So, I have established that there are two truths about me. I have established that I am wretched and blessed at the same time. I am strong and weak, carnal and spiritual. And for most of my Christian life I have struggled to walk in a right fashion before my God to the best of my ability and had to fight the absolute shame of the “Depravity Called Me”.

I have fallen so much. I have attempted to “work out my salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). I have labored to “lay aside” all the crud that is in my heart (James 1:21) and the “sin that so easily ensnares me” (Hebrews 12:1). And like Paul, I have wanted to do the right thing but done the exact opposite – the very thing I didn’t want to do.

But God’s grace has made provision for me. I have finally resigned myself to the fact that it is God, Himself, who does the work. He provides the faith. He is truly in control!

Now for those of you who may read this who would argue the “God is in control” point, let me say that I realize we have a part to play in this. I used to say that “God is in control to the extent that we allow Him to be”. But even that is changing. I have learned from personal experience lately that if you give God an inch HE will make a mile out of it!

You see, God is the “author and the finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). He is the one who BEGAN a good work in me, and HE is the one who is able to COMPLETE/FINISH it (Philippians 1:6). He is the one who is able to KEEP me (John 17:11, 15 & Jude 1:24) from stumbling, from the evil one and all of this “through HIS name”! NOT mine. NOT my works. NOT my failures.

So when I’ve failed; when I’ve messed up royally and shame rolls upon me like waves on the shore, I have an anchor for my soul. It relies on the promise that God is not through with me. It tells me that (even though I’ve messed up) His grace is sufficient. His mercy is new for me each day. I wasn’t able to make myself righteous by all my hard labor. Jesus’ death on the cross was the only thing that made me righteous. HE IS THE PROVISION!

Be free.

Selah . . .

Sorry, but I probably won’t get to the “secret” today. Instead I’m feeling led to give another example from the scripture about my depravity, and face a doctrine that was instilled in me years ago about it. The scripture I’m talking about it Romans 7.

Romans 7:14-25
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!
NKJV

For many years now I have believed a “doctrine” that teaches that in this scripture, Paul is drawing a line between his “before Christ” experience and his “after being born again and filled with the Holy Spirit” experience. He was NOT describing himself in Romans 7 because he was no longer “sold under sin”. He was ransomed by the blood of the lamb. He was no longer “wretched”, but he was a “son of God – the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”.

Ok. I can believe that Paul was all the things this doctrine claims. But you know what? He STILL had his “thorn in the flesh”. He still talked about being an earthen vessel. He still talked about the day when he would be able to lay aside the body of the flesh. He still talked about having to put to death the things of the flesh. He still talked about having to take up your cross daily. He still . . . ..

I could go on with that, but why? It’s evident that even though we were purchased from darkness and translated to a kingdom of light, we still will have to crucify the flesh. We still will have to realize that, while we are here on this earth, we will have two ways of thinking – carnal and spiritual. We will live out lives in earthen vessels, and sometimes we will walk more “earthen” than “heavenly”.

Paul was talking about himself. Perhaps he was talking about BOTH time frames. I’m not sure. I just believe that he was saying that “in the now” there were times he truly wanted to do the right thing but ended up doing the wrong one.

What a source of encouragement to me that one as holy and honored as Paul also messed up, too! He described himself going through the same exact thing that I have to struggle with, and what a blessing to see what he was able to accomplish even with that truth – “The Depravity called ‘Paul’ ” staring him in the face.

So how is a guy supposed to handle this situation? How is it that we can look at this tug-of-war going on in our lives and come out the winner? How can I walk a day being pulled like that and stay sane?

GOD’S GRACE.

More to follow . . .

Interesting title, isn’t it? Kind of catchy? Kind of attention-getting?

Maybe. But FULL OF TRUTH.

There are two truths about me. The first truth is this:

I am a wretched man. I am weak, carnal, selfish, full of faults, very much un-lovable, a worm, undeserving of anything but the prize of hell itself. And the funny thing about it is that I am totally, one hundred percent unable to do anything at all about it.

Here is the second truth:

I am a blessed man. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am strong, well able,  spiritual,  full of God’s ability – being made perfect by and in Him, loved beyond understanding, a son of the Most High and heir to the prize, benefits and rewards of heaven itself. And the funny thing is that I didn’t do a thing to ever deserve that.

What separates these two truths is one thing: the death, burial and resurrection of my Lord and savior Jesus Christ. The only thing “I” did was accept it. All I could do is “receive” what He did on my behalf.

I have tried for most all my christian walk to make changes in my life that were wrong – things that indicted me as being in sin. So much of frustration and sorrow has come from that.

But I have discovered a truth that has changed all that. I have discovered a provision from God, Himself that makes me free from the frustration, sorrow, failure and despair that has been right in front of me all along – memorized and quoted, “claimed”, proclaimed, preached . . . . and yet never fully understood until recently.

What is this truth?

I hope to blog on that very soon!

Remember that story? Anyone who’s ever been in church for any amount of time has probably heard the story about the good Samaritan. But just in case . . . .

A certain man was on the way to Jericho from Jerusalem and thieves attacked him, stripped him naked, beat and wounded him and left him half dead on the side of the road. A preacher came by on the way to Jerusalem (probably heading to revival or something) and saw this man. Instead of helping he walked to the other side of the road to avoid him.

Later on a Levite (modern times we would call him a praise and worship leader) came by and saw him as well. He, also walked to the other side of the road to avoid him.

Finally, this normal guy – a Samaritan – came by and had compassion on him. He picked the naked man up, put him on his donkey and took him to a hotel in town. He nursed the man, treating his wounds and feeding him.

He, also, was apparently very busy. He couldn’t delay his schedule any longer, so he paid in advance to have the man taken care of out of his own pocket and went his own way.

Check this out:  Apparently the man who was attacked was a Jew. His own people not only didn’t help him, but went to extra effort to AVOID him. Why did they walk to the other side of the road?? Who knows?

But the Samaritan? Here was a man who knew that the Jews despised him because of his race. He wasn’t a Jew. It was a racial thing here. He knew that this man in the ditch was a Jew, and therefore that this man HATED him.

But he still helped him. He had compassion – and it welled up from deep inside him. Even though this man knew he was despised and hated by this wounded person he still helped. He knew that he would receive nothing for this act of kindness. He realized that there was even a chance that the man would curse him for even attempting to touch him! Yet he did it anyway.

How about us? How do we respond to people who (for no good reason) despise us? If anything, the Samaritan had a “right” to move to the other side of the road. It would be an “understandable” display of “you deserve this” . . .

But he didn’t. The very people who DECLARE that they are righteous are the ones who left him to die. Their act of avoidance was salt in the wounds. It was the same thing as beating him further. Murder.

We all have people in our lives who have hurt us. Some are still hurting us. Some people despise a person for the color of their skin, their religion, their appearance . . . the list could go on and on. But are we at a place in our lives where we would be moved with holy compassion for a person who hates us for no good reason?

What about Muslim extremists? What about racism? What about when the Mormons or Jehovah’s Witness comes to the door? What about  . . . . . ?

Hmmmmm . . .

For almost a month now I have been talking about this scripture. I couldn’t remember the chapter and verse, but I have told many people of how much I’ve pondered this lately:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and is desperately wicked. Who can know it?”

Paraphrased with strong’s meanings, it could be said like this:  “The heart (inner being, soul, thoughts, memories, feelings) is deceitful above anything else. It is desperately sick, weak and frail. Who can have real understanding of it?

As I picked up a new book yesterday, this scripture that I have been meditating on and “processing” was almost the first thing in the book! Perhaps God has been trying to tell me something?

Anyway, I realized that we are often told to “follow our heart”. But how dangerous is that? If the heart can deceive us more than anything else, why would we want to “follow” it? I know that I certainly don’t want to simply “follow my heart” anymore.

God’s word is vital to us. Another book I’m reading talks about how we seem to always find ourselves having to “choose” in the heat of a moment. This is dangerous because “in the heat of the moment” is full of pressure, emotions, doubts, etc. We need to have already chosen before we ever get to “the heat of the moment”.

In our kid’s klub church ministry we always repeat the same line at least once a week:  “We need to make the wise choice. And where do we go to find out what the wise choice is? The bible!”

I’m growing more aware than ever before that we need to have a clear understanding of God’s word more than ever before. His word is a lamp to our feet. It exposes what is coming up before we stumble (“the heat of the moment”) upon it. It shows us how we are to live and teaches us how to obtain and maintain the relationship with the Holy Spirit so that we won’t have to wait until that instant to choose. The choice was made before.

So, we must learn how to LEAD our heart instead of “just following” it. Because a decision made before is not based upon our feelings, emotions, past experiences, etc. It has been made upon the Word of God being rightly divided and understood through the power of the Holy Spirit as we walk in right relationship with Him.

I want to LEAD my heart by following THE SHEPHERD! “He leads me beside still waters.” “The steps of a righteous man are ordered by God”.

If I am choosing to allow God to lead me daily, I am choosing to lead my own heart to do so. And if I am doing so, I won’t find myself in many of the situations I have found myself in before – where I “followed my heart in the heat of the moment” to a place that wasn’t good.

Yep. Been there, done that. Got scars to prove it!

How about you?

Sandy and I got up at 5:30 this morning to go walking. We live in a sub-division that has a nice circle in it. Two laps is almost a full mile, and we try and do at least four laps when we walk.

We’ve agreed that the first lap should be for prayer and meditation. We simply walk in our own thoughts and talk about it later in the walk. This morning Sandy spoke out earlier than usual. She was thinking about how people in the days of old – during times of extreme persecution – could be so firm in their faith/religion. She wondered if it could be that they actually BELIEVED their religious tenets more than we do today.

It got me to thinking about how easily we are “swayed to and fro with every wind of doctrine”. How easily we are “ensnared”. How easily we go from being “full of love” to “full of anger and hatred”.

Think about it:  in the Roman empire, Christians were put in the field and lions were released upon them. If it was at night, many times their children were skewered on long poles and lit a-fire to provide light. And what did they do? They fell on their knees and prayed – giving praise to God, thanking Him that they were about to be seen as worthy to die for Him.

Think of Steven. As stones were flying upon him – slashing his skin and fracturing his skull – he prayed FOR the people who were killing him out of pure hatred because of his belief in Jesus instead of harboring bitterness and anger at the injustice of the moment.

Did these people WANT to die? I don’t think so. But they seriously had something going for them that we lack today. I go from “happy-go-lucky” to “cranky” at the drop of a circumstance.

So the question I pose is this: DO WE REALLY, TRULY BELIEVE what we say we have built our foundation upon? Are we actually living a life that displays the power and love of Christ?

Or should be say that “religion” used to be a set of beliefs that caused its followers to walk a certain way, and that “religion” is now a set of beliefs that people claim, but don’t follow?

Selah

I remember a story my little brother Fred told about when one of his kids was potty-training. He went in after the child “did his business” and it was a mess! He called the child back in and gently scolded him about the mess and the boy simply replied “You know what? I’m not going to worry about it!”

We’ve laughed about that story many times in my family. That statement has gone into the McKinnon Family Archives of Sayings that gets longer every year. But you know what? We can learn a HUGE lesson about this.

He knew that he may have messed up. He also knew that he would not be the one required to clean the mess up! In other words, there was nothing he could do about it now. It was done.

I hear a lot about what’s going on in the world today. Are we in the last days? Is Obama the anti-christ? Is national health care going to start a decline the in the health system of America?

So many concerns. So many fears. So much of a mess. Some of it I may have a vote on. Some of it I may not. I have so much in my life that I have made a mess of in the past. It’s done. I can’t change it now.

I realize that, (though my Father may have scolded me for it and told me to be more careful in the future, or not to do it anymore) I am not the one required to “clean up the mess”. That’s the “Father’s” job. HE, and only He is “capable” of cleaning up the mess.

I don’t have to concern myself with worrying and fretting about it. So you know what?

I’M NOT GOING TO WORRY ABOUT IT!

Good Day to all!

I’ve been thinking lately about how often we get hung up on “right and wrong”. There will always be right and wrong. We’ll never get away from that. But just how important is it? When you look at the big picture – the grand scheme of things – just how important is “right and wrong” when it comes to relationships?

Let me clarify for those who already have made their decisions based on “right and wrong”:  I’m not talking about the kinds of issues that determine a person’s eternal condition here. I’m talking about issues that range from whether it was a foul during the ball game,  whether he or she said something the right way or not, whether Adam had a belly-button or not or even about subjects like abortion, tongues, laying on of hands, women pastors/leaders, etc.

This is what I see:  one person gets into a “disagreement” with another about an issue and things get a little hot. Both of them may say something that isn’t “right”, and all the sudden there is a wedge in their relationship. It happens all the time.

Person “A” was 95% right. Person “B” was the same amount wrong. Person “A” is supposed to be “more mature” than person “B”. And yet he/she is more concerned with how the other person was wrong than about the 5% he/she was wrong in!

My wife has a saying that has stuck with me for quite some time now:  “Sometimes, a person has to take the blame in order to walk blameless.”

How often does the Lord sit upon the throne and say “Why won’t one of you simply ‘be the bigger person’ and own up to where YOU are wrong first?”

If I was only 5% wrong, how far will it take me and the person I am in relationship with if I take ownership of my 5% and make it right? Isn’t this like “laying one’s life down for a friend”? Isn’t this “esteeming the other as more important than myself”?

I’ve said it so many times:  We need to get over ourselves.

Getting so caught up in what/who’s “right” and what/who’s “wrong” seems to cause more trouble than help. It seems to me that it is an awful lot like the trouble brought about when Adam and Eve partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – (or could I say “right and wrong”?)

For an excellent blog entry from a friend of mine on this subject about the tree of knowledge . . . check out Ken Mullis at http://www.kenmullis.com/blog/2007/05/laying-ax-to-root.html

So what do YOU think?

Be blessed!

My wife and I have just started attending a small group at our church on marriage. We are going through a book entitled “His Needs – Her Needs” by Willard F Harley, Jr. .

This is an awesome book! The premise is that we need to identify what our spouse’s basic needs are and then to strive to meet those needs. He lists many of the most popular needs, but also tells us that everyone is different and unique. There are forms and questionnaires to fill out to determine these things.

When the men were asked what we would call some of our basic needs are, you can imagine what came out. Everybody knows what “need” comes up in the top two or three anyway. The women shared a few things, too.

Know the old saying “Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars”? Well how true it is! There is simply no way for a man to be able to understand how a woman feels. She’s simply built differently, and it’s as alien to us men as ours are alien to her.

So even when we do know what a woman’s need is, what does it look like? From what I’ve heard most of my life, and experienced myself . . .  is that “for the most part” a woman doesn’t want to have to tell her man how to do it. She wants him to know.

Let me make this clear. I’m not downing a woman for feeling this way. Like I said, they want us poor beggars to know. I guess I’m just plain dumb. I want  a map. I want step-by-step instructions. I want a manual to follow. (and I’m not downing us men, either!)

So . . . . what does it look like?

 So there you have it. I fear that we are quickly heading to a day when our free speech is taken from us. They’re trying it already. Where do you think this is heading??