The Kingdom of God consists in Power

1 Corinthians 4:20

“For the Kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.”

Talk is cheap, but we sure love to do it. From the talking heads on the TV to Christians speaking the lingo. From politicians trying to get elected to promises made by a teenager. We like to talk. We will try to convince people, we will try to persuade people, we will try to move people’s hearts and minds. There can be great benefit from talk, and we can implant and expound on ideas that can change how people think. But the danger is always there that talk is where we will stay and where we will live.

Isn’t that the reason for anger at politicians? That too often they do not back their talk up with action? Isn’t that why some people’s promises and deals and “I’ll scratch your back if…” can’t be trusted? They fail to back them up with action. And isn’t that why the ivory tower speculation can make us disinterested or annoyed? Because all their talk is just talk, nothing amounts from it. Talk is cheap. We can say we will do something, and we can even get the masses behind us. But until we do it… it is just talk. I could go on, but the reality of the matter is that we all know the difference between people who just talk and those who pair their talk with action.

And that is the beautiful thing about this verse. Paul is address some false teachers and he compares the Christian faith with what they are teaching. And what does he say the main difference is? They talk, and that is all that it is. Talk made up by the human mind. But, Paul says, the Kingdom of God is not talk, it is power. That is the difference. These false teachers were preaching something with zero power. Paul preached the kingdom of God, which is power. It is not just idle speculation that really had no effect on your life, it was power that changed you from the inside out and flip your whole world back right side up. These false teachers were teaching meaningless dribble. Paul says that the Kingdom of God is that true power, the power of the life that comes from Christ, the power that comes in the new birth and the power that comes from the life of faith. The Kingdom of God is not just like any other school of thought that is just empty talk, it is the power that saves us, changes us, transforms us, and holds this universe together.

And the kingdom is not only some future event when Christ will return. No, the kingdom has power right now for our life. Paul is referring to the present spiritual sense of God reigning over his people and demonstrating his power in their lives. The joy, peace, love, and all the other fruit that is part of our lives. The power of God that moves through our life, giving us faith and the ability to live out that faith in all aspects of our life. It is now, we live it now in our lives.

As I was reading this verse and pondering all that it means, I started to think about what it means for how we should live. Yes, the verse means that the Kingdom of God has power for our present day lives and is not empty talk and speculation, but what does that mean for our own action? Christ came and inaugurated the Kingdom of God, it was started and he gave his followers the command to spread it and extend it. I love the image of a beachhead. In war, an army will have to establish a beachhead, a landing site that will be the staging area for the rest of the invasion or conquest. The Kingdom of God is invading this world, and it is our job as Christians and it is the Church job to hold and to expand beachhead that Christ gained for us. We await his return to complete the invasion, but right now we are called to make secure this beachhead and expand it. The Kingdom of God is ours to extend and it is ours to put into action.

This is what it means for our lives. If the Kingdom of God doesn’t consist of Talk but in power, then we who are command to extend it should be more focused on the power it has to change lives than on just talking about it. Do we believe this? Do we put it into action? The Kingdom of God consists in power… do we live that out?

The Mind of Christ

“But we have the mind of Christ.” ~ 1 Corinthians 2:16b

I was reading in 1 Corinthians the last couple of days and this line haunted me. It really stuck in my head and won’t leave me alone. What does it mean to have the mind of Christ?

My mind is a tricky place. It is the place where the worst acts are played out and committed and it is also where some great things happen and are thought about. If I were honest, I would have to say that more time is spent on the worst than on the good. And if I were extremely honest, which can be painful, I would have to say that my mind is one of the darkest places in the world. It is where evil lurks, it is where sin lingers, it is where dark fantasies come to life, and it is a constant battleground. It is a battleground between the things of God and the things of my flesh.

The human mind is a fantastic thing, as it should be being based and modeled after the mind of God. The mind is part of the image of God that all humans share. It is one aspect that separates us from animals and one way in which we are similar to God. We can look at the mind and ponder how it came to be and the only real answer is that is was made by a mind, the mind of God. It is in this fantastic thing that the great ideas that have changed the world have come about. It is in this playground of intellect where the course of history is changed and where the most despicable evil is planned. I don’t want to sound too humanistic in that the human mind can conquer all, but there is truth that the mind is powerful. Through the use of our minds we can influence other people by how we speak and present ideas. Through the use of our mind we see the lines of thought that guide people’s actions.

Think for a moment about how powerful a mind is. If you have ever been talking with a very smart person that can unravel your arguments and really lay out certain truth logically, then you know what I am talking about. People who employ their minds influence other people. The great thinkers of the day (just that phrase or title says it all) are people that have employed their minds.

And realizing the importance, if you do now, of your mind, how often do we employ it and center it on Christ? Maybe one of the most powerful things at our disposal, the mind, and we are too lazy to put it to work for the one that made it and gave it to us. We are content to sit back and let others do our thinking for us. We are fine with being told the truth, we are okay with being led everywhere and being shown everything. But this is not how it is supposed to be. We are supposed to employ all that God has given us for his glory. This means every aspect of our lives. This means all of who we are. And I want to say that even if you don’t think you are great thinker, you still have a powerful tool in your head. For your mind is designed to think, it is designed to process, it is designed after the greatest mind, the mind of God. Use it!

To have the mind of Christ, what does it mean? It means using your mind for Christ and God. That is true. But it also means focusing on what Christ focuses on. It means that our mind need to be like the mind of Christ. Christ looked to his Father and his Father’s will and plan. We should do the same. We should look to God and think about what God wants from us and for us. Christ looked at others and thought about how he could help them and love them. We should do the same. We should look around us and think about how we can help and love the people around us. Not just when it is shoved into our faces, but all the time. We should be walking through our lives with this attitude of loving other people so much that it becomes a part of who we are. And if this were to happen, if we could look to the Father, seeking to serve him and please him, and then look to other people, seeking to serve and love them, then we would be that much closer to living out our faith.

Let’s all strive for the mind of Christ. Let’s all use what God has given us to seek him. Lets all model how we think after the one that gave himself for us.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37

“Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” Luke 24:45

“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of a sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.” Romans 8:5-6

“Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2

“Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:2

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…” Hebrews 12:2

Lift up your drooping hands

I have been reading Hebrews with the college guy bible study and it never ceases to amaze me. This week we finished off the book with reading and talking about chapters 11-13. Chapter 11 is the faith chapter, where the writer goes through the great heroes of the faith. And you get this sense that these normal people underwent stressful and sometimes horrible events and experiences and persevered through faith. They did all these great things through faith. What are we willing to experience for and through our faith?

Hebrews 11:26 caught my eye. “He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” This is talking about Moses, who lived as a Hebrew rather than as the Pharaoh’s daughter’s son. We thought that being true to his faith was greater than any level of wealth, privilege, or comfort that position could give.

Do we take comfort, position, and privilege over holding true to our faith? That is a personal question, but if I was going to answer for the whole of the American church, than it would have to be yes. Here is maybe the most common example. Take sharing your faith. It is a basic principle of the Christian life. It is what the Great Commission is saying, that we need to share who Christ is with the world and walk with them through the journey of faith. Do you do it? Do you live it? If we are honest, we don’t. We might start to, or feel guilty about not doing it and make a resolution to start. But we don’t follow through, or if we do it doesn’t last long. (this is a general statement, there are people who do live this out but the majority don’t) It can be uncomfortable to us. It can be hard and people might not respond well or even be mean. And this makes us pull back. We value our comfort more than holding true to the Great Commission. Ask yourself if this is you.

We don’t have to read that much further to get to the hinge verse of Hebrews 12:1-2, which urges us with these people in view as well as Christ to throw off all the stuff and sin that is stopping us from living out our faith. This is possible, it isn’t only for “super Christians”, we are all called to put our faith in action, to put wheels on our beliefs, to live out what we say we believe.

Hebrews 13:12-13 “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”

Jesus pointed the way. He was a outcast, he endured persecution to the fullest and this was all for us. And we are called to endure the same. The same reproach that was poured on him will be poured on us. And we are called to endure it all for his glory. Do we have this mindset? To live our faith out no matter what. That the world and all the people who don’t know Christ could turn their backs on us, that they could hurl insults and make fun of us, that they could hate us and persecute us. But no matter what, we will endure this on sought. We will endure because Christ endured for us. And so we respond to his endurance with endurance of our own. Will you endure? Will you live out your faith so that you need to endure? Because we have to wonder what it means if non-believers have no problem with you.

We can do this! You can do this. Live out what you believe. Be willing to endure suffering, mockery, persecution, or anything for the sake of Christ. I write this to myself more to anyone else. I need to do this, to live this, to have faith that puts Christ and his glory before all else. And so I also encourage you as the writer of Hebrews did, “Lift up your dropping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” (Hebrews 12:12-13)

Sin is self-eradication

Sin is self-eradication

I was reading a book and I came across this argument that sin was in fact a form of self-eradication. I found this to be very interesting, so interesting that I had to share it.

(the following argument comes from “Things that cannot be shaken” by Oliphint and Mays, though I add to it a little)

The argument starts with the fact that humanity was created in God’s image. Genesis 1:27 records that God made humanity in His own image. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him.” All of humanity carries this image. What this image is has been debated for many many years. Is it our minds? That we can rationally think and reason? Is it our relational ability? Is it the fact that we share certain attributes with God? Is it our dominion or ruler-ship over the world? Whatever you might think the image of God is, the fact remains that all humans share in it.

And because we carry this image of God within us, we can’t get rid of God or be removed from God without ceasing to be. That is to say that because this image of God is what makes humanity humanity if we were to remove it or if we were to remove God than we would cease to be. We would no longer be human. So imagine a M&M. The chocolate covered by a thin candy shell is what makes a M&M a M&M. If you were to remove the chocolate, leaving the appearance of an M&M, people after eating it would declare that it is no longer a M&M. It is just a shell. In the same way of a human was to remove the image of God from themselves, what they got might look human, but on closer examination would not be human at all. It would just be a shell, the defining characteristic of humanity would be gone.

If a person lives according to their sin, or if they continue to live in their sin we are trying to remove God from our lives. We are like Adam and Eve whom once sinning and going against God hid from God. When we sin, we are actively trying to hide from God and remove him from our lives. Just think about sin. Sin is going against God, thinking we know better than God, thinking our way is better than God’s way. When we do this, we are stating that we want nothing to do with God, we want to get God out of our lives. And we think that by doing this we will somehow be free and in control.

This is self-deception of the highest sort. For in trying to remove God from our lives (sin) thinking that we will now be in control or somehow our own master, we are in fact attempting to eradicate ourselves. Our true selves are based and grounded in God and his image, which is in us. These true selves are under attack when we continue to rebel and sin.

1 Corinthians 13:11

With Valentine’s Day coming up, the college group took a look at love in the Bible. So of course we read 1 Corinthians 13. This is the famous love chapter of the New Testament. It is read at weddings and such events, and the irony is that it is not talking about romantic love but love within the Christian community and the love God has for us. But within this chapter there was one verse that stuck out. It was verse 11.

1 Corinthians 13:11

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.”

I love this verse because I always saw in it a kind of get off your butts and grow up speech. I can see Paul saying this to the people, showing them and urging them to really start down that road of maturity.

Now the verse itself is in a passage about how the Christian’s understanding and expression is imperfect and how their understanding and expression of spiritual things will be perfect in heaven. We see in a mirror a reflection now, but in heaven we will see as if face-to-face. So verse 11 is really an analogy that helps drive this argument. But within this I truly think there is an element of growing and maturing.

The Christian life is one of progress and growing and maturing. When people express with longing how they wish to be a “better Christian”, what they are saying is that they want to mature. They want to mature in the Christian life by putting their faith into action and by living out what they believe. Isn’t that what we all want, to grow in our understanding and in our faith and have that grow us in every aspect of our lives? That is what we should want. For it is the maturing Christian that can say along with Augustine “Love God and do what you want.” For when we are growing toward God, our love for Him will direct our life and make what we want to do what he wants us to do.

Part of growing up is being able to look back and see how you were different. It is like opening a photo album your family keeps and you can look back at how different you looked and how you have matured and changed. Sometimes you run across pictures that make you cringe and wish you could get rid of. I have lots of picture like that. Pictures that are from my “awkward phase” that I am stilling trying to grow out of.

Our level of maturity and development affects all that we are. So when we are less mature our thinking and reasoning and talking will be less mature, or at the very least based on our less mature natures. We can look back upon how we used to think and be amazed about how we have progressed. We can look back and almost be embarrassed that we use to reason and think like that. But the important thing is that we can look back and can see how we have progressed and matured. Maybe this doesn’t mean being totally different, just reasoning deeper or thinking clearer.

As we mature and progress down this life we have our reasoning and our thinking should be maturing and progressing as well. Isn’t this what the Christian life is? Moving forward with what we believe, living it out, having our theology meets real life and growing and maturing from that experience. Isn’t it understanding and perceiving God more and more everyday? Isn’t it learning how to put our faith into action? The Christian should always be seeking to grow and mature. The Christian should always be seeking to progress closer toward God. And so when I read 1 Corinthians 13:11, I see Paul saying grow up.

It is time for us to grow up!

Hebrews 7:24-25

Hebrews 7:24-25 “…he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

In my guy bible study we have been going through Hebrews and yesterday this just kind of stuck out. It stuck out because in the midst of the Christian life we talk about salvation and the cross and we talk about how Christ died for us and we talk about how we now live in Christ and on and on. All of this needs to be talked about and needs to be stressed and emphasized to the utmost. But there is one topic that at least in my experience takes a back seat. And that is Christ as our high priest.

Now I understand why it takes a back seat. It is one of the harder and more foreign concepts to us Gentiles. The priest hold is not that big of a deal for us. But for the listeners of Hebrews, it was a big deal. For the people still living in the midst of Judaism with a temple and priesthood, this is central to their lives and their faith. The priesthood offered sacrifices for the people’s sins and it was through this that people could be considered clean and in good standing with God. And so the writer of Hebrews seeks to make it clear that while they lived under that priesthood, Jesus is a better high priest that only offered one sacrifice, himself, and that was all that is needed.

What really struck me as I was reading and thinking on these two verses and on the larger passage as a whole, was that Christ is seating on the right hand of God interceding for us. Just think about this for a second. That no matter what, Jesus sits by God and speaks on our behalf. Some people can get caught up in this great guilt spiral about their sins and start to think that they can not really be a Christian anymore or maybe aren’t one of those elusive “good Christians” everyone talks about. This can weigh on people and start to really crush their spirit. But if they truly grasped the fact that Christ is interceding for us I think this would not happen. Now it is important that we experience remorse and are repentant for our sins. It is good and healthy to realize the seriousness of continuing in sin and also the gravity of our sin. But for those who trust in God and for those who call on Jesus as Lord and Savior, this shouldn’t paralyze us from striving to live out our faith even though all to often we fail and fall.

Christ is always making intercession for us! So when we do that bonehead act or when we get out of line or when we are just plain stupid and sinful, we need not worry about the state of our relationship with God. All we have to do is confess and Christ intercedes for us. I get this great picture of God and Christ sitting beside each other in Heaven. They look down on us Christians and watch as we make those stupid decisions and mess up. The Holy God can’t be in a relationship with anyone like us, but then Christ leans over and says, “Its cool. I already paid for that one. Its on me.” Christ intercedes for us to the most Holy God. And it is one because of this that we can have a relationship with Him.

Praise be to God! For we look upon the great mystery of salvation and tremble. We tremble because the Almighty God, the Maker of the Universe, Creator of this world and everything in it, loves us so much that he planed and executed this plan of salvation and redemption through the whole course of human history, all to draw us to Him.

(side note: I love in verse 25 where it says he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him. I love it because in one short sentence it lays out this pattern or people drawing near to God and being saved, but they are drawing near to God through Jesus. It is all through Jesus.)

More or Less

he Christian life. Much can be said and written about the Christian life. We have thousands of books dedicated to “Christian Living.” These books all seek to help us live out our faith within this world. And it is easy to understand why there are so many of these books. Living out your faith can be tricky and frankly hard. And there are so many believers out there that have had no one walk along side them and tell them how it all works.
Many times when the Christian, whether new or mature, seeks to revitalize their Christian walk, they start to add stuff. They start to make commitments to do more spiritual disciplines, to read their bibles more, to pray more, to fell more connected, to be in an accountability group and so on. It is always more. We start to heap on ourselves these things, these disciplines, these tasks. These are not bad, in fact I think all Christians should be engaged more in many of these. We can be lazy and to an extent we need to be disciplined in our pursuit of the Lord. But there is a side, I believe, to this thinking of adding more and more that needs to be addressed.
When we add more and more to what the Christian life should be, do we not in a way start to lose focus on what is central? When we make it all about disciplines and reading and memory and study, we can easily lose sight of Christ. The Cross, which is central and over and under and hemming in all of the Christian life can be lost. Is this not Paul’s message “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” We can’t lose sight of the Cross. That in the midst of the Christian living that we seek, the Cross must remain central. That the person of the Cross must reign supreme even in the midst of disciplines and all the stuff we add to our lives.
So if you struggle sometimes like I do with thinking that you have to do more and more to revitalize your spiritual life, that you have to add memory verses and daily readings and books upon books (all of which are good) and this starts to weigh on you. Maybe you should ask yourself what is starting to become central to your “Christian life.?” Maybe when we struggle with thinking that it is always more, could it not in fact be less that we need?

Strip away the excess. Get back to the center.