A New Resource

Many of the resources which we have developed over the past years have hitherto unavailable, but now, through the magic of the internet, they are available!  The first resource we would like to highlight is a Bible Study for anyone wanting to know what it means to have confidence in Christ and how that translates into the confident life that the believer is meant to live, by the power of Jesus Christ:

Beasts of the Earth

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.  God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. 

Genesis 1:24-25 NASB

In looking at the many and varied creatures that crawl upon the land we see a God who is infinitely creative and given to remarkable detail.  The creatures that crawl upon the earth show such an amazing creativity that we struggle even to comprehend it.  These animals move in different ways, reproduce in different ways and survive in different ways.  Each unique creature has enough complexity to consume countless human lifetimes just to understand what God has provided these creatures in order to display the wonder of His magnificence.  A camel has a unique structure to hold water and to survive in harsh desert climates that would destroy most others.  A polar bear has entirely different set of provided biological equipment to survive in the frigid tundra.  Each of these creatures has shown itself to have purpose within the great and amazing context of the interconnected system of continuing life on planet earth.  Beauty, strength, speed and resourcefulness that surpasses human ability show themselves time and time again and remind us of the amazing Creator who loves and cares for us.  Yet, it is man alone whom God created to live in a special and unique relationship with Him.  All of these amazing creatures, in all of their great variety, are a vivid testament to God’s power and limitless intelligence.  It is this God who desires to be in an active relationship with every human being, and in spite of the myriads of human failures God makes Himself readily available to us through Jesus Christ, His Son.

Love is...

Tonight was beautiful. Tonight we shared a meal with our brothers and sisters at Holly Hills. It's cold here in Denver. It was so very fun to pile into the van and drive through the winter weather listening to the 24 hr Christmas music station and park our car in the church parking lot. We all shuffled in and played a game with the group. The kids played together in the Sunday School rooms and someone was kind enough to bring some folks along who were willing to watch the kids so the parents could have the evening to talk with grown-ups.

One generous family catered the party beautifully. The food was delicious and it was just so quaint. The tables were arranged beautifully and there was nice silverware and linen napkins. Delicious foods and cheesecake for desert. It smelled of family. Laughter and love filled the air. After a game and dinner we had a message from one of the beloved brothers of our congregation. He is such a wonderful teacher and we were so very blessed to be able to behold the Lord through Randy's teaching. Who could think that the "hypostatic union" (the doctrine that teaches Christ's simultaneous deity and humanity) could be so practical, and wonderful. We sang some Christmas songs and had a "white elephant" gift exchange.

Generally, I find gift exchanges to be painful and long. Given the fact that there were more than 60 people there I was concerns. There was so much laughter, so many jokes told. So many great stories shared. Gifts that kept coming back for year after year of "re-gifting" seemed to take on a life of their own. I also never thought I would see so many people so excited over a rubber chicken. But then, that's what makes it so silly and fun. One more song and off we went home. What a blessing.

The kids were pooped so we hustled off home and put them to bed. Cadence needed some extra snuggling and I was happy to give it. Truthfully, I love the long bedtime procedure we have put together and I love rocking and snuggling, cuddling, book reading and seeing her sweet self drift off into a careless sleep. I love doing things and spending time with people that make me want to love my family more. Things that fill, things that replenish, things that bless, things that point us towards Jesus.

Perhaps a meandering account, but even still...a beautiful evening!

A Free Gift

Romans 6:23 tells us: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." This verse gets used when explaining salvation to people all of the time. After this verse is brought out we follow the usual steps through how we have a choice to either put our faith in Jesus and recieve the full life which he gives (John 10:10) or we can reject Jesus and face the judgement of eternal separation from Him (Revelation 20:15). While this is true, it is not actually what Paul is thinking about when He wrote the verse. (Note: I am not saying it is wrong to use this verse when explaining salvation. I am merely saying that the context points to a more direct application.)

Romans 6 isn't addressing non-believers telling them why they should come to Christ, here the Holy Spirit is addressing people who have already put their faith in Jesus, been identified in him in His death, burial and ressurrection. So what is this death that can be reaped by someone who is already saved? Is our salvation in question? Is our hope of eternal life to be dimmed by the chance that we may be reaping death for our actions constantly? No.

This chapter is telling us about the Christian life in very exciting terms. We are given the piciture in Romans 6 that the believer has two choices. We have been freed from the power of the Sin Nature that ruled us, and now we can present ourselves to God or to Sin. What happens if we present ourselves to sin? Sin pays wages!

Wages are earned. If someone recieves wages it is because he worked for them. After a week of work the employee doesn't have to beg for his wages, and then thank the benevolence of His employer for paying him. He earned the money and it was payed to Him. So what are the wages that we recieve for living as slaves to sin? Death.

Death in scripture is a powerful and complicated word. Death doesn't just mean physical death in Scripture. Death means separation. When Adam and Eve at the apple they were told that they would die on the day that they ate of it...yet they didn't physically die on that day. On that day they did die spiritually: they were separated from God. This rings true with what Jesus would say later in the true Lord's Prayer: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." (John 17:3) So, when the believer presents himself to his Sin Nature to obey it the results (wages) are separation from God. Though that believer is still saved by the work of God, because of His faith in Christ Jesus, He is out of fellowship. The thing that is needful in this situation is confession and repentance (1 John 1:9). This, however, is not the main thrust of what I hoped to address in this posting.

There is more great news yet here. The natural conclusion that we are bound to make from looking at, and understanding, Romans 6:23 in context is to say something to the effect of: "OK, I get it sin means death. So, I'm going to try super hard not to ever sin again and then I won't get death! Then I will earn life!" The trouble with this logic is that you can only earn one thing in this verse. If you want to earn something you have only death to choose from. If you want life (again, this is talking about the christian life, NOT salvation) we must accept it as a free gift from Jesus Christ. We must believe that real life only comes from him and recieve it! Trusting in Jesus fully is the way to be saved (we don't contribute even .0000001 percent of the process), living the Christian life successfully is trusting in what He has done and is doing (again, we don't contribute even .0000001 percent of the process). That's bad news for legalists, but GREAT news for Christians!