Some suggestions for Godly living…

Posted on April 10, 2008 by theoldadam

I have many friends that are really doing all they can to live the Christian life. They tell me that they are living by Biblical principles and they are being faithful, as best they can, to be obedient to the Father.Isolation

In light of these efforts by my friends, I have decided to help them out by letting them know of a few areas( that maybe they haven’t thought of ) where they could be living out their faith.

  Here goes:

1) Spend a few hours at an old folks home, or convalescent hospital each week.

2) Visit the terminal cancer patients in a children’s hospital, once or twice a month.

3) Don’t just give money to homeless people on the street, but take them home to eat a meal with you and your family. Maybe they could stay a few days and you could clean them up a bit and buy them some new clothes.

4) Turn off your television set and forego watching the games this weekend and invite all your neighbors over for a Bible study.

5) Set your alarm clock to go off two to three hours earlier and get some good prayer and Bible reading in before you start your day.

6) Instead of going on a vacation where you and your family are basically the only ones getting something out of it, try spending a week or two handing out Christian materials and talking to people about Jesus.

7) Live on a thin margin of income ( affording yourself and family just the basics ) and give the rest to the poor in your community.

Those are some things (there are many, many more) that Christians could should be doing if they decided to use their time, energies, and resources in a way that would be showing good stewardship of the gifts that God has given them.

I’m sure the desire to serve God and the neighbor is so strong that many of my good Christian friends will be greatful for seeing this list of suggested acts of love for the sake of the other.

Filed under: Doing | 6 Comments »

‘Are you Born Again?’

Posted on April 8, 2008 by theoldadam

Yes!

And again…and again…and again…and agaibaptism1.jpgn…and again…and again…and again…

Until that day when I finally run out of ink(life). Then I will be born again for the last time and live in eternity with my heavenly Father and my Lord.

Thank you Lord, for your graciousness. Thank you for coming to me in water and in Word, in bread and wine.  Thank you for adopting me, before I could do anything myself.

Thank you…thank you…thank you…thank you…thank you…

Filed under: Assurance, Baptism, The Sovereignty of God | 5 Comments »

‘Playing the Trump Card”

Posted on April 8, 2008 by theoldadam

Luther said, ” If they use the scriptures against Christ, then we will use Christ against the scriptures.”Real Christians Do Not Sin

Can the scriptures really be used against Christ? Was Luther talking about a group of atheists, or those inside the Church?

 

Filed under: Law and Gospel, The Bible | 2 Comments »

’68 People “Got Saved” yesterday…and today…and tomorrow…

Posted on April 7, 2008 by theoldadam

Yesterday was an awesome day at the Lutheran Church of the Master congregation in Corona del Mar, CA.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 68-70 people accepted the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That was about the number of people in worship. Pretty good, huh?

Well, it really is exciting. This ‘born again’ experience happens all the time at LCM (as it does in congregations large and small all over the world)

In our congregation it’s usually the same people, more or less, that are being saved (as St. Paul puts it in 1st Corinthians 1:18).  But that does change now and then when we get a visitor or two, or when someone is brought to the font for baptism.  And, as always, we must remember that only God knows for sure who the believers are.

During the week we reject Jesus, but out of the goodness of His heart, the Holy Spirit leads us to repentance, and we are born again and again and again. On Sunday, the same thing happens. We are slain by God’s law and brought to repentance, where once again, we are raised by the promise of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ.

On Sunday we were also invited with other baptised Christians to share in recieving the actual person of Christ in the Lord’s supper.  He accepts us and gives us life, the forgiveness of sins and salvation. In addition to His supper, we return to our baptisms, another place in our personal history where God has acted for us and made a decision for us, and where we can return with confidence and trust that His promise is true and is still in effect in our lives. So we don’t just remember our baptism and then move away from it, but rather we live in it.  “We are being saved.”

In goodness and mercy the Lord has called and chosen us to be His children. That we might not rely upon our own actions or feelings, He has given us His sacraments that we might have the blessed assurance of knowing that He will never leave us, nor forsake us, no matter what havoc is wrought by the world, the flesh, or the devil.

Filed under: Assurance, Sacraments, Theology of the Cross | Leave a comment »

‘The Lutheran Magazine’

Posted on April 4, 2008 by theoldadam

Addendum: Here is a short article, the likes of which rarely (if ever), for the reasons stated below, would be seen in ‘The Lutheran’.        click on  Easter Faith 

I had the dubious opprotunity to peruse the pages of ‘Tjust call me Rebbe Fubuki (aboutme)he Lutheran’, the other day. It exhausted me. So many articles on doing. We lutherans are doing this, those lutherans are doing that, digging wells, planting rice, rearranging somebody’s finances, investing here, building a home there…doing, doing,doing.

I had to look long and hard to even find the name ‘Jesus’ anywhere in the publication.

I did find it, in an add, where the church was trying to raise money.

Even there, the name of ‘Jesus’, was associated with doing…your doing.

‘The Lutheran’ is the poster boy for “Christian religion.” But virtually nowhere in those pages do you see anything about what Christ has done for you. What that cross was all about, or the importance of telling people about the One that came to save them. In this day and age that would be just a bit too pushy and judgemental. “Save us? From what ?”

What the folks at ‘The Lutheran’ have figured out is that it is much safer to feel good about yourself and the things you are doing than to actually hand over the Living God to someone and take the risk of being called “intolerant”, by mentioning that name that the whole world just loves to hate, namely… Jesus, the Christ.

Filed under: Doing, Religion | Leave a comment »

‘Is there a Difference?’

Posted on April 3, 2008 by theoldadam

The inerrant Bible or the infallible Bible?

Are these the same thing?

I don’t think so. Inerrant means without a mis(What should be) My Daily Breadtake and infallible means not capable of being wrong.

 I believe the bible has mistakes in it because of the involvement of man, and I believe that the message of the Bible is not capable of being wrong because of the involvement of God.

The text contains errrors pertaining to the particular order of events as noted by particular commentators. Knowledge of the world and the universe is restricted to particular time frames and may not accurately reflect the current accepted norms. The compilations of thousands of manuscripts certainly lends itself to errors of omission or addition of punctuation, translation, edition, or other miscues of human involvement.

In addition, certain writers of scripture (the Apostle John comes to mind) may have employed literary techniques that were not so much concerned with a chronological recording and a blow by blow accounting of events, but rather tailored stories theologically as to make sure that there was no doubt as to who Jesus was and what He came to do. Not that He made them up, but rather that he modified them to suit his purpose.

So what?

Do the things I’ve mentioned, whether you might agree with them or not, so shake your belief that the Bible is the Word of God that you would consider chucking the whole enterprise overboard if you found them out to be true?

What about faith? What about realizing that God uses earthen vessels? God uses fallible human beings to get His message across in preaching. In the administering of His sacraments. In the written story of His coming and acting for us, that our falliblity might not be held against us.

A Bible with a few factually errant contradictions in it is not a barrier to God being able to deliver His message. As a matter of fact it just increases the realization of our Christian freedom, that our faith does not need to be welded to inerrant notations in a book, the way Moslems view their religious book.

The Word of God is “living and active.” It is not dependant on the perfection of man in any way, shape, or form.

The Bible is the infalible Word of God to believers. It is our guide in all matters of faith and life, but more than that is is the instrument that God has chosen to inform us that His Word is living and active and cannot be contained by the likes of us or anything else, and that He will use it to accomplish His purposes.

         – Steve

Filed under: The Bible | Leave a comment »

A good working definition of who ‘God’ is…

Posted on April 2, 2008 by theoldadam

A Norfolk ResurrectionHere it is, courtesy of Pastor Mark Anderson of Lutheran Church of the Master, Corona del Mar, CA…

“God is the One who raised Jesus from the dead.”

 Is that enough, or should more be added?

Filed under: God | 4 Comments »

‘No Foolin??’…

Posted on April 1, 2008 by theoldadam

 One of the biggest fool jokes that I know of is that we humans can actually    choose to become believers in God.              

Is it God who acts and speaks life into us, or is it our decision and action that ultimately tips the scale in favor of belief? 

According to the scriptures, it’s the former.

God’s Word actually does something. (all by itself…without our help!)

You may not agree and that’s fine. I’m just here to tell you that you are dead wrong …that’s all.

Let’s go back to the beginning. The very beginning. Genesis. How in the world did God create… the world? If you answered,  “He spoke” …go to the head of the class.  God didn’t need a hand from another entity, let alone one that He had already created, to help Him create. God doesn’t need our cooperation when it comes to His wanting to create anything… whether it’s a bird, a tree, or faith in Himself. If He wants to, God can make the stones shout. Quite frankly, I think that would be a much easier task for God to do, than to create faith in Himself within the likes of us.

When one is in the path of the living Word of God, one is at risk for change. God’s Word actually does something. “God’s Word never returns void, it accomplishes what it sets out to do.” (Isaiah 55:11)

“Yeah, but we have to do this, and we have to do that, in order for the puzzle to come together the way God wants it to.”

That is the old Adam spewing forth ‘the sinful self’. That is the old Adam/Eve not wanting to relinquish control. That is a refusal to let God be God and the striving of a created being to become a god, in and of himself. That’s all that is. Period.

“Yeah but!…”  Enough of that “yeah but” horse dung! The “yeah but”, must be killed off and God will do that when we preach His Word faithfully. When the law of God is preached in it’s intended manner (to kill off the old Adam and Eve) and not as watered down principles for living, the death of the old Adam can happen, and the new man/woman can be born when the gospel (the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name) is proclaimed. God also does this killing and raising in baptism and holy communion. I feel a “yeah but” coming on! That old Adam/Eve in us just won’t leave it alone. “It can’t be that easy.” It wasn’t that easy…a man had to die… on a cross, no less! Do you think it was easy for God to manifest His Son as a servant, and then see him ridiculed, mocked, beaten, and staked to wood and left to die by the very ones He created and came to save? 

  Easy?  Are you kidding me?

God’s Word creates,  it destroys, and it re-creates. It does what It wills to do and not what we will It to do. (why is that so hard to understand? )

“Yeah but …you mean,  He really is God? 

 Yes He is…and that’s no joke.

         

                        – Steve M.

Filed under: The Sovereignty of God | 2 Comments »

Happy Easter…He is Risen!

Posted on March 30, 2008 by theoldadam

What!? Easter was last Sunday.  Yes it was.  And it’s this Sunday also…and the next, and the next, and the next Sunday, too.

Not only is it every Sunday…it is every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday , Thursday, Friday, and Saturday also. The Lord raises us to new life in Himself every single day in our Christian life. We have a share in the eternal Easter of our Lord…each and every moment.

Personally, I need to be reminded of that fact, constantly. For when I’m in the battle, getting the stuffing kicked out of me, it’s quite often easy to forget just who I really am, an adopted son of the living God.

So thanks for the opprotunity to tell you this good news once again. I did want to remind you, but I needed to hear it again myself, also.

 Happy Easter my Brothers and Sisters, sons and daughters of the living God!

    – Steve

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‘Brother Martin Speaks…’

Posted on March 28, 2008 by theoldadam

Martin Luther said of the Anabaptists of his day:

“They view baptism the way a cow looks at a new gate.”

 They cannot imagine anything that  is beyond their His Blood Shed and Body Broken for Me!own nose. (I threw that last part in)

Martin Luther didn’t think too highly of those that would deny us the assurance that the good Lord Himself was trying to give us.

 Look at the way we are. One could surmise that it is precisely because of that old Adam and Eve who still lives within us, that our Lord instituted the sacraments. He knew exactly where we would want to go if left to our own devices.

Take a look at any mega-church (although the phenomenon can be seen anywhere…Lutheran churches not withstanding). That’s where we go when left to our own devices. Bigger, bigger, better, better, more entertainment, more of me, more of my “doing”, more of my comfort zone. The constant need to prove my worth, if not to God, then to others and to myself.

“This is my body…this is my blood…broken and shed for you.”

That is the only worthiness that I need. He alone is worthy. He gives His worthiness to me, totally apart from anything that I can do, say, think, or feel.

This is where I return to when I feel unworthy, day after day (I return to my baptism as Luther said). I return to the Lord’s supper. It is there that I am accepted. It is there that I am forgiven. It is there that I am declared worthy. It is there where the last will and testament is read, and lo and behold…I am included! It is there that I recieve a full share of the inheritance.

We also recieve these gifts in the preaching and teaching of His Word, and in the words of Christian encouragement spoken between the brethren.

But the sacraments are something tangible. Something that we can actually see, feel, touch, smell, and taste.

These things, along with God’s Word of Promise (we mustn’t forget that!) are not rabbit’s feet that we rub like some superstitious pagans. These things carry God’s Promises when we excercise faith in that  “what God promises to do, He will do.”

So I say, break down the ‘gates of your own making’, and imagine that God can, and will act for you, not because of you and your worthiness, but rather in spite of you and your worthiness. Believe that He can not only live inside your heart, but that accompanied by His Word, He can also be present in the life giving waters of baptism, and in the life giving bread and wine of communion. 

In His Holy, Loving, and Forgiving Name, Jesus Christ our Lord.

             – Steve M.

Filed under: Assurance, Sacraments | 3 Comments »

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