Ran across a good video you might like. Has lyrics and chords too if you want to learn to play it.
Matt Redman “Your Grace Finds Me”
Enjoy
Shalom
When Is Love Not Love?
You ever read those articles, books or blogs that get all weepy about how much has gone wrong in the writer’s life and how God has given them more than they can bear? Or on the flip side the ones that just go on and on (and on and on) about how God’s love or grace is enough and how wonderful everything is no matter how much cancer has destroyed their bodies, how many relatives died horribly, or how many limbs are missing? I have, and they bother me. Sometimes they make me wanna throw up. Other times they disgust me. Occasionally I want to reach through the computer monitor and shake the living crap out of them.
It’s not that I don’t sympathize with people who are going through tough things in life. Like is hard. God told us when we drew back from Him in the Garden that thorns, thistles, pain and sweat would mark our days. It’s not that I don’t think God can or will intervene (or should). He can and does. He doesn’t want suffering, He wants us to come to Him and live.
I think I’ve figured out two reasons the weepy stories bother me. For the ones who lose it and claim God has given them more than they can bear it torques me that while telling me that “we are not under law” they break down and blame God. This shows the depth of their faith. Right up to the ankles. So much for freedom in Christ. The other reason, for the ones who act like everything’s peachy because they “have Jesus,” is that they are really saying that sentiment is the answer (not obedience). As long as they feel all warm inside then love must be happening. As long as they can get hugs from each other everything is fine. Both of these types of writings (and lifestyles) have one thing in common: they are self-centered instead of God centered.
I’ve gotten self-centered on occasion. Perhaps that’s why I recognize it in others so easily. But living the Law helps me see it when I am tempted to blame God for what is happening and take steps to correct it. God is righteous; nothing He does is wrong or out of sync with His gracious character. His Laws are gracious and teach us love. We, on the other hand, are quite selfish on a daily basis. We shrug off the Laws as if “shadows” don’t mean anything. We do not ask Him if we should do such and such a thing; we merely do it. Do we modify our diet based on His recommendations? Usually not. So why do we complain if we get sick? Do we ask Him if we should get a shot of so-called “medicine?” No. Then why do we complain about auto-immune diseases such as cancer? Do you ever watch those shows about strange, weird or horrible diseases people get? Did you ever notice that they have two things in common – pork and shellfish? Just coincidence? Let me ask you. DID YOU ASK HIM if you should do something? Did you ask Him if you should drive that car, fly in that plane, or leave the kid alone for just a minute? Did you ignore His Word then wonder what hit you? You don’t ask Him first, and you’ve got the nerve to sit around and whine about the consequences of your “freedom in Christ?”
The Love (or grace) is Enough (and we don’t need the Law) people really get me because they don’t know love. They’re usually just plastering over the pain with some superficial smiles and a couple verses. How do I know? Because it doesn’t last. As soon as circumstances change a little, the smiles turn to snarls. Give ’em a little truth and they turn on you. If you were friends before you won’t be now.
Love rejoices with the truth, it is not offended by it. Love doesn’t need a smile to be love. We can cry and still love God. We can hurt and still do what He says. Love doesn’t need the whitewash of a grace created by man that is thinly veneered permission to sin. Real love exists along with pain, endures in spite of pain, and sustains us through the pain. Love knows that God is ruler of the universe and orders it as He sees fit. Love knows we are in His hands even when it doesn’t feel like it. Love continues to follow Him and His ways of Life though we might cry out for deliverance from our own stupidity. It is not led by feelings of sentiment, but generates them. Love does what God wants first all the time.
Trials hurt. People get sick and people die. There’s no getting around it. The reason it usually hurts so much is that we are selfish and we want a pain-free life and we want the dead to still be around (though it’s better for believers to be with Jesus). I do not mean to say that there should be no trials, nor am I saying that they should be lightly dismissed. But a heart centered on abiding in His Word, doing all of His living oracles (the Law), can weather the worst trials without losing it or glossing over it. That’s one of the many blessings of learning obedience through abiding in the whole of His Word (including the Law). Abiding is love; love is abiding.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:9–11, ESV)
Shalom
Lessons for Taking the Word of God Literally
A lot of people have a hard time accepting all of the Bible as God’s Word to be taken literally. Those of us who see it just fine are getting attacked left and right by those such as atheists who focus on a verse out of context or a concept like capital punishment that they personally find abhorrent. So through this short post I’m going to give out a couple clues that solve the problems of defending the Word for many believers. We’re lacking in clues I think because of our own teachings such as splitting the Word into “old” and “new” testaments, “church” replacing “Israel,” an “age of grace” as opposed to an “age of law” (or whatever other ages we make up) and “Jesus died so we could eat a ham sandwich.” Two clues in particular are balance and continuity.
Balance means that all of the words from God are considered together. God (and His Word) is perfectly balanced between judgment and mercy, grace and law, love and holiness. He doesn’t stop being loving to judge wrongdoers. When He gives a Law, He is not diminishing grace. A penalty such as stoning given for the breaking of a Law is just as gracious as the offer of forgiveness if one repents of sin (not leading to death). The grace is in warning others that similar behavior results in death. Stoning is like a sign post telling other people not to drive off a cliff. People have plenty of warning that certain behavior will result in capital punishment. Usually people just bull ahead knowing that it is wrong in the first place. God-given conscience tells them it is wrong, but hard hearts won’t listen. When they cease listening, that is when they are truly “stoned.”
He doesn’t stop being gracious in order to tread the winepress of His wrath. How is this so? Would you believe that treading out the winepress of His wrath IS grace? In order to have cleanliness, you have to take out the trash! If He wants a perfect kingdom with tons of blessings and no death (and He does) God must insist on removing the rot.
Continuity means that He (or His Words) are always the same. What is holy is always holy. What is not holy is always not holy. False problems are created when we try to explain His Law any other way. If we manufacture a grace that excludes Law, then we have a problem explaining judgment. If we (falsely) say that Law is “old” and grace is “new” then we have to reconcile what happens to people who don’t accept it (usually turning to the mystic lie of universalism).
It’s not God’s Word that has the problems. It is people who look at only part of it, like the blind guys trying to figure out an elephant. Remember, we started out in perfection in the Garden. If you want to find a comparison to use for where we should be, use that one.
Integrity of the Heart
In Genesis 20 Abimelech the king of Gerar takes Sarah from Abraham for a wife, because Abraham said she was his sister. Sarah was close to 90 years old, yet I’m guessing she was still beautiful and desirable. Abimelech and his household suffered sterility (and perhaps illness) and was risking death because of it. God appears to him in a dream and tells him the cause. Abimelech replies that he had taken Sarah “in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands.” He hadn’t “approached her” yet (a euphemism for sex). God said that was why Abimelech was getting a warning instead of getting toasted.
Abimelech was blameless in taking Sarah for a wife. There was no malice, no intent to harm. We might even say it was an “accident.” Yet he and all his household still got sick. He was under the death penalty in spite of his integrity. At his arraignment he pleaded his innocence, and rightly so. But if he kept Sarah as a wife then the Judge was still going to carry out the sentence. Ignorance was not an excuse.
Doing something wrong, even when we do it in the “integrity” of our heart, is still enough to get us the death penalty. We may not know something is wrong, but that doesn’t excuse guilt. A police officer won’t buy ignorance of the speed limit as a reason for speeding. We’ll get a ticket anyway. God won’t buy alleged ignorance of His Law either. We are responsible for knowing right and wrong, and for choosing right. This is one of the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eating that fruit carried with it the responsibility for our actions regardless of integrity of the heart.
There are those who think that sinning is okay, because we have the cosmic eraser of Jesus to eliminate the consequences. Some go so far as to use lip service to some nebulous Jesus as cover for doing whatever they want – in the integrity of their heart. Just ask them. Instead of following specifics of God’s Word, they will say they “follow their heart.” Really? What’s in the heart if we ignore what God says yet claim to follow Him? Do you think Abimelech “had Jesus?” Was he perhaps exercising his “freedom in Christ?” He certainly was innocent of a crime (in this instance anyway) yet he was still experiencing the consequences as if he had. He would even die if he kept going.
Integrity of the heart is fine, if your heart has been “fleshasized” by God. If it isn’t, a person can have a wrong “integrity of the heart” because they act in accordance with a heart of stone. Integrity simply means “wholeness,” meaning consistent thoughts and actions. Stone heartedness with accompanying stone-type action is still integrity. A bad guy can have integrity within himself, since he does “bad” actions in tune with his “bad” heart. A good person has integrity because he does “good actions” in tune with his “good” heart. The only wholesome and healthy integrity, however, comes from a good person who has a heart in tune with God. Those in between, the ones who claim a good heart while ignoring God’s Word, are those God calls “lukewarm” and serve only to cause Jesus to yak (spew, throw up, or vomit; for those readers in other countries not familiar with American figures of speech).
“ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:15–20, ESV)
Shalom
Bruce
For God So Loved…
A famous verse from the Bible. Even if you’ve been spending time on Mars or refusing to watch football games (like me). The one you see on signs on youtube videos from sporting events (even if you’re not watching the game). John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16, ESV)
Usually this is foisted upon people like some sort of magical elixir. “All you have to do is believe in Jesus, and you’ll be saved!” goes the sentiment. Of course, this depends on how you define “belief,” because, after all, the demons also “believe” and shudder. But they ain’t saved.
However, I wanted to look at this a little different. God loved us so much He gave His only begotten Son over to be cruelly tortured and murdered for our sake. How about if I were to write a similar type of verse to God? “For Bruce so loved God that He gave”….what? “That he gave” a few Sundays to sitting in a building listening to some overstuffed overpaid preacher harangue me into sleep? “That he gave” a few bucks in the plate? “That he gave” some time in the choir for the Christmas play, or helped with coffee at the sunrise service? “That he gave” a few minutes to say “grace” for a meal or two? (Oh, and a couple times he even “gave” the grace for a meal in an actual restaurant where everyone could see him!) “That he gave” a grudging few minutes a year to actually reading God’s Words squeezed in between episodes of his favorite TV shows when he had the time and wasn’t too busy with grasping after the world’s kingdoms?
Or would I say, “I looked everywhere for your words. I hungered and thirsted after them. I ate them and drank them as if they were life itself. I took the huge amount of ‘grace money’ or ‘talents’ (way more than ten talents of gold) you gave me through the blood of my friend and made more out of it. I changed my diet as you asked. I celebrated the holidays you gave me. I worked six days as you commanded and rested one, where we met together every week. These were little enough to do considering the eternal life in your Son you gave me. After a while, wonder of wonders, the “small things” and “shadows” you commanded helped me to also give you the weightier actions of mercy, justice and compassion. In short, instead of just singing about giving my life to you, I really gave it. Instead of just proclaiming the wonders of your love by chasing people down and thumping them with a Bible verse through the TV I made your love and commands the priority of my life. The light you caused to shine in me through those commands made a greater impact on others than all my words put together.”
What would I give in return for the mountain of forgiveness, grace and love poured out to me from the source of all light, life and love? All I’ve got was given to me, so all I can do is give it back. All of it. Every scrap. Throw myself on the ground in abject humility in front of His throne and give Him the crown He has given me. Not sit in judgment on which of His words I will deign to follow and which I will not. Not clutter them up with all sorts of tradition and theology that blocks access to Him. Those don’t make for much of return on the “God so loved” investment, I don’t think. I can do better than that. He made it possible. Other not-so-famous verses give the clues:
“…yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39).
“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34).
Shalom
Continuity Central to Whole Bible Belief
A big issue addressed in the book Whole Bible Christianity is that of continuity. There are those who teach that the Bible is a series of starts and stops in the plan of God. They see Israel and the church separated, the Law stopped and grace started, and so on. Their version of God appears to routinely change His plans because of man’s lack of cooperation. This is called discontinuity.
We see continuity in God’s plan. He doesn’t have a series of starts and stops in His work because He can’t figure out what man is going to do next. He’s always been on top of things, has one plan (He calls it a Promise) one Body, and one faith. That faith is delivered to us in plain language, repeated over and over, hasn’t failed yet, and will not fail. The Body has been around since the beginning and we are privileged to have many outstanding members such as Ruth, Rahab, Noah, David, Daniel, Isaiah, Huldah, Paul, Andrew, Matthew, and all the others named and unnamed. The Promise is Jesus the Messiah, who made possible a reunion (a union broken in the Garden by disobedience) with God by His death and resurrection. The message is clear: abide in His Word and live. Reject it and die.
The only discontinuity is in a break with God. We see discontinuity because it is in our heart. Continuity resumes when we restore our union with Him by His grace through faithful abiding in every word out of His mouth.
Works of Law
Chapter 6 – Whole Bible Objections, ‘Whole Bible Christianity’
Still another excuse some use to ignore the Law is the claim that “works of the Law” are bad. A section of this group even goes so far as to say actions done without “feeling like we are led by the Spirit” are “works of the Law.” They discourage any activity if it isn’t “felt” – the church version of “if it feels good, do it.” If they do something, such as work in a soup kitchen, without “feeling” it, then it must be a “work of the flesh” or by association one of those terrible “works of the Law.” So they avoid doing what God plainly commands because they don’t “feel led.” Feelings become king, and simple obedience to the whole of the Word is reduced to a sin.
On the surface it does look like parts of the Bible teach that works of the Law are not “from the Spirit,” that they don’t belong in a believer’s walk, and should be avoided. The NASB (and others) translates words from Paul in Romans 3, Galatians 2 and Galatians 3 as ‘works of the Law’ (capital L and with the added definite article ‘the’). Paul is made to look very negative about “works of the Law” at first glance.
Yet the translation is not correct according to the Greek. It also doesn’t stand up to a balanced scrutiny from the whole of the Word. The word ‘Law’ in those references should be lowercase and without the article, as in, ‘works of law.’ ‘Works of the Law’ is an attempt to limit works to the Mosaic Law. It castes obedience as wrong. The more accurate statement, ‘works of law,’ includes any legal relationship, any ‘work of the flesh,’ or any try at trading merit for grace. It includes the Law but isn’t limited to The Law. ‘Works of law’ isn’t the same as the anti-Law statement ‘works of the Law.’
‘Works of law’ describes a legal relationship. A legal relationship is where I do things that I get paid for, and I only do them if I get paid. This was the basis of the Satan’s accusation against Job. He said that Job only worshiped God because he got paid (Job 1:9-11). He thought that if God took away the pay or the “hedge” (God’s protection) that Job would falter.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego weren’t interested in pay for following God’s Word (Daniel 3). They were threatened with death by furnace, but even if God wouldn’t ‘pay off’ with a rescue they were still going to stick with Him.
17 “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 “But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”(Daniel 3:17-18 NASB95)
Paul and the Law
From the book ‘Whole Bible Christianity’
The letter from Paul to the assemblies of Galatia is right up there with difficult things that the untaught and unstable distort (2 Peter 3:16). Most of the time, this book is presented as a teaching against God’s Laws. But when we get into the book, and read carefully, we find that Paul is not telling us to ignore God’s Word, especially the Law. What he is doing is contrasting merit with grace through faith. The key verse says it all.
4You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4 NASB95)
Some of the Galatians were seeking to be justified by their own actions (or doing what was right in their own eyes), when they were already justified through the blood of the Lamb. Trading on one’s own merit renders the sacrifice of the Christ useless. Merit is the idea that we have earned something, like wages for work. Some try to trade their (perceived) merit for eternal life. This is a mistake because it’s just not worth it to God. If we can be justified on our own merit by circumcising a little piece of skin, then we should just go the whole way and cut it all off. Then we will be really, really justified!
In other words, Paul is saying that following Laws (especially circumcision, meaning to become a Jew) is not the way to gain a place in God’s kingdom. It is only by grace through faith that anybody – Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not – has a place at all. The Law is for living after salvation, not the means to get it.