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Published: 12 January 2018

I was troubled this week by a quote I read from a Hindu philosopher, he wrote, “Christians are ordinary people making extraordinary claims.”  On the one hand, that’s true!  We are ordinary people but our faith is extraordinary.  We believe that the second Person of the Eternal Godhead became flesh, died for our sins to give us life and then rose from the dead!  We believe He ascended to the right hand of the Father and that He is returning to establish a new Heavens and a new earth!  Wow!  But, that is not what the professor meant.  He meant that our claims about transformation are extraordinary.  In other words, he meant he doesn’t see “Christ-likeness” in the Christians he has known.  The same author that quoted that Hindu professor also noted that the lack of Christ-likeness among Christians was Gandhi’s major objection to the gospel.  While it’s true that people like that need to look beyond Christians to Christ, many of these objections about His followers are sadly true!  There are people who claim to be Christian that are not very good representatives of Christ.  Of course, this is not a new problem.  Paul prayed for the Colossians, “that you may walk worthy of the Lord.”  It’s a lot easier to talk about Christ than it is to live for Him but that doesn’t mean we can stop trying.  We have the Holy Spirit to empower us and the Word of God to guide us.  We have the “church” to mediate God’s loving assistance and we have the example of Jesus Christ as our model with His invitation to come and learn how to live His way!  We have everything we need to get on with God’s good purposes for us.  He didn’t simply save us “from” something (hell), He saved us “to” something, His likeness.  Let’s do our best to walk worthy of our calling and reveal the goodness of Jesus to the world around us by lip and by living.

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Published: 05 January 2018

If you thought this blog was going to be about getting more rest, eating healthy or taking vitamins, you were thinking about the wrong body.  I’m referring to the Body of Christ, the Church.  It is important to honor your physical body and care for it well because it is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.  However, the Body I’m referring to here is the one that Jesus purchased with His own blood; the Body of Christ.  It is common these days to say, “I love Christ but not the church.”  That’s a little like saying, “I love my wife’s head but not her body.”  I wouldn’t suggest you try that.  We honor the Body by joining together on Sunday for corporate worship.  That’s easy.  We also honor the Body by being subject to it.  That’s hard.  It’s especially hard in a culture that is characterized by individualism.  On Sunday, we’ll return to our study in Acts.  In chapter 11 we’ll see Peter returning to Jerusalem with a report from Caesarea; he didn’t have to do that.  It would have been faster and far more efficient to just keep going with some gospel momentum.  He could have said, “If those curmudgeons in Jerusalem don’t like what I’m doing that’s too bad, it’s their loss.”  But Peter did not do that.  Rather, he took six guys with him to try to explain what God did in order to “bring them in and bring them along.”  Peter had no desire to be operating as a rogue agent of the cross.  He was connected to the Body of Christ and chose to honor that Body in spite of their slow buy-in to the work of God.  May the spirit of Peter continue as we endeavor to keep unity and the bond of peace.  Take time to honor the Body.