Another Thing In Which To Follow Jesus

Scripture: Romans 15:3 "For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, 'The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on Me.' "

Observation: Paul just spent an entire chapter explaining the extreme importance of not allowing "small" matters of faith become overly "big" because they can lead to (1) devision, (2) judgment from God over my judgment of other believers, and (3) the abandonment of the faith through a gradual hardening of the heart and conscience toward God.

To conclude that passage (Chapter 14) and open another dialogue (Chapter 15) that drives home once again a constant theme in this letter, namely unity, Paul hinges both of discussions on Christ. He brings it back to the centrality of Jesus.

Jesus is clearly stronger of faith than me. He also, during His ministry and now, was patient and gentle with the conscience of others. Never did He push one away who was truly seeking God by forcing conformance with one of His preferences (certainly that shouldn't be confused with His frequent warnings to repent of sin!). And He bore with the weak of faith in order to bring about the unity of Romans 15 through the hope He had in God's plan and through the love that Jesus knows will see us all through differences. Faith must grow like a plant and Jesus was careful to not drown the faith of someone through overwatering or over-exposure to sunlight.

Application:
Follow Jesus in such patience, hope and love.
Place the tender faith of others above my pride and personal desires.
Seek the unity of believers.

Prayer: Lord, You are the perfect example of unity in the Trinity. I want to honor You and emulate You in this. Help me please to love and cherish the precious faint of others because that will in itself ultimately lead to the joy of my heart, which is to make You famous! I love You. Amen.

Lord Of Both The Dead And The Living

Scripture: Romans 14:9 "For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living."

Observation: This verse along with verse 8, when taken out of context, appear to support the idea that every person will be saved eventually. There are some teachers today promoting that idea and they show themselves as the ones that Paul spoke of in 2 Timothy 4:3-4. Rob Bell is of this sort (see his book Love Wins).

The problem is that those weak in understanding believe these things and their flesh is fed through it. What could satisfy the sinful nature's desire to continue in rebellion to God than the idea that God may grant them eternal life and joy even though they commit atrocities or stand in obstinate rebellion? How much of the OT and NT are wasted with warnings to repent and to live holy lives? How short would the Bible be if every admonition was removed that speaks of the pending wrath that is stored up for those who reject God and rage against Him?

God's word can be manipulated to teach universal salvation, but only if the vast amounts of Scripture dealing with God's wrath and coming judgment are ignored.
- Jesus spoke of the judgment and separation of sheep and goats.
- Matthew 11:28-30 records Jesus's prophesy that people (many people) believing they are saved by their works will request access to heaven (expect it, really) and Jesus will command them to depart for He never knew them.
- Revelation 20:14-15 says in the judgment day Death and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire and anyone not found written in the book of life will also be cast into the lake of fire.

Love is my response here, of course. Those that believe this have some reason for wanting to believe it. I really ought to find out what that reason is. I am no one's judge. Rejecting the person who holds to universal salvation will only divide the body (if they are saved) and will also eliminate the possibility for open dialogue on the issue. Or if they aren't saved, it will end the possibility for them to work through their doubts.

Plus, if I judge them as ignorant and pitiable I will also lose the opportunity to be wrong somewhere! So I can either drive away all opposition to my beliefs or I can welcome them and grow from the experience of answering counter-arguments.

Application: The rewards of God are for those that seek God now. Submit to God today. Love Him with all my heart. Surrender all my life. My faith will make Him my Lord and God in this life and the next.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for salvation. By Your grace alone do I believe and mature and move. Use me for Your gory. I want to make You famous! I love You. Amen.

The Unity of Living And Dying

Scripture: Romans 14:7 "For none of us lives  to himself, and no one dies to himself."

Observation: This verse is speaking of Christians. Christians are God's and their being belongs to God in a different way than unbeliever.

An unbeliever is God's creation; a believer is God's child.

A believer lives entirely to God and, because of that fact, he or she dies to God as well - and it is a joy.

An unbeliever lives to himself and, because of that fact, he or she dies to himself as well - and though freedom from God promises joy it does not deliver joy.

A believer's life with Christ brings complete satisfaction; an unbeliever's life without Christ brings growing hopelessness.

A believer's death with Christ brings eternal reward; unbeliever's death without Christ endless regret.

Application:
Live out Philippians 3:7-8.
Maintain the complete surrender of Philippians 1:20-25.
Internalize Colossians 3:23-24.
Join today with the angels in Revelation 5:11-12.
Whole-heartedly pursue the reality of John 15:1-5.

Prayer: I need You. Lord, I need You. Every day I need You. Sanctify my mind to the point that I am fully Yours. Today and every day I need the strength to do what I know is right. To live to You is also to love as You do. That I need desperately! I love You, Lord. Amen.

The Essentially Nonessential Things

Scripture: Romans 14:14 "I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean."

Observation: This is an extremely bold and broad statement that has always made me stop and question what Paul meant. Does he really mean nothing is unclean of itself? Nothing?! I think the Spirit pointed something out this morning about this.

Contextually Paul is here speaking of how the believers were relating to each other and food and wine and observing "holy" days. Those may seem trivial but it was apparently not trivial to them and the consequences of their disagreement and disunity was not trivial to Paul. I think this was what Paul was referring to when he said "nothing."

I believe that in verse 14 he was speaking to food because Paul never really leaves the topic of food in this chapter. In eight of the 23 verses, before and after verses 14 he speaks of food and how they should relate to other believers with it. And in the immediate context (vs 6-15) Paul speaks only of this issue of food.

Application: It makes little sense to says that there are no inherently sinful things, acts, or thoughts when compared with other Scripture because there is so much talk of such things elsewhere. Paul is not giving a license to do anything as long as my conscience says it's cool. I know that my conscience, even if I'm a believer, can become numb to sin if I ignore the Holy Spirit's convicting.

Prayer: Lord, the challenge for me here is that I tend to judge others. Please free me from that. It hurts my relationships and darkens my witness. I want to be very wise and sensitive about these preferential "beliefs." I really think it prevents me from loving others. And if I find myself in the place of a "strong" one in this sense, I can actually cause someone to abandon a life of faith according to this chapter. I need to protect the conscience of the believers around me... not antagonize them. Thank You for Your grace and mercy and never-ending love. I love You. Amen.

San Diego Getaway - UPDATED

05May14 - UPDATE added three pictures, including the mystery picture at end of post.

I'm consistently bad at consistency. It's been a while since I've put anything on here except Bible and faith related stuff. So, I'm going to catch up on just a few of the major events that have happened recently. It won't take long... we live in Altus, Oklahoma.

Candi and I took a trip to San Diego at the end of January. It was an pretty awesome. My wonderful Mom came down to visit and stay with the kids. I think she even kept up with some of their school work while we were gone.

We were originally planned on traveling to New York to combine some time together with the wedding of two of my friends who I met in Korea. The weather got bad and would have eliminated half the reason for going so about an hour before we were supposed to leave we changed our plans to head to the other coast.

Here are some pictures from our trip.

I upgraded our fuel efficient wheels for one of my favorite cars ever... FYI, the new Mini is not a fuel efficient car.

Some other friends of ours just took a trip to Florida and they upgraded to a Camaro, I think. I guess I have a different sense of "cool." :-)

Of course, food took priority number one each day so our activities were pretty much worked around wherever we decided we wanted to eat!

Thai Pizza!

First bowl of authentic ramen since leaving the Land of the Rising Sun in 2005.

This is the first time we have been to Sea World without our children and honestly we had a blast!

We spent a few hours on the U.S.S. Midway. Pretty amazing. My Dad spent time in the Navy working on aircraft carriers so it was neat to get a glimpse of how his service compared to mine. The highlight of that day actually came after leaving the boat when I had a homeless man pee in a garbage  can right in front of me. Not all highlights are sunshine and roses.

Our trip was full of a bunch of other food, meeting interesting people, and doing, well, pretty much whatever we darn well pleased. And it was 75% with a light breeze the whole time. I hope God sends me to minister to people in San Diego after I retire.

I was going to add a picture of the sunset as we flew back to Dallas, but I couldn't find that. It was really pretty - you should have seen it.

*UPDATE - I found the picture!*

Is It Essential?

Scripture: Romans 14:1 "Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things."

Observation: The Greek word for "doubtful" is "dialogismos" meaning doubtful, but it basically has the sense of something that is disputable, things for which we can have a dialogue over.

There are some things that are not disputable, but the only way for me to know which is which is to read and study God's word enough to know what it says and what it does not say (sometimes the former being more important).

Application: At times I will be one who is weak in the faith and other times I will be the "strong" one. But in both cases, my conscience will guide me to praise God and live for Him (vs 6). I must discriminate (what?! the word tells me discrimination is bad, bad, bad...) between the two - essential and nonessential doctrines. And I must not be a constant arguer. And I must be carefully adamant for the faith (see the whole letter of Jude and 2 Timothy 4:1-5).

Prayer: Father, help me to live for You. Help me to be sensitive to the things that I only hold to out of tradition and personal preference. Help me to study Your word in order to defend the faith. I love You. Amen.