Poll: What Is Required For Someone To Become A Christian?

What’s Going On?

2Co 5:17  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2Co 5:18  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
2Co 5:19  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
2Co 5:20  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
2Co 5:21  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I have put off writing a post on the news of Ray Boltz revealing he is gay. There have been so many who have written on this topic, I just didn’t want to add to what has already been out there, but now Clay Aiken has revealed he is living the gay life style, both claim to be born again Christians.

Again, I can’t add to what others have already said, I do believe in praying for these gentlemen, but I am concerned because they didn’t come out in order to confess a sin, but to try and justify their sin. There is a big difference. It’s hard for me to sympathize with one who knowingly sins, yet justifies that sin. What is happening in our Christian communities, churches?

Recently, and in years gone by, there were Christian singers, evangelists, preachers, who were caught or admitted adultery, admitting it was sin, yet divorcing their spouses and marrying those with whom they were having the affair. The Christian community eventually forgave them. I had a hard time with this. They admitted what they were doing was sin, yet instead of making their marriages work, or divorcing their spouse and being single at least for a while, they married the very person they committed the sin with. How is that repentence?

This saddens me, because it hurts the cause of Christ. To say that God made a person this way is either to deny the Bible, or to be ignorant of what the Bible says. It’s hard for me to believe that two intelligent people who have been in the Christian teachings as long as Clay Aiken and Ray Boltz have, claiming ignorance. They have chosen to live this way despite, with no remorse, but in fact have acknowledge and accepted that they will lose fans among Christians.

I have to say that it is hard for me to believe that Ray Boltz or Clay Aiken are truly born again. They may believe they are, but it’s just hard for me to grasp. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin, we may go our own way for awhile, but God will bring us back. He has promised this several places in scripture but Phillipians 1:6 comes to mind. We may sin but through the Holy Spirit who is in us, we feel remorse for that sin. We are more sensitive to sin, our goal being to glorify God, and to live a holy life. Sanctification is through the mind and the heart.

I pray for these two men, but I first pray that God will reveal to them the state of their lostness. That is where it first begins, the rest follows. You can’t sin and excuse it. There is a difference between struggling with sin, wanting to overcome it, and blatantly excusing it. God help us if we don’t see that.

I will carry you – Michael W Smith

more about “I will carry you – Michael W Smith“, posted with vodpod

Eph 3:16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
Eph 3:17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith–that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
Eph 3:19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Eph 3:20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
Eph 3:21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Battles Among Christians Part 2

In 1 Corinthians, the church of Corinth was in conflict.

The City of Corinth was located on the Mediterranean, it was a wealthy trading center, also known for its wickedness, it was hard for the Corinth church to not act like society. In fact, they were taking sides against each other in the church.

Paul’s letter to the church of Corinth was to scold them and teach them how Christians should act. He wanted them to know right from wrong. Each view begins with the truth, but excludes the other truths, thus leading to over extensions of all the three truths. They began right, but end up being wrong.

Corinth was a very intellectual city, so the church of Corinth was no stranger to intellectual debates. These people had a passion for Christ, to the point that they were willing to die for their faith, but shortly after the church was begun, the people began dividing into three groups. 1. Those who were radical about the Christian view of freedom. 2. Those who believed that Christianity was a life of joy, and should be celebrated as such, although they went a little overboard in their celebrations. 3. Those who believed in strict rules and church discipline. There were also those who were not part of any of the groups. They simply wanted to go to church, learn the Word of God.

Paul begins as he usually does in his writings, teaching theology for the first few chapters, then in the last chapters, he applies this to their lives. I realize I am repeating this, but the Bible repeats many things, the reason, because it’s important. To know Paul’s pattern, which is done for a purpose, is important to remember.

He begins by starting from scratch in the teaching of theology. First, with divisions in the church(1 Corinthians 1: 10-17), then he speaks of the power and wisdom(seeing things through God’s point of view) of Christ (18-2:16), then speaks again on the divisions in the church.(3:1-23) He goes through all the doctrines he has previously taught them, concluding that all three views are correct, but also wrong.

1 Corinthians 13 is an important, albeit very quoted chapter among Christians. Paul says that they could all have the gifts, the education, the right doctrine, but without love, it means nothing.

Verse 12 however is the key to solving church conflict. “Now we see through a” poor reflection”(NIV) We interpret scripture based on our finite human understanding. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully as I am fully known.”

He was telling the church of Corinth that they only have part of the picture, yet they are fighting as if they have the full picture. They were fighting as if they were right and everyone else was wrong, the truth being that they were all right, yet all wrong.

I believe this can be applied to those who would battle today. We don’t have the monopoly on truth. There are two many things not essential that are not clear in scripture, and as we aim to get it right, as we all love God equally, the truth is, we are right and we are wrong just like the church of Corinth, and we are foolish to believe any of us have the monopoly on truth. According to 1 Corinthians, the opposit is true, we don’t.

We can learn from each other, we can agree to disagree on matters such as alcohol, how to dress, music, worship styles, where to hold church, Reformed faith, non-Reformed faith, and thousands of other things we as Southern Baptists have been fighting about for a couple hundred years. Kindness and treating each other with the respect due to every human being should be our behavior. This too according to Paul in 1 Corinthians. We are brothers and sisters in Christ if we have the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, not because we agree on every jot and tittle of doctrine. Something the church of Corinth didn’t even do.

After 1 Corinthians, Paul then begins to teach the people how to apply the things he has told them in the earlier chapters, to their lives. He talks about how a local church should conduct it’s services, how the people are to act. We would do well as the people of God today to read these chapters over and over again.

Look throughout church history, it is a history of battles, wars, against Satan? No, against other Christians. The trend continues.

Yet, we are to be different, we have something the world does not, but no one would know this by our battling all the time, just like the world.

We say we believe in ierrancy and infalliblity of the Bible, not just certain parts, but all of it from Genesis to Revelation. Isn’t it time we behaved as though that were true? Studying all of the Bible and not just become an expert in one book, or select passages?

Yes, we could study a lifetime and not know it all, but we need to begin to behave as who we are in Christ. The new creation Paul speaks of.Battling each other over non-essentials, which takes time away from study and giving of the gospel, is miles away from who we are. It’s the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us, who causes us to persevere, not each other hounding one another.

We, the church of Christ,  need to begin to be a model for the world, not model the world.

Something more to think about.

Battles Among Christians

I found this interesting post at Answers For Life entitled, When Christians Disagree, that I believe is correct on many levels.

In giving us good valid reasons to why Christians disagree, one particular point caught my eye, which the author subtitles The Former Kingdom Factor.

Another reason Christians develop strong convictions on disputable matters is because of differences in pre-conversion lifestyles. When God saves people, he takes them out of the kingdom of darkness and transfers them into the kingdom of his Son (Colossians 1:13). During membership in the kingdom of darkness, unbelievers develop lifestyles fitting to that kingdom. After coming to Christ, however, it is very common for believers to repudiate practices associated with their former lifestyle. The trouble often begins when those believers meet Christians who do not seem as concerned about the issues they have repudiated.

Sometimes, for example, believers who were very involved with rock music and dancing before coming to Christ, are horrified to hear about a Christian dance with music sounding similar to their former music. They cannot identify a direct statement of Scripture on the subject but are “sure” it must be wrong before God. Associations with our life before faith in Christ generate strong feelings.

Again, it must be emphasized, the desire to please God and avoid practices that lead us away from our devotion to Him is a non-negotiable. The Scripture teaches that God works in his people to create this desire (Philippians 2:13). Yet Some believers have difficulty understanding why different perspectives concerning what pleases God exist among equally sincere Christians.

I wonder if this could be a reason why there are some who are in constant battle mode. Dancing? Drinking? Smoking? the list goes on. Could it be that these were issues in their lives pre-Christ? But we have to ask ourselves, is the issue Biblical. Are the passages used in context with the actual intention of the writers?

The author of this post, whose name I do not know, gives many more reasons and mistakes made when Christians choose to battle over issues that in reality, are not Biblically mandated issues at all.

I encourage the reading of the entire post in order to put all of this in context. I think this piece should be on every church table and pastoral office. It’s that good. I hope it makes us think next time we want to judge others by causes.