Lose the Clutter

Last week I ventured into our back garden shed with the specific intention of sorting out all the items we had collected and put into storage. Among the many boxes were items of sentimental value, items of no value and items I kept just in case I needed them. In the last category were some 1980’s Wharfedale Diamond speakers that I had lovingly kept and transferred from house to house over the last 25 years. They had never left the box but I had kept them just in case I one day needed a spare pair of speakers and of course I have never needed them.

As I stood looking at my prized speakers I realized that I would never use them and I had to let them go. No matter how much I loved them they were just clutter, junk that was useless. I had no need for them.

Likewise I have to let go of all the clutter that fills my mind, all the useless junk that holds me down. There is no harm in having interests, hobbies, supporting teams and watching media, but if those things dominate my mind then my mind will be filled with clutter.

God’s spirit, His grace and His words are the greatest power in the universe. I have been united into Almighty God and all the riches of that inheritance. If I am going to fill my mind and thoughts with anything the majority of my meditation should be focused on Christ and his finished work.

I have been released from being accepted by God through works and good behavior, my relationship with God is not affected by my performance. If I spent no time with God from now to eternity it would not affect my standing with God. But, it will affect how I perceive and how I am tuned into God. The more I soak and wallow in the grace of God the more sensitive I become to the whisper of God’s voice and the more the cares of the world fade away.

Lose the clutter and focus of the good things, soak in the grace of God.

Believe it Or Not

The biggest battle that believers find themselves in is not a fight against the devil...rather it is the battle with self from within.

The central point in temptation is from within and vividly described in James 4:1-3. If we understand this passage, we will have found a key to preventing and resolving conflict.

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures."

This passage describes the root cause of giving in to temptation: Temptation's strength comes from fleshly desires within us. When we feel we cannot be satisfied unless we have something we want or think we need the desire turns into temptation and temptation turns into a demand. We then fulfill that demand by giving in to the temptation because we are now more sin-conscious than God-conscious. If the desire is to be fulfilled by another person and he does not fulfill it then judgement and condemnation set in and we manipulate and deceive to get our way. Temptation arises when desires grow into demands that are difficult not to give in to.

What if people would simply renounce fleshly appetites and decide to respond to temptations in the power of grace? Grace cannot reign can't when we are bound by the law gospel. In order to break free from the pattern of breaking the law we need to understand the workings of the Law and it limitations, and the workings of Grace and its limitless empowering ability for us to live righteously. When faced with temptation, we tend to focus passionately on trying not to give in to it.

This may work for a time but, eventually we succumb to it because in focusing on the temptation and spending our energy on trying not to give into the temptation we lose focus of Jesus and grace's power to overcome. 

- Glenn Regular

Accepted

We should not live our natural lives based on feelings because feelings fluctuate based on circumstances and will take us on a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows to where we will be controlled by the highs and lows we experience in living our daily lives. 

Neither should we live our spiritual lives based on whether or not we feel accepted or don't feel accepted by God because feelings are not a good gauge to base God's acceptance of us on. In Hosea 4:6 God's people were perishing because of a lack of knowledge, God's people today are questioning their acceptance by God because of lack of knowledge therefore, are jumping through religious hoops to be accepted by religion believing also that this pleases God and He will accept them. The knowledge we must imprint on our heart and mind is the fact that we ARE accepted by God whether we feel like we are or not.  

Paul had no reservations about his acceptance by the Lord, Philippians 3:8-10 says:

"More than that I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, and may be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death."

As believers we need to quit striving to be accepted by God because we are already accepted by Him and nothing we can do or not do will make us more or less acceptable to Him. If we would but rest in the assurance of our relationship with Him we would know Him more fully, than depending on what we are told about Him by denominated people. When we realize we are completely accepted by God and loved by Him because we are in Christ, and concentrate our energies on knowing God rather than learning about God, we WILL know His WILL.

Believers spend much time and energy seeking the "will of God" as if it were some instruction to find. When we rest in the knowing that are accepted by God, graced by God, forgiven by God and loved by God, His will becomes natural for us in the living of our everyday lives...not by some specific or special task He wants us to perform.

While we must know we are totally accepted in Christ. We must also know the call of God is clear from Genesis to Revelation. That call is holiness unto the Lord. The Apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:14-16:  As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." 

If we are indeed saved by grace and not by works and Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourself: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."...then, why must we strive to live holy lives by keeping a bunch of religious rules and adhering to religious constitutions and bylaws? The religionists say, well if God saved me the least I can do is try to live holy; or one might say we are to be holy because we love God and He commands that we are to live holy. All of these reasons are scriptural and call us to holy living; but religious foolishness has caused many to feel unaccepted and people feel they must live holy because it is a command, or to prove to God we love him, and when we slip in our  holiness and fall into sinning, we feel unaccepted because we have been taught to base our acceptance on our feeling of holiness.

The Holy Spirit was sent to reveal Jesus and the Father to us. Jesus said in John 15:26 that the Holy Spirit would testify of Him. If we are to learn more about God, learn more of His nature, His love. Then God can be revealed in us and therefore through us as the Community of the Redeemed and to those around us in the Community of Humanity.

Rest assured you are accepted in Christ. Know this fact in your spirit, then you will accept rather than reject others. We can accept others only to the degree that we realize we realize we are accepted. Once we live knowing we are accepted by God, we will accept others, even with their quirks, their ways, and the things about then that is not a witness to godliness. 

If you are a believer you are "accepted in the Beloved!" Don't forget that.

Prayer to Abandon Yourself to God

Charles de Focault was born into an aristocratic family in France. In his twenties he had a powerful religious experience and from then on he dedicated his life to God. He lived among the people of the Sahara, and died at the hand of an assassin during an uprising against the French. This is a prayer of his, which echo the words of Jesus at His crucifixion, as recorded in Luke 24:46.

PRAYER:

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands;

do with me what You will.

Whatever You do I thank You.

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only Your Will be done in me,

as in all Your creatures,

I ask no more than this, my Lord.

Into Your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to You, O Lord,

with all the love of my heart,

for I love You, my God, and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into Your hands,

without reserve and with total confidence,

for You are my Father.

Amen.

Released from the Bondage of the Law

For I through the Law [under the operation of the curse of the Law] have [in Christ’s death for me] myself died to the Law andall the Law’s demands upon me, so that I may [henceforth] live to andfor God. (Gal 2:19)

The Law gave rise to people's sinful passions. The Mosaic Law was had many more curses than blessings. There are 13 verses of blessings described (Deuteronomy 28:1-13) and 65 verses of curses (Deuteronomy 27:15-26, 28:16-68). People continually lived under the severity of the law and their inability to fulfil it! The law was always more of a curse than a blessing to those who were under it! That didn't make the Law bad, that was its purpose...to show the impossibility and inability of keeping it!

They knew they were to celebrate the law because it was God-given, but they never ultimately had a revelation of why it was given nor the ability to keep it. It was given to a people (Jews) who wanted to do things their own way, as a way to show them they couldn’t! It showed them the standard of God’s holiness was far above man's ability to keep. This law was required and yet at the same time wholly impossible to obey.

The more Laws there are, the easier it is to become a law-breaker. The Law, because it is devoid of relationship, works against obedience. But people who have consider themselves to have died with Christ have been released from the Law. Those who are in Christ are no longer under the Law; the incentive for doing what is good and right and not doing wrong is based on a relationship with Jesus the Grace-giver.

Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:1-4)

If we died with Christ we belong to Christ through a relationship of grace and love that is based on heart issues, not on rule keeping. If we are in union with Christ through relationship we will be Spirit lead to do what is right...but, our relationship with God isn't dependent on whether or not we keep good rules. Religionists are uncomfortable with that because man's doing is completely out of the picture...it's all God's doing and none of Man's doing.

- Glenn Regular

The Abandoning of Self-Trusting Efforts

“At the root of all our disobedience are particular ways in which we continue to seek control of our lives through systems of works-righteousness.
The way to progress as a Christian is to continually repent and uproot these systems the same way we become Christians, namely by the vivid depiction (and re-depiction) of Christ’s saving work for us, and the abandoning of self-trusting efforts to complete ourselves.
We must go back again and again to the gospel of Christ-crucified, so that our hearts are more deeply gripped by the reality of what he did and who we are in him.”

— Tim Keller

Law Scriptures in the New Testament

What does the post-cross authors of the New Testament say about the Law?

If these scriptures make you angry and you think I am a Law-Hater you are sorely mistaken. The Law is good...as long as we keep the Law in its rightful place and and let it do what God meant for it to do! It is the misuse and misapplication of the Law that I hate because its misuse works against God's Grace to hinder God's plan for the Community of the Redeemed in the Community of Humanity.

This scripture list was compiled by blogger Phil Drysdale. I do not know much about this man...but the scripture references below speak for themselves.

Acts:

The law is an unbearable yoke. (Acts 15:10)

Romans:

The law reveals sin but cannot fix it. (Romans 3:20)
If the law worked then faith would be irrelevant. (Romans 4:14)
The law brings wrath upon those who follow it. (Romans 4:15)
The purpose of the law was to increase sin. (Romans 5:20)
Christians are not under the law. (Romans 6:14)
Christians have been delivered from the law. (Romans 7:1-6)
The law is good, perfect and holy but cannot help you be good, perfect or holy. (Romans 7:7-12)
The law which promises life only brings death through sin. (Romans 7:10)
The law makes you sinful beyond measure. (Romans 7:13)
The law is weak. (Romans 8:2-3)

1 Corinthians:

The strength of sin is the law (1 Corinthians 15:56)

2 Corinthians:

The law is a ministry of death. (2 Corinthians 3:7)
The law is a ministry of condemnation. (2 Corinthians 3:9)
The law has no glory at all in comparison with the New Covenant. (2 Corinthians 3:10)
The law is fading away. (2 Corinthians 3:11)
Anywhere the law is preached it produces a mind-hardening and a heart-hardening veil. (2 Corinthians 3:14-15)

Galatians:

The law justifies nobody. (Galatians 2:16)
Christians are dead to the law. (Galatians 2:19)
The law frustrates grace. (Galatians 2:21)
To go back to the law after embracing faith is “stupid”. (Galatians 3:1)
The law curses all who practice it and fail to do it perfectly. (Galatians 3:10)
The law has nothing to do with faith. (Galatians 3:11-12)
The law was a curse that Christ redeemed us from. (Galatians 3:13)
The law functioned in God’s purpose as a temporary covenant from Moses till John the Baptist announced Christ. (Galatians 3:16 & 19, also see… Matthew 11:12-13, Luke 16:16)
If the law worked God would have used it to save us. (Galatians 3:21)
The law was our prison. (Galatians 3:23)
The law makes you a slave like Hagar. (Galatians 4:24)

Ephesians:

Christ has abolished the law which was a wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:15)

Philippians:

Paul considered everything the law gained him as “skybalon” which is Greek for “poop”. (Philippians 3:4-8)

1 Timothy:

The law is only good if used in the right context. (1 Timothy 1:8) (see next verse for the context)
It was made for the unrighteous but not for the righteous. (1 Timothy 1:9-10)

Hebrews:

The law is weak, useless and makes nothing perfect. (Hebrews 7:18-19)
God has found fault with it and created a better covenant, enacted on better promises. (Hebrews 8:7-8)
It is obsolete, growing old and ready to vanish. (Hebrews 8:13)
It is only a shadow of good things to come and will never make someone perfect. (Hebrews 10:1)

Well...What do you think?

Scripture is About Our Shame

Because of sin, shame stalks us all. But from the beginning God has committed himself to abolishing shame by covering, cleansing, and including us.

At a recent ReTrain session, we reflected on shame’s relentless assault on all of us, and we reflected on God’s counter to that assault. There are very few things that are more important.

Words for shame

We sometimes miss shame because we zero in on guilt. Though shame and guilt are similar, they are not identical, and shame is the more prominent in Scripture.
We experience shame when we sin and want to hide that sin. We also experience shame when we are sinned against by others. Sexual violation is the most obvious of these injustices, but we could also include rejection by parents or a spouse, constant criticism, and anything that leaves us always feeling wrong and marginalized.
Once shame is identified, we begin to see it everywhere. Low self-esteem was one phrase we used at ReTrain. Shame often hides under it. And there are scores of other ways shame manifests: feeling contaminated and dirty, feeling exposed and inadequate, feeling like you never belong or fit in. Rejection, failure, worthless, a big fat zero, a disgrace, disgusting, always wanting to hide and cover up, in bondage, unlovable, loser. Thoughts of suicide often emerge out of shame.

We experience shame when we sin and want to hide that sin. We also experience shame when we are sinned against by others.

Since God is so concerned about shame, assume that shame is stalking you. His concern shows up in the Garden of Eden when he clothed Adam and Eve. Ever since, God has committed himself to abolishing shame by covering, cleansing, and including us. He does this with no hesitation and no reluctance.

Old and new connections

Now take a harder look at shame that accompanies being sinned against. These shameful violations establish a kind of bond between the violator and ourselves. The person who violated you has passed on to you the ugliness and contamination of his or her loathsome act. You have become defined by contact, and the effects of that contact persist.
Can that connection ever be severed? This is where we begin to see the gospel shining through. Those chains that keep us captive to another person can, indeed, be broken. Even more, we are not left isolated but are connected to Jesus by faith.
“Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.” (Ps. 34:5)
“Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband.” (Is. 54:4–5)

Announcing shame’s demise

Embedded within the cross of Jesus is the story of shame. Jesus came as the shamed King who identified with shamed people. Just watch who he associated with—who he ate with and who he touched. He was announcing shame’s demise.

God has committed himself to abolishing shame by covering, cleansing, and including us.

The spiritual realities are unmistakable: he connects to us, takes our shame upon himself and puts it to death on the cross. Connected to him, we share in his righteousness and holiness. That’s why Peter identifies us as a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Pet. 2:9).
When we put our faith—our very lives—in Jesus, we are acknowledging a new connection. He has disarmed and destroyed old connections and united us to himself. His reputation becomes our own. And since Christ’s resurrection guarantees this bond, no mere human has power to severe it.

What beautiful realities to consider and to live out.

Pain and Hope in the Bible

Didn’t Paul say in Romans 15:4, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope?”

Why, then, is such a hopeless psalm like Psalm 88 in the Bible?

This text is in the Bible so that when suffering and pain come and we are between the affliction and the triumph in the midst of the questions, pain, and clouds of doubt, we may see that what we are feeling is normal. It has all been felt before, and all the questions have been asked before. We are not the first. We are not alone. And we are not in danger of losing our faith.
God is a big God who can handle our questions, our anger, and our pain. This is clear from the fact that God has many psalms and verses in his Word in which godly people are struggling with doubts about his goodness and care for them. It is especially clear from Psalm 88, which doesn’t even end with a message of hope.

God cares about us in the midst of the pain. His goal isn’t just to get us out of the pain to the joy; he also wants us to see that he is for us and with us in the pain. It is true that weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5). The morning will dawn and God will remove every tear (Rev. 21:4), but God is not just concerned about the morning, the new day when you can shout for joy. He is with us even in the night when there is nothing but weeping, when the tears are so thick that we can’t see. When we are in the deepest pit and darkness weighs on our souls and God feels so absent that we wonder if he is even real, this psalm reminds us that he is with us even then.

Even more remarkable than the experience of the psalmist in Psalm 88 is the experience of the Son of God on Calvary. The night he was betrayed he went to Gethsemane in order to pray, He brought Peter, James, and John with him that they might pray for him and comfort him, for he told them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me” (Matt. 26:38).

Jesus, the Divine Son, was full of sorrow, and his sorrow was so deep that it was like death. His agony was so intense and severe that his “sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). When we read the story of Christ’s passion, we often gloss over his astounding statement, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) Because of the sin of man, the Son of God who is the Father’s beloved and delight was forsaken. He was abandoned and left all alone. The depth of this pain is greater than we can know. There has been no greater pain in all of history.


Why is the depth of Christ’s pain significant for us? Because “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). In the midst of our pain we may feel alone and believe that no one has hurt as badly as we hurt. But it isn’t true. Jesus Christ has felt such pain; indeed, he has felt pain that would have destroyed us. He is able to sympathize. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

Self-Righteous Good Works are as Filthy Rags

Jesus came as the express image of God revealing fully the character of God. Therefore, to truly understand God the Father, Jesus is the lens we must view Him through because He is The God Jesus Revealed. The only one who has seen God.

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known.

Therefore, no matter what the prophets of the Old Testament, no matter what the other authors of the Bible tell us, no matter what the law-gospel-heralders preach, the only true picture of God is what Jesus reveals to us about Him. Why? Because Jesus is God explaining Himself to the Community of Humanity.

Jesus the revelation of God reveals Him as a God who loves people. God is not about judging us and punishing us according to our sins. His desire is to redeem people including the best of humanity to the worst of humanity. Those of us dressed in our self-righteous garbs are in need of God's redeeming mercy, love and grace as much as are the Hitler's of the world.

For to long to many “religionists” have prostituted the love of God by telling people that we must perform in our spiritual relationship by doing the do's and not doing the don'ts in order for God to love people. This is one of the greatest deceptions that the Community of Humanity has been subjected to by the religions of the world. Christendom in wallowing in a hog-wash of useless dead works when it comes to being in relationship with God. Man-made religion has portrayed our loving Father as the pagan god's were portrayed...full of anger who must be appeased otherwise He will inflict punishment on people. Ahhh...but Jesus reveals to us that God is looking on us with eyes full of affection and a heart full of mercy, love and grace.

Have you seen the glory of God?, If not you have not seen the glory of His Son, who came from the Father full of Grace and truth...For the Law was given through Moses; however, “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ as we are told in John 17.

That settles the fact, at least for me, that God is a “GRACE-GIVER”...NOT a “law-giver”. Jesus came full of grace and truth...He came to reveal the Father heart of God...that tells me that God is full of grace and truth also. God sits on a throne of Grace, Mercy and Love, not on a throne of Law, Judgement and Condemnation.

The Gospel is the good news of God's grace where there is no manipulating people to enter into a relationship with Him. He is showering grace upon grace from His throne of grace, graciously upon the Community of Humanity.

God is a Good God...God is a Good Father and His love for people is beyond measure and being in relationship with Him is not performance oriented...it is love oriented.

Self-Serving Manipulators, What to Do?

The world system in general is a rule and regulated society. These rules and regulations are imposed on people in hopes that people will adhere to them so as to maintain order and control. 

Most religious systems exist because of this rule and regulated mentality. This is borne out by the do and don't rules and regulatory controls religion have in place to keep people from sinning and within the concepts of the system. This system of rules is the way the religious institutional church determines what is sin and who sins and the way to deal with the people who sin by breaking the rules. The more sin they see the more rules they make to try and curb the sin. The more rules they make, the more rules there are to break thus, causing more of what they deem to be sin. This rule breaking and rule making to curb sinning results in a defeated lifestyle of lifelessness that is impotent, frustrating and mesmerizing. Establishing laws governed by rules and regulations will never establish a relationship with God.

The religious system not only emphasis the keeping of the Mosaic Law as a measure of one's spirituality, they have also added denominational laws. There is the Pentecostal Law...The Methodist Law...The Roman Catholic Law...The Baptist Law...The Lutheran Law...The United Church Law...Word of Faith Law and the non-denominational, interdenominational Laws, all of which are as binding as the ordinances (Mosaic Law) Jesus fulfilled by His going to the cross.

Just because the institutional churches may be steeped in religious rituals and ceremonies does not mean they are operating in the life of Christ.

Whenever we try to justify our spirituality by our actions by caring out do's and don'ts in obeying the religious rules, we are operating in the flesh manifesting self-righteousness, instead of operating in His Grace appropriated righteousness.

Do's and Don'ts have nothing to do with the righteousness of God and when they are used to determine righteousness they obscure what Jesus accomplished on the cross and His plan for the Community of the Redeemed in the Community of Humanity.

- With Unveiled Face

Rules Stifle Relationship

The world system in general is a rule and regulated society. These rules and regulations are imposed on people in hopes that people will adhere to them so as to maintain order and control. 

Most religious systems exist because of this rule and regulated mentality. This is borne out by the do and don't rules and regulatory controls religion have in place to keep people from sinning and within the concepts of the system. This system of rules is the way the religious institutional church determines what is sin and who sins and the way to deal with the people who sin by breaking the rules. The more sin they see the more rules they make to try and curb the sin. The more rules they make, the more rules there are to break thus, causing more of what they deem to be sin. This rule breaking and rule making to curb sinning results in a defeated lifestyle of lifelessness that is impotent, frustrating and mesmerizing. Establishing laws governed by rules and regulations will never establish a relationship with God.

The religious system not only emphasis the keeping of the Mosaic Law as a measure of one's spirituality, they have also added denominational laws. There is the Pentecostal Law...The Methodist Law...The Roman Catholic Law...The Baptist Law...The Lutheran Law...The United Church Law...Word of Faith Law and the non-denominational, interdenominational Laws, all of which are as binding as the ordinances (Mosaic Law) Jesus fulfilled by His going to the cross.

Just because the institutional churches may be steeped in religious rituals and ceremonies does not mean they are operating in the life of Christ.

Whenever we try to justify our spirituality by our actions by caring out do's and don'ts in obeying the religious rules, we are operating in the flesh manifesting self-righteousness, instead of operating in His Grace appropriated righteousness.

Do's and Don'ts have nothing to do with the righteousness of God and when they are used to determine righteousness they obscure what Jesus accomplished on the cross and His plan for the Community of the Redeemed in the Community of Humanity.

- Glenn Regular

Resurrection Benefits

The Grace that God provided for us to live and operate in came into existence because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, it not only a work of the New Covenant...it Is The New Covenant.When we live and move in Grace, the resurrection power, that same power that raised Christ from the dead is activated in our living. Grace gives us access to the and allows the the work of Jesus to be worked through our lives in the advancement of His kingdom.

If it wasn’t for the cross and the resurrection there would be no Grace therefore there would be no New Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant would still be invoked and the religion of do’s and don'ts would be valid. But resurrection Grace accepts you, loves you, blesses you and wants to deal kindness and favor towards you...not because of what you deserve or merit because of your do’s and don'ts but because of what Jesus deserved and merited for you. Because of the cross and resurrection God will never stop loving you because He graciously graces grace on you.

Resurrection Grace means God’s empowering Presence is in your life so that He can empower you by grace to work with Him as He does His work through you. With grace you can love all people, have compassion for all people, forgive all people and be free from judging people.

The first time Jesus calls His disciples brothers is AFTER the finished work of the Cross and the resurrection.

Romans 2...Paul lays it all out. He says that the result of law is that not one is righteous. Under the law no one was righteous. They were all under the wrath and the curse of the law. Before the law came Abraham was given righteousness as a gift because of his faith. But after the law came, Paul said there is not one righteous person on the entire planet through trying to keep laws to be good enough to be in relationship with God. So they could never have been His brothers because they were under the law. He fulfilled the Law! He didn't come to remove but fulfill the Law. The Law is now fulfilled and on the Cross (Colossians 2 says) He abolished the Law and cancelled the written code that stood opposed to us. Once He had cancelled the written code so He could give us His righteousness. You cannot have a gift of righteousness and be under the Law! When you behave wrong the Law will say "You have done something wrong" therefore you are not righteous.

God canceled and obliterated the Law by His fulfilling of the Law and then declared you to be the righteousness of God through Jesus taking all your sin past, present and future and giving you His righteousness as a permanent unconditional standing before His loving Father...God did this because of His love for people!

Rejoice in Resurrection Grace.

- Glenn Regular

Christ and the Father are One

John says this: Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? That person is an antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2.22).

The apostles emphasizes that a rejection of Jesus as Christ is a rejection of God the Father, as well, which echoes a sentiment which Jesus himself expressed: No one goes to the Father except by me, and If you've known me, you know my Father as well, and Whoever sees me, sees the Father (John 14.6-7, 9).

There is an essential unity between Jesus and the Father, then, such that the denial of one entails the denial of the other. The Father is totally invested in mediating his communion with and salvation of humanity through his Son Jesus Christ; the Son has entirely dedicated his life to the service of and obedience to the Father for the sake of humanity. Their identities are intricately intertwined and interrelated, to the point that they can not be approached or dealt with in isolation from one another.

This is a critical piece of information for the debate regarding the salutary status of other religions: can a person who is not a Christian but a committed member of a different religion be saved?

Insofar as God the Father and Christ his Son are so closely related, there certainly can't be the pretension that we may approach by other means than through Jesus Christ. The problem then is raised: does this require explicit faith in Christ, or can Christ be doing some salvific work unknowingly in the life of a person who is not an explicit Christian?

These are interesting questions, ones which I am not intending to answer here. I wish only to emphasize John's point here that Jesus and the Father are one. If we look Jesus in the face and deny him, we have denied God the Father as well -- something I'm sure his fellow Jewish nationals did not take lightly, though Christ told them as much as well. 

Christs Horrific Death on Good Friday

Jürgen Moltmann's The Crucified God is one of the most personally influential books I have ever read. It helped me to appreciate and to understand the theological as well as socio-ethical importance of the utter godlessness of Christ's death on the cross. It inspired the title and tagline of this blog: a blog about the Son of God, abandoned by God.

Moltmann does a good job of noting the disturbing quality of Christ's death compared to the martyrs of history:

Socrates died as a wise man. Cheerfully and calmly he drank the cup of hemlock. This was a demonstration of magnanimity, and was also a testimony to the immortality of the soul, which Plato tells us he taught. For him, death was a breakthrough to a higher, purer life. Thus his farewell was not difficult. . . .

The Zealot martyrs who were crucified after the unsuccessful revolts against the Romans died conscious of their righteousness in the sight of God, and looked forward to their resurrection to eternal life just as they looked forward to the resurrection of their lawless enemies, and of the transgressors of the law who had betrayed them, to eternal shame. . . .

The wise men of the Stoics demonstrated to the tyrants in the arena, where they were torn to pieces by wild animals, their inner liberty and their superiority. 'Without fear and without hope,' as we are told, they endured in freedom and demonstrated to their fearful overlords and horrified crowds their complete lack of terror even at their own death.

The Christian martyrs too went calmly and in faith to their death. Conscious of being crucified with Christ and receiving the baptism of blood, and of thereby being united for ever with Christ, they went to their death in 'hope against hope.' . . . 

Jesus clearly died in a different way. His death was not a 'fine death'. The synoptic gospels agree that he was 'greatly distressed and troubled' (Mark 14.33 par.) and that his soul was sorrowful even to death. He died 'with loud cries and tears', according to the Epistle to the Hebrews (5.7). According to mark 15.37 he died with a loud, incoherent cry. . . . Jesus clearly died with every expression of the most profound horror (The Crucified God, pp. 145-6).

Jesus' death was horrific because there he experienced utter abandonment by God. This is a crucial element of Christ's incarnation, because insofar as God becomes human he takes upon himself the accursed condition to which humanity had been condemned. But through his incarnation, through taking upon himself the burden of humanity's sin, through becoming sin himself (cf. Rom 8.3; 2 Cor 5.21), he offers himself to undergo that to which humanity had been condemned so that humanity might live instead. Through his incarnation, he confronts the curse of sin and death and utterly destroys it, even as he succumbs to it in death on Friday.

When God becomes man in Jesus of Nazareth, he not only enters into the finite of man, but in his death on the cross also enters into the situation of man's godforsakenness. In Jesus he does not die the natural death of a finite being, but the violent death of the criminal on the cross, the death of complete abandonment by God. The suffering in the passion of Jesus is abandonment, rejection by God, his Father. God does not become a religion, so that man participates in him by corresponding religious thoughts and feelings. God does not become a law, so that man participates in him through obedience to a law. God does not become an ideal, so that man achieves community with him through constant striving. He humbles himself and takes upon himself the eternal death of the godless and the godforsaken, so that all the godless and the godforsaken can experience communion with him (p. 276).

Christ's death is horrific because this is what being in the world apart from God amounts to. It is too easy to think of ourselves as "not that bad, really," as if human persons are fundamentally alright at the end of the day, because we don't regularly commit horrific acts of violence and terror. But the cross of Christ shows us that even those whom we would consider most godly -- the Pharisees and the temple authorities, in the case of 1C Palestine -- are capable of committing deicide if their toes are stepped on.

More than that, Christ's death shows us to what end humanity ought to be abandoned in light of its sin. Sin is a deeply rooted perverting force in human nature, and if we went on living forever as we are now, there is no telling what calamity might befall the creation. This is why sin must be destroyed: otherwise it will destroy everything else.

But God, the good creator of all there is, will not allow that his creation be destroyed along with the destruction of sin. As Athanasius says, it is beneath God's goodness that he allow the works of his hands to be undone, whether by its own fault or through the deceit of another. His way is one of repair and not just destruction. Therefore he incarnates, takes upon himself the curse and death and abandonment to which humanity had been condemned, and exhausts it and totally consumes it. But he also sanctifies human nature in his own person, he restores the imago dei which had been marred and lost by sin, and offers himself to all; through union with him, we too are transformed, the image restored, and we begin to exhibit and exemplify that life for which all humanity had been created -- a life in fellowship with the Holy Trinity.

John says this: Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? That person is an antichrist, who denies the Father and the Son (1 John 2.22).

The apostles emphasizes that a rejection of Jesus as Christ is a rejection of God the Father, as well, which echoes a sentiment which Jesus himself expressed: No one goes to the Father except by me, and If you've known me, you know my Father as well, and Whoever sees me, sees the Father (John 14.6-7, 9).

There is an essential unity between Jesus and the Father, then, such that the denial of one entails the denial of the other. The Father is totally invested in mediating his communion with and salvation of humanity through his Son Jesus Christ; the Son has entirely dedicated his life to the service of and obedience to the Father for the sake of humanity. Their identities are intricately intertwined and interrelated, to the point that they can not be approached or dealt with in isolation from one another.

This is a critical piece of information for the debate regarding the salutary status of other religions: can a person who is not a Christian but a committed member of a different religion be saved?

Insofar as God the Father and Christ his Son are so closely related, there certainly can't be the pretension that we may approach by other means than through Jesus Christ. The problem then is raised: does this require explicit faith in Christ, or can Christ be doing some salvific work unknowingly in the life of a person who is not an explicit Christian?

These are interesting questions, ones which I am not intending to answer here. I wish only to emphasize John's point here that Jesus and the Father are one. If we look Jesus in the face and deny him, we have denied God the Father as well -- something I'm sure his fellow Jewish nationals did not take lightly, though Christ told them as much as well. 

Holy Saturday- The Chasm Between Now and Not-Yet

Holy Saturday is the time that the “Western Church,” Protestants included (well some), contemplate the moment between the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the contemplation of the burial in 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, . . .

What a time to contemplate the time between the now and the not yet. This time between Christ’s cross and humiliation of unspeakable depths, and the glories’ of His coming resurrection and ascension; analogically represent the time we inhabit now. We currently wait to fully realize the glory that Jesus has shared with the Father before the world began. And like the Apostles, Disciples, and hopefuls who followed Jesus to the cross, during this time of Jesus’ silence we can despair, be full of fear, angst, anxiousness, etc. We often wonder is this it? We face circumstances that seem overwhelming, that seem to eclipse and overcome the life of Christ . . . that make it seem as if Christ stayed in the grave. As Christians in this big world, some-times like the disciples of Christ (during this time in history), we can cower behind locked doors, scratch our heads, and wonder, “what now?”
If only the disciples would have remembered, and put 2 + 2 together, what Jesus had said to them in the past (easy for me to say):

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, ‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’ ~ Matthew 17:9

maybe their despair, their bewilderment, would be turned to joy. Maybe their burden would have been light. Maybe they would have been grieving as ones with real hope. But they forgot, at that moment of time they became so gripped with fear they could not really function (at least some of them, His closest). Even though we know the story, because we can read about it at one sitting, don’t we live like Jesus’ end was the grave? We fall into caverns of unbelief that seem to eclipse and overshadow what we know to be true . . . if only we would remember the hope, the hope that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 17, and the hope that was realized in Matthew 28:1-10.
As we look forward to Sunday, lets not grow weary by the unanswered questions and grief of Saturday. Instead of forgetting what Jesus has said about the resurrection (i.e. His second advent), lets glory in advance, in anticipation of the glory that will be revealed in us, as we are hidden in Christ. While we live in Saturday, in anticipation, lets rest with Jesus, lets, with Jesus say: ” . . . Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Lk 23:46).”
I think the best thing about this analogy, of “Holy Saturday,” is that it breaks down at a point. We don’t despair as if there is no resurrection, in fact as Christians we have been brought into the heavenly places with Christ (cf. Eph. 1), now; we have intimate union with Him now (cf. I Cor. 6:17); we have been given the Holy Spirit now (cf. Jn 14–16); and a whole array of distinguishing factors from those disciples of the first century. So take heart, don’t forget, this Holy Saturday, Jesus’ words of glory in humility:

. . . I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. ~ John 16:33

What the Cross Proves to Us

I would like to share a post I read on facebook by Christian Erickson..it's such a wonderful and meaningful description of what God did in Christ on the cross, and of what God proved to us through that cross!  Thank You Father for Your amazing love!

"Today we celebrate that almost two thousand years ago, God Himself proved that He would rather be killed than kill.

He would rather be put on a cross and murdered by His own creation than hold our sins against us. We killed God! And yet, in the greatest display of divine love the world has ever seen, God looked down on His creation stuck in darkness and spoke forgiveness to us through the blood flowing from His broken body.

When humanity committed the worst sin possible (the killing of our creator), God looked down and forgave us. How much more does He forgive us of everything else?

The cross proves that God is dying for us to know that we are accepted. The cross proves that God bleeds forgiveness and love. The cross proves that He never is going to turn His back on us no matter how much we turn our back on Him.

Truly, God was in Christ reconciling the whole cosmos to Himself, not counting our sins against us."

Christian Erickson 

- Under the Waterfall

It is the Cross that Gives God His Credibility

“It is the cross that gives God his credibility. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche (the nineteenth-century German philosopher) ridiculed as ‘God on the cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

In the course of my travels I have entered a number of Buddhist temples in different Asian countries. I have stood respectfully before a statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, serene and silent, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after a while, I have had to turn away. And in my imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness.

The crucified one is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us, dying in our place in order that we might be forgiven. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross, which symbolizes divine suffering.”

— John Stott

A New Creation

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”  2 Cor. 5:17
Ask anyone the question, if you could do back and do something differently what would you do? Most would have an instance or event that they regret and would want to change. Unfortunately none of us can travel back in time and relive the events we regret. We cannot change the past, but we can learn and live the present differently.


Here is the Bible Paul describes what God has done for us by grace. Anyone who  puts their trust in Jesus and his finished work can have a new life in Christ.
When we believe in Christ, we are identifying with Him, and all that He did in our place becomes reality and experience in our lives. This means that all that happened to Christ happened to you.
When he died to sin and its power, you died to sin and its power.
When he rose in victory and newness of life, you rose in victory and newness of life.
When He ascended and sat down in Authority, you sat down with Him in authority.
All that happened to Christ, happened to you.
The New Creation on the inside of you is totally new and God has made you alive to himself in a intimate relationship to share with you the desires of his heart.

You are completely new without one trace of evil, wrong, problems, struggles, lusts, doubts or fears.  That is the real you!
You are a beautiful person.
You are righteous.
You are acceptable.
You are approved.
You are holy and pure.
You are strong.
You are healthy.
You are blessed.
You are complete.
You are whole.
You are of a sound mind.

You are perfect in God’s sight!

Christ the Manifestation of the Father

“We have only to track the divine footsteps of the Redeemer on earth, there to behold ‘as in a mirror the glory of the Lord.’ What do we see?
A Being, indeed, of infinite holiness—unsparing and uncompromising in His rebuke of iniquity, sternly denouncing sin in all its forms, driving with a scourge the sacrilegious traffickers from His Father’s house, proclaiming the impending and certain doom awaiting incorrigible sinners, the workers of iniquity; even predicting by discourse and parable the dreadful verities of a judgment-day, and pronouncing everlasting doom on the impenitent and unbelieving; on all traitors to their trust, on all neglectors and squanderers of committed talents; thus repeating, in words not to be misunderstood, the very truth which fell on the ears of Moses in his Rock-cleft, as the sublime voice and vision were dying away—‘And that will by no means clear the guilty.’

But yet, in combination with this, we are called to contemplate one of infinite purity, beneficence, tenderness; whose delight was to feed the hungry, to heal the diseased, to help the helpless, to comfort the bereaved; feeling for them; weeping for them-—in His parables, giving a welcome to the Prodigal; in His daily communion, never scorning a suppliant’s request, or a penitent’s tears; listening, even in His expiring agonies, to a cry for mercy from a felon at His side; accepting the widow’s mite; making generous allowance for the lack of watchfulness at His own greatest crisis-hour on the part of trusted disciples; pardoning, with the tenderest of rebukes, the aggravated sin of a faithless follower; the prayer, trembling on His dying lips, of forgiveness for His murderers.
Reader! take in, at a glance, this wide comprehensive view of the Savior’s life and ministry, and in it you have a picture and impersonation of the character of God. ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men.’ ‘From henceforth,’ says Christ, pointing to Himself, ‘You know the Father, and have seen Him.’”

— John MacDuff

A Cleansed Conscience

It is the presence of sin in our conscience that hinders the unrestricted communion that we can enjoy with God. But the high-priestly ministry of Jesus cleanses our conscience. This means that the blood of Christ removes our guilt, shame, and condemnation that so often debilitates us.

The author of Hebrews argued that the blood of bulls and goats could never remove “the consciousness of sins” from God’s people. This means that even though the Old Testament high priest shed the blood of goats and bulls to cover the sins of the people, the people were always conscious of their own sinfulness. Their guilt remained. Their consciences still condemned them.

By contrast, the blood of Jesus removes the sin consciousness from our minds, giving us a pure and clean conscience, making us feel as though we’ve never sinned (Heb. 9:1–14; 10:1–22).
How can this be? It’s because the blood of Christ was enough to satisfy God. It was enough to forgive you. And when God forgives, He forgets. The author of Hebrews stated twice that part of the new covenant is that God “will remember their sins no more” (8:12; 10:17).


Consequently, the only people on this earth who should never feel guilty are Christians.

Wait on the Lord

Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord – Psalm 27:14

But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. – Isaiah 40:31

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. – Lamentations 3:25-26.

Therefore I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me. – Micah 7:7.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God, And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces patience; and patience, character; and character, hope, now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. – Romans 5:1-5.

The Abusive Tool of Fear-Mongering

Fear mongering is an abusive tool used by religion which cripples and limits one's spiritual growth to mature to the full stature of Christ. The fear mongering propaganda that is used as a means to get people saved speaks volumes about the quality of love used to try and scare people to become Christ followers. The scriptures declare that is is the “goodness of God that leads to repentance.”

Another characteristic of  fear mongering believers is that they believe that natural disasters are God’s doing and are warnings or punishment for the sin of sinning people. Their sin consciousnesses has blurred their God consciousnesses to where they see God as the big bad wolf waiting to pounce on somebody for sinning.

Natural disasters have happened at different times throughout history. Theses events have been used by money hungry fear-mongers to write books of impending doom, passed of as the gospel by using out-of-context scripture verses to validate the acceptance and sale of their wares. It is not that natural disasters are increasing or going out of control, but the news coverage is.

Take the seventies book by Hal Lindsey that was treated almost as the Bible itself called “The Late Planet earth”. I bought it, read it and believed it. In retrospect, most all that was taught in the book turned out to be incorrect. His attempt to map Biblical Events onto the headline news of the day were woefully incorrect. Yet, it seems that believers never learn from the myriad of books that have followed and has been accepted as truth, even though they have been incorrect in their predictions.

Hal Lindesy promoted the trend of interpreting Biblical Prophecy based on today's headlines. Now, any time someone stumps their toe in the Middle East or a natural disaster or a astrological event takes place, a new book comes out that proclaims that it is relevant to the end times and the Second Coming of Christ.

In the years since this book was published, there have been hundreds of books in a similar vein, that get people whipped up into a frenzy that the end is near only to have their faith shaken when the end-time events do not play out as predicted by the book.

Jesus will come in His timing. That timing will not be because of some money grubbing saint writes a sensational prophecy book to profit from. Be very wise and cautious about sensational end-time books drawing from today's headlines.

The infectious insanity of end time prophecies that has never happened has been the cause of mass suicides, cults of oppression, isolation not to mention all the thousands of people that sold everything they own, because they believe these insane end time fear-mongers, who have profit financially and gained more power by manipulation and control, by preaching end time gloom and doom. Every religion has their very own fear mongering profits of doom, so far, none of these insane fear mongers have been right about anything regarding the return of Christ. The only thing they have proven is how wrong and out of touch spiritually they really are, and how easy it is to stampede their herds of people that follow them with fear, which has always been the hottest selling aid for their books...FEAR-MONGERING, GUILT and CONDEMNATION.

Thus the only truth that the fear-mongers share and have revealed, is that the nature of all end-time patterns, is to repeat the same insane belief over and over again in the hopes that they will be right this time, and the more people believe their insanity of fear, the more instability their is in and among and between saint ans sinner alike.

IF YOU DESIRE TO STOP THE MADNESS, SIMPLY STOP BUYING THEIR BOOKS AND STOP LISTENING TO ALL THEIR FEAR MONGERING and they will dissolve like last year's snow, and start demonstrating the LOVE of CHRIST IN YOU.

Do not FEAR, the Blood Moons will pass and you will still be the LOVED child of God in the Community of the Redeemed to show forth His LOVE to and for the Community of Humanity.

- Glenn Regular

Pictures of Hyper-Grace

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens,
Your faithfulness to the skies.
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
Your justice like the great deep. (Ps. 36:5–6)

We can see from Scripture that God’s love and grace are hyper; they extend over, beyond, and above what you can conceive or imagine (see John 1:16, Eph. 1:7, 3:18–19). What you think of when you think of God’s love for you is inevitably inferior to what His love really is. So you could say that grace is what we imagine God’s love to be like, but hyper-grace is what it actually is.

Think of it like this.

Counting the stars in the night sky won’t give you an accurate picture of the bigness of the universe. If you live in a dark place you may be able to see several thousand stars. But what you see is such a tiny proportion of the universe, that really you ain’t seen nothing. You have actually not seen far more than what you have seen.

It’s like that with grace. You may look at Jesus and say, “I see grace,” but no matter how much grace you see, you only have a tiny glimpse of an unimaginably vast reality.

Grace is what we see; hyper-grace is what it is.

This is what John and Paul were trying to convey when they spoke of heaped-up, superabounding grace and love that passes knowledge. It’s what Jesus was trying to tell us when He spoke of the how much mores of His gracious and generous Father.

The hyper-grace of God cannot be reduced to words or thoughts that fit inside our minds. It’s simply too big. The only way we can begin to grasp it is to see the splendor and awesomeness of God that He has revealed to us through His Son Jesus.

Happy Easter!

- Paul Ellis

Fields of Grace

We are His dear little children, walking with our Papa in fields of grace!

"Praise be to God for giving us through Christ every possible spiritual benefit as citizens of Heaven! For consider what he has done—before the foundation of the world he chose us to become, in Christ, his holy and blameless children living within his constant care."    Eph. 1:3-4  PHP

"We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand - out in the wide open spaces of God's grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise."    Rom. 5:2  MSG

"He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved - surprised to be loved!"  Ps. 18:19  MSG

"Because you’ve always stood up for me, I’m free to run and play."  Ps. 63:7 MSG 

God Has Forgiven Us

 

To most of us the concept of forgiveness is to forgive those that sin against us. As long as our friends and acquaintances do not upset us we can live in peace and happiness with them. When we upset each other, the moment then comes when we must choose either to forgive them or not. We can initiate this process or we can wait until they approach us. If neither party takes that first step the relationship can stay broken for years and can fester like an open wound. 

The gospel is the most amazing and wonderful act of forgiveness ever initiated, because God actually forgives everyone before they were born. Before you and I even existed we were forgiven. 

God actually justifies the ungodly and forgives the world before it repents. God accepted Christ's sacrifice on the cross and he is now not counting mankind’s sins against them. The offer to mankind from God is to receive the divine favour that is freely given and be reconciled to him. All we have to do is believe, it is not dependent on how good we are, or our effort, or keeping the rules, it is a free gift, offered by God through the finished work of Christ. 

This reconciliation is not just for all our past sins, it is for every sin, past, present and all future sins.Total forgiveness at the cross, complete reconciliation, eternal redemption. A new creation and the old sinful nature is crucified and left on the cross.


Jesus identified with our sin and took our sins. He took our punishment, He took our mistakes, He took the ruin sin caused. He took it on himself, so we could become the righteousness of God in Him! We now identify with Christ, we are seated with him in heavenly places and our spirit is interwoven into the fullness of Christ.

Five Modern Myths About the 10 Commandments

1. The Moral Law is The Ten Commandments

One of the things that inspired this post was reading the counter-arguments CharismaMagazine posted against Hyper-Grace. In one of their more popular posts, 8 Signs of Hyper-Grace Churches, the author, Joseph Mattera, falls into an error that many Christians do: using “the Law” interchangeably with “Ten Commandments.”
I’ve seen countless Christians make this same assumption, that when the Bible speaks of the Law it’s only (or mostly only) referring to the Ten Commandments. The disheartening truth is that although the Ten Commandments are a part of the Law, they’re a very small part. In fact, there are a total of 613 Laws in the old covenant, and the Ten Commandments only make up 1.6% of that total. Worse yet, if you break even one of that 1.6%, you’re guilty of breaking it all.
To speak of the Ten Commandments as if they are the sum of the Law is deceptive, to say the least. Look what Paul told Galatians.
“For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” – Gal. 3:10
If you try to live by the Ten, you’re required to live by the other 603 as well. You can’t say, “I try my best to keep the Ten Commandments!” but have tattoos, piercings, enjoy bacon, or even wear T-shirts that are 50% cotton / 50% polyester. Do you enjoy the smell of bacon in the morning? Guess what? You’re guilty of breaking the whole Law!
“He that but looketh on a plate of ham and eggs to lust after it hath already committed breakfast with it in his heart.” – C. S. Lewis
The Law is all or nothing, not pick and choose. You either obey or break every jot and tittle, there’s no in between. It’s no wonder Paul said those people are under a curse.

2. Grace Gives Us The Ability To Uphold The Ten Commandments

People say, “Grace doesn’t take away the Law, it gives us the ability to obey it!” I agree with the saying in a sense, but most people who say this kind of thing are trying to defend their own efforts to obey the Law, which misses grace entirely.
Titus 2:11-12 says “Grace teaches us to say ‘no’ to ungodliness,” but the Law isn’t the focus there, grace is. Christ came to take our focus away from the Law because the Law puts our focus on us instead of Him. The Law makes us self-conscious instead of Christ-conscious. And as we can learn from Adam, a self-conscious man runs from God, not towards Him.
We uphold the Law because it’s “written on our hearts,” not because grace compels us to try harder than ever before (Heb. 10:16).
“For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” – Romans 8:3-4
The requirements of the Law have already been met in us; not because of our own effort to obey, or a stronger resolve (both of which is living according to the flesh), but because we have “resolved to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2.)

3. Christ Didn’t Come to Abolish The Law (i.e. The Ten Commandments)

One of the most popular counter-arguments to the “modern grace message” is where people use Matt. 5:17 to say, “Jesus came to fulfill the law, not abolish it! We’re not under Law, BUT we still have to keep it!”
Firstly, that would have been like God telling the Israelites, “You don’t live in Egypt anymore, but you still have to live by their rules!” How much sense does that make? We’re in a new country. Secondly, look at the definition of “fulfill”: Strong’s concordance.
Christ came to fulfill the Law, yes, but in the context of His ministry this meant to complete the Law (live up to it), and to preach the Law in its fullness.
The Pharisees (like many today) watered-down the Law and made it doable, which defeats the purpose of the Law. Read the Sermon on the Mount from beginning to end and you’ll see that Jesus starts out by making the Law harder than they thought it was. “You have heard it said (easy-peasy)… but I tell you (impossible).” Look carefully and you’ll see Him transitioning away from principles of the Law and into principles of the Kingdom (“turn the other cheek,” “give to anyone who asks,” etc.).
He’s talking to an old covenant Jewish audience, and leading them in repentance with some well-placed sleight-of-hand. While they’re focusing on the impossibility of keeping those Laws—and probably feeling the weight of that impossibility—He quickly switches out the old bad news for the new good news, planting new covenant seeds in the freshly tilled soil of old covenant minds; and at the proper time He’ll reap His harvest.
He wasn’t encouraging them to try harder to obey the Law, He was discouraging them from thinking they could keep it at all. We see this in the fact that He said the only way they could avoid lusting after a woman would be to cut off their hands and gouge out their eyes.
“That was an illustration!”
Indeed. It was an illustration of how impossible it is to keep the Law. That if you want to keep it, you better start severing body parts off and get a lobotomy, because a single lustful thought in your heart makes you guilty of breaking all 613 Laws, not just the Ten.
So is the Law “abolished”? In the English sense of the word, yes. In the Greek sense of the word (is it destroyed?), no. But it only remains in place for unbelievers (1 Timothy 1:9), to be used as Jesus used it in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not to force them to obey it through threats and fear, but to show them through love and Grace that they could never get to God that way. When the Law is preached properly it leads to faith in Christ (who all of the Law is fulfilled in), instead of coercing people into putting faith in themselves to obey the demands of the Law so they don’t receive His wrath.

4. Going Back to the Ten Commandments Will Save America From God’s Wrath

Nowadays it’s common to hear popular preachers say that because of homosexuality and abortion, all of the natural disasters that happen (even terrorist attacks) are because God is angry at people who have turned from His laws. The only remedy to this problem is to plaster The Ten Commandments on the front of our courthouses, otherwise watch out!
This idea again takes the focus away of Jesus. It says that His work wasn’t good enough, and in order to keep God off of our backs we still need to try really hard to not only keep those Laws, but put them out in public places to ward off the wrath of God. Can you see how silly this is? It makes obedience to the Law the standard for God’s grace instead of understanding that Christ Himself is the standard.
Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father but through me.” We get to the Father through Jesus, not Moses. We get grace because of who He is, not what we do. (Rom. 11:6)

5. The Ten Commandments Are the Moral Standard For Right Living

Another major error made in the “8 Signs of Hyper-Grace Churches” article is referring to the Ten Commandments as the moral standard for right living.
The implications that come along with this statement is that we should focus our own effort on living up to the Law (the Ten commandments, as defined by the author) instead of focusing on Christ’s effort fulfilled in us.
Is each individual Law the moral standard for living? No. Do you think wearing only 100% cotton T-shirts makes you anymore holy? Who does that benefit? The point is not the details but the overall objective.
What’s the primary goal of the whole Law?
Paul gave many reasons for why the Law was given: to increase sin-consciousness (Rom. 3:20), to increase sin (Rom. 5:20), to hold people over until the time of faith (Galatians 3:24-25), and more. And what did Jesus say? “These scriptures all point to me.” (John 5:39) It’s safe to say that any interpretation of scripture that doesn’t find its conclusion in Christ is flawed. If your interpretation of the Law points to you, it’s an inaccurate interpretation.
Christ fulfilled every detail of the Law, and He also told us the sum of the Law: “love God and love your neighbor.”
What does “sum of the Law” mean? It means that if you put all 613 Laws into a math equation and added them up, the answer you would get is, “love God and love your neighbor.” In other words, the entire purpose of the Law is to point you to one goal: love God and love others. It’s not merely about keeping a collection of rules, just to be keeping a collection of rules. The Pharisees kept the Law, but they missed “love God and love people,” so their efforts were in vain.

Look at the equation to the left. Which of those numbers is most important? The answer (18), right? The two 9′s are useful to get me to the answer, but I only need them until that point. After that my focus changes. Does it mean the equation is bad? Of course not! It did its job and pointed me to the answer.
You don’t write the whole equation on your tax form before you send it in, you only write the answer you get from the equation because that’s the only part that’s important. The government doesn’t care how you got to the answer as long as it’s accurate. In the same way, people don’t need to know every detail of the Law, they only need to know the sum. Most people already have their own equations, what they’re looking for is the solution.
Each individual command of the Law was important for its purpose (it gave us an equation that led us to the answer), but now that we know the answer, it’s pointless to return to each individual rule that made up the equation.

Conclusion

The Law promotes fear of punishment, which hinders you from being made perfect in love. Since with the Law you get good when you keep it and bad when you don’t, you’re constantly anticipating punishment. But perfect love drives out fear when we realize that in this world we are like Jesus. Let that sink in for a moment. The Father treats you no differently than He treats His only begotten Son.
We love because He first loved us. His love for us is never a response to our love for Him; our love for Him and others is a response to His love for us. If you are lacking love and living in fear, you don’t need more Laws, you need more love. By that I mean you need to figure out how much you are already loved! How do you do that? Read scripture and look at how the Father loves His Son—He loves you just the same! (1 John 4:17-19)

Jesus The Sinner Lover

If we as the Community of the Redeemed  were about the Lord’s business we would love sinners as God loves them. We would not point out their sin as if they were unaware of what sin is, nor would we condemn them or assign them to hell...we would just accept and love them as people in the community of Humanity. We would befriend them and show them who Jesus really is by our interaction with them. When people see Jesus for who He really is, they will fall in love with Him.

We as believers are not in the Judging Condemning-Business, we are in the Showing Loving-Jesus Business.

Jesus is not the enemy of sinners that they so often here over the pulpits of the institutional church...Jesus is a FRIEND of SINNERS...not so they can remain in their sin but so they can be free from their sin.

"Jesus, Friend Of Sinners"

Jesus, friend of sinners, we have strayed so far away
We cut down people in your name but the sword was never ours to swing
Jesus, friend of sinners, the truth's become so hard to see
The world is on their way to You but they're tripping over me
Always looking around but never looking up I'm so double minded
A plank eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners
Open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours

Jesus, friend of sinners, the one who's writing in the sand
Made the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands
Help us to remember we are all the least of these
Let the memory of Your mercy bring Your people to their knees
Nobody knows what we're for only what we're against when we judge the wounded
What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and loved like You did

Oh Jesus, friend of sinners
Open our eyes to world at the end of our pointing fingers
Let our hearts be led by mercy
Help us reach with open hearts and open doors
Oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast
For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that You came
Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast
But you died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet

'Cause You are good, You are good and Your love endures forever

Jesus Came to Save People

Jesus came to save sinners. How? By showing the love His Father has for people and His willingness to finish the work of redemption that His Father had planned from the foundation of the world. 

Jesus' passion was fellowshipping with sinners and demonstrating to them the love His Father has for them. He didn't look at sinners as dirty low-down scum of the earth interruptions to His spirituality or people to be avoided because of their sinning. He didn't wait for sinners to come through the doors of a building called Church or make appointments for a pastoral counseling. No. He found them in His daily living as they were daily living their lives. He invited Himself over to their home to eat, and He wasn't in a hurry to leave. Why? Because He just wasn't looking for a meal, He was looking to fellowship with them

Not only did He desire to be with sinners...the amazing thing is...sinners desired to be with Him. That is a far cry from the "christian's" desire today. Today christians are taught to distance themselves away from sinners so as not to be corrupted by them. Religionists are like birds of a feather flocking together not wanting to mix with the dirty vultures of sinners. No wonder sinners shun the high and mighty and the better than thou christian elite. In Jesus' earth days people avoided the Pharisees because of their spiritual elitism and their nose snubbing of sinners. The Pharisee Gospel is the Law Keepers Gospel of today, nothing has changed. The Pharisees insisted that people meet a strict code of conduct before they could belong to the "in crowd" of being true Jews. They preached down at people from their pulpit of spiritual elitism, imposing standards to measure up to, rules to obey and regulations to follow that they themselves could not even live up to. They alienated people who needed help the most. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Jesus was different, as so are believers to be today. Jesus did not condone sin, neither did he condemn the sinner either. He offered forgiveness, compassion, hope and love. That is why sinners loved to be around Jesus. They were captivated by His compassion, amazed at His practical explanations of how to live life. Unlike the religionists of today, Jesus let them belong before they repented or behaved.  

Listen, it is not the believers responsibility to convince people they are wrong, it is not their Job to change them into better people. Pointing out their wrongness because of their goodness is a relationship barrier. Befriending sinners rather than judging and condemning them is a relationship builder and a witness to the love of the Father.

Christians have left a legacy that is not conducive to relationship building. They support supposed "christian causes" by stuffing their faces with chicken, while condemning gays to hell fire because they are living together. They think they have the right to tell them what God thinks of their sexuality as if it was the first thing on God's agenda.

It's NOT! Compassion, forgiveness, understanding, mercy, love and grace is.

Does that mean that sin doesn't matter, of course not. But when sin becomes more important than the sinner our priorities are wrong and we are thinking with our heads and not our hearts.

Love faking just to get people out to a denominated building is manipulation and hypocrisy. Placard waving and name calling at some "christian cause" and saying we are standing for truth and the gospel, is alienating the very people whom God desires us to build a relationship with so has to lead to where they see the destructive way they are living and the because of our pointing them to Christ instead of sending them to hell.

Authentic love is the love found in John 3:16.If we were to love as that verse shows us we would love people and give ourselves to people no matter who they are.

Let's love as God loves.

- Glenn Regular

John Piper in "Its A Man's World"

Deborah the prophetess under her palm tree judging Israel (painting by Charles Landelle, 1901)


God has given Christianity a masculine feel. And, being a God of love, he has done it for the 

maximum flourishing of men and women. He did not create women to languish, or be 

frustrated, or in any way to suffer, or fall short of full and lasting joy, in a masculine 

Christianity. She is a fellow heir of the grace of life (1 Peter 3:7). From which I infer that the 

fullest flourishing of women and men takes place in churches and families where Christianity 

has this God-ordained, masculine feel. (Address on J.C. Ryle)