How to Receive Many Benefits from God

A reader recently posed a question about preachers taking the idea of the command for holiness out of context and turning it into a works gospel. I told him I would write about that soon, but I have been finding it challenging because there are so many aspects to these issues. I think, though, that I have found a way to write about it that will be positive, encouraging, true and helpful. (And I have a lot more to say about avoiding the idea of "earning" salvation...so if you still think I'm too much in that direction after reading this, stay tuned! I have more to say on that topic and will deal with it more in future posts.) For now,would you like help in receiving benefits from God? If so, read on.

First, what are the benefits of a good relationship with God? I know of thirteen things one receives beginning right at the first moment of salvation, but to keep this post short, I'm only going to list four of them.

1. He provides for us. (see Ps. 78:20 and following)
2. He heals us if we get sick. (Acts 4:10-12)
3. He protects us. (Pro 18:10)
4. He forgives us and cleanses us from unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

(For details on how you can learn about all 13 things and a lot more, you can click here). To be even more general than the items in the list above, God is just (Deu 32:4) and he is good! (Psa 73:1) He wants to give us the desires of our hearts. And yet, he commands us to love him with all our hearts, minds, bodies and souls. If we love him, we are to keep his commandments (John 14:15). We are told that if we do not love him, we will not keep his commandments (John 14:24). Looked at from the other direction, if we don't keep his commandments, not only do we not love him, we don't even know him. (1 John 2:3-4) So, what are we showing the desires of our hearts to be if we are showing him that we don't love him? Jesus said we are either with him or against him. So, if you don't love him, you will want to get away from him, or even fight against him. I don't want to get into condemnation, though. Rather, let's think about a positive example.

Imagine a boy on a baseball team. Can you imagine him telling the coach, "Coach! I love playing baseball, but can you just let me sit on the bench throughout the whole game? In fact, I don't want to play at all. I just want to sit here and watch the whole season." It doesn't make any sense, does it? No, the one who really loves baseball is going to show up early for every practice and be the last one to leave. He'll want to play in every game. He will probably even practice on his own outside of the full team's practices. What does this have to do with Jesus and whether or not we follow him?

Jesus tells us that his commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3) and his yolk is easy and his burden [that which he asks us to do/carry] light. When he gives us his supernatural power to live rightly before him, our lives are changed. When we see how wonderfully he has changed our lives, we will not be able to help but to talk about him. It will be like the apostles in Acts 4:20, "For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." So, rather than wondering what will happen if we DON'T do what he says, we should be overjoyed to have the opportunity to be ABLE to do what he commands! Then it will be like the boy who plays baseball every chance he gets. It will be obvious to everyone how much you love Jesus. Now, keeping that comparison in mind, which do you think has a better chance of scoring one for the team? The person who is out doing the work of our Lord, or the person who just wants to sit on the sidelines and watch? It is really not a question of whether we have to work. It is a question of whether or not we are even in the game! Are you showing up and asking to be put in? Or is it just there for entertainment...a mere spectator sport?

The last point I'd like to make here, since this is supposed to be a post about receiving benefits from God is just this: In Mat 10:10 (NIV), the verse ends with, "for the worker is worth his keep." If you were a professional baseball player, but you weren't preparing for the games, if you weren't asking to be put in, if you didn't have a good attitude about playing the game, if you really weren't committed to the team's goals, do you think you'd keep receiving the benefits of being one of the workmen on that team for long? Would you really be worth your keep? This is how I look at working for the Lord.

I normally go out street preaching Saturday nights. However, times do come up when I can't make it. For example, sometimes I'm out of town (and I try to bring Bibles with me to give away wherever I am). Sometimes, my wife is out of town and I don't have any childcare. So, I can't go out street preaching. I don't feel like I'm condemned for not managing to find a sitter to be at my house from 10:30 PM till 2:30 AM. That would be a pretty hard sitter to find. However, when I can make it out there, the whole rest of my week goes better for me. God provides me with a peace that is beyond understanding. When I don't go, I have trouble sleeping. I don't get along with people as well. So, does God provide for me? Absolutely. Do I get a pay check signed by him (or a church)? No. But his provision is every bit as real as if it had a church's name on it. I work for him, regardless of who signs my checks and I hope you do, too.

Please let me know what you think. I always value comments.

What Does it Mean: To be Dead to Sin?

The Bible has multiple verses which indicate we are to be dead to sin. Two of them are Rom 6:2 and Rom 6:11, which follow (with a little context):
Rom 6:1   What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Rom 6:2   God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
Rom 6:11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

One of the greatest divisions within Christianity is in the understanding of what sin is. If you look up the greek word that was translated into English as, "sin", you'll find several similar meanings. (Go here for a thorough definition.)  Most people who've done ONLY this part come away with the idea that it means to err or miss the mark. Now that doesn't seem too hard to understand, does it? The trouble is that what you get from the dictionary is only a short explanation of the meaning behind the word in Greek as it existed when Christ took on flesh and preached among us. However, Christ didn't just leave the word as he found it. Rather, he (and his followers) added meaning to that original context.

When you read the Bible to see what it was that the Bible means with the word sin in the context of what Christ meant with it, you can look at James 4:17 since that verse tells what sin is. That verse says, "Therefore to him that knows to do good, and does [it] not, to him it is sin." Notice that it says, "to him" it is sin. Why? There's the idea of the importance of intentions. We see this importance also in Mat 5:28, where Jesus tells us, "But I say unto you, That whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart." The part where it says, "to lust after her" shows us that it is not the looking which is sin (adultery), but rather that the intentions are the problem.  If a man is in a crowd of people looking for his wife or daughter and sees a bunch of women who are neither his wife nor his daughter, he has not sinned because of having looked at a bunch of women...unless he has intended to lust after them. The importance of intentions are also evident in Luke 6:45 which states, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." So, when you read the Bible, keep in mind that the word "sin" was not used the same way in all places. Think about what was meant by it. Is a particular text speaking about any mistake you make, or only mistakes with wrong intentions?

My point here is that if your ultimate goal in life is to serve God rather than to serve self, then ultimately, your intentions will be right. Then, when you look at people, whether you are a man looking at women or a woman looking at men, your intention will be to be a servant of others rather than to be trying to get what isn't rightfully yours. If your ultimate goal is to serve God, then when you realize you've done something God didn't want you to do, you will fix your course and again serve God (that's repentance). If you believe in God, and are intent upon serving him, then he will forgive you for your past sins (if you ask). Then, he can also cleanse your conscience of your past misdeeds. From this perspective, God is not being unreasonable when he tells us to "be perfect even as the father in heaven is perfect," because he isn't telling us to never again make a mistake, rather he is telling us to follow after him and give up all wrong-doing in our lives. This is what is meant by being "dead to sin." Using only the meaning of, "to miss the mark, to err" it is completely impossible to ever "stop sinning," like Jesus commands us to do in numerous places (see John 5:14 and 8:11 for examples). If, though, Jesus only meant to live up to the truth that we know, every one of us can do that by simply asking Jesus to cleanse our consciences and give us right intentions. Then we can act out of those right motives and have confidence before God.

Now, you have a choice to make: Are you going to go through the rest of life simply saying, "No one is perfect," and therefore thinking that it doesn't make any difference how you actually live since you can't be perfect anyway? Or are you going to give up serving self and live your life to serve Christ thereby doing what is right?

Has this post been helpful to you? Am I being ridiculous? Have I neglected to take something into account and you can help me grow closer to Christ by correcting me? I'll be O.k. with your comments regardless of whether you like or hate my views. Let me know what you think. I value your feedback. Thanks and God bless.

Patience: The King of Parenting Skills

My wife often gets mad at me for stating the obvious, but I do it anyway. I sometimes say things to her like, "Honey? We have children." Another favorite of mine is, "Honey? We're married." I figure these things are SO obvious, that saying them is funny. Seeing her get flustered because I've said these things is funny, too, because it is such an easy situation to create. Mind you, we've been married almost fourteen years and our oldest son is 12 (we have three). I don't say these things to be malicious. Rather, it is kind of a game for me. (Not a game I play often, either, but one doesn't need to play it often.) What's the point in my writing this?

My wife is gone on a trip for the weekend. It is 2:41 AM. My three year old has woken me up every 20 minutes or so since about 9 PM. His tummy hurts. His leg hurts. He wants something to eat. He wants to talk. He wants his Mommy. You name it, he wants it. He isn't sick. I think he's fine, really, other than that Mommy isn't home and he knows it and doesn't know what to do about it.

In situations like these, there isn't really anything that can be done but to endure. It is like when a child is sick, or during the times when one has to drive children around town: to baseball practice, to or from school, to or from the grocery store, day in, day out. While we are doing all the mundane tasks that make up the bulk of our day to day lives, there isn't really anything that can be done about it. Life isn't like TV or the movies, where something interesting is always happening. Often we have to find ways to appreciate the little things about what's going on. We need to keep looking at the same old, same old and keep finding new ways of seeing it so that it isn't boring. I was just reading someone else's blog post about, "writing what you know," and it made me think of this. This is something I know a LOT about (I think, while I'm watching my three year old eat his 10,000'th bowl of cereal.) Don't think I'm complaining, either. I love my children. I really do. When I look at his little nose and hear his little three year old voice, it makes all the monotony O.k.

Perhaps this doesn't need to be said, but I'm going to say it anyway. Parenting takes a lot of patience.

How Dracula Can Help your Preaching

Do you ever have to work at coming up with topics to preach on?  You may well not be a pastor, but you might still want to be able to share the gospel with people, (or maybe you just like vampires!) and if you have new ideas on how to do that, it will make it easier to keep engaging those around you. So, here’s a new idea for you: copy Dracula! (the book, not the villain) I know that sounds like an odd thing to recommend, but here’s what I mean. We all know that when we want to become better at something, one way to do that is to copy those who are the best at it. Bram Stoker’s book, Dracula, is one of the greatest horror stories we have.  On the one hand, the Bible tells us that “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Ti 1:7) So, I’m not trying to get you to be afraid. However, the Bible also tells us, “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do [his commandments]…” (Psa 111:10)  The second part of Proverbs 1 is written as being from the voice of wisdom and ends with the words, “but whoever listens to me [wisdom] will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.” So, it will be of great use to our audiences if we can bring them the fear of the Lord. I’m not saying that all our time should be spent trying to make people afraid. Rom 2:4 says, “…the goodness of God leads to repentance.” So, our preaching has to be balanced. But, people love to read about villains they love to hate, otherwise, Dracula would not have been so successful (as a book). So, how can Dracula be useful to us in our efforts to teach people the fear of the Lord? First of all, he sticks in your mind, as your words to people about the Lord should. Another thing about Dracula that makes him a great villain is that he is obviously bad. One of the biggest hurdles we face when trying to evangelize is that people don’t actually see sin as being bad. The book, Dracula, shows us how to make things that are bad appear as being bad. Jonathan Harker, the main character aside from Dracula himself, doesn’t really understand what Dracula is for the first several chapters. And yet, he is still subject to mounting fear. One of the biggest things that bothers him about his situation is the isolation. He is all alone in a castle where his only companion is his captor. Why is he all alone? Although I didn’t get this part from the book, sin and evil isolate us. Sin breaks our relationships with those around us and with God. Thus, it is natural that Dracula must be largely alone. That’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed reading some ways that fiction can be used to strengthen our message about the most real subject there is: God.

Tell me what you think. I’d love to read your reactions to my ideas.