Christian Living / Judgement

Living Burden Free

Psalm 68.19 declares, praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, Who daily bears our burdens. Godimage bears our burdens.

Does that really make any sense? No other religion other than Christianity makes such a claim.

Surely allah doesn’t bear anyone’s burdens. Most gods place burdens on humanity forcing us to get better by their impossible demands.

Our idols have the same burdensome propensity. We beat ourselves because we are not strong enough, smart enough, rich enough or pretty enough so we keep working trying to pacify that voice in our head that is never satisfied. (more…)

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May 11, 2015
heaven / Judgement

Welcome Home

Hebrews 10.17 proclaims their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.images

What if seeing God for the first time really was a welcome home party, sort of like when your parents welcome you home after having not seen you for months? What if God really did treat us like He knew nothing of our faults or failures?

How would truly believing these things transform our behavior now? Wouldn’t we begin to treat God like we do that person in our life who just loves us for who we are and cares nothing about our performance?

That is the kind of promise God makes to us; to welcome us into heaven as though we had lived a perfect life having never ever done anything wrong. (more…)

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May 6, 2015
Christian Living / obedience

The Fallacy of Religion

Isaiah 1.13 commands, Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me….I imagecannot bear your worthless assemblies.

The problem with the One True God is that He is not fooled by religion.

Religion is to be a means by which we express our love and worship toward God. Religion is not God, neither does it’s rituals please God, unless the life of the one performing the ritual is consistent in living a life pleasing to God.

We just finished the season of Lent where many Christians perform the duty of sacrifice in an effort to identify with Him Who sacrificed His life for humanity. I am always amazed how we equate giving up chocolate or beer with Jesus’ death on the Cross for sin. The disconnect seems pretty extreme to me. Is this even something God wants or expects from us? (more…)

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May 4, 2015
obedience

How to Please God

Psalm 40.8 declares, I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.images

Most of us who claim to be seekers of God want to please Him, the breakdown occurs in determining what it takes to please God. It seems only fair that if there is indeed a God that He would make clear what He requires from us.

Fortunately, that is exactly why God had His thoughts, words and deeds recorded and preserved in a book. In this way, all peoples for all time in all languages could know what the One True God requires of us. (more…)

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May 1, 2015
evangelism / Titus

Attractive Advertising

Titus 2.10 commands we make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.images

The purpose of this command is so that God’s people can participate in God’s work of making Him known throughout the world. The goal is not just that He would be known but that He would be loved by every person on the earth.

God wants His people to live such attractive lives that people around them feel compelled to know God so they too can love Him.

How are we doing? (more…)

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April 23, 2015
Christian Living / Titus

Getting Better

Titus 1.1 claims it is their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.image

What is the goal of our lives? Personal happiness? Peace? Joy? Fulfilled relationships? Godliness? The last one probably doesn’t make the top ten list for most people because pleasing God is something we think of generally and not specifically.

Sure we want to be good per se but we don’t pursue goodness for ‘goodness’ sake. We are so self absorbed that we believe we are pretty good and that God is pretty happy with us regardless of how much we really check in with Him to see if our belief is true.

So we go about seeking our own definition of importance trusting that if God isn’t good with it He will somehow make that known to us. (more…)

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April 22, 2015
Christian Living / Suffering

Created to be Good

Ecclesiastes 7:29 records God created mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many imagesschemes.

The answer to the question about why evil exists in the world always gets pushed back upon God as the culprit. The logic goes that if God were good and loving and all-powerful, He wouldn’t allow bad things to happen to good people.

The Bible portrays a different villain to the age old question; humanity. God made people good, because He is good, and since He made us in His image, male and female, we too were created good like Him (just without all the power). (more…)

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April 20, 2015
Christian Living / obedience / work

Being Salty Christians

Mark 9.50 encourages have salt among yourselves.image

The modern translation of God’s admonition to have salt in ourselves might be, ‘suck it up buttercup,’ or ‘cowboy up,’ or ‘man up,’ or any of a number of sayings that mean stop being a sissy and own the solution to whatever problem we are facing. The wussification of the current culture is over the top.

Everyone has a malady, no one is responsible for their problems, blaming others is common and looking to big brother for meeting our needs is the new norm. Our grandparents shake their heads at us as they endured the great depression, rationing of basic necessities and the effects of two world wars. (more…)

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April 9, 2015
heaven / Judgement

Only His Work Counts

Acts 17.31 declares He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has imagesappointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.

The crucifixion marked the end of heaven being earned by good deeds. In the crucifixion of the Perfect One God made clear that all the good deeds of all people were insufficient for getting them to heaven.

All religions and all people from all time have always tried to measure themselves by their good deeds hoping those outweighed their bad deeds by just enough to get them to heaven. God says all of our good deeds are as menstrual cloths to Him, that no one is good not even one. (more…)

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April 6, 2015
Judgement / obedience

Is God Fair?

Leviticus 5:17 declares if anyone sins and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, even though they do not know it, they are guilty and will be held responsible.image

God says we are guilty of disobedience to Him, sin, even if we don’t know what He requires. For many, this seems too harsh, unfair and therefore unacceptable to them for giving their allegiance to God.

Why does God take this position, that all will be held accountable to Him for disobedience even if they didn’t know His commands? I think there are three primary reasons. (more…)

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April 2, 2015