So I started reading through 1 Timothy this week and came across a passage of scripture that really stuck out to me. It is chapter 1 verses15-16. It says…
“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.”
Most people know the story of Paul, and his life before Christ and his life after he found Christ. It is incredible to see how God worked through him. Paul use to be a man that would verbally and physically abuse Christians, yet when Paul came to know Christ, God used him in so many ways. He even used him to write many books of the Bible!
Yesterday our pastor spoke about counterfeit repentance and then real repentance at our evening service.
With counterfeit repentance you will stop at being “sorry”. We come to God and we cry and we say, “Oh I am sorry for what I have done”, yet we go out the next day and do the same thing. Counterfeit repentance is about self preservation. We feel guilty for what we have done, but have no intention of quitting the particular sin. It is all about us, and not about God. It is selective. With counterfeit repentance you may feel bad about saying a cuss word, so you decide not to cuss anymore, but you don’t feel bad about messing around with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Or you may not feel bad about getting drunk once a week. It is full of excuses. You may say things like, “I know I was wrong, but….
If you look at 1 Samuel you can see this with the story of Saul. God told him to go to the Amalekites and destroy every living thing. People, animals…everything. Yet Saul and his army did not do this. They kept the best of the livestock and even brought the king back with them. When Samuel confronts Saul for not doing exactly what God said he begins with his counterfeit repentance. In chapter 15 verse 13, Samuel blames the soldiers for the disobedient part but is boastful about his part. In verse 24, Saul says, “I have sinned”, yet right after that he says he did what he did because he was scared of the people. In verse 30, Saul again says, “I have sinned” yet he still wants to be honored and wants Samuel to come back with him so that he will not be embarrassed by his sin. He wanted to hide it.
If you are like me, you can see yourself in this story. After Bryan preached this sermon, I took a deep long look at myself, and realized that a lot of the time this is me. I will make excuses for my sins, I will blame others. But this is not how we should be.
Real repentance is not just taking one big sin out of our lives and leaving the rest, it is an ongoing process of realizing we need God to change the foundation of our being. Repenting is realizing that ALL sin in our life is disgusting and foul and evil, and we should not want to have anything to do with any of it. Repenting is waking up everyday and starting a new day of evolving and changing our soul to become more like Christ’s. This is what Paul meant when we wrote Philippians 2:12 and said, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. When we accept Christ we are saved, but it is an ongoing process everyday of repenting and changing and becoming more in tune with the person God wants us to be.
If we repent in the way Christ has taught us, we can be open to do mighty works for Him the way that Paul was. When we repent we cannot be prideful or secretive about it. We must have a healthy fear of God and be disgusted with all sin in our lives. That way we can have a desire to seek after God’s righteous and become holy. We can allow Christ Jesus to display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.
Be an example.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
We are Weak.
Ok so let me set the stage for this blog. Monday night was “The Bachelor” season finale and Ash made me miss 24 to watch it. So last night, Ash and I sat down to watch the recorded 24. In case you don’t know 24 is the greatest show on television. But anyways, this episode was awesome! Tony had figured out that there was going to be a terrorist attack on Washington D.C., but they just didn’t know where it was going to be. They figured out that a Senator’s assistant was helping the terrorists and that he was going to be at the White House and had the information they needed.
So Jack, who is the MAN, heads over to the White House to interrogate the assistant and to try to get info from him. Again if you haven’t seen 24, then you need to know that when Jack Bauer interrogates you, you will give in. He basically beats the crud out of people until they give him the information he needs.
At the beginning of the season, Jack was being brought before the Senate by the same Senator and his assistant (the bad one), to be tried for crimes against humanity. This Senator wanted Jack thrown in jail for the extreme measures he had taken to protect our country. So as Jack is interrogating this suspect he begins to give Jack the information, but then everyone busts into the room and makes him stop, and they arrest him. The Senator walks into the room and starts confronting Jack. He tells him that the way he handles situations are wrong and blah, blah, blah. And then Jack says one of the greatest lines I have ever heard……
“You are weak! I am willing and able to look evil in the eye, and deal with it!”
How awesome is that! Yes….I do have a man crush on Jack Bauer.
But anyways, it got me to thinking about myself and the church. I am weak. The church is becoming weak. Let me explain.
Christianity as a whole, is the largest “religion” in the world. Yet we are weak. We are scared. We have the God that controls this entire universe in our corner, yet we back down and fall into the same behavior that the world does. Why is that?
Because we do not allow God to be our strength. Yesterday I was at work and this kid who was probably 20-22 years old comes in wearing this shirt that had the words “bad religion” on it. Underneath it was a picture of the cross with a circle around it and a line through it. How has it come to that?
It has come to that because we are weak as a group. Churches around the country are getting smaller and smaller, and shutting down more and more. Christians aren't living a life that reflects the glory of Christ. We are living lives of hypocrites and failing daily to show the love that Christ gives.
Is it because God isn’t big enough? No.
Is it because we don’t have time? No.
Is it because we aren’t united with Christ and each other? Yes.
We need to become united as a group of believers or this world is just going to continue to get worse and worse. We need to be able to look evil in the eye, deal with it, and then fight it! Even as individuals. We need to be desperately seeking God’s strength everyday because we can’t do this on our own. We need to start taking stands in our own lives, so that people can stop looking at Christians and relate the word hypocrites to us.
Should I have said something to the kid about his shirt? Should I have asked him what it meant to him? What has Christ ever done to you? Do you even know what the cross stands for?
Let me give some reason why I didn’t….
I could lose my job. The kid could punch me in the face. If he started causing a scene it could be embarrassing.
There are probably a million more reasons. But the main one that it comes down too, is that I was weak in that moment. I failed. I didn’t allow God’s strength to guide me.
I should have taken the opportunity to talk to the kid. Not bash him and scream at him about wearing a shirt like that, but gone and at least attempted to have a conversation about, in a loving and respectful way. What if he just thought like that because his dad was a pastor of a church, but beat him when he was a child? I might have somehow been able to develop a relationship with him, and maybe opened his eyes to what a picture of the cross should really imply.
At this point, I just encourage each of you to wake up everyday and ask for God’s strength because we are weak, but in Him, we are strong! In Him we can stand for things that matter eternally. We need to realize that we are mighty in God and we are mighty in numbers. In Him, we can look evil in the eye and deal with it!
Be an example.
So Jack, who is the MAN, heads over to the White House to interrogate the assistant and to try to get info from him. Again if you haven’t seen 24, then you need to know that when Jack Bauer interrogates you, you will give in. He basically beats the crud out of people until they give him the information he needs.
At the beginning of the season, Jack was being brought before the Senate by the same Senator and his assistant (the bad one), to be tried for crimes against humanity. This Senator wanted Jack thrown in jail for the extreme measures he had taken to protect our country. So as Jack is interrogating this suspect he begins to give Jack the information, but then everyone busts into the room and makes him stop, and they arrest him. The Senator walks into the room and starts confronting Jack. He tells him that the way he handles situations are wrong and blah, blah, blah. And then Jack says one of the greatest lines I have ever heard……
“You are weak! I am willing and able to look evil in the eye, and deal with it!”
How awesome is that! Yes….I do have a man crush on Jack Bauer.
But anyways, it got me to thinking about myself and the church. I am weak. The church is becoming weak. Let me explain.
Christianity as a whole, is the largest “religion” in the world. Yet we are weak. We are scared. We have the God that controls this entire universe in our corner, yet we back down and fall into the same behavior that the world does. Why is that?
Because we do not allow God to be our strength. Yesterday I was at work and this kid who was probably 20-22 years old comes in wearing this shirt that had the words “bad religion” on it. Underneath it was a picture of the cross with a circle around it and a line through it. How has it come to that?
It has come to that because we are weak as a group. Churches around the country are getting smaller and smaller, and shutting down more and more. Christians aren't living a life that reflects the glory of Christ. We are living lives of hypocrites and failing daily to show the love that Christ gives.
Is it because God isn’t big enough? No.
Is it because we don’t have time? No.
Is it because we aren’t united with Christ and each other? Yes.
We need to become united as a group of believers or this world is just going to continue to get worse and worse. We need to be able to look evil in the eye, deal with it, and then fight it! Even as individuals. We need to be desperately seeking God’s strength everyday because we can’t do this on our own. We need to start taking stands in our own lives, so that people can stop looking at Christians and relate the word hypocrites to us.
Should I have said something to the kid about his shirt? Should I have asked him what it meant to him? What has Christ ever done to you? Do you even know what the cross stands for?
Let me give some reason why I didn’t….
I could lose my job. The kid could punch me in the face. If he started causing a scene it could be embarrassing.
There are probably a million more reasons. But the main one that it comes down too, is that I was weak in that moment. I failed. I didn’t allow God’s strength to guide me.
I should have taken the opportunity to talk to the kid. Not bash him and scream at him about wearing a shirt like that, but gone and at least attempted to have a conversation about, in a loving and respectful way. What if he just thought like that because his dad was a pastor of a church, but beat him when he was a child? I might have somehow been able to develop a relationship with him, and maybe opened his eyes to what a picture of the cross should really imply.
At this point, I just encourage each of you to wake up everyday and ask for God’s strength because we are weak, but in Him, we are strong! In Him we can stand for things that matter eternally. We need to realize that we are mighty in God and we are mighty in numbers. In Him, we can look evil in the eye and deal with it!
Be an example.
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