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Published on 6 Comments on John 13:34-35 Will they know we are Christians?

I just had a visit from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. (You know if you’re nice to them once, they keep coming back, but if they talk to me they have to listen to me too.) Today’s topic of conversation was The Marks of a True Christian. What makes someone a true Christian, and how can we know it? I don’t think that we can really know for sure, because the state of a person’s soul is between that person and God, but I do think that there should definitely be some evidence to make us suspect. By evidence I don’t mean where they go to church, whether they wear a cross around their neck, how they dress or how they cut their hair. Anyone could profess to be a Christian if these were the only requirements.

Romans 10:9 makes it clear that you will be saved if you believe in your heart and declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead. John 3:16 says that whoever believes in Jesus will have everlasting life. So that’s what makes you a Christian. But how does the rest of the world know that you are one?

In John 13:34, Jesus told His disciples that He was giving them a new commandment—to love one another. Now the commandment to love was not new. It had been around since the days of Moses. (Leviticus 19:18) But the old commandment was to love your neighbour as yourself. Now Jesus was telling the disciples to love each other as He loved them. These were the disciples that argued about who was greatest, (Mark 9:33-37, Luke 9:46-48, Luke 22:24-27) and who would sit at Christ’s side in heaven. (Mark 10:35-40) They didn’t really have the servant attitude that Christ demonstrated. Shortly before Jesus said this, He had washed His disciples feet, and told them He wanted them to do the same. (John 13:3-17, John 13:14-15) Shortly afterward He gave up His life for them and for us. (John 19:30) That’s quite an example to follow, but if we do, others will know we are Christians by our love. (John 13:35)

Can you be saved and not be loving? Can you be loving and not be saved? Yes, and yes. But if we have a personal relationship with Jesus, we are encouraged and commanded to love one another. And if we love each other the way that Christ loved, people are going to notice, and wonder why. Does that mean being nice to the Jehovah’s Witnesses when they come to the door so that they can see the love of Jesus too? For me it does.

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Published on 6 Comments on Thoughts on Ephesians 1
  • We have been blessed with ALL spiritual blessings in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)
  • We were chosen to be holy and blameless in His sight before the world was created.  (Ephesians 1:4)
  • God intended for us to be a part of His family through Christ.  We do not have to plead for this privilege; we only have to accept the invitation.  (Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 1:11)
  • God's grace and forgiveness are given to us through Christ's sacrifice.  His grace does not depend on us or on anything that we may or may not do.  (Ephesians 1:7-8)
  • When we hear the truth of God's gift of salvation and accept it, we are given the Holy Spirit as a seal--a family crest.  The Holy Spirit should shine through us and be a sign of to whom we belong, but the Holy Spirit is also our assurance, a deposit to guarantee our inheritance from God. (Ephesians 1:13-14)
  • Spiritual wisdom and revelation are available from God. (Ephesians 1:17, James 1:5)
  • Believing comes first, and then the eyes of our hearts are enlightened. Faith is required. (Ephesians 1:18,Believing Is Seeing)
  • His power is made available to us.  The extent of His power was demonstrated when He raised Jesus from the dead.  (Ephesians 1:19-21)
  • God gave Jesus authority over the church (those who believe).  (Ephesians 1:22)
  • The church is Christ's body, His representation on earth.  (Ephesians 1:23)

Please share your thoughts on Ephesians 1 in the comment section.

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Published on 2 Comments on Romans 5:1-5 Faith Is The Mother of Hope

At the beginning of this new year, I am thinking about hope. As I have said before, Biblical hope is not wishful thinking, but a confident expectation that God will fulfill His promises to us. If we look carefully enough, we can find stories of hope all around us. The television programs 100 Huntley Street and Full Circle specialize in sharing stories of hope. If you were to ask your friends, most of them could share personal stories of hope—stories of redemption, of gain from loss, of family members going down a path that would lead to destruction, one that they couldn’t see the way back from, but they did—somehow, miraculously—find their way back. No one, let me repeat that, NO ONE is without hope. What is impossible for humans is possible with God. (Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27, Luke 1:37, Luke 18:27)

In Romans 8:24-25, the Apostle Paul states that it is in hope that we were saved. Let’s be clear about this. We are saved through faith. (Ephesians 2:8) We must believe that what God has said, even though we do not completely see or understand it, is true, and we wait in hope until the fulfillment of all that He has promised. Matthew Henry has said, “Faith is the mother of hope.”

In the meantime, we live in an imperfect world. We are surrounded by pain, sadness, frustration, injustice and suffering, and it’s hard. Our hope is not yet complete. We do not see the end results yet; if we did, there would be nothing left to hope for. Earlier, (Romans 5:1-5) Paul states that our suffering produces endurance, which produces character, which in turn produces hope. All of the things we have gone through in the past have strengthened us, along with God’s grace, to go through the things we are now facing. And we can rejoice in the hope of God’s glory.

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Published on 6 Comments on Matthew 6:33 Hearing God’s Voice

At this time of year, many people start thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. What can I do differently in the coming year to make my life better? Many plan to start diet or exercise programs, and some plan to start Bible reading programs that will take them through the Bible in one year. A lot of these Bible reading programs alternate between Old and New Testament. Some read from four different sections each day. Some read straight through from cover to cover, and others go in chronological order. In order to read the Bible completely in one year, you need to read about three or four chapters a day. I have done this a couple of times before, but I don’t intend to do it again. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a good thing to read your Bible--this whole blog is built on it. I don’t think it’s wrong to read the Bible straight through either; in fact I think it’s a good idea to do so, either how it is written or in chronological order. But I don’t think that you should set yourself up for a schedule that you can’t keep, and that you will feel guilty about if you give it up. I think it is more important to forget the schedule, and read at a pace where you can stop and think, and pray, about what you are reading.

Many of you are familiar with Matthew 6:33 and the context around it. We are told not to worry about material things, what we will eat, what we will drink, what we will wear, because our Heavenly Father knows that we need them, but to first, above all, pursue His kingdom and righteousness, and the material things we need will be provided. The context tells us why we should put God first, and I think most of us would agree even if only for practical reasons. The problem is that most of us who have read, even memorized, this verse and agree with it, have trouble putting it into practice. So I want to talk about how we put God first. How do we get to know Him? How do we hear and know His voice? Surely His provision for us involves our cooperation. How do we follow His leading if we don’t know where He is directing us?

Rather than following a reading plan that will take you through the Bible in one year, why not make a commitment of how much time you will spend each day reading the Bible and in prayer. Why not try to get to know God, to understand Him. Many people pray for God to speak to them, to guide them on the next step of their journey. Do they expect to hear a booming voice from heaven with the answer telling them what they should do? Being a follower of Jesus Christ is not about religion, and following a list of rules, especially self-prescribed rules, it is about having a relationship, being adopted into a new family. How can you get to know that family if you don’t spend time with them? Reading the Bible, just for the sake of getting through it, and not really paying attention to it or considering how it could change your life, would be like having a conversation with someone while you’re daydreaming about something else. If you want to improve the relationship, you have to listen. For those of you who are waiting for God to speak to you, He already has—volumes.

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Published on 1 Comment on Acts 12 Faithless Prayer

Today's post was written by Tim Challies, an author and pastor. You can visit his website here.
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Acts 12 contains one of my favorite stories of the early church. It is a great little bit of writing—a short story in three acts. I was reflecting on that story recently and just had to tell you about it.

The chapter begins with a description of Herod’s persecution against the church. In order to please his Jewish subjects Herod has James arrested and killed. This makes his subjects so happy that he then goes after Peter, throwing him in prison as well. Knowing the popularity of these upstart Christians, Herod puts Peter under the care of four whole squads of soldiers. The first act ends with these words: “So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.” This earnest prayer is no incidental detail; it is a little fact, some narrative tension, that the author offers to foreshadow what will come.

The second act tells how Peter is delivered by God through one his angels. Peter, half asleep, sees his chains fall off and quickly passes all the guards before waking up and realizing what is happening. He hurries quickly to the church, to the gathering of people who just happen to be praying for him at that very moment. There is a delightful bit of comedy injected into the text when Rhoda, the servant girl, so excited to hear Peter at the door, runs to tell everyone that he has arrived. But she forgets to let him in; he is left standing on the street, pounding at the door. With the prayer meeting coming to a prompt end, the people belittle Rhoda, refusing to believe that Peter has actually arrived. And yet, because of Peter’s persistent knocking, they soon come to realize that he really has been rescued. Peter quickly tells his story and then disappears, presumably opting to lay low for a little while.

In the third act we return to Herod. Herod has ordered the execution of the soldiers who allowed Peter to escape. And then we find him accepting worship as a god. His Creator is most displeased and strikes him down so “he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.” Herod bookends this story, appearing as a cruel tyrant at the beginning and as a pathetic worm-eaten corpse at the end. He has gone from holding the power of life and death in his hand to being struck down by the Lord himself. It’s a pathetic end to a pathetic ruler.

Acts 12 contains a great little story, a little vignette of life in the early church. Despite the miraculous (Peter being rescued, Herod being struck down) there is such a human element to it. We see the church in prayer, undoubtedly begging God for the life of their friend and pastor. Yet when God answers their earnest prayers, they refuse to believe it. “You are out of your mind,” they tell Rhoda when she insists that God has answered them. Two thousand years later we laugh at them, wondering why they would bother to pray if they didn’t believe that God might actually answer. And then we realize that we do little better; we realize how much effort we put into pleading for God to act and how little effort we put into seeking answers to those prayers. I trust the lesson was not lost on the early church. I trust they learned from it that God’s miraculous rescue of Peter was not in any way separate from their prayers. Those prayers, even though they were offered with little expectation of an answer, were instrumental in God rescuing Peter from his imprisonment. God answers prayer, even when we ask with little faith.

It is also worth noticing that as soon as Peter arrived he was sure to share all that God had done. Peter, the object of all those prayers, wanted to ensure that the church knew that it was God who had acted with such power and in such an unusual way. “He described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, ‘Tell these things to James and to the brothers.’” He wanted this great act of God to encourage all of the believers.

The chapter closes with these familiar words: “the word of God increased and multiplied.” Have you ever noticed how often these words, or ones just like them, appear in Acts? Just a brief overview of the first chapters shows them in chapters 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 12. In every case, Luke wants us to know that God continued to build his church. In times of joy and pain, times of peace and persecution, God built his church. All that God did was for his own glory and served his ultimate purpose of drawing a people to himself.

And this God, who acted so faithfully, so consistently, so powerfully, is the same God we serve today.

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I have come to realize that a major theme in James 1 is humility. James 1:12 tells us that we will be rewarded if we endure the testing that we face. What must we do to endure testing? We need to let go of our pride and our feelings of entitlement. How do you react when you face trials? I have to admit that I usually try to avoid them. I think it is quite common for people to pity themselves and want to escape the unpleasant circumstances that they are in. But the Bible tells us that we face testing to humble us, to strengthen us and to bring good to us. (Deuteronomy 8:16, James 1:2-4) A wise pastor once suggested that instead of lamenting our trials that we ask God what He wants us to learn from them. Candy Hemphill Christmas, founder of The Bridge Ministry has said that she has learned something about God—“that if you ask Him a question, He will answer. Now, you’re going to have to get ready for the answer, but He will answer. It might not be what you want to hear, but He will answer.” Are we willing to submit to God’s answer, to His plan? That takes humility.

I think it is natural for people to think that trials are a punishment from God. Job’s friends did, and so did Job’s wife. Job, on the other hand, asked why we should expect good things from God and not accept the bad. (Job 2:7-10). When God answered Job, (Job 40:1-14) He reminded him that there is a God, and Job isn’t Him. Neither are we. We need to trust God and His love for us. We need to trust what He tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, that His plan for our future is a good one. The trials that we face along the way are stepping stones to that good future. God is more interested in our character than He is in our accomplishments or wealth, and He can bring good from everything that happens to us. (Romans 8:28)

I wonder what would happen if we thanked God for our trials and looked for the lessons in them rather than complaining about our lot in life. Let’s try to focus on making the best of the present instead of wishing for something better in the future. Let’s see how we can help other people instead of throwing ourselves a pity party. Let’s trust God to bring good out of every circumstance in our lives.

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Published on 2 Comments on I Corinthians 1:26-31 Qualified

The other day I was watching an episode of Full Circle that aired a few months ago. (The good thing about Full Circle is that you can watch full episodes on-line anytime.) The conversation was about trying to be a good enough mom. Now, not all of us are moms, but most of us are trying to be great at something, maybe several things. I would guess that most of us also feel like we aren’t measuring up. And, I would say that even those who appear to have it all together probably feel like they don’t most of the time.

We are continually being bombarded with images of people to measure up to. This goes beyond the advertisements of perfectly sized men and women wearing this year’s perfect fashions. The people who are celebrated in the news, on TV, and on the Internet are usually the ones who have accomplished something extraordinary. We celebrate the people who have accomplished great things, donated a lot of money (or even just earned/won/have a lot of money), committed heroic acts, or overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. I have nothing against acknowledging these people, but where does that leave the rest of us who are pretty much just average?

God has a plan and a purpose for us, (Jeremiah 29:11) and the good news is that we don’t have to be strong, rich, well-educated or spectacular in any way to fulfill that purpose. Peter and John were just ordinary men—no advanced degrees, no high position in society—but God was able to use them, (Acts 4:13-14) and He can use us too. I Corinthians 1:26-31 tells us that God uses ordinary people, the ones who have no advantages according to the world’s standards. He uses the foolish to shame the wise and the weak to shame the strong. (I Corinthians 1:27) Why does He choose to use the unqualified to do His work? So that we will know that all we have accomplished is through His power. So that we won’t have a reason to swell with pride. So that any boasting we do will be done in the Lord. So that all of the glory will go to God.

The Corinthians that Paul was writing to were pretty average people—not many were aristocrats, mighty warriors or brilliant scholars. (I Corinthians 1:26) We are pretty average too, but our God is not. If we are willing to answer His call, He can do incredible things through us.

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I was just outside enjoying the first full day of summer. It’s a warm day here in Southern Ontario, Canada, and the sky is blue with a few bright white, billowing clouds lazily drifting by. As I walked across the lush green grass, a robin, who apparently would rather run or hop than fly, skittered away from me. A goldfinch flew from the birdfeeder to the safety of the nearby cedar branches. High above me the breeze rustled the leaves of a large ash tree. The dark pink peonies that were in full bloom yesterday appear a little more beaten down today, a result of last night’s thunderstorm. I’m sure some would have enjoyed the majesty of all that thunder and lightning a little more if they hadn’t been trying to sleep at the time.

How can people witness all of these marvelous facets of creation and still try to convince themselves that there is no God? I believe that they are trying to avoid being held accountable to the One who created them. As I said in my last post, (June 20, 2011), God is holy, and because He is holy, He cannot tolerate sin. The only way that people know how to avoid being accountable to God is to pretend that He doesn’t exist. This reminds me of students who don’t look at a teacher when she is asking a question. They must be thinking, if I don’t look at her, she won’t see me, and won’t ask me to answer. God sees us whether we are willing to acknowledge Him or not, and we are accountable to Him, whether we are willing to admit it or not. Just because you don’t want to believe something, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Romans 1:18-20 tells us that God’s wrath is revealed against the unrighteousness of those who suppress the truth, and that what can be known about God can be clearly seen in His creation. We know from Deuteronomy 29:29 that there are some things that are known only to God, but what we can know has been revealed to us so that we will want to honour and obey Him. God has made all of humankind to understand that creation requires a Creator. The intricacies of this life, the human body, plants, animals, the rotation of the planets in the universe, they didn’t just happen. They follow a design that requires a Designer. We can try to convince ourselves that God doesn’t exist, but it won’t work. The evidence is all around us.

Psalm 19:1-2

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I have come to realize that a major theme in James 1 is humility.  James 1:12 tells us that we will be rewarded if we endure the testing that we face.  What must we do to endure testing?  We need to let go of our pride and our feelings of entitlement.  How do you react when you face trials?  I have to admit that I usually try to avoid them.  I think it is quite common for people to pity themselves and want to escape the unpleasant circumstances that they are in.  But the Bible tells us that we face testing to humble us, to strengthen us and to bring good to us. (Deuteronomy 8:16, James 1:2-4)  A wise pastor once suggested that instead of lamenting our trials that we ask God what He wants us to learn from them.  Candy Hemphill Christmas, founder of The Bridge Ministry has said that she has learned something about God—“that if you ask Him a question, He will answer.  Now, you’re going to have to get ready for the answer, but He will answer.  It might not be what you want to hear, but He will answer.”  Are we willing to submit to God’s answer, to His plan?  That takes humility.

I think it is natural for people to think that trials are a punishment from God.  Job’s friends did, and so did Job’s wife.  Job, on the other hand, asked why we should expect good things from God and not accept the bad.  (Job 2:7-10).  When God answered Job, (Job 40:1-14) He reminded him that there is a God, and Job isn’t Him.  Neither are we.  We need to trust God and His love for us.  We need to trust what He tells us in Jeremiah 29:11, that His plan for our future is a good one.  The trials that we face along the way are stepping stones to that good future.  God is more interested in our character than He is in our accomplishments or wealth, and He can bring good from everything that happens to us.  (Romans 8:28)

I wonder what would happen if we thanked God for our trials and looked for the lessons in them rather than complaining about our lot in life.  Let’s try to focus on making the best of the present instead of wishing for something better in the future.  Let’s see how we can help other people instead of throwing ourselves a pity party.  Let’s trust God to bring good out of every circumstance in our lives.

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Something I said in my last blog post (John 1:14, January 7) inspired me to look up Colossians 3:23-24.  My question from the passage in John was how would it change your life if Jesus moved in next door?  Colossians 3:23 tells us that it doesn’t matter what we are doing, or what human person asked us to do it, we are really working for God.

From the previous verse we see that this passage refers to slaves working for their masters, but in today’s context the principle would apply just as well to employees, children and students.  How do you react when your boss asks you to do something that isn’t technically in your job description, or you feel is beneath you?  What is a child’s usual response when asked to clean his room?  What about students who let other members of the group carry the load on a group project?  Would it make a difference if Jesus had asked you to do it?  It’s true; your boss’ motives may not be as pure, selfless and forward-thinking as Jesus’ are, but her authority still needs to be respected.

Verse 23 also tells us to work with enthusiasm.  The King James version uses the term heartily; the original Greek means from the soul.  Now think about this for a minute.  When you are doing the dishes or the laundry or taking out the trash, are you doing it with enthusiasm?  These are not the most glamourous tasks, but they deserve the best of your ability.  They may seem like thankless jobs, because there’s a good chance that no one ever says thank you for doing them, but the Lord will reward you.  When you are working for Him, what others think won’t matter to you.

You may not get a raise or promotion by working those overtime hours when your boss asks you to at the last minute.  You may not get an A on that group assignment, or a bonus in your allowance for cleaning up your room.  Earthly rewards are not always fair or reliable.  Sometimes you get praise for what others have done, and sometimes you don’t get the praise you deserve.  Sometimes it seems like your efforts are quickly forgotten.  God doesn’t forget.  Your reward from God will not be based on the amount of talent you have, or how popular you are, or how much money you earned.  The reward He gives you will be for your attitude and your faithfulness.  Did you give God your very best effort?  Jesus will be doing your final performance review; are you ready?