Accepted in Christ

Accepted in Christ

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Romans 8:38-39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
Legalistic churches are always saying that you had better perform or God will get you.  Permissive churches are always stressing how loved and valued that you are without talking about the importance and seriousness of sin.  They say that God loves everybody, and He basically accepts everybody no matter how you are.  
 
The gospel instead does not create a legalistic kind of message or a permissive kind of message.  The permissive type of message promotes a person who says, Great arrangement!  God enjoys forgiving sin, and I enjoy committing it!  The legalistic mind set goes more like this:  I know I am in God s will because I am miserable.
 
The marked difference between a Christian and a legalist is that the legalist repents out of fear and anxiety while the Christian repents out of gratitude for what Christ has done for him/her.  Out of the desire to be like Christ, when you know that you are saved, accepted and loved, you have the freedom to repent.
 
If my acceptance of God is based on my performance, then I have to repress how bad I am because I cannot repent if I think that is the basis for my acceptance.  The gospel message is that you are more sinful, evil and weak than you ever dared believe, but you are more valued, accepted and loved than you ever dared hope. And when you know that you are accepted in Christ, it makes you more able to repent.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
 

Refocus

Refocus

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Ron Hutchcraft, and the Scripture is 1 Peter 5:6-7  Humble yourselves, therefore, under God s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

It was one of those early spring days when we looked out the window and saw a bluebird hovering near a rear window on our car just fluttering back and forth running into the glass over and over again. He was obviously confused and disoriented and was going nowhere crashing into the window. My wife said, I will bet he sees himself in the glass, and that is what has got him acting crazy.

Poor bird. When he just kept looking at himself he got all confused and disoriented just like us when we get all focused on ourselves. And maybe that is where you are right now. The stress, the hurt, the load has gotten you all focusing on yourself, and maybe without you even realizing it you may actually be fluttering around emotionally feeling disoriented and discouraged and even crashing sometimes.

In 1 Kings 19 the great prophet Elijah has just come off the most powerful spiritual victory of his life - his showdown with 450 prophets of the idol Baal, where God proved who is Lord by consuming the sacrifice on the altar with fire from heaven. But now the wicked queen Jezebel has ordered a hit on the prophet, and Elijah was afraid and ran for his life and prayed that he might die.  How does such a strong spiritual leader get so low so fast? Here is a clue in what he says to God: I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have...put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. Suddenly, it is all about me.

When it is all about God I am on top of things; but when it is all about me, things are on top of me.  Refocus your eyes away from your great load and back to your great God.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Evil and Yet Loved

Evil and Yet Loved

Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Luke 11:11-13 Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!  (Observation:  Jesus is calling his own disciples evil, yet He loved them).
 
Our understanding of sin is most likely breaking the rules.   If I keep the rules and do not cheat on my income taxes or kill people or steal, and if I obey the Ten Commandments, then I am not sinning.  But Jesus is showing us our need to go deeper.  Here is what sin really is.  It is self-salvation where you are trying to be your own Savior instead of letting Him be your Savior.  When you realize that, you suddenly begin to realize that everybody is sinning.  Religious and irreligious people have cornered the market on evil.  Jesus says, Until you realize that your heart is really no different than anybody else out there at all, you cannot be my disciple.  The first stage is that you have to destroy your whole old idea of sin and realize that you are a sinner and that you are evil.  Then you receive God s mercy, and that makes you evil and yet a beloved child. 
 
You are evil, and yet you are His beloved child.  Is there any other religion or any other philosophy or any other way of thinking that says, You are evil, and yet you are utterly loved?  No!  Common sense says that you are either evil; or you are His beloved child, but you cannot be both.  But Christianity says that you are both.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Made For Something Beyond This World

Made For Something Beyond This World

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
 
C.S. Lewis said in his chapter on hope that most people if they really learned how to look into their own hearts would know that they want something that this world can never give them.  There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never keep their promise.  The longings that first arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country or first pick up some subject that excites us, these are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning will ever satisfy.  I am not speaking about what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages or trips and so on, but I am speaking of the very best possible ones.  There is always something that we have grasped at in that first moment of longing that just fades away into reality.  The spouse may be a good spouse, the scenery has been excellent, it has turned out to be a good job, but it, the thing that we thought was going to be in the center of it, always evades us.
 
When you finally see that nothing in this world will ever satisfy you (and you will eventually see this), there are only four ways to possibly respond.  You are going to have to choose one of them, and it will totally shape the rest of your life.  You will either blame the things that you have and say that I have got to get better ones (better woman, better man, better job), or you will blame and hate yourself, or you will blame life and harden yourself so that you will never hope for anything at all, or you can blame your theory of reality.  You can say, if there is nothing in this world that ever satisfies me, then it must mean that I am made for something beyond this world.  One response makes you a fool, one makes you a self-hater, one makes you an utterly hard cynic, and one makes you a Christian.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Why Wait

Why Wait

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Ron Hutchcraft, and the Scripture is Isaiah 55:6 ...seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.

A storm that roared through our area got so intense that a tree as big around as a car came crashing down on a house in our community. It went all the way through the roof and the house, and it did not take long for the insurance adjuster to come by and give the owner a check to get the damage repaired. She called a contractor to come over for an estimate, and when he asked if she wanted him to do the work, she told him she wanted another estimate first. He warned her that there was more rain in the forecast, but she was determined. She had a similar conversation with a second contractor. Then the big rain came and, of course, poured into her house. That is when she called a third and fourth contractor; both of whom gave her much higher estimates than the first two. Finally, she called in that first contractor who gave her a new estimate as high as the others. He said, You waited so long that the rain came and did a lot more damage, so getting things fixed is going to cost a lot more.

It is amazing how we have a tendency to put off repairs that need to be made in our marriage, with our child, with our parents, in a broken relationship, or in dealing with a problem that we do not want to confront. We keep thinking about how much it is going to cost to try to fix things, and we put it off a little bit longer.

Problem: the longer you wait to repair what is broken, the more expensive it is going to be. This is the easiest and cheapest it is ever going to be to make it right, and one day it is going to get so bad that the price of repairs may be more expensive than you ever dreamed.

Postponing the Christ who died for your sin gets more and more expensive; more and more days wasted without the love and the meaning you were made for. We are far away from God because our sin has cut us off from the one person we cannot afford to live without , and I urge that you will not postpone repairing your relationship with God one more day. Getting this settled brings the greatest peace in the world.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Nothing In This World

Nothing In This World
 

Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Isaiah 55:2  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?  Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
 
In every single one of us there is a raging, unquenchable and all consuming thirst that leads us to decide that nothing is good enough and will ever satisfy us.  We all have an infinite capacity for boredom and irritability with anything, even the best things.  The more successful you are the faster you come to realize that you have a bottomless pit inside of you.  There is a black hole and an infinite vacuum in you and me, and it does not matter what I put in there.  At first it is great, she is great, or he is great.  Then, after awhile I find fault, and I want to pull away. 
 
I have a large folder filled with quotes from successful people and famous people who after they got to the top, said, I do not know what happened, but I wanted to kill myself.  Boris Becker, for example, the tennis great, looking back on his life said that when he was at the height of his power, achievement and fame, he wanted to kill himself. Why?  Because when he got all those things, he still felt empty.  He said, I had won Wimbledon twice, and once I was the youngest player to ever do so.  I was rich, and I had all the material possessions that I needed.  I guess it is like the old song about movies and pop stars who want to commit suicide.  They have everything, and yet they are so unhappy.  It is true.  I had nothing on the inside. 
 
Like I said, it goes faster if you are successful, but we are all on our way.  Unless there is a cure or a medicine or a treatment or some kind of intervention, we are all on our way to being unhappy with anything and with everything.  Nothing will ever be good enough. If there is nothing in this world that ever satisfies me, then it must mean that I am made for something beyond this world.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Your Word and Handshake

Your Word and Handshake

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by NFL commentator and former Harvard basketball player James Brown, and it was taken from his book Role Of A Lifetime. The scripture is Matthew 5:37 Simply let your Yes be Yes, and your No, No; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

James Brown was a high school All American in basketball, and he was recruited by nearly all of the top teams in the country except for UCLA which was in the middle of their run where they won 10 national championships in 12 years. He finally narrowed his decision between Harvard and UNC. Below is from his book.

After an agonizing and long period of introspection and analysis, the process finally resulted in my selection of Harvard. They offered me early admission, because of my grades and the situation I was in with my recruitment elsewhere, to allow me to effectively end the continuing recruitment process and put it all behind me. I accepted and said that I would attend.

That is when the letter arrived that threw our house into chaos. Any thoughts of being a role model in Cambridge were put on hold when I held in my hands the envelope with UCLA written on its face in deep sky blue and sun gold.

Mom, this is from UCLA. I have to go. I have to at least visit. Pauley Pavillion. John Wooden. It is U-C-L-A. I said it slowly, carefully enunciating each letter, as if she were having trouble with my spelling. It is the mecca of college basketball. They dominate college basketball-they have won two straight national championships and four of the last five.

My mother was unmoved. My father, too, was completely unmoved. They sat me down. James, you have given your word to Harvard. Your word means more than anything, son. You shook hands and said that you were coming-you cannot change your mind now. You are going to Harvard. That was that.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining