Afraid of Sin?
9OCTFor whatever reason, we've come to expect that church is a place where there isn't going to be any sin. It is just not true. If we don't know how to deal with sin, then we don't know how to deal with people. We inevitably create a culture of law in order to keep people from sinning. The message of this culture is: 'Contain your sin within yourself. Don't show it to me; I can't handle it.'…
(The Pharisees) were famous for being afraid of sin, largely due to the fact that the only remedy for sin in their day was various degrees of punishment. The fear of punishment ruled their hearts, relationships and culture. Jesus, on the other hand… was not in the least afraid of messes people made in their lives, and letting them happen around Him… Ultimately His love and the way He led people empowered them to rise above their mistakes and issues.
What is Resurrection Life?
You have been raised to new life. This is not more of the same; it is brand new zoe-life. Christ is your life (Col 3:4)…
The grace cure is greater than the disease. One sin cell infected the entire human race with the fatal condition of sinfulness; grace not only cures us it inoculates us against re-infection. We have been made new. We have been rewired to resist sin and please the Father. Grace doesn't just remove all traces of past sins, it empowers us to sin no more! Grace is both favor and divine influence through the Holy Spirit. We're not just freed captives; we're kings and priests called to reign with Him. This is not some reference to the hereafter for Paul says we will "reign in life" (Rom 5:17) meaning here and now. Through the power of the Spirit we can reign over forms of death such as sickness and all the things that lead to sickness (e.g., bitterness, unforgiveness). We are no longer victims; we are more than conquerors through Him who called us.
Jesus has not returned us to the Garden, He has taken us to heaven (Eph 2:6)! From the position of rest we rule and reign with Him here on earth.
Burnt Out? Good!
How many times have you witness people doing a lot for the Lord, people really 'on fire,' only to watch them burn out?… Burnout is all around us… (Burnout means) one kind of fuel has finally been exhausted – burned out – and it's time for a new kind of fuel altogether. God Himself is the fuel for our lives….
God knows who we have become, so He works to exhaust our singular reliance upon false or insufficient resources (charisma, style, eloquence, talent, strength…) so He can be found and formed in us, becoming visible through us. What's more exciting than that?
Faith and Repentance
These two things act and react upon each other: the man who is forgiven, therefore repents; and the man who repents is most assuredly forgiven. Remember first, that forgiveness leads to repentance… Repentance grows as faith grows… Faith and repentance are but two spokes in the same wheel, two handles of the same plough… Do not regard your repentance is the cause of your remission, but as the companion of it. Do not expect to be able to repent until you see the grace of our Lord Jesus…
Quit Trying
There are some believers who may not articulate it, but in their hearts they believe that without Jesus they can still succeed. By believing and acting on this, they fall from the high place of God's grace (His unmerited favor) back into the law, back into trying to merit and deserve success by their own efforts…
Beloved, let's learn quickly that without Jesus, we cannot succeed, and if we choose not to respond to His unmerited favor, He will not force it on us… Jesus is waiting for us to come to the end of ourselves.
Butterfly
Ephesians 5:8: "For you were once the darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." a good paraphrase would be, "You once were a worm; now you are a butterfly. Fly like a butterfly!"
Mr Grace and Mr Law
Mr. Law was a demanding husband who was never satisfied, regardless of how many right things you did. He didn't just claim to be perfect; he actually was perfect and he demanded the same from you… Mr. Grace is very different. Whatever He wants done, He just does Himself. Any burden He asks you to carry is light… Divorce from Him is impossible. I am one with Him 'until death do us part' and neither one of us is ever going to die!
Doing Nothing for Jesus
A few weeks ago I heard a story about a Navy Search and Rescue swimmer who went to the aid of a downed aviator. The aviator began to flail and flounder making the situation dangerous for both himself and his would-be rescuer. The rescue swimmer responded by diving down deeper into the water to get away and to wait for the aviator to give up struggling. In other words, he withdrew from the scene until the aviator exhausted himself.
This is exactly how it is with us and Jesus. We are saved by trusting in him, and we must do nothing to help. Trying to help only makes things worse and leaves us exhausted. And yet, we try. Ever since Adam took up sewing to hide his sin, it has been the nature of the flesh to take control and try and fix things. I can save myself from drowning. This is why we should thank God for the magnificent law which reveals the hopelessness of our situation. But you're in the middle of the ocean! You can't swim that far. And then thank him even more for good news of his grace that saves us. Jesus the Savior is here. Stop struggling and submit to his righteousness.
The Old Lawyer vs The
Great Advocate
Satan is a very old lawyer, he has been in the profession for many centuries, and he knows how to raise all manner of quibbles and difficulties, and he can argue and reason in a very crafty fashion; so, your best plan is not to answer him at all, except just to say, "I have put my case into the hands of my Great Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have anything to say, you must say it to him."
A Beautiful Story
Christianity is a story. It is a meta-narrative. It is a grand over-arching story that enables us to make sense of human history. It is the story of how God is setting right a world gone wrong and doing it through Jesus Christ. It is the story that starts with Creation in Genesis and takes us all the way through to new creation in Revelation. It is a story with Jesus Christ at the center of it…
The end of the Christian story is beautiful. It is the beautiful "they lived happily ever after" culmination we long for. It's the true hope that myths and fairy tales allude to. It is restoration, new creation, the New Jerusalem, and all things made new. This is what we mean when we say Christianity is eschatological. The end is important, because it determines how we should act within the present as we head toward an appointed future. So we must be absolutely clear about this – the eschatological hope of Christianity is restoration and new creation. But the end of the story the Bible tells is an end that has been inaugurated.
Out On a Limb
We don't experience divine intervention until we get out on a limb — that's where the fruit grows. Most of us are hugging the trunk. We're afraid to get out there on the limb because we don't like swaying in the breeze. We want the stability of the trunk. To be fruitful, we have to let go of our security blankets and take a leap of faith.
Divine Passion Never Runs Out
Divine passion will take us further than human zeal can imagine. It will produce greater fruit and do it without sweat. It is that divine energy which propels one through obstacles in a quest for the object of its love. It's a simple fact: Causes require more resources than they create. When people are motivated by zeal, they can never produce the amount of energy required to complete the task.
Again, we are familiar with the cries for help from those who have given themselves to fulfill a mission or a dream. When they run a little short of money or a little short of energy or commitment, the tendency is to create a larger cause to create more anger, thus more resources. It happens on a national level, too. In the past we have had to portray the communists as bigger than they really were, the devil as bigger than he really is, the situation worse than we first had thought. All this to get people stirred up so that their anger will release enough resources to get the job done.
But here's another simple fact: Love has enough energy to accomplish the task it has been called to do. Love will never find itself without enough resources, because "love never fails" (1 Cor 13:8).
The Cross Changed Everything
Sometimes, when I hear the way some preachers preach, I really wonder, has the cross changed anything? The system of being blessed when you do good and being cursed when you fail was already in place before Jesus came. Why are they still teaching that we are under that system today?… Don't negate the cross of Jesus. The cross of Jesus changed everything.
Waiting in Galilee.
On-and-off salvation never appears in the Bible. Salvation is not a repeated phenomenon. Scripture contains no example of a person who was saved, then lost, then resaved, then lost again… Trust God's hold on you more than your hold on God… "All of you will stumble," Jesus told them. Fall away. Turn away. Run away. Their promises would melt like wax on a summer sidewalk. Jesus' promise, however, would stay firm. "But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee" (Mat 26:32). Translation? Your fall will be great, but my grace will be greater. Stumble, I will catch you. Scatter, I will gather you. Turn from me, I will turn toward you. You will find me waiting for you in Galilee.
Frustration is Important
We're prone to pretending, you and I, acting as though we're capable. But in truth, we're not. God has not invested Himself in our capability, but His own… He allows and sometimes even causes awful frustration to visit with us… Prolonged frustration and bother don't happen simply to goad us into good behavior or to teach us a lesson – they keep us from pretending we can do anything apart from Christ… Frustration is the beginning of the end of pretending… That's why frustration is so important! It keeps us bothered with this world and the stuff we go through every day so we'll not live by it or for it.
