I was having a conversation this week with some of my family members and of course the ebola epidemic came up. We talked about if the threat was as real as it is perceived, we talked about the decisions that people have made in light of the danger, we talked about the effects this could have on the economy, we talked about what it might actually be like to have the virus or what it might be like if one of your loved ones did. I’m sure many of you have had some of the same conversations. Right now it’s ebola, not so long ago it was the swine flu, or the bird flu, or west nile virus. We’ve had our concerns about ISIS terrorists and militant Islam. Others are adamantly concerned about what our President might do to our country. And all of these are familiar issues.

And then it hit me…we are a paranoid society. We live in fear. What is our greatest fear? What do we dread most? It’s nothing as specific as ebola or terrorists, in reality it is much more general than that. The greatest fear in America (and even in the American Church) is suffering. We are afraid of suffering. We are taught to make wise financial decisions so that we never struggle financially. We are told to make sure and receive every possible vaccine so that we don’t get sick. We purchase insurance so that a catastrophe doesn’t hinder our way of life. We have adopted medical testing, screening, physicals and routine checkups to make sure that we catch things early and that we don’t get really sick. We have spent much time and energy in our country to try and avoid suffering at all cost. Are all of those things bad? Of course not, but you do catch my point that we are preoccupied with these types of things.

This preoccupation with suffering is even evident within the church. A simple glance at your church’s prayer list will most likely confirm this. By in large our lists are filled with tumors and pains and surgeries and those who struggle economically and those who have lost loved ones. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to suffer either, and certainly we should have compassion on those who are suffering. The writer of Hebrews said, “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them…” (Hebrews 13:3). We all ought to genuinely put ourselves in other people’s shoes especially in prayer. And so “no” it doesn’t bother me that our prayer lists are filled with names of people who are suffering. It doesn’t even bother me that much of our prayer life revolves around being protected from suffering. We pray for safe travels, we pray for sufficient provision, we pray for protection for our children and health in our future. And we should pray for those things. In the model prayer Jesus Himself said we should ask for our daily bread. In short, suffering is real, and we should take concerns about our suffering to God. But should suffering be our greatest fear? Should avoiding suffering be our main preoccupation? And the answer is an emphatic NO!

The attention given to suffering is not the problem. It is the lack of attention given to more serious issues that is. Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28). Suffering isn’t pleasant, no one eagerly anticipates the death of their body, but physical death is NOT the worst thing that can happen and therefore postponing death should NOT be your chief concern. It isn’t the first death you should fear, it’s the second. And while no one can blame the world for having their priorities out of balance, it is however truly shameful when the church is just as backward.

Take the early church, take the Puritans, take the reformers; suffering was not their biggest fear, nor was it their chief concern. What was their biggest fear? Sin. They were far more concerned about sinning than they were about suffering. Peter wrote: “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live out the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:1-2) Peter actually taught that suffering should be embraced, especially if it is used to help you conquer sin. The writer of Hebrews said, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” (Hebrews 12:11) The fact is they rightly saw sin as a much bigger threat than sickness or suffering or persecution or bad governmental leaders. They were far more concerned about the church being holy than they were about the church being healthy. They counted it a joy to suffer for Christ (Acts 5:41) and told us to do the same (James 1:2). Can you see the obvious difference between their day and ours?

Now please don’t misunderstand me. This is not a call for you to run out your front door and to immediately try to do something to bring suffering on yourself. Nor is this a call for you to overlook things like financial stewardship or decisions that affect good health. But this is a call to put things in perspective and to ask you to be more worried about your sin than your comfort. A preoccupation with comfort does not lead to the type of faith and obedience that has always been necessary for the church to be effective. A complacency about sin does not lead to the type of testimony that has always been necessary to shake the world. We must put things in order!

Today, as you rise and face the day, pray for peace, pray for safety, pray for provision, but above all pray for holiness. Pray that you may not be lead into temptation, pray that you are delivered from evil. Pray that the suffering (which must happen, and which God will allow) will be effective to train you in righteousness. When you pray for others, lift up their burdens, lift up their pains, but lift up their walk with Christ. Pray that they will overcome sin, pray that they will walk in truth (3 John 1:4). Pray that God will use the inevitable suffering that we must face (Philippians 1:29) to be a great purifying agent in your life and in the church. The world today needs the church like never before, but it doesn’t need a flabby, complacent, comfort seeking, prosperous organization. The world needs to see a holy, faithful, enduring, passionate, obedient force of believers who have conquered sin in their own lives and who cannot be shaken from their allegiance to Christ regardless of the circumstances.

So please, “Do not fear him (the terrorist or the virus) who can kill the body, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

Grace to You,
Bro. Rory

In Job 25:4, Job’s friend Bildad asked, “How then can a man be just with God?”  We think that is an excellent question.  And the answer is found only in the gospel.  “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

The gospel has always contained the blueprint for obtaining God’s righteousness, but the problem is that not everyone is preaching the true gospel.  The Galatians were victims of such a problem.  They had been “bewitched”, they had been hood-winked.  Someone came and preached to them “another gospel” which Paul had not preached.  And they had quickly deserted Him who called them by the grace of Christ in favor of this distorted gospel.  It was not a message that spoke of righteousness obtained by faith, but rather a message that said righteousness is obtained by works of the Law; namely circumcision.

The letter to the Galatians is a furiously written letter meant to squash such a damning message.  John MacArthur called this letter, “a flashing sword, wielded by a burning heart.” Others have called it “The Magna Carta of spiritual liberty” or “The Christian’s Declaration of Independence”.  Martin Luther said, “The epistle to the Galatians is my epistle.  To it I am, as it were, in wedlock.  Galatians is my Katherine (the name of his wife).”  Merill C. Tenney wrote, “Christianity might have been just one more Jewish sect, and the thought of the western world might have been entirely pagan had it never been written.  Galatians embodies the germinal teaching on Christian freedom which separated Christianity from Judaism, and which launched it upon a career of missionary conquest.  It was the cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation, because it’s teaching of salvation by grace alone became the dominant theme of the preaching of the Reformers.”

Come study Galatians with us on Sunday nights and see why it is such an important part of your theology and why it holds such a special place in the hearts of so many!

Sola scriptura! Sola fide! Sola gratia! Solo Christo! Soli Deo gloria!

Grace to You!

This is a picture I’ve seen posted on facebook a couple of times now.  Indeed it is not the only one of its kind.  And generally I just pass by things that are troublesome to me, but the frequency of this post (along with its number of shares and likes) has me concerned.  Namely because this is NOT a true reflection upon the God of the Bible.

In case the writing was too small, the picture says, “Say this slow, God I love you and I need you.  Now if you meant it, repost and a miracle will happen tonight. Ignore and all will go wrong”

This picture, and those like it, make two promises.  One promise is for prosperity if you say a simple prayer and share the picture, the other is for hardship if you fail to do what the post requires.  Let me confidently say to you that whoever is behind the post (and it is not God) cannot come through on either promise.

Now granted, a prayer to God confessing your love for Him and need for Him are in fact good things.  To love God with all your heart, soul, and mind is the greatest commandment in the Bible, and confessing one’s need of Him should be obvious.  Apart from the deep spiritual needs for forgiveness, righteousness, empowering, and eternal life, there are the basic and logical physical needs of daily life.  Who can keep their own heart beating?  Who causes their lungs to work?  Who keeps their liver functioning, or their pancreas, or their kidneys?  Obviously we need God.  So praying to God confessing your love and need of Him are good things.

The problem I have with the picture is that it promises a miracle if you say the prayer and hardship if you don’t.  And based upon the number of shares and likes it is apparent that more than one person has been duped into the superstition.  Either it is a desire for a miracle, or the fear of hardship; but the picture keeps going around.  I would like to reveal the truth, and let the truth set you free.  Several things you should know:

1) MIRACLES ARE NOT MANIPULATED

The term miracle gets thrown around a lot today.  It seems almost everyone is in search of one.  Do miracles still happen? Absolutely, but not as frequently as you are probably told, and not according to the will of man.  First, you must learn to distinguish between a true miracle and a simple act of God’s providence.  God moves and works in our lives all the time according to His sovereign will and providential control, but not everything He does is necessarily a miracle.  A miracle, by definition, is something that transcends the laws of nature.  Water becoming firm enough to walk on; that is a miracle.  Five loaves and two fish feeding 5,000 people; that is a miracle.  The sun moving backward, a withered hand being restored, a dead man raised to life; those are miracles.  God providing a much needed job is not a miracle.  God allowing your body to recover from an illness, is not a miracle.  God protecting you through a wreck, is not a miracle.  Those are all acts of providence.  God was behind them, but He was working in a providential sense, not a miraculous one.  So know the difference.

Secondly, you must understand that true miracles are not manipulated out of God, especially by something you share on facebook.  Miracles come only from God and are at His discretion to accomplish His divine purpose, for His glory.  Throughout Scripture they were used to give credibility to His messengers thus vindicating their message (1 Kings 18:37-39, Acts 2:43, 2 Corinthians 12:12, Hebrews 2:2-4).  However, they are not just stored in some sort of “grab bag” for us anytime we want a new set of circumstances.  God is not a genie in a bottle.  He uses us to accomplish His purposes in this life, we do not use Him to accomplish ours.  You will not manipulate God into giving you a miracle, just because you want it.

2) SUFFERING IS NOT GOD’S PUNISHMENT

To read that sign, you would think that suffering or “bad” things were some sort of punishment for living a life that God doesn’t like.  Is that true?  Are we to deduce that people who have bad things in their life, have them because they have angered God?  Are when then to assume that those who have good things, have them because they have pleased God?  If that is your assessment you had better tear the book of Job out of your Bible.  Job was righteous, fearing God and turning away from evil and yet he suffered like no other.  Joseph was a man without one single sin listed in Scripture and yet he was wrongfully accused and imprisoned.  David was a man after God’s own heart and yet he spent much of his life on the run from Philistines, an angry king, and a wicked son.  Jesus was homeless, poor, and eventually wrongfully murdered on a Roman cross.  Was their suffering a sign of punishment?  Of course not!  Suffering is not an indicator of God’s displeasure.  While it is true that sinful living can and will bring natural unpleasant consequences, that does not mean that “bad things” are God’s punishment.  Many sinful people actually have good lives on earth (Psalms 73).  In reality suffering is a tool in the hands of God to sanctify us and mold us into the image of Christ.  Why else would we be commanded to count our suffering as “pure joy” (James 1:2-4)?  Certainly if suffering was a sign of God’s displeasure there would be no reason to rejoice over it.  Suffering is not to be rejected, suffering is to be embraced (1 Peter 4:1-2).  Don’t spend your life trying to avoid suffering, if by some chance you are able to succeed, you will so much of what God wanted to do through you.

3) GOD IS NOT A BULLY

The flip side of pictures like the one posted is that if you fail to pray that prayer or share the picture then something bad will happen to you.  This false reality paints God as some sort of tyrant who will smack anyone with a hardship if they don’t do everything He wants.  That has NEVER been how God operates.  God is gracious and merciful.  He does not treat us as our sins deserve.  When God became flesh (Jesus) and we saw Him in His most accurate and vivid explanation, He was gentle (Matthew 12:18-21) He didn’t yell and scream and bully.  God doesn’t do that.  He is patient (2 Peter 3:9), He provides even for the unjust (Matthew 5:45).  His grace is sufficient, His love never fails, and His mercy is new every morning.  Satan is the one who threatens and bullies, he is the accuser, not God.

4) HEALTH, WEALTH, & PROSPERITY IS NOT THE GOAL

Another misconception of such a picture is that somehow in life we should be on this quest for health, wealth, and happiness.  It also assumes that this is God’s will for our lives.  Such theology makes it hard to explain why Jesus was homeless (Matthew 8:20), or why He was so poor that He had to borrow money from a fish to pay the tax in His own temple (Matthew 17:24-27).  Such theology makes it hard to understand why Paul would leave Trophimus sick at Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20) or why Paul himself would have “the sentence of death” within himself (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).  The reason is because health, wealth, and prosperity is NOT the goal.  Our god is not our stomach, we are not trying gain the whole world, we are not commanded to store up treasure here.  The goal for the Christian is not prosperity it is holiness!  We are to be like Christ, we are to be sanctified, we are to be holy as God is holy.  Sanctification is the goal (1 Thessalonians 4:3).  So to assume that God is just waiting to give you some prosperity miracle completely fails to see what He is trying to accomplish in your life.  Many times it is not God’s will to immediately pull you out of adversity.  Much of the time it is God’s will to leave you in it, to walk with you through it, and to mold and shape you by it.  Making you healthy is easy, making you holy is a true work of God.

5) CONTENTMENT IS ESSENTIAL

Seeing that God is not out to primarily make you healthy, wealthy, and happy (although a relationship with Him does often yield wonderful results), it is important that instead of trying every gimmick to claim every miracle, you instead learn to be content where God has you.  “But godliness is actually a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment” (1 Timothy 6:6).  “Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.  I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.” (Philippians 4:11-12).  A Christian is not to be greedy, self-seeking, constantly seeking the comforts of the world.  A Christian is called to contentment.  We seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and God takes care of food and covering. (Matthew 6:31-33) And “if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” (1 Timothy 6:8)  While God is good and every good and perfect gift does come from Him, learn to be content with what He provides.

6) SHARING A PICTURE ON FACEBOOK IS NOT THE SAME AS CONFESSING CHRIST

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of such a picture (and countless others like it) is the inherent promise/threat that this is in some way equal to confessing Christ.  No doubt the Scripture about confessing Me before men or denying Me before men in Matthew 10 is in view.  Some pictures even go so far as to quote the verse as some sort of guilting mechanism to gain more “shares” or “likes” for their picture.  It is not uncommon to read words like, “Those who truly love Christ…or those who aren’t ashamed to confess Christ…will share this, those who don’t love Him won’t”.  Really?  Have we simplified Christianity to such an extent that it all boils down to what we post on facebook?  I would be far more convinced if the other junk that people post didn’t blatantly dishonor Him.  For soon after many post a picture like this, there will be a vulgar commercial, a vulgar joke, or a good old fashion rant against someone else soon to follow.  Am I to assume that I can do all of that and still consider myself one who confesses Christ simply because I forwarded some stupid picture?  I for one refuse to repost or share or forward such things.  If you want to go confess Christ at your neighbor’s house, I’ll go with you.  If you want to go confess Christ on the mission field, count me in.  If you want to confess Christ in the break room to your coworkers I’ll stand beside you.  If you want to challenge a godless college professor I will help.  If you want to be thought a fool for your witnessing at the gas station, if you want to be ridiculed for your refusal to join in worldly activity, if you want to choose Christ over the passing pleasures of sin, if you want to make fellowship with His people a priority, if you want to commit yourself to hearing the word of God and doing it, if you desire to give to others even when it hurts, if you wish to stand against the carnality of society, if you wish to face the hostility of an intolerant society…I will do that with you.  But I won’t forward or repost or share or like some manipulative, threatening, greed centered, misleading picture from behind the safety of a computer screen.  That is not confessing Christ.  You confess Christ by how you live and how you speak daily, not by what you “like” on facebook.

So the next time some sort of gimmicky and manipulative picture comes along promising free miracles or certain pain, just let it pass by and rest assured that it did not come from God.  There is no need to fear repercussion from Him if you don’t share it, and there is no reality in expecting a bigger chunk of the world if you do.  God is good, He cares for His own, He will never leave you nor forsake you, and even when He allows the bad things in your life, rest assured that He plans to cause it to work for good in your life and to use it to conform you into the image of His Son.  That is the truth, and that is freedom.

And incidentally if you fail to repost this…nothing will happen!

Grace to You

“And God blessed Noah…” (Gen. 9:1)

God blessed Noah?  No, no, no, that can’t be right.  Shouldn’t it say Noah blessed God?  I mean didn’t God just warn Noah about the coming flood?  And didn’t God just carry Noah through the great flood?  And didn’t God just provide a new clean earth for Noah to live on?

No, Genesis 8 says that Noah built an altar for worship.  Genesis 9 should say that Noah blessed God and sang a great song of deliverance for all that He had done.

And yet, that is not what Genesis 9 says.  There in black ink on white paper it clearly says that God blessed Noah.  And his sons…  And if that is not all, God actually told them to “be fruitful and multiply”.  What?!?! I thought God was sorry that He had made man?  I thought God was grieved over man?  I thought God just purposely destroyed all flesh?

Well, He did.  But apparently God is in to second chances.  And what a second chance this is.  Not only be fruitful and multiply, but God places man above the animals, provides that man can eat animals (but if an animal kills a man, that animal is to be killed), and protects man from murder.

Why would God all of a sudden be so interested in the well-being of man?  The answer is grace.  Judgment is when you get what you deserve.  Mercy is when you don’t get what you deserve.  Grace is when you get what you don’t deserve, and that is certainly true for man.

And if that weren’t enough still God actually threw away His ace in the hole.  Now imagine I were God (and you can praise God that I’m not!) I most certainly would not have done what God did.  He promised Noah He would never flood the earth again and even put a rainbow in the sky as a sign of the promise.  Not at all what I would have done.  If, and I mean a big if, I was going to give humanity a second chance the last thing I would do is take away the biggest stick in my bag.  No, every time man got out of line, I’d just let is sprinkle until they repented.  And with this power over them, I’d control them for eternity!  But not God.  He is gracious. He gives a second change (which we don’t deserve), He determines never to flood the earth again (which we don’t deserve), and He puts a sign of remembrance in the sky to settle our fears every time it thunders (which we don’t deserve).  GRACE

So next time you see a rainbow, don’t think of the gay and lesbian movement, see it as God intended it.  The rainbow is God’s official sign of grace (Revelation 4:3, 10:1).

What about the cross?  I thought it was the sign of grace.  No, no, no, no – the cross is a sign of judgment.  That is why the world hates the cross.  The cross reminds us of God’s propensity to judge sin, even when it is on His own Son.  Yes we do find salvation through the cross, but it is still a sign of judgment.

The rainbow is God’s sign of grace.  The next time you see one, tell Him thank you for being gracious to you by not treating you as you deserve!

Grace to You!