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

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

“Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”” ?(Luke 18:25 NIV-G/K) ??“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ?(1Corinthians 1:18 NIV-G/K) ??There is a question that have been repeatedly going through my mind in the last several days. ??Do I need a Savior? ??I have been thinking a lot about the verses above and how it not only relates to those that are not Christians but it relates to us, who are Christians as well, maybe even more so. ??If we need food, we drive to mcdonalds. ?If we need money, we get out our credit card. ?If we are bored, we turn on our televisions and computers. ?If we hurt, we go to the doctor. ?If we are depressed we take a prozac. ??In our society we worship wealth, power, and strength. We prize people who are independent and can solve their own problems. People are suppose to be self-sufficient. ??If you look at my upbringing, I lived in a house where we always had food, always had television (actually we had 6 or 7). If we are strong enough, if we are smart enough, if we had enough money, there is not a problem that cannot be solved. I understand perfectly well why my parents and sisters do not feel they need a savior. My family believes they have enough money to solve any problem. We are told we need to have self-esteem and that we are to be brave, strong and independent. The world owes us respect, we deserve prosperity and happiness. ??I am not writing this to the non-believers. I am writing this for myself. I am writing this to my brothers and sisters in Christ. We think to ourselves, “life is good”. we go to work or school, we come home, we watch television every night, we worship at church, we go to bible studies, we participate where needed. we have people who love us, we have plenty of food on the table, oh sure there are problems, but they are minor. We do all the right things in all the right ways and we just cruise along thinking God is blessing us and all is well. The enemy has brainwashed us into believing we are self-sufficient. ??What do our testimonies say? What do our lives say? Do we need a savior? I think that it would be very easy to exchange the word rich for the concept of being self-sufficient. Self-Sufficiency closes the door on God, our savior and puts us exactly where the enemy wants us. Alone and vulnerable. ??A decision needs to be made: Who is in control? God or us? ??Being a God fearing; Christ loving Christian is contradictory to being self-sufficient. God doesn’t need our help. God wants us to totally depend on Him. Our walk with Christ is counter-intuitive to the world. God calls us to: ??•Trust in him (Proverbs 3:5) ?•Depend on Him for our needs (Matthew 6:25-34) ?•Bring our broken heart and spirit to Him (Psalm 51:17) ?•God is our refuge and strength (Psalm 46 1-3) ?•Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you (Psalm 55:22) ?(And many other verses) ??Do we live a life of self-sufficiency or God-dependency? ??Please let me know what you think? Am I thinking right or am I just insane? What am I missing?

Technorati Tags: God-dependency, Salvation, self-sufficiency, world

The year is ending and a new one is just about ready to begin. This is the time of year where many people take a look at their life and evaluate it. This is the time to celebrate or regret the past and move on into the future. It is out with the old and in with the new. A time of transition.

We are at the end of the holiday season. A time for togetherness, family and love. The holiday season has always been a very hard time for me. From the first of November to the first week of January, I want to hide, hibernate in my apartment. Let’s just say I do not have an idyllic relationship with my family and I always seemed to bring everyone else down or cause problems.

This holiday season, my mind has been drifting to the parable of the “Prodigal (Lost) Son” in Luke 15. The prodigal lived life with his father who loved him. He was attracted to the world by the seeming glitz, glamor and freedom. The prodigal was unhappy with his home life and was convinced he would find the happiness he so richly deserved out in the world. He left home, only to find out how deceptive and empty all of that is. He spent everything, had nothing and became everything he despised. He decided he should go home, at least his father would treat him no worse than the other employees. He expected to come home to be chastised and to be treated like a slave/employee. He came home and was celebrated over and shown how much he is loved.

This year kicking and screaming and with much fan fair (thanks I think, you know who you are), I turned 40 years old. A realization hit me (God dropped an anvil on my head). I finally came home. I came home to my Father and my family. I was celebrated over and shown how much I am loved. I came home to the Father I never knew that I had, to be loved in a way I never knew possible.

I grew up in a reformed Jewish home. I might even go as far as saying that my family agnostic. They at the very least feel that faith in God is not something to be discussed, but most likely do not really know in their mind if God exists. Growing up, there always seemed something missing out of my life. I fell into depression and acting out. I became uncontrollable at home. As I grew older it always seemed that something was missing from my life. I say that with 20/20 hindsight. I am not even sure if I knew that something was missing. I grew more and more desperate to fill that hole inside me. The more desperate I became the farther away from God I went. I slowly became everything that I hated. I was extremely depressed, very unstable and ready to die. In May 2005 somehow, someway God reached out to me and started me on the journey home to a home I never knew I had.

I have made it home to a Father that loved me so much that he created a world where he could show us His love. Even though we failed him, and became everything he hated, our Father paved a road to salvation with the blood of His only begotten Son Jesus. Our Father took the wrath and punishment we deserved and took it out on His only begotten Son in order to be able to be with us. I have come home to a church family of sisters and brothers in Christ that reflects that love. I have come home to where I belong to live a life, with a purpose and fulfillment of glorifying our God and His Son Jesus Christ.

It is with my new family I celebrate this time of year. Celebrate the birth of our King, celebrate the love of our God. Thank you God for being my Father, and Christ for being my King. Thank you to all my church family and brothers and sisters of Christ that have taken me in and have continuously reflected God’s love.

God bless you All!

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, Gospel, Jesus Christ, Prodigal, Salvation