Image problem

The idea that we can be Christians, have Jesus in our life and yet not experience the REAL relationship that we desire is never taught in church. Is it possible that we can do all of the things, be a “pillar of the church” and not be fully and totally committed to our life in Christ? Actually, it is totally possible and many Christians are doing exactly that without even knowing it. There are many who “go through the motions” for years in their self-righteous delusion and they may never find Jesus in this life!

We tend to trust God because the preacher said that we should and because it is in the Bible. But, is that enough? We also create God in our image and place our personality traits in the relationship and look at Him as if He is a reflection of us rather than the other way around!

We are supposed to be reflecting Him and His Son’s image to those who see us, not making God into an image of us. Then when something doesn’t go exactly according to the plan that we have in mind for our life, we blame Him when it is actually our “version” of Him that is the culprit and the REAL problem.

We actually have a problem with our image, not that the image of God isn’t perfect because the real image of God is actually us. The problem is that we, each one of us, tries to make God conform to our image of Him. We try to make Him look like and act like us.

God doesn’t work that way, but He will allow us to make a mess of things while we do this so that He can come in and show us exactly what He can do for us. The image that we have created of Him cannot heal us or bring us to a point of surrender with Him because our image of God is NOT God!

Can this “image” thing be fixed? Yes, but it usually gets fixed when we finally come to a point where we acknowledge that we can’t do it ourselves and things begin to fall apart around us. Then we get angry at the “god” who allowed this and hopefully we will come to the point that we see that we were the cause of our problem and also the cause of the answers not being delivered to us by God like we thought they should be. Why did all of our prayers and tithes and all of the service which we performed in His service not count for what we thought it should?

Because, we were doing all of those things for OUR version…OUR image of God, not the real God but a fake copy of Him which closely resembles us! Our idol, our image, our reflection of us into and onto God. We were trying to do pottery in reverse, and it doesn’t work that way!

Consider that we are like Adam was before God gave him the breath of Life. To a perfectly holy God and our Creator, we are like a clay man or woman. Dirty and not useful for much more than planting things in, but if we realize that God is nothing like us because He is our Creator then we can come into a real relationship with Him. We should get to know Him as a friend and our Teacher, because it is necessary that we learn from Him the way to truly live in Him and allow Him to live in us and through us every day.

Our image is nothing compared to His and we shouldn’t try to imagine Him in our image because we are bringing Him down to our level at that point, in truth we should be striving to be more like Him!

Real Christianity

realsalvation The only way to tell if someone is a Christian, is a real change in their life. One which lasts and is evident in their lives from day-to-day. Life has a way of making this hard to see sometimes because of our work or our everyday life, but its the little things which people notice. Such as, giving thanks for your meal at a fast food restaurant and bowing your head at the table to do so. Having an attitude of peace even during times where others would be under stress and this attitude comes from the Holy Spirit which gives you comfort even in times of trouble.

So, what should you do with this religion? If you haven’t embraced and accepted Jesus as your Savior, what are you waiting for? I realize that there are many who are against Christianity that this is totally out of the question. But…allow me to ask one question of you: If you don’t believe in Jesus or the Bible, then what do you believe in? One other question comes to mind as well: What if you are wrong?

If Heaven and Hell exist, which they both do exist by the way, then do you think there is a reason for belief in Jesus and the Bible? How will you feel after death when you find that life doesn’t end entirely but continues on into eternity and there are consequences for your beliefs, in particular if you have rejected salvation through Jesus.

Please, consider the possibility of the facts contained in the Bible being true. Why am I saying this? Because, I am a pastor and I have to! It is my job requirement, just as it was the apostle Paul who began as Saul. He was a persecutor of Christians, he stood by while Stephen was stoned to death yet God saw that he could be used for spreading the gospel of salvation in Jesus! I will be praying that many of you will give it a serious read in the book of Romans at least.

Christ the Lord!

This was part of the message that was given to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth and it is a great and wondrous thing to know! Why? Because, not only is He the Lord but He can be your Lord and Savior! Jesus loves you so much that He gave up His place in Heaven for a time in order to come to Earth and give His Life for you and me and every person living or who has ever lived!

He is our Creator and our Lord but He is also our Advocate with God in that He refutes Satan’s claim on your life or any of Satan’s accusations against you when you have given your heart to Him! You are never alone in anything that this world throws at you because of His love for you.

If you have never given your life to Him or asked Him into your heart, it is not a hard thing to ask. In fact it is as simple as, “Jesus, I can’t do this on my own anymore. Please come into my heart and fix what is broken and give me the strength to get through each day. Make me more like you, Jesus and in your name I ask for this. Amen.”

IF you mean every word in that prayer, then you are a child of God and you have Jesus in your heart and life from this point on. Now, you have to live it one day at a time, one step at a time. It is hard at times, but with His strength you can do it!

Words….

We write them and speak them every day that we live but it is the spoken word which can do so much in either direction. The Bible says that the tongue is fiery and it can bless and curse almost at the same time. Truly it can and we have all experienced it at some time in our lives. Maybe when we were children and a friend said something which hurt our feelings, even if it was not intentional. Children don’t think about what they say, they just say things which come out of their mouths and many times they are hurtful, mean, and sometimes cruel!

Yes, the tongue can hurt you with words and the attitude which is behind those words are used is another part of the blade which your mouth can wield. So that old saying about sticks and stones is just a lie, because words can and do hurt you. Sometimes the pain caused by words can last a long, long time! Far longer than the bruises from a stone or a stick.

So many times we say things without thinking, even as adults, and we find out later about the hurt feelings that we caused with those words. The problem with words and the pain caused by them is, just like smoke or water, when a word is spoken from your mouth or mine it cannot be recalled. God’s Word is the same. When you read it and re-read it, your soul gets washed in it and by it until your tongue becomes saturated with it too. Eventually, the Holy Spirit will help you get control of it to use it for His Kingdom.

Sometimes, we don’t want to use it that way but when God has a plan for your life which includes preaching, then eventually you will accept your position from Him. Words are what God used to bring the Sun and moon into being and most of creation as well. The only part of the first chapter of Genesis which didn’t use God’s Word was when He made man in His image. He used His hands to mold him into the shape of a man, after scooping up some clay mud from the stream and molding it into the right shape, then He breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life and man became a living soul!

Words and your tongue and mine can have a great impact on someone. Children repeat things that we say, sometimes it is embarrassing but it does happen and everyone who has a child or a grandchild knows it! The tone of your voice is what children and pets pick up on too, and they act or react accordingly. Anger, frustration, and hate can cause far more damage to a relationship between people even when those emotions may not be truly involved at all. If the words that you are saying sound like you are angry, frustrated or seem to have a hateful quality to them then the effect on those around you is the same as if you had struck them with your fists.

Do words and your tongue have this kind of power? Yes, they most certainly do. If you have lived and worked in public you have likely heard it or witnessed it sometime in your life. Seek out God’s strength and provision in your life so that your words don’t cause hurt feelings and damaged lives because many times those can’t be repaired…ever.

What?

I hear this a lot! If I had said that to my father, I would’ve paid for it and I doubt I would’ve said it again!

It seems that in today’s world, many people are saying the same thing in reference to God and His Word and the so-called “rules” that are preached in the pulpit of many churches today. Why do I say many and not all? Because there are many preachers who are not preaching from His Word like they are supposed to.

There are no “rules” in Christianity to keep, other than the Commandments of our Lord. We are not required to study His Word a certain number of hours a day, we aren’t required to wear certain clothes, we aren’t required to do anything. But, consider this: God sent His only begotten Son to give His life as a sinless offering for all of our sins. Then, He was raised from the grave on the third day and appeared to many people until just before the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to His disciples.

God didn’t have to do this, but it was His plan from the beginning where He mentioned this: “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel” (Genesis 3:15).

That “seed of the woman” was Jesus Christ!

The reason that I said that there are no “rules” in Christianity is because once you accept Jesus as your Savior, you have the Holy Spirit living inside your heart. When that happens, you begin being changed from the inside and you want to do those things which so many people call restrictions or rules. You are changed from the person that you were into a new creation in Christ!

Before I truly accepted Jesus as my Savior, I still liked to smoke a cigarette once in a while, now I don’t have the craving to do so. A long time ago, I drank whiskey almost every weekend along with smoking illegal drugs like marijuana. That was more than 37 years ago, I don’t want to do those things anymore. I still have cravings sometimes for a smoke or a beer but God says that He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond that which you are able to bear, and He is true to His Word!

Why do some preachers preach messages which don’t go by God’s Word today? Oh, they use some passages from it, but the message doesn’t necessarily follow the meaning of those passages sometimes. Understand now, I am not picking on preachers in general, there are just a few who have done this. Some of them you have heard of in the news, some are local to me in the area that I live. My point is that if you are truly called to be a preacher for God’s Kingdom, you need to preach from His Word.

I know that some of what I write I don’t include a scripture every time, it is just the “wisdom” that I have learned from reading the Bible for the past ten or fifteen years from Genesis to Revelation. Each time that I read through it, I find something new that I didn’t understand before or maybe the Holy Spirit reveals to me something that He didn’t the last time.

That is the kind of study that God wants from His adopted children. There isn’t a rule that you have to do it, but how else are you going to get to know God if you don’t learn His voice which is revealed in Scripture? Does that make me a “super Christian”? No, just a forgiven and redeemed one! God loves the whole world, which is why He sent His Son into it so that He could live a sinless life and be the blameless, spotless, Lamb of God which would take away the sins of the world!

The offer of redemption is available to each of us, regardless of race, color, or nationality. It doesn’t depend upon your religion or your willingness to be a missionary and there are no requirements of denying yourself of food or water or anything that is available to you. The only part of you that God wants is your heart and your obedience to Him. When He calls you, answer Him. If He leads you to go somewhere to be a missionary, go without question.

This is the God that led Moses through the wilderness and helped him to defeat Pharaoh and release Israel from bondage. God also went with them through the wilderness and fed them manna and gave them and their animals water from the Rock (a type of Jesus). All of this is there to be learned. Sixty six books in the Bible tell the story of God’s love for mankind and show you the Savior Who was to come and Who did come to die for your sins. He will come again, only this time He will be King of Kings and Judge the whole world, those who haven’t accepted Him as their Lord.

What? Is an expression of surprise and sometimes frustration, but it is also used disrespectfully as well. What should you do? If you have felt His call, a small voice or a touch in your heart telling you that you need Him, don’t push Him away. Don’t run like Jonah did, because God is everywhere and He can find you. If He has something for you to do, it means that nobody else can do it….just you! Think about it while you can.

So much to do…

Being a pastor, even of a small church, is a big responsibility. The sermon preparation sometimes takes days, many times more than a few days. Then, sometimes God will lead me to change the subject and the passage that my sermon is based on, even as late as Saturday night or Sunday morning!

Getting the gospel to the people who come to church isn’t hard work, since God gives me the strength and the words to do it but sometimes it feels overwhelming. Those are the days that I have to lean into the Word and seek His guidance and direction. Sometimes, life gets in the way with things like paying bills, grocery shopping, going to a movie with my son, but then sometimes one of those will also prompt me or give me an idea for a sermon.

Jesus worked in His ministry for a little more than three years, but the impact that He had on the lives of a total of 14 men and the impact that they have had on the world is nothing short of miraculous. Fourteen men, the original 12, then Judas Iscariot hanged himself, then he was replaced with another, then Paul (Saul) became a convert/disciple, these are the fourteen that I am speaking of. Yes, there were others who were added later, but these were the closest to Him, even Saul.

Why do I bring this up? Mainly because of the impact that Jesus and all of these men had on their world and the people in it. This impact has spread much farther than any of them could’ve imagined and it is still spreading today! God is doing this, the church and its members are taking their witness to places which it might never have been before. The Internet, satellite television, books, Bibles, all of this is part of the mission and yet, there is still so much to do. So, how many are willing to do the work that needs doing?

I don’t know. There are many who come to church on Sunday morning and never open a Bible. Many don’t even bring one with them. If you are not interested in the Word and its message, to learn about Him and what He has said to us and to the believers which began the church during that first century, then why come at all?

I am not telling people to not attend but you at least be engaged in the learning part of church just as if you were in school, because that is exactly what church is! I am not claiming to know all about the Bible or everything about Jesus but the messages that is spoken in church or written here is just as important, but if you aren’t willing to do the work of reading God’s Word and learning more about Him, then why claim to be a Christian in the first place?

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