This Sunday we begin an 11-week journey through the scriptures on what marriage is supposed to look like. If we can faithfully live out God’s intentions for this relationship, we can almost certainly do it in any other. Please don’t miss this opportunity to be challenged, affirmed, and encouraged by what God has to say about all human relationships, but especially about marriage.

“44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 it is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be  taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me….47Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life….and 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

Following Jesus’ saying

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

And Jesus responded

53 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.

And what follows Jesus final statement is at the heart of so much of post-modern faith that it is daily exchanging the truth for the lie about God, who He is, and how He has revealed Himself.

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”

It is a HARD saying…who can listen to it? Apparently not many. How do we know this, because they killed Jesus for this and many hard sayings, and it seems that many today are covertly and overtly killing Him over again by misinterpreting, misrepresenting, and misappropriating scripture to make it say what they wish, because the saying is hard, so they refuse to believe it…even though they purport to be Christians.
I recently read this article. You will have to go and read to understand the nature of the remainder of this post.

As I read it I was saddened and confused at this blatant abuse of the scriptures, and their twisting it to be interpreted the way the author wished because the author can’t or won’t reconcile God’s grace and benevolence with the hard sayings regarding how those outside of Jesus will spend eternity. Below is my response which I felt made a fitting blog post.

Though I see the point he is attempting to make, it is derived from a blatant isolation of this particular text apart from those that precede it as well as those that follow it. With that said, even looking at it in the isolated manner by which you present it, it still does not say what you are attempting to make it say. Sorry to be so direct, but the “truth,” which is absolute and not to be placed on the sliding scale of post-modernity, is that you have misappropriated scripture to make your point thus making it say what you wish.

To the point–this scripture is delineating between Jews and Gentiles, not “non-believers and believers” this is not only a biblical interpretation of the text, but a historical one as well.

This is, as was often the case in many of Paul’s arguments, an argument for the salvation of the Gentiles [Romans, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Ethiopians etc.] over and against any adherence to the law, which the Jewish Christians were at the time trying to force on them. Issues such as but not limited to: dietary restrictions, circumcision, celebrating the Jewish feasts, etc.

Paul’s argument was clear…they have the law on their hearts, and a conscience given them by God, by which they will be judged. In that way, you were correct, but in that way only. You see the point Paul is making is that they don’t need to adhere to the law [of God given by Moses] to be saved in Jesus, why? Because their conscience, and the law God has “written on their hearts,” have compelled them to Jesus, so following [as explained above] the law is immaterial to their salvation.

The lynch pin in this text? “By Jesus Christ” that’s how God is going to judge. Don’t quote this verse for your purposes and forget to dissect that little phrase, for without it you lose everything, and without Jesus you lose everything. This leaves no room, no way, but One. And rationalizing around it brings us no closer to understanding the truth or who God is.

Regarding the closing, “Everyone must take this journey of faith for themselves, however they conceive God to be.” We must conceive God in the manner in which He has revealed Himself or we will as Romans 1:25, which precedes the verse you manipulated, “exchange the truth about God for a lie.” I write this in love, but with truth, as a brother, and I hope you receive it as such.

I end this post as I did the comment that has made up the bulk of it. I write this in love, and in hope that we will stop seeking wiggle room for the hard sayings of the bible, and reconcile them in the character, nature, and love of our good and gracious Father, and what He has done for us, His rebellious creation, in Jesus.

If you can watch this, and not be changed……

Prior to Constantine’s decision to make Christianity the national religion of the empire, the early church suffered horrendously. Eusebius, a historian of the time tells of people being boiled to death, fed to lions, pulled apart, and being forced to sit in a metal chair while being cooked to death. The most horrifying for me as I read was the man who was asked to recant his faith in Christ under the threat of having boiling hot lead poured down his throat. Eusebius tells us that this man, like many others, did not recant, he would not substitute Caesar as lord, for Jesus as Lord, and so that day he lost his life…in a most disturbing and painful way. I have a vivid imagination, often times too much so, and I just kept feeling the heat in my mouth…throat…and chest as I read, trying to grasp in what world a human being could do this to another, and in what world a man could so faithfully love his Jesus, that he would give everything…even unto death, for the sake of His name.

Do I believe the death’s of these two men are the ushering in of Barbary of this nature? The likely answer is no, but what I do believe is that this incident, however tragic, marks a new age for the American Church. One in which the faithful and the fakes will be distinguished clearly. In the days that Eusebius wrote, it would be foolish and deadly to say that you were a follower of Jesus when you really weren’t. The sad reality is that since about 325 a.d. there has been an influx into the Church of casual “Christians” who served a Christ of convenience. But with the threat of death looming for even sharing your faith, this practice seems to be soon coming to an end as Christendom dies, and a post-Christian era emerges.

My hope is that the church would rise, and those that truly belong to Christ would stand firm in the face of all possible persecutions, be they personal, social, or governmental.

This incident, however terrifying for the author of yesterday’s article and others, is full of potential. For years men and women all over the world have given their lives, literally, for the cause of the gospel. The fact that it is just reaching America is in itself a startling reality…but it is here nonetheless. Do you belong to Christ? I hope that your lips are not close to Him while your heart is far off, because if it is, the time will come when it will be weighed and measured by similar incidents of verbal, physical, and emotional persecution,and if you are not His, the world will know….but more importantly, so will you.

Why the National Media Blackout?

According to the Boynton Beach police, simply sharing the word of God on the street is what brought two ministers to the man who killed them. Tite Sufra, 24, and Stephen Ocean, 23, were shot and killed Saturday night after meeting Jeriah Woody, 18. They witnessed to Woody for fifteen minutes when he got a phone call and told the preachers he ‘had to go.’ As they walked away, Woody suddenly started walking back toward them. Sufra walked up to greet him and was killed with a shot gun blast at point blank range. When Ocean ran, he was shot in the back. After he fell, Woody shot him in the head execution style. Woody was arrested Wednesday and is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

“As of today, there are no national news organizations reporting this vicious murder of two innocent Christian men. Why?” Cass said, “I’ll ask this: If two Muslims, or two feminists or two homosexuals were murdered, wouldn’t the media be all over it? These were two fine young black Christian men shot by another black man for their Christian faith, yet the media does not seem to care.”

Cass continued: “It is an ominous sign of our times that Christians are being shot on the streets and in our churches. Last year Jim Pullion was killed while holding pro-life signs in front of his granddaughter’s Owasso Michigan high school. Rev. Fred Winters was murdered while preaching in his pulpit in Maryville, Illinois. Increasingly we see Christian ministers threatened and churches terrorized and vandalized for their stand on marriage. Now when Christians gather for worship they must have armed security. Anti-Christian defamation and bigotry has helped to create this violent climate and it must stop.”

Tomorrow I will write some thoughts I have on this as it relates to the new frontier of post-christian culture in America. But, I’m curious to know, what do you think?

But, Westboro Baptist, and those like them in various forms have made me ashamed to call myself a Christian, if they are what people associate with Christianity. You may be familiar with Westboro, and their hate filled leader from Kansas. In 1999 they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepherd simply because he was homosexual. They frequently picket the funeral’s of dead soldiers, and are renowed for even picketing outside a Jewish primary school. In fact they spend $350,000 annually picketing various things and people they feel God hates.

They have become famous for this, when as Christians, it is only the fame of Christ and His glory that we should seek in all endeavors.

Though they recorded their first song, “God hates the world” a couple years ago, it was their latest nonsense that caught my attention on the radio this morning.

Recently they released a statement, flyers, and a song declaring God’s hate for Lady Gaga. I was shamed as I heard the morning show crew discuss this with contempt as they judged Christians and Christ by the measure of these hate fill pharisee’s. The song, a parody of “poker face”  repeats over and over  again “God hates you.” Referring to Lady Gaga.

Here is the reality of it all. The scriptures say in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Does this mean that all will come to receive Christ, and come to repentance, no. Does it mean that God hates people, surely not.

God hates sin, not people, not the world. He despises it, and despised it so much that He bore the weight of all sin, so that He might save some. He became sin, so that we would not have to endure it forever or be away  from Him forever…so that some might be drawn to Him by His Spirit, and saved. Does this sound like hate or absolute and unconditional love unknown to the human heart outside of God?

Westboro, you are shameful, and you make me ashamed…my only solace is that God will judge one day. He will judge your misrepresentation of him, your waste of money to propagate hate when you could have been funding the mission of God (to save and serve), and He will judge your self-righteousness.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”