Tag: sin

Categories
Jesus

How Narrow is the Path that leads to God?

a narrow path

In my previous post I shared the quote:
“No wonder the world has passed by the church. We don’t need reforming; we need to be regenerated. We need to be born again.”
–J. Vernon McGee
            (click here to see the previous post)

But aren’t most of us pretty decent people? Aren’t we pretty good? Do we really need to say such negative things about people in general? No. No we are not. And yes we do. Here is why we must say we need to be regenerated:

We need a new nature because we naturally have a sinful nature, and that sinful nature is not going to make it into heaven. Therefore you have to get rid of your sinful nature. But you can’t do it on your own. You don’t have the ability. If you go to heaven and enter the presence of Holy God, it will only be because you trusted the One who died for you – Jesus.

Your only way to come to God is through Jesus.

Now some will want to argue with this statement and say “That is so narrow-minded. There must be another way. God wouldn’t make forming a relationship with Him that narrow.”

But such ideas go directly against the words of the Bible. Specifically they go against the very words of Jesus who said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” That is pretty narrow. But who should I believe? Who do I trust? Jesus? Or someone who is “not Jesus” but who insists to me that there must be another way?

Hmmmm…. I think my best option is to believe Jesus.
I imagine He has a better handle on the situation than Uncle Jim, my neighbor Bob, or even myself.

If I were a betting man, I think it will be a much better “bet” for me to to take Jesus at His Word than for me to hope that my unbiblical guesses about God are right and that He’ll let me into His presence anyway. Can you imagine saying to God: “Oh. Ummm. You mean, God, that you were serious about all those words in the Bible? Such as the fact that I had to choose Jesus during my lifetime on earth? I was kind of hoping that some of those words were wrong. I was figuring that whoever wrote down Jesus’ words didn’t write them down correctly. So is it OK that I didn’t believe them? You’ll let me slide on it, right?”

It would not be wise to end this life with your hopes set with that type of mentality.

God is big enough to preserve His words the way He wanted them recorded. I mean, He’s God. And the words that God has recorded for us in the Bible make it very clear: Your one and only way to be in the presence of Holy God for all eternity is through a relationship with Jesus.

Yes, that is narrow.
But it is very clear.
God Himself tells us: To be with Me for eternity, you need to be regenerated. You need to be born again.

Categories
Christian Living

Sorry For the Month Long Hiatus! Maybe I Need More Conviction.

Im-Back-But-Where-Have-I

Yeah, Where HAVE I been? I’m not quite sure… It seems like the first month of 2016 has disappeared in the blink of an eye. Am I losing my mind? Ha!

My last post was on January 1, explaining that I was going to cut back just a bit on my posting this year, but I certainly didn’t plan to go a whole month without posting anything.

Instead of posting, I ended up spending a lot of time catching up on some relationship-building, especially with one good friend who was back in the States for the month. I will say that it was quite nice to be off of social media for the month. I think breaks like that can be quite healthy as we change up our routines and get off the “fast-track.” But my friend has headed back south to another country, and my life is getting back to its normal routine. Therefore, it’s time to get back into writing and sharing some of my thoughts. So here goes…

When Was The Last Time You Were Convicted?

I’m not talking about being convicted by the justice system of our nation (which doesn’t require a heart change). I’m talking about being convicted by God Himself – a conviction that causes deep repentance in your heart and mind.

“Conspicuously absent today in many churches is conviction concerning sin…. The average believer says, “Yes, I trust Christ.” But he has no real conviction of sin in his life at all. It is absent in contemporary church life. It is seldom that we come forward with tears – convicted of our sin before a holy God that cannot accept us as we are….

“Someone has said that the modern pulpit has become a place where a mild-mannered man gets up before a group of mild-mannered people and urges them to be more mild-mannered…. No wonder the world has passed by the church. We don’t need reforming; we need to be regenerated. We need to be born again.”

These two paragraphs by J. Vernon McGee remind us that we need convicting. I’m not sure what sin or sins you have been struggling with lately, but pray to God that you would see your sin as He sees it. Ask Him to help you be truly heart-broken over the ways that you do not imitate Christ.

May we truly know the conviction of the Lord that leads us to repentance and into more holiness.

Categories
Christian Living

Getting Into A Muddle

“Getting Into A Muddle”
  by brian rushing

confusing road sign symbolizing the concept of a muddle
photo source: whoisbillbailey.info/picture-good-luck/

Many of us often wonder: “How in the world has this world gotten in such a mess?”
We might also ask: “How in the world has my family gotten into such a mess?”
And even more personally, at some point we will probably all ask: “How has my personal life gotten into such a mess?” I like the way J. I. Packer asks it: “How on earth have people got into such a muddle?”
His answer?

One is that people have gotten into the practice of following private religious hunches rather than learning of God from his own Word; we have to try to help them unlearn the pride and, in some cases, the misconceptions about Scripture which gave rise to this attitude and to base their convictions henceforth not on what they feel but on what the Bible says.

A second answer is that modern people think of all religions as equal and equivalent—they draw their ideas about God from pagan as well as Christian sources; we have to try to show people the uniqueness and finality of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s last word to man.

A third answer is that people have ceased to recognize the reality of their own sinfulness, which imparts a degree of perversity and enmity against God to all that they think and do; it is our task to try to introduce people to this fact about themselves and so make them self-distrustful and open to correction by the word of Christ.

Do you see yourself holding to any of these misconceptions? Have you ever found yourself in a muddle?

Too often we want to “feel” that God should be a certain way, when the Bible presents Him in another light. Too often we want to think that there are many ways to God, when the Bible is clear that Jesus is the only Way. And too often we want to think that we are good enough on our own, when the Bible tells us that our righteousness is worthless in God’s eyes and that we must take the righteousness of Jesus to be made holy.

To get out of our mess… our muddle… we have to decide to “grow up” and look at things from God’s perspective, instead of demanding that things always be our way.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Knowing God by J. I. Packer)


Categories
Relationships

Living Everyday In the Intensive Care Waiting Room

Many of us have had to spend time in an Intensive Care Waiting Room.

Knowing a loved one is behind those closed doors fighting for life.

Waiting with expectation for each of those 15-minute visits when the hospital staff opens the doors to let us see our loved one for a brief moment.

icu waiting room sign with hours of visiting posted

A pastor wrote about the ICU waiting room:

I have spent long hours in the hospital intensive care unit… watching with anguished people… listening to urgent questions: Will my husband make it? Will my child walk again? How can I live without my companion of thirty years?”

The intensive care waiting room is different from any other place in the world. And the people who wait are different. They can’t do enough for each other. No one is rude. The distinctions that divide people in society melt away. A person is a father first, and any other distinctions are less important. The man without a job loves his wife as much as the successful business owner loves his, and everyone understands this. Each person pulls for everyone else.

In the intensive care waiting room, the world changes. Vanity and pretense vanish. The universe is focused on the doctor’s next report. If only it will show improvement. Everyone knows that loving someone else is what life is all about.

Could we learn to love like that if we realized that every day of life is a day in the waiting room?

Life is like the Intensive Care Waiting Room, and yet we often fail to remember this. Life is full of struggle and pain and difficulty. But instead of an illness or injury that has us struggling for physical life, our real struggle is one of the spirit. Temptations and sin pour into our lives leading to worry and anxiety that chokes out our ability to breathe. And yet, we fail to realize that every one of us walking this planet are struggling in much the same way.

Therefore everyone needs to pull for everyone else.

Loving others is what life is all about. Let’s stop being divisive over secondary matters. Let those less important things melt away. Let someone know that you love them and are pulling for them today.

Categories
Relationships

Safe, Not Soft.

a soft cottony dandelion seed headPreviously I wrote about how Jesus wasn’t safe. (But that He is good!)

And while it may be true that Jesus is not safe, the church does need to be a “safe” place for people to come with their brokenness.

Too often, though, we think that being a safe place means we have to be “soft.”

No so. Jesus certainly wasn’t.

Jesus loved people furiously, without ever being soft on their sin. We have to love people furiously as well, at the same time holding a serious view of behavior that is not God-honoring.

“Abhor what is evil.” A gospel-centered community acknowledges the presence of sin and welcomes the confession of sin. But a truly gospel-centered community never reduces the severity of sin. …When God saves us, our attitude toward sin changes. Sin doesn’t become easier to commit; it becomes more despicable to us than ever. …Abhorring what is evil in the context of community requires true love–love that dares to inflict “the wounds of a friend” (Prov. 27:6).

The weakest, saddest, most hypocritical form of pseudo-love is the kind that sees someone in danger and simply hopes everything works out in the end. Is it judgmental, ruthless, or wicked to correct your children when they’re doing things that are dangerous for them? Normal parents would never watch their kids play in the street and just hope they don’t get hurt: “I know it’s dangerous, but look how happy they are. They seem to be having so much fun.” Our ferocious commitment to their safety and success, along with a heart full of genuine love, drives us to endure the often unhappy experience of disciplining our children.

In the same way, gospel-formed believers take responsibility for confronting those who claim to be Christ-followers and yet continue to sin. Church leaders must strive to create environments that are “safe but not soft”… environments that embrace people in their brokenness while guiding them to wholeness in Christ. [from ‘Creature of the Word’]

Let us reject pseudo-love in all our relationships.
Let us not be cruel by withholding the truth just to protect feelings.
Let us be safe, but not soft.