jabarke

Some of us, in a way, "take pride" in admitting we are depraved. We think by saying we are wretched & depraved sinners that that puts in rare company & that makes us good now. We feel for those people that continue to delude themselves into thinking they have sin but still believe deep in their heart that they are basically good people. We usually bog down at this point, however. Not knowing the way to a true, God changed life, we resort to our own self will & human power to change into a good person. We grit our teeth & really try harder to become good christians. Growing up in a Christian home I sort of grew up under the law. I was told what was the right thing to do & what was the wrong thing to do. If I messed up I was punished. Consequently, I carry some heavy baggage that I need to get rid of in order to truly allow God's Spirit in me to change my heart. A life not driven by the fear of punishment but a life changed, from the heart out, by God's Spirit. Not by my will power or strength of character which we sometimes believe is how we become good but by God's TRANSFORMING GRACE. So often we read things & hear sermons that we need to do this or that in obedience to God & to please him & so we can look back one day & say we have run a good race. But, again, the most important part is left out which is how do we get there. I liken this to a coach giving the team a great inspiring pregame speech & the players run out fired up ready to perform but when they hit the field they suddenly realize they were not told how to run the plays that will ultimately give them the victory. Those plays are learned when we spend time with God in prayer & reading of his word & in giving ourselves daily to Him. This is how He changes our hearts & minds to feel, think & act like Him. We naturally fall more in love with Him through this process & our lives are changed by Him through this process.

This seems to be one of the biggest kept secrets in the Church today. Christians that struggle with por******** & lus*. It is one of those sins that carries so much shame with it that we keep it a secret because what our Christian brothers & sisters would think of us. So the problem grows & keeps us ineffectual in furthering God's Kingdom. For some of us it is a "dabbling" & for others of us it is a full blown addiction. Either way it is an extremely negative force in our lives. It is probably one of Satan's most effective tools to keeping us carnal & unable to experience "the joy of the Lord" & from bearing fruit. We try to "make up" for it by doing more things at church thinking if we serve God more he will forgive us. When all He wants is for us to be broken over it & admit it is a sin & a problem in our life we cannot overcome without God's grace. One of the most effective things I have done is to meet on a weekly basis with a couple of Christian brothers & we hold each other accountable in several areas, one being por********. It has helped me greatly & stopped me in my tracks on a number of occasions knowing I would have to report back to my brothers that I had sinned in this area. I am saddened, however, that most men in the church continue to ignore, downplay or suffer silently in dealing with the issue of por******** & lus*. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we are still very judgmental as Christians & catagorize sins into varying degrees of "badness". This makes it very difficult for us to confront this issue & a healing manner. Could we announce in our churches that there will be a Bible study on Wednesday nights for those who battle por******** & lus*?? Could a minister or church leader announce from the pulpit that they struggle in this area? How then do we approach this problem that, I believe, is much more prevalent in the Church than most of us think?

I believe Jesus was also alluding to the debt of sin we owe in this passage. We need to reconcile this debt before we get to the judgment day when we will be thrown into debtor's prison (hell) if we have not settled our debt before hand by accepting the gift of Jesus willing to pay off that dept for us. He is saying He has already worked out the payoff (Jesus's death & resurrection) but we have to accept the deal before we get to court (final judgement).

I believe many of us our satisfied with a "sip of God". We dabble in our personal relationships with God & we immerse ourselves in religion that we often mistake for spirituality. We go to church "religiously" & are involved in all kinds of church programs & committees but neglect our time alone with God developing a close relationship with Him that brings us to hunger & thirst after righteousness which was the intent of the law. We see the law as this encumbering set of rules that our "old nature" just cannot come to term with so we see the life boat of Grace thrown at us & we mistake it for an excuse to now ignore the law & fly by the seat of our pants. Grace is what frees us to serve God with love, joy & gratefulness & we desire to please Him. Keeping the Law becomes a natural out flowing of that deep relationship we develop with God.

The phrase that jumped out at me personally in this section was "and now stand for nothing". Most of the time I find my self working hard not to offend others or turn them off toward Christianity that I end up "standing for nothing" & being void of any saltiness at all in the world I live in. God forgive me & give me the boldness & wisdom to be salty for Him.

Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness. One of the thoughts I had was hunger & thirst are not desires we just decide to have. I cannot decide to be hungry or I cannot decide to be thirsty. Where does it come from or how is it produced then? When we eat and drink our bodies use this to fuel our actions & the more activity we are involved in the hungrier or thirstier we become. We must, then, need spiritual activity to make us spiritually hungry & thirsty. I believe activity that is serving & glorifying God is what produces that hunger & thirst for righteousness. Also, when we are sick we do not have much of an appetite. Being in the Word, praying, fellowship with other believers & actively serving God by serving others is the cure for this illness & will reproduce that hunger & thirst for righteousness

Why do self-examination if the result is not confession & repentance? We spend so much time "hiding in the garden" because we are afraid of what admitting to what sins in our lives will do to our "position" with God or our "position" with other Christians. We might not be as "good" as we would like to think we are. The foundation of our faith is so weak we fight, scratch & claw our way to a delusional thought processes that if we don't self-examine from time to time we will not have to admit we have sinned & thus we are "good" Christians. Avoiding self-examination & the requisite confession & repentance is our way of doing what Adam & Eve did in the garden of Eden when they first sinned & they hid from God. It is how we mentally hide from God. Admitting our sins & shortcomings is always the first step that must be taken to a healthy relationship with God. It is humbling & purifying & a release from the burden of trying to be the "perfect" Christian.

I believe that if we are in a close relationship with the Lord, that is being in the Word & spending regular time with Him, He will reveal to us the areas of our life we need to take a look at. Because we want to continue that close relationship with Him we then have no problem confessing that sin or turning that area of our life over to Him. If we focus on having this close walk with Him His Spirit will promt us when we need to self-examine & confess that sin.

The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourself. It is clear that when we neglect the needs of our brothers & sisters in the Lord in any way we are failing this commandment. Are we even aware of the needs of others in the Body or are we so wrapped up in ourselves we neglect others. How can we live in extravagant homes & drive expensive cars when our brethern in other parts of the world & even our own country are starving & struggling financially. I struggle with this & find myself eating the bread & drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner and guilty of sinning against the body. 30That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.

Too often I find myself looking for Jesus or "eating the Bread of Life" because I want only what I can get out of it for myself much like the crowd that followed Him around until they found out He was talking about another kind of nourishment. I only want the nourishment of my physical needs & desires but God wants to go so much deeper in nourishing me. I don't fully understand what that means but I believe that if I continue to follow after Him & seek Him He will reveal Himself to me & give me that nourishment that satisfies my soul & spirit. I've heard it said that what we sometimes think are hunger pangs are really thirst pangs. I think we have a deep longing in each of our hearts that we think are physical longings for material things or things we think will make us happy but are really longings for a close relationship with Jesus & intimate contact with His Spirit & ours. He is truly the "Bread of Life" in that His Spirit brings our spirit alive & fulfilled & healthy.

Believing in Jesus as the Son of God who came to earth & lived as a sinless man who died in our place for our sins on the cross & rose again the 3rd day to provide for us eternal life with Him. Believing means not only intellectually acknowledging this but committing our whole being, soul, spirit & flesh, to Him & striving to obey him & dedicating each day to live for Him empowered by His Holy Spirit. Most of us our relatively satisfied with a "sip" of God or just enough contact with him to soothe our conscience & make "us" feel good. How often I have come to that next step of truly "selling out" for God & have backed away much the same way the rich young ruler did when he asked what he needed to do & when he was told " sell all that you have & come follow me" he turned away sadly because he could not take that next step. I thank God for His patience with me as I "work out my salvation" in my personal relationship with the Almighty Living God who loves me as His own.

The physical body is where we feel all the pain that we dread when it is injured. Most of us fear physical pain a great deal. We do almost anything to avoid it. With this in mind I think Peter, who underwent a lot of physical pain as he sufferred persecution for his faith in Christ, knew he could reach us in a way we could all relate to with what Jesus went through to pay our debt of sins. For someone to put themselves through this extent of physical pain because of the His love for us opens us up for His Spirit to come into our lives & give us an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ, my Lord & Savior.

It is a proclamation that I, personally, recognize & accept Christ's atoning death & saving power of his resurrection. The proclamation is made to myself & to Jesus Christ himself. It is important to always be in touch with this event & to never forget that this was the sole purpose that Jesus, because He loved us so much & wanted a relationship with us, came to earth to pay the penalty for my sins & provide away for me to be joined with Him. When a church's central theme becomes anything other than this it becomes the "salt that has lost its flavor". It becomes ineffective & useless in God's kingdom. It becomes a place for religious people to socialize. It takes on the same role as seven churches which are in Asia mentioned in Revelations that God says that due to their "luke warmness" He will "spew them out of His mouth".

I believe in the majority of people this is true. How often is enough & how often is too much, I think, depends on the each person & where their heart is. I think it is wise, from time to time, to stop & rethink all that we believe in & things we practice in our faith in order to refresh & renew them. Too often we don't allow ourselves to do this because we are afraid if we question what we think & do in the name of Jesus it might shake the foundations of our faith & make us uncomfortable. True faith can & will stand this test & be made stronger because of this. One of the joys of living in Minnesota is that every spring you see people out reveling in the change of weather. We have survived a cold harsh winter & newness of life & warmer weather is here again for a short time. It truely lifts our spirits to a euphoric feeling. If our celebration of the Lord's Supper is not met with the same reveling & euphoric feeling, I think it is time to step back & ask ourselve has the Lord's Supper become mundane & lost its meaning.

Why is so much emphasis placed on Abraham's so called "boldness"? He was having a conversation with God & was asking Him a series of questions in an attempt to grow in his knowledge of God. He was saying, "How do you operate, God? What is the meaning & extent of your justice? I know you are angry about how unrighteous these people have become but will you extinguish the righteous as well? How do you reconcile your mercy & your justice in this situation, Lord?" I don't see this so much as boldness but of having spent so much time with God & having seen God work in his own life over the years that he felt confortable talking to Him in this way & asking Him these types of questions. If you have a great relationship with your earthly father or some other authority figure in your life does it take boldness for you to talk to them & ask them questions or it just a natural out flow of the relationship you have developed over time? I believe God takes delight every time I come to Him in prayer. He created us to have fellowship with Him & prayer, if nothing else, is fellowship with Him. I sure God is disappointed if I only come to him with my own selfish requests because His Spirit is not in control of my life then. The more time we spend with Him the more His Spirit will lead us & we will have delightful fellowship everytime we come to him. Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Philippians 4:6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.