Feb 24 2009

How’s Your Love Life?


If I do all the religious stuff expected of a faithful Christian, and don’t love others I have failed. If I attend every church service, take communion every week, say my prayers daily, do my daily Bible reading, give more than 10% of my income, and am not a lover of men, I wasted my time. If I am respected in my community, good to my wife and kids and don’t care about the needy, I am lacking.

Even if I surpass the usual church member and become a skilled orator, and give great prophecies, understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, become a favorite on the lecture circuit, and become known as a man with great faith, I have accomplished nothing unless I am a lover. If persecution comes and I become a martyr for my faith, I have really done nothing unless I have loved along the way.

This is the bar set by Jesus, the fleshing out of the two greatest commandments, Love. It is pretty clear that loving God is more than being a model church member and being right about doctrine, giving more than others, and doing more than is expected by others. It is a very high standard indeed but is intended to be the “normal” Christian life.

Am I patient and kind?
Do I envy or boast?
Am I arrogant or rude?
Do I insist on my own way?
Am I irritable or resentful?
Do I rejoice at wrongdoing?
Or, do I rejoice with the truth?
Do I bear all things?
Do I always believe the best?
Do I hope all things work out for good?
Am I one who endures anything?


Does my wife think so?
God knows the truth.

If I, with God’s enabling, am able to become one who loves unconditionally I will not be a failure, ever. How am I doing? Ask those who know me best. I give myself perhaps a C+. God is at work in me though, both to will and to do His good pleasure. There is hope for me and there is hope for you.

Because the Spirit of Christ lives in us, who have been born again, we have the potential to be the person God wants us to be. Because He is in us the following should come out of us in our daily living.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

“The whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

How is your love life? The answer is not “try” harder, but rather “rely” harder.

Learning to love,

Royce

 

 

Feb 23 2009

The Enemy Is You…


“We have found the enemy, and it is us”, Pogo.

A religion or belief system that does not save me from myself is not worth very much. Each of us came into the world with a built in “ME” complex that is never completely overcome. Some of a baby’s first words are usually “mine” or “me”. We never have to be taught to be selfish, it comes with the package.

The human ego, or the “self” part of each of us, is our greatest obstacle on our journey toward Christian maturity. The reason the gospel is offensive and a scandal to many is because it leaves absolutely no room for the human ego. Those who are dead in their sins and then are made alive have nothing to boast about. (Romans 3:26, 27; Ephesians 2:8-10)

It is clear that as long as I have confidence in my ability to live a life worthy of God’s ideal of sinless perfection, I will not fully embrace God’s provision for sin offered in the gospel. God doesn’t need my help or yours to make us righteous in regard to salvation. The exact opposite is true.(Romans 5:18-20) Only when we come to the end of ourselves and believe God’s record that our best behavior, on our best day, is far short of God’s righteous demands (Romans 3:9-20) are we willing to throw ourselves upon His mercy offered in the gospel of Jesus.

People who think they can enter heaven based even partially upon the basis of their good works on earth are either arrogant or ignorant. They are either so arrogant they think they deserve what God says they don’t, or so ignorant they don’t understand the absolute moral bankruptcy of the unsaved. The Apostle Paul said of himself that nothing good was in him, as to his flesh. (Romans 7:18)

Each of us on earth inhabits a body that is God’s natural enemy. That doesn’t cease to be true once we are born again. There is the constant tension within the Christian of the flesh against the Spirit.(Romans 7; Galatians 5) The two are at war for control of our thoughts and intentions and we must cooperate with what the Spirit desires to the defeat of the ego.(Romans 6:12-14)

Every religion, other than Christianity, appeals to the human ego. Each of them has the adherent doing some act, some ritual, some sacrifice to entice god into looking favorably upon him or her. This appeals to the ego in that one can take credit for what he or she has accomplished, and in most cases what has been done is observable by others. Only in Christianity is a believer received wholly upon the merit of another, namely Jesus Christ. Christians understand that while they were in fact God’s enemies He loved them, died for their sins, and rose from the dead to allow them to share in His eternal life. Becoming a Christian is in contrast to what the ego demands because the believer has absolutely nothing of worth to offer God, and even more scandalous, nothing more needs to be done. The penalty of transgressions against God has been paid in full and the believer is fully acquitted of all charges (Colossians 2:14) against him and becomes a child of God.

The loving, faith response to this lavish love is to say no to an unrighteous lifestyle (Titus 2:11, 12) and to do the good works God designed each believer to do (Ephesians 2:10). The idea that a sinner can obtain eternal life, or keep it, based upon putting in a good enough performance flies in the face of the weight of Scripture which teaches the opposite.

In the letter to the Romans Paul made it very, very clear by saying about the righteousness of God which is by faith,

“21But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” (Romans 3:21-28)

To the struggling Christian, forsake your ego and its desires and trust Christ alone for your security. God’s truth will set you free if you will only believe His record. I hope you will.

For Him,
Royce

Feb 20 2009

Are You a Believer or Make believer?


“And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:11,12)

The most important question any person must face rises from the truth given in the above verses from 1 John 5. Do you have the Son of God? If you can answer “Yes” you have eternal life. If your answer is “No” you don’t have eternal life.

  1. “God gave” (v11) It does not say “God rewarded”, or “God honored”, or “God paid what was earned”, but “God gave”. Eternal life (salvation) is a gift from God (“God gave”). Eternal life is an unearned, undeserved gift of grace by a loving God.
  2. “God gave” is something God has already done. “Gave” is in the past tense. At a point in time God gives eternal life. All who have eternal life can rightly say “God gave eternal life to me”. It is a present possession received in the past.
  3. “God gave us eternal life” The life God gave is eternal. It is life that exists outside of time. It has no beginning and no end. Eternal is in opposition to time. What God gave is not an extension of the life we were born with but rather a new spiritual life, a life from above. How long can you expect it to last if you have it? Eternally!
  4. “God gave us eternal life and this life is in His Son” The life God freely gives is “in His Son”. There is no spiritual life apart from Jesus for Jesus himself is “eternal life”. When “God gave us eternal life” what He gave was Jesus.
  5. “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” The important question is not “Have I been good enough?”, or “Have I been faithful?”, or “Did I join the right church?”, or dozens of other questions. The bottom line is those who have Christ have eternal life and those who do not have Christ do not have eternal life. There is no exception to this truth.
  6. If I can only have eternal life by having God give me His Son how then do I get Him? This is how Jesus explained it to Nicodemus in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus explained this to this Jewish leader as being “born again“. A better translation is “born from above“. Eternal life comes from God, it is His doing, it is His gift to those who trust Christ.

So what does all this mean? Christ is our life and there is no life outside of Him. When you have Him you have eternal life and you will never die because He can never die. Jesus went further and said to Nicodemus,

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3: 17,18)

This is not difficult to understand. Those who believe in Him (trust, depend on, rely on) have eternal life. Those who refuse to believe on Him do not have eternal life and are condemned. Those who have Him will be resurrected to life and heaven to be forever with Christ and all the saints. Those who do not have Him will be resurrected to death and finally will be seperated from God and His people and thrown into the lake of fire.

How could God make it more clear? Believe on Christ and you shall not come into condemnation. Trust anything other than Christ and you are already condemned right now. This would be a good time to consider Him.

Are you a believer or a make believer? Are you trusting in the fact that in your view you are living a good enough life, being a faithful church member, helping the poor, giving sacrificially,….? In Christ’s love I tell you unless you have Christ all of your good works do not matter one tiny bit.

Please put your whole trust in Jesus who is Himself eternal life.

Royce

Feb 18 2009

Liberalism Unleashed…


How much better will your family be in the coming months with an additional income of $4 to $9 each week. I’m sure that for some Americans 9 bucks is very meaningful but to most Americans it will not significantly improve the quality of their lives. $4 to $9 per week is approximately what you can expect for your family’s share of the $750,000,000,000 (Billion. One billion is 100 million!) Stimulus Bill President Obama signed into law moments ago.

The American way of life throughout our history has been that each passing generation has left a more hopeful future, a future with more opportunity, for the coming generations. Today, we took the first of what is promised to be only the first step of assuring that our grandchildren and great grandchildren will pay dearly for our failures at the expense of their futures.

When any government spends money it doesn’t have on hand there are limited sources of obtaining funds. The first and most loved by liberals is tax hikes. That is not the answer today, not now. It will be the case, but not now, the timing is not right. The next option is to borrow the money and pay it back with interest. We have chosen the second option for the short term and some time down the road huge tax increases are as sure as death.

A small fraction of this bill will possibly create jobs. The overwhelming bulk of this unprecedented spending bill is an array of entitlement programs that have long been on the wish list of every Democrat. In fact this bill includes some only recently dreamed up that are astonishing. Today the tentacles of government have grown expediently and will start to tighten their grip on the American people squeezing out individualism, entrepreneurship, and self reliance in favor of dependency, socialism, and an entitlement society.

If this plan turns out to be good (as I’m sure all of its supporters and crafters sincerely hope) President Obama and Democrats in general are destined to be praised and reelected. But if it fails to achieve its lofty goals President Obama will be a one term President.

What should frighten every American is that by his own promise, President Obama has made it clear this bill is only the first of more to come. How much will prove to be too much? Only time will tell. My own sense is that we are sliding toward becoming a country akin to the European Socialist schemes that have been tried and have failed.

We have long been morally bankrupt, now we are moving at warp speed toward being owned by those who hold our national debt. “The debtor is slave to the lender” will sadly be more true than ever. I sincerely hope this boondoggle works, but I am not hopeful that it will.

For most of our 232 years as a nation the two party system has served us well. But when Republicans started to govern like liberal Democrats our nation took a nose dive and the control tower has not seemed to notice. Perhaps when whats left is smoke and ashes we will be shocked into reality. For that flight, reading the data from the black box is too late.

Royce