Dr. Steve McVey

Politics And Ministry

2012-01-23T12:11:00.003-06:00

I love the passage in Joshua 5 where, in the midst of battle, Joshua meets the Preincarnate Christ (called an Old Testament Christophany)and asks him His political opinion: "Are you for us or our enemies?" The answer the Lord gave Him is staggering and particularly relevant in today's polarized political environment.

Look at the biblical text at the bottom of this article.
Question: "Are you for us or our enemies?"
Answer: "No."

Jesus doesn't come to take sides. He comes to take over. Our hope is not in a political party or system. Our hope is in Him. May we remember that regardless of our political views. Regardless of who holds political office, our only Real Hope will be realized if we "bow down" before Him.

Joshua 5:13-14 "Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, "Are you for us or for our adversaries ?" 14 He said, "No ; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD." And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down..."

How To Write A Book

2012-01-21T11:37:00.002-06:00

I'm often asked how to become an author. Here are a few catchy phrases to get you started :) I got these from a blog that was copied from another blog that linked to the original source that was a dead link that didn't have any info. (How's that sentence?) So, I can't credit the original author but whoever he/she is, it's a person who has my admiration :)

1. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
2. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.
3. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
4. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
5. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
6. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
7. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
8. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
10. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
11. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
12. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
13. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
14. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
15. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at asolar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
16. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
17. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
18. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
19. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
20. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
21. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
22. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
23. Even in his last years, Grand pappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it hadrusted shut.
24. He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place that hunts dogs, I suppose.
25. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.
26. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
27. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
28. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
29. “Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night.
30. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
31. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
32. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
33. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
34. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
35. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”
36. The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
37. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
38. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.
39. Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually.
40. Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often.
41. They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.”
42. Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein’s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.
43. The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.
44. He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo.
45. The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747.
46. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.
47. The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas.
48. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.
49. She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can’t sing worth a damn.
50. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
51. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
52. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.
53. You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in.
54. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.
55. Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.
56. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.

Come Out of The Cave

2012-01-19T22:32:00.002-06:00

In The Republic, the philosopher Plato presents a story told by his teacher, Socrates. It is known as the "Allegory of the Cave." Socrates used the story to illustrate the meaning of various degrees of knowledge and belief, but the analogy beautifully illustrates how God has worked with me to reveal Christ as life. As you read this story, watch to see how it may apply to your life.

"Imagine a cave, says Socrates, very far underground and with a long passage leading out into the daylight. In this cave there are men who have been prisoners there since they were children. They are chained to the ground, and even their heads are fastened in such a way that they can look only in front of them, at the wall of the cave. Behind the line of prisoners a fire is burning, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a roadway. People walk along this road and talk to one another and carry things with them. The prisoners would see the shadows of those people, shadows thrown by the light of the fire on the cave wall in front of them. And, supposing the cave wall reflected sound, the prisoners would hear sounds coming from the shadows. Since the prisoners cannot turn their heads, the only things they will see and know are shadows; and so they will assume that the shadows are real things, for they cannot know anything about the fire and the roadway and the people behind them.

Now, suppose we unchain one of the prisoners, and make him turn around. This will be very frightening and painful for him; the movements of his body will hurt him, and his eyes will be dazzled by the fire. And if we tell him that the things he now sees are more real than the shadows, he will not believe us, and he will want to sit down again and face the wall of the shadows which he understands. Now, suppose we go even further than this, and forcibly drag him out through the long tunnel into the sunlight. This will be even more painful and frightening for him; and when he arrives above the ground he will be blinded by the sun. But slowly, let us imagine, he will get used to it. At first, he will be able to look at the stars and the moon at night. Later he will look at shadows thrown by the sun and at reflections in pools of water. Finally, he will be able to see the trees and mountains in full daylight, and he will recognize that these, not the shadows in the cave, are the real things. And when he has become accustomed to looking around him, he will at last realize that the light which makes all this possible comes from the sun."

The cave in this allegory represents one's frame of reference. I spent twenty nine years of my Christian life living in the cave of legalism. Then the Holy Spirit lovingly began to take away those things that provided a sense of security for me — visible results in ministry and a sense of satisfaction in my Christian life. I now realize that those things which I so desperately clung to at the time were in reality nothing but chains which kept me from the light. In spite of my pain and fear, He drug me away from what was familiar to me, and pulled me into the light of God's grace. After several years, my eyes are still adjusting to the resplendent glory of grace. I am seeing more and more that routine religious performance is just a shadow. The substance of life is not in the shadows, but in the Son!

Once one has been freed from the cave, he can never interpret the shadows in the same way again. There is a whole world of grace to explore. Every day is an exciting adventure. Socrates contends that if the former prisoner were to be suddenly brought back into the cave,his eyes would be unaccustomed to the darkness, and he would no longer be able to recognize the shadows. His fellow prisoners would say that his experiences had ruined him, and they would consider him a fool for going out into the light. Be prepared for the fact that as you leave the cave of legalism, not everybody will rejoice with you in your new-found freedom. Legalism has never walked peaceably with grace. Those who find their identity in religious performance bristle up at the suggestion that performance is only a shadow and not substance. To suggest such a thing is perceived to be an attack on their very identity. Just remember, you are free! Walk in the light and enjoy your faith! While some will resent your freedom, others will be drawn up out of the cave into the light as they see the joy you experience there.

Christ is your life. Grace and truth come through Him! Yours is a life of grace. How can a life of grace be summarized? To summarize grace is to try to reduce the life of Christ to a few pages — impossible! But there are three characteristics of the grace filled life that each of us should desire above all else.

(The article above is an excerpt from my book, Grace Walk, available in Christian book stores or in my online store at www.gracewalkresources.com)

How Can I Keep From Singing?

2012-01-19T00:22:00.002-06:00

My life goes on in endless song
above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
that hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear it's music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness 'round me close,
songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,
while to that rock I'm clinging.
Since Love is Lord of heaven and earth
how can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble in their fear
and hear their death knell ringing,
when friends rejoice both far and near
how can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile
our thoughts to them are winging,
when friends by shame are undefiled
how can I keep from singing?

I've always loved Enya's music and this one is particularly beautiful . . .

2012-01-05T09:41:00.003-06:00

Contrary to the opinion of some, our God loves fun! In eternity past the three Persons of the Trinity all enjoyed intimacy with each other. It was a private party among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There, before the foundation of time, God determined to host a huge party. He would create man for the purpose of sharing His life with him, thus bringing him into the eternal party taking place in heaven. The Holy Spirit has been sent to extend the invitation to the party to us today. Christianity is nothing less than a party celebrating Jesus Christ and we've all been invited to participate by dancing to the music of His grace.

There is no bigger party pooper than legalism. It causes people to relate to others with a condescending attitude, judging them by the standard of their own lives. A legalist's performance may look good, but inwardly he is wasting away because his rules-driven lifestyle has robbed him of authentic joy in the Christian life. He has no time for music and dancing; there’s work to be done! The devil never takes a break, why should he? A legalist is never a genuinely happy person. When he sees others dance to the music, he can’t stand it.

The older brother of "the prodigal" bore the chief characteristics of a legalist. First, he separated himself from his brother because the younger brother didn’t live up to the standards embraced by himself. He refused to be involved in the same party as his brother, but resolved to “come out from among them and be separate.” Second, his whole relationship to his father revolved around doing the right thing and not breaking his commandments. He said, “For so many years I have been serving you, and I never neglected a command of yours...” (Luke 15:29). He knew no intimacy with his father because his whole focus was on behavior. Finally, he resented the grace which his father showed to the prodigal. He pointed out his own faithfulness and said, “but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.” Legalists sometimes find it hard to even call one a brother who doesn’t conform to their own standards. The elder son called him “this son of yours.” He probably believed it would be liberal to unconditionally accept a sinning Christian. After all, he might think you are condoning his behavior!

The heart of the prodigal’s father seems to parallel that of our Heavenly Father. He loves a party! Faith and fun are not in opposition to one another. Even under the old covenant, God made provision for the people to celebrate.

"And you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of all your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the first-born of your herd and your flock, in order that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And you may spend the money for whatever your heart desires, for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household" (Deuteronomy 14:23, 26).

The father of the prodigal said, “But we had to be merry and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live . . .” (Luke 15:32). When a dead person comes alive to his inclusion in the finished work of Jesus Christ, that’s a reason to throw a party!

The activity of the early church revolved around fellowship. The Greek word is koinonia. It wouldn’t be inappropriate to use the word "party" as a contemporary paraphrase of the word. Many contemporary parties celebrate life. A birthday party celebrates the years one has lived. Anniversary parties celebrate a couple’s life together. A graduation party celebrates the start of a new life for the graduate. Parties are focused on and full of life.

Doesn’t that description describe New Testament Christianity? It’s essence is a celebration of divine life. You are alive in Christ! It’s appropriate to “shout joyfully to the Lord” and to “serve the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:1-2). In other words, it’s time to rise up and have a party! Since we are immersed in Eternal Grace, celebration is the order of the day.

Resting Can Be Testing!

2012-01-03T10:17:00.004-06:00

It is amazing how the default setting in contemporary Christian culture tends to oppose the concept of rest when that is exactly what Jesus promised to give those who follow Him. (See Matthew 11:28-30) Just as God called Israel to a land of rest, we are being called to that today. This concept requires a new mind set for most people, especially in western culture. We live in a society where people go on vacation with their cell phones, I-pads and laptops. To rest in Christ, trusting Him to express His life through us sounds lazy and negligent after having lived in the wilderness of rigorous religion for such a long time. Many mistakenly think of rest as some sort of passivity, which it is not. Rest means to trust Jesus Christ as our Life-Source, depending upon Him to empower our actions with His strength and direction.

It took Israel forty years to enter Canaan because they refused to believe that God had simply given them the land and that all they needed to do was receive it by faith. For forty years, “we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). While they struggled in the wilderness, God’s desire was that they enter His rest. The book of Hebrews refers to Canaan as a type of the rest believers have in Christ (See Hebrews 3:11,18; 4:1,3,8-11).

As a legalist, the concept of rest was so foreign to me that I couldn’t comprehend it. I didn’t know rest was a gift from God. I thought it was a sin. I sincerely believed that the only time we would find complete rest was when we died and went to heaven. There was a verse I used to read at funeral services to give comfort to bereaved families. I would share Hebrews 4:10 with them: “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

When I shared this verse, I would tenderly point out that our beloved friend who had died “has now entered into God’s rest and ceased from his own labors.” I talked about how heaven is a place where there are no more struggles. It is a place where we simply rest in Christ and enjoy Him forever.

Entering into His rest and ceasing from our own works. It sounded like dying and going to heaven to me. Then one day I read the next verse in the passage — Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall down through following the example of disobedience.” What? Be diligent to enter that rest? Now I was in trouble. I had always taught that rest means dying. Now here I was being confronted with the verse that says to be diligent to enter that rest or else I would be disobedient to God. I knew I had better go back and reexamine that verse again and hope that my interpretation had been wrong or else I was in serious trouble! I didn’t know at the time that I had already died with Christ and was able to cease from my own works.

“I understand that salvation is a gift, but when we become a Christian we do have certain responsibilities in living the Christian life, don’t we?” Kelli asked. “We don’t just sit back and coast to heaven with no obligations in the meantime.” Kelli’s concern is common. Her statements reflect a belief that if we don’t take ownership of certain things that we must do for God, we may become passive and lazy. The fact is that the challenge to us to rest can be a test for our hyper-driven mindsets today!

What is our responsibility toward God? The disciples once asked Jesus about the works they were to do for God. “They said therefore to Him, ‘What shall we do that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:28-29). When asked what we are supposed to do in order to do the work of God, Jesus gave one work. Believe. If we are to take the words of Jesus at face value, faith is our sole work (and even that is a gift from Him — see Ephesians 2:8). That fact doesn’t mean that nothing else will be done, but that nothing else can be done unless it flows from the abiding relationship of faith in Him as our constant Life-Source (See John 15:5). As we trust Him, we will discover the reality of the truth that “Faithful is He that calleth you who will also do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24, KJV.) Our part - rest. His part - He does it!

Crossing Over To 2012

2011-12-31T09:13:00.002-06:00

"The land into which you are about to cross to possess it, [is] a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven, [it is] a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year" (Deuteronomy 11:11-12).

2012 is new territory for us all. It is a land of grace and living in the Land of Grace is never dull. Egypt is a flat land. A person can travel one mile or a hundred and the landscape never changes. Canaan, on the other hand, is a land of diversity. There are mountain peaks and valleys, ups and downs.

That’s how life will be in 2012. There will be happy days and hard days, but all the ups and downs of our lives are controlled by our Loving Father because our “steps are established by the Lord.” Your Father loves you so much. Take that truth with you each step of the way through 2012. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, (He says) thoughts of peace, and not evil, plans to give you a future and hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).

The year ahead will be a year of divine supply. In Egypt we had to dig our own irrigation ditches, trying to produce life from the labor and struggles of our own hands. In the Land Of Grace, our Father sends what we need from heaven. Our part is to receive by faith all that He wants to give and wants to do.

2012 is a Land of Grace, and it is our land. It is a land about which “the Lord your God cares.” Every square inch and every millisecond of time during the coming year is what He wants to share with you. Let’s claim it by faith! Let’s march into the new year, free from fear and full of hope. Let us go into it with the deep settled confidence that victory is ours, that there is nothing left to fear and that there is power and glory awaiting us!

May you and your family realize His rich blessings in 2012. Thank you for journeying with us on this grace walk as we continue to share His life and love with the world.

Do We Each Have An "Evil Twin?"

2011-12-29T08:06:00.003-06:00

Before I understood my identity in Christ, I often experienced self-condemnation in my life because of the sins I would commit. I was an easy mark for the enemy because it took so little to cause me to feel like I must be basically evil. Perhaps it would be that I had become impatient with my children, started an argument with my wife, had a lustful thought, or a thousand other sins that could cause me to go into the “God, what is wrong with me” mode. I felt like I had a split personality, desiring at times to live a holy life and at other times wanting to act any way but holy.

I knew I wanted to follow Christ, but felt that at the core of my being there was something evil. I was completely sincere in my spiritual life, but I saw this “evil twin” lurking within me waiting to get out if I didn’t keep a tight grip on him at all times. I thought that in some way I was my own worst enemy. I sometimes heard it reinforced by Bible teaching which referenced that oft-quoted “theologian” Pogo, in saying, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” I believed every word of it. After all, my experience certainly seemed to validate that I was my own worst enemy.

Maybe you feel the way I have described and even believe that way, but I hope your beliefs will be changed. Otherwise, you’ll remain in the same bondage of self-condemnation that I often experienced. The truth which will set you free is this: You are not your own enemy. There is nothing wrong with you. There is only something wrong in you, which is indwelling sin. Have you felt evil at times? That doesn’t mean you are evil, but only points to the presence of indwelling sin which is inside you.

Paul boldly affirmed, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wishes to do good” (Romans 7:21, emphasis mine). He did not say that he was evil, but only that evil was present in him. Twice in one verse he cites the location of this indwelling sin, saying, “but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members” (7:23, emphasis mine). Paul said the power of indwelling sin was in his body.

Friends of mine once discovered that the wife had cancer. The husband continually kept those of us who are friends updated on her progress through email. He often described the cancer as “that invader” and “that bastard,” a word not to be taken in a profane sense, but used to describe an illegitimate life, just as the word is used in the Bible. The cancer is an invader which threatened her health (and ultimately took her life) and had to be attacked with a vengeance by medical professionals.

So it is with the power of indwelling sin, which is in our body. It is a “disease” which every one of us inherited, going all the way back Adam. It is a “bastard” life which will only be overcome as we continually receive the ministry of the indwelling life of Jesus Christ. Paul made an interesting observation in Romans 5:10: “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” In this verse he speaks of two aspects of salvation.

On the one hand, he affirms that we have been reconciled. He says that the cause for this reconciliation was the death of Jesus Christ. It is by the death of Jesus at the cross that we have been forever delivered from sin. However, Paul doesn’t stop there, but goes on to say that “we shall be saved by His life.” Not only have we already been reconciled to God by Jesus' death, but we also shall be saved by His life. From what? From the power of sin. It is by the indwelling life of Jesus Christ that we are continually saved from it. Jesus is the miracle cure for the cancer of indwelling sin, which is in our body. We all have received the remedy for sin by the death of Jesus Christ, but many aren’t taking advantage of the ever-present cure for the power of sin in our lives. That cure is the life of Jesus Christ within us.

As we apply by faith the sufficiency of the life of Christ over the power of sin, we will walk in victory. He has come to cause the sin of our lives to go into remission forever. Peter declared that, “. . . whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins” Acts 10:43, KJV (In the King James Version, note the promise of the remission of sins in Matthew 26:28; Mark 1:4; Luke 1:77, 3:3; 24:47; Acts 2:38; Romans 3:25). Sin has no power over us as we rests in the sufficiency of Christ.

You don't have an evil twin living inside you. The key to living the life for which you were created is to recognized your identity in Christ and live each moment out of that identity, as your authentic self. Any other approach deprives the rest of us out of all you have to offer the world as a unique expression of Divine Life.

Beautiful Savior

2011-12-21T11:35:00.003-06:00

"Beautiful Savior" sung by the St. Olaf Choir
With the exception of The Hallelujah Chorus, this is the most beautiful choir anthem I've heard. For years, it was one of the songs I listened to every morning at dawn.

Believers & Unbelievers

2011-12-09T19:37:00.000-06:00

Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity

2011-12-07T08:57:00.003-06:00

I've often spoken of the differences between how Christians in the Eastern world understand some things in contrast to how those same things are generally understood in the west. This interview with an Archbishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church touches on some of those differences.

It's important for each of us to remember that just because something we hear is new to us and different from what we've been taught doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. I've been amazed by the opposition I've received from some "grace people" for saying the very things this man is saying, (although not nearly in such an articulate and scholastic way). To summarily dismiss a teaching we haven't heard as "false teaching, heresy, unorthodox,"etc. when, if we're honest, we've never seriously studied the topic being addressed is intellectually lazy at best and hypocritical at worst. Not every body believes like you do. And they hold their views with the same love for Christ, the Bible, academic study and reliance upon the Holy Spirit as the rest of us have.

Hear this man with an open mind. He explains how we've jumped the track in many ways in the Western Church world.

Chapter One from my book, "Grace Walk"

2011-12-05T10:01:00.003-06:00

CHAPTER ONE
MISERABLE MEDIOCRITY

It was on October 6 at 1:00 in the morning. I was lying on my face in my office crying. God had used the previous year to bring me to a place of absolute brokenness. I had prayed for God to make me stronger, but He had a different plan. He was making me weaker. So here I lay, broken and hopeless. In seventeen hours I would have to stand in my pulpit on Sunday evening and face it. God, why did I tell them that I would
give a "State of the Church Address"? I knew I would either have to build a straw man of success or else tell the truth. I didn't have the strength to pretend or the courage to be honest. So I prayed and cried. When I finished, I prayed and cried some more.

It didn't make sense. Had God brought me to this church only to deliberately set me up for failure? Couldn't He see that I was doing everything I knew to do for Him? I couldn't imagine what more He expected from me than that I do my best. And I had done my best. God, what more do you want from me? Silence. At this moment He seemed light years away. The weight of failure was suffocating. Not just the failure as a pastor. I felt like a failure as a Christian. If dedicating my whole adult life to Him to do His work wasn't enough, what more did He want?

I had left a church in Alabama where I felt very successful. The people there loved me and affirmed me often. Our church had been recognized for its numerical growth. We led our denomination in baptisms in that county. I had received recognition from the Jaycees for being an "outstanding young religious leader." I had served on various denominational committees and held office in our minister's conference. For five years, the situation had met my emotional needs and caused me to feel that I was successful.

Then one Saturday afternoon the telephone rang. "Would you be willing to allow our pastor search committee to attend your church and hear you preach? Then we would like to have lunch together with you and your family after the service." I had declined this kind of invitation numerous times in the past few years. Yet I sensed during the first conversation with the chairman of this pastor search committee that I should let these folks come and see what would happen.

After many weeks of contact with each other, I decided that God was indeed bringing us together. A few months later, Melanie, our four kids and I found ourselves following a moving van across I-20 toward Atlanta. The church we were moving to had been declining in attendance for several years. But every church where I had served had consistently grown. I unpacked my books, my sermons and my church growth programs, anxious to get started so that with God's help we could get this thing underway. I had moved from a small town to the big city and there were lots of people just waiting to be reached!

I pulled out my box of sugar stick sermons and previously proven programs and went to work for God. But what happened was surprising. Nothing happened. This was a new experience. I was puzzled by the fact that attendance wasn't growing. I reassessed the situation, prayed harder for God's help, took a deep breath and launched
my second wave of church growth plans. We had sanctified pep rallies with our Sunday School teachers, strategy sessions with church leaders and long range planning discussions with our newly formed Dream Team. But as the months passed, the dream began to look more like a nightmare. As I approached the end of my first year as pastor, I had told the people that I would share this "State of the Church Address" on my first anniversary. Now in examining the measurable progress during the past year, it seemed that our church was in a sorry state. For the first time in seventeen years of being a pastor, a church I served had declined in attendance during my first year there! I was appalled!

There is a dull pain that can't fully be described when one feels like a failure, especially in a culture that places so much importance on success. A line from the movie City Slickers really hits the mark for a lot of people. Mitch, the character played by Billy Crystal, is talking to a friend at work on his thirty-ninth birthday and says: "Do you ever reach a point in your life when you say, this is the best I'll ever look, the best I'll ever feel, the best I'm ever gonna do, and it ain't that great?" If you have never felt that way, you're made of something different from the rest of us. American culture demands that we be successful. People often measure your significance by what you have accomplished with your life. From the time your parents applauded your first step until now, you have been conditioned to seek approval and acceptance from others by what you do. That fact puts unbelievable pressure on you to succeed.

This demand to be successful doesn't stop at the doors of the church. Many Christians are struggling to make their life count for Christ, only to discover that the Christian life somehow just isn't working out like it's supposed to do. They have been sincere about their commitment to Christ and have given it their best effort. Yet, if the truth were told, they are frustrated because they can't live up to what they think a Christian ought to be. They have concluded that their spiritual life is about as good as it's ever gonna get and it ain't that great.

There Must Be More Than This!

Charles Trumbull described his spiritual frustrations this way:

There were great fluctuations in my spiritual life, in my conscious closeness of fellowship with God. Sometimes I would be on the heights spiritually; sometimes I would be in the depths. A strong, arousing convention, a stirring, searching address from some consecrated, victorious Christian leader of men; a searching Spirit filled book, or the obligation to do a difficult piece of Christian service myself, with the
preparation in prayer that it involved, would lift me up; and I would stay up — for a while — and God would seem very close and my spiritual life deep. But it wouldn't last. Sometimes by some single failure before temptation, sometimes by a gradual downhill process, my best experiences would be lost, and I would find myself back on the lower levels. And a lower level is a perilous place for a Christian to be, as the Devil showed me over and over again.

Sound familiar? Doesn't this describe the way we have all felt at times in our Christian life? It may describe the way you feel right now. I became a Christian at the age of eight, but Trumbull's description of his Christian experience pretty much parallels the way mine was for the next twenty nine years after I trusted Christ. I don't think I've been alone in that experience either. Many who have professed Christ as their Savior have secretly wondered, "Is this all there is to it? Surely the Christian life is meant to be more than I am experiencing!" We all know that we are supposed to be experiencing some sort of abundant life that Jesus described. Yet many find themselves living a life of mediocrity instead of victory. How to get from here to there is sometimes foggy.

The problem isn't that Christians aren't interested in a victorious Christian life. Most just don't understand how to experience it. Matt was a young man who struggled
with an addiction to illegal drugs and to alcohol. I had given him all the pat answers about reading the Bible more and praying harder. But here he was again sitting in my office, wanting my help. "It's not that I don't want to live for God," he said. "I pray for Him to help me and I really mean it, but things just never seem to change." I knew he meant it. His sincerity was obvious. That's what frustrated me. I had told him the same answers over and over again, but they weren't working for him. In a way, I could see a caricature of my own life in Matt's experience. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol. My sins were far more respectable than that. But in spite of all my efforts to be free, I could still point to areas of my life where I felt enslaved. Until God revealed the key to enjoying victory in the Christian life, I did a lot of things to try to experience victory. I have come to realize that Matt and I weren't alone in our frustration. Maybe you can relate to some of these efforts to find the sense of fulfillment you have hungered for in your own life.

If At First You Don't Succeed. . .

We live in a culture that commends effort. From childhood each of us learned that we shouldn't give up. Don't be a quitter. Keep trying until you accomplish your goal. One company even advertised a motto which said, "We try harder!" In the natural world, trying harder is commendable and often effective. But God's ways really aren't
our ways. Sometimes they seem to be opposite from ours. In the spiritual world, trying harder is detrimental. That's right. Trying will defeat you every time.

No Christian has a problem with the previous paragraph as it relates to salvation. If an unsaved person were to suggest to you that he is trying hard to become a Christian, what would you tell him? You would probably make it clear to him that a person is not saved by trying, but becomes a child of God by trusting. You would tell him that there is absolutely nothing he can do to gain salvation. It has all already been done. Salvation is a gift to be received, not a reward to be earned. If a man tries even a little bit to gain salvation by his own works, he cannot possibly become a Christian. Paul said about salvation: "And if by grace, then it is no longer works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work" (Romans 11:6). In other words, it has to be either grace or works. Christians are saved by grace and trying hard has absolutely nothing to do with it.

But many Christians who understand that trying is detrimental to becoming a Christian somehow think that it is essential to walking in victory after salvation. A later chapter will demonstrate in depth that victory is not a reward, but a gift. But let's go ahead now and hit the nail straight on the head by saying that a person does not experience victory in the Christian life by trying hard to live for God. It just won't
work! I know because I've tried it. Have you tried to live for God? Did your efforts cause you to experience real victory? I rest my case . . . temporarily.

I lived many years of my Christian life trapped in what I call the motivation-condemnation-rededication cycle. From the earliest years of my Christian life I had a mental picture of what I thought I should be. But in my mind there was always a wide gap between where I ought to be and where I was. Sometimes when I was especially motivated I would feel that the gap had narrowed a little. When I was winning people to Christ or spending a lot of time praying and studying the Bible, I felt that I might actually one day be able to achieve my goal of being a victorious Christian. But inevitably the time would come when my motivation level would diminish and my fury and fire would die down. That always led to a sense of condemnation. Even when I had really done nothing wrong to cause the condemnation, I would often feel guilty for not doing all the things that I believed I should be doing. The devil would have a field day with me during this phase. Sometimes I would become spiritually indifferent. I often wondered if I would ever be consistent in my Christian life. I would wallow in my misery until I couldn't stand it anymore, then would finally rededicate myself to God, confessing my sins and spiritual slothfulness. I would pray, and with genuine contempt for my inconsistency, would ask God to help me to be more consistent. I would promise to read my Bible more, pray more, win more souls, whatever I thought it took to get back on course. I resolved to try harder than ever to live for God. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I never experienced real peace about my Christian life. If I read five chapters of the Bible, I felt that I should have read ten. If I led one person to Christ, I thought it should have been two. My wife, Melanie, used to tell me, "You'll never be satisfied." I was a classic Type A personality trying hard to do something for God. It was a miserable ride on a spiritual roller coaster!

Many people have acknowledged that their experience is much like the one I have just described. They live in this vicious cycle, moving continuously from motivation to condemnation to rededication. Does this describe your spiritual life? Constantly spinning around and around in this circle will make you sick after a while. But I want to give you hope. There is a way to get off this ride! It may sound unbelievable, but it's true. I know because I jumped off this nauseating roller coaster myself and I can't begin to describe how wonderful I have found the Christian life to be since then. We will talk more about this later. In this first chapter, I just want you to see whether the problems I have experienced in my Christian life fit your situation.

You Know The Rules!

An important cornerstone of a civilized society is law. Without laws to govern
the behavior of its citizens, a nation would live in chaotic anarchy. The dictionary defines law as: "a rule or order that it is advisable or obligatory to observe." We have all been taught throughout life that if you don't obey the rules, you will be punished. Whether it's a child sneaking cookies before dinner or an adult driving seventy in a fifty five mph zone, if you get caught breaking the rules you pay the price. Living in a world where we are taught from the cradle to the coffin that we must obey the rules, it is a natural process to transfer this system of law over into our Christian life.

The law of God is good because it accomplishes an important function. But many Christians have misunderstood the purpose of the law. The law was given to cause men to see their own absolute inadequacy to live a life that glorifies God. The Law in the Old Testament revealed to Israel the righteous standard that God demands. The story of the Hebrew people chronicles their repeated failure to live up to God's laws. Remember that God is omniscient and knew before He even gave the law that they wouldn't keep it. Through the law God revealed that righteousness cannot come from external regulations. We all understood that at the time of our salvation, but somehow many seem to believe that the rules change after a person is saved. Some people who are quick to point out that keeping religious rules won't cause anybody to become a Christian have come to believe that keeping certain rules will help you grow in your Christian life. These folks generally spend their lifetime trying to improve their spiritual performance.

Vicki came after the service one Sunday morning with tears in her eyes. "Steve, can I talk to you a minute?" We walked downstairs to the office area and sat down. Nervously fidgeting with a crumpled Kleenex, she began to cry. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I have rededicated myself to God over and over again. I'm reading my Bible, although I don't seem to get much out of it these days. I set my clock to get up early and spend time in prayer. I even agreed to work in the children's church so that I could serve the Lord there. But I still feel empty. I've asked God if I'm unhappy because of some sin in my life, but I can't think of anything. Why don't I have the joy that Christians are supposed to experience?" Vicki is typical of many Christians. Instead of experiencing joy in Christ, she was trying to find fulfillment through her Christian lifestyle. Her lack of contentment caused her to believe that God must not be pleased with her.

I can certainly relate to her experience. For many years I thought that God accepted me more when I served Him like I thought He wanted me to do. I knew that he always loved me, but felt that He probably didn't really like me sometimes. I pictured God sitting up there keeping His patience like a parent whose anger is about to explode if the kid's conduct doesn't improve soon. So when in the motivation phase, I
would do as much possible to gain His approval. I remember one time agreeing with a good friend that we wouldn't eat until we led someone to Christ. We started out visiting hardened "prospects" and gradually worked our way down as we became increasingly hungry. We finally got a kid on a bicycle in the park to pray the sinner's prayer and immediately made a bee line to McDonalds! Sometimes I would fast and pray for hours and hours. Once I spent three days in my office without coming out. At the end of my "time with God", I was starving, smelled bad and had bad breath, but didn't feel any closer to God! Don't miss my point. I am not suggesting that it is wrong to witness to unsaved people, or to fast and pray. I am saying that it was ridiculous to have thought it was somehow possible to behave in a way to cause God to accept me more than He already did. Since God already fully accepts us in Christ, there is nothing we can do to score brownie points with Him!

I have talked with many Christians whose lives are like mine has been. I can't count the times that I have heard people describe a lack of fulfillment in their Christian life and then conclude that the answer was to get back in church, or witness more, or start tithing, or pray more, etc. Take it from a man who did all those things and still felt unfulfilled, polishing your performance is not the answer! Some of the most miserable people in the world are folks who are drowning in a sea of religious activity. The sad part of it is that they are absolutely sincere in what they are doing. Can you relate to the kind of attitude just described? If you can, stay tuned, because I've got some good news for you!

Why Can't I Be Successful?

Some people might think that ministers should have it all together, but I'll go ahead and let you in on a secret. Sometimes I haven't had it all together. In fact, at times I've felt that it was all falling apart! Preachers are just like other people in many ways. Our son, David, had a friend come home with us after church one Sunday afternoon. He went back home that evening and told his mother, "They're just like us!" It's good he figured that out early in life. Pastors don't speak King James English at home. We sometimes yell at our kids and argue with our wife and worry about our bills. Sometimes we act like idiots, laughing at silly things. Some of us are Trekkies. We know about Indiana Jones and Rambo. We might even have an opinion about David Letterman moving from NBC to CBS.

Get the picture? I'm just a regular guy like you. There is something else I suspect we have in common. Probably you and I both have had the desire to be successful in our spiritual life. The popular belief is that success comes by commitment and hard work. That's true in the business world. If a person dedicates himself to
accomplish something in business, he has every reason to be optimistic about his chances in our free enterprise system. But it doesn't work that way when it comes to our spiritual life.

The criterion for measuring success in the world is production. If a person produces impressive results in business, he is considered successful. Successful people have learned what to do to accomplish the desired results. But here is where we get into trouble in the Christian life. Christianity isn't built around performance and production, but is centered on the person of Jesus Christ. When we transfer a worldly approach to experiencing success to our Christian life, it won't work!

You may not be a pastor, but I want you to see how this faulty understanding of success has infiltrated the modern church. When Paul met the brethren, he greeted them with the words "grace" and "peace." Today pastors sometimes greet each other with words like, "How many are you running now? What's your budget? How many baptisms did you have last year?" I am embarrassed to admit how often I have asked these questions in the past. My concept of success in the church was tied to production and performance. I had the same understanding of success in my personal life. I thought that to be a successful Christian, I must read the Bible enough, pray enough, do enough evangelistic outreach. More production and performance. My whole life was wrapped up in rules and routine. Have you experienced this in your life? It was a thrilling day when I finally came to understand that Christianity has nothing to do with rules and routine. Christianity is a relationship! God never intended for our focus to be on performing and producing. He only desires that our focus be on the person of Jesus Christ!

There is a generation of Christians today who measure the success of their spiritual lives by whether or not they live up to religious rules. Their focus is on their performance. They want to live up to the standard they set for themselves, but can never do enough. No wonder there are so many who feel defeated!

When any Christian tries to live by rules, the outcome will be the same as it has always been. He will discover that he just can't measure up, regardless of how hard he tries. The law is intended to leave you saying, "I just can't do it. I've tried and tried, but I just can't live a successful Christian life." If that's how you feel, then you might be closer to enjoying success than you know. Your sense of failure may be the catalyst that God wants to use to bring you to a new understanding of the meaning of success. By the time you finish reading this book, you just might find yourself beginning to have a different understanding of spiritual success.

For a long time I thought that to experience success in my Christian life, it was necessary to work harder. But I have discovered that the key to enjoying success is not strenuous work, but spiritual rest. This is a paradox in Scripture. We must rest while we work! Many Christians have the problem of feeling like a spiritual failure. Satan knows that as long as he can keep you feeling and thinking like a defeated failure, you will behave like one. But there is a way you can enjoy a successful Christian life every day! I'm not talking about sinless perfection, but I am saying that there is a quality of Christian living that I didn't know existed until twenty nine years after I was saved. I don't blame you if you don't believe it yet. Just don't close your mind to the possibility that there might be more to the Christian life than you experience right now.

I was sincere all those years I struggled to do something for God. And God graciously gave me some wonderful times in my Christian life and in my ministry. Then came the days when He began a work in my life greater than anything I have ever known since I became a Christian. But it wasn't a happy process. In fact, God's work in my life had brought me to this place where I lay on my floor wondering whether or not I would continue in the ministry. My feelings were beyond disappointment or even discouragement. I felt despair. God, if this all that ministry will ever be, I want out. I just want to quit. I know now that God must have smiled. That's exactly what He had been waiting to see happen. Now what He would do in my life would make the former days look mediocre at best.

On sale now for ten dollars at http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=33 Over 250,000 sold in English and approaching a half million in print in eleven languages.

The Vice of Values

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I've really begun to enjoy life since I gave up my Christian values. For many years my life was built around those principles which I believed embodied the essence of the Christian life. I thought it was a noble cause to boldly defend those values. I lamented the fact that our country has abandoned its Judeo-Christian ethics. But discovering how to walk in grace has totally reshaped my perspective. I now recognize that no value system, Christian or otherwise, can express the essence of Christianity. The end result of a life built on Christian values is only a caricature of New Testament Christianity. It is not God's purpose that our life be built around a system of values. It is His desire that our life be built on the person of His Son. Value systems may influence behavior, but God is not interested in systems of living. He is interested in relationships. An intimate relationship with Him will produce a godly lifestyle. However focusing on behavior will never create intimacy with God.

Two Trees In The Garden Of Eden

The basis of a lifestyle built around a system of right and wrong originates with the dawn of man. God's purpose in creating man was that He might enjoy mankind, expressing His loving nature to him and through him. He lovingly placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden and gave them reign over the garden and all that was in it. One aspect of freedom is choice. Where there is no choice there is no real freedom. Consequently, two trees were placed in the garden from which man could choose to live. The choice made by Adam and Eve would not only determine their own destiny, but the destiny of all future generations.

Genesis 2:9 describes the trees in the garden:

"And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

It is not coincidental that these two trees were in the center of the garden. The tree that Adam and Eve would eat from was to determine the standard which would be central in controlling their actions each day.

The Tree Of Life

The tree of life is a picture of the Lord Jesus. A basic principle of biblical interpretation is that the Old Testament is understood in light of New Testament revelation. The New Testament affirms repeatedly that Jesus is Life. The reason a person possesses eternal life when he is a Christian is because Christ lives within him. To receive Him is to receive Life! Jesus said that he came so that we might have life (John 10:10). As we abide in Him, His life flows out of us like rivers of living water. It isn't a flow of Divine Life that we struggle to produce. His life just naturally flows out of the Christian who is abiding in Him. God intended that Adam and Eve should live by His life all their days. As long as He was the only source they had in this world, questions of right and wrong would have never arisen. Eating from the second tree is where the trouble for mankind began.

The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil

God placed a multitude of trees in the garden. There was only one tree from which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The prohibition was for their own good. Remember that God created this tree and gave them a choice because without the choice there could be no freedom. God wanted man to choose Him. That choice would provide eternal life. But Adam and Eve were told that in the day they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die. So the choice was clear — life or death. They could either continue to live in total dependence on God or choose independence from Him. Satan came along and convinced Eve that God was withholding something good from them and she ate from the forbidden tree. Adam did the same and suddenly their eyes were opened. For the first time they became conscious of good and evil. From that day forward every deed of their life would be evaluated by a value system built around the concept of right and wrong. However that was not God's original plan. His desire was that they simply allow Him to be the source and authority of their life.

Back To The 1990's

Now let's jump back into the twentieth century. As a result of Adam's sin, his descendants today still live by the choice he made. Building one's life around a value system defined by right and wrong is prevalent in every culture, from the most primitive to the most advanced. Every society defines right and wrong according to its own standards and people's lives are judged on the basis of conformity to those standards. Yet God's purpose for man today hasn't changed from His design in the garden of Eden. He still wants our lifestyle to find its source in His life, not in laws dictating right and wrong.

When a person becomes a Christian, he possesses the divine life of Jesus Christ. His life is ours. As we abide in Christ, His life flows out of us producing a righteous lifestyle. If we aren't abiding in Him, actions become irrelevant. Before I understood that Christ is my life, my whole lifestyle was characterized by an obsession with right and wrong. Yet if one is not abiding in Christ, every action is wrong. To abide in Him is to walk in faith while to fail to abide in Christ is to walk after the flesh. Any time a Christian does things on his own, it is sin regardless of how his actions may appear. This is exactly what Paul meant when he said that "whatever is not of faith is sin." Sins are not the root of the problem when we fail to abide in Christ. They are the symptoms. The real issue is that we are living out of our own sufficiency. It's living independently of Him that is real problem.

Contemporary Christians are involved in endless debates over questions of right and wrong. Is it wrong for a Christian to drink wine? How about a daiquiri? Can a Christian listen to rock group Guns n Roses? How about country singer Garth Brooks? Should a Christian attend R-rated movies? How about PG movies with bad language? The list is never ending. When we realize that the heart of the matter is that our lifestyle should be an expression of the life of Christ within us, we come to realize that we have been asking all the wrong questions!

We must recognize that even good behavior which isn't an expression of Christ within us is a sin. Remember that the tree was of good and evil. Christians are quick to acknowledge that the deeds of human goodness demonstrated by one who isn't a Christian means nothing to God. Romans 8:8 says that "those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Why? Because they are living out of their own resources, not by faith in Christ. The Bible teaches that "without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Hebrews 6:6). God isn't impressed by human goodness. Human goodness is nothing more than self righteousness. Even if one is a Christian, when he lives from his own resources, his good deeds are nothing more than self righteous behavior. Do you see the problem? His fruit comes from the wrong tree.

Ask The Right Question

The definitive question in the life of the believer is not, "Would it be wrong for me to do this?" The appropriate question is, "Am I trusting in Christ at this moment, trusting Him as my very Life Source?"

(This is an excerpt from my book, Grace Walk, published in 1995. The book has been printed in 12 languages. You can get a copy here: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=33 )

The Deer's Cry

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Lisa Kelly (Celtic Woman) sings this song beautifully. I couldn't find a video that shows her singing it but this one gives the lyrics. It's my favorite of all the Celtic Woman music.

The Voice

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Lisa Kelly has an angelic voice... I love this song, which points us to THE VOICE which calls us to Himself so that we might find peace through His wounds. It's sad to think that some can only hear the Divine Lover's Voice if He speaks in a religious dialect.

"The Voice" Lisa Kelly of Celtic Women

I hear your voice on the wind
And I hear you call out my name

"Listen, my child," you say to me
"I am the voice of your history
Be not afraid, come follow me
Answer my call, and I'll set you free"

I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain
I am the voice of your hunger and pain
I am the voice that always is calling you
I am the voice, I will remain

I am the voice in the fields when the summer's gone
The dance of the leaves when the autumn winds blow
Ne'er do I sleep thoughout all the cold winter long
I am the force that in springtime will grow

I am the voice of the past that will always be
Filled with my sorrow and blood in my fields
I am the voice of the future, bring me your peace
Bring me your peace, and my wounds, they will heal

I am the voice in the wind and the pouring rain
I am the voice of your hunger and pain
I am the voice that always is calling you
I am the voice

I am the voice of the past that will always be
I am the voice of your hunger and pain
I am the voice of the future
I am the voice, I am the voice
I am the voice, I am the voice

Robert F. Capon On Grace

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Here's an excerpt of an interview Tim Brassell, pastor of New Creation Community Church, in Portsmouth, Virginia, did with Christian author Robert Farrar Capon and published in Grace Communion International's magazine, "Christian Odyssey."

If you aren't familiar with Robert Capon or with Grace Communion International, you'd benefit from knowing both. Capon's books can be found on amazon.com and you can find GCI at www.gci.org

RC:"Nothing separates us from the love of God." We think there must be some breaking point where God would give up on us. "Well, what about if we…?"

Sin is not a problem with God. God solved all his problems with sin before the foundation of the world, in the beginning—and it’s done. The iceberg that lies under the surface of history is the Son of God; redemption is the mystery behind all history. Sin is a permanent irrelevancy. And God is the one to say, "Look, I have taken away the handwriting that was against you."

I like the translation in Matthew, "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." What do we do when we don’t forgive somebody else’s debts, or literally, their sins? We carp on what they owe us. We look at the chits that we have saved. This is what you owe me and you haven’t given it to me. There is an IOU I hold against you, and I gotta have this…. Well, it’s not that way with God. With God, it’s done—there is no handwriting against us. It’s done. He’s not holding IOUs.

TB: So why do we have such a love affair with legalism?

RC: It’s something that’s afflicted the church from the start. Humans have a hard time believing that God doesn’t hold IOUs. But Paul says the law cannot save. He says, "He has made him to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

TB: Have you found an effective way to present the gospel to a legalist?

RC: No (laughter). The reason I say no is because all that you’re going to do is present it and shock them. If you try to do it in a winsome way, which I always do, and try to do it to show them the freedom of it, then you’ve got a chance. A small chance, not a big one, but you’ve got a chance—because, when it happens—people go, "Wow!"

I was made visiting professor of something or other in religion at the University of Tulsa for the fall term back in the ’80s or ’90s. I had two classes. One was a 39-week beginning course. I taught the parables, and I had, I would say, everybody against me. All these youngsters were against me because what I was saying was against everything they had ever heard. I pounded and pounded and pounded for 39 weeks. I went through every parable.

One young lady came up to me at the end and said: "You know, when I first came here I didn’t like anything you said, because it contradicted everything I knew. But, you have done something. For the first time in my life I see that it really is good news" (laughter). They thought the gospel was bad news! That’s what legalism does to people.

Tim Brassell: Can a pastor take grace too far?

Robert Capon: No. A pastor can’t take grace too far. That is, not unless he claims that sin doesn’t matter. If he claims that, he’s abusing grace, because sin does matter. It matters to me, the sinner. It matters whether I leave myself stuck in it.

Suppose a mother has a kid who comes in all muddy. She just washes off the mud. She loves her child and doesn’t wait to see whether the kid decides if he wants to live with mud all over him. She just washes it off. And if she is a faithful, true mother, she will continually take that mud into herself and say, "Well, this is my son, and I will stick with him."

TB: Mothers are like that.

RC: Yes. The point is that sin is mud. It’s a cover-up or cover-over of your true being as a person. And Jesus has washed it away. He’s erased the sins. He’s washed them away.

He Took It Out of Us And Into Himself

2011-11-11T07:00:00.003-06:00

Here's a wonderful picture of the atonement of Jesus Christ. In this clip from "The Green Mile," John Coffey (J.C.) draws the lethal toxins from her and into Himself. He shattered the dimension of time and took into His own body that which was causing her to perish. She was helpless to do anything for herself and needed only to "be still" and trust in his work. Taking it away from her, he made her whole and radiant with beauty.

Make You Feel My Love

2011-11-09T22:48:00.002-06:00

I know I've posted it before, but I so love this song. Can you hear The Voice behind the voice?

Have You Heard of Confirmation Bias? It May Be Blinding You.

2011-11-06T10:51:00.007-06:00

WAIT! DON'T WATCH THE VIDEO YET...READ THE PARAGRAPH BELOW IT FIRST...

There's a point about understanding biblical truth that this video illustrates very well. For you to really get the full impact of the point I'm making, you'll have to work with me on this and follow these instructions:

1. Start the video and watch it until the eight second spot and then immediately pause the player there. Go ahead and do it, then come back to this point.

2. What do you see in the video? The frame of a box? Are you sure it's a box? How sure are you? One hundred percent? Fifty percent?

3. If you stop here and go no further, you'll forever be convinced that what you've seen is a box, but it's not. You have not been watching a box frame on this video. You may be fully convinced you're seeing the image clearly, but you're not.

4. Press play now and watch the rest of the video.

What you've just experienced is called "confirmation bias." It's a psychological mindset which causes us to connect mentally to evidence that reinforces what we already believe while dismissing any evidence that would contradict our existing beliefs. You can google this subject and find out all about the early tests done in the 1960s that revealed the bias and find many examples on the Internet about it.

The reason I'm bringing it up here is because I find confirmation bias is a strong deterrent that keeps people from seeing some truths in the Bible. There are things we have believed for a long time, maybe even all our lives. But what if some of the things we believe are wrong? What if there's another way to look at it that would still recognize the Bible to be the authority on our understanding but would be a completely different viewpoint?

There are some things I believed for a long time that I don't believe anymore. I now see those things differently. Sometimes, when I share those topics, people will say, "But the Bible says . . . !" Of course, I already know that the Bible says what they're telling me. It's not that I don't know what the Bible says. The point is that there may be another way of "seeing" (interpreting) the text than what these folks have previously considered.

The thing about confirmation bias is that it's hardwired into our psyche is such a way that we often have a knee-jerk reaction against any evidence that contradicts our current viewpoint. In other words, we simply will not hear it. We know what we know that we know and we don't want to be bothered with information that goes against what we think we know.

So we react without giving the other viewpoint any serious investigation or sometimes even without a fair hearing. We hurl our stockpile of Bible verses that we already know which (to us) supports the view we currently have. There may be another way to understand those verses, but if we are confronted with a different way of seeing it, we often abandon that verse and flee to the next one that we think will support our existing view.

It's as if when we read the Bible, the verses that support what we already believe seem to be highlighted or italicized while the verses that might disprove and dismantle our current belief are skimmed over, almost as if they are invisible. Our bias serves to reinforce our view by causing confirming evidence to jump out at us while blinding us to any evidence that might threaten our current view.

It's important to see that bias in yourself. We all have it. Recognizing that fact can do a couple of important things in us. First, it can cause us to realize that, despite the fact that we may be very sure about our view, we could be wrong. We would all benefit from holding our viewpoints in humility. To say, "I just believe what the Bible plainly says" is often an arrogant cop-out. When we make that statement, are we implying that the other person is ignorant? That they don't really believe the Bible? It's not a weakness to possess humility when it comes to our understanding. Despite the western world's demand for ironclad, definitive, it-can't-be-any-other-way answers, there is a reason sincere, God-loving, Bible-believing, educationally-equipped students of the Bible have differed throughout history. Maybe if we recognize confirmation bias in ourselves we will be more respectful to those who differ with us.

The second thing it can do for us if we recognize the reality of confirmation bias in ourselves is to open our minds and hearts to learn truth we haven't known. To be open isn't to be gullible. Of course, we are to examine truth in light of the Scripture but instead of doing that we sometimes slam the door of our minds shut the moment we hear something that's new to us. If we aren't changing, we aren't growing. It's that simple.

What if there are some truths the Holy Spirit wants to teach you that contradict what you believe right now? Are you open to that? To replacing something you believe now with another belief the Spirit teaches you? Are you willing to change? Sometimes I encounter people who actually become angry when they are confronted with teaching that is new to them. Their anger shouts of their insecurity in their beliefs.

Others are too heavily vested in the religious culture where they live to change. There's a price to pay when we go against our religious culture. I've learned first hand that when we change, we will encounter rejection from some who don't agree with us. Go with the flow of grace and it just might carry us out "outside the city gates."

Sometimes when we think we are defending the truth, what we're really doing is frantically hugging our sacred cows. Our bias has caused us to idolize our traditions and our traditions have galvanized our inability to learn truths that are new to us.

Don't be gullible. Don't believe what anybody teaches you without studying the Bible for yourself. Many who are wary of teachings that are new to them have never considered that the things they currently believe are held by them because their religious culture indoctrinated them without their having seriously studied the subject for themselves. They have learned by religious osmosis, not by Spirit-led instruction.

I was speaking in Mexico one time and learned that many of the people there had been told by their pastor, "Don't listen to him!" When I stood to speak on the first night, I said, "Your pastor is right. You shouldn't listen to me, but you shouldn't listen to him either. Listen to the Bible. Listen to the Holy Spirit. If what he or I say is biblical, then listen to that. But don't take our word for anything - neither of us."

Who are you listening to these days? Your tradition? Your denomination? Your family upbringing? Maybe it would be a good idea for all of us to recognize and admit that we indeed do have a confirmation bias that causes us to unconsciously connect to the things that affirm we are right and we bypass anything that would suggest otherwise.

May His Spirit cause each of us to hear His Voice and to "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," even if it means that we have to admit that we've been wrong -- very wrong about some things. Don't be so sure you're seeing a box. Sometimes we need to look further into the matter to know what's really there.

A Wideness In God's Mercy

2011-11-03T23:05:00.004-05:00

Hymnwriter, Frederick William Faber wrote this in 1854. It's called "There's A Wideness In God's Mercy." Great lyrics!

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth’s sorrows
Are more felt than up in Heaven;
There is no place where earth’s failings
Have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior;
There is healing in His blood.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measure of our mind;
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

There is plentiful redemption
In the blood that has been shed;
There is joy for all the members
In the sorrows of the Head.

’Tis not all we owe to Jesus;
It is something more than all;
Greater good because of evil,
Larger mercy through the fall.

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.

Souls of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?

It is God: His love looks mighty,
But is mightier than it seems;
’Tis our Father: and His fondness
Goes far out beyond our dreams.

But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.

Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at His feet?

An Article I Wrote That Was Published in New Man Magazine

2011-10-29T22:46:00.004-05:00

Here's an article that was printed in "New Man Magazine," formerly the magazine of "Promise Keepers."

The Scandal of Grace
by Steve McVey

"Why are so many Christians stuck in a cycle of condemnation and rededication? Because the truth is hard to believe: When God forgives, it’s a done deal."

After I became a Christian, I said the following prayer hundreds of times: “Dear Lord, I’m so sorry. I want to ask Your forgiveness for how I have failed You in my Christian life. Lord, You know my heart. I want to serve You faithfully, but I can’t stay on track. Help me, Lord, to live for You. With Your help, I promise to start doing the things that glorify You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Maybe the words varied over the years, but the essence of the prayer was always the same. It started with me groveling in self-condemnation, asking for forgiveness. Then came the rededication part of my prayer, when I asked God to help me keep my promise to do the things He wants. Sometimes I was specific about the stuff I vowed to do -- things like reading my Bible in a year or getting up early to pray every morning. Once I even promised to not eat until I had verbally witnessed to at least one person. By the end of the day, I decided that a gospel tract left for the waitress could count toward that quota.

I don’t pray that way anymore. Every time I prayed like that, I sensed a gnawing awareness that it wouldn’t be long before I was praying the same prayer again. Yet I always had a heartfelt desire to please God. It finally dawned on me: I didn’t have a heart problem; I had a head problem. I wanted to keep my promises. I just didn’t know how.

In the last few years, God has begun to reveal spiritual truths to me that have totally transformed my life. These biblical truths will set a person free to live more effectively than he would with a lifetime of rededication prayers.

1. Realize that you can’t keep your promises. That may seem like a strange first step toward the goal of keeping promises, but it’s true. Miss this one and it’s like being told you didn’t touch first base when you come across home plate. Consider this question: If we could keep our promises, wouldn’t we have done it by now? How many times have we made the same promises? Let’s face it, rededication to keep promises won’t work. If it did, we wouldn’t find it necessary to keep rededicating ourselves.

Many of us have struggled with promise-keeping for one reason: We have focused on our performance more than on Jesus Christ. We have tried to keep our promises, but the Bible teaches that effective Christian living doesn’t come by trying. It comes by trusting Christ to express His life through us. He is the only One who can successfully keep promises. Before we can be effective promise keepers, we must become promise receivers. The Bible is clear about God’s promise: the One who has given us His life will be the One who lives it for us. Only Jesus Christ can effectively live the perfect life. He lives inside believers today and wants to reveal His perfect life through us (See 1 Thess. 5:24; Gal. 3:3-5).

2. A godly identity, not good intentions, must sustain our lifestyle. My own prayer of rededication always focused on my sense of sinfulness and my perceived need of God’s repeated forgiveness. Many men regularly pray to receive God’s forgiveness. We sometimes feel like there is a bad guy deep within us who is eager to come out. We ask the Lord to help us, hoping to suppress that “old man” so that he cannot have his way in our lives. But we fail again, either by doing what we should not have done or not doing what we should have done. And so we conclude that the “bad guy” within us has escaped our control and must be put back in his place. Then, once again, we seek forgiveness and recommit ourselves to keeping various spiritual disciplines.

This scenario sounds logical, but it is far from the teaching of the Bible. You don’t have a “bad guy” deep within you. To the contrary you are righteous at the very core of your being (See Rom. 3:22). The Bible refers to us as “saints” 63 times. God would not call you a saint if you were rotten at the core. At the cross, God took our old sin-filled spirit, with which we were born and crucified it (See Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3; Rom. 6:6). He then placed His own life into us, imparting to us His nature (See 2 Pet. 1:4). We now have a new identity. God did not simply change us; He created a brand-new person (See 2 Cor. 5:17).

When we live independent from Christ, we are doing what Paul called walking “according to the flesh” (See Rom. 8). In other words, we sin. We then see that our sin is not consistent with who we really are, but only how we function when we are not depending on Christ to animate our lives. So it is possible to behave in a way that totally contradicts who we really are.

The Bible teaches that we are righteous by nature (See 1 Cor. 3:16-17; Eph. 4:24). When you believe that fact, it will begin to totally transform how you live. You will find yourself practicing godly behavior, not because of disciplined determination, but because that is how you want to live -- and because freedom from condemnation opens the door to God’s power. You will not act out of good intentions, but from a godly identity. Ultimately, people behave according to what they truly believe.

3. Experience the freedom of forgiveness instead of the curse of condemnation. My rededication prayers often began with the words, “I’m so sorry. I want to ask Your forgiveness.” I believed that it was by my continuous confession that I maintained a righteous standing with God. Much of my time was spent begging for forgiveness. Even when I could not think of any unconfessed sin, I thought that surely there must be covert sins down in me somewhere.

Like many today, I believed that when I was saved God forgave me for all the sins I had committed up to that point. Then it was like He deposited forgiveness in a heavenly account with my name on it. From then on, every time I sinned all I had to do was make a withdrawal by asking for God’s forgiveness. If I asked, He would forgive. Until then, I was unforgiven.

That perspective puts a person in a bad predicament. If remaining in a state of forgiveness depends on one constantly asking to be forgiven, our focus must be on ourselves at all times. After all, what if we sin and then suddenly die before getting forgiveness again? It’s hard enough to keep up with the wrong things you might have done, but to never miss doing something you should have done? Talk about pressure!

The liberating truth of the New Testament is that we are totally forgiven. God did not deposit forgiveness in an account for us at salvation. Because of the cross, He emptied the whole account on us! God is not restricted by time. He saw the sins of our whole lifetime and placed them upon Jesus at the cross. God has poured out forgiveness for the sins of a lifetime upon us. One might ask, “Do you mean that our future sins are already forgiven?” That’s exactly what I mean. Remember, when Jesus died for our sins 2,000 years ago, they were all future sins.

This is where God’s grace can seem absurd, even scandalous. After all, if all future sins are already forgiven, why not just go and sin all over the place? But the amazing fact is that, when we receive forgiveness as a finished work, it has the opposite effect. We see ourselves as the forgiven “new men” that we are in Christ, and we set our minds on that fact. The love of Christ expands within us, and He motivates us and empowers us toward a Christlike life.

We are called to utter dependence on Christ, completely living by faith. It is humbling. But without it, we will never really know where we stand with God. When we stay in that place of certainty in Christ, the works of righteousness will burst forth. It will move us to repent (change our minds and our behavior) when necessary, confess our faults to others and seek forgiveness of people we have wronged. In other words, we will grow in living a life of love.

This ancient truth will sound new to some, because certain scriptures have been misinterpreted which weaken the truth. We have often blurred the lines between the Old Covenant (before Christ’s death) and the New Covenant. When we cross that dividing line and embrace New Covenant grace, we will discover how radical His grace really is.

The reality of grace is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions. It is the truth that Jesus spoke about, a radical forgiveness that enraged the Pharisees but delighted the humble and needy follower.

So if we want to keep our promises, we must start trusting. Let us choose to enter God’s rest and receive His love. Then we will discover that we begin keeping our promises, not because it is our duty, but because it is our delight.

(New Man Magazine Copyright Strang Communications Co., USA. All rights reserved.)

My Article A Magazine Wouldn't Print

2011-10-29T12:31:00.004-05:00

A while back I was contacted by a nationally recognized magazine and asked to write an article about building a strong marriage. I was asked to write about how that a house/marriage is build by laying the right "planks" like reading the Bible together, praying together, going to church together, etc. In my email response, I asked the editor if she was familiar with my ministry and what I teach and was told that she was.
So I wrote the article beneath this paragraph in anticipation that it would be published two months later. I learned later they had changed their minds and decided not to use my article.

People really want to be given a list of things to do, but as this article states, victory in marriage or any other area of life doesn't come from "Spiritual To Do List." Victory comes through a Person.

Here is the unpublished article:

"Lord, send me a good looking girlfriend.” This was my constant prayer. Forget the war in Vietnam, racial tensions at home, or a hotel called Watergate. When I was sixteen years old, those things paled to insignificance compared to my desire for a girlfriend. My prayer took priority over everything else. After all, I’d never had a girlfriend and it wasn’t cool to be without one at sixteen.

One Sunday morning while I was sitting on the back row in Sunday School, the answer to my prayers walked in the door. It was a visitor I had never seen before, but as soon as I saw her I knew that this would be a great place to start my dating career. After church that day, despite my bumbling attempt at asking her out, she said yes.

The first date seemed to go well, so I decided to try again for a second date. Again she said yes. Then she said yes for a third date and a fourth. I dated that girl every week for three years. Then I married her. She was the only girl I ever dated. Melanie and I have now been married for many years and have four children and three grandchildren.

The odds of two teens staying married, and happily married at that, are very unlikely. I’m no expert on the subject, but after nearly three decades of having both scaled the heights and plumbed the depths of marriage, I’m convinced that the key to a happy marriage can be identified in one word — Jesus.

On the day Melanie and I were married, knowing nothing about how to build a strong marriage, God prompted us to agree upon one thing. In a day before anyone had even heard the phrase, “prenuptial agreement,” we agreed on one tenet of marriage. It was the decision that Christ would be the Source of our relationship. On our wedding night, the very first thing we did when we arrived at the hotel where we would spend our honeymoon was to kneel together beside the bed in prayer. We gave our marriage to Jesus that night.

It wasn’t human wisdom that caused us to do such a thing. It was an God given understanding that we had better depend upon Him because all we knew about our marriage was that we loved each other. That act of unified agreement, that one decision, was the only prenuptial agreement with which we entered into marriage. But it was enough.

We have reached a place where the divorce rate inside the church has surpassed the number outside the church, evidence that we must be missing a big piece of the puzzle in experiencing the “happily ever after” for which we all hope. The Bible says that “Unless the Lord build a house, they labor in vain that build it.” What does that statement mean in practical terms?

Marriage might be compared to a house. It is important to have strong planks in building a house. All of our lives, Christians have been told about these planks. Believers already know the importance of praying together as a couple. We recognize the need for the primacy of God’s Word in our relationships. We understand the value of being a part of a church family. We have been taught how to do everything from budget our money to argue, all from a Christian perspective. These things aren’t new to anybody who has even casually been exposed to the church. Yet the divorces continue.

The problem in modern marriages may be discovered by examining the foundation of the house. Strong planks mean nothing unless they stand on a strong foundation. They will only stand until a strong wind comes along and blows them down. Couples can read the Bible, pray, go to church, study every method known to man for maintaining their marriage and still find themselves in divorce court. Don’t you know couples at church who ended up divorced despite the fact that they were doing all the right things externally?. Does this suggest that the planks of Christian behavior are unimportant? No! It simply points to the necessity of a proper foundation and religious disciplines aren’t it.

What is the foundation upon which an enduring and loving marriage must stand? It is nothing less than the life of Jesus Christ. Christian marriages aren’t about doing all the right things. That may describe a religious marriage, but an authentic Christian marriage is founded on an intimate union two people share with Jesus Christ. Marriages inside the church are failing because many have made a subtle shift from Jesus to religious activity. Many have a long inventory list to ensure they possess all the planks of spiritual disciplines, but have forgotten about the foundation of Christ Himself.

Church attendance is not enough. Neither is praying together, nor reading the Bible. Learning effective communication skills won’t hold a marriage together. There isn’t one Christian who doesn’t know the value of these things, but they simply aren’t enough when standing alone. They must rest upon the foundation of Christ’s life being expressed in and through marriage partners individually and together.

Grace in marriage is divine enablement by the life of Jesus Christ within us so that we can be all that God has called us to be and do all that He has called us to do. Understanding who we are in Christ is the key that unlocks the door to a successful marriage. We are each one with Him, thereby making us one with each other.

The planks can only be effectively put into place when our marriage is founded upon the Person of Jesus Christ. As we learn to abide in Him, He indeed builds our marriage, consecrating our relationship and causing it to be a precious, holy union through which the three of us experience an intimacy which is nothing less than divine. Anything else is simply empty religious ritual.

A Christian We All Should Know

2011-10-26T18:32:00.003-05:00

Athanasius

(The following article was written by Tim Kimberley)

“If Christian theology had superheroes,” scholar Kevin VanHoozer writes, “Athanasius would perhaps lead the list.” Why would someone make such a statement? Athanasius is relatively unknown to most Christians today. In order for us to begin appreciating the significance of his life, we need to understand the world from which this little man stood tall.

Athanasius’s World

Diocletian

In 302 A.D., when Athansius was only 6 years old, two men sought an audience with the god Apollo. These weren’t ordinary men, they were two of the most powerful people on the planet. Diocletian and Galerius were both Roman Emperors. They wanted Apollo to help settle an argument for them.
Christianity had been spreading like a virus. They knew the Roman gods weren’t happy with so many Romans becoming Christians. Dicoletian and Galerius wanted Rome, with help from the gods, to be greater than ever. How could they accomplish their wishes?

Diocletian thought the gods would be happy if Christians were prevented from positions of influence. Galerius, however, thought the gods wanted more. Galerius thought the gods would want Christians exterminated. The best way to settle the argument? Why don’t we just ask the head god and see what he wants? The two men asked their questions through the oracle of Apollo at Didyma (modern-day Didim, Turkey).

The oracle told the two men the “impious” on the Earth were making it hard for Apollo to even provide advice. Diocletian and Galerius agreed; Christians needed to be exterminated. On February 23, 303AD Diocletian ordered the newly built church in his city to be leveled. Life was hell for many Christians. The horrendous ways Christians were persecuted and killed during this time period are only for the strongest of stomachs. The executions continued until at least April 24, 303AD when six people, including the lead pastor of a prominent city, were decapitated.

Constantine

While the Diocletian persecutions were still fresh in everyone’s mind, a man named Constantine became Emperor of Rome. The new emperor, shortly after taking office, faced a coup. Maxentius, a military leader, organized a huge force to defeat Constantine. The two forces met on October 28th, 312AD at Milvian Bridge, just north of Rome. Maxentius’s army was twice the size of Constantine’s. The night before, however, Constantine had a dream. He was advised in the dream to, “mark the heavenly sign of God on the shields of his soldiers…by means of a slanted letter X with the top of its head bent round.” Eusebius describes the sign as Chi (x) traversed by Rho (P), a symbol representing the first two letters of the Greek spelling of the word Christos or Christ.

The battle was brief. Constantine’s cavalry and infantry decimated the larger force. The mob of fleeing soldiers pushed Maxentius into the Tiber river where he drowned. Constantine’s seemingly supernatural vision and victory would significantly change the way Christians were treated. Truth is stranger than fiction. No one who endured the Diocletian persecutions could have imagined such a drastic turn-around. Constantine credited his victory to the Christian God.

Just a few months after The Battle of Milvian Bridge, Constantine issued the Edict of Milan proclaiming religious tolerance of all religions throughout the empire. The edict had special benefits for Christians, it legalized the religion and granted restoration for all property seized during Diocletian’s persecution.

The newfound Christian freedom made it possible for everything Athanasius is famous for to transpire.

Arius

Arius was 63 years old when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan. Arius led a church in Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria was one of the most influential cities of the entire Roman Empire. Arius was one of the most prestigious and popular pastors of the city. Arius started preaching something that would shake the Christian world and dominate almost the entirety of Athanasius’s life. Jeffrey Bingham explains:
Arius was preaching from the Bible, with Proverbs 8:22 as a central verse, that the Son is not eternal with the Father but is created by the Father. That verse reads: “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works, before his deeds of old.” Arius and his followers argued their doctrine from this verse, which speaks of the creation of wisdom, and from the common early Christian understanding of Christ as “wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:24, 30). These verses…subordinate Christ, the Son, to the Father, who alone is God and who had begotten – that is, created – a Son. Other passages they pointed to in support of their view were Psalm 45:7-8 and Isaiah 1:2 and the words “only begotten” in John 1:14, 18. Thus, according to Arius, it was not true to say “Always God, always Son” or “At the same time Father at the same time Son,” meaning that God the Father and God the Son are co-eternal and both possess the quality of deity. Rather, Arius proclaimed that “before [the Son] was begotten or created or defined or established, he was not for he was not unbeggoten” and that “the Son has a beginning, but God is without beginning.” For Arius, the Son is a creature and is not eternal.

Is Jesus the Creator or is He a creature? Did Jesus have a beginning? Is Jesus truly God? These are some of the most important questions in the universe. Athanasius would spend most of his life, sometimes standing alone, answering these questions.

Athanasius’s Life
Early Years

Athanasius was born around 296AD. Little is known of his early life. A 10th century biographer, the Arabic speaking Severus, spoke about Athanasius’s mother as having worshipped idols and having been wealthy.

Sometime during his youth Athanasius and his mother were baptized as Christians. He was then discipled by Alexander, the head of the Alexandrian church. It was from Alexander that Athanasius obtained not only his cursory knowledge of contemporary philosophy, but also his thorough understanding of Scripture.

Gregory of Nazianzus tells us:

He was brought up, from the first, in religious habits and practices, after a brief study of literature and philosophy, so that he might not be utterly unskilled in such subjects, or ignorant in matters which he had determined to despise…[rather] from meditating on every book of the Old and New Testament, with a depth such as none else has applied even to one of them, he grew in contemplation, rich in splendour of life, combining them in wondrous sort by that golden bond which few can weave; using life as the guide of contemplation, contemplation as the seal of life.

It was now time for Athanasius to step toward the spotlight.

With Alexander at Nicea

The entire Christian world pondered the ideas of Arius. Is Jesus a creature? The greatest creature ever created? Arius believed Jesus predated coming to earth; he even believed Jesus predated the earth itself. The phrase that eventually became the Arian motto, “there was when He was not,” aptly focuses on the point at issue.

Athanasius’s mentor, Alexander, made the first move. Arius was a pastor under the authority of Alexander. Alexander, claiming his authority and his responsibility as bishop, condemned the teachings of Arius. Arius did not accept this judgment. He wrote to church leaders all over the world. Soon there were popular demonstrations in Alexandria, with people marching through the streets chanting Arius’ theological teachings. The local disagreement in Alexandria spread beyond Egypt and threatened to divide the church.

In 325 AD, Constantine decided to intervene. He called a great assembly of Christian bishops from all parts of the empire to meet him at Nicea (modern-day Iznik, Turkey). Constantine paid the travel expenses for all involved. Athanasius, only 29 years old at the time, travelled to the Council of Nicea as the personal assistant to his mentor Alexander.

Athanasius, as he arrived with Alexander, would have seen a spectacular sight. This was the first time in human history that it was safe for the leaders of the Christian Church to get together. It would have been foolish for them all to previously assemble in one location before the time of Constantine. All the leadership could have been whipped out in one strategic swoop. The more than 300 bishops who walked through those doors were true heroes of the faith. In order to understand what Athansius saw, it is necessary to remember that several of those attending the great assembly had recently been imprisoned, tortured, or exiled, and that some bore on their bodies the physical marks of their faithfulness. Davis writes:

As confessors of the faith, some of the bishops bore the signs of the recent persecution on their persons: Paul of Neo-Caesarea had lost the use of his hands because of torture, the half blind and hamstrung Paphnutius of Egypt was kissed by Constantine himself in a touching diplomatic gesture.

Eusebius of Caesarea, who was present, describes the amazing scene:

There were gathered the most distinguished ministers of God, from the many churches in Europe, Libya [i.e., Africa] and Asia. A single house of prayer, as if enlarged by God, sheltered Syrians and Cilicians, Phoenicians and Arabs, delegates from Palestine and from Egypt, Thebans and Libyans, together with those from Mesopotamia. There was also a Persian bishop, and a Scythian was not lacking. Pontus, Galatia, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Phrygia sent their most outstanding bishops, jointly with those from the remotest areas of Thrace, Macedonia, Achaia, and Epirus. Even from Spain, there was a man of great fame [Hosius of Cordova] who sat as a member of the great assembly. The bishop of the Imperial city [Rome] could not attend due to his advanced age; but he was represented by his presbyters. Constantine is the first ruler of all time to have gathered such a garland in the bond of peace, and to have presented it to his Savior as an offering of gratitude for the victories he had won over all his enemies.

Did you know even Santa Claus was at Nicea? Yes, that’s right! Saint Nicholas, bishop of Myra (modern day Demre, Turkey) was a voting bishop at the Council of Nicea.

For about two months, the bishops discussed the issue raised by Arius. The two sides argued and debated, with each side appealing to Scripture to justify their respective positions. It is unclear exactly how much influence Athanasius, as a non-voting member, had during the meetings.

Eusebius of Nicomedia, holding the same view as Arius, was convinced that a clear statement of his doctrine was all that was needed to convince the assembly. The reaction from the bishops was not what Eusebius expected. The assertion that the Word or Son was no more than a creature, no matter how high a creature, provoked angry reactions from many of the bishops: “You lie!” “Blashpemy!” “Heresy!” Eusebius of Nicomedia was shouted down, and we are told that his speech was snatched from his hand, torn to shreds, and trampled underfoot. According to many accounts, debate became so heated that at one point, Arius was slapped in the face by Saint Nicholas!

The assembly finally decided the best way to articulate the Bible’s teaching on the Trinity was through a creed. Eventually, the assembly agreed on the following creed:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is, from the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, not made, of one substance [homoousios] with the Father, through whom all things were made, both in heaven and on earth, who for us humans and for our salvation descended and became incarnate, becoming human, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead. And in the Holy Spirit.

But those who say there was when He was not, and that before being begotten He was not, or that He came from that which is not, or that the Son of God is of a different substance [hypostasis] or essence [ousia], or that He is created, or mutable, these the catholic church anathematizes.

The Nicene Creed clearly rejected Arianism. Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia were both sent into exile. As the bishops all returned to their parts of the world, they hoped the Council of Nicea would end the controversy.

Defending Nicea as Bishop

Only three years after the Council, Alexander having died, Athanasius became Bishop of Alexandria on April 17th, 328AD. Athanasius became shepherd of one of the most vibrant cities within the Roman Empire. Athanasius would now become the champion for the Nicene cause. He would soon be swimming against the tide. Constantine, being won over by Eusebius of Nicomedia, revoked the banishment of Arius in 328AD.

Eusebius of Nicomedia, Arius, and other Arian leaders knew Athanasius was their strongest enemy. They soon plotted his downfall by circulating rumors that he dabbled in magic. They also claimed Athanasius had killed a bishop named Arsenius, and cut off his hand to use it in rites of magic.

Constantine summoned him to appear before a judge and answer to the serious charges brought against him. Here’s what happened during his murder trial:

Athanasius brought into the courtroom a man covered in a cloak. After making sure that several of those present had known Arsenius, he uncovered the face of the hooded man, and his accusers were confounded when they realized it was Athanasius’ supposed victim. Then someone who had been convinced by the rumors circulating against the bishop of Alexandria suggested that perhaps Athanasius had not killed Arsenius, but had cut off his hand. Athanasius waited until the assembly insisted on proof that the man’s hand had not been cut. He then uncovered one of Arsenius’ hands. “It was the other hand!” shouted some of those who had been convinced by the rumors. Then Athanasius uncovered the man’s other hand and demanded: “What kind of a monster did you think Arsenius was? One with three hands?” Laughter broke out through the assembly, while others were enraged that the Arians had fooled them.

The murder charges were dropped and Athanasius was able to go back to shepherding the people of Alexandria. His freedom, however, would be short lived. Eusebius of Nicomedia had convinced Constantine that Athanasius was dangerous. Constantine sent Athanasius into exile. By this time most of the Nicene leaders were also banished. When Constantine asked for baptism, on his deathbed, he received the sacrament from the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia.

All exiled bishops, including Athanasius, were allowed to go back to their homes after Constantine’s death.

Exiles

Yet Athanasius’ return to Alexandria was not the end, but rather the beginning, of a long period of struggle and repeated exiles For almost thirty years Athanasius would be considered a hero under one emperor and then have to flee to live with monks in the desert to survive the next emperor. It was at this time that Jerome said, “the entire world woke from a deep slumber and discovered that it had become Arian.”

Athanasius continued to speak, teach and write against Arianism. Although Athanasius never saw the final victory of the cause to which he devoted his life, his writings clearly show that he was convinced that in the end Arianism would be defeated. As he approached his old age, he saw emerge around himself a new generation of theologians devoted to the same cause. Death claimed him in 373AD at the age of 77.

Athanasius’s Thoughts
Shortly after the Council of Nicea, it is believed Athanasius wrote his first works – Contra Gentes (Against the Gentiles) and De Incarnatione (On the Incarnation). These works articulated what he considered the true faith in a climate of growing theological and political tension.

The presence of God in history was the central element in the faith and thoughts of Athanasius. He fully believed God himself had visited our planet. The visit from God in Jesus Christ made it possible for us to be free beings capable of living in communion with the divine.
He beautifully writes, “For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.” He then continues:

There were thus two things which the Savior did for us by becoming Man. He banished death from us and made us anew; and, invisible and imperceptible as in Himself He is, He became visible through His works and revealed Himself as the Word of the Father, the Ruler and King of the whole creation.

We see the depth, elegance and developed thoughts of Athanasius speaking of the power of Christ:

The marvelous truth is, that being the Word, so far from being Himself contained by anything, He actually contained all things Himself…A man cannot transport things from one place to another, for instance, merely by thinking about them; nor can you or I move the sun and the stars just by sitting at home and looking at them. With the Word of God in His human nature, however, it was otherwise. His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father alone. At one and the same time – this is the wonder – as Man He was living a human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe.

The Arian controversy, for Athanasius, is not a matter of theological subtleties with little or no relevance. In it, the very core of the Christian message and the very core of Jesus is at stake.

Athanasius’s Influence
C.S. Lewis conveys some of the Influence of Athanasius by saying:

He stood for the Trinitarian doctrine, “whole and undefiled,” when it looked as if all the civilized world was slipping back from Christianity into the religion of Arius – into one of those “sensible” synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended to-day and which, then as now, included among their devotees many highly cultivated clergymen. It is his glory that he did not move with the times; it is his reward that he now remains when those times, as all times do, have moved away.

The anti-Trinitarian world had grown very dark around Athanasius. He himself was a very small dark African. He was nicknamed in his day, “the black dwarf.” This black dwarf stood tall with a bright light and almost single-handedly kept defending Nicene orthodoxy until reinforcements eventually arrived. Men like the Great Cappadocians were soon to arrive on the scene and continue re-awakening the world to the full beauty and power of the God-Man.

Athanasius’s Foibles
Historically, Athanasius is known for his godly life. Gonzalez writes,”His monastic discipline, his roots among the people, his fiery spirit, and his profound and unshakable conviction made him invincible.” Additionally, Weinandy writes, “He was extolled through the centuries as a holy and selfless man of steadfast and fearless faith, of long suffering patience, and of zealous passion for the truth of the Gospel.”

In the early 20th century, however, many contemporary scholars portrayed Athanasius as very sinister T.D. Barnes states, “Like a modern gangster, he evoked widespread mistrust, proclaimed total innocence – and usually succeeded in evading conviction on specific charges.”33 Barnes goes on to explain why most people haven’t heard of this side of him:

If the violence of Athanasius leaves fewer traces in the surviving sources…[the reason is] that he exercised power more efficiently and that he was successful in presenting himself to posterity as an innocent in power, as an honest, sincere and straightforward ‘man of God.’

Barnes makes an argument from silence. In order to survive and even win the day Athanasius surely needed to be a wise, resourceful and clever man. The fact that he ultimately bested his opponents in no way implies that he was more evil than they.

Athanasius’s Effect on Us
The most obvious effect Athanasius has on our life is with our view of the Trinity. Is a correct understanding of the Trinity (one in essence, three in persons) important for you? So many Christians look at the Trinity like a casual dating relationship, “I want to date you, have the warm fuzzy romantic dinners, but I really don’t want to know too much about you. Let’s spend an hour together each week but don’t require me to learn about you. I like what we’ve got going on, let’s not ruin it with information.”

As we spend our lives singing about God, listening to sermons about God, talking about God it seems like we should know who we’re talking about. Athanasius teaches us how vitally important it is to have an orthodox understanding of the Trinity.

Athanasius, additionally, helps us to realize we do not live by public opinion polls. Athanasius was right, he was reading the Bible correctly, but the world around him had gone mad. He had the courage and conviction to proclaim the central truths of God when it was most unfashionable. We need thousands of people like Athanasius. People who love God and love people enough to tell people what they need to hear, not necessarily what they want to hear.

"The Faith of Christ" by C. Baxter Kruger

2011-10-25T22:32:00.004-05:00

Here is a good article on the faith of Christ by C. Baxter Kruger that I think will help shed light on the question of whether faith is something we muster up for ourselves or is a gift given to us through Jesus Christ upon which we rely so that we can experience all that is ours in Him. . .

Way back in the 50’s a debate started regarding the translation of certain key passages in Paul that had to do with justification by faith. The question was whether or not we should translate these passages as referring to Christ’s faith or to ours. Of course, most post-reformation translations take these passages as obvious references to our faith in Christ. In the Greek language, however, the construction could be translated either as a subjective genitive (Christ’s faith) or as an objective genitive (our faith in Christ). Interestingly, the King James translates them as referring to Christ’s own faith. Over the decades the debate grew intense and scholars from around the world joined in. In fifty or so years a decided shift has taken place. At first the burden of proof was on those who thought the passages should be translated as referring to Christ's faith, and not to our faith in Christ. These days it is the other way around.

Here are the key passages. I will quote first from the New American Standard Bible.

ROM 3:22 “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.”

ROM 3:26 “for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who as faith in Jesus.”

GAL 2:16 “nevertheless knowing that a man is no justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”

GAL 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.”

GAL 3:22 “But the Scripture has shut up all me under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

EPH 3:12 “in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.”

PHIL 3:9 “and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”

As you can see, far from being peripheral, these passages are at the center of Paul’s thought. The issue at hand challenges both the Roman Catholic and Reformation doctrines of justification at a fundamental level.

I first discovered the debate when I was in seminary working on an exegetical paper on EPH 4:11-13. Verse 13 reads, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.” In my paper, I argued that ‘of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God’ were to be interpreted as referring to Christ’s own faith and knowledge, as surely as ‘the fulness of Christ’ refers to his own fulness and not ours. Looking back I can see how this issue opened the door for me to understand the theology of J. B. and T. F. Torrance, with their powerful and beautiful emphasis on the vicarious humanity of Christ. Over the years I continued to follow the debate, which reached its peak in the 90’s, but is still brewing. Strangely, the theological significance of this transition is yet to be appreciated.

Three factors convince me that Paul is not talking about our faith in Christ, but Christ’s very own faith, such that we are justified by the faith and faithfulness of Jesus himself.

(1) It seems clear enough, as even the NASB translation reads, that Paul (in EPH 4:13) is speaking about our participation in Jesus’ own faith, knowledge and fulness. In his earlier prayer (EPH 3:14-19) Paul prays that we would come to comprehend and to know the love of Christ, that we “may be filled up to all the fulness of God.” In Colossians Paul says, “For in Him [Christ] all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made full” (2:9-10). Clearly the fulness belongs to Jesus, and is then shared with us. Jesus himself tells us that he came to give us not simply peace, but his own peace (JN 14:27), and his own joy (15:11). And, of course, in his famous prayer it is abundantly clear that Jesus envisages the very love and glory of the Father and Son themselves dwelling in us personally (17:22-26). In Matthew, Jesus claims not only that all things have been handed over to him, but also that he alone knows the Father, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him (11:27). The heart of the gospel is the fact that Jesus alone knows the Father, and he alone is filled with the fulness of God, and that he has come to share himself and all that he is and has (fulness, knowledge, peace, joy, glory, love, and faith, among other things) with us. Sharing in Jesus' own life and relationship with his Father and the Spirit is the point.

(2) The genitive construction in ROM 3:26 (ek pisteos Jesou) is exactly the same in ROM 4:16 where Paul is talking about Abraham’s faith (ek pisteos Abraam). The NASB does not translate the Abraham passage as 'our faith in Abraham,' but as “those who are of the faith of Abraham.” If the NASB were consistent, ROM 3:26 would read, “for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who is of the faith of Jesus.

(3) In Galatians 2:16 we have a perfect illustration of what is called a chiasm. The verse reads,

“nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, not by the works of the Law…”

A chiasm or chiastic structure fills the Psalter. It is very Hebraic. It is named after the Greek letter ‘Chi’ which looks like an X in English. If you take away the right part of the X you are left with an arrow pointing to the right. In terms of a chiastic argument, the first point in the argument starts with the top left of the X, or arrow. The next point, which is the heart of the argument is the tip. The last point is a repeat of the first point and starts at the beginning of the bottom of the left side of the X. If this is all too confusing to you, let me put Paul’s argument in chiastic sequence.

knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law

-----but through faith in Christ Jesus

----------even we have believed in Christ Jesus,

-----that we may be justified by faith in Christ

not by the works of the Law.

Three times in this verse, Paul, allegedly, speaks of faith in Christ, which is rather redundant and superfluous, unless a chiasm is being employed, and he has in mind not our faith in Christ, but Christ’s faith or faithfulness. The verse works perfectly only when we understand that Paul is thinking about the faith of Christ. It would then read,

knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law

-----but through the faith of Christ Jesus,

----------even we have believed in Christ Jesus

-----that we may be justified by the faith of Christ

not by the works of the Law.

The first and the last clauses speak of not being justified by the works of the law. The second and next to the last speak of being justified by the faith of Christ himself. The middle clause speaks of our trusting in Jesus’ faith and faithfulness. The point of Christian faith is not in the efficacy or power of our own faith, but believing in the faith and faithfulness of Jesus himself, who stands in our place. We believe in Jesus and in his faith. This is the center, the tip of the arrow, of Paul’s chiastic argument. Jesus has taken his place on our side of the covenant relationship with God. And in our place he has offered the perfect response of faith and faithfulness, wherein we are justified. We take our stand, according to Paul, upon his vicarious offering to the Father, upon his faith and faithfulness, that we may be justified not by our own works or faith, but by Jesus.’ We choose to be justified by Jesus’ faith and faithfulness, not our own.

The fruit of taking our stand on Jesus’ faith is peace, the cessation of striving to find a way to justify ourselves through anything that we may do, whether our own faith or works or religious activity of any sort. We cling to, hope in, and pin all our hopes on Jesus, and upon who he is and what he has done as our vicarious representative.

Failure here is simply to doom ourselves to live with ourselves and our faith and religious performance. To not believe in Jesus—and in his faith and faithfulness—is to sentence ourselves to believe in ourselves and in our own efforts, and it is to suffer living with the failed assurance of such a way of believing. So for Paul, we rest in Jesus himself, not in ourselves, and in resting in him, in believing in him, his own glory, knowledge, peace, joy, love and faith begin to have room to come to personal expression in us.

If we translate the key passages as references to Jesus’ faith in our place, it would look something like the following.

ROM 3:22 “even the righteousness of God which comes through the faith/faithfulness of Jesus Christ for all those who believe, for there is no distinction.”

ROM 3:26 “for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who is of the faith of Jesus.”

GAL 2:16 “nevertheless knowing that a man is no justified by the works of the Law but through faith of Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.”

GAL 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith/faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.”

GAL 3:22 “But the Scripture has shut up all me under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

EPH 3:12 “in whom we have boldness and confident access through His faith/faithfulness.”

PHIL 3:9 “and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”

At every point and at all points in between Jesus and his life and faithfulness is the point

Remember, every translation is a translation of the original text through the lens of a particular theology. The Reformers made a great step forward, away from works based salvation. It is time for us to stand on their shoulders and take the next step in their journey into a faith of Christ salvation, which, I suspect was what they were saying all along.

A Serious Whistler

2011-10-19T11:25:00.003-05:00

This has nothing to do with anything, but I'm amazed by this guy. I've become hooked on www.ted.com and all the interesting talks there.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

2011-10-18T09:50:00.001-05:00

And on a totally different and silly note . . . "Atheists Don't Have No Songs" by Steve Martin

Gerardo Vazquez & Willie Torreson TV Interviews

2011-10-18T09:21:00.003-05:00

Gerardo Vazquez (Grace Walk Latin America Director) and Willie Torrison, (Grace Walk Partner) share their stories on TV in Canada. These guys are great!

http://gracetelevision.net/watch/54609

Robinson Sadiq & Craig Snyder Interview on TV

2011-10-17T09:45:00.003-05:00

Here's our Grace Walk Pakistan, Director, Robinson Sadiq and GW Director of Missions, Craig Snyder on TV in Canada. I'm so proud of these GW Team leaders!

http://gracetelevision.net/watch/54607

Mike Zenker on Humanity's Inclusion In The Finished Work of Jesus Christ

2011-10-16T19:16:00.003-05:00

National Director of Grace Walk Canada, Mike Zenker shares an awesome message on what Jesus Christ has done for all of humanity through His finished work on the cross. This one will thrill your heart and knock down any residual attitude of religious exclusivity that might be hiding in the shadows!

Gerardo Vazquez on "God's Reality"

2011-10-14T14:16:00.003-05:00

This is Gerardo Vazquez, Director For Grace Walk, Latin America teaching at our recent Leadership Conference on God's Reality and Man's Experience. You will be encouraged and learn much from this one!

Craig Snyder on The Finished Work of the Cross

2011-10-11T10:01:00.003-05:00

For the next three days, I'm going to posts teachings by three of our Grace Walk team leaders. These teachings were shared at our recent Leadership Summit in Canada. This teaching is by Craig Snyder, Director of Missions for Grace Walk. I am sure it will challenge and stretch your understanding of just how big our God's grace really is! You will be encouraged by listening and will see both God and other people differently if you accept the truths Craig shares from Scripture here:

Are You SURE Your View Is Correct?

2011-10-09T16:53:00.003-05:00

When our minds are conditioned to see something in one particular way, it makes it very hard to realize that what we are so sure we are seeing correctly may not be accurate...

When it comes to our understanding of biblical truth, much of what we've seen may be wrong. Are we willing to have our eyes be miraculously opened to see the truth?

Grace Walk Pakistan

2011-10-07T10:15:00.003-05:00

Grace Walk Director of Missions, Craig Snyder, has discipled Robinson Sadiq over the past year. At our recent Leadership Summit in Canada, we installed Robinson as the National Coordinator for Grace Walk Pakistan. He and his wife, Goshia work together with Rahil Johns to spread the message of our Father's love & grace there. They are doing a fantastic job! Pray for them as they continue to spread the grace walk in the Muslim world where they live. The video below was produced by Robinson to give a glimpse of what our God is doing in that area:

Who Will Stand?

2011-09-26T18:04:00.003-05:00

When Athanasius thought the character of the Son was being impugned by the Arians, he stood strongly against it in his proclamation of the pure gospel, even at the risk of his own life. Eighteen centuries later, the character of the Father is being impugned by the presentation of a caricature of God, showing Him as an angry judge whose human-type-rage had to be appeased (and still does) or else He would come against us and destroy us. The character of the Son is being impugned by diminishing His finished work in suggesting that what He did has absolutely no eternal meaning unless we say so through a sinner’s prayer or a confirmation or baptism or other salvific sacrament that we’ve given more authority than the shed blood of Jesus Himself. The character of the Holy Spirit is being impugned by diminishing His communion with humanity and assigning him insulting roles ranging to everything from a silent partner to the court jester among the Trinity. Where are those who will stand?

(The paragraph above is an excerpt from what I plan to teach next week at the Grace Walk Leadership Summit in Ontario (Canada) Click here for more information: http://www.gracewalkcanada.org/ )

God Has Done It

2011-09-26T10:20:00.004-05:00

Here's a great quote from my friend, Mike Quarles. It's in the book he and I are co-authoring entitled, Helping People Find Freedom From Addiction. The book will be released next year by Harvest House Publishers.

"Perhaps the best definition of grace is “God has done it.” The primary declaration of Christianity is not “this do," but "this happened.” The Gospel is not an announcement of something to do, but the good news of what has been done. Martin Luther says “The law says do this and never is it done. Grace says believe in this One and it is already done. We don’t do anything, we don’t give anything to God, but we receive and allow someone else to do all the work for us and in us and it’s God that does it”. God is the subject and we are the object. Of course it helps greatly to be a receptive and responsive object. The gospel is the good news of what God has done, not an announcement of what we are to do. What we are to do is to respond to what God has done. We respond by faith to God’s gracious provision for us."

What I'm Reading Right Now

2011-09-25T11:31:00.003-05:00

Jesus is standing on the broken doors of hell. The massive portals lie crossed under his feet, a reminder of the cross that won this triumph. He stands braced and striding, like a superhero, using his mighty outstretched arms to lift a great weight. That weight is Adam and Eve themselves, our father and mother in the fallen flesh. Jesus grasps Adam's wrist with his right hand and Eve's with his left as he pulls them forcibly up, out of the carved marble boxes that are their graves. Eve is shocked and appears almost to recoil in shame, long hair streaming. Adam gazes at Christ with a look of stunned awe, face lined with weary age, his long tangled beard awry. Their limp hands lie in Jesus's powerful grip as he hauls them up into the light.

Behind Christ stand King David, King Solomon, the prophet Isaiah, and the prophet Jeremiah, all in gorgeous robes, clustered tightly like a standing-room-only crowd to see this marvelouse event. Among them is an air of joy, even conviviality. John the Baptist is in the throng, still clogthed in camel skin, now in full repossession of his head. Behind them are ranks and ranks of the righteous dead, who are dead no more, for Christ has set them free.

- From The Scandal of the Cross, edited by Mark Baker. This section is by Frederica Mathewes-Green and comes from chapter three.

The McGurk Effect

2011-09-20T11:27:00.002-05:00

It's amazing how we all filter the things we hear through the lens we already possess and have used to interpret information most of our lives. And even if we've misunderstood what somebody has said, it's often the case that no amount of clarification or explanation will convince us that the person hasn't said what we would swear we heard. This video is an amazing example of that effect. It's called The McGurk Effect. I think you'll be amazed . . .

How People Who Love Christ Become Religious

2011-09-05T20:03:00.004-05:00

Nobody wanders away from intimacy with Christ and gets caught up in a performance-based religious lifestyle in one giant step. It happens as Satan misdirects our attention from The Big Picture (Jesus) and changes things in our lives little by little until one day, everything has changed but we don't even realize it because we've been so focused on the details of what we're doing (our performance) that we didn't even realize what was happening. This video is an object lesson that illustrates what I mean...

Missing Christ In Plain Sight

2011-09-04T00:50:00.002-05:00

It's not unlike the preoccupation that many have with consecrating so much on what they believe the Bible is telling them to do that we miss the Real Subject of the Scripture - Jesus Himself.

Unalterable Faithfulness

2011-08-25T08:06:00.003-05:00

The greatest challenge many of us face in the circumstances of life is to calmly rest in the reality of our God’s faithfulness. We intellectually believe His faithfulness is an intrinsic aspect of who He is and we confess that belief in all sincerity and without hesitation. Then the test comes. Life suddenly turns upside down on us and we find ourselves scrambling to reverse this change of circumstances as if we’ve forgotten God even exists and cares.

But He does. When Joseph’s brothers sold Him into slavery, God was there. When Israel stood at the edge of the Red Sea and Moses cried out in fear, God was there. When the three Hebrew children were thrown into the fiery furnace, God was there. When Lazarus died and Martha fumed, God was there. When Paul was imprisoned in isolation, God was there. When Jesus breathed His last breath and the hopes of His disciples vanished, God was there.

Joseph became Prime Minister. Israel became a great people in a great land. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out and a great King saw God’s power. Lazarus was raised up and the testimony of Jesus spread like wildfire. Paul wrote most of His NT epistles from prison. Jesus took away our sin upon His death and three days later rose from the grave, giving us New Life.

When things seem dismal, our God is there, working out His eternal plan in our lives! He is faithful in every situation you and I will ever face. When we are afraid, He is our courage. When we are upset, He is our peace. When our faith is shaky, His faith is strong. Even if we are faithless, He is faithful still. When we are confused, He is in control. When we don’t understand, He does.

At Mount Sinai, the people kept their distance when they looked ahead into the darkness, but Moses walked into the cloud of darkness, “where God was” (Exodus 20:21. Don’t be afraid of the darkness because it is there that you will feel your Father’s embrace and hear His gentle reassurance, “It’s okay. I am with you and I have everything under control.” Even when it doesn’t look or feel like it, things will all work out because every detail of your life is under the supervision of Pure Love.

Compassionate Gentleness

2011-08-13T08:31:00.003-05:00

As I was sitting in my chair this morning, I was watching the birds in our feeders outside. We have five feeders and enjoy watching the cardinals, finches, house wrens, redheaded woodpeckers, robins, sparrows, hummingbirds and even the occasional bluebird.

I had opened the sliding doors to feel the outside breeze. Suddenly something startled the birds and they all took off at the same time. One small sparrow made the mistake of flying right through the door into my house. As soon as he came through the door, he turned left and hit the window next to the door. He backed off again and tried to go through it a second time.

Immediately I stood from my chair and moved toward him to help him. I raise my arms and tried to steer him back to the door, but he simply backed up and pounded himself into the window again, this time even harder.

I knew that the only way I could help this small bird was to cup him in my hands, go outside and release him. The hard thing for him was that he obviously didn't realize my hands reaching for him were intended to help. I scared him and he hit the window again and again, escaping my grasp.

"Oh no!" I said aloud. "It's okay. I'm just trying to help." He kept right on frantically jumping around slamming his body into the window. Finally, I was able to cup my hands over him and gently pick him up. His small body trembled as I gently held him and walked outside.

When I reached the middle of the patio, I opened my hands and he flew as far up and away as he could go. I came back inside to clean up the feathers around the window.

Sometimes we are all like that little bird. Something in life causes us to instantly react to a situation and we take a wrong turn. It doesn't take long to realize that we wish we had made another choice and now we desperately want out of the environment we've gotten ourselves into. The problem is that we don't know the way out, so we start flailing around, trying to do any and everything we can to escape our scary situation we've entered. In the process, we sometimes hurt ourselves.

In this never-seen-before environment, everything scares us. What we don't know is that our Loving God sees what we've gotten ourselves into and He is moved with compassion to help us. But we're not wired to relax and receive help. In a desperate attempt to deliver ourselves we sometimes make matters worse.

I felt sincere compassion for that little bird. I had no intentions of doing anything other than rescue and free him. That's exactly the heart of our Father toward us. If we could only learn that and truly believe it, we would "bang our heads" a lot less often.

Are you in a menacing and fearful situation today. Here's what to do: Relax. Stop frantically trying to free yourself. You can hurt yourself and others doing that. "Be still and know that I am God" is your best approach right now. The Hands that are reaching out to you aren't going to hurt you. Your God is in control. He feels compassion for you. He will gently pick you up and set you free. Trust Him. Don't be scared. Yield yourself and your situation to Him.

There is absolutely nothing in me that could imagine hurting that little bird. The Compassionate Gentleness of your God is infinitely greater than that I showed to a small sparrow this morning. Trust Him. Yield yourself into His hands. It's gonna be alright. He promises.

Authentic Peace

2011-08-12T08:42:00.003-05:00

Early on in my adult life I struggled with what it means to experience the peace of God in very hard situations. I thought the answer was all about saying the right things. When Melanie and I would face financial struggles, I would repeatedly recite verses about God being my Provider and insist I knew that when the time came that the money needed to be there, it would be there. Again and again, the time would come that I believed was the deadline and the money would not be there. It made no sense to me. Hadn't I stood on the promises of the Word? If my faith hadn't been enough, it certainly wasn't because I hadn't sincerely tried to muster up all the faith I could, to best of my ability.

Sometimes I would feel nervous about the outcome of a particular situation even though I was standing on the promises and boldly confessing in a way that would make any name-it-and-claim-it Christian proud. I saw the presence of nervousness or even anxiety about my situation as evidence that my faith needed to be stronger. I thought if I had real faith, I wouldn't have those negative feelings.

Through the years, after many disappointing experiences in having my faith not work and critically questioning myself about what I had done wrong, the Holy Spirit (the One Jesus promised would guide us into truth) began to show me that while I had been sincere, I had it all wrong.

Faith isn't a currency that we spend with God to get what we want or think we need. Nor does faith make something happen that we want to happen. Faith is the simply recognition of the loving care that our Father has for us in any and every situation.

Faith isn't in an outcome. It is confidence in a Person. I was sincere about "standing on the promises" but my understanding was wrongheaded. The Bible says that in Jesus Christ, the promises of God are "yes!" In other words, it is Jesus who is the fulfillment of every promise the Father has made to us. We don't stand on the promises. Instead we sit (rest) in the the One who is the fulfillment of all those promises. My faith isn't supposed to work. It's His faith that works! Paul said that, "the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20, KJV, emphasis added).

We aren't waiting for something to occur that doesn't exist. We are watching in anticipation to see what our Loving Father has already accomplished on our behalf. Faith simply sees Him and recognizes the reality that it's all worked out in eternity before it actually comes out in time.

Peace isn't the absence of nervousness. Paul told the Corinthians that he had been with them "in weakness and fear, and in much trembling." But he went there anyway, knowing that God had said He had many people in that city for Paul to yet meet. Paul felt fearful but knew that feelings aren't the thermometer of faith. So he acted bravely in the face of fearful feelings. It's sort of like what they say about courage not being the absence of fearful feelings, but rather a boldness to act courageously despite those feelings.

We can enjoy peace by knowing (not necessarily feeling) that our God has everything already resolved to His own honor and for our own good. If you are trying to work up faith for a certain outcome, you're going to often be disappointed and confused. If you rest in the faith of Jesus Christ, who is the One in whom you live and move and exist, you'll move through troubling situations much easier. "For He Himself is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14). God isn't worried about the situations we face, so neither should we be.

Authentic peace doesn't mean we have to chant mantras about faith. It doesn't mean we feel sure that things will turn out the way we want. What it does mean is that we rest in Him and know that however things turn out, it will be for our good and His glory.

God never eats antacids. He never bites His fingernails. He never has a nervous stomach. He has written a story - a beautiful story of your life. Whatever happens along the journey, He is in it with us and promises to see us safely through until we get home. When we get there, nobody will complain or ask why about anything. There we will see His loving protection and celebrate how good He was acting toward us, even in our hardest times.

Peace.

Absurd Forgiveness

2011-08-11T08:46:00.003-05:00

When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, he wrongly assumed His God would be angry but instead God came looking for Him to take His regular evening walk.

When Abraham sent his wife, Sarah, into Pharaoh’s tent to protect his own life by allowing her to have sex with another man, God told Pharaoh that he was on dangerous
ground and that he’d better get her out of there right now. The next words out of God’s mouth to Abraham were to reassure him of the covenant He had made with him. Not a word about his sin.

When Elisha was depressed and afraid and angry and prayed to die, God sent an angel to feed him so that he might regain his strength. No shame or blame.

When Peter denied Jesus, our Lord made sure when he arose to mention Peter by name and said to make sure he knew Jesus was alive. No reference to what Peter had done.

These were giants in the Bible – giants who made horrific choices. In each instance, the love of God swallows up their sins and foolishness in one great gush of grace. It's absurd. What have you done that causes you to think God may be disappointed or perturbed toward you? Whatever it is, you need to set it aside because that's what He has done. As absurd as it sounds, God isn't interested in what you've done in the past. He lives with you in the now and wants you to live in this moment of grace and accept His forgiveness.

Jesus showed us our Father’s heart when He had the Father of the prodigal son throw him a party when he returned home without so much as a mention of what the boy had done. That’s your God.

Refuse to accept His acceptance and you’ll lock yourself inside a prison of your own making. Accept His acceptance and you’ll run in the joyful freedom only known by those who know their sins never appear on God’s radar – never.

You’ve messed up? Welcome to the world of great children of God. It happened. So put it aside now. Don’t insult the finished work of Jesus on the cross by insisting on trying to share in dealing with it through your own gnawing guilt and spiritually suicidal self-consciousness. You are forgiven. You are free. You are one with the One who keeps no record of wrongs and promises to never remember them again.

So dance. Run. Laugh. Play. Celebrate. That’s what the Father, Son and Spirit are doing and He asks you to join in right now.

Unfathomable Love

2011-08-08T05:20:00.005-05:00

How do we handle it when life seems to make no sense?

I think about Job, who said, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”

"Job, how can you say that? Don’t you see that cemetery?"
"Yes," he'd say, "but I also see that my Redeemer liveth and in the last day shall stand upon the earth."

I see Paul in prison.
"Paul, how can you write, 'Rejoice in the Lord always' in such circumstances?"
"Because I can see through that cell window and I know in Whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him until that day!"

I see Silas with Paul in prison, singing praises at midnight.
"Silas, don't you see those chains you're wearing?"
"Yes, I do" he answers as he shakes them to the beat of the song. "But I also see beyond those stars out there and I see a throne and Somebody is seated on it. He has it all under His control!"

What do you see today?

When you find drugs under the front seat of your teenager’s car?
When your stack of bills is deeper than your stash of cash?
When your doctor says “there’s nothing else I can do"?
When your sit alone at night knowing your mate is with somebody else?
When your teen age daughter says, “I’m pregnant"?
When you've buried your child?

What do you do? You look up! There is a throne in heaven at this moment and there is a omnipotent King on it . . . and He loves you! HE LOVES YOU!

The language of man isn’t big enough to describe His love. The letters of the alphabet can’t begin to describe the love of our King – but they try....oh, how they try!

1. The antecedent of His love is His own goodness – not yours.
2. The basis of His love is His deity – He is God and His love isn’t like that of a man. It is otherworldly, being neither motivated nor perpetuated by external reason.
3. The cause of His love is His own sovereign choice. “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” reverberate throughout the hidden corridors of eternity.
4. The depths of His love is a cross where He endured hell so He could take you to heaven.
5. The expression of His love is intimate.
6. The faithfulness of His love is infinite.
7. The greatness of His love is immeasurable.
8. The happiness of His love is unbridled.
9. The impact of His love is eternal.
10. The jealousy of His love is consuming.
11. The knowledge of His love is enough.
12. The limit of His love is without end.
13. The magnitude of His love is without limits.
14. The nature of His love is gentle.
15. The omnipotence of His love is without equal.
16. The patience of His love is superhuman.
17. The quality of His love is untarnished.
18. The relentlessness of His love will conquer you.
19. The sweetness of His love will comfort you.
20. The triumph of His love will calm you.
21. The uniqueness of His love will seduce you.
22. The voice of His love will call you by name.
23. The wonder of His love will captivate you.
24. The x-stravagance of His love will amaze you.
25. The yardstick of His love stretches into eternity in both directions.
26. The zenith of His love will bring you home, at last – where you will look deeply into your eyes and gently say, “How do I love you, Let me count the ways. . .”

You are His child and His children can never be beyond the reach of His love.
Jonah proved you can outrun our King’s love.
Lot bears witness you can’t out-sin His love.
Jacob laughs, “You can’t outsmart that King’s love.”
Enoch walked out on the world saying, “You can’t outlive His love.”

And Jesus came to say, “You can’t outdo my Father’s love! Come to Me. I AM MY FATHER’S LOVE!”

Do you want to see your Father’s love? Look at Jesus.
His Love is in the Song you get on your mind and can’t stop singing.
His Love is in the Melody in great music, the Beauty in great art and the Plot in great literature.
His Love is in the absolute Joy of a new marriage and the Abiding Comfort of an old one.
His Love is in the Anticipation of a kiss and the Thrill of marital intimacy.
His Love is in the Laugher in a joke, the Flavor in a gourmet meal.
His Love is the Shelter in the storm and the Rainbow afterward.

All the superlatives in the world bow in humble submission before Him...
He is the kindest – the greatest – the wisest – the dearest – the bestest – the mostest – the lovingest — Do you see what I mean? Human words turn stupid and start stumbling toward failure when they try to describe our Triune God's Love!

"Wonderful grace of Jesus
Greater than all my sin,
How shall my tongue describe it?
Where shall my praise begin?

Purchasing peace and heaven,
For all eternity,
The wonderful grace of Jesus
Reaches Me!"

He loves you. That's what's real. Hold onto that.

(This post may be reproduced if accompanied by proper acknowledgments that say "copyright, Steve McVey,2011. Used by permission." The post may be linked to other FB accounts without permission if its source is cited. This is content of a yet unpublished book.)

Ridiculous Grace

2011-08-06T11:51:00.006-05:00

The grace of God stands in a category all by itself. There’s nothing to compare with it because there’s nothing else like it in time or eternity. Grace is expression of the complete goodness of Pure Love toward those who have done nothing and never can do anything to deserve it or reciprocate for it. Either grace is a unilateral act or it’s not grace. The minute we think we owe anything for it, we have insulted both the gift and the giver. Those who spend their lives “trying to pay Him back for all He has done for me” will spend a lifetime unwittingly insulting the One they most want to please.

Religion is the greatest enemy of grace because it exists in a culture where the currency of survival is performance. Religion nurtures a detestable fetish in its carnal craving to “pay the price, breakthrough, storm the gates” and other such nonsense that excites the flesh in ways that arouse demonic lust that climaxes in the smug afterglow of a satisfied Pharisee.

Grace throws parties for returning prodigals without saying a word about their sins. Grace pays everybody the same regardless of what time of day they began to work. Grace restores dignity to whores that everybody else wants to stone. Grace hugs the diseased leper (or AIDS patient) that nobody else wants to touch. Grace looks past a person’s behavior and sees the person for who they are in the eyes of God.

Grace is irrational to the thinker. It is unfair to the judge. Grace is foolishness to the achiever. It is a waste to the selfish. Grace is a mistake to the disciplinarian. It is shame to the religionist.

But it is a stream of water to the thirsty. It’s freedom to the imprisoned. It is life to the dead. Grace is rest to the tired. It is another chance to the failed. It is hope to the despondent. It is a way out for the lost and a way in for those who can see the Door.

Grace. It’s not a theological premise. It’s not a doctrine. It’s not a philosophy. It’s not something to be balanced with anything else. It’s not even the most important thing. It’s The One Thing – The Only Thing. It’s a Person – a Person who has held you in His heart before the first molecule existed and One who will never let you go.

The Calf Path

2011-07-03T20:45:00.004-05:00

Talk about the power of tradition! This poem tells it all. . .

One day, through the primeval wood,
A calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day,
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bellwether sheep,
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bellwethers always do.

And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made,
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ‘twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed—do not laugh—
The first migrations of that calf,
And through this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,
That bent, and turned, and turned again.
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet.
The road became a village street,
And this, before men were aware
A city’s crowded thoroughfare,
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed that zigzag calf about,
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They follow still his crooked way,
And lose one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.

They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf!
Ah, many things this tale might teach—
But I am not ordained to preach.

by Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911)

Malcolm Smith and The Real Gospel

2011-06-25T20:07:00.003-05:00

Thank God for men like Malcolm Smith, who has been proclaiming the pure gospel of Jesus Christ for fifty years. Take the time to listen to this message. It's worth your time.

Bill Gillham Has Gone Home

2011-06-24T09:36:00.002-05:00

It is with bittersweet emotion that I learned of the passing of Dr. Bill Gillham, my friend and mentor. Bill has been in steady decline since his dear Anabel took the short step across the veil between time and eternity not so very long ago. My mind can only imagine what a precious sight it must have been when she greeted him on the other side.

Bill had more influence in my life than almost anybody I’ve ever known. It was his book, Lifetime Guarantee, that I was reading in 1990 when the scales fell off my eyes and for the first time I began to understand monumental truths that transformed my life. My knowledge of my co-crucifixion with Christ, my own flesh patterns, my identity in Him, what it means to live in grace, and other realities that anchor me until today were realized because of Bill Gillham. He was the voice of truth and heart of love that reshaped me completely.

I’ll never forget one early Saturday morning in 1994. I had written about 60 pages of a booklet I’d called “The Grace Walk.” It was mostly my own story of how my life had been transformed by grace, with little paragraphs of biblical truth thrown into the mix. My plan was to copy it at church, staple it together and share it with church members I counseled.

Bill had sent me a note months earlier after hearing me share my story that had been recorded on a cassette tape at a pastor’s conference in Atlanta. He had been very complimentary of the talk. Some time later, after I had written my 60 page paper, the thought kept nagging me to send it to him to see, so I finally did.
My note said, “Bill, you’ve been an encourager to me. If you have time to take a look at this, I’d appreciate it.” I now realize how presumptuous that was since people do the same with me these days. Truthfully, I inwardly cringe when I get those unsolicited packages because I don’t want to be rude to the one who sent it, but neither do I normally have time to read their manuscript.

Bill, being the gracious man that he is, read what I sent. Now, here it was at 7:30 on a Saturday morning and I was still in bed asleep. I heard the phone ring and Melanie rushed into the bedroom, “It’s Bill Gillham on the phone! He wants to talk to you!” She might as well have told me it was Billy Graham. I jumped up and cleared my throat, lest he think I was still in bed that time of morning and answered.

I don’t remember all that he said, but I do remember his remark, “Brother, I’ve read what you sent me and God is all over this!” My heart stopped as I listened to him ask me if I minded him contacting his publisher about reading it. You know the rest of the story. There would be no books and no Grace Walk Ministries today were it not for Bill.

I’ve called Bill at home many times when I’ve needed answers, encouragement and direction and he has always had the exact word I needed to hear at the moment. I remember asking him once about feeling overwhelmed in ministry and his answer was, “Brother, you have too many things on your calendar.”

Sometimes he would call me to talk about a theological idea he’d been mulling over in his own mind. When I would give my opinion, he would graciously act like I was brilliant for thinking such a thing. He was the brilliant teacher I was the student.

Then there was the oft-repeated question, “Have you heard the one about . . .?” which would be followed by a funny, mildly cute or not-so-funny story. Bill loved to laugh and he made me laugh whether the story was funny or not.

I’ll miss my friend. I’ll miss his wisdom. I’ll miss his voicemail messages that, without exception, began with the words, “Hey Stevo.” I’ll miss his laughter. I’ll miss him.

Many people teach the grace of God, but I’ve known nobody who does it with the humility, simplicity and ease that Bill did. This world has lost a giant. Bill told me one time that he wanted himself and Anabel to die together in an airplane crash. I was appalled at such a thought. “Why?” I asked in horror. “Because we would go together, and even have a couple of moments to express our love once more to each other and leave this world holding hands.” It didn’t happen that way, but I have no doubt that right now they’re holding hands and he’s calling her “Sug” (sugar) and she’s calling him, “Hon.”

My heart aches today, but it’s a sweet ache in knowing that Bill Gillham is exactly where he belongs. Heaven is a sweeter place today. One day, no so long from now, I’ll see my friend again.

When Your Husband Isn't Walking With You In Grace

2011-06-17T09:33:00.003-05:00

Barb grew up in a healthy home where her mom and dad were obviously in love. Her dad was an elder in their local church and her mom taught the young couple’s class in Bible Study. “When the doors were opened, we were there,” is the way she has sometimes described her experience.

Due to the way her own family always functioned, Barb took it for granted that a Christian husband does certain things. First and foremost, he takes his family to church every week. She thought that’s a given in a Christian home. There were other expectations she held about what a Christian man does at home too. Basic things like saying the prayer before meals, leading the family in a daily “family altar” time where the Bible is read and they pray together, talking about life in terms of spiritual realities – these weren’t monumental acts to her. They were the normal and routine things that Christian families experienced under the leadership of a godly man.

Barb met Zack during her sophomore year in college. He was playing the guitar and leading choruses at the Young Life meeting being held on campus. She immediately was attracted to Zack. He had a good sense of humor. He seemed comfortable with his faith and related easily to the people around him. Zack was the son of a pastor and, it seemed to her, had grown up pretty much the way she had.

Zack asked Barb to go to a Christian concert with him for their first date. Over the next two years, they were inseparable. It didn’t take long until they both realized that they wanted to spend their lives together and so they began making wedding preparations. A few months after graduation, on a warm Saturday afternoon in June, Zack’s dad performed the ceremony.

Barb’s dreams were immersed in and inseparable from her new life with Zack. She saw nothing but bright days ahead. Zack had begun a new career in a sales position with a successful company. It didn’t take long until he was breaking sales records and distinguishing himself in exceptional ways through his sales skills.

Barb was proud of him. The bonuses and progressively increasing income were great. Then there were the trips Zack had won at work through his achievements. Barb had certainly enjoyed those.

After eighteen months, Barb found out that she was going to have a baby and they were both thrilled. One thing that had happened though bothered Barb and she thought it was important to discuss it with Zack since they would soon have a child. The thing that had happened had been what Barb thought was a gradual decline in the area of their spiritual lives.

Because of Zack’s demanding work weeks, he had often said that he was too tired to go to church on Sunday and wanted the two of them to just rest and enjoy the day together. Although Barb wasn’t completely comfortable with missing church, after having been taught all her life about the importance of attending, she did enjoy those relaxed Sundays together. Now things were different though. In her mind, since they were going to have a baby, changes were needed. “We need to get back in church,” was the way she talked to Zack about it.

She couldn’t have been more surprised by his response. “Barb, I understand your concern but I’m in a different place now than I was when we were first married,” he explained. “You know my spiritual life is real to me, but God has put me in the place where I need to provide for you and for our coming baby. My work is demanding. I’ll do the best I can but I may need you to step up on the home front for a while when it comes to spiritual things.”

For the first time in their marriage, Barb began to be afraid about the spiritual condition of her husband. Being the spiritual leader as a husband wasn’t optional in the world of her childhood and now she was hearing Zack delegate this important responsibility to her.

For the next few years, things continued to evolve. Their baby girl was born and less than two years later, they learned that a son was on the way. Barb and Zack continued to be deeply in love but by the time the two children were beginning school, Barb felt that Zack had totally abandoned all responsibility for spiritual leadership at home. She was the one who said prayers with the children at night. She took them to church alone most of the time. She felt like the only spiritual influence her children ever saw at home was from her and it bothered her – greatly.

By the time I met Barb, they had been married ten years. She was discouraged and wondering aloud with me about what to do. “I don’t get it,” she said. “I grew up in a godly home with a godly dad. Zack grew up in a godly home. He knows better than this. I’ve talked and talked and talked to him about it but it does no good. I’ve prayed about it but nothing changes. I’ve wondered why God won’t change Zack. If He can, why won’t He? Sometimes it seems like I care more about my husband’s spiritual condition than God does.”

I knew Barb didn’t really believe that, but I also knew that she honestly felt that way at times. She wanted to see God’s Spirit move in Zack’s life and change him. She had prayed for that for a number of years but nothing ever happened. It wasn’t unreasonable that she could wonder if God really cares. She wondered if she was destined to spend her life being the spiritual leader, married to a man who didn’t care much about that part of life anymore.

I’ve shared Barb’s story with you for one primary reason and that’s to let you see how much your story may be like hers. The details may differ but the underlying story is so often the same. I hear it all the time. She marries him. She envisions that they will grow spiritually together but after awhile he seems to lose interest in spiritual things.

Maybe your marriage scenario is similar. In the next chapter, I’ll discuss the challenge for women who married a man that never showed any spiritual interest but for now I want to speak to the one whose husband seems to have grown cold in his walk with God. What’s a wife to do? It’s obvious that talking about it doesn’t work. Pleading with him to step up and lead spiritually doesn’t work. In fact, that sometimes seems to cause a man to pull back even more. So what is the answer?

The answer may surprise you. It’s this: Stop trying to change him. Giving him CDs with preaching from your favorite speaker and telling him all about what’s going on at church and trying to entice him to catch your enthusiasm isn’t working and chances are that it’s not going to work.

Here’s an important principle to understand that could help you avoid delaying the very thing you want to see: It’s a natural human reaction that when we feel like somebody is crowding into our personal space, we will automatically and usually unconsciously step back. It’s a defense mechanism built into all of us. None of us like to have other people push in to our space. If we invite them, that’s one thing, but when they intrude into an area that we haven’t invited them it is an uncomfortable situation that seldom has a positive outcome. If it’s somebody we don’t care about we may push back, but if it’s somebody we do care about we will typically just step back and try to reestablish our personal space in as benign a way as possible.

This you-push-in-and-I’ll-step-back reflex is true in your marriage too. You may mean well by stepping into the space reserved for your husband and his God but it’s not a space where you belong uninvited. I don’t mean to suggest that husbands and wives don’t share their walk with Christ together. What I’m suggesting is that you cannot force intimacy between your husband and Christ like a religious matchmaker who is trying to create a love-connection because you see its value. He has to see it too and only the Holy Spirit can make that happen.

Depending on your personality and your relationship to your husband, it’s possible that you could use your influence with him to elicit a greater level of religious behavior from him, but would that really accomplish what you want? If he did the things outwardly that you think he needs to be doing but his heart wasn’t in it, would there be real value in that? Don’t think that at least your children would benefit because, in the long run, they would not. Children have finely tuned ability to distinguish what’s real from what’s artificial when it comes to this sort of thing.

There are far too many religious families who go through the motions without an authentic and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. You don’t want your husband to be that kind of man nor your family that kind of family. You want Christ to be real in your home and for that to happen, you’re going to have to wait until He is the One who brings the result you long to see.

So give up in thinking that you’ll be the one to make something happen. Your Heavenly Father loves your husband even more than you do and, despite all external evidence to the contrary, He hasn’t forgotten about him. Your Father is acting in your husband’s life at this very moment, working out things in his heart and head that you don’t know anything about. In fact, your husband may not even be aware of what God’s Spirit is doing in his life right now. That’s okay. Unlike us, God never gets hyped up about a matter and acts out of panic. He does His thing – quietly, consistently and miraculously – until that which He has decreed happens. And it will happen; you can be assured of that fact. Nobody wins a tug-of-war contest with Almighty God, not even your husband. It doesn’t matter how stubborn he may seem. God always wins. That’s a big benefit in being God.

So be patient and put your eyes on your Father instead of your husband. I know that’s easier said than done but it is essential that you understand the wisdom of this. It’s not incidental that it is in the very first chapter of this book that I lay out this prescription for frustrated wives. It’s the nature of the flesh in all of us to become control freaks over things we care passionately about, and I know you care passionately about your husband’s spiritual well being. So does God, so let Him be who He is to your husband. He will do it in His own way and in His own time.

Maybe you’ve tried enough things to change your husband to see that you can’t do it? If so, then stop trying harder to make something happen and simply trust Him to work it out based on His plan and power. Your Father can do what you can never do. He can get in your husband’s head. He can stir up his heart. He can control his external circumstances. He can move heaven and earth to get the result He wants.

You want to see your Heavenly Father change your husband, but is it possible that He may want to change you too? Is it possible that before the change comes to your husband’s life, He may want you to give up any effort to be the facilitator of this situation and simply surrender your husband into His loving hands?

I’ve spoken plainly here about the need for you to resign your position as coordinator of your husband’s spiritual condition because I assume you want the truth enough that you don’t mind me stating plainly what the most important thing is first. To keep first things first, it’s important for you to internalize what you’ve read in this chapter and appropriate it to your life. You don’t have to feel like doing it to do it. You just need to see that it’s true and respond in faith to what the Holy Spirit is showing you. You can’t change your husband, so stop trying. It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple. Why not pray right now and ask your Father to enable you to entrust your husband to him? That simple act of faith may have more impact on your situation than you could possibly imagine right now.

Lie #89

2011-06-14T08:00:00.003-05:00

We Need God’s Law to Understand His Righteousness

Those who preach the law of God today in the New Testament Church, often tell us that the reason God gave the law was to reveal His righteousness to us, but that isn't true. The Bible clearly states why God gave the law in Romans 5:20. The Scripture says that the law came in so that transgressions might increase.

The reason God gave the law was to because of the self-righteous attitude the Jewish people had in thinking they could achieve righteousness through doing the right things. God's plan was that the Law would stimulate sin in the behavior of mankind, so that he would see his need for a Savior. The law does not reveal to us God’s righteousness - not today it doesn’t. The law in the Old Testament was a glimpse – it was a little snapshot of the righteousness of God. But today, you and I don’t have to have the Law to understand the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness is revealed to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:16–17 says, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe – to the Jew first, and then to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed.”

It is in the gospel that the righteousness of God is revealed. The complete revelation of the righteousness of God is in the person of Jesus Christ. So, we don’t need the Law to cause us to understand the righteousness of God. We have Jesus the personification of God’s righteousness. He is the one who enables us to understand what righteousness really is, and also the one who enables us to receive that righteousness by faith.

The idea that we need the law in order to reveal God’s righteousness - that is a lie. Jesus Christ reveals the righteousness of God to us, and then as we trust Him, He gives us that righteousness by the abundance of his grace, and it becomes ours, Romans 5:17 says that the gift of righteousness has come to us through the abundance of His grace.

Righteousness has been received in Him. We don't need to try to achieve it.

There Is No Such Thing As Trinitarian-Universalism

2011-06-09T16:11:00.003-05:00

The trend today among many who oppose a Trinitarian approach to theology is to link Trinitarianism to Universalism as if they are one and the same. Thus, when others fail to investigate the matter for themselves but simply take this flawed premise as truth, those who deplore the views of Universalism immediately indict Trinitarianism as guilty-by-association.

I myself have been called a Universalist many times because of my Trinitarian views. Some (but not all) who have brought this charge against me have done so with an inflammatory sense of urgency and with impassioned emotion that might sway those who haven’t studied the topics for themselves. When somebody in a theatre screams, “Fire!” people seldom pause to ascertain whether or not the building is indeed burning. If they rush out of the theatre only to discover afterwards that there was no fire, they wouldn’t appreciate the false alarm. However, the problem when somebody screams, “Heresy!” is that even after people have fled the building, few take the time afterwards to investigate whether or not the alarming cry was grounded in reality and truth.

Charges that try to combine Trinitarianism and Universalism come from those who are either are uninformed or misinformed about these two viewpoints. While most biblical perspectives share some similarity, as do these, they are also very different in other ways. There is no such thing as a Trinitarian-Universalist. To use the phrase reflects either a lack of academic investigation or scholastic integrity. It’s sloppy at best and dishonest at worst. Even a cursory study of the two fields of study would readily reveal stark differences.

Mention the name, Thomas F. Torrance, and the subject of Trinitarianism will immediately come to the minds of those familiar with both Torrance and Trinitarianism. Torrance is among a handful of contemporary theologians who have articulated Trinitarian thought in the clearest way and in a way most faithful to the ancient Church Fathers who espoused this view.

Back in the 1940’s, there was an interesting dialogue and debate between TF Torrance and renowned New Testament scholar J.A.T. Robinson. The following quote from Torrance was a response to Robinson’s compelling defense of the Universalist viewpoint.

“All that Dr. Robinson's argument succeeds in doing is to point to the possibility that all might be saved in as much as God loves all to the utmost, but it does not and cannot carry as a corollary the impossibility of being eternally lost. The fallacy of every universalist argument lies not in proving the love of God to be universal and omnipotent but in laying down the impossibility of ultimate damnation. Dr. Robinson has cited passages from the New Testament which would seem to him to point in the direction of universalism, but what of those many other passages which declare in no uncertain terms that at the last judgment there will be a final division between the children of light and the children of darkness? What of the shuddering horror of the words: "It were better for that man had he never been born", which came from the lips of Omnipotent Love? There is not a shred of Biblical witness that can be adduced to support the impossibility of ultimate damnation. All the weight of Biblical teaching is on the other side.”

Torrance continues later in the article:

“The doctrine of universalism gains its plausibility not from itself, for it is inherently and inevitably inconsistent, but from the inconsistency of the position it attacks. That is very apparent in Dr. Robinson's essay which attains its force in criticism of a position where God's righteousness and love, or His omnipotence and love, are thrown into false antithesis. That has long been the difficulty with the traditional doctrine of predestination and reprobation as a double decree. In actual fact, however, the Biblical doctrine of election is the very doctrine which expresses the universal action of God's grace in such a way that, far from dissolving the personal elements of choice and decision, it establishes them. It is the doctrine of election therefore which is the great truth that is partly apprehended and yet obscured in the error of universalism.

(Unversalism) commits the dogmatic fallacy of systematising the illogical. Sin has a fundamentally surd-like character. Somehow evil posits itself and cannot be rationalised. The New Testament teaches that when it speaks of the mystery of iniquity, and of the bottomless pit (abyssos). Evil is fundamentally discontinuity. No explanation involving only continuity or coherence can ever approach the problem, for that would be to draw the line of continuity dialectically over discontinuity. The doctrine of the atonement teaches us that no matter how much we think about it, here our reason reaches its limit. It cannot bridge the contradiction between God and man in guilt. The contradiction is resolved only by an act of God in which man in contradiction to God is reconciled and yet the terrible bottomless reality of sin is not denied. That act of God is ultimately eschatological so that just how the contradiction is dealt with in atonement is yet to be revealed at the Parousia. That is the relevance of apocalyptic, but apocalyptic is the antithesis of universalism. Universalism is the doctrine that rationalises sin, that refuses to admit in its dark fathomless mystery a limit to reason. Universalism means that the contradiction can be bridged by reason after all, and constitutes therefore the denial of atonement and the anguished action of Calvary. The Christian faith which has looked into the limitless depth of the “Eli, Eli lama sabachthani,” and considered the great weight of sin to discover that only by act of God can man get across the gulf, will accept the way of humility where the Cross makes foolish the wisdom of this world.

It will learn the disciple of suspending judgment in order to avoid foisting a false and abortive unity or a closed system of thought upon the actual facts of existence. The irrational mystery of evil is the other rock upon which universalism as a unitary interpretation of existence inevitably suffers shipwreck. True dogmatic procedure at this point is to suspend judgment, for here that is the most rational thing reason can do. Whether all men will as a matter of fact be saved or not, in the nature of the case, cannot be known. The doctrine of universalism gains its plausibility not from itself, for it is inherently and inevitably inconsistent, but from the inconsistency of the position it attacks. That is very apparent in Dr. Robinson's essay which attains its force in criticism of a position where God's righteousness and love, or His omnipotence and love, are thrown into false antithesis. That has long been the difficulty with the traditional doctrine of predestination and reprobation as a double decree.

In actual fact, however, the Biblical doctrine of election is the very doctrine which expresses the universal action of God's grace in such a way that, far from dissolving the personal elements of choice and decision, it establishes them. It is the doctrine of election therefore which is the great truth that is partly apprehended and yet obscured in the error of universalism.”

Torrance continues:

“Election is the love of God enacted and inserted into history in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that in the strictest sense Jesus Christ is the election of God. He is the one and indivisible act of divine love. There is therefore no decree of predestination which precedes this act of grace or goes behind the back of Jesus Christ, for that would be to split the act of God into two, and to divide Christ from God. Jesus Christ is wholly identical with God's action, that which was, and that which is, and that which shall be, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

And to conclude Torrance’s response to Robinson:

“The Incarnation of the Son of God means therefore that the eternal Word of God has become event in time, and that through the Cross the eternal decision of God has invaded the sphere of our temporal relations. Just because the love of God is not only act in time but a Person, Jesus Christ, the eternal election of God has become encounter, acutely personalised in the midst of our choices and decisions, demanding response and decision. Election is not therefore some dead predestination in the past or some still point in a timeless eternity, but a living act that enters time and confronts us face to face in Jesus Christ the living Word of God. Precisely because this Word is also eternal it is always contemporary with us, travelling, as it were, through time. The great fact of the Gospel then is this: that God has actually chosen us in Jesus Christ in spite of our sin, and that in the death of Christ that election has become a fait accompli. It means too that God has chosen all men, in as much as Christ died for all men, and because that is once and for all no one can ever elude the election of His love, as no one exists except by the Word of God by who In as much all things were made and in whom all things consist, and in as much as this is the Word that has once and for all enacted the eternal election of grace to embrace all men, the existence of every man whether he will or no is bound up inextricably with that election—with the Cross of Jesus Christ. Every man's being is bound up for ever with the one and indivisible act of God's love in Jesus Christ. How could it be otherwise? The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the final reality of our world upon which everything else depends. All things are summed up in Him, things visible, and invisible, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven. The whole universe revolves round the Love of God in Jesus Christ and all its motion depends entirely upon Him.”

If you’ve come this far in your reading of this blog, that tells me that you have the aptitude for understanding Torrance’s point, whether you agree with it or not. Trinitarianism is not Universalism. So, in the interest of scholastic integrity and in the name of Christian harmony, please don’t postulate publicly that it is.

What do I believe? I believe that, in Christ, our Triune God has adopted all of humanity into Himself. I believe that this objective reality is factual whether or not it ever becomes an actual, subjective experience to a person. I believe that the proclamation of the gospel is to announce the good news of what has been done by our sovereign God, not what could be done if a frail human will only let Him. I believe that apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ, a person will not inherit the kingdom of God, neither now nor in eternity. I believe there are aspects of the afterlife that cannot be known and defended as dogma because of the apparent ambiguity we experience when we try to filter infinite reality through our finite ability to understand. I believe there are paradoxical statements in Scripture that we can embrace without the necessity of reconciling every detail of biblical truth in our own understanding. I believe that there is no place for loving brothers and sisters to vilify those whose understanding is different from our own. I believe that we can discuss and debate with passion yet maintain an attitude of loving respect for each other that is obvious to any onlooker. I acknowledge that I do not have perfect understanding of anything but teach through “a glass darkly” and believe this is the attitude we all need to possess.

Finally, where I am wrong, I am sincerely wrong. I am wrong after years of study, prolonged periods of prayer, intense interaction with respected colleagues and friends, moments of agonizing doubts and exhilarating certainty. As best as I know my heart, I am teachable, but I am where I am and sense an internal mandate to be true to myself, to what I believe to be my calling and to the message I believe has been entrusted to me by Him. I ask foes and friends alike to pray for me. None of us have cornered the market on the truth. May we each be open to learn and to change so that our souls and actions may increasingly be conformed to the image of the One who unites us all together.

………………………………………
The information in this blog from TF Torrance came directly from the article cited at the bottom of this page. Copyrights forbid me from publishing the article in its entirety but it is available for sale at:
https://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3282104&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0036930600004713
T. F. Torrance (1949). Universalism or Election?. Scottish Journal of Theology, 2, pp 310-318 doi:10.1017/S0036930600004713

Was What I Taught In Australia Biblical?

2011-06-07T01:00:00.003-05:00

I'm used to people disagreeing with me. That is an inevitable part of being a public speaker. Those of us who speak plainly and boldly about God's grace in contrast to the world of religion find ourselves particularly vulnerable to that. I usually don't respond publicly, but my recent visit to Australia compels me to respond to a stirring that has started there since my departure.

My recent visit to Australia was very well received by the people. I heard not one word of dissension while I was there. However, after my departure, a denominational leader posted an article that has apparently taken some traction. It's called “Was The Cross of Jesus A Form Of Divine Child Abuse?” The implication of the title is that those who don’t hold the penal-substitution view of the atonement would take that position. I can’t speak for others like myself who do not see the atonement as the Father pouring out angry revenge on the son for my sin, but I certainly would never use inflammatory language like “divine child abuse” to characterize those who do hold that viewpoint.

For the sake of readers, let us begin with the meaning of penal-substitution. I’m fine with the definition used by my critic. It is, “The death of Jesus was ‘penal’ because He paid the penalty for sins which the justice of God demanded; it was a ‘substitution’ because He died not for His own sins, but for ours.”

I do believe that Jesus’ death was subsitutionary in that He died in our place. I do not believe it was the case that an angry Father poured out revenge for my sin upon Jesus in my place. Jesus was indeed punished, but it was by sin, not His Father. If the death of the Son was the Father’s punishment for our sin, are we to conclude that the Father’s and Son’s views of sin were different? Is it the case that the Father has a particular kind of “sense of justice” that required Him to release divine anger against somebody for our sin but the Son didn’t have that same kind of angry justice toward our sin, but instead felt compassionate enough toward us to be the One who allowed the Father to get it out of His system by taking it out on the Son instead of us?

No, divine justice does not require payback. To think so is to superimpose our own flawed human sense of justice onto the mind and heart of God. Divine justice is very different. A biblical study of what it means to "bring justice" does not mean to bring retribution at all, but rather to bring healing and reconciliation. Justice means to make things right. All through the prophetic bible passages, justice is associated with caring for others, as something that is not in conflict with mercy, but rather an expression of it. Biblically, justice is God's saving action at work for all that are oppressed:

"Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow". (Isaiah 1:17)

"This is what the LORD says: "`Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed" (Jeremiah 21:12)

The way that we "administer justice", the Prophets tell us, is by encouraging and helping the oppressed. In contrast to what we may have been taught, God's justice is not in conflict with his mercy, they are inseparable. True justice can only come though mercy. Did God show justice at the cross? Yes! He showed justice by making it right for us, not by venting anger at His Son. Divine justice is seen by expressing mercy and compassion.

"This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Administer true justice: show mercy and compassion to one another. (Zechariah 7:9)

"Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice".( Isaiah 30:18)

If we want to understand the concept of justice as the writers of the Old Testament did, then we must see it as a "setting things right again". Thus when Christ comes, the way that he brings about justice is through mercy and compassion. Notice how in this next verse Christ does not bring justice with a hammer, but with a tenderness that cares for the broken and the abused.

"I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations… A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory" (Matthew 12:18-21)

The way that God brings about justice and "leads it to victory" is through acts of compassion - sheltering the "smoldering wick", and the "bruised reed". And what does Christ "proclaim to the nations" to bring about this justice?

"He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

It is interesting that many believe justice would require that people be put in prison, but Jesus said His mission of justice was to set people free from prison. There is no conflict between God's justice and mercy. Justice is about mercy. Justice comes through mercy and always has. It is a quality born of compassion and the desire to make things right.

So the whole wrongheaded idea that divine justice requires for somebody to be paid back because of our sin originates from a human, fleshly understanding of the word. As just shown in biblical text, God justice is an expression of His love toward us, not a compelling need to make somebody pay for the wrong we’ve done.

The author of the article said that the penal substitution view is what the apostles taught, as well as the Church Fathers, the Reformers and great gospel preachers such as John Wesley, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon and Billy Graham.” First, to suggest that the apostles taught the penal substitution (PS) view is not correct. One must lay the template of his own preexisting understanding on the words of the Apostles to come to such a conclusion. As to great gospel preachers, we can go back to the early church and read the Cappadocian Fathers, Saint Athanasius and others whose vein of thought fit well with my viewpoint. So don't fall for the suggestion that there's a solid and indisputable bedrock upon which the PS view is built.

Consider, for example, the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, “18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

Where is the evidence there that God the Father was standing outside the cross, punishing His Son, Jesus? No, Paul said He was in Christ while the world was being reconciled to Him. This “word of reconciliation” (message of the finished work of the cross) is the gospel we now proclaim! The Father was in the Son and by the power of the eternal Spirit dealt with our sin! (Hebrews 9:14 says that Jesus through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God.)

The writer of the blog furthermore uses the fact that “many precious hymns which have stood the test of time” validate a penal substitution view. Knowing this pastor’s ministry focus, I feel sure that upon further thought, he wouldn’t argue that the length of a hymn’s popularity validates the veracity of its message. I think that both he and I would agree that many hymns the church has sung for years do stand in great contradiction to the message of grace we both want to see spread. So the fact that there are existing hymns that do reflect his opinion doesn’t really strengthen his position at all.

I would find it amusing if it weren’t so unfair that the writer then cites Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) as one with whom he chooses to connect to the message I teach. Here is a quote from his critique: “Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who is generally regarded as the father of modern liberalism, and who denied the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible, objected to the idea that salvation is deliverance from divine wrath. Those who take a similar hostile view to penal substitution have likewise tended to be those who do not believe in the authority of the Scriptures.”

For the record, I believe the Bible. I suspect my view of the Bible would be as high as that of the one who wrote this article. So the use of Schleiermacher as a guilt-by-association tactic in trying to establish his point is not fair. It borders on insult. It's no more fair than it would be for me to suggest that since Jim Baker was an Assembly of God pastor and this critic is an Assembly of God pastor would imply or suggest anything about the one who wrote the critique. That kind of attempt to link people in guilt is wrong, misleading and counterproductive to respectful dialogue.

For a few paragraphs, the critique then pulls together an eclectic view of the PS view based on the varying views of those with whose writings the author must be somewhat acquainted. Since it is a composite description of various writers views all pulled into one, it is difficult to respond. I find myself agreeing with some of what those he referenced said and disagreeing with others. For instance, I do agree that the PS view is inconsistent with the Bible’s portrayal of a loving God. On the other hand, I would never use the words, “cosmic child abuse” to describe anything God the Father does.

The greatest inherent weakness in the critique comes under the section entitled, “Understanding the Cross From the Backdrop of the Old Testament.” Immediately, this title should raise a red flag in the mind of anybody who is familiar with biblical hermeneutics. For those who don’t know, hermeneutics refers to the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation of the Bible. It’s the agreed upon system of interpreting so that we are intellectually honest in the way we reach conclusions.

One of the most basic foundations of understanding the Bible is what is called, “The Christo-Centric Principle” The underlying premise of this principle is that the lynchpin of understanding Scripture is Jesus. Everything is centered in Christ. Everthing in existance finds its meaning and purpose in Him. So the entire Bible finds its meaning in Jesus Christ. To suggest that we are to understand the work of Christ on the cross by looking at the Old Testament stands in exact contradiction to sound hermeneutics. Conversely, we are to understand the Old Testament through the revelation of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. To put it in a simple rhyme I learned as a child: “The New is in the Old concealed. The Old is in the New revealed.” In other words, we understand the Old by the New, not the other way around.

Any attempt, therefore, to give meaning to the work of the cross that starts in the Old Testament, apart from Jesus Christ is bound to lead to faulty conclusions. Our starting point in Biblical interpretation is Jesus Christ. He stands above everything else in defining, expressing and revealing the Father’s eternal purposes to us. Hebrews 1:1-2 says, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” If you want to understand your God and His works, start with Jesus!

If you want to understand your Old Testament, start with Jesus and work backward, not the other way around! The OT writers gave us a glimpse of our Father. Through Jesus we may gaze into His face. Start from the right place when you want to understand our Triune God’s eternal purpose for mankind. Start with Him, not Old Testament verses that you mentally isolate from the Son of God.

The critique against my teaching then set forth verse after verse after verse, strung together with no apparent inner correlation other than the common denominator that they all seem to speak of an angry, vindictive God. For sake of illustration, let’s look at what can happen when the approach of Bible discussion takes the form of “seeing who can build up the biggest pile of verses.”

His verse: “Sin must be understood as opposition to God’s will as expressed in His law” (Gen.3:1-6; Rom.4:15; 1 Jn.3:4).

My verse: “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom 14:23).

His verse: “…your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isa.59:2).

My verse: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:39-40).

His verse: “Because he has despised the word of the LORD, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him” (Num.15:31).

My verse: First, that’s right that person will be completely cut off – BY SIN. Look at the next chapter; Numbers 16:26 Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, or you WILL BE SWEPT AWAY IN ALL THEIR SIN (not by God, but by sin!)

His verse: “So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD…” (1 Chron.10:13).

My verse: “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 3:23) What does this have to do with Saul? What killed Saul? Was it God who killed him in angry judgment? NO, it was Saul’s disobedience that led to his death. Just like Adam in the Garden. God didn’t tell Adam, “I’ll kill you for eating from that tree.” He said, “In the day you eat from it, you will surely die.” God warned Adam. God warned Saul. There’s love and grace. But disobedience led to sin and sin brought on the judgment of death. It was SIN NOT GOD who killed Saul. Like Adam, he didn’t do what the Lord told him and reaped the WAGES OF SIN.

His verse: “Upon the wicked He will rain coals; Fire and brimstone and a burning wind shall be the portion of their cup” (Psa.11:6).

My verse: “Though He scoffs at the scoffers, Yet He gives grace to the afflicted” Psalm 34:4. Does God allow the wicked to experience the consequence of their sins? Of course!! He wants to bring them to brokenness. It never benefits to do wrong. Living in rebellion against God always brings its own judgment and misery but our loving God desires to lift up any who will turn from their wickedness to Him.

His verse: “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine is red; It is fully mixed, and He pours it out; surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down” (Psa.75:8).

My verse: Ah, yes, as my critic points out so well, “Notice in the last two references that the wrath of God is referred to as His “cup”. This is important because Jesus spoke of His death as drinking the cup that the Father had given Him (Matt.20:22-23; Lk.22:42).

Look at my choice – Luke 22:20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.” As my critic pointed out, there’s a correlation between the old covenant cup and the cup of the new covenant. What is that NT cup? It is the cup of His blood that reminds us that the bitter cup of the old covenant has now been replaced with the better cup of the new covenant. The wages of sin have been replaced with the gift of life! The wrath of God’s cup in the Old Testament was His “tough love” which allowed rebellious humanity to experience it’s bitter dregs so that when Jesus came they would see “the more excellent way” in Christ. They could forever throw away the old cup and drink living water from the new cup forever!

His verse: Punishment of sin vindicates the righteousness of God. God by no means clears the guilty (Ex.34:7):

My verse: Punishment of WHAT? SIN! NOT punishment of God. How does sin’s punishment vindicate God’s righteousness? Easy! It shows that we would be wise to choose Life – His Life and not the death that SIN brings. “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live (Duet 30:19). I’m not even going to respond to the quote, “God by no means clears the guilty.” Is my critic really going to stand on that point in light of the rest of the Bible? This point means he will not clear then while they stand in their guilt. When they see their forgiveness and acceptance, they will rush from guilt to grace!

His verse: Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments” (Psa.119:137).
My verse: Righteous are You, O LORD, and upright are Your judgments” (Psa.119:137). Of course He is upright and judges with the bias of a very prejudiced Father ☺

His verse: For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, nor shall evil dwell with You. The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity” (Psa.5:4-5).

My verse: God so love THE WORLD that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeith in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16) God loves every person. He hates when people do iniquity/sin for the reason that He loves people and hates to see them hurt themselves. If Psalm 5:5 suggests that God hates all workers of iniquity, what about believers who sometimes do those works? Does He hate them too at that time? Of course not. This verse is one that clearly shows how the OT verses must be seen through the light of the New Covenant texts and not pitted in opposition to each other.

His verse: “God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; the LORD avenges and is furious. The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies” (Nah.1:2).

My verse: Did he even look at verse 3? “The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. In whirlwind and storm is His way and clouds are the dust beneath His feat.” Then, going on and describing God’s greatness, he concludes by showing that even divine wrath is an expression of love. “His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken up by Him. The Lord is good. A stronghold in the day of trouble (judgment) and he knows those who take refuge in Him” (Nah.1:6-7). What is this wrath? Nothing other than an expression of intense, unbearable, love intended to bring the resistant to the end of themselves and their pride so that they will turn to Him.

The writer’s long end of spurious verses concludes with mention of the Old Testament sacrifices and with the idea that blood must be shed so that God is satisfied. Unfortunately, similarities rather than contrasts between these sacrifices and those of Jesus were offered.

The Old Covenant sacrifices were totally insufficient to deal with our sin. If they have been capable, there would have been no need for a new covenant and a perfect sacrifice. I challenge the reader to examine Hebrews 8-11 to see how inferior the whole OT system was to the New Covenant in which we now live.

I am weary in my writing of this whole tit-for-tat, who can build the biggest pile of verses approach. I used it just this one time simply to demonstrate that you can pull verses to illustrate whatever you want to prove. The key is not in what the Bible says, but IN WHAT IT MEANS. Personally, I understand my Bible, my God and myself through the person of Jesus Christ. As stated previously, my hermeneutic is Christo-centric (Christ centered) and thus that starting place is reflected in every conclusion I make about what the Scripture means.

If a person’s underlying starting position is that our God is primarily one who is first and foremost concerned with right and wrong, his path will be a different one. My starting place is that our God is primarily one who is first and foremost concerned about the humanity He created to live in Trinitarian life and love with Him. It’s not about rules, but relationship.

If a person’s concept of God the Father is that His justice demands payback, retribution, Jesus-eye-for-our-eye, His-tooth-for-our-tooth, he will see what happened at the cross in a very different way. I don’t see it as an angry Father watching in contempt as His Son took His anger about my sin, while the Holy Spirit stood idly by. I see it as out Triune God – Father, Son and Spirit coming down here determined to straighten out this mess the first Adam made. They agreed not to stop until the Last Adam finished the job and said so. “It is Finished” was the ending bell that day.

If a person’s concept of God is that wrong happens, somebody has to be paid and He’s not happy until that happens, PLEASE SORT OUT IN YOUR MIND HOW THAT IS NOT A LEGALIST GOD? No! Our God is a God of grace. He has wiped the sin deck clean by His work. The cross wasn’t a penal substitution. It was a precious solution for all humanity. It really IS finished. Now we get to tell people about it and excitedly invite them to simply believe it!

Many of you have heard me say for years, “Don’t take my word for it. Study your Bibles!” In that same vein, I encourage you, “Don’t take somebody else word for it either. Study your Bibles!” The concept of God we have will determine how we read the Bible. May His Spirit guide us all into the knowledge of our Abba so that the Scripture will serve to encourage us and bless us and show us His true nature, which is Love.

(I would be remiss not to mention Brad Jersak and his book, "Stricken by God?" which has had an influence on my thinking. Finally, let me say that the one who wrote the critique I responded to here is no an enemy. He is a kind and loving man who also wants to see the message of grace spread across Australia. In this case, we simply don't see the matter of Penal Substitution the same. Obviously, we both think it's an important topic. Despite his criticism of my teaching, I believe he respects me and I certainly respect him.)

Johns, Jims and Jesus

2011-06-06T17:59:00.003-05:00

Consider John: John is a believer in Jesus Christ. At the age of 14, he heard a guest speaker at youth camp teach that Jesus died for our sins and John believed what he heard. He prayed with a counselor at the end of that service and has never doubted that he is a Christian since then.

However, here are some things John does not know or believe:

1. That all of his sins – past, present, and future, have been already been forgiven because of the finished work of Christ on the cross. He has never been taught that and doesn’t know it. He thinks that only past sins were forgiven and that he still has to ask for forgiveness every day.

2. That he is a already a righteous person. John tries to become increasingly righteous by reading his Bible, praying, attending church, and other disciplines he has been taught are necessary for growing in righteousness.

3. That he is already holy. He would say, “I’m trying to be” if somebody were to ask him if he is holy. He doesn’t know that his holiness is because of what Jesus Christ has done and isn’t accomplished by what we do or don’t do.

Are these three aspects of the work of the cross true of John even though he doesn’t know or believe them? Of course the answer is, “yes.” (That’s called “objective reality.”) They are true of John whether he knows them or believes them or not. This is the “factual reality” of the matter. His complete forgiveness, righteousness and holiness won’t become a beneficial reality to him experientially until he knows and believes, but they are true nonetheless. Correct?

Now consider Jim: Jim doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ. He grew up in a moral family who didn’t attend church at all. Jim has never even heard one sermon preached. He has never given much thought to being a Christian.

Here are some things that Jim doesn’t know or believe:

1. He doesn’t know that his sins have all been forgiven. Have they? Is the forgiveness of his sins something that happened because of the finished work of the cross or must he believe it before the work of the cross is a success when it comes to the forgiveness of his sins?

2. He doesn’t believe that he is righteous. Is he? Must Jim believe on Jesus Christ before this aspect of the work of the cross is applied to him? Or is righteousness a gift he has received but doesn’t know it?

3. He would never see himself as holy. Is he? Was Jim included when God set apart those for whom Jesus died?

In the case of both John and Jim, it isn’t their knowledge or belief that causes what Jesus Christ did on the cross to be successful. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He affirmed the victorious work of the cross was complete for all mankind; for every John and Jim in the world.

Christian John’s forgiveness, righteousness and holiness are real even though he doesn’t know it. Why? Because Jesus succeeded in what He died to accomplish for John. Unless and until John knows and believes these things, he won’t benefit from them but they are real nonetheless. They are factual realities even if he never knows them as actual experience.

Did the work of Jesus Christ on the cross only accomplish these things for the Johns of the world? They don’t know or believe they are fully forgiven, righteous and holy, but they are simply because they believed just enough to make these things happen for them at some point in life? Is that it?

On the other hand, are the Jims of the world are not forgiven or made righteous or holy until they come to that same level of minimal belief as the Johns? John doesn't know and believe he is holy but he is. Jim doesn't know and believe he is holy so he isn't? Is it the case that the cross of Jesus Christ was wasted on them because while the Johns of the world don’t know or believe the complete news of the gospel, they do believe just enough to make all these things real for them.The Jims haven’t believed the necessary information about Jesus’ death to have any of it be true for them.

Or is any of it true? Some Christians would say the Jims are forgiven already too. They just don’t know it. However, righteousness and holiness, they say, won’t be true until
Jim believes. So the benefits of the cross are piecemealed and divided into parts. One part is true without knowledge or belief (forgiveness), but the rest (righteousness, holiness, etc.) of the benefits of Jesus’ death require belief. The net outcome of the cross in this view is that it has partially affected everybody but won’t be complete until people believe. It isn’t really “finished” but is “being finished” one person at a time, as they believe.

What is the truth about the matter? The truth is that Jesus did what He did for all the Johns and Jims of the world. It is His finished work that has lifted us up from Adam’s race and adopted us in Christ. The success of the cross in delivering us from our doom in Adam is due entirely to Jesus! He did it all! It really is finished! That is the gospel we proclaim to the world!!

Does this mean everybody is a Christian? No. A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ, one who has placed their faith in Him. However, those who haven’t believed are still included. They simply don’t know or enjoy the benefits. Hebrews 4:2 says, “The same gospel (this finished work of Jesus on our behalf) that was preached unto us was preached unto them also, but it benefited them nothing because they did not combine the truth with faith.”

It simple. They’re spiritually rich too, but unless they believe it they will continue to live as paupers. They will remain dead to the reality and live in an illusion that they are self-sustaining beings who lead their own lives apart from the Father, Son and Spirit Who have brought them into the Circle of Love and Life. They’re standing in The Light but are blind to it.

Let’s not insult the finished work of the cross by insisting that it is our vote that determines whether He succeeded or not. He did succeed. The only question now is whether or not we will live in His victory or in the illusion of our own independence. To do that is living hell – one that we can insist on in this world and the next if we so choose.

Your Sins Are Gone, So Let It Go

2011-06-02T21:01:00.005-05:00

Think of the worst sin you have ever committed. Do you have it in mind? Do you remember the specifics of the sin — what you were thinking and how you were feeling when you committed it?

Now think of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, his brow, feet and hands pierced and bleeding. His head hangs in agony. You are standing at the foot of the cross when He lifts His head and looks you directly in the eyes. He looks deeply into your eyes and you into His. You feel the love emanating from His gaze, then He speaks: “I love you, my child. I know about your worst sin. I know every detail. I know about all your sins. I absorbed all your sins into Myself. I've taken them away. They are gone - forever. I have forgiven you. I have forgiven you; now forgive yourself and let’s forget this sin and agree to never mention it again."

If it were possible for a moment to move beyond the restraints of this dimension we call “time” and see the cross from the eternal perspective, that is what we would hear Jesus say. All is well. Your sins are forgiven forever. You are immersed in Divine Grace and that's all there is to it.

Robert Capon said it well:

Trust him. And when you have done that, you are living the life of grace. No matter what happens to you in the course of that trusting — no matter how many waverings you may have, no matter how many suspicions that you have bought a poke with no pig in it, no matter how much heaviness and sadness your lapses, vices, indispositions, and bratty whining may cause you — you simply believe that Somebody Else,by his death and resurrection, has made it all right, and you just say thank you and shut up. The whole slop-closet full of mildewed performances (which is all you have to offer) is simply your death; it is Jesus who is your life. If he refused to condemn you because your works were rotten, he certainly isn’t going to flunk you because your faith isn’t so hot. You can fail utterly, therefore, and still live the life of grace. You can fold up spiritually, morally, or intellectually and still be safe. Because at the very worst, all you can be is dead — and for him who is the Resurrection and the Life, that just makes you his cup of tea.

That, my friend, is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Perichoresis, Three Dimensions and Heresy

2011-05-31T21:47:00.000-05:00

Better Things In Life than Marbles & Basketball!

2011-05-31T07:44:00.004-05:00

When I was a young boy, I loved to play marbles. I would often go out into the back yard and draw a circle in the dirt, put a handful of marbles “in the pot” and shoot marbles for hours. I often played with my friends, with each of us putting ten marbles in the circle and taking turns shooting. Did I play for keeps? Well, I’ll just say that I had a big bag of marbles! I couldn’t imagine a day ever coming when I gave up that hobby. I knew that one day I would grow old enough that I would look pretty silly on the ground with my favorite shooter, but I tried not to think about those days. I wanted to play forever.

One day while I was outside practicing, I heard someone call my name. I looked over toward the backyard of my friend, Phillip, and saw him there with Ricky and Danny. They were standing under a basketball goal which hadn’t been there the day before. “We’re gonna play a game. We need a fourth man. Want to play?” they asked. I left my marbles in the dirt that day and never looked back. I had found a new passion. I loved to play basketball. Every single day I couldn’t wait to get home from school so that I could rush out into the back yard to play ball. We would play until dark every day. Fridays were especially exciting because we didn’t have school the next day. Our parents would often allow us to stay out really late, shooting baskets when we could hardly even see the goal. It was an adolescent boy’s paradise.

“Now this is something I can do all my life!”, I reasoned. “Mr. Lambert across the street still plays basketball and he’s a grown man!” In those days I was convinced that there would never be a Friday night of my life when I didn’t shoot basketball. I was addicted to it.

One Sunday when I was barely sixteen years old our family went to church. While sitting in the Sunday School class that morning, I noticed a new girl who walked into the class. I had never seen her before. I had never been on a date up to that time. When this girl walked past me, I checked her out — I mean, I discerned that this might be a good place to begin my dating life. I went home and asked my dad the big question. “Dad, if I get a date some Friday night, will you let me use your car to go out?” “Do you have a date?” my dad asked, probably glad to see his only son moving toward manhood. “Not yet, but there’s a girl I want to go out with if you’ll let me have the car,” I answered. “Who is she?” he asked. “Just a girl I met at church last week,” I answered. “Okay,” he said. “You can use the car if you get a date.”

I couldn’t wait until the next Sunday. As soon as church was over I made a bee line for this new, good looking girl. After nervous small talk, I took the plunge. “Are you doing anything this Friday night?” I nervously asked. “No,” she answered, “why?” “Well, there’s a new Barbara Streisand movie coming out this weekend. I thought we would go see it and then go over to Pizza Villa after the movie, if you want to,” I said. “Sure, that sounds like fun,” she answered.

The following Friday night I picked her up and went out on my first date. It went really well. The next day my buddies all rushed over to my house bright and early. “Man, where were you?” they demanded to know. “We waited for you to come out. We play basketball every Friday!” they continued with obvious irritation over my reckless disregard for our sacred appointed game. “What were you doing?” Holding my shoulders back and with my head held high, I answered, “Boys, I was with a chick!”

To their dismay, I called the girl and asked her to go out with me the following Friday. She accepted. In fact, I went out with her every Friday for the next three years, then I married her. We’ve been married since 1973. (Her high school senior picture is the one attached to this blog.) Now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I played basketball on Friday night. I’ve found something better!

When a person finds himself entangled with a sin, it is often difficult to imagine a time when he won’t be connected to that sin. How does one find freedom over habitual sins in his life? Certainly it won’t happen by applying religious rules to our behavior. We have already seen how that sins are actually aroused by laws. The idea that a Christian should protect himself from sins by a strict adherence to rules is sin’s secret weapon against the believer. Laws always stimulate sin.

I hate to compare wholesome activities like marbles and basketball to sin, but I want to use my experience with these as an analogy. If someone had told me when I was a young child that I would have to give up marbles, I would have resisted the idea. If someone had suggested that at age sixteen I would be required to give up Friday night basketball, I would have rebelled against the very thought of such a thing. I didn’t focus on giving up either. I simply became obsessed with something that I wanted more than those things. One might say that Melanie delivered me from basketball. It wasn’t a struggle for me. I just set my mind on her and basketball sort of faded away.

That’s how Jesus can deliver us from our sins! When we come to know who Jesus is in us and who we are in Him, we discover that sins we once couldn’t imagine living without lose their appeal to us. We don’t experience victory by struggling against sins, but by setting our mind on Jesus. The Apostle Paul said it succinctly in Colossians 3:1-3:

If you then have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

We will never overcome sin through sheer determination and self discipline. That kind of negative motivation keeps our eyes off Jesus and on our sins. We are to focus on Him, not sin! As we fall more and more in love with Jesus, those sins which we have so tightly caressed will become increasingly unattractive to us until we want to let them go.

When I was a child, we sometimes sang an old song which clearly teaches God’s method for overcoming sin. It says, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face. Then the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” The repellent for sin is not self effort. The remedy for sin will always be nothing other than Jesus.

Let's Dance

2011-05-30T08:18:00.003-05:00

He entered into the room, which was filled with noise and activity. There was music, laughter and talking. His eyes scanned the room, searching for that one whose very face caused his breath to quicken and his heart rate to increase. He loved her, yet it was more than that. He wanted her. He wanted her to be his, and not just tonight, but forever.

Then he saw her. Across the crowded room, she stood — as if she had been unknowingly waiting for him all her life. She was beautiful. No, not beautiful. She was stunning. “God, I must have her!” every fiber of his being resonated. “I want to spend my life with her. I want to love her and cherish her and hold her. I want to take care of her and spoil her.”

He walked across the room, never taking his eyes off her for even a moment. The room was filled with people, but his eyes were on her. As he approached her, his presence caught her attention and she looked upward into his penetrating eyes. This was the moment he had been waiting for, the time he had longed for as long as he could remember. Gently and lovingly he spoke: “Would you care to dance?”

The description I have given is a true story. The two did begin to dance that day and they have never stopped. He asked her to marry him and she said “yes.” His plan is to do exactly what he intended from the beginning — to share his life with her and to love her so much that she will never regret the day she met him.

Not only is the story true, but you actually know the people involved. The one He desired to have so much is you. The Person who wanted you so badly is Jesus Christ. One day He walked into the room of this world to find you. He was captivated by you and determined that He would make you His own. He knew in His heart that He must have you, that He wouldn’t live without you.

If you doubt my words about His love, read the following marriage proposal that He wrote you. These aren’t my words, but are His, copied here word for word exactly as He wrote them to you:

How beautiful you are my darling. How beautiful you are! There is no
blemish in you! Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, And come along.
You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes.
How delightful you are, My love, with all your charms.

This note to you is recorded in the Bible, in the Song of Solomon. (Song of Solomon 1:15; 2:13; 4:1,7,9; 7:6.) This book of the Bible is a love story about you and Jesus. Its words are sometimes so graphic, so intense, that throughout church history there have been those who have argued that it shouldn’t even be in the Bible. However, your Divine Lover has made sure it is there. The Song of Solomon is a love poem written for you. It’s eight stanzas call you beautiful no less than fifteen times!

Jesus is consumed with you. Speaking about you, He said, “Who is this . . . fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars (Song of Solomon 6:10)? You may not feel that way about yourself, but it makes no difference. What He says is an objective fact, whether you believe it or not. If you don’t believe it now, rest assured that you will believe it, because He is going to keep telling you how beautiful and precious you are to Him throughout all eternity. One day, either now or later, the reality of His words will transform you.

Do you remember the day that you heard Him ask you to dance? Maybe it was in church, or perhaps it was when a friend shared his faith with you. Maybe it was when you were all alone and heard the voice of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember what you experienced then, as He reached out to you? The bride in the Song of Solomon spoke for us all when she said, “My feelings were aroused for him” (5:4). That happened to us all when Jesus swept us off our feet and we trusted Him.

Don’t think it irreverent to view Christ in a romantic way. He is the One who calls us His bride. He is the One who wrote to us in terms of passion and romance. We simply respond to Him. “We love Him because He first love us” (1 John 4:19). We didn’t initiate or set the pace for this relationship. He did. We have simply responded to His irresistible charm, affirming by faith, “My beloved is mine and I am His” (Song of Solomon 2:16)! Like every new bride, our profession of faith in Him is nothing less than the thrilling realization that, “I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me” (7:10, emphasis added)!

I didn’t imagine the idea of the dance as a literary metaphor to describe your relationship to Him. That is how He described it. In Zephaniah 3:17, the Bible says, “He will exult over you with joy” (emphasis added). Strong’s Concordance defines the word “exult”(sometimes translated “rejoice”) in the following way: “To spin around under the influence of a violent emotion.”

One day we will meet face to face the One whom, “having not seen, we love” (1 Peter 1:8). We will look into the eyes which have never looked away from us even once. We will be embraced by his outstretched arms and will hear His voice audibly. I’m not sure what His first words to you will be, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the first thing He says as He stares deeply into your eyes is simply, “Let’s dance.”

A Longing For Home

2011-05-29T12:24:00.003-05:00

C.S. Lewis wrote, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." The video below is Eva Cassidy singing, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow." Listen to the longing in her voice.

Wikipedia reports that in 1993, Cassidy had a malignant mole removed from her back. Three years later, during a promotional event for the Live at Blues Alley album in July 1996, Cassidy noticed an ache in her hips, which she attributed to stiffness from painting murals while perched atop a stepladder.The pain persisted and a few weeks later, X-rays revealed that the melanoma had spread to her lungs and bones. Her doctors estimated she had three to five months to live. Cassidy opted for aggressive treatment, but her health deteriorated rapidly.In her final public performance in September 1996, at the Bayou, she closed the set with "What A Wonderful World" in front of an audience of friends, fans and family.She was subsequently admitted to Johns-Hopkins Hospital. Cassidy died at her family home in Bowie, November 2, 1996, at the age of 33. Her longing was fulfilled. Do you feel that same longing? Take heart. One day it will be fulfilled. It most assuredly will be fulfilled . . .

Stillness Speaks Volumnes

2011-05-29T08:00:00.003-05:00

One time I found myself lost in the woods alone. It was late at night and a friend and I were going fishing. We had left the car parked on the side of the road and had gone through the woods down to the water’s edge where our boat was tied. The plan was that we would load the boat with the supplies we had brought from the car, then he would take the boat across the lake to a bridge on the other side where I would drive the car, park it and meet him there.

I pushed the boat off, moving it away from the shoreline and turned to go back through the woods to my car. However, as I began to make my way back, it didn’t take long until I became disoriented. The night shadows and muted colors caused every path to look the same. After walking for thirty minutes on a course that I knew should have only taken ten if it were the right one, I began to realize that chances were good that I was lost.

I was a little nervous at first, but told myself that I would eventually come upon the road and the car. An hour later, I knew I was in trouble when I found myself off the path and fighting my way through thick undergrowth, filled with night sounds I didn’t recognize. I had absolutely no idea which direction I needed to head anymore. Instinctively I began to walk faster . . . and faster . . . and faster. After awhile I realized that increasing my speed wasn’t accomplishing anything except to make me tired.

I sat down to rest for a moment, telling myself that I needed to calm down and think this situation through more carefully. As I sat there, I glanced up toward the sky. Above me I saw my answer. It was a power line. I reasoned that the line had to lead somewhere and that I would simply follow it until it led me back to civilization.

That is exactly what I did and my plan worked. After a long walk, the line led me back to a side road, which I then followed to the highway and to my car. It was a scary experience, which to this day has kept me out of the woods alone at night.

My trek through the woods parallels the journey of many of our lives. Since we aren’t sure how to get where we want to be we simply walk faster and faster. We are accomplishing nothing but exhausting ourselves. In an effort to reach our goals, we become driven to increasing activity and effort, which only serves to exhaust us physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Stillness. It was into the stillness of an empty void that God spoke and said, “Let there be” and all that is came into existence. It was in the stillness of a barren desert that a man met God at a burning bush and was commissioned to lead His people to freedom. It was in the stillness of the night that a baby’s cry could be heard in Bethlehem, announcing salvation to the world. It was another still night when that same child would cry to His Father in a garden, “Not my will, but thine be done.” It was in the stillness of an early morning that a stone was rolled away and an occupied tomb would forever be emptied. Stillness — God’s showcase.

The fire of God’s love burns brightly in the stillness. It is in that stillness that the distractions and cares of the world fade away like outside noises are muted when we make love to our beloved. It is in that stillness that we are able to give our thoughts, our feelings, and our will completely to Him in uninhibited abandon.

It is in that stillness that we are able to meditate — to muse on the Person and loving words of the One whose passion burns for us until we are irreparably and eternally ignited by the Flame. It is in that stillness that we gasp with delight along with the Psalmist, “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire burned” (Psalm 39:3, emphasis added).

Do you want to experience your God's love in a more powerful way than may have known until now? Be still. You may be surprised what you hear and see when you do.
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This post is an excerpt from my book, A Divine Invitation, available here:
http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=94

Jesus Is Looking Forward To Your Coming

2011-05-28T04:31:00.003-05:00

It was in the month of December and I was in the countryside, three hours outside Beijing, China. Temperatures were hovering around ten below zero degrees Fahrenheit. I could see my own breath in the cold air of the unheated storage room in the abandoned factory where I both slept and taught the Bible during my time in this poverty stricken community.

Fifteen people sat around me in a circle, having sneaked into the room one at a time in order to avoid detection by the police. “Aren’t you afraid of going to jail?” one of the believers asked me. “Are you?” I asked. It is illegal for Christians in China to meet together as we were doing and we all knew that. However, these believers were so hungry for Bible teaching that they would risk their very lives to attend this Bible study.

I had taught for thirteen hours that day. Now it was the end of the day. We had been praying and the Christians with me had been singing Chinese hymns, offering praise to God for His goodness. There was a lull in the room as people prayed silently when an 87 year old woman began to sing alone.

I had spoken to her earlier through my translator and knew her personal story. She and her husband had been separated during a war in China over thirty years earlier. As Japanese and Chinese soldiers fought all around her, she hid in the corner of a building. Friends around her were being killed, but the soldiers all brushed past her, seeming not to notice she was there.

Finally the shooting stopped and the soldiers all left. She said that her immediate thought was, “There must be a God because there is no other explanation for why I survived what just happened. I want to know this God.” Ten years passed before she heard about an underground church service near where she lived. Taking her daughter by the hand, she said, “Let’s go to this church where we can meet this God who spared my life ten years ago.” They did go to the house church that day and there she met Jesus Christ.

Now here I was, twenty years later, sitting in an abandoned factory where one family had secretly taken up residence. I had been teaching about intimacy with Christ, but this 87 year old lady was about to make the lesson I taught even more real to me. She closed her eyes and began to sing.

It was a soft and sweet sounding song, in the Mandarin language. As she sang, tears began to stream down her wrinkled cheeks and over her radiant smile. I couldn’t understand the words she sang but I was aware that she was literally exuding the love of Jesus Christ. Suddenly, I sensed the manifest presence of God in a powerful way.

I couldn’t hold back my tears and, as I looked around the room, I saw the others were crying too. I looked back at this saint who now appeared to be in a world of her own, seemingly oblivious to our presence in the room. It was obvious – she was not singing for us. She was singing to Jesus.

In a few moments, she finished her song and a holy hush lingered in the room. She paused for a moment and then opened her eyes and looked at me. “Every day He is looking forward to my coming,” she said with wet cheeks and an angelic smile. I felt like a little boy who was being taught a lesson that he had never heard. Looking through teary eyes, I smiled and simply nodded.

“He is looking forward to my coming.” Have you ever thought of it in those terms? Most people think about how happy we will be to see Jesus Christ face to face, but have you considered how anxious He is to see you? We are called the bride of Christ in the New Testament. One day He will come again and we will be united with Him in an eternal marriage. Jesus said,

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also (John 14:2-3).

One day we will hear a resounding invitation echoing through the universe, “The Bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet Him!” (See Matthew 25:6) In that moment, you will see the One whose passion for you was so great that He thought it better to die than to live without you.
.........
(This post is an excerpt from my book, A Divine Invitation, available here:
http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=94 )

Divine Love Is More Than An Attribute

2011-05-26T04:18:00.004-05:00

When the Bible says that, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), how are we to understand that verse? Does the statement speak to the core essence of who He is? Are there other aspects of His nature that need to be seen in balance with the reality of His love?

Some say that to teach about the love of God the way I do does a disservice in presenting His nature by suggesting that Agape is the defining factor of everything that can be known about Him. They argue that God has other aspects of His nature that must be seen in balance with His love. They particularly point to His justice and wrath as examples. Critics contend that by focusing on His love to such an extent presents a lopsided view of the totality of who He is. I believe that the opposite viewpoint causes the very problem they suggest others create. Those who attempt to align justice, wrath or any other divine qualities alongside His love as separate but equal realities malign His true nature.

Think of it like this: Imagine a pie to be used as an object lesson to illustrate God’s nature. How would you show the place His love, justice and wrath holds within His nature? Would you show a division in the pie with three equal pieces, each showing the respective aspects of His essence? Or would you have a very large piece of the pie reveal His love and two smaller pieces show the place justice and wrath hold within His being? How would you divide the love, justice and wrath of God?

The fact is that such a division doesn’t exist within the divine nature. Instead, it is the pie-crust that is the love of God and that every other aspect of His nature could be seen as a piece of the pie. In other words, God’s justice and wrath must be understood as a part of His love. Otherwise, God is part love and part other characteristics.

To suggest that focusing exclusively on the love of God as the totality of His being leaves out something is to insult Divine Agape. God is love. Love is more than an attribute of God. It's His ontological makeup. God is just, but justice is simply an expression of His love. God expresses wrath but wrath too is an expression of His love. Everything that can be known of Him must be seen through the lens of agape or we end up presenting a god with a multiple personality.

Is there a side to God that is not love? Can we argue that divine wrath is something separate from agape? Does divine justice come from a place within God where love does not preside? Is God love and something else?

The problem comes with the contemporary use of these words that are based on our flawed concept of a judicial god who is a courtroom judge that demands the books be balanced and that somebody be punished for the wrong that was done. Like Adam in The Garden, we have superimposed our own distorted, legalistic (literally) mindset onto the God who has done nothing but reveal Himself through Jesus Christ as the One who loves us and would never act in any way that contradicts that reality.

The pervasive human understanding of justice couldn’t be further from what the Bible teaches about divine justice. The human view is that a wrong was done and somebody must be punished for it, but that isn’t at all what the Bible tells us about Justice seen through the lens of agape.

Biblically, to "bring justice" does not mean to bring punishment but to bring healing and reconciliation. Justice means to make things right. All through the prophetic books of the Bible, justice is associated with caring for others, as something that is not in conflict with mercy, but rather an expression of it. Divine justice is God's saving action at work for all that are oppressed, making things right for everybody. Consider these texts:

Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow (Isaiah 1:17).

This is what the LORD says: "`Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed (Jeremiah 21:12).

The way that we "administer justice", the Prophets tell us, is by encouraging and helping the oppressed. In contrast to what we may have been taught, God's justice is not in conflict with his mercy, they are inseparable. True justice can only come though mercy.

This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Administer true justice: show mercy and compassion to one another" (Zechariah 7:9).

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice ( Isaiah 30:18).

If we want to understand the concept of divine justice as the Bible reveals, then we must see it as a "setting things right again.” It’s not retribution that makes things right, but restoration. That is the heart of our Father.

What about wrath? The Greek word is orge and, while the word is often used to refer to anger, it can refer to any violent emotion, not just anger. It is “an agitation of the soul” and can even mean, “love.” If our starting point in understanding the use of the word in the Bible is a concept of a God who is angry about sin and wants somebody to pay, of course, we will automatically see wrath as an expression of anger. On the other hand, if our starting place in understanding a text is that God is love, then we know we haven’t reached the pure meaning of the verse if it contradicts love. Will God ever act in a way that contradicts love? Is His essence pure love? Can pure love ever express anything that stands in contradiction to Pure Love? If it can, then the love was never pure from the start. Pure water has nothing else in it that would contaminate it or alter it at all. Neither does Pure Love.

If our concept of God is that He is One who insists on punishment for wrong doing, how can we possibly argue that we don’t envision a legalistic (i.e. courtroom, gavel wielding, verdict pronouncing, sentence imposing) God? He is not an impartial judge. He can’t be because, to the contrary, He is a God who is very biased in our favor. That’s what grace means.

Is there punishment for sin? Of course there is, but it is sin that punishes, not God. The wages of sin is death but Jesus has come “so that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Our God is Love. Not love plus something else. Just Love. Everything else that can be said about Him must be framed inside that reality.

A Great Blog By Frank Viola

2011-05-07T12:38:00.005-05:00

I recently read Jesus Manifesto by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola and thought it was an excellent book. While my views don't perfectly align with theirs on everything they've each written, this particular book was one that I highly recommend you read if you haven't already. It is a stellar book that points us all back to Jesus.

Mike Zenker (GW Canada National Director) sent this blog by Viola to me yesterday and I read it this morning. I've never posted somebody else blog on my own blog before but I think this one is excellent. It does a great job in explaining that among Evangelicals, there is a stirring that leads us neither deeper into conservatism nor liberalism. As Viola states, it leads us forward. I believe that forward movement in grace is the normal result of the Apostle Peter's admonition to "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." As we grow, we change. That's inevitable. Read Viola's thoughts below and see what you think. . .

Beyond Evangelical: Part I

The title of this blog is Beyond Evangelical. But what does that phrase mean? And what does it not mean?

First, “beyond evangelical” doesn’t mean “non-evangelical.” I am an evangelical. What is more, I stand with the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed (just in case anyone was wondering). In this regard, I agree with Alister McGrath’s statement that “evangelicalism is historic Christianity. It’s the standard bearer of historic, orthodox Christianity.”

But the term “evangelical” embraces a wide canopy. So much so that the word is becoming increasingly vague and open to interpretation. Evangelicalism has become a hyphenated movement. For instance, “old-evangelical,” “neo-evangelical,” “conservative-evangelical,” “post-evangelical,” “post-conservative evangelical,” “ecumenical-evangelical,” “charismatic-evangelical,” “young-evangelical,” etc. are all in common use today. American historian Mark Noll rightly points out that evangelicalism is made up of “shifting movements, temporary alliances, and the lengthened shadows of individuals.”

The word “evangelical” has become so generalized that people like Jim Wallis (evangelicalism = social activism/reforms) and Al Mohler (evangelicalism = fundamentalism) stand on the oppose sides of the evangelical spectrum. The same is true for Rob Bell (on the left) and John MacArthur (on the right), both of whom claim to be “evangelical.”

As western culture has balkanized and changed the meaning of words over time, the same is true for religious vocabulary. We can no longer take for granted the meaning of terms like “evangelical” or “evangelicalism.” The evangelical formulas that worked in the past have evolved. So there’s very little consensus today as to their exact meaning.

Second, “beyond evangelical” doesn’t mean “post-evangelical.” Popularized by Dave Tomlinson, the term “post-evangelical” is often equated with the emerging church movement/phenomenon. While I have close friends who identify themselves with this movement, I do not. I appreciate my emergent friends and applaud some of their concerns, while freely disagreeing with other concerns.

In our book Jesus Manifesto, Leonard Sweet and I address what we believe to be some of the critical weaknesses of “emergent” Christianity as it relates to the Person of Jesus Christ (see Chapter 7). We also address some of the critical weaknesses we see in “the Religious Right” (see Chapter 8). Right or wrong, you know where I stand on those issues.

Now here’s something I’d like to say to my friends who are analyzing evangelicalism today. The future of evangelicalism is not restricted to a choice between the left or the right. Another direction exists: It’s forward. As Sweet and I say in our book, "The body of Christ is at a crossroads right now. The two common alternatives are to move either to the left or the right. It’s our observation, however, that we are living in a unique time, when people are frozen as they look in either of those directions. When they look to the left, they decide that they cannot venture there. When they look to the right, they feel the same. Whether they realize it or not, people are looking for a fresh alternative—a third way. The crossroads today, we believe, is one of moving forward or backward." (Jesus Manifesto, p. xiii). Those of us who are moving “beyond evangelical” resonate with that statement. The only gear we have is “forward.”
Third, for many evangelicals, the historical use of the word “evangelical” includes four key notes.

The British evangelical historian David Bebbington has defined the word “evangelical” by the following four notes. Mark Noll also uses this description as well as a host of others.[2] Bebbington’s “evangelical quadrilateral” includes:

* Biblicism - being Bible-centered, which would include the belief that the Bible is the Divinely inspired authority for life and faith; it is trustworthy and sufficient.

* Conversionism – being conversion-centered, which would include the need for being converted to Jesus Christ.

* Crucicentrism - being cross-centered, which would include emphasizing the death of Jesus for salvation.

* Activism – being activist-centered, which would include living the Christian life, evangelizing, and helping those in need.[3]

I hold to all of the above. Therefore, I am an evangelical in the historic sense. But going “beyond evangelical” means asking some incisive questions like . . .

*In what sense is the Bible authoritative? And how exactly does a person hear and encounter God through the Scriptures? What’s the main point of the Bible . . . the grand narrative?

*How is a person converted? And what does conversion give an individual? What does it include?

*What happened at the cross exactly? How does Jesus’ death save us? Does His death on the cross do more than just forgive sins? If so, what?

*How should Christians present the gospel? What is God’s central mission exactly? And what does the Scripture teach concerning how we are to fulfill that mission? (I predict that the question “What exactly is the Mission?” is going to define the missional church conversation over the next 5 years. This is always assumed . . . grossly so. So hide and watch.)

Over the last three years of this blog’s existence, I have weighed-in on some these questions. My books also address them. But I’ve only scratched the surface. This leads us to the next point.

Fourth, those of us who have moved “beyond evangelical” have expanded the evangelical quadrilateral with four additional notes.

* Christ-centered – a recovery of the Bible’s consistent and razor-sharp emphasis that Jesus Christ is supreme, preeminent, sovereign, the center of biblical revelation, and the practical, living head of the church. In today’s evangelicalism, countless religious “themes” and “subjects” have replaced Christ as the centrality and supremacy.[4]

* Resurrection Life-centered – what stands beyond the cross is the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection means so many things. It means the beginning of the new creation. It means the triumph of God over all things, including death, His greatest enemy. But it also means that God’s people can live in the foretaste of our future resurrection, participating in its life and power here and now. It means that Jesus Christ is still alive, can be known, and has come to live out His resurrected life in and through us. Learning to live by the indwelling life of Christ in a corporate context and all that it involves is a missing note in modern evangelicalism. (The latter is focused on imitating Jesus as an individual through one’s own efforts.) Living by the life of Christ also means being radically sold out to Jesus without being legalistic on the one hand or libertine on the other.[5]

* Body Life-centered – the typical evangelical holds to the idea that the Christian life is an individual pursuit. “Church” is something Christians attend in order to be motivated to go out and serve as an individual Christian and live a strong individual Christian life. But those who have gone “beyond evangelical” believe that the church is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, Christ existing as community. Church is not a denomination, a service, or something you attend. It’s the experience of the body of Christ, a la, “body life.” In fact, the Christian life doesn’t work outside of a local, shared-life community that’s meeting under the headship of Jesus Christ as His body on the earth. Consequently, how a local church functions and expresses itself is imminently important.[6]

* Eternal Purpose-centered – God has an eternal purpose, or grand mission, that provoked Him to create. That purpose goes beyond the saving of lost souls and making the world a better place. God’s purpose transcends evangelism and social action (both of which are focused on meeting human needs). The eternal purpose is primarily by Him, through Him, and to Him. Meeting human needs is a byproduct, not the prime product.[7]

Contemporary evangelicalism in America is essentially a reactionary movement. As a result, it has produced an “us” vs. “them” mentality. Those of us who have gone “beyond evangelical” have moved on from the early 20th-century fundamentalist vs. modernist debate that our forefathers passionately fought . . . a fight that continues to rope many contemporary Christians into today, some 100 years later. This fight leaves people with a false choice between left or right. The alternative direction of “forward” doesn’t appear on the radar screen.

Those who are “beyond evangelical” have moved on from that battle to discovering, exploring, and displaying the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ with our brothers and sisters in Christ.(How often do you hear that language in evangelical circles? The vocabulary we find in books like Ephesians emerged from a living experience. An experience that is available to Christians today, though it be rarely found.)

I am not alone in observing the trend of moving “beyond evangelical.” Before his passing, Michael Spencer famously wrote about the coming evangelical collapse. Scot McKnight has written prolifically and intelligently on the present crisis that evangelicalism faces and the pressing need to reshape it. David Fitch has also written on the subject (though more for an academic audience). And a host of others have as well.

Grace Walk Pakistan

2011-05-03T14:54:00.003-05:00

From Robinson Sadique, Grace Walk Pakistan National Coordinator: "I have given our books to Pastor Robin Raz, on 8th of April as he is working with us in Grace Walk Pakistan although he has his own ministry but he is also apart of our team.He went to Lahore, Narowal, Sialkot and other parts and cities of Punjab Provence he had introduce and disturbed the books and shared the message of grace."

Remember the people of Pakistan in your prayers and pray for our team there who is sharing the wonderful truth of our Father's life and love!

C.S. Lewis On The Finished Work of Christ

2011-05-01T08:25:00.004-05:00

What, then, is the difference which He has made to the whole human mass? It is just this; that the business of becoming a son of God, of being turned from a created thing into a begotten thing, of passing over from the temporary biological life into timeless 'spiritual' life, has been done for us. Humanity is already 'saved' in principle. We individuals have to appropriate that salvation. But the really tough work--the bit we could not have done for ourselves--has been done for us. We have not got to try to climb up into spiritual life by our own efforts; it has already come down into the human race. If we will only lay ourselves open to the one Man in whom it was fully present, and who, in spite of being God, is also a real man, He will do it in us and for us. Remember what I said about 'good infection' One of our own race has this new life: if we get close to Him we shall catch it from Him." (Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis, pp. 156-157)

Was C.S. Lewis saying here that everybody is a Christian? No. Was he suggesting that everybody is going to heaven? No. Was he suggesting that since the work of Jesus on the cross includes all mankind, there is no need for us to place our faith in Him? No.

What he is saying is that the work of the cross is finished whether we believe it or not. We "have to appropriate that salvation" but "the business of becoming a son of God, of being turned from a created thing into a begotten thing, of passing over from the temporary biological life into timeless 'spiritual' life, has been done for us."

This is the message that we have the joy of proclaiming to everybody! Not a potential gospel of "what Jesus will do for you" but a pure gospel of what has already been done in the man, Christ Jesus, for every person. Yes, people need to believe and receive it, but we believe because it is true. We don't believe so that it can become true.

An Adult Easter Egg Hunt

2011-04-28T23:09:00.003-05:00

I did something last Sunday that I've never done before. When my adult children were here for dinner, we had two Easter Egg Hunts. The last one was for our grandchildren, but the first one was for our adult children. That's right, my adult kids participated in an Easter Egg Hunt their mother and I had planned. The odd thing was that I only hid one egg for them to find. How do you motivate a group of adults in their thirties to search the yard for an Easter egg? That's easy. Put enough money in a plastic egg and they'll scramble like preschoolers!

It was fun for me because I knew that whoever found the egg would be thrilled. I hid it in the flower bed up against the house, right under the water hose. They all began the search at the same time. They were looking in the Junipers, under flower pots, in the grill, in the birdhouses, everywhere. Everybody was laughing and having a great time. I especially enjoyed it.

After 10 minutes passed and nobody had found it, I told them I would give them a clue: "So you won't have to look all night; The egg is in my line of sight." Now they knew they didn't need to go back into the side yard out of my sight. So now they looked right in sight of where I sat on the patio.

Another 10 minutes passed. I gave a second clue: "You may think you'll find it but you can't; if you think it's hidden in a plant." Off the hillside they all came. No more looking among the Junipers or potted plants on the patio. My clue drew them all in closer to where Melanie and I sat. We both laughed as different ones came so very close to finding it at times, only to pass right over it.

Finally, I gave the final clue: "This is a clue that's really sweet; I could walk to the egg in fifteen feet." Now they circled around us, acting like forensic investigators trying to find that one hidden thing.

At last, Cliff, my son-in-law began to go alongside the house pulling up pine straw and then... there is was! We all laughed and congratulated him on his discovery. It brought me great pleasure to see him find it.

That Easter Egg Hunt reminds me of our spiritual adventure in the grace walk. We don't know everything. There are new and surprising truths that await our discovery. Our Father takes great joy in watching us as we search the Scripture and scour the terrain of life in Him in search of a greater knowledge of who He is to us and in us and who we are to Him and in Him.

It takes time and effort, like looking for the prize egg on Easter. Growing in grace isn't instant. It's a process, but if we know His heart, we can enjoy the search. We know that, just like I knew I would personally see to it that one of my family, found the prize egg, our Father will certainly see that we find the "prize" He wants us to discover.

I could have just handed one of the kids the money, but it would have robbed them of the joy of the search and I would have forfeited the pleasure of watching in knowing anticipation of what somebody was about to find. The process of grappling with truth is a pleasure to us and for Him too when we know that He takes pleasure in giving us revelation of Himself.

Sometimes people mistake grappling with truth for confusion. Somebody recently asked me, "Why do you write these things that leave questions in some people's minds?" I responded, "Because questions are a good thing. In fact, more problems come when we have more answers than questions than the other way around." Our Father takes delight in our questions and in our search to discover all that He has hidden in Christ for us. A question is nothing less than a spiritual thirst that He loves to satisfy.

My children didn't express frustration that they were confused as they searched for the egg. They knew that I would see to it that they would find it if they kept looking! That gave pleasure to all of us!

So it is with your Father. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't believe anybody who tries to convince you that reevaluating what you think you've known or that not having a definitive answer for every question is the same as confusion. Immaturity causes us to want to have simple answers for everything, but adults know that life doesn't work that way. It's okay to not have answers and it's okay to search, to reconsider the answers you've been given in the past and to ask them anew, trusting your Father to ensure that, however many "clues" it takes, He will lead you toward "the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Our Father has prize eggs of revelation for all of us. It's not a matter of self-effort when we search. Divine truth does come by revelation but our Father is fun-loving and takes pleasure in watching us want Him and takes pleasure in leading us toward all that He has set aside for us.

Willie Torresin: How To Show Agape To Those Who Are Gay

2011-04-23T15:30:00.002-05:00

Guest speaker, Willie Torresin talks with me about his past lifestyle in the gay community and how we can reach homosexuals with our Father's grace

Update on My Wife, Melanie and Her Broken Back

2011-04-18T19:22:00.002-05:00

We saw the surgeon this afternoon and he confirmed that she has broken the L1 vertebrae. We were not happy to hear that it appears she also may have fractured her L3 vertebrae. She will go for a CT scan and an MRI either tomorrow or Wednesday (depending on how fast insurance approves it) and then will see the surgeon again asap after that. In the meantime, her orders are to stay down and don't do anything that might complicate matters worse.

Of course, we are disappointed in this but at the same time we know Who is in charge and we're trusting Him during this process. I remember once hearing Malcomb Smith say that he was in the hospital and somebody asked him, "What's this all about?" His answer was something to the effect of "This is Jesus living His life through Malcomb in the hospital." So that's our attitude - this is Jesus living His life through Melanie in this process. Although, I'll admit that if He had asked Steve for his vote, I would have cast my vote on the other side :)

Thanks again for the encouragement and prayers from so many of you. We knew when she was diagnosed a few years ago with a deteriorating spinal problem that our God is still in charge. So we're trusting Him and watching how He chooses to move us through this situation.

An Update On My Wife, Melanie

2011-04-16T13:17:00.002-05:00

Many of you know about the problems Melanie has had with her back over the past few years. She was diagnosed a few years ago with a degenerative problem in her spine that the doctors said would progressively compromise the strength in her back. She had surgery this past August, then therapy for three months and has been slowly recovering since then.

A few days ago she had another incident that caused me to cut short my trip to California and immediately come back home to her. Last weekend we were out of town with a few friends for a weekend getaway. We ate breakfast in a restaurant on Sunday morning and something she ate made her sick. Shortly afterward, she vomited and said it felt like a knife pierced through her back when she did.

Obviously, we canceled her plan to go to California with me. I debated going but she insisted that she had most likely pulled a muscle and that I should go ahead without her. So I did, but no sooner did I arrive in Los Angeles on Thursday than she called to tell me that the results of the X-Rays she had done showed that it isn't a pulled muscle. She broke her back when she vomited. It's a fracture in L-1. (The surgery was on L4-5) I immediately changed my return flight and arrived back here last night at 2:00AM.

She is in terrible pain right now, but the earliest she could get into see the surgeon is Monday. Her previous surgeon said this will require a specialized surgery that he doesn't do. So we'll see a different surgeon on Monday and will know how this will proceed after that.

When I began this blog years ago, I said that I would use it for both personal and public posts. This is very personal to us. I'd appreciate your prayers. Our Father is faithful. We are trusting Him and ask you to pray for her during these trying days.

Love Wins

2011-03-26T09:28:00.005-05:00

After all the prepublication stir about it, I was eager to read Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins. I had never read anything by him before nor had I seen his popular NOOMA videos that have been all the rage for quite some time. So I went into Love Wins with little preconceptions about what it might be.

Overall, I liked the book very much. I’m glad it has ignited a fire in the church world because it brings a topic to front and center in the Evangelical world that deserves to be considered and discussed. That topic has to do with the implications of the shared view of all believers that God is Love.

The biggest controversy surrounding the book before its publication had to do with whether or not Bell ascribes to Universalism. He is not a Universalist. That is clear, unless people think him a liar. He has plainly denied being a Universalist in interviews he has done and reaffirms that position in the book. He writes, “So will those who have said no to God’s love in this life continue to say no in the next? Love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility.” Then again, a few pages later, “Will everybody be saved, or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices? Those are questions, or more accurately, those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact. We don’t need to resolve them or answer them because we can’t, and so we simply respect them, creating space for the freedom that love requires.”

The problem many have with Love Wins are the unanswered questions Bell raises. The flesh hungers for definitive answers and the Western World thrives on it. But, alas, our God has been and always will remain Mystery in many regards. That can be maddening to some. Hope isn’t equivalent to dogma and Bell posits nothing more or less than what many through church history have seen as a well-founded hope for mankind’s ultimate future. While most of the Evangelical church world has largely gone into frenzy over his views, the Eastern Orthodox church would surely wonder what the big deal is about it. The theology of Love Wins finds its roots all the way back to the Cappadocian Fathers in church history.

I don’t believe the book is going to immediately change the minds of many who are predisposed to resist such a hope but it will encourage those who already have an underlying sense of hope about the subject. Love Wins will certainly continue to stir controversy, not because it lacks biblical support but because it flies in the face of the traditional views that many have held. At times, it becomes easy for any of us to confuse the difference between sacred doctrine and sacred cows. This book certainly will attack some of our sacred cows and they've never been known to die quietly.

The strength of the book is that Bell writes with simplicity in the way that the average reader can understand. While I’ve said that I don’t think the book will immediately change the minds of opponents, I do think it may plant the seed of hope in many. His consistent focus on the ontological nature of God as being love may well set open minded readers on a trajectory toward positive implications of that reality.

I think he also did a good job in showing how the kingdom of God is among us now as opposed to simply an eventual escape for those who believe. His now-and-not-yet approach to heaven hopefully will awaken the minds of many evangelicals whose tradition has left little room for the social implications of the gospel in the here-and-now. Many of us come from traditions that focus so heavily on the afterlife that the idea of living out kingdom life in ways that confront systemic evil now hasn’t even been on our radar.

Bell doesn’t deny hell’s existence in the slightest. In fact, he makes it clear that choosing to try to function independently and not live experientially in His love is the essence of hell both now and post-mortem. To Bell, rescuing people from hell isn’t something that only delivers them from an eternal fate but sets them free from its reality right now.

I do wish that the book had addressed the matter of the importance of the Trinity as a starting point for our theology. While Bell has done a good job describing the love of the Father, I think his message might have found greater strength had he discussed the perichoretic aspect of our Triune God. To understand the relational aspect of the Trinity and to see how that sharing that relationship with all humanity has been the divine plan from eternity past may have helped clarify why Bell has such hope for mankind’s ultimate future.

I understand that the book is about the ultimate fate of every living person but also would have like to have seen a greater focus on how living in the “Circle of Life” today makes a difference in the world. As already noted, Bell is not a Universalist but one of my critiques against Universalism in general is its focus on who goes to heaven and hell to the exclusion of much said about what it means to participate in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit now.

I end as I began my thoughts about the book. I appreciate Bell’s willingness to weather the storm that he surely must have known Love Wins would bring and am happy that he has brought this topic to the front of the ecclesiastical room so that it must be discussed. Perhaps many will see that there is another option than being a Universalist who dogmatically insists that everybody goes to heaven or a Calvinist who emphatically insists that only the minority elect go there. This book reminds the reader that there is tension in the Scripture on this subject but encourages us toward the reality that “love hopes all things.” The implication of that fact may lead us to differing viewpoints but must leave us all with the conclusion that love certainly wins because God is Agape and Agape cannot lose.

Hell

2011-03-19T15:48:00.004-05:00

With all the talk stirred up by Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins, I've been asked repeatedly lately about my views on hell. This should answer it. It's one is a series of messages called, "Important Things I Never Learned In Sunday School" You can check it out here: https://gracewalkresources.com/item-group.asp?cID=0&pgpID=62

Masterpiece Revelations

2011-03-11T08:17:00.005-06:00

In Philippians 1:8-10, the Apostle Paul said that as we grow in love we will mature to the place where we can tell the difference between that which is good and that which is excellent.

The New American Standard Version renders it, "so that you may be able to discern what is best." There are good teachings out there and then there are excellent teachings. Our Father's intent is that we would recognize the difference. One is what Hebrews calls "the milk of the word" and the other is the "meat of the word."
The two are not the same. You probably know good teaching from bad teaching but do you know a good truth from an excellent truth? Young's Literal Translation describes it as "proving the things that differ."

Look at the two images above. One is a good painting and the other is an excellent paining. Which would you want to have? I confess that because of my lack of artistic sophistication, I'm not wild about either of them. Take a look at them. Which of the two would you want to own?

The top painting in this blog is called "Iris and Butterfly" and was painted by Claire Bull. The piece is fine art and can be purchased for 450 dollars.

The bottom painting is called "Irises" and was painted by Vincent Van Gogh one year before his death. It became the most expensive painting when it was sold for $53.9 million to Alan Bond in 1987.

That's a big difference that illustrates good and excellent. Thus it is in the realm of biblical truth. There are good teachings that will encourage and help you, but there are also excellent truths that can revolutionize your life. Note that Young's Literal Translation speaks of approving those things that differ. Don't make the mistake of thinking that something different is necessarily wrong. Sometimes when we open our hearts and minds to new things that are different to us, we find ourselves growing in grace in ways we couldn't have imagined. Don't be gullible. Check the Bible for yourself to see if the different teaching you may be exposed to fits with what the Scripture teaches. If not, reject it. If it does then embrace it gladly - even if that means admitting that it's something different than you've believed before. That's the only way to grow in grace.

There are excellent realities to be discovered in Jesus Christ. Let us open ourselves to the leadership of the Holy Spirit and the Scripture so that we may see the masterpieces of Divine revelation!

Should We Be Universalists? Trinitarians? Or Just Plain Nuts?

2011-02-16T16:14:00.010-06:00

Mike recently asked on Facebook, “Steve, if u don't mind me asking, what made u not believe in the Universalist view, but the Trinitarian one instead? What is the major difference in their views? Thanks! God bless!”

Like Mike, many have asked and many more wondered about the teachings I’m doing these days. I believe my teachings now are simply a greater and more finely tuned expression of the grace I’ve taught for the past twenty years. I'd hope that anybody who teaches will have seen their views and content evolve over two decades. I will always teach grace and hope that, like my personal life, my teachings show a growth in grace over time. The Apostle Peter admonished us to, “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Growth equals change. If we never change, we never grow. There’s no arguing that fact. Here’ my response to Mike’s question:

Thank you for the question, Mike. I realize that many people are wondering about some of the things I’m teaching these days. I’m happy to clarify here what I am and am not attempting to say through my teaching.

First, it is important for me to state that I can’t attempt here to speak as a representative of Trinitarians as a whole. Truthfully, I’m among those who aren’t wild about labels for the reason that seldom can anybody’s viewpoints be adequately defined by a label. I don’t call myself a “Trinitarian” but rather have said that these days I find myself more closely related to that position labeled “Trinitarian” than other positions that label themselves by name within the Christian community. I have learned much from Trinitarian writers like Thomas Torrance and his brother, James Torrance, Baxter Kruger, Karl Barth, C.S. Lewis, Elmer Coyler, Robert Capon, NT Wright, Brad Jersak, Robert Sherman, and others who don’t come to mind right now. I’ve also benefited greatly from some of the early church writers like Saint Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers. I’ve particularly appreciated many of the guests on Mike Feazell’s program “You’re Included” on Grace Communion International’s web site. While I find that I don’t agree with some things said or written by some Trinitarians, it’s the group I “feel most at home with” these days.

Over six years ago, I was introduced to Baxter Kruger’s book, The Dancing God. I was intrigued by his writings and found them to challenge my thinking. His book began a journey that led me to read everything I could get my hands on by both Trinitarian and Christian Universalist writers. (Not to be confused with “Unitarian Universalists” who don’t believe in the necessity of Jesus and His finished work.) I have probably read more books by Christian Universalist authors than some who identify themselves as Universalists. While I am not a Universalist, I have found many good things with which I agree among Universalists writers. In my opinion, Tom Talbott’s book, The Inescapable Love of God, is probably the best book on universalism that has ever been written. I read George MacDonald, Phillip Gulley, Gregory MacDonald, Martin Zender, Clyde Pilkington, Jr., Gary Amirault, Gerry Beauchemin, F.W. Farrar, and others. (In my opinion, one of the great causes of stagnation in growth in the church world today is our unwillingness to read those with whom we may think we will disagree or have been told by our peers that they are “wrong.” Have we become so insecure in our beliefs that we are afraid to be exposed to other views? It seems so.)

Comparing the writings of Universalist authors with the position of Triniatrian authors, searching out the Scriptures for myself, praying earnestly to “see the light,” and seriously grappling to know the truth (staying up all night many times, as my wife can attest), I came to see that, at the least, my understanding thus far had been incomplete. I knew that the Spirit was pulling me forward in my understanding of grace but didn’t know where I would find myself when the dust settled. To be honest, I was afraid because I knew that some wouldn’t like it when I shared with others the pathway down which the Spirit was leading me, but the reality is that when He leads us, we simply go. We don’t ask where we’re going and then decide whether or not we want to go forward. Nobody will ever progress that way. We just “forsake all and follow Him.” I simply want to understand God’s truth as He reveals it to me. To do that always requires an open mind and willingness for Him to change us.

Mike, you asked about the differences between Universalism and Trinitarianism. I’m not one who could do the best job answering that, since I’m still a neophyte when it comes to Trinitarianism. I will answer your question by giving you the reasons I am not a Universalist.

First, and foremost, I am not a Universalist because I have a difference with them concerning the matter of reconciliation. Many of the Universalists I have read suggest the idea of “ultimate reconciliation,” means that ultimately everybody will be reconciled to God the Father. Contrary to that viewpoint, my position, and that of Trinitarianism, is that everybody has already been reconciled to the Father through the finished work of Jesus on the cross. I understand the biblical teaching to be one, not of an ultimate reconciliation of humanity, but rather one of historical reconciliation - one that happened already. Paul wrote, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” When and where did this happen? The fact is that it really happened “before the foundation of the world” but it found its expression in time 2000 years ago at the cross. It isn’t something yet to happen. It is something that has happened. See Romans 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18; 2 Cor. 5:20; Col. 1:22. The reconciliation isn’t an ultimate reality. It’s a done deal or, to put it another way, “It is finished.”

Mankind’s problem isn’t that we aren’t reconciled to the Father. It’s that they don’t know. That’s why Paul said that God has “committed to us the word (message) of reconciliation. "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God.” In other words we proclaim, not a potential gospel but a pure gospel that “It is finished!” It isn’t being finished when you believe. You can believe it because it is already finished! You have been reconciled! Now be reconciled! In other words, "believe it!" (Like telling a guy, “You are a man. Now, be a man!")

The gospel isn’t some sort of existential news that becomes true because somebody believes. We believe it because it is already true. A blind man may not see what’s around him but it’s there whether he sees it or not. His subjective experience of blindness doesn’t negate the objective reality around him. A lost man had to be home to begin with or else there would be no reference point to give the word “lost” its meaning. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see!”

A second thing about Universalists (generally speaking) that doesn’t resonate with me is their continuous focus on heaven and hell, to the exclusion of every other aspect of our faith. I readily admit that I may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is more talk about our ultimate destination than about our here-and-now destiny in Christ.

I understand the Universalist passion for inclusion and share 100% in their enthusiasm for that reality, but that inclusion is much greater than simply what happens when we die. Being joined together in the communal Life of our Triune God has staggering implications for all aspects of life in this space-time dimension in which we now live, however temporary it may be. I like how Trinitarianism focuses on the supreme importance of our sharing in the perichoresis(interpersonal dance) of the Father, Son and Spirit here-and-now.

A third thing about Universalists is that I don’t see the place for the kind of absolutism they, generally speaking, hold in their viewpoint about who ends up in heaven. I was a hardcore, nonnegotiable Calvinist for almost 30 years and I see the same kind of resolute insistence on the position of most Universalists that I saw and held as a Calvinist.

I understand that we all passionately believe what we believe, but many biblical topics aren’t as clear-cut as those who hold various viewpoints would have us believe. Immaturity causes a person to argue that he “just believes what the Bible says.” We all could say that, but the more pertinent question is, “What does the Bible mean by what it says?” That question is not as easily answered as rabid proponents of any position would have us believe. Maturity recognizes that Bible believers who show a high level of intellectual honesty, who skillfully use exegetical tools of interpretation and who trust the Holy Spirit to guide them still come to different conclusions.

I was a Calvinist because I could “prove it” from the Bible. I have seen the “Biblical proof” for Universalism and will say that both viewpoints are very compelling purely from an exegetical standpoint. (I am sure Arminianism has an equally strong biblical argument, but that’s one I haven’t studied in depth as I have the two I’m discussing in this article.) What are we to do when the Bible seems to clearly present more than one way to understand a matter? Do we go to war with each other in an attempt to see who can pile up the highest stack of verses? Do we argue that my verse has greater weight than your verse?

It seems that the better way would be for us all to hold our views with humility. There are indeed nonnegotiables in the Christian faith, but much of what we argue about doesn’t fall in that category. As Brad Jersak pointed out in one of his books, it’s not that the Bible tells us too little about some topics to form an opinion. To the contrary, it seems to tell us too much. We all tend to zero in with a hard focus on the verses that support our underlying position while the verses that would contradict our views seem to become a part of the fuzzy background of Scripture. It’s not that we ignore them, it’s that we honestly don’t see the verses that contradict our existing views.

I hope the Universalists are right that everybody ends up in heaven. Wouldn’t every Christian want that? “God is not willing for any to perish but that all should come to repentance.” Is it wrong for me to want the same thing that my Father wants? Does that make me a Universalist? Hardly. I suggest that perhaps a greater problem than the Universalists adamant insistence that everybody will go to heaven is the angry reaction from many Christians over the very idea.

There are texts that appear to stand in tension on this subject. In my opinion, that leaves us at the place where we may hope but would be presumptuous to insist that we know with certainty what happens with anybody after they breathe their last breath. Who knows what happens in that transient moment as one passes through the veil from this life to the next? There is no time with God, so how can we say what takes place in that moment when the spirit is separating from the body?

Who am I to think that I have such perfect understanding of Scripture, of the mind of God, of the heart of a man, or of how the eternal plan of the Almighty will unfold to brashly state how it will be – end of discussion.

I remember struggling with the Scripture and the Spirit very, very early one morning when I first began to examine the possibilities on this topic. I prayed in frustration, “Lord, why didn’t you make this easier to understand???” I sensed a gentle word that literally came into my mind answering, “I am not a puzzle to be solved. I am a Mystery to be explored.”

Therein, lies the answer. The flesh insists on definitive answers. The Western World thrives on them. But our God transcends our rational minds and refuses to be perfectly understood and rejects our insistence that we have indisputable answers to every question.

What are we to do then? The answer is to love. We are not to be known by our theology. We are not to be known by our answers to questions of soteriology, eschatology or any other biblical topics. And we certainly are not to be known by labels. They will know we are Christians by our love.

So that’s what I want to do. I want to love. I am not a Universalist but nobody would be happier if they’re right. While my views many not perfectly align with every Trinitarian, I love their proclamation of all of mankind’s inclusion in the finished work of the cross, a teaching I believe is completely biblical. They don’t, however, push further than Scripture warrants by insisting they infallibly know the eternal outcome of that reality for humanity.

All mankind is included in the finished work of the cross. That I believe. Beyond that, dogma becomes presumptious and not warranted. Love hopes all things. However, when any topic is riddled with biblical ambiguity, as I believe this topic is, humility must be the Siamese twin of hope. If that approach is wrong, just say I'm nuts.

Grace Revolutions Aren't New

2011-01-27T07:03:00.003-06:00

Allow me to begin by introducing you to somebody. I’m sure you’ve at least heard of him, but it’s important for you to know him for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because I hope you’ll see him as a distant relative of sorts – a kindred spirit. You may end up identifying him as somebody whose life was a template for the direction you’ll want to take in your own life.

I hope you’ll come to feel what he felt about the things he saw and that you see. I hope you’ll react similarly to how he reacted to those things. Many people who know his story would call him a hero. The strange thing about it, though, is that when you end up walking the course he traveled, many of those same people will despise you. The man was, without a doubt, a world-changer. It’s no exaggeration to say that, in many respects, your life today is what it is because of him.

But I get ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning, on a day that began like any another ordinary day for him. As things turned out, that day brought change to his life that came as fast as a lightening bolt. Life works that way sometime. We’re walking along, minding our own business, when suddenly God cuts in on us and, in a moment, everything is different. But more about that later. For now, back to his walk down a dirt road on a rainy day.

The lightning cut through the dark sky, like jagged arrows of high-charged anger being hurled at him by God Himself. The menacing clouds hung low over him and there was no place to hide. In fact, there was nothing to do except either submit to the fate of certain death or run. So he ran. He ran fast and he prayed as he ran. "Help me, Saint Anna and I will become a monk!” he cried in desperation. He ran faster and faster, trying to get home before the justice of the Almighty finally balanced the books on his ungodly life by engulfing him in one of the fiery bolts that he was so desperately trying to escape.

Thus began the spiritual journey of Martin Luther, the man who would spend many years of his life struggling to be the kind of priest who would make God proud. Little did he know on that day in the storm that the commitment he made to God would lead him through far greater storms than the one he was praying to escape right then. He only thought he had seen a storm. Those that would later be brought on him by the self-righteous leaders of the religious world in which he lived would make this one look like a stroll in the garden on a sunny day. I told you he is seen as a hero today, but many didn’t see it that way then.

On that note, and before we move on with Luther, I want to ask you to make a mental note to yourself right now. Self-righteous, religious people can be as mean as hell. Please don’t be offended by that statement. I don’t make the statement lightly, nor do I intend to be profane. To some old-fashioned churchgoers it may sound like I’m using bad language here or just being mean, but I’m not. I’m using the H-word in the way it’s used in the Bible, so don’t get skittish. That’s one of the things empty religion does to people – makes them paranoid about things they don’t need to be paranoid about. Political correctness has high-jacked the church world just like it has the rest of western culture.

I’ll go ahead and tell you now: I’m hoping to challenge you to become a revolutionary of grace and no revolution has ever been ushered in through political correctness. So the sooner you get used to plainspoken truth, the easier it will be for you to move forward. Contemporary religion has sanitized a generation of church-going people without sanctifying them. It has caused many to think that blunt truth boldly spoken is less than gracious, but nothing could be further from the truth. If ever there was a time when the church needs plainspoken truth, it’s now. Gracious ministry is grace-filled ministry and grace seeks to save people even when they don’t know that’s what is doing.

The hypersensitive prefer a domesticated god in a domesticated church world where playing nice and feeling good are the most important things. However, there are others who believe that the contemporary church world needs divine intervention. They are the ones who intuitively recognize that, just like the church world in Luther’s day, something has to change.

I hope you fit in the latter category of people and if you do decide to become proactive in moving the grace revolution forward, be prepared because – here it is again: Self righteous, religious people can be as mean as hell.

For those who will accuse me of such, I want to assure you that I’m not going for shock value in making that statement. I’m making a literal assertion, an observation made by many who have been sent and used by God the Father to accomplish His purposes. If you doubt the accuracy of the statement, ask yourself who it was that put the Son of God on the cross two thousand years ago. It was the religious mob that was the in-crowd down at the temple that was responsible for His crucifixion. Mean-spirited forces of hell cheered as mean-spirited religious leaders handed Jesus over to be crucified. The self-righteous handed over the Only-Righteous on the scene that day because He was a threat to the stability of the religious system they had spent years getting just right. They weren’t about to let Him mess it up now with all this talk of a Kingdom whose basic tenets of operation stood in stark contradiction to their own. He had to go – end of discussion.

Luther too would come to experience the wrath of the religious in his own life some years after his initial day in the rain. He indeed was a revolutionary who was used by God to shake up and wake up a slumbering mass of people who had drunk the Kool-Aid of religious legalism being served up in the church world of his day. That didn’t happen right away though. As is the case for many who come to discover God’s grace, not only for salvation, but for Christian living, Luther spent a number of years between his initial surrender to God and the time when he came tor understand what God truly wants from us as Christians, which has nothing to do with works.

Ultimately he came to see that there is only one response mortal man can have to a sovereign God and that is to simply trust in what He has already accomplished, to accept and live our lives in celebration of His finished work. “For what work greater than the work of God can we do?” Luther once asked. He went on, “But here the devil is busy to delude us with false appearances, and lead us away from the work of God to our own works.” Although he championed this message as a revolutionary, he traveled the rocky road of self-loathing for years before the fullness of God’s acceptance became clear to him.

As Luther’s understanding of grace broadened, he became increasingly zealous in his attempt to make that reality known to any and everybody who would listen. To him, the essence of our Christian walk is simply to believe and rest in the fulfilled promises of God concerning what He has done on our behalf in Christ.

In his Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he wrote:

For God does not deal, nor has he ever dealt, with man otherwise than through a Word of promise. We in turn cannot deal with God otherwise than through faith in the Word of his promise. He does not desire works, nor has he need of them; … But God has need of this: that we consider him faithful in his promises [Heb. 10:23], and patiently persist in this belief …

God has done the work and promised us that it’s enough that we simply believe that fact. It took Luther time to see and believe it and to lead others to see and believe it. In that way, his world was like ours.

Many fought Luther and many followed him, but at the end of His day grace had triumphed. If you grew up in a church where you were taught that becoming a Christian means believing that the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross accomplished everything necessary for you to enjoy salvation and that your works don’t have one single thing to do with it, you can thank Martin Luther for that. The church in his day had partially lost sight of that.

Luther’s original intention wasn’t to establish anything new. His desire was for reformation – a re-forming of the church so that it would again be an expression of what He understood the Bible to say that the church is intended to be. He had no interest in being seen as a rebel against the church. He wanted to be a facilitator of change, but in spite of all he could do to avoid it, he began to be seen, not as a facilitator, but as an instigator who refused to leave well-enough alone. Be advised: that’s a risk you will run if you become of part of the grace revolution that has begun in the church today.

Self-righteous, religious folks can’t stand grace for at least one reason. It takes them completely out of the limelight and gives all the glory to God. Tell the church leaders in Luther’s day that people’s good works didn’t move them one inch toward God and, like Luther, you would have been considered a heretic.

Today this fundamental fact about salvation probably makes sense to most who read this. After all, the Protestant Reformation was five hundred years ago and the issue has long ago been settled. Works have nothing to do with salvation. Every Christian knows that. Though it was a controversial matter back then, that fact is a no-brainer in the church world today.

It’s a slightly different grace related issue that will get you into trouble with many in the church today. It’s not about salvation, but about sanctification – how a person becomes holy and then lives a holy lifestyle. Tell many at church that works don’t define salvation and they’ll say a hearty “Amen,” but tell them that the Christian life isn’t defined by works and you’d better take a step back and prepare yourself for the verbal lashing that is likely to follow.

In many ways, Protestant denominations today have lapsed right back into the same errors that stirred Luther to action in his day. The difference is that the controversy then surrounded what it took to become a Christian while today the issue revolves around what it takes to become a good Christian. It’s the same battle, just a different battleground.

To suggest that Jesus is the answer in both instances may seem obvious, but when you look at the message given in the modern church world, an unbiased observer would hardly come to that conclusion. Ask almost anybody in almost any contemporary congregation what a good Christian is and then listen as they describe all the things that person will be doing. They may have learned that at church but it sure didn’t come from the Bible.

The fact of the matter is this: Christianity isn’t about what we do. Neither entering nor living the Christian life revolves around doing. It has only to do with Jesus Christ and nothing else. I didn’t say we won’t do anything so please don’t read into my words something I haven’t said. Of course Christians do, but we don’t do to be good Christians. We do precisely because we are good Christians. We’re good Christians, not because of anything we may do or not do, but because our good God has put His good Spirit in us where He lives and defines us, giving us our very identity. Your goodness has nothing to do with anything you do. It’s because of what He has done.

Against my better judgment, I’m going throw out a bone here by mentioning works in their proper context. Yes, Christians do good works. There, I’ve said it. I’m sure somebody will read that statement and feel like a smoker who gets his first long draw after not having had a cigarette all day. If that’s you, savor the moment. Yes, we work. It’s inherent to who we are. I hope you feel better now, but I warn you – it’s going to have to last you because most of what I ever say or write isn't primarily about works, but grace.

You realize of course that I’m teasing the legalist here, yet at the same time I’m not kidding. Many need to detoxify from the addiction to works and stop having the need to constantly be reassured about the whole subject.

I can almost hear the voices now: “People may misunderstand what you’re saying and think works don’t matter at all!” That’s a risk anybody takes who teaches the pure grace of God, but it is a risk that must be taken if we’re going to avoid diluting the truth of the gospel. To make grace clear, we just have to run the risk.
The great Bible expositor, Martyn Lloyd Jones wrote:

The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some people might misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does not matter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel.

I hope you’ll begin to find yourself more and more addicted to grace and a biblical understanding of what it means to relax and simply allow Christ to live out His life through your lifestyle. If you get antsy when somebody like me talks about works not being the foundation of Christian living, keep reading. Like Luther’s experience in the storm, maybe you need a spiritual lightning bolt that turns your whole life in a new direction.

Works -- it always has been a hot topic in the church. It was the subject that triggered the revolution that led to reformation in Luther’s day and it’s the subject that the growing grace revolution hinges on today, five centuries later. Despite the fact that the Apostle Paul himself said that works and grace are impossible to mix , those who speak out boldly against works-righteousness as the basis of Christian living had better be prepared for resistance. The religious world hasn’t changed since Paul’s day or, for that matter, even Luther’s day when he addressed the subject as it relates to salvation.

Some have argued that “going too far with grace” can cause people to grow lax about sin in their lives. They imagine the Summer Youth Trip at the Local Community Church turning into a “Girls Gone Wild” video. That kind of assumption is totally ungrounded in reality. It ranks right up there with “There’s a boogey-man under my bed.”

Grace doesn’t cause people to go wild in sin. That’s a ridiculous idea perpetuated by two groups of people: (1) Those who are fearful because they don’t trust the Holy Spirit inside other people to lead them and (2) those who are afraid that they will lose control over other people if they actually begin to believe this grace teaching is true.

You can’t go too far with grace. That’s like saying, “don’t go too far with Jesus.” Paul wrote in Romans 5:17 that it is by the abundance of grace that we learn how to reign in life. The real threat to the church isn’t that we will go too far with grace, but that we won’t go far enough. Paul told Titus that the grace of God teaches us to deny ungodly behavior and empowers us to live like the righteous people we are. Show me somebody who is sinning and calling it grace and I’ll show you somebody who is telling a blatant lie. They’ve embraced disgrace and have given it a slanderous new name.

Do you feel an inner defense mechanism suddenly kick in when somebody like me starts to talk about how works aren’t the basis of the Christian life? If so, I encourage you to ask yourself why. Is it because you’re afraid that grace might cause people to become lazy or even passive? Grace won’t do that. The Apostle Paul commented on his own level of work when he said, “I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Paul was willing to put his works ethic in the Christian life up against anybody. What was it that he said gave him such a strong motivation for works? It was the grace of God at work in him. You don’t have to be afraid that grace will make people lazy. True grace never does that. To the contrary, it motivates us toward authentic righteous works as opposed to mandating artificial religious works that only masquerade as being righteous.

In the contemporary culture of church life, where teaching grace as the norm for Christian living is so conspicuously absent, to point out the need for change can be misunderstood. It could sound to some like grace revolutionaries are against the church of Jesus Christ simply because we call for change in areas where we see unbiblical approaches. Be assured that another thing grace won’t do is turn people against the true church, but not everything you see out there is the true church. Religious, legalistic lunacy inside "the church" is another matter.

Some time ago I wrote an article in my newsletter about the danger of legalism in local churches. I was plainspoken, giving examples of what it looks like when a congregation is in the throes of legalism. Shortly after the article was published I received an email from a man who was outraged.

“How dare you be so critical of me and my church!” he wrote. He proceeded to move on from that point to give a quite articulate and thorough assessment of his opinion of me and of my ministry. I wasn’t surprised. That kind of thing has happened before and will happen again.

When I wrote him back, I reminded him that I had never met him nor had I ever been to his church. The only thing I had done was to describe what legalism looks like in practical terms. He’s the one who connected the dots. I’m not against anybody and I’m certainly not against God’s church.

I don’t want to be known for the things I’m against, but for the things I am for, but . . . A person who loves flowers will hate weeds. A person who loves health will hate disease. A person who loves grace will hate the things that take its place. That’s not unloving. That is love in action.

The very nature of revolution is the uprooting and overthrowing of existing ruling powers in order to establish a new authority. That’s what must happen in the modern church world if we are to continue to make an impact on the world with the gospel. Legalism must be uprooted and supplanted with the message of pure grace.

There has been an undercurrent of change that has been rising to the surface in the hearts and minds of many Christians lately. A generation of believers is emerging who believe that the performance based, let’s-just-rededicate-ourselves-and-try-harder, approach to the Christian life has had its day in the sun and its time has ended. We believe the chance of injecting life into the dead corpse of legalistic religion is a hopeless cause and believe that God’s answer is to restore grace to the center stage of His church.

Research done by The Barna Group indicates that of the 77 million American adults who are churched, born-again Christians, eight out of ten do not feel they have entered into the presence of God, or experienced a connection with Him during worship. Revolutionaries of grace believe that legalism is a leading cause for that and are persuaded that something must be changed. Sensing the undercurrent of that change, we have embraced the growing grace revolution and are trusting in God’s Spirit at work through us and in the modern church world to turn the focus of the church away from the religious dog-and-pony show that is so prevalent today and back to the centrality of Jesus Christ.

We want to reach the whole world with the gospel, but believe that for that to effectively happen we too must fully understand the gospel. If we have any hope of changing the way the world sees Christianity, there has to be a change in the way Christians sees God. We believe that our God is not a tyrannical deity waiting for us to show our appreciation by serving Him as many of us have been taught. He is a God of grace; a God of good will toward man as evidenced by the cross; a God who calls on us to give up the silly notion that we can jump through enough religious hoops to please Him and just accept His acceptance.

The worn out, tired, legalistic approach to the Christian life that many of us have known for most of our lives has been tried in the balance and found wanting. Some of those legalistic habits have become a part of the doctrine of the modern church by simple osmosis. Particular practices have been so embedded in the culture of the church that it has become almost impossible for many to know what is a legitimate part of the church and what is man made tradition that has been added on along the way. When something is done long enough and has been sanctioned by the religious powers-that-be again and again, those things reach a place of privilege where it almost seems blasphemous to question them, but they must be questioned if the grace revolution is to succeed.

Over time it isn’t unusual for sacred cows to disguise themselves as sacred doctrines and to question them risks accusation and attack from those who find great comfort in the familiar and don’t want the predictable world in which they are well vested to be knocked off kilter by the silly nuisance of truth. The truth is that sacred cows aren’t sacred doctrines, but are idols. Grace revolutionaries are those who are willing to pull the mask off these sacred cows, exposing their hideous faces to the light of biblical truth. We don’t do it out of malice, but because we love our God, His Word and His church. They don’t die quietly, but they must die if the grace of God is to have free reign in His church again.

Change is coming. It must and it is. The growing grace revolution will gain momentum as we each come to grip with our own understanding of God’s grace and see it be clarified and fortified by the Spirit of Grace Himself. A Revolution is under way and it is a revolution of love and freedom that flows from the very heart of our God.

God Uses Unlikely People

2011-01-26T07:50:00.005-06:00

Many a misguided promise has been made to God during times of crisis. The “If you’ll just let me live . . .” prayer has set more than a few people on a pathway that God never required. Until a person comes to know the heart of God, the default setting is to believe that what He wants most from us is service and sacrifice. Nothing could be further from our Father’s way of grace, but that misguided notion has created needless frustration for many a religious zealot who knew no better.

Twenty two year old Martin Luther’s pledge to become a monk during a lightening storm in 1505 certainly set him on a new course in life. True to his word, later that year he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt and took his monastic vows the next year. He had just received a Master of Arts degree and had been preparing for law school, but now everything had changed so he backed away from his previous plans. After all, he had made a promise to God and, given what had been at stake, that promise couldn’t be forgotten.

Luther was a diligent student and was determined to please God, whatever it took. He spent long hours in prayer, fasted often, gazed on religious relics in hopes of nurturing his spirituality and was obsessed with confessing his sins. In fact, one time his confessor told him to go away and come back when he had something worth confessing.

Ironically though, as time passed he grew more and more frustrated with his own spiritual development. In spite of all his sincere efforts to become more holy, he found himself feeling more and more unholy and absolutely could not shake off the tormenting awareness of his own sinfulness. He tried and tried hard to be the person he thought God wanted him to be. He would later remark, "If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them." He said, "I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailor and hangman of my poor soul."

This phase in Luther’s life is important to recognize because it is an unavoidable part of the personal development of a grace revolutionary. Revolutionaries are passionate people by nature. That’s true even if what we are revolutionary about is our faith. Have you tried with all your heart to be the person you’ve believed God wants you to be but, like Luther, found yourself feeling more and frustrated instead of more and more free? If so, that’s good. You’re on the way to discovering the meaning of personal brokenness, a necessary step on the way toward the place of being mightily used by God.

As much as we might like to bypass brokenness, it just can’t be done if God is to really use our lives. Personal brokenness is the doorway to public usefulness in God’s kingdom. Jesus said it is only when the kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies that it will bring forth much fruit. In God’s economy of things, life comes out of death, strength comes out of weakness, and daylight breaks out of the darkness. That’s how it works.

The phase in life is one of restlessness. Don’t think that it’s a bad thing if you’ve felt restless because this time is actually a transitional stage. It’s a time when God is preparing you for a greater level of spiritual growth. The starting point isn’t restlessness about the church or other people, but about yourself and your own spiritual journey. Like Luther, many of us have experienced and thought the answer was to pour more effort into our spiritual walk. Ironically, God uses this time to bring us to the place where we realize the answer has nothing to do with our giving it more effort at all. Instead, it’s about discovering what it means to abandon all hope in ourselves and to rely entirely on His effort.

If you have always felt perfectly satisfied with your own spiritual journey; if you’ve never seen in yourself an inconsistency in your walk that nagged you and caused you to feel like you just couldn’t live up to what God expected; if you’ve never tried to boost your religious activity in an attempt to grow spiritually, what you’ll read here probably won’t connect to you. Those who think they have it all figured out and are in perfect step at all times aren’t candidates for grace. That’s not a criticism. That’s just the way it is.

If, on the other hand, you have seen in your own experience a gradual decline of enthusiasm in your Christian life; if you have dedicated and rededicated yourself to God with promises that you were going to do better in living the Christian life; if you have felt that your spiritual walk was a rollercoaster, an endless cycle of up and down ability to feel like you’re successfully living the Christian life and you felt that you had to find a way to consistently live the life you know you’re called to live, you may well be a grace revolutionary in the making. Some struggle a long time after committing themselves to God before they connect to the fact that it takes the same grace that brought them in to lead them on. Until they reach that place, they just keep giving it all they have.

Twelve years passed between the time Martin Luther entered the monastery and when he took the public stand in Wittenberg that would become the defining moment of his legacy. During that time, he tried with all his might to live a life that pleased God and gave him a sense of personal fulfillment, but as time passed he became increasingly unhappy. No matter what he tried, nothing worked. He became more and more miserable as he grappled with the whole concept of the righteousness of God and how a person can have it. He especially hated the passage that talked about living with the righteousness of God in our lives, because no matter how hard he had tried he could not achieve that goal. It became an obsession with him that caused him to feel rage at times, both toward himself and toward God. He found it almost maddening that despite all his efforts to walk a righteous pathway, the only thing he could find was a restless pathway and nothing he did could change that.

Don’t think for a minute that you don’t qualify to be a grace revolutionary because you aren't spiritually strong enough. As strange as it may sound, that is exactly what does qualify you. It is only when we are aware of our own weakness that we will truly trust in Gods strength because it is only then that we fully realize we have no other choice.

So if you’ve felt frustrated about your own life, take heart. God is using that dissatisfaction to move you into the place where He can transform you by His grace. Before we can be used by God to change the world around us He must change us. We have to become fully persuaded of the true nature of grace and personally experience the transformation it brings. We can’t take people to where we haven’t been. We must accept our personal weakness before we will ever learn to cast ourselves in complete abandon upon the empowering grace of God.

I was a believer for twenty-nine years before I began to understand this principle of brokenness. I thought what God wanted was for me to be more dedicated and to try harder. Like Luther and, I suspect like you, I often revved up my own religious rpm’s in an effort to move further down the road toward the sense that I was living the way God wanted me to live but, in spite of all my efforts, frustrations mounted and discouragement came on me often. I lived in what I have called the motivation -- condemnation -- rededication cycle.

People are leaving the traditional church world in droves for this very reason. They’ve been told that their greatest need is to be more committed to God when what they needed to hear is that God is fully committed to them. It is only when we realize this truth that we find the motivation and ability to fully commit ourselves into His hands.

Let me put it another way so that if you haven’t connected with this idea of brokenness yet, it may become clear with this explanation. If you’re waiting to get your act together before you will step up to act as an ambassador of Christ, spreading His grace in this world, you’ll wait forever.

Don’t think for a moment that God uses people who have worked out their spirituality to the place where they’re in a different league than you. The truth is they are more like you than you may want to know, but you need to know it because, by knowing that there are no Super Saints, you may be more likely to believe that God can use you to advance the cause of His grace in this world and, even more difficult than that these days, in His church.

One guy said to me, “If you only knew the things I’ve done, you’d know why God couldn’t use me.” “Really?” I asked. “Are the things you’ve done worse than murder? Adultery? Stealing? Lying? Drunkenness?” Read the list of those mentioned in Hebrews 11, the “faith-chapter” that lists those set forth for us as examples of faith from biblical history. Look at their lives individually. They did everyone of those things and more.

As you consider their sins, remember that the sinful things they did were, for the most part, after they had been called by God and began to follow Him. So don’t try to fall back on the yeah-but-my-sins-were-done-after-I-trusted-Christ excuse. So was theirs.

Check out that list in Hebrews 11. Then go back and look at the things the Old Testament tells us about what they did. After doing that, you may be inclined to ask, “Is this the best God can do if He wants to give us a list of people who had great faith and were mightily used by Him?” Yes, it is. So don’t think God can’t use you.

Don’t believe for one minute that anybody who sets himself up above you today, as if he has some spiritual advantage you don’t have, is telling you the truth either. This whole idea of there being super-saints in the church today who are somehow different from the rest of us is an enemy tactic meant to discourage us from thinking God can use us. When we see them we may feel like we don’t measure up, but just remember looks can be deceiving. In spite of the way some religious leaders present themselves to us, the truth is that people are just people. We all have the same kind of struggles, doubts, temptations and weaknesses. If you doubt that, then ask yourself again why God listed the kind of people He did in Hebrews 11. Maybe there’s a higher quality of saints in the world today? Maybe back then He listed them because there weren’t so many good examples as there are today? Yeah, right. You know that’s not true. People have always been the same and God has never looked for perfect people to use. He only looks for people who will completely trust Him – nothing else. You might not be able to clean up your act the way you’ve wanted to in the past but He isn’t asking you to do that. He’s just asking you to trust Him. You can do that much, can’t you?

There are no second-class citizens in God’s kingdom and you don’t have to think for one moment that you lack anything that would keep you from rising up at this very moment to be used by God. In Jesus Christ, you have been made complete because you have all of Him and in Him resides the fullness of Almighty God Himself.

Living As Yourself

2011-01-24T08:06:00.003-06:00

“I’ve never known what I want to do with my own life,” a young mother said to me at a after I had spoken about living our God-given dreams. “I want to fulfill God’s plan for my life, but I can’t figure out what it is. I don’t even know what I want to do,” she continued.

After asking her a few questions, I said to her, “We’ve just met, so I obviously don’t know you. But I’d like to offer one common reason that often applies when people can’t seem to identify the unique plan that God has for them. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” she answered.

I continued: “A very common cause for people not being able to figure out what they want to do with their life is that they’ve never given themselves the freedom to think about what they want because they’ve spent their whole life trying to please other people.”

I paused. The lady starred at me for a moment, then looked at her friend beside her with an expression of disbelief. “He hit that one on the head, didn’t he?” her friend laughed.

It didn’t take a counseling genius to figure out her problem, just forty years of talking with thousands of people like this young woman. A great number of people have never realized God’s wonderful plan for their lives because they’ve never allowed themselves to consider their own desires. Without doing that, they can seldom discern God’s will for themselves.

God gives you the desires of your heart. He places them there, but if you don’t know who you are you may spend your whole life trying to fulfill other people’s plan for your life. Many a frustrated person has struggled with finding fulfillment in life because they’re trying to be something and do something they’ve never been directed by God to do.

The meaning of grace, in part, is “divine enablement.” By His grace, God enables you to be all that He has called you to be and do all that He has created you to do. But remember this: His grace doesn’t empower you to be and do what somebody else has indicated for you to do. You live in union with the Triune God of heaven. His Life dwells in you and sees to flow through you in powerful expressions of creativity expressed through love in this world.

Who He has made you to be is wonderful, so you must resolve to be that person. Any effort to be somebody else is an affront to Him because it suggests that you (or others) better know who you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to be doing. Don’t live for other people. It will wear you out.

Instead, live from the union you share with your Father through Christ. Know that you are empowered by His Spirit. Then you will be free to be and do all that you were designed for. The Apostle Paul once said, “I’m not trying to be a people-pleaser! No, I’m trying to please God. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant” (Galatians 1:10 New Living Translation).

If you want to find fulfillment – if you want to be and do all that you were created to be and do – stop living your life trying to run the course other people set for you. Your desires count because God has placed them there.

Allow Jesus to express boldness through you. Rise up and seize the day, filled with optimistic faith in the Creator who designed your blueprint for living. Let Him live through you and watch your life be transformed!