Growing Up Isn't The Easiest Thing To Do

Anyone can become a Christian with a simple prayer but not every Christian steps into their destiny to become everything Jesus has called us into. There are two large words that most Christians do not fully understand. The first is justification which in simple terms means what Jesus has done for us - our salvation. We had nothing to do with it because he did it all for us. Then there is sanctification - which is our walk, growth, progress to maturity, to become everything that we were meant to be. This takes effort and cooperation on our part as the Spirit works on us. But so many of us ignore sanctification and just rest on justification.

Salvation was the easy part for us because Jesus did all the heavy lifting but spiritual maturity takes effort and is the reason most Christians avoid it. Maturity is a huge subject but I want us to consider only one small but important aspect of it today. I want us to consider the heart.

Many of us know the parable of the sower which I think should have been known as the parable of the soil. You know that Jesus spoke about four conditions of the soil. The first was hard packed, a pathway, where the seed did not enter and the birds carried it away. The second was filled with rocks, preventing the seeds from growing deep roots, so when the sun beat down on the tiny plants they withered. The third was full of weeds so, when the plants tried to grow, their life was choked out. The last was good soil. Often we concentrate on the first three types of soil but I want us to consider the fourth.

First of all, this is not about salvation, it is about spiritual growth. The good soil has already been prepared to receive the seed. When we approach the Word of God we should always spend a few moments examining our heart condition. If we read and study the Bible at all we often do it without thought as to whether we are prepared to receive it. We read but our mind is off, wandering about on other matters. Either the seed doesn't go in at all, or it only goes so deep because we haven't cleared away our doubts. What does go in gets choked out because of all the things we are worried about or that our heart is occupied with. Sometimes we simply rush it, so we can get onto the next thing, like checking our FaceBook or Tumblr. These things all need to be cleared so it is just us, the Spirit and the Word.

The growth of the plant is all about Christian maturity which is a process. In the parable, the seeds grow into plants, first growing their stems, then leafs appear, and eventually the fruit which must then mature and ripen. From these few seeds a harvest is produced. This is done naturally, with no effort, as long as there is good sunlight and rain because the soil is already good. It is not so in the reality of spiritual growth, which requires patient endurance:

But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. (Luke 8:15)

Here we simply see the word "patience" but the original language conveys a greater sense then the passive sense of patience we think of today. It is the same word that we find in Matthew 10:22 :

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

That sense of enduring until the end, going the distance, completing the task, setting the hand to the plow and not looking back. It is the endurance that presses on no matter the obstacles found in the way. It is a vigorous patience that supports the fruit of Christian character that must be produced in the maturity of relationship with Jesus.

The first step is to realize that there is more to our relationship with Jesus than just our salvation. Our salvation is the beginning point, but maturity is our destination. Jesus has taken care of our salvation but now we need to cooperate in the condition of our heart so that the Word can produce a great harvest in us. 

Hardness of heart has to go. We limit the Spirit to what we see instead of understanding we have been called out of the ordinary to follow the water walker, the giver of sight, the healer of brokenness, the restorer of life. We follow the miracle man and are in turn the people of miracles.

Doubt needs to be dug up and thrown aside. We have to stop doubting everything the Spirit plants in us. Often those doubts are of the goodness of the Lord toward us. Why are we so thick about this? Paul said, if Father loved us enough to send Jesus to die for us, why would he hold any lesser good thing from us? Remove the boulders of doubt so the roots grow down deep. 

Kill those weeds of fear, anxiety and busyness. Stop rushing in and out of the Word. Honour the fact that this is the Word of God, not some newspaper or magazine. This is what the Spirit uses to teach and grow us into maturity. Respect it and start putting greater trust in what it has to say than what the world is saying.

When we have prepared the soil the Spirit will do the planting but don't forget that the work has only begun. If you want more of Jesus, a greater relationship, more power, a closer walk, better understanding, maturity, then you are going to have to work with the Spirit on the matter. Like any great project you will always hit obstacles so you will have to be determined that the end goal, the destination, the product is worth the price. The many faithful men and women who have gone before us testify that it is worth it, as they gave their everything in the effort to mature in the Lord. It's time for us to grow up in Jesus.

The Truth About Marriage

There are a lot of things we say and do that we justify when there is no justification for it. We can reason away anything so we can do what we want to do. We can get away with whatever we want to get away with as long as we forget that God knows every motivation of our heart. We can even make the Bible say what we want it to say. We need to stop it.

Yesterday I said that every act against God can be traced back to a selfish heart. Every act against our neighbour can be traced back to a selfish heart. How much easier then is it for us to justify acts of hatred in a family? Just look at what husbands and wives do to each other with the emotional games they play on each other, justifying it within their self-centered world and even believing that God is on their side. These are two people who have made a covenant with each other, with God as their witness, to love each other until death separates them. Love does not play games. Love is not selfish. We should understand that it is in a relationship of love, trust, mutual understanding that these two people become an incredible spiritual force.

God hates divorce.

Those are Jesus' words. He said that there were some circumstances that God would tolerate divorce but tolerate is a long cry from support or encourage. It is amazing the acrobats we go through to try to fit within the criteria in order to justify our selfishness. I should know, I write this as a divorced man.

In most cases there are no innocent parties in divorce. We all make choices and have to live with those choices. In the case of divorce, selfishness took over at some point. Hearts got set against each other because someone wanted something that put them above the needs of the other person. Maturity, good spiritual maturity, would cause both people to set aside their own needs for the needs of the other person. Not easy but it is the thing that would please and honour the God who they say they love more than any other.

The problem is, once selfishness gets in and we start justifying our emotions, it is difficult to turn back. It is true for any relationship. Once selfishness takes root we are in a lot of trouble. Our love for God should be enough to de-root anything before it takes hold, but in order to justify ourselves we have to distance ourselves from that love because no amount of self-justification could stand in the brilliance of that love.

It is a hard thing when we begin to allow emotions to take the lead because love goes beyond emotion; it is a decision,a commitment, a covenant. Solomon said this of marriage to his son:

You should be faithful
    to your wife,
    just as you take water
    from your own well.
16 And don’t be like a stream
    from which just any woman
    may take a drink.
17 Save yourself for your wife
    and don’t have sex
    with other women.
18 Be happy with the wife
you married
    when you were young.
19 She is beautiful and graceful,
    just like a deer;
    you should be attracted to her
    and stay deeply in love. (Proverbs 5:15-19)

It is the last part that stands out for me: "You should be attracted to her and stay deeply in love." That is a decision that has to be made every day. That is a commitment, to give your whole self to your wife. There is nothing here to say it is dependent on how she acts or if she loves you too. It is a one way charge. He is telling his son that he has the responsibility to stay attracted to his wife and to stay deeply in love with her over everything else. The only thing a husband should love more than his wife is God.

I will tell you right now, every day at least ten reasons will present themselves not to love your wife. There will be ten reasons that you will need to look at in the face and say, I love my wife in the way the Lord has loved me. It is my choice, the decision I make right now. Some days will be easy and other days will be hard but every day should end with the same result, being deeply in love with your wife. It does not depend on her; it depends on you. It doesn't matter how she acts, what she does or what she says, it is your responsibility to love her:

A husband must love his wife and not abuse her. (Colossians 3:19, CEV)

There is no justification to supersede this command. It is not a command of the law but of the heart of God. If we have accepted his sacrifice on our behalf, his faithfulness in the face of our unfaithfulness, his mercy and grace, his overwhelming love, then his expectation is that we will do the same for others; how much more our wives?

Sometimes we learn these lessons on the wrong end of things. In those cases, we allow his grace to carry us along as he picks us up, dusts us off, and we begin again. His grace is incredible but he will not put up with it being abused. He knows our hearts. He knows our schemes. He knows our motivations. It comes down to what Jesus said: If we love him we will do what he has commanded. Do we love him enough to see our selfishness put aside, to do the right thing and to allow love to be the command of the day?

The Only Thing That Counts Is Faith Expressing Itself Through Love

I would love to see people living in the freedom that Jesus died to give us. He died to give us freedom and he rose from the dead to give us life; a life that Jesus called abundant. I find it amazing how, when we are born of the Spirit into the freedom of Jesus, we turn around and allow ourselves to be shackled by other people's idea of salvation.

I want to be clear by repeating what I said yesterday: The only source of salvation is faith in what Jesus has done for us. The scriptures are plain about this:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. (Romans 5:1-2)

Justified through faith, not through anything we do. Anyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved. The thief on the cross beside Jesus is a clear example of that. There was no baptism, no communion, no anything else. There was only a dying, naked man on the cross expressing his faith in Jesus. To him Jesus simply said, "Today you will be with me in paradise".

When we read Paul's letters we see that he was dogged at every turn by the "circumcision group". This group was made up of Christian Jews who would go in after Paul and confuse everyone by saying they could not follow Jesus without first being circumcised. This physical circumcision belonged to the old covenant and was replaced by the circumcision of the heart which happens with salvation:

No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God. (Romans 2:29)

Remember, Jesus came to bring us to a deeper place with God, beyond the surface matters and into the heart matters. These people wanted to stay on the surface of things. They wanted to add a step to salvation. For them it was circumcision that saved, a work of the flesh, which opened the door to follow Jesus. Today we don't have such a focus on circumcision but we do have things like baptism and communion.

Wow, I just heard a lot of monitors closing. Baptism and communion are done in obedience to the Word but in and of themselves they hold no value. They are nothing more than a symbol, a testimony to the world about what has already been done for us in the Spirit. You would not believe how many people do not know this and actually believe they are not saved unless they are baptized and take communion.

I am not against either of this fantastic public testimonies about what Jesus has done for us, but I am against people using them to add a step to salvation. If a person is never baptized and never takes communion he is still well saved if he has called on the name of Jesus Christ. Let's not complicate this and turn it into something it isn't. Justification is by faith alone and if we are relying on other things we are in a lot of trouble.

Now I want you to hear this loud and clear because I want you to experience real freedom. Hear these words from Paul, inspired by the Spirit:

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 2:6)

Hear that loud and clear: The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. You will not take anything into the next stage of our life, eternal life, if it was not born of this faith. It`s great to have such strong symbolism but we must ensure that they do not interfere with the true source of salvation. Remember that snake in the desert, the foreshadowing of Christ, that the generations that followed turned into an object of worship? Some people are doing this with baptism and communion.

Everything that does not come from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)

Now that you are free, do not allow anyone to throw you back into captivity. Keep your eyes on Jesus and only Jesus and let nothing cut in on you and rob you of the source of your salvation. Justification is by faith, alone!