Month: April 2012

Categories
Gospel Quotations Videos

Good Friday – Glorious Sunday

Are you pouring crimson regret and betrayal, dying, praying, bleeding and screaming, “am I too lost to be saved? am I too lost?”

“Consequently, [Jesus] is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he (Jesus) always lives to make intercession for them.” ~Hebrews 7:25

Ross King ‏@rosskingmusic:
“I’m the kind of person that yells “save me” on Sunday and “kill him” on Friday. He’s the kind of person that dies for both.”

Tim Gaydos ‏@timgaydos:
“As humans we fear being exposed for who we are or are not. Jesus, on the cross, was exposed & received all the shame due to us.”

Logan Gentry ‏@logangentry:
“Good Friday is a reminder that my sins are many, I have no ability to fully pay for them & Jesus paid it all for me and the whole world.”

Matt Chandler: Redemption

“The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teaching but whether or not he rose from the dead.” ~Tim Keller

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

It’s Friday but Sunday is coming!

Categories
Ministry Spotlight Orphan Care

Orphan Care Ministry Spotlight – Amazima

This new series highlights organizations that, in my estimation, are on the frontlines of mercy ministries, but not just any mercy ministries. They are ministries focusing on orphan care. They’ve taken James 1:27 to heart.

Amazima Ministries? What does Amazima mean?

Amazima Ministries was founded by 19 year-old Katie Davis in 2008. The organization, based out of Brentwood, TN, feeds, educates, and encourages orphaned and vulnerable children and the poor in the country of Uganda. In the Lugandan language, Amazima (uh-mahz-i-muh) means “truth.” Amazima desires to reveal the truth of God’s unconditional love through Jesus Christ to the Ugandan people.

Here is the Amazima promo:

You can check out a video interview with Katie Davis over at Together For Adoption.

Continue reading “Orphan Care Ministry Spotlight – Amazima”
Categories
Love of God

A Gospel Reflexion On The Love of God

God created mankind in the image and community of the eternally existing Trinitarian God (Genesis 1:26) producing an inherent need and desire for “community” displayed in love by loving God with our whole being and loving others as ourselves (Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37-39). God created us so that we may know Him. His creative work of mankind was the act of drawing near to us which was an act of love When God acts, He acts in love because God is love.

“…God’s nature is the grammar of God’s will, which is a Wittgensteinian way of saying that God’s being and acts are one. God is love (I John 4:8) – that is the defining divine perfection – and God is love from tip to toe. God’s only power is the power of love, in which there is no domination, coercion, or violence. Such is the imminent perichoretic, self-giving, non-rivalrous love of the Trinity, economically embodied in the cross (and, as Luther said, crux robat omnia). ‘Omnipotence,’ T. F. Torrance urges, ‘is what God does, and it is from His ‘does’ rather than from a hypothetical ‘can’ that we are to understand the meaning of the term. What God does, we see in Christ …” (HT: Curt).

Likewise, God’s love is what God does, and it is from His ‘does’ rather from a hypothetical ‘can’ that we are to understand the meaning of the term. What God does, we see in Christ. P.T. Forsyth explains,

What ought we say about the love of God? In the cross, God’s love for himself, his name and his authority, and his love for his creatures, is taken up and met in one action wherein God exhibits the very nature of his being as unconditional Holy Love. That’s why not only is the doctrine of the Trinity necessary to make sense of the atonement, but the atonement is necessary to reveal the Trinitarian fellowship of God. The Holy Love that defines the perichoretic life of the Triune God has, by the grace of the Father in the action of the incarnate Son and by the mission of the Spirit, overflowed freely towards those outside of God’s community that creatures may enter into the Holy Love communion that the Triune God has ever known and spoke creation into being for participation in.

In Jesus Christ, God has shown not only that he does not want to be God without us, but that he does not want us to be without him. And in the action of the Holy Spirit, the Triune God is present and active among us to hear and answer our prayers, to sustain us in all the happenings of life, and to continuously bring home to us afresh the good news of the Father’s sanctifying action in Jesus Christ, guaranteeing our inheritance, and empowering us to live in the reality of being ‘holy and blameless’ before God (Ephesians 1:4).

We must not think of ourselves higher than we are. We possess nothing special, nor do we offer any benefit to God for God to choose us. Deuteronomy 7 explains, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping [His] oath…” We are God’s treasured possession; not because of anything good we possess but because God loves us. And God loves us because He loves us. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

This great love with which God loves us can not truly be experienced without our setting love upon others. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21). I believe C. S. Lewis says it well,

“When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” – Letters of C.S. Lewis (8 November, 1952)

“… May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word. … May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. … The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, 3:5, 2 Corinthians 13:14).

Categories
Church Membership

Why Church Membership? Accountability

Accountability is getting help in taking responsibility for our actions.

Accountability is comprised of listening (James 1:19), humility in relation to others sins and faults (Matthew 7:1-2) with the thought, “if not for the grace of God, there go I,” demonstrating love because God loves us, and Whoever loves God must also love his brother. ( 1 John 4:21, 1 John 4:19)

What greater expression of true accountability than to purposefully covenant with others for the sanctification of each other?

True accountability allows people the freedom in sharing their circumstances and provides the feeling of total acceptance without fear of rejection. Why? Because God has completely and unashamedly accepted us in the beloved (Ephesians 1:3-10).

We are accountable to God (Romans 14:12, Hebrews 4:13)

We are one body in Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12ff)

Galatians 6:1-2 gives a helpful principle, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” If your accountability friend has done something contrary to the Bible, you are called to confront him gently, forgive him, and comfort him. It also admonishes you to consider yourself because no one is above temptation.

Hebrews 10:24 says, “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says to, “…encourage one another and build each other up…”

How do I know you truly are placing yourself under accountability if you have not demonstrated your covenantal commitment to such a serious endeavor? Specifically expressing this accountability within the bounds of church membership?

Categories
Eschatology Hermeneutics

Eschatology 101 – Hermeneutics

The discussion of Eschatology isn’t so much about Eschatology as it is hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is essentially how you read Scripture. For example, the person who is a Premillennialist views Scripture through one lens, while the Amillennialist views Scripture through another lens.

These lenses through which we view Scripture are established by which presuppositions we bring to Scripture. These presuppositions establish each view as mutually exclusive.

Presuppositions are the assumptions you make before you arrive at the text. For instance, a Dispensationalist presupposes the Old Testament takes a certain amount of precedence over the New Testament, while the Amillennialist presupposes the New Testament takes a certain amount of precedence over the Old Testament.

However, all views see a certain amount of continuity (what’s the same) between the Old and New Testaments, and all views see a certain amount of discontinuity (what’s different) between the Old and New Testaments. For instance, we do not offer sacrifices as was done in the Old Testament (discontinuity), yet we believe in one God that is represented in both the Old and New Testaments (continuity).

The difficulty is answering the question, “to what extent is there continuity and to what extent is there discontinuity between the Old and New Testaments?”

Due to the mutually exclusive nature of these views, if one view is true, the others cannot be true. Further if, for example, the Premillenial view is true, then the way the Premillennialist reads Scripture is the correct method of interpretation. This is, in my opinion, why Eschatology can be such a volatile subject. To discredit a particular Eschatological view essentially discredits the method or way someone reads Scripture.

Great effort and due diligence must be the key because this study is not for the faint of heart.

When you dive into Eschatology, you will be forced to seriously evaluate your hermeneutics (the way you read Scripture). This is why many folks do not go too deeply into this discussion, nor do I blame them.

With all this said, we will be explaining the what, why and how these different Millennial views read various passages of Scripture the way they do.