Wow! It's been a long time since writing. For much of this blog I have written on the neccesity to put God first. I have pounded my fists into thin air at the complete lack of devotion to God and "respect" to God. And I have talked much about the assurance of one's salvation. But, I thought it neccessary to speak a little about God's love. Now we all know that most of the time when the attribute of God's love is discussed, it is discussed in context with Jesus. I have started to find this amazing. I say this rhetorically. It is true that Jesus' actions were an excellent expression of God's love, His love, but I do not believe the Bible makes them the only expression of His love.

In Hosea, God speaks after his profession of judgement on Israel, "I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them." What? God will love them freely? His anger has turned from them? Wait, wait, wait! I thought Jesus only said these sort of things. Proverbs 17:15 says, "whoever justifies the wicked is an abomination." So, how could God "freely" justify the wicked. Oh, did you see what I said, "freely" justify them. But that isn't what happened. Someone had to pay the price of the wickedness in the world. Justification wasn't free. It was offered to us, but on one condition, Jesus' death. Again, justification wasn't free, but God's "love" was. It existed before Christ came, before the promise, and even before the foundations of the world. But this is why the Old Testament is soooo important. It reminds us of God's judgement. It is interesting to note that every Old Testament prophet has two things in common. They speak of judgement, and they speak of reconciliation. Did God's love manifest itself when Christ came? No! The fact that God's love existed, manifested itself in Christ. If God had chosen to manifest himself through anything, we would know the same kind of love. For example: If I go to the store to buy my wife a gift certificate from Target, but come back with a dozen roses, does she care? Unless she really wanted that new dish set, of course not. Honestly, I would have probably made the better choice. But, love wasn't in what was purchased. To say it was even in the act, is wrong. Love was the reason for both the action and the purchase. It existed already. This is the reason for Christ. To express the love God had for us already, before we had either sinned or not sinned. That's when he loved us.

I Will Not Be Ashamed!

I am not ashamed of the Gospel!
I am not ashamed of the Gospel!
I am not ashamed of the Gospel!
I am not ashamed of the Gospel!
I am not ashamed of the Gospel!

All who are ashamed of the Gospel are ashamed of God. All who are ashamed of the Gospel show that they truly don't believe. All who are ashamed of the Gospel will find every excuse and reason to accept the "world". All who are ashamed of the Gospel will believe every lie of the devil. All who are ashamed of the Gospel will find every justification for their sin. All who are ashamed of the Gospel are enemies of God!!!

All who are ashamed of God are ashamed of the Gospel. All who don't believe are ashamed of the Gospel. All who find acceptance and love in the world (that is all who lean on the wisdom of man, for fear of what man thinks) is ashamed of the Gospel. All who believe in lies are ashamed of the Gospel. All who justify their sins are ashamed of the Gospel. All enemies of God are ashamed of the Gospel (and don't want anything to do with God regardless of whether they call themselves "saved" or not).

Family Update

Hello everyone. I haven't posted in a week or two. Sorry, I have been busy. Leah and I found out that she is pregnant. What a joy! How exciting is God's love for us. For a long time we didn't know whether or not we wanted any more kids. And honestly, we've put our trust in God with the issue. He obviously sees us as having more. The Bible says that God's favor is on the woman who conceives; so Leah is truly blessed. I hope that everyone will share the excitement. Anyways, with school and with family, I have found it more difficult to find the time to write on the blog. God bless everyone, and remember that it means nothing to simply call him by name. We must submit our selves to him also.

There are two parts to God's work of Salvation: The call to accept Christ and The call to "Follow" Christ.

Unfortunately, the modern leaders have, for the most part, only focused on the first. The first part is an acceptance on who Jesus is, mainly His diety, his death and resurrection, and his Kingship at the right hand of God. But accepting this truth is not "Following" Christ. It is the first step in God's work of regeneration, not the sum of all steps.

The Bible declares that, "You believe in God, and that He is one; good for you! But even the demons believe and tremble." (James 2:19) The demons were there when the cross was staked, when the earth quaked, and He rose from the death of God's wrath to eternal life and Kingship. They know that He's God, but it does not save them. Because, although the accept the truth of all they have witnessed, they still refuse to accept His authority over their lives.

Therefore, if the first step if God's saving work is to accept His diety and sacrafice for sins, then the second step is to accept His authority! This word, authority, carries all implication of Lordship. It denotes the manner in which He reigns and we serve. It is the call to "Follow" Him wherever he goes or asks us to go.

The problem is that the watchmen aren't warning people. I was warned and I heeded the call. Others too have been warned and turned to following Jesus (not in words, but in actions). Yet, many people have been left abandoned on the first step. They've been fooled into thinking "that's it." They've never been told about the call to "Follow" Christ. This is the fault of the pacifist believers, who are too afraid to confront the truth. As brothers who have learned, we are to warn the those who have not yet been called to "Follow". Sure they have accepted the diety of Christ, that is one thing, but following is an entirely different thing. "Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matt 16:24) We can't just take up our crosses, that is only part of the call. We are to take up our crosses and Follow. This may look different in every believer, but the common theme is a denial of self-interest and a reverence for God's command. James makes his own view of this clear in his epistle, when he state, "pure and undefiled religion is this, to take care of widows and orphans in their need, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

We, as a body, need to be careful of our own proclamated love for God, or anybody elses. Because Christ makes it clear that a love for Him is followed by obedience to Him. If there is no obedience then the person's love is a lie. "Whoever says 'I know Him' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in Him." (James 2:4-5) and Solomon says, "Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but who can find a faithful man? The righteous who walks in His integrity." (Proverbs 20:6) Christ says that a man's heart is deceptive and full of wickedness. So, who can trust the proclomated love of a professing believer (ours or anyones) without the obedience of His command. Jesus says, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." (Matt 15:8)

Obedience is better than sacrafice! This is how we know our assurance, that we run the race. If we love the world even a little we prove that we either must repent of such love, or do not love the lord, since we cannot serve both God and Mammon.

Our We Prostitutes With The Gospel?

"And as for you birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were youwashed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.

And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I said to you in your blood 'Live!' (this is repeated) I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed , and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you (the garment of his veil which fills the temple) and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became my bride. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wristst and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. THus you were adorned with my gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor athat I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.

But you trusted in your beauty and played the the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore. And you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil an dmy incense before them.

Also my bread that I gave you, I fed you with fine flour and oil and honey, you set befor them for a pleasing aroma; and so it was, declares the Lord God. And you took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them to be devoured. Were your whorings so small a matter that you slaughtered my children and delivered tehm up as an offering by fire them? And in all your aboninations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, wallowing in your blood. (Christian brothers and sisters, remember this verse, because I fear that our "christian institutions" our "christian philosophies" have done the same. Have we forgotten the nakedness with which we were saved from. Were we saved from nakedness to stay naked? Or to cloth ourselves with his garments of righteousness?)

And after all your wickedness you built yourself a vaulted chamber and made yourself a lofty place in every square.

At the head of every streed you built your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring.

You also played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whorings, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I stretched out my hand against you and diminished your allotted portion and delivered you to greed of your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior. You plyed the whore also with the Assyrians, because you were not satisfied; yes, you plyaed the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of CHaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied.

How lovesick is your heart, declares the Lord God, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute. . . Yet you were not a prostitute, because you did not want payment. Adultrous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. So you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment, while no payment was given to you; therefor you were different. Worse.

. . . You have committed more abominations than all else. Even though you were my bride. (italics added)

Has the church whored around, giving herself to the nations of the world? Have we taken the ways of the world and declared tehm ours. Stop the whoring! Turn back to God

To Take Up Your Cross!

The cross of Christ is not a trial or tribulation that we must endure, but a neccessity and a gift. The simple call to "Take up our cross and follow Jesus" is as important as teh call to "take up My yoke, for My burden is light." We are to both, take up our crosses, which mean suffering and rejection by the world, and to take up His yoke which means freedom from our burdens.

How is this possible? To carry his yoke which is light and carry the cross which was too heavy for Christ to even bare up the mountain to its resting place. Is it possible there is some hidden connection between the two?

I think it is commonly mistaken that you can have His yoke without the cost of the cross. And perhaps there are those who boast in their own afflictions and severe rigidity to the law who take up His cross pharisitically and without his yoke, thus doing it in their own mere humanistic endeavor.

But truly, you can not have the one without the other. To take up the cross we must take up the suffering and rejection of Christ, without the weight and power of the world. We cannot take up His cross any other way. We must believe and know that there is nothing but Christ in this. You must understand the henous nature we acted and still act against God and realize the suffering and rejection it took to spare you. Then we may begin to see the complex connection between the cross and the yoke. Understanding the wickedness of the human heart and the liberty God offers "through" his Son causes a man to both want to bare the cross he deserved and rejoice in the salvation he didn't.

The Enemy of Costly Grace

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting to-day for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and teh consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap? . . .

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentenced. . . Dietrich Bonhoefer "The Cost of Discipleship: Chapter 1 page 1