“God’s first concern is not what the Church does, it’s what the Church is. “Being” must always precede “Doing,” for what we do will be according to what we are. To understand the moral character of God’s people is a primary essential in understanding the nature of the Church. As Christians we are to be a moral example to the world, reflecting the character of Jesus Christ.” Ray Stedman.
Have you ever wondered why people resist spiritual transformation? I mean, it’s not as though their lives are these shining examples of happiness. As I said in a post a couple days ok, hypocrisy among us Christians is a fact of life. We do pretend to be happy when we’re not. We do pretend to have peace when we’ve been fighting like badgers all the way to Church. So, just what exactly are we hanging on to? What have we got to lose by giving up doing life our way and letting our Saviour become our Lord?
Reality is, if we don’t give the benefit of doubt to Jesus, if we don’t trust Him enough to die to ourselves, there won’t be, there can’t be any sanctification process. It seems to me that if we think we can be “saved” without a need to also be transformed, we do not understand what we’ve been save from. It is simply wrong to believe that we can be a Christian and never become a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus, someone whose character is being transformed and conformed to that of Jesus. Jesus didn’t say that if we don’t die to self and pick up our cross we won’t be a very good disciple. Jesus said that if we don’t give up doing things our way, He wouldn’t consider us to be His disciple’s AT ALL!
Jesus didn’t come to earth to walk with us in our sin. He came to earth so that we might be changed from someone who loves sin, to someone who loves God more than sin.
And that’s a good thing!
To not do this, to not accept Jesus as Lord and Master of our lives is to still live in rebellion to Him.
To continue to do what WE think is best and reject what Jesus tells us to do must surely call into question our motive and understanding of what it means to “come to salvation” in the first place.
To reject the transformation of our soul, our motives, our goal for living, means that we are little different than atheists, who think they are good people and who, at most, think they just need a little tweaking in order to be “good enough.”
Jesus didn’t come to tweak our character. Jesus came to create a new form of human life.
If you are saying to yourself, “Why do I have to do it God’s way?” you have no idea of who or what your Creator is or the awesome plan that He has in store for you.
Friday, November 19, 2010
You First!
By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us — set us right with him, make us fit for him — we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that's not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that He has already thrown open His door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand — out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.
Romans 5:1-2
Romans 5:1-2
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Stop The Body Scans!
“Stop them. Stop them now. They’re bad. They’re awful. They’re indecent!”
This just in from CNN. A Muslim terrorist from Pakistan with C4 duct-taped to his scrotum has brought down an airliner over . . .
“Oh this is terrible! Why weren’t there body scans? Who’s responsible for stopping body scans? You should have MADE us go through body scans!!!”
This just in from CNN. A Muslim terrorist from Pakistan with C4 duct-taped to his scrotum has brought down an airliner over . . .
“Oh this is terrible! Why weren’t there body scans? Who’s responsible for stopping body scans? You should have MADE us go through body scans!!!”
“I Love The Way It Hurts”
“I Love The Way It Hurts” “I love the way you lie.” Rihanna.
How desperately dysfunctional must WE be, as a society, to celebrate, glorify and esteem someone who is that broken in soul and in mind that she really does love (she'll return again and again and again) the kind of relationships where lying and hurting takes place?
Incoherent dreams.
Dead end illusions of what it means to have a good life.
Distorted images of self-destructive habits pushed off on the ignorant who long to be like their idols - their literal idols.
Shows like Springer and Maury actually draw viewers - the fact that they can find even one person who wants to be part of the audience is tragic - to find a whole studio filled with young adults hooting and howling with laughter at the worst sins our species has to offer just breaks my heart. Fifty years ago this kind of crap would have been clearly identified as evil and destructive to self and to society. Now, under the moral guidance of those who deny the existence of their Creator, people just aren't sure anymore.
So lost are these morally bankrupt individuals that they have given up any hope of discovering truth or any pursuit of goodness - save that of their own definition. Unfulfilled desires and destructive serial relationships are the norm for a greater and greater percentage of our population. These attitudes are even starting to infect the Church.
A Pastor runs the risk of having parishioners leave the Church if he should call attention to their living together or divorce and remarriage. These people fully expect good to happen to them even in the absence of obedience to what God says is right and healthy. They somehow don’t know that good outcomes cannot come from wrong actions.
This type of incoherence used to be the sole domain of the secular pagan world. Sadly, it has come inside to where sinners no longer approach Jesus for forgiveness. Instead, sinners approach Jesus, expecting Him to bless their sins.
Somehow these people have never understood or somehow forgotten that Jesus’ yoke is light and easy. Obeying Jesus is not an onerous task. Jesus will never bring you to a point where you have to enjoy relational pain, or accept rejection and lies as normal.
How desperately dysfunctional must WE be, as a society, to celebrate, glorify and esteem someone who is that broken in soul and in mind that she really does love (she'll return again and again and again) the kind of relationships where lying and hurting takes place?
Incoherent dreams.
Dead end illusions of what it means to have a good life.
Distorted images of self-destructive habits pushed off on the ignorant who long to be like their idols - their literal idols.
Shows like Springer and Maury actually draw viewers - the fact that they can find even one person who wants to be part of the audience is tragic - to find a whole studio filled with young adults hooting and howling with laughter at the worst sins our species has to offer just breaks my heart. Fifty years ago this kind of crap would have been clearly identified as evil and destructive to self and to society. Now, under the moral guidance of those who deny the existence of their Creator, people just aren't sure anymore.
So lost are these morally bankrupt individuals that they have given up any hope of discovering truth or any pursuit of goodness - save that of their own definition. Unfulfilled desires and destructive serial relationships are the norm for a greater and greater percentage of our population. These attitudes are even starting to infect the Church.
A Pastor runs the risk of having parishioners leave the Church if he should call attention to their living together or divorce and remarriage. These people fully expect good to happen to them even in the absence of obedience to what God says is right and healthy. They somehow don’t know that good outcomes cannot come from wrong actions.
This type of incoherence used to be the sole domain of the secular pagan world. Sadly, it has come inside to where sinners no longer approach Jesus for forgiveness. Instead, sinners approach Jesus, expecting Him to bless their sins.
Somehow these people have never understood or somehow forgotten that Jesus’ yoke is light and easy. Obeying Jesus is not an onerous task. Jesus will never bring you to a point where you have to enjoy relational pain, or accept rejection and lies as normal.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What’s The Point?
In response to an atheist's charge of hypocrisy in the Church, someone once replied, “A Church that admitted only Saints would be like a hospital that admitted only healthy people. It would be a lot easier to run but I’m not sure that it would be serving the purpose for which it was built.”
Even if it’s unrealistic to expect a Church with only Saints, what IS the purpose of the Church? In my mind the job of the Church is to take the spiritually lost, whom God has called, and lead them from salvation to spiritual transformation, i.e., we’re to teach people how to become disciples of Jesus. Sadly, even with that awesome goal in mind, we are doomed to fail - to varying degrees. And why will we fail? Well, we’re fallen creatures, and that fallen nature causes us to mistake the less important issues for the most important.
Leith Anderson -
“While the new Testament speaks often about Churches, it is surprisingly silent about many matters that we associate with Church structure and life. There is no mention of architecture, pulpits, lengths of typical sermons - or sermons at all for that matter. There are no rules for having a Sunday school. Little is said about the style of music, order of worship, or times of Church gatherings. There were no Bibles as we know them, nor denominations, no Church camps, Pastor’s conferences, or board meeting minutes. Those who strive to be New Testament Churches must seek to live its principles and absolutes, not reproduce the details. Those details are simply not given.” (Emphasis mine)
And why aren’t those details given? Obviously because they are not the most important things to know about the life and functioning of the Church as it “makes disciples of all nations.” In fact, when those things become the most important things in the minds of congregants we begin to turn on each other. And we begin to turn on each other because the most important aspect of why the Church exists is being left out of our own lives. When what we wear and how we sing take centre stage in importance, we and those around us are not and indeed cannot be transformed into the kind of people who are able to recognise and focus on being conformed into the likeness of Christ as the only reason that God called us to salvation in the first place (see Romans 8:28,29).
When spiritual transformation (growing into Christlikeness) is left on the shelf, we fall into the trap of thinking - no - we fall into the trap of BELIEVING that what we wear (Pastor included), or what type of songs we sing, or how we pray are the important things, when in fact they are secondary at best. I assure you, if I can’t worship because the style of music is not my favourite, the problem is not on the platform; the problem is in my poorly adjusted soul.
Jesus told Mary that “Only one thing is important” and that is getting to know (become like) Him.
Of course when we’ve come to treat external appearance as more important than internal transformation, we succumb to the temptation to crush those who worship in what we think is the wrong “fashion.” Believing secondary issues to be essential issues is what creates mean and angry Christians and it’s what causes us to fail in our primary mission - that of spiritual transformation.
Fundamentalist Churches try to overcome this problem by focussing on getting people out of hell and into heaven. The more the merrier. The problem is, when failing to make people disciples of Jesus, we act as though people can get into heaven without the character of Jesus even being part of who they are. This is no small error.
Jesus will say, “Get away from Me. I never knew you.”
“We have our standards!” That was said to me a few short weeks ago as I worked with a member of our Church. This fellow was incensed regarding a young man in the worship team who wore sandals with no socks, a shirt with no collar and he played the guitar “like something you’d find in a club downtown.” This fine upstanding Christian (that’s sarcasm) is always dressed right and sings only the right kind of songs. His kids are afraid of him and his wife wants to leave him. While making sure that he gets it right on the non essentials, he fails completely on exhibiting Christlikeness. He might believe he’s ready to go to heaven when he dies, but he has no clue about how Jesus wants him to live while he’s here on earth.
“I don’t want your offerings. I want mercy.”
Any congregation where spiritual transformation has become a secondary issue will find a love grown cold among its members. There will be generations of family bitterness and jealousy. Resentment over something the Pastor said or did years ago will infect the whole nature of the person. And this misalignment of the soul will spill over to the whole congregation as satan gains a giant foothold from unacknowledged anger. These Christians, dressed so they’re ready to meet their King and who sing beautiful harmony (actually these people usually don’t sing; they stand with their hands stuffed into their pockets or with arms crossed their chest, fuming about those who might not be “worshipping” correctly), have no idea how to "love others as I have loved you.”
Yes, Churches ARE spiritual hospitals for the spiritually sick (that means all of us). But how in the world can people decide to follow Christ if they’ve never seen Him in the lives of those who claim to follow Him?
Even if it’s unrealistic to expect a Church with only Saints, what IS the purpose of the Church? In my mind the job of the Church is to take the spiritually lost, whom God has called, and lead them from salvation to spiritual transformation, i.e., we’re to teach people how to become disciples of Jesus. Sadly, even with that awesome goal in mind, we are doomed to fail - to varying degrees. And why will we fail? Well, we’re fallen creatures, and that fallen nature causes us to mistake the less important issues for the most important.
Leith Anderson -
“While the new Testament speaks often about Churches, it is surprisingly silent about many matters that we associate with Church structure and life. There is no mention of architecture, pulpits, lengths of typical sermons - or sermons at all for that matter. There are no rules for having a Sunday school. Little is said about the style of music, order of worship, or times of Church gatherings. There were no Bibles as we know them, nor denominations, no Church camps, Pastor’s conferences, or board meeting minutes. Those who strive to be New Testament Churches must seek to live its principles and absolutes, not reproduce the details. Those details are simply not given.” (Emphasis mine)
And why aren’t those details given? Obviously because they are not the most important things to know about the life and functioning of the Church as it “makes disciples of all nations.” In fact, when those things become the most important things in the minds of congregants we begin to turn on each other. And we begin to turn on each other because the most important aspect of why the Church exists is being left out of our own lives. When what we wear and how we sing take centre stage in importance, we and those around us are not and indeed cannot be transformed into the kind of people who are able to recognise and focus on being conformed into the likeness of Christ as the only reason that God called us to salvation in the first place (see Romans 8:28,29).
When spiritual transformation (growing into Christlikeness) is left on the shelf, we fall into the trap of thinking - no - we fall into the trap of BELIEVING that what we wear (Pastor included), or what type of songs we sing, or how we pray are the important things, when in fact they are secondary at best. I assure you, if I can’t worship because the style of music is not my favourite, the problem is not on the platform; the problem is in my poorly adjusted soul.
Jesus told Mary that “Only one thing is important” and that is getting to know (become like) Him.
Of course when we’ve come to treat external appearance as more important than internal transformation, we succumb to the temptation to crush those who worship in what we think is the wrong “fashion.” Believing secondary issues to be essential issues is what creates mean and angry Christians and it’s what causes us to fail in our primary mission - that of spiritual transformation.
Fundamentalist Churches try to overcome this problem by focussing on getting people out of hell and into heaven. The more the merrier. The problem is, when failing to make people disciples of Jesus, we act as though people can get into heaven without the character of Jesus even being part of who they are. This is no small error.
Jesus will say, “Get away from Me. I never knew you.”
“We have our standards!” That was said to me a few short weeks ago as I worked with a member of our Church. This fellow was incensed regarding a young man in the worship team who wore sandals with no socks, a shirt with no collar and he played the guitar “like something you’d find in a club downtown.” This fine upstanding Christian (that’s sarcasm) is always dressed right and sings only the right kind of songs. His kids are afraid of him and his wife wants to leave him. While making sure that he gets it right on the non essentials, he fails completely on exhibiting Christlikeness. He might believe he’s ready to go to heaven when he dies, but he has no clue about how Jesus wants him to live while he’s here on earth.
“I don’t want your offerings. I want mercy.”
Any congregation where spiritual transformation has become a secondary issue will find a love grown cold among its members. There will be generations of family bitterness and jealousy. Resentment over something the Pastor said or did years ago will infect the whole nature of the person. And this misalignment of the soul will spill over to the whole congregation as satan gains a giant foothold from unacknowledged anger. These Christians, dressed so they’re ready to meet their King and who sing beautiful harmony (actually these people usually don’t sing; they stand with their hands stuffed into their pockets or with arms crossed their chest, fuming about those who might not be “worshipping” correctly), have no idea how to "love others as I have loved you.”
Yes, Churches ARE spiritual hospitals for the spiritually sick (that means all of us). But how in the world can people decide to follow Christ if they’ve never seen Him in the lives of those who claim to follow Him?
Freewill Rejection of God
I just read - again - how some atheist is worried that those in heaven will use their freewill to reject God.
Ya - that’s likely.
If I’ve rejected satan’s temptations while here on earth, why would I suddenly accept those lies as worthy of my time once I’m in heaven? How stupid would someone have to be to do that?
“Oh, but it happened once before,” the atheist says. “What’s to keep it from happening again?”
Happened before? Ah, you mean when satan wanted to “be” God? When satan wanted to be the master of his fate and the captain of his soul? Listen, it’s satan and atheists who want to usurp the role of God - no one but satan and those who follow him want to take away from God His place of Lord, Master, Saviour.
I assure you, no one in heaven is going to look at those in hell, “whose smoke from their torment rises forever and ever,” and say, “I think I’m going to go over there.”
Now, there will be people who desperately and fruitlessly try to change their minds but I assure you, it won’t be those who are in heaven.
Ya - that’s likely.
If I’ve rejected satan’s temptations while here on earth, why would I suddenly accept those lies as worthy of my time once I’m in heaven? How stupid would someone have to be to do that?
“Oh, but it happened once before,” the atheist says. “What’s to keep it from happening again?”
Happened before? Ah, you mean when satan wanted to “be” God? When satan wanted to be the master of his fate and the captain of his soul? Listen, it’s satan and atheists who want to usurp the role of God - no one but satan and those who follow him want to take away from God His place of Lord, Master, Saviour.
I assure you, no one in heaven is going to look at those in hell, “whose smoke from their torment rises forever and ever,” and say, “I think I’m going to go over there.”
Now, there will be people who desperately and fruitlessly try to change their minds but I assure you, it won’t be those who are in heaven.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Imagine
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_1953494_1957160,00.html?cnn=yes&hpt=T2
Imagine what would happen if you went to your local police department with videotapes of young children, some not even school-aged, being sold for sex. What if you gave the police pictures, names, addresses of the men and women who were selling these children (for those old enough, the movie Taxi Driver “You can come all over her face if you want to,” should ring a bell) and the police took this information / evidence and destroyed it. What if the police then arrested you and threatened you with false charges if you didn’t stop “harassing” the fine citizens who were running the brothels who sold these children to men from around the world, men who came to your country for the sole reason of having sex with children?
That is happening in more and more countries around the world.
Do you care?
John Locke once described how we Christians say that we believe the most marvellous, earth-shattering and revolutionary things. We say that we believe we are fully loved by a good and all-powerful God who will never fail to secure us in life and death. We say that we believe we are free to experience and exhibit selfless love and courage and joy every day - for eternity.
But how many of us live as if these things are true?
Locke estimated about one in ten thousand.
I think that he over estimated by about half.
So what can be done? First of all reject the atheist / secular vile and disgusting world-view that refuses to name evil for what it is.
39% of paedophiles arrested for internet porn had images of 3 to 5 years old children
83% had images of 6 to 12 year olds
80% had images of actual penetration of the child
21% depicted violence such as rape and torture
The atheist world-view doesn’t want to touch these issues because on atheism nothing can correctly be named right or wrong. As long as the community is accepting of something, then, on atheism, that something becomes right.
The first thing to do in rescuing children is to reject secular atheist relativism.
Secular relativism leads judges to make the follow judgements.
. Chilliwack physiotherapist Laurence Wong was sentenced to 60 days in jail, to be served on weekends, after police found 26,000 images or child porn on his computer and several hundred child porn videos.
. Brian Caldwell of Quelph was sentenced to 90 days for distributing child porn over the internet. The children were between 3 and 12 years of age having sex with adults and other children.
Regardless of what atheists / pagans tell you, pornography is not harmless entertainment. If you care, don’t allow secular relativists tell you that porn is harmless.
Atheists talk about consenting adults as though people just one day decide to allow themselves to be used and abused by others. Atheists talk about consenting adults as though the brutality upon brutality that is heaped on these men and women, boys and girls is a career choice. The degradation of the human soul is nothing more than evil having its way in a world of selective and relative morality, bashing relentlessly at the imagio Deo that neither evil nor the atheists that support evil can abide in the human being.
Imagine what would happen if you went to your local police department with videotapes of young children, some not even school-aged, being sold for sex. What if you gave the police pictures, names, addresses of the men and women who were selling these children (for those old enough, the movie Taxi Driver “You can come all over her face if you want to,” should ring a bell) and the police took this information / evidence and destroyed it. What if the police then arrested you and threatened you with false charges if you didn’t stop “harassing” the fine citizens who were running the brothels who sold these children to men from around the world, men who came to your country for the sole reason of having sex with children?
That is happening in more and more countries around the world.
Do you care?
John Locke once described how we Christians say that we believe the most marvellous, earth-shattering and revolutionary things. We say that we believe we are fully loved by a good and all-powerful God who will never fail to secure us in life and death. We say that we believe we are free to experience and exhibit selfless love and courage and joy every day - for eternity.
But how many of us live as if these things are true?
Locke estimated about one in ten thousand.
I think that he over estimated by about half.
So what can be done? First of all reject the atheist / secular vile and disgusting world-view that refuses to name evil for what it is.
39% of paedophiles arrested for internet porn had images of 3 to 5 years old children
83% had images of 6 to 12 year olds
80% had images of actual penetration of the child
21% depicted violence such as rape and torture
The atheist world-view doesn’t want to touch these issues because on atheism nothing can correctly be named right or wrong. As long as the community is accepting of something, then, on atheism, that something becomes right.
The first thing to do in rescuing children is to reject secular atheist relativism.
Secular relativism leads judges to make the follow judgements.
. Chilliwack physiotherapist Laurence Wong was sentenced to 60 days in jail, to be served on weekends, after police found 26,000 images or child porn on his computer and several hundred child porn videos.
. Brian Caldwell of Quelph was sentenced to 90 days for distributing child porn over the internet. The children were between 3 and 12 years of age having sex with adults and other children.
Regardless of what atheists / pagans tell you, pornography is not harmless entertainment. If you care, don’t allow secular relativists tell you that porn is harmless.
Atheists talk about consenting adults as though people just one day decide to allow themselves to be used and abused by others. Atheists talk about consenting adults as though the brutality upon brutality that is heaped on these men and women, boys and girls is a career choice. The degradation of the human soul is nothing more than evil having its way in a world of selective and relative morality, bashing relentlessly at the imagio Deo that neither evil nor the atheists that support evil can abide in the human being.
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