Touched By Salvation

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. --1 Corinthians 15:53

So I have been thinking lately about this passage. I used to think that when we are raptured or resurrected that everything would be put back as it was when God first created the world. That we would be given bodies like Adam had before he sinned. But when I read this passage from 1 Corinthians 15, (which is becoming one of my favorite passages!) I am becoming convinced that what God has in mind for us is way better than what Adam had before the curse.

We will have incorruptible bodies after the resurrection. (v.52) That means we will have a body that is impervious to sin. We will have bodies that will no longer be subjected to temptation. WE WON’T EVEN BE TEMPTED TO SIN! We will have bodies that cannot be corrupted! That is way better than the body Adam had because his body was able to be corrupted by sin. (obviously!)

So why the difference? Why is it that after the resurrection we will be given bodies better than Adam’s? The answer can be summed up in one word, salvation. Church, once we have been touched by the salvation of Jesus we are set on a path that will one day lead us to complete freedom from sin or even the ability to commit sin! That is why we will be able to live in the very presence of God for all eternity! Adam and Eve only got to meet with God in the cool of the day – one moment each day. But we will live with Him eternally! Why because salvation is just that powerful!

Our Rescue!

So last night I went to bed early, but I woke up around midnight and turned on the TV. The second of the Chilean miners was being brought up out of the mine. Those men had been over 2,000 feet below the surface of the earth since early August. I couldn’t help but see the comparison between those miners and our own situation as Christians waiting for the day when we hear the blast of the trumpet and are rescued from our present life.

On that day many people who have been in the ground for a very long time will be brought to the surface and then immediately rocketed into the sky to come face to face with the rescuer. (This by the way is exactly what savior means!) Reunited with family and friends just as that miner. Also think of the change that is coming, their lives will never be the same. And the same goes for us! There will also be a change in living conditions. Just as those miners were forced to live in darkness only receiving occasional messages and help from above to encourage them to hold out until the day would come. We too are looking forward to living in a world that far surpasses where we are now!

But more than that, for almost 70 days these men have been living in captivity to their underground world. And while they were down there they spent those days preparing for their freedom from the ground. Believe it or not they worked 12 hour shifts to help clear debris away from the area where the hole would be drilled for their rescue. Church, every thing we are doing during our 70 or so years ought to be in preparation for the coming of our rescuer! The culmination of our earthly existence is for our ascension to our heavenly home.

Lastly, we no more belong on this earth than those miners belonged in that half mile deep hole in the ground! Someday soon a light will pierce through the clouds, the sky will open the blast of the trumpet will sound and we will be set free!

The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. --Psalms 90:10

The Power of Salvation

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18 NKJV)

We are starting a new series of messages, “The Kingdom of Heaven”. As I am thinking about heaven it occurs to me that while Heaven certainly is a literal place, it also is the representation of man’s restoration to God. When we get to Heaven we will be in the very presence of God without the barrier of evil that hinders us in the world today. So when we get there we will be able to relate to God in ways that are unimaginable to us now!

Heaven will put things back to way they were before sin interrupted our relationship with God. But there will be one difference between the way things were before man sinned and the Heaven that awaits us – SALVATION! The power of salvation is so great that after it is all said and done, things will actually be better! When we get to Heaven we will go to Paradise, not the Garden of Eden, we will always be in the very presence of God, not just in the “cool of the day” (Genesis 3). When we get to Heaven there will be the tree of life (Revelation 22), but not the tree of “Knowledge of Good and Evil”. God will be there, Jesus will be there, the Holy Spirit will be there, but Satan will not. Why? Because Jesus’ salvation is so powerful that the eternity originally planned for Adam and Eve in the garden is surpassed. The freedom we get from salvation also means eternal freedom. Freedom from the wickedness of sin that tempts us. The Garden Eden was not perfect, it contained temptation and a tempter, but heaven will be perfect! There will be nothing to entice us away from God!

The Devil meant to destroy us, to ruin God’s plan for eternal fellowship with Him, but salvation gave us an even better future and left Satan with nothing! You and I will go beyond the Garden of Eden to Heaven by the power of salvation!

Between Here & There

For just a moment I want to take you on a journey, a journey much like the one Dad embarked on Saturday August 14, 2010.

What if when you closed your eyes instead of darkness there was a great light? What if when you closed your eyes instead of the fogginess of a dream there was clarity and focus? What if when you closed your eyes instead of shadows there was revelation?

Imagine if you will, being inside a vessel that is slowly but surely shutting itself down. Parts of this vessel no longer operate; they don’t function as they had before. You just have snippets of awareness as you start to leave this vessel in which you have traveled for 81 years. There are your loved ones around you as you awake and then sleep and then awake again. Light, darkness, light again for a brief time.

You ask yourself if you’re dreaming. It may be hard to know what is real and what is not. This happens to you for some time, it is an experience that you have never had before, yet somehow seems familiar. You awaken and hear someone praying and then a brief flash of awareness as you hear someone say the name of Jesus. As you open your eyes you see the people you love and then back to the dream. And then there is something that draws your attention far off in the distance. At first you’re not sure, but then you recognize that someone is calling your name. A voice that you can’t place at first, but then you know that you have often heard it before. You have heard it in the middle of the night, when you couldn’t sleep, you heard it speaking to you when you prayed, and you’ve heard it give you comfort, guidance, and even understanding. You still can’t see who it is that is calling you; they are just too far away.

But then there He is, is it really? Am I dreaming again? But now the voices and prayers of your loved ones have slowly faded, and now all you hear is the voice of the Master calling your name.

I also wonder if somewhere in heaven an angel taps my mother on the shoulder – come follow me I want you to see something…Imagine Dad walking into the gates of heaven with multitudes waiting for his arrival.

You know we can never know for certain what Dad experienced on that day but I do know this. For him that was the greatest moment ever for him as he crossed from this life to his eternal reward.

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!