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As we've worked through the book of Galatians, we've touched on the purpose of the Law (the Old Testament and it's commands, rules, and regulations) and how it relates to the Gospel. This is often perplexing to believers and can lead to some faulty beliefs. Please take some time, put on your thinking cap, and learn from this discussion.
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I found this to be helpful. It comes from Ray Ortlund. Years after Luther stayed at the Castle Coburg during the Diet of Augsburg, a friend visited the room he had used as a study and found that Luther had written on the walls the thoughts that stabilized him day by day. They included: Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” This is the structure Jesus teaches us to pray – these are crucial and essential elements of prayer.
Consider it as a house with many rooms – and you enter into the house and are overwhelmed with the presence of a good and holy and perfect Father who has greeted us with mercy and grace and pleasure – and His love is indescribable and unending and overflowing. And you walk into the room of His holiness and gaze at His glory and spend some time in that room praying for His name to be hallowed – in your thoughts and actions; in your family; in your church; in your workplace; in our country; in the world. Then you enter into the Kingdom room and see the beauty of God’s reign and rule. And as you sit on the couch of God’s Sovereign authority, you plea for God to bring the fullness of His kingdom to earth now! To establish his absolute rule, to defeat the powers of evil completely and make all wrongs right and forever crush the power of sin entirely… And, until He does that, we seek His rule to be advanced in our own lives, conquering sin and the rebellion of our hearts, producing in us more love and joy and peace and loyalty and obedience. And from the Kingdom room, we walk into the room of His sufficiency – this is a large room with three closets – one is His sufficiency for our daily needs – and we linger in that closet seeking His provision over our day – for safety and income and health… and the supplying all our other needs. From there we walk to the closet of forgiveness… finding yet again, that the cross of Christ is more than sufficient in covering our sins – that as we confess to God our dreadful sins against Him, our hearts are pointed to the cross and there we are overcome with joyous confidence that God is still and will always be for us – never condemning us. As we leave that closet, we leave the door open, knowing that we will probably return there frequently throughout the day. And then we enter into the closet of spiritual protection – we gain confidence in the power of God to overcome our sinful desires and keep us near Him in purity and holiness. And this is where we long to stay most of the day – in the sufficiency and satisfaction of our Father as we enter into a war zone – our hearts and souls being attacked all the day; with lies and deceit abounding… oh how we need to abide in the presence of our Father and look to Him to keep us from temptation. This is the house of prayer that Jesus has built for us to abide in… this is how Jesus is teaching us to pray. THIS IS HOME! What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I am not my own, but belong– body and soul, in life and in death– to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. (The Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 1, as posted on Kevin DeYoung's blog) I love technology; it can be a great blessing. We know that it is a gift from God and part of His common grace to all mankind. But like any blessing, it can move... from being leveraged to serve our King, to becoming king. We must thoughtfully consider technology's place in our lives. Is it being used as a tool to serve our King, or has it become a king in our lives where we are slaves to it and obey its calling out to us? I've included a video below from John Piper who has a timely word we should consider. I trust it helps. Pastor Dave If you struggle with your Personal Quiet Time (Devotions, Daily Bible Reading and Prayer Time), this should help. "To begin the day with God is the great secret of walking through the day with God""What a privilege this the moment that 'slumber's chain' is broken, and we wake to duty and toil (perhaps to temptation and trial), to raise the soul to God, and seek to fill your soul at this Infinite Fountain of life, love and bliss --- with such thoughts and feelings and purposes as will give us a hallowing, soothing, and controlling influence upon the day! Before the secular commences, to begin with the Spiritual. Before care insinuates, to preoccupy the mind with peace. Before temptation assails, to fortify the heart with prayer. Before sorrow beclouds, to irradiate the soul with Divine sunshine. What a precious privilege this is!" "A morning without God is the precursor of an uneasy, cloudy and dark day.""It is like a morning around whose eastern horizon thick vapors gather, veiling the ascending sun, and foreshadowing a day of storm.
'The first thing I do when I awake in the morning,' remarks an aged saint of God, 'is to ask the Holy Spirit to take possession of my mind, my imagination, my heart, directing, sanctifying, and controlling my every thought, feeling, and word'." (This comes from, Morning Thoughts, or Daily Walking with God by Octavius Winslow, Preface -- Kindle Edition: http://amzn.to/PbrEUx)  1) I don’t read blogs (or many books for that matter) because: My passion and desire is to live for Christ in the purest form possible.
While walking with Christ is NOT complicated, it is hard. What makes it a battle? What makes walking this earth as the Child of the all-powerful, all knowing, sovereign, living God of the universe difficult? Deception and unbelief do. In my last post I talked about sticking with pure truth as much as possible to avoid deception. This time we’ll focus on faith – or lack thereof. Our “difficulties” in following Jesus should be faith purifying experiences. Right? James tells us to count it all joy when meet trials of various kinds. We ought to be counting it all joy because the final outcome of suffering and trials should be a deeper faith in Christ. The potential danger of looking to anything or anyone other than the Word of God to guide us in our walks and battles against sin is the improper focus of our faith. Our faith needs to be in Christ to get us through trying times NOT man. This is why God through Paul tells us: 1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 (ESV) It is of utmost importance that our faith is in the power of God not man (including ourselves). A misguided faith is a weak and faltering faith because it will fail and failure will be our experience. Conversely, faith in God is a faith that will growth because our experience will be in Him Who is always true and faithful. The danger of running to a book (other than God’s Word) for comfort when we are struggling is that our faith then rests in the wisdom of the author rather than the power of God. We are not followers of man and it can be dangerous to become so reliant on a person that we are recalling what they have to say rather than what God says. Let me put it this way by posing a couple of questions. Do you quote scripture or other men and women when the battle is fierce? Do you stand on the promises of God and have faith in the power of God or do you remember what an author said in your favorite book? The difference is profound and the results will reveal where our faith is. If our faith is truly in God and Him alone then victory is ours to have. This post is already longer than I intended but two points scream out to be addressed. First, in all humility and love I tell you I certainly have NOT arrived to the depth of faith where victory is found all the time. But truth is truth and just because I don’t have victory all the time doesn’t change the reality that when our faith is in Christ and Him alone, we will walk as we ought. I am who I am by the grace of God and press on. Second, the reality is books are good, teaching is good and preaching is good….as long as the author, the teacher and the preacher are PUSHING you back to the Word and Power of God. Please use your God given discernment and if the book you are reading does not put your focus on the Word of Christ then put it down and read a different one, preferably the Bible. Alive to God in Christ Jesus, Pastor Fred  1) I don’t read blogs (or many books for that matter) because: my passion and desire is to live for Christ in the purest form possible.
When it comes to growing in our walk with Christ, why is important to read books and be taught by those God has gifted His church with to serve in that manner and to avoid books and teachings by unbelievers? Or to pose the question in a more direct manner as in my last post; why can it be dangerous and stifling to be taught (book or sermon) by anyone not Spirit led? Many reasons exist but we’ll focus on two. First, the simple answer is deception. If we desire to know and do truth (CBC core value #1), if we really want to pursue after truth and find freedom in Christ….drum roll please…..then stick with truth. Right? Simple, isn’t it? Listen now brothers and sisters, walking with Christ is NOT complicated. Yes, the unreachable and unknowable depth of God’s word is profound. And the riches found by digging deep in the Word are worth much more than silver or gold. However, get this and get this good; The Gospel of Christ is as simple as it is deep. Here’s how we walk with God. Know truth (Christ), by grace and in faith walk in truth (Christ). Nothing more, nothing less; truth and faith, know God and believe God. Religions complicate things, God simplifies them. And so here is why it can be dangerous and stifling to our walk to read anything not Spirit led: because the ONLY way to complicate this simplicity is with deception. Whether the deception we are exposed to is intentional as it was by Satan in the garden and as he still deceives today or unintentional as delivered to us by well-meaning teachers and authors doesn’t really matter; deception is dangerous and stifling. Deception places doubt in our minds regarding the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God. The only Book ever written in which we can be absolutely certain that there isn’t a single shred of deception, intentional or otherwise, is the Bible. That is why I tend to stick to the Word, there is NO deception in the Word of Christ, it is pure truth. Lord willing in my next post we’ll look at reason number 2. In His Peace, Pastor Fred  1) I don’t read blogs (or many books for that matter) because: My passion and desire is to live for Christ in the purest form possible.
With our foundation set on Christ and Him alone let’s delve into other resources outside of the Bible. First let me say that I’m not a “lone Ranger” Christian. Yes, I’ve read books and have been edified by them. And yes, I do follow one blog right now. It is being written by a dear sister in Christ who is sharing her heart and journey after tragically (God ordained) losing her husband (my friend and brother in Christ) in a work accident last year. So if I do read some books and I’m following a blog what gives? Well the reality of being God’s adopted son is I’m not an only child. God has gifted His body of believers with those who understand and teach us about Him. These brothers and sisters are enlightened by the Holy Spirit to understand the Word of God and are empowered by the Holy Spirit to teach and preach it. Knowing which books are from gifted brothers and sisters in Christ is where discernment comes in. And I want to clearly qualify this next statement by saying of course we read secular books to learn about history, math, science and other informative subjects to live life. However, when it comes to growing more like Christ and closer to our Father in heaven, for most of us, it can be dangerous and stifling to our walks to read anything not of the Spirit. If we desire to love God and each other deeper then we need to be taught the Word of God in the power of God and He has given (gifted) us each other to do it together. It’s truly that simple. Lord wiling next post we’ll look at why being taught (book or sermon) anything not Spirit lead can be dangerous and stifling. Also, how to tell the difference. In His Peace, Pastor Fred  1) I don’t read blogs (or many books for that matter) because: My passion and desire is to live for Christ in the purest form possible.
As radical as the reality of the combination of God’s Word and God’s Spirit being the purest form of learning and living truth may be to some…it is TRUE. Nothing can or should be said to soften this truth AND believing it is important in our growth in Christ. The next word in this blog is important. It is not ”however”, “but” or “conversely”. The next word is “therefore”, “consequently”, or “building on that truth” or “with this always in mind”. So let’s try this. There is only one source of pure truth and that is Christ and His Word, and there is only one perfect teacher of His Word and that is the Holy Spirit. (PERIOD!) Knowing, believing and always remembering that truth, when we read, hear, touch, taste, smell, see or feel ANYTHING in our lives, it must be authenticated by the Word and Spirit of Christ as kingdom of God truth or it is deception. (SECOND PERIOD!) Do you agree with this? For me, the previous paragraph is Non-negotiable. And quite honestly it should be for anyone that calls themselves a Christian. As God’s children, by grace through faith we follow the Word of Christ by the guidance and power of the Spirit of Christ for the glory of God. NOW, we are ready to move on…..in the next post. In His Peace, Pastor Fred |
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