Spirit of the Fruit - Smart?

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23

Admit it, you want people to think you are smart, you want people to look up to you for your knowledge, for your understanding of God, for you maturity as a Christian.  If you right now are saying “No, I don’t” then you are either delusional or a liar. 

It is obvious that while we must certainly know Him to love Him and to know Him we must study Him.  However that may make what I am about to write seem strange for someone to write who spends so much time trying to “know” God.  However the truth is, that no one has studied Him more completely than Satan, and it hasn’t done him a bit of good. 

When Paul describes the body of Christ as a body, part of which includes hands, ears, and so forth, we are quick to claim our territory — we are the brain of the church. Leave it to the American Christians to miss the point. 

Re-read Galatians 5:22-23 again, ‘smart’ is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. It goes without saying that we are to love God with all our minds.  However, we are to love God with all our minds, not simply seek to understand Him.  “We do not, of course, increase the intensity of our emotions by reducing the capacity of our brains.  Neither, however, will we ever bear the fruit of the Spirit if the seed of the Word is planted only in the rocky soil of our brains rather than the fertile soil of the heart.” Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul.

Unless and until we learn to stop pursuing academic knowledge for knowledge’s sake,  and start seeking the kingdom of God, we will not, get better.  We are to put behind us all our earthly desires and worries.  We are to stop seeking those things that the those of this world seek. Start trying to be the salt. 

The fruit of love, in the end, is the fruit of the Spirit.  Love begets love. Love bears joy. Love bestows peace. Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control: all these break forth in the heart. None of these, however, comes from the barren soil of our intellectual curiosity.  If I were a doctor I would diagnose the condition that we are suffering from when our knowledge fails at traveling the distance from our heads down to our hearts, as spiritual emptiness. There is not a magic pill to cure that emptiness, The  truth is, that we will not begin to get better until we come to embrace this obvious truth: we come into the kingdom not as scholars or students, but as children. www.ligonier.org/tabletalk

Forgiveness, Must I forgive someone who is not rependant?

If I were to sin against you, are you under obligation to forgive me even if I refuse to acknowledge and turn from what I have done against you?  This is a not nearly as complicated as most of us make it.  I have heard to many times to recall from someone who has betrayed their spouse, stabbed their co-worker in the back, or taken something from another person that the one who has been injured just needs to forgive them and get on with their life.  It is a coldly callous and self serving attitude along with a distorted Christian viewpoint.  Frequently I wonder just why the individual supposes that God has forgiven them of their sins, when the Bible clearly says otherwise. 

Jesus taught his disciples to pray ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors’ Matthew 6:12.  Does that mean that we have to forgive someone even when they refuse reconciliation, someone who refuses to repent?  That question is far more important than most of us realize, it is a hard question, one that cuts to the heart of our faith, the individual who seeks to forgive, and to the individual who needs the forgiveness.

First, we must acknowledge that the debts we owe one another pale in comparison to the infinite debt we owe God, our heavenly father.  It is because we have been forgiven an infinite debt, that it would be an horrendous act of evil to remotely consider withholding forgiveness from those who (and this is important) seek it.  Thus we must always be willing to manifest the kind of love that is willing to forgive those who wrong us. 

Furthermore, forgiveness is by simple definition a two-way street, one that leads to the restoration of fellowship.  By that I mean, that it requires someone who is willing to forgive, and someone who wants to be forgiven.  If you are to forgive me for the sins I have committed against you, I must be willing to turn from those sins, I must be willing to seek to restore that which I took from you; I must be repentant; otherwise, there can be no restoration of fellowship (i.e. forgiveness).  Nowhere in the Bible does God offer forgiveness without repentance on the part of the individual who has sinned.

Finally, we must never suppose that our standard of forgiveness is higher than God’s standard.  He objectively (something that actually exists) offers us forgiveness and restoration of fellowship with Him.  However His forgiveness is not subjectively realized (it does not belong to you), until you repent. 

For those who need to forgive and for those who need forgiveness these two verses might well be worth taking to heart. 

“Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.  Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:37-38

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you; leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

As I have said before, If your faith can not save you from your own self-centeredness, your own selfishness, then it will not save you from Hell.  Is it possible for you to say this prayer and mean every single word?  If you want to get over yourself, this is a good place to begin.

Lord, 

Make me an instrument of thy peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)

Adultery American Style

Valentine’s Day is over and with it comes the end of the “American Divorce Season”; that is not to say that the continued onslaught by Christians against their marriages will not continue; it will just slow slightly. But just a word to those who can hear.   

If you are a Christian you would probably agree with this statement ‘Continuing in sin does not cause it to cease being sin’.  A person who steals from his neighbors continues to sin, a person who slanders his co-workers continues to sin.   If a practicing homosexual comes to Christ it is expected that they repent of their sin and refrain from further homosexual acts.   If an unwed person in a fornicating or adulterous relationship comes to Christ it is expected that they repent of their sin and refrain from further sexually immoral acts.  If a person continues in this sin his conversion is suspect since the fruit that is borne does not match the verbal profession.  If a professing Christian enters into adulterous relations they should be disciplined by the local fellowship for sexual sin and treated as an unbeliever until they repent (Matt. 18:15-18; I Cor. 5:11-13).  One cannot have sexual relations with his neighbor’s wife and then claim that since he committed adultery with her once he is now free to continue sexual relations with her.  

Now here is where it gets difficult for the American Christian and the American church…. The Bible teaches that when a person enters into a marriage with a divorced person they enter into an illegitimate sexual relationship with another person’s spouse.  That is why it is called adultery.  Since this relationship is adulterous at its inception the only logical conclusion is that it remains adulterous through its entirety.

Jesus did not say that they commit adultery only during the first sexual act and then it stops.  Paul uses the future tense when he states that the remarried woman “will be called an adulterous” (Romans 7:2).  This is contrasted with his statement “And such were some of you” (I Cor. 6:11).  Paul uses the imperfect tense to show that they were forgiven of the sins listed in verses 9 and 10.  He warns them against further practicing theses sins because those who do “will not inherit the kingdom of God

Most believe that they have not sinned by remarrying after divorce.  However The New Testament states seven times in six passages that remarriage after divorce is adultery.  The Bible does leave some room for grace for the individual who is rejected and divorced by their spouse, by transferring the guilt of their adultery to the one who committed the divorce, “But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery”.  Matthew 5:31-32.  But it is still adultery.

 

However there is absolutely no indication of any grace given to the one who commits adultery, who decides they are not in love anymore, or just wants to abandon their spouse for any other reason.  In fact it clearly states time after time that there is no room in Heaven for those guilty of unrepented adultery.   Just because some do not believe these actions are sinful does not make it so.  All it makes them is a hypocrite, they excuse their own sexual immorality while condemning others.  

I use to believe that most if given the opportunity would choose love, honor, faith,  loyalty, and forgiveness; however I have come to realize that  when Jesus revealed that the path to Heaven was narrow, that in fact what he was revealing is that most blindly and bitterly choose Hell. 

Previous Post on Christian Divorce 

The Wrong People, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Thing

“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”  James 4:4

I have seen so many rational people who know better do the most insane things imaginable under the power of sin, thinking that they can handle it; of course they never do.  When you hang out with the wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time, then it is only a matter of time until you do the wrong thing.   Consider Peter and Judas.  

Peter, after Jesus has been betrayed, followed at a distance; he was trying to blend into the woodwork.  Hours earlier he had declared that He would never deny Christ, yet we find in Matthew 26:58 that he had been following Jesus at a distance and became cold, so he was attracted to the warmth of the enemy's fire.  At this point, Peter was worn down, defeated, weak, and vulnerable. Why was he even in the high priest's courtyard? "he went in and sat with the servants to see the end." Peter had forgotten all that Jesus had said about His resurrection from the dead. Now he was just waiting for the end—the end of Jesus' life . . . the end of his dream . . . the end of everything he held dear.  But it was not the end.  It would be a new beginning.

Judas has made the decision to betray Christ, and in John 18 the betrayal is carried out, it must have looked something like this.  A small army was marching toward Jesus. Swords and spears and shields and torches moved toward Him in the dark as a mass of people came to arrest Him. They were in a frenzy, spurred on by their mob mentality: Yeah, let's get Him! Who are we getting again? You know how mobs are, they kind of play off each other; they don't even know what they are protesting. They get caught up in the emotion of the moment.  That is probably what was happening as the mob closed in on Jesus. However just to show that Jesus was not a helpless victim, but a powerful victor, He stood up and said, "Who are you looking for?"  "Jesus the Nazarene," they told Him.  So He said to them, "I am He." And at those words, all of the people who had been pressing in so close to each other "drew back and fell to the ground!”.  Have you ever played dominoes?  That is probably what it was like as this crowd flattened out.  This would have been a good moment for Judas to reconsider his decision to betray Jesus.  But Judas apparently could not wait to do what he was about to do. 

Here was Peter and Judas’ problem: they were both in the wrong place with the wrong people, about to do the wrong thing. And when that passion in our heart begins to die, the fire we had for Christ will grow cold, and we will look elsewhere for warmth.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” Psalm 1:1–3

Old saying get to be old sayings because they are the truth, and this is one of the oldest - When you hang out with the wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time, then it is only a matter of time until you do the wrong thing.  The difference between Peter and Judas?  One wept bitterly which lead him to repentance and the other bitterly and blindly followed his course to hell.   Which are you?

The Atheist, the Agnostic, and the Sophisticated 'Christian'

What path are your decisions taking you?    

       

I have met a lot of people like Jonah in the Old Testament in my life, and truthfully so have you. They are easy to spot, they are the ones are openly running away from God, racing as fast as they can in the opposite direction.  They know that they have rejected God’s calling, they know that they are disobedient, and they can’t run away far enough.  

However on the other hand I have meet far more people who just kind of do the "Christian Sidestep" from the will of God.   They, like those who run from God openly, know that they are out of God’s will, out of His plan for their life, but they do it in a little more ‘sophisticated’ manner.  In a method they believe that perhaps you and God won’t notice.  Of course deep inside they know that while maybe you won't notice their sin, that God does. 

They still attend church, talk about spiritual things, even give to the church, and perhaps even serve in the nursery or so other area at church.  However deep down inside they know they are running under cover; living with secret (or not so secret) sin, rationalizing their sin and their conduct, giving an excuse for their Sins.   

They say things like ‘nobody is perfect’, ‘I am facing this temptation, and I just can’t seem to overcome it’ they get to the point where they rationalize their sin, by professing that ‘God understands, he understands the difficulty I am facing, the financial issues I am facing, he understands the needs I have that my spouse is not fulfilling, the stress I am under’ etc. etc.   Or they emphasize the good things they have done, stressing that they a ‘NICE’ person.   All the time, deep within their soul they know the truth that they are refusing to obey God’s commands and are running away from His will for their life.   

They have stepped out of God’s will to do their will, in their way, in their time, all the while claiming to be covered by God’s grace.   They think that by going to church, by giving money, by appearing to others to be ‘nice’ and to appear to be serving God, that they are not that bad, that they are somewhat obedient, so God will overlook their non-obedience in all the other areas of their life.   

What they chose to overlook is that the price is expensive, the consequences are far more than they realize, far more than they can pay.  The amazing thing is that when/if they were to stop and look down the road and ask themselves where does this sin take me?  What  I have discovered is that, they tend to rationalize it and pretend that things are going to turn out better than they will.  When the truth is, eventually it leads you to the place where you are thanking God for the sin that you commit.  Eventually you forget that while God is a loving God, He is also a just God; and as Jonah can attest to, the longer you run from God, the longer you refuse to obey, the higher the price.  

The Selfish Christian

Most people who claim to be Christians recognize Christ as Savior, but few recognize His authority as Lord of their lives.  Truthfully I admit that I am still work in progress in this respect.  However have you noticed that many Churches and most Christians today seek primarily God’s personal blessing for themselves (see - Joel Osteen, Tim Story and the prosperity gospel) rather than discovering His purpose and allowing their lives to fit in to that purpose? 

What about you?  Did God really call you to divorce your spouse,  cheat on that exam, steal that shirt, talk behind your co-workers back, sleep with your friends wife, or if you are busy patting yourself on your back for not doing any of those, did God really call you to come and sit in your seat every Sunday and then leave? 

Isobel Kuhn, a missionary to China, once said: “Everywhere I go, I constantly meet with men and women who say to me ‘When I was young, I wanted to be a missionary but I got married instead, or my parents dissuaded me, or some such thing.’ No, it is not God who does not call; it is man who did not respond.”   

Matthew 19:16-22

Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

“Which ones?” the man inquired.

Jesus replied, “Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

The meaning of this story probably seems obvious. The rich guy loved his stuff more than he loved God, right?

Well, yes, that is part of it, but there is more.  I think it illustrates what I have been trying to say in post after post about selfishness.  Let me ask you this: If the young man did what Jesus said and sold his possessions and gave to the poor, would that mean he was not selfish?

I don’t think so.  If he had done as Jesus said, it would have meant that what he REALLY wanted was eternal life and a relationship with God, and he would have shown he was selfish enough to sell all he had to get what he wanted.  As it turns out, what he really wanted was his stuff.

But in the words of the infamous info-commercials 'But wait there's more'. I think this story demonstrates the importance of trust.  If what we really want is Jesus, there are things we will have to stop trusting in, and the only way we can do that is to trust in God — to abandon ourselves to Him. The young man in the story trusted in his riches and was not able to shift that trust to where it really should be– in God.

In your life, it doesn’t have to be money that you trust in. It could be your own cleverness, a relationship, it could be a person, a job, a hobby, and it could be any number of things.   It could be what we see as our own righteousness. Desiring and trusting in these things keeps us from the relationship with God that we really want; or perhaps if the truth were admitted to, you really don’t want that relationship more than you want your stuff.  They are barriers. They are walls between us and God.

There is no doubt that most American Christians are selfish and self-forgiving about that selfishness, Jesus however is not so accommodating.  Ask yourself this question, when it is your turn to kneel before God for judgment, do you believe you will find the young man in Matthew 19:16-22 in Heaven?  

We need to get selfish about wanting God. Selfish enough to abandon ourselves to Him.