SOME GOOD NEWS!

Grace - the free and unmerited favor of God.

As I was listening to the third of three lectures on the Law and Grace, I had an amazing realization...this is not only the path to understanding the Gospel, it is the Gospel. I am studying in order to present Law and Grace during my mission trip, and it really just hit me - I am in the awesome place of getting to study for, to gain knowledge in, to soak up the Gospel. What a wonderful deal for me!

It has been my desire for a while to present the gospel as simply as possible. It seems as though we are always adding to it, and frankly making it difficult to understand. We are trying to make our gospel more like our own made up law, kinda like house rules, ya never know which rule book you have to follow. Well that isn't the gospel, I guess it could be called the gospel + , as stated in this course I am listening to, and that is not the Gospel at all.

God's intent for the one who obeyed the Law was to demonstrate love for God and for his neighbor, Christ says that Himself in Matthew 22:37-39

37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.


It was not about the letter of the law, but the heart behind it. Christ says that in Matthew 9:13

13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. ’

And the Law was meant for only a certain amount of time and for the nation of Israel, and that amount of time was until the Messiah came. That is why Christ says in Matthew 5:17

17   “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

So, here is what I have gleaned in my studies.

From the beginning, people have received Grace through faith alone. This is Grace, not grace plus works.
The old testament is full of examples of God's Grace, and many of the examples can be found in Hebrews chapter 11.
The Law has been fulfilled by Christ.
and when we believe with our hearts, and confess with our mouths that He is Lord, we experience the grace He has provided for us by faith alone. There is nothing in addition to this simple fact. You have forgiveness for your sins, past, present and future. To put it another way, God sees the righteousness of Christ when He looks upon those who have put their faith in His Son, and that is why we now have an eternal relationship with Him, and why we can be in His presence.

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.


Simply, gracefully, amazing! That is why it is called Good News, and that is the Gospel!

Heavenly Daddy

I'm studying the amazing grace of my Lord. I believe I had a basic understanding, as one saved by grace, but I am learning so much more about the depths of the Father's love in providing this Grace. But, let me say, don't take my word for it, research it for you own.

I find myself in my soul crying out to Him, "Thank You Heavenly Daddy!" as if I am finally seeing Him as a loving Dad, Daddy, Father who has an amazing love for me. Not a father who is distant and waiting behind the clouds, observing my screw ups, so that when they reach a certain level He can reach down and thump me.

You see, He put the thumping on Jesus, so that I wouldn't have to endure it. Thank you Daddy Jesus for loving me, and enduring it for me. Oh man, it brought tears to my eyes as I wrote that.

You see, I remember hearing the statement "Daddy Jesus" in a prayer from my sister-in-law, Melissa, when she was leading a group of children, a few years ago. I believe she had, has an understanding of the amazing love our Heavenly Daddy has for us. I believe she is also a great representation of this love for so many people who come in contact with her.

I thank Him daily for placing people in my life that help me in my walk, who share there knowledge of Him with me and others, so that we can better grasp that He...Is... LOVE! And that is what He wants us to do, love Him and share that love with others!

His/Our Righteousness

2 Corinthians 5:18-21

18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

"Jesus' sacrifice was God's judgement on sin once and for all, done in order to reconcile the world to God."

I just read this this morning in the book, Good and Beautiful God by James Smith, and thought it was a great passage in the bible, and then a great description of the purpose and meaning of the wrath of God that was pored out on Christ. 

God's love and wrath, as seen on the cross, are well defined earlier in the book in this way...

"PASSION VURSES PATHOS

Love is...a desire for the well being of another, so much so that personal sacrifice would not get in the way. 
 
Wrath - the wrath of Yahweh is portrayed somewhat differently from human anger in the Hebrew bible. In some respects this is essentially the difference between passion and pathos. Passion can be explained as an emotional explosion and loss of self-control. Pathos on the other hand is an act formed with care and intention the result of determination and decision."

So, we can see the Love shown on the cross, and the pathos (wrath) that was required to be pored out on Christ, with the determined result and decision being to reconcile us to God.  It was not an uncontrolled wrath, as we see in people of this world, but a pathos. 

His plan to reconcile us back to Him was completed on the cross. No more wrath for those who believe.

The Light

Just went down and gave the Lord some of my time. 

It's funny how immature I feel in my prayer life, but I know He hears me and He knows my heart. I also know I need to and want to give Him more if my day, Christ is an amazing example of spending time with the Father.   

As I was sitting on the end of the pier, sun shining, wind blowing, and so much other beauty to see, I was amazed.  He created all this and created me and He loves me. It is my desire that others know that He loves them too.

Yesterday, I had a wonderful conversation with a man, and we were talking about our children. He described the process of adoption and how it was initially difficult, because he is in a same sex relationship.  He then went on to talk about a friend, she is a believer, and though there is so much more to this story, one portion of it struck my soul. 

He described a time when, for whatever reason, she had said she loved him. His question to her was, how can you love me, if you are a Christian and I'm gay?

First, her response was beautiful, "there is nowhere that Jesus tells me to hate anyone." But the question speaks to a problem. 

In his life he had obviously been on the malicious end of some statements made by believers. So, my question is, where was the demonstration of the love of the Lord in the terrible words this man has endured. Why would he desire be like anyone who would demonstrate such a lack of love in their heart. 

There is a pretty powerful statement in scripture, 

John 3:16
For God So Loved the World 

16 “For God so loved the world,   that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

For God so loved the world, again, the world...not...loved the self righteous people who do everything perfect with never a mistake. 

Romans 5:8
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

So God loves us all. Sinners and saints. He sent His son for us all, sinners and saints. By the way, before being a saint, one would have to be a sinner, right?  We are to be the light of Christ to the world, not darkness to those who don't believe. 

So to this man and others like him, I want to say, God loves you and sent His son for you, too!

Read about Him and His love for the you in the Bible.  It is a beautiful manuscript about the One Who is Love. When you seek Him, you will find Him. 

And my prayer is that the Lord would place followers of Christ in you path, who demonstrate His love for you. 

IN A NUTSHELL

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately, and they are having an amazing affect on my faith, so I thought I would sit down and write down a summary of what I’ve read and what I believe. I am just writing what is on my heart and therefore I am not going to place specific references in this writing to direct quotes from scripture, but ask me if you want to, and I’ll get them to you. So….here it goes…

God has always been and will always be. I have a hard time wrapping my finite brain around an infinite God, especially the infinite past, though I’m not sure why it seems a little easier to grasp infinite future, anyway…in His infinite past He has always been complete and in perfect relationship with Himself, meaning, the Father Son and Holy Ghost. I didn’t want to put commas in between those names, because they are all one Somewhere in that distant infinite past He wrote a book, and this book was written before creation, but I’ll get to creation in a moment. This book has the names of every believer who was to ever be. Now, what I find amazingly cool about this book is that, not only did He write the names of those who would believe in Him, but also before the believers ever were, He knew their paths as well. And yet, once again, before He made creation, He had a redemptive plan that He would be put into motion, because although He does not make us do things, He knew the things we would do, and therefore He knew He had to rescue us, so that we would have an everlasting relationship with Him. So, though He doesn’t need us, He desires to be with us. I hope you’re still with me here!

So, I don’t know the exact sequence of every event, Genesis give us a pretty broad view of them, but I do know that He spoke and there it was; all of the matter in creation. What’s the matter you ask…well I mean all the stuff that never was before, all the stuff that stuff is made of, that your physics teacher taught you about, or in the case of my wife, that the teacher didn’t teach, but her dad taught her and several other friends…anyway…back to creation!!! And from the beginning of creation, the time as we know it began. With light and matter, there is time, and without it there wasn’t, time that is. This realization helped me to finally put my little brain around the statements I have always heard about God stepping in to time to be with us. It helps me understand His name, the great “I AM,” because before creation as we know it, He was and He is and He is to come (no comma thing again, because really its all the same thing with God:) ) When He says “I AM,” He is. I love it! It helped me with a riddle I have recently heard, but didn’t understand: INTO ISN’T WASN’T WAS. So, everything He created was good, and when He had created man, He said that it was very good. And why do I think He said it was all very good after creating man and woman? Because we were created in His image, and when He looked out and saw His image among the things of His creation, what other conclusion could he have come to? I heard a preacher ask this question once, “Do you know why the mountains and the trees are so beautiful to us?” and the answer is “because God said they were good.” Really there is no other reason!

And now we get to the reason the redemptive plan had to be put into action. The man of creation wanted to be like the creator…Adam and Eve, I’ll call them, since that is what God called them…felt like they might be missing something, lets just call that “sin.” These ideas came after having one “simple” conversation with the great deceiver. That’s it. I suppose I could just end this portion of my summary with that statement, but then that would mean I could do something else with my time, and frankly, I feel like this is what I am supposed to be doing write now, so…it may seem ludicrous at face value to think of the creation thinking they could equal the Creator, but I think it is a recurring battle in my heart in different ways as I live out my life. Like somehow I have a better plan for my life than He does, but anyway… let’s get back to their problems, Adam and Eve that is! So they eat this fruit they knew they shouldn’t and all Hell broke loose. Well, not really, it just probably seemed like it to them, because they lost there ability during this lifetime, to walk in the garden with their creator. And of course, sin entered the world through this one man, and it has been an issue ever since.

Now at some point this sin that entered the world through one man became so rampant that God almost ended His creation with a flood, but He kept a certain amount of His creation alive on Noah’s Ark. And the cool thing is He promised all living creatures, not just Noah, that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood, and He sealed His promise with a rainbow. Isn’t that cool? Every time I see a rainbow, God sees it, and I remember and He remembers the promise He made on that very day just after the flood! I don’t think He ever forgets, but I think He was speaking on our level, which once again I find amazing, that the Creator of the universe, talks to me at my level, anyway…At some point He chose a man named Abram, later God changed it to Abraham, and told this man his offspring would be greater than the stars in the Heavens, and they would be an example and a blessing to the nations. And this man was old, so he had to have a lot of faith in that promise. And sure enough it happened, through many years this people grew. And though they struggled with the blessing the other nations part, because they starting thinking they were special, God had a redemptive plan that would certainly come through the offspring of Abraham, so the promise would be fulfilled. Mind you, they were and are great, not because of anything they had done to deserve to be chosen, but they are great because they are chosen by God. And God gave them Ten Commandments to follow and then what is known as the Law. With these documents, they became aware of their sin, but it also provided a way of atonement for their sins. And the way was through blood. The problem, I know there is a better word, but I can’t think of one right now, so, the problem was that a sacrifice could be made for past sins, but as soon as the one providing the sacrifice left the temple, they most likely sinned again, and if they are like me, they sinned pretty quickly, and then what did they have to do? Purchase another sacrifice, which would consume a lot of time and money. So the sacrifice was for past, but not for future sin. So once again, God had His redemptive plan determined back before it mattered…get it… matter, before it…anyway…He knew that this Law would only be fulfilled through Him.

After reading through the historical portion of the Old Testament, we get to read some of the prophetic books. And in these books, there is a description of our Messiah as a Conquering King, but also as a Suffering Servant. In one of the last books in the Old Testament, God says “when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.” So to the amazement and to the disbelief of many, He came first as the Suffering Servant. There are very graphic details of the way He would suffer and shed blood, remember, blood is required to atone for our sins, and in the end He shed His and gave His life for us. What is really amazing is that there is are historical documents other than the Bible that write that Jesus did exist and that He was crucified. There is even historical data that says the tomb is empty. Well, it was empty because He raised himself up from the dead! He said He would! He was called Emmanuel, which means God with us, and through faith we can believe that He is who He says He is and was and is to come. And if we just believe all that He says about Himself, and confess it, and repent of our sins, He is faithful and true to His promise that we will have, actually do have, an eternal relationship with Him. And that all our sins, past, present and future are forgiven. That once we believe in Him, we don’t get forgiveness, we have it. It’s called grace, and the amazing thing is that it is free; we don’t have to earn it. He earned it for us on the cross. As a matter of fact, I must emphasize this, we can’t earn it, it is not to be earned, it is by faith alone that He brings us into an eternal relationship with Him. It is the perfect gift from the Father of Life!

Some have a hard time with the redemptive plan, why one way and then another, which sounds a whole lot like they think they would have had a better plan, but let’s keep it simple. God is good. And really that is enough, but we can view the old way as the arrow pointing to the new way. The law was a way for us to see that we cannot provide a good enough sacrifice for our sin, but God had to provide the perfect sacrifice, Himself, in order to have the relationship He always desired with His creation, which is you and me. What an amazing story of Love. So I can now understand why another description for Him is, God is Love.

And so at another time of His choosing, He will return as the conquering King, as it is written in the Old and New Testament. Sin, sorrow, and death will be no more for those who have accepted His gift. And though many don’t want to believe it, those who have chosen to not accept His gift, who have chosen to not have a relationship with Him, will get the desires of their heart, which is eternal separation from Him. And the description and name of that place is not pleasant at all. It is described as a place of unquenchable fire and torment, a place created for the great deceiver and his followers. And since it is a place separated from God, who is Good, there will be no good there, forever and ever, which by the way, is a long time to be without anything good! The name of the place is Hell, and it is as real as Heaven. Christ speaks about it, and therefore it is real, whether we choose to believe it or not. But for those who have chosen to accept the gift, those written in the book I talked about above, the name of the book is the Lamb’s Book of Life, well, we are goin to a wedding party. You see, Jesus Christ is the bride’s groom, and we the believers are the bride. Now I don’t know much about the party, but I know it’s gonna be pretty cool. Can you imagine? You can’t! God says His thoughts are above our thoughts, so we can’t even imagine what it will be like, and that is just the beginning. We have eternity to get to be more familiar with Him, and I think that is way better than fire and torment. And remember, when I said God gave Abram, Abraham, a new name earlier in this thing I am writing, well actually its written in Genesis first, I just paraphrased it above, well, God apparently likes to do that, because He also says we will get a new name. We are a new creation, when we trust in Him! How cool is that. I like my name now, because it is the name of my earthly Dad, and I love Him, I love my Mom too, but I don’t have her name, so I wasn’t gonna write about her here…anyway…but I know my new one, name that is, will be way better than my current one!

So, the Bible is an awesome story about God, and yes there are many wonderful stories about people, and we can see great examples of how to live our lives, and how not to live them, but the Bible is the Gospel from cover to cover. It is as complete a story as God feels we need to have in order to be more like Him, and in order to give us an understanding of who He is and who we are in Him. What is even greater than the reading the Bible, is that we will someday behold His glory and words will not describe Him. We will have eternity to get to know who our one true Father is!

So, I recommend getting to know Him, and if you don’t know Him, let me know and I’ll talk to you about Him. I recommend the book of John in the New Testament if you just want to start reading. He is good and I thank Him for His grace!

Thoughts on Daily Reading

Luke 8:1-3 “Soon afterwards he (Christ) went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”

What I find interesting about this passage, beyond Christ’s proclamations, is that Herod’s household manager was one of the women following and providing for Him.

Luke 8:21 “But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

“Hear” and “do” are the key words here for me this morning. The first is passive, I suppose, because one can sit and hear, but the second word requires direct action, it looks to me to be a call to action. I don’t tend to sit on the couch and “do.”

Luke 8:25 “He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled.”

Christ is speaking to his disciples after He calms the storm. And I have to say that there are times I find myself in that same spot regarding my savior, afraid and marveled at the same time.

Luke 8:33 “Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.”

Just an indicator to me that demons have the ability to influence things of this world, but have no authority over my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and if you trust in Him, you are not of this world!

And finally, Hebrews 11 is an amazing chapter to me. One day several weeks ago I had two men who have influenced my life speak of it. One a humble man who is equipping others to spread the gospel in there own cultures, and another, by way of video, who has had many victories in his life and who has recently been diagnosed with cancer. It is a chapter about faith, and those who have been recognized for their faith in many victories, and those who had been “sawn in two,” though all had been commended for their faith.