Oct 7, 2013
Sep 26, 2013
Feeling the prayers!
I am feeling your prayers! In the last two days, I have received 5 different notices from friends who I haven't even asked yet and now we are only lacking $500/month to meet our budget.
When it comes to trying to raise support, I am feeling like the little kid that brought the meager lunch and Jesus multiplied it to feed thousands. By my own efforts, I have produced very little. But God keeps showering us with blessings and showing us that it is His time for us to get back to Peru.
I am amazed at how applicable Paul's words are to the church in Philippi.
"I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:10-13
Just as we are called to support the gospel work in our home and tithe to our church, we are also called to give above and beyond to support the gospel work in other parts of the world. I rejoice that He is providing and pray that he will also "supply your every need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19
When it comes to trying to raise support, I am feeling like the little kid that brought the meager lunch and Jesus multiplied it to feed thousands. By my own efforts, I have produced very little. But God keeps showering us with blessings and showing us that it is His time for us to get back to Peru.
I am amazed at how applicable Paul's words are to the church in Philippi.
"I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:10-13
Just as we are called to support the gospel work in our home and tithe to our church, we are also called to give above and beyond to support the gospel work in other parts of the world. I rejoice that He is providing and pray that he will also "supply your every need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:19
Sep 24, 2013
Fruit and a Mission
A few weeks ago, when my uncle (who has also been a missionary and is a farmer) saw my pitiful garden after I had basically given up on it. He said, "The mission field is a lot like a garden. If you tend it, it will bear fruit. If you don't tend it, everything will go to pot. You need to get back to the mission field, don't you." I said yes, yes I do.
Well, actually we are very close to making it back to the field. Our goal is to be fully funded in time to go on our flights October 26. We now only lack commitments to add up to $672/month. This means we only need 6 more people to give 100/month and one to give 72/month or the equivalent yearly! Would you pray with us and ask God to lead us to those whom he has blessed with extra to be able to partner with us in his work in Peru? Is he blessing you and leading you to join with us and support us. Philippians 4:10-20 is a great biblical example of giving to support the work of God's kingdom all over the world. Paul actually indicates that giving support also leads to fruit that increases to your credit. Not only is giving a means to seeing fruit but just as important, walking with the Spirit is a crucial means to seeing fruit in our lives.
There is something very true to what my uncle said, but it is not just for the mission field it is for the church everywhere and also for our own souls. As far as the mission field that I am called to get back to, I get to work with a team and so I am not the only gardner or shepherd tending the field. However, God has called me there and I am ready to get back and tend to his garden of souls. Plus, the other gardeners have more work than they can handle and so I need to get back and pull my load.
Not long after this conversation with my uncle, I was reading Spurgeon's Morning and Evenings with my family and we came across a very similar message. I remember coming away from that devotion thinking and sharing with my family that our soul is like a garden. If we water it and weed it and tend to it with the means of grace (which are meeting with God through the Bible, prayer and the sacraments which includes church fellowship), then our soul will produce the fruit of the spirit. But if we don't tend to it and neglect the tools God has given us to tend our gardens then it will produce weeds. Our heart will grow bitter and sour and weeds will overrun it. Our actions will begin to demonstrate the condition of our souls. The tools God has given us are effective to produce fruit in our lives, but he has given us the responsibility to use them. If we don't use them, then we don't get to experience the fruit.
It is very interesting that Paul uses this picture in Galatians when he says, "... the fruit of the Spirit is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Just before telling us the fruit of the Spirit he compares the difference of walking by the Spirit with gratifying the desires of the flesh. He doesn't call the result of the flesh fruit, he calls it works of the flesh, "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these." So these things are works that we do but the fruit of the Spirit are results of what the Spirit does in us. If we are left to ourselves and listen to our natural desires, these works will consume us.
This is the natural result of living for ourselves. No wonder, our country is facing so much violence and turmoil. If our culture continues to tell everyone that we are our own gods and that we should live for ourselves, then the wicked actions that we see more and more will be the natural result of living according to our own desires.
But, If we walk by the Spirit He will change us and produce his fruit in us. We can not make our selves more patient but we can confess and repent of our impatience and walk with the Spirit and He will make us more patient. The same for love, joy, peace and all the others in the list.
How do we walk with the Spirit? This is one of the beauties of this illustration of a garden. No one has ever pulled on a tomato plant to make it grow, at least successfully. The means of growing tomatoes is preparing the soil, planting, watering, pruning and weeding. The means of walking with the Spirit are listening to Him by reading the Bible and hearing it read and preached. We walk with the Spirit by praying to Him in responding to the Bible and with the Bible. We walk with the Spirit by partaking of His presence in the sacraments and meeting with him in His dwelling place, His body, the congregation of saints.
The fruit will most likely not grow overnight, just as with a garden. But as we tend our soul, the fruit will begin to grow and there will be a change in our hearts and we will begin to experience the true joy of walking in the Spirit. We can't make our selves grow by trying harder moralistically but we can seek God's face through His tools and faith and repentance and He will make us grow through walking with Him.
This is what will change our world. If we apply these tools to our lives and share them with our neighbor, I am convinced that we will see a drastic change in our world. God has promised and is establishing his kingdom on this earth. Do you want to be a part of that mission? His mission is to reunite heaven and earth through producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. That is after all God's mission on Earth, whether it is in your home town or Peru or Japan or anywhere else on this earth. Where is your bible?
Well, actually we are very close to making it back to the field. Our goal is to be fully funded in time to go on our flights October 26. We now only lack commitments to add up to $672/month. This means we only need 6 more people to give 100/month and one to give 72/month or the equivalent yearly! Would you pray with us and ask God to lead us to those whom he has blessed with extra to be able to partner with us in his work in Peru? Is he blessing you and leading you to join with us and support us. Philippians 4:10-20 is a great biblical example of giving to support the work of God's kingdom all over the world. Paul actually indicates that giving support also leads to fruit that increases to your credit. Not only is giving a means to seeing fruit but just as important, walking with the Spirit is a crucial means to seeing fruit in our lives.
There is something very true to what my uncle said, but it is not just for the mission field it is for the church everywhere and also for our own souls. As far as the mission field that I am called to get back to, I get to work with a team and so I am not the only gardner or shepherd tending the field. However, God has called me there and I am ready to get back and tend to his garden of souls. Plus, the other gardeners have more work than they can handle and so I need to get back and pull my load.
Not long after this conversation with my uncle, I was reading Spurgeon's Morning and Evenings with my family and we came across a very similar message. I remember coming away from that devotion thinking and sharing with my family that our soul is like a garden. If we water it and weed it and tend to it with the means of grace (which are meeting with God through the Bible, prayer and the sacraments which includes church fellowship), then our soul will produce the fruit of the spirit. But if we don't tend to it and neglect the tools God has given us to tend our gardens then it will produce weeds. Our heart will grow bitter and sour and weeds will overrun it. Our actions will begin to demonstrate the condition of our souls. The tools God has given us are effective to produce fruit in our lives, but he has given us the responsibility to use them. If we don't use them, then we don't get to experience the fruit.
It is very interesting that Paul uses this picture in Galatians when he says, "... the fruit of the Spirit is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." Just before telling us the fruit of the Spirit he compares the difference of walking by the Spirit with gratifying the desires of the flesh. He doesn't call the result of the flesh fruit, he calls it works of the flesh, "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these." So these things are works that we do but the fruit of the Spirit are results of what the Spirit does in us. If we are left to ourselves and listen to our natural desires, these works will consume us.
This is the natural result of living for ourselves. No wonder, our country is facing so much violence and turmoil. If our culture continues to tell everyone that we are our own gods and that we should live for ourselves, then the wicked actions that we see more and more will be the natural result of living according to our own desires.
But, If we walk by the Spirit He will change us and produce his fruit in us. We can not make our selves more patient but we can confess and repent of our impatience and walk with the Spirit and He will make us more patient. The same for love, joy, peace and all the others in the list.
How do we walk with the Spirit? This is one of the beauties of this illustration of a garden. No one has ever pulled on a tomato plant to make it grow, at least successfully. The means of growing tomatoes is preparing the soil, planting, watering, pruning and weeding. The means of walking with the Spirit are listening to Him by reading the Bible and hearing it read and preached. We walk with the Spirit by praying to Him in responding to the Bible and with the Bible. We walk with the Spirit by partaking of His presence in the sacraments and meeting with him in His dwelling place, His body, the congregation of saints.
The fruit will most likely not grow overnight, just as with a garden. But as we tend our soul, the fruit will begin to grow and there will be a change in our hearts and we will begin to experience the true joy of walking in the Spirit. We can't make our selves grow by trying harder moralistically but we can seek God's face through His tools and faith and repentance and He will make us grow through walking with Him.
This is what will change our world. If we apply these tools to our lives and share them with our neighbor, I am convinced that we will see a drastic change in our world. God has promised and is establishing his kingdom on this earth. Do you want to be a part of that mission? His mission is to reunite heaven and earth through producing the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. That is after all God's mission on Earth, whether it is in your home town or Peru or Japan or anywhere else on this earth. Where is your bible?
Aug 23, 2013
Funeral at Cristo Restaurador in Arevalo
Last Saturday a funeral for a dear lady in the Arevalo church was held and attended by the entire community. Please pray for her grieving family and for fruit to come from the seeds planted through Pastor Ricardo sharing the gospel and the hope of eternity in Christ.
Aug 2, 2013
Thank you for Praying
WOW! Thank you all for praying! I should not be amazed. Our God is BIG. Our flights were changed to October 26! We really don't understand but received a notice of the change and called and it was confirmed.
Thank you to so many of you who have committed to supporting us financially and also to all of you who have committed to praying for us. Now please continue praying for us to be ready by then. The church is anxiously awaiting our return! We look forward to plugging into the work demonstrated in the video below.
Thank you to so many of you who have committed to supporting us financially and also to all of you who have committed to praying for us. Now please continue praying for us to be ready by then. The church is anxiously awaiting our return! We look forward to plugging into the work demonstrated in the video below.
Jul 29, 2013
Keep Praying!
Please pray with us. I just found out this morning that if we postpone our trip, it will mean having to buy new plane tickets. We have only a couple of weeks to raise another $3,000/month in order to save the amount of plane tickets. (yes it is down to only $3,000 now!) I recognize that this is an unreasonable goal but, why would we need faith if it was reasonable? Romans 8:24,25
I don't want to ask anyone that doesn't have to give.
I am also not asking anyone to stop giving to their local church.
But for those of you who do have extra after giving to your church, please consider partnering with the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Peru. If only 60 people have an extra $50/month to partner with us, then we would be able to depart.
We thank all of you for praying and thank many of you for your generous support. This is not just to help my family, this is to enable us to serve the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ in His church in Peru.
If the Lord is leading you to partner with us, you can find out more at www.perumission.org/mills
I don't want to ask anyone that doesn't have to give.
I am also not asking anyone to stop giving to their local church.
But for those of you who do have extra after giving to your church, please consider partnering with the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Peru. If only 60 people have an extra $50/month to partner with us, then we would be able to depart.
We thank all of you for praying and thank many of you for your generous support. This is not just to help my family, this is to enable us to serve the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ in His church in Peru.
If the Lord is leading you to partner with us, you can find out more at www.perumission.org/mills
Jul 18, 2013
Calling all prayers!
"Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me;
for I am afflicted and needy." Psalm 86:1
We have tickets to return to Peru August 28 by faith.
However, if our long-term support is not high enough by August we will have to postpone our return to Peru until we reach our goal.
My needs are nowhere near those of David when he wrote the Psalm quoted above. I am not in the midst of a direct life threat for trying to receive what God has given me. I am also not as afflicted and needy as many of my friends and family who are going through very difficult trials right now. But I do relate to this prayer as we are at a time of need. I trust that the Lord is the one to pray to and I am praying to him for our need. I will be honest, I don't like hate fund-raising. I do love traveling around and telling about what God is doing through His church. That is for the most part what I have been doing this year. I am conflicted about this. I have some dear brothers who tell me that many say they have heard many powerful testimonies of how God is using people in ministry but they didn't ask for money so they didn't give. Then I have heard others tell me that God has promised to give and so we are being unfaithful if we go and ask other people. We should just pray in our closet and trust the Lord to be the Lord. I definitely believe that the Lord is able and does often provide through private prayers. But I also recognize that He has chosen to use His people to pray and has chosen to answer the prayers of His church. He often uses people through communication to do His will. Therefore I appeal to you to pray with us.
Our long-term support is only at 51%. The Lord has blessed us tremendously in one-time support and we are already at 86% of 2013. Thank you for so much generous support and partnership with us in this work.
If you have given one-time support and are willing to commit to give that every year or if the Lord has laid it on your heart to support us, please let us know by sending in a note to CMS of your commitment by the end of July. This will help us greatly in our planning.
If it proves to be the Lord's will to postpone our return to Peru, we will re-schedule our tickets for later in the year and keep raising support until we are ready. Even if we do have to change our tickets we will still save money on not having to buy new tickets. However we are still pleading with the Lord that we will be able to get back to Peru sooner than later.
Please pray with us that the Lord who provides will provide in His timing. Our team is pleading with us to come soon and has expressed their deep anticipation of our return. They tell me that I am greatly needed for a pivotal role in the ministry of the church in Arevalo but, we cannot return to Peru without increasing our long-term support.
The work of discipleship with the carpenters with Parish will continue but on a wider scale of directly working in discipleship with the church community. The church, Christ the Restorer in the neighborhood of Arevalo, is at a pivotal point. The Peru Mission team is telling me that the gifts God has provided me with and demonstrated in the growth of the carpenters are crucially needed to help produce local leadership and growth in the church.
Our focus with Parish is narrowing more and more to disciple the men that we are working with and help them grow in the local market in Peru. We are still praying toward future growth in export to the U.S., but have decided to focus more on local growth in Peru until God shows us his timing. This means that we are focusing on the three areas of ministry; spiritual discipleship, technical training and administrative training. Parish has been helping one new business get started, Las Ponas, and we are seeking to help several other carpenters become more sustainable in their work. I am convinced that the best way to serve Christ's church is to seek to apply the means of grace to our whole life throughout the week. This not only means studying the Bible during the week but also means applying scriptural principles to our work to be able to support our church, our family and our community. Please pray with us that the Lord will bless this ministry to cause growth in the lives of the men and their families both in their spiritual and vocational lives.
in the joy of resting in Christ,
Stuart Mills
(for Megumi, Satomi, Samuel and Ezra.)
below are some pictures of a display created by Las Ponas to showcase their work. Many new customers have come in and purchased their products as a result!
May 1, 2013
Spring 2013 update
Here is a link to an update. Praise the Lord, one of our prayer requests mentioned is already answered! Daniel Jr. found a ticket yesterday on the same flight with us for August 28!
Apr 26, 2013
Dependence and Viability
How can one determine when a life is viable? I have heard some of the arguments for abortion determine whether a baby is a baby or a fetus by whether it is viable or not. I was struck by this thought the other day while holding our 5 month old baby. He was fussing because of teething and it struck me as interesting the way the Lord designed us to be born so completely dependent on others. It is strange that human babies are so dependent on their parents care. It seems that even a 5 month old would not be viable without the help of parental care. It seems to me that viability is not a good measure for whether life is a life.
I can't help but wonder if the Lord designed us this way to shape us and prepare us to know our need for him and for it to be demonstrated every time we hold a baby in our arms. It is a great tragedy that we so often don't get it. We are so prone to blindness and self-deceit in living a life where we think we are completely independent of anyone else. I am thankful that the Lord is patient and gracious to us. As I struggle to be patient with our other children, I can't help but be reminded at what amazing patience our Lord has to not loose his temper with us in our stubborn rebellion and selfishness.
I am made even more aware of our dependence in this calling as a missionary and our dependence on the Lord's providence through supporters. I begin to wonder how viable any of us would be without the support of a loving community. I give thanks to God for creating us in such a way that we all depend on community and support for living a healthy and full life.
Apr 1, 2013
Foolish debates? gay rights, abortion, resurrection
I do find fun in April Fool's pranks but today, I have other things on my mind. Especially in light of the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus yesterday for Easter, I want to look at what that means for us. What does the fact that Jesus was resurrected have to do with us today?
The late Jim Elliot was famous for saying, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose." I have heard this was in response to Jesus' call to take up our cross and follow him. This is basically a call to surrender our own lives of idolatry of worshipping ourselves to give up worship of ourselves to follow Jesus and live a life of worshipping God and therefore receive an abundant life of joy in fulfilling our created purpose in worshipping God. The resurrection of Jesus is a promise of our own resurrection that comes through union with Him and gives us hope of victory.
I was reading in Romans today and couldn't help but think about the political debates about gay rights and abortion. I am sad to hear so much debate by people who have rejected God and argue nonsense out of the air. I am sure that they would say I am arguing nonsense. (The Word of God is folly to those who are perishing but to us who believe it is the Power of God. 1 Cor. 1:18) That is part of the problem. By rejecting God and claiming that there is no foundation, it is impossible for anyone to win an argument. They claim to be using reason and human logic but by basing the authority of their reason on humanity itself they are basing reason on a very unstable foundation, which is no foundation at all. When humanity tries to stand on itself and deny the existence of the very ground beneath it they create a very tricky problem. One problem is that the foundation that they claim to be absent is actually still there and they are still standing on it. God in his grace has not completely removed himself from them. Although He has promised judgment and wrath to come in the form of letting us have what we want. In a sense this is giving us over to ourselves and withdrawing from us by leaving us to indulge in the idolatry of ourselves.
The gay rights and abortion debates are a clear example of humanity worshipping itself. This is the natural progression of living life without God. We, left to ourselves, will worship ourselves to the point of distorting the natural design and even to the point of having no regard how it affects other life. We worship ourselves and creation and reject our Creator. Any attempt to debate whether this is right or wrong goes around in circles because the one who created the natural order of right and wrong is rejected by those who want to say for themselves what is right or wrong. Again the attempt to deny the foundation is curiously confused because we are still standing on the foundation they are trying to refuse. The evidence is in the fact that there is such hot debate over these issues. If there were no God or foundation then there would be no reason to debate the issues. I don't wish to go farther into that part of the philosophical debate. Others are far more gifted than I to wrestle through that philosophy. I would rather keep it simple and dig into what is revealed to us in Scripture. But my weakness in philosophy is not the only reason I turn to scripture. I really believe that there is more wisdom and truth in scripture than any human reasoning or philosophy can produce. But I also believe that most of these debates are just scratching the surface of what is truly at the heart of everyone pursuing these debates. I think scripture gets to the heart of the problem. I think most people are really just trying to deal with their sin and guilt by trying to deny that it is sin and guilt and trying to come up with ways to justify something that they don't want to let go of.
Paul makes it clear in Romans 1 that all humanity has no excuse. We all know deep down that His reality is present and clearly demonstrated over the ages but we deny that reality. Before you think that I am bringing this up to simply condemn homosexuality and abortion, let me point out that this epistle goes much deeper than condemning only those sins. We are all condemned by this charge. Chapter 2 condemns the teachers of the law for breaking it themselves and then goes on to point out the sad reality that all are condemned and that there is no one righteous. Chapter 3 tells us that all have fallen short of God's standard of holiness and are condemned to death. Not only homosexual sin but adultery. Not only stealing but lying and even coveting. Not only abortion but hate and even disobeying parents. It isn't legitimate for a Christian who struggles with desiring his neighbors phone, computer, car, house, job, spouse or even life situation to condemn another Christian for struggling with sexual perversion. But it is completely legitimate for a Christian who struggles with any sin to judge another Christian for not struggling with sin. What I mean is, if we are a Christian and don't resist sin or we try to say that sin is not sin, then we have a problem. It is our responsibility as fellow members of the same body of Christ to care for each other. We are not supposed to condemn each other as if we are better, God will condemn, but we are supposed to discern and call each other to repentance. It is legitimate to call each other to repentance and even to point out our sin. Not to condemn as if we are better than the other but to judge the truth and reality that we are all in need of a savior and to encourage each other to run to that savior and follow Him.
We are all guilty but God in his infinite mercy has given us a gift of grace in granting righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ. He justifies us and redeemed us through Jesus. This is a call for all people in any and every situation to be restored to their Creator. Sin has been judged and dealt with in Jesus. But those who refuse to admit sin or come to Jesus will be judged for their rebellion and sin. All of humanity has a reality to face. We were created by a just and holy being. He is loving and His love is beautifully demonstrated by redemption in Christ Jesus. The Resurrection is an amazing promise of hope and love that comes through faith in Christ Jesus. By faith in Christ Jesus we are united and joined with him in his resurrection, which gives us hope of being free from this struggle with sin. Jesus' death afforded our forgiveness and his resurrection afforded victory over sin. But those who reject Jesus still have sin that needs to be dealt with. As a Christian, I don't judge unbelievers by saying that they are not good enough and I am a better person. I judge them by saying God is holy and calls all of us to repent and turn to Him. I am no better, I am just as messed up but have found true freedom and purpose in life by being restored to our Creator. Come join us! There is nothing better than being restored to our true purpose. Stop clinging to your sin as if it gave you any satisfaction. Yes you will have to give up that idol and let go of it but giving it up will actually free you to find your true purpose and satisfaction in life. The Resurrection of Jesus gives us hope that we have been given victory through him and have been set free from the bondage of sin.
I am certain that many of you who reject God and the Bible as foolishness are not rejecting Him because of philosophy and reason. I doubt very seriously that you reject Him because you are convinced that He isn't there. I think it is more likely that you reject Him because you find that is the easiest way to deal with your shame or weakness. You think that if you deny him, and convince yourself that there is no one to judge you then you will be free to enjoy yourself and to enjoy your own life as you want it. I think this is why you get so upset when anyone talks about judging sin. But the truth is, that you are not free. Satan is doing everything he can to convince you that rejecting God will give you freedom, but in reality he is enslaving you to a bondage that never satisfies. You are constantly disappointed and let down by your self. Please hear me on this, God is the only one who can give you true satisfaction. God really does love you. Satan is lying and you are deceiving yourself when you think that rejecting God will give you true freedom and that belief in God is restricting. God is loving and has created all of us for a purpose. Just as a violin makes beautiful music when the violinist follows the discipline of it's design so will we make beautiful music when we follow the discipline of our design. Jesus Christ in His Resurrection has dealt with our sin and rebellion and restored us to our created design. We will only find this restoration and ultimate fulfillment through repentance and faith in Him. There is no other way to deal with our sin. No Christian is better than you in and of themselves. We have been restored and made whole again, but that was only by grace and we plead with you to come join us. No sin is too great that Jesus didn't deal with it on the cross. You will not find freedom in running anywhere else. Jesus died because He loves you. He lives because he dealt with our sin and calls us to come and follow Him. If we try to hold on to our lives and keep something that we can never keep, we will find ourselves to be the true fool. We will all die one day and loose this life that we desperately try to keep. But if we surrender and give up what we will certainly loose, we will find that we gain a new life, a new hope and eternity that Jesus earned for us in the resurrection that we can never loose. This new life can never be lost because it was bought with the price of the blood of Jesus the only perfect human. All of us are broken and bound to death in the old life as heirs of Adam. Jesus came to offer us new life as adopted heirs of Jesus the new man. Please come to Jesus and be free of condemnation. If we finally accept that we are sinful and that there is a just God we can find redemption in Christ and find that we are no longer condemned. If we resist and deny condemnation for fear of judgment, we will only find that it was true after all and bear a load that is impossible to bear for all eternity. It is impossible to keep our lives for ourselves. It is also impossible to lose the salvation that He gives. But he leaves us to receive it by faith. Faith in Jesus is more than just believing that He exists and died and came back to life. Faith in Jesus is being joined to him in a way that marriage between a man and a woman is only a faint picture. Faith in Jesus is believing that He is God and Lord of our lives and that we are sinful and deserve judgment but also trusting that He has atoned for our sin and given us new life. Faith in Jesus is being joined with Him in receiving the Spirit in our hearts and submitting to Him as Lord. It is not submission to an oppressive regime but a loving and joyful reign. Please come and join us in the true restoration and resurrection of new life. Jesus offers himself freely. He says come and buy without money. If you are thirsty come and drink. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.
The late Jim Elliot was famous for saying, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose." I have heard this was in response to Jesus' call to take up our cross and follow him. This is basically a call to surrender our own lives of idolatry of worshipping ourselves to give up worship of ourselves to follow Jesus and live a life of worshipping God and therefore receive an abundant life of joy in fulfilling our created purpose in worshipping God. The resurrection of Jesus is a promise of our own resurrection that comes through union with Him and gives us hope of victory.
I was reading in Romans today and couldn't help but think about the political debates about gay rights and abortion. I am sad to hear so much debate by people who have rejected God and argue nonsense out of the air. I am sure that they would say I am arguing nonsense. (The Word of God is folly to those who are perishing but to us who believe it is the Power of God. 1 Cor. 1:18) That is part of the problem. By rejecting God and claiming that there is no foundation, it is impossible for anyone to win an argument. They claim to be using reason and human logic but by basing the authority of their reason on humanity itself they are basing reason on a very unstable foundation, which is no foundation at all. When humanity tries to stand on itself and deny the existence of the very ground beneath it they create a very tricky problem. One problem is that the foundation that they claim to be absent is actually still there and they are still standing on it. God in his grace has not completely removed himself from them. Although He has promised judgment and wrath to come in the form of letting us have what we want. In a sense this is giving us over to ourselves and withdrawing from us by leaving us to indulge in the idolatry of ourselves.
The gay rights and abortion debates are a clear example of humanity worshipping itself. This is the natural progression of living life without God. We, left to ourselves, will worship ourselves to the point of distorting the natural design and even to the point of having no regard how it affects other life. We worship ourselves and creation and reject our Creator. Any attempt to debate whether this is right or wrong goes around in circles because the one who created the natural order of right and wrong is rejected by those who want to say for themselves what is right or wrong. Again the attempt to deny the foundation is curiously confused because we are still standing on the foundation they are trying to refuse. The evidence is in the fact that there is such hot debate over these issues. If there were no God or foundation then there would be no reason to debate the issues. I don't wish to go farther into that part of the philosophical debate. Others are far more gifted than I to wrestle through that philosophy. I would rather keep it simple and dig into what is revealed to us in Scripture. But my weakness in philosophy is not the only reason I turn to scripture. I really believe that there is more wisdom and truth in scripture than any human reasoning or philosophy can produce. But I also believe that most of these debates are just scratching the surface of what is truly at the heart of everyone pursuing these debates. I think scripture gets to the heart of the problem. I think most people are really just trying to deal with their sin and guilt by trying to deny that it is sin and guilt and trying to come up with ways to justify something that they don't want to let go of.
Paul makes it clear in Romans 1 that all humanity has no excuse. We all know deep down that His reality is present and clearly demonstrated over the ages but we deny that reality. Before you think that I am bringing this up to simply condemn homosexuality and abortion, let me point out that this epistle goes much deeper than condemning only those sins. We are all condemned by this charge. Chapter 2 condemns the teachers of the law for breaking it themselves and then goes on to point out the sad reality that all are condemned and that there is no one righteous. Chapter 3 tells us that all have fallen short of God's standard of holiness and are condemned to death. Not only homosexual sin but adultery. Not only stealing but lying and even coveting. Not only abortion but hate and even disobeying parents. It isn't legitimate for a Christian who struggles with desiring his neighbors phone, computer, car, house, job, spouse or even life situation to condemn another Christian for struggling with sexual perversion. But it is completely legitimate for a Christian who struggles with any sin to judge another Christian for not struggling with sin. What I mean is, if we are a Christian and don't resist sin or we try to say that sin is not sin, then we have a problem. It is our responsibility as fellow members of the same body of Christ to care for each other. We are not supposed to condemn each other as if we are better, God will condemn, but we are supposed to discern and call each other to repentance. It is legitimate to call each other to repentance and even to point out our sin. Not to condemn as if we are better than the other but to judge the truth and reality that we are all in need of a savior and to encourage each other to run to that savior and follow Him.
We are all guilty but God in his infinite mercy has given us a gift of grace in granting righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ. He justifies us and redeemed us through Jesus. This is a call for all people in any and every situation to be restored to their Creator. Sin has been judged and dealt with in Jesus. But those who refuse to admit sin or come to Jesus will be judged for their rebellion and sin. All of humanity has a reality to face. We were created by a just and holy being. He is loving and His love is beautifully demonstrated by redemption in Christ Jesus. The Resurrection is an amazing promise of hope and love that comes through faith in Christ Jesus. By faith in Christ Jesus we are united and joined with him in his resurrection, which gives us hope of being free from this struggle with sin. Jesus' death afforded our forgiveness and his resurrection afforded victory over sin. But those who reject Jesus still have sin that needs to be dealt with. As a Christian, I don't judge unbelievers by saying that they are not good enough and I am a better person. I judge them by saying God is holy and calls all of us to repent and turn to Him. I am no better, I am just as messed up but have found true freedom and purpose in life by being restored to our Creator. Come join us! There is nothing better than being restored to our true purpose. Stop clinging to your sin as if it gave you any satisfaction. Yes you will have to give up that idol and let go of it but giving it up will actually free you to find your true purpose and satisfaction in life. The Resurrection of Jesus gives us hope that we have been given victory through him and have been set free from the bondage of sin.
I am certain that many of you who reject God and the Bible as foolishness are not rejecting Him because of philosophy and reason. I doubt very seriously that you reject Him because you are convinced that He isn't there. I think it is more likely that you reject Him because you find that is the easiest way to deal with your shame or weakness. You think that if you deny him, and convince yourself that there is no one to judge you then you will be free to enjoy yourself and to enjoy your own life as you want it. I think this is why you get so upset when anyone talks about judging sin. But the truth is, that you are not free. Satan is doing everything he can to convince you that rejecting God will give you freedom, but in reality he is enslaving you to a bondage that never satisfies. You are constantly disappointed and let down by your self. Please hear me on this, God is the only one who can give you true satisfaction. God really does love you. Satan is lying and you are deceiving yourself when you think that rejecting God will give you true freedom and that belief in God is restricting. God is loving and has created all of us for a purpose. Just as a violin makes beautiful music when the violinist follows the discipline of it's design so will we make beautiful music when we follow the discipline of our design. Jesus Christ in His Resurrection has dealt with our sin and rebellion and restored us to our created design. We will only find this restoration and ultimate fulfillment through repentance and faith in Him. There is no other way to deal with our sin. No Christian is better than you in and of themselves. We have been restored and made whole again, but that was only by grace and we plead with you to come join us. No sin is too great that Jesus didn't deal with it on the cross. You will not find freedom in running anywhere else. Jesus died because He loves you. He lives because he dealt with our sin and calls us to come and follow Him. If we try to hold on to our lives and keep something that we can never keep, we will find ourselves to be the true fool. We will all die one day and loose this life that we desperately try to keep. But if we surrender and give up what we will certainly loose, we will find that we gain a new life, a new hope and eternity that Jesus earned for us in the resurrection that we can never loose. This new life can never be lost because it was bought with the price of the blood of Jesus the only perfect human. All of us are broken and bound to death in the old life as heirs of Adam. Jesus came to offer us new life as adopted heirs of Jesus the new man. Please come to Jesus and be free of condemnation. If we finally accept that we are sinful and that there is a just God we can find redemption in Christ and find that we are no longer condemned. If we resist and deny condemnation for fear of judgment, we will only find that it was true after all and bear a load that is impossible to bear for all eternity. It is impossible to keep our lives for ourselves. It is also impossible to lose the salvation that He gives. But he leaves us to receive it by faith. Faith in Jesus is more than just believing that He exists and died and came back to life. Faith in Jesus is being joined to him in a way that marriage between a man and a woman is only a faint picture. Faith in Jesus is believing that He is God and Lord of our lives and that we are sinful and deserve judgment but also trusting that He has atoned for our sin and given us new life. Faith in Jesus is being joined with Him in receiving the Spirit in our hearts and submitting to Him as Lord. It is not submission to an oppressive regime but a loving and joyful reign. Please come and join us in the true restoration and resurrection of new life. Jesus offers himself freely. He says come and buy without money. If you are thirsty come and drink. His yoke is easy and his burden is light.
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