The Good News

            There is good news in this world that is so full of bad news.  The Bible tells us what that Good News is.  The Bible tells us how the story began.  The story begins with God, the greatest Being in the Universe.  Someone who always existed.  A God who is the very essence of love.  A creative God who decided that He would create stars and planets and angels and a planet called Earth and its inhabitants both animal and human.  The Bible tells us that when this uncreated creator created the universe that it was good.  That there was nothing bad in it.  No dying stars.  No hurricanes.  No earthquakes.  No cancer.  No wars.  No lies.  And no death.  The universe was a place filled with spiritual beings called angels who were the messengers of God.  The earth was filled with animals and the humans that God made to take care of them and the Earth.  It was all good.

            But the Bible tells us that when God made these spiritual beings called angels and human beings that He made them capable of love.  And in order for love to be real between friends, whether the love is between God and angel or God and human, that love has to be returned.  There was one angel named Lucifer who was the most beautiful of all.  He decided that he was not going to love God in return or give Him thanks for the life that he had been given.  But instead this mightiest of angels would try and usurp God's throne.  There was a rebellion in heaven against the creator.  But the created rebel angel could not defeat his creator, and, after convincing one third of God's angels to follow him, this mighty angel, now turned God's enemy was thrown out of heaven. 

            But he didn't stop there.  This angel turned devil went after the humans who lived on the perfect Earth.  This enemy of God, this adversary, this Satan would bring mankind down with him.  The Bible says that he got humanity to join his rebellion against their creator as well.  Although humans knew that God was their creator they refused to give him thanks for the life that they had been given and became dark in their thinking.  And in that moment that humanity decided to follow the dark one the universe began to die.  The very fabric of the universe was infected by this death causing virus called sin.  When mankind decided to cut themselves off from their source of life they began to die like a tree branch ripped from the tree.  The universe became unplugged from it source as well.  Star began to die.  The earth groaned as the poison of sin shook it to its core.  The weather was broken.  Humans began fighting each other first in close family relationships and then eventually in massive wars that would devastate themselves and the environment.  The good beginning would have a bad ending.  Sin caused death.   Death was the price of the rebellion.

            But the thing about Love is that when it is needed the most, it kicks into high gear.  God, who is the very essence of Love, for love comes from God, decided that he would give the humans a second chance.  He would come after them.  He would find a way to save them from the destruction that they brought on themselves. 

            So he used His power to become human.  His name was Jesus Christ.  He was born in a backwater town among the poor.  He set aside his riches as the King of every king and grew up to be a carpenter.  He worked a blue collar job for thirty years, unnoticed by society.  To look at him you would not think that there was something special about him.  Unless you got to really know him.  Then you would find that this Jesus was the best person you ever met.  He never did anything wrong.  He was always just.  He was always right but not in the way that humans think they are always right.  He just was.  He would make children feel like they were the great citizens of God's Kingdom.  He would make women feel that they were equals in a world where men in their evil had dominated them for centuries. 

            He would eventually choose 12 uneducated young men with no power or prestige or money to become his team of world changers.  They would be his co-architects of the restored world that He would create.  When he trained them to be the people who would change the world and overthrow ruthless Kingdoms he didn't train them in the use of the sword or turn them into money making moguls or politicians.  He showed them how to serve each other and the people around them.  He fed the poor.  He used his God power to heal the sick. 

            Then He would make the ultimate sacrifice.  Jesus Christ, who did no wrong, allowed himself to pay the price of our sin.  He would pay our penalty.  He would pay our debt.  We were the ones who should have been executed for our misdeeds.  But the Creator decided that He would be executed instead.  He let evil men arrest Him and literally nail Him to a Roman cross.  The Bible tells us that His execution paid the price of sin forever.  And then three days after He was killed in our place He beat death and came back to life.  The Bible tells us that if we will just believe that Jesus Christ was executed in our place and that He came back to life that we will be forgiven.  That all of our personal misdeeds will be forgiven forever and our guilt will be washed away in His sacrifice of love.  The Bible also tells us that even though we will die one day that Jesus will raise us to new life and we will be restored.  Our relationships can be brought to new life.  Because Jesus Christ did all this death itself will work backwards and even the Earth and the Universe itself will be made new.    And all we have to do is love Him back and believe this Good News. 

On Christians Judging Themselves and Not the World Around Them

Paul condemned spiritual pride.

He said in 1 Corinthians 5:11-12 that Christians should worry about their own lives and make sure the church is living the life of Christ in its purity and conduct.

Paul said, 9 "When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. 10 But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that."

In point of fact Jesus demonstrated what Paul is talking about in verses 9 and 10.  We see this in Luke 15 where it says: "Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!" 

So, Jesus hung out with "notorious sinners" to the point where the religious people couldn't stand it.  He even re-stocked their wine supply at one party so the party could continue (John 2).

Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 5:11-12 to clarify who Christians should judge:

11 I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a Christian and yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people.

Christians who say they follow Jesus and yet live in a way that is against His reputation is who Paul is talking about. 

To reiterate. Paul is clarifying that what he means is that Christians should only judge themselves. 

If there is someone in the church who calls themselves a Christian and lives like hell then that person is the one we should correct.  If we are going to pass judgement is on someone who says they belong to Jesus and yet they are marked with sexual sin of any kind, they cheat people, they are living a life of greed, they drink too much and/or they worship something other than Jesus with their time and money.  He says if someone says they represent Jesus and live contrary to that then that person is the one we should correct.

Paul writes later in Galatians 6:1-4 that " if a Christian is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently...each Christian should test their own actions.  We may be required to hold each other accountable but when we do we must do it right in gentleness.

Paul feels so strongly about Christians making sure that they have their own crap together that he says if you confront someone who is a Christian and yet they continue to live against the ways of Jesus that we shouldn't associate with them because they are misrepresenting Jesus and the Church: "Don’t even eat with such people." 

This next verse wraps up what Paul is saying about Christians only judging themselves.


"It is not my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it is certainly your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning.  God will judge those on the outside.

Jesus said these famous words from Matthew 7: Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.  Why worry about the speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?  How can you think of saving your friend, "Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye" when you can't see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in friend's eye.  I love Eugene Peterson's paraphrase:  "It's easy to see the smudge on your neighbour's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own.  Do you have the nerve to say, "Let me wash your face for you" when your own face is distorted by contempt?  Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbour."

Jesus said it first and Paul said it again in 1 Corinthians 5 - Worry about yourself.

In a world where it seems every other Christian is using social media to judge the world around them this is a timely message. 

So, Christians, worry about yourselves. 

Let God worry about the world around you. 

'Nuff said.

Making it Easier for People to Come to Christ

Wednesday April 2, 2015

I am reading through the book of Acts.  Acts 15 is a chapter about fighting the legalistic tendencies of people whose faith grew up in a culture of legalism rather than in a culture of the grace of Jesus.

This is a truncated version of the account.

Acts 15:1-2, 5, 8-11
While Paul and Barnabas were at Antioch of Syria, some men from Judea arrived and began to teach the believers: “Unless you are circumcised as required by the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Paul and Barnabas disagreed with them, arguing vehemently. Finally, the church decided to send Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem, accompanied by some local believers, to talk to the apostles and elders about this question. But then some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and insisted, “The Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the law of Moses.”

Peter said, "God knows people’s hearts, and he confirmed that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he cleansed their hearts through faith. So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear? We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.”

That last line totally grabs me and gets my attention:  We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of the Lord Jesus.

I love James and what he said.

Acts 15:19 “And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.

Acts 15:19, 28-29 “And so my judgment is that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”

Rather than tie up heavy loads on the backs of people who didn't grow up with our religious trappings; we need to grant people the permission to get to know Jesus in their own way, teaching them only scripture and not tradition, allowing the Holy Spirit to teach them what is okay and not okay.  He will.

And He will do a better job than we will.

Lord, help me.  Help me to let You be God.  Help me to stop trying to manufacture change in people and demand bob-inanity in this world.

Amen

Don't Call Unclean What God has Made Clean

I know ISIS is made up of bad guys, men who turn their anger into an unholy quest to rule the world with their religion no matter the cost of human lives.
I know that not everybody likes Obama.  Or Bush.  Or Harper.  Or Trudeau.  
I know that.
But I am tired of seeing my people, Christians, writing off anybody who disagrees with them, religiously, politically or in any other way.  There seems to be a mammoth lack of understanding of the love of Christ for ALL people. 
I am reading through the Book of Acts.

LOVE it.
I was in Acts 10 today. Good stuff. This was God's lesson to me today.
God calls to Peter, a devout Jew, in a vision.  God wants Peter to go visit a Roman named Cornelius.  The Jews hated the Romans.
So, God says to Pete: 
"What God has cleansed and pronounced clean, do not you defile and profane by regarding and calling common and unhallowed or unclean."
In other words, don't classify certain people as unworthy of God's love.
Paul wrote this in Romans 2.  You think "Those people" are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
(Romans 2:1-2 MSG)
Paul, who wrote those words, used to be Saul, an ISIS type dude who authorized the arrest and killing of Christians. God heard his people's prayer and knocked Paul off his religious high horse and turned him into Paul, the greatest Church planter in history and the dude who ended up writing over half the New Testament.
So, one Christian to Another....I say enough of Christians thinking they are better than certain people. We the church are today's Pharisees who write anyone off whom Jesus may be calling to follow Him. As Bill Hybels put it, "Don't do it.  Don't make mental lists of people who matter to God and people who don't matter to God."  Alan Hirsch has rightly said that if we are not careful Christians today can be the Pharisees.  So we need to watch what kind of Pharisaical hate propaganda you write on your Facebook page or Blog or tweets or your talk in the local coffee shop that says to those within earshot that you think there are some people who are beyond the pale and beyond the reach of the love of Jesus.

'Nuff said.

Honoring Nero

Here is a verse from 1 Peter that most Christians would have a hard time obeying:

17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.

Honor the emperor? Which one was Emperor when Peter wrote this? Nero? Likely. If not Nero then another Roman leader who was corrupt. And here, Peter, under the influence of the Holy Spirit was telling the Christians who were alive then to honour the man who would crucify him.

But here is the thing. God put Nero there. God’s placement or allowance of evil men to be in power is still part of his plan. Nero who was a beast was still a pawn in a greater plan to make the church the most powerful and unstoppable force on the planet. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. And God was saying, through Peter, that when you honor the emperor you honor Me.

This is difficult.

What does Honour mean? Daniel honoured Nebuchadnezzar. And Darius. Total Pagan kings who worshipped themselves. But they didn’t compromise their values as the simultaneously honoured the powers installed by the Power. It means they had faith in God’s sovereignty. Jesus didn’t disrespect Pilate when He stood before this small governor that He himself put there. Pilate was part of the plan. When I hear Christians mock the leaders that God has put in place rather than pray for them as Paul tells us to do in Romans 13:1

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.…

Then Paul said the same thing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 2:2

First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,…

Therefore, I see that I have not been obedient to God and prayed for the powers that He has put in place. They are people too and the way that some Christians have disrespected these leaders shows that we have forgotten that they are normal people in places of power. If they were our neighbour would we disrespect them the way we do? No. We most certainly would not. I hope we would not. We need to pray for these people so they would know salvation and draw their decisions from the wisdom of God and His Word.

Lord, I pray for the current leadership of our country. I ask that Stephen Harper would come to You in humility and ask for wisdom from Your hand, Lord. I ask that Christy Clark would not govern on popular opinion but that she too would know Your salvation and joy and that she would see people the way that You do, Jesus. I pray for Barack Obama and ask that he would kneel before You in prayer and seek Your face and lead his country in a direction towards You. And when I think of Nero type leaders in the world like Assad in Syria I pray for him that he would be humbled underneath your mighty hand and see that he has nothing in his life that is not under the might of Jesus Christ and that he would repent of the evils that he has done as leader of that country. I pray for the leaders of broken nations like Liberia who are so devastated by Ebola right now and ask for their wisdom in dealing with this brutal disease and its ramifications for their countries. Please, Lord, stop the wars and the disease that rack these countries with pain. There are so many countries and leaders, Lord. Please help our broken planet. I thank You for still being sovereign and in control of this vast array of chaos.

Amen

Heaven is For Real

Heaven is one of my favorite topics.  Its hope and future glory keep me going.  Having said that I am sorry to say I missed Heaven is For Real in the Theatres. Having watched it tonight at home I will say that I will buy it.  Heaven is For Real is a compassionate, well-made, inspiring film.  It has a great cast and makes you think about the reality of the place that is and will be when Jesus makes everything new.  Kudos to the team that made it and adapted a book that could've been turned into cheddar and cranked out a solid film.  

"Nuff Said.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Okay already.  Uncle.  I get it.  I wrote the movie off when I saw the trailer. I thought it was going to suck.  I went to Guardians of the Galaxy to relax in air conditioning and see a science fiction with a friend.  I did not read Rotten Tomatoes or nothing.  But was it ever good!  The movie was funny, well-written, laced with great music that 80's Walkman junkies would love and music which I am going to track down very soon for my personal music player of this century.  The score was great including Groot's theme.  "I am Groot," is now my response when I don't have one.  The Raccoon is very cool and I admire his ingenuity.  Chris Pratt makes a good, light-hearted action hero and Zoe is still kick-butt cool and pretty even in green skin.  And, ohhhh, that's why Thanos appeared at the end of Avengers.  

There was a great amount of thought and creativity that went into the creation of the tech and the set design of all the various worlds was very good.  The movie even hints of altruism and sacrifice and a reversal of selfishness like when Han Solo decided to smarten up and join the Death Star battle.  It does this without being cheesy and taking itself too seriously.  

All in all I really enjoyed Marvel's first foray into Sci Fi.  I'll give it a hearty 9 outta 10.

'Nuff Said.