Spiritual Laziness

Toil, strive, practice, run; these words all have a common theme: work. Isn't it interesting though, that these are some of the words you will find in scripture that go along with or describe the Christian life. God gives it to us straight! As a people who have been redeemed from our old ways and are now going against our flesh, the rest of society, and the devil, we have work to do.

Now to be clear, this work is the result of the grace we have been given, not the cause of it. There is nothing we can do to earn the grace of God, we are sinners and all our good deeds are as filthy rags before God, so we need to get that idea out of our minds forever. In our sin, nothing we can do is pleasing to God, but Christ is. Jesus lived a perfect life fully pleasing to God, and He graciously covers all people He brings to Himself in this righteousness. We are pleasing to God only because of Christ, so now because of this grace and through the strength God gives us, it is time to work.

We need to...

1. Work toward a deeper relationship with God through communion with Him. Let me just say it and take whatever objections may come; asking God to speak to us outside of His word is spiritual laziness. In His Word, God has given us everything we need to know both for our relationship with Him and for life. But lets face it! Studying scripture is work! Perseverance in the study of the Bible is an area that I struggle, but when God gives me victory I am able to reap the sweet benefits of hearing Him speak to my heart through the word. So let us work hard through the spirit to seek God through His word.

Communion, however, is two ways. It takes work to hear from Him, and it takes work to talk to Him. We have to be totally honest with the one who sees our hearts, and this takes a lot of effort because most of the time we aren't even honest with ourselves.

2. Work to put off sin. We must work to kill the sin that remains in our lives and keeps us form a deeper relationship with God. As Hebrews 12:1 puts it, "let us also lay aside every encumbrance and sin which so easily entangles." Christians, in the words of John Owen, "be killing sin, or it will be killing you."

May the Holy Spirit fill us with the strength we don't have to work hard after a deeper relationship with our God.

For His glory

Seth

Following Like a Sheep

In John 10 Jesus makes a beautiful analogy. He calls Himself the good shepherd, and His people sheep. He is the good shepherd because He loves and intimately knows His sheep and lays His life down for them. In verses 27-28 Jesus says, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of my hand."

Now sheep are creatures that instinctively follow. Are we different? Earlier in John Jesus said that everyone who has sinned is a slave to sin, so all sinners are following sin. Sheep will also follow what they think will lead them to better pastures. Again, are we so different? Don't we sin because we think we can trust it? Don't we sin because we think it will fulfill us and make us happy? This is a lie, but without spiritually opened eyes we cannot see this. But for all God's people who have had their spiritual eyes opened; for all those for whom the Shepherd has laid down His life, we have been given the gift and the strength to turn from following sin and begin following Christ.

Let us briefly consider the one who we are following. Jesus is completely trustworthy. He has died in our place and nothing can pluck us form His hand. He is good and loves us with a love too great to fathom. He will lead us where we need to go. Considering all these things, why would we ever question Him when He tells us to follow in a specific way? Now I am not talking a feeling that you have or something like that, I am talking about how He tells us to follow Him in His word. If our leader is completely trustworthy, when He commands something, no matter the cost to our lives, we must like sheep, trust and obey.

For the glory of God

Seth

"Who knew I had to become a slave to be free?'

What is freedom? It seems like most people would characterize freedom as being able to do whatever they wanted to do. Is this really freedom?

In John 8:34 Jesus says "everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin." Acknowledging that the bible says that everyone has sinned, everyone is a slave to sin. So unless God acts to free you from your slavery to sin, whenever you do what you want to do, you are actually just obeying your master; sin. This is a sobering thought, and if we were left here we would be hopeless. if we stopped here all of humanity would be held captive by sin and loving their master's chains. But God who should have punished us for our sin, made a way for us to be free. He sent His son to redeem his people through his blood. Jesus literally bought us from sin and set us free to live a life of worship to God.

So what is freedom? Not doing what you want to do, but doing what He wants you to do. It is beautiful slavery to the perfect will of God and His good commands. It is life as it was meant to be lived, in blissful worship of God.

"Who knew I had to become a slave to be free?" -PRO

For the glory of God

Seth

A Few Thoughts on Worship: Part 3

What makes worship acceptable before God? Noel Due puts it this way, "it is not the offerer who receives approval because of the offerings, but the offerings because of the offerer." It doesn't matter what offering you bring to worship God (praise, money, service, etc...), if your life is not approved by Him, the offering is trash. This would be an incredibly depressing truth if Jesus was not in the picture.

Jesus was the only human to ever live a life completely pleasing to God. We all fall short and deserve to be judged and punished for it. But, in God's merciful plan, when Jesus died on the cross He switched spiritual places with everyone who would believe in Him. On the cross Jesus bore our sins in His body and covered us in His perfect life; His righteousness. Now, through the blood of Christ alone, we can stand before God blameless! What a Savior!

Christian, you can never do enough to earn God's acceptance. On your own God can't even look upon you because of your sin. Do you see the beauty, majesty, grace, value, and glory of Jesus Christ? Trust in the sacrifice He made for you on the cross and live a life of worship to God knowing that you are acceptable in His sight not because of you, but because of Jesus.

For the glory of God

Seth

"I Do Not Seek To Do My Own Will"

I hope to put part three of the worship series up on Tuesday, but I felt like this was worth the interruption.

Last night God showed me a huge flaw in the way I think and function on a day to day basis; needless to say it was a bit devastating in a good humbling sanctifying way. I am currently reading through John and last night I came to John 5:30 where Jesus says, "I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent me." As I read this, the Holy Spirit lovingly convicted me and I asked myself this question; how often could I say a similar thing about myself? How often could I say, "I do not seek my own will, but the will of Him who...made me, saved me, loves me, is for me, the list could go on and on. The truth is that the little decisions I make day to day are usually governed by what I feel like doing. As I thought about this more and more I began to see the horror in it. The bible says that my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Most of the time when the Bible talks about the heart it is referring to what is felt, thought, and wanted. So when I am governed by what I feel, the result will be evil because my heart is evil. Now will this always look like evil? probably not, more than likely the evil will come from my motives and desires; but it will be evil none the less. Now Jesus who was perfect sought only to do the will of God alone, so what in the world am I doing? This drove me to my knees as I repented and asked for strength to stop being governed by what I feel and start being governed by the will of God. When I do this I can have complete assurance that I am doing what is right and glorifying to God.

As followers of Christ we are called to renounce ourselves and our wills and submit to God and His will. Christian, are you still being governed by what you want to do, or are you asking God in every situation big and small, "Lord, what would you have me do?"

In light of our sin and continued rebellion against God and His will, what can we say but hallelujah for the cross and the blood of Christ which made a way for us to be forgiven, freed, and strengthened to seek His will instead of ours.

For the glory of God

Seth

A Few Thoughts on Worship: Part 2

The thoughts I am going to share today are again from the book "Created for Worship" by Noel Due.

Today we will look at one of the reasons why God created us to worship Him. Before I continue I just want to say that God is way bigger and his reasons for doing what He does so much grander than I can try to begin to understand much less explain; these are just a few aspects of God and one of the reason why He created humans.

Because we are sinful humans, it is a temptation to look at God as egotistical. Why does He require the beings He made to worship Him? Isn't that selfish and arrogant? I struggled with this unvoiced question for a long time until by God's providence I got to hear John Piper preach about it. In the sermon, He said this; "If God in some mock humility did not require us to worship Him, it would be the most unloving thing He could do because worshipping Him is what brings us the most pleasure and the most joy." I was blown away! It made so much sense and was all over the Bible (Psalm 16:11 and Philippians 3:7-8 to name a couple). This truth blew me away, but Noel Due put a spin on it that I hadn't seen till until now. He points out that God did not create the human being out of a necessity to be worshipped, but he created us because out of the generosity of His heart He wanted to create a being that could experience the blissful joy that He experiences in communion with Himself. This is amazing! God created us to worship Him so that we could experience the joy that He experiences in communion or worship of Himself within the Trinity.

When we understand this truth it should do at least two things.

1. It should help us to see how disgusting our sin really is.

Our sin at it's root is exchanging the blissful worship of God with the base practice of worshipping self and things in creation. Can you see what we are saying to God as we do this? We are saying that worshipping Him isn't good enough. It is better to worship ourselves and the other things. This is the reason we deserve His wrath. We have caused Him infinite grief, so we deserve infinite punishment.

2. It should help us to see the glory of Christ.

When we see that when Jesus died and rose from the grave He not only granted us forgiveness of our horrid sins, but also a restored relationship with God, it should make us see the infinite value of Christ. Through Him we can worship the One we were made to worship and experience the incomparable joy that goes along with that worship.

For the glory of God

Seth

A Few Thoughts on Worship: Part 1

I am currently reading a book called "Made for Worship" by a guy named Noel Due. This book has been extremely helpful as God shapes my understanding of worship. A few truths brought about in this book have rocked my view of worship; hopefully they will do the same for you as I share a few this week.

My whole life I have been surrounded by the idea that I was made to give God glory and enjoy him forever. My parents had me memorize parts of the shorter catechism, so at an early age I knew that this was the chief end of man. What I didn't realize however, is that the function of the human being is worship. Just as a car is meant to drive, a picture frame is meant to hold pictures, and a chair is meant to be sat in, the human is meant to worship. In light of this truth we can see that because we were created to worship, we are worshipping at all times. The question is, what are you worshipping?

Now, when a lot of people think of worship, they automatically think of singing. Singing, or praise, is a type of worship, but worship is so much bigger than that. It encompasses your whole life, everything you do! So, what does it look like to worship God? It is a life lived in complete submission to His will and commands. It means obeying Him in everything, and enjoying Him in everything. It means valuing Him more than everything else.

This kind of worship has only been done perfectly by one human; the God-man Jesus Christ. He is your only hope to be forgiven and freed from your idolatry (worshipping anything else but God). He is also your only hope of experiencing the joy of true worship of God. Repent of your sin, turn to Jesus, and enter the joy of living in complete submission to God; living like you were made to live.

For the glory of God

Seth