The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Salvation (Page 18 of 34)

Beyond Your Sin

March 24, 2015 / / 1 Comment

“…your Father who sees what is done in secret…” ~Matthew 6:3, 6, 18

Remember the old church song about the All-Seeing Eye? It was creepy. It was scary, actually. I think it must have been written to keep church people from leaving during the invitation song. The All-Seeing Eye. And the song created this terrible picture of our God as this angry, arbitrary, ogre in the sky who just can’t wait to nail you. To grab you by the scruff of the neck and throw you out. Or destroy you.

Yes, our God sees everything. He sees all the good things you do. And, yeah, he definitely sees all the bad things you do. He sees your sin. He sees everything.

That means he not only sees your sin, he sees under your sin. He sees behind your sin. God sees above and below your sin. He sees beyond your sin to your pain. He sees the fear and the scars. God sees the hurts and the wounds that cause your sin. He knows.

God doesn’t just want you to stop sinning — yes, he definitely wants you to stop sinning — but he also wants to heal you. He wants to make you whole. He wants to get to the pain that drives you to those websites. He wants to fix the hurt that causes you to lie. God wants to cleanse the wounds that push you to anger or stealing, addiction or gossip. God loves you. And he wants to transform you. He wants to make you whole.

Peace,

Allan

Knowledge of the Lord

March 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

“…asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” ~Colossians 1:9

The Holy Scriptures are certainly a primary way we receive the gift of the knowledge of the Lord. We are shown through the Bible exactly what our God has done and is doing through our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a beautiful story, a compelling drama that draws us into the action. It involves us, it inspires us, it moves us to join in. But some of us still view the Bible as something else. We see the Scriptures as a book of rules and laws that must be kept before an all-seeing and all-judging God. No, the Bible is something different. The Bible is the grand sweeping story of God and his faithful presence and activity with his people and his people’s faithful and sometimes not so faithful response. God created something beautiful and he is right now re-creating something beautiful. He’s restoring everything back to its original pre-sin condition. His will — what God is doing — this knowledge of the Lord, includes redemption for all of creation, including us.

What God is doing is a story. It’s a narrative. And this is how we’re going to explore it and experience it together at Central:

ACT 1
Genesis 1-2      Creation – Pattern of the Kingdom

ACT 2
 Genesis 3-11      The Fall – Perished Kingdom

ACT 3
Gen. 12 – Malachi 4      Covenant – Promised Kingdom

ACT 4
Matt. 1 – John 21      Jesus – Present Kingdom

ACT 5
Acts – Rev. 20      Church – Proclaimed Kingdom

ACT 6
Revelation 21-22      New Creation – Perfected Kingdom

This more narrative view of Scripture helps us make more sense of things and brings more order to our own lives and experiences. We live today in the 5th ACT of the drama. So, more than restoring New Testament Christianity or going backwards to the times of Jesus or the days of the apostles, we’re called to move forward in the drama. We’re called to live it out, to play our roles and say our lines in ways that move the story forward toward its glorious conclusion.

Sometimes our biggest problems come when we place our lives and experiences in the wrong acts of the play. Leukemia belongs in ACT 2 of the play, not ACT 1. God did not create cancer; cancer is a result of living in a fallen world, broken by sin. Don’t let anybody tell you God gave you leukemia. The affair you’re having with that other man is not something God wants for you because your husband is a punk and God wants you to be happy. The adultery belongs in ACT 2 with sin, not in ACT 1 with the perfect things God created for us. Muslims are living today as if ACT 4 never happened; they’re still fighting the battles of ACT 3. A guy who is sleeping with his girlfriend before they are married because he’s a red-blooded American male and doesn’t really have a choice because nobody waits for marriage anymore needs to be reminded that we are living in ACT 5 of God’s story where our lives are a proclamation of the truth of Christ Jesus and his eternal Kingdom. Our lives are a testimony to the great change that was inaugurated when Jesus rose from the grave.

We need to know where we are. And we need to know what’s coming. We need to know that God is the author of the story and he has the last say. He writes the final word. And we need to see ourselves in the story and join it, live it, with everything we’ve got.

Isaiah says when the Kingdom is finally perfected, when God’s holy will has all been finally fulfilled, there will be righteousness and justice and peace because “the whole earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.”

Knowledge changes the whole world. And it changes us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After 22 years of serving the Central family as a member of the church staff, Connie Green is retiring at the end of this month. Connie started out here as a teacher with Kid University in 1993, moved on to work with our singles and membership ministries, and for the past fifteen years has served as a valuable administrative assistant and faithful ministry partner to the preacher. Since we moved here three-and-a-half years ago, Connie has kept me out of trouble and one step ahead. She makes me look good. And that’s a tough assignment: I can be impulsive and last-second.

Connie, we all feel great appreciation and admiration for your selfless service to Central. I’m so glad that you and Jay are remaining here in Amarillo and at Central. We all wish you the very best of God’s richest blessings in this next phase of your lives together.

Peace,

Allan

Understanding What God is Doing

March 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

“…asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will.” ~Colossians 1:9

In Scripture, knowledge has nothing to do with some special understanding that’s reserved for the spiritually elite. And it’s not about unlocking the eternal secrets of the universe. In Scripture, knowledge is understanding what God is doing. It’s recognizing how Christ Jesus is the fulfillment of all of God’s redemptive promises for all time.

“God has chosen to make known… the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” ~Colossians 1:27

“…so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ.” ~Colossians 2:2

Knowledge is understanding that all of God’s salvation purposes are fulfilled in Jesus. It’s knowing that salvation is available to all through Jesus. And it keeps us from being sucked in to the world’s opposite forms of knowledge and understanding. The values and practices of our culture are powerful forces. And without God’s knowledge, we can wind up following a mushy sentimentality or a pathway of power or success reinforced by a herd mentality. Christians may not know more than others, but we ought to know better.

Peace,

Allan

For the Sake of Relationship

February 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Jesus came to save for the sake of relationship. All of salvation history is motivated by God’s desire to restore relationship with the men and women he created and loves. I think we see this in just about every paragraph of the Gospels. But my eyes have been opened only recently to see this aspect of salvation in the reasons Jesus heals.

Our Lord tells the disciples of John the Baptist to pay attention to what’s happening in the world now that Jesus has come:

“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” ~Luke 7:22

(By the way, Jesus puts preaching in the same category as healing the blind and raising the dead? Did you notice that? I notice that every time.)

Let me remind you that a man with leprosy was not allowed in the temple. If you were blind or lame, if you were deaf or mute, if you were bleeding, if you had a skin disease, you could not enter the temple. You could not approach the presence of God. You couldn’t worship God in his holiest place with his holy people. To those afflicted with these imperfections, the presence of God was off limits. Relationship with God and relationship with his people was impossible.

But when Jesus heals them…

See, Jesus is doing much more than just restoring sight to the blind and causing the crippled to walk. Jesus is allowing these people he touched to get past the bouncers at the temple doors. He makes it possible to approach God. That’s why Jesus saves: for relationship. They were unable to come to God, so God in Christ comes to them.

Jesus is Emmanuel. God with us. With all our sins and mixed motivations and limitations, we can’t come to God. That’s why God comes to us. That’s why he heals us. He makes us clean and whole, he gives us his own righteousness so we can bask in his holy presence. Jesus saves for the sake of relationship.

Peace,

Allan

To Have Been Found!

February 11, 2015 / / 0 Comments

When Jesus is passing through Jericho in Luke 19, please notice that Zacchaeus does not invite Jesus over for dinner. Jesus invites himself.

“I must stay at your house today!” ~Luke 19:5

There were restaurants and hotels in Jericho. Jesus had friends in that town. Why did he say he “must” stay with this chief tax collector? Because Zacchaeus was lost and needed to be saved. And that’s what Jesus does: he saves.

True, Jesus was never one to turn down a free meal at the wrong place. But, the striking thing is that he invites himself. Jesus is always intruding, always pushing in to places where he might not be wanted.

“Today salvation has come to this house! ~Luke 19:9

So, according to Scripture, this is how we define salvation: when Jesus intrudes into your space and makes your sinful table the site of his holy feast.

This is Jesus’ great priority. It’s his initiative, his call. It’s his choice. It’s his undivided passion. And he’ll stop at nothing to see it through.

What a deal — this Kingdom of God! — where the main requirement for membership is to honest-to-goodness lost and the main claim for citizenship is not to have discovered, but to have been found!

Peace,

Allan

Which of You?

February 9, 2015 / / 1 Comment

Allow me to suggest a major twist to the ways we read and understand the familiar parables in Luke 15:

Jesus asks, “Which of you…?”

And then he describes this guy who loses one sheep out of a hundred. He leaves the ninety-nine sheep out in the middle of the desert exposed to who knows how many kinds of danger and peril. Then he beats the bushes all day long in the searing heat, climbing over rocks, crawling through the Acacia, to finally locate this one, single, solitary sheep.

Then Jesus describes a woman who loses one coin. She rips up all the carpet in her house, she pulls every cushion out of every couch, she cleans out every junk drawer and goes through every closet, she plunges the toilet, meticulously combing over every square inch of her dwelling to find this one, single, solitary coin.

Then Jesus describes a father who has a son who steals half his fortune. This son runs away from home, he squanders the family money on drugs, alcohol, and prostitution, and he winds up on nine different state criminal registries. This guy is broke, he’s gross, and he limps home after all this time, after blowing the family money and ruining the family name, he crawls back home and his dad throws him a huge party. He restores the son to his previous position with the family right there on the spot. No questions asked.

And Jesus asks, “Which of you…?”

I think we’ve traditionally answered Jesus’ question by saying, “Well, all of us! Anybody with a heart! We would all take these steps, we would all go to these lengths to find what is lost! Of course!”

Really? Is that really true?

I don’t know about you, but I’d probably keep my eyes on the ninety nine sheep and make sure they’re safe and write off the other one as a loss on my tax return. I wouldn’t get down on my hands and knees for more than a minute-and-a-half for just one coin, would you? And this son? Seriously? What would you do? I’d at least make this kid finish his apology speech. He’d have to earn the robe and the ring. He’d have to get a job. Enter rehab. Get some counseling. And it would be six months before I’d even consider letting him have his cell phone back! He’d have to earn my trust back.

When Jesus tells these stories and asks, “Which of you…?” I think the honest answers is, “None of us.”

None of us would really do these things. It’s too unseemly. Too reckless. It’s not responsible. It doesn’t make sense.

Ah, ha! Exactly! These are not stories about us, these are stories about God. Jesus is not saying God’s love and commitment is just like ours. He’s saying God’s love and devotion and determination to find what is lost is like nothing you’ve ever experienced in your whole life! Jesus is telling us that our God will stop at nothing — nothing! He’ll do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to find and rescue everybody who is lost.

Including you.

Like most of Jesus’ stories, this is a contrast, not a comparison. God will take great risks, he’ll go to foolish extremes, in order to save. And we’ve never, ever experienced anything quite like it.

Peace,

Allan

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