Sunday’s message (April 11) raised thoughtful questions from a couple of church members. They indicated that the three circles diagram, as it relates to the family, was helpful but wondered how they could go about moving from one circle to the other or how they could encourage a spouse to move from one circle to the other.

             First make sure you are interested in your own level of involvement before you become interested in your spouse’s.  The parable of the mote and the beam (Matt. 7:3) is instructive here.  All of us need to be committed spouses and none of us are as committed as we need to be.  So pay attention to the person you see in the mirror before you pay attention to the person sitting across the table from you.  The beam in our own eyes always needs some work.

             As to how you go about moving yourself in the direction you should go, let’s look at I Corinthians 2:14 – 3:3.  These verses describe three spiritual positions.  The first is the position of the natural man. He is lost, separated from Christ, and does not have the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:14).  The second position is the man of flesh or the carnal Christian (1 Corinthians 3:1-3).  This man is born again and will go to heaven when he dies but is centered in himself rather than in the Lord.  The third position is the spiritual man (I Corinthians 2:15-16) who is centered in the Spirit of God and has the mind of Christ.  In order to move from being the natural man to being a Christian, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  In order to move from being a carnal Christian to being a spiritual Christian, you must surrender to the Lordship of Christ.  The natural man does not have Christ.  The carnal man does not have Lordship.  The spiritual man has Jesus Christ as Lord because he is willing to do anything the Lord wants.

             The same principles apply to the family and your level of involvement. The person who is an interested spouse and has been one for a while may be a person who has gotten comfortable in being a carnal Christian (focused primarily on flesh/self) or he may be a person who is lost and separated from Christ.  Only you can know which condition you are in.  If you are lost, in order to move beyond being a merely interested spouse to involved, make sure you are born again.  Can you be specific about the time you repented of your sins and received Christ through faith?  Are you trusting good religious feelings (which EVERYBODY has) or are you trusting the Lord?  If you are born again, sincerely ask the Lord to help you focus on your wife and children more than on yourself.

             The involved spouse is frequently a high level carnal Christian.  He is interested in what he can do for the family in his own power.  His motives are excellent, but his methods and means are lacking.  His methods are not generated by the Holy Spirit.  It isn’t that he doesn’t have a good heart, it is that he doesn’t have the power of God in order to carry out the desires of his heart.  That’s why oftentimes he finds his efforts to be less than joyful.  So the person who is the involved spouse, who I am assuming has been born again, needs to surrender to the Lordship of Christ by telling God you surrender to Him and are willing to do whatever He wants you to do.  Ask God to give you the power of His Spirit and to show you how to live the Christian life in your family in the power of Christ.  The surrendered spouse is the “committed” spouse.  He (she) is the person who has received Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord and is walking in the Lordship and in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. 

             Whatever change needs to occur in your life begins with prayer and proceeds by continuous prayer.  To ask the Lord to do this work in your life is very important, and this goes both for which stage of church life you are in or which stage of family life you are in.  I hope this helps. 

             I’m going to speak to that this coming Sunday and perhaps that will make it even clearer.  I’m grateful for the interest shown by the two people who asked me this question.  I love hearing from you.  I pray God’s blessings on you getting to the committed core in both the church and family, the two most important teams in your life.

1 John 1:5-10  

          The first sermon from 1 John covered the reality of the Christian life as an experience with God.  The second half of this chapter deals with the Christian life as a different experience with sin.  It’s important that you read this part of the chapter also and understand how it applies to your life.  Let me help.

             I’m well aware that when the subject of sin is raised, gloom and doom is anticipated.  It is actually no gloomier than raising the subject of smallpox when a 100 percent effective cure is available.  Sin is a gloomy subject only for the prideful who don’t want to admit they have a problem they cannot solve on their own.  The doctrine of sin is really the most practical and helpful doctrine in Scripture.  Nothing sets you up for miserable heartbreak in life like denial of the reality of sin.  When we believe life is rosy or everybody is good and just occasionally messes up a little, we are sure to be not just disappointed but to be gut punched.  When we understand what 1 John 1:5-10 teaches about sin, we understand it is the most fixable problem any of us will ever face.  However, it is also a problem that we MUST deal with honestly and successfully.  This cannot be done apart from the grace of Jesus Christ.

             But we have the grace of Christ.  In it we are able to establish a new relationship that is not casual (I’m only human) but secure (in my sinful humanity I am confident enough in God’s love to be able to quickly and easily recognize and confess my sins).  What has God done to make this possible?

             Verses 5 – 6 teach that the new relationship is a RELATIONSHIP OF LIGHT.  We want God to shine the light of His truth and holiness into every corner of our lives and point out our dirt, failures, and sins.  Verse 1:7 tells us that as believers God’s truth is light for us that enables us to look honestly at our sins, and the inability to be honest about sin means we are still in the dark.  So the first difference is we grow in our preference for honesty and clarity and our rejection of denial, dishonesty, and rationalization regarding sin.

             In your personal devotional life try saying, “Dear God, You are welcome in my life.  Please point out anything to me that displeases You. I am ready to hear anything You may have to say to me about my sin.”  Receptivity to the light of God is the first difference, and verses 8 and 10 reemphasize this idea because of open honesty with God and His Word. 

             How do we say we have no sin apart from outright denial?  We do so when we say things like my sin doesn’t matter because it’s no worse than anybody else’s or it doesn’t matter because I don’t see it doing any direct harm to anyone else. Verse 8 says the unwillingness to acknowledge and deal with sin is self-deception.  It indicates a lack of truth in us. That is, the light described in verses 5 – 7 is absent from our lives.  In verse 10 when we say we have no sin, we make God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, a liar and indicate His Word – the Word of God – is not active and working in our lives because when it is, we will freely admit, “I am a sinner.  I have sinned.  I need God’s redeeming grace.” 

 (Continued in my next blog)

In the Scripture passage from Sunday, January 31, (Romans 6:12-14) Paul said, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”  Presentation has to do with who you offer yourself to. In fact, if you think about it, that’s what worship is – loving God and offering yourself to Him.  When we pass the offering plate, it’s just one way you have of offering yourself and the substance of your life to God.

  Paul is saying to us that if we present ourselves to God, we will become more like God.  On the other hand, if we present ourselves to sin, we will become more sinful. We have a tendency to think that what really matters is what we do.  But doing is always caused by something else.  It is that something else that presentation addresses. 

 This passage of Scripture teaches that we will all be determined by what we present ourselves to.  In other words, if you think all the time about money or work all the time to get money, it’s going to be very difficult for you to be generous or people-centered.  If you think all the time about drinking, it’s going to be very difficult for you to stay sober.  If you think all the time about being sophisticated, it’s going to be very difficult for you to be down to earth and available to the people around you.  So what you present yourself to, who you hang out with, what you spend time thinking about, and what you value in life are going to be the great determining factors of your life.  It’s no wonder that people who set these ungodly values are surprised by their ungodly actions when they really meant to do something else.  Good news.  If you present yourself to Jesus Christ repeatedly, guess what will happen then?  That’s right.  You’ll become more like Him, and you will do His will more readily.

             When we are born again we are given the power of the Holy Spirit so that we will be naturally drawn to God and have the ability to relate to Him.  Yet, many of us who have that natural ability don’t use it.  We’re like a person who has the capacity to be a great pitcher but never picks up a baseball or picks one up only to toss it around the yard from time to time.  If you are born again, you have the Holy Spirit.  You have the ability to present yourself to God over and over again and to find increasing joy in it.  Do you take advantage of the opportunities we offer here at the church to present yourself to God or are you just coming to Sunday school and church?  Is it a duty or is it an opportunity for you to draw near to Him and present yourself to Him? 

             The Scripture says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).  This is the same as saying, “Present your bodies to God as an instrument of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).  That is, present yourself with the desire that God would use you for a righteous purpose.

The important thing is to BEGIN.  Today is the perfect time to start reading through the Bible. 

Here is a link to the guide:

http://www.shandon.org/get-involved/connecting-to-god/

             I have said since he burst onto the scene that my greatest admiration for him was not how far he could hit a golf ball, how well he could recover from a bad shot, or how he could putt under pressure, as impressive as all that was.  It was how he handled himself as a young man with unlimited money, unlimited success, and unlimited amounts of admiration.  Now it turns out that was a fake.  It is certainly symptomatic of our culture where people believe they can do what they want as long as they don’t get caught. 

             The question for all of us is will we say to ourselves, “It doesn’t matter”?  Will we join all of these weak-spined, moral nobodies in saying, “People just can’t help it”?  It’s just like eating and breathing – I just have to do it.  Or will we be people who will say, “We live for God and believe God’s will for us is more important than the satisfaction of personal urges”?  If this is harsh, so be it.  We are in a hole and digging it deeper.  The problem really is NOT Tiger Woods.  It is the culture in which he lives – our culture. 

             In my next blog, I plan to write about the ups and downs of the morality of culture.  But let me say right now the moral fiber of our culture is weakening steadily.  I’m afraid things will have to get a lot worse before we finally decide enough of state-sponsored gambling that takes advantage of the poor, enough talk about legalizing drugs, and enough talk that divorce doesn’t matter or people can’t help it.  Count me as one who is fed up.

We’ve invited our church to get in the game with pledging this year.  It has been such an odd year financially for the nation and for the Columbia area that I wasn’t sure what to expect.  At the end of Sunday, we had pledged $150,000 more than we had pledged at the same time last year, and last year we had a great pledge campaign.

             This can only happen when God’s people dig down deep and get into the faith dimension before they ever start thinking about what they’re going to pledge in the financial dimension.  I’m grateful for the dollars you will give.  Make no mistake, we can’t run this church on air.  However, if it only becomes a matter of affordability or financial wisdom, then we lose touch with the great lessons stewardship has to offer us – that primary lesson being faith. 

             I see a lot of faith in what all of you did.  It demonstrates you love the Lord.  It demonstrates you have a commitment to reaching out to the world in season and out.  I look forward to us finishing the year strong, our giving being great, and our bringing honor to God in demonstrating to the world that we love God more than we love ourselves.  Thank you for being a great church and thank you for sharing the rewards of faith with each other and with the world.

Rule 5:  THE PROCESS SHOULD VARY.  This is a hard rule for me to write about because I have ruined more great periods of walking with God by trying to make my walk perfect than by any other way.  Sometimes the perfect really is the enemy of the good.  I have, at times, been so interested in getting my walk exactly right that I did not enjoy the rightness, imperfect though it might have been, that I had already achieved.  While overt rebellion in the sense that I am just unwilling to have a devotional life has never been my problem, wanting it to be perfect has.  This caused me to change things when I read about how other people did it instead of being satisfied with what God had led my time with Him to be. 

 That being said, if your walk with God becomes stale, don’t be afraid to vary it.  You may be surprised what a small change will make such as reading a different version of the Bible, throwing away your old prayer list no matter how guilty you feel about doing so and then starting over with a fresh prayer list, sitting in a different room, getting up a little earlier, staying up a little later, listening to music, or having your walk with God at lunch.

 Getting to know people who have a quality walk with God can also help give you guidance in the development of your time with Him.  Don’t be ashamed to admit any frustrations or failures to them or to ask them for advice.  They’ll need some from you before it’s all over.

I hope these rules have helped you.  I would love to hear from you about whether you’ve installed some of them or whether you’ve discovered some of your own.  What really works for you in your time with God?  Let me hear from you.

             If I were reading this blog and I had never done that, I’d be thinking, “It’s easy for you.  You’re a preacher.  This seems kind of braggy to me.”  So let me help you understand it is not.  It is designed to be an encouragement, not just to read through the Bible in a year but to make reading the Bible in a regular way a habit for you that you miss when you don’t do it. 

The first three times I tried to read the Bible through in a year, I failed.  I laugh about my good intentions being shipwrecked on the rocks of Leviticus, but that’s pretty much what happened three years in a row.  Then I went to a conference led by Francis and Edith Schaeffer.  At that conference Mrs. Schaeffer talked about her struggle with reading the Bible through in a year and how she had gone about doing it by dividing it up beginning at Genesis 1, Psalm 1, and Matthew 1.  I did that and it worked for me.  I now have been using the method that we hand out in the church for the last five times I’ve read through it, and it is by far my favorite method.  It is not for everyone.  My wife does not like it.  She prefers a Bible that is set up to help you read it through in a year.  It doesn’t matter at all what plan you use. 

When I read it through the first time, I felt like I had finished a difficult job.  Now when I pick the Bible up in the morning and read my assignment, I feel like I’ve come back to a wonderful and dear old friend.  It took me a number of times through to get to the point where it was that way.  But we need to recognize everything in life that is worthwhile is cultivated. Nothing comes to us wonderful and new.  I think that’s why old shoes and old pants and an old hat are so good for us to put on.  The Bible needs to feel like that to you – something you miss when you don’t read it and something that you rejoice in being with when you do. 

Make the effort with me again this next year to read through the Bible.  We’ll be handing out the Bible reading plan, but the plan won’t do anything for you if you don’t sincerely desire to utilize it.

Rule 3:  PRAYER AND SCRIPTURE MATTER MOST.  Prayer and the reading of the Word of God appear to be the two most consistently essential items in quality walks with God.  They are for me.  There are certainly other things you can do.  You may fast.  There are many books that will teach you how.  You may give sacrificially to God’s causes.  You may minister to or give to people anonymously.  All these spiritual disciplines will help you have a walk with God.  But the two that seem to be the most consistent for people is (1) praying – that is talking with God, listening to God, confessing your sins, praying for others and (2) spending time reading the Bible for the purpose of learning of His character and will for us.