I hope this doesn't offend my former pastors. All of them (about six total over 28 years) have been a positive influence on my life.
The truth is I don't remember too many of their sermons. The best way for me to learn is through interaction usually in a Bible study or a small group setting. However, every so often a word or phrase from a sermon finds it's way into my heart and blesses me.
One Sunday after New Year's Day I heard a message on fresh starts and new beginnings. The pastor said that God is a God of fresh starts. That's all I remember of the teaching. I would like to share with you what that means to me.
Lamentations 3:22,23 says, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness."
2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day."
At the beginning of each new year I always think about a fresh start in my walk with the Lord. How can I know and relate to Him better? How can I improve my prayer life? Are there better ways to share Him with others? How can I better encourage others in their walk?
The best thing about starting fresh is that if I fall short or fail, He's ready to offer me another opportunity. A new chance to get up, repent if needed, and move on. God doesn't want us to fail! Let me say that again a little louder, GOD DOESN'T WANT US TO FAIL!! I am reminded of Israel and their opportunities or Peter and his.
The "fresh start" doesn't have to be yearly. It can be daily, hourly, or minute by minute. The point is that it's available.
I want to encourage you to get a fresh start. You don't have to do it alone. Get the help of a spouse, or close friend, an accountability partner. Do it with your small group or Bible study group.
God's mercies are new every morning. Have a wonderful new year. God bless y'all real good.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Jesus In The Flesh
A former pastor of mine would remind us, when Jesus was an infant He soiled His diapers. I'm sure His digestive system worked like mine does. He burped too. I'm not trying to be vulgar or irreverent. I am trying to “flesh out” Jesus in the flesh.
Another pastor always said that Jesus did not cheat. By that he meant that Jesus lived as a man on this earth. He set aside His deity (Philippians 2:6-9) as the Son of God to walk among us. He did not invoke His deity to overcome sin and temptation, thus "cheating".
My Wednesday Night Group is studying Hebrews. A few verses caught my attention and made me think about Jesus being a man.
Hebrews 2:17,18 says, "Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted."
Hebrews 4:15 says, "For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Hebrews 5:8 says, Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him," (the concept of “being made perfect” carries the idea of being complete).
Jesus was tempted and suffered. We know that in spite of temptation he did not sin. The Scriptures also say that He learned from suffering. What did Jesus have to learn?
I have an idea. Let me know what you think.
Until the birth of Jesus, the triune God never experienced life in the flesh, as man. I know this will offend many. I am not questioning God's omnipotence. Could a perfect God know what life was like for man?
I believe that Jesus had to come and live as a man to experience what we go through. He had to be tempted like us. He did so without sinning. He had to suffer to be made perfect and therefore become the perfect high priest.
As a result He is able to sympathize with us. Jesus experienced pain, joy, anger, temptation, sorrow, fear, probably every emotion we feel. He knew what it was like to be separated from the Father. Again, in all those things he did not sin. He did not cheat. So maybe the fact of Jesus’ suffering completed or made him the perfect high priest to make the once and for all offering for our sins and better understand who we are to come to our aid.
No matter what we are feeling, or what we experience, remember that Jesus went through the same things. Read the verses above again. Look for other verses in the Scriptures that confirm what I'm saying. Share what you find with me. Let's grow together. God bless y'all real good.
(Thanks for your help Rudy.)
Another pastor always said that Jesus did not cheat. By that he meant that Jesus lived as a man on this earth. He set aside His deity (Philippians 2:6-9) as the Son of God to walk among us. He did not invoke His deity to overcome sin and temptation, thus "cheating".
My Wednesday Night Group is studying Hebrews. A few verses caught my attention and made me think about Jesus being a man.
Hebrews 2:17,18 says, "Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted."
Hebrews 4:15 says, "For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
Hebrews 5:8 says, Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him," (the concept of “being made perfect” carries the idea of being complete).
Jesus was tempted and suffered. We know that in spite of temptation he did not sin. The Scriptures also say that He learned from suffering. What did Jesus have to learn?
I have an idea. Let me know what you think.
Until the birth of Jesus, the triune God never experienced life in the flesh, as man. I know this will offend many. I am not questioning God's omnipotence. Could a perfect God know what life was like for man?
I believe that Jesus had to come and live as a man to experience what we go through. He had to be tempted like us. He did so without sinning. He had to suffer to be made perfect and therefore become the perfect high priest.
As a result He is able to sympathize with us. Jesus experienced pain, joy, anger, temptation, sorrow, fear, probably every emotion we feel. He knew what it was like to be separated from the Father. Again, in all those things he did not sin. He did not cheat. So maybe the fact of Jesus’ suffering completed or made him the perfect high priest to make the once and for all offering for our sins and better understand who we are to come to our aid.
No matter what we are feeling, or what we experience, remember that Jesus went through the same things. Read the verses above again. Look for other verses in the Scriptures that confirm what I'm saying. Share what you find with me. Let's grow together. God bless y'all real good.
(Thanks for your help Rudy.)
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Are You Missional?
Well, are you missional? It's the newest buzz word in my world. I would say that I touched on it in my September 7th post, "Set Apart". The best way for me to present it to you is to is to copy an article by "The Blind Beggar" Rick Meigs:
"One important note before you continue: On this website, the term "church" refers to the people of God; the called out ones; those formed for his dwelling and bearers of his presence in the world. It doesn't refer to a building, denomination or physical location. So when you read "church," think of yourself and your faith community, not that building you go to each Sunday.
In an article titled, "The 'Missional Church': A Model for Canadian Churches?" David Horrox writes, "The church should stop mimicking the surrounding culture and become an alternative community, with a different set of beliefs, values and behaviors. Ministers would no longer engage in marketing; churches would no longer place primary emphasis on programs to serve members. The traditional ways of evaluating 'successful churches' – bigger buildings, more people, bigger budgets, larger ministerial staff, new and more programs to serve members – would be rejected. New yardsticks would be the norm: To what extent is our church a 'sent' community in which each believer is reaching out to his community? To what extent is our church impacting the community with a Christian message that challenges the values of our secular society?"
Dan Kimball in "The Emerging Church" (Zondervan, 2003) describes the missional church "as a body of people sent on a mission who gather in community for worship, encouragement, and teaching from the Word that supplements what they are feeding themselves throughout the week."
Both Horrox and Kimball capture much of the essence and heart of what it means to be missional, but can we probe deeper and articulate a more definitive understanding? I think we can and what follows is an imperfect attempt to explore and develop our appreciation of what it means to be missional.
Missional is a Shift in Thinking
But first a necessary word of caution for those who wish to explore and understand what it means to be a missional church or people. Alan Hirsch rightly states that "the word 'missional' over the years has tended to become very fluid and as it was quickly co-opted by those wishing to find new and trendy tags for what they themselves were doing, be they missional or not. It is often used as a substitute for seeker-sensitive, cell-group church, or other church growth concept, thus obscuring its original meaning." As a result, missional is often looked upon as just another phase or program. But we error when we do so for missional is more than just another movement, it is a full expression of who the ekklesia of Christ is and what it is called to be and do. At its core, missional is a shift in thinking. This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, "Breaking the Missional Code" (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this:
From programs to processes
From demographics to discernment
From models to missions
From attractional to incarnational
From uniformity to diversity
From professional to passionate
From seating to sending
From decisions to disciples
From additional to exponential
From monuments to movements
And let me add a couple more to Ed's list:
From services to service
From ordained to the ordinary
From organizations to organisms
Making this shift can be difficult for many (particularly Evangelical Americans), but to fully appreciate what the missional church is, we must look outside of our traditional understanding of how we do church and realign ourselves with the biblical narrative. So, as you consider the following "description," don't attempt to understand it within your traditional framework, shift your thinking.
Description of a Missional Church
-A missional church is a collection of missional believers acting in concert together in fulfillment of the missio dei.1
-A missional church is one where people are exploring and rediscovering what it means to be Jesus' sent people as their identity and vocation.
-A missional church is individuals willing and ready to be Christ's people in their own situation and place.
-A missional church knows that they must be a cross-cultural missionary (contextual) people and adopt a missionary stance in relation to their community.
-A missional church will be engaged with the culture (in the world) without being absorbed by the culture (not of the world). They will become intentionally indigenous.
-A missional church understands that God is already present in the culture where it finds itself. Therefore, a missional church doesn't view its purpose as bringing God into the culture or taking individuals out of the culture to a sacred space.
-A missional church is about more than just being contextual, it is also about the nature of the church and how it relates to God.
-A missional church will seek to plant all types of missional communities.
-A missional church is evangelistic and faithfully proclaims the gospel through word and deed. Words alone are not sufficient; how the gospel is embodied in our community and service is as important as what we say.
-A missional church understands the power of the gospel and does not lose confidence in it.
-A missional church will align all their activities around the missio dei -- the mission of God.
-A missional church seeks to put the good of their neighbor over their own.
-A missional church will give integrity, morality, good character and conduct, compassion, love and a resurrection life filled with hope preeminence to give credence to their reasoned verbal witness.
-A missional church practices hospitality by welcoming the stranger into the midst of the community.
-A missional church will see themselves as a community or family on a mission together. There are no "Lone Ranger" Christians in a missional church.
-A missional church will see themselves as representatives of Jesus and will do nothing to dishonor his name.
-A missional church will be totally reliant on God in all it does. It will move beyond superficial faith to a life of supernatural living.
-A missional church will be desperately dependent on prayer.
-A missional church gathered will be for the purpose of worship, encouragement, supplemental teaching, training, and to seek God's presence and to be realigned with God's missionary purpose.
-A missional church is orthodox in its view of the gospel and scripture, but culturally relevant in its methods and practice so that it can engage the worldview of the hearers.
-A missional church will feed deeply on the scriptures throughout the week.
-A missional church will be a community where all members are involved in learning "the way of Jesus." Spiritual development is an expectation.
-A missional church will help people discover and develop their spiritual gifts and will rely on gifted people for ministry instead of talented people.
-A missional church is a healing community where people carry each other's burdens and help restore gently.
-A missional church will require that its leaders be missiologists.
1. From Brother Maynard
What a Missional Church is Not
-A missional church is not a dispenser of religious goods and services or a place where people come for their weekly spiritual fix.
-A missional church is not a place where mature Christians come to be fed and have their needs met.
-A missional church is not a place where "professionals" are hired to do all the work of the church.
-A missional church is not a place where the "professionals" teach the children and youth about God to the exclusion of parental responsibility.
-A missional church is not a church with a "good missions program." The people are the missions program and includes going to "Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
-A missional church is not about a new strategy for evangelism.
-A missional church is not missional just because it is contemporary, young, hip, postmodern-sensitive, seeker-sensitive or even traditional.
-A missional church is not about big programs and organizations to accomplish God's missionary purpose. This does not imply no program or organization, but that they will not drive mission. They will be used in support of people on mission.
What a Missional Church Looks Like
JR Woodward at Dream Awakener has a perspective on success that really helps my understanding of missional. His post "A Working Definition of Success" provides a working definition of what missional might look like. Here it is:
-Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves.
-Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry.
-Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church.
-Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief)
-Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help.
-Not simply how many unbelievers we bring into the community of faith, but how many ‘believers' we help experience healthy community.
-Not simply working through our past hurts, but working alongside the Spirit toward wholeness.
-Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world.
-Not simply how we are connecting with our culture but how we are engaging our culture.
-Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world.
-Not simply how effective we are with our mission, but how faithful we are to our God.
-Not simply how unified our local church is, but how unified is "the church" in our neighborhood, city and world?
-Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the story of God.
-Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries.
-Not simply how many people we bring into the kingdom, but how much of the kingdom we bring to the earth.
Who is Behind "Friend of Missional"
Friend of Missional is brought to you by The Blind Beggar. It is a non-commercial, non-profit, non self-promoting venture. I do not claim that these ideas and concepts on the Missional Church are necessarily original to me. Input from many sources and individuals has helped craft this description."
Well, are you missional? I thought there were many good points in this article. It has challenged me to search the Scriptures and really try to understand my role as a part of Christ's body and how I should live my life before others. What do you think? God bless y'all real good.
"One important note before you continue: On this website, the term "church" refers to the people of God; the called out ones; those formed for his dwelling and bearers of his presence in the world. It doesn't refer to a building, denomination or physical location. So when you read "church," think of yourself and your faith community, not that building you go to each Sunday.
In an article titled, "The 'Missional Church': A Model for Canadian Churches?" David Horrox writes, "The church should stop mimicking the surrounding culture and become an alternative community, with a different set of beliefs, values and behaviors. Ministers would no longer engage in marketing; churches would no longer place primary emphasis on programs to serve members. The traditional ways of evaluating 'successful churches' – bigger buildings, more people, bigger budgets, larger ministerial staff, new and more programs to serve members – would be rejected. New yardsticks would be the norm: To what extent is our church a 'sent' community in which each believer is reaching out to his community? To what extent is our church impacting the community with a Christian message that challenges the values of our secular society?"
Dan Kimball in "The Emerging Church" (Zondervan, 2003) describes the missional church "as a body of people sent on a mission who gather in community for worship, encouragement, and teaching from the Word that supplements what they are feeding themselves throughout the week."
Both Horrox and Kimball capture much of the essence and heart of what it means to be missional, but can we probe deeper and articulate a more definitive understanding? I think we can and what follows is an imperfect attempt to explore and develop our appreciation of what it means to be missional.
Missional is a Shift in Thinking
But first a necessary word of caution for those who wish to explore and understand what it means to be a missional church or people. Alan Hirsch rightly states that "the word 'missional' over the years has tended to become very fluid and as it was quickly co-opted by those wishing to find new and trendy tags for what they themselves were doing, be they missional or not. It is often used as a substitute for seeker-sensitive, cell-group church, or other church growth concept, thus obscuring its original meaning." As a result, missional is often looked upon as just another phase or program. But we error when we do so for missional is more than just another movement, it is a full expression of who the ekklesia of Christ is and what it is called to be and do. At its core, missional is a shift in thinking. This shift in thinking is expressed by Ed Stetzer and David Putman in their book, "Breaking the Missional Code" (Broadman & Holman, 2006) like this:
From programs to processes
From demographics to discernment
From models to missions
From attractional to incarnational
From uniformity to diversity
From professional to passionate
From seating to sending
From decisions to disciples
From additional to exponential
From monuments to movements
And let me add a couple more to Ed's list:
From services to service
From ordained to the ordinary
From organizations to organisms
Making this shift can be difficult for many (particularly Evangelical Americans), but to fully appreciate what the missional church is, we must look outside of our traditional understanding of how we do church and realign ourselves with the biblical narrative. So, as you consider the following "description," don't attempt to understand it within your traditional framework, shift your thinking.
Description of a Missional Church
-A missional church is a collection of missional believers acting in concert together in fulfillment of the missio dei.1
-A missional church is one where people are exploring and rediscovering what it means to be Jesus' sent people as their identity and vocation.
-A missional church is individuals willing and ready to be Christ's people in their own situation and place.
-A missional church knows that they must be a cross-cultural missionary (contextual) people and adopt a missionary stance in relation to their community.
-A missional church will be engaged with the culture (in the world) without being absorbed by the culture (not of the world). They will become intentionally indigenous.
-A missional church understands that God is already present in the culture where it finds itself. Therefore, a missional church doesn't view its purpose as bringing God into the culture or taking individuals out of the culture to a sacred space.
-A missional church is about more than just being contextual, it is also about the nature of the church and how it relates to God.
-A missional church will seek to plant all types of missional communities.
-A missional church is evangelistic and faithfully proclaims the gospel through word and deed. Words alone are not sufficient; how the gospel is embodied in our community and service is as important as what we say.
-A missional church understands the power of the gospel and does not lose confidence in it.
-A missional church will align all their activities around the missio dei -- the mission of God.
-A missional church seeks to put the good of their neighbor over their own.
-A missional church will give integrity, morality, good character and conduct, compassion, love and a resurrection life filled with hope preeminence to give credence to their reasoned verbal witness.
-A missional church practices hospitality by welcoming the stranger into the midst of the community.
-A missional church will see themselves as a community or family on a mission together. There are no "Lone Ranger" Christians in a missional church.
-A missional church will see themselves as representatives of Jesus and will do nothing to dishonor his name.
-A missional church will be totally reliant on God in all it does. It will move beyond superficial faith to a life of supernatural living.
-A missional church will be desperately dependent on prayer.
-A missional church gathered will be for the purpose of worship, encouragement, supplemental teaching, training, and to seek God's presence and to be realigned with God's missionary purpose.
-A missional church is orthodox in its view of the gospel and scripture, but culturally relevant in its methods and practice so that it can engage the worldview of the hearers.
-A missional church will feed deeply on the scriptures throughout the week.
-A missional church will be a community where all members are involved in learning "the way of Jesus." Spiritual development is an expectation.
-A missional church will help people discover and develop their spiritual gifts and will rely on gifted people for ministry instead of talented people.
-A missional church is a healing community where people carry each other's burdens and help restore gently.
-A missional church will require that its leaders be missiologists.
1. From Brother Maynard
What a Missional Church is Not
-A missional church is not a dispenser of religious goods and services or a place where people come for their weekly spiritual fix.
-A missional church is not a place where mature Christians come to be fed and have their needs met.
-A missional church is not a place where "professionals" are hired to do all the work of the church.
-A missional church is not a place where the "professionals" teach the children and youth about God to the exclusion of parental responsibility.
-A missional church is not a church with a "good missions program." The people are the missions program and includes going to "Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
-A missional church is not about a new strategy for evangelism.
-A missional church is not missional just because it is contemporary, young, hip, postmodern-sensitive, seeker-sensitive or even traditional.
-A missional church is not about big programs and organizations to accomplish God's missionary purpose. This does not imply no program or organization, but that they will not drive mission. They will be used in support of people on mission.
What a Missional Church Looks Like
JR Woodward at Dream Awakener has a perspective on success that really helps my understanding of missional. His post "A Working Definition of Success" provides a working definition of what missional might look like. Here it is:
-Not simply how many people come to our church services, but how many people our church serves.
-Not simply how many people attend our ministry, but how many people have we equipped for ministry.
-Not simply how many people minister inside the church, but how many minister outside the church.
-Not simply helping people become more whole themselves, but helping people bring more wholeness to their world. (i.e. justice, healing, relief)
-Not simply how many ministries we start, but how many ministries we help.
-Not simply how many unbelievers we bring into the community of faith, but how many ‘believers' we help experience healthy community.
-Not simply working through our past hurts, but working alongside the Spirit toward wholeness.
-Not simply counting the resources that God gives us to steward, but counting how many good stewards are we developing for the sake of the world.
-Not simply how we are connecting with our culture but how we are engaging our culture.
-Not simply how much peace we bring to individuals, but how much peace we bring to our world.
-Not simply how effective we are with our mission, but how faithful we are to our God.
-Not simply how unified our local church is, but how unified is "the church" in our neighborhood, city and world?
-Not simply how much we immerse ourselves in the text, but how faithfully we live in the story of God.
-Not simply being concerned about how our country is doing, but being concern for the welfare of other countries.
-Not simply how many people we bring into the kingdom, but how much of the kingdom we bring to the earth.
Who is Behind "Friend of Missional"
Friend of Missional is brought to you by The Blind Beggar. It is a non-commercial, non-profit, non self-promoting venture. I do not claim that these ideas and concepts on the Missional Church are necessarily original to me. Input from many sources and individuals has helped craft this description."
Well, are you missional? I thought there were many good points in this article. It has challenged me to search the Scriptures and really try to understand my role as a part of Christ's body and how I should live my life before others. What do you think? God bless y'all real good.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Can You Accept This?
In my last post, commenting on God's work of salvation, I stated that all the work was His. Some might say that we have to "accept" it but I disagree. I think it is more like "we don't reject it". It sounds like semantics but let me explain myself.
Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." This verse tells us that we are born in sin, all have a sin nature. We are naturally sinners, all of us, from the time of conception.
1 Corinthians 2:14, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned."
Romans 8:10-12, "As it is written: 'There is none righteous, no, not one; There is no one who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; They have together become unprofitable;"
John 15:16, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit;"
Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;"
There are many more verses but I will stop there. I will give you my opinion and you can let me know what you think.
Man in his sin has no free will. The "choice" was made at the garden. From that point on his only choice is disobedience.
God in His mercy has given man a gift, the gift of salvation, paid for by the blood of His Son Jesus. The gift is for all mankind.
When I buy a gift for someone, it already belongs to them. Even if I haven't physically handed it to them, it still belongs to them. When I do hand it to them, the only thing they can do is reject it. It is already theirs, they can only reject it.
I see the same thing with God's gift. Man (natural man) can only reject it. However through the work of the Holy Spirit (God) and His Word a change is made and the new man (Spiritual) is able to "not reject it" if you will. Just for the record I believe Christians have free will.
I believe that from start to finish the idea, plan, and work of salvation is God's. If man has a hand in it (he has to "accept it") then it is works righteousness. God bless y'all real good.
Psalm 51:5, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." This verse tells us that we are born in sin, all have a sin nature. We are naturally sinners, all of us, from the time of conception.
1 Corinthians 2:14, "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned."
Romans 8:10-12, "As it is written: 'There is none righteous, no, not one; There is no one who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way; They have together become unprofitable;"
John 15:16, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit;"
Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;"
There are many more verses but I will stop there. I will give you my opinion and you can let me know what you think.
Man in his sin has no free will. The "choice" was made at the garden. From that point on his only choice is disobedience.
God in His mercy has given man a gift, the gift of salvation, paid for by the blood of His Son Jesus. The gift is for all mankind.
When I buy a gift for someone, it already belongs to them. Even if I haven't physically handed it to them, it still belongs to them. When I do hand it to them, the only thing they can do is reject it. It is already theirs, they can only reject it.
I see the same thing with God's gift. Man (natural man) can only reject it. However through the work of the Holy Spirit (God) and His Word a change is made and the new man (Spiritual) is able to "not reject it" if you will. Just for the record I believe Christians have free will.
I believe that from start to finish the idea, plan, and work of salvation is God's. If man has a hand in it (he has to "accept it") then it is works righteousness. God bless y'all real good.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Religion
I have been intrigued by the following introduction to Hebrews and verses from Romans 14:4, and Colossians 2:6-23. They are taken from Eugene H. Peterson's "The Message/Remix".
"It seems odd to have to say so, but too much religion is a bad thing. We can't have too much of God, can't get too much faith and obedience, can't get too much love and worship. But religion - the well intentioned efforts we make to "get it together" for God - can very well get in the way of what God is doing for us. The main and central action is everywhere and always what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Jesus is the revelation of that action. Our main and central task is to live in responsive obedience to God's action revealed in Jesus. Our part in the action is the act of faith."
That is not the whole introduction but he ends with this, "The focus becomes clear and sharp again: God's action in Jesus. And we are free once more for the act of faith, the one human action in which we don't get in the way but on the way."
Romans 14:4(b) says, "If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help." This is in reference to eating or abstaining from certain foods and expecting others to do the same.
Colossians 2:6-23:
6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8-10 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
16-17 So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
18-19 Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
20-23 So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important."
In my mind these all fit together. I would like to attempt to make sense of what I'm thinking and as always I am open to being corrected if I'm wrong.
I find it interesting that the whole idea, act, and work of salvation are God's. It was His plan and His Son. It was His calling by His Word (the Bible) and His Spirit that lead us to salvation. We had absolutely nothing to do with it. Don't give me that "we had to accept it" stuff either. I don't buy that.
With all that being said, do you think that it is our job to maintain it? Many that do have given us all kinds of rules and regulations to follow. You might say the rules are only there to keep us from going too close to the edge of the cliff. It sounds to me like the Pharisees. Just like them the intention is good but the result is not. We depend on the rules of man to keep us obedient to God. Just tell me what I can do, what I can't do, and what I can get away with. Does the Spirit stop leading after we are saved? Do we somehow lose our ability to hear from God? We heard Him when we were called.
The problem with rules and regulations is that they lead to religion. Earthly things become more important than God's Word. Again, the intention is good but is it good? The church building, the form of worship, worship music, icons, all these things that were intended to represent Jesus have become more important than Jesus and what He taught! Read Isaiah 1:11-17.
My Gerbel friend puts it this way, "Hence we see that Jesus is moving us in "life" (living) as we lay aside our (worthless) man-made 'got to be a better christian' doctrines ....we really have no room to charge one another in silly rituals, nor to be an over bearing parent, to crush a young believer's faith...Nor should we let another crush our Spirit....For I am convinced that we can share God's love and message far more effectively in everyday life than in weekly meetings that close us off from (the outside world), designed to 'empower' us to be stronger, better followers who can strain the gnat but swallow a camel..."
Colossians 2:23 says, " These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh." Do you see my thought here? It's okay to say no!
In my Christian walk I have changed my mind about many things. I assume I will continue to as I mature in my faith. I've had many good teachers. I've held on to what they have said and I've differed with them too. It's okay to do that. The Spirit speaks to all that he indwells. He can guide us. The important thing is to let the Bible be your guide. Let what it says speak to you not what it doesn't say. Don't replace God's Word with man's wisdom or rules. It leads to religion. God bless y'all real good.
"It seems odd to have to say so, but too much religion is a bad thing. We can't have too much of God, can't get too much faith and obedience, can't get too much love and worship. But religion - the well intentioned efforts we make to "get it together" for God - can very well get in the way of what God is doing for us. The main and central action is everywhere and always what God has done, is doing, and will do for us. Jesus is the revelation of that action. Our main and central task is to live in responsive obedience to God's action revealed in Jesus. Our part in the action is the act of faith."
That is not the whole introduction but he ends with this, "The focus becomes clear and sharp again: God's action in Jesus. And we are free once more for the act of faith, the one human action in which we don't get in the way but on the way."
Romans 14:4(b) says, "If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help." This is in reference to eating or abstaining from certain foods and expecting others to do the same.
Colossians 2:6-23:
6-7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
8-10 Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.
11-15 Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
16-17 So don't put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ.
18-19 Don't tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They're a lot of hot air, that's all they are. They're completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us. He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us.
20-23 So, then, if with Christ you've put all that pretentious and infantile religion behind you, why do you let yourselves be bullied by it? "Don't touch this! Don't taste that! Don't go near this!" Do you think things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention? Such things sound impressive if said in a deep enough voice. They even give the illusion of being pious and humble and ascetic. But they're just another way of showing off, making yourselves look important."
In my mind these all fit together. I would like to attempt to make sense of what I'm thinking and as always I am open to being corrected if I'm wrong.
I find it interesting that the whole idea, act, and work of salvation are God's. It was His plan and His Son. It was His calling by His Word (the Bible) and His Spirit that lead us to salvation. We had absolutely nothing to do with it. Don't give me that "we had to accept it" stuff either. I don't buy that.
With all that being said, do you think that it is our job to maintain it? Many that do have given us all kinds of rules and regulations to follow. You might say the rules are only there to keep us from going too close to the edge of the cliff. It sounds to me like the Pharisees. Just like them the intention is good but the result is not. We depend on the rules of man to keep us obedient to God. Just tell me what I can do, what I can't do, and what I can get away with. Does the Spirit stop leading after we are saved? Do we somehow lose our ability to hear from God? We heard Him when we were called.
The problem with rules and regulations is that they lead to religion. Earthly things become more important than God's Word. Again, the intention is good but is it good? The church building, the form of worship, worship music, icons, all these things that were intended to represent Jesus have become more important than Jesus and what He taught! Read Isaiah 1:11-17.
My Gerbel friend puts it this way, "Hence we see that Jesus is moving us in "life" (living) as we lay aside our (worthless) man-made 'got to be a better christian' doctrines ....we really have no room to charge one another in silly rituals, nor to be an over bearing parent, to crush a young believer's faith...Nor should we let another crush our Spirit....For I am convinced that we can share God's love and message far more effectively in everyday life than in weekly meetings that close us off from (the outside world), designed to 'empower' us to be stronger, better followers who can strain the gnat but swallow a camel..."
Colossians 2:23 says, " These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting rigor of devotion and self-abasement and severity to the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh." Do you see my thought here? It's okay to say no!
In my Christian walk I have changed my mind about many things. I assume I will continue to as I mature in my faith. I've had many good teachers. I've held on to what they have said and I've differed with them too. It's okay to do that. The Spirit speaks to all that he indwells. He can guide us. The important thing is to let the Bible be your guide. Let what it says speak to you not what it doesn't say. Don't replace God's Word with man's wisdom or rules. It leads to religion. God bless y'all real good.
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