The White Stone Zone

Christ in You or Christ in Christmas

2011-12-14T13:14:00.003-05:00

⁵ One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. ⁶ Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. .. for they give thanks to God. (Romans 14)

     I've seen Christians go to extremes to both sides of the Christmas argument. There are some who claim that the Christmas traditions have its roots in pagan traditons, and thus, should be ignored by the "sold out" believers. Some have even made the contention that it is satan's way of getting us to worship him. Others get ornery towards the commercialism of it all and insist we keep Christ in Christmas and adopt an "almost" self-righteous attitude towards those that say "Happy Holidays".
I think for God, it is 'much to do about nothing.' How can I say that?
     There is no Scriptural mandate to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Nowhere is Scripture are we commanded, encouraged or told to celebrate His birth. However, according to the above verse and other parts of the Bible, we have the freedom to do just that.   If others don't wish to, they have the freedom to do just that. Christ is more interested in saving you and living in you and with you rather than having his name included in our traditions and celebrations. There was no room for him at the inn-He was not offended. I am quite sure He is not offended by Happy Holidays. His heart did break at Calvary though for the pain and heartache sin brings into the world. The heart of the gospel is through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God forgives and separates us from our sins so our spirits could be made new and have His very LIFE joined our spirits living in us. Paul stated, ²⁷ To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Col. 1) Before Christ made my spirit new and came into my heart, Christmas was all about family, getting stuff and giving stuff. It was about our family slowing down and coming together. When I became a believer, I vascilated between the two extremes, but as a whole, it was still about giving stuff, getting stuff and family. I love the season and all the fun I have with my wife and kids. Christ is in me all year, and as far as my relationship with God goes, it is just another day. Every day He loves me; every day I seek to be thankful for
Jesus Christ doing for me what I could not do for myself. If you have never experienced what I am talking about, simply receive God's gift this Christmas. "To all who received in Him; to those who believed on His Name, God gives the right to be called "children of God." (John1)

oh, yeah, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The Centurion Finds His Worth

2011-11-29T13:47:00.002-05:00

In Luke Chapter 7 there is an interesting situation, and in the midst of the interesting situation is the Lord Jesus Christ. In all of our situations, we need to see Jesus Christ in the midst; if we don’t, we will lose ourselves. Here is the passage in its entirety:

1 When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. 2 There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” 6 So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” 10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

Did you notice the difference between how the elder’s viewed the centurion and the how the centurion viewed himself? The elders said, “This man deserves to have you do this…” and then they pointed out his “good deeds”. The Centurion, however, said, “I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof…I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you.” There was a discrepancy between how others saw the Centurion and how he saw himself. Carl Rogers when teaching on our self image states that anxiety and distress is caused when there is a big difference between how we see ourselves, how others see us, and how we really are. That is, three things come into play as we develop a self image. It is based on how others see us, starting with our immediate family as soon as we are born; how we see ourselves based on our own mind and everything around us; and then, there is the way we really are—the truth about us. And although the Centurion was at odds with the elders who thought he was “deserving”, he was not at all anxious because He knew enough about God to be comfortable in his view of himself. Although he felt unworthy, He knew God’s love and mercy would carry him through the situation. Jesus did not address whether the Centurion was worthy, deserving or undeserving. He instead made a statement about the Centurion’s faith. This is where we need to stay. Jesus is the object of our faith; it is not the size of our faith that matters; it is not our performance that matters; it is the object of our faith that matters; small faith in a Great God will bring us to a place of peace, rest and assurance. God got over the fact of our unworthiness at the cross; in fact, before the foundations of the earth were formed, God placed us “in Christ”. Seeing ourselves in Christ is “the way we really are—the truth about us that Rogers was looking for. Others may think things of us that are not true; we may think of ourselves in ways that are not true, but what matters is “who we really are”—the truth about us, and the truth about us is we are in Christ:

Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:20)

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God... 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
(Col. 3)

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: (2 Cor. 5)

Seeing yourself as a New Creation in Christ is essential to your spiritual growth and a healthy self image. If you put up a good enough front, others will talk well of you; if you really look at yourself in the light of God’s law which demands perfect righteousness, you will think ill of yourself and say, “I am unworthy.” Although knowing our unworthiness in light of God’s perfection is a good first step, we can’t stay there. The truth is that God considered us worthy and was crucified, buried and raised again to make us worthy. Based on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have been made worthy, and possess more worth than we can ever imagine—it is a worth that creates true humility rather than false pride. *

*Tis the season, and when you sing the part in O Holy Night about the soul finding its worth, sing it like you mean it!!!

Easy As Breathing

2011-10-25T14:29:00.000-04:00

"For you were like sheep going astray,but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2)
God likens us to sheep, and I have heard it said sheep are the dumbest animals on the planet, and this is why God has mad it easy for us to come back into relationship with Him. God has made it easy for us to be in relationship with Him. Peter recognized this when he told the religious leaders of his day that "we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God." The idea that God is some far off deity that we can not reach is foreign to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the first things Jesus said to the crowds is the "kingdom of God is within you."(Luke 17:21) He told the disciples that when He left he would send The Spirit of God to live with us and be in us. He said on that day we would know that Jesus is in the Father, the believer is in Jesus, and Jesus is in the believer.(John 14:20) This spiritual reality of us being "in Christ" and "Christ" being in us is not some religious mumbo jumbo. It is the absolute truth and the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We can not focus on any one aspect of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Making our relationship with God as easy as breathing involves understanding the purpose of all the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In His death, Jesus removed sin once for all - the penalty and the presence of sin in the spiritual life of the believer. Man's sin problem lies more with his lack of faith and attachment to and obsession with the physical realm making him grossly unaware of the spiritual realities of God within. Having removed sin, the One thing a Righteous God can not tolerate, He is now able to put His Spirit in us - but where in us? Our physical body? No, when Christ was crucified, we were crucified with Him.(Galatians 2:20) We were buried with Him, and when He rose again by the Spirit of God, we were given new birth, a new spirit, a new spiritual life and a new creation. It is in our spirits that God Spirit takes up residence. God announced this through the Prophet Ezekiel : ²⁶ I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws This spiritual reality is an eternal reality outside of time and space. God's Spirit lives in our spirit, so communication with God is as easy as breathing, He has made it that simple. We can communicate with God in our whispers and thoughts. We can listen to Him speak to our hearts and minds. It is always, constant, never changing. It is everywhere all the time. It is grace, truth, love and mercy flowing to us all day long. We are not far away, we have been brought near through the work of Christ. As close as our next breath.

O' Wrecking Ball, Where is Your Sting?

2011-09-19T16:06:00.002-04:00

I haven't listened to Bruce Springsteen's song "Wrecking Ball" since Clarence Clemon's death, and today I listened to it in an entirely different light. The song was written for the final shows at Giant's Stadium which I had written about in a previous blog* The song personifies the stadium telling the wrecking crew to bring it on! The song also is an allegory for the aging process and ultimately death. Bruce had just turned 60 and was defying death itself, saying, "Bring it on!" Although I admire the Boss's zeal, I could not help to think today that the wrecking ball came to E Street, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it--not even the Legendary E Street Band. I am not at all trying to be callous or flippant--this is serious. I cried a lot the week the Big Man went home, and I did not even know him personally. However, death is inevitable and is part of life even if you think that someone is "too f___ing big to die."* BUT, the good news is there is a way we can defy death and sing, "Bring on Your Wrecking Ball!" There is a section in Clarence's book, Big Man and Tall Tales where a store clerk in Hawaii asks Clarence, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?" Clarence repsonds with a difinitive "Yes!" For me, this is Clarence's wink to me that all is OK. Death is excruciating, and the most painful element we face in life, and if God chose to leave us in the dark about it all, I would consider God to be a cruel prankster. But He does not leave us in the dark. One of the missions of Jesus was to "bring light and immortality to life." In other words, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, God is bringing us comfort and hope during the most painful trial in life. He wants us to know something great lies beyond the grave. He wants us to know that the pain of separation is temporary; He wants us to know that His grace and mercy is available during our darkest hour. Here is the entire verse: "This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, ¹⁰ but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." (2 Timothy 1) Jesus Christ destroyed death, Jesus Christ died voluntarily, Jesus Christ said, "Bring on Your Wrecking Ball, and only Jesus Christ was too f____ing big to die "because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him." (Acts 2:23), and the good news is that all who believe in Jesus Christ have eternal life. 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that death has lost its sting and the grave its victory calling death, the final enemy, and Jesus defied death and defeated it once for all, and because of that I can say, "Bring on your wrecking ball!"
*see blog from 2009 "My Jersey Roots"

A Toxic Faith

2011-09-09T17:13:00.001-04:00

The muslim men who flew the planes into the towers were nothing more than a group of sex addicts in deep denial of their condition due to their toxic faith. Think about it. They sacrificed everything, their very lives, so that they could have 70 virgins in heaven. They were looking forward to nothing more than a wild orgie in heaven. Sorry to be blunt, but lets bring it all down to the bare facts. It is quite easy to recognize this as toxic faith, but there is toxic faith within Christianity that is subtle, but it also brings death, a slower death, but it brings death in many ways. First, when we make man the intiater and God the responder, we become toxic. God is the initiator from start to finish. He initiated creation; he initiated when Adam and Eve hid; he initiated with David when David was hiding. He initiates a realtionship with each one of us and forgave us freely and fully at the cross. We think forgiveness is something we get when we ask for it, but it is something that we receive when we receive Jesus Christ. We were born forgiven but dead; when we receive Christ, we receive forgiveness and are raised from the dead spiritually. Spiritually we are born and spiritually we are a New Creation. What did we have to do with it? NOTHING! God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. It was not our idea to have Jesus go to the cross; there was no one praying for God to send his Son to die for our sins. The prayer was "Send the Messiah to kick the Romans out of the Promised Land!" But, God obtained eternal redemption without our help, prayers or initiating. Likewise, we become toxic when we try to grow spiritually on our own using the law not realizing that we depend on Christ for our very breath. Paul contrasts the two ideas in the Colossians. He tells us, "⁶ So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." We received Jesus by grace through faith, and we grow spiritually by grace through faith. We rest, and God works and it is in this paradox that we grow. We desparately need a revelation of this paradox; it can't be taught intellectually. God can make it real to us. The alternative to resting in Christ is the toxic approach Paul outlines later in the chapter. 20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." Toxic faith not only thrives under this approach, but it becomes ever increasingly toxic when the "faithful" believe it is up to them to enforce this approach--"the rules that are destined to perish." Notice that the rules appear to be wise, aka, they make sense, but they lack any value in restraining sensuual indulgence. Sensual indulgence is doing whatever it takes to feel good; they can not help the addict; in fact, applying these rules, applying the law actually stirs up the sensual indulgence* and religous boys usually use sex to take the edge off because it is secret and not as obvious as being drunk or high. Thus, the sex addicts of 911, but sadly and secretly, countless Christian men struggling in secret with their sexual addiction. It is in secret that it grows and becomes stronger, so the first step is honesty with God and with other men. It will be hard to be honest without realizing the good news that it has not nor never will separate you from God. It is almost impossible to be honest without knowing that is is not you, but sin living in you that does it. (Romans 7:17 and 20). It is difficult to be honest without knowing that the New Creation is separated from the deeds of the flesh. Honesty will come when we learn who we really and truly are in Christ and stop our relgious nonsense. 28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Courage men, and let the healing begin.

* study Romans 7 in order to understand how laws and rules add to the sin problem rather than solve it.

The Gospel According to Harold

2011-05-26T14:26:00.005-04:00

Harold Camping’s prediction of the coming Rapture ushering in Judgment Day was a blatantly obvious error because everyone knows Jesus said, “No one knows the day or the hour.” However, Brother Harold has been preaching a legalistic, morbid gospel for years. According to Harold, anyone who did not believe like He did was following “another Gospel” and was condemned to hell. He has been preaching that for over 30 years. Likewise, Harold Camping’s call to repentance is morbid, and Harold Camping’s view of God is very impersonal. He view’s God’s holiness as a reason for God to be angry and wrathful and unwilling to show grace and mercy unless we beg and plead with God as though the begging and pleading might get God to be merciful and kind. He writes on his website:
Sadly, the Holy Bible tells us that only a small percentage of today’s world will turn from their evil ways, and with great humility and fear will cry to God for mercy. Nevertheless, the Bible assures us that many of the people who do beg God for His mercy will not be destroyed. We learn from the Bible that Holy God plans to rescue about 200 million people (that is about 3% of today’s population). On the first day of the Day of Judgment (May 21, 2011) they will be caught up (raptured) into Heaven because God had great mercy for them. This is why we can be so thankful that God has given us advance notice of Judgment Day. Because God is so merciful, maybe He will have mercy on you. (http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/judgment/judgment.html)

Mr. Camping says that we have to “beg” God for His mercy, and that “maybe” God will have mercy on you! MAYBE???? While He insists that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for sins is the only payment for sin and faith in Christ, the only way to Heaven, He seems to doubt that in his preaching; in other words, I don’t think Camping thinks what Jesus did on the cross for him was good enough, and thus, Harold fell into the trap of legalism, leading to a religious addiction demonstrated in his constant, obsessive-compulsive, numerological approach to Bible Study. Contrast Mr. Camping’s statements with Jesus’ interaction with the child of God traditionally known as The Thief on the Cross:

“One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[d]”

43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23)

The Thief on the Cross simply recognized who Jesus was, what Jesus came to do, and what Jesus had to offer him personally. Notice Jesus loving response and promise. He was bringing this child home to the Father with Him! Jesus did not say, “Well, maybe if you beg, I will have mercy on you.” So, if you were thrown off by all of last weekend’s events, simply recognize that Jesus Christ is the Son of God come to save you, and ask Him to do with you what you can’t do for yourself. He offers complete forgiveness of sins and the entrance into paradise based on His work. Some ask me if Jesus is the only way to heaven, and I tell them, "Well if you want to try, you can bring your own works and righteousness before God. You can see if God will accept your sin stained life over the Gift of Righteousness he offers you in His Son. Yes, that’s it, tell God, “God, I know you gave your Son on the cross and punished all sin in Him so we might have eternal life and freely enter your kingdom, but I really did no need that. I don’t need your Son…I am good enough to get in on my own, so let me in.” And, good luck with that. As for me, I know there is no way I can ever measure up and make myself acceptable to God, and I gratefully clothe myself in the very Righteousness of Christ and receive forgiveness of sins, and eternal life in His Name. I am thankful each day that His blood continually cleanses me from all sin. And God is more than willing and able to pour out his mercy on us every single day. He delights in mercy and he tells us that “Mercy triumphs over Judgment! (James 4) I am not disagreeing with Mr. Camping that God is Holy and Just; full of Light and Truth, and cannot tolerate sin, but God is absolute 100% love, and the cross of Jesus Christ allows His love and Justice to meet face to face so He can treat us with utmost love and respect as His children. And let the reader take heed; Harold's error does not mean that Jesus will not rapture Believers in Jesus Christ, and it does not mean that those who want to trust in their own righteousness rather than the free gift of righteousness God offers us in Christ won't have to face their own judgment day.

Are You Secure?

2011-02-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

2 The evening meal was in progress, and the devil had already prompted Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4 so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5 After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

In this passage, we have Jesus Christ, King of Kings washing the disciples feet which was the task of a common house servant. That is wonderful in and of itself; however, Judas was included in those disciples whose feet Jesus washed. Jesus knew that Judas had already conspired to hand Jesus over to the politicians and preachers who wanted to kill him. Jesus spoke to each disciple, including Judas with love and compassion. What kept Jesus from hating Judas and calling him out in front of the disciples and running him down as a worthless individual? He was secure in God's love for Him and He was significant in God's plan for His life, and He knew His true identity. "Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God;" It is very important to note that a tthis point, Jesus had all power because it was what He did with that power and authority tells us why God wants to and has empowered us. He did not empower us to rule over others; He did not empower us to beat up on the devil (all you have to do is resist the devil and he runs like a scalded dog--he's nothing); He did not empower us to whip the infidels; He empowers us to use that power to come under others and lift them up; in other words, He has given us the authority to love. We can not begin to exercise this power to love if we don't understand and know what Jesus knew at that moment. Let's face it; Judas was about to hand him over to be crucified, and Jesus was able to still reach out and love Judas, but if someone looks at us wrong, our hair falls out. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. The image of Edith Bunker telling Archie to put his feet up and running to get him a beer has the roles reversed there. Husbands are called to love and serve their wives, not take the throne and position of authority and lord it over them. Get the picture; we have to know we are secure in God's love and significant in His plan if we are to love others*. The good news is that God has made us secure in his love and significant in His plan by the death, burial and resurreciton of Jesus Christ. Jesus shed his blood for the total removal of our sins from God's sight. He did that so He could put His spirit in us by the power of His resurrection. He puts His Spirit in us to tell us our true identity: "16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. " This should grab us in the depths of our hearts and settle the issue of our security and significance once for all. We are not only God's children, but Co-Heirs with Christ. That means that our signigicance on this eart his just as important to God as Jesus presence. It means that God's love for us is no less than is love for Jesus Christ! Knowing this and believing it are two different things. The rubber meets the road when someone is criticizing, disappointing or betraying us; it is at this point we must believe the beauty of the gospel and the fact that all of our needs are met in Christ lest we pay attention to our hurt feelings believing we have to save our own butts and seek to eliminate the threat to our needs. When we do that we will react in the flesh and lash out at our source of discomfort because everything inside of us will be screaming out to be loved, accepted and forgiven!! We must lock into the gospel telling ourselves, "I am significant in God's plan and secure in God's love; I don't care how it feels, what it looks like or what my circumstances may be; right now based on the good news of Jesus Christ, I am totally loved and accepted; empowered and equipped to love myself and others.

*To study out your security and significance further, read The Alpha Series by John Glenn

The Marriage Builder by Larry Crabb

The Conviciton Myth

2011-01-27T11:28:00.004-05:00

The great news that a believer is under no condemnation is often squelched with the statement, and I have heard it often, "God does not condemen us when we sin, but He will convict us." Really? Is that what the Scriptures teach? As baby Christians, we so often buy hookline and sinker things that are said by preachers, teachers or "mature" Christians because the "BIBLE" says its true. I have found and have been guilty of the same thing, that many folks know what the "BIBLE SAYS," but they have no clue what it means. The present example of God convicting His children is one of those lies. The idea that God won't condemn, but will convict comes from Jesus statement in the upper room. Jesus was telling the disciples about the coming and work of the Holy Spirit. He told them, "Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned."

Notice that Jesus said "The Advocate" will come to the discples. Advocte means "one who will speak in our defense--the opposite of conviction. Notice that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin. The world, not the child of God undergoes this conviction. Moreover, Jesus describes the nature and reason of that conviction in the next sentence. Why does the Holy Spirit convict the world of sin? "Because people do not believe in me." The conviction for the unbeliever is to see their sin and need for Jesus Christ and His gospel. It has nothing to do with the child of God! Jesus tells the disciples what the Holy Spirit will be for the child of God. He says the Spirit will comfort the child of God; lead the child of God into all truth; remind the Child of God of everthing Christ has said; will testify of Jesus Christ, and my favorite description of the Spriti's work is this: "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Romans 8) That is the Spirit's job for the believer--to show them that they are a child of God--our biggest need if we are overcome by sin. But more than a Child of God, the Spirit is to teach us that we are Co-heirs with Christ. Has that even begun to sink in to any believer? To be a Co-heir means that your presence here on earth is just as important to God as Jesus presence on the earth! That is the absolute truth of the Gospel---the good news!! Because of faulty teaching, Children of God often are walking around mad, thinking God is convicting them while the good news of their true identity and importance is lost in double talk, watered down truth. Why are God's children walking around like that, and why has this "conviction" lie flourished? Because the bottom line is, we don't think God's grace can cause us to behave properly, so we still need some kind of fear tatic to keep us in line. A useful hint to know if God is speaking to you or not is this: The flesh and the world system motivates through fear, guilt and pride; God motivates his children, the New Creation, which is spiritual in nature, through faith, hope and love. Listen closely to the Comforter--He has something good to say to you.

ALL THINGS

2010-11-26T09:23:00.007-05:00

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

All too often, the Christian life is seen as an aesthetic, boring monontonous task of being miserable in the here and now so that we can have a glorious eternal life; in other words, God is presented as an uptight killjoy who prefers a stick in the mud over muddy children laughing and playing. This is the one lie the father of lies has spread to God's children since the garden--before we expose that lie, we need to see that satan is one unoriginal bastard. What did he tell Eve in the garden? Basically he told her that God is withholding from her. He gets her to focus on what she did not have instead of the abundance available to her. He also told her that she is not like God and if she wants to be like God, she needs to act independently and begin to run her own life. He accused God's character to Eve and made Eve feel less than. Eve bought the lie. The truth is that Eve was already "like" God in that she was created in His image. She did not have to do anything--God made her that way. She needed to trust this was true. The truth was that God was not withholding from her since everything else in the Garden was hers except for the one thing that would produce death. In other words, God is good and has met her every need. The lie is the same today. Because of Christ, we are God's children, and the New Creation is created to be like God in Christ Jesus. The liar says "if you are a child of God, why don't you have this, or why don't you behave better, or, etc. etc. We will focus on what we do not have, believe the lie that God is withholding, and try to figure out what we can do to get God to change his mind and give us what we think we need. However, rather than a uptight killjoy, God is the source of everything good, true and beautiful in our lives and in this world. God is love. He knows what we truly need and has met our every need in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think the American culture makes it obvious that we are more than just physical creatures with only physical needs. The physical needs for air, food, water, shelter and clothing have never been more met than how they are in our culture from the beginning of time until now. If we were just physical creatures with physical needs, no one in our culture would ever bitch and complain, be unhappy or depressed. We would be jumping for joy all the time. Obviously we have other needs that must be met We all have a need to be unconditionally loved, completely accepted, and totally forgiven. If God created us with these needs and was stingy about meeting those needs, He would not be a killjoy, He would be a cruel prankster. There are two ditches we fall into when we believe the lie that our needs are not met. One is that we try to get those needs met by ourselves by doing everything and anything to make us feel good--Party until we die. The other is we deny these needs and white knuckle it and "behave" to try to get God to bless us with what we think we are missing. But the good news is that God has not witheld one thing to meet those needs. He gave us his very Being--his very Self. "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? . " God fills that spiritual void in Christ and instead of being witheld from, we see that we are included in "ALL THINGS". We are loved more than we can ever imagine and God demonstrated that by giving us His Son--what more could He give? Because of our complete forgiveness, we are totally acceptable to God as a New Creation. It is not your sin cursed body and your old nature that is acceptable, it is the Spiritual You that God created in your inmost being. That is who you really are in Christ and God is very proud and happy about who HE has made you to be which is an "heir of God and c0-heir with Christ." So, you are not missing anything, you are included in "all things." The battle is in our mind; the battle is what we will focus on. The Creator of the Universe has made it His good pleasure to bring you into a robust, dynamic relationship with Himself. It is manifested in Love--nothing is more powerful than love, and we have the freedom and privilege to love others. Because we are included in "all things", we don't have to live a self-centered life trying to get what we think we need. We can take a deep breath and sigh of relief that we are ok and actually think about someone else, and this is where the joy is going to be experienced. We will live a healthy self-love which will manifest itself in loving others. So, the next time you are feeling like you are missing out, tell yourself, "I am not missing out on anything! I am included in all things! Who can I love today. I promise, it will bring satisfaction.

God's Love for You

2010-09-06T15:16:00.004-04:00

^"8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

If you are like me, you may often wonder if God really loves you and how much does he really love you. We can toss this thought about in our mind and vary from day to day, moment to moment and feeling to feeling. Sometimes we may think He really loves us, and other times we may think God is pretty sick of us. The good news is, we don't have to guess, fall victim to our feelings or be tossed about by the opinions of others. God is quite clear in the Scriptures and in history in demonstrating His love for us. In the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we see that God declares His love for us by laying down His life for us. By submitting to death on the cross so that we could be forgiven and made alive in Christ. Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness and removal of sins, yes, but in the passion of Christ, His historical death, the event, we see how much He loves us. Jesus' accusers and executors unjustly subjected him to a kangaroo court trial, they spit in his face, whipped him, mocked him, abused him through the night. They then marched him up a hill through jeers and more public humiliation and finally crucified him, and continued to mock Him. Jesus never stopped loving even one of his abusers and accusers. He loved them, and not only that, he prayed for them. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." So, it is safe to say, that you can spit in God's face, accuse Him, lie about Him, and even try to kill Him, and it would not change His love for you. He would still love you even then. And not only that, after you did all of that to Him and He gets over it, He has a big party and invites you as the guest of honor. that is how much God loves you. 2Corinthians 5 tells us that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting men's sins against them, and we appeal to you on Christ's behalf, 'Be reconciled to God, God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus." God invites you to believe His radical unquenchable love for you and enter into His grace and rest.

Righteousness that Endures

2010-07-27T07:50:00.003-04:00

Psalm 111
2 Great are the works of the LORD;
they are pondered by all who delight in them.
3 Glorious and majestic are his deeds,
and his righteousness endures forever.

God's righteousness endures forever. God's righteousness is found in the Person of Jesus Christ. He possessed a righteousness where he never sinned, is not sinning now, and will never sin. This is the righteous life God requires. He can not join Himself to that which is unrighteous for it is against His character and if joined to unrighteousness, His righteousness would be tainted. If one wants to dwell with God here on earth and in the kingdom beyond this life and world, one must possess the same righteousness. You have never sinned, you are not sinning now, and you will never sin. That is how you can approach God in freedom and confidence. If we are honest, we know that we are behind the 8 ball on that type of righteousness quite early on in life. The Scriptures testify that no man can approach God in his own righteousness and that is the bad news: "There is no one righteous, not even one; ¹¹there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. ¹²All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even

one." a

You may be thinking, "I see plenty who do good." Not according to God's righteousness. No one on the face of the earth is good enough to approach God, but that is only a distraction; all I have to worry about is me, and all you have to worry about is you. How does your righteousness hold up? If you are like me, you say to yourself, "I am undone!" The good news for the undone is that God, through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ has given us that righteousness and a free gift:

²¹But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known.... ²²This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. b

God has given us as a free gift that righteousness that endures forever--the very righteousness of Christ. It is unchangeable; my righteousness is the exact same today as it was 26 years ago on the day i received Christ Jesus. It has endured all 26 years of my pathetic attempts to "live for God". It has endured because it is the very righteousness of Jesus Christ...the righteousness of God that endures forever and in this I am free and in this I have peace.

The Weak Arm of the Law

2010-06-21T15:55:00.003-04:00

I have been a school teacher for more than 15 years, and more than a few times I have had students whom I knew outside of school before they became my student. In some cases, I had built a pretty close relationship with the youngster through the church, the neighborhood, or through family ties. When some of these students came into my class, they were surprised to find out that I did not relate to them in the
same way. They were taken back that I could not maintain a relationship with
them, and they struggled with feelings of rejection. What happened? On the outside,
there were no rules or law systems to keep us from relating to each other freely.
Now, there was a law system to be followed and it hindered our relationship.
This is precisely what happens to young Christians who receive the good
news gladly, and then are told that they have to do something to be a "good Christian." In other words, the law kills our relationship with God; in fact, you
can't live for God under the law. Paul states in Galatians 2: 19: "For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live for God" We think just the opposite. We think that in order to live for God you must follow "the rules" or have some type of
law system to keep you in line. Churches are full of laws and will judge each
church member's status according to their adherence to these laws. If they
adhere, they are "sold out 100% on fire for Jesus." If they adhere somewhat to
the rules, they are not sold out but probably saved. If they don't adhere at all,
well, they probably were never really saved. We fit everyone into our little system
to make ourselves secure. This is rubbish! Paul goes on to emphatically
state: "You who are trvinq to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ, you have fallen away from grace." In other words, trying to be justified
(saving yourself) by your own efforts is backsliding. Are you familiar with that term? The "law dogs" use it to describe those who are not adhering to their law system. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Think about it this way: If a man proposes to his wife and tells her that he
will love her if she follows certain rules, do you think she will really feel loved?
If we feel that God is keeping his eye on us to make sure we don't screw up, do
you think we will ever feel loved? If we feel that there is some law system we
have to follow, do you think we will ever really believe God loves us? This is a
human argument, and it falls short because God has supernaturally solved the
sin and law problem by His grace through Jesus Christ. However, the
point is this: We can't love God or anyone else using a law system, and we cannot
experience God's love for us if we are using a law system. The law kills love, but the good news is God has removed sin and the law so that we can
have a personal, intimate relationship with Him. Romans 7:4-6 describes God's supernatural work to enter into a wonderful, intimate relationship with us

"So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body
of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who
was raised From the dead. in order that we might bear Fruit to God. For when we were
controlled by the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law
were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit to death. But now, by dying to what
once bound us, we have been released From the law so that
we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code".
Christ fulfilled the law by His life, his death, burial and resurrection--there
is no more barriers in the way of us climbing up on our Father's lap and letting
Him love us. The new way of the Spirit is this; what is true of Jesus is true of
you. Is Jesus ever out of fellowship with God? Then, neither are you.
God has joined you to Christ inseparably by the power of the Holy Spirit-You are in Christ, He is in you. Jesus said, "I am in the Father. you are in me, and I am in you." God has done this, and there is no law system that made it happen! He did
it before you even asked because your "Heavenly Father knows what you need
even before you ask." You can't get any closer to God than that. He is living in you, fulfilling the law in you, every minute of every day. You are united to Christ in His eternal, abundant life. He lives in you. You can't get any better than that.
The good news is to be received by faith; that is, you take God at His word that you are in a close, personal, intimate relationship with Him and you talk everything over with Him. You talk to Him; He talks to you, and every day you experience friendship with God. The amazing thing about God is that He relates to us in every way we need. He is our Father, Teacher, Counselor, but He is also our friend--the closest, most
intimate friend we will ever have. Let go of your flimsy, cheesy law systems and
experience unconditional love.

Hypothetical Harry Must Die (part 1)

2010-01-31T19:51:00.003-05:00

His name is Hypothetical Harry. Now, I have never met this clown, nor do I care to except for the fact that he has been trailing me like a ghost for the past 20 years. Whenever the glorious news of our freedom in Christ is preached, I always here about Hypothetical Harry. Harry hears the good news that He is unconditionally loved, completely forgiven and eternally secure in Christ. He hears that Jesus paid it all and we cannot add anything to our complete righteousness in Christ. Our behavior will not and cannot change a thing. Because his behavior will never change God’s unconditional love and standing with the Father, Harry does something like this. He commits adultery all the time, drinks, steals and lies, kills his parents, “does whatever he wants”; doesn’t go to church(well, that can’t be held against him), and “still gets to go to heaven.” Whenever I am confronted with Hypothetical Harry, I tell the person asking about Harry not to worry about Harry but to take the good news of God’s grace to heart and apply it to their lives; to draw near to God and receive His abundant love on a daily basis. However, Harry will just not go away. I have decided that Hypothetical Harry must die!
There are several reasons why Hypothetical Harry has gotten away with his shenanigans all of these years, (and what I mean when I say all of these years is thousands of years). Paul addressed Harry back in Romans 6. But let’s not go there yet.
The first reason Harry lives is the fact that his fans only equate salvation with going to heaven when you die. In other words, salvation is only escape from punishment. And to take it further, the thought is that the fear of punishment is what will keep us from sinning. And if fear of punishment is needed to keep us from sinning, then our salvation is not really salvation at all because we were supposed to be saved from God’s punishment in the first place. So, we are back to square one! What Harry’s fans really believe is that we have probationary live—that Jesus plus our good behavior is what saves us from eternal punishment. There is no other way to explain it. Salvation from eternal punishment is really good news and I embrace it; however, that is only the first P of salvation. Jesus came to save us from the Penalty of sin, the Power of sin, and the Presence of Sin. Each one is an essential part of the other.
The penalty of sin is death. When Adam and Eve sinned, spiritual and physical death occurred. Immediately, Adam died spiritually; his spirit was no longer joined to God. We are born spiritually dead. Physical death also occurred but this is a long process we call aging. While living in these sin cursed bodies in this sin cursed world with a dead spirit, we “are separated from the life of God and darkened in our understanding”. The separation from the life of God defines our spiritual death. In order to be spiritually alive, we have to be filled with the Spirit of God; God is the source of all Life. We are saved from eternal death. At the Final Judgment found in Revelation 20, there are only two types of people there – dead and alive. That is how God sees us, either dead or alive.
11Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. 14Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Notice that death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. There is no mention of people being thrown into the lake of fire. This lake of fire is the final judgment. There is not a lot of information about what happens here except they are thrown into the lake of fire. But I know one thing; God is not marching back and forth on a stage waving His Bible around about all of this. I think our modern Christian culture has drawn its idea of Hell more from Dante’s Inferno than it has the Scriptures. One thing is for sure. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ has saved us from this penalty and we don’t ever have to fear the 2nd death! We are eternally forgiven and secure. Now, this is where Hypo Harry comes in. People only equate salvation with escape from punishment. Yes, Harry will escape this judgment no matter what if God has saved him through Jesus Christ’s work; however, Harry will be miserable during his earthly life. He will be divorced, in jail, he is an orphan with no friends, and Bubba thinks he is cute. Get the picture? Harry is wretched and miserable.
Now Harry could have avoided all of this if he realized that Christ saves us from the power of sin. This will be addressed in part 2, but for now, give Harry a quick funeral and rejoice in your eternal security.....

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T14:58:00.005-05:00

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1)

The believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ has much to be thankful for even if circumstantially everything seems to be falling apart. Ephesians says that we have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, and then he goes on to outline these blessings. Let's take a look:

1. We have been made holy and blameless

We have been made holy and blameless in God's sight: "⁴For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight."

We all have an idea in our minds of what it means to act holy, but what does it mean that we have been made holy? Hebrews 10 tells us that "we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." It would not be a spiritual blessing if we were told we have to act holy, but it is a spiritual blessing to be made holy. To be made holy means that you belong to God and you are important to His plan to build his Kingdom of Love. The word blameless in the Greek denotes "that which cannot be called to account". Jesus, at the cross, took away our sins once for all, and God will not call them to account! That is something to be thankful for indeed. Colossians 2 tells us that God forgave us all of our sins and nailed them to the cross in Christ, so our sins can't be called to account. God will not call us into account regarding our sins! My question then to some preachers is why are you taking that which God has nailed to the cross and can not call into account and beating His children over the head with them?" I know you are trying to help God out, but His ways are not our ways. Guilt is a fleshly, temporal motivator. When we believe that we are holy and blameless in God's sight, that faith produces hope which enables us to love others. That is what God produces in us supernaturally--we exercise faith and God supernaturally produces hope and love in us.

2. We have been adopted by God

Our second spiritual blessing to be thankful for is the fact that God has adopted us as His very own children. To bring on home personally, it means you are an adopted child of the Most High God: "In love ⁵he^{c]" style="font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 0.5em; ">[c]}predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." One reason this adoption is very good news is the fact that under the Roman Law of Paul's time, an adopted child could never, ever be disinherited. A natural child could be, but not an adopted child. Since we have been born into God's family by the Holy Spirit, there does not need to be a need for adoption, since God has birthed the New Creation Himself, so I believe Paul is using this language here to provide us insecure children with extra assurance of how secure we are in God's love.

3. Redemption

The third blessing listed is Redemption. "⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," Redemption means to purchase and the Greek and cultural denotation is to buy a slave for the purpose of setting him free. Because of the two ditches of legalism and licentiousness, very few Christians truly understand the nature of our freedom. We are more free than we will ever realize, but the freedom we have is only fully experience when we use it to love others. We have been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ--we are eternally His, and He loves us freely and wants to express the freedom to love through us. There is noting more powerful and more satisfying to the human soul than divine love received and given freely.

4. Forgiveness of Sins

⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins," God's forgiveness is complete forgiveness. Note that this forgiveness is "In Him." It is not in our performance, our confessions, our rituals, our booths or our anything. We have God's complete forgiveness of our sins for one reason and one reason only. IN HIM we have forgiveness. The root of forgiveness means to send away. God has put our sins behind his back never to be brought to remembrance again. Our forgiveness is full, free and eternal; past, present and future sins have been forgiven on account of His name.

5. Wisdom and Understanding

"in accordance with the riches of God's grace⁸that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

We need wisdom and guidance on a daily basis as we learn to walk in the Spirit in this often conflicted world. God's wisdom will cut through all the noise, fog, and confusion like a laser beam--it is only a matter of listening. We don't have to jump through any hoops, agonize or seek out a mystical mentor to find wisdom--God lavishes it on us through His grace. James tells us ⁵If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. God will not say to you, 'You don't get any wisdom today because of this sin or that fault. He gives generously without finding fault. God's wisdom is Him telling you what to do in your sticky situations. God's wisdom is God showing you how to apply the gospel of Christ to your life on a daily basis. It is knowing that in Him you live and move, and have your being. It is knowing your true identity in Him. It is a wonderful, exciting, dynamic relationship with the Creator of the universe. And it is all ours for free and for the taking.

6. Intimacy and Knowledge of His Sovereignty

⁹And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, ¹⁰to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. The word known here is not head knowledge but heart knowledge--not intellectual knowledge but experiential knowledge. A knowing like a husband knows his wife. God gives us knowledge of His Sovereignty in an intimate way; This intimacy allows us to view the world's events, our circumstances and disappointments in light of God's sovereignty. He goes on to say, "¹¹In him we were also chosen,^{e]" style="font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 0.5em; ">[e]} having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, ¹²in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory" He intimately whispers in our ears the comforting promise that we are wrapped in His arms and He is working all things towards our ultimate good in Christ.

7. A Guaranteed Inheritance

¹³And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,¹⁴who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

We have been sealed in Christ. A seal makes something

impenetrable. We are made alive spiritually in Christ. The new creation is in Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, so the new creation is impervious to sin, the world, the flesh and the devil. Sealed in Christ, we can never be lost; our inheritance is in Him and our inheritance is guaranteed in Christ. We can't lose! Amen! Thank You Jesus!

So, that is our thanksgiving list in Ephesians and we've just scratched the surface.

Receiving your Manhood

2009-11-22T19:20:00.005-05:00

When I was growing up, being a man was very important to me. I remember as a very young boy hearing my parents’ Four Seasons record singing, “"Walk Like a Man",” and thinking, “I want to be a man...I am going to be tough.” I grew up around football, booze, war heroes and a dad that worked hard labor every day. Dad was my first hero. I thought he could do anything. He was athletic, hard working, and clean cut. My earliest memory is my dad crawling on his knees to play with me. Sometimes we would play football, and I would have to run around him. He would grab me with one hand and lift me off the ground. We would laugh, and I knew I was loved. I remember my mom had to pick him up somewhere, and the street was deserted, and he took off running, like he was racing the car, and I thought he ran so fast, almost superhuman. General George Patton was my next hero, the first man I imitated. I remember walking the beach with my cousins, quoting Old Blood and Guts by cussing up a storm. I thought that made me a man. I stood on the beach with my dad’'s binoculars, turning to my cousins and saying, "“My men have lost their fear of the Germans--—I pray to God they don’t lose their fear of me".” Billy Jack, the Half Breed protector of the hippie school was my next hero. I admired his ability to look men in the eye and say, “"You are a liar".” Of course, I loved his karate moves and practiced on stacked garbage cans in my garage. I remember I fought a kid once, and won. It was just plain craziness that helped me win the fight. My kicks were not skillful, but I was a big wannabe, and I wanted it so bad that I tried my hardest—. I thought that made me a man. Arnold was next. I started lifting weights and getting big. I read his book, changed my diet and adopted his confidence. At the same time, I discovered the music of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young, and one of my best friends discovered the great philosophers, and I remember him quoting, “A sound mind in a sound body.” They used their minds. I remember thinking, “I will have the strength of Arnold and the lyrics and smarts of the Boss.” I would have a sound mind in a sound body—. I will be the ultimate man. Needless to say, the combination of Arnold Schwraznegger, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen hindered my quest for true manhood; although, I must admit that Springsteen’s empathy helped me later on in life to understand my humanity better. With my guitar in one hand, and my dumbbells in the other and a harmonica around my neck, I set out to conquer the world. I knew there was more to life than the material world, and had a notion "“A notion deep inside that it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive".” Deep down inside, I felt I was destined for greatness...to be like one of my heroes, for they were mortal souls just like me. I was in college when it dawned on me that I did not know God. I asked Him one night why I didn’t know Him and told Him that I thought he must not like me because I did not know him. So, I told Him that I wanted to know Him if He was real. Well, that unleashed a chain of events, and I’ll try to provide you with a “Reader’s Digest” version:

1. I drove home from college the next day, and got home late in the evening. My sister told me, with a smile, that Jesus was her Lord and Savior. Now, I would have dismissed it if it wasn’t for that smile. My sis has a great, happy smile. Before I left for college late that summer, she had suffered from depression, and was a bit anorexic. I had not seen her smile like that since we were kids. I asked her to tell me more. She did.

2. When I went back to college, an old roommate called me to ask me what I though of Dylan’s conversion to Christianity. I told him that the music was just OK, but my sister was saved, and I was thinking about it all. He got all excited, came over, gave me a Bible, and told me about Jesus.

3. Another person called me and came to talk to me about Jesus.

This may all sound good, and it is, but at the time, I was gravely disappointed. When I asked God to show me Himself, I expected some type of Eastern philosophy where I would fast, walk on coals, get bitten by snakes(like Billy Jack) and meditate on some rugged mountain(remember the manhood thing) I was brought up Catholic, so I knew about Jesus. And, I thought He was weak! I mean, He lost. The Romans beat him up. There was no miraculous escape, no karate moves on Pilate, and no posse to come in and whip the Romans (Eastwood in the Pale Rider). So, I had dismissed Jesus very early on in life. However, as I read the Scriptures, and as I really understood why Jesus died, and He let them do that to Him for me, I discovered that Jesus was the bravest, the toughest, and the greatest man that ever lived. In fact, He was the only True Man—--The Son of Man.

As I sought out to “follow Jesus” I became disillusioned with the 2 dimensional, cardboard, non-existent character that the church held up for an example of a Godly man. There became an intense struggle between flesh and Spirit. I was emasculated by religion. True hope came when I realized I was not my flesh, and that God had joined me to His Son inseparably, and my union with Christ provided me the power I needed to be the man God intends me to be. In other words, our manhood is something we receive when we receive Jesus Christ. I John 2:6 says that anyone who claims to be in Christ “must walk as Jesus did.” Studying the humanity of Jesus will help us understand just who God has made us to be, and the true source of our manhood will be revealed.

Jesus Was Dependant

Jesus stated that by himself he could do nothing! The eternal Son of God laid aside his Deity and relied 100% on the Father. God made us dependant beings. All the talk of our day about rugged individualism is rubbish. We are dependant, and were made to depend on God. You have probably heard someone say, “God is a crutch for the weak.” Well, I have news for you: God is not a crutch, He is our life support. —He is our ambulance, our Regenerator, our Respirator, our very life support. Don’t get offended when people say that—. Paul said that he sought to boast about his weakness. The next time someone says that, agree or correct them that He is much more than a crutch, and ask them what they depending on. We were made to depend on God to for every aspect of our lives, so lets look at our dependence.

Personal Needs

We all have a need for love, acceptance, forgiveness, empowerment, meaning and purpose. Men, especially need to feel adequate. I don’t care how tough you might be, or how macho you are. There is a need deep down in your soul for love and acceptance. If we don’t get those needs met by God, we will look to a myriad of sources to meet that need—--sex being the number one source. * Those sources will often fail us, hurt us, and cripple us for life. God created us with those needs, and it is part of being a man. However, it is this weakness that can make us strong. Think of it: if you allow God to meet those needs for you, you are in a position of strength. On a daily basis, you can know that you are unconditionally loved, completely accepted, and totally forgiven on the basis of Christ’'s work on the cross. You can affirm yourself in these truths and lacking no good thing, you can be in the position to love others. Because the same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive in you.

Identity

What separates the men from the boys? Do you remember hearing that growing up as a kid? I remember. The first time I heard it was at Pop Warner football practice. We started out with conditioning. Running, calisthenics, and strategy were covered the first couple of weeks of practice, and then came the pads. “"Tonight we are going to start hitting--—tonight we are going to separate the men from the boys,:” bellowed Coach Tom. So the ability to dish out physical punishment, and the ability to take physical punishment was Coach Tom’'s way to separate the men from the boys. “What separates the men from the boys?” I’ll give you the bottom line first and then explain: Knowing your true identity is what separates the men from the boys.

There is an incident in Jesus life that is essential to our understanding of what it takes to be a man, or better yet, what God has done to make us a man. Luke 2 tells us that when Jesus was 12 years old he was left behind in Jerusalem for 4 days. When they finally found Jesus, he was teaching in the temple, and the teachers and elders were amazed with him. When his mom told him they were searching all over, Jesus, answered, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Jesus was not worried that he was left behind; he didn’t need someone to tell him what to do, and in that instant, he entered manhood. —He knew His true identity; He knew who his real Father was. And in doing so, he “grew in stature and wisdom, and in favor with God and man.” Knowing our true identity empowers us to grow into the man God has made us to be.

Adolescent psychology tells us that 4 important questions must be answered during adolescence, and the top of the list is “Whom Am I?” Jesus settled that question early on when he realized who his true Father was; that separated him from the boys. To be true, strong men, we must find our identity in our relationship to God through Christ. God, through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ has given us a brand new identity. Our new identity includes complete forgiveness, total acceptance, full sonship and an inseparable union with Jesus Christ.

Complete Forgiveness

Most people see forgiveness as God letting our sins slide— or letting us get away with it. However, the root of forgiveness means to send away. This means that we have been totally separated from our sins. We are no longer identified with them whatsoever. All of our sins were nailed to the cross in Christ along with our “old self.” We were buried with Christ in baptism and raised with Him into newness of life. (Romans 6) The new creation—m your true identity, the Spirit Man, is raised with Christ, and your sins were nailed to the cross and buried with Christ. God sees only the Spirit Man who is joined to Christ--holy, blameless and separated from sin. (Ephesians 1) Consider the following verses from Romans 6:10, 11

“The death he died he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

We are instructed in this verse to identify ourselves with Christ Jesus. There is only one way to interpret “dead to sin.” If you’re dead, you can’t do it! That sounds shocking, but if we are alive in Christ Jesus, we can'’t sin because Jesus can’t sin. If our spirit is joined to Jesus Christ inseparably, how can we sin?— Jesus would be sinning also. The verse goes on to say, “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” Again, sin is a separate entity from you—-it is not you. Later in Romans 7, Paul says quite clearly, “It is no longer I that do it, but sin living in me.” So your complete forgiveness provides you with this new identity: “Dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Total Acceptance

Every child wants to be accepted by his parents. Some parents make the child work hard for it, and some never give it which leads to problems later in life. The good news is that God accepts you-—you are an accepted child of God. Righteousness is the biblical word for acceptance. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.” Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves: He made us righteous. God now accepts us just as He accepts Jesus Christ. Will Jesus ever be rejected, ridiculed, or belittled by the Heavenly Father? No, then neither can you according to this verse. So, your new ID says you are just as righteous and acceptable as Jesus Christ.

Full Sonship

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” This bold declaration from the 1 John tells it all. That is your lock, stock and barrel new identity -—a child of God. God has covered all the bases in making us His children; that is He has both given birth to us and He has adopted us. This is important because under the Roman law of the day, a father could disinherit a natural born child; however, a father could never disinherit an adopted child.

John 1:12 says that we have the right to call ourselves children of God and that we are “born of God.” Moreover, Romans 8 tells us “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption. And by him we cry ‘Abba, Father.” As both adopted and birthed children of God, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. You know what an heir is —the one who gets all the stuff which is great if you father is rich. Being joint heirs with Christ means we have, are and will inherit everything that Jesus’ inherits!

Inseparable Union with Christ Jesus

"“In that day you will know that I am in the Father, you are in me, and I am in you." (john 14:20) ” Look closely at what Jesus is saying here, and ask yourself, where am I and who am I. You are in Jesus and the Father, and Jesus is in you. Who are you identified with? Jesus. How does God see you? The same way He sees Jesus. There are many more verses that explains and illustrates this great truth, and they will be listed at the end of this article, but for now let us look at a modern story that illustrates how knowing our true identity will empower us as men.

Jim Carey starred in a movie called the Truman Show. He was Truman. Truman was born inside a big studio bubble owned by a TV station. Inside the bubble was an entire town, filled with actors and sets. The TV audience watched Truman’'s birth; they watched him grow up, and they tuned in every weak. Truman was the only one that did not know everything was staged. He never left the town because it was surrounded by water. He was told since he was very young that his father drowned in an accident and he was deathly afraid of water. But little by little Truman began to see the truth. The producers and actors tried really hard to manipulate him and keep him from seeing the truth, but once he knew it was a lie, —once he knew his true identity, they could no longer contain him, and he burst out of the bubble. Satan has lied to us over and over again about our identity. He did it to Jesus. “If you are the son of God…” he said over and over again. “If you were really a Christian, …If you were really a child of God…” is what he tells us. So we try harder to be a good Christian. To make matters worse, legalistic pastors, churches, seminars, etc. send us off in all directions trying hard to get what we already have in Christ. It stops when we know our true identity--—no one can manipulate and control us when we know who we are. Likewise, we don’t have to manipulate others to make us worthy —to meet our needs. Instead we can love others like Christ. We are free to hear the Father speak to us—; we are free to walk in strength; —we are free to love others.

So a true man understands the following:

He is dead to sin.

He is alive to God is Christ Jesus

He is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus

God is his True Father

He is an heir of God

He is a joint heir with Christ

He is completely forgiven (past, present and future)

As we understand these truths, we are free to love others. Loving others is the sign of a true man. The masks can come off as we make ourselves vulnerable to our wives, kids, neighbors and friends. They will see and notice the love, and they will sense its power. God gives us our new identity and makes us secure for one reason--—to love others. The recipients of your love will see you as strong, secure and free, rather than weak, manipulative and proud. Try it out…--Believe your new identity daily, and ask God to show you how to love others. You can’t lose.

For further study, read the following verses:

Romans 6: 5-14

Romans 8:25-20

Colossians 2:9-14

Colossians 3: 1-4

Galatians 3:26-29

Biblical Self Awareness

2009-11-07T17:09:00.007-05:00

²⁴"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. ²⁵So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'

Jesus tells a parable in chapter 25 of Matthew about the talents. A leader gives three men talents and tells them to put it to use. After a long time, the leader comes back and wants to see what the men do with the talent. The first two put the talents to use and got a return. The third came with the following report. "I was afraid....." Fear. If you read the verse, the servant believed something about the master that was not true. There is nothing in the parable that says the master was a hard man. He actually accused the Master of stealing, and again, there is nothing in the parable that says the Master was the way the servant portrayed him. In fact, he was joyful and rewarding towards the men who brought a return. The servant was fearful and obviously had misinformation about the Master and misinformation about himself. He believed a lie about the Master and he did not realize the power of the talent the Master did give him. Safe to say, the Master in the parable represents God and the servant can be any one of us; and thus, the parable provides information about how fear hinders our growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. In a nutshell, fear is the nature of our undoing. The servant believed in the Master, but his belief was based on lies rather than truth producing fear and thus paralyzing the servant like a deer caught in the headlights. He buried the talent freezing it's effectiveness. The need here is for Biblical Self-Awareness. The more our view of God is based on lies, the more the view of ourselves will be based on lies. When we see God for who He really is, we begin to get a proper view of ourselves. God is good; God is love; If God is for us , who can be against us. He has settled the sin issue once for all and loves us with an everlasting love; He will never leave us nor forsake us. We can not lose. If we don't have this assurance we will act out of fear. We have eternal life; not probationary life. It is finished and nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Likewise, just as the servant failed to understand the empowerment he received from the talent given by the Master, many times we, God's children, fail to understand just who God has made us to be in Christ. Consider Paul's admonishment to see ourselves the way God has defined us: ¹Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is your^{a]" style=" line-height: 0.5em; ">[a]} life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (COl 2) Christ is or life; He is our source; He lives in us and we live in Him. We need to learn to live out of that union, but if we don't believe it, we will continue to believe we are on our own, having to prove ourselves to God, and the result will be fear resulting in one step up two steps back and so on and so forth. God has given it all to us in Christ Jesus; He is our very Life. We can't be more gifted than we are right now; you can't improve on the Creator of the ends of the earth living His Life through you. Romans 8 says "⁵For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.^{g]" style=" line-height: 0.5em; ">[g]} And by him we cry, "Abba,^{h]" style=" line-height: 0.5em; ">[h]} Father." ¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. ¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, Being an heir of God and co-heir with Christ means that our life is as important to God as Jesus Christ's Life when He lived on earth and then some on into eternity. That is the truth about who we are; not need to hide in fear. Go love others with that authority.

My Jersey Roots

2009-10-24T16:45:00.006-04:00

²⁶From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.²⁸'For in him we live and move and have our being.' (Acts 17)

I moved to Florida 16 1/2 years ago; I was born and raised in NJ; outside of a 3 month stay in Central America, I spent my whole life there, even attending college at Kean. God came crashing into my life n 1983, and I responded to Him by becoming religious; it put me in bondage rather than setting me free. I married into a co-dependent relationship and eventually left NJ for Florida. I was running from a failed marriage and the tension that it caused with mom, dad, sister and brother. I was running from my failed marriage, my sense of failure, and myself...the only thing was i brought my failed marriage and me with me. When i first moved here, i pretended i was a Floridian. Not that I did not tell people where I was from when they asked; i never volunteered any information. Why? Don't really know. I know I was trying to change myself. Well, Florida did not fix a thing. But God met me where I was at, and He brought me to a beautiful understanding of His mercy and grace. It was not an accident that at the height of my renewal with God that Bruce and E Street got back together, and when I had the time, I went to NJ. That was over 10 years ago. I got a armload of bruce bootlegs, reconnected with family and friends and returned to Florida. I did not realize then that this was connected to my renewal, but when I got back to Florida, I talked about where I came from. I was proud to say, "I am from Jersey." I met my soul-mate, my one true love. She was born in Colorado and raised in Florida and laughed every time I met someone down here who was from NJ. I would talk to them and the fellow jersian almost always knew someone i knew. Carrie made fun of our accents, our peppered language, and our names, but She accepted my roots and i believe was even intrigued by it. During this time of renewal, I read the above verse(which i read many times before) but God made it life to me. I love Florida and believe God called me here for many reasons, but tonight I am thankful for my Jersey roots. I am so thankful that ever time I fly home, Johnny Darcy is waiting in my drive way before my plane even touches down. I am thankful that Dan Dornacker always receives me with open arms and makes sure he sees me. I am thankful that Bob Bonavito tells me that his life is so beautiful but the only thing missing is me. I am thankful for my mom and dad who moved me to the jersey shore when I was 3. I am thankful that I went k-12 in the same house and neighborhood. I am thankful that my brother and sister forgive me for my years in the wilderness...i am thankful that my brother and sister have settled in Brick making me the black sheep of the family but guaranteeing that when mom and dad pass on, i will always have somewhere to go. I am thankful for my aunts, uncles, and cousins who love me and support me, and are always ready to share a "little billy" story. I am thankful for Red Margadonna for staying in NJ when he could have come to FLA. He may be the last great hope for the conservatives. I am thankful tor Letitia green for keeping the streets on NJ safe. i am thankful for Tony Giordano for realizing that you can take the boy out of jersey, but you can't take jersey out of the boy...He had a vision for me to come to Giant's Stadium for the final shows, and when Bruce stepped out and sang wrecking ball, I cried. It was then that it hit me that I was running from something that God intended to bring joy, beauty and riches into my life. Bob Bonavito scored an amazing touch down on that field in a state championship game and when bruce sang, "I've seen champions come and go..." I yelled, "Shit! He is singing about you Bobby.(me too....i sat the bench in giant's stadium, but i was there) I am thankful for all of my HS friends who friend requested me on FB or accepted my request. It is good to be back in touch with my roots. I love you all and pray God's grace, mercy and love to surround you now and forever.

"I was raised out of steel in the swamps of Jersey so many years ago

Through the blood and the beer, the sweat and the tears,

I've seen champions come and go....." (B. Springsteen)

Where is the Real Power

2009-10-08T09:25:00.004-04:00

"Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength; they will mount up on wings as eagles."

Romans chapter 7 records Paul's struggle and misery of trying to live the Christian Life in his own strength by trying to obey the law. He found that this approach of trying to "live for God" brought death, misery and made him feel like a prisoner. The Holy Spirit is not mentioned once in Romans 7, and by the end of Romans 7, Paul cries out, "Oh wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death!" Paul had come to an end of himself; his resources, his coping strategies and his facade. (Step 1) Paul answers the question in the next verse: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."(Step 2) Notice that Paul did not say, "what church, what book, what 7 point plan will rescue me". He asked "who?" We are personal beings and external things like a church organization, a self help book, or even God's law will not be able to rescue us--these are impersonal, and the impersonal can't change the personal. So, God through person of Jesus Christ is the answer. What does that vague, undefined term "Jesus is the answer really mean." It means that He is our source for LIFE. He is our source for everything that is good, true, beautiful and strong in us. He is the answer to the spiritual void that plagues us from birth and causes us to look everywhere to get our deepest needs for love met. He is the source. And He is the source for our Spiritual Life. We established that the Holy Spirit is not mentioned once in Romans 7, but after Paul cries out to God and sees Jesus as His source, his dependency switches from him being the source to God being the source--the Holy Spirit is mentioned 21 times in Romans 8. The emphasis is on the Spirit's power: "The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is living in you." So, the two lifestyles are LAW - You are the source and your adherence to the law determines the quality of your life. AND, Grace - God is the source and you are joined to Christ inseparably through the Holy Spirit, and He is your source. He lives in you and expresses His life through you. You rest in Him, He works through you. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. You are loved unconditionally, accepted and complete in Christ. You no longer labor for God's love and acceptance - they are yours in Christ. The two lifestyles can also be seen from Union or Separation. The gospel says that we are joined to Christ...that we are one with Christ...This is a spiritual reality that we live out of by faith. Faith will increase our awareness of our Union, and thus, our source will be His Life. The enemy of that truth is the lie of separation. The lie of separations sounds something like this: God is in heaven, you are here on earth. God loves you and is just waiting to come bless you if and when you obey. The concept of tithing is a good example of this. God is waiting for you to give your money so he can bless you. You are here; He is there, and you have to labor to get his blessing, get Him to pay attention to you, or at least keep Him from knocking you into tomorrow. Because, you are separated, you have to work and labor and you are the source. Again, every believer is joined to Christ and He is our source. When we believe it, it becomes part of us, and thus, our reality.

Keeping Up

2009-09-16T21:32:00.003-04:00

^"25Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." (Gal. 5)

The lifestyle of every believer is a dependence on the Spirit of God. Since we are new creations in Christ, and our true identity lives, moves and has its very being in God, it is not something we make happen--we live by he Spirit. Keeping in step with the Spirit is a process of each child of God learningto follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Divine love is initiating, and God has always initiated a relationship with us. Jesus brought the disciples into the upper room to initiate a warm, intimate interface where He promised to send the Holy Spirit. He said that the Holy Spirit wold comfort us, lead us into all truth, and testify of Jesus. So keeping in step with the Spirit is a faith walk. Sometimes we fall behind like a little child. I teach at the same school my daughter attends, and every morning we walk in together; sometimes she falls behind, and when i look back, sometimes she has put her bookbag down because it was too heavy, or she dropped something; sometimes she is distracted by a bug or some other interest; nonetheless, she has fallen behind, and I either wait or call for her. We get distracted; in fact, our minds are bombarded daily from all sides to look to everything and anything to get our needs met. If walking in the Spirit is walking in the truth, then falling behind is believing a lie, and therefore, keeping up with the Spirit is coming back to the truth. I have found without fail that whenever I am fouled up and distracted, the Holy Spirit always brings me back to the truth. God is faithful. If keeping in step with the Spirit is receiving God's comfort in times of trial and pain, falling behind is doubting that God really cares for us and is with us in that suffering, and so keeping in step in the Spirit is believing that "Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." (paul said that in the context of the Spirit's ministry in our suffering). If walking in the Spirit is believing the Spirit's testimony about Jesus, then falling behind is thinking of ourselves outside of our relationship with Christ, so keeping up with the Spirit is believing the Spirit's testimony as seen in Romans 8. ¹⁶The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. ¹⁷Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ." To be a co-heir with Christ basically means that your presence on earth as a child of God is just as important to God as was Jesus' presence on earth when he walked here. That is the truth of the gospel--your are secure in God's love and significant in his plan....we get distracted and fall behind when we believe lies, doubt our union with Christ and think of ourselves apart from and separate from Christ, and we catch up instantly when we change our thinking to the truth about our union with Christ.

The New Creation under Attack.

2009-09-06T20:57:00.004-04:00

16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2. Cor. 5)

The New Creation is you, believer in Jesus Christ; the New Creation is me; The New Creation is the spiritual reality that a believer in Jesus Christ has been made alive spiritually, and this brand new person is joined to Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit inseparably. The problem with New Creation is that it lives in the same sin cursed body in a sin cursed world with the selfish habits and bent toward self centeredness the Bible calls the flesh. Now, Jesus told the Pharisees of his day that "you belong to your father, the devil. It is safe to say that the nature of our flesh is the nature of the devil. Now, just as satan attacked God's creation right away, so, the flesh attacks the New Creation. Yes, that is the enemy within. Satan is nothing...Christ stripped him of all his power. The flesh is the true enemy that attacks the New Creation daily; 24/7. So many believers don't even get to first base spiritually because they think their flesh is their true identity. And here is the rub. The first attack the flesh hurls on the New Creation is the same attack in that satan used in the garden. The flesh gets religious, dresses up and goes to church and says, "You have to use the knowledge of good and evil to make yourself like God." It puts the New Creation right back under the law. See, the lie in the garden that we often miss is "you need this knowledge tobe like God." Adam and Eve were already like GOD!!!! "God made man in His own image; in the image of GOD He created them." Likewise, the New Creation is "created to be like God in Christ Jesus." "10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." (romans 6) "20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." (john 14) It is the same lie; the New Creation is in Christ, is sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, and has Christ living in and through him/her. God is growing us from the inside out, we are dead to the law, dead to sin and called to rest in His power. The flesh attacks from the flank saying, "here is what you have to do to be like God, to get God to bless you and keep in His favor. Find out what is good and do it, and find out what is evil and don't do it." Look at Romans 7 to see how well that works. The New Creation is dead to the law and free to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit--the personal leadership of the Holy Spirit. We are free from the law's condemnation, the law's demands, and the law's authority in our lives. We are free and have the authority from God to love one another: "13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flelsh, rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 15If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." The latter part of this verse addresses the other attack of the flesh which is indulgence, but that is so much easier to see. It is the subtle lie that is the most vicious attack, and it often comes from the pulpit!

How Did the Tithe make it past the Cross?

2009-08-31T20:18:00.003-04:00

Read the following passages of Scripture and tell me if I am telling the truth when I say that
Any preacher or teacher who teaches that you must tithe to get God to bless you is blaspheming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[c] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” EPH. 3

10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."[c] 11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."[d] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."[e] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."[f] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. (Gal. 3)

4So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. 5For when we were controlled by the sinful nature,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. 6But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. (Gal. 4)

18The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless 19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. (Heb, 7)

6But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.
7For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. 8But God found fault with the people and said[b]: "The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 9It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. 10This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 11No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."[c]
13By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear. (Heb. 8)
15For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. (Heb. 9)

1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; 6with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. 7Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.' "[a] 8First he said, "Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them" (although the law required them to be made). 9Then he said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Heb. 10)

11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Heb. 10)

Are you Needy?

2009-08-25T20:12:00.005-04:00

Who is like the LORD our God,

the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look

on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes,

with the princes of their people. (Psalm 113)

All of mankind is poor and needy; not all of us recognize our need because we are meeting those needs ourselves, usually at the expense of others or the expense of our health and well-being. Examples of this would be the man who works hard and becomes successful, but he does not have enough time for his family. He may also neglect his health and diet. Another example, but less obvious is the wife who endlessly sacrifices for her husband and kids, always putting her needs last. Or the spouse of an addict who is always forgiving and “puts up” with all the addicts shenanigans to the point other folks say, “Oh, what a saint after putting up with him all these years.” More recently, we watched a great, larger than life pop-star die. He seemed to have it all, yet, in the end, we see how poor and needy he really was. What do all these examples have in common? We have a great need to feel secure and significant in the world. Love, acceptance and forgiveness give us a sense of security; meaning, purpose and a sense of adequacy give us a sense of significance. So what needs are the above examples meeting? The man who works to the top and makes lots of money is meeting the need for significance, but he also will feel loved and accepted when everyone tells him what great job he is doing, and ultimately, because he has lots of money, he will get the babe.(and won’t that make him feel loved) What about the mom who does everything for everyone else? Obviously, she is not self-centered. Well, it all depends on motivation. This particular mom was abandoned at a young age and learned to depend only on herself. She gets a great sense of significance for always doing for others, and always doing and not having others serve her keeps people at arms distance so no one gets close enough to hurt her. Inwardly, she resents the fact that her husband does not help out, but she can never express that at the risk of losing him. Unfortunately, her health and well-being goes to the wayside, and there is a breaking point for everyone. What about the forgiving spouse of the addict? Again, a great sense of significance comes from covering the addict’s tracks, rescuing them and in many ways “being in control.” There is a payoff for such codependent behavior; in fact, even if things are painful, but we continue to do them, there is a payoff in it. Also, this spouse is desperately hoping that one day, their spouse will really love them like they need and want to be loved. Finally, our pop star admitted that he did what he did because he wanted desperately to be loved. We are needy—God created us with a set of personal needs — a need to be unconditionally loved, totally accepted and completely forgiven. And a need for meaning and purpose, and a sense of adequacy to fulfill that purpose. Now, if God created us with those needs but failed for refused to meet those needs for us, he would be a prankster, a cruel God and a false Savior. All of these examples are examples of how we try to meet those needs apart from God and the gospel of Christ. The good news is, however, that God has sufficiently met these needs for us in the death, burial and resurrection of His Son Jesus. Now, I left one example out until now for a reason because whenever we talk about God, we break religious and naturally think we have to change our actions without addressing the thinking that is the root of the action. What about person who believes in God, goes to church, goes on missions, gives his money and doesn’t smoke, drink or chew or go with girls who do? Well, if the motivation for going to church, giving money, and ‘serving God’ is to get God to love them and not curse them, then, they are seeking to kiss God’s butt and are still in a poor and needy state. They are not receiving God’s unconditional love and acceptance—they are trying to get God to give them something He already has given them in Christ. So, we are all needy; the key is, are we going to admit our need and allow God to meet those needs by believing what He says is true? He lifts us out of the ashes and dust and seats us with princes. To sit with someone here means equality. So, I am Prince William Charles Lloyd III and I am here to tell you that God loves you unconditionally, likes you just the way you are, and has completely forgiven you, past , present and future. You have been made “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, and you cannot be more important than that. When we believe this and apply it, we will thrive rather than survive. We afre talking about a spiritual reality that has taken place and has been secured in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Freedom: Just another Word or your Reality?

2009-08-24T21:50:00.006-04:00

What is freedom? Our country values freedom. Soldiers are now fighting for our freedom. There are many misconceptions concerning the true definition of freedom. The USA is probably one of the freest nations that ever existed in the history of man, but individually most citizens live in personal bondage. Many citizens of this great nation are enslaved to things such as drugs and alcohol; others are enslaved to anger, fear, doubt, depression and various other emotions, and some of our fellow Americans are behind bars. So, just because we are citizens of a free nation does not necessarily mean that we are taking advantage of our freedom on a daily basis. Likewise, the Christian Life is to be one of freedom, but so many saints live in bondage to various taskmasters. They have been freed from these thieves and usurpers of freedom, but they have not taken advantage of it. Jesus said that it is the truth that sets us free. So, if it is truth that sets us free, it must be lies or ignorance of the truth that puts us in bondage. Therefore, we must learn about our freedom and apply it to our daily lives.
Fear is the biggest obstacle that keeps Christians from experiencing true freedom. The sad thing is that the things we fear are the very things we have been freed from. For example, we have been freed from punishment; however, many saints live in fear that somewhere or somehow they will be punished.

We Are Free From Punishment

The ultimate punishment is hell, and Christians know that they are never going there. Or do they? Are you afraid that you might not make it to heaven after all? So many saints buy into the lie that somehow they can lose their salvation—that somehow they can blow it and be lost. This demonstrates a faulty understanding of the gospel, and actually cheapens what Christ has done. Christ is God. His sacrifice was either good enough to make certain we get to heaven safe and sound, or it was lacking. There is nothing lacking in God, and His sacrifice is perfect. If you received Jesus Christ, you have the right to call yourself a Child of God, and thus, Heaven is your home, nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and you are already seated with Christ in heavenly places. One misunderstanding that causes this fear is that we think our flesh is going to heaven—that is, we think that we are going just as we are now in this sin cursed body with our limited thinking and perspective. Our flesh or sinful nature or indwelling sin (the Scriptures use these terms interchangeably) has been condemned. Moreover, God separates our flesh from the “new creation” He has made us to be. The new person who God made us to be is going to heaven. Our flesh, with our sin cursed body will rot in the grave. God promises us in Romans 8 that He will complete all phases of our salvation. “Those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

Those he predestined, he also called-Simply put, it was God’s initiative, his idea, and
we would not even think about Him if it wasn’t for His initiating love.

Those he called, he also justified-God has completely forgiven and has removed all our
sins, and we have been made righteous. Christ was punished for our sins, “the punishment that brought us peace(justification) was upon him.”

Those he justified, he also glorified-
Glorification refers to the time when God will give us a new, spiritual body in heaven. The new person that God has made us to be will inherit this new body. God is so sure that we will receive our new bodies and be in heaven that he speaks of it in the past tense. In his eyes, it has already occurred. You are going to heaven and will never be punished—ever! Now, please don’t give me any hypothetical situations about the person who received Christ and then murdered his family, committed adultery and “does whatever he wants.” God is not concerned about a hypothetical person. He has given you the gospel. What are you going to do with the “good news”?

We Are Free From Sin

Today's church is much too preoccupied with sin. Is it a sin to do this or that is the common question. Sin consciousness hides the truth of the gospel because the truth of the gospel declares that our sins have bee taken away. When something is taken away, it is no longer seen. The Old Testament uses beautiful imagery to describe and prophecy what God has done with our sin problem. He has "tread our sins underfoot", " removed them as far as east is to west," throw them into the sea, put them behind his back never to be remembered again, and has swept them away like a cloud. The New Testament, however is much more literal and much more detailed as to God's remedy with our sin problem. We are free from the penalty of sin, the presence of sin, the power of sin and the preoccupation with sin.

Dead to Sin
Romans chapter 6 deals with the question of the hypotetical mention earlier. Since God deals with us on the basis of grace through Christ's perfect life, sacrificial death and life giving resurrection, should we go on sinning? Paul's answer is"God forbid!" Like, what are you kidding? The way he answers this question is imperative to our understanding God's attitude toward sin and how to live the Christian life. He does not give us a list of do's and don't's. He does not warn us that we will lose our salvation. He does not imply that such a person is not really saved. What he does do, however is call us to faith in the gospel. His answer is to believe what God has already done about our sin problem and apply it to our daily lives. He makes the declaration that we died to sin, and since we died, we have been "freed from sin." A dead person no longer is associated with earth. They are not conscious of things. They don't worry about money, auto bills, rent checks or anthrax. They are free from this world, no longer associated wit hit. Likewise, we are free from sin. We are no longer conscious of sin. "Hold on! What do you mean, I am very conscious of sin," might be your reply. "I sin every day, and I am very aware of it." And if you are really messed up in the mind you might say, "I see Christians who sin all the time. They are not 'sold out' like me." Romans 6:5-7 says, "We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-because anyone who has died has bee freed from sin." The old self, the person you usually identify yourself with has died. Everything dysfunctional and sinful about you was crucified with Christ. Your job is faith. God says that you are free from sin, so you don't have to think or worry about it anymore. God has taken over for you and has dealt with it. Become Christ conscious and thank him daily for dealing with your sin problem. Get your eyes off of yourself and your obnoxious, pitiful performance and put your eyes on Christ. "The death he died to sin, he died once for all. Likewise, count yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." Not worrying about sin does not lessen the severity of sin. Thinking that we can solve the sin problem or control it somehow lessens the severity of the sin problem. God is so serious about the sin problem that he demands death, not rehabilitation. "And so he condemned sin in sinful man that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us." God has declared and has carried out capital punishment regarding the sin problem. Walk in the freedom that God has given you regarding sin.

We are Free from Accusation

We all know Satan is the accuser of the brethren. So it must follow that if we are free from sin, we are free from accusation. Colossians 1:22 tells us that God "has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation. " Think of it this way. Satan had a gun and so did you. His gun was your sin. Enter Jesus. He walks up to Satan and takes his gone away, and you are still standing there with a bazooka. Who wins? The bazooka is the gospel. Satan's weapon has been taken away-he has been disarmed. "When you were dead in you sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations that was against us and stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to a cross. And having disarmed the principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle over them, triumphing over them by the cross." You are free from accusation because Paul makes a very bold statement that most Christians are scared to death to believe. When talking about his inability to keep the law, Paul says, "As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but sin living in me." Did you hear that? Paul is saying that there is a difference between his flesh and the new person God has made him to be and that new person does not sin! you may say, it sounds like God is letting us off the hook? Guess what? God is letting us off the hook because he put Christ on the hook and showed no mercy! A parasite or tapeworm can live in your physical body, but that parasite is not you! Likewise, you have indwelling sin, but that is not you! The problem is that Satan accuses you with first person pronouns. He says, "I want to do this or I did that, or my desire is." And he fools you into thinking they are your thoughts. Again he says, "Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." God separates us from our sin and no longer identifies us with sin. It is a miracle! We want signs and miracles and ignore the biggest miracle of what actually took place at the cross. "God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus." Instead of wallowing in sin, asking God to help you be a good Christian, and trying to do something that God has done already, thank Him that you are righteous, holy, blameless and free from accusation--in other words, be Christ conscious rather than sin conscious. You are free.

We are Free from the Law

This is another concept that Christians are scared to death to believe because they mistakenly believe that they need a set of rules and regulations to keep them from wandering away from God. They also mistakenly believe that God wants them to follow a set of rules and regulations to please him. To the contrary, Galatians declares we fall from grace when we seek to follow the law. Moreover, Romans 7 declares that when we try to keep the law, sin gains more power in our lives. This goes contrary to our natural thinking and everything we've been taught since birth, but that is why we live by faith. We are free from the law so that we can have a relationship with God and hear his voice on a daily basis. Galatians 3:23 says, "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law." The new person you are is called to live by grace through faith; therefore, your flesh is the only thing that responds to the law, and your flesh can do nothing but sin and keep on sinning. The new person you are is called to live by faith and respond to God's voice. Yes, you have the freedom to hear God's voice for yourself. You are free from the law's demands. You are free from any law system. People that live in a dysfunctional relationship have all sorts of rules and expectations for each other that constantly cause conflict and dissatisfaction. People that live in a healthy relationship have mutual love and respect for each other. They communicate openly and honestly and focus on loving each other unconditionally. You can't do that with a law system. God wants you to enjoy a healthy relationship with him, so he has freed you from the demands and condemnations of the law. Paul tells us in Galatians 3, “23Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. 24So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ[h] that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.” The reason we have been given this freedom is to love others: “13You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh rather, serve one another in love.”
We are completely loved; we are free to love and we have the authority from Christ to love. When we believe this, really believe it, all of our motivation changes and we actually are free, and out of that freedom springs the desire to love. Faith first, which produces hope, and hope produces the ability to love.

A New Creation

2009-07-29T16:32:00.001-04:00

13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Cor. 15)Paul tells us that our faith is useless without the resurrection. If we stop to think about that in light of the cross where Jesus died for our sins, we would think that this statement almost diminishes the work of the cross. What I failed to realize early in my walk with Christ is the personal significance of the resurrection of Christ. I thought that the resurrection was only to prove that Jesus was different and because his grave was empty, it set Him apart from all other leaders claiming to know the way to God. This is true, but the resurrection has a personal significance to each one of us that I think is often missed because we obsess about and focus on the sin problem...our eyes are on what we do or don't do--not on who we are in Christ. We were born into this world spiritually dead. Adam died spiritually. His spiritual union with God was lost because of sin. Our need coming into this world is not only for forgiveness--we have a need for life--the life Adam lost in the garden. And that is what Jesus provides for us in His resurrection--LIFE! Spiritual Life. This is the abundant life. The abundant life is not that we get lots of stuff and our circumstances are always wonderful....the Abundant Life is Jesus's Life in us. Jesus said in John 14:20, "2On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." This is a spiritual reality! If you look at this verse, it shows that we are joined to Jesus Christ inseparably! The day he was talking about was the day, the church was born on Pentecost. Because Jesus ascended into heaven, and sin was removed once for all, God could now live in and with man once again. God took away that which He could not tolerate or dwell with. Now that sin has been removed, He could birth a new creation. Our new birth is where God crucified the old you (a spiritual reality) and raised up with Christ a brand new person....the new creation.....the new person that you are is perfect...sealed with the Holy Spirit, joined to Christ, and not touched by sin. This is a spiritual reality...The problem is that this new person lives in a sin cursed body in a sin cursed world that is falling apart filled with lies that prevent us from understanding just what the New Creation is all about.

The Gospel According to Annie

2009-07-25T10:19:00.005-04:00

1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14)I was watching the play Annie with my daughter Grace Marie. There is a scene where Daddy Warbucks wants to show orphan Annie unconditional love by bringing her to his mansion for Christmas time and give her all the pleasanties of life. Warbuck's assistant asks Annie, "What do you want to do first?" Annie replies, "I think the windows, and then I will mop the floors..." She thought that Warbucks brought her there to work...to be used..." The assistant then told Annie why Daddy Warbucks brought her there...for her company...to share everything he had with her....for those few days it was all hers. Yep, you got it, God spoke to me through that scene. We often think that our relationship with God depends on what we do or don't do--that the only reason he wants us is to "use us for His glory." I have a sneaky suspicion that it rarely occurs to us that God sent His Son light years across the universe to die on the cross on our behalf so that He could bring us to Himself and enjoy our presence and fellowship for all eternity--that God really does love us unconditionally and actually is thrilled, happy and excited with who He has made us to be. We are "heirs of God and Co-heirs with Christ"* This means that we are just as significant and important to God as Jesus. God wants to be with us and wants us to be with Him. We dont' have to work our way into His favor...we already have it more than we know.

Understanding the Good News

2009-07-05T08:27:00.003-04:00

12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

The Spirit of God is our Counselor and Teacher who is with us always. The Spirit empowers us and equips us to love others, leads us into truth and testifies of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The work of the Spirit that Paul speaks about here is essential to our fellowship with God. We need the Spirit to understand what God has freely given us. In Christ, He has given us His very Self. And in giving of Himself, He has given us all things--freely. In his death, we are given complete forgiveness; in his death he has made us acceptable; in his death we are made righteous with the same righteousness of Christ. In his resurrection, we are made alive to God; in his resurrection, we have a spiritual life that is perfect, holy, and blameless. In his resurrection and ascension, we are joined to Christ inseparately--we have been joined to him....and all of this is a gift from God. It is free. Paul goes on to say that 14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. The man that does not have the Spirit of God naturally thinks that you have to work for God's love and favor, that you are on your own, and it is foolishness to think otherwise. Believers have the mind of Christ, the indwelling Spirit, and God's unmerited favor. However, we can often fall into the same natural thinking of the man without the Spirit thinking that somehow we are on our own and God is there and we are here, and if we do enough, make enough noise and say the right things, God just might give us something. Nothing could be further from the truth. He lives in us, we live in Him and He has freely given us all things. We are not separated, and we will never be separated from God. He has freely given us Himself.

Mother's Day and the Mother Heart of God

2009-05-09T19:16:00.002-04:00

Altough God has revealed Himself as Father and we call Him our Heavenly Father, and Although Jesus was the Son of God, God does have a feminine side; or better yet, since God is the Creator, and He made us in His image, it is better to say, "God revealed part of Himself when He created the women/feminity. One place where this truth could not be more clear but is often missed is in the Gospel of Luke, chaper 15. In this Chapter, Jesus tells three parables in a row. The last parable is probably the most well known, "The Parable of the Prodigal Son." In this parable God is represented by the father in the story; thus, God the Father is depicted here. The second parable, "The Parable of the Lost Sheep" is also well known. Here God is represented by the Shephard; thus, Jesus, the Good Shephard. So, we have God the Father and God the Son represented in these parables, but smack-dab in the middle of these two parables is "The Parable of the Lost Coin." In this parable, God is represented by the woman who lights the house and sweeps it clean until she finds the lost coin--Here we see the Holy Spirit, the Great Illuminator who shines God's light into our hearts. Here we see that the Holy Spirit is revealed in the feminine. The Holy Spirit is called the comforter...who do we run to for comfort when we are kids? Momma? For the most part. Jesus tells us that the Spirit gives birth to spirit. In the opening chapters of the Scriptures, God says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female, he created them." So on this Mother's day, remember that the "motherly instinct", that unconditional, undying love that we have experienced from our mom's is but a small glimpse of the eternal, undying love of God. He put it there in the mom's hearts as a reflection of His image.....

2009-03-13T06:40:00.003-04:00

"12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" (Proverbs 12)

We all have longings that need to be fulfilled. We were created with a need, a longing for love, acceptance, forigiveness, meaning and purpose. There is a line from the movie, "Secret Life of the Bees" where Dakota Fanning's character says that she would do anything just to be loved. God created us with these deep longings, and if He created the need for unconditional love and acceptance, and then turned around and refused to meet those needs, He would be cruel, a jokester, a prankster; however, the good news is that God has met all of our personal needs in Jesus, the Tree of Life and the Bread of Life. Jesus tells us in John 6:3 7 "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. " The Greek language here is very, very strong....God is crying out to us, "I will never, never reject you...you're longing to be loved and accepted is fully met in me." When we sick to get those needs met somewhere else, our hope is deferred and our heart is sick. Thank you God that you love me unconditionally, fully accept me and have completely forgiven my sins! Thank you for fulfilling my deepest desire to be loved and accepted, and thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ that provides complete forgiveness of my sins. Amen!

FLESH IS FLESH/CRAP IS CRAP

2009-02-27T07:23:00.003-05:00

6So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, 7rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. (Colossians 2)

How did you receive Christ Jesus as Lord? Was it not when you were powerless, sinful and hopeless. You brought nothing to the table, and God, through Christ was your complete source of love, acceptance, forgiveness and new life. Well guess what, Christian 1, 10, 20, 30 years later, it is still the same way. The source of anything good, true and beautiful in your life is Christ Jesus. Paul is telling us that our daily walk is the same exchange. Your old funky life nailed to the cross, and Christ, resurrection Life living and moving in you. We somehow have bought into the lie that “Now that you are a Christian, self-effort does count. It did not count before, but now it counts, and if your self-effort is not good enough, God will get mad and reject you.” This is a lie from the pits of hell because God rejects all self-effort and it does not matter if it comes from the crack house or the church house, it is all futile and unproductive leading to death. Flesh is flesh, and it may look different dressed up in our Sunday best, but it is just that—different. I have a friend who is a rancher, and he brings me into the cow pasture and says, “Look at that pile—its cow crap. Now look at that one—that is horse crap. And ya see that little pile over there—that is dog crap. It is different, but it is all crap!” And, thus, our lesson for today: The church goers flesh might look different than the thieves’ and junkies’ flesh, but it is all flesh…it is all crap. Self –righteousness has no place in a believers life; Because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are better off, not better than others.

No Deceit?

2009-01-28T20:59:00.006-05:00

1 Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 2 Blessed is the man whose sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. (Psalm 32)

I have read this verse and would hesitate to consider myself thus blessed because of the last 7 words. I always thought that it was saying you are forgiven, your sins are covered, and the Lord does not count your sins against you if and only if I am never deceptive--if there is no deceit in me. In other words, forgiveness is conditional based on no sign of deceit in my life. I would become discouraged because when I am really honest, I have to admit that I am not always truthful; in fact, my natural tendency is to leave things out, cover things over and maybe even outright lie in order to save my own rear end. It is not my natural tendancy to always be truthful. However, I believe God revealed something awesomely wonderful to me today. Consider the words, "in whose spirit is no deceit." The gospel of Jesus Christ declares that we were dead spiritually, made alive in Christ and completely forgiven of all of our sins. The New Creation is a spiritual reality--the New Person God made us to be is a spiritual reality, and the person that has been forgiven, justified by faith is "dead to sin and alive to God" and there is not an ounce of deceit in the New Creation 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10) This perfection is the Spirit Man, and there is no deceit in perfection. I can declare by faith that I am blessed, forgiven and have no deceit in my spirit--this promise is for all who believe, and it encourages me to go boldly to the throne where I can be completely honest and open before God.

Revive us Again?

2009-01-03T11:23:00.002-05:00

Well, it is a New Year, and after 25 years of bringing in the New Years as a believer in Christ, I am convinced that our walk with Christ is a day in and day out struggle between the flesh and the Spirit. Although this day in and day out experience can somtimes seem monotonous, it need not be. I have seen the church each year yearn for a ending of the monotony by God doing something new. We pray for revival and hold "revival" meetings that are charged with emotion and excitement; however, after the meeting, we go back to the day to day struggle waiting for the next meeting to break the monotony. The good news is that our daily struggle need not be monotonous. We look for God to do something new and either believe one of 3 big fat lies.
Lie # 1 - Satan is winning. This is a lie bcause in the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ Jesus, satan has been stripped of all power and authority. Jesus stripped satan of any power or authority and has given us full power and authority over satan and his kingdom. All satan can do is lie, lie lie. He can't touch us. "9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority" (col 2)
Lie # 2 Our Lack of Obedience is keeping God from moving. This lie is very subtle because for our entire life we have been conditioned to believe in cause and effect, and we naturally transfer that relationship to God. However, it is a lie. No one was praying for God to send His Son to die on the cross, rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven. We certainly did not behave properly. Can you imagine if we applied that mentality to what happened. "Sorry Peter, I ain't going to rise from the deat because you denied me, cursed, and hid." God is not some weakling in the sky, fretting and waiting for us to get our act together before he "moves." God is not at our mercy.
Lie # 3 God is not interested in my life-He has much more important things and people to take care of . This is a lie because God has given the call to whosoever, and He declared boldly when he announced the New Covenant that the "least to the greatest" shall know Him." And the word know denotes close, personal intamacy. So God is intimately acquanted and interested in your life. And why is it that we think God does not pay attention to our concerns on a daily basis, but when we really do something wrong, we are quite sure he knows every detail? O ye of little faith." There is that word, FAITH, and it precisely this word that keeps the day in and day out struggle from becoming monotonous. If we exercise faih in our own personal revival on a day to day basis, understanding our true identity as children of God, each day can be filled with the joy of having contact with the Creator of the Universe. Consider the following verses:

Colossians 2
13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Ephesians 2
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins....4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

WOW! Talk about revival...These verses declare true revival...we were dead, and now we are alive with Christ. Not only that, but we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. We have been given authority to love one another...to love others, and God has prepared these works of love in advance. Why do we miss this? Becaue we think of the good works in a religious sense rather than simple works of love. Jesus said that if the simplest deed like giving a cup of water to someone in His name (motivated by faith hope and love) it is a big deal in heaven! So as we exercise faith in what God has done for us making us new creations with the authority of love, our daily life becomes much more significant. Revival is here, and has been here since the resurrection. The only thing we have left to do is love one another, and the only thing we should lookd forward to is the return of Christ. God has moved, is moving and will continue to move in your life. You don't need a revival meeting and a flurry of religious activity. Faith will produce the hope which will produce love, and there is nothing more powerful in the world than love, and anytime there is true genuine love, it is a miracle. Revival is here.

THE STAKES JUST GOT HIGHER

2008-10-25T08:27:00.010-04:00

I now have even more of a vested interest in this next election. My one and only son, Liam has joined the Marines. Last night there was a welcome aboard ceremony at Mario's Restaurant. It was a nice occassion and a proud moment for our family; however, I now want a President in the White House who will properly lead our men who are putting it on the line for us. I want a President who will respect the military and use God's wisdom when making tough decisions. I want a President who can empathize and actually care when making those decisions. And now I realize even more why God will never leave us nor forsake us. He has a vested interest in our lives. "31 ¶ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"(Romans 8) You see that! God has given the life of his Son to make sure we get to be with Him for eternity, and He is going give us everything we need to live a worthy life here and now, and the following verse promises us that God will take our hand, walk in us and through us until we are finally safe and sound with Him forever and ever in the Kingdom! He has a vested interest, and because He gave us His Son (what more can he give?) He is very interested in our lives...in every detail right now to the knowing the number of hairs on your head! God is very serious about the business of "bringing many sons to glory."

(That is Sergeant Jon Carr with Liam. Sergeant Carr fought every inch of the initial invasion of Irag. He is now the Recruit Commander for the Treasure Coast)

A Gem From Charles Spurgeon

2008-09-10T07:19:00.001-04:00

I have had a bit of writer's block, so I thought I would let Charles Spurgeon inspire us with great news!

According to this gracious covenant, the Lord treats His people as if they had never sinned. Practically, He forgets all their trespasses. Sins of all kinds He treats as if they had never been; as if they were erased from His memory. Oh, miracle of grace! God here does that which in certain aspects is impossible to him. His mercy works miracles which far transcends all other miracles. Our God ignores our sin now that the sacrifice of Jesus has ratified the covenant. We may rejoice in Him without without fear that He will be provoked to anger against us because of our iniquities. See! He puts us among the children; He accepts us as righteous! He takes delight in us as if we were perfectly holy. He even puts us in places of trust; makes us guardians of His honor, trustees of the crown jewels, stewards of the gospel. He counts us worthy and gives us a ministry; this is the highest and most special proof that He does not remember our sins. Even when we forgive an enemy, we are very slow to trust him; we judge it to be imprudent to do so. But the Lord forgets our sins, and treats us as if we had never erred. Oh, my soul, what a promise is this! Believe and be happy.

The Holy Spirit in Our Day

2008-07-22T20:52:00.003-04:00

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the Holy Spirit, but the controversy can be easily eliminated if we let the Scriptures define the work of the Holy Spirit. Two passages come to mind, and in the days to come, we will examine more.

26"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me."

The Holy Spirit is to testify about Jesus Christ. In other words, when someone is in communion with the Spirit of God, they are growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit will fix the believers eyes on Jesus Christ.

15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.[g] And by him we cry, "Abba,[h] Father." 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ..

Likewise, the Holy Spirit's work is to convince the believer that because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, he is a secure, loved, accepted and forgiven Child of the Most High God; and being a co-heir with Christ, his presence on this earth is just as significant as Jesus Christ's presence on this earth. WOW!

20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

Jesus said this in the context of the promise of the Comforter. This passage tells us of a spiritual reality that can only come by a revelation from the Holy Spirit, and that revelation is this. We are no longer separated from our God-We are joined to Him inseparably through our union with Jesus Christ. We have become one with our God.

A lot of people get caught up in the methodology, but i don't care if one falls down, rolls on the ground, stands on his head or laughs like a hyena. If he does not come away with a deeper understanding of the supremecy of the Lord Jesus Christ, his position as a child of God and his Union with Christ, it has profited him nothing-it is but wind and confusion, a religious fix, or Chrisitan etertainment. If they do walk away with a revelation of Christ Jesus and their union with Him, why question it?

What is Worth Reporting?

2008-07-16T20:22:00.002-04:00

3We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—(Col. 1)
It is evident in Paul's writings that he gets very excited when he hears about people actually placing their trust in Jesus Christ in order to get around to the businesss of loving one another. There are several passages similar to this one where Paul gets excited when he hears reports that the churches are full of faith and love. Nowhere does he ever seem concerned about the size of the church, the amount of money, or even the number of souls 'won for Jesus'. (The truth is Jesus alreay won and none will be lost) Paul is concerned about faith in Christ Jesus. This is foundational, and nothing works without faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus asked if he would find faith on the earth when He returned. Notice, He wants to see faith, not works, numbers or religion. All of the polls out there tell us that the great US OF A is more religious now than it ever has been. Are we better for it? That is debatable, but I wonder how much actual faith in Christ Jesus is out there. Faith in Him alone for our eternal secuity and personal worth. We are to look to nothing else but Him to meet all of our needs. Let me be the first to say that I often look elsewhere to have those needs met. However, the one thing I have become sure enough of is this: IT IS FINISHED! I am eternally secure in my Saviors love. I am convinced-It is just this daily living that causes me to get weird. I want to feel good and be loved by everyone here and now! But faith tells me to turn from these every day and look to Jesus, the Bread of Life on a daily basis. Jesus tells me that if I have faith like that the size of a mustard seed, I may just get about the business of geniunely loving his people. As we admit our failure to totally trust Jesus Christ for our everything, ask for Him to help us in our unbelief, we may just move on to loving the saints-then the world will know....

Leave No Doubt

2008-06-06T08:44:00.003-04:00

John 18

....Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.
4Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want?"
5"Jesus of Nazareth," they replied.
"I am he," Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) 6When Jesus said, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground.
There is a scene in the movie "Remember the Titans" where assistant football coach Bill Yost tells head coach Herman Boone to run up the score..."Leave no doubt," he bellows. I believe this is the reason why Jesus had the encounter with the soldiers in the grove. They came with weapons, but they drew back and fell to the ground at the sound of his voice. This was an example of our Sovereign God leaving no doubt as to who was in charge, who was winning, and who would have the final word. God wanted to show us why Jesus was about to die on the cross, and it had nothing to do with the silly soldiers and their mortal weapons. Jesus was about to demonstrate the love of God by laying down his life willingly because we were the joy set before Him. God demnostrated his love once for all, and this is His proof positive that He loves me and you. Embrace it, hold on to it, and never let it go.

The Lion Queen

2008-05-12T20:01:00.006-04:00

The End of Wisdom

2008-05-09T08:28:00.003-04:00

"Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. " (1 Corinthinans 1:24)

It amazes me how much Christians want to hang on to Old Testament theology in their relationship to God. John tells us without reservation that "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." We are not to fear God, but teachers insist that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"*, and that we should have a healthy, reverent fear of God." I say this is faulty teaching. It confuses young believers who are used to being motivated by fear, so they naturally transfer that conditioning to their relationship with God. Yes, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but not the end of wisdom. When we fear God, we know we need a Savior, when we receive salvation, God's perfect love is to relieve our fears. We are no longer motivated by fear. Christ is now the Wisdom of God....the Omega of Wisdom: "It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption." (1 Cor. 1:30) Christ meets all of our needs, all things have become new and we are now motivated by faith, hope and love, not fear. The motivation of fear is worldly, and preachers and teachers who use it to motivate the flock are not shepherding the flock according to God's word. They are using worldly methods to build their own churches, keeping those that are more than conquerors in bondage to the law. Repent and teach the good news...fear is gone for the believer! Come quickly Lord Jesus.

*Proverbs 3

Putting on the Armor

2008-05-07T09:04:00.002-04:00

When we think of the armor of God, we often think that we have to put it on to go into the world where the devil reigns; however, Paul’s exhortation to put on the full armor of God is right after his instructions on relationships—particularly family relationships. The end of chapter 5 instructs wives to submit to their husbands, for husbands to love their wives, and Chapter 6 instructs children to obey their parents, fathers to encourage their kids, and for employees and bosses to treat one another with respect. It is in this context that Paul tells us to put on the armor of God. The armor of God is nothing less than Jesus Christ. In other words, it is through the power and provision of Christ that husbands are going to love their wives, wives are going to submit to their husbands, and children are going to respect their parents. There are, however, several practical applications to the family regarding the armor of God.
First, it is to defeat the devil’s schemes. The devil seeks to destroy the family. Paul tells us that it is not “against flesh and blood” that we struggle. The old expression, “my own flesh and blood” when talking about family is implicated here. Many times when we are in conflict with another family member, we think it is the family member’s behavior that is the problem. We are unaware of the rulers and powers of the dark world that are at work. The weapons of these dark forces are lies, false assumptions, and distorted, twisted religious ideas. We defeat these lies with the truth of the Gospel.
If it is lies that put us in bondage, it is truth that sets us free. Jesus said, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life”, and He tells us the Holy Spirit will lead us into all Truth. The belt of a Roman soldier’s uniform held the rest of it in place. The Belt of Truth implies that in each situation, we need God to tell us and show us the Truth. Replacing the lie with truth will temper the emotions involved in conflict. This will cause parents to focus on why the child is behaving poorly instead of what they are doing.
Usually, in a conflict, we want to convince the other person we are right and they are wrong. The gospel declares that we are righteous in Christ apart from the law(behavior). Putting on the Breastplate of Righteousness gives us what we need to avoid the trap of such a power struggle. The truth is that on the basis of the gospel, both parties involved are right because they have been made righteous by Christ. So before entering into an argument about who is right, start with the premise that we are both right, worthy, and acceptable to God regardless of the outcome of our conflict. This will allow us to then ask God what He wants in each situation without the pressure of justifying ourselves.
Likewise, having our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel peace tells us that in each situation we need to be ready to apply the gospel. It is from the Prince of Peace that we have true peace. It is the same for the Helmet of Salvation. We no longer have to save ourselves in these situations. We are saved, our personal needs are met in Christ. We can forget about ourselves and do what is best for the other person.
Satan is the accuser of the brethren. He will always attack our identity and the identity of the other person. Taking the Shield of Faith to extinguish the fiery darts of the evil one means that we believe the gospel for ourselves and for the other person as well. In other words, we identify that person on the basis of their union with Christ and not their behavior. This type of faith is essential to healthy family relations.
A swordsman is trained to use the sword carefully and skillfully, so a careful and skillful application of the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, is needed. It can’t be used as a club to shame and force compliance; rather, it can be used to build up the family and “present them perfect in Christ.”

The good news is that God not only provides useful tools for the family, but He provides the power to put those tools use.

The Enemy Within

2008-04-25T08:31:00.004-04:00

Although Satan is a potent enemy, he has nothing left but the lie. He can't touch us, but he can lie to us about God, ourselves and our circumstances, but we only need to resist him and he will flee. We resist him because Christ is living in us and we live in Him. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; and that new creation lives in a sin cursed body in a sin cursed world. It is this sin cursed body that hides the real enemy--what the Bible calls the flesh. 17For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (gal.5) The Saint of God must learn to cope with this conflict on a daily basis if they are to know the abundant life Jesus promised. The flesh is totally self centered, self protecting and self absorbed. The impulse to act independantly of God relying on our own strength is constantly with us. The bad news is that it does not change--the good news of the gospel is that this is not who we are. The spiritual realities of the New Creation is our true identity; in other words, we are not our flesh. And it is separating ourselves from our flesh that is absolutely essential to true victory and spiritual growth. If we do not make a separation from our flesh and the true person that we are in Christ, we will try to live the Christian life in our own strength--and the results are disastrous. Forget all this stuff about being a good Chrstian--there was and is only one good Chrsitian that ever lived, The Lord Jesus Christ. And He lives in you today and wants to express His good Christian life through you, but it is all Him and none of you. The Christian life is an impossibility! It is supernatural. We are to rest from our works and allow Christ to work through us. Galatians chapter 5 lists the obvious works of the flesh: hate, sexual immorality, envy, etc. Most would agree that these are destructive; however, Paul provides another list of works of the flesh in Phillipians 3 -- This list is a list of Paul's religious activity, and he considered it rubbish that he may gain Christ. The flesh loves to dress up and go to church--did you hear that? The flesh loves to dress up and go to church! However, just like the obvious evil deeds, these works of the flesh will lead to death also. The flesh will flip flop from legalism to doing whatever it takes to feel good. The reason why it is more destructive and a more potent enemy than satan is we think that is who we are; and when we think that is who we are, we try to change it, and when we delude ourselves into thinking we changed ourselves, we become self righteous; and the self righteous flesh is very toxic. Paul cried out, "Who will save me from this body of death!" The body of death is the flesh, and the answer to Paul's cry was "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." He will rescue you. There is no four point plan for how God will rescue from your flesh! It is different in everyone's life. Usually, it is coming to an end of our own self effort and learning to walk in God's Spirit, Strength and Provison. Be of good cheer, God is at war with your flesh right now and will finish the work he began in you.

Knowing Your Enemy is Half the Battle

2008-04-22T10:02:00.004-04:00

20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth I don't know if it is half the battle, but I do know that not knowing your enemy in the Christian life is crippling, confusing and catastrophizing. Many Christians might say, "Yep, I know my enemy--it is that filthy devil...I rebuuuuuuuuuuuuuke you filthy devil." Yes, satan is a powerful foe to be reckoned with; however, he is not the real problem...he has been stripped of his power. All he has left is the lie. Lies, lies, lies, is all he has. He is not allowed to come near any believer unless God allows it. It always makes me angry when I see people getting all whipped up about the devil when the Scriptures simply say, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." That is it. The believer has been given "all the fullness" (col. 2) of Christ Jesus which includes headship over the principalities and powers. All we need to do is resist. The weakest of believers have this authority. The Apostle John tells us that all believers have the anointing of God. Why, then, have Christians been fooled into thinking that they have to go to some "anointed" brother or sister for deliverance? Why are prayer lines full of Saints of God with total authority going up and having someone pray for them. And the people praying act like if they stamp their feet enough, yell loud enough and say the right thing, something will happen. The Bible is clear that we are not supposed to tangle with the devil this way. We are to be on guard, resit when we discern an attack, and then fix our eyes on Jesus Christ and who we are in him. . We are to pray for one another, don't misunderstand me. We build relationships of love by praying for one another. In other words, I have authority to pray and so do you. We confess, share and pray for each other and from out of that comes the intimate, loving relationships God designed. I don't know churches motivation by promoting this idea, but it keeps saints in bondage, blinded to who they really are in Christ Jesus, and impotent. It keeps them dependant on the church structure rather than on Christ. It is often a fair show of the flesh, I fear. This brings us to the real enemy--the flesh; the flesh is our most potent enemy and in part 2 we will look at the real enemy, but for now, know that it is not the devil.

True Repentance

2008-04-14T14:15:00.007-04:00

The word repentance literally means to change one's mind. A change in thinking; aka, faith is the first step on our journey of discipleship with Jesus Christ. Repentance has been misconstrued through the years to mean changing one's behavior. To be accepted by God; therefore, one would have to change their behavior (turn away from their sins) and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is a faulty view of repentance which can be damaging. We can not change our behavior--that is the problem and that is precisely why Jesus Christ came. He came saying, "Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Jesus followed up his command for repentance with the phrase "the Kingdom of heaven is near." If repentance is a change in thinking, why did he say, "The Kingdom of heaven is near?" Jesus said it because in order to recognize the Kingdom of God coming upon them, they had to change their thinking concerning the Kingdom of God. Israel's expectation of the Messiah ushering in the Kingdom of God was that the King would come, whip the crap out of the Romans, kick them out of Israel and make Israel great again. The idea of a Servant King coming to take away the sins of the world through a sacrificial death was totally foreign to them; in fact, it would take a 180* change in thinking to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Likewise, today, there needs to be a 180* change in our thinking about God, ourselves and what it means to be in Christ. Because we live in a performance based society filled with laws and expectations, we naturally think that is how God relates to us. The gospel declares that being in Christ has nothing to do with our performance, circumstances or adherence to any law system. This is foreign and hard to grasp and must come by a revelation from the Holy Spirit.

You Can't Give What You Don't Have

2008-04-11T09:32:00.003-04:00

Everyone is familar with the "great love chapter," 1 Corinthians 13. Paul uses poetic language to drive home the fact that without love, even the most noble of feats is nothing. I was thinking about this passage, and I always read it from a performance oriented view; i.e., I took it to say that if I am not loving people, I am in dutch with God. The emphasis was always on my failure to love. This morning however, I realized that the emphasis is on what we possess-what we "have" or have not. This brought me to the realization that if I don't possess God's love for me personally, I can't love others; moreover, if God is love, we can easily replace the word love with God...see how this plays out in the opening verses: 1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not God, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not God, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not God, I gain nothing. You see, we can not separate the two. There is not love in the world without God. If God would cease to love us, He would no longer be God. If we do not have the love of God as our very own possession, we can not possibly love others. If God's commandment is that we love one another, how could it be that He would not love us unconditionally, eternally and consistently. I always get a kick out of legalists who give the idea that God will knock us into tomorrow if we misbehave, but demand that a wife stay with an abusive husband and love him "no matter what." This discrepancy comes from not understanding the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It presumes that somehow we can whip up love within ourselves-humanistic love is conditional, temporal, shortsuffering, and self-centered. God's love is unconditional, eternal, longsuffering, sacraficial and intelligent. We can have God..all of Him.God and His love are received, accepted and taken hold by faith, and it is expressed through us as God works in us.

The Purpose of Your Gift-Jesus Is Lord and God is Love

2008-04-09T09:41:00.004-04:00

There has been much controversy over spiritual gifts since the early church. The central point of our modern rub is whether or not certain gifts are "for today." Some say that gifts such as healing and speaking in tongues have ceased to exist, while others say that speaking in other languages is the only sign that one has been baptized with in the Holy Spirit. Since this controversy has existed since Paul's day, it can't be solved in a short writing; however, Paul does "bookcase" his instructions about gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 with two crucial prerequisites for any use of a gift. First, the gift must be exercised under the Lordship of Jesus Christ through the personal leadership of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells the Corinthians that the result of their previous style of worship was silence from their idols. He contrasted this with the truth that our God speaks to us and through us: 2You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. 3Therefore I tell ... no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.
What will the exercise of gifts demonstrate? The bottom line is that every true exercise of a Spritual gift will say loud and clear, "JESUS IS LORD" If it does not say this, it is of the flesh. Second, right in the middle of the instruction of gifts picked up in Chapter 14 is Corinthians 13; aka, the Great Love Chapter. Here Paul, in beautiful, lyrical language demonstrates that if our motivation is not love, we say nothig, are nothing and gain nothing. So, the motivation for the use of any gift must be that of loving others. This is supernatural, and anytime someone loves another with the love of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God is working through them in a miraculous way--regardless of where they stand doctrinally on this issue.

Illegal Aliens and The Bible

2008-04-07T13:02:00.007-04:00

33 " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

God is not a right winged conservative. Now, I can talk politics and air my opinions as good as the next guy, but when it came to the illegal alien issue, I always kept my mouth shut because I did not know where I stood. So, I decided to see if the Bible said anything about it, and this is what I found from Leviticus 19:33: " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. " I thought, "WOW!" Christians shoud be very careful how they approach this issue. God does not play by the rules of the USA. Some claim our Country is built on God's rules--well, what about this one? I hear a lot of Christians speak in a hateful tone about the illegal aliens situation. What is the calling of a Christian concerning the illegals?--as always our calling is to love one another. According to Jesus that is the only mark of a disciple. If we get on our soapbox about the illegals and their rule breaking, we run the risk of becoming like the pharisees--clean on the outside but full of self righteousness and popmpous platitudes. Don't get too mad at me because I have a great idea that will solve this problem. The Bible also says that if a man does not work, he does not eat. We all know that there are throngs of able bodied men in this country sitting around doing nothing--collecting money, living off of others and not taking care of their children. I would take a million hard working illegals who want a better life for their families over five hundred of these loafers. So, lets export every lazy, dead beat, dead wood, non working able bodied man to mexico and other countries. Seems fair doesn't it? This way we can fulfill our calling to love one another. We can love the illegals treating them as our own, and exercise tough love towards the loafers! And always remember, the real power is not and never was in Washington...It is within you...The same power that raised Christ from the dead is living in you always empowering you to love.

As You Really Are

2008-03-25T08:20:00.003-04:00

What determines our identity? Some may say behavior, others your heritage, profession, relationships or accuulation of wealth. God's point of reference for determining our identity is spirit. We are body soul and spirit interacting and operating as one unit; however, each component is distinctly separate. When Adam died in the garden, it was a spiritual death. When we were born from above, it was a spiritual birth; thus, you became a child of God based on a spiritual reality. On the cross God took away your sin so that He could make your spirit alive by living in you. Spiritually, you were crucified with Christ, buried with Him and raised up a brand new person. The real you is that part of you that is spirit, joined to Christ inseparably. The struggle comes from the real you living in a sin cursed body in a sin cursed world. You will daily struggle with the fleshly part of you. The victory begins with repentance--a change of one's mind. You have to begin by separating in your mind the real you from the flesh. You have to nail down and settle once for all the question of who you are. If you don't, you will be confused, frustrated and disillusioned. Paul told the Corinthians, "Ged rid of the old yeast (flesh or sin) that you may be made a new batch without yeast-as you really are." The miracle and good news of the gospel is that God has dealt with sin once for all, and you have been given a brand new identity. Basically, Paul was telling the Corinthians to act like who they really are. Although we are perfect in Christ already, we are growing into that perfection. The spiritual part of you is growing daily...God is growing you from the inside out. Faith believes, hope inspires and love motivates.

Sunrise Service

2008-03-23T17:13:00.004-04:00

Today was a happy day...I baptized my daughter Grace and my friend, Linda Skapik

this is grace going under

video of Grace being baptized

Happy Easter

2008-03-22T16:41:00.002-04:00

“13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.” Colossians 2
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus Ephesians 2
25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11

2008-03-19T11:33:00.002-04:00

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
Sir Winston Churchill

This quote from the great Winston Churchill brings the Christian life to mind. When a person receives Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they have declared war. According to Paul in his letter to Timothy, they become a soldier of Jesus Christ. Just as a statesman has no control after making the decision to go to war, a Christian has no control over their lives once Jesus Christ has come to dwell within. Jesus comes in declaring war on our flesh, the world and the devil. All expectations of what our life will be like must be dropped immediately. All we need to know is that we are safe in the Master's hands as he guides us into victory. Our life is not our own. When he comes in, the conflict begins. "16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. " Most Christians are unaware that this confilct will take place or of just how intense this conflict will be; thus, they think they can control it. We can no better control our flesh than a statesman can control the events of war once the signal is given. The more we try to control it, the more it spins out of control. We are powerless. The key to victory is resting in Christ and leaving the battle to Him. He promises to bear our burdens as we take His yoke upon us.

Raw For 30 Days--Day 16

2008-03-18T09:28:00.006-04:00

My wife Carrie and I are eating raw for 30 days. This means that we do not eat anything that is cooked or processed in any way. Or, as Jack Lalanne said, "If God did not make it, don't eat it." I had the holidays in December, my daughters birthday in January, and my parents 3 week visit in February. These wonderful events included a spree of eating a less healthy diet; Therefore, the first days of eating raw brought on a detoxification--I did not feel that great. Understanding the detoxification process makes us aware of just how much junk we put in our bodies. One of the simple components of raw eating is the enzyme component. It takes enzymes to digest your food. Raw food has the enzymes in it to digest it. When we cook and process food, we kill the enzymes; thus, our bodies have to produce the enzymes. The raw food will give us energy, the processed food will not. Furthermore, processed foods spike our blood sugar levels, increase our glycemic load, cause cravings and seriously mess with our insulin levels. Eating raw is not restrictive. I eat all day long. I grab an apple, carrot, handful of seeds, spinach, kale, etc. whenever I want. Carrie and I have been making creative salads every night. Our diet includes any fruit or vegetable, nuts, seeds, raw almond butter, raw sushi grade tuna, raw goat cheese, brocoli slaw and juiced vegetables. I have not been hungry; I have been satisfied. Following the 30 day raw only days, I plan to implement the 80-20 rule. All of my foods will be 80% raw and 20 percent whatever else I want it to be...If you click the link on this page, you will find an awesome video about 10 diabetics who went on a raw for 30 day diet. After eating raw, they began producing insulin and reversed their diabetes. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit...it is the only body in this life we will get. We can really feel better. I see too many believers who eat like ^%$#&, and when their bodies break down, they expect a miracle from God. Don't get me wrong....we are free to eat whatever we want....there is no condemnation whatsoever, but we are not to use this freedom as an occasion for the flesh...I believe many Christians are on bondage to the addictive foods our modern culture has put out there...more to come........

The Goal of Preaching

2008-03-17T07:56:00.002-04:00

How can you tell if you are being taught the truth by your preachers and teachers? Paul tells us the true goal of all preaching and teaching, and thus, provides the criteria by which we decide to whom we will listen. “To the saints, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” (Colossians 1:27-29) Are you being taught your true identity in Christ? Do you come away knowing that you are perfect in Christ? Are you being taught that Christ is in you living His life through you? Your relationship with God depends on Christ’s relationship with God. Can Christ be lost? No! Does Christ ever break fellowship with the Father? No! Then neither do you. The death you died, you died to sin once for all, and the life you now live is unto God in unbroken fellowship. (Romans 6:10, 11) Your hope of glory is Christ in you. If Christ is in you, why would you need to get any closer to God? Paul goes on to say, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ.” (Colossians 2:8) The most basic principle of this world is that we have to work to get what we need. Any preaching and teaching that makes you work or perform for God’s love, acceptance and approval is hollow and deceptive, and we know where deception comes from-the pits of hell. The gospel declares, “To the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” You are perfect, righteous and holy in Christ-Don’t except anything else-no matter how big a ministry one may have.

The Irony of Palm Sunday Celebration

2008-03-16T07:28:00.003-04:00

The celebration of Palm Sunday is really a celebration of religion at its best. The religous mentality is a temporary flury of activity for God based on fear, guilt and pride. It is temporal--a fair show of the flesh. For the same people that were all excited when Jesus came into Jerusalem were the same people that shouted, "Crucify him! Give us Barabas!" Why did they ask for Barabas? Because Jesus had let them down. They expected God to kick the Romans out of Israel and make them fat, dumb and happy. When they saw a broken, bloody man, they became bitter in their disappointment. They wanted Barabas because he gets things done--He kills Romans! That, we understand, but we do not understand this weak, beaten man. What the crowds failed to realize, and we still fail to realize is that God's strength is manifested in weakness...it is never manifested in our own fleshly efforts, no matter how pretty the flesh looks. Don't mistake a service filled with pretty music and lots of other externals that make us feel good with God's power which manifest itself in weakness....the ability to love others. We can make all the noise we want in the flesh, but the world will not know we are Christ's disciples unless we love one another like Christ, not Barabas.

Oh How the Mighty Fall

2008-03-13T08:03:00.003-04:00

Another sex scandal is in the news. This time it is the Gov. of NY. The fact that Governor Spitzer was known to "fight corruption" makes it worse in the eyes of many. "Hypocrite!" they yell. Well, of course. When will we ever learn? Men are men and God is God. On the surface, Governor Spitzer is very hypocritical, but what we all have to come to grips with is the fact that the law can not produce righteousness. We think it can, and we try, try again to make it work through self-effort with our flavor of the law, but ultimately we fail, no matter how far we climb. Many preachers and politicians will fight publicly what they are battling privately. It is said of preachers that the thing they rail against the most is what they are personally struggling with--it is the thing they want to do the most; psychology calls it reaction-formation. As good an act the Governor put on in public, I am sure he was a tortured soul who could not break the cycle of lusting after power and sex. If he is wise, he may just see this as God's grace in his life. God stepping in to stop him dead in his tracks so that he can cry out to God Almighty for forgiveness, life, peace, and the empowerment to live a new life. That is what God offers us in Christ. Because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Gov. Spitzer can enjoy complete forgiveness, total acceptance, and a place amongst those who have been made righteous and holy by the blood of Jesus Christ; those who have no righteousness of their own, but cling fervently to the righteousness God offers through Christ. A righteousness that can not be produced by the law, but by the Spirit of the Living God in us and through us. And we who have been made righteous by and through Jesus Christ; who are learning to depend on Him alone and know our own weakness...let us all say, "There but by the grace of God go I."

The Pain of Separation

2008-03-12T08:32:00.003-04:00

The pain of separtation is something that we all live with. Be it death, divorce, deployment, or alienation, separation is painful. Perhaps the greatest pain of separation is when two people drift apart emotionally, mentally and spiritually, yet they live together, drive together, eat together and sleep together. Mankind has suffered the pain of separation ever since the garden. We have also tried to fill the eternal dark void with everything under the sun only to come full circle, where we once again stare down that dark, empty road. The sad truth is that God has solved the separation problem with the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ destroys separation and creates union. UNION with a capital U! The Scriptures are quite clear that Jesus lives in us and we live in Him. It is quite clear in Romans 6 that we have been joined inseparably to Christ in His death burial and resurrection. It is quite clear in Romans 7 that we are married to Christ. And my favorite passage of union is John 14:20, "In that day you will realize that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you." This is something God has done through Christ. No longer are we separated--there is no longer a dark, eternal void separating you from your Maker. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you are filled with light, love and goodness. The sad thing is that many believers still approach God out of a position of separation. God is somewhere else, you are here, and you have to evoke his presence, blessing; or at least keep Him from cursing you. We accept our union with Christ by faith. God has done these things, and we may not see enough evidence of it in our lives yet, but we are to believe and trust God at his word, and as we do that, we will more and more begin to live out of union rather than separation.

Your Faith

2008-03-11T10:05:00.000-04:00

"What comes to mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us." A.W. Tozer

Faith is an a cluster of attitudes and thoughts about God. Faith in and of itself is useless without a valuable object. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ--the Person of, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the object of our faith--from Him and through Him all things come. In Him, we are completely acceptable to God, totally forgiven and eternally destined for a triumphant entrance into God's kingdom.

The Body-Soul-Spirit Connection

2008-03-10T08:03:00.001-04:00

"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."
(proverbs 14:30)
Long before modern science discovered how our emotions effect our health, God was telling us to change our thinking in order to improve our quality of life. In this case, Solomon picked envy as the emotion that would rot the bones. Likewise, anxiety, fear, hate, anger and resentment are emotions that will destroy our physical health if left untreated by the "Bishop and Overseer of our souls." (1Peter) Bill Ewing in the book Living By Design writes,

"We've established that a human being is made up of a spirit, soul, and body. Prior to Christ coming into your life, those three parts interacted in a certain way, and they did so by default

according to the way they were conditioned by the influences of the world. Although your spirit has been made new, your body and soul may still function under these automatic, default settings." In other words, your emotions will more than often not reflect the truth that you are a new creations in Christ; that you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus; that God is in control and is right now working all things together for you good. When we believe otherwise, our emotions get the best of us, and we put unnecessary stress in our bodies. Harmful emotions trigger a stress reaction that effects every cell in our body. The stress reaction is a God given response to stress that is only supposed to last a short time and settle down quickly. However, if it is prolonged due to stuffing it, carrying it, letting it rule us, it will affect our health. What is the cure? Positive Thinking--I think not. The problem with positive thinking by itself is that sometimes, life really does suck. Positive Thinking is good when you can find someting positive. For example, my daughter Grace and I were crossing the parking lot at Target to meet my wife who was already in the store. A young man came by in his car and his music was blasting--the bass was so loud our feet vibrated as he passed--it was most annoying and I started to get angry. But it was such a beautiful, sunny, breezy, tropical, balmy day. I was with my little girl and the love of my life. So, I said, "Look Gracie, that man is sharing his music with all of us. he probably just got a new stereo system and he is sharing it! People are great!' Saying this immediately changed my mood. I was smiling and laughing. I went in and told my wife the exact same thing and I was laughing even more. This was a very light situation where positive thinking worked. But like I said, sometimes living in these sin cursed bodies in this sin cursed world needs more than that. And the MORE is God Himself living in us and all of the spiritual blessings and realities given to us in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Just as our soul used to take its cue from the world system, now our soul looks to Christ and our spiritual union with Him. It is in this union that we find "A heart at peace" that "gives life to the body." As we meditiate on these truths and sort things out with God's counsel, we will enjoy better physical and emotional health. We need to eat well, think well and move well to obtain optimal health and realize our potential in Christ. My brother, Dr. Scott Lloyd and many other health professionals believe that the thought component is the most vital. Repentance literally means to change your thinking. A child of God has every reason to change their thinking about themselves, their circumstances and their contentment in life. 23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (1Thes. 5)

Taking Heaven by Force

2008-03-09T20:16:00.000-04:00

“We must grasp the truth that our needs are met in Christ by meditating on our riches in Him, aggressively telling ourselves that we are worthwhile even when we feel most rejected and useless, and choosing to live in a manner that reflects who we are in Christ”. ...(Larry Crab)

“By exercising a bulldog tenacious faith, we aggressively grab hold of the truths of the gospel on a daily basis, refusing to believe nothing else than the fact that we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus and our lives are hidden with God in Christ…stepping out on faith to love others.” (bill lloyd)

2008-03-07T11:47:00.000-05:00

"When words are many, sin is not absent...."

Proverbs 10.

As the politicians shoot off their big mouths, let us hold our toungues and pray for our soldiers...for the families of those in harms way and those who have fallen. Let us pray for that many Iraqi families would come to Christ. Let us pray for Israel, and let us shout, "Come quickly Lord Jesus!"

You're a Great Person

2008-03-06T12:19:00.000-05:00

You have probably said of someone in your life, "He is a great person." However, you would probably hesitate to say of yourself, "I am a great person." You may think that you were tooting your own horn. And if you did say it, it would probably be in the context of self defense in which you really did not mean it. In the back of your mind, subconciously, you struggle with thinking your not good enough constantly countering that with false humility and false pride saying something pseudo-spiritual and blasphemous to the gospel like, "I'm just a sinner saved by grace." As one person struggling with addiction said, "I am an ego maniac with an inferiority complex. The truth of the gospel is that you are great! Psalm 18:35 declares, "You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great." In the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has done for you what you can't do for yourself. He has made you great. God, the Creator of the Universe, stooped down, became a man. He took away our sins at the cross, made us spiritually alive, and thus, a new person in His resurrection, and seated us with Him in His ascenstion. He has made us great. Knowing that we are a great person needs to be part of our daily self-talk; we need not go around telling others. When we believe the truth of who we are in Christ, the Spirit of God allows us to live out of that knowing. And remember, the greatest of these is to love others. Knowing that God has made us great allows us to forget about ourselves and actually love someone else. Believe the gospel of the good news that you are great and watch what happens.

Understanding Justice

2008-03-05T07:38:00.000-05:00

"Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully." (proverbs 28:5) Many times in our lives we felt that things were not fair; in fact, some of us may still be waiting for that one person or institution to "get "theirs". I know that many times I have been frustrated at what seemed to me an "injustice." However, these bouts with injustcie always brought me back to the cross--it always comes back to the cross of Jesus Christ. If we want God to "get that person," we won't have peace until we realize God "got" Jesus Christ. Christ himself bore our sins "once for all." We not only need to bring our sins to Christ and see them nailed to the cross, but we need to bring the sins of those who hurt us to the cross of our Savior. Then, we will experience peace. Justice comes from God, and he has reconciled all things to himself in Christ. "2He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. " (1 John 2) The word propitiation means "satisfied"; i.e., God is satisfied-in other words, justice has been served. Notice that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, including those who have hurt us. To insist that God do something to those who have wronged us is to minimize the cross of Jesus Christ. The demand for justice in this context is a fleshly desire that will only lead to evil, but as we seek the Lord and see the cross, we will have peace...we will understand justice fully...Psalm 36 tells us that it is not on the surface...it is part of the mystery of Christ: "Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. " Here is a prayer I pray when I am dealing with the fleshly desire for justice.

Lord, in obedience to you and in accordance with the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

I forgive_________ and declare him righteous, holy and blameless in

your sight because of the death, burial and resurrectin of Jesus.

Correcting a Common Misconception

2008-03-04T12:44:00.000-05:00

It has been stated that Jesus spoke more about Hell than Heaven. This has been a common misconception that needs to be corrected. Churches and prominent evangelists have taught this, but it is totally false. Let the facts speak. I looked up all passages on hell including other terms of imagery such as "lake of fire", "everlasting fire", "eternal punishment", "weeping and gnashing of teeth", etc. Likewise, I did the same for the Heaven. We have to get rid of the morbid message that uses fear to motivate people. Fear works, but it is only temporary...it is the goodness of God that motivates us to repentance...which is total dependancy on God and the good news of Jesus Christ

Passages of Hell

Matthew Mark Luke
1. 5:22 1. 9:43 1. 12:5
2. 5:29 2. 9:45 2. 16:23
3. 5:30 3. 9:47
4. 10:28
5. 18:9
6. 23:15
7. 23:33
Passages of Fire, Eternal Fire When referring to Hell

Matthew Mark Luke
1. 7:19 1.9:48 1. 16:24
2. 18:8
3. 25:41

Total 17

Passages of Heaven or Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God

Matthew
1. 1:51
2. 5:10
3. 5:12
4. 5:19
5. 6:10
6. 6:20
7. 8:11
8. 10:7
9. 11:12
10. 13:11
11. 13:31-47
12. 16:17-19
13. 18:1
14. 18:10
15. 19:14
16. 19:21
17. 20:1 2
18. 22:2
19. 25:1 4
20. 6:33
21. 12:28
22. 21:31
23. 26:29
Mark
1. 10:21
2. 4:11
3 4:26
4. 9:47
5. 10:14
6. 14:25
Luke
1. 6:23
2. 6:20
3. 8:10
4. 10:9
5. 12:32
6. 22:16
7. 23:43(paradise)
John
1. 5:3
2. 14:29 (Father’s House)

Total 38

It is obvious that Jesus spoke about Heaven more than twice as many times as He talked about Hell. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.”

Going Green

2008-03-04T10:35:00.001-05:00

We live in a day where the words spirituality, “spiritual connection” and faith-based are very popular. The organic/health-food/ and “green” movement often uses these words in conjunction with their brand of “spirituality” which is often humanistic and rooted in the New Age Movement.

True spirituality is essential to human health and well-being, but true spirituality is only found in “being made alive with Christ.” It must be centered and grounded in the Person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since the “spirituality” presented with the organic, “go green” movement is often humanistic and self centered, Christians seem to shy away from any involvement in these areas. However, I believe we should be out front leading the way in all areas of nutrition, stress management and overall health.

Part of this blog will give the Christian Community information that encourages them to live the abundant life in all areas-body, soul and spirit.

Today, I would like to recommend a book called Living By Design. It is written by Ray D. Strand, M.D. and Bill Ewing.