christian living

The difference one word can make…

“…Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”  Galatians 3:6

Watch this….miss this one thing and we view the entire gospel with a skewed understanding…

It doesn’t say that Abraham’s belief in God is what gave him a righteous standing.  It was because he BELIEVED GOD.”

The difference is colossal.  Consider this:

“You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”  James 2:19

Belief Requires Action

Anyone can believe IN God.  But believing God–having real faith–requires ACTION.  (“Faith without works is dead.”) When Abraham believed God, it was proven by the way he lived his life.  He acted on his belief of who God is and what God said.

“He went out, not knowing where he was going” —Hebrews 11:8

Do we act with that kind of obedience?  Faith in God changes the way we live–it just does!  It affects everything.

Believing When It’s Hard

And not just that, He believed the hard things.  God commanded Abraham to do the hardest thing, hands down, that any human has ever been commanded–to take the life of his son.  (And we complain about what God asks of us?) Abraham believed Him.  No questions. No looking for anyone else’s opinion on the matter. Just raw obedience to what seemed grossly unfair.

There is a new gospel running rampant because we don’t like unfair. Incapable of holding a just God and a merciful God by the same hand, we change His Word. And this new poison-gospel is sweet to swallow.

Truth peppered with a few lies–Christians being deceived just like Adam and Eve were.

Remember? The serpent didn’t make up a ridiculous story, it would have been too obvious.  He just asked questions mostly (Did God really say?), until their thinking was just slightly off track, a subtle deception, and then THE FALL.

We must believe GOD.  We must believe what He says, who He is, what He has promised, and how He instructs us to live.  Be so discerning about what you hear!  We must be thinking Christians!

The grace of the gospel has been stripped of its power because we have stripped God of His character.  We try to serve a mutually exclusive God and Jesus. “Jesus is only love and God is fierce, and doesn’t like sin, so we’ll just keep Him hidden in the dusty pages of the Old Testament because that makes me feel better”.

No!  Jesus and God are the same and He can only be Love because He is Just! And I can only be accredited with righteousness by believing that.  My sin is an affront to a Holy God.  It’s written all through the pages of Scripture.  If I believe anything else, I believe no gospel at all.

My guilty record has been wiped clean because of His shed blood. But that acquittal changes me.  It changes everything.

I run out with new life and I shudder to remind him of the nails by my indifference to sin.

I obey Him because I love Him.  I love others because I love Him.

May the reality of Who God is awaken my faith to action. To walk blindly if I’m asked, to risk ridicule if it means such.  For in that kind of reckless abandon is the only safety to be found.

It’s why the Church is so crippled, so impotent.  It’s why 75% of Americans claim to be Christians, and yet our culture doesn’t reflect that influence.

I stayed home Sunday and listened to David Platt as he expounded on this truth in a way that forced me to examine my own motives.

” ‘God loves me’ is not the message of biblical Christianity.”

Wow.  Interesting the cliches we adopt as theology.  He admits that this truth is completely counter-culture.  But how often we adopt the vision of the culture rather than that of God.  Look at the object of that sentence…”ME”. And “Me” is not the object of Christianity….not even close.

“God loves me so that His grace and His love and His glory and His majesty may be made known among the nations through me.”

It doesn’t end with ME.  He didn’t just die for ME, but so that I could make his grace and forgiveness known in the world.  That’s why salvation is only the beginning.  After that, we are indebted to a Savior and all we do in life is supposed to exalt Him.  Convicting anyone?

“So, God had an ulterior motive when He sent His Son to die?  ‘Yes.’ ” Platt says.

So that through His redeemed, He would be glorified.

“How could any of us be so arrogant to think we are at the center of His universe?  GOD is at the center of His universe.”

And so it’s not about what I want in life, really….a true disciple is sold out (“at once they left their nets and followed Him”), surrendered to the call of Christ on his life–a lump of clay, willing to be conformed to the shape of His Creator.

God help me…I am so self-centered.

“We can only have a God-centered mission when we have a God-centered God.“

Wonderful insight from my wise friend, Jasmine Baucham…

“If our convictions do not flow from a heart that realizes daily that it is only by God’s grace that we even desire to please him… if the choices we make come from a prideful need to exalt ourselves above others… if we cannot reach out to others with the glorious news of the gospel because we somehow feel they are beneath us… if our gospel begins to include steps that will make the hearers look more like us than like Christ…

In essence our righteousness does not exceed those empty works of the Pharisee (Matthew 5:20), and unless our hope is solely in the righteousness of Christ Jesus (Romans 3:20, 1 John 2:2)…”

Read the rest of “When All the Ducks are in a Row”

I’ve mentioned this in a post before, but I think it’s worth its own post now that I can speak from personal experience.

If you are tired of paying high premiums for insurance and still not being adequately covered, or you don’t like the fact that half your premium pays a high-profit industry, you simply have to consider switching to Samaritan’s Ministries. It’s an especially great choice for the self-employed.

I plugged the ministry when we had just joined, but we had not actually had the chance to use its services yet.

I can attest now, though, after two claims, that we couldn’t be happier with this ministry.

In a nutshell, here’s the way it works:

The ministry is made up of more than 15,000 Christian families.  Each family pays a monthly “share” of around $300 (you can pay a little more for extra coverage).

Each month, you send your share to a family who has a medical need. (Samaritan’s send you the name, address and amount to send.)  If you are on the receiving end of the shares, you usually receive several personal letters, cards and encouragement along with a check.  You will receive checks from individual members until your medical need has been covered.

Samaritan’s covers any need over $300.  That acts as a “deductible”. Most needs are covered 100% after it exceeds the $300, up to $250,000, unless you pay the extra “Save to Share” for needs that exceed the $250,000.

We have just received all the funds needed to cover my husband’s ER bill and my prenatal/delivery costs for the baby I’m carrying (due in about 5 weeks!).

(By the way, you learn a lot about the bureaucracy of insurance companies when you pay as a “non-insured customer”.  As in, most establishments reduce your fee by around 60% automatically because the inflated amount usually charged to insurance companies is never the actual amount they receive.)

Not only does the system work like a well-oiled machine, but there is something so refreshing–so *right* about sending our check directly to a family, with every penny going to pay their bill, helping bear their burden, rather than sending a much higher premium to an insurance company where much of it will pay someone’s ridiculously high salary and we still won’t have all our bills covered.

So, that’s my personal plug for Samaritan’s. You should really consider it! Also, if you mention me as your referral, we get a deduction in our monthly share–another great perk of this company 😉

Lord,

Make me a woman who loves you more than I love what others say about me or think of me.

Make me a woman who guards her heart.

Make me a woman who loves You more than I love how I appear to others.

Make me a woman whose heart is pure.

Make me a woman who returns blessing for cursing.

Make me a woman who grows more and more to care about those around me–especially those hardest to care about.

Make me a woman who sees with compassionate eyes.

Make me a woman who doesn’t always have to be right.

Make me a woman who loves truth more than popularity.

Make me a woman who faces trials or suffering with serenity and the peace of knowing you are sovereign over my life.

Make me a woman who trusts You, even when things don’t turn out the way I think they should.

Make me a woman whose mission is to follow fiercely after God’s will, no matter the cost.

Make me a woman who chases after Your heart and finds You sufficient.