Don't be Needlessly Offensive! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Corinnthians 6:3-10,

"We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything."

Here is an incredible statement by Paul to the Corinthian believers. He cites the many ways in which he has conducted his ministry in sincerity, in honesty, and at great personal cost. He points to the nature of how he has pursued his ministry, with the many personal hardships and challenges he had faced. He speaks of their careful adherence to those things that would enhance the prospects of his efforts in bringing the message of reconciliation with God to people in an effective way.

It really is quite a statement. I notice that he begins it with the words, "We put no stumbling block in anyone's path, so that our ministry will not be discredited." I take this to mean that Paul was cautious to present Jesus Christ to the unsaved in such a way that resulted in his hearers needing to wrestle with the claims of the gospel and not about how Paul presented it or the way in which he comported himself. Clearly, Paul wanted his efforts to bring people to decision making about Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone.

I find great direction here for the church. Sometimes we present ourselves in a way that causes people to wonder about us, not Jesus Christ. If we present ourselves in such a way that detracts from the key points of the gospel, as we share with others, it does little good. "Turn or burn!" shouts the fire and brimstone preacher. Is it true? Yes. However, we can be assured that kind of approach will have others considering this wild man, not Jesus Christ. If we show up in a cultural context where we violate people's norms (outside of the wickedness of the world) in the way we present the gospel, we are not going to get very far. We'll get people feeling offended, not because they were shown to be sinners, but because they found the approach offensive. Hopefully you get my drift.

Paul was careful about these things and I should be as well. The gospel itself should be offensive, and I just make sure it is not the way I comport myself that causes the offense, only the claims of Jesus Christ and the message of the gospel alone.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God Brings Us Reconciliation With Him! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Corinthians 5:18-21,

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them… God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

This is certainly one of the most awe-inspiring passages of Scripture, addressing the hope of all mankind! God reconciling mankind to himself! The great gulf, the chasm which has kept us removed from our creator is being swept away by Jesus Christ!

God sent his Son to take our punishment on himself: he who was sinless took on the penalty for our sin that we not have to pay it ourselves in eternal death.

In Jesus Christ we not only have our sins not counted against us, we actually become the righteousness of God through him. This, freely given to those who embrace Jesus Christ in faith!

And this, at the hand of God's own mercy, his kindness, his love lavished on us in his incomprehensible grace toward us!

What a heart our God has! What a love he has expressed toward us!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

God Makes A New Creation Of Us! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Corinthians 5:17,

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"

"A new creation" rings to me of total transformation, a fresh start in a completely new and changed configuration. Not something patched up, fixed up or repaired.

Our ancestral parents, Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. They had fellowship with God and communed with him face to face. With a free will they chose to turn from their creator and follow the temptation of the day – an act which communicated a lack of faith in what God had to say about the consequences.

This turn of events brought a nature to mankind that caused him to follow base desires and a selfish quest to indulge that which satisfies this nature, a "sin nature" or as Paul puts it "the flesh". As we read about the acts of the sin nature in Galatians 5 we recognize it for what it is: something all mankind has been enslaved to.

When Jesus Christ came to save sinners, he provided payment for our sin. Those who embrace him in faith have their sins forgiven as they cross over from death to life as Jesus puts it in John 5:24. But this is not all. In addition to having the penalty for our sins paid for, we have received the righteousness of God himself imbued to us: A standing with God that makes us completely acceptable to him.

His Holy Spirit has also possessed us, taking up his abode within our hearts and our bodies (literally), a deposit which guarantees our future as members of God's own family. As we read of the fruit the Holy Spirit produces in our lives we discover a new nature taking shape within us.

We become transformed from within as a result of this rebirth that Jesus told Nicodemus of in John 3. We are a new creation. This transformation begins within our lives at the time of our rebirth as God's children and is progressive. It does not find its conclusion until resurrection day when that old sin nature is finally and blissfully eradicated entirely from our lives.

We at times may not feel like a new creation, but the reality that we have begun this transformational process is the evidence that we are now a new creation, not that we have arrived yet, but that we find ourselves now moving in a new direction with change clearly taking place within our lives.

God is transforming us into the likeness of his Son. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."

To me, what God has chosen to do in our lives is both exciting and wonderful: a new creation! How about you?

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

Compelled To Persuade Others - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Corinthians 5:11,

"Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others."

In this chapter where Paul speaks of the ministry of reconciliation between God and sinners, he calls himself and others (all believers) as "Christ's ambassadors", verse 20. He points to the compelling love of Christ, "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died." Verse 14.

The love Jesus Christ has for each of us should be a compelling and motivating energy within us to reach as many as we can for Jesus Christ. Because of this Paul speaks of his efforts at persuading others, "Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others." Verse 11. "We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." Verse 20b.

There is a popular theology within the church today that impinges on that compelling and motivating energy that should drive us to reach others persuasively for the Lord. It is known by the acronym TULIP. The "I" in TULIP stands for a doctrine known as "irresistible grace". In this system of theology God picks who gets saved and who doesn't. The vehicle God uses, according to this teaching, is his irresistible grace. Those that God chooses are involuntarily drawn to him, they have no say in the matter, make no choice in the matter and are simply irresistibly drawn to him. (Kind of like a "roofie", a date rape drug, only in a positive sense).

Where might the need be to persuade others, to implore others as Paul did in this theology? My concern is that the motivation to persuade others might be slowing down among the adherents of this theology. The followers of it point out that since Jesus commanded us to evangelize (e.g. Matthew 28:18-20), our love for him should be all the motivation we need. I can't argue with that.

However, Paul, as our role model when it comes to evangelism, felt the need to persuade, to implore others to be reconciled to God while being energized by the compelling love of our Savior. I do not subscribe to the theology myself, but I would encourage anyone who does, not to become lax in sharing the gospel persuasively with others, which I find to be a legitimate concern.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

The Great Assurance! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in 2 Corinthians 5:4-5,

"For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has
given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."

We as humans have a level of self-awareness that exceeds anything else in God's creation. With it we worry and fret. We make our plans. We pick our priorities. We think back on choices we made and hope for the best as we contemplate our future. Possibly within the stronger elements of our self-awareness is the concern we have for our health and our looming physical death. How far off will that certainty be?

Within that milieu is something Paul points to. "For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." We all think about that time when we will leave our current physical bodies behind to be "clothed... with our heavenly dwelling."

In a wonderful promise to us, Paul points out that God has made us for this very thing! "Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."

God knows us well and he knows of the need we have for assurance that his promise of eternal life is headed our way. He has given us the indwelling Holy Spirit as his guarantee to us of what is to come! In Romans 8:11 Paul says, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you."

Earlier in this letter Paul pointed out, "Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come." 2 Corinthians 1:21-22. This is a reality Paul pointed to in Ephesians 1:13-14, "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory."

The writer of Hebrews points out a wonderful reality in regard to our groaning "in this tent", "Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable
things [his promise and his oath] in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." Hebrews 6:17-19.

God knows us well. And, while we should never doubt him, he nevertheless provides us great assurance of his promise to us of eternal life in heaven with him!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.