JamieJeanzz

I hear so many people use the phrase "Christian Duty" as an explanation for why they do something morally right when they really don't WANT to do it. Things such as: lending money, helping out a person in need, volunteering service in the church, etc. The Catholic church would call these things "works" which, by their belief, are necessary for salvation. The Bible as well will call these "works" but define them as a RESULT of Salvation. (ie. when you are ALREADY saved, one result of your transformation is a heart that WANTS to do these things) Now because the Bible would consider GOOD works, acts that come from a pure heart.... than acts that come from a resenting heart (ie. anything you explain away as doing out of your "Christian Duty") are works that will be tested and burned up (1 Cor 3:13)

...each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.

So if "good works" aren't our "Christian Duty"... than what is? Well for one i would like to redefine "Christian Duty" as something that God commands us to do in His word. This would be our "Duty" to do it, even though we may not feel gifted in that particular area, or we're scared, or lazy, or whatever it may be, we do it in OBEDIENCE to our God and to give Him glory.
There are many areas throughout the Bible where God instructs us on our duties (responsibilities) as Christians. The specific area i'm going to write about today, is a duty that i see neglected and abused throughout many Christian lives today.

Rebuke
in Luke 17:3 Jesus says, "Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.
Rebuke, epitimao in the greek, means to (big surprise here..) REBUKE... to chastise, admonish and reprove.

1 Timothy says to "not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father"

so we are to rebuke our brothers who live in sin, with RESPECT and LOVE and most importantly HUMILITY. It is SO easy to feel prideful when discussing anothers weaknesses, but we need to be absent of all self pride. The goal of rebuke isn't to belittle your brother, but to help encourage him to restore his relationship with God.

So i guess the question now is Who Is Your Brother?
You would think the answer to this question is obvious, a brother is a brother in Christ, another Christian... not EVERYONE... but to help clarify this, we're going to look at one of my favorite passages in the Bible. 1 Cor 5: 9-13

"(9)I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; (10) I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or of the covetous or swindlers or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of this world. (11) But actually, I worte to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler -- not even to eat with such a one. (12) For what have I got to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are in the church? (13) But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOU."

Paul says not to judge those people of the world. Don't judge people of other religions, homosexuals, murderers, thiefs, liars or any other man living in sin if he does not claim to be a Christian. Our job, our duty, our responsibility, is to judge those inside the church who claim to be Christians but who swandle their lifes in sin. To rebuke them with love and scripture... and if he does not repent, you remove him from among you.

This is NOT a cut and dry area in the sense that if you rebuke a brother, and he repents, but then stumbles again... you just throw him out. Help and Support your family if they are struggling! You're to throw out the man who doesn't want to repent of his sin. Who would rather live in their sin, than to live in a closer relationship with God and glorifying Him in their life.

Earlier i mentioned that Rebuke is often Neglected or Abused
what i meant by this is that many people will abuse the responsibility of rebuking our brothers by rebuking in self pride those who they don't like, or taking it that step further and rebuking those people of the world, who aren't ours to judge! But even worse, this responsibility is more often than not, neglected. Many people see their brothers living in sin, and brush it away by saying:

"its okay we all have our problems" yes, we do all have problems, but NO it is NOT okay!!

"God forgives us though" Gods grace has covered our sins, but that doesn't mean we should take advantage of that. He died for EVERY sin that you commit!!! If you think that gives you free reign to just keep on sinning, than i think i may doubt whether or not you really love God.

"Their my friend though, I don't want them to get mad at me"
"They're older than me, i don't want to come across as disrespectful"
for both of these, i can sympathize with to a point... it can be tough to confront your friends, family members, people you don't know very well, some one older than you, or whatever it may be.... but like i said before.. it is to be done in respect and humility, and you're doing it to encourage a better relationship with God, and not for yourself.

i want to encourage everyone to step up and follow God's instruction. Lean on God when you feel discouraged, and ask for boldness and courage to bring glory to His name!! <3

Okay so I'm trying something a little different this week... I'm not writing a lesson as i did last week, and i'm not discussing any specific topics like i have in the past... This week I'm gonna talk about myself =P (i know "when don't i?" right) but really, i'm going to talk about why it is that i write, and the burden that God has placed on my heart to teach others. I'm going to start it off with two quotes:

"What I am saying is that when we present a shallow gospel, we don't prevent the elect from getting saved; we make people think they're saved who aren't. That is the Issue." -John MacArthur

(i'm going to avoid getting into some hardcore doctrine here just to keep this discussion simple and on topic) when we give people a bad presentation of Jesus and who He is.... are worry isn't (or shouldn't be) that we may be preventing someone from being saved.... but they we may be allowing someone to think they're saved who really isn't.

"American Christianity is a mile wide and one inch thick"

basically many "claim" Christianity... but few know what it means and actually live it. How many people were taught something like this:

"We're all sinners and do bad things so God sent His son to earth to die for all our sins so that we can go to heaven, and if you just pray and ask God to live in your heart than you can go to heaven too."

THAT is a shallow gospel! THAT allows people to think they're saved when they really aren't! and THAT is what kills me!

NUMBERS

so lets look at the numbers in America: 96% of American's believe in God. 81% of americans consider themselves Christians. More than a QUARTER of the united states proffesses and evangelical conversion experiance. (ie. they believe they have been saved by faith and not baptism or confirmation or anything else) but are they ALL really saved? did Jesus not say "narrow is the path to rightousness but wide to the gate of destruction" ?

Well lets expand from just america.... lets look at the whole world. 3/4 of the world (75%) claim to not be Christian. Of the 25% of the world left that DO claim to be Christian, approximately 30% of them are "nominal" Christians... meaning Christians by name only... but not by their life styles. This leaves 5% of the world as "authentic" Christians. Now how many that 5% actually live in America? i don't feel liek trying to figure out those numbers.... but heres something to think about... the United States is the largest mission field in the Western hemisphere. Meaning people come HERE from other countries to share God with us.... more than any other country in the west.
That begins to put things into perspective huh?

PERSONALLY

so we've looked at the numbers and percentages and so on... but what does this mean to the individual? And why do I care about it so much? well.... because i run into people everyday... at school, in my neighborhood, in my house, in my family and even in my church... who all THINK they're saved because they've been told that they are.
Because they "asked Jesus into their heart".  (This is GREAT.... if you meant it....) Because they go to church every week. They've been baptised. They have read the Bible. They believe in Gods (existence). Maybe they even believe that the Bible is truth.... BUT THEY HAVE NO PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST!
They're prayer life is weak... if it even exists. They read the Bible (if they read it at all) out of routene and not passion. There love for God is in their mind, and not their hearts.
Maybe they live a "good Christian life" ...they go to church, read the Bible, pray before meals. They don't cus, gossip, drink or smoke. They talk about God and defend their faith.... but they do it all because thats what they think they're supposed to do. They think that it is those actions that make them a CHRISTIAN.... but their relationship with Christ is missing.
Then there are the people who truly believe they're saved because they "believe in God",and were "saved" when they were kids.  They may or may not go to church, and they may or may not read their Bibles. But they live a worldy lifestyle. Adults tend to cus, smoke, drink, party, gossip, fight... and live like every other person in the world, giving the excuse that "no bodys perfect" "we all have problems" "people at church are hypocrits" and "God forgives right?"

i would say that probably 95% of people who claim to be Christian today... fall into one of these two categories.

ME
I don't judge these people. Call them liars or fools.... but i hurt for them. I have a painful concern for the people of this world who think they are Children of God... but are truly lost. It hurts me so much that these people all THINK they're going to heaven... but when they make it to face our Lord i think they will fall into those Christ mentions in Matt 7:22  "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS"

YOU
The issue is though, that although i'm writing this for the world to see, and although i have many readers who fall into this discription.... the people who aren't saved... are the same people who will read this and NOT EVEN KNOW THAT ITS ABOUT THEM. And its those of you who ARE saved... who will examine your lives to see where you measure up according to Gods standards. You will see how much you've failed... and will be encouraged to live a life more glorifying to Him. Because you know what God has asked of you:

"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you--unless indeed you fail the test?"

So it's taken me DAYS to decide what i want to write about. I've started three completely different topics and then deleted them all... for... well i don't know why, So i'm hoping i'll stick with this one. So guess what...? I'm starting with QUESTIONS again!!

1. Whats the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
2. Whats the last thing you do before you sleep at night?
3. What do you spend the most time in during the day?

The most common answers for number three are as follows:

• School or Work
• computer/television/games
• socializing
• traveling (driving)
• sleeping
• reading books, cooking dinner, cleaning house, spending time with kids, etc

Alright, we'll talk about those a bit later, right now, we're gonna go to the Bible =D
Romans 1 beginning in verse 18 - 20:

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness ad unrightousness of men who supress the ruth in unrightousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His etenal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse"

normally with my 8 year olds, i would explain these verses to them to make sure they understand what it is saying, but Paul is pretty clear here; God made his presence (and divine power) known in the heart of EVERY MAN so that they are without excuse. Pretty clear.
Lets move on...

"For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures...For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Romans 1:21-23,25

So these verses here cover A LOT of different circumstances. Today it refers in a lot of ways to acclaimed athiests or evolutionists "professing to be wise, they became fools" and "For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie" 
Also, one old testament story that comes to mind is the Israelites and the golden calf in Exodus 32.

 A breif summary of everything that has happened thus far in Exodus... the Israelistes have witnessed Gods plagues upon Egypt (exod 7-10), their firstborns saved during passover (exod 12), Rescue from egyptian slavery and the parting of the Red Sea (13-15) Bitter water made sweet (15:23-27), Manna from heaven (16:1-36), the delivering of the Ten Commandments (20:1-26)... and SOO much more

and after witnessing first hand the mighty power of God, what do the Israelites do? "Then all the people tore off the gold rngs whichwere in their ears and brought them t o Aaron He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt."

after all they saw God do, and just days after recieving the commandment to NOT make for themselves an idol... what do they do but betray Him.


WHERE AM I GOING WITH THIS?

well, doesn't this sound familia from Romans? "exchanged the glory of the incorrupitble God for an image in the form of a corruptible...four-footed animal" "..and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator"

Now I'm human, and i know as we read the Bible... we tend to look at the israelites, especially in a situation like this, and think "they had it easier, they had God right there in their presence" "If i were able to see first hand the power of God, i would NEVER question it." and of course.... we would never make for ourslves idols, right?

But the truth is, we have it BETTER than the Israelites! We have the ENTIRE Bible!!!! We have God's entire revelation to man, we have His prophecys, His fulfilments, His instructions.... and yet... look at that list you made of how you spend your time throughout the day? YOUR personal IDOLS!

DUN DUN DUN!!
how much time do we spend with God in prayer and in His word, compared to EVERYTHING else we do throughout the day??? OBVIOUSLY we have other things we need to do, i'm not telling you to forsake your families and quit your jobs to spend more time with God... but how much time do we spend doing frivolous things when we COULD be spending time with God...

and how often do we HONESTLY give God glory in all that we do? (Whether, then, you eat or drnk or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" 1 Cor 10:31) When we are at work or school, do we work to Gods glory, or for our own? Do our conversations, the books we read, tv shows we watch, or websites we spend time on... glorify God? Or are they done to entertain OURSELVES? And do we THANK God for all that comes our way throughout the day? "For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him or give thanks"


are we really that much better than the Israelites, who made for themselves and Idol, when we make ourselves idols?

It has taken me awhile to decide how i want to open this one, and i think i finally have; with a simple question:

Are You A Christian?
if you have answered yes to this, proceed to the next questions, if no, feel free to continue reading anyway =)

• do you believe that all good people go to heaven?
• do you believe that anyone who believes that God exists goes to heaven?
• do you believe that the Bible was written by man, therefore contains errors.
• do you believe the Bible is open for interpretation?
• do you believe the earth took longer than 7 days to create?
• do you believe you become an angel when you die?
• do you believe the miricles of the bible are all just stories or can be explained by science?

is you have answered yes to any of these than you are either sadly misinformed due to lack of actually reading your Bible, or you have forsaken the God of the Bible and created your own God that better fits your needs (sorry to say, but your God isn't real, therefore He's not going to save you from Hell)

i know it sounds harsh, but what else do you call it when people claim to believe in God, but not the Bible? Or worse, they only believe in parts of the Bible that best suit their lives, or only believe in the parts that "make sense". When you say you don't believe something the bible says, you're calling God a liar!

i think where we need to begin is the most well-known verse in the world, and also the most taken-out-of-context verse in the world.
John 3:16 "For god so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that who so ever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
oooo how i love my concordance!!! =D  to BELIEVE means (in the greek.. which is the language Jesus was speaking in when He said this) is to entrust or commit.
NEVER does it say you just need to believe that He existed and died and so on... but that  those who : "COMMIT TO Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."

What does it look like to COMMIT your life to God? Your life is to now centered around giving God glory, and doing what is pleasing to Him. NOone and NOthing are more important than Him. And you live your life so that EVERYONE who sees you, knows that.

So only two points i havn't covered yet by that statement are:

• do you believe that the Bible was written by man, therefore contains errors.
• do you believe the Bible is open for interpretation?

which are both addressed in 2 Peter 1:20-21 "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation,for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. "

personally i think this verse is pretty clear.... scripture wasn't written by man but by Gods will... and it isn't up for interpretation. Don't you see how amazing it is that every thing we can possible come up with to try and slander God, He has already given a defense for thousands of years before you ever even thought of it? God IS amazing!

Man does NOT interpret the Bible... rather, the Bible interprets itself.

Alright so time to talk about submission to husbands!!!! =D I'm really going to try to make this one shorter cause i think the length of the last one scared people away!! =P Not that i care about offending people with the truth, but just if anyone questions why I am not talking about the man's responsibility to their wives, it is because i would like to direct my teaching towards woman, and the few men that i do ask to read, i ask for accountability purposes ( i want my teaching to be God's truth) and not to teach them. Though if i had to say one thing about a mans responsibilty to their wife, it would simply be that they are to love her as Christ loved the church. Along with that though, woman if your husbands do not treat you in this way, that does not mean that your responsibility to your husband has now been retracted. Do NOT use that as an excuse to not be the wife that God calls you to be!

So Wives: You need to be submissive to your husband! (Wives, be submissive to your own husband, as to the Lord. Eph 5:22 ) Your need to Submit to his authority, you need to Serve him, you need to Satisfy him, and you need to put your Self below him.

The greek word for Submission in accordance to your husband is hupotasso, which means: to subordinate, to obey, to put yourself under.

Your husband is the leader of your family and God has put him above you and your children. Christ has modeled our familys in His relationship with the Church. Just as you need to be submissive to God as the ruler of your lives, you need to model that submission in your marriage.

WHAT THIS MEANS: It drives me crazy to watch tv shows where woman are doing things behind their husbands backs, complaining about their husbands, embarrassing him or talking down to him. And we LAUGH at it??? And turn around and do it ourselves!! Where is the respect?!?! How can you EVER expect your children to respect you and your husband, if you don't respect each other? How can you expect your children to grow up and be respectful to their spouse, if you don't model that for them now? How prideful and selfish do you have to be to not deney yourself before the person you are to love the most!!!

"If the world is going to see Christ in us, we must first let Christ in ourselves"

If you can't submitt to your husband, how can you proclaim to be submissive to the Lord? When you disrespect your husband you have ruined your testimony, and have become a hypocrite in the eyes of the world!

So many Christians complain about how homosexuals, adulterers, etc...,  are an abomination to God.... guess what!!!! They aren't the only ones! 

" admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,to be.... obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed"  Titus 2:4-5

Blasphemed- blasphemeo: to defame or speak evil of...

To disobey your husband, is to blaspheme the name of the Lord! It kills me to see people who clame to love my God, treat Him with such casual disrespect.

i just truly hope that everyone who reads this will be more motivated to glorify their God in all that they do, including through their marriage. Your marriage can be such a beautiful testimony to the love of God, i pray that you all will want to model that love to the world. If you look at how you treat your husband, as your way of thanking God for giving him to you... i truly believe that god will be glorified =D

okay so this is one of those "book ideas" i've had floating around in my head for awhile that was suddenly brought to the front of my mind today while reading comments from friends on facebook. Three (cause thats the only amount that i can come up with atm) ideas the world promotes that Christianity discourages. Well no.... Christianity doesn't discourage it, God does.... and He does more than discourage it, He tells you it's wrong. It's Sin. So what do i call it... "Three (or whatever number i come up with) Sins the World Promotes" ? Maybe.... hmm...Well anyway, these are the three i have on my mind today:

1. Wives not being submissive to husbands
2. Parents holding their children above their spouse
3. This whole idea of self-esteem and Self Pride

I'm just going to talk about the third one for today, cause it's the one that is bothering me the most at the moment. I remember taking "Psychology of Human Relationships" my second semester of college (the class was horrible please don't ever take it) and the teacher doing an entire unit on self-esteem.The teachers idea of how we needed to view ourselves and our other loved ones was this:

1. ourselves
2. our children
3. our spouse
4. friends and family

i guess if i take this road with the topic... it may even cover a little bit of  Ways 1 and 2. But I'm going to blatantly tell you the order that God wants our love to go in.... give some verses to support it... and then vent some more on the irrational stupidity of self esteem =P

Gods Order of Our Love Distribution
1. God










2. Your Husband/ Wife
3. Your children (household)
4. Church - Neighbor

My support for all of this can be wrapped up in one verse: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27
Although it is a short verse, notice the time and emphasis put on your love for God compared to the love you are to have for others. As to who is your Neighbor? Well, Jesus answers that in the rest of the chapter, giving the story of the Good Samaritan (I'm not going to go through this entire story as i don't want to side track further than i already have from the original topic, but i will encourage you to read it yourself in Luke 10,www.biblegateway.com/passage/) through this we can infer that your neighbor is... well.. everyone =P family, friends, acquaintances, and enemies. ANYWAYS this is not the topic....  so...

support for why God is not only first.... but, a billion enter buttons above the rest. "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. " Luke 14:26  Jesus is not asking us to hate our familys, but to love Him  SOOOOO much.... that our love for others looks like hate in comparison. And right there within that verse, Jesus exemplifies what our order of love should be: God First, than father and mother (if you are not married), Wife, Children, brothers and sisters, self.  <---- self was listed last. just in case you didn't notice =P

So i'll touch more on the order of family..... when i decide to write about the first two topics (submission to husband, spouse before children) right now i REALLY need to direct the focus back onto the topic of self esteem.... and the two verses that continually come to mind when i think of people who love themselves are the one above (Luke 14:26) Where God tells you that you need to love Him SOOOOO much... that your love for yourself looks like HATE! And of course Luke 9:23 "And He was saying to them all, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me." i repeat HE MUST DENY HIMSELF.... what does it look like to deny? Well, what are things people tend to deny? Cheating, Lieing, making mistakes..... stuff we're ashamed of!!! So why are we not ashamed of ourselves before God? Why are we not willing to deny who we are, in all our sin, and live to make God happy instead of trying to find fruitless ways of making ourselves happy?
*opens up strongs exhaustive concordance* for those of you who don't know what a concordance is, it is a great tool if you know how to use it,  it truly helps you understand the Bible in it's original text, giving you the meaning of words in greek, latin, and hebrew....

unfortunately i don't really know how to use it that well =/ but here we go anyway.... the word "deny":
so in Luke 9:23 the word Deny, in the greek, aparneomai, means to deny utterly, to disown or abstain. wow... so there you go... to DISOWN yourself!!!

and here we are listening to the commercialized views of the world constantly telling us to:

"believe in yourself" [[rather than believing in God... because i'm sure you can raise from the dead too, can't you?]]
"love yourself BEFORE you love another" [[ Just think were we'd be if God loved Himself more than He loved us?]]
"be the best you that you can be" [[sorry to tell you... but the best you that you can be... isn't gonna be that great... instead let God make you into who He wants you to be]]
"you deserve to be loved by you" [[ you deserve nothing more than death... sorry]]
"how can you expect anyone else to love you if you don't love yourself?" [[And yet... God loved you before you were even born]]
"if you don't run your own life, somebody else will" [[ i actually find comfort in this one... because I know that i don't run my own life, God runs it for me]]

So in Conclusion...

i want to encourage everyone to Deny themselves and seek after God (Luke 9 23) and to no longer live for themselves, but to allow Christ to live in them (Gal 2:20) don't love who you are in all your sin... love God, allow him to remake you in his image, and then love Him more for making you who you are!!
let go of your pride, and the idea of loving the person you are, or becomming someone you love.... and instead love who God made you.. and praise Him for that, not yourself!