Friday, March 29, 2013
Who Am I? (Good Friday)
The cross is startling, repulsive, essential, holy, revealing. The passion scene of our Christ revealed many different elements of sin, selfishness, humility that can exist within the human heart. The brutal treatment of Christ revealed the putrid reality of sin that ravages mankind. In the scene around the cross we see the betrayer in Judas. How tragic that Judas never found his way to the foot of the cross, but destroyed himself in the final act of selfishness. How tragic that he was so close to Jesus for those years, and yet so far away. We see Peter who is the great denier. Bold and brash, but ultimately humiliated and isolated. Praise God he came to the foot of the cross in repentance and the Pentecostal fullness propelled him forward to a life of great fruitfulness in Christ's name. Coming to the cross there is one more person we need to see. The community called her a 'sinful woman'. Whatever all that means, her reputation reflected a lifestyle that was less than exemplary. But she came to Christ, humble, quiet, broken, thankful, apparently knowing something about Jesus that Judas and Peter still didn't grasp. Broken and spilled out has become the description of her worship. She worshiped. She was filled with awe and wonder of this Jesus who had loved her like she had never been loved. Sacrifice, extraordinary, reckless, totally oblivious to what anyone else was thinking, she did what the Lord said was 'beautiful.' A small picture of the 'beautiful' act that Christ exemplified with His perfect sacrifice. Who am I at this Easter season? The Father is seeking worshipers. Do I know what the 'sinful woman' knew about Jesus?
Monday, March 25, 2013
Passion Week Passion
The call of Christ is to be passionate about following Him. Christ was passionate about following the will of the Father. The bottom line for us as followers of Christ is this...we must be madly, passionately in love with Jesus Christ. The intimacy, depth of this relationship must be the fuel in the fire that presses us forward each day. This compulsion is from within. God loves us and His love in us fuels a fire of devotion and passion that compels us to want to walk in truth, obedience, holiness. His love compels us (2 Cor. 5:14) to live a life worthy of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Jesus said, 'if you love me you will keep my commandments (Jn.15:14).' We are not driven by fear of punishment or eternal damnation. We are not driven by the law. We are driven from within out of the new heart given to us when we trusted Christ. It is a heart overflowing with love for the One who loved us and gave Himself for us (Galatians 2:20). The Spirit filled life is the life of love enthroned with the human heart. This love removes fear and brings the power to pursue Christ on a daily basis with a passion and purity that brings a fulfillment the world can never provide or produce. He has written His law on our hearts, it is the law of holy love.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Radiant Wonder
Radiant Wonder is a phrase A. W. Tozer uses in the introduction to his classic, "The Pursuit of God." He states it is a wonder that should accompany faith in Christ but is generally missing in the church today. That lack is really a loss of Christ's manifest presence. (Ravi Zacharias has an excellent book on the same topic, "Recapture the Wonder)." The loss of wonder can be traced to man becoming enamored with himself. How distressing an boring when the measure of greatness is how much money, what office you get elected to, what kind of car you drive, etc. The psalmist lived with radiant wonder as he was in awe of creation and the handiwork of Almighty God. We lose the awe when we fail to truly come to know Christ and merely exist with a form of godliness. We lose the radiant wonder when pray becomes perfunctory and being in communion with the living Christ is non-existent. Radiant Wonder is the direct result of knowing Christ. It flows out of a hunger and thirst for knowing Christ. Radiant wonder follows the impulse to pursue God for God's sake-an impulse that our Creator plants within us. Part of revival is reviving the wonder in the heart of the church. The wonder of God's love for us. The wonder of Christ's sacrifice. The wonder of freedom in Christ. The wonder of the witness of the Spirit. The wonder of our Father in heaven who loves to give good gifts to his children. The wonder of eternity and a new heaven and new earth. The wonder of His presence everywhere, everyday. This loss of wonder parrellels the loss of our first love (Revelation 2:4). Lord God Almighty, put a divine discontent in our hearts that will give birth to a holy desperation to seek your face until your rend the heavens and do a new work among us-that would be wonderful.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Sin Sensitive
Some follow Jesus with the concept that they sin continually, not able to help or stop the dark side of their person. Certainly we are always short of being perfect like Jesus Christ. We can always exemplify the fruit of the Spirit in increasing measure; however, to say that Christ's people live a life of sin is to defy the power of the Holy Spirit and the fact that Christ's people are dead to sin (Rom. 6). The power and hold of sin has been broken. We have a Divine power to enable us daily to walk in obedience to the Lord (2 Pet. 1). With every temptation there is a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13) Let us look at sin from the perspective of rebellion against God, the refusal to obey a known command and refusal to submit to His authority. Let us stop sinning!
Christ's people must cultivate a sensitivity to sin-especially in our culture where 'do as you please' is the order of the day. In our culture where pleasure is king, where every person is supposed to be allowed to do what they want, to even be 'stupid' as our new secretary of state recently stated, Christ's people need to be aware of the deceitfulness of sin and guard against it. It can become a way of life to rationalize sin and disobedience, and blame it on whatever. It can be easy in our culture to allow our 'better' behavior than our culture to become the standard. Our standard is Jesus Christ and being holy in all behavior (1 Pet. 1:15).
Charles Wesley's great hymn, "I Want a Principle Within' is worth your time. Verse one reads, 'I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear, a sensibility to sin, a pain to feel it near. Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire, to catch the wandering of my will, and quench the kindling fire."
John and Charles Wesley's mother gave this definition of sin to her son John.
"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." (Suzanna Wesley)
Christ's people must cultivate a sensitivity to sin-especially in our culture where 'do as you please' is the order of the day. In our culture where pleasure is king, where every person is supposed to be allowed to do what they want, to even be 'stupid' as our new secretary of state recently stated, Christ's people need to be aware of the deceitfulness of sin and guard against it. It can become a way of life to rationalize sin and disobedience, and blame it on whatever. It can be easy in our culture to allow our 'better' behavior than our culture to become the standard. Our standard is Jesus Christ and being holy in all behavior (1 Pet. 1:15).
Charles Wesley's great hymn, "I Want a Principle Within' is worth your time. Verse one reads, 'I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear, a sensibility to sin, a pain to feel it near. Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire, to catch the wandering of my will, and quench the kindling fire."
John and Charles Wesley's mother gave this definition of sin to her son John.
"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." (Suzanna Wesley)
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Friday, March 29, 2013
Who Am I? (Good Friday)
The cross is startling, repulsive, essential, holy, revealing. The passion scene of our Christ revealed many different elements of sin, selfishness, humility that can exist within the human heart. The brutal treatment of Christ revealed the putrid reality of sin that ravages mankind. In the scene around the cross we see the betrayer in Judas. How tragic that Judas never found his way to the foot of the cross, but destroyed himself in the final act of selfishness. How tragic that he was so close to Jesus for those years, and yet so far away. We see Peter who is the great denier. Bold and brash, but ultimately humiliated and isolated. Praise God he came to the foot of the cross in repentance and the Pentecostal fullness propelled him forward to a life of great fruitfulness in Christ's name. Coming to the cross there is one more person we need to see. The community called her a 'sinful woman'. Whatever all that means, her reputation reflected a lifestyle that was less than exemplary. But she came to Christ, humble, quiet, broken, thankful, apparently knowing something about Jesus that Judas and Peter still didn't grasp. Broken and spilled out has become the description of her worship. She worshiped. She was filled with awe and wonder of this Jesus who had loved her like she had never been loved. Sacrifice, extraordinary, reckless, totally oblivious to what anyone else was thinking, she did what the Lord said was 'beautiful.' A small picture of the 'beautiful' act that Christ exemplified with His perfect sacrifice. Who am I at this Easter season? The Father is seeking worshipers. Do I know what the 'sinful woman' knew about Jesus?
Monday, March 25, 2013
Passion Week Passion
The call of Christ is to be passionate about following Him. Christ was passionate about following the will of the Father. The bottom line for us as followers of Christ is this...we must be madly, passionately in love with Jesus Christ. The intimacy, depth of this relationship must be the fuel in the fire that presses us forward each day. This compulsion is from within. God loves us and His love in us fuels a fire of devotion and passion that compels us to want to walk in truth, obedience, holiness. His love compels us (2 Cor. 5:14) to live a life worthy of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Jesus said, 'if you love me you will keep my commandments (Jn.15:14).' We are not driven by fear of punishment or eternal damnation. We are not driven by the law. We are driven from within out of the new heart given to us when we trusted Christ. It is a heart overflowing with love for the One who loved us and gave Himself for us (Galatians 2:20). The Spirit filled life is the life of love enthroned with the human heart. This love removes fear and brings the power to pursue Christ on a daily basis with a passion and purity that brings a fulfillment the world can never provide or produce. He has written His law on our hearts, it is the law of holy love.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Radiant Wonder
Radiant Wonder is a phrase A. W. Tozer uses in the introduction to his classic, "The Pursuit of God." He states it is a wonder that should accompany faith in Christ but is generally missing in the church today. That lack is really a loss of Christ's manifest presence. (Ravi Zacharias has an excellent book on the same topic, "Recapture the Wonder)." The loss of wonder can be traced to man becoming enamored with himself. How distressing an boring when the measure of greatness is how much money, what office you get elected to, what kind of car you drive, etc. The psalmist lived with radiant wonder as he was in awe of creation and the handiwork of Almighty God. We lose the awe when we fail to truly come to know Christ and merely exist with a form of godliness. We lose the radiant wonder when pray becomes perfunctory and being in communion with the living Christ is non-existent. Radiant Wonder is the direct result of knowing Christ. It flows out of a hunger and thirst for knowing Christ. Radiant wonder follows the impulse to pursue God for God's sake-an impulse that our Creator plants within us. Part of revival is reviving the wonder in the heart of the church. The wonder of God's love for us. The wonder of Christ's sacrifice. The wonder of freedom in Christ. The wonder of the witness of the Spirit. The wonder of our Father in heaven who loves to give good gifts to his children. The wonder of eternity and a new heaven and new earth. The wonder of His presence everywhere, everyday. This loss of wonder parrellels the loss of our first love (Revelation 2:4). Lord God Almighty, put a divine discontent in our hearts that will give birth to a holy desperation to seek your face until your rend the heavens and do a new work among us-that would be wonderful.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Sin Sensitive
Some follow Jesus with the concept that they sin continually, not able to help or stop the dark side of their person. Certainly we are always short of being perfect like Jesus Christ. We can always exemplify the fruit of the Spirit in increasing measure; however, to say that Christ's people live a life of sin is to defy the power of the Holy Spirit and the fact that Christ's people are dead to sin (Rom. 6). The power and hold of sin has been broken. We have a Divine power to enable us daily to walk in obedience to the Lord (2 Pet. 1). With every temptation there is a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13) Let us look at sin from the perspective of rebellion against God, the refusal to obey a known command and refusal to submit to His authority. Let us stop sinning!
Christ's people must cultivate a sensitivity to sin-especially in our culture where 'do as you please' is the order of the day. In our culture where pleasure is king, where every person is supposed to be allowed to do what they want, to even be 'stupid' as our new secretary of state recently stated, Christ's people need to be aware of the deceitfulness of sin and guard against it. It can become a way of life to rationalize sin and disobedience, and blame it on whatever. It can be easy in our culture to allow our 'better' behavior than our culture to become the standard. Our standard is Jesus Christ and being holy in all behavior (1 Pet. 1:15).
Charles Wesley's great hymn, "I Want a Principle Within' is worth your time. Verse one reads, 'I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear, a sensibility to sin, a pain to feel it near. Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire, to catch the wandering of my will, and quench the kindling fire."
John and Charles Wesley's mother gave this definition of sin to her son John.
"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." (Suzanna Wesley)
Christ's people must cultivate a sensitivity to sin-especially in our culture where 'do as you please' is the order of the day. In our culture where pleasure is king, where every person is supposed to be allowed to do what they want, to even be 'stupid' as our new secretary of state recently stated, Christ's people need to be aware of the deceitfulness of sin and guard against it. It can become a way of life to rationalize sin and disobedience, and blame it on whatever. It can be easy in our culture to allow our 'better' behavior than our culture to become the standard. Our standard is Jesus Christ and being holy in all behavior (1 Pet. 1:15).
Charles Wesley's great hymn, "I Want a Principle Within' is worth your time. Verse one reads, 'I want a principle within of watchful, godly fear, a sensibility to sin, a pain to feel it near. Help me the first approach to feel of pride or wrong desire, to catch the wandering of my will, and quench the kindling fire."
John and Charles Wesley's mother gave this definition of sin to her son John.
"Take this rule: whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself." (Suzanna Wesley)
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