Keeping the Focus on Christ

We need to keep the focus on Christ as Christians. The gospel of the forgiveness of sins for all who come to Jesus is the center of Christianity.

Too often we and the church get caught up on small matters. The matters seem important or may be important but the gospel gets pushed to the side.

The gospel can never be pushed to the side in the church. Often the church wants to improve the behavior of its members by ethical teaching.

And while ethics and teaching on Christian living are of great use, the ethics and Christian living are always rooted in the cross. If we focus too much on ethics and forget the root of ethics we loose the power of the gospel.

The gospel has the power to change the world. That is why the gospel must always be kept at the center of the church.

If you want to save souls you need to the gospel. If you need to have people become better they need the gospel. If you need people who profess to be Christians, but live poorly, you need to get them to really understand the gospel.

The gospel is the power with which the world is overcome. The world will not be improved much by ethics, but it will be improved by truly grasping the glory of the risen Jesus. Let us keep our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith.

Only Christ Stands (poem)

Often we feel strong
Often we feel faithful
Only by Faith we are strong
Only through Faith we are faithful
Only Christ matters
And our relation to Him
In Christ we are strong
Following Christ we are faithful
All other paths
Will fail
Only Christ stands
And we stand
In Christ

A Great Need: Faith

A great need of everyone is to feel accepted and loved by God, and to have a sense of love for God and his beauty.

When people start saying that the only way to be accepted and loved by God is to follow a set of rules, this has terrible affects. Being accepted into God's family is not about what we do, but what Jesus Christ has done for us.

We are compelled to do good works out of deep gratitude for Christ's work in our lives, and Christ still works in our lives through the Holy Spirit. He gives us faith. He continues the good work in us.

Fear often causes trouble. For instance, a person hears the gospel but may become afraid that they didn't hear it right, that there's something that needs to be done, and just to be careful, pushes themself hard to do certain things. And it continues. Rules upon rules are added. But we are asked to rely in faith only in Christ.

The Bible says that God's word and way are the truth. We make things way more complicated than they really are when we are "just to be careful" following certain rules or steps, things which honestly don't need to be followed. Understanding the truth is letting go of those and having faith that it really is that simple. It requires one thing: faith.

In The End

In The End.
Christ the victor will come.
For his brothers and sisters,
and wash every tear away.
And make everything new.

New Year, New Beginnings

The calendar flipping to a new year feels like a new start for many people. Setting goals with the hope that this year will be better is common.

As we think of new starts and new beginnings in the new year, let's remind ourselves of the new beginning offered to us through Christ. Jesus paid the overwhelming debt of sins—past, present, and future—for those who come to him in faith. There's freedom from no longer having the great burden that has separated us from God.

For those in Christ, this means a new family. God is our Father! The best father. A king and purely good.

It's also a new way of life. There's joy and new motivation, with the help of the Holy Spirit and in response to such amazing grace, to help people in need and to love our neighbor.

A new reason to just chill too. We have peace knowing God is in control.

The Most Significant Change

Christmas is a time when many people dream about how new items will improve life. A new phone or toy will bring great joy, they think.

Whether or not these new items will bring some change into our lives or not, Christmas is a reminder of what has brought us the most significant change. A life-saving, life-altering change for the better. Toward truth and life.

Christ's work and life, which has brought this great change, is beautiful. Moment by moment it affects the lives of Christians. We have fellowship with God again, and he is working in us. And we have great purpose: helping to spread this message and in other ways help people, the bearers of God's image.

Why Long-Time Christians Still Need to Hear and Think on the Gospel

The good news of the gospel always applies and affects Christians, even ones who've been Christians for a very long time.

I heard someone say once that he's heard the gospel story, so he'd rather not hear it again. He knows it. So why mention it again?

A major reason for needing to hear it again and again is that we all have a human nature. All of us have a nature that leans toward distraction and chasing after trivial things at times. So we need to be reminded of God's part in our lives then and now because of Christ's work for us.

Often when we hear how we were not worthy of fellowship with God but we are through Jesus's work and faith, we feel compelled to praise and worship and do good works.

We are also learning over time. When we read about certain accounts of Jesus in the gospels, we might see some detail that really shows us more the mind or love of Christ. Or how it relates to certain situations in our daily lives.

Not only in preaching or worship songs can we be reminded of the gospel, but it's important to include this in our devotional times too. Some devotions may only speak of how we need to do better--but really we need to be sure at times that we think about Christ being the reason we don't have to constantly think we have to do better. We can rest in him. We can know that everything will end well in a sense. And that often helps give us the peace and courage to do what we're commanded by God. There are times when we do need to think about doing better, but that shouldn't fill up the entirety of our devotional time. There is a place for worship too.

Understanding What We Believe

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Co-Contributor

To truly be able to lead and live well, it's important to truly understand what you believe. A lot of people say that they are a Christian and assume that means they know what they believe, but may not live or think much differently than the culture around them that is not Christian these days. We live in a postmodern culture, where this is acceptable to the culture: it's viewed as good to not strongly believe anything because postmodernism is more okay and fine with everyone's beliefs.

If someone were to ask you why you're a Christian, do you know what you'd say? If they asked you what is different abut your religion compared to other religions, would you be able to answer? Does your religion cause you to live differently than people of different religions or those who don't have a religion?

A major difference in the Christian religion compared to others is that it's not our works that get us to Heaven. It's Christ's perfection and faith that does.

Some people think that feeling/emotion is most important in religion and that thinking hinders religion. For instance, feeling that God is for them in that moment, or they made God happy is what they aim for. They feel like that's all they need. But not working to truly understand their beliefs of God and what God wants--that may cause them to feel things to be true that are not true: A person may feel happy and in some sense that makes them feel like God is happy with what they're doing--but really they could be happy in that moment because the sun is shining that day or they had a great meal the day before.

The way for them to truly know that God is happy or accepting of a choice is to truly understand the Bible as much as they can. To think about it. Some people may live in the thought that they can never please God because they feel crappy and nothing seems to go as right as they envisioned it, but really understanding God's true acceptance of us would help them feel like God is still okay with them. Our feelings don't always match the reality of the situation. We are fallen and there are so many factors to what makes us feel certain ways (the weather, how much we eat or sleep, what's going on in the world and in our lives).

Practical Preaching

Often congregations complain if preaching is not practical. The gospel it seems is lacking in practicality to the modern mind.

We are very foolish in regard to practicality. There is nothing more practical than the gospel since all ethical life flows from our union to the gospel.

I suppose we often treat the gospel as something like basic math which can be learned and then after mastered simply recalled when needed. But spiritual things are not like that. It is not simply information that is to be recalled but something active by which our life is constantly guided.

This is why Paul said he wished to know nothing but Christ and Christ crucified. Our fallen nature makes it so we need to be constantly reminded of the truth of the gospel.

We need to be guided by the gospel at every moment. You see all the practical elements of the Christian life are grounded in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.

There is nothing more practical than the gospel whether or not we understand the fact. The gospel is not something that can be mastered at one time, but something which we must return to constantly to be reminded of God's goodness to us.

Good Theology Includes People

Post by
Michelle Dowell, Contributor

A theology so focused on the knowledge of God that it disregards people, including self, is missing a great deal. Throughout the Bible God interacts with people, he cares about them, and wishes for their true happiness. God's desire is for people to thrive.

It's important that we don't forget about people in need locally and throughout the world. We don't need to focus on it but if we have time or some money to help, our heart should aim for that. If we don't have that, we can pray to have that heart, a heart like Christ's.

Some people focus so much on doing what they view as the right thing for people ("I must be involved with this church group or do this church activity") they mostly just go through the motions of interacting with people. They don't have a true, genuine love for people, where they start to truly know the person, they just have a feeling of obligation to be with people because that's what is expected. At times we should go to or do things we need to go to or do when we aren't feeling it, but we should truly aim to have our hearts in what we choose to do, and pray and work on over time loving more.

Truly caring about someone means taking time to get to know them and remember, and wish for their best. Getting to know someone doesn't mean asking 10 questions in a row. It's over time just being with the person and noticing things about them.

The mark of a Christian is love. Many people may nod in agreement with this but think love is simply following a set of expectations or rules. Genuine, true love involves the heart and really cares. If a person always just follows rules, then he or she cares about following the rule and not loving the person (maybe for the pride of doing it or only being concerned about obeying one rule instead of God's commands to obey and love people).

Law Fulfilled in Christ

The ceremonial law was fulfilled in Christ. The whole sacrificial system and system of ritual purity was made obsolete as Jesus perfectly kept the entirety of the law and gave himself up for us.

Jesus' perfect life, death, and resurrection marked the end of the need for the keeping of the sacrificial and ritual law. In fact the New Testament goes further saying that it is a sin to suggest others need to keep the ritual law as part of a walk of faith. It is a stumbling block which minimizes the absolute nature of Jesus' victory over death.

In Jesus we are a new creation awaiting the eternal joy of fellowship with God in heaven. We should not doubt our salvation as if our sin can keep us from God. Our righteousness is Jesus who is in heaven seated at the right hand of God.

Our works flow from faith through the world of the Spirit of God in us. Our works are acts which naturally flow from our salvation, not part of our salvation.

We can trust in Jesus' saving blood and then move to works. Focusing on works without a focus on grace is foolish. Because works flow from grace, it is our union with Christ which produces works.

Often it is easy to look at our life and try to think how we can be better followers of God. There is some truth to the approach, but often it is better simply to look to God and be transformed by his nature and grace.

Good works naturally flow from a transformed heart. Often the approach of looking at our life and thinking how we can live better has little effect because it does not change the fundamental issues in our heart. If we look to God and his nature and love, this changes us and often has more affect than simply looking at our life and asking how we might live better.

Celebration

The bible calls us to celebrate with the joy and success of others. We should delight in the success of those we know.

Often as people we act as if the success of our brother in some ways makes our success less. It as if the successes only have value in comparison.

We need to learn to see our lives in community. We can do more with others than we can do alone.

We often seek value in our accomplishments and this is the issue. Our ultimate value is in God. If we see everything in relation to God then we see that he is the one who gives success.

We should rejoice with the successes of others. Alone we are weak but together in Christ we are strong.

Biblical Definitions

Often the bible defines things quite differently than the world. Leadership in the bible is often servant leadership.

Success in the bible is living according to God's will and living life faithfully before God. You will see many people biblically who are great leaders and biblically very successful who the world views as having no success.

You see we often define things in ways quite contrary to biblical definitions. Our nature as fallen creatures is to define things in a certain way.

It'd be best to come to scripture originally from a state of neutrality from which to interpret scripture. Instead we come to scripture loaded down with unhelpful assumptions and unbiblical definitions.

It is not that we intentionally come to scripture at a disadvantage, but each culture in every time and place is fallen and brings its wrong assumptions to the text.

The bible meets us where we are, but if we are faithful to the bible we will find that it always demands that we think and it often prods us to be better people or to change in this or that way.

We never stop growing in this life. If we think we are without sin we make God a lier. We grow slowly by grace throughout all of life. Day by day becoming more like Christ.

Whose Opinion Matters?

Ultimately only God's opinion matters. You see if we lose everything and gain God we have everything.

The rich man who would not leave everything he had to follow Jesus made a poor decision. Ultimately we can lose everything and if we have God we are rich beyond all means.

All that matters is if we trust in Christ and Christ crucified. All other ground is sinking sand.

Life, Death, and Paradise

"The impression of the decisive contrast between life and death is often still so strong in our life that we have but little eye for the light which Christ's message radiates, and this is true also in regards to the transition from death to life." G. C. Berkouwer

Death is in the secular world the ultimate enemy. You can read of modern computer scientists and others hoping to escape death by in some what surviving or preserving their body to have their psyche uploaded into a computer.

In Christianity of course for those with faith death is merely a gateway to be with Jesus. To the sinner who repented on the cross Jesus said, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

You see if we see with perfect faith death is not the enemy for the Christian but merely the beginning of a new chapter of peace in the presence of God.

The sadness exists in death of course that our work is done, but it is mixed with joy. It is truly difficult to see the bible's perspective at times as our faith is weak.

But God's grace is always with us. He loved us while we were still his enemies and he knows our frame.

Introspection

I am thinking more and more that one of the important things to do in life is too keep looking to Christ.  I feel that when I spend too much time looking inward at myself I get confused because of my great depravity.  I am beginning to feel that one of John Piper's and the Puritans' theological faults is to encourage too much introspection.  I think it is too easy to become confused when you look
into your own soul, because of the magnitude of sin you see there.  The more righteous you are the more sin you will see, just as Paul saw himself as the chief of sinners.

I think that the solution to this problem is too keep my eyes on Christ.  When I look to Christ we see my worth in relation to him.  I see my worth in his infinite love for the reflection of glory in me.  And then when I gaze on my brokenness though Christ I see my brokenness as magnifying God's great and merciful grace in forgiving.

This in turn should cause me to love Christ more as we begin to sense the infinite magnitude of sin against God.

Of course I think Piper emphases theology mostly right, but I feel that at least in my life I do better emotionally and serve Christ better when I keep my eyes on him more and do less of the introspection that Piper encourages.  I suppose that it could be possible to do large amounts of
introspection of our self though the lens of our love for Christ, but I'm not sure that that is really even the best thing to do either.  It seems to me better to just keep our eyes on Christ more and we will naturally discover things about ourselves in our daily lives and of course not all introspection is bad...

John Piper Quote on Romans 12:11

A bit from John Piper on Romans 12:11: "Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord" (Romans 12:11).

Intensity: Don’t Be Slothful in Zeal; Be Fervent in Spirit
“Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit.” It seems to me that this is a negative and positive way of saying one thing: Negatively Don’t be slothful in zeal. Positively, be fervent in spirit. The one thing Paul is saying is: Do lots of work for Christ passionately.

Each of these two statements clarifies and protects the other from misunderstanding. “Do not be slothful in zeal”—do not be lazy in zeal—could be taken to mean: be pragmatic. Work, work, work, and don’t worry about your emotions or how you feel. Getting things done is what matters. Be eager and earnest and zealous to get things done. Laziness is the great vice. The great virtue is efficiency and hard work.

But we can see how lopsided that is when we take the positive, clarifying counterpart, namely, “be fervent in spirit.” The word “fervent” comes from the Latin fervens which means “boiling.” That is exactly what this word means in the original Greek (zeontes): boiling—in spirit. So the idea is clearly not one of mere hard work or efficiency. The spirit is in view, not just the body. Feeling is in view, not just doing. So the point of both clauses together is: Don’t just do lots, feel lots.

And it works the other way around. If you read only the second exhortation: “Be fervent in spirit,” you might conclude: The Christian life is one of heart passion. Doing and efficiency are not crucial. Feeling—fervency, boiling in spirit—that is what matters. But that will not do. The first exhortation keeps us from that lopsided view: Not just feel lots, but also do lots.

The warning about being “slothful” makes it clear that Paul wants us to be hard workers. One of the clearest statements on this is what he says in 1 Corinthians 15:58. He has just written a whole chapter on the resurrection of Christ as the ground of our own resurrection, and now he draws out the implication for the kind of life we should live, since we have such a rock-solid spectacular hope: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

Abounding in the work of the Lord means: Do lots and lots of work for the Lord. That is what Romans 12:11 means: “Do not be slothful in zeal.” So when you put the first two parts of verse 11 together they say something like: Do lot’s of work for Christ passionately. Work for Christ with feeling. Feel lots in doing. Be as pragmatic as a businessman. And be as passionate as a poet—or a lover. Don’t say: I’m practical, not passionate. Aim to be more passionate. Don’t say: I’m passionate, not practical. Aim to be more practical.

When Jonathan Edwards was still a young man he wrote seventy resolutions. I think the sixth resolution captures the meaning of Paul’s words, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit.” Edwards wrote: “Resolved: To live with all my might while I live.”

John Piper Answers the Question: "If Satan is real we don't see more demon possession and exorcisms in America?"

A bit from John Piper:

People sometimes ask why if Satan is real we don't see more demon possession and exorcisms in America. I have an idea. Satan holds American Christianity so tightly in the vice-grip of comfort and wealth that he's not about to tip his hand with too much demonic tomfoolery. What Satan fears most in this church is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that causes us to say with Paul, "I count everything as refuse that I might gain Christ … that I might know the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."

Charles Simeon Quote

"My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake." —Charles Simeon