Abandoning the Faith

            For the past 500 years, there has been a great dissension between the Catholic church and the protestant church. I wish that it were over things that didn’t matter. I wish we could call our points of disagreement foolishness and put them behind us… But the Catholic church has time and again shown that they are unwilling to stand firmly on the Bible, the very words of God. In the 1500s, the big problem was the selling of indulgences. In recent days, the big problem has been denying the basic tenets of the faith. 

            For those who don’t know, an indulgence was a certificate that you could buy to cover your sin. How easy is that! I know that if I sin (except for murder), I just have to go give a little bit of money to the priest, he hands me my “get-out-of-jail-for-free” card and I can keep on living like all is fine and dandy! There were those who had a problem with this back in the 1500s, most memorably the famed Martin Luther. He ended up writing a list of problems he saw in the Catholic church later being called “95 Theses.” Thus, truly began the birth of the reformation and protestant denomination. 

            Today, I wish to point out a single issue that Pope Francis has raised. Several days ago, during a Papal visit, a young boy had a question for the pope. This video and can easily be found in a Google search. I will provide the link at the end though. The boy, named Emanuele, was very emotional and couldn’t ask Pope Francis his question. The pope invited Emanuele onto the stage and held him for a moment as he cried. After the moment of tears, Emanuele was able to ask the pope his question. Francis had Emanuele return to his seat, and he explained the boy’s question. 

            Emanuele wanted to know if his father, who had recently died, went to Heaven even though he was an atheist. The pope answered, that surely the father of a boy like Emanuele, who was able to be strong and yet emotionally vulnerable and who baptized all four of his children even though he wasn’t a believer was surely a good man. And surely God would not abandon Emanuele’s father. Pope Francis never asserted that Emanuele’s father was in either Heaven or Hell. But he implied with the kids present that although God makes the decision of who gets into Heaven, surely God would not abandon Emanuele’s father to Hell. 

            One article I read pointed something that I also noticed during the video. Pope Francis is not afraid to engage hurting people in the ministry. He held Emanuele in his time of mourning. In this manner, the pope demonstrated exceptional leadership. However, as I watched this video and as my heart broke with Emanuele, I knew that what Pope Francis was saying was not in the Bible. 

            Now, yes, we hope that all of our loved ones who have departed from this life accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior before they died. But we cannot preach them into Heaven. Oh, how I wish we could. But the truth of the Bible is that “[Jesus] is the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through [Jesus]” (John 14:6). There is only one way into Heaven, into the presence of the Father, and that is through Jesus Christ. And unfortunately for Emanuele’s dad, for my loved ones who didn’t accept Jesus, and all those in the world who didn’t accept Jesus, Heaven is out of their reach. 

Romans 10:13-15 says, “For ‘whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!’” 

            There are untold numbers of people who do not know the real Jesus of the Bible. They will die and go to an eternity in Hell because they did not believe in Jesus. This is the reality that is set before us. I’m so sorry to Emanuele, I feel the pain of loss of unbelieving family members. God will always make the final decision, but we cannot set the Bible aside for a false hope and a false comfort. But there is hope for those who still live. We can be set free from our sin and find hope in Jesus Christ who died for our sins and was buried and rose again on the third day! In Him, and only in Him, we can have eternal life with the Father. The church must stand firm on the Word of God and we must reject all those doctrines which contradict it. The Catholic church must return to the Word of God as their final authority. And we must carry the Good News of Jesus to the lost people around us and to the ends of the earth.

Here is a brief clip of what happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkeGXQEh_GY

*This video is in Italian but there are many articles online that offer a translation of what was said.

The Mission in Taiwan

     At the end of Matthew, in chapter 28, Jesus gave us what we call the Great Commission, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (v.v. 19-20a NASB). This is quite the task for us today. But just because it is a large task, doesn't mean we can sit on the sidelines and not play our part.
     Amy and I are blessed to go to a church where the mission of the church is "to declare God's greatness in every culture through the Jesus life." And when we say "declare God's greatness," we're talking about the whole of the Great commission. Psalm 96:3 says "tell of His glory among the nations." God desires for all people to be saved (2 Tim. 2:3-4), but not all will, the Bible is very clear that many will perish (Luke 13:23-28). I point out these verses to you to ask you to pray for the nations; and to pray for us (more on that later). I want to remind you that the condemnation for sinners is much greater than we think for those who are perishing and have perished. George Whitefield used to preach on the future of sinners in Hell this way:

"the torment of burning like a livid coal, 

not for an instant or for a day, 

but for millions and millions of ages, 

at the end of which souls will realize that

 they are no closer to the end than when they first begun, 

and they will never, ever be delivered from that place."

Jesus is the only way out of this future. And so we go, to declare the glory of God in all the nations, to preach Christ crucified, so that others may hear and live. We must go. We must go where we are at now, joining God in His everyday mission to make His name and glory known among those around us. And we must go to the nations, to make His name and glory known among all people, that as many as possible would come to know Christ and be saved from their sin and so that God would be glorified. 

     I mentioned earlier that Amy and I are blessed to go on a church that is mission minded. So we are seizing an opportunity to go to the nations. Specifically, Taiwan. We'll be teaching in the schools there by using Bible stories to present the Gospel. While we will be in an area that has been generally  reached by the Gospel, there are many people groups in the same area that have not been reached, and there are many among the reached peoples who do not know Jesus. So we're asking for your prayers as we prepare to go to Taiwan later this month for a little less than three months. 

• Pray that we would build relationships with those who are saved there, that we would build relationships with the lost who are there, and that would we would seize every opportunity to share the Gospel. 
• And pray for those who are unreached by the Gospel, that doors would be opened, hearts would be prepared, and the Holy Spirit would move through all the peoples in Taiwan. 
• Pray that we would build good relationships with the missionaries that are already over there doing this work and that we would be an added resource for this period of time.

Join me in praying for the unreached peoples across the world using Joshua Project: 

Unreached of Day Today

United in Prayer

     Recently in my hometown there was a tragedy that brought many students of the town together for prayer. One of their fellow students passed away and the prayer vigils that were organized were a great thing. However, this caused me to ask a question. How do we reconcile the fact that students will come together to love, support, and pray for one another in tragedy but will not heed the call of God to do the same? 

     Please listen, I'm not saying that these prayer vigils are bad by any means. I thank God that we have a community of students, and community of parents that will come together in times of trouble. However, I pray that this isn't the only time or reason that we will come together to pray. 

     This year, 2016, on September 28, is See You at the Pole. On this day during the week of Global Student Prayer, we have been asked to come together as one, united and pray for our schools, our towns, our government, our leaders, and whatever else is on our hearts. This happens every year and during my years at Harrisonville High, I think that I went 3 times. I'm pretty sure there was one year that we didn't even have it at all, for lack of organization. The three times I did go there was very little turn out compared to any time there was a prayer vigil or even an FCA meeting. 

     I'm calling on our students that have positions of leadership, official or not, to organize events at your school, or on your campus, this is a time where we can come together to love and support one another, and most of all pray together.  Do not doubt the importance of praying together:

     “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

     “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

-Matthew 18:18-20

     Jesus, Himself called us to pray together, and He told us that if we agree on something and pray for it, it will be done! Take caution here though, don't test God (Deuteronomy 6:16; Matthew 4:7). When Jesus taught us how to pray, He taught to praise God, ask His will to be done, for our daily provision, for the forgiveness of our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, and not to lead us to temptation, but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:9-13). 

     Students, I'm calling on you to rise to the challenge and make sure you get this set up at your school! Our teachers have been limited in their ability to help, take initiative! Work together as one body to get this set up; showing up as five different, or however many groups, to do the same thing and not coming together to do this will show division among the Church. Division will drive away new or possible believers. 

     If you can, this is a great opportunity for donuts and worship, and/or outreach also. Make it work for your school! Don't miss out on this opportunity to have fellowship together as one!

     If you need help getting resources in order for this, feel free to contact your youth leader, or myself and we can do our best to help you. We won't make any promises other than to do our best to help where and how we can! We've got a month before the big day, let's be ready!

The Problem with our Prayer

I shared this picture a couple of weeks ago on my Facebook page thinking: Wow, that's so true! Today, I still believe it's true, but it's become apparent to me how true it really is. When I shared the picture I was in a short season of my life where I was praying a lot more than I had been and was building my prayer life up. Being a seminary student you would think it would easy to keep the prayer season going. I have found it to be quite the opposite. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I love everything I'm learning about in seminary, but I'm learning so much about so many different things in such a short period of time that I actually burned out a little on my spiritual life. My bible reading outside of what I had for seminary dropped to next to nothing. My prayer... Well it was about the same as my bible reading. And my spiritual life felt dry to be honest. It was just so drab and it felt so boring.

However I kept thinking of this picture. "The only enduring motive for prayer is that God is worthy to be sought. The only enduring motive for prayer is that God is worthy to be sought." I would see all the need for prayer in my own world and think about how I needed to pray for it but then think about how my own prayer life was struggling. Then I would remember: "The only enduring motive for prayer is that God is worthy to be sought." 

I think this is one of the truest statements I've heard in a long time, but the only way to get that motivation is to remember why He is worthy. And how else are we going to remember why He is worthy, but by reading His Word. God created us and we sinned. God called us back to him and we turned away. God had us taken away and we called out to him. God sent His son to save us and we rejected him. God's Son died on a cross for us and we realized it was too late. Then God rose His son on the third day in victory over the grave and we accepted the new life He gave us. God taught us how to live and we forgot to remember Him... 

God sent Jesus to die on the cross for us so that we might spend eternity with Him. He bridged the gap that we never could. He freely offers us a new life we could never earn. He, and He alone, is Worthy! Will we remember? Will we pray? 

"For God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him, might not die, but have everlasting life." -John 3:16

He is worthy!

What is Salvation?

Salvation, in our case, is when a perfect person comes and saves us from our sins. I don’t think many people, if any, would disagree with that. What they might disagree with is how one attains salvation. Time and time again I hear, “Jesus came and died so that we could be saved from our sin and all that we have to do is accept it. I’m left wondering “how though? How do I become saved?” This is where conflict arises. Different religions and even different sects of religions will give you different answers. So today, I’m writing to tell you what the Bible says about how we receive this salvation. 

I wish I could say that it’s as simple as saying a couple simple words and poof you’re in, then again I’m glad that’s not it. Romans 10:9-11 says, 

“If you declare with your mouth,

 ‘Jesus is Lord,’ 

and believe in your heart that 

God raised Him from the dead, 

then you will be saved. 

For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified,

 and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”

So part of it is praying and declaring Jesus to be Lord, but another part of it is believing in your heart. I said I’m glad that it’s not as simple as saying a few words because if that’s all that salvation is about, then what’s the point? When you believe something in your heart, your heart changes, it starts to follow what you believe in. Words can be empty, but belief is trusting in what you believe in. When a person comes to Jesus and puts their trust in Him, their heart changes. It no longer desires what it wants but desires what Jesus wants. The heart no longer wants to be sinful but to share the good news of Jesus. This brings me to what happens when a person receives salvation. They repent. 

The word repent means ‘to turn away from’ and for us that means turning away from sin. So often professing our faith and believing is where we stop. It’s where our journey of faith stops because we don’t repent. After we receive salvation we stop moving toward sin and we start moving towards Jesus. We start the mission that He left for us. 

“Then Jesus came to them and said, 

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

 teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. 

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”

Matthew 28:18-20

We begin to tell the world who Jesus is and what He did for us. We daily ‘take up our cross and follow Him’(Luke 9:23). So from here, we go together to the ends of the earth.