The Path to Righteousness

Today's passage is Romans 4:23-25, which says:

Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Abraham's faith was "credited for righteousness." If we are to know what this means, a couple words have to be defined. The first is faith, which means trusting in God, putting His ways and, well, Him before everything else. Faith is not just blindly leaping off a cliff into the unknown, but is instead trusting a God who you believe is really able to hold you. That's what Abraham did when he first followed the Lord: he believed that God could really provide for him and lead him, so he followed. Faith is trust based on past experience, current belief, and future hope; the longer we believe in the Lord in our current situation, the more we will draw on past faithfulness He has shown us and the more we will be confident hoping in His future faithfulness. 

Another term is important to know here: righteousness. We are all sinners (wrongdoers, rebels against God's commands). Therefore, we are all unrighteousness before God, and He will judge us at the end of days on our righteousness (or lack thereof). That's the truth the Bible makes clear. The only way to avoid that judgment is to be seen as righteous before God when that day comes, and that is exactly what this passage details out. 

Abraham was no more righteous than you or me. He was a rebel against the Almighty, and therefore needed to be made righteous before God. These verses show that Abraham was made righteous not because of anything he did, but because of Who he trusted. He trusted, or put his faith in, God, and that trust in God throughout the rest of his life made him a righteous man in the eyes of God. And that is available to us, too. 

 If we believe in Jesus, our Lord and King, as raised from the dead to pay for our sins (delivered for trespasses) and defeat death once and for all (raised), we too can be righteous before God (for our justification). Again, it's trusting, it's putting faith in Jesus. Have you done that? Are you actively doing that with your life daily? Trusting in Jesus is the only path to true righteousness.

This is the entire message of every evangelist that ever was, from the apostle Paul to Billy Graham. This is the message that fulfills the Great Commission to go and make disciples, or followers of Jesus, of all nations. This is the message of trusting in the resurrection of Christ in order to be made righteous! This is the epitome of the power of God on display in the good news of Jesus: you can be saved! Trust it today.

Inheritance Through Faith and Perseverance (Evening Prayer 1/22/2020)

For it is impossible to renew to repentance those who were once enlightened, who tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit, who tasted God’s good word and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away. This is because, to their own harm, they are recrucifying the Son of God and holding him up to contempt. For the ground that drinks the rain that often falls on it and that produces vegetation useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and about to be cursed, and at the end will be burned. Even though we are speaking this way, dearly loved friends, in your case we are confident of things that are better and that pertain to salvation. For God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you demonstrated for his name by serving the saints ​— ​and by continuing to serve them. Now we desire each of you to demonstrate the same diligence for the full assurance of your hope until the end, so that you won’t become lazy but will be imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and perseverance 
-- Hebrews 6:4-12 (CSB)

This passage was shared with me by a church member recently when I was doing a pastoral visit at his home. It had been perplexing him, and it perplexed me, too. What exactly does the author of Hebrews mean here? I went to my CSB Study Bible for help, and here's where it lead me.

Are we to think that these "dearly loved friends" are leaving Christianity and returning to Judaism or whatever religion they previously adhered to? I don't think so, because the author seems to indicate in v.9 that he is speaking rhetorically, and he/she is "confident of things that are better" in their case, specifically. That sounds like the audience knows that Christ is better.

If that's not what he/she means, is it possible that these hearers had heard the gospel, maybe even liking it, but ultimately strayed away? This certainly happens, as we see in the parable of the sower that Jesus tells throughout the Gospels. Yet, look at the way the author describes them: enlightened, tasting of heaven, sharing in the Holy Spirit, tasting God's good word, and the powers of the coming age. That's a description that can only belong to a saved person. No nominal "Christian" that is going to fall away would be described in such terms--especially when it talks about sharing in the Holy Spirit, which only happens in the life of a believer.

Is it discussing the work of sanctification (or being made like Jesus daily), rather than our salvation itself? Again, I don't think so: why wouldn't we be able to repent of our apostasy if this were talking about our growth in Christ? Peter did exactly that repentance from rejecting Jesus in John 21.

So, what does it mean? I think it is a warning against turning from Christ and to continue relying on Christ. The author seems to be indicating that if we have a life that "receives the rain" (i.e. is surrounded by the gospel and things of Christ) and yet "produce thorns" shows that we never were enlightened or Spirit-shared. The author warns us as believers to remain in the faith, to have faith and persevere, which is evidence of our salvation in Jesus. Our faith and deeds are evidence that we have been saved (James 2 goes in-depth here); let us remain in the faith and never fall away!

Father God, hold us close. We know that if we are believers, you will not let us go; do not let us even desire to be released. May we abide in you as you abide within us. 

Testing and Rebelling

     How do we handle ourselves when we find ourselves in a place we don't understand? How do we approach the Lord when it seems like times are too hard, or we don't feel that we have all we need, or things just could not get worse. Exodus 17:1-7 shows the nation of Israel in a place similar to that, and I think they give us an excellent model of how not to approach such times:

The entire Israelite community left the Wilderness of Sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So the people complained to Moses, “Give us water to drink.”

“Why are you complaining to me?” Moses replied to them. “Why are you testing the Lord?”

But the people thirsted there for water and grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you ever bring us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 

Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What should I do with these people? In a little while they will stone me!” The Lord answered Moses, “Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take the staff you struck the Nile with in your hand and go. I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.” Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” 

-- Exodus 17:1-7 (CSB)

     The Israelites were travelling, as the Lord commanded, but there was no water where the Lord sent them. So they got mad at Moses, which then prompted Moses to remind them that it was God who had brought them to this place in life in the first place. That's the same as us; wherever we are currently in life, it is because God brought us there or allowed us to wander there ourselves. Nothing is beyond His scope or His vision; we are never apart from His presence and never blocked from His guidance.
     This didn't stop the Israelites from grumbling and complaining about the situation, though. I get it; there's not any water, and water is necessary for life to continue. It had to have felt like Moses was leading them out into the desert to dehydrate and die of thirst. They even started to long for the "good ol' days" when they were enslaved by the Egyptians, where they at least had access to water. I guess they figured that a terrible life with water was better than no life at all. So they kept complaining at Moses, and Moses did not know what to do. How was he to handle this situation?
     He turned to the Lord. He called out for God to help, knowing that God was totally aware of their plight and that it was God Himself who had lead them there. They had no rebelled and gone somewhere they were not supposed to go; it was totally through Moses's faith in God and His guidance that they had ended up in this predicament. God's people were on the verge of literally dying out, but God had no intention of that happening. He was not going to allow His covenant people to die out. His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would not be coming up short, and certainly not in a place that God Himself had led them. He led His people to a place of testing, and they responded by testing Him. They failed His test of faith.
     So Moses called out, and God answered with a plan. It wasn't the assumed, normal plan either. I'm sure Moses assumed that God would lead them to a place with more water, like a river or a lake. We often assume that God's plans will be pretty predictable, too. I know that I often think I can plot out God's answers and next steps for my life, and yet time and time again, I am proven wrong. God almost always surprises me with the next step on His journey with me, and He surprised Moses here, too. God brought their salvation in an unexpected and unforeseen way: He brought water from a rock.
     There is a ton of parallel here with Jesus in the New Testament. He's the Rock we stand on (1 Corinthians 10) and our source of living water (John 4). He is the salvation that came to us in an unforeseen way, as a baby in a boondocks town that grew up to be a street-preaching rabbi that literally died in our place to provide salvation to us. We do not have to go find our living water and our salvation; just like the Israelites, our salvation came to us in our hour of need, and we simply need to trust Him for salvation.
     This is not a one-time deal, though. We do not trust Jesus to save us once, and then live the rest of our lives. Trusting in Jesus as our salvation may be initiated and secured when we place our faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord, but our daily walk with the Lord is meant to be a daily step of faith. We daily find ourselves, like the Israelites, confused and frustrated. We don't always understand our circumstances and we don't always see how it will work out for good. Yet, we always have a choice to make: to grumble like Israel, or trust that our Savior is the Rock of salvation every day in everyplace. We must not test (Massah) or rebel against (Meribah) the Lord; we must trust Him.
     Hebrews 3:7-4:2 puts this Old Testament passage into a New Testament context; we cannot allow a sinful, unbelieving and distrustful heart to turn us away from God. We must have confidence in Christ. We must encourage our fellow believers to keep the faith. Hebrews 4:2 clearly shows that Israel had heard the gospel, same as us in the church today; they simply did not combine the good news with daily, practical faith in the moments of everyday life. When they did that, they rejected the rest available to them: both in the immediate rest we find in placing our burdens on Christ and in the future rest we have in eternity with Him. Their lack of faith showed a lack of heart change by the gospel, and revealed them to be frauds in the faith.
     Will we trust our Lord daily, while we still have time to walk with Him and rest in Him, or will we doubt and test Him until the end of our days? The choice is ours to choose faith, and I pray that we will each do just that.

I Am Not Bradley Cooper

I'm officially done with my first year of graduate school. Sure, I've got a summer class in a few weeks (let's not talk about that...), but I have completed a fall and spring semester. That happened.

Woah.

It is during this year that I have come to see how much of a work in progress that I am,a dn my awareness of that only continues to grow. I'm a construction zone, and God is the foreman for a number of people sledgehammering away my old and decrepit parts or building up new parts of me.

I really have no idea what I'm doing most of the time. I think I do, but I don't. I just try my best, put my heart in it and go. So, what do I do? How can a person that knows very little do much of anything? Let's chat.

We are made to glorify God. That's what Isaiah says in 43:7. The real question comes down to how we do that (or avoid it), and it's here that I am really trying to grow. I want nothing more than for people to look at my life (and everything I'm doing in it) and see Jesus. I want God to radiate through me like sun through a window.

And yet, ain't it easy to get discouraged? You see, here's the part where I am trying to figure this out, and maybe you are, too. I try and try and try to do what I know to do, but I feel like there is never enough time in the day or people I can love or sermons I can preach or what-have-you. I am limited.

I don't know what to do in the moments that God does give me. I've had two ministry opportunities so far today, and honestly had no idea of what to do or say in either of them. I find myself Googling about this stuff and what to say to these people, because I haven't got a clue. I am limited.

I have people close to me that need me, and I don't even know how to help them. I have family and friends that want to spend time with me, and I am unable to do it all. I have ideas upon ideas for my ministries, and lack so much to make them happen. I am limited.

And so here's maybe what I'm learning most right now: I'm limited. I know that. You, if you know me, are probably more aware of my limits than I am. Ya know who else knows about my limits? God does. He gave me my limits. Like, they are on purpose. God didn't accidentally leave the parental controls on my abilities, blocking off things that I could be doing; He limits me on purpose. And I think I know why: so I depend on Him.

I'm one of those overly-scheduled, overly-independent, type-A kinda folks. I don't depend on anyone for anything if I can help it. I'm the Lone Ranger, Lone Wolf or Lonely Island or something like that. The problem with that is that I'm not an omni-God like the Lord that can truly pull that off. All my schedules and charts and calendars and what-not can do is help me use the limited time I have to use the limited energy I have to the best of my limited knowledge for His infinite glory.

And that's okay.

That's all He is asking for me to do. He just wants my best and my whole heart. To pour out myself for Him and others and do what I can. The best way to do that: rely on Him to help me do it. I can do infinitely more with my limitedness with His non-limited help. I am not Bradley Cooper in Limitless, but I worship a God that is all that and more, who loves me and cares for me and wants to help me through this life.

I'm a work in progress. Fines are doubled as you pass me. But if I rely on Him to get the project done, I can trust and hope that He will. He is my Rest, my Rock, my Salvation, my Stronghold and my refuge. So imma pour my heart out to Him, and hope and trust He'll get it done. I am confident in His promises.

That's certainly more than Lexington can say for Centrepointe, and that's all I need.

Until next time,
The Free-Flying Lightning Bug

Like a Child

Yesterday, I read Matthew 18:1-9 and 19:13-15. Both of these passages feature Jesus speaking about how to inherit or enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Take a look:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
² Then He called a child to Him and had him stand among them. ³ “I assure you,” He said, “unless you are converted and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child—this one is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. ⁵ And whoever welcomes one child like this in My name welcomes Me.
⁶ “But whoever causes the downfall of one of these little ones who believe in Me—it would be better for him if a heavy millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depths of the sea! ⁷ Woe to the world because of offenses. For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes. ⁸ If your hand or your foot causes your downfall, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes your downfall, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, rather than to have two eyes and be thrown into hellfire. -Matthew 18:1-9

Then children were brought to Him so He might put His hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ Then Jesus said, “Leave the children alone, and don’t try to keep them from coming to Me, because the kingdom of heaven is made up of people like this.” ¹⁵ After putting His hands on them, He went on from there. -Matthew 19:13-15

You see, He claims that we must come to Him like a small child to enter the Kingdom of God. We must have the trust and faith in God and in Jesus that a small child has in his/her father. We are completely dependent, relying on Him for everything and having ever-flowing love for Him. 

But, we often times are not like this. Our dependence and love for Jesus can be muffled by many things, including earthly possessions. I don't think it is a coincidence that in Matthew 19:16-22 we find the story of the rich young ruler. He claimed that he wanted to follow Jesus, but could not let go of his money. He was not able to part from possessions:

 Just then someone came up and asked Him, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?”
¹⁷ “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” He said to him. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
¹⁸ “Which ones?” he asked Him. Jesus answered:

Do not murder;
do not commit adultery;
do not steal;
do not bear false witness;
¹⁹ honor your father and your mother;
and love your neighbor as yourself.

²⁰ “I have kept all these,” the young man told Him. “What do I still lack?”

²¹ “If you want to be perfect,” Jesus said to him, “go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.”
²² When the young man heard that command, he went away grieving, because he had many possessions. -Matthew 19:16-22

Money brings safety and security, so we trust Him less. Money brings distraction and entertainment, which sucks away from our love for God. This is why Matthew 19:23-25 is such a somber passage:

²³ Then Jesus said to His disciples, “I assure you: It will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven! ²⁴ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
²⁵ When the disciples heard this, they were utterly astonished and asked, “Then who can be saved?” -Matthew 19:23-25

 The good news is that there is a flipside. In verse 26, Jesus says that all things are possible with God. That is then followed up with a quick back-and-forth between Jesus and Peter: 

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
²⁷ Then Peter responded to Him, “Look, we have left everything and followed You. So what will there be for us?”
²⁸ Jesus said to them, “I assure you: In the Messianic Age, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on 12 thrones, judging the 12 tribes of Israel. ²⁹ And everyone who has left houses, brothers or sisters, father or mother, children, or fields because of My name will receive 100 times more and will inherit eternal life. ³⁰ But many who are first will be last, and the last first. -Matthew 19:26-30

You see, we as Christians are called to be completely devoted to Jesus. We are willing to leave it all and be totally dependent on God, relying on Him day-by-day, step-by-step. We must walk by faith, trusting that we will be held tight by our Father and that the One who loves us won't let us go.

We can be confident in that because He loved us so much that He gave up His Son on the cross, and it was through that act that the impossible happened. The ones who were far from God, separated from Him by sin, were brought close. We were impossibly separated from God until God made it possible for us to draw near to Him.

So, it is no longer impossible for us to trust Him, walk with Him, love Him, be with Him and depend on Him in all things. It is no longer impossible for us to give up all we have to follow Him. It is no longer impossible to come to Him like a small child, and it is no longer impossible for us to inherit eternal life. The Kingdom is ours.

Love, Persecution, Creation, Faith, and the Reasonable, Natural Man: My Thoughts Following the Nye-Ham Debate

Last night, and honestly most of today, the Internet and media has been consumed in many ways with a debate that occurred at the Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky. The persons debating were Bill Nye, famous for his work educating children about science, and Ken Ham, founder of the Creation Museum and head honcho at www.answersingenesis.org. The question was "Is Creation a Viable Model of Origins?" Since this has been such a big deal, here are a few thoughts I had following my viewing of the debate:

• I am most certainly a Young Earth Creationist (YEC). For years, I wavered back and forth between the Young Earth approach to creation (that the Earth was created approximately 6,000 years ago) and the Old Earth (OEC) approach (that God has been sovereignly guiding the development of the Earth since the Big Bang and made natural selection occur in a way that He approved). I never fully committed to an OEC stance, but always kept it as an option. I am a student in the psychology department of the University of Kentucky, and have taken a few science classes outside of that realm (including geographical and astronomical science). The "evidence" for an OEC stance seems overwhelming at times, and we've all heard the argument about whether Genesis 1-2 means an actual, literal six-day creation.

          Now that I have pondered on this debate, I have realized that I must accept the YEC stance, and this is why: I wish to be consistent in my interpretation of Scripture. The Bible is written in different genres, and the book of Genesis is considered to be a "historical narrative." This means that, as Christians, we believe that stories such as David and Goliath, Jericho, and yes, the Creation story are written as they happened. They are featuring real people and real time periods. My reading yesterday in Genesis 31 talked about how Jacob had been working alongside his father-in-law Laban for 20 years. Never once have I wondered if this was a literal 20 years, nor have I wondered about the actual length of any other time span in Scripture that is a historical narrative. Therefore, to be consistent, I must assume that when Genesis 1 talks about six days, it is actually six days. There is no reason to think otherwise. Scripture must interpret Scripture. We cannot bring anything else in first.

[Note: it has rightly been brought to my attention that Genesis one is more than just historical narrative; it is also prose, a more lyrical style. This is what has allowed for some to come to the OEC conclusion. I maintain my YEC stance for two reasons: it is simpler/more straightforward and it also avoids getting into trouble trying to match up with an evolutionary stance. If God is truly all powerful, then I have no issue believing that He made the Earth in six days. Regardless, Scripture speaks truth. However you interpret this passage, as long as it is centered on Him, I have no serious problem with it.]

• The debate won't save any people. This seems like a bold statement, but it really isn't. No one is saved through logic. We are saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. That is the only way to the Father. The benefit of this debate was not saving people. I doubt many people even were shaken in their stance by the debate. I believe that because this debate hit on something very deep in the human way of thinking.

• Every person is in a faith-based religion. It is in human nature to put our faith in something beyond ourselves. The creationist puts their faith in God or some other deity, and the naturalist/evolutionist/atheist puts their faith in logic, reason and science. There is no real way to "prove" either of them. Mr. Nye said last night that he had no idea how the Big Bang was started; he also couldn't say how language, life or logic came to be. Mr. Ham had no way to tangibly prove that God exists. There is no possible way for us to find it all out. We cannot go back and see the past for ourselves. Therefore, we cannot use observable proof to say one way or the other on this debate. Instead, all people must put their faith in something, and that something is usually what we believe is the most likely to be true. We're all trusting in something we cannot see. 

• God is truth. That being said, I do believe in the triune God and His creation. In fact, I would go so far as to say that He is the truth. Why? Two things have lead me to believe this:

1. Logic: There are simply too many things that point to Him for me to deny it. Even in my high school days when I was a functional agnostic, I could not accept an atheistic or naturalistic approach to Creation. Something or someone had to have made it all. Life cannot spontaneously occur. Language requires intelligence to develop, and despite careers devoted to the field, not a single animal species has been able to be taught to truly use language in a cognitive manner. Morals and ethics came from somewhere; if we are all merely the product of natural selection, then how do we have any kind of altruistic attitude at all? What would be the point of good deeds and helping those in trouble? Why mourn the dead, or save the sick? Let 'em die. Sure, they're humans, but carp are fish that shouldn't be in most ponds, either. Kick them out of the gene pool and let us improve as a race! Yet, we know this is not how we work. Atheists and Christians united alongside each other in New Orleans after Katrina, and people have always done humanitarian works, no matter their belief system. This all only points to a greater something. 
2. The Spirit: This is the big one. I can use logic, reason, mathematics and observation until I'm blue in the face, only to never come to faith. That's because the scientific method (which, as a psychology student/researcher and lover of the sciences, I have used and support in many instances) falls tragically short when it cannot predict a result. The scientific method, in all of its genius, requires a testable subject. We must be able to hypothesize and make theories (testable predictions), set up and experiment of some kind, gather data, record the results and interpret the data in order to draw any conclusion from the scientific method. Yet, there is no way to do this with things we cannot test, which includes the existence of God and the deity of Jesus Christ. 

This is where we must rely on the Spirit of God to do the saving. We can have rational arguments, but only God can make a dead heart new. Check out 1 Corinthians 2:12-16 here:

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

You see, there are two kinds of people in the world: natural people and spiritual people. By natural, Paul (this passage's author) means one who is as they were born: lost, sinful, rebellious and on a path to an eternal Hell. By spiritual, he is not speaking of anyone who has a religion, but instead of someone who has the Spirit of God. This is also where the distinction between human wisdom and spiritual wisdom comes down. It's all about who has the Spirit and who doesn't. 

It is because of the Spirit that anyone can understand this wisdom of God, or the things of God, as said later in the passage. The natural, or unsaved person, thinks the things of God to be foolish; this is why Mr. Nye called himself a "reasonable man" throughout the debate last night. It is, by extension, considered "unreasonable" to be a Christian. The Christian faith is placed as opposed to the wisdom of the world, and this is to be expected. It is only by the Spirit's working that any of us understand. The Gospel is only discernible as truth by the spiritual mind, and it is by the Spirit that we have the mind of Christ. Therefore, the wisdom of this world holds no more weight against the wisdom of God. The truths of God are outside the understanding of the natural human.

Now, before any Christian gets cocky and thinks themselves better, notice that I said "outside" and not "beyond." Had I used "beyond" or "above" the understanding of the natural human, that would imply that I meant that we were more intelligent than someone who is without the Spirit; however, that could not be more wrong. It is not by anything we have done, but clearly by what He has done by giving us His Spirit. We should not think of our spiritual, God-given wisdom as making us better or smarter, but rather as a blessing and enlightenment into the mind of God. Keep this in perspective. We have all been natural men or women at some point in our lives.*

• This Spirit-given knowledge should impact how a Christian looks at anyone who is not saved. We must keep two things in mind as a result of this truth:

1. Christians must show love and understanding. We were natural humans at one time. There was a point where we were just as lost in the eyes of God as anyone else. If it weren't for Him saving me, I would probably be writing a blog post that praised the logic and evidence of Bill Nye right now. It is by His grace that sinners come to repentance and are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Therefore, we must always show love to those who are not in Christ. When we do not show love, it is akin to a homeless man being given a house, car and job, only to mock other homeless people. It is insensitive at best, and arrogant, stupid and sinful at worst. How dare we be swept from drowning in the flood of our sins and then turn to look down upon those still swirling in the waters. It is disgraceful and disgusting to do so.    
2. Christians must not be pitiful. Let's be real: we get our feelings hurt when the world calls us stupid, ignorant or helpless idiots. Yes, it is upsetting to be mocked and ridiculed, but this is hardly persecution as Christ predicted. We are not martyrs when we are made fun of or looked down upon. We are not in any real danger. May that be in the future for Christians in the United States? Very likely. But it is not the case currently, and since the Bible says we will seem foolish, we need to quit acting pitiful and realize that this is to be expected. 

Ultimately, I believe that there was good that has come from the debate. Mr. Ham stated that he wanted to bring discussions on creation and evolution back to degree, and if anything, this debate has done that. This has certainly been a good topic to discuss over the past 24 hours, and I hope the discussions continue. Ultimately, I believe it is helpful to reflect on these truths and have these talks. They solidify faith and bring God's Word to the forefront of our focus. For that, I thank both Mr. Ham and Mr. Nye. May the conversation on this topic continue until the end! 

*For more on this, check out chapter two of D.A. Carson's book The Cross and Christian Ministry

Better Than A Pharisee?

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:20, HCSB

Yesterday I was in a discussion with a friend of mine about her weekend. She told me about how busy her weekend was, primarily because of church. Intrigued, I asked how it was that church had made her weekend so busy.

She went on to tell me how she was Catholic, and due to several factors she couldn't control, was late to mass on Saturday night. She told me that mass lasts for one hour, and after she missed the first thirty minutes, she felt like her attendance in mass "didn't count." Thus, she went again on Easter morning, to make sure that she was in a full mass service this weekend.

Now, I am not one to bash Catholics, but this conversation really got me thinking about one aspect of Catholicism that many Protestants deal with, as well: can we earn any good standing before God? This ranges from full-on works-based salvation to just improving how God sees us, based upon our actions. Is there any way to improve our standing before God on our own? Does God have a scoreboard, keeping track of our good deeds? Do we have to gauge whether or not our deeds count?

The answer is no. There is nothing we personally can do to improve our standing before God. We are all sinners, and according to the book of Isaiah, even our good deeds are merely dirty rags in the eyes of God (if you want Isaiah's version, look up the real meaning of Isaiah 64:6).

In the passage I included at the top of this post, Jesus is describing how He fulfills the law of the Old Testament. He describes how He is not the destroyer, but rather the completer of these writings, and how one must be more righteous than the Pharisees to get into heaven.

Now, let's review: the Pharisees were the group of people in New Testament Judea that held to God's law the closest. No one had all of the sacrifices and such down like these people. They gave, fasted and prayed according to the law. They practically lived in the temple.

And Jesus says we must be more righteous than that to enter heaven.

Can you see our dilemma? I don't know how righteous you think you are, but I know I have nothing on the Pharisees. When you've memorized the first five books of the Old Testament AND follow them to a T, lemme know. Until then, we're gunna operate under the assumption that the Pharisees have us beat on the righteousness scale. That is the level we must surpass to get to heaven. Seems impossible, right?

That, my friends, is Jesus' point. He knows that no one follows the law better than them. Jesus knew when He made that statement that all fall short of that level, much less surpass it. Thus, we must conclude that since no one is at a heaven-worthy level (not even the Pharisees are righteous enough), no one can get to heaven based upon their deeds. No one.

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." -Romans 3:23, HCSB

Jesus was preaching Romans before it was written. There isn't a person on Earth that can improve their standing before God with deeds, since we can't get to a level to save ourselves, and even our good deeds are dirty rags to God. This is why we depend upon Jesus alone for our salvation! He alone could be the one righteous enough to earn God's favor, since He was not polluted by sin. He alone could be the spotless Lamb, slaughtered for the salvation of the people of God. He alone could earn our salvation.

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—  not from works..." -Ephesians 2:8-9a, HCSB

We're saved by grace, not works. We have nothing to bring to God, but praise be to Jesus that He brings it all for us! We may rest in Him, knowing that He is the one responsible for our good standing before God, washed white with His blood before the throne of God!

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song!

He Didn't Ask Anything He Wouldn't Do Himself

"...and He went out, bearing His own cross." -John 19:17, ESV

The Christian walk is hard. No one every said this was easy, and if they did, they lied to you. As with growing in any relationship, our relationship with God also takes quite a bit of effort. When Jesus commanded His followers to "deny himself and take up his cross and follow me," He wasn't insinuating that to be a walk in the park.

To deny yourself means to put aside your desires. To pick up your cross means you must give yourself up, even be willing to die. To follow Jesus logically means that you aren't following anything else.

Money. Sex. Drugs. Power. Popularity. Spouse. Relationship. Grades. Success. Gossip. Work.

None of it but Jesus.

But here's the thing: He's not asking you to do anything He wouldn't do Himself.

He denied Himself, as Lord of the Universe, Creator God of all and Ruler of everything, to come to earth as a man. Not even an attractive or cool man, but as a servant, an average-appearing man.

He followed God, doing not His will, but that of the Father (Mark 14:36). He served and did whatever the Father asked of Him, following whatever He said.

And then He took up His cross. Literally. The ultimate giving up of Himself occurred on Calvary. He gave it all. He bore the cross across His bleeding, scourged back and was nailed to it.

Jesus was our ultimate example. If we are to follow Jesus, if we are truly Christians, we will look to His example. We will deny our "rights" and desires, in order to adjust to His. We will follow what God is leading to do, regardless of the other places we could go. And we will pick up our crosses, taking whatever punishment is needed in order to keep Christ first in our lives.

Jesus was the ultimate example. Will we follow suit?

Do You Want to Get Well?

"When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to get well?'" -John 5:6, HCSB

I was reading John 5 this morning, and I came across this verse in my reading. It comes from a story about a man who was sick. This sick man was living in an area around a pool that moved every now and then when an angel made the water stir. This stirring of the water announced that the angel had been there, and the first person into the pool after the angel would be healed of their ailment.

Not surprisingly, this pool was constantly surrounded by sick people. I mean, think about it: if a pond could cure what ails ya, wouldn't this pond be constantly surrounded by people?

This man was one of those people. Yet, he was so sick that he couldn't get up and go to the pool when the angel came. Thus, for 30+ years, he remained sick. That's when Jesus walked up and asked him the question that I quoted at the top of the post: "do you want to get well?"

This got me to thinking: does Jesus ask everyone this? Everyone in the world is a sinner, and we are all sick with sin. We walk about in the world, sinning, and Jesus asks "do you want to get well?"

If you do not know Christ, you can get well. Your sin can be removed. Your addictions, your sins, your bad habits; they can all be removed by Christ. Put your faith in Christ, and accept the gift of grace!

And you, Christian, don't think you're out of the woods. How many Christians are battling with sins? How many Christians are hiding a porn addiction? How many Christians are gossips? How many Christians walk around arrogant, lying, hating, cheating and lusting after the world?

If you are a Christian, you should know that Christ has called you to a different life. Put away the life of the flesh and let the grace of God work in your heart. You may feel trapped in a cycle of sin, but He can heal you of that. The question is: do you want to get well, or are you content to lay around, sick in sin and worldly desires?

The Prize, Part Three: Glory Forever

Happy Valentine's Day! Today, on the day of love, let's finish looking into the ultimate box of choclates, our prize in Christ:

"...But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly [or upward] call in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 3:13b-14, HCSB

We looked last Thursday at leaving the past behind us, and then started reaching forward to what was ahead on Tuesday. But what, what are we reaching for? What is the prize that this passage is alluding to? The answer is both beautiful and simple. Our prize is God.

We are looking forward to a prize that is beyond this earthly life. Our prize lies in the glorious future we have awaiting us with our Father, our Savior and His Spirit, all around us. We will glorified alongside Christ, heirs to the kingdom of God.

This is huge.

Our past ain't good, y'all. We are sinful humans, guilty before the holy One above all. We have lied and cheated and sleazed around and lusted over and murdered and hated and coveted our whole lives, directly rebelling against God. We are peasants whoe have spit in the face of the King.

Yet, despite that, His love never fails. He still sent Jesus, His only Son, to die on a cross and whoever believes in Him, calling Him Lord, shall be saved.

But that salvation is only the beginning. We are saved, yes, but we will one day be glorified. We will be lifted high and be princes and princesses of light. That, my friends, is the prize. That future of awe and wonder and glory, our glorification alongside the even greater glorification of Christ, forever and ever, is beyond words. I don't even have a vocabulary to express the greatness of this, and I'd bet you don't, either. We have God and all of His glory, forever. All the while, we will be glorified, as well. Amazing.

Let us run toward the prize, let us make this our aim. May we leave our sinful, rebellious, troubled past behind and pursue our future, straining to reach it. Let's do that, as there is nothing more beautiful than that.

The Prize, Part One: What's In Your Rearview?

I have a few books in God's Word that really impact me regularly, and I'm bringing a passage of one of them today. Check out this passage from Paul's letter to the Philippians:

"...But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God's heavenly [or upward] call in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 3:13b-14, HCSB

What a great passage, right?! I mean, what an approach to life! Let's break this down and see how we can live this out:

1. Forget what is behind
-Your past doesn't mean a thing. I'm not saying to totally forget your past; I'm not one those types. What I am saying is this: no matter what is in your rearview, it is in your rearview. No matter what I see behind me when I am driving my truck, it is still behind me. Good or bad, I have driven past it and it is relatively unimportant to my further travel.

Yes, our past shapes the present and future. If I just drove through a rainstorm, my truck is now covered in water. If I just left the gas station, my tank is full. The events of our past often direct and effect the manner and appearance of our travels. Yet, we must also move on.

The bad things, the rain storms in your life, can be seen in a new light in Christ. I am not saying they will go away; if anything, I've found that the radar gets more shades of red and orange the further towards Jesus we go. However, our approach to these hard times can be altered by His guidance. If you are in a storm, trying to navigate on your own, it can be easy to get lost. Discouraged. Hurt. You may even veer off the road in the torrential downpours of life if you have no guidance.

With guidance from the Lord above, however, you are able to approach these storms with confidence. You can know that He will guide you through the heart of the difficulty. He will never abandon you, nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6).

In the end, we must forget the past. Our life before Christ is filled with not only storms, but rebellions, lusts, mistakes, lies, troubles... the list goes on. We cannot proceed toward the glory of God if we continue to carry all of this baggage with us.

In the book Pilgrim's Progress, our hero is loaded down with a massive load on his back. Before we come to Christ, we all have a similar load. Like the hero in Pilgrim's Progress, we must have that load removed before we proceed toward God and His purpose for our life. That load, that burdensome past of sin and troubled heart can only be removed by one Being: Jesus Christ.

He died and rose again to remove those burdens from our backs! Our past, no matter what has happened, can be and will be removed by your Savior the moment that you place your faith in His great gift of grace and salvation, calling on Him as your Lord and Savior. Put your past in the rearview! He can put it behind you; allow Him to do so!

Check back next week for the continuation of this passage. We've got the past behind us, so the question is: what's on the road ahead?

He Hears Us in Our Pit

"Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray. O Lord, in morning you hear my voice; in the morning I direct my prayer to you and watch." -Psalm 5:1-3, ESV

Ever have days when this rings psalm is the cry of your heart? I know I do. On the days when I am sad or lonely or feel betrayed or am dealing with temptation, this is the cry of my heart.

Oh Lord, hear my cry! Oh Lord, hear the call of your servant as I groan and plead with you! May our prayers of praise lift You higher and our prayers of thanksgiving give You the credit and glory. May our cries for help reach Your holy ears and may You show us mercy in our times of need!

The beauty of it all is... He hears us.

"...He regards the prayes of the destitute and does not despise their prayers." -Psalm 102:17, ESV

When we are in need, He hears us. When we feel that we are at the bottom of a pit and cannot possibly climb out, He hears us. When we are on our knees each morning, begging our Lord to give us the strength to face the day, He hears us.

This is great news, Christian! Rejoice in His hearing of our prayers in time of need!

The Defeat of the Impossible

"For nothing is impossible with God." -Luke 1:37, HCSB

How many times have you heard that verse, right? It is a favorite verse of the underdog and athlete, the troubled and addicted.

 "There's nothing God can't help us achieve, and there is nothing that can stop us with Him at our side."

This is very true, but there is a definite asterisk next to this truth: nothing is impossible with God when He decides to do so. The passage that this verse comes from is the same passage in which the angel Gabriel is telling Mary that she will give birth to the Son of God. She is obviously flabbergasted and confused by this news, and so she asks (very humbly) how this could happen, considering that she was a virgin.

The angel proceeds to tell her of how her relative Elizabeth was currently preggo at an old age, and that "nothing is impossible with God." God is all powerful, but this verse is not meant purely to inspire us on fourth-and-goal with time expiring. It is showing that nothing will stop God on His mission. Nothing will prevent God from ruling the world, and nothing can stand in His way.

Old age? Nope.

Virgin? Not an issue.

Your past addictions? Nothing He can't overcome.

Your physical condition? Not a handicap in the working of God.

God can use whomever and whatever He so chooses to accomplish His plans. He's running the ship, and nothing can slow Him down.

You may wonder in this moment: "what role do I play in this? If God is in charge, and He is looking to accomplish His goals and plans, what do I do?" You do exactly what Mary did.

"'I am the Lord's slave,' said Mary. 'May it be done according to your word.'" -Luke 1:38, HCSB

We humbly accept God's power and lordship, and do as He says. We are His slaves, and He is our Good Master. He will accomplish great things through us, so long as we are humbly looking to accomplish His great things.

Perhaps God's purpose in your defeat of the impossible is to win a football game and give Him glory for it. Perhaps His purpose in your defeat of the impossible is to overcome your physical limitations to show the love of Christ to others. Perhaps His purpose in your defeat of the impossible is to share your story of addiction and redemption in order to help someone else see the love and freedom of life with Christ.

You never know what impossible task God may want to overcome through you, but He already did one. Your salvation through the blood and resurrection is a miracle in and of itself; who's to say He doesn't have something else for you? Humble yourself, and look to accomplish His plans with His power and might.

A Word to Young Ladies...From the Christ-Following Guys Out Here

This post is written to all of those young Christian ladies out there, from the point of view of a young Christian man. Hopefully, some of the young ladies that are following God out there will see this and be helped to see where the heart of many Christian dudes my age (college-aged) is. I don't tend to write more personal posts like this one, but it's really on my heart today, so enjoy. It's about to get real up in here.

Dear Ladies,

There is a massive problem on our college campuses (and in the world as a whole): the idea of a biblical man is becoming a rarer and rarer goal for guys our age (I'm sure I just got an "amen" from some of you). Dudes are simply not willing to man up and be the spiritual leader anymore. In fact, being a spiritual man isn't all that popular, in general.

However, there isn't only bad news. The God-fearing man is not extinct, and in many ways, is making a comeback. Many college-aged guys are striving to follow God in a more real and serious manner these days. While the total number of us may be few, there is a population of young men that are trying to follow after God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength.

Yes, we stumble. We fail. We don't always have it together. We may even fall in front of you. Yet, we exist. While many of us are growing in Christ, we are also not meant to be alone. This is where you come in.

This same group of men is looking for you. Ok, not you specifically. That would be creepy. We are looking, however, for a woman that is truly running after her Lord and Savior. We are searching for a girl who has sold out and given all that her heart can give to Christ and her walk with Him. We are in pursuit of a woman that sounds like the words of Solomon in Proverbs:

"Charm is deceptive and beauty

is fleeting,

but a woman who fears the Lord

will be praised."

-Proverbs 31:30, HCSB

You see, a nice appearance is great. This is not a letter suggesting that you swap the gym for the couch. No, I'm instead encouraging you to go deeper and deeper in your walk with God. Fear the Lord. Love Him. Be passionate about His mission, reflect His heart and walk in His grace.

All of this is to say: ladies, your Christian walk is important to us, as well. Not every guy is into yoga pants and low-cut shirts; some guys are into a woman with a bible in her hand and prayers on her lips. If you want to truly attract a God-fearing man, reflect the words of Proverbs 31 instead of Cosmo.

Don't be afraid to be that kind of woman. Encourage us to be the men of God that we should be. If both men and women in the Church would encourage the other sex to follow the Lord with all their heart, and help each other do so, there could be a lot of happy young men and women, all serving the Lord with all they have.

My prayer is that my generation would grab hold of this. I pray that young men would step up and take their walk seriously, becoming the spiritual leaders they are made to be. I pray that young women would put aside the opinions of the world and run headlong after their Savior, becoming the God-fearing woman of Proverbs 31. I pray that men and women of the Church would come together and serve our King in His mission, and I pray that y'all are praying for this, as well.

Ladies, stay steadfast. The biblically-based man is out there. I promise.

Sincerely,
A young man in search of the Proverbs 31 woman

An Eternal Kingdom

"...and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; His kingdom will never end.” -Luke 1:33, NIV

Kings and queens, once upon a time, were all over the earth. They had empires and knights and such. Yet, eventually, every king and queen's reign comes to an end. Perhaps they are overthrown by challengers to the throne, killed in battle, or maybe they just get old and die. Regardless, no earthly king has ever reigned forever.

Nowadays, kings aren't so common. Instead, others have "kingdoms:" Apple, Starbucks, money, sex, relationships, McDonald's, politics, alcohol, etc. The list could go on for days, seriously. Almost anything or anyone on this earth has the capability to reign in a kingdom of sorts. But, just like the actual kings of the past, all of this will end someday.

There will come a day when there are no more Salted Caramel Mochas (which I hope happens once I'm gone), no more iPhones, no more Twitter or Facebook (remember Myspace? Me either.). There will even come a day when money will not matter, and politics will be irrelevant and relationships and sex and everything else under the sun will be pointless.

 

"'Meaningless! Meaningless!'
    says the Teacher.
'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'"

-Ecclesiastes 1:2, NIV

Yet, there will never come a day when Jesus Christ isn't reigning. He was there in the beginning when the earth was formed, He's ruling right now, and will be King forever and ever and ever. No one will ever overthrow Him. No one will kill Him in battle. He will never grow too old to reign.

The question is this: how do you respond to His eternal kingship? Which kingdom will you fight and live and breathe for? Will you bow before the kingdoms of earth: the pursuit of hedonistic pleasure in unimportant, shallow things, or will you lift up the Kingdom of God: the pursuit of pleasure in our eternal Lord and King of everything?

Let's Just Worship

A worship guide for the new year (and the rest of our lives):

"Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary."

- Psalm 96:1-6, NIV

 

Isn't this a great passage? It has a lot to it, and I really just wanted to share this with you all today. Let's break it down, and I hope you follow each section, worshipping Him:

 

"Sing to the LORD a new song, sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, praise His name...": Oh, sing to the Lord! Sing with all your heart. May the whole planet, nay, the entire universe sing to Him who is seated above all! He is worth of all praise and glory and honor, forever and ever and ever! Praise His great name, the Name that is above all names!

 

"Proclaim his salvation day after day, declare His glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples...": The natural result of, or perhaps better called the continuation of, worshipping our Lord is the declaration of His splendor and majesty and power to the nations for all to hear. If we truly worship Him, it will spill over onto into a flowing river of praise from our lips, taking His name to the ends of the earth.

 

"For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens...": There is nothing on this planet or beyond this planet that is worthy of the praise that our God is due. Why? Because He made it all. He made light and dark and land and water and stars and moons and planets. He made birds and fish and plants and mammals and invertebrates and reptiles and amphibians. He made wood and metal and oil and combustion and paper and jewels. He made relationships and power and love and sex and passion and happiness. Everything you could ever make into an idol, anything that you could put over Him (idols don't have to be objects; they are ANYTHING we put over God) was made by Him or forbidden by Him. In fact, the very act of idolatry is sin.

 

Instead we should fear Him. A writer called the fear of God, "the convergence of awe, reverence, adoration, honor, worship, confidence, thankfulness, love, and yes, fear." All of that is what our reaction toward God should be. Anything less isn't up to par.

 

"Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and glory are in his sanctuary...": This is why we fear Him. Splendor and majesty and strength and glory surround Him; I don't think I have to expand. I don't even know if I can. Our Lord is so majestic and wonderful and powerful and glorious and beautiful and amazing that words simply do not do Him justice.

 

Just sing a song and worship. Just bow and lift up His name. That is the only fitting response.

Have a Heart

So, the world didn't end on December 21, 2012. Shocker. While I would have loved to have been able to go see Jesus, I'm not upset that the world didn't end. After all, "to live is Christ (Philippians 1:21)." Life is a good thing. In fact, it's a great gift of God.
The truth is, though, that the world as we know it will end. Some unknown day (Mark 13:32), the world will end. With that end of the world will come a judgment day.
Every person will be judged on their deeds. Since we are all sinners that have rebelled against our great God, the verdict for every single one of us, left to ourselves, will be guilty. Some, however, have received the gift of salvation in this life, and will be declared "not guilty" before God on judgment day (courtesy of the blood and death of Jesus Christ).
Unfortunately, not everyone will come to Christ. There will be lots of people who will die between now and judgment day, and those people will not have received grace. They will not have let Jesus' blood cover their sins and they will not have believed in Jesus as Lord. They will die, be judged guilty before the holy God of the universe, and will be sentenced to an eternity in Hell. That's a never-ending future in a literal Hell.
And you and I know what can keep them from this. You and I, fellow Christ follower, know the great gospel of Christ. You and I know the truth of Jesus. You and I know the sweet goodness of our Lord and Savior. Yet, like a kindergartner on the playground, we want to keep it to ourselves and fail to share the greatest gift we could ever receive.
Oh, that we would have a heart for the damned and doomed like is described in Ezekiel 21! Read with me please:
"Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them with broken heart and bitter grief. And when they ask you, ‘Why are you groaning?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the news that is coming.'" -Ezekiel 21:6-7a, NIV

Oh Church, may we groan! May we groan before the lost with broken heart and bitter grief. We know that bad news is coming! Let us actually care! Oh Lord, please help us to have this heart for those who are hurtling toward destruction! Please let us legitimately have broken hearts, weeping for those who don't know Christ. Please let us bitterly wail into the night for those that do not know our Lord. Pray that we feel this way! We have the truth of Christ, let us want to share it and prevent this impending doom!

Who Is Your Confidence In?

Ever feel like God wants you to do something, but you feel you aren't capable of doing it? Welcome to the life of Moses.

In Exodus 4, Moses claims that he is not "eloquent..because I am slow and hesitant in speech." He said this to God because God had decided that Moses needed to be a spokesman for Him before Pharaoh. Moses tried to tell God that this wasn't a great idea, but God wasn't feeling the same way. God told Moses that He was in charge, that He gives people the ability to see and hear and speak. Moses still didn't buy it, and God allowed Aaron (Moses' brother) to speak for him.

Yet, in Acts, I found an interesting passage. In the middle of a sermon on Israeli history and God's goodness, Stephen drops an interesting line:

"So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was powerful in his speech and actions." -Acts 7:22, HCSB

Here, we have an intriguing tidbit of Moses' backstory. Before he was the "slow and hesitant speaker" in the desert, Moses had been trained in Egypt growing up, and was considered a great speaker. Moses claimed he had never been a good speaker, but he was lying. He was, in fact, a good speaker. HIs problem wasn't in his ability; his problem was where he placed his confidence.

Moses was putting his confidence in speaking in himself, and the idea of speaking before one of the most powerful people in the world will make anyone "slow and hesitant." Instead, as God tried to make him see, he should have put his confidence in God.

God makes us how we are, and gives us gifts that we can use. We may not think we have them, but if we put our faith and confidence in God, we will allow us to be able to do whatever He has called us to do.

Who are you putting your confidence in? Yourself and your skills, or the One that gave them to you?

Filth and Truth: How Grace and Works Combine

"Therefore, ridding yourselves of all moral filth and evil, humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save you." -James 1:21, HCSB

This passage is in my all-time favorite book, James. James is a short, six-chapter book toward the end of the New Testament. It was written by Jesus' brother, which is pretty cool. What makes James my favorite book, however, has nothing to do with its size or author; I love how "real" James keeps it. James encourages us to take our theology and put it to work. Jesus knowledge is fantastic; necessary, even. Yet, if you do nothing with it, you're just a filing cabinet. I'd much rather use my info to do God's work than be a spiritual file folder (even though that's not always what I do!).

This verse is classic James: a mixture of deep truth and a practical, "Just Do It" attitude. It starts off by saying that we should "[rid] ourselves of all moral filth and evil." I'll get right on that!

See, James doesn't pull punches. If I had written this, I'd have probably said "try to push all sin out of your life, continuing to get better at it as you grow." James just tells us to do it. And honestly, we cannot. There is no possible way to perfectly follow this, or even follow it at all on our own. Check out the second half of this verse:

"...humbly receive the implanted word, which is able to save you." This half is the key to the first half; the truth of God's Word, His gospel, is the only thing that can save us from our sin, ridding us of all moral filth and evil. The only way that we can escape the clutches of sin is to humbly receive God's gift of grace and accept this glorious Word.

Without God's Word, we remain trapped, trying as hard as we can to fulfill the first half of the verse. But that is the beauty of this passage, and of the entire book of James: we cannot work righteously without God's working through and in us, and we cannot live out God's truth without working in response to this truth, walking in a righteous manner and following God.

This, my friends, is the gospel! A saving grace and truth, a miracle, and a changed heart that works as a result of that, running away from sin and toward holiness and righteousness. Christian, rejoice in this! It's amazing!

Milk Jug Evangelism

"And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, 'you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.'" -Acts 1:4-5, ESV

Here we have a scene at the beginning of Acts, where Christ is speaking to His disciples just prior to His ascension back into heaven with the Father. He directly tells them not to go out and tell people of His gospel, but to "wait for the promise of the Father...the Holy Spirit."

He did not want them to tell people the good news without the Holy Spirit being with them. Why would that be? It's actually pretty straight forward. How does one come to faith in Christ? It is by the grace of God, through faith. The Spirit is the Being behind all that grace and faith, working over hearts like Ty Pennington on a messed-up house.

It is by the Spirit's working that we are saved, and it is by the Spirit's power that we are able to share this great gospel with others, and it is by the Spirit that these people may come to faith in said gospel. If I haven't made it clear enough, it is the Spirit that does the work in evangelism; we are merely a vessel for Him to do His work through.

If you had an empty milk jug, how much good would that do for a bowl of dry cereal? Not much; nothing is going to come out of that milk jug, and no change is going to occur to that bowl of Fruit Loops. Yet, if that jug has milk in it, then that milk can pour into the bowl and change everything about the cereal: taste, consistency, protein levels, etc. It is not the jug, but the milk inside that does the changing. Similarly, it is not the Christian, but the Spirit inside that does the work.

Oh, and by the way, we don't have to wait like the early disciples did. If you are a Christ follower, then you have already been baptized by the Spirit and now have the power of God inside of you. Spreading the gospel is now something you can do, because you already have the Spirit! Rely on His power to save lives, not your own! You and I cannot save anyone, but the Spirit inside of us can! Be encouraged, as all you are is a vessel.

As long as a milk jug holds milk and pours it when it is supposed to, it is doing the job it was made for. As long as we hold the Spirit (which we do) and pour it out when we are supposed to (which should be a lot), then we are doing our job. Be a milk jug, and leave the rest to the Spirit. That's part of why we have Him.