Affliction

2 Corinthians 1:8 For we do not want you to be ignorant brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.9 Indeed we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely on God and not ourselves.

Step back and take a big picture look at how God has worked through the ages. The faithful have worked through afflictions, challenges and risks and God has delivered in ways that are beyond man. Way beyond man. God intentionally allows us to come to th eend of ourselves in order that we may come to Him more fully, seeking a greater dependence.

When you look at what Paul is saying in the verses above, it is clear that he thought he was going to be killed in Asia. The affliction that he felt wass for one purpose: to make he and his brothers in Christ rely on God and not themsleves. There focus was not on circumventing risk, mitigating it, or all together condemning it. Their focus was on following the God who can not take risks because He knows all times and all things before, during and after they happen. Paul states later in verse 10 that "On Him we have set our hope".

When I look at my own life, I can see a growth in my own faith as I look at God and not the affliction, challenge, pain, overwhelming task or hard road ahead. I also can see vast room for improvement in the same area as I often rely on myself and not God to figure it out. I need to pray more, praise more, proclaim more. I need to allow faith to change me in any circumstance as God has ordained them in my life and stop focusing on my ability to alleviate the circumstances.

The great men and women of faith in the bible looked at life altering risk dead in the eyes and said "My God is much bigger than this". That is faith. My hope is that God will grow me in my faith and you in yours. That will only become real as trials, afflictions and challenges are overcome in our lives, as our theology becomes a real and active fabric of our hearts as we walk by Faith and not by sight.

Asking the wrong Questions

1 Corinthians 6:20 For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

How much alcohol can I drink? How much of my money should I give? How much craving of sex is too much? How much of my time do I have to give God?

If I had a nickel for everytime that I had thought or heard on of these questions asked I would be a very wealthy man. It seems that we are alltempted by the strong power of sinful self gratification, even after we have been born again in the Spirit. I know persoanlly that my own thoughts at times stray back to some of these same self focused questions.

If God has made one thing clear in my life it has been this: A Christian exists to bring Glory to God through the redemption of Christ, empowered by the sanctifying work of the Spirit. He has made much of Chad so that I can make much of Him, not so I can live a life of self satisfying, prosperous indulgence. Paul's words to the Corinthian church are clear. He is addressing them about sexual immorailty, envy and drunkenness. He tells them they are focused on the wrong thing. They were all focused on themselves. He reminds them that they were redeemed with a price. They were purchased by Christ's blood to be a Holy part of His body. He calls them to leave self satisfaction and pour themselves out in self depletion so that Christ gets the Glory.

This price of our redemption is not to be undervalued. The work of Christ is an awesome thing. If you were to stand before God today and He were to ask you why you should spend eternity with Him, what would you say? If your first thought is anything having to do with You and not Christ, you might want to re-think.

If Christ alone is the redeemer and the sacrifice, He alone should be magnified in our lives, NOT US!

So what kinds of questions are you asking? How much this or that can I get away with?

Or are you following the role of a believer in Christ and asking God, "How can I make much of you today?".

Cut to the Heart

Romans 2:28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

What happens when the word of God is proclaimed faithfully? Are we happier, nicer or just better as a result? Do we go away after hearing thinking better of ourselves?
Most people would be amening and saying oh yeah!

That is not ever on record in the bible. Check out the reaction to the first Christian sermon in acts 2. What was the response of the people? Acts 2:37 says that they were "cut to the heart". After the word circumsized their heart and reshaped it with divine grace, they repented, were baptized and "there were added that day about 3,000 souls.

I want to be careful and clear so as not to confuse, but the bible is crystal clear about the Gospel cutting our hearts. It has to, as it surgically attacks and removes sin and claims a soul for a Holy Indwelling. Its as if the Gospel quite literally causes us a sharp pain, as we see our sin in the light of the Holiness of Christ and His Cross. Its not a happy feel good thing to think about, until your reshaped Heart praises the goodness of Christ. The Gospel seeks to cut us away from sin and mend us to Christ in love. That is what it means to be cut to the heart. That is what PAul is expressing in Romans 2 above and that is what New Testament Circumsicion is all about.

Full Circle Restoration

Acts 16 35 But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, “Let those men go.” 36 And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace.” 37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” 38 The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. 39 So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city.

Down here in the South there are a lot of wrongs swept under the rug in the name of good old fashion southern grace. People just let things go by and leave wrongs unaddressed. There is a large void of speaking the truth in love, and I think our misunderstanding of Grace and restoration has a lot to do with that. We wrongly have believed that Grace just means we can keep on sinning and always have an out card. Grace from Christ is designed to save us from the penalty and power of sin in our lives. If our sins go unconfronted how can we be restored? Does not the Holy spirit convict us of sin, righteousness and judgement? Doesn't the Holy Spirit work through the mouths of the elect?

Look at what Paul does when the people that publicly beat and humiliated Him and Silas tried to just send them off without a face to face meeting so that restoration could occur. Doesn't Jesus teach us to turn the other cheek? Yes he does, for the sake of forgiveness. That does not mean acting like it never happened, but rather loving the person who wronged you enough to walk through the restoration process with them. If we think showing grace means allowing people who hurt others to walk through life unconfronted, it only ensures that they will continue to sin and hurt themselves, others and the Heart of their creator in the process. I wish we had the conversation that occurred between Paul and the magistrates on record, but I am sure there was a blend of stern Love and Warm grace that ministered to the hearts of the magistrates who condemned them while they where innocent. I would doubt that they thought twice about rashly condemning people who might be innocent and strike against the Heart of God found in Proverbs 17:15 " he who justifies the wicked and condemns the righteous both are an abomination to the Lord." So Paul does these guys a favor by confronting them and allowing both restoration and God like forgiveness and education to the will of God to occur.

Do you love people enough to truly forgive them and walk through the mess with them, or do you just sweep it under the rug and allow them to continue to walk in unconvicted sin? While ignoring the sin issue might seem on the surface an unselfish thing to do, it just might be one of the most selfish things we can do. Jesus and teh Apostles engaged people and their sin with teh Power and Hope of Christ's victory over it. They didn't walk around just acting like everything was fine while the world fell apart around it!

Too Unclean?

Acts 10:13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” 15 And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.
Acts 10: 28 And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but a God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean

Last year I was blessed to go to New Delhi, India to work with some Indian brothers in sharing the Good news of Christ. While the trip was the toughest 10 days of my life, it taught me many lessons I will never forget. Appreciating my Blesser and His blessings were made easier than ever after viewing chaotic darkness in 120 degree heat for 8 days. When I got back some weird things happened. I was asked by a close friend, "Why would you want to go to India?" as if I was crazy or something. People really did not understand that I went because God led me to go and tell of His son Jesus the Christ. What was simple obedience to the Great commission in my life was viewed by many as a crazy idea by most. They did not state this directly, but there dialogue and expressions gave away the fact that a bunch of Indians going to hell just weren't as important as their routines. What seemed to me as a no-brainer response to God seemed to them as a laughable waste of time. It seemed maybe they didn't put much value on the lives and souls of the people we ministered to. God does.

Peter went through this same battle in Acts 10. God clearly spells it out to Him and tells Him " I decide who is worth ministering to Peter, not You, and the gentiles need to hear about ME. Your job is to go when sent." You can almost hear the spiritual dialogue of the Spirit reminding Him of the only real cleanliness that Peter has was Christ's doing, not his own. Peter responded in obedience and people were saved as a result. Gentile people. People who society looked down on as unclean and worthless.

What is your view? Are you too clean, and too busy to hear God's call? Are there just some people who are so far beneath you that you are just too good to love them?

If that was Christ's heart, we would all be shut out as sinned has stained us all. I believe we all need to evaluate our hearts and do some hard core repenting right in through here.....

Fire in You

Matthew 3:11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire"

Have you ever noticed how much coaches talk about fire? Seems that when teams lose the coaches always reason that,"There was just no fire in the belly of my team, we were not ready to play". When coaches win they talk about how the kids were so ready and fired up to play that the coaching was easy. Even cheerleaders know the need to "Get fired up". I think we all know that if our team shows up "not fired up" in a tough game they will lose and many times badly.

Why do we not sense that as deep in our walk with Christ? He came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. Yes I understand that the fire and Spirit are for cleansing and sanctifying us, but clearly the bible points to the fact that we are sanctified so that we are to be lights for Christ, and passionate ones at that. The idiomatic dictionary defines "a fire in your belly" as being ready to fight with energy and determination for what you believe is right. Do you do that for Christ?

When you look at the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit's work in the lives of only 120 believers with fire in their bellies turned the entire city of Jerusalem upside down. Here in my home city of Birmingham there are thousands of Churches, yet the net effect on our culture seems small and fading.

Why? I believe we are fired up about the wrong things.

We all need to stop and ask ourselves one thing: Is Christ's baptism with the Spirit and fire working its way through me? Do I have a fire in my soul for Christ or is it for something else?

If we are not fired up about Him, do we know Him?

Whatcha saying?

John 7:18 The one who speaks on His own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him is true, and in Him there is no falsehood.

Each night I lay down to pray and talk with my kids. Eli is now four and loves pirates, so lately I have been working in some tales of old pirate Red Beard sailing the Caribbean in search of Spanish Gallions full of gold. A couple of nights ago, he attempted his first stab at telling a Pirate tale. It basically went something like this "Apona once time there Red Beard and scooby doo said happy Halloween. Star wars came and they jumped off the ship and redbeard got lost. The end."

It is amazing how much kids imitate their parents. Eli's confusing story was simply an attempt to mirror me and my bad Pirate accent. He just turned four, so he gets a pass on blabbing off some confusion. I don't think we get that same pass as adults.

Read through the passage above and listen to what Jesus is saying. He basically says that He is sent to bring Glory to God and is speaking based on that authority. He goes further to say that anyone who doesn't speak by a God endowed and empowered authority is seeking his own glory, not God's.

That should stop us dead in our tracks when we see our churches filled with members, and even some preachers who don't know the Bible, or choose to ignore the Bible and instead believe that their opinions are more important than teaching the word of God, which has a 100% backing by God as being invested with God's authority. It is only when we are seeking to Glorify God will we care about what He has to say about Himself and His Creation. When we are seeking to Glorify ourselves we will speak on our own authority, which quite frankly seems as silly as Eli's story when you stop and look at it from a God centered perspective.

So what are you talking about? What is your purpose? Are you following the model of Christ purpose, seeking to glorify God alone? Are your words and life aligned under His authority humbly seeking His majesty?

If that is not happening, both your purpose and your words will seek to glorify and justify yourself. Jesus classifies that as faleshood.

Mockery

Luke 23:11 And Herod with his soldiers treated Him with contempt and mocked Him, then arraying Him in splendid clothes sent Him back to Pilate.

I remember one morning about 8 years ago, sitting in Sunday school hearing prayer requests that seemed a bit odd. The one I remember most was a couple that wanted us to pray that God would help them sell their old house, because they had instantaneously without consulting Him brought their dream house in their dream neighborhood, and didn't have the money to pay for both houses for long. When I heard it, it allowed me to see my own misguided practices, as I used to think that I could simply use God to get what I wanted. As our group sat there vocalizing prayer request, an outsider would have probably deduced that our God was equivalent of a short order cook waiting anxiously to fulfill our request on our timetable. I believe that many people subconsciously feel that way, or at least that is what their lives reveal.

First let me say that I believe that God indeed wants to bless and enrich His children, but those blessings and enrichment come according to His plan and may or may not be material. Our two biggest challenges as Americans is that our sin nature encourages us to falsely see everything through lenses of materialism and individualism. As long as we are trapped looking through those lenses, we will miss the beauty of and riches of Christ himself, and the blessings of sharing His love with others. We will mistakenly think that stuff is better than God.

When we try to use Jesus to accomplish our will and direct God to bless it, I believe it is a mockery of the Cross and of Christ's work on it. He has a plan and empowerment for our lives that is designed to bring Him Glory. We mock Him as we try to leverage Him so that we can bring glory to ourselves. That my friend is something I have done way too much of, and it humbles me to think that He has forgiven me and still pours fourth love for me.

So are you a tool being leveraged for the Glory of God, or do you think God is a tool to be used by you to get what you want? The bigger question is which is the end desire of your heart, God or stuff?

We need to really tread carefully with how we handle the grace of Christ. If not we don't look any different than Pilate and his soldiers who mistakenly thought that they controlled Him. What a mistake that was. Don't follow their path. Follow Christ and be used for His Glory!