A way to view God

In Romans 4, Paul is explaining the implications of faith, and the implications of the family and inheritance of God. One way Paul refers to God, in verse 17, reveals something truly unique about our God. Paul refers to God as "the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were."This is huge! God calls things that are not, as though they were. In other words....in God's view things that we can't understand or see, God understands them and sees them. Its for his very reason that by Jesus death on a cross, there is a victory. Where in human eyes we see death, and defeat--God proclaims victory. This is also why Jesus is able to say "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." God flips our world upside down.
This is shown time and again throughout scripture--the way the world works is not the way God works. That's also why we can be entirely new, holy, blameless and pure, without really feeling all that different. The Bible teaches that you were crucified with Christ, and the old you has been put away. I don't really feel dead, but in God's Kingdom, He calls things that are not as though they were.
We also have to remember the power of God's speech, if God speaks something it comes into existence, just look at Genesis 1.

Healing from Imprisonment

Mike Erre last night, speaking about the nature of sexual sin and imprisonment,said that healing comes when you get sick and tired of giving in. Healing comes when you get sick and tired of hiding.

When he said that, I thought back to Adam in the garden--isn't that what we all do? We try and hide when we know we've messed up? Trust me from experience, when we finally stop hiding, when we finally say enough is enough I don't want to feel this guilt and this shame anymore....Jesus is right there to take it onto Himself. The beauty is the work has already been done, and the guilt and shame has already been paid for. God doesn't want you to have to go through that, and experience that perishing, that death--because He's already gone through it in your place. He offers the beautiful exchange program. God's gift to us is a new life--not as a result of our trying hard to stop or get it under control but as a result of what God does in us. 

F.A.I.T.H.--I

Forgiveness
Acceptance
Identity
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I'll let God speak for Himself through scripture.
2 Cor. 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Romans 5:1  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Galatians 2:19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
2 Peter 1:3-4 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
Hebrews 10:10 And by that will[God's will] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Ephesians 5:8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
Colossians 1:21-22 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him
Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

F.A.I.T.H.-- A

Forgiveness
Acceptance
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Not only are we forgiven, we are accepted and adopted into God's family. Paul uses the imagery of Roman adoption a lot in his letters. Knowing Roman adoption practices help us to better know how God looks at us. When someone was adopted in Roman society, their past name,and all of their past debts were wiped clean. They were given a new family name. A biological child could be disowned, but an adopted child could never be disowned. This is God's grace. We have not only been shown mercy and forgiveness, but grace and acceptance. Our old debts paid for and wiped away, our old name (representing our old identity) is done away with and a new name/ new identity is provided. If you've been forgiven and accepted into God's family (which on the human side, only requires our belief in it) we are like adopted children. I heard another beautiful analogy about a newly adopted child and his new parents.
The adoptive parents found out, only a few days into housing their newly adopted son; that at dinner the child was stealing food to hide in his room. Rather than the parents getting mad at their son, they found out that in his 1st home, the child was deprived of food for days on end, and had developed the practice of stealing food from the dinner table whenever he could in order to survive. The parents weren't mad--but of course they didn't want him hiding food away in his room. As an adopted child God is not mad at you--when He sees you He sees holy, blameless and pure. As an adopted child God is not mad at us when we "hide food away in our rooms" so to speak--He corrects us and helps us, yea of course. But isn't that what any loving Father would do?

The title "Christian"

What does it mean to call someone, something, or yourself "Christian?" In this appalling article by Rush Limbaugh, he states that the Lords Resistance Army, yes the kidnapping, murdering, pillaging LRA, is "Christian." For those of you who don't know about the LRA, its the group behind the child soldiers, and murders of many innocent children in Uganda and Central/ East Africa. Invisible Children and now Kony 2012, are documentaries made to help educate the world about whats going on in parts of Africa.
So is the LRA Christian, simply because they claim to carry the title? What do you think?

F.A.I.T.H.--F

Forgiveness
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Imagine you get a letter from the bank and it says you owe 10 billion dollars. I mean, I could be more realistic, say the $65,000 debt many of us LC students will have from student loans--I'll go with $65, 000. Imagine I'm not able to pay it off and over the years the debt grows and grows, and although I make some payments, it grows to 150,000 dollars.
Now, imagine my dad says to me "I'll pay off your debt, I'll pay everything you owe." The bank, accepts the payment, and my debt is forgiven--I no longer have a debt in fact.
So it is with Christ. Often we think of ourselves as still needing to pay the debt that has been paid off. We think there is something we have to do still in order to pay back the money. But it would be UNJUST of the bank to ask anything more than the 150, 000 I owed that my dad paid for. Another option then is to go to my dad and want to pay him back. But in Christ, our Father in heaven is SO loving that He pays off our debts , purely out of His love. And it costs Him, His son...it costs God His Son so that we can have it for free...that's forgiveness

What it means to be persecuted

For a moment, take a look at this article from the Huffington Post. This article isn't appearing everywhere but I'm sure many of you have seen it. If not, it might be a good opportunity to continue to raise awareness about whats going on in the world today. Many of us will never have to make the choice between being hung and following Jesus. Some of our family in the world still do.


Huffington Post Article about one man in Iran, Youcef Nadarkhani

American Center for Law and Justice's Campaign to raise International Awareness

Extremes

I love that knowing Jesus, I'm presented with 2 extremes. On the one hand I have the clear option of the world, especially as a college student and a (now former) football player. The new song from Wiz Kalifa, Bruno Mars and Snoop Dogg spells it out even, the chorus goes

So what we get drunk?
So what we smoke weed?
We’re just having fun
We don’t care who sees
So what we go out?
That’s how its supposed to be
Living young and wild and free

The option of the world is to view freedom as smoking pot, getting drunk and going out. And this same philosophy says "that's how its suppose to be, because we are young." On the other end of the spectrum is Jesus. Who says living apart from God is actually slavery, getting drunk, and smoking pot actually leads to slavery. In fact, I personally know what God is talking about when He refers to those who sin, being slaves to sin. Anyone who has ever experienced an addiction knows what I mean. It's slavery. I choose the philosophy of Jesus when it comes to freedom. Jesus says He has (already completely) set us free, and the other extreme says I can be free if I do these certain things. I choose to live a life where substances don't dictate how I feel, I don't need help letting loose or being relaxed. I choose to live a life where I swim against the stream, I walk opposite of most people around me, I choose Jesus-not as a system of morality, but as a model to live my life by. When I get to whatever is next, I won't enter in because I've figured it all out or because I've achieved anything, or done anything really well...I'll be invited in because I know the Host of the party.