Monday, January 25, 2016

You are a New Creation

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV – Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

When we accept Christ, he cleanses us so we can be a new person.  He forgives all our sins.  However, it may seem like nothing has changed.  We still have the same life here on earth.  Worse, you start realizing what you need to change to align with Jesus and know you missed the target entirely a lot.  We need to let the Holy Spirit help us with the renewing of our minds.  This part is a process and is not instantaneous.  I like equating this to an onion.  We have this shiny, new creation inside, but we have to throw off all the layers of beliefs the world built up on us.  With study of the Word and paying attention to God’s leading through the Spirit, we figure out how to dig through the layers, peeling them off one by one.  This is the growing process that our faith should help lead us through.

Titus 3:4-6 NKJV – But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

We are now children of God and heirs to all that he has, brothers and sisters in Christ.  Just like all children, we need to be trained to be a proper member of the family.  We will crawl before we walk, and walk before we run full tilt for God.  Don’t be afraid of this process.  Just like a child learning to crawl and then walk, each finds their own way there with the help of their family.  None of us are the same and our paths through growing with Christ will all be different.  This is how our testimonies are made to share with the world about how God helped us become what we are today.

Ephesians 4:22-24 NKJV - …put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

This last verse sums things up.  We have had all these worldly thoughts and training that put us on a trajectory away from God.  God will not expect you to figure it all out as soon as you accept Christ.  That would blow your mind.  For me, it was good enough when he proved he had a power that blew away any other power I had felt before.  There is plenty of spiritual power out there and I had definitely messed with the wrong side.  That realization ignited my faith further and over the past nearly fourteen years, I have been peeling my onion layers off as I grow up as a child of God.  There will be a lot of tears, a lot of hard work, a lot of not wanting to let go of things contrary to him, but in the end it will be worth it.


Let God lead you on the right path for growing up as his child.  You have been cleansed by accepting Christ, so all your sins have been forgiven.  Don’t give up and someday you will realize you are running as a child of God and have gone beyond those struggles to crawl and walk.

Monday, January 18, 2016

Faith Versus Works

We cannot earn our way to heaven or God’s blessings.  It is by our faith, as explained in last week’s post, that we connect with God to gain salvation and blessings.

Galatians 2:16 NKJV – knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

Charles Spurgeon – “Neither the Jewish Law of the ten commands nor its law of ceremonies was ever intended to save anybody.  By a set of pictures it set forth the way of salvation, but it was not itself the way.  It was a map, not a country; a model of the road, not the road itself.”

Galations 3:11 – But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”

God gave the Law so that people could truly know what was good and what was evil.  “The law is like a mirror.  All it can do is reflect what we are in truth – unclean and desperately in need of cleansing.”  (Ray Comfort, note on Gal 3:11 in The Evidence Bible.)  The law only shows us what needs to be fixed in order to be right with God.  Doing good things without faith in God will not bring us to salvation.

Ephesians 2:8-9 – For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

Our works should come from our faith instead.  They should be what we want to do because of our connection with God.  They are not done to acquire anything from God or from people.  Do good things because they help someone else regardless of any benefit you might get.  The only thing you should even think of is the benefits the other person will get from what you do for them.  The works we do through faith in God should inspire others to at least think about God.  It is seed planting in God’s kingdom.

God gave us the Holy Spirit upon accepting Christ, so that we have a helper and counselor in all that we do.  He will guide us in the right direction with what we should be doing for Him.  This will lead to us doing proper works that bless many.


Never stop doing good things, but make sure you realize why you are doing them.  If you are primarily doing them to gain something for yourself in return, you have missed the mark.  Let’s make sure our good works are simply to help others and inspire them to know Christ.  Let your faith in Him shine through those works with God’s love.

Monday, January 11, 2016

What is Faith?

Faith is our trustful response to God’s self-revelation via his words and his actions.  God initiates this relationship with us and lets us make the choice to accept it.  He provides evidence of his trustworthiness by speaking and acting into the world.  This trust in God is both objective and subjective.  God is objectively outside human beings and showing us the truth of His nature, which we can trust in.  We subjectively chose to believe or not.

It is by faith that we understand God.  If we don’t have the faith to start believing in him, we surely won’t get to know him either.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1 NKJV).  We cannot see him or how he created the world.  By faith we understand that worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible (Hebrews 11:3).  If we read Genesis 1, it states that God ‘said’ and then it happened.  His very words created the world out of nothing.

That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  For the scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”  For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him.  For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”  Romans 10:9-13.

Belief is the verb form of faith in our English translations.  We are to act on the testimony the world gives us through what we see and hear.  The resurrection of Jesus after he was crucified was proven by eye witnesses who saw him after.  God relied upon people to believe it was Jesus resurrected and in turn for them to tell the whole world of how God worked salvation for us through Jesus.  He made sure there was proof for people’s faith to act upon.

Once we accept Christ and become a Christian, God will see how the trials of life build or deplete our faith.  We are expected to have a relationship with him where he reveals himself more and more.  In doing so our faith is to grow.  Faith was one of the things Jesus admonished the most.  He kept asking why they had so little faith.  He did this with Peter when he started sinking into the water after a few steps.  He told them all they had little faith when they woke him from a sound sleep due to a storm they feared.

But faith is also a gift.  For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith, (Romans 12:3).  God gives each of us a measure of faith to work with and build upon as we live life according to his plan.

God wants us to have faith in him and accept him fully in body, mind and soul.  Either you chose to believe with all you are or you don’t.


Have you stepped out to accept Christ as your savior yet?  If not, the bible says we have no excuse not to know him and trust him.  If you are a Christian, don’t give up on Him even when your faith feels as small as a mustard seed.  Look what his disciples were capable of doing even when Jesus kept admonishing them about little faith.  They accepted and grew into men who changed the world for Christ.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Why Did God Send His One and Only Son?

I want to sum up four points of why Jesus came to us as a baby and grew up into the man that could be the pure sacrifice on a cross for our sin.

1)      Christ came to be Crucified

Colossians 1:12 NKJV:  giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.  Jesus’ death on the cross was the payment for all humanity to qualify us to eternal life, the gift from God.  We cannot save ourselves.  We have no original goodness in us to even start making us eligible on our own.  By faith we must agree that God took on the responsibility of our sin despite us causing it. 

That is the kind of love talked about in John 3:16 that probably is quoted so much we forget how awesome and mind blowing it really should be to us.  God could have chosen to let us flounder without his help, but instead he sent Christ to die for us.  Ephesians 2:5-6 NLT:  that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead.  (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)   For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus.  He loves us so much we become children of God sharing in the inheritance with Christ.

2)      Jesus came to claim us

His love made us part of the family.  All we have to do is accept Christ and what he did for us on the cross in order to have this eternal life and become a child of God.  He truly is the way back to God and an inner peace we all keep looking for.  Humble yourself to this and accept that all the knowledge you are filled with is making this seem like nonsense and blocking you from what your soul was made to crave.  Our human knowledge feeds our pride and builds us up, creating fantasies that do not solve the human dilemma of sin and separation from God.

You will know when you have accepted Christ because he will send his Holy Spirit to live within you and guide you.  He is the seal on this acceptance of Christ.  Ephesians 1:13-14 NKJV:  In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

3)      Jesus rescued us

We are lost in the darkness listening to the wrong voices.  We cannot blame anyone but ourselves for what voices we chose to follow.  Many of us have some inkling of what is in the Bible and about whom Jesus is.  If not, I hope this gives you at least a basic idea of what Jesus did for us. 

We need to trust what aligns with God and to do that we must accept Christ and receive the gift.  Then we will have the voice of the Holy Spirit to help guide us out of the darkness.

Whether you have come to believe yet or not, ALL must deal with the skeletons in the closet.  Don’t hang on to those things that don’t agree with God’s Word once you accept Jesus.  These will only hold you back from the life he really wants you to live.  Don’t be afraid to stumble because Christ will carry you when you can’t manage it yourself.  I know he has carried me a lot and I keep finding new things to help me improve.  Earth is our training ground for what awaits us in heaven, which we only see in part like through a haze for now. 

Let Christ save, heal, and correct you.

4)      Jesus came to redeem us

Finally, he came so we could once again be reconciled to God despite the sin that came into the world causing a great void between us and God.  He wants to have a loving relationship with you and adopt you into his family.

It will take a lot of nerve and a strong backbone to stick to your faith when you accept Christ.  I had many friends who ridiculed me or would not talk to me the same way after I accepted Christ.  However, I found a peace in life despite it still being full of turmoil.  I found a greater family to be tied to with a great deal of helpful friends that pick me up when I fall down.  Persevering through the trials of life helps us build our faith further in Jesus.

I am hoping this makes you think about what Jesus did for us and how he helps daily through the Holy Spirit.  I know I am sticking with him despite everything the world has thrown at me.

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Thank you, Pastor Bob Englehardt, for the sermon I plucked this out of and did my best to write up from my notes.


A New Beginning

It is the first days of a new year.  Many people have made resolutions and many will have given up on them by the end of this first month.  Why not start something new that you will stick to?  Oh, I know why, most of us don’t realize the effort we will need, the amount of training it will take, and most times we might not have all the knowledge.  That makes us stumble and wonder why we ever decided to run with this idea or resolution in the first place.

That is how this blog looks.  I’m not deleting anything that I posted in for 2012 to 2014 in sporadic mode because they show what I was learning and what was on my mind at the time.  I figured out I needed a lot more knowledge and training to pull this off properly.  I could not come up with enough things to keep it going weekly, let alone monthly.  Why?  I did not get my plan straight.

God has led me on a great learning journey in 2015 and now I want to start this year off with getting back to the basics.  I plan on sharing what Christianity is really about and why you should think about it if not a Christian, and why you should dig deeper if already a Christian.

We just celebrated the birth of Christ, the reason for Christmas.  He came down to earth in a baby suit and grew up like any other child of his day.  He came for one purpose:  to live life like we have and then die for us.  He was the once and for all sacrifice to reconcile us to God.  Without accepting this you are missing out on that true relationship you can have with God.

In the posts to come I hope to help you get to know God’s love and why he sacrificed his only Son for us while we were still sinners.  For those who have not accepted him, I’m hoping to make you think about this with an open mind.  For those that have accepted him, I’m hoping to help propel you into a deeper relationship.

I will accept your questions and comments along the way.  Together, may we all learn who Christ really is and gain the true blessings that come with a relationship with him.