My four-year-old daughter learns a new verse each month in her class at church. They usually paraphrase it, but I recognized it immediately when she told me yesterday after church:
“Nothing can separate us from the love of God”
My little girl is learning about assurance!
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39
Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salvation. Show all posts
18 September 2006
16 September 2006
Great Quote on Righteousness
Ellen made a great comment in her post today, I had to share it:
This difference should be understood by every believer!
Doing right does not equal being right. It’s progress; a step. But doing right, instead of making the heart change, only leads to morality, not righteousness. Following the right rules does not bring us closer to God. Coming closer to God brings us closer to following the right rules.
This difference should be understood by every believer!
21 August 2006
What Will You Do With Jesus?
My friend at work is still “seeking” out the truth about God and asking good questions. She reminds me a lot of myself right before I was saved, having an almost insatiable curiosity about God. I feel very encouraged that God is working on her and it is a joy to talk with her about the Lord.
Being still at a intellectual/logical pursuit of faith, my friend has rightfully placed Jesus at the center of her quest. He is the one that can not be so easily dismissed. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it in his book Mere Christianity:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Jesus’ claims to be God can not be extracted from his teachings. Ultimately everyone needs to determine what they are going to do with Jesus. His existence in history is undeniable, so every person needs to decide whether he is a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
If Jesus is indeed Lord, then his teachings need to be taken to heart. And let’s not deny that Jesus said some tough things:
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matt 7:13-14
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Matt 7:21
"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matt 10:32-34
Jesus is the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice. His death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins – he is our Savior because he has saved us from condemnation if only we will believe in him.
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. John 5:24
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.” John 3:16-18
What will you do with Jesus?
Being still at a intellectual/logical pursuit of faith, my friend has rightfully placed Jesus at the center of her quest. He is the one that can not be so easily dismissed. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it in his book Mere Christianity:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Jesus’ claims to be God can not be extracted from his teachings. Ultimately everyone needs to determine what they are going to do with Jesus. His existence in history is undeniable, so every person needs to decide whether he is a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
If Jesus is indeed Lord, then his teachings need to be taken to heart. And let’s not deny that Jesus said some tough things:
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matt 7:13-14
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” Matt 7:21
"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Matt 10:32-34
Jesus is the Lamb of God, the ultimate sacrifice. His death on the cross paid the penalty for our sins – he is our Savior because he has saved us from condemnation if only we will believe in him.
I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. John 5:24
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.” John 3:16-18
What will you do with Jesus?
19 August 2006
The Gospel According to Me, Part 3
Okay, here is my nutshell explanation of God and his plan of salvation. I use this for someone who knows absolutely nothing about God or the Bible. Very simplistic, but it is a start.
An all-powerful, Holy, never-changing, perfect God created man. But man sinned against God (he violated God’s command – deliberate defiance) and caused a rift between himself and a Holy God. All men sin and fall short of the glory of God. Man has violated the commands of God and has incurred a penalty. This is because God is infinitely just. He could not just turn a blind eye to man’s sin (that would go against his nature), a price had to be paid.
But God knew that man could never pay the penalty for his sin. He knew that he would have to pay the penalty for man. So God sent his son, Jesus, to live a perfect, sin-free life and die in man’s place. Jesus took all the sins of men onto himself and died to pay the penalty for those sins. His sacrifice satisfied the wrath of a just God and was accepted as proven by his resurrection.
So all men have sinned and all deserve punishment, but Jesus has paid the debt for us. Salvation is Jesus saving us from the penalty of our own sin so that we can live eternally with God in heaven when we die. It is a free gift, we can not earn it ourselves, but we must accept the gift by believing and trusting in Jesus. We must repent of our sins and turn to God. If we do not accept Jesus’ gift of salvation, then we are still under the penalty of our sins.
There is a great analogy of the salvation plan and the justness of God in the book More than a Carpenter. Basically, a woman violates a traffic law and goes before the judge. The woman is found guilty of the violation and the judge fines her $100. But then the judge gets down from his bench, takes off his robe, and gives the woman $100 to pay for her fine. Why? Because the judge was her father. Because he is a judge, he had to fine his daughter for breaking the law. But as her father, he could pay the fine for her. Justice has been served and a father’s love for his daughter is revealed.
God IS a loving God. But he is more than just loving. He is also Holy and Just. Those attributes of God can not be excluded from our understanding of Him. Likewise, we are all sinners. We have all broken God's commands (check out just the 10 commandments) and our sins separate us from God. The only way to bridge the divide between our sinful nature and God's Holy nature is the cross of Christ.
To deny God’s salvation plan through Jesus is to either deny that you are a sinner before God and/or to deny that Jesus’ death was for a purpose. What are you going to do with Jesus?
An all-powerful, Holy, never-changing, perfect God created man. But man sinned against God (he violated God’s command – deliberate defiance) and caused a rift between himself and a Holy God. All men sin and fall short of the glory of God. Man has violated the commands of God and has incurred a penalty. This is because God is infinitely just. He could not just turn a blind eye to man’s sin (that would go against his nature), a price had to be paid.
But God knew that man could never pay the penalty for his sin. He knew that he would have to pay the penalty for man. So God sent his son, Jesus, to live a perfect, sin-free life and die in man’s place. Jesus took all the sins of men onto himself and died to pay the penalty for those sins. His sacrifice satisfied the wrath of a just God and was accepted as proven by his resurrection.
So all men have sinned and all deserve punishment, but Jesus has paid the debt for us. Salvation is Jesus saving us from the penalty of our own sin so that we can live eternally with God in heaven when we die. It is a free gift, we can not earn it ourselves, but we must accept the gift by believing and trusting in Jesus. We must repent of our sins and turn to God. If we do not accept Jesus’ gift of salvation, then we are still under the penalty of our sins.
There is a great analogy of the salvation plan and the justness of God in the book More than a Carpenter. Basically, a woman violates a traffic law and goes before the judge. The woman is found guilty of the violation and the judge fines her $100. But then the judge gets down from his bench, takes off his robe, and gives the woman $100 to pay for her fine. Why? Because the judge was her father. Because he is a judge, he had to fine his daughter for breaking the law. But as her father, he could pay the fine for her. Justice has been served and a father’s love for his daughter is revealed.
God IS a loving God. But he is more than just loving. He is also Holy and Just. Those attributes of God can not be excluded from our understanding of Him. Likewise, we are all sinners. We have all broken God's commands (check out just the 10 commandments) and our sins separate us from God. The only way to bridge the divide between our sinful nature and God's Holy nature is the cross of Christ.
To deny God’s salvation plan through Jesus is to either deny that you are a sinner before God and/or to deny that Jesus’ death was for a purpose. What are you going to do with Jesus?
17 August 2006
The Gospel According to Me, Part 2
I am always fascinated to hear non-believer’s description of “their God”. Often times these people have grown up in some sort of a church system, but have never met the one true God. Instead they have a God of their own creation who not so surprisingly, is a pretty easy-going guy. What I love to ask these people is “Where is your proof of that”?
Common sense should tell you that we can not all have our own made-up version of God. Certainly the various versions of “my God’ are going to conflict and how do you know who is right. There has to be some common source of the truth about God.
As I said previously, the version of the home-brew God that I see the most is a God who is all loving and lets all the good people into heaven. Sounds good, right? My questions is, where do you draw the line between good and bad? Hitler would be bad and Mother Theresa good, correct? Okay, that one was easy.
What about the person who cheats on their taxes? A career criminal who has stolen his whole life? How about the young man who got drunk at his 21st birthday party, drove himself home, and killed a family of four in a car accident along the way? How about the woman who after being beaten for 10 years by her husband, shot him so he would not beat her anymore? And what about her husband?
This is my issue. Deciding where the boundaries of good and bad are is not so easy. And the line would be drawn in different places depending on the person and the evidence presented (welcome to our judicial system). Now, maybe it is easy for God to decide knowing all the facts of a person’s life, but where does that leave us? How do we know when we have crossed the line then? Now we are playing by unknown rule-book – how is that fair?
I for one am happy that the decision between good and evil, between heaven or hell is not played out this way. What we have is a holy, righteous, just God who has a plan for the salvation of man (being saved from punishment) and has revealed that plan of salvation through the Bible (Jesus). We do not need to be confused as to what will happen to us when we die, we can KNOW how to have eternal life (be in heaven with God).
I will talk more about this plan in the next post.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
Common sense should tell you that we can not all have our own made-up version of God. Certainly the various versions of “my God’ are going to conflict and how do you know who is right. There has to be some common source of the truth about God.
As I said previously, the version of the home-brew God that I see the most is a God who is all loving and lets all the good people into heaven. Sounds good, right? My questions is, where do you draw the line between good and bad? Hitler would be bad and Mother Theresa good, correct? Okay, that one was easy.
What about the person who cheats on their taxes? A career criminal who has stolen his whole life? How about the young man who got drunk at his 21st birthday party, drove himself home, and killed a family of four in a car accident along the way? How about the woman who after being beaten for 10 years by her husband, shot him so he would not beat her anymore? And what about her husband?
This is my issue. Deciding where the boundaries of good and bad are is not so easy. And the line would be drawn in different places depending on the person and the evidence presented (welcome to our judicial system). Now, maybe it is easy for God to decide knowing all the facts of a person’s life, but where does that leave us? How do we know when we have crossed the line then? Now we are playing by unknown rule-book – how is that fair?
I for one am happy that the decision between good and evil, between heaven or hell is not played out this way. What we have is a holy, righteous, just God who has a plan for the salvation of man (being saved from punishment) and has revealed that plan of salvation through the Bible (Jesus). We do not need to be confused as to what will happen to us when we die, we can KNOW how to have eternal life (be in heaven with God).
I will talk more about this plan in the next post.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. John 17:3
14 August 2006
The Gospel According to Me
For many years I believed in what I will call “The Gospel According to Me”. It was based on a general belief in a God with no real substance. He was the God of my own creation, a big teddy bear in the sky who let all the “good people” go to heaven. I believed that simply because it worked for me.
But during my late twenties I slowly became interested in the Bible. I bought a book from the bookstore bargain table which described some of the people in the Bible. At the same time TNT ran a few miniseries on some Bible stories while A&E had “Mysteries of the Bible” (which I don’t recommend now). As my interest continued to build (which was God calling me) I eventually attended church with my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) and we both accepted Christ as our Savior. The details are a bit blurry but I know that my transformation was sudden and dramatic, and I felt like a blind person who was suddenly given the gift of sight.
What I learned from the Bible those first few months after accepting Christ was that I now had a way to learn about God. He wasn’t that big teddy bear in the sky anymore, he was something much bigger and much better. He was the creator of the universe, yet he loved me and wanted to have a personal relationship with me. He was perfect and holy while I was sinner, yet he had a plan to take care of all that.
In my life I don’t run into too many atheists. Most of the people I know that aren’t believers have their own version of “The Gospel According to Me”. Usually their God is similar to what my God was before I was saved. The problem is, we can’t each have our own God. There either is a God or there isn’t. And if there is a God, then his characteristics can not be left to our own choosing. We must find the truth and not relying on what feels right.
So what I would like to do is share my knowledge of the one true God. The God that revealed himself to me through his Bible and has been faithful to me ever since. I think this will be a multi-part series, but I am sorta winging it right now.
I would like to start with my own version of what is God all about. Basically, what did Jesus do and why (a paraphrased version of the Gospel that I like to use to give people a starting point). From there I would like to move into the Gospel message directly from the Bible. And then I’m not sure where we will go from there – maybe talk about the Bible some more.
I have a lot of topics I would like to post on but as usual, time is a factor. I will eventually get to Sola Scriptura and also talk more about the doctrine of justification. And I would still like to do a post or two on Galatians. But for now I’d like to focus on the basics of the Gospel message and what it means to me. More to come.
But during my late twenties I slowly became interested in the Bible. I bought a book from the bookstore bargain table which described some of the people in the Bible. At the same time TNT ran a few miniseries on some Bible stories while A&E had “Mysteries of the Bible” (which I don’t recommend now). As my interest continued to build (which was God calling me) I eventually attended church with my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) and we both accepted Christ as our Savior. The details are a bit blurry but I know that my transformation was sudden and dramatic, and I felt like a blind person who was suddenly given the gift of sight.
What I learned from the Bible those first few months after accepting Christ was that I now had a way to learn about God. He wasn’t that big teddy bear in the sky anymore, he was something much bigger and much better. He was the creator of the universe, yet he loved me and wanted to have a personal relationship with me. He was perfect and holy while I was sinner, yet he had a plan to take care of all that.
In my life I don’t run into too many atheists. Most of the people I know that aren’t believers have their own version of “The Gospel According to Me”. Usually their God is similar to what my God was before I was saved. The problem is, we can’t each have our own God. There either is a God or there isn’t. And if there is a God, then his characteristics can not be left to our own choosing. We must find the truth and not relying on what feels right.
So what I would like to do is share my knowledge of the one true God. The God that revealed himself to me through his Bible and has been faithful to me ever since. I think this will be a multi-part series, but I am sorta winging it right now.
I would like to start with my own version of what is God all about. Basically, what did Jesus do and why (a paraphrased version of the Gospel that I like to use to give people a starting point). From there I would like to move into the Gospel message directly from the Bible. And then I’m not sure where we will go from there – maybe talk about the Bible some more.
I have a lot of topics I would like to post on but as usual, time is a factor. I will eventually get to Sola Scriptura and also talk more about the doctrine of justification. And I would still like to do a post or two on Galatians. But for now I’d like to focus on the basics of the Gospel message and what it means to me. More to come.
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