A display of Christ or a Distortion?

God struck me with a thought today. I claim to know and love God, and I also claim to love people. But it is so easy to be impersonal as I interact with people. This is not a proper representation of Christ. In fact it is a display of my natural function rather than a supernatural interaction. Several things tell me this is true.

1. Christ was everything but impersonal, his daily interaction with common people was marked by compassion. He paid special attention to women and children when it was not the cultural norm.
2. John in his 1st letter states the the people of God prove their love for God by their love for people.
3. When Jesus was asked to some up the Old Testament, he said the the we are toe Love the LORD with all of our heart, soul, and mind, furthermore we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Then Jesus went on to qualify our neighbor as anyone, even our enemy!
4. Finally, and most significantly Christ has displayed the personal love of God thorough becoming man and dying in the place of human beings. His crucifixion was preformed for sinners who by definition and by preference are in rebellion against God. This is a personal display of the perfect holy love of God!
   

James is so right when he compares the Word to a mirror. A mirror does not lie it does nor will it tell me what I want to hear. No a mirror just shows reality like it or not. The point is the mirror has shown me that my selfishness is a hindrance to love of Christ for the world. I pray that God will help me to relate to others with the grace and compassion that properly represents His love, so that He may be glorified and others might be blessed!

Shock me God!

How easy is it to become accustom to the greatness of God's Word and the revelation of His work in time that are found there. May God help me to once again to be shocked, moved, and broken by His word. The word's of Christ are often radical. He calls me to be radical in dealing with sin:
"If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. "If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.
(Matthew 5:29-30)
He demands total allegiance:
"If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
(Luke 14:26-28)
He demands that I love Him with every aspect of my existence:
And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
(Matthew 22:37)

By His grace and for His glory may God knock me down with the force of His Word!

Western thought Collides with God's Revelation

Scripture calls believers to the reality of the supernatural nature of the universe. We live in a world that is not just a space time continuum, but it is also a world in which a spiritual/unseen God has acted. God in the person of Christ has not only atoned for human sin bodily but He has been raised and has ascended to the Father bodily. These realities are not side line issues in the Christian faith but rather these are vital issues in the application of the truths of the Christian life. In other words God has acted in the world in both the seen and unseen realms of space and time reality.
Christ's work has not only dealt with past judgments, but His work is also to be the ruling principal for believers here and now. Furthermore those who are in Christ are to live in the reality of the ongoing resurrection life of Christ!
This supernatural life is one that acknowledges a moment by moment dependence on Christ to work out the spiritual fruit of God in Christians. Which means that we must be aware the the battle is the Lord's because it is a spiritual battle, so in this life he might make us his spiritual weapons vital and useful for his glory and our growth! This means for those of us with a western mindset must acknowledge our tendency to look at life from a natural perspective. The Universe is a supernatural place where a transcendent and all powerful God works in creation, and in the lives of individual believers through the power of the Holy Spirit!

Derived from interaction with True Spirituality: by Francis Schaeffer

Search Me, O God

Search me O God & know my heart today try me O Savior , know my thoughts, I pray.
See if their be any wicked way in me; cleanse me from every sin and set me free.

I praise thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin; fulfill thy Word & make me pure within.
Fill me with fire where once I burned with shame; grant my desire to magnify thy name.

Lord, take my life & make it wholly thine; fill my poor heart with thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self, and pride; I now surrender; Lord in me abide.

O Holy Spirit, revival comes from thee; send a revival , start, the work in me.
Thy Word declares thou wilt supply our need; for blessings now, O Lord I humbly plead. Amen

Psalm 139:23-24

J. Edwin Orr --- 1936

Delivered #2

(Some thoughts to Consider)

To the Sexual Revolutionist

People can look for purpose and in any place, person, or thing. A person could look to a relationship with another person but there is only so much that one can do for another. Sex could also be a place that a person could look for fulfillment. A person can embrace sexual revolution as much as they want the end result however will not be freedom but bondage to desires for bigger and better sex than before. This is a desire that cannot be satisfied.

To the Party Animal

The party animal can only be the life of the party for so long before; their normal life no longer exists. Life has is just the moments between the next high. All since of personal worth and meaning are dulled in the grip of addiction. There is no fun without the dulling of inhibitions; there is no self-confidence outside of the high. The pursuit of the ultimate High becomes the pursuit of life itself with the end result is that there are no hopes and dreams to pursue.

To the Hopeless

There is deliverance. There is an ultimate purpose for living and their can even be peace in dying. One must accept the deliverance that can be found in the gift of salvation. There is hope of being a new person just like a butterfly emerges from the cocoon a new creature, so a person can emerge from shell of mere existence to the eternal life that can only be found in the Jesus Christ. Once a person is joined to Jesus Christ there is no divorce He will never leave them or forsake them. Once He comes into a person’s life He helps that person to live a life that is purposeful and fruitful!

Where are you seeking freedom? Are you seeking freedom in places where you will only find more bondage? New life can start this very instant! Do you want to be Delivered?

An Allegory of the Transforming Work of Christ

The work of God in the world he created is truly amazing! But as beautiful as God's work in creation is, it does not compare to the beauty of the redeeming work of Christ! The wonder of this work is beyond comprehension. In a similar way I am amazed at how a worm that is by nature domed to crawl in the fowl and dark places of the world is lifted to majesty of a butterfly. Only through a transformation! This transformation changes the nature of the creature, and the function of the creature. This creature which once fed off on the living now helps the living reproduce.This once awkward creature which was hopelessly bound to the earth now graces the sky. What a picture of the new life that is accomplished through the transforming power of Christ. The saving power of God not only cleanses and transforms human beings who kill and destroy one another, and defame their maker, but he makes new creatures who help reproduce life proceeding to more life! Thank God that their is hope for the human race in Christ!

One of the greatest human fears is that of rejection. Yet it is unavoidable, it is indeed a part of living in a broken world with broken people. We are reminded of one who can identify with us here, Christ Jesus the LORD. He came into the world he made, and he was rejected. He came as a member of God's covenant people and he was rejected. This is not the end of his identification with the brokenness of human kind. He also accepted our rejection before God. He who knew no sin became sin. Jesus took upon himself the wrath of God that was due humankind for our rebellion against our Maker. That is why we can call him Savior, he accepted the rejection that was rightly ours so, that we might be accepted. That is the story of Calvary, Christ was forsaken, so that we do not have to be. And this is the greatest news of all time, indeed it is the Gospel; that we who naturally reject God have been restored by God's merciful provisional of Christ for us. I pray that we may know the power of the grace and truth of Christ today!

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:9-14)