Romas 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Two words in that verse always get my attention. The first word is all. Everybody has sinned. That means Me. I have sinned. I don't like to admit that, but I have sinned and I am a sinner. I praise Jesus that I am a recovering sinner.
The second word is sinned. There are three words in Scripture that mean sin. One is the word that we translate sin and it means to miss the mark. It means that we have missed the stardard that God has sit which is prefection. I have to be perfect to be acceptable to God and I haven't been so I have missed the mark or fallen short of God's glory because He is pefect. The second word is transgressions. I have transgressed or I have step over the line. God set boundaries and I have step over some of those boundaries and I am where I shouldn't be. The boundaries are not to keep me controlled they are for my good, my protection. The third word is iniquity. It means to disobey God and knowing that I am disobeying and not care.
Jesus hates all of these because that separate us from Him. Jesus died on the cross for all three of these. Jesus doesn't want any three of these to be part of our lives. We seem to want to keep them because we keep doing them.
The fact that we keep doing them brings me to the point that two sins will never equal righteousness. We seem to want to rationalize our sin, transgressions, and iniquities. The number one way we try and do that is to say either, well, so and so did it so I can too or well, what so and so did was worst than what I did or so and so did it so I have the right to do it. The problem with that thinking is two fold. One God defines what sin is and what transgressions are and what iniquity is, not us. We can say it wasn't wrong, but if God says it is then it is. Secondly, we don't just sin, we sin aginst God. We don't just trangress, we transgress against God. We don't just commit iniquity we commit iniquity against God. We are offending God with out wrong doing and as the offended party He has the right to decide what the puishment is.
When we use other people's action as an excuse to sin, we offend God. When we say our sin, defined by God as sin, is not sin, we make God a liar. Everyone has an excuse for sin and they are just like arm pits. Everybody has a couple and they stick. When others sin even if it against me I don't have a right to sin and then try to justify it based on what they did against me. Two sins never equal righteousness.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls means I acknowledge my sin, confess it, and repent of it, that equals righteousness.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Not About Feelings
Yesterday was a bad day. I felt lousy at the very beginning of the day. I have been struggling with feeling effective lately. I feel like most things I've done lately have failed and not been very effective. I have felt like a failure. Yesterday was one of those days, from about 6 in the morning until about 6 last night 12 hours of hearing in my spirit and feeling like I didn't matter, no one was listening and I was a failure. Then last night God began to get my attention.
He first reminded me of two men in Scripture who from the world's view point may not have been great successes either. The first one was Noah. Yeah, I know Noah obeyed God and build the big boat and saved his family. 2 Peter 2:5 tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and in Genesis we are told that it took Noah 120 years to built the ark. So Noah preached for 120 years and not one person outside his family ever responded. God never changed one other person other then Noah's family through his preaching. Noah would never have been asked to speak at some huge nation wide preachng conference if he would have lived today. Noah would not have been written up in Christianity Today. Noah would not have been asked to share the stage with Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or Billy Graham. God reminnded me that Noah was not from the world's perspective a success.
Then God reminded me about Jeremiah. Jeremiah the weeping prophet. He ministered for 40 years with no success. Jeremiah was laughed out, put in prison, publicly humiliated and even physically harmed. The nation didn't listen to what Jeremiah was preaching and the nation was carried into captivity because of their disobedience to God. Jeremiah's preaching did not to change that.
Yet both of these men are held up in Scriptuure as great men of faith and models for us to follow. God reminded me that what pleases Him is not success, effectiveness or ability. It is obedience. Obeying God is what He has commanded us to do and it is obedience that pleases Him.
Another thing God did yesterday was to remind me that it is not about how I feel. My feelings are not always an accurate measurement of the reality of the situation. If I live based on my feelings they may lead me away from God's will not towards God's will. I knew that how I was feeling was not what the reality of the situation was. I allowed God to not let me go with my feelings. I through the work of the Holy Sprit chose to obey based in my will not my emotions.
Then God did a truly gracious thing. I had shared with a person last week and I felt (again those feelings) like I had not help him at all and then as he and talked last night, he shared how God had used our time together to help him deal with his struggle. God was again telling me it is not about me, it is all about Him!
For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. Colossians 1:16 (The Message)
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
He first reminded me of two men in Scripture who from the world's view point may not have been great successes either. The first one was Noah. Yeah, I know Noah obeyed God and build the big boat and saved his family. 2 Peter 2:5 tells us that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and in Genesis we are told that it took Noah 120 years to built the ark. So Noah preached for 120 years and not one person outside his family ever responded. God never changed one other person other then Noah's family through his preaching. Noah would never have been asked to speak at some huge nation wide preachng conference if he would have lived today. Noah would not have been written up in Christianity Today. Noah would not have been asked to share the stage with Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or Billy Graham. God reminnded me that Noah was not from the world's perspective a success.
Then God reminded me about Jeremiah. Jeremiah the weeping prophet. He ministered for 40 years with no success. Jeremiah was laughed out, put in prison, publicly humiliated and even physically harmed. The nation didn't listen to what Jeremiah was preaching and the nation was carried into captivity because of their disobedience to God. Jeremiah's preaching did not to change that.
Yet both of these men are held up in Scriptuure as great men of faith and models for us to follow. God reminded me that what pleases Him is not success, effectiveness or ability. It is obedience. Obeying God is what He has commanded us to do and it is obedience that pleases Him.
Another thing God did yesterday was to remind me that it is not about how I feel. My feelings are not always an accurate measurement of the reality of the situation. If I live based on my feelings they may lead me away from God's will not towards God's will. I knew that how I was feeling was not what the reality of the situation was. I allowed God to not let me go with my feelings. I through the work of the Holy Sprit chose to obey based in my will not my emotions.
Then God did a truly gracious thing. I had shared with a person last week and I felt (again those feelings) like I had not help him at all and then as he and talked last night, he shared how God had used our time together to help him deal with his struggle. God was again telling me it is not about me, it is all about Him!
For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. Colossians 1:16 (The Message)
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
Friday, January 6, 2012
The Power of God
Habakkuk 3:2 says, "Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew then in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
I want that verse to be a reality in my life and in the life of my faith family. I am tired of not see God's power dispalyed in His people and that includes me. I want to see God's power released in His people. I want to see people lives changed. I want to see people healed, marriages restored, families brought back together, strongholds of sin destroyed, addictions overcome and brokenness be experienced. I want to see God do today what He did in the Bible. I don't want to hear that crap that, "Oh, well the time for those miracles are over or God is doing those things not just here in America."
I have begun to cry out to God to renew the awesome deeds, that only He can do, tody. I have begun to cry out to God to show His power and fame in my life and in the life of my faith family. The beginning to one of my favorite songs, No Chains on Me, says:
This is dream, a dream for the world to see You
A dream for the world to know You, to love Your name
That is my dream. That dream will not happen because I am a good preacher or a good teacher or a good man or a nice guy or moral person. That dream will only become real if I and all who call ourselves Christians surrender our lives and wills to Jesus. The world does not want to see what we as followers of Jesus can do, the world wants to see what only God can do.
Please, join me in earnestly praying for God to display His power and glory through us. Join me in praying for true Spirit pour out revival in Jesus' church. Join me in asking God to Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
I want that verse to be a reality in my life and in the life of my faith family. I am tired of not see God's power dispalyed in His people and that includes me. I want to see God's power released in His people. I want to see people lives changed. I want to see people healed, marriages restored, families brought back together, strongholds of sin destroyed, addictions overcome and brokenness be experienced. I want to see God do today what He did in the Bible. I don't want to hear that crap that, "Oh, well the time for those miracles are over or God is doing those things not just here in America."
I have begun to cry out to God to renew the awesome deeds, that only He can do, tody. I have begun to cry out to God to show His power and fame in my life and in the life of my faith family. The beginning to one of my favorite songs, No Chains on Me, says:
This is dream, a dream for the world to see You
A dream for the world to know You, to love Your name
That is my dream. That dream will not happen because I am a good preacher or a good teacher or a good man or a nice guy or moral person. That dream will only become real if I and all who call ourselves Christians surrender our lives and wills to Jesus. The world does not want to see what we as followers of Jesus can do, the world wants to see what only God can do.
Please, join me in earnestly praying for God to display His power and glory through us. Join me in praying for true Spirit pour out revival in Jesus' church. Join me in asking God to Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls.
Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
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