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Month: May 2019

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Transformed? The agents of Transformation

As I see it, the two most important agents at work to transform the minds and lives of the followers of Christ to become more like Him are also two of the most neglected and or abused subjects in a great many churches today – the blood of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit of God. Both the blood of Jesus and the Holy Spirit are actively involved in the transformation process from the very beginning of a persons Christian walk – without them no one could ever know, walk with or grow to become more like Jesus Christ.

The last time we spoke on this subject I mentioned that once a person receives spiritual life through Jesus Christ, he or she cannot help but give some immediate evidence of the fact. The reason for my assertion stems from my opening remark – the two agents of transformation are actively at work from the beginning to give us a “right mind” (Mark 5:15) about our sin and need of forgiveness and about God’s grace to sinners made possible by the suffering, death, burial and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.

In the more or less traditional (some might call them “old school” ) churches, where hymns are still sung one song asks the question:

“Are you washed in the blood, in the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

Likewise, in the New Testament Jesus declared to a group of people who had been following Him (John 6:53-56):

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.”

In our day, people understand the words of the hymn about as well as those listening to the words of Jesus as He addressed them about His body and blood. We are not talking about taking a bath in Jesus’ blood any more than Jesus meant for people to literally eat Him. In actuality, Jesus was promising life to whomever would personally appropriate His shed blood by faith to their lives as an atonement for their sin. Jesus’ blood changes our standing with God, by that blood we have life (John 6:54), a standing before the Father (Ephesians 2:13), holiness, access to and fellowship with God (Heb 10:19, Romans 5:8-10) and redemption (1 Peter 1:17-21). The blood of Jesus cleanses our consciences (Heb 10:22) from evil – from outward sinful actions and inner tendencies to sin. By His blood our souls are purified and forgiven; without it there can be no “remission of sins” (see Heb. 9:22). The Bible declares in (Heb 9: (13)-14):

“…how much more (than the blood of bulls and goats) shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

When applied to our lives, Jesus’ blood gives us a standing before Almighty God but it is the Holy Spirit who drew us to Jesus (see John 6:44) through conviction of sin (John 16:8) and by grace (Ephesians 2:8) and abides in us from the moment we first believed (see Romans 8:9): “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His;” – that Spirit of God applies the blood of Jesus to our lives cleansing us and transforming us from the inside out.

You may recall that Jesus said:

“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” (John 15:4–8, NKJV)

From the inside out the Spirit manifests Himself; His presence changes us and reveals Christ in us (when we get out of the way) so that He who gave us life may be glorified in us as others “see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16) and produce fruit through us (John 15:5,8).

The Holy Spirit gives us life (John 6:63) when we believe in Jesus; He opens the word of God to our understanding and leads us in the process of the transformation of our minds (Romans 12:2, Titus 3:5), His presence and our submission to Him enables us to demonstrate the character of Christ through our lives (Gal 5:16-25):

“I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

The Spirit of God gives us direction, illuminates the Word, speaks to our hearts, convicts us when were wrong, encourages us when we’re weak, seals us to the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30) but can also be grieved and quenched (1 Thessalonians 5:19) in our lives by constant disobedience and disregard.

These two agents or transformation work in us till our dying day to transform (conform) us to be have the mind and attitude of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5-11, Romans 8:29) and fitting us for the kingdom of heaven. Thus, I conclude that though no believer will ever be perfect in this life and will still occasionally sin and have need of repentance, each one will nevertheless bear some witness or evidence through their lives that they have been and continue to be with Jesus.

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Memorials are for Remembering

In our nation, as in many others statues are erected to great men and women in memorial of their great contribution to their nation and in many cases to the world. Most often memorials are erected AFTER the person or event being memorialized has come and gone.  Around our nation and world there are a number of memorials set in place to remember what – war? Do the monuments to our WW I veterans at Pershing Park in DC, the WW II memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial on the national mall also in DC or the various Vietnam Memorials in our nation CELEBRATE war?!

NO!!!

They memorialize men and women who rose above fear and personal concern for safety during those conflicts to stand for something greater – their nation, their countrymen and the freedom we ALL hold dear. Those memorials do not celebrate blood shed but rather sacrifice for the greater good and they serve as a reminder of the COST of freedom.

in 1970 Crosby, Stills Nash and Young recorded a song in the wake of the Kent State Shootings called “Find the Cost of Freedom.” It included the countercultural anthem titled “Ohio” written by Neil Young which was meant to protest America’s ongoing presence in Vietnam (specifically the Cambodian campaign); it contains a lyric that verbally encapsulates the PRICE of freedom and simply states:

“Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground.”

Sometimes, standing for something will cost you everything – this IS the cost of freedom.

So, let me ask you, does the way we as individual citizens of America use our freedoms sometimes degrade the cost paid to obtain it?

I know that the remainder of this post may offend some of my Libertarian friends but do we have a responsibility as citizens to use that for which such a priceless value has been paid wisely and carefully?

This is, of course a page given to Christian commentary and as such this would be a good place to insert a verse from the Bible to consider in light of my assertion. Consider what Paul wrote in (1 Corinthians 10:23-24):

“All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.”

As a Roman citizen, Paul had freedoms like we do in America – the Apostle was free to do what ever he wanted as a citizen of Rome. But as a free citizen of heaven, made so by the precious blood and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, other considerations had to be observed, namely the effect his choices would have upon those he was trying to reach for Jesus Christ. In essence, Paul said, “I am free to do anything, but not everything that I’m free to do ought to be done.” And so, there is a tension for the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ between what we’re free to do and what will be beneficial to others and honoring to God.

When we willfully disregard the direct revelation of God in His word and sin, our actions devalue the price paid to obtain our freedom and standing before Almighty God and we are seen as treating the blood of Jesus, the blood which paid our sin debt to God in full (Colossians 2:14) as “a common thing” (Hebrews 10:29). Furthermore, our actions work against the efforts of God’s Spirit in the lives of our children and weaker brethren in the faith.

As Christians, sometimes our actions do work to degrade the cost paid to make us free but again let me ask you, does the way we use our freedoms as individual American citizens sometimes degrade the price paid to make us free?

“How?” You might ask.

For one, the students at Kent in 1970 were free to protest but not threaten or violently attack local business owners and residents who did not join in their protest. For another, when people born in America willfully burn or trample the flag representative of the freedoms which we enjoy and under which countless men and women gave their lives – the cost of freedom is degraded. And then there is this recent news story about the Vietnam Memorial on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Boston where it has been reported that the monument has been defaced by graffiti including swastikas and the destruction of numerous American flags: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/vietnam-war-veterans-monument-defaced-ahead-memorial-day-63253992.  These are a few in a growing list of the ways that some citizens of this great country have degraded the sacrifices made and the cost which was paid for our mutual freedoms.

As I wrap it up, I was just thinking about the Tomb of The Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The Tomb of the Unknowns as it has officially been known since 1921 stands as a memorial to those men and women of the armed forces who died in combat but whose remains cannot be identified.

I was just thinking about how the name “Unknowns” fits these men and women who paid the ultimate price for their country and their countrymen – most hero’s that I’ve ever heard of didn’t do what they did for recognition….they would tell you that they simply did what needed to be done.

I was thinking of the vast sea of grave markers which surround the Tomb of the Unknowns, each of them with a name and a symbol of their personal faith or life. Their names are common everyday names like Jack, Frank, Joe, Pete, Tim, Mike, Mary, Liz, Ralph etc. but they were not common men and women. Some of them were farmers and farmers sons, cowboys, business men, young men straight out of high school, wives, daughters…..some enlisted, many were drafted; all of them mattered to someone and ultimately because of what they did they ALL matter to the nation.

These uncommon men and women, like those who survived them through the many wars and conflicts exhibited uncommon valor, uncommon patriotism and uncommon bravery as they faced a common enemy. From every walk of life they came, united in purpose and willing up front to lay it all down.

My friends, it has been said that, “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you; Jesus Christ and the American G. I. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom.” We have all benefited or stand to benefit from the uncommon blood of both those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom as Americans and the blood of the Son of God Jesus Christ – may each of us live lives which remember and respect their sacrifices.

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Transformed?

Metamorphosis is the process of transformation of an insect or an amphibian from its immature form to its adult form in at least two distinct stages. Maggots become flies, tadpoles and polliwogs become toads and frogs and caterpillars become butterflies. Often, it is image of the transformation of the caterpillar in its chrysalis that Christians use to illustrate the process of a believers transformation.

But is that really what happened when you or I trusted in Jesus?

First of all, the caterpillar creates the cocoon into which it enters to begin the process of metamorphosis. Secondly, the entire process is natural, triggered by God given instinct; spiritual transformation is neither self initiated or naturally triggered. Finally, the person being transformed is not being reconstituted into something functionally and physically different – we still look the same the day after “all things have become new.“

So, what is spiritual transformation?

Spiritual transformation is a process initiated or begun in the heart (the seat of our emotions and thoughts) by the Holy Spirit the moment we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote in (2 Cor. 5:17 NKJV):

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Whether this verse is new to you or you are very familiar with it, a careful reading, even in context leaves the reader scratching his or her head asking themselves “since I have trusted in the Lord has EVERYTHING about me changed?” Since the obvious answer is “NO!” what is Paul talking about in this verse?

I think that Paul is here speaking of the fact that our justification in Christ changes our standing before Almighty God rather than the tension that remains between that reality and the fact that we are still living in a fallen world and struggling with the temptations of it. You see, as believers we are citizens of heaven still living on earth and waiting for our final salvation and because we are still in the flesh we are also still prone to sinning.

In one sense, we are immediately changed – we are justified, that is, we are made righteous by the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:21), forgiven by God (Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14) and granted eternal life (1 John 5:11) the moment we trusted in Jesus Christ, but the process of bringing our lives in line with our new standing will take the rest of our lives and require our cooperation and complete submission (Galatians 5:16) to the Holy Spirit of God within us who began the process (see John 6:44) in the first place. Nevertheless, something will be OUTWARDLY different about a person the moment they trust in the Lord – it will be immediately apparent that SOMETHING has happened in the new believers life.

Consider the Apostle Paul himself for a moment, before he met the Lord, he was persecuting, imprisoning and consenting to the death of Christians and thinking that he was doing the will of Almighty God (see Acts 26:9-11; John 16:2) but after meeting Jesus on the Damascus road (see Acts 9:1-6) Paul the persecutor of Christians trusted the Lord Jesus with whom he had formerly been at war, and becoming a willing vessel unto the Lord He made him His ambassador to the gentile world.

In a moment, Paul’s heart was totally changed – he served a new master; but it would take a lifetime for his transformation to be completed (Philippians 3: 12-14 NKJV):

“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

We’ll talk more about this towards the end of the week but I want to wrap up this post by reiterating the main point and asking you a question.

It is my belief that those who have been born again (see John 3:3) – given new life (spiritually speaking) from God through faith in the name and work of the Lord Jesus ARE IMMEDIATELY different in some recognizable way – even without words, they cannot help but give evidence that Father, Son and Spirit have all impacted his or her life.

My question to you is one that I have asked myself – what about you has changed as a result of trusting in Jesus? What unmistakable difference has the Lord made in your life?

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Sustaining Encouragement

Let me speak from my frame of reference, I am a white, conservative fifty-something male; to some that means I am a toxic, nay saying, bigoted and privileged part of the problem in America today but they don’t define me.  I have never been a wealthy man nor lived in abject poverty; I know what it is to struggle to get ahead but I have never done without the basics of a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food in my belly. I use vehicles like the internet and social media to share truths from the Gospel of Jesus Christ KNOWING that most people really don’t care what I or it has to say. This I do in the hopes that someone will listen and come to trust in the God not only of the Bible but of the Universe and in the Son who He sent – Jesus Christ the righteous; who died to give life to spiritually dead men by satisfying the equally righteous requirement of God concerning our sins.

I mention my background because I know what it is like to pull myself up by my bootstraps in making a bad situation better and while I have NEVER experienced the poverty that some people in our nation and town have – NONE OF US have EVER experienced the kind of squalor that exists in some of the poorer nations of the world today. But we have brothers and sisters in Christ in those places – most of them equal in their poverty, some of them, despite their poverty serving others in Jesus’ name.

One of them, a friend of mine, Dr. Joseph Samuel serves as an indigenous missionary in India. He is NOT funded by the IMB (International Mission Board) nor any of the other well-known sending institutions but he is no less on the mission field in Jesus’ name. I recently had to write to him and explain that certain resources that he’d come to depend on for the ongoing work would no longer be coming. I can say that prior to writing this letter I was probably more like most people reading this post – rarely if ever giving much thought to the conditions in which missionaries serve nor to the encouragement which both our prayers and our material support bring to those serving.

Dr Samuel not only has the pressure of poverty all around him limiting the degree to which he can help others but he also faces the persecution which preaching in the name of Jesus draws in a predominantly Hindu nation. Nevertheless, in his upward age this Christian brother and those with him is making a difference. I have never been to India and can only imagine the difficulty one faces to minister there – most of us as ministers here only have to deal with the occasional complaining member or overbearing deacon; for the most part the lights are on, the A/C blows cold and everyone is comfortable in what I have come to call the “fish tank;” we face disappointments and setbacks but, if we set our minds to it, we can recover.

We have our American wherewithal – men and women like Dr. Samuel only have God.

God uses people to supply the need in India like He used the people in Philippi to supply the need of the Apostle Paul:

“Nevertheless, you have done well that you shared in my distress. Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities.” (Philippians 4:14–16, NKJV)

During a deep time of testing, it was the prayers of the people of God which the Lord used to comfort a man (Paul) literally at the end of his rope:

“For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.” (2 Corinthians 1:8–11, NKJV)

Not being where the missionary is, not experiencing what he or she faces in the service of the Lord where ever it may be, it often becomes easy in our air-conditioned churches to turn our back on them as it suits our own purposes. We forget to pray. The instant contributing to them materially becomes challenging to us – we cut off the supply; if his trust was in men, the servant of the Lord would often be VERY disappointed.

But men like the Apostle Paul and Dr Samuel don’t trust in men, they trust in God and because they trust in God, they are able to say:

“… I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11–13, NKJV)

My friends, it is too EASY to let down on prayers and on supplying the needs of those serving the Lord in less than ideal circumstances, especially when we do not directly and mutually experience their suffering. Let us be more determined to faithfully support them who go where we won’t and suffer what we don’t…

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