Month: August 2015

Living by Faith

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
            Biblical Christianity is real, historic, personal, supernatural, redemptive, authoritative, relevant, dynamic, and demanding.  It’s all that and much more.  People, as created by God, were meant to have God firmly and lovingly at the central core of their lives.  But in humanity’s great fall into sin, God was replaced at the center of people’s lives with self.  Yet, the good news of Christianity is that Jesus has redeemed us back to God.  Through faith in Christ and a complete surrendering to him, we embark on a path toward spiritual growth and maturity that seats God back on the center throne of our lives.
 
 
 
            It’s not enough for the Christian to mentally know this stuff; the believer must understand how to put this knowledge into daily practice through faith (Hebrews 11:6).  Faith is the response of the entire person to God in loving trust, submission, and obedience through the person of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.
 
            Faith is neither a warm-fuzzy designed to make us feel good, nor a judgmental feeling of guilt that leaves us wishing our lives were better.  No, faith is a decision to take God at his Word and act upon it (Hebrews 11:24-28).  Now the kicker to all this is learning to make actual decisions of faith in practical daily experience.
 
            For example, let’s take a look at some decisions of faith based on 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify us from all unrighteousness.” All of us have a need to exercise faith in regard to some specific problem that dogs us.  The following steps illustrate the kinds of decisions we must make:
Ø  Confess the thing as sin.
Ø  Forsake it as a sin.
Ø  Believe that God will forgive and deliver you.
Ø  Receive Jesus as the specific need you have to deal with the sin.
Ø  Believe God’s Word that you are purified from sin, and live like it.
 
Faith is how we allow God to do what God wants to do:  be at the inner central core of our lives so that he can exert his power, influence, and grace in every single area of our lives.  Only then can we live in such a way where we don’t have this weird sacred/secular life where we divide ourselves according to spiritual things and non-spiritual things.  The truth is that it’s all spiritual and all belongs to God.  Therefore, the greater sin is to keep Jesus out of the center of everything we do.  God is a jealous God; he wants all of us, not part of us.
 

 

      The essence of living by faith is taking God at his Word.  The provision that God has given for us to walk by faith is the person and work of Jesus Christ.  When we choose to apply this good news to our lives through decisions of faith, hope, and love we experience success in the Christian life.  It is very difficult to express faith when a person is out of fellowship with God.  So, a primary decision to make every day is to engage in spiritual practices that cultivate a basic relationship with God.  Disciplines of Bible reading; prayer; and, weekly Sabbath observance; these all are necessary to developing our muscle of faith into a strong robust belief that is able to take on the rigors of life in this world.  

Psalm 57

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            One thing we all share about the human experience is that, sooner or later, someone or a group of people will let us down.  On top of that, many have experienced, or will experience, some sort of abuse and victimization from another person or group.  What is more, there are those who have even had their very lives at risk because someone sought them out to actually kill them.  That is the company that David found himself in when King Saul sought to do away with his life.
 
            To David’s credit, he never retaliated and did not try and turn the tables on Saul by putting a hit out on him.  Instead, David cried out to God.  And we get to listen in on the prayer.  Psalm 57 is David’s incredible praying reliance upon the God whom he put all his trust and praise. 
 
            One of the best things about the psalms is that they are a wonderful collection of prayers that we can adopt for our own.  Not only can we use them for ourselves, but we are obliged to do so.  If anyone has been in an adverse situation so deep that it feels like having ambled into a pride of lions, it is quite likely that the experience leaves one with no adequate words to say.  It’s as if you are paralyzed with fear.  So, let the psalm say for you what you cannot even begin to utter yourself.  The Word of God is not meant to sit on a coffee table or rest on a shelf; it is meant to be opened and used for prayer.  Allow it to do its intended purpose.
            Be merciful to me, O God, for in you my soul takes refuge.  Even though I feel the slash of people with tongues as swords, my heart is steadfast and will exalt your name above the heavens.  Let your glory be over all the earth!  Amen.

2 Samuel 15:13-31

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment
            David seems to be at his best when he is at his lowest.  His son, Absalom, carefully designed a conspiracy to take over the kingdom and it was looking as though he might just do it.  David and those loyal to him had to flee Jerusalem in order to avoid being done overthrown and killed.  They were between a rock and a hard place, to put it mildly.  David was running for his life.
 
            If we were to put ourselves in David’s sandals, what would be our response?  At the least, we would likely complain, find ways to maintain power, and get back at Absalom.  I am humbled by David’s unflagging trust in God.  Like Job centuries before him, David is willing to receive anything from the hand of God whether it is good or evil:  “let him do to me what seems good to him.”
 
            Yet, at the same time, David was in touch with his emotions as he left the city and ascended the Mount of Olives.  He wept and lamented over the situation he and all those with him had to experience.  A thousand years later, Jesus took the same trek out of the city in great sorrow because of people who conspired against him.  Christ faced the agony of the cross through the machinations of sinful humanity who did not want him as Lord over their lives.
 
            Our confidence must rest in the God who knows what he is doing.  We must rely on our prayers to the Lord as we navigate the difficulties of this life.  Humility goes a long way toward letting the will of God rule the day.
            O Lord, please turn the plans and the counsel of evil persons into foolishness.  Do not let the sinfulness of people have its way and run roughshod over my life.  I trust in you to bend a bad situation toward your own good purpose through Jesus Christ my Lord.  Amen.