The Name of Jesus

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
There's just something about that name
Master, Savior, Jesus
Like the fragrance after the rain
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Let all heaven and earth proclaim
Kings and kingdoms will all pass away
But there's something about that name
(Bill Gaither)

"Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)

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Keep Yourselves In The Love Of God

I'll bet it's been awhile since you've read the book of Jude.

It's an interesting epistle, because Jude started out to write an encouraging letter about our salvation, and changed direction under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He was led to write about "contending for the Faith", because of false teachers that were abounding.

And in the midst of this very serious letter about false teaching, Jude says something very important for us to remember as we are contending for the Faith.

In verse 21 (Jude is only one chapter), he writes, "...keep yourselves in the love of God."

Have you ever seen the optical illusion of the 3-dimensional box? If you focus your eyes one way, you see the outside surface of the box. If you focus your eyes another way, you see the inside surface of the box.

Jude 21 is like that. Does Jude refer to God's love for you...or your love for God? Well, it's both.

1. Keep yourself in His love for you.

This must come first. We love Him because He first loved us (1 Jn 4:19)

Doubting God's love comes from Law-based thinking. We know we can't measure up perfectly to our every duty, and so we think God loves us less. This is, of course, unbiblical, and Grace is the antidote. God loves us unconditionally, and we need to remember that. We need a crash course in Grace every day. Peter wrote in 2 Pet. 2:12,13,

"Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, "

We need to be reminded that we are His beloved.

Why is this important? Because if we’re not appropriating the love of God for us….if we’re not basking in His love and grace….then we will not be able to be filled with His Holy Spirit, and we won’t be able to walk by the Spirit….and that means we won’t have the fruit of the Spirit, and the primary fruit of the Spirit is love.

2. Keep yourself in your love for Him.

This requires walking by the Spirit. This requires being filled with the Spirit.

Jude precedes vs. 21 by saying in vs. 20, "But you, beloved, [see that word "beloved"? That’s us], but you beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit".
See how we can build ourselves up in the faith? We can do that, through reading the word of God, through meditation on Jesus, on God the Father and His word, through shutting out the world and it’s noises for a time, and listening to the Lord, through praying while we’re filled with the Spirit, through thirsting after God like the deer pants after the waterbrook.

We love Him because He first loved us. But we can’t let Religion choke out this love.

I love theology. I love the study of God in His word, in depth. I want to know all I can about Him and His ways. That’s theology at it’s best. And I even love a good debate. Jude even says in vs. 3 that we should contend earnestly for the faith. I love that.

But nothing, I repeat nothing, takes the place of keeping ourselves in the love of God.

Did you know there are two letters to the Ephesians in the New Testament? The first is the epistle we call the book of Ephesians, written by Paul the Apostle. The other is the letter of Jesus to the church at Ephesus, as recorded by John in Revelation 2:1-7.

Jesus commends the Ephesian church for doing something good. That good thing they did was to contend for the faith. They recognized and fought doctrinal error in the church. But then Jesus tells them something very sad.

The Ephesian church had left their first love.

Did they apostasize? Turn against Jesus, lose their salvation? No, of course not. They merely failed to do what Jude exhorts us to do: "Keep yourselves in the love of God."

Don’t underestimate this, beloved.

Don’t be like the church at Ephesus. "Keep yourselves in the love of God."

Listen to "Grace For Life" Radio Program.

The Unseen Truth of Perfection

How can the Bible say, "For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison...?" (2 Cor. 4:17)

Your affliction may not seem momentary. It may seem to you like it's gone on forever. And your affliction may not seem light. It may seem to you to be almost more than you can bear sometimes.

How can the Bible say, "...Momentary, light affliction...?"

I think the answer is in the next verse:

...while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor. 4:18

This means that there are realities on this earth which can be seen with our eyes, and these things are temporary. But there are realities beyond those visible realities. And sometimes God gives us a glimpse of these eternal realities, but they can't be seen with our eyes. They are true, but unseen.

Under the New Covenant, God has done many of these unseen things, which we can't see with our eyes, but which God has revealed to us. For example, God has given us a new spirit. 2 Cor. 5:17 says that we are a New Creation, but we can't see that with our eyes. He has given us eternal life, but we can't see that eternal life with our eyes, and so forth. (Though we can see the fruit of that New Creation, and the fruit of that eternal life.)

So with that in mind, let's look at a very profound verse of Scripture, and one that is very neglected by the church. The verse is Heb. 10:14, "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified."

Do you know that you have been perfected for all time? Let that sink in for just a moment.

Now we don't see that perfection, and that's exactly why we need to believe this eternal truth by faith. And I'm not talking about sinless perfection, as though we don't sin. That's where an understanding of the make-up of man comes in. We need to understand that we are made up of body, soul, and spirit.

Our body is that part of us which is physical of course. Our soul we may say is made up of our mind (thinker), our emotions (feeler), and our will (chooser). Finally, our spirit is the very essence of us. Made in the image of God, we are essentially spirit. Then we have a soul, and live in a body. And it's our spirit which has been made brand new by the new birth. It's our spirit into which the Spirit of God has come to dwell, having become one spirit with us (1 Cor. 6:17).

Before we're born again, our spirit is dead to God and alive to sin. When we're born again, our spirit is dead to sin and alive to God. We now have an inclination in our spirit to love God and hate sin.

It's in our spirit that we are "made perfect". (Heb. 10:14)

When's the last time you heard that preached? It's not likely. And the reason is that we tend to take eternal realities that we can't see and set them aside for temporary realities that we can see. And we walk by sight, instead of faith.

One of the main reasons for this is that we slip into the idea that our righteousness comes from what we do. And so we focus on what we do, to the exclusion of what has already been done in us. Paul writes to the Galatians, however, that this is "another Gospel". The truth is that we are given the gift of righteousness, we are declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ, and made righteous in our spirits. And it's all by grace. Not something we earn.

Paul makes it clear that if our righteousness came from what we do, then Christ wouldn't have had to die. But, of course, that's not the case.

Have you ever heard someone say that we are "clothed in God's righteousness"? That sounds good, but that's not what the Bible teaches about the New Covenant. Even under the Old Covenant, believers in God were "clothed with God's righteousness". Look at Isaiah 61:10 --

I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness...

But something greater has been done by God under the New Covenant. We have actually been made a New Creation, our spirits have been made perfect in Christ, and the righteousness of God has been given to us, and now it is ours. Look at 2 Cor. 5:21 --

For He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

That's the eternal reality. And when we realize that we have a new spirit, made righteous by God through grace, and when we realize that Christ is in us, in our spirit, we will be more inclined to walk by that spirit, and not by our flesh. That's why Romans 6:11 tells us to "reckon ourselves" or "choose to believe by faith" that we are dead to sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

Or as Hebrews puts it, "For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified." If you are a believer, he's talking about you, what God has done in you, by grace.

Walk in that unseen eternal truth. It will change your life. And the afflictions will seem a little more "temporary" and "light".

Listen to "Grace For Life" Radio Program.

Blogging With Love, Revisited

Following is the actual text of Steve Sensenig's terrific article "A Blogger's Version of 1 Corinthians 13" . Wouldn't want anybody to miss it:

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If I blog with words that impress greatly and have the most beautiful blog template, but have not love, I am only a bunch of meaningless pixels scattered across the screen. If I have large numbers of readers coming to my blog, and hundreds of comments on every post, but have not love, I am no better than the blogger who has no readers at all. If I can exegete Scripture impressively and convince others of my theological perspective but have not love, I gain nothing.

A loving blogger is patient and kind. Love does not envy other’s site statistics, it does not boast in its own viewpoints, it is not proud of what it writes. Love is not rude to those who comment, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered by disagreements, it keeps no record of wrongs. A loving blogger does not delight in speaking or reading evil but rejoices with speaking the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are blog hosts, their servers will fail; where there is heavy blog traffic, it will be reduced to nothing; where there is impressive writing, it will all be deleted from the file system. For we know in part and we write blog posts in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a beginning blogger, I wrote about trivial subjects, I jumped to conclusions about other viewpoints, I paid no attention to how I talked to others. When I became a mature blogger, I put beginners’ ways behind me.

Now we see but a basic representation of our words as on an old monochrome monitor; then we shall understand all of this theological truth in its fullest. Now I only understand a little bit about which I write; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: site statistics, creative writing and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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I love that. Thanks to Steve.

Turning Wisdom Into Laws

If you're a Legalist, everything looks like a law.

The Legalist can take the most encouraging passages of wisdom from Scripture and turn them into a law to clunk you over the head with. It's uncanny.

An example is Hebrews 10:25, "...not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near."

What a wonderful verse. Reminding us to not isolate ourselves from the Body of Christ, but to encourage one another, and "...consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds." (Heb. 10:24).

It's a joyful verse, filled with hope!

But the Legalist makes it a law. A law that goes something like this:

Go to church! At least the worship service! And frankly, if you don't show up every time the door is open, I wonder about you. If you miss church, you are in sin. This is a command of God, one of His many laws. And laws are meant to be kept. Look at John over there. He comes to church every time the doors are opened. Now that's a godly man! I'm watching you.

(I kinda hate to even write the above diatribe as a Legalist would think, because I can feel some of you cringe with the old legalistic thinking. But if you recognize it, in all its horror, then you can reject it, repudiate it, replace it with Grace-filled thinking.)

Without regard to the heart, the Legalist looks at the actions. And having imposed his law-based twist on every scripture, he will heap condemnation on you in a New York minute if you don't see it his way.

Even if you LOVE the scripture in question, and your heart is devoted and grateful to Christ, who is our Wisdom, the Legalist will turn it into an opportunity to accuse you...IF you listen to him.

Don't listen to him.

Listen to the lover of your soul. Listen to the bridegroom. Listen to the Shepherd.

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