Another Pilgrim's Journey

A Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop

2009-03-31T14:01:00.002-04:00

Take this for what is it worth to you...

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Church

The light returns and the days lengthen, even if it remains
startlingly dark as we rise these days -- daylight savings time is not
always a blessing so early in the year! Christians, however, look for
light even in the midst of darkness, for we know that darkness will
not overcome it. The rising of the Son brings light into lives filled
with grief, agony, and despair. Are you searching for the light of new
life?

Easter recollects us and reorients us toward God's eternal light of
truth and peace and love. The resurrection is the ultimate
proclamation that nothing can separate us from that light, not despair
or destruction or death. We see hints of that resurrection all around
us once our eyes have learned to look, and we continue to hope for its
fullness, for the blessing of a light so encompassing that there can
be no darkness or separation. Lent has been a willingness to
experience the darkness of our current separation and tune our
yearning for that light. Carry that yearning into Eastertide, and
beyond, that we and the world around us may know the blessing of the
light of Christ.

Easter 2009

When Presiding Bishop Schori begins to speak about light and darkness, I wonder if she truly comprehends the light.

John 3:19-21

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”

What light can there truly be within the hearts of those that sue Christians and enlist the aid of the American Judicial system in order to deny those who would worship God a place in which to gather; a place that many have gathered for most of their lives and call home? Their actions are done in the open but their motivations and intentions lie in the darkness of their souls.

If, as Presiding Bishop Schori says, "Easter reorients us toward God's eternal light of truth and peace and love" then where is her love for the faithful and Biblically focused Christians within the Episcopal Church? Every day she takes steps to drive them further away but claims that they are welcome to stay and worship. How can disciples of Jesus worship amidst those who seek to redefine the nature and teaching of our Lord and Savior? Christ's words hold the same meaning now as they did two thousand years ago so why the need to reinterpret them for the modern age.

As Lent passes we Believers should use this time to examine our self and our nature. We should come to know and abhor all the ways that we displease God with our short comings and worldly ways. This is a time to deny ourselves all things but the Gospel of Christ. We should fast but not on the Word of God. That should be our daily bread.

I will pray this Easter for the soul of our Presiding Bishop and I shall ask God to bring upon her the Spirit of Truth so that she may know the true and Living God who loves all men but hates our sin. Perhaps this Easter she will be reoriented by the light and it will shine upon her and she will break her spiritual fast and dine on message of the Gospel.

V. Gene Robinson on the faith of a gay bishop

2009-03-29T15:49:00.004-04:00

I came across this article from the Boston Globe today on Bishop Robinson that excerpted a few of his quotes from a resent lecture he gave at Trinity Church in Copley Square.

"We hear so often of the pain that the Episcopal Church has caused the rest of the world. Why is it that we don't hear about the hope we have given to so much of the rest of the world?"

What homosexuals have to endure at the hands of their fellow man is inexcusable, but I have to wonder how this gives them hope? They are being told that their sin is a virtue and that God approves of their behavior. Instead of being told to overcome their sinful nature they are told to give in to it. Scripture contradicts this message so the only hope that the gay and lesbian community are given is a false hope of a fictional salvation. The worse thing that comes from clergy who hold the beliefs that Bishop Robinson holds is that homosexuals are being lead into thinking that they have no need for repentance because their sin is not a sin. A false doctrine that is being dispensed from the pulpit is leading many potentially good people from salvation into condemnation. Who will be more surprised when they stand before Christ and He says “I never knew you”, those who invented the lie and convinced themselves it was true or those who where told the lie and believed it?

"There are a couple of great stories about gay people in the Bible. Maybe you didn't know that. One of them is the Exodus story, which is the greatest coming out story in the history of the world. It is, don't laugh. Because we know what it's like to be in slavery. We know what it's like to be in bondage. We know what it's like not to be free. Because we've had the experience of someone coming and talking about a promised land, not just of milk and honey, but of freedom, and God's love and acceptance, and some of us actually believed it and left. We left Egypt to come out."

I will agree that gay people are in bondage, but instead of breaking free from their bondage to sin, Bishop Robinson is telling them to tighten the shackles of slavery. There is no Exodus from Egypt occurring. There are simply those who tell them that their slavery is actually freedom and to stay where they are and make some more bricks. Robinson claims that they know what it is like not to be free but I question if that is true. Freedom is not being chained to the sinful nature that is a part of all mankind. Freedom is not looking at the shackles and calling them jewelry.

Malachi 2:17

You have wearied the LORD with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”

Read it here at the Boston Globe.

Court Blocks Presbyterian Lesbian's 3rd Attempt at Ordination

2009-03-26T08:21:00.004-04:00

At least some mainstream protestant denominations are trying to adhere to their canons

“The [San Francisco] Presbytery erred when its CPM (Committee on Preparation for Ministry) recommended the Candidate was ‘ready for examination,’” stated the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific, “because it ignored the Candidate’s clear statement of defiance to the mandatory qualifications for ordination found in the Book of Order and specifically, section G-6.0106b.”

According to the PC(USA)’s Book of Order, ordination is limited to those who “live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness.”

On Dec. 5, 2007, Lisa Larges of Noe Valley Ministry Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, had presented a written “statement of departure,” saying she could not and would not concur with the denomination’s long-standing church law after affirming in April 2004 a relationship not in compliance to the Book of Order.

I find it refreshing that some clergy and laity still look upon the governing ethos of a Christian faith with reverence an authority that its authors intended. I understand that Presbyterians are dealing with their own issues concerning same sex marriages and unrepentant homosexuals seeking positions of authority within the Church but at the moment they still recognize God and Scripture as the true power behind their canons. I wish I could say the same thing for the Episcopal Church which contorts and distorts the meaning of it governing rules in order to promote any secular agenda it chooses. A faith that conforms to the ways of the world is a faith that does not seek the will of God.

Christ warned us to be weary of the ways of secular society and though we had to exist with the world both Christ and later Paul of Tarsus explained to us the dangers and temptations of joining our will with that of the world. It seems that the ways of God got to be too much for some within the Church so they opted to take the easier road and instead of conforming their lives’ to God’s will, they distorted God’s revelation, via scripture, to their will and called it good. Now others follow them because the path of least resistance is the easier path. It allows them to experience worldly pleasures and call them good and righteous.

Breakaway Colo. Parish Loses Property to Episcopal Church

2009-03-25T15:02:00.004-04:00

I came across this little gem this afternoon. Yet another parish is denied of a place to worship so that the some more trust fund dollars and profits from property sales can line the pockets of heretics and new agers.

A breakaway Episcopal parish in Colorado Springs lost a court battle over its historic property on Tuesday after a judge ruled in favor of The Episcopal Church.

After a two-year long dispute, District Judge Larry Schwartz of El Paso County ruled that the $17 million gothic-style church belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado and not Grace Church & St. Stephen's.

Father Donald Armstrong, rector of Grace Church & St. Stephen's, respected the judge's decision but said they will review the ruling with their attorneys before making a formal response.

"There is much yet to be settled even with this significant ruling now issued," Armstrong said in a statement.

It is not likely, however, that the parish will appeal, according to the Rev. Alan R. Crippen, spokesman for the parish.

"It's a sad day, but we look forward to a new life," Crippen said, according to The Associated Press. "We didn't leave The Episcopal Church – The Episcopal Church left us."

I guess this is to be expected but I find it disheartening that some who profess a Christian faith and a love of God would take from the sheep they are suppose to lead and turn them out to find another place to worship. Rt. Rev. Minns was correct when he stated

"The Gospel is not spread by church buildings or church property. It is the living Christ that works in people, and we are praying for the orthodox Anglicans in Colorado Springs that the work of the Lord will continue.”

Would it harm the Diocese of Colorado or the National Church to let these good people keep the building that they call home so that they could continue to worship God in familiar surroundings? Do the leaders of the Episcopal Church truly feel that our Lord and Savior approves of taking from those who have a greater need for the buildings just so they can say they legally possess what only God owns? If they would bother to read Scripture then they might understand what Jesus’ teachings are on this matter.

Read it all here

At Long Last a New Post!

2009-03-25T13:59:00.002-04:00

I've been on a bit of a hiatus since June. Some of it was self-discovery and finding my place within the desires and wishes of my Lord. Other aspects of it were pure laziness. Although I enjoyed what I was writing, it allowed me to focus on topics of theology and define my beliefs. However, I started to feel that I should take another direction with the topics I was posting. It was about this time that I started following with great interest the slow fall of the Episcopal Church and the heresies that were being accepted by clergy and laity alike and passed on as true Christian doctrine. A ‘new thing’ was taking place but it didn’t seem to be the positive event that National Church leaders would have us believe.

This has been going since before I converted to Christianity so I guess I am arriving at the dance a bit late, but I have very strong feelings concerning the heresies and the fate of the Episcopal Church. After my awakening I looked for a church home and after visiting several of the churches and denominations in my area I seemed to find a home at an Episcopal Church near my home. I found that I loved the music that was played, the liturgy that was practiced and, most importantly, the message that I was being taught. It was the same conservative message that I understood as a child. Jesus was Lord and He was crucified and rose again to save me from my sins. In this message Jesus was a real man and the Son of the Most High. I knew that I had found the Church God wanted me to attend. At the time I knew little of what was going on at the national level.

I wasn’t completely ignorant of the events taking place. I knew something about the practicing homosexual Bishop and that some in the Church wanted to sanctify same-sex marriages. What I didn’t know was the depth of the problem and how the stink of heresy was permeating the Church. I figured that these transgressions must be contained within the more isolated and liberal elements of the Church and that these doctrines would be dealt with in the loving and faithful way that Christ taught us to deal with dissent among the brethren. The truth quickly dawned on me that as far as the National Church was concerned it was the conservative, Biblically focused theology that must be dealt with and exorcised from the liberal body of the Episcopal Church.

As I became more involved in the Church I found that the false doctrines went far beyond a practicing homosexual Bishop and same-sex marriages. Some of these false teaching crossed the line between the secular and the sacred such as the apparent approval of the option to choose abortion. Other teachings, however, were strictly sacred in nature and ran contrary to the Gospel as given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Some examples:

The uniqueness of Christ is denied in many circles
That Jesus is not the only path to God
Other beliefs are equal to Christianity
The Bible is not the inerrant word of God
The divinity of Christ is denied
The Trinity is denied
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is a metaphor

The list goes on and on and is much too vast to cover in one blog article.

I guess I could have left the Church for another denomination that was more true to the Gospel as handed down from our Lord and Savior, but that seemed to deny God and his reasons for bringing me to the Episcopal Church in the first place. It may have been me who walked through the doors of the Sanctuary for the first time, but it was my Father who directed me there and it was my Father who made me feel that I was in the place He wanted me to be. There are many aspects to the will of God as it concerns me that I do not fully understand, but on this point I am certain, God wants me to be here so here I will stay until He decides to move me elsewhere. Since I am here only one of two things could be occurring; He wants me to see this ‘new thing’ and accept it or he wants me to do my part to get those sitting in the pews to recognize the broad path they are being lead on and the wide gate they will be expected to walk through.

It is with this in mind that I have decided to change the focus of this blog. I know that I am just one of many voices now devoted to this topic but perhaps I can shed some light on it from a different perspective. I will follow where God leads me and with Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit and my protector and guide Another Pilgrim will walk a new path, a narrow path that leads to a small gate and if the Lord is willing and I am doing His will, then perhaps I can persuade of few to walk the path with me. As Joshua chose so do I, “…as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15b

Don't Hate the Player... Forgive the Sin

2008-06-20T13:18:00.004-04:00

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48

What a tall order the Lord Jesus is asking of us. It is kind of difficult to love my enemy when I am pretty certain that my enemy does not love me and in fact my enemy would probably would find extreme pleasure in cutting my head off and posting the video on YouTube. To show love and kindness to someone who does not wish to return the favor runs counter to human nature. Movies, books and philosophies teach us to seek retribution for the wrongs (trespasses) committed against us. Even the Old Testament spoke to us of retribution, “Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (Deuteronomy 19:21).

If one were to take that passage as it stands then the assumption could be made that we are to repay evil with evil. We are to do unto others as they have done unto us, but when placed in context this verse does not say what we think it says. In full context:

“One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

“If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot” (Deuteronomy 19:15-21).

This verse applies to a legal proceeding in which one of the accusers is giving false testimony against his neighbor and this is a direct violation of the ninth commandment in the Decalogue. Also this passage speaks not to retaliation by an individual but to the application of justice by a court of law. In short because you killed my son I can not in turn kill you or your son. You have to be tried by a legal proceeding, found guilty and then suffer the punishment declared by those sitting in judgment. I, as the accuser, must find a way to be satisfied with whatever penance the judges have decided upon. I can not take the law in to my own hands and give additional punishment. If the perpetrator is not being punished to my satisfaction then I must accept it. In normal circumstances this is not an easy teaching to follow.

What if the perpetrator is found not guilty despite what I know to be true? Again I must accept the verdict of the court and find a way to live with it. The urge to strike back and the action of retaliation are at odds with how Christ Jesus has told us to behave. We have been told to “love our enemies and pray for them.” To do less is to be disobedient to our Lord and Creator. Christ told us that, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Jesus did not ask us to simply pay lip service to this teaching. He did not say that it was okay to love them with our words but it is fine to harbor hatred in our hearts. He said to love them and pray for them and that we should do this with as much sincerity as we would if were praying for ourselves. I have heard it said that “well He’s God and that’s His job.” Guess what? When we accepted Christ as our savior and repented of our sinful nature then we took that same job upon ourselves.

Why would he ask us to do something this difficult? Why would he expect us to show the slightest kindness to someone who would never return the favor if the shoe was on the other foot? In my mind there are several reasons, but the first and foremost being that this is exactly what He has done for us. We are sinners and enemies of God. We bring pain to the Lord every day with our sinful behavior. Can you image what it must feel like to maintain all of existence and have elements of that existence defy your every wish every hour of the day? God created a world for us and a universe for that world to exist in and He by His own will and nothing else holds that existence together for us and mankind proverbially spits in His face daily.

Do you think I am exaggerating? God says to have no other gods and we worship things that are made with our own hands or imaginary beings and forces that have no life and can give us nothing. He asks us not to make idols but we idolatrize things like money, drugs, sex and fame. Profanely using the Lord’s name is now so common that television does not even sensor it from dialogues of entertainment programs. We are a people who find entertainment in our disobedience. We no longer keep any day sacred to the Lord and the day of honoring our parents has long since passed. We murder, we steal, we commit adultery, we bear false witness and covet everything we see with such impunity that it is a wonder that God the Almighty Lord and Creator does not just let go and let creation slip down the tubes in to the infinite bit bucket.

Despite all that, despite all that we as a people do to defy our Lord and Savior, He still loves us with an infinite and relentless love. He loves us so much that He became incarnate, accepted the punishment that was due us and died a horrible and shameful death nailed to a tree for the entire world to see and mock. Then He triumphed over death and returned to us so that we could have hope of a new tomorrow and an eternity spent in the presence of our Creator as His adopted children. He did this when we were still his enemies. He did this for those who knew about him from the time of Abraham and for those who had never known him and worshipped pagan idols and false gods. In short, He loved His enemies and prayed for them. He saw the enemy and it was us and by the redeeming blood of His only begotten son he forgave us and blessed us with the twin gifts of grace and salvation.

With all that considered, is He really asking so much to expect us to do the same for our enemies? Is it really so much of a burden that we, His adopted children, should treat with dignity and respect the other products of His creation? He created us all and before we were given the blessed gift of His loving grace we, in the eyes of God, were no different than those we now call our enemies. We were unforgiving, unloving, ungodly and ungrateful products of a generous and loving God and we did not have the sense that God gave a rock to obey our Creator and to do the things He asks. He forgave us regardless of our sinful behavior against him and he expects us to forgive those who trespass against us. Is this reason so difficult for us to understand?

Another reason that Christ told us to love our enemies relates back to the concept of personal retribution. If the trespasser has not been punished to the degree to which we believe he should have been then the temptation to wield the iron glove us justice may be too great to resist. However this would not be justice, it would in fact be revenge and Paul tells us to refrain from vengeance “Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). But Paul does not let it rest there. He goes on to elaborate on what Christ told us when Paul says in Romans 12:20-21, “On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Christ redeemed us and rescued us from the evil, sinful nature that dwelt within and now as believers we should let the good that is in us out. Once it was constrained by the evil of our sinfulness but now the Christ-like nature that the Holy Spirit is building within us must be allowed to room to grow.

If we carefully consider the teachings of Christ, take them to heart and do our best to live them out on a daily basis then Spirit of Truth that the Father sent us will fill us and grow us in ways that are hard to imagine. The good qualities of Christ will become our qualities and as our old nature subsides the new nature of Christ Jesus will grow to fill the void left behind. As we become more Christ-like, doing what is right will become easier and easier and instinctively knowing the will of the Father will become more natural. We shall never be perfect in this world but that is no reason not to strive for it and with the Holy Spirit instructing us as we follow Christ down the narrow path we shall one day be with God and as with His Son we can hope to hear that “He is well pleased” with us. We would do well to consider that the first steps down the path are called love and forgiveness and when we feel the hatred of an enemy rising in our hearts would should ask ourselves a question, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?”

As Christ gave us the gift of forgiveness we, as His followers and disciples, must now give the gift to those who need forgiveness from us. God forgave us and we, in our gratitude, endeavor to obey the commands of Christ Jesus. Now much more will God do for us if we unselfishly forgive those who us wrong and what greater reward could there be if the person whom we forgive also turned to the Lord and accepted Christ as his savior. He will have gone from our enemy to our spiritual brother in Christ and we will have assisted the Lord in bringing another soul to the gates of salvation. Is not that what Jesus really wants us to do? When your enemy stumbles reach out a hand and help him up. You may find that what was an enemy is now a friend and your kind actions may turn that friend in to a spiritual sibling and adopted son of the Lord God Almighty.

Another Pilgrim

Revering God (Hallowed be Thy Name)

2008-06-15T19:31:00.000-04:00

How much time does the average Christian spend revering our Creator, the Lord God almighty? I know that we do it when we go to church on Sundays but how often do we do it in our homes or at our jobs or even in the car driving to what ever destination we seek? When we do take the opportunity, how long do we spend in reverence to our Lord? Is it just a couple of minutes at the start of prayer so we will not seem greedy by jumping straight away to the petitions? Do we really think that we are fooling God?

I try to revere the Lord at the start of every prayer. Sometimes my prayers contain nothing but honoring and worshipping God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It seems that I have so much to be thankful for that I just can not bring myself to ask him for anything for myself other than forgiveness of my sins. God is wholly good and deserves all the recognition and love we can offer him. He forgives us for our sins though we are unworthy of that forgiveness. He blesses our lives ignoring the fact that we are sinful by nature and as long as we live on this world we will harbor sin at our core. He knows this and embraces us with His love anyways. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Romans 5:8.

Can you imagine sending one of your loved ones to die for someone who constantly defies you and holds you in contempt and may even refuse to recognize your existence? God did just that for us because He loves us and He wants to restore the relationship that He had with man in the Garden of Eden. He seeks to give us that which we could not obtain on our own, the righteousness that comes from faith in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Savior. What an amazing and generous thing that our Creator has done for us. He holds out His hand grasping our salvation and even though some slap it away, others reach out to humbly accept what the Lord is offering. Praise be to Jesus the Savior of the world.

I find it most saddening that some will never know the goodness and love that God offers to us. Some just can not accept that love because by doing so they would have to face the fact that there are things bigger and more important than they are and that they do not control their own existence. What a blow to the prideful to face the truth that someone else is running the show that they call their lives. What can not be accepted, however, will be denied regardless of the facts that lay before them. It seems the illusion of self autonomy is preferable to the freedom offered by recognizing who you live for and who you serve. It is an illusion for the prideful to believe that they are not the slave of another. They are slaves to their vices or their ego or to material things. We are all slaves to something but only those who realize this and break the yoke of sin and accept the yoke of Jesus can truly know freedom. And though the prideful may be slaves to their sinful nature all things, in the end, serve the Lord.

So, recognizing that the Lord has freed me from my sinful state, I take upon myself servitude to the Lord Jesus Christ and I give Him thanks and praise for all that he has done for the world, believers and me. Sometimes my prayers can be summed up as nothing more than “I love you God” because I do love the Lord with all my heart and soul. How often do we just tell God that we love Him? Lately I find myself saying it all through the day. I have yet to find a place that is so hectic and distracting that I could not bow my head or look up to the sky and say “I love you Lord.” When time allows I say much more.

In my quiet moments I speak to God words of praise and delight. The Father has no need for such words but it does please Him to hear them and they are a joy for me to say. How much thanks and praise can I give the one who freed me from my sins and forgave me for all my discordant behavior and have it be enough? I could praise and honor Him for all eternity and it still will not come close to making good on the debt for which He has put behind Him. I recall the words Jesus when told Simon the Pharisee about loving much for being forgiven much (Luke 7:36-50) and I realize just how much the Lord God has forgiven me and I know just how much I love Him for His sacrifice upon the cross.

When things get busy and there seems little time for prayer and honoring our Lord, just envision Christ upon the cross at Golgotha and mediate upon the reasons that He is dying there. The daily grind of the world will seem a little less important. When one truly understands the depths that he or she has been forgiven, reverence of the Father becomes an easier thing to do. Just look around and see the beauty of his creation. Just look at this world and see his handy work. Get some pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and gaze at the Master Artist’s cosmic master piece. Michelangelo’s canvas was the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel but God’s canvas is the heavens above us and the earth below our feet.

Look on these glorious signs of a creative and loving God and remember that God’s Word brought them in to being. And while he was busy creating all these majestic wonders in the heavens and earth he took the time to create such little things as you and me. Though we are little things in the eyes of God and other men, He thinks so much of us that he has offered us eternity as a gift and time out of time to be in His blissful presence. As an act of gratitude, the least we should do is to return to him one of the gifts He has given us… eternal love.

The Righteousness of Faith

2008-06-10T14:22:00.001-04:00

“Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

Genesis 15:6 is one of the most powerful statements in the entire Old Testament and gives reason for all mankind to hold out hope that salvation is possible. Abram merely believed God’s promises and he was credited with righteousness. It does not say that Abram was truly righteous; he was simply treated as if he was righteous. There is no way that fallen man, bearing the guilt of original sin as it is passed down to us from Adam, could ever be truly righteous. Our nature is sinful and our behavior reflects our nature, so righteousness is beyond our ability to achieve. Just consider that for a moment. Being inherently unable to obtain righteousness by our own behavior and good works we would be doomed forever to the pit with the rest of mankind along with Satan and his fallen angels. This is a very bleak outlook to say the least.

However, the God of creation is a generous and loving God. At the fall of Adam, He had no intension of giving up on us. He knew that with the sin of defiance upon the hearts of all mankind we would need another way to reenter his presence and reestablish our relationship with Him. To our good fortune He accepted the act of belief as an atoning factor in our salvation. To believe would give our Lord cause to put our sins behind Him and out of His sight forever. “Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.” (Psalm 32 1-2) By the act of belief our transgressions are forgiven and our sins are covered. What a kind and loving act from our heavenly Father. When it would have been easier to have done away with creation at the time of the fall, our Lord loved us enough to stand by us and offer us a hope that we did not deserve.

What benefit does the Lord receive from our continued existence? He is God He is perfect in and of Him self and needs nothing to complete His being. He does not need a creation to tend to or mankind to try His patience. He is, however, a God who creates and He lives out his nature by creating so He created a perfect heavens and earth and then created mankind in His image to populate His creation. He did not do this out of any need to have a relationship with man. He needs nothing to fulfill His being but part of that being is generosity so He exercised this generous nature by creating mankind and breathing life in to us. In that beginning there for a time was no sin. The will of God and man was in harmony and perfection was the norm between the Lord and his creation.

Then Eve ate fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and enticed Adam in to eating and so discord was born between God and man. From this discord sin arose and sin sired all that is evil in creation. Man was in the seemingly hopeless plight that he still exists in to this day. Paul referenced this condition when he paraphrased Psalm 14:3 and stated “At it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one’” (Romans 3:10-12). So there we are, hopelessly lost and beyond redemption with no way to restore harmony between God and ourselves. Fortunately what is impossible with man is possible with God and He had a plan.

Abram believed and God credited him with righteousness. So does simply saying that you believe in God cause Him to credit a sinner as being righteous? The answer to this is no. One has to actually believe and through that belief he must behave in accordance with it. In the case of Abram, God promised him an heir and through that heir Abram’s offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the heavens. Abram believed and a covenant was made between the Lord and Abram. The belief caused him to obey what the Lord asked of him. When God renamed Abram, Abraham, he accepted his new name. The Lord told Abraham that he and all his descendants and all their slaves must undergo the process of circumcision he responded with out question. Even when the Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his son he would have done as God commanded had God not stopped him. Abraham’s belief was proven by his obedience to the Lord.

Though out the Old Testament we see men and women believe and then declared righteous in the sight of God. Joseph, after being sold in to slavery in Egypt never doubted that God was with him and was rewarded by saving the lives of his family during a famine. Joseph’s faith also allowed him to forgive his brothers for their mistreatment of him and bring harmony to his family. Here Joseph exemplifies one of the most important fruits of faith which is forgiveness. 1500 years before Christ gave the Sermon on the Mount and explained the importance of forgiveness Joseph lived it instinctively because he believed.

David did not doubt God and His promises and was rewarded by God with righteousness. Even when David’s sinful nature caused him to stumble as it did with the seduction of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah, he still believed and asked for and received forgiveness for his lapses. The Lord did not hold him blameless for his actions and rebuked him but as long as David believed his righteousness was never in doubt. From David forward through the time up the prophets up until the time of the incarnation of Jesus Christ and beyond, belief was the standard used by God to determine who was righteous and who was not. Belief and the resulting behavior that is more in harmony with God’s will validate one’s true belief, “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:16).

To believe is to be righteous and to be righteous is to live out that belief every day. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ explained again and again how important belief is and how the fruit of that belief exhibits itself as righteous behavior in the daily living of believers. Christ’s death upon the cross and His resurrection has become the focal point of belief. He announced this when he said “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). This references an episode in the book of Numbers where the Lord sent venomous snakes among the Israelites because of their grumbling at God for leading them out in to the dessert. When they realized their sin they sought forgiveness and Moses prayed. The Lord told Moses “Make a snake and put it up on a pole. Anyone who is bitten can look at it and live” (Numbers 21:8). As the Israelites looked upon the snake on the pole and were healed of their snake bites, looking at Jesus upon the cross heals a person of their sin. Both are examples of faith. Both instances required belief and in belief there is salvation. The Israelites where made healthy and Christians are made righteous.

Christ further explains where this belief comes from and why some will believe and some will not. In John 6:44 Jesus tells the Jews “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day.” What Jesus is telling us is that we believe in Christ Jesus and who He is because God calls us to believe. Christ takes this even further in John 14:6 when he states “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What Jesus is articulating in these two verses is that no one can believe in Him, God the Son, unless that belief is given to them by God the Father and no one can approach God the Father unless they believe in God the Son.

Why the circular approach to accepting Christ as Savior? Because we are fallen beings and the discord between our will and that of God’s will keeps us from believing. Only when God opts to give His gift of grace to someone can that person overcome the disparity of wills and believe that God sent his only Son to die upon the cross as atonement for mankind’s sin. Moreover, the irresistible grace of God allows us to accept and believe that Jesus Christ is in fact God incarnate, fully God yet fully man. This faith imputes to us the righteousness of Christ because we could never achieve the righteousness that God the Father requires of us, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” (Philippians 3:9)

In the end is it only our faith that will bring us in to the presence of God and repair for us the broken relationship all mankind have with the Lord. God will see our belief and credit us with the righteousness that Jesus died to give to us. It is a beautiful thing that those who should be hopeless are offered hope and those who are beyond redemption are being redeemed. God is good and God is merciful. Because of His goodness and mercy it is our duty to worship and praise our heavenly Father as the adopted children that Christ has called us to be. The willing and humble servants and children of a loving and caring Father who offers us hope of an eternal bliss in His presence. As Peter stated at the start of is second epistle, I would like to quote here at the end of this article, “To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.”

Pride is Prejudice

2008-06-05T09:00:00.002-04:00

I read where Martin Luther was once asked if he loved God. He is reported to have said “Love God? Sometimes I hate God!” Although I do not believe that I have ever hated God, recently I was very angry with Him. In prayer I told Him that I was angry but I also asked him to forgive me because I am human and prone to fits of insanity. How insane must a person be to kneel before God and tell Him that you are angry with him? Who am I to criticize God? “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord" (Isaiah 55:8)

To be honest, I do not feel like I was critiquing His abilities as God. I was just angry with the way a situation had worked out and I needed to vent that anger and frustration. I felt that I was being honest with Him. He already knew what I was feeling inside so letting go of those feelings and confessing them to my Creator seems like an appropriate course of action. I understand that all things are in the hands and control of God, but my mistake or rather my sin was anticipating the outcome of events that I now know to be contrary to the way God intended to work them out. My sin does not stem from being mad at God; my sin is derived from believing that the way I wanted things to turn out was the way it should turn out. In a nutshell I felt that I knew better than God. I exhibited the sin that is the root of all sins, pride.

C. S. Lewis wrote that pride is the worse of all sins. Pride gives birth to sin but it also will not tolerate competition with other sins. Pride rules the roost and all other sins but take a backseat and must be subservient to the authority of pride. Pride is biased. It has examined all other sins and found them lacking. Who can compete with pride? Pride fathers extreme ego and self-centeredness and also nurtures arrogance and vanity. Pride drives our lust for the opposite sex and material possessions. Pride sets delusions of grandeur before our self-esteem and causes us to act in ways contrary to the will of God but in concurrence with the desires of prince of this world.

Pride separates us from God in ways that no other sin can. Pride tells us that we are the most important thing in the universe and the all of creation revolves around us. If the prideful can even accept the existence of a god, then their god is an impersonal, distant entity who either cares little or not at all for the actions of man. In many cases pride breeds agnostics and atheists. How can a prideful person live out his days in peace knowing that he has to answer eventually to a God who will hold him accountable for his actions? It is easier to construct a god of his own understanding, who approves of his behavior or to discount the existence of God all together.

Pride and acceptance of a living personal God can not coexist and for this reason God expects all his people to be humble before Him and before other men. How can someone do the will of the Lord while his own will is begging for attention and release? Those filled with pride and arrogance can not do this. The self-absorbed hear the gospel and it abhors them. They wonder how someone can willingly subvert his will to the will of some invisible being that expects him to renounce all the fun things in life. The thought of being a slave and servant to our creator terrifies them. It is beyond their ability to understand why someone would willingly give up their freedom to serve God and the poor and down trodden for seemingly no personal gain.

What the prideful do not realize is that they are already slaves to the task masters that pride has given them. Some are slaves to their sexual desires; perverting and cheapening a God given desire to please our wife or husband. Some are slaves to money and live to acquire money and the material things money buys. When they have acquired enough money they desire to gain even more. Others are slaves to their ambition. They strive constantly to get a head in the business or sport of their choosing and any small failure gets magnified in their minds to the point of obsession.

Those who are enslaved to the task masters of pride can never have enough and never be enough. There is not amount of women, fun or money that will satisfy them. No personal position that they have obtained will every sate their desire for more. People like this are born wanting and no matter what they get out of life and how much they receive, it will never be enough. Pride makes them always want more and more, so that nothing they gain will ever make them happy for long. They have an awareness of something missing in their lives and they seek to find out what it is. They spend a life time searching from something that pride keeps them blind to and they die never knowing what it was they were seeking. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before the fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)

What they are missing is the personal relationship with God that their pride bars them from. They long for something but have no idea what it is. They assume that what they are lacking in their lives is something associated with their personal desires, never realizing (because their pride will brook no rival and thus hides it from them) that what they need is peace and satisfaction of serving the Lord Jesus and making His will their will. We were all created with an innate desire for the eternity that exists beyond this life and our current temporal reality. They feel the longing for more but pride steps in to offer the false hopes of self-sufficiency and materialism. Once they way is chosen they will always remain separate from God unless He gifts them with his irresistible grace.

Only God can save someone from themselves and only through the belief in the Lord Jesus can someone know salvation and experience the justification that frees them from the slavery of sin. When the prideful escape the bounds of sin they come to see how they lived the illusion of freedom and in reality they were never really seeking what they truly desired. They find that instead they were chasing the phantoms that pride paraded in front of them. A fool infused with the wisdom of the Lord is a fool no more except in the eyes of those who are still suffering from the delusions of pride. Personally, I’d rather seem foolish with God’s wisdom than be thought wise with Satan’s illusions. “When pride comes then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)

Another Pilgrim

Profit and Loss

2008-06-02T10:08:00.001-04:00

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.” (Philippians 3:7-9)

What a truly beautiful sentiment Paul is expressing to the Philippians concerning the sacrifice that he made because of the calling of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is stating that what he once found to his benefit he gave away in order to take up his cross and follow Christ. In taking up his cross and casting aside his past he realized that what he was giving up truly had no worth when compared to the honor and pleasure he received from serving our Savior and Redeemer. What was once Paul’s treasure was now his refuse, fit only for the burning piles of waste in Gehenna. Paul’s example is one we should all mimic but could we really give up the life and possessions as Paul did?

I have heard it suggested that the people of two thousand years ago did not have a lot to give up in the first place. This I beg to differ. They may not have had cars, television sets, stereos and the other trappings of modern life but I imagine that the things that they had were just as precious to them as our possessions are to us. Also Paul had a lot more to sacrifice than just his possessions. He was a learned man in a position of authority and a Pharisees. Undoubtedly, in time, he would have become a member in good standing with the Sanhedrin. He would have been a pillar of the Jewish community in Jerusalem had he stayed the course. But Christ Jesus had other plans for him.

On the road to Damascus, our Lord Christ appeared to Saul of Tarsus.

“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’
‘Who are you, Lord?’ asked Saul
‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. ‘Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by and into Damascus.”
(Acts 9:1-8)

In Damascus Saul’s vision was restored and the Lord revealed to him the gospel of Jesus Christ and commissioned him to carry the message to the gentiles. Saul accepted his assignment, became Paul and immediately discarded every thing that made him who he was. Literally over night he went from Saul the persecutor of Christians to Paul the Evangelist of the gentiles. The word of God and the message of Jesus Christ became his most valuable treasure, but it was a treasure he could not keep to himself. He was compelled to share it with the world.

Paul did not question the vision and revelation that he experienced. He took up his cross and began spreading the good news. For Jesus, Paul gave up everything even his very name. Now Paul was an exception because most of us are not called to give up things to the degree that he was. However, we are called to give up that which separates us from God. All Christians are expected to do this but some times we love what we love with a zealous, unwholesome love. Some times it is people in our lives and some times it is the material possessions we own but if it comes between us and our devotion to the Lord it must be cast aside for the good of our souls. As converted Christians we have taken up the work of Jesus and can not let things from our previous existence interfere. As Christ said “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

Oddly enough, it seems that it is much easier for people to give up their previous life styles than it is part with some of their possessions. God draws us to the Lord Jesus and blesses us with the gift of grace so that we can truly see and understand that Christ had sacrificed all in order to save us from the grasp of sin and impute His righteousness upon us. If we could see and grasp the nature of Christ’s sacrifice then why do we find it so difficult to part with the material possessions that we know distracts us from the work of God? Christ gave up his life for us so why the difficulty in giving up that which comes between us and Him?

I think our unwillingness to cast away the material garbage of our previous lives is due to the misguided notion that these possessions are ours and that we earned them. Nothing could be further from the truth. All that we have is a gift from God. From the sheets on our beds, to the cars that take us to work and church, to the lives we live and the air we breathe. Nothing is truly ours, we have only the illusion that we belong to ourselves and thus, that which we own belongs to us. We are all God’s creations. Even the fancy electronics in our homes are His creations. After all, He created the minds that thought them up and the hands that put them together. He imparted the knowledge we use to create and He invented the science behind His technology. We don’t so much invent as we discover.

At any rate, if we can not let our Earthly pleasures and treasures go, then we bind ourselves to this world and become more apart of the world. Its concerns and cares become our concerns and cares. The politics of man becomes the politics of Satan and he uses that which binds us to this world to keep us estranged from the true living God and our Savior Christ Jesus. Christ gave way all for us. Paul gave way his previous life to bring the gospel of Jesus to us. Are we now going to decide that our worldly treasures are more important to us than following, obeying and worshipping the One who created us? God does not call on most of us to sacrifice everything, but he does require that we give up that which we may cherish more than Him, His Son and the Holy Spirit. The Apostles and the martyr’s gave up their lives in order to stay true to the Lord Jesus. Martin Luther was willing to sacrifice his life in order that the true message of the gospel could be spread among the people. Is it to much to ask that we give up a television set or radio if it takes time away from our worship of God?

Another Pilgrim

When Good Churches Go Bad

2008-05-23T18:57:00.003-04:00

In a previous article (The Renewing of Our Minds), I kind of implied that the lack of good Biblical education and quality Bible study habits by many in the Church laity was in large part at fault for the heresies being introduced and practiced in many of the traditional mainstream protestant churches. I think now is the time to say it out right. If every day, average Joe Christians had been picking up and reading their Bibles daily, taking God’s word to heart and then living out those commandments it would have been a lot harder for the invaders from secular society to infiltrate the Church. By not truly knowing or understanding what Christ’s message is and relying solely on someone at the pulpit to educate the masses then the curse of false doctrines taking hold within Christianity was inevitable. The divide that we now see between those who adhere to the gospel as it came down from Christ Jesus though the Apostles and those who claim that God is doing some previously unannounced “new thing” was inevitable.

Those of the secular liberal clergy who lead many of the churches realize that anyone who has or gains an understanding of Biblical teaching and principles will be able to challenge the authority of the minister’s words using sound Scriptural arguments. Paul verified this when he wrote to Timothy, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16). To counter this, the first thing that worldly Church leaders tend to do is question the true authority and authenticity of Scripture and when they deem that the time is right they replace Scriptural authority with Church traditions which are open to a more ambiguous interpretation by clergy. Once again in Scripture the apostles warned of this the author of Jude reminds us, “They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the spirit.” (Jude 1:18-19). What these supposed servants of the Lord are saying is “the Bible got some stuff wrong and we will tell you what it really means based on what the Church believes.” Because many Church goers have been relying on the pulpit to explain things to them for so long they do not question this heresy or even see it as a heresy. It is just the status quo to them. Just sit in the pews and let the minister tell them what is and is not God’s will.

Now this is where the worldly fun begins as the liberal clergy starts looking around at society and examining what is going on. Their efforts here are to make the Church conform to societal norms and worldly behavior. When the world decides that killing the unborn is a good thing then the worldly church leaders jump on the band wagon. Many farfetched claims are made to justify what many consider out and out murder. They claim that it is better to terminate the child than to have it grow up unwanted in an abusive environment. They claim the mother will have a better life if left unimpeded by a child that will bring her standard of living down.

One I hear a lot is that the fetus is in reality just a parasite in the woman’s body. It is a simple clump of cells that use the woman for nourishment and development and are doing this against her will. Funny but I’ve never heard of a parasite that contained half of the host’s DNA and the other half being generally a voluntary donation to the mother’s reproductive system. I am no biologist but I don’t think that this fits the true definition of a parasite. Anyways, they cannot have a bunch of pious Christians running around talking about sin and damnation and pointing out to everyone that abortion is an abomination in the eyes of God. It is murder of the innocent and anyone who has any honest understanding of Scripture will know this.

How a Christian Church, a place where God’s word should reign sovereign, could consider this abominable doctrine a valid Christian belief and then preach it to its members as something acceptable to God is beyond me. Even more astonishing is that many people who claim to be members of the Body of Christ can accept this deviation from God’s law as a valid exception to the “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) commandment. Admittedly I’ve only been studying the Bible for a couple of years but I have yet come across any exceptions or mention of extenuating circumstances in which God will authorize the breaking of one of the commandments in the Decalogue.

Another area where the Church has looked over society and said this is good is the area of same sex marriages. When society seeks to establish same sex marriages then the secularly led Church must seek to do the same and looks first for ways in Scripture to justify this. The Lord, however, is very specific when it comes to marriage. He tells us in the opening chapters of Genesis, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Since that will not work they look to science and genetics and tell us that since people are genetically predisposed to homosexual behavior then God the Creator must approve. After all He created the DNA that caused someone to become a homosexual. We are told that if Moses had known about genetics when he wrote Leviticus then he never would have put the prohibitions on same sex sexual relations in the law. Moses may not have known about genetics and DNA but I’m fairly certain that the Holy Spirit did as He guided Moses in the writing of the Pentateuch and moved Moses to include restrictions on this type of behavior.

Still many mainstream Churches are telling us that we are not behaving as Jesus would have us behave. We are not being tolerant of our homosexual brothers and sisters and we should welcome them into the Church with open arms and tell them that it is just fine and dandy if they want to participate in an act that God has strictly forbidden. They do not have to repent from such behavior because even though God told us that it was wrong He apparently was only kidding because He genetically made them to desire this sort of activity. I hate to break the news to the heretics but science it determining that God seems to have made alcoholics and drug addicts genetically predisposed to over indulging in alcohol and drugs but they are still expected to repent, ask forgiveness of their sins and renounce the sinful behavior. I do not think that the Holy Spirit would be able to live and function in a practicing alcoholic. Once the alcoholic repents and renounces his sin the Lord removes the urge to drink and strengthens him to remain alcohol free.

God seems to have created all of us with various difficulties in our nature that He expects us to overcome in order to show Him our love and to bring Him glory. For some it is lust, for others it is alcohol and drugs and for others it is homosexual desires. God is not telling homosexuals that they are barred from the gates of Heaven. He is simply telling them to renounce their sinful nature, give it to God for Him to deal with and “go forth and sin no more”. The Lord expects the same thing from all sinners who seek the grace and forgiveness of God. No one is exempt for this, “Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘If any man would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’” (Mark 8:34). Christ is telling us that we (the Church) must be more like him.

Somehow the liberal clergy got things turned around. Instead of the Church being a example of Christ’s virtue and a witness to the world, the Church decided that its views and behaviors should closely reflect that of society at large. The Church was supposed to remain separate from the world even at the risk of persecution. Christ told us “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19). Lately, however, the Church’s response to this seems to be to pull away from Christ and seek for the love and adoration of the world. This is a true heresy and the path damnation. Unfortunately an uneducated laity does not know any better and responds to the liberal Church’s heresy with acceptance and approval.

Now what is left to do? It will be difficult of not impossible for even the regenerate to change the direction that the visible Church is now taking. Many have accepted the heresy and pronounced it good. The liberal clergy have embraced the very things that the Lord our God warned them not to and now teach that these things are in harmony with the will of God. However they cannot produce the Scripture that validates this interpretation. They tell us it is ‘a new thing’ given to us by the Holy Spirit but Paul warned us about new things that have no Scriptural basis. He reiterated, “As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:9). If it were just the teachers of heresy who were bringing eternal condemnation upon themselves that would be one thing. Unfortunately a lot of people will be taking the fall with them. Oh for the want of a desire to read and study the Bible, the souls that could have been saved.

What is left to do? We regenerate are limited in our abilities. God, however, is not so constrained and may have ideas of his own…

The Lord says:
"These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men.
Therefore once more I will astound these people
with wonder upon wonder;
the wisdom of the wise will perish,
the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."
Isaiah 29:13-14

Another Pilgrim

Do Not Be Yoked to Unbelievers

2008-05-20T13:20:00.004-04:00

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?" 2 Corinthians 6:14

“Should I stay or should I go now. If I stay there will be trouble. An’ If I go it will be double” Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash.

“One thing, one thing leads to another” One Thing Leads to Another – The Fixx

With all the parishes and dioceses that are leaving and/or trying distance themselves from the heresies of the Episcopal Church, I thought I would look up 2 Corinthians 6:14 on the internet for possible enlightenment and commentary. It seems that this verse is applied mostly to potential marriages between Christians and unbelievers. It is used to discourage a Holy bond between two people whose spiritual views may be at odds with each other. This is good advice. Very few marriages seem to work when the couple’s worldviews are so far apart. But what is a believer to do when the person that they are married to has lost faith and fallen away from Christian belief and values? Both the Old and New Testaments tell us that the only reason for divorce of a married couple is adultery. So unless adultery has been committed then the implication is that the couple must stay together being unevenly yoked. That now begs a question concerning the Episcopal Church. Has it been unfaithful and adulterous or has it merely lost its faith?

I do not believe that there is any question that the Episcopal Church has lost its faith. It no longer recognizes the authority of Scripture. Church canons now seem to supersede the spoken word of Jesus Christ and the Apostles to whom Jesus gave authority. The canons themselves seem to be fluid and open to the interpretation of the Presiding Bishop. Prophecy is the new wisdom and the prophecy heard in the Episcopal Church is the false prophecy of an imagined voice of the Holy Spirit. To my knowledge the Holy Spirit has never led God’s people away from the will of God as He has made it known in Scripture. However, the Episcopal Church is telling its members that it is being directed by the Holy Spirit to have new priorities and new concepts of what is sinful and what is not.

The Great Commission that Christ assigned to all those who would follow Him has taken a back seat to the works that the Church can perform for other. Service seems to be the new priority, service to the Episcopal Church while Christ’s message is being neglected. Christ spoke harshly to the Pharisees and teachers when he said, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23). Are not the elders of the National Episcopal Church putting the works of their hands over the sharing of the Gospel? Are not they neglecting the more important work of bringing Christ’s message to those who have not heard it? Are they not now practicing one at the expense of the other? Has the leaders of the National Episcopal Church lost there faith and in turned voted faith out of the body. I say absolutely.

In the case of the second question, has the Episcopal Church been unfaithful? To this I say most assuredly it has. The Church been unfaithful to its members as well as it has been unfaithful to Christ and the traditional teachings of the New Testament. The moment that the Episcopal Church accepted unrepentant practicing homosexuals to be teachers, leaders and shepherds to the laity then the church became a mistress to the Adversary. The second that the leaders of the Episcopal Church decided to “weary the Lord by saying that all who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord and He is pleased with them” (Malachi 2:17) they slipped off the wedding band ran into the night to meet their lover. The church gave up the love Christ Jesus and exchanged it for the lies of the father of lies and teacher of harlots. Seduced by promises of money and power and the freedom to call any sin a virtue the Episcopal Church betrayed both Jesus our Savior and the members that made up the church body.

The Episcopal Church now wishes to preach a new gospel that is different than the one it received. Considering what Paul stated, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:8), what hope is there for the Episcopal Church in America? To walk away from those who would teach us the lies that they are being taught by their new master is the path that some have chosen to follow. I also understand that there are those parishioners that have not bought in to the false teachings and heresies who want to stay. Like an estranged husband of a wayward wife, they wait in anticipation of the return of the woman they love even though she may be long gone in mind as well as body. They hope against hope that the person the fell in love with will come back and things will be as they once were. Is it a fool’s hope? Only the Lord our God knows for sure. Are those who wish to leave too quick to pull the trigger and turn their backs on what they once loved instead of waiting in thoughtful prayer for their beloved to realize what she is throwing away? Again, only the Lord knows. One must go where ever the Spirit of God may lead them.

On Grace

2008-05-15T15:56:00.007-04:00

A question that I get from non Christians from time to time is “What exactly is grace and why do I need it?” On the surface this seems like an easy question to answer but after a person thinks about it for a while you must come to the conclusion that it is not as simple to answer as it first seems and a lot of people are not going to care very much for the answer. Oh, they’ll love the concept of grace and what it provides to a people in need of salvation, but what many will rebel against is how God administers it to His created people.

First let us establish why grace is necessary. Without grace there can be no faith. Without faith there can be no belief that Christ Jesus is both God and man and that He died upon the cross to pay for our sins and then after three days rose from the dead. Without this belief there can be no salvation. Without salvation there will be no righteous lives. Without righteousness there can be no sanctification and with no sanctification no one will be worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven or stand before He who will judge the world. Without the grace that God gives us then all mankind would be faced with only the prospect of eternity in the pit. I truly shutter when I consider that.

As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
All have turned away;
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."
"Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit."
"The poison of vipers is on their lips."
”Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."
"Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know."
"There is no fear of God before their eyes."
(Romans 3:10-18)

As you can see, grace is the foundation for everything in the redemptive process that God the Father authored before the foundations of the world were created. Without grace we would have nothing and our lives would be truly meaningless. Since God never does anything that is pointless or meaningless why would He create the universe we live in if there was no way to give it purpose and to give our lives meaning? He would not and knowing that we would become the fallen creatures that we are, in His infinite love and goodness He conceived one of the most beautiful thoughts ever imagined, grace.

Grace leads to the abolition of our souls from the bondage of our sinful nature. It is when we are free of the slavery of sin that we start upon the narrow path that leads to the righteousness necessary to stand in the presence of our Creator and not be so abhorrent to Him that He has no choice but to remove us from his sight. In this respect Grace leads to the absolution of our sins and purifies us through the blood of Jesus Christ. For this purification to occur we must believe that Christ paid the ultimate price for our fallen nature and we simply could not accept this if God had not of granted us His grace.

As Paul tells the Ephesians God grants us grace because we cannot achieve it on our own, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace is something that we cannot earn through any number of good works because without grace the hearts of people are contrary to God and any positive things that people do is for their own glory and not for the glory of God. If God is not at the center of our initiatives then those initiatives are in reality sinful and self serving. Only when we do things for the love and glory of our heavenly Father are we truly being obedient to His will. When we humbly accept that He is the true cause of our existence and all we do should serve to hold Him up to the world and say “This you your God and Creator! He loves you so you should love him!” Doing the will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is to honor and glorify God.

Unfortunately without the grace that God gives us we would not be able to do His will and those who are not under grace can not understand (nor be expected to understand) why Christians so love the triune God. In 2 Corinthians we are told “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Satan blinds us fallen beings to the truth so to many unbelievers all that Christians do is at best good intentioned but pointless and a waste of time. They appreciate the charitable nature of Christians but they misunderstand and feel that the only reason Christians do good deeds is to earn a place in Heaven. They are totally unable to grasp the fact that Christians do good things and perform acts of kindness in order to give thanks to the Lord who has already made a place for them in heaven. It is the nature of Grace to regenerate a person and change him from one with a sinful and self-centered nature in to a person who is more concerned with fellow man and to remake him in to the likeness of Christ. An individual seeing the world without the lens of grace can not see Christian behavior for what it really is so this person projects his own motives on to the actions of Christians. This is as Satan wants it.

Since grace can not be earned as a reward for positive behavior then how does a person acquire grace? This is simple. God grants it to whomever he chooses (“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy” Exodus 33:19b). Why does one receive the gift of grace and another does not? It seems harsh at first, but some are received in to God’s mercy while others are left to the delusions of Satan. So why this distinction between those being saved and those who are not? To be honest it is not for anything that the receiver of grace has done to merit it. Paul remarks in to the Thessalonians that God decided long ago who would receive this gift and who wouldn’t, “But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 2:12-14). What is true for the Thessalonians is true for all God’s chosen, but this is where the concept of grace begins to lose people as they question why God would pick some people over others if those people who receive grace don’t necessarily merit it. The answer is that God can do whatever God wants with His gifts. I guess this answer sounds a bit contrite but that does not in any way change the validity of it. God will do as God will do.

On the surface this sounds like such an arbitrary way for a person to gain admittance in to the Kingdom of God but in fact there is no other way. God had originally told Adam that to defy His will and eat of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge would surely bring death down upon Him, “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die' " (Genesis 2:16-17). And although they became mortal and subject to a physical death the Lord had mercy upon them and did not immediately destroy the work of His hands. He left them in their fallen state and he left them alive although His justice demanded their death. But God is not as a man who can set aside his justice forever. He is perfect and His word is perfect and so He must have justice for the violation of his word. Because Adam and Eve defied the Lord and ate that which was forbidden and they were not immediately removed from God’s sight this allowed sin to enter in to them and sin corrupted their hearts and the hearts of all of their descendants. The hearts of men became opposed to God and they were no longer able to do what was necessary to please God. Their thoughts and desires became focused on themselves first. Instead of pleasing God they sought to please themselves.

With the hearts of men steadfastly turned away from God, man became the enemy of the Lord and was aligned with Satan and his fallen angels. So it goes on until this very day. God, however, knew what would occur and had planned for it since before the creation of the world. Some he would leave to their own devices and allow them to become the tools of the devil but others He elected to save and thus thwart Satan’s desire for dominion over all creation. Since the beginning, God’s plan for the healing of men and their redemption from sin has been underway. In man’s fallen state he can not choose to do the will of God. All men have the choice but no one can make the right choice. It is beyond our ability to choose God on our own. With this in mind God granted some people, his people, grace and once they received grace their eyes and minds were opened to the truth and they received salvation. Once they received salvation they believed in the works of Christ Jesus and they had faith that because of His death and the shedding of His precious blood they would see the Kingdom of Heaven and know God in all his glory.

Because man on his own could not do what was necessary to turn to God and find favor with the Lord, God had to give to man the desire to seek Him out and do His will. Through grace this desire is given to fallen man. God also wants his people to be humble not only before Him but before other people as well. If grace could in fact be earned then, as the Apostle Paul pointed out, it would give someone under grace a reason to boast of his works and faith. He could and would compare himself to others and hold himself in higher regard because he managed to do what they could not. Humility is required of man and is one of the fruits of the regenerate heart. Any act that would tear down humility and bolster pride is an act of defiance before our Creator and thus sinful behavior. Although we have been absolved of our sinful nature we Christians still struggle with our sins. The difference between a believer and an unbeliever is that because of grace the Holy Spirit lives within us and convicts us of our sins. In the unrepentant the sinful actions rarely even gets noticed by the conscience of sinner. When the sin does get noticed it is easily suppressed by the unregenerate heart.

Why are some chosen and others not? God knows the answer to that and I feel certain that He has some criteria that are beyond our ability to understand in this physical/temporal world. Perhaps Paul sums it up best in Romans 9:19-21, “One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’ But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?” We must always remember that we do not think like God nor does He think like us. We are his creations to do with as He will. The Lord has his own reasons for why he leaves some in bondage to sin and others he elects to cut the chains of slavery. Perhaps when we reach the life beyond this world we will understand all His reasons for doing things this way. On the other hand, perhaps when we reach the Kingdom of Heaven the reasons will not even matter.

Before the beginning God created grace so that we sinners who are fortunate enough to be named as members of the Elect would come to know our Savior Jesus Christ and believe in what He did and to understand how much He suffered for us so that the Father would once again find us acceptable to be allowed in to his presence. We humbly accept the grace of God because it is a gift that is beyond our ability to earn and we pray for the souls who have yet to receive the gift and we cry for those souls who never will. On this physical plane of reality this is a hard process to understand and accept but I imagine that in the life to come it will become clear why it had to be this way. In my Lord and Savior I trust.

Another Pilgrim

The Forgotten Miracle (thoughts before Pentecost)

2008-05-10T11:42:00.004-04:00

Reading through the Gospels and the book of Acts a person cannot help but be astonished at the nature and volume of miracles that were performed by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Some of the miracles were utilitarian in nature such as the incident where Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11) or when the Apostles spoke at Pentecost and those attending could hear the words spoken in their own languages (Acts 2:1-12). Other miracles were merciful and kind as when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44) or when Christ healed the demon possessed man who lived in the tombs of Gerasenes (Mark 5:1-20). No matter what the nature of the miracle, however, each was done with one purpose in mind, to bring glory to God the Father. The blind were made to see, the deaf to hear, the lepers were made clean and the lame could walk. The items on the list of miracles that Christ and the Apostles performed seem almost countless. Many of the people who witnessed these miracles came to believe that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and the Son of God. The miracles were proof of the divine nature of the Lord. Since the Ascension of Christ and the passing and martyrdom of the Apostles miracles seem to be less common. Also science has come along to make miracles seem less miraculous. There is, however, a miracle that happens daily and no one seems to mention it.

Not only is this miracle not mentioned but many do not see it for the miracle that it truly is. Some of the unregenerate even call it a delusion and a sign of ignorance. This miracle that I am referring to is the miracle of belief. It happens daily as new members are accepted into the Body of Christ and hardly a soul realizes the true power of this miracle. Christ understood this when after proving to Thomas that He was indeed the risen Lord, Jesus said “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). No believer today was there at the crucifixion and watched Christ’s redemptive blood seep from his hands and feet. Not a soul alive heard Jesus saying “It is finished” (John 19:30) as he relinquished his life on the cross. There are not witnesses still alive who can say that they saw the Lord being removed from the cross and laid to rest in his tomb. I dare say that no one, man or woman, who walks the Earth can claim to have seen the risen Lord immediately after his resurrection and release from the tomb. Not a person alive can say that they have seen any or all of these events but all believers have no doubt that they took place.

What a miracle we have here and hardly anyone acknowledges it as being the miraculous occurrence that it is. Is not this an amazing thing that mere moments before we come to know the Lord Jesus we are doubters and scoffers (to say the least) and in the precious moment that God’s grace descended upon us we understood perfectly the truth of Christ on the cross and we felt completely assured as to what He did for the sake of our souls. God blesses us with the miracle of belief as part of bestowing grace upon us. With the gift of grace comes not only belief but faith, forgiveness and the desire for repentance. It is belief, however, that is the key to unlocking the door to our salvation. Without the miracle of belief then of what use is faith to us? We would have nothing in which to have faith in if we never came to believe in the forgiveness and salvation that Christ offers us with his sacrifice upon the cross.

I have heard people say that they could easily believe in Jesus had they heard Him teach and witnessed the miracles he performed. But that option is not available to us. What we have instead is a gift from God to believe the stories that are written about Him and to accept the salvation that He offers us. They should pray to God that He grants them the grace to believe in these things and if He does their doubts will seem frivolous and they will wonder why it took them so long to come to this understanding. From my vantage point as one who has been blessed with faith and salvation I can see the miracle of belief. I can still remember a time when I did not believe and today I ask myself, with everything that I know how I could have been so ignorant and blind to the glory and majesty of God. As a believer I see it everywhere, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3b). Nothing around me changed, God just blessed me with belief and then I changed. All these miracles are about glorifying God and we can glorify the Lord our God every time that we acknowledge the miracle of belief when it is given to a new believer.

We must never forget what a miracle belief really is. Just look around and see all the people who have heard the Word but have not believed. Generally they have heard the same message that believers have but they have rejected the possibility of Christ being God and of His dying upon the cross to pay the debt that humanity’s sins have incurred. They are no different than you or I for we were once unworthy sinners unable to believe in the mercy and forgiveness of God. For the most part we did not even realize that we where sinners and that we needed forgiveness. Then the miracle started and the Lord’s grace began working on us. First we were made aware of our sinful nature and given a desire to do something about it. Then we were shown the revelation of Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. Finally the key to freedom was miraculously handed to us and we believed. At last we were truly free...

Another Pilgrim

The Meaning of Forgiveness

2008-05-08T21:56:00.003-04:00

Forgiveness might be one of the most difficult things that Christ Jesus tells us Christians that we must do. “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). That is a definitive statement from our Lord and Savior stating the necessity of forgiving others. In Matthew a further refining of this commandment is made as Jesus tells us of the consequences of unforgiveness. “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you your sins” (Matthew 6:14-15). Unless we forgive then we will not be forgiven. He is not telling us that we must forgive Christians only or Christians and our neighbors, but we must forgive all men when they sin against us. The implications of this are very important to our Christian life. This statement tells us that forgiveness, like faith is a fruit of grace and if we are unable to forgive then we are not truly under the grace of God.

You maybe wondering why I feel that forgiveness must be a fruit of grace. In the Scripture verse above, Christ tells us that forgiveness is something that we must do and our salvation depends on it. Scripture tells us that salvation is through faith alone and not through works, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” (Romans 3:28) Once we accept that concept then forgiveness isn’t something that we can strive to achieve. We can not work to obtain the ability to forgive because that would imply that some part of our salvation rests on something we can earn on our own. Paul speaks against this and tells us it can not happen, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Forgiveness is then on par with faith and is something that the Lord must give to us as we undergo the redemptive process established through the sacrifice of His Son upon the cross. When, because of grace, the Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts He will bestow the ability to forgive upon us like he does faith and belief. Before the gift of grace we were incapable of truly forgiving our enemies, but we now seek to do so because forgiveness has been made manifest in our spiritual nature.

Forgiveness now being a part of our spiritual nature, however, puts it at war with the flesh and our sinfulness,”So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:21-25). The flesh does not like to forgive unless it finds some personal gain in the action, so to freely forgive another who has done us wrong when we get no material advantage for doing so is abhorrent to the flesh. Spirit and flesh then face off in a battle for our very souls. Our desire to be righteous battles with our desire to hate and we become conflicted as sin uses this internal struggle to tempt us and to lure us away from the God who loves us. At this point if it were not for grace we would be lost. As humans we like to internalize our hatreds and nurture them because hatred feels good to our sinful nature. Hatred and anger can grow as they are fed by a false sense of justice denied. Eventually hatred can get so large and powerful that they take over and drive the spirit to demand retribution and vengeance. Sadly enough we do this in the name of justice and pretend to ourselves that our evil actions are good and the Lord is pleased with. As this makes clear, without forgiveness we run the risk of becoming slaves to our anger.

Like an addiction, the joy of hate will permeate the heart and soul and will drive a person on to new hatreds and new levels of vengeance. In the end it will consume a man and then Satan claims victory over another lost soul. However, because of grace and the strength that God has given us, the forgiveness in our hearts will eventually win out. Grace never loses nor does it take a back seat to our sinful nature. There are times in the lives of all Christians when the struggle against our sinful nature seems almost unendurable but as time goes by and we grow deeper in belief and faith the sanctification process that the Holy Spirit is performing within us allows us to become stronger and to stand firm against the evils and temptations that we encounter on a daily basis. However, the Devil never stops trying to take us from the hands of our Savior but the grip the Lord Jesus Christ has on us never weakens, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28).

Still, even with the wisdom that the Holy Spirit has imbued us with, forgiveness can be a very hard ideal to live up to. No matter the depth of faith a person has it is sometimes easier to follow the path of least resistance and indulge in some petty disagreement or some perceived slight. These are the very dangerous for ourselves and to those around us. Like it has been stated above, anger likes to grow and fester. What starts off as a small spat can soon escalate in to all out hatred. Even though as Christians we will eventually recognize the mistake and attempt to correct it, feelings get hurt and outsiders looking in begin to question what Christianity is all about if we act no different than those in the world that surrounds us. How many people have been inoculated against God by watching Christians war with and mistreat each other? Most observers will not remember that in the end the parties involved made up and let bygones be bygones, they will mostly recall the angry words and childish behavior. This is what they will tell other non-believers about. The next time someone wonders why the world has such a misconception of Christianity that person must realize that the blame for this lies mostly with Christians and professed Christians. Satan knows the souls of the elect are invulnerable but that does not stop him from using them to further his goals.

Now, all this leads to the questions “what is forgiveness and how does a person forgive?” It can be agreed upon that it generally takes more than a simple “I forgive you” most of the time. If you think about it you’ll realize that quite often when a person says that they forgive they are only paying lip service to the concept. There is no true forgiveness at all and the words are uttered just to say what needs to said in order to smooth over what ever grievance exists. Perhaps we can even act like we have forgiven the person in question but at best we are only fooling the person we need to truly forgive. At worst we may even be lying to ourselves but even then there is no way that we are pulling the wool over God’s eyes. He knows our intentions better than we do. We must forgive with words, actions and heart to be sincere in our forgiveness. We must for give and do our best to truly feel love for those who have trespassed against us. It doesn’t matter if they feel love or forgiveness for us. What is at stake here is our relationship with God and we must do our best to maintain our covenant with Him. God forgives us through the sacrifice of His Son Christ Jesus and we should realize that Our Lord has taken the debt upon Himself that our sin has incurred and paid the price for it in full with the redemptive blood of Jesus.

True forgiveness then is for us to do the same. When someone trespasses against us we should accept the burden of the cost to repair the trespass and pay it ourselves. Our sinful nature will fight against this because why should be pay a debt that does not belong to us. Our righteous nature, however, tells us to make good on the debt because it is the right thing to do. Isn’t that what righteousness is, doing the right thing for the right reason? What reason could be better than because it pleases the Father. We live to serve the Lord so we should be more than willing to do what ever it takes to please Him, especially if the cost will be our pride. The Lord wants us to be humble before Him and the before men so what could be a more perfect form of currency for God than the spending of our pride?

To be the type of disciples that Christ Jesus wants us to be, we must learn to do what He has commanded of us without hesitation. The harder something is to do then the more important it probably is for us to do it. Forgiveness is a hard ideal to live up to but it is so necessary to our spiritual well being that we shouldn’t let our guards down even for a second to indulge some petty slight just because it might feel good to do so. We know that God is watching and Satan is certainly keeping his eyes on us but we can never be sure who else is looking at us. That person might need to see Christians in their best light not their worse. That person may need to see that our love of God is so great that we are willing to relinquish our pride if that is what it takes to maintain harmony with God, ourselves, our brothers and sisters in Christ as well as the world at large. It might make that person watching wonder about and then want what we have.

God speaks to unbelievers and calls them to salvation in unusual ways but much of the time he uses us and our actions to get the message across. The most effect witness is the witness that a Christian’s own life speaks to those who observe him. To watch a Christian forgive another must be a strange, unusual and fascinating thing to someone who lacks faith and understanding. If someone asks us about it we can then tell them about God’s grace and his boundless love for sinners who are willing to repent. God understands more than anyone that we are human and we make mistakes. This is why God has given us grace to save us from damnation and we Christians must take the old saying to heart, “to err is human to forgive divine” because for us it is the absolute truth.

Another Pilgrim

Renewing of Our Minds

2008-05-05T10:49:00.012-04:00

Sometimes I just do not know how to say things in a way that does not come across as offensive to some. Since this is one of those times I guess I should just come right out and say it. There is a decidedly anti-intellectual mind set in much of the Christian Church and I believe that it is responsible for a lot of the angst that the Church is experiencing today. It is almost like being personally familiar with the Bible and the writings of Church theologians are bad things. I am not sure why this is, but it seems to have a greater effect on how the world views Christians than one might expect. I was surprised to find out just how many people that I know who are good Christians but have not bothered to pick up and read a Bible in years. I was shocked to find out how many Christians have not read the Bible at all. They may have picked it up and turned to a passage that they heard in Church or they may have earnestly started to read the Bible and gave up after the first few chapters in Genesis. Some will even tell you that the Old Testament does not matter; it is what Jesus said in the New Testament that counts. Even then many of these people have not bothered to read the New Testament either.

The only deviation of this is that it seems like everyone has read the book of Revelations and generally more than once. Why is that? It is kind of like reading the last chapter of a fiction novel to find out what happens and then never bothering to read the rest of the story and discover what leads up to the conclusion. Every likes all the damnation and hell fire and the sinners really getting it in the end but no one is much interested in why Christ told us to pray for our enemies and forgive them when they trespass against us. I guess this is akin to slowing down to look at the crash on the side of the road. Reading Revelations gives us the Biblical version of gapping at an accident and thinking ‘That sure looks bad. Boy I’m glad that didn’t happen to me.’

Anyways, why do Christians shy away from reading the Bible and other good sources of information that may help them understand what God is saying to them? Most every Church member has heard of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Augustine and John Wesley but very few people have actually read any of their works to see what they had to say about Christianity and faith. That is really sad considering the fact that those are the very people who established the theology, liturgy and beliefs that are the basis of most every Christian Church in the world. In fact if it was not for the bravery and moral conviction of Martin Luther it would have taken the Bible a lot longer to get in to the hands of average people and there may have been no reformed theology to become the basis of the Protestant Reformation. There are theologians who gave their lives in order for the common man to be able to obtain, read and interpret them Bible for themselves.

Think of these martyrs and then consider what their legacy has become. Instead of people reading the book that these brave men and women died to put in our hands, some people opt to have their total exposure to the Bible via what their Priest, Minister, Pastor or Reverend reads to them every Sunday and possibly (for those really dedicated learners) on Wednesday night Bible study. The Bible was wrestled from the hands of a very dogmatic Roman Catholic Church and translated from its Latin and Greek forms in to the common vernacular of just about every country on Earth and now almost five hundred years later the average Joe Christian rarely bothers to read it. To say that the run of the mill congregant is ignorant of the beliefs that he or she professes to follow is being somewhat optimistic. In reality it is probably the vast majority of those sitting on a pew on Sunday mornings.

I am sure that every Christian household has at least one Bible in it. I am also sure that most non Christian households contain at least one Bible. Now with all these Bibles lying around one would think that Christians would do a lot of Bible reading but this does not seem to be the case. In fact some of the most astute Bible readers seem to be the atheists and agnostics who read the Bible in order to debate Christians on their beliefs. It is heartbreaking to watch someone who professes a strong faith lose an argument with an atheist mainly because the atheist had a better knowledge of Scripture than the believer.

This is why so many Christians can not defend their beliefs when confronted by even the simplest argument of an agnostic or atheist. Eventually things break down to heated words and name calling and this behavior does not cast Christianity in a good light to any bystanders who might be observing. All this does is play in to the hands of the antagonistic unbeliever. His arguments are predicated on getting the Christian to lose his temper and appear ignorant to anyone watching. This is easy to do if a Christian does not possess a rudimentary understanding of his beliefs and a basic knowledge of Christian history.

It seems that we have lost the meaning of what Paul was telling us in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” How can someone test and approve what God’s will is if they do not even know if the book of Romans is in the New or Old Testament? Paul is basically telling believers to wise up and learn what God’s will is so that they will not be fooled by false teachings or lead astray by false prophets. If believers don’t know what Christ’s teachings are then how can they defend the faith when it comes under attack? How can they know when they are being lied to or being lead down the wide path to destruction?

Unfortunately all this leads to the misconception of many unbelievers that Christians are just ignorant rubes, being lead by their noses through a fairy tale story that they can not and will not understand. One can attempt to make the argument that it does not matter what others think because believers know the truth. I do not think that is a very good or useful point of view. How can a Christian effectively witness to an unbeliever if the unbeliever feels that he or she is hearing from someone who is uneducated in their own faith? The unbeliever is immediately prejudiced against God and His saving grace and is not receptive to the Gospel message. Might I suggest that when we put on the armor of God that we also educate ourselves in its usage?

The Lord wants us to read His word and to study it. He needs us question it and put it to the test because when we discover that His word is true it glorifies Him and prepares us to be good and useful servants to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When we witness we will know of what we speak and that too will glorify our Creator as well as assisting in turning the view of Christian ignorance in to a myth. In all we do we should seek glorify our Father in Heaven. We should know and understand His word and be ready to share it with anyone who crosses our path and seems to be in need of hearing the good news. If we plant a seed and water it with an accurate understanding of the faith then should God cause that seed to sprout it will be well nourished with a righteous understanding of God’s good and perfect will.

The anti-intellectual attitude with in the Christian Church must be done away with in order to preserve the true gospel that Jesus Christ gave us. We most know and understand God’s word so that those who would invade the body are recognized for what they are and rejected for the over health of the Christian community. Look at the liberal changes that are happening with in most of the major protestant denominations today. Sin is being redefined and what is abhorrent to the Lord is being taught to new congregants as being something that is good and pleasing before God. Liberal leaders of the visible Church feel that lowering the bar of sin will attract new members, but what point is there to attract someone to the Church if the convictions of the Church will damn them to hell? Could the motivation be more money in the coffers?

If more worshipers where aware of what the Bible teaches us then these types of heresies would not be as easy to perpetrate on the modern Christian Church as they seem to be. Christ’s commandments have not changed in two thousand years and the God’s word is the same as it always has been, but because of the lack of Christian education, discernment of the truth is a lot harder than it use to be. All members of the body of Christ must pick up the Bible and educate themselves. It should become a daily habit to read a few chapters and then think upon them. Christians should be reading books explaining the history of their faith to them and why we do what we do for our Lord and Savior. Only then will we as Christians stand firm against the misconceptions of our beliefs by the outside world and against the heresies that arise from within. God be with us and bless us all!

Another Pilgrim

What Came Before

2008-05-02T15:31:00.002-04:00

I can no longer remember what my life felt like without the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in it. I remember the things that I did and the people that I knew but I just can not recall the actual feelings of loneliness and emptiness that I felt before my relationship with Christ began. I did not even realize how lonely I was at the time and only after I gave myself to the Lord did I understand that there had been a hole in my soul. I realize now that I spent years trying to fill something that I did not consciously know existed. My spirit knew of the void, however, and it was aware that I needed something that I did not have. Unfortunately because of my natural separation from God my spirit could not determine what was missing. That the void could only be satisfied by the love and companionship of the Lord God Almighty was beyond my soul’s ability to understand.

So instead I latched on to anything that seemed to offer a cure to the emptiness. I started with friends, hobbies and entertainment. When that wasn’t enough I moved on to sex, drugs and alcohol. At best these were poor substitutes and at first all of this seemed to work but before long the empty feeling was back and I was seeking either more or stronger distractions. Eventually I got to a point that I was drinking enough to keep myself numb to the longing for something more. I had, on some level, resigned myself to the thought that there was something basically wrong with me and I would never be able to know a feeling of completeness in my life. If I could not have completion than I would stay anesthetized to its absence.

And so it went year after year until the Lord allowed me to get to a point that I could never seem to get as numb as I needed to be. I was so desperate for something greater than myself to help me from my sorry state that I finally listened to the small quiet voice I could sometimes hear. The voice told me that I needed the love of God and that I was to give Him all my love in return. I was not sure how to go about doing this but then I was reminded of words I heard as a young child. I got down and started praying and I asked God to help me. With all the sincerity that I had in me I told Him that I was sorry for all the wicked things that I had done and I begged Him to forgive me and do with me as he would. I asked for all of this in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the Creator of all things.

Almost immediately the void in my soul started to feel smaller and less empty. It didn’t close up right away, that took some time, but I felt something change right away and I felt a little less lonely and a bit less empty. It seems that without realizing it that I was drawing nearer to God. To get even closer I would have to live as he wanted me to live but again I was not sure how to do this. I thought about it and only two things came to mind that might be of help. Find a church and earnestly read the Bible. I bought and started reading the Bible that night. The right church took a little longer to find but God let me know when I was in the place he wanted me to be. A little more of the hole then closed up.

Day after day went by and I learned more of God’s desires for me and I started living as he wanted me to live. The more I learned the more the hole in me shrank. Eventually I couldn’t even tell it was there. I do not know the moment this happened, all I know is that at some point I realized that the emptiness was gone and I could not remember what it felt like to be as lonely as I once was. His mercy is great and it soothed the old sadness until I could not remember what it felt like. All that was left was the memory that I once felt that way. God has given my life new meaning and He as filled the void in my being with the Holy Spirit. Jesus, the Son, became my teacher and inspiration on how all Christian lives should be lived in order to be pleasing to God. Although I can not measure up to the man Jesus, I can view him to be my model in my journey for spiritual perfection and follow his commands. This should take me to where I want to be which is in His presence all the time.

Another Pilgrim

Faith the Size of a Mustard Seed

2008-04-29T21:45:00.006-04:00

Jesus said to his disciples “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20-21). When I researched this set of verses I read that it was an example of Christ using hyperbole to make a point on the nature and depth of true faith. I accepted that at first but now I am not so sure. Is it truly hyperbole I ask myself? Was Jesus speaking figuratively or did he literally mean that our faith can move mountains and do the impossible? When I look at what faith has done for me and how much I have changed since I accepted Christ Jesus as my Savior and relinquished control over my life to Him I have come to believe that faith literally moved the stony mountain of my heart and changed it to a heart of flesh with the commands of my God written upon it.

Faith is a powerful and wonderful thing. It allows us to believe that which can not be believed and to know the truth that can not be known. Faith leads us to kneel before a God that we can not see and ask to be forgiven for things that can not be forgiven. More importantly faith makes all these things come true for the Christian because we believe, we know, we see and we are forgiven. Faith can do so much for a believer but where does our faith come from? Why do some look at the Jesus upon the cross and see God’s plan for mankind’s redemption in action and others just see a man nailed to a tree?

To me the answer to this is God’s grace which bears the fruit of faith once it has been bestowed upon the sinner. Once planted, faith begins to grow and as it grows things once thought impossible become real. The man nailed to the tree becomes the Savior Jesus Christ whose wounded hands and feet drip salvation and redemption. His precious blood is now seen as washing clean a newly repentant believer who confesses his sins before the cross and asks the Lord for forgiveness. Faith allows us to see the risen Christ and to know beyond all doubt that He has triumphed over death in order to defeat death on our behalf. Faith brings us to the awareness that where we were once slaves to the false idols of sin Christ has loosened those bonds so that we can walk free under heaven and willing choose to serve the one who created us. The gift of faith allows us to establish a loving relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit where before they were strangers to us and we could not know them. Because of faith we believe.

Without the gift of grace and its accompanying faith we could never have believed in the resurrected Lord and His deadly sacrifice to free us from sin. Being contrary to God we resisted Him with all our efforts. We were controlled and enslaved to our sinful nature and it dictated what we saw as good and true. Sin will brook no rivals when it comes to control of the soul of a man. Our sinful nature causes us to turn away from all that is Godly and view Godly things as inhibiting and stifling to our growth. Nothing could be further from the truth but sin will lie to us and our sinful nature will believe the lie. Once the lie is accepted as truth then the wall between God and man is firmly established. Without the intervention of the Lord Himself we would remain permanently separated from the eternal goodness and love that wants to envelop us and change us into something more than we could ever dream possible.

Sadly it is in darkness that we live and remain completely unaware of the light outside until God illuminates us with His gifts of grace and faith. For the first time we get a glimpse of something bigger than ourselves. For the first time in our lives we realize what a tiny place we have been living in and we seek to see and experience more of this beautiful new country of which we have been made aware. It is then that we understand the bounds of sin that now hold us back and keep us held firmly in place. We come to see sin for what it really is and in that moment we first hate sin. We wish to journey forward and explore the new world before us but the sin tells us that we belong to his master Satan and sin tightens the chains that confine us to his will and that of the Deceiver himself.

Fortunately with the gift of faith we have been given a key that unlocks the chains of sin. The key is called belief and it is our belief that unlocks all bonds and sets us free to seek out God, our real master. The moment that we believe the chains become limp. We realize how depraved our sinful condition is and so in shame but also in hope we ask forgiveness by the blood of our Savior and we renounce the past sins that we now know to have separated us from our Creator and Redeemer. We seek live a life that is no longer in defiance of the will of God but is good and pleasing to Him. The chains that held us back are finally opened and we are free to seek the face of God and to praise and glorify the one who shined a light into the darkness, showed us the key to undo our chains and then unlocked the shackles for us. As the Lord hands us the key to our freedom we realize that faith has truly set us free.

Once free it is our faith that keeps us strong in the face of hardship and adversity. We believe that as we make our way to the Kingdom of Heaven the Lord never leaves our side. The Holy Spirit rests within us and guides us on our journey. He whispers words of wisdom and encouragement to us and tells us in which direction the will of God is leading us. We have faith that we are never out of the thoughts and control of our God and that we will never be lead astray.

Sin from time to time reaches out for us. Sometimes it uses brute force to try and yank us back in to our sinful past. Other times it woos us with promises of pleasures and excesses that seem tempting at first but if we hang on tightly to our faith in the Lord, the Holy Spirit shows us the truth behind the lies of sin and we see that sin’s promises are vain and hollow frauds of the true promises that God has made to us. The only promise that sin can fulfill is the promise of death and an eternity in Hell separated from the love of God with no end in sight. God’s true promise is to give us a life of eternal love and devotion without end or fear of an end.

Sin will never leave us alone but as we journey down the path on which God has placed us, our faith will grow strong and our ability to resist the temptations that become obstacles on our journey will get stronger too. Faith will be our shield against the swords and arrows of the world. It will be shelter from any storm and the rock that we cling to when the waters around us are trying to carry us away. It will be the reason we smile in times of trouble and it will comfort us when we grieve. Faith is the fruit of grace that is always ripe and never grows old.

Without faith we would be lost, we would be lost to God and lost to ourselves. With faith we will be able to say with authority ‘Get behind me Satan depart from me’ and he will because the power of faith can make mountains move. The power of faith can heal those who are sick. Even when faith is smaller than a mustard seed it can turn a heart made of stone into a heart made of flesh and anything bigger can move mountains.

Another Pilgrim

The Journey Begins

2008-04-26T20:08:00.010-04:00

My recognition for the need of God’s love and His gift of Grace and salvation came to me at a time I feel was the lowest point in my existence. I was decrepit and wicked and for the first time in my life I was in total understanding of my wretched condition. I truly knew what it was to have a moment of perfect clarity. I felt so poor that I knew that I could not go on living life as I had been living it. I had to change or die and I felt certain that I was beyond changing. Then the Lord Jesus called to me and He showed me that I had hope and that He was my only chance to rise above this condition and be free of all the pain that that had taken root and grown in my soul.

Only through His love could I ever be free of all the demons that had tormented me and had led me to torment others through my actions and inactions. In a single instant I was given, by the Holy Spirit, both a clear understanding of what I really was and how disgusting I was in the sight of my God and an unwavering glimpse of the path to salvation, freedom and peace. Like a fork in the road, I knew that I was free to choose either way. To stay upon the path I was on and be wretched, vile, unworthy of the love of any one, too afraid to live and too cowardly to die or I could take the road from which I could hear the voice of God beckoning me.

He wooed me with no promises of an easy journey but He guaranteed me that He would take the journey with me and that I would never be alone. There was only one real choice. I opted for the way of the Lord and the narrow path that leads to God and salvation. You see, I heard my Shepherd’s voice and I knew it and I followed. He laid His life down for me to protect me from the devouring wolves of sin and now I am honored to give Him my life in gratitude for His holy sacrifice. As an adopted son I say it is truly an honor and a pleasure to serve my Father in heaven.

Even if eternal life was not being given to me and that eventually I would die and by body would return to the dust from which it came I would still feel the need to do my best to please the Lord God with any action he desired of me. He is my God and I am but a lowly servant grateful to kneel down before my King and to offer him my service and my life.

Another Pilgrim