Christian Living

Undefiled by Sinners

Hebrews 7:26 records God in Jesus is holy and blameless, unstained by sin, undefiled by sinners, and to Him has been givenimage the place of honor in heaven.

In a pluralistic world Christianity is maligned because it denies any means to heaven besides Jesus. This is because if the Christian story is true, that God sacrificed Himself as payment for the disobedience of humanity, then no amount of good works by humanity can be sufficient otherwise God wasted His effort.

While Islam also makes exclusive their religion for obtaining heaven, theirs is based upon obedience to their way rather than the love of God demonstrated in His personal sacrifice. Another similarity between these two religions which also demonstrates their marked contrast is the idea that God remains undefiled by sinners. (more…)

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November 12, 2014
Christian Living / obedience

Getting Better

Hebrews 5:14 encourages we become better Christians and learn right from wrong by practicing doing right.image

The assumption Scripture makes about those who claim to have placed their faith in God as their Lord and Savior is that they will be faithful to obey His commands. Somehow a disconnect between belief and obedience has crept into the Church allowing people to believe in God without surrendering to God’s will for their lives.

When God lived among us as Jesus He commanded that those who would be His disciples, those who would believe in Him as Messiah/Savior, would take up their cross and follow Him. The taking up of the cross is the surrender of self-will in order to perfectly obey the will of God.

This was what God modeled for us as man in Jesus, the absolute surrender to the will of God over the will of self epitomized by Jesus’ statement in the garden, ‘not My will but Your will be done.’This statement is to be the refrain of every Christian. (more…)

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November 10, 2014
Christian Living

Listening to God

Hebrews 2:1 warns us to listen very carefully to the truths we have heard, or we may drift away from them.image

We have a powerful propensity to forget. Its not just us, it’s an age old malady that has been part of human history.

The things we forget are those things that are good and true, the great works God has done for us, the kindnesses we have experienced.

Each new crisis seems to shut off our memory of past deliverances causing us to cry out anew for God to help and to heal. Likewise in the moment of our temptation we forget what God has commanded and instead begin to rationalize our actions based upon our own wants and desires.

This is why God often says to His people, ‘remember,’ or in this case, ‘don’t forget.’

The key to memory is repetition. (more…)

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November 7, 2014
Christian Living / obedience / Titus

The Importance of Good Works

Titus 2:1 teaches that there is right living that goes along with true Christianity.image

One of the problems with Christians defining themselves as ‘believers’ is the disconnect that occurs with the responsibility to live ‘rightly’ as a result of right belief. This disconnect is furthered when we discuss our acceptance by God through grace by faith and not by our good works.

While true, it wasn’t that no good works occurred giving humanity the opportunity to be forgiven, Jesus Himself earned our pardon through His perfect obedience to all the will of God. Without His good works we would have none appropriated to us for us to be forgiven. (more…)

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November 3, 2014
Christian Living / Suffering

Feeling Forsaken

Matthew 27:46 About three o’clock, Jesus shouted, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”image

Have you ever felt forsaken by God? Most of us have. If so, we are in good company.

The Son of God, Himself God, somehow in the mystery of the Trinity, was also forsaken by the Father, Who is God. We accept Jesus being forsaken for we understand it was the process by which He took upon Himself all of our sins, all of the sins of humanity from and for all time, so that we could be forgiven for all time for all the evil we have ever done.

God, the perfect One, was forsaken so that the imperfect could be reconciled to the Father. If God was forsaken should we not also at least feel the same way on occasion?

TV Christianity promotes a God loves you and wants to bless you no matter what image of God but that is not the reality the Bible portrays. All of the great saints in the Bible suffered at various times. (more…)

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October 27, 2014
Christian Living

Christian Jihad

1 Timothy 1:18 commands fight well in the Lord’s battles. Is this justification for Christian Jihad?image

There has never been a Christian version of the Muslim Jihad. What about the Crusades? The Crusades were a response, albeit not always godly, against Muslim expansion into Europe and not a mandate to force all infidels into the faith or perish by the sword.

The Christian version of holy war is the battle against principalities and powers in high places that seek to keep people ignorant of the saving work of God through Jesus the Christ.

In plain English, Christian holy war is a verbal defense against all world views that deny the existence of God and His coming in Jesus Who commands all people everywhere to repent and receive Him freely as their Lord and Savior.

The means for waging this war is humble service, a willingness to be maligned by men and persecuted physically for proclaiming the Truth that there is one God and one means for pleasing Him, a reconciled relationship with Jesus. As God surrendered His life to become the Savior, His people are to surrender their lives in the proclamation of Him as Savior. (more…)

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October 23, 2014
1 Thessalonians / Christian Living

The Importance of Coaching

1 Thessalonians 1:6 observes you became our followers and the Lord’s.image

People need examples, coaches, models, mentors for understanding practically how to live certain principles or objectives. When the Apostle Paul would invest in someone he would invite them to follow him as he followed Jesus. The Lord Jesus, God in the flesh, invited men to follow Him as He taught and modeled how He wanted people to live if they were going to please God.

Inviting others to join us through imitation places a great deal of responsibility upon us for doing the right thing. Perhaps this is why we have diminished this methodology for developing people in recent years.

A couple of premises have to be established for this relationship to work. (more…)

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October 15, 2014
evangelism / Judgement / work

Getting Paid for our Work

Colossians 3:24 reminds us that it is the Lord Christ Who is going to pay you, giving you your full portion of all He owns. He isimages the one you are really working for.

Work is inherent to our existence. If a man will not work neither should he eat, at least not for free from the church doles – we have the government to take care of that!

In all seriousness, it is work that determines a man’s wealth in a free society. And wealth determines a person’s comfort and opportunities.

Work in itself is good and not evil though many have been taught otherwise. God made man then set him to work in His pristine environment that guaranteed success. It was through the rebellion that work suffered a curse and therefore became inherently more difficult by yielding thistles and thorns in addition to good crops instead of just good fruit as God designed.

The real problem with work is the propensity to define ourselves by the results of our work and to use the fruit of our work for our own pleasures and wants. (more…)

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October 13, 2014