The Assumed Gospel

So the other weekend I was able to have a conversation with an older gentleman who was telling me about his background in a particular denomination. He told me that as a child he grew up in a “church” that was very controlling. His church experience centered on fear, control, and manipulation. After listening to him I heard no trace of the Gospel. There was no good news. It was simply if you can do all these things and avoid all these things you will be saved.

I drove home that night thinking about how many people are sitting in “churches” and are not hearing the gospel preached to them.  How many people are being fed a works gospel? This is no gospel at all of course. 

Then as I drove home I thought about how many times we assume people know and understand the gospel here in our country because we live in a “Christian Nation”. How many times have we passed people or know people and assume they know the gospel and they don't?

So let’s be clear here and just say what the Gospel is:

God created man perfect until the fall and sin entered the world. Because of Adam’s sin, all have sinned and are born into rebellion. Because man is naturally bent on rebellion, he can’t uphold God’s commandments.   

But in God’s mercy, he sent himself in the form of man, Jesus Christ, lived the life we couldn’t live, and died the death we should have died.  He rose from the dead victorious over death, hell and the grave and declares to us today, by the Holy Spirit and through his Church, that all who put their trust in him will be justified, made blameless, in the sight of God , not because of works but because of faith.

In Christ we become new creations, continually being sanctified by His Spirit. In him we have a hope of future glory. We have a hope that at the day of judgement we will be seen as pure and perfect and will enjoy eternal fellowship with him in the new Heavens and new Earth when all things are restored.

NOW THIS IS GOOD NEWS!

The gospel is not about what God wants you to do but what God wants to do in you.

Continue

That i may know him......

If you were able to read last week’s blog you saw that I ranted about dreams. Hopefully if you got anything out of it, it was that even though God calls us to do things, and we have “dreams and visions” that he has laid on our heart, we can’t idolize them or even really pursue them.  I also put up a quote by Phil Vischer saying we don’t achieve the impact God desires by pursuing impact, but by pursuing Him.

After thinking about this for some time now and looking back on my experiences, I’ve admitted that I held myself and my potential future in God as an idol. I mean it sounded spiritual if you talked to me about it and I looked as if I was running after God, but really it was selfish at the core because really God was nothing but a means to an end for me.

I’ve come to a place right now where I’m doing my best to simplify all my ministry efforts so that I can really pursue and know God.  Because for some time now ministry efforts have consumed me, and it came to a point where I was very unhappy, mainly because I was pursuing “the dream” or “the vision”. 

I’ve come to love the Lord’s command to make disciples, Matt 28:16-20, but after thinking over these things I’ve come to wonder how much of a disciple am I? Am I living in a religion or living a life that strives to know Christ and live the life that he has called me to live?

“…’If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 16:24-25

I’m not sure how much of me I’ve been denying, I just know I’ve made myself busy. But I do know that as of lately I’ve hungered for what the Apostle Paul said to the Philippians “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection…” Phil 3:10. I don’t want any ministry I do to be out of some superficial relationship with Christ, but from a deep one. I want a life that proclaims the richness of Christ. I want my only dream, vision, destiny to be Jesus Christ, because in him I live, move, breathe and have my being.

During all of this I remember the story of Mary and Martha. I’ll leave you with this….

“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”(Luke 10:38-42 ESV)

Continue

Dreams

I just finished an interesting book by Phil Vischer.  For those of you who don’t know, Phil is the creator of Veggie Tales. In his book Me, Myself and Bob, Phil tells the story of the rise and fall of his company Big Idea. Phil said that his motivation for building his big company, that was later bankrupt and sold, was to do something great for God. After losing everything he worked for he questioned God and wanted to know why God didn’t save him and the company. Phil got the answer to those questions and learned several valuable lessons from it. The one thing I want to focus on is what Phil learned about dreams and as Christians what should be our focus in life; God or what you do for God?

The best part of Phil’s story was when he was discussing dreams (or visions for the future) and what Christians should do with their dreams. Phil discusses at the end of his book that dreaming is okay, that there is nothing wrong with it. It’s just that we can get lost in doing things for God that we substitute it for our RELATIONSHIP with God.  I know in several parts of the Church the big buzz words are “calling”, “destiny”, “dreams”, all of which I have important things to say about, but Phil suggests that when we read passages like Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (KJV), should properly be interpreted “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint” (NIV). The word “vision” in our corporate driven America can lead us to be focused on “the thing” God has us doing or making sure people understand the vision, but if you interpret that word as revelation it lines up much better with the rest of scripture, meaning that we strive to have a revelation about God.

Phil’s overarching reason for his book, which was also the downfall of his business/ministry, can be found in this quote from his book Me, Myself, and Bob “The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we’re pursuing impact. It occurs when we’re pursuing God.”

You can clearly see the principles of what Phil is saying in the story of Abraham and Isaac, Genesis 12. God came and revealed to Abraham what he was going to do in Abraham’s life, that he would be the father of a great nation and that he would establish this through Abraham’s son.  Abraham became impatient about starting this great nation that when he failed to conceive a child with his wife Sarah he conceived one with their servant Hagar. God rebukes Abraham for this and tells him to wait for the appointed son. As God said, Abraham had a son and they named him Isaac. God visits Abraham to test him and tells him to take Isaac up to the mountain to sacrifice him as burnt offering. Long story short, Abraham obeys, but God intervenes saving Isaac’s life and tells Abraham that he truly does love God because he didn’t even withhold his son, which was Abraham’s dream, destiny, vision and/or calling. So what’s more important to you God, or what you do for God?

I’ll leave you with this verse from the Apostle Paul,

 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Phil 3:7-11

Continue