Why Christ?

I have had many opportunities to share with others about our Jesus. I have had a broad (but typical) set of responses. Challenges to actual sinfulness, divinity of Christ, why blood, why Christ and many other things. The facts are very simple but yet we apply faulty logic to the situation. Logic, that if used anywhere else in life, we would be ridiculed and appear as great fools. Yet, for some reason, in matters dealing with our eternal destination we apply this faulty logic and somehow it's OK there?! I want to take this time to talk about a few discussions I have had over the past several years with some people. First off, many people challenge the laws of God, they question the sanity, validity and reasoning or logic that brought them into being. One such law is the penalty of sin. We have this flaw in our rebellious human thinking that says we are allowed to question, rebel and reject laws we don't agree with or like. There are many laws, absolutes if you will, that we have complete faith in on a daily basis - in fact we depend on them for our existence. Take gravity for example, how many of you have woke up in the morning with an overwhelming passion and angst against gravity? We don't ever do that, we trust it. In fact, most of what gravity is can't be truly explained in detail - but that doesn't cause us to doubt it or test it in different ways - we accept it as a higher law of physics. My belief or lack of belief in something does not change it's state of being or it's validity or my subjection to it. I can believe all I want that gravity isn't real but when I jump off the cliff I am painfully aware of this law I challenged all my life. It's the same with other laws of God. The law of blood to cover for sins is a law of God. To break God's law, that life is required of them. I didn't create this law and someone's choice to believe in it or act according to it doesn't change the law or it's truth. The same as my challenge or intellectual attack on a 30 MPH speed limit will not change the fine amount when I break it. In God's gracious nature, He set up a way to fulfill the law, should someone choose to follow the prescription. He set up a response to the law of blood that says that someone can take our place. We understand this somewhat clearly, there are many people out there that I would gladly stand up for to protect them from the consequences of breaking a law - but there are also many people I wouldn't stand up for in breaking a law. God did that personally for us - out of His love for us He sent His Son to die for us and take the punishment of the sins we have chose to let rule over our lives. The other part of Christ dieing for us is that He died for all. He perfectly lived and did not deserve one ounce of the punishment my sins, or even the sins of the world. He was and is the only one to have lived this life perfect and thereby able to carry all of our sins away and remove them from us should we ask Him. Even though many choose to curse His name, many choose to blaspheme Him, insult Him and spit in His face - He died for them also. Knowing that in some way or at some time they would truly see He truly loved them and has been seeking to get back in a relationship with them. He is so passionate about it that He went to the extreme to come here as a man, show us the way in a world full to the brim with false ways we have created to get to Him. Coming here as a man, and setting aside his rights and privileges as the Almighty God He, Jesus, showed us the way to finally and perfectly enter back into communion with our Creator. What a beautiful story of love - I can't see a more perfect example of unconditional love but that of Jesus. He came while I hated Him and died so that at some time I would respond to His goodness and love Him back and become close to Him again. God established this gift that all I need to do is accept it. To accept it is to begin to follow God, just as we were intended to do. But, just as with any gift in our lives, we can choose to not accept it. It is truly a choice. The sad thing is that we run around in our pride and arrogance trying to prove that we can get to heaven or get to God in our own prescribed way. That's incredibly foolish - but yet many people subscribe to this lifestyle. If you had never met me and you get a phone call one day that says come to my house and then I hung up that's pretty cruel. There is no other information and now you are set out to hunt down who I am, where I live and somehow get there. That's cruelty beyond what I could imagine - it's an unattainable goal! But God - He loved us enough to not only call us to Him, but give us directions and instructions to guide us safely to Him. What will our choice be? Continue to challenge the absolute truths we are presented with or accept them knowing that we truly need what is being offered? All have sinned, we have to do something about it. We can't carry it - we have proven that over an over again. It's a weight we can't bear. We attempt to cover the pain and frustration from doing it but in the end, we are still trying to do something about it on our own. We have a gift that is free to us - we need only accept it and begin walking it out. What's your choice?

Where is the truth?

In reading the stats on the ezraproject.net page I wasn't surprised at all, but it was further confirmation from the evidences I have seen throughout my life. Here's the stats I read:

* Only 16% of Americans read the Bible daily
* Only 29% of men and 43% of women say they read the Bible either weekly or daily
* 75% of Christians overlook the Bible when shaping their worldview
* 41% of Americans rarely or never read the Bible anymore

That's sobering when you read it. Some may say "that's no big deal" - but if you know and cherish the Word like I and others do, you can never respond that way. There are so many evidences, the list is nearly endless of evidences, with the archaeological evidences being unearthed often, that solidify the claims of the bible as true. The testimonies of hundreds of thousands of people as to the life-changing truth in the bible can't be refuted. Just in the past year I have watched the truth of God's Word transform several people in my life. Nothing I could have said or done would have done what the Word of God did in their life. I couldn't have explained to them the feeling or the power that is known through knowing His Word - it had to be experienced - by faith.

If we agree that Satan is against the church (the Christ-followers), than you must admit that much of these statistics are in direct correlation to his own plans to remove truth and provide deception in it's place. What better way to marginalize "christians" and leave the rest of the world grasping at every passing wisp of "truth" for some sort of foundation to life than to remove absolute, life-giving truth from their lives? Socialism/communism/humanism have as a kingpin to their regulations a removal of the Truth - just another ploy of our great enemy of our souls.

My challenge in all this is what am I going to do in my life that can help change this statistic for the better? Here are a few things that I am challenged with:

* Read the bible daily, but not just for readings sake, but for transformation. The bible is written for our transformation, not information. Go into it as a treasure seeker would - having faith I WILL find truth - transforming truth.

* Read the bible to my family regularly. Spend lots of time studying God's word with my children - help solidify the life-changing truth in their lives. Take time away to study the word 1-on-1 with my wife - we need to be unified in and by the truth of God!

* Constantly evaluate my walk according to God's word:
Ephesians 5:10-12
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
I need to make sure that the bible I am communicating to others is clear and uninhibited by hypocrisy and rationalization (I may be the only bible that some people read - thereby the only truth that could draw them to Christ)

* Constantly evaluate my environment (i.e. - know what's coming, not so I can live a sterilized life, but so I can be ready for the spiritual battle)
Colossians 2:8
Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ

* Share the truth with others - knowing the Word, I can't help but share the truth with others. How can I watch the pathetic excuse for purpose that the devil has proposed to this world and not seek to displace it? EVERYONE is seeking for truth - when they are presented with it they WILL react, I can't be surprised but encouraged knowing that the persons soul is caused to think.

May God work these out in me - by His grace and power.

I challenge whoever is reading this to the same - where is the bible in your life? Is it a token of your religion or is it the very rock and foundation of your daily walk of life?

In the name of....

John 14:14 (New King James Version)
14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

So many times we read this verse for what we want to see in it instead of what's actually in it. I don't want to talk about the context in detail. Just one note about it, this verse was explicitly spoken to a special group of men (the disciples) and a disciple is to have their life totally sold out to Christ. Hence, the reason why this verse was applicable to them. Ok, now onto the portion I wanted to discuss. This is Jesus talking to His disciples. If I ask anything He will do it. Oh wait, no...it says, if I ask anything IN HIS NAME, He will do it. So what, I end my prayer with "in Jesus name, AMEN" I am good right? Was the prayer answered? "No, not really, but that's normal, I just kinda pray because I feel better and I know I am supposed to" I struggle with this mentality myself. I pray out of duty and not out of a desire to talk with God or to genuinely place a need before Him. So when I pray I struggle with expecting it to be ignored or go unanswered. Totally my fault, I will admit that, but what am I doing wrong? Well, the beauty of God's word is that it always has an answer, we need only look. In the same chapter, a few verses previous, Jesus gave us the explanation of "asking in His name: John 14:6 "Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" Ok, so we know that only by Jesus can we approach the father. We also know that the father is who we are praying to when Jesus taught us how to pray by what we call "The LORD's Prayer" He starts it out with "Our Father, who art in heaven" I think I have the overall concept down in my mind, practicing it in spirit is another thing entirely. So, here goes:
I heard a great analogy in a book titled "The power of prayer and the prayer of power" he went about it like this: To come to the Father we must come in Jesus' name. Because by our own name we were rejected, and will always be. If you wanted to talk to a very high up official in a corporation or in government, how do you get in to see them? The easiest name is to name-drop. "Hi, I want to talk to the president, I know so-and-so" Knowing this high-up official has now enabled you to come in their name. The same is true for our relationship with the Father. We come to Him, not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of what Jesus has done and who Jesus is. My attitude must be one of total humility in Jesus and what He has done for me. This attitude must carry on in prayer. When I approach my holy God, I come to Him THROUGH Jesus, not through myself.

Let me close with this:

- God wants to answer our prayers
- God can answer our prayers
- God will answer our prayers
- God the Father is who I am praying to
- God the Son is who I am praying through
- God the Spirit is who prompts and ministers to me in prayer
- To get to the Father (in prayer) I must go through Jesus (name drop my Savior)