The Pattern of a Life

[i]

Friday, March 15, 2019

Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example.  For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ.  They are headed for destruction.  Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth.  But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives.  And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.  Philippians 3:17-20(NLT)

Paul said two things here that make us sit up and take notice. 

1.     Follow me…pattern your life after the way I act in following Jesus.

2.     When it comes to Jesus, there are only two possibilities – you believe, or you don’t; the difference is that black and white!

In making this point Paul says that those who are not truly citizens of heaven are enemies of the cross.  Most of the people I’ve known who refuse to be identified as a follower of Christ don’t really consider themselves “enemies of Jesus” or His gospel…they just don’t believe or think all the “religious stuff” is silly. 

But Jesus made it that plain.  And when he said those words to his disciples it must have been a memorable statement, because both Matthew and Luke record it with precisely the same words Jesus gave to them:

Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.                             Matthew 12:30(NLT) & Luke 11:23(NLT)

So, if you refuse to be a disciple, you don’t have to set up a war room against the kingdom; just by not serving Christ and His Kingdom, you are still an enemy of the cross.  In or out…that’s not hard to understand!

The other statement Paul makes is to encourage the Philippian believers to follow his example in following Christ.  I have to say, as a pastor this one gives me the willies!  It’s one thing to personally-accept the responsibility to follow Christ and do your utmost to surrender your life to His leading; it’s quite another to put yourself out there as a pattern for other people.  It seems somehow either arrogant (do this like me…I’m your pattern) or it seems dangerous, like you are taking-on the responsibility of success or failure in someone else’s eternal spiritual life.  Paul was a million-times more a faithful disciple of Jesus than I am, but he wasn’t perfect.  He made mistakes.

Now if that’s the case, there must be something more here.  It’s my opinion that Paul was looking back over his life at how he’d tried with everything in him to do right, and to proclaim the name of Jesus.  In the process he’d learned how to follow Jesus (and how NOT to follow Jesus).  And in that he could say to his beloved Philippian clan:  do what I did…give it your all, right sometimes, blowing it at other times…but don’t just stand there waiting for holiness to fall into your lap…stand up, stand up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross.

For You Today

So, what pattern is your life taking-on? 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO

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[i] Title Image:   Pixabay.com

Faded Flowers and Withered Grass

[i]

Monday, May 1, 2017

For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end.  Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.  As the Scriptures say, “People are like grass; their beauty is like a flower in the field.  The grass withers and the flower fades.  But the word of the Lord remains forever.”  And that word is the Good News that was preached to you. 

1 Peter 1:23-25^(NLT)

In 1897 America’s premier folk-author, Mark Twain, published a statement to announce that he was quite alive and well; this is what the ad said:

James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine, was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now.  The report of my illness grew out of his illness; the report of my death was an exaggeration.[ii]

It seems just about everything Mark Twain ever wrote was with his tongue pressed firmly against his cheek.  Even reports that he had died gave him great opportunity to bring a ragged barb of humor to his readers.

Peter brings this same edge to Scripture, comparing the life cycle of flowers and grass to humans.  The grass withering and the flowers fading are pictures of old age on the precipice of eternity.  But, standing in opposition to the grip of death is the Word of God; Peter says it is Good News of eternal life which stands firmly with God forever.  And any report of Scripture’s demise is more than an exaggeration; it is laughable!

And therein blooms the choice of the ages:  to accept the truth that it is Good News, or reject the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus as an exaggeration of deluded people.  In reality, this is the choice facing anyone who has ever heard the Gospel of Good News, to take a leap of faith and entrust these few short years of flowered existence on planet Earth, AND the possibility of life beyond the fading, to a God they’ve never seen.  That’s more than a big question; it is the question to end all questions.

Ultimately everyone makes a choice.  The challenge of the Gospel is that, nobody gets to remain neutral when it comes to Jesus Christ.  Here’s the way Jesus put it:

Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.  Matthew 12:30^(NLT)

So the choice to not choose is a choice nonetheless; if you ignore Christ you have chosen against Him.  And, according to the Gospel, to choose against Christ is to choose the withering and fading of all hope of eternal life in favor of a living death, separated from the Creator eternally.

But the choice for Christ, to acknowledge his grace in dying on the cross for our sins, is a choice for resurrection and life eternal.

For You Today

If you have never accepted that grace of Jesus Christ, you can do that with a simple prayer from your heart.  Confess your sins to God and receive in exchange for your sins Jesus’ life.  That’s quite a deal; you have the opportunity to trade your sentence of eternal death for his gift of new birth and eternal life. 

And it really is Good News!  And THAT is not an exaggeration at all!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

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 ^I Title image: Photographs by JarrahTree, via Wikimedia Commons

[ii] Mark Twain, 1897.^[4]

Islam and Christianity; Same God?

[1]

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Devotion VIDEO here

“You must not have any other god but me.”  Exodus 20:3^(NLT)

Islam, the faith of the Muslim community, and Christianity have some core beliefs in common; the question which is disturbing and often missed entirely by both groups is:  do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?

Two weeks ago Professor Larycia Hawkins at Wheaton College (a Christian university) was put on administrative leave to reconsider her statements that the college considers inconsistent with Christian doctrine:

[She] “…had stated on Facebook, I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book.  And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God.” [2]

Responding in an article, former Muslim, Nabeel Qureshi wrote:

…the Christian God, both in terms of what he is (Triune) and who he is (Father, Son, and Spirit) is not just different from the Muslim God; He is fundamentally incompatible.  According to Islam, worshiping the Christian God is not just wrong; it sends you to Hell.  They are not the same God.[3]

Qureshi states three reasons he makes this assertion:

1.     Christians believe Jesus is God, but the Quran is so opposed to this belief that it condemns Jesus worshipers to Hell (5.72)

2.     According to Jesus, God is our Father, yet the Quran very specifically denies that Allah is a father (112.1-4). In fact, in 5.18, the Quran tells Muslims to rebuke Jews and Christians for calling God their loving Father because humans are just things that God has created.

3.     Islam roundly condemns worship of the Trinity (5.73), establishing in contrast its own core principle: Tawhid, the absolute oneness of God. Tawhid specifically denies the Trinity, so much so that it is safe to say the doctrine of God in Christianity is antithetical to the doctrine of God in Islam. Not just different but completely opposed to one another.

Qureshi makes the important point that because people hold different ideas about God, we ought not demonize them.  This only creates more hostility – and that’s one thing our culture does not need.

On the other hand, serious Christians should have these differences held in clear distinction in order to help others who blindly state that we all serve the same God.   Nothing could be further from the truth.

How you “view” God and the doctrines you hold about how God treats people, thinks about people and wants us to treat people, will create your worldview, and color all your decisions. 

I personally think we can stand in solidarity with Muslims on the issues of peace, justice and treating others with kindness…in short, anything that does not deny our faith.  But to hold that we serve the same God is to try to do something that neither religion embraces. 

Jesus set the bar that separates Christianity from every other religion:

Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.   Matthew 12:30^(NLT)

For You Today

Shoot the messenger here if you must, but Muslim Islamic faith does not worship the same God as those who are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

You chew on that out on that Rocky Road today…and have a joy-filled and blessed day!

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[1] Title image:  By Carlos Latuff (http://twitpic.com/3wwrxv) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[2] Nabeel Qureshi article:  Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

[3] Ibid.