Justified by the Precious Blood

August 30th, 2010

Oh, the precious blood
that flowed from Mercy’s side,
Washed away my sin,
When Christ my Savior died.

Oh the precious blood
of Christ the crucified,
speaks for me before your throne
where I stand justified.

It is interesting how we spend much time justifying sin. We like to think the little white lies we tell are okay because they are justifiable. We also may believe it okay to steal food when we are starving.

We know that lying and stealing are wrong. However, we want to be justified. If then we long for this justification, how is it obtained?

Do we bring out a scale and weigh the perceived good and bad, and then make a decision?

If so, and we proceed with “justified” sin, is it still not sin?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that we all have to work for justification. However, we know that we need it. Romans 3:20 tells us that if we try to be good enough to always do the right thing, it will not be good enough!

As the lyric in the song above… if we have put our faith in Jesus, we ALREADY are justified! It is by Jesus’ blood alone. It testifies to God the Father as we stand before His throne.

Hey, don’t believe me! Read it here in Romans 5:9.

We cannot justify ourselves, yet it is there readily available for all! Abundant enough that all can, in Christ, stand before the throne of a holy God! (Romans 4:5)

Oh, it is precious blood indeed!

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You Thought I was One Like Yourself

August 25th, 2010

Psalm 50:16-21 “But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are pleased with him, land you keep company with adulterers. “You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.”

How careful are we in our perception of Who God is?

Do we make Him out to be like us, or do we conform ourselves to Who He is?

These are interesting questions. To some extent, we are all guilty of the charges in these verses. What I find haunting and curious is the penultimate sentence. God’s longsuffering is extended to those who do not repent.

Yet, He is not like us. He is holy, and as such He requires us to be holy and sinless. He knows that we cannot, however, the charge is still laid at our feet, and we must bear the consequences.

Unless, in His love for us, He has provided a way in which we can stand before Him blameless!

It is Jesus, His Son Who bore the consequences some 2,000 years ago. He was put to death, and rose again the third day in triumph over death. Those that put their faith in Him, like putting on a parachute… have His righteousness and holiness imputed to them, making them acceptable to stand before a Holy God.

Romans 3:23-25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”

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Is Christianity Religion?

August 7th, 2010

All religion, basically, is man’s effort to raise himself or make himself acceptable to God. Muslim, Hinduism, Buddhism even Mormonism and to some extent Catholicism require certain work or duty to become accepted. They all have their different tenets, but there is always something YOU have to DO to become acceptable to God.

This is played out in the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. After their eyes were opened to good and evil, they knew they were naked. They tried to cover themselves with leaves to hide their nakedness and make them acceptable before God. That was the first religious act.

But Christianity is different…

The Bible tells that there is none righteous and that no one seeks after God. (Romans 3:10-18) In fact it goes so far to say that we have all sinned. (Romans 3:23) It instructs us that the burden of death on the physical world is the result of sin. (Romans 6:23)

But there is a Remedy offered in the second half of Romans 6:23, where Paul speaks of a gift from God through one man Jesus Christ. If we step a few verses backward, it tells us that even though we were not yet born, nor even considering to stop sinning, that Jesus died for us. (Romans 5:8)

So there is nothing any of us can DO to please God. What condition are we left in if we then have no hope to please God?

Romans 10:9 offers the solution. It is to look upon yourself, and agree with God on your condition and the finished work of Jesus who took our penalties upon Himself willingly! A few verses later in Romans 10:13 it is declared "For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”"

The results of salvation are summed up in a few more verses. In Romans 5:1 we find we have been justified and have found peace with God. Romans 8:1 then explains that we have been removed from our former condemnation. A little further ahead in Romans 8:38-39 we read that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God.

That is Christianity… we are justified by faith alone, through God’s grace alone in Jesus Christ alone!

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92 Year Old Preacher

July 10th, 2010

an email I wanted to share…

While watching a little TV on Sunday instead of going to church, I watched a church in Atlanta honoring one of its senior pastors who had been retired many years. He was 92 at that time and I wondered why the church even bothered to ask the old gentleman to preach at that age.

After a warm welcome, introduction of this speaker, and as the applause quieted down, he rose from his high back chair and walked slowly, with great effort and a sliding gait to the podium. Without a note or written paper of any kind he placed both hands on the pulpit to steady himself and then quietly and slowly he began to speak……

“When I was asked to come here today and talk to you, your pastor asked me to tell you what was the greatest lesson ever learned in my 50-odd years of preaching. I thought about it for a few days and boiled it down to just one thing that made the most difference in my life and sustained me through all my trials.. The one thing that I could always rely on when tears and heartbreak and pain and fear and sorrow paralyzed me… The only thing that would comfort was this verse…….. …….

“Jesus loves me this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong,
We are weak but He is strong…….
Yes, Jesus loves me….
The Bible tells me so.”

When he finished, the church was quiet. You actually could hear his foot steps as he shuffled back to his chair. I don’t believe I will ever forget it.

A pastor once stated, “I always noticed that it was the adults who chose the children’s hymn ‘Jesus Loves Me’ (for the children of course) during a hymn sing, and it was the adults who sang the loudest because I could see they knew it the best.”

“Senior version of Jesus Loves Me”

Here is a new version just for us who have white hair or no hair at all.. For us over middle age (or even those almost there) and all you others, check out this newest version of Jesus Loves Me.

JESUS LOVES ME
Jesus loves me, this I know,
Though my hair is white as snow
Though my sight is growing dim,
Still He bids me trust in Him…
(CHORUS)
YES, JESUS LOVES ME.. YES, JESUS LOVES ME..
YES, JESUS LOVES ME, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO.

Though my steps are oh, so slow,
With my hand in His I’ll go
On through life, let come what may,
He’ll be there to lead the way.
(CHORUS)

When the nights are dark and long,
In my heart He puts a song..
Telling me in words so clear,
“Have no fear, for I am near.”
(CHORUS)

When my work on earth is done,
And life’s victories have been won.
He will take me home above,
Then I’ll understand His love…
(CHORUS)

I love Jesus, does He know?
Have I ever told Him so?
Jesus loves to hear me say,
That I love Him every day.
(CHORUS)

If you think this is neat, please pass it on to your friends. If you do not pass it on, nothing bad will happen, but you will have missed an opportunity to “reach out and touch” a friend or a loved one.

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Posted by bradfoot

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The Danger of Sincrety

July 3rd, 2010

Today, many are given to this air of reconciliation. Political apologists would have you believe it is centrism or really, being moderate or better, progressive, somewhere between the political extremes of liberalism and conservatism. The real essence of the problem, is that capitalism without morality tends to the anarchy of lust and greed. This is dangerous enough, having liberty requires exercising self-discipline and responsibility. They call it the Third Way. The Third Way is sincrety, simply stated, trying to unite two irreconcilable things. These irreconcilable things are not what they would have you believe, let me explain.

As a society we are encourage to forget God. In so doing we have driven morality out of our schools, our homes, our entertainment and even our government. In return, there is a lack of self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) and personal responsibility, lawlessness grows. Consequently, this requires more of an external control and temperance, usually in the form of government.

This governmental control attempts to dictate morality and communal behavioral standards that apply to institutions and individuals alike. As personal self-control wanes, the reigns of government control must become tighter. This is the tipping the other end of the scale, and the centralized, command-and-control tyrannies of socialism, communism and Marxism. This type of government become dangerous because morality is rooted in the heart of the individual by God and is exercised in relationship to and knowledge of God. When the individual forgets God, and his responsibility to God, and the government then has to dictate morality, it becomes the arbiter of morality, deciding what is right and what is wrong. This is extremely dangerous.

The genius of our founding fathers, was finding a middle ground between these two extemes of anarchy and tyranny. One where the morality of the individual was recognized as God given. And with that personal morality, came sovereignty. This sovereignty required liberty, such that came from God and the government could not take away! They established a ance of power in governmental structure and prohibited the government from infringement on individual rights. This form of government recognized that sovereignty is bestowed upon the individual and not the government!

In the history of the world, this had not been done. As most governments place sovereignty in a person or particular group of rulers, not so in the United States.

The Third Way is not some reconciliation between partisan political extremes, but it is a way to reconcile these two forms of sovereignty. One that requires the individual to cede his control to that of another, transferring sovereignty to the government. Eventually, the government will be the arbiter of freedom, providing the individual with choices. This is just another version of the lie… the one Satan told in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:1-7. In essence, he took the freedom Eve had to eat of every tree of the garden, and gave her choices; she could remain as she was, or she could be like God.

Look around, we see it everywhere… corporations are bad, yet they pay our wages. Government is good, yet it dips its hand in your pocket to steal your sweat. Becoming a parasite on government largess is good, working hard to provide for your family is not.

Marriage is seen as a restrictive covenant, not as to only benefit the furtherance of a society through procreation. But its very essence must be bended and twisted to satisfy individual whims of indulgence, relegating the ability of marriage as the primary vehicle to sustain society to obscurity. Eventually, that very society shall end up on the refuse heap of history. (That can be the only logical conclusion!)

This sincrety can be non-sensical , as in the claim that carbon-dioxide is a pollutant, when it is necessary for plants to grow and thrive.

Oftentimes it is subtle, as when we are told pregnancy is not always a human carrying another individual human being. Instead we are asked to believe it is really a lump of tissue, or worse, a parasite! We know, without the benefit of science it is another INDIVIDUAL human being.

The problem with sincrety, is the same as Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 5:6 “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”

Think about it, we let a little error cloud our thought processes, will the preponderance of right thinking win out, or will that little bit of error, pollute all of our thinking?

The battle for control of the church has begun… the weapon of choice is SINCRETY! It is even predicted by John in Revelation 3:15-16, Jesus is speaking and says of the church of Laodicea “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Is this not a warning from the Savior Himself to be very wary about coupling irreconcilable things?

Why do we accept Yoga in the Christian church?

Yoga at best is against Christianity. It is a system of works based on merging with God. Though some of the language sounds the same, it is a system of works. The poses in Yoga are meant to teach the body how to die! Just peering at the five basic truths of Yoga is enough to make me run!

Why do we accept the peace sign in the Christian Church?

Take the time to find out why. It is not simply a symbol to bring about peace, but is being used to sincretize all of society. It has many different stories of its creation. However, some every citation couples some nefarious meaning to it. One cites its creation to a group with communist and Marxist sympathies. Regardless, it is a symbol of rebellion… and we attempt to reconcile it with our Christianity. That is precisely what it was used for in the 1960s, to rebel against the church and society Curiously, it is accepted and adored by many Christians today!

Why do we celebrate movies like Harry Potter and New Moon in the Christian Church?

They are really good moral stories, but that evil stuff is thrown in just for fun. Come on, incantations and vampires, are not true, yes, but some are carried away unawares. I mean seriously, we are to take character lessons from Edward (a vampire) and proclaim his testimony?

Is Jesus Christ not good enough?

And most dangerous of all, why do we accept the emergent church movement in the Christian Church?

With its focus on the here and now, social justice and sustainability… this is the near end-game of seduction. As Christians, we are encouraged to pray for God’s kingdom to come… it will be a Earthly kingdom, yes. However, it is not our home, or even our hope. Our hope is eternal, as it is written in Revelation 22:14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.”

There is a war being waged… it is spiritual. It is being waged for individual hearts! It is both overt and subtle, through using subterfuge and Hegelian dialectic it reaches deep into the church snaring elders and pastors. The powers-that-be may just be useful pawns, however they serve the father of lies. He is hard at work, knowing as we, that his time is fleeting. These leaders are moving us to the place we are warned to stay away from… medicority. Jesus Himself warned us of His reaction to mediocrity in Revelation 3:16… “I will spit you out of my mouth.”

I would even point to a hint of this prediction in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, recorded in the Daniel 2:31-45. The image Nebuchadnezzar saw in his sleep was impressive… and it is easily explained by Daniel with revelation from God.

The image is sort of “timeline” of world empires, with the gold head representing the Babylonian empire. Each empire deteriorates, as is evident in its movement from the more prominent position of the head on the body and composition of better materials. As each succesive empire appears, it occupies a less prominent place in the body and the material is of slightly inferior value and density. We find ourselves somewhere close to the feet and toes of the statue… the toes being the final empire. Here is where it is stated in Daniel 2:41-43 as follows:

And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.

Here you see sincrety described in the form of iron mixing with clay… but they do not hold together, because iron does not mix with clay.

Christian be wary of everything you are taught… even from your own church leaders. As is written in 1 John 4:1-6:

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Christian… you can be taught another Jesus. The enemy is working out the last pieces of his dominion. This is his lie, dominion theology taught by the emergent church, to realize Utopia in the here and now. He is using the language of the Christian to lure away captives unaware. Words like justice, hope, kingdom, conversion and salvation arer being used to connect concepts that are biblical with a concepts that are extra-biblical and prideful.

The emergent church is calling for “conversions that can change lives, neighborhoods and this world,” that is meant for the community. It is a gospel of communitariansim (better communism,) and relativism. It is not the true Gospel of the shocking individual recognition of personal sin that leads to responsibility, repentance and service to a holy and loving God through salvation in Jesus Christ.

So let’s be clear: sincretism… in other words is oxy-moronic!

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Purpose

July 2nd, 2010

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Posted by Robin

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Who Are the Two Gods in Daniel 7:13-14?

June 30th, 2010

Daniel 7:13-14 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

This is a particularly exciting passage of scripture. It records God, here described as the “Ancient of Days” on the throne, yet someone who looked like a human being was presented to Him. Yet, implied in the original language, this human being was not mortal. In fact, this Human was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, and that all peoples and nations and languages should serve him. I would ask, is this Human then a God on par and equal to the Ancient of Days?

The Israelites of Jesus’ time new the scripture well… in fact they knew this very passage referred to the Messiah, they also knew that the Messiah would reign forever, as is clearly expressed by the last phrase in the passage. They also knew the Messiah was God.

In John 12:27-34 there is an interesting conversation between Jesus and a crowd of Jewish followers. The Jews ended with some questions posed to Jesus. “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”

Curiously, Jesus Himself declared He must be lifted up, and would die. Those Jews present knew what the scripture said of the Messiah, or son of man, in Daniel 7:13-14. It surely must have perplexed some… but let us look at another New Testament passage… this time in the book of Matthew. Jesus is on trial before the high priest.

Matthew 14:60-63 “And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need?”

Here, recorded for us, is exactly what the high priest and Jews believed before the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. The son of man was indeed God, as Jesus Himself quoted and even ascribed Daniel 7:13 to Himself, calling Himself the Son of God. The reaction of the priest is self-explanatory.

And as the priest declared, I then ask you… “What further witnesses do we need?”

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