What is Humility?

Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and grace on the cross as well as a deep understanding of our sinfulness.

That’s the twin reality that all genuine humility is rooted in: God’s holiness and our sinfulness. Without an honest awareness of both these realities…, all self-evaluation will be skewed and we’ll fail to either understand or practice true humility. We’ll miss out on experiencing the promise and the pleasures that humility offers. – C.J. Mahaney (from Humility – True Greatness page 21-22) Humility can only come from a deep understanding of God’s purpose of the gospel in the lives of men.

One of the first shots fired across the bow of our opponents in “disagreements” with other believers over doctrine (or really any other topic that is based in scripture interpretation) is the accusation that they are not humble. The fact that we would make such a charge at all should, in fact, cause us to question our own humility. We should never make that charge because the person we may be accusing may very well be humble if we use the definition above. He or she may know to their core that they are not holy and are very sinful in comparison to God’s perfection.

“By the Grace of God I Am What I Am”

 

Culture Wars or Not — Its really about the Gospel

I really like going to the internetmonk blog. Here is what he posted recently:

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/why-electing-palin-or-huckabee-makes-more-sense-to-you-than-reforming-your-church

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-tactics-of-failure-why-the-culture-war-makes-sense-to-spiritually-empty-evangelicals

I am suggesting, therefore, that the increasing interest in the culture war among evangelicals is not an example of a reinvigorated evangelicalism remaking its culture. Instead, I believe the intense focus by evangelicals on political and cultural issues is evidence of a spiritually empty and unformed evangelicalism being led by short-sighted leaders toward a mistaken version of the Kingdom of God on earth.

The Culture War makes sense to Christians who have little or no idea how to be Christians in this culture except to oppose liberals and fight for a conservative political and social agenda- an agenda often less than completely examined in the light of scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Those evangelicals- like Greg Boyd- who have challenged or broken the identification with the political right can testify to how they are immediately viewed. Dissenting evangelicals are labeled as pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and pro- Democrat instantly. The rhetoric of the culture warriors is relentless in associating dissenting evangelicals of every kind with the issues of abortion and homosexuality. No one could be blamed for believing that evangelicalism was a modestly spiritual movement with the goal of banning abortion and gay marriage.

In this scenario, there are a number of bizarre takes. The SBC’s most well known theologian doesn’t write books of theology. He hosts a daily talk radio program on cultural war issues. Rod Parsley may preach about miracles, but he uses his influence to elect candidates and promote political causes. Politicians elected by evangelicals get re-elected by appealing to the hot button culture war issues, but their positions on issues like gambling or Aid to Africa are unpredictable and often unknown. The Left Behind movies become video games where the godless are shot by Christians defending themselves. And of course, Ann Coulter appears on TBN, promoting her take on why evangelicals ought to care about the influence of real “godless” liberals.

Where is the Gospel? Where is the missional calling of the Christian? Where is the church’s ministry of spiritual formation? Where are ministries of Word and Sacrament? All of these are increasingly buried under doublespeak and culture war rhetoric. Evangelicalism is being betrayed by many of its leaders who are building their “ministries” by the appeal to anything but the Gospel and compassion of Jesus.

The culture war agenda increasingly makes sense to evangelicals who are spiritually unformed, distracted and misled. I cannot approve of Greg Boyd’s theology of God’s knowledge, but I can say that his stand against the encroachments of the culture warriors- encroachments that come from outside the church and seek to dictate the work of the ministry itself- is commendable.

Why is Ann Coulter on TBN? Because we understand her and her war against liberals.

Thanks Michael Spencer for that post!

 

Warriors of Love

The Greatest Commandment

³⁴Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” ³⁷Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{[b] 38}This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[c] 40}All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Also

(Gal 5:6) For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

I know I have had some discussions with friends about Gods love and how important it is…. however, at the same time I know man wants to quantifiy and measure Gods love by saying things about Gods justice and fearing God.  I understand what they are trying to say… but my fear is that we are putting limits on the limitless as we do this.  We are sometimes saying God I know loves me but I want to control your thinking and tell you about Gods sovereignty and justice so I can conform you in my own personal image rather and disguise it as being in Gods image as I do it.

Scripture tells us Gods draws us to him by His kindness.  Gods unsurpassable worth given to us on the cross needs to be seen clearly for us to understand justice, wrath, or sovereignty.  The old testament points to the cross and the new testament and the gospel message. Never forget that!

I have been given some recent consideration on what it means to be  a  “warrior” of Gods love.  To not fall back in self pity when I see my own sin or the sins of others …. but to continue to love them… maybe waiting patiently for the opportuntity to love them as they deal with their own stuff and sin.

The idea of being a warrior of love means you realize loving others is not easy or something that is just opportunistic for you. It takes relational work!  It means you fight for love and dont fall back when you see the sins or problems of the world. You can do this because we see the ultimate example of this on the cross in Jesus Christ!

How do we become warriors of love!

 

Sanctification

I tend to struggle with the idea of mans sanctification.  I tend to disagree a bit with the reformers on it.  For one the idea of faith without works I am vehemently for.

On the other side if the coin I can become arminian and believe man needs to cooperate synergistically  with God as much as his sinful nature will allow.   Is it the cooperative synergism with God that sanctifies me?  I dont know but I dont loudly proclaims against this synergism either like some do in the religious ranks just to hang on to a theological point.

No matter how my sanctification works I know I have Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith. Because of what Jesus did I have assurance that He will see me through and not because of anything I can do.

In my own personal walk I have seen sanctification come through my understanding of my wife.  She is radically different from me.   As I “work” to understand this love despite these radical differences and as we both collectively and continuously embrace the Gospel I believe I  see growth.

Hopefully its Gods sanctified work through Jesus Christ being reflected in me …. I dont know… but it feels good.

 

Expulsive, Replacement, Rejoicing of Jesus Christ in the face of the Idols and Lusts of this world

I have to admit I am a fan of  Tim Keller’s ministry in New York City.   Even though Tim did not preach anything new to me he does summarize a lot of things that have  been speaking to me for my Christian life as I have been dealing with my own sin.

One my main reasons for liking Tim is he sees sin for what it is and he is honest about it.  He proclaims against worldly and religious sin equally.  He also sees sin at the idolatry level and not just the behavioral level.

I was reading a book the other day that said the authur could increase your understanding of woman if men could understand 2 words: radically different. I have come to realize my wife is radically different from me.  At the same time I now know that maybe 95% of my own personal sanctification will take place as I learn to be in relationship with her in spite of these radical differences. As I learn to live in understanding with her and in a scripturally intimate one-flesh relationship I can see much of my sanctification beginning to take place as we both learn to understand each other but ultimately embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ…. together.

One of the the problems man has is that  we are less about the underlying sin and dealing with intimate relationships  and more about the external behavior.  Of course we need to deal with the day to day practical aspects of scripture and our behavior;   but we also need to see the Pain and Passion of Christ on the Cross dying for a man He loved as we deal with the idolatry of our heart.

This passion Christ had for us needs to translate into a passion that man has “in Christ” and in walking in repentance and relationship daily.  However, if we dont see how deep our sin is then Christs’ purpose on the Cross does not electrify the Christian into a changed heart and  to ultimately remove the idols of the heart.

Tim Keller once said [paraphrased] what man needs is expulsive, replacement rejoicing of Jesus Christ in the face of our idols. Well said Tim. What I want to add to this is we also need to rejoice in Gods plan and design for man…. specifically the one-flesh union of your spouse if you are married.  We need to rejoice in his sovereign life-changing grace and design for us.  In the following article Thomas Chalmers says the same thing as Tim. An mp3 of the sermon with the quote of Tim Kellers can be found here —> Gospel Realization.    The article of Thomas Chalmers is below:

http://www.parishpres.org/documents/The%20Expulsive%20Power%20of%20a%20New%20Affection.pdf

As Chalmers discusses mans sin and behavior toward sin he makes the following claim:

Misplaced Affections[of the world] Need to be Replaced by the Far Greater Power of the Affection of the Gospel

Lets think about that.  Chalmers is telling us that misplaced affections (mans idolatry, lust, and sin) need to be replaced by something greater and he offers the Gospel, the good news of what Christ did for us,  as that greater affection.  For the Christian we need to engage in the Passions of Gods purpose and design for us so we dont allow temptation to enter into our hearts.   Christ needs to come first, Gods provisions for us need to follow, and the rest will work out. Chalmers goes on to say

[Mans love] becomes love in a state of indulgence. Under the impulse of desire, man feels himself urged onward in some path or pursuit of activity for its  gratification. The faculties of his mind are put into busy exercise. In the steady direction of one great and engrossing interest, his attention is recalled from the many reveries into which it might otherwise have wandered; and the powers of his body are forced away from an indolence in which it else might have languished;  and that time is crowded with occupation, which but for some object of keen and devoted ambition, might have driveled along in successive hours of weariness and distaste

Chalmers here is discussing an obsessive compulsive or addictive trend in man… and many people have this in some form or another (if you are honest with yourself). In the case of love he is discussing obsession or addiction over sexual tendencies possibly.  The  document was written in the 1800’s so he probably did not feel like he could openly state that it may be a sexual addiction or obsession.

Chalmers hit the nail on the head.  This is why Tim Keller said man needs expulsive, replacement, rejoicing of Jesus Christ in the face of mans idols (mans worldly passions).   We can not fight mans addictions and Satans lusts withoug supplanting it with something greater and more powerful.  That greater power is two things: (1)  it is Jesus Christ and (2) it is Gods sovereign design for man.  If we don’t learn to fight satans lusts and mans idolatry of the world with Gods passion, in Christ,  then we are giving Satan a foothold to twist the truth.  Satan seldom gives man a full lie; he normally dealsn in half truth (also half lies) that look  much like the truth.

Chalmers goes on to offer a solution:

A New Affection is More Successful in Replacing an  Old Affection than Simply Trying to End it Without Supplanting it With Something Better

What I have seen in todays world is that man has replaced the passion seen in many books of scripture with a knowledge based approach to scripture.  Man, it seems to me,  has replaced a knowledge of the heart with a knowledge of the head.   Now do NOT get me wrong, we need to understand scripture but, as I see it , many people and especially many marriages,  have just learned to be ‘acceptable’ in Christ.  We have learned to peacfully co-exist in Christ.  And even though  we do quite often do this in full understanding of scripture, we use scripture in a kind of pharasaical, religious way — which is a kind of idolatry of its own.

I personally do not want to just peacefully co-exist with my wife; and I dont want to just be an  ’acceptable’ Marriage in Christ.    My wife deserves a lot more than that.  I know I will struggle in this world and Satan will try to derail me.  I will replace the lusts of the world with the passion of the gospel.   In Christ and the Gospel  I can actualize the passion of Gods design for my marriage.  In this paradigm of the Gospel thinking it has already been done for me so I can have the confidence to overcome.  This passionate, intimate relationship that God wants to have with me can be found by what Jesus did for me on the Cross. Also,  this passionate language of Gods design for my marriage can be found in the Wisdom books of the Bible; Psalms, song of solomon, Proverbs, Job,Ecclesiastes.

At least a portion of my sanctification depends on understanding the Gospel deeply and learning to live in relationship and understanding of why my wife is radically different from me.   Not many people or marriages want to go so far to replace the lust of the world with passions of God.   Why? Because this is hard, relationally time consuming work and it means we have to take risks emotionally to make progress toward this goal with the people  that also have the power to hurt us the most.  Many marriages do NOT live in “Gospel freedom”……. they have walls of  sin or performance based Christianity surrounding the heart of the individuals. With a deep understanding of what Jesus did we can have hope of actualizing spiritual one-flesh intimacy in our Marriages and we have the hope of overcoming the lusts of the world with the passions of God. These walls can only come down with a passionate understanding of what Christ did for me on the Cross.   Because Jesus has already won the battle for me it means I can take the risks I need to take to have an emotional and spiritual intimacy and vulnerability with my wife.  I just need to remember…………………….

THE GOSPEL — THE POWER OF GOD!!!!!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is and Jesus’ purpose on the cross tell us …
We are more sinful and weak than we ever cared to admit and…
We are more loved and accepted than we ever dared to hope.

http://centralityofthegospel.wordpress.com/jon-spadino-vision-statement/

 

The core of my heart

I keep coming back to this and rearranging some words…

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is…
We are more sinful and weak than we ever dared to admit and…
We are more loved and accepted than we ever dared to hope.

In recent years I have been working hard at understanding my core and to not deviate far from it. In essence to try to remain in the sweet spot of Gods word. The sweet spot to me is the Gospel message. If we don’t keep that clearly in our sites we can eventually use scripture to damage relationships as we claim obedience or attempted obedience in some judgmental way.

I want to expand on some personal reasons why I believe we as Christians need to “Keep the main thing the main thing” and continually beat the gospel message about Christ into our heads. We need to re-remind each other of the Gospel message continuously. Martin Luther says, “The truth of the Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine….Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.” (on Gal.2:14f). The gospel might be easy to understand but it is very difficult to apply in a persons life!!!!!

What I have seen [and participated in] is that as sinners we can twist anything and everything, including scripture, in idolatrous ways and suck life out of it for ourselves. People can spend years in Bible Study and still not be closer to Christ and understand the Gospel message any better than they did previously. We have a tendency to use scripture fore getting over bumps in life as opposed to drawing into more intimate relationships with God and the important people around us.

In the book of Genesis, before the fall of man, scripture says we were naked and unashamed. We had an intimate trust relationship with each other and God. After the fall of man, without the Gospel true intimacy to God, Christ, and each other is impossible. We can not achieve the intimate relationships we were designed by God to have without the Gospel message. Without the gospel, we will feel the need to portray some level of worthiness or holiness around each other. We can’t discuss our true limitations, our shortcomings, our sins as we put on a “mask” of obedience or attempted obedience on. True obedience requires a deep understanding or our sin and an intimacy and vulnerability that only come from needing a Savior. Without this ground leveling concept of mans total depravity we just CANT achieve intimacy with God, our spouses, or other sinners.

We have, for whatever reason, learned to live our lives as a sequence of proofs. We start our by proving how great a husband I can be, then a great father, then a great lover, a great moral upright citizen in the pews of MY church… whatever! Using  a sports analogy, eventually we look down the bench and the bench is empty of any more proofs we can ever have. We see the success and failure of many of these proofs. In the areas where the proofs were successful we get self righteous and in the areas the proofs were unsuccessful we either learn to be humble or we learn to avoid these areas and live withdrawn, insecure, or overly protective lives and find a defensive form of self righteousness. All of these self-salvation proofs we spend countless hours pursuing come from not finding our sense of approval DEEPLY “in Christ”. Unfortunately, this problem is easier to understand than it is to apply in real life. This is why an on-going commitment to not only repenting of sins, but more importantly repenting of the sins behind the sins … or the idolatry of our sins is so important. To understand our idolatry at a deep level we need to become sleuths and detectives about what feelings and situations trigger our sin and then to seek to repent and remove those sin triggers. Many people repent of their sins but far fewer learn to repent of the sins behind the sins. Only a DEEP understanding of the Gospel and the Cross and what Jesus did allows us to be vulnerability honest to God and with ourselves about our sin.

We all have different histories, insecurities, and emotions. We have not walked in each others shoes. We sin “yes”, we are selfish yes. But we yearn for a close, intimate, trust with Christ and each other. IF we focus on the externals, “the problem”, without transparently sharing our intimate heart issue we will ultimately destroy what we once had. If we share our intimate issues and especially our feelings and emotions in a transparent, deeper way with other men and with our spouses and if our spouse can not focus on the externals then the problem is not quite as daunting. Eventually a deeper, more intimate trust than the “external behavior” based trust is built. Hopefully this trust will last forever. All of this is built on the idea that the external behavior is not the problem. If fact, focusing on the externals gets IN THE WAY of true intimacy, it gets in the way of resolving sin since its not getting to the “HEART” of where the deeper problem lies. IF we focus on the externals then we are doomed to a pattern of judgment, hypocrisy, and pharisaic (yes the Pharisee that lives in all of us) behavior. We learn to not share our feelings since we CAN’T really share them without being condemned by the other person. Intimacy and trust will always be ultimately destroyed in a world focused on externals because the vernier of the externals is never a reflection of mans true condition.

We tend to focus on the problem …. but a wise person once told me “THE PROBLEM IS NOT ALWAYS THE PROBLEM”. As a matter of fact, focusing on the problem often only tightens the power of the noose around our necks in dealing with the problem. As we focus on the problem, the problem becomes more entrenched in our lives. Dealing with the underlying “heart issue” is the problem and sharing those in a transparent way is essential to maintaining intimacy with God and others. Many people repent of their sins but few people repent of the sins behind the sins and few see sin at the deep level that scripture describes. A deep understanding of the Cross, a deep understanding of the Gospel is the trigger to allow us to start being honest with ourselves.

The Gospel freedom I am discussing on this BLOG topic gives us the ability to be honest about ourselves, to understand the sin behind the sin, to see our own religious idolatry as well as our irreligious idolatry, and to become a sleuth of our own hearts through the power of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Anyhow, read my Vision Statement and you will understand me more.

Also, if we find our self-worth in ONLY external behaviors without a deeper understanding of sin and without a deeper understanding of the heart, we eventually lose the boldness and braveness to reach out to each other and to take risks emotionally with each other in loving ways as our spouse and friends eventually see through the masks of artificiality we put on each morning. We will portray our relationships, kids, etc as more perfect than they really are and build up a net of lies to each other. Real “gospel” transformation without intimacy and trust is impossible and eventually becomes focused on external results and behavior only.

True intimacy does not put on a face or our “Sunday best” and it attempts to have an intimate inner relationship as opposed to focusing on externals. It comes with heartfelt communication. Quite often people or spouses have beaten the ability of their partner or friend to confess their weaknesses to each other as we attempt to speak to them in Christian-ese. We become too impatient to allow Gods life changing relationship through Jesus Christ transform us from the inside out. Instead we try to transform each other from the outside in. In doing so intimacy and trust in our relationship is damaged and broken and it becomes almost impossible to reclaim as we persist in this superficial area for too long. We lose the capacity for intimacy quite often as we attempt to grow as a Christian when we focus on external moral behavior. With this type of deeper intimacy comes deep trust as well. As people we tend to see trust as if you do this behavior then I trust and if you do that behavior then I distrust you. However, gospel trust, begins with an understanding that we are more sinful than we cared to ever admit. If we actually believe that then intimacy is really about sharing our emotional frailty as humans. if we can share this frailty on a deeply emotional level than we can develop a trust much deeper than the one based on performance and the right behavior. This vulnerable openness is the beginning of a “trust” relationship with God and the people around us. It is the starting {and maybe the ending} point of our sanctification. A much deeper intimacy with each other comes after we have fallen and after we realize how great our need is for a savior and how great our need is for transparent, deep, emotional and spiritual intimacy.

The problem we have as Christians is we try to make obedience the main product of the Christian walk. It it not the product of the Christian walk it is a by-product of the Christian walk. In my real life experiences (long story here) I believe Christians who lead or EASILY throw out the words “obedience” and “truth” do not fully grasp the Gospel message. We tend to show how highly insecure and very unsure we are of our relationship with Christ and the the people around us when we use language like this all the time. The focus we have on externals will destroy our relationships eventually or at best ONLY maintain the relationship we have with others. We will never get to deep “intimacy” in Christ or with people around us. I don’t say this in a judging way, I say this in a way that I hope causes people reading this to reflect on the purpose and core of why they desire to be a Christian. If we can avoid focussing on externals (being a moralist) we can be patient with slow growth or lapses and realize the complexity of change and growth in grace. What many of the self righteouss “truth and obedience” mongers do NOT realize is that both our justification and our sanctification come from one source and that source is NOT my will. The only righteousness we have comes through the Cross and what Jesus did in my place.

“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.” — Tim Keller Again

The Gospel path to intimacy is not the path of least resistant approach. It means we share deeply the things hurting and we try deeply to understand the hurts of others. We don’t rashly and quickly jump to the ideas of external based Christianity where we quickly and easily place ourselves over and above others. We realize that how you feel is separate from what you do. To deal with the problem you do not deal with the external problem but you intimately discuss the inner workings of your emotions and how it works with you in light of your history. This intimacy requires relational freedom to express the true you!

Yes, our behavior does matter (do not get me wrong) and our feelings should not drive our behaviors …. But before we ever get real about our poor present behaviors and sins we need to get wooden with our past, our sin triggers, our feelings, our families of origin., etc… and ultimately we need get wooden about our repentance. Man can not get wooden with his sins unless he gets wooden with his past and …. ultimately …. to shine the Gospel and Gods mercy on rooms in our  house that don’t understand mercy and grace.

The gospel, however, gives you freedom to express yourself the way you really are and to handle the wrong things that you will do. You won’t have to deny, spin, or repress the truth about yourself. Only with the support of hearing Jesus say, “You are capable of terrible things, but I am absolutely, unconditionally committed to you,” will you be able to be honest with yourself.  A continual re-discovery of the gospel in our Christian walk is absolutely necessary for intimacy and transparency with Christ and transparency and intimacy with Christ is necessary for real transformation. A continual re-discovery of the gospel in our Christian walk is absolutely necessary for intimacy and transparency with each other and transparency and intimacy with each other is necessary for real transformed relationships.

Martin Luther once said the following: “The principal point of the law is to make men not better but worse, But by the knowledge of their sin they may be humbled, terrified, bruised, and broken … and by this means they may be driven by Grace so to come to Christ”. Scott Sauls said in a sermon once “That we will never hunger for Christs beauty until we have seen the filth of our own vain efforts to make ourselves beautiful” .  Both of these are great summary sentences cause by reflecting on scripture and validly good attempts to understand scripture through the eyes of Christ.  Mans beauty and worth comes from the tree of Calvary and “in Christ” we are beautiful… not because of religious, moral,  or worldly achievements.

Many people have come to question their irreligious, worldly sin; David when confronted by Nathan, the younger brother (in the parable of the Prodigal Son) when he came to all of his ends. However, few people ever question their religious pride and idolatry; for example the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal son. It’s time to see the cross for what it is.   It’s time to see man for what he is. We are loved and the greatest example of love is Jesus dying on the Cross for my sins. Because of Jesus, because of the cross … I have unsurpassable worth … and both my worldly pride and religious pride needs to be shattered.

The Gospel is not the beginning of our Christian walk it IS the entirety of the Christian walk! Let’s keep the Gospel message of Jesus Christ in focus!

 

Class Envy and self-selective judgement and self-selective self righteousness

I want to write a religious cartoon strip on this topic but do not have the artistic skills to do it. The cartoon would show one person with a very small piece of pie looking at another person with a a medium sized piece of pie. The person with the small piece is looking at the one with a bigger piece wishing his piece of the pie was just as big. The person with a medium sized piece is looking at a person with a large piece of pie doing the exact same thing — wishing he had as much pie as the next person. One of mans basic problems is pie envy…. to such a degree that entire systems of government have been established (called socialism) because of  “pie” envy.

The problem of equitability of pie and greed has been tried to be fixed by  socialist countries… but real freedom has never been obtained.  Capitalism has a different type of bondage to greed.   As a matter of fact the difference between socialism and capitalism is that one system wants to tries to squash greed everywhere and the other will allow greed everywhere.

I agree with Greg Boyd on his take on the tree of knowledge of good and evil .  He believes, as do I,  that as man eats from the tree of knowledge oif good and evil they live in judgement from someone that is just different from them.  Our judgment system and network is “self-selective”  to the point where we have a different type of judgement schema from a person that is looking at us in judgment.  We can have a religious schema of judgment that the pharisees used or it can be some schema baased upon our particular brand of how we see religion and Christianity. Or we can have a worldy schema of judgment and look down on all religion.  Its ironic to think that both sides are engaging in their particular form of pie envy  as they both live in judgment of each side as we are self-selective in our judgement schema based upon our socio-economic schema, our upbringing, and view of religious and political correctness (PC & RC).

This judgment system we use makes man want to fix other people rather rather than walking  along side them and understanding and building relationships and showing how God has worked in our lives.  Our quick fix mentality when its based upon our particular form of judgment and our particular form of self-righteousness blocks off our ability to love others and ultimately to demonstrate and discuss the true Gospel because the Gospel will also include a number of personal additions other than Christ alone!

We can not listen very well  or build relationships as we to try  fix the person with just a different piece of the pie than us because we just don’t see other people as on the same level playing field as us!  The Gospel completely levels the playing field so we can talk to people eye to eye and not look down or up to others!

Man does have self-selective judgment and self-selective self righteousness as we attempt ti interpret Gods truths in scripture.  But how do we fight it.   The only way to fight it is quit feeding from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and to stare at the Gospel of grace until we clearly understand how Christ did EVERYTHING for us.

In view of the cross, in view of the gospel, in view of the Calvary love of Jesus Christ… only then can I start to understand what real obedience is!!!!!!!

 

What is the Gospel?

What is the Gospel? The word gospel simply means “good news.” The central message of the Bible is the gospel, or good news, about the person and work of Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:1–4, Paul provides the most succinct summary of the gospel: the man Jesus is also God, or Christ, and died on a cross in our place, paying the penalty for our sins; three days later He rose to conquer sin and death and give the gift of salvation to all who believe in Him alone for eternal life.

The great reformer Martin Luther rightly said that, as sinners, we are prone to pursue a relationship with God in one of two ways. The first is religion/spirituality and the second is the gospel kind of relationship with Jesus Christ centered on His purpose on the cross. The two are antithetical in every way.

Religion says that if we obey God He will love us. The gospel says that it is because God has loved us through Jesus that we can obey.

Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad people. The gospel says that the world is filled with bad people who are either repentant or unrepentant.

Religion says that you should trust in what you do as a good moral person. The gospel says that you should trust in the perfectly sinless life of Jesus because He alone is the only good and truly moral person who will ever live.

The goal of religion is to get from God such things as health, wealth, insight, power, and control. The goal of the gospel is not the gifts God gives, but rather God as the gift given to us by grace.

Religion is about what I have to do. The gospel is about what I get to do. Religion sees hardship in life as punishment from God. The gospel sees hardship in life as sanctifying affliction that reminds us of Jesus’ sufferings and is used by God in love to make us more like Jesus. Religion is about me. The gospel is about Jesus.

Religion leads to an uncertainty about my standing before God because I never know if I have done enough to please God. The gospel leads to a certainty about my standing before God because of the finished work of Jesus on my behalf on the cross.

Religion ends in either pride (because I think I am better than other people) or despair (because I continually fall short of God’s commands). The gospel ends in humble and confident joy because of the power of Jesus at work for me, in me, through me, and sometimes in spite of me.

 

Christian Failure and Success and Michael Jordan

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

~ Michael Jordan

The Gospel message gives us the ability to fail and not to take it personally! “The gospel creates the only kind of grief over sin which is clean and which does not crush. It says: ‘Look at Jesus dying for you! He won’t leave you or abandon you–how then can you respond as you are? He suffered so you wouldn’t do this thing! You are not living as though you are loved! As his child! It is not because he will abandon you that you should be holy, but because this is the one who at inestimable cost to himself has said he won’t ever abandon you!

The Gospel of Jesus Christ and Jesus’ purpose on the cross tell us …
We are more sinful and weak than we ever cared to admit and…
We are more loved and accepted than we ever dared to hope.

We will never hunger for Christs’ beauty until we have seen the filth of our own vain efforts to make ourselves beautiful.

 

The 3 fundamental elements of the Christian walk

This may seem like and odd post for some. I have done a good job of being in the word the last 2-3 years. However, partially intentionally, partially due to my own history, but mostly I believe because God has not released me from this Gospel-centric view of scripture I keep coming back to many of the same things as God tells me DO NOT FORGET this.

There are three elements in my opinion as each person reads and interprets scripture. Theses elements are truth, Gods sovereignty, and the Cross or the Gospel.

Each person as he/she matures in faith mixes these 3 things in different proportions. In my life I have seen some very smug people use the word truth in hurtful ways. I hope nobody else will ever experience this. It is an image I will never forget as I read this persons smug body language as she used the word “truth” to hurt another person. As I read her smug body language I even recall her saying this was the fruit of the spirit somehow equating her smugness to “strength” in her mind.

One of the issues I have seen is the Gospel needs to be not just another truth among a bunch of other truths. Is is the truth of of all truths in the Christian walk. It is not just another example of Gods sovereignty. The Gospel is gods ultimate plan of how he demonstrates his sovereignty.

Jesus gave an advanced hermeneutics seminar in Luke 24: everything in the OT points to me. In Peter there is also an echo in 1 Pet. 1:10-12 of that same idea.

As we mix toegether Gods sovereignty and truth it is important to do so with Gods mercy, the cross, and the Gospel in mind. I believe, the pharisees understood Gods sovereignty and they believed they had ALL truth on their side. The one thing they did not have was the Gospel message of Jesus Christ in how they thought. Likewise today, many pharasaical types of people may discuss Gods sovereignty and truth but leave the Gospel behind. The Gospel and the cross in our thinkology is what prevents us from becoming pharasaical.

Sorry for rambling… not my best post!