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LET YOUR GENTLENESS BE KNOWN TO ALL

04 Saturday Jan 2014

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One of the biggest struggles I face in my Christian walk is sharing the Gospel with a gentle, loving spirit.  When someone makes a comment challenging what I believe, I immediately begin to feel angry, frustrated and anxious as I anticipate what they might say or how they will react to His message.  I knew I had a lot to overcome before I could effectively obey God’s command to share His plan of salvation with “the whole world”.  To begin with, I have a fear of talking to people about anything! Over the last four years, I haven’t grown very confident at effectively sharing my testimony, explaining God’s plan of salvation and why we need Jesus.  As I continued to struggle to master the art of “witnessing,” I recalled a book I read after I first became a Christian titled Learning Evangelism from Jesus by Jerram Barrs. Who better to learn evangelism from than Jesus Himself?! The book looks at a number of encounters Jesus had with religious leaders, the Jewish people and other unbelievers and how He handled each situation. As I reviewed the book, I was reminded that the root of my problem is not so much my inability to control my emotions as much as it is a problem of pride and lack of mercy for the lost. 

Deuteronomy 4:29 – “But if you seek the Lord your God from there, you will find him, if, indeed, you seek him with all your heart and soul.”

For most of my life, I let pride keep me from God.  Pride kept me from listening to sincere Christians and reading the Bible without constantly objecting to its words.  It was only after I began to earnestly seek Him that my pride took a back seat to my desire to find out who God really is.  I was blessed to have a few Christians in my life who shared their experiences and knowledge with patience, love and gentleness.  I didn’t have anyone belittling me or “assaulting” me with their knowledge or religious practices.  They answered my questions and suggested material to read after I talked with them.  Now that I have committed my life to Christ, my job is to share His message and I must do it in the same way these people shared with me, remembering that most may not be ready to hear what I am trying to tell them.  They are waiting for me to say or do one thing that reinforces all the negative things they have come to believe about Christ’s followers.

Luke 18:14 – “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

For the past three years, Christmas has brought a fair amount of anxiety to me as I watch and listen to Christians lamenting our culture’s efforts to remove Christ from our observance of this holiday and deciding to prove their love for Christ by insisting everyone use the phrase “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”  This year I read the most disheartening post yet in this battle.  It read: “Merry Christmas.  I hope this post offends as many people as possible.”  I suppose on the one hand this message could be interpreted as the sender wanting as many people as possible just to read it and remember that Christmas is about Jesus’ birth, knowing many are offended by Him.  But rest assured most unbelievers will only use it to confirm the widespread belief that Christians believe themselves to be “holier than thou,” self-righteous, and uncaring.  No, a conscious effort to offend is not the way to convince them to seek God.   Before I found Christ, a message like that would have strengthened my resolve not to be involved with people who had such an attitude.  It saddens me that Christians resort to such tactics and people jump on the bandwagon believing they are fighting a valiant war for their Savior.  But offending people is not how Christ taught us to fight His battle and we must always hold up Him up as our example.

Luke 18:9 – “Jesus also told this parable to some who were confident that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else”

I heard Hank Hanegraaff say this past month in a discussion about Christmas in today’s culture: “Pagans are going to fulfill their job description.  The question is will Christians fulfill theirs?”  Our job as a Christian is not to constantly remind unbelievers that they are wrong.  Our job isn’t even to reclaim December as the month to celebrate Jesus’ birth.  Our job ALWAYS is TO LEAD OTHERS TO CHRIST by sharing the Gospel message.  If we were to consistently do that, December could become the month Jesus’ birth once again becomes the main focus.  Those we help find Christ will realize they have been wrong through our testimonies and acts of love towards them, not through phrases meant to offend.  We have to remember where unbelievers are and stop expecting them to behave like believers.  We must guard against pride and a critical spirit.  Jerram Barrs reminds us who Jesus will hold accountable for wrong motives (Learning Evangelism from Jesus): “We do not see Jesus condemning the sinners in the world; rather, He condemns the leaders of God’s people with His severest words.”

I spent some time during the last month talking with a man who claimed to be a believer but all he could tell me was how wrong God has been, how he doesn’t need God to tell him what’s right and wrong, and all the errors and crimes against humanity he finds in the Bible.  Each time I knew I would be talking to him, I found my anger and anxiety rising.  It occurred to me that I needed to learn how to handle this situation calmly and in a way that communicates respect.  This man needed to know that my primary concern is that he comes to a right understanding of God not to argue and get him to admit I’m right and he’s wrong.  Until I can present the Gospel as Christ did, God cannot use me to reach others. I began asking God to remind me of where I was before I surrendered to Him and who I am without Christ. 

Philippians 4:5 – “Let your gentleness be known to all men.”

I also realized I was trying to develop my skills at sharing the Gospel under my own power – forgetting I can rely on the Holy Spirit. Before interacting with this man, I prayed.  I prayed during the conversation and God kept bringing encouraging thoughts to my mind:  it’s OK if I don’t know an answer; it’s OK if the conversation ends and I don’t feel I’ve changed his mind; I am only planting seeds; only God can bring in the harvest.  God brought appropriate Scripture to my mind that might help him see God’s true character.  I allowed God to “proofread” my responses and found myself replacing a LOT of words that reflected pride, sarcasm, arrogance, anger, even shock at some of the things this man was saying.

Isaiah 55:11 – “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void,”

I never got a response from the man after my last message so I don’t know how effective I was or if my words helped him understand God better.  But I know that as long as I speak the Truth in gentleness and kindness, my efforts are never in vain.  I pray God can use my words to lead this person to Him, but, if I blew it in some way, I know God can overcome that.  I do know He used the experience to teach me how to serve Him better.

1 Corinthians 8:1,2-“…Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. “

Sharing God’s Word is what I am called to do to help bring others to understand their need for Jesus.  I do not share His message to demonstrate my knowledge about Him.  I don’t share it to be “right.”  I talk to unbelievers for one reason only – in hopes they will seek Christ. 

Jerram Barrs: “…if I have a hard heart toward the unbelievers and sinners around me, then it is a certain sign that I do not have a good understanding of my own sin and unbelief, nor of my own need before Jesus for His continual mercy and forgiveness.”

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WITHOUT JESUS WE DON’T HAVE GOD

13 Friday Sep 2013

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There’s some site I’ve seen posted a lot recently on Facebook with celebrities proclaiming their faith.  The quotes include comments about reading their Bible and falling on their knees in prayer every day.  Some comment on how they couldn’t get through life without their faith and/or God.  While I do not pretend to know anything about their spiritual lives, I am not convinced they are Christians, if that’s something I’m supposed to take away from the quotes.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m really happy to see that some top celebrities are reading God’s Word.  I would be happier if they would mention Jesus in there somewhere.   

John 14:6-“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Many of my friends and family will readily tell me they believe in God.  But the conversation comes to an abrupt halt when I ask them to tell me what they believe about Jesus.  I would venture to guess that most people believe in God and feel He helps them in their lives in some way but they see no need for Jesus.  

I have believed in God all my life. From as far back as I can remember I have felt connected to Him.  I have always known He loves me and I never doubted that He exists.  Jesus was kind of a side item.  I knew in my head that He “died for me,” but didn’t really understand how that affected me.  It was only when I truly understood who Jesus is that God began to have a real impact in my life.  My spiritual life went from a bunch of beliefs, most of which I made up, to the reality of God.  He went from being a distant spiritual being to a living presence.  My impression of God shifted from a demanding Father to a loving one.  In their commentary “The Fourfold Gospel” J. W. McGarvey and Phillip Y. Pendleton write:  “Nature shows God above us; the Law shows God against us; but the Gospel shows God with us, and for us.”     

As I studied the Bible I could see the big picture of the world; how events in the Old Testament all led up to Christ and how the world as we know it will end with His return.  I no longer fear the world because it is no longer a random bunch of happenings.  While we are subject to man’s depravities in the short-term, God has ultimate control and will take it back in the end.  I find great comfort in that.  I also find comfort in knowing He has a reason for every single human being, including me.  God had a plan for me even before I was born.  Life is no longer about me; it is now about serving God and leading others to Jesus.  The hopelessness is gone and I have new resources to help me manage the sadness I have always felt.

 God provided the law to the Israelites as a way for them to live to set themselves apart from other people, to show their love for Him through obedience, and to acknowledge their need for His forgiveness of their sins.  There were rituals, sacrifices and laws that they strived to obey. These were external symbols God used to illustrate His authority, His direction on how we are to live, and the requirement to pay a price for sin.  They foreshadowed Jesus.  Once He died and was resurrected, the need for these things went away.  Because of Jesus, I don’t have to DO anything for God’s forgiveness.  It’s hard to fathom that God offers this kind of rescue to us.  All I have to do is know that Jesus is who He said He is (God).  Until I fully grasped what God did in the person of Jesus I depended on successfully obeying a bunch of rules to insure I received God’s forgiveness and blessings.  And that’s why I viewed life as so hopeless. 

Each time I failed God I sank deeper and deeper in an abyss.  At some point, I gave up trying and convinced myself that God really didn’t care how I lived. In my belief system, God didn’t require anything of me; I call Him my Santa Claus god because I decided to believe He existed only to give me the things I needed and the things I wanted.  But deep down I knew I was wrong and I was engaged in a never-ending mental wrestling match.  A summary of my thoughts might go something like this:

If I’m good for a while, then I mess up, will God give me a second chance?  I hope He loves me enough to give me a third, fourth and fifth chance.  There has to be a line to cross where God says “enough is enough” and He’s done with us. How does God determine when we cross that line? Is He comparing me to Mother Theresa, the Pope, my grandma, maybe Oprah?   For every bad thing I do, must I do something good to even up my score or can I assume it only takes one really good thing to make up for lots of kind-of-bad things?  What if I forget something bad I did and don’t make up for it?  If I find a number of people who don’t view what I did as bad can I cross it off my list?  What if I die right after a bad deed and don’t get a chance to do the good thing I intended to do to make up for it?  Does the intent to do good count or do I actually have to do it?  Is God keeping a tally sheet of my sins?  Even my thoughts are bad – there’s not enough time in the day to do a good thing for every bad thought I have!

It was mentally and emotionally exhausting and as the failures piled up the harder it was to see a way out!  I was fighting a losing battle.  Then God led me to an understanding of what He did in the person of Jesus.  I learned that my perception of God and Jesus as being separate was wrong; God is three persons yet one.  This is a difficult concept to grasp, but I accepted it by faith.  I don’t have to understand it I just have to know it’s true.  I learned that there’s nothing I can do to earn God’s forgiveness; Jesus did all that needed to be done.  I learned what grace is and I learned what God’s mercy is: God gives me what I don’t deserve (forgiveness) and He refrains from giving me what I do deserve (punishment).  It’s so simple, yet so complicated.  But this new understanding freed me from constantly looking back and drowning in my past.  It gave me a way to show God I love Him simply by putting forth a sincere effort to do what He asks. 

I’m not suggesting that once I figured out what God did in the person of Jesus all my problems disappeared.  But it was the beginning of a life that allowed me to move forward, assured I was forgiven for all my poor choices; it enabled me to wake up each morning knowing I have a clean slate in God’s eyes.  Life is still difficult.  In some ways it’s even harder.  But with Jesus there’s hope.  It’s not a constant fight to live up to an unattainable standard.  Now that I know Jesus, the Spirit dwells in me, the other person that God is while still being God.  That’s what I didn’t understand before.  And that is where I found hope where I saw none before.  I’m not alone in this.

John 14:17 – “…even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”

It’s frustrating when non-believers relegate my experience as merely a belief or adopting a religion. The God that created this universe dwells in me.  When I fully understood that, it overwhelmed me. I cried and I repeated the idea over and over in my head, trying to wrap my brain around it.  It still amazes me.  I’ve tried to come up with a way to explain the experience.  In the commentary The Fourfold Gospel (McGarvey and Pendelton) there is a comment regarding Luke 1:15 that says “the stimulation of the Spirit is elsewhere thus contrasted with alcoholic stimulants.”  I’ve considered explaining the experience by comparing it to drinking alcohol, but thought it a bit irreverent.  Seeing it in print by accomplished Christian authors assured me it’s OK to use the analogy.  If I were to tell someone who has never drank alcohol the way they will feel and the things they might do if they consume several drinks, they might not believe me.  But once they start drinking, they will find it to be a real experience.  The Spirit indwelling me is the same way.  It wasn’t a response to something I read nor was it a mere decision to accept a particular doctrine.  It is as real as the experience I have when I drink alcohol.  When I began leaning on His power instead of going it alone, I was able to rid my life of so many harmful habits and behaviors. That’s the difference Jesus has made. 

John 16:7  – “Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

Jesus’ disciples begged Him to stay but He assured them His leaving was for their good.  Jesus died so we can have a personal relationship with God and that relationship can exist because the Spirit dwells in us.  There can be no closer relationship.  And the only way to receive the Spirit is through the re-birth we experience when we accept what Jesus did for us on the cross.  Only as a believer of Jesus are we counted as one of God’s children. 

Simply put, without Jesus, you don’t have God.  It grieves me when people claim a faith that includes God but they don’t see a need for Jesus.  They will not spend eternity with God, and they will miss blessings God wants to give them in this life.  God has given us the responsibility of helping others understand who Jesus is.  It’s hard to do in the culture that exists today.  Not only is it a narrow gate to God, He tells us few will find it. 

Matthew 7:14 – “For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

“Imperfect knowledge of Him troubles, but perfect knowledge and love cast out fear.” (I John 4:18 partial paraphrase in The Fourfold Gospel, McGarvey and Pendleton)

The Importance of Consistent Faith

16 Friday Aug 2013

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I often get discouraged when I don’t seem to be helping people move forward in making a commitment to Christ.  I know I can only do the work, plant the seeds and then wait for God to “win them over,” but I am always looking for indications that some progress is being made, that something I’ve said or done has awakened that need to know Him that is built into all of us.  It’s a bad habit and I need to learn that God’s timetable is very different than mine.  I know if anyone was looking for some indication from me that my heart was changing, they would not have seen much, if anything.  I yielded to God in the space of about 5 minutes and I don’t think there were any signs before that.  The changes took some time, but anyone anxiously waiting for signals from me was probably frustrated with my lack of progress.

 “The Lord says, “My thoughts are not like your thoughts.  Your ways are not like my ways.  Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  Isaiah 55:8-9

 This verse is true about God’s working in our life in many areas, but I have to remind myself of it a lot when I think about loved ones who don’t know Jesus.  Too often I allow my concern for them to take away my joy.  It’s a vicious circle because I want them to see the peace and joy I have found so they will want what I have.  Too often, they see the sadness and frustration and I’m sure they want no part of that kind of life!  I have to remember that God will find a way to soften their hearts and open their eyes and ears.  Only He knows what it will take to accomplish this.  Nothing is too big for God, even as I consider how far away from Him some of my loved ones are.  As I try to devise plans on how to help them discover the truth, God thumps my noggin and reminds me that I can not imagine how He might be working.  The most important thing I do is consistently show others Jesus by how I live my life.

 Sometimes I grow weary and I think perhaps I will just leave people alone about Jesus.  But doing nothing won’t ease my concern and certainly doesn’t rid me of my responsibility to lead others to Him.  I know how God used others to reach me and I’m thankful they didn’t decide to leave me alone.  More often than not, their actions spoke louder than their words, but I did have to learn God’s plan of salvation by listening to those who were trying to explain it to me and I struggled with that for a long time.

 I can remember conversations with Christians that didn’t sit right with me.  I wish I could say they just left me feeling a bit unsettled, even convicted about my attitude toward God, but that wasn’t the case.  I was irritated by them, sometimes angry.  Sometimes I felt offended and wondered where in the world they were getting their information.  My conclusion was that they were self-righteous and they were somehow putting me down.  I believed they were talking about their experience and they couldn’t accept the fact that my experience with God was different from theirs.  Of course, my “experience” with God wasn’t really an experience.  It was merely a list of ideas and beliefs I had decided on.  Very little was based on anything I had actually learned about God and I certainly wasn’t connecting with Him.  I didn’t want anyone telling me what to believe; I was going to hold on to my beliefs, thank you very much! 

 In order to move forward, I had to take an honest look at myself and figure out why I was so unwilling to listen to what was being said.  What I realized was that I didn’t want to be wrong about something as personal as my spirituality.  I didn’t want anyone else to know more than I did.  Pride was keeping me from knowing God.  I had to make a conscious decision that it was OK if I actually learned something from somebody about God.  Not knowing something didn’t make me stupid or inferior.  It just meant I had missed something or misinterpreted something along the way.  I had to quit bending the truth to make it fit my life choices, most of which horrify me now.  What I needed most was a sincere believer who I knew truly cared about me.  I needed to know I could trust the person I would have to open up to.  I needed to know they would love me in spite of all I had done and that they wouldn’t share my sordid story with anyone. My general distrust of people left that field of possibilities limited to, oh, about ONE.

 My daughter had the biggest impact on leading me to Christ (in second and third place are Alistair Begg and the K-Love radio station).  My daughter and I are very close and, as a result of my trust in her and love for her I could hear what she was saying about God through my anger, resentment, pride and shame because I knew she loved me, I knew she truly cared about me.  I could let my defenses down with her.  She had no ulterior motives.  She didn’t think she was better than me, never criticized me for my worldly ways.  She just talked to me about what she learned, what she knew to be true, shared her experiences.  She lived life based on principles God laid out for us.  She just spoke truth and shared with me what the Bible said through words and actions.  We had some doctrinal debates but there was never one where she walked off angry with me for not agreeing with her.  When we hit an impasse, she would just kind of shrug her shoulders and move on.  She never knew how closely I was watching her, but I noticed her quiet confidence, her willingness to look inside herself and change, her eagerness to please God by doing a lot of things she really didn’t want to do.  I did see her struggle through some of these things but her decisions were ultimately based on how God wanted her to live her life and I knew I wanted my life to be more like hers than anyone else I had ever known.

 I had to warn her about this blog because she does not like attention drawn to herself and wants the glory to be given to God alone, rightfully so.  Her response, predictably, was “Don’t give me too much credit, Mom.”  But I told her that God used her to lead me to Him and we need to tell people how He has worked in our lives; how He used her even when she was unaware of it.  While it’s a testament to her, it is also a testament to God and the subtle ways He moves around in our lives.  The strongest statement she makes is her consistent efforts to be faithful to God.  Sure, she wavers from time to time, but even that helped me because I knew she wasn’t perfect and I knew she knew she wasn’t perfect.  During these times, I watched as she worked herself back to where she needed to be.

 “And he said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  Matthew 4:19

 My daughter worked with youth at church and many came to admire and depend on her.  She also talks to me about her concern for friends who don’t have a relationship with God and how difficult it is to “be bold” sometimes.  I can’t be sure how many people God has reached using her, I’m sure there are many.  But I know for sure He used her to reach me.  Even if our mission field consists of only 1 or 2 people, that’s important.  Those 1 or 2 folks will be eternally grateful for our efforts someday: they will spend eternity with God because we didn’t give up!  I know God would have reached me somehow if my daughter had not been in my life, a possibility that came close to being a reality, but I’m glad He decided He needed her in my plan.  You see, when I found out I was pregnant with her, I scheduled an abortion.  Through a miraculous chain of events, her life was spared. 

 I could only see how a baby was going to make my life difficult.  I wasn’t going to give her the chance to be born yet God used her to give me a chance to be re-born!  I can’t begin to name the many ways in which she has blessed me, but I certainly never would have guessed that my child would play this role in my life!  There are no other Christians that I remained close enough to for God to use to reach me.  By saving her, He saved me.  He knew exactly what it would take to lead me back to Him and He made it happen.  It certainly didn’t seem like a plan from God: I was single, still in college.  I couldn’t even take care of myself, let alone a baby.  But God used the situation for my good.  Years later I would destroy all the good He had done in my life, but in spite of me, He managed to use that little girl to save me. 

Each one of us is an important part of God’s plan.  No matter how small we might feel our role is God does not view it as small.  When things are tough, our words and actions have to demonstrate to others that we are trusting Him.  If He is using us to save just one person, we must understand how important that is and we have to realize we may not even know when He’s using us or with whom.  I sometimes get frustrated because I think if I wasn’t so shy or if I was smarter or knew more Bible verses or got more involved, God could use me to reach more people.  As I learn more and get more involved, He will use me in different ways.  But I need to keep doing what God is leading me to do right now and He will use it for whomever needs the things I can give right now, whether that’s 1 person or 1,000 people.  When Jesus died on the cross, He didn’t think about saving a lot of people in a very general sense.  He thought about me and you individually.  If I was the only person on earth, He would have died on the cross to save me.  Each day we must strive to live each moment in a way that reflects Christ because we never know how closely someone is watching us.  My daughter is right when she says we can’t take the credit.  God gets the glory, but we can rejoice that He found us worthy to be part of His plan to save someone from eternal separation from Him.

 Every now and then, my daughter apologizes for giving me advice or pointing out a weakness, feeling like she may have crossed a line with me, her mother.  But in spiritual things we are sisters in Christ. I often feel ashamed because it’s supposed to be my job to guide and advise her, not the other way around.  For many years I failed her in that but we are a team now, helping and supporting one another in our walks and in our efforts to lead others to Jesus.  She is my model for my witness for Him and just as she never gave up on me, I will not give up on those God puts in my mission field! Every minute of every day I am acutely aware of how closely I watched my daughter and how her consistent faith helped me see Jesus. 

 “Then He said to His disciples, The harvest is great, but the labourers are few;…” Matthew 9:3