Tuesday, March 31, 2015
God is Already There
Psalm 139:7-14 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in
the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of
the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness
will hide me and the light become night around
me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Monday, March 30, 2015
The People of the Cross
1 Corinthians 13:13 “ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.”
Last week, I was graciously
invited to attend the annual conference of the Family Research Council by our
generous friends and table hosts, the Bowers, and able to invite Pastor Rick
also to join. FRC President Tony Perkins (a former Pastor) was the opening
speaker for the event and here are my notes on his powerful Christian message,
plus some of my thoughts.
A term used for Christians
used today is “People of the Cross”, and it truly is a badge of praise because
we know the true value of the Cross of Calvary for salvation and eternal life
through the atoning death and resurrection of our Redeemer, Savior and Lord
Jesus Christ on that cross. We owe our life to the work on that cross and it is
our hope of heaven. There is, and has always been, persecution against
Christians by those who do not know the Lord. The Lord Jesus himself warned us
in John 15:17-19 to expect these
assaults in this fallen world. With today’s anti-Christian attitudes and
actions, the days ahead could be challenging. But, challenges bring
opportunities. Faith, hope and love identify the Christian. New persecutions
arise, and though they are shocking, they are not a shock. Jesus explains the
reason for us in John 3:18-20. But,
holding on to the great hope of the preceding words of Christ in John 3:16-17, we know that the cross is
enough.
Romans
12:12 “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
Tony
Perkins detailed the inhuman execution
by the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya on a beach in front of Tripoli
by the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria (ISIS) as an example
of the persecution today. He gave a description of the personal life of many of
these decent, working class family men who were targeted, kidnapped, dressed in
orange prison attire, then marched along the beach to be martyred for the
so-called crime of faith in Jesus Christ alone.
James 1:12 “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because,
having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the
Lord has promised to those who love him.”
It brings to mind that the
Lord Jesus was also treated like a criminal and unjustly executed, crucified
between two true criminals. I hope that we remember this, this Holy Week of
Easter. Those 21 Egyptian Christians lived “according to the Book”, the holy
Word of God; living and dying for their faith. Could you or I do this? Could
you or I forgive those terrorists as Jesus did in Luke 23:34, where Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they
do not know what they are doing.”
Matthew 5:44 “But I tell you, love your enemies and
pray for those who persecute you.”
We have to know that both
Western culture and ISIS worship the “culture
of death”. Jesus said, “people love darkness instead of light because their
deeds were evil (absent of the living
true Creator God)”. All that dissension is less than human, because they are
trying to destroy the only force that can truly love, support, change and save.
John
16:33 “I have told
you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
This does
not mean that there needs to be silence on religious persecution at home and
abroad. Like Pastor Rick says, “We affirm what the Bible affirms, and we
condemn what the Word of God condemns” in love, based upon the Great Commission
of our Lord to be salt and light in the darkness of this day and age, for the
advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ and to restore honor, praise and
glory to God. Silence will only encourage the opposition. Fear not.
John 5:24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears
my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal
life and
will not be judged but
has crossed over from death to life.”
John 6:47 “Very
truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.”
Then, how shall we live in
these times? Prayerfully, speak the truth in love and restore honor to the Lord. Jesus has
promised in Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or
terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave
you nor forsake you.” The just shall live by faith. May
we, “the People of the Cross”, never grow weary in “well doing” for the Lord
and our neighbor.
Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and
assurance about what we do not see.”
In Christ, Brian
Sunday, March 29, 2015
A Farmer’s Faith & Patience - Part 2
Ephesians 2:8-10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we
should walk in them.”
(4) Spiritual Fruit often
looks a lot like a changed perspective. That fruit in our lives shows more in
the active work in us. God decides what He wants in us and out of us. We need
to look at the things that are unseen and not the seen things.
2 Corinthians 5:7 “For we walk by faith, not by sight. We must
work out by faith, what He works in us.
Isaiah 55:6-9 “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares
the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Never before has there been
more access to the Word of God via books, magazines, radio, television, CD’s,
DVD’s, movies, computers, pods, pads or phones, yet never has it been more
difficult for churches in America to see fruit due to distractions. People are
choosing to spend less time with God and churches are declining. People have
allowed themselves to believe about church, the Bible, and the living God (the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit), whatever they want to believe and how important they are
to them. But church and Christian-living is not about us; it is about Jesus
Christ and His kingdom work “which God prepared beforehand, that we should
walk in them”. Church is about what you
have in Christ that equips us to speak to others about the gospel truth. Not
about what the church has to give to us or what it can do for us, but what we
have to give to the Lord and what we can do for His church, which He is the
head. Is it really a priority to reach others for Christ and bring the gospel
of salvation to a lost and dying world? God is doing His part, but are we doing
ours. We don’t save people; that is the work of the Holy Spirit, but we share
the good news of the gospel and bring the light and love of Christ into the
darkness of sin and unbelief, pointing them to the One who does. Forgiveness
and Salvation are found in no other, so why are we not inviting everyone know
to church with us?
Acts
4:12 “Salvation is
found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind
by which we must be saved.”
The farmer waits patently
for the harvest by faithfully working their butts off on the farm until it
comes … and they take it seriously. We represent Christ and God gave us good
works to do in advancing the kingdom of heaven, while decreasing the future population
of hell. We are responsible for our family, friends and those in our sphere of
influence who do not know the Lord. The Great Commission of Christ was a
commandment, not a suggestion. Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and said to them, “All
authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
that I have commanded
you. And behold, I am
with you always, to the
end of the age.” All of us
here today want to see fruit in our lives. May the Holy Spirit open our eyes to
see what God wants us to see, open our ears to hear what God wants us to hear,
and open our hearts that we may respond and become the disciples that Jesus
wants us to be.
In
Christ, Brian
Saturday, March 28, 2015
A Farmer’s Faith & Patience - Part 1
James 5:7-8 “Be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the
earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the
coming of the Lord is at hand.”
Pastor Kyle continued his
Sermon series through the book of James stating that our spiritual lives are
compared by James to a diligent farmer working the land faithfully, day after
day, all year long to get to the harvest. We are sometimes tempted to glamorize
the life of faith to make it look like some flashy, shiny thing. The Bible
doesn’t do that, but simply depicts life as it is. All of us here today want to
see fruit in our lives and God’s purposes come about. There are four truths
about spiritual fruit: (1) Not all types of spiritual fruit can be quantified.
Physical numbers are helpful, but do not tell the whole story of what God is
doing in our life or the life of the church. Nobody goes to church to be a
number on some spreadsheet ledger, but to grow and improve in faith … you want
to count in God’s world, not be counted in man’s. How do you account for
decisions for Christ, to obey God in everything, and changed lives from sin to
producing fruitful living and spiritual fruit? We never stop growing and God
has something in you right now that He is working on. (2) Spiritual fruit
should come in seasons. God is going to bring the life-giving rain and we can
count on it in our faith. We are sure on the One we are waiting on, but
thinking that we’ll have year-round fruit is unreasonable. Spiritual fruit
should come in seasons.
1 Timothy 6:6-8 “But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these
we will be content.”
The flesh desires more and
more. We should celebrate the fruit in our lives that comes in those seasons
and harvest that good fruit, but we need to also be content in the
“Off-Seasons”. Whatever season of our life that we are in, we need to trust God
in that day and moment. God is good; Life is good. And the Lord prepares us
supernaturally, with us, every step of the way. Romans 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth
comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Sure
there will be times of drought, but we need to relinquish our perceived right
to question God, being patience and content. (3) Spiritual Fruit requires
active patience, not passive. Farmers work the soil, plowing to turn it over,
fertilizing and planting seed in preparing the land for the next year’s crop.
It’s a year-round business for a short time of harvest. They are actively and
diligently working, while patiently waiting to receive the fruit of their
labor. The spiritual fruit of our faith works in the same way. We didn't do
anything on the cross for our “salvation”; Jesus did that work. But there is
kingdom work for us to do.
I'll post my notes on the second half of Pastor Kyle's Sermon on Spiritual Fruit tomorrow.
In Christ, Brian
Friday, March 27, 2015
Family
Proverbs 4:1-2 “Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to
know understanding; For I give you good doctrine: Do not forsake my law.
While on vacation last
summer at the Iowa Great Lakes, we stopped into a shop and I snap a shot of
these sign that really stated a serious problem in our culture today. Being
around for decades, there is an advantage of remembering how things used to be compared
to today. It has been well researched and documented that the family unit in
society has been in decline for a long time and as a result “friends” and “busyness”
have filled the gaps and voids left when the natural order of family relations,
loving family relationships and interaction was vacated. Christian
organizations like the American Family Association, Focus on the Family, the
Family Research Council, and many others have been voicing their concerns on
this subject for a long time. People are starving for true, godly “family relations”.
This sign is the radical counter-culture rejection and mocking of “the family” that
result from the neglect of the family order people are hard-wired to need. You
see this being acted out on television and in our movies also. The consequential
results of the lack of social lines are being reaped by our society today and
it is not “progress” or “improvement”. Where is honor, respect and manners
these days? I remember the days when if me or anyone else crossed those lines,
a family member (my grandparents, my parents, my uncles or aunts, my siblings
or cousins), would straighten me out immediately. Friends are good, but not
family. People need boundaries of godly life order and a family to maintain
them for comfort, contentment and security, without which is chaotic, looking
for family love and care in all the wrong places, while becoming a
dog-eat-dogs, survival- of-the-fittest culture. Look at the fowl language being
used today as swear words that used to get your mouth washed-out with a bar of
soap by mom in the past, are now sadly common.
Ephesians 3:14-16 “For
this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom
the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be
strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.”
The old saying goes: “Blood
is thicker than water”, meaning that family ties are always more
important than the ties you make
among friends. A family is not just a group of individuals living under the same
physical roof. God ordained and created the family as the central unit of human
kinship, a household under the head of parents in fellowship with a common
lineage of descendants on a branch of a genealogy tree of ancestors. It’s us
that mess up and pervert that original design and intent of God. If families
are not doing their job, per the job description written by our heavenly
Father, then someone else will and it will be wrong. God, Himself is called, “our
Father”. Leaving God and the God designed family out of the equation is never
right. Many families have maintained God design and they are strong.
1 John 3:1 “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
I see a healthy rejection of the counter-culture
manifesto, and surprising by the younger generation that has been cheated and deprived
by the hijacking of the God-designed family with all its natural benefits in
life, and returning to their roots of the family model. It’s encouraging, but
those days of calling out the disrespect, dishonoring behavior and the demanding
the standards of good manners and social decency need to return. Repent means that
when we find ourself on the wrong road of lawless unrighteousness, to literally
make a U-turn and go back to the right road to godly righteousness, back to God
and His design for our life … back to the family by God and back to the family of
God.
In Christ, Brian
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Part 2 - This is Unfailing Love
Continuing Michael’s message: Humility is the prerequisite for love. We must come to God with a broken and a contrite spirit, so that He can reconcile us back to Him. Humility is the key to receiving the love of God. We as children of God must be humbled. Only then can we love our enemies, bless them that persecute us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, knowing that our reward is not of this world, but great is our reward in heaven – Matthew 5:44.
1 John 4:7-11 “Beloved,
let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is
born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God
is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God
sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through
him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent
his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us,
we ought also to love one another.”
In the immortal words of the
poem "The Love of God" penned in the year of our Lord 1050 by Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai:
“Could we with ink the oceans fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the Love of God above, would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”
“Could we with ink the oceans fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the Love of God above, would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”
Sproul writes that without
the sovereign love and grace of God reaching out to a lost and rebellious
world, not a single person would be able to love — much less the Creator
Himself. Because of our creaturely limitations, we are tempted to think of love
only in terms of time and space. Almost by default, we frame God’s love in the
context of creation. Yet we forget that love was not created. God’s unfailing love for
us is an objective fact affirmed over and over in the Scriptures. It is true
whether we believe it or not. Our doubts do not destroy God’s love, nor does
our faith create it. It originates in the very nature of God, who is love, and
it flows to us through our union with His beloved Son.
Beloved of God, May God richly bless you,
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Part 1 - This is Amazing Grace
The love of God surpasses understanding. It's better to be loving than to be right. When we meditate on the love of God, we understand that there is no fear in love... Perfect love casteth out fear for fear has torment... he that feareth is not made perfect in love.
The love of this world is a conditional love. It is reciprocal and requires love in return. Real love is unconditional. This is the love that God had for us ... in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly – Romans 5:6. The twelve Apostles were called to witness up close and personally the greatest life ever lived. Jesus' disciples were "disciplined followers", trained to follow in their Master's footsteps. As their role model, Jesus gave them a new commandment that ushered in a new way of life. The new commandment Jesus gave them was this: "love one another even as I have loved you." John 13:34
Religion honors God with its lips, but not with its heart. In Matthew 15:17, Jesus said, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." Religion is devoid of the love of God. However, Love is full of grace, it begets love unconditionally ... Love is patient, love is kind. It is never envious, never boastful or proud, never promotes itself, is never haughty or rude. It never demands its own way. It is never unreasonable or touchy and sensitive about what others say. Love is the opposite of pride. Love has no pride ... it seeks only to live for the object of love. It never notices when others go wrong. Love thinks no evil ... it only thinks the best of others. “Love forgives and sets the prisoner free ... only to find that the prisoner was me” - Lewis B. Smedes.
According to 2 Timothy 3, those who are lovers of their own selves rather than lovers of God will accuse you falsely so that they look right to others while making you look wrong. They are traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God... Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof... ever learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth... from such turn away.
If you're only friendly to your friends, you're no different from the rest of the world. Even evil men are good to them who treat them well. However, true followers of Christ love when others treat them unjustly and despitefully use them. Love does not recompense evil for evil, but recompenses evil with good.
Therefore let this mind be in you which was also in Christ... who humbled himself and took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross – Philippians 2:5. This is the ultimate act of love. Even though Christ's love is unconditional, our initial response to his love is reciprocal ... We love him because he first loved us. To learn to follow Jesus Christ unconditionally, we must acknowledge that our righteous justification is not in our own flesh, but in His strength alone. For He who knew no sin, became the perfect sinless sacrifice for sin on our behalf, that we who were dead in trespasses and sin, may become the righteousness of God in Him – 2 Corinthians 5:21.
Beloved of God, May God
richly bless you,
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
Your brother in Christ,
Michael
Monday, March 23, 2015
That You May Live
Romans 14:8-9 “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the
Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this
end Christ died and rose and lived
again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”
1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live
together with Him.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those
who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will
bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “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.”
Sunday, March 22, 2015
God in any Language is God
James 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow
we will go to such and such a city, spend a year
there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that
appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we
shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All
such boasting is evil. Therefore,
to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
This term: “If the Lord
wills” or “God willing” has been around for a long time. Pastor Kyle used the
Sermon illustration a week ago that his Middle Eastern Arab Christian friends
use the Arabic word “inshallah”. Looking up the phrase on the internet, I read
that In šāʾ Allāh (Arabic: إن شاء الله, often romanized as Insha'Allah or Inshallah, is Arabic for "God
willing". The term is used in the Islamic world, but it is also common in
Christian groups in the Middle East, in parts of Africa
and among Portuguese and Spanish-speaking peoples. In sha'Allah is said
when speaking about plans and events expected to occur in the future. The
phrase also acknowledges submission to God, with the speaker putting him or
herself into God's hands.
Pastor Kyle explained to me this week that the Arabic word goes back to
pre-Islamic Arabia and is the common name for
the God of Abraham in the Bible for Arabic language. Islamic traditions
consider Abraham’s son Ishmael to be the ancestor of Arab people. But, Allah was common parlance even before the
birth of Islam in the sixth century. Arabs used the word ‘Allah’ for the
supreme being before the time of Muhammad. Inscriptions with ‘Allah’ have been
discovered in Northern and Southern Arabia
from as early as the fifth century B.C. (Before Christ). Muhammad’s father was named Abd Allah, translated
‘God’s servant,’ many years before his son was born or the religion of Islam
was founded!”
Researching further, I found that "Zayd Ibn Amr" was another
Pre-Islamic figure, claiming it was the original belief of Arabs father Ishmael.
Jewish Historian Josephus, considered Ishmael the ancestor of the Arabs also. Plenty of academic evidence suggests
that Allah has also been used by Christians and Jews in Arabia for generations. They have been calling God
‘Allah’ in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over 19
centuries. “And what about the 10 [million] to 12 million Arab Christians today?
Exodus 3:14 And God
said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”
And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel , ‘I AM has
sent me to you.’”
For more than five hundred
years before Muhammad, the vast majority of Jews and Christians in Arabia called God by the name Allah. How, then, can we
say that Allah is an invalid name for God? And what about the 10 to 12 million
Arab Christians today? They have been calling God ‘Allah’ in their Bibles,
hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over nineteen centuries. Of course, the
word “God” does not actually appear in the original Hebrew or Greek manuscripts
of the Bible, accepted as Holy by both Christians and Muslims. “God” is an old
English word which developed from an Indo-European word, meaning “that which is
invoked”.
Not every American is a
Christian and not every Arab is Islamic. But Creator God is God in any
language. In God we trust.
In Christ, Brian
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Making your Mist Count? – Part 2
James 5:1-6 “Come now, you rich, weep
and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold
and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and
will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. Indeed the
wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry
out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened
your hearts as in a day of slaughter. You have condemned,
you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.”
Continuing Pastor Kyle’s
message from yesterday, he said that when people are gone, you cannot make
amends, so live a life that quickly forgives. Romans 12:18 “If it is possible, as
much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.” Letting go doesn’t mean
that we let ourselves get walked all over. Peace is not always possible,
but putting forgiveness into practice leaves room in your plans for God’s plan.
So the next way to make your mist count is (4) make sure that our
prayers and our plans are synonymous … one and the same. This involves making
God’s plans and desires, our plans and desires. When we align our will with the
will of God, we walk in righteousness (a right relationship with God). There is
no sin in planning our out life, but it is a sin to leave God out of our planning
and plans; when we push and leave God out of our time. Why are we so surprised
when He doesn’t show up? We know how to
make plans alright! We’re pretty good at it. But do our plans for our life line
up with God’s will and plans for our life? We should ask ourselves, “God, am I
doing this because this is truly what you want and is your plan?
Proverbs 14:12 “There is a way that seems right to a
man, but its end is the way of
death.”
We can make plans on our own
that feel so right, but lead us down empty paths and into a truckload of
disaster. They feel right, but they are deadly wrong. In big decision in the
face of adversity, insecurity or uncertainty, who will we trust: us, others or
God - being obedient to God’s plan – God willing. If God’s Holy Word says
something about it, then we need to listen to it, abide by it and conform with
it. Which leads us to (5) make decisions about eternity more than fiancés. We
may think that our mighty investment scheme is security, but where our earthly
treasures are, our hearts will follow. Our investment pool will not save us. We
all need to trust God with our life instead of chasing after myths. The Golden
Rule is not “them that have the gold make the rules”; it’s “do to others as you would have them do to
you – Matthew 7:12 / Luke 6:31. Be fair. We want our lives
to make a difference and count for something here and for the kingdom of
heaven. What matters is what we do with the mist that we have been given. How
many want their life to amount to nothing? If we want our mist to count, we
have to do life God’s way. Make your life make a difference by humbly and
simply serving the Lord and letting others know it. We’re here for just a
little while, then we are gone. When we live by the words of the Bible, we
cannot help but have a life that matters, because it is truly His kingdom here,
not ours. When we give our lives to Jesus, He makes our significance in His
plan for our life. Run to God, not away from God, and make your mist count.
In Christ, Brian
Friday, March 20, 2015
Making your Mist Count? - Part 1
James 4:11-17 “Do not speak evil of one another,
brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil
of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of
the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow
we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and
sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a
little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live
and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All
such boasting is evil. Therefore,
to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
Pastor Kyle continued his
Sermon series on the Book of James, asking: What is your life? Where did you
come from? What are the place that you have been? The things that you have accomplished?
What do you hope to leave behind after you are long gone? We rarely, if at all,
think about the day that our life will come to an end., yet it is the direction
that everyone of us is headed. We do not like to think about the day that we
will die or the legacy that we will leave. Our legacy is determined by the
things that we do today. Our life is the sum of our choices today. Significance
from a human perspective is highly subjective. Significance from God’s
perspective is not subjective; it is objective, tangible, very clear, and
measurable. How do you go about choosing who is important and significant? We
all have a very different perspective of whom and what is important.
Matthew 15:16-18 So Jesus said, “Are you also still
without understanding? Do
you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and
is eliminated? But
those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they
defile a man.”
Five ways to make your mist
count, not as an accomplishment, but as a way of life: (1) Be mindful of our
words towards others. To speak kindly, encouraging and positively towards one
another is difficult and one of the first things to go. Yet, when we are gone,
all we leave for others to remember us ate our words. We don’t have to say much
to influence others. What do want to be known by? (2) Be mindful of your
thoughts towards others because it’s not just what we say, but contemplation,
deliberation and consideration that counts and matters from God’s perspective. We
might fool others into thinking that we care about them, but we do not fool
God. Right words with wrong thoughts … we are judging. (3) Keep short accounts
of wrongs against us. Who are we to judge our neighbor? Because to judge is to
hold something against them. Training
our behavior and learning to control our thoughts, words and deeds allows us to
speak to our heart. Guide your thought process to train your heart to let
things go. Hanging onto everything is defining everything about you. There are
things in our life that are difficult to move past, but we need to learn to
keep short accounts and let things go quickly.
We will read the conclusion
of Pastor Kyle’s message on our lives tomorrow.
In Christ, Brian
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Set our Affections on Things Above
God is in the business of
changing people's lives. Change is wrapped up in the spiritual truths of
salvation, repentance, and transformation. For it is God that worketh in you to
will and to do of his good pleasure – Philippians
2:13. When we accepted salvation in Christ, God created within us a
new creation ... his gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, behold old things are
passed away, all things are become new – 2
Corinthians 5:17. When God changes us, it doesn't look like the changes
that the world inflicts upon us .... the world puts us through mental,
emotional and physical changes, (for you Linda Ronstadt “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me”
fans) sort of like a Waring blender. However, transformation in Christ
means to put off the old man of the sinful flesh and put on the new man of the
spirit – Colossians
3:9-10 &
Ephesians 4:22-25. Jesus said, any man that follows
me must take up his cross and follow me – Luke 9:23 & Matthew 16:24 ... for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light Matthew 11:30.
As we turn to Him and away from the God-rejecting world-system, and as we
turn from sin and unto the righteousness in Christ, we all with open face
beholding as in a glass the glory of the lord are changed from the glory of the
flesh to the glory of the spirit – 2 Corinthians
3:18.
In Romans 7, Paul laments,
"in the flesh... I do I don't do what I want to do, but what I don't
want to do, that I do... O wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver from this dead body?" However, in the very next chapter, Romans 8:1-4, the scripture says we're
doing better than we deserve: “There is
therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus who walk not after
the flesh but after the spirit. For the spirit of life in Christ hath made me
free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that
it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in the likeness of
sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law
might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit.”
Ambition is from the word
"ambivalence." It means to be torn between conflicting desires:
to walk according to the flesh or according to the spirit. James 1:8 says, "A double
minded man is unstable in all his ways." Therefore turn your eyes upon
Jesus and the things of the world will become strangely dim in the light of his
glorious grace. Galatians 6:8
says, He that soweth to his flesh shall
of the flesh reap corruption, but he who soweth to the spirit shall of the
spirit reap life everlasting. Walking in the Spirit of God in Christ
strikes a fine balance between living in both reason and passion according to
the Spirit. When we set our affections on things above, when we
delight ourselves in the Lord, when make His desire our desire, when we align
our heart with His heart, only then will He give us the desires of our
heart.
God uses the path of death
to lead us to the fork in the road. He uses addiction, self centeredness,
strife, contention, bitterness, envy, discouragement, and disappointment to get
us to the point that we need to take the alternate path. This is the
definition of “repentance”. Repentance means to turn from the pride of
self, to surrender the Right to myself and my carnal desires, and to turn my
eyes upon Jesus. The point of repentance is the inflection point: to
change direction. To turn away from the wretched man that I am and toward the One
who is faithful and just to forgive our sins. For God sent not his son to
condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved – John 3:17. Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow – Isaiah
1:18. Did we in our own strength confide our battle would be loosing, were
not the right man on our side, the man of God's own Choosing. Doth ask
who that may be? Christ Jesus it is he, and He must win the battle – “A
Mighty Fortress is Our God” by Martin Luther. The "come to
Jesus" moments in life are precious moments where we turn from darkness
unto the light.
Every moment of this life is
a moment of decision. We have been given the ability to choose our direction,
moment by moment. God always gives us the choice to choose either life or
death ... life is only through Christ. Each moment is a "come to Jesus
moment." Therefore, let’s set our affections on things above and come to
Jesus ... and live!
May God richly bless you!
Your brother in Christ, Michael
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