How o You View People?

 

How do you view people? Many base their view on physical appearance or social standing or financial standing or political affiliation or on spiritual beliefs.

 

How did Jesus view people?

 

John 3:16 tells us that God loved the world. World here is referring to the people, the people of the world.

 

So, Jesus loves us. He loves all humanity. He loves us regardless of our physical appearance or our social standing or our financial standing or our political affiliation or our spiritual beliefs. Jesus does not always agree with our beliefs or our life style but He loves us and wants a relationship with us.

 

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:16, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.”

 

Paul is saying that as followers of Jesus we don’t look at others from a human-based or worldly viewpoint. We look at them from a Jesus point of view.

 

In Luke 19:10 Jesus says that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

 

In Matthew 9:13 Jesus says to the Jewish religious leaders that they need to learn what this means, “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

 

Jesus loves us and that is why He goes out to seek and save the lost and to call sinners into a relationship with Him.    

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving the lost and the unrighteous and being one who Jesus uses to go and share His love and grace with others.

 

What do these lost and unrighteous people look like and how did Jesus reach out to them?

 

In John 4 Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman who had been married five times and was living with a man she was not married to. She was an outcast from her own community. Jesus does not condemn her but shares truth in love with her and leads her to faith in Him as the Savior.

 

Jesus lovingly shares truth with us to lead us into a relationship with Him as our Savior.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is seeing people as Jesus did and lovingly sharing truth with them to enable them to know Jesus as their Savior.

 

In Matthew 8:2 a leper comes to Jesus and asks Him to heal him if He is willing. In Matthew 8:3 Jesus says that He is willing and He touches the leper and heals him.

 

Jesus does not stand off from the lost and unrighteous but He enters into their lives and touches them.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is us being the hands and feet and voice and heart of Jesus and entering into the lives of others and touching them with Jesus’ love.

 

In John 9 Jesus encounters a blind man, the man blind from birth. The disciples wanted to discuss who had sinned that caused this man to be blind. Jesus does not enter their discussion; He just heals the man.

 

We all have been born with a bent toward sin or a nature that desires our will, not God’s will. Jesus shows He can and will change things that we’re born with. Jesus says in John 9:5 that He is the light of the world. He brought physical light into the blind man’s eyes. He brings the light of the truth of the gospel to our spiritual eyes.

 

Rise the Roof an Remove the Walls is allowing Jesus to bring the truth of the gospel into our lives and sharing that truth into other’s lives.

 

Jesus sees the lost and unrighteous as hurting, wounded, broken, and messy. We want to stay away from people like that, but Jesus wants to bring relief for the hurting; healing for the wounded; fixing for the broken; cleaning for the messy.

 

We need to be like Paul by not regarding anyone from a human-based viewpoint but seeing them from a Jesus viewpoint. We need to love them just as Jesus does and enter into life with them so we can show them the love and grace of God.

 

Jesus was different from His culture and viewed and treated people differently than His culture did. We need to be different like that, so that others can see Jesus in us.    

 

With a Jesus Point of View Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                Joe

A Chosen Race and a Holy Nation

 

Have you ever had the experience of reading a passage of scripture that you have read many times before but you read it one day and God speaks to you through it and reveals a truth that you had not seen before? Well, I had that experience again this week. I was reading 1 Peter 2:9 this week and God showed me something that I had not seen before.

 

1 Peter 2:9

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

 

The things that God showed me were that we are God’s chosen race and His holy nation.

 

Those who Jesus has called out of darkness and into His light are His race and His nation. Jesus brings people from all human races, nations, cultures, and languages and unites them into a people that does not judge themselves or others by their race or ethnicity or nationality or culture or language. They don’t say these things don’t exist, but they don’t measure people by them. They see each other as part of the same family, the family of God.

 

What does this truth mean for me? What does this truth mean for us as God’s people?

 

It means that our focus needs to on Jesus.

 

Hebrews 12:2

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

We are not to fix our eyes on what is different or what could separate us but on what unites us. No matter our race or nation or culture Jesus loves us and went to the cross for us. So, the receiving of that truth makes us family.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is fixing our eyes on Jesus and letting His death on the cross unite us.

 

It means that God’s kingdom is what I am to seek.

 

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 

We are not to work for or seek to honor or to serve anyone but Jesus. That means the kingdom of God comes before my race or my nation or my culture. I see others who are followers of Jesus as part of the same kingdom that I am a part of and they are serving the same king, Jesus, that I am serving.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living in community with other followers of Jesus, serving the kingdom of God and our King Jesus.

 

It means that my first love is Jesus and I will love others in the way I love myself.

 

Mark 12:32

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength.

 

In 1 John 4:18 we are told that perfect love casts out fear. When I love God and that is the focus of my daily life, then it will cast out any fear, I have no fear of people who may look or speak differently than how I look and speak. It will cast out any suspicion that I might have of someone of a different culture.

 

When loving God with all that I am is my priority, that will lead me to love as He loves. Jesus loves us as we are, and when I let God’s love guide my life, then I will love others like Jesus loves others. And in John 13:35 Jesus says that it is our love for others that will mark us as His disciples.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving God with all that we are and allowing that love to empower us to really love others.

 

The time is now for the church, God’s community of faith, to show the world a new way. A way that does not measure the worth of a person by their race or ethnicity or language or nationality or culture but by the truth that God loves all His human creation and died for all of us and wants a relationship with all of us.

 

It is a way that loves others as Jesus loves us.

It is a way that forgives others as Jesus forgives us.

It is a way that unites God’s children and invites all people to come into a relationship with Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

 

In Unity with All God’s Children Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                       Joe

Why Not the Church?

 

There is a new movement in Christianity today, it is the movement of people who are Christians to check no preference when it come to religion. It doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in Jesus or even that they don’t have traditional belief in Christianity. It means that many people who identify as Christians don’t identify with the church.

 

Now, as a pastor I have to ask myself why. What about the church turns people who are Christians off? What about the church doesn’t appeal even to people who believe in Jesus as the Savior?

 

Now, please understand that I am part of the church. I have been part of the church since I was a baby. I went to Sunday School, Training Union (yeah, I am old), RA’s (they wouldn’t let me go to GA’s) and VBS. I have served a local church since 1975. So, I am not speaking as an outsider; I am speaking from the viewpoint of an insider.

 

In Luke 19:10 Jesus said that He came to seek and save the lost.

 

Jesus came to bring salvation to those who were lost. He came that by His life, death, and resurrection to bring spiritual life to people who are spiritually dead.

 

In Romans 3:23 Paul tells us that we are all sinners. We are either recovering or saved sinners or we are still sinners living in that sin.

 

In Romans 3:24 Paul tells us that we are justified by God’s grace as a gift through the redemption that comes through Jesus.

 

I believe that many of us in the church have forgotten where we came from and what the means of our salvation is. We have forgotten that before Jesus, we were lost sinners without any desire for God and no hope. We also have forgotten what our means of salvation is – Jesus. It was not because we’re good or could ever be good enough or ever do anything to deserve it. That is totally by the gift of God’s grace.

 

We then tend to see our mission as the church to go out and by our own effort and our own goodness make the Kingdom of God happen and make people do what we think they should do. Jesus says His mission was to take the truth of God to people and by His grace and love enable people to want to come to follow and serve God.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Roof is following Jesus and yielding our lives to fulfill Jesus’ mission of lovingly seeking the lost.

 

In Matthew 9:13 Jesus says to the religious leaders, when they questioned why He ate with tax collectors and sinners, that He didn’t come to call the righteous (those that thought that by their own effort they were righteous), but the sinners (those that knew they were not naturally righteous).

 

Many of us in the church are not where Jesus was in the world with people who need Jesus. We want to stay away from the unrighteous, whereas Jesus was out and among the unrighteous daily. The church is to be a group of people who are broken, wounded, hurting, messy people coming to receive acceptance and finding healing. We are not to be a group of people who make people feel judged and condemned.

 

We see how Jesus dealt with the unrighteous, the woman at the well and the woman brought to Him who had been caught in adultery and Zacchaeus.

 

He was honest with them.

He loved them.

He accepted them.

 

The result was that these people were transformed and received the gift of salvation.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being honest, loving, and accepting to all people.

 

In Galatians 5:22-23 Paul lists the nine flavors of the Fruit of the Spirit. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

 

These are the characteristics that are to define our lives as being Holy Spirit filled followers of Jesus.

 

I have heard many in the church be critical of restrictions on the church.

 

Restrictions like:

Not being able to pray in schools

Not being able to refer to God in public events

Being critical of public figure mentioning God

Not treating the church with special respect or not giving the church special treatment

 

I agree that we are seeing growing restrictions on what the church can do and where the church can do it.

 

But let me ask a question. Are there any laws or any restrictions on being loving or being a joyful person or being a person of peace or being patient or being kind or treating others with goodness or being faithful in what you say or the promises you make or being gentle or exercising self-control?

 

No, there is no law against any of these things. Paul says against such there is no law. Even in the countries where the most severe restriction against the Christian church exists there are no laws against who we are to be in Jesus.

 

If we, the church, would just live out the reality of Jesus in our lives as the Holy Spirit enables us, then others would see Jesus and be drawn to Him and His family, the church.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is showing Jesus to the world through how we live daily.

 

Maybe people are not wanting to be part of the church because the church does want to be a part of their lives.

 

With Jesus, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                         Joe

Finishing Strong

 

Monday, June 7 will mark 46 years in ministry for me. I walked into the office of First Baptist Church in Archer City, Texas and began a journey that took me to south Louisiana and to four areas in the state of New Mexico. It has been an adventurous journey, at times filled with great joy and other times great sadness. No, I am not retiring tomorrow or next week or next month, but it is closer and I think about it more now than in June of 1975. So, as we grow older and life changes, what should be our goal?

 

In 2011 Billy Graham wrote a book called Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well. The last of those caught my attention. My goal is to finish well, to finish as strong as I started this journey.

 

I love God’s Word and believe that the Bible is God’s Word. I believe that we are to look to the Bible as the authority for all that we believe and do. So, I looked to the Bible to enable me to know how to finish strong. I found in the Bible a model for how I want to finish.

 

Joshua 14:6-12

Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-Barnea concerning you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord your God.’ And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as He said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”

 

I believe that is what finishing strong looks like.

 

Remaining strong in believing God’s Word.

I want to believe God and obey Him till I go be with Him. I want the Bible to determine what I do, not feelings or circumstances but what God says.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is believing and doing God’s Word.

 

Remaining strong in my passion for God’s will.

 

I want to continue to have a passion to share Jesus with others. I don’t want to win an argument or win a debate or force what I believe on others. I want to show others who Jesus is and to show His love for them and have them come to love and follow Him.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is doing God’s will

 

Remaining strong to be in a spiritual battle.

 

I believe that the strongest spiritual weapon we have is prayer. I want to be a prayer warrior. I know there will come a time when physically I won’t have the energy to do what I have done ministry wise in the past, but prayer is power and I can continue to join with Jesus through prayer.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing you are in a spiritual battle and using the spiritual weapons that God has given us.

 

Remaining strong in letting God direct me to new things.

 

Our walk with Jesus is not to be reckless, but is to be risky. God talks a lot in His Word about new. I never want to rest in my comfort zone but always be open for God to do a new thing in me and through me.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God move us into new things.

 

Remaining strong in being young.

 

I know that chronologically I will age. I know that my body with lose strength and vigor, but I never want to grow old in my spirit or old in my mind or old in my desire for God.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being renewed in our spirits every day.  

 

I started with a passion and a faith that Jesus is the answer for my life and the lives of broken and hurting people everywhere, and I want to finish with that same passion and faith.

 

Remaining Strong by Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                              Joe

Life

 

In Genesis 2 the creation of humans is described. Verse 7 says, “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

 

God gives life to humans.

 

In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus came to give us abundant life.

 

The word used in John 10:10 is the Greek word zoe. It means a life that is animated and filled with vitality. It is life that is real and genuine. It is living, not just surviving.

 

We live in a lake resort town. There may be as many boats, jet skis and ATVs as cars. So, the last year has been very hard on the economic health of our community. It also has been hard on the emotional health of our community. Friday morning and Saturday morning my wife and I went for our daily walks. We went in the morning before the New Mexico wind comes up. In the last year when we went walking, we saw few cars and few people at the businesses. But on these two mornings there was a lot of traffic and many people at the businesses getting things to head out to the lake. We saw a lot of smiles as we went about town and that is something we have not seen for over a year.

 

What we have experienced over the last fifteen months has been surviving, not living. Humans were created by God to live, not just survive.

 

We need love to live.

 

Jeremiah 31:3 say, “The Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued My faithfulness to you.”

 

We need to know that God loves us and that His love is eternal and that His love will never go away or even diminish. God loves us to the max all the time. We also need to know that His love for us is not based on how we perform. His love for us is based on the reality that He loves us. It is about Him, not us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing and experiencing God’s unconditional love.

 

We need purpose.

 

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

 

God has a purpose for each of us. God created us for a life of purpose, a purpose that is for our good and to give us a future of hope.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is to experience and live out God’s purpose for your life.

 

We need peace.

 

In John 20:19 the first time Jesus appears to the disciples after His resurrection He says to them, “Peace be with you.”

 

Jesus knew that what the disciples needed at that point was peace and so He gives them peace.

 

In John 14:27 Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

 

The peace that Jesus gives is not based on circumstances but on Him and on His faithfulness to fulfill all of His promises.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is not living fearfully but living with the reality of God’s peace.

 

We need joy.

 

Joy is really living with the assurance of God’s steadfast love, living fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives, and knowing the peace of God because we have a relationship with Jesus.

 

Joy is not based on our circumstances but on the presence of God’s love and God’s purpose and God’s peace.

Joy will be experienced by having Jesus first in your life and others second and yourself third – JOY.

 

God created you and me to live, not just survive.

 

May you know God’s love.

May you know God’s purpose.

May you know God’s peace.

May you know God’s joy.

May you know the zoe of God and really live.

 

Living in Jesus and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                          Joe

Salt

 

Matthew 5:13

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

 

Mark 9:50

Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourself, and be at peace with one another.

 

Salt has three main purposes.

 

Salt flavors. It mixes with the other ingredients and enhances the flavors. It makes things taste better.

 

We as salt are to flavor others.

 

Colossians 4:6

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

 

Our lives and speech are to be flavored with Jesus. We are to show people though our words and actions Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being a Jesus flavor to the world.

 

Salt purifies and heals.

 

Salt helps to remove impurities from a wound and speeds up healing.

 

In 2 Kings 2 the men of Jericho come to Elisha and tell him that the water in the town is bad. Elisha has them bring him a bowl of salt and he puts in the spring that is the city’s water supply.

 

In verse 21 Elisha says, “Thus says the Lord, I have healed the water; from now on neither death or miscarriage shall come from it.”

 

We as followers of Jesus are to be healing agents in people’s lives. The church is to bring healing into people’s lives through Jesus. We are told in Isaiah 53:5 that by Jesus’ wounds we are healed. Jesus brings physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. We are to be available to Jesus so He can use us to bring healing to people.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about experiencing healing from Jesus and helping others to heal.

 

Salt makes things grow.

 

Salt is used as fertilizer. Fertilizer is made up of salts which contain ions of ammonium, nitrate, phosphate, magnesium, and sulfate. These are all nutrients that plants need. When they are added to soil in reasonable amounts, they provide food that plants need.

 

We are to be people that help other people to grow in their relationship and service to Jesus.  

 

Raise the Roof an Remove the Walls is helping others to grow.

 

Salt cannot lose its saltness, but the purity of salt varies. Salt harvested from the Dead Sea, in particular, grows increasingly stale because of impurities. If the salt is mixed with too many other minerals, the taste will become so diluted it will be useless. The follower of Jesus risks this pollution when we allow the values of the world, like love of authority and power and position to influence us. Those values suppress the purity of who we are to be as followers of Jesus.

 

Another way to interpret this remark about losing its saltness is to look at the purposes of salt, the defining characteristic of salt. If something so crucial to its identity can be lost, how can it ever be restored? This suggests a need for followers of Jesus to treat our role in the kingdom of God as essential and not optional.

 

In the Mark 9:50 passage Jesus indicates that us being salt results in peace. When we are the hands and feet of Jesus that bring healing, not more woundedness, into people’s lives, we help people to grow in experiencing the reality of Jesus. We will be agents of peace by helping people experience the peace of Jesus.

 

1 Peter 1:22-23

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God.

 

We are to be pure salt, purified by our obedience to God’s word. We will flavor others, help others to heal, and help others grow.

 

Being Salt and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                        Joe

Why?

 

Why? This is a question that we hear from children a lot. It is a question that, if I am honest, is a question that I voice to God a lot. I don’t ask it in a demanding or disrespectful way but there are times I just don’t understand.

 

In John 9:2 the disciples ask Jesus a question. They ask who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? They were really asking why is this man blind.

 

Jesus answers in verse 3. He says, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

 

Jesus is saying the man’s blindness is not the result of anyone’s sin but so that God’s power might be displayed.

 

Isaiah 55:8-9

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

 

The reason we don’t always understand God and ask why is because God’s ways are not like our ways. God doesn’t always do it in the way that we would do it. The reason is that God does not think the way we think. God is infinite and we are finite. God’s thoughts are thus infinite.

 

God knows all and is not bound by time or space. We don’t know all and are bound by time and space. That makes God’s ways and thoughts higher than ours.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is recognizing that God is infinite and we are not, and that makes God’s ways and thoughts higher than ours.

 

That then leads to what naturally flows from that truth. It is found in Isaiah 55:10-11.

 

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 

God’s word is like rain and snow that come and water the earth and make things grow and produce food for people, which is the purpose of the rain and snow. God’s word always fulfills the purpose for which He gives it.

 

It produces:

Spiritual Growth

Hope

Faith

Encouragement

Confrontation

Conviction

Truth

Salvation

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing God’s word through the power of the Holy Spirit to impact and transform our lives.

 

God’s word can do that because of who God is:

All-Powerful

All-Knowing

Ever-Present

Infinite

Not Being Bound by Time and Space

 

The result of God being higher than us and His word being able to accomplish what God wants is found in Isaiah 55:12

 

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth in singing, that all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 

Nature will celebrate because God the Creator’s word is accomplishing His desire for all of nature.

 

God’s people will experience joy and peace.

 

God’s will is to redeem all creation, including humans. Then creation will experience celebration and God’s people will experience joy and live in[JB1]  peace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is, by knowing God as our answer to why, to experience joy and live in peace. 

 

The answer, when we ask God why, is God Himself and the truth He reveals in His word. We have to believe and obey.

 

God as Our Answer in Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                              Joe

---

 [JB1]