Barney Anda

Hey God

2012-01-20T13:49:00.000-08:00

Hey God
I want a better world
One without crying
And death and pain
One where our tears
Don't pour down like the rain

Hey God
I want a better world
One without mothers
And kids in need
One where our fears
Don't feed animal greed

Hey God
I want a better world
One without fathers
Who run away
One where goodbye
Is not a word we say

Hey God
I want a better world
One without losing
The ones we love
One where we meet
Again with you above

I want

Life, not death
Peace, not war
Happiness
On heaven's shore

Hope, not hurt
Any more
Please just give
Us something more

Let it be
Truth, not lore
That's all that
I'm asking for

Hey God
I want a better world

With you someday

Holy Roman Gods, Batman

2011-12-22T23:18:00.000-08:00

Let's take a trip in the way back machine to the Roman Empire and look at three dudes.

First, Augustus. He started out as Gaius Octavius Thurinus, and later was named Gaius Julius Caesar. 27BC is where the title Augustus comes in -- a title which subsequent emperors were also given. Go look up a list of Roman emperors. It's interesting to see all the man-glorifying crap that was slapped on the end of their names. The Augustus title is not a political title, but a religious one. It stood for authority over humanity and nature, meaning something like "the illustrious one" or "the revered one". He also used the title "divi filius" for himself quite often, meaning "the son of a god". On top of that, he allowed worship of himself as a living god. When Augustus died, he was deified like Julius.

Second, Tiberius, the next emperor. Like his predecessor, he was given the same title Augustus, but he didn't go around flaunting divine titles and he refused to be worshiped as a living god. He didn't care much for temples dedicated to him either, but he did allow one to be built in Smyrna. Tiberius was very unpopular by the time of his death, and the senate refused to vote him divine honors.

Third, Caligula, who had the phrase "Let there be one Lord, one King". Of course, it seems he thought that "one" should be him. He appeared in public dressed as various Roman gods, referred to himself as a god when meeting with politicians, presented himself as a god to the public, replaced the heads of various Roman gods on statues replaced with his own, and encouraged people to worship him as a living god, Neos Helios -- the New Sun. Got pride?

Now, this phrase "divi filius" is not the same as "dei filius" -- "divus" seems to be lesser than the "deus" used for Roman gods like Jupiter and Mars. Dei filius is what the early Christians used for Jesus -- the divine Son of God, who is the same "stuff" as God. In other words, God in the flesh.

So, given this little history lesson, I find two things worthy of mention.

First, I find it curious that when Jesus was walking around on the earth, the emperor at the time, Tiberius, refused to be worshiped as a living god. In contrast, Jesus accepted worship from people, from the wise men who came to visit him as a toddler to after his resurrection. The emperor before and the emperor after didn't, but this one did. Curious, indeed.

Second, it seems that the claims of the early Christians could certainly piss off some leadership. Here, with Augustus, Caligula, and beyond, you have men born into wealth and power who say either "I'm a god" or "I'm a son of a god", encourage temples to be built to them, encourage worship of themselves, and so on. All the while you have Jesus' followers saying that there is one God who became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, born poor in a no name town to a teenage girl. On top of that, the title they use for him puts him above all, including deified emperors and greater "gods" like Jupiter.

There's quite a difference between a man trying to be God and God becoming a man. The former sends one to hell, and the latter saves many from it. I'll take door number two, Jesus.

John And Jesus

2011-12-21T23:24:00.001-08:00

Around the time of Jesus' ministry on earth, students of a particular teacher would serve them. If they lived today, they'd get their Starbucks, pick up their dry cleaning, and wash their car. There, however, was one job they would not touch with a ten foot pole -- untie the teacher's sandals and was his feet. That job was left for the lowest of slaves.

Enter John the baptizer, who says that he is preparing the way for the Lord and told people to bear fruit that lines up with repentance from sin, rather than relying on their ancestry to be right with God. Some people think he might be the messiah, the savior, the one promised in prophecy that people were expectantly waiting for.

What does John say to this? "I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." (Luke 3:16) So John says that there is someone coming, and he is not worthy to untie his sandals, the job relegated to the lowest of slaves in that culture. The one to come must be great, indeed.

That one is Jesus. So what does Jesus say about John? "I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John." (Luke 7:28a) So, by Jesus' description, John the baptizer is the greatest man that has ever lived. Yet, John is not worthy to untie Jesus' sandals.

Now fast forward a bit to the Last Supper. What does Jesus do? He washes the feet of his disciples. He does the job of the lowest of slaves, yet he is the one who is much greater than the greatest person that ever lived. Why? Mark records Jesus saying to his disciples "You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:42b-45)

So to be great, those who follow Christ must not be great as those in the world attempt to demonstrate greatness, but rather as Jesus demonstrates greatness -- through serving others in humility. The first glorifies a man; the second glorifies God, and Jesus is all about glorifying God.

For the one who does this and belongs to Jesus, it's good news, as "the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than [John]." (Luke 7:28b) The lowest in Jesus' kingdom is greater than the greatest person who ever lived. That's awesome.

So how does one get into the kingdom then? How does one belong to Jesus? How does one find the ability to live a life for God and others instead of a life for self? He doesn't do it through his own strength, that's for sure. He does it through the power of God's Spirit in him -- the result of a transformed heart, mind, and life.

As Jesus told Nicodemus, "I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3). Make no mistake, a man cannot brag that it was his own decision to "become born again" -- rather, it is God doing the transforming work in a person's life, for "the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." (John 3:8)

So what do you do if you are not a born again believer in Jesus Christ who has had his heart of stone replaced with a heart of flesh that wants to live and die for God? Agree with God that you are in fact a sinner with no hope of saving yourself, and then turn from your sin to Jesus, who paid the price for your sin so that you don't have to. Ask him to save you. He doesn't say "no" to that.

Let's recap:

- John the baptizer is the greatest guy who ever lived
- If you're in God's kingdom, you're greater than John
- Jesus, bringer of the kingdom, was the ultimate example of a servant leader
- We're supposed to be like Jesus
- The only way to be like Jesus is to be born again
- The only way to be born again is to repent and trust Jesus for salvation

See, the external is not enough. Jesus helps fix the problem at the core -- our hearts, the internal. Jesus gives us a heart for God, a heart for him. If you don't have that, you might just be externally religious, looking good to men on the outside but dead on the inside. That's worse than being externally wicked, looking bad to men on the outside. If you're in the latter category, repent of your sin and turn to Jesus. If you're in the former category, repent of your religion and turn to Jesus.

There's a lot of variety in what a man may need to turn from -- but there is only one he needs to turn to.

Grace and peace, friends.

Do What For Who?

2011-12-20T21:51:00.000-08:00

I was listening to a co-worker at lunch today describe some of the annoyances and other issues going on in his life. I've heard similar accounts a time or two before and couldn't help but think later "man, he needs Jesus in his life." Now that I say it, I wonder how many times one of my Christian brothers, and former co-worker, thought the same thing about me. This person is not very receptive to Christianity from what I can tell, and I admittedly don't try to steer any conversation in that direction with him. In my own weakness and self-righteousness, I admit I don't really care to have him in the lunch group because of the attitude I perceive he has toward Christianity -- as well as the worldly topics of conversation.

Now that I write it, it sounds like I have too much of a religious attitude that I need to repent of and get dealt with. After all, it was the Pharisees and teachers of the law who were the worst ones in Jesus' day -- and he told them to repent as well, being the worst ones enslaved by pride.

But that particular shortcoming is not what I wanted to deal with in this post -- rather it is my lame motivation behind the thinking "man, you need Jesus in your life." In this case, and others, I thought a person needed Jesus in his or her life because of some issue or attitude -- usually having to do with relationships with other people. While it is true that being transformed by God's Spirit can certainly improve strained relationships, that is absolutely the wrong motivation for coming to Christ.

I am somewhat sickened that the attitude revealed here reminds me of false teacher Joel Olsteen and his message that God just wants you to be rich, healthy, and have good relationships. What a load of crap. How was Jesus' relationship with people? Well, his family thought he was crazy during his earthly ministry. Many of his followers left him when he said something too tough for them to swallow. He was continually at odds with the religious leaders, who eventually murdered him because he claimed to be God.

When speaking about how people should view him, Jesus said "I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:35-37)

Clearly, Jesus is not all about fixing our personal relationships. He is all about us repenting of our sin and coming into a relationship with him, and God the Father through him.

And that is what the motivation for pointing someone to Jesus should be. It should not be "hey man, turn to Jesus, he can make stuff in your life better." Jesus can do that, but that doesn't mean he will. In fact, some things might get a whole lot worse, depending on your perspective. After all, those who hate Jesus don't care much for his followers, either. Think about the typical Hindu or Muslim on the other side of the world who is the first in their family to come to Christ -- it is not going to go well for them, considering how coupled religion, culture, and family are in much of the non-western world.

So again, our motivation should not be "Jesus can fix some of your problems" but rather "Jesus has already fixed the one big problem." He is, after all, Lord and Savior, not Genie and Magician.

Shalom, friends.

The Genealogy Of Jesus

2011-12-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

Jesus is probably the most talked about ever. As well, he is probably the most disagreed about person ever, despite having a rock solid record of his coming to Earth, his ministry while here, his sacrificial death on the cross to atone for our sins, his bodily resurrection, and his ascension into heaven. As we approach Christmas where believers focus on the incarnation -- God becoming flesh in the person of Jesus Christ -- let's take a quick look to see what the Bible has to say about his ancestry, as presented in the four gospel accounts.

Mark is easy; he doesn't deal with it. Maybe that's a little weird, but it is not without purpose. Mark was writing to a Roman audience -- generally a multicultural audience who didn't care a whole lot about genealogy and cared quite a bit about getting things done. Mark's gospel account also happens to be the most fast paced and action oriented of the four. Jesus went here, said this, did that, went there, did this, and so on. Jesus was a doer, and he got the job done.

Luke is different; he's an investigator. He's writing the book for a guy named Theophilus, who was taught about Jesus and wanted to know the truth behind what he was taught -- or if it was all bunk. From what I understand from people who know Greek, well, Luke's writing is very articulate. He was also a doctor. In short, he's a really smart guy bankrolled by a really rich guy who's funds aren't going to run dry -- he did his homework. And what does that homework say? Jesus is from the line of David, through his adoptive father Joseph. Luke also makes sure to record that Mary's pregnancy is a miracle from the Holy Spirit -- not some horrid offense against the betrothed couple where Mary had physical sex, violating the sanctity of their marriage.

Matthew was a follower of Jesus, and he wrote to a Jewish audience, so he's got a different agenda. Things not important to those Mark and Luke wrote to are of vital importance to Matthew's audience. Right up front, in the first sentence, Matthew makes sure to say that Jesus was both a son of David and a son of Abraham. He also, like Luke, makes sure to record that Mary's pregnancy is a miracle from the Holy Spirit, plus he adds that Joseph didn't even have sex with Mary until after Jesus was born. I think this is so there was no question at all -- not only was Mary a virgin when she became pregnant, she was a virgin when she gave birth. On top of that, Matthew does something not normally done, in that he includes the names of women in his genealogy of Jesus -- including Mary, which seems to imply that she also is from the line of David. Again, this is probably done so there is no question -- if adoptive father Joseph and biological mother Mary are both from the line of David, there's no argument!

And now we get to John. John is writing to Greeks, who are steeped in philosophy and don't really know a whole heck of a lot about Jewish history and religion. So rather than go down that road, John choose another one. Using terms like the Logos (the Word), and echoing the beginning of scripture, he shows that Jesus is the eternal Son of God -- the second person of the Trinity become the God-man on earth. Jesus' earthly line doesn't matter here -- the fact that he is the eternal creator and sustainer of all things does.

So there we have the God-man's coming to earth recorded from three different perspectives. Why does it matter?

Prophecy and truth.

If Jesus was just the product of two teenagers messing around, the Bible would be a horrid lie. He would not be the promised savior from the line of king David in fulfillment of prophecy, and other things the Bible says about Jesus would not necessarily be true. If Jesus is not God in the flesh come to save us, we who claim the name of Christ are terribly duped and are spreading evil. Really it's the same issue as Paul brings up in one of his comments on the resurrection of Jesus -- which says that if Jesus did not in fact rise from the dead, we're rightfully the laughing stock of the world. Thank God that is not the case, and that we do have good evidence, historically and experientially, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

So what about prophecy as it applies to the birth of Christ over two thousand years ago? There's a lot that can be written here -- more than I know about myself for certain -- but let me throw out a couple that I think are particularly relevant to my post.

First, Micah 5:2 -- "But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days." Who's origin would be from ancient days? No mere mortal man for sure. Biblically that leaves the messiah to be an angel, as the Jehovah's Witnesses believe, or God himself, who Jesus actually is.

Second, Isaiah 9:6 -- "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Exactly who is going to be born that we're going to call "Mighty God" and "Everlasting Father"? No mere human for certain. No angel or other created being, either. You don't call anything created "Mighty God" nor "Everlasting Father" -- even Jesus himself was the one who said "call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven." Only one can fit this prophetic description, and that is the God-man Jesus.

Let's also not forget a few other comments recorded early on in the gospel accounts about the baby Jesus. Mary was told to name him Jesus in the first place, because he would save people from their sins, and Jesus means "savior." The name for your child meant more back then in that culture than they do to us westerners. Also, when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple, a prophet there said that he had finally seen God's salvation and could now die, and a prophetess gave thanks to God and started telling people who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem that he, Jesus, was it. On top of that, the wise men who understood prophecy about the promised messiah came to find Jesus and worship him, bringing him gold (for a king), incense (for a priest), and myrrh (for his death, the purpose for which he came!). Now please note, when these wise men worship Jesus, who was a toddler at the oldest by then, no one rebukes them -- and people have been rebuked in other places in the Bible for worshiping angels. Angels certainly are, by Biblical description, much more intimidating than a kid in a diaper. So who is this child again?

God in the flesh. Our Lord. Our Savior. Jesus Christ.

Destroy Your Bar

2011-11-15T22:57:00.000-08:00

I ran through a possible scenario in my head tonight that ended up with me yelling at a bunch of people. Yeah, I do that. The daydreaming thing from childhood hasn't gone away, but now I'm loud and angry in my daydreaming, and what I'm angry at is religion.

I hate religion. I am so prone to religion.

Here's an example. In watching a non happy Disneyland world TV show tonight with the family, that wickedness came out in the way I thought about one character's immoral actions who professed to be a Christian. It also came out in thought in something I almost said to Novalee after joking that Jamie was going to kill me and I'd see her in heaven later -- "be a good girl and I'll see you there." Yuck, vomit. Filth. Judgmental and performance based nonsense that divides people into "good and bad" instead of "bad and Jesus."

Think I just went off the deep end and said Christians have license to sin willy nilly? No. Those born again of the Spirit of God don't want to sin; however, when we do -- and we all do -- God doesn't love us any less.

Don't believe that we all still sin and think you're "good" now? You're prideful. Pride is the worst sin and the one that got Satan kicked out of heaven. Pride and religion go together a lot. If you think you're "good" like I have and sometimes do, maybe you should think about that and examine the motives behind your actions and examine the how you think.

Don't believe that God still loves us the same when we sin? He loved us so much that he died on a cross while we were sinners and hated him. If he loved us less after he bought us with his blood and our hearts were turned to him, that would be insane. Last time I checked to the best of my ability, God isn't insane.

Now I'm off on a tangent, so back to the ranting in my head. It made me think of one thing religious people do, and that is make bars. Not places you serve drinks, but lines that divide -- on one side is the good people who get a pat on the head and on the other side is the bad people who get a pat somewhere lower than their head and a lot harder.

Consider a vocational or lay leader in a religion. If you can tolerate disagreement and discussion easily and you're trapped in religion, then I'm talking about yours. If you spin up easily and I might piss you off if I disagree with you, then I'm talking about someone else's. Whatever you like to keep reading, I don't care. For the record, this equally applies to mainline protestant denominations, evangelical Christians, and whatever other labels are out there. Just get a picture in your head and pay attention to the point.

Okay, this leader, he's good at what he does. He checks off all the do this boxes and the don't do that boxes. He's respectable and the church looks up to him. He reads his Bible every day. He goes to the Wednesday night service regularly. He gives ten percent. He doesn't smoke, drink, cuss, or waste his time on frivolous pursuits. He's the one to imitate in behavior -- except in thought, he's all screwed up. He's better than the others in the church. Some poor soul comes in off the street who's a broken mess and he wants to help this pathetic person become an upstanding gentleman just like him. He thinks God blesses him more than the rank and file members because he dots all his i's and crosses all his t's.

How about that rank and file member of the church? Maybe he works a tough job that's really demanding on his time, and he doesn't get paid that well. He has a hard time reading his Bible as much and giving as much as the first guy. He smokes and drinks, but he kind of hides it and feels a little guilty about it because those uppity people at his church give him funny looks when they smell something on him. But he thinks to himself that he's trying, and that at least he's not as bad as his neighbors who don't even go to church and are fighting all the time.

How about those neighbors? They work hard. They pay their taxes. Their kids don't cause trouble in the neighborhood. They don't really invite the previous family over a lot though; they feel a little ashamed about that shouting match and don't want to risk it coming up in conversation. They declined the same neighbor's invitation to church in the past, saying that they were glad Jesus worked for them, but that they didn't really need him. After all, they were decent people, not like those scumbags in prison who murdered and stole and set buildings on fire.

How about those scumbags? Bottom of the barrel right? Not much more to say? You know what they think? "At least we're not as bad as that child molester and that rapist over there."

All these people are the same. Yes, that's right, the same. They're all blinded by some form of religious pride. There's concern for image and obligating God and not needing God and all of that as we go through the list, but there's also one thing that all of them have in common. That stupid bar. That piece of crap that they use as a measuring stick to say "I'm above the line and you're below the line, so let me pat myself on the head and give myself a gold star." It is so easy for us to compare ourselves with other people and make ourselves look good, and it's so wicked.

That's not the gospel.

You know what the gospel is? The real bar is so high we can't reach it. Our religious effort and moral behavior won't get us there. God's not grading on a curve here. The standard is perfection and to be with God we have to be perfect. How the heck are we going to do that? In comes our intercessor Jesus, God in the flesh. He took the punishment for our sins on himself and when we put our trust in him, he gives us his righteousness. When we are in Christ, we look perfect before God. Now that's good news!

In short, those in Christ are not better people -- just sinners who are loved and forgiven, and who God is working on to make more like his Son Jesus Christ -- so if you've got a bar forged by religious pride, destroy it.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Jude 1 (Verses 9-25)

2011-11-11T22:52:00.001-08:00

Verse 9

This is an interesting verse because of the lost extra-biblical source that Jude quotes, "The Assumption Of Moses" according to Origen. Some texts have been found that are either from this book or from a different one called the "Testament Of Moses". What has been found doesn't contain anything related to this dispute however. The whole thing seems a little sketchy.

I also think that's a totally wrong focus on the verse.

Let's look at what Jude says and the point he is making. The first immediate thing that comes to mind is "Don't !@#$ with the devil!" If Michael, one of the princes of God's angels, left it to God himself to rebuke Satan, who are we? Don't mess with him and don't talk to him -- go to God and ask him to deal with it.

Verse 10

The bigger point here is that, while super-powerful Michael didn't dare rebuke Satan to his face, the merely human false teachers Jude is dealing with blaspheme all kinds of stuff they don't get. I'm not sure if that means with their words, or with their immoral lives, or what.

The latter part of the verse brings Romans to mind -- "although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves".

In short, God gives people what they want. If they want to make themselves or something else their god, he will let them and give them over completely to their false and godless ways. Jude puts the false teachers in this category -- these are people who have become like "unreasoning animals" living life worshiping the gods of pleasure and self instead of God himself.

Verse 11

Jude gives some examples of others who went their own way instead of God's way. Cain out of anger, Balaam out of greed, and Korah out of pride and a rejection of authority.

Verses 12 through 15

Jude calls the false teachers a bunch of names and says they're going to hell.

He doesn't cater to the wolves. He shoots them. Lord, give me the same kind of boldness.

Verse 16

"Loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage" sounds so much like slick TV preachers (Joel Olsteen, cough cough) that are always upbeat and don't have anything bad to say about anyone -- wolves who through out a "God wants you to be rich and healthy" message to the world.

Ever see the camera pan out across the audience, I mean congregation, for these liars? There's a ton of people there. Like I said, God gives people what they want. You want God, you get God. You want some godless bull!@#$ message that makes you feel happy, you get a steaming pile.

Verse 17 and 18

False teachers are not anything new.

Verse 19

"It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."

This punch hits hard.

In the past when I heard "false teacher" my mind would go to other religions outside the mainstream Christian denominations -- Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses for example.

Next my mind would go to the liberal views in the main denominations that promote all kinds of nonsense -- gay is okay, the Bible isn't God's authoritative word, Jesus wasn't necessarily divine, the resurrection doesn't really matter, there is no hell, everyone's going to heaven, and so on.

My mind is starting to shift from that a little bit -- closer to home. And rightly so -- it's not the obviously erroneous stuff that kills people, it's the subtle stuff. It's the religious people who check the boxes, speak Christianese really well, and have no heart for God and live like the rest of the world, seeking only the pleasures of the world in self-deification and living for today instead of eternity.

God help me to not be a Spirit-less religious guy, because I am so easily sucked into religion. Show us all where were are stuck in religion and KILL IT.

Verses 20 through 23

Hang on Christian, and help your brothers and sisters hang on too! It's a bumpy ride, but Jesus has our back.

Verses 24 and 25

That's right, Jesus rocks!

Perfect Hater

2011-11-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

One of my cousins posted a link the other day that had that wonderful bunch of chaps from the Westboro Baptist Church in it. If the name doesn't ring a bell, that's the "God hates fags" group. If that still doesn't ring a bell, excellent. Your head will probably hurt less and your dinner has a better chance of staying down. Let's keep it that way.

That's enough about that group itself. I could go on a long rant that includes in it points about jacked up theology, wrong motives, and causing God's name to be blasphemed and dishonored. That wasn't my original intent, so I'll leave it at that. I wanted to see what the Bible said about hate -- in particular hate coming from God, as I've heard and read mixed things that warrant clarification.

The cliche phrase always comes to my mind -- "hate the sin and love the sinner" which sounds good to me. Interestingly, the phrase came from Ghandi, not the Bible. Even so, is it sound advice for the Christian? We'll see.

I wanted to get some other thoughts, so I went to a website that generally has very solid answers and read this:

"Even as Christians, we remain imperfect in our humanity and cannot love perfectly, nor can we hate perfectly (in other words, without malice). But God can do both of these perfectly, because He is God. God can hate without any sinful intent. Therefore, He can hate the sin and the sinner in a perfectly holy way and still be willing to lovingly forgive at the moment of that sinner's repentance and faith."

That sounds pretty harsh to me. I guess it's because I am human and don't get what "perfect hate" is and how God can love perfectly and hate perfectly at the same time. To me, God hating someone sounds more like "I want to squash you like a bug." That is obviously not the truth, otherwise we would have all be squashed long ago.

Next I did a search in the Bible for words with "hate" and found a lot of people hating people, people hating God, God hating people's actions, people being told not to hate and so on. I found the following three verses that deal with God hating people directly:

- "The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers." (Psalm 5:5)

- "The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence." (Psalm 11:5)

- "but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert." (Malachi 1:3)

So based on that, I must conclude that the website is correct, and God does in fact hate the wicked. Ouch! Remember that "the wicked" includes me and everyone else on the planet. We have all sinned against a perfect God and are deserving of nothing but his wrath.

Even so, God loved the whole world so much that he sent Jesus to take the sins of the world upon himself and be the payment we cannot pay. This love is expressed well in Romans 5:8, which says "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." In other words, while we hated God and were his enemies, and while he hated us for it, he still loved us and died on a cross for us. I don't really GET that kind of love, deep down. I don't think I will on this side of eternity.

I think the explanation of how God's love and hate play together is explained well in this: "Mysterious but true is the fact that God can perfectly love and hate a person at the same time. This means He can love him as someone He created and can redeem, as well as hate him for his unbelief and sinful lifestyle."

Does that mean we should do the same? Absolutely not. We're flawed humans and told many times in scripture not to hate. We can't love perfectly like God, nor can we hate perfectly like God. The advice "Love the sinner and hate the sin" is absolutely appropriate for us mere mortals!

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Jude 1 (Verses 5-8)

2011-11-07T22:02:00.000-08:00

Verses 5-7

Jude gives some examples of those destined for hell. First are those who saw God's awesome power as Moses led them out of Egypt yet did not believe. Second are angels who would have even been in the presence of God, yet rejected him. I think it is implied by the text that these demons are those angels that pridefully rebelled against God with Satan. Third are those people from Sodom and Gomorrah completely given over to wickedness and their own pleasures.

I don't know why Jude picked these particular groups of creatures, but there is definitely a lesson to be learned from each of them.

When we see God's might and power and still reject him, that's evil. Each of us has a time in our life when the push from his Spirit to turn away from sin to him is the strongest it will ever be, yet sadly many reject that push and turn away from God forever, condemning themselves to hell. I can't imagine being one of those delivered from slavery in Egypt, crossing through the Red Sea, seeing God lead as a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire, and still not believe in him. Yet, I am also reminded of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that Jesus told -- where at the end he says that the rich man's brothers will not believe, even if someone were to rise from the dead.

When we desire a higher position than God has given us, that's evil. Especially evil is pride. Satan had this to such an extent that he wanted to be God. I would say thank God we're different, but that's not necessarily true. How often in our lives have we wanted to be God instead of God? Maybe we wouldn't say it or think it like that, but how often have we behaved that way and then found ourselves in deep water? As people we have a fine way of allowing Jesus to sit on the throne of our lives until things get a little too good or a little to bad and then we kick him off the throne and try to do things our own way. It never works out well, and it never will.

When we make ourselves our own gods and decide our main purpose in life is not to glorify God, but to seek fulfillment from carnal pleasures, that's evil. For many the sins of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah are obviously wicked -- "well, thank God we're not like that!" Yet how often do we seek our own different pleasures first in this world? Maybe it's television or games. Maybe it's sports or hobbies. Maybe it's food and drink. Maybe it's home and family time. There are many things in this world we are free to enjoy in Christ, but, as Paul wrote, not everything builds up. When we let something other than God enslave us and take over, we're in trouble.

And now that I've written about all three examples a little bit, I see how they could follow each other in succession from disbelief to pride to self-appointed godhood, but I don't think that's the intent here, especially given verse 8 below.

Verse 8

Jude brings out the commonality in the examples by comparing them to the problematic people that prompted his letter in the first place. The commonality in all of them is rejecting God's authority in favor of some other authority -- trying to make something else God in the place of God. For the Israelites in Egypt, it started with the golden calf. For the angels, it was themselves -- they wanted to be God, or at least the ringleader did. For the wicked men of those cities, they wanted to rule their own lives, thus making themselves their own gods as well.

All of the above trusted in something other than God, and Jude says the same thing about certain false teachers that appear to rely on the authority of their own dreams rather than scripture, or Jesus, or something a little more compelling than the product of a bad meal and background head noise. They ground themselves in experience, which is no ground at all. Based on their experience, they go on living like the devil, which reveals that they do not know God at all.

Really, to me, it just seems like an excuse to sin -- with a God sticker slapped on it. There's nothing new under the sun. As an example from the past, there were temples to fake gods with temple prostitutes. What was the thought process there? "Hmmm, we like to have sex with whoever, let's do that and call it worship." As an example from today, we like the "good life" here in the first world, so what do you see? Name It And Claim It, God's your magic genie. The Prosperity Gospel, God just wants you to be rich and healthy. Or how about even those who get the real gospel being bad stewards in the name of "enjoying God's blessings"? I know that one. It's devious, and it's dangerous.

I am not saying that experience is bad, but it better not be the sole basis for your faith. I had an incredibly transformational experience when my heart was turned toward Jesus, but that experience also lines up very well with the Bible as well. The two complement each other well. If I were to just have some very moving experience, but it didn't line up with the Bible at all, that would be a big problem.

There are people with very moving conversion stories to various religious systems that are similar to mine. There are people who have claimed to have special new revelation from God. There are people who have claimed to talk to angels and demons and the dead. There are people who claim to have dreams and visions that came from God. It is far too easy to just go after experience these days, but such experiences are worthless or outright harmful if they don't line up with God's Word. All of scripture points to Jesus, so if you've got some "new thing" that points away from Jesus or goes against what he said, you're deceived or just full of crap.

I'll stop here for now and go through additional parts of Jude next post. I never thought a one chapter book in the Bible would yield so much from my brain.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Jude 1 (Verses 1-4)

2011-11-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd jump around. Here we have the start of the shortest book in the Bible, written by Jude, the brother of James, both half-brothers of Jesus.

Verse 1

Jude also seems to be tracking with the idea of the elect -- those predestined by God to be saved -- when he says "to those who have been called".

The phrase "who are loved by God" could be a bit confusing, as it could imply that God doesn't love everyone. God does love everyone, demonstrated by the fact that he doesn't destroy us all immediately because of sin and demonstrated by Jesus coming into the world to save all who will receive him. However, God does not ignore sin, and only God's covenant love is extended to his adopted children -- those who put their faith in his son Jesus.

Verse 3

Jude wanted to write about the salvation and faith shared with other Christian brothers, but changed his mind to deal with more pressing issues of false teachings that were surfacing.

However, before he switches gears, he says something that appears to be of significance -- "the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints." That's an interesting way to put it, and I know I have until now overlooked it.

In Romans and Hebrews the same phrase is in there talking about Christ being our sacrifice for sins -- he died once for all. His death on the cross is what pays the penalty for sin, nothing more, and nothing less. In the same way, the final revelation about our faith came through Christ, in his teachings passed on to the apostles. Nothing more was or is to come -- we have all we need to know regarding our salvation, proper Christian thought and action, and so on.

Verse 4

It looks like Jude is concerned about false teachers creeping into the body of Christ -- "godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."

This reminds me immediately of Paul in Romans 6 -- "What shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" (verse 1) and "What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!" (verse 15). He says the same types of things elsewhere as well, and the point is clear -- just because we have freedom in Christ does not mean we have freedom to sin.

A person who thinks that their freedom in Christ gives them free reign to sin freely and be good with God is not in Christ. The person who is in Christ has a new heart for God that desires to know him and love him and flee from sin like Joseph fled from Potiphar's wife.

Obedience

2011-11-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

God threw this one to me today so I thought I'd share

Jesus said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

If we're believers, what do we think when we hear that? A typical response I think is something like "Okay God, I love you, I'll keep your commandments." We better get the gospel when we say that, because if we don't get the gospel, one of two things will happen.

- Thing 1. Pride. We'll do well, in some areas, and say "Look how good I'm keeping A, B, and C compared to those other people. Man, I rock!" Never mind D through Z.

- Thing 2. Despair. We'll recognize our miserable failure to do what we said and give up. "I can't do this, it's hopeless for me!"

We need to get the gospel.

Jesus didn't say "To be saved, keep my commandments." He said "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." If you just read that as "Obedience doesn't matter" that is NOT what I said. Hold your thought and keep reading. Let's focus on the first part -- "If you love me..."

Well how do you get to the point of loving God?

"We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother." (1 John 4:19-21)

How did God first love us?

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:10)

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (John 3:16-17)

"God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

So God first loved us through the cross. When we repent of our sins and turn to Jesus for our salvation, we get a new heart, a new nature -- one that desires God above all things. It is from this new nature that we can truly love God, and demonstrate it through obedience, which includes loving others.

But let me try to be very clear -- this obedience from the new nature is not a "try really hard to show my love" thing. It's a "by my new nature I will obey, because I love God" thing.

Or to put it another way getting rid of that pesky and confusing "you will" and clarifying the meaning:

"If you love me, you better keep my commandments to show it." No.

"If you love me, you're going to keep my commandments." Yes.

Not getting this right leads to works based self-righteousness that focuses on ourselves and what we do. It makes our perception of God's love for us, and possibly our state of salvation, dependent on our performance. That's evil.

Getting this right leads to to grace based Christ-righteousness that focuses on God and what he did. It makes our perception of God's love for us, and our state of salvation, dependent on the cross. That's good. That's God.

Sola Scriptura

2011-11-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, but I did say I was going to write a post about "sola scriptura" or "scripture alone". If you're not grokking what that means, it basically means the the Bible is THE authority for doctrine. To be very clear, that means we should hold to the doctrines clearly found in the Bible (directly or through valid logical reasoning of what the text says) and that we should NOT hold to doctrines that are not clearly found in the Bible (again, directly or through valid logical reasoning of what the text says).

I'm writing this to think more about this statement, which was a response to a man questioning whether or not the Bible was the only authority for truth -- "You can't really demonstrate sola scriptura from Scripture. The Bible doesn't expressly declare that it is the Christian's only authority. In other words, sola scriptura is essentially the historic confession of the Reformers, over and against the Catholic claim that it is Scripture plus the Church and Tradition. For us, then, it is a theological presupposition, our starting point rather than a proven conclusion."

It's a well said answer, but I'm not sure I agree with it. I think I can demonstrate the Bible is our only authority from Scripture, and I'm not going to do it with a verse, but with bigger ideas that surround a lot of verses. For some context, look up the following:

- The first parts of Matthew 15 and Mark 7, where Jesus is ripping the religious dudes for putting their traditions over the word of God.

- Colossians 2 where Paul argues against listening to reasonable human arguments for things that are really only self-made religion, which takes away from Christ.

So how does that tie into scripture alone? It's all in the DANGER.

When we go outside scripture for something, we're depending on men, fallible and sinful. Even the most well meaning men who love the LORD are bound to screw things up. That's kind of our whole problem in the first place. So let's go into the way back machine to when Moses was walking and talking and leading a bunch of grumblers and complainers through the desert.

God delivers the law. God's people want to follow the law. Leadership looks at something like "don't work on the sabbath" and tries to figure out how they should obey that. That's a good thing. Unfortunately over time you end up with a mess of rules that is put forth and accepted by many as what God wants, rather than looking at what God's Word is going for. For fun, go read some of the things rabbis way back wrote about proper washing of hands. It's absolutely insane, and it *started* with men trying to faithfully obey God -- but it went way off in the weeds. Jesus wanted, among other things, to get people out of the weeds and on the road.

So what about groups that claim Christ but don't have the Bible as the sole and ultimate authority? Off the top of my head I can think of Mormonism, Catholicism, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, who have more than the Bible -- as well as many, we'll call them "liberal" -- Christians who don't believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

In Mormonism you have other stuff (the Book of Mormon for example) and a claim to be the true church, but that the other stuff doesn't conflict with the Bible or is supported outright by it. In Catholicism you have other stuff (church tradition for example) and a claim to be the true church, but that the other stuff either doesn't conflict with the Bible or is supported outright by it. On top of that you have the idea that the extra stuff the Mormons say doesn't conflict really does. Then you have the Jehovah's Witnesses who claim our translations are jacked up so they have their own version of it, the New World Translation -- along with the claim that the Watchtower Society is the only group with the authority to interpret scripture.

Then you have Bible-only Christians who say this is all nonsense.

What we've ended up with in many cases are extra-biblical beliefs invented by men and taught as truth. Sound familiar in a way? There's nothing new under the sun.

Now before I continue, know that I'm not writing this to pound on and argue individual doctrines in different groups, but rather to point out that you need to start out with the Bible as your authority and go from there -- not start with extra junk you've been taught and shove it into what you read into the Bible. You can find some verses to support any fool thing you want to. Satan did tempting Jesus. The prosperity gospel people do. The "homosexuality and abortion are not sins" people do. We do, but we shouldn't -- we need to catch ourselves and read things in context and look for the plain simple meaning of the text!

With that said, I'll fairly pick on one thing from each of the groups I mentioned to make my point very clear.

- You don't START with the Bible and get different levels of heaven. Yes, I see in 1 and 2 Corinthians where people try to back that up with. If you didn't start with the Mormon doctrine you were taught about the celestial, terrestrial, telestial (what?), and so on, you wouldn't come up with that in reading the Bible. You know what you get when you read phrases like "third heaven" -- well, the atmosphere, space, and what is actually heaven, which is what Paul saw but had no words for. "The LORD will open the heavens to give rain / Anyone who dies in the open country the birds of the heavens shall eat / rain from heaven. Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens / stars of heaven. Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven." Hundreds more uses of heaven to mean three different and obvious things!

- You don't START with the Bible and get that Mary led a sinless life, was taken up into heaven like Jesus was, and is an intercessor for us now that we can ask to pray for us. That's not even a logical conclusion based on the biblical text. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed / Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!" "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother." Plus, where the Bible mentions talking to dead people, it's always in the context of sorcery, witchcraft, and so on, not asking them to pray for us!

- You don't START with the Bible and get that Jesus was Michael the archangel. Yes, I see in Hebrews where people try to back that up with, and I get the New World Translation of the Bible is different -- despite the fact that people who actually know Greek and look at it will tell you the translation doesn't match any source documents we have correctly! I've done the "Jesus Is God" post before, so go look that up if you really want to understand this; I'm getting a bit tired of writing, and this is a BIG one.

Now that I've probably pissed some people off, including friends and family, PLEASE take this advice: read the Bible for YOURSELF, ALONE, PRAYERFULLY, without drawing from what's been drilled into your head as much as you can -- and see what the plain meaning of the text is. God gave us a book that is simple enough to read and understand without us crapping it up and shoving our own ideas into it. It's a very dangerous thing that didn't end so well the first time.

Hoarder

2011-10-31T21:02:00.000-07:00

Ever see that show Hoarders? It's quite the look into the lives of people with great unhealthy attachments to things and trying to break them away from it and get their homes or property cleaned up. There was a burst of time in my life when I watched it a lot, and in that time I saw episodes about people completely attached to animals, collections, projects, day to day things, food, and even complete junk and trash. Cleaning crews, psychologists, and "professional organizers" were brought in to help with the situations. Some of the time there was success in cleaning up a home or property, but despite that, more often than not, the deeper issue of attachment remained unsolved.

With the light and knowledge I have graciously received in my life, I couldn't help but think when watching "All your prattle and rationalization amounts to nothing -- these people are, almost certainly unknowingly, trying to get their fulfillment, or their hope, or their security, or whatever else, from the wrong source. What they need is the power of Jesus Christ to break them away from idolatry and sin and give them a new life."

That is, after all, what he did for me in my own life. I was seeking fulfillment from all kinds of things, trying to fill a hole in my heart that only God could fill. I just didn't know it until he broke into my life, showed me my sin, and ripped me away from myself -- granting me repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Praise God for that!

Now what about the sin in my life and how it relates to the topic? There were definitely attachments associated with that sin, but was I a hoarder? Let's look.

One of the sins of my past that totally wrecked my head was adultery. I've cheated on my wife countless times with countless women through the magic of the Internet and my own jacked up imagination. But not only did I do that, I collected them. I had the modern day equivalent of the stack of Playboys on my hard drive -- except I could fit a whole lot more of a whole lot worse on there. Before I was really born again, I believed in God and would try to make deals with him. "I'll delete all this if you do that. I won't get any more, I promise." Yeah, that lasted about what, 2 seconds? The Jesus hole was still in my heart, and my efforts were my own and with wrong motive. So of course I was bound to fail and fail back into hoarding porn. One tick mark for "hoarder".

Aside from being an adulterer, I was also a thief. Do you know how many pirated programs and songs I had on my computer? I don't either, but it was a LOT. Did I try to rationalize it? Absolutely not. I knew it was stealing and I was proud of it. Crap I didn't even use or listen to. It looks like that was hoarding too. Two more tick marks for "hoarder" -- one for the software and one for the music.

That's three strikes already. I'd have to say based on the evidence that I was definitely a hoarder.

Does it matter to identify the old man like that? Probably not. I just think it's interesting that in my old nature I had the same mentality about digital things that the people on this show had about physical things. Looking on the outside in, no would would peg me as a hoarder, because the outward appearance wasn't there, but the internal thought processes and attachments were the same.

I also find it interesting that, in either case, the outward signs of such a mentality are pointers to a deeper problem that plagues all men -- our sinful nature. That kind of deeper problem cannot be solved by man. It can be ignored, excused, or rationalized, so that a person "feels better" about being broken. However, a real solution can only come from God through repentance and faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.

Sola Fide

2011-10-21T23:14:00.000-07:00

I've been reading a book about a couple who grew up solidly on the Word of God, was very against the Catholic church, and eventually through their study in the Word came to the conclusion that the Catholic church was the true church founded by Jesus Christ. While I'll obviously disagree with some of the arguments in the book, it's still an interesting read.

The man did make some good points I never thought about how the different covenants in the Bible (with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David) were connected and how the groups involved grew from a couple to a family to a tribe to a nation to a kingdom -- until at the end you reach the new universal covenant through Jesus Christ. I've never really looked into the different covenants all together before, so that to me was an interesting approach about how the bigger picture went.

But now on to the main two points of this pair of posts -- sola fide and sola scriptura. The man he said that through his studies, these two pillars of the Reformation, which he held as the only pillars, were knocked over for him. Those are what I want to think and talk about here. For today, I'll deal with sola fide. I wanted to deal with both, but this ended up to be a very long post as it is.

Sola Fide

Sola fide means "faith alone". In other words, we're justified, or made right with God, solely by our faith in Christ, not our faith plus works we do. Now I didn't quite follow how the man's logic went as he told his story, but he did quote two verses, James 2:24 (a man is justified by works and not by faith alone) and 1 Corinthians 13:2 (if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing). Well those sound pretty compelling on the surface, but you can make a lot of things compelling when you take them out of context.

First let's look at the James verse. There's a part of the verse missing. It starts "You see, a man is justified...". He is concluding an argument. Go read the rest of James chapter 2 for the full argument. He uses the word faith in two ways. One way is "lip service" which is bogus faith. In other words you say that you believe but that's about it. The Bible has a lot more to say about that kind of non "faith", and it's never anything good. The other ways is "real faith". What kind of faith is real? The kind that produces something -- for there will absolutely be evidence in your life to show that your faith is real. If someone can't look at your life and tell that you have a heart for God, you should be very troubled.

Now let's look at the 1 Corinthians verse -- the argument here seems to be that I am nothing if I have faith but not love -- so to be something, I must have faith plus love, which is shown by my good works. How about the verse just after it too, though? "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Those are works, that without love, make him nothing. There's other stuff in that passage too, that, without love, makes him nothing. One might say then "well then, I need faith, and works, and love, and " but read the whole passage and get the context. Paul isn't talking about justification anywhere in the passage -- he's talking about the importance of love and what it looks like. That's it.

Now, to be fair to the man, he's not presenting his full argument in this book -- just telling his story and throwing in some key points. I'm sure these two verses aren't the extent of his supposed discovery, but for a person who writes about himself as a student of the Word, to take them out of context like that to argue an important point is not a good thing.

What his wife said in her explanation resonated with me more: "Justification meant being made a child of God and being called to live a life as a faithful child of God through faith working in love." I read that and thought "duh" but I also don't see how in the world that goes against sola fide. I'm really not quite sure what she understood it to mean before! Absolutely justification means being made a child of God, and after you're justified, you're called to, and will, produce fruit -- with the Spirit in you, you'll have a desire to obey God and live a life that glorifies him.

Look at how it works from my understanding and experience -- you repent of your sins and put your faith in Christ. That in itself is a gift from God, and recognizing it as such glorifies him. We're not talking "I said the sinner's prayer and I'm good to go" nonsense, we're talking "Jesus barged into my life with a wrecking ball and got me" faith. Okay, at that point, you're justified. Born again of the Spirit. A new creation. Adopted into sonship. Bye bye heart of stone, and hello heart of flesh. After that, what are you going to do? Walk the walk without taking away the credit from God -- glorifying him. What about when you fall? Mourn over your sin and thank God for his grace and mercy in forgiving you and picking you up -- glorifying him.

Notice there's a running theme here, and it's not about you.

So however you say the words to understand this mystery of being "right with God" through Jesus Christ, never go down that dangerous road where you think "I NEED to do [whatever] TO BE or STAY in good standing with God." It's evil. The proper response for the Spirit filled believer is "I WANT to do [whatever] BECAUSE I'm ALREADY in good standing with God."

The first takes the focus off God and puts it on you. The second takes the focus off you and puts it on God. Only one of those glorifies him.

Hard Stuff

2011-10-20T22:38:00.001-07:00

There's some pretty harsh stuff in the Bible. Harsh stuff about God even. There's sections I know pastors skip over much more than not because there's just hard things to deal with in there. Things that people say keep them from believing the Bible in full or in part, and things that make those who claim it to be the absolute word of God still question "Would God really..."

I've asked those questions before, and I've answered "yes" to those questions before. I don't have a problem with some of the actions I read about, but I certainly won't scoff at those who wrestle with them either. I'm not sure where this difference in attitude comes from. Maybe it's the way Jesus just broke into my life that makes some sovereign actions less of an issue. Maybe it's because I came the Bible to be true first through the lenses of science, history, reliability, and prophecy about Christ that I trust all of it to be an accurate account of God's interaction with humanity. Maybe I'm impersonal and callous enough that I just don't put myself in the stories and feel the weight and pain in them. I don't know. Probably some of each.

That said, I wanted to write something about what I don't hear talked about whole lot. First, do a search in Revelation for "book of life" and see what there is. Among the results are these:

- "The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life." (Revelation 3:5)

- "The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come." (Revelation 17:8)

- "And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:15)

Real book, symbolic book, I don't really care. Let's work with the imagery we're given. It looks to me like a person's name was put in the book before the creation of the world, other people's names were not put in the book, a person's name can be blotted out from the book, and if a person's name ain't in it, there's hell to pay. Literally.

Who did the writing or omitting, can do the blotting, and will do the judging? God.

So that might make a person's brain hurt. God can make someone knowing they will be destroyed? Well, yeah. God can make someone with the purpose of destroying them? Well, yeah. Check these out:

- "But for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth." (Exodus 9:16)

- "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory -- even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?" (Romans 9:21-24)

I picked these on purpose because they both show not only the sovereignty of God in raising up people for whom it would not end well, but also the reason behind it -- God's glory. God can't very well demonstrate his love, grace, mercy, and so on, in delivering people -- without having something to deliver those people from. It's his universe, and he do what he wants with it, even show off his goodness by allowing or outright making the means to show it.

Think that's not fair? From a human perspective, it certainly could, and we're pretty tied to human perspectives. If you're there, consider this:

- It's not about us and our sense of entitlement. It's about God and his glory. All have sinned and fall short, and he's under no obligation to save anyone.

- Though under no obligation, he did choose to save people through his son Jesus. He lived as a man on earth, suffered much at the hands of those who should have exalted him, took the sins of the world on himself, and died a horrific death on the cross.

- All that stuff I just said -- he did for his enemies, such as myself, before I put my faith in Jesus Christ.

So before we throw up that cry of "unfair," consider how fair, from our human perspective, it was for Jesus to take our place on the cross so we could have eternal life and live with God forever instead of eternal punishment and be separated from God forever. From my point of view, Jesus getting a pile of wrath and God getting us left him with the short end of the stick. Of course, that limited view is because I'm the clay dude, not the potter.

If that still seems unacceptable and unfair toward some people, consider that for just about everyone, it's their own words and actions that will condemn them, by rejecting the means of salvation God has provided. In other words, though I can't prove it from scripture that I know of, I believe that most people start with their names in the book of life and cause it to be blotted out by rejected whatever light God reveals to them. Why do that and complain you've been unfairly destined for destruction? Why not instead turn from sin to Christ and prove yourself to be destined for glory?

Finally, if that STILL seems unacceptable, I don't know what else to tell you other than go make your own universe and run it your way. Good luck. I'll stick with this one with a God I know is completely sovereign and able to do anything, a God who is for me and not against me, a God who has a crazy love me and wants me to love him back with all my heart, and a God who is always right and just even when we don't get it, because he cannot be otherwise. This is my God, and though he's not safe, he is good.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 19

2011-10-18T22:10:00.001-07:00

Okay when I get to verse 5, I think what the !@#$ is wrong with you people? But then I remember. Our sinful nature. That terrible thing common to all people. That thing that makes us not live up to our own standards, let alone God's. That thing behind child abuse, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sex trafficking, strip clubs, pornography, prostitution, abortion, murder, rape, kidnapping, neglect, fornication, adultery, divorce, backstabbing, gossip, fraud, envy, and so on. That thing behind making idols out of sports, games, food, clothes, jobs, kids, homes, bank accounts, cars, boats, hobbies, and so on. That horrid thing that, when we realize it, leaves us in a place where we realize we need someone who can solve a problem for us that we cannot solve -- a place where we realize our need for Jesus Christ.

So back to the gathering crowd. I get Lot's pleading with them not to do the wicked thing they were intent on doing. But, especially as a father of daughters, I do not get why in the world he would offer to send out his daughters in place of the men. I could get "touch my daughters and I will hunt down every last one of you and murder you while you sleep" but willingly giving them to the men I do not get. I can only assume based on a limited understanding of the culture, that hospitality was so greatly valued and women so little valued that this made sense. The hospitality thing seems to make sense when Lot says not to harm them "for they have come under the shelter of my roof."

It crossed my mind for a bit that maybe Lot's response would be different if he didn't know his guests were angels. But the text doesn't read that way to me, and I don't see that Lot actually knew they were angels.

If you try to picture the next scene in detail, I think there's something interesting. First, this angels strike the men with blindness -- they don't pussyfoot around here. However, why did the men wear themselves out groping for the door? If you were near the door, I would think you'd find it quickly or give up far before you wore yourself out. That's just my own thinking though -- we have to take the Word at face value here.

I get how Lot must have felt when he told people that the place was going to be destroyed. I feel the same way when I tell people about Jesus and they give me a "that's great, I'm glad it works for you" or scoff, or reject the message in some other way. It's very frustrating. It reminds me of when I was first rescued by Christ -- I asked a good friend "Why didn't you tell me?!" His response -- "Would you have listened?" The answer is a resounding no, I guess I wouldn't have.

I never really paid attention to the destination before -- that Lot requested to go to Zoar instead of to the hills. I could make something of that, but it would probably be reading to much into a simple detail of the account.

Lot's wife turning to salt has got to be one of the oddest miracles in the Bible. I still think confusing the languages is more odd, but this one is right up there. I've had people scoff and use this as an excuse for not believing the Bible is true -- "Really, salt? I don't think so." While I think it's weird, it's not beyond God. I mean, really, he made the whole universe and people to live in it. Aren't those a lot more awesome than a person turning into something?

The whole escape scene contains a great lesson. First you have people who don't believe Lot at all, and they perish. Then you have the people Lot didn't even tell, and they perish. Then you have Lot's wife, who looked back, and she perished. It's the same with Jesus and the coming judgement. You have people who reject the light of Christ, either outright, or by looking back and longing for their past with it's habitual sin they found so enjoyable. They will perish. But what about those who didn't hear the message? Don't worry about them.

"What? What do you mean don't worry about them." Don't worry about them. God's pretty big and can deal with that sort of thing. It's the person, maybe you, who hears a lot about Jesus, gets the message, and still rejects him, that has something deadly serious to worry about.

Okay, back to the account again. "We don't have a man around, so we'll get our father drunk and get pregnant by him." That doesn't sound like very solid thinking, but then again I don't think ahead regarding my actions a lot of the time. I wonder what he thought when they started showing, assuming he didn't remember what happened!

Proud To Not Be Proud?

2011-10-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

Harry preached on the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector today in his series on the beatitudes -- today's message was on meekness. I thought that was great after hearing a message from John Piper on the same passage, with a different focus.

Today God used Harry to remind me of two points I typically forget -- that the Pharisee in the story really is as good, by man's standards, as he claims to be. He's not exaggerating. The people of the day would look at him as the model to follow, the one we should be more like. They wouldn't look at him as some hypocritical jerk who doesn't know God. Conversely, the tax collector in the story really is horrid in the eyes of the people. He's a sellout to Rome, taking money from his own people for taxes to fund the government that is oppressing them -- and taking extra money as well to line his own pockets. Yet the tax collector is the one justified before God, not the Pharisee, because the Pharisee puts the focus on himself and the tax collector puts the focus on God alone.

Thank God for constant reminders of this, because pride seeps into our hearts so so easily.

I thought after service before going to lunch with the family I would re-read the parable for myself just to get it in my head even more. I flipped to Luke 18:9 and read this preceding verse:

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable"

Stop.

I didn't get to the parable yet, and already there's trouble! What came into my head? "Thank you God, that I don't look down on other people." That sounds right. That sounds nice. We have the knowledge of Christ. We know his words and teachings. We know we shouldn't be putting ourselves above others, because we are all under God. So what's the problem?

The problem is in what is implied in the statement. It might as well read "Thank you God, that I don't look down on other people, like those self righteous people who look down on other people." Oh crap. I did the same thing. By thinking that way, I've just split people into camps in my mind and put myself above other men -- different men than the Pharisee did, but it's the exact same thing.

Think of this way through two people, Moral Deist and Ima Sinner:

- Moral Deist thinks he's really good. He gives God the credit for it. Even so, that kind of thinking leads him to look down on all those "other" people who do horrible sins. He prays "Oh thank you God that I'm not like those guys who cheat on their wives, or those guys who sell drugs, or those guys who are workaholics and never see their family, or those guys who murder and rob other people, or those guys who molest kids" and so on.

- Ima Sinner knows he's not good. She prays "Oh thank you God for showing me my sin and turning my heart to Jesus Christ. Thank you for showing me that in my own heart, I was the adulterer, the drug dealer, the workaholic, the murderer, the thief, the child molester, and so on. And thank you so much that you showed me this, and that I'm not like one of those hypocritical self-righteous people who put themselves above others, because we are all sinners who need to be saved by grace."

Moral's two groups were the people who do "good things" and the people who do "bad things". He put himself in the people who do good things group and thought himself above the people who do bad things. But the prideful act of looking down on others and thinking himself above them puts him square in the latter group anyway.

Ima's two groups were the people who don't think themselves above others and the people who do. She put herself in the people who don't think themselves above others group. The prideful act of creating two such groups in her mind puts her in the latter group anyway.

That is why the parable doesn't have the tax collector pray "Thank you God, that I'm not like the Pharisee", but rather "Have mercy on me God, a sinner".

In the end, there really ARE two groups -- the saved and the lost. But crossing that line comes through faith in Christ, which in itself is a gift from God. Really getting that leaves no room for a man to put himself above another.

A verse came to mind as I was writing this that very much applies -- "I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned." (Romans 12:3)

LORD, kill our pride.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 18

2011-10-15T22:17:00.001-07:00

Abraham's visit is quite interesting, probably on a number of levels. But the level that maks me wonder the most is the LORD'S appearance to Abraham as a man. It's not insane -- after all Jesus came to earth, becoming God in the flesh.

I think what's most strange to me is Abraham's calmness about the whole thing. It seems like he looked up and thought "Oh look, it's the LORD and two angels. Let's make them dinner." This is GOD we're talking about, the creator of the universe who breathed out stars and also knows how many hairs are on your head. And here he comes walking up as a man without an indication of this being just a tad bit odd from Abraham. Though we do know Abraham has encountered the LORD before, so maybe it was in a similar form.

Whatever the case here, I am always reminded of Hebrews 13:2 - "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." The writer of Hebrews almost certainly had to be thinking about this when putting pen to paper.

I am also sometimes reminded of that time when Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah in the New Testament, and Peter says they should put up three shelters. I think Peter gets a bad rap for his comment. Is that really so different than giving the LORD and his angels a meal when they show up? I don't know for sure, but I think we should give the poor guy a break on this one.

"Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans." "Want to make Sarah laugh? Tell her God's plans." How often do we doubt God? Yes we acknowledge that his is sovereign. We sing songs about his power. We tell people that God is in control. But do we really believe it?

I love God's question here: "Is anything too hard for the LORD?" Well, that answer is yes. It's probably too hard for God to make a square circle, a married bacheolor, or a burrito so hot that he couldn't lift it. Nonsense questions, all of them. Aside from such mumbo jumbo, no, there is nothing too hard for the LORD. But do we really believe it? And believe that he's for us and not against us? And believe that all things for for those who love him and are called according to his purpose?

Much of the rest of the account shows Abraham asking God the conditions under which he's going to destroy Sodom. He says that if there are ten righteous people found there, he wouldn't destory it. Reading ahead we know that God did destroy the cities because of their wickedness. So it seems that there were not even ten righteous in the city. "No one is righteous, not one." So if Abraham got God down from 10 to 1 -- I still think the city would have been destroyed.

Well then, some may say. Why doesn't God destroy other cities if no one is righteous? The time for wrath and judgment will come, and it's not pretty. I don't get a lot of that symbolism in Revelation, but I get enough of the descriptions to know I don't want to be an unbeliever going through that kinds of chaos. But, I digress. Back to the question. Jesus answered this in Luke 13 -- "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

Remember, it's not about our performance, it's about the cross and repentance. The performance comes from the change!

French Hookers

2011-10-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

I read this account in a book I borrowed and absolutely love it.

An acquaintance told me about Dr. Francis Schaeffer, a great Christian scholar with whom he was studying in Europe. Dr. Schaeffer decided to take a weekend off to visit Paris with a couple of his students. One night as they strolled the streets of Paris, they saw a prostitute on a street corner. To the student's horror, they watched their mentor walk right up to the woman.

He said, "How much to you charge?"

"Fifty dollars."

He eyed her up and down and said, "Nah, that's too little."

"Oh yeah, for Americans, it's one hundred fifty dollars."

He stepped back again, "That's still too low."

She quickly said, "Uhh, oh yeah, the weekend rate for Americans is five hundred dollars."

"No, that's still too cheap."

By this time she was a little irritated. She said, "What am I worth to you?"

He responded, "Lady, I couldn't possibly pay you what you are worth, but let me tell you about someone who already has."

The two men watched as their mentor -- right then and there -- knelt with her on the sidewalk and led her in a prayer to commit her life to Christ.

That's the end of the story. I don't know what happened to the woman after. Maybe it was just the emotion of the moment that she got caught up in and she's on the streets today. Maybe she's the most zealous Christ follower in her part of the world, letting his light shine through her everywhere she goes.

But that's not really the point. The point of the story for me is not the woman, but how the man saw the woman. As one of Shane Claiborne's college buddies has put it in the past -- Jesus never spoke to a prostitute. What?! That's right. He never spoke to a prostitute because he never saw one -- all he saw was a child who was lost and needed to come home.

Marriage Dots

2011-10-13T22:14:00.001-07:00

I just had some biblical dots connected for me that had previously been sitting around as solitary dots. Poor dots. These particular dots have to deal with marriage. Let's break it down.

First, God creates man and woman in his image. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27) Why two sexes? Why not just one, or three, or six? It seems two is significant, and -- I'll jump ahead a bit here and have it make sense later -- it sets the stage for marriage. "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)

Marriage? Why marriage? Why not whoever you please? There are a lot of practical reasons here, but it seems that promise of faithfulness between spouses has a place also. It was a mystery from the beginning, but it has been revealed in scripture what purpose it served -- to be an earthly picture of a more heavenly relationship. Paul tells us this when he quotes the Genesis 2 verse and writes "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church." (Ephesians 5:32)

Now fast forward a bit, probably a lot actually -- to the return of Christ. He's coming back in power and glory to get his bride, the church. Remember that the church is not a building, nor is it all the people who say they follow Christ but may end up living like the devil. The church is all of those who really put their faith in Christ and have been born again of the Spirit of God, no matter what label they claim. We who make up the church are the bride, and he's the groom coming to take us home, wedding feast at the ready. Check out what John writes about this -- "'Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure' -- for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints." (Revelation 19:7-8)

So what about marriage after that? All those marriages on earth after the groom comes back for his bride? That's where another dot comes in, where the Sadducees where probing Jesus about the Resurrection that they didn't even believe in, and who a certain woman would be married to at that time. Jesus answers pretty clearly -- no one, despite being married to seven dudes while on earth. "And Jesus said to them, "'The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection." (Luke 20:34-36)

Thus, the dots are connected. God in his foreknowledge and wisdom creates two sexes which allows for this temporary institution called marriage, which becomes an earthly picture of a heavenly relationship between Christ and his church. Once the heavenly picture becomes reality, the temporary earthly one is no longer needed, and it goes away.

It is with this understanding that Paul can legitimately write 1 Corinthians 7 where he says that he wishes others remained unmarried as he was, if that was their gift, urges those who are married to live as if they weren't (hold that thought that just popped into your head and keep reading), and talks about the married having divided interests between worldly affairs and the Lord. He's not knocking marriage, just getting that it's only a pointer to something much, much greater. And it is with an amazing amount of joy in Christ and anticipation of his return that Paul urges people on toward single minded devotion to Jesus, our heavenly groom from whom we ultimately get our eternal joy!

Grace and peace friends.

God, I Thank You

2011-10-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to John Piper the past two days and must say that is one solid dude in Christ. I will not be so foolish as to glorify the messenger, so praise God for working through this man to teach the Word clearly to all who turn their ear to him. Much of what I am saying here comes from greater understanding I have because of this message:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/conference-messages/did-jesus-preach-the-gospel-of-evangelicalism

I listened to a teaching of a story Jesus told today that floored me in a sense. It's short, and I've heard it and read it many times -- so much that I've never really slowed down in it enough to check out the details. There are just some things in the Word that are right in front of my nose sometimes that I don't even see. That's probably a sad pointer that I should get into it more and do more of my own studying.

The story is very short, so let me just put it here, from Luke 18:10-14:

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

Whenever I got to this, I thought "Duh, it's against works righteousness. All this crap I do doesn't earn me anything before God. The point is that it's God who does the saving, not our own efforts."

I missed something that is so small and yet so huge. It lies solidly in four words -- "God, I thank you". The Pharisee was NOT a legalist trying earn his own righteousness with his good works -- he thanked God for making him the way he was. Thus, he gave God the credit for the change inside of him. That's not earning anything.

Let me pause and throw in a side story here. The story is one I've heard of a Sunday school teacher who teaches the story and then blows it at the end by saying "Thank you God, that we're not like the Pharisee." The person telling the story says the teacher blew it because she was acting just like the Pharisee. Now I admit I didn't quite get that. I thought she was okay -- after all, if the Pharisee was trying to earn something, then wasn't it right to say "Thank you that we're not like him" -- not to be superior in anyway, but because we understand that salvation is a gift from God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross -- nothing we earn.

I missed it, but I get it now.

The Sunday school teacher and the Pharisee acted in the same manner, not because they trusted in themselves -- neither did. They both gave God credit for making a change in them; however, despite giving God the credit for the change, they both still looked to themselves and their own righteousness for justification -- even though they acknowledged it was God given.

Let me make that more plain, maybe just for myself -- if we look to our own righteousness as a basis for our standing before God, even if we give God the credit for the change he's made in us, we're looking to the wrong thing. We must ALWAYS point to the cross. It is NEVER our own righteousness that counts for anything -- it is Christ's righteousness given to us by grace that counts before God.

I must admit I have been guilty of this very thing. I don't know to what extent, but I know that I've certainly thanked God for changes he's made in me -- taking bad stuff out and putting good stuff in. I don't think it made me look down on the unsaved in the same way the Pharisee did, as I still remember the old life I came from and know how easily I could have been in much dire straits in life on this earth. But I do know that I've looked down on my own brothers and sisters -- jumping to quick judgment on perceived sin in their lives -- focusing on specks in their eyes without seeing the plank in my own. I know I've been critical of members of my spiritual family and failed to show grace in the same way I've been shown grace.

I think this evil in my mind almost certainly was a result of falling into "moral deism" to some extent and looking inward instead of to the cross, always to the cross. I can't say there wasn't good intent behind any of it. I still think there's a lot of "easy believism" without any move toward holiness and honoring God with our very lives, and I still think there's a lot of knowing what God's Word says and then ignoring it. I want such evil in my life less and less, but I don't want the pursuit toward that end to make me ever, ever, EVER forget that when I stand before God, I don't want him to be looking at anything in me, other than Christ and his righteousness that was freely given to me.

Let us never boast "I was a wretch that God saved and made good!" but rather let us boast "I am a wretch that God saved, isn't he good?" Let us never forget that moral transformation is not the root of our good standing before God -- rather it is the fruit of our good standing before God that came about solely by grace through our faith in Christ.

Begotten

2011-10-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of Jesus camps in the world today, and I don't mean the kind you send your kids off to get their brains sufficiently scrubbed with the truth. I'm talking about different beliefs about Jesus' nature and mission on Earth. There's probably about as many beliefs about Jesus as there are pizza topping combinations, but there are some pretty major groups the take the lead.

You've got the "Jesus never existed" camp and the "good moral teacher" camp for those who don't believe Jesus is the savior of the world, and then you have the camps that believe Jesus died for their sins, some of which say Jesus is God and some of which say Jesus is something less than God. It's the latter camps I'm most particularly interested in, but let's address the first two very briefly.

Regarding the "legend" camp, there's more evidence that Jesus existed than any other ancient historical figure. The Bible is incredibly reliable historically, especially the New Testament which talks about Jesus. In other words, if you're willing to believe a bunch of old dead guys existed 2,000 or more years ago, you have no reason to say Jesus didn't.

Regarding the "good moral teacher" camp, you also cannot say reduce Jesus to this based on his recorded life in the Bible. You could say that he was if you didn't believe most of what was written about him in the Bible, which you'd have no basis for believing, but that would be a whole other blog post. Given that the things he did and said are even somewhere in the ballpark, there some pretty bold stuff in there.

Let's just take a look through the book of Matthew only, quickly. He said that he had the authority on earth to forgive sins. He said that anyone who acknowledges him before men, he would acknowledge before God, and that anyone who denied him before men, he would deny before God. He said that no one knows God the Father unless he, the Son, chooses to reveal him. He said that those who left all for his name's sake will inherit eternal life. He said that he's going to come back in glory with the angels and judge the world. He said that he would died and be raised to life again, and told his followers where to meet him. That doesn't sound like something a "good moral teacher" would say. That sounds like something a lunatic or a liar would say -- unless it was true. There is no door open for the good moral teacher argument. You either say that Jesus is Lord or a nut case or a devil. Those are your choices.

Moving on from there, let's go to the camps that say Jesus is, in fact, Lord. How about those that make him out to be something less than God? Let's take a look at a few things.

How about the first part of the gospel of John? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Read on and you'll see that the "Word became flesh". That sounds like God becoming flesh to me. Some will say the Bible is translated wrong here and it should read "the Word was a god" -- nevermind that those who know Greek and have read the ancient text say that's hogwash.

How about the first part of the book of Hebrews, where it was through Jesus the world was created? Not "a" world, but "the" world. Everything. The whole universe. From nothing.

How about in Acts, where it is written "be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood." who's blood? God's blood. Jesus' blood. Same blood.

How about those times people worship Jesus and are not corrected, knowing full well the commandment about worshiping God alone? They are not corrected. Other times people fall down at the feet of angels to worship them, and they are corrected and told to get up.

How about when Thomas says "My Lord and my God!" He's not corrected by Jesus either. Or how about when Paul writes "our God and Savior Jesus Christ?" He does that more than once.

How about Jesus' play on words? "I tell you that before Abraham, I AM." This isn't poor grammar, this is a reference to that whole burning bush thing with Moses, where Moses asks God who to say sent him, and God replies "I AM WHO I AM -- tell them I AM has sent me to you."

How about claiming to forgive sins? He goes around forgiven sins and talking like he's the one offended. Think of it this way -- if someone smacks you in the head, and I tell them "I forgive that," won't you wonder what kind of funny cigarette I've been smoking? I didn't get hit in the head. But that's how Jesus went about -- forgiving sins without checking with the people that might have actually been hurt by people's sins.

How about claiming to die on the cross for the forgiveness of the sins of the world? How could any being less than God himself pay the price for the sins of the whole world? The payment due to an infinite God for sin is infinite. If Jesus is finite, he could not pay it. If Jesus is not finite, then he is infinite, and there is only one who is that.

How about the phrase "Son of God" itself? This isn't some phrase that was taken to be heard as "yeah, we're all sons of God." No, to the Jewish ear 2,000 years ago, that is the equivalent of saying "I'm God." To make it fairly clear, he also said "I and the Father are one." Not one purpose, not one team, not one group. One. Don't believe that's a claim to be God? What was the reaction? "It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God." It's pretty clear that the Jews of the time thought Jesus was claiming to be God.

How about the most famous Bible verse of all time? Let's go to the KJV on this one -- "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Now I'm not a "KJV only" guy, but I think we've lost something in more modern translations with "one and only Son" or "only Son. I get why it was changed -- no one knows what the heck begotten means any more. But look in the lists of families in old Bibles -- "so and so begat so and so who begat so and so and so on!" Begat means you made another one of the same kind. People beget people and dogs beget dogs, and so on. God creates. He created matter, people, animals, plants, and so on. They are not him. But Jesus was not his "created son" -- he was his "begotten son". In other Words, the same "stuff" of God, not anything lower that was created.

So I'll agree, it's true. There is no one place in the Bible Jesus says "I am God." There are a ton, just in case we miss a few of them.

A Streetcar Named...

2011-10-07T22:58:00.000-07:00

As of late I have been listening to a reading of the book "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. I highly recommend it to any thinking person, Christian and non-Christian alike. My only exposure to Lewis before this has been through quotes or snippets, and the movies based on his Narnia books, which I'm sure don't do his written works justice in comparison.

That said, one part of the thought train in his book discusses the impulses we had, and how no impulse on it's own is "good" or "bad", but it is what we do with that impulse that takes on such a characteristic. Now that the statement and following discussion has had a chance to churn around in my brain a bit, I feel the urge to write about it.

Looking back on my life before I was born again by the Spirit of God, or became a new creation, or came to Christ, or whatever phrase you like, I can see the perversion of my impulses, or desires, quite clearly.

Take for example, the desire for sex. A beautiful thing designed for husbands and wives to create children and be a wonderful expression of love for one another. Perverted it became in my own life a desire in my heart for sex with countless women so easily available through the Internet, in solely self gratifying ways that completely betray the natural design and haven't the slightest to do with love.

For another example, take the desire for play. I like to play video games, or should I say more accurately, one video game at a time that I get really into. Fine for a hobby that is in balance with the more important things of life, allowing my brain to shut off for a while. But many times in the past such games consumed my life -- so much so that early on in my marriage I ignored my wife in the real world to battle goblins in a false one.

Or for yet another example, take the desire for bonding with one's children. I absolutely did this when my children were much littler. So much so that they became false idols in my life. I justified it, as men typically do of their actions when they think they are right (and sometimes when they are not), but the fact was there were things in my life that were ignored for the sake of otherwise good intent run amuck.

These are just a few examples from my own life, but you can apply this concept of excess to just about anything.

The desire to work hard is not a bad thing in itself, unless hard work turns into an obsession that trumps family and friends.

The desire to sleep is not a bad thing in itself, unless it makes a person lazy and negligent of his/her responsibilities.

The desire for food is not a bad thing in itself, unless it turns a person into a glutton or a bad steward wasting enormous sums on "fine dining".

The desire for comfort is not a bad thing in itself, unless it blocks a person's ability to be a comforter to others.

The desire for freedom is not a bad thing in itself, unless the fight for freedom is what enslaves a person.

The desire for protection is not a bad thing in itself, unless it makes a person too fearful to step out into new territory to help a fellow soul.

The desire for approval is not a bad thing in itself, unless it turns a person into a mere people pleaser, vain and shallow.

The desire for long life is not a bad thing in itself, unless long life becomes the end goal instead of a gift to be used in service to God and others.

Need I go on? I think not! The point is clear -- our desires are things to be directed and measured out with thought, not released without rhyme or reason so that we run from one to the other, trying to fill with something else a hole that only God can fill.

And that brings me to a desire I have not yet mentioned. There are many, but I speak of one specifically. That is a desire for God, and God IS the end goal, not a means to something else. When we seek fulfillment through any other desire, we don't find it, because only God can give us fulfillment. When we seek fulfillment through a desire for God, we will find it, because he is what can fill the hole inside of us that we may not even realize is there.

Mind you, I did not say a desire for God "stuff" -- I said a desire for God himself. We can exhaust ourselves forcing the study of his Word, volunteering at church, witnessing to people, teaching here, giving there, and so on. Forcing work "for God" I think is a sign of a wrong approach and a wrong desire. Maybe we secretly, even unknowingly, desire the self-satisfaction of meeting our own moral standard. Or maybe it is the approval of others. Or maybe it is because we think it is our "Christian duty". I stand guilty of all of these, hands down. But I know in my mind, and I hope and pray that it makes it to my heart and sticks, that the only desire I should encourage unchecked growth of is the desire for God himself.

Praise God for Jesus Christ, the one who saves us from our sins and thus ourselves when we put our faith in him. It is he that opens the way for the Spirit of God to come live in us and rekindle a desire for God that would otherwise lay dormant and be trampled on by our own self indulgence.

Who Is This Man?

2011-10-06T12:19:00.001-07:00

I love this part from C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity":

Then comes the real shock. Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world Who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to. I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins. Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you. But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men's toes and stealing other men's money? Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct. Yet this is what Jesus did.

He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences. This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose love is wounded in every sin. In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history.

Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is "humble and meek" and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Christians Are Hypocrites

2011-10-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

That's what is heard a lot from people who aren't Christians. If you're not a Christian and think Christians are hypocrites, then let me say this:

I agree with you. Absolutely we're hypocrites.

And now, so as to not accuse my own brothers and sisters, I will discuss how this applies to me. But first let me delve a little bit into two standards.

Now I've said, correctly, for quite some time that no one lives up to God's standards. The Bible says "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" and that is absolutely true. There is no way we as mere human beings can live up to the perfect standards of a perfect and holy God. And it was from that position I would say "See that's why we need Jesus Christ -- he solves the problem. He paid the price for our sins so that we don't have to, nor could we if we tried. That is why he is the way, and the only way."

I don't disagree with any of that. In fact, it's even more obvious now that I know Christ and have commands like "love God with all your heart", "love your neighbor as yourself", "be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect" and "do everything for the glory of God". Yeah. Ain't gonna happen. So now that I have come to know the one who saves me from my sins, I see even more so what a sinner I am, as there is no way I can live up to those commands.

But what I'm noticing more and more lately (thank you Prayer Dare) that I don't even live up to my own standards -- not just in the past, but day to day, even with some knowledge of God's Word, connection to God in prayer, his Spirit in me leading me and prompting me, and so on. I was a sinner saved by grace and I'm still a sinner saved by grace. Praise God for grace, and mercy!

Let me throw out some examples:

- It bugs me when someone rattles off a bunch of cuss words in a sentence. But when I'm alone playing Halo (which in itself doesn't glorify God no matter what stupid argument I could come up with to say that it does), I'm no different. You !@#$, that was my rocket launcher!

- It irritates me when someone cuts me off one the freeway, especially without the courtesy wave. I would never do that. Except for when I really need to get over or I'm way behind.

- I tell people in circumstances far less rosy than mine not to worry. After all, Jesus said not to worry. And then when some little thing goes wrong in my perfect little Disneyland world, guess what I do? You'll only need one.

- I have that Bible verse in my office about working hard -- "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men". It's still sitting there above me head when I'm posting something on Facebook or distracted by a Francis Chan video on Youtube. I'm not sure my rationalization about being Mary instead of Martha flies here.

- I put Bible references in my posts that may be there for good reason, or may be there to sound all smart and spiritual. I'm not quite sure, but I do know I don't study the Word for myself a whole lot, and I do know that I just had to look up when name was which for the previous comment.

- I say that the Bible says not to judge incorrectly, and then I turn around and judge incorrectly -- with the top ways being judging with incomplete information, judging by appearance, and, of course, judging hypocritically.

- I sometimes make comments about how girls should dress more modestly, especially when they're coming into church on Sunday morning -- but I tend to (read: always) leave off that part about the motive for saying it being because I am weak and prone to lust.

- I get on my wife's case sometimes about what she spends time and money on, and what she puts into her head from TV. I'm right of course, because all those things I waste time and money on, and the different crap I put into my head is much more holy, right?

- I caution against making checklists and evaluating one's goodness based on performance, and then I end up making checklists and "testing myself" by seeing how many boxes on my "Christian life list" I have checked off.

- I try to force in additional spiritual training with my kids to get one of the above boxes checked off and end up getting frustrated and feeling worse about my own standing with God when it doesn't go right because I crammed it in out of my own effort. That doesn't sound like living by a gospel of grace.

Is that enough? I could keep thinking and going on, but, man, I suck. So yeah, this Christian is a hypocrite.

And guess what? That's pretty much the whole point. It's one of the MANY reasons I needed, need, and will forever need, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

Christian, faith in Christ is not a one shot deal. You need him every day. Your sanctification is a lifelong process. Keep searching yourself and asking God to show you what's broken and in need of fixing. Trust me, there's a lot. If you ever think you've arrived, you're either an outright liar, or you're just not wanting to see what's in front of you.

Non-Christian, I'm sorry if you've been turned off to Christianity because of the behavior of any Christian people, rather than the Christian message itself. But please see that such behavior is just further evidence of why we ALL need Jesus Christ.

'Nuff said!

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 17

2011-10-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

Remember Abram and Sarai's attempt at fulfilling God's promise on their own? It was thirteen years from that time until God started fulfilling his promise HIS way. "Waiting on the LORD" is something good that we all need to learn how to do better -- especially in rush rush instant gratification western culture, where we want everything now now now. God will do things his way in his own time. I wonder how many doubted the promise of God to send a savior, until Jesus showed up on the scene to pay the price for our sins on the cross.

I wonder how many more doubt still the promise of his return where he will judge the world. After all, it's been almost two thousand years. Instead of doubting God, one is wise to remember the words of his servant, who wrote "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) Think on that for a minute -- if you are follower of Christ, why wouldn't you want him to come back? It would be the best news ever! Unless there was someone you loved who didn't believe in him. There, for their sake, you would ask the Lord Jesus to delay just a while longer, wouldn't you? God patiently waited for me to come to repentance, and I'm eternally grateful for it. If you reader are on the fence about Jesus Christ, don't delay! God will wait, but he won't wait forever -- if you feel that push on your heart to turn toward Jesus, do it now -- today is the day of salvation!

Okay, moving on -- verse 3. Abram fell on his face. I'm pretty sure that's what I'd do too. I know people who have said "when I get to heaven, I'm going to tell God ", thinking they're so much wiser than God that they can give him consuel. I've also heard people say, and have said myself, "when I get to heaven, I'm going to ask God ". Well, there's no arrogance there, but I still don't believe it's going to happen. Think about it, this is the creator of the universe -- a God of all kinds of crazy power and might. Isaiah saw a vision of him and was completely undone. Paul saw a vision of heaven and had no words to describe it. That's how we'll be before this holy and sovereign being that is so far beyond us, no questions asked -- absolutely floored.

Time for a name change -- Abram is now Abraham. I looked up Abraham on Wikipedia, a less than brilliant idea on my part. The biblical text pretty much says Abraham means "father of a multitude of nations" but scholars don't accept this. We're talking about God's Word here, not Pat the Bunny or Hop on Pop -- if the Bible says "A" means "B" then I'll wager that "A" means "B?!

I don't get the whole circumcision thing. I mean I get the idea of having some sign that sets you apart and the whole argument later in the New Testament about it meaning nothing without the proper heart change -- the same way baptism means nothing if you haven't been transformed by Jesus Christ. I just don't get why this particular sign was used. I'm not going to dwell on that too much -- when we start asking "Why did God..." we are headed for trouble. We can make some sane guesses about why God did some things, but the fact is, unless his Word explicitly tells us, we don't know the "why", and that's okay. I don't know why God made stinkbugs, but he did, and I'm okay with not knowing why.

There's something pretty sketchy here -- buying people with money. At this point I'd like to take one of those big old school Bibles and whack everyone in the head who used Bible passages like this to support slavery in America. From what I understand, "slavery" in the time of Christ was more like an employer/employee relationship. I'm not sure about during Abraham's time though -- but really, it doesn't matter. It seems that throughout history God puts up with all kinds of cultural crap (such as polygamy) without giving it the thumbs up. Remember when Jesus' disciples asked about the sin that caused the guy born blind? The two reasons they asked about came from two different beliefs in the culture at the time, and Jesus pretty much ignored both of them and just told it like it is.

It doesn't seem like a good idea to laugh at God. But really, how often do we hear him speak to us and shrug it off or ignore it? Probably a lot more than we want to admit.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 15 And 16

2011-10-01T23:23:00.000-07:00

Stop after verse 6. Look at just what happened. God told Abram something that seemed impossible to him, yet Abram believed God. I have heard it said that faith is "believing God despite the evidence and then watching the evidence change." That's exactly what happened with Abraham, isn't it? The initial promise of an heir was given, and Abraham had numerous descendants. Check out Galatians 3:29 which says "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise."

There's a whole lot of future telling that God does with Abraham next. I never paid a whole lot of attention to it before, but he pretty much tells Abram -- "Your descendants are going to be slaves, then I'm going to judge the nation they're in, bring them out, and give them a bunch of stuff. Then I'm going to have them come back here and wipe out the people that live around here because they're wicked too -- and after 400 years, they're still going to be wicked. But you, you're going to die in peace." That's a whole lot to lay on a guy who's really old wife isn't pregnant yet with a promised heir.

I'm not a geography wizard, but I do recall hearing that not all the land God promised to Abraham's descendants was taken by the Israelites. There's a whole lot of failing to trust God in that I think. think of it this way -- if you're a baseball player and God promised you 3 home runs in the game, and all you do at bat is try to bunt, those home runs probably aren't going to happen. Why should they? You would have obviously not believed God's promises in the first place.

That said, there are some promises God obviously did not allow to be hindered by man's own stubborn and unbelieving heart -- all that stuff leading up to a savior who would take away the sins of the world especially!

On the topic of doubting God's promises, Sarai didn't seem to believe God's promises too well in chapter 16. She's thinking "Well, this child by me thing isn't working...hey Abe, go sleep with my servant." So what was going on in Abraham's head? Was he also not believing God's promises, or was he thinking with his lower brain more than his upper one in this case? Given my sins of the past and my weakness, I could get the whole "Hey my wife told me to go bonk the servant girl, and she had a good reason!" rationalization here. I'm not saying it wasn't sin, just saying I get how he could fall into it pretty easily.

Like how that whole plan backfires? "Hey that girl you slept with doesn't like me now!" "She's yours, deal with it." And then whatever Sarai does makes her run away. Broken relationships and tension lay all over the place here. That's pretty much what happens when we go off and do things our own way instead of God's way -- we break a bunch of stuff.

And what does God to in the middle of the mess? He steps in to get it worked out like a dad steps in between his fighting children to get things right again. He shows grace and mercy in spades here, restoring the relationships that got jacked up.

Weird Thankfulness

2011-09-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty thankful for my blatantly sinful past, and I'm pretty thankful for the "good life" I had (by the world's standards) when I was rescued by Jesus Christ. I know that sounds weird. That's probably because I'm a little weird. But allow me to explain.

I'm thankful for my blatantly sinful past, because it allows for a grand marker to be placed right in the middle of my life. If you drew my life out on a timeline, the first part would be labelled the hell bound old man and the second part would be labelled the heaven bound new man. I do not remember the date I cried out to Jesus Christ to save me, but I remember the day. I remember that before that day that I wanted to just fill my life with more pornography (the kind that makes Playboy look like the Conservative Amish Dress Catalog) and Mario Kart (5 hours a day at times) and was proud of all the time and money I was able to waste on absolutely nothing. I remember that after that day I wanted to just know about God more and more, and then I wanted to serve God more and more, and I'm in the spot where I want to know God more and more. I can without a doubt say that I was born again of the Spirit of God and am a new creation.

What could my life have looked like if I had been going to church since I was much younger? I might learn "moral deism" -- I'd know all the "right stuff" and stay away from the "bad stuff" and think I'm saved. I would learn how to speak "Christianese" and do the "Christian church stuff" and think I'm so awesome. How terrible! I would then unwittingly put salvation in my own hands and crap on the cross of Christ. I'm not saying that happens to everyone, but it happens to a lot of people -- people who may have good doctrine, may look like they live moral lives, may memorize a ton of scripture, may go to the Bible study, and so on -- but have no clue about the amazing grace of the gospel. I pass no judgment on the poor man or woman in this situation -- I say it so that you may check yourself and see if that's you. If it is, get out and run straight for the cross! The truth is, we're all a mess, even if we don't see it.

I'm also thankful for the "good life" I had (by the world's standards), because it took away my excuse for turning away when things "got better". Let's say I was in serious debt, or had lost my job, or my kid died, or some other terrible thing happened to me that I needed God to help me with. Say he did and I threw up a "yay God!" I might follow God for a while, sort of, doing the "Christianese" thing, and then fall away. Why? Because I might care more about the temporal gift than the eternal gift. I'd be happy God saved me from my debt, or got me a job, or eased my pain -- but I'd fail to realize what I really needed him to save me from was my sin. The fact that I had it "good" by the world's standards left no opportunity for that -- Jesus came in and ripped me away from sin and from sin alone.

Don't get me wrong on these. God works in amazing and different ways in everyone's life. Someone else could easily be in my "what if" and come out just fine in Christ, with their own marker standing on something I have just put to the side. Praise God for that! Being able to look at my incredible brokenness and lack of worldly need work well for me to mark the time of my transformation -- your story may be very different.

Connected

2011-09-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

I've said before what an awesome thing it is to have the ear of God who created the universe. But you know how things go sometimes. Sometimes you start to doubt yourself or doubt God. Sometimes you're not sure if you're being led by the Spirit or just making something up in your head. Sometimes you're not sure that you believe some of the things you say.

So check this out.

Last week I got this push from the Spirit to give the "I Dare You To Pray This" post I printed out to this woman at work. I thought that was kind of weird and tried to ignore it. Not really a good idea. I said to God, "Look, that seems weird; I don't have a Bible with my story like I like to give out and so on." Trying to get off the hook you see. "Go get one out of your office." Oh bother.

Turns out I did have one Bible left sitting in my office. So I brought the Bible, my printed out story, and the "Dare Prayer" to this woman and shared a little bit with her, stumbling and bumbling through it per usual. I found it difficult to talk to girls in high school and not much has changed. She thought that was nice and thanked me and I left for home.

On the way home, something I listened to the man Francis Chan talking about -- related to what I said up at the top -- just how awesome it was to see answered prayers, and not just pie in the sky could be anything answered prayers, but specific answers to specific prayers. With that going in my head, and some doubts running around as well, I went to God. I said something like "If this is really from you, would you please show me something real out of it? Just give me something from this woman that it wasn't all in my head."

Fast forward to the next day. When I walked into her building she told me that she hadn't read the Bible for some time and she started reading it again and that it was very nice of me to share that with her. I thought "Thanks, God, you did it!" I went home and bragged about my God to Jamie, as if she didn't get already what takes me a good thwomping in the head.

I thought that was it and was happy with the answer. I didn't ask for much, but I did ask for something specific.

Now fast forward to this morning. I walked into her building again. You know what she told me? One of her friends passed away over the weekend, and that the reading in the Bible she had been doing prepared her for it, as she never lost someone close and young like that before. And not only that. She told me that she wanted to share that with me to confirm that what I felt was real and that it was the right thing to do.

Holy Spirit, Batman. Don't you tell me my God isn't real or doesn't speak to me or doesn't listen to me. I'll take the ever increasing pile of evidence in my own life over whatever you've got.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 12 Through 14

2011-09-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

Abram, later Abraham, great man of faith in God. What's the first thing recorded that God said to him? "Go." He didn't even tell Abram where to go, he just said to "a land that I will show you." How often do we want God's plan laid out before us? And how often is that totally not God's way?

Close to my temporary home here we've got the earthly birthplaces of Calvary Chapel and Cornerstone church. You think God showed Chuck Smith or Francis Chan the whole plan up front? Ask them. The answer is a resounding no. Great works of God don't start with some well thought out plan and system to make it happen, but godly men and women following the prompting of Spirit and stepping out in faith. Our command is not "know", but "go."

Next verse. Look at why God says he blesses Abram -- so that he will be a blessing. When we think "there's no harm in enjoying the blessings of God," we're right -- unless. Unless our enjoyment of God's blessings becomes a hindrance, something that comes between us and him. Remember how Jesus said things like "What's greater, the gold on the temple or the temple that makes the gold sacred?" So what's greater? The blessings of God or God who gives them? The more we think the former, the more we hoard and keep for ourselves, building up our own little kingdoms. The more we think the latter, the more we give and share with others, building up God's universal kingdom.

God told Abram that through him all the families of the earth shall be blessed. I just noticed something I never paid attention to before -- the inclusion of the word families. I get that. I am definitely blessed myself through Abram, for through his line came my savior Jesus Christ. But my wife and children are also blessed, through their own faith in Christ, but also through mine -- as much of the crap in my sinful past that beat down my wife and kept the light of God from my kids is gone. Sure I'm a huge work in progress still, but I'm going in the right direction. Likewise, I am also blessed through my wife's own faith and shared purpose, as she encourages me, inspires me, and is used to show me my own sinful failings and directions for improvement. The way I see it when God saves an adult in the family, either the family is going to get fairly screwed up and possibly split apart, or the family as a whole is going to move closer to Christ. Maybe that's not true, but it sure seems like it, especially in light of verses like "believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your whole household." The salvation of one person in the family doesn't mean the others are automatically saved, but it sure provides a good opportunity for the others to have the light of Christ and turn to him.

I like how when Abram gets to his promised land, there are people in it. How often do we expect God's plan to be completely free of obstacles? What a great opportunity to exercise more faith in God! What? You raise an eyebrow and that and don't believe it? If that's the case, I know why. It's because you're like me. When I run into this sort of thing, I typically I cry out to God, complain to God, argue with God, counsel God, reason with God, and so on, rather than just trust God.

Do you like how Abram lies? I do. This great hall-of-faither fails to trust that God has his back and comes up with his own plan. I love it. I love it because it encourages me. If Abram had this lack of trust at times, yet is spoken of so well in the Word, it gives me some peace -- as Abram, like Elijah, was a man just like me.

Refer to what I said about about God's blessings and then look at Abram and Lot. These two had a lot of material blessings from God -- they had so much stuff they had to split up. Look at what we can see of Abram and Lot's hearts -- Abram gave up the decision to Lot because he didn't want there to be any trouble, but Lot went in the direction that would give him best land and opportunity for profit for himself.

Let's also be careful when we look to biblical heroes like Abram and use them to justify statements like "God wants me to be rich." Balance the riches God gave to people with Jesus' words "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!" There's nothing wrong with riches, unless. And we have a very, very, difficult time seeing that we're in the "unless" side of it.

Remember that Lot's greedy decision brought him closer to the sinful city of Sodom, even though he himself did not engage in the wicked practices of the city. Even so, when the battle came, he was swept away with the rest. Let that be a lesson to us about flirting with sin -- if we try to get so close to it, yet not do it, we're just going to get taken away by it also. So often we try to draw this line in the sand and ask "how close can I get to the line and still be good with God" when the right attitude we should have is found in our hero Joseph, who ran away from sin.

Melchizedek popping into the picture is a bit interesting. There's some speculation about Melchizedek, but a big take away from this I think is that Abram and his family were not the only people worshiping the LORD at this time in history. What we have recorded in the Bible is the path from Adam to Christ; details of other believers frankly are not relevant for telling that story. In the same way, in the New Testament, we have some accounts of the gospel spreading like wildfire through parts of the ancient world -- but those accounts are only a sliver of the big picture of the spread of the gospel. I think that indicates an important question to ask might be "why these particular accounts?"

I love how Abram rejects the king of Sodom's offer to take some of the spoils -- so that there is no way anyone else could say Abram's success was their doing. It reminds me of the story of Gideon, where God helped Gideon to win a battle with so few men that the victory could only come from God. It's the same thing all throughout the Bible -- God using weak and ordinary people to do crazy things that the people could in no way do own their own. It may be a bit cliche by now, but "God doesn't call the equipped, but rather he equips the called" still applies!

Grace and peace friends.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 10 And 11

2011-09-22T22:32:00.001-07:00

That's a lot of sons. Gomer sticks out, but only because of that "Well surprise surprise surprise!" guy. Tarshish sticks out because of where Jonah ran off too. Cush, Egypt, and Canaan stand out because of the same named land areas. Havilah sticks out because of some bars we sold in the Jewish style deli. Nimrod sticks out, but the connotation I am used to doesn't mean "mighty man". :-)

I never really noticed 10:5 before -- "From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations." The part that got me was "each with his own language", and it got me because of the account in chapter 11 where God confused the language and disperses the people. At first it seems to be conflicting and out of place, but that's because I incorrectly expect the Bible to read chronologically as I go through. Much of chapter 10 and 11 are in parallel, talking about the same time period. We have a more general account of the people and division in 10, and then we zoom into God's hand in it and the line leading to Abraham in 11.

I think that's pretty cool that God's sovereignty in dividing the people and the path to Abram are grouped together. That probably means something more significant than I get.

"In his days the earth was divided" (10:25) also sticks out. If you go with the whole Pangaea theory, then this could refer to the time there was some massive continental movement. That's bringing extra stuff back into the text though; really, I just don't know. I don't think we can be sure on what that means, but that's okay.

Since my first reading of it after being pulled in and flipped around by Jesus Christ, the account of the Tower of Babel was, and still is, the weirdest part of the Bible for me. It's surely no coincidence that it is one of the stories my dear brother I turned to with questions mentioned this one off the cuff when I was a baby Christian like it was nothing strange at all. And that's absolutely true -- God working in miraculous ways is not strange or abnormal -- it is the norm of the day, and, really, everything is a miracle. It just strikes me as odd anyway, much more so than pillars of salt or fire, big fish, floating axe heads, talking animals, and so on. It's God's creation; he can operate in and on it however he wants!

I had to look up some commentary for 11:6 because I just didn't get it. But then again I wasn't paying attention to the context (a common, but bad, mistake). The people have just had a taste of the product of pride and ambition, and they liked it -- thus preparing them for all kinds of crazy selfish sin. God in his wisdom and mercy stepped in to save people from themselves, as he so often does -- like in my own life!

And now we're caught up to the father of many!

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 9

2011-09-22T00:17:00.001-07:00

There's that whole "fruitful and multiply" thing again, just like before.

But now we have something new -- there's no happy relationship between man and animal any longer. The fear of man is now in them, which goes along with the other new thing -- man is now permitted to eat the animals, but not their blood. I've heard it put this way -- "why bother with finer commands like 'don't eat the animals' when man is still having trouble with weightier moral concepts like 'don't murder each other'". I don't find direct support for that, but it's an interesting thought.

I think it's interesting that God does not permit the eating of animals with the blood still in them. I take that to mean "don't eat them raw" though I suppose you could still drain the blood out and not cook the meat. I don't know why the command was given. Raw meat really could cause a person some internal trouble, so perhaps there is a dietary motive behind it from a compassionate God who knows that people don't know a thing about bacteria and other really small things yet.

The next part is one of the places people jump to when drumming up support for the death penalty -- "whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." One could spin this a couple of ways, but the straightforward reading to me seems that we're talking about justice here -- though it also seems to me that God is more saying how it is going to be rather than issuing a hard command. I.e. "Because you are made in my image, you have this sense of justice inside, and will therefore dole out punishments that fit the crime." I could be off the mark, but it seems reasonable.

God's promise that the earth will not be destroyed by flood makes me at ease about the polar ice caps melting. Not really, that was just a bad joke. :-) It however seems to say something about God when he makes a promise with "all flesh" -- not just man, but every living creature. God does care about his creation.

The whole "Ham saw his dad naked" thing puzzles me. There's a lot of theories, but if I just start with what I read and try to draw solid conclusions from that, I come up a fair bit short. Ham did something he shouldn't have and Noah cursed his kid for it. I started to read some detailed commentary on this, and my head hurt. But I did notice this -- the Bible doesn't say that God cursed anybody here, only that Noah did. Could it be possible that we read too much into the account, and what we have here is a drunk guy waking up and getting ticked off at his kid for doing something stupid or outright sinful? I don't know, but it seems there is an awful lot of speculation around these parts in scripture.

Really I think God just puts up with a lot of our silly ideas (including my own) and just lets them be as he works on more important things in our lives. Just flip ahead and look at the way Jesus speaks to various groups, including his own disciples and the religious leaders -- the way they ask some things speaks to "weird" ideas about God, and Jesus just kind of glosses over it and tells it like it is9

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 8

2011-09-20T23:51:00.003-07:00

"God remembered Noah" seems to be more of that human language barrier thing going on. Since God made Noah, I'm pretty sure he didn't forget him.

And of course there is some barrier, look at the power of God again. He made a wind to blow on the earth to dry up all this water. "Okay, wind, so what?" No no no. He MADE WIND to blow on the earth that HE MADE -- the earth that sits in a pile of billions of stars in a universe that HE MADE. What's the best we can do? Make a wind to blow out our birthday candles or to clear the room after we eat beans? And the only reason we can do that? God allows it, because he is sovereign and in control. That's crazy, but that's God. We often make him seem smaller than he is, but we could never make him seem bigger than he is.

Did you get the location of the ark? Ready to search for it? Have fun, send me a post card. It's probably best we don't find it. As a friend and brother guesses, a bunch of people would probably start worshiping it.

I'm sure there is some significance to sending out the raven before the dove. I don't know what it is.

I don't know the origins (maybe here!) but I recall the olive branch being a symbol of peace. Is this an indicating that Noah now has peace with God through the symbolic new birth he had? Maybe.

This isn't the first time I've read the phrase "be fruitful and multiply". I've only thought of it as "go, have a bunch of kids and fill up the place". I'm not saying here it means anything more, but it does remind me of a story Jesus told -- this dude gives three servants 10 talents, 5 talents, and 1 talents. The first two multiply their money and are rewarded. The last doesn't do anything worthwhile and is punished. What did Jesus say? "By your fruits you will know them". What are we supposed to do as God's children? Be fruitful and multiply, making more of God's children -- i.e., disciples of all nations.

More offerings to the LORD. It seems from early on, in many other cultures as well, this notion of sacrifice was prevalent. It's like it's wired in us or something!

"The intention of man's heart is evil from his youth" -- a very early statement of our big problem, our own sinful nature that we're born with. We're not sinners because we sin; we sin because we're sinners.

I don't remember ever noticing the last verse before today. I think we gloss over it a lot.

I Dare You

2011-09-15T21:36:00.001-07:00

I dare you to pray one or more of these. If you take the dare, it should probably be ended with "Please help me to really mean what I just said." I know I have to do that quite often. Lips are cheap, but hearts are priceless.

1) Take away ANYTHING in my life that is keeping me from growing closer to you and experiencing the full joy I could be in our relationship.

2) Show me the sin in my life and do WHATEVER IT TAKES to remove it.

3) Always keep me humble before you, NO MATTER WHAT.

4) If it brings you greater glory with it than without it, BRING SUFFERING into my life.

5) Help me to always both boldly speak the truth, and speak it in love, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.

6) Give me the desire to go ANYWHERE you want, ANYTIME you want, to do ANYTHING you want.

7) Help me to be more and more like Jesus, AT ANY COST.

8) Help me to ALWAYS be a witness for you, NO MATTER WHAT PEOPLE THINK.

9) Help me to see the world through your eyes, NO MATTER HOW IT CHANGES ME.

10) Help me to love ALL people like you love them, NO MATTER WHAT THEY'VE DONE.

For the record, I have foolishly been too chicken (read selfish and sinful, among other things) to pray these as written. It's pretty easy to figure out which words I change or omit. Yet, I know in my mind that this is the kind of attitude we should have, and it is the one that brings God the most glory and us the most joy.

Grace and peace brothers, sisters, and friends.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 7

2011-09-14T23:33:00.001-07:00

I find it interesting to see a distinction between clean and unclean animals already. I wonder if God had already made that distinction to Noah, or if he listed them off by name -- and then when Moses penned Genesis, he substituted "clean and unclean" because he knew what groups they were in. The answer doesn't really matter, but I thought it was curious.

Seven pairs of clean animals is interesting, as seven typically stands for perfection or completeness.

And speaking of numbers, now we have seven days until 40 days/nights of rain, where 40 typically stands for judgment. So, God's perfect judgment?

You know how a lot of people in ancient times (and some today, less legally) had multiple wives? Got sure permits a lot, even though Jesus seemed to make it clear from the beginning the design was one man, one wife (see Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5). Look at Noah's family -- Noah and his wife, 3 sons, and 3 wives. Righteous Noah's family was following the design. In fact, now that I think about it more, those multiple wife situation I read about just seem to cause trouble. Perhaps God's design is better, and in more areas than this one?

Related to the last comment, even the animals were paired up evenly, one male, and one female. :-)

Hey, wait a minute! What about the fish? My kids gave me the "duh" look -- in the water. But then you get people moaning that the salt water fish can't survive in the fresh water and vice versa. Okay, but we're really supposed to know what the world looked like back then in the first place? And if we did, wouldn't there be less salt in the ocean water anyway? And even if they got mixed up, would all the fish die? No. I put salty water in my fresh water fish tank on accident, and I've still got fish in it. Not as many as before I did that, but there were survivors and they were fine!

Think the flood was local? "...all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered." That sounds world wide to me. The "Answers in Genesis" folks wrote about more evidence than I care to read about. The main point -- just read what God's Word says and don't try to get too clever with your own twists. Being born again of the Spirit of God first help with that whole illumination thing.

And, the most important thing I think there is to take out of the chapter -- God provides a way for his people to be saved from judgment. Remember in chapter 6 that "Noah walked with God". Noah's family wasn't "good people". Rather, they were "God people".

Now, did Noah get saved because of his own efforts? No, God provided the means. Does that mean Noah could sit on his butt and be lazy? No! He still had to do what God said, or perish. That's not salvation by works, that's evidence of faith. Well then, could Noah boast about the ark project later? No! Who do you think was in his heart and mind, keeping him on task for all those years? Tinkerbell? Or should we look ahead to Philippians 2:13, which says "for it is God who works in you to will and act according to his good purpose." All credit and glory to God!

Think about the alternative here, if Noah was one of those Sunday-only walk-with-Godders. A century passes. "Noah, where's the ark?" "Uh, I don't have one. But I memorized what you told me to do. And then my family did a 5 week study with the neighbors about what it would look like to build the ark. And then I learned how to repeat your instructions in Greek." "Okay Noah, but you, your family, and all those animals aren't going to fit into that big head of yours..."

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 5 And 6

2011-09-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

Genesis 5

I was looking forward to this chapter, only because something hit me when I listened to it (at BibleGateway.com, very cool). There's something about hearing the Word as well as reading it. From what I understand, some of the text in the Bible was written with the intent of being read aloud to an audience.

Read it aloud. What do you keep hearing? "Blah blah blah, and he died." "And he died." "And he died." Over and over again, a bunch of people living for some number of years and then dying now that sin and death have been brought into the world.

But look! "Enoch walked with God" and no "he died". That's weird. And it's repeated. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." I've heard this taught as a foreshadowing of the rapture. Maybe, maybe not. What I see here is that if you "walk with God", you don't die.

Genesis 6

I really don't get the "sons of God" versus "daughters of man" part. I looked it up. There's a lot of speculation. I had my own theory based on sonship in the Bible dealing with inheritance. So men following God marrying women who did not, Samson style? Maybe that's a stretch. We'll just put it on the "ask God in heaven" list; of course as soon as we take our first breath in the presence of God, we'll not care about that silly list.

When I first read the Bible I thought the 120 years referred to what the post-flood lifespan of man, but after some re-reading (and math) it became clear that it referred to the amount of time until the flood. Imagine, Noah building a huge boat over 120 period when there wasn't any rain. Talk about trusting the LORD among a bunch of ridicule. Noah rocks!

Verse 4 goes on "the list" too.

When you believe God to be omniscient (which I do), verses that say things like "The LORD saw that" and "the LORD was sorry" seem strange, because you think "Huh, you're God! You knew what would happen!" But when we run into things like that, we have to remember that the Bible is God's truth communicated through human authors. Really, if you were given the task of writing down the story of an infinite God as a finite person with an inadequate language, what words would you use?

There's that "walked with God" phrase again with Noah. Yeah he dies later, but he escapes the flood, God's judgment on the world a that time, and a symbol of God's final judgment to come. Walking with God seems to still be a good thing. :-)

What does that "walking with God" phrase bring to your mind anyway? It reminds me of that "footprints" story where Jesus (or does it say the LORD?) carries the dude during the storms of his life. To me it implies a solid relationship and a deep connection with each other. Like the line goes, "no religion, just a relationship".

Bottom line about the ark: it was big, and the animals and their food could fit. I'm sure the "Answers in Genesis" people have some analysis on their website if you're not convinced.

There are no unicorns today because Noah didn't listen to God and ate them on the ark. No. He "did all that God commanded him". How much better is that than what we do? Don't we often do some of what God commands us, but not all of it? Egregious enough and we get whapped in the head with the rolled up newspaper of conviction.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 4

2011-09-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

I like how Eve still gives the LORD praise for her son even after that whole garden incident.

It doesn't seem totally clear why the LORD didn't like Cain's offering but liked Abel's based on the text I read. It's almost certainly a heart issue, which is all over the Bible. The way my kids and I talk about is that "God wants your best". No leftover crap. I have to be really careful about that in my own life and put God first, not on the back burner. I'm sure I screw that up a lot more than I think.

See how God warned Cain first? He does that so often with us before we stubbornly choose to sin anyway. Then we get convicted and cry out to God. We don't even need an "I told you so. Listen next time, smart guy." We have to be vigilant. Sin just wants to devour us whole, and once it gets its claws into us, it's trouble.

The answer to Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" is "Yes, you are." Romans 14:21 says "It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble." Paul was very willing to deny himself freedoms he had for the sake of his brothers.

Trinity pointed this one out to me. She's a smart cookie. God showed mercy to Cain by putting a mark on him instead of outright killing him or allowing others to kill him. I never thought about that before. I need to stop more often and think about what certain actions show about the character of God. He certainly is merciful and gracious, both of which are shown in spades through Jesus Christ!

But notice what happened with Cain. He "went away from the presence of the LORD." That's exactly what sin does, separates us from God, and that's a terrible thing.

This is a fun one people ask sometimes: "So where did Cain's wife come from?" Well it seems pretty obvious that if you start with two people, you have some brother/sister relationships going on, or God started by creating more than two people. I don't really see the second one in anything I've read, so we'll assume the first.

The end is cool, I forgot about it -- "at that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD." I don't know any more than what those words say, but it definitely reminds me that we have this innate desire to worship and fill our lives with something greater. We all worship and fill up our lives with something -- who or what that something is fairly important. If its not the one true God, it's a false one!

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 3

2011-09-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

Man, look at what the serpent, the evil one, Satan, whatever name you want to use, does here -- he starts by twisting God's words and then calls God a liar. He uses the same old, yet effective, tricks when he tempts Jesus in the desert. He succeeded with the first people, bringing sin and death into the world. He failed with Jesus Christ, the one who conquered sin and death once and for all.

He's also not a complete liar when he calls God one. After all, after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they knew good from evil. And they didn't die either, at least not physically, right away. But that's how sin is, isn't it? It doesn't look horrible and nasty most of the time. It looks pleasant and pleasurable. It might even look good or holy -- a shiny facade surrounding death and decay.

I noticed that Eve's eyes were not opened until after they both ate. It's interesting to think of what it would be if that was not the case -- what if Eve's eyes were immediately opened? There would be two possible outcomes as far as I see. The first is that she would knowingly drag Adam down into sin with her, which is quite a common effect of sin, isn't it? To quote a character in a film I wouldn't recommend watching -- "when you dance with the devil, the devil don't change -- the devil changes you." The second is that she would see the terrible thing that she did and try to prevent her husband from following, at all costs. I'm not sure how that second scenario would pan out. Obviously it doesn't matter because that's not what really happened -- it's just an interesting thought.

For this next one, I won't pretend I would have ever noticed this on my own -- but let's say that Adam and Eve's nakedness represents their sin. Becoming aware of it, they try to cover it themselves in making loincloths out of fig leaves. But we can't cover our own sin, can we? Absolutely not. God is the one who does the covering, with animal skins -- meaning blood had to be shed to cover their sin. That's a pretty awesome picture of the redeeming work Jesus did on the cross.

Notice how God says "Where are you?" and "Did you eat what I told you not to?" I hope no one actually reads that and thinks that God didn't really know. I read it and think of it like this -- say my kids ate some cookies from the cookie jar (that we don't have, but let's just say...) and I knew it. It was just before dinner time. There were crumbs on the counter and chocolate on their mouths. "Girls, did you any cookies from the cookie jar?" What, like I'm stupid? I'm just making a point with the question.

It's also kind of interesting they hid when they sinned. That's so like us, and it's even like my dog when she poops on the carpet. She's an idiot like us. "Gee, I know pooping on the carpet is going to bring all kinds of trouble down on me, but, man, I really want to poop on the carpet, so I'm going to do it anyway!" Then she hears me coming and puts herself in timeout in her box! Just don't poop on the dang carpet in the first place! But then, we, I, don't learn very quickly either...

I don't really get the whole cursing the snake thing. Some sort of symbolism over my head? Or maybe snakes were just a lot more awesome back in the day. I think the first is more likely.

But right after that is what appears to be the first promise of the plan to fix the whole mess Adam and Eve just made. An offspring of Eve crushing the serpent's head while the serpent bruises his heel. Well, let's see, crushing one's head pretty much kills them. Bruising one's heel, not so much. And the two go together. Could it be that Jesus defeated Satan completely with his death on the cross -- a fatal blow for the evil one that came at a price?

I think the next part where God talks to Eve gets misread a lot. Maybe I'm wrong, but telling the woman "and your husband shall rule over you" isn't some sort of command that says "hey dudes, you're the boss and your wife has to do what you say." Yeah, that makes for a great marriage. I think it's more God looking into the future and seeing what men are going to do because of their own sinful nature. Now don't get me all wrong here. I'm not saying their aren't different roles for men and women, nor I am saying that men are not to be the spiritual leaders of their own homes. I'm just saying that this doesn't look like a command saying how it must be, but rather a statement of how it's going to be.

I think the next part where God talks to Adam is pretty clear cut. The lesson here is "don't listen to your wife". Just kidding.

I talked about this "to dust you shall return" idea with my kids the other day. Smarties said, "Well you don't turn into dust!" So I asked them what happens when you stick a body in the ground. "It rots" my little one told me. "But there's bones!" I'm glad they're thinking. :-) Leave them long enough and it all gets mixed together. Dust.

There's that "us" part again with God. I guess it wasn't a fluke in the first chapter.

My kids were thinking about the next part too. "What if they ate the tree of life, and what if they ate it first?" they asked. That's cool they're asking questions, especially ones that God addresses in his Word. Now that they've sinned, he doesn't allow for it.

One thing I just noticed is that it seems man wasn't created automatically living forever. If they ate of the tree of life, yeah, but they didn't. And what do we see in revelation when all things are restored and made new? "To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God." That's so cool. The tree of life, eternal life, at the beginning and end of God's story. The wrong choice made right.

And for those of my LDS friends reading this -- it's such nice tight wrapping up and closure of the whole big story in the Bible that makes me further baffled about why you hold dearly to the Book of Mormon. You have the whole story of God wrapped up from creation to new creation in the Bible. It's done, that's it, nothing more! I say this not meaning to turn you away from reading my posts -- I just want desperately for all junk "around" Jesus to be stripped away so that all that's left is him, because he is all we all need. The same goes for my Catholic and protestant friends as well -- if you've got a bunch of junk you don't need bolted on to Jesus, whatever it is, get rid of it!

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 2

2011-09-07T22:44:00.000-07:00

The first part of the chapter makes it sound like God created the world in six literal days, since he rested on the seventh day and made it holy. There's this whole argument about whether "day" was "24 hours" or "a really long time" and the Hebrew word used means "day" and not "day-age" or something like that. But just think about it -- if each "day" was "a really long time", God did what with the seventh day? Set apart and made holy "a really long time". I don't think so.

I remember when I was a new believer and read through Genesis the first time. I thought it was weird there were "two accounts" of creation. It's not really two accounts though. Genesis 1 (and the first part of 2) goes through all of creation at a high level, while Genesis 2 focuses on creation of mankind on the sixth day. Though if that day was really just 24 hours long, a whole lot of stuff happened on that day to Adam -- getting the rule about the tree, naming the animals, going into a deep sleep, etc.

What's the deal? I've no idea, but scratching my head for a long time trying to figure it out precisely seems to distract from the larger truth of God creating everything!

It's pretty interesting that the Bible specifically mentions the beauty of the trees as well as their usefulness for food. I often discount "pretty" things, especially man-made "pretty" things, but God didn't just make a practical world, he made a beautiful world, and he did it for a reason. Perhaps I shouldn't be quick to ignore that aspect of God.

I wonder how the four rivers mentioned line up with anything we can see today. Really if this world started out with the continents together (Pangaea I think they call it) and there was also this great catastrophic world wide flood, they probably wouldn't line up at all. Yet the names Tigris and Euphrates in Genesis do line up with what I remember from geography/history in school. Interestingly, isn't the that area known also as the (or a) "cradle of civilization" in the secular world as well?

Man had a job from the beginning. God put man in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. But since this was God's perfect world still, I'll bet there was only joy in this work, no toiling and suffering yet.

Notice how many rules God gave man? One. One stinking rule. I bet the fruit on that tree looked really really good. Isn't that how sin is? It looks like a pleasurable thing, and the knowledge in the back of your head that something isn't right just attracts you to it more! I know this to be true from my B.C. days when I reveled in my own wickedness -- with idleness, greed, and lust ruling my mind and heart. I knew it wasn't right, and that made me like it more when I was sin's slave.

"It is not good that man should be alone" is so true. Just having my wife on the bed next to me as I write this is a blessing. I would be very lonely and incomplete without her. Even though Dog could teach man loyalty and Cat could teach man humility, he really needed Woman. :-)

It might seem odd that the chapter talks about leaving father and mother and becoming one, when there were no other people yet. Remember the words were written down a long time after creation actually happened. I think the greater point here is that this was God's original design for marriage. One man and one woman, joined together and faithful to each other -- no divorce. This is emphasized when we learn much later in the Bible that the marriage between husband and wife is supposed to be a picture of Christ's love for his church.

I'm not advocating the whole nudist thing, but it had to be pretty freeing that they were both naked and not ashamed. After all, they were brand new and innocent. On top of that, there were no other naked people to lust after, were there? Just the first husband and the first wife together in paradise. Awesome. Yeah, there seems to be this whole other symbolic layer on top of that also that obtuse guys like me don't get without listening to others. I'll get into that next time.

Joe Dude's Bible Thoughts: Genesis 1

2011-09-06T22:24:00.001-07:00

I got convicted of something the other day. That happens a lot with me. It's a good thing. Change and growth and all that.

What I got convicted about is not really getting into the Word for myself as I should. I like to listen to a lot of teaching and I like to listen to a lot of preaching, but I haven't been reading or listening to the Bible for myself as I ought. After all, we've been given a book that we can read and understand for ourselves.

It's kind of funny because God used a pastor I like to listen to and watch online to point out to me that it is beneficial to do more than listen to what others have to say. As part of getting into the Word myself more, I thought I'd throw out my thoughts as I read/listen to it, starting with the beginning...

In the beginning there was God, and only God. I don't hear anything in here about stuff or spirits existing before God. The whole explanation about creating the heavens and the formless earth, and then manipulating the earth, make it sound like the account doesn't line up too well with the whole big bang or expanding universe theories, even though such theories do point to a universe with a finite beginning that demands a supernatural beginner to kick it off.

The first day is interesting. You've got the light, day, and the darkness, night, created. And then you have evening and morning, the first day. There's no sun going around the earth yet. Maybe evening and morning refer more to time periods than the earth's rotation. After all we're talking about ancient literature here, not a modern day science book.

The "separate the waters from the waters" action is also interesting. It's like there used to be a whole bunch of water above us somewhere -- either surrounding the earth, possibly providing the source of water for the flood and shielding the planet from nasty stuff, or beyond the edges of what we know as the universe -- as later the sun and moon seem to be put in the expanse between the waters.

God has crazy power we just can't understand. He just says things and and they happen. "Let this appear" and it appears. "Let that do this" and that does this. What can we do? Nothing! Go ahead, try to make a blade of grass. Now make life from non-life. Now make atoms from nothing. Good luck.

The phrase "let us make man in our image" is interesting. Looking very far ahead to the idea of the Trinity, this seems to be the first hint that there's more to the nature of God than meets the eye. Though the LORD is one, you still have Father, Spirit, and Son.

Mankind is a special creation. We're created in God's image, which is very different than all the rest of his creation. God is not a man or a woman, but spirit, and man and woman were both created in his image. That means traits, not physical looks.

Mankind was also put in charge of the rest of creation. That brings to mind the idea of stewardship -- this is God's world, but we are to take care of it. That doesn't mean go insane and elevate nature in general and/or animals to the level of false idols or preach the Gospel of Greenpeace. But we shouldn't wreck the place willy nilly either.

The end of the first chapter is also interesting. Apparently men and animals originally were vegetarians. "I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." That reminds me of a verse in Isaiah that says "the wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox." That sounds a little strange, but then again, it's not my creation, is it?

No Poo Poo

2011-09-05T23:09:00.001-07:00

I know I've written about this before, but I have it on my brain to write about it again -- probably because the first example I have is pretty cute.

We have guests staying with us for a while. One of them is a toddler who is not potty trained yet. I was walking down the stairs in our home and saw him in the family room. I said "hi" to him and he got this look on his face, shook his head, and said "no poo poo!" His dad's response was pretty funny -- "kid, when you confess to something we didn't even ask you about, there's probably crap in your pants."

I asked his dad later a question I already knew the answer to -- "So did you teach your kid to lie?" I wasn't being a jerk, as he knew already I was making a point based on the context of our conversation. Of course he didn't teach his kid to lie, he tries to teach his kid NOT to lie.

No one taught me to steal. Yet when I was a kid, I was a thief. I'd raid my mom's dresser where she kept money hidden to spend it on video games at the mall. I don't recall anyone teaching me that I should get obsessed with something so much that I would resort to theft to keep feeding my desires.

No one taught me to lust after women either when I was a bit older. When I first saw pictures of naked women, no one had to explain the different possible reactions to me, and that doing the eye-popping, jaw-dropping, tongue-rolling-on-the-floor thing you see in the cartoons thing was the response I should go for.

Come to think of it, no one taught my kids to think of themselves and fight when they don't get their way. I certainly don't recall having a sit-down with one of my daughters and telling her, "okay, be selfish in the game, and when your sister doesn't like what you're doing, whine at her, try to manipulate her, and then refuse to play with her unless she gives in."

Why do this things not have to be learned? Because they are IN us. There is no such thing as a "good" person, just like the Bible teaches. "As it is written: 'None is righteous, not one.'" (Romans 3:10). Don't believe Paul? How about Jesus? "No one is good except God alone." (Luke 18:19b).

If you have one, throw away any notion that we come into the world pure and clean, and the world wrecks us. Rather, know that we come into the world impure and defiled, and Christ fixes us. When we see the hopeless state we're in without him and turn to him, we become right with God. We're still a mess, but we're in good standing -- ready for a lifelong makeover from the inside out.

Love Like God

2011-09-03T23:52:00.001-07:00

I heard an account of some missionaries who received a package. It was a nice looking care package with smiley faces on it, which turned out to be a bomb. The missionaries weren't at home, but their 16 year old was, and he got blown across the room and injured badly. They eventually found the guy. He has four kids. The dad carries a picture of the man who made the bomb in his Bible with him to remind him to pray for the guy every day, because he loves him. The 16 year old, after finding out the guy has four kids, asked his dad if there was anyway they could help support those kids.

That's loving like God.

I heard another account of a guy who got mugged by three guys. He had his laptop stolen and was forced at gunpoint to take some money out of the ATM. He was able to tell one of the muggers that he forgave them and was able to share the gospel a little bit with him. His biggest regret? That he was not able to share more of the gospel with all three of them. His biggest hope out of the event? That they went through the contents of the stolen laptop, because there is a lot of Christian material on it, and God could use that to change their hearts.

That's loving like God.

I heard another account of missionaries who were imprisoned and tortured. Some of them ended up dying because they would not deny Christ. A report from those who were released talked about how one of the group volunteered to die first, but a number of members in the group kept one-upping each other to explain why they should die first instead, laying his life down for his friends.

That's loving like God.

I've also watched a movie before called Amish Grace. It's based on a true story of a man who came to an Amish school and shot a number of girls there, killing some of them. The most shocking parts of the story? The forgiveness the community showed to the man who shot the girls, and the compassion they showed to his wife, who couldn't believe they cared so much about her pain in the midst of their own.

That's loving like God.

These stories just blow me away, and they are just a drop in the bucket. Crazy acts of forgiveness that are beautiful pictures of the love of God for the world -- sending his son Jesus to die to pay the price for the sins of a world full of people bent on rebelling against him.

It's Just A...

2011-09-02T23:06:00.001-07:00

There's a message by Francis Chan I really liked where he had one of his boys with him in his arms. His purpose in that was to show us that's what it should feel like to be in God's arms. So safe, so secure, so dependent. Not just Father. Not just Dad. But Daddy, holding us safe and close.

Getting that kind of thought in my head makes it more difficult to think that sometimes it's him who sends people out into hostile territory where Christians are terribly persecuted, tortured, and killed for the goods new of Jesus Christ. Ask those who have faced such situations and came out unscathed -- so many, perhaps all, will tell you how willing they were to die for the sake of the gospel, and how they never felt closer to God than in those moments.

But that's just it, isn't it? We're not bodies with a soul, but rather we're souls that happen to have a body. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:1-2, "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling."

So what's our response when our Daddy sends us out into the fray, and what should it be?

Think of how kids might response when you tell them to do something that's a little sketchy for them. "But by shirt will get messed up." "But my hands will get dirty." "But I'll miss my toy." "But it's scary." And so on...

What do we tell them in those cases? "It's just a shirt. It's just a little dirt. It's just a toy. It's just a little dark. It's just a, it's just a, it's just a..."

Well doesn't God say the same thing to us?

"It's just a chunk of money that won't buy happiness anyway. It's just a silly distraction that will not edify. It's just a body that will rot in the end. It's just a life on earth that's not everlasting. It's just a, it's just a, it's just a..."

There's a whole lot more than the things of this world and living for the few years we have on the earth. Pursue that.

Askin' God

2011-09-02T07:50:00.001-07:00

I love a story that a pastor I like told before about his conversation with a man in another religion with a different concept of God. He told the man about how awesome it is to just have this close connection with God, and that when he talks to God, God listens to him. He asked the man if he had the same experience with his god, and the man said yes. This completely baffled the pastor and really bothered him. About 5 minutes later when the conversation had drifted into something else, the man fessed up and admitted that he was lying. He didn't know what that was like.

That got me to thinking this morning. Do I believe like that? I ask God for stuff, and he does answer. But I still pray in that "safe" way and I still talk to people in that "safe" way, where I know God CAN answer someone's prayer, but I don't necessarily believe that he WILL. I'm still detached and don't have that same kind of confidence and closeness of just going "hey Dad, would you ". And that bothers me, because time and time again I have seen God answer my prayers.

God reminded me of the story with the possessed boy that Jesus healed. The boy's father told Jesus "If you can do anything, pelase help us." What did Jesus say? "IF you can?! Everything is possible for one who believes!" And the boy's dad said "I do believe! Help me overcome my unbelief!"

And that was my prayer this morning on the way to work -- "Dad, help my overcome my unbelief! Help me to have that closeness and that trust where when I pray I really do believe you're going to answer." He say "try me". Now I know the Bible says you don't test the Lord, so if that was in my head, it was in my head, but I did it anyway. I said "Well, I really like this one song and haven't heard it for a while. Can I hear on the way to work?"

So the radio station plays a few other songs I like and then the hosts start talking, which I never particularly care to listen to, so I switched stations. I was listening to this guy talk about his imperfections and tell a story about how he ate the whole pie and hid it from his wife or something. It was quite entertaining. Had all the station not gotten all staticy, I wouldn't have switched back.

When I did, I heard the last minute of the song I asked for. I couldn't help but just laugh and laugh, and you know what God said to me? "See, and you almost missed it because you were listening to a guy talk about pie!"

God is faithful in the big things and in the little things. Ask him to increase your faith, and he will -- but you have to be talking to the right God.

Have a great day all.

Every Little Thing

2011-09-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

The more you fall madly in love with the God of the universe, the more you grow closer to Jesus Christ, the more you want to please him and just do what's right in his eyes. And when you're all in for God, you're going to do what his Word says -- "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves." The more we do that, and the more our gardener prunes us and cuts out the junk in our lives, the more these words stand out in our minds -- "all things are lawful, but not all things build up" and "whatever you do, do all to the glory of God."

That's right, everything. John Piper had a great blog post some time back (wow, 25 years!) about drinking orange juice to the glory of God:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/how-to-drink-orange-juice-to-the-glory-of-god

Alright, what's the quick cheat sheet for grading the test then to make sure we're doing things for the glory of God? God put one in my head today, and I think it's pretty good.

Boasting.

Yeah I thought that would sound weird, but hear me out. Let's just say we had license to boast about the things we think, say, and do. We don't, but let's just play pretend for a minute. Would you boast about something to your friends. Would you boast about it to the LORD? Or would you excuse it?

Let's throw some examples out there. Buying a meal for something who is hungry. Helping a lady at the store pick up some of the things she dropped. Returning a wallet you found. Cutting something out of your life to make more time for God or other people. Praying with someone from the heart.

And we'll flip it. Yelling at the TV because you got clobbered in a video game. Take a second longer look at the girl with the short shorts. Singing halfheartedly in church and texting your friends during the message. Shying away from an obvious opportunity to witness to someone. Watering down the truth and being wishy washy about salvation. Faking it for years so all your friends think you're going to heaven when you're not.

Yeah, you get it by now. We know when looking at something we've done whether or not we could tell somebody about it with joy or with shame.

I do things I could boast about, if there was this made up license for boasting. I also do plenty of things that I would either make excuses for. or rationalize away -- but in the back of my head, or heart, I'd know I was full of crap. Even writing this I've left things out to make myself look better than I really am -- not so much by the "good things" I chose to list, but by the "bad things" I chose to leave out.

Praise God for his grace and the fact that salvation is not based on performance!

If we carry this idea forward into everything we do, we should more and more clearly see our true nature. Really, would we boast about every purchase we make, every minute we spend our time on, every word out of our mouths, everything we look at, every place we go, and so on? Or would we excuse much of it? I certainly would have to excuse much of my thought and actions if I took a good long look at them and really thought about it. I'm sure we all would. I don't say this to make anyone feel beat down, but rather to get everyone, including, maybe especially, myself, to at least think about it, to spur us on to make better choices, and to realize just how gracious and wonderful God really is.

Praise God again for his grace and the fact that salvation is not based on performance!

Grace and peace friends!

The Really Real World

2011-09-01T00:23:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting spin on Romans 6:23a -- want to see the wages of sin? Look at the affluent world around us and then look at the conditions of many hungry and dying children in Africa. Something about this lifestyle and wealth difference is bothering me more and more.

I know in my head it's not going to go away, and I know there are people in need in many other places in many other ways as well. But when someone doesn't have the food and water they need to stay alive, it tears at my heart, especially considering that I spend so much on things that are frivolous by comparison. I pray that my eyes and my heart stay open to the needs of others globally, not just locally. It's so easy to forget about hurting people so far away.

But there's more to the story. I need to do more than just keep my eyes open -- I have two little girls that I'm responsible for, and my most important job is to give them the proper spiritual foundation. Part of that includes opening their eyes as well -- and it became clear to me that I was lacking in this area. Sure, I've taught them that we need to be generous givers, have a heart for God, and have a heart for people. Sure, I've told them about persecuted Christians in other parts of the world. Sure, I've told them about poor conditions elsewhere.

Talk is cheap. It's a lot different to SHOW them.

I played a video showing some hungry kids in Africa for the girls. They asked some questions about the children, and when Trinity grasped the horror of what she was seeing, she cried out "Don't people see this?!" What could I counter with but "Don't WE see it?!" I'm so glad she had compassion for those poor kids, but I also wanted to drive the point home that it's not only about "someone else," but us and how we manage what God has given us.

So Christian, teach your kids the Bible. Teach them to trust God and love him. Teach them proper morals and build up their character. But please, in addition to all that good stuff, to keep them from turning into something totally warped by the materialistic culture in which we live, really get it into their heads what the rest of the world is like. I know I need to get that into my head myself much more than I have it now -- and there's no app for that.

Kids can handle and understand a lot more than we think, and sheltering them in a nice happy suburban bubble really isn't going to help anything.

Grace and peace friends.

Baggage

2011-08-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

When we come to Christ, we get a lot of freedom. We are freed from the punishment of sin, eternal damnation. We are freed from the power of sin, have our hearts of stone replaced with hearts of flesh that desire to do what's right. When Christ comes back, we will be freed from the presence of sin when we dwell with God for the rest of eternity.

That sounds like a pretty good deal. So good in fact, that we don't quite believe it, especially since it's free.

Some folks in the Galatian church didn't buy into it. There were those who wanted to impose the old requirements on the new believers -- basically saying to become a Christian you had to first become a Jew and come under the law given through Moses. Paul clearly considered this a distorted, different, messages, and had this to say about it:

"but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed." (Gal 1:7-9)

In short, that pretty much means "if someone is going around saying you need anything other than the grace of God provided through the cross to be saved, that person can go to hell." Strong words. He said them twice. It's that important.

You can take the simple good news and distort it in two ways -- add to it or take away from it. When you add to it, you've got "the cross plus something" and when you take away from it you've got "the cross isn't needed". Both are a tragedy.

Let's talk about adding to it first. People who come to Christ from other religions and know the necessity of the cross sometimes find themselves struggling with this, because of the extra baggage they bring along with them, some of it attached to them since they were children. Think about what that means though -- it says that the death of GOD IN THE FLESH is NOT GOOD ENOUGH to pay the price for the sins of the world. I don't think so.

You don't need the cross plus the temple, the cross plus passover, the cross plus any other festival, the cross plus baptism, the cross plus confession to a priest and penance, the cross plus any other sacrament, the cross plus mass, the cross plus the rosary, the cross plus the laying on of hands, the cross plus Joseph Smith, the cross plus the Watchtower Society, the cross plus the five pillars, the cross plus ritual prayer 5 times a day, the cross plus a pilgrimage, the cross plus speaking in tongues, the cross plus shaking around on the floor, the cross plus anything. You just need the cross!

Before I move on -- I don't need a bunch of responses from people trapped in other religions telling me "we don't believe you need to be saved". I did my homework. I know some "official" doctrines don't say you need everything I listed. But guess what? Not everybody believes the same as you, and they put themselves in bondage. If you're in the "well that's not me" category, then I have a question for you -- what the heck are you doing tied to some system you don't really need anyway? Got the Jesus heart surgery and God's Spirit is now in you? Got God's Word? What more do you think you really need?

Now let's talk about subtracting from the good news. Where, like one of my friends has told me, "maybe there's another way." Sorry, Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." And Paul writes "I do not nullify the grace of God -- for if righteousness could be gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing!" It's a terrible slap in the face to God to think there is another way -- if there was another way, GOD'S SON DID NOT NEED TO DIE ON THE CROSS. He solved the problem, he paid the price. Accept it.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Grace and peace to you friends.

Spend Your Life Wisely

2011-08-29T23:39:00.000-07:00

I remember this TV show, or maybe call it a short film, I saw when I was a kid. I don't think it was a Twilight Zone episode, but it could have been one. It was 1 of 4 stories that were run all together on some special that would air now and again.

The gist is this -- it's a different world where the currency you spend is minutes of your actual life. The main characters were a brother and sister. The brother works and saves all his "life" (pun intended) and ends up with some insane amount of years. The sister is about to run out and is in the casino gambling her last little bit away to try and get more time, but failing.

The catch? You can't give your time away.

But there are these "elder" beings of some sort. The "in charge" dudes who run the show. You can make one special request of them. Usually the special requests are "give me more time!" Maybe sometimes they are "give someone else more time!" but I don't explicitly remember that. But the brother's one request, as his sister is about to die, is quite unique. He asks for all his time to be given to her. Wow.

It's funny how we're drawn into these stories of self-sacrifice for others. It's almost like that's wired in us by God or something.

That's where the story stops in my head. I don't remember the end, if there even was one. For me, it's irrelevant, especially for the point I want to make here.

Spend your life wisely. Or as John Piper wrote in a book (and as a title) -- don't waste your life. This message is not alone. Remember the story Jesus told about the guys who were given a bunch of money by their master? The first two guys multiplied it and the master was happy and wanted them to enter his joy. Do you remember what he said about the third dude? The one who did nothing with it and gave it back? "You wicked and slothful servant!"

Ouch. I don't want Jesus to call me wicked and slothful. I'd rather go for good and faithful.

And I must confess, God's convicted me on this lately in one area of my life. He didn't even convict me hard on it. He just kind of took away my desire for something I've obsessed about for quite a while now that ate a chunk of "free" time. Sow to righteousness, reap to righteousness. Sow to Halo, reap to Halo. Forget that. I mean really, with all that we can do in this world, that's what I'm going to choose to spend that much of my time on? Hardly edifying. All it did is feed my lust to win and fuel my foul mouth when I didn't. Nuts to that. I'd rather buy from Jesus "gold refined by fire" than work so hard at something so trivial.

Don't get me wrong. This is not about works salvation. I'm not saved because of any good work I do, but rather I do good works because I have been saved and have been given a new heart that desires to seek God and do what is right (despite failing to do so at times!). Yes, my works will be judged, by my standing before God will be based on the work Jesus already did on the cross.

Don't get me wrong. This is not about legalism or stifling our freedoms. I am free to do a lot of things -- but as Paul wrote "not all things are helpful". Rest and play are good things, but I am supposed to have self control, not be driven by desire. Some rest. Some play. Build myself up in knowledge and love. Use that to build others up. Stuff like that.

Don't get me wrong. This is not about forcing things that are by my own efforts and laboring really hard to get them done. If they are not of God, my labor is in vain. There is no point, and I should just use my time more wisely and sleep, or watch paint dry. If we're driving ourselves nuts and stressing out and making should-be-joyful things into burdens-of-the-LORD, then we're missing something and our efforts are for nothing.

Get me right. I'm talking about choice here. We have been given a finite span of life on this earth. It only lasts so long -- but there is an eternity, and what we do now in this life does affect the next one. How much are we going to spend of that life for our own comfort, convenience, and pleasure now, or in retirement? How much are we going to spend providing ourselves with "moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail"?

I know less of the former and more of the latter is right. I pray that I really get it and really live it, because I know that I have gotten complacent and lazy toward the kingdom, which is a tragedy. Praise God for his patience and love!

Answered Prayers?

2011-08-28T23:40:00.000-07:00

Does God answer your prayers? Because if he doesn't you might want to consider a few things.

Number one -- are you praying in God's will? Jesus said "you may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." (John 14:14) That doesn't mean just slap "in Jesus name!" at the end of your greedy prayers, so asking for that Ferrari to get to church faster or that million dollars to "give generously" probably isn't going to cut it. Handing God your plan and asking him to bless it and roll with it probably isn't going to cut it, and neither is listing off all your problems and asking him to solve them for you. Though you know sometimes he does accommodate us weaker men to teach us something about his power and his love.

Instead of making it about you, why not make it about him? After all, he's the boss. God, show me how to love people better and myself less. God, give me the power to endure whatever storm you allow my way and use it to point other people to you when they see a supernatural strength holding me up. God, help me to not be tempted by the trappings of this world, but help me to spend my life wisely to build up your kingdom. God, help my to love my wife like you love your church, because I certainly can't do that in my own strength. God show me my sin and keep me from becoming arrogant and self-righteous. God help me to be bold to speak truth but still remain loving in doing it. And so on...

Number two -- is there sin your life? Isaiah wrote "Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2).

Sin just puts up a big wall between us and God. It makes us desire so much to stay away from him, rather than get closer to him. Whenever we find ourselves in this position, we need to repent and confess our sin(s) to God. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)

Number three -- who are you praying to? Is your god that you're petitioning the God of the universe, the maker of all things? The one who loved people so much he sent his Son Jesus to die to pay a price for sins that we cannot pay? Is your Jesus the one who has always existed? The one through and for whom all things were created? The one who is in his very nature God? The one who made himself poor so we could become rich, through his death on the cross? The one who took all the sins of the world on himself to satisfy the perfect justice of God and show the perfect mercy of God?

If that's not your God or not your Jesus, your god has no power to answer prayer. The one true God is being patient with you and wanting you desperately to come to him. Seek him and find him. Having that close and personal connection with God through Jesus Christ is far greater than anything else found in any other religion or lack thereof.

I don't just spew this out willy nilly. I know this firsthand from the evidence in my life. God answered my prayer to save me from the pit of hell in such a big way there was no doubt it was from him. And as a baby Christian, God answered stupid more selfish prayers just to show me his power and his concern for me. But as I grow up in him, he's stopped with that nonsense and is removing the desire to pray such prayers from my heart and mind, teaching me to focus on him, and not myself. Every prayer I prayed that lines up with the will of God, he has answered, hands down. Prayers for greater faith in my wife so that he can use her to lift me up when I fall. Prayers for the love of God in my children's hearts. Prayers for additional resources so I can give more to those in need. Prayers to get rid of temptations that are right before me. Prayers to see my sin and not think too highly of myself. The list goes on. My God, my Jesus, is so faithful to answer prayer, it's crazy. If you don't have that, you need it.

Let me close by sharing something God put on my heart as I started this. Don't just pray short silly prayers before bedtime or at meals. Don't just cry out to God when you've got problems and you need him to swoop in and save the day. Don't just recite rote memorized prayers that mean nothing. Do what the Bible says, pray continually -- have that continuous awareness of the presence of God and a running conversation with him. Talk to him like you would your best friend who is always there with you and there for you. It's not about ritual or "religious devotion" or whatever you want to call it, but a real heart for a real, living, personal, God -- the God of the universe who cares deeply and intimately for you. He wants something real, not some lip service. And when you give that to him, just see what he gives back.

Don't Focus On The Family

2011-08-28T00:37:00.001-07:00

First, if you listen to the show "Focus on the Family" don't get me wrong here. I've heard some really good stuff on that program, so I mean no slight whatsoever -- I like their title, so I stole it and changed it.

That said, if that's ALL we do, and JUST focus on the family, we've missed it. It is NOT all about the family, despite what we hear from all kinds of voices these days.

Don't get me wrong, families are a great part of God's design. The Word says that "children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him" (Psalm 127:3) and "a wife of noble character is her husband’s crown" (Proverbs 12:4). I'm not trying to say instead "screw over the family" here, not at all!

But even though families are really great here on earth, marriages will ultimately end (maybe good news for some, but I don't want to go there!). I believe this because when responding to a question about marriage, Jesus replied "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." (Matthew 22:29-30). But I also believe it because the Word teaches that earthly marriages are SUPPOSED to be a picture of Christ's relationship with his people. After his return, that picture will be obsolete.

With that said, if all we are consumed with is contained within the four walls of our little house on our little street in our little city on this little teeny tiny planet, we've missed something. If our focus is to make sure our children are "happy" and/or to make sure they have a "better life" than we had, we've missed something. If our end goal is to stockpile enough so they're setup and we can chill out and relax until we cross the finish line at the end of this life, we've missed something.

There's more, a whole lot more. After all, our earthly life is a vapor, and then we have all of eternity ahead of us. What are we doing now to prepare for then?

So we shouldn't focus on the family, we should focus on the kingdom. We should spend our lives wisely now so that we can stand before our maker and hear those words "well done, good and faithful servant". Those words are worth more than anything on this earth.

Oh, and a funny thing -- if family members live according to what the Word says, something interesting should happen. Husbands will love their wives very much. Wives will respect their husbands greatly. Children will also be instructed and disciplined properly, and they'll be taught, and shown how, to love God with all of their little hearts rather than put him in a box on Sunday. Oh my goodness. A loving, peaceful, joy-filled, and happy home that loves the LORD, all as a side effect of focusing on the kingdom.

That sounds like a pretty good win-win to me. Let's pursue that.

Remember "we've only one life, it soon will be past, and only what's done for Christ will last".

Natural Born Sinners

2011-08-26T23:57:00.000-07:00

When people get into arguments, discussions, whatever you want to call them, about homosexuality, I've heard one side say "it's not natural" and the other side say "it's perfectly natural". I never thought about it much, I just agreed with the former and not the latter. God's design just lined up and made sense and I figured that was the end of the story.

Well I've changed my thinking on that a little bit.

I will argue now that it is definitely natural. And so is fornication. And adultery. And envy. And lust. And greed. And malice. And slander. And drunkenness. And theft. And murder. And whatever other list of sins you want to throw in here that could stretch around the globe.

All these sins are perfectly natural, because by nature we are sinners. We're not sinners because we sin -- for that implies it's possible to not sin, and only one dude in all of history managed that one, and he was God in the flesh. Instead, we sin because we are sinners, by nature.

Think of a dog and a cat. The act of barking doesn't cause one to be a dog, and the act of meowing doesn't cause the other to be a cat. The dog is a dog before it every barks, and the cat is a cat before it every meows. In the same way, we're sinners before we ever sin.

But it doesn't take long for that true nature to be revealed does it? Think of children. This whole idea that "it's all because of the child's environment" is a bunch of crap. Regardless of the environment, you don't have to teach a child how to be selfish, how to lie, how to hit out of anger, how to argue, how to complain, or any of that stuff. They just act on what's already inside of them.

That's why when they're young, you have to teach your children well. And not just teach them good character and good morals -- don't be selfish, don't hit, don't argue, don't complain, etc. You have to go bigger. Make sure they know that Jesus is the only way and why. Make sure they know we're natural born sinners with no hope of saving ourselves, and so we need Jesus. Make sure they know he took all the sins of the world upon himself when he was on that cross as a sacrifice to pay a price for us that we cannot pay.

Grace and Peace friends.

Get Selfish

2011-08-25T23:39:00.001-07:00

Care about yourself first.

Stop settling so easily.

Put your eyebrow back down, un-squint the eye on the other side of your face from the raised brow, and let me explain.

I'm not talking about a little house with little stuff bought with little money from a little job working for some little company in this little state on this little planet called earth. I'm not talking about anything related to what we think you're entitled to or what we think we should shoot for in the Disneyland world we live in here in America.

It's not about comfort, convenience, security, retirement, or anything so petty and short-sighted. That's where people settle way too easily -- thinking about the here and now that is gone in an instant instead of thinking about eternity.

I'm talking about salvation, and I'm talking about joy.

If we want the most out of this world, we're have to realize that getting the most doesn't come from this world. It comes from something, someone, far greater and more amazing. So let's stop trying to fill a hole inside with something that only God can fill. Let's seek him first, seek his kingdom first, do what he says -- after all didn't Jesus say in John 15:10-11 "if you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

Joy? Not mere fleeting happiness that we try to get from the world? But real, lasting, complete, joy? That's not settling, that's what we were created to have.

But we have to get selfish with our joy. Our joy has to come first.

What?!

I didn't say our own happiness has to come first. I said our own joy has to come first. And joy is different. Joy is deep and rich and wide. Joy is what makes other people want what we have. No joy is what makes people go "why should I care about your Jesus?" I don't care what great thing someone goes off and does "for Jesus" -- if there is no joy in the person's heart behind it, I question how effective that "great thing" is.

And if we seek our own joy first, we'll do what God wants, because true and lasting joy only comes from him. We'll love people madly and deeply. We'll give and give of ourselves. We'll desire to do, try to do, and actually do, those things Jesus said that makes us do a double take and say "Jesus you're nuts! That's impossible!" And people will see it, allowing us to make a bigger impact on a hurting and dying world.

Shaken

2011-08-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

I could just as rightly title this "Shattering Complacency In Middle Class American Christianity" but, man, that title sounds so boring it nearly put me to sleep writing it.

I think God's shaking me up again.

Sure, I spew "you gotta be transformed, you gotta be transformed" but it's a continual thing too, not a one shot deal. I think I hit a plateau in my walk with the LORD, and while that makes for easy walking...it's not all about making things easy, is it?

Let's review though.

I'm a sinner. Through and through. All kinds of junk in my life, living for myself, selfish as can be, thinking I'm "good enough". Good enough for what I don't know, but not as bad as those drug dealers, murderers, and child molestors. Yeah, there's always someone worse you can compare yourself to when you want to think you're "good". Except for that one guy out of billions. Truth be told, there is all kinds of garbage in my past that I'm ashamed of, some of which I keep tucked away in the vaults of my memory, accessible to myself and God alone.

Thank God for grace.

He draws me in like a magnet. Flips my heart, my mind, my life around. I've got peace. I've got joy. I want to learn about him more and know about him more. Note that I said "about" him. We'll come back to that. I feed on the Word. I search solid sites on the net. I suck info out of my bro's brain. Thanks, David. Then I want more. Join a small group and study this. Go to the weekly Bible teaching and learn about that. Take some classes and get even more. All good stuff. All edifying. But I got lazy. No, I got complacent.

I had my checklist in order. Easy peasy plateau for me. What a leech. Time for a good shaking up.

Alright, I'll serve. I'll serve in this ministry and that one. And I'll do this other thing over here and maybe give over there and help out with this. Yes, that sounds good. I'm producing. I'm giving back from what I've been given. I'm doing my part to tell people big and small about Jesus. Again, all good stuff, but note again that I said "about". I'm still going to get to that.

Until this week I had my checklist in order again. Another easy peasy plateau. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I wanted to know about Jesus and tell about Jesus, but I have not wanted to be Jesus. I have not wanted, really, deep down, to give like Jesus, to serve like Jesus, to care like Jesus, to imitate Christ like his Word says to do. I don't know that I want to now. I'm more like the Pharisee giving out of his wealth than the old widow giving everything she had to live on and trusting recklessly in God. I don't make myself nothing for the sake of others so they may see Christ in me.

Like someone said in a book I read once upon a time -- it's not that we have a hard time understanding what God's Word says. We just have a hard time wanting to do what it says, so we complicate it to get around it. You know -- take up your cross, deny yourself, follow me, imitate Christ -- it's all pretty clear.

So I guess I'm getting sick of knowing about God and would rather know God. It's time to get away from falling in love with the idea of Jesus and just fall in love with Jesus, madly and deeply.

I don't know how to do that. But God's pretty big.

Thanks for reading. I pray you fall in love with Jesus. Selfishly even, so I can bug you about how that happened.

We're Idiots

2011-08-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

We're idiots when we evaluate local churches by how much we like the music, the messages, the child care, the service times, the parking, the location, the whatever. How about how solidly the Word of God is taught?

We're idiots when we confine worship to three rehearsed songs on Sunday and prayer to mealtimes and bedtime. How about making our lives an act of worship and making prayer an ongoing conversation with God throughout the day?

We're idiots when we say "we can't" when the first believers got the good news out to the world and took care of the poor with no Internet, no cell phones, no cars, no polished process and programs, none of that. How about "Go!" and "Okay!".

We're idiots when we put God in a box and don't let him permeate every little corner of our lives.

We're idiots when we really stop and think if the tradeoff is worth it between attachment to our little things in our little houses on this little teeny tiny planet and being in the presence of Almighty God for all of eternity.

We're idiots when we think that the God who made the whole universe can't help us with our teeny tiny problems, I don't care what they are. We're even bigger idiots when we think that's all he's for is helping us, because it's not about us.

We're idiots when we get wishy washy with the gospel or think we're entitled to something or that we deserve something or that God shouldn't do something or doesn't have the right to do something, whatever! We're talking about the God who made us and everything. The God who is in charge. The God who can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, without consulting anybody.

We're idiots when we think either that God is not a God of love or a God of wrath. Sin must be dealt with, and God did it through the cross. One act satisfying his wrath and showing his love. Perfectly just and perfectly merciful, all in one. Accept it, receive it, believe it, and get right with him today if you're not. He deserves all our love and all our devotion. As the one who gives us every breath we breathe as a gift, it's his box, his rules, his board, his pieces, and his dice. End of story.

And if you've read this far and think "man, that guy's self-righteous", you're right. Quite often I am, among many other things I shouldn't be. But forget that failing right now, and just make me a crown with "King Idiot" written on it, because I'm in the same bloody boat.

All glory, honor, and praise to a great and awesome God we cannot possibly grasp in our tiny human brains.

Which Jesus Do You Follow?

2011-08-20T00:59:00.000-07:00

If you claim to follow Jesus, which Jesus do you follow?

- Do you follow a Jesus who was just a good moral teacher and example to us?

- Do you follow a Jesus who was just a prophet?

- Do you follow a Jesus who was just in tune with some "divine consciousness"?

- Do you follow a Jesus who is an created angel or other spirit?

- Do you follow a Jesus who's death on the cross was not sufficient to pay the price for your sin?

- Do you follow a Jesus who is just one option out of many to get to heaven?

Or do you follow a Jesus who is God made flesh? A Jesus who died on a cross for the sins of the world? A Jesus who rose again? A Jesus who is coming back to judge the world? A Jesus who provided the only way to be right with God?

Why does this matter? Because sin is the problem, and the proper penalty needed to be paid for it. If Jesus is not God, then would his death been sufficient to pay the price for sin? No! You can't pay an infinite penalty as a finite being.

It's as simple as this -- Jesus had to be God to pay our debt, and Jesus had to be man to die. If your Jesus is not God, or if your Jesus didn't need to die for us to be saved, or if your Jesus' death was not enough for us to be saved, you've got the wrong Jesus. You need to get to know the Biblical Jesus, turn away from whatever religious system or set of beliefs is blocking you from him, and ask him to put a new heart in you.

It's not about religion, it's about a relationship with God.

Binary

2011-08-19T08:00:00.001-07:00

Some things are just binary in nature. A person can't be kind of pregnant, and a person can't be sort of dead. Neither can a person be kind of saved. There is a path to life and a path to destruction, and to be on the path to life we all ultimately need a new heart, which comes from Christ.

Spirituality, religion, moral behavior, good deeds, and so on, will not do it. It's not about how much you pray, how regularly you attend church or read a holy book. It's not about how well you toe the line and follow the rules. It's not about how much money you give to charity or how much time you give to volunteer. It's about a complete transformation from the inside out.

I don't say this from some high horse. I say this as a sinful, rough, and broken person, who was on the path of destruction destined for hell -- despite thinking for years that I was "a good person" who worked hard, took care of my family, and avoided "really bad" things. God in his mercy drew me in, shook me up, and showed me both my sin and my inability to pay for it. It was only then that I cried out to Jesus to save me, at which point he completely changed my heart, my mind, and my life.

So when I say these things, it's not about my way is better than your way. It's not about selling religion or cramming the Bible down down someone's throat. It's about how dire my situation was, and how dire everyone's situation is without turning to the only one who can solve the problem.

Want life? Get Jesus!

Attitude Is Everything

2011-07-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

My mom sent this to me. I thought it was excellent. :-)

Attitude Is Everything, by Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed Him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live.

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.

"I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

Failure

2011-05-28T22:33:00.001-07:00

Physical security failures help mechanical engineers to design better locks.

Computer security failures help programmers learn to design better programs.

Production failures help manufacturing engineers to design better processes.

Medical failures help doctors to design better surgical procedures.

Bridge failures help structural engineers to design better bridges.

Airplane failures help aviation engineers to design better airplanes.

Car failures help automotive engineers to design better cars.

Sports failures help coaches to design better plays.

And so on.

Spiritual failures help people to see why they need Jesus. Because while we can do a bunch of stuff "on our own" to make things better, we have no power on our own to be the children God wants us to be, no matter how hard we try.

Thanks, Jesus.

In Praise Of Christ The King

2011-05-14T22:05:00.000-07:00

I was at a food packing event this morning at the Salvation Army downtown in San Diego, hosted by Friends and Family Community Connection (http://www.ffccsd.org/). Very cool. During the orientation, I picked up a magazine from a table that was open to a page with this text:

In Praise Of Christ The King

How fearsome and far
The universe runs!
Who counts every star?
Who numbers new suns?
But Christ is the king
Of unthinkable space;
So stand up and sing
Of his goodness and grace.

The last and the least
Our Jesus calls best,
Proclaiming the feast
His Father has blessed.
To ruin and shame him
They nail him up high,
But now we acclaim him
For daring to die.

That sorrow is past:
Let wrong do its worst.
He'll reign at the last
Who ruled at the first --
The Lord of all years
That are coming to birth,
As laughter and tears
Grow together on earth.

Then go, sister, go,
And pray, brother, pray:
Let everyone know
The Christ of today.
His truth sets us free:
(How the story rings true!)
He conquered for me;
And He's calling for you.

-- John Coutts

'nuff said.

Take The Time

2011-04-05T18:25:00.001-07:00

This is mostly for those who have kids and aren't completely sucky parents, or have at least been around kids long enough to know the feeling I'm talking about.

You want to be a good parent. You want to spend good quality time with your kids. You do it quite well for a while when they're little. But then they get older. They make friends. The friends are in the neighborhood, and they can go around with them and play. It's a lot of fun.

But you still want to spend time with them. So you split the time.

There's other options, but let's take two of them. You can let them play with their friends first and then hang out, or you can hang out and then let them play with their friends.

With the first option, when it's time to come in, you get the "Aw, oh man, already? Just ten more minutes!"

With the second option, you get the clock watching, and as soon as the second hand crosses that 12 for the final time, BAM, they're out the door.

How does that make you feel? Yeah, me too.

God's our good parent. We shouldn't be bonehead kids that don't value our time with Him.

Grace and Peace

Tolerance?

2010-11-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

We live in a very relativistic culture today when it comes to morality, religion, etc. Many think that what one person believes should be treated just as valid as what the next person believes. Not only that, many tend to get their panties in a bunch when someone comes along and says that someone else's beliefs are not valid and that there is only one truth. Words Words like "tolerance" and "open-minded" are thrown at those who insist there is one truth and one way to heaven.

For believers, this sort of thing is just nonsense. Two plus two cannot have multiple correct answers. You can say it's three, four, and give. Sure, all the answers could be wrong -- but they cannot all be right. It's the same way with views on God, period. There is only one truth. Christians believe that the one truth about God and his relationship with man is revealed in the pages of the Bible. I as a Christian, who accepts the Bible as God's Word, cannot be "open minded" to a view which says that Jesus is not God, or that his death meant nothing, that says we are essentially good people, or that we can get to heaven by doing more good deeds than bad, or that there is no God, or that homosexual behavior is acceptable, or that sex outside of marriage is acceptable, or that getting drunk is acceptable, and so on. When you come up against God's Word and don't agree with it, you're wrong, period.

So what about all those other beliefs? We certainly can't accept wrong views as equally acceptable, but we also want people to come to know the Lord, not push them away. In this age of "tolerance" what do we do? Let's look at some examples.

Example 1. I love the account of Elijah on Mount Carmel. And I'll admit I love it for the wrong reason. It's Elijah versus the priests of the false God Baal, engaging in a "let's see whose god is real" contest. The priests go first. They do their thing. Nothing happens. Elijah mocks Baal, saying "Shout louder! Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping." Okay, that's why I love it. A big "Ha, forget you!" to the fake god. But ignore my own shortcoming and look at what happens next. Elijah calls on the LORD. BAM! He comes through in big way. And guess what? The people (people watching, not the priests) saw this and believed in the LORD.

So, number one, we show people God is real like Elijah. How? With unwavering faith in the LORD, with immense hope of the things to come, and with loving words and actions. In other words, live a life filled with faith, hope, and love.

A note on the last one, love. It's really important, and we screw it up too often. But even when we don't, the world gets ticked off at some things we do anyway due to a hardened heart and blinded eyes. Really. If I yelled at someone "Hey, jump off that train, the bridge is out and you're going to die!" that would be a totally fine act of love. But if I tell someone "Hey, quit living that lifestyle, repent, and turn to the LORD or you risk an eternity in hell" it doesn't have the same impact. It just makes people mad, yet it's the same thing.

Example 2. Hezekiah, a king of Judah who took over an idolatrous mess from Ahaz. He purified the temple, invited all Israel and Judah to come celebrate the passover at the temple, called the people to return to the LORD, prayed for those who had their hearts set on seeking God, and encouraged those who were serving the LORD. He was a motivational kind of guy, with a passion for the LORD. What happens next? The people go out and smash the items of false worship and bring in tons of stuff to the temple for the LORD.

So, number two, we call people to turn the LORD and encourage those who do, both passionately.

Example 3. Paul, the greatest missionary who ever lived. Specifically Paul in Athens and in Corinth. In Athens he was taken to the Areopagus so he could share with a bunch of people. In his preaching he tried to relate to the culture of the day, calling them "very religious" and playing off their altar "to an unknown god" and quoting one of their popular poets. He tried to relate to them. Only a few believed, but sadly there is no "Church at Athens" recorded in the Bible. Bummer. Then he went to Corinth to preach. In his first letter to them later he says "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." Beat down in Athens, he changed tactics and got to the heart of the problem and the solution provided by Christ.

So, number three, we focus on Christ and the significance of the cross.

All the talk of some abstract concept of God, all the hand-holding and trying to fit into someone's existing beliefs, and all the dancing around the point doesn't help. Point in case. I was talking to a Muslim friend of mine the other day, and we talked about things like respect, honor, and similarities in our beliefs as far as moral behavior is concerned. My point to him in the end? There's a lot of "good moral stuff" in many of the world's religions. That's not the issue. The issue is Christ. He came to die as a sacrifice for sins to pay a price we cannot, because there is no way we can "earn" our way into heaven by good works. The cross is central.

In this age of "tolerance" what do we do, then? We speak the truth, in love, but we don't bend it, back down from it, or beat around the bush. We back up what we believe to be true with our words, our actions, and our very lives. We stick to the heart of the issue -- the problem of the sinful human heart and what that means. We do this all passionately.

Yeah, people don't want to hear it and think we're obnoxious sometimes. And sometimes, we are. We'll screw it up. When we do, we repent and go to God with it -- asking him to help us do better the next time so that his light and love are spread. We're not perfect either. That's quite clear in all of the Biblical heroes. That's okay, because, after all, heaven is not a place for "good" people. It's a place for forgiven people.

Grace and Peace friends.

Jesus In A Nutshell

2010-10-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Reminds me of a programming book "Perl In A Nutshell". :-)

I took a break from reading through kings to skim one of the gospel accounts. I thought it would be interesting to through and see a big overview of what Jesus talked about while he was here on earth. Here are the key points as I saw them in a nutshell:

1) There is good news for the underdog. Jesus came for us. After all, he came to seek, find, and restore the lost. He didn't come so much to seek and find the stubborn hard-hearted people who refuse to believe him no matter what.

2) We have to see our own sin. We have to come before God in humility and repent of our sins. That means agreeing with God and turning away from sinful behavior and turning toward him. That means getting crap out of our lives that cause us to sin against God.

3) God's Word matters. He wants us to keep it. Judgment will come. The righteous who keep it will be rewarded, while the wicked who do not will be punished.

4) God, however, doesn't want anyone to perish. He wants everyone to turn to him, and the invitation is there for all people. Even so, many will not accept it and turn to him.

5) We need to believe in, and we need to believe, Jesus. We need to follow him. We need to trust him. We need to recognize his divinity.

6) Jesus came to suffer and die for us, paying the price for our sins that we cannot pay on our own.

7) We need to love God above all else and love others very much. We need to put him and his kingdom first.

8) The expression of that love is more than a feeling. It's actions. We need to do something tangible to show God's love to others.

9) The motives behind our actions are extremely important. God cares about the heart.

10) Jesus is coming back and we need to be ready. He will reward the righteous and punish the wicked. Until he comes, we need keep his commandments, point others to him, and be wary of those who will pull us away from him.

There is much more to say than that, but that is the overview. If we get these and keep God's Word, we do well.

Grace and Peace friends!

Solomon's Blessing

2010-10-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

I was reading through 1 Kings and came across one of Solomon's public blessings. I love how much truth is jam packed into this little bit of time and wanted to share.

First, here it is altogether:

"Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day's need, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other. But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time." - 1 Kings 8:56-61

Now let's break it down to see what Biblical truth Solomon echoes in his blessing, and see what we can apply in our own lives and petitions to God. I think a lot. Solomon was a pretty wise guy you know. Much wiser than me, so I bet I miss something.

1) "Praise be to the LORD,"

Always a good idea to start out with praise for God. Whatever good it was, guess what? We didn't do it. All him.

2) "who has given rest to his people Israel just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses."

God always keeps his promises, period. If we think he hasn't kept a promise to us, it either wasn't a promise from God, or we didn't understand it.

3) "May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us."

An echo back to the time of Moses where he encouraged the people, telling them not to be afraid or discouraged, because God will never leave them. Nor will he leave us. If we're apart from God, we did something to cause it. Figure it out. Fix it. In my life the barrier has always been sin in my life, failure to stay in the Word, or failure to connect with God in prayer. Typically those all go together.

4) "May he turn our hearts to him,"

I love this. It doesn't say "may we turn our hearts toward him" because that isn't going to happen. His Spirit moves like the wind. In my experience, it wasn't me who decided to look into Jesus and follow him. No. It was him drawing me to himself little by little, until I came to believe the Bible was true and knew that Jesus was who he claimed to be -- the savior of the world. Only in recognition of my terrible condition and the impossibility of doing anything about it on my own could I really cry out to Jesus to save me. And he did! He pulled one of those inside-out, new-creation, new-heart deals on me. I don't regret it.

5) "to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers."

Duh. I don't know why people are so deaf to this sometimes. Even Jesus said it. "If you love me, obey my commandments." This is not a burden, but a blessing to us. If its a burden to us, we need to go back to #4 here -- if our hearts are turned totally toward God, how hard could #5 be? Jesus said "my yoke is easy and my burden light." Yeah, we all fall down. We all get convicted when we do. That's not the issue. When that happens, we repent, and we're restored. The issue is living in habitual willful sin versus living a godly life. That's not some monastery or priest thing -- that's just walking with the LORD every day. Keep our thoughts continually on him and we're golden.

6) "And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night,"

God hears all prayers!

7) "that he may uphold the cause of his servant"

And he's got our back!

8) "and the cause of his people Israel according to each day's need,"

This so reminds me of the "Lord's prayer" because of its focus on daily needs. We don't just come to the LORD when we're in a pickle. Maybe we do, but we shouldn't. It's a daily thing. It's a dependence thing. Learning that dependence on God in all things is huge. It's a life long lesson too.

9) "so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other."

Oh, oh oh! Here's a kicker. This isn't about us just getting taken care of and looking all goody two shoes and stuff. This isn't just about get right with God and we're done. Israel was supposed to be a light to the world. Now we are supposed to be a light to the world. Little lights all over the place pointing people to Jesus Christ. Remember what Jesus said? "Do good works before men so they may tell you how awesome you are." No! "Do good works before me so they may glorify your father in heaven!" That whole glorifying God in all we do thing again!

10) "But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.

No lukewarm here. No half-in, half-out. No one foot in the world and one foot in God. Like the guy in the Fireproof movie said -- "You have to be all in." Weekly church seat filling doesn't cut it. Being a "cultural Christian" doesn't cut it. Checking religious things off the list doesn't cut it. This isn't about religion; this is about a relationship with God. He wants the best, not the rest.

I love these nuggets in the Word. Grace and Peace friends!

The LORD Is My Drop Shield

2010-10-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

Both of my daughters have memorized Psalm 23 as part of their scripture memorization in AWANA. Since I don't ask them to do things I wouldn't do myself, I learned it as well, and am glad I did. It is a beautiful piece of scripture that tells eternal truths about God using shepherd (and other) imagery, starting "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want..."

Today we like that kind of imagery I think, because of what it conjures up in our heads. Green hills. Fresh running water. Peaceful animals. Blue skies. Stuff like that. Yeah. We're not shepherds. The people of David's time -- the shepherd-turned-king who wrote it -- probably would have had a different picture. Less nostalgic, more real. And very meaningful as it took something very familiar in the culture and relayed truth about God with it.

Awesome.

I'm more of a gamer. Under "best game ever made" I have filed Wonderboy, Boulderdash, Baldur's Gate 2, Crazy Taxi, Gran Turismo 3, Starcraft, Guitar Hero, Mario Kart Wii. And now, Halo: Reach. Best game ever made. Something to be careful with lest posts about "false idols" and "redeeming the time" are warranted. God first, others second, and so on. Unfortunately I think I put sleep last. Oops.

Anyway, back on task here.

The LORD is my sprint loadout. When I just can't go anymore under my own power, he lifts me up and carries me along.

The LORD is my armor lock. When Satan sticks me with his plasma gernade, the LORD lets me withstand it, knocking the enemy on his butt so I can counter with the energy sword of the Word.

The LORD is my jet pack. When I can't get from A to B on my own, even though I know that's where he wants me to be, he provides the means.

The LORD is my drop shield. When the storms of this life are coming in fast and heavy from all directions, he surrounds me, protects me, and heals me -- getting me through the storm better than when I came into it.

The LORD is my motion tracker. He shows me the good and the bad, allowing me to make the right choices.

Shall I go on? The LORD is awesome. Enough said! :-)

Grace and peace, friends.

Would Not or Could Not?

2010-10-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

So I've been reading through the Bible straight from Genesis. I'm at 1 Kings now. Things have been up and down for the Israelites. I know what's coming. It's not good. More disobedience. A split kingdom. Kings leading Israel down a moral sewer. Judgment. This is not new. It's been a roller`coaster ride for them ever since the were led out of Egypt.

More interesting is that God knew this kind of madness is what was going to happen. He's not taken by surprise. Yet he still gave them the promises with blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience anyway. He even told them through his servants this is what you're going to do and what's going to go down. He offered choice despite knowing what would be foolishly chosen.

A question came into my mind. Is this a would or a could? Would the Israelites obey? We know the answer, generally, no. But what about could? Could they even obey? I don't mean that from some kind of fatalistic position where God is controlling them like robots. Nothing like that. But, still, could they? I say maybe no. "What, you're nuts! They made their free choice!" Hear me out. Paul's argument about the purpose of the Law came to mind -- to reveal what sin is -- not knowing what coveting was until the Law said not to covet for example.

So here's my argument.

They could not obey God because they were sinners. But God knew this. So why demand it? Perhaps to teach them to depend on him. That seems like the real choice. Not to follow what God says on our own power, but to say "God, I can't do this on my own, I need you to help me do it." I say we can't obey God without trusting in God and depending on God, and neither could they.

Take it a step further. I would also argue that they couldn't fully depend on God either. Sure, they could depend on him some -- some more than others at various times. But sin still got in the way. Big time for many, as most didn't seem to get that whole dependence thing down. Over time, it ruined the nation. What was once a people hand picked by God with him as their king turned into a mess of dead ritual and empty works. Not good.

In comes Jesus. Number one, he came to be a sacrifice for that blasted sin thing, paying the price once and for all. But he also came to be an example. And what an example he was! Here was someone who lived a life completely dependent on God. Both human and divine, he was the only one who could do it. After his ministry, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension back into heaven, he sent -- and continues to send -- another wonderful gift to believers. Those who believe have God's Spirit living in them.

So as believers, we're good to go now, right?

Well, as far as salvation is concerned, yes -- but I argue that we are experience the same kind of very long lesson all over again, with a twist.

Here's my argument to that end.

We can't obey God fully because we are sinners. Period. Even with God's Spirit we are still sinners. We're just not slaves to sin. We don't revel in it. We don't want to sin, but quite often we still do it. Don't believe me? Check it out. If the greatest commandments are boiled down as "love God with everything you've got" and "love your others as yourself" then guess what? Not doing that is a sin. There is no way anyone loves God and loves people that much all the time. Ain't gonna happen. But, still, God told us to do it.

Why?

Same thing. To teach us dependence on him, despite the fact we cannot be fully dependent on him this side of eternity. The ability is not the point, but rather proper perspective -- trusting God and relying on him for the strength to be obedient to him.

With such perspective we pray different prayers. Lord, help us to see our sin and turn from it. Lord, help us not to sin against you. Lord, help us to love you more. Lord, help us to love others more. Lord, help us to keep your Word and never deny your name. Lord help us, Lord help us, Lord help us.

To me, that's what faith is all about.

I might be off in the weeds, but I don't think I am.

Grace and Peace friends.

A Tale Of Two Gangsters

2010-10-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Today I want to talk about some gangsters. Yeah, gangsters. Two of them in particular.

The first is Mikey Cohen. More than a half century ago, Cohen was involved in all kinds of bad stuff and hung around all kinds of bad people. But then later in his life he met Billy Graham at one of his gatherings. He made a public confession of Jesus Christ there. Awesome! But wait. He kept being involved in all kinds of bad stuff and still hung around all kinds of bad people.

What's up with that?

Some Christians confronted him about this. He responded that no one told him he had to change his lifestyle -- there's Christians football players and Christian politicians, so why not Christian gangsters? If he had to give up his lifestyle, he was out, fuhget-about-it!

I think he missed something big there.

Fast forward a couple of decades to our second gangster, Michael Franzeese. Talk about a Saul to Paul story! He went from big shot in the Colombo family -- making more money for a crime family since Al Capone -- to born-again Christian and motivational speaker. It wasn't a big tent revivial that God used here, but a dancer named Camille Garcia. He goes around today sharing his transformation with church congregations and also speaks to professional and student athletes about the dangers of gambling. I've seen his testimony on a DVD from when he came to speak at a church here in San Diego, and what a story he has to tell.

Maybe that doesn't sound like much, but consider that a big wig in the mafia breaking with the family usually has nasty side effects -- death, for example. He risked his life to put away the only lifestyle he knew for something greater, service to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Clearly Mike #2 had a much different encounter with Christ than Mike #1.

Again, what's up with that?

I can't answer anything about why one person was truly changed and one was not, but I can make this observation:

When you are really saved, really born again, really a believer and follower of Jesus Christ, guess what? You're changed. Completely. From the inside out. The Bible calls you a new creation, for the is exactly what you are.

So what can we learn from this?

First, I think it says something about the superficial and the emotional. Yeah, sure, man, I don't want to go to hell! Sign me up for the Jesus bus! Okay, but how's your walk with the Lord 10 years later? 5 years? 1 year? 1 month?

Second, I think it says something about evidence of faith. When we have real faith in Christ, we put him first. He's "Lord" not "Some dude". If our lifestyle is more important than serving Christ, we've got a problem. If anything has wrapped around our hearts and taken over our lives, it has become our god. We have to guard against that. I know this first hand. There are things in this life I enjoy that I get really really into -- I must be wary not to let them become idols in my life.

Finally, I think it says something about the power of God. But don't get me wrong here, I'm not knocking Billy Graham and his methods. I'm not knocking anyone's methods. My point is that no matter how much enthusiasm and money is piped into something, no matter how good the intellectual arguments are, no matter how much Christians love a program or an event -- nothing, absolutely nothing, takes the place of the Spirit of God working in the heart and mind of the unsaved person.

God has to do the work from inside to effect real change on the outside -- anything that starts from the outside in is bound to fail, period.

Praise God for salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ and his Spirit living in all believers!

Grace and Peace friends.

Blind Obedience?

2010-10-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

You know there's a lot of misconceptions about God. One in particular is regarding obedience. There are those who might say that blind obedience is a bad thing. That listening to a bunch of rules because God's Word says to do them is stupid, and that we should think for ourselves.

Well.

First, its not a bad thing. If God says to do something, we ought to do it -- for no other reason than God said to do it. He's the creator of the universe and of all mankind. He made it, he made us, and therefore he gets to make the rules. You can't argue with him. His stuff, his rules.

Now, you can argue that the Bible is not the Word of God, but that is a whole different can of worms. Suffice to say, that the main reason many people deep down reject the Bible as the Word of God is not because of some great logical argument or evidence, but rather that they don't want to be held accountable to God for not listening to what he says. If you can rationalize away the Bible then you can go make up your own god and your own ideas about what this god wants. In effect, you make yourself God. That's a tradgedy.

But back on target, to blind obedience.

Despite the fact that blindly obeying God is a correct thing to do, the Bible doesn't leave us blind anyway! Check it out:

Genesis 4. The Lord asked Cain was he was angry and told him that if he does what is right, he will be accepted, but if he does what is wrong, sin is crouching at the door ready to get him. God doesn't just say "don't be angry" -- he gives Cain a reason. Can just doesn't listen.

Exodus 20. The ten commandments. The Lord gives a command to honor parents so the children may live long in the land they are going to get. Again, God gives a reason.

Leviticus 20. A bunch of laws. The Lord tells the people to keep them so the land will not vomit them out and because the people have been set apart from the other nations. Again, God gives a reason.

Deuteronomy 28. Moses' recap of the events that took place in the past 80 years or so before he died. He tells the people that if they folow the Lord's commands, he will set them high above all the nations on the earth and lists various blessings that will come on them. Again, a reason.

Let's skip to some New Testament stuff.

Matthew 26. "Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Mark 10. "No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present ago and, in the age to come, eternal life."

Luke 12. "Whoever acknowledges me before me, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God."

John 15. "If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

Revelation 3. The letters to the churches. To those who continue to follow Jesus to the end -- "I will give the right to eat from the tree of life." "He will not be hurt at all by the second death." "I will give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it." "I will give him the morning star." "I will never blot out his name from the book of life." "I will make a pillar in the temple of my God." "I will give the right to sit with me on my throne."

Reason after reason after reason.

No, not every single commandment of God is explained with a reason. That would be silly. We're supposed to TRUST God. Just like our children are supposed to TRUST us as parents. We know better, and there are many things that are way over their heads. Even more so with us and God. But this isn't blind obedience. This is obedience with a purpose behind it. Joy. Peace. Honor. Power. Glory. Eternal life. And yes, avoidance of the wrath to come for those who do not heed God's Word.

We should obey God simply because he is God, and we love him, and we trust him. As a BONUS he throws in all this other awesome stuff too. Yet, somehow, we stiff-necked human beings often thing we know better or that there is a better deal? Shame on us.

Grace and Peace

Overflowing

2010-10-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen the movie "Office Space" you might remember the bit about flair. This waitress' boss was always getting on her to put on more "pieces of flair" -- junk she had to pin on to her outfit to look, well, I don't know, nuts? She met the boss' requirement, 15 pieces. Randomly chosen. She didn't like the flair and she didn't care what things she pinned on. Then there was the other waiter who went way above the requirement. He looked like a pin trader table at Disneyland. The boss really didn't like that the waitress only did the bare minimum and really loved that the other dude went all out.

What's this have to do with anything?

Replace the boss with God, the waiters with us, and flair with our works.

Bare minimum doesn't come from the heart. Its working hard enough not to get fired. Its banging out the paper and tweaking the font size so it fills the five pages. Its being on the field/court but not really in the game. Its also showing up late to church, mouthing words to the songs, texting during the message, and speed reading the Bible just to get the "Christian life" checkboxes checked off. That's crap, and it doesn't honor God.

Let's take a look at some good stuff in God's word that is the opposite of "bare minimum" -- overflowing!

Check out Exodus 35 and 36 where the offerings were brought in to build the tabernacle. Peoples hearts were moved so greatly, and they brought so much stuff, that Moses had to tell them to stop bringing stuff! Pastors use that a lot to make a point about generous giving, saying that it was the first time and the last time people gave too much. That's overflowing!

Check out 2 Samuel 9. That's where I'm at in going through the Bible right now and what prompted this post actually. Back in 1 Samuel 20 David made a promise to Jonathan to not cut off kindness from his family. Jonathan was Saul's kid -- the Saul who kept trying to kill David. Then David later became king. What did kings in the ancient world do? Wipe out the others who would be a threat. David could bare-minimum-fulfilled his promise to Jonathan just by not seeking out descendants of Saul and allowing them to live. But what does he do? He actively seeks out descendants of Saul and finds Mephibosheth, restores lands to him, orders Saul's previous servants to work the land and provide for him, and allows him access to the royal palace -- inviting him always to his table.

Mose and the Israelites, cool. David, cool. But dude, let's talk about Jesus! How about Mark 6, feeding the five thousand? Jesus just didn't give these guys a PB&J and squeeze box OJ so they were still hungry. At the end of the account it says the disciples picked up 12 baskets full of leftovers. That's a lot of leftovers, and it means the people there were stuffed! They got more than enough to eat.

But that's not where God's giving stops. You want to talk about overflowing? What does God do? Sends his son Jesus to pay the price for our sins. We don't deserve that. We didn't earn that. We can't ever repay that. But that's not all. When we follow Jesus, he gives us the kingdom. What?! I'm not a smart man and into all the nuances of Revelation, but I can read at the end of chapter 3 where it says "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne." This is the creator of the universe talking here, and he's going to let his people sit on his throne? Woah. That's pretty freaking awesome. We don't think so sometimes because we're thick headed and just don't GET it, especially me!

Oh, and just before that bit about the throne, Jesus was talking about spitting out the lukewarm deed doers from Laodicea out of his mouth. Those "bare minimum" dudes.

Yeah, we don't want bare minimum. We want overflowing. When we sing. When we learn. When we teach. When we serve. Whatever we do in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, make it excellent, and make it overflow. It pays back a thousand fold. So, if we don't have overflowing joy, then I must ask -- do we have overflowing actions that returns joy? We should!

Grace and Peace friends

What Does It Mean To Glorify God?

2010-10-12T12:27:00.001-07:00

In response to the statement "we're here to glorify God" I have had it said to me that God is not vain. That is true -- and such a response comes from a misunderstanding of what it means to glorify God.

Let's clear it up a bit.

My own definition is "to make God look so awesome and so good like he really is". And the reason for it? Because he's the only one who deserves it!

He's the one who made the universe. He's the one who made people. He's the one who reached down into humanity to reveal himself to use through his creation, through his prophets, and ultimately through the person of Jesus Christ. He's the one who waits patiently for people to come to him. He's the one who changes hearts and minds and transforms lives. He's the one who brings peace and joy. And he's the only one that did and does these things!

How do we do that?

We can praise and worship him. Not because of some "religious" requirement. Not because that's what we're expected to do. Not because of anything other than a thankful and joyful heart for all that God has done for us! Our prayers, our songs, our messages -- they all mean nothing if our hearts are not right. We are to love God with all our hearts, and when we do, we can't help but lift up his name!

We can do good works. Jesus told us when he said to let our light shine before men -- so that people see them and praise our father in heaven. You don't do good works just to meet people's needs. YOu don't do good works just because it makes you feel good. You definitely don't do good works to make yourself look good. Nor do you do them with a bad attitude. No, you don't good works because you're a sign, a billboard, a pointer. You're a big fat blinking arrow that points people to God. Think about it, what good is filling someone's belly or fixing their house going to do if they remain spiritually dead? Worthless. When you go out there in the name of Jesus to do good things, people see it, know why you are doing it -- and that changes lives for all of eternity. That's freaking awesome.

That takes care of Sunday and our outreach times, right? Ding ding ding, wrong. Now what I'm about to write, I suck at too at times. I don't do it all the time either. I don't think anyone does. That's because we're a stiff necked sinful people. It happens. Pay attention to it and it keeps you humble before a holy God.

It's more.

It's our whole lives. Our entire lives should be an act of praise, worship, and pointing people to the awesome God that made us and loves us. Paul wrote that in everything we do, we should do for the glory of God. Really, everything? Drinking orange juice? Yup. John Piper even wrote about that. Check it out here:

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/how-to-drink-orange-juice-to-the-glory-of-god

Can we do that completely? Yes, if we're totally sold out to Jesus. I don't think any man is totally sold out to Jesus. Chuck Smith often has said something about wondering how God would use a man that is totally, 100%, committed to him. I wonder that myself.

Really, I can knowingly glorify God, even if not perfectly, when I help people in need. When I give. When I teach. When I encourage. When I share the Word. When I stand up for the truth. When I study the Word. When I sing (well, in my way) praises. When I impart spiritual knowledge to my children. Those fall in the box of some sort of "typical Christian life".

But I can also glorify God when I do the dishes because my wife hates doing them. When I eat my lunch with a thankful heart. When I go to the store to pick something up for someone else. When I take out the trash as a duty and stop to check for stuff other people could use in there. When I play with my kids and soak in the joy that brings. When I go to work and work hard to support my family and have money to give. Those are day to day things that can adorn the gospel and glorify God when done with a right heart and motivation.

In those examples from my own life, know that I've screwed up every single one of those by having the wrong motivation and a bad attitude. Praise God for the conviction the Holy Spirit brings when that happens!

Know also that I don't think about glorifying God in some of the things that I do. I don't think about it when I play basketball and even less when I play Halo. I'm thankful for those things. I enjoy them. I like the mentally untaxing down time. Am I glorifying God in them? Maybe, but I'd chalk those up more to being yet another one of a billion who are not 100% sold out. I just don't know sometimes.

Even so, we learn and we grow. We are convicted and we change. Getting cleaned up is a lifelong process that doesn't end this side of eternity. As I have heard said, "imperfect action is better than no action." And right action to glorify God with all of our lives starts with an understanding of what that means and why he deserves it.

Grace and Peace

The Deity Of Jesus Christ

2010-10-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

Props to Mark Strauss tonight for prompting me to write this. Higher props to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for working in the hearts and minds of all believers!

Remember that Da Vinci Code movie? I guess it was a book first, but I saw the movie only. There's a lot of crap in it. Of course there is, it's a product of a godless industry. However there is one especially large piece of crap in it -- that argument that the church viewed Christ as human only until the Council of Nicea in the 4th century, in which he was "voted" to be divine -- by a narrow margin at that.

All bunk. One can look up what the vote was about and what the margin was to se that. But Dan Brown's nonsense or some council is not what this post is about. We have to go back before that, into the 1st century. What did followers of Christ write about him?

How about John? Chapter 1. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All thing were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have see his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

There you have it. Jesus as both divine and human, and creator to boot.

Not enough? How about Paul? Colossians 1, chapter 1. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him...For in him all the fullness of God was please to dwell..."

There you have it again. Jesus as both divine and human, and creator to boot.

Not enough? How about the author of Hebrews, chapter 1. "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power....And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, 'Let all God's angels worship him.'"

There you have it again. Jesus as both divine and human, and creator to boot.

Three different 1st century New Testament authors independently attesting to both the divinity and humanity of the God-man, Jesus Christ -- let alone the numerous indicators of this through Jesus' words as recorded in the gospel accounts. The conclusion, according to scripture, Jesus is God.

"Oh wait, what about..." others will say. This "Who is Jesus?" test is a good one to help answer the "Christian or non-Christian cult?" question. Here's the common two "what abouts" in the above passages:

First, "and the word was a god". This is what the Jehovah's Witness' translation of the Bible says. Go find a Greek New Testament and some impartial dude who knows Greek well and have him tell you. There should be no 'a' in there. It's a mistranslation made intentionally to fit the Jehovah's Witness' mission to prove to everyone that Jesus is not God. It's bunk and it's wrong. And guess what? Even that Bible is still littered with numerous indicators to the divinity of Christ.

Next, "firstborn". Uh, oh, Jesus was a created being himself, even though he created everything else? Well, no. "Without him was not anything made that was made." If he was created but also created everything, then he had to create himself. That's just stupid. :-) But that's not the end of the argument either. Firstborn is used to indicate status as well -- the most honored.

Grace and Peace friends.

In What We Trust?

2010-09-26T22:18:00.000-07:00

I read the first part of 1 Samuel 4 tonight. An interesting story there about a boneheaded decision the Israelites made. Don't get me wrong, I'm not overly knocking them -- I make plenty of boneheaded decisions all the time. I'm sure you do too!

Here's what went down. The Philistines and the Israelites are fighting. The Philistines are winning. So the Israelites come up with this brilliant plan -- bring up the ark of the covenant from Shiloh to the camp, thinking that will make things go well.

Uh oh. Bad idea.

The short story is the Israelites get pummeled, get the ark captured, and the two wicked priests, Eli's sons, ended up dead.

What did they trust in? A box with the Lord's commandments, a staff, and some manna in it. That's not going to do a whole lot. Yeah, its some really neat stuff in there, but dudes, its still just stuff!

That got me to thinking. What kind of bogus objects of trust do we as people have for our salvation?

"We're Methodists." Or Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, or Whateverans. "Oh really? What's a Methodist?" "I don't know, but my family, we're Methodists." Yeah, sorry, that won't cut it. The Jews back in the day tried this with "We're Abraham's descendants." Same thing, different time, same result.

"I go to church." You know I asked one of Novalee's former teachers if she knew Jesus before. She said she went to church, if that's what I'm asking. No lady, that's not what I was asking! Going to church and knowing Jesus Christ are two different things. If you know Jesus, yes, you should go to church -- for a number of reasons. But there are plenty of seats taken up in churches today by a bunch of people who don't know Jesus Christ. That's fine too, we want people to come in the doors, hear the Word, and get saved -- but the problem is when people think they're saved just because they show up. No deal.

"I got baptized." Yeah really? When you were a baby or an adult? I'm guessing the former -- not that it matters, since baptism is an outward symbol of an inside change. There isn't some magical life saving water you can sprinkle on or get dunked in to save you from hell. There is only the living water, Jesus Christ.

"I believe in God." Well, you believe in A god. Do you believe in the one true living God, the God of the Bible? The God who made this whole universe and sent his Son Jesus Christ to die on a cross as payment for our sins, because there is no way we could bridge the gap between him and us ourselves? That God? If that's the God you believe in and love, awesome. If you believe in some abstract concept of God like I once did, or believe in a god different than the one revealed in the pages of scripture, you believe in nothing -- worse than nothing even, because you lie to yourself.

"I'm a good person." We could spend a while on this, but I don't want to. The short answer of what the Bible teaches on this is, no, you're not. Period. Ain't none of us good. Jesus said the only one that is good is God. Funny thing about that. Jesus is God, and Jesus is good. Anyway, since none of us are good, guess what? None of us are going to heaven because of our "good works" either!

I'm sure this list could go on, but this post is getting quite long already. The point here is, trust Jesus Christ for your salvation. That he died on a cross to pay the price for your sins. You can't pay that price, ever. You come to Christ with that drilled into your heart, he'll do the rest regarding whatever other junk in your life needs some fixing. Real stuff. That deep down sometimes scary spiritual stuff. He'll also give you stuff to do to further his kingdom and point people to him.. It's awesome!

Grace and Peace friends.

The Temptations

2010-09-11T21:22:00.001-07:00

But it was just my imagination running away with me. It was just my imag...oh wait, wrong kind of temptations.

The ones that I'm talking about are the ones that are necessary. The ones not that we might face, but WILL face in this world. Jesus spoke on this, saying "woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!" (Matthew 18:7)

And in my experience sometimes they come hard and sometimes they come constantly. So why is it necessary they come? I have a completely correct answer.

I don't know.

I didn't say it was a helpful answer.

However I can tell you some positive sides of temptations in my life.

First, when any temptation is overcome -- and they all can be overcome -- it further strengthens me in my walk with the Lord. The downside and the flip side is that when I fall flat on my face and give it, I'm bummed about it and I don't feel right with God. But even that in itself is an indicator of the change in me -- before God saved me I didn't mourn over sin -- I reveled in it.

Second, and more the driving point of this post, is that temptations keep me in check. They keep me from getting a big head thinking I've made it and I'm so good and can float through this life doing what's right without God's help. Woe to us when we think such thoughts!

With the conflict inside reminiscent of Romans 7, I remember where I came from. And I am once again reminded that it is only by the grace of God that I have been saved and am not going to perish and face eternal punishment for rejecting his offer of salvation through Jesus Christ. In short, temptations help keep me humbled before Almighty God and serve to keep always in mind my dependence on him!

Thank you God for every victory and every reminder of who I am before you!

Grace and Peace

Burn, Baby, Burn?

2010-09-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I got sucked into thinking about this Qur'an burning thing this dude in Florida wants to do on September 11th. When I first heard about it, I didn't think much of it one way or the other. "Yeah, that's interesting...I bet the media will blow it into a whole big deal."

My mind drifted back to Old Testament times for a bit. You know where the Israelites were supposed to cross the Jordan, go in, and take over the land, getting rid of whatever false idols were there. We just don't do that sort of thing in a physical way these days. Go figure. We don't live in the theocracy of ancient Israel. Its not really a justification for anything, that's just where my mind wandered to. And since this is my blog, you get the annoyance of following my mind down all kinds of rabbit holes.

Of course then one thinks of Paul whose mind didn't wander to where mine did. I remember where he saw a dedication in the temple -- to "the unknown God". He tried to use that. "Let me tell you about this God you don't know" he said. Of course, few were saved despite his eloquence and trying to adapt. I think that was the turning point where in his next round of efforts said "I knew nothing among you except for Christ and him crucified". I guess that shows when you don't know where to go, focus on the cross is always a smart thing.

Okay back on the train track here.

Then I heard people talk about this issue on a few Christian radio stations I listened to. Christian brothers I respect greatly seemed to think it was a pretty bonehead move simply because the act seems to be out of anger and is inciteful. Okay, I can buy that. It reminds me of that Crocodile Hunter guy. You know, the one that would go up to some really poisonous sleeping critter and poke it with a stick to see what would happen. I'm not sure that kind of thing was the brightest idea ever. So I can see one of their points. Purposefully going and ticking off a whole bunch of people doesn't really help efforts to get the gospel across to people.

The other point I don't really buy at all. The one some general made that these guys also agreed with -- that it puts American soldiers' lives in danger. Maybe, but, you know what? Our soldiers are in places where local people just don't want them to be. They're pretty much in danger no matter what.

Then, I was thinking about this before writing anything, a song came on that had in it the old school "What would Jesus do?" as part of its lyrics. I don't know what he'd do. Probably not waste his time with this one dude's public statement one way or the other? Probably say something about anger in the heart that needs to be let go? Probably say something about loving ones' enemies, forgiving them, and praying for them? I don't recall the "if someone asks you to carry their junk one mile, go two" ending with "and then throw it in the river to tick 'em off".

Then, I also I wondered if such an event where happening locally, would I bring my kids? No, no I wouldn't. What's that going to teach them? At worst it teaches some pretty unpleasant stuff. At best it teaches them to waste their time and play with fire. I don't care for either. My kids are a good measuring stick sometimes.

So, while I hold the Qur'an up to no special light and consider it full of falsehoods like so many other things, I have to concur that the public burning idea on September 11th especially is a pretty bonehead move. If you're going to destroy others' sacred things to make a statement, make a more worthwhile statement on a different date. And to do that you might have to throw in the Hindu Vedas, the Sikh Guru Granth Sahib, the Bahai Aqdas, the Book of Mormon, the Pope, business plans, car manuals, piles of dollar bills, stacks of pornography magazines, season tickets to , cable boxes, romance novels, gym membership cards, drugs, booze, designer clothes, and on and on and on.

Depending on who comes across this post, I probably offended a bunch of people just now with that last statement. That's okay. I don't plan to implement said wildfire-starting plan nor advocate it. I'm just making the simple statement that there are a million false gods in the world, whether under the name of "God", "a god" or something that doesn't "seem" like a god yet is number one in someone's life. Going after them for everyone else ain't gonna work. Just get help from the right source and eliminate them in your own life.

In short, there is one truth, revealed in one book, and through one person -- the Lord Jesus Christ.

That was rather chatty. Grace, and Peace!

Churchianity Is Not Christianity

2010-09-05T23:17:00.001-07:00

I asked a woman once "Do you know Jesus Christ?" The response I got surprised me a little bit. She said "Do you mean do I go to church? I go to such and such church." No, that's not what I meant. After a little more conversation she gave me the brush off that went something like "I'm fine, thanks for your concern though." Blah blah blah and so on. There's a problem here.

Churchianity is not Christianity.

You can sit in a church for all your life and wind up in hell or never set foot in one and end up in heaven.

So let's set some things straight.

There's one true church. Uh oh. Every time I hear that phrase alarms go off in my head. That's a strong mark of a cult right there. But no, I'm not talking about some group or building. The one true church is made up of all followers of Jesus Christ. The requirement for membership is confessing Jesus as Lord and believing God raised him from the dead. I mean truly. The kind of belief that yields real transformation in a person's life. That new creation kind of belief. The label you are under doesn't matter if you're right with God through Jesus Christ.

Going to church isn't about you. It might seem that way in some, with a polished presentation, lively bands, and feel good messages about how Jesus can improve your life. Some people go there to get their spiritual fix for the week, get recharged with the Spirit, or whatever else someone wants to call it. Whatever the phrase, its about the church goer and not God Almighty.

Going to church isn't about the tradition either. And we all have tradition, whether you're under a label that has been around for a thousand years or one. How much do we focus on the comfy seats, hip bands, and poppy messages with just the right of humor thrown in? Or how about the pomp and circumstance, huge choirs with matching outfits, and preachers in pin striped suits with all the flair? Or how about a holier than thou attitude, overly costumed "clergy", and detailed instructions about when to kneel, sit, stand, sing, shake hands, and so on.

Yes, we're supposed to take something excellent away from church in our hearts. Yes, worship should be orderly. Yes, everything should be done for the glory of God. But let's make sure that it really is, and the way to do that is when we come to church with a heart that knows it's ALL about God. If we forget who we are gathered together to honor, the most organized and polished service in the world is nothing more than rubbish.

Daily life isn't about focusing on "church stuff". Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of "church stuff" that is very awesome. But if in our hearts, we've got nothing more than a "good works" checklist, it, again, is all rubbish. By all means, lead at AWANA, but remember you're there to raise up children to love the Lord. Sing in the choir, but remember you're there to honor the Lord with your voice. Go to the weekly Bible study, but remember you're there to dig into God's Word with other believers, gaining knowledge to better love and serve the Lord for the rest of the week. Go to the prayer meeting, but remember the goal is to seek the Lord's will, not bring him a to-do list. Say yes to the various roles your are asked to take on, but only after getting an okay from the Lord and not just to be a people pleaser. Soak in the teaching from weekend message, but compare it yourself against the Word, and, if it passes the test, seek how you might apply it the rest of the week as well.

In short, as the saying goes, "Only one life, it will soon be past - only what's done for Christ will last." So if church isn't about Christ in your life, then fix it. That means either a new church, a new you, or both!

I will close with this link I came across that I loved. Written so many years ago, it can apply very well today:

http://www.auburn.edu/~allenkc/chrichur.html

Grace and Peace my friends

I Stand By The Door

2010-09-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

My uncle, brother, and friend sent me this poem. It's most excellent.

I stand by the door, I neither go too far in nor stay too far out.

The door is the most important door in the world.

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There is no use my going way inside and staying there when so many are still outside and they as much as I crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many find is only the wall where the door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men with outstretched groping hands feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door, yet they never find it.

So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world is for men to find that door, the door to God.

The most important thing that any man or woman can do is to take hold of one of those blind groping hands and put it on the latch, the latch that only clicks and opens to the man’s own touch.

Men die outside the door as starving beggars die on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter, die for want of what is within their grasp.

They live on the other side of it, live because they’ve not found it.

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it and open it and walk in and find Him.

So I stand by the door.

I admire the people that go way in but I wish they would not forget how it was before they got in.

Then they would be able to help the people who have not yet even found the door.

Or the people who want to run away again from God.

You can go in too deeply and stay in too long and forget the people outside the door.

As for me I shall take my old accustomed place, near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there but not so far from men as to hear them and remember that they are there too.

Where?

Outside the door.

Thousands of them, millions of them.

But more important for me, one of them, two of them, ten of them, whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.

So I shall stand by the door and wait for those who seek it.

I had rather be a door keeper.

So I stand by the door.

- Sam Schumaker

"I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture" - John 10:9

Grace and Peace

Storms Of This Life

2010-08-30T23:28:00.001-07:00

Today I am writing about the storms of this life that we all face, or will face, from time to time. And I must be honest here; my personal experience with them is very limited. I don't know what it is like to lose a child to disease, have my home burn down, or get beaten and thrown in prison for something I didn't do. I don't know real persecution, and I don't know real hardship. I only know to some extent what the Word of God says about these things. My own prayer tonight is that if, or when, big storms hit in my life, I can follow what I say here myself!

That said, here goes.

When tough things come our way in this life, our reaction is often to turn to God in prayer. That's good, we should come to God with whatever is weighing heavily on our shoulders. But what do we ask of God when we come to him in prayer with a trial that we are facing?

We might ask God to take away whatever burden is on our backs. That's understandable. I don't know it for sure, but I'll bet it is the most common reaction to our troubles, at least initially. There are definitely Biblical examples of it. I can think of two immediately. In 2 Samuel 12 David seeks the Lord on behalf of the dying child he had with Bathsheba. And in 2 Corinthians Paul asks the Lord three times to remove a "thorn in the flesh" he had been given.

In both of these cases, the Lord doesn't do what is asked of him. In David's case, the child dies. He stops fasting and petitioning the Lord, accepting the finality of the situation. In Paul's case, the Lord responds to him, saying "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." He also accepts the Lord's answer, welcoming the weakness because it shows how Christ can make him strong.

When we, like David and Paul, see the Lord is not going to lift the burden from us, I think there are two things we can continue to bring before the Lord in prayer. I think both are shown through Paul's response.

First, we may ask the Lord to give us the strength to get through whatever it is. The saying is true that sometimes the Lord calms the storm and other times the Lord calms you so you can get through the storm. Knowing that the storm is there to stay, we need help -- the supernatural power of Jesus Christ working in our heart and mind to get us through whatever difficult situation there is that we cannot face alone. This is what Paul recognized -- where he broke down, Christ stepped up to keep him going. Seeing such strength in believers going through the toughest trials of their lives makes people take notice. It points others to Christ. And it glorifies God.

Second, we may ask the Lord to show us how to use the trial for his glory. As pointed out above, God may be glorified simply through the demonstration of Christ's supernatural power working in our lives as we stand strong in the face of calamity that we could not face on our own. Or he may further use our trials to comfort others, to encourage others, to inspire others, or to provide a unique platform on which to share the gospel, for starters. Our trials today may not even be used for some time for God's purposes.

I remember as I write this the story of Nick Vujicic -- a man born with no arms and no legs. God has used him mightily to preach the gospel in parts of the world that the "typical" evangelist could not reach. Could God grow him some arms and legs? Yes. But instead of doing that, he's given Nick the power to accept his situation, the extra strength he needs day by day to keep moving forward and keep focused on the kingdom, and the wisdom to see how God is using his infirmity for His own glory.

It is the same way in many other stories. Young couples who lose their babies to disease that later start church support groups to help their brothers and sisters bear the same burden. Victims of various forms of abuse being able to empathize and talk on the same level with other similar victims and bring them the hope of Christ where others could not. People standing up for Christ in hostile lands and the cost of their lives who inspire the next generation of missionaries and strengthen the faith of all who hear their stories told. The list is virtually endless, but the method of operation is always the same -- the bad situation of today getting flipped around for good tomorrow.

So whatever we thorns of our own we are given, know that God has the power to remove them. Know also that he has his reasons for not doing so. We don't always know his plan and purpose for our lives. We don't always know what he's preparing us for in this life. We don't always know how he may use our hardships to further his kingdom and point people to Christ. But what we do know is that he is bigger than us, wiser than us, and that he loves us immensely. Our part is to seek his will for us, trusting that whatever he allows to happen in our lives is for a greater God-glorifying purpose that we may not be able to see this side of eternity. We just need to trust that he's in control and that he can see us through anything that comes our way.

Grace and Peace

What Do We Worship

2010-08-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

What do we worship? Who do we love?
Things of the world or the father above?
A million gods around us every day
Innocent snares that pull us away

Do we shout praise to Giants and Eagles, Bears and Kings?
Or is our attention devoted to less sporty things?
Do we make idols of work, cars, children, and home,
When our top concern is ours and our own?

Do we make much of the lives of men?
Enquiring of the Stars and fawning over them?
Do we go Gaga over a Lady who really is not?
Or droll over a Rock because we think he's hot?

Do we daydream of having great power and fame?
Or just get sucked into an endless array of games?
Do we pay homage to the needle or the bottle?
Or seek a thrill-a-minute life lived at full throttle?

Do we gather for worship together at the local mall?
Thinking of the new fashions, we've got to have them all?
Or do we seek to find true meaning far from home?
Believing that happiness lies closer the farther we roam?

Long ago from wood, stone, or silver, false gods were cast
We think they're ancient idols from days long past
What we so often completely fail to see
Are the gods today that tempt you and me

A million lay around us every single day
Everyone trying to pull us away
From the only one that will matter in the end
The one true God, our eternal best friend

Friends, there are so many things in this world that get between us and God -- and there is no one to blame but us. We are the ones who so often go chasing after things of this world, thinking in the end that they matter. But the saying is true. Only one life, and it will soon be past -- only what is done for Christ will last. We've been given great resources and gifts to be used for furthering God's kingdom, so let's use them! We must be wise with our money, and we must be wise with our time. The more we focus on mindless things to amuse us or get caught up in addictions that abuse us, the less we have to offer in service to God.

As I have heard a dear brother say recently, let us judge ourselves. We have a great measuring stick to compare our lives against, and that is God's Word. We may talk the talk, but let's compare against the Word to ensure we're walking the walk! Do we suppress our own freedoms in Christ for the sake of our brothers and sisters? Do we make the most of the time we have on this earth for the sake of the kingdom? Do we do our best to spiritually train our children and teach them to know, love, and serve the Lord Jesus Christ? These are just a few of the many questions we need to be asking ourselves as we compare our lifestyles against who we are called to be in Christ.

The measuring stick doesn't change and we don't stand still. Every day we're either shrinking or growing in comparison to it. Let us all strive to do the latter!

Grace and Peace

Who's Number One?

2010-08-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

I suck.

Yeah, thanks for agreeing. But I suck for a particular reason today. First, let me tell you about my day. It sucked too. I got up early. I left quickly and got to work earlier than I have been. I stayed a little late and came home. But guess what I got done today? Nothing! Okay, at least nothing that was done efficiently and left me feeling my pay was justified today.

I put in some interview comments for someone I interviewed yesterday. That took a lot longer than I thought. I read through some FCC documents to figure out if something I implemented was done right. That took a lot longer than I thought. Then I phone interviewed someone. That took a lot longer than I thought. Then I put in some interview comments for that person. That took a lot longer than I thought. Then I documented some stuff I worked on. That took a lot longer than I thought. Then I left feeling both blah and unproductive. A day of inefficiency, yuck!

Later in the evening I realized my problem. Sin. End of post.

Okay, I'll elaborate since sin is big problem causer in all kinds of ways and copping out like that just doesn't help. I failed to mention that I started giving God the first part of my day in the Word. Technically not the very first part. Wake up, stretch, brush teeth, change, get some food, and then come to the Word. But still, its a special time of the morning to spend with the Lord, and the days I have done that have been great.

This morning, I blew it. I consciously decided to skip it in favor of getting to work early. I took my Bible with me thinking I'd read it outside at lunch, which I totally forgot about. I was also distracted on the way to work and didn't really get anything out of the preaching on K-Wave and didn't really spend any time with the Lord in prayer. God was far from my heart and far from my mind for the bulk of the day, and that was absolutely sinful. And, rightfully, my day sucked.

Never, ever, put other things before the Lord. That doesn't mean you have to make a hard rule to this or that every day, but when you willfully tell the Lord "Not now, I'll get to you later" it is a slap in the face and ALWAYS a bad idea.

Grace and Peace

Be Ready

2010-08-21T23:26:00.001-07:00

We have dogs.

When the dogs come to greet me when I get home, and have not peed on the floor -- there is a lot of tail wagging, standing up on two legs, tongue hanging, barking, whining, running around, and so on. Why? They are excited to see me.

When the dogs chew on something they are not supposed to or pee on the floor, do you know what they do? They get real low to the floor. They hang their heads in shame. They go into their boxes in the laundry room. They're not completely stupid. They're not completely without understanding. They know they've done badly and are in trouble.

I think perhaps people are both a lot smarter and a lot stupider than animals. Really! Consider the following:

How many people know the miracles of the Bible are true yet live like practical atheists?

How many people know they should put God first in their lives yet don't have evidence of it in their checkbook register or on their calendar?

How many people know the time is short and the days are evil, yet fritter it away on meaningless pursuits or sitting lethargic in front of the television watching shows about nothing?

How many people know they have a responsibility to teach the Word to their children, yet put far more importantce on after school sports or family game night?

A number of passages in the Bible carry the same theme -- be ready, be vigilant. The Lord could return at any moment. Are you prepared? It's a worthy question to think about -- what kind of reaction do you want to have when he returns? One where you hang your head in shame because you have known the Word but down a half baked job at best in keeping it? Or one where you are so excited you can't contain yourself?

Grace and Peace

You And Your Household

2010-08-17T22:36:00.001-07:00

I love the account from the middle to the end of Acts 16, for a few reasons. There's a particular part of it that has more meaning to me these days than it has in the past. I'll share that in a minute, but first, here's the gist of the account.

Paul and Silas are in Phillipi. A slave girl with a spirit of divination (future telling) ends up following them around crying out about them. Paul finally gets fed up with her and casts out the demon. This is bad news for the slave girl's masters, because they were using her to make money. This ends up causing a ruckus; Paul and Silas get attacked, beaten, and thrown in jail. An earthquake busts up the jail so prisoners can escape, but Paul and Silas don't run away. They hang around and are used to convert the surprised jailer, telling him "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."

Awesome story.

One thing I think is interesting is that Paul doesn't cast the demon out of the girl right away. That has some implications of its own I think, but that's now what has more meaning to me these days. Rather, its the last line, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."

First, let's clear something up, because this trips some people up. You're not saved because of who you know, unless its Jesus Christ. Your mom's faith doesn't save you. Your dad's faith doesn't save you. Your brother or sister's faith doesn't save you. Each person's own relationship, or lack of it, with God through Christ is what saves them or condemns them.

That said, I look at that verse in the context of my own life and can only respond with praise and thanksgiving that I was saved at a time when my children were/are young enough to have a meaningful impact on their spiritual life and worldview.

What did my home look like before God saved me? There was no Bible reading or teaching that I am aware of. There was no church attendance despite the longing in my wife's heart, due to my own sinful stubbornness. There were no acts of serving the Lord by serving others. There was no mealtime or bedtime prayer. There was no desire to separate from the public school system and its exclusion of God and promotion of evolutionary nonsense. The list could go on, but I think you get the point!

After God saved me and transformed my heart and mind, various things in our home changed over time to be more focused on what the Lord would have us do. Now, don't get me wrong here -- this is not my doing for which I claim any credit. I am simply pointing out that Jamie and I needed to be of common mind and common focus when it comes to raising our children to know, love, and serve the Lord. That couldn't possilby happen when I was in bondage to sin and thinking I loved it.

In the context of the Phillipian jailer, I'm not sure exactly what Paul meant by his statement, but I can certainly see in my own life how the things of God begin to take over once the parents in the home are both committed to Christ and to raising godly children. So, for any similar type of situation, I can certainly understand how one could legitimately say to one or both parents "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."

It is my prayer for any lost family and friends out there tonight, especially parents of young children, that they investigate the claims of Christianity, come to know the truth, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ while they can still be a great influence on the lives of their kids!

Grace and Peace

Give Well

2010-08-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

What's behind our giving? Of time. Of money. Of things. Of whatever. There's a few good motives and a lot of bad ones.

Do we give because God wants us to give, but do it grudgingly? "Bah, they're asking for money again!" Would we rather spend the money on new toy for ourselves? Would we rather spend the time hanging out with friends, watching television, or playing sports? If that's your motive for giving something, keep it. God doesn't want it.

Do we give because we feel a sense of duty? "Well we're Christians so we better give; its the thing to do." Maybe we're not reluctant about it, but we're not fired up about it either. It's just another check box to tick off on our list of things to do to look like we're good little Christians keeping our i's dotted and t's crossed. If that's your motive for giving something, keep it. God doesn't want it.

Do we give because we feel guilty? "We have so much and they have so little. That's not cool. Let's give them something so we don't feel as bad." This one is probably most common in rich western cultures. We recognize there is an imbalance in the world and that we didn't end up with the short end of the stick. We have some recognition of where all that we have comes from and don't feel entitled, but we still squander it and know it. Giving is a way to suppress that feeling we don't like. If that's your motive for giving something, keep it. God doesn't want it.

Do we give because we don't want something bad to happen to us? "If I do this for God, then God will be nice to me." If we do this, what god do we think we worship? Some pantheistic God-is-everything nonsense? Some other false god in a false system that demands we "earn" salvation through good works? Do we actually think we can bribe God? If that's your motive for giving something, keep it. God doesn't want it.

Or do we have a real reason for giving? How about giving generously because God first gave to us so generously -- showing love because he first loved us? How about giving because we are so thankful that he paid a debt for us that we could never pay ourselves? When we give for these reasons, we give well.

I have given both out of proper motive (as far as I can tell anyway!) and wrong motive, and I can say with certainty that there is no reward, eternal or temporal, for any work done from a heart that isn't in the right place.

Give often, give much, and, most importantly, give well.

Grace and Peace

The Primary Issue

2010-08-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

I've observed something and learned something over time. Sometimes believers can get overly concerned about the behavior of non-believers. I can understand this, especially when the overt practicing of sin makes it more difficult to instill a proper worldview in my children or when other, particularly innocent, people get hurt as a result.

But when we get to the point where we challenge an unbeliever's actions or moral perspective only, maybe pointing out they don't line up with the Bible, I think we do the gospel a disservice. Think about the effect that has. What does it say to someone? I think the main thing it says is "You get to heaven by your own efforts in being good, but you're screwing it up." This inevitably leads to a response of "You just want to use that book to control how I live. Screw that."

Bummer. That's not the message. Behavior is a secondary issue. Yes, its important. Yes, the Bible tells us how we should live. However, that doesn't matter one bit for the person that hasn't dealt with the primary issue! And the primary issue is in the heart of man. We don't live up to our own standards, let alone God's infinitely higher ones. Changing our behavior on our own terms isn't going to help fix that. The only things that will help fix it is 1) agreeing with God's analysis of our condition -- we're broken sinful people that can't earn our way into his favor and 2) accepting his solution to the problem by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, recognizing that on the cross he took the punishment for our sins, paying a debt we could never pay.

So, for unbelievers who live together and are not married, there is only one solution

For unbelievers who practice homosexuality, there is only one solution.

For unbelievers who condone abortion, there is only one solution.

For unbelievers who railroad God out of school, there is only one solution.

For unbelievers who drunk themselves stupid every night, there is only one solution.

For unbelievers who waste their lives on trivial pursuits, there is only one solution.

The list could go on, but the one solution to all the bad behaviors we tend to get vocal about, and more, is Christ crucified. Period. That's it. We don't get our actions right and then come to Christ. Rather, we take care of the primary issue by coming to Christ as we are, in humility and faith, and then letting him do the cleaning up from the inside out -- bogus behavior on the outside vanishes when we have a new heart on the inside that wants nothing more than to live for Christ!

Grace and Peace

Jesus Christ, Problem Solver

2010-07-18T08:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote a little while back about Jesus being "the way" and not "a way". I want to revisit that, because I love the way it was put by a man interviewed in the "Case for Faith" video by Lee Strobel: "Jesus is the only way because he's the only one who solved the problem."

Absolutely. Wait, what problem?

The problem of sin. In other words, not doing what God wants us to do -- not living up to his standards. Heck, we don't even live up to our own standards of how we want to be, let alone God's much higher ones. That's not just something we pull out of the Bible, its obvious in our daily lives. We have innate feelings about what is right and what is wrong in many situations. Often we want to do what we know is the right thing, yet we choose to do the wrong thing anyway and then we feel bad about it. Sometimes we purposefully choose the wrong thing and think we are happy about that choice, but we still know we chose the wrong thing.

That's one aspect of sin, and its our biggest problem.

Why? Well, look what it does. It wrecks relationships. When we choose to do the wrong thing, we hurt people directly or indirectly, and the relationships with the people we've hurt are weakened or destroyed completely. Maybe we think we don't care about those relationships. That's an excuse, because if we look deep down, we all know that we should care about other people because it is right to do so.

Not only does sin wreck our relationship with each other, it wrecks our relationship with God.

To see this pretty easily whether you believe the Bible or not, just think of it from a parent/child point of view. Jamie and I are parents. We're bigger and stronger and wiser than our kids. We're in charge of the home, not the kids. So say one girls starts doing something they know inside is wrong and ends up hurting the other. Do you think we're going to let that slide? Heck no. Is everything just peachy keen between my girls and I at home at that time? Heck no. She's busted and goes to timeout at a minimum. There has to be justice.

Now, here's the kicker. There's no external action she can take to fix it. Being nice for the rest of the day won't do it. Making me cookies won't do it, despite how much I like cookies. Excusing her actions and arguing about it certainly won't do it. No, the relationship is only good to go again when she realizes she's done wrong and fesses up to it -- and then I as a parent, out of love, extend forgiveness to her. Justice gives way to mercy.

And so it is with us and God. But that's where the analogy ends. Take what we have as parents -- standards, just consequences for violating them, love, mercy, forgiveness, and so on -- and extend them out to infinity. Now what do you have? You have a perfect God with perfect standards who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful. That's another problem from one point of view. You've got the perfect justice of God who will in the end punish all wrongdoers -- and we are all wrongdoers. And you've got the perfect mercy of God who will forgive all wrongdoers who come to him in repentance -- humbly recognizing their state as sinners who cannot be right with him on their own terms, desiring to turning away from their sins to him and receive forgiveness.

How do you resolve these two opposing traits of perfect justice and perfect mercy? We can't, but God can. That's where Jesus comes in. He is God become a man, the God-man if you will -- come to earth to die on a cross as a payment for our sins. In other words, he didn't just experience the physical pain of crucifixion itself -- he bore the full weight of the punishment for all our sins himself. In one act he satisfied the perfect justice of God and showed us the perfect mercy of God. No man could ever do anything that, so God took care of it himself.

That is why Jesus is the one who solved the problem, and the only one who ever could solve it. That is why Jesus is the only name under heaven by which men can be saved. That is why we all need to turn to him, trust in him, and ask him to come live in us and change us from the inside out.

Grace and Peace

Division In The Body

2010-07-16T19:42:00.001-07:00

Regarding the Bible, does every passage have one intended meaning? Yes. Is there one absolute truth? Yes.

However, we, as mere humans, interpret all input, period. To deny that is a lie. We interpret what we read, hear, feel, think, and so on, through the lens of our own experiences, cultural background, prior understanding of words and ideas, assumptions made beforehand about the input, etc.

That interpretation, that we all do whether we admit it or not, includes the reading of scripture. Some claim that you can do a "pure literal reading" of scripture. You cannot. You bring baggage into it. Many people claim to just "read the text" and that it has been illuminated by the Holy Spirit, yet across those many people, they do not come to the same conclusions on a myriad of points. That is because we often make a mistake thinking that our own understanding is actually the Holy Spirit's intent. When we go there, we of course think we are absolutely right, and everyone else who doesn't agree is, therefore, wrong.

Look at the different opinions about end times. Pre-trib this and post-trib that. At least four major categories if I remember regarding the timing of the rapture and the reign of Christ. People brought baggage with them to come up with those different views as well. Again, they cannot all be right. They may all be wrong, but they cannot all be right.

So what is to be done about it? Well, we can try to learn to do better exegesis and also recognize how our prejudice's and assumptions are influencing our reading of the Bible. That takes some dedication and a measure of humility. But, even doing that as best and prayerfully as we can, in the end, many will still disagree on many things -- each thinking he is right and others are not. Maybe not on all points, but on some.

Hence, division. Disagreements are fine, but when we take them personally, they become points of contention. We argue and then split over non-essential issues. To be clear, I'm not talking about splits because a group intentionally twists the Word of God for their own agenda, or groups led by wolves who want to fleece God's flock, or any such thing. I'm talking about splits between genuine followers of Jesus Christ over things that, while possibly interesting, have no bearing on who Jesus is or what he did for us on the cross -- such as the age of the earth, mode of baptism, the sovereignty of God versus man's choice in salvation, church structure, etc. We can all think what we want about these things, but they have nothing to do with Christ crucified, coming to him in faith, or being transformed by him.

Division in the body is not a "I hold the absolute truth of the Bible and you don't" issue, despite those who really do think they hold the absolute truth of the Bible and everyone else is off in the weeds. No, much division comes from the honest differences of opinion of godly, but flawed, people each seeking to keep to what God's Word says -- people that, while divided on minor issues, can remain united in their faith in their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and treat each other with, above all, love.

Grace and Peace

God And Suffering?

2010-07-14T22:35:00.001-07:00

Life is very hard at times, but God’s got our back.

God loves us. Don’t be fooled into thinking that God is not loving because of the trials we face. What parent does not allow their child to suffer a little to prepare him for what is to come? A young child does not understand why a doctor gives him a painful shot, yet it is for his own good. It is the same with the suffering that God allows us to experience. We don’t understand it at the time – and maybe we never will in this age. We just need to trust, just like a child, that God knows what he is doing when he allows us to face difficulty and pain in life.

God gets our pain. Whatever pain we may be going through, God understands it. The fullness of God dwelt in his Son Jesus Christ. He endured hunger, thirst, temptation, shame, persecution, nakedness, bereavement, betrayal, mockery, injustice, and death. On top of that, he also bore God’s wrath against sin on the cross so that we don’t have to face it ourselves. That is the ultimate in suffering! God doesn’t just understand our suffering from a distance; he experienced more of it firsthand than we ever will, and He knows deeply about whatever it is we face in life.

God gives us hope. Man’s abuse of the free choice God gave us – sin – brought, and continues to bring, suffering in this world, which in turn lets us see and experience the horrible effects of sin. But there is immeasurable hope to be found in the cross of Jesus Christ. He conquered sin and death, and, as God’s eternal Son, he’s the only one capable of doing so. Through Christ, God gives us a way to be free from the power of sin in our lives today and free from the presence of sin in the world to come. Apart from Christ, there is no hope.

God shows us grace. Really we deserve nothing from God. We’re His creatures, and we’re sinners who fall short of His glory. We deserve nothing, yet, despite whatever pain is in our lives in this age, we still have life and breath and many other good things. We deserve nothing, yet we will have everlasting joy if we are in Christ. That begins with sincerely admitting we are sinners incapable of saving ourselves, truly believing Jesus Christ died on the cross as payment for our sins, and really choosing to turn away from our sin and follow Him.

He lives, he loves, he understands, and he offers the greatest gift in the world, free of charge. God rocks.

Grace and Peace

The Way

2010-07-13T21:19:00.001-07:00

Props to Brian Broderson for his exposition on John 14:6 that led to this post.

There are plenty of destinations in which there is only one way to get there. Heaven is one of them, for Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." He didn't say "a way," he said "the way," period.

Now this idea that Jesus is the only way to heaven makes a lot of people mad. Many think Christians are narrow minded for believing this. Well, then, I suppose we are. If being open minded means denying what the Bible says or not believing it, then narrow minded is the correct choice. But let's at least give a good reason for that choice instead of reiterating the bold statement and leaving it there, as if we're trying to exclude people from God's kingdom.

Look at the history side of it. Jesus isn't just some fast talking carpenter dude who showed up 2000 years ago and said "hey everybody, jump on my bandwagon." No way. He came in fulfillment of thousands of years of prophecy prior to being born on earth, and he came for a specific purpose.

With that in mind, go all the way back the beginning, to the first man and woman. God created mankind to be in fellowship with him. He gave that first pair of people a specific command to follow, told them the consequences of disobeying, and they blew it. That's the sort of thing that happens when you give people choice instead of making them robots. So this one act brought sin into the world and sin brought death into the world. No worries, God promised a redeemer who would come and deal with this quite large problem. The Biblical record shows the line of that redeemer get narrowed down to Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Judah, and king David. Years later, Jesus, of the line of David, is born on earth. He is the redeemer promised to the first man and woman so long ago.

What about his purpose in coming? That first pair of people sinned. That's bad. Fellowship with God was broken. They felt shame for their sin, as shown by their reaction to their nakedness that they hadn't noticed before. They attempted to cover their shame with sewed together leaves, but that wouldn't do. God instead clothed them with the skins of animals, showing that blood had to be shed to cover sin. That theme of atonement for sin wove its way into so many ancient cultures in different ways for so long until foolish philosophies like atheism showed up. Why? Because it goes all the way back to the first man and woman. Its wired in us. In the line of people from which our redeemer was to come, there was a priesthood setup where animals were sacrificed to cover the sins of the people so the could be in fellowship with God -- a lesson to show that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. The final act of atonement took place when Jesus, God incarnate, willingly gave his life up on the cross.

This is why there is one way. Jesus, and only Jesus, is the one and only promised redeemer who dealt with sin himself, restoring our fellowship with God. Through him, all can be saved, and those who come to him in repentance, are.

Grace and Peace

The Story Of My Life

2010-07-12T23:01:00.000-07:00

I've shared the story of what God has done in my life with various people, but I want everyone who happens across this to know the saving power of Christ. This is the story of my life from childhood until this moment.

I grew up going to a church that taught things not found in the pages of the Bible. I went to service. I went to Sunday school. I memorized prayers. I learned some of the stories from the Bible. But I never really got it. Church was stuffy and boring. I didn't feel the love of God when I went there, and as I reached my teenage years, I just stopped going. I walked away with the idea in the back of my mind that there's a God and all you need to do to be with him in heaven one day is lead a “good” life.

Boy was I wrong, I just didn't know it yet.

Fast forward through high school and college. I had a "good" job, a "good" wife, and a "good" family. I was a "good" dad. Life was "good" and so was I. No problem, right?

Wrong.

On the outside I looked "good" and my life looked like there was nothing wrong at all. Except on the inside I was a mess. I didn't know it most of the time, but I was. I was looking for happiness in all the wrong places. What I didn't realize then is that you can't find true lasting joy in anything of this world. No matter where or how hard I looked, nothing would satisfy.

Then, for no reason that I could figure out at the time, I started listening to various speakers, preachers, and teachers talk about God and the Bible. The more I listened to them, the more I was interested. I learned about things that I was totally ignorant of so many years ago. I learned that God's creation was spoiled when man first disobeyed him, bringing sin and death into the world. I learned that man's big problem from that point on was that we had a sinful nature bent on rebelling against God, and had the evidence in my life to prove it. I learned that a cost must be paid for our sins. I learned that God promised a savior to deal with this problem. I learned that God fulfilled that promise through Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. I learned that Jesus will come back one day to judge the world.

Most importantly, I learned that spending eternity in God's presence was not something that happened by being "good" -- but rather by putting my faith in Jesus Christ -- trusting that his death on the cross paid the price for my sins once and for all, and making him lord of my life.

I had a lot of knowledge at this point. I came to believe that the Bible was true and that I needed to turn to Jesus, but I still wasn't doing anything about it. Until one day when God opened my eyes even more. He showed me that if I walked through life in this state, my children would not grow up knowing about him at all. That was something I could not accept. At home that very night I got on my knees and admitted to Jesus that I was a terrible sinner and that I needed him desperately to save me.

Now for the most amazing part. He did. And he did it in such a way that there was no doubt it was real. I had the strangest warm sensation inside for a few days after. Fear and worry were replaced with peace and joy. I was no longer bent on rebelling against God through my sinful, selfish, lifestyle. I wanted nothing more than to know him more, love him more, and serve him more.

Since that time I have grown to know the Lord more and more and have read his word more and more. I see evidence that he saved me in my own life and in the lives of my children, who genuinely love God and are excited to go to church to learn more about him and worship him. That is something I have never experienced until I gave my life to Jesus.

That's where I am today -- loving and serving my savior and my lord, Jesus. I know without a doubt that Jesus saved my life for eternity. If he has done the same for you, that is so awesome! Keep trusting in him to the end, for this world is only a vapor that is here today and gone tomorrow – the eternal promises of Christ to come are so wonderful. If you don’t know Jesus yet, I pray that he work in your heart and transform it – the peace and joy and hope he brings is so much better than anything this world can offer.

Grace and peace my friend; may God be with you always, watching, protecting, and guiding you through this life!

Don't Waste Your Life

2010-07-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

From a book I just picked up by John Piper (don't waste your life -- haven't cracked it open yet):

"I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waster your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader's Digest: A couple 'took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells...' Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: 'Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy."

"God created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives."

I look forward to the read.

Hear the Word and live the Word!

Grace and Peace

The Born Again Experience

2010-07-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a band name. I searched for others' descriptions of being born again of the spirit of God and came across this link first:

http://www.gospeldistribution.org/tracts/t_born.htm

This section describes what happened in my own life, about two years ago, so wonderfully.

It's a miracle which Jesus gives to everyone that accepts him as the Lord and only Savior. Just like he heals the lame legs and blind eyes, he also will touch the heart and mind supernaturally and set us free from sinful desires without which we cannot do right every time, and without which we cannot enter the kingdom of God.

When you are born again by the Spirit of God, you will immediately have love and desire to live right. You will begin to see clearly why some habits which are declared by the Bible to be sinful are sinful. You will have a changed heart to hate those habits and love to read the Bible and to know more about Jesus and the kingdom of God. In fact, when you have the 'born-again' experience, there will be in you a change of ideas about life, a change of taste for habits, a change of ambitions now to please God henceforth, and a change of desire. Your heart and mind will be free from guilt and from sin as the Lord removes the demons away from you, which also will free you from many diseases. It's as if your long-broken phone line now comes alive again. What a joy as you can henceforth dial out and receive calls -- direct connection with the Father. For it is truly that Jesus Christ said 'I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.' It is only by accepting Jesus Christ as the only Savior, and asking him for the 'born-again' experience that you can enter heaven, and live again forever with God in the new world to come.

That was exactly it. I remember the night when it happened clearly enough -- it was the night I realized who I was before a mighty and holy God, and that what the Bible says about his Son Jesus is true.

I also remember the lack of desire for the sinful things my old nature desired and a strong desire to feed on the Word through preaching and soak in all I could. I got things wrong, but God showed me where I needed to change and helped me to grow. I was ignorant of much of the Bible, but I wanted to learn more. I still stumbled and fell into sin, but it ripped me up inside when I did.

I know exactly what this inside-out transformation feels like and didn't have the words to articulate it. The above description is good, but nothing can really describe the experience adequately. You just have to have it, like Saul, later Paul, being blinded by the light and having his life flipped around and rearranged!

Despite how wonderful it was, recalling this experience has me perplexed now and again. Knowing what I felt and the drastic change in my life at that moment in time, I have something to solidly fall back on to remind me of the exact day that I was delivered out of my bondage and given a new and abundant life through Jesus Christ. I've talked to a believer, maybe a few, who have had the same type of experience. But interestingly many who profess Christ have not, and that's what perplexes me. If someone is indeed born again of the Spirit of God, shouldn't there be a distinct marker in the road of their life for when it happened, splitting that life into two parts? Before Christ and In Christ? Maybe not a memorable one for children who grew up knowing God all their lives, but for adults, I would think there would be.

Whether this is an expected occurrence or not for all born again believers, I praise my God and Father for it, and for the new life he has given me!

Grace and Peace

What Has God Done For You?

2010-07-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

In Jesus' earthly ministry, there was an incident where he came upon a demon possessed man. The demons begged Jesus not to cast them into the abyss, but rather to send them into a herd of pigs. Jesus did this, and then the pigs ran off the edge of a cliff. I guess they should have thought their request through a little more.

The man who was possessed was sitting up and in his right mind after that. The people nearby were scared -- except for the no longer possessed man who thought that was pretty awesome and wanted to go with Jesus. Jesus wouldn't let him but instead told him to go tell people what God had done for him.

For followers of Jesus Christ, those words might as well have been spoken today. Go brothers and sisters and tell people what God has done for you, because the testimony of an individual is a powerful thing indeed! Its more than just head knowledge of the Bible -- its an actual person's account of the transformation that has occurred in his/her life.

What God has done for me is that he opened my eyes to the reality of sin in this world and how messed up it is, that one day the world will be judged, that Jesus is the son of the living God, that his atoning sacrifice on the cross paid the price for my sins, and that I desperately needed to turn away from sin to Jesus -- accepting him as savior and making him lord of my life.

What God has done for me is cast out the demons of pornography addiction, video game addiction, and anxiety and smashed the false idols of children, spouse, sex, work, control, car, entitlement, and so many more. What God has done for me is transform my heart and mind from the inside out, and he did it overnight the day I got on my knees and cried out to Jesus to save me, a hopeless sinner.

Praise God for his work in my life!

Through Jesus Christ, what has God done for you? What demons has he removed? Alcoholism? Drug addiction? Sex addiction? Food addiction? Self pity? Pride? Depression? Anger? What relationships has he restored? Marriage? Kids? Family? Friends? What has he healed you from? What has he given to you? In what specific way has he delivered you from bondage to give you a fuller, more abundant life?

The answers across the body of believers number as many as the stars in the sky, but the instruction to all is the same -- now go, and tell what God has done for you.

Grace and Peace

A "Balanced" Life

2010-06-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

I came across this on Facebook here and thought it was excellent:

By Keith Ferrin - Founder and President, True Success Coaching - Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. Colossians 3: 23-24

It seems you can’t pick up a business book or magazine these days without reading something about “work-life balance.” Everything I read about a balanced life sounds really good. The problem is, I have a hard time actually doing it.

In fact, whenever I bring up the concept with someone, I can almost predict the eye roll followed by the heavy sigh. I have come to believe the reason for this is because God doesn’t call us to a “balanced” life but rather an “integrated” life.

The primary metric for measuring a balanced life is time. If I spend this much time at work versus spending this much with my family, serving my community or worshiping at church, my life will be balanced.

Alternatively, the primary metric for measuring an integrated life is lordship. So, instead of determining how much time I am spending here or there, the real question becomes, Is Jesus Christ the Lord of every aspect of my life?

It is wholly possible to live a balanced life yet not give Christ lordship over a certain area or areas of our life. Jesus wants to be Lord of everything—our work, family, friendships, leisure time and worship. The bottom line is that a balanced life can still be compartmentalized, but an integrated life cannot.

Paul begins the second half of his letter to the Ephesians with these words: “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4:1). Here are just some of the areas of life he then goes on to discuss:

• Relationships
• Attitudes
• Reconciliation
• Our calling
• Service to the church
• Maturity
• Our minds
• Sexuality
• Honesty
• Work
• Our attitude toward money
• Our willingness to forgive others
• Our relationships with nonbelievers
• Wisdom
• Purity
• Marriage
• Our duties as parents
• Our relationships with bosses and employees
• Prayer
• Unity
• Our encouragement of one another in our calling

Now that’s an integrated life!

Quite honestly, integration is harder than balance. But it’s what we’re called to do, and it leads to a sense of purpose and fulfillment that only comes from placing ourselves daily—in the center of God’s will. Integration requires examining our lives to see where we need to give Jesus His rightful place as Lord, discovering what we need to do in order to be obedient to His calling and executing those action steps, and conducting a regular evaluation that covers all areas of our lives.

Living an integrated life is a journey, not a task. There is no deadline. There is no chart or graph, just a constant prayer running through our minds: “Jesus, this day and every day, I give You Your rightful place as Lord of everything I am and do. When this day ends, may You be smiling. Amen.”

From Devotional Ventures, © 2007 by Corey Cleek
Published by Regal Books.

Grace and Peace

The Man And The Birds

2010-06-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

I originally heard a version of this from Chuck Smith on the radio. This version is credited to Paul Harvey, here:

http://www.tyny.com/christmasstory.html

The man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound...Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud...At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them...He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms...Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me...That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm...to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand." At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells - Adeste Fidelis - listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Do You Hate?

2010-06-21T22:57:00.000-07:00

Do you hate? How about this for my brothers and sisters -- as a Christian, do you hate?

You should.

Not just anything mind you, but you should hate your sin.

I remember the days before I came to know Jesus Christ. I practiced sin. I enjoyed sin. I was proud of my sin. I loved it. I loved frittering away my time every night engaging in mindless gaming until 2 in the morning. I enjoyed downloading and watching filth from the Internet. I practically worshiped the sports car I drove and selfishly spent way too much money on.

And deep inside I was hollow and empty and dead, unknowingly searching for satisfaction in all the wrong places. Nothing in this world can ever satisfy, and I had in my heart fear, anger, jealousy, worry, greed, lust, and a host of other feelings that are unpleasant and lead to ruin.

Then I came to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ. He completely transformed my heart -- and he did it in one night. Seriously. Once I came to realize the truth of the Word of God and begged him to save me, he did, and it was in such a powerful way there is no doubt that it was completely of God. Its like a switch was flipped in my heart and mind. One day I was a child of wrath enslaved to sin, and the next I was free and wanted nothing to do with it.

Don't get me wrong, the desire to follow Christ was there, but I have willfully sinned against God since that day also -- in some of the same ways as my old nature reveled in. But it was different. Instead of loving it, I hated it. I felt awful for slapping my Lord and Savior in the face and making a mockery of his sacrifice on the cross. Praise God for that kind of sorrow and hatred, for it was further evidence of the new life in my that is undeniable.

I wrote all that just to write this -- we are exhorted in scripture to test ourselves to see if we are in the faith. In other words, we should look at our own lives and figure out if we're doing a good job following Christ or not. One way to do that is to look at our attitude toward our willful sin. Do we pretend it doesn't exist? Do we rename it? Do we excuse it? Do we ignore it? Or, knowing what it cost to be free from it, do we absolutely hate it?

Grace and Peace friends

Spiritual Switzerland

2010-06-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the things of God, you can't be Switzerland. You have to take sides -- in more ways than one.

One way is in the answer you give to the question of "Who is this Jesus anyway?"

You can choose to be with the allied forces by acknowledging that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, fully God and fully man, come to earth to live among us and die on a cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, thus ushering in the start of God's spiritual kingdom here on earth.

Or you can choose to be with axis forces by claiming that Jesus is just a "carpenter who talked a lot", a philosopher, a good example (but still only a man), a prophet and nothing more, or even a legend. That's a sad choice because its a wrong choice.

But choosing not to decide to answer the question at all is still making a choice. In a song called "Free Will" by the band Rush there is a line that goes "if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice" and that is absolutely true. Not choosing still leaves you in the hand-basket along with everyone else who rejects the savior of the world.

No, to inherit eternal life, you must choose to acknowledge who you are before God acknowledge who Jesus is, repent of your sins, and accept his free gift of salvation. When you really and truly do that he will be a new heart in you that only wants to please him. In short, as the Bible says, you must be born again.

Another way you take sides in how you walk Jesus once your are born again of the spirit of God.

You're either moving closer to God in your walk or further away. You can't stand still, you can't tread water. Its one way or the other way.

We who are believers should constantly check ourselves, check our actions, check the motives behind them, and see if we are growing in faith and moving closer to God or not.

Its like being caught up in a fast moving current of water. If you try to stand still, you'll just get swept up by the current and moved far away from where you are. And so it is with following Christ -- we can either actively check ourselves and take measures to keep moving forward on the road to life or we can get swept away by the cares of the world, or carried away by false doctrines that center around a false Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, test yourselves often to see what the evidence in your life says about your walk with the LORD. Others, please throw your very lives to Jesus and ask him to transform you from the inside out -- he is this only one who brings lasting joy!

Grace and Pace

Get Off The Evolutionary Fence

2010-06-06T05:58:00.001-07:00

In Genesis 1, the Bible has recorded the account of creation. There are those who claim to not believe in God and say that the universe came from nothing, life came from non-life, and we evolved from very simple organisms into the menagerie of plants and animals we see today. Really I think that's a load of hogwash that's not supported by the evidence, and that it takes more faith to believe it than to believe the simple Biblical account. The simplest logical pieces of evidence are the appearance of diverse life suddenly in the fossil record, no record of transitional lifeforms, and the problem of irreducible complexity (i.e. certain cells cannot possibly have evolved from something simpler because there is no way they would be able to function).

The fact that the universe and life were created seems pretty straightforward to me as a believer. It also seems that those non-believers who hold to a evolution really don't have a leg to stand on and just don't want to admit a world exists where there is a greater power than them -- I'd wager because that means accountability to that greater power.

But there is another, more puzzling, camp. Those believers who want to compromise with the evolutionary scientists. "Maybe God used evolution to bring life to this earth." I thought this myself a long time ago before I actually came to know and love the Lord Jesus Christ -- in a time when I claimed to believe in God, but i didn't really know him at all. Let's get this straight. there is NO compromise. We're here via creation by God Almighty or we're here through evolution, period.

Why?

Well first of all there is the problem of sin and death. If we evolved from something simpler over a huge amount of time, there would be all kinds of death going on in the perfect world God created over millions of years. Now if there was no death until sin entered the world and corrupted creation, and sin didn't enter the world until the fall of man, we've got a big problem on our hands.

But there's an even bigger problem for the one trying to accommodate both creation and evolution. The Bible teaches we have an immortal soul, making us unique, special creations of God. I like the way C.S. Lewis put it actually -- "You don't have a soul. You ARE a soul. You have a body." And the body is just a tent we have for now. It will get old. It will die. We will live on. Those in Christ will be like him in the age to come.

Even if you could evolve from simple life into more and more complex life in the physical sense, you can't evolve from a creature with no soul to one with a soul. We must choose a side -- you can't have it both ways. To accommodate evolution denies the truth of scripture. To believe the Bible demands a rejection of evolutionary theory. Period.

Know that we are more than physical beings. More than really smart animals. We are first and foremost spiritual beings, with a deep longing inside to be reconnected with our creator, and that reconnection only comes through knowing and loving the Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace

Our Lord Jesus Christ

2010-06-05T22:59:00.001-07:00

There's a phrase Paul used often in his letters, roughly "grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ." I want to focus on that last part, OUR Lord Jesus Christ, because its kind of important. In fact it is of the utmost importance, as it goes along with the question of "who is this?" referring to Jesus Christ -- a key question to answer during our time here under the sun.

I heard someone preach on this some time ago and intended to write about it, but largely forgot until prompted further today by the Spirit after having encountered some Jehovah's Witnesses earlier in the day and having ample free time on my hands before I go to bed.

There are many people who claim some knowledge of Jesus Christ. There are many, not as much, who claim to follow Jesus Christ. But there is a difference between the Jesus some follow and the real Jesus. We need to be following the real Jesus, not some imaginary one, so let's review some facts about who Jesus Christ is NOT.

The Lord Jesus Christ is not a created being, Satan's brother, Michael the archangel, just a teacher, just a philosopher, just a spiritual being without a physical body, just a prophet, and so on. The Lord Jesus Christ is not some hippie type dude preaching only peace and love to all, and whatever that means to you is okay. The Lord Jesus Christ did not avoid death on the cross -- but he didn't stay dead either.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fully God and fully man -- the God-man if you will. He is the only one that can make the perfect justice of God and the perfect mercy of God make any sense -- God himself taking on the form of a man, suffering, and dying on the cross to take our place as a payment for sins, and rising again on the third day. He is the only one that bridges the gap between man and God the Father. No one other than God in the flesh could accomplish such a feat.

If this doesn't describe the Jesus you follow, then you are following a false Jesus. The Bible says that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, and we are warned about false Christs and false gospels. For those in Christ, any attention to these Jesus imposters lead us away from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

Make sure that you follow the Jesus who loved us so much he gave up his glory in heaven to come to earth, dwell among us, and suffer and die for us. This is the Jesus we know when we say "OUR Lord Jesus Christ."

Grace and peace

We Need To Fall In Love

2010-05-31T20:52:00.000-07:00

You know what we need to do, if we haven't already? We need to fall in love. Not with another human. Not with a hobby. Not with a job. Not with food. Not with any person or thing on or of the earth we typically use the phrase "I'm in love with..." whether it is rightly applied or not. We need to fall in love with the one who loves us so much, he gave his only son so our relationship with him could be restored. We need to fall in love with the one who loves us so much that he willing suffered and died on a cross so that we might be saved if we put our faith in him. We need to fall in love with our great and glorious God, creator of the universe, and author of life.

Why? The answer is simple. He deserves it simply because he is God. Period. We need no greater reason, not that there is one. He loves us so much, has given us so much, and offers us so much more, its incredible.

But what do we do so often? Take his blessings for granted. Take credit for the good he does through us or for the gifts he has giving us. Call stuff "ours" instead of his. Claim control over "our" lives instead of acknowledging his sovereignty. Pick and choose which parts of his word we want to hear and follow without giving it full authority in our lives. Show up to church once a week, sing a few songs, listen to a message, and walk out of there maybe feeling uplifted, maybe feeling entertained, but not really feeling the joy of a full life that God Almighty has to offer us. Not really getting it.

Shame on us whenever we do crap like that.

The first and greatest commandment is to love the LORD with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our strength. We're supposed to love God with everything we got, not just our leftovers. God doesn't want lukewarm, half hearted love. God wants our best.

Our best starts with acknowledging who he is, and who we are compared to him. Our best starts with giving his word authority in our lives and following it. Jesus said "if you love me, you will keep my commandments". If we say we love God but don't do what his word says, living like the world, we are liars who don't really love God or know him. This means repentance. This means not sleeping with your boyfriend/girlfriend before getting married. This means not getting drunk. This means not gossiping about others. This means controlling our anger and our tongues. This means forgiving when we are wronged and not holding grudges against others. This means putting Christ at the center of our lives, making him Lord as well as Savior -- you can't have the latter without the former.

So if we're not putting God's word in its proper place of authority in our lives, and if we have not repented of our sins and turned away from the fully into the waiting arms of Jesus Christ, what should we do with these other things? Don't bother, until we get right with God. If we're not deeply in love with him and showing it, he doesn't want our half baked offerings and worship songs that amount to lies. He doesn't want our service that means nothing without a real relationship with him. What he wants is us, fully and completely. Let's give him THAT, first.

Grace and Peace brothers, sisters, friends.