Category: The Church

For August 8, 2021
Crucified with Christ may seem odd or masochistic, but it is not. It is the victorious, Spirit-filled life that allows God’s people to live free from the bondage of sin, guilt, shame, and unforgiveness through His blood,

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 (Galatians 2:20 AKJV).

As members of His universal church, or the Body of Christ, we have experienced God’s love and forgiveness through Christ so that we can share it with others. In this way, we perform the “ministry of reconciliation” outlined in 2 Corinthians 5:18. God reconciled us to Himself through Christ and empowers us to reconcile with others. Here, the three-step process outlined in Matthew 18:15-17 can serve as our guide:

1. 1. Contact the offended person(s) for reconciliation.
   2. Use a mediator or mediators to help clarify the issue(s) to everyone’s understanding.
   3. Utilize appropriate local church leadership (i.e., pastors, deacons, elders, etc.), who are led by the Spirit to resolve the matter through the Word of God and prayer.¹

Performing the ministry of reconciliation while taking heed to forgive (and forget) our past blunders will help us participate in a lifelong process of spiritual wholeness. This process will allow us to express more of the Kingdom Characteristics our Lord Jesus Christ outlined in Matthew 5:3-16.

By our humility, or being poor in spirit, toward Jesus Christ, we possess the Kingdom. This is when our repentance (mourn) results in God’s eternal consolation through His forgiveness of our sin.

With restrained human capacities under control (meek) we inherit a world where God reigns forever and satisfies our yearnings as we hunger and thirst for righteousness.

We are a people who show pity or mercy because we are the benefactors of His mercy. Now more than ever, we need to celebrate mercy to contrast the vengeance that is so widely practiced. Mercy is the noble, Spirit-driven capacity to demonstrate grace and forgiveness towards our offender, who is guilty of wrongdoing.

The Spirit  gives us pure hearts, which enable us to be peacemakers so that others can identify us as the children of God who abide in Him and will share in His majesty and splendor very soon.

The Lord Himself brings us His comfort when the world reviles and persecutes us or criticizes and mistreats us because we belong to Him. Even in the worst of circumstances, we can rejoice and be exceedingly glad because the rewards are great that await us in the Kingdom of Heaven.

In addition, we are the “salt of the earth,” and “the light of the world” as the Spirit  radiates the Fruit of the Spirit from within us to season and preserve those around us as His moral, spiritual instruments of grace and love.

Fruit of the Spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control with love as the centerpiece. Here, we are affable, courteous, and gracious as our joy yields a Spirit-suppled delight from our deeply fulfilling relationship with the Spirit , in whom we have all we need for this life and the next.

We create and preserve peace with others as Jesus, the Prince of Peace works through us. We are gentle as we impart goodness into the lives of those we encounter around us. Others witness our faith by our reliable dealings with people, as we express meekness or humble submission to the Lord’s will in everything. With temperance, we show self-control when the old nature craves attention as we continue to persevere in all things through long-suffering.

Christ is our ultimate example of righteousness. Now, we have taken the charge to be His living examples as the Spirit empowers right living in us and through us. Psalm 139:14 tells us we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” by God, and it would benefit us greatly to see ourselves from His perspective as the unique and significant parts of His wonderful master plan.

We are not mistakes or afterthoughts because God created us to fulfill His perfect, eternal design. Each day features a new opportunity for the Lord to “reset” our lives and circumstances to accommodate His perfect will for us:

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” (Lamentations 3:22-24 NLT)

Confident that our forgiving, omnipotent, loving and faithful God will provide His absolute best for us in every situation. Jesus taught that it will be our love that gives substance to our Christian witness and makes it an attractive alternative to a dying world, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35 NIV). We can emulate this perfect love by forgiving intentional and unintentional wrongdoings, showing mercy instead of judgment, and extending goodwill toward others in need.

Being crucified in Christ allows us to live rightly in the eyes of God and humanity. In God’s eyes, we are His children and can experience and express His glory. To humanity, we are the brilliant reflections of God’s practical and tangible love, which proves we belong to His Son, Jesus Christ.

We should never think it strange to be united in Christ. For only then can our loving, Eternal King transform us into receptacles of His grace and mercy to others around us daily. Won’t you live for Him completely today?

What a Wonderful Savior!

For August 1, 2021
Guilt and shame are powerful weapons the Enemy (Satan) Satan uses to manipulate our past memories to perpetuate our feelings of insecurity. As a result, many of us yet fall prey to the lie that we can never be forgiven and remark, “God won’t forgive me…You don’t know who I am or what I’ve done!”

We cannot change our dysfunctional past; what we’ve done has been done, and what others have done to us, can’t be undone. We must let go of the caustic spiritual, emotional, and psychological baggage, and we need to accept and embrace our loving God along with the new identity He gives us in Jesus Christ by faith,

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:16-18 NIV).

Unfortunately, many of us are yet imprisoned by our intense feelings of being beyond all hope and help because of our unfortunate past. Tragically, we can waste precious, non-recoverable time distancing ourselves from others; feeling distressed about not being forgiven, accepted, and embraced because of our past behavior.

Jesus’ perfect sacrifice covers our sin as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), who is fully capable to save “to the uttermost” all who come to God by Him, seeing He lives forever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). However, forgiveness of sin alone leaves us deficient before our holy God. His righteousness must be satisfied also,

If God merely declared us to be forgiven from our sins, that would not solve our problems entirely, for it would only make us morally neutral before God. Such a movement is not enough to earn us favor with God. We must rather move from a point of moral neutrality to a point of having a positive righteousness before God, the righteousness of a life of perfect obedience to him.²

We have the ability to make two choices in this life. Either we can accept the Lord’s gift of forgiveness and receive its blessings, or we can reject it and become subject to God’s fierce wrath. Accepting the Lord’s gracious gift involves our repentance or to turn from our sin and turn to God by faith in Christ. Once we do, God forgives our sin and restores our fellowship with Him instantly,

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God (John 1:12-13 NIV).

Through the blood of Jesus Christ, we can approach God expecting His acceptance as He exchanges Jesus’ perfect life for our imperfect one. Now when He looks at us, He no longer sees vile sinners. He sees the “clean hands and the pure heart” of His Son, Jesus Christ the Righteous One. We are now suitable for His eternal fellowship.

Much like condemned criminals, we stand before the Righteous Judge, as guilty condemned, helpless, and hopeless because of our nature and our sins. Yet, His Son intercedes by assuming our sin, guilt, and penalty, and we receive His innocence, righteousness, and glory,

The death penalty that Christ endured holds good for the believer, through his identification with Christ in His death; having been crucified as to his unregenerate nature, and justified from sin, he walks in newness of life in Christ.³

Instead of sentencing us to death, the Judge releases us with a new destiny. Now, with no troubling past, we are all the more aware that we matter to God. This is accomplished because tells us that Jesus Christ possesses all power in Heaven and in earth; including all power in Heaven and earth to forgive our sins. The Greek word used for forgive is aphiemi (Strong-G863), which means to let go, send away, to cancel, or to pardon.⁴

In Christ, our sin nature is canceled, let go, sent away, pardoned, and forgotten forever. In fact, our sins no longer define us. Instead, God defines us by His great salvation,

Through his life, death, resurrection, and exaltation, come deliverance from the guilt and power of sin and the gift of new life through the indwelling Holy Spirit. So the believer is saved by Christ’s work on the cross (Acts 4:12); he is being saved now by the work of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier (Philippians 2:12) and he looks forward to completed salvation in the life of the age to come (1 Thessalonians 5:9, 1 Peter 1:5).⁵

It is difficult for humans to forgive and forget, since we tend to demand retribution or keep mental and emotional records of wrongs when other people have offended us.

But this is not the case with God when we come to Christ. Although our fallen nature and sin offends Him far more than we could ever offend another person (we’ve disobeyed or ignored His perfect righteousness for us) yet, He keeps no record of our past. Neither does He impose a probation period until we “earn” His good graces—because the blood of Jesus washes all of our sins away. As Psalm 103:12 tells us, He has removed our sins as far as the east is separated from the west.

God looks beyond our past to extend His mercy to us—a people in need of restoration. Much like in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), our Father no longer sees us as “dead and lost.” He sees us as “alive and found.”

Prompted by His great love, God restores us to full access to His Kingdom without restriction. In 1 John 4:10, love is defined by how God loved us enough to send His Son to be the payment for our sin. The Lord also directs our steps and takes special delight in every detail of our lives.

Liberated from our sinful past, our guilt and shame no longer define or confine us. Because nothing can separate us from God, nor can anyone or anything make us guilty before God,

If God is for us, who can ever be against us?…Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself…Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?…No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31, 33-35, 37-39 NLT).

Guilt and shame should never bind us again. For in Christ, our past is forgiven and forgotten forever. It is ironic how God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows those “secret” sins few people if any know about. Yet He is willing to love, accept, treasure, value, and forgive us forever. Won’t you give your life to the Lord today and experience the deep and lasting freedom only He can give us?

What a Wonderful Savior!

For July 11, 2021
Heaven is the eternal place of perfection where there is no selfishness, depression, doubt, fear, worry, or stress because God is present in His full glory and holiness. Each moment forever, we will experience His gentle, loving presence, without the anxieties and fears associated with our sin-scarred earthly existence,

God can be known in personal experience. A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.⁹

Impossible world, you say? Not really. Such how it was after God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden with everything they could ever want or need forever. Let’s explore the actions of the loving Creator Genesis according to 1:1 (AKJV), “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

This foundational passage of Scripture does not defend the existence of God. It merely presents a personal God, who is a loving, caring Creator and Sustainer of everything that has or will ever exist. Words cannot describe the vastness of God adequately, although one writer offers this illustration,

[Our  Lord God is the] Good Being, a fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence towards his creatures. The Being whose purposes and actions spring from Himself, without foreign motive or influence: he who is absolute in dominion; the most pure, the most simple, and most spiritual of all essences; infinitely benevolent, beneficent, true, and holy: the cause of all being, the upholder of all things; infinitely happy, because infinitely perfect; and eternally self-sufficient, needing nothing that he has made: illimitable in His immensity, inconceivable in His mode of existence, and indescribable in His essence; known fully only to Himself, because an infinite mind can be fully apprehended only by itself. In a word, a Being who, from His infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from His infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind.¹⁰

Could not such a Being create all that exists today? Could He not also preserve and sustain it? God continues to do all these things and more as Nehemiah 9:6 (NLT) tells us,

You alone are the Lord. You made the skies and the heavens and all the stars. You made the earth and the seas and everything in them. You preserve them all, and the angels of heaven worship you.

Instead of expressing Himself as an impersonal, ambiguous force to be reckoned with, the Lord chooses to fellowship with the human species—the pinnacle of His creation. He fixed our incomparable destiny forever in the Garden of Eden as we thrived in His loving, holy presence as He supplied our spiritual, physical, emotional, and psychological needs abundantly.

Our Lord has designated us as humans to be separate and distinct; creating us “in His image and likeness.” As such, we can have loving, joyful, fulfilling, fellowship with Him forever. Genesis 1:26-27 (NLT) indicates,

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Our creation was most distinctive,

It is clear that man, as God made him, was distinctly different from the animals already created. He stood on a much higher plateau, for God created him to be immortal, and made him a special image of His own eternity. Man was a creature with whom His maker could visit and have fellowship and communion. On the other hand, the Lord could expect man to answer him and be responsible to him. Man was constituted to have the privilege of choice, even to the point of disobeying his Creator. He was to be God’s responsible representative and steward on the earth, to work out his Creator’s will and fulfill the divine purpose.¹¹

Through His creation, we see God’s majesty and design to ensure our happiness and well-being in the most intricate detail. Thus, as Genesis 1:31 tells us, God’s creation is “very good!”

Just think! The entire universe, with its galaxies, solar system, and our earth, including everything in the sky, underwater, and on land, was not created for eternal fellowship with God. Only you and I were created to fulfill this uniquely wonderful purpose, and through our faith in Jesus Christ, can we achieve our full potential as forgiven and free Citizens of His eternal Kingdom. Won’t you trust in Christ for salvation and eternal fellowship with God today?

What a Wonderful Savior!

For July 4, 2021
The evening Jesus Christ spent with His Disciples just before His crucifixion has always fascinated me, as I wonder what our Lord was thinking and feeling. There is a commentary on our Lord’s contemplation in Romans that captivates me (my emphasis),

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But, God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:6-8 NIV).

The first Adam’s disobedience introduced sin into God’s perfect world, which resulted in our spiritual and physical deaths. Our spiritual death or sin nature, which separates us from God forever, happened instantaneously. But physical death came gradually—as we age and die.

In essence, God created us to be holy (sinless), and to live forever in His perfect world. But because of Adam’s disobedience, our world is full of sin, sadness, anxiety, fear, pain, disease, trouble, and death. Thus as the Bible teaches, all of us will sin, and all of us will die. (Romans 3:23, 5:14, 6:23)

In addition, we are sinners by nature. Thus, all of our “good deeds” are corrupt and sin-polluted. A splendid illustration would be how when men wore white dress shirts and carrying a fountain pen in the shirt breast pocket was a common practice. Often, the ink pen leaked, and the slightest ink spot on the white shirt ruined the shirt—completely!

As the ink spot polluted the shirt, sin has polluted our righteousness. On our best day, we are still worthless before a holy God (who has never been polluted), and our self-righteousness and pride become filthy rags before His righteousness,

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind (Isaiah 64:6 NLT).

However, this is not the case with Jesus Christ. He was without sin and fully aware His death would redeem all fallen humanity from sin and restore us to a loving, eternal fellowship with God,

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:18-19 NKJV).

It is truly unbelievable how Jesus freely chose to offer Himself to redeem the entire world; whether Jew, Gentile, rich, poor, believer or non-believer. All of us can vicariously receive the full benefit of His perfect sacrifice—without preference or distinction. No longer can Satan, sin, and death overpower us and bind us. Our faith in His perfect, work determines our righteousness (or lack thereof) before our Heavenly Father.

Ultimately, Jesus chose to redeem those who love Him, those who hate Him, those who believe in Him, and those who do not believe in Him. This idea of “equal atonement” is difficult for the modern mind to capture fully. Not concerning Christ’s saving efficacy as His sacrifice remediates all our sins forever.

However, His commitment to give Himself freely and willingly for every man, woman, boy, and girl—past, present, and future—so comprehensively, is difficult to fathom. Such an action is not a normal human response, especially toward someone we feel is “less desirable.”

Sacrificing for a loved one is conceivable when our love for them or our desire to protect them motivates us. However, choosing to sacrifice our lives for an enemy or someone who dislikes us is extremely hard to envision.

History has shown there may be certain situations where we would risk life and limb for someone we might not necessarily care for. During the Second World War, for example, cultural issues fostered adversarial relationships that fragmented our troops occasionally. Although these valiant men and women may have been divided, they proved themselves more than willing to sacrifice for their adversary’s greater good by fighting and dying to spare the world from the global tyranny of the Axis powers.

Fast-forward eighty years to our current global pandemic. We have replaced our noble altruism with a cold-hearted malevolence as we maliciously engage in “germ warfare” by unleashing a virus that targets innocent victims with underlying health issues around the world. Then, we withhold vital technologies and politicize medical remedies that can prevent and treat illness and improve our overall health and safety, and we hoard or resell safety supplies at inflated prices and expose those who are vulnerable with premorbidities to even more peril.

I am saddened by the barbarism plaguing human hearts today. Truly, the Enemy is at work in the callous and malicious disregard for human dignity witnessed in the indiscriminate killing of the unborn and helpless, the calculated euthanization of the weak and aged, and the exploitation, abuse, trafficking, oppression, and violence perpetrated against all those who fall between these two extremes. Ultimately, we have reduced precious, God-given lives to mere dollars and cents.

People will “sell their souls” for anything. Our heartlessness is most unfortunate because technology, education, politics, military, and industry do not make our country great. It is our faith in God, and the Judeo-Christian values we embrace and uphold, as the Scriptures attest, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34 NKJV).

Oh, what sorrow and despair await those of us who insist “evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter” (Isaiah 5:20 NLT). A civilized people must exercise vigilance and due diligence to promote and secure the moral and spiritual well-being of our fellow countrymen and women,

The freedom of God is exercised and illustrated in His government of His moral creatures. It has pleased God to create intelligences possessed of moral freedom and to make their ultimate destiny contingent upon the right use of their freedom.¹²

As we celebrate our Nation’s Birth, let us also remember that God has endowed us with the sacred trust to preserve civility, decency, and goodwill for people with whom we work, serve, and live. Most importantly, let us never forget that it is only through our faith in Jesus Christ, our Sinless Savior that we can have eternal liberty and freedom—from sin and death. Won’t you trust in Him today?

What a Wonderful Savior!