Failure is always obvious, while success is often obscure

So here is something I have been thinking about lately…it seems that whenever there is something negative that happens it gets a lot more attention than the good. I have also noticed that we tend to listen to negative people more than those who are positive. We even criticize positive people by saying things like “they have their head in the clouds”, while praising the negative people by saying that they are being realistic. Really? Is that really true? That the positive person is the one having trouble with the truth, while the negative person is more honest in their assessment. Well you can call me naive if you want but I think I am going to start believing the positive reports and ideas. What if honesty and truth can co-exist with a positive attitude?

If something is broken and needs to be fixed it takes a positive person to believe and see a way to repair what is broken. The negative person will just believe nothing can be done and quit. By the way, it is easier and takes much less work to be negative, because negative people never contribute to the work, they just stand back and tell us that it can’t be done. At the end of the day the negative person walks away with their complaints and the positive walks away with accomplishment!

Failure is always obvious, while success is often obscure. I have never had to convince anyone of failure within the church, but I spend a great deal time having to defend, and prove success!

I believe God is doing amazing things in the Church or do I have my head in the clouds? The weather is fine up here!

Scary Stuff

So how do you tell someone that if they don’t get saved now before the rapture that the only way to get to heaven afterwards is to be beheaded and not sound scary?

I have to tell you I like the Sunday messages where I get to tell you guys about all the wonderful things about God. But every once in a while we need to be reminded that we have a choice: We will either face Jesus as a loving and caring savior or a righteous and just judge. And I believe that one of my jobs as pastor is to see to it that you get to heaven and so from time to time we need to have a talk about the consequences of allowing the world to crowd out what the Spirit is trying to do through us. You see the truth is there are a lot of people who are trying to find salvation through a different means than the one God created for us.

I don’t want to die and go to hell! I don’t want Jesus to return and be left behind! I have had this fear ever since I was a child. So I decided a long time ago to learn and study everything I could about Bible prophecy. I will be honest some of it is scary, but the scary stuff won’t happen to believers. If we are saved we will miss all of that. The more I learn and the more I study about the last days, the more I am comforted in the knowledge that I am going to go to heaven. And that is what I want for you, I want you to be secure in the knowledge that God has provided you with everything you need so that should you die or should Jesus come today, you will go to heaven.

For us who are be lievers, the study of the last days will be a source of comfort! For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. THEREFORE COMFORT ONE ANOTHER WITH THESE WORDS. --1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

You see, that isn’t so scary!

Christian Liberty

So last night in teaching the part of scripture where Paul is talking about the subject of eating meat offered to idols, I was surprised to learn how unfamiliar we are with the concept of liberty as believers. I even asked the question, “has anyone taught this to you before?” and the answer was no. (Actually the answer should have been yes because I taught Romans chapters 7 and 8 just last year. Maybe it wasn’t all that memorable!) So I want to use this page to address the issue. We need to know that as Christians we have been given the gift of liberty!

Here is the problem – we who have been saved a long time too easily forget that Christianity is not about following the rules it is all about establishing a relationship with God. After all that is why God created Adam and Eve, He wanted to establish a relationship or even better, a friendship with us, but we chose to reject that friendship. Salvation is all about putting us back into friendship with God! The reason for the rules was to give us the chance to either choose or reject God as our friend. God doesn’t want us to be coerced into being His friend. But far too often the church has reduced the Christian life as following the regulations God has given us. But here is something I want you to think about: as I begin to truly love God there is less need for the laws. The more I love God following His rules just becomes a part of who I am.

Just like being raised by my parents, they taught me how to be a good, safe, and courteous man by giving me rules when I was a child. But at some point they realized that I no longer needed their direction because I had become the kind of person they had raised me to be. (Just a disclaimer, my Dad might not really want to take credit for the kind of person I have become, nevertheless, I’m giving it to him, whether he likes it or not, because I am an adult and I am no longer afraid that he will ground me.) In other words, they no longer punish me for not obeying their rules, because I just instinctively live within them. So really at some point if I am growing as a Christian, God gets to start treating me as an adult. And then I get to live in the liberty that God has given me from the law.

Here is the key – I don’t live according to the laws, but according to the Spirit. What is the difference? Living according to the Spirit means I am living in relationship with God. The law is inanimate, while the Spirit is the person of God. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1 NKJV)

The reason this is so important is that we Christians need to do a better job at sharing our faith, because if we keep thinking that Christianity is about following the rules two things will happen, no one will want to be a Christian, why would anyone choose bondage? And secondly, new believers will become frustrated and walk away from the faith. Christianity is about relating and interacting with the Spirit and the Church is about relating and interacting with God’s people. God is a relational God and He wants us in community with Him and each other. Through this we have true liberty!

I will be adding more thoughts about this in coming days!