Category Archives: Roger

Message of the Cross – Part 3

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“But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Galatians 6:14, NKJV)

 

Paul’s focus on the cross was exceptional. In this verse he emphasizes that there is nothing to boast about except the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That should be our focus as well. What is there to boast about in life? Anything we have has been given to us as a gift from God to be used for His glory (1 Cor 4:7).  We cannot boast that strengths and abilities come from inside of us because they were planted there by God.

 

Note also that the cross is a demarcation between us and the world. The cross is a turning point. Every true Christian was crucified with Christ on the cross and we have been raised with Him. At the cross the world was crucified to me and I to the world. The world should not have the kind of influence over us that it often does. John writes that if we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us (1 John 2:15).

 

The cross was a place of death and we need to recognize more and more that our death with Christ there means there is a decisive separation between us and the world system. That separation from the world and to God should be lived out every day in our walk of faith.

Message of the Cross – Part 2

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“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Colossians 2:13–15, NKJV)

We’re looking at the importance of the teaching about the cross from the instructions given in the New Testament epistles. So let’s examine this passage.

  1. We as gentiles (the uncircumcised) have been, as Paul says in another place, “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12, NKJV). Paul tells us in our passage that even though we were dead and outside the covenants and without hope, God has made us alive with Christ. Christians have gone through the resurrection with Christ (Eph 2:6). Great Easter news!
  2. God has forgiven all our trespasses! If you are a Christian, let your heart rest in this truth.
  3. And finally, here is where the cross is specifically referenced in this passage. “The handwriting of requirements that was against us” has been taken out of the way. What is that handwriting? I believe he is referring to the law which is constantly accusing us of our sin. That handwriting has been wiped out and taken out of the way. It has been nailed to the cross. Crucified! And in doing this, God has disarmed principalities and powers and made a spectacle of them in triumph. You know the passage that says that we wrestle against principalities and powers. These powers have been disarmed!

All of this through the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Message of the Cross – Part 1

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I thought it would be helpful to my own spiritual growth to think through the truth of the cross and resurrection as expressed in the epistles of the New Testament during   this Easter season. Our passage for today is 1 Corinthians 1:17-25.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”  “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” “but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,”  (1 Corinthians 1:18,21,23, NKJV)

If you read through this passage in its entirety, here’s what you find the Apostle Paul saying.

  1. If the gospel is preached using the wisdom of words, the cross of Christ is made of no effect. In other words, we should rely on the truth of the cross and not the cleverness or creativity of our words to get the message across (vs. 17).
  2. Those who are perishing will find the message of the cross to be foolish and nonsensical. Only when God is saving someone will it make sense at all and that will be because God’s Spirit is at work opening up the truth to them (vs 18).
  3. The world cannot come to know God through its wisdom and way of thinking. God “stooped” (my word) to using a “foolish” (God’s word) message to save people (vs. 21).
  4. To those who don’t believe, the message of the cross is either a stumbling block or foolishness (vs.23).

We are called upon to believe the truth and preach it fearlessly in spite of the inevitable and unavoidable reaction of those who are perishing.  We can’t spice it up or decorate it in any way that will make it palatable to those who are perishing. Only God’s Spirit can break through and give understanding.

 

Sin & Forgiveness – Part 4

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Now let’s look at 1 John 1 and then we’ll sum up this study. In 1 John 1:7 John says that if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ continuously cleanses us from all sin. This is a description of believers. John had earlier said in verse 3 that our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul asks what fellowship righteousness and unrighteousness can have with one another. The implication from the passage is that they cannot. But here John is saying we have fellowship with both God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. If we are to have fellowship with God or better if God is to have fellowship with us, we can’t be unrighteous. But why aren’t we unrighteous? Because we have been cleansed by the blood of Christ and our sins have been removed from us and the cleansing is ongoing and continuous.

So 1 John 1:7 is speaking of believers. If on the other hand, we walk in darkness, or deny that we sin, or deny that we have a sin nature, we are lost (1 John 1:6, 8, 10). So we’re not talking about two kinds of Christians here but the difference between believers and unbelievers.

In the middle of these verses we come to 1 John 1:9 which most of us are familiar with. In my opinion, this verse is primarily a verse contrasting believers with the unbeliever mentality mentioned in verses 6, 8, and 10. It is not primarily a verse about daily confession of particular sins. Please don’t read this statement as though I am saying we don’t need to confess sins. I’m not saying that. But this verse is primarily a verse that tells us the contrast between an unbeliever who doesn’t admit he is a sinner and the believer who confesses that he is a sinner.

If we walk with God in humility, acknowledging our situation as sinners, God is faithful and just to continuously forgive us of our sins and to continuously cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Notice the word “all”.  His forgiveness and cleansing are continuous. It doesn’t get applied to each particular sin but His blood stands as the continuous cleansing agent for all of our sins, past, present and future, recognized and unrecognized, thoughts, attitudes and actions. We walk in the blaze of his all-seeing holiness and we have fellowship with him because our sins have been removed from us.

Sir Robert Anderson said, “It is not in order that it may thus cleanse him that the believer confesses his sin; his only right to the place he holds, even as he confesses, depends on the fact that it does thus cleanse him.”

Jesus Christ is our advocate or attorney pleading our case continually because his blood is the propitiation (continual satisfaction before God) for our sins (1 John 2:1-2).

So we can see from Scripture that God has provided for every aspect of our sin problem. He accepts Christ as our head and sees us as saints rather than sinners. He resurrects our dead spirit and provides the motivation to follow him. And finally he completely and totally forgives and removes all of our sins on a continual basis based on the sacrifice and continuing advocacy of his Son, Jesus Christ.

 

Spurgeon writes:

“According to this gracious covenant (the new covenant of Hebrews) the Lord treats His people as if they had never sinned. Practically, He forgets all their trespasses. Sins of all kinds He treats as if they had never been; as if they were quite erased from His memory. O miracle of grace! God here does that which in certain aspects is impossible to Him. His mercy works miracles which far transcend all other miracles. Our God ignores our sin now that the sacrifice of Jesus has ratified the covenant. We may rejoice in Him without fear that He will be provoked to anger against us because of our iniquities. See ! He puts us among the children; He accepts us as righteous; He takes delight in us as if we were perfectly holy. He even puts us into places of trust; makes us guardians of His honor, trustees of the crown jewels, stewards of the Gospel. He counts us worthy, and gives us a ministry; this is the highest and most special proof that He does not remember our sins. Even when we forgive an enemy, we are very slow to trust him; we judge it to be imprudent to do so. But the Lord forgets our sins, and treats us as if we had never erred. O my soul, what a promise is this! Believe it and be happy.”

 

You may be thinking, “Yes, that’s all well and good but we do sin. How do we overcome this sinful tendency?” That’s a topic for another day. But the short answer is that as we live by faith in the truth of Scripture, and meditate on his Word, God’s Spirit will gradually make us more like Christ:

 

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

 2 Corinthians 3:18

 

Sanctification — growing in Christlikeness, including the desire for such growth are all part of what Christ purchased for us on the cross and provided in the New Covenant. He gives the new life and the desire to grow.

 

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Jeremiah 31:33

 

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Ezekiel 36:27

 

for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

 

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—  1 Corinthians 1:30 (Christ is our righteousness and our sanctification.)

 

Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?  Galatians 3:3 (The question expects an answer of “No”.)

 

You can download this and other documents from list of documents found here.

Sin & Forgiveness – Part 1

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When Eve took of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and gave to her husband, the human race fell and sin and death entered the world. As Romans 5:12 explains it: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

There are three basic ways we can look at the effect of sin entering the world. The solution that God provides speaks to each one of these facets.  First, Adam was our representative and therefore when he sinned, we were all counted guilty in him and therefore we were born sinners. We are not speaking here of our propensity to sin, but the fact that we already were guilty at conception. Adam’s decision was counted as if it had been our own. Romans 5 explains this when it says that sin is not imputed when there is no law and yet the people between Adam and Moses died even though there was no law for them to violate. No sin was imputed to them and yet they died. They, and all of us, were guilty of Adam’s sin.

Second, we inherit a sin nature. Our hearts are evil at the core. The Bible says that every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). Man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). There is none righteous, none who understands, none who seeks for God. All have turned aside (Romans 3:10-18).

Third, we also commit sins either by doing what is forbidden by God or by omitting what he commands. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

So what is God’s solution to these three facets of our sin problem? One of the things we usually do is focus on the confession aspect of particular sins. Confession of identified sins is important, but there are also some dangers if we don’t face the entirety of the problem I outlined above. For example, at the end of our day we may list a few specific sins and confess them to God. We may even list 10-15 specific sins. We may have been upset with a store clerk, frustrated with a waitress, impatient with traffic, angry with our spouse, excessively demanding of our children, etc. We may list all of these and confess them to God with the biblical knowledge that if we confess our sins God is faithful to forgive them.

The problem comes in if we think that we have now cleared the deck of today’s sins. We found fifteen sins and confessed them. We don’t realize that underneath and along side these were countless more. During how many minutes of the day did we come short of loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength? During which hours of the day did we fall short of loving our neighbor as much as we love ourselves? In how many ways did we fail to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? In what ways may we have been impatient, worried, lusted, coveted, or been insensitive to someone elses needs? Is it possible to recognize all of these and list them?  I don’t think so.

So one possibility is that we trivialize our sinfulness by listing a few sins we can remember. We don’t mean to do this, but we do. We end up thinking pretty good thoughts about ourselves, because, after all, our sin problem is manageable. On the other hand, if we do recognize the almost limitless number of ways we have sinned in any given day and the impossibility of listing them all, we may be driven to despair over our wretched lack of achievement when it comes to behaving in a godly way.

What we need to do is be prepared to deal with our sin problem on the basis of truth. So many times we face life letting our feelings and emotions lead the way. Feelings and emotions are real, but they should not be the determiner of truth. We may feel like something has been resolved when it really hasn’t been and we may feel as though God hates us when he may not, depending on our relationship with him. The truth should lead the way, with faith believing the truth and then let feelings follow along and adjust themselves to the first two.

The entire document of this study can be found as a download here. Scroll down through the documents until you find the one titled “Forgiveness.”

Importance of Creating Encouraging Memories

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Life is interesting in a number of ways. There are twists and turns that we never expect and yet we continue day by day as God provides each new day for us. I used to tell my kids, “today is one of the days of your life.” Sometimes we think that our real life, the one biographers will write about, will start sometime in the future. But today is one of those days. If there ever is to be a biography it may include the events of today.

               This brings us to reflect on another interesting thing about life. The vast majority of our life is in the past and the future. There is only a small miniscule portion of life that represents the present moment. If you are reading this in the afternoon, your breakfast and all your morning activities are only memories. Nothing about them can be changed. Your evening activities are still only an anticipation. They don’t exist yet. They are not a reality yet.

               This brings me to the theme of this article. We are writing especially to parents and grandparents. Since only the present moment exists and quickly turns into a memory, our opinion is that we should plan the present moment and future moments so that we personally, but especially so that our children and grandchildren will have the kind of memories we want them to have. We’re not speaking here of special memories such as a trip to a museum or amusement park. We’re referring to day-to-day memories of events and conversations in the normal course of life. Do you want them to remember a high priority on spiritual growth or remember that all you cared about was getting ahead and having fun? What they remember from their childhood is probably where they will put the priorities for living their lives and the training of their own children.

You only have one opportunity each moment to provide the memories. Once your children are out of your home, those memories are fixed and there is no way to go back and change them. So it seems to us that it’s important to think ahead. Now it’s impossible to plan perfectly and you can drive yourself crazy wondering if today’s memories will be the kind you want your kids to remember. However, it seems to us that very few people give this any thought at all.  Deuteronomy 6 speaks of this concept: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6–9, NKJV).

Notice that the writer speaks of “teaching diligently”, talking about spiritual truth while you sit in the house, while you are out walking, at bedtime and first thing in the morning. He says we should have signs and symbols around the house that speak of the kind of life God wants us to be living. All of these things will provide memories of a pattern and atmosphere that permeated your home. Grandparents, you can do the same thing. When your grandchildren are with you, you can speak of things related to God, His creation, His wisdom, His faithfulness to you in the past, etc.

Many times our focus as parents and maybe especially grandparents is what stuff we can give to our children. Stuff wears out and breaks, but the memories our children and grandchildren take with them cannot be destroyed. That’s both a good and bad thing depending on what those memories are like.

As we go through life, it is impossible to do everything. There is not enough time to provide every opportunity and experience for our family. Therefore, we must pick and choose what we will do and what we will provide. The Bible says, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent…” (Philippians 1:9–10, NKJV).

We are called upon to be discerning, to evaluate and then to approve the excellent. Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians, “Test all things; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21, NKJV).

God would have us evaluate everything and then approve and hold fast to what is good and excellent. We are to redeem the time (Colossians 4:5). The reason for these admonitions is because everything we do, we are to do for the glory of God. And since we cannot do everything there is to do, even among the things that aren’t sinful, we are to choose the best and wisest course every single day. In so doing, we will be providing our children and grandchildren with those experiences that will be worth remembering and will build them up in their faith.

So what kind of memories do you want your children or grandchildren to remember? Order or chaos? A quiet and calming environment or a loud and boisterous atmosphere. A soft answer that turns away wrath (Proverbs 15:1), or loud and angry correction (James 1:20)? Will you help your family seek first the kingdom of God so that all of the other things will be provided for them (Matthew 6:33)?

What kind of memories are you creating for yourself and your family? If you’ve been on the wrong course, you may not be able to repair the memories already there, but with God’s help you can change direction and begin providing new memories that will redound to the glory of God.

Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians – Part 2

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The second thing Paul prays in Ephesians 1:18, is that the eyes of the understanding would be enlightened. In this passage it is hard to know if this is a thought to connect to what he was just asking about or whether it is explained in the next clauses. It could be either or both. So right now, let’s connect it to the previous section. He had just prayed that they would have a spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God. We mentioned last time that this requires time in prayer and in the word, but it obviously requires that eyes will be opened to understand and gain the wisdom God has provided through His Word. So when we pray this for someone or for ourselves, we are praying that not only will they be spending the time needed to gain that wisdom, but that their eyes will be open to the truth that is there. By nature our eyes are blinded, but even after being born again, there is a haziness that settles over our spiritual lives if we are not actively engaged in healthy spiritual disciplines. So let me encourage you to pray not only for others, but for yourself as well that the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened that we might gain the wisdom that comes from knowing God.

Paul’s Prayer for the Ephesians Part 1

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That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Ephesians 1:17

I’m impressed by Paul’s prayers in his letters to the churches. Right now I’m thinking about his prayer in Ephesians 1. Let’s take a few minutes to look at how he prays for others and perhaps that can help us in our own prayer life. We’re beginning in verse 15. The first thing he asks God the father of grant is “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” How many times have you ever asked this for someone you love or are praying for? I will be the first to admit that I don’t know what “revelation” means in this context and so rather than speculate, I’m going to skip over it for now. But certainly a spirit of wisdom is something we can understand. And Paul relates this spirit of wisdom to the knowledge of God. So what I’m going to conclude from this is that it is a good thing to pray for ourselves and others that our knowledge of God would increase resulting in increased wisdom. One of the things Paul explicitly asks for in Colossians 1:10 is that the Colossians would be increasing in their knowledge of God.

               Whether ourselves or others, the only way to increase in the knowledge of God is to spend time with Him in prayer and meditating on His Word. This is what we are asking for when we pray that someone would have a spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God.

Attempting to Stay Organized

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We live in a complicated, busy world. Our lives have appointments, deadlines, tasks to be accomplished, and so on. As Christian men, we have not only the normal routines of a busy life, we have the privilege and responsibility of living lives that are disciplined in the spiritual realm of things. We have to make good use of the opportunities for daily prayer, Bible reading, meditation and study. It’s not always easy to keep track of everything and to fit everything in.

We are all different and so the techniques one person uses to organize his life may be quite a bit different from what another person finds helpful. I thought I would take a few minutes and share some tools I use to keep my life as organized as possible. These tools involve the use of technology so if you’re doing just fine with paper lists and a paper calendar, that’s great. You may not find what I’m about to share helpful. But on the other hand, if you are a technology user with a computer, smartphone or tablet, maybe some of this will give you ideas you can work with.

I have an iPad mini, an android phone and a computer that need to stay in sync in whatever I do, so here’s my approach.

To-Do List  For my to-do list, I use the website Toodledo. There is a free version, but I’ve chosen the paid version that allows me to have sub-tasks. There is a Toodledo app for the iPad and/or the iPhone and it works very well along with the Toodledo website. I found an app for my android called DGT GTD. It has a sync function with Toodledo and to tell you the truth, I like this app better than the Toodledo app and it works very well for me on the phone.

These tools allow me to enter a task, create a due date and time, assign a priority and create a context as well as some additional features. For the context I can assign categories such as “church”, “home”, “outside projects”, “home repairs”, etc. There’s also a repeat function that allows for a task to show up each week or each month. With the paid version I can create a project with a due date and then create all of the subtasks that need to be accomplished to complete the project.

All of this synchronizes among all three devices so that I have my upcoming tasks available no matter which device I am working with at the time. In addition, on my computer, the task list is synchronized with Outlook so that when I have my Outlook page open, the tasks show up in a window at the side of my screen. On any of the devices I can mark the task as completed and everything synchronizes accordingly. I’ve finally done away with my paper lists! In order to keep Outlook in sync with everything else I found an app called gSyncit. This pulls my data in from Google and Toodledo and synchronizes in both directions.

Calendar For my calendar I use Outlook on my computer, the Apple calendar on the iPad and Google calendar on the phone.  All three of these synchronize with each other and so I have all of my calendars available on any of my devices.

Notes: I don’t know if any of you have ever worked with Evernote, but I have come to really appreciate this app. It too is available on all my devices. Evernote is a way of keeping track of pieces of information that tend to get lost in the shuffle of the electronic life. In Evernote you can create notebooks for yourself. Items in the notebooks can be tagged with categories to help you find things easily.

If I’m on a website that has some information that I want to keep track of, I simply click the Evernote icon on the web page or if I’m on mobile, I can choose to share the page with Evernote. I can clip either the URL or the entire article and save it to a particular notebook in my Evernote account. If I receive an email I want to keep track of, I can forward it to Evernote and provide the notebook name and tag(s) on the subject line. The next time I open Evernote, that email is right where it is supposed to be and I can find it later by searching the topic or tag. When someone sends me a link they think I’d be interested in, I simply copy that link as a note with the appropriate tag and it’s there when I need it.

I’ve used this for making small lists such as part numbers for some appliance, clipping web articles I wanted to keep track of, storing emails with important links in them, etc. If I think of something while I’m working, I can open an email and send a quick note to myself with the appropriate subject line and the message becomes a note in the appropriate notebook. This is a very big help for those of us who are inundated with electronic communications.

Hopefully there have been some topics here that have been helpful in some way. As Christian men, we need to use our time wisely and these tools have helped me do that in a more faithful way.

Is There Not a Lie in My Right Hand?

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Much has been said and written about modern logic from the Enlightenment forward and how ancient peoples, including those in the Bible, were superstitious and illogical. However, the God of the Bible is revealed as a logical being and those who spoke for this true God spoke with incredible logic.

I was reading from Isaiah 44 this morning. Isaiah lived and wrote about 700 BC which is nearly 3000 years ago. In this passage he is discussing the foolishness of idolatry and he write about the insanity of a person cutting a log from the forest and using half of it to have a fire for cooking and warming himself and using the other half to make an idol to worship. In verse 10 he asks this question, “Who would form a god or mold an image That profits him nothing?” (Isaiah 44:10, NKJV).

Here is the way Isaiah explains the situation beginning in verse 14:

“He cuts down cedars for himself, And takes the cypress and the oak; He secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn, For he will take some of it and warm himself; Yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; Indeed he makes a god and worships it; He makes it a carved image, and falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire; With this half he eats meat; He roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” And the rest of it he makes into a god, His carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, Prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” They do not know nor understand; For He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, And their hearts, so that they cannot understand. And no one considers in his heart, Nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire, Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals; I have roasted meat and eaten it; And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; A deceived heart has turned him aside; And he cannot deliver his soul, Nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”” (Isaiah 44:14–20, NKJV)

As a modern twenty-first century man, I am astounded by the logic of this ancient writing! The author is incredulous that someone would take a piece of wood and see plainly that it is consumable in a fire and with the other half make himself a “god” that he prays to and from whom he asks deliverance. He rightly asks the question, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

In our modern world we are not likely to carve and image and expect it to help us with our problems. But don’t we do the same thing when we trust in our stuff, our material possessions, to provide us with fulfillment, the esteem of others, and general well-being in life? Aren’t we doing the same thing when we do not give God praise and thanks for the air we breathe and the water we drink or when we do not acknowledge that every good thing we have is due to God’s grace and generosity?

Many are in the position of spending millions of dollars and countless hours of research to produce better cameras for our phones and at the same time argue that our eyes are the result of time and chance. Shouldn’t we as modern people be asking ourselves, “Am I believing and living a lie?  Am I as deceived as this ancient man?”