Playing With Sin

You have heard it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that you whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose on of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Matthew 5:27-30

I was on duty Saturday and watched a bunch of episodes of "The Office". Most of the episodes are okay as far as content goes but one particular episode I was watching was getting kind of bad and I just felt Jesus calling me softly in my heart, Pat, turn that off, come spend time with me. Well, I didn't end up turning it off. In reality, by doing this, I ignored God.

Later that night I was just lying in my bed, not trying to sleep but just thinking. Every time I closed my eyes, scenes and characters from the show popped into my head. When I tried to pray I would just get distracted. I knew I had been feeding my mind with garbage so I just began reading Ephesians out loud to myself, trying to feed my mind with something good. I just felt so convicted and was left knowing that I would have to make a decision about whether or not to watch the show anymore.

Man, I battled in my mind for what seemed like forever and finally decided to stop watching it. My reason being that anything that would make me ignore God is worth being totally cut off from my life. The teaching about how we get rid of sin in our life from Matthew 5:27-30 is a hard teaching but it is true. Sin will never really leave me alone until I cut if off completely. Sin is like a odious and toxic gas against which I must shut the door and seal it completely, else it will slip through any cracks that I am too lazy to seal.

"If my body is broken when given to Jesus, it is because pieces will feed a multitude, while a loaf will satisfy only a little lad." Ruth Stall

a story

I never enjoyed reading the Gospels growing up. I mean, it was cool to read about miracles and all but the story never captured my heart. Maybe that's because I never read it as a story. There are all these prophecies that Christ is fulfilling and all this doctrine from the Law that is coming in to question, it's so easy to lose focus of the story. These prophecies and points of the Law are so important but they don't capture our hearts. The story of the person of Jesus Christ is what captures our heart. Part of that story though is Jesus fulfilling the law so that we wouldn't have to. How silly then for us to entangle ourselves in matters of the Law and doctrine when the story offers us freedom.

One of my favorite lines from the first chapter of "Velvet Elvis" is, "Doctrine is a wonderful servant but a horrible master." Doctrine is only useful to the building of our faith only so long as we have not lost sight of our Savior and his story. What amazes me the most is that I am allowed now to be part of the story. Being able to share in his sufferings. Being able to share in his joy. Being able to share in his resurrection.

I read through Matthew and my heart is distant. I long to know what it would have been like to be there. Maybe something is lost in that we no longer read the story out loud together. Once a week I'll sit in a circle and I'll be like, "Hey man, you grab the first three verses, and then we'll kinda go around and takes turns." Surely God has used this method to speak to my heart but right now I long to hear someone I love, someone who loves Jesus with all their heart reading the story in a candlelit room while it's raining outside. Their voice would burn with life like the candles and people would sigh as their hearts were moved by the story. After a section of the scripture, someone would begin singing or praying from their heart. I would close my eyes and welcome the tears as I felt the presence of Jesus himself filling up the room with his Spirit. Filling up my heart. Then I'll just sigh and be quiet and listen.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

"Take, eat; this is my body."

"Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

We are hungry, we are hungry
we are hungry for more of you
We are thirsty, oh Jesus
we are thirsy for more of you...

matthew

I read this first couple chapters this morning and I had a good feeling of it. Good choice, Pat. It'll be good to come back to a gospel for the next several years as an important reference and guide.

Seamas and David, I send out ministry updates; if you want to get them, let me know your maling address. If you don't want to write it on the blog site, just send it to me at soccer17g@hotmail.com, and I'll send you my letter.

God bless.
-Gus

Matthew

I prayed and really feel a peace about this as our next book. Begin reading tomorrow on the 13th. Love you guys.

history involving romans

Check out this link to John Piper's website. If you scroll down a little bit you will see see a section on "William Tyndale and Romans". I never knew that this book was kept from being translated and that when it was unleashed it had such an impact. Very interesting bit of history to read about...

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2005/211_Subjection_to_God_and_Subjection_to_the_State_Part_1/

I will let y'all know sometime tomorrow what the next book we'll be reading is since we switch over on the 13th.

Peace, Patrick

Oh, To be....

Gus, I have been hanging out in the 9,10,11 area. It talks about how the Jews through their disobedience pave the way for me, a gentile, to be reconciled to God. I find it so interesting. The Christian church has so often persecuted the Jewish population, yet, I find that I am envious of their heritage and knowledge of the promises/history. We are grafted in and by that mere fact, we miss so many little aspects of cultural meaning. We are now a people of the promise to make the "people" of God jealous. I started looking up a bunch of the cross references and so many were in the Deuteronomy. It made me want to know...
"I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.

They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding....

The LORD will judge his people
and have compassion on his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free."

Read the whope thing a great chapter... God will restore his people, us, both Jew and Gentile.

Encouragement Vision

Pat,

Don't loose sight of the word you preached at the our final crusade meeting. I didn't realize how good it was at the time, but that was some good word, brother. Just think about it; right now I hear all the stories of the sailors going to the strip bars in Singapore and how amazing these women are, or whatever. But imagine the headline, "Singapore strip clubs close due to lack of international economic stability". What if instead of the sailors stopping from port to port and preaching the word in stead of going to the bars. What if they said, "are you saved?", to the local prostitutes. The answer would probably not be, "yes", or "no". Rather, the answer would be, "what do you mean, 'saved'?" I didn't think it is possible; it is possible. God has ordained that we (primarily) abide by the laws of sowing and reaping; we sow the word of the Lord and reap the harvest as we see people come to Christ. It is possible, and we must be bold; kind yet bold. We have to have big dreams for we have a big God. Stay encouraged; and pray.
-Gus

Hey All

Jon, Jake, Patrick, Matt, Seamas, David ... and me;

I'm glad to be doing this together. Definately try to get on board with this ... it'll be good to review and pray over in 7 years.

SONG
So, I decided to write 16 songs, one for every chapter of romans that I was reading for the last 16 days. Don't be fooled, the songs were quite bad. A couple were rap, you would appreciate that, Jake. And they were only lyrics, no actual music yet, except what was in my head. And I got up to chapter 6; and then it so happened that i lost my journal; yeah, major bummer. And so, I didn't write the rest of the songs; could have been a good thing. But, I thought you might appreciate that story.

ROMANS
General thoughts:
There is so much that I could write, people have written millions of books and sermons on these words. And here we are trying to tackle it; good stuff. yes, we will definatley have to come back to it, that is why I thought it would be a good book. Every overall review period, we come back here, and many other scriptures will lead us back here too.

Rom 8:11:
"And if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you." David, was it you talking about being raised again in the flesh? I think that this is such an important topic. Earlier, Paul talks about the hope we have in christ; we hope in heaven, that is true, but what is our depiction of heaven. What image does our mind conjure when we think on eternity? This has become more and more real to me, I think that many christians (and most people who profess the religion) will claim to believe in heaven. Even some would believe in heaven much more than hell. But what is the description; I do not think that it is so ethereal as I use to believe it was. I think that it is real, tangible, bodily ... being raised in the flesh. Just as Christ was raised, so will we be raised. Just as adam was before sin, is how we will be; in a glorified bodied living as eternal beings without the pervision called sin which leads to death. The implications of the so often used verse, "the wages of sin are death" are so much greater than we know. That verse is so often used at surface level. I think Paul is saying, "the reason we die is sin. Death is a direct fruit, a direct product of sin. No sin, no death. We do not know a world without death, and so it is easy to blame death on other logical things, because death is inevitable. But the spiritual poison causing death is sin, and we also do not know a world without sin. The corpse, the funeral, the black plague, the murders ... with the cancer patients , the starving, the war casualties, the aborted babies along with the elders and grand parents all perish because of the same root: sin. Living proof of the undeniable connection between the spiritual world and the physical world that we see. The life we will live after being raised in glorified bodies will too depict a physical life submissive to the authority of the spiritual; only now we are submissive completely and wholey to a life of eternal obedience apart from sin. I think these thoughts run deeper than what I know. I get my boxers in a bind trying to think about them.

Rom 7:21
"So I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me". I can't rephrase this in any way other than how paul says it here. It is so true, and it rings in accord with so much of how I feel. I desire obedience, yet I daily disobey. It is the romans 7 syndrome. why do I do, what I do not want to do and so persist in doing so. Pardon my emotion words here, but my general reaction to this is as follows: [I desire obedience, I struggle, and I disobey ... on thinking back of the sinful actions/thoughts and feel the emotions of helplessness and relentless rejection to God's spirit who actually lives in me, I can't help but look down and shake my head with deep breaths and muffled grunts as a whispery "damit Gus" crosses my breath. "when ... when, when will I stop this and turn towards obedience?" And then I pick my self back up and press on towards the next battle that will soon take place.] This reoccuring situation proves to me the reality of Rom 7:21

Rom 6:13
"And do not offer any parts of [your mortal body] to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness"
I want to mediatate here on the use of the word weapon. Paul says that we can use the parts of our mortal bodies as weapons either for righteousness or unrighteousness. What exactly does he mean? Hmm? {thinking} ... ... ... well, if there truly is a battle taking place all around us that we do not see, because it deals with that which is spiritual and only manifests itself in physical form as for instance, evil (greed envy and so on) or good (true forgiveness patience and so on) then we can discipline our bodies to be servants for the Lord as a weapon for righteousness. I'm sure there could be quite a lot of examples here; train your fleet to run from images and places or unrighteousness; discipline your eyes to see people the way God intended them to see as opposed to the way we see them with our preconceived prejudices. Teach your arms and hands to do the Lords work: hugging those who are unloved, rebuilding that which is destroyed, and protecting those who need help. Teach your mouth and volcals to speak truthfully yet with kindess and to stay away from gossip. Good words on gossip, pat. Gossip is truly a swarm of locusts to the farmers' fields. And if your crop is eaten by the enemies locusts, train your body to keep from setting locusts upon their crop. And so on with all of the following ramifications of using our bodies as weapons of righteousness or unrighteousness, respectively.

Rom 11:25
So that you will not be conceited, brothers, I do not want to be unaware of this myster: a partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way, Israel will be saved
My impression of this verse, is, Paul is speaking of even today. He is speaking of the time of the end times, which has extended since Christ has returned. Maybe? He is talking about the time before Christ returned; right now, Jews are in opposition to that which we know is true, and they deny the signs and prophecies with fervor. Is this verse the prophecy of the current jewish response to the gospel?

CONCLUSION
I suppose that is it for tonight. I look forward to reading more posts. Pat, let us know what to study next month starting on the 13th. We will rotate through the seven of us on the site choosing which book to study; at least, that is how I figured we could do it.

Be encouraged.
-Gus

Patrick,
I love how in the Apostle's Creed it said originally "the resurrection of the flesh" not body. I got on a kick about the creeds recenty. I thought the wording was interesting... but as you said/Paul says we must die in the flesh. It is so exciting to know that it is resurrected in Christ.

Thanks for sharing Patrick. Hey, guys, when you post, it inspires me to reread passages. Don't be shy. I am the least qualified to post out of us, but I try and throw out my thought anyway. If I am just plain ignorant about something let me know. Y'all (I said it) push me to examine and think about passages differently.

Night Gents. 4am mornings...yay.

Death to Life

"For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him."
Romans 6:7-8

"Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life..."
Romans 6:13

To live I must die. To conquer the sin of my flesh, my flesh must die. It sure feels like dying, saying no to my flesh when it cries out once more me to satisfy it just like I did the last time. How can I ever consistently say no?

Life.

"Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him."

I must die and suffer my flesh to starvation, all the while trusting that Christ will rise in me with His life. My sole occupation is die to my flesh in faith. Christ will rise in me with new life just as He has promised.

Abram is made righteous

David, I spent a lot of time reading over the middle chapters of Romans about the law and was also struck by the fact that righteousness comes by faith. When Abram believed God it was counted to him as righteousness. Paul makes the point as he writes that Abraham's righteousness came before he was circumcised (if you read back in Genesis 15, you will notice that he is referred to as Abram at the point in time when he is accounted righteousness). This makes him the father not only of Jews but also of Gentiles. I like to view this is foreshadowing of salvation to the Gentiles thousands of years before Christ was born.

"just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works..."
Romans 4:6

Amazing to see someone from the Old Testament times who talks of salvation apart from works.

Chapters 3 and 4 of Romans really confronted where I am finding my own righteousness. After all, Romans 3:10b-11 says, "None is righteous, not, not one; no one understands; no one seeks after God."

That is my starting point with righteousness. Nothing.

"No distrust made [Abraham] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was 'counted to him as righteousness.' But the words 'it was counted to him' were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also..."
Romans 4:20-24

And here lies our final end-state with regard to righteousness.

"It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification."
Romans 4:24-25

Jesus. Our one and only source for righteousness. Our one constant and true source for security and value.

"Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. "

The character of God that so often remains untold: Kindness, oh yes. But severity? It is one of my favorite verses... third read through.