God’s grace is amazing and unmerited.
But if it doesn’t lead to repentance and understanding …
You’re still a sinner and a fool.
I’m confused.
The New Testament says we must submit to one another.
So who, exactly, is this Pastor“One Another” and where do I find him?
😉
Seeking God’s presence in a sacred space as we face a stage and an altar for ministry by the one …
Is so Old Testament.
Why not try the New Testament instead?
Gather as believers in homes and other places where life and community naturally happen …
To express together – each and everyone – the wonderful diversity of Christ’s presence already in you.
Then, by simply letting His life shine through you as we learn to minister to one another out of the many gifts He distributes among us for the mutual building up of each other …
All that other stuff becomes just a distraction.
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“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Th. 5:11
“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” 1 Pet. 4:10
“What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” 1 Cor. 14:26
There is no solution to sin …
Apart from righteous judgment or humble repentance.
Nor is there any middle way.
Yet by grace God lets us choose between the two.
One leads to death.
The other life.
Those who reject the justice of God’s wrath …
Will never grasp the mercy of His grace.
Everyone loves the prophetic, until it speaks of them …
Everyone loves discipleship, without the discipline …
Everyone loves ekklesia, but not submitting to each other …
Everyone loves truth, when there is no price to pay …
Everyone loves God’s Kingdom, apart from the dictates of His rule …
Everyone loves Jesus, yet seldom on His terms.
So let’s stop being everyone …
Because God calls us to be so much more.
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“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:13-14
All laws reflect somebody’s sense of morality …
Whether right or wrong.
This doesn’t mean, however, that laws have the ability – or governments the power – to make us virtuous.
That seldom works and often morphs into tyranny.
Rather, Scripture says that government should protect us from evildoers …
So we have the liberty, of our own volition, to pursue virtuous lives as God directs.
A government which oversteps those bounds …
Oversteps its legitimate, God-given authority.
If you wait until you finally figure out what God’s up to …
He’s likely already moved on.
Fully confess, squarely ask God to forgive you, then humbly give Him the related guilt, condemnation and regrets your heart’s been carrying.
Do this …
And there’s no room to “forgive yourself.”
It’s settled, done, finished.
Victim or victor?
The past happened. We can’t change that.
We can, however, change its power over us by fully acknowledging and giving the ashes of our past – the burdens and regrets – to Christ.
When we do, He gives us beauty and wholeness in return …
But it’s always our choice.
It’s not enough to simply “believe.”
Even demons believe …
But disciples obey.
If all you’ve experienced is “church” as you’ve come known it …
Then church as Scripture actually shows it will seem odd and challenging.
Press on regardless …
Because the Kingdom of God is not for the faint of heart.
Those who elevate their own concepts of Jesus over His written Word …
Know neither Jesus nor His Word.
When “unity” is about everyone conforming to one person’s own calling, ministry, motivation or perspective …
Then “church” becomes a battleground over competing agendas and resources.
When unity, however, is about preferring one another over ourselves in our diverse callings, ministries, motivations and perspectives …
Then church becomes a springboard for God’s multifaceted Kingdom.
Many are led astray …
By unexamined presumptions.
When “church” becomes a scripted show by the “anointed” few on an elevated stage before row upon row of spectator “attendees” …
There is no effective discipleship.
Seriously, where do you even find that in the New Testament???
Let’s be the church once again.
Jesus said that all Scripture points to Him.
Which simply means that all Scripture bears witness to Christ’s authenticity …
Just as Christ bore witness to the authenticity of Scripture.
He did NOT mean, as some now imply, that we can project a false “Jesus” of our own imagination back onto Scripture …
To somehow then supersede whatever we don’t like in Scripture.
Don’t be deceived by those who twist Scripture to elevate themselves and their agendas over Scripture …
Through a Jesus of their own creation.
The many years of repeated failures by the existential fringe of the simple, “organic” church movement – with authors like Felicity Dale, Frank Viola, Milt Rodriguez, Jon Zens, Keith Giles and their buddies – stand as an object lesson moving forward:
Without the plenary authority of Scripture, simple participatory churches don’t succeed.
Although they are now fading away, in their day these fringe authors dismissed the plenary authority and discipline of Scripture – and in some cases even denied that the Bible is God’s written word – to peddle a Jesus of their own perception.
They then used the legitimate yearnings of others for simple, participatory house churches to promote their disastrous, extraneous agendas …
Eventually derailing the hopes and aspirations of many.
Their false Christ – who was little more than a projection of their own “deeper life” angst, post-modern sensibilities and trans-Biblical ideologies – inevitably led to dysfunctional, insular and anemic “communities.”
Continue readingGod created us to have common sense.
Although “faith,” at times, transcends common sense, if it leads to a persistent lack of common sense …
It’s not from God.
And that, my friend, is simply common sense.
Authentic faith speaks truth to power.
Which is why disciples with the right to vote and impact legislation …
Take it seriously.
What good is a life of faith …
If we live a life that needs no faith?
Be courageous!
Sometimes …
Love means letting others own the consequences of their own choices.
Real disciples follow Christ by submitting to the unadorned authority of Scripture as His written word …
While mutually building up each other through ministry one to another rooted in humble, Christ-centered fellowship with Jesus and each other, along side elders who emerge and serve among them.
Misdirected “disciples” instead follow some pinnacle “leader” by submitting to the self-serving authority of his own agendas and ambitions read back into Scripture …
While building up the reach and success of his “ministry” over others.
Big difference!
Just good enough …
Seldom is.
There is no aspect of creation or sphere of human endeavor where Christ has surrendered His authority.
To the contrary, He came to reconcile all things to Himself …
And offers us faith that’s big enough to embrace all of life.
Plumbline Faith 