Tag Archives: Salvation

Biblical Truth, Faith, How should we then live

Breaking the Code v. 3

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What is grace? We have churches named Grace this and Grace that, yet many of the people inside have no idea what the name of the church refers to.

Image result for GraceA majority of the apostolic letters open with the words grace and peace to you and that greeting is ascribed to Jesus Christ our Lord. First, what is an apostolic letter and then, what is the meaning of the greeting?

An apostolic letter is a letter written by one of the Apostles (Paul, John, Peter, James, Jude) to the churches. These are letters that provided guidance to the churches that were formed as a result of the spread of the gospel through various means. Paul took the good news of Jesus to the Gentiles as far as his travels would carry him on three different missionary journeys. Over the course of time, the Apostles, led by the Holy Spirit, wrote letters of encouragement and instruction to these new believers. Their teachings have become part of our Scriptures or the collection of books we call the Bible.

Regarding the greeting, going back to the original Greek language the word we interpret as grace is “chairo.” In a spiritual context, it means the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life of the recipient. The Greek language often expresses concepts rather than narrowly defined terms. With chairo we have implications of acceptance, benefit, favor, gift, grace, and joy.

Some have explained the “grace” of God by calling it unmerited favor. It was our ancestors who sinned in the Garden of Eden. But this didn’t catch God by surprise because He already had a plan. That plan was through His grace to provide a way for us to be in eternal relationship with Him. It is because of His grace that we are saved when we place our faith in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the cross. He did not have to do this, but by His benevolence (grace), He has extended to us the offer of salvation.

The popular song “Amazing Grace” really has it right when it says, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” This song, that once was a hymn sung only in churches, is known by the masses as a beautiful tune that can be sung with passion and great artistry. Yet the true meaning of the first few words is completely lost on most who would never otherwise refer to themselves as wretches. We are indeed unworthy of God’s grace.

In considering the grace of God and what it affords us, one can’t help but be amazed and broken of all our pride. If we are honest with ourselves, this grace is truly nothing we have deserved. In his letter to the church at Rome, the Apostle Paul wrote that while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly (Romans 5:8). It is God’s favor made available to us for the simple act of placing all our faith, our confidence, our hopes for eternal life in the work of Jesus Christ. It is available to every human on this earth, regardless of their current belief system. That, in itself, is pretty amazing. That is not the way people would think without the help of the Holy Spirit.

Understanding the grace of God will bring us the peace of God, because by His grace we have confidence that God has a plan for us and this world (Jeremiah 29:11), a hope and confidence in our life beyond death’s door into eternal life with Him. That should give us a peace that surpasses all understanding.

Two key passages on grace could be Ephesians 2:8-9 and Jude 4

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Jude 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designate for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

So, grace is an extension of God’s love for us, not conditioned on our good deeds or behavior. But that gift must not be distorted to claim freedom to indulge in perverted lifestyles that deny the teachings of Jesus. To claim this grace, we need only to place our faith in Jesus Christ as our only hope.

God’s grace is a significant topic, one one which stirred the reformation some 500 years ago. Much more could be said, but just a few nuggets for thought.

Biblical Truth, Grace, How should we then live, Journey

Preach the Gospel …

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There is an old saying that counsels us as believers to preach the gospel and if necessary to Image result for Word of Goduse words. Christ advised that the two great commandments were (1) that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and (2) that we are to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. Christ later challenged us to love our neighbors in the same way that He loved us. So what are we to do with these commands? How then, should we preach the gospel?

First of all, we need to have the word of God hidden in our hearts so that we would not sin against God (Ps 119:11). With God’s word as a foundation and guide for our lives, we have a body of truth on which we can conduct lives and interactions with others. Following God’s word we will do such things as leaving the judging of the world to God. We will do everything in our power to point people to Jesus in such a way as to not be a hindrance to God’s desire to draw all men to Himself (Jn 12:32). I’ve told this story before, but there was a time when I carried the burden of being God’s salesman. One day He showed me that no one comes to the Father unless the Father draws him (Jn 6:44). This changed my entire approach. This gave me the freedom to set aside my agenda and focus on being a friend and pray earnestly that God would use our interactions to draw my friends. It really is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that opens the eyes of our hearts to the truth of the gospel and the battle that we are waging against evil.

Secondly, when Christ was dealing with the world, he knew their hearts and knew how to address their heart needs. In the same way, we need to know our audience. We need to learn to speak God’s word in such a way that will shed light rather than confuse. Remember we are to be salt and light in this world. Our job is to facilitate the seeing of God’s truth and through our love to help others see God. The Bible calls this speaking the truth in love (Eph 4:15). Recent history is filled with stories where well-intentioned Christians simply point hurting people to scripture, without loving them first and guiding them to the truth of scripture later. Yes, we know what the Bible says, but the writer of the book of Hebrews penned these words, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.” (Heb 5:12-13). And the Peter wrote in his letter to the church, “Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.” (1 Peter 2:2)

So we see that we are all on a journey. Some of us are ready for the meat of the word  but others who are just beginning, are needing the milk to nurture their growth into salvation. Children, grandchildren and friends, let us be men and women who, under the power of the Holy Spirit, are able to discern the needs of those with whom we come in contact and communicate Gods’ word (truth) in love. Jesus said in his prayer recorded in John 17, “Your word is truth.” Communicating the truth in love does not mean hiding the truth. It means speaking God’s word like we believe that it is living and active, sharper than a double-edged sword penetrating to dividing the soul and spirit, joints and marrow, judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Allow God’s word to flow through you by your actions and allow it to flow in love.

Hopefully this will help encourage us to rightly handle the word of Truth.

Biblical Truth, Faith, Heaven, How should we then live

What Happens to Good People?

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Every so often something happens that leaves me a bit flummoxed. Yesterday I lost a friend to cancer who was a very special person. She was smart, vibrant, energetic, an encourager, loved life, faithful colleague, and a good friend. She was what is known as “good people.” Still she had little use for God or faith. She was good at being a good person. How disappointed she must be today, having reached the end of her life and finding that her goodness was not enough.

This is painful for me as I reflect. Not because I didn’t share truth with her, because I did. But, rather, because I did share the truth of Jesus Christ with her and to the best of my knowledge, she died having made a different choice. Choosing instead to judge God and her need for God based on the pain she saw in this world and her confidence in her own abilities. As much as she and I were honest with one another, and trusted each other, she simply could not go with the truth that I had shared with her. She believed I was a genuinely good person, but could not give God credit for that. In fact, she wrote a glowing testimonial to our church elders regarding my qualifications to lead the church. Somewhere in her background, God was the purveyor of pain and suffering, but man, through his goodness, rescued himself from a cruel God.

This is a painful experience because it is real life! It is seeing the reality of “good” people who reject belief in or faith in Jesus Christ slip into an eternity of loss, death, and the torment of eternal separation from God. I’m reminded of a funeral I attended for the husband of one of my employees. The man had committed suicide and no one in the family was a believer. I was impacted emotionally for several days by the lack of hope that was present in that funeral parlor. There was no discussion of the life beyond death’s door. There was just … nothing! Poor Jim did as well as he could, but he’s gone now.

In the current situation, I would desperately like to believe that she made a last minute decision to believe, much like the thief on the cross. God’s word tells us that it is by grace we are saved, through faith in Christ, and that even our faith is a gift from God. How good we’ve been is irrelevant so that none of us can boast in how we earned our way to eternal life. Nor are we able to compare ourselves to those around us, because God tells us not to judge one another, lest we be judged by that same measure. It is God’s job to judge. It is our job to love our neighbors. He also tells us that He (God) loved the world so much that He gave His only Son to be the perfect One who, through His death on the cross, would pay the price for our (yours and my) sins. Then He says, whoever will believe in this redemption story, will not perish (suffer eternal death) but would have eternal life with God.

It’s way too simple for many people to believe, but it is truth. It is the only truth that matters in life. It is so tragic that people who have heard the good news of Jesus, decide that they would rather go to heaven on their own terms. Good people will die wondering how good is good enough. Andy Stanley has written a book entitled, “How Good Is Good Enough.” If you have this question lingering in your mind, pick up that book and read it. I think that once confronted with the question, you’ll be challenged to find some better solution.

While this may be a morbid topic for some, there are some nuggets of truth here that needed to be heard and heeded.

Hoping you have made the right decision for eternity.

Biblical Truth, How big is God

Same God?

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Wheaton College, the alma mater of Billy Graham, finds itself in the throes of a theological discussion. One of their professors decided she would wear a hajib (Muslim scarf) during the Advent season. In justifying her actions, she quoted Pope Francis’ recent comments that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The school has placed the professor on administrative leave until the matter could be resolved.

The question left open is whether Islam worships the same God as do the Christians. Wheaton College leadership believes this is a violation of the schools statement of faith. Still there is student and external pressure demanding that the school should reinstate Prof. Hawkins because her comments are, in fact, true and not in conflict with the statement of faith.

Whether or not it is in conflict with the statement of faith is for the school to decide. Her comments are clearly in conflict with scripture, however. The god of the Quran has nothing to do with Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit. Islam follows Muhammad who has died and left a book of confusing instructions that has brought fear and terror to the global community. It is a book with conflicting guidance, but the later writings supersede the earlier instructions. This is not the truth of the inspired word of God, the Bible. Let me be clear, without Jesus Christ at the center of their faith, they cannot serve or worship the same God. In 1 Cor 1:23 Paul says, “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” Any gospel that does not teach Christ crucified, is no gospel at all, because the definition of gospel is “good news.” Without Christ crucified on our behalf, there is no good news.

My friends, we live in peculiar days, days in which people go to great lengths to make everyone feel good. Giving out a word that a god without Christ or the Holy Spirit is a universal god is not good news! In writing to the church at Galatia, Paul writes, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel– which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.”

Let’s not be confused by the politically correct or those who have an incorrect image of God in their own minds. From before time began, God in Christ was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. We are in the Christmas season, let’s celebrate the Christ who was God incarnate and came to earth to reveal the Father to us and to give himself as a sacrifice for our sins. He rose and sits at the right hand of the Father so that the Holy Spirit might come to guide us into all truth.

Merry Christmas to all!

Faith

What is Believing?

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In the previous blog we talked about what it takes to go to heaven. The short version is that we need to believe in Jesus Christ. But what qualifies as a saving belief? James, the brother of Christ, wrote in James 2:19, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder! But we know that the demons do not have a saving faith. What then is the belief that brings us salvation that give us eternal life?

Turning to the scriptures for clarification is most always helpful. I Peter 1:21 tells us that “Through him [Christ] you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” An element of faith enters into the equation here. The demons believe but they refuse to put their faith and hope in God. This begins to paint a deeper picture of the word ‘believe’ for us. I can believe that it is warm outside because the local meteorologist says it is warm, but until I step outside without a jacket, my belief is an academic thought. Not only that but the weatherman’s definition of warm may not agree with my sense of heat and cold. Not until I go out to experience it for myself, do I learn to have a level of confidence (faith) in that person’s perception of hot and cold.

In the same way, we can believe there is a God. Then someone comes along and tells us that there is no God and that this world and life itself came about from a huge explosion and we evolved to the state in which we now exist. I am always fascinated by the number of people who ‘believe’ those theories, because to my way of thinking, such a belief system requires a greater leap of faith than to believe that our universe was created by the grand plan of God. But, I digress.

Hebrews 11:22 says that without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Here, again, we see that our belief is a confident faith that God (which includes Christ) is who he says he is and that he responds favorably to those who search him out.

It is interesting that as I watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I noticed that the theme for this year’s parade is “Believe.” I am left to wonder what it is they want us to believe.

Romans 3 provides additional insight into this believing when it says beginning in verse 22, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Here we have a faith (belief) in Jesus Christ that brings a righteousness that comes from God through his grace or undeserved favor.The Greek word being translated here is pistueo which comes from the Greek word pistis which is translated faith. The breadth of the word pistueo includes: commit unto, commit to (one’s) trust, and be put in trust with. It should also be noted that the word pistueo is a verb, an action word as the other possible meanings imply.

The English words for pistueo align very closely then from the origin of believe which is pistis or faith. To put one’s faith and confidence into a person or object requires more than just acknowledging that the person or object exist. To acknowledge that a bridge exists and observe it is very different from beginning to walk across or drive across that bridge. By taking those steps you have put your faith in the fact that the bridge will sustain you. In the same way, believing in Christ and putting your faith in Christ require similar steps of putting the confidence of our salvation in Christ’s ability to redeem us from our sinful condition.

As a result, very often we’ll use the words believe and faith interchangeably. Belief that Christ is the Son of God emanates from our confidence (faith) that He is who both He and the Father say He is, and that faith / believing in Him is our only path to salvation. So when the Bible says that whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life, it is talking about that confident faith and belief. A friend of mine, Russ Crosson, introduced me to the term ‘truth system.’ That is part of our belief and faith in Christ, because that belief becomes part of our truth system or world view.

One last word before I let you go on this point. At the point when we take on faith in Christ, it is not natural or normal that we will be theologically correct in every aspect of the faith. That is why Paul prayed for the church at Collosae so that they would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. (italics mine) The writer of Hebrews challenged the Jewish believers to grow by saying, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food.” So as with our relationships with people where we learn to know them, the journey with God is also that of getting to know Him and building our faith by growing our knowledge and familiarity of our Lord.

I trust this has been helpful in clarifying what God desires in our faith and in our believing in Jesus Christ His Son.

Faith, Journey

Starting the Journey of Faith

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In my last post I commented that some of us grow up in a Christ-centered home and others grow up in homes that are almost the antithesis of that Christ-centered home. Those who actually go to the point of professing belief in the salvation that comes from Christ alone, however, set out on the same journey of faith. For some the embarkation on that journey is indiscernible and for others the transition is a marked transformation as the Holy Spirit begins to shape our minds to be more Christ-like. The degree of change seemingly has little to do with our upbringing. It has more to do with behavioral modification brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds.

The interesting piece of this is that while changes may be less or more noticeable by others, the real change and the change that matters is what God sees in the heart. Our behavior and speech patterns are driven by the heart. So to some degree, the heart change is seen by others, but we must acknowledge that some of us have inherited mountains of pain, of degradation, and violation. It’s what we call baggage. Just like the picture above, we bring that baggage into our relationship with Jesus. It has often been said that our relationships with our earthly fathers will influence how we are able to relate to our Heavenly Father. It is also true that troubled homes, bad marriages, dysfunctional churches and all the rest weigh heavily in our journey of faith.

These things are all part of our complex personalities and broken lives that we bring to Jesus when we come to faith. He understands all that. He knows where you’ve been. He can redeem the most desperate sinner who comes to Him in simple faith. I’m reminded of Rahab, the prostitute, who let the Israelite spies down in a basket from the wall of Jericho. God not only spared her, but gave her a place in the lineage (genealogy) of Christ. She was the mother of Boaz who married Ruth! Talk about redemption! That simple act of putting herself at risk to save the spies who came from God’s people, showed us that her heart was faithful to Jehovah God. He knew her heart and not only spared her miraculously when He brought down the wall of Jericho, but gave her an honored place in the line from which Christ would be born.

So how does it look when one embarks on this journey? For me, it was praying to receive Christ at my mother’s bedside at the age of 7, and then not living a perfect life from that point on. Rather, because I grew up in a legalistic setting, it was a life filled with rules and judging people who played by the rules and those who did not. In retrospect, I became really good at judging people by their merits or sins for standards that were not consistently applied to myself.

There was a saying among the young girls in our church circles that said, “I don’t smoke, I don’t chew, and I don’t go with  boys that do.” Interestingly, in the middle of all this judging and my private life, God had my heart. I always pined for God. I wanted to be like David, a man after God’s own heart. In my private moments, While I wanted to live by the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, I didn’t play so well at the stuff like judging and trying to get away with things, for example, smoking. Smoking wasn’t the real issue. The real issue that I had to resolve was this deep seated rebellious heart. The smoking was only a symptom of the rebellious heart. While in many ways I sought God’s counsel on matters of life’s decisions, I was a classic example of a young man committed to being in control and no rules or authority was going to tell me otherwise. To some degree, I was blind to that control or authority issue. Today, my wife calls it a stubborn streak. As has been passed down by the women in our family, they say that I inherited that from my dad. Dad is with Jesus now but he probably would have denied having that stubborn streak, just like me!

Suffice it to say that the word picture I would use is that of an albatross learning to fly or then learning to land. The beginning of my faith walk bore a striking resemblance to these feeble attempts. Check this out. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVmoYVTZTXU)

I hope this doesn’t discourage you from attempting to fly. One parting thought for this leg of the journey. God loved you before your were conceived, at which time, He formed you in your mother’s womb. He knew what would happen with each of your days before one of them came to be. He knew how each day would effect you and guess what? He has a plan for you as a person that will cause you to flourish to be a light and a help to others trying to find their wings. But you must take the step of faith, like Abraham had to take the first step to start the journey. The writer of Hebrews tells us that, “without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (11:6)

Until next time …