Happy 2014

2014 a new year, but will you be a new you? Resolutions come and go and with them the feeling of defeat of not being able (willing) to keep them. God is not as concerned about the peaks and valleys as He is about the direction of our lives. I pray that we all have high goals and see marvelous progress in our Christian discipleship. Those are the peaks that we get the clearest glimpse of God, where the air is crisp and clear, uncluttered by cares and worries. The top of the mountain is hard to live on and we inevitably come sliding down into a valley. God forgives and restores and we can start climbing again. I pray that your peaks are higher than before and your valleys are not as deep. While we would all love to make steady undimmed progress, progress is progress. Thank God that you are not who you were and praise Him for who He is helping you to become. Here is a brief outline to remind us of Who God is in all the periods of life.
 

Past: Key word “Forgiveness” Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-18
Present: Key word “Strength” Scripture: 1 John 1:1-17
Future: Key word “Hope” Scripture: Jeremiah 29:11; 2 Timothy 4:8
                 
 
Remember it is important that you finish well. Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future 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.” (2 Timothy 4:7–8, NASB95). How we live our lives does make a difference for all eternity. Let’s make sure we live each day with our past forgiven, our present strengthened and our future secured in the hope of the Lord. Happy 2014!!!

Forget Church Growth, Aim for Church Health

A healthy baby grows, so it is with a healthy church. My doctoral project was entitled "Breaking Barriers: Training Leaders to be Barrier Breaking Leaders." The thesis of the project was that the church that Jesus established was meant to grow and the reason many churches do not are the barriers that we consciously and unconsciously put up to keep it from growing. These can be as small as lacking a sense of vision to insisting on a particular agenda that we have.

I was encouraged on this subject by a recent Pastor's Toolbox article by Rick Warren. Here is what Rick said:

FORGET CHURCH GROWTH, AIM FOR CHURCH HEALTH

Church health is the key to church growth. All living things grow if they’re healthy. You don’t have to make them grow – it’s just natural for living organisms. As a parent, I didn’t have to force my three children to grow. They naturally grew up. As long as I removed the hindrances, such as poor nutrition or an unsafe environment, their growth was automatic.

If my children had not grown up, something would have been terribly wrong. I would have done whatever it took to discover the disease and correct it. I wouldn’t have remained passive, spouting clichés about faithfulness, or wanting “quality not quantity” in my children.

The same principle is true for the church. Since the church is a living organism, it’s natural for it to grow if it’s healthy. The church is a Body, not a business – an organism, not an organization. It’s alive. If a church is not growing, it is dying.

Rick Warren, Pastor's Toolbox, May 8, 2013

While going through some illustrations for this week's sermon, I ran across this one that I collected several years ago. It amazed me how fresh it seemed.

U.S Downfall Plotted 50 Years Ago

THINK!

In May of 1919 at Dusseldorf, Germany, the Allied Forces obtained a copy of some of the Communist Rules for Revolution.”  Now, fifty years later, the Reds are still “following the rule.”  As you read the list, stop after each item and think about the present-day situation where you live--and all around our nation.  We quote from the Red Rules:

1. Corrupt the young, get them away from religion.  Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial, destroy their ruggedness      .
2. Get control of all means of publicity, thereby:
1. Get people’s minds off their government by focusing their attention on athletics, sexy books and plays and other trivialities.
2. Divide the people into hostile groups by constantly harping on controversial matters of no importance.
3. Destroy the people’s faith in their natural leaders by    holding the latter up to contempt, ridicule and obloquy.                                   
4. Always preach true democracy, but seize power as fast and as ruthlessly as possible.
5. By encouraging government extravagance, destroy its credit, produce fear of inflation with rising prices and general discontent.
6. Foment unnecessary strikes in vital industries, encourage civil disorders and foster lenient and soft attitude toward such disorders.           
7. By specious argument cause the break-down of the old moral virtues, honesty, sobriety, continence, faith in the pledged word, ruggedness.
8. Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with a view to confiscating them and leaving the population helpless.

Take time to think seriously of the above and draw your own conclusions.

Civil Rights and Gay Rights

The civil rights argument has served the gay rights movement very well. In just the last few years they have gained ground in every arena by changing the argument from a moral one to a civil one. The trouble for us Christians is that God's laws must trump any of man's laws. The legal system has in a large part been based on the unalienable rights granted man by our Creator and have served us well. Civil rights based on color, race and religion have been necessarily emphases in recent years but just like we would not think murder, rape, or stealing to be a civil right we cannot agree with the many sexual abhorrent (according to the Bible) behaviors to be socially or legally acceptable. We may be the only group that stands up against moral corruption in our society, but if we do not stand where does it end?

Below is a link to Albert Mohler's blog where he addresses this subject in a very thoughtful way.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/04/24/same-sex-marriage-as-a-civil-right-are-wrongs-rights/?utm_source=Albert+Mohler&utm_campaign=09abd70019-Albert_Mohler_Email_April_24_2013&utm_medium=email

I received a good meditation from my mentor and friend Dr. Dan Crawford. I will do my best today, what about you.

Giving Our Best

Beginning in pre-school (Kindergarten), and for many years following, my mother said the same thing to me very morning as I left the house. “Do the best you can, with what you have, where you are, for Jesus sake today.” Only recently, did I discover that she was paraphrasing a quote from Theodore Roosevelt. I’m not even sure she knew that’s what she was doing, but it worked. I’ve lived with that daily motto for many years. In my teen-age years, I added the words of a then popular song, “Hear ye the Master’s call, ‘Give Me thy best!’ For, be it great or small, that is His test. Do then the best you can, not for reward, Not for the praise of men, but for the Lord.” Then came the awareness of a quote by John Wesley, “Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can, in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.” Still later in life, I came across Numbers 18:29 that speaks of what we give, and instructs us to give “our best” offerings to God. All of this reminds me to ask myself (and you), what is the best I (you) have to give to God this week? And the follow-up challenge to the answer is, “Well then, give Him your best!”

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DiscipleAllNations.org		Monday 25 March 2013

Greater Punishment

Is there greater punishment for someone like Hitler than the person who lives a seemingly good life but rejects the good news of God's forgiveness of their sin through His Son Jesus?

The Bible clearly teaches that any and all sin is enough to keep us from going to heaven. We are all sinners (Romans 3:23), and our attempts at being righteous always fall short of God’s standard (Romans 3:10). Paul quotes from multiple OT passages in Romans 3 to show the universal sinfulness of man. In this way all sin is equal in keeping us out of heaven without the application of the shed blood of Christ.

Even the term “total depravity” “does not mean that men are equally bad, that all have been corrupted to the same degree. It does not mean that men have gone as deeply into sin as he can possibly go, that he is totally bad. It does not mean that human nature is destitute of all moral good, that man is bereft of any goodness. It merely means that all parts of his unregenerate nature are controlled and dominated by sin, and that his is incapable of extricating himself without the grace of God.” (Doctrines of the Christian Religion…pg. 157).  Thus any sin, no matter how small or large will be adequate to condemn us to a Christ-less hell.

More tolerable passages: Matthew 11: 20-24; Matthew 10: 11-15; Luke 10: 10-16. In these passages Jesus indicates that those who have greater opportunity (presence of Jesus or the preaching of his disciples) will face a greater judgment than those who have had fewer opportunities (Tyre, Sidon, Sodom, and Gohmorah). Though all these cities were known for their wickedness, the greater sin was to reject the grace of God through the person of Jesus and hence the greater punishment (less tolerable) was given to the cities that outwardly seemed to be more righteous. God looks at the heart while man looks at the outside.

 Luke 12:42-48 And the Lord said, “Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall set over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he hath. But if that servant shall say in his heart, ‘My lord delayeth his coming,’ and shall begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he expecteth not, and in an hour when he knoweth not, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint his portion with the unfaithful. And that servant, who knew his lord’s will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required: and to whom they commit much, of him will they ask the more”. In this passage the wicked servant is the one who continues to sin and who will receive many strips because he knew his lord’s will and did not get ready for his coming. The one who was still a sinner but did not know his lord’s will shall receive fewer stripes according to how much he knew or did not know. Though Romans 1:18-21 indicates that we are responsible for our sin even if all we know of God is His testimony through creation, James also makes it clear that with greater responsibility comes greater judgment (James 3:1).

John 19:11, “Jesus answered [Pilate], 'You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me up to you has the greater sin.' ” Here Jesus is saying that Pilate’s sin was less than Judas who betrayed Him knowing Him as well as he did. If there is a greater sin and a lesser sin then they are not equal.

Heb. 10:29, “How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” Severer punishment implies that there is a greater degree of punishment for those who have so violently rejected the good news of the Gospel as to profaned what it was given for and blasphemed the Spirit of grace.

God is righteous and just. He will assign reward as Jesus described on multiple occasions according to the faithfulness of His saints. He will also justly assign degrees of punishment according the darkness of the heart of those who have not received his gift of forgiveness. Any place in Heaven will be a blessing beyond our imagination and any place in Hell will be punishment beyond our wildest speculations, but greater reward and greater punishment are both taught in the Bible.

Dr. Dan's "Playing the Part"

One of my favorite professors from Seminary sends out a weekly meditation. I thought this week's was especially thoughtful perhaps because I am beginning to relate.

I took a Drama class in High School, only because the Principal came to our Advanced Speech class and asked for Volunteers to switch to the Drama class while looking straight at me. The Drama teacher, Mr. Wyman, told us to observe people so we’d know how to portray them when we were assigned their part in a play. He especially spoke of elderly people. “Watch how long it takes them to sit down and get up” he said. He continued, “Observe how slowly they move at times.” I never played the part of an elderly person until recently and only now because I am getting elderly. It takes longer to sit down and longer to get up. I move slower at times. The elderly lady I helped step off a curb recently turned out to be my wife. A friend advised me that if I woke up some morning and nothing ached, to check the obituaries. Yet the Bible declares, “Wisdom is with aged men, and with length of days, understanding” (Job 12:12). Aging is a challenge and takes all the “wisdom” that accompanies it and for sure, has its own drama inherent within. So, be kind to older people. If you live long enough, you’ll be one yourself. And whatever your age, follow another of Mr. Wyman’s sayings and “Play your part well today.”  Dr. Dan's Monday Morning Manna- January 14, 2013, "Playing the Part."