But God...: The Two Words at the Heart of the Gospel
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You see, from the very beginning, it has not been the matter of outward observance of some rules and regulations; it has been the attitude of the heart toward God that was in focus. It is easier to follow rules and forget the matter of the heart. We are more careful to keep everything clean that is seen by others and forget about the things that only God can see. If my hands are muddy, nobody would want to shake hands with me, so I better keep them clean.
If I were wearing a dirty shirt this morning, you would give more attention to my shirt and not hear what I am saying. We want to keep up appearances before man, but we forget about keeping straight before God. They were extremely careful to keep their outward appearance clean before men, but they did not worry about their relationship with God.
You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting Psalm So a pure heart means living by the rules of God, living a life that is pleasing to God. There are certain physical or natural laws that man cannot break without consequences, but God can.
For example, you cannot put your hand in the fire and not get burned. That is the law of thermodynamics. Also, you have to have lots of food to feed five thousand people. But God can break these laws. He can let people walk through fire and not even get their clothes singed. He can feed five thousand people with just a couple of loaves of bread.
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We call these miracles. Then there are moral laws that man can break but God cannot. Do you know there are certain things I can do that God cannot? I can commit adultery. But God cannot break the moral laws, nor can He ignore them when they are broken. We are extremely careful to observe the natural laws because they have immediate consequences, but many times, we ignore the moral laws that have far more serious consequences. So, first, having a pure heart means living by the rule of God, living a life that is pleasing to God. Secondly, having a pure heart means living for the sole purpose of God, to have a heart that is fully devoted to God.
It means single-minded devotion and commitment to God, doing anything and everything in our life for the sole purpose of glorifying God 1 Corinthians Let me ask you, what is adultery? When we think of adultery, we think of it in the physical sense, having a sexual relation outside the marriage bonds. The Bible does talk about this kind of adultery and certainly prohibits that.
However, the Bible talks about spiritual adultery far more than physical adultery. There is a whole book written to deal with the issue of the spiritual adultery of the people of God, the Book of Hosea. There are many chapters in the Old Testament that deal with the spiritual adultery of the people of God, for example, Ezekiel 16 and In the New Testament, Jesus said you cannot worship God and mammon. When we devote our hearts to anything that is other than the cause of God, we commit spiritual adultery.
Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God …. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded James 4: Now the question is how can we have a pure heart, a heart that is morally clean? A heart that is fully devoted to God?
First of all, we have to realize that we, in and of ourselves, cannot attain a heart that is morally pure and fully devoted to God. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil Jeremiah But I do know what the heart of a good man is like. And it is terrible. Although it is impossible for us to have a pure heart in and of ourselves, we can have a pure heart by the grace of God. What is impossible for man is possible for God. A pure heart is a gift from God, and it comes by a new birth, by a new creation, and by the Spirit living in us.
This was finally fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ, Who makes us a new creation with a new heart 2 Corinthians 5: There are ways we can maintain the purity of our heart, and one of the most primary is our time in the Word of God. A second way to maintain the purity of our heart is through fellowship with the people of God.
It helps to be accountable to one another. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Thirdly, we can train our heart for pure living by doing the works of God. As we are involved in His service and as God uses us for the blessing of others, we are encouraged towards our devotion to God and to keeping our hearts morally pure.
"But God..." Quotes
How do we know if someone has a pure heart? The pure heart is evidenced by the way we live. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads Revelation That is what we are looking forward to — beyond college degrees, beyond good jobs and the happy life here on earth, beyond secured retirement. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you 1 Peter 1: The only way anyone can see God in this sense and be with Him for eternity is to have established a relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.
There are certain sorts of things that he says that reverberate in my mind that come to mind when things happen. Knowing Jesus has changed my mind about the way we view things.
A young man came to our house one night. While I was out of the room, he pulled out a 8-inch long kitchen knife and told my wife, Dorothy, and Michael and Julian to go downstairs into the office. There was an ensuing struggle but I was able to stop him. He never for a moment thought that I would have anything but fear of him and this knife. You know, he saw his knife as an absolute power.
I was not afraid of his knife and God protected us. He confronted the powers and paid the price for it.
But if we understand that his suffering was redemptive and if we follow in that train, it has its redemptive value and effect on our society today. Jesus is seen as the lamb. It is war not against people, but against Satan. It is won by Jesus self-giving on the cross, giving of himself in love. Jesus came to show us that it takes God to be a human being, but then through his life, death, and resurrection he enables us to begin to live like him. And so the challenge of the incarnation, the challenge of how he lived, how he acted, as a human being on earth, is the model for us.
He has kept me, and kept me going, so I kept the church open. Rod, Benin, West Africa: I think that at times people really are able to manipulate spiritual forces to do evil again other people. In that context of course, Jesus becomes the power that can dominate all the evil powers and rescue people from fear of witchcraft.
That is the single most powerful message of the gospel in this culture. Knowing Jesus has changed my mind about violence, because I am a naturally violent person. I react most easily to aggression with fists and my body. I used to do that regularly. Knowing Jesus has changed my mind on violence where we talk, even argue in a life-giving way, that respects the other person, even our enemy. With Jesus, I have never feared anything although I was alone many times. My perception of Jesus has been impacted because I have been away, a real journey away from home, for an extended period of time, where I can depend on no one else but him.
The best way to describe Jesus is as a ray of sunlight and God as the source of energy, the sun. When I am overwhelmed by chaos in my life, whether it is through the work that I am doing or personal decisions, or going through a faith crisis, it is often a special form of light that brings me back, or reminds me of the need for the connection to the source.
One of the Anabaptist communion liturgies is by Balthasar Hubmaier. He has a section called the pledge of love which is used just before you actually administer the cup and the bread. The people all stand up together, and they each one make promises of covenanting and committing to each other, to the way of Jesus, loving the enemy, loving the brother, being willing to lay down your life for your brother or your sister. It reminds us of, first of all, what the Lord has done for us. We celebrate together as brothers and sisters that we are one in the body of Christ.
We share a common grace that is symbolized in the cup and in the bread, the blood, the body of Christ. We are re-identifying ourselves as the body. This is who we are as a people. We are the people who have gathered around Christ and who receive life from his sacrifice for us. Communion is a renewal of our baptismal vows, of our pledge to be obedient, and to be united as a people. Communion means that we are one body.
We are united when we take the bread or the body of Christ. When we take the wine, that means that the blood of Jesus Christ continues to restore and to heal. Jesus gathered his disciples together when James and John were having this funny and interesting discussion about who would get to sit on the right and left hand of Jesus. Whoever would be first, would be last. Whoever would want to be served, should be a slave. And he finishes that discussion by using himself as an example and speaking about going to the cross. That same Christ, as an act of servanthood, supreme servanthood, brought the world into being.
For us as Christians we see service as a mandate from God.
Whether from the pen of Moses, Paul, or other biblical authors, “But God” appears in various forms hundreds of times in the Bible. To understand these two. "But God " Grasp the use of this phrase in Scripture and you'll never be the same . Examines 9 times when God sovereignly intervened in redemptive history.
Jesus is our example and we are called to serve the community. We need to help them find ways to serve their brethren and neighbors. This is also a way of helping other churches see service as a characteristic of a Christian. This is why we give other churches the opportunities to be part of the program so that they can experience that service is part of the Christian life.
We also teach the youth that life is service, and then whenever we can give service we should. Finances are important for everyone. Even though our volunteers are earning money they are gaining experience and are able to develop some abilities. We emphasize not only confessing Christ by word but with life. Obedience to scripture in daily life is really important and not just going through the motions.
Our emphasis is on love, forgiveness, and honesty. Church is more than going on a Sunday. I see in Jesus a tremendous compassion when he looks at sinful people because he knows that sin is addictive and gets people completely bound up. Go back to the Sermon on the Mount. And then he just comes in and says is your attitude ever murderous. Is your attitude ever adulterous? Now I find that liberating. Of course I realize there are all sorts of attitudes and thoughts and reactions and things that would fail the test at one level.
Jesus did not come to bring another religion. Gospel is smashing the whole concept of religion. Many people look at being saved as being saved from just sin or saved from an old lifestyle. I tend to think that when we talk about the salvation that Jesus offers, it reaches beyond that: My impression is that much of the time the disciples were scratching their heads wondering what he was talking about, and again and again he just shocked them with the things he was doing, and I think we have lost some of that.
What does that Sermon on the Mount passage about turning the other cheek really mean? What does going the second mile really mean? I think the way he calls us to community, absolutely crucial. There is so much focus on me as an individual Christian following Jesus. I need your help. You need my help. We need to be encouraging one another in this journey.
Many of these comments came from interviews for Turning Toward Jesus video curriculum, produced by Jerry Holsopple, or the Cloud of Witnesses video series. Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
"But God" Quotes by Casey Lute
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors! By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. Come, you that are blessed by the Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Who is Jesus to you?
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