By today’s standards …
Jesus would be called an intolerant hater who judged others with oppressive statements like “repent” and “sin no more”.
Category: Simple Faith
When evil demands compliance …
Integrity demands resistance.
How to produce adolescent, self-absorbed “Christians” who remain stuck in their own issues and never seem to grow up:
Convince them Jesus is “all about a relationship”.
Really? Where do you get that from Scripture?
Oh, right. I forgot …
That’s how we avoid Christ’s inconvenient Biblical unpleasantries – like propositional truths, moral imperatives, cultural norms and learning obedience.
When Jesus is just a relationship, it’s easy to ignore His comprehensive Lordship over all things …
By making Him just about us.
Jesus on your own terms?
I think not.
Yes, He wants a relationship, but so much more …
On His terms.
Repent and grow up, while you still can.
Because He loves us, God offers grace without merit …
But also requires repentance in return.
Anything less on either point …
Emasculates the Gospel.
If God is truly sovereign, He has the right to delegate – if He chooses – the option to reject His grace when offered.
Even if you don’t believe He does so …
Can we at least agree that it wouldn’t diminish His sovereignty if He did?
Because those who deny, because of His sovereignty, His right to allow us to resist His grace …
Have, in fact, too low a view of His sovereignty.
We often have no choice over bad things that happen in life.
Whether they internally define us, however, is always our choice.
Left or right, either way …
When it comes to politics, evangelicals and their pundits prove time and again they’re cheap dates.
Some might even use another descriptor.
Isn’t it time to begin speaking truth to power …
Rather than constantly kissing up to it?
Sound doctrine in the abstract may be helpful …
But sound doctrine in action is transforming.
The tyranny of leftist and “progressive” know-it-all-ism …
Inevitably fails when confronted by Godly self rule.
Hard choices …
Make strong disciples.
The day is coming when God may call you to bear open witness against darkness.
The day is coming when few will have the courage to heed His call, and those who do will pay a heavy price.
But through that sacrifice, the day is also coming when His truth eventually will prevail.
It always does.
I’d rather gather together with a few in my living room and be the church, one with another …
Then sit in rowed seats with a thousand in some building called the “church” to watch a staged event.
God redeems His creation …
Despite its fallenness.
And reconciles us to Himself …
Despite our brokenness.
The biggest idol these days is a “Jesus” created in their own image …
By “Christians” who dismiss His plenary authority of Scripture.
Over the years, I have found that without the humility of repentance, there is no freedom …
And without the transparency of confession and forgiveness, there is no wholeness.
Unfortunately, many ignore these essential elements of discipleship …
And wonder why their simple participatory churches never advance beyond everyone’s accumulated quirks, hurts and insecurities.
In traditional spectator church, such unresolved issues are easy to ignore.
But with real church as commanded in the New Testament, we have no such luxury.
Ignore them and your attempts to be the church one with another will stay stuck in a rut …
No matter how well you started.
Television preachers and pulpit showmen are like crack.
They offer a feel-good escape from reality to those who feel otherwise detached …
Often causing a downward spiral of more isolation with ever more dependence on their feel-good “fix”.
It rarely ends well, except for the “spiritual” huckster.
In contrast, real life, real faith and real church are played out between real people in real community – where we have real opportunity to work through real issues and find real spiritual health and maturity …
Together, one with another.
It’s not always easy …
But it’s always our choice.
Don’t settle for counterfeits.
If you don’t like being knocked down …
Stand for nothing.
If it’s cool, hip or seeker friendly …
It ain’t worship.
Because true worship …
Is not about us.
Biblical Christians who submit their sensibilities to Scripture …
End up trusting God and doubting doubt.
Existential “Christians” who submit Scripture to their sensibilities …
End up doubting God and trusting doubt.
Why are those who dismiss the need for sound doctrine …
So doctrinaire about it?
God blesses those …
Who are good stewards of His blessings.
I love a well staged performance as much as the next guy, but please …
Just don’t call it “church”.
In the New Testament, “worship” occurs when we respond to God’s ongoing sovereign presence by living ongoing lives of reverence and obedience …
Which might, at times, properly invoke emotions.
Pagan worship, however, starts by manipulating emotions to “usher in” a false sense of God’s presence through special effects and special “leaders” at special gatherings.
It is a concept foreign to how the New Testament says God’s people are to function together as His church.
Unfortunately, there’s way too much pagan worship, and too little New Testament worship, in our “churches” these days.
Blessed are those who give without remembering …
And receive without forgetting.
False “deeper life” spiritually has become a substitute these days for “real life” …
Among insular Christians too wrapped up in themselves to engage a messy, waiting world with authentic faith in action.
Plumbline Faith 