Holy Effort… 07/23/2019

WARNING PREACHY…

Hebrews 12:14 (NIV)

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

Does this verse scare you? 

Even a little bit?

“Without holiness no one will see the Lord”

I consider myself holy in the sense that I am connected to God through the Blood of the Cross of Jesus Christ (Col. 1:22).  I was baptized when I was a baby, I said the “Sinner’s Prayer” when I was seven, I was baptized again when I was 10 or 11, and then again after I actually decided to follow Jesus when I was 24 years old.  Ever since then I’ve been a regular attender of church, I read my bible everyday (sometimes twice), I’ve been adopted as a son with the full rights of a son (Eph. 3:20) so that I may enter into the Throne Room of Grace (Heb. 4:16) and I have even been made a coheir with Christ (Rom. 8:17).  So yes, I do consider myself holy.

Still though, I worry a little.

 

 Matthew 7:21-23 (NIV)

 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”  

So yes, Hebrews 12:14 makes me take pause – as well it is meant to.  

I consider myself holy but am I “being” Holy?  I grew up with the belief of “Once saved always saved” but if I am going to be terribly honest, I have lived the whole of my Christian life more from that single theology than any real effort or striving to be a holy person as the Scriptures call me to.

“Make every effort… to be Holy.”

J.C. Ryle wrote in the introduction of his greatbook Holiness, “I have had a deep conviction for many years that my practical holiness and entire self-consecration to God are not sufficiently unattended to by the modern Christians in this country.”

A.W. Tozer also wrote in the first chapter of his greatbook The Knowledge of the Holy, “It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God in these middle years of the twentieth century is so decadent as to be utterly beneath the dignity of the Most High God and actually to constitute for professed believers something of a moral calamity.”  Tozer also wrote that “Holiness is a fact commanded: God wills it, Christ requires it, and all the scriptures—the law, the Gospel, the prophets, the wisdom writings, the epistles, the history books that tell of judgments past, and the Book of Revelation that tells of the Judgments to come—call for it.”

If I am going to be transparent, I too-often feel morally corrupt.  Not because I don’t trust Jesus' work on the Cross for my sin but because I too-often take His blood for granted and expect His grace and forgiveness for my sins.  So often I commit the same sins time-and-time again without any thought.  So I do believe that I need to seriously consider making every effort to be Holy and pay attention to this warning in Hebrews 12:14.

So how about you?

Do you put forward every effort to be holy?  Maybe you do but I’m guessing that you would be in the minority of this modern Christian faith.  How do you even define Holiness anyway?  In my next post I’ll tell you my definition of what holiness means.

Who’s Your Daddy? - 06/19/2016

WARNING PREACHY 

A few years ago I went away to a convention and left the family at home.  Before I left, I made a couple dozen notes that said “Who’s Your Daddy?” on them, then I hid them around the house where people would find them.

• ·         I taped them to the underside of toilet seats
• ·         I rolled them up into the toilet paper so that when someone pulled off pieces the note would fall out.
• ·         I taped them inside of kitchen cupboards and medicine cabinets
• ·         I put them in books that were being read
• ·         I taped them to walls
• ·         And I put them under things that might be moved.

My thought for doing this was that over the three days I was gone they would intermittently find the notes and be reminded of me.  What happened, however, was that the family considered it a fun challenge and spent the first evening searching and finding the majority of the notes and then likely forgot about me for three days.

I left the notes because I wanted my children to remember me.  I always want my kids to remember who their daddy is.  It’s just important.  That however is genealogy.  But what about spiritually?  Figuring out who our daddy is spiritually is an altogether different matter. 

Spiritually speaking, who is our daddy?  Or more respectfully, who is our God?

The answer to this question can vary greatly?

• Many believe that God is a vengeful god who is just waiting for us to break one the commandments so he can throw a lightning bolt at us.
• Many believe that God is a fun-loving god who laughs at us when we ignore his ways and live our lives for our own pleasures.
• Many people believe that god is one who demands that his followers destroy the “ungodly” in order to secure our places in heaven
• Some believe that god is one who forgives all people all infraction in this life basically turning a blind-eye to everything.
• And others believe that god is a conglomerate of many different faith ideals.

The question of who God is is not an easy question to answer, because if we’re going to be honest, then we must admit that the God who actually exists is many levels of understanding beyond what our human brains can imagine or conceive.

But, thankfully we do have guidance.

 John 14:8-9

⁸ Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” ⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

Jesus informs his disciples that if they have seen Him then they have seen the Father.

At this point, the disciples must have thought him mad.  He not only compared himself to God, but in essence told them that He and God were one in the same.  And it would not be the first time either.

John 5:15-18

¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”  ¹⁸ This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

And this is how John’s gospel goes.  It pounds the idea, over and over again, that Jesus and God are one in the same.

Then the Apostle Paul informs us that we too are children of the Father when he wrote in his letter to the Ephesians.

Ephesians 1

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, ⁴ even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, ⁶ to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

And because we are the children of God, we are privileged in that we may go boldly before Him.

Hebrews 4:16
¹⁶ Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Do you ever feel intimidated about praying?  Like you don’t have the right to talk to God?  This idea of separation from our heavenly father is just wrong.  Each of us, who are of the faith, have the extreme privilege to go to God and enter into His Presence.

Have you ever seen that iconic picture of President John F Kennedy sitting at the desk in the oval office and his son, Johnny, playing under it?  I like this photo because it shows the privilege of a father’s child.  Here was the most powerful man in the world in the most powerful office in the world and his three year old son was playing peek-a-boo under his desk.  The child had no fear or reservations; he was boldly playing in the presence of his father without hesitation.

This is how it is with children, they know who their daddies are and instinctively do not fear being in their presence.

Spiritually speaking, who’s your daddy?

I cannot imagine that God doesn’t want us to know who He is.  In fact, the scriptures tell us that the very creation is like notes forcing the question “Who’s Your Daddy?”

1.       Look at a sunrise?  - There’s a hidden note in it asking, “Who’s your daddy?”

2.       Taste a fresh pineapple. – There it is again, “Who’s your daddy?”

3.       Witness the birth of your child. – Who’s your daddy?

4.       Have a cup of fresh roasted single origin coffee. – Who - Is – Your - Daddy?

Today is the day that we honor our human father’s, and this is fitting.  But in the process of honoring our human dads, we must not forget to honor our heavenly father as well.  And if ever we are unsure, let us remember the words of our Lord, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

“Lord Jesus, please open our eyes of faith, that we may see you today.”