God

Grace Flows for All

Posted on by Jesse Walker

How would you feel if you worked all day for your employer, and at the end of the day, he paid everyone the same wage? Even those who came to work a little late that morning. Or even those who only came to work for a couple of hours. All received the same amount of pay.

Did you know, there is a story like this in the bible. In Matthew 20:1-16, Jesus tells of a farmer who hired workers at various times of the day. All of the workers who were hired early in the morning agreed to work for one day’s wage. While the others agreed to accept whatever the farmer thought was fair. In other words, they trusted the farmer to pay fairly.

At the end of the day, the farmer calls all of the workers together, and pays them all the same wage. You can imagine how this made the early workers terribly unhappy. By their calculations, they were do more. They had worked longer and harder than those who only worked a very few hours. They believed because they had worked longer, they deserved more money. Which I’m sure is what you and I would have done if we were in that same situation. But Jesus replies in Matthew 19:13-16, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” “So, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

There are numerous messages we can take from this story. One is that we are not to be people who are jealous when others are blessed, and we aren’t. Are you mad that Jesus offers grace to those that you think are worse sinners than yourself? Are you angered that he accepts a thief’s request upon his death bed and promises him he will be with him in paradise? Are you mad when another church is growing faster than your own?

This story contradicts our thinking. It makes no earthly sense. But that’s the point. It’s not supposed to make earthly sense. Jesus isn’t telling a story about working and getting paid. He’s telling a story about grace. And how wonderful it is. And how it’s offered to everyone. Salvation is a gift. You don’t earn your salvation.

Jesus is still addressing the rich young rulers’ question in Matthew 19:16, “What must I do to be saved” and with Peter’s question in Matthew 19:27, “we have left everything to follow you, what will be left for us.” The answer is found in Matthew 19:29-30 where Jesus says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for the sake of My name will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

What the rich young ruler needed to know, is putting Jesus first, not the perfect keeping of the law, is what made the difference. What Peter needed to know, is no one who has sacrificed for God, will go unrewarded. What the early morning workers needed to know, the midday workers and the late day workers, is salvation is a gift. You can’t earn it. No amount of work will ever pay our debt. That debt was paid in full by God when he accepted the sinless life of his Son.

I don’t know where you are today, in your walk with God. But the good news is, it’s not too late. If you’re listening to this message, then you can receive grace. Your age, your wealth, your efforts don’t matter. What matters, is do you know Jesus. If you need help, please leave me a message. And I will do all I can to share the wonderful message of salvation with you.

Born again

Posted on by Jesse Walker

Are you a child of God. Have you been born again? Have you died to yourself.? Be honest, if you have, how come so many are so easily offended? The preacher didn’t shake my hand. No one said hello to me.

Let me ask you a profoundly serious question. How did you die to yourself and have so many rights to be everything you’re not to be? If what she said he said, sets you off, makes you quit attending services, to walk away from your church family, your earthly family, a brother, a sister, a co-worker, have you really died to self?

Too many Christians think they have been saved to merely go to heaven. And they are right, but the story doesn’t end there. You were saved to be reunited with the Father. Jesus said all who come to the Father must come through me. Jesus came to show you the way back to the Father. Jesus also said, if you’ve seen me, you have seen the Father.  He went on to say, “This is eternal life that you might know him.” Jesus died so that you could be united with God. Christianity is not a church attendance.

2 Corinthians 3:18 – “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” You are saved, to be transformed back into the image you were created to be in the garden of Eden before sin entered the world.

In Colossians 3:10 we read, “and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”   You were saved, in order that the new you, armed with renewed knowledge, is once again to reflect the image of your creator. You die to self, in order that God’s Spirit can live in you. Not when you get to heaven, but now and every day, every minute and every second of your life here on earth.

Do you know what the problem is for many Christians? They are waiting to go to haven before they change. They attend services. They show up to bible class, while holding onto their rights. I don’t like this, and I don’t like that. They said this, and they said that. Dead people have only one right. And that is to surrender their life in order that they may live. Anyone who finds his life will lose it. Anyone who loses his life for the sake of Jesus, will find their life.

You were saved, so that in Christ you have all you need to shine forth the glory of God. To walk in his image. The image you were created to be from the beginning.  You were saved so you could communion again with the Father. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be open to see the immeasurable power of God’s Spirit, dwelling in you, to make you into the image of your heavenly Father.

Forgiveness

Posted on by Jesse Walker

 

In Colossians 3:13 Christians are told “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Forgiveness is neither easy nor clear-cut, as many of us have found out when we are deeply hurt. I have experienced murder in my family. It is hard thing to forgive the person who took the life of your loved one. I have been abandoned by some, laughed at by others and sold short by others. Many of you have experienced the same or worse.

Why does God command that we forgive others. If you know anything about God, it’s for our benefit. God only wants the best for you and me. I believe one reason is, because without forgiveness you can never be fully free.  Hatred is of the devil. So, you will either choose to serve the devil or your heavenly father. The bible is clear, no man can serve two masters.

If you allow anger to build up inside of you, your enemy the devil has won. Your anger will turn to hatred, and as a result, all of humanity loses. The way a society goes will be determined largely by the grace it offers.

Forgiveness is the required step to a grace filled life.  Does this mean we forget. No. Does this mean what they did was ok. Absolutely not. Does this mean we should seek their release from prison. No.

In his book The Prisoner and the Bomb, Laurens van der Post recounts the misery of his wartime experiences in a Japanese prison camp in Java.   He writes, “The only hope for the future lay in an all-embracing attitude of forgiveness of the peoples who had been our enemies. Forgiveness, my prison experience had taught me, was not mere religious sentimentality; it was as fundamental a law of the human spirit as the law of gravity. If one broke the law of gravity one broke one’s neck; if one broke this law of forgiveness, one inflicted a mortal wound on one’s spirit and became once again a member of the chain-gang of mere cause and effect from which life has labored so long and painfully to escape.”

Why is our society so full of anger, and hatred? Why do we seem so divided? Could a large part of it be due to the lack of our willingness to forgive. Forgiveness does not come to us easily. We must work at it. It is a choice we must learn to make as painful as it can be.  We have to see the necessity of it for the greater good of society. A society that doesn’t practice grace is a society that is doomed to fail.  If the church wants to make an impact on the world, it must learn to practice forgiveness. How many of our churches have split over refusal to forgive.  Where did that practice come from?  I can surely say it did not come from God. For he commanded us to forgive. His Son dying words from the cross were “Father Forgive them”.

Will you take a step today to practice a grace filled life. A life of forgiveness. Ask God today to help you forgive. Lord, please forgive me when I allow anger and bitterness to fill my heart when I refuse to forgive someone who has hurt me. Teach me Lord to forgive as you have forgiven me.

Where are you?

Posted on by Jesse Walker

Have you ever wondered why God’s first question to Adam after he sinned, wasn’t “What have you done now”?  Or “Why can’t you stay out of trouble?”  Or maybe something like, “I hate you; I never want to see you again.”  Isn’t that sometimes how we respond when were angry?

But God’s first words to Adam were, “Where are you”.  Do you believe God didn’t know where Adam was?  I’m certain God knew exactly where Adam was. What God was indicating is, come here Adam.  I’m looking for you.  I want to talk to you. God was restoring a broken relationship.

God did a very similar thing with the second recorded sin in the bible when Cain killed his brother Abel. God said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother”.  In James 1:15 we read, “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”  Like Adam and Cain, they first desired something. For Adam it was the fruit of the tree.  For Cain it was jealousy of his brothers offering being accepted while his was rejected. The result of both their sins was spiritual death. This is true of all sin.  For in Isaiah 59:2 it says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”  Can you hear from Isiah’s words how sin destroys our relationship with God. Words like separation, removed from His presence (face) and that God will not respond (will not hear).  Friend this is a broken relationship that must be restored in order to function as it was designed.

This is why God came to Adam and said, “Where are you”, let’s restore our broken relationship. Let’s remove the separation.

In Mark 12:30-31 we learn that the greatest commandment according to Jesus is to love God with all your heart, and that the second is much like it to love others like yourself. Then Jesus sums up his teaching, and says, there are no greater commandments than these.

The kingdom of God is not made up of rules.  Nor is God seeking a bunch of rule keepers. Is obedience important.  Absolutely.  Jesus said, those who love me will keep my commandments. But loving Jesus, and doing good, is not rule keeping. It’s evidence of a loving relationship.

God is asking you and me today, “Where are you”? I pray today you will take time to mediate on this very important question, “Where are you?” And this is Jesse Walker with the Glenwood Church of Christ.

God Cried

Posted on by Jesse Walker

How do we (mortal humanity) obtain Intimacy with an all-powerful God? I surely do not have the definitive answer. But for me, it helps to see Christ as my father. I know how a father loves his children. Especially since I am a dad. I know how much I love my children. How I would do anything for them. And how it hurts when they rebel.

God is not a force. He is a person. Jesus the Son of God in John 14:8-10 when asked by Phillip to show them the Father replied, Philip if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Do you not know that I am in the Father and He is in me. Jesus also said in John 5:19, I can only do what the Father is doing. In a true sense, what Jesus was saying is that me and my Father are a mirror image. In John chapter 7, when Jesus saw Mary and the Jews weeping over the death of Mary’s brother Lazarus, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And then in verse 35, it says “Jesus Wept”.  How can mortal man cause an Almighty God to weep? To be grieved in the spirit, and to be troubled. Because He cares. He desires the best for us, and he wants to be with us.

Then in 1 John 4:29, we learn that God loved us before we ever loved him. It’s as if he walked into the orphanage and picked me out as the best kid. I know he picked us all. But it’s personal, God picked me, and he picked you. He is your father and my father.

God is not seeking religiosity. What he is seeking is a relationship. The entire reason God created man was to be with him. To commune with him. God came looking for Adam. And he is looking for you as well. As unfathomable it is to me, God loves us and wants to be with us. He picked us to be on his team when others did not want us. It makes no earthly sense. We are full of flaws and wrinkles. Yet God loved us when we were unlovable. Will you join me today and thank God for selecting you to be a part of His family. I pray you will. And this is Jesse Walker with the Glenwood, Church of Christ.

Divine Jealousy

Posted on by Jesse Walker

What do you think about when you hear the word jealousy? In our culture this normally indicates bad behavior. Behavior we’ve all seen when someone flies off the handle. Have you ever gotten jealous over your friends who live in a bigger house or drive a nicer car?

But did you know that jealousy doesn’t always have to be bad. If it motivates us to do better. For example, to study harder so we can get a better job. Or to work harder so we can get promoted, that isn’t always bad.

Did you know that God is a jealous God? In fact, in Exodus 20:3-5, God tells his people they shall have no other God’s before him because he is a jealous God. Again, in Deuteronomy 24:4 it says, For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.  How can God be a loving God and a jealous God? The simplest answer is, God does not get jealous like man does. His jealousy is not driven by emotions.  He doesn’t change because of how he feels that day. God is the same today, tomorrow, and forever. God is a jealous God because of his commitment to love you and me. God will not allow you or me to cheapen our relationship with him. In 2 Cor 11:2 the apostle Paul wrote, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.” God expects his people to be committed to him like a husband and wife are to be committed to each other. You might say for richer or poorer, through sickness and health, through good or bad.

God’s jealousy is a divine jealousy.  A commitment to his people.  And it’s this commitment that led him to offer his greatest gift himself. Yes, God is a jealous God because he paid a great price for you and me.  But God’s jealousy doesn’t end there, his commitment to you and me, never ends.   It is God who gives us every good and perfect gift.  His jealousy for us is why he gives us all things that pertain to life and Godliness. God is committed to no one else, like he is committed to his bride the church.   And one day his Son, Jesus is coming back for his bride.  Will you join me today in praising God for loving us like no other one else has ever done.  I pray you will.

Entrusted to Teach

Posted on by Bob Mathews

As the apostle Paul penned his second epistle to the evangelist Timothy, he faced an uncertain future.  Even as the epistle began, the issues of life and death occupied the mind of this preeminent servant (2 Tim. 1:1) who probably gave his life for the cause of Christ soon after writing to Timothy (2 Tim. 4:6).  In what was, seemingly, Paul’s last inspired communication to his beloved Timothy (2 Tim. 1:2), Paul emphasized truths not only dear unto himself but as well placed an emphasis upon those things which must be done after his departure in order to secure the church in succeeding generations.  Paul, as a spiritual father to Timothy, looked longingly to the immediate and distant future with a protective eye.  He would not leave Timothy without direction as Timothy faced the challenges of the day without the wisdom and guidance of the great apostle.  In this most intriguing context, the beloved apostle admonishes the young evangelist concerning several things, including his teaching responsibility.  Paul did not leave this world before he laid foundational stones which support the church very well to this very day.

In a review of 2 Timothy, we note the consistency flowing from the pen of Paul as he continually entreated Timothy to focus on his primary objective, the teaching of the Word of God.  A quick reading of the text evidences this observation:  Paul admonished Timothy to:

(a)Stir up the gift of God in him.     1:6

(b)Not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord.     1:8

(c)Hold fast the form of sound words.     1:13

(d)Put them in remembrance.     2:14

(e)Rightly divide the Word.     2:15

(f)Be apt to teach.     2:24

(g)Instruct those who oppose themselves.     2:25

(h)Preach the Word.     4:2a

(i)Do the work of an evangelist.     4:5

Additionally, Paul presented himself as both a preacher and a teacher (1:11) in whom the Word would not be bound (2:9).  In the spirit of 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul leaves himself as an example after which Timothy may pattern himself after Paul’s departure.

Perhaps one of the most compelling admonitions of the entire epistle was gracefully presented in 2 Tim. 2:2.  With a protective eye on the future of the church and a genuine interest in the souls of men, the apostle Paul looked beyond the immediate and personal labors of Timothy and focused on the potentially broad impact that he may have in his own generation and in generations yet to come.  The apostle vividly saw the value of preparing others to spread the Word along side men such as Timothy as well as after such passes the scene.  Here the apostle Paul said, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2:2; NASB).

Our congregation faces the same challenges today that were faced so courageously by first century Christians.  Our present need of teachers is as important for our congregation as it was for the area where Timothy labored so long ago.  If the membership of a congregation fails to meet the challenge of teaching those under its care and guidance, they will surely answer to the Lord.  May we as members conscientiously review and tap into our genuine potential and seriously consider making a firm commitment to be a part of the teaching of God’s Word to those that will come after us.

The Grace of God

Posted on by Bob Mathews

The mediate source of grace flowing from the Father’s throne is the Son of God, Christ Jesus (Rom. 1:5). Our assurance that divine grace will be extended to all men (Titus 2:11-12) is evidenced both prophetically and by promise (1 Peter 1:10; Zech. 12:10). The grace of God serves distinct and wonderful purposes, including our personal salvation (Eph. 2:8), our justification (Rom. 3:24), our receipt of the imputation of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17), our sufficiency in all things (2 Cor. 9:8), our abounding to every good work (2 Cor. 9:8), and our receipt of the gift of eternal life (Rom. 5:20-21).

Knowing that such wonderful blessings flow from the grace of God, we must endeavor to access the Father’s grace by personal faith (Rom. 5:1-2) working in harmony with the Abrahamic promise (Rom. 4:16), the expressed Word of God (Rom. 10:17) and the calling of God (2 Tim. 1:9; 2 Thess. 2:14) in association with the Word. Because of the importance of these issues, we must remember that grace is always in harmony with truth (Col. 1:3-6) and it requires obedience of faith (Rom. 5:21; 6:16-18). Meritorious works have no role to play in the Father’s system of redemption (Rom. 11:6). Our efforts to safeguard our standing in the grace of God is essential because we can so conduct ourselves so as to no longer be in the grace of God (Gal. 5:4).

Biblical motivation to continue in the grace of God by God-approved means includes our desire to escape the dominion of sin (Rom. 6:14), our desire to be a member of the elect of God (Rom. 11:5), our desire to be blessed with spiritual gifts (Eph. 3:8), our desire to maintain our hope (2 Thess. 2:16-17), and our desire to be the recipient of all the expressed purposes of the grace of God. The Father’s grace is surely worth our full personal dedication to all that the grace of God demands.

The Ideal Congregation (Pt. 2)

Posted on by Bob Mathews

The ideal congregation hungers and thirsts after righteousness.  Jesus said, “Blessed are they that  hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Mt.5:6).  The security of the blessing pronounced resides in the security of Jesus’ promise that each one so hungering and thirsting shall be filled.  The providential care of our Lord assists in bringing this promise unto fulfillment.  Such is truly a wonderful promise, knowing that if we pursue righteousness as we ought, the Lord has given his word that our spiritual appetite for righteousness will be satisfied.

The righteousness spoken of here involves the divine plan of righteousness that results in a personal verdict of righteousness.  This righteousness is nothing less than that which is in accord with the norm and standard of right, the objective revelation of the word of God.  To hunger and thirst after righteousness suggests a deep-seated craving which compels one to go to great lengths to fulfill its demands.  Invariably, one thus becomes a diligent student of the word (ref. Acts 17:11).  May we be emboldened to trust in the Lord’s promise and thus be motivated to hunger and thirst after righteous- ness as we have never done before!

The ideal congregation desires to be all that one can be, individually and congregationally.  The apostle Peter exhorted first century Christians to “add to your faith virtue; and to virtue  knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Pet.1:5-7).  When obeyed, this exhortation assists in developing full maturity in both attitude and daily living.

Fulfilled maturity requires one to seek to live up to his potential.  The parable of the talents (Mt.25:14-30) illustrates the necessity and the value of so doing while demonstrating the danger of personal failure.  The example of the poor widow who gave all her living to the treasury (Mk.12:41-43) deserves our consideration and imitation.  She truly fulfilled her individual potential.  Additionally, we will not be content with past achievements, either individually or as a congregation, if we hope to reach full maturity.  Paul remembered his past while properly relating to his past and the future (Phil.3:13-14).  He pressed on!  As we seek to be all that we can be, let us do so courageously with unyielding and confident faith, being servants of both God the Father and those about us (Romans 6).

These are just a couple more aspects to consider about the ideal congregation. Next week I’ll pose a couple more for all of us to chew on. May God be with us and bless us all on our Christian journey!