My Answer is ... July 10, 2010

Q: You may have "failed" at something in your life; BUT it doesn't make you a "failure"! DON'T LAY THERE "GET" UP AND KEEP MOVING.

A: Recently, a friend of mine who is struggling with the pain of divorce asked me, referring to Jeremiah 29:11, "What happened to God's plan to prosper me, not harm me and to give me hope and a future?" They thought they had failed at being a spouse. I had to tell them, "God did not promise that to you, but to the nation of Israel." When my dad, already suffering the debilitating effects of a stroke, was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes my sibling asked, "Why does all this happen to dad?" They thought he was being "unfairly" punished because he was such a great dad. I said, "Why not dad?" My responses to these questions was not to add to the suffering of these people, but to lead them to a proper understanding about the world we live in and the God we place hope in. Suffering and failure is not only to be expected as a Christian we were told it would happen to us. Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33)." I would definitely call divorce, stroke and diabetes forms of "trouble." In my opinion, our sufferings, failures and trouble are something that we should embrace because they can testify of the truthfulness of the Scripture and of our God. And ultimately, they draw us to a deeper trust and dependence on Jesus Christ.

As Christians, God does not look at us based on our failures. If He were to introduce my friend and my dad to other saints, how would He do it? Would He say, referring to my friend, "I would like to introduce you to a failure who couldn't keep their marriage together?" Would He introduce my dad by saying, "Here is a man who can't use the left side of His body and has diabetes." Of course the Lord wouldn't do that. He would say "Here are my children, with whom I am well pleased." Failure is a fact of life. However, God's truth about who we are in Christ helps us to live above the circumstances of our life, not under them. His faithfulness helps us get through our failures ans struggles. The apostle Paul said, "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor 12:10)." Paul, by most human standards, would have been called a failure. He lost everything He once held dear in order to proclaim the Gospel. But, he knew his sufferings only led to the Lord being glorified through Him. The Bible speaks of a peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7). That describes the rest you will experience when you know who you are in Christ despite if you fail at something. The one calling we are all to respond to is to Jesus Christ in order to find rest in Him. If you can't get up, He will pick you up. Be blessed.

Q: Why is it important for Christians not to "isolate" ourselves?

A: We have to define the term isolate. Is it someone who doesn't go to church on a regular basis? Is it someone who decides to go live in a cave somewhere? Perhaps, it is somewhere in between. Personally, unless someone announces that they have no desire to be around other people, how would we even know what they are doing? In many cases, what many consider isolation is just someone who doesn't go along with the accepted forms of Christianity or "worship" the group as a whole adheres to. I believe that if you are in Christ you desire to be around like-minded believers in order to encourage and be encouraged as well as proclaim the Gospel. However, how an individual goes about doing that is really between them and God. I recently came across a term I assume was developed to label Christians that apparently are "isolating" themselves. It is Lone Ranger Christian (LCR). It is defined as "when a person tries to be a follower of Christ all on their own, without any authority, relationships or accountability." This is a definition born of religion. There is nothing biblical about it. There are many reasons, many of them understandable, why an individual may choose to "isolate" themselves.

For a few years early in my walk I could have been considered a Lone Ranger Christian. I didn't have a "church" home for about three years. But, grew in my relationship with the Lord tremendously. My isolation stemmed from what I believed to be poor teaching at the particular church I had been going to and similar poor teaching at other churches. I didn't want to be isolated, but didn't want to compromise sound teaching for the sake of "authority, relationships and accountability." Many people believe that passages like Hebrews 10:25, "Let us not give up meeting together," is a passage that mandates a believer to be part of a church or local body of believers. That is not the case. It simply means that we need each other for encouragement. How one gets that is their business. I found it online until I found a local fellowship. The Bible tells us to "isolate" ourselves, at least for a short time, for things like prayer. And we see many of the apostles and disciples, including Jesus Himself, isolated because of what they taught. When you don't believe or teach many of the commonly held doctrines in the Church you will find yourself isolated. I have. But, it is okay. I still had the Lord. If you believe someone is isolating themselves go to them in love and see what may be the problem. Besides, none of us are truly isolated when we have the Lord. "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Mat 28:20)." Be blessed.

Q: Unless the "Lord" builds the house, they labor in vain..What does that mean?

A: Psalm 127:1 says, "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain." This is Solomon talking about the construction of a domestic dwelling, an actual physical place to live. This is a point made even clearer in as he talks about the building of an actual city. It was a Psalm written to remind the Jews, who were on their way to Jerusalem, that the blessings of life all stem from God. In this sense the theme of the Psalm is timeless. Later on in the Old Testament we see Jesus discussing a similar theme, but in a more spiritual sense. When Jesus talked about the Wise and Foolish Builder in Matthew 7, He used the example of building a house. He talked about "a wise man who built his house on the rock (Mat 7:24)." And when the storm came against the home "it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock (Mat 7:25)." In this sense, Jesus was talking about depending on and trusting in Him in our lives and, ultimately, knowing who we are in Christ. In the New Testament we see the recurring theme of spiritual warfare being discussed in many ways. This isn't about battling demons, but about the battle between the truth and the lie.

The truth being that we are safe and secure in Christ, in terms of our salvation and His faithfulness to us. Whereas the lie being that our lives are one long battle to try and earn our salvation, keep it or to try and get physical blessings from God through our works. It is the battlefield of the mind where the foundations of our faith are constantly under attack, like those storms against the house Jesus was talking about. The scriptures tell us that we are forgiven, holy, sanctified, justified, completely blessed, pleasing to God and safe from His wrath simply because of our faith in Jesus. That is the "house" built by the Lord, the "house" built on solid rock. But, then Satan comes along, in the form of poor evangelism, poor discipleship or by using our own struggles in life to try and tear down what God has built. He comes along and tells us that we aren't forgiven, we must live holy in order to be holy in God's eyes, that we aren't completely sanctified, justified or blessed and that God will only be pleased with us if we get the sin out of our lives and get our act together. If you believe that, then that is the "house" built on "sand" that the storm destroys. If Satan gets your mind He has the rest of you. Keep renewing your mind on God's truth and you will stand against the devil's schemes. Ask yourself, "When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do (Ps 11:3)?" Be blessed.

Q: Why does Jesus "pursue" Christians and unbelievers?

A: He pursues us because He loves us and, even more importantly, because He created us for Himself. In Genesis 2:7, it reads, "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." We are "alive" when God indwells us. As I have heard it put, "God in the man is indispensable to the life of the man." Apart from Him indwelling us we are dead to Him and cannot function properly. That is why Jesus said, "no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (Jn 3:3)." What is birth if it is not life? Jesus also said, "I am the resurrection and the life (Jn 11:25)," "I have come that they may have life (Jn 10:10)" and "I am the way and the truth and the life (Jn 14:6)." When Adam sinned we are told that the life of God was removed from Him. God told Adam, regarding the forbidden fruit, "for when you eat of it you will surely die (Gen 2:17)." Again, we see the life brought up again. In this case it is the opposite of life, death. Death being the absence of life. Adam didn't die physically, but he died spiritually. Therefore, all mankind is born in to this world dead to God, but alive to the world.

That is what brings us to the greatest part of God's love and the question at hand. There is nothing we can do on our own to restore God's life. Therefore, in His love God offers it to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, another aspect of His love is that He loves us enough to allow us to make our own choice as to whether we accept His offer of life. But, in order for us to choose to accept His offer He did everything in His power, short of forcing us to accept it, to get us to respond. He became one of us (Mat 1:23). He lived a sinless life that we could not (Jn 8:46). He died a death we deserved, but did not have a life worthy of giving (Rom 8:46). He took away the sins of the world (2 Cor. 5:19). And He rose from the dead to offer us His life (Rom 6:5). And besides all He has done in Christ we have the testimony of the Heavens and the Earth (Rom 1:20) as well as the testimony of our conscious (Rom 2:14-15). Add to that the testimony of all of the saints and you see why God says "men are without excuse (Rom 1:20)." God called out to us, but we did not listen. He wrote to us, but we did not read. Therefore, He became one of us. Why? "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (1 Peter 3:18)." Thank you Jesus.

Q: Salvation is "free" but what will it "cost" you?

A: It depends on how you look at the word "cost." Ultimately, salvation doesn't cost us anything. If it did, then it is no longer a "gift." "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 6:23)." Wages are something given as payment for ones labor or effort. A gift is given voluntarily without the expectation of payment in return. And in most every case the gift was purchased by the one doing the giving. In the case of salvation, it is offered to us freely. We either accept it or reject it. However, it cost Jesus His life. Everything surrounding our salvation is free and not of ourselves. We are saved by grace through faith. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8)." We live by grace though faith. "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith (Rom 1:17)."" Often times we hear a Christian say they "gave" their "life" to Jesus. That is fine, but technically, we don't have a life to give. We simply get a life from God. Salvation is the restoration of His life, given as a free gift through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, to those who are spiritually dead in sin.

On the other hand, we can look at salvation as costing us everything we hold dear in life. It is different for each individual. Nearly everything we do in this life is motivated by the attempt to receive unconditional love, total acceptance, meaning and purpose to life. And it most often leads us into one form of sin or another in an attempt to try and meet these desires. Think about how hard you have worked and how much effort you have put into trying to get these desires met over the years. It has definitely "cost" you a significant portion of your time, your treasure and your talent. However, when you were saved, and as you've grown in your walk with the Lord, these things begin to lose their significance and appeal in your life. "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26)." The cost of being a Christian can be the relationships you have with family, friends, coworkers. Their can be the loss of jobs, money, status in the community, reputation, influence and even your very life. There also will be the loss of your pride as you realize just how thankful you are for what Jesus has done/is doing for you. The cost of your salvation is everything. "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:33)." We give up everything we want in life because God has given us everything we need in life in Him. Be blessed.