Lordship Of Christ Issues

"You are slaves to the power you choose to obey"  (cf. Rom. 6:16).
"People are enslaved by whatever defeats them" (cf. 2 Pet. 2:19).  
"Through him we received grace and apostleship; to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name's sake" (Rom. 1:5, NIV).
"[S]o that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith--" (Rom. 16:26, NIV).  
"[A]nd every tongue [shall] acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:11, NIV).   ALL EMPHASIS MINE.  

Jesus was crowned Lord of all by the Father when he was raised.  The way up is down in God's economy--what a paradox!  Jesus began in humility to increase as He entered His ministry when He was baptized by John who said, "He must increase, but I must decrease."  John did away with his ego and didn't let it get in the way; likewise, our egos must die and we must say "No" to self before we can say "Yes" to Christ.  It's a contradiction to reply "No, Lord!" For that would be breaking faith! That's what faith in the Lord is:  giving up, surrendering, committing, and trusting--that's much more than acquiescence or simply easy-believism."  It is said:  Faith is not believing despite the evidence, but obeying in spite of the consequences!  

God never grants cheap grace which justifies the sin, not the sinner.  We become Christians with our prayer of relinquishment giving over ownership of our lives to the Lord of All.   Yes, this was also Jesus' motto of life:  "Thy will be done!"  The problem is that we are all volitionally defiant and have a will of our own--even our wills are depraved and in need of salvation.   It has been said justly so that Jesus "will not barter away His right to be Lord" and "will save no one whom He cannot command," according to A. W. Tozer.  When we address Him as Lord, it implies we are His servants and subject to His authority.  We must not be control freaks or enthusiasts over our lives!

We must obey our Lord for "to obey is better than sacrifice" (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22).   Heb. 5:9 (cf. Acts 2:39), NIV, says, "...[H]e became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him [italics mine]."  Jesus also said that if we love Him we will obey Him.  But it's not a legalistic attitude of having to, but a new change of heart of wanting to please our Lord.  This is accepting Christ for who He is--Lord and Master!  He has been exalted with all authority granted Him.   The more in bondage we are to our Lord, the more freedom we experience!  Any other belief in Jesus is rejecting Him.   He is worthy of our submission for we are not our own and have been bought with a price (cf. 1 Cor. 6:20).  This is interpreted as meaning that we undergo a reorganization of our life priorities.

We must never forget that true Lordship entails the flip side of faith which is repentance--we have a believing repentance or a penitent faith, so to speak.   This radical change in our life is from the inside out--not turning over a new leaf, making a New Year's resolution, or making an AA pledge.  We must own up to our sins and come clean with God, doing a 180-degree turnaround, a U-turn, or about-face, having a complete change of heart concerning sin as well as our sins.  Christianity has nothing to say to the unrepentant.  It's not always how big your faith is but how thorough your repentance. The call to repent was the first word of the gospel from John and then Jesus and they must be made manifest by fruits worthy of them.

We must learn to "trust and obey" as the hymn says and "walk in a manner worthy of our Lord" (cf. Eph. 4:1).  He is worthy of our worship as well as our allegiance!    Remember, we have the power to live in the Spirit, not the permission to live in the flesh; that is, our sins show our slavery, they don't demonstrate our freedom.   Saving faith (not dead faith) is manifest only in obedience as Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Only he who believes is obedient; only he who is obedient believes."  To call Him Lord and to disobey are contradictions (cf. Isa. 1:19, Heb. 3:18-19)!  We must never dichotomize Christ's offices as Lord and Savior:  we submit to Him as Lord and trust Him as Savior, we must receive Him as Lord and Savior; i.e., the whole package!  

Gal. 2:20 sums up our new life in Christ or our walk of faith showing we live a substituted, inhabited, exchanged, and surrendered life.  Finally, do you see yourself as Jesus' sidekick or colleague to be befriended, or as the Personage you own as Lord?  In sum, acknowledging Jesus as Lord is what our faith is all about--all else pales in comparison.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Your God Is Too Small

"Who has understood the mind of the LORD, or instructed him as his counselor?" (Isaiah 40:13, NIV). "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Romans 11:33, KJV).

The most important thing about us is our concept of God (just look at how Joseph treated his estranged brothers because he believed in Providence yet he told them God had done it (cf. Gen. 50:0). The issue is how big our God is (not how big our faith is! And we must realize He's bigger than we can fathom, bigger than all our issues and problems. Our beliefs do indeed affect our actions, character, demeanor, disposition, track record, credentials, and behavior. That's why it's important to have a divine viewpoint, or see things from God's perspective (i.e., having a Christian worldview).

Martin Luther told Erasmus that his thoughts of God were too human!  This is the issue: People limit God and don't apprehend that you cannot put the infinite into a finite space, or, to use a cliche, put God in a box or make Him one-dimensional!   The old Latin phrase (finitum non capax infinitum) said that the finite cannot grasp (apprehend or contain) the infinite. This is why we will never peg God or figure Him out, He is beyond our analysis (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9; Rom. 11:33). Even after many eons in eternity, we will still be just scratching the service in knowing Him; we can never know Him exhaustively, but only truly! 


What is the practical application of this? God is not defined or delimited by man and we cannot compare Him to us, but only contrast Him, and only draw analogous inferences. Only that which is revealed in Scripture belongs to us and the secret things belong to God (cf. Deut. 29:29). To be more specific, you cannot say God is a member of your party, He would drive a Harley, or even be a gun-toting, loyal member of the NRA (they wouldn't even accept God as a member even if He did apply!)--or even that God is American, even though our nation is especially blessed, it is not superior or even God-inspired. Our status as the city on a hill is eroding fast! The nation Israel is God's chosen people forever. 


Christendom is from God but God reveals Himself in manifold ways around the world, not just in our culture. So don't think you're becoming more Christlike by joining some elite or exclusive club or that your loyalty matters to God in it, because your citizenship is in heaven and God demands ultimate and final devotion and loyalty. Even if you have faithfully, as a believer, voted one party all your life, don't assume that God is a member of that party--even if your spiritual leaders all are members and you believe the other parties are of the devil or completely wrong and out of God's will. It is like saying God favors a sports team and rigs games with divine "luck." ("God is no respecter of persons," or He shows no partiality; Acts 10:34: Romans 2:11)


God doesn't even vote on one issue, like some who say they vote the Second Amendment or with the stance of the NRA (who says this is a right God gives us anyway? or they always choose the pro-life candidate, as the Roman Catholic Church requires its members to do. God is too complicated to make Him a one-issue voter; this is like being biased and showing favoritism--there is no partiality with God--His political stands cannot be comprehended nor defined by us and we will never know who He thinks is the best candidate till he wins--Providence ultimately reveals it. God has reasons for His will, that our reason cannot fathom. 

The world is too complicated, ("He's got the whole world in His hands"), and God has all of it in His care, and limiting God to one issue as being of paramount value is putting God in a box and making Him smaller than He is--there is always more to God than we can apprehend. "Canst thou by searching find out God?" asked Zophar in Job 11:7. We oversimplify the issues when we rank them or put them in some value system as to their relative importance--every issue is important to God, but He reserves the right to overrule our will with His divine wisdom, which consists of knowing the best means to the best ends.


God exalts one and demotes another at will (cf. Psa. 75:7), and the president elected is God's man for the time being in a sense of speaking. Why does the pendulum swing at the whim of the fickle people who go from one extreme in politics to another--never finding a happy medium? God is at work and has to correct our erroneous concepts of politics, and we often don't know why our God put them there till after elected (for instance, look at the wonderful job JFK did with the Cuban missile crisis!). Our nation most likely wouldn't have survived the Civil War had it not been for Lincoln, yet there were believers who seceded with the Confederacy. Lincoln wasn't even a believer till after Gettysburg, yet he was God's person for the job. 

That's why Christians ought to pray for the president all the more because it is our God who installed them there in that position of power under God. It shouldn't upset us if our favorite candidate doesn't win the election, because God is still on the throne and He rules over the nations, which are" like a drop in the bucket" (cf. Psa. 22:28; Isa. 40:15). Soli Deo Gloria!

Works In Progress

"[U]ntil we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13, NIV).
"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48, NIV).
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me" (Phil. 3:12, NIV).

Not that we ever attain maturity this side of glory, but we are always "works in progress" or the masterpiece of God that He isn't finished with yet.  But "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6, NIV).  We are never perfect, but that is the standard we aim for and our goal looking at Christ as the Exemplar, but the test is the direction we are headed in our walk with Christ--forward or backward!

There is often some sin that easily overcomes or besets us so that we stumble and don't reach the goal of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus (cf. Phil. 3:14).  Hebrews 12:1 talks of setting aside our easily distracting sin so that we can press on to maturity and don't get tripped up on the way to the Celestial City.  Note that it's usually the case that there's some unconfessed sin or somewhere that needs overcoming that hinders maturity--the devil gets the best of us and held us captive to a certain degree.

The writer of Hebrews mentions one sure sign of the immature or infant believer and that is that he is incapable of solid food or the meat of the Word, but feeds on the milk (cf. Heb. 5:13) or the basics such as the necessity of salvation, faith, repentance, baptism, and judgment. The immature believer balks at learning the deep things of God, having lost his taste for sound doctrine.  We all must learn the basic lesson that we cannot get away with sin and God disciplines those He loves.  Sad to say there are some ABC churches that never progress into the deeper truths of the Word thinking wrongly that doctrine is too arcane for the average believer.

The infant believer is totally dependent on others for his spiritual nourishment and hasn't learned to feed himself or even to see the need for it as he may go to church simply to get a lift or encouragement, and not to worship God and contribute of his spiritual gift to the body.  He is basically tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (cf. Eph. 4:14) because of this naivete and not having a firm foundation of Bible doctrine to discern good and evil and false teaching from sound, biblical teaching.

Once he learns how God speaks to him and communication is achieved he has progressed in his walk and able to go on to maturity, but this vital step trips up too many believers who become spiritually dependent on one preacher as their favorite and lose discernment as if only drinking from one fountain.  The mature believer discerns good and evil and can smell false doctrine when it approaches the church.  The pastor should inoculate the body from heresy by preparing them for what is out there and warning that Satan seeks whom he may devour (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8).

There may be several types of attendees in the church:  seekers, unbelievers, doubters, fence-sitters, contra Christians, adolescent believers, even pagans, atheists, or agnostics, besides the flock he is assigned.  Just as Jesus told Peter to feed His sheep and to feed His lambs, the preacher must be sensitive to all members of the body--knowing where people are is a key to resonating or connecting with them.  The prophetic message is known as comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.  There are some who are at ease in Zion and have become complacent and feel they have no need of preaching because they are "mature."  No one ever outgrows preaching and the preacher is even preaching to himself as well as the body!

Everyone in the body should feel they have been fed adequately to feel a part of the body and to identify with the preacher with something they can take to the bank.  Just like Elijah went 40 days on one meal, sometimes a spiritual meal can have multitudinous applications and can have the ability to nourish the believer for an extended time--sometimes it's not how much one digests in the meal but how good the nourishment was and the preacher may really hit home on something that can get the ball rolling spiritually.   That's why everyone in the church may feel the preacher was speaking to them personally as an individual and it related to him--a personal message from the Lord!

We must realize that we are not perfect just because we're saved and our lives speak volumes.  The church is not a hotel for saints but a hospital for sinners--the requirement for membership is to admit one's a sinner and has fallen short of God's glory.  No perfect people need to apply it's said!  The phrase "please be patient; God isn't finished with me yet!" is the reality for everyone, not just infant or newborn believers.  This ought to be every believer's slogan.  We never reach perfection but that doesn't mean we don't aim for it.

People may even think we are cantankerous for being Christians, but just think how much more cantankerous we'd be without Christ in us and the Holy Spirit restraining us.  When we see great sinners in our eyes we ought to utter what George Whitefield said when seeing a man going to the gallows:  "There but for the grace of God, go I." We all can utter what William Jay of Bath said:  "I am a great sinner, but I have a great Savior!"  Only when we realize our sinfulness are we candidates for grace and this is the job of the preacher--to show the body its sins because we all tend to justify ourselves and put ourselves in the best possible light.

We all need to go to church regularly not only because it's commanded and the right thing to do, but we all need regular spiritual checkups or take spiritual inventory once a week or we may get off on a tangent and go our own way even into heresy or backsliding.  We cannot stand still and go nowhere in the spiritual life with Christ, but we are either walking forward or backsliding--no treading water with Christ permitted! One doesn't just reject the church or turn one's back on Christ or the faith, but one slips away one small step at a time in a gradual timing that one may not notice until he may not even believe himself how far out of it he is and needs repentance.

For instance, one doesn't turn one's back on the church but misses or skips a service or two then it becomes a habit to find other things to occupy Sunday morning with than to attend church and then one believes he doesn't need church--one may even be deceived into thinking that the electronic church is a good substitute for being active in the church and fellowship just because one is getting favorable teaching from someone who doesn't offend them.  Note that if the preacher never steps on any one's toes or is afraid to bring conviction on the body for its shortcomings and sins, there must be something amiss--he should realize you cannot please everyone!

There are certain plumb lines or measuring sticks to gauge maturity.  The mature believer knows who he is in Christ as to his spiritual gift or how God uses him to fulfill the Great Commission in both ministries to the body and mission to the lost.  You only find out your gifts by experimenting with service and the growing believer has a servants heart!   This entails being discipled or mentored in the basics and has had experience in sharing his testimony and in actively witnessing for Christ, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  From my experience the newborn believer has a newfound love and hunger for the Word and reads it voraciously and regularly--no one has to tell him this either because it's all-natural for a baby to feed.

It's such a joy to know and to fellowship with an infant believer--it's the adolescent ones who know enough to be dangerous and must be edified or set right before they go astray.   It's a pity when the believer loses his initial love for the Lord and has fallen for the world and what it offers--there is no place for both a love of Christ and love of the world in the heart at the same time.   In God's economy, the way to be filled is to be emptied, and this implies we must say "No" to self before we can say "Yes" to Christ.  Sometimes we just have too much of the world in us to have any appetite for the things of God.

God has nothing against newborn believers, just that some believers tend to stay immature and don't want to grow up.  Christ wants zealous believers who are all sold out for Him and serve Him with gusto and wholeheartedness.  It is a joy to be with a believer who has been in the presence of God and has experienced the Lord's goodness.  Once you've experienced it, you want to pass it on!  That's where the mature believer gets the can't-help-its or the desire to spread the Word (cf. Acts 4:20)!  What God desires is those who worship in spirit and in truth (cf. John 4:24)--not lip service or hypocrisy! This is natural for newborns and mature believers but those who are stunted in their growth have trouble passing muster.  It's par for the course that this attitude of complacency can affect a church body and its worship become perfunctory or routine--performed as if a duty, not a pleasure!

And so our walk with Christ is by faith, not by sight according to Hab. 2:4 (the verse that awakened and roused Luther from his dogmatic slumber).  We must learn not to rely on feelings though we will have them and this is a major step since fact and feeling are often confused. The divine order: fact, faith, and then feeling.   We must get our thinking straightened out according to the mind of Christ and have the mind of Christ.  The more aligned with sound doctrine we are the more divine our thoughts and we are to have this as a Christian worldview affecting all academic disciplines and all of life and reality.

Noah was a just man who walked with God just like Enoch and Moses are said to do--quite a resume for anyone--and we have no excuse not to do likewise because we have the indwelling Spirit.  The mature believer knows how to keep short accounts with Jesus of his confessions and to stay in close fellowship with Him.  He readily engages in the angelic conflict with Satan and his minions and knows the Word adequately as his offensive weapon of choice enough to fight off an attack with his shield of faith.  This is why Hebrews tells us that the mature believer who is ready for the solid food knows to discern good and evil (cf. Heb. 5:14).

Finally, it would all be in vain if the believer had no love in his heart to share even if he had every gift of the Spirit.  God shares His love with us and sheds it abroad in our hearts so that it overflows to others and they can see the love of Christ in action through us.  Some believers never progress to this stage of maturity in learning to love and be loved--Dr. Karl Menninger, MD said that sin is the refusal of the love of others [and by application of God].  We all can become stunted if we don't find love in life and live for ourselves--selfishness is the prime sin or thinking it's all about us!  Even an infant is starved for affection at times and must be hugged, knowing love by instinct.  We all need to learn to reach out to others in need and realize we are here as servants on a mission to glorify God.  Never lose focus of the fact that "Christianity IS Christ and all else is peripheral [or circumference]" according to John Stott (emphasis mine).


CAVEAT AND WORDS TO THE WISE:  THERE ARE SOME WHO HAVE A ZEAL FOR GOD BUT NOT ACCORDING TO KNOWLEDGE (CF. ROM. 10:2; PROV. 19:2).  ALSO, SOME ARE CONVERTED TO THE PROGRAM, NOT TO CHRIST AND EQUATE GOOD WORKS WITH SPIRITUALITY--THEY MUST BE DISTINGUISHED BUT NOT SEPARATED, I.E., GOOD WORKS MUST SPRING FROM HEALTHY FAITH AND SAVING FAITH MUST PRODUCE GOOD WORKS OR FRUIT!  DON'T FORGET OUR MARCHING ORDERS TO KNOW GOD (IS TO LOVE GOD) AND MAKE HIM KNOWN THROUGH LOVE IN ACTION, TRANSLATING OUR CREEDS INTO DEEDS OR PUTTING OUR BELIEFS INTO ACTION--THAT'S WHERE IT'S AT AND ETERNAL LIFE IN CHRIST! 

Let me add:  Eph. 4:15, ESV, says, "Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ."       Soli Deo Gloria!

The Never-ending Story

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." --George Santayana
"The Christian belief system ... is relevant to all of life." --Carl F. H. Henry
A WORLDVIEW OF HISTORY FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

History is a grand narrative or "Big Story" written by the Great Storyteller--God! It has a purpose, meaning (hence an Ultimate Mind), and significance; it's going in a direction (hence a Director) that will be consummated at the Second Coming of Christ. It seems to repeat itself or be cyclical (but it's linear) because we often don't learn the lessons of history and are condemned to repeat it because of our ignorance. History is not bunk, but worthy of study and totally relevant to our day. We ought to be careful not to interpret persons involved in history as if they lived in the modern era; for instance, Lincoln may have seemed like a racist in today's political correctness.

The important lesson to learn is that no one can claim history is over and they have achieved victory until Christ returns! Any such claim is premature and presumptuous gloating and assumes that God doesn't also punish and have reasons for allowing events to transpire which we cannot comprehend. "Philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; the point is, however, to change it." --Karl Marx

All of history can be seen in the light of good and evil and these forces in timeless, linear conflict from the day Adam took of the proverbial apple and decided on his own plan, desires, wisdom, rules, standards, approval, discernment, and way. The Way of Christ is not one of many ways to understand history, nor the best way, but the only way! The only system of thought Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point, according to Athanasius. 

Where you begin determines where you'll end up! As Carl Henry said, we must live in light of eternity and realize Christianity is relevant to all of life's academic disciplines and making sense of reality; for Plato said that in order to know how to live in reality, one must know what God is really like! Some may object that it's illogical to begin with an unproven premise and claim a certain conclusion; however, atheists begin with an unproven universal negative and don't reckon that all knowledge is contingent and begins in faith.

When doomsayers say we are headed toward Armageddon we must be skeptical and not set dates, but realize that His Parousia is always imminent ("... this is the last hour..," cf. 1 John 2: 18, NIV) and we must always be ready to meet our Lord regardless. We must learn "to interpret the times" per 1 Chron. 12:32 and fly our Christian colors, even daring to be Daniels in this day and age of Secular Humanism that wants to dethrone God and deify or exalt man, making a name for themselves at God's expense. We cannot solve our problems by ourselves but need God's intervention. History will march on with or without us and God's purposes will prevail with or without our contribution or cooperation. No political party can claim final victory as if history doesn't march on and times they are a-changing.

What we can do in our setbacks is to take inventory and do a spiritual checkup and evaluate our stands to see if they align with God's will and worldview--for we all must be willing to admit that we could be wrong or we'll never arrive at the truth, willing to go where the evidence leads. We must not close our minds and refuse to see other viewpoints when we don't understand. But God can give discernment to determine good from evil. Christianity is a historical faith or it's nothing!

You might say that it's not over till it's over or until the fat lady sings! We must not be presumptuous that the tide won't turn the other way just as they say that what goes around comes around--God balances things out in the end and works it all for His glory (cf. Eph. 1:11). That's why it's important to be gracious, not vindictive in treating others. When Lincoln was asked how he'd deal with the South after the Civil War, he said he'd handle them as if they never left the Union! ("With malice toward none, with charity toward all....") We must never get discouraged as if we don't believe God is in control of history and actually micromanages every event--He orchestrates all of history to go in His favor.

God is not like the God of Aristotle "who reigns but doesn't rule" (like the sovereign of the UK) but He actually is in full control and sovereign without any maverick molecules in the entire cosmos--God leaves nothing to chance (cf. Prov. 16:33) and there are no flukes in nature or history. God's sovereignty isn't limited by our freedom! The God Einstein conceived was more accurate: "God doesn't play dice with the universe"

The Christian conception of history depends upon the objective veracity of Scripture and the reliability of its subjective experience in believers. History, or time, had a beginning (hence an Author and Creator), is going in a direction (hence a Director), and will reach a conclusion or ending point at the climax of Judgment Day. In four words history is described as creation, fall, redemption, judgment!

When Christ died on the cross and rose again, this was the most important event in all of history and it's the turning point, and it's evidenced by many infallible proofs (cf. Acts 1:3). By definition, "history is the unfolding of God's ultimate, redemptive plan for mankind in real time" as God entered it in the person of Jesus Christ saving man from himself, sin, death, Satan, and God's wrath.

In the meantime, we need not get nearsighted and miss the forest for the trees but realize God is at work in mysterious ways that we know not! The plot goes on! The plot thickens! But we must never jump ship or bail out and give up on God who will work it out at the end of time, and we will be glad we're on the right side of history! Meanwhile, we may need to remove ourselves from the events and not get so personally involved, to see things in proper perspective. Our worldview determines what kind of handle we get on current events. "God does not play dice with the universe." --A. Einstein

One may view history erroneously because he's too involved and time will tell as God makes course corrections--it's like the swing of a pendulum with man overreacting and not being informed to act rationally; being rash always brings error (we must be removed and objective enough to rightly interpret--hindsight!). History by its very nature is nonrepeatable and therefore not subject to empirical investigation or analysis (in the domain of scientific inquiry)--one's religion and philosophy enter into the equation. In short, history is meaningful (hence a Mind).

CAVEAT: DON'T GET TUNNEL VISION AND FOCUS ON THE HERE AND NOW! "Everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him" (Col. 1:16B, MSG); "... who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will" (Eph. 1:11, NIV). NB: Christ's coming changed the course of history!

Christianity is a historical religion OR IT IS NOTHING! It's historicized and never proven otherwise by archaeologists and if dehistoricized, it's fully discredited. But the Bible "has more marks of authenticity than any profane history." --Sir Isaac Newton We can be thankful our God is the God of history and has the whole world's story in His hands. One could easily posit the Bible as the best book on history ever penned by man. And never lose track of the fact that God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. Finally, history looks forward to the consummation of the Second Coming and we don't have to know the future's details, but we know who holds the future! 

In sum, the plot thickens and history marches on by God's intervention:  creation, fall, redemption, judgment, heaven or hell.               Soli Deo Gloria!