Divided Hearts; Defeated Lives.

nuggets of wisdom No Comments

 

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. – 1 Corinthians 10:31

 

When the Lord saved us, He rescued us out of the domain of Satan and brought us into His holy kingdom.  We are no longer slaves of Satan, he is no longer our master, we now have a new master, Jesus.  However, just because we are no longer in the world where Satan rules,  doesn’t mean he is still not at work around us.  He tries to lure us back through temptations and deceptions. When he is unable to lure into sin through temptations, he seeks to deceive us into living defeated, powerless, lukewarm Christian lives.  We have been saved and set free, we want to  live for the Lord and have victory over the Satan.  So we ask the question, how can a Christian get victory over Satan and live a life that is pleasing to God? 

While sanctification is a life-long process, it however, begins with a desire to be wholly devoted to God and shun the world.  Before we were saved, we were God’s enemies (Rom 5), now that we are saved, we have been adopted into His family.  The Holy Spirit has poured God’s love into our heart, we now desire to love Him with everything we have. Enabled by the Holy Spirit, we can love as the Bible calls us to in Deuteronomy 6:5 – You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  This means loving God with everything we have.  What we love in this way, we are devoted to and what we are devoted to, we worship.

 At the same time we are being commanded to love God devotedly, we are also commanded not to love the world. The world is the corrupt value system of all societies, which is characterized by the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life, everything the Lord hates. 1 John 2:15-16 – Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

One of the reasons I believe some Christians fall into the trap of the devil and never seem to be able live the victorious Christian life is because they somehow believe they can be devoted to the worldly system and to God at the same time, they are trying to straddle the fence between two kingdoms. This is impossible. Jesus made it clear that we cannot serve two masters. Matthew 6:24 – No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.  

Complete devotion to God is the key to a victorious Christian life.  Complete devotion means every area of life must be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Everything we do, is done to His glory and as service to a Holy God. Colossians 3:23 – Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.The book of wisdom commands us to acknowledge Him in everything. –  Proverbs 3:6a – In all your ways acknowledge him. The scripture text at the top of the page from 1Corinthians 10:31 tells to do everything, even the mundane things like eating and drinking to the glory of God.

Being wholly devoted to God, acknowledging Him in everything, doing everything, even mundane things like eating and drinking to His glory is what it means to pursue holiness, it is what we are saved to do, it is how we are certain to live victorious in Christ. The pursuit of holiness by seeking to bring every area of our lives under the Lordship of Jesus is the essence of the Christian life.  When we develop the habit of lifting everything we do as worship to a holy God, we say we are living Coram Deo. 

 

To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.  To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God. God is omnipresent. There is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze. – R.C. Sproul

 

To live Coram Deo, is to live in the awareness that everything we do or say is done right in the presence of God always. The late theologian Dr. R.C. Sproul explains it this way: “This phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God. To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God.  To live in the presence of God is to understand that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, we are acting under the gaze of God. God is omnipresent. There is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze.”

 The secret to a victorious Christian life is living Coram Deo. This means that the life of a believer knows nothing of a sacred / secular divide.  Everything in every area of the Christian’s life is sacred.  Every area is lived before the face of God. There is no secular / sacred vocation in the life of a believer, every job/vocation is for the glorify of God.  I know most people try to separate vocations into those who primarily work in Christian ministry verses everyone else, but the Bible speaks of no such thing.  While the qualifications for Church leadership is different from that of a lawyer or plumber or homemaker, the believer answers to God in every thing. Every area of life, be it marriage, raising kids, career, and even the education of our kids must all be lived and brought under the lordship of Christ. There is no divide, even the simplest everyday acts are done as service to God. 

Any attempt to divide our lives into compartments of sacred / secular is will lead to a defeated, confused, chaotic and contradictory life.  We will never be able to live a life pleasing to God.  Your “church life” cannot be different form your “work life” or your”play life” in terms of how you behave, talk and act.  For us to live victorious Christian lives, we must be single-minded in serving the Lord.  This means living Coram Deo – before the face of God, always in everything. The late bishop of Liverpool J.C Ryle said it best:  “Singleness of purpose is one great secret of spiritual prosperity.”

 

Soli Deo Gloria!

Defensive Christianity

nuggets of wisdom No Comments

 

The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself. – Charles Spurgeon

 

You are probably wondering what I mean by defensive Christianity.  Thanks for asking. Defensive Christianity is when Christians in their attempt to defend Christianity and the Bible from ridicule and rejection by the culture, shift their focus away from the command of Jesus to go make disciples, instead focus on redeeming the culture.  Leading them to move away from personal evangelism which involves taking the gospel to the individual sinner, showing them their need of a savior, and calling them to repentance.  Instead of focusing on making disciples, they focus on defending Christianity against what is seen as the wrong perception of Christianity in the broader culture.

The best way they believe we can adequately correct this wrong perception of Christianity in the culture is by redeeming the culture. While defensive Christians do not deny the need for personal evangelism, they however hold on to the notion that the most effective way to bring Biblical tenets to bear in society is by redeeming the culture.  In other words, personal evangelism alone is not enough to bring about Biblical change in society at large.

 

Defensive Christianity is when Christians in their attempt to defend Christianity and the Bible from ridicule and rejection by the culture, shift their focus away from the command of Jesus to go make disciples, instead focus on redeeming the culture. 

 

The idea to redeem culture is based on the notion that if only the culture can be made to  understand that true believers are really not the bad, condemning, narrow minded, bigoted people they are believed to be and that Christianity really has great benefits for society at large, then the culture will stop rejecting the gospel. In other words, defensive Christians believes that the reason the culture rejects the gospel, is not primarily because of the sins of the people, but because they don’t really understand Christianity or have been given a wrong perception of Christianity by some professing Christians and that once the culture comes to a true understanding of the benefits of Christianity, it would embrace it wholly. 

While it all sounds very nice, the problem with defensive Christianity is that nowhere are we commanded to go redeem the culture. Nowhere does the Bible teach that the reason people or cultures are hostile to the gospel is because they don’t understand Christianity. The Bible teaches just the opposite. It tells us that the reason the culture hates and rejects the gospel is because the people of that culture love their sin.  John 3:19 – And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil

By focusing on the redemption of the culture instead of the repentance of individual, defensive Christians without meaning to, downplay the role and sufficiency of the word of God in saving people.  God in His infinite wisdom has designed that men’s eyes will be open to the Truth and come to the light of Christ through the preaching of the word. 1 Corinthians 1:21 – For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. The power to save is in the Word of God, not in our persuasive words or actions. No one can come to saving faith in Christ unless the Lord draws them to Himself. And He does this through the preaching of the word. John 6:44 –  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Focusing on the redemption of the culture instead of the repentance of individual sinners shows a lack of understanding of man’s fallen nature and the effects of sin in our lives.  As the Bishop of Liverpool in the 19th Century, J.C Ryle states in his book “Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots” – ‘The plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity. Without it such doctrines as justification, conversion, sanctification, are “words and names” which convey no meaning to the mind. The first thing, therefore, that God does when He makes anyone a new creature in Christ, is to send light into his heart, and show him that he is a guilty sinner.’

Jesus Christ came to save sinners, not culture. Matthew 1:21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.  Why would any Christian embrace this error in thinking that redeeming the culture is the way to bring people into the kingdom?  JC Ryle gives an adequate answer in the same book. He says “Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, you cannot wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of the chief wants of the Church in the nineteenth century has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.”

 

Focusing on the redemption of the culture instead of the individual sinner shows a lack of understanding of man’s fallen nature and the effects of sin in our lives.

 

The problem some Christians had in the 19th century; some still have in the 21st century, they lack a clear understanding of sin. We need a clearer, fuller teaching about sin.  A wrong knowledge of sin will ultimately result in the denial of the Sufficiency of Scripture to save and redeem sinners.  Those who seek to redeem the culture do not believe that the preaching of the gospel to individual sinners is enough. They will not deny it, but they believe it is not adequate, we have to help it along by trying to convince the culture through our actions, that Christianity is “cool”.  This is the reason so many professing Christians found it easy to embrace CRT. They were focused on redeeming the culture, instead of making disciples.

A culture that acknowledges the God of the Bible will only be possible if a majority of the people in that culture repent of their sins and turn to Christ.  This can only be accomplished by the preaching of the word and the conviction of sin in the heart of individuals. It is through the preaching of the word that we come to have a clear understanding of sin, the offer of salvation and our need of a savior. God is the one who saves His people, all we are tasked to do is go and tell and make diciples. Let the word of God loose and let it do its work of bringing the lost sheep home. If God sees fit to save a whole nation one by one, thereby redeeming the culture, that is His prerogative, not ours.

 

Soli Deo Gloria!

Fear Not

nuggets of wisdom No Comments

 

Fear not, for I am with you.

be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. –Isaiah 41:10

 

Fear is a very powerful emotion. Fear itself is not a bad or wrong, it was given to us by God to warn us of danger and to cause us to be more careful.  This is healthy fear.  A few years ago, our family took a trip to Colorado and decided to take the tourist train up to Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak is 14,000 feet above sea level – talk above high places!  Once you get to the top, a little further past the tourist welcome center, you can see the edge of the cliff.  We called it the “drop off” (after ‘Finding Nemo’).  Mere looking at it gave me fear chills and rightly so.  God has given us the emotion of fear to warn and keep us away from danger. As soon as we got back into the visitor center, my fear of the “drop off” was gone, as it should be.

 

A friend on twitter posted a quote by Ralph Waldo Emmerson on fear which reads “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” 

 

Fear is the most exploited emotion.  It can be exploited by anyone who seeks to have control over the life of another person.  The devil can do nothing to us without first exploiting our fears. Abusers and dictators also use the weapon of fear to perpetuate their abuse on those around them. Since we live in a fallen world and bad things will happen, the tendency for us to be afraid or anxious about the unknown is to be expected among sinful humans like us. However, the Lord does not want it to be so with us. He does not want us to be held captive by fear.  That is why the Bible is filled with plenty of verses telling us not to be afraid or anxious.

 

Being a Christian does not exempt one from becoming afraid or anxious about certain situations or circumstances.  Since we live in a fallen world, believers will run into and situations that will cause fear/anxiety. We are not to give in. We are to make use of the weapons given to us by God to fight fear and anxiety. Weapons such as reading the Bible, praying, and fellowshipping with other believers.

 

A friend on twitter posted a quote by Ralph Waldo Emmerson on fear which reads “Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.” This is so true. So many lives have been lost and so many relationships destroyed by fear.  Someone said there are 365 “Fear Not” in the Bible, one for each day of the year. Fear is such a powerful emotion that it causes people to do things we never imagined we would ever do.

Fear also paralyzes us – renders unable to do those things we previously know how to do. Fearful people do irrational and sometimes ungodly things. Fear never comes alone; it comes with its twin – anxiety.  Fear and anxiety go hand in hand. Where there is fear, there is anxiety & where there is anxiety, there is fear.

Fear and anxiety causes Christian to forget the promises of God as well as the means of grace given by the Holy Spirit to help in trouble. Means like Bible study, prayer and fellowship with the saints.  The Lord continues to encourage and command us not to be afraid or anxious. Being a Christian does not exempt one from becoming afraid or anxious about certain situations or circumstances. 

Since we live in a fallen world, believers will run into and situations that will cause fear/anxiety. We are not to give in. We are to make use of the weapons given to us by God to fight fear and anxiety. Weapons such as reading the Bible, praying, and fellowshipping with other believers. These weapons will help to keep us strong, and unafraid. Our enemy and oppressor can only  succeed in keeping us afraid and anxious by trying to hinder us from getting into the word, praying, and by separating us from fellowship with the saints. Don’t let him.

What is the opposite of fear and anxiety? I believe it is hope.  Hopelessness fuels fear and anxiety.  Fearful and anxious people feel hopeless and helpless in their situation.  To counter fear and anxiety, we have to turn to where hope can be found – God’s word, prayer and fellowship with the saints.  When we don’t heed God’s commands, we sin.  Nothings says we don’t trust God like living in fear and anxiety.  Here is a small sample of scripture to encourage us not to be afraid. There is more, but I leave you to do your own search in the Bible.  

 

Isaiah 35:4

Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

John 14:27

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Isaiah 43:1

Israel’s Only Savior

But now thus says the LORD,

he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

Hebrews 10:25
not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Philippians 4:6-7

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 6:27
And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

 

If you are currently living in fear of some circumstance in your life or maybe about the COVID situation or any other situation, let me encourage you to get into your Bible. Study your Bible constantly, pray constantly. Any time the thought of fear or panic or anxiety about the situation comes to mind, pause and and say a short prayer, giving the situation to the Lord.  You have to do this several times in an hour, that is ok.  

Never forsake to gather together with other believers. We find encouragement when we fellowship together. If for some reason you are not able to physically gather, find a healthy Bible-believing online small group Bible study to be a part of.  Lastly, feed your soul with godly teaching from Biblically sound preachers. You can get a lot of Biblically sound teaching from Ligonier.org, gty.or or truthforlife.org.  You can also subscribe to Biblically sound podcast such as: ’The just thinking’ podcast. I highly recommend their podcast on fear. It is titled “Why are you Afraid”?.  You can listen to it here:

EP # 113 | Why Are You Afraid?

Just Thinking Podcast

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-thinking-podcast/id1328733796?i=1000532342759

 

Soli Deo Gloria!