Tag: faith

He Saves Me – 02.16.24

I post my blogs on Friday with the church newsletter, so I am way late to this party!  First let me say I loved watching the SuperBowl!  And the group I watched it with didn’t pay a lot of attention to the commercials.  So while I did note a Jesus commercial, I didn’t note that it may have been implying some of the things I’m hearing…

So let’s just be clear.  Jesus does say,  “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”  He did offer living water to the Samaritan woman, who a man in His position would have normally shunned.  He did the servant’s job and washed the dirt off of His disciple’s feet.  He said, over and over, whoever believes in me has eternal life. (John 6:47 emphasis added)  And He died for our sins; all of them.

It could be that’s all the commercial was saying; but based on the reaction I’m seeing I suspect that the message was from people encouraging folks to “hold to a form of godliness but deny its power” (2 Tim 3:5); rather than come to Jesus and be transformed!

“Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!”  (2 Corinthians 5:17 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition)

Over and over again the leaders of the church In the New Testament talking to those in the church (the saved) say that groveling in sin was your old way of life!  Once we have been bought by His blood, we aren’t supposed to live that way anymore! 

“Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.  For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.  But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him — a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.”  (Colossians 3:5-11 NASB1995 Cf. Titus 3:1-5; Rom 11:30; 1 Cor 6:9-11; Eph 2:1-4; 1 Peter 4:1-5)

The crowds always thin out when the truth is told —  “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘You do not want to go away also, do you?’  Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.’”  (John 6:66-69)

Something to think about,

Pastor Scott 

P.S. As I’m posting this I’m listening to a press conference on Thursday regarding the shooting on Wednesday. Pray for the wounded, pray for the fearful. The talk, of course, is about disarming the populace, and while I certainly understand that impulse, I’m preaching through the Old Testament and am particularly heighted to the fact that evil is in hearts no matter the weapon of choice. Pray for those hearts!

Jargon & Assumptions – 01.26.24

If you ever try to read a medical or technical journal you may find yourself awash in unfamiliar terms used by practitioners.  Sometimes said terms are just unique to their particular field of study but often they are jargon, verbal shortcuts.

Here at church we sometimes use Old Testament words despite knowing full well we live post-cross in the Age of Grace.  Often we use those words not because we don’t understand that we are  “free from the law”, but because the word best sums up what we mean in a way we mutually understand.  I’m talking about words like “sanctuary” and “tithe.”  The challenge is, words like that really do have specific meanings and a visitor (a newer attender or even someone coming into adulthood and thinking things through for the first time) can be thrown by our use thereof.  Given Paul’s counsel in Romans 14, I’m going to try to take more care, but I also want to explain.

Sanctuary – Renamed at WOGF –  “Worship Center”

The word “sanctuary” appears 150 in the NASB translation of the Bible.  Three of those 150 appearances are in the New Testament.  Once in Matthew which records Judas throwing 30 pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary, and twice in Hebrews discussing serving in the presence of God in the true sanctuary.  At some point in church history someone observed or decided that the meeting room of a church was where we meet God.  In no way shape or form am I saying that’s incorrect. But I am saying that it’s contrary to the New Testament picture of our bodies being the temples (sanctuaries) of the Holy Spirit.  No one is going to jump down anyone’s throat for misremembering. I still call WOGF BRBC half the time, I just want to slowly fix our jargon where I can.

TITHE – Offerings (Not really a renaming)

This is a more generalized jargon or short-cut.  I’ve attached an overview article from GotQuestions and it links to 5 more articles if you want details.  NO, we are not under a tithe mandate.  Yes, Christians will probably never stop using the word, despite my attempts to “officially” change it.  When you hear the word just think of it as synonymous with “taking the offering” because that’s what the speaker means. 🙂

https://www.gotquestions.org/tithing-Christian.html

I was taught to think of the tithe (10%) as my minimum or baseline giving.  So while I don’t believe I live under tithing as a law, we (Kelly and I) have never budgeted to live on less than 90% of our income and God has always kept our bills paid.  A testimony I have often heard repeated!  – Pastor Scott