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"I am the door.  If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."
John 10:9

As Christians, we talk about God "opening doors" to us as a means of His revealing His will.  What we are asking God to do is engineer our circumstances to match what we think would be best.  The problem is that we misunderstand what the door is.  Jesus said He is the door.

Circumstances are irrelevant, for no one can shut the door that Jesus opens (Revelation 3:8).  If you have substituted activity for your relationship with Christ, then circumstances can disrupt your activity.  When the activity is hindered, you may assume the door has been closed.  Yet, if Christ is the door in your life, He will guide you into every experience of Him that He wants, and there will be nothing that people can do to stop Him.

When Paul and Silas were thrown into prison at Philippi, it appeared that the door to their ministry in Greece had been violently and firmly closed (Acts 16:22-24).  The reality of their situation, however, was that their Lord had opened a door of ministry to a previously unreached group of men in prison.  The Philippian jailer and his household would become a significant nucleus of the new church in Philippi.  From a human perspective, a door had been closed; from God’s perspective, Paul and Silas continued to minister exactly where God wanted them to.

When people oppose us, we can become discouraged or worry about what others are doing to us.  We may even try to take matters into our own hands to accomplish what we think God wants.  This reveals that we do not really believe Jesus is the door for our lives.  If we do, we would be assured that through Christ we have access to everything He wants to do in and through us.

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

Reminder that the National Day of Prayer is Thursday 7 May, 20009

Ephesians 6:17-18
17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Grace and peace be with you.

First off, I still subscribe to referring to this era since Christ’s crucifixion as A.D. (after death).  To keep with the “C” theme in today’s post title though, I had to be a little creative, so “Common Era” (C.E) it is…

In his letter to the Roman Church, Paul dismisses the idea of a “medical procedure” (circumcision) as being the mark (blessedness) of righteousness.

Romans 4:9-12
9Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! 11And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. 12And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

As I was preparing for this past Sunday’s class, I was at a loss for a while, as to how to illustrate to the class the relevance of the circumstances from this Scripture in the Church today.  Relevant as in: “How how do “we” repeat the same attitudes?” I believe that within the Church “we” sometimes mimic the circumcision group advocates mentality that Paul was correcting in Romans 4  by holding views as to what makes fellow believers in Christ sanctified by:

• External appearances: judging/basing our brother’s & sister’s sanctity on the clothes they wear etc; Matthew 23:25-26
  25″Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
  
• Church attendance: keeping tabs of other’s attendance, feeling superior or looking down on those that don’t attend regularly

  Luke 18:9-14
  9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10″Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

  13″But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

  14″I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

• Selfish prides: contempt/judgment toward others that don’t make an offering

  Philippians2:3-4
  3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

• “Acting” like the ideal Christian: looking down on other’s children that don’t behave as yours do or as you think they ought to

Paul’s point was/is, that faith is a matter of the heart; it’s a spiritual matter, which is more important to God than ritual or tradition(s).  How about you the reader?  Are there other ways that we advocate “flesh” based “circumcision” today?

See also: Deuteronomy 10:16, Romans 2:25-29, 1 Corinthians 7:18-19 & Ephesians 2:11-13

Grace and peace be with you.

But go, tell His disciples—and Peter—that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him as He said to you.
Mark 16:7

Does God give second chances to those who have failed Him? He certainly did so for Peter. Peter had proudly announced that he was Jesus’ most reliable disciple (Matthew 26:33).

Matthew 26:33
Peter replied, "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will."

Yet Peter not only fled with the other disciples in the moment of crisis, but also blatantly denied he even knew Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75). Peter failed so miserably that he went out into the night and wept bitterly (Luke 22: 62).

How compassionate the risen Christ was to Peter! The angel gave the women at the tomb special instructions to let Peter know that He was risen. Jesus took Peter aside to allow him the opportunity to reaffirm his love and commitment (John 21: 15-17). The risen Lord also chose Peter as His primary spokesman on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand people were added to the church.

God’s desire is to take you from where you are and bring you to where He wants you to be. When He found His defeated followers hiding together in an upper room, Jesus’ first word was "peace" (John 20:19). Jesus’ first words to you after you fail may also be "peace." Jesus will find you in despair and bring you peace. Then, He will reorient you to Himself so that you can believe Him and follow Him. Don’t give up if you have failed your Lord. Remember what happened to Peter. God has not yet finished developing you as a disciple.

Henry and Richard Blackaby
Experiencing God Day-by-Day

I was thinking the other day about some of the objections people have against Christianity.  The one that came into focus was that of hypocrisy.  If I claimed that it didn’t happen within the Church… well I’d be a liar.

As the gray matter was mulling over this objection though it did occur to me that Christianity does not teach that saved souls cease sinning.  I think that in some instances this is where some folks have a problem. There’s an assumption that once you become a Christian, you’re either never going to sin again, or if you do sin then that sin marks you as a bad Christian.  No doubt bad experiences, and false assumptions have both been partially responsible for fueling this wayward thinking.

1st John 5:16-18
16If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. 17All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

18We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him.

When we speak of sin, being “bad” or doing something “wrong” is probably the first thought that comes to mind. What about another perspective though?  How about “breaking a rule”, and continuing to do so?  Take adultery for example.  Say a person commits adultery, they have a moment of weakness, then after the fact they are remorseful and repentant.  Yes they have sinned.  Now take the same situation, but instead of remorse and repentance, the person continues to live in the same state, no remorse, no acknowledgement acknowledgment of their sin.  I think this is where you get into the area of sin being outright rebellion.  This is not meant to come off as presenting  a loophole, because the key is repentance, having a contrite heart.

1st John 1:8-10
8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

See?  God knew ahead of time that we’d continue to sin; he even made it plural. 

Grace and peace be with you.