Good Morning Girls
Read Luke 3:15-18 SOAP Luke 3:16-17
God has impressed a truth upon my heart that is alarming to me. Good behavior does not equal favor with God. Now I have known this for years, but isn't this truth contradictory to what we often teach in our churches? We often value someone's standing with God by how faithful they are to church or the absence of gross sin in their lives. I think this passage reveals how easy it is for people to outwardly do what is expected or right, yet truly be far from God. We cannot assume the soul of a person is safe just because they do the right things. As John said, God will separate the wheat from the chaff (or the fakes from the sincere) in the final judgment.
Proverbs 21:2 is one of many verses reminding us that God knows every heart. Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. God has no difficulty distinguishing between the believer and unbeliever. Wheat and chaff most often look exactly the same. We probably know some "chaff" that even consider themselves part of the body of Christ. Should this drive us to suspect a fake around every corner and point condemning fingers? No, I believe it should drive us to emphasize biblical teaching of the heart. We must internalize the scripture, letting God's Word change our lives. This is not training our kids to be good, this is training them to please God with their hearts and minds. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Romans 10:10
I am asking God for courage to pray for and challenge people that display rebellious hearts. God gives us discernment about our brothers & sisters and we can usually tell when their hearts are hard. A kind voice of concern can often sway the wanderer. What I personally would have given for someone to confront me when I was a teenager! Yet, my good behavior fooled so many. May God help us help each other.
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Good Morning Girls
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful day the Lord has made for all of us to enjoy. I was pondering that the weather is kind of like our lives. We can go through some pretty dark days with sin but as soon as repentance comes and we are purged from them then the SON breaks through and everything in our lives becomes brighter. That might sound a little cheesy, but that how I seen it today anyway. According to the John MacArthur study bible the fan was a tool for tossing grain into the wind so that the chaff is blown away. The chaff in our lives is that old ugly sin and unfortunately doesn’t all the time just blow away, especially if we allow it to stay and for sure we don’t want that because the bible says it gets burn up with an unquenchable fire. Now for me I would rather the Holy Spirit of the Lord convict me of sin in my life, not that I would desire there but if it is, I want to be able to I repent of it and let His fan blow it completely out of my life not to return. That means when I repent I do a 180 and completely turn from it, change my life, head a different direction, don’t return it…..lol…I guess you get the picture.
Have a great day Ladies!!
thats a good outlook on our soaping today, enjoyed it!!
ReplyDeleteI too applied the wheat and the chaff on a personal level. I couldn't exactly figure out how to express what I wanted to say in words, but googling around, I found something on a church blog (covenantbaptist.org) that I really like. It says this:
ReplyDelete"Of course, we know from life experience that certain sins stick with us, even after baptism. We’ve learned firsthand that we will need the Grace of Purging again and again. John calls this the unquenchable fire. It keeps burning, which I think is a way to say the process of purgation never ends. Which is not a punishment, by the way, but a great mercy. You enter the process by way of baptism, but the baptismal waters are only the beginning. The purifying, the transforming, the separating out of your good from your bad, all that will last a lifetime. The saints have given it various names: sanctification, growth, illumination. The point is: baptism gets you going, but Grace and Spirit and Fire will follow you all the days of your life. Baptism is the way you say yes. Yes to God, yes to holiness, yes to transformation. For the rest of life your chaff will keep being drawn out. God will keep on harvesting your grain, finding what was created in you and meant to last, meant to be kept, meant to be given for the good of the world, meant to be valued."
I have to remember I'm human, I'm going to make mistakes, and it is a lifelong journey to keep the chaff separated out. Sometimes it seems like it might be easier to just give up, but I've got to let God and his winnowing fork keep working on me.
And to clarify, I don't believe he's saying that the physical baptism by water is what gets you going. I believe he's speaking of the spiritual Baptism.
DeleteThat is great Christy. I couldn't figure out how to say what the scriptures said to me either. This hits the nail on the head. Awesome.
DeleteI like it Christy! That really says what I was thinking!
DeleteI'm glad you all like it. I was worried after I posted that. I was looking around that church blog some more and that is actually a woman preacher! I won't say I agree with everything on that site, but this sermon was really good I thought (even though it was a woman). Ha!
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