God Is Big Enough...

We started a new teaching series titled God is Big Enough...  Changing Our Ideas About God.

So far, it's been great!  We actually started the series on May 19, on Mother's Day.  Maybe not the best time to start a series, but it's been going well.  We stared that first week by seeing that God is Big Enough to Conquer My Sin.  We talked about how all of us have struggled with sin.  In fact, we all have something we're continuing to struggle with. Some sin that keeps peeping its head up, that keeps us from being the holy people God has called us to be.  That's because, as hard as we try, we can't conquer our sin.  But God is Big Enough to do it!

The following week, we saw that God is Big Enough to Heal My Disease.  There are countless stories in
Scripture that talk about people being miraculously healed.  This message looked at one of those healings, and how a leper, an outcast of society, approached Jesus and was healed.

Last week, we saw that God is Big Enough to Remove Our Doubts.  There are times when even the most faithful go through a period of doubt.  But that doubt can paralyze us and keep us from moving forward.  God can remove our doubt.  This message looks at a couple things we can do to put ourselves in a position so that God can begin the work of removing our doubt.

My next post will have a link to the message on removing our doubts.  But if you interested in looking at the rest of the series, click here...

Thanks for reading!

Holy and Assured

"All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."

Romans 8:14
 

 

Holiness is necessary for our assurance of salvation—not at the moment of salvation, but over the course of our lives. True faith will always show itself by its fruits. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

I recall a young man, a fairly new Christian, whose father was visiting him. He hadn't seen his father for several years and not since he'd become a Christian. He was eager to share his newfound faith with his dad, and we prayed together that he might be an effective witness to his father. 

Afterward I asked him how it had gone with his witness. He told me his dad claimed to have trusted Christ as his savior when he "went forward" at age ten in an evangelistic meeting. I asked the young man, "In all the years you were growing up, did you ever see any evidence your father was a Christian?" His answer was "no." What reason have we to put confidence in that man's salvation? He was almost sixty and had never once given his son any evidence that he was a Christian. 

The only safe evidence that we're in Christ is a holy life. John said everyone who has within him the hope of eternal life purifies himself just as Christ is pure (1 John 3:3). If we know nothing of holiness, we may flatter ourselves that we're Christians, but we don't have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. 

Everyone who professes to be a Christian should ask himself, "Is there evidence of practical holiness in my life? Do I desire and strive after holiness? Do I grieve over my lack of it and earnestly seek God's help to be holy?" (Excerpt taken from The Pursuit of Holiness)

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The text for this devotional comes from the award-winning NavPress devotional book Holiness Day by Day by Jerry Bridges. For more information or to order a copy, visit the NavPress website.

Who do you imitate?

It seems that everyone imitates someone.  We all have people who heavily influence us, people we look up to, people we want to be more like. 

These are usually those people that we see as having it together.  If we could be more like them, than we could have it together, too.  So we learn what we can from them, and we try to be more like them.  We imitate them in the little things we do. 

Often this is an unconscious behavior on our part.  Sometimes, it is conscious.  Sometimes we think about how they may respond to a particular issue, and that helps guide our response.

Many might be thinking that this is a terrible thing.  I don't think so, as long as we are imitating someone good.  Someone worth imitating.  Perhaps a Christian brother or sister that we look up to.  Someone more mature.  Someone we could learn from.

Ultimately, we should be imitators of Christ.  The old campaign, all but gone now, WWJD, had the right idea.  What would Jesus do?  It's a good question.  And it helps make sure we are imitating the best possible person.

This seems to be Paul's lesson in Ephesians 5:1, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children." 

So who do you imitate?  There is no one better than God.

Faith vs. Works

A really quick look at a very complex issue

In my readings last week, I came across two verses, very close to each other, that almost seem to be in tension with each other.  The first is Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”  The second is found just two verses later, verse 10, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” 

There is an ongoing argument over which is more important in our Christian faith:  Faith or Works.  There always seems to be a tension between the two.  In these two verses, Paul gives us the proper relationship between these two.  First, we are saved by faith, not by works.  It is the gift of God, and not by anything we do.

However, why are we saved?  The answer, according to verse 10, is that we are saved to do good works.  God has things for us to do, he expects us to worship Him, to serve others in His name, to do good to everyone we meet, to share the reason for the hope we have in Christ Jesus, to spread the good news of the gospel.  

My favorite verse on the importance of works is James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds [works].  Can such a faith save him?"  He goes on to explain that in the verses that follow.  My paraphrase of his explanation is that a faith that isn't strong enough to motivate us to do good things for others, isn't strong enough to save us.

These “works” don’t save us.  But we better be doing them, because that’s why we were saved!

What do you think?  Feel free to leave me your comments.

Many Gifts, One Spirit

The message on Sunday, January 20, looked at spiritual gifts.

We used 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 as our starting point to see what spiritual gifts really are.  We looked at why God gives us the different gifts that He does, why does He equip us the way that He does?  And the short answer is, because He has work for us to do that requires the specific skill set we possess.

Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  He knew what those works were when he formed us in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13), and He made us just the way we are, knowing what those works were. 

In other words, He made us to do certain things, and formed us with the unique skill set we have, so we would be equipped to do them.

What does that mean for the church?  Specifically it means that if you aren't active, you are available to do the part God created you to do, and the whole church suffers as a result.  Not only that, but the churches ministry in the community suffers, because your part isn't being done.

So prayerfully consider what God has prepared for you to do.  And joyfully serve Him as you do your part.

To read the entire message, or to listen to an audio recording, click here.

Rudolph coming this Sunday...

This Sunday at Almond Union of Churches, we're continuing our series on the Christmas Classics.  This week is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and look to see how we can light our way this Christmas Season.  Just to get you in the mood, check out the video...

A Response to Sandy Hook...

Several times in my ministry we have faced tragedy in our nation.  Perhaps the first was in 1999 with the school shooting in Columbine High School.  I wasn’t here in Almond yet, but that was something that shook the country.  How could a student be so angry, so hateful, so out of control, that he would take a gun to school and shoot his fellow students.

In 2007, On the campus of Viginia Tech, we saw the most gruesome and deadly of these school shootings, when student brought a gun to class and killed 33.  And again, we asked the question, How could a student be so angry, so hateful, so out of control, that he would take a gun to school and shoot his fellow students.

This year, in Aurora Colorado, James Holmes opens fire in a crowded movie theater, killing 14, and injuring over 50.

Even more recently, a gunman opens fire in a busy shopping mall in the Portland Oregon area.

And then yesterday.  The shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.  And we have to ask the question again, How can a person be so angry, so hateful, so out of control, that he would take a gun to school and shoot that many kids.  I don’t know about you, but I have to ask why?  What it is that has got this man so angry, so frustrated, so hopeless, that this mass shooting sounded like his best course of action. 

Of all of these shootings, I think yesterdays was the worst.  Why was this one harder to accept, not that any are easy to accept.  Perhaps it was because this one wasn’t a student, he came onto campus from the outside.  He didn’t belong there.  Perhaps it was because the students were so young, this was an elementary school – the victims were all under 10, the majority in first grade, that would make them just 6 or so. 

Why?  Why do we keep seeing this kind of evil?  Why does God allow this evil to happen.  Do you ask yourself these questions?  I do.

And while I won’t go into any possible answers, I will say, that when I see this evil, I’m reminded of something going on around us that’s bigger than us.  I’m reminded that this is a fallen world, and we’re all fallen people.  God’s forgiveness is available to any who humble themselves and seek God, but we’re fallen people in a fallen world. 

And I’m reminded that there is evil in this world.  And that we can’t navigate this world without help.  God’s help.  We need Him.  Because we’re fallen.  We need a Savior. 

He didn’t cause this unspeakable horror we heard about yesterday.  In fact, I believe there were tears in His eyes as it unfolded.  Tears because Adam Lanza needed God, and He would never know the peace and forgiveness available to him.  But truth be told, I need God, too.  We all need the peace and forgiveness only God can offer.