Haven’t you heard?
Month: May 2021
Who?
Today’s Sermon
Quote for the Day
Lack is the school for abundance if we trust, surrender our labors, and believe in His intention to bless us. Bill Johnson
Blessed are the poor in spirit
Quote for the Day
I owe Him a clean heart of affection as I go to sleep. This is a heart that is not cluttered with the debris of unsettled things. Our nights are the time when the Holy Spirit ministers to us in ways that are far beyond what we can handle during the day. It’s important to enter the night of rest in a way that positions us to receive from God. Fear often repels His work. Bill Johnson
I will celebrate
Reflection on Matthew 16:21-28
Scripture
“What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your soul? Is anything more valuable than your soul?”
Observation
Jesus begins to speak openly about His coming death in the cross. He will be killed, but on the third day He will rise from the dead.
Peter rebukes Him for saying these things. Jesus says to him, “Get away from me satan!”
Jesus warns His disciples that anyone who wants to follow Him must first take up their cross. To save our lives we must die. There is no benefit in gaining the whole world if we lose our soul.
Application
If we were to gain the whole world, but lose our soul in the process, it would be a loss not a win.
Many people pursue success as defined by the culture rather than God’s kind of success. They pursue career, wealth, relationships, prestige. They satisfy a worldly, fleshly life, but neglect their souls.
Many christians do this, paying lip service to seeking God’s kingdom while being really motivated by the things of the world.
Jesus is warning us that we must not forget to invest in spiritual growth in order to gain worldly satisfaction.
The most important thing we can do is to seek God. In John 15, Jesus uses the analogy of a vine and its branches. To bear fruit, even to just stay alive, we must stay connected to Him.
Is anything worth more than our soul? No! We must be as diligent about this as we are about our physical being.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, you promise eternal life for everyone who puts their trust in you. Please help me to grow in my relationship with you, investing time and energy in seeking your Kingdom. Amen.
Ephesians 4:22
Here is my commentary on Ephesians 4:22. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
Ephesians 4:22
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.”
We were not taught about Christ in terms of sin and worldliness. No, we were told about a Christ who was different, and the lifestyle we must follow is also radically different to the old nature.
Our way of life before we knew Christ was self-directed. We did what we thought was right, or more likely, what we wanted to do.
The old way living is now a former way of life. It has passed away because we died in Christ, and therefore have been raised in Him. The former way of life must remain in the past as we follow the way of Christ.
We have to” put off the old self” – literally it says to put off the old man, or old person.
The analogy is to taking off old worn out clothes in order to put on Christ, and our new nature in Him. but here Paul says we have to take off the old person in order to put on the new nature in Christ.
For some people, this is scary, and for most people it is difficult. How can I take off the old person that I was before Christ? I am quite attached to my self, and I can’t imagine being without my self. Does that even make sense?
Before we knew Jesus, our nature was corrupted by sin. Everything we did was polluted by sin. Our old nature is destined for death.
But then we came to know Jesus, and we were attracted to him so much that we asked him to come in and make us new. Part of becoming new is getting rid of the old.
This is not something we have to do ourselves. If we take up our cross to follow him, we will die to ourselves. The Holy Spirit takes our dead old nature and brings us back to life. The old man is gone and the new has come.
To put off our old nature is dying to ourselves, presenting ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. We bring ourselves to God with all of our sinful desires, and we say, “ Lord it is all yours. Do what you will with me.”
It is the Holy Spirit who makes it possible to put off the old self, the old person. All we have to do is die to our own ambitions, and let God do His work in us.
The old nature is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.
If we hold on to our old persona, then its deceitful desires will continue to corrupt us. If we demand that our old nature be allowed to live, then it will corrupt us and destroy our new life in Christ.
Our old nature is a breeding ground for corruption and sin. it is like an incubator for a deadly virus which ultimately kills everyone that touches it.
The corruption comes from the deceitful desires of the old nature.
We all have desires, some of which are healthy, and some of which are not healthy. A desire for food is good, but so easily corrupted into greed and obesity. A desire to be significant is a good thing, but can be switched to arrogance, pride and control .
Our desires are deceitful in a number of ways.
Firstly, they can distract us from what is really important. if I constantly give in to my snacking desire, I get nothing done for the Lord .
Secondly,they deceive us into thinking they cannot harm us. “ A little pawn might liven up my marriage.” “ A glass or two of wine never hurt anyone.” We find ways to justify those deceitful desires.
Thirdly, the desires of the old nature are deceitful because they pull us away from godly things. A favourite TV show does not come with the warning that we could be spending that hour in prayer. My need for social interaction may take precedence over the call of the Holy Spirit to spend a period of time in solitude and meditation.
This old person or former self must be put off. The desires which lead us away from God seem so appealing, until we learn that they take us away from the abundant life in Christ.
Key points in this verse:
- The way to deal with our old way of life is to put off our old self
- We must take up our cross and die so Christ’s life can fill us
- The desires of the old nature are deceitful and will lead us away from our new life in Christ.
Bill Muehlenberg: When The State Displaces God
WHEN THE STATE DISPLACES GOD
The state is increasingly usurping the role of the church:
The recent images of a Canadian pastor being dragged away by the police for daring to hold church services should forever remain burned into our memories. The pastor was born in Poland and lived under Soviet rule as a child, so he knows all about life under totalitarian regimes. As one article reports:
Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who kicked police out of his church after they tried to shut down a worship service during Holy Week, and his brother, Dawid Pawlowski, have been arrested for holding an “illegal” in-person gathering as per COVID-19 limits set by a new court order. Referring to the Pawlowskis of Street Church in Calgary, Alberta, Calgary Police Service said in a statement that its officers “lawfully enforced” the court order by arresting the two men after church.
A video posted on YouTube shows that Calgary Police Service sent at least five police vehicles to arrest the two from on the street. The brothers knelt on the road and refused to walk on their own during the arrest. A voice can be heard telling the officers, “Shame on you guys, this is not communist China. Don’t you have family and kids? Whatever happened to ‘Canada, God keep our land glorious and free?’” www.christianpost.com/news/canadian-pastor-arrested-for-holding-church-service.html
I have written before about this brave pastor. In an earlier piece I offered this quote of his: “I grew up in Poland under the boot of the Soviets, behind the Iron Curtain. What I see right now, I see everything escalating and moving to the new level. They’re acting just like the Communists were acting when I was growing up when the pastors and the priests were arrested, and some were murdered. Many were tortured. That’s why I say what I say, because I see a repetition of history.” billmuehlenberg.com/2021/04/08/signs-of-hope-scenes-from-the-resistance/
Those who have grown up in communist countries have every right to be alarmed at what they see happening all over the West. That is a major theme in the new book by Rod Dreher, Live Not By Lies. See my write-up about it here: billmuehlenberg.com/2020/12/30/a-review-of-live-not-by-lies-by-rod-dreher/
One of the major takeaways from the covid scare over the past year is this two-pronged reality: In the West we have had far too much statist overreach and far too much Christian capitulation. We see this occurring everywhere, and it does not look too good.
Plenty of churches are still in lockdown, or greatly reduced in what they can offer, while pubs and brothels and sporting events and hardware stores and so on are fully up and running. And most Christian leaders are not saying a thing about this.
One of the real sins of any age is when men and/or the state usurp the prerogatives of God, and seek to act as God. A key way of doing this is to determine what worship is, and where and when it can take place. The state may seek to prohibit all religious worship, or certain aspects of it.
During the past year under the guise of ‘keeping us safe’ the state has taken almost total control of most churches. Whenever that happens the people of God should be rising up and asserting the importance of fundamental human rights, including religious liberty rights.
Read the rest of the article here
New Life Narrabri 