Monthly Archives: October 2011

What is our Goal?

Posted on by

0

Sometimes in our lives, we feel like changing ourselves and our actions can be a hopeless cause. What can we possibly do? What can we do to make ourselves better, or more holy, or more obedient?

When we try, we fail. We try to be good. We try to behave. We try to do right. And when we do, we find ourselves falling time after time after time.

As CS Lewis said – “No man knows how very bad he is until he has tried to be good.” The frustrating thing can be trying so very hard to do good, to do right, to get it right; and then we fall down

So we quit trying. What’s the point? We’ll never do it right. It will never happen. There’s no reason. We’ll never be good enough to get it right.

Strangely that’s what God is saying through Ezekiel 36:25-26.  Listen to what He says in this passage.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh

Notice, God doesn’t say that you will do this, you will do that. God says, I will do it. I will sprinkle you clean with water. I will give you a new heart. I will remove your heart of stone.

God says I will do it. You can’t do it on your own. It’s not possible.

So, who does it? God does you.

You can’t change yourself. God can change you. So, today, you goal shouldn’t be to be a “better person.” Your goal should be to draw close to God.

If we draw close to God, He will do the rest. He will take care of the rest. He will clean and change us.

Being perfect a daunting goal. Drawing close to God, that’s a goal we can do today. He will clean us, He will change us.

Today, our goal is to draw close to God. May we do that will all that we have!

The Simplest Command

Posted on by

0

I was talking last night at Bible Study here as Asbury about the Bible and how we can get bogged down in certain passages or interpretations. We can get confused, worried, and upset about how to interpret certain passages.

That’s one reason I’ve always like something that John Wesley said – Scripture contains everything needful for salvation, and everything needful is made plain within. So, in other words, everything we need to know to be saved is found in the Bible, and if it’s so important that our eternal salvation depends upon, God will make it simple to understand.

There is so much simple truth in the Bible. So many simple things that are at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. The Christian life really isn’t that complicated. It’s pretty simple in the end.

Look at Romans 13: 8-10 says:

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

We see it laid out here. All the commandments, the whole of the Old and the New Testament is laid out for us – love. Love each other. If you love, you won’t murder, steal, or any of other hurtful things.

Love sums up the law. It’s the simplest of the commands. Love.

Today, in our lives, is every action guided by love? Is every word, every action, even every thought, is it guided by love? That’s our greatest command as Christians. To love.

It’s the simplest command.

But before we can fully love others as God wants us to, we must first know the power of His love. For us to fulfill this simplest command, we must first be fully loved ourselves.

Today, may we know the power of God’s amazing love. And may we love one another in the same way.

Second Chances

Posted on by

0

I am teaching an Old Testament Disciple Bible Study at Asbury on Sunday nights. It’s a lot of fun to dig into the Bible, really read what it says and deal with the truths of the Old Testament for today’s world.

I always love teaching these in depth studies, because I feel like I learn more than the folks in the class. I feel like when I have to study like I do for the class, and then sit together with folks for a couple of hours, I learn so much.

I learn from their experiences. From their beliefs. From their feelings. I learn so very much from the people that I’m studying with.

And someone in our class said something that has really resonated with me in this study. We can sometimes get the impression that the Old Testament is only about Law, and the New Testament is only about grace.

But that is not the case. The Old Testament is full of God’s grace and mercy. Over and over again, God was within His rights to not forgive the people of their sins. He was within His rights to start over. He was totally within line of just blowing it all up and beginning again. He threatened to do so with Moses after the people worshipped the Golden Cafe.

But He didn’t. He have them undeserved second chances. He loved them. His love for them was greater than their sin.  Listen to what is says in 2 Chronicles 7:14:

If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land

We are told today that when they turned from their sin, He heard it. And He forgave them. He loved them that much.

As He does us today. When we turn, when we ask forgiveness, when we want to start over, He lets us.

Today, God is a God of second chances. And third, fourth, fifth, sixth and so on and so chances.

Today, if we turn to Him and ask forgiveness, He will forgive. He is, and has always been, a God of grace!

He Will Rejoice

Posted on by

1

We spend a lot of energy as Christians, both mental and emotional, trying to make God happy. We really want to please Him. We really want him to be proud of us. We really want to Him to smile upon us and aprove of our actions.

We want God to be proud of us. Really, we do.

And that’s a good thing. We want to be motivated to live for God, to glorify Him, to please Him with our actions.

But, if we aren’t carful, we can take our walk with Him to a place that isn’t good for us. Instead of living in a way that brings honor to God, we can think that we have to earn His love.

Instead of living in His love, we can think that we have to earn God’s love. Instead of living as response to God’s love, we can feel like we have make God love us.

And then when we mess up, when we fall down, we fell like failures. We feel like we will never earn God’s love. We will never make God love us. We will never be good enough.

The truth is, we aren’t good enough. We can’t make God love us. We can’t earn God’s love.

We dont’ have to. He loves us anyway; no matter what. Today, listen to what God says in Zephaniah 3:17:

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

We are told that He will rejoice over us. He will quiet us. He will love us.

No matter what.

Today, let’s live our lives not trying to “earn” God’s love. Let’s live our life as a joyful response to a God that rejoices over us.

Where Is God?

Posted on by

0

It really is hard for us as humans to wrap our minds around God. We really can’t understand who God is. He is other. He is different from us. We simply can’t fathom who He is us.

We know of God what God has revealed to us through Scripture, through tradition (the wise teachings of others), reason (our ability to think and understand) and experience (the things’s we’ve experienced). So, there are things that we know about God. But there’s lots of stuff that we don’t.

Listen to what Isaiah 57:15 says:

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.

In this verse, it says God inhabits eternity. His name is holy. To say that His name is holy is to say that He is Holy. In scripture, you name wasn’t just what you were called, it was who you. To say that God is holy is to say that this is who He is.

He is holy. He is other. He is different.

But look in this verse what else He is. He is with the lowly of spirit. He is with the ones that are contrite. He is with the ones that understand they are in need of His grace and salvation. He is with the broken, the needy, the hurt, the one’s that know that they need Him.

Today, if you know you aren’t what you need to be; if you understand that you’ve made mistakes; if you understand that you need God, guess what?

You are right where He wants you. You are in the place to know His grace. You are in the place where He can draw you near.

Today, in knowing that we need Him more and more and more, we find that at that exact moment and place, He is waiting on us.

Today, where is God? He is with us.

The Unbaptized Sin Podcast

Posted on by

0

The sermon podcast for Sunday, October 23, 2011 is up on Asbury Church’s website.  This is the fourth and last sermon in our series “The Unbaptized Arm.”  This sermon deals with “The Unbaptized Sin.”  It deals with the sin in our lives that keep us from fully living in God’s life. Sin desires to drive us away. God desires relationship.  The text for this sermon is Genesis 3:1-13.  Also by clicking on these verses you can see my notes from the sermon as a note in the YouVersion online Bible.   You can listen to it by clicking here, or you can listen to it here on this blog by clicking the link below. And, as always, you can subscribe to my sermon podcasts through iTunes.

CLICK HERE

The Unbaptized Sin

Boasting in Weakness

Posted on by

0

Boasting is not something we are supposed to do. The Bible tells us in Proverbs, it’s the pride that goes before the fall. If we brag, if we boast, if we get too full of ourselves, trouble will come.

Boasting is not good.

Yet today, we see Paul talking about boasting! He says – I will boast. You would think such a statement would be something that would be leading him to trouble.  Listen to what he says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10:

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul says – I will boast in my weakness. For in my weakness, I know Christ’s power. In my weakness I am strong.

That’s something to boast about.

That goes so different from our world. Our world tells us to boast about how awesome we are. How great we are. How perfect we are. It’s about us.

Paul says to that – No! I will no boast in anything about me, but I will boast in Christ thought me. Every great thing in my (and our) life is no because of us.

It’s because of Him.

We have not earned it. We can’t earn it. We can’t boast in ourselves. We boast in Him. As I tell folks at Asbury, if anything I do is good, He gets credit. I’ll take credit for the bad stuff.

His love, His mercy, His grace, these are gifts. And when we realize how weak we are, we can boast even more in them. That’s what Paul is saying. He has realized how much he does not deserve God’s grace, and God gives it any way.

Which makes Him love God even more!

So, today, don’t boast in yourself. Boast in God. Boast in His goodness, mercy, and grace. In our weakness, His strength is made perfect. When we are lesser, He is greater.

If you’re going to boast, boast about your weakness. And when we know that we are weak, we will find that He is strong.

And that’s something to boast about.

What Faithfulness Looks Like

Posted on by

0

God doesn’t expect perfection. He just expects faithfulness. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect or move mountains. He expects us to be faithful.

Ok, nice. But what does that look like? What does being faithful look like? What are we supposed to do?

Are we supposed to move to Africa as a missionary? If that’s God’s plan for us us, sure.

Are we supposed to enter the full time ministry? If that’s God’s plan for us, sure?

But today in this Matthew 10:40-42, we see an image faithfulness that is not about leaving home, not about changing jobs, not about doing anything crazy huge.

Listen to what it says:

“Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”

In this passage, we see what faithfulness looks like. Jesus said that even a cup of cold water given in His name is a picture of faithfulness.

It’s about doing great things. It’s about doing small things in His name. For when it’s done in His name, everything thing is a great thing.

In His name, every word, every gift, every comfort, every thing, when done in His name, can be used in powerful ways that our minds can’t even fully comprehend.

Today, God wants you to be faithful. To be faithful to Him. What does that look like?

D o it all in His name. Everything. Do it to glorify Him. Do your work to glorify Him. Do your school work to glorify Him. Do your hobbies to glorify Him. Be with your family to glorify Him.

Do it ALL in His name. And in doing that, we are being faithful.

The Words

Posted on by

0

You ever been somewhere and know that God is calling you to say something, but you didn’t know what?

You ever know that you know that you know God is calling you to go talk to someone?

Maybe to share your faith? Maybe to give a word of encouragement. Maybe just to go and say hello in a friendly way.

And you think to yourself – what do I say? I don’t have the word. I’m going to make a fool of myself. I’m going to say the wrong thing, say it the wrong way, put my foot in my mouth.

So, you don’t do it. You keep your head down. You keep your mouth shut. You don’t walk across the room. You stay still.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt the need to say something, unsure of what to say.

Matthew tells us today, don’t worry about it. You might not know what to say. God will give you the words.  Listen to what Matthew 10:20 says:

For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

See we live our lives not by our wisdom. Not by our thoughts. Not by what we’d like to do. We live it by God’s wisdom. And He will give us the words. Matthew says today, it is not you that will speak, but God will speak through you.

Is He calling you to go and talk to someone and tell them something? Go and do it – He will give you the words.

Is He calling you to give witness to you faith? Go and witness – He will give you the words.

Is He calling you across the room? Get up and go. He will give you the words.

Don’t worry about what you will say. Be faithful. Go where He leads. Follow where He is calling. Be faithful. And know that His word processes He will give you the words.

Today, be faithful. God will take care of the rest.

Go

Posted on by

0

Jesus calls His 12 Apostles together in this passage, and He gives them a simple; yet profound command.

Go.

Listen to what He tells them in Matthew 10:5-7:

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Go out into the world and proclaim the Good News. Go and tell them that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Salvation has arrived. Hope has arrived. Peace, mercy, and a plan for life has arrived. Go and tell.

Now, there are reasons why we could talk about why He didn’t send them at this time to the Gentiles and Samaritans. There are reasons that Jesus did what He did when He did it. After the resurrection, He specifically sends them to the Gentiles and the Samaritans. But now, at this time, that is not where they are going.

But, they are going. They are going out. They are leaving the comfort zone. They are going out telling the Good News. They are going.

Today, so should we. We are too go. Leave our comfort. Leave what we have always done. Go.

Go to where there is hurt. Pain. Loss. Confusion. Go. Take His good news. Take His hope. Take His peace. Take His plan. Take His life.

Go.

And maybe the place you need to go isn’t across the world. Maybe it’s across the road. Across the room. Across the cafeteria. Maybe the place you have to go isn’t far.

But for you it might be. Go. Take the Good News. And know that God goes with you.