Everyone welcome?
I have noticed that certain groups who claim the title ‘church’ have decided to plant an ‘Everyone welcome’ slogan under their banners. We all know what they are gesturing at. But it made me feel like something should be said.
All Churches. All! Welcome Everyone to come and join. But the true Church refuses to dumb down or corrupt the Bible’s teaching just to make certain people happy. Guess what? There are parts of the Bible that are offensive to everyone. The lady who has just started attending after being involved in a messy legal custody battle may be offended by the verse that says to love your enemies, or the verses that tell about divorce being a sin. The man who has attended Church his whole life may suddenly notice 1 Thes. 5:12 and 13 says to respect and listen to those in the Church who give you spiritual guidance, but all that does is bring to his mind a mentor he once had who he didn’t like so he feels angry and offended. Do we change the words of God to suit these two people? No. God’s word is meant to be hard to handle at times and sometimes it even hurts or makes us angry. It’s supposed to help us change and guide us into being more like Christ. If the Bible says your lifestyle is a sin, it’s a call to look at yourself and to decide, do I want to live this way? Or do I want to change and become a new person through Christ? If you’re a mess and the Bible points it out that doesn’t mean it’s closing the doors on you, and neither is the Church that continues to preach the Truth, it means that the Bible and the Church are trying to help you and to guide you out of your mess and sin and into the fullness of living for Jesus. News flash. We all came through the front door of the Church with a set of sins. But that’s why we’re at Church. To sit down and listen to God and hear what He has to say. And when it’s uncomfortable and feels offensive, we choose to look at ourselves and see what God is calling us to change. If you want the Church to change what it says so you feel comfortable there, than you have missed the point of Church. It’s not here to make us feel good and then we go home, it’s here to prepare is to go forward as true followers of Christ. Everyone is welcome. But come expecting to be changed. That’s why we go. Because we want to be more like Him and less like the mess we were when we walked in.
Category: The Bible
What will we teach them?
What did we teach them?
I saw recently a scene that made me think hard. An old man and a young man sat together, their shopping carts full of their lives on either side of them, the old man encouraging the young to do drugs. It was a raw moment and we passed by so quickly I had to thick about it to make sure I hadn’t been seeing things. It’s not an uncommon sight in many places, but it still made me sad. You don’t have a house or food, but you have drugs and have now encouraged another to do the same. We lived in the city long enough that I knew what I was seeing. But there’s where God said, “it’s what you teach them.” If that boy had been sitting next to my grandfather, he would have throw the drugs aside and heard a message of Faith and the truth of Jesus. He would have been taken for a hot meal and gotten in contact with a safe, Christian group that looked after housing kids from the street. Yet he sat next to a man who was just as lost as he was. And to my sorrow I wouldn’t have stopped even if there had been a place to, because I don’t know at all what I would have said to them or how I would have helped them. Be better than me. I’m not good at going and speaking with strangers and I need to work harder on that. But what I can do is teach the people I am given. I can teach my cousins love and gentlenss. I can teach my clients giving and charity. I can teach my fellow dog walkers respect and the power of a smile. Through my words and actions I can teach these things. And hopefully I will not be too afraid to speak the life giving truth of Jesus at every chance I get.
So. What will you teach them?
We all forget the green bead.
We all forget the green bead.
Gold-Heaven
Black-Sin
Red-Jesus
White-New Life
Green- ?
When we tell the story of Christ via the color beads we go through the story of sin keeping us from Heaven and Jesus dying so we are redeemed through Him and made new. But there’s a fifth bead. A color we ignore and don’t promote though it’s vital. Green is for growth. Growth in Christ. Too many people come to Jesus and then leave it at that. There’s no growth. No learning. Jesus isn’t a one and done situation. He’s alive and wants a relationship with you. But if you don’t spend time with Him and don’t seek Him, then when the world starts calling (or shouting) you don’t know the truth to stand on. That’s how we end up with falling away Christians or Christians who promote a fake religion that has anti-Biblical statements, not the true word of God. It all begins with not growing in Christ.
I could go on with a list of recent posts and YouTube links I have seen that claimed to be Christian but misused the word of God or quoted something as a Biblical fact that was very much not in the Bible. But the point is that these people either don’t know their Bibles, or are banking on you not knowing yours. How can we know what are lies and what are truth unless we read it for ourselves?
You say ‘I don’t have time to read my Bible.’ Well, you can either make time to learn for yourself or wait to be taught by false movements who claim to be Christian. If you don’t know your Bible you can’t tell who is real and who is the devil masquerading as one of us. We need to grow in Christ. We must learn so we are not deceived. Don’t forget the green bead.
Are you as alone as you think? No. Never. Jesus is right there feeling your pain and holding onto you through it.
Up till now he had been looking at the lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them. Now in despair, he looked up at his face. What he saw surprised him as much as anytjing in hiw whole life, for the great tawny face was bent near his own, and wonder of wonders, there were great tears shining in the lion’s eyes. They were such big bright tears compared with Digorie’s own that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.
How like Digory are we? We have brokenness and heart ache and worries that we think God doesn’t see or understand. Then in a moment of wonder and fear we look up and see God looking back, smiling, big tears in His eyes. There’s an old Petra song that says, “you care so much more than I do.” We forget that. God cares more about our broken hearts, our loved ones who are slipping away, our forgotten dreams, our lost jobs, then we ever could. We feel we are the ones suffering, yet everytime we break, so does He. Jesus took all our pain on Him, past- present- future. He feels it too, and like the ragman, He comes to us saying, “let me take your old rags and I’ll give you my new. Let me take your pain and loss and I will give you my healing.” He loves us and feels what we feel. We must stop forgetting that. We are never alone in our grief, we have Him and He loves us.
Have we missed it?
North America, have we missed the time of God’s coming?
Just as Jesus said to Jerusalem “If you had only known what would bring you peace, I can’t help but wonder if we have also become a nation that Jesus weeps over? But we have fallen so far and so hard. We celebrate sin and teach evil to our children, we turn our backs on what is right and say to Jesus that we don’t want Him to he our king we would rather be our own heros and masters. Just as Jesus said in His parable about the Minas (a parable we don’t tend to quote) “those who did nothing with what I gave them will have all taken from them, but those who rejected me as King, bring them before me and slay them at my feet.” (This is a bit of a paraphrase because the verse is long. See Luke 19: 11)
We hear too often the statement that real Christians don’t beat people down with the Bible but that we need to show love only. We are loving people right into he’ll by not teaching the truth. If people feel beaten by true Biblical teaching (not personal opinions) that means they have something in their lives that needs to change; in truth, we should all have sections of the Bible that make us feel like we are being accused, and that make us feel uncomfortable and unworthy, because we all have stuff in our lives that separates us from God, stuff we need to change. We are never going to be worthy of God, but that’s why Jesus had to sacrifice Himself, because we couldn’t make it on our own. That doesn’t mean that we can do whatever we want, we must grow and change as we draw closer to Him- we can’t simply accept the Minas and think that’s enough. When I was a kid we were always told, ‘read your Bible and pray everyday.’ It got to be a catch phrase. But that is how we grow what we have been given. Tithing and volunteer work. Mowing your neighbor’s lawn. Dedicating your life to missions. Little things for some of us and big things for others are ways to grow what we have been given. God gives much to those who are going to give out much, little to those who will give out little, nothing to those who give out nothing and to those who reject Him He will give death. This isn’t a cuddly, happy topic. But sometimes we need the tough stuff to be said because we need to get back on the right track. I don’t want to be a nation, a city or a person who Jesus weeps over. I want to be a good and faithful servant, though I know I’m not many days and that I fail often. The point is. Do you love Him enough to keep trying? Are you working at growing your relationship, your Minas? Or are you letting it sit and become stagnant as our world goes by having missed the coming of God to us?
Scripture:
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.” Luke 19
Jeremiah
Jeremiah
“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.”
“O Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!” The Lord replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
Jeremiah 1:5-8 NLT
Jeremiah is such a perfect example of someone threshing weat in the wine press, except he was in the wine press emotionally. He wasn’t depressed or anything, but he looked around and saw all these great men of God who happened to be older, probably much older, than himself and he did what we all do when we look around instead of looking up- he saw his inadequate state. God says to do something and we look at the other people doing the same thing or similar things, and we realize that compared to them we don’t have the same level of: schooling, training, strength, courage, popularity, Talent, and so on. But then God reminds us: ” you must go where I send you and do as I tell you, and do not be afraid of them for I will protect you.”
It isn’t about what we think we can do or what we feel we are qualified for. It’s about what God knows we can do and what He qualifies us for through His power. No matter our schooling or our skill we are all inadequate for the task before us unless we have God helping us. Oh sure we might succeed on our own, but it will always be more difficult or lead to less of a great conclusion then it would have been if we had just let God use us the way that He planned to. We may all be in the wine press emotionally on some level for something, but God has a plan for all of us, one that is unique and individual to each person. When God calls you out of the wine press follow His voice. And don’t be afraid of them, for God will protect you.
Jude
Jude
This will end our four part ‘in the wine press’ series. Feel free to go back over the last three weeks to see where it all began in Gideon, to where we are now, near the end of the Bible in one of my favorite books- Jude.
In the wine press spiritually. Jude’s past right to the dating of his book and the argued over intended audience is… speculative. However, as one of my Theology Professors once said: even with legitimate doubt about the dating of Jude, a terminus a quo and terminus ad quem should be possible. What we do know for fact is that Jude was Jesus’ brother. We also know the struggle that Jesus’ brothers had with accepting Him as Messiah. Jude would have been a Jewish man who attended synagogue and learned his Torah and more than likely prayed to God. He was doing the physical acts of being one of God’s chosen people, like everyone else, but like most of the others around him he didn’t yet have a personal relationship with God- which comes through Jesus. [Now I’m going to peel away from Jude himself because, as I said before, we don’t know as much about him as we would like and I don’t wish to go on about things I’m not sure about.]
So many of us our in the wine press spiritually. On the outside we are threshing away after the harvest, doing the work we are supposed to do, yet on the inside we are in the wine press, which is not where we are supposed to be. We look like we are fully committed to Jesus, yet we still don’t have a relationship with Him. Going to Church and reading the Bible are fundamental in your Christian life, yet if you think these acts without having accepted Jesus as you savior will get you into Heaven you haven’t been paying attention to what you have read or heard. We need Him first and foremost. We need these other things that connect us to Him for sure, but they don’t mean anything if Jesus is not at our core and theirs. Bibles and Churches that have been stripped of their intended meaning and purpose to leave us with an all loving, all accepting, all roads lead to Heaven bad taste in our mouths are not going to help your Spiritual growth or your connection to Jesus, (which Jude warns against in his book). After accepting the sovereignty of Jesus, Jude became a student of the man who founded the first church – James. It would have been so hard for Jude and James to let go of the image of Jesus they had in their minds and to instead grasp the wonder of who He truly was. If my relative suddenly claimed to be God’s son I’d be checking his cup to see what he was sipping. But Jesus proved Himself again and again and we know He is God. But until you accept that and accept that you need Him as your savior no amount of Church attendance will save you. Once we get out of the spiritual wine press and start doing things the right way maybe we will have the courage and faith to say “I —- a slave of Jesus Christ,” just like Jude did.
Reflection
The moon has a dark side that is void of rhe sun’s light. But the sun has no dark side because it is the light. We have darkness in us because we have places that we don’t let Jesus into. These sides rise up and make the world doubt the goodness of Christ because His Christians aren’t perfect. But Jesus is the light and the good inside of us, He has no darkness or badness. We will always mess up no matter how hard we try to be like our Savior because we are flawed humans. But we are only a reflection of Jesus, not Jesus Himself and He does not possess our inclination toward sin. You can’t judge the sun’s warmth by standing in the dark, you have to feel it for yourself. You can’t judge Christ by Christians, we’re only a reflection and mess up, you have to experience Jesus for yourself to see how wonderful He truly is.
Saul
Saul
Saul had his own moment of leaving the wine press ( figuratively). When the Isrealites fussed to have a king like everyone else had, God chose Saul. Where was Saul when Samuel informed him he was to be king? Looking for donkeys. He didn’t want the job at first. Now I know that Saul is a contrary figure. But he was chosen by God, even if he turned from God in the end, God gave him a position of authority. But he had been found for his time, in a place of lowlyness. Not believing that God had a great time for him.
Saul answered, “But am I not a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me?” 1 Samuel 9:21 NIV
But God was able to change him. To make a great king out of the least likely person.
As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day. 1 Samuel 10:9 NIV
It doesn’t depend on us. If we are well educated or are wealthy or have a great family background, none of that matters for God’s big plan for us. All that matters is that we are willing to say ‘yes God, let’s do this!’
Saul was planned for a time and purpose. He is also a great example of what happens when we turn from God even in the midst of following His plan for our lives. We must remain true to Him and serve Him or else He may use someone else to fulfill His plan. Saul had the chance to be great in God’s power. But He chose to try and be great in his own strength and was cast down.
God can use you no matter how unlikely you seem to yourself. But if you don’t honor Him He will find someone else.
I can smell it, life is returning
I can smell it coming, life is returning.
Walking through the grove of blue spruce trees in our yard I took a deep breath. The past several months of winter, the air burned and smelled like snow; today my senses were filled with warm scent of pine. It was faint, but it was there. Little by little the trees were coming back to life. I know pine trees don’t go fully dormant during the winter like Birch or Poplar, so they are usually the first you notice a difference in during Spring. Yet that doesn’t change the joy of having the trees start to show sign of winter ending.
Yesterday Jesus was killed and buried. Today He was busy preparing for tomorrow. His body lie in a stone tomb, yet His Spirit was working on the Father’s plan. He wasn’t up and walking about yet today, but there was something stirring, life was returning. Lewis would speak of it as the other world or realm and that is how I will speak of it also. We couldn’t see or hear anything happening here on Earth during the middle day of Holy Week weekend, yet in the other world- the one our souls belong to- there was a great awakening of souls who had lied in death for many years awaiting their savior to come and take the keys from the devil and bring them home. Jesus’s death and resurrection was always planned, God didn’t suddenly go, ‘oh no! The world is really bad I need to send someone to save them!’ He knew all along what would happen and was ready for it. Today was a busy day for Jesus, and though his body lay dead in the tomb, life was preparing to return to it.
Carried in the cross 