Wheelchairs and Resolutions

Well January is almost half over and by now, many New Years' resolutions have probably been broken, but I am proud to report that I have not yet broken my resolution… because I have not resolved anything. New Years has always been one of my favorite times, it reminds me of the possibility of new beginnings something every Christian should continually hold on to as Martin Luther said, “A Christians life is one of repentance”.


Yep there is that word.

Repentance

It seems that everyone declares that they want change and when the giant ball of Light drops there is a hope in there heart that this year will be different! Sadly, things rarely change. Why? Because of lack of repentance. ‘Things’ do not change because people refuse to change they want everything to be different but they want to keep doing the same old things.

It is interesting to notice that Christmas comes before New Years! Jesus comes before New Beginnings!

If we want the hope of newness we must first go to Jesus, we must turn from old ways and trust Him with everything.

My boss said to me the other day that religion is for the weak. I have heard this from people before parroting what they have heard others say “Religion is a crutch”

Religion is a Crutch… there was a time when I would have disagreed with this statement, I would have argued, "It’s not for the weak!!!"

side note-before all the church people get up in arms and declare its not a religion it’s a relationship cool your jets that’s another topic just walk with me for a moment

Religion is a crutch… there was more recently a time I would have simply agreed and said yes its true I need Jesus

Religion is a Crutch… I am moving in the direction now or at least would like to be, where I once again must disagree and say it is not a crutch, it is a wheelchair, it is life support, it is a feeding tube and a breathing machine!!

(Again note I only use the word religion here because that’s the word people use I am talking about Jesus so don’t get all religious in protest of the word religion)

Therefore, if I were to make a News Year's resolution it would be to lean continually deeper into the arms of Grace, into the arms of Jesus walking by faith not by sight learning to trust God with everything! I would resolve to realize that there is nothing good in me and that apart from Christ I am nothing. I would first visit the truth of Christmas before I seek the newness of 1-1-10. I would resolve to have the same heart as John and proclaim that I must decrease and He must increase. That Jesus would not simply be a crutch as if I only had a sprained ankle (a crutch is a step above arch support shoe inserts) but He would be my very source of Life.

And maybe I should resolve not to procrastinate since I have been thinking about writing this since before 1-1-10… well maybe that can be my resolution next year.

Just Something I was thinking about

about the flood

Noah stood a top his construction project preaching to all those that passed by “repent! Trust in God!” he warned of the coming judgment “God will send rain and flood the earth unless you put your faith in him you will perish!”





The people that passed by scoffed

The Atheist said, “There is no God there will be no rain”
The agnostic said, “We can’t know for sure if there will be rain”
The eastern spiritualist said, “It is all an illusion”
The New Ager said God is in all of creation God is in the rain and in the trees God would not destroy himself.
The relativist said what is rain to you is not rain to me what is wet to you is not wet to me.
The self-righteous person said, “I will be ok”

The sky turned gray the lightening flashed and the first drops of rain fell.

The atheist said, “It will only be a local flood”
The agnostic said, “We can’t know if it will continue to rain”
The eastern spiritualist said, “It’s all in my head”
The New Ager said, “God is wet?”
The relativist said, “This feels wet, but maybe it’s not wet to you!”
The self-righteous person got out an umbrella

It rained and it rained for forty days and forty nights water filled the earth

The atheist met God
The agnostic now knew
The eastern spiritualist soon drowned in his illusion
The New Ager met the creator
The relativist discovered truth

The self-righteous climbed to the highest peak until it was covered he grasped for floating debris. He frantically paddled his arms and legs until finally he realized he was not strong enough.

Noah and his Family were saved.

Stuff Christian like

Well I was going to write something else about Noah but then I read the stuff Christian like blog and thought to just direct my handful of readers over there today.


http://stuffchristianslike.net/2009/12/9-words-that-changed-my-life/

About Noah's Ark

The other night I decided to read some bible stories to my boys after dinnertime. I grabbed an old book published back in 1986 “One minute bible Stories, Old testament” because after all when it comes to sharing Gods word with your kids why take more than 60 seconds. I immediately went to the story of Noah because well it is often a story that children’s books screw up (and I feel extra spiritual when I point out the errors).


Normally children’s bibles will simply mess up the count on the animals declaring that they went in 2 by 2 ignoring the animals that went in by sevens, this is an annoying error but not grievous.

The next common mistake I notice is that they declare Noah to be a good man and that is why God saved him! This position is more than annoying and I think portrays an inaccurate view of God and Scripture, it completely ignore the verse “but Noah found grace…” I will expound more on this in a moment.

The most ridiculous mistake I have seen a children’s Bible make when it comes to the story of Noah, I found the other night in the above-mentioned book. Here is the quote “God said, ‘obey my rules and I wont send another flood…”

WOW!! Way to put words right in the mouth of God!! He never said that not even close!!! Boy, I am thankful that this was not his promise or else the earth would be continually flooded!!! In fact, God said the exact opposite of what this book claims!

“Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Genesis 8:21

When we tell our children the story of Noah we must be very careful that it is an accurate portrayal of the actual story and accurate to the rest of scripture. Are we preaching a salvation by works theology to our kids? I am going to let a sermon by Mark Driscoll do most of the heavy lifting for me but before I do, I want to make a couple observations about the story of Noah.

Gen 6:8 – “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” the very definition of the word Grace tell us that Noah did not deserve to be saved!

Before the flood the condition of the world was “always evil all the time!”(Gen 6:5) after the flood, the condition of the world was “every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.” (Gen 8:21)

When we read this story, see that it is a story of Grace poured out to Noah and his family

Just something I was thinking about.

Driscoll's semon on Noah's Ark

Driscoll's sermon on The Flood

about Common Grace

I recently heard a new term from my new favorite preacher Mark Driscoll, Common Grace. It is a concept and idea I have heard before but it seems for me that when terminology is put to things it clicks a little better for me. Common Grace; count your blessings. God sends ran and shine on us all not because any of us deserve it but because of Grace. Anything besides hell is a display of Grace. Just now as I am typing this, the verse saying praise God in all things has become a little clearer. Technology that makes our life easier is grace. Health care that allows us to live longer is grace, being able to create and appreciate art is Grace. We look all around us and we see grace, grace, and grace. So in thinking about this I thought to share a few examples of Common Grace in my life.

I hate waking up at 3am to go to work but I love fresh (as if that is possible in phx) crisp cold morning air that only occurs at about 4am.

I love uninterrupted sleep but nothing is better than hearing the small voice saying “daddy?” at 2am and my boy Caleb climbing in bed next to me and cuddling up so so close.

I love that look my wife gives me after I say something completely insane and she just looks at me with the look “Why would you say that?”

I like to relax after work but turning up the Christian Ska and punk music and dancing around the house with my boys that is common Grace.

I believe that there is a certain time of day when music sounds better and more importantly a hot cup of coffee that my wife made me tastes the best!

Being able to see the sunrise just about everyday, this is another perk of having to wake up so dang early!

Just something I was thinking about.

Esau and the Edomites(Comon Grace)
Religion Saves(Grace)

about Strongholds

I was listening to a preacher today and this verse came up.

Psalm 27:1
The LORD is my light and my salvation—

whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

then I started singing a song based on this verse, and everytime I came to the line "the lod is the stronghold.." it felt strange to me i have sang this song many times before and never felt strange before so at first I ignored it and again came to that line, something wasnt right! so I stopped and thought for a momment of the word stronghold and what it means and other places that I have heard that word used.

alot of times in church the word stronghold is used in reference to a habitual sin, i have heard that many times in church services and always made the conclusion that strong hold in regaurd to sin meant that a particular sin had a strong hold on you which made sense to me and I think it was even explained to me like this one time.

but that is not what a stronghold is and that is not what this verse is talking about, its not saying God has a strong hold on us(which He does) this is a war time verse! when the enemy comes I run to my stronghold my place of best defense my military fortification. and that place is ..... JESUS! that is what the verse says now lets take a step back and talk again about sin.

Sin came be a stronghold for people and that doesnt mean that sin is so powerful that it is holding you and wont let you go and you cant escape it, because we know the Bible teaches us that there is freedom in Christ.

Sin is a stronghold because when the enemy comes against us. when we have a bad day or stressfull occurance or strong temptation comes we do not run to christ as we should but rather we run to.... sex,  drugs, alcohol, etc etc....

its not that it is holding us but rather we are holding it.

we do not trust that Jesus will take care of us so we count on self in the form of various sins. we put our faith in sin to help us to guide us to protect us to comfort us.

when the enemy comes against us we run straight into his traps

you may say "but you dont know how bad I struggle!"

struggle intresting word how hard do we really struggle? how far do we really go to resist temptation? How long before we cave in thinkng this time it will be different this time my sin will relieve my stress take away my dificulty make me feel better.

what is it to struggle? if someone was holding your head under water then you would struggle.


maybe this thought has occured to everyone already but me but...
Just something I was thinking about

about Mr. Clean

One day it would be cool to write a book about the ones the Lord calls righteous, but for now a couple things off the top of my head.

Abraham was a coward and an adulterer, He pretended to be his wife’s brother so he wouldn’t be harmed and he was ok with her being taken to be part of the King’s Harem… but Abraham believed God and it was accredited to him as righteousness.

Abraham’s nephew Lot unlike Abraham seemed to have zero redeeming qualities in 2 Peter 2:7 he is called righteous. Lot was a man that seemed to be full of doubt and very conniving. He moved into the evil city of Sodom where he sat at the cities Gate (Gen 19:1) which would indicate that not only did he live there he was an active member of the community. Sodom was a evil place! When Lot had 2 angels visit him to warn him of Sodoms destruction every man in the city young and old came to Lots house demanding he send out the 2 men so they could rape them. Lot offers his 2 daughters to the mob instead thankfully God intervened struck the crowd blind and even then the blind mob groped around to find the door to Lot’s house undeterred by there blindness intent to have there way! after all this and after the stern warnings of the angels that God would destroy the city Lot lingered there until he was literally drug out of the city(v16) later we see Lot getting drunk with his young daughters and them having sex with him.

Noah it is always taught that Noah was a good man in a bad world that is why God saved him but notice that almost immediately after the boat touched ground and Noah got off he got drunk and naked! Also it is interesting to note in Gen 8:20; when God makes His covenant with us to never flood the earth again God repeats what he said about the earth before the flood(6:5) “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” God said this about the state of humanity after the flood. The statement I believe included Noah before and after the flood. but Noah found Grace(6:8) and then God saw that he was Righteous(7:1)

That was 3 examples now think of David the man after God’s heart the murderer, lust filled Adulterer.
Think of Peter the coward
Paul the murderer of Christians
Matthew the thieving tax collector

all this corruption hidden from God’s Eyes because of Jesus(I know most examples I listed were BC but according to John chapter 1 there is no such thing as BC)

2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Just something I was thinking about.