This is taken from a preacher's blog.
Human wisdom cannot solve the deep rooted issues of this world.
Trying to defeat sin with morality is like hiding nakedness with a leaf,
trying to defeat death with medicine is like putting paint on a casket.
On this stage of sin and death, We can put on all kinds of drama and comedy,
but in the end it is only a tragedy.
Only the God who created and nurtured us, have taken care of sin and death in Christ, for those who believe in Him.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Is it ok to be good?
I've often struggled with laziness. When I learned about God's sovereignty, that fed my laziness.
In my thinking I thought "If God is in control of everything, what's the point of me doing anything? I can just do nothing!" and I thought I had no choice in anything regarding my life either.
But that is a big lie.
It is true that God is in control of every circumstances that happen in everyone's lives, but we are moral beings who can make and ought to make choices.
God elected people unto salvation, but we ought to consider the cost of following Christ, and actually choose and be committed to following Him.
God woos us and helps us in our weaknesses during our life on earth so we will finally be saved in the end, but we have to draw near to Him, we have to fight our sins.
How that works in detail is a great mystery. But we shouldn't concern ourselves with trying to know the details of how God does things, living believing these truths and acting on them is more beneficial for our souls.
Then I thought about the desire of wanting to be good.
There's a lot of confusion about being good.
Arn't we totally depraved?
Arn't we utterly sinful?
Isn't there no good in me?
Doesn't all our goodness and righteousness come from Christ?
Then what's the point of being good?
Is it even ok to try to be good?
these were a lot of questions that haunted me, and probably a lot of my friends too.
After much thinking, reading the Bible, and listening to what some pastors had to say, I came up with the following conclusions:
Now I need to know what righteousness is...... back to more head scratching goodness.
In my thinking I thought "If God is in control of everything, what's the point of me doing anything? I can just do nothing!" and I thought I had no choice in anything regarding my life either.
But that is a big lie.
It is true that God is in control of every circumstances that happen in everyone's lives, but we are moral beings who can make and ought to make choices.
God elected people unto salvation, but we ought to consider the cost of following Christ, and actually choose and be committed to following Him.
God woos us and helps us in our weaknesses during our life on earth so we will finally be saved in the end, but we have to draw near to Him, we have to fight our sins.
How that works in detail is a great mystery. But we shouldn't concern ourselves with trying to know the details of how God does things, living believing these truths and acting on them is more beneficial for our souls.
Then I thought about the desire of wanting to be good.
There's a lot of confusion about being good.
Arn't we totally depraved?
Arn't we utterly sinful?
Isn't there no good in me?
Doesn't all our goodness and righteousness come from Christ?
Then what's the point of being good?
Is it even ok to try to be good?
these were a lot of questions that haunted me, and probably a lot of my friends too.
After much thinking, reading the Bible, and listening to what some pastors had to say, I came up with the following conclusions:
- We are sinful because our nature is tainted by sin, that nature produces desires and thoughts that manifest into sinful actions. [Genesis 3, Romans 5:12, James 1:13-15]
- Yet we still retain the image of God with the desire of wanting to be good(Normally)[Genesis 1:26-27, James 3:9]
- God does want us to be good and righteous, the imputation of Christ's righteousness and life in salvation will result in real, tangeble changes towards righteousness in real life(!other wise we might not have obtained Christ at all!) [John 8:11, Matthew 5:20, 1 John 3:7]
- Living a righteous life matters, it makes us good representatives of Christ, thus helps our presentation of the gospel. A bad, morally corrupt Christian taints the name of God.
- Therefore it is a noble desire to want to be good and righteous person, Christians ought to pursue righteousness, but we can't force our self into it.
Now I need to know what righteousness is...... back to more head scratching goodness.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The rugged narrow road
I have been struggling with lust and laziness, trying to remember and remind my self of the cross brings much comfort, but I felt there was more I needed to do, something was not right. I am starting to see the value of knowing and understanding and thinking through the Bible on my own.
Often we are told an over simplified version of the truths regarding salvation.
"Jesus died for our sins"
"We are justified by faith alone, we just need to believe in Jesus and what he has done on the cross"
"God is sovereign and we need to rely on Him to overcome our sin"
"When we sin, He is merciful to forgive us"
"The devil condemns us and we need to remember our sins are atoned for by Christ's death on the cross."
These are good summaries, but when we don't read through the Bible and change our thinking, but only know these vague understandings, we can get in trouble.
The reality of sin
I think the biggest trap is abusing God's grace. Paul warns against this in Romans 6. "Should I sin so that grace may abound? Absolutely not!" Sin is not just some vague theory, but a very serous matter and it is very real.
When I examine myself, I can agree with Paul's writing in Romans 7. There is are thoughts of lust, anger, hatred against others that come up in my head. The Jews have the law to guide them and reveal to them the reality of sin, we as gentiles have our conscious(But now also the law). For when I outburst against someone in anger, my conscious tells me it's wrong and I feel guilty, and I should apologize.
This is the reality of the law of flesh Paul wrote about, for some reason, we are indeed free from sin's power and our desire for sin if we believe in Christ and His work on the cross, but it is still present in us, constantly waging war against us as long as we live in this world.
The consequences of sin, and a covenant
And it would be bad for our souls if we don't wage war against it, as Paul then writes in Romans 8 "If you live by the flesh, then you will surely die." and again and again in his letters he encourages us to set our minds on things above, to put aside envy, malice, jealousy etc, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to put out brothers who are sexually immoral for the sake of repentance.
Why would he say this? Isn't it true that God has forgiven us through Christ? Isn't our salvation through faith in Christ alone?
When I read 1 and 2 Samuel recently, I am starting to see dire consequences of disobedience. The blood of Christ is not just the blood that cleanses our sins, but the blood of a new covenant, there are standards and rules we have to obey. When the old kings of Israel sinned, there were still consequences in this life. (Saul lost his favour with God, rebellion and unrest during the later years of David's reign, Israel's destruction in the future due to Solomon's idolatry etc.) God is merciful and will forgive us, yes, but He is just. He chastens those whom He loves when they disobey and sin, so they may return to Him and live(many times through painful suffering in this life). So when we are condemned, it is not always Satan. We have to forsake our sins and return to God. Because God will not lower the standards revealed through His laws and commandments.
Our choice, weakness, and strength to obey
It would be dangerous to think God is sovereign and wait on Him to take away our sins and temptations in this life, then we will make shipwreck of our faith (eg. parable of the talents in Matthew 25, although He promises to do so on the Day of the Lord.)
God is sovereign but we are responsible for our actions and need to make a choice to follow the Spirit or our flesh(See above on Paul's urging to battle sin), it is a sorrowful and hard battle against ourselves, because God will not relent by lowering His standards, even Jesus said "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." and again he says "be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect," and again to the adulteress woman, "Go and sin no longer."
But we are weak. Our efforts fall so short of these standards. Even Paul couldn't keep this standard through the law. That's why Jesus says it is a narrow road that leads to life, traveling with our cross in self denial. It is a road marked with pain and suffering. But also joy and delight. Because Christ travels this road with us. He became human and suffered, so He understands our weakness.
If we are willing to go to Him, honestly, openly, with our weakness, with our sin, and brokeness, if we let Him love us and wash our feet, we will find the strength to obey out of a love for Him.
I am a novice who just started to travel this road, let us encourage each other to love and good deeds.
Often we are told an over simplified version of the truths regarding salvation.
"Jesus died for our sins"
"We are justified by faith alone, we just need to believe in Jesus and what he has done on the cross"
"God is sovereign and we need to rely on Him to overcome our sin"
"When we sin, He is merciful to forgive us"
"The devil condemns us and we need to remember our sins are atoned for by Christ's death on the cross."
These are good summaries, but when we don't read through the Bible and change our thinking, but only know these vague understandings, we can get in trouble.
The reality of sin
I think the biggest trap is abusing God's grace. Paul warns against this in Romans 6. "Should I sin so that grace may abound? Absolutely not!" Sin is not just some vague theory, but a very serous matter and it is very real.
When I examine myself, I can agree with Paul's writing in Romans 7. There is are thoughts of lust, anger, hatred against others that come up in my head. The Jews have the law to guide them and reveal to them the reality of sin, we as gentiles have our conscious(But now also the law). For when I outburst against someone in anger, my conscious tells me it's wrong and I feel guilty, and I should apologize.
This is the reality of the law of flesh Paul wrote about, for some reason, we are indeed free from sin's power and our desire for sin if we believe in Christ and His work on the cross, but it is still present in us, constantly waging war against us as long as we live in this world.
The consequences of sin, and a covenant
And it would be bad for our souls if we don't wage war against it, as Paul then writes in Romans 8 "If you live by the flesh, then you will surely die." and again and again in his letters he encourages us to set our minds on things above, to put aside envy, malice, jealousy etc, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, to put out brothers who are sexually immoral for the sake of repentance.
Why would he say this? Isn't it true that God has forgiven us through Christ? Isn't our salvation through faith in Christ alone?
When I read 1 and 2 Samuel recently, I am starting to see dire consequences of disobedience. The blood of Christ is not just the blood that cleanses our sins, but the blood of a new covenant, there are standards and rules we have to obey. When the old kings of Israel sinned, there were still consequences in this life. (Saul lost his favour with God, rebellion and unrest during the later years of David's reign, Israel's destruction in the future due to Solomon's idolatry etc.) God is merciful and will forgive us, yes, but He is just. He chastens those whom He loves when they disobey and sin, so they may return to Him and live(many times through painful suffering in this life). So when we are condemned, it is not always Satan. We have to forsake our sins and return to God. Because God will not lower the standards revealed through His laws and commandments.
Our choice, weakness, and strength to obey
It would be dangerous to think God is sovereign and wait on Him to take away our sins and temptations in this life, then we will make shipwreck of our faith (eg. parable of the talents in Matthew 25, although He promises to do so on the Day of the Lord.)
God is sovereign but we are responsible for our actions and need to make a choice to follow the Spirit or our flesh(See above on Paul's urging to battle sin), it is a sorrowful and hard battle against ourselves, because God will not relent by lowering His standards, even Jesus said "unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." and again he says "be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect," and again to the adulteress woman, "Go and sin no longer."
But we are weak. Our efforts fall so short of these standards. Even Paul couldn't keep this standard through the law. That's why Jesus says it is a narrow road that leads to life, traveling with our cross in self denial. It is a road marked with pain and suffering. But also joy and delight. Because Christ travels this road with us. He became human and suffered, so He understands our weakness.
If we are willing to go to Him, honestly, openly, with our weakness, with our sin, and brokeness, if we let Him love us and wash our feet, we will find the strength to obey out of a love for Him.
I am a novice who just started to travel this road, let us encourage each other to love and good deeds.
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