It looked as if the students were nodding off with bobbing heads and heavy eyelids as I finished speaking my third segment at the retreat. Gathering up my teaching notes and Bible, concern overwhelmed my thinking; did I miss the mark of what I wanted to communicate? I studied and researched for hours and went over each presentation several times. Surely I didn’t flop, did I?
Twenty-four hours later I was still fretting over the possibility I didn’t hit the mark of what God called me to do. So at the gym, all alone in the sauna, I cried out to God, “Did I flop? Did I botch up what You were leading me to do? I tried hard, Lord, I tried hard! I so desired to connect with the students, where did I fail?”
Heartfelt prayer indeed, revealing a pious and selfless heart. Or so I thought; instead God gently stated that I was concerned about how I did, meaning I was emphasizing me in this pious cry. A question then came to my mind: Who’s the sovereign One in this dyad of me and God? Obviously, God is the sovereign One, I’m just thankful to be bumbling along in this thing called Life. Next I was reminded that God states in the book of Isaiah that His Word does not return void. Thus, I began to consider that answering the call of God to the best of my ability then allows the Holy Spirit to do the work He does best, working in people’s hearts. I did the best I knew to plant the seeds God inspired me to plant but it is God, through the working of the Holy Spirit that will cultivate the soil of the souls the seeds were planted in.
As I’m brooding over my perceived failure, God is celebrating that His saving grace was proclaimed to thirsting souls. What’s more, I was given the privilege to proclaim this grace, and now I get to watch how the Holy Spirit will run freely through the flowers growing in the fertile soil of their souls.
It’s definitely a great lesson to learn that the Sovereign God will accomplish His purposes, the real question is will I accept His invitation to participate. If I do, He enables me to meet that call, and even if I don’t actually do as well as I wanted, it may actually be how God wanted it done anyway; for who am I to think I know what’s best anyway.
Thinking this I recall how I changed gears several times in the retreat from what I had originally planned on doing to what I actually did. Further I realize the second day of the retreat was filled with very tired students since they had spent the night at the church playing fun games and feeding growing relationships deep into the morning hours; the average night’s rest per student was possibly four hours at the most. Another thing I learned is if I’m ever given the privilege to speak at another two-day retreat, I should think of what kind of sizzle to add to the second day to help the exhausted students maintain attention. There are all kinds of possibilities from skits, or DVDs, or music, or a number of other options I’m sure.
Something else worth mentioning is God is bigger than my strengths and bigger than my weaknesses. As I put forth the effort required to answer God’s call and do the research and study, do the presentation preparation and practice, then actually go and do what I’ve prepared with the best of my ability to do, then the God Zone is entered in which He is free to do His work. More simply stated, God is really free to go to work if I perform due diligence in preparation and execute with all the precision I can muster.
So the next time we ever find ourselves caught up in the “I” of our own storm of doubt, just remember God is bigger than all the “I’s” that have ever been or ever will be. Sovereignty is after all, Sovereign; and we, after all, are mere mortals, wisps of breath that have the continual invitation to know the Sovereign.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Is Grace in the Old Testament?
This is a paper I wrote for one of my Seminary classes. Many people view God as hostile and hateful in the Old Testament; I, however, do not agree with that profile. I think God has been loving all along. Read on and see if you agree.
End Notes:
[1] The Tender Commandments; Mehl, R., Multnomah Publishers, Sisters, OR, 1998; p. 15.
[2] Quoted from the lecture given the evening of November 7, 2008 at Grace Seminary of the Northwest.
[3] The Message, Peterson, E., NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO., 2002.
[4] Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, TN, 1996.
[5] Nelson’s NKJV Study Bible, Tommy Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN; 1997; p. 158.
[6] Sermons of Rev. C.H. Spurgeon, Volume VI; Funk & Wagnells Company, London, p. 78. (Note, there is no date in Vol. VI, however, Vol. V has the date April 1859.)
[7] Nelson’s NKJV Study Bible, Tommy Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN; 1997; p. 158.
[8] Ibid.; p. 161.
[9] Ibid.; p. 1779.
This is a paper I wrote for one of my Seminary classes. Many people view God as hostile and hateful in the Old Testament; I, however, do not agree with that profile. I think God has been loving all along. Read on and see if you agree.
“All I need to know is what God is plainly saying to me on the pages of my Bible.”[1]
God was mean in the Old Testament but in the New Testament He’s different, He’s mellowed out. We’ve all heard this or something like it said more times than we can count. In fact, in my “Gaining Love for the Hebrew Scripture” class, our professor, Dr. Ron Allen, even stated that our current Christian culture still associates Moses with the Law and thus, they consider Moses “bad.”[2] Granted, Dr. Allen was trying to impress a question upon the student’s thinking, is this true? Asked another way, was grace introduced for the first time in the New Testament? Was there no evidence of grace in the Old Testament?
We’ll begin our brief exploration of this with the following lengthy quote:
Now the Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”
And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.” (Exodus 34:5-10, NKJV.)
A lengthy but revealing quote, not only is God “conversing” with Moses, a mere man, the Lord (Yahweh) is also establishing a covenant with him and the people of Israel. Eugene Peterson renders verse six thusly: “God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient—so much love, so deeply true—loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.”[3] These quotes hardly describe a God Who is always angry or full of wrath; rather, they describe a Father Who is deeply in love with His children and Who wants the very best for them.
Two words from verse six are especially insightful. The first word is “gracious” which comes from the Hebrew word hanan which means “to pardon or show mercy,” or even express “generosity, a gift from the heart; God especially is the source of undeserved favor.”[4] So while the people did not earn favor or any special gift from God, He was willing to grant them favor anyway. In fact, consider the events described in verses eight and nine. Moses says, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord…go among us.” And how does God respond to this stiff-necked people? He remains among them, He doesn’t snuff them out, turn His back on them or even simply ignore them; He makes a covenant with them and promises to do marvels such as had not been seen before.
An interesting phrase is “stiff-necked people” in verse nine. It first occurs in Exodus 32:9 and refers to “the stubbornness of the people who refused to follow the ways of God.”[5] Stubbornness connotes the thought that the people felt their ways were better than God’s ways; hence, they were prideful. “Pride is the inherent sin of man, and yet it is of all sins the most foolish,” stated Charles Spurgeon.[6] But interestingly in verse 11 we see Moses intervening for the people of Israel via intercessory prayer. Then in verse 14 we read the stunning account that “the Lord relented.” God intended this all along but needed to draw Moses through this process.[7] This process leads to the passage quoted above from Exodus 34 where God reveals His gracious nature, or perhaps better stated His merciful nature.
The second interesting word from verse six is “goodness” from the Hebrew word chesed. This word has the basic meaning of “loyal love” or “steadfast love; it refers to God’s loyalty and faithfulness to His covenant.”[8]
Combining the meaning of these two words we come to the encouraging conclusion that God is granting undeserved favor to His people in such a way that He intends to be loyal to that covenant of favor; and since God cannot lie (see Titus 1:2) this is a covenant, or promise, He is not going to break. In fact, this is a promise that has been fulfilled and is continually being fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ (see John 1:16-17 and Col. 2:9-10).
While there are other occurrences exhibiting grace in the Old Testament, particularly in God’s dealings with Abraham and King David, we will now depart to the New Testament and the first chapter of the Gospel of John. There are two verses of interest for this particular study:
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace (John 1:14 and 16, NKJV).
Consider that verse 14 boldly proclaims that Jesus is “full of grace and truth;” then also consider that God says the same thing of Himself back in Exodus 34:6. Further consider that Jesus says of Himself that “I and the Father are one” in John 10:30 and in John 14:9 Jesus declares that “he who has seen Me has seen the Father.” There is definitely a theme developing, however, here are more examples to consider.
Recall Exodus 3:14 where God proclaims to Moses that He, God, is I AM. Fast-forward again to the Gospel of John where Jesus refers to Himself as I AM on seven occasions (see John 6:35, 41, 48, and 51; 8:12; 10:7, 9 and 11 and 14; 11:25; 14:6; and 15:1 and 5). So Jesus, by boldly stating that He is I AM is claiming external existence, thus, He was proclaiming to be God Himself.[9] In fact, in the I AM statement found in John 8:58, Jesus is saying that “before Abraham was, I AM.” This statement so infuriated the Jewish crowd they “took up stones to throw at Him (v. 59)” because they knew very well He had just proclaimed to be God and such proclamation was heresy and punishable by death. Even so, He continued with the proclamations but backed the proclamations up through many miracles never seen before, such as taming the weather, rebuking a fig tree, and rising from the dead.
What is developing is Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, God incarnate. So we see God declaring His graciousness and goodness to Moses in Exodus 34, then we see John chapter one declaring Jesus as God in the flesh while attributing the same characteristics of Exodus 34 to Jesus, and finally we see Jesus Himself exhibiting these characteristics throughout His earthly ministry. On many occasions we see Jesus healing the deaf, the blind, and the lame; we see Him raising the dead and casting out demons; we even see Him forgiving the sins of many, including tax collectors and prostitutes. What’s more, we see Jesus proclaim that He came to give us eternal life and a life that is more than abundant (see John 3:16 and 10:10b). So Jesus is exampling the very character of God, the very same character of God we see in the Old Testament as expressed in Exodus 34.
So as we return to the title of this paper, “Is Grace in the Old Testament,” we can emphatically proclaim yes, grace is in the Old Testament in very clear form in the text itself but further verified through the life and example of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God.
God was mean in the Old Testament but in the New Testament He’s different, He’s mellowed out. We’ve all heard this or something like it said more times than we can count. In fact, in my “Gaining Love for the Hebrew Scripture” class, our professor, Dr. Ron Allen, even stated that our current Christian culture still associates Moses with the Law and thus, they consider Moses “bad.”[2] Granted, Dr. Allen was trying to impress a question upon the student’s thinking, is this true? Asked another way, was grace introduced for the first time in the New Testament? Was there no evidence of grace in the Old Testament?
We’ll begin our brief exploration of this with the following lengthy quote:
Now the Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped. Then he said, “If now I have found grace in Your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us as Your inheritance.”
And He said: “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord. For it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.” (Exodus 34:5-10, NKJV.)
A lengthy but revealing quote, not only is God “conversing” with Moses, a mere man, the Lord (Yahweh) is also establishing a covenant with him and the people of Israel. Eugene Peterson renders verse six thusly: “God, God, a God of mercy and grace, endlessly patient—so much love, so deeply true—loyal in love for a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin.”[3] These quotes hardly describe a God Who is always angry or full of wrath; rather, they describe a Father Who is deeply in love with His children and Who wants the very best for them.
Two words from verse six are especially insightful. The first word is “gracious” which comes from the Hebrew word hanan which means “to pardon or show mercy,” or even express “generosity, a gift from the heart; God especially is the source of undeserved favor.”[4] So while the people did not earn favor or any special gift from God, He was willing to grant them favor anyway. In fact, consider the events described in verses eight and nine. Moses says, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, O Lord…go among us.” And how does God respond to this stiff-necked people? He remains among them, He doesn’t snuff them out, turn His back on them or even simply ignore them; He makes a covenant with them and promises to do marvels such as had not been seen before.
An interesting phrase is “stiff-necked people” in verse nine. It first occurs in Exodus 32:9 and refers to “the stubbornness of the people who refused to follow the ways of God.”[5] Stubbornness connotes the thought that the people felt their ways were better than God’s ways; hence, they were prideful. “Pride is the inherent sin of man, and yet it is of all sins the most foolish,” stated Charles Spurgeon.[6] But interestingly in verse 11 we see Moses intervening for the people of Israel via intercessory prayer. Then in verse 14 we read the stunning account that “the Lord relented.” God intended this all along but needed to draw Moses through this process.[7] This process leads to the passage quoted above from Exodus 34 where God reveals His gracious nature, or perhaps better stated His merciful nature.
The second interesting word from verse six is “goodness” from the Hebrew word chesed. This word has the basic meaning of “loyal love” or “steadfast love; it refers to God’s loyalty and faithfulness to His covenant.”[8]
Combining the meaning of these two words we come to the encouraging conclusion that God is granting undeserved favor to His people in such a way that He intends to be loyal to that covenant of favor; and since God cannot lie (see Titus 1:2) this is a covenant, or promise, He is not going to break. In fact, this is a promise that has been fulfilled and is continually being fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ (see John 1:16-17 and Col. 2:9-10).
While there are other occurrences exhibiting grace in the Old Testament, particularly in God’s dealings with Abraham and King David, we will now depart to the New Testament and the first chapter of the Gospel of John. There are two verses of interest for this particular study:
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace (John 1:14 and 16, NKJV).
Consider that verse 14 boldly proclaims that Jesus is “full of grace and truth;” then also consider that God says the same thing of Himself back in Exodus 34:6. Further consider that Jesus says of Himself that “I and the Father are one” in John 10:30 and in John 14:9 Jesus declares that “he who has seen Me has seen the Father.” There is definitely a theme developing, however, here are more examples to consider.
Recall Exodus 3:14 where God proclaims to Moses that He, God, is I AM. Fast-forward again to the Gospel of John where Jesus refers to Himself as I AM on seven occasions (see John 6:35, 41, 48, and 51; 8:12; 10:7, 9 and 11 and 14; 11:25; 14:6; and 15:1 and 5). So Jesus, by boldly stating that He is I AM is claiming external existence, thus, He was proclaiming to be God Himself.[9] In fact, in the I AM statement found in John 8:58, Jesus is saying that “before Abraham was, I AM.” This statement so infuriated the Jewish crowd they “took up stones to throw at Him (v. 59)” because they knew very well He had just proclaimed to be God and such proclamation was heresy and punishable by death. Even so, He continued with the proclamations but backed the proclamations up through many miracles never seen before, such as taming the weather, rebuking a fig tree, and rising from the dead.
What is developing is Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, God incarnate. So we see God declaring His graciousness and goodness to Moses in Exodus 34, then we see John chapter one declaring Jesus as God in the flesh while attributing the same characteristics of Exodus 34 to Jesus, and finally we see Jesus Himself exhibiting these characteristics throughout His earthly ministry. On many occasions we see Jesus healing the deaf, the blind, and the lame; we see Him raising the dead and casting out demons; we even see Him forgiving the sins of many, including tax collectors and prostitutes. What’s more, we see Jesus proclaim that He came to give us eternal life and a life that is more than abundant (see John 3:16 and 10:10b). So Jesus is exampling the very character of God, the very same character of God we see in the Old Testament as expressed in Exodus 34.
So as we return to the title of this paper, “Is Grace in the Old Testament,” we can emphatically proclaim yes, grace is in the Old Testament in very clear form in the text itself but further verified through the life and example of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God.
End Notes:
[1] The Tender Commandments; Mehl, R., Multnomah Publishers, Sisters, OR, 1998; p. 15.
[2] Quoted from the lecture given the evening of November 7, 2008 at Grace Seminary of the Northwest.
[3] The Message, Peterson, E., NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO., 2002.
[4] Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary, Thomas Nelson Publishers; Nashville, TN, 1996.
[5] Nelson’s NKJV Study Bible, Tommy Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN; 1997; p. 158.
[6] Sermons of Rev. C.H. Spurgeon, Volume VI; Funk & Wagnells Company, London, p. 78. (Note, there is no date in Vol. VI, however, Vol. V has the date April 1859.)
[7] Nelson’s NKJV Study Bible, Tommy Nelson, Inc., Nashville, TN; 1997; p. 158.
[8] Ibid.; p. 161.
[9] Ibid.; p. 1779.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Winsomeness, Christianity, and Culture
Winsomeness, Christianity, and Today’s Culture
Developing Domestic Diplomacy
Watching and participating in this current election season has been challenging, frightening, and even disheartening all at the same time. While I’m tempted to write on the concerns I have regarding competing ideologies and their resultant applications in everyday culture, I am instead going to write about my concerns for the apparent mass rejection of Christian values.
Typically Christians hold dear three large categories of values: the sanctity of life; the sanctity and preservation of marriage; and, the sovereignty of God. However, regardless of how dearly these values are viewed by Christians, they appear to be viewed quite differently by the culture-at-large.
Why do I say this? Let me briefly explain. I survey the sweeping over-throw of the political party most representing these Christian values and being replaced by the party most representing the opposite view of these values. From local legislatures, to governor’s, to Congress, even to the White House, the party most representing Christian values is a quickly shrinking minority. Abortion is viewed as nothing more than a personal choice rather than a need to take responsibility for the life resulting from pervious personal choices. So-called Death with Dignity is now considered a right, if not an obligation, for the terminally ill; and what’s more, other states want to adopt it. Around the country state governments are beginning to call unions of same-sex couple’s marriage, even if the will of the people they serve has disallowed it. And God and Scripture are already removed from public schools but there are many other pressures to remove these from all facets of public life. In fact, there are threats to force Christian churches to renounce certain aspects of their creed merely to accommodate culture’s personal preferences or lose their tax statuses.
While I know the media and entertainment industries are biased and entice others to their biases, I don’t think they have that much power to sway an entire nation away from Christian values. So why, then, does it appear that the entire nation is swaying away from Christian values? I believe one word aptly conveys what I think the main reason is: Christians.
That’s right, I think we’re mainly the ones driving people not so much away from our values but from our approaches of conveying our values. Just listen to or read literature from a lot of Christian-based organizations, or read Christian blogs, or even listen in on conversing Christians as they consider these hot topics. The language, both verbal and non-verbal, is more often than not, hostile and confrontational. People of differing values are demonized when in fact, they, to, are made in the image of God just as we are.
While we loudly proclaim abortion as murder, why do we not proclaim as loudly that anger, which leads to murder, is punished equally as murder? (See Matthew 5:21-22.) And even though God’s Word is very clear about the sexual sin of homosexuality, His Word is also equally clear about several other sexual sins; in fact, Jesus even said lusting in our heart or leering at another person constitutes sexual sin. Then in considering the slow removal of God from all public life let’s ask ourselves how removed is He already from our private lives? Do we seek Him daily or just now and then? Could it be these are “silent sins” we commit ourselves?
I raise these issues to point out how we’re sometimes viewed, we loudly proclaim rebuke for more “public” sins but rarely proclaim the Deliverer and Lover of our souls Who can release us from all sin. We also rarely admit that we, to, are broken and guilty of sin, but through Jesus, we’ve been redeemed; but so can they if they just knew the Savior.
So stop for a moment and think back to your childhood. Remember those days of adolescent defiance against your parents or teachers? Remember when you were disciplined or scolded in a way that made you mad at them? How did you respond? I suspect you responded very similarly to the way mass culture is responding to us, rebellion. You were angry with them so you got back at them by denouncing everything they held dear. When we confront our culture with hostility and rebuke, why are we surprised they respond by rejecting not just us, but our message as well?
Now while still reminiscing over these not-so-pleasant memories, think about how you might have responded had you been approached differently, say with loving or winsome words of hope and encouragement rather than a hostile confrontation? Perhaps if you were approached in this manner and treated as a valuable and significant person you would have had more motivation to listen and respond differently. Why would we expect our culture to be any different than us? After all, culture is nothing more than a bunch of people like you and a bunch of people like me combined with a bunch of other people all trying to live our lives and provide for our families.
Believe it or not, we often offend people; even if we don’t intend to, we do anyway. I know this well because I have, in my attempts to convey Christ to the culture-at-large, done so in ways that offended people. I did not intend to offend anyone but even so, the result was a group of people taking offense at what I had said. In closely examining this situation I very well could have approached it differently. As it was, I sought forgiveness both from them and from myself, because I was devastated to think that rather than draw others to Christ, I had driven them away. I don’t know if my apologies were ever accepted, but the whole situation made me realize how I may be a contributor to the tide of cultural rejection of Christian values. Bottom line, the communication I chose was not winsome at all. It was a hard lesson learned and quite possibly at the cost of some relationships, but perhaps my learning could help start a desire toward winsome communication of our faith rather than caving into the temptation of ceasing to communicate our faith at all or to communicate it in a hostile manner.
Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not speaking of people who are just plain offended by Christ and the Gospel of salvation, hard core atheists will be offended by anything pertaining to God no matter how well it’s proclaimed. I’m referring to how we “message” Christ, do we deliver the message of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation in a winsome way? If we do and people are still offended, that’s different, we are only responsible for proclaiming Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation in a way people will hear, once they hear it, then they become responsible for how they respond to the message.
Think about it, what I’m really talking about is a mind-set of domestic diplomacy, winsomely proclaiming Jesus Christ to those around us. If more people were winsomely won to Christ and by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit began being transformed, many of our culture’s ills would diminish regardless of elections or government programs. Relationships would mend and people would honor one another rather than denigrate one another. Life would be treated as sacred and we would want to worship God rather than removing Him from every facet of life. In short, we could possibly spark a revival simply by choosing more winsome ways of communicating our faith. And just think, revival would bring healing and wholeness to broken lives and to a fractured country.
Developing Domestic Diplomacy
Watching and participating in this current election season has been challenging, frightening, and even disheartening all at the same time. While I’m tempted to write on the concerns I have regarding competing ideologies and their resultant applications in everyday culture, I am instead going to write about my concerns for the apparent mass rejection of Christian values.
Typically Christians hold dear three large categories of values: the sanctity of life; the sanctity and preservation of marriage; and, the sovereignty of God. However, regardless of how dearly these values are viewed by Christians, they appear to be viewed quite differently by the culture-at-large.
Why do I say this? Let me briefly explain. I survey the sweeping over-throw of the political party most representing these Christian values and being replaced by the party most representing the opposite view of these values. From local legislatures, to governor’s, to Congress, even to the White House, the party most representing Christian values is a quickly shrinking minority. Abortion is viewed as nothing more than a personal choice rather than a need to take responsibility for the life resulting from pervious personal choices. So-called Death with Dignity is now considered a right, if not an obligation, for the terminally ill; and what’s more, other states want to adopt it. Around the country state governments are beginning to call unions of same-sex couple’s marriage, even if the will of the people they serve has disallowed it. And God and Scripture are already removed from public schools but there are many other pressures to remove these from all facets of public life. In fact, there are threats to force Christian churches to renounce certain aspects of their creed merely to accommodate culture’s personal preferences or lose their tax statuses.
While I know the media and entertainment industries are biased and entice others to their biases, I don’t think they have that much power to sway an entire nation away from Christian values. So why, then, does it appear that the entire nation is swaying away from Christian values? I believe one word aptly conveys what I think the main reason is: Christians.
That’s right, I think we’re mainly the ones driving people not so much away from our values but from our approaches of conveying our values. Just listen to or read literature from a lot of Christian-based organizations, or read Christian blogs, or even listen in on conversing Christians as they consider these hot topics. The language, both verbal and non-verbal, is more often than not, hostile and confrontational. People of differing values are demonized when in fact, they, to, are made in the image of God just as we are.
While we loudly proclaim abortion as murder, why do we not proclaim as loudly that anger, which leads to murder, is punished equally as murder? (See Matthew 5:21-22.) And even though God’s Word is very clear about the sexual sin of homosexuality, His Word is also equally clear about several other sexual sins; in fact, Jesus even said lusting in our heart or leering at another person constitutes sexual sin. Then in considering the slow removal of God from all public life let’s ask ourselves how removed is He already from our private lives? Do we seek Him daily or just now and then? Could it be these are “silent sins” we commit ourselves?
I raise these issues to point out how we’re sometimes viewed, we loudly proclaim rebuke for more “public” sins but rarely proclaim the Deliverer and Lover of our souls Who can release us from all sin. We also rarely admit that we, to, are broken and guilty of sin, but through Jesus, we’ve been redeemed; but so can they if they just knew the Savior.
So stop for a moment and think back to your childhood. Remember those days of adolescent defiance against your parents or teachers? Remember when you were disciplined or scolded in a way that made you mad at them? How did you respond? I suspect you responded very similarly to the way mass culture is responding to us, rebellion. You were angry with them so you got back at them by denouncing everything they held dear. When we confront our culture with hostility and rebuke, why are we surprised they respond by rejecting not just us, but our message as well?
Now while still reminiscing over these not-so-pleasant memories, think about how you might have responded had you been approached differently, say with loving or winsome words of hope and encouragement rather than a hostile confrontation? Perhaps if you were approached in this manner and treated as a valuable and significant person you would have had more motivation to listen and respond differently. Why would we expect our culture to be any different than us? After all, culture is nothing more than a bunch of people like you and a bunch of people like me combined with a bunch of other people all trying to live our lives and provide for our families.
Believe it or not, we often offend people; even if we don’t intend to, we do anyway. I know this well because I have, in my attempts to convey Christ to the culture-at-large, done so in ways that offended people. I did not intend to offend anyone but even so, the result was a group of people taking offense at what I had said. In closely examining this situation I very well could have approached it differently. As it was, I sought forgiveness both from them and from myself, because I was devastated to think that rather than draw others to Christ, I had driven them away. I don’t know if my apologies were ever accepted, but the whole situation made me realize how I may be a contributor to the tide of cultural rejection of Christian values. Bottom line, the communication I chose was not winsome at all. It was a hard lesson learned and quite possibly at the cost of some relationships, but perhaps my learning could help start a desire toward winsome communication of our faith rather than caving into the temptation of ceasing to communicate our faith at all or to communicate it in a hostile manner.
Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not speaking of people who are just plain offended by Christ and the Gospel of salvation, hard core atheists will be offended by anything pertaining to God no matter how well it’s proclaimed. I’m referring to how we “message” Christ, do we deliver the message of Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation in a winsome way? If we do and people are still offended, that’s different, we are only responsible for proclaiming Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation in a way people will hear, once they hear it, then they become responsible for how they respond to the message.
Think about it, what I’m really talking about is a mind-set of domestic diplomacy, winsomely proclaiming Jesus Christ to those around us. If more people were winsomely won to Christ and by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit began being transformed, many of our culture’s ills would diminish regardless of elections or government programs. Relationships would mend and people would honor one another rather than denigrate one another. Life would be treated as sacred and we would want to worship God rather than removing Him from every facet of life. In short, we could possibly spark a revival simply by choosing more winsome ways of communicating our faith. And just think, revival would bring healing and wholeness to broken lives and to a fractured country.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
A brief excerpt from my latest manuscript From Forgiven to Forgiveness
“Your sins are forgiven you.”
Such a simple a statement uttered by Jesus Christ many times throughout the New Testament. The key word is, of course, ‘forgiven.’ But what does this really mean? Forgiven of what and forgiven by whom? Are all my sins forgiven? Can it really be that all the bad stuff I’ve done is actually forgiven by God? Or is this simple statement an utterance of delusion, meant to mislead the hardened sinner or appease the angry mob? Is it a trick to keep the sinners sinning, thus heaping upon themselves a more brutal eternity? Or is it to appease masses wanting to cause harm but cease their threatening by being excused of their nefarious intent?
And, even if I do begin to comprehend God’s forgiveness of me, will I be able to in turn forgive myself? Will the tormenting self-accusations ever cease or will they continue tearing at the fringes of my consciousness like an ever-threatening migraine that never goes full-throttle but also never goes away? Will I be able to look myself in the eye each morning without deriding my very existence? Will I ever be free of the ‘what ifs’ and their accompanying yet equally defeating ‘if onlys?’
And if I am able to forgive myself, does that mean the guilt and shame, hanging over my soul like a cloud of smog, will finally dissipate? Will there be the clear skies of peace of mind and rest to my soul ahead if I can finally let go of the past and what I’ve done? Will I be able to finally lay aside the rage of what’s been done to me? Is that part of the “peace that passes understanding” that Paul is referring to in Philippians?
One can only hope. And pray.
But that’s not enough. What else does one do?
Jesus also commands us to forgive those who have wronged us. What?! If I can’t even forgive myself, how can I forgive you, or my neighbor, or my ex-wife?
--This is a very brief snapshot of what my next book is about. Basically, to really embrace forgiveness, we must first grasp the fact we are forgiven as we become a new creation in Christ.
Such a simple a statement uttered by Jesus Christ many times throughout the New Testament. The key word is, of course, ‘forgiven.’ But what does this really mean? Forgiven of what and forgiven by whom? Are all my sins forgiven? Can it really be that all the bad stuff I’ve done is actually forgiven by God? Or is this simple statement an utterance of delusion, meant to mislead the hardened sinner or appease the angry mob? Is it a trick to keep the sinners sinning, thus heaping upon themselves a more brutal eternity? Or is it to appease masses wanting to cause harm but cease their threatening by being excused of their nefarious intent?
And, even if I do begin to comprehend God’s forgiveness of me, will I be able to in turn forgive myself? Will the tormenting self-accusations ever cease or will they continue tearing at the fringes of my consciousness like an ever-threatening migraine that never goes full-throttle but also never goes away? Will I be able to look myself in the eye each morning without deriding my very existence? Will I ever be free of the ‘what ifs’ and their accompanying yet equally defeating ‘if onlys?’
And if I am able to forgive myself, does that mean the guilt and shame, hanging over my soul like a cloud of smog, will finally dissipate? Will there be the clear skies of peace of mind and rest to my soul ahead if I can finally let go of the past and what I’ve done? Will I be able to finally lay aside the rage of what’s been done to me? Is that part of the “peace that passes understanding” that Paul is referring to in Philippians?
One can only hope. And pray.
But that’s not enough. What else does one do?
Jesus also commands us to forgive those who have wronged us. What?! If I can’t even forgive myself, how can I forgive you, or my neighbor, or my ex-wife?
--This is a very brief snapshot of what my next book is about. Basically, to really embrace forgiveness, we must first grasp the fact we are forgiven as we become a new creation in Christ.
Monday, September 3, 2007
2 Timothy 3:17: So that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The words "thoroughly equipped" are the Greek word: artios. This web site will hopefully begin listing useful resources to help a person be equipped, while keeping in mind that it is God, by way of Holy Spirit that is the ultimate "equipper."
The first resource I have to offer is my first book, From Cult to Christ. It can be ordered through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and Target.com. It may also be available in some Christian bookstores, such as Bible Bookhouse in Salem, Oregon.
Here's a brief preview of the book: If cults are so off base, why do they have so many members? Why are they attractive and what causes otherwise intelligent people to be interested in them? Are people who join cults stupid or disillusioned? And how can we avoid being tricked ourselves or keep our family and friends from being tricked? From Cult to Christ answers these questions and more. It tracks one man’s journey from “discovering God” as a young child, to disillusionment with the organized church, to a cult. It tracks through the process of discovering truth through devastating loss, to exiting the cult and entering into the light of Christ’s love through the touch of a loving friend. It’s a real life journey with many twists and turns, triumphs and failures, and loss and restoration. And, finally, it guides the reader into understanding a little more about the new birth and how to know Jesus.
The words "thoroughly equipped" are the Greek word: artios. This web site will hopefully begin listing useful resources to help a person be equipped, while keeping in mind that it is God, by way of Holy Spirit that is the ultimate "equipper."
The first resource I have to offer is my first book, From Cult to Christ. It can be ordered through Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and Target.com. It may also be available in some Christian bookstores, such as Bible Bookhouse in Salem, Oregon.
Here's a brief preview of the book: If cults are so off base, why do they have so many members? Why are they attractive and what causes otherwise intelligent people to be interested in them? Are people who join cults stupid or disillusioned? And how can we avoid being tricked ourselves or keep our family and friends from being tricked? From Cult to Christ answers these questions and more. It tracks one man’s journey from “discovering God” as a young child, to disillusionment with the organized church, to a cult. It tracks through the process of discovering truth through devastating loss, to exiting the cult and entering into the light of Christ’s love through the touch of a loving friend. It’s a real life journey with many twists and turns, triumphs and failures, and loss and restoration. And, finally, it guides the reader into understanding a little more about the new birth and how to know Jesus.
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