Our Lord and God is Christ, Our Message is His Gospel, and Our Context is God's Love.
This is a wonderful Song of Praise by fellow Christian Blogger David Bibee.
Powerful Praise indeed.
click on the highlighted link below.
March 19, 2012
Christ Centered Teaching
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The Passion of the Christ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
(The sermon in text has been added to this posting for those who cannot stream video).
Every Easter I’m reminded of the movie, The Passion of the Christ.
You may not have seen the movie, but do yourself a favor and watch this short video Sermon set to images from the movie.
Though only 6.5 minutes long, this video is powerfully moving visually,intellectually and spiritually.
The sermon was preached by Pastor S.M Lockridge.
I can personally witness to being familiar with Scripture references to support each claim in the video from the Holy Bible.
Using a sermon preached decades ago by a preacher who is with the Savior now, the message encompasses art, truth, and eternal hope in Christ.
In all my efforts to make Jesus real to my readers, nothing I have written even comes close to what you are about to hear and see.
We can know God. We need only to know Jesus, the way the truth and the life.
Click on the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqTFNfeDnE&sns=em
That’s My King
A Sermon by S.M. Lockridge
“The Bible says my King is the King of the Jews.
He’s the King of Israel.
He’s the King of righteousness.
He’s the King of the ages.
He’s the King of Heaven.
He’s the King of glory.
He’s the King of Kings,
and He’s the Lord of lords.
That’s my King. I wonder…
Do you know Him?
My King is a sovereign King.
No means of measure can define his limitless love.
He’s enduringly strong. He’s entirely sincere.
He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful.
He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful.
Do you know Him?
He’s the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world.
He’s God’s Son. He’s the sinner’s Savior. He’s the peak of civilization.
He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He is the loftiest idea in literature.
He’s the highest personality in philosophy.
He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology.
He’s the only one qualified to be an all-sufficient Savior.
I wonder if you know Him today.
He supplies strength for the weak.
He’s available for the tempted and the tried.
He sympathizes and He saves.
He strengthens and sustains.
He guards and He guides.
He heals the sick. He cleanses the lepers.
He forgives sinners. He discharges debtors.
He delivers the captives. He defends the feeble.
He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate.
He regards the aged.
He rewards the diligent, and He beautifies the meager.
I wonder if you know Him.
He’s the key to knowledge.
He’s the wellspring of wisdom.
He’s the doorway of deliverance.
He’s the pathway of peace.
He’s the roadway of righteousness.
He’s the highway of holiness.
He’s the gateway of glory.
Do you know Him?
Well, His light is matchless.
His goodness is limitless.
His mercy is everlasting.
His love never changes.
His word is enough.
His grace is sufficient.
His reign is righteous,
and His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
I wish I could describe Him to you.
Yes, He’s indescribable. He’s incomprehensible.
He’s invincible. He’s irresistible.
You can’t get Him out of your mind.
You can’t get Him off of your head.
You can’t outlive Him, and you can’t live without Him.
Well, the Pharisees couldn’t stand Him,
but they found out they couldn’t stop Him.
Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him.
Herod couldn’t kill Him.
Death couldn’t handle Him,
and the grave couldn’t hold Him.
That’s my King!”
March 18, 2012
Christ Centered Teaching
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Image via Wikipedia
I am commending The Huffington Post on a great article about the radical reformer St.Francis of Assisi.
(who says miracles never happen?)
St. Francis engaged his culture in a way that we could all learn from.
He reflected the love of God in order to,”overcome evil with good.” ( Romans 12:21)
It worked back then and it still works today.
God’s love is supreme in power and influence to change our hearts.
Click on the link below.
Enjoy!
March 12, 2012
Christ Centered Teaching
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What God most desires from men is heartfelt love and worship for Him to the full measure of all of our capacities. ( The Bible,Deuteronomy 6)
God desires love that does not hold anything back.
Our plight is that hate is easy and love is most often difficult.
Many of us are not even sure what love is. That is because love is caught and not taught. We have to experience it for the light to go on inside.
God showed mankind what it means to be loved fully by coming to die for mankind in the personage of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Are you drawn to Him by His act of love?
” But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” John 12:32
February 14, 2012
Christ Centered Teaching
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“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,” Ephesians 1:18
What is the love of God and why is it important?
Where do the doctrines of God’s love and God’s Holiness rank in importance in Christian theology ?
The love of God is the heart of the gospel and represents the linkage between all of God’s attributes as they relate to mankind .
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
(John 3:16)
So why is it that Christianity has always been in peril from legalism?
The book of Galatians is a wonderful rendition of God’s grace, but it was written to Christians who had wandered from the pure truth of the gospel.
Moral-ism, the idea that we earn favor with God by our good works, had taken hold of the Galatians church.
In a world that seems to be growing darker by the day, we need to shine as beacons of light like never before.
We need to embrace and then reflect God’s love to the world as revealed in Christ.
Our message must be the fullness of all the purity and brilliance found in Christ’s expression of love to us on the cross.
Our self centeredness desires moral-ism, pride, legalism and self-righteous exaltation.
The tendency toward Legalism among Christians is , as one brave pastor has put it, “not only prevalent, but it is the norm.” ( Dr. Tim Keller)
We need to revisit the gospel continually in order to be reminded of the cost, so we will remember what we owed, in order to love Him as He deserves, …
with our all.
Not because our salvation can be lost, but because we can loose sight of the fullness of what Christ did for us.
MAY GOD GRANT US A REVIVAL OF THE AWARENESS OF HIS GREAT LOVE.
MAY WE REFLECT GOD’S GREAT LOVE TO A WORLD THAT IS LITERALLY DIEING FOR LACK OF AWARENESS OF HIS LOVE.
We are told we need the GOSPELIZATION of all our theology.
That everything needs to point to Christ and His Supremacy.
Supremacy is a matter of emphasis, supreme emphasis in this case.
The following is an outline of Christian theology as represented with Biblical Emphasis as the context.
Biblical Emphasis is what God has revealed in the Bible as a whole to be of greatest importance.
First and of foremost importance is the fact that God is love.
The second is like the first in that it is how God showed His love for us when He sent His one and only Son. (John 3:16)
Christian Theology in the Context of Biblical Emphasis – Gospelization
God Is Love. – 1 John 4:8 , 1John 4:16
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
God Created Us To Have A Relationship With Him. – Genesis 1:27
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them”
Sin Separated Us From Our Perfect And Holy Creator. – Isaiah 53:5,6
“But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”
God Loved Us And Came To Save Us In The Personage Of Jesus Christ. – 1 John 4:10
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Christ Died For Us And Then Conquered Death For Us Before We Knew Him. – Romans 5:8
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
God Offers Salvation As A Gift To All Who Receive It By Faith In Christ As Lord And Savior. – Ephesians 2:8,9
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
God’s Salvation For Us Takes Place In Our Hearts. – Romans 10:9,10
“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.”
God Comes Into The Heart Of The Believer To Seal Us As His Own Forever. – Ephesians 1:13,14 – Ephesians 4:30 – II Corinthians 1:21,22 – 2 John 1:2
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, 22 set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
God’s Spirit In Us Is Love. – John 7:38
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
God’s Spirit Works In Our Hearts To Change Our Desires And The Result Is Growth In Love For Him. – Philippians 2:13
“for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”
We Love And Serve God Because He First Loved Us. – 1 John 4:19
“We love because he first loved us.”
Genuine Love For God Results In Motives That Please God.- 1 Corinthians 4:5 and 16:14
“Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.”
“Do everything in love.”
Motives That Please God Result In Works That Honor God. – 1 John 5:2-5
“This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
God is love, and He created us for a relationship with Him.
He also made us the reason for the greatest expression of love that has or will ever take place.
God came down from heaven in the personage of Jesus Christ to save us Himself from eternal separation from Him and eternal suffering in Hell.
It all began when Satan tried to over throw God and take His throne for himself.
God banished Satan to Earth from heaven and created Hell as a place of eternal suffering for Satan and the legions of angels that he led away with him in his rebellion to God. Isaiah 14:12-17
Then , perhaps to try to get back at God, Satan tempted Eve in the garden of Eden to do what God had forbidden.
Satan used the same thing against mankind that was his own weakness, Pride!
“For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened,and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”Genesis 3:5
Satan wanted to be ,”like God”, and he temped Eve to sin with the notion that she could be ,”like God”.
God could no longer dwell with His creation. Mankind was banished from the paradise that was Eden and the presence of God.
God also promised that He would restore mankind to Himself and gave a clue as to how He would accomplish our redemption.
“He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15
When Christ, the promised Messiah came to save us, he suffered, died , was buried and rose again to defeat death.
He died our death and then defeated death in order to give life to all who believe in Him as Lord and Savior.
Satan was defeated and eternal death was defeated.
Now Jesus offers eternal life to all who believe in Him as savior and ask Him to come into their heart.
For with the mouth confession is made and with the heart man believes and is saved.”Romans10:9-10
He loved us before we ever knew Him. John 4:10,14
His love is infinite and as we experience His presence in us, our hearts will expand and grow to become more like Christ and less about ourselves.
No matter how much we currently love God, we can always grow to love Him more.
Jesus revealed what is probably the best way to set a direction for continuous growth in love for Him when He told this story to a dinner host. The story is found in Luke 7:40-47.
The story has three characters.
A master and two people who both owed the master more than they could pay.
One owed slightly more than he could pay.
The other owed the master a great deal more than he could pay.
Jesus said the master forgave each his debt.
“Which do you suppose loved the master more?”
The dinner host responded, “The one whom was forgiveness the greater debt.”
“Rightly so.”, answered Jesus.
He continues to tell His host that those who have been forgiven much love much and,”He who has been forgiven Little loves little.”
We know the characters in the story represent the dinner host, the former prostitute who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears and wiped then with her hair, and Jesus himself.
But the key truth contained in this story that Jesus wants us all to get is the one that sets our hearts on fire and burns away all competing passions.
This happens when we realize that no one could pay what was owed and all faced the same fate, and the Master’s grace was all that made the difference.
We are also in this story by application. We all owe to God what we can’t pay and Jesus paid it for us.
Only believe He did that for you and receive His gift of eternal life.
One perceived his indebtedness more, the other one perceived his sin less, and they loved in proportion to their perception of themselves. But God is the standard of true perfection.
Here is the answer;”There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:22-23
Whether by little or much, we are all imperfect.
None of us are worthy to dwell with our Perfect Creator God after we leave this life unless we receive the sacrifice of Jesus the Perfect One as our own and we put our faith in Him as our Savior.
When we realize He died for all our sin, not just some of our sin, we will be free to love God with all our heart, not just some of our heart.
He that has been forgiven much loves much.
We all owe everything to God.
Our perceived need is little or much , but the reality is there is no difference.
All fall short.
But this needs to be said also,
We don’t all believe Once Saved Always Saved.
If you currently think you have to maintain a certain measure of works to feel secure in your salvation, you may not be fully trusting Christ’s sacrifice alone as the means to pay for your sins.
You have been forgiven little, and no matter how much you love God, you will always be able to love Him more if you trust Him for all of what He did for you that you were unworthy to do for yourself.
When you FULLY believe and know Jesus paid ALL your sin debt, then you can begin to love God with ALL your heart.
And when you trust God with ALL your life, then you will have tapped into the source of all faith.
Whether little or much, He alone is worthy to settle our debt.
Remember, there is no difference, we all fall short.
All have been forgiven much, and all can love God much.
January 10, 2012
Christ Centered Teaching
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What Grace is can be summed up in one word, FORGIVENESS.
We know That God is love. (1 John 4:8,16)
Grace cannot be more than who and what God is, but Grace can be what God is.
God is love and Grace is unearned forgiveness and love,paid for us by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross, the out working of God’s love to us.
All God does for the benefit of mankind and the reason God does them are the substance of what Grace is.
The best example of what Grace is can be found in these words from John 3:16,
“For God so loved”,…
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
God’s love satisfied God’s righteousness for our sake so we can know Him and have a relationship with Him.
FORGIVENESS is not forced upon us, but rather offered to us. Just ask God with your heart, and He will give eternal life to you.
“For by Grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one can boast. ” Ephesians 2:8-9
December 26, 2011
Christ Centered Teaching
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We love because he first loved us.
1Corinthians 16:14 , 1John 4:19
Christ Centered Teaching 