If all good things come from God, then how can a person truely help another with sincere motives if that help is not done freely in Jesus name?

This past week has brought attention to the point of the church.  Yes, to make disciples.  But the bottom line is bringing people into the family of God.  (hence the term ‘born again’ used by Jesus in John 3)

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of visiting a couple on the west side of Louisville.  He had lung cancer and the two of them had just recently been married.  When I arrived (I called ahead first) I introduced myself and asked him to tell me about his illness.  Once he had told me, I asked him right away how his relationship with God was, and if he would like to surrender his life to Christ that night.  About that time his new wife entered and I asked her the same question.  Both agreed and after telling them of Repentance, Believe and Receiving, we prayed and they both vehemently received the Lord and committed their lives to him.  i.e. they were saved.

I called Saturday (10 days later) to go visit him, and I got no answer.  Later I found out that he had passed. 

We do not know how long we have.  That is true for both the person who needs to establish that relationship with God; but also for us who have the relationship but need to share our faith with someone.  Procrastination is a danger.  People need to know the Lord today.  None of us are promised tomorrow.

Read: Luke 12:13-21

We turned to 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 was the passage we turned to. As you turn there now and read, consider these things:

1. The Gospel is our foundation. I am amazed how many struggling churches I come across that do not want to focus on the Gospel. WHY? Do we really get tired of hearing what Jesus did for us? Do we think that when we see Jesus face to face we’ll actually want to tell him, “oh, Lord, I just got tired of hearing about the cross, resurrection, repentance and salvation.” My conclusion is this, no, I don’t have that in me. The gospel is the foundation.
2. All true work we do centers around the Gospel, and anything else is lesser work. All the way down to the work that is worthless. (aka – straw) Those works will result in rewards, or the lack there of.
3. We ourselves belong to the savior. Whether or not our works will last, depends upon what we used to build. But nothing will take me out of the Hand of God. (Romans 8:38-39)

We often seek out ways to stop our short-term pain or to answer our immediate desires.  The problem is that if those paths are not guided by a standard, then we are only following our emotions that waver from one side of an issue to another, all depending upon our own situation and surroundings. 

So if you ever wonder why people seek out things like the Bible, this is one of the reasons.  This is why so many of our successful leaders have been men and women of faith, because that standard calls them to a consistency that overrides their emotions. 

Today’s Bible reading:  James 1:1-18

There are 66 different books in the Bible that we have today.  They were written of a period of thousands of years.  I cannot in this short article begin to address each book.  But anyone who understands Christianity knows that the four gospels are key; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Are they true?  They give the story of Jesus life from four different perspectives. 

Today we will seek to establish an understanding of the reliability of the gospels by reviewing these truths about their existence. 

1.   The Gospels were written by men who were either with Jesus in his ministry (The apostles Matthew and John), or by men who worked directly with and sometimes for the apostles of Jesus (Mark and Luke). 

Sometimes the question is asked; why not include things like the gospel of Peter, or the more recent assertions about the gospel of Judas.  Two reasons come to my mind.  First, Judas died before Jesus, exactly when would have written such a thing.  In the same thought, Peter worked with Mark and probably had a decent relationship with Luke, not to mention he and John were clearly good friends.  Why is it he would feel the need to write down another gospel?  He wouldn’t.  Second, there is no evidence that they date back to a time when eyewitnesses could refute them.  The timing thing here is monumental.  If the gospel of Peter or Judas was not written till hundreds or thousands of years after the events occurred, it gives time for legend to build.  But Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all written by people who actually lived with or in the time of Jesus life.  They were held to a higher accountability simply because there were people around who could have said, “oh wait, I was there, that is not how that happened.”  Thing is, we see no refutation of the claims of the early church until hundreds of years after Jesus, the apostles, and even those who crucified him were gone from this earth.

2.   These authors of the four gospels we have in the bibles had no reason to lie.  In fact, they would have been far safer if they had of come out and said, “nope, never mind, we made it all up.  Jesus is dead and his body is over here, come see.”  That never happened. 

What did happen was that the apostles of Jesus, those who knew the truth, not based on faith, but based on sight and touch, they continued on never recanting of the truth of Jesus Christ and his life, death, burial, and resurrection.  It is actually easier to call the apostles of Jesus crazy, than it is to say that they lied.  They all live the rest of their lives, some longer than others, as though they have no fear of death and stating plainly that Jesus would resurrect them, so humanity had no control or threat over them.  All of them died by execution except John who was sent to exile to work in a prison camp until he recanted all this stuff about Jesus being resurrected.  He never did.

3.   The early church believed in the resurrection.

I know, this is supposed to be an article supporting the gospels, but the earliest record of the church believing the resurrection of Jesus Christ is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.  This is the earliest confession of Christianity.  And the fact that we know that the book of 1 Corinthians dates back to within the lives of several of the Apostles serves as confirmation of its reliability concerning the theology of the first century church.  The ‘creed’ found in this passage dates back to within just a few years of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.  That tells us that if it were wrong, if it misrepresented the truth, there were those still alive who could refute it.  They never did.

4.   The persecution of the early church serves as a testimony that the gospels are true. 

The fact that the early Jews and Romans wanted to eradicate this sect of believers in Jesus serves to show us that they could not find or produce evidence to refute what these people were saying or believing about Jesus.

All they had to do was to produce the body of Jesus.  Yet they couldn’t.  You cannot say that they didn’t know where to look.  No matter what your point of view it is agreed upon that it was either a Roman or (Jewish) Temple guard squad that was stationed at Jesus Tomb.  So they knew where he was.  The problem was that even Jesus enemies agreed the tomb was empty.  How did it get that way when trained soldiers were guarding it?  The Apostles were unable to fend those same soldiers off in the garden just a few nights before, not to mention the fact that Jesus told them not to resist.  That only leaves one real option; something came from somewhere they didn’t expect.  (Remember, trained soldiers here.)  Only one place that could have been.  From the tomb itself.  When the stone rolled away and He came walking out, the guards had no answer for that.

Neither did the Jewish authorities, nor the Romans.  Hence all they could do was to persecute the people who followed this ‘risen Jesus.’  They had no evidence to combat the resurrection.

The bottom line here is that the Bible is telling you the truth.  I have met so many people who claim to be Christian yet have no idea what their Bible says.  My point is this; don’t trust a preacher, which includes me.  GO, read, pray, find out for yourselves.  The Bible is true, and so is everything in it.  Don’t live your life thinking that because someone told you something one time that you should live that way (even if you do like it).  But rather find out the truth.  Seek it out.  Read it in your Bible.  If you don’t have one, leave a response here, and we’ll talk.  I’d think we could arrange something.

Today’s passage:  1 Corinthians 15:1-11 and 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Yesterday I was asked about several things that if we as the church knew our Bibles, they never would have been a question.  Things like was Mary Magdalene Jesus’ girlfriend.  Things like creation beyond what the Bible describes.  (This is not a matter of creation verses evolution, but a matter of Biblical creation vs. a description of a heretical creation.)  Questions like these are not bad in themselves.  In fact I would encourage anyone who wonders about these things to seek out the truth.  But the reason these questions throw me for a loop is because as this conversation continued, I found that these thoughts originated and were even taught as the truth in a church in Winchester, KY.   I offer the idea that if the leaders of that church had know what the Bible taught, they would not have been drawn astray to such lies. 

The bottom line here is the same as it is to so many of our thoughts, philosophies and questions.  Do you believe the Bible?  Is the Bible true?  We’ll talk about that over the next few days.  But here it is… If you believe the Bible, be a Christian.  Follow Jesus without wavering.  If you don’t believe the Bible, then why would you be a Christian?  That makes no sense.  If you do not believe the Bible, why would you believe in the God it teaches?  This argument is almost one NOT to believe in Jesus Christ.  Perhaps to you it is.  I hope not.  But I do urge you to read your Bible and trust it.  Conclusion #1.  What is the Church?  The group of people who believe the Bible.

Todays reading:  Matthew 22:23-33 and Mark 12:18-27

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:10, “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” (NIV translation)

Now, I recognize that those who are not Christian do not hold the Bible in the same reverence as those of us who are, so I must make my plea to the Christian.  Are you united?  United behind what you may ask.  Well that is just it; you have to decide.  You have to set your priorities.  I urge you to unite behind the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  In church talk we would say something like, ‘rally around the cross.’  But our master, Jesus Christ says it best, when he says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, NIV)

There are so many people in the world who when they hear that one verse, it alone does not make sense to them.  (One may be reading this now.)  There is nothing wrong with that, but there is a lot wrong with it when we as a church make priorities that stray from this number one goal of letting people know that God loves them, and that Jesus died for them, that he rose again offering eternal life, and that if we will just believe in Him, we will be saved. 

We have points of view on almost every other subject, but they are never to be our priority.  Our priority is that no matter who you are, you can be forgiven of anything and everything you have ever done wrong, and be at peace with God, through faith in Jesus Christ.  This in no way means that we back away from our perspectives as defined in the Bible.  But it does mean that we must keep the main thing, the main thing.  And the main thing is the cross.  The main thing is the forgiveness Jesus offers.  The main thing is what we call the Gospel. 

If we are ever going to be united, we will have to first make the central theme of the Bible the central theme of our lives.  Each of us must do that.  That means most of us will have to let go of the little battles we are trying to fight, and take up the role of compassion that our Savior demonstrates as he died to save us, to save me.

Today’s reading: 1 Corinthians 1:1-31

First, the Bible says plainly not to kill.  That is a standard that we can all agree on.  Don’t kill is a pretty simple starting point.

Second, unborn babies are still alive.  Heart, mind, soul; they feel, they think, they move….  Just because they don’t breath on their own doesn’t make them less alive.  (Ex.  We don’t consider a person on a ventilator to cease to be human.)  For a bible reference on a person being a person prior to birth, see Jeremiah 1:5.

My thought here is two fold.  First, It is very biblical to oppose abortion.  In fact I don’t believe that you can be a thinking person who knows and believes the Bible and still support abortion.  Life is sacred.  And as a Bible believer, I know that we are created in the very image of God.  How could it be possible for us to decide that we can end a life?  The second part of this thought is this:  This is far more than a political stance.  Shame on every Christian who says that the church should not get involved politically, and then tries to tie issues of right and wrong to politics, therefore taking it out of the Churches sphere of influence.  In short, if the Bible addresses the issue, we are well within our rights to address it publicly.  And that is our RESPONSIBILITY.  We have fallen well short on it over the years.  Lets not drop the ball this time.

Now, I must say that it is possible that a true believer, who does not yet understand the Bible, may still support abortion.  We must bear with these people and have patience with them and continue to focus on what the Bible says, not our personal feelings.  BUT…. If you have a person who knows and understands the word of God, and still chooses to support abortion, this is the same as intentional, willful, deceit.  This is the same as having a member in your congregation who knowingly sell drugs or guns for purposes of harming other people.  This is definitively what the church stands against.  So do not fail to take action.  First, establish the Biblical precedent.  Teach it to the church (members, teach your pastor if you must.)  Then allow those who refuse to conform to the teachings of the Bible to speak.  (You have to let them either decide to get on board, or get out, their choice.)  You as a leader may have to ask those around you to make a choice; will they support the Bible, or will they support the world’s view of abortion?  Don’t let people straddle the fence.  Jesus said plainly in Luke 11:23, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters.”  Where will you stand?  Your politics are not a part of this.  Leave them behind.  Will you look at this from Jesus point of view or not?  He died for the unwanted.  He died for the unloved.  He died for you.  Now, do you really believe that he doesn’t care what we do with these children that are unwanted by the parent?  I think he cares very much.

More to come on this, I am sure.

Todays Bible reading:  Psalm 46

The only two people groups on earth who have consistently committed themselves to the betterment of these societies that struggle are either Christian, or American and often both.  Therefore I just want to stop and remember that it is not a give up and accept your situation point of view that makes us great.  Rather it is the in your face, ‘this far and no farther’ type attitude that lead us to greatness.  The attitude had by a minority of people in the American colonies leading up to 1776.  Those people knew they could be killed for their actions.  But they weren’t going to live in subservience anymore.   So from the Church doors, to the Kitchen tables, from Main to Georgia, a group of people took a stand and saved us from tyranny. 

Today, we are considering laws that will tell us, people of faith, what we can and cannot say.  We are sending our children to public schools that we fund, yet those same schools tell us we are not welcome to share who we are in this so called land of ‘diversity.’ 

This I guess is a personal rant.  But it is true to so many people.  If you are Christian, then be thankful that God has placed you in this Great land called the United States.  If you are an American, then be thankful that you have the right to speak your mind, be patriotic, and support the freedoms of all.  Not just the newest fads.

Today’s Reading – 2 Chronicles 7:14

I have a responsibility to preach the faith of Jesus Christ.  And that means that I would have to include the New Testament point of view on Homosexuality.  IT’S WRONG.  Now, unlike so much of our world, I would also encourage everyone to understand that according to the Bible we are all sinful, and no matter what sin, we can be forgiven of it.  With that said, and supported in a previous article, I must now ask, am I to be quiet on the one sin of Homosexuality but not the rest?  That doesn’t make sense at all.

And as for the idea that saying that Homosexuality is wrong somehow leads to someone going out and finding a homosexual person to hurt them, you could just as well say that because we all sin that we could walk up and punch the next person we see.  Once again, that doesn’t make any sense at all. 

We don’t need to stop preaching the Bible to find peace with each other.  Just the opposite; we need to preach it from every street, road, branch, building, business, home, house and park we find.  The more we understand that we are none perfect and that we all need forgiveness, the more we will find peace not only with ourselves, but also with one another.

Today’s reading: Matthew 5