Walking With Jesus

Gladiator or Spectator?

“For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” (Philippians 1:21 NLT)

Being a Jesus follower isn’t only important in teaching us how to live, it’s vital in preparing us to die. We may never be put in a literal arena to face an opponent, but unless and until we understand that life as a believer in Jesus is a battle to the end, we’ll likely never take our life as God’s child very seriously.

My dad was a boxer as a young man, and he taught me that one of the most important elements of boxing is knowing your enemy. Planning to fight a guy 5’11” who does best inside, then going into the ring with a guy 6’3” who has arms as long as a baseball bat can spell “bad night.”

If you don’t understand Satan’s desire to defeat you intensifies when you get saved, you won’t see any need to equip yourself with an effective strategy to prepare for his attacks. One thing we must learn quickly and never forget is John’s words in 1 John 4:4: “But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.”

The key to success as a gladiator for Jesus is to never forget whose you are. As long as our trust and dependence are upon the strong Holy Spirit who lives in us, we can’t lose. We may get knocked down, but we’ll never get knocked out. However, when we focus on the size of our enemy instead of the size of our Savior, we’re setting ourselves up for defeat.

The other issue with which we must come to terms is realizing we’re candidates for the “arena,” not simply spectators who watch the battles of others. To believe the Christian life is a “cakewalk” in the park is to misunderstand our enemy and our role as a child of God. Satan’s plan is to “steal, kill, and destroy.” He wants to steal our joy in Jesus, kill our enthusiasm for the fight, and destroy our confidence in our ability to trust the Spirit to do the work in and through us that only He can do.

Equally as debilitating is to believe we’re strong enough to fight life’s battles alone. A good fighter never enters the ring alone. He has a trainer who knows, not only his skills, but the skills of his opponent. You also have a qualified and well-equipped “cut man.” A nasty cut can end a fight as quickly as a knockout. That’s why it’s called a TKO – Technical Knockout.

Satan’s goal is to get you out of the fight, not necessarily knock you out. How does he do that? His primary weapon is discouragement. If he can get you to believe you can’t win, that the battle is too much for you, he’s won by default. That’s why you need a strong team of people who know and love the Lord and know and love you.

The Church isn’t an afterthought of God, it’s been His plan all along. But we’ve got to see and understand the “Church,” not as a building where we go to join together in worship, but as an army of God’s people who band together as brothers and sisters in the fight for the souls of men and women, boys and girls.

Nehemiah 4:14 says: “Fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes!” In this context he was speaking of a willingness to enter a literal, physical battle, but the same principle applies to our spiritual warfare, waged in prayer first, then in concert with others who know and love Jesus. Corky Calhoun wrote: “Christianity is not a spectator sport, we are gladiators and not fans.”

So, which are you? Gladiator or Spectator? I pray you’ll put on your armor and go to war with the enemy of your soul, battling in prayer and in any other way the Lord leads, to liberate those in bondage to Satan. Obviously, there are many more things we can do in this fight for the bodies, souls, hearts, and minds of those who are lost than pray, but prayer is the work, then God works!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Becoming Eyes

“Then Elisha prayed, ‘O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!’ The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.” (2 Kings 6:17 NLT)

Fear can blind us to the presence of God and His delivering agents. When we’re so focused on all the things that can go wrong – in our lives, in our plans, in our health, in our finances, in our relationships – we blind ourselves to the goodness of God and the power of His almighty hand. Like Elisha’s servant, we focus so much on the enemies at our door, we fail to see the army of God surrounding us.

We do a similar thing when we choose to focus on all we’re not – we’re not smart enough, attractive enough, wealthy enough, influential enough, spiritual enough, faithful enough, or good enough. In our mind’s eye we fall too far short for God to ever use us in a significant way. We look at the proverbial “giants” of faith in Hebrews 11, failing to see that they had feet of clay just like us.

One of the many things I love about Jesus is His becoming eyes. Once we place our trust in Him, He doesn’t see our sin and failure and cast us aside. Rather, He sees the masterpiece He designed us to become, fills us with His Holy Spirit, and equips us to be a mighty man or woman of God. He chooses not to focus on our past, but delights in imagining our bright future with Him.

My dad was a machinist by trade but bought and sold used cars to supplement his income. I marveled at his ability to look at what I thought was a worthless piece of junk and turn it into someone’s dream car. He refused to sell a car if he knew it had anything wrong with it. As a result, people who had bought cars from him would call from other states and would buy a car sight unseen, because they trusted his judgment.

That’s why I choose to trust God with the outcome of my life. I would have given up on me a long time ago, but every time I’ve fallen or failed, His hand has always been extended to lift me up and use my bad decision to build character into my life. I think of what Jesus said to Peter in John 1:42: “Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, ‘Your name is Simon, son of John – but you will be called Cephas’ (which means ‘Peter’).”

Jesus saw Peter’s future as a “Rock” of faith as he led the early church, as clearly as He saw his failure and denial of Jesus. Like me, I suspect Peter would likely have tried with everything within him to run away from the mission the Lord designed and equipped him to lead, believing he wasn’t good enough, but, gratefully, not only for him, but for us, he allowed Jesus’ becoming eyes to draw him back.

Ron Hutchcraft wrote: “See, when Jesus looks at you, it’s through His becoming eyes. Maybe you’ve lived most of your life not feeling highly valued by people. They’ve picked on your handicaps, they’ve emphasized your failures, and they’ve attacked your weaknesses. Maybe you think more about what you aren’t than what you are.”

It’s time to take your eyes off all you’ve chosen to believe you’re not and begin to see yourself through the eyes of Jesus. He’s way past all you aren’t. His eyes are locked onto who you’re becoming in and for Him. He sees your incredible potential, just like He was able to see it in Peter, the rock. God’s power is unparalleled and unequaled, so, whatever lies the enemy is trying to get you to believe, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face; And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace.” (Helen H. Lemmel)

Blessings, Ed 😊

Death Is So Final!

“As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.” (Luke 16:21 NLT)

Increasingly, in America, there is a shrinking “middle class,” while poverty and homelessness increase their ranks. Like the rich man in Jesus’ parable, we’re so accustomed to seeing someone begging at a traffic light or outside a store, we often look right through them.

We’re not told how long Lazarus laid at the rich man’s gate, but it’s evident that the rich man was oblivious to his obvious needs. How like the rich man I am in many ways, as I ignore those who have so many needs, or do I?

While pastoring a church in a transitioning neighborhood, I grew accustomed to having three to five people coming to the church each day begging, mostly for money. At first, my heart broke and I often gave them $10 or $20 to “help” them.

What I learned over time was I didn’t “help,” I enabled. As I began to recognize the same people coming back, I felt sick that I’d let so many people take advantage of my generosity. So, I made a decision. With rare exception I stopped dolling out money and started listening more closely to their stories. I prayed for and with them, seeking to find ways to get to know them.

There was a young man in our church who volunteered to contact local resources who needed workers or had apartments or rooms for rent at a very reasonable rate. But rather than jumping at the chance to have a roof over their head, many turned away because the places weren’t nice enough. Now I give through my church to equip our ministry to actually help people who want to be helped.

What’s my point? When I stopped putting Band-Aids on the people’s “cancer,” the Lord began to show me that poverty isn’t so much a matter of not having enough money or food, it’s often a matter of how people think, how they see themselves. It becomes an endless, generational cycle of defeat in which people become trapped by their wrong views of themselves and others.

It seems ironic on some levels that Jesus’ point in His parable of the rich man and Lazarus didn’t focus on money or provision for Lazarus. It wasn’t a condemnation of the rich in favor of exalting the poor. All rich people aren’t going to hell and all poor people aren’t going to heaven. It instead emphasized the subtle nature of sin and a false sense of security those who have money often trade for a right relationship with God.

The tragedy of this story is the rich man didn’t realize his need of God before it was eternally too late. Not only did he miss an opportunity to address the concerns of a very needy man, but he also ignored his own desperate need of a relationship with God. His need of Jesus wasn’t realized until death’s final call.

Implicit in the parable is the recognition that Lazarus apparently had a relationship with God, illustrated by his being ushered into the presence of Abraham. What was the point of the parable? To me it was two-fold. First, being rich may make things easier in this life, but it gives no guarantee of a home in heaven. And, secondly, being poor doesn’t automatically mean we have a right relationship with God.

Rich or poor, we will all one day stand before the Commander in Chief of all creation to give an account of our lives. And the key to understanding this parable is realizing that death is the final act of life. We will all one day die and if we haven’t decided to follow Jesus before that day, there are no second chances. If we’re ever going to warn our family about the torments of hell, it needs to be now, before death knocks on our door or theirs.

Death is so final!

Food for thought!

Blessings, Ed

Faithfulness Leads to Fruitfulness

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NLT)

As I look back over my life, I can very often gauge the fruitfulness of my life by my faithfulness. In other words, those times when my life was bearing very little fruit were the times I was distracted in my faith. We can be very busy doing “Christian” things, while at the same time rendering very little honor and glory to our Savior.

Bob Goff wrote: “It’s easy to confuse busyness with progress and accomplishments with pleasing Jesus.” We can be so busy being faithful we miss the purpose of our faithfulness. Someone said: “we can get so busy doing the work of the Lord, we forget the Lord of the work.” We can be very faithful for the wrong reasons or in a wrong way.

For example, while pastoring a small church I learned that those who complain the loudest about being “overworked” in the ministry aren’t always grateful when you get them the help they claim to so desperately need. A very faithful worker was assuming many roles in the Sunday School area when a new person began attending our church.

The new person had background in teaching and leading, so we used her a few times to fill in. She was amazing. The kids loved her, and her life shined with the glow of Jesus. Yet, when I made some adjustments, giving her a spot on the teaching team, the person who was “overworked” and “desperately” needed assistance, suddenly was very angry because I was “pushing her out.”

Love doesn’t demand its own way, it embraces others and makes room for those who are willing to help, whether that’s in the local church or in the workplace. Our faithfulness isn’t measured simply by what we do in and through the church. The Lord wants the fruit of our faithfulness to be evidenced in every avenue of our lives.

Faithfulness should be born out of our obedience. Fruit grows over time as our skillful Gardner prunes us and shapes us for His service, whether in the church, our home, our workplace, or in our places of recreation. There should be no avenue of our lives devoid of the influence of our faithful love of and service to our Savior.

Steven Furtick wrote: “It is often in the process of obedience that character is formed.” One of the main indicators that the fruit of God’s Spirit is doing His work in us is the development of godly character. If our attitude or outlook, especially in how we treat others, is different at church, in our home, in our workplace, or when hanging out with friends, we’re missing the point of faithfulness.

Our faithfulness to God is designed to point all honor, glory, and praise to the One for whom we’re seeking to be fruitful in the first place. It’s never about us. It’s always and only about Jesus. Our role is to be faithful. His role is to bear fruit in and through our lives.

It’s a rule of life that someone who is good at something makes it look easy. That’s true whether it’s preaching or playing tennis. When our desire is to be faithful to the Lord in every area of our lives, His Spirit will produce fruit in and through us that makes others believe it’s effortless for us. And the fact is, it is! Why? Because it’s not us who produces the fruit in the first place.

The reality is, if your heart beats with desire to please Jesus, it’s very likely you’re far more fruitful than you realize. Just keep walking faithfully and leave the fruit to Him.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You Turned Off by Worship?

“’Get out of here, Satan,’ Jesus told him. ‘For the Scriptures say, “You must worship the Lord your God and serve only Him.”’” (Matthew 4:10 NLT)

Our life-defining worship isn’t what we do when gathered with others, it’s how we live our lives from day to day. Many can get excited about the compelling music and powerful messages given in a corporate setting, but while God certainly shows up when we worship Him with others, I’m convinced His favorite times with us are when we recognize Him in the middle of an exam at school or working as unto Him in our chosen professions.

It’s amazing to me how many people I know who profess faith in Jesus, never open their Bible or lift their heart and mind to God in prayer except in a time of crisis. David Jeremiah wrote: “Going through life without worship is like living with blurred vision. We can neither see nor understand things clearly. Our wisdom is indistinct, and our perspective is fuzzy.”

Early in my walk with the Lord I believed that my “quiet time” was to include reading the Bible and praying, which, of course, it is. But at that point in my walk, I believed the hour or so I spent with Him in the morning was pretty much “it.” I may have done “sentence prayers” on and off throughout my day, but for all intent and purpose my mind was focused on what was in front of me to do, not on Jesus.

It didn’t occur to me until much later in my faith walk that my mind needs to be focused and centered on Jesus every moment of every day. Everything else is incidental to worshipping Him with my whole being. Our lives are “acts of worship,” whether we’re singing a worship song at church or doing what we do at work.

Regardless of our profession, every detail of our being needs to be dependent upon the Spirit’s leadership and Jesus’ lordship in and through us. Paul summarized this in Colossians 3:23 when he wrote: “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” We’re called to be instruments of the living God, allowing Him to do His work in and through us regardless of where we are or what we’re doing.

Be the best barber, police officer, accountant, teacher, or whatever else God has called you to do, never allowing your mind to stray from your dependence upon the Spirit’s leadership to speak and work in and through you every second of every day.

There are those who see “worship” as boring and out of touch with “real” life. Yes, of course, there are times we need to be alone on our face before the Lord, but we are no less God-dependent in the middle of a presentation at work as we are begging Him to watch over our sons and daughters.

When we yield our lives to Jesus, He becomes our life. We don’t add Him to our busy schedules, we step aside and let Him orient and dictate what our schedules are to be. When we’re too busy to allow Jesus to lead our lives, we’re allowing the enemy to lead them. David Jeremiah wrote: “Worshiping God each day means focusing on Him, letting Him give us the vision and perspective we need. Turn your mind toward Jesus and learn to think on Scripture as you go to sleep, wake up, and go through your day.”

If you’re turned off by Jesus, you don’t have a clue who He is. A. W. Tozer said: “Any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven.” Worship is the time and effort we give to what we love, whether that’s singing songs and listening to a sermon or praising and honoring the Lord as we wax our car.

If you want insight into what you worship take a hard look at where you spend your time and money. If you’re not seeing Jesus there, He’s very likely not a part of your life.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

What Is Your Desired Outcome?

“And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering.” (Romans 8:17 NLT)

We all have, or at least had at one time, desires for how we wanted our life to look. We wanted to contribute in some way – to be recognized, admired, respected. We wanted our lives to matter. Knowing the brevity of this life, we wanted to come to the end and believe our life made a difference.

But what then?

Unless we understand that this life is the training ground for the life to come, we’ll waste it on things that have no eternal value. Outcome has to do with perspective, but in order to have a right perspective of something, you have to know what you’re looking for.

C. S. Lewis wrote: “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.” Having lost much of my hearing in my left ear, often in a conversation, especially in a crowded area, what someone says and what I hear are two completely different things. That happens to all of us in the “noisy” environment of our lives.

It seems the voices of our world are all clamoring to draw us in a thousand directions forcing us try to cram everything possible in the limited time we have in this life. Even when we’re on “vacation,” we’re not able to relax and enjoy ourselves.

It’s as if we, as human beings, are looking at the parade of life through a keyhole, while God is viewing it from the roof top. He sees our lives from beginning to end, while we see our lives from the perspective of this moment. Our perspective is skewed by temporal concerns, while God filters everything through its eternal value.

It’s becoming crystal clear to me that Satan’s goal isn’t always to make us bad, it’s just to keep us so busy with things, that from an eternal perspective don’t matter, we miss the life Jesus died to give us. In our desperate pursuit of “life,” we miss the only life-Giver.

That’s one of the reasons Jesus urged us to pursue the narrow way. He said in Matthew 7:14: “But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” Those haunting words always troubled me because I don’t want to miss it. But that’s His point. If you’re looking for it, it will open before you, but if you’re so busy looking everywhere else, you’ll miss it even if it’s right in front of you.

Many miss it because they want the paved, smooth road, not the cobblestone, dirt, or rocky road. Our orientation is to want comfort and ease, not trouble and tribulation, but that’s the only way to find the way to Life. Someone wrote: “There is no glory in being a feather-bed soldier, a man bedecked with gorgeous regimentals, but never beautified by a scar, or ennobled by a wound. All that you ever hear of such a soldier is that his spurs jingle on the pavement as he walks. There is no history for this carpet knight. He is just a dandy. He never smelt gunpowder in his life; or if he did, he fetched out a smelling bottle, to kill the offensive odor. Well, that will not make much show in the story of nations. If we could have our choice, and we were as wise as the Lord Himself, we should choose the troubles He has appointed us, and we should not spare ourselves a single pang.”

If your desired outcome is luxury and an easy life, you’ll very likely miss Jesus and His heaven. But if you invite anything that will make you more like Him and that will better prepare you for the life to come, then you’ll never take a step without His guiding hand.

Blessings, Ed 😊

What Will Unite A Struggling Church?

“So the crowd was divided about Him.” (John 7:43 NLT)

Having pastored mostly small churches, I understand disagreement and division. It’s hard to keep a “ship” on course when you can’t agree on its destination. Whatever measure of success I had in helping churches to grow was rooted in two things. First, keeping their attention riveted on reaching the lost in their spheres of influence and in our community.

The second critical factor was Discipleship, which is essentially teaching those in the church and those newly converted, what it means to walk with Jesus. When someone is focused on Jesus and learning to more effectively follow and grow in Him, they’re much less focused on trivial issues which can cause division in the church.

The times in which we live, on many levels, are unprecedented. Obviously, we are closer to the return of our Savior than we’ve ever been, but the “signs of the times” are pointing to His soon return on a much larger scale than ever before. Satan’s strategy is still the same, but he seems to be having greater success, which is exactly what the Bible teaches.

Jesus asked a very frightening question in Luke 12:51-52: “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against – or two in favor and three against.”

What’s He talking about? Would He intentionally divide families against one another? His “vision of division” is pointing to end times. Yes, of course, He died to bring forgiveness of sin and peace and harmony in our walk with Him, but by virtue of that decision, it automatically will divide us from others who don’t believe, and, yes, sometimes that includes family members. What’s my point?

In the church we’re supposed to be made up of kindred spirits who are all seeking to live at peace with God and in harmony with one another, but, ideally, we’re constantly bringing new people into the fellowship. Some are saved and some are not; some have history with the church, and some do not; some are walking by faith and some are only pretending, with the bottom line, it is a seedbed for chronic division.

Satan’s plan is to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10) and a primary tool he uses is discouragement and dissatisfaction – with the pastor, with another person in the church, with a decision the board made, because my Sunday School teacher doesn’t like me, because ________ and you can fill in the blank.

We get enmeshed in minutia and lose sight of why we exist as a body of believers. We wrongly assume that the church exists to meet “my needs,” forgetting that we exist to honor and serve our Master. And, yes, I understand that any pastor or leader will rarely, if ever, get everyone on board with reaching their community. But gratefully, the Lord will begin with one person if need be. But it begins with prayer.

What if you began to pray and trust the Lord to give you a burden for your family, your neighborhood, the neighborhood around your church? What if you decided to walk the streets of your city praying and asking the Lord to open your heart to those around you who are without the Lord? What if you began by extending an invitation to 3-5 people to come to your house or meet at a restaurant for coffee, just to get acquainted.

Start small and build slowly but START! Be the catalyst of growth and devotion to Jesus in your family and in your church. The church I now attend and in which I serve, a church that is reaching thousands in our city, began with a prayer by one lady to bring a church to her city with a heart for the lost.

You want to start a revival in your church and city? Why not get on your knees and beg God to use you to get one started? Then ask Him to give you a heart for your neighbors. And know this – He will!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You Longing for a Heaven Without Jesus?

“In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” (Matthew 5:45 NLT)

Have you ever asked someone who isn’t a believer to describe what heaven will be like? How about someone you believe IS a believer? It’s amazing to me the things people say. They talk about “no sickness, no pain, no heartache, no regrets, no unmet needs, the fulfillment of all their hearts desires, being with loved ones and friends, no tears,” and on and on they go. Yes, of course, a lot of that is Biblical, but what’s missing in this picture?

How can heaven be described with no mention of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? If someone can think of heaven without acknowledging the Godhead, or especially Jesus, who is the only way to have access to heaven, it’s no wonder they never give Him a thought on earth. It’s not unusual for people to believe that their loved one who has died is in a better place, but the Bible is clear that when someone dies who doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus, it’s anything BUT a better place.

It’s understandable for someone who doesn’t know Jesus, especially those who are suffering in some way, to imagine heaven as anyplace but where they are, experiencing what they’re experiencing. To envision peace and calm, someplace safe from the cares of their world. To walk a mountain pathway or stroll through a beautiful forest, laden with colorful flowers, while listening to the songs of birds and the melody of a flowing stream, is to catch a glimpse perhaps of the serenity of heaven.

Heaven will be unimaginably beautiful, safe, and serene, more so than we can possibly envision, but all those wonderful things can’t begin to compare with the majesty and beauty of Jesus in all His brilliance and splendor. A “heaven” without Jesus is, in short, hell! To be separated on earth or in eternity from the presence of God is literally unimaginable to me.

Everything that matters to me in this life – my wife, kids, family, friends, the church, worship, singing and listening to songs that glorify and honor Jesus, prayer, thinking of Him endlessly, marveling at His goodness, kindness, mercy, and grace – to me, they’re all foretastes of being with Jesus in heaven. I can’t conceive of being anywhere that Jesus is not.

On a mission’s trip to Mexico, the compound where we stayed was at the base of a huge mountain range. Some of the other counselors and young men in our group thought it would be fun to climb up the mountain just to see what we could see. We started out one afternoon, but it took us almost an hour to get to the base, so we decided to start early the next morning.

We set a time we would have to be back and just decided to go as far as time allowed. The foliage was thick in some areas, which slowed us down, but after a few hours we came to an opening that allowed us to see for miles. We had come out above some clouds and the view was amazing. I remember thinking: “My Savior created all of this. He’s the Author of all this beauty. I wonder how much more breathtaking heaven will be?”

There is a German hymn, whose author is unknown, translated by Joseph Augustus Seiss that I remember singing. I remember it as “Beautiful Savior,” but it’s also known as “Fairest Lord Jesus.” The verses are: 1 Beautiful Savior, King of creation, Son of God and Son of Man! Truly I’d love Thee, truly I’d serve thee, Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown. 2 Fair are the meadows, Fair are the woodlands, Robed in flow’rs of blooming spring; Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer; He makes our sorr’wing spirit sing. 3 Fair is the sunshine, Fair is the moonlight, Bright the sparkling stars on high. Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer Than all the angels in the sky. 4 Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations, Son of God and Son of Man! Glory and honor, Praise, adoration, Now and forevermore be Thine!

Are you longing for a heaven without Jesus? It doesn’t exist!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Believer or Belonger?

“’And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.’ He said this to indicate how He was going to die.” (John 12:32-33 NLT)

Imagine, like Jesus, being the only one of your kind. Talk about being conspicuous! My second mission’s trip was to the beautiful country of Guatemala. We had our own small bus which had racks on the top for luggage, but some of us talked the driver into letting us sit on top of the bus as we drove the narrow mountain roads. The views were breathtaking.

And when we would stop in one of the small villages, we were the only white people some of them had ever seen. They wanted to look at us and touch our faces. The children wanted to hold our hands and walk with us. It was like we were magnets pulling the people of the village to our sides.

In my mind’s eye I imagine that’s how it was for Jesus. It was difficult for Him to find a place to be alone. His heart of love was like a magnet drawing lost, lonely, and hurting people to His side. Ideally, that’s what the Holy Spirit longs to do in and through us, not just individually, but collectively, as His Body, the Church.

Christianity, as a belief system, has become, and continues to be, the largest religion in the world, but the fastest growing religious group today is the “nothing in particulars.” Their essential “doctrine” is their own goodness. Do good things, don’t hurt anyone, be kind, and generous, and that should be good enough.

It’s ironic on some levels that the goodness of God, who, by the way, is the only One who is truly good, has gotten swallowed up by the “goodness” of those who see no need of God. It seems they’ve decided to lean solely on their own goodness to get them to the “heaven” of their own design.

Even within the Church, the lifestyle choices of those who “belong” to local bodies of believers, is often indistinguishable from those who have no allegiance to Jesus. Think of the thousands who chased after Jesus, who were enamored by His miracles and who wanted to be identified with His popularity yet were nowhere to be found when He was arrested and “wrongly” executed.

Obviously, that was God’s plan all along, illustrated by the verse above – to be “lifted up” on the Cross. But why? So that He might draw everyone to Himself. Why is that important for us to understand? Primarily so that we don’t mistake our popularity or attractiveness as what’s drawing people to Jesus. He doesn’t need us to be popular on His behalf, He desires us to faithfully live lives of purity and honor so that He can use us to point others to Him, not so people will “worship” us.

He wants us to believe in Him, placing our faith squarely and only in His completed work on Calvary on our behalf. To think that anything or anyone but Jesus is the “magnet” is to miss our call as His children. We’re never the ones being “raised up’ so that others can be drawn to us. We’re only instruments who are filled and empowered by Him to be useful in pointing others to Him.

Ron Hutchcraft said: “Your eternity will not be decided by what you do with Christianity. It will be decided by what you do with Christ.”

We can belong to a Christian church or group of believers, as we should, but belonging isn’t what saves us. Only belief in Christ alone, by faith alone, which activates and enables us to bear the fruit of Christlikeness, is the pathway to true salvation. Our goodness is simply an evidence of His holy presence living in and through us, revealing Him as the magnet to those who desperately need Him, not ourselves.

Thank you, believer in Jesus, for faithfully and selflessly pointing those in your spheres of influence to Him, proving to all that you’re a believer, not simply a belonger.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Created for His Glory

“As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world’s interest in me has also died.” (Galatians 6:14 NLT)

Why do you believe you were born? As the population of the world surpasses 8 billion people, worldwide about twice as many people are born each day than die. Of all those people, not a single one is born without God’s notice or without His image imprinted on their soul. God said in Genesis 1:26: “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.”

You and I, and every other person in this world, are created for a single purpose – to be imager bearers of our heavenly Father. What does that mean? Our primary role is to brag on Jesus, to glorify Him in and through our life and living, blessing God and serving mankind to His honor.

In the Greek language, from which the New Testament was translated, there are different words that come into our English language as “glory.” The word translated “boast” in the verse above is translated in the King James Version as “glory.” What does it mean to “glorify” Jesus?

God demonstrated on three separate occasions what it means to glorify, honor, and brag on Jesus. First, when Jesus was Baptized. In Matthew 3:17 God said: “This is My dearly loved Son, who brings Me great joy.” Second, on the occasion of Jesus’ transfiguration, God said: “This is My dearly loved Son, who brings Me great joy. Listen to Him.” And third, in a conversation with His disciples related to His imminent sacrifice, Jesus said: “’Now My soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, “Father, save Me from this hour”? But this is the very reason I came! Father, bring glory to Your name.’ Then a voice spoke from heaven, saying, ‘I have already brought glory to My name, and I will do so again.’”

Did you catch that? The very reason Jesus came to earth was to carry out the mission God had planned for Him – to lay His sinless life down as a sacrifice for the sin of all mankind – His LIFE was a source of honor, praise, and glory to the Father, just as our lives should be. But that’s not all. His death would also glorify and honor His Father! But why?

Because it’s only through His death that the shackles of sin and death are broken, enabling us to be vessels of honor who can also render praise and glory to our beloved Savior, which is the primary way we honor the Father. That’s why we’re created.

Paul writes in Colossians 1:15-16: “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through Him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see – such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. EVERYTHING WAS CREATED THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM!”

God, through Jesus, created us for Himself, to be vessels of honor though whom the world may know that He alone is God, the Savior, Redeemer, Ruler, and soon coming King of all that is or ever will be. Our lives are God’s instruments through which we become the orchestra of God’s majesty to play the symphony of His eternal praise and honor.

“But,” you may be thinking, “how can a broken, sinful, worthless vessel like me ever be fit to display the beauty and majesty of Jesus?” Because we become the glory of His life and death when by grace and through faith in Him alone, our lives are transformed by the renewing of our mind and heart. And, as the ugly, worthless, “worm” breaks out of the imprisonment of its cocoon to become the beautiful, colorful, and majestic “butterfly,” so we are honored to become the sons and daughters of God! Nothing but the blood of Jesus could ever have made provision for such a miracle.

Pastor Alistair Begg wrote: “Only when we understand that we were created for His glory can we turn life’s trials and toils into acts of worship.”

HALLELUJAH! WHAT A SAVIOR!

Blessings, Ed 😊