Hello my friends!  For some of you, the title of todays WFTD is seemingly contradictory.  We know that God is just, and yet there is injustice in the world we live in, so how do we deal with this?  Some people would have you believe that God is not sovereign over all things, to which I would say, if someone is taking advantage of another, and God is powerless to do anything about it, then God isn’t God.  Rather, God allows injustice, not because He is powerless to stop it, but because God is using it to accomplish His purposes, which are good.

As a believer, how do you respond to injustice?  How do you respond when you are wronged?  These times can be very helpful in gauging where your heart is truly at.  Do you run to find comfort apart from God in sin, or do you cling to God during these times?  At first this may seem hard, and I definitely admit that it is against your flesh to do so.  What can be helpful, I believe, is to see God’s good purpose in injustice, for believers.  Why does He do it?

1)  To strengthen and grow the faith of the believer

James 1:2-4 – “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

2)  To provide an opportunity to reveal to the world through the believer His glory as being infinitely more valuable than what is lost in injustice

Philippians 3:7-8 – “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”

3)  To accomplish His sovereign will to sustain and grow His Kingdom

Genesis 50:17-21 (After Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery, but Joseph became a ruler in Egypt in charge of excess food when there was a famine in his native land) – “Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him. His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.”

4)  To provide an opportunity to love our enemies, and make Christ’s glory known in a personal way to someone

Luke 6:32-36 – “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if youlend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”

5)  To remind us that this fallen world is not our home

Romans 8:18-21 – “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

My encouragement today is when injustice happens to you (and it will), do not run from God, but run to Him.  When things are at their worst, and every hope that this world has for you is lost, cling to hope you have apart from the world, the only lasting Hope you have, the Hope you have in Christ.  Cling to the cross, the shed blood of Christ for you, and know that God is good and in control.  The most unjust act of all time was a perfectly righteous God, being condemned and bearing the punishment for sin that was not His.  This is the hope and joy we carry with us day to day, that our future is secure because at the appointed time, the Righteous died for the unrighteous, that those of us who were far from God, would be brought near, and the justice of God has triumph over the injustice of the world.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

If any of you grew up in a church similar to mine growing up, there was probably a heavy focus on obedience to God.  Affections for God, and grace were nice, but really you were just encouraged to obey. This resulted in most people in my church at least whitewashing the exterior of their lives to maintain false appearances to others.  When I would go to a small group, there were certain “respectable sins”, like pride, that would be discussed, but never any mention of sexual immorality, greed, vanity, or other more “serious” sins.  In recent years, this has reversed.  The church as a whole has made a massive push back against the idea of legalism, the idea that someone could become “ok” with God based upon good works, and this has been very helpful in encouraging people to open up about their sin.  The catch phrase, “it’s ok to not be ok” get’s thrown around a lot, but I wonder if that idea has allowed apathy to grow in the hearts of believers.

My fear, and the topic of today’s Word for the Day, is that the push back against legalism has given way to licentiousness.  There is no longer a healthy fear and reverence for the holiness of God.  Moreover, there is not a passion to intentional choose to make a practice of righteousness day to day.  People want to sit back and “let go, and let God.”  I’ve got a response to that idea… it’s the same response Jesus gave to Satan when confronted with such foolishness – Matthew 4:7 – “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”  God isn’t apathetic about your sin, why are you?  Sin is so serious to God, that He came and died a gruesome death, bore the full wrath of God, to make a way to reconcile sinful men and women back to Himself.  So where is the Biblical ground that we are to walk on between legalism and licentiousness?  I want to suggest, and hopefully show with scripture, that there is a way to deeply thirst, hunger, and pursue full obedience to God, yet also rest in His grace, knowing that our righteousness is not our own, but Christ’s.  There is a way to work hard, to run hard after God daily, yet trust that any growth in personal holiness is only His doing, His work in us.  That is my hope, that people’s hearts and minds would be able to find a home there.  I want people to have a passionate pursuit of personal holiness, coupled with deeply rooted humility to not rest in “their” accomplishments, but in the grace extended to us through the shed blood of Christ.

First, I want us to see that obedience to God is not a “nice to have” on top of faith.  Obedience to God is a command, it is the fruit of authentic faith, and it was modeled for us by Christ.  Let me again be clear, we all struggle with sin, but if there is no desire in you to obey God fully, you’re not walking as a Christian.  That should not be comfortable place for you, knowing that God is not mocked and no one can serve two masters – we are called to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith, and unrepentant sin is not a mark of a Christian.  Faith is not a fact claim to be understood, but a person, Jesus Christ, to be trusted and followed.  If you do not want to follow Him, that’s where you need to meet God in prayer, pleading that God would grant you faith to believe Him, and follow Him.

Hebrews 5:7-9 – “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.  Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.  And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him” 

Jesus was perfected through His obedience.  Does that mean that Jesus was not perfectly righteous prior to His obedience?  Of course not, He was perfectly righteous from birth.  What this means is that His perfect righteousness was manifested through His works.  His glory was made known through his obedience.  We would not know the love of God, unless Christ was obedient to go to the cross.  Romans 5:8 – “God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”.  It wasn’t that Christ did not love us, but His love was perfected on the cross, because it was manifested in His death.  John 15:13 – “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”  Therefore, Christ’s love, being perfect, needed to be displayed in it’s fullest measure, to reveal the glory of God.  In this way, his obedience made Him perfect.

In the same way, we, who have trusted on Christ, have His perfect righteousness.  Just as the Holy Spirit led Christ to the cross, we are being led by the same Spirit, into obedience that reveals the worth and glory of God.  If we love God, we should desire to make much of Him with our lives, and we make much of Him by joyfully obeying Him.

John 14:15 – “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

1 John 2:29 – “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”

1 John 3:9-10 – “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.  By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” 

So how is it that we struggle daily to obey, yet we do not rest our salvation in our “successes” to become legalistic?  My answer is good solid Biblical theology, and constant prayer.

Philippians 2:12-13 – “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

I say good Biblical theology, because to get this, you have to believe Romans 3:10-18, that there is nothing good in you that would seek after God, in yourself.  If you truly understand that (and hopefully we all do!), then you understand that those good works that God is working in you, will be attributed to the Spirit of God, instead of yourself.  This is where Philippians 2:13 is so helpful… it’s not just the works that are attributed to God, but even the will, your desire, to obey comes from God, because the Holy Spirit is in you.  Now this is another point where I’m happy I’m not a pastor, because I know I’d get a 100 emails about me saying that your will is influenced by God.  Not wanting to go off on too much of a tangent I’ll defer all those questions to Jonathan Edwards’ book on “The Freedom of the Will”, the scripture listed above, Romans 9, and proverbs 16:9.  Hmmm, well ok, I’ll give it one shot real quickly – our wills are separate from God, we are accountable for them 100%, and God knowing our desires, ordains our path such that His sovereign will is accomplished, and He is perfectly good because He is always pursuing the greatest good, His glory.  Saying that I realize will not be sufficient for many, so again, there’s always the “unsubscribe option” – I don’t claim to understand all of God’s ways, I just call it like I see it from His Word, and know that He is good.

Ok, back on track.  We passionately pursue righteousness, but we do not fall into a pitfall of pride, because we cannot take credit for one bit of true good in our heart/actions, it is the work of God, the Holy Spirit, in us.  We do not become legalistic, because from the beginning anything good we have is a gift; the Holy Spirit is a gift given to us by faith, and faith itself is a gift by the will of God the Father (Eph 2:8-9) purchased by the grace extended to us through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

So there is a tension here, and I believe it is a good tension.  On the one side, you a person that is potentially erring by being overly zealous for obedience believing that God’s affection or acceptance of us is tied to our works, indicating a lack of faith in the finished work of Christ.  On the other side, you have the person who LOVES grace, is apathetic towards the Bible and God’s call to personal holiness through obedience, who wants to rest in the grace of God through faith, but in reality, that person may not have had saving faith to begin with – there is not evidence that the Spirit of God dwells in them.  Usually people will fall slightly on one side or the other.  My exhortation today is to push towards the middle.  Meditate on the scripture above, and live passionately for the glory of God through grace driven effort.  Righteousness is meant to be the choice of a believer, a new creation in Christ, that is practiced every day.  Let the joy of God, and His acceptance of you as a sinner, move your heart to turn away from sin, and run towards Him.  Let all of this be blanketed with prayer, that in all things God would lead in us, and His glory be revealed through us.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Ok… so I was writing a nice Word for the Day, and was about wrapped up when I had a power outage and lost everything.  I’m going to take that as a sign to go in a different direction… guess God didn’t like that WFTD, ha ha.  So, my burden as always is to challenge and encourage.  Hopefully my message this past week before the break was helpful.  I feel like most Christians struggle with really understanding the gravity of sin, and so it is helpful to expand on that at times by looking at how God views sin, and how sin will be punished.  Understanding the gravity of sin is directly linked with the affection you have to Christ, who bore the punishment for that sin, and freed you from it.  That is always my end goal – not that you wallow in brokenness over your sin forever (although some people should be broken more), but that your affections for Christ would grow, leading you to joyfully obey Him.

Jesus commanded the people in His preaching to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt 4:17) and again in Mark 1:15 – “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”  You cannot follow Christ if you have not repented of your sin.  This is why John the Baptist came before Christ, saying “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'”  (Matt 3:2-3)

It’s amazing to me today to hear Christian’s views on repentance.  Most people misunderstand the word to mean “feel bad about”, or “be sorry for”, as that is how it is normally used in English.  While those emotions ought to accompany and follow repentance, Biblical repentance is not first a matter of the heart, but of the mind.  The greek word for “repent” is metanoeo.  This word literally means to perceive afterwards, signifying a change in mind or purpose, and it always involves a change for the better.  So here is a question, if you’ve never thought about repentance in this way before, how do you feel about sin in your life?  Have you changed your mind about the supposed benefits of sin, such that you perceive a greater worth in Christ, and following after Him?  Or are you still in a mindset of the flesh, pursuing joy apart from God?  When you are tempted, are you able to say with conviction, that whatever gain was to me, I count as loss for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus?

Look at Paul in Philippians 3:3-11 – “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:  circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.  Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

This is a picture of repentance.  Paul thought one way previously, and now he has found a better way.  Following Christ to Him, whatever the cost, is gain.  He changed his mind, and it was a change for the better.  My friends, I’m speaking to all of you, but especially those of you who have long-lasting sin festering in your lives, keeping you from the fruitfulness in Christ you were made for.  What do you think about your sin?  Do you minimize it, perhaps even convincing yourself that it’s not sinful because of your circumstances?  That way of thinking is deadly.  My encouragement is to take your sin before the Lord, pray that God would let you see your sin for what it is, and grant you repentance that leads to faith.  Find in Christ everything you need, and know that His shed blood is payment in full for your sin, not merely to cover it, but to give you grace to pursue Him in righteousness.  Therefore, repent and believe, and may your repentance and obedience well up in you a joy of the surpassing worth of Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

I’ll probably get a few “unsubscribe” requests after this, but that’s ok.  Every day I pray, and share what is on my heart as God leads.  So basically on any given day, God is teaching me something, and likely has something that others need to hear.  So with that, I’m definitely wondering who all will receive this, and how God intends to use this message, but my curiosity will wait until I see Him face to face.

Have you ever wondered why there is difficulty talking about Hell?  The doctrine of hell is as important as any other, yet it is often absent from sermons preached on Sundays.  The understanding is that Christians will say, no, we do not want to hear about that negative stuff, just give us a happy song, a good comedic pastor, and we’ll all move along with our lives slowly inching closer to death, day by day.  Just tell everyone they’re going to be “ok” if they’ve said a prayer, read their Bibles every once in a while, belong to a small group, and pay their tithe – no one grows their church through being “negative”.  That’s all just fear-mongering anyway, right?  People who talk about Hell just want to scare people into becoming little zombies that they can control, right?  If that is true – why did Jesus talk about Hell so much?  Why did Jesus over and over and over again warn people of the judgment to come?

Often times you’ll hear people explaining away the severity of Hell.  Our friends, the 7th Day Adventists for example, want to say that Hell isn’t real, that it is just a way of saying that people will cease to be.  There’s just one problem with that idea, it’s not what the Bible and Jesus said.  Other times people want to say that the descriptions of Hell are metaphorical, and shouldn’t be taken literally.  The Bible describes Hell as outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 8:12), a fiery furnace (Matt 13:42), where one will be cut to pieces (Matt 24:51), a place of eternal fire (Matt 18:8), eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord (2 Thess 1:9).  Here I would agree with the scoffers – these words we use in the English language are metaphorical.  Just as we cannot explain the joy that awaits us in heaven, and thus use words as metaphor, so too words for Hell are metaphor.  There is one important point that is missed though – whenever metaphor is used in the Bible, the reality of that metaphor is always MUCH greater than literal interpretation.  So then, if the metaphor is unbearably horrific, how much more horrific must the reality be?

John the Baptist, the herald of our Lord and King, Jesus Christ, came to prepare God’s way by piercing the hearts of the people, especially those who were resting in the grace of God amidst sin, to repent.

Matthew 3:7-10 – “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.  And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

Let me be direct.  If you are holding onto sin in your heart, if you find yourself struggling with sin, and you want to play with it, and hold onto it instead of saying “No”, I am going to follow Jesus, my Lord, you are not repentant, you are not walking with the Lord, and you are not covered by grace.  Let me add one more to that list… if you hear all of this, and you do not break down in tears before the Lord, seeking His forgiveness and grace to turn from your sin, you are a fool.  You do not know the day the Master will come for you.  Good intentions are the pathway to Hell.  Today is the day of salvation for you.

You hard-hearted, stubborn sinner.  Do not presume upon the grace of God – He is not mocked!  Galatians 6:7 – “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”  You know what the Bible says about those who continue in immorality that profess to be Christians?  It says that they will be thrown into Hell with everyone else (Matt 7:21-23)  If you are sowing to your own fleshly desires, you will reap eternal destruction, the infinite all powerful wrath of God poured out on you for a second, then a minute, then an hour, then a day, then a year, then 10,000 years, and on and on until your life now is but a glimmer in the past, with no hope for the future – ever.

If you don’t understand the justice of God in pouring out infinite wrath, then you do not understand the horror of your sin to an infinitely Holy God who created you in His image.  Do not think to yourself, I am covered by grace, because of a prayer, or a confession, there is no grace for an unrepentant heart.  1 John 3:9 – “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.”  Stop your blasphemous claim to be a Christian if you are unrepentant… all you are doing is storing up wrath for the day of judgment.  It would be better for you to admit your depravity, than to smear the name of our Holy God with your profession to belong to Him.  Repent!  Do not give God your words merely, give Him your heart and mind.  Count the cost of following Jesus, and decide today who you will follow, your own will or Him.

The wrath of God is more horrific than we can imagine.  Hell is more horrific than we can imagine.  Therefore, repent and believe the gospel of Jesus.  Our great God loves us enough to come in the flesh and die in our place, shedding His blood on the cross, bearing the full infinite wrath of God – experiencing Hell – the judgment we deserve.  But death could not contain Him, Jesus rose, His infinite righteousness and holiness victorious over sin, and we too have a similar hope if we would believe in Him, and His atonement for our sins, and turn our lives over to Him to follow after Him.  If the darkness of Hell is unfathomable, how great is the Light that conquered it?  Oh, what a savior!  What infinite joy must await us there, in His presence for all eternity.  What grace must He be desirous to extend to us, if we turn to Him.  Do you love Him enough to turn away from your sin, and intentionally choose to follow Him every day?  He loves you today – He came to die not for the righteous, but for sinners, that they would be reconciled to Him.  Therefore, my exhortation is the same as that of Jesus in Mark 1:15 – “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”   May the our savior, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit bring brokenness, and repentance to us, and have His way among you all.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

In the Bible, there are a multitude of passages that talk about salvation, faith, love, and obedience.  For many, salvation by faith is merely an intellectual decision about the fact claims of Jesus, but the Bible pushes for a much deeper definition of salvation.  Much could be said about the intersection of the head, heart, and hands, but I want to go one step further… they are inseparable.  Distinct, yes, but inseperable.  You cannot have salvation without faith, you cannot have faith without obedience, you cannot have obedience without love, and you cannot have love without faith.

The picture of a Christian we see in the Bible is markedly different from the world around him/her.  They are in the world, yet clearly separate.  In 1 Peter 3:15, we are told – “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”.  When was the last time someone asked why you were living your life the way you were, and the answer was Jesus?  Why do many people sit in comfort passively, professing Jesus as savior, fading into their surroundings?  Where is the gap?  My answer is that there are many who have deceived themselves with counterfeit faith.

What does it mean to have faith? It may be interesting for you to know that the word for faith has much more to do with actions as it does about intellectual agreement.

The greek noun for faith is “pistis” is used around 250 times in the new testament.  Common uses of this word in Greek was to refer to trust in others, persuasion of a thing, confidence, assurance, trustworthiness, and faithfulness.  The greek verb for faith is Pisteuo, which is usually translated “to believe” in our Bibles.  This word in Greek would mean to trust, or to rely on.   Now, what’s interesting about this words is that nowhere is their definition remotely close to “intellectual assent to a fact claim”, yet that is usually how most church-goers would define their “faith” in the gospel of Jesus.

Each of these words for faith by their very definition, have implied actions.  If there is an unwillingness to obey God in an area of life, this is not a sin issue, it is an absence of faith.  That person’s faith is counterfeit.  You cannot trust God, and not trust Him at the same time.  That’s rediculous, right?  Yet through their lives, that is what many professing Christians today, are holding onto.  It would have been understood, especially in the time the New Testament was written to a first century person living under Roman rule, that having faith would necessitate their obedience to Christ, which would come at great personal risk.  Christians were being martyred and persecuted – faith was not a thing to be taken lightly.

Likewise, what brought a person to faith, was the love of God in the gospel, wrought in their hearts by the Holy Spirit.  What is irresistible about the gospel, is not escape from hell or a promise of heaven, but Jesus Himself.  God, infinite in power and perfectly happy and content in Himself, came to die on a cross, shedding His blood for those who stood in the crowds mocking Him.  You cannot have faith without love.  Authentic faith is not merely a change of one’s mind about a fact, but a turning of affections towards God.  The inclination of one’s heart is drawn by faith towards God, and godliness, rather than fleeting worldly pleasures.  1 John 4:19 – “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” 

If you are not a Christian, you cannot love.  If you are a Christian, you cannot help but love because Love dwells in you.  Does you see that?  If the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate seal of authentic faith (Eph 1:13), you cannot rest in the assurance of your professed faith is real if you don’t love like God loves.  You cannot have saving faith in God, and not love Him, and love others, because God Himself dwells in you as the Holy Spirit.  Moreover, loving God is not primarily an emotion, but a matter of obedience to Him from the heart.  Your love for God is evidenced in obedience.

1 John 5:1-4 – “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.  By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.  For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith.” 

Friends, we take the word faith too lightly.  This is not a condemnation of struggling sinners – we all struggle to obey, and are dependant upon the grace of God to cover our sins, and grant us repentance and greater faith daily to follow Christ and put sin to death.  However, we are commanded, as those who fear a righteous and holy God to test our faith.  Matthew 7:22-23 are the scariest verses in the Bible – “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'”  I care about everyone too much to not risk offending someone at the cost of their salvation.  2 Corinthians 13:5 – “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”  That is my hope and exhortation – examine yourselves, turn from sin, run from it and towards God.  Find love and joy in the cross, and let God guide you in the ways you ought to go.  I want every one of us to burn brightly for God, to have our lives marked by a joy in God that world marvels at, and at the end of our time here, for each of us to be able to say as Paul did (2 Tim 4:7-8) – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

Know that you’re loved and prayed for.  Grace and peace be with you.

In Christ,
Adam

Each day brings it’s own struggles.  Some of us have been struggling with one thing in particular for a long time, and it has just become “normal” to us.  Whenever suffering enters our lives, we sometimes have the impulse to ask God, “Why?” or “Why me?”.  At this point, this coversation I could turn to God’s sovereignty over evil in general, and how sin and suffering entered the world through Adam, however, that is not the goal of the day.  I’d like us to be encouraged by God’s purpose in your particular suffering.  How is it that God loves us, yet He intentionally ordains suffering for us, and even acts to bring that about?

Yesterday someone asked me how things were going, and I told them that honestly I had a lot going on, and was struggling somewhat.  They told me not to worry, that it wouldn’t rain forever.  Right about then two things came to my mind… one was little orphan annie singing “The sun will come out… tomorrow…bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow…” (this is the randomness that is my mind) – and the other was a realization that for all the struggle that I’ve gone through, I’ve been able to see God’s faithfulness in a new way, and I wouldn’t change that even if I could.  I told them, that I was ok, that there isn’t any growth without rain.  That idea is exactly how a loving Father, can and does use suffering in our lives for our good.

If you could ask for anything from God, what would it be?  For me, aside from Him immediately taking me up into His presence like Elijah, it would have to be for greater faith.  Not the kind of intellectual thinking or that defines “faith” for most, I’m talking about a heart and mind that is transformed by the goodness of God, to trust Him in every moment, and to call out to His name with power and assurance that He is an all powerful, Holy and righteous God.  I want the kind of faith.  I want the faith that will transform me to love selflessly, to love the unloveable, to serve beyond my power, and look back on a life of compassion towards others in front of the Father hearing the words “Well done good and faithful servant”.  God desires that kind of faith in me as well.  In fact, He’s already answered my request for that kind of faith with, “Yes”.  The means by which He will grow that faith in me is suffering.

Romans 5:2-5 – “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Paul in writing to the church in Rome is outlining first the foundation of his joy – the gospel, which was received by faith, and provides the grace by which we have been reconciled to God.  This is what Paul is saying, that when you become a Christian, there is a measure of joy in your life in being reconciled to God.  As you suffer, God is producing in you a faith that endures, that changes your character increasingly into the image of Christ, which gives assurance of your faith, and produces immense joy.  Have you all ever seen or used a blow torch?  Basically you have some kind of oxygen mixed with acetylene, which when lit, produces a flame.  As you increase the oxygen level, the flame gets hotter and hotter, until it is bright blue and can melt metal.  The gospel and faith are the oxygen, we are lit by the Holy Spirit, and God wants to increase our faith, so that we can accomplish all that He has for us, and our joy would be ever increasing as our faith increases.

Now, to do justice to what this all looks like I have to pull out a larger section of scripture from Romans 8.  I want us to see and know how our sufferings related to the glory that is to be revealed to us, and how by the Holy Spirit, we are being guarded and prepared for that day.

Romans 8:18-30 – ” For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

That is a great big chunk of scripture.  I’d love to pick it apart, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll try to be concise (as best I can… you all know me).  When you were a child, what was Christmas morning like for you?  You probably began counting the days as it came closer, and your anticipation was so great that you would wake up at 5am in the morning charge into your parents room, and jump on their bed until they woke up.  There was great joy in that day.  Now how is Christmas for you as an adult?  Likely you’ll roll out of bed around 8am… you might make some breakfast first, check in on the news, and overall, its still a happy time, but the anticipation and eagerness has dwindled, as has your joy.  For us, when we are suffering, and turning to the Lord to sustain us, we have no choice but to remember and trust that our treasure and joy is not in this world, but by faith, it is waiting to be revealed to us.  As we rest in the Lord in obedience, God is allowing us to see Christ more and more, so that our anticipation grows, and grows, and grows.

My friends, when the glory of God is revealed to us in Christ, the suffering that produced anticipation in us, will not even be worth comparing to the mountain of joy we will be confronted with in Christ.  It is so much sweeter than we could ever know, and yet, the suffering we endure now is preparing us for that day.  The hope we have in Christ today, is magnified through suffering, and God loves us enough to intentionally use suffering in our lives to grow our anticipation of that day, to magnify the worth and glory of God in our hearts, to prepare us for our bridegroom Christ, to begin growing us in a joy that will be ever increasing for all eternity, where 10 million years after the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ was revealed to us, our love and joy will feel new, greater than the day before.  We will be made complete in Him.  That is the purpose and love of God in suffering in the lives of believers.

James 1:2-4 – “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” 

This world is not our home.  When bad things happen to good people, the answer isn’t that… well God must not know, or care.  He cares for those people deeply, passionately.  When people are suffering, we shouldn’t tell them that God has a purpose in their suffering (there is a time for that, but it is not in the midst of suffering), we should mourn with them, love them selflessly as Christ loves us, and point them to only hope they have, salvation through the shed blood of Christ.  We should remind them that they are not alone, that Jesus suffered much, and is with them in their suffering.  Hebrews 2:9-10 – “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.  For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.”  Jesus Christ is the only answer real answer to the suffering we see in the world.  If God is good, and yet there is suffering, that suffering must be meant to point us to a greater good – God Himself.  Do not seek to avoid suffering – press into it deeply.  Let God remove from you all things that cause your hopes to rest in anything but Him.  Rejoice when times are good, but rejoice also when times are not – nothing grows without rain.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Most of us have some fears in our life.  We’ve had things happen in our past that skew our perception of reality.  Now to give a few quick examples, we need only look to our mothers.  Now if your mother was like mine, she would tell you that she KNEW with 100% certainty, that everyone who played high school football would end up a paraplegic, and that the very first time someone decided to get on a motorcycle they’re going to get in a wreck and kill themselves.  To be fair though, let’s turn to the fathers.  Fathers KNOW with 100% certainty, that the minute their daughters go off to college, they’re going to forget to change the oil in their car, and they will have to replace the engine when it blows up.  Fathers KNOW with 100% certainty, that every boy their daughter dates, is in some way attempting to besmirch their daughter’s honor, and likely are a tool of Satan to accomplish this task.

Now these are extreme examples, right?  When confronted with someone who is clearly speaking or acting irrationally based on one of their fears, the first reaction is to try to explain their irrationality to them.  This is pointless, and unhelpful, and I’m guilty of trying myself.  The problem is this is that you cannot address the irrationality brought on by fear, unless you determine the root cause of the fear to begin with.  After all, the reality is that some football players are paraplegics, people do die on motorcycles, daughter’s do forget to change their oil and have their engines blow up, and who knows… that boyfriend just might be a tool of Satan, ha ha.  (Shotgun’s loaded just in case…)

The physical manifestations of fear, however, can have little to do with the actual root.  A mother who doesn’t want her son to ride a motorcycle might not be afraid of her son’s health, as much as she is of being alone in life.  Maybe her father left her family when she was young, and now she wants to hold her family so tight, that nothing could happen that they might leave.  Maybe the father, who claiming concern over his daughter’s oil, is afraid of not being useful anymore.  Maybe when he was younger, his own father used to tell him that he “wasn’t useful for anything”, and so he associated usefulness with affection.  Now that his daughter doesn’t need him as much, he’s afraid her affection for him will fade as well.  There’s a million different examples, and the truth is that no one is going to find that out after 5-10 minutes talking with someone.  It takes a person who really wants to grow being willing to ask themselves questions about why they do certain things, and why they feel like they do about certain things, and then asking why they feel/act that way about the first answer.  This process can go on for multiple levels, like peeling back layers until someone finds the root fear that is causing their behavior.  What is interesting is how often it is seemingly distant from the physical manifestation.

What is amazing is how these root level fears bind us in ways that are unhelpful, and often sinful.  It’s amazing at the amount of joy God has prepared for us, that is missed by misplaced fear in our hearts.  In the Bible, we are told that we should fear only one thing, the Lord.  That fear is the beginning of wisdom – all other fear is the beginning of sin.

Psalm 111:10 – “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom;all those who practice it have a good understanding.”

Proverbs 1:7 – “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

We all have fears, based on something in our past, based on our individual experience in life; and by not addressing them through introspection and scripture, we default our emotions to be led by them.  The fear of the Lord is not something that is innate to us – Psalm 111 says that it is something that is practiced.  The encouragement we have as believers in Christ, is that in Him we have everything we need to overcome those fears, to have life, and joy, and peace.

1 John 4:19-20 – “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  We love because he first loved us.”

How does perfect love cast out fear?  Romans 5:8 – “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  When we fear, apart from God, we fear some sense of lack, or that something bad will happen to us.  Being “perfected in love”, is finding everything you need in the gospel of Christ, so that while you might be tempted into fears, you can practice the fear of the Lord by proclaiming His steadfast love as superior to anything else the world would offer you.  For those of us who have feared the Lord, we fear His name, because He is the Holy One, Perfectly Righteous, but we no longer fear judgment.  Psalm 118:4 – “Let those who fear the LORD say,”His steadfast love endures forever.”

Have you ever stopped to be honest with yourself about your own fears?  What are your fears about marriage?  What are your fears about your job?  What are your fears about family?  What are your general fears that impact how you live?  My encouragement is to spend an hour or two really thinking about what these fears are and where their root lies.  Ask yourself the question “why do I feel this way” repeatedly until you come to a peace about the root of a fear, pray through that time seeking the Holy Spirit’s illumination, and then look to scripture to see how your identity in Christ and His love for you frees you from bondage to that fear.  We are free to love because God first loved us.  We fear God, but rest secure the steadfast love of God, that in Christ, we have EVERYTHING necessary for this life, and a future hope of glory with Him.  My prayer is that this will a fruitful time for you, and I’d encourage you to share what you find with a fellow believer you trust, and asking their encouragement to practice the fear of the Lord, and accept the peace of Christ.  Know you’re prayed for.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Jesus’s ministry included preparing a group of 12 men to go out into the world and spread the good news of salvation through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone.  Often a lesson would be preached to a large group, but then the truth of the message would be explained only to the twelve.  These men studied the actions and words of Jesus, and rightly so, because He not only spoke the truth, He is the Truth.  Jesus poured out his life through time spent with these men, and we are given a similar charge, as we see when Paul instructed Timothy:

2 Timothy 2:1-2 – “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

So where is this kind of discipleship today?  If this was the model given to us by Jesus, why don’t we find more of this now?  A quick look at church history should be helpful.

If I said that American culture overall is the enemy of Christianity, I don’t think many people take offense.  We live amongst a sea of post-modernism, where objective truth is consistently attacked as arrogance, where morality is called intolerance, and living as a Christian has become punchline for late night comedy.  We as a society are largely made up of indviduals who fall into one of two camps.  There are individuals who believe truth is either found within the individual and therefore relative, or those that believe truth is found through a melding of everyone’s thoughts and ideas. So what about church culture?  How has it responded to the changing cultural landscape?

During the mid and latter part of the last century, the church largely was made up of individual persons who attended Sunday services and perhaps a mid-week service.  This model of personal piety in isolation was not Biblically grounded, and ultimately was unhelpful as individuals would fall through the cracks.

In the 1990’s and around the turn of the millenium, you began to see the emergence of the megachurch, and cultural Christianity took a new turn.  Seeing the deficiencies in the modernist church, where isolation was the norm, the post-modern church would seek to resolve this problem with community.  This was a good change.  After all, as image-bearers of the triune God, we were created for community.  Likewise, Jesus modeled Christian community during his Earthly ministry, and there is a mountain of scripture explaining how community is a means of grace by which God sustains us as believers.  So community was held up as the answer to the problems of isolation within the modernist Church.  Churches wanted to be “open”, for everyone to “feel welcome”, and the result was a watering down of the call to discipleship.  Sunday school was largely replaced with small groups that would meet during the week.  Leaders of these small groups within the church were told they were “facilitators”.  These small group leaders did not necessarily have to be well-versed in the Bible, they just had to lead encourage discussion, and to foster social interaction outside of church on Sundays.  This is largely where most American churches find themselves today.  Where the modernist church failed persons through isolation, the post-modernist church has failed through lack of content and purpose.  We shouldn’t be surprised at this, after all, it was prophesized of by Paul.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 – “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”

I love Jesus.  This was not a guy who was pursuing the latest church growth strategy… he just laid everything out there, and said whoever wants to come, come.

Luke 14:25-29 – “Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.  For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?” 

Jesus was not calling people to believe in Him, He was calling people to be disciples – to follow Him.  In Paul’s ministry as well, we see the same goal.  Paul’s goal was not that people believe in Christ, but that people be mature in Him.

Colossians 1:28-29 – “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

The call to discipleship is costly, as Jesus warns, but there is no other path for Christianity.  There is no Christian fellowship without the truth of God’s Word, mediating those relationships.  We should engage with other Christians in community as a means of grace by which God, through the Holy Spirit can transform us.  We must not be passive in this task, however, but purpose our hearts to pursue relationships where iron sharpens iron.  We should pursue relationships that grow our faith, and where our faith can grow others’ faith.  Each of us should personal be discipled by those more mature in the faith, as Jesus was to the disciples, and Paul was to Timothy.  Likewise, we should always  seek to pour out our own lives, and faith to encourage and grow others.  Each of us must prepare our own hearts, through the study and meditation on the Word of God, so as to be fruitful for God’s kingdom.  This is the discipline of discipleship, where personal pursuit of God in His Word, meets intentional relationship building for the purpose of growing each other’s faith.  This is the charge we are given by God, the model we are given in the Bible through Christ, and this is the only hope we have as a Church.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

Many people believe that grace is a means in which they are to live in sin under a cloak of forgiveness, rather than a means by which God creates in us a new heart that delights in obedience to Him and His teaching.  Now the former persons are likely those who do not struggle with sin, and mistakenly call themselves “Christians”.  This word of encouragement is not for them, their professed faith is betrayed by the fruit of their heart in passivity towards their sin (1 John 3:9).  The testing of their faith (2 Cor 5:13) proves it to be false, and they by their actions, mockers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For those of us in the latter group, however, we delight in being reconciled to God, in knowing Him, and pursuing obedience to Him with our whole heart.  Yet, for all the change God has already wrought, we are not perfect (or anywhere close) – sin still dwells in us, and bears fruit at times.  I want to write an encouragement to those faithful, believing Christians, who delight in obedience to God, are putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit (Rom 8:13), yet still fall.

Hebrews 8:12 – “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” 

If you are in Christ, every one of your sins was paid for through the shed blood of Christ.  As such, while we can hurt our fellowship with God by our sin, it will never follow us.  We are not storing up wrath for ourselves, to be unleashed upon the judgment of God, as are non-believers (Rom 2:4-6).

Numbers 23:19 – “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Has he said, and will he not do it?  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

Isaiah 40:8 – “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

When God has told us that our sins are forgiven in Christ, and by His blood, He will remember our sins no more, and that through Him we have been reconciled to God by the payment of our sins (1 Peter 3:18), we can KNOW that God is not going to change His mind.  His Word endures forever, even into eternity.

Knowing that the promises of God are true, because God is unchangingly True, and will never change His mind, we should rest in the salvation we have in Christ.  Even more, we should be eager to quickly confess our sins to Him, that God would restore our fellowship, cleanse us, and continue drawing us closer to Him through the obedience wrought by the Holy Spirit in us.  We hate our sin, but we cannot ignore it – it must be dealt with.  For us, our sin was dealt with on the cross, and that is where we must turn in prayer.

1 John 1:8-10 – “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

Finally, know that the nature of God towards us is no longer one of vengeance, but of a loving Father.  For non-believers, God can only be seen as a fierce judge, but to us He loves us, delights in fellowship with us, and pursues us, even when we may be far from Him.

Lamentations 3:22-26 – “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”  The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

My exhortation is this.  Turn to the Lord – daily and often.  There is no longer any anger in Him towards us, we only hurt ourselves for not approaching Him.  He loves us, and there is no better place to be, than in prayer with God, confessing sin, and praising God for the once and final payment made through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Adam

In the beginning, Satan desired to be God, instead of worshipping Him.  his sin became our sin when we desired to be like God instead of worshipping Him, in the garden of eden by eating fruit from the tree of life.  People usually speak of sin in terms of doing bad things, but at its root, sin isn’t the things we do, it’s the condition of our heart.  The condition that was present in Satan is the same that was present in Adam – we all want to be God, instead of worshipping Him.  You even hear pastors appealing to this sin, by telling you that God is a means to have “Your Best Life Now”.  It’s no wonder that our churches have become as large as they have… it’s the newest church growth strategy… tell your people that they’re ok just as they are.  They can continue to pursue the life they live, and God is just a way to make it even better!  The tragedy is that a day will come when those people who for many years lived in church, served on committees, did service projects, maybe went on a missions trip or two… will hear the words from the One True Living God – Depart from me, I never knew you, you workers of lawlessness (Matt 7:22)

C.S. Lewis said in his book, Mere Christianity, that there were two ways to view yourself rightly before God.  One was as a completely depraved sinner, in capable of any good on your own, or to not think of yourself at all, and simply focus your attention on the cross.  He (and I) recommended the latter.  What does that look like though?

We find our answer in the life of Christ.  Philippians 2:4-9 – “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Romans 5:8 – “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in thatwhile we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

God’s love was manifested in a choice – to go to the cross and die for us – even while we mocked him from the crowds.  Do you have that mind in yourselves?  Can someone objectively look into your life and ask the question “What is going on?  You keep loving this person, even when they’re unloveable.  You keep serving this group, even when they never thank you.  Why do you make $100k a year, and drive a honda?”

Jesus explains in Luke 6:32-33 – “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”  Who are the unloveable people in your life that you are choosing to serve and care for?  Who are the ones that cannot repay you, that you are serving.  That is love.  That is the mindset of Christ, that we are meant to have when God says to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

We should each consider ourselves sheep to be slaughtered (Rom 8:36).  This will not be easy, and we will need the grace of God daily to sustain us in this task.  We can look at God’s own words to us through Paul to see, that life as a Christian serving others, isn’t a means to “feeling good” or “prosperity”.  Our joy then, is not rooted in our circumstance, but in our identity with Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:8-10 – “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

We are men and women of the cross, followers of The Way, guardians of the Truth, ambassadors of Life, and proclaimers of reconciliation through the One True God, Jesus Christ.  There was a time when we lived for ourselves, but we have been freed from that bondage to sin, to live out of a fullness of joy in the peace brought by the shed blood of Christ.  We are free to die to ourselves, and live for God.  Death to ourselves, is life to Christ.  Each of us have been placed by God exactly where he wants us to be, surrounded by a multitude of people that do not know Him.  In light of their need, and the fullness of life we have in Christ, let us purpose our heart’s desires to be for the good of others as 2 Corinthians 4:5-6 says – “what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 

Grace and Peace,
Adam