problems were overwhelming, because their lives were dominated and defined by them. They were lepers. In ancient days, having leprosy was "the kiss of death" in just about every way. Not only was the victim of leprosy sick with a wasting disease, it was highly contagious and so the victim became a social pariah. Lepers probably wondered if God cared for them.

One of the lepers was a soldier named Naaman from the country of Aram. Even though Naaman was not an Israelite, he heard about God’s miraculous powers. Naaman went to the most important prophet in Israel at the time, Elisha. Elisha said Naaman should dunk himself in the Jordan River seven times to be healed. While we might expect Naaman to be thrilled by all this, he was not. In fact, Naaman was furious.

Why did Naaman almost miss out on being touched by God’s love with a miraculous healing? There are at least a few reasons. They are the same reasons why some of us might miss out on being blessed by God from time to time. For one thing, Naaman was arrogant. He thought more highly of the rivers in his own country than he did about the Jordan River. He was also not pleased by the way Elisha treated him.

Another stumbling block for Naaman was that God wanted to show His love for Naaman in other ways than Naaman expected. That can all too easily happen to any one of us. We get it into our heads that the solution to our problems must be this or that, and then God comes up with His own plan. We can be so sure that we know how God can or should bless us, that we risk missing out on being blessed at all!

Another leper also might have missed out on being blessed with a miraculous healing by God, but for a different reason. A leper came to Jesus begging Him, and kneeling he said to Him, "If You choose, You can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I do choose. Be made clean!" Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.

When this particular victim of leprosy said to Jesus "If You choose, You can make me clean," he might have been thinking and saying that maybe it was God’s will for him to be burdened in this way, and if so, he would accept that. But it might also be that the way the leper asked for a miracle from Jesus indicated that he wondered if God cared enough about him to heal him.

We must not get so carried away with our own sense of importance that we become petulantly insistent that God must miraculously intervene when our problems feel overwhelming. Sometimes God uses our troubles to bless us. The Bible says that God disciplines those whom He loves. Discipline is not always only punishment, it can also be allowing somebody to struggle to develop strength of body or character.

On the other hand, we would be sadly mistaken if we thought that God would not move miraculously on our behalf because He does not care enough about us. Jesus affirmed God’s concern for us when He said, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

Sometimes we might think that we are being arrogant if we think that God wants to bless us. Some people even have trouble praying for themselves or about their own problems. They are faithful people who pray often for the needs of others, but not about their own. While such thinking might seem to be noble, it is also a little misguided. When Jesus commands us to "love your neighbor as yourself," that doesn’t amount to much if we don’t realize that God loves us and it is healthy for us to love ourselves too.

Utilizing a metaphor equating winning sports awards with being blessed by God, the Apostle Paul said he wanted to be counted in on receiving the blessings of God himself. Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. Miracles are a way for God to show His love for us. Don’t miss out on what God wants to do for you!

BEING MOCKED: THE ESSENCE OF CHRIST'S WORK, NOT MUHAMMAD'S

2006-02-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2006 by John Piper (reprinted with permission)

What we saw this past week in the Islamic demonstrations over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad was another vivid depiction of the difference between Muhammad and Christ, and what it means to follow each. Not all Muslims approve the violence. But a deep lesson remains: The work of Muhammad is based on being honored and the work of Christ is based on being insulted. This produces two very different reactions to mockery.

If Christ had not been insulted, there would be no salvation. This was His saving work: to be insulted and die to rescue sinners from the wrath of God. Already in the Psalms the path of mockery was promised: "All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads" (Psalm 22:7). "He was despised and rejected by men . . . as one from whom men hide their faces . . . and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3).

When it actually happened it was worse than expected. "They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head. . . . And kneeling before Him, they mocked Him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they spit on Him" (Matthew 27:28-30). His response to all this was patient endurance. This was the work He came to do. "Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).

This was not true of Muhammad. And Muslims do not believe it is true of Jesus. Most Muslims have been taught that Jesus was not crucified. One Sunni Muslim writes, "Muslims believe that Allah saved the Messiah from the ignominy of crucifixion."(1) Another adds, "We honor [Jesus] more than you [Christians] do. . . . We refuse to believe that God would permit Him to suffer death on the cross."(2) An essential Muslim impulse is to avoid the "ignominy" of the cross.

That’s the most basic difference between Christ and Muhammad and between a Muslim and a follower of Christ. For Christ, enduring the mockery of the cross was the essence of His mission. And for a true follower of Christ enduring suffering patiently for the glory of Christ is the essence of obedience. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account" (Matthew 5:11). During His life on earth Jesus was called a bastard (John 8:41), a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), a blasphemer (Matthew 26:65), a devil (Matthew 10:25); and He promised His followers the same: "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of His household" (Matthew 10:25).

The caricature and mockery of Christ has continued to this day. Martin Scorsese portrayed Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ as wracked with doubt and beset with sexual lust. Andres Serrano was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts to portray Jesus on a cross sunk in a bottle of urine. The Da Vinci Code portrays Jesus as a mere mortal who married and fathered children.

How should His followers respond? On the one hand, we are grieved and angered. On the other hand, we identify with Christ, and embrace His suffering, and rejoice in our afflictions, and say with the Apostle Paul that vengeance belongs to the Lord, let us love our enemies and win them with the gospel. If Christ did His work by being insulted, we must do ours likewise.

When Muhammad was portrayed in twelve cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the uproar across the Muslim world was intense and sometimes violent. Flags were burned, embassies were torched, and at least one Christian church was stoned. The cartoonists went into hiding in fear for their lives, like Salman Rushdie before them. What does this mean?

It means that a religion with no insulted Savior will not endure insults to win the scoffers. It means that this religion is destined to bear the impossible load of upholding the honor of one who did not die and rise again to make that possible. It means that Jesus Christ is still the only hope of peace with God and peace with man. And it means that His followers must be willing to "share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death" (Philippians 3:10).

Footnotes
1 Badru D. Kateregga and David W. Shenk, Islam and Christianity: A Muslim and a Christian in Dialogue (Nairobi: Usima Press, 1980), p. 141.
2 Quoted from The Muslim World in J. Dudley Woodberry, editor, Muslims and Christians on the Emmaus Road (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1989), p. 164. ©Desiring God Permissions:

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SERENITY WITH GOD

2006-02-05T21:04:00.000-08:00

Among the many amazing things about Jesus, perhaps one of the most fascinating is that He never seemed to be in a hurry to do anything. He was not a slowpoke by any means, but at the same time, He moved at His own pace. Although Jesus showed lots of emotion, and His reactions to most events was what people would call appropriate, He nonetheless did not allow events or circumstances to drive His agenda. Indeed, on more than one occasion, Jesus would remark, "I don’t do anything I do not see My Father doing."

Jesus displayed, in His words and deeds, a remarkable sense of serenity with God. When we consider that not only was Jesus constantly in the midst of desperately needy people, and that He had the ability to address their needs, it is all the more compelling that Jesus was not driven, almost to the point of distraction, by the neediness of the world in which He walked. Might it be possible that we might learn from Jesus how we too might enjoy serenity with God?

In our increasingly busy world, jammed packed with IPODs and cell phones, all of us could use a little more serenity. Serenity is a state being calm, not being disturbed or troubled. Serenity generally requires some degree of isolation from the busyness of life, but can easily be shattered when the busyness of life resumes. Serenity with God is enjoyed by those whose peaceful demeanor is a by product of our relationship and communion with God. Serenity with God involves temporary isolation from the goings on of the world, but it is more than that.

The Bible gives us many examples of Jesus experiencing serenity with God. On one such occasion, Jesus left the synagogue at Capernaum, and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told Him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

That evening, at sundown, they brought to Him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. And He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew Him.

In the morning, while it was still very dark, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed. And Simon and His companions hunted for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, "Everyone is searching for you." He answered, "Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do." And He went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

Jesus did not need an IPOD or cell phone to make His days full. Some of us don’t, either. Even so, we can nevertheless find ourselves so busy that our heads spin. We can look to Jesus to see how He handled the busyness of life, and learn from Him. He was certainly busier, not to mention that His business was of much greater importance, than any of our lives. Yet Jesus said, "Come to Me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…learn from Me…you will find rest for your souls." Jesus offers to show us how to obtain and enjoy serenity with God.

The first thing we must do in order to obtain and enjoy serenity with God is to follow in Jesus’ footsteps when He decided that He would only do God’s will. That is not always easy to do. On the selfish side, we sometimes want to have things or experiences that God is not giving us. We will not enjoy serenity with God if we are intent on having what God is not giving us. The Bible says that God will supply all our needs and after that, godliness with contentment is great gain.

On the more altruistic side, the world we live in has no shortage of great needs and human tragedies. None of us can address all of the needs that we become aware of. God does not want us to. In fact, it might be a touch on the egotistical side if we think we’re the only person who can solve a given problem. We’re not. It may be that God has someone else in mind for addressing a given need. The one thing we can always do, of course, is pray for a person or needy situation.

That leads us to a second principle that we can and should learn from Jesus. In the morning, while it was still very dark, He got up and went out to a deserted place, and there He prayed. Jesus was constantly doing that. He always made lots of room in His schedule for prayer. It is said that Martin Luther regularly prayed for two or three hours a day, unless he was busy. Then, he prayed for four or five hours! Martin Luther followed in the Jesus’ footsteps when it came to making prayer a priority in his life. When we think about it, if Jesus felt the need to pray so much, and He was the Son of God, how much time should we devote to prayer?

Jesus prayed so much because He understood a fundamental principle that is often lost on today’s Christians: more is accomplished in prayer than any place else. The early church understood this. In the Book of Acts, the Bible tells us that the church leaders said, "we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word." In Greek, word order indicates importance; the more important words or concepts appear earlier in the sentence or phrase. In this passage, the church leaders indicated that prayer was more important than preaching.

Notice that Simon and His companions hunted for Him. Why did they have to look so hard for Jesus? Was He hiding from them? Probably not, but He was making an effort to be alone with His heavenly Father. While brief prayers uttered throughout the day, as well as worshipping God in church services are both good, worthwhile and rewarding activities, they are not a substitute for finding time to be with God in prayer. Our lives and God’s heart are blessed when we do.

Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Holy Spirit promises that those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. This is consistent with another promise in the Bible, that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him. When we spend time with Him, God promises us that He will bless us to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.

When the Bible says those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength, the word wait does not mean to hang around, as though we were waiting for something to happen. The term actually comes from the rope making business; it means to "wrap around" or to "spin into twine." The idea is that a single thread by itself is weak and easily snapped, but when twined together with many other threads it becomes part of a strong rope. As our lives become entwined with God’s and we derive our strength from Him, then we, like Jesus, can enjoy serenity with God.

THE DEVIL CAN'T MAKE US DO IT

2006-01-29T16:46:00.000-08:00

One of the great comedy shows on American broadcast television was The Flip Wilson Show in the 1970s. Flip Wilson invented a number of female characters, most of whom would say from time to time, "the devil made me do it!" After a while, you could see that line coming, but it was always well delivered and it always drew a laugh from the audience.

Maybe one of the reasons "the devil made me do it" always drew laughs from the audience is that generally speaking, many Americans don’t believe that there actually is a devil. We might believe that evil exists, but only in a non-personal way. Satan is thought of by many to be a mythological figure only, and truly sophisticated people know better than to believe that Satan is real.

Jesus Christ certainly did not see things that way. That’s because Jesus not only knew that there is a devil, but He confronted Satan and his demons on numerous occasions. Time after time, Jesus forced demons to vacate people who could and would truly say, "the devil made me do it." For these tormented souls, "the devil made me do it" was no laughing matter.

On one such occasion, Jesus and His disciples went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, He entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are, the Holy One of God."

But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!" And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching-- with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him." At once His fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Generally speaking, our society functions as though there is no such thing as a spiritual realm. In one sense, this is in and of itself an interesting fact, given that a significant number of people do believe "that things happen for a reason" and that "some things are (or are not, in some cases) meant to be." On the one hand, we believe in a spiritual realm, on the other hand, we may not.

It is not ignorance or superstition that leads people to believe in a spiritual realm. Many wise and well educated people do. In fact, it was only until the last couple of hundred years or so that it was taken for granted that a spiritual realm not only exists, but that it can influence us, for better or for worse. "The devil made me do it" did not always draw a laugh from the crowd.

The Bible never suggests that Satan can function in our world in a cosmic sort of way, as he is sometimes portrayed in horror movies. The Bible indicates that Satan functions by influencing people to sin. Most of us have heard about the encounter that Satan had with Eve in the Garden of Eden. A similar encounter is reported in 1 Chronicles 21. Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. Without going into the details here, suffice it to say that King David should not have done this, and that he knew better than to do it.

Satan not only tempts people to sin, but if he is successful, he then turns around and accuses us of wrongdoing! While remorse is an appropriate reaction when we sin, sometimes we feel like our hope is lost because of something we have done. That is simply not true, if we have entrusted ourselves to Jesus Christ for salvation. The Bible says there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. As the old saying goes, Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.

Fortunately for us, the playing field is not at all level when it comes to the spiritual realm. It is stacked heavily in our favor! Jesus said, "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me." He also said, "these signs will accompany those who believe in Me, in My name they will drive out demons." Simply stated, Jesus has given victory over the devil to each of His followers.

In truth, the devil can’t make us do it. Yes, Satan does tempt people. Yet in those circumstances, the final decision to yield to temptation is always ours. The Bible says when tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, to death.

Satan can only tempt us because we are willing to be tempted. Jesus warned us that "out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander." We may not like to admit it, but each of us is capable of sinning in some of these ways. Satan has done a case study on us and knows our weaknesses, maybe even better than we do.

Still, the devil can’t make us do it. The Bible says, submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands…purify your hearts…humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

For many of us, the real problem is that perhaps we are not sure we want to resist the devil. We might think we want it both ways – to be right with God but to still intentionally sin. It might help us to realize that Satan does not have our best interests at heart like God does, in fact, just the opposite! The Bible says your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.

The devil has no choice but to flee from you when we submit ourselves to God and resist him. It may take more than a second or two, but he will go. In the meantime, we win by not losing and by standing our ground. The Bible says, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the forces of evil in the spiritual realms. We can’t fight Satan on our own, but with God on our side, the devil can’t make us do it.

LISTENING TO GOD

2006-01-22T20:18:00.000-08:00

Most of us have had the experience of speaking to somebody, but getting the strong impression that the person to whom we are speaking is not listening to us. It’s like we might as well be talking to the wall or to a rock. Among married people, we sometimes joke about "husband hearing." However, the challenge is not limited to husbands only. Kids don’t always listen to their parents. Employees and employers don’t always listen to each other. And none of us always listens to God.

All of us show signs of "husband hearing" from time to time when God is speaking. It seems to go with the territory of being human. That doesn’t seem to stop God from speaking to people, but it does seem to make it more difficult for people to listen to God when He is speaking to us. That might be because we lose our sense of familiarity with His voice.

There is a story in the Old Testament that illustrates how hard it can be for people to listen to God, after they have employed "husband hearing" for long stretches of time. Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD.

Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!" and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down. The LORD called again. Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him. The LORD called Samuel again, a third time.

And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if He calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.’" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for Your servant is listening."

Samuel was not familiar with the Lord’s voice. Here he was, serving in the temple of the Lord day and night, but he, like most of Israel, had "husband hearing." On the one hand, it is sad and ironic; but on the other hand, perhaps not too unusual. Religious activity in and of itself is no guarantee that we will know God personally and well enough to recognize His voice. Even so, this story gives each of us who wants to know God personally hope; for God kept coming back to Samuel, repeatedly.

In many ways, Samuel was an ordinary person, just like any of us. The Bible tells us that Samuel had his full share of ups and downs in life, and that he was not perfect. He no doubt regretted the way he reacted to certain events in his life, just like any of us would. But at the same time, Samuel became one of God’s great prophets, because he learned to listen to God. The Bible tells us that as Samuel grew up, the LORD was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba (basically, from the north to the south) knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the LORD.

There are times when we might hear from God, but for some reason, choose to ignore Him. We do so at our own peril. This Bible story tells us that God was frustrated with Eli, as well as with Eli’s sons, who were also priests in the temple. Eli was basically a good man himself, but he had allowed his sons to abuse their priestly offices. Somebody has observed that throughout human history, a passion stirred will ignite a movement or a cause, which then develops into a business but then becomes a racket. That’s what happened with Eli’s two sons. They were as corrupt as they could be. God would not tolerate that.

God may not punish us right away, because the Bible tells us that He is patient with us. Even so, we would be foolish to think that He will overlook our sins forever, because He won’t. God had already spoken with Eli about his sons, but Eli had been employing "husband hearing." The Lord told Samuel, "For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever."

None of us have to have "husband hearing" when it comes to God. Each of us can practice listening to God, and in so doing, develop our familiarity with His voice. Now, God does not speak to people with an audible voice that we hear with the ears on the sides of our heads. One way He speaks to us is with what the Bible describes as a still, small voice. These are impressions in our minds that don’t originate with us. These impressions must always agree with the Bible, which is another way God speaks to us. Regular Bible reading is a must for anybody who desires to listen to God.

Our own characters have a considerable influence on our ability to listen to God. The Bible makes it clear that God is not in the habit of abiding with purposefully evil people. Jesus indicated that He appreciated Nathanael, at least in part because of his good character. When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, He said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" In the discourse we call the Beatitudes, Jesus said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Another way to translate the word see is "perceive;" is it too much of a stretch to include listening as a means of perceiving?

One way that we can recognize that it is God who is speaking with us is that He may be saying something to us that we would rather not hear. Beware if the only things we think we are hearing from God agree with our own pre-dispositions or agendas! There are many examples of the Lord speaking to us things we might not wish to hear. For example, the Bible says "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be dominated by anything. "Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

In all honesty, none of us likes to be told we can’t always have it our own way, or that the Lord wants us to wait for some blessings in our lives. Hey, we want it now! We have become used to taking liberties with our finances and borrowing power to have it all today, but that is not necessarily God’s will for us. People have been saying "All things are lawful for me," for generations. At the same time, God is still speaking, but He is not changing His tune to accommodate us. God will tell us the truth, including telling us things that we don’t want to hear. The question is, are we willing to listen?

SELDOM EARLY, BUT NEVER LATE!

2006-01-22T20:06:00.000-08:00

The Bible defines faith in the following manner: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It goes on to note that this is what the ancients were commended for. Most of us would agree that when somebody acts only on information that is known and certain, that faith is not being exercised. Faith is belief in action.

It has been said about God that He is seldom early, but never late. Indeed, the Bible tells us that when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman…to redeem those under the law…so that we might receive the full rights of sons. We may wonder why God waited so long after the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to send Jesus to be the Redeemer of humankind. Others might think God sent Him a little sooner than He should have, before the media age was in place to carry His message worldwide. But it all boils down to this: when the time had fully come, God sent His Son. Not early, but not late!

There’s a story in the Bible, about Jesus’ reaction to news that a close friend named Lazarus was sick, that might surprise some people. The Bible says that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days. In Jesus’ absence, Lazarus died. Only then did Jesus decide to go to Lazarus.

Some people might think that Jesus was, to borrow a phrase, "a day late and a dollar short." In fact, that seemed to be the general consensus. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him. "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask." Martha then went and got her sister Mary. When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she said, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

We might wonder why Jesus hung around for two more days, while His close friend lay dying. Jesus’ activity might almost border on cruelty. Yet, on His way to see Lazarus, Jesus had said to His disciples, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you might believe." In other words, what everybody else saw as a crisis, Jesus saw as an opportunity for faith to be experienced, exercised and expanded: "…so that you might believe."

People tend to view challenges in life first and foremost as something to be avoided; and if that doesn’t work, as something to be survived. But God sees things differently. Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine. One of the reasons we want God to move early is precisely so that we won’t have to exercise faith. We’d rather believe in God passively, without having to actually sweat. God, on the other hand, will let us wait upon Him to give us the opportunity to exercise faith.

Exercising faith is seldom easy. Indeed, sometimes it is very difficult, and sometimes pain is even involved. At such times, people might think that God is a bit callous, because He allows suffering to occur when in their estimation, He could alleviate their distress. We have it, however, on very good authority that God does in fact feel our pain, and shares our suffering.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" He asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, "See how He loved him!" But some of them said, "Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.

From the human perspective, by this time all hope was gone. Sometimes in our own lives we get to the point where we think all hope is lost. But we ought never to give up on God! God may seldom be early, but He is never late! Lazarus was in his grave, but even then the final chapter had not been written. Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out.

Some people might think that this story is only an allegory, rather than an historical depiction. They may think it is preposterous to think that God could raise a dead man back to life. To God, that’s an easy one. It is far more challenging for Him to get those of us still breathing to put our complete faith in Him. But He labors on, giving us chances to believe. And as He does that, keep in mind that God is seldom early, but He is never late!

WE DON'T HAVE TO BE ON OUR OWN

2006-01-13T19:27:00.000-08:00

Each of us has had the experience of feeling all alone in our lives. It can happen during a time of personal tragedy, when we feel like nobody knows what we’re going through. But we don’t have to be in crisis to feel alone. Feelings of loneliness can arise without provocation. However, for those who have embraced Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we don’t have to be on our own.

As Jesus prepared His initial followers for His departure from His earthly ministry, He made them a promise. "If you love Me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you."

In a nutshell, Jesus was saying, "you don’t have to be on your own; I’m sending help to you." Jesus’ disciples were no doubt glad to hear this. After they had been with Jesus for about three years, He had told them that His mission was almost completed and that He would soon depart. That was crushing news; but Jesus softened the blow with His promise of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of truth has a long, indeed, eternal, history. He is spoken of in the first sentences of the Bible. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness He called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

The Spirit of truth that Jesus promised His followers is not some vague, non-personal spirit. Some people think of the Spirit of God as having no real distinctive qualities or characteristics. But the Bible tells us that He was active in the creation of our world, and participated in bringing order to chaos. The Spirit of God is not floating around aimlessly now; He is still in the business of bringing order to chaos in people’s lives, if we want Him to.

Most Christians think of ourselves as Trinitarians. That is to say we believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. However, not all Christians function along that way. No Christian has any problem with believing in God the Father or in God the Son. We believe that God is our heavenly Father and that He loves us. We have a sense of being His children and of the abiding presence of Jesus with us; He said, "I am with you always." But are each of us also aware of the indwelling presence, and the attendant awesome power, of the Holy Spirit?

If our familiarity with the Holy Spirit is not as great as our familiarity with God the Father and God the Son, we are not the first Christians this has happened to. The Bible tells us that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."

Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied-- altogether there were about twelve of them.

The Christians in Ephesus were not to be faulted for not even knowing there is a Holy Spirit. The Bible indicates that the Holy Spirit directs attention to God the Father and God the Son. However, the Bible also makes it clear that Christians can and should know the indwelling and powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. His indwelling and powerful presence became apparent to the Lord’s people in Ephesus. You can bet they realized that we don’t have to be on our own after that.

Throughout the Old Testament era, most people could encounter God only indirectly. Beginning with the Tabernacle and then the Temple, they sought God in a place. However, scattered among the general population of Israel, there were a few men and women who experienced the powerful and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. King David and the prophets were among them. But it seems that it was God’s intention that all, not just some of His people, would one day experience that.

The Bible says that God’s plan to fill His people with His own Holy Spirit would come to fruition when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, was raised from the dead and returned to heaven. It was all part of the plan. Contrary to what some people might think or say, we cannot have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit apart from Jesus Christ. The Bible says that up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

God not only wants that none should perish but that all should come to repentance by embracing Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, He also wants each of us to filled with the Holy Spirit. That was part of John the Baptist’s message. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals. I have baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

While many of us think of the word baptize as a religious word, it was originally a word used in the linen industry. It meant to "soak cloth." When the cloth was soaked in dye, its color would be changed. When John the Baptist said that "He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit," he was saying that we would be soaked with the Holy Spirit, so much so that we would be changed.

God is not chintzy with His Holy Spirit. He soaks His people with His Holy Spirit. Years ago, there was a commercial on TV for a hair grooming product called Brylcreem. The ad said, "a little dab’ll do ya!" It would seem that God says that is not so when it comes to His Holy Spirit. There really is no reason why every follower of Jesus Christ should not be filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. When God says we don’t have to be on our own, He really means it!

SELF ASSURED, BUT NOT SELF RIGHTEOUS

2006-01-06T08:47:00.000-08:00

At this time of the year, many of us make New Year’s resolutions. While we fully intend to keep our New Year’s resolutions, often we find that they pass by the wayside, melting with the typical January thaw. Perhaps one of the reasons that we can so easily forsake our New Year’s resolutions is that they may be unrealistic or unattainable goals in the first place.

One goal that is neither unrealistic nor unattainable for Christians is to see God’s will for our lives advanced in the year ahead. We might think that is a laudable idea, if only we knew what God’s will for us is. Actually, we can know what God’s will for us is. The Bible tells us that God’s will for each Christian is that we be conformed to the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ.

When we think about it, it makes sense to us that God’s goal for each Christian is for us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. The Bible says that now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself.

All this is possible because Jesus Christ came that first Christmas day. When the fullness of time had come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Some people might think this is "heady stuff." That is to say, it could lead some people to mistakenly think that they are better than other people. However, the exact opposite is the case. The more we become like Jesus, the more humble we become. One reason is that until we get to heaven, we will have to contend with our sin nature. We can be like D.L. Moody, who upon seeing a person sin, observed that "there, but for the grace of God, go I."

That alone is more than ample enough reason to be humble. The Apostle Paul wrote, "nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature." He was saying that whatever good that was in him was there by the grace of God and should not be attributed to him. The Bible says that Christians have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this power is from God. We can puff ourselves up by comparing ourselves to some bad person, but what if we compare ourselves to Jesus?

Another reason that Christians become more humble as we become more like Jesus is that Jesus Himself was self assured, but not self righteous. It follows then, that as we become more like Jesus, we too will be self assured, knowing that now we are the children of God, but not self righteous. The Bible encourages Christians to let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Being self assured meant that Jesus knew who He was and could do what He was supposed to do, without distraction. He did not need others to define Him. A great example of Jesus’ self assurance is described in the Gospel of John. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God… so He wrapped a towel around His waist and washed His disciples’ feet at the Last Supper.

Very few people can allow themselves to be thought of in lowly terms, while all the time having a healthy self image. Of course, some people can accept being other people’s "doormats" because they suffer from low self esteem, which is unhealthy. Since every person is made in the image of God, having a low self esteem is not what God wants for any of us to struggle with.

How can we be self assured, but not self righteous, like Jesus? We can start with understanding who and what we are. Some people struggle with the notion of being children of God, but if we have embraced Jesus as our Savior and Lord, that is what God Himself says about us. It is not humility that leads us to challenge what God says about anything, it is pride and arrogance. We exercise humility when we simply accept what God says about us.

Another reason that we can be self assured, but not self righteous, is because nobody achieves the position of being God’s child by himself or herself. Some people might think otherwise, but their argument is with God. When we ponder all that God did for us, sending Jesus into the world with the purpose in mind all along that He would die on the cross for our sins; that that was the cost to God to make us His children, why might we think an alternative of human origin would do?

Finally, we can become more self assured, but not self righteous, through practice. It is not easy to be self assured, but not self righteous; but it is possible. We know it is possible, because God never asks us to do something that He has not already enabled us to do. The Bible says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It doesn’t say it will be easy, just possible.

Jesus showed us how to be self assured, but not self righteous. Though He was in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited. We must be mindful to follow in His footsteps. The Bible says do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. Rather than thinking prideful thoughts about being children of God, we might focus our attention on our responsibilities to God instead.

By this time next year, how many of us will even remember all, or just some, of our New Year’s resolutions? Maybe we would be better off if we kept them, or at least some of them; but maybe not. There is no doubt, though, that each of us would be better off by this time next year, if God’s will for our lives is advanced. That will happen if we become more like Jesus, becoming more self assured, but not self righteous.

THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS PRESENT

2005-12-30T07:51:00.000-08:00

By about this time each year, many of us have found ourselves in the dilemma of trying to figure out what would be the perfect Christmas present for our loved ones. We have grappled with several factors, which sometimes contradict each other. First of all, the perfect Christmas present must be what the recipient wants. Secondly, it should be a reflection of us, an expression of our affection for the recipient, and appropriate for the relationship. Finally, it must be affordable.

Many people wind up feeling a considerable amount of stress as they go about the business of selecting the perfect Christmas present. That is hardly surprising, especially when we take into consideration the potentially competing concerns that are involved. At times like this, we might feel like we are all alone in the world. Might it help to know that God has gone through this also?

God gave the people of the world the perfect Christmas present that first Christmas Day some 2000 years ago. Admittedly, not everybody has actually received, or in Christmas present parlance, unwrapped, the perfect Christmas present that God gives each one of us, but that does not change the fact that God has given it to us.

The Christmas present that God gave to the people of the world some 2000 years ago is the perfect Christmas present, first of all, because it is what every person really wants. The Bible says that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Every healthy person shares one common and passionate desire, which is to live. No one wants to die. We don’t look at our child at the moment of his or her birth and think, "Child, you were born to die." God made us with a will to live and not to die, and so His perfect Christmas present to us is what we really want.

Another reason that the Christmas present that God gave to us some 2000 years ago is the perfect Christmas present is that it is a reflection of Himself. The Bible says the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being. Billy Graham used to say that if we want to know what God looks like, take a good long look at Jesus Christ.

Some people might mistakenly think that Jesus Christ’s origins are similar to our own, in that His existence began at the moment of His conception. It is understandable that some people might think that, since we were created when we were conceived. Although it may be difficult to grasp, the Bible says that Jesus is not a created being, and that He exists with God the Father eternally.

The Bible explains it this way: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in Him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him; yet the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and His own people did not accept Him. But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

God did not have to send Jesus into the world to be our Savor. He did that because He really loves us, and He wants us to live forever. It is thought that the Book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible. In it, we find the question of the ages: if a person dies, will he live again? God’s answer to that question is, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have eternal life." In contrast to some of the other major religions in the world, God’s perfect Christmas present is offered to, and available to, every person. The word whoever means anybody, without any exclusion whatsoever.

The perfect Christmas present that God offers to us is appropriate for the relationship that each of us can enjoy with God. Although some theologians would suggest to us that we can’t truly know God because He is so different from us, that did not stop God. We can have a real relationship with God, because Jesus became one of us. The Bible says we have a great High Priest, Jesus the Son of God…we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way – yet was without sin.

Only God can afford to give us the perfect Christmas present. That is because none of us can redeem ourselves, paying the penalty for our sins so that we can obtain eternal life. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Tragically, some people will pay the penalty for their sins, but they won’t live to tell about it. The King James Version of the Bible tells us that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. Simply stated, that means Jesus swapped places with us. Only He could die on the cross for our sins and live through it, because He was raised on the third day.

Often, Christmas presents are exchanged, not just given. In light of the perfect Christmas present that God has given to us, what might we give to Him? The only thing that we have that actually belongs to us is ourselves. The Bible says for the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. If "you can’t take it with you;" do we really own it in the first place?

It is self evident that we are the best expressions of ourselves, and that no material thing actually reflects who we really are. Giving ourselves to God as the perfect Christmas present to Him is also appropriate, because only God can truly meet the longings of our hearts. As St. Augustine said, "Thou hast created my soul, O God, after Thee, and it is restless until it rests in Thee."

THE BLESSINGS OF OBEDIENCE

2005-12-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

We don’t know a lot about Mary, the mother of Jesus. We don’t know where she lived before she became betrothed to her future husband, Joseph. We don’t know how old she was at the time, nor do we know how old Joseph was either, for that matter. We don’t know much about Mary’s family background; how many siblings she might have had or what her father did for a living.

For the most part, in all likelihood, Mary was probably an extraordinarily ordinary person. The best we can do is to speculate that her family was probably an average family, and was not very remarkable in any way. Her home was probably pretty average, too. What we do know about Mary is that in at least one way, she was a remarkable young woman. Mary was willing to do whatever God asked of her, and because of that, she reaped the blessings of obedience.

The Gospel according to Luke introduces us to Mary this way: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."

But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name Him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His ancestor David.

"He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; He will be called Son of God.

"And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

It is apparent that Mary was frightened, not necessarily by the angelic visitation itself, but rather by what the angel told her. The Bible says that Mary was perplexed, that is to say, puzzled, by the sudden appearance of the angel and his greeting. We can sense, however, Mary’s apprehension when the angel told her what God wanted to do in her life.

God was asking big things of Mary. While we probably think of Mary’s role in the birth of Christ from an historical perspective, imagine what it was like for Mary. She was a young and not quite married woman in a small town. She was living in a community that observed strict religious rules. What would people say? What would Joseph say? He would know he wasn’t the father of the baby this angel spoke so glowingly about! How would her parents handle this news?

No doubt, Mary’s head was spinning. We might get the impression from reading the Gospel account that this was a brief meeting between Mary and the angel, but that is not necessarily so. The visit might have lasted hours, or even days, for all we know. What we do know is that by the end of the angelic visit, Mary had made a decision that would profoundly impact her for the rest of her life. Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Mary’s decision made it possible for her to receive the blessings of obedience.

In far less dramatic ways, many of us have been in the place that Mary stood. God has asked of us things that we thought were big, maybe even too big, for us. Maybe He is speaking to some of us right now, not with words the human ear can hear, but with impressions in our hearts that the Bible describes as a still, small voice. Such impressions might be the voice of God, because they are leading us to do righteous things we might not otherwise be interested in doing. Of course, such impressions must always be agreeable with the Holy Spirit’s guidance in Scripture.

There is a direct correlation between our faithful obedience to God and the blessings of obedience that we will enjoy in our lives. Some of the most miserable people on earth are disobedient Christians! One reason is that Christians really can’t enjoy sinning, because we know better. Another reason is that God may feel constrained from pouring His blessings into our lives if we are living in active and deliberate rebellion, lest He encourage such behavior in His people.

Having said that, it would appear that God does not expect His people to plunge into every idea that pops into our heads. The Bible says we should test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Seeking reassurance that we are perceiving God’s will for our lives is not a bad thing. Throughout the Scripture, there are examples of God’s people doing just that. Perhaps Mary wondered about her own visit with the angel; might that be why he told her about Elizabeth?

Something that stands out about the angelic visit to Mary is how little the angel actually said. The angel did not tell Mary that much about what it would mean to her to be Jesus’ mother. Although we may not be privy to the whole conversation, we might wonder if the angel told her how much of a challenge it would be to raise Jesus, or to watch her Baby die on the cross for our sins.

From our own experience, most of us find that God tells us only enough so that we can obey Him, but not necessarily enough to know how things will work out. That is probably pretty wise on His part, because if God told us more, we might not do His will. We might find it to be too scary, too costly, or simply too much. But then we would miss out on the blessings of obedience.

DON'T GIVE UP!

2005-12-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

It is easy to believe in God when things are going our way. We might be happily married or in a wonderful relationship with that special person. Our job is going well and we’re optimistic about getting a raise and maybe even a promotion. Life is good, God is good. Who can argue with that?

But what happens if or when things start to fall apart? Our relationships may hit some turbulence, and whereas we used to be able to do no wrong, now we can’t get anything right. The news on the job front turns sour and we can forget about a raise and especially a promotion; we’ll be fortunate just to remain employed.

Sometimes our faith can get wobbly in the face of hard times. That can happen to anybody. That has happened to people we know. It might surprise us to know that it happened to C.S. Lewis, the author of the Chronicles of Narnia, which has just been released in movie form to the public.

C.S. Lewis was probably one of the most brilliant philosophers of the twentieth century. For a while, he was an atheist, but became a devout believer in Jesus Christ. One of the reasons that C.S. Lewis was compelled to become a follower of Jesus Christ was that he, Lewis, realized that he could not reasonably deny the reality of Christ’s resurrection and therefore he could not rationally deny Christ’s deity, either.

Although C.S. Lewis thought of himself as being a reluctant convert, over time he got used to it and in fact became quite comfortable with being something of a celebrity within Christendom and actually throughout the English speaking world. Even though he lived in England during World War II and endured the hardships of the German’s bombing there, for C.S. Lewis, life was good and God was good, and who could argue with that?

Eventually, life argued with C.S. Lewis’ sense of good tidings. In Lewis’ case, his wife, whom he had married rather late in life, fell ill with cancer. As if to only torment him, Mrs. Lewis had a brief period of remission, which was misinterpreted as recovery. A tragically painful death followed shortly thereafter.

Throughout history, God’s people have experienced periods of tranquility and joy mingled with times of hardship. C.S. Lewis' story of trials crashing into life is by no means unique. It is our story as well. When it comes to periods of trials and tribulations, the truth is we are either just coming out of one, or we are in the middle of one, or we are about to go into one.

Trials and tribulations can actually be good for us, even though by definition they are at least unpleasant and often painful. Trials and tribulations are part of God’s arsenal that He employs to help His people become holy. The Bible says consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

The question for God’s people is how we are going to handle the trials and tribulations that inevitably come our way. Escape or avoidance is not really an option. In fact, sometimes the trials are even worse, because we might run away from God under the premise that we would be better off finding our own happiness apart from God than becoming more holy with God through them.

From time to time throughout the Old Testament era, God’s people sought their immediate happiness over their long term holiness. For a period of several hundreds just before Christ came into the world, God’s people had followed that futile course of action. They were plenty religious throughout the period, but they had nonetheless turned their backs on God and forgotten His promises and prophecies.

Someone has said that "religion is the last refuge of the scoundrel," and whether that is true or not, religion can often serve as a substitute or replacement for a real relationship with God. The Bible calls that having a form of godliness but denying its power. At such times, it can seem that God is nowhere to be found, even though religious activities abound. The Book of First Samuel describes just such a time, when it says in those days the word of the Lord was rare.

When it seems that we have lost track of God, we might feel like giving up. We might think that there is no hope for us. But it is at such times that God says, "Don’t give up!" Down through the ages, God has consistently declared that urgent message to His people when they have lost their direction and their hope, and they are the verge of giving up.

Times of trial and tribulation are not generally good times to trust our feelings. We often have a "fight or flight" instinct that might not serve us well. Instead, the Bible urges us to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. That is how C.S. Lewis stood his ground during trials and tribulations; it is the only way we can do so too.

"Don’t give up!" is part of the message that God declared through His prophet John the Baptist. People had just about given up hope of ever hearing from God again, but God had a different and better idea. John described his mission from God this way: "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’"

Through Isaiah the prophet, God offered words of encouragement that Jesus quoted and applied to Himself: "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion, to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit."

A CRADLE WITHOUT A CROSS?

2005-12-04T20:29:00.000-08:00

Throughout much of America there is a brewing controversy this Christmas season. The controversy is about employing the word "Christmas" in various settings. Some people are calling Christmas trees in public settings, be they the White House or the Town Green, "Holiday Trees." Some social commentators are complaining that some department stores may be directing their employees to refrain from saying "Merry Christmas" in favor of "Happy Holidays."

This controversy has led to the predictable debate that comes up every few years about "keeping Christ in Christmas." Some people are expressing a concern, that in an effort to be politically correct and sensitive to everybody’s feelings, the legitimate interests of Christians are not being recognized. That may very well be true. But we Christians have a far greater concern to attend to, than whether a Christmas Tree is called a Christmas Tree or a Holiday Tree.

It may be gratifying to engage our neighbors in a debate over semantics. But the far more important question we might be asking is how much of what passes for Evangelical Christianity today would be recognizable to the Apostles of Jesus, to John the Baptist, or even to Jesus Himself? Have we somehow contrived a cradle without a cross?

The Bible says we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. The Bible also says that the cross is an offense to some people. Even so, there are some Christians who would be all too happy to celebrate a cradle without a cross.

Broadly speaking, the cross was a stumbling block to the Jews because they were so oriented to their religious practices that some of them lost track of the God whom they were worshipping. We might call that "missing the forest for the trees." Although there are literally hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Jesus, and Jesus said He had come the lost sheep of the house of Israel, most of the Jews of Jesus’ day failed to embrace Him. It might be understandable that they questioned or quarreled over one or two prophecies, but hundreds?

There are some Christians who practice that same kind of religiosity today, and for all intents and purposes contrive a cradle without a cross. While these people have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, they have a hard time acknowledging the finished work of the cross. Intellectually, they might acknowledge it, but not in the way they live their lives. While we must not become cavalier about our sins, we ought never to subject ourselves to religious rules made by people.

Again, broadly speaking, the term Gentiles or Greeks was referring not to a specific race or group of people, but rather to people who lived apart from the rule of God. Some were thought to be too barbaric, while others were too wise in the ways of the world for their own good, but they had this much in common: they were primarily seeking their own happiness or satisfaction. The idea of living lives under submission to God’s authority was not something that interested them.

The Bible says we preach the gospel, not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross be emptied of its power. One might ask, how could such a thing be even possible? It is sadly all too easy to empty the cross of its power. That happens when we trivialize the gospel of Jesus Christ by claiming that He came into the world to make people happy or to feel good about themselves.

While being happy and feeling good about ourselves is part of the end result of what Jesus can do for a person, that is only a byproduct of what He came to do: to redeem people from sin. Jesus Himself said we cannot be truly happy without being holy: "if anyone would come after Me, he must take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will save it."

The Bible urges us to not love the world or anything in the world. And yet, there are some people in the Evangelical Christian movement today whose focus seems to be entirely on this world and on people being happy. While it is always nice to be happy, it is foolish to focus all our energies on our own happiness. There will be times when things simply don’t go our way.

If we make the mistake of thinking that our pleasant circumstances are a sign of God’s love or His favor, we are in for a rude awakening. Jesus warned us that "in the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." The sign of God’s love and favor towards us is not that we are happy at any given moment; the sign of God’s love and favor is an event that took place about 2000 years ago. It was Jesus dying on the cross for us.

The question for every Christian to ponder is what effect, if any, does the cross have upon us? At Christmastime, it is all too easy to get caught up with the Baby Jesus in the cradle, but what about the crucified Savior on the cross? Does the cross have an impact upon our lives?

The impact the cross should have is that it settles once and for all that it is God’s grace and not our religious activities that provides forgiveness for our sins. The Bible says if we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. We simply cannot do for ourselves what only God can do for us, through the cross.

The cross should also influence our behavior. Because of what Christ has done for us on the cross, we should be inspired to live lives that please and honor God. The Bible says be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The cross should discourage us from sinning so much. God gives us the ability to do that; John the Baptist said, "I baptize you with water, but He (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

The Bible says that God demonstrates His own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The cross is God’s way of forgiving us for our sins. It is not our happiness or our prosperity that assures of us God’s love for us, it is the cross. If we base our confidence of God’s love on anything else, we will have a faith that is only a mile wide and an inch deep. When it comes to real Christianity, there is no such thing as a cradle without a cross.

THE SEASON OF GIFT GIVING

2005-11-28T14:55:00.000-08:00

It is that time of year again. With Thanksgiving 2005 now in the history books, people are turning their attention to Christmas. As one newspaper headline put it, "out with the turkey and in with the tinsel." Retailers are all too eager to feed into our frenzy about the season of gift giving, with aggressive sales pitches over the airwaves and special "in store" sales throughout the season.

Sometimes, we might think that the meaning of Christmas has become lost in all the hoopla about giving gifts. To some degree, that might be true, but in another way, perhaps it is not. After all, in one way, God started the whole gift giving frenzy in the first place. God gives all people who embrace Jesus Christ the gift of salvation. The Bible says that even though our behavior has earned us only punishment, the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As if the gift of eternal life, received simply by believing in Jesus Christ, was not more than enough, the Bible says that God has given us even more. In First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul wrote, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in Him, in speech and all knowledge -- just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you-- so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sometimes people give gifts to others out of a feeling of duty or obligation. We’ve all been there. We remember that last year somebody surprised us with a gift, and we were not prepared to reciprocate. It happens in families, and it happens in business. We will be ready this year. In essence, sometimes we give gifts because we are embarrassed not to. We feel like we have to.

God does not harbor such feelings. God does not feel obligated to give us anything. If He did, He might be inclined to pour out His wrath upon us. If we’re honest with ourselves, we will admit that He would be justified in doing so. Fortunately for us, the Bible says that He does not treat us as our sins deserve. God would much rather bless us than punish us.

God is not stingy with His gift giving. God is not on a tight budget either. He lavishes His gifts upon His people, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift. Not only is God gracious in blessing His people, He is more than wise. We’ve all been stuck in the situation where we simply don’t know what to give somebody. Not God! For in every way you have been enriched in Him.

Sometimes people give gifts that are completely useless. We’ve all experienced that one too, on both sides of the table. We’ve all given useless gifts that we knew all along the recipient couldn’t or wouldn’t use. We have all received those kinds of gifts as well. Some people joke that there are really only a few fruitcakes in the world, they just keep getting given to other people as gifts.

God does not give us gifts that are useless in any way. He does not give gifts that are superfluous. God gives His people spiritual gifts so that we can be blessed and so that we can participate in being a blessing to other people. God does not give gifts to people to flatter us or to win our attention or our approval. He gives us gifts for all the right reasons.

The Bible says that we should not be ignorant about spiritual gifts. Some people might think that spiritual gifts are mysterious or only for ‘spiritual people.’ They are neither. They are for every believer in Jesus, and they are fairly easy to understand. The gifts that God gives His people are described primarily in two sections of the Bible, in 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12.

1 Corinthians 12 says the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.

Romans 12 tells us that we have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a person's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

The Bible makes it clear that spiritual gifts are something we receive from God. They are not badges of honor or symbols of accomplishment. God exercises His own wisdom in determining who to give what spiritual gift to, so there is no place for pride or jealousy on our part. We can take no credit for being given a spiritual gift, but simply use the spiritual gifts that God gives us.
Even if we might feel like we cannot serve God, if He has given us a spiritual gift, that feeling is obviously without basis. We might have various reasons for not wishing to embrace and exercise the spiritual gifts that God gives us, but lacking the power or ability to do so is not among them.

In what is sometimes referred to as the Old Testament period, the Holy Spirit seemed to operate in people’s lives on a somewhat limited basis. We read of episodes in which the Holy Spirit was present but then departed, sometimes for long periods. Yet there was always the promise, uttered by the prophet Joel, that a time was coming when God would pour out His Spirit and spiritual gifts upon all of His people, men and women, young and old. Nobody would be excluded.

One of the many things that the Bible makes clear is that while no one person receives all of the spiritual gifts, God is certainly gracious and abundant in giving or distributing spiritual gifts to His people. Collectively, God’s people are not lacking in any spiritual gift. One of the many reasons it is important for Christians to be part of the local church is so that we can benefit from God distributing His spiritual gifts among us. We don’t get that at home or by watching TV.

Imagine how awful it would be if we gave somebody a Christmas gift, after spending a considerable amount of time selecting it and money paying for it, and for the recipient to then look at it, and say, "No; I don’t want it." About the only thing worse than that would be if the recipient was one of us. At this time of year, the season of gift giving, we certainly would not want to snub God that way. Whether it is the gift of eternal life, or spiritual gifts, that God is trying to give to us, we should gladly accept them, embrace them, and use them.

"THANK YOU"

2005-11-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

Some of us have heard the story about the wife who complained that her husband never said "I love you" anymore. The husband replied, "I told you that I love you on the day I married you. If anything ever changes, I’ll let you know." While we might get a chuckle out of that story, for some people, there is a variation of it that comes all too close to home. The difference in the story is that some people don’t bother to say "thank you" very often, or perhaps not even at all. Saying "thank you" takes so little effort, but can mean so much to the person to whom it is said.

Why then, is it that some people don’t say "thank you?" Perhaps it is because while the words themselves are certainly easy to say, they require a certain humility if they are to be genuine. To say "thank you" and really mean it, we must appreciate what somebody has done for us. It might also be an acknowledgement of our indebtedness to somebody for something they’ve done for us.

If we are among those people who choke a little when saying "thank you" is called for, perhaps it might help us to consider that even God says "thank you." While God is by no means indebted to anybody for any reason, He nonetheless appreciates it when people do something nice for others. In fact, Jesus seemed to indicate that God not only appreciates our generosity, He goes to far as to take it personally, considering our acts of kindness as being bestowed directly upon Him.

Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and He will put the sheep at His right hand and the goats at the left.

"Then the king will say to those at His right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed Me, I was naked and you gave Me clothing, I was sick and you took care of Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.’

"Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw You hungry and gave You food, or thirsty and gave You something to drink? And when was it that we saw You a stranger and welcomed You, or naked and gave You clothing? And when was it that we saw You sick or in prison and visited You?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of My family, you did it to Me.’

"Then He will say to those at His left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from Me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave Me no food, I was thirsty and you gave Me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome Me, naked and you did not give Me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

"Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

We often tend to think of this story solely in terms of the final judgement when God determines who is going to go to heaven and who is not. That is in fact one of the points of Jesus’ story, and it is probably the main point. But there is also another important point that Jesus enunciates in this parable. That point is that God appreciates it when people act generously towards others.

In this story, Jesus the triumphant King not only acknowledges the generosity of His followers, He expresses appreciation for what they have done. While the exact words "thank you" do not appear on Jesus’ lips, they are still there in what He is saying. It would not be a stretch and it certainly would not be misrepresenting Jesus to say that in this story, Jesus said "thank you."

In order to appreciate what somebody else has done for us, we must first notice it. Jesus indicated that God notices if we are generous towards those who are down and out. Why would God notice that? Perhaps it is because God says, "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who have a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and contrite ones."

Some people who are down and out are humble and contrite. On the other hand, there are people who are down and out, yet are not humble and contrite. They may in fact be arrogant enough to rail against their circumstances, and even God Himself, that they are suffering in ways that are not befitting to them. Only a real fool who would insist that God give us what we truly deserve.

People who rail against God or their circumstances would do well to keep in mind what the Holy Spirit says; the person in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. Why? Because God dwells in the high and holy and places, and also with those who are humble and contrite. We may be down and out, but we can be in the best of company: God’s!

There is a story about a wealthy woman in Jesus’ day who invited Him to her home for a banquet. On the appointed day, she sent her servants home so that she could have everything just as she wanted it to be. In the morning, a beggar came to her door. She sent him off to the Pharisees so they could tell him how to be a better person. A lost child stood crying at her door at noontime, but she was too busy to care and she shooed him away to her neighbor’s. At about 3:00, a cat scratched at her door for food. She dispatched the cat with one swift kick.

That evening, all the guests, with the exception of Jesus, arrived. He never came that night. She hunted Him down the next day, and demanded an explanation. She railed against Him, in no uncertain terms. When she was finally done yelling at Him, Jesus calmly replied, "Three times I went to your home yesterday, and each time, you sent Me away."

Even though each of us at times may feel like the beggar, the lost child or the hungry cat, we never need to be down and out by ourselves. There is Someone with us, if only we would be humble and contrite enough to recognize Him. Saying "thank You" to God is a good start for any of us to become aware of His presence with us. The Psalmist wrote, enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.

THERE IS ALWAYS MORE WITH GOD

2005-11-28T13:54:00.000-08:00

In many, if not most areas of our lives, we think in terms of beginnings and endings. We go to school for a period of time, and then we finish. Even if we pursue multiple post graduate degrees, the nightmare of some parents who are footing the bills, at some point we conclude our schooling. We also work with the expectation of retiring some day, and then enjoying our golden years.

While in many human endeavors there is either a built in finality or the expectation of finality, there is always more with God. That should come as no surprise to us. All of us have limited resources. We can only learn so much, or afford so much schooling. The years eventually catch up with us and diminish our strength and ability to work. But God has no such limitations.

Jesus told a story to illustrate that there is always more with God. God wants us to understand Him and His will for our lives. He is not a mysterious, mystical and unknowable deity, so Jesus liked to tell simple stories about God and His kingdom. Jesus said, "For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

"The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.

"Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

"And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

"Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.

"‘So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"

It seems that Jesus is saying that in God’s economy 5+5 doesn’t equal only 10, it equals that plus more. We should not think that we have reached our spiritual potential because we have enjoyed an experience of God’s grace or have achieved a level of spiritual maturity. God says, "There is always more where that came from!"

There was a brilliant Christian philosopher and writer who thought he had reached his spiritual zenith in the area of prayer. He said that he had gotten to a spiritual level where he did not feel it was necessary for him to pray anymore. How self deluded he had become! Even Jesus Christ, throughout His sojourn on earth, prayed. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, and also while on the cross. If Jesus felt the need to pray, doesn’t that suggest that we need to pray too?

Typically, we tend to think of talents as gifts or abilities. But maybe there is another way to think of talents as well. After all, in Jesus’ day, talents referred to money. Surely Jesus was not saying that God is interested in giving us more money if we invest what money we might have now well! Might we not also think of talents as faith opportunities; or to put it another way, challenges that provide us the opportunity to know God better and to grow spiritually?

While most Christians want to grow spiritually, the truth of the matter is that we don’t really enjoy the means of that growth. The Book of James says that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. God certainly has great ambitions for us! He will provide as much opportunity to become mature and complete, not lacking anything, as we will receive.

Perhaps some of us make the mistake of thinking of faith opportunities as obstacles to our well being or our happiness. We might subconsciously suspect that God doesn’t really want us to succeed, spiritually or otherwise. Nothing could be farther from the truth! God does not put obstacles in our path to impede our progress – just the opposite. They are opportunities to grow spiritually. God wants us to succeed, not fail.

Whether we think of talents as gifts or as faith opportunities, we must receive God’s grace by faith if we are going to receive more. Jesus made it very apparent that each of us is responsible before God to do our part. The master in His story was far from pleased with the person who buried his one talent.

There is always more with God. Even if we stonewall Him for a while, we will find that He is amazingly patient. Sadly, He waits out some people for an entire lifetime, because they refuse to receive His blessings, either of gifts or faith opportunities. May that not be true of us! As we do our part, not perfectly of course but nonetheless by faith, it will please God to one day say to us, "Well done, you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your Master."

PREPARED FOR ANY EVENTUALITY

2005-11-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

A lawsuit was filed in Colorado recently, against The Home Depot. The plaintiff, one Bob Dougherty by name, complains that he was abused by The Home Depot when he was glued to a toilet seat in the store’s restroom by accident. Apparently, some pranksters had applied super glue to a toilet seat, and the unsuspecting Mr. Dougherty got stuck to it while using the bathroom.

Mr. Dougherty had to be removed from the store by paramedics, who had unbolted the toilet seat from the rest of the unit, and carried him out of the store. Needless to say, Mr. Dougherty not only suffered physical harm when the toilet seat was torn off his body, but he suffered emotional distress as well, from this eventuality. An eventuality is "a possible event or outcome." Mr. Dougherty’s story exemplifies the fact that one cannot be too prepared for any eventuality.

Poor Bob Dougherty was surprised by his misfortune at The Home Depot. No doubt any of us would have been too. Even people who are well prepared for any eventuality wouldn’t be ready for that! Who could have seen that one coming? But there far more important, and much more serious, events for which we should all be ready. The most important of all the important coming events is the second coming of Jesus Christ. Compared to that, hardly anything else matters.

Even though Jesus Christ’s first coming the first Christmas day was announced repeatedly by prophets for hundreds of years before His birth, too many people were still caught off guard and were not prepared. As tough as that was, people still had a chance to catch up. Right up until a person dies, people from every generation since the first century until now can embrace Jesus.

This time around, however, that won’t be true. There will be no second chance to be prepared for the second coming of Jesus. Either we are ready, or we are not. The distinction will be clear. Jesus told a story to illustrate this for us, and to implore us to be ready for His second coming.

Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.

"But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! There will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’

"And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

While it is obviously true that we "know neither the day nor the hour," if for no other reason than Jesus said so, we nevertheless know there will be "the day and the hour" when Jesus Christ returns. It has been broadcast throughout the Bible, in both the Old and the New Testaments. The ancient creeds of the Church affirm it. The Nicene Creed, drafted in the 4th century, declares, "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end."

The first century followers of Jesus took His promise of coming again seriously. In contrast to many people these days who sometimes need to be reminded that it has always been a basic tenet of the Church that Jesus would come back in the future, they lived in expectation that it could happen at any moment. They took it so seriously that they wondered what would happen to Jesus’ followers who passed away before He came back. Some people even worried about this.

The Bible addresses these valid concerns. We do not want you to be uninformed about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.

For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Encourage one another with these words.

One of the many things that separate people from animals is our capacity to anticipate and plan for the future. There are people who are employed by our government whose job it is to ponder the potential of future events and to prepare our country for any eventuality. We would consider our employers to be reckless if they did not plan for the future. Indeed, people who consider themselves to be wise try to be at least somewhat prepared for any eventuality.

Even though the first century Christians lived their lives with the expectation that Jesus could return in glory at any moment, there were some Biblical prophecies that had not at that time been fulfilled. They have been now. Among those prophecies was the declaration of Jesus that His gospel would be proclaimed around the world. That has happened, more than once over. One example of that happening was when Billy Graham preached the Gospel at the National Cathedral right after September 11th, and it was broadcast around the world.

There are other prophecies, which have been fulfilled within the last generation, which set the stage for Jesus’ second coming. Must it happen in our lifetimes? Clearly, the answer is no. Might it happen in our lifetimes? Here, the answer would be yes. The dictionary defines an eventuality as "a possible event or outcome." Jesus could come back at any time. The Bible warns us not to give up hope for this event, nor to lose our perspective, merely because it has not happened yet.

"THERE, BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, GO I"

2005-11-10T20:41:00.000-08:00

During the Great Depression of the last century, John D. Rockefeller distributed dimes to the people on the street. He gave away as much as $10,000 in this manner. In those days, dimes were real money. Ten cents could buy a person a meal. The reaction of the people to whom Mr. Rockefeller gave the dimes was hardly surprising; they eagerly and happily grabbed them up.

Although Christians have a better gift to give to the world than money in any amount – the Bible calls the Gospel of Jesus the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes – we find that some people shun this gift. If we were to offer them a hot tip on which horse will win the race or what stock is about to be taken over at a premium to its going price, it would doubtless be universally, eagerly and happily grabbed up. But not so the Gospel.

On one level, it would seem inconceivable to think that anybody would shun the Gospel of Jesus. It is offered to everyone. As the Book of Common Prayer puts it so eloquently, "there is no one who is beyond the reach of His saving embrace." And yet, some people shy away. There are likely several reasons why some people might prefer dimes to the gift of eternal life.

One reason may be that some people simply don’t believe that God could possibly love them. They mistakenly think it is about what they deserve, which is not much. But the Bible tells us that God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

Some people may think that the Bible is no more relevant to their lives than any other ancient writing. It may be interesting, but not relevant. They might think that the Bible is on par with wisdom writings like Poor Richard’s Almanac, penned by Benjamin Franklin. That would be true if the Bible was only the work of people, even if some or all of the writers were great people.

The books of the Bible were written over a span of some 1500 years or more. Forty authors were used by the Holy Spirit to write the sixty six books. Most of the writers did not know each other personally. Yet there is a harmony throughout the Bible. That is because there was really only one Author. The Bible says men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Because the Bible is the word of God and not the product of human hands, it has the power to change our lives. While it is true that some literature is inspirational, there is nothing else that is quite like the Bible. The Apostle Paul wrote, we also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God's word, which is also at work in you believers.

Another challenge that some people have in embracing the Gospel of Jesus is that they’re not all that impressed with some of the people who have already embraced it. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today." The truth that Gandhi missed is that while no individual Christian is perfect this side of heaven, the teachings of Christ or the Gospel of Jesus is still true!

While being interviewed by Tucker Carlson on The Situation recently, a self proclaimed "liberal" remarked that "evangelicals scare me." It was one of those statements that could shock some viewers and then be easily passed over, but in reality, her statement should haunt those of us who embrace Jesus Christ. How in the world could people who follow Jesus scare anybody?

The sad truth is that in some ways and in some cases, some Christians have become like the people Jesus warned His followers to be wary of. Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.

"They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.

"But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father-- the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted."

Jesus’ comments are refreshing to those who feel the burden of oppression put upon them by the religiously self-righteous. At the same time, it should be frightening to any of His followers if they apply, even in the slightest way, to any of us. In some way, perhaps they do. If not, why then would anybody remark that evangelicals scare her? We should keep in mind that as one Christian writer says, "it is not a Christian’s duty to dispel the darkness; only to reveal the light."

Many of us have observed that at least sometimes the most obnoxious non-smoker in the room is the former smoker. They can certainly be self-righteous! That being said, it does not negate the truth that the former smoker is actually freed from a deadly bondage. There is a saying that Christians are not perfect, (in fact, sometimes we can be self-righteous!), just forgiven.

The Bible says that Christians have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us. Among other things, that tells us that a little humility would go a long way for the followers of Jesus Christ. As the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody used to say when he saw somebody doing something wrong, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

OUR FRAME OF REFERENCE

2005-10-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

There is a saying that perception is reality. That is true in politics, the investment world and everyday life. How then, do we form or develop our perceptions? What is our frame of reference? For the most part, we do not know things innately. Even though we might sometimes think or say "I have a feeling…;" our intuitions and our perceptions are derived from outside ourselves.

These days, we have more sources of information than ever before, from which we then derive our perceptions. People used to live in a smaller world than we do today. Because of worldwide cable TV and the internet, we’re no longer limited to a localized view of the world. Having said that, human nature has not changed that much. As the Book of Ecclesiastes observes, what has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Most of us have drawn our wisdom from various sources throughout our lifetimes. Sometimes we have found those sources to be helpful, other times we have found them to be not so helpful. In some instances, some of the wisdom has proven itself to be very unwise. One thing we have all learned through these experiences is that the source we go to for wisdom is very important. The old saying "garbage in, garbage out;" comes to mind.

At the end of the day, there is no greater source of wisdom than God. After all, if God made the world and us, He has a greater insight into how we tick and the world works than anybody else. Through the prophet Isaiah the Lord says, "My ways are higher than your ways; My thoughts are higher than your thoughts." This should be self evident to anyone who thinks about it.

God is more than happy to share His wisdom with us. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without finding fault. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind; he is double minded and unstable. One of the things the Bible is saying here is that we must determine ahead of time to do what God wants us to do. If we do that, God will share His wisdom with us.

How will God share His wisdom with us? The challenge is not from God’s side; He is more than capable of communicating. The difficulty lies with us; we are sometimes like car radios that pick up static that interferes with receiving the radio station’s broadcast. Is there some way that we can better tune ourselves in, so that we may more clearly perceive God’s wisdom?

Sometimes, but not always, God speaks to us through the people around us. In Proverbs, it says that in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Psalm 1 cautions us to be careful about whose advice we seek or who we are influenced by. Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

The first thing that Psalm 1 counsels us to do is not walk in the counsel of the wicked. It is very important for us to understand that when the Bible refers to the wicked, it does not necessarily mean bad or evil people. Another translation for wicked would be "ungodly;" that is to say, people who live without God as their frame of reference. People who live with God as their frame of reference look to Him for consultation; He is their source of information and wisdom.

Some people might mistakenly think that this directive from Scripture borders on arrogance. Not at all! It is simply practical and wise. We would not ask our mechanic for medical advice, nor would we ask our doctor to fix our cars. Why would we think to ask a person who does not have a personal relationship with God what he or she thinks God would have us do in a given situation?

Where do we find people who live without God as their frame of reference? Just about wherever we look, including some Christians. We cannot assume that just because someone goes to church or even engages in church related activities that God is their frame of reference. Of course, there was only one perfect Christian, Jesus. As they say, "Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven."

At the same time, if a person’s lifestyle and actions are continuously in contrast with the Bible, watch out! Writing to the Christians in the city of Corinth, the Apostle Paul minced no words. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. For you are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are you not carnal? Carnal Christians are not a good source for God’s wisdom.

Sometimes the counsel of the wicked might show up even from trustworthy Christians. We are all capable of being wrong. That is why it is important to be sure that a Christian’s advice is compatible with Scripture. For example, if somebody hurts us or does us wrong, and a well meaning but misguided Christian counsels us to act upon the anger we might feel, they’re wrong. Scripture says people’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

In forming our frame of reference, it should go without saying that we ought not to stand in the way of sinners. Yet people sometimes do. Benjamin Franklin said that "he who sleeps with dogs rises with fleas." In spite of that, sometimes people who sincerely want to live in accordance with God’s ways and by His wisdom choose to dwell in the company of people they know to be evil. The Bible warns us that anybody who does that does so at his or her own peril.

It might not be obvious to us why we should not sit in the seat of mockers. We often associate mockery with humor. Sometimes mockery includes humor and sometimes it doesn’t, but it almost always includes humiliation. We will never aspire to be what God wants us to be or to do what God wants us to do, if we subject ourselves to being humiliated. Humiliation is similar to condemnation. The Bible says there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Each of us is responsible to determine what or who will be our frame of reference throughout our lifetimes. Some people may choose to sink or swim by the wisdom and ways of this world. The world offers them no promises. On the other hand, God promises to bless those who make Him their point of reference. Psalm 1 goes on to say, He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

DO PEOPLE CHANGE?

2005-10-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

When President Bush nominated his long time friend Harriet Miers to succeed retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, many people in his conservative base expressed outrage. The one thing that seems to be uniting conservative opposition to Ms. Miers is their concern that she might wind up being like Justice David Souter. Justice Souter disappointed conservative politicians, because he has turned out to be more liberal in his views than they expected.

Now those same people are concerned that a Justice Miers might also disappoint them the same way. In an effort to reassure his base of supporters that Harriet Miers won’t be like Justice Souter, President Bush is promising them that Ms. Miers "won’t change." He says she’ll be like Justice Antonin Scalia, who was recently quoted in the press as saying, "I ain’t evolving."

Some people have wondered if it would be a good thing if Ms. Miers, or anybody else for that matter, doesn’t change over the next decade or two. Others ask what is perhaps a better question: Is it possible for people not to change? Are any of us who can state our age in decades rather than only years really able to honestly say that we have not changed over time?

Garrison Keillor, in his radio show A Prairie Home Companion, regales us with stories about Lake Wobegon, a mythical town in Minnesota that "time forgot, and the decades cannot improve." While it would seem charming, at least in our imaginations, to ponder living in such a place, in reality most of us would not want to. The actual "Lake Wobegons" of America are at best a shadow of their lustrous days; time may not have changed them, but it left them behind.

It is almost impossible to consider how anybody, or any group of people for that matter, does not change over time. Accepting that premise, we are left to ponder what causes or effects changes in people. The likely answer is that whatever we allow to influence us the most is what will cause or effect change in us. To some degree, we become the product of what we are influenced by.

Do people change? Most assuredly so! The question for each of us is who or what is going to create change in us. We all have many choices to choose from in terms of what we want to be changed by. Some of us allow ourselves to be unintentionally influenced and eventually changed by people or things in our lives. That is to say that we are changed by certain people or things without realizing it. God gives us the power, however, to be intentionally changed by Him.

Writing to the church in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul noted that the followers of Jesus Christ in that area had chosen or allowed themselves to be influenced by Jesus. Their relationships with Jesus had had a profound impact upon their lives. Not surprisingly, the changes that occurred in the followers of Jesus in Thessalonica were all to the good.

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that He has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.

And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it.

For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead-- Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

What did the Christians in Thessalonica do to intentionally allow God to change them? On the one hand, they were no different from anybody living in the world, at their time or in ours. We all live in a world that does not automatically default to being influenced by or changed by God. If anything, we live in a world that inclines us to be changed by anything or anybody except God.

In order to be changed by God, the Christians in Thessalonica had to make a decision. Simply stated, they had to say "yes" to God and "no" to the world. Often, it is not easy or comfortable to choose God instead of the world. The world and its ways are more familiar territory for many of us than God’s kingdom and His ways. Even so, each of can choose to be changed by God.

Praying for Israel, Moses asked God, "You be the one who effects or causes change in us."And Moses said to Him, "If Your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people, unless You go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and Your people, from every people on the face of the earth."

Being changed by God is far more preferable than any other option we might have. Moses chose to be changed by God. Moses said to the LORD, "Now if I have found favor in Your sight, show me Your ways, so that I may know You and find favor in Your sight." The Biblical meaning of "knowing God" is to know Him personally and to be influenced by Him. God wants to be the one who influences and changes each of us. The LORD said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."

POINTS OF CONTACT

2005-10-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

How can people know God? The philosopher Emmanuel Kant said that people can’t really know God, because God is so radically different from us and that He dwells in a different sphere. The best we might hope for is to have some correct ideas about God. By way of analogy, it might be like saying that ordinary people can’t really know rich and glamorous people, because we don’t live "in their world."

Kant would have a point, except that He overlooked one major factor. God has chosen to make Himself known! The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being. Jesus said, "If you knew Me, you would know My Father also." One of the reasons Jesus came to earth was so that regular people could know God.

While it may be reassuring that God has made it possible for regular people to know Him, we might still wonder how can we either come to know Him in the first place, or come to know Him better. Hopefully, each of us would appreciate the value of knowing God. After all, if God makes Himself available to us, what else in life can possibly be more important than knowing God?

Are there things we can do on our end to know God better? The Bible indicates there are. Sitting around waiting for a sign from heaven is not among them. The Bible says, seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near. God’s invitation is not limited only to those who are good or respectable. God’s invitation continues, let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him.

The New Testament provides us with some guidance in how we could seek the Lord. One thing we could do is rejoice in the Lord always. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Everybody, no matter how rich or poor, faces difficulties in life. Sometimes, our difficulties may be truly overwhelming, of tragic proportions. Some of us allow ourselves to become embittered by life’s challenges. Others find them to be a point of contact with God. Without knowing "the why’s" of life, we can find that God can still strengthen and comfort us. The Bible encourages each of us to cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

Some people mistakenly think that if we have troubles in life that that is a sign of God’s disfavor towards us. That is not always the case. While we might have trouble in life because we have made poor choices or have in fact sinned seriously, life can simply be tough. Not every tragedy makes sense. At such times, God offers His comfort as a point of contact to see us through.

Psalm 23 says in part, The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me beside still waters. He revives my soul and guides me along right pathways for His Name's sake. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Each of us has good things happen to us and to our loved ones as well. God wants to use those things as points of contact with people also. Beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Sadly, all too often people receive a great blessing from God, and then they forget all about Him. It is as though the thing that God has blessed us with is more valuable to us than God Himself. Imagine how we would feel if we gave a gift to one of our loved ones, and they became so absorbed by the gift that they forgot all about us! Is that how we make God feel sometimes?

Jesus wants each of us to be responsive to whatever points of contact God sends our way. He told a story to illustrate how important it is that we do our part by responding to God’s invitation to know Him. Once more Jesus spoke to the people in parables, saying: "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.

"Again he sent other slaves, saying, 'Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.' But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them.

"The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, 'The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.' Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

"But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen."

TWO WAYS TO HEAVEN

2005-10-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

One of the criticisms of Christianity is that some people consider it to be narrow minded and exclusive. Some people think there ought to be several ways or paths for people to choose from in order to get to go to heaven. While God has made it possible for a variety of people to go to heaven by believing in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord, some people want more options.

In truth, God has provided an alternative option for getting to heaven besides trusting that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross paid for our sins and satisfied God’s righteous demands for justice. The alternative option that God has provided is that people live completely sinless lives, so that they don’t need Jesus’ death on the cross to redeem them before God. It really is that simple!

How can we know how to live completely sinless lives before God? Whose rules or standards tell us what God would expect of us? After all, each of us has our own definitions of right and wrong, and most people of good character probably agree on most of those standards. But what about those rules we might disagree about? And in the meantime, does God agree with our standards?

It is obviously more important for us to understand God’s understanding of what constitutes living a completely sinless life than what we think. After all, it is His heaven and He is the one who grants access to it, not us. Fortunately, because God is gracious and fair, He has already told us how He defines living completely sinless lives, starting with the Ten Commandments.

Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses His name. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

The Bible tells us about an occasion when a person encountered Jesus and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" That’s the same question people have asked throughout the ages, and still ask today. Jesus answered, "You know the Commandments." "All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

There we have it! It is all right there, "straight from the horse’s mouth," so to speak. Jesus said that all we have to do is obey the Ten Commandments, and we’re all set. There are just a couple of things we need to keep in mind. The first is that God does not grade on a curve. There is no fudging. Just because "everybody else is doing it" does not matter. Sinless means sinless.

The second thing to consider is what God means when He gives us the Ten Commandments. God does not give us a pass simply because we could not, or perhaps dared not, to follow through on our intentions. From God’s point of view, if we do something in our heart, it’s as though we did it, even if circumstances or our cowardice prevented us from actually doing something.

Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders is subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with somebody will be subject to judgment." The Bible says that anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. If we hate somebody so much that we wished him or her dead, God counts that as murder. Jesus went on to say, "You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

It was gracious of God to give us the Ten Commandments, so that we would know what His standards are. As the Bible says, "For I would not know sin except through the Law. For I would not known covetousness unless the Law has said, ‘You shall not covet.’" God not only wants us to go to heaven, but He wants us to understand how we can get to heaven.

By now, some of us might be thinking that while one of the options that God has so graciously provided for us to have eternal life and go to heaven, living a completely sinless life, deserves our consideration, we might want to consider the other option that God has also given us. That is for us to embrace Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Embracing Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord means more than being religious or going to church. We can go to church or be religious, but still live without Christ in our lives. We see people doing that all the time. They think they’re doing what they have to do in order to appease God, but that’s not the point. How can religious activity really make up for our sins?

Before he embraced Jesus as his Savior and Lord, the Apostle Paul was about as religious as anybody could get. It was not enough. Paul wrote, If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

HOW FAITH WORKS

2005-10-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

There are many people who have faith in God, but find it challenging to apply their faith in everyday life. They might say, "I know I have faith, but how can I get my faith to work?" They might look at other people who seem to breeze through life’s difficulties by exercising their faith, and wonder, "How can I have that kind of faith myself?"

What is faith, and how does faith work? We might think that if we had the answer to that question, we could quit our jobs and go around the country delivering seminars for big bucks. As it happens, we have the answers to these questions at our fingertips. More than that, each of us can have a faith in God that actually works and that can see us through the darkest days.

The Book of Hebrews tells us that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It also says that without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

The first thing the Bible tells us is what faith is. The Bible says that faith gives us a certainty about things. These things are not necessarily limited to the things of God. For example, every time we drive our cars on the highway, we are exercising faith. We have faith that the car we are driving will remain intact and that the essential parts, like the steering and the brakes, will continue to function. We are being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

If we were not sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, we would not barrel down the highway at breakneck speeds. What would we do if we thought the tires felt wobbly as we drove along? We’d stop and check them! The point is that when we think to ourselves, "Gee, I wish I had strong faith;" the fact is that we already do. We exercise faith regularly.

We might be thinking right about now that even if we do have faith, we are believing in what we can perceive with our senses. Looked at another way, what we are really exercising faith in when we drive our cars is our own judgement or perceptions, and the integrity of the people who built our cars and service them afterwards. Our faith is in people. What would happen to our faith if we discovered that our mechanic regularly took drugs or drank alcohol while he was fixing cars?

Having and exercising faith in people is always a gamble. Sometimes that gamble pays off, and sometimes it doesn’t. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? On the other hand, God can always be trusted. King David noticed that over a lifetime of observations. "I was young and now I am old, but I have never the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread," he wrote.

It is important for us to realize that while the Bible assures us that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him, it does not assure us that God will give us everything we want or that He will do everything we want Him to do. God reserves unto Himself the prerogative of determining how He will bless us. We can be assured, however, that His ideas of how to bless us are better than ours. "My thoughts are higher than your thoughts; My ways are higher than yours," God says.

The first aspect of faith is believing in somebody or something. It is better to believe in God than to believe in ourselves or other people. The second aspect of faith is applying what we believe to our everyday lives. When we believe in the people who made and service our cars, we drive them. If we believe in God’s character and His commitment to us, we should act like we do.

The Book of James says that faith without deeds is dead. In discussing Abraham’s faith, it goes on to say that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. In many ways, there is nothing unique or special about Abraham. He was just an ordinary person like the rest of us. His faith grew stronger as he exercised his faith in daily life.

When we make the mistake of thinking of faith only in intellectual or spiritual terms rather than with a practical application, our faith won’t grow. Faith like that stays limited at best. Faith that is not exercised and lived out in the real world of our daily lives does not bless us or please God.

Jesus told a story to illustrate how we should always be putting our faith into action. What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He said, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered.

One of the points of Jesus’ story was that while anybody can say the right thing, it was the person who did the right thing who did what his father wanted. God does not necessarily ask us to do big things. Often, when He does ask us to do big things, they are really a combination of small things put together. In any event, He will always give us the means to do His will. The Bible says that His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness.

Generally speaking, our faith grows step by step rather than in leaps and bounds. The Bible says therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.

The greatest challenge any of us have when it comes to acting upon our faith in God is that we have gotten so used to acting upon our faith in ourselves or in other people. That is a hard habit to break. But break it we must, if we want our faith in God to grow stronger. When the Bible says continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, it actually means "fear and trembling about yourselves." In other words, "stop trusting yourself and start trusting God." Faith takes time to grow, but as we keep exercising it, it will grow. That is how faith works.

"ACTS OF GOD"

2005-10-02T20:30:00.000-07:00

Some people like to refer to natural disasters as “acts of God.” It is ironic, of course, that only bad or unpleasant natural events get that moniker. How come God doesn’t get credit for beautiful sunrises and sunsets and the great days in between? Aren’t they also “acts of God?” Psalm 19 says that the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

The tragedies in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are not God’s fault. Especially in New Orleans, the blame rests squarely with people. The flooding of New Orleans was the result of one of the few truly bipartisan acts of politicians. In a rare display of mutual cooperation between the Feds, State and local officials, people at all levels of government, from both parties, blew it. The inept response of governmental agencies throughout the region is not God’s fault, either.

Sometimes, people have a tendency to blame God for their own mistakes. Politicians are not the only people who do this. Each of us do it as well. If we’re going to blame God for our mistakes and sins, we’re only banging our heads against the wall. God is not going to take the rap for what we have done, to ourselves or to other people.

Rather than blame God for our mistakes, we should accept responsibility instead. That would require humility. The Bible says humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time; and that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Jesus said “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

When we are honest with ourselves and with God and accept responsibility for what we have done, we’re then in a position to move forward. If we’ve made mistakes that don’t qualify as sin, we can ask God to correct our course. Psalm 25 says, Show me Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth and teach me.

If we have sinned, no amount of blame shifting is going to work. We cannot duck responsibility that way, and we won’t rid ourselves of guilt either. “Only God can forgive sins,” it says in the Bible. What can we do? The Bible says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Another subtle way that some people have tried to blame God for the flooding in New Orleans is to compare it to the flood in the days of Noah. Contrary to the talk on the twenty four hour news and chatter cable channels, the flood in New Orleans was not of Biblical proportions. The flood in Noah’s day that is described in the sixth chapter of the Book of Genesis was a complete wipeout. Nothing and nobody was left. Only Noah, his family, and a limited number of animals, survived.

It is important to note the distinctions between the awful flood in New Orleans and the flood of Noah’s day, because God said He would never again flood the earth that way. God said, “Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.” The Bible says rainbows are a sign of God’s covenant not to flood the earth again.

If people are going to talk about “acts of God,” perhaps we might consider how God has blessed people over and over again. To some people, it may look like favoritism when God blesses people. That is not how God sees it. Jesus told a story to illustrate that God simply likes to bless people, and not necessarily according to merit.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.

“When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same. And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?' They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.' When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.' When those hired about five o'clock came, they received the usual daily wage.

“Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.' But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?

“Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?' So the last will be first, and the first will be last."

There is an old saying that in any difficulty, God sees it as an opportunity to make us better while the devil only wants to make us bitter. “Acts of God” are always intended to make people better. Although there is no getting around the enormous suffering we have seen in the southern Gulf coastal region this month, we ought not to blame God for the mistakes of others.

WHY DO WE STRUGGLE TO FORGIVE?

2005-09-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

One of the things that most if not all people share in common is that we find it difficult to forgive the people who hurt us. Some of us may struggle with forgiving the big hurts, while others find they struggle to forgive the small hurts, the slights. Either way, we all struggle with forgiveness.

Sometimes Christians not only struggle with forgiving people who hurt them, but we might also struggle with the fact of our unforgiving nature. After all, the Bible says forgive as the Lord forgave you. Forgiving is part of what Christians do, or are supposed to do; and if we don’t forgive we’re really not being good Christians, are we?

It doesn’t automatically get better with the passage of time. Christians who have had a strong personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ for five decades can find it just as difficult to forgive people as Christians who have been at it for only five years. If forgiving is part of what Christians do, why do we struggle to forgive?

First of all, we must recognize that forgiving people is almost never easy. If it’s not all that hard to forgive somebody, it is because the hurt was not that great in the first place. Anybody can forgive somebody for minor offenses. But the bigger the offense, the harder it is to forgive.

Somehow or other, we got the idea into our heads that we are better off if we do not forgive people who hurt us. We feel like we have some sort of power over them, and we will lose that power or even become inferior to that person if we forgive him or her.

The odd thing about this way of thinking is that as often as not, the person we refuse to forgive either does not know, or does not care, that we hold a grudge against them. He or she may even be dead. We spend our time and energy nursing this grudge like it’s a newborn baby, and it doesn’t matter to the other person.

Sometimes, our struggle to forgive is based on our pride. We don’t want to admit, to ourselves or to anybody else, that we’ve been hurt in the first place. We might think it is foolish to be hurt by this person or for that reason. Regardless of the reasonableness of our being hurt, we are still hurt. Our refusal to acknowledge our hurt, and forgive the offender, does not negate that.

The exact opposite might be true for some people. Another reason that we might struggle to forgive people who hurt us is that we feel like it makes what they did okay. We think that our refusal to forgive the person who hurts us validates our claim that we were hurt in the first place.

All of the reasons that we can come up with to not forgive people who hurt us share one common attribute: they stand in opposition to what God says we should do. God says, unequivocally and repeatedly, that He wants us to forgive the people who hurt us.

Jesus said that God is so insistent that we forgive the people who hurt us, that He will not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others. Right after Jesus taught His disciples what we call The Lord’s Prayer, He said, "for if you forgive people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive people their sins, your Father will not forgive you."

Why does God care so much if we forgive people who hurt us? After all, our refusal to forgive people who hurt us mostly winds up only hurting us. So why does God care so much that He would pressure us to the extent that He does? It is obvious that this really matters to Him.

Perhaps one of the reasons God wants us to forgive people who hurt us is that we can all too easily fall into the sin of judging the person who hurts us if we don’t forgive him or her. Judging other people brings a whole new layer of sin into our lives. Jesus said, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged."

Another reason that God insists that we forgive the people who hurt us is that when we do that, we’re acting like Him. The poet Alexander Pope said that "to err is human, to forgive, divine." God has been forgiving people who have sinned against Him since the beginning of the human
race. The Bible says God made us in His image, and His goal for us is that we become more like Jesus.

Jesus told a short story to illuminate for us that God wants us to follow in His footsteps by forgiving people who sin against us. Jesus was not just speaking theoretically. He was responding to a real life, challenging question that one of His disciples had asked Him.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" No doubt Peter thought he was being magnanimous by offering to forgive up to seven times. Jesus’ response probably floored Peter.

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants." In Jesus story, there was a servant who owed an overwhelming debt to the king. The king showed mercy and forgave the debt. But then that same servant refused to forgive a small debt that was owed to him.

The moral of Jesus’ story is that we should be like God, who forgives us, by forgiving others. Jesus’ story concludes when "the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."