Monthly Archives: June 2014

June 29, 2014

The Mission of God

By Ryan Miller

This blog was originally written for For His Glory Community Church (www.forhisglorycc.org).

People are questioning God all the time. Many people ask things like, “Why did God allow that person to die?” “Why did God create the world and then allow sin in?” “Why doesn’t God let everyone go to heaven?” or “Why did Jesus die on a cross?” The problem with every one of those questions to God is that we completely miss the “what”.

We should always ask, “What is the purpose behind everything that God has done, is doing, and will do?” Glory. Everything that God has done, is doing, and will do is to demonstrate how awesome, powerful, loving, and good He is. The mission of God from eternity past to eternity future was to glorify Himself.

The first two chapters of the Bible in the book of Genesis describes the amazing work of creation. God creates the heavens, the earth, light, plants, animals and finally, humanity. It was a miraculous work that can be described as nothing other than God’s handiwork. Every other explanation the world has come up with doesn’t make any sense. God’s purpose in that magnificent work was to demonstrate His glory. In Romans 1:20, the apostle Paul says, “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” God created everything and everyone so the world would see how awesome He is. Ultimately, God receives the glory. But something happened.

In Genesis 3, the serpent (who would later in the Bible be confirmed as Satan; see Revelation 12:9) convinces Eve that if she eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, she will be “like God.” There were three major problems with this statement. The first was that this was in direct disobedience of God’s words to Eve to not eat of this tree (Gen 2:17). The second was that God made Adam and Eve in His own image, not as Him, but like Him, so what Satan proposed was actually something Eve already had (demonstrating our constant oversight of God’s provision for us). The third was that Eve, and ultimately all of mankind, was attempting to take from God the one thing God demanded: glory. The result of the fall (disobeying God) was the curse of sin on the whole world. Every man and woman born from that day forward would be born with a sin nature, leading them to seek their own glory instead of giving it all to God. This is where the mission of God really began. God had to do something in order to turn all people back to Him in recognition of His glory.

GOD ON MISSION

If your mission is to stop people from starving in a third world country, you may go on a missions trip to that country and help to provide the necessities to stop the starvation. If your mission is to get drugs off the streets in your local city, you may go on a mission trip (a local one) to the neighborhoods where this is taking place and interact with the people involved to stop this from continuing. Similar to that, God saw a serious problem with the sin in this world. Man’s sin and desire to revel in their own glory was in direct antithesis to God’s mission, that He would receive all the glory. God knew the only way to bring all the glory back to Himself was to go on a mission to the world.

GOD’S KINGDOM

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

When God came into the world as Jesus Christ, He came to make Himself known to the world and bring God the glory above all things. Jesus established the kingdom of God which was to reign forever.

Jesus also came to earth for God’s people. Man was full of sin and needed a way to be made right with God. There was no way for man to do it on his own. Jesus’ life on earth was an example of how we are to live our lives to bring God the most glory. In John 15:8 Jesus tells His disciples that by bearing good fruit, people would know they were His disciples and would ultimately be glorifying God. Then on the cross, Jesus defeated sin by paying the price for the sins of God’s people. When he rose from the grave, He defeated death once and for all. This allows men to be made right with God if they accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior and abide in Him. As Jesus was ascending into heaven to be seated on His throne, He commanded His people to go into all the world and tell the world of His glory (Matthew 28:18).

GOD’S PEOPLE

There is nothing worse than being told what to do and maybe even how to do it, but not being shown and guided along the way. It happens in our homes, our jobs, and in many other places. But Jesus being perfect, knew exactly what we would need to continue His mission of sharing His glory with the world. In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells His disciples that He is giving them the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works inside every follower of Christ to enable them to share the good news of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection for the glory of God.

The purpose of receiving the Holy Spirit was so that, because of One Man, the Good News could be spread through many men to people all throughout the world. As the church goes into the world demonstrating Christ’s love and sharing of His perfect sacrifice, people everywhere will see God’s goodness and glory and, by the power of the Holy Spirit, come to saving faith in Christ.

GOD’S MISSION COMPLETED

“All good things come to an end,” except when they come from God. Many people use the first part when mentioning all the temporary things of this world. All good things in this world will perish through old age, brokenness, or irrelevancy. But God is eternal, and His goodness and glory will remain forever.

As God’s people, we are daily being brought to a closer relationship with Jesus, thus becoming more like Him. When Jesus comes back for the church (God’s people), He will complete this work and fully redeem each of us. We will be perfect and will rule and reign with Him in His kingdom forever. We will never worry about things (or people) perishing again. This will be an awesome demonstration of God’s glory in that He brings to perfection a broken and sinful people. The mission of God will be completed and all things will be restored to Him.

 

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June 18, 2014

You’re Making Jesus Cry

By Ryan Miller

Choices

We are faced with choices every single day. We are given the ability (in theory, but that’s a whole other blog) to choose the spouse we marry, the food we eat, the shirt we wear, the friends we have, the officials we vote for, and so much more. There are also times when we must make a stand when given a choice, and in doing so, we choose one set of beliefs over another and with that we often are choosing one person or party over another. As Christians, this goes one step further.

Most every choice we face in life as Christians starts with two options, do we choose to go with God (him, his ways, his word), or do we choose to not? All throughout the Bible, we see men choosing both paths. Some follow God to the best of their ability in every decision they make. Others call themselves followers of God/Christ, yet choose their own ways over his. One such case is addressed in Matthew 15:1-9. As he often does, Jesus gets right to the point by saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matt 15:8-9). He clearly points out that they have chosen the ways of this world over the ways of God. And because they chose their ways over his, they will eventually pay the consequences. But it isn’t always that cut and dry. You see, for the Pharisees, they had no true regard for God so they didn’t really care how Jesus rebuked them. But what about those that want to honor God but choose against him anyway? Let’s take a look at another passage.

The Effects of Sin

In John 11:1-44, we read the well known story of Lazarus’ death, and Jesus bringing him back to life. But towards the end of that passage, there is an interesting thing that happens. In John 11:35, it simply says ” Jesus wept.” Why would he weep if he knew just minutes later he would raise Lazarus from the dead? Was Jesus just putting on a show? Was he deeply saddened by the loss of Lazarus not realizing that he would bring him back to life in a few minutes? Neither of those are possible if you understand the character and nature of God. So there had to be something else.

Jesus wept. (John 11:35 ESV)

Most likely, one of the primary reasons Jesus wept was because he fully understand why death occurred (sin) in Lazarus and others and that instead of choosing God, men were choosing to sin, or at least to agree with sin, thus signing their own death sentence (see Rom 6:23). Jesus was deeply hurt by man’s choices.

So what about you? How many times have you made Jesus cry? It sounds so distant doesn’t it? But it’s not. He weeps over you, every time you sin. Often we choose others, because we don’t want to see them hurt or struggle. Often we choose family and friends, even when they are going against God, because we don’t want them to feel distant from us. But what we don’t realize is that every time we choose man (family, friend, etc), we are choosing against God. Every time we decide to “protect” those against God, we ourselves are choosing against God.

WE MAKE JESUS CRY!

What will it take for us to realize that we are the cause of Jesus’ pain and sorrow. We personally nailed him to the cross! And what is more alarming is that even when we aren’t the ones directly sinning, our agreement with those that are sinning is in fact just as offensive to God yet we don’t (want to) see it.

We must honor Jesus with our lips AND our hearts because if we continue choosing not to, we may one day hear him say to us, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matt 7:21-23)

 

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June 3, 2014

Surrender

By Ryan Miller

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I see you battling addiction. It causes great hurt to you, and heartache to those around you. You hope that it will just go away but it won’t. Some days are great you don’t need help. Others are awful and have you crying for help. The rest, well you got through them didn’t you?

There isn’t a program or sponsor out there that will ever do for you what you need done. You don’t need a quick fix. You cannot rely on the very things that have failed you to this point. What may those be you ask? Humanity. Programs are made by men. Sponsors are men themselves. They can be helpful, and often times are. But they fall victim to the same things you do, sin.

Sin isn’t something we “fix”. Sin isn’t something that will eventually just go away. We cannot simply ask for it to leave and more often than not, the harder we try, the more in festers. So what is left you ask? Ask for God, and God alone.

This isn’t the God you have seen in church. It isn’t the God you have read about in that Bible you have at home. This is the God that has had His hand reaching out for you since the day you were born. Before you experienced your first sinful act, or hurtful circumstance, He was calling for you. God is deeply personal, and will stop at nothing to make you feel him, and need him, and cry out for him.

God has allowed your addiction to hurt you, because He needs you to see that is what YOU are capable of. But God won’t leave you there. He has an out. It may take steps, and may involve a sponsor, but ultimately it means fully surrendering your life to him. You don’t even know what that means right now and that’s okay.

It’s time you wave the white flag. Turn your back on everything that has put you in that place of hurt, and allow God, and His people, to bring you to a place where addiction will one day be no more. You deserve more. You deserve better. And until you realize that, you’ll stay right where you are at….or worse.

“But God shows his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13

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