Today’s reading is Philippians 3:1-4:23.

It often seems we ride the pendulum at the extremes. I hear people argue, and have been involved in the arguments where everything seems like polar opposites. For instance, if someone says salvation is by faith we immediately conclude they think what we do doesn’t matter at all. On the other hand, if someone says we have to do something, we immediately conclude they think we must work really hard to earn salvation and faith in Jesus’ work doesn’t matter. Sadly, of course, some folk really do fit those two extremes. Sadly, sometimes we’ve allowed ourselves to be polarized into extremes as we argue against something we think is clearly erroneous.

On many posts, I’ve pointed out that I’m learning we will not be saved by keeping even Christ’s law and that I won’t be saved by establishing my own righteousness through holding to the pattern. Gratefully, no one has gotten too upset with me. I hope that means they have understood my point and not simply decided to write me off. I fear that some will view me as another extremist that says, “It’s about what we believe, not what we do.” That couldn’t be further from the truth and today’s reading reminds me of that.

Both of those other posts were based on Paul’s writings. He was the one who taught us that no law has been written that could give us life. He was the one who taught us we cannot be saved by establishing our own righteousness. He was the one who taught us that the righteousness that saves comes by faith in Christ (he says that in today’s reading-Philippians 3:9). He was the one that explained that we are justified by faith (Romans 5:1).

However, having taught all of this, in Philippians 3:12 Paul claims that he hasn’t already obtained the resurrection or become perfect. Rather, he is pressing on. Understand the great significance of this statement. he is the great proponent that our righteousness won’t come because we’ve worked really hard and established our own righteousness. He’s the one who teaches that we only have righteousness if God gives it to us through our faith. If what he meant was at a moment of faith, salvation was suddenly and irrevocably his because it didn’t matter how he lived and worked, he couldn’t say this in Philippians 3:12. If he really was teaching the extreme that salvation is about mental assent and not a faith that impacts action, then he had already attained the resurrection. It didn’t matter what he did or even if he continued on, he would have life. But Paul said he hadn’t attained it yet. And he is definitely no just speaking about reaching that moment in time. He’s not saying, “I haven’t gotten to the moment of the resurrection but I keep putting one foot in front of the other until I get there.” No. He’s saying based on where he has been and what he has done, he hasn’t attained the resurrection. He can’t coast on his past. He can’t coast on the faith he has had. Rather, he must continue to press on. He must continue to walk by faith or he’ll miss out on the resurrection.

This is where we need to walk down the middle instead of hanging out in the extremes. We can’t establish our own righteousness. If we are going to teach the extreme of trying to be good enough to go to heaven, we’ll fail miserably. On the other hand, we can’t say salvation is only a matter of mental assent to some facts. If those facts didn’t change our lives, then we don’t have faith. Faith in Jesus saves us, when we live by that faith. When our faith is a surrender of our control to Jesus and we begin to walk the path of progressive victory over sin by the power and grace of Jesus Christ, then we’ll attain the resurrection in the end.

At no point can we say, “I had enough faith yesterday, I don’t have to keep living by it. I can do what I want now.” On the other hand, at no point do we have to say, “Oh no, I just messed up and sinned, I’m not perfect, maybe I won’t go to heaven.” If we are growing in Christ, pressing on for that goal by our faith in Him, then the righteousness that comes by faith in Jesus will be ours and we will attain the resurrection. Not because we were good enough, but because Jesus Christ is good enough.

***Question: What do you do to help you live by faith each day and press on for the resurrection to life?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

Today’s reading is Philippians 1:1-2:30.

Once again, the New Testament smacks me right between the eyes with what I needed to hear today. Philippians 2:14-15 says, “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

Ouch!

Paul didn’t just say, “You should eventually get around to doing everything God asks no matter how you feel about it.” He said, “Do all things without grumbling.” I hear people talk about the church’s collection and refer to the passage that says God loves a cheerful giver. Contributing to the church’s collection is not the only action God wants us to take cheerfully. We must not simply work on doing the right things. We must also work on having the right attitude. God loves a cheerful obeyer.

I don’t need to be doing God’s will grudgingly. I shouldn’t have an attitude of having to every little thing I do proven that I must do it or I won’t. I shouldn’t moan and complain about how God is asking me to do such hard things all the time. I need to work on obeying God without complaint. I can’t help but think about my kids. Ask one of those kids to get out of their easy chair and vacuum the living room and you would think I’d asked them to cut off their right arm for me. “Oh, it’s so hard. I don’t want to work. Can’t I do it later.” Then see those eyes while they are running the vacuum. I lecture them but then have to look at me. I know where they get that from. Marita. No, I’m just kidding. They actually get it from me.

Today, I’m going to work on keeping a smile on my face no matter what I have to do and completely removing grunts, groans, sighs, and all complaining about what I have to do. That means no complaining about who I live with, who I work with, who I come in contact with. That means no complaining about treating them the way God wants me to. That means being cheerfully obedient. I’m sure I’ll botch it. But I’ll be better for the attempt.

***Question: How do you maintain a cheerful and willing obedience despite all the things that make you want to complain?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

Today’s reading is Romans 5:1-6:23.

Romans 6:17-19 says, “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”Romans 6:22 says, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.”

Freedom and slavery. We have both one way or another. If we submit ourselves to sin, we are free from God, His law, and His righteousness. However, we are slaves to sin. We may think we will only go so far, but it won’t happen that way. Sin will take over. It will take control. We cannot control sin. It will control us. However, if we would through Jesus Christ be free from sin’s control, we must submit ourselves as slaves to obey God’s righteousness.

Sadly, it seems that some folks today have the idea that being free in Christ means being free to do what we want. Not so. Being free in Christ means being set free from the power of sin, but we can only be set free from the power of sin when we are willing to completely surrender our lives to God. He gets to call the shots. We do not. Here is the great benefit. Just as committing sin leads to more sin, obeying God from the heart will lead to more obedience and through that to sanctification.

Please, do not miss the subtle paradigm shift we need to have here. For most of my life, I’ve had the idea that I needed to get my life under control. That is not what Paul says. Paul says I need to quit trying to control my life and instead hand the control over to God. What that means to me is instead of me trying to have all the strength to do what I think is right. I need to just do what God says. When I submit to God, He will fill me with strength to grow even more in what He says. “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” 

Many of us want complete freedom. Paul points out that it just doesn’t exist. We will be enslaved to something. The question is will we be enslaved to sin? Or will we be enslaved to God? The former may seem like a greater freedom because I seem to get to do whatever I want. But it leads to death. In time you will recognize that you have actually lost control and sin is taking you where you didn’t want to go. The latter may seem like real slavery because someone else is clearly calling the shots and even reining us in from where we initially wanted to do. However, in the long run, this path leads to life and takes us where we all ultimately want to go.

***Question: Why do you want to choose slavery to God over freedom to sin?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

Today’s reading is II John 1-13; III John 1-15.

For years, I’m told preaching was focused so much on obeying and serving the Lord it merely filled folks with fear that they could never actually be saved. Gratefully, preachers, teachers, and Christians in general have begun to recognize the importance of love, grace, and mercy.

However, I fear that in the knee-jerk reaction to the preaching of hellfire and brimstone that caused so many to lose heart and abandon the faith too many are going so far the other way that there are more proclaiming faith, they just don’t have saving faith. Today we hear repeatedly that Christianity is just about love. Sadly, so many act as if this love is just having a warm fuzzy in their heart when Jesus is in the air. As long as they have great feelings about Jesus, they think they are good with God.

II John 6 says, “And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.”

Love is extremely important. No doubt, love is attitude and feeling. However, we must remember we can’t claim to love God without striving to submit to His commandments. Loving God means walking according to His commandments. 

I hope you have wonderful feelings about God. I hope you have a good attitude about serving God. But remember, loving God means actually doing what He wants not just whatever you want.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?

Today’s reading is Titus 2:1-3:15.

Titus 3:3-8 really hit me today. Consider what it says:

• vs. 3–We were once filled with bad works.
• vs. 4–God is good and loving and His goodness appeared to us.
• vs. 5–When His goodness appeared, He saved us. However, He didn’t save us because of our works done in righteousness. No, He saved us by His mercy. He saved us by a change brought about by the Holy Spirit.
• vs. 6–we received this Spirit when we entered Christ.
• vs. 7–having been justified by His grace, we have become heirs to eternal life.
• vs. 8–Because all this happened, we must devote ourselves to good works.

First, we see the contrast between us and God. While we were evil, God was good. While we rebelled against Him, He still loved us.

Second, we learn that we were saved because of His goodness and not because of our own.

Third, we learn that God changes the saved. He renews them through the Spirit that only those who are in Christ Jesus receive. 

Fourth, because God is doing this, we must devote ourselves to good works.

If you are like me and just read those statements above, with at least some of them you are probably saying, “Yes, but…” “We are saved by God’s goodness and not our own. Yes, but we had to obey to be saved.” “God renews us through the Spirit He gave us when we entered Christ. Yes, but that is about how much time we spend studying the Bible. The Spirit works in us through His word.”

If you are not like me, you probably said, “Wow, Edwin is finally getting it. We don’t do anything. It’s all about God working in us. If He works, we come around and work. If He doesn’t, we won’t.”

Once again, this is simply one of those passages that brings together what seems to be incongruous ideas. Depending on our perspective we’ll grab the parts we like and discount the parts we don’t, explaining them away.

What we need to notice is this passage contains both the idea that we can’t work to be good, rather God’s goodness works in us to change us. At the same time, it also contains the idea that we must devote ourselves to good works. We are responsible to devote ourselves to good works. If we don’t, we won’t have that change. 

Sadly, many religious people argue these two sides back and forth as if they are a dichotomy. The fact is the Bible presents both. If you and I are going to be saved, it will not ever be because we were good enough. It will be because our God is good enough. However, we are supposed to devote ourselves and work at doing the good works God has planned for us. We won’t ever accomplish that unless God is working in our lives. Yet, God will not accomplish that in us if we are not working.

We need to quit arguing these principles against each other and just accept them both. If you don’t accept that God must be merciful and work, then you will spend your entire life spinning your wheels wondering why you can’t ever seem to become good enough and despairing that God will ever save you because you aren’t good enough. On the other hand, if you don’t accept that you must devote yourself to good works and work at them because you are responsible, you’ll spend your life blindly thinking everything is okay while Satan is secretly having his way with you, leading you down the wide path to destruction. You’ll have a sad judgment day surprise. Only when we accept both can we continue on growing in Christ, having a certainty of salvation through the grace of Jesus.

As the old saying goes, “Without God, I cannot. Without me, God will not.” We need to understand, we can’t save ourselves. We can’t earn it. We can’t good works our way into heaven. However, God will not save us without our commitment and devotion to good work. We have to accept both of these if we are going to be saved.

 Enough Theory, Let’s Get Practical

What does this mean in my life? It means I have to spend time making a constant connection with God. God wants to change me. I’m given over to sin, to the flesh, to lusts. God, however, wants to correct all that. I don’t have to wait to correct all that myself in order to be saved. No, I can enter Jesus Christ and God will start working on all that if I’ll let Him.

However, I can’t merely say, “I believe in Jesus,” then walk on my merry way thinking God is just going to miraculously turn all the buttons in my head, heart, and hands to do the right things. I have to devote myself to God and His good works. I have to commit myself to growing in Christ. 

Will I be saved because I’ve done that enough? No. My salvation is not about me being good enough. I simply can’t be that good. My salvation is about God working in me to satisfy my hunger and thirst for righteousness. The problem is, if I’m not hungry and thirsty for righteousness, God won’t satisfy me. 

What do I need to do today? I need to connect with God. I need to pray for God’s renewing power through His Holy Spirit. I need to get into God’s word so I can understand His will. I need to surrender my will to His. I need to let Him have control. Then I need to be committed to whatever He asks of me.

This is Him and me together. It’s not God by Himself or me by myself. It’s both of us.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?

Today’s reading is Hebrews 5:1-6:20.

I live in America, land of the free, home of the brave. But more importantly land of fast food, constant entertainment, amazing medical advances, opportunities galore. The fact is my life has been pretty easy. Suffering is not something I have had to do very often. It’s not something many of us have had to do very often. Because that is the case, we often have a very skewed view of suffering. We feel like something is wrong with the world if we have to suffer at all. If we can’t just go take a pill for it, we think God has somehow let us down.

However, notice Hebrews 5:8, talking about Jesus, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

Jesus, the Son of God, suffered. When He did, He didn’t turn His back on the Father. He didn’t think something was broken in the world. Rather, He simply learned from it and grew in His devotion to the Father. Wow! That is absolutely amazing.

Maybe what we need to do is realize suffering is part of life. Instead of thinking the world is broken when we suffer, we need to see the world as normal when we do. However, we need to ask, “What can we learn from this?” Then we’ll draw closer to the Father, improve the world, and make ourselves better. Through this means, we can reach the time when we will no longer suffer.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?

Today’s reading is Hebrews 3:1-4:16.

One of the biggest debates of modern Christianity is whether or not we can be saved by faith alone. The problem is this is a complex question. Depending on your definition of terms, the answer may be either no or yes. The question is how do you define faith?

Hebrews 3:12-4:7 highlights this issue. Notice as you read these verses how faith and obedience are equated as are unbelief and disobedience.

Hebrews 3:12 speaks of an evil, unbelieving heart that leads us to fall away from the living God.

In Hebrews 3:18 says those who were disobedient would not enter the rest He had prepared for them. However, in Hebrews 3:19, it says they did not enter because of their unbelief. Do you see that? Had they believed, they would have entered. But they didn’t believe so they didn’t enter. 

Hebrews 4:2 says the good news of God’s message for us only does any good when it meets with faith in those who hear it. It is not enough to simply listen to the good news. Oh no, we have to believe it. But then again in Hebrews 4:6, the writer mentions not being able to enter the rest because of disobedience.

Notice what we see in this context. Faith and obedience are not separate. Lack of faith and disobedience are not separate. These go hand in hand. In this text, disobedience means lack of faith. But we say, “Wait a minute, I might still have faith but simply disobey.” Certainly, if you are defining faith differently from the Hebrew writer. To many, faith merely means a mental assent to some facts. In fact, it is used that way in some scriptures. James 2:17-26 uses the word “faith” in this way. Even the demons give mental assent to some facts, however, they don’t obey. They have a kind of faith but no obedience, they are lost.

The Hebrew writer however is not talking about a mere mental assent to some facts. He is talking about a confidence and trust in the message received. If we are truly confident in the message, if we really trust the message, we will live the message. If we don’t live the message, we must not trust and believe it. In this context, faith is far more than mental assent to the facts it means actually living those facts. What this means is within this context it doesn’t matter what we believe on an intellectual level. What matters is do we have a surrendering faith that says God way works so we’ll work God’s way? If not, then we don’t have this kind of faith.

Back to our question. Are we saved by faith alone? If your definition of faith in this question is the kind of faith mentioned in James 2:17-26, then the answer is no. A mere mental assent to some facts gets us no better off than the demons. However, if your definition of faith in this question is the kind of faith described in Hebrews 3-4, then the answer is actually yes. Because of God’s grace, we don’t need anything more than a surrendering faith, that is, a faith that causes us to act on the message we’ve heard. By this definition, the obedience is part of the faith, it is not separate.

Now, here is the real kicker. We simply can’t mix these definitions. We cannot use the Hebrew writer’s definition of faith, prove faith is all we need and then act like all we need is James’s definition of faith. We cannot look at passages that say all we need is a surrendering faith which by definition submits to God’s will and then act like if someone has a mental assent to the facts they can be saved even though they have not obeyed God. Just because the same word is used does not mean it is used in the same ways and it is simply not good Bible study or application to mix and match these definitions.

Can we be saved by faith alone? Only if it is the surrendering faith that includes submission. A mere mental assent will not save us.

Of course, perhaps you’ve also caught on to the accommodative way I have answered this question. The truth of the matter is, we can’t be saved by faith alone with either definition. That is, there is no amount of believing and surrendering that saves us. Rather, God by His grace saves us when we surrender in faith.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?

Today’s reading is II Thessalonians 2:1-3:18.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but II Thessalonians just keeps shocking me with its perspective. In II Thessalonians 3:5, Paul said, “May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” Paul did not direct the Thessalonians to direct their hearts to the love of God and the steadfastness of Christ. He prayed that God would do that for them.

This simply ties in with yesterday’s point. We have enough Bible to recognize that we do have choice and free-will. Yet, we simply cannot lose the proper perspective about God’s involvement. We must rely on God. We must pray to God. This text doesn’t say how God will do this. It is not asking God to do something against our will. Yet, we need to be willing to pray what Paul prayed in Scripture. We need to be willing to pray that God will direct our hearts toward God. The psalmist prayed the other side of this in Psalm 141:4: “Do not let my heart incline to any evil, to busy myself with wicked deeds in company with men who work iniquity, and let me not eat of their delicacies.”

Yes, I must be committed to working out my salvation in fear and trembling, as Eric reminded us yesterday. However, I can only do that with confidence knowing that God is at work within me (cf. Philippians 2:12-13).

Keep the faith and pass the word along,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?

Today’s reading is I Thessalonians 5:1-28 and II Thessalonians 1:1-12.

II Thessalonians 1:11-12 shocked me. “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

What? 

This passage turns the common concept up on its head. Back in Ephesians 4:1 the statement was, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Ephesians 4:1 says we must walk worthy. The emphasis is placed on what we do. We have a choice. We can either walk worthily or unworthily, which will we choose. II Thessalonians 1:11-12 seemingly says the exact opposite. In this passage Paul prays that God make the Christians walk in a worthy manner. The emphasis is on God’s work. If we will walk worthy, it will because of God’s work in our lives, because of His power and grace.

What is going on here? Is this a contradiction?

No. Rather, it is merely another representation of the great balance we have to find through scripture. We must walk worthy of the calling. It is our choice to do so. However, apart from God we will not walk worthy of the calling. Sadly, different people who claim to follow Jesus will lob these verses at each other like doctrinal missiles and never see what they mean together. In fact, they will often so polarize each other that the two sides will balk at using the verses that come from the other side.

For instance, my tendency is to take the side that emphasizes my choice and free will in serving God. I’ll preach sermons all day long that encourage others to step up the plate and walk worthy. I’ll rebuke folks for not walking worthy. In a moment of rigorous honesty, I have to admit I’m leery of praying that God make someone walk worthy or encouraging others to pray that God would make them worthy of the calling and bring their every spiritual resolve to fruition. My first reaction is that removes free will. Yet, I need to be able to say what Scripture says. I need to be able to do what Paul did. I need to get comfortable with praying that God will make us worthy of His calling, that God will bring to fruition and fulfill our every resolve for good, that God will fulfill our work of faith by His power and not our own. 

On the other end of the spectrum, some folks so want to emphasize God’s power and God’s work that they balk at telling folks to buck up and walk worthy of God’s calling. They fear saying anything about our free will and our choice and our work is to take something away from God’s sovereignty. Yet, Paul told Christians to walk worthy of God’s calling. He laid responsibility on us to choose, to work, and to walk. We had better buck up and do it.

We need to see the balance this provides and we need to take up both concepts at once. This is summed up in the great statement that is increasingly becoming my mantra: “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.” I cannot walk worthy of the calling without God’s power working in my life. However, God’s power will not work in my life if I am not choosing to walk worthy of His calling. If I take a position that leaves out God, I’ll fail miserably. If I take a position that leaves out me, God will not make me succeed.

Today, I pray that God will make you and me both worthy of His calling, that He will fulfill our every resolve for good, and that He will fulfill our every work of faith by His power working in our lives. And today, I choose to walk in a manner worthy of that calling. I hope you will do the same.

Keep the faith and pass the word along,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?

Today’s reading is Jude 1-25; I Corinthians 1:1-31.

The last verses of Jude caught my attention today: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

I think this jumped out at me because it ties in with yesterday’s reading. I know there is part of us that wants to say, “I choose to obey.” I certainly agree we have free will and we have choice. At the same time, I think if we want to overcome, we are going to have to come to grips with these kinds of statements. We need to make them part of our prayers. “God, please keep me from stumbling and present me blameless through Your Son.” 

Think about how great this prayer really is. No longer do we spin our wheels trying to be good enough and strong enough. Rather, we finally admit we are neither of those things and so our only hope is to completely rely on God, allowing His strength to empower us and His will to guide us. God knows how to protect those who are His. If we will quit trying to be strong enough and just admit how weak we are, then the kingdom of heaven will be ours. Isn’t that how Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

P.S. What did you get out of today’s reading?