A Contest No One Can Win

January 31, 2012 Leave a Comment

Imagine a contest where the stated goal is: “Jump up and touch the moon.” Contestant #1 is an eighty-year-old woman with a walker. She steps up to the line and gives it all she’s got, but her jump doesn’t even register as measurable. Contestant #2 is Russell Mckinney. He steps up to the line and has a go, but his jump peaks out at about two inches. (I could have done a little better back in the day.) Contestant #3 is a bench-warmer on his high-school team. He takes his turn at the line and gets off what is easily the most impressive jump so far, which puts him in the lead. Finally, contestant #4 is NBA all-star Lebron James. His liftoff is breathtaking to watch. The muscles in his powerful legs ripple as he soars straight up into the air. Higher and higher he goes, putting so much distance between his jump and the high-schooler’s that second place isn’t even worth mentioning. When James finally comes back down he is unquestionably declared the obvious winner.

Of course, there’s one thing that shouldn’t be forgotten: the actual goal of the contest. The contest wasn’t held to see who could jump the highest. It was held to see if anyone could jump up and touch the moon. Lebron got the closest to meeting the goal, but even he failed miserably at it.

The Bible teaches that earning your way into heaven by way of “good works” is like that contest. The goal is an impossibility right from the start. Oh, sure, some may produce more “good works” than others. But, in the end, it’s laughable to think that anyone could get even remotely close to pulling of the goal. It can’t happen, and here’s why:

-Every human being is a born sinner (Romans 3:10; Romans 3:23; Ecclesiastes 7:20).

-Our inborn sin nature comes from Adam, the father of our race (Genesis 3:1-24; 1 Timothy 2:13-14; Romans 5:12).

-Our nature of sin compels us to commit acts of sin (Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:11-18).

-To break just one of God’s laws is to stand guilty of breaking them all; it’s an all-or-nothing type of deal (James 2:10).

You see, once you understand the set-up going in, you’ll realize that salvation, and by implication entrance into heaven, can NEVER come by way of “good works” (Titus 3:4-7; Ephesians 2:8-9). It is instead a gift that God gives to the sinner, a gift He extends in grace (unearned favor) to the one who places his or her faith in Jesus Christ as Savior (Ephesians 2:8).

I challenge you right now to take your Bible, look up and read all the references that I have listed in this post, and let the truth of them wash over you. When you do you’ll see that the whole idea of someone earning their way into heaven by way of “good works” is patently absurd. Salvation is a gift, and like any gift it must be accepted to be owned. Since this gift is all wrapped up in a person, Jesus Christ, the only way to accept it is to accept Him. Call it putting your faith in Jesus. Call it believing in Him. Call it opening the door of your heart to Him. Call it receiving Him. These terminologies are all just different ways of describing the acceptance of the gift. But whatever you do, ACCEPT THE GIFT!!! If you don’t, you might as well be trying to jump and touch the moon.

Filed under Belief, Bible Study, faith, Heaven, salvation, Sin, The Depravity of Man Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Making Perception Align With Reality

January 16, 2012 1 Comment

The owner of a candy store noticed that one of his salesgirls would have customers lined up waiting for her even as his other girls stood by doing nothing. Perplexed by this, he went to the girl and asked for her secret. She answered, “The other girls scoop up more than the requested amount of candy and then start taking away. I scoop up less and then add to it.”

It’s all about perception, isn’t it? Those customers were perceiving themselves to be getting more candy from that salesgirl, even though they really weren’t. Of course, that’s the problem with perception: it usually bears little semblance to the truth.

We Christians must admit that the perception lost people have of us usually isn’t all that glowing. They perceive us to be hypocritical, judgmental, bigoted, closed-minded, ignorant, irrational, and angry. Admittedly, some Christians can rightly be classified under each of those adjectives. There are many Christians, however, who can’t, and these are the ones who can’t be so easily explained away by lost people.

A world traveler visited the land of what had once been a savage race of cannibals. Actually, the only reason the man could even visit the land was because Christian missionaries had previously blazed the trail, learned the language, and won many of those cannibals to Christ. As the traveler struck up a conversation with one of the natives, he couldn’t resist sharing his views on Christianity with the native. He said, “I myself have no use for the religion. I don’t believe the Bible to be anything other than a man-made book. I don’t believe that Jesus was God in the flesh. And I don’t believe that I will somehow be changed if I believe in Him as my Savior.” To that the native answered, “My friend, if Jesus does not change lives, you would be in a pot by now.”

Is that story real? I doubt it. But could it be? Absolutely! As 2 Corinthians 5:17 says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.

The test that we Christians must pass daily is that of making the reality of this change align with the world’s perception of us. Putting it another way, we’ve got to act “new.” If we continue to commit our same old sins and hold to our same old wrong attitudes, that will create a false perception of us. Lost people will look at us and think, “I guess that Jesus thing didn’t work out so well.” On the other hand, if we exhibit a genuine change from cannibalistic to cordial (to go back to my illustration), from hypocritical to holy, from angry to affable, from judgmental to just, etc., then they won’t be able to dismiss us so quickly. And that is why it is so important that we walk the walk in addition to talking the talk.

Filed under Change, Discipleship, Doing Good, Dress and Appearance, faithfulness, Personal Holiness, Righteousness, salvation, Sin, Truth Tagged with , , , , ,

Now That’s A Good Question

January 11, 2012 Leave a Comment

A great debate was held between a devout Christian and a staunch atheist. The Christian was allowed to speak first, but without saying a word he simply pulled an orange from his pocket and began to peel it. Then, with thousands of eyes watching him in curiosity, he separated the orange into slices and ate each slice.

The Christian then looked over to the atheist and asked, “How did the orange taste?” The atheist, with a smirk, answered, “I don’t know; I didn’t taste it.” To that the Christian responded, “Then why do you talk against Christianity and salvation? You haven’t tasted or experienced the blessings of salvation and the joy Jesus gives to those who serve Him. So how can you intelligently debate something of which you know nothing?”

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him. (Psalm 34:8)

Filed under Atheism, God's Love, God's Provision, salvation, Trusting In God Tagged with , , ,

The Young Man & His Reason

January 5, 2012 Leave a Comment

A Christian once asked a young man if he wanted to believe in Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. The young man answered, “No.” When the Christian asked him to give a reason for his refusal, he did so. The reason was this:

Several years ago, I was in a man’s kitchen. When he found me there he swore at me and kicked me out. That man was a professing Christian, and from that time I decided never to have anything to do with religion. And I never have to this day.

After hearing that, the Christian asked the young man to write the reason down, word for word, and sign it. The young man played along and did so. Then the Christian handed the signed document back to him and said, “Take this, and when you are asked for your excuse on the day of judgment, hand this up.”

We should learn two lessons from this illustration. First, we Christians should mind our behavior. We do untold damage to the cause of Christ when we our lives slip into sin and compromise. Second, there is no valid excuse for refusing to believe in Christ as Savior. If you think you have one, write it down, sign it, and carry it with you always. You can try using it in the afterlife. Don’t expect it to work, though.

Filed under Backsliding, Belief, Coming Judgment, death, Evangelism, God's Wrath, God's judgment, hell, Personal Holiness, salvation, Witnessing Tagged with , , ,

The Peace That Jesus Brings

December 23, 2011 1 Comment

In my last post I explained that even though Christ’s birth didn’t actually usher in a time of “peace on earth,” prophecy teaches that one day He will bring in such a time, one thousand years worth of it to be exact. Now, with this post, I want to explain that Christ’s birth did usher in a time when the individual who believes in Him as Savior can come to know a personal peace.

First, this personal peace involves the believer being at peace with God, his Maker. The classic verse on this is Romans 5:1:

Therefore, having been justified by faith (referring to faith in Christ), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’m reminded of that story about the preacher who asked the man, “Have you made peace with God?” The man answered, “I didn’t know that we were fighting.” Well, the fact is that every member of the human race is born fighting with God. Romans 3:10-12 says:

There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.

Yes, the sinner is at war with holy God. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that Jesus, through His shed blood (Colossians 1:19-20), has laid a peace treaty on the table for any individual who will sign it. Isaiah 53:5 describes it so beautifully:

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for out iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

Second, this personal peace involves the believer being at peace with himself. Christ’s words from John 14:27 refer to this kind of inner peace. He says to His disciples:

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

In a recent series of devotions, my friend Malcolm Woody has been dissecting Philippians chapter 4, specifically as the verses relate to the inner peace of the believer. The devotions have driven home to me afresh and anew the fact that inner peace is there for the taking if the believer desires it. But even as I read those devotions each day it didn’t dawn on me that there was one particular area of my life concerning which I didn’t have an inner peace. It wasn’t until my brother Richie pointedly said to me the other day, “You just don’t a peace about you right now,” that I came to grips with the truth of that statement. I feel like the Lord worked through Malcolm’s devotions to set me on a tee and then He worked through Richie to whack me out of the park. Since my conversation with Richie, I’ve really been working hard at accessing the inner peace that I am afforded in Jesus as it relates to that one troublesome area of my life.

Christian, I gave you that bit of personal testimony to let you know that I speak from personal experience when I ask you if your heart is troubled about something right now. Is there some circumstance, some situation, some problem in your life for which you have no inner peace? If there is, you are, as I was, living beneath your privilege because you aren’t abiding in the peace that Jesus has given you. You need to repent of your worrying. You need to give up on trying to control things you can’t control. Most of all, you need to put your complete trust in your sovereign Savior and let His peace well up from inside you and begin to dominate your life as it should. A troubled heart and the peace that Jesus has given you just can’t coexist. We, as Christians, should obey the command of Colossians 3:15 and “let the peace of God rule in our hearts.”

Third, this personal peace involves the believer being at peace with others. Ephesians 2:14 plays off the fact that in the Jewish temple there was a wall that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the areas that were exclusively for the Jews. The verse says of Jesus:

For He Himself is our peace, who made both (the Jew and the Gentile) one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation.

In Bible times, it would have been impossible to imagine too more different people than the Jew and the Gentile. They were completely different races. They came from radically different backgrounds. They had strikingly different customs. And yet, through Jesus, the Jew and the Gentile could now be at peace with each other. This proves that, through Jesus, the Christian can peaceably get along with others. Jesus Himself says in Mark 9:50, “…have peace with one another.” Hebrews 12:14 chimes right in with that by saying, “…Pursue peace with all people.” And in 1 Thessalonians 5:13, Paul says to the Christians of Thessalonica, “Be at peace among yourselves.”

On the heels of such verses, you know what I’m going to ask you. Are you fighting with someone right now? Is there a person with which you currently are not at peace? If there is, let me encourage you to do all that you can to make peace with them, whoever they are. Remember that in His Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught that His followers (whom He called sons of God) should be “peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). That means you, Christian. I’ll also quote Paul again here too. In Romans 12:18, he says:

If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.

These words certainly ring true for any time of the year, but surely they ring all the more true for this season of Christmas. How can a Christian properly celebrate the birth of his Savior, the Peace-Giver, if he is at war with a fellow human being? I know, I know, Paul said “If it is possible…”, and maybe you are saying, “It’s just not possible with that person.” Well, maybe it isn’t, and maybe you and that person will never want to climb into a car and take a road-trip together, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t at least do your part to make peace. At the very least, you can stop throwing gasoline onto the fire and making the relationship worse. Ask Jesus to help you to know exactly what to do and what not to do, and trust that He will. Take heart in the fact that peace between yourself and others is one of the kinds of peace that He died to bring you.

Filed under Adversity, Attitude, Christ's birth, Christmas, Doing Good, Extending Forgiveness, Inner Peace, Personal, Personal Holiness, salvation, The Sermon On The Mount, Trusting In God, Worry Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

The Clinched Fist Of Joseph Stalin

December 15, 2011 Leave a Comment

Ravi Zacharias tells a story that he heard personally from Malcolm Muggeridge, the legendary English journalist, author, and media personality. Muggeridge had spent some time with Svetlana Stalin, the daughter of Joseph Stalin, while they were working together on a BBC production on the life of her father. Joseph Stalin was, of course, the communist leader who once ruled Russia with an iron fist and an incomprehensible coldness. During his reign, untold millions of people were put to death by his command. The numbers are so high that experts can only give broad estimates as to the actual total.

According to the story that Svetlana told Muggeridge, and Muggeridge in turn told Zacharias, Stalin was plagued by terrifying hallucinations as he lay dying on his bed. Then suddenly he sat halfway up in bed, clenched his fist toward the heavens, fell back upon his pillow, and was dead. It was if his last gesture in life was literally a clenched fist toward God.

It would be easy to assume that a man such as Stalin had lived his entire life in open rebellion and opposition to the idea of any kind of God. That would be a wrong assumption, however. The fact is that when Stalin was sixteen he received a scholarship to a Georgian Orthodox seminary. He even did well in his classes until he missed his final exams and was expelled. Not long afterward he began reading the writings of Vladimir Lenin and became a Marxist revolutionary.

Looking back over Stalin’s life it isn’t hard to deduce that he had an excellent opportunity to not only receive Christ as Savior but also spend his life in service to Him. After all, that is what seminary students usually do. But somewhere along the way Stalin came to a spiritual crossroad and chose to reject Jesus. Then, like Pharaoh in the Old Testament story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, once the hardening of his heart began there was no stopping it.

We should all take Stalin’s example and learn from it. For one thing, it is a dangerous thing to reject Jesus when He comes to you offering salvation. For another, even if you are a Christian, it is a dangerous thing when He comes to you offering guidance, direction, and commands for your life. To reject light is to embrace darkness. To rebel against a word from the Lord is to choose to walk in your own foolishness. To shun blessing is to invite judgment.

So, has the Lord been telling you to do something? Perhaps He has been convicting you of your need of the salvation found only in Jesus. Or, if you have experienced that salvation, perhaps He has been giving you some specific command or word of wisdom concerning a situation. Well, all I can say is that whatever He has been sharing with you, you need to grab hold of it incorporate it fully into your life. I’m not saying that you will ever end up like Joseph Stalin, but I am saying that there is always a great danger in clenching your fist toward the Lord and saying, “No.” With that in mind, I’ll leave you with the words of Proverbs 29:1:

He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

Filed under Attitude, Choices, Disobedience, God's Will, obedience, Rebellion, salvation Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Shipwrecked Christian

December 13, 2011 Leave a Comment

Maybe you’ve heard the old line, “The world has become so churchy and the church has become so worldly that you can’t tell the difference between the two.” Unfortunately there is a great deal of truth to this. Backslidden Christians create such a major hindrance to what God wants to accomplish in the world. Even more than that, they do untold harm to their own lives.

One of the best descriptions I’ve ever read concerning the worldly, carnal, backslidden Christian comes from Charles Spurgeon. In the October 14 evening devotion from his book Morning & Evening, he compares such a Christian’s entrance into heaven to a shipwrecked sailor having to climb up the steep rocks of his homeland just to get home. There is no peaceful sail into the safe harbor. There is no confident expectation of praise for a job well done. There is no triumphant entrance. There is only the exhausted, worn out, frazzled Christian scratching and clawing his way to a place of safety.

My guess is that Spurgeon had 1 Timothy 1:18-20 in mind when he used that illustration. In those verses, the apostle Paul explains to the young preacher Timothy that some Christians have rejected faith and a good conscience and “concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck.” Paul then gives the specific names (Hymenaeus and Alexander) of two such Christians and says that he delivered them to Satan so they would learn not to blaspheme. According to 1 Corinthians 5:1-7, the term “delivered them to Satan” means what we call “church discipline” (excommunication, “churching” someone). This should show us just how serious backsliding is.

Spurgeon closes out his devotion with the following words:

It is dangerous for an heir of heaven to be a great friend with the heirs of hell. Even small inconsistencies are dangerous. Little thorns make great blisters, little moths destroy fine garments, and a little frivolity and mischief will rob faith of a thousand joys. O believer, you do not realize what you lose by your conformity to the world. It cuts the tendons of your strength and makes you crawl where you ought to run. For your own comfort’s sake and for the sake of your growth in grace, if you are a Christian, then be a marked and distinct Christian.

To these words I can only add the question: “Christian, do other people think of you as a marked and distinct Christian? I once heard a preacher say, “Some Christians don’t do enough for the Lord to attract a used demon!” Is that you, Christian? Are you, as not only Spurgeon but also Paul described, living a shipwrecked walk with Christ? If you are, my prayer is that you will do the necessary confessing and repenting today. Remember that 1 John 1:9 is still in the Bible and it still works:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Filed under Backsliding, Change, Church Discipline, Confession, Demons, Heaven, Personal Holiness, Repentance, salvation, Sin Tagged with , , , , , ,

Genuine Pearls

December 8, 2011 Leave a Comment

Throughout history pearls have commanded high prices. Their expensiveness is the result of their rarity. Thousands upon thousands of oysters are examined each year, but only a small percentage of them contain genuine pearls. I’ve read that out of every three tons of pearl-producing oysters only three of the oysters, on average, will have pearls inside them.

At one point, however, the market began to be atypically flooded with large quantities of pearls. As a matter of fact, there were so many pearls available that merchants began to seriously question their authenticity. Were these new pearls merely well done imitations produced by man? The answer was, no. Upon examination the pearls were found to have actually been made by oysters.

Finally, after further investigation, the mystery was solved. As it turned out, the Japanese merchants had figured out a way to cause almost every pearl oyster to produce a pearl. The merchants knew that a pearl is formed when some kind of foreign substance (a parasite, a grain of sand, etc.) gets lodged in a certain part of the oyster. To ease the irritation caused by the substance, the oyster begins to secrete a protective fluid called nacre that covers over the substance. This process continues and the nacre eventually hardens into a glorious pearl. This takes a few years. So what the merchants were doing was harvesting oysters, purposely inserting artificial substances in them (substances such as beads or tiny bits of shell or buckshot), placing the oysters back into the ocean by means of nets, and then harvesting them again a few years later to retrieve the pearls. The larger the artificial substance, the larger the pearl.

When the market became glutted with pearls, wealthy buyers began to demand that each pearl be put to a special test to see whether or not it had been artificially created. This test involved the use of X-ray. Under X-ray, the false “hearts” created by the artificial substances could be seen. In this way, the genuine pearls could be identified and priced accordingly.

This illustration reminds me that, sadly, our churches are home to some “fake” Christians. On the outside, these people look saved. They carry Bibles, know the lingo, pray, sing the hymns, put money in the offering plates, etc. But on the inside their hearts are false. They don’t truly know Christ as Savior. They aren’t born again (John 3:3). God the Holy Spirit does not dwell inside them (Romans 8:9). They aren’t in the family of God (John 1:9-13).

I have no delusions that we will ever get it all sorted out this side of eternity. For one thing, lost people don’t always act lost. For another, saved people don’t always act saved. We can rest assured, though, that Jesus knows how to X-ray each person’s heart and there simply is no fooling Him. I can honestly say that being placed under His X-ray doesn’t frighten me one bit. Does it you? If it does, you need to ask yourself why that is.

Filed under church, salvation, The Heart Tagged with , , , ,

Forgiveness, But Not Change

October 3, 2011 2 Comments

I live in a small, rural county in the so-called “Bible belt.” It’s the kind of place where there is a church on every corner, down every side road, and up every holler. Consequently, it can be hard to find someone who has no qualms about admitting to not knowing Christ as Savior. What I mean is, it seems like just about everyone I meet was baptized as a kid, has their name on a church roll, claims to attend somewhere, knows pastor so-and-so as a friend, etc. You get the idea. We’ve got religion, church, the Bible, and prayer running out our noses.

But what bothers me about our little county (approximately 15,000 in number) is how easily we blur the line between authentic Christian conduct and rank worldliness. Some of the same people who go to church every Sunday morning don’t mind doing a good deal of drinking and carousing on Saturday night. Some of the ones who rant and rave about the sexual sin of homosexuality evidently don’t understand that adultery falls in that same category. Some of the ones who are quick to request prayer for themselves or their families are also far too well versed in backbiting, gossiping, and rumor spreading.

My point is that a lot of people love to hear about Christ, the Bible, forgiveness, grace, and salvation, but the numbers dwindle significantly when the topics become repentance, godly conduct, separation from the world, and personal holiness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not promoting a works-based plan of salvation here. I myself sin every day and have to spend more time than I should asking the Lord for forgiveness of those sins. But with me sin is the exception, not the rule. It occurs outside the norm. It’s the uncommon, not the common. That’s what salvation has done to me (or better yet for me).

Perhaps an illustration will help me say what I’m trying to say. Little Billy was dressed for church in his Sunday best, but his mother wasn’t quite ready to go. So he went out in the back yard and started playing in the dirt. In just a few minutes his clothes were absolutely filthy. When his mother saw him she was furious. Passionately, Billy said, “Mom, I’m real sorry. Please forgive me.” She replied, “Okay, you’re forgiven but go change.” But Billy didn’t want to go back in the house and go to the trouble of dressing again. So he said, “No, I’ll just go as I am.” You see, he wanted forgiveness but not change. And, unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of Billys running around out there these days.

Filed under adultery, Backsliding, Change, Church attendance, Disobedience, Forgiveness, Hypocrisy, Personal, Personal Holiness, Rebellion, salvation, Sin Tagged with , , , , , , ,

A Word About the Website

September 29, 2011 2 Comments

Some of you are aware that our church has a website at disciplesroadchurch.com. For those of you who aren’t, now you know. And at the risk of bragging, let me say that there is some really good stuff on the site.

Just this week we’ve uploaded six new sermons to the ever-growing list. They are:

1. “Eli: A Man Who Failed As A Father”
2. “God’s Temporary Rejection of Israel”
3. “Making Room For Jesus”
4. “Praying In Jesus’ Name”
5. “Praying In the Holy Spirit”
6. “The Overcomer”

Now, I realize that many of you are like me in that you find it hard to find time to listen to a sermon. I understand that. But I just want you to know that the site is there to provide you with spiritual help and Biblical truth whenever you need it.

On the subject of Biblical truth, let me especially recommend that you click on the resource “A Guide for God’s Plan of Salvation.” Trust me, there’s a little more than John 3:16 there. I spent untold hours writing that guide and it is choked full of Bible verses and doctrinal facts. I start with the statement “There Is A God” and launch off from there. Really, if you used your daily devotion time to simply cover one section per day and read the verses for that section, it would be time well spent.

Another rich resource is the one entitled “What We Believe.” Again, if you used your devotion time to just cover one section per day and read the verses, you’d be blessed. The “Prophetic Events” section alone has ten different parts to it. And when you break them down into bite-size devotions, they make for great studies.

Well, I’ll hush now because I don’t want to “oversell” the product. All kidding aside, though, it’s a good website. Other sites might be snazzier and feature more graphics and such, but they’d be hard pressed to offer any more help in teaching the Bible. We’re just meat and potatoes. But what else would you expect from me? You’ve read my blog, right?

Filed under Bible Study, church, Doctrine, God's Word, Personal, Prophecy, salvation, Scripture, The Bible Tagged with , , , , , ,

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