Thursday, May 24, 2007

Follow Me

18While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

This is really amazing. Peter, Andrew, James, and John had never heard of Jesus. But when Jesus said to follow him, they did. Why? The Holy Spirit. This is the only answer that makes sense to me. If a wandering preacher ordered me to follow him, I would probably (1) run away, or (2) ignore him. But, it appears the Holy Spirit led Jesus's first disciples to give their lives to His ministry. In the same way, we have been led by the Holy Spirit to follow God.

Bear Fruit

In Matthew 3, verse 8, John the Baptist makes a cutting remark to the Pharisees and Sadducees. He says, "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance." He's effectively saying, "I can't tell you've repented, for there is no fruit." The message is clear. True repentance brings about fruit. James writes in James 2: "faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." Earlier in the chapter, he says, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?" God's message is clear: if you have been saved and repented from your sins, it will show in your works. So, brothers, " let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith."

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Hate Your Sin

God hates sin. The word hate is very strong, but this is true. God hates sin.
God killed the entire clan of Korah, banished the Israelites to captivity, and currently damns millions to Hell because of sin.
Our job is to be like Christ. Since Christ is God, and God hates sin, Christ hated sin. Since Christ hated sin, we should hate sin.
Our job is to seek out and destroy sin. This involves meditating on God, his supremacy, and his saving grace.
I see what I have to change. My whole life, I've never given a thought to how much God hates sin. Now, I must change my ways.
I have tried to mortify sin because I didn't like it, but never because God hated it. Now, I will mortify sin because God hates it.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Very Interesting....

I read the initial greetings to epistles all the time, but I never noticed something almost all of them share: a healthy and comprehensive view of Jesus's righteousness. Look at 2 Peter's first verse: 1Simeon[a] Peter, a servant[b] and apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

Peter understood (1) that the righteousness of Jesus is essential to salvation and (2) that without it, we would not be saved. "by the righteousness of Jesus Christ" we have reached a standing of righteousness. A metaphor for this would be washing your clothes. If you wash your clothes in dirty water, they will not be cleaned; if they are washed in clean water, they become clean. One of the bloggers I read, Mark Lauterbach, is currently in a series on applying Jesus's righteousness: something we don't often do.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

A Counter-Culture?

The Rebelution (www.therebelution.com) is an attempt at exactly what it sounds like, a revolution. But this is no violent upheaval of authorities, it is a cultural revolution. Unlike Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, the Rebelution is an attempt to instill in today's Christian teenagers a heart to change the world. Just as the Russian revolution had Lenin and the American revolution had George Washington and Thomas Paine, the Rebelution has Alex and Brett Harris, the creators of the Rebelution. I encourage you to evaluate our culture and the Rebelution's counter-culture, and decide which is more God-honoring. More on this to come.