Christian Musings

Friday, February 3, 2017

God loves His people. Christ redeemed His elect from before the foundation of the world. The Great Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:6 "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

The one thing we get from this text is that before our conversion we were helpless in every way. We had no power to obey God or keep his commandments. We see some lost people who are highly religious, they have an outward form of Godliness, but inwardly their motives are stained with sin.

The Bible is crystal clear that man in his natural state is separated from God by his very nature...theologically speaking, man before conversion is in Adam, and in Adam man is an enemy of God, and under God's judgement.

The Romans text gives us a bad and a good. The first half is that man in his lost condition is weak and helpless. There is nothing man can do to be right with God, no religious works will suffice. The second half of the verse tells us that Christ died for the ungodly.

The key in the second clause of the text is that Christ died...this is now the heart of the gospel. Man is in a bad way, he's estranged from God, but God provided a means of reconciliation, His very Son. God in His Son provided atonement for the sins of those who will believe.

The gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Man needs a Savior, and the mission and calling of the Church is to proclaim this message without apology in the full power of the Holy Spirit.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Fight For the Faith.

There is the Jesus of the cultural Christian and then the Jesus of the Bible. There is the Jesus of the modern, progressive liberal church and there is the Jesus of the Scriptures.

The postmodern church culture has placed doctrine and theology on the shelf to collect dust, while they hold up relationship and community as the all-in-all of Christianity.

The push of the postmodern church is to be less preachy, less sure of your own convictions, less sure of any absolute truth. Doctrine and theology is anathema and is to be avoided at all costs. Those in the new church place an inordinate emphasis on always being agreeable.

While Christians are certainly to avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, we should never avoid speaking truth and defending the truth of God.

We are called to fight the good fight...we are called to earnestly contend for the faith...we are called to proclaim the truth of the gospel to all people at all times.

What we are left with in these so called new churches is nothing but fluff and feathers. They have their community, but they have not the truth of the Scriptures as the glue to hold them together. They have their meetings, but they do not have the presence of the Holy Spirit to anoint and bless their gatherings.

In the end, they are no different than any secular, social gathering. They may have some Christian speak, but that's all it is, it is having a form of Godliness but not the power of God.

Here's how one great theologian of the past felt about God's truth:

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent. John Calvin.

And another:

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen. Martin Luther.

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God. Amen. Martin Luther
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/martinluth403720.html

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. Jude 3.

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent. John Calvin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johncalvin144215.html

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

The Fear of the Lord.

What does the Bible say about the "fear of the Lord?" The fear of the Lord is found throughout both the Old Testament and the New testaments.

One text that I have often used with my grandson is Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge. I would explain to Caleb, when we fear God it brings us real, life giving knowledge.

How about Psalm 112:1- Praise the LORD! How blessed is the man who fears the LORD - We see that the man who fears the Lord is a blessed man or a happy man. The fear of the LORD prolongs life

And then Proverbs 10:27- The fear of the LORD prolongs life - Here we see that the one who walks in the fear of the Lord will live a long life. Think about this in practical terms. Think of all those who have died due to willful and immoral lifestyles: The man who abuses drugs and alcohol...the one who lives a sexual immoral life style...the man who lives in fear and anxiety because he has no fear or trust of God in his life.

There are hundreds of texts that point to the evidence of fear as being a hallmark of the man who walks with God. The fear of God in one's life is a certain evidence that God has given that man the "new life."

Here's a thought from an old timer- Charles Inglis (1734 – 24 February 1816) who was an Irish clergyman...he said this about the fear of the Lord:

TO fear God, is one of the first and greatest Duties of his rational Creatures.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fear_god.html

"To fear God, is one of the greatest duties of his rational creatures."

Walk today in the fear of the Lord my brothers and sisters in the Lord.

TO fear God, is one of the first and greatest Duties of his rational Creatures. Charles Inglis
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/charlesing352988.html

TO fear God, is one of the first and greatest Duties of his rational Creatures. Charles Inglis
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fear_god.html

TO fear God, is one of the first and greatest Duties of his rational Creatures.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fear_god.html

TO fear God, is one of the first and greatest Duties of his rational Creatures. Charles Inglis
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/fear_god.html

Monday, October 3, 2016

“Simul Justus et Peccator.”

“Simul Justus et Peccator.” The Bible gives us many evidences to examine our life; and of all the evidences there has always been one that jumped off the pages of divine writ and spoke directly to my heart. The sense of my own sin. What I was saved from. How great is the depth of the depravity of my sinful flesh. The prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon sums it up so well with this comment:

“Evangelical repentance is repentance of sin as sin: not of this sin nor of that, but of the whole mass. We repent of the sin of our nature as well as the sin of our practice. We bemoan sin within us and without us. We repent of sin itself as being an insult to God. Anything short of this is a mere surface repentance, and not a repentance which reaches to the bottom of the mischief. Repentance of the evil act, and not of the evil heart, is like men pumping water out of a leaky vessel, but forgetting to stop the leak.
Some would dam up the stream, but leave the fountain still flowing; they would remove the eruption from the skin, but leave the disease in the flesh.”

The Christian lives in a dichotomy of sorts...while he is still a sinner, he is at the same time a saint. We struggle with our fallen nature daily. We live in a battle. We die daily to our sin. We die daily to our own self wills.

Our deep awareness of our sin drives us to the cross. We don't wallow in our sin, just the opposite, we run as fast as we can to the endless sea of God's redemptive love and grace.

One of my favorite authors puts it like this:

“For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ” Robert Murray M'Cheyne.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Developing a Christian Worldview.

Developing a Christian worldview is absolutely essential for the Church of Jesus Christ.

First, we must understand what a Christian worldview is and what it is not. We can turn to many Christian theologians, authors and intellectuals for a definition of a Christian world view, but here is my definition.

A Christian worldview is having the mind saturated with and totally informed by the word of God. That mind will look at and interpret the world through the lens of Scripture. The individual who has the "mind of God" will have a constant thought process, and will not be influenced by the changing tide of culture and society.

Now, turning to the more scholarly James Orr, in his book, The Christian View of God and the World, he maintains that:

“A Christian view of the world cannot be infringed upon, accepted or rejected piecemeal, but stands or falls on its integrity. Such a holistic approach offers a stability of thought, a unity of comprehensive insight that bears not only on the religious sphere but also on the whole of thought. A Christian worldview is not built on two types of truth (religious and philosophical or scientific) but on a universal principle and all-embracing system that shapes religion, natural and social sciences, law, history, health care, the arts, the humanities, and all disciplines of study with application for all of life.”

We see that a Christian worldview is all encompassing. It takes in all of life and passes it through the filter of Scripture. Think about this: The Church of Jesus Christ has been given the very words of the creator of the universe as found in the canon of Scripture, why would we not be informed about all of life with this book?

When we add the adjective in front of worldview we are defining what kind of worldview it is. If we add secular in front of worldview we are defining what kind of worldview it is. Everyone has a worldview whether they know it or not, I've had some not to humble people tell me that they are independent thinkers and that they have no world view...well, they just defined their worldview and didn't even know it.

Let us as people of the book...as followers of Jesus Christ let’s take to heart our Master's very own words when he said, "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God"(Matthew 4:4).

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

THIS I KNOW

I was thinking today of the things that I know. The things in my life that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. This kind of knowing gives a person a deep rooted foundation in life; for when the winds of life blow, and oh boy, they will come, it's this knowing that anchors the soul.

The hymn "how firm a foundation," which was published in 1787 by John Rippon came to mind, here's the fist stanza:

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled

Here are two of the things that came to my mind that I know beyond the shadow of any doubt:

1. That God brought my wife and I together when we were fifteen years old. Michele and I both got saved at fifteen and were married at nineteen.

Here's a gift that God gave me and it came through a dream, and no, I'm not Charismatic. During our dating I was reading Watchman Nee, he was a church leader and Christian teacher who worked in China during the 20th century.As a young believer I read parts of "Normal Christian Life" the whole of "Love not the world" and parts of "sit, walk, stand".

Watchmen Nee was into the deeper spiritual life movement. What I faced through reading Nee's books was this question, "do I have Michele before the Lord? Do I love her more than God? I spent countless hours praying, crying, and just getting emotionally messed-up over this question. The reason I got so messed-up is there is really know way of answering this question.

I knew I loved God. I knew I loved Michele and wanted to marry her, so how do I know if I love her more than God?

After a year or so of this constant struggle, and to note, the biggest fear was that if I did have have Michele before the Lord, I would have to give her up.

One night I had this vivid, life impacting dream that has stayed with me all my life. Here's the dream:

Michele and I were walking holding hands and we started to get separated and started drifting apart to the point we could not see each other anymore. And in the same way that we drifted apart we started to drift back toward each other. As we got closer and closer we reached our for each others hand and as we grabbed each others hand we both simultaneously said, "Jesus." As soon as we said Jesus, I woke up. I believe that God did give me this dream...It made me realize that He brought us together and He will keep us.

It made me know that Jesus Christ holds us together and is the glue in our lives...this has made me in the thirty plus years of marriage build our relationship on that solid rock...this I know.

2. I also, know that my conversion to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was only the work of God. I was a teen who was living the 1970's life style. Doing drugs...hanging with the wrong crowd...getting in trouble at school and with the law. Until that night in January of 1975, when God had my cousin, who just was released from state prison, waiting for me at my house to share the gospel with me.

That was a Thursday night. The next day in school at the last period I had a meeting with the school psychologist. I was getting kicked out of High School. As I sat in that office answering questions an overwhelming power came over me to pray, and pray I did.

Right in front of that school psychologist I prayed. I bowed my head and acknowledged my sin to God. I felt, and felt deeply that I sinned against God. I asked Jesus to save me and forgive me. When I stopped praying and looked up the psychologist asked me, " is everything all right?" to which I replied, "I don't know, I've never felt like this before." She asked me, " like what," I told her, " I feel so clean inside."

This I know, that day, Friday, in 1975, I was rescued and redeemed and cleansed with the redeeming blood of my Savior.

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Regeneration verses being religious

There is behavioral modification and there is the life transformation by the word of God. I’d like to look at the vast difference between the two and examine what the Bible says about both of these concepts.

It is common for Christian’s today to verbally acknowledge that the Bible is God’s Word, that the Bible is the final authority for both what they believe and how they live. Yet in practice the power of the Bible and the sufficiency of the Bible is not a reality in their lives.

False religion gives birth to hypocrisy, self-sufficiency, and pride. This can only be the outcome of all outward change when it is not coupled with a changed heart. Behavioral modification seeks to simply change outward behavior. The formula is x is an unwanted behavior and y is the desired behavior, so one must do a and b to achieve y.

Think of the emphasis of religion, the focus is always on acts, doing, and conforming to said religious practices. Think of the goal of the psychological world; the aim is always to move from a negative behavior to a more desired behavior.

Jesus gives a striking contrast of outward religious change and true heart change in his teaching parable of the Pharisee and the Publican as found in Luke 18:9-14. Jesus minces no words and is direct right from the beginning of the story as he describes the character of the religious Pharisee, he says in (v.9), “He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.”

Doing, being religious, and practicing outward signs of doing good to all was the defining characteristic of the Pharisee. Think now in terms of most religious people: they go to church, they give their money to the church, and they are involved in many social and civic causes. But without a changed heart wrought by the Holy Spirit through the means of the living word of God these outward expressions of religiosity are to God as filthy rags, see Isaiah 64:6 “ For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.”

The Bible from Genesis to Revelations calls out religious people for trusting in their deeds rather than trusting in the Lamb of God who was sent to save us from ourselves. God does not condemn the good deed, but He condemns the soul that trusts in them for their salvation, just like the religious Pharisee did and was condemned by our Lord, see (v. 14) “ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. There it is, rather than the other…the Publican left the temple justified, and the Pharisee left the Temple without being justified.

The true heart change that is acceptable to God is wrought by the Holy Spirit by the means of the power of the word. The heart of the Christian life of course is the Gospel. Only those who have been transformed from within (Titus 3: 5-8) being indwelt by the Spirit of God (Romans 8:13–14) are able to exhibit genuine holiness (Galatians 5:22–23); 1 Peter 1:16). Biblical Christianity does not of course exclude good works or external behavior modification (cf. Matt. 5–7), but with a change of heart which subsequently manifests itself in a changed life (1 Corinthians 6:9–11).

Summation: Changing behavior and doing good deeds are part of the Christian life, but this is the theme of the article, without a changed heart first, these very good works can and will carry one right into the jaws of hell.

The means for a changed heart is the word of God. God says that His word is alive and active (Hebrews 4:12). God’s breathed out word (2 Timothy 3:16) is sufficient for all that one needs to be like the Publican and avoid the death trap of the Pharisee.

We can not in any way trust in our good deeds to be accepted by God. We can only come to God as poor and hopeless sinners in need of the righteousness of God’s son.