“There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan”

C.S. Lewis,

Christian Reflections

The concept of substitution maybe said, then to lie at the heart of both sin and slavation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prergatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.

John Stott “The Cross of Christ”

Technorati Tags: Learning

Do we dare love the way the bible tells us to? Think 1Corintians 13. Are we able to love knowing full well we are going to get hurt or do we love only when we are sure of the outcome?

Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as “Careful! This might lead you to suffering.”

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities.…

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (From The Four Loves, as found in The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis, 278-279.)

Technorati Tags: Life, Love

If you are a fan of Douglas Adam’s “Hitchhikers guide to the Universe” the answer that Adam’s came up with is 42. I don’t know if the characters ever found the ultimate question. I never could get through the series.

Adam’s had one thing right, but many things wrong. He is right the ultimate answer is simple, but the answer is wrong.

The ultimate answer is God. The ultimate question, no matter what the question is, the answer will ultimately be God.

The number 42 is beginning to invade my thinking more and more, those who know me, probably already get it, those who don’t probably will get it eventually.

Update: Coincidentally this is my 42nd post… Go figure.

Technorati Tags: insanity, ridiculousness

From the day that Solomon was conceived he was destined for great things. Despite the sins of his father and mother, he was set up for success.

The Lord loved him (2 Samuel 12:24-25).

• Solomon had a front row seat to watch the consequences of his father’s sins. He learned first hand the consequences of David’s sin. For instance when Adonijah tried to set himself up as king (1 Kings 1:5-10). Why is this a good thing you ask? He found out quite quickly who his friends and enemies were. He also saw He had Nathan the Prophet, Zadok the priest and the Mighty Men of Israel behind him.

• Solomon asked for wisdom, discernment between good and evil. The Lord was pleased with Solomon. (1 Kings 3:9). The Lord gave solomon a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before you and none like you shall arise after you On top of that the Lord gave Solomon riches, and honor and a promise of long life if he follows HIM(1 Kings 3:12-14).

• David did as much prep work as possible to help by forging relationships and gathering materials to help Solomon build the temple.

• The Lord once again appears to Solomon reminding him to walk before the Lord, that he will be blessed (1Kings 9:4-5)

For 20+ years Solomon was honoring God and then he stopped…

What is interesting to me is how Solomon’s had it all and then gave it up.

Technorati Tags: Bible, David, Sin

This is a post about topics I want to write about. Sounds a little ridiculous, but oh well. Writing and communicating has been something that has been on my heart for a long time. God willing I will start writing more in my blog where every few days.

I think this post is more for myself than anyone. I think defining this blog “again” maybe a good thing.

I am not a teacher and I am not an expert on Christianity. This blog was designed so I can share what I am thinking about Christian life. For me I hope there is NEVER a separation between the two, the love of Christ and my life.

Part of my Christian life includes some of the battles that I fight on a daily basis. Some of them may not seem appropriate for a Christian to talk about and yet it is a part of many Christians lives or at least THIS Christian’s life.

The goal of this blog is for me to communicate and help me to work through my salvation with fear and trembling (Phillippians 2:12). God has put it on my heart communicate and so I will. I once thought that I was great at it and destined to do it, but now I find it is only through His grace that I can do it. Maybe just maybe I can help someone through my writing.

Some topics I have been thinking about:

Depression/Suicide 101 – When I talk to my Christian friends about this, they don’t seem to understand. There are many who struggle with these things, Christians and non-Christians, who are shamed by this disease and hide it. I don’t have a lot of answers and not even a lot of perspective, but I can share what my experience is. If we are to reach the world then we better be prepared to deal with it.

A look at Ecclesiastes

The rise and fall of Solomon

The pursuit of purity and holiness which will definitely be a major theme.

I need to stop being afraid to write. I need to be able to learn to put my thoughts on paper and honor God in my writing.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Christian, Depression, Fear of the Lord, Living, Salvation

From an article on Soverign Grace Ministries about John Piper’s sermon Prep.

A—I admit, O Lord, that I can do nothing of any lasting value.

P—I pray for self forgetfulness, for fullness of the Holy Spirit, for love, for humility, for passion, for zeal, for prophetic utterance that may come to my mind while I am preaching so that I can say things that I hadn’t prepared that might penetrate where nothing else would.

T—I trust a particular promise from the Lord that I have found in my devotions early in the morning. So today I read Deborah’s song in Judges 5 as well as Psalm 84 between 6:30 and 7:00 this morning, and pointed out a verse to Mark as we were sitting there. “Oh my soul, ride on in strength.” That was my word this morning.

The Lord gave a word from his Word this morning: “Ride on in strength.” So I take that. That’s my T: trust. So as I am walking up, I am saying, “This is your work. It has come. Don’t leave me here. You have got to do something here. I am counting on you.”

And he is saying, “I got this under control.” He is God.

A—Then you act. You have got to do it. It is your hands that are moving. It is your voice that is moving. You have got to do this. Walking by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, bearing the fruits of the Spirit is a mystery. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10, ESV). That is the mystery. So sermon preparation is: You put out when you are preparing and when you are preaching. You put out, but if you have prayed and done APTAT and God is merciful, you won’t be putting out. He will be putting out.

T—Thank God. And when you have acted and you go sit down, you thank him. He is going to do, and is doing what he is going to do, and he regularly does more than you think he does.

From an article/interview of John Piper about sermon prep.

Technorati Tags: John Piper, Prayer, self-forgetfulness, thankfulness, trust

Todd becoming a biblical scholar??? I don’t think so!! Another part of the letter to the same friend!

The Lordship salvation vs. free grace is a faith vs. works discussion
correct? The question is whether we can just believe that I am a
sinner, God loves me and that Jesus Christ died for our sin, and rose
from the grave  and through him we can be saved or do we need to go a
step further and  submit to Jesus Christ as Lord of our Life to be
saved?

At first blush, my initial reaction was who cares… I then started thinking about my own experience and maybe it does matter.

I consider my spiritual birthday May 5th, 2005, but by the standard of free grace it would of been 10 years earlier. I believed in God all my life, I was probably the most religious person in my family. It was a very easy leap for me to go from believing in God to believing that I am a sinner, and believed that Jesus Christ died for my sin and rose on the third day. There were a couple of days of awe of the decision I did, and then within a week, I was back to being the same lying, stealing, manipulative, perverted,  pathetic piece of trash human that I always was (yes I am speaking kindly of myself). Great Christ died for me, all my sins are forgiven, great I am going to go out and continue living life the way I was, and every once in a while I will confess my sin and I will go to heaven. I continued driving my life straight into the ground. I drove my life to the point, where I was on the verge of losing my job, and ending up in jail.

My question to you, was I saved at this point? If I have died would I have gone to heaven at this point? My opinion is no. I don’t think so.

I think one of the sticking point in this whole debate is the word “believe”. I have heard it said that it is the action of faith. We have faith (noun) in Jesus Christ. We believe (verb) in Jesus Christ. I think both of those are synonyms. Nee talks about faith (believing)  is an active word, and he found in the Darby translation of the bible it uses the word substantiating. His discussion was from Hebrews 11:1.

Looking up the word faith from verses 3:21, 26 in Strong’s Dictionary implies to me more than just an intellectual understanding of the truth.

4102. pi÷stiß pistis, pis?-tis; from 3982; persuasion, i.e. credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly, constancy in such profession; by extension, the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself: — assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity.

The day you believe I think there has to be a desire to change your life, to nail the sin at the cross and start the sanctification process. I think that the belief that is required is a belief, a faith, a substantiating that JESUS CHRIST will change your life, will sanctify you. I think that the willingness to start that process is part of the belief at salvation. If you do not have the want/desire/willingness to change, then I don’t know if you are saved.

I did not have the desire to truly want to change until May 5, 2005. It is the day I believe I became a Christian. Does the belief that God has the power to change your life and the desire to have that happen constitute a work?

I am not necessarily saying that you must submit to God to be saved, but I do think the desire to change is necessary. I think this lands me in the middle some place.

“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 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. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
(Romans 3:19-26 ESV)

Technorati Tags: Belief, Bible, Faith, Salvation

This is from a letter to a friend, where we have started debating various subjects… One of my goals is to start writing again and this I thought was worth putting on the blog… Hence it is here. I have done my best to protect the innocent

You and I look at the world and our Christian lives in radically different ways. You look at the world as an academic, trying to find the perfect and correct interpretation of the Bible. Your job is to read, rate, debate and compare various interpretations and various concepts of theology.  My pastor, by his own admission is a life long learner, he reads everything and runs it through his “biblical grid” hoping to grow, be challenged, and have enough discernment to recognize what doesn’t seem to line up with his  understanding of Scripture (I stole this from an email of his). I am very different from both of you. I am a very desperate, and often pathetic  person trying to learn enough to fight against the flesh, sin and the devil for the life God promises us. Not a life of happiness, but a life of purpose, joy and value serving God. You may say we all are like that, my response to that is some more than others. Between my depression, purity issues and my absolute belief that the Christian life is the ONLY way to live, I will be fighting the rest of my life. God tells me that everyday. There are so many people out there we must reach, but I find often that it is a rarity that I can get past my own issues to reach out beyond my own self. I need to learn truths (weapons) that I can fight against the world, flesh and the devil against. I need the tools to help bring people to Christ. One of the reasons that I had to back away from you is that you through your academic passion took away men such as Piper, and Bridges that helped me become stronger in my faith. You told me they were wrong about certain subjects, so that meant they were not worth considering on any subject, (in your view). Then at the same time I had others at my church urging caution on the authors that you recommended.

My first views of Christianity came from very radical places. One of my first glimpses of God came from a series of junk fiction books called “The Year of the Ninja Master”. It gave me the first taste of falling and redemption. One of the other books that strongly influenced my life was the book, “The Last Temptation of Christ”. This book was extremely controversial for several reasons, which at this time I will skip. This book showed me several things, the Christian life is not easy, Jesus suffered terribly, and thirdly he was tempted in every way and yet remained sin free. The movie and book helped me visualize these things. I understood what Hebrews 4:14-15 was saying (“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:14-15 ESV). Neil Anderson taught me about Christian identity. John Piper, has helped me see God for how awesome he is and have shown me how to live the Christian life.  Jerry Bridges, has taught me a lot about the seriousness of sin and how grace and holiness work together. John MacArthur has taught me quite a bit about living the Christian life. Craig Muri and Dennis Wilkinson have helped me keep the awe of God in front of my eyes and have personally helped me grow as a Christian. And as we grow in friendship I know you will have an influence. God used each one of these men to shape my Christian view, as he had used people like Ryrie, Stanford and Nee to shape your life. My point is that all these men have value in there theology, for me I MUST grab hold of everything that helps me fight against the world and use it and pray that God will give me discernment to see what is right and what is not (He already has by showing me flaws in Anderson’s theology and yet Anderson’s view of identity STRONGLY helps me even today. His teachings on identity is stronger than anything else that I have seen, and believe me I am looking). In other words let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. These men have value in some of what they say. What man besides Jesus himself (and maybe the apostles) has it all right?

Technorati Tags: Christian, God, Salvation