Christian Priorities

Doing good, working hard and crying out against evil are good. But for new testament Christians, is this Christ’s priority? Jesus addresses the church of Ephesus about this:

Revelation 2:2-6 (NLT) “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
“But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. But this is in your favor: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, just as I do.

Other translations render a portion of verse 4 as “you have left your first love” (NKJV) or forsaken (NIV). The NAB says “You have lost the love you had at first”.

Jesus made it clear that his priorities are “Loving God and loving people” (Luke 10:27) and he tells the story of the Good Samaritan. In Matthew’s telling of this incident (Matt 22:34-40) He says “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Paul tells us that without love, spiritual gifts, knowledge, faith and good works amount to nothing.

In the end, what do we want to be known for doing when we stand before Christ in judgment? Our love, or our works?

Doug

If my people…

2 Chronicles 7:14 is a familiar passage for many, offering an answer to tough problems facing society:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (KJV)

I was listening to Bob Jones, a well-known modern-day prophet, speak on the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) and he mentioned this verse in passing. I saw a lesson from it:

The Church’s sins are generally not gross immorality or idolatry (although we do see that now and then). Instead, we see pride, unforgiveness, gossip, hypocrisy, contempt for those that don’t fit the mold, and other attitudes of the heart. These attitudes turn people away from the Gospel or say “You don’t fit with us” or “I don’t respect you”. We need to repent of these attitudes that are saying “not in my church” – whose church is it anyway, yours, or Jesus that hung out with tax collectors, prostitutes and “sinners”?

Doug

Loving money more than people?

1 Timothy 6:10-12a (NIV) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith….

You can’t serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). Money is a lousy idol. You can worship it, but it won’t cure you of cancer or depression, it won’t fix your relationship with your wife and family, and it won’t address your eternal destiny. Gold is used as a building material in heaven (Revelation 21), so what we value here in this life, we’ll walk on in heaven.

Jesus told us that the greatest commandments were to love God and to love people (Luke 10:27). I’ve seen money issues affect people I love and care about. I know Christians that have let money become a reason to break fellowship. They won’t publicly put each other down, but they won’t put it behind them and reconcile, either. Their offense and hurt feelings over money is more important to them than the relationship.

How we pass the “money test” is one of the signs of our Christian maturity.

Doug

Reaping and Sowing

One of the universal spiritual laws that God put into earth at the creation was the law of sowing and reaping, where things produce after their own kind – you don’t plant soybeans and reap corn, for example. In a moral context, some refer to this as “karma” or “whatever goes around, comes around”. In Galatians 6, Paul presents this principle in the context of Christianity:

Galatians 6:7-9 (NKJV) Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

A few key points from this passage:

First, that there will be a time of reaping – expect it. This is true for good and for bad, as Paul compares “sowing to the flesh” and “sowing to the Spirit”. Some people have the attitude that what harm they’ve done won’t catch up with them. Others have an attitude that they’re always giving and doing good, and they’re not convinced there will be a benefit.

Second, if you’re sowing good – whether it’s charitable contributions, or doing a good job at your work, or being kind to unkind people – and expecting a return, don’t give up. How many times has it been said “If you quit, you’ll never know how close you were to the finish”?

Third, “due season” is not always on our schedule. I recently heard Dr Leroy Thompson say “God deals with timing, not time”. 2 Peter 3:8 says that to the Lord, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day. Isaiah 46:10 says that God sees the end from the beginning – He is eternal, and His perspective is as one that is looking at the time line from outside of it, rather than as a part of it.

Don’t give up!

Doug

Sound teaching

This came out of the teaching for Thursday evening Bible study, and from there I started writing it on Facebook. Some will consider this a controversial statement:

Any Bible teaching that conflicts with Jesus’ teachings, actions, or ministry should be questioned.

In John 5:19 (NIV), we read ‘Jesus gave them [Jewish leaders] this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.’

Jesus always did the will of His Father (John 6:38), for He and the Father are one (John 10:30), united in purpose even from the beginning (Genesis 1:1-2, 26).

Some examples:
Jesus was quite OK with the woman at the well (a Samaritan) telling people about him … and Mary Magdalene announcing His resurrection first … and his mother Mary was in the upper room at Pentecost. Why is it some churches have such a hangup about women sharing the good news if Jesus didn’t?

Jesus never told anyone to get their life straightened out before they came to him, for salvation or healing. How many churches say “If you give up X then maybe God will save/heal you?” He said “Go and sin no more” AFTER he ministered to them (John 5:14, 8:11).

Jesus healed EVERYONE that came to him. Many churches make excuses why God doesn’t heal in this season of church history, or why He only heals some small number of people. If Jesus the anointed one (Christ) is the same yesterday, today and forever, and if He is the head of the church (Eph 1:22-23) then either our theology or our practice is lacking.

Doug

Bowls of prayer

Revelation 5:8, 8:3-5 (NIV)
And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. [...]
Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.

Our prayers are incense before God. If we realized this, we would find it much less a labor to pray. Picture God taking a good strong whiff and saying “Ahh, my saints’ prayers! They smell wonderful!”

We can also find the lesson here that not every prayer is answered right away. We can see the “throwing the bowl to the earth” as symbolic of sending the answer. Sometimes it takes more than one prayer, or the prayers of more than one person, to “fill the bowl”. It is our job to ask in faith, believing that we receive when we pray (Mark 11:24, Matthew 21:22).

In Luke 11:9, where we’re told to ask, seek, and knock, the Greek verbs are in the “present imperative” tense, which implies continuing action. One reading might be “Ask, and keep on asking … seek, and keep on seeking … knock, and keep on knocking”. We don’t want to get into vain repetition (Matthew 6:7) or prayers inspired by fear and worry rather than faith. But keep filling your bowl, approaching God in faith, believe that you receive each time you go back with your request. If you quit praying, your bowl may never fill.

Doug

Why did Jesus come?

Why did Jesus come? To redeem us? Yes (Galatians 3:13). To forgive us? Yes (Luke 23:34). To give us eternal life? Yes (John 3:16) To reconcile us to God? Yes (2 Corinthians 5:18-20). To re-create us? Yes (2 Corinthians 5:17). But if I had to sum up what He did in God’s plan of redemption, this would be my answer:

1 John 3:8b (NIV) The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.

Destroy the devil’s work. What are the devil’s works? Taking us out of fellowship with God. That made us vulnerable to sin and all of its side-effects – death, sickness, lack, depression, and fear, for starters (look at Deuteronomy 28 for an extended list). That’s what Christ redeemed us from – the curse of the Law. Instead we are once again related to God, with the benefits of that relationship to a good Father.

Look at what Jesus sent His disciples to do:

Matthew 10:7-8 (NIV) As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.

Jesus told us we’d receive power to witness to what He’s done when the Holy Spirit comes (Acts 1:8) and gave us a list of things that should accompany preaching (Mark 16:15-20). Are we as Christians working towards that goal of “doing what Jesus did”? Telling people about God’s love and goodness, and demonstrating it? Or are we busy making ourselves comfortable in our homes and churches, while we hope and pray that He will come back quickly?

Doug

Identification

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NIV)
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

“Identification” with Christ is the idea that we are not just “sinners saved by grace”, but new creations, recreated to be like Jesus. We’re transformed, not unlike when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. This is a one-way transformation, the butterfly does not go back and forth between the two stages.

Jesus became as we were – men born of a woman and subject to temptation – so that He could make us to be like Him. 1 Corinthians 15:22 (NKJV) says “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” But we don’t always think that way. Too often believers are like a butterfly that keeps thinking and acting like a caterpillar. We hang onto our identification with Adam, rather than our identification with Christ. It’s instructive here to read Romans 5:12-21 which further contrasts Adam-life and Christ-life.

There are about 135 verses in the New Testament that identify us with Christ – “in Him”, “in whom”, “Through Christ”. These verses describe our position in Christ. A list of these verses is here. Here are a few of those verses:

• We have been crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20)
• We have died and been buried with Christ (Romans 6:2-5)
• We have been made alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5)
• We are raised with Christ (Ephesians 2:6, Colossians 3:1)
• We are positionally seated with Christ (Ephesians 2:6) – we can boldly go to God’s throne of grace (Hebrews 4:14-16)
• We are joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17)
• We reign with Christ (Romans 5:17, Revelation 1:6, 5:10)

We live FAR below what Christ has done for us – in the way we approach God in prayer, in the way we respond to life and circumstances, in our hopes and expectations. We need to recognize what Christ has done for us and who he has recreated us to be. We didn’t get there by our own efforts, but we can’t lose sight of what He has done in and for us.

Doug

Glory restored

God covered man with His glory at creation – “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26 NKJV). It was as if God looked in a mirror and used that as His pattern for how to design and fashion man.

Psalm 8:3-6 (NASB)
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet…

The word “God” in verse 5 is the correct translation. The Hebrew word is Elohim, which is consistently translated as “God” – except in this verse! Saying “man was made to be a little lower than God” makes some people nervous. Translating it as “angels” (NKJV) or “heavenly beings” (NIV) started in Jewish traditions, was carried over into the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) and even respected modern translations. For example, the NLT says “a god”.

In creation, God created man to be like Him, and covered man with glory. This is why they didn’t realize they were naked until after the fall – the glory acted as a robe for them (Genesis 3:7). Once they lost their glory, they felt they needed some other covering – their heavenly covering was gone.

That glory’s been restored to us! While Jesus was praying in John 17:22, he said: “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one…” (NKJV)

As we take time to learn more about Christ, to spend time in fellowship with him, we are transformed by that glory and image:

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NKJV) But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

We have no idea what all God has given us, the extent of what Jesus has done for us, and how it affects us. We live so far below who He has made us to be, because we look at our own lives, failures, and circumstances, instead of looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2)

Doug

Living from Heaven

Colossians 3:1-2 (NIV) Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

It’s not that we’re to be so heavenly-minded we’re no earthly good. Instead, we realize that our supply, our strength, our value and purpose don’t come from earth, but from heaven. That’s why we set our eyes on heaven.

In heaven, there is no lack. In heaven, there is no sickness. In heaven, there are no critics. In heaven, you have value that men might never see when judging you by their values.

Doug