The End Product of True Evangelism

     The end product of evangelism is not just to get you out of hell and into heaven, but to get God out of heaven and into you, so that Christ living in your heart might bring God out again into the open where He can be seen. That is what brings glory to God.

  This happens when we are prepared to identify ourselves with Christ in His death and to share His resurrection Life: You acknowledge as a redeemed sinner that Jesus, risen from the dead, has come to re invade your humanity so that you can place all that you are at His disposal. Others who look at you will see Him behaving, just as people looked at Jesus and saw the Father behaving.
  This is the gospel.

  What then is the ultimate end product of our obeying this gospel and entering into the good of that which has been provided for us in Christ to restore us to our true function as human beings?

  God has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). Therefore, when you are finally evangelized and people look at you, they should see the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what God has always had in mind for us, from the eternal ages of the past.

  That is why Jesus is the end product of evangelism—His Life indwelling you is exactly what God had in mind when He sent His Son to redeem you and to reconcile you to a holy God. He sent us His Son not just to get you and me out of hell and into heaven, but to get the God of heaven into you and me, so that Christ living in our hearts might be our hope of bringing God again out into the open where He can be seen, to His glory!

  We identify ourselves with Him, saying as Paul did in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ,” and we share His resurrection, just as Paul went on to explain in the same verse, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me”—not I, but Christ. Paul is saying, “I am a redeemed sinner, and the risen Jesus has come to reinvade my humanity so that He can serve with my hands, walk with my feet, speak with my lips, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, think with my mind, and love with my heart, so that to me, to live now is Christ. It is my privilege as a forgiven sinner to place my humanity at His disposal so that others looking at me will see Him behaving, just as those who looked at Jesus saw His Father behaving.”

  This is the gospel as we need to understand it, because the Lord Jesus said, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21)—sending us on the same terms and for the same purpose.

  He is the Sender, and we are the sent ones, and for this reason the only authority you and I can legitimately exercise in any area of life is the authority that derives from our submission to His authority.
  “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”    JOHN 20:21

- Major Ian Thomas

"Light of Life" with Baxter Kruger

Seeing How God Works

For most of my life I’ve tried to do God’s work, instead of doing mine.  And, honestly, I wasn’t very good at it. That didn’t keep me from trying, however.  That’s why in recent years I’ve come to love the prayer Paul prayed for the Colossians and to make it my own every day:

“Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works…  As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. (Colossians 1:9-11 MSG)

That’s what I want.  I want my mind and spirit to be so attuned to God’s will that I can acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which he works. I wish someone had taught me that when I was younger. When we don’t have any understanding of how God works, we’ll spend all our energies trying to be God to others. Even on our best days, that will only make a mess of things.

When I was a pastor, I thought it was my responsibility to build the church, when Jesus said he would take care of it. (Matthew 16)

In sharing Christ, I thought I was supposed to bring the conviction of God, when Jesus said that was the Spirit’s job. (John 16)

I thought the body of Christ was called to walk in unity, when Jesus asked his Father to bring us there. (John 17)

I assumed it was my responsibility to be better for God, instead of coming to the end of my human efforts and learning to trust his power. (John 15, Philippians 2)

I don’t have to figure out the times and seasons of his return, because that is in the hands of the Father. (Acts 1)

Learning how God works changes everything! He’s not a projection of our better selves, but Wholly Other, who thinks and acts in ways that confound my natural mind. When we think we know best, for ourselves or others, we usually end up working against him rather than with him.

Jesus asked me to love others like he’s loving me, to proclaim with my life and words the reality of Christ, and to help those who want, to know the God I know. It has become a major focus of my walk now to see what God is doing and how he’s working, especially when he isn’t acting in the way I think he should. When he’s not doing what I think is best, what is he doing? That’s where we learn how different, and how much better his ways really are. It is so much easier to live inside what he asks of me today, when I see, if even just in glimpses, how he is working in people and situations around me.

It helps me be more patient, because I realize God is not in the hurry that I am. It makes me softer toward marginalized and hurting people, because I know he doesn’t always wave his magic wand and fix everyone’s need instantaneously, and more often he wants me to be his gift to them. I’m not so settled on my ease and comfort because I know there isn’t any tragedy that he can’t work in for incredible good. And when I’ve given up trying to change me, I give up trying to change others around me as well.

I’m still learning to take my cues from what Father is already doing. Ask him to show you in the very circumstances you’re in right now. Instead of giving into anxiety and trying to fix them yourself, ask him to show you what he is doing. When you know what he’s doing, then you’ll know how you can respond in trust and be part of what he’s doing.  It’s more fun than trying to do his job, that’s for sure!

- Wayne Jacobsen

Our Greatest Fear

In my heart

Two Tracks

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. --Matthew 10:34

There are times in life when we would like everything to run on one track, and, as with every issue, there can be both the legitimate and the illegitimate side. For example, because of a vocational change a man is asked to move, which will make him miss his friends immensely. He would like God either to take away his yearning for his friends or allow him to stay put. He wants life on one track. Mourning for the loss of relationships speaks well of the man; however, to be undone and refuse the move does not. 

Running on one track and forcing everything to fit within the one theme can be destructive. A woman visiting me proclaimed, “I am a terrible Christian. The Bible says, ‘In everything give thanks,’ but my husband recently died and I cannot stop crying.” True, the Bible does say that. It also gives accounts of many men of God as they tore their clothes in anguish at the news of the death of a loved one. It is legitimate to weep but may be illegitimate to weep for years. We need to accept that in our Christian life there are more tracks than one that run parallel concurrently.   

Unbelieving man wants to systematize God so that everything is on one track. This order would alleviate the unknown and relieve us of the necessity to exercise our faith. God has never been, nor can He be, systematized. We are not Muslims who base their lives in teaching and creed. Rather, our lives center around a person, a relationship. This leads to situations such as being urged to honor father and mother, and yet at the same time being warned to reject father and mother if they get in the way of following Christ. In a relationship with Christ both truths are possible, for in Him we can love and honor the parents, but Him comes before them, and so if parents want to come before Christ they are not covered by Matthew 15:4 but are under the command of Matthew 10:37.

I am not saying that the Christian life is one of balance; that would be Taoism. We are not attempting to find the middle ground. Instead, every issue in life is a coin with two sides, and it takes both sides, though they can be opposing, to make up the coin. Whether one side is legitimate and the other is illegitimate depends upon the Lord’s leading in the situation.

He Delights in You

How many of you believe that God delights in you?
Most of us feel that He tolerates us on a good day.
I watched a You Tube video this afternoon on this
very subject and rather than trying to summarize it,
I will post it below. Malcolm Smith is one of my
favorite teachers. He can get more out of one verse
of scripture than anyone I know. I once was at a
conference where he taught on one verse for one
hour, at least four times. And, each talk was differ-
ent in its emphasis. What was the verse?

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind
is stayed on thee:  because he trusteth in thee.
Isaiah 26:3 King James

"He Delights in you" out of Luke 15
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfWp8jF9bLc

Himself

Truly you are a God that hides Yourself...
Isaiah 45:15

There is many a Christian who has has not
reached Christ, and there is weakness. There
is a larger blessing than forgiveness--that is
HIMSELF. Nothing will satisfy Christ but re-
vealing His heart to you, and you will never
grow until you know Him. It is impossible
to grow unless you are under the power of
His love. 

- Edward Dennett 1831-1914

2 Reasons why Coveting is a Serious Sin

Taking Sin Seriously

What makes coveting such a serious sin? First, we covet when we want for ourselves what belongs to someone else. Coveting is more than thinking, “It’d be great to have a nice house,” or “I’d like to have a better job.” Coveting longs for someone else’s stuff to be your stuff. Coveting says, “I want their house. I want his job. If only I could have what they have, then I’d be happy.” One way of looking at things is to see the tenth commandment as the internalization of the eighth commandment. Just as adultery of the heart is lust, and murder of the heart is hatred, so theft is the heart of covetousness. When Achan stole some of the devoted things from Ai, he first “coveted them” and then “took them” (Josh. 7:21). Likewise, James says, “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:3). Those two sentences stand in parallel. Coveting is desiring something or someone that is not yours to have. Sex may be a good thing. Possessions may have their place.

But they’re both bad when the thoughts are illicit when you want what does not belong to you. Coveting is a violation of the second great commandment. Remember how Jesus summarized the two tables of the law: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Matt. 22:37–40). Coveting fails to love your neighbor as yourself. When we’re covetous, we think only (or, at least, supremely) of what is good for us: what we would like, what would make us happy, and what could make our lives better, regardless of how others are affected. It’s easy for us to see how selfish children can be. They are happy with their Christmas presents until they see a sibling or friend get something bigger and better. Suddenly their Super Awesome Barbie Action Playhouse isn’t so super awesome anymore. And you know what happens next? You’ll hear those immortal words: “It’s not fair!” This prompts one of the much-beloved mom or dad lectures about starving kids living in a crater on the moon. But as easily as we can see the selfishness of children, we can be blind to our own self-regard. We notice the camper down the street or the new addition with all the righteous indignation of kids on Christmas morning. Coveting is not just saying, “I would like something.” That can be fine. We all have wish lists. Coveting goes further and says, “Why did you get that? I wanted it! I am angry because you are happy, and I’d be happier if we could trade places.” Coveting wants what other people have.

What Our Coveting Reveals

Second, we covet when our desire leads to or is an expression of, discontentment. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “The tenth commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his.”1 If the first point looked at coveting as a violation of the second table of the law, then the second point stresses how it also violates the first table of the law. When we covet, we don’t believe that God is big enough to help us or good enough to care. Our discontentment is an expression of how much more we think God owes us. There’s a reason that “do not covet” is the last of the ten commandments. It comes at the end because it is such a fitting summary of everything that has come before. It’s impossible to covet and love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. It can seem strange that the Ten Commandments starts with such lofty ideals—“I am the Lord your God. . . . You shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:2)—and then ends with a prosaic whimper: “Stop looking at that donkey.” But do you see how the two are connected? God is saying, “I’m the only God you need. Don’t turn to Baal. Don’t turn to statues. And don’t turn to animals or friends or abilities either. Let nothing else capture your gaze and affections ahead of me!”

Coveting is idolatry (Col. 3:5). It says I can’t live without that person, place, or possession. It makes a god out of our desires. The tenth commandment is not an anticlimactic afterthought. “Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. And try to be happy with what you have.” The command not to covet is actually the practical summation and heart-level culmination of the other nine commandments. Even though we understand from Jesus that the commandments all have an internal dimension, it would be easy to focus on mere external obedience if we didn’t have the tenth commandment. When you look at the first nine commandments, they almost seem possible, at least in a perfunctory sort of way. “Don’t kill people.” I can do that. “Don’t sleep around.” I’m good. “Don’t lie under oath.” Got it. But just when we might be tempted to check off one commandment after another, we land on the tenth commandment and realize that we can’t possibly keep this moral code to perfection. We can conceive of making it through life without a golden calf to worship, but no honest person can think of living out their days free from coveting.

The “Much More” of Your Salvation

     If I asked you what the Lord Jesus has done to save you, almost instinctively you would say, “He died to save me.”

  That is the natural answer. Notice carefully, however, what Paul says in Romans 5:10. Through the death of Jesus we indeed “were reconciled to God”; and yet, “much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

  It is true that the death of Jesus saves us from the punitive consequence of sin and restores us to a true relationship with God after we were born spiritually dead, alienated from the life of God. Yet the very purpose of that new relationship is to enable us thereafter to “be saved by His life,” and this is the “much more” of our salvation.

  Have you been reconciled to God by Christ’s death? I hope you can say, “Yes, I can think back to the day when the Holy Spirit convicted me of the fact that I was a guilty sinner, and convinced me that the precious blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. I remember the day when I deliberately received Him as my personal Redeemer and put my trust in Him.”

  If you truly have been reconciled to God, then a perfectly logical question to ask would be, Are you being saved by Christ’s life? The question is important because this is the “much more” of your salvation. If your Christian experience is limited only to being reconciled to God by the death of Christ, yet you are not being saved by the present reality of His Life, then you are obviously missing the “much more” of your salvation. In fact, you are missing the whole purpose for which Christ died. You are cheating Him of that for which His blood was shed.

  Reconciled to God by Christ’s death … and saved by His Life—the one is a crisis of the moment; the other is the process of a lifetime and on into eternity. The crisis precipitates the process. The crisis, if it is valid, should be followed by the process.

  Reconciled to God by Christ’s death, and being saved by His Life—the crisis involves an initial act of faith that accepts Christ for what He did; the process involves an attitude of faith that continues to enjoy all that Christ is. For He not only died for what you have done; He rose again from the dead to take the place of what you are, which He does by His Holy Spirit indwelling you.

  This is the gospel, the whole of it. Anything less than this falls short of the gospel as revealed in the Word of God.

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.      ROMANS 5:10

- Major Ian Thomas

Trees

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.--John 15:1

A certain tree farmer has taken the time to show me all the procedures involved in harvesting almonds. I have decided that the strenuous effort involved in bearing fruit does indeed rest on the shoulders of the gardener, whose job it is to prune, level the land, water, fertilize, mow, and out-and-out baby the trees in the hope that all conditions will be perfect for the trees to accomplish what they do naturally in God’s order, bear fruit!It is interesting to note that when the trees are laden with almonds, a steel arm grasps the trunk of the tree, an umbrella-type contraption is inverted under the tree, and the arm shakes the tree until it provides the gardener with his hard-earned fruit. 

God does it all. We need only attain to what believers do naturally as we are tended to, and sometimes God must shake us to get the fruit that is His.

When Hardship Comes to Stay

It was a surprise visit by an unwelcome visitor like it is for so many sufferers. I didn’t know that day that Mr. Hardship would knock on my door, barge his way in, and take residence in the most intimate rooms of my life. And I didn’t have any idea how his presence would fundamentally change so many things for the long run. I watched him go room to room through my life rearranging everything, wondering what things would be like if and when he finally left. If I could have, I would have evicted this unwanted stranger, but I failed at all my attempts to boot him out the door or deny that he had taken residence in my life. I spent way too much time trying to figure out why he had knocked on my door and why he had chosen this particular moment, but I never got clear answers to my questions.

Once I realized that I couldn’t kick Mr. Hardship out of my life, I gave myself to trying to understand how to live with him or around him. His presence made me feel like an actor in a drama where everyone had a script but me. I felt unprepared and unable, not just the day he first entered, but day after day. Sure, I had known that Mr. Hardship was out there, and I had heard the stories of how he had entered other people’s doors, but somehow I didn’t think it would happen to me. Embarrassment washed over me as I thought of the silly platitudes and empty answers I had casually given people when they’d been caught in the confusing drama I was now in. And I thought about how foolish I’d been to think that this unwanted stranger who, somehow, someway, enters everyone’s door, would for some reason omit mine.

Because I did not have the power or control to make Mr. Hardship leave, I ran to the place where I have always found wisdom, hope, and rest of heart. I ran to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in so doing, into the arms of my Savior. As I dove into the narrative of the gospel, which is the core message of God’s Word, I realized something profoundly important and wonderfully comforting: I wasn’t unprepared after all. The message of God’s sovereign control over me and my world, the gospel’s honesty about life in this fallen world, the comfort of the right-here, right-now presence and grace of the Savior, and the insight into the spiritual war that rages in my heart had prepared me well for the entrance and presence of this unwelcome stranger.

I am no longer angry or discouraged that Mr. Hardship entered my door unexpectedly that day. Although I still struggle with the pain and weakness that he has left me with, I know that I am better off because of his presence. No, I don’t like the travail of pain or loss any more than you do, but in my suffering, a miraculous thing happened: Mr. Hardship became a tool of my Savior to produce very good things in me, things that I am sure could not have been produced any other way.

Why Are You So Afraid?

"Don't you care if we perish...?" Mark 4:38

Many of you have read the story of Jesus sending the
boats and His disciples to the other side after a grueling
day of ministry. He lay down in the back of the boat
on a cushion and fell deeply asleep. Suddenly a furious
squall came up with waves pouring into the vessels.
These seasoned fishermen were terrified and resentment
rose within. "What's wrong with Jesus?  He is still sleep-
ing and we are about to drown! So, they shake him and
say, "Don't you care...?"

Jesus, does not answer them but stands in that rocking
boat and says something like, "stop" to the wind and
then speaks three words to the waves, "Peace, be still"

He then turns to His disciples--wimps everyone--and
says, "Why are you so afraid? Don't you even yet have
confidence in me?"

Reader, it is so easy to go from great joy and confidence
to descent into fear. Some days it comes with the morn-
ing coffee and the news....

God has not given us a spirit of fear,
but of power, love and a sound mind!