This is good...
Saturday, March 29, 2008
A Man Crying Out for the Gospel: I Want a Real Chaplain with a Real God and a Real Hell
This is powerful...
I'll add comments later.
I'll add comments later.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Radical Calling of Jesus
Sometimes I (along with most of the church) tend to severely discount what Jesus says in the Gospels. But if we actually listen to Him, what Jesus says is so radical:
Luke 9:22 "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day."
23 And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
24 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
Thankfully, we see that Jesus doesn't call us to anything that He Himself has not already committed to. His Cross (death) is even more radical than our cross/death to self. But nonetheless, He is calling us to utterly lay our lives down in following Him. This message has been muted or forsaken by so much of my evangelical brothers today, but Paul said that this is the very purpose for which Christ died: "Christ died...that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." 2 Cor. 5:15
As Augustine said: "We want to reach the Kingdom of God, but we don't want to travel by way of death. And yet, there stands necessity saying: 'this way please.' Do not hesitate, man, to go this way, when this is the way God came to you."
As if that were not enough, Jesus goes further...
Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple....
33 "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not renounce all his own possessions.
34 "Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
35 "It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
If we follow Him, we must renounce all our possessions, we must even renounce our parents if that gets in the way of following Him, OR ELSE, we CANNOT be HIS DISCIPLE. What does that say about so many in the church today? Who are His disciples?
And if we are not willing to renounce our lives, stuff, and even family, we will become like tasteless salt that is "useless". Oh, that we would begin to grasp the wondrous work of substitution that Christ did on the Cross, that we might truly rest in Him in such a way that would propel us to deny ourselves and all we once held dear in order to whole-heartedly follow Him.
Luke 9:22 "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day."
23 And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
24 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
Thankfully, we see that Jesus doesn't call us to anything that He Himself has not already committed to. His Cross (death) is even more radical than our cross/death to self. But nonetheless, He is calling us to utterly lay our lives down in following Him. This message has been muted or forsaken by so much of my evangelical brothers today, but Paul said that this is the very purpose for which Christ died: "Christ died...that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." 2 Cor. 5:15
As Augustine said: "We want to reach the Kingdom of God, but we don't want to travel by way of death. And yet, there stands necessity saying: 'this way please.' Do not hesitate, man, to go this way, when this is the way God came to you."
As if that were not enough, Jesus goes further...
Luke 14:26 "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.
27 "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple....
33 "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not renounce all his own possessions.
34 "Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
35 "It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
If we follow Him, we must renounce all our possessions, we must even renounce our parents if that gets in the way of following Him, OR ELSE, we CANNOT be HIS DISCIPLE. What does that say about so many in the church today? Who are His disciples?
And if we are not willing to renounce our lives, stuff, and even family, we will become like tasteless salt that is "useless". Oh, that we would begin to grasp the wondrous work of substitution that Christ did on the Cross, that we might truly rest in Him in such a way that would propel us to deny ourselves and all we once held dear in order to whole-heartedly follow Him.
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