Leaving a Legacy

Five Things Jesus Has Changed In My Life In The Past Year-

2011-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

I challenged Community last night to list 5 things Jesus has changed in their life in the past year before they went to sleep. Here are the things that came to my mind when I thought about what Jesus has done for me over the last year.

He has given me a greater understanding and appreciation of His grace in my life. After spending one year studying the book of Galatians, I am more overwhelmed by His Grace than ever before. His Grace is amazing and is all I need!
He has given me a reminder of the condition of the world. The world’s need is so great and the church is doing so little in the matter of missions. After trips to England and the Philippines this year, as well as Valerie’s continued involvement in Haiti, the need of missions is greater in my heart than ever. It must be THE top priority of our ministry
He has given me a thankful attitude for those who labor alongside in the ministry both now and in the years past starting with my wife, Valerie! Without question I could never do what is necessary without Valerie. She is, by far, the greatest asset the Lord has ever given me. Behind her are the staff, men and women, as well as faithful members who labor as heroes of the faith behind the scenes.
He has given me a glimpse of His Holiness through the pages of His Word. In this day and age churches seem to be going out of their way to lessen the teaching and doctrine of God’s Holiness and our sinfulness. The Lord has guided me, in the study of His Word, to see that before we can look at the sin of man we must see the holiness of God. His holiness is the attribute that sets the tone for all other study of who God is.
He has given me a sense of peace that I don’t have to make things happen in my life but can trust Him no matter what happens. We put so much pressure on ourselves and each other that we don’t allow God to have time or room to work in our lives. No matter what I think, or what others think, God loves me and I am complete in Him.

(Bonus) He has shown me that serving Christ is not performance driven. God does not love me more because I serve him, but I serve Him because I love Him. The motivation is love, not to receive love from God but because I have already received love from Him!

What are five things the Lord has done in your life in the last year?

JOIN US FOR SINGLE VISION CONFERENCE JAN 2-6, 2012 IN ST PETERSBURG!

2011-11-30T07:38:00.000-08:00

As I sit here in my study and look at the calendar, I realize that Single Vision Conference 2012 is only one month away! It seems like just a few days ago we were waiting for the first delegates to arrive at our inaugural conference with great fear mingled with excitement. The fear was based on the unknown as we did not know who or how many single adults would show up. The excitement was based on the fact that Pastor John, myself, our staff, and our churches were thoroughly convinced that God had something incredible in mind when he gave us the idea for Single Vision Conferences! Pastor John and I have talked about and prayed over our motives and goals for SVC on many occasions. We are both in full agreement that our only goal is to glorify Christ and be an encouragement to young adults who are transitioning through life. With that said, once Monday night kicked off we knew God had something great in mind for us at the conference. Every sermon, every session, and even the off time you could see and sense God working in and through the conference delegates, the speakers, and those who were hosting and helping. It was so incredible to see real life questions being asked and answered with real Bible truth. A lot of tough subjects were dealt with and I believe they were handled openly and honestly with no punches pulled. By the last session we knew God had blessed our first conference and so we planned a second. Now, that conference is right around the corner and to be honest, I am more excited this year than I was last. We learned a lot from the first conference that we are applying and adding this year. Without going on forever, let me give you a bullet list of some of the things I am most fired up about!

More prayer and planning has been done this year for the conference, speakers, activities, and delegates!
Cary Schmidt will be with us for at least five sessions! THE best I know on single adult issues!
Margaret Stringer, enough said! If you don’t know Margaret Stringer you will not want to miss Tuesday!
More sessions. We have added one full day to the conference because the delegates last year said two days is not enough. Sessions will be Wednesday and Thursday with both joint and split sessions for men and ladies.
Great music! The Rochesters will be singing Monday evening with special music throughout the week!
Resources galore! Find out what others are reading, watching, and listening too!
Tons of prizes including a round trip ticket for a guy and girl to LONDON for Single Vision United Kingdom this summer! (NO chaperones eligible) Every registered delegate receives a gift bag, t-shirt, and tons of other resources at registration plus opportunities to win stuff every service!
Thursday night service and activities on the beach at Treasure Island!
More opportunities for fellowship and getting to meet other single adults from around the world!
Ed, Salaam, Stephen and others from across the pond! If you don’t know who they are I cannot explain it to you!
To partner with us for Single Vision United Kingdom during the summer Olympics in 2012!
Theme park in Tampa for a day with a lunch session hearing the powerful life changing testimony of Christian business man Dan Shock.
Dr. David Gibbs Jr. founder and president of Christian Law Association will be with us as well as Mrs. Glorianne Gibbs for the ladies!
Chik-fil-a!

Let me say we are praying, planning, and working to make Single Vision 2012 a life changing event! Pastors, parents, single adults I promise you the conference will be well worth your time and money and quite possibly could change your life forever! If you are interested in registering yourself or your group, call the office at 727.323.4907.

Five Things I Am Thankful For

2011-11-23T10:19:00.000-08:00

In no order here are some things I am thankful for:

1. I am thankful for the first 10 years of my life. Without question we lived in Camelot. Great church, friends, family, life was perfect. When we moved things changed but I never get over how great those first years were. The lesson is kids remember a lot in the beginning, don't take the early years for granted.

2. I am thankful for a God who never gives up on us! I deserve nothing and His Grace gives us everything!

3. I am thankful for a wife who loves me, supports me, takes care of me! Said it before say it again without her I can't match my own clothes! She is also the reason we have four incredible kids! Thankful for my children who are a consistent source of joy in my life! Sometimes a source of irritation but mostly joy! Quinn, Collin, Madeline, and Grant are the greatest!

4. Thankful for my sisters who make life interesting! I don't worry now near as much as I used to about the producers of Jerry Springer calling and telling me what date we are taping their episode. Also thankful for my dad and step mom who are so important in my life. Things have hanged so much between us recently, I think he finally went to Radio Shack and bought the love/family chip. Thankful as well as for my mom and Ted, they seem very content and happy on the water. Thankful for Freed and Betty, best in-laws in the world, even of they don't live out of the country anymore! I am in the ministry today because of Freed's talk with me about the will of God over 17 years ago.

5. Finally I am thankful for Christians that "get it"! They understand what living for the Lord is all about and are such an encouragement to others! Where would I be without the investment in my life of other believers who have poured themselves into me!

Give Thanks and may God bless you and yours!

Persecuted For The Right Stand Not For Having The Wrong Spirit

2011-11-10T10:48:00.000-08:00

“Blessed are they which are persecuted righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” (Matt. 5:10-12)

Let me give you a simple explanation of this Beatitude. I’m afraid that some people have the wrong idea of what this means. They think it applies to them when it really doesn’t.

“Oh, Brother Stancil, nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. People treat me so badly. I’m so persecuted.” Hold on a minute. Who is this passage actually talking about?

First of all, persecution is not a consequence for sin or bad decisions. Nearly every Thursday I go and speak to men at the Federal Corrections Complex in Beaumont, Texas. It is amazing that, out of 1,700 men incarcerated there at any given time, all but one or two are innocent. At least, that’s what they tell me. “It was my lawyer. The man is keeping my down. I didn’t do it. It’s not my fault. They’re just out to get me.”

When you make bad choices or decisions, there are consequences. When a prisoner complains to me about the 20 years he has to serve, he has to realize that his own choice to rob a liquor store led to that result. I love the guys I minister to at the prison, but don’t expect me to feel bad for them because they are locked up after what they have done.

The same goes for events in our own lives. Even if we are not in prison, many of us are going through things that we incorrectly label as some kind of suffering God has decided to let us endure, when in reality we are just living with the results of some bad decisions. That is a hard concept for so many people to grasp today.

We live in a generation that is foreign to many older people because they were taught about consequences when they were younger. So many younger people today have never had so much as a spanking while growing up, and they were never taught about right and wrong, and suddenly they find themselves in jail because of things they have done. That is not persecution; that is just the normal result of some really stupid choices.

Persecution does not arise from conflicts over your personality. “Nobody likes me,” you whine. Well, it could be because you’re a jerk. It’s amazing to me how many people are rude, mean or unkind to everyone around them and then wonder why no one wants anything to do with them. If that is your story, you are not suffering for Jesus. You’re just suffering the effects of your toxic personality that clashes with normal, acceptable behavior.

“Well, that’s just who I am,” you say. If that is your position, then you will be like that all by yourself because no one wants to be associated with you.

I can choose not to be around people that I don’t have to be around. If you’re dragging other people down, I am not going down with you. I’ll just cut myself loose and watch you sink. I have enough in my own world to deal with, and if you have a bad spirit or a bad attitude, people do not want to be infected by it. You can correct that if you work on it.

Persecution does not come about because of your lack of common sense. It’s funny to me how some people think that being a Christian is a license to be brutal to one another. Under the guise of “truth” or “trying to help” a friend, you say something that is just ridiculous and it comes across in the worst way.

I have been the pastor of my church 11 years as of this writing. There are things I can say from the pulpit now that I couldn’t say 10 years ago, because my people can handle it and they know how much I love them. Some young preacher will complain about being run off from his church in just a few months for “preaching the truth,” claiming that he’s being “persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” No, he’s just an idiot who tried to unload everything on people in his first few weeks. That’s not common sense. A new Christian is not going to take some preaching as well as those of us who have been saved for 30 years. It’s a no-brainer.

All four of my children are very different. I’ve learned that some kids only need to be spoken to and others might need a two-by-four to get their attention. It’s the same with any group of people. The book of Jude talks about preachers using compassion with some and fear with others. Some newer Christians in my church think I am rough and hard but they have no idea. There are preachers I would not invite to speak at my church because some of the people aren’t ready for it.

You say, “My spouse wants to divorce me and all I did was speak the truth.” Are you divorcing because you tried to lead softly or because you crammed certain things down your spouse’s throat? Use common sense.

Are you wondering why your kids hate you? Maybe it’s because you gave them all of the rules without any of the love. The Bible says in Eph. 6:4, “Provoke not your children to wrath.” You can actually provoke your children into rebellion if you’re not careful. I’ve had to apologize to my kids before. When I start gritting my teeth during my dealings with them, it is a “me” problem and not a “them” problem. Use common sense.

There are many times that we claim to be persecuted when really we are just bringing problems upon ourselves. We are approaching the problem from the wrong perspective.

So if it is not brought about by consequences, or personality conflicts, or a lack of common sense, what is this persecution we are talking about? It is an attitude that expects persecution and endures it with a sense of responsibility and privilege for Jesus’ sake.

Look again at verse 11. “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” To be reviled is to be reproached, insulted or disgraced.

When is the last time someone insulted you just for being a Christian? I don’t mean because you were rude or something you did, but just for Jesus’ sake.

To persecute means to zealously pursue, to take out or drive away. When is the last time someone tried to run you out or chase you off, not because you were hard to live with, but for Jesus’ sake?

The latter part of verse 11 talks about people who just lie about you. Has that happened to you lately solely because of your faith?

The truth is that many of our problems are brought about by us, and we try to spin the truth and make it sound as though it’s because we are Christians. Let’s face it – we live in the United States of America with freedom of religion. That’s not going to happen too often here. Very few of us can claim this Beatitude because most of our problems are “me” problems.

Now some of you may have been brought up in a Catholic family, as a Hindu or Muslim or even a Satanic type of environment. If you came out of that and are born again, you may face some real trouble within your own family. You might have been reared in a good family that was not religious, and when you go back and try to witness to them you hear, “Who do you think you are to talk to us about God? We’re OK here.”

People in those situations may have good reasons to claim this verse, but the majority of us who say we are persecuted for our faith need to realize that our Christianity has nothing to do with it, except that we don’t present our Christianity correctly.

Let’s look at some Biblical examples of real persecution. In Acts 4 Peter and John healed a man in the name of Jesus, and for that they were beaten and driven out of town. In Acts 7 Stephen stood and presented the Gospel, and he was stoned to death even while he forgave them.

In Acts 16 Paul and Silas came into town to have a revival, and they were beaten and thrown in prison. When God flung open the doors so they could escape, they stopped long enough to lead a jailer and his family to Christ.

What did all of these men do wrong? Nothing. These were not personality issues. These were men who took a stand for Christ and were hated by the world for it.

One of my favorite verses is John 10:32, when Jesus is about to be stoned. “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?”

There will be some persecution if you live for Christ. People will hate what you stand for. But you have to stop and think about whether your persecution is because of Christ or because of you. If it’s because of you, don’t blame your Christianity for it.

Here is some very encouraging news for you regarding persecution. First, it is a reality in every believer’s life and you should expect it. You may wonder how in the world that is supposed to be encouraging. Well, it shouldn’t surprise you when it comes.

Some people are shocked when they get saved only to discover that their lost family members are not thrilled at the idea. Young people find out that their parents will not allow them to be baptized because they are so chained to religion and what they have believed all of their lives that they will not be happy when you find the truth of God’s Word. “Just forget the Bible,” they say. “Do what we tell you to do.”

II Tim. 3:12 says, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” To take that thought a step further, look at Luke 6:26. “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” If somebody is not mad at you, you’re not living for Christ.

If you’re just doing what is right, some people are going to say, “Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re better than me?” You should expect that people are not going to be happy when you get saved and become sold out for Christ.

Remember that your persecution is restrained by the Lord. The only things happening in your life are the things that God allows to happen. When Satan wanted to go after Job, God let him do it up to a point. But He dictated how far the devil could go.

You may be under a heavy load right now and being treated badly for His sake, but He is not giving you more than you are able to bear. Sometimes I wish I weren’t as able as I am, but I will always be able to carry my load. It’s not as bad as you may think it is because God always has your best interest at heart.

If you bear persecution correctly, you will earn great rewards. Verse 12 says, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”

Consider II Cor. 4:16-18. “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Fundamentalist Christians will always be compared to the worst things people can think of, such as Islamic fundamentalists. But God promises that if we handle the things the world throws at us, there will be great benefits down the road.

Persecution is part of a Christian’s refining process. Rom. 8:28-29 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Sometimes God uses the most difficult thing in your life for your best interest. He will use heathen people to help you become a better Christian. He did it for years with the Israelites, bringing along the Philistines and other nations to stir things up whenever His chosen people got out of line. The Philistines were wicked people and God judged them severely, but He also used them for His purpose to help His people.

One of the reasons Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh was that he wanted God’s judgment to rain down on that wicked city for what it had done in the past to Israel. God had used Nineveh and its ungodly people in past times to teach Israel a lesson or two.

So if some vile person is causing you problems and it is true persecution for Christ’s sake, stand up and deal with it. God will bless you for it. He just might be allowing it to happen so you can become more like Him. You will learn important principles in battle that you would never learn if you didn’t have to go through it.

I am always a better Christian after the battle than I was before. I look back at some things I have endured in my ministry and, while I wouldn’t want to go through it again, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. God taught me about myself through those times. There were doors I would never have opened on my own, so He had other people open them for me.

Persecution makes us pliable. We are often broken when we are persecuted. Sometimes we are so hard and unmovable when God wants to do something in our lives that He has to blow us up and remake us.

Persecution also makes us more powerful. It gets us down to where we are nothing, and then we realize that He is everything. The less we have of ourselves and the more we have of Christ, the better off we are.

Persecution brings praise to God. If you read the book of Job, you will see several important things. In chapter 1 Job was the best Christian that God had, but it took him 40 chapters to repent of his sin. Job was a better Christian in chapter 41 than he was in chapter 1 because he finally said, “Lord, it’s all about you.” When you can praise God after the battle, God is truly praised.

There is a method to enduring persecution correctly. You must respond and not react. Our first impulse when someone says something we don’t like is to say something back. We instinctively tense up and get ready to fight when someone just bumps into us.

The key to responding and not reacting is to consider the consequences of your decision or action. The person who provokes you might be an idiot, but if you react in like manner a third party will see you both and think that both of you are idiots. If you respond with love, people will notice that as well. If you stop to think about it, you might realize that your adversary is just a person who is having a tough time in life and needs your help.

You have to recognize that you are a Christian and should simply act differently than a lost person. When I visit the prison, I expect to see and hear certain things because it is a prison. It’s a very different world. But if I go to your home or we are eating together in a restaurant, I don’t expect you to stab me because I accidentally bump into you, as someone in prison might try to do. I’m not thinking about you possibly beating me or cussing me because I “disrespected” you. People in prison are killed for less than that.

You are salt and light in a dark world full of lost people, so you should not act the same way a lost person acts. If you are in a contest with a coworker or a neighbor to see how low you can go, acting petty over some stupid disagreement, you are not being salt and light. You expect a lost person to act that, but you are supposed to be different.

Rejoice over the privilege of being persecuted. If you read the New Testament, in every instance of persecution you will find great rejoicing, because they were doing something great for Christ.

When talking about the reward for enduring persecution, verse 10 says, “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The word “is” means present tense. It means that I will have a secure life, unaffected by circumstances. I will be satisfied with what God is doing for me. I will be safe in His protective arms.

In addition to those present benefits, I will have the assurance of a future reward, as verse 12 indicates. I will be with Christ forever and be reunited in Heaven with family and friends.

The key in persecution is recognizing whether it is for His sake or just because of something you are doing wrong. If you are doing right and living for God, but people talk about you and behave in unkind ways, you should expect it and rejoice in it while trying to show Christ-like love to those who need it so desperately.

30 Ways To Pray For People In Authority

2011-10-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

I was preaching outside of Washington DC this past week and saw a pamphlet with the above title. After looking over it I realized I am doing much about those in authority such as fighting against bad legislation, trying to get good legislation passed, and trying to get bad people out of office and good people in. While all of that is good and necessary it is not what I am commanded to do in Scripture. I believe firmly that I am to be a part of the process but my greatest Scriptural admonition is to pray for those in authority. Let us not stop trying to win at the ballot box and certainly in the legislature but let's do what we are commanded to do and that is pray. Here is the pamphlet I saw written by Gary Bergel, former president of Intercessors for America.

30 Ways to Pray for People in Authority
by Gary Bergel

Scripture instructs us to pray for all in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-2), but how do we do that, exactly? Here are 30 ways to pray for our leaders-our judges,educators, police chiefs, school board members, military officers, elected officials. and others who serve our country by leading. By doing this, you are standing in the gap, intervening between God and those in authority.

1. That they be God fearing and recognize that they are accountable to Him for each decision and act (Prov 9:10)

2. That they be granted wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (Jas. 1:5)

3. That they be presented with the gospel and a living Christian witness (Rom 10:14)

4. That if unsaved, they be drawn to a saving encounter with Christ; if born-again, they be strengthened and encouraged in their faith (1 Tim 2:4, Eph 1:17-23)

5. That they recognize their own inadequacy and pray and seek the will of God (Prov 3:5-8, 1 Kings 11:9-13)

6. That they be convicted of sin, transgressions, and iniquity (Psa 51:17, John 8:9)

7. The they heed their conscience, confess their sins, and repent (Prov 28:13, Jas 4:8)

8. That they read the Bible and attend prayer meetings and Bible studies (Psa 119:11, Col 3:2)

9. That they value and regard the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ (Psa 19:7-11, John 8:31-32)

10. That they respect and honor their own parents if living (Eph 6:2-3)

11. That they respect authority and practice accountability (Rom 13:1-7)

12. That they be given Godly counsel and God-fearing advisers (Prov 24:6)

13. That they be honest and faithful to spouses and children (Mal 2:15-16)

14. That they be practicing members of local congregations (Heb 10:25)

15. They they desire purity and avoid debauchery, pornography, perversion, and drunkenness (1 Cor 6:9-20, Titus 2:12)

16. That they be timely, reliable, and dependable (Matt 21:28-31)

17. That they be honest in financial, tax and ethical matters (1 Cor 6:10, 1 Tim 6:6-10)

18. That they seek pastoral care and counsel when needed (Heb 13:7)

19. That they seek out and nurture Godly friendships (Psa 1:1-3

20. That they have thankful and teachable spirits (Rom 1:21)

21. That they be generous and have compassionate hearts for the poor and needy (Psa 112:9, 1 Kings 10:33-37)

22. That they redeem their time and know priorities (Eph 5:15-17)

23. That they desire honest, integrity, and loyalty (Psalm 26, Prov 11:3)

24. That they have courage to resist manipulation, pressure, and the fear of man (Prov 29:25, 2 Tim 1:7)

25. That they be shielded from occultism, New Age cults, false religions, and secret societies (Isa 1:29, 2:6)

26. That they be presented with Biblical world views and principles (Eph 3:10)

27. That they endeavor to restore the sanctity of life, families, divine order and morality in our nation (Eph 5:22-6:4)

28. That they would work to reverse the trends of humanism in our nation (1 Chron 12:32, Isa 59:19)

29. That they desire humility and meekness and be willing to serve and cooperate (John 13:14, Titus 3:1-2)

30. That they be prepared to give account to Almighty God (Heb 9:27)

Adapted from "Intercessors for America" newsletter

More Than A Motto

2011-08-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

IN GOD WE TRUST

Psalms 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD;

On every coin or bill printed or minted in the United States is the phrase “IN GOD WE TRUST”.

Where and how did this phrase get on our currency? It is a relatively new addition to the currency, added largely because of increased religious sentiment during the civil war. Secretary of the treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout person throughout the country, urging the United States recognize God on US coins. From Treasury Department records, it appears the first such appeal came in letter dated November 13, 1861. It was written to Secretary Chase by Rev. M. R. Watkinson, Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, PA. Three years later, after several acts of congress, In God We Trust was minted on the 1864 two cent coin. Another act of congress on March 3, 1865 allowed the motto place on all gold and silver coins. On July 30, 1956 the President approved a Joint Resolution of the 84^th congress, declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the US. It first appeared on paper money on October 1, 1957. By August 18, 1966 the motto was on all of our currency.

Although the motto did not come into existence until just recently, the principle of IN GOD WE TRUST is what our nation was founded and built on. Our founding fathers had a deep commitment to the things of God and to His Divine Providence in leading them. Over the next 200 plus years, however, we have slowly but surely taken God and removed Him from public life. We have taken God out of our classrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, out of every walk of life. We have become a nation as in the days of Noah where men live and die with no thought of God, “Genesis 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

By reading the letters, papers, and records of our founding fathers, it is plain to see their trust in God. Here are a very few quotes of some of our founding fathers concerning their trust in God.

John Adams- SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE; JUDGE; DIPLOMAT; ONE OF TWO SIGNERS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS; SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.

The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. . . . What a Eutopia – what a Paradise would this region be!

I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.

Samuel Adams- SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE; “FATHER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION”; RATIFIER OF THE U. S. CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS

I [rely] upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins.

The name of the Lord (says the Scripture) is a strong tower; thither the righteous flee and are safe [Proverbs 18:10]. Let us secure His favor and He will lead us through the journey of this life and at length receive us to a better.

I conceive we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world . . . that the confusions that are and have been among the nations may be overruled by the promoting and speedily bringing in the holy and happy period when the kingdoms of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and the people willingly bow to the scepter of Him who is the Prince of Peace.

Elias Boudinot- PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS; SIGNED THE PEACE TREATY TO END THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION; FIRST ATTORNEY ADMITTED TO THE U. S. SUPREME COURT BAR; FRAMER OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS; DIRECTOR OF THE U. S. MINT

Let us enter on this important business under the idea that we are Christians on whom the eyes of the world are now turned… [L]et us earnestly call and beseech Him, for Christ’s sake, to preside in our councils. . . . We can only depend on the all powerful influence of the Spirit of God, Whose Divine aid and assistance it becomes us as a Christian people most devoutly to implore. Therefore I move that some minister of the Gospel be requested to attend this Congress every morning . . . in order to open the meeting with prayer.

John Hancock- SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE; PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS; REVOLUTIONARY GENERAL; GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS

Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement.

Gouverneur Morris- REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER; MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; “PENMAN OF THE CONSTITUTION”; DIPLOMAT; U. S. SENATOR

There must be religion. When that ligament is torn, society is disjointed and its members perish… [T]he most important of all lessons is the denunciation of ruin to every state that rejects the precepts of religion.

Randolph of Roanoke- CONGRESSMAN UNDER PRESIDENTS JOHN ADAMS, THOMAS JEFFERSON, JAMES MADISON, JAMES MONROE, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, ANDREW JACKSON; U. S. SENATOR; DIPLOMAT

I have thrown myself, reeking with sin, on the mercy of God, through Jesus Christ His blessed Son and our (yes, my friend, our) precious Redeemer; and I have assurances as strong as that I now owe nothing to your rank that the debt is paid and now I love God – and with reason. I once hated him – and with reason, too, for I knew not Christ. The only cause why I should love God is His goodness and mercy to me through Christ.

Regardless of what any revisionist may write or say, our founding fathers understood that without God’s providential hand of guidance, there would be no America. Our greatest hope is that America will again see our need to put our Trust in God! In God We Trust needs to become more than just a motto!

Peace, Peace, Wonderful Peace!

2011-07-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matt. 5:9)

If you are like most people in the United States in the 21^st century, you are an extremely busy person. In fact, your life may be so busy that it borders on chaotic.

Perhaps you sit down sometimes, like I do, at the end of the day just before bed and say, “Wow. What a day. Is there any relief in sight?” In my case, with a family that includes four children and an ever-growing ministry, there often is no relief in sight.

We all go from one crisis or problem to another, and it is indeed chaotic to say the least. It reminds me of the television commercial from the 1980s where the frazzled woman screams, “Calgon, take me away!” The next scene portrays her soaking in a huge bubble bath, all her problems just a distant memory.

It seems that, amid all of the problems we face every day, very few of us really find peace. That state of being where we are right with God and right with our fellow man, and everything is on an even keel, appears to elude us. All we see are troubles and trials.

Let me clarify something here. All of us have troubles and trials; no one is immune from that. The difference is that some people are able to have peace in the midst of their troubles and trials.

There is no one reading this book who does not have some degree of difficulty, and most of you are likely to have a great deal of difficulty. But while many of you are searching for peace, some of you have found it.

Let’s look at the attributes of a peaceful person. Peace is not the absence of conflict. You might be thinking, “If I could just make all of my problems go away, I would be OK.” You will never be able to wish all of your troubles away. The Bible says in Job 14:1 that this life is “full of trouble.” There will be conflict as long as you live. You might think that’s depressing, but you can have victory along with your problems.

Look at II Tim. 3:1-7. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

That is an accurate description of the day in which we live, and if you think it’s going to get better you are mistaken. The fact of the matter is that we live in the last days, and as we get farther along in the last days we get farther from God’s creation.

Have you ever thought about that? What we are living in now is not God’s perfect plan for this age. This isn’t the way He created things. His original plan was for Adam and Eve in the garden, all alone, with obedient children and no in-laws. I trust you are laughing a little bit at that last statement, but God did create a perfect world. What happened? Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God, and it all went downhill from there.

So God started with perfection, and He will end with perfection when we are living with Him forever, but in the meantime we must live with the consequences of man’s choices. That is what produced everything we see around us.

Adam and Eve had the choice to live in perfect harmony with God and never die. God did not design death, just as He did not design sin. He wanted them to have a wonderful time in the garden. But Adam thought he was smarter than God, and his sin brought the curse. We are left with the results of that curse.

So as long as we are stuck in this world between perfection and perfection, we will have troubles. Why? Because sin destroys everything it touches. It twists people’s thinking and causes them to do things God never intended them to do. If it’s bad now, what will it be like when our young children are grown? If we can’t escape conflict, we had better learn to deal with it, and that means teaching our children some principles for how to live.

Peace is not the absence of conflict, nor is it compromise with conflict. On one side you have the standard of God’s holiness and perfection, and on the other side is the world that is anything but holy. So the world tells the church crowd, “You are the problem. If you would be more like us and stop preaching against our sin, we would all get along.”

Thus, the church is asked to come over toward the world and compromise its position, It’s interesting that in a compromise situation, the one in the position of strength must always give up some of that strength and come down to where the other side is. What the church should be saying is, “Hey, world, we know there is conflict. Why don’t you, through the blood of Christ, come over and join with us?” But we usually choose to let the church be more like the world for the sake of getting along.

Too many of us do this every day with our children. A lot of you moms and dads have made a deal with the devil in the past few days, only in this case the devil is a four-year-old. We compromise for the sake of peace.

Another popular line of thinking is, “If I can make it through this week...” We don’t solve anything or fix the problem. We just want to survive the moment.

We’ve taken a few moments to consider what peace is not. So what is peace? Peace is the attitude or condition that comes when a person is right with God and right with man. There are a few dozen other definitions of peace, and I struggled to narrow it down, because there are several different levels of peace. The Bible speaks of national peace, spiritual peace and some other things, all of which give the impression of soundness.

When we talk about a sound idea or principle, we are usually saying that it is solid or complete. It gives the idea that you’ve got it together and you are whole. You’ve figured it out.

I know very few people who have it all figured out. You can probably think of more than one occasion in which you’ve seen someone and thought to yourself, “I wonder if he is as together as he appears to be.” There are many people who, underneath a very smooth and orderly presentation, have conflict galore in their lives. But there are some who actually live their lives at home the same way they do in public. Their outward portrayal is a true reflection of who they are.

Those are the people who have found peace. Things do not exacerbate them or get them riled up for no reason. Nothing inflates or deflates them. Through good times or bad times, they stay on a pretty even keel.

Most of us are not like that. We are either way up or way down, and we can’t seem to find that constant level that isn’t too high or too low.

There are more than 400 references in the Bible to peace. Rom. 12:18 says, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.” Heb. 12:14 says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” You cannot see God if you don’t have peace.

James 3:16-18 says, “For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.” The opposite of peace is confusion, and the Word of God has answers for those who are confused.

Let’s look at the author of peace. According to I Cor. 14:33, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” The author of confusion is the devil, and the author of peace is God. If God is in the middle of something, there is a level of peace about it. Satan seeks to cause confusion, and it is evident in every aspect of our society.

Think about this for a moment. The predominant features of a rock concert are darkness, noise and smoke. The same is true for a battle zone. A church service should be the antithesis of that; it should be peaceful (although peaceful doesn’t mean dead). It should be encouraging, not confusing.

In the New Testament, God is described six times as the God of peace. Gideon built an altar to the Lord and in Judges 6:24 he called it “Jehovahshalom.” That means “God is peace.” One of the terms used to described Him in Isa. 9:6 is “Prince of Peace.”

John 14:27 says, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” He is the giver of peace.

But He also points out that the peace He gives is not like the peace the world gives. What is the difference? We equate peace with the absence of problems. Your job is steady, your marriage is stable, and your kids are OK. That is probably your definition of peace. You have a brief respite from trouble, and everything is good right now.

The world gives you a week like that every few months to keep you in the cycle. You have 30 days of hell, five days of peace, 30 more days of hell, and so on. Every once in a while Satan tells his demons to stop bothering you so you think it’s all going to get better.

I’ve watched marriages like this. A couple will fight like cats and dogs for six months, then they have a good week and think, “We’re fine, Preacher. We don’t need to change a thing.” Then they’re right back at each other’s throats.

Peace is not the absence of problems. Peace comes in knowing that, in spite of the problems, God is still on throne.

The world says, “I’ll give you a little break this week.” God says, “Whether you get a break or not, I’m still God and you’re still OK. I’ve got everything under control.”

There are several aspects to real peace. First, man cannot have peace without a right relationship with God. A lost person who thinks, “I don’t know where I’m going when I die,” is as far from peace as one can get. The Bible says in Rom. 5:1, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I see lost people who sit in our church services, and you can tell by looking at them that they are not at peace. But because they are holding onto something, they would rather go through life in confusion and chaos than make peace with God. You will never have the peace of God until you make peace with God, and that only comes when you confess your need of a Saviour.

God’s peace is everlasting and unchanging, and it is directly related to your spiritual condition. His peace is completely unfazed by your circumstances.

Deut. 9:18-20 says, “And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also. And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.”

God is angry with Aaron, and His wrath is about to be poured out on Moses’ people. He is ready to level Israel to the ground and start over with Moses. But the last phrase of verse 19, where God hearkened unto Moses, gives a glimpse of how great He is.

Moses was in this instance a man with perfect peace – right with God, interceding for his people. God was ready to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, and Moses pled for Him to do otherwise. In the midst of so much confusion and chaos, there was a little bubble with only Moses and God.

Today there is the same kind of confusion and chaos all around us. God is still angry at the wicked every day, and His judgment will come sooner rather than later. But there is a group of people walking with God through all of this, and they have found peace.

It doesn’t matter what some Islamic terrorists do, or how high the price of gas goes. We still have God, and He has promised to meet our needs. When God gives you peace, these things are not going to bother you. He gives peace that is not changed by circumstances.

Since the beginning the devil has led an attack on peace. Our sinful nature is always battling for control. There are two voices you listen to – the one with the world’s view and the one with the Word of God. Every time you turn on your television you are exposed to the world’s view, whether it is a sporting event or some scientific program that talks about what supposedly happened billions and billions of years ago. They all think that this world is just one big accident.

Sometimes it seems like we are outnumbered, just a few people wanting to follow God against an entire world. But we have about 6,000 years of history behind us with the fingerprint of God on it. The people who would say that there is no God are dying as fast as they get here, and His Word just keeps on going.

The battle within us rages because, as Jer. 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” People tell me all the time, “Preacher, I am basically a good person. In my heart I really want to do good.” It’s a lie. Your heart is deceitful, and the person it deceives is you. People go to Hell because they think themselves to be better than they are. They think that they’re doing OK, and they’re better than most people they know, and that is what deceives them.

Pride keeps you from repentance, which keeps you from peace. If you have true peace, it’s because you realized that there are some thing you can’t handle and you need God to come into your life and take control.

II Cor. 5:18-20 says, “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.”

When I think about people I know who do not have peace, I see blatant areas of disobedience in their lives. The ones who have peace, on the other hand, seems to be trying their very best to do right. That is not a coincidence. There is a direct correlation between your obedience to the Word of God and your level of peace.

Walking with God is the first step toward attaining peace. There must be some time that you spend alone with Him if you are ever going to have peace. How can you know His will for your life if you are not engrossed in His Word and seeking Him in prayer?

Trying to win people to Christ is another step to find God’s peace. When you have the joy of leading someone to Christ and seeing that person find the thing that he or she needs more than anything else, something inside you is rekindled. Some of you were saved a long time ago, and that moment for your is far back in your memory, but every time you open the Bible and share the Gospel with someone else it is like you are seeing it for the first time again.

The ones who are the most at peace are those who stay in the saddle and keep working together for God. Those are the people who are steady no matter what kind of trouble comes along. There is a lot less depression in people who are busy. They are usually more content.

Let the Word of God dwell in you and be your foundation. Col. 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

Philosophy is always changing. Some of the philosophies of education I studied in the late 1980s, which were the “new” way of doing things at that time, have now gone by the wayside. Textbooks are rewritten every five years. Our television talk shows have gone through the same kinds of cycles.

When presidents, leaders, philosophers, gurus and educators come and go, the Bible stays the same. It has been relevant since the moment it was written. Men and women have been having trouble since the Garden of Eden. We’ve been having the same problems for centuries, and the Word of God has been fixing those problems that entire time.

Somewhere there is a lost person who has the same problems you have. The difference is that you can have peace through God if you are right with Him and living for Him.

Pure Hearts

2011-06-13T09:45:00.001-07:00

“Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8)

Most people in life consider themselves to be good people. You will occasionally find an exception to that rule, as you encounter someone who by his own admission is “born to lose” or just a bad guy. But most of us think we’re OK. Even in prison you will find a lot of folks who will tell you, “I’m not that bad.”

The way we come to this conclusion is by comparing ourselves to someone else. It’s always easy to find someone who is a little bit lower than you are, so no matter how low you are, you can usually say, “At least I’m not like So-and-so.”

As with the other Beatitudes we have studied, the phrase “pure in heart” in this verse means much more than one might think. Many would assume that it refers simply to being a good person, and some of us think that we are already there. But let’s look at it more closely in light of what the Bible says.

There are two main points to the explanation of this phrase, and the first point is to consider what it is not. Several places in the New Testament mention the religion of the Pharisees. A Pharisee was a religious leader whose life was impeccably clean and who did a great deal of good in the eyes of his fellow man. Many would assume such a person was pure in heart because there were no chinks in his armor.

But look at what Jesus said about the religion of the Pharisees in Matt. 23:27-28. “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

I perform a lot of funerals, and many of them today take place at mausoleums. The walls inside these structures are beautiful and ornate, and the outside will contain fabulous carvings and other such things. You think about what a beautiful place it is on the outside, but no one ever wants to open the boxes behind the walls, because they all contain the remains of dead people.

This is how Jesus views the Pharisees and their religion according to these verses. They looked great as far as the outward appearance goes, but the inside was rotten and dead.

So we might think to ourselves, “Hey, I’m doing pretty good. I’ve got the right haircut, I’m wearing the right clothes. I don’t do things that are really bad. I guess I’m OK.” But being pure in heart is not like the Pharisee attitude that is concerned only with the outward appearance.

I grew up in church in the 1970s and 1980s when we all made a big deal out of how people looked, and it was very important that we had the right “standards” – the ladies’ dresses were the right length, the men wore manly clothes, etc. Now I certainly appreciate that and want to encourage some of that in my church today, but I think something was lost in translation. I remember all of the preaching about what we should wear, but I have trouble remembering why. There was a lot of emphasis on outward appearances back then, but I don’t recall much being said about letting God work from the inside out as opposed to man working from the outside in.

If you are just working from the outside in on some issue, especially a spiritual one, it will last only as long as the influence of the person who taught you that principle. But if God works on you from the inside out, it won’t matter what other people say or do.

We should encourage one another to look and act like Christians, but we have to be careful before we judge someone based solely on appearance, because we have all seen many examples of someone who looked right on the outside but was living wrong on the inside, and eventually the outside became a manifestation of what was really on the inside. Even teenagers and young people can get caught up in the outward appearance without having the right heart attitude.

I have seen photos of famous preachers looking just right, in a nice suit with perfect hair and Bible in hand, only to find out later that they were living in wickedness when those pictures were taken. Of course, in those situations the truth always comes out eventually.

If you let God get hold of your heart, no preacher or anyone else will ever have to get onto you about how you conduct yourself. There must be boundaries and guidelines about these things, but I would much rather let God show you how you should look and act. Then I can just stand back and say, “That is a work of God. Praise His name.”

Being pure in heart does not mean having the religion of the Pharisees, and it also does not refer to righteousness compared to others. Look at 2 Cor. 10:12. “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.”

Everyone likes to point out that they are better than someone else. Often on visitation I will ask a person about going to Heaven, and the response is, “Oh, yes. I’m going to Heaven when I die.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m a good person.”

“What makes you a good person?”

“Well, I’ve never killed anybody.”

You compare yourself to some notorious serial killer and decide that you’re OK. If could go out to the state prison and pick out 15,000 inmates for comparison, and since I’ve never spent any time in jail, I guess I’m fine. But the Bible never says that has anything to do with it.

Comparing your righteousness to that of others is a sliding scale, because no matter how far you slide you can always find someone who slid farther. The correct standard is God’s holiness. As I Pet. 1:16 says, “Be ye holy; for I am holy.” In comparison to God, all of us are found wanting.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say, “Well, Preacher, I come to church most of the time. I give my money. I do this and that.” You can come to church every time the doors are open but it doesn’t make you a Christian. The same goes for baptism or any other work you do.

Some people won’t go to church because of the people who are there, and others go to church just so they can say they went. Either way, it’s a comparative type of religion that is far from what being pure in heart is all about.

Since we’ve seen what being pure in heart is not, then what is it? It is a heart that is purified by the blood of Christ and has purposed to live in such a way that pleases the Lord. I don’t live for Jesus so I can be born again; but because I am born again, I want to please God with my every action, word, thought and intent.

Look at I Pet. 1:18-23. “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”

The first mark of being pure in heart is that you have been purified by the blood of Christ. As the song says, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”

Your sin is so awful, so terrible, so disgusting before God that He damned those in sin to an eternal Hell. But He loved us so much that, while He condemned us, He also made a way for you to be saved and escape that condemnation. His only son Jesus took your place and shed His blood, which was offered on the mercy seat in Heaven as atonement or a covering for your sin. The only hope you have of going to Heaven is that your sins have been covered by the blood of Christ.

You say, “Jesus died for everybody.” Yes, He did, but not everybody has appropriated the blood of Jesus for their sin. There is a movement in the world today that claims God is the Father of all. He is the Creator of all, but He is not the Father of all. You become someone’s child by birth or adoption, and when you are born again by the Spirit of God you are adopted into the family of God.

If you have not been born again, you are not a child of God. You were created by God, but you are a child of the Devil. As John 8:44 says, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” You must be born again or you will die in your sin and spend eternity in Hell, no matter how good a person you think you are.

Some people call it a “bloody” religion. It is the Bible’s plan for salvation. I didn’t invent it; I’m just reading what God said. According to xxxx, “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.” All of the bulls and oxen and turtledoves and every other type of sacrifice offered in the Old Testament tabernacle and temple were symbols of a continual sacrifice for the sins of those people. But when Jesus Christ died on the cross He made a one-time sacrifice so that the men of this world could be made the sons of God.

After being purified by the blood of Christ, a pure heart seeks to live for God so as to be ready at any moment for your homegoing or His coming. Every thought, word and action should be filtered through the lens of what Christ would want you to do.

Now that we have seen the explanation of this Beatitude, let’s look at some examples.

Read Isa. 6:1-8. “In the year In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.”

Isaiah said that after he saw the Lord and his sin was purged, he had a desire to do something for God. After seeing the Lord high and lifted up, the thought that consumed Isaiah was, “Lord, I’ll go!”

I am bothered by people who say that they have a love for God but they never have a volunteer spirit for God. They profess to know the Lord, but they just sit in service after service and you never see them do anything for the Lord. If you are truly born again and you want to please God, what are you doing with your life for Him?

Think about Daniel, who purposed in his heart that he would serve God in Babylon no matter what happened, regardless of whether it was popular or pleasing to man. He didn’t worry about the consequences; all that mattered to him was serving God.

As we consider someone like that and the time in which he lived, we need to look around at all we have in the United States of America in the 21^st century and ask ourselves why we don’t have more of a heart’s desire to live in a way that will please God.

There are numerous other examples from the Bible that we could cite. The Apostle Paul, after being gloriously converted on the road to Damascus, spent the rest of his life in service to the Lord knowing that it would be difficult. God told him it would be a tough road, but he went right along. He didn’t care about the cost because he had seen the Lord.

The problem with us today is that too many of us have never seen the Lord as He is, so we don’t really know who we are. We elevate ourselves to a place where we essentially run our own lives.

I read former NASCAR driver Darrell Waltrip’s testimony recently. He said that he was saved in 1983 but never fully surrendered his life to the Lord until years later. “I never gave God control of my life,” he said, “because Darrell Waltrip had plans and desires.”

A lot of us get saved but don’t really let the Lord have total control of our lives because we still see ourselves as being pretty good. We start comparing ourselves to other people and look at what we do and don’t do, and we think everything’s OK. But when you really get a glimpse of what God is, you will be stirred to do something for Him because you know you have to see Him again.

If a police officer with a flashing blue light above his car can make you tremble, or a black-robed judge can make you quiver, or someone who is considered a leader by the world’s standards can make you act differently – then the idea of standing before God someday and giving an account of your life should make you change the way you do everything. It will affect every decision you make.

Look at Rom. 8:28. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

What a wonderful verse. We’ve heard it so many times. But we always stop there. Read on in verses 29-30. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”

The latter verses tell us why verse 28 is true, because God is trying to make you a little bit more like Christ. We are to emulate Him, which is easier said than done.

When was the last time you gave yourself, knowing that you would be violated? Most of us cannot say that we have ever done that, because we only do that which we know is safe and comfortable. When Christ gave Himself, He did so knowing that He would be humiliated and spat upon.

There is a lot more to Christlikeness than putting on a suit and going to church. The cost of serving God is far greater than most of us are willing to pay. It’s about going out among people who don’t love you and loving them anyway; it’s giving of yourself to people even though you know they are taking advantage of you.

Those of us in the ministry seem to have an especially strong tendency to judge people, and they get beaten up on by the ones they least expect. I can’t worry about that. I have to do what I am supposed to do whether they beat up on me or not.

You think you are pure in heart because you are kind to your spouse and children. Millions of lost people can make that claim. A Christlike person will love a wife-beater and try to help him see Christ when many of us want to just throw him in jail and forget about his entire family.

A Christlike person will love Muslims and those who are against everything this country stands for. In my flesh, I have nothing good to say about Muslims. I saw the film “Letters from Iwo Jima” and explained to my son who watched it with me that the Japanese soldiers were not the glorious Samurai warriors they are portrayed to be in the movie. They committed unspeakable acts of atrocity toward our soldiers in World War II. But Christ loved them and still does, although many older Americans who remember that time still harbor hatred and resentment.

It is easy for us to love our friends. Jesus told us to love our enemies.

You may be familiar with Rom. 12:20, which says, “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” Many of us interpret that verse as a way to get vengeance on an enemy through kindness. But what the Lord actually means there is that it is a way to start a fire in the other person’s life, which is a good thing. You’re not making him suffer; you are caring for your enemy’s needs. We are commanded to leave the revenge up to God.

We can justify being nice to someone who was mean to us if it will ultimately cause suffering in that person’s life. But our flesh cannot accept the idea of being kind simply for the sake of being kind. “That’s just not fair,” we say.

Was it fair for Jesus to take all of our sins upon His sinless body, to be mocked and spat upon, yet say, “Father, forgive them”? Look at His attitude toward the two thieves who were crucified with him. Both of them railed on him at first, then one changed his tune toward the end. While He was dying, Jesus told him, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). That kind of forgiveness is near impossible for most of us.

This is where emulating Jesus gets hard. I can love you when you’re good to me, but when you’ve taken from me or humiliated me it gets much more difficult.

When Peter got cocky and announced that he had forgiven someone seven times, he was feeling pretty good about himself. Christ’s suggestion was “seventy times seven” (Matt. 18:22). What He meant was, “Forgive them as many times as it takes.”

I will be the first to admit that this is far from my nature. My wife can attest to this, as she has occasionally suggested calling someone who hasn’t been to church in a while, and my typical response is, “They know where we are. I’ve checked up on them long enough. They know what they should do.”

As we emulate Christ, we must elevate our own living. If I want to lose weight it will take much more than just saying that I want to lose weight. If that was all it took, I would be quite thin right now. But it takes more than that. I have to make a change.

The same goes for your Christian life. If you say you want to live for God, that’s not enough. You have to make changes in your behavior. You need to have a program and set a goal. If you want to be spiritual and more like Christ, you can talk about it all you want, but until you radically change your life you will never become what you say you want to be.

There are some obvious parameters that must be set. You can’t watch filth on television or hang out in bars and be pure in heart. There are plenty of other examples that I don’t have to list here. You have to purpose in your heart that you won’t allow certain things to enter your life if they can be a stumbling block for you.

You have to be in church. You’ve got to study your Bible and have a prayer life. You need to be accountable to someone. To be pure in heart, you can’t just wish it will happen. You’ll have to do some things to make it happen.

It is a continual process that requires you to evaluate. Think about your own Christian life. Where is your relationship with God compared to one year ago? If you can think of a time in your life when you were closer to Him than you are right now, that is not progress. The term we usually associate with this condition is “backslidden.”

That is why you must evaluate your life from time to time. Do you have a greater desire to love those who would hurt you than you did last year? Do you want to be more like Christ than you once were? You can look back on good things you have done in your life, but you must still be striving to live for Him. That is a journey that should not end until your life on this earth ends.

There are some evidences of a pure heart that we can readily identify. One of them is positional sanctification in Christ that never changes once you accept Him as your Saviour. Heb. 10:18 says, “…faithful that promised.”

Once you are saved, there is no need to get saved again. There is no additional covering; your sin is already covered. You are a new creature and you have eternal security, in the position of never again having to be judged for your sin.

There is also progressional sanctification. When you were saved, there was a lot about you that was not godly or holy and it didn’t just disappear. But you gained a new person inside you that said, “Don’t do that.” A battle began to rage within you.

Progressional sanctification means that you look at where you started and determine to grow in grace and add to your faith (having therefore these promises, Jude 20, 2 Pet 1:5, 2 Pet. 3:18). Naturally, you will hit a plateau here and there and encounter numerous hurdles in your Christian life. When you reach a hurdle you will either clear it or it will stop you and slow down your growth. How you respond will determine whether you remain a baby Christian or continue to grow in your relationship with God.

Most Christians clear the first few hurdles and then stay in the same place from then on. You don’t have what we would consider a wicked life, but you’re also not in the kind of deep relationship where you really see Him as He is. That’s because those later hurdles are much harder to cross, but they are the ones that will lead to exceptional growth in your Christian life and allow you to see things about Christ that you have never seen before. The older and more mature I get, the more I realize how little I know about the depths of God’s love and where I should be in relation to Him.

Are you pained by sin? Does it really bother you? Are you pursuing holiness as your goal and doing whatever it takes to get there? If you really want it, you will do what you have to do. Most of us will not do that.

Are you living a pure life? When we go to certain countries on mission trips, we tell people not to drink the water. We think our water in the U.S. is pretty good, and people from other countries might think it’s great because theirs is so bad.

If you see a bug in a glass of drinking water from your house, you probably would not drink it. But if that same water out of your tap were put under a microscope, you would see things in that water that might make you sick. We drink it because we don’t see it.

Now consider the purity of the Christian life. The farther you go with Christ, the more things start to show up. When you first get saved a lot of things are just black. But when you walk with Christ you see so many more things that just aren’t right. The farther you go, the more intense the microscope gets. If you have been saved for many years, the things that bother a new Christian should not bother you.

In closing the discussion of this Beatitude, look at the last part of the verse: “They shall see God.” I want to see that, but I’ll never see it until I take the necessary steps to be pure in heart. I can’t compare myself to other people. Christ alone is the standard I should be measuring myself against.

The Elephant In The Room

2011-04-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

To quote a line from one a great movie, The Princess Bride, “Let me 'splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up.” There is much on this subject that I would like to make clear, but to do so would be an exhausting effort, so let me make a clarifying statement and then make my point. I have positional issues with some of the men I am about to agree with that would cause me not to have a close working or fellowshipping relationship with. I think they are men who love God but we have things that separate us. They are New Evangelicals, Emerging Church, Southern Baptist, Non King James, etc. etc. etc. With that said, I LOVE WHAT THESE GUYS DID!!!!!

James MacDonald, Matt Chandler, Mark Driscoll, Steven Furtick, Greg Laurie, Perry Noble, and David Platt all sat down and had a huge discourse over what they agreed and disagreed with each other on. They called it, "The Elephant In The Room" and they filmed it and put it out in public for people to watch. Again back to the clarification statement (I know what I believe and what I practice), so I am not talking about the content of their discussion I am talking about the tone and tenor of their discussion. They took some strong positions against each other but still treated each other with respect and kindness, dare I say even as Christians should. They called each other out on statements made, books written, and positions held but they were not unkind or hateful. Most of all THEY SAID IT TO THEIR FACE!!!!! Not in some “open letter”, or in a not so vague pulpit comment, paper, magazine, blog post, or in some chat room, they SAID IT TO THEIR FACE with specific references of when and where something was said. Not a clip posted on You Tube cut out of context, or half a truth, or one statement taken out of a life time of refuting statements. They called each other on the phone, they discussed it privately behind closed doors and then openly to for people to see and hear.

They all walked away still holding their same positions as when they entered but they knew why the other said what he said or what the context was. Their minds were not changed about the statement or the doctrinal position they held, but they had a better understanding of the reason. Fundamentalism has never been about full agreement on every issue in the world but on the cardinal doctrine of the faith. John Rice, Bob Jones, Lester Roloff, Jack Hyles, J Frank. Norris, Curtis Hutson, Tom Malone Sr., Roy Thompson, G. B. Vick, B. R. Lakin, and on and on each held different positions over some issues. But it did not hinder the fact that they loved each other, prayed for each other, preached for and with each other, and allowed God to use them in what would be the greatest days of evangelism and missionary endeavors. Again, this not about position, this is about spirit and attitude. Hold your position but don’t get a bad disposition. Don’t make it a personal and ugly campaign to destroy a man or ministry you do not agree with.

Yesterday I talked to my best friend in the ministry. There are some things we don’t agree on but there are so many things we do agree on! True friends are hard to find and I am not looking to lose them needlessly. We learned if you have a problem talk about it openly, Biblically, and as Christians who love the Lord and each other. Don’t assume, attack, or assassinate, instead ask questions. You may not like the answers but you do not have to unlike your friend or colleague. We have been down the road together and both still hold and believe the same eternal truths. He doesn’t like some things I do, I don’t like some things he does, but we do love each other in the Lord!

These men that I mentioned showed us that we can be very different on a position or issue but very kind at the same time. Fundamentalism needs to learn to express itself on the issues not at the personal level. I may not like what you do but I do not have to hate you. One of the marks of fundamentalism has always been our strong personalities. Unfortunately we have bred an environment of attacking people not positions. Stay focused on the position and not the personality because in the end an attack on a personality will come back to destroy you personally.

Mercy Me

2011-03-28T07:25:00.001-07:00

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matt. 5:7)

Thank God for His mercy in our lives. We all talk about it, hear it preached and are thankful for it. But do we really know what mercy is?

Mercy is not a pardon. As we know from examples in recent history, a pardon occurs when a person is found guilty of something but is set free by a higher authority, usually after a conviction and sentencing. The most newsworthy pardons for many of us are those of Richard Nixon (by President Gerald Ford) in 1975 and Scooter Libby (by President George W. Bush) in 2007.

Mercy is not acquittal. That is a finding of absence of guilt, whether through insufficient evidence or a jury decision. Acquittals happen to guilty people, as most of America believes occurred in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in the 1990s.

Mercy is not parole. After being sentenced for a crime, a person often is released after serving a portion of that sentence behind bars. Parole can be awarded for good behavior or other circumstances.

So what is mercy, especially for the sinner? Mercy is applied when you do not get what you rightfully deserve from God, and then you live your Christian life in such a way that you do not seek vengeance or vindication – returning evil for good.

The truth is that every one of us is a guilty sinner who deserves God’s wrath. “The wrath of God abideth on him” that does not seek Christ, according to John 3:36. But God has chosen not to give us what we deserve if we accept Him. Then, God says, “Because I have chosen to demonstrate mercy to you, I want you to demonstrate mercy to others.”

In contrast, justice is the act of getting exactly what we deserve. You rarely see someone who knows he is guilty stand before a judge and say, “Give me justice.” But we are all quite familiar with the phrase, “I throw myself on the mercy of the court.”

When I was a student I often heard a Christian school teacher pray, “Lord, help these students perform on this test according to how they studied.” That is the most ridiculous thing a teacher in a Christian school could say. A more appropriate prayer would be, “Lord, show mercy to these students as they take this test, because most of them have not studied as they should.”

So while justice is getting what you deserve and mercy is not getting what you deserve, grace occurs when God gives you something extra that you don’t deserve. God demonstrates mercy by not sending you to Hell if you accept Christ, and He demonstrates grace by giving you Heaven, the Holy Spirit, the Bible and all of the wonderful things of God. We should thank Him daily for His mercy and grace.

God’s mercy is factual. He knows that you are a sinner. Not only has He always known you are a sinner, He also knows the sins you haven’t committed yet. Most of us think that we confess our sins so we can clear the slate with God, but we fail to understand that Christ died on the cross for all of our sins – past, present and future. Before He laid the foundation of the world, God knew what you were going to do. But if God brings mercy, Satan will bring guilt. You can count on it.

God’s mercy is full. It is a complete demonstration, not a partial one. Either you are forgiven or you are not. There is no “half” mercy with God.

God’s mercy is forever. We live in a time where some men preach that you can do so things that get you so out of favor with God that He takes your name out of the Lamb’s Book of Life. That is not true. When God gives you mercy, you have it forever.

There are a number of instances in the Bible that illustrate mercy. In I Samuel 24 we see David, a good man who was despised and marked for death because of the jealousy of King Saul. While Saul had taken his entire army out to hunt David down and kill him, God turned the tables as only He can. David and a few of his men found themselves standing over the sleeping body of Saul. None of Saul’s men had a clue.

One of David’s men asked, “Should I kill him?” David said no. He knew that he was not to touch God’s anointed. We are conditioned to think that if we have that kind of bitter mortal enemy, the only to stop him is by killing him, because he is not going to rest until he has killed you. David could have eliminated all of his problems by killing Saul, but he didn’t. He demonstrated mercy.

Most of us think that if we can just get rid of So-and-so, it would fix our problem. But God says, “No. Show mercy.”

In Acts 7, Stephen was stoned to death for nothing more than believing in Christ and telling others about Him. As these large rocks were pummeling him, breaking his bones and his teeth, causing him to fall to the ground in a bloody heap, he could have cried out, “Lord, vindicate me! Rain your vengeance down from Heaven!” But he didn’t do that. Instead, Acts 7:60 recounts this prayer: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”

Of course, the ultimate example of this type of mercy is Jesus Christ, who hung on a cross as wicked sinners mocked and spat upon Him. His response is recorded in Luke 23:34. “Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.”

Mercy is not an easy thing to administer. When you offend me or hurt me or my family, my natural reaction is to bring vengeance upon you. But the Bible teaches us to do exactly the opposite.

When you get saved, you receive God’s mercy. After you get saved, you must live to experience God’s mercy. The problem for many of us is that we receive His mercy but have trouble experiencing it or living in it. But we also are commanded to share God’s mercy with others.

Every one of you reading these words has probably committed some sin that would destroy you if evidence of it were displayed for the world to see. I have a feeling that, in the deep recesses of your mind, there are some things that you don’t want anyone to know about.

There have been occasions in my life, even recently, where I was on such a high in the things of God but then had a thought so wicked that I wondered how a person could even be saved and think like that. There are people who have served God faithfully for decades but still have Satan remind them of sins from 30 or 40 years ago. No one remembers your sin in those situations except you and the Devil.

The Bible has several things to say about what happens to your sin. Is. 43:25 says, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” God Himself has blotted out your sin, never to remember it anymore.

Look at Is. 44:22. “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud thy sins: return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.” The Lord can no longer see your sin because it is covered with a cloud that cannot be penetrated.

God doesn’t know what you did because He has chosen not to remember it. Your sin has been removed from the mind of God.

The Bible says in Ps. 103:10-14, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.”

He has removed our sins from the east to the west, which have no point of origin. We know where the north and the south begin, but not the east and the west. God has thrown your sins out through the timeline of eternity in two separate directions, and they can never be found because there is no end to eternity.

Micah 7:19 says, “He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.” I have heard that there are caverns and holes at the bottom of the ocean that cannot be traversed by man with all of his present technology. No one knows for sure why those places exist, but my personal theory is that God has made some places so remote, and He does not allow man to acquire the wisdom necessary to get there, because there are some things down there I did when I was a boy and God doesn’t want anyone to ever bring them up again.

Look at Is. 38:17. “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” Now that doesn’t sound as cool as some of these other examples, but think about how hard it is to get something off your back. Every time you turn around, your back turns around also. God does this because He doesn’t want to find it again. When we bury the hatchet, we mark the spot so we can retrieve the hatchet if we want to. God puts something behind Him and never goes back. He is always going forward.

Jer. 31:34 says, “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.” When you pray and ask God to forgive you for that sin you committed yesterday, God is able to say, “What sin are you talking about?” He has the divine ability to forget because all of our sins were covered by the blood of Christ when we were saved.

When you ask God to “forgive” you of your sin, you are acknowledging before Him that you know you have done wrong. He has already forgiven you; you are just coming to grips with it yourself. You are agreeing with God that you have done something that grieves His spirit, so you can restore fellowship with Him.

When you hit an emotional high after several days in a revival meeting, Satan comes along to slow things down by hitting you with things you did last week, last month or 10 years ago. The Devil is the only one who reminds you of your past. You need to remind him of his future and let him know what God has done for you through His mercy.

Too many of you are like Pilgrim in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” who walks under the weight of his sin throughout the story before coming to Calvary and trusting Christ as his Saviour. The big difference is that Pilgrim leaves that weight at the foot of the cross and you insist on continuing to carry yours, making it difficult if not impossible to have a joyous Christian life because you are weighted down with the guilt of the past.

As far as God’s view of your sin is concerned, you don’t have any past. It’s been blotted out and washed in the blood.

We don’t enjoy the forgiveness we receive from God as we live the Christian life. Every step we take, the Lord tells us, “Come on, you can do this,” and Satan says, “No, you can’t.” We can’t serve God because of what we did 20 years ago. You cannot live a victorious life and have the joy of the Lord while carrying the guilt of the past.

Much of the counseling I do today concerns things that people should have gotten over a long time ago. People think they can’t be used of God because of past addictions, or their current marriage can’t work because of problems or mistakes that ended a previous marriage.

People who don’t experience forgiveness are always defensive and self-conscious. They take everything as a personal attack. I can be talking to a fellow church member about the weather, and someone else who sees us thinks that we are gossiping about him. A defensive person thinks the whole world revolves around him and his little problems, and an innocent comment is taken as a frontal assault. You think everyone sees your baggage, when in reality you are the only one who sees it.

A person without forgiveness has a defeated spirit. Full of moodiness and negativity, he is high one minute and low the next. Sometimes you will bask in His majestic glory and let go of those burdens for just a little while. But you always pick them back up. You build your life on what other people do to help you with your burden that you shouldn’t even be carrying in the first place.

Someone without forgiveness deals totally in the realm of feeling and not in fact. Your entire attitude rises and falls on how you felt when you woke up this morning or what kind of song you just heard on the radio. Let me help you right here. I don’t feel saved half the time, but I know I’m saved because God said so.

If I had to rely on feelings, I would only preach every other Sunday. If I only read my Bible when I felt like it, I would get through Genesis and Exodus before dying in Leviticus. If I only came to Sunday school when I felt like it, you wouldn’t see me there very often.

When we operate on feelings, the smallest thing will make us stop doing what we’re supposed to do. We let a bad feeling keep us home from a revival meeting. We hear something negative and it ruins our entire day. You cannot let circumstances dictate what you are going to do for God. But people who don’t live in forgiveness carry around a load that makes them susceptible to anything.

Even worse, most of them consistently doubt their salvation. Sometimes Satan comes along and tells me that I’m not saved. “A saved person wouldn’t do that or watch that or think that,” he says. But my salvation doesn’t depend on how I feel or what I’m doing; it is totally dependent upon what Jesus Christ did on the cross of Calvary when He offered me an eternal pardon through His mercy and grace.

If you have a defeated attitude, you will second-guess yourself every time you hear a sermon about lost church members because you keep dragging around all of that sin and letting it control your life.

People without forgiveness in their own lives will deny forgiveness to others. Some of you are hesitant to forgive your spouse or your children for the smallest thing because you are not experiencing and enjoying forgiveness in your own life, and you can’t demonstrate what you don’t know.

The biggest culprit in this kind of defeated life is Satan, whom the Bible calls “the accuser of our brethren” in Rev. 12:10. His greatest tool is your past. Your own actions and failures also play a role, along with your bad attitude that keeps you thinking you can’t have victory.

If I didn’t believe you can have victory, I would quit preaching and get out of church today (and I would encourage you to go along with me). But I am convinced that there is victory in Jesus Christ, and He will do everything He wants to do in your life if you will just let Him.

Don’t give me some ridiculous excuse about a “disease” you have. Your problem is a sin problem, and I know a Man who came to wash away sin and give you a new life in Him. You may still have some tendencies and sin issues to deal with, but if our God cannot deliver us from what we face, then we don’t have much of a God in the first place. If you know of one person who has gotten victory over a troubled past, then you can rest assured that it is affordable and available to all.

I still have fleshly things that I must deal with, but I don’t crave them like I used to because God has given me victory over them. I have to keep safeguards in place and be careful how I conduct myself, but some of things I used to think I needed to have a happy life just aren’t important at all to me anymore. I don’t give them a second thought.

If you want to get rid of that burden, you need to receive God’s Word as truth with a capital “T.” Christ said in Matt. 16:18, “Upon this rock will I build my church.” Since we also know that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” according to John 1:14, then we can take comfort in the fact that we have His Word just as if He were standing right next to us.

Ps. 32:1-5 says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

Your sin is settled and forgiven because God said it. It doesn’t matter what your feelings tell you. What matters is what the Bible tells you. Your feelings will come and go, but God’s Word is settled forever in Heaven.

You need to start refocusing on your future instead of your past. Phil. 3:13-14 says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Too many of you keep staring at the burden behind you and don’t even see the prize ahead of you. You are focusing on what you used to do or should have done and not on what you can and should be doing now and in the future. Wouldn’t you rather focus on the good things God has for you right now?

We need to rely on God’s Word. Col. 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” The way to keep going as you should is by reading the Bible, hearing it preached, singing about it and meditating on it. Make it the main priority in your life and stop loving the world.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “He’s so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly good.” That’s one of the most idiotic things ever said. We need more heavenly-mindedness instead of the hell that too many people are going through here on Earth. Just stay in the Word and follow wherever it leads you.

We all know about the infamous rape allegations involving the Duke lacrosse team in 2006. An overzealous prosecutor went too far and the lives of many players were ruined even though the evidence was extremely weak. Once the accusations got out in public, they could never be taken back.

Eventually a higher court got involved and the case was dismissed. But the prosecutor was disbarred and faced variety of civil and criminal charges of his own, partly because the families he had targeted wanted vindication for what he did to those innocent young men.

If you fail to demonstrate mercy, don’t feel too bad when things come around hard on you. I’ve been around long enough to know that the time will come when I desperately need grace and mercy, so I’m going to try to show some of that to people I encounter today.

Make sure you have obtained the mercy of God. You don’t want His justice. Once you have His mercy, see that you share mercy with others as you live your Christian life.

Can A Saved Person Be Lost

2011-03-28T07:12:00.000-07:00

In the last 24 hours I have had at least three different people ask me this question. Below are some thoughts on what it means to be saved and have security in Jesus and not in our ability to keep our own salvation.

Once I am saved, can I ever be lost? Is “saved today, lost tomorrow” scriptural?

This what God says:

I have EVERLASTING life. John 3: 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

I shall not come into judgment. John 5: 24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

He will in no wise cast me out. John 6: 37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

Those who have eternal life shall NEVER PERISH. John 10: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

There shall be no CONDEMNATION, no separation ever for the believer in Christ. Romans 8: 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.- 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am part of His body. Ephesians 1: 22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

I am a MEMBER of His Body. Ephesians 5: 30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

He will FINISH the job. Philippians 1: 6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

God is able to KEEP. 2 Timothy 1: 12 For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

I am kept by the POWER of GOD. 1 Peter 1: 5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

I am PRESERVED in Christ. Jude 1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:

Read Galatians 6:1 and 2. Restore is a medical term meaning “to set”, as in the case of a broken arm. This is a picture of the sinning Christian. A broken arm is not amputated, even though it is painful, useless, miserable, uncooperative and disobedient to the head. But the same blood is in it as is in the good arm. Apply this to the spiritual experience of a Christian who has sinned.

Galatians 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2 Bear ye one burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

Man cannot lose his salvation because we are saved by Jesus, not because we do not sin-

John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and my Father are one.

The immediate response is, "so you are saying that if you get saved you have a "get out of jail free card" to sin and live as you want. The answer is found in Romans 6.

Romans 6:14-16 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (15) What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. (16) Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

Salvation is not a license to sin but it is a radical transformation of the sinner.

(2 Corinthians 5:17) Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Many people do not have a theological answer for losing your salvation but instead an intellectual one. They do not understand how a person who is saved can sin and God allow them to be saved. Instead they need to realize that God saved them as they were sinners, knowing full well what He was saving when He saved them in the first place.

(Romans 5:8) But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Eternal security is salvation. If you are saved you are secure. If you are not secure are you saved?

What Are We Hungry For?

2011-02-28T10:36:00.000-08:00

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matt. 5:6)

The hunger and thirst that is referred to in this verse is a desire for the Word of God, a love for the holy writ of Scripture. We’re not talking about learning for the sake of information or mastery of the Bible version of Trivial Pursuit.

I listen sometimes to news programs like “In Search of Jesus” presented by ABC newsman Peter Jennings several years ago, and these shows feature scholars who know so many facts about the Bible but wouldn’t know Jesus if He knocked on their hearts’ door and introduced Himself. These so-called experts are full of information, but they are also full of themselves and empty of God.

Many people like this have much information with no application. Knowing about the Bible and truly knowing the Bible and its Author are two very different things. I know a number of people who are professional students, having studied Greek and Hebrew for years and years without ever accomplishing anything for the Lord. People piously claim to be “students of the Word of God” but you never see them doing anything with what they have learned.

A lot of independent Baptists who used to mock that kind of learning now desire to have the world’s stamp of approval through accreditation of their educational institutions. According to my Bible, we are not to seek the approval of the heathen. I would rather have a man who is barely literate by the world’s standards but has spent a lifetime in the Word, instead of a Ph.D. who doesn’t know God.

Many people come to church just to hear the message but they never apply what they have heard. They want to see and be seen. Hungering and thirsting for the Word is more than just having a Bible in your hand; it means taking the time and effort to read it and find out what God has in its pages for your life.

In this Beatitude, Jesus is not talking about the Pharisees and scribes of the time whose duties included the handling of the Scriptures. He was describing people who worked zealously to learn and apply in their lives the principles found in God’s Word.

I’m afraid that today as a nation we are in the prophetic state of famine with regard to the Bible. There was a time when nearly everyone knew the basic stories and principles of the Bible, but today we are finding in youth rallies and elsewhere across the country that we have a generation that is Biblically illiterate.

We used to have preachers who would open up the Book and proclaim, “Thus saith the Lord.” Now we have those who say that they will use the Bible as a “starting point” for their sermon. I’ve got news for you: I don’t need your psychology or philosophy. Let’s just jump into the Bible and see what God has to say.

God help these preachers who will take a text and spin it any way they want. As a friend of mine in Michigan likes to say, “It’s on the page.” We need more “page” preaching from men of God who just want to know, “What saith the Lord?”

My home church has gone through difficult times just like any other ministry, with burdens and needs of all kinds. My wife and I have tried to counsel and help young people who have made bad choices and found themselves in tough situations. In the midst of a particularly busy period like this, I turned to my wife one night and said, “Valerie, I love the Bible.”

We are living in an especially tumultuous time in this world. People are wrecking their lives at every turn and going down on the rocks of discouragement and despair. Thank God we’ve got a Book that we can turn to with something solid to hold onto when the rest of the world is crashing and burning.

I don’t always like what the Bible says, but oftentimes it will bring the truth right to where I am. I love that the Word of God is always steady and true, never changing on the whim of man’s thought or imagination. Its words promise us that if we stay on the path, we will have success and be able to look at God one day to hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

How much do we hunger and thirst after righteousness? It’s what revival is all about – getting back to that first love, and finding out about God through His revealed Word.

Let’s start by looking at a few basic dietary rules concerning hunger and thirst. First of all, eating and drinking are signs of good health. Many people who are not in good health must be force-fed through intravenous devices or other means. When people lose their appetites due to sickness, it often leads to a loss of cognitive reasoning abilities so the prescribed medical treatment often includes special feeding measures.

Cravings correspond to your particular needs. Sometimes you want something salty, and other times you want something sweet. Once my wife woke up in the middle of the night with a craving for a certain brand of salsa and chips, and a few days later we discovered that she was pregnant. A man in my church once went to a bakery on a Sunday morning to buy chocolate-covered donuts with a certain type of sprinkles on them for his pregnant wife. Because her body is changing and a precious baby is inside her, this woman has a desire for specific dietary items.

When you have a craving, you will do whatever is necessary to satisfy it. As we have seen, husbands of pregnant wives are very familiar with this concept.

Another basic dietary rule is that we don’t have to be persuaded to eat. No one has to say to me, “Eat something.” In fact, I need to have more people tell me, “Stop eating.” The very existence of Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and other companies like them is proof that people do not have to be forced to eat. Many of us like it so much that we can’t stop.

Eating and drinking are signs that a person is enjoying life. How do you celebrate a special occasion? You go out to your favorite restaurant. Most ball teams celebrate their victories and reflect upon their defeats the same way – over a burger or a pizza. We feed our discouragement literally, with a pint of ice cream in the evening as we sit in front of the television. When you have an emotional craving, it is often addressed at the dinner table.

Now let’s make a spiritual application to these physical examples. If you crave to read and hear God’s Word, that is a sign of spiritual health. During the month of January, I look forward to our church’s annual February camp meeting the way an addict anticipates his next fix.

When you are spiritual, you will do whatever it takes to satisfy your appetite. You’ll find a way to get to church. No one will have to persuade you to get around the good things of God. My staff and I often spend half of our time during the week following up with our own church members, trying to get them to come to Sunday school. When people are spiritually healthy, that’s not necessary. They don’t sit in a church wondering when the service will be over so they can get to whatever other place they want to go.

If you get bitter over hearing a preacher talk about that or some other truth, and you aren’t enjoying the house of God like you should, it’s not the preacher’s problem. The Holy Spirit is knocking on your heart’s door. It’s a “you” problem if you are not excited about the Word of God, the songs of God, the place of God and the people of God.

There is a process to developing a hunger and thirst for righteousness. When I got right with God, I didn’t immediately start reading my Bible and praying as often as I should. I didn’t always listen to the right things or watch the right things. It doesn’t happen overnight. But by a slow process I got to where I needed to be.

When new believers come to me with their concerns about how hard it is to get close to God and push away from the world, I have one thing to say to them: “Welcome to the Christian life.” Growing closer to Christ will cost you something, mainly the fact that you have to give up your love affair with the world.

It is a molding process. Phil. 3:10 says, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.” If you are going to conform to something, you will want to be just like it. To be conformed in this verse is to be molded and made like Jesus Christ.

Jesus wants you to be a Christian. That means being Christ-like. You can be born again, bound for Heaven and still not be a Christian. You can be saved and still be backslidden, and even be involved in some of the vilest sin known to man. But when you are saved, God’s plan is for you to begin the process of being molded into His image and becoming more Christ-like. The only way to do that is by knowing who Christ is, and that knowledge is found in the Word of God.

It is a motivating process. The Bible says in I Cor. 10:31, “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Let me ask you a question: If God saved you, why are you not motivated to serve Him? I don’t see how I can rejoice in the cross and not have a desire to be exactly what Christ wants me to be.

How dare you take back the reins of your life after He died on the cross and gave you eternal life. How dare you think that you know better than the God who saved you and that you can make decisions contrary to His Word.

I am motivated because He loves me so much that everything good in my life has come from Him. That makes me want to live for Him.

It is a measuring process. John 14:21 says, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” We are to keep His commandments.\

I Pet. 1:15-16 says, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”

Each of us from time to time thinks, “I am so glad I’m not like So-and-so. I’m a much better Christian than that.” The person you are talking about is probably thinking the same thing about you.

Who are you measuring your Christianity against? The measuring stick you should be using is the Bible. It doesn’t matter how you compare to someone else; what matters is how you stack up in light of the Word and its commandments.

We can always find someone who is worse than we are. Every week I go preach in the federal prison, and I usually leave there thinking, “Thank God that they’re in there and I’m not.” When I start feeling good about myself because I haven’t committed any major felonies, I open the Bible and I’m reminded that it’s not about what they did, but how I am living according to the Word of God.

One day we will all be judged out of that Book, and how we did in comparison to other people will not matter. That’s a good reason to know what is in God’s Word. I find it funny that we have this big test looming and we aren’t taking the time to open the textbook. All of us, whether saved or lost, will stand and give an account of ourselves before God.

If I read my Bible just so I can check off another item on a to-do list, I’m not reading it to be edified or changed. You should analyze what you read so you will know what it says. The Bible has the answer for every question in your life. There is nothing you face for which God does not already have a clear Biblical principle or precept.

I was preaching once to a group of teenagers when a pretty girl came up to me accompanied by a scraggly looking boy. I knew after just looking at him that he needed someone to beat him over the head with a two-by-four.

“Preacher, you said you had an answer from the Bible for everything,” he said. “She wants to know if she should date me.”

I looked him right in the eye and said, “Are you saved? Have you been born again?”

“Yes,” he said with a more serious tone in his voice than before.

“Have you been scripturally baptized by immersion?”

“No.”

“Then she should not date you because you’re a disobedient Christian. If you’ll disobey in baptism, you’ll disobey in other things.”

It’s not rocket science, folks. Just look at what the Bible has to say. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (II Cor. 6:14).

The Bible says in II Tim. 3:16, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” It may not have been written directly to me, but all of it was written for me. It was written for the Jew in the first century and for me in the 21^st century.

Analyze what you read in the Bible. If you don’t know what a word means, get a dictionary and find out. Once you analyze it, memorize it. Ps. 119:11 says, “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

Sometimes I want to do something wrong, and then the Bible tells me, “Oh, no you don’t.” That’s because of the Word in my heart, way down deep, going all the way back to my childhood.

Familiarize yourself with what the Bible says. Meditate on it. As a dog chews on a bone, keep it in front of you all the time. My father-in-law’s life verse is Ps. 19:14, which says, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” Get yourself a verse that you can hold onto and point to as your focus, and let the Word of God be fresh with you every day.

When I got right with God, I moved in with my father and stepmother. She would have sticky notes all over the house with Bible verses on them, so you would be reading the Bible no matter what else you were doing in the house. She was helping me familiarize myself with the Word of God, which Prov. 12:26 says is the path of righteousness which is the “more excellent” way.

As you study the Bible, you need to personalize it and see how it will affect your life. Some people think it was just written by a bunch of old men centuries ago, but it can help you live differently today than you did yesterday. The people today who talk about “relevant Bible teaching” need to realize that the Word has always been relevant and it will still be relevant long after they are gone.

There has never been anything wrong with the Bible. The problem is that every generation has wanted to ignore what it has to say. If it says that I should “flee youthful lusts” (II Tim. 2:22) and “abstain from all appearance of evil” (I Thess. 5:22), then I need to put some things in place in my life that will help me do that. Too many people just talk about how pretty it sounds when they read it and don’t want to put it into practice as they live.

None of us can ever believe that we have arrived in the Christian life, but if we hunger and thirst after righteousness we are going in the right direction. That direction is reflected in our actions.

First, we confess our sin. The Bible says in I John 1:8-10, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

I worry about people who never come to the altar. You can’t be around good Bible preaching more than a few times before you find something you need some help with. After you go too long without making a decision you just become rebellious.

I do everything I can to stay right with God, but every morning I realize that there are some deep waters I have to pass through. When you get in the Word you will find God working in your heart, and you’ll discover some things that you should not be saying or doing. The closer you get to God, the more you realize that there is some baggage you should be leaving behind, especially when the Holy Spirit shines that giant spotlight on you.

Do you wonder why we don’t have revival? One answer is found in Ps. 66:18. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” That’s what happens when God shows you something in your life that you need to change, but you refuse because you don’t want to give up your favorite sin. That’s what keeps revival from happening.

Many of us know II Chronicles 7:14, but we need to read it with the preceding verse for proper context. “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

When you hunger and thirst after righteousness, your affections will change. Col. 3:2 says, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

I John 2:15-17 says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

If this world still tugs on you too much, you’re tied to it too much. You need to release it. There is no bigger sports junkie than me, but it doesn’t have a hold over me because it passes away. I don’t ever wonder whether to be in the house of God when something big in the sports world is going on.

I have no desire to be around a crowd of people drinking and carousing. If you do it, I hope the Holy Spirit breaks your heart and makes you think about that blood dripping off the cross and what put Jesus Christ there. I’ll just be having a good time in church, and the next morning when I wake up I won’t be wondering who I am, where I am or who I was with.

To help you change your affections you will need some unction from the Holy One as described in I John 2:12. That will help you when you’re tempted to do something you shouldn’t do and no one is around to tell you not to. When the world tries to pull you one way, the unction from the Holy One pulls you the other way. This is where we see who can get victory over temptation and who cannot. If the Holy Spirit is not real and evident in your life, you cannot live the Christian life. Having a hunger and thirst for righteousness will result in a demonstration of God’s presence and power.

When I die, I don’t want to have lived in vain without investing my life in someone. The kind of car you drive or the house you live in will not matter in 100 years. What will matter is who you invest yourself in. If I remain faithful with God’s help, one day there will be younger people who I led to Christ that are continuing to live for Him and see souls saved long after I’m gone.

The promise for the believer in this Beatitude is found in the second half of the verse: “for they shall be filled.” That means they will be satisfied. You know the feeling when you’ve eaten just enough that you don’t feel stuffed but you still feel good. That’s one way to feel satisfied.

As for me, I’m satisfied with Jesus. He has never done me wrong. I could give you dozens of examples of people whose lives were turned around by Him and now they are extremely satisfied with what He has done for them.

You can have the world; I’ll take Jesus. I can take you to the graves of young people who thought they could be happy with what the world had to offer, but they took their own lives because it wasn’t enough. They left grieving families behind because they thought there was nothing left to live for.

When you chase after that kind of life, you’ll sell all you have to get it and then find out that it’s worthless. By the grace of God, I can also introduce you to some people who will tell you, “I’ve done everything the world had to offer, and it left me with nothing. But I’ve got Jesus and I’m satisfied now.”

I’ve been down that path as well, but I’m satisfied now. I’m full and blessed beyond measure.

I don’t want to go back. I want to keep going forward.

I’m satisfied.

Meek Not Weak

2011-01-25T07:06:00.000-08:00

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5)
If we are to understand what this verse is all about, we must also consider what it is not. I think we have been conditioned by television, movies and all of popular culture – and maybe even by the demeanor of some Christians – to equate meekness with weakness. We are being programmed to think, “Well, if I’m going to be a good Christian, I’d better just let everybody run over me. I’ll just forget about standing up for myself or for what is right. I don’t want to offend anybody.” You have as much right as a Muslim to stand up for what you believe. Being a Christian does not make you a doormat for everybody else. If other people get mad when you talk about Jesus, you should get just as mad when they defile His name. But some people expect you to put up with the blasphemous tirades of the wicked and slither off into a corner rather then express your displeasure when your beliefs are ridiculed. It’s time we started to understand that when God speaks in this verse of being meek, He is not talking about being weak. Another popular misunderstanding in this passage is that many of us equate meekness with timidity. The world so often tells us, “You can go ahead and believe what you like, but don’t speak up and try to force it on us.” So we are essentially put in our place, and we have gotten comfortable with that. I am not suggesting at all that you be unkind or uncouth, or that you cram your beliefs down someone else’s throat. The Bible never teaches that. But we have lost something in our society in that we have stopped taking a stand for Biblical Christianity. The Bible tells us to be bold and proclaim our faith. We used to sing that old hymn, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross.” The sad fact today is that our lives more accurately reflect the words, “Sit down, sit down, be quiet; don’t talk about Jesus.” There used to be a different mindset in society. You can say what you want, but it’s a fact that this country was better off when prohibition was the law of the land. Crime was down, domestic abuse was down, and most families’ finances were improved. Much was made of Al Capone and his ilk, but aside from a few specific urban areas where organized crime was active, most of America was better off when booze was harder to come by. The prohibition laws would never have come about except for men like Billy Sunday who stood up and said, “Booze is killing our kids. We need to do something about it.” Imagine if that great evangelist had listened to people who said, “Mr. Sunday, it’s all right if you believe that, but you need to keep it in the pulpit.” We have no problem today yelling about sin in the church, but we seem to hesitate to yell about it out in the world where most of the sin is actually taking place. We’re allowed to have our religion in church, but God forbid we bring it with us to work or (gasp!) into politics. I received an e-mail recently with a photo of a 2008 presidential candidate who appeared at a function dressed in drag because he was pandering to gay, lesbian and transgender voters. I don’t want a male president who dresses like a woman or a female president who dresses like a man. I’m going to support a righteous person in any political campaign. I would rather lose with a righteous person than win with a compromiser. I have more respect for a Catholic priest who preaches his doctrine without hesitation than a compromising Baptist. I would prefer that America be led by a rank liberal who supports killing babies and a Sodomite lifestyle than a so-called conservative who capitulates and compromises. Maybe then as we head down the path of destruction we could have the hope that God would send revival. We have been told to stay in our place. As Christians, we need to get out of that place. If the Sodomites can come out of the closet, so can the Christians. I am sick of being timid. If meekness is not weakness or timidity, then it certainly is not cowardice. We need to be afraid of what Jesus thinks and not what the world thinks. We should be afraid of what we will hear at the Judgment Seat and not what someone might say down at the coffee shop. We must be more concerned with what the Bible says and what has been handed down to us over the years from men and women of God than what is said by modernist, liberals and anyone else who hates God. “But I don’t want to offend my friends,” you say. Well, all of them are going to Heaven or Hell, and you owe it to them to stand up and tell them what is right. Another popular argument is, “You don’t have the right to say your way is better than anyone else’s way.” The Bible says in Prov. 12:26, “The righteous is more excellent than his neighbour: but the way of the wicked seduceth them.” Now I’m no better than anyone else in that we are all sinners. But the way I have chosen is better than the way you have chosen. “Who are you to tell me that your way is better than my way?” I am a born-again, blood-bought child of God, washed in the blood of Christ, saved by the grace of God, and I’ve got the Bible to prove it. I can’t make you live right, but I can tell you what the Bible says about how you should live. “My way will get me to Heaven just as good as your way.” Your way will get you somewhere, but it won’t be to Heaven. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” A lady ran into Curtis Hutson one day at the post office after hearing him preach on the radio. She said, “Dr. Hutson, you preach about Jesus and all that, but you have your way to Heaven and I have my way – just like we came different ways to the post office today.” Dr. Hutson thought for just moment and quickly replied, “Ma’am, you are correct about getting to the post office. But when you die, you don’t go to the post office.” So if meekness is not to be equated with weakness, timidity or cowardice, what is the Biblical definition of meekness? It is very simple. Meekness is submission to God and His plan for your life; it is accepting that the hand of God at work in your life is for His glory and your good in everything. When you commit to walk down the path that God has chosen for you, and you realize that whatever happens is not the intent of God to hurt you, but is for His glory and your good, then you are practicing the art of meekness as outlined in His Word. Gen. 50:20 says, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers after being thrown into a pit. He was bought by Potiphar and worked as a servant in an Egyptian house, until he was lied about by an adulterous woman and thrown into prison. All of this began when he was a teenager. I marvel at how teenagers can say it is impossible to go against the crowd and live for God in today’s society when I think about what Joseph went through. Now Joseph stands as the number-two man in all of Egypt, and his brothers stand before him hoping to avoid starvation. Most of us, in Joseph’s place, would have smacked those men down in an instant, thrown them into prison so they could experience what they did to us. But Joseph looked at them as said, “Fellas, it’s all right. God had a plan all along. Now I can spare your lives.” Remember Joseph’s dream? Here it was coming to pass. God had a plan when he was in the pit, when he was a servant in Potiphar’s house, and when he was in that Egyptian prison before moving to the palace. Neither Joseph nor his brothers knew this plan, but Joseph submitted to the will of God for his life. All those years he would rather have been back home sitting at his father’s table, but he knew he was fulfilling a purpose for God’s honor and glory, so he did his best to honor Him. What a wonderful example of total submission. Another example is Job. To say he had a bad day would be the understatement of all time. In a single day he lost his wealth, his children and his health. His wife turned on him and said he should curse God. He replied, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) We have nothing to complain about. Everything we have was given to us by God. If He wants to take something away, it’s OK. Nearly every one of us, in Job’s place, would be moaning and groaning constantly. As a father of four, I can say without hesitation that I would be questioning God if I lost my children so suddenly. As close as I am to my wife, I can’t imagine how Job felt to have his wife desert him when he needed her most. She told him in no uncertain terms that she wished he were dead and he should wish the same thing, because she wanted no part of whatever God was allowing to happen in his life. I don’t know of any man in the Bible who was a better Christian than Job. If anyone had a “right” to complain, in my earthly view, it would be him. God took everything away to prove a point about Himself, and Job proved Him right. That is total submission to God. Could any of us have that kind of attitude when things aren’t going so well? Jesus said in Matt. 11:29, “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly.” In the Garden of Gethsemane, He showed total submission to God when He said in Matt. 26:39, “Let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I wilt, but as thou wilt.” He didn’t want to face the cross, but He knew that it was important for the entire human race to have the opportunity to know God through Christ than for Him to avoid it. As a sports fan, I have learned not to be a big fan of a particular team, because that team can be overrun with wicked people who just happen to be great athletes, and I want my children to learn not to look up to that kind of behavior. I’m a fan of people. My favorite football team in recent years has been the Indianapolis Colts because of my great admiration for their head coach, Tony Dungy. A fine Christian man, he wrote a book entitled “Quiet Strength” that was a huge blessing to me. In 2005, a little over a year before Dungy’s team won the Super Bowl, his 18-year-old committed suicide. To this day, the family is not sure why he did that. This young man was a Christian and all of his friends described him as an upbeat person. This tragedy in Tony Dungy’s personal life came after a series of professional setbacks, as he had many good teams in Tampa and Indianapolis but couldn’t seem to get over the hump and win the big games, especially in the playoffs. Dungy wrote in his book that his attitude was, “I’ll not change anything. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, but I’ll do it a little bit better, because I know I’m doing right.” When he and his wife flew to Tampa to begin making funeral arrangements, he saw thousands of people participating in the procession and expressing their condolences. “I can’t explain it, but I still believe that God has my best interests at heart,” he wrote. So after years of being hammered in the press and by fans for being too passive or too “Christian,” after being pressured to make changes in certain areas, he decided that he was going to stay the course. After winning the Super Bowl, the first words out of his mouth were in praise to the Lord Jesus Christ for giving him this opportunity. He did not talk about being the first black coach to win the Super Bowl or reflect on his long and storied career, but he praised God above all. Since then, he has used his status and his circumstances as a platform to share his testimony in print and in person around the world. He could have quit on God after the death of his son but he didn’t, and God honored him for that. Meekness is the ability to praise God in the best and the worst. It is thanking Him when things are good, and also thanking Him when things are not so good. But there are some problems associated with our view of meekness. One of them is an improper view of the Person of God. The reason that we don’t accept God’s will so many times is that we have the wrong view of who God is. Often I encounter people, especially teenagers, who think that God hates them. You would be shocked at how many young people have this attitude because of what a parent or someone they know has said or done to them. When awful things happen in their lives, they think, “If God loved me, He wouldn’t let this happen to me.” But the Bible says plainly in I John 5 that God is love. That passage goes on to say that you don’t know how to love is you don’t know God. Those of you who think God hates you have it all wrong. God loves you, and He did not do to you what you think He did to you. Instead, it is our own free will combined with Satanic influence in our lives – the choices that we make and that others make for us – that has resulted in whatever is going on around us. God does not want you to be a robot. He wants you to love Him by choice. Many things that we think God simply allows to happen are things that He did not want to happen, although He knew before the world was formed that they would occur. God is not at fault in these circumstances; you or someone in your life chose to disobey God. Most of the heartache in our lives would not exist if people followed God’s plan. Many people who go around singing, “God is love,” while painting flowers on Volkswagens and smoking various forms of plant life also have an improper view of God. Yes, God is love, but He is much more than that. Preachers are roundly criticized for preaching so much about judgment, but if you only get the love of God you fail to see His holiness, which is the greatest underlying aspect of who God is. His love can manifest itself because of His holiness. The Bible says in Ps. 99:9, “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.” Just as those who think God hates them have an improper view, so do those who think that because God is love there are no consequences to our actions. As I Pet. 1:16 puts it, “Be ye holy; for I am holy.” God’s holiness says, “I made everything, so I make the rules. This is in bounds, and this is out of bounds.” God is going to judge sinners who violate His holiness. Psalm 7:11 says, “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.” He will judge those of us who are saved according to how we lived after we were saved, and He will judge sinners who do not accept Christ. I was talking with an eight-year-old boy about sin and he said, “A pinch is a handful.” I thought he had lost his mind. “Preacher, a pinch is a handful, he kept saying. I was still in the dark, until finally he said, “A pinch of sin is just as much as a handful of sin.” That’s when I got it. That young boy had been taught that, no matter how small you think your sin is, in God’s eyes it is a big sin. They are all the same to Him. God judged His own Son who was nailed to a cross for our sins. Do you honestly think He will let you slide for what you have done? You will either accept or reject Christ, and God will judge you based upon that. Another view of God is that He loves you and wants you to be saved but how you do it is your choice. I John 5:10-11 says, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” People do not understand God’s will because they have an improper view of what it takes to get to Heaven. When you say that you will go to Heaven because of your good works or your church membership or some religious ritual, you are saying that God is a liar. Because the record says that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, if you say that anything else is acceptable then you are calling God a liar. You might call me a liar, but would you really call God a liar? “This is my plan,” God has said. “Anything outside of my plan will not work.” So if you don’t believe God’s plan or think you’re doing it another way, you can just go ahead and tell God that He is a liar. You are offending the very One who has your soul in the palm of His hand. The Bible says in Matt. 10:28, “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” A Christian professor was teaching a class in basic Christianity at a secular college out west. He could never get his students to take his class seriously. For years he tried to explain Christianity to these young people and get them excited about it but he could never get through. One day a big, strapping 19-year-old named Steve entered his class. He was a good-looking kid who as a freshman was the starting center on the football team. The professor also learned that he was a very committed Christian who loved the Lord, and he asked him for his help in a class experiment. “How many push-ups can you do?” the professor asked. “I do 200 every night before I go to bed,” Steve replied. “Do you think you could do 300 at one time in sets of ten?” He paused and said, “I think so.” That Friday Steve came early for class and sat on the front row. The professor brought out a large box of delicious donuts. It was an early class and many students had not eaten breakfast. “Would anyone like a donut?” the professor asked. Nearly every student in the room raised a hand. The professor approached a young lady on the front row, and when she said she would like a donut, the professor turned and asked Steve to do ten push-ups so that she could have a donut. She started to protest, but the professor said that he would decide how the donuts were distributed. Steve did the push-ups quickly and was back in his seat. The same thing happened for another girl, and she was not as pleased to receive a donut when she saw someone else doing the work for her. When the next girl politely refused a donut, the professor asked Steve to do ten push-ups for her even though she did not want one. He sat the donut on her desk and moved down the aisle. He came to a young man who said he wanted to do his own push-ups for a donut. The professor would not allow it and asked Steve to do ten more for this student. As the demonstration moved through the classroom, some of the female students began to cry as Steve started having to work harder on his push-ups once he got past the 200 mark. On top of that, students from outside the classroom began coming in when they heard about the free donuts. Eventually Steve got up to 350 push-ups and was quite tired. Some students were weeping and others angrily refused their donuts. The professor was unmoved. “I bought and paid for these and I will decide how they are given out,” he said. “I’ll just leave mine on my desk,” said one student. “Fine,” said the professor. “But Steve is doing the push-ups for you, so you might as well enjoy the donut.” When he finished the last set before time ran out in the class, Steve had to be helped back to his seat because he was wiped out. But a smile was on his face as he knew where the experiment was going. The professor proceeded to explain to the class that, while they wept over a simple donut that someone else did push-ups for them to have, Christ died in their place so they could have everlasting life and they still reject Him. They had a misunderstanding about who God is. His grace has already been given and the price for their sins has already been paid, regardless of whether they choose to accept it. The meek person says, “I may not understand everything about God, but I see that this is His plan for me and I accept it.” That kind of total submission to God is exactly what He is looking for, and it leads to a fulfilling life on this earth and eternal life with Him after that.

What Are We Mourning Over?

2011-01-18T08:18:00.000-08:00

“Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.” (Matt. 5:4) When I asked you at the beginning of the last chapter if you knew what it meant to be poor in spirit, many of you may have readily admitted that you had no idea. But you probably think you have a better handle on what we are talking about in this chapter. We all know what it means to mourn. Each of us has mourned over the death of a loved one; you may have grieved as a child over a lost pet. We normally associate mourning with the pain that comes when you lose something you love very much. “I’ve been hurting for years over this situation,” you might say. “So I know exactly where this verse is coming from.” I wish that were true, and I don’t mean to diminish your pain. But that is not the type of mourning that Jesus refers to in this verse. He is talking about those who mourn over sin, not over loss. Many people are sorrowful for things they have done. We read in the Bible about the many people who came to see Jesus and inquire about His kingdom. There was one man in particular, a lawyer, who “went away sorrowful: because he had great possessions” (Matt. 19:22). He went away sad because of that one sin – greed – that kept him from what Christ would have him do. We can all relate to the emotional high that often accompanies a sin, followed almost immediately by the sickening feeling that you know you have done wrong. Some people try to show how sorry they are after a particularly sinful weekend by going to church on Sunday to get religious. They aren’t changing their lives; they’re just adding religion to help them feel better about whatever they feel bad about. Mourning, as presented by Jesus in this verse, is not just feeling sorry for your sin. It also is not vain repentance, like the Pharisee practiced in the presence of the publican. How many people have gone to the altar in a church service to ask forgiveness for something they did the week before, only to go back home and make absolutely no effort to re-order their lives and keep it from happening again? They fall under conviction from a Biblical message, run down the aisle and tell God how sorry they are, but never change the environment that leads to those sinful thoughts or actions. So they leave church and eventually have the same trouble again. Vain repentance is represented by a change of mind that does not result in a change of lifestyle. Many of you don’t like church, even though you attend regularly, because it is not a joyful experience for you. You spend your time feeling bad about something, you pray for forgiveness but don’t change your lifestyle, and you come back the next week feeling bad again. If you make decisions at the altar but don’t make changes in your life, you have wasted altar time. Mourning is not regret. King Saul expressed regret in his words to David after he had tried to kill him, acknowledging that he never should have done it. But he didn’t feel bad enough about it to stop, as the Bible shows nearly a half-dozen attempts on David’s life at the hand of Saul. You have probably felt regret hundreds of times in your life for various things, such as words you said to your spouse that you wanted to take back. Mourning is not remorse. Judas was remorseful after he betrayed Jesus, and he tried to give back the money he was paid, and the hypocritical men who had paid him refused, saying that they could not touch “blood money.” Judas threw the money in front of them, ran out and hanged himself. There have been times when I felt so bad about something I did that I wished I were dead. You may have felt that way also. I have prayed a few times, “Lord, just kill me before I mess up that badly again.” Actually, dying is the easy way out. It is the coward’s way out. Judas felt bad, but not bad enough to change anything. He just felt bad enough to die, so he wouldn’t have to face anything like that again. So what exactly does Christ mean when He says, “Blessed are they that mourn”? It is the attitude that causes us to, upon the slightest detection of sin, immediately confess and forsake it. Notice that there are two parts to this process. The other examples we have looked at may have included confession, but they did not include forsaking. Reformation is where one forsakes without confession and tries to reform oneself. The correct method is to acknowledge that you are helpless by yourself and can only change your life with God’s help. You may have gotten yourself in a mess, but you cannot get yourself out of it. Long before there is a sinful action, there is a sinful thought. You have meditated on it, mulled it over and considered the possibilities. That’s why making a decision at the slightest detection of sin means doing it at the very beginning. It is harder to get right with God when you are in the middle of something than it is before you ever start something. Too often, instead of confessing our sin when we first think about it, we allow it to take root in our lives and cause ourselves great problems. It’s a lot easier to kill grass before it has a chance to grow than to kill it while it’s growing. When we wait too long to confess and forsake sin, it gets its hooks into us and changes our thinking. Sin will always change your thinking; it takes that which is evil and makes it good, and vice versa. Before long, you’re wondering if it’s really such a big deal in the first place. Those who mourn according to Matt. 5:4 have such an effective sin detector in their lives – the Holy Spirit – and have such a good relationship with Him that they begin at the earliest opportunity the process of confession and forsaking that sin which grieves the holiness of God. There are several marks that prove one is living according to this verse. First, are you repentant of your sin and have you turned to God through a relationship with Jesus Christ? This is about more than knowing God, going to church, or being moral. It is a realization that your sin violates God’s nature to the point that He separates Himself from you. You have no way to get to God because your sin has separated you. That barrier between His holiness and your vileness cannot be taken down until the sin is taken care of. If all you had to do to remain close to God was be good and go to church, why did Christ have to die on the cross? If you could do anything about your sin by being moral or religious, then Christ’s death for us would have been unnecessary. Mourning over your sin gets you to the point that you realize, “Christ died on the cross for one person: me.” There is a difference between knowing that Jesus died for the sins of the world and understanding that He died for your sins. A friend of mine was saved recently, and she told me, “Preacher, I’ve known all my life that Jesus died for sinners. But I finally realized that I am the sinner He died for.” That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s not just that He died on the cross, but that I put Him there. Forget about the debate over whether the Jews killed Jesus or the Romans did. I killed Him. You killed Him. None of us actually beat Christ or physically nailed Him to the cross, but our sins were vile enough to put Him there. He died because none of us are good enough, or moral enough, or religious enough to get to Heaven on our own. Until we understand our role in His death, we are not truly mournful over sin. Here is another question. Do you constantly seek to restore your broken relationship with Christ? To be saved is to be in the family of God, but even within the family you can have a strained relationship. After you repent of your sins and trust Him for salvation, you will still do some sinning. If you get saved at 8:05, by 8:10 you could be doing something you shouldn’t do. I love my children dearly, but I will spank the fire out of them when they disobey, because that is a violation of my rules. But I don’t kick them out of the house or disown them, and I could never do that as long as I live. They will always be my children, and that can never be changed. As my wife will tell you, I hate it when I have to discipline them. I love it when they come to the realization on their own that they have done wrong and they take steps to correct it. But that doesn’t happen very often. If my son remembers that he failed to put his clothes away, then decides on his own to go back and pick them up off the floor and put them away, there is no need for me to correct him. But usually I have to tell him to do it or else, and I might even have to discipline him because he still doesn’t do it. But once that particular disciplinary action is over, it’s over. As born-again Christians, we all mess up from time to time. Sometimes you will sin and then say, “I messed up. Forgive me, Lord. I need to fix that.” Then God says, “OK.” But there are times when we don’t do that. The Lord keeps reminding us about it, but we put it off until we forget about it and just go on with our lives. But when we let that sin build up, it can cause us to lose the joy of our salvation, and as Peter says, you can even forget that you’ve been washed in the blood of Christ. A Christian who mourns is one who keeps short accounts with God. The moment you have a problem, you deal with it. People wonder how good Christians can get into such bad sin. It’s because they don’t take care of the little sins and confess them when they are small, so they grow into big sins. A Christian who mourns has this attitude: “I can’t let the world become comfortable in my life. I can’t let the things I do become so anti-God that I don’t realize at the moment they happen my need to confess and forsake them.” You say that you try to keep a close relationship with the Lord. Here is a test for you: How close is your relationship with other Christians? How often do you communicate with them? If you are not right with other people, you cannot be right with God. When there is a problem with another person, the tendency can be to just let it go. But you need to correct it before it becomes a big deal. If you are truly mourning as a Christian, you are reordering your thinking about sin. I Cor. 2:12-16 says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.” II Cor. 10:3-5 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” These passages convey the message that, as Christians, we are not supposed to act like the world. We have been so infiltrated with the thought processes of the world that Christians now have the world’s reasoning that they use to solve their problems. Lester Roloff, who died in 1982, said in one of his final messages, “Forty years ago [the 1940s], two things happened that are destroying America. One is the invention of television, and the other is the introduction of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Those two things together have killed the church.” Roloff said that the RSV was the first version that began the “dumbing down” of the Bible to man’s way of thinking. The Bible is a holy book, he said, and it should not be a “Reader’s Digest” type of book. As for television, every one of you reading this book can attest to its influence. Think about the things that you may have partaken of that were wrong, but you saw them on television long before you did them. I remember my military days in the late 1980s, when everyone on the base knew what was happening on certain soap operas. We would come off the flight line every day and tune in. I have never committed a murder in my life, but I’ve seen hundreds of them. I bet you have never actually been to an autopsy, but if you watch any of the most popular shows of the past few years you’ve seen dozens. When I was a kid I had no idea what a homosexual was, but now we watch them together as families and chuckle at how cute and funny they are. Long before I drank my first beer, I knew what “Miller time” was. It’s called desensitizing. The devil is a genius; he stops attacking head-on and comes in from a different direction. He didn’t worry about our parents and grandparents, but he decided to work patiently toward grabbing hold of the future generations. When television was first introduced, people still were active outdoors more than they stayed inside. Then they focused on the housewives during the day. There was a time when all of the prime time shows portrayed couple in separate beds. Now our kids know more at age 14 than we knew when we were 24. There are words I never heard of until I got into the military, and now I hear my nine- and ten-year-old nephews saying them. Long before the church fell into the state it is in now, Christians were at home being desensitized. Today, everything goes when it comes to television. It has brought about a change in thinking. Many of you probably think that separation is abnormal. Going to church every time the doors are opened, dressing modestly, and guarding where you go and what you do are considered abnormal behavior in our present day. “They’re just church people.” Well, isn’t that what all of us are supposed to be? As those passages in I and II Corinthians state so clearly, there is the church and there is the world. The church is to win the world but not become part of the world. We have to reorder our thinking. My hope is that people will get to the point that they are sick of “church lite” and an anything-goes philosophy, and sin will once again become something they hate. I want that to be true in my life as well as in yours. I’m thankful that I don’t know what is popular in the world as well as I used to, but I still know more than I should. If true revival is going to come and our churches are going to be what they should be, we must stop thinking like the world. Finally, we should recognize our own sin as well as the sin of others. Our own sin should certainly grieve us, but so should our nation’s sin. The Lord has impressed upon me that, while we continue to preach about sin from the pulpit, the church should mobilize somehow and deal aggressively with sin in the community. I want my church to be confrontational but I’m not even sure what to confront. I don’t know how effective it would be to just picket downtown with signs that read, “We hate sin.” But there is so much out there that we need to be aware of. A friend of mine recently pointed out to me that the sin of abortion has not really been tackled by the church as it should have. If you found someone trying to kill a friend or a family member, you would use force if necessary to stop that from happening. So what do you do when you know someone is killing babies? You shouldn’t bomb a clinic, of course, but you should do something. When was the last time you considered the fact that more babies have been murdered through abortion than in all of this country’s wars combined? The blood of millions of innocent babies drips from America’s conscience. Many of us in the church don’t bother to face it until one of our own daughters becomes pregnant out of wedlock. Sadly, there is often a battle within church families over whether a teenager should deliver her unborn baby. We don’t grieve over our moral sin in this nation. We hear about another homosexual march and we say, “That’s their problem.” I’m not in favor of going out and fighting them or being obnoxious, but we should share the truth in love and stand confidently for the cross. How often do we grieve (in a non-judgmental way) over a dear brother or sister whose life is a mess because of some bad choices? We would rather condemn or judge than consider how that sin grieves God and hurts the cause of Christ, not to mention their families. We must recognize in a deep, meaningful way what sin is doing to ourselves, our nation and the church. The problem with this Beatitude is that we still delight in our sin too much. Sin is pleasing and pleasurable for a season, and until the consequences come we just enjoy it. We delay getting right not only because of our delight in sin, but because God delays His judgment. Sometimes we wish that He would strike everyone immediately when they deserve it, but then we reconsider upon the realization that we would receive many thunderbolts. We love God’s mercy, but we often keep ourselves from right because of it, thinking we’re OK since God hasn’t done anything to us. Most families that come to me for help as a pastor don’t seek me out until after the crisis has hit. Occasionally they will come before the crisis and get things right, but not too often. Sin deceives us that things will get better. We have all awakened at some point and thought, “How in the world did I get here?” We got there because Satan kept telling us, “It’s not that bad. It’s going to get better.” Countless gamblers have started out by losing their first 10 dollars, then bet the next 10 to get it back, and eventually end up broke or in debt. They keep thinking, “I’ll hit the next one.” But it never happens. That’s how sin works. Sin never fulfills its promise. It always deceives. The promise of Matt. 5:4 is that those who mourn will be comforted. This comfort is in God’s assurance that we will have His presence and blessing. Most of us think that if we give up something we won’t have anything, and that’s why we are hesitant to give up our sin. But God says that when we mourn over sin, He will be our fulfillment. We will be so full of God that we won’t miss whatever we thought we couldn’t live without. I don’t miss my old lifestyle or its consequences because God has replaced it with something much better. We must agree with God and ascertain the root of our sin, whether it be anxiety, pride or whatever. It is often more than just the behavior itself. We must also apply Biblical principles in our lives, beginning with salvation. Once you become a child of God, be obedient to His plan. No one has ever failed when faithfully applying the Word of God. You don’t always have to understand His ways. Just do what He says. I promise you that it will work.

More Stuff Christians Should Stop Doing

2011-01-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

Part II from Cary Schmidt- More Stuff Christians Should Stop Doing

Stuff Christians Need to Stop Doing

2011-01-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

Great articles by our friend Cary Schmidt- Stuff Christians Need to Stop Doing

27 Reasons We Need Revival

2011-01-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

A lady in my church sent me this and I thought it was worth passing along.

1. When we do not love Him as we once did.

2. When earthly interests and occupations are more important to us than eternal ones.

3. When we would rather watch TV and read secular books and magazines than read the Bible and pray.

4. When we have little or no desire for prayer.

5. When we would rather make money than give money.

6. When our Christianity is joyless and passionless.

7. When we know truth in our heads that we are not practicing in our lives.

8. When we make little effort to witness to the lost.

9. When we have time for sports, recreation, and entertainment, but not for Bible study and prayer.

10. When we do not tremble at the Word of God.

11. When we seldom think thoughts of eternity.

12. When we are more concerned about our jobs and careers than about the Kingdom of Christ and the salvation of the lost.

13. When Christian husbands and wives are not praying together.

14. When our children are growing up to adopt worldly values, secular philosophies and ungodly lifestyles.

15. When we watch things on TV and movies that we would not show in church.

16. When our prayers lack fervency.

17. When our hearts are cold and our eyes are dry.

18. When our singing is half-hearted and our worship lifeless.

19. When we aren't seeing regular evidence of the supernatural power of God.

20. When we are bored with worship.

21. When we are more concerned about what others think about us than what God thinks about us.

22. When we are making little or no difference in the secular world around us.

23. When we are unmoved by the thought of our neighbors, business associates and acquaintances going to hell.

24. When we have ceased to weep and mourn and grieve over our sin.

25. When we aren't exercising faith and believing God for the impossible.

26. When the fire has gone out in our hearts, our marriages and our church.

27. When we are blind to the extent of our need and don't think we need revival.

Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

2010-12-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

“And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” (Matt. 5:2-3) I don’t know about you, but I remember reading the Beatitudes over the years without really giving serious thought to what these phrases such as “poor in spirit” really mean. A few years ago I finally realized that, if I want blessing that is promised in a verse such as this, I need to fully understand the principle that God is teaching here. The verses in Matthew 5 contain important principles for every believer; one might say that the Beatitudes are actually a series of “attitudes” that should “be” in every Christian’s life. I could stand in my pulpit next Sunday morning and tell the congregation to go out and be “poor in spirit” during the following week. Most of them would leave wanting to do just that because of the blessing of God that is promised in this verse. But if I asked each person in that congregation exactly what it means to be poor in spirit, I imagine I would get a lot of blank looks and shrugged shoulders. The majority of us would probably have a hard time defining it. But if God wants us to practice it, doesn’t He want us also to know what it means? After all, He promised a fantastic blessing along with it. Let’s look at what it means to be poor in spirit, starting with what it is not. The particulars First of all, being poor in spirit does not mean one is poor financially. There is a lot of confusion today regarding Christianity and wealth or poverty. Both of the extreme views are wrong; just as there are those who incorrectly believe in a prosperity gospel, there are others who incorrectly believe that a Christian should own almost nothing. In fact, God has ordained varying levels of material success in people’s lives. I know some great Christians who have very little and some great Christians who have a great deal by the measure of this world. So if you think to yourself, “I don’t have a dime in the bank. I must be poor in spirit,” that’s not necessarily the case. Being poor in spirit does not mean one is poor-spirited. If you watch almost anything on television or in movies these days, you will see a Christian portrayed usually as either a wild-eyed fanatic or a weak, milquetoast personality. The same goes for many people’s perceptions of television evangelists and preachers. A lot of unsaved people view the typical pastor as a stiff guy who resembles a funeral home director. These extreme personalities are not what God intended to represent His people as a whole. Being poor in spirit does not mean one is poor spiritually. Some people try to justify their lack of spirituality by telling people that they know they are not what they should be and that’s just the way they are. They never try to improve their spiritual lives. Confessing what you don’t do does not make it OK with God to keep on avoiding what you know you are supposed to do. The Lord doesn’t want you to make excuses for being a weak Christian; He wants you to become a strong Christian through Him. So what does it mean to be poor in spirit? Simply put, a person who is poor in spirit is someone who is completely emptied of self and ready to be filled with Christ. This is a person who can truthfully say, “Not my will, but thine be done.” I know very few people who are bankrupt of self and filled with the Spirit of Christ. The blessing contained in this verse is rarely received because the requirement is one that very few people attain. The Bible says in Rom. 13:13-14, “Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” To put on Christ, we must take off self. To have the Spirit’s fullness, we must be empty of vain and selfish desires to fulfill our own flesh. The proof Most of us, if we are honest, already know where we stand in this regard, and what areas should be marked “pass” or “fail.” We can all probably think of categories in our lives that we should surrender fully to the Lord and have not. But for those of you who say, “I think I’m poor in spirit,” here are some questions to ask yourself. Do you have a daily walk with God, where you spend time with Him in prayer and He spends time with you through His Word? You cannot know the mind of God until you invest yourself in the Word of God. If you neglect that regular time spent with God through Bible reading and prayer, there is no way you can know His will for your daily life because you have not gotten your instructions from Heaven. Do you easily become frustrated and angry when things do not go your way? Notice that I did not say “ever” because it happens to all of us at one time or another. I’m talking about those who routinely have the two-year-old temper tantrum at the age of 32 or 42. I know people who cannot function outside of their controlled environment. As long as they know what is coming and their expectations are met, everything is fine, but when one curve ball is thrown into the mix they come unglued. That’s a sign of childish immaturity, which is really just the flesh taking control. A toddler is supposed to act in the flesh because there is no knowledge of how to walk in the Spirit, but when a supposedly mature Christian throws a fit it’s a different story. Do you become hostile when criticized? That is a tough one. No one in their flesh wants to be criticized. How many times have each of us when someone dared to tell us what we should do or not do? I believe that we see an example of this with Peter, who repeatedly grew agitated at certain things said to him by Christ and others. It wasn’t until he completely surrendered and dead to self, which came after the Resurrection, that he got over that. No one likes unconstructive criticism, but even that can be helpful. Of course, many people do not even like constructive criticism. I am amazed at how often people will come to me for counseling only to get mad at my counsel – when they sought me out in the first place. All I did was give them something from the Word of God. Husbands and wives often have trouble talking to each other because one gets so offended when the other suggests that they need to talk about a problem area. When I perform a marriage ceremony, I think neither the bride nor groom has any idea what they are saying when they repeat the “for better or worse, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer” vows. They don’t understand the hard times that are coming just as they have for every married couple since the dawn of time. But a few months after they meet at the altar they have issues that bring them nearly to blows. A married person, man or woman, should help his or her spouse become more like what God intended, and that is not always easy. As a pastor, I don’t tell people things to make them feel good. I try to help them. Sometimes I will get onto a person who has been out of church for a month because I know that person needs to be there, even if he doesn’t realize it. But there are some members of my own church that I approach with fear and trembling because I know how they will react to me before I even open my mouth. So many people have left a church over something so small because they were hostile to any type of criticism. If I can’t call one of my best friends and expect that person to be honest with me, there’s not much use to having friends. I don’t need a cheering section all the time. I need people who will tell me the truth and help me. The final proof of a “poor in spirit” attitude is this: Do I thank God for what I have or complain to God about what I don’t have? Someone who is poor in spirit will say, “Well, I don’t have much but, thank God, I have all I need.” A person who is not poor in spirit can drive a Mercedes, live in a $500,000 home and wish for something else. Someone who is poor in spirit will look at the old car in the driveway and the next week’s menu of beans and rice (which is the same as last week) but just praise God for everything in life and not want to trade places with anyone. A person who is not poor in spirit will – after acknowledging that the family eats out too often, spent too much money for Christmas gifts and just has it better than their parents in every material category – pray for enough money to have that one more thing on the wish list. Being poor in spirit means being satisfied. It means that you are thankful for what you have and what you don’t have. We all complain about things from time to time, but there are those who complain constantly about what is not being done for them or what they don’t have. A person who is poor in spirit says, “Lord, I have all I need. Thank you for what you do for me.” If more of us were poor in spirit, we would be less in debt to Visa and Mastercard. The process James 4:5-8 says, “Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw night to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” The first step in the process is to relinquish control of one’s life to God. Since I finally gave everything to Him, there have been so many miraculous things done in my life, but while I still tried to control things I just drove them farther and farther into the ground. I didn’t listen to wisdom and instruction from my father, my pastor or other people who loved me, but I paid too much attention to the world’s influences and went deeper into the pit. If I were not a preacher today, I would be a bus driver. That is a noble profession and one I have enjoyed in the past, but it is not what God had for my life. For me, it’s much better to be a preacher than a bus driver. So how did I become a preacher? I just said, “Lord, here is my life. It’s not much, but take it and do what you want with it.” From there, He directed me to go back to school, and I wound up at a school I never thought I’d attend – up north in the cold, a run-down campus – after God arranged a trip for me to visit and spoke to my heart about it. But at tiny Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, I was able to rub shoulders with Dr. Tom Malone, a giant of the faith, in his last years on this earth. I had the privilege of working for him on his staff for a year, and from there the timing was right for me to answer the call at my current church in Texas, where I’ve been for more than a decade. When you surrender your will to God, He does things you can’t imagine. Before I became a preacher, all I did was drive buses and dig holes. Now that I am a pastor, I can still drive a bus if I want to (I have no desire to dig any more holes). The second step in the process is to resist the devil. Resisting means that you are not inviting but you are pushing away. Some of us have a lot of trouble spiritually because we are letting in too much worldly influence and it weakens the spiritual influence in our lives. Not everything we do for amusement or entertainment is wrong, but we must limit what comes in so there is not a constant feeding of the flesh. We have to concentrate on feeding the spirit; the flesh is always there. Anyone who looks, talks and acts like the world is probably controlled by the world. So if something is obviously of the world, we should desire to get as far away from it as we can. That is how you resist. The third step is to have a relationship, as illustrated in the phrase “draw nigh to God.” When you find yourself a long way from God, you purpose in your heart to do what He wants you to do and take a small step toward Him. In return, He takes a giant step toward you. That passage in James promises that, when we make an effort to get close to God, He will do the same. The journey from our flesh to His holiness is an unattainable goal. But it is one we are to strive for. Many people say, “I can never be as good a Christian as so-and-so.” That is not the goal. We are to be as much like Christ as we can, and every time we take a step of faith in that direction, God takes a much bigger step to meet us where we are. When I gave my life to God, I was a million miles from Him. But He was just a couple of steps from me. All He wanted me to do was turn toward Him and then He closed most of the distance between us so that I could walk with Him. But He did most of the walking. The fourth step is repentance of sin. You cannot expect to walk with God and keep a close relationship with Him while you’re also keeping unconfessed sin. The closer you draw to God, the finer the examination becomes. After the “big” sins are put away, and you grow deeper with Him, the “little” sins bother you even more. The problem in America is that we have dumbed down Christianity to the point that sin is not pointed out in churches anymore and we feel comfortable in our condition. Years ago people who were living in sin were convicted of it whenever they went to church. Today they can go to church every Sunday and feel good about what they are doing. The fifth step is to have some reality in your Christianity. I would rather you be openly hostile to the things of God all the time than to be that way during the week and then try to come to church on Sunday pretending as though everything is all right. When I was in high school, I was part of a group at my church that wasn’t considered the best-behaved teenagers, to put it mildly. There were several of us who were on the “do not date” list of many parents with teenage daughters. This was fairly well-known. But at the same time, there were some who sang in the choir and did all the right things at church on Sunday while hanging out with us on Friday night. Many of us who did not pretend to be anything but what we were back then have become hard-core fundamental Christian adults because we were so far gone that we knew we had to get right. But some of those who put on a show at church have drifted into liberalism because they kept pretending – they just carried it to an extreme level. Don’t try to do it halfway. Either get in all the way or get out. Lose the double-minded attitude and get real. The promise For this we go back to the text verse, which ends with, “for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” This does not mean that being poor in spirit will get you to Heaven. The only way you go to Heaven is by trusting Christ and being born-again of the Spirit of God. This verse is not talking about what you get when you die. Instead, it refers to the reality of living on this earth in a place where Christ rules and reigns in all of your activities. No matter what your physical address is, you are living in a place where you always know that God is on the throne and in control, regardless of what happens to you. You recognize His divine hand in every aspect of your life, and you have a peace that passes all understanding. When are fully surrendered to God and completely empty of self, He will make certain that nothing happens in your life that is not for your good and His glory. That is what being poor in spirit is all about.

The Beatitutdes- Living For Christ In An Un-Christlike World

2010-12-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

Last night I saw some very vile things written about a conservative leader in our nation. It started me thinking how hateful and angry the attitude towards truth is in this country and reminded me of Jesus teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. The following is the first in a series of articles on The Beatitudes!

“And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,” (Matt. 5:1-2) This is the beginning of the longest recorded sermon of our Lord in the Bible. Because of this, I believe that we should pay special attention to what He is trying to say to us in these verses and the ones that follow. I am so glad that we can find a self-help book within the Bible. You can go to the bookstore today and find the shelves overflowing with books on how to achieve your goals and follow what they say are the right principles. People are making millions of dollars by telling other people how to live. This is true in secular as well as Christian bookstores. But right here in the fifth chapter of Matthew, Jesus is telling us, “Here is how you should live. This is what you should do.” The greatest way to help yourself is to realize that you cannot help yourself; you need to allow Christ to work through you so you can be what God wants you to be. God has better plans for you than you have for yourself. When you lead your own life you will go right into a world of trouble, but when you let the Lord take the reins of your heart and lead your life He will take you to places that you never dreamed or imagined. In these passages that we will be studying throughout this book, God is simply trying to get you to give Him control of your life. “What will happen if I do that?” you might ask. I cannot answer that question for certain, but I can tell you that your life will turn out much better with God in control than if you try to control everything yourself. As we look at the introduction to this great sermon there are a few things we should consider. First, let’s look at the preacher. The opening verses of Matthew 5 use only the pronoun “He,” but we learn in verses 24-25 of the previous chapter that the speaker is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not just a prophet or preacher, but the Preacher’s Preacher and the Prophet of His own church is the one speaking here. It’s one thing for me to tell you something, but it’s a whole different ballgame when God says it. If I tell you something from God’s Word, you are not accountable to me for how you respond to it; you are accountable to Him. But in this passage we have the very words of Jesus from His own lips. If you have a red-letter edition of the Bible, virtually three entire chapters of the book of Matthew (chapters 5-7) are printed in red. I believe that all of the Bible is the inspired Word of God, but I also think that we should pay special attention to the actual words of our Lord that are spoken directly to us from His earthly ministry. This was not just any preacher. In Christ we find the wisdom of God. Matt. 7:29 says, “He taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes.” When Jesus spoke on a particular subject, you literally had the mind of God on the matter. You knew what God was thinking, because all of the wisdom of God was personified in Christ. So if you have a problem and you want to know what God thinks about it, look in the Word and see what Jesus said about it. I am amazed at how often we will listen to Dr. So-and-so or some “expert” and take their word as gospel without ever consulting the true Gospel. We believe without reservation the words of someone who has a TV show. But if Christ said it, we can rest assured that it is the wisdom of God. When you hear what Christ said, you are hearing what God wants you to know for your life. In Christ we see the Word of God. John 1:18 says, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. You say, “I haven’t seen God.” Neither has Oral Roberts. No one living today has seen Him. But the people listening to this sermon saw God when they saw Jesus. It is so hard to wrap our minds around what God is. He is the eternal self-existent One. We cannot comprehend that because everything we understand has a beginning and an end. The human mind is controlled by time; all that we do must have a start date and an end date. We cannot comprehend Someone who has no starting point or ending point. Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God? We smack ourselves on the forehead and say, “Wow, I didn’t know that.” God has never done that. He has never been surprised by anything. Since we cannot ever understand the bigness of God, He personified Himself in the form of a man when He sent Jesus, so we could better understand His love for us, His ministry, and His desires for us. We can look at Christ and see all that God wanted to reveal to man. In Christ we see the work of God. The Bible says in Rom. 1:4, “And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” When Christ arose from the dead, He proved Himself to be not just another prophet, but the eternal Son of God. So when looking at Christ this way, is there any question about the importance of what He has to say? I submit to you that we will never experience the fullness of life until we find out what God says, what He wants us to do, and we begin to live as He instructs us in His Word. Every person reading these words can have the fullness of blessing, the promises of God, and the exciting Christian life that God wants for all of us. We can have joy in the midst of trials and hope when there seems to be no hope. God has a plan and a purpose for your life, but until you find and follow God’s plan you will never have the benefits of God’s plan. In Matthew 5 as Jesus sat down to teach His people, I believe with all of my heart that it was one of the most powerful times God and man have ever enjoyed together, because the Lord was declaring His very heart to the multitude. While we did not sit on that Galilean hillside and actually hear the tone of the Master’s voice as the words spilled forth from His mouth, we have His words and His teaching with us in the Bible. Christ came so that we can have eternal life, but He also wants us to have abundant life. I feel so sorry for those who struggle through the Christian life while fighting and refusing to fully surrender their lives to God. They get just a taste and know there is something more, but they never get completely into what God has for them. They live their whole lives in a kind of hit-or-miss Christianity and they miss the fullness of blessing. Now that we have examined the preacher, let’s look at the place. No one knows exactly which mountain is the one described in Matt. 5:1-2. Scholars have determined that it is in the Galilean area, and some have called it “the New Testament Mt. Sinai.” We all know that Mt. Sinai is the place where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. Look at Ex. 19:10-21. “And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, And be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the LORD came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the LORD called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go down, charge the people, lest they break through unto the LORD to gaze, and many of them perish.” On this occasion, God gave Moses the very letter of the law carved in stone. I have noticed several parallels between Mt. Sinai in the Old Testament (the letter of the law) and the Mount of the Beatitudes in the New Testament (the spirit of the law). In the Old Testament, God said, “Thou shalt not.” In the New Testament, Jesus told us why. In the Old Testament, God said, “Don’t do that.” In the New Testament, Jesus said, “This is the better way.” In the Old Testament, the Lord came down to the mountain. In the New Testament, the Lord went up into the mountain. In the Old Testament, He spoke with thunder, lightning and smoke. In the New Testament, He spoke with that still, small voice. In the Old Testament, the Lord warned the people to keep their distance and not even touch the mountain lest they die. In the New Testament, the Lord invited the people to draw near to Him. In the Old Testament, the law was given in stone. In the New Testament, it was given in spirit and in truth. In the Old Testament, the letter of the law was emphasized. In the New Testament, the spirit of the law was emphasized. It does not do you well to keep the letter of the law and have the wrong spirit about it. The Pharisees kept the letter of the law, but Jesus rebuked them sharply as they were xxxx sepulchers. Look at 2 Cor. 3:6-9. “Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.” The Lord is telling us that while the Old Testament way was good, now we have something great. Now you can understand the spirit of the law and know how to have liberty as a Christian. You are not bound by the law; by grace you get to keep the law – not as a way to get salvation, but as a byproduct of having received salvation. This place is not a place of bondage. If you in your Christian life have never gotten past the rules, you have never gotten into the spirit. You must get to the point that you serve not just to please God, but because you see it as a privilege to know God. We’ve got too many people who look at the Christian life as nothing more than drudgery and duty. You’ve got to move past that into the joy of liberating service. How can do anything but serve Him after all He has done for me? The very least I can do it give back a small portion of what He has given me. So many of us look at the Christian life as a long list of DOs and DON’Ts to keep us miserable, but those of us who serve in liberty and grace realize that the letter of the law protects us from losing the glorious liberty of living as Christ wants us to live. It’s not to keep you from having joy, but to keep the devil from stealing your joy. I know some men and women who wish they had kept some rules in the past so they could have the joy they once had, but they let some things go and lost the spirit that they enjoyed in the past. Real bondage is not living in the will of God for your life, and real joy is living in the spirit of the law – not being so upset over the things we can’t do, but being thankful that God has put some boundaries in place to help us be what He would have us be. Some of the Old Testament rules look pretty good now. I’m sure there are moms and dads who sometimes appreciate the one that says a teenager is to be stoned for sassing his parents. But that law also said that whoever takes the name of the Lord in vain should be stoned to death. All of us who have done that at some point are suddenly glad that rules is not enforced today. The Old Testament law emphasized immediate death for many forms of disobedience. The New Testament talks about grace and mercy, and how Christ is ever interceding for us. So many verses talk about forgiveness and help that we find when we seek His face. I’m so glad for that mercy and grace in the New Testament. Now let’s consider the people Christ saw in this place. There were so many people here; the Bible does not say, but it could have easily been in the tens of thousands. There were at least three distinct groups of people in this multitude. The first group came to see the man. “I’ve been hearing about this Jesus,” they said. “Let’s see what all the fuss is about. Let’s check out the show.” Some of these people were no doubt in attendance because they had heard about this man raising people from the dead. If you heard today of someone who actually did that, you’d go see what was going on. If you knew there was actual healing of afflicted people at these meetings, and not just some of the nonsense you see on television, you’d want to see it. The second group in attendance wanted some of these miracles performed on them. There were likely a large number of blind people in the region who went to their friends and said, “Please take me to that Galilean hillside where this man Jesus is speaking today. I heard of another man who had his sight restored by Jesus. I’d sure love to get close enough to get some of what Jesus has.” The third group was comprised of people who wanted to hear his message. They had heard that He claimed to be the Son of God. They had been looking for so many years for that Old Testament prophet who would pave the way for the redemption of Israel. Their hearts were excited because this man Jesus brought the message of salvation. There are similar groups in your church every Sunday. Some are just there to see what church is all about, because their friends invited them. Maybe they saw a change in their friend’s life and it made them curious about what was happening at that church. Some people are there because they need something desperately. They need the hand of God to reach down and provide a healing touch. It could be a bad marriage or family issues; perhaps there are serious financial difficulties. Maybe there is a health crisis. You just want God to touch your mind, your heart, or your family in a great and mighty way. It’s good that those two groups are there. But there is a third group that wants to get past the hand of God and find the heart of God. They want to get as close to Him as possible. Just like on that mountain, where eight of the 12 disciples wanted to be close to Jesus (one of the 12 was lost), but there were three who wanted to be right at His side and under His breast. We should all strive to move from the periphery to the inner circle and straight to the core. No matter what our reasons are for being there, all are good reasons. Someone might show up at church just out of curiosity or looking for a miracle and go home with Christ Himself and a new life. When Zaccheus heard that Jesus was coming down the road, he couldn’t get near enough to see from the ground so he climbed into a tree. Jesus looked up and said, “Come down. I’m going to your house today.” By the time dinner was over that night, Zaccheus was a completely different person. Finally, let’s look at the purpose for the Sermon on the Mount. In the Old Testament, a rabbi would sit, not stand, when teaching a group of people. A lot of Jesus’ teaching was done as He and another man or small group of people were walking from one place to another. It was very informal and practical, very similar to the way many of us mentor other people today. But on this particular occasion, Jesus found a place to sit down, encouraged others to do the same, and began teaching in earnest. It was as if He said, “Listen carefully. This is very important.” These were not casual comments, and Christ wanted the audience’s complete attention. By sitting down to teach them, He emphasized the purpose of His sermon. I have found three places in the Bible where the Lord works as He sits. One of those is Mal. 3:3, which says, “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.” A refiner works to remove dross and other imperfections so that only perfect silver remains. Of course, a purer metal is much more valuable. The refining process is a long and repetitive process. Christ’s sermon was a kind of purifying process as well. Through His words, He was showing His disciples and others in the crowd how to live pleasing, holy and acceptable lives before God. He wanted to refine them, and take out the things that did not belong in their lives. He began with the Beatitudes, showing them what they should be and could be for Him. The Christian life is a constant purifying process. If you think you’ve made it, I’d like to meet you and learn how you did it. I’ve never heard of someone getting to that point. There will always be trouble spots and stumbling blocks along the way. It’s a constant battle, and the closer you get to Jesus the more detailed the refining process is. Another example of the Lord sitting is in Ps. 9:4. “For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.” He is a sitting judge. But in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ took the time to explain what we should do so He might not have to judge us on some of these things later. Isn’t it a good God who gives you the answers to the test before you take the test? The third time the Lord sat down was as the rabbi or teacher. Isa. 54:13 says, “And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” There is a lady in my church who has taught children for decades and still receives great joy from it even in her later years. I love the idea of taking someone who doesn’t know something and watch that person “get it.” God does not expect you to automatically know what to do. That’s why Jesus came to teach us. If you go through life trying to figure everything out on your own, you will never get it. There is no such thing as a self-made man. If you think you are, your life is probably a mess. It is not the goal of a teacher to see the student fail. Nearly every teacher wants his or her students to succeed more than anything. So Jesus sat down to teach us how we should live. He doesn’t want you to fail. Listen to the Teacher. If you have a question, ask Him – or open up the Book.

Overreacting To Criticism

2010-10-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

I have noticed that many Christians leave the conservative movement as a reaction to criticism from some of the "brethren." While they were not "liberal" or "compromising" in their beliefs or practices before their attacks, they actually become so when they go too far in their reaction to attacks from their peers. They now become what they were not because they did not respond correctly to satanic attacks brought by jealous, backslidden, or even lost people who once named them as friends. I hate to see any Christian or preacher become disillusioned and hurt with fundamentalism because of the anti scriptural behavior of a fundamentalist. Here are some principles that have helped me when dealing with the foolishness that is in the ministry and our movement.

1. The fundamentals are right because they are Biblical, even if some fundamentalists are morons!

2. The local church is what matters, what others say outside your local church is unimportant!

3. Never let critics determine the direction of your life or ministry!

4. Don't waste your time defending yourself. Your friends don't need you to explain yourself and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

5. Do what God leads you to do and do not worry if the paper, school, fellowship, or if pastor _____ does not like it. God called you to be you.

6. Do not be enamored with all of the "new" philosophies. Remember there is really nothing new under the sun. It is just the same waste of time repackaged. Stay in your Bible and out of the latest book of the month.

7. Because something is old does not make it right, and because something is new does not make it wrong. Allow the Holy Spirit to develop discernment in you based on Biblical principles.

8. Don't be so ready to "think outside the box." Louis Entzminger's Sunday School material is still the best out there; just use a computer instead of a roll book and filing cabinet.

9. Don't be so scared to "think outside the box." The world changes and we have to be aware of changes in order to be affective in our ministries. Screens, sound systems, padded chairs, and indoor plumbing are not satanic in nature because they were once new.

10. Love God, love people, and preach the Word is still the Bible way to do it.

I do not claim to have all the answers, but I am at least starting to ask some of the right questions! God bless each of you who labor for our Lord, even if you do it a different way than me!