Study to show yourself approved to God!

Most people have a Facebook account. Social media has opened doors for us that otherwise would have never been opened. Old friends can get connected and get caught up on life, pictures can be shared between friends and family, and professionals can use social media to network and find job possibilities.

My personal use of Facebook has been to express my political views, share my two blogs, and to create a network of believers so that good, solid, and edifying theological debate can happen. All of this has happened through Facebook; I've met some strong solid believers who have given good counsel from God's word and have shared some fantastic resources where a christian can go and get valuable information.

Some debate threads would consume reams of paper as the topic grew in scope and while others jumped into the fray. For me it has all been a positive experience. But I'd like to share today one concern that I've come across during some of the debates.

I'd like to share at least three of the more serious theological errors that have come up in debate or in posts.  First, we should know as believer's how to handle God's word in a way that brings honor to His name, we as believer's should know how to rightly divide the word of truth, we should also at least have a workable systematic theology by which we can present the truth's of God's word in a logical and cogent manner.

Here are 3 of the more serious errors that I've come across:

1. Kinism: Now if your like me you're saying never saw that word before, what does it mean? Here is a quick definition.

Kinism is one branch of a diverse series of religious movements that promote racial segregation. What makes Kinism different is the belief that God has ordained an order for mankind that goes beyond personal and individual worship. They believe that God has set boundaries for groups of human beings and that human beings should respect those boundaries by maintaining a tribal order. http://www.gotquestions.org/kinism.html

In short order it is a type of Biblical sanctioned segregation and racism.

2. The second error that I came across is the denial of original sin and the belief that man can be justified by his works. This error continued and said that the believer does not receive the righteousness of Christ (called imputed righteousness). This teaching denies the orthodox and biblical teaching that man is born with Adams guilt and thus has a depraved sinful nature (Psalm 51:5; Eph. 2:3; Gen 8:21).

 But the Bible says that man can't work to attain God's pleasure. Man must receive God's righteousness ( Rom  3:20,28; 4:5,22,25).

This is a very serous error that seeks to spread the poison that man is basically good and that he can through his own human efforts please God. This teaching takes the significance of the cross away for the believer, for the believer clings tot that "old rugged cross" for in and through the cross the believer finds propitiation for his sins.

The last error taught that there is no Second Coming of  Christ-the preterist teaches that Christ came already at the destruction of the Jewish Temple in A.D. 70.

This false teaching takes away the blessed hope of the christian as Titus tells us we have: "while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13).

There are dozens of scriptures that deal with the second coming of Christ or the Day of the Lord here are just a few:

Matthew 16:27   For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.

Matthew 23:39    For I tell you, ye again until yoou wil not see mu say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'

Matthew 24:27   For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  

Matthew 24:30  "At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn.  they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. 

Matthew 24: 36-39  No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.   As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.   For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;  and they knew nothng about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.  That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Matthew 24:42  "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come."

Mathew 26:64  "Yes it is as you say,"  Jesus replied.  "But I say to all of you:  In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Mark 8:36-38    What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?  If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with holy angels.

Mark 13:26-27   At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.  And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

Mark 13:35-37   Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back - whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.  If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.  What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!'

Mark 14:61-62    Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?" "I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Might One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Luke 9:26-27   If anyone I fanyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.  I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God."

Luke 17:28-30    "It was the same in the days of Lot.  People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.  But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.  "It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.

Luke 18:8    I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.  However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Luke 21:25-28  "There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars.  On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.  Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.   At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, becasue your redemption is drawing near."

Christian read, and study your Bible.. Pray for understanding, seek out good, solid commentary's, discuss in small groups, and talk to your pastor and teaching elders.

Study to show yourself approved to God.

Addendum: The above stated position would be held by a hyper preterist. A partial preterist does not believe that all prophecy was fullfilled in A.D. 70, thus a partial preterist does believe the future coming of Christ that is physical and real.
 

" Your Best Life Now" is contrary to the gospel message as taught by Christ.

John Bunyan speaks out! Bunyan's voice from his prison cell in Bedford, England cries out with the warning that the Christian life is fraught with difficulties.

Bunyan summons us to view the Christian life from a different lens than the prosperous and pleasure-addicted churches that surround us today in our culture. Bunyan was imprisoned for 12 years for refusing to stop preaching the gospel.

John Bunyan was sent to prison having four children with his oldest daughter Mary born blind. John's wife has just passed away before he was sent to the Bedford  County Goal.

Bunyan calls us to live in this world as a Pilgrim on our way to the Celestial City. In his book Pilgrims Progress, Bunyan tells how Christian starts his Pilgrimage on the Hill of Difficulty. On the contrary, we modern Christians have come to see safety and ease as our right.

We in our soft and comfortable churches sit and listen to fifty thousand dollar sound systems, to entertain and make us feel good. We have become soft and have come to relish the "feel good" message of Christianity. I can still hear Christian talking as he ascends the Hill of Difficulty:

"This hill, though high, I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend,
For I perceive the way to life lies here:
Come, pluck up, heart, let's neither faint nor fear!
Better, though difficult, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe."



"Like the tearing of my flesh from my bones."




That's how John Bunyan described parting with his family after their brief visits with him in prison. Each time they walked away, John was reminded of the great difficulty his incarceration imposed on them, especially on his blind daughter, Mary. "What sorrow you are likely to have as your portion in this world!" he wrote. "You must be beaten, must beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand other calamities, even though I cannot so much as bear the wind blowing upon you."
Adding to John's misery was the knowledge that by just saying the word, he could be released. Just one simple statement—"I will not preach the gospel of Jesus Christ"—was all it would take to set him free to support his family again. But John couldn't do it. "I have determined," he said, "the almighty God being my help and my shield, yet to suffer, if frail life might continue so long, even till the moss shall grow on mine eyebrows, rather than thus to violate my faith." And so John waited on God for twelve long years in the overcrowded, unsanitary, poorly heated Bedford jail. Here's something of what he learned there.

How many of us could truly say as Bunyan said,
"Bless you, Prison, for having been in my life!"

The picture that the Bible paints and that of John Bunyan and all the suffering saints, is completely contrary to that of Joel Osteen's new book, Your Best Life Now, unfortunately Osteen's theology has taken hold in our flesh gratifying culture, a culture that screams "it all about me."

Christian, be willing to die to self, be willing to kill the desires in your life that are contrary to the will of God, be willing to pluck out an eye or to cut off a hand if need be. Allow the Holy Spirit to have His way in your life, don't quench the work of the Holy Spirit by fulfilling the desires of the flesh and carnal mind.

Time to do some hard soul searching!

Today's devotion will be short but extremely encouraging, but also extremely challenging. In the past I've talked about the life of David Brainerd the missionary who brought the gospel to the Native American Indians of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

John Piper in his book The Hidden Smile Of God writes about the lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd. Towards the end of the chapter on Brainerd, Piper lists some of the character and spiritual qualities that puts Brainerd in the Christian hall of fame.

I'd like to list these qualities and allow you to do some hard soul searching to see how many of these character and spiritual qualities are alive and practiced in your daily life. In other words would the people who know you best say that you emulate these character traits in your life?

Okay, here we go. Brainerd was characterized by having a:

1. Passion for prayer
2. Passion for practicing the spiritual discipline of fasting.
3. Passion for the Word of God.
4. Displaying an unremitting perseverance through hardship.
5. Having a relentless focus on the glory of God.
6. Having an utter dependence on God's grace.
7. Totally depending on the Righteousness of Christ alone.
8. Having a burning desire to reach those who were unsaved.
9. Maintaining his personal holiness while he suffered (remember Brainerd dies at age 29 of tuberculous. It is recorded in his diary that he would ride his horse while spitting up blood on his way to bring the gospel to the Indian's in Pennsylvania).
10. His mind was fixed on those things that are eternal.
11. And finally finishing well, without cursing the disease that cut him down in the prime of his life.

This is how Brainerd is described by John Piper through Brainerd's own personal diary writings. Piper ends this chapter by saying: "With all his weaknesses and imbalances and sins, I love David Brainerd."

Not too much to say here Christian, this is between you and your God, but I'd encourage you to be intentional and pick one or two of Brainerd's character traits and make them part of your spiritual life; to God's glory and honor.

Its Not About You!

I've written in the past about who my hero's are, men like John Bunyan, David Brainerd, William Cowper, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others. What these men all have in common is that they were totally and unconditionally sold out to Jesus Christ, in other words they practiced the gospel.

The call of our savior is to deny ourselves and take up our cross, ""If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). The one unmistakable characteristic of a truly regenerate person is that they die to themselves, listen to the words of the Apostle Paul, "And He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf" (1Corinthians 5:15).

Now, you have to know that before I make a critique of our church culture, I always start at home first, which is my own lack of dying to my own self will, or my own old man who is sinful at its very core. The critique of our church culture is certainly not of any one individual, but what I have observed and experienced in the church culture as a whole.

Where is the discipleship in our churches that echoes the words of our Savior to die to self ? to become slaves to Christ? to be that kernel of wheat that falls into the ground and dies cf. John 12:24? Where is the emphasis that the christian life is not about us being happy and getting our dreams fulfilled; why is the emphasis on us getting the most out of life?

This is an extremely serious flaw in many of our churches today. The ethos that many of our churches have adopted is the Joel Osteen theology of getting "your best life now." This theology certainly appeals to many sitting in the pews, but it is not the gospel and it truly is man centered.

When I read the lives of the above mentioned men, I'm impacted with the truth of the REAL gospel, the gospel that calls for a daily death to ourselves. Let us be like the Apostle Paul whose motto for his life was: " for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

Be intentional and get alone with God and ask God to show you the areas in your life that must be nailed to the cross. Make a list of those areas that the Holy Spirit shows you, and then find passages in the Holy Bible that speak to those areas and then begin to apply the power of God's word to those areas that need to be crucified.

My own personal axiom for living is "its not about us, its about His glory and honor."

Christian, be that living sacrifice for His glory and honor!

Who are you before God?

Robert Murray M' Cheyne (1813-1843) said one of the most profound and weighty comments that I've ever heard:

"A man is what he is on his knees before God, and nothing more."

                                                                         

M'Cheyne was a minister of the gospel in the Church of Scotland. He died at the young age of 29 from typhus. If you take the time to look at the life of this young man of God you will be struck with his personal holiness and deep passion for the things of God.

Take this short sentence and make it your own maxim.

Today, think what you are before your God, for his opinion is the only one that matters!

Who are your heroes?

Heroes, that's what childhood is made of. We all had our heroes and most of us still do. Do you recall those supermen and women who could leap buildings in a single bound, or who had a pair of bracelets that were indestructible.

How about a superhero who could turn invisible or run faster than the speed of light? All of those childhood superheros stay in our psyches even as adults. We all need to be able to look to others who seem taller and bigger than life itself.

What about now as adults? who are your heroes now?

 Well, let me share just a few of my personal heroes that I've come to look up to and hope to emulate their faith in my life.

First:  It would have to be John Bunyan the simple, British, Baptist pastor who while in prison wrote the book that to this day remains the widest circulating single piece of literature in the history of the human race outside of the Bible, The Pilgrim's Progress. 

John Bunyan could have at any time walked out of his prison; he only needed to agree to stop preaching, but he remained in prison for 12 years. In Bunyan's writings we see his intense struggle and anguish-he tells us that when his oldest child Mary -born blind from birth-visited him in prison, it was like the "pulling of the Flesh from my bones." 

I could write for hours on the life of John Bunyan who stayed in that Bedford prison because of his love of the Gospel-This one phrase captures the heart and soul of my hero; Bunyan wrote, " To live upon God that is invisible." Yes, that is the life of this great hero-to live his life, trusting in the invisible God.

Second: Dietrich Bonhoeffer-Bonhoeffer gave his life under the brutal Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer was a pastor, prophet, theologian, martyr and spy. He lived his live always looking for the will of God, and he had a constant longing to "hear God's voice." 

Bonhoeffer wrote, "To endure the cross is not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ. As Bonhoeffer was being led to the gallows, "The doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer's execution wrote, "I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God." That's because Bonhoeffer knew what Christians know. Death is not the end, but a beginning. His hanging was not final; it was merely a transition. 

I've come to love this man, and can't wait to see him.



Third, Pastor, teacher John MacArthur. John is my hero not for his personal suffering like Bunyan and Bonhoeffer, but for his love of the truth of God's Word. 

In today's politically correct atmosphere, and yes it is in the church-MacArthur has stood tall and unashamedly proclaimed the truth of God's word. His attention to detail and his careful handling of God's word causes me to want to emulate and follow his stalwart example. 

This one statement by MacArthur sums his ministry up best, when he says, " If Jesus, the sinless and perfect Son of God, limited Himself to speaking nothing during His incarnation except the truth He received from His Father, how much more should those who have been called into ministry speak only on the authority of divine Scripture."

Christian, make your heroes those of the faith-put off this worlds models and superstars, God give us the wisdom to make our hero's those who have a kind of faith we can follow and emulate. 

Are You Being Intentional In Your Spiritual Growth?

I love the word intention. Listen to Merriam Webster's definition of intention:

1: a determination to act in a certain way: resolve.

A list of synonyms include:aim, ambition design, intent, goal, mark, plan, purpose.

I want to plant this word with its deep meaning into our minds and souls and let it speak to us about our own relationship with Jesus Christ or our own spiritual growth.

I can tell you for a fact that you or I can't or won't grow spiritually unless we are intentional about our growth.

What then does it look like for us to live our lives with intentionality? For certain, we must have a game plan to develop our relationship with Christ, we need to go to the game book to get started. No Christian can grow into Christ-likeness without meditating daily in God's Word cf. Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:1-3 which tells us that we are to meditate “day and night.”

We need ambition  to "grow in Christ," but where does this ambition come from when we feel barren and dry? Listen to the words of Philippians 2:13, " For it is God who works in you...," the word work is in a verb form (action) it has the idea that there is action going on while producing an effect. 

Brothers and Sisters in Christ-He will never let you go, for he is inside of you exerting his powerful influence over you in ways that you are not even aware of. You my fellow-believers are His! He will give you the ambition (desire) to continue your spiritual growth. The old hymn writer Robert Robinson (who often wandered from his God after his conversion) penned the well known verse in his most famous hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing:"

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love

We need a design (plan) to grow in Christ. Take the time to write-out an individual plan for your own spiritual growth. Be intentional in your plan. list specific areas in your life that are weak and are not bringing glory to God and then find scripture that speaks to those weaknesses.

Find someone in the body of Christ that you can confess your sins to and follow the advice of James "therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed...(5:16). The Christian life was not designed to be done "alone." 

In conclusion: Live your life for Him. We are not our own, but we have been bought with a great price (1 Cor.6:20). Live your Christian life with intention for His Glory!