Perseverance through Uncertainty

Read an awesome passage last night while thinking about the topic of yesterday's blog post.

1 Peter 1:6-9
"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

Though we do not see Him now, we believe in Him.  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.  Seems like a theme of scripture, doesn't it?  God called Abraham to leave his home to a land He would show him.  It doesn't say that God showed Abraham the land, and then he went.  He went by faith that God would show him the land at the right time.

God is showing me that true faith comes from perseverance through uncertainty.

"Trust" continued...

Isaiah 55:8-9
 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
       neither are your ways my ways,"
       declares the LORD.
 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
       so are my ways higher than your ways
       and my thoughts than your thoughts."

It is becoming more apparent to me that God takes great joy in revealing this to us. Not by revealing His ways to us, but rather by helping us accept that we have such a minimal understanding.  As God continues to show me that I can trust Him, I am learning that "trusting Him" means something completely different than what I think it means.  So, before I can truly trust Him, I have to relearn what that even means.

As part of my nature, I like to know why I am doing something.  If I am given a task at work, I like to know what it will accomplish.  If I have an assignment for a class, and I feel there is no purpose to it, I will often get frustrated and lack motivation to complete it.  What I am starting to learn is that God may call us to do things, and we may not even know why.  The hardest thing, I am finding, is to trust God through these experiences.

This completely changes my idea of what it means to trust Him.  I am starting to find that He may or may not reveal to me the ultimate purpose behind things He has called me to do.  I may not find out "why" until much later.

It would be much harder to trust God in times like this if He had not already showed me all the ways that I can trust Him.  He has been faithful thus far, so can I trust Him at times when I do not know what the outcome will be? Can I be faithful to what He has called me to even if it is not what I expect?

Anxiety and worry can plague any one of us, no matter who we are or what we do.  Trusting God, it seems, does not mean a lack of worry.  It means worrying, but trusting God anyways.  Surely we will have fears for the future, or uncertainties about the direction of our lives.  If we did not have these fears, what need would we have for trusting God?

Several people have been quoted saying something like "Courage is not the lack of fear, but triumph over it."  I would submit that trust in God is not the lack of worry.  It is looking our uncertainties in the face and saying "I may be afraid of you, but I know Someone who has an understanding far beyond mine. And I trust Him, even through He has not revealed His ways to me."

THEO 678 Blog - Part 4

How is a Christian to respond to cults? How are we to present an apologetic to people who have skewed the Gospel? It is often much easier to present the Gospel to someone who has never heard it than to someone who has rejected it. So what do we do? How can we help people see the truth of Jesus who have believed lies about Him?

We are called to make disciples of all nations, which means that we are not excused from sharing the Gospel with members of cults, despite their preconceived notions. Several groups also feel threatened by Christians, which makes our mission even more difficult. Groups like this often have a persecution complex, where the true sign of a devout follower is how much he suffers for the sake of their church or religion. How is this different from Christians who are martyred for their faith? Often members of a cult will seek persecution, while a Christian welcomes martyrdom if it comes. So, often, these groups will see Christianity as a threat and attempt to elicit negative responses from us. How do we overcome this? The easy answer is this: love.

Sounds too simple right? There are ways to present apologetic responses to them, but if you're like me, it's hard to remember what to say and how to say it. This is something we can work on and practice, but we can always show people the love of Jesus. If they expect us to be offended or disgusted by their beliefs or practices, we must respond with acceptance and love. Even if they continue to reject us and our beliefs, we must stand in confidence that the Holy Spirit can use us to show people who Jesus really is.

THEO 678 Blog - Part 3

Many of the groups discussed so far this week are defined as 'cults', which deny an essential or several essentials of the Christian faith. These cults will often require that its members stay faithful to the leader or leaders of the cult, lest lose their salvation. The members are also required to conform to a set of rules of purity and will often have to confess sins publicly. In this sense, community is more important than the individual, which will often lead to the idea that members are saved as a group and not individually.

However, while some churches may not stray from essential doctrines, there are ways that a church can become cultic. This is not to say that the church has strayed completely away from Christianity, but it would be in danger of leaning toward one of the characteristics of a cult. Sound confusing enough? I will try to explain what I mean.

First of all, a church is in danger of being cultic if it believes that they are the only 'true' believers.  This is not to say that they believe they are the only ones who are saved, like many cults do.  However, a cultic church will believe that their doctrines and methods are the best.  In this same light, a cultic church will attempt to separate themselves from other Christian groups and will only accept leaders who are exactly like them.  Again, this is not because they do not believe other Christians are saved, but simply because they have held to a minor doctrine that has caused them to break fellowship with others.  One doctrine can, in these groups, become the filter through which all other decisions are made.

What is the danger of this? The loss of the importance of the Gospel. If the advancement of the Gospel is not as important as the defense of a minor doctrine or a certain way of doing things, the church is in danger of missing its purpose.  The Gospel of Jesus must always be kept as the priority.

THEO 678 Blog - Part 2

"Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself." -Hebrews 7:25-27

Anti-Messiah Cults believe that Jesus' work was not sufficient. And the main reason  is because they need His work to be insufficient, because each Anti-Messiah cult has a prophet that is said to be the fulfillment of the second coming.  The "third Adam," if you will.  How can these cults justify this belief based on Hebrews 7? Jesus died once for all for the world, so another sacrifice is not necessary. His atonement is fully sufficient for all people. How do these cults justify a prophet who is said to complete something that was already completed by Christ?

These groups are somewhat similar to the groups discussed yesterday.  However, the types of cults that are in this classification are more specifically centered around a prophet rather than just a doctrinal system.  These are dangerous because many of them seem to want to unite all people into one "true religion."  Some say that Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and other religious leaders were all prophets, but the founder or leader of these religions had come to be the final prophet.

The overarching principle behind these cults and the cults discussed yesterday is this belief: one is saved by works because the blood of Jesus is insufficient.  The problem is that it is impossible to know how much is enough to be saved.  Where is the assurance?  Through Christ, we have assurance because we could never do enough on our own to be saved.  Through faith in Jesus, His blood covers our sins and gives us salvation.

THEO 678 Blog - Part 1

This week, I will be writing blog posts related to my Western and New Religions class at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary.  Today we discussed Anti-Trinity religions, such as Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostals.  The goal of today's blog is to refute these denials of the Trinity.

This is not intended to be an exhaustive defense of the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  It is certainly not to be considered a exhaustive discussion of this topic. I realize that I will not be creating a comprehensive apologetic on this topic.  I do, however, wish to bring some important points to light.  I will first defend the deity of the Father and the Holy Spirit, and then the deity of Jesus, which is most often contended.  I will end by showing how a denial of the Trinity is incongruous with Christian doctrine.

God the Father is affirmed by scripture to be the only God. He is affirmed to be fully God, uncreated and eternal.  Mark 12:29 says that the Lord God is One.  Here, Jesus quotes  Deuteronomy 6:4-5.  Isaiah 45:22 also states that there is no god other than The Lord.  The Holy Spirit, as God, is said to be a part of creation in Genesis 1.  In Acts 5:3-4, Ananias is accused of lying to the Holy Spirit.  Later, in the same passage, it is said that he did not lie to men, but to God.  Peter obviously believed that the Holy Spirit was holy, and deserved to be worshipped as God.  In the Great Commission, Jesus commanded the disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, implicating that all three are Deity.

Jesus is called a lot of different things by different people.  By some, He is called a great prophet or teacher.  Clearly scripture portrays Jesus as much more than this.  John 1 calls Jesus the Word, who was with God from the beginning.  It says that Jesus was present in creation, and was with God at creation.  This shows that Jesus is not a created being, but is himself God.  Most importantly, He claimed to be God on several occasions!  In John 10:30, He claimed to be one with the Father.  Jesus also said in John 8:58 that "before Abraham was, I AM." Here, He use the name for God, found in Exodus 3:14, for Himself!

It is clear that Jesus believed that He was God, and that those who follow Him believe that He is God.  Therefore, there is no way He could simply be just a "good teacher" or a prophet.  He is either God Incarnate, or He is a false prophet.  I, obviously, believe that Jesus is God.  There are many more reasons I could cite for this, but as I said, this is not meant to be an exhaustive apologetic.  Simply, it is meant to show that these Anti-Trinity groups, such as Mormans and Jehovah's Witnesses, cannot be considered "Christians" by my definition.

You may say "well, Kevin, they believe in Jesus, isn't that enough?"  I do not believe this is the case.  First of all, these groups do not consider Christians, such as Baptists, Methodists, or Catholics, to be saved.  Both Mormons and JW's, who may claim to desire fellowship with Christians, cannot believe that one is saved unless he or she is a part of their church.  Most importantly, neither group believes in the full Deity of Jesus.  Mormons believe that Jesus was a god, but not equal with God.  The sacrifice of Jesus, according to their theology, is not sufficient to atone for sins!  There is a works-based salvation involved in their theology, which is clearly contradictory to Ephesians 2:8.  This is also prevalent in JW theology.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Jesus was first the Archangel Michael, and that He is not God.  He did live a perfect life on Earth, but was not bodily resurrected.  They instead believe that Jesus was raised as a Spirit.  For this reason, their theology is incoherent with the Bible.

The purpose of this post was simply to show that these two groups are not in agreement with orthodox Christian theology, especially in regards to Jesus.  His Deity is an important part to true salvation, and must be adhered to in order to truly understand who Jesus is.

Jeff

I met my friend Jeff our freshman year at Liberty when he lived a couple doors down the hall from me. He is a great friend, a faithful brother in Christ, and a fantastic pilot.  He, his wife, and his newborn son are headed to Africa with an organization called Flying Mission Services.  He will be in Botswana providing air ambulance and med-evac flights.  For more info on them, check out their blog at http://jeffandsarahburnham.blogspot.com/

Jeff is a man of great faith. I had the chance to see him at his send-off party today, and I could not stop thinking to myself what an honor it was to be friends with faithful Christ-follower. It takes a lot of faith and trust in God to dive into the unknown. Jeff is a great inspiration to me, and I will truly miss him!

Jeff, thank you for being my friend all these years. I hope we never stop being friends. Not a day will go by that I do not pray for you.

The Value of a Man Devoted to Christ

Today, my parents and my adorable sister came to see Youth Sunday at my church. My church is 2 hours from their house.  So they drove all that way to see me and my brother play music this morning with the youth group.  It reminded me of how truly blessed I am to have a loving and supportive family.  I wanted to take same time to talk about my parents, and especially my Dad.

On the outside, you might look at my father and think that he's just an ordinary guy. Just an average Joe, working his 9 to 5. But he is much more than that. He is the perfect example of the man I want to be.

The average dad only spends 8-10 minutes a day with his kids. This was not true for my childhood. And as much as is possible, it is still not true. My parents make every effort to see me or my brother or sister. They make an effort to spend time with us. They show us that they love us. And it has truly made a difference.

Only 12% of families pray together. I can't remember a family dinner where my dad didn't pray and thank God for the meal and for Jesus.  I got to be part of that 12% because my dad knew the power of a praying family.

Do I consider myself lucky? Every day.

This is the value of a man devoted to Christ.  My dad may look like a normal guy, but he's not just any guy. He is the greatest man I know. He has shown me what it means to love one woman and devote himself to her. He has shown me what it means to put family first and love your kids. He has shown me what it means to be a man who remembers what is truly important in life.

And to me, teaching your son these things is the greatest success a man can know in his life. And Dad, that's why I think you're the most successful man in the world.