Living The Old Testament

I would never be one to tell people to ignore the Old Testament of their Bibles but it is important that we no longer live there. It is important to study to discover Father's heart throughout the Bible and to understand the root of what got us to where we are now. It is important for us to see Father's plan from beginning to end but we no longer live under the old covenant. People don't seem to understand this as they try to live according to the old.

One simple example is king David. I have seen a lot of teaching on this man and his relationship with Yahweh but some of the most damaging teaching is concerning the application of grace. I have read books concerning David's sin with the adultery with Uriah's wife and the eventual murder of Uriah. Yahweh called David out on this hidden sin but applied grace at David's repentance. It is here that we can find fallacy in application of the lesson.

David was under the old covenant. He was pre-Jesus. The blood of Christ did not cover him and he had not received this incredible forgiveness by grace. He was not part of the new creation. This is what some teachers seem to forget when they use David as an excuse to remove men and women of God from their calling when they fail. They point out that David's leadership went downhill after this forgiveness, his child died and he faced new enemies. He was forgiven but his authority suffered. People apply this to leaders today as an excuse to rob them of their calling.

It is terrible when leaders fall as it affects so many people. There are natural consequences to such sin and much healing needs to be sought but healing is possible through Jesus. It is also true that all sin has been forgiven, past, present and future. This applies to leaders as well. As long as we confess our sins, healing and restoration is available for all. It is a fundamental difference between the new and old. Everyone sins and through the blood of Jesus everyone is forgiven and restored. We do not live under the constant threat of judgement.

I have yet to meet a perfect Christian so why would we be surprised when leaders fail? The only true failure is the failure to seek restoration through repentance. What hypocrites we are to seek restoration for ourselves but to deny it for our leaders. We are only forcing a make-believe false reality when we try to apply things like perfection on clay vessels.

Yes, our God is a God of justice. However, he has made it clear that he desires restoration over justice. This is the fantastic news Jesus brought to us. When we read about Church correction we need to see that the whole purpose is restoration not punishment. Rejection only comes with a lack of repentance which is true of our relationship with Yahweh.

We need to lose the Old Testament mentality toward judgement and apply the forgiveness, mercy and grace we have received under Jesus. We need to allow the Spirit to convict and restore according to the heart of the Father. We need to tear down such walls and allow people to confess in the freedom of grace and forgiveness, creating churches of healing and transformation by the power of the blood of Christ.

The God Of Justice

We may not always appreciate it but Yahweh is the God of justice. That means that he rewards the good and punishes the bad. He doesn't fudge the lines between what is good and evil. He also does not excuse the evil for what good he may find in a person. If you lie you are evil even if you just gave a $1000 to some charity or helped an elderly lady cross the street.

Yahweh is also everywhere at once and knows everything. He doesn't just judge our actions but also our heart. He knows our motivation for doing what we do. This is wonderful when we have good intentions but not so good when the good we do comes from a wrong motivation. How can you protect or defend yourself from such a God? We cannot afford to forget he is the God of justice:

Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins. (Leviticus 26:21)

Praise the Lord because he is also the God who desires restoration and reconciliation over justice. He will punish us for our rebellious ways if we do not repent but if we repent he joyfully forgives us of all things, and that grace abounds in our life going forward. We do not need to fear his punishment as we seek a deeper relationship with him and pour our love into him. We are now his and he has forgiven past, present and future. Oh, what praise is due him.

Everyone born on this planet come from the same root; all of us were enemies of Yahweh due to our sin, our rebellious ways. It is the state we were born into because man's actions warped Yahweh's plans from the very beginning. It is a state that we had no hope of escaping because our relationship with our Creator was broken and we had no means to repair it. But he did.

Our path was not a good one, heading toward the justice of our Creator, the judgement against our rebellion. We had no means of turning to the right or left, we did not have that power. Hell awaited us. This was not Yahweh's fault because it was we who had rebelled against him, and his character of justice demanded punishment. But his character of love, mercy, forgiveness and grace found a way to offer reconciliation to his enemies. Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ he opened the door to reconciliation and restoration, but the choice was still left to us:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17-19)

Jesus said that he who has been forgiven much will love much. I remind you of this because Yahweh knows our heart, our motivation, our desires. He knows if we are sincere about Jesus or just being religious. He knows if we are mocking him by using the right words while filled with evil thoughts. He knows if we are conforming to the acceptable instead of being transformed by the incredible. It matters to him, the God of justice.

Today let's examine our hearts and test ourselves to know that our love for Jesus is sincere. Let us make sure that we are not saying we are Christian to please family and friends without even knowing Jesus. Let us make sure that we are not wearing a title simply because it is what we were born into and we don't know any different. Let us make sure that we understand our history with Yahweh, who he is, what he has done for us and what he offers, so that we can make the decision to accept it and be reconciled to him. It is far better to know him as the God of mercy and grace than as the God of justice.

It's Just The Way He Is

Sometimes we don't give Yahweh enough credit. We see him as a calculating genius who is trying to squeeze out the maximum glory from every situation. We don't mind because we desire for him to have all the glory, but we see him this way because often we are this way. Without even realizing it, we squeeze as much advantage out of each relationship and situation as possible. We need to give Yahweh more credit than this because he is definitely more awesome than we are.

Do you realize that often Yahweh does what he does simply because he desires to do it? No hidden agendas; no advantage to himself; no great design; just because he loves us and has compassion for us. I am not making this up because I like to see Yahweh in this light but instead I am seeing it in the Word of God. Look with me at Luke chapter 7.

Jesus was moving about the country when he approached a city by the name of Nain. As he was coming to the city gates a funeral procession was making it's way out. Jesus looked at this grieving widow who was on her way to bury her only son and he was moved by compassion. Her husband was dead so she had no means of support now that her son also was dead. Jesus looked on her situation and was moved to take action. Now, when the Son of God takes actions things happen.

Jesus told the widow not to weep:

Then He came and touched the open coffin, and those who carried him stood still. And He said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” So he who was dead sat up and began to speak. And He presented him to his mother. (Luke 7:14-15)

Of course there was a big commotion and they gave Yahweh the glory for this incredible miracle because glory is the natural product of anything Yahweh does, but this was not the purpose. Jesus simply responded according to the compassion he had for this woman.

Sometimes Yahweh does things in us and through us, not as a result of prayer, but because of his compassion, mercy and grace. He looks on our situation and does not want us to be left there, so he reaches out and causes things to change for our benefit. He does it simply because of who he is, according to his character. Yet, there are lots of times we get into situations where he doesn't automatically saves us.

We need to always keep in mind that he is a Dad and sometimes dads permit their kids to get into awkward or difficult situations to teach them valuable lessons. Like the time you mistakenly hit the ball through the neighbours window. A mistake but one that your dad had you face. Even though he ended up paying for the window it was you he made deal with the neighbour. It doesn't mean he didn't have compassion, it was just the lesson was more valuable than a rescue. Our Father is the same way.

We have done nothing to deserve his love and compassion. In fact, we have done the opposite, often forgetting him and sometimes walking in disobedience. Yet his compassion for us took Jesus to the cross. His compassion for us has him living in us. His compassion for us has him cheering us on to the finish line, equipping us to complete the race we started with Jesus. He is always watching over you, always being moved by your circumstances and sometimes he is not able to contain himself as he reaches out in his compassion for you and causes things to change. It's just the way he is.

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?

Applying Grace

Have you ever met a person of true grace? A person who doesn't hold anything against anyone? A person who has the ability to see people as God sees them; victims of a nature they cannot change? They are amazing people and we should all be like them. Unfortunately we too often forget that this same grace is applied to us every day. We often think it is applied once but we are far from perfect. I can't even imagine what the list would look like if I was to see what God's grace overlooks in my life every day.

I think we just have very poor memories. We forget that we are trophies of grace. We forget that we are not so much examples of how to live a perfect life but an example of how a perfect God lives through us. As such, we should be constantly applying that grace to everyone in our life. It means we never keep a list of wrongs. It doesn't mean we don't deal with the wrongs when they happen. People need to be aware of the consequences of their actions. But grace says that we forgive and we don't remember that offense again. It means every day is a new day with a new slate. It means a decision we take and it means we need the anointing of God to live his grace.

Apostle Paul was in a bad place. Under house arrest, many of his friends had abandoned him. He wrote of one person to Timothy, but he did not state what this man had done to him. Instead he chose to remember the blessings he received from the man:

May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. (2 Timothy 1:16-17)

All Paul could pray for this former man of blessing was that God would show him mercy. No list of wrongs. No angry words. No instruction of vengeance. Instead, a pray from a man who desperately needed people to pray for him:

May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus. (v. 18)

If you have ever faced the pain of rejection, the hurt from being stabbed in the back, you will understand the amount of grace such words take. But Paul was never concerned for himself. He never worried about how people perceived him. He was never looking for followers and supporters. Paul`s concern was where people were with Jesus. Perhaps with such an attitude in life grace flows easier. When we allow things to become personal; when we absorb them into our being; when those words and actions are allowed to take on more importance than they have in the Kingdom of God, grace slips away.

I believe the secret to the advancement of the Kingdom in the hearts of men and women has nothing to do with church marketing and everything to do with grace. If we would only ask for a greater revelation, a greater anointing, a greater application by us in the lives of others, people would begin to see God's heart toward them. No angry or hurtful words from our mouths. No complaining. No words that tear down. Only words and actions that build up, that encourage, that cover. This is the Kingdom I belong to, that I love, and of which I serve.

Have We Gone Too Far In Our Message Of Love?

We should not mistake our loving, merciful and compassionate God to be a neglectful parent. Sometimes we try so hard to emphasize his unconditional love that we leave off that he is also a God of justice. We are in a period of grace where God's wrath and punishment for humanity's crimes are being held off but it will not last forever. We need to take sin seriously. We need to know what sin is. We need to consider it a disease that we want nothing to do with. We need to understand that no sin goes unseen by our God.

The Word is clear on the subject:

Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. (Colossians 3:25)

What is sin? Anything that is contrary to the will and character of God. Hatred is sin. Jealousy is sin. Bringing harm to another person is sin. Living a lifestyle contrary to the holiness of God is sin. Anything that comes against these two things

- love God with your entire being
- love others

is sin. Of course, our Father knew we were slaves to a character that we could not free ourselves from so he gave his Son in a loving act of sacrifice in order that we could be free enough to make a willing choice: God's Righteousness or Sin. Once accepted, we have that choice. But in not choosing we have also chosen. This is the reason why, just after telling us that he came so that whoever wanted to can be saved, Jesus states:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:18)

The world has been condemned and the day of judgement is coming. In all our preaching and teaching on God's love we cannot lose this fact: judgement hangs over the heads of the various people we meet today who have not made the choice for Jesus. Look at each person you see on the bus today or who are standing in the grocery line with you. God's wrath is coming upon these people because our God is a just God. These people are in rebellion to him and they probably don't even know it. They need to be told. Will you tell them?

Before someone can understand why Jesus is so important they need to understand their condition. Once they understand their condition, the importance of Jesus to them, the reality of God's love, compassion and mercy, become clear and vital. Have we gone too far in our message of love? Is the world missing out on the truth? Would they choose differently if they knew?

... because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 5:6)

We have a loving, merciful, compassionate and JUST God.

From Everyone Who Has Been Given Much, Much Will Be Demanded

Let me be straightforward here; this morning I am trying to work out the word I am bringing to my church. It's not an easy word but one we have to hear. We have two many "types" of Christians walking around saying too many different things, shaping the Word of God according to how they want to be able to live. Too many of us can't handle the conviction of the Word and Spirit we find in a book like Romans and instead hide out in the comfort of the psalms. We want to be in the gentle and warm embrace of Jesus while ignoring the direct assault upon our sin that we find in Jesus' words. We want to sing the song of grace without facing the fact of why God needed to show us grace in the first place. We need to look in that mirror.

The reason I say we need to do this is because we forget where we have come from and we haven't a clue where we are going. We have forgotten just how incredible God's grace is and having forgotten where we have come from and having forgotten the reason for God's grace, we have forgotten why it is important to show that grace to others. We are a bunch of Pharisees, living in privilege and condemning those without it. We judge a world enslaved by sin for living by sin, forgetting that we are the ones with the key to help set them free from their prison.

Do you remember the parable that Jesus told of the servant who had received mercy but refused to show mercy? You can read it for yourself in Matthew 18 starting at verse 23, but I will give you the short version. A king was settling accounts and found a man who owed him millions of dollars. Seeing that the man could not pay, the king was about to put him and his whole family in prison but the man begged for mercy. The king canceled his debt but then the man went out and found a friend who owed him $10 and had him thrown in jail because he couldn't pay him back. The king heard about it and canceled the canceled debt and threw the man in jail as well. This is how we often act; we forget what was done for us as we fail to show mercy and grace to others.

So let's remember what was done for us.

In Romans 1 we discover that God considers that everyone is without excuse. Even if people have not read the Word God has revealed himself and his glory in everything around us. There are things we do that we know are wrong without having to be told (v. 24). Every culture condemns those who steal, murder and lie. It is amazing to see how certain values are the same across various cultures and societies. God is all around us and can be seen by those who bother to look, So we are without excuse.

God does not force himself on anyone. We wanted sin so he left us to ourselves. It is like our children as they get closer to adult hood. We are there to encourage them, counsel them, guide them but if they choose to reject what we have to say and choose their own path, we are going to leave them to it, to learn from their mistakes. We hurt for them, for what we know the outcome will be, but they are responsible for their own decisions and actions. This is what it means as we read:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:24-25)

"He gave them over"; he let us decide for ourselves. He is talking about us here. This is where we have come from, it is our past:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23)

This is our debt that we owed the King. This is what we could not pay for. He gave us the freedom to choose and we chose rebellion. Each of us was not without sin, without debt; we owed God big time, much more than millions of dollars. Listen:

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:29-31)

This is us he is describing. This is our history, our past, our origins. It doesn't matter which sin you identify with or even if you identify with them all, doing one is like doing them all.

This is the beauty of our God: He paid what we could not pay. He cancelled out our debt. He forgave ever offence, every act of rebellion, every depraved thought and action. We deserved death but through his own actions in Jesus Christ, he cancelled that death sentence. Knowing this then, we became great sources of forgiveness, mercy and grace, pouring out into others what we ourselves received. Right? If only.

Unfortunately many of us miss the point and think that God has done this for us because we are special. We are no more special than the druggy in the back ally. The only difference is we have accepted God's grace and mercy and that poor man in that back ally hasn't yet. God's love and attention on us all is equal. So having received this grace we should become sources of grace, not condemnation:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. (Romans 2:1)

 We are no different than any other human being on the face of this planet; we all come from the same place. The difference comes in what we have accepted from God. We have accepted his mercy and grace where others have not. We can identify with where these people are, the darkness that engulfs them, the sin that imprisons them. Patience and love should be easy things for  us, as should be grace and forgiveness. Jesus told us this:

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:48)

Much grace has been given to us so much grace is demanded from us. Instead of running away from the world we should be running to it. Not to become engaged with sin again and not to throw rocks at those who are still lost in sin, but instead to be the nurses and doctors that this world needs. We have the key to share with them that will set them free, but refusing to give them the key while throwing rocks at them is just wrong. We will have to answer for that. According to Jesus' parable, the king will cancel our cancelled debt and we will stand alongside those we have judged to be judged ourselves.

We need to do more than apply God's grace to ourselves and consider ourselves a cut above society. We need to live God's grace by applying it to others so they too will understand what we have understood and receive what we have received. Our actions and attitudes cannot be a barrier to those who want to know God because if they are we will have to answer for it, and it will not go well for us. There is much more to this life than the comforts we seek. We are here as an example of God's glory and grace so let's start living the part.

Killing Off The Sick And Injured

It's funny how we so often take the things of God and manage to make it all backwards. We get caught up in this idea of perception provoked by appearance. For some reason we have created this bubble in the Church where, how people perceive us is more important than who we really are. It's probably because Christians are terrible at living the grace of God toward each other. Often we are more like piranhas when we see someone is injured, broken, or messed up.

What is your first thought when you hear of the sins of some respectable member of your church? Can you believe that people actually stop attending church because of the imperfections of others? We see the Church as some kind of Crystal Cathedral instead of the hospital that it is. Really damaged people come in, expecting to find healing for their wounds. Here they are ministered to by the Holy Spirit and cared for by this incredible family of God. It is a place where sins are washed away and a new creation emerges. It is a place of change and transformation; a place of forgiveness and redemption. So why do we put up with this attitude of judgement and execution?

We forget that we all have testimonies that are to be used to glorify God. They are not things of shame that that we hide away and try to pretend never happened. We don't live in the guilt of those things and we do not celebrate the sin but we do celebrate our rescue from that sin. I look at my life, what it could have been if not for the love, mercy and grace of Jesus. It is a thing that should bring joy to every Christian's heart, instead of condemnation. Condemnation doesn't even make sense. Are we going to condemn someone for what they did when they had no choice; when they were enslaved to sin? How can we condemn the redeemed of God for their past when God has transformed them into his child by his love?

Apostle Paul did not hide his testimony. He never forgot where he came from but he also knew what God did with it:

I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.  (Galatians 1:22-24)

That's something to say, isn't it? "They praised God because of me." They knew what he had been but they could see what God had done and they praised God because of this trophy of grace. The Church is overflowing with these trophies of grace, a people who were not God's people, who had been lost in rebellion and the ugliness of sin, now a nation, God's righteous children, the redeemed of the blood of the Lamb. We are all trophies of grace and we cannot forget our testimony. We may not all have been murderers and bank robbers but we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all have a testimony and the Church would be a much more colourful place if we would stop worrying about perception and just be real and honest with people.

People who are sick are not interested in going to places where they kill the sick. The sick want to go to a place where their sins are understood and identified with, where healing is available and where recovery is believed possible. Jesus is the doctor and we are the nurses and nurses don't kill patients. Let the Church be what she was intended to be; change your attitude.