Settle It Here, Once And For All

Why wonder if there really is a God? Why not find out once and for all? Let's settle it here and now. Call on God to make himself real to you. He will do it.

I highly suggest that you read the Bible, especially the gospels in the first part of the New Testament. They tell the things that Jesus said and what he had the power to do. I believe that God will become real to you on a very personal level when you meet the Jesus of the Bible. He made you and he knows how to communicate with you and become the very real answer to your life's needs.

He touched lepers. He spoke to women with bad reputations. He spent almost all of his time around fishermen and tax collectors and political zealots. He worked as a carpenter. He knew people like nobody has ever known people. He knows you.

Take the challenge. You won't regret it.

Who Is This Man?

Not the one you expected?

The religious accused him of being a drunkard, a glutton and having tacky taste in friends. It is a profound irony that the Son of God visited this planet and one of the chief complaints against him was that he wasn't religious enough. Do you realize, just for that quality alone, the appeal Jesus will have to skeptics? He is irresistible. - Rebecca Manley Pippert (p.37)

Genuine is the correct word here. He is the real thing - more than Coca-Cola is the real thing. Religious people always have expectations and they are often wrong. The truth will set you free and it is wonderful.

I have been studying the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus' parables and he was as sharp as any man. You must come to him with your thinking cap on. He outwits his opponents at every turn and they are unable to arrest him until he is ready to be arrested. He makes them look like the fools they are and they resent him - say he does miracles by the devil's power.

His mission was to take care of the heart of he matter: men are at the root sinners in need of saving. Once that is taken care of, the rest can be dealt with easily. That is why he has two comings. He comes the first time to take care of sin and a second time to make the rest right. We didn't need a political solution, but a heart solution.

I don't believe that all religions lead to the same place, but I do believe that all the lines of truth lead to the same place and that place is Jesus Christ.

There are only two possible religions when you boil it all down:
1) Works - trying to be good enough to enter heaven on your own merit.
2) Grace - having a Savior, specifically Jesus Christ, who loved you and died for you on the cross, rising from the dead to prove our sins are gone.

Read the next post about being a "sinner." That is a prerequisite for needing a savior. This is a place we must all visit in our lives.

Can you believe that the longing you've felt inside,
Could find it's rest in a man who was crucified?
- Leslie Phillips

Not The Righteous, But Sinners

Jesus says that he did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. The so called "righteous" people of Jesus' day looked down on him for eating with Matthew, a tax collector and "sinner." Matthew would be keenly aware of this. He writes about this in his gospel where the main theme has to do with the reader understanding that he is a sinner and is not worthy of salvation or heaven. We must have a righteousness that exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees because their righteousness is not enough, either. What kind of righteousness can we have? The answer is imputed righteousness. It does not come from us, but from our Savior. The point Matthew is making throughout the book is that Jesus is our only righteousness. Enter through the narrow gate (Jesus) or you do not enter at all.

We need a savior. That means all of us without exception. It was impossible for Jesus to save the "righteous" because they were so busy deluding themselves into thinking they had righteousness of their own that they would never come to Jesus Christ as a savior. Jesus came for the sinners who knew they needed help and could not make it on their own.

On His Own Authority

Jesus could speak on His own authority and carry weight. He lived what was called an indestructible life, so he had practical authority. He was from heaven and was the Son of God, so he had positional authority and spoke from first-hand knowledge.

Knowing this, we must be careful to take Him at His word and understand that what we decide to do with Jesus - how we intend to treat Him - is the most important decision of our lives.

He wants us to make Him Lord of our lives. He is Lord, whether we acknowledge Him or not, but He wants us to come to Him in faith and realize who He is, trusting Him.

Good Friday

Why is it Good Friday? Bad things happened.

God planned all of this. Nothing caught Him by surprise. We needed a Savior and God offered up his Only Son for us. That is complete love.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

We have it made. The one who loves us knows all of our bad deeds, yet loves us anyway. We get all the good stuff from him and he took all the bad stuff from us.

This is a "Good Friday."

Two Houses - Two Destinies

The final word is that two identical houses could be built with differing foundations and the foundation difference is the deciding factor as to whether the house makes it though the storm OK.

The rock foundation is obedience to Jesus' words and the foundation of sand is disobedience to His words. We cannot be hearers only but must put His words into practice by obedience.

I am speaking to myself here as much as anyone else. This is the final and deciding factor with regard to building our lives.

The people were amazed with the authority Jesus spoke with. He cannot be denied as the Master of the spoken word and the final authority on Scripture and its interpretation.

Only Two Ways

D. A. Carson makes the point Jesus is making in his Sermon on the Mount: that there are only two ways available to travel in this life.

1. The broad road that leads to death
2. The narrow road that leads to life

There is not an infinite number of choices: only one choice involving two paths.

The tragedy is that otherwise reasonable men become so enamoured with the spaciousness and popularity of their path that they take little thought as to it's destination. Should they hear that it leads to destruction, they will deny it, arguing that they are no worse than others on the same road, and that in any case God would not permit the destruction of so many. Let me state emphatically that the Scriptures do not encourage such optimism. Jesus himself insists that only the narrow way leads to life.

Sermon On The Mount

Jesus tells it like it really is in the Sermon on the Mount. "You have heard it said" but "I say to you."

Enough of what men have said about the Law of Moses, this is what it was really meant to say and how our hearts should react to it.

I highly recommend Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and His Confrontation with the World by D. A. Carson. It was one of the text books for my class I am taking (not for credit) from ITS. The class lectures are also great, by John Stott. The Sermon on the Mount has a definite purpose and it is often misunderstood. The Law was put in place to show sin and most of all to show that we have no righteousness of our own. Any Pharisee who thought he might be righteous in God's eyes by keeping the Law perfectly would be shocked to learn what God's real expectations are as presented by the One who would know, the Son of God. There is no one who is righteous.

The behavior expected by God, perfection as depicted in the Sermon, is only attainable with the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives after we completely admit we are broken and unable to meet this standard on our own. We become poor in spirit and meek due to the knowledge of our own unworthiness in God's sight. It is only then that we can obey God in His power, not our own.

Technological Explosion Reverses Babel

This is an amazing account of an event that is greatly underestimated in importance. Technology is exploding today and language barriers are less and less an issue in slowing down the expansion of knowledge.

A huge statement by God: "nothing" would be too difficult for mankind to accomplish.

What if man had developed atomic bombs before Christ came and paid for our sins? The languages brought barriers that slowed down the current headlong dive into new capabilities for mankind.

Man's potential to control his environment is God given and apparently has no limits. Sin really complicates man's motivation and goals involving his environment and God slowed down the process to allow time for redemption.

The tower may also have been designed to track the stars and other heavenly bodies. So many different places around the world tried to duplicate it. The Mayan calendar was very elaborate and precise. Most cultures seemed to have a large monument of some kind that was laid out in conformity with the sun, moon and stars. Stonehenge, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. Finally, Kepler and Copernicus and Sir Isaac Newton developed modern math and a concept of planetary motion that led to modern physics and the atomic bomb.

Tower Of Babel Account