God is Big Enough to Remove My Doubt

Last Sunday at Almond Union, we continued our new Teaching Series by looking at doubt.  Doubt can be a serious issue in the life of a Christian. Doubt can leave us feeling empty. Doubt can paralyze us, the fear that comes up as a result of our doubts can keep us from moving forward, keep us from seeking help, keep us from going out at all, and keep us from finding the healing we might need.

Jesus appeared to the disciples after His resurrection.  He spoke to them, he let them see the nail holes in His hands and feet, He let them touch Him to see that He was real.  He even ate with them to prove that He wasn’t a ghost or a vision.  He was real.  And in seeing Him in the flesh, they no longer doubted. 

But we still doubt, don’t we.  We haven’t seen Him in the flesh.  We haven’t touched Him, we haven’t seen the nail holes, we haven’t had a meal with Him.  And when so much of society is trying to explain the world without God, we might be tempted to believe them, and might begin to doubt God, too. 

But here are some ways to deal with our doubt, to put ourselves in a place where God can begin the work of removing our doubt, so we will know that God is big enough to deal with our doubt.  

To read the message and know that God help remove your doubt, click here...

Why the Resurrection...

When Jesus first appeared to the disciples after the resurrection, he found them hiding int he upper room.  They were afraid of the Jews, afraid that since they killed Jesus, they may kill them, too.  If they really wanted to stop His teaching, they couldn't leave the witnesses, could they?  So they were hiding, afraid for their lives.  

But I wonder if it wasn't something more, too.  I wonder if they were beginning to think that everything Jesus had said was a lie.  They thought He was the Son of Man.  He said He was the Son of Man.  The promised Messiah.  But He died.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  So when it happened, I wonder if they doubted.  They didn’t understand what He had been trying to tell them in the weeks leading up to His death.  They didn’t think that could happen to the Messiah.  When the mockers said let God send his angles to rescue him, I wonder if the disciples were looking around, too.  God wouldn’t let him die!  And when God did let Him die, they felt let down.  And they began to doubt everything.

That’s why Jesus appeared to them after His death.  He needed to help them deal with their doubt so they could move and do the work of spreading the Good News to everyone.  Christians were never meant to stay in an upper room.  They were never meant to stay in churches.  The work of Christ is out there.  It’s in the streets.  It’s where the sinners are.  It’s where the unsaved are.  We come together in churches   That’s where the work is. 

to get recharged to back out there.

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.