What changes a heart…?
Have you ever been asked by someone that you know or love to do something that you really didn’t have time for? You probably begrudgingly did whatever they asked right? I mean you love them, they were probably family so you felt like you couldn’t turn them down in the hopes that if you did whatever they wanted that it would be a one time deal and that you wouldn’t have to do anything for them for a while? Perhaps you thought well if I do it for them then maybe one day they can repay the favor?
Obligatory
So is this not the way we treat God at many times in our lives? We think well God I can this one time, you know but secretly you’re hoping that He doesn’t come calling again for a while. Maybe you try negotiating with God thinking, God if I do this then you owe me! First of all we can’t manipulate God, He knows what we are thinking, He knows when you are trying to use Him for your own selfish gain. Secondly we think that God is somehow impressed by our obedience out of obligation to Him as long as He doesn’t ask too often. God ask for your life, all of it in entirety. God is the Lord of all or He is not Lord at all. We many times have given God a small part of our life and say that we have given our lives to Him. Genuinely just take the next minute and ask yourself honestly if you have given your life entirely over to God. Ask yourself what areas have I given more weight to than God. What about your finances, family, reputation, success, job, career path, going to the mission field, your talents?
Lord and Savior….Lord or Savior?
Many preachers you will hear will ask their hearers to make a choice about Jesus; this is usually called the invitation. They will ask the persons who have decided that Jesus is worth following to repeat after them in a prayer where they announce that they making this decision of faith. The prayer usually includes a line that goes roughly like this “I accept you Jesus as my Lord and Savior…” So this is not the complete prayer but like I said this is usually apart of it. So the question is can you make Jesus your Savior without making Him your Lord? My opinion…..absolutely 110% No. Why? Can you logically make the leap of “Jesus I trust you to save me from eternal damnation but I don’t trust you to run my life?” Jesus constantly offered the choice “Follow Me” Can you follow someone and you still be in charge or make the decisions, I think not? If you’re depending on Jesus to save you from Hell that same faith must allow Jesus saturate your life possibly calling you to give up your rights to make the decisions. If you want to make Jesus your savior but not your Lord you have basically told Jesus I want to use you as the fire escape from a place that sounds really terrible according to the Bible. If the escape from Hell is all you want from Jesus then you probably make a choice out of fear selfishly because you were worried about your suffering. You probably never actually really loved Jesus if this was why you came to Christ. I am not saying that you can’t get saved out of fear. I heard it put once “God can make a straight line out of any crooked stick.” You can get saved out of fear but your sanctification or discipleship will never truly take off until you embrace the gospel out of a heart of love. If you accepted Christ in fear and continually only obey in fear, logically what is going to happen next? Your fear will eventually turn into resentment. You will think statements, like “God when am I going to do enough? When are you going to accept what I’m doing?” How much of my time do you want, how much of my money? You will walk around with a sense of guilt because you aren’t doing enough you eventually break spiritually. You give up, you think I can never do enough so what’s the point.
Jesus wants your heart. He wants your love. Here’s the good part He gives you everything you need in order to accomplish it. He gives you the faith initially accept Him. He gives you the love for Him. Embracing the gospel completely in love will transform your Christian life. Your walk with Jesus turns into “Jesus where we going next?” “What is on the agenda?” “I can’t wait to do something with you.” Loving Jesus for what He did for you takes away the drudgery of the Christian walk. For the first ten years [saved at 12] I walked with God in fear, I walked like I had seen others walk. I didn’t walk like Jesus walked; I walked how the church taught me to walk. To be honest, my walk with Jesus was HARD! Then I came across this verse in Matthew 11:30 “My burden is easy and my yoke is light.” I had read this verse many times but it made me question my own life. Following Jesus for me was not easy or light. I looked at it like it was a burden and wearisome. So this meant one of two things: 1) Jesus had either lied or 2) I wasn’t doing something right. I decided a long time ago that I believed the Bible to be in errant so it must be me.
How do you change from burden to joyous?
My first thought honestly was I’ll fake it. I’ll put on a smile; I’ll look like I’m enjoying it. [This is the coping mechanism for many] I won’t complain about anything. Somewhere though I knew that this wasn’t the answer because it didn’t take away the root problem. For me it all changed when I was 22 years old and I started listening to the daily audio bible every single day. I listened to a man read the bible on my phone every day. He read chronologically from the OT, NT, Psalms, and Proverbs each day. The bible came to life for me. My walk began to seem easy and light. I began to enjoy it. I began telling people about God, God crept into every conversation I had somehow. I later realized that it wasn’t necessarily listening to the bible everyday that changed me but it was how much more I loved Jesus and the gospel. I began noticing that I was the Israelites in the OT who messed up over and over and God still took them back. I realize that I was a wretched sinner but also that God had sent His Son Jesus to purchase me on the cross because He wanted ME! God wanted ME! God wanted ME! He wants YOU as well!
The revolutionary power of the gospel ….
As I mentioned earlier I along with you [possibly] of having the sense that God was like “Great you’re saved, now go do all that great commission stuff.” So I tried, and failed miserably. Every time I listened to a new pastor I heard, real Christians love the poor. Real Christians adopt a kid or a compassion child. Real Christians give their money away. Real Christians go on a mission trip, several of them. Real Christians stay single so they can give all their time to God. I knew deep down that in all my trying God wasn’t pleased with me; the really good Christians were always doing something better than I was. The thing was I knew the gospel, all the doctrine, how to act but I discovered at 22 the gospel finally came ALIVE to me. It made its way from my head down to my heart and began transforming how I did things. I went from doing things in my own strength to letting them flow out of me naturally with God’s strength working through me. I sense in my heart almost daily a growing and strengthening love for God that once had not been there. I wanted to share the gospel because I knew if it had done this to me then it could for others. I wanted to selflessly give to others my time and money because I realized I was them at one time. I began to love people who were recently very unlovable. I of course am still growing with God’s help but I have come a long way from the old me. The revolutionary power of the gospel is that God came as Jesus as the reconciliation factor for our sins so that we could stand before God holy and blameless, no not righteous for anything we had did but because of what Jesus did on the cross. He died for us, He poured out His blood because He wanted us, because He loved us. What did Jesus get on this side of the cross that He didn’t have on the other side of the cross? Power, no He had all that. Acceptance from God, no He had that too. What then did Jesus get….US! Hebrews 12: 2 “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” How could a man who was going to one of the most brutal executions have joy with what was set before Him? He loved us; He considered it joy because He was getting you!
The revolutionary power of the gospel …. Part 2
The gospel is not just the primary means by which we get to heaven but the driving force behind every single moment in your Christian life. The gospel is what frees you from the bondage of sin. You want to quit sinning? Focus your eyes on Jesus, the cross, His love, His desire to know you, don’t focus on the sin itself that will only drive you to do it more. For example if you have a problem with lust, don’t go around thinking “Don’t lust, don’t look, be stronger.” This won’t work, why, because you are focusing on lust, your mind is constantly thinking about lust, so you are consistently bringing up the temptation in your mind. Focus on Jesus and who He says you are in Christ, who Jesus has declared you to be before the Father. You want to be more passionate for God? Saturate yourself with the gospel, how Jesus has forgiven you, how you are loved by God, how God works all things for your good. Don’t think “Well I need to love God more today so I’ll try.” Quit trying and let Jesus try for you. Center your life on the gospel, the gospel and it alone has the power to revolutionize your Christian life. You don’t need 5 better ways to be a great husband by some preacher, you need to be filled with the word and gospel of God and you will love your wife the way Christ loved the church.
The gospel is not a secondary thing in Christianity…it is the primary thing
Many churches have forgotten the power of the gospel, not that they have forgotten the gospel, but the power of it to transform lives. Many churches have replaced it with secondary steps or actions. Listen to a church sermon today and many will sound like this “Five ways to be a better evangelist. Ten steps to Godly parenting. Newer and better ways to understand the Bible. How to pray Gods way. I’m not saying all these things don’t have their place but focusing our attention primarily on the gospel is the answer to all of these. Will you need to be told how to evangelize or share Christ if your life is dripping with the goodness of the gospel? Will you need to be told how to parent if you are constantly soaking in God’s word? When you see the grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, and willing sacrifice of God toward you. How could you not help but respond in like manner to your kids and to those around you? The gospel is not only diving board of which we jumping off into the pool of Christian living, the gospel is the pool itself. Anytime you have spiritual failure in your life you can almost always trace it back to a time when before when you have gotten too far away from the message of the gospel. The gospel is not just a spring board for Christianity but how we grow as Christians.
How do you learn to love God?
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind.” Matthew 22:37 Can you just will love up inside yourself and force yourself to love something that you have no natural affection for? This produces fear, guilt, and a burden. How many of you have to force yourself to love your mom? Probably not many of you, why because the love you have for her is a response for the love you showed her. So if you don’t love God like you think you should, don’t try harder to just love. Love is a response to God’s love He showed on the cross. If you aren’t loving God with all of you it just means you have never really seen the beauty of what God is to you. Spend time with God; see His forgiveness in your life. See his willingness to sacrifice for you. See His love and beauty in the life He has given you. See His patience for you when you are turning away from Him. Love for God grows out of an experience of the love of God for you.
Jesus said in probably my favorite teaching in John 15:5 “Abide in Me” Abide in Greek means to “make your home” This is how Jesus will produce fruit in you, by making your home in Jesus. He didn’t say make your home in going to church, reading books, memorizing Scripture, learning to discipline yourself. Make your home in Jesus. I often think of this as my thought life. I often make my thought life in Jesus, thinking about all the different facets of God, but primarily the gospel. Think about the Apostles for a minute, all they had was the gospel and God used them greatly. They couldn’t help but preach what they had seen and heard. When you drench yourself in the gospel His burden will be easy and light. You will find God’s will for your life, His will for your life is to overcome with the gospel, and everything else will be a natural response to that.
Have you ever been asked by someone that you know or love to do something that you really didn’t have time for? You probably begrudgingly did whatever they asked right? I mean you love them, they were probably family so you felt like you couldn’t turn them down in the hopes that if you did whatever they wanted that it would be a one time deal and that you wouldn’t have to do anything for them for a while? Perhaps you thought well if I do it for them then maybe one day they can repay the favor?
Obligatory
So is this not the way we treat God at many times in our lives? We think well God I can this one time, you know but secretly you’re hoping that He doesn’t come calling again for a while. Maybe you try negotiating with God thinking, God if I do this then you owe me! First of all we can’t manipulate God, He knows what we are thinking, He knows when you are trying to use Him for your own selfish gain. Secondly we think that God is somehow impressed by our obedience out of obligation to Him as long as He doesn’t ask too often. God ask for your life, all of it in entirety. God is the Lord of all or He is not Lord at all. We many times have given God a small part of our life and say that we have given our lives to Him. Genuinely just take the next minute and ask yourself honestly if you have given your life entirely over to God. Ask yourself what areas have I given more weight to than God. What about your finances, family, reputation, success, job, career path, going to the mission field, your talents?
Lord and Savior….Lord or Savior?
Many preachers you will hear will ask their hearers to make a choice about Jesus; this is usually called the invitation. They will ask the persons who have decided that Jesus is worth following to repeat after them in a prayer where they announce that they making this decision of faith. The prayer usually includes a line that goes roughly like this “I accept you Jesus as my Lord and Savior…” So this is not the complete prayer but like I said this is usually apart of it. So the question is can you make Jesus your Savior without making Him your Lord? My opinion…..absolutely 110% No. Why? Can you logically make the leap of “Jesus I trust you to save me from eternal damnation but I don’t trust you to run my life?” Jesus constantly offered the choice “Follow Me” Can you follow someone and you still be in charge or make the decisions, I think not? If you’re depending on Jesus to save you from Hell that same faith must allow Jesus saturate your life possibly calling you to give up your rights to make the decisions. If you want to make Jesus your savior but not your Lord you have basically told Jesus I want to use you as the fire escape from a place that sounds really terrible according to the Bible. If the escape from Hell is all you want from Jesus then you probably make a choice out of fear selfishly because you were worried about your suffering. You probably never actually really loved Jesus if this was why you came to Christ. I am not saying that you can’t get saved out of fear. I heard it put once “God can make a straight line out of any crooked stick.” You can get saved out of fear but your sanctification or discipleship will never truly take off until you embrace the gospel out of a heart of love. If you accepted Christ in fear and continually only obey in fear, logically what is going to happen next? Your fear will eventually turn into resentment. You will think statements, like “God when am I going to do enough? When are you going to accept what I’m doing?” How much of my time do you want, how much of my money? You will walk around with a sense of guilt because you aren’t doing enough you eventually break spiritually. You give up, you think I can never do enough so what’s the point.
Jesus wants your heart. He wants your love. Here’s the good part He gives you everything you need in order to accomplish it. He gives you the faith initially accept Him. He gives you the love for Him. Embracing the gospel completely in love will transform your Christian life. Your walk with Jesus turns into “Jesus where we going next?” “What is on the agenda?” “I can’t wait to do something with you.” Loving Jesus for what He did for you takes away the drudgery of the Christian walk. For the first ten years [saved at 12] I walked with God in fear, I walked like I had seen others walk. I didn’t walk like Jesus walked; I walked how the church taught me to walk. To be honest, my walk with Jesus was HARD! Then I came across this verse in Matthew 11:30 “My burden is easy and my yoke is light.” I had read this verse many times but it made me question my own life. Following Jesus for me was not easy or light. I looked at it like it was a burden and wearisome. So this meant one of two things: 1) Jesus had either lied or 2) I wasn’t doing something right. I decided a long time ago that I believed the Bible to be in errant so it must be me.
How do you change from burden to joyous?
My first thought honestly was I’ll fake it. I’ll put on a smile; I’ll look like I’m enjoying it. [This is the coping mechanism for many] I won’t complain about anything. Somewhere though I knew that this wasn’t the answer because it didn’t take away the root problem. For me it all changed when I was 22 years old and I started listening to the daily audio bible every single day. I listened to a man read the bible on my phone every day. He read chronologically from the OT, NT, Psalms, and Proverbs each day. The bible came to life for me. My walk began to seem easy and light. I began to enjoy it. I began telling people about God, God crept into every conversation I had somehow. I later realized that it wasn’t necessarily listening to the bible everyday that changed me but it was how much more I loved Jesus and the gospel. I began noticing that I was the Israelites in the OT who messed up over and over and God still took them back. I realize that I was a wretched sinner but also that God had sent His Son Jesus to purchase me on the cross because He wanted ME! God wanted ME! God wanted ME! He wants YOU as well!
The revolutionary power of the gospel ….
As I mentioned earlier I along with you [possibly] of having the sense that God was like “Great you’re saved, now go do all that great commission stuff.” So I tried, and failed miserably. Every time I listened to a new pastor I heard, real Christians love the poor. Real Christians adopt a kid or a compassion child. Real Christians give their money away. Real Christians go on a mission trip, several of them. Real Christians stay single so they can give all their time to God. I knew deep down that in all my trying God wasn’t pleased with me; the really good Christians were always doing something better than I was. The thing was I knew the gospel, all the doctrine, how to act but I discovered at 22 the gospel finally came ALIVE to me. It made its way from my head down to my heart and began transforming how I did things. I went from doing things in my own strength to letting them flow out of me naturally with God’s strength working through me. I sense in my heart almost daily a growing and strengthening love for God that once had not been there. I wanted to share the gospel because I knew if it had done this to me then it could for others. I wanted to selflessly give to others my time and money because I realized I was them at one time. I began to love people who were recently very unlovable. I of course am still growing with God’s help but I have come a long way from the old me. The revolutionary power of the gospel is that God came as Jesus as the reconciliation factor for our sins so that we could stand before God holy and blameless, no not righteous for anything we had did but because of what Jesus did on the cross. He died for us, He poured out His blood because He wanted us, because He loved us. What did Jesus get on this side of the cross that He didn’t have on the other side of the cross? Power, no He had all that. Acceptance from God, no He had that too. What then did Jesus get….US! Hebrews 12: 2 “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” How could a man who was going to one of the most brutal executions have joy with what was set before Him? He loved us; He considered it joy because He was getting you!
The revolutionary power of the gospel …. Part 2
The gospel is not just the primary means by which we get to heaven but the driving force behind every single moment in your Christian life. The gospel is what frees you from the bondage of sin. You want to quit sinning? Focus your eyes on Jesus, the cross, His love, His desire to know you, don’t focus on the sin itself that will only drive you to do it more. For example if you have a problem with lust, don’t go around thinking “Don’t lust, don’t look, be stronger.” This won’t work, why, because you are focusing on lust, your mind is constantly thinking about lust, so you are consistently bringing up the temptation in your mind. Focus on Jesus and who He says you are in Christ, who Jesus has declared you to be before the Father. You want to be more passionate for God? Saturate yourself with the gospel, how Jesus has forgiven you, how you are loved by God, how God works all things for your good. Don’t think “Well I need to love God more today so I’ll try.” Quit trying and let Jesus try for you. Center your life on the gospel, the gospel and it alone has the power to revolutionize your Christian life. You don’t need 5 better ways to be a great husband by some preacher, you need to be filled with the word and gospel of God and you will love your wife the way Christ loved the church.
The gospel is not a secondary thing in Christianity…it is the primary thing
Many churches have forgotten the power of the gospel, not that they have forgotten the gospel, but the power of it to transform lives. Many churches have replaced it with secondary steps or actions. Listen to a church sermon today and many will sound like this “Five ways to be a better evangelist. Ten steps to Godly parenting. Newer and better ways to understand the Bible. How to pray Gods way. I’m not saying all these things don’t have their place but focusing our attention primarily on the gospel is the answer to all of these. Will you need to be told how to evangelize or share Christ if your life is dripping with the goodness of the gospel? Will you need to be told how to parent if you are constantly soaking in God’s word? When you see the grace, mercy, forgiveness, love, and willing sacrifice of God toward you. How could you not help but respond in like manner to your kids and to those around you? The gospel is not only diving board of which we jumping off into the pool of Christian living, the gospel is the pool itself. Anytime you have spiritual failure in your life you can almost always trace it back to a time when before when you have gotten too far away from the message of the gospel. The gospel is not just a spring board for Christianity but how we grow as Christians.
How do you learn to love God?
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind.” Matthew 22:37 Can you just will love up inside yourself and force yourself to love something that you have no natural affection for? This produces fear, guilt, and a burden. How many of you have to force yourself to love your mom? Probably not many of you, why because the love you have for her is a response for the love you showed her. So if you don’t love God like you think you should, don’t try harder to just love. Love is a response to God’s love He showed on the cross. If you aren’t loving God with all of you it just means you have never really seen the beauty of what God is to you. Spend time with God; see His forgiveness in your life. See his willingness to sacrifice for you. See His love and beauty in the life He has given you. See His patience for you when you are turning away from Him. Love for God grows out of an experience of the love of God for you.
Jesus said in probably my favorite teaching in John 15:5 “Abide in Me” Abide in Greek means to “make your home” This is how Jesus will produce fruit in you, by making your home in Jesus. He didn’t say make your home in going to church, reading books, memorizing Scripture, learning to discipline yourself. Make your home in Jesus. I often think of this as my thought life. I often make my thought life in Jesus, thinking about all the different facets of God, but primarily the gospel. Think about the Apostles for a minute, all they had was the gospel and God used them greatly. They couldn’t help but preach what they had seen and heard. When you drench yourself in the gospel His burden will be easy and light. You will find God’s will for your life, His will for your life is to overcome with the gospel, and everything else will be a natural response to that.