Haiti Earthquake

I have heard people have said that Haiti's earthquake was God's judgement on a nation who made a pact with the devil 200 or so years ago. I am not going to debate the whether or not Haiti did or did not make this pact, because that is not the point. Stating that the earthquake was God's judgement for sin is saying that Jesus' cross was not enough for the forgiveness of sin. That is the problem with this statement.

First of all, God is good. It says it right in the Bible. "There is only One who is good (perfectly and essentially) - God (Matthew 19:17)." God is good. He is all good. Intrinsically good. God cannot give evil because He doesn't have it to give. You can't give away what you don't have. God is good. He cannot give away evil.

Second, all sin was judged at the cross. God does not have a problem with sin anymore. Jesus took care of that on the cross. Do we believe that or do we think that we need to do some work of our own to pay for our sins. Either Jesus paid for our sins completely or we are all screwed. Every word of God is flawless and I choose to believe the Bible when it tells me that Christ took our sin upon Himself at the cross. "He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an alter and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24)." By His wounds on the cross we HAVE BEEN healed. Not will be someday.

Since we have been healed and God no longer has a problem with sin why do bad things happen? Well, the devil only has power when we give it to him. When we give the devil the power of our faith, we give the devil access to our lives to steal, kill and destroy. The devil is the one who does the stealing, killing and destroying. This is not isolated to Haiti, this is worldwide. The devil has been given access to our lives in North America in one way through sickness and disease, it is not from God and it is not God's will that people die from cancer or whole list of other things, but yet it happens. Its not God's will that an earthquake would come and destroy Haiti, but it did. We need to stand in faith against these things. We can't just sit back and think that these things are God's will. They are not and in sitting back we are giving the devil the power of our faith. We need to stand on God's Word no matter what circumstances look like. Let God be true and every man a liar. Stand on the word of God even when everything looks as if it is contrary to it, because God is true even if every man is lying to you. As a body of believers we need to stand in faith for God's will. We are co-laborers with God. We are part of establishing God's will on this earth. We need to take our part seriously, and stop letting the devil have his way.

Third, God does not use sickness and disease or earthquakes to work for good. He does not use evil for good. The greek says more literally that God uses the good in the situation for good. So if someone gets sick and they call out to Jesus, God will use the good in that situation. Same with an earthquake etc etc. God never sends evil to accomplish His purpose and never uses evil for His purposes. God is good always, and He uses the good in all situations for good.

To say that this Haiti earthquake was God's judgement on Haiti would be in direct contradiction to the word of God. Whoever is saying these things should read the Bible they preach from. God is good and His will is good, and He desires you have Life abundantly.

Run the race to win

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours. Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive the crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither." 1 Corinthians 9:24-25

We are all "running in the race" of life and we are to run this race to win. It is important to note that this verse is not talking about Christians competing against each other to "do the Christian life" better than the other, and therefore beat them and win the race. We are not competing against each other. How does this make sense in the light of the verse that shows us that we need to run to win the race?

What Paul in saying here is that we are to "run the race of life" in our true identity. Once someone believes in Jesus they are born again and placed "In Christ." Jesus Christ won the race of life and we are to be as He is in this world. So "running the race of life" to win, means living life in the reality of the victory of Jesus. We are victorious and will win. Paul isn't saying that we will not win. He is telling us to live in that victory. Live in the light of the victory of Jesus, refuse to live in any other reality than that of Christ's victory. This is how we will make the prize ours. Jesus won the race and received the prize, we are In Christ, let us then live our lives reflecting this reality.

In view of this, competing against other Christians, to be the best Christian looks rather dumb. Even comparing ourselves to where we perceive other Christians to be on some sort of ranking scale that we have created in our own minds is dumb. Maybe no one else has done this but i have. The truth is that we actually run in victory when God works through us to bring more people into this victory. It's not competition, but community. We can only keep what we give away. The more we give to God and to His creation, the more we will find that we have.

How do we run in the reality of Christ's victory? We love. Not with human love that says I'll love you if you love me, but with God love that says I'll love you no matter what, even if you hate me. This love is not earned, it is not words only, it's not an emotion, not for a special few, and it is not an option. It is God's character pouring out of those who believe in Him, active, and part of our redeemed character. It confronts evil, defends the weak, and is the most attractive thing in the world. We run the race to win when we love. We will receive an eternal reward for everything done in God-love. We can only keep what we give away, and the more we give the more we will find that we have.

Haiti Earthquake Relief

Donate online at www.haitiarise.org and I believe the Canadian government will match each dollar given by Canadian individuals. Also 100% of the donated money will go to Haiti and Earthquake Relief. There are no overhead costs. I know Haiti Arise staff personally and they can be trusted. If you want to know that all your money will make it to Haiti and make a difference, Give Here.

Milk to Meat

Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget came up with a theory which has significant evidence to support it (whether the theory is true or not is not the point of this blog, the fact that there is evidence to support it is), the theory is that in the Sensorimotor stage of life from 0-2 years old babies believe that objects cease to exist when they are hidden. Their minds are not developed enough to process the information correctly. During this stage of 0-2 they begin to realize this isn't true, but they begin with this belief. If you are reading this, most likely your mind is developed enough to realize that objects do not cease to exist when they are hidden from you. You have grown up out of this belief.

In our spiritual lives, it happens so often that we act like spiritual babies. When we see God working we believe He exists but then so quickly forget when we can't see Him. We act as if He doesn't exist when we can't see Him work or feel His presence. If this is us than in many areas of our lives we are quite possibly in the Sensonimotor stage in our spiritual lives. Once we have grown up in our faith and developed or renewed our minds to the truth, we realize that God exists whether we feel/see Him or not.

Mother Teresa was a great woman in the faith. She is said to have gone through 50 years without feeling the Lord's presence, yet she held on to the truth. She was not a spiritual baby. When something was hidden she held on to the fact the it still existed. God exists whether we see/hear/feel Him or not. Let's come out of spiritual infancy and believe the truth.

Breastplate of Righteousness

God tells us to put on the "Full Armor of God" and part of that armor is "The Breastplate of Righteousness (Ephesians 6:14)." Wearing a breastplate is huge in a fight because it blocks body blows. Without it we will spend most of the fight on defense so that we don't get hurt.

What is the breastplate? The breastplate of Righteousness. We have a huge need in the body of Christ today to realize that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. We have been made righteous through what Christ has done. We are in right standing with God. This righteousness doesn't come and go based on how we perform as Christians (whether we sin or not in situations), but is based on what Christ already has done. We cannot become more righteous than we are right now, and we cannot be less righteous. Not even when we go to heaven will we be more righteous. The only thing that makes us righteous (in right standing with God) is the blood of Christ. In the Old Testament animals were sacrificed and through their blood the people were temporarily put in right standing with God, but through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ we have been made righteous now and forever if we accept his blood offering. We become righteous when we accept Christ and will never again gain or lose any righteousness because we are completely righteous right now.

Our defense becomes Jesus and His righteousness. We no longer have to defend in our own strength or works. With the righteousness God has given us protecting us, we can fight the enemy offensively.

In general, The church, the body, has failed to realize this. We think we are miserable sinners saved by grace. Well we WERE sinners and we were saved by grace. Then we became brand new creations and Christ's blood made us righteous and we are saints. The body is not a bunch of sinners no different than anyone else, we are saints and the righteousness of God.

If the church of body of believers tries to fight spiritually without the knowledge of their righteousness, they will be fighting without their breastplate. No wonder the church is steadily trying to maintain their congregation size. Without putting on the breastplate of righteousness we spend most if not all of our time playing defense.

Christ told us to expand His kingdom. Expand means go on offense. Put on the breastplate of righteousness so you can stop using your sword for defense and let your breastplate do the that work. Use your sword to go on offense and expand the kingdom.

The Fear of the Lord

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).

The fear of the Lord = Taking heed, doing, and giving more honor to the things God says, His Word, than to anything men/women say

The fear of Man = Taking heed, doing, and giving more honor to the things men/women say over the things God says

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. There are two different "realities" in the world. One is "Truth" and the other is "Lies." If we believe God's Word is truth then we will reside in that reality and act out of that truth. If we fear men's/women's opinions of us over what God says then we live in the reality of lies. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We can only begin to gain wisdom when we believe God's word is truth and are not swayed by anyone's opinion otherwise. When we reside in this reality of truth we will become wise to the degree of the amount of time we spend there. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Taking God at His word is the beginning to gaining wisdom.

Tree of Good and Evil

Adam and Eve both felt like they had to/could do something to become like God. The serpent came to them with his message and said, "in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good from evil. (Gen 3:5)"

The problem with this kind of suggestion is that it implies that there is something you can do to make yourself like God. The message that if we do enough then somehow somewhere along the line we will perhaps be accepted by God. This is fruit from the wrong tree. We send mixed messages like this all the time in today's church. We tell people to abstain from the evil on the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," but we tell people to gorge themselves on the good. What we have been failing to see that the good from this tree will kill us just as quickly as the evil. It is still the same fruit! What we need is to switch tree's. Instead of eating from the tree that by our effort we can be accepted and in right standing with God, we need to eat of the tree of life which says that everything that was needed for you to do to be saved was completed by Christ. We need to eat the tree of Life. We need to realize that God has made us righteous (in right standing with God). We need to find our life "In Christ" because In Him we have peace, we no longer strive for God's favor since it is already ours, and our works come out of resting In Him. Let's stop fooling ourselves in thinking that the "good" from the wrong tree is good for us. Its just much more deceptive. Let's eat from the truly good tree the Tree of Life.

Some quotes taken from "The Revelation of Jesus Christ" by Lynn Hiles