Part Eight

Why should a Christian, saved by grace, be concerned with obeying the law? I mean after all aren’t we just supposed to do the best we can with what we have? A lot of us have been dealt difficult lives, we have baggage that is no fault of our own, surely God does not expect us to follow all these laws! He loves us, he died for us, Jesus paid for our sins, I mean can I not just do what I want?

Good question… lets pick the thought apart.

In the Garden of Eden man’s relationship to God was what some theologians call a “Covenant of Works”. A covenant of works means if Adam did his part he could stay in eternal communion with God; if Adam did not do his part he was condemned to eternal separation from God. We must not get confused into thinking that Adam would receive special treatment because of his obedience.  God did not say, “Now Adam, if you will go two years without eating of the tree I will give you a special treat. And if you go 5 years, then Adam, you will get an even more special treat. And Adam, believe it or not, if you make it 10 years without eating of that one tree then I will let you in.” Not even close. See Adam already had everything. He had all of God. Nothing held back from Adam. He had it all. The only thing Adam had to do to stay was not eat of the one tree.

The one tree in the middle of the Garden was not meant to be a punishment, it was meant to show one thing and one thing only. That single tree represented God’s sovereign reign over his people. That one tree said in essence, “I am God, I know what is best; you are not, obey me out of love.” But the temptation from satan was, “God is trying to hide something from you.” (Genesis 3:5) Satan won, (not completely, it backfired on him, but he won this battle) Eve & Adam lost, and here we are. Now we all view any law as, “Someone is trying to hold me down and hide something from me.” But what if the opposite is true?

If you come to Open Range Church this is going to be a little redundant, but you need to hear it. What if the law was meant to set you free and not bind you down?

The saying goes, “Father knows best.” And I have found that to be true. However, I did not find it to be true by trusting the saying, I found it to be true by experience. Somewhere in my late twenties, early thirties I found myself declaring the wisdom of my dad a lot. A whole lot. Especially when I had kids. (I think I just heard him say amen) It dawned on me was that he was not as big of a kill-joy as I thought he was, he just wanted to protect me from pain. He wanted to keep me from making mistakes. He wanted to set me free. He loved me. At the time I just thought he was making up weird things to keep me from knowing all that he knows. Trying to hold me back. I was a moron. Still am.

So let us tie all this up. What if God, in his sovereignty wants to give us life, as Jesus said he does? And the way he chooses to give us life is laws to live by. Laws to protect us? And what if we stopped looking at the laws and what does or does not apply and just trusted that he is good and that he is right and that he is just and we can trust him? Now I know there are some weird laws in the bible, you guys have pointed some out, but I am going to show you that even those weird ones were laws of love. They may have been cultural, but they displayed the sovereign love of God.

Now I am not suggesting that we are supposed to obey all of the laws in the bible. Many of those were for the Israelites in their day and age to protect them from harm and danger. But what I am saying is we cannot dismiss the function of the law. (More to come on that)

One more thing, what if we believe that we have all of God? Every bit of him right here with us through Jesus. No longer in a Covenant of Works, but now a Covenant of Grace. Jesus paid the debt of the Covenant of Works, that’s done, now we get to live in grace. We have it all. Nothing held back. No more to get on this earth. All of him he gives to us. And in our obedience to the law we love him back. We live in his peace. Think about this. And I will be back shortly.  

So far I have three questions about purity laws! Keep them coming! I will respond to them later this week. In the mean time I am working on another post.

The Laws

So I want to ask you guys, what laws do you see as ridiculous or restrictive? I am not talking about the Decalogue, I am talking about the full law. Leviticus, Number etc. . . if you response will not post to the comments email me at pastorjason01@gmail.com . . . I look forward to seeing what you all come up with! In my next post I will address these laws.

Part Seven

After my question “What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about ‘God’s Law’”, I received two responses. So I want to put those on here and then respond to them.

 First response was simply “Communication”. Great response even if it is just one word; because it is pretty much spot on.  God was communicating his requirements of being in relationship to him. But we have to be careful to not turn this into God communicating the way to salvation, more on that in just a minute.

The second response was a little more detailed, “I either think of "love The Lord your God & your neighbor as yourself". Or I think of weird purity laws that obsess about food, skin, and normal bodily functions” Awesome! I love it.

So what if the answer lies in both the questions? What if God is communicating Love the Lord your God and your neighbor, while at the same time he is communicating weird purity laws about food, skin and normal body functions? What does that sound like? To me it sounds like parenting.

There are a couple of things that parenting shows us in relation to the God and his law in this context.  First, God is always communicating to us in a way we can understand. This is most recognizable in the incarnation. God is coming, in the form of one of us, in order to communicate his love for us. Remember God is always communicating his love. Whether that be his love in compassion, his love in blessing, or his love in wrath (more on that later) God is always communicating his love. Much the same way, parents are always looking to communicate our love for our kids. Sometimes it’s by showering blessing on them, sometimes it is in disciplining them, and sometimes it is by letting our anger and wrath show, but one way or the other we are always trying to communicate love to our kids. And, we are trying to communicate to our kids that we know better than them and to trust us. And to trust us is to love us.

Love is a fickle thing. We see love as this dreamy, mystical, evasive, tangible noun that we are forever seeking. But that is not love. Love is a verb. Love is in doing. Love is when we believe something is worth fighting for, or even more worth trusting in. Our kids show love for us by obedience to our rules, trusting in us that our rules are best for them. Hugs and kisses are great, but how many times has a disobedient teenager tried to hug and kiss their way out of punishment? It does not work. Why? To suck up after disobedience just shows that they are trying to leverage love to get out of wrath. At that moment love is wrath (more on that later).

Whew, that’s a lot.

Second, rules are not meant to constrain but bring freedom and relationship. There are some weird laws in the bible. One that sticks out to me is, “Do not cook a baby goat in its mother milk.” That’s weird. I don’t cook anything in milk, and I sure wouldn’t cook goat, much less baby goat! But in the time the bible was written I am sure this was a dietary restriction for a reason. What about pork? We know that pork carries all kinds of disease and parasites, but they did not. They didn’t know proper cooking times and temperatures. How about mold, dead bodies, blood, washing hands, sexual cleanliness etc. . . ? Through those things God is trying to communicate a way to live, a way to have life, true life, without sickness and restraint.

Think about the kids again. Why do I tell my kids to be home by a certain time? Because I know that nothing good happens out on the roads after about 11pm at night. People are partying, or hiding, or just looking for trouble late at night being out and about. So I institute a rule, be home by 11. When I was a kid my mom used to make me be inside by a certain time. She wanted me to have time to eat dinner, take a shower and get plenty of sleep before the next day of school. Why? because she loves me. I saw it as her trying to stop me from having fun. I would whine and kick the ground, but the truth was she loved me and wanted what was best for me. I would love her back by trusting her law and going inside and mom would delight in me because of my obedience. My obedience did not make me her son, but it showed that I trusted and loved her.

Can you see it? I hope you are starting to get the big picture.

Before God gives the Decalogue, aka The Ten Commandments, he starts the whole thing off with, “I am the LORD your God…” (Exodus 20:2). In other words, “You are already in. I am your God you are my people. Now let me give you some ways to love me and obey me,” WOW! What if we started to view the law this way? All of it. What if we believe God cares about us so much that he gave us rules and statutes to live by? I think that would change things.

Jesus was asked one day what the greatest commandment is. And he replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then Jesus adds, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”  All of them Jesus? All of them. Okay so this is huge, if every Law in the bible depends on loving God and loving people then we need to take notice. I think it’s simple. When we love God with all we are we will care about what God cares about. And God cares about you, so keep his law, and God cares about people, so love his people.

So I want to wrap up with another question for you, how does this order, God loves me-> God gives me Law-> I obey law to love God back, change the way you view God if in fact this can make the eighteen inch journey from head to heart? Because the standard order has often been, God gives me law-> I obey law -> God loves me. What if you are in? What if he already loves you so much that he gave you a law to keep you from cooking a baby goat in its mother’s milk, whatever that means? But in order to love him back you trust that baby goats do not belong in their mother’s milk. This is revolutionary. This will change your life.

Problem

Hey guys I understand some of you are having a problem responding to my post. If you are just email me your response to pastorjason01@gmail.com

Question

So I want you guys to respond to this question before I write my next post. And I do not want the standard Sunday school answer, I want your true answer, and that will probably be the first thing that comes to mind.

What do you think of when you think of God's Law?

Part Six

I'm amazed by the comments I've received after the last few posts about , ”The Law”.  I've heard, “So am I just not supposed to do anything?” Or, “So I can just live however I want and God will just forgive me?”. And  my favorite, “Should I just embrace how bad I am and live in that, never trying to be better?” These are all great questions! And they all ask the same thing, “What do I do?”

At my house there are rules. Quite a few rules actually. Load and unload the dishwasher. Clean the kitchen, vacuum the floor. Be home by a certain time. Don’t be disrespectful to anyone in the family. Rules. Laws. A code we live by. But here is the catch,  if someone breaks the rules, which they are certain to do, they are not kicked out of the family. Watch this; the family connection is not by keeping the rules, keeping the rules flows from the family connection. That is HUGE!

Religion as a whole has always taught: law + obedience to the law=getting to God. By inference you can conclude then: law + disobedience to the law = not getting to God. This requires a lot of work to stay connected to God. And when you blow it by breaking the law you think, “Oh great, now I have to start all over.” Not to mention the problem of which laws must we keep? Because I may not commit adultery, but then Jesus adds I cannot even lust. That changes things for every man I know of. But what if we change the order of that first equation just a bit? Instead of law + obedience = God, what if we say: I have God + The Law = Obedience to The Law? Now that changes things doesn't it?

So if we say, “Jesus paid the cost for my sins so now I don’t have to obey the law.” We would be wrong wrong wrong! Jesus said himself in Matthew 5:17, “I did not come to abolish [the law], but to fulfill the law.” (More on fulfill later).  But if we say, “I must obey the law if I want to go to heaven” we are once again wrong wrong wrong! Paul said, “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.” So Paul is saying it is an all or nothing proposition. So what do we do with the law?

A rich young ruler came to Jesus one day and the conversation went like this. . .

¹⁶ And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” ¹⁷ And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” ¹⁸ He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, ¹⁹ Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ²⁰ The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” ²¹ Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” ²² When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Matthew 19:16-22)

There it is right there. The same question that is in every one of our heart, “What should I do…?” I have been asked that question more times since starting this blog than ever before. We just feel like we need to “do” something. I mean this deal cannot be free can it? If Jesus is going to forgive my sins, then I need to pay him back somehow don’t I? I need to strive to be a better Christian do I not?

Well interestingly enough when the dude asks Jesus what should he do, Jesus gives him rules to follow it seems. Jesus says, “Hey man, you know the deal, keep the law.” And the young man says, “Done”. WOW! What a statement! Jesus says, “do these things” and dude man says, “I have”. Now I wonder if at this point Jesus is just kind of taken back. Like maybe Jesus has a “wow” moment himself. Or maybe Jesus just smiles wryly and winks at his disciple.  Either way look at the words recorded by Matthew, “All these I have kept, what do I still lack?”

This young man has been doing a lot of stuff. A lot of rule keeping. And by his own admission he is still lacking something. There is still something in him that is just not quite right. In another place this story appears in the Bible he says he has kept the laws from his youth. That’s a bold statement. But Jesus pushes further, Jesus says, “I want it all. And I especially want those things that you worship.” Now we are getting somewhere.

Let’s make some application and then next post we will come back to this idea again a little deeper. If the rules were meant to bring us closer to Jesus then why does Jesus always go to the ones who cannot keep the rules? And, if the rules were meant to bring us close to Jesus why is he so hard on the rule keepers of his day? One word; motive. It is your motive for keeping the rules that Jesus is getting after. Jesus doesn’t just want obedience; he wants you, all of you. The rich young ruler did not want Jesus, he wanted eternal life. He didn’t even seem to want God, he wanted eternal life. Jesus offered the young man himself, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

So why are you striving to keep the rules? Do you want to make sure that Jesus is on your side so bad things will not happen? Or are you keeping the rules because you want to follow Jesus so closely and look so much like him that you don’t want to miss a single point of obedience?  Because these are two drastically different things, one makes Jesus a means to your end and the other makes Jesus the end all to be all. Which is it?

We are going to keep going after this point in my next post. This is the most important part of the journey. But for now, let this sink in.

Saint Augustine Said

"When any one knows that he is nothing in himself, and has no help from himself, the weapons within himself are broken, and the war is ended." 

St. Augustine 

Part Five

I took Greek one semester in my undergraduate work, and was awful at it.  Rote memory does not stay with me for some reason and this class had a lot of memorization in it.  Vocabulary words have never been my strong point anyhow, and there were tons of them in my class. But there was one Greek word; well there was more than one, but one in particular that “stuck” with me: Euaggelion.

Euaggelion in the New Testament is translated as “Gospel”.  And the word Gospel simply means “good news”. So good news is the gospel, and if something is not “good news” then it’s not the gospel. Now, we want to define “Good news” by our own standards, don’t we. We think anything that makes us happy is good. But not everything which brings you joy is “good”. For instance, it is “good” for us to have a physical yearly, but it’s not fun. It is good for us to discipline our children correctly, but it’s not fun. So good is not determined by the events themselves, but by the outcome of the event. Some of the most painful things I have ever been through sure didn’t feel good when I was going through them, but looking back on them now they were very good. So they were good news. They were the Gospel.

So I think it is time that I “tip my hand”. So far my posts have mostly been about how sinful we are as a group of people, and how even our best efforts are not enough to gain favor with God. However, I don’t want you to think the point of this blog is to tell you how bad you are, it is not. Recognizing your sinfulness, though, is the beginning of the eighteen inch journey. Because we cannot see our goodness, until we see our badness. Our badness magnifies Jesus’ goodness. And it is his goodness we draw from in order to become good. And that is the “Good News”. That is the euaggelion.  That is the Gospel.

In my last post I quoted Paul in Romans 7:18. Let me quote that again, because there is something in there important to our understanding of the euaggelion. Paul says, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” “In my flesh” are the words I want us to focus on. Because the goodness we have is not from our flesh, the goodness we have is the opposite of our flesh, the goodness comes from the New Spirit which Jesus gives to us.  And this new Spirit Jesus gives to us manifests itself through our flesh.

Let’s go old school, Ezekiel 36:26-27 to be exact. Many times we look over the Old Testament because, I think, of the wording. Old. We think it to be “out of date” or “the old way of doing things”. I want to combat that thought, and I want you to think with me that the “good news” started in Genesis when God did not kill Adam and Eve. When God provided protection for them with the death of an animal, grace began. (Genesis 3:21. I will provide more information on this later, but for now this will suffice.)

Back to Ezekiel. Prophets in the Old Testament were spokespeople for God. Not only did they tell of things to come, but they also told the truth, even when it hurt. Many times these prophets would speak and it would sound weird to the people, but sometimes it would sound profound. This passage in Ezekiel 36:26-27 would have been one of those profound passages. Check it out, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statues and be careful to obey my rules.” Read that again, “I will put my spirit within you” and “cause you to walk”.  There is the good news. God is giving us His Spirit; He is causing us to walk; His goodness is coming through in our flesh. These are profound words. But wait. . . there is more.

Jesus is teaching his disciples one day right before he was to be crucified and he says something that would have pointed those good Jewish boys back to Ezekiel in more ways than one. He said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. . . “ A spirit. We are going to get a spirit. From Jesus’ Father, whom Jesus says is God.  But wait . . . there is more.

Look at what happens on the Day of Pentecost, “When the day of Pentecost arrives, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and tested on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and because to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:1-4). God speaking through Ezekiel, “I will put my spirit within you.” Jesus says, “[The Father] will give you another Helper . . . the Spirit of Truth”. Then in Acts, “They were filled with the Holy Spirit.” And in the very next verses we see a once cowardice Peter stand and preach with such conviction that thousands are saved. Why? The new Spirit manifesting itself in Peter’s life.

The word “helper” in John is the Greek word Paracleat (see I did listen). It means simply helper. Para, means come along side of, as in parallel. And cleat means to grab a hold of. Think about cleats on the bottom of your shoes. So Jesus is sending His Spirit to come alone side us to help us grab a hold of things. What are we grabbing a hold of? The Law.  (More on this to come, so don’t get hung on the Law)

Whew there is a lot in here. I hope you tracking. And I will keep coming back to this, but we need to get this. This is important. If we don’t get this then information will stop at our head and never make it eighteen inches to our heart. Follow me.

2 Corinthians 5:14-21, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and have us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The love of Christ controls us. . .

No longer live for themselves. . .

Regard no one according to the flesh. . .

In Christ, he is [we are] a new creation . . .

Do you see? Can you see what Paul is trying to tell us? IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU BUT IT IS ABOUT CHRIST! This is GOOD NEWS! We don’t have to strive to be awesome, we are awesome! We don’t have to strive to be righteous, we are righteous! This is huge. Get this.

The objection will be, “But I don’t act righteous, I don’t feel awesome.” But that doesn’t make it untrue. You may look at my kids and say, “Goodness you have some ugly kids” but to me they are the two most beautiful children that have ever been born. What you think doesn’t change my truth. They are MY kids, they come from MY life, they belong to ME.   And that is “good news” to them.

See, what God says about you is what is true. If you will believe what God says about you goodness will come. But not the kind of goodness where you expect to get something in return, or the kind of goodness where you want to be recognized, but the kind of goodness where you can say, “My Daddy is already pleased with me, therefore I am good.”

This is a lot. Let it sink and we will come back to it next post. 

Part Four

Okay, I feel kind of bad for telling you all how awful you are in my last post. Some of you may think that I am being too harsh. So I want to take just a second to talk to you about my thoughts, and why thinking you are “okay” is a stumbling block on your eighteen inch journey.

Paul said in Galatians 5:2, “Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” Why would he say that? And how in the world could anyone say that Christ would not be an advantage to you in any way ever? The answer is in why the people wanted circumcision.

Get circumcised.  What a weird thing for God to ask a grown man to do in order to become one of God’s people. I can imagine the talk of the camp on that day. In Genesis 17 God says, “Every male among you shall be circumcised.” Can you imagine being Abraham that day? Going back to the fellas you’re traveling with and saying, “Uh… guys… I have some bad news. . .” I mean why that? By all means, cut anything but that! So what is God getting at here? God wanted to remind the men of Israel every day that they were set apart, that they were different. And God wanted to do it in such a way that they would never forget. And they didn’t.

Fast forward a couple of thousand years to Paul’s day. No longer was circumcision only an identifying marker of being set apart. It had become a status symbol; a symbol of being an Israelite. But even more importantly it was a way the Israelites identified themselves as “saved”. It was believed unless you were circumcised you were not saved. It was believed, and this is important, what you do determines your standing with God. So Paul writes against this. Why? It seems like a pretty good idea. God said do it, let’s do it. If circumcision is part of being a “Christian”, whatever that means, then let’s get to cutting! But Paul says if the Galatians take the circumcision, Christ is of no use to them.

Like the Israelites then, Christians today still debate this, Faith+ ______= salvation. And what people put into that “blank” matters. Is it faith + works? James alludes to that. Is it Faith + baptism? Faith + church attendance? Faith + not watching rated R movies? What is it? This matters! If we are to add something to our faith then we need to know what that is so that we can do “That”.

There is no “That”. Paul’s point is precisely that there is no “That”. Follow me.

If there is a “that”, then we rob the cross of Christ of its power. If we are somehow saying that something in us is good enough, then we are saying Jesus + our good stuff = our salvation. “What is the problem with that?” some may ask. LOTS.  First, the obvious, where is the line? What I mean is how do we measure (Robbing Andy Stanley) “How good is good enough?” And even if we have a standard of how good good enough is what if we can’t maintain good enough? How many good works in a week make me good enough? How many times a year should I go to church to be good enough? How many times a day should I pray, read my bible, repent of my sins. . .That’s the first problem. The second is more complex.

I have a confession. I like to do just enough to get by. I know, I know. . . it’s not a very good trait to have, and I fight against it all the time. It just seems to be a waste of time to me to keep going once you have achieved the purpose. If my goal is to vacuum the floor then once that is done why do more? Why move the furniture? If my goal is to write a paper and the requirement is 15 pages you can bet I will not write 16. Like I said, not a good trait, but one I have nonetheless.

BUT, (I capitalize for emphasis) if it’s something I like, or see value in I am ALL IN. Not only will I maintain the standard, I will go above and beyond. If you remember part two where I shared about my CrossFit journey you will remember an example of this. In the name of getting better at CrossFit I would do two workouts a day. Measure my food. Eat only the best foods I could find, even if it meant not eating at certain events until after I left. I saw the value in CrossFit, so I went far beyond what it took to just be healthy.

Another example would be marriage.  Do you want your spouse to do just enough to get by or do you want him/her to be “all in”.  I know what I prefer!  I’m so glad when my wife married me she went past just the standard. What I mean is she went past “I do” into something more significant. She went to dedication no matter what, because that is love.

So let us apply all that. God does not want your “goodness” to be a part of salvation because first of all you are not good. Paul says, “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” There is nothing that you can do fleshly, that is good. Some may argue, “I do good things all the time!” I reply to that, why do you do them? To feel better about yourself? To combat karma? To be better than the other guy? So is that “good”? In short God does not want our good works to be based on getting out of hell. “I better do this if I want to avoid bad things in my life.”  Our good works are not a part of your salvation but they do come from your salvation. (I will come to good works next post, don’t freak out. I believe that Christians above all should be doing good works, just not motivated from merit but motivated by demerit. I will explain further next post.)

Second of all, and I think more importantly, God wants all of us to not just do enough to get by. Christians have always been notorious for wanting the “thing”: rules, boundaries, “that”, whatever you want to call it.  That is why we love books that give us, “Five ways to a better marriage”, “Six ways to financial freedom.”  Show me where the “line is” and I will get there. We want to get a close to that “line” without going over it. We want to know how close we can get to sin without actually sinning. We love three point sermons with plenty of application because we want to know what to do to get God on our side. God does not want to be “on our side; He wants to consume our lives. He wants to be our everything.

Finally if you point to your goodness, you end up comparing yourself to everyone else. Look at the Pharisee and the tax collector parable. “I thank you God that I am not like this tax collector.” In other words I may have some bad things but at least I am not like him. Is that godly? Does that bring glory and honor to our God? No. It does not. It serves increase our pride and hurt our fellow humans. And really, the standard of goodness is not those around you but God Himself.  It’s relatively easy to find someone to compare ourselves to who will make us feel better about ourselves.  But who wants to compare themselves with Jesus?  Anyone?  Anyone?

So back to the original Scripture, “Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” Paul is saying, “You are not setting your goal high enough.” Paul is saying, “If you accept circumcision you are going to miss Christ.” If we depend on “that”, you fill in the blank, and it is anything but Christ, then we miss Jesus and all that he has for us. Paul knew, just like I know, if we “settle” for the outward signs of Christianity, we will miss the inward transformation that Christ has for us.

Please feel free to comment to these posts so I can clear up anything you may have questions about. Thanks.

Busy busy busy!

I have not forgotten about you guys. And I will have lots to share after this class! :)

Update

Hey guys. Just wanted to let you know I am in class this week. It's a work shop so I am in all day long. However, I am working on a post. It will just take me a minute to get it completed and proof read. Thanks for your patience.