God's Kind of Life

     We have so many choices today of how to live our lives.  Even those who are determined to follow the Lord have to wade through so many distractions and temptations that the can easily be fooled and led astray if they are not paying attention and choosing to focus greatly on God's guidance.
     In Psalm 19, the writer begins by reminding us of how the creations of God, even if we just focus on the sky above, tell of the greatness of God, his wisdom, and power.  It reminds us of how he has organized the sun to heat and light each day and for the night to reveal the mass expanse of his knowledge in the universe.
     Then it is revealed that God is also complete in his understanding of how we should live a life free of complication, unnecessary stresses, enlightenment for our minds, and how the most valuable aspect of our lives is our trust in the Lord.  God has not only revealed his identity in nature, but in a special way as he has provided scripture to help us live according to His ways which are the best ways to live the life he has planned for us.
     Following the commandments, precepts, and laws he has revealed to us, provide us with a life free of complication, but also a pathway that will bring us good results even when we do not fully understand where we are headed.  We will also not be guilty of sin against God which bring separation, loneliness, and all else that results from living our lives alone, outside of God's will.
     Let us meditate on and speak into our lives, the revealed, acceptable, and blessed ways of God, our Creator and Lord.

    
   

Psalm 19:7-14English Standard Version (ESV)


The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;

the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.


Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.


Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

By Grace

If you want to understand what it is to be a Christian or believer in Christ, and want to understand how it is that sin is overcome and salvation is given from sin and death, the best answers can be found in the book of Romans.  I believe the Holy Spirit led Paul to write an extensive explanation with detailed examples and explanations for those of us who ponder this question from every angle.  The answers are explained simply, but our desire to re-state them often gets us into areas of misunderstanding.  Read the book of Romans as a Christian or as someone wanting to understand following Christ.  I have recently had to book read to me online so I could listen and ponder it. What a Blessing!  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1&version=NIV

How do we become righteous before God?  We do not become righteous before God by obeying his commandments and earning righteousness.  It is by God's decision to offer us the choice to depend upon Him.  God's decision to do so is called GRACE and our choice to depend upon Him is called FAITH.  To depend upon God is to give Him Glory and to be fully assured that what God has promised, He is able to perform.

For centuries mankind has struggled with the choice to depend upon God in Faith and receive his gift of Grace.  From the first man and woman we began to reject God's offer of togetherness with Him.  Our spiritual and physical lives have been affected by this choice.  We live in a world that has rejected togetherness with God in return for our selfish desires to make our own decisions toward worldly, temporary pleasures and accomplishments.  The Bible is a way of understanding how we have found ourselves in the situation we have today.

God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and other parts of the Law to show mankind how difficult it is to depend upon our own actions to be righteous... in fact it is not difficult, it is impossible.  All of us fall short of perfection.

God then sent Jesus, the Savior, to prepare a path whereby we could fulfill the requirement of righteousness, once again, not by our own accomplishment, but by by choosing to accept God's offer of grace and by depending on him through faith.  Jesus was born to a virgin woman, and as a human, and took upon the task of perfectly fulfilling of the law, which none of us could do.  He was at the same time God among us in spirit, to offer grace and guidance toward a reconciliation from sinfulness in spirit.  Jesus maintained completion of the law perfectly and then took the death penalty that we deserved because we could not keep the law.  God offered grace to us again and credited us with being righteous by our faith or dependence on the promises of God through Jesus who is God's perfect, sinless man and God's Holy Son in spirit.  We praise Him and keep his commandments because of that gift, not in order to earn it.  


Ephesians 2:1-10

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Is God a Fundamentalist?

We have all probably heard negative connotations of the term Fundamentalist as it refers to Christians.  This terms in the common culture has become a buzzword for someone who is hard to work with or even dangerous because their strict beliefs cause them to act in ways that do not mesh easily with the lifestyles of others.  Fundamentalists are often seen as legalistic and unwilling to even try to understand the viewpoint of someone else.  It is definitely a term whose definition itself is very much up for debate.  So to ask the question in the title of this post, we first have to have a definition to work with.  As many do, we go to the Webster Dictionary.

Fundamentalism - a movement in 20th century Protestantism emphasizing the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to Christian life and teaching, the beliefs of this movement : adherence to such beliefs. The second definition is: a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles.

Since this is not a complete and thorough examination of a topic, but a blog post, I'll keep it simple and let this become a conversation starter.  I'll skip any examination of the "movement in 20th Century Protestantism" and simply say the topic of whether the literally interpreted Bible is fundamental to the Christian life started long before the 1900s.   The topic of "literally interpreted" is also one that has many shades of understanding. The other topic that has been debated is the nature of the Bible itself and whether it is a collection of philosophical and declarative writings of men or whether it is a collection of writings that came from the mind of God himself written down by men under his influence.

When it all boils down to it, the debate of fundamentalism is a debate over the Bible.  So what is my understanding?  I would base my understanding on the physical and spiritual aspects of my search for truth that I believe we all should be on in this life.  

Is the Bible reliable?  Has it changed over the years? Why has the specific collection of books been preserved and others not included?  Does the Bible have a cohesive message that does not contradict itself?

Do the spiritual promises in the Bible hold true in our life experience?  As you can see, the questions are endless and there is a constant battle to not be prejudiced toward the physical experience of life over the spiritual experience of life.  There are answers to these questions, however, in spiritual and physical resources.  

Some of the best research on the consistency of the Bible over the centuries comes from Josh McDowell. He was a skeptic who set out to disprove the reliability of the Bible to his Christian friends and has spent a lifetime gathering evidence which shows the uniqueness of the Bible is the areas of circulation, translation, surviving persecution and surviving manuscripts.  These are scientific studies not opinion papers.

The question of the spiritual reliability of the Bible is the area that we can all spend our lifetimes realizing.  Study of the Bible is in one way an intellectual endeavor, but in the spiritual realm it is an opportunity to encounter God himself.  By adopting the teachings of the Bible into our lives, we step into God's plan.  Then you can experience for yourself the interaction with God that has captured the lives of people for centuries.

My experience has been this:  The Bible is the word of God, meaning God caused men to capture and record exactly what he wanted to be passed along to people in future years.  The spiritual promises in the Bible, in my personal experience have been proven over and over to be true.  To experience the spiritual nature of the Bible, you must give yourself to living this life of obedience and seeking God, interact with God through prayer, and reach the point of receiving the Good News or gospel which changes your standing in the spiritual world, allowing God to become the one who has ownership and spiritual authority over your life.  At that point, and not before, your ability to experience the spiritual life described in the Bible becomes very evident and clear.  Now I am spiritually in God's Kingdom, but physically in the world which rejects God.  This provides a constant struggle and opportunity to rely on God spiritually until my physical existence is passed. Then more of the promise in the Bible is realized, the physical struggle is over and the spiritual existence begins.  But the final promise is yet to come.  The Bible that has revealed to me God's promises over my lifetime tells me that at a future point, the physical world that rejects God will be destroyed completely, and that a new physical world will be created again with those who are spiritually aligned by faith in God to live in a non-divided world where physical and spiritual existence will be centered on God as it was when God first created the world.  

This is where I am on my search for truth.  I understand and try to follow the Bible in a logical and faithful way, not applying ridiculous standards of verbal legalism, but believing what is clearly stated as fact.  I believe the Bible and in that way, I believe God and I both are fundamentalists.

Blog Returning from Summer Vacation

I have been absent from my blog for the summer but plan to begin again in a week or so in September.  I have read a few other blogs, especially those that I somewhat disagree with.  It helps me to clarify my understanding on issues.  After doing so, here are a few things I am considering writing post about.  Feel free to suggest or critique these topics.  Have a great end to summer break.

Is God a Fundamentalist?

Should we interpret the Bible for ourselves?

Who should not feel comfortable in our church?

Do we want God to be for us?

As you can guess there will be a little twist to what these titles appear to be about.  If you have any more suggestion for topics let me know.  See you in September
Kyle

Soloman's Greatest Decision

2 Chronicles 1. Solomon son of David established himself firmly over his kingdom, for the Lord his God was with him and made him exceedingly great.

Soloman's approach to begin leadership of the people of Israel is revealed in 2 Chronicles chapter 1. Soloman led commanders and leaders, heads of families and the whole assembly to the place where the tent tabernacle that Moses had used in the desert was kept at Gibeon. There was also the bronze altar there and Soloman, along with all of the leaders, offered 1,000 burnt offerings to the Lord.

He did not begin by trying to demonstrate his power or superiority to his new subjects, he began by leading them to be submissive to the Lord.

After watching a year of supposedly future leaders campaigning for president, the message seems to be that in order to lead, you must overpower your adversaries and make sure that everyone believes that you have all the answers. This was not Soloman's approach. He believed the God's power is needed to achieve greatness.

God came to Soloman and told him to ask for his heart's desire and the God would grant it. As most of you know, Soloman didn't ask for wealth or power, but for wisdom to lead God's people. God gave him great wisdom and insight and in addition blessed him with power and wealth that still has not been matched today. In today's money, Soloman's personal wealth was twice that of the next-wealthiest person in history. According to www.wealthresult.com which gives the top 10 - wealthiest people of all time,

number 4 was Andrew Carnegie whose personal worth was $300 Billion dollars (Carnegie Libraries all over the country and more),

number 3 was Mansa Musa I $400Billion Malian Empire 1280-1337 made a pilgrimage to Mecca with 12,000 slaves each of whom carried a 4 lb gold bar. He gave great gifts to each town along the way so much that he destroyed the economy of each area he passed through.

(Bill Gates was not mentioned, but I believe he stood at 450 billion dollars at one time)

Number 2 was John D. Rockefeller founder of Standard Oil Company worth $664 Billion dollars. He retired 40 years before he died and spent the time setting up foundations to fight diseases and was instrumental in the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever.

Number 1 was King Soloman whose worth was estimated at 2.1 trillion dollars in modern money. He received 25 tons of gold every year for the 40 years of his reign. Everything from cups and utensils to his Throne and footstool were made of solid gold. The throne had 6 stairs and 12 lion statues of solid gold and were inlaid with ivory. This wealth does not include the money made from business ventures, trade or the tribute paid to him by the princes of Arabia. There was no one as wealthy as he was.

When you make plans for success, begin by submitting yourself to God, not asking God to help you in your plans, but totally submitting to God's plan and he will overwhelm you with blessings beyond compare suited specifically to you.  It will be the wisest decision you can make.

Car Radio

   

My life is filled with sound.  My life is filled with music.  One of the things that I often like to do is to sit in silence and drive in silence.  If someone is with me in the car, I like to talk to them, but when I am alone, I like to sit is silence.  The reason is that when I am silent, my thoughts are free to run.  God also speaks and leads my thoughts when I am silent.  Depending on the tendency of your thoughts, you may or may not like to have silence.

     My daughter played a song for me called "Car Radio" by Twenty One Pilots.  It discusses, in rhyme, the situation of someone who is forced to let their thoughts run because someone stole their car radio.  Their  thoughts run from something great to something violent in a dream, to something terrifying, and to understandings of the meaning and purpose of life all the while the driver is proposing that he really should replace the car radio that was stolen so that the sounds would give him the option of taking a little control back of where his mind is going.  But at the same time, he admits that the music and sounds that keep his mind from going everywhere also keeps him from thinking and that thinking is a good thing.  Here is the central part of the song...

There are things we can do
But from the things that work there are only two
And from the two that we choose to do
Peace will win
And fear will lose
There's faith and there's sleep
We need to pick one please because
Faith is to be awake
And to be awake is for us to think
And for us to think is to be alive
And I will try with every rhyme
To come across like I am dying
To let you know you need to try to think

We often recognize those things in our lives that have taken control, sending our minds racing and we don't know how to get them to be quiet.  They pop up in our consciousness, they bring fear and keep us from truly living.  If we don't know how to get rid of them, we try to run or we try to drown them out with other things so we don't have to deal with them.   A time comes to deal with them so we can stop running and start resting. Hopefully someone will steal our car radio and we are forced to realize we need to do something.  Faith in God brings the presence of God,  The presence of God brings peace, Peace replaces fear. 

2 Timothy 1:7King James Version (KJV)

7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

God's word explains that process of ridding ourselves of the thoughts that bring fear or situations that cause us to get wrapped up in too many things is a simpler process than we think  To rest our thoughts and actions in faith in one who has power to take care of all of those details and to teach us how to overcome with His authority.

Don't ignore, stop thinking, and go to sleep,  or just turn up the radio!

Faith is to be awake
And to be awake is for us to think
And for us to think is to be alive

Find the Truth of finding peace by seeking the Prince of Peace, Jesus. 

The Captives

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Ephesians 2:1-3

What a revelation. We have all lived in sin, apart from God. No one was exempt (except Jesus) and we all deserved to die like convicted criminals in a spiritual court. We all have a need to be released from the state of guiltiness. Some of us lived in that state longer than others, believing that the pleasures of a sinful life would not lead to death and destruction of our life now and eternally. Didn't we start to get clues? Couldn't we sense that we were in way over our heads? The stress and pressure of trying to control every aspect of our future and present was sending us into depression, ruined relationships, addiction to idols and substances of every sort that gave a temporary hiding place but released us back into the chaos of trying to take care of ourselves and trying to find the rest that our inner souls told us was out there somewhere. We ignored our spiritual lives like it was a fairy tale which truly intelligent people just didn't fall for. And we were not in a neutral land where cause and effect determined our outcome, we were being manipulated without our knowledge like a maze where the pathways are constantly changing in order to bring confusion, madness and eventually a loss of hope that there is a way out at all. We gave in and determined that a confusing maze with no ending is not that terrible of a place for a worthless, accident of existence like me. Then......BOOM....we are locked into the prison.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:4-10

We were rescued, not by our own power, but by Christ who offered us freedom. By changing our allegiance from ourselves and the dark world to an allegiance to Christ and his victorious path. A gift from God for one who is not a worthless accident of nature, but a creation of the most high God for a purpose that reaches to eternity.

Christ did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people wonderfully alive and to set the captives free. To give life instead of hopelessness. Hallelujah, praise the Lord.

No Worries

A phrase I have heard more often in recent years is "No Worries." I don't know if it is a hang on from The Lion King's "Hakuna Matata" or from the Australian culture, but it is growing in popularity. For a people with this new phrase, we spend a lot of our time doing just that... "WORRYING."

Matthew 6:25-34

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In a country with so much plenty, we may find that we do not worry about these particular things in our lives. Food and Clothing are still a basic necessity, but we have replaced these things with other things to worry about. We forget the first line which says, "Do not worry about your life." Whatever the needs are God cares for you and will make sure you have what you need to live the life he has planned.

Maybe the verse could tell us to not worry about your job or not to worry about school. Maybe it could say do not worry about your family or not worry about where you will live. Most would consider these things as very important need in our lives as well. How much time do we spend worrying when it does not good?

Why do we worry? Maybe its because there are certain things that we consider important and rightly so. There come times, however, that we see circumstances that threaten our ability to have these things. We worry when we believe that we will not be able to provide these necessities through our own efforts. That means we have been trusting that our own efforts will bring the things we need. And there is the problem. Who do we trust to provide for our needs? Ourselves? Often there is nothing that we can do about the situation under our own power. We worry and can not add a single thing to solving the problem. Many times that is when we realize that we have been relying on the wrong power. I know God does not normally cause food, clothing, and houses to drop from the sky. He usually provides ways for us to grow or purchase food, build or purchase a house, or provides a job to obtain funds for these things. He does this because at the same time he is leading us to learn and grow and draw closer to that which is most important... our relationship with and knowledge of Him. Can God miraculously bring food from the sky? Just ask Moses and the Israelites who were knee deep in quail and manna. Just ask Elijah who was fed by Ravens. Can he miraculously provide shelter? Just ask Jonah who had a vine grow up to protect him from the sun? There is no end to God's ability to provide for us. But if we are trusting in ourselves instead of Him, there is a bigger problem... our relationship and priorities.

For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Seek His Kingdom... God's Plan not our Plan

Seek His Righteousness... Surrender our will to His and rest in God's Presence and Peace


Then let God provide and rely on him by stepping back and NOT relying on ourselves. God will bring us what we need today and tomorrow to survive in this troubled world and survive in a great and mighty way... that we may have life and have it in abundance.