Selfless

1 Corinthians 10:33


Paul was probably one of the nicest people you could ever meet. The only time I see him getting angry with someone in scripture is when he disagrees with another church leader over something. So, he's passionate about what he believes, but not arrogant about it.


He seems to go out of his way to make the sinner and new believer feel safe around him. I think he was probably very approachable and had a lot of patience for new believers. For goodness sake, if he didn't eat something just to make sure a new or weak believer wouldn't be offended, I'd say he was one of the most selfless men of his time.


We get all bent out of shape over small things that we are asked to do. For example, our particular church organization holds that in order to be holy, a man should wear pants when in public (i.e. no shorts). My understanding of the Bible is that shorts are still considered holy, as long as they are lower than the knee (In the Bible, men "girded up their loins" to prepare to work or fight, which would have bared the lower parts of their legs). However there are many in our local church and in our church organization who would be very offended if I were to wear shorts in public. Therefore, I simply don't wear shorts.


I know of many people who have gotten very upset over something like that and say "why shouldn't I be allowed to do that, it's my right!"


That's exactly what Paul said: there are things that I technically have the right to do. But just because I can do them, it doesn't mean I should do them.


Here's how you can tell what you should and shouldn't do as a mature Christian: Ask yourself these questions
1. Does God disapprove?
2. Does my church/spiritual leadership disapprove?
3. Would my brother or sister be offended?


If you pass those three questions, then you are good to go. If the answer to any of those questions is "Yes", then Paul tells us that we should not do that thing.


Disclaimer: There are some people who are offended over the slightest things.  You could sneeze in church and they would get offended.  I'm not referring to those people in question #3.  Question #3 refers to sincere believers who are not just being cantankerous and carnal, but really do have a problem with something.  This may be because of something they struggle with personally or struggled with in the past or something like that.  Don't do anything around those people that may cause them to stumble.  God's working on them so don't be a stumbling block to them.

Relevance

1 Corinthians 9:21

It is possible to be relevant to culture without compromising the "Law of Christ".  Traditions can be broken, but God's Law must not be broken.  The timeless truths in the Bible still apply today.

We use many different methods to appeal to the high-tech, fast-paced world of today.  But we should never ever change the message we present.  Christ still died for our sins, he still was buried in a borrowed tomb, and he still rose from the dead on the third day.  The Holy Ghost was still poured out on the day of Pentecost.  The believers still continued daily in the apostle's doctrine.  Jesus still commands us to "be ye holy for I am holy".  We must not water down the Truth and this Christian lifestyle to make it more palatable to the "general public".  And even though the gospel is offensive to those who have not obeyed it, the way we present the gospel should not be offensive.

So we should make every effort to be involved in our communities.  We can Facebook, Twitter, Stream Online Worship Services, build websites, help the needy, etc.  But, we should never lose the original doctrine which was taught by the apostles: Jesus Christ and him crucified.  Christ in us, the hope of Glory!

True Freedom, Real Life

1 Corinthians 2:10-12

We can't truly be free unless we have God's spirit living in us. The baptism or infilling of the Holy Spirit is necessary to live free. Without the Holy Ghost, we simply won't know how to live free because God's Spirit won't be in us, quickening us.

More importantly, if God's Spirit doesn't live in us, it can't quicken our mortal bodies when the Trumpet sounds and God comes back for his Church (Romans 8:11).

The baptism of the Holy Ghost is essential both for life here and now, and for life after death.

Avatar

Colossians 1:15

This is not theologically correct and I hope I don't offend anyone, but it's fun and it made me laugh when I thought of it.

Jesus Christ was the visible image of the invisible God. For anyone who saw the movie, "Avatar", Christ was God's avatar. God came to earth in a body, an "avatar" if you will, in order to interact with humanity as one of their own.

I know there's another scripture mentioning that the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily... in other words, Christ was fully God, not just a remote control body. It's still a fun comparison though. :)

Anyway, I had to share that thought.

Holiness Standards - a programmer's perspective

A neat analogy came to my mind during Pastor Jack's Go Fish message tonight; actually, it's totally off topic from the message, but hey.

Holiness lifestyle standards for the true Christian (True Worshipper who worships God in Spirit and in Truth) are analagous to programming and development standards for a Programmer Analyst such as myself. Sure, you can ignore them or cut corners in the short term, but it will definitely come back to bite you and you'll eventually find yourself in a big ole mess. It will eventually bring the whole thing crashing down around you.

Now take that thought and use building a house as the analogy instead. Presto! I give you the parable of two house builders, as told by Jesus himself. One built on rock, the other on sand... That had to have been against building code, even back in the day. Guess which house fell down when bad weather hit. ;)

The analogy applies for the seasoned Christian as well as the non-believer, only in different ways. The non-believer needs to get on the rock and build there. The believer (hearer and doer of the Word) needs to stay on the rock and continue building and living there. Cut corners and you're just asking for trouble. This is true no matter who you are or where you're at in your walk with God. God's not a respector of persons, but he is a respector of principles. If you've been around church all your life, it doesn't mean you have "earned points" and can slack off.

It comes back to submission, more specifically, submission to God, Godly leadership and to God's word, the Bible. Man so much ties into submission.. We can't even resist the devil successfully until we're in submission to God. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

Neat thought. I'll have to flesh it out a bit; add in the scripture references.

YX 2010

Wow, what a weekend!

I don't know if I've ever sung so hard for so long. I don't know how I was able too sing tonight except that God helped me. I had some serious doubts if I would be able to sing, much less be a lead worshipper. But God helped me. He always does. I believe it was another example of why it is so important to be submitted to God and Godly authority. I am planning to write a longer post on the subject of submission, which should better explain my last comment. Coming soon!

I'm not sure I fully comprehend what happened this weekend... It's going to take little while for it all to sink in. God confirmed a call to something greater, both for me and Emily. We don't know what that is yet, but we will keep pressing, like the preacher said tonight. We have a godly discontent; it's awesome what happened and what we've achieved this weekend, but were not content to rest on our laurels.

By the way, I really appreciated Luke Lavigne's ministry this weekend. I think he did an awesome job and he was bang on with everything he said, from exhortation to sermons. More than that, he was anointed.

Speaking of awesome jobs, all our volunteers rock!!!!! Jon & Nat did amazing with music and the terrible trio of Justin, Matt and Mike led the YX 2010 team wonderfully. Our pastors, Pastor Raymond and Pastor Jack... I can't tell them how much I appreciate them. And I don't know what we would do without Eric & Annette Porter. They're such a big help to everyone at CCC.

When I think of our Pastoral staff at CCC, I come to realize how blessed we are at CCC. We're standing on the shoulders of giants.

That has to be the most disjointed, incoherent thing I've ever written, but that probably reflects my state of body and mind right now. :P

YX 2010 was off the hook! I can't remember the final count, but I think the number of people that received the Holy Ghost numbered in the dozens. I think that includes one of the kids my Mom and Dad are teaching in the Bridge Boys Sunday School class: Allen Porter's boy. That's awesome! Allen Porter... I love worshipping with that guy. He inspires me.

Uh oh, brain is frying...

Must. Sleep. Now.

L8r!

PS: This was written from my iPhone so please excuse any typos.

Keep Your Eyes Open

Acts 14:9

While Paul was teaching, he became aware of a man who had faith to be healed. Lord, help me to have that kind of sensitivity; not just in church, but even as I'm at work and going about life.

There's nothing like sitting in your office cubicle and feeling God's presence. Or driving down the road and having a one on one talk with God. If the only place you talk to God is at church, you're missing out on one of the best things about living for God: relationship. Some of the most special times with God are when no one else is around.

That's my brain dump at the end of a busy day. I'm excited for YX!

L8r

How Did They Know?

Acts 10:45-48

How did Peter and the disciples with him know that Cornelius and his house received the Holy Spirit? By the evidence of speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance. Peter and co. knew this because the same thing had happened to them, back in Acts 2. The same principle applies today.

This may not be a perfect analogy, but humour me. What is a good way to know that someone belongs to a certain culture? By the language they speak. I speak English, so that means I belong to one of the English cultures in the world. What better way to know that we now belong to a heavenly culture than to speak in a heavenly language. What an experience!

I believe that one reason speaking in tongues is the sign of the infilling of the Holy Spirit is because the tongue, or the mouth, is our most unruly part (there's scripture for that). Everyone has trouble controlling it. When we allow the Holy Spirit to take control of our tongue, we are giving the Holy Spirit control of the hardest to control piece of us. Symbolically, we have just given Him complete control of our lives.

Yes, it still happens today, everyday, all over the world, and it's the best experience you could ever want to have. Don't ask, "do I have to receive the Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in other tongues?" Rather, shout for joy because we get to receive the Holy Spirit as evidenced by speaking in other tongues. It's the best thing that could ever happen to you.

There's Always A Plan

Acts 9:36-43

Why did Tabitha, the gracious gazelle, who did so many nice things, have to die? It must have seemed senseless and cruel to those around her. A woman who gave so much to the people around her shouldn't have to die early like that, should she?

But if she didn't, there wouldn't have been the opportunity for God to show himself powerful and faithful and raise her from the dead. Also, there wouldn't have been many who came to believe because of this miracle. I'm sure it seemed awful in the middle of the situation, but it must have looked wonderful in hindsight.

There's always a plan, no matter how crazy it looks. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Rom 8:28) Not all things are good, but all things, good and bad, work together for good. That's very comforting to me.

Use your brain, the one God gave you

Acts 8:29-30

I find it funny that the Holy Spirit told Philip to walk next to the chariot, but Philip spoke up on his own... I don't see any mention of the Holy Spirit saying, "Hey! Dude! Speak up!" I guess God expects us to figure some things out for ourselves. He must be kind of like us in that He doesn't want to spell out everything for us.

However, even if we have to figure some things out on our own by thinking about it and being sensitive to the Holy Spirit, we still need to stay in the Word. God will never lead us to do something that falls outside His Word. The apostle Paul himself (I believe it was Paul... look it up) said that if a man or even an angel preaches another gospel than the one that was preached by the Apostles, that person will be accursed.

Bottom line: Use your brain, but stay in the Word.

Peace out

Me First

Acts 2:44-45

It's so hard to fight the "me first" attitude of Western culture. How do you handle your finances? Do you spend it all on yourself or do you share? I'm not talking about Tithes (that's a given and if you don't give it, you're robbing God... ooo boy, that may start an argument).

I'm talking about investment in the Kingdom. That can be financial, but it's not only money. What about those four hours of TV we watch a night, on average? Could we take some of that time and spend it on Kingdom work? How about those skills we use every day at work? Could they be useful in our local churches? What about those talents and that gifting we have? Are we using it for God?

One of the first things we teach our kids is the concept of "Sharing". "Johnny, share your M&Ms with your sister." "Sarah, don't hog the couch. Scoot over and make room for Liz." Let's not lose that concept as we grow older and, hopefully, wiser in Christ.

Daily Devotionals

I've discovered that writing out my thoughts after reading the Bible helps me engage my brain... I've been writing my comments in YouVersion.com... but I figured I'd copy them here as well... we'll see what happens. :)