What is a Christian?

 

What is a Christian?

 

We have a lot of answers for that. They revolve around things like the political viewpoint we hold to, the style of worship we like, the Bible translation we use, a particular theological doctrine we hold, or even the way we dress or look. We as humans have a lot of rules for what it means to be a Christian.

 

Jesus made it very simple in John 17:3, He said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

 

Being a Christian is knowing God and having a personal loving relationship with Jesus as Savior and Lord.

 

Ephesians 2:14-16

For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

 

God sent Jesus and through Jesus’ death on the cross reconciled us to Himself. Reconcile means to make friends again. There was an issue between humans and God; that issue was sin. Jesus’ death paid for the penalty of our sin by His death on the cross. Jesus’ death removes the issue of sin when we yield our lives to Jesus as our Savior and Lord, that makes everything between us and God right.

 

Out of our reconciliation with God through Jesus we get things because we now have a relationship with Jesus.

 

Romans 5:1

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We get peace. It is not a peace that is conditioned by our circumstances, but a peace that is based in our relationship with Jesus as our Lord.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing peace, not as the world defines peace but as the kind of peace that Jesus gives us.

 

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

 

We get joy and hope. It is joy that again is based not in circumstances, but in our love relationship with Jesus. It is a hope that is not just wishing, but a confident assurance in what God says being true and that God will do all He says He will do.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing joy and hope in Jesus as our Lord.

 

1 Corinthians 3:11

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

 

We get a foundation, and that foundation is Jesus. According to Hebrews 13:8 Jesus never changes. So, we get a foundation that does not shift or change. We thus have a life built on a foundation that is stable and secure. Nothing else can give us that kind of foundation.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing stability and security with Jesus as our foundation.

 

1 John 4:8

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

 

We get love. God is love. He is not a God of love or a God who loves because, if He was, He might choose not to love us at any given time. He is love; that is who He is and He loves all of us, all of the time.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the unlimited, no boundaries, no time limit love of God.

 

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

We get forgiven by God through Jesus’ death on the cross. We are forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus and given the command to forgive others as God in Jesus has forgiven us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving forgiveness through Jesus’ death and then forgiving others as we have been forgiven.

 

Reconciled and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Jesus Fixes Broken

 

Psalm 31:12 says, “I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel.”

 

That describes all of us as we come into the world; we are broken. What is broken about us?

 

First the world we live in is broken.

 

Isaiah 24:19 says, “The earth is utterly broken, the earth is split apart, the earth is violently shaken.”

 

We live in a world that is broken. We can see that in the wars and conflicts that have characterized the world since Cain killed Abel. The institutions of the world such as government, education, business, and even the church have a brokenness about them.

 

Our relationship as humans with God is broken.

 

God created us as human in His image so He could have a relationship with us. We find that broken when Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They hid from God as He sought them out.

 

Our relationship with each other as humans is broken.

 

Ephesians 2:14 says, “For He Himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility.”

 

Humans have erected walls that separate us from each other. Barriers like race, ethnic background, language, cultural preferences, and political views. These things have created dividing walls of hostility between humans.

 

Our relationship with ourselves is broken.

 

James 4:1-2 says, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.”

 

Our passions fight within us and cause us to not only fight with others, but we also fight within ourselves. Jesus tells us that we are to love our neighbor like we love ourselves, but if we don’t have a positive and healthy view of ourselves, we cannot love others in a godly way.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging the brokenness of our world and our relationship with God and our relationship with others and our relationship with ourselves.

 

So, what has caused this brokenness? The answer is simply sin.

 

Romans 3:23 reveals to us that all of us have sinned. That means we are all broken, and it does not matter how broken we are or the way we are broken.

 

Romans 6:23 and James 1:15 reveal to us that sin always leads to death. If we don’t get the brokenness caused by sin fixed, it will lead to death.

 

Death to relationships

Death to Hope

Death to Joy

Death to Peace

Death to Love

Death to Know and Experience God in Our Lives

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging that the sin caused our brokenness will lead to death if it is not fixed.

 

How do we fix our brokenness?

 

We look to Jesus. Jesus is our source and model for how to fix our brokenness so that it does not lead to death.

 

In Luke 4:18-19 Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me, to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 

We let Jesus be our good news to fix the fact that we are bankrupt spiritually.

We let Jesus be our freedom to not be captives of sin.

We let Jesus give us sight so we can see and understand truth.

We let Jesus set us free from spiritual oppression.

 

We receive all of these from the grace of Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing Jesus to fix our brokenness through His grace and sharing that grace-based fixing with others.

 

Jesus Fixing our Brokenness by Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

                                                                                   

    

 

 

 

Available and Consistent

 

I recently had a young man going to his first church staff position ask me what the most important things are to be successful and effective in ministry.

 

The first is found in Jesus’ words in Matthew 8:18-22.

 

Matthew 8:18-22

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Another of the disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and leave the dead to bury the dead.”

 

The first thing you need is availability.

 

The first man comes and tells Jesus that he would follow Jesus anywhere. Jesus tells him that if he does, he will have to be willing to follow Him and not have any place to really call home.

 

The second man is described as a disciple. He asks just to let him go home and bury his father and then he will come and follow Jesus. This seems like a reasonable request. But we are not told if the man’s father has died. He maybe asking Jesus to let him delay following him until the conditions in his life are better, if not perfect.

 

Many people look at ministry as being glamorous and exciting. It is never glamorous, and it is many times not exciting. It can be routine and hard. Jesus is saying to these two men and to us that we must be available regardless of the circumstances and regardless of what it costs.

 

Availability is hard because it is never convenient, and it is many times costly. If we wait for conditions to be perfect, we will never serve Jesus. If we want it to be easy, fun, and not cost anything, we will never serve Jesus.

 

Jesus always followed the Father’s agenda for His life. If we are going to be available for Jesus to use, we must allow Jesus to direct our agenda.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being available to Jesus no matter the circumstances or the cost. 

 

The second is found in Acts 11. A spiritual awakening was occurring in Antioch. Word of the awakening came to the church in Jerusalem and Barnabas was sent to see if this was real Holy-Spirit-produced awakening.

 

Acts 11:23

When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

 

We need to be consistent.

 

Ministry is not a few mountain-top experiences with a lot of valleys between them. Ministry is doing it day in and day out and doing it week after week, month after month, year after year.

 

We see Jesus day and day out teaching, discipling His followers, and healing. He took some time out to recharge and rest, but as Jesus says in Luke 4:42-44, “And when it was day He departed and went to a desolate place. And the people sought Him and came to Him, and would have kept Him from leaving them, but He said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.’” And He was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

 

Jesus knew what the Father’s will was and He did it constantly.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is constantly serving God and not giving up even when we emotionally feel like it.

 

God does not call us to be brilliant or talented or perfect, but He does call us to be available and consistent. When we do those two things, we will be successful and effective in serving God.

 

Available and Consistent in Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                     Joe

Jesus is the Word

 

The apostle John in his writings, both the gospel and his letters and in Revelation, reveals to us some unique truths about Jesus.

 

In John 1:1 it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

 

Jesus is the Word. He is the incarnate Word of God. That means Jesus is God and all that He says is God’s Word. Jesus as the Word reveals to us truths that are essential for us to know and allow the Holy Spirit to make real in our lives.

 

God created the world by speaking the world into existence. John 1:3 says, “All things were made through Him, and without Him, was not any thing made that was made.”

 

Jesus is the Creator.

 

Jesus created everything in the spiritual world and in the physical world. Nothing exists that was not made by Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing Jesus as your Creator.

 

John 1:4-5 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

 

Jesus is life and light.

 

Jesus as the life is the source of our physical life and He is the source of our eternal life. If we don’t have Jesus, we have a less than full physical life and we have no eternal life, only an eternity separated from Jesus.

 

Jesus is the light. Jesus illumines our lives and overcomes any darkness that we might be experiencing. Darkness is simply the absence of light and Jesus as the light overcomes the darkness.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing Jesus as the source of our lives and having Him as the light that overcomes any darkness in our lives.

 

John 1:12 says, “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

 

Jesus makes us the children of God.

 

Jesus as the Word is our source of becoming God’s children. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word. Jesus is who we place our faith in and when we do, we become God’s children. Jesus as the Word gives us the new birth which is the birth that makes us children of God.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is placing our faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord and becoming children of God.

 

John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

 

Jesus is grace and truth.

 

Jesus gives us grace, His unmerited and undeserved love. He gives it to us as a free gift. It is what allows us to experience salvation and God’s blessings.

 

Jesus is the truth. All truth flows from Jesus and anything that is not of God is not truth and conversely everything Jesus says is truth.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the grace that Jesus gives us and experiencing salvation and trusting Jesus as the truth and applying that to how we live every day.

 

Jesus is the Word!

 

With Jesus as the Word,

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Jesus Deals with Satan

 

We have looked at how Jesus dealt with many different types of people. I want to look at how Jesus dealt with Satan.

 

In Matthew 4 we see Satan directly tempting Jesus to follow another path other than the Father’s will. Satan wants Jesus to reject the Father’s will for His earthly life and ministry.

 

Matthew 4:3

And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

 

Jesus had been fasting for 40 days. Satan is tempting Jesus to use His power for His own personal needs apart from trusting the Father. Satan tempts us with the same thing; he tries to get us to meet our needs apart from God’s will.

 

Matthew 4:4

But He answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

 

Jesus answers Satan with the word of God. Jesus doesn’t try to reason with Satan or argue or debate with him. Jesus simply answers with an absolute truth, the word of God.

 

Matthew 4:5-6

Then the devil took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command His angels concerning You,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear You up, least You strike Your foot against a stone.’”

 

Satan wants Jesus to test the Father’s love and concern for Him by putting Himself in a position where the Father would have to come through. Satan tempts us in the same way. He wants us to live the way we want to and when the consequences kick in, for God to deliver us, so we don’t have to experience the consequences.

 

Matthew 4:7

Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

 

Jesus again does not reason or debate with Satan. He simply quotes God’s word to him.

 

Matthew 4:8-9

Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these I will give You, if You will fall down and worship me.”

 

Satan tempts Jesus to take the easy road to get what He wants. Instead of doing it the Father’s way, Satan wanted Jesus to reject that way and do it another way. He wanted Jesus to listen to him and not the Father.

 

Matthew 4:10

Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.’”

 

Again, Jesus answers Satan’s temptation with the word of God.

 

Matthew 4:11 says that Satan left Him. Satan left because he could not stand up against God’s word. Satan can manipulate our reasons and our arguments but not God’s word.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is dealing with Satan and his temptations with God’s word, not human reasoning.

 

In Mark 5 Jesus encounters a demon possessed man. The man is isolated, violent, very strong, and self-harming. Jesus commands the demons to leave the man and gives them permission to go into the pigs. The pigs rush over the cliff and drown.

 

Jesus deals with demons, who are agents of Satan, with His authority as the Son of God, God in the flesh.

 

In Matthew 28:18 Jesus says that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. Based on that truth, Jesus commands us as His disciples to go into all the world and make more disciples.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is depending on Jesus’ authority in our lives as we yield our lives to Him as Lord and facing Satan’s temptation in His authority.

 

With God’s Word and Jesus’ Authority

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Jesus and Those Who Do Not Understand

 

We all have people in our lives who we like and who like us, but don’t understand us. They just don’t get us, our viewpoint or our values or our priorities. They don’t understand how we live our lives.

 

How did Jesus deal with people who didn’t understand Him?

 

In John chapter 3 a man named Nicodemus came at night to see Jesus. He is described in this chapter as a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. He was knowledgeable of the word of God and someone who was respected for his godliness.

 

When Jesus begins to share with Nicodemus about being born again. Nicodemus does not understand what Jesus is talking about.

 

Jesus first challenges Nicodemus as a teacher of Israel. Jesus says to him in verse 10, “Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand?”, He is talking to Nicodemus not about religion or rituals or traditions, but a person, Jesus.

 

Jesus challenges us with spiritual truth because He wants us to grow in our relationship with God. Jesus challenges us not out of wanting to embarrass but so we will continue to seek Him and grow.

 

 Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is challenging others with spiritual truths so they will grow.

 

Then Jesus shares with Nicodemus what must happen to Him, the Son of Man, and why.

 

In verses 14 and 15 Jesus says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”

 

Jesus must be lifted up and those who believe in Him will have eternal life. Jesus is the source of all we need. He is the only source for the most important thing we need, salvation.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is pointing to Jesus as the source of all that we need and especially the most important things such as salvation.

 

Then Jesus shares with Nicodemus the source of our salvation and why Jesus challenges us to grow in our relationship with God.

 

Jesus says in verse 16, “That God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.”

 

The source of all that God does is His love for us. It is why He wants us to grow in our relationship with Him and why Jesus being lifted up can bring us salvation. It is the foundation of our relationship with God. 

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the love of God through Jesus and letting that love be our foundation for living.

 

In Luke 10 Jesus goes to the Home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus. Martha busies herself with making sure everything is taken care of and everyone has what they need. Mary simply sat at Jesus’ feet listening to what Jesus was teaching.

 

In verse 40 Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to help her. In verse 42 Jesus tells Martha, “But one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”

 

Jesus points out to Martha that what Mary has chosen to do is good and He will not tell her to do something else like helping Martha. Jesus is not telling Martha that what she is doing is wrong, it is distracting her, but that what Mary is doing is good and needed also. Jesus is saying that we all have our gifts and that we are to use them, but we are not to allow them to distract us from Jesus and that we are all different and have our individual calling from Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is following Jesus’ calling on our lives and helping others to find theirs.

 

Jesus did not give up on people who didn’t initially understand what He was teaching or who He was. He continued to share truth with them as long as they would listen. We need to follow His model and not give up on others.

 

Being Patient and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                         Joe

Jesus and Misinformation

 

We live in an information age. Our culture could even be described as information obsessed. So, how did Jesus deal with misinformation and deceit?

 

In the last week of Jesus’ life, He is confronted with three questions that were asked not out of a sincere desire to seek Jesus or to seek the truth, but to try to trap Jesus and discredit Him with deceit.

 

In Matthew 22 the Pharisees plot to entangle Jesus in His own words. They send some of their disciples or followers along with the Herodians to ask Jesus a question. They try to ingratiate themselves with Jesus by saying that they know He is truthful and teaching the way of God and is not swayed by anyone else’s opinion.

 

In verse 17 they ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

 

In verses 18-20 Jesus says, “Why put Me to the test, you hypocrites?” Show Me the coin for the tax. Whose likeness and inscription is this?”

 

In verse 20 they say it’s Caesar’s. Jesus says, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

 

Jesus is revealing to us that we are citizens of the Kingdom of God and our first loyalty is to God and His kingdom. We as citizens of God’s Kingdom have the responsibility to be godly citizens of the earthly kingdom where God has placed us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is placing the Kingdom of God first in our lives and obeying God in how we relate to earthly kingdoms.

 

Then the Sadducees come and ask Jesus a question about the resurrection.

 

There were seven brothers. The first brother married a woman and died without having any children. The other six brothers in order of age married the woman and none had any children. Then the woman died.

 

In verse 28 the Sadducees asked Jesus in the resurrection whose wife will she be. The Sadducees did not believe in any resurrection. They were trying to ask Jesus a question that they thought He could not answer.

In verses 29 through 32 Jesus says, “You are wrong, because you neither know the Scriptures nor the power pf God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor give in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not a God of the dead, but of the living.”

 

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They were viewing the resurrection from a human viewpoint and not a scriptural viewpoint. They did not understand the truth of God’s word or God’s power. Jesus tells them that God is not a God of the dead but of the living and thus those who have faith in God will have eternal life.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing the word of God regardless of feelings or circumstances and living based of the truth of God’s word.

 

Then the Pharisees came with another question.

 

In verse 36 they asked Jesus, “What is the greatest commandment?”

 

In verses 37-40 Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

 

There was a debate among the Jewish scribes over which commandment was the greatest. Jesus very simply says that we are to love God with all that we are and to love others as we love ourselves. Jesus also says that all the Bible is dependent on these two commandments. We as humans complicate things, but Jesus simplifies things.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving God with our whole lives and loving others in the way we love ourselves.

 

Jesus deals with misinformation and deception by speaking the truth. It is all based in the truth of God’s word. That is the way God has given us to handle misinformation and deceit: by speaking the truth in love.

 

Speaking the Truth in Love and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                       Joe