Archive for the ‘Christianity’ Category
What I Long For
Sunday, April 20th, 2008Faith
Saturday, April 19th, 2008I was looking back through an old journal (from March, so not really that old) and found an interesting entry that I thought I would share. I had just read Luke 18:1-8 and wrote about faith. Here were my thoughts from that passage that day. (more…)
Private or Public
Thursday, April 17th, 2008Should your religious beliefs be held privately, or should they be expressed and lived out publicly? I can’t imagine that anyone who has met the Lord would be able to hold it in, but having been raised as a Catholic, I can remember that many in the church did indeed keep their beliefs held very close. Well, it came as a surprise to me when I read that the pope said, “Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted,” according to azcentral.com. I agree.
Shepherding
Sunday, April 6th, 2008Artifact Easter Questions, Round 2
Saturday, March 8th, 2008As promised, below are my answers to the second round of questions posed by my church, Artifact, during this Easter season. The final set of questions will be coming soon, I promise. I’ve started it, it’s just been delayed. (more…)
Easter
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008Easter is my favorite holiday. Many give it some love, but most seem to enjoy Christmas a lot more. I am not opposed to Christmas; I think the condescension of the Son of God into the flesh is an amazing event in history. Who would think that an all-powerful God would do such a thing. A more sensible approach seems for him to simply squash the transgressors the moment they transgressed. This indeed seemed to be the promise in Genesis to Adam and Eve: “…for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 1 Yet God did not kill the man and woman. Instead, he bid his time and then condescended into the flesh of a man, the man Jesus bar Joseph of Nazareth. Why would God–whose names and titles include Almighty2, Sovereign3, Adonai4, and others5–do such a thing? A God of incredible love6, but also a God of incredible justice and wrath7. (more…)
We Need a Holy Club
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:7-8
When John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield attended Oxford, they began meeting together for the purpose of becoming holy. This group became known as the Holy Club. At times the group consisted of only these three and one other; at other times, as many as forty might attend. However, they continued to meet to pray for and exhort one another. They spent time discussing what the Lord revealed to them in their times of study and fasted for one another’s needs and for revival. God heard and answered their prayers, and the First Great Awakening shook Europe and North America for over a hundred years.
Today, however, we do not seek God in such a way. Most of us ask God to make us holy and then go on about our day, wondering all the while why we seem to progress no further in godliness or holiness, except by small increments. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, Paul commands Timothy to train himself up for godliness. We cannot sit idly by asking and waiting on God to answer our prayers to be made holy and godly when we show no inclination toward such character. While we also will neither holy nor godly without prayer, we will be certainly less so without training and committing ourselves to obeying the Lord’s commands.
One might ask, “But what about God’s good grace?” God’s grace is good, and it is full upon all who call upon His name, believing Jesus Christ to be their Savior by bearing our sin on the cross unto death and rising again to sit at the right hand of the Father. God’s grace through His Spirit transforms the believer, and He makes the believer grow in grace and faith. Yet the flesh and the world war against the believer, and we must fight by standing firm in the grace God has provided. This requires effort and training, fueled by the fire of the Spirit indwelling the believer.
We have been unwise to let down our defenses. We have let those who should have been cast out of the Church long ago water-down the doctrines of faith to where we now have churches calling themselves “Christian” and teaching a gospel of which no true believer may claim knowledge. How these institutions stand is beyond me. And while those arose, the Church turned to defend the true doctrines and lost sight of the lost. And so the lost became more lost, and more lost their way. Might it be too late for revival? Might it be too late to cease trying to turn back those false churches who are utterly fallen away and instead unite to see the un-churched find the risen Christ? May it never be. Let us seek Him and pray for revival again. Let us as one body, whether Messianic Jew, Catholic, Protestant, or any other true believer, seek the face of our beloved Lord and ask Him to show His mighty power once again to shine His light on our lost land and on all the world.
Amen!
Christian, How Are You Known?
Sunday, December 2nd, 2007Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.
~ Jesus, Mark 16:16-20 (NIV)
I read the above passage in The Daily Bible on November 19th, and since then I have been struggling with its meaning and application for the current time. I cannot believe anything other than that it can only be interpreted literally even today. Why then are believers here in the United States seemingly without this sign?
Salvation as a Process
Sunday, September 16th, 2007These saints, however, although certain of their reward if they persevere, can never be sure of their perseverance. For, no man can be sure that he will continue to the end to act and advance in grace unless this fact is revealed to him by God. In His just and secret counsel, God, although He never deceives anyone, gives but few assurances in this matter.
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, Book XI, Chapter 12
In times past, I would have argued against this statement. However, I have of late been learning that I don’t really know as much as I thought I knew. (I’m sure you can relate.) When I read the lines above last week, I was quite surprised. This statement appears to contradict most messages and plans of salvation that state that deciding to trust Christ saves. Can this be? After all, Christ stated that, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Of course, these same plans claim there is an on-going process following the conversion/justification of the new convert, a process called sanctification. And then there is the glorification that comes when Christ comes back (Romans 8:29-30). My (recent) problem is that I now see that something is quite disjointed in separating these steps. They sure seem to all belong together; all parts are necessary for “salvation.”