Do You Know Who You Are?

There is a trend in Christianity, especially in Women’s Ministry, to focus on “who I am in Christ.” That is not a bad thing – in fact, the Father reminded Jesus that He was His Beloved Son just before he faced forty days in the wilderness and the temptations of the devil (Matt 3:17). But contemporary Christianity often puts the emphasis on the wrong end of that statement. Popular songs and best-selling studies (I can’t call them “Bible” studies) are heavy on “who I am” and very light on “in Christ.” Let’s be honest, self-focus sells.

The world alternately tells you that you are either entirely insignificant or the center of the universe. The culture wants you to find yourself in your appearance, popularity, stuff, or accomplishments. Pop psychology says you are whomever you tell yourself you are. If you’re like me, that’s up one day and down the next. For believers, it’s important to know the truth about ourselves from God’s perspective. The world cannot confuse us and the enemy cannot defeat us if we take God’s Word for who we are.

If you are in Christ, you are:

The salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mat 5:13-14).

His friend (John 15:15).

Justified (Rom 5:1), and reconciled to God (v. 10).

Dead to sin (Rom 6:2), and instruments of Righteousness (v. 13).

God’s children (Rom 8:15-16); set free from sin and enslaved to righteousness (v.18)

Members of Christ’s Body (Rom 12:5).

Enriched and equipped (1 Cor 1:5-7)

A new Creation (2 Cor 5:17) and Christ’s ambassadors (v. 20).

God’s workmanship (Eph 2:10).

Citizens of Heaven (Phil 3:20).

Alive (Col 2:13).

Made perfect (Heb 10:2) . . .forever! (v. 14), Cleansed, no longer guilty (v.2), made holy (v. 10), forgiven (v. 18).

A spiritual house and a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:2).

And I could go on and on and on. The point of all these verses is not who I am, but what Christ has done. The heart of the Christian faith is the transforming power of Jesus’ blood. He didn’t die to make us the best versions of our human selves. He died to make us like Himself. He died to make dead men live. He died to set you and me free from the bondage of sin and the condemnation of eternal death. Because of one more thing that we are in Christ: Lavishly loved (1 Jn 3:1).

Beloved, do you know who you are? Do you know Whose you are?

You Better Believe It

I was in the 5th grade and was doing my math homework one night (and anyone who knows me knows how much I hate math) and I kept asking my mom, “What’s so-and-so times so-and-so?”, over and over until she lost her patience with me and snapped, “Figure it out!” So, I did. I added and added and added until I got the answer. I know for certain that 7×8=56 and you can bet it will remain with me for the rest of my life.

So, here’s a question for you: Why do you believe what you believe? Because your childhood Sunday School teacher told you a Bible story? Because your pastor preached about a passage on Sunday? Because you read something profound in a book by a smiling author? There’s a malady in the church called biblical illiteracy. It simply means most people in the church don’t know the Bible very well. We know Bible story sound bites. We know a few verses (mostly taken out of context). And we know what the culture tell us – that God is all and only love and doesn’t want us ever to be unhappy or deny our “true selves.”

What we believe is too often just what we’ve been told – but not what we know. And there is a difference. What you’ve heard just sits in your ears, but what you know takes deep root in your heart and, like your circulating blood, affects every part of you. If your faith is built on others’ thoughts and opinions, how can you be sure you are building on solid truth? When someone challenges your belief, you can’t make a good defense and it all starts to crumble. But if your belief is built on what you have mined from the Scriptures and chewed on and have wrestled your heart and mind into submission then your faith will stand up against the questions of the world. Like my math equation, what you invest in stays with you.

Paul said, “I know whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day” (2 Timothy 1:12). Are you convinced that what you believe will hold you up? As Christians come under fire, it’s more important than ever that you know what you believe – and why you believe it. And it’s eternally important that what you believe is the truth. Beloved, you don’t just need to know about religious-sounding stuff. You need to know the truth.

Taking Back the Church

I have come to believe that it’s time for believers to fight for our faith. Not with pitchforks or guns or verbal attacks across the aisle. There’s a better way and it will do us well to learn it and live it. Join me in the book of Jude.

His opening words set the tone: “I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (v. 3). Jude wrote about the danger of “godless men” slipping into the church to “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (v. 4). If ever a verse applied to the church, it is this. It is appalling and grievous to see the immoral condition of the Body of Christ. But it’s also apparent that this has been going on for a very long time.

Jude warned his readers that these wicked people have no regard for the things of God. Their motive is to cause disruption and discord – “these are the men who divide you (v. 19). They are: grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves, flatter others for their own advantage . . . follow mere natural instincts, and do not have the Spirit” (v. 16, 19). I know Jude was talking about his own day, but it’s almost as if he was peering into the future – to the twenty-first century.

So how do we fight? How do we take our church back from the vile hands of wicked people? Jude gave the battle plan: “But you, dear friends, built yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life” (vs. 20-21). That’s it? How is that “contending” for the faith? Where’s the fight? In the spiritual realm.  Paul said it best: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). We chase away darkness by introducing light. We drive away wickedness by living in righteousness.

The truth is Beloved, you’re in this battle whether you wanted to be or not, so you’d better learn how to fight. Put down your pitchfork and pick up your Bible.  We’ll reclaim the church by being the holy people of God.

Which Jesus Will You Choose?

The great philosopher John Lennon once remarked in the mid-sixties, that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.”  Christians took great offense at his statement and the Beatles’ albums were burned and smashed to pieces. It was an inflammatory statement, but the truth is, Lennon was probably right. In the fifty years since, he has been proved right with any celebrity, sports star, or politician you want to name. Even in the church, Jesus is not the most popular figure, at least not the Jesus of the Bible. There are variations of Jesus – the political Jesus, the social justice Jesus (he seems to be the one most folks like), the wise teacher Jesus, the stick-it-to-the-establishment Jesus, the anything-goes Jesus, and on and on. But they are not the Jesus we see in Scripture. 

Not that we can put Him in a clearly defined box. The Jesus of the Bible is at the same time humble and exalted. He is gentle and fierce. He is gracious and confrontational. He accepted women with bad reputations and chastened the religious leaders who are lauded for their (self)righteousness. He is unpredictable and yet He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He was popular – until He wasn’t. The same crowd that greeted Him as Messiah later shouted for His crucifixion. Throughout human history far more have rejected Him than accepted Him. He may be worshiped in small bands but He is scorned in the public square. But one day . . .

The Bible says that  Jesus will come again, splitting the sky and riding the clouds like a wave. And every eye will see Him. Every person will know exactly who He is. Because God has exalted Him to the highest place and given Him the name that is above every name. One day, that name will ring out across the universe, and then “every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11).  Every knee. Every tongue. From the most devout believer to the most spiteful atheist.

Yes, that means you too. You will bow and you will confess. The only question is, will it be an act of delight that you have practiced often, or will it be one of shock and horror, when you realize Whom you rejected?  The choice is yours now, Beloved. Have you, will you believe in the real Jesus?

Make Jesus Your Own

Jesus met a sinful woman at a well and he changed her life. Then she told her neighbors and  “Many of the Samaritans…believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony” (John 4:39). But they didn’t just take her word for who He was. They spent two days listening to Jesus, and they came to personal knowledge and a personal relationship with Him. “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world” (v. 42). (Read John 4:1-42)

Too many of us have settled for a second-hand relationship with God. We go to church every Sunday and listen to the words that are preached. We may go to Sunday School and hear the lesson brought by the teacher from the material of a writer who doesn’t know us. We may even go so far as to attend a Bible study class and listen to the leader, and read the lesson. But we often fail to make it our own. We settle for what someone else tells us about God, and we wonder why He is so distant. But God created you so that you might have a deeply intimate and personal relationship with Him. Jesus came to interact personally with people. He sends His Holy Spirit to live in us – you can’t get more intimate than that. God knows your heart and your needs, and He has a Word just for you. He has a purpose just for you. You won’t find it anywhere else but at His feet.

I will teach the Bible for as long as He gives me breath. There is so much to learn, and so much to share, the Word of the Lord never gets stale or boring. But my ultimate goal is to teach myself out of a job – to stir in you a hunger and passion for the Word, and the God who wrote it. I pray that you make His Word your own and that you never settle for a second-hand relationship with the One who created you, loves you, and died for you. Beloved, I pray that you will be able to say, with Job, “My ears had heard of you – but now – my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5).

The Chasm

As this year comes to a close, I find myself wondering how much longer the human race can survive. With wars and violence and hatred and abuse all across the globe, and the rise of sexual perversion taking firm root in the culture. It seems we’ve turned right and wrong upside-down. But if you study the Bible you are not completely shocked. Isaiah prophesied a day when evil will be called good and good evil (Is 5:20).  Unless you’re living under a rock, you know we’re there – even in the church. Paul warned “The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Tim 4:3). We’ve seen this sad reality as every kind of sin has been welcomed and celebrated by the “church” in recent years. But where the line between “right and wrong” has been so blurred, it must become more clearly defined. The fence is getting to hot to sit on much longer.

Scripture tells us that the chasm between the people of God and the people of wickedness will get wider as the day draws near. And how does a chasm grow? Quakes and tremors deep in the earth. The same is true for the church. We are experiencing the “birth pains” of that chasm growing as faithful Christians are separating themselves from those on the side of wickedness. Again, if you know the Scriptures, you are not surprised. Daniel 12:10 says – “Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked.” And Jesus said, “Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right and let him who is holy continue to be holy.” (Rev. 22:11).

So what does that mean for you and me? We are the church. We are the Body of Christ. We must make a stand for what is right and true – but it must come from the conviction of our own hearts. It’s not enough to rant about the sin in the church or the world if we’re not ready to confess the sin in our lives.  Beloved, you and I must separate ourselves from sin and wickedness. The quakes and tremors have to start here. May we be a generation of faithful, holy people.

Advent 2022: Why December 25th?

Did you know that the early church did not celebrate Christmas? The church’s testimony about Christ was completely centered on the resurrection. Church officials decided that the birth of Jesus should have equal emphasis with his resurrection. Pope Julius I picked the date in 350 AD, and it was formalized in 529 AD, when Roman Emperor Justinian declared Christmas to be a civic holiday. December 25th was borrowed from secular festivities as the designated day for celebrating. Both the Pope and the Emperor liked this date because it coincided with the pagan festivals celebrating the winter solstice, which dated back centuries. Combining Christmas with these ancient celebrations allowed the church to keep the winter holiday tradition while refocusing the party on the “new” religion of Christianity. It was a grand gesture, but the pagan influences of the holiday, unfortunately, stayed with it. Through the years the church has alternately banned and embraced Christmas as celebrations became more about feasts and parties and selfish behavior and less about the Christ Child. Yet Christians continually talk about “getting back to the real reason for the season.”

The truth is, we really don’t know the date of Jesus’ birth. At least not on a calendar. But the Scriptures do tell us exactly when the Child came. Galatians 4:4 says, “When the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman.” I find so much comfort in that. The Bible is chock-full of references to time, from the record of Creation to “the day [when] His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives.” God actually does have a calendar of sorts – a divine calendar – and all of human history flows according to the plans He made before the creation of the world. Everything will happen “when the time has fully come.”

I hope you take that personally. Because the same God who established the universe’s timeline has your name on His calendar too. He is moving in your life according to His purpose and design. He is making things and people and events come together just as He planned. Beloved, your life is not some crazy quilt with pieces of all shapes, sizes, and colors haphazardly sewn together. It is a work of beauty, precision, and exactness, stitched firmly together with blood-red cords. Every moment of your life has been leading up to the magnificent finished project that will be revealed, “when the time has fully come.”

The point is not to know when He came, but to know that He came and why He came. To set you free from your bondage of sin and to give you eternal life. So feel free to celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th with joy and thanksgiving for God’s perfect, divine plan. And remember that He’s an “on-time” God. It won’t be a second late. Nor will it be a second early. It will be “when the time has fully come.”

Hebrews: “Strange Teachings”

If ever there was a word for the church today, I believe this is it: “Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings” (Heb 13:9). The writer was referring specifically to dietary regulations to which the Jews strictly held. “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!” (Col 2:21). Paul had adamantly preached that “Food does not bring us near to God” (1 Cor 8:8).  Nor did food make them unclean before God. Our writer went on to say, “It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them” v. 9). Jewish believers were torn between trusting in their ability to obey all the rules and trusting in the grace of God through Jesus Christ. That’s so foreign to us in the twenty-first century in the west.

But boy, do we have some weird stuff of our own in the world today – and sadly in the church too. Google “strange religious teachings” and you’ll see all sorts of things from snake handling to sacred underwear that protects believers from spiritual contamination, fire and speeding bullets. You’ll see the prosperity gospel, the humanitarian gospel, the social gospel, the gay gospel, and the feminist gospel – none of which resemble the true gospel at all. You’ll find Bibles that are gender-neutral and exclude certain portions of clear truth so as not to offend. There are so many different religions in the world, it’s impossible to keep up. And so many blatantly unbiblical teachings expressed on social media, published in “Christian” books and “Bible” study resources, and even preached from pulpits.

Is there any doubt that we are the generation of which Paul spoke when He warned Timothy, “The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Tim 4:3-4).  The church today resembles what he called: “infants tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming” (Eph 4:14). That is why way back in chapter 6 he said, “Let us leave the elementary teaching about Christ and go on to maturity” (v. 1) – which is a very nice way of saying “GROW UP!”

Strange teachings, whether about dietary regulations, Kabbalah, or sacred underwear, will always grab those who prefer to be spoon-fed. If all you know about the Scriptures is what you’re told, how can you know you’re being told the truth?  That’s why personal Bible study is like oxygen to a Christian. I love teaching you, Beloved, but I want you to dig into the Word for yourself. Then we can have some incredible conversations over a cup of coffee and the Words of Life we both love.

Hebrews: Who Will You Follow?

Today we’re looking at one of those verses folks love to lift out of its context and make it say something quite different on its own. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” I understand the church’s application as a condemnation of lifestyles that were once rightfully regarded as sinful and are now accepted and even celebrated in many denominations. What God once called sin is still sin today. He hasn’t changed his mind to fit the culture. But that’s really not what this verse is all about. 

The message of the whole book of Hebrews is “Don’t abandon Christ.” From the first chapter to the last, the writer has declared that Jesus is the only way to redemption and eternal life and any other way is a lie that leads straight to hell. He is encouraging his audience to stay with the One who is superior to the angels, greater than Moses, whose ministry was more effective than the priests, who was made like men but wholly unlike men, who presented Himself as the perfect sacrifice and was the object of the faith of their past heroes. “You started with Christ,” the author says, “you must stay with Him to the end.”

So, let’s put this verse back in its original context. Verse 7 indicates that the leaders they had followed had died and they likely felt adrift now. But they were not without a holy and righteous example. They had Jesus Christ who “is the same yesterday and today and forever.” I followed the cross-reference back to Psalm 102:25-27 which declares the eternal nature of God – not only that He lives forever, but He is the same forever.

The Church has been rocked in recent years by very public Christians who have abandoned their faith and “deconstructed.” A powerful apologist and evangelist was posthumously accused of living a sinful life that belied his testimony and teaching. A popular female Bible teacher has shaken her followers recently by changing her personal religious affiliations and taking an unbiblical stance.  Even our beloved local pastors are human – and fallible. So is this Bible teacher. If I haven’t disappointed you yet, stick around. That’s why I want to always and only point you to Jesus Christ. You can follow Him with confidence that He was and is and will forever be faithful and true. Men (and women) will almost certainly let you down. But you really can trust Jesus, Beloved. All the way through eternity.

Are You Sure That’s Right?

I goofed up at work yesterday. I ordered a textbook for one of my professors and when I started adding the professor’s information to the online form, the auto-fill popped up because I had ordered textbooks for him before. Yes! I clicked on his name and let the system do its thing. The publisher sent an auto-reply to his email address to confirm the request. He messaged me his thanks – and told me that he had a new address. The book was going to the old address. I pulled up his faculty file in our system and – guess what – he had given me his new address months ago. But the publishing website had the old address and I, assuming it was correct, failed to verify it. Now I had to scramble to contact the publishing company and correct them before the book shipped. All because I didn’t do due diligence. I just assumed what they had was right.

You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? I’ve beat this drum before: Check everything out.  It was a minor inconvenience for me, but not every error is so simple. False teaching has eternal consequences. The culture is teaching “a different gospel – which is really no gospel at all” (Gal 1:6,7). They are teaching a humanitarian gospel that says we are all God’s children and that He accepts everyone who is sincere in whatever they believe. That’s a lie, and people will go to eternal hell sincerely believing it. They are teaching that God only wants us happy, not holy and that he is okay with homosexuality, murdering unborn babies, and changing our gender. That’s not the God of the Bible – the God who is holy, holy, holy.

That’s why the Bereans were applauded in Scripture.  Acts 17:11 says “The Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  This little congregation checked out everything Paul said before they bought into it.  So should you

False stories on social media can be harmless – like copying and pasting text to change Facebook’s algorithms (p.s. it doesn’t do a thing), but believing a lie about God will always have eternal consequences.  My friends, please don’t let Facebook or Twitter or even me be your source for spiritual truth; check it out in the Bible before you believe it – and especially before you share it.  Beloved, Don’t take anyone else’s word for who God is or what He has said but God Himself.