Confidence Before God

Tuesday night was my third week to teach from the book of 1st John. If you've never read it, DO IT - Today! Then read it again tomorrow. Then read one chapter a day until you've read it again. It's rich and will bring clarity and confidence to your heart regarding your relationship with God.

These thoughts are from chapter three:

Do you ever doubt God's love for you? Do you ever question your relationship with Him and wonder, "Am I really a child of God?" I think that's pretty normal. When you read 1st John, you get a clear picture of who God's people are. John says in vs. 7:

7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. ⁸ Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. ¹⁰ By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

(ESV)

Pretty clear, huh?

He goes on and says, there will be times that our hearts condemn us. What he means is there will be times when you will doubt and there will be times when you are confused about your faith and your relationship with Him. John says, "don't let your hearts condemn you." By this, God reassures our hearts: if we prove our love in deed and truth!

18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (ESV)

Remember this: the deeds we do are not to attain righteousness - we do good deeds because He has made us righteous!

Is your heart is condemning you today? Remember this: God is greater than our heart and he knows everything and because of that, we can have confidence, full assurace before God!

How's your confidence?

Monday Reflections

As I sit in the office today and reflect on Sunday's service and message, I am really blown away at how faithful God is. Not because Heather and I made it thru our second attempt to communicate God's Word together (though that is a feat in itself), but because of the responses I see people making to what God is saying to them. Sunday, Jesus showed His love to so many people - some were saved, some were softened, some were just reminded.

Think about it: God revealed His deep, passionate love for us on the Cross through His Son, Jesus. So, what does He expect from us? How can we respond when we know we can never match that?

Well, God already knows we can't match it, but He still expects a response. So, how?

Matthew 22:37 says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." - We respond by loving him back. The Greek word for "love" in this passage is: agapao - it means "to give Him all you've got!"

We don't love the Lord by telling Him everyday. In fact, I would venture to say, it would do us good to not even say it - at least for a while. God's not looking for your flowery, deeply emotional words. He's looking for you to simply show Him. Simply showing Him isn't really all that simple though - is it?

How do we show Him? It's called surrender! Don't think about it. Don't try to make sense of it. It will never make sense. That's the whole idea behind faith. If we could multiply and divide our way to a sensible plan to follow Jesus it really wouldn't be called faith - would it?

Crazy Love Week 2 Interactive Question

Can you relate? -- “The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him—and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by.”-Francis Chan (p. 61).

Email your response to brian@clearpoint.org

Digging Deep!

Two weeks ago, I began a study on First John. Last night I said, "one of the most powerful tools we can put in our spiritual tool box is to learn how to study the Bible." Let me explain: Christians are often like "bulldozers" when it comes to the Word. A bulldozer pushes dirt around, spreads it out, makes it look pretty and smooth. Do you get the picture. We often spread the word around in our lives and make it look pretty. We take it, and spread it around to mean what we want it to mean, to fit what we believe or think, but we often miss the actual context; the real meaning of what God's saying.

Instead of "bulldozers", we should be more like a "backhoe." A backhoe doesn't push dirt around the surface, it digs deep, one bucket at a time. As we study the Word, we should dig, one bucket at a time, until we uncover the full meaning, and get a clear picture of what God intends for us to see and understand. When you dig deep, you will uncover more of God, His nature and His purpose. Dig deep! It will change your life!

Man, I had a great time on Sunday preaching with my wife, Heather. She probably wouldn't like to refer to it as preaching, so I will call it "teaching." It was the first time we've ever done that. It was an awesome experience for us to share with the church just how deep and powerful God's love is.

I mean think about it:

Love Truth #1: God's Love Runs Deep for You!
Read Luke 15 about he prodigal son - but read it from the "father's" perspective. If you do that - you will see just how deep the Fther's love really is!

Love Truth #2: God's Love is an Undignified Love!
It's a holy love, but it's an undignified love. God will break every social and cultural expectation to show you how much he loves you. The father in the story (Luke 15), he did something uncommon, counter-cultural, undignified, he RAN to his son. Powerful!

Challenge: Let God Love You!



Crazy Love Interactive Question:
Can you relate? "The irony is that while God doesn't need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don't really want Him most of the time. He treasures us and anticipates our departure from this earth to be with Him - and we wonder, indifferently, how much we have to do for Him to get by." (Chan, p. 61)

Question - Crazy Love Week 1

This Sunday, Heather and I begin the "Crazy Love" series based on Francis Chan's book, "Crazy Love." Interactive Queston: What does Exodus 3:14 mean to you? "God said to Moses, 'I am who I am'?"

Email your thoughts to me: brian@clearpoint.org or post here!

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Thoughts from I John 1

Think about it for a minute. When John wrote the letter we know as the book of I John, he was 60 years removed from his ministry with Jesus, but was still as passionate about Jesus as ever.
His influence was powerful based one thing: EXPERIENCE! His experience with Jesus gave authority to his testimony.

Question: What's your story? Does your story give you authority when you tell people about Jesus. How about this: Does the story you speak match the story you live?

Now that's a challenge!