Pure or corrupted?

Do you use water filters? The drinking water quality at my home depends on one!  When my well pumps pushes water to my home, it flows first through that filter where impurities are removed; things that would ultimately sicken me.  It is  necessary that the filter have integrity. Even a small flaw would allow tainted water to flow to the taps in my house. It is programmed to cleanse itself periodically, so that it remains functional. Unseen, but important, that filter silently does its work all the time.

God, the Spirit, renews our minds, equipping us with filters that allow us to detect and reject false teaching, filters that help us to discard thoughts that would lead us to sin, filters that give us the ability to discern right and wrong. Are your mental and spiritual filters intact, with integrity, doing their work in your life?  Paul writes to us with this statement - "To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." (Titus 1:15-16, NIV)

In order to best understand that passage, we need some context. Titus was dealing with Jewish teachers who were ‘corrupting’ the Gospel of Christ by mixing in their religious traditions. They were attempting to make themselves acceptable to God with scrupulous attention to their behaviors but in their hyper-legalist minds, everything became ‘sin.’  They created arbitrary rules about what foods a Christian should eat, created prohibitions about sex and marriage that were beyond what God taught, made keeping holy days a prime concern. 

Because their minds were ‘corrupted’ by these ideas they saw sin in everything, were incapable of seeing God’s gifts for what they were.  In their supposed pursuit of holiness they actually became divisive and argumentative, those who destroyed the unity of the Church and revealed that they did not really know God, but only a tradition about Him!

How can we know if are filters are intact, dealing with the right things?  We look no further than how we are acting. 

Are we loving God deeply?
Are we loving others intensely?
Do we make Him our priority?

Are our relationships healthy, without unresolved issues, forgiveness freely offered?

Titus had to deal with people whose filters were corrupted by religious traditions. Our filters will be corrupted by the culture in which we live when we are not informed by Scripture and alive to the Spirit. One example is the emphasis on Self that taught to us from our infancy. We are told to find our own way, to protect our individualism, to find our bliss.  “And, what’s wrong with that,” you might be asking?  

 Jesus asks us to die to Self, to give ourselves to Him as Lord, to find our best life within the Body of Christ (the Church) where we fit into His larger plan in mutual cooperation and submission.  If the filters of our mind are corrupted by the idea that the only way to be fulfilled, to be completely happy, is to ‘do our own thing,’ we will not be able to properly sort out the right from wrong.

Hear the invitation in the word from the Word for this day. Live close to the Lord, open to the Spirit, for the renewal of your mind. Then, you will be able to know and do His will. "And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." (Romans 12:1-2, NLT)

Lord, renew my mind.

Restore the filters.

Grant discernment and understanding.

In Jesus’ Name. Amen

_________________

Change My Heart Oh God

Change my heart oh God

Make it ever true

Change my heart oh God

May I be like You

You are the potter

I am the clay

Mould me and make me

This is what I pray

Change my heart oh God

Make it ever true

Change my heart oh God

May I be like You

Eddie Espinosa

© 1982 Mercy / Vineyard Publishing (Admin. by Vineyard Music USA)

CCLI License # 810055

Patient, like a farmer

I asked our little Bible study group, “Have you ever quit?”  One said she stopped trying to learn to play the guitar, sold it, and was glad about it. Another said that there was a bully at work and the hostility was too much so she quit. Now there is regret for leaving a good job!  It’s my turn. I have quit more exercise programs than I care to remember. There was a treadmill that I purchased with all good intentions but after a few months, it started to collect dust. There was a gym membership … ah, yes, you know that rest of that story.  So, have you dropped out, quit, stepped away from something?

James, inspired by the Holy Spirit, instructs us about remaining faithful to Christ Jesus.  We will read his words of encouragement in a moment.  Pastoring the church in Jerusalem, I’m sure he had seen many begin to walk with God and the give up and walk away when friends and family pressured them to stop being such a fanatic, or when they were taken up with the immediate needs of their jobs, or when suffering and hardship arrived bringing questions about the goodness of the Lord with them.  It’s a story I have witnessed too often.  The question Paul asked his friends in Galatia reflected their abandonment of the Way. "You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience?" (Galatians 5:7, The Message)

30 years ago, I met a man who had responded to God’s call to faith as a teenager. After high school, he prepared for full-time Christian ministry and then was invited to pastor a flourishing church where he served for nearly a decade. Gradually, for reasons he never shared with me,  he became disillusioned with people and exhausted emotionally.  He turned to the wrong places for solace and eventually left not only pastoral work but renounced his faith. When I met him, he was a man who despised Christians and was engaged in active efforts to resist any and all expressions of Christian faith. He published a couple of books about what he saw as the folly of living for Jesus! He mocked me for serving a God that did not exist, claiming I was silly as a child who believed in the Tooth Fairy. He is a dramatic example of quitting.

Most Christians do not walk away like he did. More often, they just get distracted and start to let things slip; prayer, meditation, worship, service – the spiritual disciplines gradually abandoned like my old treadmill!

James’ words that urge us on say "Be patient, then, brothers, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!" (James 5:7-9, NIV)  Keep on, don’t quit. Like those farmers who puts seed in the ground in the Fall with the hope of a harvest the following Summer,  we need the long view of life!

Our word from the Word is an affirmation of the purpose of God, even when His ways are inscrutable. They come from that hero of faith, Job. "When He is at work in the north, I do not see Him; when He turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of Him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold." (Job 23:9-10, NIV)  Re-read the passage! Let it sink in.  You may not be able to see what God is doing at this moment, but He knows your life and your path.

 If you are adrift spiritually, anchor yourself to the hope of Jesus. 
If you are wandering from your commitment, renew your heart with real repentance.

If you have considered quitting, find a faithful friend who can help you stay steady and to ‘stand firm.’ 

_______

One Thing Remains (Your Love Never Fails)

(worship with this song about His love)

Higher than the mountains that I face

Stronger than the power of the grave

Constant in the trial and the change

One thing remains

One thing remains

Your love never fails

It never gives up

Never runs out on me

Your love

On and on and on and on it goes

It overwhelms and satisfies my soul

And I never ever have to be afraid

One thing remains

One thing remains

In death in life I'm confident and

Cover'd by the power of Your great love

My debt is paid there's nothing that

Can separate my heart from Your great love

Brian Johnson | Christa Black Gifford | Jeremy Riddle

© 2010 ChristaJoy Music Publishing (Admin. by Bethel Music Publishing)

Mercy / Vineyard Publishing (Admin. by Vineyard Music USA)

Bethel Music Publishing

CCLI License # 810055

What Do You Think You Know?

Seems to me that words are seriously devalued by the torrent of them that floods over us. Opinions are freely mixed with fact. Any user of the Internet has learned, hopefully, to look for source before repeating some wild story that shows up on their Facebook page. Our media often confers authority on those marginally qualified to opine by seating them at a table and pointing a camera at them. Somehow, even after all these years of the medium, we have not fully grasped that being ‘on TV’ does not make someone smart, right, or reliable. One author sees television as the ‘triumph of spectacle’ replacing literacy with illusion.

This trend has invaded the Church! Oh, yes, the message of the Gospel has always been hindered by people whose talk is far better than their walk. When Paul sent Titus to Crete to put the Christian church in order there he told him to look for leaders who could sort out the truth. "He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain." (Titus 1:9-11, NIV)  In our time, we have multiple messengers who bring a “Christian spectacle” into our homes via media outlets, people who are just good talkers speaking empty words and often with a profit motive.

I believe we are living in time when Paul’s warning is being fulfilled. He said "For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4, NLT)

The fact is that our Christianity must be grounded in truth that will, in the honest seeker, transform life! We must ‘work out’ our salvation, wrestling to understand ourselves in the light of the Scripture that we come to know by the work of the Spirit and within the holy gathering of the Church.  There really is no such thing as ‘your truth and my truth’ though we love that phrase.  We have our individual experiences, to be sure. We understand the world we are a part of very differently, given those experiences. But, the Truth is always true and does not change with time, era, or culture.

The foundational Truth we receive is Jesus Christ.  When we believe that He is God come in flesh, that Jesus showed us the Father, died for our sins, was raised to life, and will come again – our lives begin to take new direction and purpose. "Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes." (Ephesians 4:21-23, NLT)  Instead of wasting vast amounts of time and energy arguing about secondary convictions, we need to be those who proclaim the heart of God’s good news – Jesus Christ, Savior, Lord, and coming King.

Christian friend are you being duped by spectacles that masquerade as ‘worship?’ 
Are you being taken in by good talkers who offer empty words that offer a kind of ‘faith’ that does not demand submission to Christ Jesus as Lord?

Is your religion shaped by loving Jesus with ‘heart, soul, mind, and strength’ or by some other ‘truth?’

In the flood of words, of opinions that are sold as facts, may we desire to know the Truth and the One who is Truth.

Here is a word from the Word. Meditate prayerfully on this declaration.  Make it the cry of your heart. "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Philippians 3:7-11, NIV)
_________

Be Thou My Vision

(a beautiful old Irish hymn)

Be Thou my vision

O Lord of my heart

Naught be all else to me

Save that Thou art

Thou my best thought

By day or by night

Waking or sleeping

Thy presence my light

Be Thou my wisdom

Be Thou my true Word

I ever with Thee

And Thou with me Lord

Thou my great Father

I Thy true son

Thou in me dwelling

And I with Thee one

Riches I heed not

Nor man's empty praise

Thou mine inheritance

Now and always

Thou and Thou only

Be first in my heart

High King of heaven

My treasure Thou art

High King of heaven

When vict'ry is won

May I reach heaven's joys

O bright heaven's Sun

Heart of my own heart

Whatever befall

Still be my vision

O Ruler of all

Eleanor Henrietta Hull | Mary Elizabeth Byrne

© Words: Public Domain