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Tag: sin

Crushed

Let’s get something straight:

You are not good enough for Heaven. I am not even good enough for my church, my wife or my child.

If we cannot do enough good works to earn our place with a Holy God, how will we ever pay what we owe for our many sins?

Answer:

We can not.

No work we can do is good enough to pay the high price of our sins.

Five hundred years ago Martin Luther and many others sought to reform church leadership. Those protesting rejected sacramental penance of man for the true repentance of a man’s heart won back to God.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.

Ephesians 2:8

Why did the LORD send Jesus to the Cross for my sins?

A most unattainable thing about goodness: We cannot attain it. We will always trespass. We will always sin.

Romans 7:

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

The Scriptures foretold of the coming of the Christ, who IS in the Person of Jesus.

Around 700 B.C., the Prophet Isaiah [in chapter 53] described the Savior of Israel, the Redeemer of the world:

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him;
he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

Isaiah 53:10

What good work will your soul offer for your guilt?

Mark 10:

17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone…

“… come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

“Then who can be saved?”

27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”

Are we good enough for Heaven?

NOT without the grace of God by faith in Christ Jesus, alone.

The generous philanthropy of the greatest foundation for charity to all the causes of good can not buy Heaven and eternal life for even one unrepentant sinner without the grace of faith in Jesus Christ.

GOD gave breath to your spirit, formed you in your mother’s womb and calls you to a life by faith in the Spirit.

Fellow sinner, when will you repent of your many sins?

Are you not crushed by your sins when your mind is convicted in guilt and no good work will lift the burden from you? Do you still consider that another good work will pay the price of the Lord’s piercing and death for you?

Confess your sin before Almighty God! Bow down your selfish will before Christ Jesus. Repent once more, dear fellow sinner. Turn back to the righteousness of our loving Father.

For God intends for your brief journey here beneath the immeasurable heavens and timeless creation to glorify your Lord. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

Let us confess that we among many cannot do good without the grace of God.

We are saved by faith alone: in Christ Jesus, the only Son, One with the Father.

Humble your failing flesh to guidance of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ Jesus, eternal Judge of all mortal souls.

REPENT! Self-righteous sinner.

Turn back to the LORD by faith in Christ Jesus,

While it is yet today;

Before you are crushed

By sin and death,

Before your good legacy becomes

Another forgotten rotting vanity.

October 31, 2015
Reflections: Knowledge vs. Life

Man – adam, and woman made from man to be one with man and with God – Eve: now have knowledge of good and evil.

NO more Paradise on earth – NO more Eden; no more garden of pleasure hedged in by the boundaries of righteousness. We must judge good and evil for ourselves (rather than simply obey God’s command).

James 1:23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

Man is no longer the perfect, sinless mirror image of the Living God. Sin has clouded our vision and our judgement.

Yet the Lord is still near to those who will seek Him. Remember, the Lord God is a loving Father of all mankind; Creator of all that is good, corrector of all that is evil in the rebellious child.

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Genesis 4: ⁶The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? ⁷If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

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The relationship has changed because of evil. Man is no longer naked in paradise, but revealed in our sinfulness to our Father of righteousness. And the loving Father advises those who would hear. Yes, obedience to God remains our option of doing what is good in the eyes of the Lord.

Yet we fail. As in Adam, so also in Cain and in the deceitful hearts, sinful flesh and rebellious spirit of every Adam… the misled heart of every Eve.

Our willingly broken relationship with God leads us further and further from Eden.

Genesis 6: ³Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” …

⁵The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. …

Do your intentions and choices of your heart ever grieve the heart of your heavenly Father?

Genesis 6: ¹²And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. ¹³And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

What is God’s judgement of the wickedness of these last days?

Will God much longer endure sinful men without love and sinful women with callous hearts toward the love and righteousness of Christ Jesus?

God continued in faithfulness to those faithful in love and worship of the Father of all that is good. The LORD gave man a new hedge of protection in the Law – the Law of Moses, as it is called – The Ten Commandments.

Deuteronomy 4: “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live…”

⁶Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ …

¹¹And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. ¹²Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. ¹³And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone…

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The LORD no longer walks beside Moses or the leaders of God’s people. The LORD appears to the Hebrew people as an awesome and fearful sight! The LORD speaks from the darkness of what they cannot see and commands obedience.

The people confirm their faith; they make their solemn promise – a covenant not unlike the covenant of marriage – with the Lord their God.

Yet do they obey?

Is it so hard for us to NOT commit adultery?

Is it so difficult for us to follow even TEN clear Commandments of the LORD God?

To be continued…

March 23, 2015
Reflections: man vs. GOD

Eden, as we read previously, was a place – a walled garden – created by God for His pleasure and the pleasure of Adam and Eve: a man, and a woman made for man, joined as one; even as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One.

God walked with man in the garden of pleasure.

And it was good.

When man is in relationship to God, in conversation with God, in prayer with God – when we are one with the Father, we mirror his holiness.

When man (woman) misses the mark of perfection, the ideal of holiness – when we do not mirror the essence of the Father’s goodness, it is sin.

Trespass, crossing the forbidden line, climbing over the hedge of protection – when a man or woman turns from the direction of perfection, it is sin.

So what was so wrong with Eve and Adam wanting to sample from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

Should we not recognize evil, that we might follow good?

Should we not attain knowledge, that in ignorance we might fall from the will of God?

Genesis 3 English Standard Version (ESV)

He [the serpent] said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

2 And the woman said…

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Wait! Let’s pause here a moment and ask, What’s wrong with this image [picture]?

First: Satan lies. The enemy of good is subtle in his lie.

Second: The woman is receiving knowledge [information] from the devil! Can that possibly be good?

Third: The woman is not seeking the answer of her husband, from whom she was made and for whom she was made. So how can her response be as a women one with the spirit and flesh of her husband? (I know this is touchy, controversial topic in a church where the wife is not expected to honor her husband as her personal lord only after the worship of the Lord they worship as one.)

Fourth, yet not least of importance: Eve, and for that matter, Adam, does not take the issue and application to God before they sin – before they act – before they exercise their Self-will over the will of God.

It is disobedience!

They have used their freedom to choose, within the hedges of the garden of good, to do what is evil in the eyes of the LORD.

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4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

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NO, Adam didn’t consult with God either. He listened to his wife, who had listened to Satan.

But was it really such a bad sin?

Allow me to play devil’s advocate for a moment. After all, don’t we hold our universities and learning in high esteem? Isn’t knowledge a good thing for us? Have we not made life on earth so much better by the great learning of man from generation to generation?

Now from the other side of the bar I ask you to judge: how good is mankind now that we have all this knowledge? How good is man?

Have you ever played the telephone game?

Suppose God tells Adam… then Adam tells Eve… Eve and the serpent whisper something back and forth… then Eve entices Adam with what the serpent has said… yet eventually, the conversation gets back to the LORD.

What has happened to truth?

It is like the telephone game, when we have listened to Satan and not God?

Eventually, news of our sin will prompt the question of conviction from the Father of righteousness. Eventually, man, made in the image of God, is accountable to the Creator who does judge that which the Lord created, even in His Image.

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9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

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After the LORD hears Adam confess his fear, the LORD asks the obvious question:

MAN, who have you been listening to that is NOT the LORD!?

Is the evidence of the sin of the telephone game not convicting?

‘Did GOD really say?’ Was this not the first deception of Satan?

So in the beginning, the good and the innocence of holiness and sinlessness is broken by one simple disobedient ‘choice’ by man (and woman) free to choose good or evil, yet destined to also receive the judgment of consequence.

And the Lord saw it was good… or must the Lord see the nakedness of your sin?

Adam rightfully fears punishment of a Holy and loving Father God, our All-Powerful Creator. FEAR now enters into the relationship of man to God – fear because of the just judgement of sin.

To be continued.

March 20, 2015