Desire

Our will is driven by our desire, our desires are what we make choices by. If I desire to get my work done more than to hang out with people, then though I wish to hang out, I am going to go do my work. Now for us Christians, we have been freed from slavery to sin, and now we sit in the middle, to sin or not to sin. Here is where we act, Taste and see that the Lord is good, then follow Him with your whole heart.

Our motivation to follow God does not come from within ourselves, it springs from God Himself. Our desire springs from our memory of how good God has been in the past. I want to say something here, see if you can follow... I don't know if this is completely orthodox, so with a grain of salt...

Lets read James 1:14,15. " But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

Now we are tempted when drawn away from life around us, lured, and enticed, and this is done by our own desire. Desire is what drives our will. Then when we decide to act out on our desire, we sin. Sin is not the action, it's the reason for the action.

Now if we act according to our desires, how do we change those desires? I have two answers...

Mat 6:21 "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Rom 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

These are my answers, first, to change our our desires, our affections of the heart, we have to move our treasure, and transform our minds. This boils down to one thing, for our treasures are our desires. But what we buy into, that becomes our treasure. Mat 6:20 "but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." We act this out, we lay up treasure... So how do we do this?

In this world, our desires, our wants, are constantly being conformed to the world. This is done by simply being around other people, they rub off on us, their desires become our desires, what they value becomes our value, so be careful who you hang out with... Now this is the answer, BE TRANSFORMED. In essence, be conformed to God, not the world. And we do this by RENEWING OUR MINDS, but in what Paul? Where do we renew our minds? Well it's simple deduction, it's communication. And God primarily communicates to us by His word. Paul is simply urging us to put some effort into changing what influences us.

Now how do we desire to change? How do we find the motivation to sit down and read a book? Who other people claim has changed their lives, but if it hasn't drastically changed our own lives, we find little motivation to read it. I propose that this is the story of our lives, most Christians really struggle with this, finding the drive to read and pray. So we say, "if God did something great in our lives, we would live such pure lives it would shame ourselves"... The basic foundation of this statement is motivation, we are saying that if God did something, we would be motivated to follow so much better. So pray for joy, pray for Gods joy to be poured into your life, believe the psalmist, TASTE and SEE that the Lord is good. Christ found his motivation in the joy "that was set before Him". But don't sit there waiting for God to pour into your life, take faith, believe God will speak into your life, and then read His word, expecting to find something that revolutionizes your life. Take Ps 1...

but his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

Now we see that the reason this man delights in the law(word) of God, is because he meditates on it. Day and night...

we can know this because, the tree is drinking who's water? Gods water or the worlds water? It's obvious that this illustration sets down for us the order, the man first reads, and then by drinking, by renewing his mind, his SOUL delights in the law.

I pray you will find this true, read the word, and wait for God to transform it. Then, obedience and delight will take flight, your desires will be changed, and temptation will not appear as convincing as it used to be, because its promises are no longer gold but silver, second best at best... Take this hymn to heart, "and the things of earth will grow strangely dim."

Do we believe that God is the most desirable being in the universe? Then why does Bryce Lechelt struggle so much with treasuring Christ above all things?

When Abortion Collides with Totalitarianism

When Abortion Collides with Totalitarianism

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Here is an interesting article by Albert Mohler who is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This is also an excellent blog to keep up to date on, very interesting to read these articles.

Atonement and propitiation.

Lets think about the atoning sacrifice for a second. If it is true that Christ died for all men, then Christ's sacrifice, doesn't save anyone at all, it simply is not able to by the demonstration that people who Christ died for are in Hell as well as heaven. Atonement means the remission of sins, and the reconciliation of man to God. Thats what Christ's sacrifice did. Remission is the cancelation of a debt, so we are not sinful anymore, and the reconciliation part is the reunion or bringing together. Does Christ actually do this for all men? Is it possible that this is true... I Don't think Christ did this for all men, just by implication. 

On to propitiation.

In Christian theology, propitiation is the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, by which He fulfills the wrath of God (both an emotional response of anger and a moral response of indignation), and conciliates Him who would otherwise be offended by our sin and would demand that we pay the penalty for it. The concept of propitiation is associated in some Christian theological systems with indemnity, imputed righteousness, and substitutionary atonement.

So in 1 John 2:2 
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 
And Again
1 John 4:10
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Can we really conclude that Christ is the propitiation for the whole world? Christ's death imputed righteousness onto us, we are no longer sinful in Gods eyes. So we are thus left with two options, either universalism, or Gods sovereign choice in who to save or who to not save.
Perhaps the speaker, John, is talking to the Jews and telling them that they are no longer the only ones chosen for salvation but also the gentiles, or maybe it is the spanning of salvation into different countries and cultures. 
I think Mathew Henry says it well:
not only for the past, or us present believers, but for the sins of all who shall hereafter believe on him or come to God through him. The extent and intent of the Mediator's death reach to all tribes, nations, and countries. As he is the only, so he is the universal atonement and propitiation for all that are saved and brought home to God, and to his favour and forgiveness.

Taking into Account the speaker is John, he has made it very clear in John 6:39; 17:9-10, that only those the the Father gives Him are Christ's. 

Double post, for when one won't do.

The eternally frustrated God, who wishes that all would come to Him, but knows won't. If He's wishes it, but can't have it, thats got to be frustrating...

If we look at the world around us and contrast it with the fires of hell that the world deserves, we can see a huge show of Gods grace in daily life. For we see that every breath we take is an act of grace of God, we might have a much more grand sense of who God is. For we all deserve death the moment we sinned, yet here we are Breathing.. Here's the kicker, we were sinning when we were conceived. He gives it to all!