Faith Or Feelings

 

I hear this said among God’s people a lot, “I just don’t feel that is what I want to do.” Many people live based on their feelings & try to relate to God based on feelings. That is not what God calls us to do. God calls us to relate to Him based on faith, not feelings.

 

In 1 John 3:19-20 John writes, “By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before Him, for whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart and He knows everything.” John says that many times our feelings condemn us but God is greater than our feelings & we relate to Him & obey Him based on what we know God’s will is.

 

Jesus models how we live by faith & not feelings.

 

Luke 9:51 says, “When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus was always focused on not only doing what the Father wanted but also when the Father wanted Him to do it.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about doing God’s will God’s way in God’s timing.

 

John 11:7-10 says, “Then after He said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to Him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him’” Jesus knew that the religious leaders hated Him & wanted Him dead. But He knew that the Father’s will was for Him to go to Judea to raise Lazarus from the dead. He was going based on faith, not feelings.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about believing God & letting Him take you out of your comfort zone & trusting Him to lead you for your good & His glory.

 

We have several examples of people who followed their feelings & not faith.

 

Jonah running away from Nineveh & getting swallowed by a fish. When he did obey God, the people of Nineveh repented & God brought revival to Nineveh.

King Saul panicking when Samuel did not show up on his timetable & making the sacrifice himself which God expressly said that only a priest could do.

The people of Israel feeling like the people of the promised land being too strong to take the land after God had told them He was giving them the land.

Judas feeling that Jesus was not doing what the Messiah should be doing & betraying Jesus to the religious leaders.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that living based on feelings leads to harmful results.

 

We have a powerful picture of following Jesus based on faith in the life of Philip.

 

Philip led by the Holy Spirit goes to Samaria when forced to leave Jerusalem because of persecution. Then when God uses him to begin a spiritual awakening in Samaria, the Spirit leads him to a road in the middle of nowhere to wait for one man. The man was a powerful official in Ethiopia who surrendered his life to Jesus & changed the direction of a whole nation. God was able to use Philp because Philip obeyed God & was living on faith, not feelings.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that living based on faith leads to God doing awesome things in & through our lives.

 

The question is: Are you living based on faith or feelings?

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls,

Joe

How God Views and Deals with Our Sin

 

How does God view sin? We know from scripture that God hates sin and we also know that God desires us not to have sin in our lives and thus controlling our lives. God has gone to extreme lengths so that we don’t have sin marking and controlling our lives. In Genesis 3 we see how, when we as humans sin, God deals with it.

 

In verses 1-5, Satan in the form of a serpent deceives Eve to consider that God is withholding good things from her and Adam. In verse 6 Eve looks at this same fruit that she has been looking at for a long time but this time it looks different to her. Now what she sees is that it was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. She got some of the fruit and gave some to Adam and they ate it. They deliberately disobeyed God and sinned.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about recognizing and admitting that we have disobeyed God and sinned.

 

In verse 7 after they ate the fruit that God had told them not to eat, their eyes became opened and they realized they were naked and they took fig leaves and tried to make something to cover themselves. And in verse 8 they heard God in the garden and they hid from Him. They were ashamed and afraid. They immediately lost their innocence, wonder, and intimacy with God.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about realizing that sin brings us the loss of our innocence and wonder and separates us from our intimacy with God.

 

In verse 9 God pursues them and calls out asking where they were. God was not looking for information. He was giving them an opportunity to confess and repent.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about being willing to admit our sin and turn away from it and back to God.

 

In verses 10 to 13 Adam and Eve try to justify to God why they disobeyed Him. Adam says it was Eve who gave him the fruit and Eve says it was the serpent who deceived her into eating the fruit. This is what most of us do when we are confronted with our sin. We try and justify it. The truth is, if we confess our sins and repent of them, God through Jesus’ death justifies us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about trusting Jesus’ death to justify us and not trying to justify ourselves.

 

In verse 15 we are given the first prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. Satan will bruise His heel, but the Messiah will crush his head. Jesus is the Messiah and His heel was bruised on the cross but Jesus crushed Satan’s head as He rose from the dead and defeated Satan, death, and sin.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about knowing that Jesus is the Savior and Lord and surrendering our lives to Him.

 

In verse 21 Jesus makes clothes for Adam and Eve with animals skins. God made the first sacrifice for human sin. Jesus makes the ultimate sacrifice for sin with His death on the cross.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about accepting Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for our sin.

 

Jesus hates sin because it harms us as humans. He pursues us with His love and by His grace provides the remedy for our sin.

 

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Jesus in Hebrews

 

I have been asked over the years by various people what is the Bible about. The simple answer is the Bible is about Jesus. In the Old Testament the Law, all the holy days, the sacrifices, the tabernacle, the temple & all the things in the temple point to Jesus. The New Testament more fully reveals who Jesus is.

 

In the first four chapters of Hebrews the writer gives us a powerful view of Jesus.

 

Hebrews 1:2

But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world.

 

Jesus is heir of all things, meaning everything belongs to Jesus. He owns creation because He created everything including us as humans. He also died for our sins. So, we are doubly His through creation & crucifixion.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that we & all creation belong to Jesus.

 

Hebrews 1:3

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

                                                                                        

Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God meaning that, in Jesus, we see the glory of God.

Jesus is the exact imprint of God’s nature meaning He is God in the flesh.

Jesus made purification for our sin means He was the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing Jesus as God in the fleshing & accepting His death on the cross as the only means of forgiveness of sin & salvation.

 

Hebrews 1:4

Having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

 

Jesus is superior to angels meaning Jesus is to be the object of our worship & not angels. Jesus created the angels & He is therefore superior & more excellent than they are.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about worshiping Jesus & not anyone or anything else.

 

Hebrews 3:3

For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses – as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.

 

Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Mose meaning He is superior to Moses, the Law giver & thus superior to the law. The law was given to make us aware of sin & had no power to enable us to overcome sin. Jesus died for our sin & then rose from the dead, overcoming death & sin & Satan.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about surrendering our lives to Jesus as our Lord & not depending on obeying the law to make us right with God.

 

Hebrews 2:10

For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

 

Make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering meaning Jesus is the Savior because He suffered on the cross for our sins.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about receiving Jesus as our Savior because He suffered for our sins.

 

Hebrews 2:14

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.

 

He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil meaning that through Jesus’ death & resurrection He has defeated the devil. We cannot in our own resources defeat Satan, but Jesus already has.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about living in faith that Jesus has defeated our enemy, Satan.

 

Hebrews 2:17

Therefore, He had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

 

He might become a merciful & faithful high priest meaning Jesus is our high priest who sacrificed Himself for us & now makes intercession for us.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about depending on Jesus as our high priest who sacrificed Himself for us & intercedes for us.

 

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

 

Who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin meaning that Jesus faced every temptation that we face but did not sin. Jesus faced temptation but did not sin. He was sinless.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about believing that Jesus was sinless even though He was tempted to sin & that He can understand our temptations.

 

Jesus is the focus of the whole Bible & He is Creator, Savior, & Lord.

 

In Jesus Raising the Roof & Removing the Walls,

Joe

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