Do You Love God or Do You Hate Him?

There is a lot of hatred for God today. Some of it is disguised by tolerance and acceptance of what He calls sin. Many people think that it is just unloving to speak of sin and call the, now culturally acceptable behaviors, violations of God's commands. People think that Jesus came and loved us and died for us, so we could go to heaven and live forever in some blissful self-existence. Many think it doesn’t matter if we curse, or we live in sexual sin of any kind, or even if we simply violate civil laws that we don’t like.

That type of attitude is a deception of the devil and will result in an eternal destination that the Bible is very candid about. God has spoken clearly in His Word about how we are to behave.

Deuteronomy 7:9-11
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,  and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face.  You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

Old Testament, you cry out. Once again, Satan has duped you, if that’s what you think. Here is what Jesus had to say about the Law.

Matthew 5:17-20
 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.  Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

We must understand the truth of the scriptures and take hold of the facts. No one is saved by the law, that is scriptural truth. But that does not have anything to do with the truth that loving God means we love His law and we seek to be Holy, just as He is.

Listen to this story from Mark 12:28-34
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”  And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him.  And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

I don’t care what man-made methods of interpretation you have been taught, the main principle of Bible interpretation is that scripture interprets scripture. This means to understand God’s Word you must read it in the context of the entire Bible, not three verses above and three below.

If you want to love God listen to how Jesus said this must be done.

John 14:15
"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

We need to wake up. Our hearts need to be turned towards God and that means what He says, goes. Jesus said we must deny ourselves. Yet, we are a nation of self-indulgence. Read your Bible from cover to cover. It’s the only way to escape the deception Satan is reaping upon God’s people. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and that empowers us to not only understand God’s Word, but also to employ it in our lives.

Loving God’s means loving His commandments. The opposite of love is hate. Here is what love for God is.

1 John 5:2
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.

Pride and Humility - Which One Defines Us?

This morning my Bible lesson is a story that always amazes us. Mark 9:33-37 is the story in which Jesus catches the disciples in a pride filled moment. Take a look.

Mark 9:33-35
And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?”  But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.  And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”

I love this story. I find it humorous that when Jesus asks them what they have been discussing they just ignore Him and refuse to answer. It’s funny because the man asking the question already knows the answer, He’s God and they know it. The parallel verse from Luke 9:47 explains that “Jesus, knowing the reasoning of their hearts, took a child and put him by his side.” The response of Jesus is classic. He just sits down and gets to the point of revealing their prideful hearts.

We read these stories and wonder how the disciples could be so dense. Jesus is the epitome of humility and they have been under His teaching for a good while and yet they are arguing over which one of them is the greatest.

But who are we to criticize? Many of us have been following Christ a very long time. I have. Yet pride continues to plague us as well. Jesus doesn’t need to know the reasoning of our hearts, He could simply open our Facebook pages where we fill the internet with stories about us. We post this dreadful thing called the selfie and what could possibly defy the concept of humility more? I do it. Just yesterday I put up a post that seemed to be humorous but at its core was my deep-seated desire for approval of others. The world of psychology has convinced us that our problems are rooted in a lack of self-esteem but that is simply not true. We are filled with self-esteem and a desire for more, just as the disciples were. And its destroying this culture. We are the me, me, me culture.

The Bible is replete with instruction against pride. Humility is the hallmark of the true Christian life, yet it is a rare trait amongst even Christians today. This morning we need to go back to the Bible and be reminded of what it says about pride.

Pride defiles us. Look at the other things pride is lumped together with. Be careful judging the sins of others; we aren’t really any better.

Mark 7:20-23
And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Pride disgraces us.

Proverbs 11:2
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

 

Pride stirs up strife.

Proverbs 28:25
He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, But he who trusts in the LORD will be prospered.

 Pride will bring judgment.

Proverbs 16:5
Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.

Pride is an abomination to the Lord. That ought to scare the pride right out of us and it ought to break our hearts.

God does not want us to be prideful in any way of any thing we do. In truth, we didn’t even do it; He did.

Isaiah 66:2
"For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being," declares the LORD. "But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.

God has made clear what He expects of us.

Micah 6:8
He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

Jesus warned us.

Luke 14:11
"For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Paul exhorted us.

Philippians 2:3
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.

James instructed us.

James 4:10
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

Jesus set the example as Paul explained.

Philippians 2:5-8
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death. There is that word again; obedient. Humility is not an option for the Christian and if we made it real in our lives we would change the world.

I am guilty. How about you?

The writer of Hebrews speaks to our hearts and I close with that reading. We all need to regroup and refocus. This is a good place to start for none of us are where we ought to be.

Hebrews 12:1-4
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

The Transfiguration of the Christian

Everyone loves the fact that upon confessing faith in Christ we are instantly justified in the eyes of God. One of the theological terms used is imputation, meaning that the righteousness of Christ is given to us in terms of our position with God. The blood of Christ covers our sin and we are immediately restored to relationship with God, the Father. We can now enter into His presence through prayer offered in the name of Jesus and should we die we can go directly to heaven. This is good news. This is the Gospel.

But the Gospel does not stop there. The good news of the Gospel also means we are being changed. In terms of theology this is called sanctification. It is the process of us literally becoming like Jesus. The Bible tells us that Jesus walked this earth without sin. Since sanctification is a process, we know that it takes time. It takes a lifetime and the work will not be complete until we are taken up to be with Christ. But for the true follower of Christ, it is a guarantee as found in Philippians 1:6 in which Paul says that he is “sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Unfortunately, we too often hear preached that the Gospel is that Jesus loves you, He died for you so that you can go to heaven. All true statements but if we stop there we miss the complete truth of the Gospel. Jesus offers many warnings in the Bible about false conversions and that ought to lead us to be sure we are preaching the complete Gospel, for we must not allow someone to live in the hope of heaven only to hear the fearful words of Jesus Himself. Listen to Jesus from Matthew 7:21-23 as He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

The truth is that our salvation experience, if true, will result in a change. Yes, that change is a lifelong process and we will struggle with sin our whole lives. But the Bible teaches us that we won’t just be the same old person we were. We will be radically different, so different that the world will see Christ in us.

While there are many readings in scripture that teach us about the Gospel experience, there is one I call attention to today that I had never really noticed before. In the Gospels we read the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. This was the point when Peter, James, and John were led up a mountain by Jesus and were given the vision to see Jesus in His full glory. The story is found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

God speaks out of the clouds and confirms that Jesus is His Son and instructs us to listen to Jesus. In the Gospels Jesus tells us to obey Him. Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:15
 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Proof of our love for Jesus comes through obedience to what He says. Then in John 14:21 He says, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." And again, in John 14:23-24 Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

Obedience to the commands of Christ is not an option. The mark of repentance is the change in us in which we turn from our worldly attitudes and behaviors to become in agreement with God’s moral law. This is not how we are saved, that is by faith alone, but obedience is the evidence we have been changed.

When the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of scripture to speak of the transfiguration in the Gospels, He chose the Greek word, metamorphoō, of which we derive the word metamorphose. Most of us know that word means to be changes into something g completely different. The scientific definition of the word we know says that Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops after birth or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's form or structure through cell growth and differentiation. It also says that is usually involves a change of habitat and behavior. That, my friends, is a pretty accurate description of what being ‘born again” as a new Christian is.

If we look up the word metamorphoō in our study materials, we find that it is used three times in our Bibles. The first in the Gospels which describe the transfiguration of Jesus. The other tow times it is used it speaks of the changes in the person who have experienced the act of salvation. Remember, though we sometimes see different words used in the Bible, we should be looking at the original Greek to get a better understanding of the meaning, so even though the word appears different, the actual word used was metamorphoō.

Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

2 Corinthians 3:18
 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

The verses above ought to be enough to convince us that our salvation experience is more than just a free ticket to heaven in the next life, that it also involves a radical change in our current life. Adding the fact that the Holy Spirit uses the same word to describe how Jesus suddenly was changed to reflect the Glory of God in the story of the Transfiguration, so our salvation experience must convince us that our life after conversion also should reflect the Glory of God. Like the caterpillar, which is metamorphized into the beautiful butterfly, so ought the Christian fly into the world reflecting the great Glory of God.

Paul gave this command in 2 Corinthians 13:5,
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

Our eternal destination rides upon this test. Let us not go another day without crying out to Jesus that we, indeed, will reflect His glory. He has sent the Holy spirit to empower us to be light and salt. May it be real in each of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who Do You Say Jesus Is?

Three of the four Gospels record a story of Jesus asking the disciples this question, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, ever the one not afraid to step up boldly, responds saying, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

How do you answer that question? Who do you say that Jesus is? When Peter responded that Jesus was the Christ, he was stating that certainly Jesus was the Messiah, the expected one whom the Old Testament prophesized of. Throughout His earthly life Jesus declared Himself to be the Son of God, a title that also claimed deity. Isaiah 53 is a clear prophesy of the Christ to come. Take time today to read this beautiful passage that describes our dear Lord Jesus. I call attention to two of the verses that tell our story and what He means to us.

Isaiah 53:5-6
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Reading this, how do YOU answer the question from Jesus, “Who do you say I am?”

If like Peter, you answer that Jesus is the Messiah, then the Gospels have a warning for you. Just moments after having declared that Jesus was the anointed one from God, Peter has the audacity to rebuke Jesus. Take a look.

Mark 8:31-32
And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.  And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

Peter didn’t like the plan. He was unwilling to accept the divine and sovereign way that God was going to save men from their sins, so Peter rebuked Jesus. We read this story amazed that Peter could be so foolish. You see Peter wanted things his way.

What if we pause now and look deeply into our own hearts? Are we really all that much different than Peter? Do we read our Bibles and find some way to alter the things Jesus said so that we don’t have to obey Him? Do we look upon our own sins and gloss them over? Maybe we admit them but mitigate them in some way. No, we don’t boldly rebuke Jesus for telling us to love our enemies; we just say Jesus wasn’t talking to me. Or maybe we simply declare the commands of scripture as outdated and not fitting the modern culture. There are a million and one ways we find a way around living the Holy life Jesus calls us to. In essence, anything but total surrender to the commands of Jesus is a silent rebuke of who He is.

Here is Jesus’ response to Peter’s rebuke.

Mark 8:33
But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Then Jesus called others to hear what He had to say.

Mark 8:34-36
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

It’s time we looked hard at the question from Jesus, “Who do you say I am?” If we say Jesus, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God, then we need to obey Him. I will say it again, because I need to hear it, anything but total surrender to the commands of Jesus is a silent rebuke of who He is.

Will we fail at times? Of course. But we must stop rebuking Jesus and take up our cross and follow Him. He is our shepherd and where does our shepherd lead us?

Psalm 23:3

He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake.

Who do you say He is? If He is our shepherd, then we must follow Him.