I remember the first time I told Barb "I love you." I remember our first kiss. I remember the first time I held each of our children. I remember the first church I pastored. I remember the first time I preached at Calvary (Easter, 2006). There are some things you remember forever; you just never get over them, and you don't want to, and you shouldn't.
Do you remember the first time you realized God's love for you was so great that He sacrificed His own Son? Have you gotten over it? Do you remember when you made the decision to follow Him and trust Him with your life? Salvation is something that is rooted in the event of the cross. That event took place over two thousand years ago and it still never loses its power to transform a life! The cross is central to our faith and it changes everything we do. It changes the way we love; it changes the way we worship; it changes the way we raise kids; it changes the way we spend money; it changes the way we live.
Oh, so many have come to the cross and accepted its sacrifice only to turn their back on the One who paid the supreme price to secure everlasting life. They came enamored by the transformation it produces; they stayed in love long enough to fervently read the Bible and learn how to live above the confusion and noise of a world gone mad; and they have followed hard after Jesus...for a time. Then suddenly, or maybe subtly, they drifted and "fell out of love" with the cross. No, they would never admit that, but their actions speak of a betrayal that mirrors Judas. They simply got over the cross and it is no longer central to their life. But this shouldn't be.
Never get over the cross!
Grace & Peace,
Scott
Endurance is a much-desired quality. For instance, we desire possessions to endure and we want relationships to last. And this is what God wants in our relationship with Him. I find that too many "believers" check out on God early. When people don't make it to the end in discipleship it leaves me wondering whether they ever had a genuine relationship with God to begin with. I am not the judge of their eternal state, but with all the teaching in the Bible on perseverance I just can't help but think that God's design is for His children to go all the way to the end without throwing in the towel. Let me explain how I arrive at this...
First, I see in the example of Jesus this quality of endurance. Jesus went all the way to the end. Paul wrote that Jesus was obedient...to death...on a cross (Philippians 2:8). Since this was the way of our Savior then this is the way of discipleship. True followers of Jesus will go all the way to the end no matter what obstacles come their way.
Second, we are encouraged by other followers of Jesus to endure. The writer of Hebrews wrote about a "cloud of witnesses" who made it to the end, and then he appeals to us to "run with endurance the race" (Hebrews 12:1). If they made it through hardship and rejection without throwing in the towel then I am encouraged and reason, "They made it, why not me?"
Finally, and quite frankly, it scares me spitless to think of the prospect of not enduring and forfeiting eternity because I loved my sin more than I loved God! Jesus uses the phrase "the one who conquers" (i.e., "overcomes" or "perseveres") to address each of the seven churches in Revelation 2-3. This leads me to believe that those who are not overcomers forfeit what He promises and that prospect is pretty damning if you read their mail.
Be an overcomer. Don't quit following Jesus just because you think something better comes along. Nothing is worth giving up on being a genuine follower of Jesus Christ.
Grace & Peace,
Scott
"My world has been turned upside down!" That statement pack a lot of meaning. Something devastating and unexpected happened. Life doesn't make any sense. We are confused and frustrated. And I believe it is at this point we make decisions that will affect the entire course of our lives. This is a crucial point. I am afraid it is also a point at which we make mistakes and choose the wrong path, but it doesn't need to be this way. This is the message of Psalm 125. Let me recap from Sunday...
The last statement of David is what we are looking for when our world get turned upside down: "Peace be upon Israel." The Old Testament idea of "peace" (shalom) is not the absence of conflict, but a sense of well-being; it has the meaning of wholeness, or security. With this end result in mind let's see how we get there.
We are imperfect and our trust wavers like the stock market. We can be moved and we sometimes "turn aside." This is the point David makes at the beginning of verse 5.
Trust is key (v. 1). It is not the circumstance that should dictate our "peace", but in what we trust. If our trust is placed in something that is temporary (something we can lose) then our security will only last as long as that something, or somebody, is in place. Only God is eternal and only He can make us eternally secure. David shares the result of placing our trust in God...we "cannot be moved" (v. 1).
Read this psalm...live it and love it. May the Spirit of God teach us how we can be "fortressed" in God who cannot be moved! If He cannot be moved and our trust is in Him, then we cannot be moved.
Grace & Peace,
Scott
If you are a believer you have found that living in this world is no picnic (at least it shouldn’t be). The world is no friend of grace. It is repulsed at our doctrine and recoils at our Christian response to events. They are okay with us as long as we “go with the flow.” It is when we are swimming against the current that they are bothered and put out by us. Some believers have accepted this and continue in their plodding toward the kingdom while others have given in to the pressure of the world and have turned around to get along with the world’s ways and their way of thinking. Why do we do this? (Because we all do to some extent or at one time or the other.)
I believe the answer lies in the fact that we have grown tired of the struggle. Our expectations have changed. The enthusiasm has worn off for going at it God’s way. We reason that God should let up and give us a vacation from the pressure the world is putting on our lives.
A writer of Scripture that reminds me of this is Jeremiah. Now if anybody had reason to throw in the proverbial towel on following God it would have been him. After all, we call him the “weeping prophet.” He struggled with what God was up to and even questioned the Almighty. One particular passage that comes to mind is Jeremiah 12:1-4. In this passage he is questioning the justice of God. His question (v. 1) is good, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” Good question, but God’s answer (v. 5) is better, “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?” God was saying in essence, “If you think you got it tough now, what are you going to do when the pressure is really turned on?”
God’s answer is a statement about endurance…about the long haul. Friedrich Nietzsche got it when he wrote, “The essential thing in heaven and earth is…that there should be a long obedience in the same direction.” This “long obedience” will be difficult in a world that bombards us with fast food, thirty-second commercials, microwave popcorn, and GPS shortcuts. But endurance in the Christian is absolutely essential. Fortunately the Bible is full of instructions on how we can make it on this tough faith journey. All we have to do is crack open God’s Word and meditate on His roadmap for our lives.
Grace & Peace, Scott
I remember the first time I told Barb "I love you." I remember our first kiss. I remember the first time I held each of our children. I remember the first church I pastored. I remember the first time I preached at Calvary (Easter, 2006). There are some things you remember forever; you just never get over them, and you don't want to, and you shouldn't.
