Category Archives: The Gospel

Like a Dad

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When a baby takes that first step, it’s a natural thing that happens as they grow and mature.  But don’t tell that to Dad, who just posted videos of Sally’s first steps.  He’s over the moon with excitement.

When a new believer begins to change as the Spirit of Jesus grows and develops within them, their friends who first told them about Jesus tend to get just as excited.  Because those baby steps, those changes they see, confirm the new life that has taken hold.  It’s like watching baby steps. Jesus called those changes “bearing fruit.”

Paul saw love emerging from the new Christians in Colossae and he couldn’t stop thanking God for them (see the previous post: The Love Test).  Then he says this:

“…In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.”  – (Colossians 1:6b)

End of story?  Hardly.  Paul, just like Sally’s dad, cheers them on, excitedly anticipating where this new growth will take them. He says:

“For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,  so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,  being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,  and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.” – (Colossians 1:9-12)

Seems like Paul is stumbling over his words in his excitement.  He prays for all the stuff that emerges in the new life of believers as the Spirit fills them and naturally gives them new dance moves in rhythm with God. 

But then, that’s what dads do. they just can’t contain the excitement when they see those first new steps.  Happy Father’s Day, y’all.

The Love Test

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Do you ever wonder if you really believe in Jesus?  Are you a citizen or merely a tourist in the land of faith?  Since you cannot see faith, and since our minds deceive us (remember that romance in Jr. High?), is there a telltale sign we can look for to assess the genuineness of our faith?  Jesus said if we love one another as He loved us, others would know.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – (John 13:35)

Not Hallmark card love.  It’s the kind of love Jesus extended on the cross, dying to pay a debt we could not.  This kind of love (agape love) is an act of personal sacrifice in compassionate response to a need of someone else, with no expectation of any return.

If you find yourself increasingly moved to bless someone else in his need, not out of obligation or guilt, but out of agape love, this is a telltale sign of real faith. 

As John wrote:
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: –  (1John 3:18-19)

The connection between real faith and sacrificial love is hope.  Not wishful thinking, but confidence in the future.  When we know we cannot lose, loving sacrifice becomes logical.  They could steal from us, hate us, persecute us, sue us or even kill us and it would not change the outcome for us in eternity.  We cannot lose.  Because we have real hope, it is safe  for us to love.  Agape love is a sign of faith because it is extended in direct contrast to the “rules” of the world.

Paul was excited and thankful for the new Colossian believers…

…because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—  the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel. – (Colossians 1:4-5)

Your prayers for Ann Maree were graciously answered this morning, around 1:30.

Ann Maree is home at last!    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Last October, after the full scope and sobering consequences of her cancer were known, God woke her in the small hours and gave her a foretaste of the unbridled “shalom” awaiting her in Heaven.  She was laughing and crying the next morning, trying to find words to convey what she experienced.  And so grateful to Jesus for His promise to her of that destiny.   This morning I imagine her family and friends in Heaven are saying, “You think that was cool, check this out!”

Here’s a song for Ann Maree, again taken from the Psalms:

“I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.“
(Psalm 16:8-11)

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

 

PS – If you would enjoy seeing some of Ann Maree’s artwork, go to annmareebeaman.com.

A Prayer for Ann Maree

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As my wonderful wife, Ann Maree, is taking her final breaths, here’s a prayer on her behalf:

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
For you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the foe.
I long to dwell in your tent forever and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
For you have heard my vows, O God;
you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.”

(Psalm 61:1-5, NIV)

 

Members Only?

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Has God passed you by?  I’ve been enjoying “American Idol” over the past few weeks, but always feel the pain of the contestants who, each week, are informed they were not chosen.  They are told, your best wasn’t good enough; go back to the hotel, get your stuff together and go back to your ordinary, humdrum life.  Ouch.  But the Bible uses that word, chosen, too.  Israel is “God’s chosen people.”  And Peter calls Christians,

To God’s elect, ….who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, …. 1 Peter 1b & 2a (excerpts)

If God chooses those who become Christians, does so by His own foreknowledge, and if you are not a Christian, does that mean God has passed you over?  Has God rejected you?  When you also realize that Jesus taught that only those who come to Him by faith are born into the Kingdom of Heaven and attain eternal life, this is no small question.  Has God left you out?   These other teachings of Jesus may sound to you as though Heaven is for “Members Only” and that it’s up to God who becomes a “member.”

 John 14:6 (NIV)
Jesus answered, “I am* the way* and the truth* and the life.* No one comes to the Father except through me.*

John 6:44 (NIV)
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him,* and I will raise him up at the last day.

But look more carefully at these other teachings of Jesus:

John 6:40 (NIV)
For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son* and believes in him shall have eternal life,* and I will raise him up at the last day.”

John 6:45 (NIV)
It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’** Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.

So which is it: “no one” or “everyone?”  Both, really.  If you haven’t decided about Jesus but are still reading this, it is likely that God is “drawing you” to Himself.  If you sense a desire to “listen to the Father” and “learn from Him” you are likely being drawn by God to come to Jesus.  His will is that everyone who believes in Jesus “shall have eternal life.”  Everyone.  If you are willing, He won’t leave you out.

So who chooses?  Is it you or is it God?  As hard as it is to wrap our minds around it, the Bible says it is God Who chooses.  But it feels as though we choose.  The best way for me to illustrate this is with this scenario:  Suppose my dog is sick and will die unless he eats a certain life-saving medicine.  I wrap the medicine in his favorite peanut butter and put it out where he will find it.  He gobbles it down.  Who chose?

Bottom line is this:  If you sense a desire to be closer to God, He will not leave you out.  He will open the way for you to come to Him through Jesus.  Follow that desire, take advantage of that open “Way,” and, mysteriously, you will have been “chosen!”

Oh Shoot

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If Iran gets a nuke, would God stand by and let them wipe Israel off the map?  He let it happen before, about 2700 years ago. God had planned to use Israel to bless other nations as a living demonstration of how much better life works when you pay attention to the real God,  But, when they turned away and began to follow the gods and customs of their neighbors (now called Iran, Iraq and Syria), He allowed those countries to literally wipe His people off the map.  Almost.  God had not given up on His original plan.  Speaking through Isaiah, He said:

” A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse [i.e. Israel]; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1, my explanation of “Jesse.”)

My neighbor got fed up with his apple tree.  You couldn’t eat the apples and it messed up his yard in the fall.  Here’s a picture of what used to be his apple tree:  .wpid-wp-1430490990902.jpg

It looks a bit like Israel did after they stopped  producing the kind of “fruit” God had intended.  But look very closely at the bottom, left corner of the picture.   Here’s a blow up:

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That’s a shoot, coming up from the stump of his apple tree.  You have to look carefully to even notice it.  To the casual observer it doesn’t look like it will amount to much.

 

You could make the same mistake when it comes to Jesus, the “Shoot” Who sprouted from the “stump” of God’s Chosen People.  You might miss Him, such a seemingly insignificant figure, compared to the might and grandeur of Rome.  But Rome has fallen and the “Shoot” is still growing.  Jesus is still blessing people of all nations who come to Him to be reconciled to God.  He is “bearing the fruit” of leading people to the real God.  Here’s more of what Isaiah wrote:

” A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.” (Isaiah 11:1-5)

Quotes: The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.