The Spirit leads like a GPS. He’s always with us, giving nudges and directions, especially through the Word, but never forcing us to follow the lead.  Here is where our own volition and desires to follow his leading come into the picture.

It seems to me this is what Paul means when he says to the Philippian Christians, ^“Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.”  Phil 2:12.  Other translations use the prhase, “work out your salvation.” The Spirit has a role, but we also have a role as we work with Him and follow his leading rather than going off on our own ways.  That rebellion often means we follow the lead of our culture rather than the lead of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit wants to provide a harvest in your life.  Mine too.  Are we ready?

Friday, September 30, 2011
7:00 – 8:30 pm                               Did Jesus Really Live?
Saturday, October 1, 2011
2:00 – 5:00 pm                               The Uniqueness of Christ
Resurrection of Christ: Fact or Fiction

Sunday, October 2, 2011
10:00 – 10:45 am                            Answering Christ’s Critics
11:00-12:15                                      Was Jesus Really God?

All Sessions held at
Church of Christ
321 East 27th St.  (at Fennell)
Hamilton, ON L8V 3G8

Click here for more information on Eric Lyons.

Click here for more information on Apologetics Press.

Technology has changed tremendously in recent years. As it changes, our attitudes and use of it, especially for communication has also changed.

In 1800, as it had been for centuries, the fastest a message (or any kind of goods) could be transmitted from one point to another was the speed a horse could run. Then came the iron horse and the telegraph. Since 1840 we have seen the telegraph come and go as a way to eclipse that speed to the point where today we have phones, computers, cell phones and other devices that give us instant communication to virtually anywhere in the world!

The screen (i.e. televisions, phones, computers and other devices) has become vital to many of us as a means of communicating with family and Friends-and perhaps even those we don’t know through mediums like FaceBook and Twitter. It is also where many of us spend our working hours.

A 2009 study showed teens spending 8.5 hours a day in front of a screen, while their parents were spending 9 hours a day and senior citizens perhaps even more. For many at least two of those hours were spent using more than one screen, say watching television while texting and/or playing a video game.

Today, we might legitimately ask ourselves if all of this technology is for us a servant or a master.  Am I spending so much time on-line that I’m not building the face-to face relationships that will have real meaning in my life?  Am I letting second best take over? Do I sleep with my phone? Do I check FaceBook first thing each morning?

Technology can be a real blessing, but we must not let it go uncontrolled in our lives.  So how are you doing at keeping it as a servant rather than a master?

(Some thoughts based on material in The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital Explosion by Tim Challies)

That’s a common question to hear or read, especially if you spend time around financial planners or those who write about money.

I was thinking about something different though. Jesus said for us to store up treasures in heaven. Now, thinking about the treasures you have in heaven, what is your net worth? What’s in your heavenly bank account? (Mt. 6:19)

If you’re like me, you may be a little hesitant to answer.

If you ask me how much money I have in the bank, I may hesitate to answer you, wondering if it’s really your business to know that information. But I do have a sense of how much is there.

But when it comes to my heavenly account, it’s a different matter because I may not even know. What’s more I may not be sure I have anything there, and if I do what it is, what currency it’s measured in etc. So let’s think about that together.

First of all, we aren’t talking about a doctrine of merits whereby good deeds done here on earth somehow credit to you as currency to be drawn upon in heaven. Nor is it talking about salvation. That just doesn’t fit the gospel message.

I like what John Stott says in his commentary, the Message of the Sermon on the Mount (p. 156) about treasure in heaven.

“It seems rather to refer to such things as these: the development of Christlike character (since all we can take with us to heaven is ourselves); the increase of faith, hope and charity, all of which (Paul said) ‘abide’; growth in the knowledge of Christ whom one day we shall see face to face; the active endeavour (by prayer and witness) to introduce others to Christ, so that they too may inherit eternal life; and the use of our money for Christian causes, which is the only investment whose dividends are everlasting.

“All these are temporal activities with eternal consequences. This then is ‘treasure in heaven’. No burglar can steal this, and no vermin destroy it. For there are neither moths, nor mice, not marauders in heaven. So treasure in heaven is secure. Precautionary measures to protect it are unnecessary. It needs no insurance cover. It is indestructible. Therefore, Jesus seems to be saying to us, ‘If it’s a safe investment you’re after, nothing could be safer than this; it’s the only gilt-edged security whose gilt will never tarnish.’”

I would add that helping others is another way to have treasure in heaven. The key, it seems is spending time and money on something other than my own personal needs and wants.

Whatever Jesus specifically has in mind, one thing is for sure. I don’t get it by concentrating on getting or on living for myself and my own goals. That’s the idolatry he’s trying to keep me from.

To read more thoughts on this, go to http://www.moneyhelpforchristians.com/treasures-in-heaven/ There’s an article and comments from readers.

So what are you doing to increase your spiritual net worth, if I can put it that way?

Looking at each word, “So” or “therefore” means that this is the result of what he’s just said. “Now” tells us that it hasn’t always been so, but now it is.

No condemnation, literally not one condemnation. Not guilty

For those in Christ Jesus. Who is “in Christ?”  With the idea of letting the Word explain itself, we just need to go to Gal 3:27 which tells us that we were baptized into Christ, put on Christ.

When I hear the message of this verse, I’m reminded of a girl who was the daughter of a wealthy European family.  She had a big, bulbous nose that in her eyes destroyed her beauty and resulted in her seeing herself as an ugly person. Finally her family hired a famous plastic surgeon to change the contour of the girl’s nose. He did his work, and there came the moment when they took the bandages off and the girl could see the results. The doctor saw that the operation had been a total success. All the ugly contours were gone. Her nose was different. When the incisions healed and the redness disappeared, she would be a beautiful girl. He held up a mirror for the girl to see, but so deeply embedded was the girl’s image of herself that when she saw herself in the mirror, she couldn’t see any change. She broke into tears and cried out, “Oh, I knew it wouldn’t work!”

It took six months before the girl would accept the fact that she was indeed an attractive person, and it wasn’t until she had accepted this fact that her self-image and behavior began to change accordingly. So it is with those who are “in Christ.” We must accept our new identity and the blessings we have “in him.”

Let’s look further at the first 11 verses of chapter 8.

We are in this new state because God took it upon himself to do what the law could not do. It was able to point out our sin, but Jesus has redeemed us!

Paul identifies 5 things that God has done for us.

1. He sent his own son (3). In this we see his sacrificial love. Shown while we were still enemies.
2. In a body like ours (3). In this Jesus became flesh.  Fully human, yet fully sinless.
3. He was sent to be an offering (3).  A sacrifice for our sin.
4. The phrase Paul uses is the same as the septuagent uses for the sin offering in Leviticus and numbers.  (covered the unwilling sins, rebellion such as Paul expressed in chapter 7) Should be taken in that normative sense.
   1. God condemned sin in sinful men (ended Sin’s control 3)
      1. Jesus was sinless, yet he took on our sins and bore them in our place. In him sin is both declared guilty and executed. As Charles Cranfield puts it, ‘for those who are in Christ Jesus … there is no divine condemnation, since the condemnation they deserve has already been fully borne for them by him’.
5. The ultimate reason God sent his own Son and condemned our sin in him. It was in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit (4).
6. He condemned sin, in order that the demands of the law might be satisfied’,the law’s main demand being the sentence of death for sin. Yet if God’s purpose in sending his Son was limited to our justification, but also that we might be sanctified or follow the spirit (4)

Notice that in these 11 verses Paul mentions the “Spirit” i.e. Holy Spirit 9 times. Up until chapter 8 he is only mentioned 4 times in the book.  We have the Spirit. This is the sign that we are his.  He gives us life & strength.

Conclusion: 

God not only takes away the condemnation we deserve, but he gives us the opportunity to fulfill the law. We do that as we, like Christ learn to live loving God and loving each other. His Spirit makes that possible in us. The flesh renders the law impotent; the Spirit empowers us to obey it. This is not perfectionism; it is simply to say that obedience is a necessary and possible aspect of Christian discipleship. Although the law cannot secure this obedience, the Spirit can.

Are you still under condemnation or do you belong to Christ?

Hi Everyone,

Acts like this tend to make the Muslim world paint all Christians and the western world with the same brush.

In the west we often want leaders of Islamic faith to stand up and decry terrorists.  I think it is a fair expectation if they want us to believe that their faith is not synonymous with terrorism.

Using the same standard, I believe we ought to speak out against Jones’ act and let our Islamic neighbours know that his actions don’t fit with Christian ideals.

Consider what Jesus says in Matthew 5:43–48. (ESV)

⁴³“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

As we have opportunity let’s make it clear to everyone that when one does these kinds of things he is not representing the values that our Lord teaches.

How do you show love for your enemies?

To some this may seem impossible.  After all the Pharisees had developed hundreds of laws to help them attain righteousness. When Jesus spoke of this righteousness (having right standing or relationship with God), he doesn’t mean that we should develop more rules and laws than the Pharisees did.  Actually, in many ways their laws stood between them and having a relationship to God.

After all it was their laws and concepts about the Sabbath that brought them into conflict with Jesus.  To him there were things that were more important than all of these laws.

He is concerned to show his disciples in the kingdom that their righteousness must transcend the formal obedience which, at its worst, Pharisaism was capable of: the attitude that said, ‘Right, I have fulfilled precisely what is required of me, but I didn’t want to do it, and I shall not throw in one iota of extra commitment.’ Jesus looks for the inner disposition as well as the outer action. The law is not the limit of obedience; it is to be seen rather as the springboard for a life of devotion to Jesus and his Father. It is the kerbstone along the road of love. (Michael Green, The Message of Matthew : The Kingdom of Heaven (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., U.S.A.: Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), 92.)

By the time of Jesus the Pharisees had identified hundreds of laws to follow. Contrasting that Micah had reduced the laws of the Old Testament to three, when he says in Micah 6:8 (NLT)

⁸ No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Jesus further reduced the law to two principles in Matthew 22:37–40 (NLT)

³⁷ Jesus replied, “ ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

In Matthew 5, after making the statement about righteousness going beyond that of the Pharisees, Jesus gave six areas in which to make application.  If we  live by the standards he set down in Mt. 22 and apply them to these areas, perhaps we will begin to have a righteous relationship with God.

Having said that, this first of all assumes that we have come to him through faith, accepting his grace and mercy.  And having done that, we live not in our own strength but we submit to the Holy Spirit’s working in us so that our life becomes a cooperative effort with God.  I neither try to do it all myself nor do I leave it all up to God.

On what do you base your righteousness?

What is your answer?

The question can be supposed to be from two theological views.  Do we believe (have faith, trust, give loyalty to God) and from that salvation comes or does God save us and then grant us faith?

Two different points of view are held by those who call themselves Calvinists as opposed to Arminians.  If you aren’t familiar with those terms, perhaps this will help to clarify. Arminianism is often so called because of the teachings of Jacobus Arminius or his followers, who teach that Christ died for all people and not only for the elect (while Calvinists would hold that Christ died for the elect). That may be too simple an explanation, but I hope it’s helpful.

Does all of that seem a far stretch away from Greg’s question?  I suspect it is, but this is the framework that some would give to the question.

Why would we think that faith is an action or response on our part? Consider these teachings.

Romans 5:1 (ESV)  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:9–10 (ESV)  because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.  May I suggest reading at least Romans 10:8-17 to get the context.

You might also read John 7:39, Galatians 3:2, 14.  2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, Hebrews 11:6

These all indicate that from hearing the message we have opportunity to either accept the message or reject it.

So why might someone say otherwise?

Those who say otherwise usually point to these verses.

Ephesians 2:8–9 (ESV)  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The question that needs to be asked here is whether the antecedent of “it” (as in it is the gift of God) is faith or salvation. While it seems clear to me that salvation is the gift spoken of here, not everyone agrees.

Others will go to Philippians 1:29 (ESV) “29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake”

There are other passages that people go to so as to make their point. We need to take care to notice what it is that the passage is really teaching in its context as well as to look to other plain teachings to help us understand these things.  John 3:16 makes it clear that the offer of salvation is for all, that is all who believe.

We need to also consider 1 Corinthians 12:8–9 (ESV) “⁸ For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,” For the whole context see vs. 4 to 11.

Here we see faith definitely referred to as a gift from God or the Spirit.

So, does faith come from within us or is it a gift from God?

My answer is yes.  We hear the message of Jesus and we decide whether to believe it or reject it?  The faith that leads to salvation is our response to God.  However God has in times past given an additional measure of faith to some of those whom he saved.

Robert Picirilli, in his book Grace, Faith, Free Will, states the following about saving faith:

1)   The capacity to believe is from God.
2) The possibility of believing is from God.
3) The content of belief – the gospel truth – is from God.
4) The persuasion of truth which one believes is from God.
5) The enabling of the individual to believe is from God.
6) But the believing itself can only be done by no one other than the person who is called on to believe the gospel.*

How would you respond to the question?

Fabulous story from The Sacred Sandwich (you should click the link for the full text of this brief, well-told story) –

The White Flag Man was a fellow by the name of Peter “Petey” Hopkins who every morning at sunrise would go out and hoist up a white flag on a flagpole in his front yard and then take it down at sunset. He started doing it around fifty years ago, not long after his wife and three-year old daughter died in a tragic car accident, and as far as anyone could tell, he never missed a day. At least not until last week. …

But Petey Hopkins had made a point every morning when he awoke that he would surrender himself to Jesus Christ. …

Perhaps it was a cheesy ritual in an outward sense, but for Petey the act of running up a white flag was a gesture that created the perfect impetus for the day. It fixed Jesus in his mind as soon as he left his bed and became the catalyst for his actions and thoughts throughout each waking moment. …

Among the many heartwarming accounts: On the hottest days of the year, Petey was often seen toting jugs of cool spring water to the parched farmers working in the fields; he personally brought a box of groceries to Marge Whittle every week for three months until she found another job; he saved the Hobson boy from drowning in McGonigle’s pond and in the process almost drowned himself; he volunteered his time and tools to help Harvey Cline rebuild his mule barn after a fire; he prayed many times with Jim and Pam Snelling when Pam got terminal cancer and would often drive her to chemotherapy when Jim was at work; and more significantly, he talked about Jesus Christ to Pat Toomey, Ray Bob Smith, Bonnie Sharp, Lori Henderson, Jack Lutcher, Cliff and Janelle McElwee, Thelma Butterworth, Wilson Pratt… well, you get the picture.

This reminds me of a similar story told by Ray Vander Laan.

During Roman times, a Jewish rabbi approached a Roman army camp. As he came near, a soldier step in front of him and barked, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

The rabbi responded, “How much do they pay you to ask such questions?”

The soldier, startled by unconventional response, answered, “One denarius a day.”

The rabbi said, “I’ll pay you twice that if you’ll stand outside my house and ask me those questions every time I leave or enter!”

Questions: Does any one here have a daily ritual to remind you to surrender to Jesus? If so, what has been the impact on your life? Can you relate similar stories about others you know?