655. Dead to Sin, Alive to Righteousness
Becoming Fearless
Driving over bridges had never been one of my favorite things to do, but four years ago while taking a road trip vacation with my family to beautiful Prince Edward Island, Canada we had to drive over a very long bridge – 8 miles long to be exact (pictured above). Special note: There are many […]
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Questions & Answers: Grace-Based Relationship Advice
Hi Sandra, My name is Debbie and I live in Australia. I have been reading your book and I absolutely love it! I have some questions that I would like to ask you about and hoping that you may be able to answer. My Answer: Hi Debbie! So happy you are loving my book. I […]
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Watch That Trap!
I saw a social media meme recently that reflects a common error in how we relate to God. It is a photograph of a young man standing with an uplifting head as if looking to the heavens. The caption is, "The Lord is moved by the way you live. He is moved by your hunger for him and by your lifestyle choices."
It is a trap! It is wrong-headed according to the gospel proclaimed in the New Testament. The perspective is one of a distant god waiting for us to make the right decisions before he moves in our direction. It leads to a belief in the transactional gospel of contemporary American religion.
In this religion, God is always the responder. We initiate the transactions by what we offer. We purchase certain blessings by something we give in exchange. If we want God to move in our behalf, we must find the key ingredient that moves him for the particular blessing we desire. It spurs us to value the discovery of the key principle above the relationship we have in Christ. The good news is often just another announcement of a new coin we can put into the vending machine (sorry for such an outdated metaphor).
The Initiative of God
He ascended to the right hand of God not by popular vote, but by the sovereign grace of the Father.
Contrasting such a perspective with the one of the New Testament, we find God always initiating the moves. He came looking for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden while they were hiding. He found Noah and made him a promise. He did the same with Abraham. He heard the cry of Abraham's descendants in Egypt and acted to deliver them. He fed them, watered them and fought for them in the wilderness.
They were always moving away from him, and he pursued them with his persistent love. If God had waited for Israel to move toward him, they would never have been in covenant with him. He chose David as their king. He gave them prophets to instruct and warn. He moved Cyrus to release them from captivity.
In the fullness of time, he caused John the Baptist to be born as the forerunner of the Christ. He appeared to Mary while she was minding her own business. Jesus came to his frightened disciples in the storm. They were too paralyzed by fear to move toward God. He paid the unpayable debt without any contribution from us. He was raised from the dead with no assistance from the faithful. He ascended to the right hand of God not by popular vote, but by the sovereign grace of the Father. He sent the Spirit without any request from the struggling disciples.
He still comes to us when we can't go to him. Even when our lifestyle choices have left us in complicated confusion, he appears and assumes responsibility for the chaos.
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We Don’t Move God
We don't negotiate for blessings. The negotiations are closed. God the Father promised blessings to obedient humans. Jesus the Son is the obedient human. We get any and all blessings based on our relationship with him. In Christ, we are blessed and can experience the benefits of the inaugurated new creation as we focus on what he has done. The more we look at the beauty of the Savior, the more our mouths water for him; the hungrier our hearts become for deeper knowledge of him.
We don't move God. He has moved in our direction in Christ and continues to move toward us to open our eyes to the treasures in the Son. Stay out of the trap.
Baby Birds, Recently Hatched!
I love watching birds! We have a bird feeder in our front yard right in front of our porch swing and I love to sit on our swing, listen to worship music and watch the birds. Whenever I take the time to notice birds I’m always reminded of how joyful and care free they are and […]
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602. God’s Love: Jesus Became Sin; We Became Righteous
Waiting for the Other Shoe
I was so angry at myself. I was standing in the middle of a party where family and friends had gathered to celebrate my birthday, when someone broke into my thoughts, "Smile, we are having a good time." Suddenly I realized that I was thinking about tomorrow's potential for bad news. A medical test results would come back. The possibilities flashed through my mind at the speed of light. Malignant. Funeral. Finances. Care for my wife. Kid's response to my death...
We Were Designed for Joy and Victory Over the Accuser
Maybe you can relate. You lose sight of a three-year-old at the zoo for a panicky two minutes. A teenager is late coming home. A letter in the mailbox from the IRS... It is amazing how quickly our imaginations can create the worst possible scenarios. We seem to be constantly waiting for the next batch of bad news. That’s common to humanity, since our forebears listened to the lying accuser in the original garden. But I have some good news today. I saw it while meditating on Psalm 112. It’s worthwhile to stop and read that.
“They will not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.” -- Psalm 112:7
I will summarize. There are three actors in the picture. God is gracious, faithful and caring. The believer is designed for joy and victory over the accuser. The enemy is trying to steal the joy. It is helpful to know the background. God created us to be image-bearers. We are to reflect his goodness to all his creation. He has done everything necessary for us to be joyful recipients of his grace, full of thanksgiving and generosity.
The Psalmist gives a list of blessings God has reserved for those who fear the Lord and delight in obeying his commands. It includes their children, their lasting wealth, their guidance, their assurance of victory over evil, their legacy, their honor, and “they will not fear bad news; they confidently trust the Lord to care for them.” (vs. 7) Oh, and “the wicked will see this and be infuriated. They will grind their teeth in anger; they will slink away, their hopes thwarted.” (vs. 10 NLT)
His Intent for You is Good
Nothing can separate us from God’s love -- not even the tragedies of this fallen world.
Why do we expect bad news? Intrinsically we know we deserve it. We have sinned and deserve to be punished. Even though as believers, we know that Jesus took our penalty, we revert to familiar feelings when the enemy's thought is shot like a poison arrow into our minds. The accuser uses the law to condemn us, and when we are not conscious of the law being fulfilled in Jesus, we fall victims to his thievery. But the ultimate bad news was taken by Jesus -- so that we could hear the good news. We know that since God is love, his every act is an expression of love. He earnestly desires us to live in the joy of his continual care. If he is with us and his intent is our good, then we can rejoice.
Since Jesus fulfilled all conditions for being blessed, we can faithfully rest in his righteousness. We fear God because his love is incomprehensible, and his grace is endless. We delight in obeying his words because they are life to us. They alone feed our hungry souls. We have lost our suspicion of him and found him to be faithful in every circumstance. Nothing can separate us from his love -- not even the tragedies of this fallen world.
When the other shoe falls, it will be another expression of his love. He cares for his own and his presence makes every circumstance a piece of heaven. The enemy hates it and the world is amazed at such joy.
Receive A Revelation Of God’s Love And Be Transformed
God’s Love Blows My Mind! Last night we attended the JUMP Christmas production at our church, St. Louis Family Church, which was fabulous by the way! Standing room only! Before the producton started I had gone into the restroom and was standing there in front of the mirror at church trying to figure out how to […]
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God’s Harsh Love
A dear friend’s wife had stopped on the interstate with all the other cars for a traffic accident. A large 18-wheeler slammed into her and her car burst into flames, and she died. She had so much life and was such a giver of life to others. He called me a few minutes later.
Life can be harsh.
The call transported my thoughts to the early morning call I received almost 15 years ago. My 93-year-old father's home was struck by lightening and he died in the fire. I remember screaming out to God, "Why like this? Death is bad enough, but burned beyond recognition -- why?"
Love can be harsh.
God’s Love: Beyond Our Understanding
When we hold a concept of love as a standard, and things happen we don’t think loving, we can accuse the one who could have altered the circumstances but didn't of not being loving. Judged by our definition of love, God is condemned. Some have done that.
But real love, God’s love, is too large for the meager minds of men. Our concepts don’t cover it. In order to embrace it, we must trust. God is love, but our understanding of love does not define God. God defines love.
The God of the Bible is clearly revealed as both sovereign and loving. He makes it plain that He rules in the affairs of this world, weaving together the choices of his people and the events of history to accomplish his ultimate objective, which is to delight us in his love.
Real love is too large for the meager minds of men.
The grand narrative of the Bible shows that God's love is larger than our concepts of love. With our sentimental concept of love we would view the expulsion Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden as unloving. What about the flood? Seems horrible, doesn't it? The plagues on Egypt were severe. The conquests of the land of Canaan were brutal.
But more brutal than anything man has ever endured is that God himself through the Son became sin and absorbed the wrath that hung heavy over a rebellious creation. Love has never been harsher. It has never been more real than it was on the Cross.
He loves enough to correct, discipline, destroy evil and take the consequences of our choices upon himself. His ways are beyond finding out, but they are always expressions of love. Trust opens our hearts to find a comfort that our minds could never discover apart from his revelation.
Finding Joy in God’s Sovereignty
Look at Job. The book of Job confounds many people. They are so certain that Job's troubles were the result of his sin that they find a way to justify God's harsh treatment of him. Oh, I know it was Satan who did the dirty work, but he had to ask God. But Job would not be persuaded that God had turned on him, nor would he agree that it was his sin that brought on the trouble.
His confession revealed his trust in God’s love. "Though He slay me, still I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to His face." (Job 13:15) Job didn’t impose his own understanding of love upon God, but trusted that God loved him and everything that happened to him somehow showed God’s love.
The greatest delight that mankind can experience is a living trust in the God who is eternally both good and sovereign.
The greatest delight that mankind can experience is a living trust in the God who is eternally both good and sovereign. He doesn't mind our questions; He even entertains our arguments; but in the end we fall into loving arms of the Father who loves us so much that He gave His Son who gave His life that we might know the love of God.
Why You Can’t Set Your Value
The value of an item is determined by two people – the buyer and the seller. The buyer actually has more weight in this equation because they are the ones that are handing over money for the item. If the buyer feels that the item is worth the asking price, then they will pay for it. The seller, on the other hand, sets the price and has to determine the lowest value he will take on that item.
The point of this is that the item never sets its value. Because it’s inanimate, it cannot get offended over the seller’s asking price or the buyer’s paying price. It cannot demand that more money be paid, nor can it argue that the buyer paid too much.
I use this example to show us that God is the one that gets to determine our value, not us. Yet, we so often times devalue ourselves and feel as if we are nothing. We look at the mistakes in our lives, what others say about us, how we compare to others and a whole host of other things to determine the value we place on ourselves.
As our Creator, God is the only one that gets to determine the value of a person, His creation. The highlight of this is that God places unmeasurable worth and value on human beings.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…..(John 3:16)
In Psalm 8, the Psalmist declares that God crowned man with glory and honor. (Psalm 8:5)
Jesus died for humanity in order to show them the incredible lengths God would go to in order reconcile them to Himself as their Father.
Before a baby is born parents place great value on their child. While I realize that this is not true in every single case, it is the way things are supposed to be. That baby has never accomplished anything great, has never done anything of value for its parents. That baby will actually cost his parents more than he can give back. That baby may even grow up and disappoint his parents because of wrong choices and actions.
Yet, the parents would die for that child. They would do anything for him. If that child was in trouble, those parents would do anything in their power to help save their child . . . no matter the cost.
Why? Because the child doesn’t set its value, the parents do.
That child could come to his parents and tell them how bad he is, how rotten, how much he has messed up and how he doesn’t deserve to be called their child. The parents would tell him to stop talking like that. They would encourage him, build him up and tell him all the good things that he is and has to offer. They wouldn’t hold his mistakes over his head. They would tell him what he can be, what they see in him.
Why? Because the child doesn’t set its value, the parents do.
Why, then, do we do the same with God?
We come to God in prayer and tell Him how awful we are, what a rotten sinner we are, and how much we have messed up. We feel as if we have to beg Him for forgiveness. We tell him how unworthy we are of his love. We go to great lengths to remind God of how messed up we are.
Some of it is because we believe that’s how he sees us. We believe that God sees us in that pitiful state and that as we beg for his mercy and forgiveness he takes pity on us and extends mercy. I know this is how I saw him for a large part of my life.
Sometimes, we listen to the lies of condemnation from the devil, the accuser of the brethren. We end up believing what he says more than we believe what God says.
In the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15) we see how God is because the parable is really about the father. In this parable the youngest son asks for his inheritance and then proceeds to go off and blow it. He ends up losing everything — money, home, friends, and his dignity. He winds up feeding pigs which would have been the lowest point a good Jewish boy could have ended up at.
When he finally came to his senses he decided to return home. He didn’t feel like he could be his father’s son anymore but he believed that he could at least be one of his father’s servants. He had set his value and it was very, very low.
However, the story has a different outcome than he thought it would. As he is approaching home his father sees him, runs to him and begins to joyfully kiss and hug him. The boy tries to explain what he has come home for but the Father won’t listen. The father reestablishes the value of the son by putting on him the best robe, a ring, and sandals on his feet. For time’s sake, I cannot explain the deepness and richness of this parable. What we need to understand is that the father set the value of the child and it was high.
The son’s mistakes and rebelliousness did not change his value. Neither does yours.
Please, I beg of you, if you tell God how awful you are . . . stop! Just begin to thank Him that you have great value to him. Thank him that you are loved and worth everything to him. Thank him for his grace and mercy. As you do this, you will begin to see yourself as he sees you . . . valued and loved!
Stop devaluing yourself. Stop listening to the devaluing voices of others.
You don’t get to set your value. Your Father in Heaven does and he sees you as immensely valuable, worthy of dying for! He would have rather died for you than to be without you.
That, my friends, is what amazing grace is all about.
You Were Born to be Loved!
Deep on the inside of every human being is the inherent need to be loved, to know that they have value and worth. No one can escape it nor deny it. Some people try to act all macho and tough as if they don’t need to be loved, or that they don’t need anybody, but it is not true. We all have the need to be loved, to know that we matter.
That inherent desire is hardwired into every single human being by our Creator. The Bible tells us that God is love. It also describes that God created man in His image and likeness. We were created out of love, to love and to be loved.
It’s been proven that babies need human contact. They need to be loved on. They need that one-on-one attention.
As children are growing up, they want to be loved by their parents. They want their parents to notice them. I cannot count how many times, as a parent, I have heard one of my children say, “hey Dad, watch me. Hey, Dad, did you see me do that? Hey, Dad, I can do this.” It’s all an attempt for me to pay attention to them, thus letting them know that they matter to me.
Teens, even though they certainly don’t act like it, want their parents’ approval, attention, and affection. They are testing their boundaries as they begin to spread their wings of independence. But they subconsciously want the safety of their parents’ boundaries. They want to know that if they fail, their parents will be there to catch them. Even the most rebellious teen wants someone to care about them.
That’s one reason why gangs are so attractive to some teens. The gang offers love, family, acceptance and a place to belong. Even though the love is misconstrued, the members feel loved.
As we mature, we look for a spouse to love and to love us. We then want to create children to love. Why do we have kids? We know that they are a lot of work, very costly, and there’s a definite possibility that they will rebel, not listen and could reject us. Yet, we continue to produce children because of the love that we want to give them, and receive from them.
We were born to be loved.
We were born to live in love.
We were born to love.
Love is at the core of our being because we were created in God’s image and He is love. I wish that we could say that we are love, but we cannot. Sin has distorted us, handicapped us, and made us inhumane to the point that we can utterly hate someone to the point of murder. Hate is so ugly.
Hate causes us to devalue someone’s life.
“winter” (CC BY-SA 2.0) by shioshvili, text added, flickr.com
Hate causes us to want to hurt them.
Hate can destroy us.
We were born to love, not to hate. We were born to be loved, not to be hated.
If we could only learn to receive God’s love, we would be changed. If we can wake up every day realizing that we were born to be loved by Him, it would make the biggest difference. I have been practicing that lately. Each morning as I lay in my bed before I get up, and each night before I go to sleep, I repeat to myself, “I was born to be loved.”
Of course, the thoughts of all that I do wrong come through my head, but I quickly silence them by reminding myself that God doesn’t love me on the basis of what I do. He loves me because of who He is.
That’s the beauty of loving others. I don’t have to love people based on what they do or don’t do. I can love them because I choose to. It’s hard sometimes because of people’s rejection and attitudes towards me. However, when I realize, and fully grasp, the fact that I was born to be loved and that I am loved immensely by the Father then I can reflect that love to others.
When I allow myself to be full of God’s love then I can give it away because I have a never ending supply.
As I realize how much He loves me and I look at others and realize that He loves them that much too, then should loving them be an issue for me? It shouldn’t be. It’s only when I let my personal judgments and critical thoughts about that person get in the way that I will stop loving them. When I see them as God sees them, I will love them. When I look at them through my human, imperfect eyes I may or may not love them.
My earthly love tends to be conditional, which really isn’t love at all. See my blog on Unconditional Love is an Oxymoron for a deeper discussion on this.
God’s love is unconditional because it’s based upon who He is rather than our actions. What if we did the same? What if we stopped looking at people’s actions as a basis for our love for them? What if we just looked at them and realized their number one purpose in life is to be loved and our number one purpose in life was to love them?
I think the world would be a better place.
You were born to be loved!
The Atonement of God: Building Your Theology on a Crucivision of God (book review)
Why did Jesus really die? Was it to defeat sin? Was it to appease 
the wrath of an angry God? Was it so that God wouldn’t have to punish us because He punished Jesus? Was it to ransom us from the devil? Is God a child abuser? All these questions are answered within various theories as to why Jesus died. In this book, Jeremy looks at the four most popular theories: penal substitutionary theory, the moral influence theory, the ransom theory, and the Christus Victor theory. Utilizing the Christus Victor theory, he shows us how the death of God was a non-violent act from the actions of God, although it was certainly very violent from the actions of men.
Jeremy gives us a good solid understanding of the core teaching of each of them, contrasting the pros and cons of each one. His book clearly lays out a scenario in which the crucifixion of Jesus was not God pouring out His wrath on Jesus, nor God inflicting great punishment upon His beloved Son so that He wouldn’t have to inflict punishment upon humanity. His view is that God is a non-violent Father as expressed through the life of Jesus. It’s upon this non-violent view that Jeremy spends most of his time.
Don’t read this book if you are not willing to at least consider what he is saying. As a pastor, I have found that far too many Christians are close minded when it comes to looking at something that may go against what they have been taught all their lives. Most American Christians have been taught the Penal Substitutionary Theory and may have a hard time pulling away from that. As you read this book, keep an open mind and think about what Jeremy is saying, especially if you hold to any view other than the Christus Victor view.
Jeremy even explains his concept of why there is so much violence in the Old Testament. It is this subject here that I would love to sit down with him and have a conversation as I liked what he said, but I am not sure that I could totally put my views and thoughts in that same basket just yet. The violence of the Old Testament is still a concept that I am grappling with.
Overall, this is a great book. If you are looking to study the atonement and its differing views, then I would highly recommend this book. Jeremy is a great teacher and communicator. He has definitely done his research and is well versed in what he believes and why he believes it. He is definitely someone that I recommend that you follow. Through his books, blogs, and podcasts, I have been deeply challenged in my thinking, which, to me, is always a good thing!
You can find out more about Jeremy at his website: www.redeeminggod.com. You can purchase his book there or on Amazon.
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