Yesterday I wrote a little bit of why I am a “Passionate Conservative.”  I could have gone on, but I don’t have hours to write and you don’t have hours to read.  Bottom line is I believe that Conservative Principles when applied in a Representative Republic give individuals the best chance to be the best they can be.  As individuals prosper, the entire society is lifted up.  Indeed the results have been dramatic for the entire planet!

This morning I want to talk a little bit about why I am passionately Christian.  Bottom line is Jesus gave up Heaven so God could have a friendship with me and you!  In other words, God died so that when you die you don’t have to really die!  You can live with Him forever!

The only requirement to qualify for Heaven?  Believe in your heart that Christ died in your place and paid for your sins and on the third day rose from the dead.  Believe that in your heart and confess it with your mouth.  That’s it!  Romans 10:9 & 10.  You then exchange your earthly sin for His absolute righteousness.

Now as simple as that sounds, we all resist.  Well, most of us.  I do know a couple of wonderful people who have been Christians as long as they remember, but for most of us we decided that “having fun” in our youth was more important then being called “Jesus Freaks.”  Of course the fun lead to heartache and sometimes disease.  While we might be “good people” we are all pretty selfish by nature.  Of course God was still drawing us to Him and eventually we responded and accepted His wonderful gift of salvation.  If you haven’t and are alive enough to read this then there is still time.

For me it started in Sunday School at the First Conservative Baptist Church of Canby.  I was maybe 8 or 9 and our Sunday School Teacher was showing me in the Bible that God talked about springs in the bottom of the ocean.  Springs that scientists were just barely discovering thousands of years later.  That was enough for me to accept Jesus into my heart.  I still remember the joy I felt as I prayed and in my minds eye I saw light bursting from my heart!  It was pretty cool.

But.  I eventually stopped going to church and eventually started living more and more for my own desires.  That included increasing drug and alcohol use as a teenager and young adult.  I even shared a drug needle to inject some cocaine into my arm.  I only tried it 2 or 3 times in a one week period when I was about 20 years old, but I ended up paying a high price for the temporary rush the cocaine gave me.

I found out much later that I had Hepatitis C.  The worse kind too.  It was also about that time that God drew me back to him.  I started going to church, got baptized and started reading my Bible.  During worship at church I would cry out to God and also actually cry as He was healing my heart.  The folks around me at church probably thought I was a troubled man, but I didn’t care.  God was working while I was in His presence.

It was during one of those times that I heard God say in my heart about my Hepatitis C, “I’m going to take this from you.”  It was a word I clung to during the difficult one year of combination drug therapy.  I lost a lot of weight and some hair.  Food lost it’s flavor and I had suicidal thoughts.  All side effects of the drugs, but I hung on because I had God’s promise!

Sure enough, after a year of treatments I was Hepatitis C free!  And still am today.  That was 10 years ago.  Since then I have left my TV career and have served in a few ministries.  Mission Odessa, Family Life Radio and Teen Challenge of Arizona along with some churches along the way.  I don’t know if I will stay working in ministries as a job the rest of my life, but I do plan on ministering the rest of my life!  God has shown me a lot in His Word and through experiences with Him that I have to share.  It’s too important.  I don’t always live as I should and God doesn’t just give me what I want, but I know that He is always with me and He always gets me through.

If you want more evidence that God is who He says He is, check out this blog entry from a couple of years ago.  Stars really do sing, just like God said they do thousands of years ago!

If you don’t know Jesus and you are still alive, it’s not too late.  To say that it is awesome to know the God who created the Universe as a personal friend and Father is an understatement!

As I was reading Proverbs 14 this morning I didn’t get too far before I had to pause and contemplate verse 14.

¹⁴ The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways,
But a good man will be satisfied from above.

I think we all get frustrated with life sometimes.  Disappointed that things didn’t worked out the way we planned or the wait for a promise was just a little (lot) bit longer then we expected.  These are dangerous times for the Christian.  If we don’t stay close to God and stay in His presence we can allow ourselves to get upset and even angry with God.  If left unchecked that can lead to bitterness and a dry spirit.  (don’t ask me how I know that : )

In these times (which I hope you never experience) it’s easy to turn to “comfort sins.”  Those bad habits the old man used to have that want to come back in and enslave again.  It can be as simple as overeating comfort foods or much worse.  Certainly the comfort food analogy applies.

If you’ve ever been down this dark path even a little ways (I imagine it may be more common then people like to admit) and back again then you already know the wisdom of God through Solomon in Proverbs 14:14.  You will grow tired of being backsliden (new word alert!)  in heart.  You will have your fill and the Holy Spirit will make you sick of it!  Thank God for that!

There is a way back.  Even better, there is a way to avoid this backsliden condition to begin with.  Run to God every day!  Stay close to Him no matter what.  Share your troubles with Him.  Lay your burdens at His feet.  If you pick them back up an hour later, lay them at His feet again!  He cares in a very personal way for you and the more you spend time with Him, the more you will see Him working in big and small ways in your life.

God is getting you through whatever it is.  If you are frustrated and fall, let God pick you back up.  Confess your sins to Him.  Turn away from Backslideness (an even better new word alert!) and into His loving arms.  Then you will be back on the track to being a good man satisfied from above, no matter what your circumstances.

²⁴ Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. ²⁵ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
- Matthew 16:24-25

Does God want you to have a wonderful and blessed life?  I would say that the answer is yes.  As we are diligent to obey Godly principles in our business dealings and personal dealings it brings success and love into our lives.  We will find favor with God and Men and as we draw near to God we become blessed to be a blessing.

However, there is another side to following Christ.  One that is vital to keep in mind so as to keep from being discouraged when difficulties come.  See, the world may not appreciate that you like to do things the right way.  The world doesn’t like when you speak out against abortion for example, or if you try to lovingly remind people that sex outside of marriage is not God’s best.  The world hated Christ and if Christ is in you, the world will hate you too.  That resistance can show up in a thousand ways.  Betrayal from a friend.  Loss of a job or promotion.  Ridicule and insults and even death at the hands of people who don’t know Jesus.

When Jesus said, “Take up his cross and follow Me” think about what that symbolizes.  Think about what happened in that barbaric Roman practice of Crucifixion.  The “guilty” party had to carry his own cross through town to the Crucifixion location.  (in Jerusalem’s case, Golgotha)  As the condemned carried his cross through the crowd he was insulted, spat upon, ridiculed, cursed, had rocks thrown at him, etc.  He had already suffered 40 minus one lashes and the insults to injury were not a minor thing.  After walking the gauntlet it was time to get nailed to your cross followed by a slow, painful suffocation.  (no wonder Jesus was sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane when He was considering about what was to happen to Him)

When Jesus says we must deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him it is not a small requirement.  I think that it’s important that we keep it in mind always so we aren’t surprised when the world attacks the Christ in us.

The minute you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior you have grabbed a hold of your cross.  As Jesus works in your life and changes you and you start to become more like Him, the world is gonna start to notice and not everyone is going to be thrilled.  As you reflect the Holiness and even Love of our Savior don’t be surprised if you have to endure insults, ridicule, harassment, being spat upon and even death.

Jesus said in Mark 10:29-30

²⁹ So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, ³⁰ who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.

(emphasis mine)

I love the Good News!  Jesus died our death so we could live in God’s presence for eternity.  Jesus came so that we could have an abundant life!  There are vast rewards in this life and especially the one to come.  You will be rewarded for every cup of water offered to another in His name.  But don’t be surprised if the world is not always for you and is even vehemently and violently against you.  Take up your cross.  Follow Christ.  It may not always be fun, but it will be worth it.

Revelation 12:11
¹¹ And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

Christian Recording Artist and Lead Pastor of The Exchange, Joel Engle, wrote this on his Facebook wall this evening:

Christian, don’t fall into despair over your sinful failings! Christ has freed you from wrath, has made you holy and will give you victory!

That gets me excited! It is the Gospel message. Jesus took your punishment and God isn’t mad at you anymore. Truly this is the heart of Christianity that should be the heart of every sermon. So often we let the enemy, or the world, or ourselves, lie to us about who we are in Christ and the miraculous transformation He has done in our heart and is doing in our lives. When you receive Christ He gives you His Holiness! You are justified (just as if I’d never sinned) and God removes your sin from you as far as the east is from the west! It is a miracle and it is good news.

When we consider the story of the Prodigal Son, who spent his share of the inheritance with “loose living” and was still welcomed home by his father when he returned home then we get a glimpse of the heart of our Heavenly Father. He never looses His love for you no matter what you choose to do. Yes, sin has consequences and can lead you to an early grave and an unhappy life, but remember you can always run to a loving God who loves you more than you can ever imagine. Always.

God poured His wrath out on His Son Jesus so He will never pour it out on you. Remember that when you sin (and you do) that God isn’t angry with you. He loves you with an eternal love. Run to Him and receive your forgiveness, don’t run away in fear and go deeper into destruction.

Are sermons about the dangers of sin important? Of course they are and all scripture is God-breathed and is good for instruction and even correction. But looking at your sin is not going to bring about change in your life. It’s when you look at the Cross and what God did for you that you realize you can trust the King of the Universe to bring you safely to your destination. And you can trust Him with your problems and your secrets. He already knows and He couldn’t love you any less.

Always remember and never forget that at the core of any and all Christian messages is (should be) the complete forgiveness that you receive when you receive Christ. Joel calls it The Exchange.  It’s the best deal ever offered in the history of the universe.  You Exchanged your mess for His Glorious Kingdom! When you do that you become His kid and a part of the family! Now start acting like it :-)

It’s a Matter of Perspective

I began writing this 20 minutes after the earthquake that was to end all earthquakes had failed to herald the end of life as we know it. No Judgment Day. No Rapture. Life goes on. So as you look at the lack of transpired events, don’t jump to conclusions based on a faulty perspective. One, and only one, influential and misguided man does not represent the Church. Nor does he represent the theological position most of Christianity holds so dearly. His perspective was only his, and as seen, was flawed.

There was another faulty perspective, one illustrated in a military campaign from the biblical times. A couple of millennia ago, there was a king in Jerusalem who was surrounded by an invading army from Assyria. Let’s start with comments from one of the Assyrian King’s lieutenants:

Then Rabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you have? But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem’? Have I now come up without the LORD’S approval against this place to destroy it? The LORD said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”  (2 Kings 18:19, 22, 25)

Now it is true that Hezekiah had taken away the high places and altars. But there are three huge assumptions based on a faulty perspective at work here.

They were not the high places and altars of the Lord God; rather they belonged to false gods from other cultures who were foolishly worshipped at times by the Jews. Now it came about in the third year of Hoshea, the son of Elah king of Israel, that Hezekiah the son of Ahaz king of Judah became king. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Abi the daughter of Zechariah. He did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke down the sacred pillars and cut down the Asherah. (2 Kings 18:1-4)

Hezekiah may have said: “You shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem”, but his understanding came from what the LORD had said to David: He said to me, “Your son Solomon is the one who shall build My house and My courts” (1 Chronicles 28:6); and to Solomon: The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house which you have built by putting My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. (1 Kings 9:3) Where the LORD’s house and courts were, where He had placed His name, and where His eyes and heart perpetually were, that is where His worship must be.

The third misconception derived from this flawed perspective was that he, the King of Assyria, had been called by God to destroy the Jews.

Later in the confrontation we catch him contradicting himself:

Then Rabshakeh stood and cried with a loud voice in Judean, saying, “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria. “Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you from my hand; nor let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, “The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ‘Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? ‘Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’” (2 Kings 18:28-30, 33-35)

So at one point the king of Assyria was saying he was following the Lord’s command to destroy the Jews, and the next he’s relegated the LORD with some backwater, tribal, false demigods. Why obey such a random and obscure supposed deity?

By now you’re probably asking: What does this have to do with the judgment day? I’m glad you asked. Hopefully you’ve seen that the king of Assyria and his lieutenant have a pretty messed up perspective as did the man predicting the massive earthquake that was to have happened today. I’m asking you to not suffer the same mistake.  Don’t get your perspective from one solitary man.  Get your perspective from Christ.

Judgment Day is coming. The Rapture is coming.  Jesus is coming… just not today.  Hear the words of Christ, trust Him, and get your perspective from Him:

But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then there will be two men in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.  Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will. (Matt 24:36-44)

So did we dodge a bullet? No, because the gun was never fired. When Mr. Camping proclaimed: “The Bible guarantees it”, he was right; he just had no business of assigning a date. You still have an opportunity to come to Christ today; to confess Him as Lord today. That’s why the Judgment Day didn’t come today. There are still some, maybe you, on whom the Lord God is waiting to come to Him.

No, Jesus didn’t come today. Judgment Day didn’t fall upon us, nor did Rapture raise us. Still, I join with the Apostle Paul as he cries out at the end of his letter to the Corinthians: Maranatha! (Our Lord come).

Joel Rosenberg is a best selling author and also the founder of the Joshua Fund.  He just finished a conference in Jerusalem and while there recorded a two hour radio special. Here is an excerpt where Joel talks about how God feels about dividing up the land of Israel.

The Old Testament Saints were looking forward to the cross in faith and the New Testament Saints look back.  That remarkable moment that affected future and past.  Where God righted our wrong once and for all and for all time, past, present and future.

Several years ago I wrote how God showed me that it was the joy of my salvation (and yours) that gave Jesus strength as He went to the cross.  It's a similar message that Musicianaries "Take No Glory" share in their song, "He Didn't Die in Vain." 

Check out all of their music.  They give it away for free!

John 19:30
“Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”  And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.”

The story doesn’t end there.  Jesus rose from the dead on the 3rd day!  He appeared to His disciples and many others over a period of 40 days and then He ascended into Heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for the saints.

We are born with a sin nature thanx to the original sin committed by Adam, but God fixed it.  Only He could.  Sin (falling short of God’s perfection) demands a payment.  Death.  Jesus paid that price so God could be both Righteous and Love.

Righteous because God can’t say that sin brings death and then lie by not punishing sin.  Because of God’s Love He sentenced His Son to our death so we could live with Him forever!  It was the only way.  That’s why Jesus said that the only way to the Father is through Him.  And so it is.  Finished.  All you have to do is believe.

I had the great privilege to cover his story as part of my part time job with Teen Challenge of Arizona. It’s amazing to see God work in the lives of men and women to get them back on track of His best!

Your righteousness won’t get you any closer to God than the next fellow. Only God makes you righteous by your faith in His Son. Religion will tell you that you need to clean up your act in order for God to love you, bless you or approve of you. It’s just not true.

Sin IS deadly and will surely bring consequences in this life, but I repeat, if you have Jesus as your Savior God is not holding your sins against you. He is FOR YOU NOT AGAINST YOU!

This may be the best hour you invest all week and highly recommended for current and future Christians. It’s called the good news for a reason! Here is Pastor Duane Sheriff from November 28, 2010. Please listen:

Here are the sermon notes.

You can listen to and download all of Pastor Duane’s messages here, or just subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. You’ll be glad you did.