Some Essentials

 

I love the Bible. It is God’s word & it is the foundation of our faith & the authority by which we live. The Bible is not a rule book, it is a book of books that reveal to us who God is, how He works, who we are & what He has called us to do. It is a guidebook how we are to live in relationship with Jesus in this world. In 2 Timothy Paul gives Timothy some essentials in living in relationship with Jesus & service to Jesus.

 

2 Timothy 1:2 says, “To Timothy, my beloved child in the faith; grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”

 

Paul tells Timothy to find his strength in the grace of God. A Christian’s relationship with God begins with grace, not works. God freely gives salvation, forgiveness, & the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to everyone who believes the gospel about Jesus. These are gifts from God & Paul reminds Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God that had been given to him. Just as with Timothy, these are gifts from God. They are not something earned. We find our strength that we need to get through life’s storms. It is by grace through faith that we receive all that we need from God.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about beginning with grace, living by grace, & going into eternity by grace.

 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

 

Faithful ministry is built upon God’s word. The Bible is inspired, God-breathed. The Bible is without any error. The Bible is capable of equipping every believer for the work that God has for us to do. We need to hold fast to the truths in the Bible. We need to study the Bible, believe & obey the Bible, & share the truths in the Bible.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about believing & obeying the Bible & using it as the authority by which we live.

 

2 Timothy 2:22-24 says, “So flee youth passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil.”

 

Character matters in ministry. It is not enough to simply know & teach the Word of God. One must live it. Our walk has to match our talk.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about living out through the empowering of the Holy Spirit the character of Jesus.

 

2 Timothy 3:12 says, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

 

Faithful ministry requires endurance in the midst of suffering. Anyone who desires to serve the Lord faithfully will face oppression & persecution in this life. We must see the bigger picture & know that our suffering will bring God glory when we are suffering for righteousness.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about enduring suffering as we serve Jesus & share the gospel.

 

The Bible is God’s personal message to each of us revealing who He is, what He can do, what His will is. It also reveals who God says we are & what God says we can do.

 

Raising the Roof & Removing the Walls,

Joe

1 - 2 - 3

 

Many people, even many of us as Christians, look at the Old Testament as history or as who God was & it having very little to do with Jesus & the New Testament. In reality the New Testament is a continuation of the Old Testament. The same God with the same traits with the same standards & with the same will.

 

There is a pattern of salvation in both Old & New Testament.

 

We see the pattern throughout both testaments. We see it very clearly in the Old Testament book of Jonah.

 

Jonah 1:1-2

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before Me.”

 

#1 Step: Humanity rebelled against God

 

Romans 6:23 says that we all have rebelled or sinned against God & have come short of God’s standard. That means that we cannot point out other’s sin without also recognizing our own sin.  

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about recognizing we all have sinned & rebelled against God’s authority.

 

Jonah hated the Ninevites & he did not want God to show grace to them & forgive them. He believed that if he went & shared God’s word with them God would be gracious & forgive them. So, Jonah got on a ship & headed in the exact opposite direction of Nineveh.

 

God sent a huge storm to the boat that Jonah was on & they eventually threw Jonah overboard.

 

Jonah 1:17 says that God appointed a great fish to swallowed up Jonah & Jonah was in the fish three day & three nights.

 

While Jonah was in the fish God spoke to Jonah & the fish vomited Jonah up on the shore & God again told Jonah to go to Nineveh & Jonah obeyed God this time.

 

#2: God made a miraculous way for righteousness to be restored

 

We are not born righteous but are born with a natural bent toward sin. God also provided a supernatural way for people to be saved & for them to be made righteous. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells that the Father made Jesus, who had never sinned, guilty of our sin so that we could become the righteousness of Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that only through Jesus can we be saved & made righteous.

 

#3: God gave grace to the people who believed & obeyed

 

The king hears the words of God from Jonah & repents & commands all the people of Nineveh to repent.

 

Jonah 3:12 says, “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.”

 

God did not change His mind, God followed through with His promise based in His grace. Jonah knew that if the Ninevites heard God’s word & repented of their evil, God would forgive them & Jonah wanted the Ninevites to be destroyed.

 

God is a gracious God & a faithful God. He wants people to repent & place their faith in Him & be saved.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about repenting of our sins & putting our faith in Jesus that we will be saved.

 

We see this same pattern of salvation in the New Testament.

 

Humanity had rebelled against God & God did a miracle when Jesus, God in the flesh, came, but people rejected Him also. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Anyone who places their faith in Jesus as Savior will experience forgiveness of sin & eternal life.

 

God does not change His desire; it is for people to know Him personally & to receive salvation. Jesus has chosen those who have experienced salvation to be His instruments to take that message to all people.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls,

Joe

Grace Overcomes Sin

 

The Bible uses three words to describe our rebellion against God as our Creator & Lord & Savior. The words are sin, to miss the mark & trespass, to step over a boundary & iniquity, willful disobedience.

 

In Matthew 9:13 Jesus says that He did not come to call the righteous but sinners. Jesus came to call those who know they are sinners & are willing to acknowledge their sin.

 

In Luke 19:10 Jesus says that He came to seek & save the lost. Jesus came to save those who know that because of their sin they are separated from God & are willing to repent & turn to God.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about recognizing & acknowledging our sin & turning to Jesus for forgiveness.

 

In 1 Timothy 1:15 Paul writes that Jesus came to save sinners of which he, Paul, is the worst. 1 Timothy is written toward the end of his life. He had been following & serving Jesus for years. But Paul understood the depth of his sin.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about understanding the depth of our sin & acknowledging the depth of our sin.

 

Romans 5:20 says, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but when the trespass increased, grace abounded all the more.”

 

There is nothing good about sin, but God is so powerful & gracious that He uses our acknowledging of our sin to make grace abound to bring forgiveness & cleansing of sin. The more acknowledgement of the depth of our sin, the more we know & experience the power & vastness of God’s grace.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about experiencing the power & vastness of God’s grace.

 

Paul acknowledging that he was the worst sinner meant that he understood the depth of his sin & he understood the power of God’s grace that saved him & transformed him. Saul who persecuted the church became Paul, planter of the church, through the power of God’s grace.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about being transformed by the power of God’s grace.

 

I know who I am without Jesus in my life & I am a very bad person. I know that it is only by God’s grace that I have been transformed.

 

When you look at the people that God has used to grow His kingdom & change the world, it was men & women who first understood the depth of their sinfulness & second understood the power & vastness of God’s grace. When we understand those two things, God will use us to build His kingdom & change the world.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about understanding our sin & God’s grace & then being empowered to change the world.

 

God’s grace is so powerful & vast that God uses flawed, broken, & messy people to build His kingdom. So, it is not about talent or giftedness or education or experience. It is about experiencing the depth of your sin & the power & vastness of God’s grace.

 

Raising the Roof & Removing the Walls,

Joe

Following Jesus No Matter What

 

 

 

I have not written for about three weeks because we were on a mission adventure with Jesus. Jesus, out His grace, was with us and enabled us to get to our mission, complete it and get home. Our faith family was gracious and provided financially what we needed, and they and many of you prayed for us and God was faithful as He always is and He answered our prayers. 

 

On the mission we experienced God in many ways and He performed miracles for us. The biggest takeaway from what we did were the people who God gave us the privilege to work with.

 

God impressed upon me two passages as we worked with and got to know and to love the people we worked with.

 

2 Corinthians 2:8-10 says, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

 

The people we worked with were afflicted by oppression and persecution, but not crushed. They were at peace and knew that Jesus was with them.

 

The people were perplexed to always know and understand how they could continue to serve Jesus, but they were not forsaken. They knew Jesus had them.

 

The people were struck down, but not destroyed. They had been imprisoned and tortured but they still were not giving up. They continued to proclaim Jesus.

 

Each day they knew they could be killed but they wanted others to see Jesus manifested in their lives.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about facing persecution and struggles but allowing Jesus to been seen in our daily lives.

 

The other verse is Acts 20:24. It says, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

 

The people did not consider that death was too great a price to pay so that Jesus would be proclaimed so that more people could become followers of Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about being willing to risk everything so that Jesus can be proclaimed and so people can hear and surrender their lives to Jesus as Lord.

 

We as American Christians live in a culture that is not approving our faith but it is not a culture that actively persecutes us because of our faith. We get angry and upset when our culture does not value our faith in Jesus. I met people who daily live under the threat of imprisonment and even death and have joy and peace, not anger and fear.

 

This people are focused on Jesus. They want to know Jesus more and more and make Him known to others. They do not get sidetracked into trivial pursuits but make the main thing, Jesus, their main thing.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about focusing on Jesus and making Jesus the main thing in our lives.

 

With Jesus as the Main Thing, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                   Joe