Category: Bible

The Spirit and the Living Word

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Christianpics.com

While non-Christians may provide many explanations as to why they discard the Bible, the actual reason they don’t believe is that God hasn’t spiritually awakened them. Scripture is very clear on this. “Jesus said, ‘I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and […]

via Why do non-believers reject the Bible? — The Isaiah 53:5 Project

I am reblogging this piece to comment on my own experience, which is something I know many believers relate to. It’s the before and after story of those who know what it means to be born again. Before that time, the Bible seemed to be dead, and after it came alive!

Being born again is experiential and relational. It’s relational in that the experience is intimately connected to God and the Bible, His revelation to us handed down from people who had similar, relational experiences with God. Our relationship and connection with God can be measured, and one of the measuring devices is the Bible.

The writer of Hebrews says that the word of God is living and active. This is the experience of the one who has been born again. The Bible comes alive. When this happens for the first time, it is an experience like feeling the wind whip up. We can’t see it, but we know it.

Paul says that God’s Spirit testifies with our spirit. This is the intimate, relational experience we have with God, though we often confuse it with feelings. Feelings come and go. The spiritual connection is there regardless of the feelings; sometimes it’s there in spite of the feelings!

But, even those who have been born again, can fall away, chasing after feelings and things that distract our attention from the One who loved us with the sacrifice of shedding his glory to become one of us, proving that love to the point of death for us. The Spirit is a still, soft voice, easily shouted down, crowded out and left behind. But He is persistent. Thankfully!

The surest way to connect, or to reconnect, is open the Bible and do it often. Jesus said that man doesn’t live by bread alone, but every word the proceeds from the “mouth” of God. The Bible is our lifeline.

Sometimes our experience wanes. Like a marriage, we lose the spark, but we press on in the commitment to which we have given ourselves. The feelings come and go. The spark will come and go, but out commitment is the constant. And as we devote ourselves to God in prayer, the preaching of the Gospel, reading of the Bible, fellowship and repentance for our shortcomings, we regain that connection that we sometimes “lose” in the crowded, preoccupied and loud recesses of our hearts.

Righteousness By Faith

Faith and hope of the kind Abraham had that was counted to him as righteousness isn’t real unless it changes us and our outlook on the world and becomes the driving force of our lives.

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Abraham believed God, and God “reckoned” that faith to Abraham as righteousness.[1] When God told Abraham to look at the stars and said to Abraham that he would bear offspring and have descendants like the stars in the sky, Abraham believed God.  What does that really mean?

We get a bit of a clue by looking at the Hebrew word translated “believe”: āman. It means to confirm (support), as when putting confidence in something that is supported (trustworthy).[2] The Hebrew suggests that Abraham confirmed, affirmed, supported, or had confidence in what God was telling him.

But there is more to it than that. The word, āman, as used in this passage, is in the hiphil form. The hiphil form suggests an act of intentional interaction with a subject.

This suggests Abraham didn’t just stare at the stars, daydreaming. He consciously and intentionally engaged with God and what God was saying to him. He affirmatively confirmed, supported and put his confidence in what God was saying to him in some interactive way.

Faith/belief is a key concept and critical characteristic of the follower of Christ. Abraham is held up as the prime example of faith. Abraham is the father of faith.[3]

Paul says that Abraham was “fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.”[4] This active faith, trust and confidence in God that Abraham demonstrated is what God “counted to him as righteousness”.[5] Faith is interactive trust.

This same faith, Paul says, will also be counted to those of us as righteousness who “believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”[6]

In one sense, Abraham didn’t do anything to earn God’s favor but believe God, and God attributed righteousness to him in return. Such a simple thing! On the other hand, Abraham’s faith was not just intellectual ascent; he lived his life in the light of that faith.

And that is what we must do to be counted as righteous in God’s sight today – to believe in the one God sent to us, Jesus Christ, who suffered, died and was buried for us, and who has risen from the dead establishing the promise of God to us that we will be risen to in newness of life. If we truly believe this is true, it will become the pivotal point, the centerpiece and the hope of our lives.

This seems so very simple that we are tempted to think we need to do more. We are tempted to think we must do more to be counted as righteous. It isn’t quite so simple as we suspect, but we have to keep our eyes on what is important.

Continue reading “Righteousness By Faith” →

No One is Born a Christian

You can be born a Hindu. You can be born a Muslim, You can be born a Jew.

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Depositphotos Image ID: 171920302 Copyright: GDArts17

I have written a an article titled, God has no Grandchildren. I just watched a talk by Mary Poplin in which she makes the bold statement, “You can not ne born a Christian. You can be born a Hindu. You can be born a Muslim, You can be born a Jew. You cannot be born a Christian.” (Mary Poplin: The Radical Conversion of a Secular Scholar) I realized immediately that these points are intertwined.

Without any adieu, you must be born again!

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’
“Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’
“‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’
“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’
‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked.
“’You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.'” (John 3:1-13)

We have to be born into relationship with God. We don’t inherit a relationship with God. We must receive Him directly, on our own.

“[T]o all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12-13)

 

 

Spirit and Truth vs. Self-Made Religion

It isn’t things from outside that corrupt a person, but things from inside.

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Depositphotos Image ID: 91001324 Copyright: carlosyudica

In a previous blog article, I talked about the shadow of things to come. Paul says that following rules and observing religious ritual is just a shadow of things to come. Later in the same chapter in Colossians, Paul explains in more detail what he is getting at. When we are focused only on the do’s and the don’ts and on observing religious rituals, we are focused on the wrong things.

“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were alive in the world, do you submit to regulations – ‘Do not handle,  Do not taste,  Do not touch’ (referring to things that all perish as they are used) – according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” (Colossians 2:20-23)

Paul isn’t advocating that followers of Christ abandon self-discipline and self-control and do whatever they like. “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2) But, following Jesus doesn’t mean stepping up religious observances and following rules and regulations more closely. The focus on rules and rituals entirely misses the point.

Continue reading “Spirit and Truth vs. Self-Made Religion” →

Shadow of Things to Come

kevingdrendel3 Comments
Photo by Beth Drendel

I’ve been reading through the Bible slowly from Genesis to Revelation. This is something I have not done in many years. I have taken some sidetracks and rabbit hole excursions along the way, but I am still plodding forward.

It’s amazing that circumstances of life arise from time to time of which the particular passage I am reading comes to bear on those circumstances. This is the case in a poignant way in regard to a conversation I had with a very close friend recently.

We were talking about the Catholic Church and a bad experience that close friend to both of us had being raised by strict parents in a strict Catholic school setting. I was also raised Catholic, though my experience differed from his. I didn’t go to parochial school, and I didn’t experience the strictness of the Catholic Church like he did, though I certainly saw evidence of it.

In my friend’s case, the strictness and severity he experienced bordered on abuse. I don’t know the details, but his reactions to things religious suggest he might have some degree of PTSD as a result of his experiences.

I don’t mean to pick on the Catholic Church. I have seen the same “spirit” evident in other denominations as well. A hyper focus on do’s and don’ts and religious rituals practiced in front of the foreboding audience of church authorities are the common denominator. The Westboro Baptist Church is a very extreme example of the legalism and dogmatism I am talking about.

The very day following this conversation, I read these words penned by Paul the Apostle about two millennia ago:

Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival our new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come,  but the substance is in Christ.

Colossians 2:16-17

It seems that some things haven’t changed in 2000 years!

Continue reading “Shadow of Things to Come” →