When Jesus came back to life He was different than He was before. Now, at first thought, we may say that is obvious because He had now experienced death and come back to life who could be the same after that? Even in the ancient world they knew dead people didn’t come back to life. But Jesus was different in modality. He was no longer a human in the Fallen world where He could be subject to death and decay, but now He was alive in the Final World of New Creation. The resurrected Jesus is the first member, or as the Bible calls it, the Firstborn over Creation. Why do I say this?

            Jesus, in His resurrected body, was not only an earthly man but also a heavenly man as well. He could eat fish like the rest of His disciples, but now He could transcend locked doors, disappear from sight, and was not always recognized as before. There was a mystery to Him. In Jesus the two dimensions, both Heaven and Earth, of God’s creation meet in Him. This is what He was referring to when He referred to Himself as the Temple. John 2:14 – “Destroy this sanctuary, and I will raise it up in three days.” Christ is now the Temple where humanity and God can meet together in peace, forgiveness and salvation.

            In His resurrected body, Jesus was flesh and blood but His resurrected body was no longer under the curse, the Fallen World of decay and death as we still are. If the Roman soldiers wanted to kill Him they could not because He was no longer capable of dying the way He had three days before. And we must remember, the way Jesus is in His resurrection, we shall be at our resurrection. No longer under the curse, but rather a citizen of New Creation.

Romans 8:10-11

Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.

            This week for Christians is like our Super Bowl. Everything that is foundational to the Christian faith comes together in this one week in light of Christ’s death on the Cross and His Resurrection. These two significant events have changed the course of history and impacted the lives of millions.

            The Cross of Jesus has turned a symbol of shame, guilt and death made famous by the Roman Empire into a symbol of grace, love and forgiveness made famous in Jesus. The Judge took the punishment for the sins of humanity and offers forgiveness to all who will come and ask for it. Without the cross there is no salvation from sin. Christ has become our Passover Lamb. Jesus did what the rest of us can’t do and could never do!

            The Resurrection of Jesus is the only hope for humanity. When you consider that Jesus has defeated death then we have to ask ourselves what could give humanity greater hope? Jesus is the only “religious” leader that has defeated mankind’s greatest foe and fear and then came back to talk about it. Logically it makes sense that if the Resurrection of Jesus is true then what He offers no one else can come close to offering. The cornerstone of the Christian faith is the fact and reality that Jesus came back to life, and in doing this has inaugurated a new beginning for New Creation.

Good Friday is a somber moment remembering the suffering the Lord did for us, but hope has come in the dawning of a new age in the Resurrection of Jesus. Just like in the Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West died there was a celebration, that should be our attitude on Easter. Death has been defeated and a new life has been offered in Christ.

John 14:19

Because I live, you will live too.

Do you ever think you get in the way of God’s work? Well, whether we think it or not, the answer is yes for all of us at times. We all get in the way of God and what His purposes are for our lives and the work He is doing around us.

            Sunday, April 14^th, is what is known as Palm Sunday. It is when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey at the beginning of Passover week, and everyone came out to see the Lord Jesus and placed palm leaves and cloaks on the road as He rode by. They were crying “Hosanna” and singing His praises. After He rode into town, He went straight to the Temple complex, and it is then that the famous event of running folks out of the Temple came to be. Jesus saw the wickedness of the religious leaders as they distorted the mission of the Temple for their own personal game. Jesus infamously said after making a whip and running the people out, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it into a den of thieves.” What was happening was the religious leaders had placed their agendas over God’s agenda. They were making it about personal gain, and the Temple was a house of prayer, in other words a place of personal fellowship with God.

            So the question for us today is when we gather as God’s community, do we gather for personal fellowship with God among His people, or do we gather, with ourselves in mind, looking for what we can get verses what we can give? This is an important question we all must answer, otherwise, we are like the religious leaders of Jesus day getting in the way of what God wants to with His people.

Arrogant people are hard to deal with and especially to get along with. It takes a lot of patient endurance to deal with someone who thinks more highly of themselves than they should. The truth is we are all arrogant at some level over something. If we are honest within ourselves we all struggle with thinking too much of ourselves or our self-importance. Let me first begin with a few questions for us to ask ourselves:

Am I an open person?

Do I get defensive easily?

Can I take constructive correction?

Are I willing to listen to advice?

Do I ever seek out advice from a trusted friend?

Am I a “know it all” person?  

These are only a few questions, but important questions that may help us become introspective enough to see our own arrogance. Arrogance is a sinful spiritual disease where we try to take over the role of God in our lives. Humility is the crown of honor and no matter how high we are in the eyes of man, we still find ourselves below the nature of God.

For many of us the reason our lives stay in such constant turmoil with others around us is reflective of the pride we may struggle with deep within. We all have to admit that sometime we are simply the problem and the quickest fix to that is seeking humility and apologizing. Owning our own prideful ways and asking God and others that we have impacted by our arrogance to forgive us, and then seek to be under the control of wisdom which is only found in the Lord Himself.

Proverbs 13:10

Arrogance leads to nothing but strife, but wisdom is gained by those who take advice.

This past Sunday we discussed the exclusivity of truth, and the claim that Jesus is the only way to God. Now many in our culture don’t like the term exclusive because we are often as a culture guilty of thinking with our feelings and not with our minds. People love the word tolerance, but then again who wants to be tolerated? On a side note, we must learn to disagree with civility and learn the art of debate again in our society.

 Pause for a second in regards to religion and consider any claim regarding truth. We believe that 2 + 2 = 4 is a true statement for evidential reasons, and any other statement that contradicts this statement is false. For instance, any other sum regarding that equation would be false such as the statement that 2 + 2 = 5. The nature of truth is true not only in every other subject of life, but also when it comes to religion as well. World religions do not say the same thing, and to those who believe they do, they are only exposing their ignorance of world religions. They can’t all be true because of the nature of truth. When two subjects make claims that contradict each other, they can’t both be true.

Truth by nature is exclusive regardless of the subject, otherwise, we could never take a true/false test. Truth excludes any statement that is false, and that which is false excludes any statement that is true. So when Jesus makes the statement that ‘no one comes to the Father except through Me”, one, He is making Christianity exclusive, not Christians, and two, He is only being logical to the nature of truth. If the claims of Jesus are true, in other words they correlate with reality regarding the evidence of His claims, then any claim contradicting His claim would be by definition false.

John 14:6 – I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

This past weekend I had a birthday, and with birthdays comes well wishes and being with friends and family. It also makes one a bit reflective of life and having made another trip around the sun. After the friends and family leave, the cake is gone, and the laughter has died out, and you find time by yourself, it makes you think about what is really important in life. For me I would say the connections I’ve made in life have had an enormous impact on me. Several friends that I have made from different parts of the country sent videos congratulating me on another birthday, but the words they said were so impactful and welcoming. The fact that people who were once strangers are now such treasured friends that I couldn’t imagine my life being without is something odd in a way, but yet so wonderful.

Now consider John 15:13 –“No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.^” To think that God calls us His friends. We were once strangers to Him because of our rebellion, but now in Jesus we are called His friends even His children. We are the people God wants to hang out with and have parties with and celebrate life with. That is an amazing thought to consider. He treasures us so much that we are not just acquaintances that He might have coffee with or say hello when He sees us in a crowd, but we are treasured friends that He will reveal His heart to and even die in our place. There will be no celebration on earth like there will be in New Creation when all of God’s friends who have become His family celebrate salvation forever with Him as the center of the party.

For the believer joy is a fruit of the spirit. To know that our sins are forgiven, our account is cleared, graced bestowed, and hope granted should create an inner celebration for those who have put their faith in Christ Jesus. Therefore, as followers of Christ, our perspective of life should be different than the rest of the world not rooted in the circumstances of life but in the reality of a loving and forgiving God.

My question for us this week: Is your temperament, mood, or attitude towards life rooted in your circumstances or the reality of God’s love for you?  I’ve heard many times the statement, “Well under the circumstances…” For the Christian one must ask, “Why are you under the circumstances?” Your reality in Christ is greater than any circumstance that comes your way in this life. See beyond today through the spectacles of eternity.

Paul writing to the Philippian church from a Roman dungeon clearly is not under the circumstances of his situation where his hope would be minimal and future dreary. No he is rejoicing at the fact that He knows Christ, he has been recognized by the world as a spokesman for Christ, and is willing to be punished and even die as a prisoner for Christ. Paul would tell us that no matter the circumstances you are in, even if death is inevitable on the immediate horizon of your future, as a believer you have reason to rejoice in Jesus. May we as His followers rejoice in God’s love no matter our circumstances.

Philippians 4:4

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

LONE OAK NEWS

Psalm 46:10 – Be still, and know that I am God;

When I was young my mother used to tell me I had “Ants in my Pants” because I wouldn’t sit still much as I was always into something. Sadly, we have become an “Ants in your Pants” society because most of us hate being still. How many people constantly stay on their phone nowadays? We are a culture of little busy-bodies! Over time this kind of approach to life is exhausting to our body and draining to our spirit.

In this little verse, God is calling us to be still, but why? The answer is to know that He is God and not ourselves, or some circumstance or interruption in life. The reason many of us struggle with hearing from God is because our lives are too loud, too busy with our own self-will that we cannot hear as Elijah did ‘the still, small voice of God’ (1 Kings 19:11-13). Sitting in silence, allowing our minds to declutter and detox from the junk of the world is a necessary practice for spiritual sanity. Biblical meditation is refocusing the mind on God unlike the Eastern practice where one attempts to empty their mind which is actually logically impossible. We must learn to recapture the silence and the stillness of life and let the beauty of God rekindle the fire within our hearts. There is a time to be busy, but the joy you get out of the busyness of life will be determined in how connected you are with God in those still moments we create everyday. 

Last week we discussed truth, and I want to continue that discussion this week. Pontius Pilate ask Jesus in John 18, “What is truth?” This is a question that people over the generations and throughout the world grapple with even today. Truth is not mere opinion, perspective, or feelings, but rather a view of God’s reality. In another words, truth is thinking God’s thoughts after Him. If you are in an art gallery, the only person who can tell you the intentional purpose of a painting is the artist who made the painting. In the same way the only One who has the true monopoly on truth is the Creator Himself.

            For truth to exist there must be an absolute reality independent of mankind’s opinions or feelings. We have as a society put too much emphasis on opinions and feelings, and not enough on asking ourselves when God made this or that what did He have in mind. The trouble is mankind in our “progressive arrogance” are trying to redefine what the Creator had in mind. Look at our debates we as a society are having. We question what is male and female, the institution of marriage, and when is a baby a human. To be so pompous in our intellect as a people, we are grappling with questions children can answer, but it’s the adults sadly who are struggling. We have gone from simply being a people within God’s reality to trying to create our own through virtual reality. Nothing wrong with video games and such themselves, but I encourage you if you are a parent to not let your kid’s  video games to become their babysitters. Let your children experience God’s reality out in nature where the creative juices of the mind can take root for a healthy future, and not constantly exposed to some artificial illusion. Teach your kids how to think, not just what think so they can treasure truth the way our Creator designed us.

Abraham Lincoln

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.

What is Truth? (Part 1)

Love cannot exist without absolute truth. No doubt love is the highest ethic, but love has no place of validation without truth. To illustrate this I want to begin with a short exchange within a conversation once told:

Ravi Zacharias, Christian apologist who speaks around the world, was asked which is more important love or truth, and he responded truth. The questioner quickly disagreed to state that love is the most important to which Ravi responded, “Is that true?”

This little conversation illustrates that love and truth go together, but without truth, there can be no understanding of love or anything else in the world.

We see in our world today, and particularly in our society:

• an erosion of values,
• confusion of identity,
• the extinction of logic and reasoning, 
• the collapse of moral frameworks
• delusional ideologies
• political demagoguery (when a politician or political groups appeal to popular desires and prejudices rather than using rational argument) I’ve seen this in both Republicans & Democrats

These issues exist because we as a people, society, country and world have lost our appetite for truth. Feelings have become the barometer in which we measure values, and critical thinking has become an enemy to many and only a past time for a few. Today, we are quick to believe lies but slow to investigate truth, and gossip is a multi-million dollar business from magazines to news reports. Why is this the case? Because we have left no room for God in our society, our homes, and ultimately our hearts.

Charles Spurgeon

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17:17)