Category Archives: Christian

Wired by God, for God

Leave a reply

Interesting how you can hear of the Higgs-Boson particle (yeah, I know what?). The so-called God particle from a year ago, published all over until reporters and editors found out what it really meant, then not so much yada-yada.
But when genuine scientific findings are made confirming over and over how, not only are we designed, but how the entire universe is designed, well that doesn’t get any newspaper ink.
Case in point, the recent “Leadership Journal” (Summer 2014) which goes into detail as to how our brains can be or are wired to be receptive to God.

Leadership Journal develops this rather extensively and it goes into some heavy detail, which I will attempt to lighten. I’m going to do a few blogs on this so that I can digest it betterand hopefully spew it out to you somewhat intelligentyl . I would like to add that if you are in ministry or any kind of lay leadership you really should get Leadership Journal it’s just an outstanding publication.

John Ortberg points out that our brains are wired so that “mostly our behavior does not consist of a series of conscious choices. Mostly, our behavior is governed by habit.” (p 21)
We usually think in terms of “bad habits”, which we all have much too much of. Ortberg points out: “Habits are enormously freeing. They are what allows my body to be driving my car while my mind is planning next week’s sermon.” Yea, right, texting on my phone, shaving, applying makeup, eating a big sloppy burger (not my imagination, I’ve seen each in real life). Point is, there is so much we do in life that doesn’t require us having to make a deliberate action, much of what we do is habit and happens because of conditioning.
“But sin gets into our habits. “…what Paul meant when he talked about sin being ‘in our members.’ He was talking about human beings as embodied creatures – sin is in the habitual patterns that govern what our hands reach to and where our eyes look and words our mouths say. Habits are in our neural pathways. And sin gets in our habits. So sin gets in our neurons.” (p 21)

Quoting St Paul “…there is nothing good in our sinful nature.” Ya, I know a little harsh, but let’s face it, we have developed a lot of bad habits. “Paul is a brilliant student of human life who knows that evil, deceit, arrogance, greed, envy and racism have become ‘second nature’ to us all.” Harsh? Ya, but true. Even our best qualities when you hold them up to the perfection of our God, then ya, our “bad” habits are much more obvious and our good habits, at best, ho hum.

Ortberg notes that our willpower is just not going to cut it. Let’s face it, we try to do it alone and usually we are back to the races. “…acquiring new habits through which we can receive power from God to do what to do what willpower never could.”

Ortberg’s next line is compelling because there has been a long standing belief that the physical really doesn’t affect the spiritual. The physical is certainly about the mind. Is there really any doubt that when we abuse our body it affects our mind. I doubt that anyone would seriously question that physical abuse, bad diet, drugs, lack of exercise, affects the mind, certainly affects the chemical composition of the mind. Couldn’t the physical/mental attributes of the mind, if they are abused, affect our spiritual outlook? Trying to separate the physical/mental/spiritual is just a false paradigm. As Ortberg notes: ” Neuroscience has helped to show the error of any spirituality that divorces our spiritual life from our bodies.”

I say AMEN! There are many belief systems that try to make it just about the spirit, that the body is just a husk. POPPYCOCK. Gnosticism, an heretical Christian belief tries to make the material evil, the spiritual, as it were, good. That when the spiritual separates from the physical then it will be hunky-dorey. That attitude has infused itself through orthodox Christianity. the image of spirit beings sitting on clouds in heaven. Certainly physical beings can’t sit on clouds, but the question is; is heaven the end? Eastern religions believe that once we get it right, we leave the evil of the bodily and the material world and then (yippee, skippee), we become some sort of ethereal being and then drop into the ocean of all ethereal beings where our ethereality (no I doubt seriously that’s a real word) merges us with the universe. Again, yippee, skippee.

Why the gratuitous sarcasm? God created the material and He pronounced it good. This also includes our body which He intended to be perfect, incorruptible and eternal. Where else could it have come from? Unless the rapture happens tomorrow, our body will give out and we will, in the spiritual, be in the presence of the Lord. But again, is that the end? No! Not by a long shot. At the final judgment we will all be restored to physical bodies, those who are in Christ, the “Lamb’s Book of Life” will proceed from the judgment to the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be the world as God had intended. No doubt, it will be much like the world that we left, but it will be restored to perfection, it will be familiar but it will be restored to a perfection that we can’t imagine. Certainly we will be restored to our physical bodies, again, the way they were intended to be before we messed them up with our sin. These bodies will be strong, healthy, immune to injury or damage. We were made by God to be both physical/mental/spiritual and we will be restored to eternity perfectly in all aspects of our being.

In the meantime we will continue to discuss how the physical/mental changes our spiritual outlook as we continue to affect the mental by our habits old and bad or new and good. OK, at least hopefully.

 

Awesome God First St Johns Lutheran Church August 10, 2014

Leave a reply

 

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father, and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who know that we trust and obey God and never rely on our own understanding said … AMEN
Pastor Cory Burma refers to the Rich Mullins song “Awesome God”, Burma says that Mullins was surprised that people were taking “awesome” in a contemporary sense, like amazing, or really cool. “awesome” means that God is “to be feared and loved, one who has done things our mind cannot fully comprehend.” 1
If we go back to chapter 1 in the Book of Job starts by saying “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job and that man was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from all evil.” Quick note, Uz was also where Moses lived for forty years.2 Satan reports into God, and seems a little random, but God pops up with: ‘Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” The Hebrew word translated “turning away”, means not just avoiding but even actively turning away evil influences. So what we see here is God not just commending Job for being so great, but actively pushing away the influence of evil. WOW! Wouldn’t that be great, if God was talking about you that way? Ya that Jim he’s such a great guy, not only does he live his life right, but he actively does things in order to rip out evil in his part of the world. I’d certainly love it if God talked about me that way. But Satan kind of challenges God on Job; sure Job’s great, everyone would be great if you set them up the way You’ve set up Job.
You might hear in Christian circles people praying that God will set a hedge about them. In other words that God will protect them and this is where the expression comes from because Satan says; “Hast Thou not made a hedge about him and his house?” (Job 1:10) Satan is saying; “of course Job is all righteous, he’s your fair-haired boy, you’ve set his life up to be perfect. Job knows where his blessings are coming from and so of course he’s going to be faithful and upright with you. But if you rip everything away from him then “he will surely curse Thee to Thy Face.”’ I couldn’t find anyone who would take a shot to say why God would allow Satan to go and stomp on Job, but there can be no doubt that God, in His sovereignty, has already set this whole thing up. I have no doubt that God wants us to know that He doesn’t have favorites, that He will subject us to trials, that no one is so “good”, that they are immune to the trials and tribulations of life.
Job is immensely wealthy and he has a lot to lose and almost immediately Satan swoops in and arranges for the Sabeans to attack and they took off with all Job’s livestock, and killed all his servants. Then a great wind comes and knocks the house that his children are in and kills all his children. What was Job’s response to what would seem to be this unfair treatment? Those words we have heard so often: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21). Wow! Job is a righteous man. Then God allows Satan to take Job’s health. At this point the advice starts pouring into Job. His wife says, the Driskell translation; “really, you’re still faithful to God? Just curse Him and die!” Advice Job rejects. Then his three friends come along; Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar. What’s their answer to all of this? … Come on Job, you’ve obviously committed a really huge sin, fess up, ask for forgiveness and then trust God. Longman and Dillard point out that “The Three friends represent the age-old wisdom of retribution theology… God blesses the righteous; he curses the wicked. If so, then if Job suffers, he must be a sinner in need of repentance.”3 Now is that the case? Is Job being punished for some really humongo sin?… No! We just read at the beginning of Job what God Himself has said about Job: “…there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar are all wet, they don’t know what they’re talking about, yet they presume to make judgments for God. Not smart! Job even responds after Zophar’s speech to say: “Behold, the ‘fear’ of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding.”(Job 28: 28) Job goes on through chapter 30 praising and extolling God and then, well, the cheese kinda slips off the cracker. “Hey it’s not because of my sin, come on, look at all these great things I’ve done to serve God,” really saying “hey I don’t deserve to be kicked around by God and I’ll tell Him all these great things to His face, ‘Behold, here is my signature; Let the Almighty answer me!… I would declare to Him the number of my steps”’.(Job 31: 35, 37) OK, now Job’s kind of stepped off the deep end, now he’s getting a little self righteous and ya, “maybe God does owe me an explanation, because I did all these great things and I don’t deserved to be kicked around.”
Elihu has stepped into the conversation now and he takes offense and finally someone is the voice of reason. He tells Job, woe now, just wait a minute here: “The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” (Job 33: 4) Let’s get a little perspective here Job and remember who created us and what He does for us. You have no right to demand an explanation. Elihu goes on four more chapters praising God and all that He is. Then finally what happens? … Ya, our reading today. God Himself steps in and says, woe, wait just a minute all of you and speaks to Job. “Hey, where were you when I created all things, where are you when I sustain all things. You have no clue the vastness of all these things. Who are you to get up into My grill and demand answers.” God goes on three chapters pushing Job and questioning him. Obviously Job is just overwhelmed, he has no answer to God’s questions and finally says: “But now my eye sees Thee; Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6). God gave Job a four chapter beatdown, which applies to us also. Especially in this day and age when we think that science and technology have all the answers and we don’t need to rely on God. Read chapters 38-41, do you think you or any of our brilliant scientists have any answers to the questions God raises? No! Sure, we can still keep learning and searching, but keep in mind that there will always be questions that we will never know the answers to.
Take some time this week to first read chapters 28-30 in Job. See how Job glorifies God, even though Job has just been beaten down and maybe we might think unfairly, but in His sovereignty. “…we know, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Rom 8:28)
as Paul told us in our readings from a couple of weeks ago. From ancient Scripture God is using Job’s experience to teach us today that it’s not our understanding that matters, it is God’s will that matters and yes sometimes His will is really tough to accept. But in the end, it is God’s will who saved us through Jesus, His will, which we don’t understand, that caused Jesus’ suffering but for our deliverance. When we are Job, we don’t understand the need for suffering. When we are sinners in need of a Savior, then we do accept God’s wisdom, that wisdom that put His own Son on a Cross to die for our sins.
So yes, “Our God is an awesome God, He does reign from heaven above with wisdom, power and love, our God is an awesome God.”
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

It’s time for the liberal “Christian” church to give it up

Leave a reply

My life in the church has been rather odd. Yet, I’m not terribly unusual for my generation. To wit, as a baby I was “dedicated” in the American Baptist church (go figure a church that calls itself “baptist”, but is kind of fussy about a group that sees baptism as really only kind of an initiation thing). I was married by a Congregational pastor (kind of interesting also, why is a Christian clergyman marrying someone who isn’t a baptized Christian?) I was, finally, baptized by a United Methodist minister and four years ago ordained by a Lutheran minister. I was not churched as a child and it was only a “there are no atheists in a foxhole experience”, that God used to lead me to be baptized in my mid-twenties.

I tell you this so that you will see that I’ve been there, done that and have a few t-shirts. Notice that the churches I’ve come from, have been or morphed into Christian churches very much on the fringe/far end of the liberal Christian churches. I really got a stomach full in the United Methodist Church. Toward the end of my stay in the UMC, I had an experience that really illustrated what that church was about. It was at the New England Annual Conference, and well ya, you can imagine, liberal New England. There were various persons being recognized for achievement for the past year.

One woman had started a clinic on Cape Cod (yea, tres chic in both senses), to of course treat the trendy/chic diseases of the time. (Yea, I know I feel stupid even characterizing it that way, but to liberals there’s chic and then just mundane). Well (I was going to say praise the Lord), but there wasn’t any of that going on, It was effusive applause simply all about the woman and her efforts and how oh so trendy. Next was a man (middle aged, white, yea already a few strikes against him) and also evangelical. He was recognized for planting a church in New Hampshire and when he spoke he praised the Lord and was very effusive in how Christ was being lifted up by the church he planted. His reception was, at best, luke warm. Clearly he did not fit the profile that found approval in the flat-line, uhmm, I mean main-line, church of 20th to 21st century America.

I knew many orthodox, evangelical Christians in the UMC. Their feeling, for the most part, was that they stayed in the UMC in order to be a faithful remnant, a faithful witness to Christ in a church that was heterodox and even heretical.

Now that I’m in a Church that is orthodox, Christ centered, Scripture centered church, I look back on those who are still in liberal churches and while I pray that the reasons they stay are the right ones, I do question the motivation. Do you stay in a church because that’s where family is/has been, where you’ve ministered for years? Or do you say no, I’m not going to support this by my presence anymore and pick up and leave. Maybe it’s time for the faithful remnant to stop supporting these churches with their presence, their time, talent and treasure. Let’s be frank, faithful Christians are maintaining, if not enabling churches that are Christian in name alone. As I witnessed, they make no pretense to honor Christ, or they so seriously distort Scripture that the reality is simply not recognizable.

I submit that if all the orthodox Christians still in liberal churches would just pick up and leave, these old/liberal/irrelevant churches would implode into their thoroughly rotted structures. I have to ask, would that really be bad? No! It’s way past time to eliminate the tiny little groups who have been supported by orthodox Christians who continue to distort, if not outright lie about the message of Christ. How many have they led to destruction because of their spiritual poison must be immense and as orthodox Christian we really need to ask ourselves if we should be enabling ministries that endanger the spiritual health of millions. Again, No!

Herr Pastor

Leave a reply

Just so you know, this is a pejorative remark. The Lutheran Church came about due to the writing, preaching and other activity of Dr Martin Luther in Germany in the 1500s. The basis of his teachings started the Reformation that separated the Christian into, as it were, reformed/Lutheran/however else it worked out, from the Roman Catholic Church. The “Herr Pastor”, (German) is meant to convey an idea of strictness, pompousness, even severity by the pastor.

Now I will grant that some pastors of past no doubt deserved the jibe. However in the interest of “people pleasing” versus being a minister of Christ, it has taken on the meaning of any pastor who is the least bit assertive or makes a serious stand and outreach for Jesus. It’s another example of why the church really isn’t taken very seriously, if a pastor makes a serious stand, he will usually find that even fellow pastors will tend to pooh-pooh, no less the general public.

My point, let’s support and encourage our pastors, especially when they stand up and teach genuine Christianity and maybe we ought to start holding accountable those pastors who really don’t take the ministry seriously. They need to know it is about teaching Christ and Him crucified and not falling all over themselves not to offend. Jesus said we would offend, we need to live up to what He said and not worry about the “everything is beautiful” types.

Dr Luther used to refer to pastors as “seelsorger”, it literally means “soul healer”. What the world needs more than anything is soul healing in terms of Jesus. Your pastor should want to be your soul healer, to be led by the Holy Spirit in order to heal you in the grace, salvation, the propitiatory act of Christ for you. Help him out and encourage him in that, instead of expecting him to pat you on the head and tell you everything’s just spiffy, when you, and he, both know it isn’t.

The Gates of hell shall not prevail against it

Leave a reply

This is a unique site, it’s not very well preserved and for a lot of people they could well just walk by it. But for Christians this is, at least according to tradition, a very important site.
This is a pagan temple it’s thought that it was built by Philip the Tetrarch who was the son of Herod the Great. This makes him, nominally, Jewish, but his political position, all of Herod’s children’s political position was pretty tenuous and making nice with the Romans was always a good idea. The temple is thought to have been dedicated to Zeus and/or Bacchus.
Yea I know, “snore, thanks for the history lesson yada, yada”. But wait, there’s more, and this is the cool part. It is getting towards the end of Jesus’ incarnational ministry (that is just before He is crucified). They decide to camp in front of this temple and this is where Jesus asks: “Who do men say that I am.” After a little discussion, Peter makes his great confession: ” “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (ESV) Peter is saying that you are the promised one, the anointed one, the one sent by God, you are God the Son. This is where Jesus replies that the Father has revealed this to Jesus and, according to tradition, pointing back to this big rock that the temple has been carved into, “on this rock I will build my church.” That is first, there is a church, it is Jesus’ church, He expects His disciples to come together and meet as a church (this is in response to the lame comment I get a lot “ahhh..I go sit on a mountain/at the beach and worship Jesus, I don’t need no church.” Yea well Jesus thinks you do need one and He established one, so quit with the lame excuses and go to a real Bible believing church. Anyway, Jesus goes on to say: “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” That is, against His church.
Essentially Jesus is saying that this temple is demonic, pagans say it is set up to worship “god(s)”, Jesus is saying “oh no, it is demonic and my church will be built upon this blasphemy. Further more this is a gate to hell and this will never prevail against My church.
So, the take away is this. Many Christians will make the case that any other “god” is a demon who has convinced people that he is “god”. One way you can make this case is by considering the one major difference between Christianity and every other religion and that is “grace”. You are saved totally through what God has done for you. We are saved because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, we have assurance of salvation, as believers, from that one fact. Jesus died to pay for our sins. By virtue of that we are saved and there is nothing else that can save us. This is grace because it is totally the gracious gift of Jesus to us. There is nothing at all that we can do to earn this, it is a gift that Jesus gives to all those whom He chooses to be saved. Every other religion is entirely about you, that is all about what you do. You jump through this hoop, you do this, you do that, yada, yada and maybe, maybe you will be saved. There are some locks, if you are a martyr in Islam by killing infidels, you get a straight passage. Otherwise, everyone is on a string and all they can do is hope that they did enough.
I don’t have that problem, I have the promises of Jesus, He died for me, He baptizes me to wash away sin and to give me new life, He gives me His Body and Blood for forgiveness, restoral, renewal and refreshment for my soul. My hope is entirely in Him and His promises, nothing else, NOTHING ELSE, will save me. The Gates of Hell that you see in this picture will never, ever prevail against His promises for me.
Ya, I’m making the case here that any other “god” is a demon, is someone who has simply lied and deceived in order to gain worship, which Satan is always looking for and to basically convince people that if you get on this treadmill and keep doing and doing, well maybe you might get saved. There’s no promise there, no hope, simply a way to destroy a human soul and condemn them forever. You can talk about any other belief you want, but they are all designed to grind you down, strip you of any hope and then leave you condemned and dead.

God’s promises

Leave a reply

This was on the parking lot for Masada, it was right after a memorable desert storm. It really isn’t an “archaeological” or some notable site (Masada certainly is and I will do more on that) but it just seemed to be so representative of the whole time in Israel. I do believe that God is still focused on Israel, not to the extent that many like to make it, but as Masada represents and Armageddon represent, God will have the day of reckoning here in Israel. This scene just seemed to be a confirmation that yes, despite all the trauma, crisis, everything that has gone on, it will work out. So praise God for this assurance, for all His promises. Instead of trying to predict the future and read too much into things, we trust in Him, He gives us the faith and trust we need to confront what will happen and move on in Him.

In the Fall of 2013 I went with a church group to Israel. Kudos to the tour company, they made sure we went everywhere and did everything. I took twelve rolls of film and so I thought I would start to share them on this blog.

The first picture is my favorite picture, I took this at dawn from a balcony at the hotel we were staying at, the hotel is on the other side of the Sea of Gaililee from Capernaum. Capernaum is where Jesus and the disciples met up. It is where Jesus spent about 60% of His incarnational ministry. The Sea of Galilee was my favorite part of the trip. Oh believe me, there wasn’t a bad part. But I could so relate to this. This is where the guys worked day in and day out. Jesus ministered. On the Capernaum side is where Jesus gave His sermon on the mount. Having been in the Coast Guard, spending so much time on small boats on the water, I can see the apostles out on their boats doing their daily work. It was so peaceful around the Sea of Galilee, I can imagine how wrenching the storm was that swept down on the disciples that night they were on the boat. Their boats were not very sturdy, if the seas had ripped their boat apart they would have drowned and they knew it.

Fishermen usually fished at night, so when I took this picture, I imagined how many times the disciples saw the same scene as they finished a night of fishing. Life is often this way, we do our daily work, faithfully live our lives, but there will be storms. Jesus can calm seas, and sometimes He lets us know that He is with us as we face those seas. In the meantime, let’s enjoy those calm, peaceful, early morning times looking over the seas in our lives.

God’s Promises

Leave a reply

For the audio version of this sermon click on the above link or copy and paste into your browser

God’s promises rely on them don’t run from them
First Saint Johns May 4, 2014
God so loved the world, John tells us that. Is there any doubt in your mind? How has God shown His love? Here are two disciples, Cleopas and another man. The topic of conversation, the things that have happened in Jerusalem in the last few days. We know this because Cleopas got a little snippy with their fellow traveler when He asked what they were talking about. “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” Sort of where have you been all your life, don’t you know what’s going on around you? Seems to me Cleopas and the other disciple are the ones who aren’t completely paying attention. Where are they going? … Emmaus. Where did Jesus tell the women to have His disciples meet Him? Galilee. They probably understood that to mean Capernaum where Jesus spent 60% of His incarnate ministry. The sea of Galilee, is over 60 miles straight north of Jerusalem. The feast of the Passover has just been held in Jerusalem, everyone has been there. These two disciples have chosen to leave and they are going to Emmaus, about 15 miles west of Jerusalem. While they are stunned that someone is so out of touch in Jerusalem, the One talking to them … Jesus, is probably stunned too and probably irritated. Why? Can’t you imagine Jesus thinking, “wow, didn’t I just tell all of you what would happen? Did you forget so soon? Maybe you got outta Dodge a little early, the rest of the disciples waited for further direction. More likely they are still in stunned disbelief from the events of Friday, and they might have run away from the events of the cross, but they regrouped.” Matthew 16:21 just before the Transfiguration, the sequence of events that lead to the cross: “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Maybe the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, didn’t get that in their notes. Or maybe they’re so upset they didn’t remember or, worse, didn’t trust what Jesus told them and hadn’t stayed in Jerusalem to await the directions that the angel has given to those who remained.
So Jesus takes His two disciples to task: “he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” He could have said, what I told the whole group just before the events that led to My crucifixion, the promise that I made “…on the third day be raised.”? As far as they know a complete stranger has called them out. “Why didn’t you stay? Why have you wandered off? You heard the promise and yet here you are, you’re not in Jerusalem, you’re heading west instead of north to Capernaum as the angel told the women to do. To the place where we shared great times, you heard great teaching and saw stupendous miracles. Why have you picked up and deserted your call? Cleopas refers to Jesus as a “prophet”, the Concordia Self Study Bible notes: “They had respect for Jesus as a man of God, but after his death they apparently were reluctant to call him the Messiah.”1 Jesus goes on to remind them of what Moses and the Prophets, that is everything that was written about Him in the Old Testament, “…seems like you boys need a refresher course, maybe you didn’t hear what I said, but this is what Torah has been saying about me for the last 1,500 years beginning with Moses.” Then Jesus acts as if He’s going to keep going when they want to stop, sort of a way to show His disappointment?
Jesus made a lot of promises to the disciples during His incarnation, He continued to make these promises through His apostles, listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians: “Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed.” This is the promise that Jesus is all about, that He demonstrated on Easter Sunday. “You see how Jesus was resurrected, that will be us at the last trumpet. We will be imperishable, our bodies will be made to be perfect, no defect, no death, made to exist forever in the New Jerusalem, the new world that God had intended the world to be, a perfect world where we will see the fulfillment of another of Jesus’ promises “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (Jn 10:10). We tend to take the word “promise” a little too glibly. We make promises a lot, often our fingers crossed behind our back. The Greek word evpaggeli,a means “assent or pledge, especially a divine assurance of good.”2 God has made a lot of promises, through the prophets in the Old Testament, through Jesus and His apostles in the New Testament. Have any of these promises not been kept? And what is it that drives our faith, the promises that we know that will be kept. The resurrection! We haven’t seen the end times yet, but when we do what is our promise? Eternal, abundant life!
We have Peter on the day of Pentecost in our Acts reading. In the Gospel reading the disciples are holed up in an upper room, windows closed, doors locked, Jesus in His resurrected body appears to them to give them assurance in their fear and then what happens, they aren’t running off to Emmaus, they aren’t hiding behind locked doors, the Holy Spirit has descended on them, and now they roar out of those doors like the Penn State football team and their leader, Petros, the rock, is standing in broad daylight, before thousands of men in Jerusalem proclaiming the promises of Jesus. He holds them accountable, Peter tells them they have committed deicide, they have assisted in the death of the Messiah that God has been promising for centuries. They feel convicted, they know this has happened, they have been cut to the heart. What can they do? Peter tells them: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Another of Jesus’ promises, the promises that started from the very beginning with John the Baptizer. Repent, Strongs defines repent as to change one’s mind for better, heartily to amend with abhorrence of one’s past sins”. We know that we have failed in our past life, so now we change our mind, we look at our past life with abhorrence, hating our past life and our past sins and we make amends, we will change our life according to what Jesus wants. But how do you do that? Only by repenting? By being baptized? And what does that do? What is Jesus’ promise that He made to Nicodemus? John 3:5, being reborn into the Spirit, putting on Christ, His payment of our sins. By doing this, we are reborn, Jesus has done it all for us and His promise is that we will be saved to eternal life in Him. What the Easter season is all about.
The Easter season is about promise, it’s about renewal, it is about resurrection as we see the death of winter recede to new life. But for us the Christian, for the promises we have in Christ, it’s much, much, much more then birds and bugs and forsythia and leaves on trees. It is sort of like another promise that God made when He put a rainbow up in the sky to assure Noah that from him, God would save man, not just in man’s physical life from floods, but to eternal life in the promised Messiah.
We have so many promises from God that do, as Jesus promised, give us life more abundant, this book is all the promises in the Bible that God has made to us. It lists out 307 pages of God’s promises. The promise that they would have the Holy Spirit is coming to the disciples. Most waited faithfully in Jerusalem, albeit hiding behind locked doors, two decide to go west, feeling that the promise wouldn’t be fulfilled. But it was when the disciples would shortly, receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit whose temple we become in baptism.
Trust in God’s promises to us that are documented right here, the new covenant, the new contract that Jesus made. We rely on His payment of our sins and His promises to us that we will be saved to eternal life. Do some Bible reading, check out Paul’s epistles where the promises come fast and furious. What promises do you see and how do they affect your life in Christ, write about them in your journal and pray over them in Thanksgiving to our Father who loves us so much to put His promises, assurances and comforts to us in writing for us to read and take refuge in over and over.
The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin.

100th blog

Leave a reply

I just did my 100th blog, which is pretty neat. Appropriately enough it was sharing another’s blog to remember those who serve in our military and are in difficult, uncomfortable and even dangerous places. (I’m sorry I forgot his name, so now you have to check out the blog to get his name.) Anyway, I pray that in 100 attempts, I have made some difference, did something to truly serve my Lord Jesus Christ in someone else’s life. Some I’ve done just to have a little fun, or get something on the table, but I try to make most to make a difference for the Kingdom – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May God richly bless you.

One other quick thing I wanted to note, I’m sure it’s probably not a big deal for most of you who have been doing this longer and much better than me, but at this time people in 24 different countries, which have been from every continent, have viewed my posts. Can’t say I’ve gotten a lot of feedback, so don’t know how much they’ve been “viewing”, but I really do appreciate seeing so  many different people have at least give me a chance. Again, God bless.

Be baptized and be saved

2 Replies

Rev Dr J Vernon McGee is an institution, I really do like hearing his broadcasts, he has a common sense Christianity that is down to earth, assuring, you know you are listening to someone who really has a grasp of genuine doctrine and Christian living.

I give him credit, most Reformed commentators don’t like to get into this question, they operate under the supposition that everyone can “make a decision” for Christ, and that’s the way it should be. The narrator for Dr McGee’s radio program reads a letter from a mother whose son is mentally retarded: “How can he make a decision for God?” she writes. Well Dr McGee does kind of a two-step, “well it’s about reaching the age of accountability, otherwise God will take the baby, because he wasn’t old enough to “choose” God. Well he never really answers in respect to someone who is over the age of “accountability” and is just not competent.

The Reformed position really tends to undermine the entire concept of Christianity. We are all born into sin, therefore how can we be anything but sinners when we are born. Reformed teachers always have a problem with this and I really don’t understand why it’s necessary to even get into it. Let’s remember Martin Luther is the one who started all of this. All of Protestant, as it were, Christianity traces its roots back to Luther. Luther’s original beef with the Roman Catholic Church was the Roman’s idea that “well ya, Jesus died for all of our sins, but we have to do something to augment that. For the Roman Church the over the top error was indulgences. Throw some money in the kettle and you or your relatives get a few thousand years off from purgatory. The Roman church says “ya, while we can die in a state of grace in Jesus, that’s not quite enough, we need to spend a little time in purgatory getting the rough edges burned off, or of course, a little sumpin/sumpin, and maybe we can spring you a little quicker.” Yea, I know a little cynical, but it all comes down to; we have to add to what Jesus did. Well either Jesus is perfect, totally Holy, almighty God and died for the complete redemption and remission of our sins, or He didn’t. It’s either all about Him or it isn’t.

That goes for all the other acts of contrition. Contrition isn’t an issue, if you feel you should do something that shows contrition, give to the poor, give to your church (my person favorite, First St Johns), help the handicapped, the elderly, great! Do it, but not thinking that somehow that is some kind of efficacious atonement, you are saved entirely by what Christ did, nothing you can do can add to that.

It doesn’t matter, if your son is intellectually handicapped, or your mother has Alzheimers, substance abuse, what matters is what Christ has done, what the Holy Spirit does through you. We are saved solely in Christ’s power. You hear, what if that person’s evil? Well that question is so obvious it doesn’t really even justify an answer, we are all evil, case closed. What if they aren’t sincere, really how high is exactly sufficiently sincere to justify being righteous enough to be saved that Christ hasn’t surpassed by infinity? If Christ has made the decision to save me, I’m saved, and there’s nothing I can add to that. In fact it would be incredibly arrogant to think that I could add one hundredth of one percent to what Jesus has done for me. He has saved me entirely and there isn’t one miniscule thing that I can add to that.

The Lutheran says that is why you take the baby to be baptized, we have the assurance in baptism that we are saved, “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal 3:27) Only in His righteousness, are we saved, only through the baptism that He gives us are we saved. Only through His Body and Blood, through His Word are we saved. What is in there that you did? Yea, nothing. It’s not a question of our decision, it’s a question of what the Holy Spirit does, He moved our parents to take, well some of us, to be baptized, to be saved.
The woman who asked Dr McGee the question doesn’t have, she shouldn’t have to, agonize over the question, she has the assurance of her Son’s salvation entirely through the Acts of the Holy Spirit. It’s not a question of accountability, or sincerity, or works, indulgences, our works, works that can be tainted, do not save us. Nothing we can do will be sufficient, it will all be tainted by our sin. The only assurance is in what God does for us and He saves us in baptism. That does raise one more issue, if for some reason someone who is on the edge of death and hasn’t been baptized. As an ordained, duly called, authorized minister of the Lutheran Church, I authorize you to baptize that person, regardless of age or condition. Address the person by name and say “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” That person is baptized and we trust in the mercy and grace of God that person will be in the presence of the Lord. There are too many people who cannot make a “reasoned” choice for Jesus and even if they could, inevitably doubt arises and they question whether they did it right, right time, right place, were they really sincere, etc, etc. Were you baptized? You are saved. It’s the Holy Spirit bringing you to Jesus through baptism, it’s not about what you do, it’s about what God does to you. He saves you, not your decision to be saved.