Tidings of Comfort and Joy

I think there is nothing more amazing than to know that God desires for all of his creation to come together in blissful joy and glorious harmony. Like the final chord in a great orchestral piece, God’s creation is heading for a marvelous goal. When we enjoy our inheritance we will have more than an overwhelming sense of wonder at God’s eternal goal for his creation. At Christmastime we celebrate God’s enactment of his central plan to bring perfect comfort and joy. The angel said to the shepherds, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11 ESV)

The simple and bold proclamation is that because of the birth of Christ the Lord believers have no reason to fear. God’s active intervening love casts out fear! What kind of love has the Father given to us? It is an effective saving love. It is an all-powerful love. We can trust his steadfast love forever. In Christ God’s love is made real to us forever! Tidings of comfort and joy!

One baby pulls this off. This baby is the only Son of God. He is God with us. He exceeds all specifications for a savior. He is the perfect and only God/man. He is the one mediator between God and man. Trust no substitutes or auxiliary savors. Jesus Christ needs no help being our Savior, El Salvador! He is Christ the Lord.

Think of this section from Psalm 85 as a Christmas worship reading. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of God’s every promise. He is what the LORD has spoken! In Jesus Christ steadfast love and faithfulness meet, and righteousness and peace kiss each other. To us a child is born, to us a son is given! He brings it all together in blissful joy and glorious harmony. Worship HIM!

Let me hear what God the LORD will speak,

for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints;

but let them not turn back to folly.

Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him,

that glory may dwell in our land.

Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;

righteousness and peace kiss each other.

Faithfulness springs up from the ground,

and righteousness looks down from the sky.

Yes, the LORD will give what is good,

and our land will yield its increase.

Righteousness will go before him

and make his footsteps a way.

(Psalm 85:8-13 ESV)

Ihope Christmas: Wait for it!

Christmas is a wonderful season to anticipate a glorious future. This is our hope: a glorious future. “…waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ…” (Titus 2:13 ESV) At Christmas we celebrate the first advent of Jesus, but we also look forward to his second advent. The promise of the incarnation of our Lord will be fulfilled completely when he returns in glory.

One aspect of hope is the acknowledgement that we are missing something now. Believers in Jesus are forward looking people. We are waiting for glory. Jesus himself is waiting for the glory of the future. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”(Hebrews 10:12-13 ESV) Jesus too has hope. He hopes for the day when his enemies are fully subject to him. The enemies of Christ are still running rampant in God’s kingdom. One great day they will be overcome. Victory in Jesus forever! We wait with Jesus. There is nearly an unending list of things that are missing. We are made for completeness, for wholeness, for shalom, but in this world we have tribulation. Nothing is perfect here. We are reminded of the curse daily. Maybe we are reminded through an illness, through a violent crime, or through a natural disaster. We might carry a deep sorrow everyday. Many sorrow over their children. As it says of David “And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”(2 Samuel 18:33 ESV) This is a deep sorrow. When we are with the Lord forever we will no longer have such sorrows. He will wipe away every tear! We will understand God’s gracious plan.

We long for a day when there is nothing horribly wrong. That day is coming for the believer. All our hopes and longings will be fulfilled in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Just wait for it! Here is the hope stated in bold terms: “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” (Hebrews 7:25 ESV)

At Christmastime let us acknowledge our need of God’s hope. Let us draw near to God through Jesus in order to be saved to the uttermost.

Merry Christmas!

A Thanksgiving Meditation

In Colossians 3: 15-17 Paul talks about thanksgiving three times. The whole paragraph is superb, but let’s just isolate the thanksgiving words. He says, “be thankful,” sing “with thankfulness in your hearts,” and finally “giving thanks to God the Father through him.” These three are a good way for us to prime the pump for Thanksgiving.

First of all, the Bible always commands us to be thankful. God has given us the ability to direct our thoughts. We can develop the discipline to look at the bright side of things. We can force ourselves to be thankful. For a believer in Jesus Christ this is always true. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We have eternal life. No matter what comes up we are going to be fully blessed forever. Jesus tells us that he knows us and gives us eternal life. Then also, almost all of the time, we can be thankful for temporal blessings too. The old song says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.” The truth is, by and large we live very blessed lives. Do you have a family who loves you? Be thankful! Are you anticipating seeing some loved ones this holiday season? Be thankful! Perhaps you can think of a time when God delivered you from a temptation. Be thankful! It is too easy for our fallen minds to think about all the failures, the trials, the painful times, and to begin to be grouchy and bitter. God tells us to be thankful.

Next Paul commands us to sing “with thankfulness in your hearts.” The heart is the seat of our feelings. Here the command is for us to feel thankful as we sing in worship to God. Probably you will have an opportunity to sing some during this holiday period. Try to sing with your whole heart. No one likes to hear a song sung with no true feeling behind it. If you are thankful in your heart it will show up in the sincerity, the zeal, and energy with which you sing. If you are singing in worship and praise to God, how would that look?

The final command is “giving thanks to God the Father through him.” I love these direct statements of how to pray. This is how you do it. We come to God the Father through Jesus Christ. When we come to God we bring our thanksgiving to him through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and man. He is the only sufficient and fully adequate mediator. He is the infinite advocate. He needs no help to bring us to the Father. He is fully capable to get us to God. He alone. Do not come in the name of anyone else. To do so is to insult Jesus Christ. We can be fully thankful that the only Messiah is our savior. Trust him! He is our access to all the blessings of God. Thank you LORD!

Please Build This House!

One of my joys is serving as a volunteer chaplain at our local hospital. I serve about nine hours a month. Yesterday I was making visits there and met a patient and her husband. I’ll call her Marie. She was diagnosed with cancer a little more than a year ago. She had a nominal connection with a Christian denomination from her youth, but had no real relationship with the Lord. When I walked into the room she was reading her Bible, which I commented on. It turns out that about a year ago she began to read and study her Bible. She has spent a great deal of time reading it since then. Her husband commented that she is “such a student of the Bible!” The glorious thing is that I have rarely met someone with such a strong, sweet faith. She now KNOWS the lord. She has a love for our Lord Jesus that one can sense just by being in the same room. This informed faith did not come through other human agency. She came to know the Lord by reading his word! We had a great conversation.

Her coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ by reading the Bible reminded me of a verse I have been thinking about in Colossians 1. It is verse twenty-six: “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.” God revealed his mystery (Christ in you, the hope of glory) to Marie. She is a saint of God. He chose to reveal himself to her, proving that she was a saint by God’s choice and making her a saint by God’s power. I told her that she was a saint of God because he had revealed himself to her through his word. It is pretty wonderful to be one of God’s saints! Marie is rejoicing in the Lord, despite her serious health situation.

As I was speaking with her I told her one of my favorite Psalms was number 127. Verse one applies to all our human efforts. “Unless the LORD builds the house those who build it labor in vain.” I explained to her that there is no dichotomy between medicine and faith. We believe that God must bless and use our efforts for any good to come of them. Certainly God can work without our help, but we cannot work without his help! Marie found this very reassuring as she was feeling tension between her faith in God and needing so much medical intervention. She had been wondering if it showed a lack of faith for her to follow her physician’s advice. After all, she thought, “Can’t God heal me without their help?” It was good to be able to briefly explain God’s sovereign work in and through our efforts. I also explained that God does not expect us to buy a pile of lumber and sit back to watch him build the house. We need to be laboring as we have opportunity. We need to take the steps we can.

At the end I was privileged to pray with Marie and her husband. I prayed that God would build this house: that he would work though our efforts. I did get a little choked up thinking about this dear sister and her great faith and her great need.

Two observations: 1) Jesus knows his sheep. He will reveal God the Father to them. He reveals his truth to his saints. Jesus will build the church! Pray for this in the lives of people whom you know that do not seem to know the Lord. 2) When we take time to visit with people and listen to their situation, God will guide us into what we should say to them. This too is God building the house through our humble efforts.

Useless?

Useless and Obsolete

These are two words used in Hebrews to describe the old covenant. Find them in Hebrews 7: 18 and 8:13. These are very strong words to describe part of God’s Word. Many of the people to whom he is writing are very emotionally tied to the Hebrew Bible. They might even say, “I was born a Jew, and I will die a Jew.” Why does the author risk hurting the feelings of his audience? There is much as stake!

One of the biggest threats to the good news of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ was the imposition of legalism. The earliest Christians were aggressively pursued by those who taught them to go back to keeping various aspects of the Law of Moses. Many of the epistles are written to combat this threat. What could possible be so dangerous about observing a feast or keeping a Sabbath? The false teaching is based on a basic idea that mankind is capable of working just a little harder, and in a more organized fashion, in order to please God. They indirectly teach that man still has a basically good nature, and the false teachers claim that they can train people to please God. Since we all have some level of guilt they also teach that we may need to practice some asceticism or severity to the body in order to find purity. The problem with this is that it distracts from the truth. It can very quickly divert one away from faith in Jesus Christ alone. Note the stern warning of Paul in Galatians 5: 2-4. Paul states that if they accept circumcision they are severed from Christ. Do our religious practices matter? Why not just let people enjoy their cultural heritage? Well, it is because these religious and cultural rituals can prevent an individual from saving faith. People do trust in the ritual and their own goodness, without even understanding why Christ had to die for their sins.

Some from the evangelical church are converting to high ritual churches. They act like they see no harm in the strictly formalized rituals. Sadly, true believers can understand the rituals in light of true faith, but millions of others in those religions do not know how to be saved. By testimony they trust themselves. Ask them. “Do you think you will go to heaven?” They will say something like, “I hope so, I am not sure I have done enough. “ This is not the new covenant faith.

Every time I baptize a believer I emphasize that baptism does not save them. I shudder to think of the untold millions who have been deceived by “Christian” baptism. Literally many are condemned because they have faith in a ritual, rather than Christ. God help us!

So the writer of Hebrews wants his Jewish audience to know that the old covenant, the law, was weak and useless because it made nothing perfect. Using the same word “perfect” he says that the appointed Son has been made perfect forever. (Hebrews 7:28) This perfected son has accomplished the purpose of his incarnation and is now able to “save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him…” (Hebrews 7:25) Keeping various legalistic regulations will not bring you to God because you are still sinful.

Only Jesus can save to the uttermost! Trust him and him alone! Every other religion teaches some form of legalism. Every other religion is weak and useless.

Theological Balance: Faith or Works?

God has revealed himself so that we can know the truth. There is such a great balance in God’s revelation. God is peaceful, whole, and balanced.

Comparing the main arguments of Colossians two and Hebrews six represents a prime example of this. In Colossians two Paul is arguing that we are saved from our record of moral debt only by being united with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. He says in verse thirteen that God made us alive together with him. There is nothing we could possibly add to this. God does not depend on us to raise ourselves from the dead! In fact Paul is building to the point that if you add anything to simple faith in the completed work of Christ you will be “disqualified.” Persuasive and deceptive people were trying to convince the new gentile believers that they needed to add to faith in Christ a list of dos and don’ts. They were telling them that faith in Christ was a good start but they needed to add certain works. They needed to keep the Sabbath, celebrate the festivals, and keep a special diet. Think of it this way. You smartly go to Starbucks early for a nice bold cup of coffee. When you take that first highly anticipated sip you are horrified. The taste is horribly wrong. You politely say to the barista, “Hey, ah, there is something seriously wrong with this coffee. “ She explains that they have decided that coffee is not enough by itself, so they have added equal parts of tea, chicory, oregano, and thyme. “Humm, I think you have destroyed the coffee!” Trust the coffee alone. If you add to it you destroy it. If you add to Christ you do not trust his sufficiency. If you add anything to faith in Christ you destroy Christ’s salvation for you, because you have a lack of faith. Who is the savior? Is it you or is it Christ? Trust God, the designer, to design a fully sufficient means of salvation, and then to communicate it perfectly.

OK, so here is the question, since this is true, “sola fide”, then why would anyone walk with God? Why would anyone obey God and live a moral self-sacrificial life? This is where the argument of Hebrews six comes in. The author is urging the troubled believers not to fall away from the faith. If they fall away it may be impossible for them to be restored to repentance. So he tells them in verse twelve that they should imitate “those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” It is not faith without patience. True saving faith declares itself through an enduring patience. This word patience, macrothumia, is the word for long-suffering. It is a strong durable faith. It is a faith that demonstrates itself by a life of perseverance in good works. God is saying that he wants his people to be robust. He is not interested in people who have a fair-weather commitment. Also in Hebrews six verse eighteen it says that “we who have fled for refuge” need to “hold fast to the hope set before us.” What happens to the person who does not hold fast, who does not have an enduring commitment? Well, you do not want to find out. It may well be that their apostasy demonstrates that they never had true saving faith. Saving faith declares itself with a life of obedience. If there has been a birth, then there will be life.

This then is the balance. Yes, we are saved by faith alone, but it is faith that works. We should never try to convince anyone that they are at peace with God because some years ago they confessed faith and were, perhaps, baptized. As Hebrews six verse twelve says, it is those with faith and enduring commitment who inherit the promises. This faith and enduring commitment are not really two things, but it is as James says “…I will show you my faith by my works.” We should, therefore, try to convince a wanderer to return to a life of faithful obedience. If you are a sheep of Jesus you should and will follow Jesus!

God’s Big Rubber Stamp

Imagine you received a document that recorded all your sins. As you read through it you were more and more ashamed. You knew it was all true. You had no excuse, your goose was cooked. Just holding this book in your hands would make you sick. Layer after layer you were guilty. It is hundreds of pages of single spaced type. You are in trouble, big trouble. The problem with life is that it is linear. It is sequential. One thing follows another. You simply cannot go back and undo what is in the past. The Disney movie Lion King has a song that talks about life as a circle. But for us as individuals it is not a circle at all. It may seem cyclical, but it is still linear. So our past is real, and we cannot change it. Time travel is a fiction.

The Bible often refers to our sinful self as our flesh. It is even called “this body of death.” This is the baggage we received from Adam and all our own sin too. The gospel is that God has a way of completely removing this thing that is dragging us down to hell. It is a miracle surgery! “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,” (Colossians 2:11 ESV) This “circumcision of Christ” is a reference to his crucifixion. The flesh can be totally cut off by our uniting with Christ by faith. The Bible says we are crucified with Christ. The book of the record of our sins is canceled and nailed to the cross. Listen to this “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14 ESV)

What a fantastic promise. The record of debt is canceled and nailed to the cross. Canceled and nailed, yes! We cannot go back and “un-sin” the sin, but God can cancel it by nailing it to the cross of Christ. We can, by faith in Jesus Christ, be fully free from our record of debt. Oh, what a relief. God will cut off your body of death when you turn to Christ. All your recorded sins can be canceled by the power of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Imagine that book with all your sins recorded in it. Imagine God stamping it with a huge rubber stamp dipped in the blood of Christ “CANCELED!” Praise God!

Stereos and Carnivores

Wow, the words of Colossians are so good! Here is from chapter two.

“Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.”

Paul has been talking about how amazing Christ is when he describes him as the one “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Do you want to know the truth? It is in Christ. The image is as if Christ were a mine with diamonds and gold hidden within. The deeper you dig into the mine the more treasures you find. The mine is infinitely deep. All the treasures are hidden in this divine mine. He is the creator, the sustainer, and the ruler of all. If we spend our effort pursuing the knowledge of Christ we are pursuing the uniting factor of all wisdom and knowledge. We are never called to dumb it down or to know less. We are always called in Scripture to more knowledge.

Notice that Paul says he is motivated by a sense of security. Going to an airport, courthouse, or any government building has changed since 911, hasn’t it? We are very aware of security these days. In our spiritual lives our sense of security must be even higher. There are people out to try to ruin us. Paul says that he was concerned that people in the church could be deluded by plausible arguments. Without a solid, deep, knowledge of Christ we are vulnerable.

Paul next says that he is happy about their “good order and firmness of faith in Christ.” He is confident even while he is warning and teaching them. Being absent, still in spirit he sees their firmness and it brings him joy. I love this word “firmness.” It is the Greek word stereo. Yes, we get our common word “stereo” from this word. It means firm, steadfast, and has the sense of three dimensional or spread out. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT) it is the word in Genesis 1 for space. Space is like a tent: spread out with expanse and depth. It is three-dimensional. In a stereo the music is split into left and right sides. Some of the music comes out of one speaker, and some out the other, so it sounds deep and three-dimensional. 3D movies have an amazing sense of space in them. You can almost touch the images and see them spread out in depth. This is what our faith needs. It needs to be deep and multi-dimensional. When we are boring deeply into the mine of Christ we will have a faith that is firm. To withstand difficulties, our faith must be stable and deep. It cannot be simply one or two-dimensional, it must be spread out with some expanse to it. Otherwise we will be easy targets to those with plausible arguments.

I am preaching from Hebrews these days. The same Greek word, stereo, is used in Hebrews 5: 12 & 14 to describe the “solid” food that we should all be able to digest. The author of Hebrews is lamenting the fact that the church is unable to understand deeper teachings because they are only used to feeding on milk and not stereo food. Good teaching does not dumb it down, or “put the cookies on the lower shelf.” Good teaching seeks to elevate the learners so that they can become teachers too. Deep multi-dimensional teaching is the means to achieve this goal. The evangelical church has failed in this effort to a large extent over the last thirty or forty years. I really think that the message of Hebrews is completely current for our day. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food…” (Hebrews 5:12) Are we raising a generation of dependent vulnerable infants, or a generation of eager self-defending meat-eaters? Let’s raise some carnivores for Christ!

God's Health Care Delivery System

Health Care Delivery System

In Colossians 1:24 we find an amazing statement by the apostle Paul. Here is the verse: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,”

As always the entire passage is marvelous and needs to be carefully examined, but let me just get to the point of this verse. It begs the question, “Whatever could be lacking in Christ’s afflictions?”

From the context we find Paul rejoicing in being a “minister” of the church. The word “minister” is the word diakonas in Greek. It is the word from which we get deacon. It means servant or waiter. Paul is the servant of the church as a stewardship from God to “make the word of God fully known.” This word of God is the mystery that God has chosen to reveal to his saints. Paul says it is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” So how is this service position of Paul’s filling up some lack in Christ’s afflictions?

Christ’s afflictions are perfect. As it tells us in Hebrews, Christ’s death was a once for all action. It needs nothing added. The only thing we, or any servant, can add is bringing the good news to those who need to hear. God has chosen to make it known to certain individuals, and he chooses to use us in that delivery system. Paul found that being a part of God’s delivery system is very painful. There are many obstacles. There are enemies everywhere we look. Satan does not want us to fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. He will do all in his power to stop you and discourage you. The obstacles can even be “well meaning” members of the church!

Paul says he rejoices in his sufferings for the sake of the people in Colossae. The church is worth our large or small sacrifices. Listen, whenever you try to be a part of God’s delivery system you will run into opposition. Let us follow the example of Paul. He kept reminding himself of his calling. God called him to the lofty task of proclaiming Christ! He calls this task toil and struggling. Let’s keep at it though, because God is working through us to reach his saints. He is using us to be his health care delivery system. He has secured all the healing anyone needs, but we bring that healing to a sick world. God uses us!

Love Wins

How is that good news?

If all we had was Colossians 1:20 (“and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”) we would be universalists. That is to say if the only word from God was that the cross made peace for all and all things are reconciled to God, then how could we ever teach that some are not saved, that some do not spend their eternity with God? Well a local answer is found right in the same context. Here is Colossians 1: 21-23. “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

Notice the “if” clause I emphasized. While it is true that the best interpretation of this “if” is in the sense of “if, and I am sure this will be the case…”, still the “if” carries a sense of uncertainty. There is a distinct possibility for even church participants to miss out on the eternal rewards of salvation. Some participants are not true believers. (For further understanding on this read 1 John 2:19.) Only the sheep of Jesus are believers and will follow him and will receive eternal life, and they will never perish. (John 10:26-30) Again, the clear teaching of John 10 is that there are people who are not a part of Jesus’ flock. They do not believe; they do not receive eternal life.

This may not be the emotionally satisfying answer, but it is the truth. You cannot get to San Francisco by heading south to Los Angeles. You cannot have eternal life by ignoring the gospel, disobeying God, and establishing your own way. The victory of God’s love will be forever demonstrated in the contrast between those who receive his love and those who do not. “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” (Romans 9:13, quoting Malachi 1: 2-3) God says “I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” (Romans 9:15)

So how is this good news? Anyone, everyone, who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Those who do not call on him will not be saved. If we developed a drug which would cure prostate cancer 100% of the time, this would be good news. However, it would only be good news to those who take the medication. If you do not believe and deny the treatment it will do you no good. Jesus saves his sheep. His sheep believe and follow him. His sheep continue in the faith. Their continuing in the faith demonstrates their sheep nature. Are you his sheep?

Learning from Gary

Unfathomable

I want to tell you a little about Gary. Gary is a man I have gotten to know a little through a Bible study I conduct at a living facility near my church.

Some years ago Gary was very severely injured in a motorcycle accident. He is mostly unable to walk and speaks very slowly and unclearly. I don’t really know his whole story, because it is difficult to talk with him. He comes to the Bible study almost every week. He will often chime in with one word here and there or even break out into a familiar song associated with the particular passage. His comments are always right on the point. He had been an active part of a church at some point in his life.

A couple of months ago I was teaching Philippians 3: 21 “who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” I remember how poignant it was teaching this to someone who obviously needed it so badly. I am sure, on the other hand, that all of us need this transformation to the same extent, we are just not as aware of it as Gary. At that time he worked hard to repeat “lowly body?”

The funniest thing he ever said to me, was one time that Jorgen, my son, was with me at the study. I was talking about the exciting time when Jesus appeared to the disciples after his resurrection. John 21 records that when Peter heard that it was the Lord on the shore, “he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea.” I mentioned that Peter had taken off his outer clothes for the fishing and was only wearing his underwear. Then Gary said something loudly. He said “bunuggers, bunuggers.” I paused looking puzzled at him. Then I realized he was saying “bun huggers” as a reference to Peter’s underwear. We all roared with laughter. I will never forget “bun huggers.”

Today though was the sweetest ever. I came in as usual and just three men gathered around the table to read with me. I was reading from Colossians 1: 15 – 20. (My previous blog came from this study.) I am feeling a little down today, and fairly weak. So I was relishing the beautiful strong words about Jesus. As I was describing the greatness of Jesus, Gary worked up to say “unfathomable.” Yes I agreed that Jesus Christ is beyond our ability to fully understand. Well, when the study was over, I closed in prayer and said my good-byes. As I was leaving the room Gary called me back as he was rolling toward me in his wheelchair. When I got close to him he looked at me and said “Hey, I love you.” Strangely, this is exactly what I needed to hear today. I asked Gary to pray for me today, and he said he would. What a joy and a privilege to know Gary.

The Powerful Cure

Colossians 1:15 – 20 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

You simply cannot say enough about Jesus. I was thinking about all the billions and billions of dollars spent on trying to heal human beings. The value of a powerful medication which would CURE cancer would be inestimable. But every medication we have is limited in effectiveness. Everywhere people are still sick and dying. No matter how much we invest, the best we can do is postpone death and make our lives more comfortable for the present. But, Jesus is the CURE. He is infinitely wonderful. His value is unfathomable. He is our redeemer and creator. He is the one who makes God known. He is the image of the invisible God. Now if we look out the window we do not see God. We can be discouraged by circumstances and our weakness. But God has revealed himself in Jesus as being full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the highest honored one of all creation. He is the creator and sustainer of all things. He is the potent CURE for all that ails us. How powerful did the cure have to be? How valuable did the payment have to be? How much did it take to satisfy the wrath of God? It took the Messiah Jesus. He is God and man. He is the perfect sacrifice for us. We needed that much salvation. He made peace by the blood of his cross.

It remains for us to only trust him. We are called to believe in the Lord Jesus. Do not be fooled by the gap between the promise and the fulfillment of the promise. God is true to his word. Hear Isaiah 46: 12 – 13:

“Listen to me, you stubborn of heart,
you who are far from righteousness:
I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off,
and my salvation will not delay;
I will put salvation in Zion,
for Israel my glory.”

Jesus Christ is that salvation. He is available to all who call on his name!

Rejoice in the Lord Always

Paul writes the book of Philippians from prison. He has no assurance that he will survive this imprisonment. He is confined because he has spent many years preaching the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he tells us to rejoice in the Lord. Paul is demonstrating tremendous personal discipline. Although he suffers according to God’s will, he continues to serve and trust God. Not only is he teaching us to have God’s peace and the God of peace himself, Paul is living this discipline. One goal of faith is to have self-control. No matter the anxiety we are experiencing we are to find peace through faith in God’s sovereign rule over everything.

The command to rejoice in the Lord does not say that we are happy for whatever difficulty we face, but we are happy that we know that God is working his perfect plan and we can trust him fully. As the song says “Those who trust him wholly, find him wholly true.” “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (Is. 26:3) This great verse describes the believer’s mind as having a firm hold on God. When you stay your mind to God you are secure. On a ship the mast is stayed firmly so that it withstands the gale-force winds. If your mind is blown by the winds, check your stays.

The powerful mental attitude words of Philippians all fit together. Here is a sample of these words: joy, peace, glory in Christ, and contentment. Paul is living and teaching a lifestyle of personal self-control in actual dependence on the Lord of all. These mental attitudes are the stays to hold us up in the storms. How can we do this? “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13)

The power of this faith is demonstrated by CONFIDENCE. Paul says we are citizens of heaven. Nothing that happens to us here can touch that! From heaven we “await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Phil. 3:20 & 21) Like Paul we will most likely die in weakness here on this earth. But we can even be positive even facing this possibility. A Savior will transform our lowly bodies. No problem!

Paul closes his letter to the Philippians with this demonstration of CONFIDENCE. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4: 19) As Jesus taught, God provides for the birds and the lilies; we must trust his provision for us. He has infinite riches to draw upon. Trust him!

Dear friends, are you growing in your actual trust in God. If you claim that Christ is your Savior, do you demonstrate CONFIDENCE in him? How is your joy, peace and contentment?

The Transformer
What will it take to fix us?

Philippians 3: 20 & 21 “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

To be a Christian means that you are an alien on this earth. We are citizens of another country: heaven. We are waiting for a Savior to come from our homeland to rescue us. A big part of that rescue will be that he will transform our bodies. He is the transformer and we will be the transformed. Our bodies will be like his glorious body. We now have a lowly body; then we will have a glorious body.

Our bodies have been made lowly not because of their original design nor construction, no, we have lowly bodies because of God’s curse on sin. Since we are only accustomed to living in these cursed bodies we have no idea really of the extent of the damage that sin caused. We can get a clue as to the extent of the damage by the effort it takes to fix us. The entire incarnation, life, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and return of Christ Jesus is dedicated to our salvation. We are waiting for rescue.

The power to transform our bodies is described as “the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” He has infinite power. He will subject everything to himself. Our transformation requires infinite recourses to complete.

Down the street from our church there are about three abandoned houses right together. Often I think that it is a shame to see these houses like this. They have been empty for twenty years or so. I think how it would be nice to buy a couple of them and rebuild a nice big house for my family. What would it take to actually do this? All told it would probably take two or three million dollars to build a very nice home there. It takes power to transform a small, dilapidated house into a beautiful, large, and comfortable home.

God has the capacity to subject all things to his will. He could transform every house on every property on the entire globe. He is the God of infinite capability. In Jesus Christ he displays his infinite capability and will transform the body of every believer of every generation that has ever lived.

I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to that day. What will it be like to be free from our lowly bodies? It will be even better than moving from a dilapidated abandoned shack to a gorgeous new home.

Anxiety Disorder

We must constantly make the effort to surrender to God and obey him. Our society is always wondering why people do bad things. Is it nature or is it nurture? We know the answer. By nature we are rebels against God and we live with a pack of rebels. Both our nature and our nurture give us the propensity to do evil. Even if we increase the size and boldness of the warning label we still mutiny against God.

While this is true of all sin, one common sin that we all struggle with is anxiety. Many believers are disorderly because they live lives of anxiety. They have an anxiety disorder. The solution is to be a believer. Do not profess faith, exercise it!

We are looking at Hebrews on Sunday mornings. It is a LARGE and BOLD warning label. “Believers” were drifting away from the faith to their own harm. The first preventative measure for drifting is to see Jesus. Who is he, what has he done, what is he doing? Hebrews 1: 6-9 is a great example of the evidence that the author utilizes. The evidence is so strong it utterly spikes any opposing thought! Why would I stay with Jesus? Think about this:

But of the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

Now, can you find something better; someone better? NO! You say Amen? OK, then why do we worry? Jesus Christ, the chosen messiah, is the God-King forever. He is a righteous King, and he is covered with the oil of gladness. God is “over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:6) Does “all” include you and everything in your life? Since the answer is yes, our spiritual practice should be to rejoice in the Lord always. We profess faith, but do we exercise it? Trust him. Philippians 4: 4-9 is the prescription which we need for our anxiety disorder. Because he is LORD of all, the sovereign sustainer of everything, we are commanded to rejoice, be reasonable, not be anxious about anything and be people of thankful prayer. He is God forever, he has a rule of righteousness, and we are his people.

You can have the peace of God and the God of peace by faithful obedience. No matter what is happening, no matter how overwhelming our problems he is Lord of ALL! His peace, shalom, passes all understanding.

Unchecked worry, grumpiness, angry arguments and accusations all grow out of a heart that has not submitted to the Sovereign of all. Are you a believer? Can you confess Jesus as Lord?

Resurrection: The Joy of The Lord Is Our Strength


As we prepare to celebrate on Resurrection Sunday what we continue to celebrate everyday, that is the bursting victory of God over our sin, hear the words of Saint Paul in Ephesians two.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV)

The believer has been made alive, we have been raised up, and we have been seated in heavenly places. God has done it when we were dead! He did it because of the great love with which he loved us! This is reason to celebrate; in fact we will worship God forever for this reason!

Timothy Keller in his book on what is often called the parable of the prodigal son says this: “Jesus shows the father pouncing on his son in love not only before he has a chance to clean up his life and evidence a change of heart, but even before he can recite his repentance speech. Nothing, not even abject contrition, merits the favor of God. The Father’s love and acceptance are absolutely free.” (Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, pg 24.)

On Resurrection Sunday we celebrate this absolutely free powerful love. The Father pounces on us in love. We need this triumphant love because we are hopeless without it. We need God’s victory because we are impossibly overwhelmed by our predicament. Even as we live our day-to-day lives we can feel so overwhelmed by all our stresses. This is when we need to take joy in God’s mighty love and victory on our behalf. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8: 10) Trust his love now!