It Was All About Compassion

It Was All About Compassion

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the scripture is John 8:3-5,7,9-11 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group  and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.  In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?"  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said.  "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

Jesus' tone was not condemning.  It was all about compassion.  He urged her to leave her life of sin because Jesus knew that every sin comes prepackaged with a penalty.  Every time you sin something dies. 

 

Sin kills things.  Over time it will kill your conscious.  There are things that don't even bother you that used to bother you, and there is something in you that says that it should bother you.  Sin will ultimately kill your mind, your body, your self-respect and your relationships.  Sin for some of you has killed a family, a marriage, a relationship between you and your father or between you and one of your children.  Sin has the power to kill an entire culture, so Jesus urges her to sin not and to leave her life of sin.  I don't need to punish or condemn you.  Your sin has already punished and hurt you and destroyed your reputation in the community.  The consequences of sin is the reason Jesus urges her to leave her life of sin.  The message of Jesus is that when you sin you break God's heart because God knows that sin will eventually break you. 

 

A little while later Jesus would die for her adultery, and He would die for your adultery.  He would die for all of her sin, and He would die for all of your sin.  The reason that we know that his tone is one of urging and compassion rather than condemning is this.  When someone is willing to die for you, you never have to question where you stand with them.

 

Leave your life of sin not because God will get you, but because sin will get you.  Jesus died for you because He loves you.  The consequences of sin is the reason why Jesus urges you to leave your life of sin.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

I Am a God of Grace

I Am a God of Grace

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller of New York City, and the scripture is 2 Corinthians 5:14-15  For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

 

God had come to Abraham and said, "I'm going to save the world through one of your descendants." That means that in every generation, one person will bear the messianic seed.  "My salvation will come into the world through one member of everyone in your generation."  But look at how God does it. 

 

Here's Abram, and look at the women by his side.  Here's Sarai who is old and barren, and here is Hagar who is beautiful and fertile.  God blesses the world through Sarai.  Go to the next generation.  Here's Essau who is ruddy, handsome, big, macho, athletic, charismatic, dynamic, and a leader, but instead God saves through Jacob.  Then go down a little further.  Here's Rachael, and here's Leah.  Rachael is beautiful and the apple of Jacob's eye.  Leah is homely, marginal, rejected, and unwanted, and God comes to Leah and gives her Judah, the ancestor of Jesus.  Leah becomes the mother of Jesus.  Are you getting this?  The Leah's, the marginal, the outsider, the weak, the failure, is always the mother of Jesus.  Let's keep going.  Look at all of the nations of the world that God could choose to bring in salvation and truth.  What does He do?  He chooses Israel.  Why?  It has no economic clout, no natural resources, and no military power.

 

Why does God do it that way?  Why does He always choose the poor, the marginal, the outsider, never the religious, never the insider, and never the upstanding?  Why?  Because He is a God of grace, and the world doesn't believe that.  He has to over and over again hit the world over the head.  "I am a God of grace, and salvation comes not by you but by me.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

 

He Submitted First

He Submitted First

 Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the scripture is Matthew 1:20-21 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

Jesus is the first person ever born who is older than His parents.   One of the most interesting things about the birth of Jesus is that the parents are not allowed to name the child.  Parents are always allowed to give their baby its name because they are older, and they are in charge.  What the angel is trying to say is that you don't manage Him, He manages you.  

I know all kinds of people who say, "I'd like to become a Christian, but does that mean that I have to drop my girlfriend because she is not real big on faith?  Does this mean that I'm going to have to spend less money on myself because I really like this and that sort of activity?  I'd like to become a Christian, but do I have to do this and this and this?" 

 

Here's what they are saying.  "I'd like to give God the Lordship of my life as long as I can stay in control."  Ultimately, at some point you're going to have to say, "I don't even know what it's going to bring into my life, but I give up the Lordship and control of my life.  I am no longer the Lord of my own life, I am the servant." 

 

Don't say to me, "Well I've tried, and I can't believe," when ultimately you're not willing to do that.  The only thing that leads you to do that is when you see that He gave Himself away for you first.  I don't know of what other kind of God that you could submit to.  You have a God who has already submitted to you.  No other religion gives you a god like that. 

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining