Thoughts on life and Scripture...

Friday, September 22, 2017

The Chocolate Sprinkles Incident

At our home we like to have chocolate sprinkles on our bread for lunch. You know, the dutch chocolate sprinkles. Maybe we like them too much. Which is why we have some rules about how much is put on the bread. So there was an incident at lunch. My wife was putting some of the sprinkles on our daughter's bread. Another child felt that mom was putting too much on the bread and so he told his mom that she was overdoing the chocolate sprinkles. When I heard this I was taken aback. Here was the child telling the mother what to do. This incident needed to be addressed. After a rebuke and an apology, all was made right.

   But as I was thinking this over later, I saw how we often act like my son did. Except we don't act this way to mere humans, but to God. How many times don't we try to tell God what to do. We often complain and grumble against God when we don't like how He is ruling the universe. Maybe we are unhappy because the fairy tale life we envisioned for ourselves has not come true. Prince Charming or Princess True Love has not come into our lives. We live with constant sickness or pain. Our job is boring and the boss man is mean. Our church is not what we hoped it would be. Life is hard and it just don't seem fair.

     We complain about it to ourselves and to others. But we are really complaining to God. When the people of Israel complained to Moses about the lack of food in the wilderness. Moses told them "Your grumblings are not against us but against the LORD." Ex 16:8. When we grumble, we are actually saying that we don't think God is perfect in wisdom and goodness. We act as though God should have consulted us before He brought trouble and trials into our lives. Little, finite, imperfect creatures are rebuking the Almighty Creator who is perfect in power and wisdom. Remember how Peter did this when he rebuked Jesus for saying that He was going to suffer and die? Matt 16:21-23. Aren't you glad Jesus didn't listen to Peter?

  This thought should cause two things in your mind. First, you should see how great your sin is before God. All of us have done this at one time or another. Some of us do this all the time. This realization of our guilt should make us cry out, "God, have mercy upon me, the sinner." Second, We should be amazed at the grace and patience of the Lord. God bears with us so much. Every day we provoke Him to anger by our sins. Yet He is patient and compassionate. He rebukes and disciplines His children. He forgives them when they sin. He is so unlike sinners. We would blow up in anger every time if we had to deal with what God deals with on a daily basis.

 When we again behold the glorious grace of God toward us, then we can in His power give that grace to others. The glory of Christ is what transforms and empowers us to act with grace, patience and humility when we deal with others. We need to spend more time reminding ourselves that God is good and wise and in control. He knows what is best and He will bring into our lives whatever He knows is best for us. "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Rom 8:28.  Do we really believe that? Can we trust our Father like little children, even in the pain, sorrow and disappointment of life? How we need greater faith!


Brad

Saturday, September 16, 2017

Spiders And Sin

  Imagine for just a moment a scenario. As you walk into one of the rooms of your house to pick up your baby, you see a spider between you and your child. As you look closer, you realize in horror that it is a black widow spider. This poisonous spider is now moving closer to your child. What do you do? Hopefully you won't run away screaming or freeze in terror. You wouldn't want to scoop up the spider and let it play with your child. The best thing to do is to stomp on the spider and crush it to death. No mercy, no kindness, just a swift and gruesome death. You don't take chances with deadly spiders.

   While it is considered wise not to make pets of poisonous creatures like black widow spiders, yet when it comes to something more dangerous in the spiritual realm, people are very foolish. Sin is a poison. It is destructive, deadly and life threatening. Consider what is the destructive force of sin. Pornography devastates marriages, your spiritual health and countless lives. It is a black poison. Anger can destroy families, friends, and businesses. Gossip can destroy a whole church. Pride ruins souls and leads them into hell. I could list many other examples like drunkenness, gambling, slander, and laziness, but I think you get the point. Sin is destructive like a hurricane or a deadly poisonous spider. So don't take chances with deadly sin, kill it quickly.

  The truth is people by nature like sin. They make it their pet and invite it into their homes. People cuddle and feed their pet sins. Even when it bites them, people will often return back to their poisonous pet. Yet in the end their pet sins will destroy them. Even as Christians we can make a pet of our sins. Instead of seeing sin as some poisonous spider, we see it as if it was some harmless puppy or kitty cat. We may play with sin and dabble in it a little. We know it is dangerous, but our sinful flesh is strong and still wants us to hold on to the sin. We need to look at sin not as a nice puppy but a poisonous spider. We should become sin-crushers.

     This is what God calls us to do. In Colossians 3:5, we are told to "Put to death what belongs to your worldly nature."  How do we deal with sin? Put it to death! Don't have mercy on it. Killing sin is painful, difficult and dirty work. It isn't easy to kill what your flesh loves. But why would you want to keep something more dangerous than a black widow spider in your life?

  Killing sin is hard but thankfully God has given us some weapons to help us finish the job. We don't kill sin in our own strength. The Spirit of God lives in His people to give them the power to stomp on their sin. So we should pray about specific sins, calling on God to help us kill them. The Spirit uses His word to renew us and help in the fight. It is not enough to kill sin, but we must "put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another." Col 3:12-13. And even when we fail, there is forgiveness and grace through Jesus Christ.

 There is not enough space here to get into all the details of putting to death sin. But I hope you will see sin for what it is, a poisonous and deadly thing, and deal with it ruthlessly in God's power by stomping on your sins.

Brad

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Attack In Formation

This post is related to the one I did on the sword of the Spirit. When I taught that lesson, I included some brief thoughts on the subject which I want to consider in this post. I want to develop that idea more fully here.

  Our spiritual warfare is not an individual effort alone. We are not to be lone rangers or commandos alone behind enemy lines. By nature we tend to be self absorbed. Sin keeps us from fighting together in the church and it causes us to fight each other. But God knows we are stronger together. We weren't made to live alone.

  The best armies of this world are those that fight in formation and in a unified strategy. The Roman army's success was due in part to its discipline and ability to fight in formation. The phalanx of Alexander's army helped lead him to his many conquests. The British squares gave Napoleon his waterloo at the battle of Waterloo. Armies like these were able to work together for victory. They could use the different kinds of units in the army to their greatest advantage. These principles of warfare are also true in the Christian's war.

How wonderful it would be if the church would fight together in battle formation. While I would like to see this among all churches around the world, the focus of this blog will be on the local church. Each local church should learn to have an army mentality. Lone ranger Christians are dead Christians or at least a hindrance to themselves and to others.We need to look at each Christian in our church as a fellow soldier fighting a common enemy. Think of what a church could do if they would only learn to fight together.

 The devil understands the importance of unity and cooperation in the local church. He spends much of his time trying to divide churches. His tactics can vary, but there is one sinister purpose in all of them: divide and conquer. The devil will try to keep us focused on ourselves, never opening up about our struggles, never trusting others. Getting Christians into different groups and cliques is another way to divide and conquer. When Christians fight and argue about petty differences, then the devil has us where he wants us. He will try to keep us from being at church or from using our gifts in the church. Sadly while the devil is committed to total warfare with God's people, the church is often distracted and fighting among themselves.

 In an army there are different roles and different kinds of soldiers. This diversity when used together for a single purpose will often achieve victory. The same is true for the church.While we have different gifts and personalities, we have a common salvation, a common king, a common battle plan and a common destination. Now we need to act on these truths. We are stronger together. Attack in formation!
-Brad

P.S. This is the 100th blog post we have done. So, to celebrate we are giving away two books. Both are by John MacArthur. The first is called, "Hard To Believe" and the other is called, "The Truth War." If you want the books, leave a comment on Facebook or on this blog's comment section. We will randomly pick two winners in a weeks time. Thanks for reading. Our prayer is that God would bless this blog for the sanctification of His people.


Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Please Bless Me, God.

When we pray we often ask God to bless our food, or dear old uncle Frank or our friends. We pray for blessings for our selves. We want God to bless us. But have you ever considered why God should bless you? Or how can God bless us. There is a theme that runs through the Bible concerning blessings and curses. This theme was the subject of some of my thoughts one morning as I was milking the cows. I want to share this with you.

 What does it mean to be blessed? The Webster"s dictionary of 1828 defines it as such, "Happy; prosperous in worldly affairs; enjoying spiritual happiness and the favor of God." To be blessed is to live under the smile of God and to enjoy real joy.  On the other hand to be cursed is to have a "sentence of divine vengeance" as the Webster's dictionary defines it. God's curse brings sorrow, pain and judgement. It is to live under the frown of God.

 When God made the world, it was blessed. Everything was created good. When God made the fish and birds, He blessed them. Gen 1:21. After He made the man and woman, God blessed them as well. Gen 1:28. All was well in the world in the beginning. All was peace, joy and harmony between God and man. It was perfect bliss.

 But all that changed when Adam and Eve fell into sin. By sinning they brought God's curse on the world. God's curse is found in Gen 3:14-19. In this passage God curses all the animals, especially the serpents. God added pain to every child birth. God cursed the ground with thorns and thistles. Until this world is made new at the end of time, creation groans under this curse. See Romans 8:20-23. Man also became cursed for his sin. Unless a man observes the law of God perfectly, he is cursed for his sin. "For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, to perform them."" Galatians 3:10. However God was merciful to Adam and Eve in spite of their sins. We know this from later passages. Even though all things became cursed, God showed and continues to show grace. He promised that One would come who would crush the head of the serpent. God didn't pour out His full wrath.There is still much good in the world in spite of the curse and sinful people.

  Later God curses Cain for murdering his brother. God cursed this world with a flood because of the wickedness of men. God through Noah cursed Ham and his descendants because he mocked and dishonored his father. But we learn in Gen 9:26 that Shem and his descendants would be blessed. Then later in Gen 12, God tells Abraham that through his offspring all the world will be blessed. This theme of blessings and curses continues throughout the whole Old Testament and into the New Testament. It really is the story of how God will bring about blessing for people who are cursed by sin.

  Blessing can only come through Jesus Christ. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Galatians 3:13-14.  You see how costly it is for God to bless you. Jesus had to be cursed by God so that we could enjoy blessings we didn't earn or deserve. When we ask God to bless us, remember the only way He can do that is if you have been justified by faith in Christ, who was under a sentence of divine vengeance because of our sin. This request is no light and trivial request. The granting of this request was very costly; beyond the value of anything on this earth. Every good thing is indeed a reason to praise God for His grace.


Brad