Questions and Answers! So much of our communication is built on asking questions and giving or finding answers. You are probably reading this blog because the title or topic raised a particular interest for you. So, how am I going to answer the question that has formed in your mind? Even when we are making statements, we are often preemptively dealing with the questions that we are anticipating or assuming. Jesus was asked many questions. One of these was, “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus answered by repeating the answer that Yahweh had given centuries before, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This answer is all encompassing. Jesus lists for us distinct portions of our lives that are supposed to be consumed with love for God. These elements are meant to permeate the whole of our lives. However, we also need to understand that this should manifest in our lives in some very specific and important ways. Heart of the Matter In Matthew 22, Jesus says that we are to love the LORD with all our heart. The point being made by this emphasis on heart is that the heart is the center of our emotions and affections. We use the word heart in exactly this way even today. We say things such as, "I love you with all my heart!" or "She is heartbroken.” In this sense Jesus is telling us that love for God must have an emotive component. Not every person is emotional to the same level but every individual who knows the greatness of being rescued will be emotionally affected by the reality of that great salvation. This kind of emotion will also be experienced as conviction from the Holy Spirit when we have sinned against this great grace and the God whom we genuinely love. If you are not emotionally moved by the joy of your salvation or sorrow for your sin, be sure you have found salvation. Soul Train Jesus then instructs us to love God with all our soul. The soul refers to our being. We often talk about having a soul, but in reality we are a soul. Our soul is that life or being that we have as God's image bearers. As such we are distinct from all the creatures who are not living souls. Jesus is saying that, at the core of our being, we are to be devoted to loving God. This is different from the emotion of the heart. This is the deliverance of our will. We therefore are the receivers of God's covenant love (Psalm 86) and the reflectors of that same love (1 John 4:19). Mind Matters Finally, Jesus says that we must love God with all our minds. Many people seem to celebrate that they have great affection for God that is divorced from theology or intellectual pursuit. But how can we really love Him or know Him without engaging our minds in pursuing Him? Voddie Baucham has famously said, "Many people proclaim their love for a Jesus who they don't know very well.” God has chosen to reveal Himself to us in a way that gives us the ability to study, reflect, and learn not only about Him but to know Him. We must recognize that the same “all” that was put with heart and soul is attached to the commandment concerning our mind. “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” Matthew 22:37 Everything The point of both the Old Testament commandment and Jesus' emphasis is that the true believer, the one in genuine covenant relationship with God, will love God wholly and completely. Brethren, let us examine ourselves and be sure that Christ has all our heart, soul, and mind!
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Trending Certain words become popular for certain periods of time. When I was a young kid everything was “awesome” and I’m not talking about the theme song of the Lego movie. The word awesome was applied to everything and, of course, many things that were not actually awesome. In our contemporary social media age, this is called trending. When I was in college, the word authentic became the buzz word. Every ministry or program promised to help you take off the mask and become the real “authentic” you. Among the words that have been used (or maybe hijacked) this way is the word remnant. It is sort of ironic that a word that means a small remaining quantity of something has been so popularly adopted among many leaders and church growth gurus. These people are not truly interested in leading a remnant but rather are hoping that a majority of people will resonate with feeling like they are a remnant. Everyone wants to be the heroic underdog that actually prevails in the end. But what if we truly considered the possibility that we are in the minority position? That we Bible believing, God fearing, gospel obeying Christians are actually a remnant. How Few How many is a few? The question is a bit relative. We are all prone to understand size and numerical values according to the size of the pond that we swim in on a daily basis. What is a small church? If you grew up in a small town where most churches ran 30 or 40 people and the one big church a town over had 100 people you probably think that is a big church. However, if you have lived in a mid to large population area where many churches had several hundred or several thousand people then 100 people would seem very small. If we are to understand what remnant means then we probably need to think in ratios. One million is a lot of anything unless that million is a part of a discussion of billions or even trillions. In Genesis 18: 22-33, Abraham is pleading with God to spare the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah on behalf of the relatively few righteous persons living there. Abraham does not know how many righteous people are there but he does know that God is a just judge and on that basis he advocates for the deliverance of the wicked cities. As Abraham haggles with the LORD, we see our gracious God going along with the series of lower bids as a demonstration of His amazing grace and compassion. Abraham begins with the proposal of 50 righteous persons and moves down 5 and 10 person increments until the LORD agrees to spare both cities if only 10 righteous persons were found there. In the end, only 3 make out and survive the disastrous judgment of God on those wicked cities. So how small a remnant were Lot and his daughters? This is not really that easy to assess. Estimations anywhere from a few hundred to fifty thousand have been considered as possible. However, three is a pretty small company out of two cities of any size. The point for us to ponder is are we such a remnant? The reason I am asking this question is to spur us to consider both our prayer and proclamation. If we are a small remnant among the larger population then the need for each of us to be devoted to passionate prayer and poignant preaching is now! We must be the little flock (Luke 12:32-34) who know that we are putting our treasure, time, and talents where our hearts already are with the Lord. The Few The Marines used to have a slogan, “the few, the proud, the Marines.” The meaning is clear that being a Marine makes a person a part of an elite group. However, in Christendom to be part of the few or the remnant is a humbling admission that we have received the underserved grace of God. The way to the kind of destruction suffered by those wicked cities in Abraham’s day is broad and easy and many have gone that way and even now continue the well worn path. But Jesu also told us that there is a narrow and hard path which leads to life and few find it. Beloved, let us find that path and point it out to as many as possible! (Matthew 7:13-14) Origins We all came from somewhere. Even If you’ve never really had a place that felt like “home,” you did not just materialize out of nowhere. Your existence, like everyone else’s, is a derived existence. However, unlike the secular determinism of Darwinism you are not simply the necessary outcome of what came before. What I am referring to is the secular answer to the nature of sowing and reaping, cause and effect. In the worldview that tries to conceive of a universe without a personal and purposeful Creator, one must explain how things are the way they are and what process brings as a result the current world around us. To deal with this, many of the brightest minds who are groping around in the gloomy darkness of atheism have concluded that current and future outcomes are fatalistically determined by the series of moments, minutes, months, and millennia transpiring before. These things are not decreed or chosen but they are necessarily determined by the impersonal action and reaction of matter and energy. But in reality, in the real world (God’s world), our existence is planned and purposeful. We, as human beings, exist because our Creator has formed us for His glory and to accomplish His amazing purposes. We have our existence from His hand and His will. You and all other people are not accidents. God intended for you to exist and will use you to bring Himself glory. Everything and everyone in the universe has an intended and inescapable reason for being! Your beginning is from God and your being is for God. The Apostle Paul even said that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:22-31). Precedents In modern jurisprudence precedents are really important. The idea of precedents is that the prior interpretation and application of laws and statues helps to guide and clarify the current rendering of those issues. On the issue of life many would try to argue that the legal murder of infants in the womb is now a matter of precedent. This means that it should be assumed that the lethal legality of the last half century should be taken into consideration on the issue. However, the former precedent of illegality from the balance of American history is far more imposing. The most important issue should not be the standing of precedent but the interpretation of the text of the constitution which does not contain any kind of right to abortion whether explicit or implicit. However, there is an explicit right to life in the text. Jurisdiction The problem is that we as a society have lost our understanding of proper jurisdictional authority. God has granted diverse authority to different realms of government. The three basic levels are family, church and state. However, none of these have unilateral authority over the taking of innocent life. We see in some honor/shame culture the family assuming this authority and sinfully murdering members (usually women) of their own households. In many false religions we also see this kind of sinful authoritarian assumption in those ecclesiastical bodies. But in the United States this has been championed by the state. The Bible does say that the state bears the sword and can legitimately take lives under some circumstances. But those circumstances are for the rendering of justice on those who have broken the moral laws given to protect lives and the society. Only God Himself has unilateral jurisdiction over life and death and He alone is good, just, righteous and able to carry such enormous authority. This Sunday is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Let us as God’s people plead with Him for the atrocity of abortion to be taken away from our land and for the precious lives of unborn children to protected and prospered! A Good Start Here we are just one week into the new year. With the challenges that the whole world has faced the last 2 years, many of us are heading into 2022 with a mix of apprehension and anticipation. You may be concerned about what earth shattering or life changing thing will happen next. Certainly, the profound pace of change that we have all experienced recently could lead us to feel a lack of stability. The one thing we do know is that future events are uncertain and things will happen that could not have been planned for or anticipated. However, as we enter this new year we can also have an optimistic outlook. We can have a mindset that focuses on the real possibilities and genuine opportunities that we will encounter in the next 12 months. Something about the changing of the date seems to inspire us to imagine all the changes that we want to make. Obviously, most people do not make all those changes but the new year does seem to signify a fresh start. Even if the circumstances around us haven’t changed it is helpful to put the past in the past and move forward with the things we can do and that God has given us to for Him! Just Start Maybe the new year can serve you by getting you started. What I mean is that often what hinders our progress is nothing but our own procrastination. What we need is to just start. Have you ever wanted to make a change or start something new? You planned and dreamed but you never actually did it because you just never started. Possibly you never started because the timing or the planning or the circumstances were never perfect. Well those things will never be perfect and it is possible for our vision of excellence to keep us from doing what is good and needed. Many people tend to think that if the start isn’t perfect, then they will be destined for failure. But the only thing that has a 100% risk of failure is doing nothing. If we are not engaged in the purposes that God has for us then we have already failed. Do you want to grow closer to the Lord? Then you know you need to read the Bible, but it begins with reading the first page. Do you want to disciple your children? Then it starts with the first night or morning when you read scripture and pray with them. Do you want deep meaningful Christian relationships? Then it starts with gathering regularly with your church and in smaller groups (Sunday school, midweek, etc.) till those connections are formed. The point is that none of these things are automatic if we do not start cultivation our lives toward a God centered culture. Start to Finish First, we need to start, but next, we need to continue. We as God’s people need to keep going in pursuit of God. We need to be straining toward the heavenly goal (Philippians 3:12-16). Paul is so clear that as Christians we need to keep our eyes focused and our lives moving. This is because we are citizens of heaven and not so that we will be citizens of heaven. Paul’s point to the Philippians is that if they are truly in Christ then they will keep going with Christ at the center of our lives. We now belong to Him and so we seek Him! Do you enjoy the sense of accomplishment when a task is completed? Even as I write this I am experiencing that satisfaction of this task being done. But the only way to finish a task is to begin. So let us with eager anticipation get a good start in 2022! |
AuthorEddie Ragsdale Archives
May 2024
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