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Giving Thanks, By Faith

Slide Guide, November 22, 2015

Col 2:6-7- “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.” NASU

The only way that we can prime the pump so that our lives will then ‘overflow with gratitude’ is by choosing to practice this virtue of ‘giving thanks’, by faith.

Rom 1:20-21- “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks…” NASU

We’re going to look deeper at another wonder about the way our God has made us.

Ps 92:1-7- “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim Your unfailing love in the morning, Your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by the ten-stringed harp and the melody of the lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing for joy because of what You have done. O Lord, what great works You do! And how deep are Your thoughts. Only a simpleton would not know, and only a fool would not understand this: Though the wicked sprout like weeds and evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.” NLT

Matthew Henry: “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. Praising God is good work: it is good in itself and good for us. It is good, for it is pleasant and profitable, work that is its own wages; it is the work of angels, the work of heaven…”

Even human beings in general benefit from this amazing general grace of God when they engage in the practice of ‘giving thanks’ and incorporate a grateful attitude into their lives.

“31 Benefits of Gratitude”

Having things from the material world is not the problem. What turns the material world into ‘materialism’ is when the the things of the material world ‘have us’.

“…the effect of giving thanks is good. It is a desirable state of mind. It tends to happiness, contentment, peace. A gloomy mind makes all things around more gloomy; an unthankful mind is an unhappy mind; a murmuring, complaining, dissatisfied mind makes its possessor wretched, and all around him miserable. It is good as it is due to God. For all His favor we should be thankful—and all that we enjoy is His gift… ”

For every good benefit that God has built into the practice of us ‘giving thanks’ there is an opposite injury that comes from the neglect of this habit of gratitude.

James 1:17-18- Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” NASU

Psalm 92 is the only Psalm designated for the Sabbath: “A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day”.

‘As soldiers march best to music; Christians live best in praise.’

Our church family service times together are to be permeated with thanksgiving.

And they are to be filled with this understanding of how foolish it is to not recognize how good it really is to give thanks and praise to the Lord for His great works and of all He has done for us.

We are the recipients of the greatest love ever shown through the salvation by our Lord and Savior. We are the children of God’s mercies, and His mercies are new every morning. We are the objects of His great works…

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim Your unfailing love in the morning, Your faithfulness in the evening…”

Living Life Over Before It’s Over, Pt. 3

Study Guide, November 8, 2015 – Pastor Clay Olsen

In our Men’s Fellowship last Saturday we talked about one of the great quotes by G.K. Chesterton: “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” It sounds kind of odd, even funny, but it really makes sense. It’s really a call for us to not get so stressed about the outcomes of things in life and just get on with putting some effort into trying to do what’s worth doing, even if we don’t do it all that well for awhile, or ever. And even in the Christian life it helps to remember that God doesn’t call us to results; He only calls us to faithfulness and perseverance. So we needn’t worry about messing up while trying to do worthwhile things, but we do need to get on with being diligent about doing worthwhile things; diligent, meaning; putting forth extreme effort, by faith and in reliance upon the Holy Spirit, of course.

In connection with this, in our study times, we started considering some things in our life that are worthwhile; things that we have done or tried to do; things that maybe we should try to do over, that is, do them over before our life is over. And one of those things for many of us to do the ‘Gospel conversation’ over, meaning; to change the way many have thought about and talked about the ‘Gospel’ with the unsaved world around us all. Much of the conversation between the church and the world about the Gospel needs a do-over, before this life is over.

And the reason we point this out is because there is both a great deception upon the minds of the unsaved, the unregenerate people of this world, and there is a great confusion in the discussion about the Gospel among irreligious as well as religious people of this world. And oftentimes even in witnessing to the unsaved world Christians neglect clearing up both this great deception and this great confusion. And as a result the irreligious unsaved and the religious unsaved go away still deceived and confused.

One of the greatest deceptions in the world, among even the religions of the world, is that people do not know what their basic problem in life is, and thus, they do no know what their basic need in life is either. Nearly every person on Earth, from the Eastern religions of Buddhism and Shintoism and Hinduism to the Middle Eastern religions of Islam and even Judaism to the Western Native religions and even the Social Gospel Churches, all begin with this world-wide deception concerning the basic spiritual condition of man.

What is the basic spiritual problem about man in which most people are deceived? Many religions will identify and admit to some sort of sin problem. That is why most of the religions of the world include some actions of sacrifice or some methods of offering sacrifices to atone for sin. And these sacrifices are usually then accompanied by some set of good works that they are to perform in order to merit their reward of whatever concept they have of life after death; from Nirvana to Valhalla to the Celestial Heavens and so forth. And, again, even among the Social Gospel and Liberation Theology churches, the teaching about salvation is related to a combination of forgiveness plus the doing of good works which is supposed to then equal the reward of meriting a place in Heaven. But again, each religion is starting from this world-wide deception of the belief that man is basically spiritually good. And therefore they then act on this world-wide confusion that all they are then in need of is the combination of getting some forgiveness for what has been bad in their life and then improving on what could be better in their life through the merits of some good works in their life. However, in doing so they are completely rejecting or neglecting God’s revelation about what their real problem is and what their real need is which can only be solved and met by receiving Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

The thing is, mankind’s problem is way past any discussion about religious good works or improvements in their religious practices. Here is the critical point about the Gospel revelation. Both the deception that man is basically good and the confusion that man can get better through good works is resolutely refuted and completely corrected by the clearest revelation by God through the Apostle Paul concerning the basic spiritual condition of every person on Earth. Eph 2:1-10- “In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. At that time you followed the world’s evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God. Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God’s anger. But God’s mercy is so abundant, and His love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience He brought us to life with Christ. It is by God’s grace that you have been saved. In our union with Christ Jesus He raised us up with Him to rule with Him in the heavenly world. He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of His grace in the love He showed us in Christ Jesus. For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus He has created us for a life of good deeds, which He has already prepared for us to do.” TEV

Contrary to nearly all human understanding about the spiritual condition of man, man is not basically good; rather, man is basically dead – spiritually dead. This is where the Gospel conversation starts. The Gospel is about how spiritually dead people can become spiritually alive by having their spirit united to the life of Jesus Christ. Yes, we need forgiveness from God because of our sins, but we also need something from God which is central to the Gospel; we need spiritual life.

One of the clearest statements about the Biblical Gospel is attributed to Ravi Zacharias, who was trying to clarify this very deception about the spiritual condition of man and the confusion about what Jesus came to do about it all. And this is how he summarized what the Bible is saying to us all: “Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.”

This is the message that cuts right through all the religious deception and confusion by the various religions of the world about there being different religious paths to Heaven. This is the message that reveals to everyone that the way to Heaven is not a path at all. Why? Because the Gospel message is not about religious behavior, it’s about being brought out of spiritual death into spiritual life. It’s about Jesus bringing spiritual life to the spiritually dead people of Earth. That’s what the Apostle is declaring to us: “But God’s mercy is so abundant, and His love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience He brought us to life with Christ.” The Gospel is not about walking some pathway to Heaven. Again, the spiritual condition of man is way past that. People without Christ in their life are already spiritually dead. What they need is spiritual life, and spiritual life can only be found in Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Life-giver.

Something we must realize is that the enemy of our souls has the world deceived into thinking that they already have spiritual life since they believe they are basically good. And then he has them confused by thinking that all they need from God is some help; some help with a dose of forgiveness now and then and some help with their good works. Even for many who claim ‘Christian’ as their religious faith, they think of Jesus more as their ‘Helper’ rather than their ‘Life-giving Lord and all sufficient Savior’. They are still thinking as though they are basically good and simply need be sorry before God for what they’ve done wrong and with His help they will try to do better. They think they are right with God because they are trusting in God’s grace and their works. But for one thing, the Apostle Paul said that is impossible because our works cancels out God’s grace. It’s either one or the other. Speaking of our salvation the Apostle says this: Rom 11:6- “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” NASU

If a person is depending upon a combination of some help with forgiveness from Jesus plus trusting in the merits of their own works for their salvation, the Apostle reveals to them that they have just canceled out God’s grace for their salvation. They are still trusting in what God says cannot save them; their works. The Scriptures clearly state that we can only be saved by God’s grace through our faith and not by our merits or works.

Again, one of the reasons the Gospel conversation needs to be clarified with the irreligious unsaved or the religious unsaved is because of this humanistic belief that people have that they are basically spiritually good people. This deception is deeply rooted within the sin nature of mankind. And so what people then do, in relation to their idea about being right with God, is that they continually compare their relative goodness with what they see in others when they are considering if they are good enough concerning whatever religious beliefs or affiliation they have. And in this comparison with other religious people they often will not see much of a difference, nor much of a need to change either what they believe or how they are living. And so they conclude that they are probably all right with God and do not need whatever some ‘Christian’ might be offering to them.

What they need to understand is that what the Biblical Gospel is revealing to us all is that mankind’s problem is way past a discussion about religious beliefs or works and behavior. What they need to understand is what sin did to their spirit. Most people of the world do not know what ‘Sin’ did to the human spirit. If you were to ask people on the street what ‘Sin’ did to our human spirit, how many would answer: “Sin killed our human spirit and left us spiritually dead.” None would give that answer unless they had learned this Biblical truth about sin. This is not something that the natural man knows, since this truth can only be discovered through the revelation of God concerning what sin did to our human spirit. Sin killed the spirit of every person on Earth and has left everyone spiritually dead. Therefore, what every person on Earth is in need of from God is to have their dead spirit brought back to life again. And the only way that can happen is for them to turn to the only source of spiritual life, Jesus Christ, and receive Him into to their life to raise their dead spirit to life again in union with Him. Jesus Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life!

The Gospel is about asking the One who was crucified and who died in my place because of my sins to remove my spiritual death penalty from me and to bring my dead spirit back to life in union with Jesus’ own eternal life. The Gospel is about raising the spiritually dead back to life again through the mercy of Christ’s death as substitute for my eternal spiritual death and through the grace of Christ’s gift to me of His own eternal life. My trust, therefore, is not in anything of my own merit or works, but only in what Christ has done through His sinless life and sacrificial death in order to bring my dead spirit back to life in union with Jesus’ own eternal life.

I’m not trusting in my works because no amount of good works could ever bring my dead spirit back to life. Do not overlook this critical point. Whenever the conversation about salvation turns to the issue of good works it needs to be turned back to the fact that dead people can’t bring themselves back to life through their good works. Let’s state that again: The reason that ‘good works’ cannot save anyone is because no amount of good works can bring a spiritually dead person back to life again. One who is spiritually dead can only come back to life through uniting himself or herself with the only source of life, the Lord of life, Jesus Christ.

Look at how Paul explained the issue of the Law in terms of why the works of the Law could never bring salvation: Gal 3:21-22- “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be! For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law. But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” NASU

The reason that the Law of works in the Old Testament or the good works of anyone who has ever lived since that time have no power to save anyone is because good works have no power to impart life to a person’s dead spirit. Like we said: No amount of good works can ever bring anyone’s dead spirit back to life. And that is what we are talking about when we are talking about the Gospel of Salvation: How can anyone whose spirit is dead because of their trespasses and sin have their dead spirit brought back to spiritual life again? There is only one way; and that is by the Life-giving Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ, coming to unite His spiritual life with the one who is spiritually dead, re-birthing his or her dead spirit with His own spiritual life. That’s why Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born-again.” Our dead spirit must be birthed into spiritual life.

Again, The issue with the unsaved around us is not about what church they go to or what religious beliefs they have or what good works they have done. No, the issue with the unsaved people around us is that they are spiritually dead, and therefore what they need, what everyone needs, is spiritual life. And they can only get spiritual life through the Spirit of Christ.

Much of why many Christians are uncomfortable about witnessing is because the conversation often turns into a discussion about good works. And even when the Christian tries to clarify that salvation is not based on our good works but on God’s saving grace, still, since most people think they are pretty good already, the conversation often bogs down right there. They might even like the part about God’s grace, but somehow they just sort of add whatever is said about God’s grace to their own opinion of their good works and off they go. That is why the Gospel conversation needs to changed, because a world that believes that they are basically good will also believe that they are basically ‘OK’ with God, and so they think of themselves as basically already spiritually alive. But God says that apart from being united to Christ’s Spirit they are basically dead in trespasses and sin and will remain that way forever, regardless of their good works.

The enemy of the souls of mankind has both deceived and confused the minds of the unsaved. The Gospel of the Bible is the only revelation that proclaims that sin has killed the spirit of every person on Earth and they are spiritually dead in trespasses and sin. And unless their spirit is brought back to life again through receiving the Life-giver, the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they will enter an eternity as spiritually dead people and will forever be spiritually separated from God in a land called Gehenna Hell.

That’s the bad news. But the good news is; the Gospel is: “But God’s mercy is so abundant, and His love for us is so great, that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience He brought us to life with Christ…For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it.” The Gospel tells us that anyone and everyone can have their dead human spirit brought back to life, if they will receive the Lord of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ, into their life as their Savior, as their Life-giver! That’s what ‘Savior’ means, Life-giver. Maybe we should start this change in the Gospel conversation, this ‘do-over’, by talking more about Jesus as our Lord and ‘Life-giver’. It might turn the Gospel conversation back to helping people understand that being right with God is not a matter of religious works and deeds – it’s way beyond a discussion of ‘works’; it’s a matter of ‘life and death’! It’s a matter of the spiritually dead coming back to spiritual life in union with Jesus Christ, who alone is the Life-giver. We need to reveal to the world why in fact Jesus came to Earth: ‘Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.’

Living Life Over Before It’s Over, Pt. 2

Study Guide, November 1, 2015 – Pastor Clay Olsen

We have begun to look into some Biblical precepts and principles that we have the opportunity to try to put into practice in our lives before our lives are over. And one of these has to do with this very aspect of ‘understanding’. In fact the wisest man that ever lived said this: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.” Prov 3:5-6 NASU

I would have to say that I have stumbled over that counsel a number of times. But today I have another chance to try it over again…no doubt, again and again. But the point is that the if the wisest man who ever lived could not trust his own understanding, why should I…why should any of us think we should even try? That is something we should understand about ourselves. And that is, we naturally think we know more than we actually do know. We are easily deceived by the world, the flesh, and the devil and therefore must constantly be relying not on our understanding, but in all our ways we need to be relying upon God’s Word, seeking to understand all our ways through the lenses of the Word of God, relying upon them and being led in them by the Spirit of God.

Speaking of ‘understanding’, would it surprise you to know that along with seeking to be loved by those whom God has created and redeemed, that what God seeks most from us is to be understood? Really….One of the most amazing personal and emotional statements the Lord ever said about Himself is found in Jer 9:23-24- “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.” NKJV

It is safe to say that God is the most misunderstood Person in the world. Now, if anyone in the world can deal with that, it’s God, of course. But still, at least God’s people should seek to make it easier on Him. Jesus expected to be misunderstood by the world when He came into the world. But we find out that Jesus expected that those who would become His children out of this world would come to understand and know Him more and more and better and better. That is what He wanted to see happen in His relationship with His people.

Remember when Jesus was teaching the Disciples about going to Heaven before them to prepare a place for them there and that He was the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father, except through Him? Notice carefully what happened next: John 14:8-11- “Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”. Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” NASU

Even through this written account you can feel the sadness in the words of Jesus to Philip, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me?” What is something that God really wants out of our relationship with Him? God wants you and me to come to understand Him, to seek to understand Him more and more, better and better. It means more to God than we can even imagine. But knowing how much that it does mean to God should cause us to make it one of the highest priorities of our lives.

Now, certainly, we will come to understand God more and more throughout all eternity. But the point is, our goal in this life should be to pursue understanding as much about God as He wants us to understand about His Person and His character and His expressed desires, before this life is over. And if ‘understanding God, in His Person, character, and desires has not been a priority goal of your life so far, then God has told us to do this part over in our life before our life is over. Make seeking to understand and know your God more and more become a central part of your worship experience of God. And realize that this is a great source of delight that you and I can give to our Maker and our Savior. And really, how amazing it is to realize that we can bring delight to the heart of our God in giving Him something that He has told us that He really wants in a relationship with us. He wants us to try to understand and know Him as much as we can in this life, before this life is over. And we each can do this!

And as we do this, as we set out to know and understand our God better and better, there is something else we should know and understand about ourselves. Henry Ward Beecher was a minister in the late 1800’s. He’s quoted as saying things like: “We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves… Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul… Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.” So, yeah, pretty insightful Brother there. But he also reminded us all about a particular tendency we have when it comes to seeking to know our God. He said that our conceptions of God tend to proceed out of our perceptions from our own personalities.

Perhaps if we just let him speak for himself we’ll get the idea better. Here is Henry Ward Beecher talking: “Some there are who are far more sensible to physical qualities than others. The sublimity of power is to their thought one of the chief Divine attributes. God is omnipotent. That idea touches them. He is omniscient. Their eyes sparkle when they think of that. He is omnipresent. They have a sense of that. He is majestic. He has wondrous power. According to their conception He is God of all the earth. None can resist His might. That is your sense of God. If you only have such a God, you are satisfied. Another person wants a scientific God. He says, “I perceive that there is a law of light, a law of heat, a law of electricity; I see that everything is fashioned by law; and my idea of God is that He must be supreme in science; that there are to be found in Him all those qualities which science is interpreting to me.” His God will be just, generous, faithful; but He will be just, generous, faithful after the fashion of a Faraday (or some other (scientist)… Another man conceives of God from the domestic side, It is the mother nature that he thinks of — the nature that is full of gentleness; full of kindness; full of sympathy; full of sweetness; full of elevated tastes; full of songs; full of all manner of joy-producing qualities. Another, who is an artist, will feel after the God of the rainbow — a God of beauty. So every person will be dependent upon the most sensitive parts of his own soul for his interpretation of God. What is it that makes one flower blue and another scarlet? No flower reflects all the light. If a flower is purple it absorbs a part and reflects the rest. If it is blue it absorbs some of the parts and reflects others. The same is true if it is red. And as it is with the colors of flowers, so it is with our conception of God. What you are susceptible of, and what you are sensitive to, in the Divine nature, largely determines what your conception of God is. Each individual puts emphasis on that part of the character of God which his own mind is best fitted to grasp. For instance, God is said to be a God of justice, of truth, and of benevolence. Now, which of those elements is first? Which governs the others? If God is first sternly just, and then suffers and is kind, that is one sort of God. If He is first loving, and then in the service of love is stern, and severe even, that is another kind of God. I hold that the emphasis which you put upon the Divine attributes determines the character of God in your mind.”

(H. W. Beecher; from The Biblical Illustrator Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006 Ages Software, Inc. and Biblesoft, Inc.)

The thing is, that we tend to limit the things we come to understand and know about God because we tend to limit our search according to those things we have come to understand and know about ourselves, like our own interests and temperament and personality and such. Yes, God plans to use our particular temperament and interests and personality as a testimony to this world, but we should not allow these things to limit what we come to understand and know about our God, otherwise we will then be doing what the world tends to do, and that is; fashion God in our their own image rather than re-fashioning their lives more and more into the image of God.

Certainly, the needs of our personality and temperament often drive us to God. If we are drawn to God through our love of history or science or art or music or medicine, then wonderful, but let your love and your temperament and personality be a doorway by which you enter into God’s world, not a limitation through which God must come to you in your world. Do not make your needs and desires and your temperament and personality become the terms in which you look to God for your happiness. Rather, let your needs and desires and your temperament and your personality drive you to God with the goal of opening yourself up to living your life according to His terms, and finding your happiness by His terms.

Plus, God reveals that the very source of our happiness is related to our understanding and knowing God. Look again: Go back to what God said: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me…” Here is something important to understand about what it means ‘to glory’ in something. We generally tend to think of ‘to glory in something or someone’ as meaning to give honor and credit to this or that or to them. And it includes all this for sure. But ‘to glory in something or someone’ also has the particular meaning of ‘to depend upon this particular thing or this particular someone as your source of happiness’.

Do you see what God is saying to us? God is revealing a critical piece of information for us to understand about our very makeup or design. You see, We were not created to depend upon or to look to any particular set of strengths of ours or to any special wisdom of ours or to any acquired riches of ours as our source of happiness. These have no power to confer happiness upon our souls. Rather, God is informing us that we were created to reap happiness when we look to God with the intention of seeking to understand and to know our God deeper and deeper and better and better. You see, Our personal happiness is directly dependent upon how much we depend upon understanding and knowing God as being our very source and pathway of happiness! Besides, God alone has the power to confer happiness upon our souls. And He does so as we glory in, as we depend upon, understanding and knowing God in His Person, character, and expressed desires as our source of real happiness. Personal strengths, and individual wisdom, and acquired riches can be blessings to enjoy and to share with others, but the waters of happiness for refreshing the soul have one source from which we are to drink. And that source is the pool of understanding and knowing God Himself.

The headwaters of human happiness are understanding and knowing God. Drink from these and your very soul will be refreshed. Enjoy the other things of life as gifts from God, but realize that what God enjoys, what blesses God, is your pursuit of understanding and knowing God. And in your pursuit of this holy habit, God will bestow happiness on your soul. Some of the ancient Christian writers referred to this happiness of the soul as ‘a mystical experience’. Yet, by ‘mystical’ they weren’t referring to some ‘other-worldly’ kind of thing, but ‘mystical’ in it’s normal definition of ‘Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; beyond ordinary understanding.’ So in this sense we can each have a mystical experience, which is really just a majestic experience in our relationship with our majestic God, since the experience of depending upon understanding and knowing God as our source of daily happiness is way beyond the ordinary understanding of people around us who are simply living life according to their own understanding.

How this plays out in day to day life is that, since we have come to understand how much it means to God for us to try to understand and know Him better and better, now our daily devotional Bible reading will be overlaid with this holy pursuit, this goal of understanding and knowing God deeper and better and more and more. Our daily works and activities and interactions with others will now be overlaid with the intention of better understanding and knowing God through the experience of it all. Our church family worship and service will be overlaid with gleaning from it all for how it helps us come to understand and know our God better and better. And just our day to day activities with our family and friends will now be overlaid with looking for ways that can help us understand and know God better and better through it all.

And as we learn to ‘glory’ most in understanding and knowing God, we will find ourselves glorying less in the things of this world and even our own selves. And in this ‘mystical majestic’ experience with God we will find our true freedom for our mind and emotions and our soul happiness.

Remember this about how each of us are made. My personal happiness is not based upon how much I am getting out of life. My happiness is based upon how much I am getting into God…into understanding and knowing my God deeper and deeper and more and more.

 

“Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.” Jer 9:23-24 NKJV

 

Living Life Over Before It’s Over, Pt. 1

Study Guide, October 25, 2015 – Pastor Clay Olsen

Sharon’s father was mentored by a fellow Marine named Bob Boardman. In turn, Sharon’s father kept ‘passing it on’, mentoring others himself. Bob Boardman had fought in the South Pacific during WW11. In 1943 while carrying a wounded comrade from their tank that had been shelled and was on fire Bob was shot in the throat by a Japanese sniper. From then on he could only speak in a ‘husky whisper’. It wasn’t just a whisper, but since he was a tough marine, it was a ‘husky whisper’.

During the war he had become a Christian while reading through a Gideon New Testament; which is an example of how wonderful the Gideon Bible ministry has been through the years. After the war Bob was discipled by a man named Dawson Trotman, who many know as the founder of the Navigators Ministry. Bob then became full-time staff with the Navigators and committed to overseas missions. And guess what people group he chose to go witness to and serve? Right. He went to Japan to serve the Japanese people as the ‘Whispering Missionary’. He had lost friends and even his own voice by the hands of the Japanese, but he went back to tell them they had a Savior Who loved them and was waiting to give them His gift of forgiveness and eternal life in union with Him.

It’s an amazing testimony, and you can find out more about Bob Boardman on the internet. But when Bob was 59 years old he wrote an article for the Navigators entitled, ‘If I Could Live My Life Over’. You can also read that. And in the article he talks about things like; he would stand more boldly upon his God-given calling, and not be so fearful. And then he said that while they were young he would spend more time with his children in worship, in spiritual disciplines, and in just enjoying life. He would be quicker to turn from temptation and sin. He would be more systematic and single-minded in following a lifetime personal Bible study and Scripture memory program. He would be more determined in his one-to-one discipling ministry. He wrote that he would welcome trials and even failures as mends and as builders of his poor character. (What a humble self-image by this great man.) And he wrote that he would be more considerate, kind, tender, and communicative toward his wife, his children, and his fellow workers.¹

Pretty impressive! And, again, you can read what he wrote about each of these things in the article, as we have posted how to find it in our Study Guides. But now here is where we are heading with this. As we stated, Bob Boardman was 59 when he wrote this article on if he could live his life over. He lived another 26 years after this and died at age 85. The point being; much of what he wrote about doing if he could live his life over he did live over before his life was over. That is a description of ‘Biblical wisdom’.

Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses. And in this prayer he prays this: Ps 90:12- “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.” Holman Bible

About this prayer Barnes Commentary says, “The prayer is, that God would enable us to form such an estimate of life, that we shall be truly wise; that we may be able to act “as if” we saw the whole of life, or as we should do if we saw its end. God sees the end—the time, the manner, the circumstances in which life will close; and although He has wisely hidden that from us, yet He can enable us to act as if we saw it for ourselves; to have the same objects before us, and to make as much of life, “as if” we saw when and how it would close. If anyone knew when, and where, and how he was to die, it might be presumed that this would exert an important influence on him in forming his plans, and on his general manner of life. The prayer is, that God would enable us to act “as if” we had such a view.” (from Barnes’ Notes, Electronic Database Copyright © 1997, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc.)

God can enable us to act as if we see the whole of our life even to its end, and then act indeed on how we form our plans and how we conduct the general manner of our life, or conduct the specific manners and actions of our life. What we have in this prayer of Moses and instruction from God is a call for us to live life over before its over! We are called to look as much or more at how our life will end up than how it’s going now, and then make the most of today while it’s still called ‘Today’. We are called to live today as if we were at the end of our life writing an article on ‘If I could live my life over.’

Well, no doubt we could each start on a list like Bob Boardman did, and you may already have or now will, but in the coming study times we have together we’re going to point out some specific Biblical principles we each need to practice in living out today, again, while it’s still called ‘Today’. And the first one goes along with what Moses prayed about; living life as though we saw its end, not only the end for us, but also for others who have not repented unto salvation. And why is this important? Let’s look.

Recall another Psalm that spoke about the need to see people the way God sees people, particularly unsaved people. In Psalm 73, a Psalm of Asaph, he starts by looking at people through his own eyes, but he finishes by looking at people through God’s eyes. In Ps. 73:2-9 Asaph wrote, “My feet had almost stumbled. They had almost slipped because I was envious of arrogant people when I saw the prosperity that wicked people enjoy. They suffer no pain. Their bodies are healthy. They have no drudgery in their lives like ordinary people. They are not plagued with problems like others. That is why they wear arrogance like a necklace and acts of violence like clothing. Their eyes peer out from their fat faces, and their imaginations run wild. They ridicule. They speak maliciously. They speak arrogantly about oppression. They verbally attack heaven, and they order people around on earth.”

That’s a pretty depressing sight. What was going on? Well, as Aspah looked at the unsaved around him through human eyes, or through his natural and temporal understanding, he became envious of their prosperity and their seemingly pleasurable lives…until he saw them through a different sets of eyes. Notice what he wrote then.

Ps 73:17-19- “Only when I came into God’s holy place did I finally understand what would happen to them. You put them in slippery places and make them fall into ruin.

They are suddenly destroyed. They are completely swept away by terror!” GOD’S WORD

Suddenly Asaph saw these people whom he once envied with pity toward them now…and why? Because he saw what was about to happen to them. Once he replaced his partial temporal picture of life with God’s complete and eternal picture of life it changed everything Aspah saw after that. And it will be the same for us. To see life, to see people of this life accurately and realistically, we must see life not as this partial temporal picture before us, but see it as it really is, see the complete eternal picture that is all around us. We must see life from God’s eternal point of view and not from our own temporal point of view. And if we have not been looking at life this way then one thing we need to live out in the rest of our life that we have before us, or before this life we have is over, is replace this partial temporal picture of life with the complete eternal picture of life…the picture that God has revealed to us about what’s really going on in this life and what’s really going on in the next, in life beyond death.

In fact, we need to see people around us the way that Asaph began to see them. Concerning those who do not fear God, or concerning those who have not surrendered their heart and lives to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, we need to look at them not just in terms of what’s happening in their lives, but in terms of what’s about to happen in their lives. For what is about to happen to the unsaved person is more important than anything that’s happening to them now or has ever happened in their life. As Asaph saw, they are on the verge of complete ruin and utter destruction. Mark it down: What’s going to happen when a person’s life comes to an end is more important than anything that’s ever happened to them before.

I’ve been thinking about Steve Jobs, the brilliant mind behind Apple computers and the IPad and IPhone and on and on. I didn’t see the movie about his life and I don’t know what was revealed in it about his faith. But concerning his faith, what’s written about him is that he rejected his Christian upbringing at age 13. In the post-sixties he traveled to India and came back embracing Zen Buddhism as his faith. One article about this said that traces of the Eastern religions have made it into the pockets of millions of Westerners thanks to the ‘deep influence’ of Zen Buddhism in the life of the late Steve Jobs. The article also said that many are still trying to make sense of his final words, “Oh wow, Oh wow, O wow” that his sister related to the New York Times. He had professed uncertainty as to whether God exists, and is recorded as saying, “I’m about fifty-fifty in believing in God.”² We pray that perhaps before he left this life that he had embraced the Savior and Lord Jesus that he had earlier rejected, and perhaps had a ‘thief on the cross’ like experience…but we don’t know.

What we do know is this; that what is happening now in the life after death of Steve Jobs is more crucial and important and significant than anything that ever happened in his life in his career with Apple computers. Again, we pray that Steve Jobs did repent toward God and surrender in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior before he left Earth, but if he did not…well, either way, the need for every person on Earth to do this would be the most important thing that he would tell others that they need to do in their life while they still have a choice. And if he hadn’t received Christ as his Savior in his life, he would now want to warn others and say that this is what he would do if he could live his life over.

We know that to be sure because of the testimony we already have of an unsaved rich man after he died. Luke 16:22-31- “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. (This is a different Lazarus than the Lazarus of Bethany that is resurrected.) And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. ‘And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house — for I have five brothers — in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’” NASU

Note carefully, this was not a parable that Jesus was teaching. This was a historical account of two people, no doubt two people who were known by some those to whom Jesus was speaking. Jesus was opening up the veil to show us what happens for the saved and the unsaved right after we leave Earth. It is a picture of what’s is going on right now in the lives of both the saved and the unsaved since they left Earth. And it reveals this to all of us: What happens then and forever after is more important than anything that’s ever happened in our life before.

Plus, it even shows the danger of people rejecting the authority of the truths of the Bible. Like Abraham said to this unsaved man in Hades, that if his brothers were rejecting the most powerful witness of the Scriptures, then they would continue to reject any other witness, even if someone were to rise from the dead. Even today, after Jesus Christ has risen from the dead as a witness to the whole world, people continue to reject the witness of both Jesus and the Scriptures that are calling all people to repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. That’s the danger of hardening your heart against the Words of God.

But the reality is that every person on earth is but a heartbeat away, one breath away, one step away from entering either Hades or Heaven. What happens when you do leave Earth is more important than anything that is happening in your life now or has ever happened before. That’s how God sees people. That’s how Asaph learned to see people. And that’s how we are to see people if we are looking at them through the lenses of the Bible, looking at them realistically.

We have mentioned before, but it bears repeating here, that wisdom is living your life not forward, from where you are now to the end, but living your life backward, from the end to where you are now. For the believer, it’s living your life the way you will wish you had lived your life when standing before the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Well, in our study times to come we’ll explore some more of the precepts and principles from the Scriptures concerning living our life over before it’s over.

1. Bob Boardman, If I Could Live My Life Over, discipleshiplibrary.com
2. Joshua Little, What do Steve Job’s final words mean? New York Times, faithstreet.com

The Burden/The Blessing

Study Guide, October 4, 2015 – Pastor Clay Olsen

The Bread

One of the reasons we look forward to our devotional communion service is because it’s a time when we slow down and reflect upon the wonder of our Great Savior and our great salvation. And at once we are reminded of the uniqueness of it all. The Biblical way of salvation is unique. And since it is, for one thing, that means that people can’t rely on their own understanding about it. In our membership orientation we review some of the natural ways people think about salvation that are wholly apart from Biblical revelation about it. In the notes Rick Warren outlined some of these ways. One way is Salvation through heritage. That’s where people just assume that since their parents called themselves ‘Christians’ then they must be a Christian, too.

Or another way is Salvation by sincerity, like as long as you are sincere about your beliefs, you’re probably fine. Well, a person can sincerely believe a bridge ahead is still there, but if that bridge is out, and they ignore the sign, then they are sincerely in a heap of trouble. Or there is Salvation by subtraction, like “Well, I don’t do this and I don’t do that…I don’t drink or cuss or chew and I don’t go around with girls that do.” And on the other hand, there’s Salvation by Addition, as in, “If I just add some religion and some religious works to my life, I’ll be okay on the scales of good deeds over bad deeds.” The thing is, God doesn’t measure our salvation by our works on a set of scales. He measures it by what we did about Christ’s works throughout His life and His sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary. And then one more is Salvation by association. They think that as long as they have some church affiliation, they must be a Christian. Years ago in his concerts Keith Green used to say, “Going to church doesn’t make you anymore of a Christian than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger.”

The point is; Biblical Salvation is unique. You cannot reason it out; rather it comes to us through revelation. Listen how the Apostle Paul describes it: Rom 8:1-4- “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” NASU

Here’s an amazing way to describe our salvation:’What we could not do, Jesus did. And what should have been done to us was done to Christ for us.’ Remember, the Law demanded obedience to God in all things; words, thoughts, and deeds. And as James reminds us, James 2:10- “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” NASU In other words; “Uh…Oh!” For that describes everyone, for all have sinned and have fallen short of the righteous standard of God, or fallen short of keeping the whole Law.” That means that all have sinned. And the wages of sin is what? Rom 6:23- “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” NASU

Note that two things are contrasted here: ‘the wages of sin’, which is eternal death, and ‘the free gift of God’, which is eternal life.’ So how does anyone get out from under this bondage of this eternal death penalty and into this freedom of this gift of eternal life?

“Therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

‘In Christ’ was a favorite phrase of the Apostle Paul’s. Notice some of the statements he made about being ‘in Christ’:

1 Cor 1:30- “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.”

2 Cor 5:17- “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Gal 2:16- “…nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.

Gal 3:26- “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” NASU

You see, the Apostle makes it very clear that there are only two ways to try to have a relationship with God; two paths of salvation: One is by the ‘works of the Law’ and the other is ‘by faith in Christ Jesus’. And there is not a third, like a mixture of works and faith, for as Paul said, (and we’ll state it in three different versions for clarification)

Rom 11:6- “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” NASU

Rom 11:6- “And since it is through God’s kindness, then it is not by their good works. For in that case, God’s grace would not be what it really is—free and undeserved.” NLT

Rom 11:6- “But if it is by grace (His unmerited favor and graciousness), it is no longer conditioned on works or anything men have done. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace [it would be meaningless].” AMP

Pretty clear: We come to God through faith in Christ and His works for us. It’s the merits of Christ’s life in which we trust, not in the merits of our our own life, for Christ’s merits are without sin and ours are stained with sin. And in trusting in the merits of Christ’s life to fulfill the Law for us and trusting in the sacrifice of His death to pardon our sins we receive His free gift of eternal life which we don’t deserve in place of the eternal death which we do deserve. For as the Apostle stated: “The wages of sin is eternal death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!”

That’s why we call Him ‘Savior’. He saved us not by the works of our hands, but through the reach of our hand of faith because of His great love and grace freely given to us. ‘By grace’ is God’s hand reaching down to us, and ‘through faith’ is our hand reaching up to Him.

 

The Cup

One of the things which troubles conscientious Christians, of which we all are to be, goes back to what Paul said in Romans 8 – “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did…” What troubles conscientious Christians is not the part about being condemned by God, since we know that Christ is our Savior from final condemnation. Praise God! No, what troubles conscientious Christians is more of a ‘self condemnation’, knowing that even in our walk of faith we still fall short of being all we should be and of doing all we should be doing. And it’s this ‘self condemnation’ that becomes a heavy burden that steals our joy instead of enjoying the blessing of being free in Christ and living with the sense of that freedom.

Maybe we can see where we’re going here by listening to some commentary by Dr. John Walvoord on Romans 8. He writes, “The question naturally arises, ‘Must a believer spend his whole life on earth frustrated by ongoing defeats to indwelling sin? Is there no power provided to achieve victory?’ The answer to the first question is no and to the second, yes. In chapter 8, Paul described the ministry of the indwelling Holy Spirit of God who is the source of divine power for sanctification and the secret for spiritual victory in daily living. But first Paul reminded his readers that therefore – since deliverance is “through Jesus Christ our Lord” – no condemnation awaits those who are in Christ Jesus, as a result of their faith and identification with Him. They are justified, declared righteous, and therefore stand in His grace and not under His wrath, and possess eternal life. Christ is the sphere of safety for all who are identified with Him by faith.”¹

What a wonderful answer to that question of “Must a believer spend his whole life on earth frustrated by ongoing defeats to indwelling sin?” And here is a wonderful release from that burden that conscientious Christians often carry in relation to their frustration over the presence of sin in their lives. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is in Acts 15 where the Apostle Peter is clearing up some confusion about mixing Law thinking with Grace thinking. And he says this: Acts 15:7-11- “At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them as follows: “Brothers, you all know that God chose me from among you some time ago to preach to the Gentiles so that they could hear the Good News and believe. 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.” NLT

Note this very carefully: God is not looking for perfection from you in your fellowship and service and works for Him. For that has already been accomplished for you by your Savior. Jesus was perfect in all things of the Law for you. Jesus performed all of the requirements of the Law for you. Remember, it is in His righteousness that you are now declared ‘Righteous’. That is your standing, your position, your identity before God.

Remember what Paul said about that? Phil 3:9- “…and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith…” NASU Your standing with God is secure since you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness for you. So now it is your walk with God that you are to focus on. But in your walk, even as you conscientiously seek to walk steadily with your Lord, there will be times that you will stumble. And hopefully not severely, but stumble in some word, thought, or deed, in what you did do or what you didn’t do. And how you respond to this stumble will determine if your continued walk with God will be a burden for you or a blessing to you. Here’s the key: it depends upon in whom you believe. Remember this: ‘To be disappointed in yourself is to have believed in yourself. To be disappointed in yourself is to have depended on yourself.’ As those who have been redeemed by the works and the power of Jesus Christ for our salvation we are to continue to believe in and depend upon the works and the power of Jesus Christ for our sanctification; for our ongoing development as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Remember, the Law revealed that no one could perfectly keep the Law, except for the Perfect One, Jesus Christ. That’s why we are called to believe in Him and not in ourselves. For as Peter said, “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?” Peter is reminded them and us that no one could ever perfectly perform the righteous requirements of the Law. Again, that’s why we needed a Savior. And that is also why we need to know that God is now not looking for perfection in you, rather, He is only looking for perseverance in you. And by the grace of God, we can do that. We can persevere for God.

Conscientious Christians are unnecessarily burdened when they expect the wrong thing of themselves. When you expect perfection in yourself in your walk with God you will only find the burden of frustration. But if you expect perseverance in yourself in your walk with God you will enjoy the blessing of freedom in your service and works for your Savior. And as you confess your stumbling to God and accept His forgiveness you will sense Him lifting you up again to walk further with Him as you persevere in your worship and service for Him. He will change your burden of your falling into the blessing of your getting up again and walking with Him further, offering your works for Jesus, but rejoicing most in Jesus’ works for you.

 

The Heidelburg Catechism: “Against any perfectionism we are warned: Even the best we do in this life is imperfect and stained with sin, rendering all obedience imperfect at best.”

Thank God for His grace, accept it, and enjoy the freedom of living in God’s pleasure over your perseverance for Him.

 

1. From Bible Knowledge Commentary/New Testament Copyright © 1983, 2000 Cook Communications Ministries

A Peculiar People

Study Guide, September 20, 2015 – Pastor Clay Olsen

‘Let’s forget about ourselves and concentrate on God and worship Him.’

In speaking about connecting with God and changing for the better, we have often said that one of the clearest ways to do that is by living out the identity or identities which God has given us. And one of the most striking identities that God has given us is found in 1 Peter 2:9. And the King James Version puts it like this: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…” ‘Chosen generation’…my; ‘royal priesthood’…wow; ‘holy nation’…great; ‘peculiar people’…wait…say what?

‘Peculiar’? What do many people think about in connection with someone being ‘peculiar’? Right, they associate things like, ‘weird, odd, bizarre, off-the-wall’ and so on. And although some of us are rather comfortable with those descriptions anyway, generally, this is not the kind of personal identity most are striving for in their life. But the point is, being ‘Biblically peculiar’ is this the kind of personal identity that we as Christians are to strive to live out, especially since God has already identified us a being a ‘Peculiar People’! And so since we are ‘Peculiar People’, just what does that mean, Biblically?

Actually, even the classic definitions of ‘peculiar’ are pretty honorable. ‘Peculiar’ is defined as: ‘Beyond or deviating from the usual or expected’; ‘unique or specific to a person or thing or category’; markedly different from the usual’; characteristic of one only; distinctive or special’. Now, don’t you feel better about being described as a ‘Peculiar People’? ‘Unique, distinctive, special’…Yeah, that feels really good, doesn’t it? Well, Praise God that He thinks of us, His children, in such encouraging terms!

But there was one other description about being ‘peculiar’ that we need to flesh out a bit, and that was; ‘Markedly different from the usual’. In a article from Our Daily Bread Dr. Joseph Stowell was commenting about this aspect of the Christian life as ‘being different’. And he said: “Most of us don’t want to be different. We want people to like us, and the safest way to do that is to blend in. But following Christ has never been about blending in. Following Christ means to be like Him, to respond to life and to relate to people as He did. It’s a little risky and uncomfortable to be different. But that’s what being an “ambassador for Christ” (2 Cor. 5:20) is all about—bringing the wonderful difference of your King to bear on the territory you’ve been assigned: your home, your office, your friendships. Representing the King is not just our calling; it’s a great honor.”¹

So yes, it is a great honor and it’s a great calling to represent Christ. And we do this by becoming more like Christ. We have each been called not to be like everybody else, and contrary to pop psychology, nor to even ‘just be yourself’. No, we’re called to a much higher goal than to be like others or just be ourselves. We are called to be like Jesus! Note the command: Eph 5:1-4- “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.” ESV

So now we have the goal of being peculiar, or the example of being different; it is to be peculiarly different like Jesus was peculiarly different. Particularly in what ways? Well, in that passage in Ephesians the Apostle Paul gave us some examples. And if you noticed, these examples primarily had to do with morality. Which, in our culture, whenever you act in the courage to obey this instruction of God’s here, as in, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving”; whenever you commit to obeying this in our society, mark it down, you will be peculiar. Why? Because sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, filthiness and crude joking have become the norm, not the exception. And even many people with some church connection either get confused about these things or many even get caught up in some of these immoral habits. And when confronted about it they often say things like, “Well, but wasn’t Jesus called the ‘Friend of Sinners’? Well, sure He was, but Jesus was never a friend of sin! Sinners had a friend in Jesus, but their sin never did. Jesus was always confronting sin in those He befriended, never condoning it.

The classic example of that is when the religious leaders brought the woman to Him that had been caught in adultery. By the way, I always wondered, “Why didn’t they bring the man as well?” Perhaps he was one of them…remember that part about, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone?” Anyway, Jesus’ response to her helped her to realize that Jesus did not see her as an enemy, rather He responded to her as a friend. But as a friend, what did He say? “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” John 8:11 NASU Jesus did not condemn her for her sin, but at the same time He did not and could not and would not condone her sin. He identified ‘sin’ as ‘sin’ and instructed her to repent of it.

Morality is, no doubt, one of the most misunderstood and twisted issues in our culture today. Our culture has become so steeped in sin that they cannot separate the activity of sin from the identity of the individual. And since many who are practicing sin in their lives no longer see nor accept any prospect of their practices as ‘being sinful’ they also will no longer accept any instruction that there can be such a thing as not condemning the sinner, but not condoning the sin. And when Christians try to clarify that there certainly is such a thing, in fact, that is just what Jesus did in not condemning the person, but not condoning the sin, they then just reject the Christian himself or herself as simply being a ‘bigot’ or a hateful person and they default to just writing them off as simply being ‘judgmental’ and ‘hateful’ and someone who goes around condemning people. How ironic that both the religious leaders in Jesus day and many immorally hardened people of our own day are actually the ones who are being judgmental and who are condemning any who dare to say to them like Jesus, “I do not condemn you for this, but go and sin no more.”

But regardless of the religious Pharisees then or the cultural Pharisees today, just like Jesus never condoned sin, neither can we, who are called to be like Jesus. We can never condone sin. Because like Jesus, the true friend is the one who seeks to help sinners come out of sin and to help them from ever being condemned because they will not repent of their sin. Or to be even more accurate, until a sinner repents of their sin and puts their trust in Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior they are still under condemnation. True friends are those who do the loving thing by trying to help them get out from being under that condemnation. However, again, many who love darkness rather than light will reject that description of friendship and love, and will charge them with being hateful and unloving.

And that is the cultural quagmire in which we find ourselves today. But it does not change our calling: “…Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people…” Pray for the courage and the contentment to be different for God’s sake, to be peculiar for God’s sake in the midst of a dark, decaying, and spiritually dying world.

Here’s a help in being Biblically peculiar people in the midst of culture that is conforming more and more to sin and immorality and the idolatry of self-hood. In all matters of morality, whenever the question or issue of morality comes up, make it clear to others that morality was never to be decided according to a person’s culture or by their civil courts, but by their Creator. Morality was never intended by God to be decided by anyone’s opinion, but by His revelation. And if someone asks you for your personal opinion about a moral issue, remind them of the fact that morals are not about man’s opinions but about God’s revelation, which has already been decided by God. It’s like the laws of nature, the laws of morality have already been determined, already been decreed. Regardless of anyone’s opinion, the laws of gravity are already settled and cannot be altered just because some people might want them changed. The Sun is going to continue to rise in the East and set in the West, regardless of anyone’s opinions about it. In the same way that God has decreed these laws of nature He has decreed the laws of morality. They are not open for change because of man’s opinions about them.

Be very clear on this in your communication with others: Morality has already been decreed by God; morality is not to be decided or altered by man. And God’s decrees about morality have already been revealed to mankind in the Word of God. Follow them and be blessed – forsake them and be cursed. Regardless of what societies choose to practice or to make into unlawful laws, when it comes to morality, the only thing that people can choose is the blessing or the curse. The consequences of sinning against God’s laws have already be determined.

The goal of Biblically peculiar people is to become more like Jesus, the Friend of sinners, who neither condemned people nor condoned their sin, but sought to help them find deliverance from the condemnation of sin. That’s the goal. And so what’s the purpose? The purpose of Biblically peculiar people is just what the Apostle Peter revealed: “…that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” We are peculiar people with a purpose. You can say you are ‘Peculiar with attitude’ if you like that better, so long as your attitude is to carry out this purpose!

But think about that again: “…that ye should shew forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” One of the things that causes Biblically peculiar people to lose sight of their purpose is that they stop rejoicing over their redemption and so they lose their attitude of gratitude. And in doing so, they then stop showing forth the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. The day we take for granted what it cost for Jesus to rescue us from the condemnation of our sin is the day we stop showing forth the praises of Him who called us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the Kingdom of light and life. It’s also the day we stop acting like ‘peculiar’ people and instead start acting more like the carnal people around us; the worldly people around us.

A key mark of Bibically peculiar people is for them to live with the sense that they belong not to themselves, but to the One who loved then and gave up His life for them. And only the Cross can give you that sense day after day. That’s brought out in a song called “Lead Me to the Cross”, written by Brooke Fraser of Hillsong. It says, “Lead me to the cross where Your love poured out, Bring me to my knees Lord I lay me down, Rid me of myself I belong to You, Lead me, lead me to the cross.” You see, the Cross is not just the place that you go to in order to be delivered from your sin and receive Jesus into your life. The Cross is also the place you return day after day in order to be delivered from your self and to rejoice in the fact that you now belong to Jesus.

Peculiar people know that they belong to Jesus. Peculiar people know that when they look at others, but for the grace of God, there go I. Peculiar people know that Earth at best is a battlefield, Heaven at the least, is joy beyond measure, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is their Savior who has said to them, “I have redeemed you and you are Mine. I have called you by My Name. You are precious in My sight, and I love You.” Knowing this is cause to give God daily thanks and it creates the desire in us to “shew forth the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.” In other words; it’s what ‘Peculiar People’ do!

Titus 2:11-14- “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all impurity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” KJV

1. Dr. Joseph Stowell, Dare to Be Different, Our Daily Bread, Feb. 2008

Steward of God’s

Slide Guide, September 13, 2015

‘Steward’ : ‘Someone who manages property or other affairs for someone else.’

Isa 65:17-19- “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem, and take delight in My people.”

Isa 65:21-22- “They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of My people; My chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands.” NIV

Private property, industry, and social and cultural work activities will all be central features of life even on this New Earth.

“Economics is the management of the property that ultimately belongs to God over which He has placed a steward and over which that steward will be held accountable”?

Economics has been disconnected from the real world over which the Creator of Economics reigns.

America needed a Statue of Liberty on one coast, but America also needs a Statue of Responsibility on the other coast.’

Every human being is responsible to God, for what each person is doing in relation to God’s mandate to manage some of His stuff, His stuff on Earth, over which all belongs to the Lord!

Even within mankind today, though fallen and in need of redemption, you can see this glimmer of this creative desire to work together and do and build great things.

(Show PIC of building here)

Something within the human spirit longs for making things, for building things, for creating things, and that they can take joy in these accomplishments, in these works, and also in sharing them with others.

God implanted this design for work and labor and reward and accomplishment within man before the Fall of man into sin.

One of the results of sin in the mind and hearts of most people is that sin disconnected man doing his works for the glory of God.

“Your work matters to God: So make your work an offering to God.”

“Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” Col 3:22-24

As a Christian, you are a Steward of God’s. And everything you do matters to God, especially any work which honors God and blesses others.

Dr. Tackett: Work matters so much to God because God Himself is a Worker.

John 5:17- “Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” NIV

The point we want to focus on today is to really settle in our minds this fact that in whatever we do or are doing now, we are ‘Stewards of God’s’. We are to think of ourselves this way; to have this ingrained into our psyche about our personal identity. We were created to be Stewards of God’s in everything we do, from our family to our careers.

“Well, I am a Steward of God’s and I serve God and others as a Teacher in Middle School.”

How odd that one of the primary identities that God has given us is at the same time one of the least understood.

(Show Pic of USS Intrepid here)

For most people there is a real ‘disconnect’ between this concept of man’s work from man’s worship.

Part of the reason for that is because one of the results of the curse is that sin separated the sacred from the secular in the minds and hearts of people.

Neither worship nor the sacred was ever intended to be separated from work or from the secular.

“Well, I’m a steward of God’s and I work at Lowe’s in Morehead City where I serve God and others in the Electrical and Hardware departments, which God considers to also be a part of my worship and service to Him as well.”

God never intended our worship to be disconnected from our work nor the sacred from the secular. Again, it all matters to God. We just need to be sure that we make it all count for Him; count for His sake!

Work: A Preview of Things to Come

Study Guide September 6, 2015

Several new inventions and technological advances are now on the horizon. And here is one that will be a welcomed breakthrough for all the beach lovers around here…how about instead of having to slather on hand-fulls of sunscreen each time you go to the beach you just take a ‘sunscreen pill’ instead? Then, this one sounded really great. Imagine you are out hiking and badly cut your leg or arm in a fall or something…and you just reach into your bag and pull out your Laser pen which instantly seals up your wound.

This one was kind of crazy: Let’s say you are on vacation, but a meeting at the office comes up and you have to be there. Instead of flying back for the meeting, you call on your holograph phone and it projects your image to your fellow employees and their office phone projects their images to you at the same time. Meeting done…back to the Links…And then this one was fascinating, and I think there’s something like this around already, but it’s a speech to speech translating device that lets you communicate with someone of a different language. It’s like having a portable translator.

And here’s a strange one…you might want to start carrying around a heavy duty fly swatter because they are working on insect like robots that can spy on people. I can see that becoming both something really helpful, for like the military, or really bad, for like hackers and such.

And of course, cars are getting really smart, like communicating with each other to prevent crashes. And Volvo is working on a crash proof car. Then imagine that your car’s computer had an owner detection system, so that when it detected your approach it could not only start up, but even remember what temperature you prefer and what music you like and set that up for you. Plus, it might even be fitted to start up a hot cup of coffee in the cup holder waiting for you when you get in.¹

But the point is, just think about some of the amazing things that mankind, even in man’s unredeemed and fallen condition, has been able to create and continues to create. Why is that? Gen 1:26-28- “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” NKJV

To be created in the image of God includes being created with the innate inclinations of God, particularly in relation to this proclivity for creating things. In other words, the Creator created human beings with the intention that they would continue to exercise their God given creativity to steward all the Creator’s creation. Continue it how long? We’ll talk about that. But the thing is, with all of these remarkable inventions of man throughout history, these are simply previews of what redeemed man is going to invent and create when the curse is finally and fully removed from God’s redeemed people and from God’s redeemed world. In every area of life, from entertainment to engineering, from technology to travel, from music to media, and on and on, this God designed creativity that God placed within man will be one of the main features of life on the New Earth and in the New Heavens.

We talked a little about this in our study Wednesday night on the Truth Project, as we explored this area of ‘Labor’ or ‘Work’. And I’ll be gleaning a bit from that excellent study by Dr. Tackett as we expand on this subject of the Labor or the Work of man.

But think about it: We often wonder why the Universe is so immense. Why so many physical places beyond what we can even see and imagine? Well, when God’s people are able to utilize all their creative abilities, unlimited by sin and the curse…well, as the saying goes; “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Literally, the sky is the limit for what God’s stewards are going to come up with, are going to create, once the limits of the curse are gone, and, especially since we have been made in the image of the One who loves to create, we will really get on with our proclivity for ‘creating’.

How is that different from most people’s idea of what Heaven is going to be like; or what is really going to be going on in the new world; or what the activities of Heaven will include? Is Heaven just an existence filled with resting and lounging around? No, Heaven’s not going to be filled with a bunch of ‘cloud potatoes’. No, on the contrary, Heaven will be filled with this fulfilling of this call by God for His people to exercise ‘dominion’; the management and development of all His works. And so once again, whatever mankind has been able to create and invent so far is going to seem like child’s play compared to all that God’s stewards are going to be doing and dreaming and inventing and creating in the coming Kingdom.

Randy Alcorn, in his excellent book on Heaven, said that in Heaven God is going to ‘unleash’ our creativity, not confine it. What a great way to put it; ‘creativity unleashed’. He then said, ‘As a musical novice, I might even compose something worthy of Bach. And (then) what kind of music do you suppose Bach will compose?”²

Brother Alcorn went on to point out that now we use the arts, including drama, painting, sculpture, music, and much more to provide enjoyment and entertainment and especially to praise God. So don’t you think these will continue to provide enjoyment and entertainment and be used to praise God even more in Heaven? C. S. Lewis said, “When you painted on Earth…it was because you caught a glimpse of Heaven in the earthly landscape.”³ All the beauty of the Earth, and all the wondrous things of the arts and sciences and technologies and so on, are like glimpses we are getting now of things to come in the land of the New Earth and the New Heavens. These things on Earth, these abilities on earth, these talents on earth, these creative expressions of our innermost image, this image of God in which we were created, are all like previews of the things that will really thrive in Heaven, once we are free from the sin stunted effects of this old earth, which is still under the curse.

And then think of games and hobbies and sports. It could be that your favorite sport is one that is yet to be invented in Heaven. Often when I’m talking with someone about playing sports in Heaven they say something like, “Well, I don’t know. What challenge will there be if we’re all perfect there?” Whoa! Time out! What a huge misconception of what we will be like in Heaven. Perfect? In what are we perfect? Thankfully, we going to perfect in our holy moral nature, but in everything else, like in our learning and in the developing of our talents and abilities and so on, we will continue to grow and to further develop in all of these and more. Remember, only God is perfect in all things and in all ways. Only God is perfect in knowing all things; His omniscience, and only God is perfect in all power; in His omnipotence, and so on. So we will be like God in our moral nature, but we’ll have a long way to go in our development of everything else, like our knowledge and abilities and power and such. Praise God, we’ll have perfect health, as in free from sickness and disease, but your resurrected body is always going to benefit from a good workout or a helpful practice session in whatever you are doing in Heaven.

But again, the point we are making is that all these sporting events and artistic displays and even engineering feats on this present Earth have come out of this original creative implantation within us when God made us in His own image, His own likeness. And the thing is, most people of this world don’t even realize that’s why they are drawn toward or driven to do the things they do and to make the things they make and to dream the things they dream about creating, whatever those things might be that they are on the verge of creating. Who put those desires within them, and why? You see, Most people do not connect their inner talents and gifts and abilities as being those very things which the Creator placed within them when He said, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man]; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth.” Gen 1:28 AMP

God’s plan for those He created in His likeness included being His stewards over all that He created, and this plan was never altered nor rescinded. In other words, the plan remains, and it will remain throughout eternity. Once this interruption of the reign of sin and death is over, the original plan of God’s will unfold and God’s redeemed people from every tongue and tribe and nation of this Earth will be given complete dominion and stewardship over the New Earth and New Heavens.

Think about it: Those of you that are good at Engineering, why do you think you are good at engineering? Could it be that God designed you to do those things in engineering that would bless others in this world now, and also do those things in the ages to come in the new world that will be part of those things God said that eye has not yet seen nor ear yet heard, all that God has planned for those who love Him? Could it be that things you will one day build or design in the New Earth and even into the New Heavens are part of those things beyond our imagination now? And what about those of you who are craftsmen and artists. Recall what God told Moses about the way He had planned for the building of the Tabernacle: Ex 31:1-6- “Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. “I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship, to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze, and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship. “And behold, I Myself have appointed with him Oholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all who are skillful I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded you…” NASU Just like God placed those skills of craftsmanship and artistry within these servants of God for the purpose of building the tabernacle, God has placed certain skills within you for the purposes for building that which honors God and blesses others now, and on into the Kingdom of Heaven.

As Pastor Robert pointed out in our study, that this is all simply part of God’s design as He told us in Eph 2:10- “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” NASU And what’s the time-frame on this? Is there a 20 year or 40 year or 90 year limit on these good works or on God’s plan? Did God create us for time or did He create us for eternity? Right, He created us for eternity and He designed us with an eternal plan of good works in which we should walk. That’s one of the reasons Jesus told us His parables about the Kingdom of Heaven so that we would understand how important our faithfulness is now; that we would understand that our faithfulness in doing good works now for God affects our privileges of getting to do more and more of these good works and great things that God planned for us to do in the coming Kingdom of Heaven.

There are many unimaginable opportunities ahead for us. There are skills and interests and abilities that we have just now only experienced in part, but we will fully get to experience them all in Heaven…if we are faithful in these little things now, so that we will be rewarded with being given the privileges of the greater things ahead in the coming Kingdom.

And here is one help that can help us keep this focus in mind. In the Truth Project series Dr. Tackett pointed out that at the end of every composition of Johann Sebastian Bach he would write three letters: ‘SDG’, which stood for ‘Soli Deo Gloria’, meaning: ‘For God’s glory alone’. That commitment to God’s glory can also keep us focused on how we are to do whatever we do in the use of the talents and gifts and abilities that God has implanted in us to do these good works that He planned for us before the beginning of the world and on into the never-ending new world to come…this new world that is just on the horizon now. Imagine that; we can make what is coming even more glorious by doing everything we are doing now to the glory of God.

‘SDG’ – Soli Deo Gloria

1. Jason Wire, 23 Incredible New Technologies You’ll See by 2021, matadornetworking.com

2. Randy Alcorn, Heaven, p. 403

3. Ibid, p 406

Gold Digging in the Mines of the Bible, Pt. 8

Study Guide  August 30, 2015

Did you hear the news reports this week on the finding of gold off the coast of Florida? The gold was from a ship that was on it’s way to present the gold to King Philip of Spain 300 years ago, but it wrecked and sank just off the coast of Florida. A salvage company discovered 350 Spanish gold coins just 16 feet off shore. The find is estimated at four and a half million dollars.

As God’s people, we have something far better than even 350 gold coins because we get to dig up hundreds of gold truths out of the Word of God. And this gold is far more valuable than all the gold in this world. These are eternal truths that we get to have and to know and to enjoy both now and throughout eternity. So let’s examine another one today as we continue digging for gold in the Bible.

One of the odd traits about us all is that we tend to make the Christian life harder than God intended it to be. For an example: in 2 Peter 3:18 the Apostle instructs us: “…grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” NASU So the Apostle gives us the clear command to ‘grow’…to grow in both the grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And so we, as conscientious Christians, set out on this quest of spiritual growth. We take charge of this need to grow. And we naturally think that in order for this spiritual growth to happen we will need to do this and to read that and to attend such and such and to avoid these other things…and then we think, “By doing all of these I will grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.” In other words, in learning this command to grow our focus naturally turns toward working on growing, and so we then get on with this work of growing, as Peter commanded us to do. It’s a noble intention, but is that what Peter meant?

But could it be that when Peter commanded us to ‘grow’ that he intended for us to know that this process of spiritual growing is directly connected to the process of spiritual filling which then leads to the process of spiritual flowing which is what would actually then cause our spiritual growing? The answer to that question is: ‘Yes’. So now lets explore the answer.

It’s important to realize that what Peter was instructing us about in his command about ‘growing’ is related to what Paul instructed us about in his command about ‘filling’. And what Paul instructed us about in his command about filling is related to what Jesus informed us about in His revelation about ‘flowing’. Do you remember in a previous study we spoke about Jesus’ great invitation of receiving Him as Messiah, as Savior, and then do you remember what He said would happen in and through us? He said when a person did receive Him then this would happen: John 7:37-39- “On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink! The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.” He said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were going to receive…” Holman Bible

Think about what Jesus said here: ‘…streams of living water flowing from deep within him.’

And so another question: Could it be that growing in the Spirit of Christ in us is related to this flowing of the Spirit of Christ through us? Or how about this? Could it be that this growing in the Spirit of Christ in us is related to this flowing of the Spirit of Christ through us which is dependent upon this filling of the Spirit of Christ in us? Absolutely!

Part of the point we are making here is that one of the reasons we tend to make the Christian life harder than God intended it to be is that when it comes to this concept of spiritual growth, we tend to set off on the ‘growing’ instead of first focusing on the ‘filling’ and then acting on the ‘flowing’. In other words, it is when we focus first on spiritual filling that we can then act on spiritually flowing, and as we do we can then experience spiritual growing. However, mark it down; you cannot experience spiritual growing without spiritual filling and spiritual flowing. Why?

Let’s ask another question in order to answer that question. Let’s personify a ‘branch’ for a moment. What is the primary focus of a branch, on the fruit that its bearing or the vine to which it is connected? Well sure, a branch delights in its fruit, but its foremost focus is on abiding in the vine, because if there is any weakening of this interaction between the branch and the vine the fruit will fail as well. You know where we are going with this, don’t you? John 15:4-6- “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” NASU

One of the major problems with most Christians is an identity problem. Their true identity is a ‘Branch’, but they tend to default to a ‘Vine’ identity. But regardless of how much a branch tries to usurp the identity and activity of the vine, it can’t. And thus, when is does, inner and outer conflict is inevitable. Remember, our union with Christ is the key to our salvation, but our communion with Christ is the key to our sanctification, or our spiritual growth as Christians. Apart from this communion, this fellowship, this abiding in Christ; what did Jesus say? “…for apart from Me you can do (what?) nothing!”

That’s rather stark, isn’t it? ‘Nothing?’ What is ‘nothing’? Remember also our study on the ‘Ecclesiates experiment’? The Ecclesiastes experiment showed that all the gain in the world of power or pride or possessions for purposes of self gain and self glory was vanity…emptiness…wasted days…or essentially, ‘nothing’. As Paul spoke to the Corinthians about the wise use of their talents and time and treasures he used the words ‘loss’ and ‘gain’. This ‘loss’ of the usefulness and this ‘loss’ in our fruitfulness is what Jesus was warning us about in leaving Him out of our focus and attention and communion and abiding and fellowship. For if we did, the result of our efforts would be loss, vanity, wasted days…or as He put it: “nothing”. Contrary to the popular idea that life is short so live for today…no, life is eternal so live today with eternity in sight. Live today in a way that what you do today will last, not just for today, but for every day; for all eternity. Live today in communion with, in fellowship with, and in dependence upon Christ, abiding in Him so that He can then bear His fruit through you.

Another way to break this down is to realize that essentially, every person has a blackboard of their life. And at the end of each day on that blackboard is written either ‘loss’ or ‘gain’. And no, we’re not talking about our body weight here. That’s a different blackboard. No, this blackboard is more like that of the Ecclesiastes wording, as in: ‘Another day wasted’ or ‘Another day of bearing fruit.’ For most people in the world at the end of each day is that message: ‘Another day wasted.’ Unfortunately, for some Christians, because they are not abiding in Christ, nor fellowshipping with Christ, nor communing with Christ; they too, have written on their blackboard; ‘Another day wasted.’ Remember what Jesus said? ‘Apart from Me you can do ‘nothing‘…meaning, nothing of lasting value; nothing of eternal gain; nothing of eternal reward; nothing God was trying to accomplish in and through your life; essentially, ‘wasted.’ However, for communing Christians, for abiding Christians, for those Christians who are seeking to be filled with the Spirit so that they can flow with the Spirit and thus grow in the Spirit, at the end of the day the message on their blackboard is: ‘Another day of bearing fruit; a fruitful day.’

Stop asking if your day was successful; Start asking if your day was fruitful? Contrary to our culture’s thinking, life is not measured by ‘success’; life is measured by ‘fruitfulness’. Now, if by success you mean fruit, then fine, but you see what we mean?

On our trip to Virginia there were two places that we saw signs that said, ‘Not I, but Christ.’ One was in the sanctuary of Thomas Road Baptist church. That was great, and we would expect to see a sign like that there. But the other was on a giant sign above a road side business near Danville, Virginia. And that was more like a surprise, but what at great statement to the world of where the focus of these believer’s lives were; their goal was to honor Christ in every area of their life, whether worshipping in a church or working by the highways of life: ‘Not I, but Christ’. That’s John 15 thinking; that’s branch thinking; that’s being filled with the Spirit in order to flow with the Spirit by which you then grow in the Spirit. Again, it’s about focus.

We often hear Heb 12:1 quoted: “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” NASU What a great picture of the Christian life! And so we set off on this great race, running the race that is set before us. The problem is that as we’re running the race we are looking around at others who are running, and we’re comparing our run with their run, and we feel good about our running or bad about our running based upon how others are running, not realizing we have just run into a trap. It’s the trap of comparing ourselves by ourselves, which Paul reminds us that they who do that have just acquired another title… “Fool”. To compare your spiritual growth to others spiritual growth is foolish…we’ve been fooled into thinking foolishly. And then another trap we fall into is that we set off running, but instead of looking up we’re looking down, down at ourselves, and as such we then fall into either self pride or self pity, but either way, we’re fooled again. What we’ve forgotten is that to ‘run with endurance the race that is set before us’ is only part of the instructions. The main part of the instruction is what comes next: Heb 12:2- “…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” NASU You see, If you are running the Christian life without your eyes fixed on Jesus you are either going to run off the road or get run-down.

So often we have our eyes fixed on others or on ourselves, but not on Christ. Warren Wiersbe often says, “If you look to others you’ll be distracted; if you look to yourselves you’ll be discouraged, but if you look to Christ you’ll be delighted.” You see, not even this call to spiritual growth is to be about us setting off to do whatever it takes to grow stronger and smarter or spiritually rougher and tougher. Yes, spiritual growth should include gaining strength and wisdom and perseverance and toughness and so on. But we have to get our focus right or everything else will go wrong. And the focus is not, “I and Christ’ , but “Not I, but Christ.” It’s what Paul said was his goal: Phil 3:10- “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” NASU Paul’s goal was not to experience more of his own life, but to experience more of the life of Christ in him. It was to lose self and gain something better; gain the power of the resurrected Christ; gain the fellowship of suffering for the sake of Christ, and of even being conformed to His death, if that’s what ‘Not I, but Christ’ resulted in. So be it; for it was all better than anything that Paul could ever be or do on his own. When Paul thought of growing in the Spirit, he first thought of being filled with the Spirit so that he could then have the working of the Spirit flowing through him.

And that’s the kind of growing that the Apostle Peter was also talking about. For it was Peter that said, “Set Christ apart as Lord in your heart.” (1 Pet. 3:15) This is the same as the “fix your eyes on Jesus” in Heb.12. And this is the same as “For it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me” of Gal.2:20.

So now what happens if when you read this command to ‘Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’ that you think of it in terms of ‘Flow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ’? How does this affect your focus? Right, it turns the focus onto letting Christ, letting the Spirit of Christ, flow through your life and move through your life and have more of your life, thus growing His work and influence in and through your life.

And do you also see how it affects how you see and think of yourself? You no longer see yourself as the source. You no longer think of yourself as the vine. You see yourself and you think of yourself as a beloved branch on the Vine of Christ. And you think of your main duty as not being the production of fruit, but of abiding in the Vine, who then produces His fruit and grows His fruit through you, the branch. It is a major shift in your focus from ‘the strain of trying to grow’ to ‘the release of letting yourself flow’. Your focus is not as much on the growing as it is on the flowing, the flowing of these spiritual waters of life that God has poured into you. Your focus now is not so much on how can you spiritually grow in obedience to this command to grow, but on how you can yield more of your life to the filling of God’s Spirit so that the Spirit of Christ can flow through your life as His branch, and thus bearing the fruit that He is trying to grow in and through your life. And as Christ, the Vine, works His works and grows His fruit through you and me, His branches, we find that not only are His spiritual waters now flowing more and more through us, but that we are also experiencing more and more spiritual growth in us.

‘Fix your eyes on Jesus’…’Be filled with the Spirit’…’You are the Branches’… To obey God’s command to grow we have to get our eyes off of ourselves and onto Christ. To obey God’s command to grow we have to seek to be filled with God’s Spirit and not stay full of ourselves. To obey God’s command to grow we have to think and act like a Branch and not the Vine. And when we do, we finally learn what Jesus meant when He said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matt 11:28-30 NASU

Here is a suggested motto for your thinking: ‘Through me, not from me.’ ‘Through me, not from me.’ In order to grow spiritually you must flow spiritually. And in order to flow spiritually you must be filled with the Spirit. And it all starts and ends with our eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and perfecter of our faith.

(‘To grow’ speaks to your intention. ‘To fill’ speaks to your yielding to the source of your growth; God’s Spirit. And ‘To flow’ speaks to the process of letting God’s Spirit work through you, which results in ‘spiritual growth’.)