Awkward question: Is Jesus the center of your walk or are you? I recently had a look around and found a Message Bible edition of the Psalms. I had a quick skim through and reminded myself why this was not in my 'to-hand' study materials. Long ago I had decided that the Message, along with many bible teachers and authors were on my 'watch list.' This list was my own creation to monitor how Christian media subtly shifts the subject of your Christian walk from Christ to 'self.'
It seems like a good thing to have someone or something break it down for us, to make it easier to understand. Of course! That's the role of a Bible teacher and many get it right. However if the Teacher takes the focus from the risen, glorified Lord and places it onto the Christian themselves, they do the Gospel and injustice. If the New Testament screams anything from its pages it has to be 'STOP TRYING TO FIX YOURSELF... YOU CAN'T.' Yet Christianity is an industry in allowing believers to buy tools to fix self. The preachers and authors market 'trouble' as some sort of broken component that needs fixing. The truth is that trouble is what is the stating point of your Freedom!
Read Romans 5
If you get plugged into your source, Jesus Christ and begin to live anchored into his Glory then you don't need the gimmicks, the self help sermons, the paraphrased bible etc. Your eyes go off self and onto his Glorious life. " But you don't know how I struggle with sin... I need help" Jesus knows how much you struggle and at your lowest most wretched point offered his life for yours! Thinking we have to surround ourselves with tools and aids to succeed is just marketing from Christians industry.
Fix your hearts and minds on things above.
Gary Ward
Saturday 28 March 2015
Thursday 26 March 2015
Seeing the 'good'
My decision to practise church as a first century model is, as I have written before, costly. One of the costs is seeing good people become frosty because I don't do 'the done thing.' As I have written before I self assess regularly and always come to the conclusion that there is a historical expression of church and a scriptural expression of church. But here I want to show how there is no 'right' or 'wrong.'
You and I were born into an age we are not responsible for. As we walk with the Lord we become aware of the world around us. As we see the systems and structures we feel urged to become separate from them. That is something we can do, 'come out from' but there is a work only the Lord can do in our core self. This is to set us free from attachments we have to this world where we prefer self / sin over the Lord. The paradox of loving the Lord yet being entirely stupid with the flesh can drive you insane at times. As we walk this walk we go from 'glory to glory' experiencing a better and more fulfilling walk with God as we detach from this world.
When the Lord took on this horrific bag of wretchedness in 1989, there was no process where my state of being was 'right or wrong.' Obviously when I look back on my walk and remember how I was, I cringe, but the Lord does not consider my lesser self as wrong. When the Lord created the Universe, days when it was not complete were considered 'good.' Incomplete and work still to do... all good! It's the 'progress-towards' that the Lord sees and calls 'good.'
Us humans love to think we have 'arrived' and that it better than those we think haven't. I'm certain the Lord wants us to get to a place of completion like Creation but that will not happen this side of heaven. So, with that in view we can't invent a scale of what is better than something else. Instead we can look at all things and see the 'good.' So where church practice is concerned we can talk all day about the way we think it should be done. When all said and done I hope we have all investigated fully the Scriptures regarding Church and recalibrated ourselves towards them. When all said and done we will all stand before the Lord and he will reward us according to what we have done.
Maybe the problems we have in Christianity are because we think we are the completed, full and whole version of what God intended? Inability to see that we are all on a journey and God has assigned us our worlds to grow into costs us unity. Lord break open my delusion that I have it all in place and give me a heart that see the danger of categories.
Gary Ward
You and I were born into an age we are not responsible for. As we walk with the Lord we become aware of the world around us. As we see the systems and structures we feel urged to become separate from them. That is something we can do, 'come out from' but there is a work only the Lord can do in our core self. This is to set us free from attachments we have to this world where we prefer self / sin over the Lord. The paradox of loving the Lord yet being entirely stupid with the flesh can drive you insane at times. As we walk this walk we go from 'glory to glory' experiencing a better and more fulfilling walk with God as we detach from this world.
When the Lord took on this horrific bag of wretchedness in 1989, there was no process where my state of being was 'right or wrong.' Obviously when I look back on my walk and remember how I was, I cringe, but the Lord does not consider my lesser self as wrong. When the Lord created the Universe, days when it was not complete were considered 'good.' Incomplete and work still to do... all good! It's the 'progress-towards' that the Lord sees and calls 'good.'
Us humans love to think we have 'arrived' and that it better than those we think haven't. I'm certain the Lord wants us to get to a place of completion like Creation but that will not happen this side of heaven. So, with that in view we can't invent a scale of what is better than something else. Instead we can look at all things and see the 'good.' So where church practice is concerned we can talk all day about the way we think it should be done. When all said and done I hope we have all investigated fully the Scriptures regarding Church and recalibrated ourselves towards them. When all said and done we will all stand before the Lord and he will reward us according to what we have done.
Maybe the problems we have in Christianity are because we think we are the completed, full and whole version of what God intended? Inability to see that we are all on a journey and God has assigned us our worlds to grow into costs us unity. Lord break open my delusion that I have it all in place and give me a heart that see the danger of categories.
Gary Ward
Condemnation before investigation...
I can always tell when someone is campaigning for their own ego rather than actually raising a good point / pointing out a decent issue. Today we can get many essays on Bible topics if we just care to Google. However, the next step is the hardest... actually researching the topics we are searching out. People who contact me rarely have a point. They cite Bible contradictions that are so well covered, it is embarrassing for them to disclose that they haven't researched the issue. I suspect that many condemn the Bible without investigating it. Condemnation before investigation exposes commentators as frauds who are presenting their blog entries for other reasons, usually attention.
Not wanting to find out about God is the core of sin and I don't give time to people whose only intention is to appear 'in the know' about the non-existence of God. Over time (lots of it) the best thinkers on the planet have taken a swipe at God and the Bible. Many have bothered to research the subject and come up with what amounts to the reason why they don't want buy in. It is never a conclusive denial of the Bible's accuracy or proof of the none-existence of God. The Nobel peace prize for disproving the Bible / God remains intact!
If you are searching for God or even searching for a reason against God then be honest. Research via Google if you must but take seriously the papers written, the apologetic cited or the teachers' exegesis. Why not be more honest and admit that you want to freely sin without accountability to God who created you and you will answer to. A choice is given to fallen Man. You either accept Messiah and take the wonderful gift of salvation through Jesus Christ or you reject Him. There are consequences for both.
You aren't adding to thinking by resurrecting old so-called Bible contradictions. You are massaging your own unbelief by refusing to be honest and robustly research both sides. I pray that you can see beyond your philosophy and accept amazing Grace from the hand of God.
Gary Ward
Not wanting to find out about God is the core of sin and I don't give time to people whose only intention is to appear 'in the know' about the non-existence of God. Over time (lots of it) the best thinkers on the planet have taken a swipe at God and the Bible. Many have bothered to research the subject and come up with what amounts to the reason why they don't want buy in. It is never a conclusive denial of the Bible's accuracy or proof of the none-existence of God. The Nobel peace prize for disproving the Bible / God remains intact!
If you are searching for God or even searching for a reason against God then be honest. Research via Google if you must but take seriously the papers written, the apologetic cited or the teachers' exegesis. Why not be more honest and admit that you want to freely sin without accountability to God who created you and you will answer to. A choice is given to fallen Man. You either accept Messiah and take the wonderful gift of salvation through Jesus Christ or you reject Him. There are consequences for both.
You aren't adding to thinking by resurrecting old so-called Bible contradictions. You are massaging your own unbelief by refusing to be honest and robustly research both sides. I pray that you can see beyond your philosophy and accept amazing Grace from the hand of God.
Gary Ward
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