Preach Christ

Sorry for my lack of posting recently.  I've just gone back to work full-time and have been quite busy.  Lots to read here in the archives though.  So make yourselves at home.  These are the verses I have been mulling over for the past few days...

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ-to the glory and praise of God.

Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard  and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly.

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.  The latter do so in love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.  But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice..."  Philippians 1:9-18{my own highlights in red}

I have been thinking a lot about and plan on writing more about what it means to "defend/contend for the faith".  Trying to find the balance between kingdom living and theocracy.  The balance between physically waging war and not fighting against flesh and blood.  The balance between relevancy and apathy. 

So I hope to continue with these thoughts as I have the time.  Like I said check out the archives on this blog.  There is quite a bit to see and read...

Cross Before The Crown

"Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use.

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly temped to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations---these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit---immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ /vere latitat/---the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."   C. S. Lewis--The Weight of Glory

What Is Truth?

For more information on the documentary "Furious Love" click here.  This movie is a MUST SEE for every Christian!  I've only had my copy for 48 hours and I have watched twice.  So much good, solid, Christ-centered truth in this film.  It will change the way you view the world and hopefully the way you see yourself.

Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes Oh My! {Part Two}

Click here to read Part One...

"So he answered and said, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbor as yourself.' "  Luke 10:27


"If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar." 1John 4:20

So in the last post I gave a little mini history of the three religious groups that were around during the time of Jesus.  Now what I want to do is identify the negative spirits that some of them moved in so that we can avoid them in our own lives. First I want to start with the simple concept of loving God and loving neighbor.  Jesus said that there was no other commandment greater than these.  I see no where in Jesus' teaching that these commandments were separated.  They always went together.  In fact the above verse quit plainly tells us that if we do one without the other we are liars.  Lack of the second commandment negates the first...period.  But the religious groups during the time of Jesus had separated them.  Let me explain.

If you only love you neighbor{mankind} and don't love God you are a humanist.  This is what the Sadducees had done.  They had taken God out of the whole picture.  They didn't believe that God was involved in their lives at all, man could do what he pleased, man was his own god.  God had become an abstract, non personal God. They did not believe in the super-natural {angels & demons} at all.  They didn't believe in the afterlife or resurrection.  The Sadducees had swayed more to the philosophical side of things, being the most Hellenized{Greek thinking} of the three groups.  Remember they were the rich and elite and with that sought of began to worship themselves.  When you don't believe that there is a higher power other than yourself, you become your highest power. Their main concern was the material things of this world and how it affected their personal kingdom.  Materialistic Humanism.

Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes Oh My! {Part 1}

So I had a question the other day as to how I could possibly think that Jesus was tolerant during his time here on earth.  The statement was that Jesus used strong language and did things like knock over the tables of the money changers in the temple.  My response was that if you read through all four gospels you will notice that the only people Jesus ever had strong words for were the religious establishment of the day.  Interestingly enough he had strong reaction to them because they were NOT being tolerant of people. 

So who were the religious establishment of the time of Jesus?  We learn quite a bit about the Pharisees and Sadducees from reading the gospels.  There were also sub-groups such as the scribes, the elders and the zealots.  Finally a group called the Essenes, though not mentioned in the NT the historian Josephus tells that they were around during the time of Jesus.  What I want to look at is the attitude or the spirit in which these groups operated.  It wasn't just what they did legalistically or religiously it was the spirit in which they did it.  So I don't want this post to be against certain groups of people, but against the negative spirit that Jesus seemed to frequently encounter with these groups. These same negative spirits and attitudes are easily found in the Christian church today.  So we need to identify them so that we don't fall into the same mistakes.

The Voice of God

A dear friend sent me an email yesterday with a video by this man, Graham Cooke.  I had never even heard of him...lol.  I started watching some other videos by him and came across this one.  It was hard for me to hold back the tears while watching.  This video is such a confirmation about what I feel the Lord is speaking right now.  This video is such a confirmation as to what I know personally of the character of God and how He speaks to me.  This is THE MESSAGE the church needs to hear!  This is a message I needed to hear and just at the right time!  Enjoy...

The Real Jesus

One more fantastic post from Dr. Gregory Boyd...

Suffering Sucks!

So I want to just quickly touch on two more points about suffering. We have talk about the idea of tolerance being an endurance and that endurance being a form of suffrage. {Click here and here to read those posts.} We live in a world that we are no longer citizens of is always going to be strange and uncomfortable. We learned that to suffer means to be affected by people. How do we respond to the people that affects us? Are we part of the remedy or part of the disease? Are we Christ like--always loving, always forgiving, always tolerating? So I would say tolerance is an indirect suffering . Basically it goes with the territory of being a Christian. We are commanded to tolerate and love one another.

The other more direct suffering we are commanded to do is "suffer the flesh". Now this is a phrase that I personally believe has been grossly misinterpreted. We must get one thing straight when it comes to suffering and that is...God does NOT cause suffering. If you want to believe in a God that is the author of suffering there are a bunch of other religions out there that have malevolent gods. God does not cause death, disease and misery just so He may be glorified. He doesn't cause death, disease and misery to test us. He doesn't cause death, disease and misery to purify us. I've never heard anything more twisted in my life! God's plan for you always has been and always will be fullness and life. Anything that happens in your life that is not life and fullness is NOT from God. God has NOT called you to a life of pain!

"The Lord said, "Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose; surely I will make your enemies plead with you in times of disaster and times of distress." Jer 15:11

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness{prosper,welfare} and not for evil{harm,calamity}, to give you a future and a hope." Jer 29:11

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." John 10:10

What God does do is work existing suffering as a result of being now strangers on this fallen planet, for his good and glory{Rom 8:28}. There is a huge difference. Sin, evil and the devil are the author of suffering, God is the facilitator for working a good result from the suffering. In that way he is glorified because the plan of the enemy to destroy has been defeated. Warfare! That is why we are called to rejoice in suffering because in doing so we are thwarting the devils plan. He has no hold over us.

When we read in the famous suffering book of 1 Peter he is talking about three different types of suffering. {read the whole book for an interesting take} One is the tolerance that we have already discussed. Two and three is to suffer the flesh. There are two types of suffering flesh...1}we do to ourselves 2} others do to us. So lets start with the first; another command in suffering.

Not Of This World

"If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world." CS Lewis

“Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers”  Richard Greenham

"Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight...You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." John 18:36-37


So I started into another word study yesterday after doing my post on "tolerance".  I started thinking about how tolerance can be a little uncomfortable sometimes.  I think that is exactly for the quotes above.  Once we as Christians experience Jesus we have a totally different worldview.  In a way we do become strangers on this finite planet because we now live with an understanding of the infinite and eternal.  We have an understanding of absolute truth in a world where truth is always changing.  For this very reason how can we hold someone who has not had this experience accountable to our worldview?  We can bear witness and testify the truth, but not all will hear the voice of truth.  Jesus was OK with this, as should we be.  Remember not fighting, only making known.

The concept that we looked at yesterday is that of endurance.  To tolerate people that are different from us is sometimes a test of love and endurance.  We discussed how Jesus was extremely tolerant as he walked among us here on earth.  The almighty God in the flesh most holy and pure made it a point to interface with the most sinful and lost.  At no time condemning or judging{he saved that for the religious leaders that should have known better...why?...because their experience of God should have changed their worldview}.  To the lost and unclean Jesus always had compassion and ministered to them regardless whether they followed him or not.  The Greek word for minister is diakoneo meaning "to attend to anything that may serve anothers interests"

In a World of Tolerance

"Of all religions, the Christian should of course inspire the most tolerance, but until now Christians have been the most intolerant of all men."  Voltaire

We hear so much of the word "tolerance" these days.  The 60s and 70s were all about "love".  The 80s were all about "me".  The 90s were "whatever" and now in 2010..."Tolerance".  Is it possible for Christians to be tolerant without compromising the truth?  I say yes.  I also say that we are  commanded by God in His word to be tolerant of one another; not only of fellow brothers in Christ but for non-Christians as well.  We as Christians should at least know the golden rule and that is to love one another.  Jesus even went so far to say that we should love our enemies.  But Christians seem to be the worse at this because they think that it will compromise their faith.  I did a post not to long ago on what I personally believe God meant by commanding us to love our enemy...click here to read that post.

I want to take this post a little further and look at the word "endure".  If you read the definition above you will see that much of it centers around the idea of endurance.  I chose to use the definition of "tolerance" from Webster's Dictionary of 1913 {see above}since it lacks the "political correctness" of the present day definition which says..."sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own."  See the difference?  We need not indulge sin, but we must tolerate it and endure it in others.

Now in everything we should look at the life of Christ to be our guide as to how we should conduct ourselves while still here on the earth.  What I want to focus on is how we are to interact with non-believers.  How are we to tolerate them?   How did Jesus tolerate them?  It is well noted in the gospels that Jesus did not come to condemn or judge the world he came to save it.  Jesus allowed everyone to approach him.  His door was always open and he went through every open door.  Though he never sinned he was a friend to sinners, broke bread with them and ministered to them.  Some followed and some walked away.  Did Jesus stand there and yell "How dare you deny the truth of the living God!"? No, he let them walk away.  There was much wisdom in this because even though not all accepted him, the door always remained open.  He didn't burn any bridges with anyone.  Instead he let his love and righteousness plant the seed.  Sometimes it bore fruit and sometimes it didn't, but at all times He was tolerant as to the choice of the person.