salvation

Tent Living is a Temporary Affair

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 1 Comment

“By faith he (Abraham) made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.” – Hebrews 11:9 NIV

I read that verse this morning and thought about how this applies today. Nothing came to mind and then, Pow! The Holy Spirit opened up the heavens.

Here’s what he taught me:  Tents

This is true of us post-moderns as much as those tent dwellers in Abraham’s day.

Abraham and his family made their home in the promised land like strangers in a foreign country. While they lived there, they didn’t belong there. Their citizenship was in the new heaven and the new earth, just like ours is. Whatever country we live in, that’s not home. Home is with Christ.

Abraham and his family lived in tents. They were mobile homes, able to be set up and taken down whenever necessary. We live in tents, too. Paul calls the body a tent, and when we die we step out of our tent and into a new immortal body, just like Christ’s. (2 Corinthians 5:1-5)

We, along with Abraham, the father of the faithful, and everyone who calls upon Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, to be living one day in the new heaven and the new earth, in new bodies, breathing pure air.

And where is this new world going to be? Right here! Every step we take on this solid ground we call earth will one day be renewed, made clean and pure and holy, inhabited only by saints washed in Jesus’s blood and sacrifice.

Don’t think of your salvation as an individual gift only. Salvation embraces the entire universe! Jesus’s perfect life of obedience and death on the cross restored the created order, including you and me.

Question: When you groan in your tent here what do you do about it?

Talk to me.

messychristians@gmail.com

 

 

Living with a Broken Heart

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 4 Comments

Contrary to every thing you hear in the media, your life is not your personal possession to do with as you please.

If you’re a Christian, you belong to Jesus. You we were bought with a price – his blood – to no longer serve yourself, but him.

How are you doing with this?

If you’re like me, not so good.  love

I’d rather continue being addicted to myself. It’s easy. It’s comfortable. I’ve been doing it all my life.

I also like burrowing into my world of entertainment – my favorite TV shows, sports, painting, writing and photography. None of those things are sin in and of themselves, but when they push out Jesus in favor of them, then I have a problem.

And I push out Jesus a lot.

I can spend a whole day without thinking about him or talking to him.

I don’t do that with the people I love, but I do it with him.

I don’t keep short accounts of my sins with him either. I tend to bunch them all together at the end of the day, if I remember, and then confess them. When I think about it, that’s pretty stupid and laughable. What I’m doing is just discharging a duty without any heart work, and I know it and so does Jesus.

I’m reminded in the gospels, Jesus was not autonomous. He could have been. He didn’t need help from anybody, he knew who he was and where he was going. And yet he was 100% dependent on his Father, from what to say to people to what to do for them. “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.'” – John 5: 19

That dependency led him to the cross to die for me and you.

And I’m pierced through the heart.

I admit I fail miserably to live a dependent life. It’s foreign to me. But I don’t despair because I have hope. First, God makes me aware of my sin and depravity and I getting better at talking to him about it. Second, I don’t want to be like that any more and I tell him so. And third, in Christ I am becoming more like him. He’s doing the work he promised to do even if I don’t see it. “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” -Philippians 1:6. And for that I rejoice!

Where are you on this road? Talk to me.

 

 

 

 

 

How the World Cup Teaches Me about Jesus

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Tuesday I watched the US vs Belgium soccer game.

It was intense.

For 90 minutes neither team scored, but they did a massive amount of running across the field.

Belgium had more shots on goal than we did, but because of Tim Howard’s talent, our goalie, we blocked all the shots.

Then came overtime…

That’s when it unraveled.  Brazil Soccer WCup US Portugal

Both teams were exhausted, but nevertheless they rallied for a last ditch effort and with it came the goals.

Things ended up 2-1 in favor of Belgium.

So we’re out, they’re in.

How like life.

It’s in the overtimes of life where you discover if you have what it takes to live with your eyes fixed on the goal and to do it with grace and perseverance.

That’s where most of us fail.

Instead of a fixed gaze, we flounder in our choices.

Instead of grace, we get impatient, or cranky, or downright ugly.

And instead of persevering, we give up.

Just think what would have happened if Jesus hadn’t fulfilled his mission and instead thrown in the towel and walked off the field.

“Looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12:2 ESV

If Jesus hadn’t lived and died for us, none of us would have a chance at a relationship with God.

And none of us would be forgiven of our sins.

But thanks be to God, Jesus stayed the course, set his mind on completing his mission, and was rewarded by a resurrected life which he now lives in heaven.

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” – Acts 1:11 ESV

It’s a comfort to know that everywhere we fail Jesus has succeeded for us.

He lived a life of perfect obedience to God’s commandments for us and died a painful death to pay the price for our sins.

By putting our faith in him, we too can score those perfect goals in life.

Want to play the game right?

 

Does God Like Social Media?

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Face-to-face is the original social media.

Conversations that used to take place over a meal or drinks after work is now happening on Facebook, Skype and Tweets.  tweet2

Whatever the delivery system, online gurus say it has to have at least these 4 components to be meaningful:

  1. relevant
  2. practical value
  3. emotion
  4. stories

But even if all these components are there, I’ve noticed something – people are hungry for human interaction, not just cyber chats. They want face-to-face. They need to feel connected to others they can see, hear, touch and laugh with.

And no online delivery system can deliver what a personal encounter can.

And God knew that.

God, with all his supernatural abilities, could have designed a mechanism whereby he could communicate with us without leaving heaven to do it.

He could have sent angel messengers.

He could have boomed his voice from heaven.

He could have scared the life out of us with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder.

Instead, he sent his own flesh and blood Son to live among us, suffer alongside us, and then die a horrible death.

Where’s the value in that?

God knew the kind of mess we were in – we were dead in our sins and unable to rescue ourselves. So he fixed the problem by sending his Son Jesus to live a life of perfect obedience to the law of God for us, and then die in our place in order to pay the price for our sins.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” – Ephesians 2: 4-7 ESV

So how is that relevant to me?

If Jesus hadn’t done that, you would have no hope of measuring up to God’s standards and being loved by him.

“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5: 7-8 ESV

Only Jesus measured up and secured your relationship with God, so when you place your faith in his finished work for you, God fully accepts you as his cherished child.

By taking that step, for the first time in your life you have face-to-face communication with God through Jesus.

Now that beats anything you can have online!

Want to plug into the best conversation today?

“Dear Jesus,

Thank you for living a perfect life for me, and for dying to pay the price for my sins on the cross. I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Fill me with your love and let me live from now on for you. Amen.”

If you’ve prayed this today, would you let me know?

How To Untwist Yourself

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Jesus is my Sabbath rest. I have ceased from my own works to gain God’s acceptance. (Hebrews 4)

Christ earned God’s acceptance for me by living a perfect life of obedience to God’s law on my behalf, and by dying a death on the cross in order to pay for my sins.  woodduck

Since he accomplished this when I wasn’t even aware of my desperate need, how much more do I need to stop accepting burdens that only he can carry.

My burdens are my anxieties about my children and family members and their future, illnesses of friends, my own calling and vocation, and so on. These are burdens that disturb my rest in Christ.

They also point to pride in my life.

I think I can carry these cares!

The truth is I can’t. They weigh me down, they make me into a person who rarely has a lightness of heart over anything.

What to do about them? Pray as often as the Spirit leads me to, but then leave the care with him.

“Casting all your anxieties on him; for he cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:7 ESV
casting – to throw upon, to place upon God
all – everything
care (burden) – distractions & anxiety about things pertaining to this earthly life
cares – to care about, have regard for
God calls me to leave everything with him.
As a Christian I am to be care-free!

Is Your Life Worth Saving?

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There’s a new advertising campaign grabbing my eyeballs in the subway station these days.

Everywhere I look the walls are covered with large posters asking, “Is your digital life worth saving?”

Clearly for this tech company the answer is yes.

Tech companies have been designing our digital lives for quite a while. And now they want to save them.

But tech companies aren’t the only ones that believe your life is important, digital or otherwise.

ER doctors believe your life is worth saving.

Paramedics and rescue workers believe it, too.

So how come you don’t believe it?

“What do you mean? I’m always saving my life.

I’m up on the latest cure, the most up-to-date therapy, and the most exciting lifestyle I can buy.

What’s wrong with that?”

Nothing, except it’s only skin deep. photo(11)

What if you’re missing what’s really important?

What about your soul?

“I’ve got that covered,” you say.

“I go to church on Easter and Christmas, I recycle, I rescue orphaned animals, and I don’t cheat on my taxes. Doesn’t that count for something?”

Sure. You get kudos with the relatives, and you’re not arrested by the IRS. But will doing good things save your soul?

“Well, if that won’t, what will?”

We will never be good enough to save our own soul. Sin has marred our lives and keeps us from a relationship with God. That’s why God has made a way for your sins to be forgiven.  And you don’t have to cross oceans or change your lifestyle to get it.

He offers it to you right now in the Person of his Son, Jesus.

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”

Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” – John 6:28-29 ESV

By receiving God’s gift, he draws you into relationship with himself.

Jesus is God’s plan for saving your life.

Now and forever, without a contract or fees.

Want to find out more about saving your life?

Send me a message.

Even Though You Fail, But God

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 3 Comments

The gospel shows us that we fail to obey God.

Not sure that’s true?

Try this on for size: How well have you loved God and your neighbor today? Yesterday? How about last week?

If you’re like me, you must admit your failure. photo(43)

But not only do we fail to obey God, we dupe ourselves into believing that our imperfect obedience somehow is sufficient for God to fully accept us.

That’s because we’re trusting in our own performance.

We insist on being our own Messiahs.

Even people without faith in Christ are believers – in themselves, their performance, or the idols of their own making.

Christians struggle with the same issues.

Failure to believe the gospel results in our problems in church, in our relationships, and in our work.

We all agree that belief in the gospel is the way into the kingdom of God, but then we forget it’s also the way of life in the kingdom.

We never graduate from the gospel.

It’s essential for kindergarteners as well as PhDs.

It’s the only way to grow and be transformed by Christ.

So what is the gospel again?

To quote Question 60 of the Heidelberg Catechism:

Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuse me, that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding, God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me, the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin: yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember The Truth

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Your salvation is in Christ.

Your right standing with God is in Christ.

Your total and complete acceptance is in Christ. 

Your merit is all in Christ.

Your wholeness is in Christ.

So what does this mean to you?

It means your imperfect obedience, lukewarm love, and stumblings are swallowed up in Christ’s perfect life of obedience.

Remember, his perfect record is yours.

God loves you because of him.

As believers, our default position is now the full and complete life of Jesus.

That’s pure joy!