Christian Unity

Colossians 3:11
Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

God calls his church to unity. The church is one body of Christ with one purpose, and that purpose is to be a reflection Jesus Christ.

We all have different DNA. We are all individuals that God has made in a unique way. We are sort of like snowflakes, no two people are the same.

We all have different talents. I am a graphic artists. Others are skilled at music or building or administration, etc.

 As Christians, we all have different gifts. The Bible says that when we receive Jesus Christ into our lives, we receive his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to each and every believer in order to be used to build and build up God’s church; that is his people.

So, while God has a unique purpose for each, we are still one. This is because Jesus Christ is all, and in all. In order to realize this we must first come to understand three things about Jesus. We must understand who he is, what he did and where he lives.

Who He is.

The man Jesus who walked this earth 2,000 years ago was not merely a man, though he was fully man. Jesus was the Son of God. This means that he is God himself. He is Yahweh. He is the great I AM that spoke to Moses from a burning bush. He is the same God of the Old Testament who walks among his people in the New Testament. He is the son of His heavenly Father (distinct), yet every bit of the same God as was his Father (one). As God, the Bible says that Jesus created all things. This includes you and I. He also sustains all of creation. At his word, all of creation would cease to exist. So he made all and sustains all.

Understand what He did.

Jesus was punished by his heavenly Father while dying for your sins and for mine. Then Jesus defeated death by being raised from the dead. He saves all who believe upon him and when he returns will raise them from the dead as well. Jesus saves all who believe.

Understand where He lives.

He dwells in everyone who believes. As stated earlier, Jesus works in his people by the working of the Holy Spirit. This is what the Bible refers to as being born again. Jesus is in all who believe.

But Christ is one. 
It is the same Christ who created each of us, who sustains each of us, who saves us and who works in us. His church is being made into his image, the one who is all and in all.  Therefore as the people of God there no distinction of race, gender, class, or otherwise.
 There is only Christian.

Dealing With Change

by Scott Hescht

After a recent conversation with a woman about her job struggles I was reminded of how much things can change in life. We get comfortable in a situation; we get in a groove and routine and then things change. For those of us who don't like change, it can turn our world upside down. Even for those who welcome change, it often depends on the nature of the change. When seemingly good change happens we welcome it with open arms, however when it is seemingly bad or it brings about difficulty or hardship, we tend to shun change.

There is no denying that change can be difficult. However, change is a tool that God uses to bring about his good purposes. Once, early in the history of mankind when people refused to obey God's command to spread throughout the earth and multiply, God changed (or divided) their languages in order to bring about his plan (Genesis 11). In another instance after Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to empower his disciples for ministry, they too congregated in one place (Jerusalem) instead of spreading out like God had intended (Acts 8). God allowed persecution against his people in order to light a fire under them, get them out of Jerusalem, and out into the rest of the world spreading the good news of Jesus Christ.

You see, though it may not be easy or convenient, God often uses those hard times of change to knock us out of our comfort zones and move us on to the bigger and better plans that he has for us. Jesus' intention was never to walk forever physically with his disciples when he ministered to them 2,000 years ago. At the time this was not music to the ears of those he discipled, yet they eventually understood as he returned through the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives. He also never intended the 12 disciples to remain together as he commissioned them to preach the good news to the world. They had work to do and individual purposes to fulfill for his kingdom.

Change also helps us remember that we should be at most home in God. I heard this said in a church service recently where the congregation had been forced to meet in the gymnasium because their sanctuary was having work done to its ceiling structure. The pastor said this in order to remind the people that the church wasn't about the building, but about God and his people.

When we go through change, we should allow it to remind us that our circumstances don't define us. Our houses, our jobs, our possessions, our social status, even our families don't define who we are. Those things change. They are fleeting. Jobs change, people retire, houses grow old, and people will let you down, but God never changes and God is trustworthy and true. So whatever your hardship, or even if the sky is bright and clear right now, don't take up residence in your circumstances. Take up your residence in your Heavenly Father and in his Son Jesus Christ. He is in complete control of your situation and even has a purpose for it. Change is good when you trust an all- powerful, sovereign, loving, grace-filled God who never changes.

So Do We Fear God or Not?

Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." - Exodus 20:20

Often I have ran into people who misunderstand the fear of the Lord. On one hand, we see that God loves us and we don't understand why He would tell us that fearing Him is the beginning of wisdom. Why would God want even believers to be scared of Him? The other extreme is to suppose that fear means to respect God, sort of like I respect a loved one, pastor or role model. The fear of the Lord seems to be an important theme throughout the Bible and a key principle to understanding the fear of God, so it would be 'wise' to seek a proper understanding of what the fear of the Lord means.

In Exodus 20:20 when Moses addresses Israel, He uses the word 'fear' twice. The first time he says to not fear God because He hadn't come to bring evil against them but rather to test them. Then he says the reason for the test is that Israel would fear the Lord so that they wouldn't sin. So which is it?

I'm so glad that God gave us the difference in one passage so that we can understand what it means to fear the Lord. First, those who understand that God loves His people are exactly right in the sense that we shouldn't fear that God would bring any sort of malicious evil against His children; especially in light of our faith in the great intercessor Jesus Christ. This is what is communicated in the first part of Exodus 20:20. However, we see God's goal is that mankind 'would' fear Him as seen in the latter part of the passage.

You see, a person that has no fear of God is foolish. They either deny His existence or they are apathetic toward the acknowledgment that He does exist. I fear for such individuals. God is GOD! He is not our earthly father, our earthly pastor or simply a role model. He is the Lord of all creation; the great I AM; the self existent One! He deserves much more than just our respect. He deserves our devotion, worship and adoration! He is the God that came upon Mount Sinai in a thick cloud of thunder and lightning causing the earth to tremble! Even at a glimpse of God's glory we would all fall to our faces.

But we are not at Mount Sinai. Christ changed that and God came to dwell in the believer at Pentecost. The believer now has total peace with our Heavenly Father. Grace and mercy will follow the believer forever! What a blessing! But just because we have been reconciled back to God as followers of Christ does not mean that God is a different God than the One who descended upon Mount Sinai. We just have peace with that same Holy God through the blood of Jesus Christ and now God is able and willing to walk with us once again. He also loves us just as He loved the people of Israel that Moses spoke to.

God is awesome and as believers we should all stand before Him, not just in respect, but in awe! He is Holy, Holy, Holy! That God, the great I AM, loves you Christian! Doesn't that truth floor you? When you grasp that, then you grasp what the fear of the Lord is and why it is the beginning of wisdom. When we grasp that, we desire not the things of this world, not the sin in this world, but we desire God and His commandment to walk in love toward Him and others.

The fear of the Lord however is not something we can bring about in ourselves. It is the work of the Holy Spirit. If you desire this passion for God, He is already beginning to work. Ask Him to fill you with the fear of the Lord. Ask Him to fill you with love and awe. That is a prayer that He will definitely answer (Luke 11:13).

You see, unbelievers would be wise to fear God, for without Him all one can expect is judgment. However for the believer, though there is no fear of judgment, our source of wisdom comes from the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10).

Are You Spiritually Inauthentic: Five Warning Signs

The following was adapted from John Ortberg’s “Surprised by Change: The Goal of Spiritual Life”. It’s based on the idea that Christians can often look to superficial distinctions between themselves and non-believers instead of real transformation brought about by the Holy Spirit. The religious people did it in Jesus’ day so we would be wise to at least consider the possibility that we may have fallen into the same trap. Ortberg uses Jesus’ rebuke of these religious folk in Matthew 23 as the basis of his five warning signs.

Pseudo-Transformation Warning Signs

1.    Am I spiritually “inauthentic”?

Matthew 23:25-28

²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. ²⁶ Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Inauthenticity involves a preoccupation with appearing to be spiritual. We try to say the right things and do the right things in front of others. Yet we hide our sin and work harder at making people think we’re a loving person than we actually do at loving them.

 “The meaning of true authenticity is this: that my exterior truly reflects my interior.”

- David Augsburger

Question: What are some things that keep you from being truly authentic?

2.    Am I becoming judgmental or exclusive or proud?

Matthew 23:6

⁶ They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues,

Pride is a potential problem for anyone who takes spiritual growth seriously. As soon as we start to pursue virtue, we begin to wonder why others aren’t as virtuous as we are.

Question: Do you tend to rate people in comparison to yourself? When and where does this tend to happen most frequently for you?

3.    Am I becoming more approachable, or less?

Matthew 23:7

(They love) ⁷ greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’

Question: Do you ever feel that you’re too busy or too important for someone?

Question: Which of the three previous questions hits home with you the most?

4.    Am I growing weary of pursuing spiritual growth?

Matthew 23:4

For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

The pursuit of righteousness is always an exhausting pursuit when it seeks a distorted goal.

Question: Have you been weary and burdened by trying to live up to a certain standard? Who’s standard is it? There’s GOOD NEWS! Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

5.    Am I measuring my spiritual life in superficial ways?

Matthew 23:24

²⁴ Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

“Suppose someone were to ask you, ‘How is your spiritual life going these days?’ Quick – what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? For many years I thought about this only in terms of a few special activities. If someone asked me how my spiritual life was going, my first thought would be how I was doing at having a quiet time – praying and reading the Bible each day. If I had prayed and read the Bible for several consecutive prior days, I was likely to say that my spiritual life was going well. If not, I was likely to feel guilty and downcast. So prayer and Bible study became the gauge of my spiritual condition. As long as I did those two things I could go through the day confident of God’s approval.”

Question: How do you tend to measure your spiritual life? What is your response to the questions discussing above?

“I suspect that if someone had asked the apostle Paul or the apostle John about his spiritual life, his first question would have been, ‘Am I growing in love for God and people?’ The real issue is what kind of people we are becoming.”

“Practices such as reading Scripture and praying are important – not because they prove how spiritual we are – but because God can use them to lead us into life.”

God and Government

by Brian Thetford

Romans 13: 11
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.

Where do you place your trust? God or the Government? Maybe it is both? We are at a very delicate moment in our countries history, and where you place your faith, your hope, and your trust is a question that is being demanded by every politician out there almost daily. So what is the answer? For me it is a clear choice, I will place all of my hope, faith, and trust in the Lord. There is no doubt that just as Paul points out in the scripture, God establishes earthly authority, and I do not doubt for one moment that the path that we are on as a country we are on for a purpose. I find myself often thinking about Saul the First King of Israel. To say he was not the best King would be an understatement, yet he was appointed by God, and what people learned by having Saul as a king was invaluable. Sometimes the Lord will give us exactly what we think we want, even when he knows it is not something we need……. Experience is the best teacher!

Still we are left with the vital question, where do we place our trust? Even our Government knows the answer. The answer is printed on every piece of currency this country produces. You can find the answer etched into our government buildings, and our monuments. IN GOD WE TRUST. To place our faith in anything else sells God out. Yet this is exactly what we are being asked to do. Every day the government is asking you to quit trusting in yourself, and God, and to start relying on them for all of your needs; income, housing, healthcare, food. The government would have you believe that they are the way the truth and the life. We know that is not the case. Here is the kicker, why would you trust in the government to provide what fellow Christians already provide for each other? I cannot think of a time when a family that was in need was not taken care of by their congregations. Be it food, money, housing, even healthcare bills have been paid by Christians taking care of those in need. How could we not? Did Christ not instruct us to do just that?

So do we submit to the government? Yes, but we bow only to the Lord. We don’t need more government in our lives, we need more God! Now more than ever we should be working to carry out the great commission. We should be making every effort to show the world that while government backed programs typically only produce half measures, God backed programs provide more than full measure. As Paul also points out in Romans we are more than conquerors, not because we have trusted the government, but because we have put our unshakeable faith in the Lord. When we place our faith and our trust in God, our lives play out in perfect harmony with God’s plan. We have a choice to make. Will we go the way of the world, and lock God away, only bringing Him out on Sunday, and holidays, or will we work to once again place The Lord where he belongs, at the top of our priorities. Will each of us make the commitment to take all of our faith, all of our trust, and place it squarely at the cross of Christ? If we will do that; if we will depend on the Lord to provide for us and to show the way, we will find that we are always victorious. Yes, this government is established by God, but we might want to pay attention to the message that is being sent. Saul just might be back in power.

May God bless and keep you,

Brian Thetford

Waiting on the Promises of God

For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. 2 Corinthians 1:20

By nature, God is a promiser. He's made a ton of them to His children. A promise is the assurance that God gives to His people so they can walk by faith while they wait for Him to work.

You don't realize how much you need God's promises until your smooth and easy life suddenly turns sideways. This is the time to dig into God's Word and get something to wrap your faith around.

Now the Christian life would be easy if the space in time is small between when you claim God's promises and when you receive what He promised. Read it one day and get it the next. Wow-wouldn't that be great!?

But life's not like that.

The hard part is in the waiting between the promise and the answer; and even harder, when the waiting comes with uncertainties.

Where's this going? Where am I going to end up? What's my future look like?

The reality is, we just don't know and it's this not-knowing that crushes us. We doubt because we don't know. We worry and despair because we don't know. We falter and sometimes fail-all because we don't know. If only we knew how this trial was going to play out, we would be OK. But we don't.

I can take a bad day. I can take a bad month. I can even take a bad year or bad decade, if I have to, as long as I know how it will end up. For some of you it's a health crisis. For another, it's a question about your marriage or an uncertainty with a child. For someone else, it's a restlessness in your soul. We all have areas of uncertainty where we need to hold on to what God has said. His promises are what we cling to while we wait for Him to work. Our faith is in God. He knows what He has promised, He can't lie, and He can't forget. He will deliver on time, all the time. Who else can make promises like that?

Now I wish I could tell you that it always figures out perfectly in our lifetimes, but I would be lying to you. You cannot make sense of the promises of God with this life only. You must factor the reality of eternity into the equation. Eternity brings it all together. The promises of eternal life and the assurance of hope in heaven are what make God's promises exceedingly great and precious.

God, forgive us for thinking that everything must make sense today in the economy of our human satisfaction. Give us faith to believe that we're here for a purpose that is greater than ourselves, greater than our personal enjoyment, even greater than our participation in building Your kingdom. Our lives are about a legacy-Your glory. Amen.

---By James MacDonald