answers

Who’s Doing The Work?

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ Leave a comment

Who is responsible for your maturity in Christ? Is it all about you and your obedience or is all the Holy Spirit’s doing?

Do you have days when you feel you’ve done nothing but blow it as a Christian? You haven’t loved well, you ran out of patience, you didn’t think about God for an instant.

What does God think of you when you’re in that condition?

“Return to your baptism everyday,” Luther said. Remember you died in Christ, were buried in him, and were resurrected in him. All your sins are forgiven and washed away. God sees them no more.

Paul would say,

“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” – Romans 6: 5-7

You have been set free to live as a believer in Christ.

Before faith, you were a slave to sin. You couldn’t love or serve God. The only things you could do were to:

1) live in darkness

2) provoke God’s wrath

3) heap judgment on yourself

But God, who in his mercy called you from death to life, who gave you the gift of faith to believe in Christ and him crucified, now enables you to freely love and serve him.

You are a freed slave learning to live as a free man or woman in union to Christ.

How does this work out in daily living?

Justifying faith is God acting upon you – you are a passive recipient. He changed your heart, he made you capable of believing the gospel. You didn’t produce that yourself. You had no power.

Sanctifying faith is accomplished by the Holy Spirit who causes you to desire God and enables you to obey God. This new action will result in your good works.

You will produce fruit.

So if you’re worried about how you’re doing, don’t be. Looking inside your heart will demoralize you. It’s not pretty in there.

The solution is to keep looking to Jesus.

He’s the author of your faith, and to God who will give you everything you need to keep loving and serving him.

What’s The Best Story To Tell About Jesus?

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This is the day of personal stories. You read them on blogs, watch them on television, exchange them among friends, and even write a few yourself.

The church has followed suit. Modern sermons are peppered with stories about people’s experiences, usually the pastor’s.

Sometimes you learn more about the pastor’s life than you do about Christ’s.

In the marketing world, that’s called the hook.

It’s meant to get your attention and engage you.

We’re naturally attracted to stories. They entertain us, inspire us, teach us, make us cry, or get angry, or applaud.

When someone asks you, “Tell me your story?” you launch into describing the events that led up to your conversion. That’s your personal testimony.

But as riveting your personal story may be, it won’t lead others to faith.

What? That’s crazy, you say.

Let me explain.

First, there’s no power in your personal testimony.

Second, it’s your story, not Jesus’.

If somebody were to ask the Apostle Paul about his testimony, you wouldn’t hear about him, how he made tents, how he studied under the best teachers of the day. He wouldn’t give you all the gory details of how he persecuted Christians to put them to death.

What you’d hear Paul tell you is about Jesus Christ. He was obsessed with Jesus.

The only power to lead someone to faith is in the story of Jesus Christ and him crucified.

That’s why if you check the sermons in the book of Acts, they tell the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Paul, Peter and John, and the other apostles could have told wonderful stories about their life with Jesus, but they didn’t. The few times they did they highlighted their failures and fears.

The gospel, which is the testimony about Jesus, is the power of God.

It is the message that announces the lengths God has gone to save us from sin and death. It tells sinners that Jesus came to abolish who they are in Adam (dead in trespasses and sins), to cut off their life in Adam because it cannot be rescued or repaired, and to raise them from the dead and give them life in Christ.

How did Jesus do this? By nailing your long list of sins to the cross. Since the paycheck for sin is death, Jesus paid the legal debt for you and secured your release.

That’s the story to tell.

Go out and tell someone!

Christians Are Human, Too

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Have you had days when you feel despairing and without hope? You wallow in unbelief and self-pity accompanied by great heaving sobs? And to top things off,  you know those thoughts don’t honor the character of God, which makes you feel even more wretched.

Does God still love you in times like these?

Did God love David, Job, Jeremiah, and countless others who poured out their feelings in times of crisis and suffering? Some, like Job, even took God to task.

The answer is a resounding YES! He does love you.

You know what? Christians are human, too.

Just read the Psalms. Every emotion is there. The ups and downs, the anger, the confusion, the despondency, the hurt and the suffering.

There isn’t a human emotion that isn’t recorded there. And aren’t you glad. You serve a God who isn’t turned off or shocked by your raw feelings.

And he still loves you.

Jesus understands. He faced it all. And he suffered perfectly, without sin. And that perfect record has been given to you!

“This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.” (New Living Translation)

Whatever else you do while the going is rough, remember to run to Jesus, your sympathetic High Priest, and tell him how you feel, and  he will comfort and give you grace.

Why Doesn’t God Answer Me?

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 2 Comments

Have you ever wondered why God sometimes doesn’t answer your prayers?

Well, you’re not alone.

Not all of Jesus’ prayers were answered either.

C.S. Lewis has some stunning thoughts on the subject:

It would be even worse to think of those who get what they pray for as a sort of court favorites, people who have influence with the throne. The refused prayer of Christ in Gethsemane is answer enough for that.

You’re in good company if you have prayers that have gone unanswered.

It’s also the experience of every Christian. Paul didn’t have his prayer answered for the thorn in his flesh. Instead, he learned that God’s grace was sufficient for him, especially in his weakness, so God’s strength could show through.

If you’re struggling with this, here are 4 things to comfort you about unanswered prayer:

1. God hears every prayer

2. Every prayer will be answered in its fullness when Christ returns

3. Even if your prayer is answered here and now, it still is not fully realized until the Kingdom comes

4. The Holy Spirit, which God has given you as His guarantee of the coming Kingdom, is God’s promise of all your hopes and dreams for yourself, your family, your ministry, the masses of people who don’t know Christ that you have been praying for — all will be fulfilled in Christ.

God invites you to trust him because he’s up to something far more grand!