Journal of Faith: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling Philippians 2:12

I can't believe that I have written 200 posts!  There should be some sort of personal reflection for me at this point so I am going back to previous posts and reading them now to see where God has brought me from in the past two years.  It is really amazing how God can use our own words to remind us how to deal with situations that we've been through in the past.  If I find an old post that really prompts me I'll repost it.  Anyway, I wanted to share something that the Lord spoke to me yesterday at church.  I was having a difficult day because some business things were not working like I expected and my stress level was getting out of hand.  As I was lamenting to God he literally stopped my tears.  I was crying one second and then there were no tears left and all the emotion was just gone.  In that moment I felt the Lord telling me to never forget the God that I serve.  He quickly reminded me that nothing is out of his control and that whil...

     I have mentioned that I have a child before on this blog.  Those of us who are parents in this world in any hands on capacity would probably agree with me that there are a lot of things that happen that you aren't warned about.  On the other end of that though there are some great advantages that you aren't told about either.         A great blessing of being a parent is that it causes me to purposefully break down my life philosophies into the simplest form.  My son looks to me to get  his first understanding of the world, and I need to be able to share that with him.  I order to be an effective communicator I have to be able to talk on his level.  This is a great way to think about evangelism too.  If you can tell a child about Jesus in a way that they understand then you can talk to adults and they will most likely understand. I heard several people state that you haven't learned something...

There have been many presentations of the day that Christ went to Calvary.  Probably the most jarring example was in the Passion of the Christ.  When I think about the savior's cross I realize that the cross was his purpose.  When all was said and done Jesus was born for the purpose of the cross.  He knew it and he carried the weight of it not only physically (although by that time he was so weak he needed help) but also mentally and emotionally.  What if as a small child you knew that your purpose was to die so that someone else could live?  How would you cope with such knowledge?  Jesus wept, but he then gave himself over to the will of the father.            Do you think that your purpose is worth its weight?  When I read in scripture where it talks about taking up my cross and following Jesus I think about my purpose.  I need to pick up my purpose and carry the weight of it and realize th...

       Could you imagine being an archer?  It would take a lot of time and focus to become a great archer, but even then we would sometimes miss.  Sin is defined as missing the mark.  When we make a decision or have a thought that isn't perfect, then we miss the mark and it is sin.  Unfortunately for all of us God's standard is perfection, and to miss the mark once is enough to render us imperfect and ineligible for a life with him.  Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God."  Fortunately for all of us Jesus Christ came to be perfect for us.  Jesus has covered our scores with his own, and he never misses the mark.  This does not mean that we stop trying to hit the bulls-eye, it just means that when we miss God allows us to see how far off we were and then he wipes out our score in exchange for Jesus' perfection.  All we have to do is say that we will take it.  Wherefore...

    When we think about God as the father of everyone who accepts the gospel of Jesus Christ and conflate that Jesus our bridegroom, then God would technically be our father-in-law.  The law, however, is not how the marriage of Christ and the church works.  If we were to marry Christ according to the laws of the kingdom of God then we would be disqualified by our sinful nature.  The love of God toward us caused him to send Jesus to first pay for our debt of sin so that we would qualify for the marriage.        I was reading up a while ago about some of the marriage traditions from other countries and in many of those countries if the bride was found to not be virginal, that means if she didn't bleed during consummation, then the groom would cause her and her family great dishonor. The men felt like they had been cheated.  Of course we could get into the fact that those same men might not have been virginal either but no one wo...

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; after ward they that are Christ's at his coming.  The cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom of God, even the father ; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." I Corinthians 15:20-26 "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:  Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." Phillipians 3:20-21 "Blessed be the God and Father ...

            One of the most dangerous choices that a christian can make is to accept God's salvation, but to forgo his grace.   How can this happen?  In this instance we believe on Jesus the Christ the only begotten son of God, but we choose to pick back up our sin and take it with us instead of leave it under his blood.  When we do this we are choosing to deal with the laws of God rather than accept the grace of God.  When we choose to embrace sin then we also choose to embrace the natural consequences of sin too because without grace there is only law.  Sin hurts US, and we can not beat it on our own.  Why would we want to beat sin?  That is a fair question.  We want to defeat sin because if sin wins then we are utterly destroyed.  Sin is not our friend it is our frenemy. The Lord of sin, which is Satan, wants to destroy us before we realize that we are in danger.  Without deliverance Chris...