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The amazing correlation between the first birth and the second birth!
Tag: Salvation
First (and Last) Responder
Can you think of a more idyllic photo subject than a dad, a mom, their young daughter, and the family dog stopping by the roadside to pose for a group photo on a spring day against a lush backdrop of gorgeous south Texas wildflowers and other native flora?
But at the exact same instant that grandma snapped the family photo in 2016, there was something very wrong transpiring in the lower frame of this lovely tableau…
Sometimes, the most placid and seemingly innocuous environments can harbor things sinister and even deadly if we are not both aware and discerning of our surroundings. Imagine Eve in the garden of Eden! Could there have been a more beautiful setting within the protective confines of this harmonious, sinless paradise than beneath the shade, foliage, and luscious fruit of the tree of knowledge? Right now, the world is learning how something as unseen and even submicroscopic as the coronavirus can have deadly consequences for human life.
Today, we speak often of “safe places”; places of quiet refuge where one need not be afraid of physical threats or harm. We may even think of “the church” as always being one of those safe places, at least in a spiritual sense. We know in reality and from scripture that in some cases this can be far, far from the truth. Satan, after all, can manifest himself as a “minister of righteousness” (II Cor. 11).
In particular, the old satanic lie, “you shall not surely die” was with us in the beginning (Genesis 3). It was there when Ahab and Jehoshaphat consulted with the “prophets of the Lord” about their disastrously doomed plan to join forces together in battle (I Kings 22 *Note: these were not Jezebel’s Baal prophets; Elijah had already dispatched those with the sword). The lie, or more accurately, the Laodicean lies, are tragically still demonic traps and spiritual stumbling blocks for many persons who, at least outwardly, profess Christ today. “You say you are rich, and have need of nothing…” (Revelation 3).
It is possible to sit even in a “Bible-based” church for an entire lifetime when you might just as well be ensconced somewhere in a spiritual mausoleum because God’s Word has never penetrated your conscience to the point that sin has become “utterly sinful” (Romans 7), or you have become hardened over years of no real heart change. Paul warned in his epistles about spiritual leaders who have all the right “words” but no “power” (I Cor. 4). Be on the alert then, whether in ornate or unadorned religious settings, where there is no real, life-altering conviction of sin, no crying out for God’s mercy, no sign of anything supernatural outside of human understanding or interpretation. Why? Because we already have everything!
“You shall not surely die…because we have collected scriptures with which we are able to comfort you in the knowledge that Paul’s warnings of apostasy written to the churches do not literally apply to us “true” saints [see Romans 11]; that when you were saved you were also baptized “by default” by the Holy Spirit, even though there has been an absence of any real, tangible evidence (maybe even love itself) in your life; and that the “sign of Jonah” was irrelevant to the understanding of our salvation because Jesus’ human soul [not His spirit] never actually descended as a prisoner of death into the depths of Sheol, only to be released, empowered, and reunited with His glorified body and His spirit [the Holy Spirit] at the thunderous, resurrecting voice of God. [see Psalm 18].”
My brother-in-law was the attending ER physician when the man mentioned in the first paragraph was first admitted to the hospital; obviously he heard the snakebite story firsthand and would later receive an unedited digital copy of the photo (he is not at liberty to share the original version with faces for publication without permission, but on the internet the curious can find the exact same photo with the family faces blacked out).
There is nothing photographically “flawed” about the picture other than the man looking downward instead of at the camera, but if you zoom in to the bottom of the picture, there is a rattlesnake in the act of striking, fangs visible, in the apparent direction of the wife, whose hand is directly above the serpent. Amazingly, the family dog somehow distracted and deflected the strike, but the woman’s husband was envenomated in the leg by one fang, oddly, at the same instant that the dog was stricken in the face by the other fang. The man would be treated and later transferred to an urban hospital. He recovered fully. The faithful dog did not survive.
According to Paul, God has much better things in mind for us than being sidetracked by Satan or shipwrecked in our faith! (Hebrews 6). It is through a love of the truth and the consistent faith exercise of God’s Word that we gain spiritual discernment into things that could otherwise be harmful to us and our families (Hebrews 5). God’s great love is able to keep us and protect us in every circumstance, but He expects us not only to “deflect” satanic attacks, but to defeat the enemy of our souls with the spiritual weapons of warfare He has given us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 6).
The Alpha and the Omega. Jesus is our first, and last, responder!
Bryan
Must reading for any believer desiring to enter into a deeper faith relationship with God and to learn more about miracles and answered prayer: G.C. Bevington biography / Kingsley Press (compiled in part during the 1918 “Spanish Flu” epidemic).
Birthing Babies
A hospital delivery room is not for the fainthearted. I blacked out when one of our five children was being born (not quintuplets; it would have been far worse!). I was seated and didn’t fall over or pass out, but for a few seconds it was like someone had turned out all the lights, like one of the times I donated blood. Many are those who will bear witness that these venues are regularly characterized by a lot of yelling, blood, and gore. Until the process is complete, “birthing babies” can be very stressful, in particular for the mom giving birth and sometimes for the dads in attendance, who have been known on occasion to literally pass out during this miraculous phenomenon.
Spiritual birth can also be a painful experience. It is true that there are those who come to Christ at an early age in life and never look back. But even these must have their own “mini-Gethsemane” in the act of surrendering their (perhaps pliable, yet) still independent wills to Jesus, and the process doesn’t stop there. But for a large percentage of us, getting to, upon (“I am crucified with Christ”), and beyond the Cross of Jesus Christ can be a real life-and-death struggle because our own wills have been in in the ascendancy for so long.
There is a very real danger in the church when well-meaning (or at times self-serving) clergy and others try to inject their own “epidural” into those struggling to find God by providing misguided and human-inspired words of comfort and enablement instead of interceding and trusting God to save them, no matter how difficult and painful the “delivery.” I sat in a church “stuck in the breach” for a full year knowing that I was in a lost spiritual condition, but was absolutely unable to do anything about it. There was a hindrance and I was helpless to do anything except to ask for prayer and to hold on to hope as if my life depended upon it, which it did.
You may lose your grip on faith for a time, but you can never, ever abandon hope!
People who give up all hope are the ones who take their own lives, or are overpowered by Satan and consciously reject the claims of Christ for eternity. I could have prayed a thousand “sinner’s prayers” during my time of crisis and nothing would have changed, because God had a perfect plan for redeeming my soul, and that plan would unfold only in His timing and through His means. But when it was fulfilled, it would be real. It would be, not by reason, but by revelation. My pitiable portion of faith would become alive.
Our flesh, even without Satan’s added prompting and deception, can be the biggest deterrent to a genuine salvation experience. There are many things that can hinder salvation and then being filled with the Holy Spirit. It is often said, “Jesus doesn’t clean His fish before He catches them.” Much more accurately, Jesus doesn’t catch His fish until they “come clean.” Jesus doesn’t deliberately go around looking for rocky ground to sow His seed. There may be many obstacles in my heart that prevent me from seeing the true Gospel. Perhaps it is a root of bitterness or unforgiveness against someone that I, in reality, have no intention of surrendering. Perhaps it is a private addiction or some other sin that I consciously try to conceal from the piercing, convicting laser-light of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps I am expecting to come to Christ, but only as long as that doesn’t mean giving up any of my idols in the process.
As a friend of mine often says, “We need to let GOD save people!” That is not to say that God does not want to use us to sow, water, feed, and cultivate. That is a huge part of our mission during our stay here; to make disciples for Christ. But if a person doesn’t recognize they are lost and are in danger of eternal judgment, what are they going to be saved from? In the scriptures, repentance always precedes salvation. It is the job of the Holy Spirit to reveal our lost state, and then to bring us safely and methodically through the delivery process.
That process will inevitably involve a Gethsemane of our own will, but one of God’s making, with the loving objective of our eternal adoption as His children!
“Then he said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts.’” (Zechariah 4:6 NASB)
Help Me to Be A Good Neighbor!
My next-door neighbor’s little Yorkie died today. Seems it escaped from the backyard and was likely killed by a larger dog, according to animal control. I helped in the search for the pet and tried my best to comfort my brokenhearted neighbor, who has a young daughter and just lost her husband a few months ago. She moved in only recently.
I feel blessed to live in a culturally diverse area of the U.S. and I know virtually all of the neighbors on my street, at least on a first-name basis. We live at the very top and center of a long, steep, wooded cul-de-sac with a big sky and an open view, so I have a visual reminder of all of my neighbors on the block each time I go out the front door. Most of my immediate neighbors are white or hispanic, but there are many different ethnic groups represented locally.
It has occurred to me recently how even just my little neighborhood is such a microcosm of a hurting world…
Three people on my block are caregivers for parents, spouses, or a mentally disabled child. One of them lost his disabled father just three weeks ago and continues to care for his aged mother. He also sends food support to impoverished family members in Venezuela, but only when they can obtain the gasoline to travel to the border to collect it. At least two of my neighbors suffer with depression. One of them was just laid off from his job and worries that his age is a disincentive to potential employers. Some of my neighbors subscribe to “alternative” lifestyles. ALL of my neighbors, like us, simply need Jesus. We would not have known that any of these things were going on around us if we had not taken the time to reach out to a perceived need, or at least, to introduce ourselves.
This post is just to ask for PRAYER that God will help me and my wife be TRUE neighbors and that our influence will go well beyond just delivering handmade chocolates at Christmas, giving out sweets and tracts to trick-or-treaters at Halloween, or taking food if someone dies. Please pray that our neighbors will see JESUS, and not us. It’s only when people see Jesus that miracles can happen, lives and hearts can be changed, and people can be introduced to the only true source of comfort, peace, and eternal life!
Matthew 22:37-40 NASB “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.’ ”
You may well be the only person reading my posts, but I would write them anyway in the hope that they might be of some encouragement, if only to YOU, my neighbor!
God, T-Rex, and Black Holes
As I write this post, cosmologists, astronomers, astrophysicists…and just regular folks like me who would be hard-pressed to distinguish between quantum entanglement and a bad hair day…are in giddy anticipation of the imminent release of the first ever photographic “images” of a black hole. Of particular interest: the “supermassive” black hole believed to anchor the center of the vast, spinning Messier 87 Galaxy, about 55 million light years from earth! Well, of course you can’t actually see black holes because they’re invisible, but what you might expect to see based upon computer simulations is a boundary, a shadow, evidence of an event horizon defined by the shape of super-heated plasma swirling at near light speed around the periphery of many of these unimaginably dense objects (but only until that matter, including light, gets devoured by the inexorable force of gravity, never to be seen again…except in Hollywood).
If seeing a black hole is on your bucket list, the soon to be released images are probably about as close as you would ever want to get to one!
In principal, there is a rather unremarkable, “Jewish-looking” fellow (if kosher labeling is still permissible) sitting at the very back of the cosmology classroom, who would love to contribute to the discussion, but the professors simply never call on him. (Would it be different if his surname was something else, like Einstein, perhaps? Hmm).
John 1:1-5 “In the beginning was the Word [gr., logos; aka, Jesus Christ], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
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.”
Every new scientific discovery; every new innovation; every new breakthrough in medicine, physics, engineering, technology, and cosmology…not to mention the elegant toolbox of mathematics for their description and the capacity for their observation…all these things have already existed in the mind of God since before time was even initiated. For us, these increasingly rapid developments are just incremental insights and progressive revelations into the eternal nature and consciousness of an infinitely wise and powerful Creator!
Job 38:31-33 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, Or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of the heavens, Or fix their rule over the earth?”
Like the expanding universe itself, God is forever filling all things with the knowledge of the glory of Himself, which Jesus also shared before time began.
John 17:1-5 “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
Isaiah 9:7 “There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.”
Imagine two equally passionate paleontologists in this present life who both – upon being interviewed for a documentary science program about theropods – unashamedly “gush” over the fossil remains of, let’s say, the formidible, terrifying…and thankfully, extinct…Tyrannosaurus Rex. One “digger” cares nothing about the claims – either upon his soul or upon his bone pile – of some obscure Creator-God. His peer, on the other hand, has “eternity in his heart” and is growing to know his Redeemer intimately. The one will never experience anything pertaining to his passion beyond dead, dry bones. But the other might well be in for some surprises in the New Heaven and the New Earth, where things won’t be eating other things in order to survive, i.e., (formerly) predator and prey will coexist peacefully along with the (glorified) children of God:
Isaiah 11:6-9 “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea.”
“You have a T-Rex?”
“We have a T-Rex!” (famous movie quotes).
1 Corinthians 2:9 “But just as it is written, ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.’ ”
Of course, only eternity will reveal the still hidden mysteries of God and our passion and our focus in heaven will not be upon the creation, but upon our “betrothed,” our precious Savior and Redeemer who was willing to pay the ultimate price, forfeiting His own life and blood in exchange for our salvation, to deliver us forever from the power of sin and death!
God gave mankind an innate curiosity about our amazing cosmos. There is nothing ignoble per se about the search for intelligent life on other planets and in other solar systems. But if the “spark” of life as we know it does indeed emanate exclusively from a (largely disavowed and discredited) deity commanding an invisible spiritual dimension that parallels our own, then there may be a very, very long wait, depending on God’s timetable. Could it be that a diminutive, watery blue marble hung in space, literally bursting with life in every conceivable form, is the singular oasis of bio-diversity in an incomprehensibly vast physical universe? Again, only eternity will “tell.”
Romans 11:33 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!”
Even throughout eternity we, as glorified believers in heaven, will continue to grow and progress in our knowledge of the immeasurable depths of God in Christ Jesus. Why can we never completely “catch up” with God? Because He had a really, really big head start! How big?
As big as INFINITY!
In the gospel of Luke chapter 16:19-31, Jesus tells the parable of two deceased men who awaken to find their souls on opposite sides of eternity; one died rich and the other died poor; the one is forever receding from the glorious presence of God; the other is forever drawing closer to Him.
Which side of eternity will you be on?
-∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ (?) ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
(All scripture quotes NASB; some Bible verse punctuation and bold italics, mine).
Salvation and sexual reproduction? The new, revised 2019 paperback edition of my (ghost-written) book, Born of the Water Born of the Spirit, can be found at the following link. It is also available as a Kindle ebook download:
A Slippery Slope
A retired pastor, veterinarian, and good friend of mine was often quoted as saying (paraphrased):
~ “Some Christians treat Jesus like a man who marries a wife at the altar, kisses his new bride, and then leaves! But before he walks out of the church he turns around and says to her, ‘Oh, by the way, I’ll meet you back here next Sunday morning at 10:45!’”
~ “Put the blinders on after you get married, not before!”
~ [My friend quoting another medical professional friend; a prominent psychiatrist]: “If preachers would go back to preaching against sin, you could probably empty out half of the mental health institutions.”
~ “Your heart can become like a callous that gradually builds up on your hand after repeatedly using a shovel. Eventually it becomes so thick and hard you can stick a pin through it and feel nothing.”
Each time Israel tested God with their murmuring and complaining in the wilderness, their faith waned a little and their hearts – just like that of the Pharaoh who had enslaved them – became a little more hardened. It did not happen all at once. The same thing happened to King Saul. Over time, his initial humility and zeal for God turned to pride, self-will, and finally, outright rebellion…to the point that he could order the slaughter of scores of Levites and not even feel a pang of conscience!
The crossing of the Red Sea was an Old Covenant “type” of salvation and baptism for our generation under the New Covenant. But that first generation of Israelites (save two over the age of twenty) who came out of Egypt were destined (not predestined) to die in a parched, desolate wasteland. After their tenth documented rebellion and God’s declaration through Moses that the nation would not enter into Canaan for thirty-eighty more years, they finally “got it!” By then it was too late, and when a number of them presumptuously rose up the next morning and strapped on their swords to “take” the land of promise, they were soundly defeated and humiliated by their enemy. God had rejected that generation from crossing the Jordan river. Again, a type; this time of entering into a promised place of spiritual rest, blessing, and empowerment through Jesus Christ.
Oh, those poor, stubborn Jews! It’s a good thing I’m living under grace in my generation. That could never happen to me under the New Covenant. I could never possibly become God’s adversary, much less an enemy of the Cross!
1 Corinthians 10:12 NASB “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.”
Consider a newly-married Christian couple…”Until death do us part.” Their relationship starts out on a solid footing. Their respective walks with Christ are also, at first, characterized by a degree of intimacy. But over time, they become more concerned with their own needs and interests than those of their spouse, not to mention those of Jesus. That small, quiet voice of conviction repeatedly says: “I know I really shouldn’t say that to my spouse”, but the words “slip” out of their mouth anyway, and there is a subtle, but prideful sense of gratification and empowerment in it. Little by little, day after day, month after month, there is a gradual, reciprocal escalation of selfishness and anger until, inevitably, the word “divorce” pops up in the conversation. From that point, it may be only a matter of time until bitterness has resulted in another broken marriage and family, and the name of Christ is once again dishonored.
Like it our not, my marriage is probably the best barometer of my relationship with Christ…OUCH!
Hebrews 4: 1-3 NASB “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, ‘As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest,’ although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.”
Remember, as the writer James took great pains to explain and clarify in his epistle, true faith, or believing, is inextricably and invariably linked to a conscious “action” response on our part whenever God’s Word is spoken or revealed to us. That response can only be ONE of two things; either (1) obedience OR, (2) disobedience.
A child can understand this basic principle, just like when Dad orders you to take out the trash (or when your boss tells you to stay late to meet a deadline).
The choice is OURS, just as it was with Israel!
That choice we make can, over time, become either a positive or a negative pattern of behavior, a good or a bad heart habit that can have not only temporal, but eternal consequences. Beware of teaching that tries to convince you that a Christian’s conscious, deliberate choice of obedience to a direct command from God (or from God’s Word) is equivalent to – or translates to – “works”, i.e., the same thing as charitable, or good “deeds” or “effort” (gr., ergon) and that therefore, as we all know, our “works” of obedience (by that out-of-context definition) “can have no bearing whatsoever on our salvation, as per Ephesians 2:8-9.” This is a very unscriptural leap of flawed logic and interpretation.
Hebrews 4:11-16 NASB “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Romans 15:13 NASB “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The following is a Youtube link to the sermon that finally broke through my thick, pharisaical skull and opened my blinded eyes back in 1993; it became the catalyst for my own personal “Gethsemane” and my salvation experience. WARNING: It is not an “easy” message to listen to, but it was exactly what I desperately needed to hear from God. It may be what someone else (a serious seeker perhaps or someone who is spiritually “stuck in the breach”) needs in order to get a “breakthrough”…
🙂 Bryan
Birds Or Branches?
Apart from the Bible, the inspired, anointed, and eternal Word of God, I have a fairly short list of recommended reading…books that draw me back time and again because of their insights and wisdom. Of course, everyone’s list is different, but I thought I would share three which are at the very top of my own, books that I would categorize as “must-reads” if I were ever qualified to teach an “advanced” course in discipleship!
The three writers all have something in common. First of all, none are household names in the realm of Christian non-fiction literature. Second, each of these men had a depth in their knowledge of scripture and a passion in their pursuit of Jesus Christ that I can only aspire to. Finally, they are all deceased. Am I suggesting that some of the “old-time” (prior-generation) Bible preachers and teachers may have had a grasp of some spiritual truths and realities that have been lost to many of the modern church mentality?
Well, actually…yes!
But before I share my list, there is another distinction we should be reminded of.
Matthew chapter 13 begins with the well known parable of the sower, but goes on to include various similies pertaining to the kingdom of God on earth, including the tares and the wheat, the leaven and the flour, the nesting birds and the mustard tree, and the net filled with bad fish and good fish harvested at the end of the age. Most discerning teachers of hermeneutics (Bible interpretation) agree that these particular images represent the mixture of evil and good that will coexist within the Church, i.e., the kingdom of heaven on earth, prior to its being separated out – like the sheep and the goats – upon the return of Christ and the Day of Judgment. (I once read a Bible commentator’s peculiar declaration that the “leaven” represents Jesus. A thousand times…NO! I also once heard a seminary-trained pastor state that “WE…are the birds of the air” [nesting among the branches of the mustard tree]. For his sake, I hope he was wrong! Branches, yes. The birds, or “fowl” of the air? Not in this passage!)
Jesus told us who the “birds of the air” represent in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:19). If we apply a standard of interpretation to a portion of the scripture, we must do so consistently. Imagery cannot logically be something “clean” in one verse, and something “unclean” in the next.
Like a cacophonous flock of grackles in a grocery store parking lot tree, the “birds” are the most attention-getting things about that tree. They may have completely taken over the tree, and invariably leave a mess on the ground below them. The same is true of the great tree, or Vine (Christ) that grew up from a tiny mustard seed (the Word), and puts out branches (born-again believers). The “birds” may be the noisiest, most visible thing about the tree; they may receive shelter, food, and protection from the tree; they may build their “nests” in the tree; they may even make their “living” from the tree (“Sow a faith-seed of $$$ to MY ministry so I can indulge my pet projects for God, fly my private jet, and live like a king on this earth”)…
The problem is, the birds are not part of the Tree!
(See a recent post related to this topic, “The Counterfeit Conception”).
The good news is, because God is merciful, there is hope for “tares.” I know. I spent many years in the Church as a tare, thinking that I was a child of God until Jesus mercifully opened my eyes through His Word (following a considerable period of personal and spiritual crisis) . It requires an absolute miracle for a tare to be transformed to wheat (or for a fowl to become “foliage”), but thankfully we serve a loving Savior who is in the miracle business! But there is a prerequisite: do I really want the truth, no matter the cost?
Oh, my recommended reading list…I will likely quote from these in the future:
1) The School of Christ ~ T. Austin-Sparks (re-printed by World Challenge)
2) Born Crucified ~ L.E. Maxwell (a Moody Classic)
3) Remarkable Incidents and Modern Miracles through Prayer and Faith ~ G.C. Bevington (Kingsley Press)
Psalm 119:105 KJV “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”
*Recommended blogs:
The Titanic: A Sailor’s Story
In your opinion, which is the more challenging: diving headfirst into the frigid water of the deep end of a swimming pool and acclimating quickly, or creeping tortuously down the steps of the shallow end – an inch at a time and shivering the entire way – until your whole body is finally submerged?
I recall reading the account of a British second officer aboard the RMS Titanic who had been working furiously on the boat deck helping to get passengers, beginning with women and children, off the doomed ocean liner and into lifeboats. After all of the boats had been lowered and were away, he watched as the water began to overtake the clustering crowds of people who had retreated toward the stern of the badly listing ship. Instead of an agonizing wait for the freezing black depths to overtake him, he made a choice. He decided to take a “header” and dove headlong into the icy surge!
His decision at first appeared to be a mistake, as he was pulled down and pinned against a metal grate by the force of water rushing into the ship through a ventilator. As he held his breath, hoping that the grate would not collapse, a boiler explosion well below the deck sent a burst of hot air to the surface and blew him far enough from the maelstrom that he was able to swim, gasping, to an overturned collapsible lifeboat to which several other men were clinging. He was later rescued.
I remember being impressed at the time with the spiritual symbolism of this account, and it has stayed with me ever since. The decision of the disciplined sailor to go “all in” was for him the difference between life and death.
Am I “all in” with regard to my relationship with Jesus?
The answer will often require some serious, and sometimes painful, introspection. The times we as believers find ourselves the most miserable are those when we have merely dipped a toe into the icy water of the unknown and are vacillating over our next step and our intended level of commitment, considering even the possibility of waiting until the weather gets “warmer”; until conditions “improve”, and the “water” is more conducive to taking that imposing “leap of faith.”
In his daily devotionals Oswald Chambers wrote often of the need for “total abandonment” of ourselves as believers to God. That is, by far, the most difficult thing for our (my) flesh to contemplate. It was this same voluntary self-abandonment that enabled the Son of God to brave His own dark descent into death, relinquishing His authority to summon 10,000 angels to His rescue, and believing that His Father would raise Him back up again. Am I willing to be accused by others of going “overboard” in my passion for Jesus? His sacrificial choice to be “all in” became our very salvation, and we are faced with the exact same choice as our Lord: to cast ourselves with abandon upon the unfathomable love, grace, and mercy of our heavenly Father!
Philippians 2:5-11 NASB “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
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The best preachers are the ones who will tell you, with honesty, that God preached the message to them before they ever preached it to their congregation. Before you or I can proclaim God’s Word to God’s people with any sense of power or authority, the Cross – the pangs of Holy Spirit conviction and the healing result of Self-surrender – must first be applied to my own heart and life.
Bryan
The Counterfeit Conception
Something very disturbing had happened in the hearts of many of the religious “elite” of Jesus’ time – including priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees – that caused our Lord to categorize them very differently from the common people, even contrasting them in a negative light vis-à-vis the prostitutes and tax collectors, the “dregs” of Hebrew society!
Matthew 21:31-32 NASB…“Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.”
According to Jesus, not only were these privileged “sons of Abraham” NOT God’s children, but they had been, in fact, spiritually sired by the evil one, Satan himself! These “converts” were not growing up into the image of Christ. Instead, they were being transformed into the image of the “father of lies.”
John 8:44 NASB “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
Even more terrifying, some very self-righteous and pious among these “counterfeits” had descended so far into Satanic deception and demonic control that they had consciously and deliberately blasphemed the Holy Spirit by declaring – in their jealous rage – that the Son of God and His disciples were casting out demons in their midst by the power of the prince of demons himself, “Beelzebub.” For this sin, Jesus said, there was NO forgiveness, either in this life or in the life to come!
Matthew 12:32 NASB “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.”
It is odd to think that Jesus would pray and ask God to forgive many of the very people who persecuted Him, accused Him, and brutally nailed Him to the Cross, but that there was another class of “religious” persons who had become so blinded and perverted by darkness that they had already sealed their own doom for all eternity, by denying the true source of exorcism by the power of the Holy Ghost working through Jesus and also through His spiritual descendants. By contrast, others like Nicodemus and some of his peers – though in the beginning unregenerate – turned to Jesus, having recognizing the source of His spiritual authority.
Matthew 6:23 NASB “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Hebrews 10:26-31 NASB “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.’ And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Satan is now, more than ever, in the business of seducing followers, but we need to realize that until we are convicted of sin and make the choice to surrender ourselves fully to Christ, we are all prisoners of death and darkness. But for those even in our darkened generation who desire to know truth and whose consciences have not been permanently seared by an appropriation and subsequent rejection of the “Spirit of grace”, there remains great HOPE!
How great is God’s love for us?
Romans 5:8-11 NASB “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.”
Bryan
Fracas In The Family :) 