Salty Saints

Matthew 5:13

Jesus calls the believer “sheep”, “light”, a “city” and in Matthew 5, “salt”. Salt has healing properties, cleaning out the wound that it is applied to. It also adds flavor to that which is bland, giving it a good taste. Jesus calls this usage of salt, “savour”. Without the “savour” or the flavoring, Jesus says that the salt is “good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men”.

Jesus is not threatening to cast out His people, for we know that if any man comes to Jesus he, “will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). He is, however, saying that the believer that has no flavoring is of no use to the world. His descriptions of us are in context of how much we affect the world. In verse 14, we are the light, “of the world”. In verse 15 we are a candlestick that “gives light unto all that are in the house”. In verse 16 we are to let our light shine in a way so that the world may glorify God. All of these descriptions are told to show how we are to make a difference to those around us.

One of the chief characteristics of flavorful salt is the effect that it has on those who consume it. When you eat something salty, you need something to drink in order to remove the taste from your mouth. The saltier that a food is, the more that your body demands something to drink. If believers are to be salt with lots of savour, then we are to be a great force in the lives of those whom we meet.

Our passion for life, our joy during adversity and our love against all odds should make the world around us thirsty for a taste of what we have. Believers should live in such a way that it makes sinners want to be near them, for their infectious spirit. Too often, many Christians look so sour and miserable that people of the world would not only never want to live like them, they don’t even want to be around them. Some Christians think that this is holy and a sign that they are doing something right, but Jesus basically says, “If you aren’t making a sinner thirsty once in a while, what good are you?”

Perhaps many believers feel that they are being trampled under the foot of men because they really are. If you are not causing them to want the Jesus that you have then you are probably turning them off to the Jesus that you have. Their attacks will come quick and steady and much of our Christianity then gets reduced to “attack and defend”. We go after all of those who sin and rebel and who we disagree with doctrinally, and then we hedge up our spiritual defenses and fast and pray all of the “demons of opposition” away.

Believer, you have the greatest gift inside of you that the world could ever want. Let the Jesus of the Bible show up in your every word and deed. Minister grace to the ears of your co-workers. Let your family see Christ’s love and mercy in action. You will marvel as you see those around you turn interested in this same Jesus, and when they find themselves thirsty, give them the water of life freely.

Go be salty, saint!

What Makes God Sick?

Revelation 3:15, 16

The messages to the seven churches of Asia are messages from Jesus to the church ages. Each church listed existed in the world of that day, but their order speaks to the different era that the body of Christ has gone through since Pentecost. We are now in the final era, listed as the church of Laodicea. Each era overlaps the other, and actually, each era does not end until the rapture of the church.

When Jesus delivers the message to Laodicea, He says that their works are neither cold nor hot (verse 15), and that He would rather them be cold or hot. For most of my life, I heard this passage preached as a warning to “get off the fence” and “stop being apathetic”. Preachers, myself included, denounced any semblance of lukewarm activity, going so far as to say, “Either get fired up for Jesus, or go ahead and backslide”!

I always had a problem with that message, even while I was preaching it. It seemed pretty bad to be lukewarm, neither on fire for God nor all the way backslid from Him, but it certainly seemed better than not even being saved. I could understand God wanting the church to get “on fire”, but to tell them that He would rather them be “cold” seemed a far cry worse than at least having some heat.

When you are fed an interpretation of scripture, you often swallow it and don’t pay much attention to the questions that arise in your heart. You just assume that you are missing some deep theological point that surely time and experience will bring out, even though the text certainly needs more consideration. Finally, as God began to open my heart more and more to the message of His grace and goodness, things like Revelation 3:16 began to clear up.

The hot and the cold are descriptions of temperature. Both are symbolic of something else. The “hot” is equated with fire, and the Holy Spirit fits this description. Jesus is the baptizer with “fire” and the Holy Spirit sat on them at Pentecost as “cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts 2:3). Anything associated with the New Covenant is of the ministry of the Spirit, thus “hot” (2 Corinthians 3:8).

The “cold” is equated with death, just as a corpse goes cold when it sits, or a stone left alone will retain no heat. The Ten Commandments were written and engraved in stone, thus the “cold” is anything associated with the Old Covenant, or the ministry of death (2 Corinthians 3:7).

Jesus is ministering to Laodicea of its obvious mixture of the Covenants. They are preaching a portion of the New Covenant with God’s grace and love but then trying to balance it with the hammer of the law. What man calls “balance”, God calls “mixture”, and while trying to strike a balance with the Old and the New Covenants, the end result will be a lukewarm mixture that turns the stomach of God.

Jesus declared that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins, for the old wineskins will not hold the new wine (Luke 5:37, 38). The new wine is the New Covenant, with the old wineskin being the Old Covenant. To place the glory of God’s grace within the container of Mosaic Law is to ruin the taste of God’s grace. It is our habit however, because we often prefer works to grace to actually like the sound of the law being preached, over the sound of grace (Luke 5:39).

Either embrace God’s grace which leads to victory or embrace God’s law which will serve as your schoolmaster to lead you to Christ (Galatians 2:24), but never mix the two. This gospel is too important to be lukewarm.

Christian Responsibility

Jude 1:20, 21

When instruction is given in the New Testament, it is for the edification or the building up of the believer. Instruction in the Old Testament was given by command, and if not adhered to would lead to curses and even death. Thank God that Jesus came and took the curse so that we could be free!

This is not intended to indicate that the instructions of the New Testament are not important. These were written down by the founding apostles of the church, those who had seen Jesus face to face and were now trying to put down their thoughts, guided by the Holy Spirit, for all to benefit by.

Jude was the half-brother of Jesus Christ, but neither scripture nor history shows him taking much interest in being known as such while Jesus was on this earth. To his credit, once Christ has ascended, Jude becomes a follower of Christ, and instead of using his family position to further his ministry, he calls himself a “servant of Jesus Christ” (verse 1). It is from a man with this kind of integrity that we can take some instruction on Christian responsibility.

Jude gives two things that every believer must do themselves: Build themselves up and keep themselves in the love of God. The first, he says, is done, “on your most holy faith”. This links your strength from day to day on having your faith properly placed in Jesus Christ, but then gives the mechanism by which we bring this about as being, “praying in the Holy Ghost” (verse 20). This is the believer’s right and privilege of praying in tongues, which builds them up and speaks to God (1 Corinthians 14:2, 4). Every child of God should use their prayer language every day. If you have never done so, pray to the Father that He give you this manifestation of His Holy Spirit. It is His good pleasure to do so (Luke 11:13).

The second instruction in this passage, given by Jude is found in verse 21, “Keep yourselves in the love of God”. Paul sounds as if he says something totally different when he reminds the believer, “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).

There is no contradiction here, as Paul is reminding us that there is nothing that can come between God’s love for us, but Jude is telling us to keep ourselves there. Don’t allow your circumstances to convince you that God does not love you. Paul says that God does love you, while Jude wants you to remind yourself of that every day.

By keeping yourself in that love, you are living under the constant mercy of God (verse 21). Only within the framework of God’s precious love can we understand His wonderful mercy. To see His love for us is to see His heart of compassion and concern.

While all of the world falls around you saint, keep yourself in the love of the Lord today. You can’t do this by effort and works, but rather by remembering His love for you. Don’t forget that very famous verse, “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16). His “so” love is “so” big!

Prosperity

3 John 2

I spent many of the early years of my ministry attacking while I preached. What I mean by that is that I felt that part of the job of a gospel preacher was to be a sheriff against all of the ills of the pulpit. If someone preached something that I didn’t think was right, I felt that I had an obligation to go after not only the message but in some cases, the man behind the message.

There are so many things wrong with that that I won’t even begin to list them, but I will point out that oftentimes I was attacking things that I did not understand. As well, I was going after things that I had not even studied. I was preaching from the angle of what my circle of influence had taught me was right, and I was interpreting the Bible the same way. This is a dangerous and loose way to live and preach because it has no room for you to change your mind and even less room to be wrong.

I can’t put my finger on the moment that it changed, but I thank God that it did! He brought a revelation of His love to me and I have never been the same. I know now that I know very little and that is more liberating than I ever imagined that it could be.

One of the messages that I hammered hard against, and yet never studied, was the message of the “prosperity gospel”. First of all, I believe that term is misleading. There is no “gospel” (good news), but the “gospel of Jesus Christ”. The prosperity message is not the gospel, only Jesus’ finished work is the gospel. In that case, the question should probably be phrased, “What is the ‘prosperity message’?”

The Bible is decidedly clear that God wants you to prosper. John prayed for the reader of his third epistle to “prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (verse 2). He had a solid confidence that the soul of a believer is prosperous, not because of their works, but because of Jesus’ works. He desired that every other area of their life line up with their souls.

Paul told the church that if we will receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness that we should reign in this life through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:17). This says nothing of reigning in heaven, but rather on this earth. The believer was not saved to simply look forward to dying! We were saved to have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

I shrank away (and still do for that matter), from people placing the emphasis on what we get out of Christianity, rather than on Jesus and His finished work. Much of the prosperity preaching and teaching focuses the believer on the results of the covenant rather than on the Jesus of the covenant. We need not look toward what Jesus can give but rather toward Jesus as the “author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

God wants you prosperous, and He wants you to reign in this life, but He wants YOU even more! Seek the righteousness that is found only in knowing Christ and all of these other things will be added to you. True, biblical prosperity lies in exposing the believer to a constant stream of the love of God, showing the loveliness of Christ, and glorifying His finished work. Accept this, and ready yourself for God’s prosperity.

Love One Another

2 John 1:5, 6

The commandment which was from the beginning is that we love each other. Jesus called it a commandment on which all of the law and prophets depended (Matthew 22:40). John says that we have heard it from the beginning and that we ought to walk in it (verse 6).

The command to love one another is part of the law of Christ, and it springs from a divine love, placed in the heart of a believer by the Holy Spirit. Paul said, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5). The New Covenant saint has God’s desires and laws written into their heart and in their mind (Hebrews 10:16). If God is love, then the believer will love also (1 John 4:7).

The law of Christ is what James called, “the law of liberty” (James 1:25; 2:12). This law is from the inside out, while Moses’ law was from the outside in. While Christ’s finished work brings goodness out of the believer, Moses’ law tried to force goodness onto the believer, but it offered no helping hand. In other words, you could know the law and that knowledge would give you no assistance in keeping the law.

As it regards love, the law demanded it. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). This was a straight-forward command. There was no room for wiggle or interpretation. You must love others with the same passion and fervor that you love yourself. Of course the law does not tell you how to do that, so the adherent is left frustrated and condemned.

Christ’s law of liberty and love fulfills all other law (Romans 13:10). When one does love their neighbor as themselves, they have taken all other law and wrapped them into one. While the Old Covenant of law and works simply told you to love, the New Covenant of grace and goodness loves you first, empowering you to love others.

There is no limit to the amount of love that will spring out of the heart of the believer who knows that God loves them. Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness with the knowledge that He was God’s “beloved” Son. The “beloved” know that they are loved and they rest assured in it. Out of this knowledge, they love naturally, not by obligation, for no obligation can make you love. The believer loves because they can’t help it!

Do you have someone in your life, be it at work or your neighbor, who is making it difficult to love them? We all have encountered someone like this in our lives. Instead of focusing on loving them every day, placing yourself under the work of love, simply feed yourself on the knowledge that you are loved. As you become convinced of how much He loves you, you will automatically, though often slowly, begin to have a love for that unlovable person.

What do you have to lose? Know how loved that you are, and watch that love spill over.

Constant Cleansing

1 John 1:7

When we come out of the darkness of sin and walk in the glorious light of Jesus’ truth, we not only fellowship with other believers, but we have a constant flow of the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from all of our sin. His blood is a permanent fixture in the life of the redeemed, ever flowing to cover all of our failures and sins. This flow turns the scarlet sins, “white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).

Jesus stood on the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles and cried out for all to hear, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37, 38). He timed this announcement to coincide with the High Priest pouring the water from the pool of Siloam over the altar in the temple. Every Jew that was gathered that day would not have missed the point of Christ, “I am the High Priest. Follow me and you will never need another”.

This is the same theme that Jesus delivered to the woman at the well in the Samaritan village of Sychar. She came to the well at the hottest part of the day, while all other women came at sunrise. She obviously had grown weary of hearing the whispers about her 5 previous husbands and her live-in lover, so she came to the well to draw water, alone. Jesus met here there, being led of the Spirit for this one woman, and told her that she would thirst again if she relied only on physical water, but if she turned to Him, He would give her, “a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).

Jesus ever lives to make intercession for the believer (Hebrews 7:25), so His work, though finished at the cross, is ever ongoing in application. When we accept Christ as the payment for our sins, we receive the Holy Spirit as the evidence or “down-payment” of our inheritance (2 Corinthians 1:22). The Comforter then goes to work in the believer, constantly reminding them of their place in Christ, with the blood of Jesus always washing over them to keep them pure.

Without the constant cleansing of the Spirit, you and I would be guilty nearly every moment of the day. This guilt would not be from breaking the 10 Commandments or some other moral law of God, but from the dietary and sanitary laws of God. Everything from sexual emissions to a woman’s time of the month would make Israelites unclean. These were things that they could do nothing about, but that did not lessen their guilt. They were always washing and re-washing in an attempt to stay clean.

Christ pours His blood over us every moment of every day so that we always remain non-offensive to God. Though we fail, the ever present blood of Jesus makes us appear in God’s eyes just as Jesus appears.

Some find fault with these statements, saying that Jesus can’t possibly cleanse us from future sins, because we have not confessed them yet. Confession is for the unbeliever, and Paul never tells the believer to confess in order to receive forgiveness. We do confess so that our loving Father can embrace us, but not so that we can receive of His goodness. If Jesus cannot forgive future sins, then none of your sins are gone, for He died 2,000 years before you committed them!

Rejoice in the knowledge that the blood of Jesus Christ is constantly cleansing you and you are as clean as Jesus in the eyes of the Father.

(For more information on this topic, contact the ministry and ask for Pastor Paul’s sermon titled, “Constant Cleansing”. We will send to you as our gift. Thank you.)

Don’t Forget That Your Sins Are Gone!

2 Peter 1:3-9

Peter tells the believer that they have been given a “divine nature”, which is the very nature of God. With that divine nature in every one of us, our lives are now elevated to a position that they could never have been prior to our conversion. Because of this new position, we are expected to see “all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue” (1:3), at work in our lives.

Notice that the things pertaining to life and godliness only come out of us as we increase in the knowledge of who God is within us. From this knowledge we then see the following progression in our lives: diligence, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and charity. As these fruits grow in your heart, they guarantee that the believer will never be “barren nor unfruitful” (verse 8).

Peter is basically stating the same thing that Paul did regarding the fruit of the Spirit. These wonderful by-products of knowing the Lord should always be springing up within the heart of the redeemed. Fruit grows naturally, and needs only the God-given elements to do so. No coaching or prompting on our part makes the apple tree give apples, so no prompting or works on our part makes the heart produce fruit.

Why tell us that these things should be in our life if they must be brought out by the Spirit? If they are not there, then how can our knowing that we lack them help us to bring them out? Peter answers this question in verse 9:

“But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.”

If the believer lacks any of the virtues listed in verses 5-7 it is not because they are not consecrated enough. It has nothing to do with their works or their effort, but rather they are blinded as to who they are in Christ, and they have little spiritual insight into their position in Him. Furthermore, they have forgotten that the blood of Christ has taken their sins away.

So many problems could be avoided by all of us if we would remember on a daily basis that we are forgiven of our sins. The knowledge of forgiveness silences the voice of condemnation in our heart and lets us live free in the wonderful grace of God. When we recognize that we are forgiven, our spiritual eyes are opened and we see God’s purpose for our lives. His fruit begins to explode in every area of our being and we walk in the “exceeding great and precious promises” (1:4).

Remember that your old sins are gone and walk free in these sweet promises of our Father. Have a great day believer!