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Come to Me . . . —Matthew 11:28 A young  child as no problem coming to  its parent. In fact, it seems they will never cease coming. But as they grow, coming to mom or dad is embarrassing and uncool. Later in life, a child turns to a parent only when it has so messed up things that there seems to be no alternative. The parent’s response, “If you had just come to me earlier, before all this happened.” We shouldn’t be surprised; it’s the way we act with Our Lord. Coming to Him is second nature for a brief while. Then we “mature” and believe we can handle things on our own. Hopefully, before it is too late, we learn to go to Him first. Are we expecting God to tell us to do something very big, and yet all He is saying is  “Come to Me . . . .” When you hear those words, you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. It is pride that keeps us from going to our parents and it is pride that retards our response to Our Lord’s call to come. No matter what we […]

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him —2 Corinthians 5:21 Most religions focus on wrong doing, due to a misunderstanding of the nature of sin. The real problem is wrong being, determined independence from God. The cure lies not in corrected behavior but in a corrected nature. Other faiths deal with sins— the Bible alone deals with sin. We fail in our attempts to present the gospel when we focus on sins, rather than sin. The first thing Jesus Christ confronted in people was the heredity of sin, and it is because we have ignored this in our presentation of the gospel that the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power. Offended sinners claim we are judgmental or self-righteous because we have failed to convey that we ALL have a sin nature. Instead we convey that they are sinning like we formerly did. Sometimes, sadly, this is because we don’t understand that our reconciliation is based on our new nature and not our new behavior. The revealed truth of the Bible is not that Jesus Christ took on Himself […]

When it pleased God . . . to reveal His Son in me . . . —Galatians 1:15-16 Once we understand the nature of sin and the degeneration which accompanies it, we can better understand what Jesus does for us. As a result of of our nature (our DNA if you will) we are not holy; and if all Jesus Christ can do is tell me that I must be holy, His teaching only causes me to despair. But if Jesus Christ is truly a regenerator, someone who can put His own heredity of holiness into me, then I can begin to see what He means when He says that I have to be holy. Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into anyone the hereditary nature that was in Himself, and all the standards He gives us are based on that nature— His teaching is meant to be applied to the life which He puts within us. The proper action on my part is simply to agree with God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ. The moral miracle of redemption is that God can put a new nature into me through which I can […]

Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . —Romans 5:12 Do we really understand the nature of sin? Do we subconsciously define “sin” in one way in our lives and another way in the lives of others? Do we take comfort that we are clear of the public sins and feel superior because others suffer from them? Do we believe that the concept of “sin” is some outdated medieval notion, not relevant in today’s world?  Do we think that rightness and wrongness is something we can determine? We set ourselves up for confusion if we think of sin solely in the plural: a list of offenses. We are on the road to a correct understanding if we understand that sin is my claim to my right to myself. Sometimes we come close if we understand that PRIDE is the foundational Sin from which all sins flow. If we consider Adam and Eve, eating a fruit wasn’t the big deal. It was their decision that they wanted to rule themselves and were dissatisfied being protectorates of the loving Creator. It is the […]

. . . to those who are . . . called to be saints . . . —1 Corinthians 1:2 In the spring, I had a vision of new steps in the back of our house. I had removed a deck a few years ago and built some steps down to the new brick patio. The steps were in bad shape and needed replacement. I saw a brochure with beautiful steps made of a composite material. I got a “vision” of what the new steps would look like. I made the calculations, ordered the material and began construction. It went very slowly and spring turned to summer, cool dry days to hot humid days. I set the project aside. With the cool days of fall, I will try to complete the vision. Visions are exciting their execution, is often trying. On the mountain top, God gives us the vision. It becomes reality in the valley. Vision are plentiful; reality much less so. Vision depends entirely on God; reality depends on our submission to God. In the valley most turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be […]

His disciples asked Him privately, ’Why could we not cast it out?’ ” (Mark 9:28). He said to them, ’This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting’ —Mark 9:29 The disciples had seen Him do it, the casting out of spirits. They had the method down and couldn’t understand why when they did the same things He did and said the same words, nothing happened. It is a common failing of man to concentrate on the methods. There are innumerable books on the “how” of Christian ministry. Experts on the subject are not always effective. It is no good to look at “successful” churches and ministries and try to duplicate what was done there. We need to look elsewhere. It’s all about Jesus. Without a relationship with Him and a continuing concentration on Him, ministry is not possible. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God’s work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him. We must be […]

If You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us —Mark 9:22 Today I spent in the valley. Last night I apparently didn’t close the freezer door completely and everything in it defrosted. You can only cook so much food in a couple of days. I also went to help my grand daughter move. She did most of the moving… It’s not good to get old. Then I busted one of my tires maneuvering my truck closer to the apartment door. My grand daughter and her friend finished the tire changing I started. Life in the valley is pretty humiliating. The height of the mountaintop is measured by the dismal drudgery of the valley, but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mountain, but we never live for His glory there. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God— that is where our faithfulness is revealed. Hopefully my willingness to help will give glory to God; my actual help wasn’t very impressive.  Our purpose in the valley is not to be heroes; but to be useful […]

. . Jesus took . . . them up on a high mountain apart by themselves . . . —Mark 9:2   We are made for the valleys to serve there with the ones who need service. We are granted times on the mountaintop to be energized and exalted. These times are a blessing. We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God’s perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there.  We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life— those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only […]