Tag Archives: Jesus

Mar 28 2010

I Am Encouraged!


Mid afternoon today, Carol and I returned from Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Tulsa Workshop. The Tulsa Workshop is an annual gathering of Church of Christ people who meet for worship, including great singing and preaching, and a great exhibit hall filled with booths promoting Christian schools, children’s homes, missions, ministries, church architects, publishers, etc. and several sellers of Christians trinkets.

This was my second year to attend and I enjoyed it just as much as last year. Meeting friends I made last year and making new ones were highlights of our experience. It was very encouraging to have several people introduce themselves as Grace Digest readers. I was literally shocked when one very well-known preacher, one of the key-note speakers, told me “I read your stuff and really like it…“. It just shows to go you that you never know!

It was especially nice to meet Al Maxey, a New Mexico preacher and prolific writer and thinker. I have admired his work and we had corresponded a few times but I was delighted to meet him and hear him speak three times. He speaks as well as he writes and his messages were timely and much needed.

I was able to spend time with and share a meal with Edward Fudge, who has become a special friend and mentor, and one of the best men I know, relief worker Mike Baumgartner. Dr. Joneal Kirby the founder of Heart to Home Ministries, and her assistant Lauren Vincent were also at the table. Other friends to numerous to mention were there and we enjoyed their company and their ministries during those days.

In my view, the most encouraging and exciting thing about our trip to the Tulsa Workshop this year was the preaching. Everyone I heard speak lifted up the Lord Jesus Christ and made clear that He alone can save a sinner from their sins. Frankly, in some Church of Christ gatherings you are likely to hear more about the Church of Christ than the Christ of the Church but not this time. The message of grace is sweeping across the churches like a prairie fire and again and again God’s grace, demonstrated in Christ Jesus our Lord, was reinforced by each key-note speaker I heard.

Perhaps, just perhaps, New Testament Christianity is finally being restored! I love the ancient plea “We are only Christians but not the only Christians“. It is a theme I can embrace and wear with pride. I don’t completely agree with everything any Christian group teaches but I have found in the Restoration Movement some dear followers of Jesus with whom I expect to be in fellowship with eternally. Every group has its baggage, some history they would like to forget, and a scattering of knuckleheads that are at best troublesome.

I will quickly admit that I am not infallible, the needle on my sanctification gauge is not to the “full” mark, and far too often I don’t love like I should and still call myself a follower of Jesus. I and you are works in progress. On our way toward being like Jesus may each of us major on Jesus and minor on everything else and love everyone in his stead. Love them ’til they ask us why!

Thanks for reading Grace Digest. I sincerely hope it is a blessing and honors Christ.

Agape’

Royce

Mar 21 2010

Christianity is Christ


“Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”
( 2 Peter 1:1-4)

Unique among all of the world’s religions, Christianity alone rests solely upon what God has done for sinful people. Every other belief system is in one way or another about how people can gain favor with their god, appease him, or do some acts to convince him that he should be less harsh in punishment than he would otherwise have been.

What is already Done?

The great Apostle Peter addressed his second letter to those people “Who have obtained a faith with equal standing with ours “by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ”. Christians have not been set right with God based on what they have done or will do but because of what Jesus has already done. It is his righteousness that makes sinners whole and clean.

Christ’s representative death is not unlike Adam’s representative transgression. In the same way that by Adam’s disobedience sin and death began its reign, by the obedience of Jesus many are made righteous. (Romans 5:19) Sinners are justified as a free gift based wholly upon the merit of Jesus and not their own. (Romans 3:24)

Our salvation was completely accomplished when Jesus offered himself for our sins, by himself, one time for all people, one time for all time, and sat down, finished with His redemptive work. When we became Christians we only appropriated for ourselves what was already fully accomplished for us. Faith in Christ Jesus and ensuing obedience to his will is in no way meritorious. God gives, we only receive.

What now?

Since we have been “set right” or justified, reconciled to God, what do we do now? Listen to the Apostle’s words. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”

I don’t claim to know everything you and I need to live like who we are and whose we are, but I do know that whatever those things are they are given to us in the person and provision and in the power of Jesus. “All things…” covers “all things” doesn’t it?

Jesus is our life  (Colossians 3:4)

He is our righteousness  (1 Corinthians 1:30)

Jesus is our peace  (Ephesians 2:14)

He is our wisdom  (1 Corinthians 1:24)

He is our blessed hope  (Titus 2:13)

While we now wait for He who is the “blessed hope” and who is our blessed certainty, we are now to live out His life in our flesh.  Through our knowledge of Jesus and our continual surrender to His Lordship, with the help of the Holy Spirit we are becoming more like Him in daily living.

What’s next?

Again, Peter’s words are instructive and encouraging. “through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature”.

By knowing him we have been called to glory and excellence. We have been given great promises of a here and now and a future glory. We are heirs and joint heirs with him, we are promised immortality, a body like His body, one perfectly fitted for both the earth’s atmosphere and the heavenlies.

In view of these blessed truths is it any wonder that the Apostle Paul would say:

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (I Corinthians 1:4-9)

Wow! “You are not lacking in spiritual gifts, you will be sustained in the end, you will be guiltless in the day of judgment! Why? God is faithful!

I say again, Christianity is Christ! Depend only upon Him. He is quite enough.

Agape’

Royce

Feb 12 2010

“Gospel” Up Close and Personal #4


“I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome,For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:15-17)

These few verses are among the most important in the Bible concerning the “gospel” and its implications for ungodly men and women. The first foundational truth revealed here is the absolute power of the good news about Jesus’ work for sinners. “It is the power of God…“. This is a very strong, emphatic declaration. The word “power” comes from the same Greek word where we get our English word “dynamite”! The simple telling of the story of the good news is enough. Inherent in the “good news” is the explosive power to make the most vile sinner take sober account of his lost condition and see that his only hope for immortality is the Christ of the gospel.

The “Gospel” story does not need an accompanying well versed messenger, or a well conceived evangelism program, or lengthy teaching to support the “Gospel”, it alone is quite enough. It is “the power of God“.

The “Gospel” is the power of God for a specific purpose. What? “For salvation“. By design the way God saves sinners is through the “Gospel”. It is good to teach people what is right and what is wrong. It is good to teach about the church and about worship and righteous living but it is through the “Gospel” that God saves the ungodly. By simply hearing the story of Christ’s work in life, death,and resurrection God brings sinners to himself.

How does he do this? He saves those who believe it.

“for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16b)

How can a person be saved? By believing the “Gospel”. Who can be saved? Everyone who believes. When can a person be saved? When he believes the “Gospel”. Why can a person be saved? Because God promised it.

A good translation of this last part of verse 16 could read as follows. “For it (the “Gospel”) is God’s mighty power to save everyone who believes and keeps on believing”. The “believe” in the original language was in the present perfect tense meaning it is a continuous action. While there is a point in time when God justifies the believing sinner, the evidence of genuine faith is that it never stands still. It is not a one time event but rather a persevering faith. It is a faith that keeps on believing and is illustrated by a life of devotion to the Christ of the “Gospel”. “Believes” is not giving mental assent to facts. It is to rely on, to depend on, to expectantly trust, not just accept a set of facts.

“The righteous shall live by faith“. (Romans 1:17b)

What is it about the “Gospel” that makes the sinner take notice?

“For in it (the “Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed”. (Romans1:17a)

God has chosen that by hearing the story of the work of Christ for sinners that his righteousness would be revealed. Jesus himself is the righteousness of God and God’s righteousness stands in stark contrast to the righteousness of man, which is in reality unrighteousness. God’s righteousness is one that is by faith from the first to the last. Our father Abraham in the faith believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness and so we follow him and are “made” righteous by trusting the truth claims of the “Gospel” of Jesus Christ.

The flip side of the coin is the wrath of God against sin. Immediately after this watershed passage about the glory of the “Gospel” comes this chilling warning.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (Romans 1:18)

Any person who spurns the story of the work of Jesus on behalf of sinners is now the target of the certain angry wrath of God against the unrighteousness of man kind. “The wages of sin is death”, it is true and sure. Just as sure and true is that “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That is “good news”!

Royce

Feb 8 2010

“Gospel” Up Close and Personal #2


The “gospel” is the story of Christ’s work on behalf of sinful people like you and me. I have been immersed in Bible language all of my life and for perhaps now over a half century have studied the scriptures, so this is very familiar language. And, I assume it is to almost all of my readers. But, it isn’t to everyone.

Let’s suppose I find myself conversing with a guy with no church background, who didn’t grow up in the South as I did, and was unfamiliar with biblical lingo. Who is Christ to that man? Who is he to you? Was he just another of the dozens of colorful characters whom we find on the pages of our Bibles? Was he only one of many teachers, rabbi’s,  or religious leaders of the first century in the middle east?

“Christ” died. He was the Messiah of God foretold by the prophets of old, the One who would come to save the people from their sins. He was the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world of whom John the Baptist preached. He was the One whose birth announcement said “God with us!”. He had no human father, he was conceived in a young virgin’s womb by the Holy Spirit of God. He was both man and God.

He is the Creator of all that is and by His power every molecule keeps it’s assigned place. He  is the exact representation of the Godhead and the fullness of His glory. Before the earth was formed He is. He humbled himself and took the lowly place of a man, perfectly kept all of God’s laws, and though tempted as we are, never sinned even once.

His life on earth was one of doing only good. He went about healing the sick, restoring sight to the blind, raising the dead, loving the most unlovely, and reaching out to the untouchables. He alone has all power in heaven and in earth. His name is above every named that can be named and one day every creature will bow admitting his Lordship over all creation. Every man, woman, and child will one day be judged by this one man, The God-man Jesus Christ our Lord. It was this man who died, and he did it for you.

Royce