Our Love for God

*this is from morning devotions with Tozer* ~editor

Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.  1 John 3:18

The taking over of the romantic love ideal into our relation to God has been extremely injurious to our Christian lives. The idea that we should “fall in love” with God is ignoble, unscriptural, unworthy of us and does no honor to the Most High God!

We do not come to love God by a sudden emotional visitation. Love for God results from repentance, amendment of life and a fixed determination to love Him. Then as God moves more perfectly into the focus of our hearts, our love for Him may indeed rise and swell within us till like a flood it sweeps everything before it.

But we should not wait for this intensity of feeling. We are not responsible to feel but we are responsible to love, and true spiritual love begins in the will.

We should set our hearts to love God supremely, however cold or hard they may seem to be and go on to confirm our love by happy and careful obedience to His Word.

Enjoyable emotion are sure to follow!

Supremacy of Christ

This video rocked my world!

I need God like there is no tomorrow! I am totally depraved! I have been bought by the blood of the Lamb. Chosen by God, Himself, and I don’t deserve that. Nothing I do is good enough but through Jesus Christ am made righteous.

I don’t even deserve to breathe, but each breath I take  is God’s mercy and grace on me. God you are so good to us all!

Why do we take You for granted, Oh Lord?

I repent of my foolishness and pride. You are the Lord and You do as You please. Thank you for Your mercy upon my soul.

May I always stand strong for You and never ever doubt, in the midst of pain and troubles, your Sovereignty! We love you Lord!

Romans 5: The Journey

So now, you have this faith in the work of Jesus Christ. Now what? Jesus Christ sends the Holy Spirit into your heart whereas Holy Spirit, brings a lunchpail, some leather work gloves and begins to go to work on your heart and begins to transform your life from the inside out.

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What Is The Gospel

I am obsessed with the gospel.  Christ is the reason why.  Driscoll was used by God to light a fire under my butt.

Romans 4: By Faith Alone

How are we saved? How does God justified us? Nothing that we do. It is by faith alone that is given to us.

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Atheist’s Case for Christian Evangelism

Mark 16:14-16 (ESV) Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Romans 3: All Have Sinned

We finish up the doctrine of sin by comparing our unrighteousness to God’s righteousness. It goes beyond God as the Creator that gives Him the right to judge the world.  God is set apart by any other mortal being or idea in that He is holy and righteous and by that alone, can He rightfully judge.

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Romans 1:18-2:29 Faith in His Righteousness

We speak of faith in His righteousness. But why so much emphasis on the holiness and righteousness of God? It must be known that in His holiness and righteousness, God cannot tolerate and abide by sin.

Romans 1:18-32 (ESV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 2:1-29 (ESV) Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

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It’s Christmas Time

I wrote this letter to my Bible Study group and I wanted to share it with you guys in the Internets. - Ed.

I truly hope that this week is a week that is good for you all. Spend time with family, eat good food, drink good drink, celebrate and give your time, energy and money away to those we love and should love.

I know you are going to be constantly reminded by every single pastor but just remember what we are celebrating.

We are not celebrating that some mere heroic, kick butt, awesome, epic warrior that would rile up a bunch of soldiers and go overthrow the oppressive reign of whomever ruled the little world some 2000 years ago. This is a Divine Being, whom existed before time began and all things were made through Him. He decided, in that moment, that now was the time to begin the true kingdom. The one kingdom that transcended boundaries, walls, rulers, kings, political offices, wars, treaties and weapons. The only kingdom that was ruled by a King, that would rule forever and thus, this kingdom would last forever!

That King is the same as our Lord and is the same as our Saviour and He was to be called Emmanuel, which  declared “God is with us” and the man, God in the flesh– was named Jesus Christ. In order for his kingdom to begin, He had to overthrow Death and Hell so that we might live. In order to do that, He had to die, descend into hell, take the power away from Death and Satan and ascend back to the Father.

For this to happen, He must first be born like a human. He started the entire process of making everything right standing with Himself by being just a little bitty baby, born to a virgin teenage girl for a mom and a holy man of God for a stepdad. He then, had to live like a human. Learning how to walk, talk, eat, toilet train, speak, write, read just like any other child that grows into an adult.

We celebrate Christmas because God made good on His promises. We celebrate because the kingdom of God is now and we are so blessed to live in it.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Hells Bells by AC/DC

If you are at all familiar with my blog, then the title should not throw you for a loop.  Because of the vastness of my music collection, I will occasionally be inspired to use a song title as a fast and easy way to headline my posts.  Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for this blog title (even though I am familiar with song) because I was encouraged, inspired and otherwise fired up (pun intended) when I found out some of the details of a sermon from Perry Noble (Pastor, NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC) last year.

He goes a bit old school and talks about hell and nothing but hell in this particular sermon in his series, “Illuminate”.  Beyond the calling by God on Perry to see 1,000 people saved in his church, I stood and cheered when I heard he was doing a sermon on hell.  Somehow, in the last twenty years, I missed how preaching on hell became passé because such sermons don’t feel quite so good.

I don’t know how that trend got started (I will speak on filling pews later on) but this leads me to share my how I became saved on a cool December 1982 morning in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in a Baptist Church that would bus in kids from around the city.

The Children’s Pastor’s message that morning was simply: hell and how Jesus Christ came to the earth, died on the cross and rose again so that you wouldn’t go to hell:

John 3:16 (KJV)  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Up till that moment, I am pretty sure that I have never made any life changing decisions.   I’d had a lot of decisions made for me such as my mother saying goodbye to me for the last time when I was 5 years old or the fact I had to go live with my father who would abuse me and my brother for the next seven of the longest years of my life.

But the day I was saved, I will never forget.

So a choice had to be made: Did I want to go to hell (Romans 6:23)?  The answer is obviously no.  Was I a sinner?  I understood that I had done bad things in my life but absolutely no human was born perfect (except Jesus Christ) (Romans 3:23).  If I confess to be a sinner, the Lord will forgive me of my wrongdoings and remove all that is wicked and evil from within me (1 John 1:9).  If I believe that Jesus is my Savior and Lord and he was raised from the dead after being crucified (Romans 10:9), then I will be saved.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So what say you, faithful readers?  Share your testimony of salvation.