Do you Grieve or do you Justify? (3 of 17)

What it do ya!

My last two blog entries have been long… I’m gonna try to keep this one short, no promises though
Ponder on this:

“What a strange kind of salvation do they desire that care not for holiness… They would be saved by Christ and yet be out of Christ in a fleshly state… They would have their sins forgiven, not that they may walk with God in love, in time to come, but that they may practice their enmity against Him without any fear of punishment.”

This quest for holiness is serious business, a difficult journey to say the least…  Trig and I were discussing this very thing yesterday.  As a Puerto Rican pappi chulo, I have the ladies throwing themselves at me left and right… okay, well, not exactly… I’ve gained a few pounds since I last rocked them stages… blame the wifie’s cooking or lack of but, in all seriousness, as a man sexual purity can be an uphill battle.   Even in our most focused moments the females have this, I dunno, voo doo power (sorry ladies – I’m being facetious)… and we crumble!

I know, I know… for you theological buffs out there, God does not allow us to b tempted outside of what we can handle… nonetheless it is DIFFICULT!  …and that’s probably an understatement!

God calls us to be “holy and blameless in his sight” (Eph. 1:4).  Jerry Bridges makes a great observation, “To continue to live in sin as a Christian is to go contrary to God’s very purpose for our salvation.”

So even in the midst of those moments  where sins seems like the only way out, we have to ask ourselves, will this behavior be contrary to God’s very purpose in our salvation?

Here is the million dollar question (you know you’re not gonna get a million dollars, right?) …in your journey of faith, are you serious about holiness?  Do we GRIEVE over our sins, or are we simply JUSTIFYING them? …I believe that defines our pursuit for holiness.

Here is another great observation by Jerry Bridges, “If we know nothing of holiness, we may flatter ourselves that we are Christians but we do not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.”

Hmmm…. that’s something to chew on…

“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14

Grace & Peace

This blog entry are some of my thoughts from reading Chapter 3 of “The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges

Life SUCKS, I blame you GOD! (2 of 17)

The times are harsh.  I am stuck in what seems to be the grimmest of days.  Even my brightest of moments are just flashes of lighting in this turbulent storm.  I don’t even see the sunshine at the end of this pathetic tunnel we call life, and to think it was GOD who granted me this breath.  I blame you GOD…

Ever felt this way?  Ever thought God was playing favorites and didn’t pick you for a “blessing?”  Ever thought he was unfair because things just didn’t turn out the way you expected them to?

Consider this quote:

“It is less injury to Him to deny His being, than to deny the purity of it; the one makes Him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God… he that saith God is not holy speak much worse than he that saith there is no God at all.” – Stephen Charnock

Man do I ever think twice now at the thought of even questioning God’s decisions in my life.

We often forget that God is HOLY, free from evil and HATES sin!  It is against the very nature of GOD to be unfair.  Jerry Bridges explains it well, “the holiness of God also includes His perfect conformity to His own divine character.  That is, all of His thoughts and actions are consistent with His holy character.”

Mr. Bridges asks us to imagine that God possessed infinite power, a perfect and complete knowledge, ever present but did not have a perfect holiness… I would agree with Jerry that I could no longer describe Him as God.

He goes on to say, “Holiness is the perfection of all His other attributes: His power is holy power; His mercy is holy mercy; His wisdom his holy wisdom.  It is His holiness more than any other attribute that makes Him worthy of our praise.”

I couldn’t agree more.

So where is the application?  Well, God calls us to walk in His holiness, “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Ironically, I read a tweet from Bert of Rap Fest Inc. this morning where he quotes a line from one of Brother E’s songs… “we aint sinless, we just SIN LESS.”  Before my read this morning I was thinking about that.  It’s a clever line, and it’s true… but even though we are sinning less, we are none the less still sinning (and yes, yes, we are bound to the flesh and will continue to) but that sin is still something that God HATES!  Every time we lie, cheat, steal… we are doing something that God completely HATES!

My challenge is not to walk in perfection, but to not become so accustomed to our sin that we feel at peace with them.  That’s scary!

Jerry Bridges says it best:

“We need to cultivate in our own hearts the same hatred of sin God has.  Hatred of sin as sin, not just as something disquieting or defeating to ourselves, but as DISPLEASING to God, lies at the root of all true holiness.  We must cultivate the attitude of Joseph, who said when he was tempted, ‘How then could I do such a wicked thing and SIN AGAINST GOD?” (Gen. 39:9)

I pray our hearts break every time we offend God.  All things happen according to His good and perfect will.

Grace & Peace

This blog entry are some of my thoughts from reading Chapter 2 of “The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges.

Your Self-Righteousness Sickens Me! (1 of 17)

At times I feel like society is a few sins away from becoming a modern version of Sodom and Gomorrah, if we’re not already.  I mean, just watch the news.  As a nation we have legalized the murder of innocent babies, states are slowly giving into the demand of the homosexual community and destroying the sanctity of marriage, teens are SEXTING (don’t ask), the internet has become the perversion PORN highway of the world, our economy is self destructing right before our eyes because of our greed, etc. etc. etc…  What saddens me most is that my sentiments are not describing the actions of the folks that DO NOT know Christ, but the very people that make up the BODY of CHRIST.

Christians are compromising left and right for whatever reason…  while, on the other hand some of us are so SELF-RIGHTEOUS that we miss the very PLANK in our own eyes…  and yes, the folks watching us are actually measuring that plank….

Yeah, go ahead throw your stones…. Do it, I say it with every bit of self-righteousness in me….

I do have a point, I promise.

I just started reading “The Pursuit of Holiness” by Jerry Bridges… great read so far.  My goal is to add a blog entry after every chapter that I read, let’s is if “busyness” or procrastination gets the best of…. actually, you guys can help by keeping me accountable….

Many define holiness by their self-righteousness… and man, does that irk me!  For others it’s defined by how we dress and our mannerisms.  And yet for others it’s defined by mere perfection, that’s unattainable and really discourages in their pursuit of living in holiness.

There are some truths in each but Jerry Bridges really makes the point, he notes:  “To be holy is to be morally blameless.” Ooucchhh…. That totally disqualifies me!  He continues, “It is to be separated from sin and, therefore, consecrated to God.”  He defines holy as “separation to God, and the conduct befitting those so separated.”

Jerry then gives us some examples:

Paul described holiness in contrast to a life of immorality and impurity (Thessalonians 4:3-7), hmmmm….  Peter in contrast to living according to the evil desires we had before knowing Christ (1 Peter 1:14-6), hmmmm…. John’s contrast those doing wrong and vile things (Rev. 22:11).

Ephesians 4:22, 24 probably paints the best picture of what it means to live a holy life: “It is to live a life characterized by the “[putting] off of your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires… and [putting] on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”

But what is TRUE righteousness?

Jerry Bridges notes that holy living is “to live a life in conformity to the moral precepts of the Bible and in contrast to the sinful ways of the world.” …I say that’s righteousness.

So it’s not your values or what you define as ethical or your self-righteousness which is all influenced and corrupted by culture but OBEDIENCE in what God commandeth…

Mind you, the mess we are in today started with a bite…

I challenge you all to examine your values, your self-righteousness… are resembling the world too much? …are your values self-full filling?   …Or are you truely in pursuit of HIS holiness?  …are you living in obedience?

Grace & Peace

Is the United States of America a Christian Nation?

Our homie Mydnite Sun sent us this video, at first I was obstruct by the thought, but then as I really thought about it… it seems this country is not as Christian as many of us think we are.  Yuppp… I said it!  I would be interested to know what you guys think.  Is the United States of America a Christian nation?  Were we founded on Christian principles?  If so, are we straying away from them?

Obama In Turkey “We Do Not Consider Ourselves A Christian Nation”

Please pray for our homie Brother E

What up ya…. this is your homie Anonymous would you guys take some time out and pray for our homie Brother E.  His moms went to be with the Lord this morning.  He will keep us updated via www.brothere.com, facebook, twitter, etc.  Grace & Peace….