"now in the clear light of day..."

“Now in the clear light of day, I see that Jesus, if he was merely my accomplice, had betrayed me. If, on the other hand, he was God, he had freed me. For God is God, and if he is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service, and I will find rest nowhere but in His will, and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably, beyond my largest notion of what He is up to." Elizabeth Elliot- No Graven Image. Job 42- God becomes the end. not the means to a good life. everything i have is a GIFT from god, my breath/life is grace. When i begin to think i deserve things, i've built my life/gain identity on those things. when suffering comes and it shakes those things. suffering can drive me from god. but if i see everything as grace i turn TO god in the midst suffering.

An International Message to You!

International Christmas Message from Koza Baptist Church on Vimeo.

Legalism II

Today was supposed to be a day filled with beach, sun, books, and nothingness, but the rain came. So I am inside, still in my pjs at 11am listening to sermons and reading the Bible...still good, but not the beach or sunshine.

As I said in the previous post, I am reading through Galatians. It has been a wonderful, challenging read. I find that I rely way too heavily on my own perceived goodness. I would highly suggest listening to this Mark Driscoll sermon on Galatians 3: 1-14. <-Click on Gal. 3 for the link. Its pretty great, although its an hour fourteen minutes. I would explain it, but that would take too much time. So, let me sum up. All we need is Jesus. It doesn't work when we say that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, but we need to clean ourselves up by our own strength, merit, traditions, or morals. This is a Christianity based on works. Jesus died on the cross becoming a curse for us. He rose again, and is seated at the right hand of God. It is finished. We only need to trust Jesus is who he says he is and that what he has done was for us so that we can be reconciled to God.

Habakkuk 2:4, "...but the righteous shall live by his faith." Its not by morals, some movement, culture, a manual, our conscience, or self-discovery that we are made righteous. Its by a faith that continues to trust in God and cling to God's promises in Jesus, even through the darkest days.

Legalism

I started reading through Galatians the other day and got stuck in chapter 2. Most people probably get stuck at chapter 3 when Paul talks about works/faith, but not me...

The reason that I got stopped in chapter 2 was because I read verse 12 talking about Peter, "for before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing, the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him..." He "drew back and separated himself." This idea that Peter is better than others because he doesn't upset the Jewish custom and culture threatens the gospel of justification by faith alone through Christ alone because it implies that all Christians had to live like Jews, specifically in their dietary habits, in order to be justified before God.

Chapter 2 deals with the gospel and culture. Let me explain a bit more using some words from your friend and mine, Mark Driscoll. There are 3 groups out there, one says as Christians we should be completely separate from the world, another says, we should meld with the world/popular culture, the last is somewhere in the middle. The deal is that the gospel should be our primary concern. It exists in different cultures around the world(which is GREAT and BEAUTIFUL). The Church(big C) gathers in community with thousands of cultural differences to celebrate our freedom in Christ. Sometimes we forget that the gospel comes first and we put culture above it, creating hierarchies of Christians (ie, we pray 5 times a day at 6am, we wear cool clothes and play our worship really loudly.) This shouldn't be. Therefore, we must always come back to the gospel as culture changes around us.

In ch. 2 we see that this whole ordeal happens because the people are putting culture (circumcision) above the gospel. They say, you can't be Christian if you aren't circumcised. This is wrong. They are legalists who bring culture as high as the gospel and doubt Christians who haven't participated in the ways of their culture. The thing is though, that Jesus fulfilled the law, so we don't need more rules and regulations, we need Jesus.

I find myself and others putting culture first before the gospel of Jesus. We say, "this worship is boring", or "this preaching is a bit dry." There are also those who just think they are better than others because they know more Bible, or can talk the spiritual talk better. We fail to even think about whether or not the gospel of Jesus is going forth and if lives are being changed by it. We add the prerequisite of culture to the gospel, "if your faith doesn't look like mine, you are not a christian or you are not as good of a christian as me." The fact of the matter is, that one is not better than the other. We are ALL saved by grace through faith in Jesus. He saved sinners, messed up and crazy people. ALL of us have sinned and fall short of His glory, yet through Jesus and HIS redemptive work on the cross we are reconciled to God...AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL!

Galatians 2: 19,"For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose."

More about the resurrection...

Here are some more quotes that I really liked from the book, "Surprised by Hope," by N.T. Wright. I also just like thinking about these things. It gets me really excited for the resurrection, and makes me say, Let Your Kingdom Come!

In talking about what our resurrected bodies will look like he says, "Dust we are and dust we shall be. But God can do new things with dust."

And he says about 2 Cor. 4 & 5, "What Paul is asking us to imagine is that there will be a new mode of physicality, which stands in relation to our present body as our present body does to a ghost. It will be as much more real, more firmed up, more bodily, than our present body as our present body is more substantial, more touchable, than a disembodied spirit.

"God is the creator, and his new world will be exactly what we need and want, with the love and beauty of the present world taken up and transformed."

"The resurrection means that what you do in the present, in working hard for the gospel, is not wasted. It is not in vain. It will be completed, will have its fulfillment, in God's future."

When talking about how many Christians think that heaven is the end-all, he says, "the point of all this is not, of course, merely our own happy future, important though that is, but the glory of God as we come fully to reflect his image."



Read these and let me know what you think. :)

Resurrection

I just bought the book, "Surprised by Hope," by N.T. Wright. I am first off, amazed at this guys sheer intelligence. Sometimes I have to read a section a few times to truly understand what he's talking about. Secondly, the information in this book is vital, I think, for Christians in today's society who hold a Gnostic way of thinking, ie., the purpose of being a Christian is to go to heaven when you die. In this thinking, death isn't conquered, it is merely a spiritual thing. But the Bible, in Romans 8:18-25 and Revelation 21&22, clearly state otherwise. The Christian view should be this:

that "what the creator God has done in Jesus Christ, and in his resurrection, is what he intends to do for the while world-meaning by world, the entire cosmos with all its history."


Here are some quotes about redemption and resurrection that I really like from this book.

"Redemption doesn't mean scrapping what's there and starting again from a clean slate but rather liberating what has come to be enslaved."

"What creation needs is neither abandonment nor evolution but rather redemption and renewal; and this is both promised and guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This is what the whole world's waiting for."


I haven't yet finished the book. As I said above, its challenging for me to wrap my mind around some of the things he is talking about, mostly I think, because its new for me. I can't remember one sermon that I've heard about the TRUE Easter message, meaning, the implications of Jesus resurrection on the world, and more so, the implications in my life NOW.

Light and Life

I just read an email from some friends in Aman, Jordan. The Lord told them to go to Aman to be missionaries and to live among a people that seems to be so against the gospel. At the beginning of their journey they got discouraged often because of the difficult language training and the few people that they encountered. They left their homes, their way of life in America, to up and move to this foreign country and NOTHING was happening. Yet they remained hopeful that they were not there in vain and the Lord had a reason for sending them.

Now months later, the Lord is opening up opportunities to share the gospel with these traditionally Muslim people. There are definite seeds that have been planted. They get to practice their Arabic by reading the Bible to devout Muslims!!! The Lord moves in mysterious ways for sure.

Its amazing to me that the Lord puts people in specific places, at specific times, to touch the lives of specific people, whom he loves so dearly. I can barely think about it without tearing up. We have a Father who loves people, His people, SO much that he pursues them, and he uses US, the people in His Church, to speak truth and love to the hurting and broken.

People everyone need to know about Jesus. He lives in me and therefore I am a light, whether I like that fact or not, whether I feel like it or not. People who are slaves to sin and living life for themselves watch me, either consciously or subconsciously, because I have LIFE and I know the way to life.

It is so easy to think that my life is about ME. Or to become angry or upset because I am not in the place, physically, where I think I should be. Or that I would be more effective if only I lived here and was with X people group. The TRUTH is that Jesus has me where I am for a purpose! I am working the job I am for a purpose! I am on the path that is best for me because Jesus wants the best for me! There is someone in my life, even if just one person in my life, that Jesus wants to speak to. Will I really be so consumed with me that I lose the chance to be used by Jesus to change the eternity of someone else?

"You are a the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden..." Matthew 5:14