Fluency

As you get ready to start a new year, a simple reminder.

W E

WALK

BY FAITH

NOT BY SIGHT

2 Corinthians 5:7

Faith sets no limits on God’s power

and

submits itself to God’s will.

The Birth of Christ
brought God to man,
but it took the
Cross of Christ
to bring man to God.

We give gifts made by hand
He gave a gift provided by love

We give a portion
He gave it all

We give greetings in hope of peace on earth
He gave grace which gives peace

We give attention to events
He gave the event

To us a Son is given
A Son who is our Savior.

The Father blessed us with the greatest and most costly gift—His Son
The Son was the exact representation of the glory of the Father—WOW!

The Son not only demonstrated what the Father was like,
but through His death enabled us to be like him,
so that we could come near to the Father—What an awesome God!

May He be our focus this Christmas
May the passion for His glory be our consuming drive.

© Stephen C. Kilgore

Why?

God is . . .
too kind to do anything cruel . . .
too wise to make a mistake . . .
too deep to explain Himself.

Charles R. Swindoll, Growing Strong in the Seasons of life

So, Why?

Is asking why wrong?
Why do we need to ask why?

Is asking why an evidence of a lack of faith?

The answer to why, may not always be what we want.
The answer to why, may not remove the pain.
The answer to why, may not come at all.

The depth of pain, despair, lost, uncertainty, or even the feeling of abandonment are real.

The answer to why, may not always be what we want.
The answer to why, may not remove the pain.
The answer to why, may not come at all.

The answer to why, is Who.

Who is God?
Does He truly love me? Is He truly in control? Is He powerful enough to help?

Yes, He loved me with His Son.
Yes, He controls my destiny and sees a much fuller picture.
Yes, He is Almighty.

Would He withhold lesser things?
Would He use me for a greater purpose?

Will I trust Him?

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (ESV)

Job 1:21-22 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” 22 In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. (ESV)

Job 2:10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (ESV)

More insights from Paul’s amazing truths in Romans 5:1-11.

5:3-5 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This section, often viewed as parenthetical, may actually be one of the main points of the passage.

Since we have peace with God, one my wonder why God would allow a believers to suffer.  So Paul wants us to understand that we have a certain hope, when we have Christ.

The salvation God provides is permanent because of how it was provided and it is able to withstand trials. The Holy Spirit’s presence is an assurance of the future and of God’s love in the present.

Rather than an example of the lack of God’s love, we are assured of God’s love through suffering.

Now I have to admit–this is not how I want it.  I want to escape difficulty.  I want the easy way out.

I recently ask several ministry leaders what enables them to grow (means of growth, spiritual disciplines, etc.).  As they responded (more on their responses another day) we began talking about suffering and how difficulty is often the best teacher.

But my purpose for asking the question was to help in the development of ministries and environments for discipleship.

The reality of life and the lesson from Romans 5:3-5 reminds us that suffering will happen. We don’t have to program for it.  But we also don’t need to fear it–our perspective should be (at least when we are able to look back), “How is God causing me to grow through this?”

And that is the question we should ask when we face difficulty–”Lord, what do you want me to learn?  How do you want my faith to grow?  How do you want me to bring you glory?”

But there is one more aspect, Paul says “we rejoice in suffering.”  Sound like James 1 “count it all joy when you suffer various trials.”

Not only are we to stoically endure trials asking to grow from them, but we are to rejoice.  How? Why?  Because it confirms our hope of the future and deepens our grasp of God’s love in the present.

The ability to rejoice in trials is not natural.

Thoughts?

Romans 5:1-11 is an amazing passage.

In the context, Paul has taught about the problem of sin (1:18-3:20), is in the middle of explaining the provision of salvation (3:21-5:21) and will turn his attention to the power for sanctification (6-8).

As he develops the provision of salvation, Paul lays out what God has done through Christ (3:21-31) to enable sinful man to have a relationship with Him by faith (chapter 4).

That’s where chapter 5 picks up–”Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.”

The present reality of a past action.

When we place our faith in Christ’s cross work, God declares us to be in a right relationship with Him (the removal of guilt, the bestowal of positional righteousness) and replaces hostility with peace.

From this first verse, we can see that we can know for certain that we are justified (“have been justified”). We can know for certain we are saved.

And that’s just verse one of this great passage.

“Our joy, our meaning in life, comes not by pursuing happiness, but by pursuing God, who then gives us joy and meaning as a consequence.”

Max Anders

I only recommend movies cautiously.  But, last night as a family we had the opportunity to go to a special screening of Bella, a movie (as one reviewer summarized it) “about life, love . . .and the love of life.”

It is a drama about two people facing the reality of the life altering consequences of decisions–a hidden past, an uncertain future.

Themes that come through the movie are the value of family, the need for friendship, the reality of consequences and the value of life.

It is an independent, low budget movie, but well done.  It won the Toronto International Film Festival people’s choice aware in 2006.

This is a movie worth seeing, worth taking your teens to see.  It is rated PG13, but not for language or sensuality.  There are several intense moments that may not be suitable for young children, especially the more sensitive ones.

The timeline of the movie is a bit hard to follow in a few places, but this will give you the opportunity to talk about the movie and the message with those you see it with.

Check out the clips–trailer and Eduardo’s story to see the real life results of the movie.

We also liked the first line in the movie, “My grandmother used to say, ‘You want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans.’”