What Will Your Life Say In the Upcoming Holiday Season?

“God began to teach me that there is a huge difference between ‘entertaining’ and offering hospitality.” –Karen Ehman

What happens between the time we think of an opportunity to be hospitable and we talk ourselves out of it? Doubts of whether our guests will be comfortable or not start to crowd out that initial desire. Focus on self distracts us from focusing on others.

“New Testament Christians simply welcomed these people, inviting them to join in for a few days as they went about their daily routine. Maybe we should take a cue from them.” – Karen Ehman 

‘A Life That Says Welcome, Simple Ways to Open Your Heart and Home to Others’ by Karen Ehman analyzes the why and how of offering hospitality. She addresses the real issues of our hearts as well as the practical issues of our homes. There are creative ideas for ways to open our homes and even to offer hospitality on the road! She writes from years of personal experience as well as the experiences of those who have been her mentors. During the coming season there will be extra opportunities to offer hospitality. Reading this book may help us to be encouraged and prepare our hearts to have a life that says Welcome!  

                                                                                                         K.T.

The Good News of Relationship

The next miracle to explore is the final one in this examination and yet it is the one that makes everything come together. It is also the one that gives me the most pause and the most peace!

It is the Relational Good News. Those words are Bill Tell’s from the same book I have been musing about over the last few months. The book is called “Lay It All Down” and it has challenged me to reexamine my faith in God. It has confirmed my salvation and challenged my heart which had become a bit staid and less teachable than it ought to be. This term, Relational Good News, is a tad formal for me. In the church we recognize this as the doctrine of adoption. In my soul, it is the ability to address the Majestic Lord of the universe as “Abba, Father,” as seen in Romans. 

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. (Romans 8:14-17 ESV)

Wow! Amazing! Humbling!

The very stunning reminder that the Creator -of Heaven, of earth and of all things- desires to commune and communicate with me causes me to stop and try to process the magnitude of that Good News! Each one of us has the privilege of being called a son or daughter of the Living God, when we choose to accept Jesus’ gift of redemptive life.

Consider the act of adoption in the Roman Empire. This legal proceeding by the ruling class placed children in patria potestas or the power of the father ( Barclay ). This meant they were under the absolute protection and control of the father and they were thereby expected to bring honor and longevity to the family name. It also conveyed benefits on the child. It gave the ability to have interaction with the father, to draw on the resources of the family including inheritance and to receive the parent's affections.

This adoption practice was often used by the ruling Roman class to gain heirs. A slave’s life would be transformed. The slave would be completely separated and removed from his or her previous life and family. All ties and allegiances would be severed. Then a new life would begin with all the new privileges and responsibilities. The adopted child had a new social status which could give vast benefits…depending on the father.

The parallel is clear. We, in Christ have this new status! We have a relationship with the Father God who lets us be adopted as His children so we have this whole list of benefits. It calls upon us to bring honor and longevity to Him as our adopted Father.

This study of adoption has me marveling yet again at the grace of God. His plan and provision are vast. I know my exploration of adoption is not complete. I challenge you to look into the doctrine of adoption and share your findings with someone else. God will use His Word to give insight that will bless and teach you and others. Enjoy this amazing relationship!

Free to Bear Fruit

This week we will close out our exploration of the Transformational Good News.  Our new hearts, as new creations in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17) are now free to shift focus from not sinning to being obedient and loving. This then takes us another step. We are now free to bear fruit. Our healthy hearts are unencumbered and therefore able to bear good fruit.  Matthew’s gospel states:

“So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.” (Matthew 7:17-18 ESV)

If you ever consider becoming a viticulturist you will undoubtedly need to study up on how to produce the best grapes. Exploring this subject, you will learn that obtaining a good harvest takes both care and knowledge.  Some liken it to parenting. The vines require soil rich with the correct ratio of nutrients as well as the right amount of water. Too much water and the plants drown before the fruit is ripe.  Too little means the vines wither leading to small or shriveled grapes. The amount of sun and wind also play significant roles in grape production.  Good, long exposure to the sunlight is ideal, but too much can scorch.  Wind is necessary, but desired in moderation.   The wind keeps the plants and grapes from growing bacteria and molds from too much moisture.  However, heavy winds can rip the fruit from the vines or the vines from their trellises. The balance of these factors is critical.

Can we see the parallels?  Is it any wonder that Jesus likens Himself to the vine and us to branches?

So with our transformed hearts, we have this ability to produce good fruit by living out our new natures through the work of the Holy Spirit. But our natures can need careful tending. That is the job of the Spirit working in us to bear fruit. And that fruit is:

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23 ESV)

Bill Tell in his book, Lay It All Down (p. 161) suggests that the phrase “against such things there is no law” is referring to the inner qualities that direct our behavior.  These cannot be legislated, unlike our behaviors. As new creations we are free obey, free to love and free to bear fruit in the form of these inner qualities. May we continue to realize all are our transformed hearts have available and be fruitful.

Free to Love

In recent weeks we have been considering the Transformational Good News of the gospel.  With changed hearts we now better grasp obedience and our freedom within that obedience. Now let's explore another facet of this Good News....love and the freedom to love.  We have heard and understand that this love is not just a feeling.  Consider Galatians 5:6. It says,     

 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. (Gal. 5:6 ESV)

This verse encapsulates the theme of the book of Galatians: we are right with God by faith, not by human rituals or performance—including circumcision, the food laws, and/or moral living... It is Spirit-motivated love (after salvation) that sets the standard of conduct for believers and gives the ability to obey. It is the new covenant, a new heart and new mind (Utley, Study Guide Commentary Series, New Testament, Vol. 7. )

Herein lies the difference between the Greatest Commandment and the Great Commission. Jesus stretching out His arms in love on the cross gives us our standard, our marching orders and our freedom. We're not to love others as we love ourselves, we are to love them as Jesus did and continues to do. This is faith in action motivated by the author and demonstrator of love.

“But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It's a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright.” (Goff, Love Does)

This is freedom...that we look into the Word of God and recognize all He has done to set us free and model our love for others on that standard. Let's be extraordinary in the way we love! Let's make it count!

Loving God deeply

from Spurgeon's sermon, "LOVE'S LOGIC" To feel love to God we must tread along the 'road of faith'. Truly, this is not a hard or perilous way, but one prepared by infinite wisdom. It is a road suitable for sinners, and indeed saints must come that way also. If you would love God, do not look within you to see whether this grace or that be as it ought to be, but look to your God, and read his eternal love, his boundless love, his costly love, which gave Christ for you; then shall your love drink in fresh life and vigor. Beloved, there are few of us who know much of the depths of the love of God; our love is shallow; ah, how shallow! Love to God is like a great mountain-- The majority of travelers view it from afar, or traverse the valley at its base: a few climb to a halting place on one of its elevated spurs, whence they see a portion of its sublimities: here and there an adventurous traveler climbs a minor peak, and views glacier and alp at closer range; fewest of all are those who scale the topmost pinnacle and tread the virgin snow. So it is in the Church of God-- Every Christian abides under the shadow of divine love: a few enjoy and return that love to a remarkable degree: but there are few, in this age sadly few, who reach to seraphic love, who ascent into the hill of the Lord, to stand where the eagle's eye has not seen, and walk the path which the lion's whelp has never trodden, the high places of complete consecration and ardent self-consuming love. Now, mark you, it may be difficult to ascend so high, but there is one sure route, and only one, which the man must follow who would gain the sacred elevation. It is not the track of his works, nor the path of his own actions, but this, "We love him because he first loved us." John confessed that in this way he attained his love for God. For the highest love that ever glowed in human bosom there was no source but this- God first loved that man. Do you not see how this is? The knowledge that God loves me casts out my tormenting dread of God: and when this is expelled, there is room for abounding love to God. As fear goes out, love comes in at the other door. So the more faith in God the more room there is for soul-filling love. Our soul is satisfied with marrow and fatness when we know that the whole heart of God beats towards us as forcibly as if we were the only creatures he had ever made, and his whole heart were wrapt up in us. Love to God produces a desire to be with him; a desire to be like him, a longing to be with him eternally in heaven, and this breaks us away from worldliness; this keeps us from idolatry, and thus has a most blessedly sanctifying effect upon us, producing that elevated character which is now so rare, but which wherever it exists is powerful for the good of the church and for the glory of God.

Free to Obey

God wants more than a compliant heart, He desires an obedient heart.  Compliance is defined as, “the act or process of complying to a desire, demand, proposal, or regimen or to coercion OR conformity in fulfilling official requirements,” by Merriam-Webster. There is an element of fear of power or fear of consequence.  Contrast this with obedience which is "the willingness to obey or follow the commands or guidance of." While there is value in compliance, most of us can appreciate the attitude of the heart that willingly obeys. One that freely obeys. 

Ezekiel 36:26 ESV says,

 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶ And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and

be careful to obey my rules. (Emphasis mine.)

In a culture that values independence in making your own path, we look down upon people who seek to obey. Obedience is often a bad word. Obedience yields control to another or places someone above ourselves. That is exactly what we do when we are obedient to our God, and yet who better to willingly yield control to than our Creator.

In that yielding process we often don't recognize all we are free from.  We’re free from  worry because we have transformed hearts that have been changed due to the love of our Heavenly Father. Obedience is not a scary thing in this context, instead obedience is the guardrail. Recognition of that guardrail keeps us within the very boundaries that keep us safe. These boundaries have been created for our good. There is a righteousness that comes from obedience to the only One who is completely righteous.

The Transformational Good News frees us to obey since we are living out our new and obedient hearts. In his recent book, Lay I All Down, Bill Tell states this principle: “I do not obey so that God will do something in me; I obey because He has already done something in me.”(Tell, p.143) When we are changed on the inside, our behaviors will follow.

Lord, we pray you would continue to help us grasp all you did for us on the cross.  We are free in Christ to obey since we have been given new hearts. Let us behave in such a way as to reflect that transformation.

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,    (Romans 6:17 ESV)

The Obedience of Faith

An Except From A Sermon

(No. 2195)
Delivered on Thursday Evening, August 21st, 1890, by
C. H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went."—Hebrews 11:8.

HE part of the text to which I shall call your attention lies in these words, "By faith Abraham obeyed." Obedience—what a blessing it would be if we were all trained to it by the Holy Spirit! How fully should we be restored if we were perfect in it! If all the world would obey the Lord, what a heaven on earth there would be! Perfect obedience to God would mean love among men, justice to all classes, and peace in every land. Our will brings envy, malice, war; but the Lord's will would bring us love, joy, rest, bliss. Obedience—let us pray for it for ourselves and others!

"Is there a heart that will not bend
To thy divine control?
Descend, O sovereign love, descend,
And melt that stubborn soul! "
Surely, though we have had to mourn our disobedience with many tears and sighs, we now find joy in yielding ourselves as servants of the Lord: our deepest desire is to do the Lord's will in all things. Oh, for obedience! It has been supposed by many ill-instructed people that the doctrine of justification by faith is opposed to the teaching of good works, or obedience. There is no truth in the supposition. We preach the obedience of faith. Faith is the fountain, the foundation, and the fosterer of obedience. Men obey not God till they believe him. We preach faith in order that men may be brought to obedience. To disbelieve is to disobey. One of the first signs of practical obedience is found in the obedience of the mind, the understanding, and the heart; and this is expressed in believing the teaching of Christ, trusting to his work, and resting in his salvation. Faith is the morning star of obedience. If we would work the work of God, we must believe on Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. Brethren, we do not give a secondary place to obedience, as some suppose. We look upon the obedience of the heart to the will of God as salvation. The attainment of perfect obedience would mean perfect salvation. We regard sanctification, or obedience, as the great design for which the Saviour died. He shed his blood that he might cleanse us from dead works, and purify unto himself a people zealous for good works. It is for this that we were chosen: we are "elect unto holiness." We know nothing of election to continue in sin. It is for this that we have been called: we are "called to be saints." Obedience is the grand object of the work of grace in the hearts of those who are chosen and called: they are to become obedient children, conformed to the image of the Elder Brother, with whom the Father is well pleased.
The obedience that comes of faith is of a noble sort.