The Values Effect

What if you viewed every single person you ever meet as someone for whom Christ died for?

How would that change your perspective?

Better yet, what if you viewed every single person you ever meet as someone who is good, competent, and knowledgeable?

That would take a bit of a stretch with some people… 

But, nonetheless, what if you viewed everyone as good, competent, and knowledgeable?

How would this view change you? 

How would that affect your actions and reactions, your encounters with other people?

Romans 15:14 says, 

"I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers,[a] that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.

Does that impact you at all? It should!

If you take this view of people then, how you view your spouse should be changed for the positive, how you view your children should be altered, how you view your co-workers should be impacted by this, how you view your neighbors should be affected significantly, and, church, how you view the people that come through your doors should drastically change

Just think, if you could allow the Holy Spirit to so alter your vision that when you encounter someone new, you don’t see color or ethnicity, you don’t see style of clothes or brands, you don’t see socio or economic differences. But, instead, you see people who are created by God to be good, competent, and knowledgeable. How would that change things for you? 

I would argue that it should cause you to enter into serious reflection and self-awareness, to develop solid core values based on the central idea that everyone is someone whom God created and for whom he died. How you live your life from this realization forward should take a dramatic turn and mean so much more than it did beforehand. 

The Kingdom: Already! But, Not Yet!

There is a sense in which God's kingdom is already in force. In Hebrews 2:8–9 we read, "At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death" In this passage, we have a "now" (we see Jesus crowned with glory), and we have a "not yet" (not everything has been subjected to Christ). Jesus is the King, but His kingdom is not yet come, nor is it of this world. John 18:36 says, “36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

We exist under His Lordship (Whether we want to be or not). We have an eternal destination (Heaven or Hell). We are loved by Him – he died for all… (None should perish)

Jesus came to die… To pay the price for us… For those who have surrendered to Jesus and submitted themselves to His Lordship, in 1 John 3:2, we read, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Again, we have a "now" (we are the children of God), and we have a "not yet" (our future state). We are children of the King, but we must wait to see exactly what that entails.

The paradigm we discover here is that of “Saved Sinners who are Suffering Saints.” Romans 8:30 says we are "glorified" and Ephesians 2:6 says we are seated with Christ "in the heavenly realms" as if these were completed acts. We don't feel very glorified, most of the time, and our surroundings do not much resemble "heavenly realms." That's because the present spiritual reality does not yet match up with the future, physical reality. One day, the two will be in sync.

Jesus Resurrected – Already

            Conquering Death, Hell, and the Grave

            Establishing His Power and Sovereignty

We Exist – Already

            Under his Redeeming Blood

            With a Hope of the Future yet to come…

            His power (indwelling Spirit) to aide us on our journey…

Jesus Kingdom – Not Yet Come

            It is coming with Him when He returns…

Our Future Existence – Not yet Come

            Will be with Him forever in Glory

That is the KINGDOM to COME!!!

That is REAL!!!

That is HOPE!!!

That is JESUS!!!!!!!! 

Creation, The Flood, And The Dispersion

A while back we had several of our church family provide questions to use for small group studies or discussions. Several of the questions that came in had to do with Creation. Right at the top of the list were also many questions about the Flood event, the population of the Earth, and the events surrounding the Tower of Babel. Here are the questions after we boiled them all down.

1.        Were Adam and Eve the only people on the Earth or were they just the only ones in the Garden and met others when they got kicked out?

2.         If they were the only people on Earth, how did humans not die out? They had 2 sons….

3.         If they weren’t, how was it that just Eve brought sin into the world, did God not have rules for anyone else on Earth other than just those 2?

4.         If the world was flooded and there were no other people on Earth other than Noah’s family, how did we end up with so many different races and languages that are specific to separate places?

5.         What was the main purpose of the Great Flood? To rid the world of humans? Animals? Nephilim? Progresses that were made that God didn’t want (IE the tower of babble)?

6.         How many times has God actually “started over”? (IE the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, the great flood, etc.) Were we really the only set of humans?

My answers here will be short and succinct. I will further provide links to videos with people discussing these very topics.

Creation: https://answersingenesis.org/days-of-creation/

We believe in a literal biblical account of Creation. Based on this belief a Biblical timeline of history makes the Earth approximately 6,000 years old.

Flood: https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/

We believe in a literal global flood event found in scripture. This is supported by science as well.

The Tower of Babel: https://answersingenesis.org/tower-of-babel/

We also believe in the biblical account of dispersion among the peoples of the Earth. The genealogies of many nations can be traced back to Noah’s three sons.

A Grand Tapestry

Your driving along and pull up to a stop light at a busy intersection. Across the street from you on the corner, is a man and his wife holding a sign. Beside them two young boys and in their aged mini-van is a sweet little girl. The sign says, "Trying to get home. God Bless" They are all clean, well kept, and seemingly healthy. They appear frantic in their attempts to get help. Lastly, they are obviously foreign, possibly middle eastern. (But, you don't know for sure!) What do you do? What should you do?
For a moment, as the light begins to change to green, you think, "Just drive!" Then, something inside you says, "STOP AND LISTEN!" As clear as the person in your passenger seat uttering, "I knew you were gonna stop." Followed by, "What are you gonna do? They are obviously middle-eastern." Then you realize you have pulled up to them. You find yourself, almost out of an outward compulsion, walking up to them. What will you say? What should you say?
Then you witness a woman yelling from her van in the intersection at these people. She is screaming hateful things and professing in the same breathe to pray for their souls as she scolds them for having been at another intersection just one day prior in the next town over. What are you to think? What can you think? How should you responds to this? Should you?
The husband walks over to you and in fairly decent English, (better than that of the woman yelling at them), and with and obvious accent, he explains their situation. They are Romanian! They have traveled to the mid-west in search of a better life after living with this large family in a studio apartment in California for several years, here on a work visa. After 3 weeks of not being able to find steady work and living out of suitcases and motels they are just trying to get back to California where they at least know someone, and have some kind of normal.
Now, what is your next step?
I won't go into that! I will leave that for you to decide for yourself! What I can tell you is this... The take away for me is that no one in the past 3 weeks has even stopped long enough to listen to this family's story. If they had, they would have found out that they are Orthodox Christians who were suffering in Romania and came to America (the legal way) to find a better life. They were prideful people who did not desire to sit on a street corner but had no other choice. They were Christians desiring to find a home and a purpose. Desperate to return home because all they had received in "the Bible-belt" was ridicule and disregard.
It got me thinking. That voice inside that said, "Stop and Listen" was a lesson I needed to learn. TO often we dismiss people for any number of reasons. Internally we ignore the eternal and instead focus on the external. We look at someone and for whatever reason we separate people in our mind and many often become outcasts and marginalized, even unintentionally. This, is because, WE DON"T LISTEN!!!
If we would just STOP and LISTEN to the stories of those we come across we will find a beautiful tapestry that God has woven into the fabric of life. Even the ugliest of stories becomes a part of a grand masterpiece. 

Progress NOT Perfection

It has been stated that the path to perfection is the enemy of progress. Now, I believe that to be true in every single area of life. That statement is one that you can bank on to always play out. In the end, no matter what you are working towards or for, if perfection is what you are after, you will always fail. Perfection is impossible. I love what one actor recently said, "I can't stand it when people tell their kids that they are perfect just the way they are. They are lying to them. You are not perfect. No one is. Nor has anyone but Jesus ever been perfect. And that is okay! You are imperfect but God can and will perfect you." (I paraphrased that comment.) God loves you the way you are but He is not satisfied with leaving you there. Perfection is not what we are to strive for. Progress is what is required though. We will not be perfect little Christians in our perfect little Christian world called church. It just won't happen because we are flawed. The best of us are still screwed up. But, that is okay! Perfection is not to be sought. Progress is what is desired. Progress keeps us moving forward towards a goal or a destination. The pursuit of perfection keeps us focused on ourselves and our failures. Our eyes are not on the prize which is Jesus and eternal hope in Heaven, when we are focused on or pursuing perfection. But, when progress is our aim then there is only one result. We do our best and He will make up the rest. But, our best must result in our leaving everything on the battlefield. We can't have anything left in the tank. We must lay it all down on the line and surrender our all to Jesus. This is the only way progress can be gained. 
Philippians 3:12, 14 (ESV) "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfected, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own... I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."