Sometimes I struggle. I don’t understand why things happen or don’t happen. I start to feel like I am missing something. Like maybe I am being shorted in life or something. I start to feel like my faith is weak. But then God steps in (and He always steps in) and reminds me that it is not the size of my faith that is the problem but the focus of my faith. I start thinking about how I am good at this or that and I deserve this or that.
My father-in-law used to tell me “dead men don’t have rights.” Colossians 3:3 says “you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Galatians 2:20 says “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (that’s a little King James for ya). The point is that my faith sometimes gets misplaced. It starts to be about me and not Jesus. I need to be reminded that I am in Him and He in me. He is the Author and Finisher (or Perfector) of my (or the) faith. If I stand in my faith in myself I will fall but if I stand in Him and faith in Him then I stand. #faith #God #Jesus
What is the confession of your hope? For me, it is not in material things or a promise of an easy life because goodness knows that is fleeting. It is not that everything will go right either. No, the confession of my hope is that I trust in Jesus. I trust in Jesus to be there when all hope seems lost. I trust in Jesus to comfort me when I morn. I trust in Jesus to make all things work together for good because I know I have been called by Him. I trust that when I said “Lord you can have my life if you want it” He said yes. I trust in Jesus to not only be Savior but also Lord of my life. I trust Jesus loves me, that He has a plan and calling for my life. I trust Jesus to lead. I trust that the Jesus knows I am not perfect and takes me anyway. That is the confession of my hope and I am confident that He will keep His promises!
The word “therefore” appears 24 times in the book of Hebrews (hscb). That means 24 times in Hebrews the author was saying because of that you should ______. Here for example they are saying that because we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weakness we should boldly approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace. I am not sure about you but I often need mercy and grace. The Bible tells me where and how to get it. It tells me that God has it for me because Jesus sympathizes with me. He gets me. He understands me and knows I am weak. He js not sitting there shaking His head at me. No instead, He is there saying it’s ok come to me I’ve got this. Come and rest. Enter my rest I have for you. What a friend, what a brother, what a God.
Therefore I will go to Him and get what He has for me.
I come to you today from the Magic Kingdom; well almost from the Magic Kingdom. I am down in Orlando for work and I am really close to Disney. I am not sure what all the sights are but I think I can see the giant golf ball looking thing. Like I said I am down here for work and will not be able to take in the sights but it is really cool that I am so close to everything. I mean I may not be “in” Disney but I am really close. I guess you could say I am practically in Disney because goodness if I was any closer I would be “in” Disney. Right?
No of course not! I am not in Disney anyone who has been to Disney will tell you that if I am not in the park then I might as well be in Kalamazoo. You can be close but if you are not “in” Disney then you are not “in” Disney. To be near is not the same as being in. I do not see the mouse, the duck, the dwarfs, or anyone else (save some cardboard cutouts in the lobby). Why because I am not “in” Disney. Close is not in no matter how close you are. If I was “in” Disney I would not be talking to you right now. I would be doing Disney things. Now I don’t really care that I am not in Disney because I am here for work and not with my family. But it does serve as an illustration.
God has something for you. He has a plan and a purpose for you to walk in. He has something that He wants for you. Something that has been set up for you. For starters, it is a relationship. Jesus died on a cross taking sin and shame to the grave so you could be in a relationship with Him. That is number 1 and really everything else comes from that thing. There is no getting to the other things until you get to that place. God loves you so much, and He has so much for you but you cannot get it by being close. You cannot get the relationship with Him by being near it no you need to be “in” it. You can go to church and not have. You can read the Bible and not have it. You can hang out with Christians and not have it. Like the old saying says “standing in a garage doesn’t make you a Cadillac.” If you want to have a relationship with God then you need to be “in” relationship with Him. Colossians 3:3 says “for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” When you come to Christ the old person you were is dead and you get a whole new life.This new life has its place “in” Christ. To have this new life, you just have to ask Jesus for it.
I don’t want to sound all prosperity gospel or anything but now that you have a new life in Christ you are meant to reign. This is probably the hardest part too. I know many Christians (myself included) who either sit or have sat on the sidelines and made themselves second class citizens. We believe we are forgiven and that God has accepted us but we should not receive anything more than that. But that is not what the Bible says. Actually, it says the exact opposite in Romans 5:18 when it says “how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” Before this Paul is talking about how in Adam you sin and die but now in Christ, you reign.
That’s it you were meant to reign! But if you want to do that then you have to walk in it. Like I said I am not in Disney just because I am near it. No, if I want to experience Disney then I need to go be in it. I can sit up in my room for the next 30 years and still never be in Disney, and as Christian, you can sit there so close to victory and never be in it because you won’t leave the room. So please leave the room. Get up and get out. Go to what God has for you. Go into the things He has planned because there is nothing better than what He has for you. There is so much waiting for you. So much planned for you. Whatever it is that God has for you is amazing. He has something so great for you and when you get there you are going to wonder why it took you so long to leave the room.
Last through; God loves you enough to accept you where you are but He also loves you enough to not leave you there.
Is the Bible reliable? Should we trust what it says? Should we even trust that the books that are in it should be? I have heard as I am sure you have different comments on the Bible such as it has been translated so many times we do not know it originally said, it has been edited so many times we cannot know what was originally said, or that the contents were cherry picked. Now, at first, these claims might seem to have some weight and make many people respond with “yeah that’s right”, but it is not right at least not in the way people mean it.
I want to start with by saying these are very good questions. I think they are important questions too. If we are going to base our lives off the teachings in this book called the Bible we should know it’s origins. We should know about the book and how it came to be. Who wrote it, and is it reliable are good and important questions. I know sometimes people ask these questions or make these statements as a way to be difficult but as Paul said in Philippians 1:18 “But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice.” So I am ok with questions as long as it gets the ball rolling.
So one claim laid against the Bible is that we don’t really know what was said right? Well, that is not exactly true. In fact, it is more like the opposite of that. We do not have the original writings (autographs) but we do have copies (manuscripts). Now I am sure at this point you might think great copies but let’s decide what the parameters for judgment are before we rush in. For Homer’s Iliad we do not have the originals but we do have 643 copies and they are about 95% in agreement with each other.That is a pretty good average. The writings of Aristotle, for example, only have about 49 copies, but most people though are ok that those are Aristotle’s words. Pliny and Plato only have 7 copies, so you can see copies are hard to come by. Where does the Bible come in then? Well, there are about 6,000 Greek copies of New Testament and 10,000 Latin copies. With that, they agree about 99% of the time on substantive issues. You might think I through that part to be tricky but we are all about transparency here at Freedom in Truth. There are actually some 200,000 – 300,000 variations and that sounds real bad, but in fairness the vast majority have no meaning. It is things like a scribe did not dot his I’s and so on. For real issues, there is only about a 1% variation. To be even more transparent most Bible translations will even tell you if there is an issue with a text. Look at John 8 for example. This just being a high-level overview we’ll stop there but we can see that what we have in our Bible today is about 99% accurate to what was written originally.
What about it being translated all the time? Good question and we need to address that in two parts. Part one Latin and Greek. The New Testament was written in Greek originally and then shortly later translated into Latin. If you are a Catholic then you more than likely have a Bible translated from Latin. Most Protestant Bibles are translated from Greek and are translated from either the Majority Text or the Textus Receptus (possibly a combo). These are two great bodies of text that make up what we have. So yes the Bible was translated but from that language into yours. Really the idea of “the Bible being translated all the time” is true but from the source language into another one not from one to another to another and so on.
Lastly and I know this a crowd favorite but no the Bible was not created by a church council in a dark room. Yes at one point the New Testament Canon was closed meaning that it was recognized that these are the books that belong; however, it was not a single meeting that made this happen but a long tradition of acceptance. It would help if we looked at a document called the Muratorian fragment (or Muratorian Canon) because this is a very old document and list at least 22 of the 27 New Testament books. How old is it you ask? Well accepted dating puts it at about 170 A.D. This means that before the church councils ever got together to “decide” what books belong in the Bible there was an accepted list that was a few hundred years older than them.
But didn’t they do some choosing? I think a better phrase would be did they have a test to know what belonged and that answer is yes. They looked at four things to see if the book was valid. 1) Apostolicity – Direct or indirect association of a given work with an apostle. Matthew, John, Peter, Paul, etc. direct. Mark, Luke indirect but worked with the apostles. 2) Orthodoxy – Did the book conform to apostolic teaching? 3) Antiquity – Was the writing produced during the apostolic era? 4) Ecclesiastical Usage – Was it widely used in the early church? So it was not a willy-nilly I don’t like what that book says, instead, what has already been accepted.
I do not find any reason to doubt that the books in the Bible were written when they were written or that they belong. Now I concede that there could be edits to some books for clarification purposes (John 8 again as an example), or that or occasion the authorship maybe should be attributed to different writers, but these things do not change the story, message, or relevancy of the Bible. It is an issue that at least for me has been put to rest. Maybe now that you know a little more about it, you can put the issue to rest and feel good that the Bible is indeed God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).
I want to take a minute today to talk about something called the Babel Problem. The Babel Problem is got its name from the Tower of Babel incident in Genesis 11. If you’re not familiar with the story it goes like this. Nimrod decides that even though the people were supposed to spread out and fill the land they would stay where they were. The people wanted to build a great city and tower to touch heaven. But what was the tower? The tower was more than likely a ziggurat and at the top of it was a temple. Basically, it is a tower made out of mud bricks and the temple is like an apartment. Their assumption was that God needed things, and if they provided what God needed then He would bless them. Instead of blessing them though God confused their language so they would spread out like He said to do. With a name like Nimrod, what should we expect?
Walton and Hill in their book Old Testament Today define the Babel Problem this way “The problem is that people have corrupted the concept of God.” I think that is a pretty good definition. If I could simplify it anymore it would be to say we have made God into something we like. I say it that way because when they decided to build the tower the people included this statement “Let us make a name for ourselves otherwise we will be scattered” They wanted to reach God on their terms and in their way. They wanted to be the ones who decided what God was like and how He should act. God was clear in what He wanted; He told them to spread out over all the earth (Gen 9:7) but this group decided that they knew best. The figured they could coax God into blessing the work of their hands because they either did not take the time to get to know Him, or care what He had said. Although, I suppose it could also be a combination of the two.
Sometimes we have this idea that we cannot know God so we write Him off. We decide that because the idea of eternity is too big to understand there cannot be anything more after this life. Maybe we have decided that because we cannot measure God in a laboratory then He does not exist. Maybe we decide that because bad things happen there cannot be an ultimate love in the universe. That because of the pain we see God cannot be real; after all, if God was real why would there be so much hurting. Because we have corrupted the concept of God and therefore, do not really know Him we find ways to discredit Him altogether. We can find a thousand ways to do it but, in the end, it the same message “I know best, so I will make my name great.”
The other part of the problem was they wanted God to bless them on their terms. We still do this. We come up with ways to make God pleased with us. Ways to earn His favor, or to convince Him into blessing us. Then when our ideas fail we blame God because He didn’t conform to our image. But, the problem was not and is not God, instead, it’s us. We cannot make Him love us, we cannot earn His blessings, and we cannot earn His favor. These are gifts that He gives to us because He is good. Because of the peace we have through Jesus we get to enjoy Him. It is not a matter of being good enough because you can’t be. You will never be good enough. We just need to enjoy Him. Martin Luther in the shorter Catechism answers the question what is the chief end of man, and that is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
When we create the rules for how God should operate the only one bound to those rules is us and that is a problem. God is not going to change His nature to fit in our box just because we want to play God and that is a big part of the Babel problem. When we decide who God is and how He should act we doing two things; we are playing God and we are creating a false god. It is false because it is not the real thing it is a construct of our own imagination, and it can be done in a variety of ways. However we do it the outcome is the same; we walk away disappointed. We might say things like “how could God xxx”, “but I did xxx”, “why would God xxx” or add your own statement. We have all at times done it.
We need to get back to what He said. We have to go back to what He has already told us about Himself. Read the Bible, and I mean the whole Bible. Don’t neglect the Old Testament because it was written before Christ. There is so much there that we need. Leviticus, for example, is a wonderful book when you look and see God is telling us about Himself. Over and over again God says something and then says “I am Holy” so we should read about why and how He is holy. That does not mean we need to follow the Mosaic Law but we should look at what God says about Himself. Read the whole Bible because God gave it to us so we could start to understand who He is. I guarantee you this one thing whatever you think you know about God is short of the full picture because God is so much bigger than you can ask, think, or imagine.
As a Christian I am familiar with verses like Hebrews 4:16 that says we should boldly approach the throne of God or Matthew 17:20 that says if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we can move mountains. I also know that Romans 4 tells me I have peace with God and access to Him. I know these things and believe them. I believe that I have been grafted in and that God is pleased with me through Christ. The problem I struggle with is not that I do not believe these things it is I get confused when I pray and seek Him only to find that something did not come about. That was until the other day.
Right now I am going for something and it is big maybe even huge. Probably one of the biggest things I have tried for and if I told you then your own comfort zone might get shaken and you would tell me to stop. It is something that would be an amazing opportunity and I quite possibly have no right (according to some) to try for it. Because it is so big, and because it is so beyond me I feel this constant pull to not go for it. I am reminded of all the other big things that I have tried for and some that have failed. Maybe I should just stop and realize that it is too big for me. I should look back at other similar things and simmer down. If I ask God for something big and it does not come about then either God failed (which cannot happen) or my faith was weak. Right?
Well, the other day I felt like God reminded me of something I knew but forgot. The results are not for me to determine. It is for God to decide and it is for me to petition. Philippians 4:6 says I am to bring all my needs and request to God and be thankful. So I do not rest in the results but in God. I am thankful that I have access to God Almighty. Maker of Heaven and Earth. The One who spoke the world into existence hears me and that is amazing. It is for God to determine what is best and for me to ask.
Two people in the Bible helped me with this. Hannah prayed for a child in 1 Sam 1:10. The Lord heard her prayer and gave her a child. Now I am sure she prayed many other times and it was not granted but in this instance, she prayed from her innermost parts a God-honoring prayer, and a prayer that was heartfelt. God answered. From that prayer we get the Samuel books, we get Samuel who heard God and anointed David to be king. We get so many things because God answered Hannah’s prayer. The other person I thought about was David. David prayed that his son would not die in 2 Sam 12:16 but in the end, the child died. After the child died David got up and moved on in His relationship with God. He knew it was his job to petition and God’s job to decide. Now I know you could say that is because God said the child would die but there instances in the Old Testament where God did not execute the punishment He said He would. So my point stands. I am also aware that most would say only use positive stories but the truth of the matter is sometimes God gives us our desires and sometimes He does not. Our job is to petition.
I have heard people say that they are storming the gates of Heaven with prayer. That they will go and pound on the walls until they are heard, but I think that is a bit absurd. I am a child of God. I have been adopted by the King and don’t need to storm any gates I have permission to come right inside. So I am going to do just that. I am going to go in and ask my Father for this thing that is big and beyond me because I know it is not beyond Him. What will you do with your problems?
I am reading through Romans and I started thinking about Romans 4:3 which is also Romans 4:22 and Galatians 3:6.
Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
As it should it got me asking the question “what did Abraham believe?” The simplest answer is God; Abraham believed God. Martin Luther in his commentary on Romans says that “this… must be understood in an absolute and general sense…Abraham was a man who, at all times, was ready to believe God.” In Romans and Galatians Paul is quoting Genesis 15:16 where it says Abraham believed God when God told him he will have a child, but in a much larger sense, Abraham was believing in God to be God.
He was believing that God could be kept to His word and that the things that God said would come to pass would in fact come to pass. Abraham believed God when He told him to leave his land (Gen 12:4). Abraham believed God for a son even though he was old and as good as dead (Rom 4:19). Abraham believed God would raise Isaac from the dead if he had to sacrifice him (Heb 11:19). Abraham even believed God when He told him to circumcise himself and his whole household (Gen 17:23). Abraham had faults and failures but his life overall is one that is marked by faith in God.
It is so simple, yet so difficult. Belief is all that is required and it has always been that way. Hebrews 11:6 says “without faith it is impossible to please God” and when we understand that God does not change (Mal 3:6) we can understand that it has always and will always be that way. You might think that Abraham was given righteousness because he followed the Law but no that is not the case as the Law did not come until 430 years later. Maybe it was because Abraham was circumcised but no that was about 10-13 years after Genesis 15. Maybe you might think the Israelites were delivered out of Egypt because they kept the Law and it was due to them to be freed but no the Law was given to them after they believed and crossed the Red Sea. Belief always comes first. At no point has it ever been different. When my wife and I prepared to move to Maine with no money or a place to live it was done because we believed God said go. He provided a place to live for us there but the belief that He was God and good was first.
In his commentary on Galatians for 3:6 Luther says, “To believe in God as Abraham did is to be right with God because faith honors God. Faith says to God: “I believe what you say.”” God wants you right with Him and He has done everything for you to be right with Him. He gave His Son as the penalty for sin so you could enjoy everlasting life, and He raised His Son so that you might live an abundant life. For me I sometimes think “yeah but what if it doesn’t work out?” and to be honest sometimes it doesn’t. Maybe not the way I think maybe not at all. Sometimes bad stuff still happens but you can either dwell in the possibility of the negative or have faith in God that He is God. When you decide to have faith in God it should not be for a thing but in that He is God and He is good. Your faith should be in God not in the benefits of His being God. My daughter does not trust me because I provide things for her although I do. Instead, she trusts me because she knows I have her best interest at heart and I am good (at least in her eyes). Her faith in me is not predicated on the possibility of things, and our faith in God should not be predicated on the possibility of material blessing. We believe because He is God.
When you read the Old Testament you can see that a lot of them did not have a firm grasp on the idea of an afterlife. For most it was not a common idea as it was still being revealed. However, in spite of not having an idea that they could live forever with God they worshiped, obeyed, and served Him because if this life was all they had then He should be trusted in it. How much more should we worship, obey, and serve knowing we will live with Him forever. The joy of receiving Him is the most blessed thing we could ever have, everything else is a bonus.
That is not to say however that we should not believe God for everything. As mentioned Abraham believed God for all those things but it started with faith in God. In believing God to be good and in believing Him to provide we honor Him. We honor God when we believe that He can make a way where this is no way to see. When we place our faith in God to do the impossible we exalt Him above the world, above logic, and above us. When we believe God He pleased.
Jesus the Holy One who opens that which no one can close says to the church in Philadelphia that He knows their works. He knows that although they have limited strength they have kept His word and He has opened a door for them which no one can close. He knows they kept the command to endure and will He keep them from the hour of testing. He will write on them God’s name, the name of New Jerusalem, and His name.
As always there is a lot here. First off this is not Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. You have probably heard Philadelphia called the city of brotherly love and that is not so much a nickname but the meaning of the name. It is a two-part name that combines philos and adelphos. Philos means love, dearly loved, or friendship while adelphos means a brother or friend. Put them together and you get brotherly love or to love a brother. The church Jesus was speaking to was an ancient city but the meaning of the name is the same. The question we should be asking is what does this have to do with us and with the letter itself, and I think it has a lot to do with us and the letter.
Jesus tells the church that He knows they have little strength but that they have kept His word and not denied His name. So we should ask what was His word? Jesus spoke a lot of words but they usually had something to do with loving your neighbor, loving God, and going out to preach the Gospel. It would seem then that the church of brotherly love was doing just that even though they were weak and tired. They believed the best way to love your brother is to tell them about Jesus. That is a sure sign of love if you ask me.
If we love the world we tell them about Jesus because Jesus is the expression of the Father’s love. Remember John 3:16 tells us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. Hebrews 1:3 helps by telling us that Jesus is the exact representation of His (God) being. So if we claim to love those who do not know Jesus then we tell them about Him because we believe He is love, and He has a better plan for their life then they do.
But what about when you are weak and tired? I know I get weak and tired sometimes. I know sometimes I barely feel like I can push on and just don’t feel like telling people. That happens, and it is not a good time. However, when I get like that I think back to Jesus at the well with the Samaritan woman. When asked by the disciples if He had already eaten something He told them He had food they did not know about. The food He spoke about was sharing God’s love and goodness with people. I know for me when I get focused on the thing Jesus told me to do I can go and go like the energizer bunny because I have tapped into something real and powerful.
So today I just have a little encouragement for you. If you are tired and feel like you cannot reach anyone just keep pushing. You are touching people and you might not even know it. You are making a difference just don’t give up. Jesus said He would place an open door and no one can close what God opens. If you are tired and don’t know Jesus but want to, then just ask Him to show you who He is. I am confident He will.
Today we have a guest writer, and she happens to be my daughter.
The wind howled through the window. The girl sat huddling her knees waiting for the storm to be over. “Knock Knock” “Come in dad” Emma said. “ How’d you know it was me” “Just a wild guess” “You seem scared sweetie is everything alright” Emma knew she’d have to tell her dad at some point “I’M SORRY!!!!!!” “For what” “Well, Last Tuesday I was at school in fashion design class when I over heard Ella and Maddy talking about Mrs. Koala asking them to design a KIosk for the Fashion Studio award winner grand finale.” “Um…. Who are Ella and Maddy?” “Ella and Maddy are the schools biggest fashion lovers.” Oh…. ok continue.” “ The next day as I walking home from school I saw a flyer stapled to are pink blossom tree in the front yard.
It was for the Fashion Studio Award Winner Grand Finale I was just like Oh great. Then I had an Idea I decided I would steal their KIosk and pretend it was mine” “ Well did you?” “Sadly the jealousy got to me and well yes I did! And I’m really sorry I know I shouldn’t have and I promise I won’t do it ever again” “Did you return it” “Yes, I returned because I felt guilty about it” “It’s ok is there anything else you need to get off your chest?” “ Dad, do you think God will ever forgive me?? I’m scared he won’t” “ Emma, does God love you very much” “Yes” “Then he will forgive you. But it’s your choice to accept it do you?” “I do and I’m sorry dad” It ok honey” “I love you” “And I love you Emma”
The End
This story is all about forgivenessand the love betwen God a father and daughter!!
Freedom in Truth 