Lessons From Psalm 119 (Part 3 of 10)

Lesson #21 v.57 The Lord is all I need. Period.

Lesson #22 v.59 Self reflection points me to your Word.

Lesson #23 v.61 Evil can be all around you and you can still do right.

Lesson #24 v.62 God's rules cause praise.

Lesson #25 v.63 All who fear Him may fellowship together.

Lesson #26 v.64 His Word changes your perspective on His world.

Lesson #27 v.65 His Word is just and fair.

Lesson #28 v.66 His statutes give wisdom and understanding.

Lesson #29 v.67 God will use affliction to bring you to love His Word.

Lesson #30 v.68 God is good.

Lessons From Psalm 119 (Part 2 of 10)

Lesson #11 v.37 Things that are opposed to God's law are worthless.

Lesson #12 v.38 It's ok to ask God to prove His word to you as truth.

Lesson #13 v.39 Follow God's word right out of reproach.

Lesson #14 v.40 "Life" comes naturally out of righteousness.

Lesson #15 v.41-42 The only answer I have for anyone who taunts me is that I trust in God's Word.

Lesson #16 v.43 God's rules give hope, embrace it.

Lesson #17 v.46-47 Talk about the Word even if it gets you killed but make sure that you do it because you delight in them.

Lesson #18 v.48 Meditate on His words.

Lesson #19 v.50 His promise is my comfort.

Lesson #20 v.51 Let no one convince you that God's law is false.

Lessons From Psalm 119 (Part 1 of 10)

lesson #1 v.6 When I stay attentive to obeying the laws God has set aside for me then I will never be put to shame.

lesson #2 v.9 A young man can stay pure, by living and obeying God’s rules.

lesson #3 v.11 If you truly believe God’s law then you will not sin against Him.

lesson #4 v.22 Scorn and contempt run when someone lives life God’s way.

lesson #5 v.23 When the whole world is falling apart around you meditating on His Word is the best thing to do.

lesson #6 v.25 God’s Word describes true life.

lesson #7 v.28 God’s Word gives strength.

lesson #8 v.30 God’s Word is The way of being faithful.

lesson #9 v.32 God set me free. I will Run in the way of His commandments.

lesson #10 v.36 God’s way is never selfish.

Dereligionization: Prayer

As a Word of Life student in second year I took a class on the theology of prayer and thought it would be a great word to dereligionize. Prayer, as far as I can tell, is a translation for the word “euchomai” which is a word that caries the idea of wishfulness and thankfulness behind it and is the most prominent word translated prayer in the bible. It shows up 54 times in the New Testament. There are other words that are taken to mean prayer as well. Words like entreating, intersession, and confession. These ones are less common in the NT but we still call them “prayer”.

                Here is what I am not saying, what I don’t mean is that we should not call prayer prayer anymore. What I am saying is that we should know what the word actually means as opposed to presupposing the meaning by our religious culture. A prayer meeting by definition is a meeting for the purpose of thanking the Lord. Now before you go changing the name to “intersession meeting” let me explain. All I do here is bring to your attention the danger of living off of presuppositions and assumptions of the meanings of words in the Christian faith.

                There are 6 word families in the Greek that are used for the idea of prayer in the bible. 1) “Euch” this is the root to the words proseuchomai, eucharisteo, euche, proseuche, and euchomai. All of these as said before carry the idea of thankfulness. 2) “De” for Deomai and Desis this is for entreating and asking a request. Found 13 times in the NT. 3) “ait” as in aiteo and aitema these Greek words is for request as well but they bring along with it a dire need from the one asking, maybe even the concept of a demand because of its strong nature, 12X in the NT. 4) “char” or “kair” gives the idea of joyful rejoicing and gratitude. It shows 7 times. 5) “Logeo” or root for word in our language the two words homologeo and exomelogeo are for confession and are found 4 times in the NT. 6) “kaleo” for epikaleo and parakaleo mean a reverential appeal or implore and is used 3 times.

                The worst thing to hear is people “praying” and saying all the Christian cliché’s and really only speaking for the ears of the audience. Prayer is simply our form of communication with God. There is no difference in the words used for talking to God in the New Testament as for talking to people. It is simply a conversation. One of the things that really makes my day is hearing people talk to God in a real way. But way to often we begin to change our voice and the way we speak. We put on this mask when we talk to God because we are not engaging in a “spiritual” act. Let me let you know something; everything we do is spiritual as Christians. “Be in the world but not of the world” Jesus tells us. We are not of the flesh any longer. Our whole life revolves around the act of “putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit” (Rom. 8:9). Read that whole chapter and you will see what I mean. There should not be any dressing up of the way we talk when we talk to God. Not only is that despicable in God’s eyes because He knows you are covering, but also it hinders other people from coming to Christ. I couldn’t tell you how many new Christians are afraid to pray out loud because they don’t know “the language”. What language?

                Christians, it’s time to get real about your faith in this area. Lets stop talking to God as if we needed to change anything, and just pray because there is great power behind it and we hold fellowship with our Lord that way. Fun fact, there are dozens of prayers in the NT but only 3 or so of them are for any physical ailments or persecution. The prominent prayer of the NT was for various forms of spiritual healing and challenging. But what are all of our prayer meetings about? Mostly jobs, ailments, social situations, and people’s needs. Those are great prayers and have their place but not without a purpose. If people are being healed just to be healed then why would God answer that prayer? God is not interested in making our lives better, read Luke 9. He wants to get His gospel out. This is his goal and that should be our prayers, to make our lives spread the Gospel in a radical way. And I pray that this will really hope you grow closer to the Lord. After all, as my friend Ray Deck III puts it “the end of spiritual growth is not achievement, it is intimacy.”

Living in Him

~Hammy

Why Christians don't Evangelize.

“Now everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gace us the ministry of reconciliation: that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed the message of reconciliation to us. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ; certain that God is appealing through us, we plead on Christ’s behalf, “be reconciled to God.” He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”   

~II Corinthians 5:18-21

Evangelism is growing weaker and weaker in America. There are less and less people that are zealous to share the awesome news of forgiveness, mercy, grace, life eternal, life change, and, most of all, a relationship with God through Jesus! American Evangelical Christianity is seemingly falling apart right in front of us.

            Ponder this with me for a moment. If you are stuck in a burning house and you are unable to get out, or maybe you are sleeping and don’t know that you are in danger, then someone comes to rescue you out of that house then I am sure you would agree that you could never just walk by someone else in a burning house and not remember the fear and anguish, the torture and damage, or even the problems that still remain from the time you were in that situation. Am I right?

            The reason no one wants to share the gospel is because they do not understand it fully themselves. That is why this passage is here. It says in verse 19 he reconciled us to Himself forgiving our trespasses, THEN he gave us the message of reconciliation to give to others. Our problem is we get this process backwards. We like to get Christians to share the gospel before they really know what it means or how it changes us. What I am not saying is that we are all unsaved and need to get saved first before we evangelize. What I am saying is that we need to understand the immensely awesome salvation we have been given, and then through that we will not have to force ourselves to share the good news. Instead we will not be able to walk by people in “burning houses” of sin, death, pain, condemnation, and a live without God without being absolutely compelled to share the amazing person of Jesus!

            The solution? Now i can't say anything like "do X, Y, and Z and now you are an evangelist" but I can give a counter to what I have observed as the largest hinderance to evagelism and hopefully it will help you. What I would say for you is to wrestle with what the gospel means to you, sit down and find out just how bad the “burning house” of a life without God actually was, and better than that find out how incredible and great the true life you gain and freedom from slavery to sin you gain by being reconciled to God!!! You want help studying this? There is a great book called “A Gospel Primer For Christians” by Milton Vincent you can get it for about ten bucks at http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/1885904673/

It could be the best 10 dollars you spend in a long time. But regardless of how you do it, study God’s word and believe what you read. Find out why the Gospel is so amazing and what God has done for you! And I can promise you that your evangelism will become a lifestyle not a duty!

Living in Him

~Hammy

Word Of Life: Missions Reality

          Hello there friends,
I am glad to tell you that my first dead line for my missions trip to America was met. (and rather last minute i might add. to God be the glory!) At the moment I am over half way of my trip cost which is $900. My deadline to have the other half raised is March 8th. where i will need the $900 in full in my account. After this there will be a deadline for my summer ministry of $1500 due in may. At the moment I have $465 total out of the full $2400. therefore to have full support i will need $1935 by some time about mid-May. The mission trip will be from May 5th to the 15th. I will be spending ten days serving under and with one of the Florida Area Missionaries from Word Of Life International named Chris Finchum. along with me will be my good friend Caleb Sibert. We will aid the missionary in any way that he sees fit. This could include fascar rallies, and storm events, open air evangilism, or teaching and preaching. i am seariously excited to get this hands on look for what Local Church Ministries looks like!

Living in Him
~Hammy

Dereligionization: Salvation

After being asked many questions about my faith I find one of the largest hindrances to explaining Christianity clearly is the meaning of many “religious” words used in day to day Christianity. I realized also that because of the presuppositions of definitions for some of these words we have lost the true meaning of the Christian life as a whole. So I decided to start a project. I call it project Dereligionization. We will go threw various words which are commonly misunderstood because they have been “religionized”. Hopefully, in doing so, God can use us to breathe a sense of reality into Christianity for the dead Christian robots out there.

            The word of the day is salvation. I did a study on the word. And found some very interesting results that many would be shocked to realize are true today. Most of the time when we use the word in typical conversations we say little Timmy got saved yesterday, which by implication is referring to a theological term called “justification”. Which is a word that I hope to go over more fully at a later date. It means to be found not guilty of a charge, in this case being guilty of sin, and speaks to the idea of starting the Christian life. If this is all that salvation means then we presuppose that we can be saved once and only once. But what if I told you that that’s not true and that strictly speaking in the definition of the word you are saved again and again. You are being saved now and will be saved in the future. That would get you to react wouldn’t it!

            The Greek word for saved is “Sozo” and simply means to make or keep sound or safe. As far as I can tell, that’s it. The word saved means kept safe, nothing more nothing less. So in order to understand the meaning of the word in our lives we must look to what we are saved from.

            Jesus uses the word for many things. To be saved from the end times Matt 10:22, to be saved from sin and its results Luke 9:8-10, from nature Matt 8:25, death Matt 27:49, from God’s judgment Jn 12:27; 3:17, and from physical ailment Lk 18:42.

            It would seem that the misunderstanding in the definition would come from Paul’s doctrine. But even that has many more mentions than that of just justification. He mentions it in justification in Rom. 8:24, in sanctification in Eph 2:5, in glorification in 1 cor. 3:15, and freedom from sin 1 Tim 1:5; Titus 3:5.

            So what are we saved from? What is it that God does that comprises such a rich salvation? I go to Romans 5 for the answer. 6 “for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” I included so much text mainly for the context it provides.

            The point I would bring up is in verse 9 where it says “we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” This is stating in short the one main thing we are “saved” from. And that is the wrath of God. God’s wrath comes in two forms. First is active. This is the wrath that is experienced in Hell, the wrath where God is giving you exactly what you deserve for the sins that you have committed. The second is passive wrath and is described in Romans 1:18-32. this is described as God giving people in to the sinful desires of their heart. This form of wrath gets its bite because God knows that every form of sin will ultimately lead to a worse life and, until something is done about it, death. The same Greek word for “wrath” is used in both passages (Rom 1:18 & 5:9). So this is the very wrath that we are saved from.

            The Christ says. “Even more than just being justified by my blood we are and will continue to be saved by His blood from His wrath, both here and now and in the future when we will be judged face to face by God.”(Paraphrased) Now that we are reconciled we have the fellowship with God that we were always meant to have. Romans 8:1 says, “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And that we are if we are justified by His blood. There is nothing we can do now or later that can separate us from this salvation we have. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. That is salvation. By God’s grace we are freed from His wrath now and forever no matter what.

            So what about those who are still experiencing the results of sin in their lives? The truth is that we are saved. Let God be true even though everyone else were a liar. So you can either believe this and hop on board the reconciled bus or you can ignore this truth and act as if it were not so, But either way it is true. We need to realize that every time someone is experiencing the results of sin that is no longer because He is angry with you or because he is executing passive wrath. It is now because He loves you unconditionally and is disciplining you to live a life filled with blessings instead of one that is not in His will. There is now no condemnation. Not now, not ever. Please take God at His word

            What now??? What is the result of this amazing truth? What are we to do? V11 says “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” Step #1 is to believe, as always. So take God at His word? You are saved from the wrath of God, period. And so we need believe it, that you know. But where does this hit real life for us as Christians? Step #2 We are to act like it. When it comes down to it there is no room for regret. After you mess up confess. What you did was wrong because you were no longer living in the love of Gods will. Not because you were unholy or unrighteous for a moment. God wants you to live a better life on this earth. That is His goal. So He will purge out all the things He calls sin by His Spirit in you. So stick with Him. He loves like no one could love! While we were yet sinners. While we were in active opposition to Him in our spirit, He died for us!

            “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” ~Jude 24-25