Faith that is Rewarded

{2 Corinthians 5:6-10; ESV}

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Faith is essential for salvation. The Bible is very clear on this point (Ephesians 2:8 is an example). God’s Word also reveals to us that faith is not simply belief, but it is also about trust and obedience. In other words faith is concerned with how we live our lives. The simple definition of faith I use with the Church Family I minister to is: life influenced by belief. What we believe should effect the way we live.

The apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:6-10 that the reason faith is needed is because we are in the body and away from God. In other words we can’t see or touch God. He is invisible to us. This is an important admission, for if we could see God we would not need faith. We need to rely on faith because we can’t see God.

Some people would like us to believe that the only truth we can rely on is that truth that we see with out own two eyes, yet the reality is that everyone believes things they have not seen. We believe truth because of evidence that has been uncovered, because of testimony of trustworthy witnesses, and even what seems to be logical to us. I know I believe in God because of the lives of faithful Christians, the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament, historical evidence which supports Scripture, the “ring” of truth the Bible has when describing the condition of our lives, and the difference following Jesus has made in my life.

Because of faith we trust that God exists. Since this is what we believe a small ache appears in our hearts as we long to be joined with God. I know that as I mature in faith the more I long for God’s kingdom to be revealed in this world. Faith has us longing for for life the way it was meant to be lived: with God and free from sin.

What do we do in the meantime as we wait for God’s Kingdom to be fully revealed? We strive to please God. That is a good answer, but exactly how do we please the Creator of the universe? We love Him by loving people. We seek to serve Him by doing His will. We are for His creation by being good stewards. Our faith is seen in what we do, and our actions, when done in faith, pleases God.

That is why people are judged by the good and the bad they have done. Our actions reveal our faith, and if we trust God then the pattern of our lives will consistently show a pattern of doing God’s will. People of faith will seek to please God, and as a result we end up doing good. The faith that God rewards is the faith that is lived, and not just believed.

Anti-Evangelical

I have a couple of questions I would like you to consider.

1. What makes a nation a “Christian Nation”?
2. What benefit would it be for the United States to be a “Christian Nation” if the majority of her citizens perished in hell?

I am convinced that the Devil has many Christians in the United States deceived, or at least confused. He has made us think that fighting a “culture war” is what we have been called to do in order to proclaim God’s Truth to the world. So we have been ramming God’s Truth down people’s throats, ignoring the fact that more and more people are leaving the church. The result is that now more people than ever before think the church has little influence in society. Here are a couple of statistics that support that reality. In 2001 24% of Americans said religion is losing its influence on American life, and in 2009 that number is 67% (Christianity Today, March 2009, p. 16). The vast majority of Americans notice that the Church no longer has the influence she once did in society. In 1998 the average congregation size was 75 people, that number is now 70 people (Christianity Today, March 2009, p. 16). It appears to me that the more engaged we became in a “culture war” the more influence and people we have lost.

C. S. Lewis used the character of Screwtape to say:

"But I would not end on that note. I would not--Hell forbid--encourage in your own minds that of your human victims. I mean the delusion that the fate of nations is in itself more important than that of individual souls. The overthrow of free peoples and the multiplication of slave-states are for us a means (besides, of course, being fun); but the real end is destruction of individuals. For only individuals can be saved or damned, can become sons of the Enemy or food for us." (Screwtape Proposes a Toast from the book The World’s Last Night)

Nations and cultures come and go, but people are created to live forever. Yes, it would be more comfortable for us to be able to live in a country where our values were upheld and the majority of the population lived by the same morals that we lived by, but morality and values do not equate salvation. We are called to evangelize the world, and often our foray into politics actually cripples our ability to carry out the Great Commission Jesus gave to us.

Alexander Campbell, one of the founders of the Restoration Movement (the heritage of faith that I am a part of) wrote:

“To compel men destitute of faith to observe any Christian institution...is commanding duty to be performed without faith in God' and therefore 'anti-evangelical' or contrary to the Gospel” (The Political Ethics of Alexander Campbell; p. 46)

Campbell uses strong language, anti-evangelical and contrary to the Gospel, when he talks about using political power to impose on people a Christian lifestyle, but I think he is correct. The reason the Church has lost influence in this country isn’t because we haven’t proclaimed the truth, but because we haven’t loved and served people. We have not truly sought to evangelize, but we have sought to mandate morality, and that has turned people away from the Church and away from the Creator.

Sunday Quote: The Escapist

"Subtle argumentation and glib theological statements do not make a Christian. That kind of thing may well be nothing other than a mode of escape from the challenge of Christian living." ~ William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series: the letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, p. 127

Saturday Link: Staring Into the Abyss

In the March issue of Christianity Today Dinesh D'Souza has an opinion piece about the lack of moral foundation found in atheism. Vox Day in his book The Irrational Atheist put it this way:

"Most atheists abide by the morality of the culture that they inhabit, not because they have taken the effort to reason from first principles and miraculously reached conclusions that bear a remarkable similarity to the moral system of those around them, but because lacking any moral system of their own, they parasitically latch on to the system of their societal host." (p. 63)

D'Souza examines the ethical views of one atheist, bioethicist Peter Singer, to show us what ethics begin to morph into when morality is detached from God, and thus also detached from the accepted cultural norm.

Some people consider Singer a provocateur who says outrageous things just to get attention. But Singer is deadly serious about his views and—as emerged in our debate—has a consistent rational basis for his controversial positions.

To understand Singer, it's helpful to contrast him with "New Atheists" like Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. The New Atheists say we can get rid of God but preserve morality. They insist that no one needs God in order to be good; atheists can act no less virtuously than Christians. (And indeed, some atheists do put Christians to shame.) Even while repudiating the Christian God, Dawkins has publicly called himself a "cultural Christian."

We have benefited from a culture that has been immersed in the light of the Gospel message, so much so that even nonbelievers hold to many of the same moral precepts as believers do. So as our culture is pushed out of the light and into the darkness one can expect to encounter a greater and greater divide between what is morally acceptable for a Christian and what is morally acceptable for a nonbeliever. Examining the ethics of a person like Peter Singer is like looking into the dark charm our culture is about to fall into.

You can read Dinesh D'Souza's entire article, Staring into the Abyss, here.

Turning Our Hearts Toward God

{1 Kings 18:36-37; NKJV}

And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, "LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that You are the LORD God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again."

We tend to give our hearts away very easily. A new fad comes along and our hearts are right there along with everyone else. Perhaps we long for knowledge so we give our hearts to science and philosophy so we can discover how things work and why. Maybe we want to give our lives away to something larger than ourselves so our hearts are given to politics or social agendas. Our hearts are every where except where they should be.

In our age of "enlightenment" it is easy to talk about how foolish it was for these ancient Israelites to give their hearts to idols. We see ourselves as so much smarter because we would never worship something that we, ourselves, had created. We know these things have no power. Yet, if we would just take a little time to examine our hearts we would discover that we are actually little different than this ancient people. We too worship equally worthless things.

In spite of our giving away our love to inferior things God still loves us and longs for us to return to Him. Elijah proclaimed that God was the One turning hearts. He was the One calling people to Himself. They weren't looking, but God was calling.

God continues to call to us so that we may give our hearts to Him. We have guilt from sin. God is calling us to return to Him. Discontentment with life grows in our hearts. God is calling to us. Pain is a constant companion in our lives. God is seeking to turn our hearts back to Him.God is trying to get our attention so that we will give Him all of our heart. Sure at times this is painful, but it usually takes pain to get us ready to listen to what God has to say to us.

For three years it hadn't rained in Israel (God even with held the dew). This was the mother of all droughts. Don't you think that many people in Israel experienced pain because of these circumstances? Hunger and thirst couldn't every be quenched because there just wasn't enough. But it took these circumstances for the people to begin to question the power of Baal and Asherah and to begin to seek the powerful God of their ancestors. God had to tear down their delusions before they would be ready to love Him.

When it was all said and done and the divine fire had consumed the sacrifice Elijah had presented, God ordered the death of the false prophets of Baal. They had to be destroyed if Israel was going to have a hope of being free.

This is where many of us are weak. We have heard God's call and realize the powerlessness of the "idols" in our lives, but we are not willing to do whatever it takes to eradicate them from our hearts. We allow them to live and they continually plague us. In order to be free we must carry out their dearth sentence, God will not do it for us.

God desires us to be part of His family and He is calling us to join Him. We have to make a choice whether we are going to give God our hearts or if we are going to continue to serve our little puny idols.

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, "How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." But the people answered him not a word." ~ 1 Kings 18:21; NKJV

Keeping the End in Mind

Becoming the person God created me to be is hard work. I am ready to give up and just go with the flow. I am tired. If I had to describe how I felt about my life right now tired is the word I would use.

This tiredness isn’t about physical activity, but it is about the spirit. I am spiritual weary due to looking at my heart and trying to make changes. It is the weariness that comes with the realization that I am so very far away from the destination: the man that God created me to be. When one is weary how does he summon up the courage, strength, and desire to change?

I don’t know the answer to that question. I do know that God has been asking me to consider the end. At the end of my life what type of man do I want people to remember as? This isn’t about accomplishments, but it is about character.

It is my belief that God is more interested in character than He is in talent, and that He is more interested in personal holiness than in individual accomplishments. If that is true, then God will bring all the right opportunities if I can develop into the right type of person. It is through how I handle those opportunities that God continues to mold me into the person He wants me to be.

One of the lesson I learned from the book Caesar against the Celts is when we have a goal we are in the best position to make the most of the opportunities we are given. Caesar had a goal in mind, he wanted political power, and when circumstances were not what he planned them to be he was still able to use those circumstances as an opportunity that would benefit him. It wasn’t luck that made Caesar, it was his understanding of who he wanted to be, and thus making the most of whatever opportunity that came his way to move a step closer to that dream.

I think the same is true for a Christian. When a Christian understands the person God wants them to be, what type of character they should have, then he/she is able to recognize the choices they are to make in what ever different circumstances that they might face.

If I want to be a person of integrity then I have to realize the lost wallet I find on the sidewalk is an opportunity to display (and thus build) that integrity or an opportunity to ignore (and thus destroy) that integrity.

I think part of the reason that I am weary is because I think all this work has to be done over night. I am so far from the person I want to be, I have just distorted images of the character I want to have, and I don’t seem to be making very much progress to where I want to be. By looking at the end I hope to be reminded that it takes one step at a time, and with each step I get closer and closer to that person God created me to be. I need to remember it is that constant struggle to change, taking it one step at a time, that God is most concerned about. For it is through this daily struggle to make the right choice that we are prepared for heaven.

At the end of my time on earth I want people to say:


“Paul was a man of courage. He did not back down from confronting the evil that was around him. He was a man of integrity. If he told you he would do something you could consider it done. Paul constantly and continually taught truth. He believed the Bible is God’s Word and it was the foundation for his teachings and his life. Most importantly Paul was a man of faith. When I think of a person of faith his is one of the many faces that come to mind.”

We Can Be Confident

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Places because of the blood of Jesus. ~ Hebrews 10:19; NLT

And now, dear children, continue to live in fellowship with Christ so that when he returns you will be full of courage and not shrink back from him in shame. ~ 1 John 2:28; NLT

There is a certain confidence that we have when we surrender our lives to Jesus, a confidence that our place in Heaven is secure. This confidence does not come from anything that we have done, but rather it comes from our relationship with Jesus. It starts when we are cleansed by Jesus' blood and continues as we follow Jesus every day.

I need constant reminders that my salvation is not based on what I have done. If it was then I would be in trouble because I struggle and I fall short of being the man God created me to be. Sin continues to have a presence in my life. Though I can conceal this to the outside world I am well aware of my failures and thus I have very little confidence approaching God. Even prayer becomes a struggle when I dwell on the sins I have committed.

That is why it is good for me hear and read that I can have confidence because of Jesus. It is Jesus' blood that saves me, not my good works. I have fellowship with Him, not only when I obey Him, but also when I turn to Him in forgiveness for the wrong that I have done. I am far from perfect, but I am constantly reminded that Jesus is still by my side.

We all need reminders of simple and elementary Truths because Satan is so good at deceiving us and getting us to believe things that God really did not say. Every once and while we need to get back to basics and review things from the very beginning and remember what God really did say. Then we can have confidence that we are part of God's Family destined to be with Him forever.

Unspectacular Days

Days, for the most part, aren’t spectacular. Most days are pretty ordinary and are made for the routine of life. Yet, it is there ordinary-ness that makes them spectacular. God can, and will use, even the most ordinary things to touch our lives.

Ordinary days are like the green plains and hills of Iowa. The spectacular days are like the mountains of Colorado. It is hard not to be in awe of the mountains when you visit Colorado, but the here in Iowa the beauty of the hills and trees and cornfields is often lost. Why? Their beauty becomes ordinary (so I would imagine the beauty of the mountains is often lost on those who live there).

What am I talking about? There are days that I know beforehand are going to be special: holidays, vacations, church camp, and even Sundays. These days are important because special significance has been attached to them. They may not always live up to their expectations, but there is a sense that they are special. I want all my days to be special, and that is why it becomes so frustrating to live the ordinary days. The days that are filled with routine and responsibility. They just don’t seem to be as important. The reality is that they have the potential to make a huge impact in my life if I would just take a moment and consider what God is saying and doing.

Just as the beauty in Iowa is hard to see at times, it is there if I look, there is meaning and purpose in the routine and responsibility if I look for it. There is no such thing as an ordinary day if I give that day over to God. He will use each day to bring me a little further along to becoming the person He created me to be.

It is also important to remember that these seemingly ordinary days, the ones filled with routine and responsibility, help me appreciate the spectacular days even more. To be able to break free from the routine of life is a bigger deal when I actually have a routine to my life. So living in the ordinary makes me appreciate the spectacular even more, just as living in Iowa makes me appreciate Colorado more than those who live in Colorado.

Responsibility and Purpose

Here is a question I have been pondering lately: what is my responsibility?

Instead of talking about purpose (is that still a fade in church families today?), perhaps we should address what our responsibility is. While the two are linked, purpose seems like a much more glamorous idea. After all there are times we get stuck taking care of our responsibility, while we visualize that we get to live out our purpose.

In Colossians chapter 1 the apostle Paul writes about his God-given responsibility:

“God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his message in all of its fullness to your Gentiles.” (Colossians 1:25; NLT)

Paul says his responsibility is about serving the church. It wasn’t about Paul going out and making a name for himself, but it was about obeying God and doing what He asked Paul to do. It wasn’t Paul’s name, but expanding God’s kingdom that was important.

One of the things I struggle with is that I want to do things that will get me noticed and have people talking about what a wonderful and spiritual guy I am. Though I have to admit that I am a walking contradiction. In small settings I would much rather melt into the background than to be noticed. So I want to have the big stage and the accolades, but I don’t want to foster real and meaningful relationships.

You see I want people to seek me out and ask me for my wisdom and advice. That is how I want to influence people: by being the big shot. That makes it had to be humble and do those things that won’t be noticed and will bring no recognition.

I think in our minds, at least in mine, it is through our purpose that we get a name, while responsibility often leads to anonymous acts of service. I much rather live a life of purpose than a life of responsibility.

Not only responsibility about serving, it is also difficult. Remember elsewhere in his letters Paul tells of all the difficulties that he faced as he took the Gospel to the Gentiles. He was persecuted, beaten, whipped, went hunger, stoned, and was shipwrecked (that is the short list). It was hardly the stuff of glamour. Instead it was the stuff that pushed Paul to his limits.

Responsibility is often like that. It will test us and push us to our limits (ask any mother who spends her day doing the essential work of raising children), but it is what needs to be done. There are no special awards or recognition and the majority of time it will go unnoticed.

We would rather live a purpose-driven-life than a responsibility-driven-life, but the church has survived through the centuries because people were responsibility-driven rather than purpose-driven. Being responsibility-driven means that we will do what needs to be done, even though it falls outside of our purpose and brings us no recognition. And it is by doing our responsibilities that we end up accomplishing our purpose.

Sunday Quote: Bringing Restoration

"Look at the life of Jesus. Notice what he did. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see; all the beauty of the world opened before them. When he touched the deaf, they were able to hear; for the first time in their lives they heard laughter and music and their children’s voices. He touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet and began to dance. And he called the dead back to life and gave them to their families.

"Do you see? Wherever humanity was broken, Jesus restored it. He is giving us an illustration here, and there, and there again. The coming of the kingdom of God restores the world he made." ~ John Eldredge, Epic, p. 82

Saturday Link: The Death of Truth

One of the realities of moving from a modern mindset to a post-modern mindset is the loss of truth. We live in a culture where there is no higher truth than what we learn from our experiences. This provides some challenges for the Church as we try to impact our society with the good news about Christ Jesus.

At www.bethinking.org, Greg Koukl wrote an article about what happens with the idea of absolute truth dies in a culture. He writes:

When truth dies, all of its subspecies, such as ethics, perish with it. If truth can't be known, then the concept of moral truth becomes incoherent. Ethics become relative, right and wrong matters of individual opinion. This may seem a moral liberty, but it ultimately rings hollow. 'The freedom of our day,' lamented a graduate in a Harvard commencement address, 'is the freedom to devote ourselves to any values we please, on the mere condition that we do not believe them to be true.'

You can read the entire article, The Death of Truth, here.

Be A Good Example

{2 Timothy 3:10; ESV}

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness...

One of the fundamental truths of my life is: how we live our lives reflect what we truly believe. That is why faith is more than what we confess with our lips, but is what we do with our hands. Abraham, the great example of faith, was credited with righteousness because his belief and trust in God was made real in how he lived. We can say we believe in God, but if that belief isn’t manifested into action then we really don’t have faith. The simple definition of faith that I have shared with my church family is: life influenced by belief. Faith is about applying what we believe to the way we live. That is why James writes: For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead (James 2:26; ESV). Belief is the seed and roots of faith, but our works (the way we live) is the plant of faith.

A life which is faithfully following Jesus provides an example for others to follow. The apostle Paul’s life, his love and faith, gave Timothy an example that he could follow. I imagine that Paul was very aware of the reality that he was an example of what it meant to be a follower of Christ Jesus, and he did his best to provide a good example.

In the Gospels we discover a group of people who were not interested in providing a good example, rather they were interested in making a good impression. The Pharisees where the religious teachers of Jesus’ day. They interpreted Scripture for the people and taught them how it applied to their lives. Yet they missed a key component in their teaching: they didn’t live it out in their lives. People were impressed by their religious piety, but the people were also discouraged because they knew they couldn’t achieve that level of “spiritual” maturity. It was at this point that Jesus confronts them.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger" (Matthew 23:1-4; ESV)

The underlying theology that the Pharisees taught was okay, but the mistake they made was burdening the people with laws upon laws instead of providing the people with examples of what faithful living looked like. Jesus told the crowd that the Pharisees had bad faith, not that they had bad theology. Jesus urged the crowd to listen to the Pharisees teaching, but discouraged them from following their example.

We need to keep in mind that there are two parts to effective teaching: relating ideas and letting those ideas be seen in your life. When our lives do not reflect the Truth of the Gospel people will wonder whether or not it is really the truth. The best evidence for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are the faithful lives lived by His followers. When we live faithful lives we make the teachings of Jesus real and accessible to the people around us. Without our example Jesus’ teachings remain simply a philosophy rather than a way to live life.

Having the truth doesn’t do us or anybody else any good if we don’t apply that truth to our lives. The life of faith is the life that is lived based on the truth that we know. Faith happens when we live our lives in the light of what we believe. A life that is lived by faith becomes a life that is an example for others to follow.

• Point to Ponder: A life which is faithfully following Jesus provides an example for others to follow.
• Questions to Consider: Is my life a true reflection of what I believe? If a person observed the way I live, could they see Jesus’ teachings illustrated in my actions? Who am I an example to?
• Prayer to Pray: Father, the Author of life, thank You for giving me life. Help me to be a good example to those around me. Give me the wisdom I need to properly evaluate my life and to make the changes I need to make so I can properly model Your love and truth to my family and friends. Use me to impact the lives of people...

It Explains A Lot

In preparation for The Wild at Heart Boot Camp I am attending at the end of April, Ransomed Heart Ministries has been sending out, via e-mail, daily readings. These are excerpts taken for John Eldredge’s books. Since I was on my computer fast I am behind in my reading, so one of the ones I read today is from March 15. I would like to share it with you:



Until we come to terms with war as the context of our days, we will not understand life. We will misinterpret 90 percent of what is happening around us and to us. It will be very hard to believe that God’s intentions toward us are life abundant; it will be even harder not to feel that somehow we are just blowing it. Worse, we will begin to accept some really awful things about God. That four-year-old little girl being molested by her daddy— that is “God’s will ”? That ugly divorce that tore your family apart—God wanted that to happen too? And that plane crash that took the lives of so many—that was ordained by God?

Most people get stuck at some point because God appears to have abandoned them. He is not coming through. Speaking about her life with a mixture of disappointment and cynicism, a young woman recently said to me, “God is rather silent right now.” Yes, it’s been awful. I don’t discount that for a moment. She is unloved; she is unemployed; she is under a lot. But her attitude strikes me as deeply naive, on the level of someone caught in a cross fire who asks, rather shocked and with a sense of betrayal, “God, why won’t you make them stop firing at me?” I’m sorry, but that’s not where we are right now. It’s not where we are in the Story. That day is coming, later, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb and we’ll beat swords into plowshares. For now, it’s bloody battle.

It sure explains a whole heckuva lot.

You won’t understand your life, you won’t see clearly what has happened to you or how to live forward from here, unless you see it as battle. A war against your heart. (Waking the Dead , 17–18)

On Monday evening I helped a man out who has an embarrassing problem, the lack of bladder control. He was out of money and needed some pads to function at some level, so I went to Wal-Mart and picked him up some. When I delivered them began to tell me his story (you have to understand I don’t know who this man is, he called the church looking for help and I helped him out). He told me that he had been asking God why He was doing this to him. The man also told me that he was toughing it because people kept telling him that “everything happens for a reason.” But I could tell from the sound of his voice and the alcohol on his breath that he was in pain. What do you tell a guy who believes that the evil that is happening to him is the will of God?

I told him that everything that happens doesn’t have a reason and that we have to remember that there is an enemy, Satan, who is out to destroy our lives. Then I told him that the awesome thing about God is that He is so powerful that He can use these evil things Satan throws at us to harm us for good. I suggested that he pray differently, rather than blaming God, asking God to redeem the pain in his life.

Understanding that we live in a world at war and that we have an Enemy out to get us makes life and this world a whole lot more understandable. Otherwise, we start thinking so awful things about God, and blaming Him, rather than turning to Him to redeem our lives.

Don't Be Conformed

{Romans 12:1-2; ESV}

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

What has made the American church ineffective in her mission? Is it not the reality that we have allowed ourselves to be conformed to the world? I am not going to point my finger at anyone else, all I have to do is to look at my own life. A life that I have wasted pursuing movies, video games, sports, and politics. In many areas my life looked just like any other person of my generation. It is so easy to get sucked into the culture.

We defend getting sucked into the culture by claiming freedom; “I am free to do this, it isn’t a sin.” That maybe true, but I recall the apostle Paul writing something about things being permissible but not being beneficial (1 Corinthians 6:12 and 10:23). Just because we are allowed to do something doesn’t mean that we should. What after all is the benefit of the hundred of hours we have devoted to entertainment? Have we served another person? Have we grown in our knowledge and understanding of God? The question we need to ask more often is: What is the benefit of this__________ (activity, possession, entertainment)? Pursue those things that benefit your faith and reject those things that become a distraction. Otherwise we will find ourselves constantly conforming to the ways of the world.

If we take a look at what Paul wrote in Romans 12 we notice something very important. What we should notice is that sacrifice, offering myself to God as a living sacrifice in response to His mercy and grace, precedes not being conformed and being transformed. The reason American Christians are being conformed to the culture, being made in the likeness of the world, is because we have refused to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. If we cannot sacrifice we cannot be transformed; the two go together.

Here is the scary part. The reason we aren’t sacrificing is because God’s mercy and grace mean so little to us. We want God to save us from our sins so we can pursue the life that we want to live, and we give little or no thought to the life God created us to live. The comfortable life I want to create for myself is more important than the life God wants to give me as I live a faithful life.

If we are thankful for the grace and mercy of God then it needs to be reflected in the way we live. Be a living sacrifice. Don’t conform to the world. And be transformed into the new person God is creating you to be.

Celebrate Saint Patrick's Day

In honor of St. Patrick, a man God used to preserve the Faith, I want to share with you a paragraph from his Confession. This is what Patrick wrote:

"I was like some great stone lying deep in mud, until 'He who is power' came and 'in his mercy' lifted me up. Yes, that's how it was, he did indeed raise me up, for he placed me on the very top of the wall. And so, because of that, I must shout out loud, 'to the Lord in order to give back' some small thing for all his gifts that are so great both here and in eternity. The mere mind of man can never plumb such gifts as these." (The Confession of Saint Patrick, p. 36, translated by John Skinner)

Hebrews 12:1 says; Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (ESV). On this day, as part of honoring this one man, let us also thank God for all the men and women of faith who have helped blaze the trail for us to follow. Let us also keep in mind that we are responsible for marking the trail as well for those who come after us to follow.

Called to Fight

{Ephesians 6:10-12; ESV}

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Yesterday (Monday, March 16) I was listening to Deace in the Afternoon on WHO radio out of Des Moines, Iowa. I am not a fan of Steve Deace, I think he is an arrogant self-righteous jerk, but he usually gives me something to think about, and that is why I occasionally listen.

Yesterday his topic for the first two hours, of which I only listened to the first 30 minutes, was about why social conservatives have lost the cultural war. He played an audio clip of Dr. James Dobson’s resignation speech in which Dr. Dobson admits that while some battles have been won, the war up to this point has been lost. While I don’t know Deace’s entire take on this, I do know part of it had to do with the fact that conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, have comprised too often.

While that may be so, I would like to offer another possibility: God has never called us to fight this war to begin with. Yes, we think we are standing up for God’s truth by fighting this way and getting in bed with the politics of this world, but we have forgotten the true cause of Christ. We are like the church in Ephesus who stood for truth and hated evil, but had lost their first love. You know what the consequence was for that? The consequence was that Jesus was going to come and remove them from His presence (Revelation 2:1-7). We are not just to stand up for truth and hate evil, but most importantly we are to love God and to love people. If we are not loving then we have missed the point of God’s call in our lives.

Because we have lost our first love we have not focused on what is truly important, and the consequences are all around us. While we have been out there trying to defend marriage, clean up the airwaves, and protect the unborn child our church buildings were emptying. It is now to the point, according the a statistic I heard at the Preaching Teaching Convention at the end of February, that on any given Sunday 17 percent of the population attends church. On top of that most of us realize the total lack of maturity that exists in the people that do attend. While fighting this war we have lost the more important battle for the hearts of people.

While we have been trying to create a culture that we are comfortable with we have allowed the younger generation to slip away. Do you realize that that 3 out of 4 Christian students who go off to college lose their faith? No wonder our church families are getting older and older and are on the verge of dying. We have let Satan have a whole generation without even putting up a fight! Christian parents haven’t fought for the hearts of their children by being people of faith and Churches succumbed to the pressure of culture and sought to entertain the youth rather than instruct them in God’s Word.

Here is the sad reality of all this: the “culture war” would never have been lost if the American Church would have focused on the right thing to begin with. The Church has given up her place to be the light in the culture because we stopped influencing individuals. When people live by faith in Christ Jesus then things like defending marriage, abortion, smut on television, and drug addiction become non-issues because God’s truth is influencing their hearts.

Make no mistake about it, we have been called to fight, but we are not called to preserve a culture, but to save the hearts of people. So how do we do that? We do that by being the people, and thus, the Church God called us to be. To be more specific we do that first and foremost by worshiping God for who He is and what He has done. Constantly in the New Testament the writers refer us back to the reality of God’s love shown to us through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. God knows that we need constant reminding of His love in order for us to worship Him.

Not only do we need to worship Jesus, but we need to get serious about teaching. This requires preparation. I am so tired of preachers and teachers (I am guilty of this myself) not preparing their lessons and doing just enough to get by. Have we forgotten that life and death hangs in the balance? The Truth is way too important to be handle so lightly.

Along with preparation comes prayer. In Ephesians 1 and Colossians 1 we find to great prayers of the apostle Paul in which he prays for his readers to have wisdom and understanding and that the eyes of their hearts be opened to the light of God’s truth. We need to invite God to be part of the teaching process. He wants people to know His truth, it is important to Him, and so let us make it important for us as well by inviting God to teach alongside of us.

Finally, we need to be people of faith. We can’t influence the world, the culture, if we are not any different than they are. The Church in the United States is a comprised and sick church. We have allowed ourselves to be influenced by the culture to the point that we are now students of culture rather than of Scripture, we are materialistic and drowning in debt, and we don’t hate our sin enough to struggle to get rid of it.

I want to leave you with the opening paragraph from Henry Blackaby’s book Holiness:

“It is the people of God who can truly shape a nation. Many look to great leaders or powerful governments to shape a nation. But most likely, leaders and governments will not restore a nation once it is on the downward slide. While leaders sand governments can influence a nation, there is no group of people who can determine the coming years of a nation like God’s people” (p. 1).

The Value of Quiet

We live in a world of noise. From the traffic outside to the television inside there is a constant dull roar of noise. Not do we only have the actual noise of life, but we also have to deal with the “noise” of all the activities that vie for our attention. We have the “noise” of our responsibilities, the “noise” of our hobbies, the “noise” of our relationships, and the “noise” of entertainment. With all the noise in the world, it is hard to hear God’s voice. Whether that voice is Bible or the quiet leading of the Holy Spirit, the noise of our lives often drowns out the voice of God.

It is interesting that God often called people into the wilderness, into the quiet, in order to communicate with them. God called Abraham to leave the metropolis of ancient Babylon to become a wilderness wanderer. God brings Israel out of the urban centers of Egypt to the wilderness of Sinai in order to communicate to them His Law. David discovers God and develops a heart for God while watching the sheep in the wilderness. The apostle Paul, after his conversion, is called into the desert, where he hears from Christ Jesus. For the disciple of Jesus Christ, quiet is an essential part of our lives, but it is a part of our lives that we will have to fight for in order to experience.

That is the reason I decided to take 40 days away from the internet. The internet opens up a whole new world of the “noise” in our lives. We have e-mail, Facebook, YouTube, fantasy football, and blogs to distract us from hearing God’s voice. I decided that I needed time away from it all, to prepare my heart for what God has been calling me to do, and to seek His direction. It was an intentional decision on my part to reduce the volume of “noise” in my life.

The time away proved to be very valuable, as I was able to connect with God in a way that I haven’t in a very long time. I would like to share with you two ways I was able to connect with God during the bast forty days.

The first way is added depth to my prayers. To be honest I have never have had a great prayer life. Outside a three month period in 2003 when I wrote out my prayers, my prayers have been superficial at best. During the last few weeks I have really felt that God has been teaching me how to pray, and the importance of prayer in our lives. It is like a light came on and prayer became a real way to communicate with God, and not just me talking to myself in my mind. Prayer is such an vital part in hearing from God, and it often takes an intentional disconnection from the “noise” of life to discover just how important prayer is to life.

The second way is added depth to my study. Here is another confession. I have been able to glide by so far in ministry by doing very little study. Yes, I have read a lot and I think a lot, and that is why I have been able to get by with very little study, but I wasn’t doing justice to the gift of teaching and preaching God has given me. Since I left my MacBook at my parents, I was forced to do things a little different when it came to sermon preparation. Getting back to books, paper, and pen I spent more time studying for my sermons and actually getting into the text (this makes me regret not retaining more of my two years of Greek). It has been great, and now I have a folder of notes that I have made as I have preached through Ephesians, and Ephesians has come alive in a way that I have never experienced before. This would never have happened if I would have just allowed things to continue as they had been. Sometimes change requires radical surgery, and if we are not willing to do it then we will never experience change.

The world is noisy. If we are going to follow Jesus we need to be intentional about find moments of quiet. It is in the quiet that we are in the best position to hear the voice of God.

Sunday Quote: The Dangers of Bitterness

"When we embrace bitterness, we reject grace. When we allow a bitter root to take hold of our hearts, we literally miss the grace of God. Bitterness destroys our relationships, impairs our judgment, skews our perspective, and distorts our memories." ~ Erwin McManus, Uprising, p. 124

Saturday Link: What Baptism Requests

I am back from my 40 day internet fast. I will be sharing my thoughts on my time away on Monday. Today I want to get back into the swing of things and share with you a link that I hope will get you to think.

Baptism can be a difficult issue to discuss. There are different views on the mode and the importance of baptism, but most churches practice some form of baptism. I think John Weartherly wrote a very practical article on the subject for the March 8, 2009 issue of the Christian Standard. This is part of what he writes:

In the early church baptism brought together the core of the gospel message. It declared Jesus as the divine Lord who forgives sins in fulfillment of God’s great promises. At Pentecost Peter began his sermon by quoting Joel 2:32: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Acts 2:21). At the end of the same sermon, he declared, “Repent be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). The Lord who saves is Jesus Christ, from whom in baptism sinners request cleansing from sin, what they desperately need but cannot accomplish themselves.

I encourage you to read the rest of the article: What Baptism Requests Let me know how this squares with your belief about baptism.