What is the Christianity that Jesus Talked About?

What is Christianity?  Today it is hard to truly figure that out because the definition has become so broad in America.  In the first century church the definition was pretty well defined because the cost to be a Christian or the Way, as they were called, was so high.  It was literally life and death.  Today people are called Christians if they celebrate Christmas, are not Catholic or now it includes Catholic, if you believe in Jesus at all, go to church etc.  Then in the Evangelical camp you have extremes from extreme fundamentalism to the name it and clam it health, wealth, and prosperity.  Is Christianity something you can try and then if it doesn't work for you you can try something else?  The answer to that is no.  Once you are have come to the Savior and know Him you won't leave.  If you leave you never knew Him.   What is it that Christian people all over the world throughout the centuries have died for? It is realizing how holy God is and how sinful you are and realizing that God sent His Son to come to earth for the sole purpose of dying on the cross for your sins and mine.  When Jesus died on the cross he took the full wrath of God the Father.  He rose the third day.  It is putting your complete faith and trust in what Jesus did on the cross to pay the debt you owe to God for your sins. A debt you could never pay on your own.  All the good works that you do to try and get to heaven are as filthy rags.  They can't pay for the wrong you've done because the good works are not perfect and that is God's requirement. That is why God sent His Son to pay the debt.  It is faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation.  This is what men and women have died for through centuries as martyrs.

I grew up my Junior High - College years in a legalistic fundamentalist churches and school.  Not by my choice necessarily.  During my Freshmen year after attending a church that had an alter call and everything the pastor said was, "If you don't do this you are a back slidden Christian."  Yes you need to continually examine and make sure you are in the faith but it is not about do's and don'ts.  It is not about if you show up every time the church doors are open, or if you read your Bible everyday and in the early morning at that, or how many ministries you are involved in.  All of these things are good things in and of themselves but they don't make you a "good" Christian.  When God sees us He sees Christ's righteousness so all the things you do doesn't make you look better to God.   If you do them to show you are a good Christian or with the reason that this is what I am suppose to do then I think you missed the point. Once your faith is in Jesus alone for your salvation it is about loving Christ with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength. The things you do is not to look better to God or get "points" but you do them because you love Jesus.  That's it.   I believe John Piper has it right to spend you life finding pleasure and joy in Jesus Christ.  Do's and Don'ts places the weight of the law back on our shoulders.  The law was just to show how sinful we are and how desperate we need a Savior because we cannot keep the law perfectly.  The other extreme to the do's and don'ts is "I have freedom in Christ"  where they take that freedom to indulge in less than God honoring activities meaning sin.  Yes we have freedom in Christ but we are to use that freedom to draw nearer to God and further His kingdom not to follow the lusts of the flesh.

What do you do when you are in love with someone?  You spend time with them.  That is what you will crave to do, spend time with the Lord Jesus in prayer and His word.  Be like the people from Berea in the New Testament they were examining everything they heard or read according to the scriptures to see if it is true.( Acts 17:10-11)  The Word of God is to be your measurement for everything.   If it doesn't line up to the Word of God you discard it.  When reading be sure to gain the whole context of the scripture don't take verses out of context.  Think of it this way.  How you like people taking something you said out of context and then you tell them that is not what you meant and they twisted your words. What if they come back saying that your words can mean whatever they feel they mean to them.  That doesn't make much sense in how we communicate and we don't like it when people do that.  Why would we do that with God's Word.  Revel in God's Word enjoy your time in prayer with Him.  He's the one Person you'll never have to explain yourself to because He knows everything about you and loves you.

As you love the Lord Jesus you will follow Him anywhere and at any cost like the many Christians who have gone before us.

Count Trials All Joy - Rejoice!

Our family has had some trials recently, but it has been amazing to see how God has brought in our live really godly families to come along side of us to pray with and for us.  You know when you surround yourself with people who are zealous for Christ and the furthering of his Kingdom you can't help but become zealous for the Lord Jesus as well.  We have been seeing the hand of God moving in our lives a lot the past few months and it is exciting.  The Lord answered my prayer and showed me why I had been sick for many years - Celiac Disease.  The longer I am gluten free the stronger and more energized I feel.  Once I found out the Lord provided enough money to replace a lot of pots and utensils.  My husband is a gourmet cook so that is a lot of pots and utensils.:) The Lord is also teaching us to wait on Him.  Look forward to seeing how He will lead us and guide us.  Trials are tough but they are a joy as you draw near to Him and wait for His guidance and direction.  There is such peace in it.  When we get into the "I've got to fix it" mentality all that comes is drama and stress.  When we look to God and let Him work, peace comes and things gets resolve with order.  God is not the God of chaos but order.  Thank you, Lord for all that you have brought into our lives.  Thank You for godly friends that have a zeal for You.

Treasuring the Lord & His Word

I had a birthday recently and I asked for a John MacArthur Study Bible in ESV in brown imitation leather.  I couldn't wait to get it.  Checking the computer to see if Amazon shipped it yet and being excited when I saw it was finally shipped.  The excitement when it arrived.  I wanted to get alone with the Bible and enjoy looking at it and reading it.  Why aren't we with that kind of excitement and anticipation about spending time with God in His Word all of the time?  We should be.  Our hearts should be like the psalmist says in Psalms 42:1-2 "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When shall I come and appear before God?"  We should all desire to be like Mary sitting at Jesus feet learning from Him and not like Martha consumed with so many cares.
Christ is the head of the church and we are the body.  The physical head is always in communication with the body and if that communication is disrupted then the body doesn't work well.  The same with Christ.  We have to be in constant communication with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through prayer and His Word if we are not we are not as effective in the body or in our sphere of influence such as our family, friends, neighbors, as well as we become fleshy.  Being in Christ means more than being saved it is living our lives after the pattern of Christ.  In Col 1:10 "so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." and in Col 2:6-7 "Therefore,as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving." I think when we are consistently meditating on the Lord and His Word the more in love with Jesus we become. We will desire to live a life in obedience to His Word and desire to become more like Him.  The result would be instead of taking God's Word for granted we will treasure it as we would the rarest and most precious gem.  I believe we all have to check our hearts and make sure we don't become apathetic.  From time to time that happens to everyone, but I think the people that need to guard against this the most are the people in the ministry.  Why is that?  Because reading and preparing messages for church or bible studies is part of the job as pastors and it can feel like a job because of deadline instead of a time of treasuring and listening through God's Word what He wants you to teach where that excitement and love for God and His Word  would be passed to the congregation.  Spending time with the Lord and in His Word is an amazing thing.  It is the closest thing we can get to the Garden of Eden.  We can't hear God audibly but we can through His Word and we can pour our hearts to Him and have an intimate relationship with Him.  Let's go and find a quiet place where we can enjoy the presence of the Lord as we read His Word and pray.    

The Privilege of Being a Parent

We are almost done with our official school year.  I know it is kind of late, but we had to take a break when my husband's family came.  I have to say that with each year that goes by homeschooling is getting easier and easier.  I am not saying that the actual school days doesn't come with its difficulties but at least I am feeling more confident in what I want to be doing and actually am doing.  I still struggle when I hear people that try and tell us to put our kids in school.  A friend said that if I believe that is what the Lord would have us to do is to teach our children at home then rest in Him and keep your focus on Him and don't let what people say bother you.  I have been taking her advice to heart.  It just has amazed me how once I had kids how sooo many people feel that they have a right to tell you how to run your life.  I have had total strangers, friends, acquaintances, my husbands clients, neighbors, extended family telling us how to run our life.  It seems like everyone likes to add their two cents worth to any area of your life.  I have had people tell me what medications I should or should not take in regards to my Fibromyalgia or treatments to try, or where we should live, what our family should eat, how we are to discipline our kids, how to run our business, but I think the hot button has to be how we are to educate our children.  My husband has even had clients yell at him because they found out we homeschool.  I am so happy we moved from that state.  Colorado is much more homeschool friendly than California.    I just never realize how polarizing of an opinion homeschooling can bring.  What people don't know in our great country is that many of our nations founding fathers were homeschooled.  We have had some great preachers of the great awaking that were homeschooled.  Most recently is Sandra Day O'Conner was homeschooled.  Many of our great minds came from homeschool.  I think homeschool is a wonderful way to educate your children.  I am not fanatical to say it is the best way or the only way.  It is just the best way for our family to educate our boys.  I have never understood why people push their preferences on people and pressure people to see things their way.  God gives parents the gift of children and gives the parents the job of raising them hopefully for His glory and it is up to the parents to decide how they want to do that.  It is not up to everyone else to do that task.  Parents do ask advice from people and that is okay.  The key is let the parents ask without everyone volunteering advice.  People should support and encourage one another instead of getting on each others case because they may not agree with the way that person is raising there child.  As long as it is not a sin issue and it is just a preference issue let parents do their job as they see best to accomplish it.  There is no such thing as perfect parents or expert parents.  Every parent learned with on the job training.  There are experience parents that non-experience parents can go to for advice but no experts or perfect parents.  We are all fallible sinners that (those in Christ) have been save by grace!  The best part is when we do mess up in parenting and yell at our kids we can go to them and ask for forgiveness for our sin and go to God for the same reason and be forgiven.  That speaks louder to our children then if we try to act like we are infallible. There is only one infallible Father and that is God.

Blessing God Gives Through Trials

I have been thinking a lot about the past few years.  There is a popular saying that hind sight is always 20/20.  For a Christian I think hind sight answers a lot of why questions we may have in our hearts at the time we are going through a trial.  I remember when my oldest who is now 8 was an infant I was always busy.  Busy with the cleaning or writing articles for my husbands business or writing letters to clients.  I spent time with my son but not that much quality just focus on him time.  I regret that now because he is growing up so fast that I wished that I had slowed down then.  Thankfully, after the birth of my 4th sons my body crashed.  I was exhausted all of the time and in pain most of the time.  I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.  I have probably had it for a long time but doctors that I went to couldn't figure it out.  With each child the symptoms got worse.  My last child was a wonderful blessing but did me in.  Looking back now I am so thankful because now I am not hyper any more about have a perfectly clean house and being consumed with a to do list.  God taught me an amazing lesson the past 2 years.
 There have been days I have walked with a cane because the pain in my hips and knees were unbearable and during those days I sit a lot and enjoyed talking to my sons or watch a video with them.  Today as we were doing school work I was looking at them and enjoying them and I just gave God so much thanks that He slowed me down so I saw what was important and not what I thought was important.  I am not saying having a clean house is not important because it is for health reasons but I am saying that I realized that my children are more important.  My time with them is short and before I know it they will be 18 and in college.  Once they are grown and on there own I will have plenty of time to have a spotless house and pursue hobbies and spend time with friends and be involved with ministries outside of the home.  I want to have plenty of wonderful memories of my children as they are growing up so on those days that I will miss them because they have their own families I can remember and feel close to them.
That is not the only reason that I am glad God slowed me down.  In slowing me down I began to invest my time in them.  I began to enjoying teaching and training them.  I am not just talking about their education for school, but in life and most importantly about the Lord Jesus.  I want them to view the world around them not from the worlds point of view but from God's point of view.  My desire is that their focus will not be on themselves and how to use people to get to their goal, but that their focus would be on Christ and how they can serve Him by serving others.  In Bible class, they have been learning that what the Father sees in secret He will reward.  In serving the Lord, I have been trying to teach them not to serve the Lord for praise and recognition of men because if they do it wasn't really serving the Lord but more themselves and they would have their reward, but instead to serve the Lord without expecting a "well done or I loved what you said or you are an amazing Christian" and do things unto the Lord with that as the motive of the heart and the actions show it.  I think teaching my sons about Christ is the thing I am the most thankful for when God slowed me down.  I get to teach them when we go for a walk and admire God's creation or just in everyday situations.  Sometimes a health situation is given so you can see what is really important.  I am thankful that God loves me so much to do that for me while my boys are young.  It is not to say that everything is perfect or that we have a perfect family because there is no such thing but we all Christians are just sinners saved by grace and are in a work in progress.  The Potter is not done with me yet nor with the rest of my family and I am thankful for that.