A quick truth

I always love it when Christians are labeled as intolerant, exclusionary, hypocrites... by definition, as a Christian, I am saying that I am a sinner, guilty of things that the commandments of a holy God says are wrong. ( as you said, be it murder, lying, adultery, homosexuality, whatever)... I am openly admitting that I have these issues and problems, and that because of them, I am rightfully hell-bound short of the redemption of a Savior in Christ who looks upon my broken, sinful flesh, and accepts me, exactly as I am, no questions asked, if I will simply turn from those things I do that are wrong (by His definition, not mine) and follow Him...

The Christian faith is all-inclusive insofar as ALL who call upon the name of Christ will be saved... it is tolerant in that the ground at the foot of the cross is even, we have ALL sinned and fall short of the glory of God... We are called to accept all people, regardless of their sins, and share the live of Christ with them... 

Our only condition is an admission that all people do wrong, and that, if there is a heaven, then the God of that heaven gets to make the rules on who gets in, and who doesn't... and His rules say that Christ is the only way, truth, and life that leads to an eternity spent in Heaven

Working in a vineyard

The parable found in Matthew 20 was the start of my reading for this morning. Its a story of a man who needs to hire laborers to work in his vineyard. He went early in the morning and hired a group of men who agreed to a wage for their day's work. The man returned to the marketplace to hire more workers many times throughout the day, each time selecting more workers to work in his vineyard. The last group was selected when there was only an hours worth of work left to do. At the end of the day, the owner of the vineyard paid each man the same wage that was promised to the first group of workers, no matter which group of workers they were, or how long they had been working. When the laborers who had worked the full day realized this, they became really upset, claiming that they should be paid more because they worked longer. The owner of the vineyard explained to them that they had agreed to their pay at the start of the day, and that, since it was his vineyard and his money, he would choose how to reward each man who came to work in the field.

What a picture of life and the Christian faith... there are people called into this life from all times, all peoples, and for all purposes. We don't get to determine whose work in the kingdom is of greatest value, or who is worth more to God. Salvation remains consistent and unconditional for any who is of God's elect... there is only a promise of one atoning death that would cover the debt and be transferred as the righteous exchange for all who are called. Just as the wage agreed upon by the workers selected first was paid, even to those who were called last, not because of the hours worked, or the description of the job they did... they were paid simply because they answered a call to come and do the job placed before them. Each job was of equal importance for the owner.

Don't despair over the "worth" of your life, if you have been adopted into the family of God through Christ's blood and righteousness, your worth has been determined by He who set the wage. In the same way, don't let your pride get in the way of thinking that you are worth more to the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

A loving God and Hell

How can a just, loving, and fair God send people to Hell?

It's a question (and ultimately an important one) that gets thrown at us Christians often. And it's one I was discussing with a friend recently, with the following reasoning being where we landed:

In this life, we are given a choice between 2 options:

1) accept, rejoice in, and be all-consumed by the glorious love and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ... surrender to His Lordship and allow yourself to accept that He is God, not you. 

2) reject Him. Choose to live apart from His extraordinary grace and love. Choose to worship the created things rather than their Creator.

It  is the alignment if your soul with these two options that determines your eternal destination. God, being loving, just, and fair, allows you to choose. If you choose to live under His authority and in His love, He welcomes you into the full revelation of Himself for all eternity in the glory of Heaven through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as the atoning sacrifice on our behalf. Scripture says that in this way, God is righteous to forgive our sins. Choose God in this life, have God for all eternity.

Aligning yourself with the second option, rejecting God, choosing to live outside His love and grace, and in His love, justice, and fairness He will not force any of us to align ourselves with these things. So, as an ultimate example of this, if we choose, in this life, to reject God, He will not force us to be in His presence for all eternity but instead He will grant you an eternity spent fully removed from His grace and love. This is the reality of Hell, an existence fully devoid of the presence of God.

As bad as our world currently is, every person under the sun is living under the presence of the ordinary means of grace of God's love. It's something that He bestows on us all as a glimpse into His sovereign beauty. This leads to the reality that the choice to live a lifestyle outside of the bounds of God's will is a choice to make this world, and this life, be as close to God's glory as you will ever encounter. If you choose a life lived under the will of God, you are as far from God, in this life and world, as you will ever be.

If you are fed up and believing that there is no God because of the current state if this world, know that the only way that it gets better is to seek God, draw close to Him and discover the eternity of His glory that He has for you... it's that simple... 

People are not in Hell because God is unfair, unloving, or unjust... God is simply unwilling to force someone to spend eternity with Him after they spent their whole life indicating that they don't want to live in His presence. The choice is each of ours... the decision to follow God is up to each of us to make for ourselves. The means by which we are able to do so are up to God. The how is lined out in the Bible, and God, being God, gets the right to decide the terms of our agreement to follow.

To echo Francis Chan... I wish I could tell you that we could all choose to live however we wanted, with no regard to eternity, and no worries about the ramifications of our actions and still, at the end of the day, we all go to heaven... I wish that we're true, it would be easier, but it's just not Biblically true.

unto Caesar

In a conversation with a friend and mentor recently, we got onto the topic of stewardship and Godly giving. He related to me a portion of a sermon he had recently heard from Ravi Zacharias; in this message, Ravi was speaking about the time in Jesus' ministry when Christ was confronted with the question of (essentially) if a follower of Christ should pay taxes. Jesus of course replies by asking whose face appears on the money... the answer was, Caesar. Jesus then commanded to give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to give unto God what is God's. Ravi then made the statement that he wishes that the questions would have continued, and the man would have posed to Jesus, "Then what is of God's that we should give unto Him?"

I have been thinking over the response to this question, as Ravi posed it, for a good while now, and the implications of it are quite large... its just this simple: we are able to clearly identify that which is Caesar's based on the imprint of Caesars's likeness on the coin... likewise, we can discern what is God's by identifying what in Creation has been imprinted with the likeness of God.

In Genesis, at the creation of man, God speaks, saying, "Let us create man in our own image." The same word here for image could be translated as "likeness". It is among the most important demarcations setting humanity apart from the rest of creation, we bear the likeness or the image of our Creator. So the extrapolation of Jesus' instruction that we are to give unto Caesar that which bears the image of Caesar would be the implication that we are to give unto God that which bears the image of God... ourselves!

We find over and over again through the New Testament commands given to give ourselves to the things of God, to devote ourselves to the will of God, and here we find an implied command to give to God what is God's. But what does that look like? Giving to Caesar was easy... or at least clearly defined... you gave whatever Caesar commanded of you (plus whatever the collector could weasel out of you to line his own pockets). Is it the same with God? Does God command us to give Him whatever He feels is right and fair? Do His "collectors" then try to twist you for a little extra for their own? I would argue that many in our culture believe that that is exactly how it works.

Whereas it may be predominant belief of the culture, we know that God does not work in that way. Under the new covenant of Christ's blood, there is no commandment or set standard of acceptable giving. There is a command to give generously, regularly, sacrificially, graciously... we are commanded to seek the proper giving in our lives. The implications of these commands go way beyond the giving of money, after all, the money does not bear the image of God. Are we to give of our monetary blessings? Yes! Its all gifted to us from God in the first place, we are merely worshiping with thankful giving back that which we were graciously gifted in the first place. But, more importantly, we are to be giving with that grateful heart, that which bears the image of God. Our time, our devotion, our love, our life... all of who we are is to be given to God.

the wide path

My wife is always right... and I don't mean that in the sense that most husbands say it. I guarantee you, that relative to my wife, yours is rarely right... my wife is incredible with the accuracy in the things she says. She has taught me much over the 13-ish years we've known each other. Through her invitation, I began attending First Baptist Nixa, and because of my desire to be with her, I attended events that ended up putting me in the path of God's grace. Through the ups and downs of our relationship, I unintentionally grew deeper in my knowledge of God. Wrapped in the pain of our severed engagement, I found reliance on Christ, and through the rebuilding of our relationship, I learned more about His grace. Believe me when I say that at every turn of my journey of faith, it was only her that stayed steady. God has used her in a mighty way in my life, and by allowing me to see Him through her, I have been truly blessed to be the man I am today.

I say that all to say that there have been times in our 13 years that the choices of my own life, and positions I placed myself into, spoke directly to my willingness to sacrifice all of who she is in order that I might gain something that I valued higher. We have all done things in our life that we never thought we would be capable of doing. We have all inflicted pain that we never thought we could. Somehow we buy into the lie that there are some sins we would never commit. This denial of our own depravity is an amazing foothold for the work of Satan. The total depravity of man opens each of us to the possibility of partaking in truly heinous acts... but not all at once.

The path to destruction may be wide, but the steps down that path are often slow and steady. We rarely choose to race head-long into our own undoing, rarely are we so blind. As we start down the path, we are wary of where it may lead... but just a short way down the path, we see something that looks good. We confuse it with something of God. Usually it is a piece of something... just a step or two down the path... so we shuffle our feet, we stretch out... we strain forward and grasp it... just a little down the path. That small morsel feels nice at first, but soon we get bored with it, and we see just ahead a little way further down the path, another little bit. We think that if we can add that piece to the one we already have, then we will gain some satisfaction. We may even recognize that we are leaving the path we were on, but its just a few steps, we'll be able to see where we came from, we'll just step out to get this piece, then go right back... its harmless... this pattern continues, and if left unchecked, we will find ourselves with pockets full of small pieces that are still failing to provide satisfaction, while also starting to weigh us down. We didn't realize we had wandered so far off the path we were on. We look around and realize that the path we have now chosen has been gradually twisting and descending. With all the weight of the pieces we have picked up along the way, we don't have the energy to turn and head back uphill... at this point, its easier to follow this new path, and see where it leads. Its at least easy to follow, and its all downhill... maybe soon we will see something we recognize. And just that easily we discover that we aren't at all who we used to be, this path has beaten us, we are weary, tired, and hungry... our desires still aren't satisfied, and the path seems unending, unyielding... we can't get out... we give up...

Maybe this cycle takes years, sometimes it takes weeks, but the mechanism never changes. If you find yourself on this path now... stop, take a look around, and yell out for help. Reach out to someone who has been steady and there at each step... chances are, they're still right there, waiting for you... ready to comfort you, show you God's grace. What you'll come to realize is that you don't have to climb out of that pit by yourself... you just have to allow Christ to restore you, place you back in the direction of His path, and seek him daily. It'll hurt, it'll be excruciating at times... the work of sanctification is a purifying as gold in a fire.

I'm thankful that each time I have wandered off the narrow way, my wife has been there... willing to remind me of the God I am to serve, and His immense grace. I'm thankful as well for the power of His grace to restore me, purify me, and love me.  

Entitled

Is there a more prominent, powerful, and defeating agent in our culture today than entitlement? Its everywhere! And, its at the core of so many of the problems with our world today...

The biggest problem I have with entitlement is that it is running rampant in our churches. Don't worry, I struggle with it as much as the rest of you... otherwise, your entitlement wouldn't bug me so much.

We see it in churches when we struggle to find people to serve in ministries that have great need. We see it when there is a change in format, style, etc. We see it when things go well, and more so when things go poorly. Its the voice of complaint, followed by lack of action to fix that which drew the complainer to speak. Its the crossed arms of those who have "served their time" and are waiting on the fresh new blood to pick up the slack. Its the slacking fresh new blood that waits for the elder generation to get up and get back into service. Its the thinking that you just aren't getting anything out of Pastor X... then realizing that you haven't gotten anything out of the pastor of the last 8 churches you've "visited" without realizing that the common denominator is you. Its the complaining that the tempo is too slow, the drums are too loud... its the demands for more cowbell! tambourine!

We get so caught up in what the church owes to us for our faithful attendance and the privilege of our presence. We get mad because the staff doesn't shake our hand just right, or doesn't stand strongly behind whatever moral matter of the day is standing out. We throw our tantrums when our ideas are not given the attention we feel they deserve...

Its all of this and more... but ultimately, its forgetting that church is not about us...

A sermon I listened to recently drew out a commentary by DA Carson, looking into the scene playing out at the verdict of Jesus' trial, as seen through the eyes of Barabas (the criminal sentenced to death, but freed at the calling of the crowd)... He sat in his cell, listening to the crowd shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!" knowing that they were calling for his own death... the steps approaching the door of his cell, the keys in the lock... knowing that he was about to walk to his death. But instead, when the jailer opened his mouth, it was ushering Barabas to his freedom. He would learn that his place of execution was taken by the innocent Jesus. The innocence of Jesus, confirmed by the cowardly Pilate, would be instead nailed to a cross to suffer the crucifixion that was Barabas' sentence. It was the death he had earned by the life he had lead.

Why are we so entitled? Have we, the saved and pardoned sinners, forgotten the death we had earned? Did we lose the inconceivable thought of hearing our granted freedom, when we were awaiting the wrath we deserved? Are we so wrapped up in our own time that we are unwilling to sacrifice the pleasures of now for the eternity of stored up treasure? What will it take for us to drop the entitled sense of what we deserve? We've already been given more than we deserve, all that is asked is that we accept it with thanksgiving and joy... the love that surpasses ALL understanding should compel us to the service of which each of us is called.

"God, where are you?"- Habakkuk

Continuing reading through the Bible (trying to finally be able to say that I have read the whole thing), I have been mired in the minor prophets of the Old Testament. They are not the easiest read, and they are often difficult to discern anything relevant. Tonight though, I read through Habakkuk... and I could totally relate!

I have spent many, many times looking through headlines, news, Facebook, Twitter, and so on and just time again reaching a place where I just have to wonder... is God still there? Is He still in control?

"How long, o Lord, will I call for help and You will not hear? ... Why do You make me see iniquity, and cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; strife exists and contention arises. Therefore the law is ignored and justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted." Habakkuk 1:2-4

I was brought back to this place many times recently, as we see Christians being murdered in countries far away, churches bombed, members of our adoptive family who are slain in the name of perverted justice.

"Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You can not look on wickedness with favor. Why do you look with favor on those who deal treacherously? Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than they?" Habakkuk 1:13

I get to this place, and I just wonder how much longer this earth will endure... how much longer will God allow us to destroy ourselves, and His creation? How much longer will He allow the twisting of His word, and the perversion of His glory unfold? I find myself, often, much like this prophet, calling out to God... almost in an accusatory tone... asking, Why are You silent?

But, God being God, and ultimately sovereign and full of grace, mercy, and truth... He answers...

"Then the Lord answered me and said, 'Record this vision... For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay. Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; but the righteous will live by faith. Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man, so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and his is like death, never satisfied." Habakkuk 2:2-5

God is still there, and He is still in control... these things continue to happen because the time has not yet come for them to stop. But the promise is there that those who revel in their own truth and their perverted justice will meet their fate... their souls are not right, their appetite for their own righteousness grows like the fires of Hell, never to be satisfied. Take rest in the knowledge that the world is storing up its wrath for eternity, but the truly righteous, the beloved, we have the peace that the wrath due to us has been poured out already... The promise is given:

"For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea... Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, who mix in your own venom even to make them drunk so as to look on their nakedness! You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor. Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness. The Cup in the Lord's right hand will come around to you, and utter disgrace will come upon your glory." Habakkuk 2:14-16

A promise to those who have twisted and perverted justice, who have filled this world with filth... who seek the destruction of others... you'll get yours. As well as a call to each of us to examine ourselves for this same debauchery ("for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23... sound familiar?) because the Cup in the Lord's right hand will come, and disgrace our glory. Sounds like a call to repent, a promise of the coming of Jesus. The light in the darkness that will reveal all we do as filthy rags... a reminder that God shares His glory with no one.

There is a lot going on in these verses... but if nothing else, they leave me with a few things:
1) God is in control, He is still God, He is not blind to what is happening
2) When the appointed time comes, His wrath will be poured out
3) We are all sinners, and must be careful to not only ever point out and call out the sins of others, but also to examine the sins of our own lives.
4) We must seek only the glory of God
5) Jesus has taken the wrath for all whom He has called to be His children
6) There is relevant, and good, news to be found everywhere in scripture... be diligent and persevere, keeping your mind open

I know this post was all over the place... but so is my mind lately.