Category: Christian Living

August 26, 2019
At the onset of His earthly ministry, Jesus Christ announced that He could resolve our sin problem with His sinless life and precious blood when He declared: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15 (KJV)

His was the greatest proclamation in history because it heralded a New Testament age for all people everywhere. Now we can have our sins forgiven, experience a complete, internal, spiritual transformation, and we can have our need for an intimate, eternal fellowship with God satisfied as well, as Hebrews 9:11-12 (KJV) teaches:

But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

This new period in history also revoked all claims of neutrality toward God. In John 8:24, Jesus warned that those who did not believe in Him would die in their sins. Either we can choose to receive His gift of abundant life on earth and eternal life in Heaven, or we can reject it and face an empty, unfulfilled life on earth along with a tormented eternity in Hell as a result.

Of Jesus’ Twelve Disciples, Judas was the one who was so preoccupied with obtaining a worldly kingdom that he refused to trust in the Lord and forever changed his identity from Disciple to traitor with a single kiss. Like many people today, the allure of “thirty pieces of silver” was too much to resist, and without Christ as redeemer, eternal separation from God in Hell awaited him.

Our Lord knew that Judas was a godless degenerate, yet He chose him to be one of His Disciples. Even more amazing was how the Lord loved him and gave him every opportunity to repent. For three years, the Lord revealed His redemptive plan to Judas through His moral and spiritual excellence, His astonishing miracles, and His eternal truths like those in Matthew 7:13–14 (KJV).

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Although tragic, Judas’ example provides hope for everyone everywhere, especially those who feel that God has forgotten them or that they are beyond redemption. In Judas, we see how patient, gracious, and loving Jesus is, as He extends himself to the worst of us freely and willingly. Jesus gives rest to those who labor under heavy loads, with a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. What a wonderful savior!

Simon, another Disciple, recognized and understood the importance of having a sincere, penitent, and reverent faith in Jesus Christ. (Such a faith yields complete inner spiritual transformation, reconciliation to God, along with the privilege to share eternal blessing and glory with God in Heaven.)

When the Lord Jesus saw this impetuous yet rock-solid leader, He changed his name to Peter (Greek: petros, meaning “rock”). This characteristic was evident during the unfolding of Jesus’ warning to Peter that Satan desired to sift him as wheat in Luke 22:31-32.

Because although he denied his Lord three times, he repented, was restored, and later became the leader of the apostles, who fed his Lord’s precious sheep. Under his leadership, the New Testament church flourished during its infancy. Later, Peter encapsulates our Christian mission and message in 2 Peter 1:5–8 (KJV):

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity [love]. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated these eight moral and spiritual attributes, and we as His followers do so today. In this way, we fulfill His prophecy that we are not of the world and show that we are the recipients of God’s amazing grace and love as well.¹

We Believers are the living examples of His good news (Gospel), by “living out” the undeniable fact that God can transform vile sinners into His holy people—from the inside out, even today.  Forever grateful, we are humbled by what our Lord Jesus Christ did on our behalf, which we were unwilling and incapable of doing for ourselves.

Now as the salt of the earth, we can represent Him around the world in a manner that reflects His noble character. The power of Satan, the cares of this world, and our own inadequate strength no longer debilitate us, as we operate under His unfaltering might. Should we try to be anything less, and live like the world, we become worthless, like tasteless salt.

We grow to be more like Christ and honor Him in everything we say, think, and do. Our new Spirit-driven life is born out of a sincere faith that transforms us while providing us with the clean hands and pure hearts that God requires.

Are we perfect? Absolutely not, but God is! Moreover, He provides us with all the spiritual resources we need to live for Christ nobly in this life while preparing us for the glorious Heaven awaiting us in the next life. In this way, we affirm the sentiments of Galatians 2:20 (KJV):

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Let us give all diligence to follow this wonderful legacy today!

 

August 10, 2019
It is unfortunate how some people view physical aging as a curse and will make every attempt to recapture their youth by trying to out-do people half their age. To the casual observer, wearing younger fashions, buying sportier cars, and engaging in social activities targeted to younger audiences are expensive and futile attempts to prove something.

What can we say about these attempts to recapture the past and achieve an impossible dream? Are they coping mechanisms to address the guilt, shame or regret of past failures and missed opportunities? Or are they attempts to relive the nostalgia of our pleasant past? One can never be sure.

Aging is not a curse, and grey hair is a badge of honor worn by aged, experienced men and women who exhibit a stellar lifestyle that challenges and inspires us to excellence—long after they have passed away from the earth.

Without a faith-based, personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we humans are certain to live defeated, sin-enslaved lives—whether young or old. This is as Proverbs 16:31 (NLT) teaches: Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained by living a godly life.

Psalm 8:5 tells how God designed us a little lower than the angels; that we are crowned with His glory and honor with all things under our feet. Truly, God has given us an amazing pedigree that is up to us to accept and fulfill.

Unlike other created beings, we humans can choose to live noble lives that reflect our Creator’s dignity and to affect positive changes in others around us. Thus, we cannot be mistakes or afterthoughts because we are special and unique creations who fulfill the Lord’s perfect, eternal design.

God created us—complex creatures who function according to His purpose: to honor Him always!

Our minds control our cognitive and anatomical functions. We use them for proper thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and memories. Our bodies are His instruments that perform tangible and meaningful acts that reveal His love and goodness in the world.

The Lord did not create us to be the Enemy’s weapons of death and destruction. The Enemy’s mission is to confuse and distort the Lord’s perfect plan by convincing us that our internal and external differences “prove” we are flawed and worthless. Many of us believe we are ugly and that we won’t amount to anything. Too many of us have accepted this fallacy and believe we will do nothing but fail in this life.

Nevertheless, Psalm 139:14 reads: Thank you [Lord] for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. We are God’s crowning achievement of creation and salvation. As such, we are responsible for living out the noble plan He has designed specifically for each of us before we were born—to the best of our ability.

Much like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, God created us special and uniquely different so that when assembled, we reveal His beautiful portrait of love, redemption, and glory.

August 3, 2019
In Matthew 5:13-16 (KJV), the Lord Jesus Christ taught His followers:

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.

Jesus establishes a new spiritual norm for appropriate earthly conduct that can change the world. This “Kingdom Living” occurs when normal, everyday human lives are dramatically changed as they encounter the Living Christ personally.

Such lives become Christ-centered and Spirit-controlled to the extent that we think, speak, and act in ways that honor the Lord Jesus Christ as His new creations. In other words, the Holy Spirit governs our thoughts, words, and actions, so that we grow morally and spiritually in our commitment to prayer, reading His Word (Bible), attending regular worship, and serving others.

We acquire this new life by placing our faith in the Lord’s death and resurrection to reconcile us to God instead of our futile self-righteousness. We submit to His will while clinging tenaciously to Him for our every need. Now, the power of Satan, the cares of this world, and our own inadequate strength no longer debilitate us as we operate under His unfaltering might.

Our desire is to know the Lord better and become more like him daily. The Lord helps us grow to be more like Him each day and gives us the ability to honor Him in everything we say, think, and do. In other words, we “grow up” morally and spiritually. Our new lives, like savory salt, will not lose its zest, and like bright lamps, we illuminate our surroundings magnificently.

We become active and willing participants who join him in this operation. Here, we are not working to achieve salvation. Instead, we deliberately make godly, moral choices, and we intentionally perform selfless, noble acts because we are saved already.

Kingdom Living is consistent with the Lord’s will that no one should perish but that we all become the benefactors of His grace and love as John 1:12–13 (KJV) reads:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons [and daughters] of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man [or woman], but of God.

This New Life in Christ is something that all His followers share in common. This Christian Heritage allows us to live out the truths of Galatians 2:20 (KJV):

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Kingdom Living also moves beyond our interaction with God to include our interactions with others as we function in ways that are not detrimental to their health, welfare, or safety regardless of race, gender, culture, social status, or political affiliation.

We are the Lord’s “salt” and “light” uniquely suited to represent Him. Our life’s mission as His Ambassadors is always to model His righteousness and to transform this sin-contaminated, sin-darkened world one person at a time. Our eyes remain focused on Jesus Christ and Him crucified while our feet follow His “straight and narrow path” consistently.² Should we try to be anything else, we become utterly and absolutely worthless.

We are not perfect, only Christ was. Yet we strive for perfection in Him daily so that we can show that it is possible to practice an authentic, Christ-entered, Spirit-controlled life.

Without hesitation, we love and serve the Lord and others in need and become compelling witnesses that render timely responses to a world seeking answers to many complex issues and questions.

The Lord wants us to experience His abundant and everlasting new life so that we can emulate His moral and spiritual excellence consistently.

Can normal everyday people change the world? Yes we can—as salt and light!

 

For June 29, 2019
With the cross at Calvary looming—just a few hours away—our Lord Jesus Christ utilized His last few moments encouraging His Disciples through heart-warming  teachings essential to their very survival. Soon Jesus would leave His comrades; men who co-labored with Him, accompanying Him during His three-year ministry, which was now coming to a close.

To better prepare them for His imminent departure, He uses powerful symbolism to comfort and reassure them (and us today) during His absence:

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5 (NLT)

Redeeming Christian faith happens the moment we surrender our hearts and lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. At that precise moment:

1. 1. 1. God forgives our sin, through faith in Jesus Christ, and His works—alone,
      2. God grants us permission to have fellowship with Him forever,
      3. God’s Holy Spirit indwells us; becoming the “down payment” to give us power to live right while also securing our eternal destination: Heaven,
      4. God’s Holy Spirit transforms our “sin-deadened” spiritual nature; bringing it “to life,” and
      5. God makes us “new creatures;” mandated and equipped to produce fruit (good works) that honor Him.

Jesus died on Calvary’s cross, but He rose from the dead. By doing so, He triumphed over sin, death, and the grave. We who believe in Him are assured of victory over sin, death, and the grave as well.

In addition, we have the power to emulate His morally and spiritually impeccable lifestyle. Here, we express the Fruit of the Spirit outlined in Galatians 5:22-23 along with the Armor of God featured in Ephesians 6:10-18 to live in ways that enhance the health, welfare, safety, well-being of others; treating them with the honor, dignity, and respect they deserve regardless of race, class, gender, culture, and/or political affiliation.

Abiding in Christ also makes us neither barren nor unfruitful because we strive to achieve His moral and spiritual perfection. Not in our strength alone, we surrender to the Holy Spirit daily until Christ-likeness (or authentic living) becomes as natural as breathing.³

In this life, we will not achieve perfection. Nevertheless, as Philippians 3:13–14 teaches, we will grow to forget our past while pursuing those things before us. We press toward the goal for the prize of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lord, who is triumphant in all things, assures us peaceful lives as we obediently surrender while awaiting His glorious return:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33 (KJV)

Ultimately, as we abide in Christ, we can turn from sin, turn to God, and truly live out a noble Christian witness consistently. Then, we not only honor our Lord, but we can change the world around us, one person at a time.

 

For June 1, 2019
God created us in His image and likeness. As such, we are responsible to live a life that reflects His majesty—before Him and the world, just as our Lord Jesus taught:

A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. And I tell you this, you must give an account on judgment day for every idle word you speak. The words you say will either acquit you or condemn you. Matthew 12:33-37 (NLT)

We have a tremendous responsibility to tell our story—right! No one can tell our story but us. For only we can tell a morally noble and ethically courageous story through fruitful and productive lifestyles that model His character and conduct. Such stories honor the Lord and enhance the overall human condition.

A zest for living while celebrating the “little things;” remaining “in the moment;” visionary in the sense of considering the welfare of the next generation; engaging in production, enterprise, personal and professional accomplishments are ways we tell the story right.

Some would argue that improving our thinking enables us to tell the story right. Unfortunately however, human thoughts—subject to our fallen human condition—are corrupted by sin and in desperate need of purging:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Ephesians 2:1-3 (NIV)

Jesus Christ allows us to experience total transformation through the Born Again experience:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:4-10 (NIV)

The right story encompasses Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection, and the newness of life emerging from the love, redemption, and acceptance God provides. Only He has the power to make us new creatures on the inside, which allows us to function at our full potential on the outside.

When we have this intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ that transforms the heart, His Spirit produces improved behavior, which leaves an indelible witness that follows us beyond the grave as Revelation 14:13 (NIV) teaches: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

This substantive internal change allows us to disclose His virtue through morally and spiritually distinct lives; lives full of spiritual vitality, love and purpose; lives of peace and joy; lives that honor the Lord and better the human condition of other people living around us.

We reflect His purity of mind and heart where altruism compels us to help others by seeking their wellbeing just as 1 Corinthians 10:24 (NLT) declares: “Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others.”

We are always cognizant of setting an example of noble and spiritual purity before the world; encouraging and inspiring others into right living as examples of God’s holiness, majesty, and purity. Ultimately, we become His reflections of justice showing mercy, kindness, forgiveness, and other noble virtues that better our overall human condition.

Let us tell our story…But tell it right!