Circumstances

I have been thinking about worship lately. There are times when I am just so joyful and my worship is heartfelt. But, there are times when troubles, fears, circumstances seem to weigh me down and my worship seems; well a little less worshipful. 

When I really stop to think about this I realize that our God is always faithful, always loving, always there and as such we should rejoice; we should be joyful despite our circumstances. 

This brings to mind Habakkuk 3:17-18 

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. 

So no matter what, we can rejoice in our Lord and Savior...Abba Father, we love you and trust you. May we always rejoice and joyfully worship you. 

Grace and Peace!

Grace

Isaiah 55:1 

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 

I get so excited when I think clearly about the Grace of God; when I can truly wrap my mind around it! There are those that say too much emphasis on grace will lead to licentiousness (license to sin) and antinomianism (free from moral law). I say not! An improper appreciation for Grace could lead to such things, but also push toward what Bridges calls the “swamp of legalism.” An emphasis on following rules rather than all Christ did.

On the days when I am so clear about grace; all it does is cause me to be in awe of our Great God...it causes me to love more and more because He first loved me. 

Robert Capon was an American Episcopal Priest known for the theme of God’s Radical Grace. He once said; “May we always run the risk of overemphasizing grace, for it is a risk that will never be realized.” 

To that I say Amen! 

2 Corinthians 12:9 

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 

Grace and Peace!

Freedom

We are continuing to study Galatians at our Church. It has been a great journey with a ways to go. This week we will be looking at Chapter 2:1-10. 

Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 

6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.  8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas, and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along. 

Here Paul is telling us that; as Pastor Tullian Tchividjian would say, Jesus plus nothing equals everything. The Gospel gives us freedom. Or that, by grace though faith in Christ alone provides for our salvation. And the Galatians were on that slippery slope of adding regulation/tradition/ceremony to the salvation equation. The beauty of the Gospel is that 'all that' has been fulfilled in the finished and complete work of Christ. At times, it is hard for us as broken humans to understand or grasp this. Do we possibly see some of this in some of our denominational battles? 

Martin Luther wrote; “the true Gospel teaches that works are not the ornament or perfection of faith, but that faith of itself is God’s gift and God’s work in our hearts, which justify us because it takes hold of Christ our Redeemer. Human reason has the law for its object, thinking, ‘I have done this; I have not done that.’ But faith in itself has no object but Jesus Christ, the Son of God, given up to death for the sins of the whole world. It does not say, ‘What have I done? In what have I offended? What have I deserved?’ It says, ‘What has Christ done? What has He deserved?’ He has redeemed you from you sin, from the devil, and from eternal death. Faith therefore acknowledges that in this one person, Jesus Christ, is forgiveness of sins and eternal life.” 

Can you see the freedom the Gospel offers? And while our freedom is a gift from God there is truly a heart transformation that should occur and an attitude of gratitude (isn’t that cute). And out of that gratitude a desire to become more and more like our savior. So while there is freedom in our salvation, over time there will be a grateful obedience to Christ. So the Gospel tells us we are free; free from sin, free from works, free from ceremony, free from regulation and free to worship, free to be transformed, free to follow and obey our loving Savior with what Keller calls a “grace-gratitude motive”. 

Grace and Peace!