Standard Procedure

Standard Procedure

Since we have been saved by Christ, our life is now hidden with Christ. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will also appear with him in glory. Since our life is no longer earthly, but heavenly, we should set our minds on thing above. Therefore, let’s put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature. Here is the world's standard procedure:

Sexual Immorality- Let’s put to death our twisted ideas of God’s gift of sex. If we have wrong ideas of sex, we will become impure.

Impurity- Let’s keep ourselves from being twisted and depraved from philosophies and ideologies of this world. The more we link ourselves to this world, the more this world gets inside of us and pollutes us. When we become impure, our propensity to lust is uncontrollable.

Lust- Let’s rid our desire to attain things which don’t belong to us. Who are we to believe that we deserve one thing or the other? We lust after possessions and people as if they are meant to satisfy us and even able to satisfy our insatiable cravings. Once we let lust control us, we are nothing but a set of evil desires.

Evil Desires- When we allow our self to be reduced to a set of evil desires, we cannot live the life God intends for us and only the blood of Jesus can save us from destruction.

We used to walk in those ways, in the life we once lived. But now we must also rid ourselves of these:

Anger- When we are quick to anger, we can’t love people as were are meant to. Anger hinders the fruit of the spirit in our life. When anger becomes our standard mode of operation, we give way to rage.

Rage- Rage causes us to be uncontrollably angry. We are doomed to follow our emotions. When rage gets a hold of us, it leads to malice and slander.

Malice- When we become angry and are thrown into rage, we have the desire to inflict injury, harm or suffering on another. This is destructive to any person.

Slander- When we give way to anger, not only do we want to hurt them, but we want to destroy our friends reputations and name. I pray gossip no longer tastes savory to our tongue. We need to build each other up, even when no one is around.

Filthy Language- Once we give way to anger, rage, malice, and slander, we become nothing but a pile of filthy language and filthy deeds unusable by God for His glory.

Sin is progressive in nature. Good and evil both increase at compound interest. The little decisions you and I make everyday transforms our very core. You are either becoming more and more like Christ or you are becoming more and more like the world, or like the devil. Let’s stop lying to each other since we have taken of our old self with all of its practices and have put on the new self, which in being renewed in the image of its Creator. There is no one who is any greater or less than the other. Jesus Christ is all and He is in all. 

As Christians, we have a new standard procedure. As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, let’s clothe ourselves with the fruit of the spirit. Let’s bear with each other and forgive one another. We are all foolish and fallen. Let’s rejoice in what God has done in us. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all of these virtues, the one that binds them together in perfect unity is love.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body we were called to peace. We will still face storms, but we delight in the peace God gives us. The primary way we remain peaceful is by thankfulness. We let the message of Jesus dwell richly inside of us as we teach and admonish others. When we take responsibility for the growth of others, our own relationship with Jesus is taken to a whole new level. Lets teach can worship in songs, poems, thoughts, ideas, blog posts, prayers, actions, projects, gifts, and letters with the help of the Spirit, singing with gratitude in our hearts. Whatever we do, whether in word or deed, let’s do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Submit

It’s a verb that people no longer enjoy. But joy is found in service, not status. Only when we humble ourselves and live through the new self that Jesus has given us will we experience the way life was meant to be lived. When we serve, it doesn’t matter what we do as long as we do it with all of our heart. Every time we serve, we serve Jesus. There is no favoritism. If you bring joy to the Father in your service, he will bring joy to you. Likewise, anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs. Why should we continue to live miserably when we can find joy just by serving others? If you really get in touch with God, you will be humble—delightfully humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life.

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Rules and Regulations

As Christians, we need to be rooted and built up in Jesus, strengthened in the faith as we are taught and overflowing with thankfulness like I discussed last week. Why? We live in a world will all sorts of hollow and deceptive philosophies. Everyone seems to have their own version of what is right or wrong, what is true or false, what is real or fake. This world is full of knowledge that depends on human tradition and elemental spiritual forces rather than Christ. How do we know what is right? How do you know what I am saying has any truth to it?  How do you know what you professors or preachers or parents or government officials or favorite celebrities are saying is right or wrong? Do I even know what I believe? Fortunately for us, we have a collection of words from the One who created us. Every day I have the joy of sitting down with a book that contains the words of the One who created me. The question is, do we know what God is saying? There was an interesting article in Relevant Magazine about how we misinterpret the bible. I am not going to discuss it here but I’ll let you dive in if you want: Click Here

But here is the Gospel: In Christ all the fullness of God lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have be brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also brought in to the family with an adoption not performed by humans, but with the eternal seal of God. Your whole self ruled by the fallen state of this world was put off when you were adopted by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working God, who raised Jesus from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and outside the family of God, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having concealed the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He took it away and nailed it to the cross—which we just celebrated—and having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross… This is the gospel.

Rules and Regulations

But too often we get caught up in rules and regulations set by our society, our community and even our friends. Because of the gospel, do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival or certain day of the week. Don’t become legalistic in the rules created by men. All these rules made up by religion and tradition were merely a shadow of things to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of anyone else but Jesus (The President, A celebrity, their girlfriend, A false Prophet, a preacher, Mother Mary, angels, whatever) disqualify you from the grace of Christ. It is because of the self-righteous that the sinners God wants are rejected from the church. The self-righteous go in to so much detail about what they have seen and learned and experienced; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost the connection with Jesus, the head of the body. Are you connected to Jesus? Do you know Him? Does He know you? Are you connected to the head of the body? We cannot grow unless the head wants us to grow.

Since we died with Christ to the basic spiritual forces of this world, why would we still act as if we belonged to this world? “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch! Do not live there! Do not associate with those people! Do not where that! Do not eat that then! Do not fast! Always fast! Do not miss church! Vote! Don’t sing like that! Don’t dance like that!” These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. These regulations have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in the restraining sensual indulgence.

The glory of the gospel is that human rules have no hold on us. We are free! As Augustine said “Love God and do as you please: for the soul trained in love to God will do nothing to offend the One who is beloved.” If you love God, then whatever you do on top will please Him. But how do we love God? By doing what He commanded, not what man commanded.

A practice that has always helped me grow is asking myself: Why do I do what I do? What are my intentions? Am I doing this because I love God or myself? Will this offend God?

If we can be a people who loves God without the added baggage of religion, tradition, rules and regulations, then people will have no choice but to see God and praise Him.

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Thank You Very Much

Thank You Very Much

A note to the reader: Grace and Peace to you from God our Father. I always thank God when I think about you. Seriously. Why you would spend your time reading this in an internet full of funny cat videos, I don’t know. I pray you would have love for all of God’s people. I pray that the faith and love from the hope that God gives leads you to speak the gospel and be the gospel. I know that the gospel is bearing fruit through you and I am humbled that I would be a method for growth, let alone mere time-killing. Because of you great kindness and patience, I have not stopped praying for you. I continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom that the Holy Spirit gives. I pray you would grow in the knowledge of God, being strengthened will of His might so that you would have great endurance in this hard world. God has rescued us from the darkness and brought us in to the kingdom of Jesus, the one He loves. It is through Jesus that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. And for that, we are thankful.

Being thankful is something I don’t do enough. There is that old motto: “If you only had today what you thanked God for yesterday, what would you have?” But I think it is more than that. Not on should be thank God on His sole goodness and blessings—though those are more than enough—but we should thank God because it changes who we are. Have you noticed that thankfulness and humility go hand in hand? If you are thankful for something, then it is not something you earned, but something given to you or something you have borrowed. Being thankful is a precursor to being joyous. Maybe that’s why Paul keeps harping on the churches to be thankful. Maybe that’s why Paul thanks God for the churches he’s writing to, even though they have a laundry list of problems and the resolve of a two year old. Maybe that’s why Jesus thanks His father before he does several of His miracles. I don’t know if that’s why, but I do know that if you are thankful, you are joyful. Likewise, there is always something to be thankful for. As Christians, we have one big one (Jesus’ Sacrifice) and a bajillion other little ones that branch off of that.

But more often than not, I forget how to be thankful and become a prideful shell of a toddler, whining and screaming until I get to eat dessert. Here are a few things I need to be more thankful for:

Money- Am I thankful for my money? It is all borrowed. How could I not be thankful? Do I use my money like it’s meant for something greater than my happiness? Do I use my money as if I am taking care of something that belongs to someone much more powerful and important than I? Do I act like it was all given to me or do I resolve that my ineffective little self actual earned a dime apart from God?

Friends- Am I thankful for my friends? Do I see them as an opportunity to serve them like Jesus or do I assume they are there to make me happy and listen to my boring stories and laugh at my lame jokes? My friends are not because I deserve them. They are not an “apology for my parents” as one internet picture spam suggests. They are a gift from God and an opportunity to do what I was made for: love.

Enemies- Am I thankful for those that point out my flaws? I know I’d like to think I am always right, but my adversaries come along and poke holes in my inflated ego. Am I thankful that I am counted worthy enough to even have enemies? Am I thankful enough to pray for them?

Family- Am I thankful for my family or do I treat them as a given? Do I use the opportunity to serve them or do I expect them to always put up with my childish ways? Do I seek to spread Jesus throughout my family tree? Is there more hope, love, and faith in my family tree because of me?

Possessions- Am I thankful for my material blessings or just blinded by them? Do I use them to advance the kingdom or to distract myself from the cry of the poor? Do I let them show love or do I let them make me miserable? “See these rims; I earned em’ “ False. I have earned nothing, from the car I drive to the plain white v-necks I wear.

Body- Am I thankful for my incredibly healthy body or am I so obsessed with every supposed blemish pointed out by an even more blemished idea of beauty? Do I use my body to run, jump, swim, sing, dance, eat, drink, and sleep for the glory of God or do I do a little too much of one and a little too little of the other? Is my body a temple or a city dump? Am I thankful for all the billions of cell, processes, and motions in my body that I don’t control or am I complaining about the few things that go on in my body that I actually do control?

Community- Do I love my community or do I demand that it change because of my skewed views? Am I thankful that there are people around me with enough resolve to actually strive to create a better Jeremy Eaton or am I so upset that one member in my community doesn’t like the same music I do? Do I view the community as it is and seek to pour more of God’s love into it or do I exaggerate every flaw I can find and look to tear it down?

Time- Do my use my smorgasbord of time in college for something worthwhile or do I waste it all away? I am in a period of my life where time is so abundant. Am I thankful that I have not felt the crippling weight of a life of responsibility and cordiality? Am I using these years of sleeping in, facebooking, internet videoing and stooping for something worthy? Am I investing God’s gift of time wisely? Am I thankful for everyday?

Relationship- Am I thankful that someone would actually choose to get closer to me and all my flaws or am I too insecure to even notice her? Am I allowing God to make me more like Jesus through another person or am I more interested in whether or not she is going to notice my nose hair? Do I seek you give all that I am for her betterment in thanks for what god has established or am I consumed with having a pain free, challenge free time? I can’t be thankful enough in this area. I can’t be thankful enough in any of these areas.\

The Cross-  I can’t even begin to discuss how unthankful I am and how thankful I should be.

Bottom Line… I could be more thankful, and as a result, more joyful and all around pleasant to be around.

God is Supreme

Jesus is the image of the invisible God; for that I am thankful. In Jesus, all things in heaven and here on this increasingly warmer earth, all thing visible and invisible, all things from  thrones to ghettoes have been created through him and for him. It was created for Him. God is for God. Let’s be thankful that he included us in what is rightly and solely His. Jesus is before all things (including us) and He holds all things together. He is the head of the body; He is the head of the church. God forgive us for whenever we try to follow anyone but Him. Jesus is the first to be resurrected and we are soon to follow because of Him. The Father was pleased to have his power dwell in Jesus, His son, and reconcile all things to himself.

We were all once alienated from God and were enemies because of our evil behavior. But the cross has reconciled us to the Father and has presented us holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation. Don’t let the enemy try and accuse you. You are blameless because Jesus was blamed. If you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope of the gospel, you will be counted as righteous. For that, I will be eternally thankful. This is the gospel.

Jesus is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously content (and blog) with all the energy I have and with all the power of Christ working through me.

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