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Archive for the ‘christian living’ Category

The Two Shall Become One

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , on August 6, 2014| 7 Comments »

Marriage is an institution that’s been around since the very beginning.

Adam and Eve were married, although not in the traditional way we think of marriage. God joined them together and they became one. No ceremony, no pastor, no license.

Marriage was given as a representation of what God intended for His Church….humans becoming one with God.

Yes, God is not out there somewhere. He is right here, right now. When we accept His gift of grace through Christ, we become one with Him.

Just like the couples who unite in marriage become one, the Church, which means the people, become one with God. We aren’t talking about a building, but those who unite with God through faith in Christ. The true Church is not a building made by hands, but those of us who have had the old sin nature crucified with Christ. We have been raised up with Him as new creatures, and are now one with Him.

God isn’t up in heaven sitting on a big throne looking down on us. No, He is right here within us through the Spirit.

Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17 asking that we might be one just as He and the Father are one. Through the work Jesus did on the cross, we have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ lives within us and we have become one with God.

That doesn’t mean we are God, but His Spirit is within us. The Kingdom of God is within us.

We should focus each day on the fact the God is within us. We don’t have to go somewhere and hope He shows up. We don’t have to wait until we die to be with Him. He loves us and lives within us each and every day. We are living in the kingdom right now, daily in His presence.

In this world, it is by faith that we live the spiritual life, but when this earthly life is done, we will see naturally what is already taking place in the spirit.

Thank God for marriage and the joy we have in this world. Even better than that is the wonderful marriage between the Lamb of God and us, the Church, united as one.

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Am I A Christian?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2014| 14 Comments »

My wife and I question these days whether we should consider ourselves Christians or not. We think it all boils down to what we mean by Christian.

If being a Christian is being part of a religion that meets in a building on a particular day and follows set doctrines based on what denomination we belong to, then no, we are not Christians. If being a Christian is considered being part of a group that is basically just a different interpretation and belief from Jews, or Muslim, or Baptist, Methodist, Charismatic etc., then no, we are not Christians. If being a Christian is being part of a group that is opposed to all other religions and only accept those who believe like we do, then no, we are not Christians. If being a Christian has anything to do with religion, then no, we are not Christians.

In Acts 11:26, the disciples were first called Christians by people in Antioch. I always heard that they were called Christians because they were acting like Christ. The people there were calling them little Christ’s because of the way they showed the love and power of Christ. Now, if that is what is meant by being a Christian, then we are all in.

There are many ways we can described ourselves…believers, Christ followers, disciples of Christ, Christians. Yet, the name itself doesn’t really matter. What matters is how we live our lives. Is Christ preeminent? Are we living as one with him? Are we allowing the love of Christ to live through us, accepting others, loving others and being little Christ’s to all we meet? If not, the name really doesn’t make any difference.

When people see us, they should see Christ. He lives within us and we should be known for the love we have for him and for the love we have for our fellow man. Don’t worry so much about the label we use. Let Christ live through us each and every day with everyone we meet.

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What is Church?

Posted in christian living, Community, Ekklesia, tagged , , , , on July 18, 2014| 17 Comments »

My wife and I have for years ‘gone to church’ Sunday after Sunday. We sat in a pre-planned service, being entertained, listening to one person tell us what God was saying, and looking at the back of the head of the person sitting quietly in front of us.

Each week we sat there, not having the opportunity to say what was on our minds, no chance to talk and get to know our brothers and sisters sitting all around us. We were told we were having good fellowship and teaching, learning more about God each week.

Truthfully, we were getting so tired of this religious social club environment. We were not getting anything out of this experience, and we certainly were not putting anything into it…..other than our money when the offering basket went past. We have become tired of the religious enterprise with its pre-planned services, the CEO and board of directors, along with the gimmicks and programs designed to ‘bring the people in’, especially when we were told to go out into the world. We were feeling a lot like what our friend Kenn Bruner said in one of his postings… people “who are tired of a predictable and ‘business as usual’ mundane and mediocre existence as a Christian; those tired of sitting in a church pew Sunday after Sunday in their “comfortable and safe” place, bored to tears”.

What we are finding is that true community is believers living their daily lives with one another by caring, loving, assisting, encouraging, and building one another up. This is what is known as the true Church. It is fellow believers living daily for Christ, not a once a week trip to a building and sitting there for an hour. As Ken Eastburn said in one of his postings… “Organic house churches are different than Bible studies or small groups as to fellowship and caring for one another. Meeting together once a week to study and discuss the bible is fine, but an authentic family of God is different. It goes deeper. Coming prepared to meet the needs of others, even when it is inconvenient, demonstrates the love of Christ”.

We are followers of Christ, going about our normal daily business, living with Christ as our head….not a pastor. We live as one with Christ, letting his life and love touch others each and every day. We assemble with our brothers and sisters in Christ any day, anywhere. Sunday is not the Lord’s day, every day is the day the Lord has made. God’s house is not a building where we gather with people who believe similar to the way we believe. God’s house is us, His people, those of us who have accepted His grace. We are called to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, not just those who believe like we do.

It has been good for my wife and me to stop being part of the Sunday morning crowd at the building of our choosing. It has us looking to God more, listening for His voice and allowing the Spirit to teach us rather than one man. It has us loving and accepting people as they are, not just those who believe like us. The Church is meant to be a community, living, loving and caring for one another each and every day. Although we have not yet found what we are looking for, we are trusting God to lead us and bring us into a community of believers he has for us. As Dan Notti said in one of his postings… “Believe God for it. Authentic community is God’s intention for believers. He has made the provision for it through the work of his Son and the power of the Holy Spirit, and He has the patience and love to stand with us as we experiment with living into it. Can we believe him for that”?

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Nothing New

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , on July 1, 2014| 6 Comments »

Do you ever have one of those days when you think, nothing changes. Everything is the same, day in, day out. We get up and go through the same routine, only to get up and do the same thing the next day. As it says in Ecclesiastes 1:9, ‘That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun’.

Sometimes I go through this, and it just makes me wonder why I am feeling this way. I guess sometimes I think living for God should be some type of extra special, out of the ordinary life. A way of living that is super spiritual. Of course I know that this isn’t the norm for us. God works in us most of the time in the little things, the regular routine of daily living.

I know God has a plan and purpose for us. Although good works are certainly not a way to earn our salvation, they do bring glory to God. I think we should daily ask for the Spirit to guide us through the day, and lead us into what he has for us to do. Ask God to love others through us as we go about our regular daily routine.

By doing so, we are allowing God to do supernatural things through us when He is ready. We might touch a person in a way we don’t even realize, just by allowing the spirit of Christ to do what he wants, when he wants.

I don’t have the answer to those feelings now and then of each day being the same. I do know that being open to let Christ love through us can make a difference. It may not be us who feels any different, but someone we have contact with during our regular daily routine may receive something special from God. Something they needed, something that makes them say, wow, that was really a different day.

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We Aren’t Going to Agree

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , , on June 25, 2014| 8 Comments »

Is it aggravating to anyone else, or is it just me? I mean the fact that no matter what you believe, what your interpretation, someone always has a completely opposite view.

You get excited about hearing some truth that really connects, and the next thing you read an article by another Christian that completely disagrees with what you just heard.

Even more than that, most of us Christians get mad when someone disagrees with us and is different. We get on Facebook and make ourselves look crazy because we talk about brotherly love, then we fight and argue with someone because they interpret things differently….and mostly about things we can’t prove one way or the other.

We really have to stop and think that whatever it is we believe, whatever our interpretation, everyone is not going to agree with us. There is no reason for us to get mad at someone else for being different.

This life is all a matter of faith. No matter what it is spiritually speaking, no one can really prove what is right and what is not. Just because someone has a different interpretation doesn’t mean they are right or wrong.

We need to keep our ears open to the leading of the Spirit, and follow on our own path looking to Jesus. That does not mean any and every path is the right one, but we can’t be the judge of who is right and who is wrong. Jeremy Myers, in his book ‘Dying to Religion and Empire’ states, “The beautiful thing about following Jesus is that while He leads us all in the same direction, there are millions of different paths He can take to get us there. His goal, of course, is to advance the Kingdom of God on earth through the people of God who are being conformed into the image of God”. We need to follow Christ as he leads us individually, and then be ready to love all people, no matter if they are on the same path or not.

Let’s stop arguing, fighting, and demanding that everyone agree with us, and love those we meet along the journey. I think God is big enough to lead us all to His truth in His timing.

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What I Wish I Had Known

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , , on June 11, 2014| 23 Comments »

Having grown up in church all my life, there are many things I used to think and believe that have changed over the years. If there was one thing I could go back twenty years ago and tell myself then, it would have to be something that involved my beliefs and interpretations. Although the one thing would be the matter of understanding my beliefs, it would be broken down into a few different areas.

The first thing I wish I had known sooner is the New Covenant didn’t start at Matthew Chapter One. I never thought about Jesus living his earthly life under the Law. The New Covenant didn’t start until His death and resurrection. When we start reading in Matthew, we are reading about the life of Christ here on earth, living under the Law. He came to fulfill the law because we were unable to do so in our own strength. We are saved and we live by grace, not by any good work we do.

I never truly thought about the fact that the Spirit of God lives within us. I always thought God was way up there in heaven, sitting on a huge throne looking down on us. I now realize God is within us. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven to communicate with our Father. He is within us, just as Jesus said the Kingdom of God is within you. We are not God, but we are one with Him, just as Jesus prayed in John 17. He is with us each and every second.

I always went along with the church being a building. I was told that we go to the Lord’s house to worship. I never thought about us being the Church, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Christ is building a church made without hands, a Church made up of His followers. We no longer have to wait until Sunday and go to a building to meet with God. The Spirit lives within us each and every day. We have fellowship with one another anytime two or three gather in His name. That can be in a living room, a restaurant, a pub or café, and it can be on any day, because every day is the day the Lord has made.

I used to look to the Bible as the word of God. I felt it was where we got all our information and all leading from God came through the Bible. Now I know the Bible is the written words that God inspired men to write. The true, perfect, powerful Word of God is Jesus. As John 1:1 says, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Jesus in the one we worship and follow, not the Bible. We learn from the Bible, it is good to see how God provided a way for us to have access to Him. It is good to read how others acted and reacted and how God dealt with them. It is good to see the plan of salvation and the way of grace explained. Unfortunately, too many of us want to make the Bible part of the trinity and worship it. The Bible is not part of God. Jesus is the word. The Spirit of Christ guides us. Study the Bible, learn from it, but do not worship it and look to it as our guide when the Spirit is our guide.

The Christian life is an ongoing, daily learning process. Sometimes we get to thinking we can’t question what we’ve been taught over the years. The Holy Spirit lives within us and He is fresh and current, and is our teacher and guide. Our interpretations will change over time as He leads us into truth. It is not wrong to question. It is not a lack a faith to wonder and seek truth. In all honesty, if we aren’t changing, growing, questioning and learning, I would have to wonder if there wasn’t something wrong. I just wonder what it will be in twenty years that I will wish I knew now.

 

This article is part of the June 2014 Synchroblog – ‘If I could tell myself one thing’. http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/

Following is the list of other contributors this month:

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Whose Way is Right?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on May 28, 2014| 14 Comments »

Why is it that we Christians can’t seem to accept one another?

My wife and I grew up in the organized church, and we have many friends who are part of the four-wall system. Yet, after many years of feeling uneasy, questioning, thinking there has to be more than just sitting in a pre-planned service every week, we decided to look for fellowship elsewhere. We feel sitting in a service every week, listening to someone else tell us what they think God is saying is really not very biblical.

The Bible talks about the priesthood of ALL believers. 1 Peter 2:5, 9. It talks about when we assemble, each one has something to say. 1 Corinthians 14:26. We say we are going to the Lord’s house, yet the Bible says we are the temple of the Holy Spirit 1 Corinthians 6:19.

Truthfully, how much fellowship do you get sitting in a service, looking at the back of someone’s head? The most fellowship I remember in a situation like that was when the pastor told us to get up and shake somebody’s hand. I don’t call that fellowship.

We are finding more fellowship outside the walls of organized church when we meet with other Christians during the week. We meet in houses, cafes and restaurants. We talk about what God is doing and what grace means to us. We are getting to know one another, we pray for one another and care about each other. Open discussion makes more sense to us rather than just sitting, listening to one person talk.

People say by not going to church, we are disobeying the Bible where it says to not forsake the assembling of yourselves together. We always ask where it says that it has to be in a particular place on a particular day in an organized service. It doesn’t say that, and meeting anytime two or three come together, talking, praying, enjoying each other is a more meaningful assembly to us.

I say all of this to ask this question, why can’t we accept each other at the place we are currently in our walk with God. It doesn’t make a difference if you go to church or not, if you think of Sunday is a holy day or not. It’s OK to think of every day as the Lord’s day and not just Sunday, or to realize church isn’t a building you go to but a people, saved by grace, living their lives for God daily.

If we could realize God is working in each of us in different ways. We are at different stages in our walk with Him. We all aren’t going to be the same. Let’s accept each other and not try to force our way of thinking on everyone else.

God is our focus. Loving Him and loving each other is what we are commanded to do under the New Covenant. Other than that, we should let our way of doing things be just that…our way. We should not expect everyone to agree with us.

None of us have it all figured out. None of us are right on everything. Many interpretations and ideas in the Bible will never be known this side of heaven, yet we get mad at other Christians when they see things differently. Let’s just accept each other in the love of Christ, realizing that He is in control and He will lead us into His truth in His timing. It isn’t our job to force others to see things our way. It is our job to love each other, accept each other and pray for one another. God will do the rest.

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Hell Yes….or No?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , on May 20, 2014| 13 Comments »

Love is the main theme when we think of God. God is love. Yet many ‘churches’ focus more on the wrath of God and eternal damnation for those who don’t repent and turn to God.

God loves everyone and has made a way for everyone to receive the gift of salvation by His grace. God does not force this gift on anyone. He has given us free will to make our own decisions.

Christians should be known by the love they have for others. Yet it seems many of us are known more by our condemning spirits.

Hell and the thought of eternal torment is a major scare tactic to some. There are also many thoughts and interpretations on an actual hell. Is it real, is it eternal. None of us can prove or disprove whether hell is a real place or not, but why is it we tend to use this to draw people to Christ?

God does not want anyone to spend eternity in a place of torment. He has provided the way to live with Him forever. It is much better to focus on the fact the God loves us all, and wants us to live as one with Him, not just escape the thought of eternal punishment. What father would want his child to love him out of fear of punishment? We want our children to love us out of pure love and because we love them.

When we love someone, we want to do things that please that person and make them happy. Same with God, we want to be pleasing to Him and do things for Him. We don’t do these things out of obligation, or because of rules and regulations. That’s law. We do them out of love and the power of the Spirit within us. That is the same way we should help lead others to Christ, through love.

This article was published on the May 2014 Synchroblog “What The Hell?” Following are the other Synchroblog contributors.

Jeremy Myers – Does Jesus Talk About Hell More Than Heaven?
Wesley Rostoll – Hell, thoughts on annihilationism
K. W. Leslie – Dark Christians
Angie Benjamin – Hell Is For Real
Paul Meier – Hell Is For Real – I’ve Been There and Came Back
Glenn Hager – Abusing Hell
The Virtual Abbess – What The Hell?
Kimbery Klein – Hell, if I know.
Liz Dyer – Hell? No!
Loveday Anyim – Why the hell do you believe in hell?
Linda – If you died today, where would you go?
Edwin Aldrich – What the Hell do we really know.

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Who are You…Really?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on May 14, 2014| 6 Comments »

Have you ever sat down and asked yourself this question….who am I? Not necessarily the ‘who am I, why am I here’ question, but who is the real me.

A couple friends and I were talking recently and we got on this subject. We were asking each other who truly knows us, the real us.

Most of us really aren’t known by those whom we have a casual relationship, and really, most of us aren’t deeply and truly known by those few people we consider close, intimate friends.

We are good at putting on the proper mask to hide the real us when we are around others. I do it, you do it, pretty much all of us do it. There is something down within us that feels if people knew the real us, they wouldn’t like us or accept us. I’m not sure why that is, other than a natural feeling from way back when Adam and Eve tried to hide from God.

Fortunately, our Father isn’t like that. He truly loves us. Even if we aren’t completely open with Him, He knows more about us than we know ourselves….and He still loves us.

If we could just get to the point to not worry about what everyone else thinks about us and know we are loved by God no matter what, I think our relationships with each other would actually improve. We could be ourselves, open and honest, and not store up all the frustrations, questions, lonely feelings and junk we all think.

If each of us could be more like our Father and love each other no matter what, our fellowship together would be so much better. No more putting on masks, no more covering up things we don’t want others to know.

Now truthfully, if that will ever happen this side of heaven, I don’t know, but it certainly is a goal to shoot for. I am so thankful we have a Father who loves us no matter what. We don’t need to put on a mask and hide our true self from Him. He knows us and loves us just as we are. Now, if we could just be the same with each other.

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Dead Men Walking

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2014| 3 Comments »

Colossians 3:5, 9-11 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry…Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all…

As followers of Christ, our old nature has been killed and buried. We are new creatures in Christ. We no longer have to serve sin because Christ has set us free.

Our old sinful nature was crucified with Christ. It was dead and buried and now a new, holy and righteous creature has risen and is alive in Christ.

We have Christ living in us and we can rely on His power to overcome temptation by His strength. Because of Him we can live a life free from the guilt and punishment of sin. The sinful nature is still in the ground and a new person now lives as one with God. He put His Spirit within us and made us His dwelling place.

When God looks at us, He sees His child that has been changed by the grace of Christ. We are now holy and righteous in His sight. Not because of anything we have done, but because of the work Christ did. We no longer have to work to earn salvation. After accepting the grace of God, we no longer have to strive to keep the law. The law was good in that it was a tutor to lead us to Christ. The law was fulfilled by Christ and now that we are His, we live by faith in the grace He provided.

In Christ, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. There is no upper level or lower level child of God. The is no Jew or Greek, male or female, clergy or laity. Each one of us make up an equally important and functioning part of the body. We are all saved by grace and living under the headship of Christ. Christ is our all in all.

May we continue to grow in Grace and let Him have the preeminence.

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