What is the difference between someone who loves others and is born of God (1 John 4:7) and someone who hates the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2: 16)?
Every generation seems to have their thing that they realize is missing in society and they push for that to come about. Speaking in regard to the United States, previous generations have called for love across racial boundaries, others for freedom from tyrannical government; for this generation, however, the actual need hasn’t quite matched up with the desires of the people just yet. It comes out of a raging cry for independence. The desire is for freedom from the consequences of our actions. What few realize, is that what we need most is commitment to purity. At the very least, abstinence from destructive behavior can lead to less destructive consequences for our actions (i.e., addiction, disease, broken relationships, etc.). But the heart issue is far worse.
We understand why the topic is absolutely absurd in many circles; “Because [man] exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1: 24-32). The idea of repentance is not in many people’s repertoire. What need is there to repent if there is no one to whom we are held accountable? In the Church, we say we know better and many of us see repentance as something we did once when we were first encountered and gave our lives to Christ. Has the idea of repentance perhaps been misunderstood? Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology defines repentance as “to turn from evil, and to turn to the good.” The truth is, we are called to never stop turning from evil, and turning to the good. There is never an appropriate time to stop turning from evil and turning to what is good.
Not that the majority of Christians are doing things that are outright sinful, like sleeping around, getting drunk, feeding addictions, stealing from other people; those are the obvious ones we all avoid. We certainly know those are “bad.” But these are the things I sometimes hear about Christians doing! Maybe Christians just do these things to fit into certain circles better and show them that Jesus doesn’t require us to change everything about our lives? That’s a way of sharing the Gospel, right? Wrong. Let’s talk about that…
(BREAK) I would like to cover housekeeping stuff before digging too deep into the topics of my blogs, so from here on out, I will be doing that here. Also, this blog is much longer than normal as I decided to tackle head on that which the Lord has been putting on my heart and felt it deserved a little extra attention this month. He has blessed me with time this week to dig into His word with some extra zeal and motivation. My hope is that this will bless you as you read it and share some of my heart for serving the people of Spain. Again, my blogs will not normally be this long. Also, I hope that you won’t skip over this section after getting hooked from the intro to the rest of the blog ;P Blessings!
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Financial Update: God is so good! As of October 6th, I have passed 40% of my monthly financial support goal! Thank you to all who are able to contribute financially and to all who have been supporting me in prayer! I obviously have a ways to go, so please contact me if you think of someone you know who loves Jesus, wants the world to know Him, and would want to hear about my ministry in Spain as well as the needs and how they can help!
Assignment in Granada: My team leader continues to search for the best position in which to place me to be able to serve the Church of Spain effectively. More news to come on where/what I will be doing when I first get there…
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("Called to New Life" cont...)
- God calls us to be a people set apart from the world in order to proclaim His gospel
- God makes it possible for us to live lives that are both pleasing to Him and a witness to others.
- Please pray for the Church of Spain and for this worker to strive for purity and commitment to Christ.
When we are satisfied in the calling on our lives to eternal life in the will of our Creator, we can start to let go of the things that are passing away (1 John 2:17). Striving to do the work of the Lord while holding onto sinful desires is like trying to do a pull-up with one arm while holding a heavy weight in the other. The bar is perfectly sufficient to support you, and the weight works against you. Your capacity for greatness is diminished by the act of holding onto that weight and the weight itself makes it much more difficult to achieve your goal of getting that chin over the bar. Don’t read too much into that analogy as it pretty much breaks down after that (as any good analogy does).
“Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (Hebrews 12: 1-2a).
Sin entangles and holds us back just like in the pull-up analogy. The life we are called to, however, goes far beyond simply abstaining from sin:
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.” (2 Peter 1: 3-9).
God has called each of us to become partakers of His divine nature. The natural progression of the faith that Peter lists here comes from God’s own glory and excellence. It comes through His precious and very great promises. Those promises are to make us partakers of His divine nature. That means we are becoming like Him in our very nature. And to be like God in His nature goes beyond saying “what would Jesus do?” It involves a heart that shares in our Lord’s character and desires. As we see in the above passage, all of this is said in light of this fact: we have “escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1: 4).
Do others need us to live lives that are “set apart?”
People have written books on this subject, okay, but on a more personal note, the transformative power of Christ working in His people is what initially got my attention before I knew Jesus, not the fact that I met Christians who were hip and drank beer on ocassion- although that didn't hurt. They had fun, but it didn’t involve getting drunk, sharing inappropriate videos from the internet, or even swearing! (that was a big shock to me). But I didn’t just see people who are different, I saw a differentway to live. The love they had for one another and for me was contagious and reached down into my soul. There are many infinite ways the Lord reaches His people, but there is only one way that He reconciles them to himself: the saving knowledge of Christ, the Son of God, His life, death, and resurrection. A miracle and a work of the Holy Spirit. In one of Paul’s letters to the church at Corinth, he tells them that he thanks God who “through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere” (2 Cor. 2: 14).
Jesus is a far better savior than we are, and the life He calls us to far outshines that of any other, in my opinion, and in many ways. A better way to live is often what we are looking for when we first experience God, and the witness of the Christian who lives his or her life according to all that which Christ has commanded them (Matt. 28: 20) is no small part. That witness is something that can first turn our head in the direction of God. I think too often Christians will talk about blending-in as if in order to witness our faith to people we need to try and sneak in the back door, tricking those outside the church into thinking we are exactlylike them. We need to be okay with standing out as abnormal, because that’s exactly what we are! We go against the grain and abhor what is evil. We don’t simply appear as those who are cool but just happen to believe in Jesus. The world needs to know those who live differently because of Him.
The Experience of God Through His Holy Spirit
This is the stuff of saving lives and continued hope in Christ. I cannot sustain that for myself, or anyone else for that matter. Neither friendship, nor marriage, nor career, nor anything in the world can give me continued hope or assurance in my worth and justification. All this said, it is not our lifestyle that brings about our righteousness, but rather our righteousness in Christ brings about our lifestyle. Our salvation and justification is “the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2: 8b-9). Living our lives in purity and repentance is a result of a life turned around, not the means to obtain a new life. Let us see purity as a way of honoring the Lord with the ministry of It becomes a witness of the grace of God Himself. To put this into perspective as we come to a close:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5: 17-21).
Pray with Me:
- That the hearts and minds of those whom God is preparing in Spain will be receptive to the news of the freedom to be gained through Jesus Christ. Freedom from the tyranny of sin and the cycle of disobedience to the One who make us and loves us.
- That God will use me to share this message with those inside and outside of the Church in Spain and the US.
- That my team of supporters will continue to assemble quickly in order to get this brother to the field.
*To support this ministry through financial contribution please see the green link on this page: "Support This Ministry"
** For More information on my specific assignment, see the following link to Avance España: https://gocorps.org/tracks/placements/n/9087556?platform=hootsuite