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Monday, June 29, 2009

Michael Jackson, Art & Life


Michael Jackson was undeniably one of this world's greatest artists.

His art will "live on", as we say.

Much has been written about art imitating life.

I read a great quote by William Faulkner relating to that:

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion,
which is life... and hold it fixed so that
a hundred years later, when a stranger
looks at it, it moves again since it is life."


This is why we appreciate art -- if we do :)

But "as time goes by"..."we must remember this":

There is life...

And then there is Life!

Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." -- John 14:6

He also said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." -- John 10:10

"He who has the Son has Life. He who does not have the Son does not have Life." --1 John 5:12

Sobering...and glorious.

Mopping Up The Battlefield Of Our Mind (Transcript/Notes)


2 Cor. 10:4,5 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,

We want to look particularly at that last part of the passage, “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”

But first let’s look a little closer at the first part of this passage.


We won’t go into a great deal about the first part of the passage today, but it’s important. The picture God is painting here is one of storming and conquering a fortress, or castle. There are a lot of aspects to this, like our spiritual armor, prayer, the Word of God itself, faith, and so forth. But the most important thing in this raiding of the Castle of Evil is the Gospel itself.

Where's The Power?

We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ for it is the power of God for salvation to those who believe. (Rom 1:16). Did you get that? Don’t take this lightly. Do you know that you will never really change a person in the core of their being?

You may clean them up and make them look better and make them a better businessman or public speaker, or more successful, or more powerful personally or politically, but may I ask the question the Scripture asks? “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but foreits his soul?”

You see the fortress or castle that we want to pull down is the Kingdom of darkness that has enslaved every man and woman since Adam and Eve. It’s the Kingdom of lies, and the lies are against the One who is the Truth, and the Way and the Life.

And the primary thing that pulls down that fortress, that Kingdom of darkness, is the Gospel, because it not only shines truth in the darkness, it actually has the POWER to change the heart. To grant the free gift of a new spirit, to make a new creation.

But enough on the first part of our passage, let’s look at the real subject of our message today, 2 Cor 10:5 bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Bring Every Thought Captive

Do you know what a "mopping-up" operation is in warfare?

After a battle is won, the battle is seldom ever totally over. There is always a stray enemy sniper here, an enemy soldier playing possum over there, waiting to jump up and knife you when you walk by, some enemy troops who were out on patrol, and arrive back, not even knowing there was a battle.

Sometimes just those enemies who escape into the hills and never give up. You may have heard of the Japanese soldiers we found on an island, I think it was in the 1960’s. They were cut off from communications, and they never knew that World War II was over.

Anyway, 2 Cor 10:5, bringing every thought into captivity is the mopping-up operation in the battles that the Gospel has already won. Are you a Christian? Then the battle for your soul has already been won.

The Gospel, which is the power of God, won you. The enemy's desire to keep you in his kingdom was foiled. You are a child of God. Your sins are forgiven, you have eternal life, and you are destined to forever be present with your King in heaven.

But there are still some snipers out there, there are still some enemies pretending to be dead, there are still some who don’t even know the battle is won. And they will seek to deceive you, and hinder your walk.

They will seek to deny the Word of God, while you don’t even know they’re denying it. They will seek to make you think things that will hinder you from having the fruit of the Spirit in your daily life, because lies have a way of quenching the Spirit and keeping us from being filled with the Spirit.

The Worst Lies Fall Into Three Categories:

1.Lies about God Himself.

Lies about God may include that He Himself is a liar, or that he may not really love us, or that He may not really judge those who reject Christ with the Lake of Fire, or that He is not just, or that He is not all-powerful, or that He doesn’t know the future, or that He didn’t really raise Jesus from the dead, or that Jesus is not God, and on and on.

These are often the foundations for false religions and cults, but they are not absent from the visible church.

2.Lies about man.

These may include lies like all men are born good, or man is really divine, or man can save himself by his good works. Other lies revolve around the condition of the born-again believer. Like saying that we are just the same as we were before being saved, except forgiven, instead of the truth that we are new creations who love God and hate sin.

Or lies that we are not really righteous, even though God’s Word clearly says that we have been justified, declared righteous, because of Christ’s death on the cross.

3.Lies about the Word of God, the Bible.

If the enemy can get you to doubt the Word of God, even as a believer, he has gained one of his biggest footholds in hindering your spiritual walk.

Especially regarding the New Covenant, and the wonderful love and acceptance that God has for you, because of His grace, His free gift of righteousness and salvation. If the enemy can get you to doubt that, then you will shy away from Jesus in your daily life, instead of fellowshiping closely with Him.

Listen, He is your Daily Bread. He is the Life you feed on, indeed He is your very Life, if you are a Christian.

Anything that leads you away from the sweet communion with Him needs to be speared to death with the TRUTH of the Word of God. Every thought that comes to your mind needs to be measured. It’s a habit.

Get in the habit of measuring every thought by this:

Is it true according to the Word of my Lord and Savior?


Take those thoughts captive. Examine them. Throw the false ones in the garbage. Treasure the true ones. They will fill your heart with love for Jesus.

How Is The Mind The Battleground For Spiritual Warfare?

Often it's said that the battleground of the Devil is the mind. And we’ve seen there is truth to that. But how is the mind the battleground for spiritual warfare?

Follow me here:

Q. What does the mind do?
A. It thinks.

Q. What does it think?
A. It thinks thoughts.

Thoughts may be divided into two classes, truth and lies.


And that is the real "material" of spiritual warfare: truth vs. lies.


That's why the Scriptures speak of "doctrines of demons" (1 Tim. 4:1), because doctrines (teachings) of demons are lies. It's truth that sets us free, and it's lies that put us in bondage of various kinds.

Where Is The Authoritative Truth?

Which leads us to the question, "Where is authoritative truth?"

Well, it's in the Scriptures. That's why we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Rom. 12:1,2)

And the Devil and demons are not our only enemies. There are also the World and the Flesh. Any one of the unholy three (the World, the Flesh, and the Devil) is able to de-rail us, if we are not filled with the Truth of the Word of God.

How are we filled with the Word of God?

I would recommend five ways:

1. Reading the Word, especially the New Testament epistles.

2. Studying the Word, perhaps using good commentaries, word studies, Bible dictionaries, etc.

3. Meditating on the Word. Thinking over each passage, asking questions like Who, What, When, Where, Why?

4. Praying the Word. Asking God to teach us, and equip us with His grace, to understand and be able to live each passage, as it is applied to our lives.

5. Perhaps most important, always relating the Word to Jesus Christ, Who is the Living Word.

He who is our Life, Jesus Christ, Who is one in spirit with us believers, is the Object of the Scriptures. All Scriptures point to Him, and He is Truth personified. Seek Him in every passage. He is our Bread. Feed on Him. Don't view the Scriptures as just some kind of rule book or map. It breathes Christ! Our Savior, our Lord, our Counselor, our Friend!

When you recognize a lie, renounce it. Put it away.

But be sure to replace it with the truth.

Practice the truth. Seek it out. Don't let a lie rest. Root it out. Pray for the Lord to lead you in truth, which does indeed set us free. Stand on the truth. That's what the warfare is about. And taking captive your thoughts is the mopping-up operation.

"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." -- Galatians 5:1

Mopping Up The Battlefield Of Our Mind


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This week's audio message:

Mopping Up The Battlefield Of Our Mind

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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Favoritism, Jealousy, Murder & Romans 8:28

No, I'm not talking about the latest TV drama.

I've always been fascinated by the story of Joseph, in the last part of the book of Genesis.

Very simple story on the surface:

1. Jacob shows favoritism to "son of his old age", Joseph.

2. Joseph's brothers are jealous (not surprising, is it?).

3. They decide to murder him. But one of the brothers thinks that's a little drastic, so they sell him to a caravan of merchants, who sell him as a slave to a high muckety-muck in the Egyptian Pharoah's court, named Potiphar.

Okay, they didn't end up literally murdering Joseph, but later Jesus would clarify that their very hatred for Joseph was in fact murder in their hearts.

So Where Does Romans 8:28 Come In?

We really need to take Rom. 8:28 literally when it says "ALL". "God causes ALL things to work together for good to those who live Him, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

I mean, really, how much more obvious can it get, in the story of Joseph?

God uses Jacob's sin of favoritism to make his sons jealous.

Then God uses the brothers' jealousy to get Joseph sent to Egypt.

You know the rest of the story don't you? Joseph interprets some dreams, wins the favor of the Pharoah, ends up CEO of Egypt, and saves his dad and brothers from famine when they end up in Egypt to get grain (extremely shortened version).

But that's not the end of the story.

In saving the nation of Israel, God continued the preparation of a people to bring forth the Messiah, who by His death ratified a New Covenant by which we are saved and brought into fellowship with our Creator, Who indwells us and is preparing us a place in heaven.

Favoritism, Jealousy & Murder. If God can work those together for good to us who love Him, do you really think that there is ANYTHING in our lives that He is not working together for our good?

Our failures?

Our sins?

The sins of others toward us?

Political evils, crooked businessmen, tornadoes & hurricanes?

If not, then let's replace our grumbling with praise, and our complaining with gratitude.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Loving God More

By Michele Rayburn

In his book, The Attributes of God, in the chapter on The Love of God, A.W. Pink expresses his concern about the "low state of spirituality among professing Christians", and that there is so little real love for God. He says that if we realize how much God loves His people then "the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him."

This is good to point out, because we want to be like Him, be imitators of Him. And our love for others is an outward expression of our inward love for the Lord, and it’s what we are called to do.

But I think that the problem of the low state of spirituality is more than just not being "acquainted with His love" for His people, but that we are not better acquainted with Jesus Christ. If we want to love God more, it begins with knowing Jesus intimately. "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily..." (Col. 2:9).

Our hearts need to be occupied with Jesus Christ Himself. Our thoughts need to be directed to Him continually. If we would develop our relationship with our Lord, not only would we love Him more, but we would find in Him, and through our relationship with Him, a greater capacity to love others. If we abide in Christ, we will be filled with the Spirit, and when we are filled with the Spirit, we will have the fruit of the Spirit, the first of which is love.

God’s love is uninfluenced by anything that is in us, and God’s love is eternal and everlasting. To be loved not because of who we are, but simply because we are His is so important for Christians to know and rejoice in. And that is what sets us free to love God more and to love others more.

Pink sums it up by saying: "...let no Christian call into question God’s love when he is brought under painful afflictions and trials. God did not enrich Christ on earth with temporal prosperity..." But He did give Him the Spirit "without measure" (John 3:34).

It makes me think of the Scriptures that say "the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21), and "seek those things which are above" (Col 3:1). And Romans 8:5-6, which says, "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

We just need to be more spiritually minded in order to be of any earthly good!

Monday, June 15, 2009

Freedom Comes From Truth


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This week's audio message:

Freedom Comes From Truth

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Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Our Silver Anniversary

June 2, 2009






To see comments made at the time this was originally posted, go to October 1, 2009.

Our Silver Anniversary


In 1981 I heard Michele's voice before I ever met her, or even saw her.

I moved from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Dallas, Texas, shortly after Michele moved from Upstate New York to Dallas.

She got a job at the Dallas Times Herald newspaper (now defunct) in the Classified Advertising Department. Lo and behold, so did I, maybe three months later. By the time I started there, she had already been trained, but when I was being trained, I had to monitor ("listen in on") an already experienced ad salesperson. This was done anonymously by remote headphones, and the person I was assigned to monitor was...Michele. I loved her voice even before I met her.

Days later, I was standing in line for a vending machine during a break, and this beautiful girl in front of me turned around and smiled and said, "Hi". It was "the voice". And whether it was "love at first sight" or not, it wasn't long before I knew I wanted to marry this girl.

I called her One-In-A-Billion as a nickname, and I still think she is.

By the time I met her family in Long Island, I felt like I knew them. They were New York Italians, one generation from Naples. I felt like I was in The Godfather, minus the crime. Her mom grew up in Jamaica Queens, New York, and says "berl" for "boil", and fuh-get-a-bout-it! (honest). I loved it.

Her dad had heard about my being a Christian bible-teacher, and when I met him, he asked with his Roman Catholic influenced thinking, "Do you bless houses? 'Cause we could use a blessing." What a special guy, who lit up when we talked about the Lord with him, sharing with him the gospel, with some hope that he was born again before he passed away.

We had our wedding in Long Island in an Evangelical Free Church. Evangelical churches were few and far between in an area mostly Roman Catholic or Jewish.

Michele's mom threw us a wonderful ITALIAN wedding party/feast, straight out of your cliche Hollywood Italian movie.

It was in a Knights of Columbus hall. We had Baked Ziti for dinner, vino flowed, and we danced the Tarantella. You know, where a whole bunch of people hold hands in a big circle and the lively accordion music plays while you circle around one way and then the other.

My mother and my Aunt Carol flew in from Michigan. If you knew what it would take to get my mom on an airplane, you'd know how much she loved me :)

For our honeymoon Michele and I drove from New York down through the beautiful Appalachian mountains, through Tennessee, and back up to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

On the way we rode a paddle-wheel riverboat, toured one of those big caves in Kentucky, and rode horses (mine was a wildish one who wanted to leave the trail and eat bushes, Michele's was a well-behaved Tennessee Walker). We loved Tennessee, and two years later we moved there...here.

Well, 25 years after that wedding day (seems like yesterday, as the saying goes), I still love Michele with all my heart.

She has been a great gift from God to me. And she gave me the gift of a wonderful son, Michael, now 15 years old.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 2 (Transcript)


Before we get started, I want to say something briefly about physical rest.

Although the Fourth Commandment to do no work on the Sabbath or seventh day of the week, indeed the Old Covenant itself, was made obsolete by the New Covenant, there is nothing wrong with taking a day off to rest.

One of the beauties of studying the Old Testament is in learning the wisdom of God, who is all-wise, and knows all things. And physical rest is important, just as rotating crops from year to year was important, for example, so as to not deplete the soil.


And just as too much of almost anything can lead to what we have come to call burnout. So I encourage gleaning practical and spiritual wisdom and principles from the Old Testament, as long as we don’t fall into the trap of legalism, or putting ourselves under Law as a means of earning God’s love and favor.

O.K., Jesus our Sabbath, Part 2:

Brief Recap of Part 1

In Part 1 we gave several reasons why the Old Covenant Sabbath-keeping is not for believers under the New Covenant.

Briefly these are as follows:

1.In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul clearly refers to the Sabbath as a shadow of Christ, which is no longer binding since the substance (Christ) has come.

2.The Sabbath was the sign to Israel of the Old Covenant
( Ezekiel 20:12). Since we are now under the New Covenant (Hebrews 8), we are no longer required to observe the sign of the Old Covenant.

3.The New Testament never commands Christians to observe the Sabbath.

4.The church met on the first day of the week in the book of Acts (Acts 20:7), and even that is not a command, but merely a practice that sprang up, possibly in honor of Christ who rose from the dead that day.

5.We touched on this already, but nowhere even in the Old Testament are the Gentile nations commanded to observe the Sabbath or criticized for not observing it. That makes it clear that Sabbath-keeping is not meant to be an eternal moral principle.

6.Nowhere in the Bible does anyone keep the Sabbath before the time of Moses, and there are no commandments in the Bible to keep the Sabbath before the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai.

7.The apostle Paul warned the Gentiles about many different sins in his epistles, but breaking the Sabbath was never one of them.

8.In Galatians 4:10-11, Paul rebukes the Galatians for thinking God expected them to observe special days (including the Sabbath).

9.Nothing in Scripture indicates that Sunday has replaced Saturday as the Sabbath. Believers tend to gather on Sunday, which is the first day of the week, but there is no command of Scripture to do so.

10.Lastly, Hebrews 4:9-11 makes it clear that the Sabbath was all along meant to be a shadow of Christ who came to be our Sabbath rest.

It’s that last point, number 10, that I would like to dwell on for a while…that Jesus Christ Himself is our Sabbath rest, and we need no other.

About the Book of Hebrews

But before we get to this argument in Hebrews, primarily Chapter 4, let me give just a very brief overview of the Book of Hebrews as it relates to the New Covenant.

Hebrews was written specifically to Jewish Christians who had been undergoing some persecution, and would no doubt have more persecution in the future.

The letter was intended to show the superiority of Christianity over Judaism, or maybe to put it better, to show how much better the New Covenant is than the Old Covenant. And not just better, but how the New Covenant made the Old Covenant obsolete, as we read in Hebrews Chapter 8.

Let me just sort of rattle off these great themes of Hebrews. I won’t read the scriptural passages, though I would love for you to read them when you’re through listening to this, so I’ll reference the Chapters where these themes occur.

Here are the themes:

Jesus is a better revelation of truth 1:1-3
Jesus is better than the angels 1:3-14
Jesus is better than Moses 3:1-6
Jesus is better than Aaron, Moses’ brother, the priest 5
Jesus is a better high priest 6,7
The New Covenant has a better law 7:12
The New Covenant is a better covenant 8:6
The New Covenant has better promises 8:6
The New Covenant has a greater temple 9:11
The New Covenant has better sacrifices or sacrifice 9:23
The New Covenant has a better possession 10:34
The New Covenant has a better country 11:16
The New Covenant has a better resurrection 11:35
The New Covenant has better blood 12:24
The New Covenant has better atonement, which of course, goes beyond just covering sins, but taking them away, which the Old Covenant atonement could never do 10:1-5

So we see the overall theme of Hebrews might be called “betterness”, the betterness of Christ over Moses and the betterness of the New Covenant to the Old.

Who Hebrews Was Written To, And A Warning

Now I’ve left out part of Chapter 3 and all of Chapter 4, but now I want to talk about that, because this is where we find that the New Covenant has a better Sabbath.

Now when I said that Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians, I should have said PROFESSING Jewish Christians, because the writer is careful not to assume that all his readers are really born again.

And so he warns them in Chapter 3, verses 7-11, not to harden their hearts as the Israelites did in the Wilderness, causing God to swear, “They shall not enter my rest.” Now the writer is quoting Psalm 95 here, but here’s what’s important to realize. These Israelites already had the Sabbath law. They already had the Fourth Commandment, and yet they did not enter God’s rest.

And the writer of Hebrews is warning those who have not yet really believed in the Messiah, and then encouraging them to believe, by showing them the superiority of Christ.

He makes it clear that the rest is to come by belief, by faith. Faith in what? Or more accurately, faith in whom?

Well, Christ, the Messiah! The one who is better than Moses and whose New Covenant is better than the Old. Or to put it another way, believing the Gospel, the good news. Look at Chapter 4, verse 2, “For indeed we have had good news preached to us...”

The "Rest" Of The Gospel

And so the case is made in Chapter 4 that this rest comes from believing the good news, and in verse 7 the writer emphasizes that the day to believe the good news is “Today”. It’s always “today”, isn’t it? Today is the day of salvation, today is the day to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if you haven’t.

Thank God we are still under the New Covenant. It’s still “today”.

That’s why Hebrews 4:9,10 says, “There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.” That’s our Sabbath. See that?

A Shadow of Things To Come

That’s why we read in Colossians 2:17 that the Old Covenant Sabbath was just a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Christ is our Sabbath, our better Sabbath, because He paid for our sins, and gave us forgiveness for all of our sins, past, present and future, and declared us Righteous in Him.

So we can rest from our works. We can rest from our performance as a means of gaining the love and favor of God. He already loves us and He has already favored us in Christ. That’s our rest. That’s our Sabbath.

Now I should mention, if you might be reading the King James version, that Hebrews 4:9 doesn’t say “Sabbath rest”, it just says, “rest”. But the Greek word is Sabbatismos, and it’s the only place it occurs in Scripture. It’s the word for Sabbath, applied to the beautiful rest from our works that Christ has provided.

It Is Finished

And one more thing about Chapter 4, verse 10. When it says, “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works...”, those words translated “rested” are written in the verb tense which means they are DONE, they are completed, they are finished, just as Jesus said on the Cross, “It is finished”.

What that means is that when you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, when you became a Christian, when you were saved, you permanently entered into His rest. He no longer holds your sins against you, because you have rested from your works and His work on the Cross has paid for your rest.

Why is that important? Because it tells you, “Don’t be restless, now that you’ve rested.” Don’t jump back into the Law-based mode and try to earn God’s love and favor. Rest in the love and favor that He already has for you, paid for by Jesus on the Cross.

And that’s why the writer of Hebrews can go on to tell of the better priesthood, and the better promises, and the better sacrifice, and the better blood. Because under the Old Covenant, there was this awful veil of separation between God and Man, but under the New Covenant, the veil has been torn, and we now can come boldly or draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of trouble.

Christ In You, The Hope of Glory

We not only can approach the throne of God boldly, we have the very Christ Himself inside us, Christ in you the hope of glory.

That’s our Sabbath. That’s our Sabbath rest.

And that’s why Jesus, just before one of his Sabbath confrontations with the Pharisees, in Matthew 11:28,29, said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls.”

Have you entered that rest? Have you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? He died on the Cross to pay for sins, and to give the free gift of His righteousness to all who would come to Him. Then He rose from the dead, and is alive today. Believe in Him today, if you haven’t.

And if you are already a believer, you have entered into that rest, that beautiful Sabbath rest which is Jesus Christ. Your works, your performance, are no longer the requirement for God’s favor. He has given us all spiritual blessings in Christ (Eph. 1:3) He loves you and desires your close fellowship with Him.

Oh, you will do works. But they will be the works worked in you by His Spirit, His very life. For it’s God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).

Friends, rest in Him, your Sabbath rest.

Part 1

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 2


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This week's audio message:

Jesus Our Sabbath Rest, Part 2

Grace For Life audio archives are here.