Searching for Grace

If you haven't seen this yet, check out Mick Mooney's Searching for Grace comic!  I'll be interviewing him soon for my Growing in Grace Together podcast series.
Searching for Grace

Promised Grace

Just wanted to link to a blog from a friend, Dave Geisler.  He also has a few other resources on the site.

Promised Grace.

The Answer is Always B - 5/30/10 - Work Out

What is the correct wording of Phil 2:12b-13?

A) "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who has high demands of you that you do great things for His good pleasure; otherwise He's gonna take you out!

B) "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."

C) Let's work out!

GIG 243 - A New Covenant - Not a Hybrid Covenant

In much of the church world today, what we seem to have is a mixture - a hybrid - of the Old Covenant and the actual New Covenant. But are we meant to mix the two Covenants? Hebrews says that God has made the first covenant "obsolete" and that it is "vanishing away." And so questions come up such as, "If the Old Covenant is a valid part of the Bible, why then don't we keep it?" "Why is it said to be obsolete?"

The answer is quite simple: The Cross of Jesus Christ changed everything. Everything changed at the Cross. This week we discuss some more of the differences between the Old and the New, and some of the changes that took place due to the Cross.

For example, one of the differences: The Old Covenant had many priests, who offered sacrifices continually, but they were prevented by death from continuing and nothing they did could ever make us perfect or take away our sins. The New Covenant came about came about through One Person, one sacrifice for all, through a Priest who lives forever and therefore has an "unchangeable priesthood," and through this one sacrifice our sins have been taken away and we have been "perfected forever" and "saved to the uttermost."

The Old had to be taken out of the way; It had to be made obsolete.  By the very nature of each covenant, it's impossible to mix them.

gigcast.graceroots.org

If you're gonna give Jesus a bad name...

...at least do it for the right reasons!

In today's culture, the name of Jesus turns people off, and is disliked or even hated by people. There are many reasons for that, and most of the reasons aren't the reason why Jesus' name is supposed to be offensive.

Sometimes it's because Christians go around acting as the moral police of the world. Jesus is represented by some Christians as one who is against people and who is their condemning judge. Rather than putting their arms around "sinners" and embracing them, as Jesus did, they (figuratively) pick up stones to throw at them. Rather than eating and drinking with them - and I mean literally going to them where they're at and intentionally loving them unconditionally - they wait for them to get their acts together and come to their church and start behaving like they behave.  And sadly, many times, rather than being agents of reconciliation and forgiveness, they go around protesting the sins of the world and everything else they're against.

If you're gonna give Jesus bad name... please, at least do it for the right reasons!  And please offend the right people! Stop giving Jesus a bad name by acting as the moral enforcers of the world and instead identify yourself with people who don't believe as you do. Meet them right where they're at. Accept them just as they are, putting your arms around them, listening to them, loving them unconditionally. Eat with them and drink with them.  Drop your self-righteous stone throwing!

The people who should be offended by Jesus are not "sinners."  Do we really get this?  While sinners flocked to Jesus, it was the Pharisee-types, the duty-driven, finger-pointing, behavior-based people who couldn't stand Him.

The self-righteous performance-based religious people are the ones who should rightly have a problem with the unconditional-lover of the world.  If we're gonna turn anyone off, let's do it the way it should be... by loving and accepting others and showing them how God loves and accepts them, thereby offending the ones who truly should be offended by the gospel!

GIG 242 - A New Covenant Was Needed

Coming up in future weeks we're going to be talking about a seemingly basic question, "What is the Gospel?" But before we get into that, and as kind of a set-up for it, we're going to spend a couple of weeks talking about some of the differences between Old Covenant and the New Covenant. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah (and other OT prophets and authors) looks ahead to the coming of a new covenant, which came in as a result of what happened on the Cross. In the New Testament, the book of Hebrews (and other NT books and authors) looks back to the Cross and speaks of this New Covenant, which it calls "a better covenant, established on better promises."

We'll talk about how both Jeremiah and Hebrews establish the fact that there was a problem with the Old Covenant. In short, the problem was that the people couldn't (and didn't) keep it! So a new covenant was needed that wasn't based at all upon mankind keeping it and that wasn't based upon anyone's behavior or law-keeping.

gigcast.graceroots.org

God's Law Was Meant for Death, Not Life; Increased Sin, Not Righteousness

The New Testament reveals many things about God's law, and how, while it is good and just and holy, it is against us and contrary to us, and how we had to die to it in order to be joined to Christ.

GIG 241 - Grace Giving

"So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work." (2 Cor 9:7-8 NKJV)

This week we talk about what it is to give grace-fully.  It's not about giving to get something back from God.  Rather, God provides for us sufficiently, by His grace - not by anything we've done to earn it - and enables us to give to others.  It may be money and it may have absolutely nothing to do with money, but as God provides for us we are able to be generous to others, and we're able to do it cheerfully, not grudgingly!

gigcast.graceroots.org

GIG 240 - Sowing and Reaping is All About Benefiting Others

"Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously."

Those are Paul's words to the church in 2 Corinthians 9. This verse has often been interpreted in a rather self-centered way, as if to say that if you sow generously or sparingly then you yourself will reap generous or sparing benefits from your sowing.  But is that what Paul is talking about?  Paul is talking to the Corinthians about their ministry/service to other people.  Rather than this being about God blessing the Corinthians according to how much or little they give, isn't Paul saying that the blessings are actually what takes place in the lives of the people who are receiving what they're giving?  Does God bless us because we've blessed others, or does He bless us so that we can bless others?

gigcast.graceroots.org

A Song for Mothers

This is a song from my friend Tony Allen. He wrote and recorded it for his Mom.

Tony Allen - A Special Part of Me

Shut Your Self-Righteous Trap!

I realize I'm writing to people from various backgrounds, languages and cultures, so I'll just quickly explain the phrase "shut your trap."  It means "shut your mouth," "be quiet" or "stop talking."

Now, it's one thing to be angry or irritated with the things someone else is saying, and to yell out in frustration, "Shut your trap!"  But it's quite another thing to be standing there calmly listening to someone's self-justified, self-righteous talk, and to have a clever exchange with them that in the end makes them shut their self-righteous trap without even telling them to do it!  Jesus was very good at shutting self-righteous traps.

How did He do it?  Very often He used the very thing that people were using to justify themselves to show them that they weren't as justified as they thought they were!  I'll give some examples, but first let me back up - or really look ahead - to something that Paul said years after Jesus' death and resurrection, that for me made the light go on in regards to all this.

Rom 3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Over a decade ago, I spent quite a bit of time with the first part of that verse.  "Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law."  One day those words jumped off the page at me, and I literally camped out on those words for the next 6 to 12 months.  It so fascinated me that up until that time I had completely missed what was in those words that I set up a tent, gathered up a bunch of firewood, brought along a bunch of marshmallows, chocolate bars and graham crackers and I invited everyone I knew to the party!  I mean, I was so focused on those words that whoever I talked with during that time got an earful from me!

Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law.  Period.  That's as far as I got.  As I look back it's really what I needed at that time in my growing process.  I needed to truly understand that God's law was not speaking to Christians, but only to those who were under it.  Christians (and all Gentiles, for that matter) are not under it.  Well anyway, as time went on I eventually saw the second half of the verse as well.  Why does the law speak to those who are under the law?  "(So) that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God."

The law was not meant as a guide for living.  It was meant to stop mouths.  It was meant to shut people's self-righteous traps!  Paul also called the law "the ministry of death" and "the ministry of condemnation."  It was not meant to help people justify themselves, but to show them just how 'unjustified' they are!  But nevertheless, through the years countless people have tried to use it to justify themselves.  That may work in front of some other people.  But don't try it in front of Jesus!

-The "rich young ruler" boasted to Jesus how he had kept God's laws since his youth.  Jesus' reply was that even if that was true (as if), the man was still lacking something, and He gave the man more stuff to do.  "You really think you're justified?  How about you go sell all you have and give to the poor."  The man went away sad, with his self-righteous ego utterly deflated.  Trap shut.

-Another time, a woman was caught in the act of adultery.  The people wanted to stone her to death, according to what the law said.  Surely they hadn't ever sinned like that, so they were justified, right?  Jesus remained silent and calm throughout this whole ordeal, and when He finally spoke He simply said, "He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone."  Stones dropped. Traps shut.

-Jesus spoke a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector "to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous" (Luke 18:9-14). The self-righteous Pharisee thanked God for how "good" he was, and how he wasn't like that rotten tax collector or other sinners.  The tax collector couldn't even raise his eyes toward heaven, but he said, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!"  Which one went away justified?  Jesus said it was the tax collector.  More self-righteous traps shut.

-When I read Jesus' words in "the Sermon on the Mount" I see a whole bunch of traps shutting!  Some say His words here are teachings for Christians to live by.  But look, He is speaking to those who are under the law and He is not only telling them what the law says, but He is magnifying what the law says - showing its true depth and meaning!  In general He says, "You've heard that the law says this... but I tell you it's not quite as easy as it looks!"

"It's not just 'you shall not murder,' but 'whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment!'  It's not just 'you shall not commit adultery,' but it's 'if you look at someone with lust you have committed adultery in your heart!'  'Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven!'  'Be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect!'"

Ouch!  If I think I'm a pretty good and decent person, what can I say to all that!  Trap shut!  (And I've never even been under the law!)

Surely there's a purpose to all this trap shutting (stopping of mouths), though, isn't there?  Yes.  After Paul says that the law was given to stop mouths and make the whole world guilty before God, he continues:

Rom 3:20-24 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus...

After our self-righteous traps are shut (when we realize that we can no longer go on trying to justify ourselves by how "good" we think we are or by how well we've kept rules and commandments, etc), the hope is that we'll come to the place in which we see that the only way to truly be justified and made righteous is "apart from the law."  It can never be by us earning righteousness, or apprehending it by anything we do.  It's only given as a gift.  We're "justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."  For so many of us (even those who have never been under the law), we've had to have our mouths shut as we've seen the futility of trying to measure up to God, before we've been able to truly comprehend and accept the free gift provided through His grace alone.

GIG 239 - Give Out of Love, Not Out of Rules

There is definitely a lot of manipulative, arm-twisting, scripture-twisting teaching out there in regards to the subject of "giving." We've all seen it, and we're wary of it, and for many of us it causes our defenses to go up whenever the subject is mentioned. That's quite understandable.

Hopefully what we share this week will cause some of those defenses to go down, as we begin to talk about what giving can look like when it's done from a heart of love and relationship, rather than from a set of rules or guilt or compulsion.

gigcast.graceroots.org