NOTA BENE: Please feel free to use any or all of the following discussions in your sermons even if you quote word for word. The time for judgment is drawing nigh. It is closer than when we first believed and many are presuming that they are going to heaven but actually "marching to their doom". May God anoint your message with power from on high.
*********************************************************************************
Over the the past 2,000 years since the time of Christ and the teaching of the Apostles, its seems that the Adversary has succeeded in his mission of distortion without most Christians being fully aware of such deterioration or degradation of the gospel message. Even scholars over the years have not seen the subtle distortions of Scripture caused by the huge gap of time since the original message, the introduction of extraneous traditions, cultic interpretations, highly opinionated pseudo-scholars, the bad witness of so-called "Christians" or even "saints", Bible translations and ignorance of the meaning and idioms of the original language of Scripture as well as ignorance of the environments and cultures, authors, audiences and purposes behind the writings of original inspiration have all but completely revised the simple message of God's love, purpose of creation, and kingdom project in history and Scripture.
This article will not deal with all that got lost but only the significant ones which have been notably removed or missing from the gospel message as originally declared by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Most significant are the following:
The reason we do not seem to see or discern these distortions compared to how the first century Christians received it, is mainly because the gospel message at that time amidst the context of their environment was immediately clear to the listener and the understanding was mainly correct because it is given under the right context of the first century environment, something that is not true today especially in the Western church.
Because of the dilution of the true gospel message, it would not be surprising that many Western Christians today who think they are Christian are sincerely mistaken, and that is sad, if not tragic because of the eternal consequences of ignorance. Having said that, we proceed to outline these missing essentials in the current gospel messages.
1. The Life Exchange
Note the following verses in the gospels which are so numerous, in fact, more than the number of times the Great Commandment was quoted (only 4 times).
*** Missing from the Western Gospel: The Life Exchange ***
Matthew 10:34-39 - Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:24-26 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mark 8:34-36 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.
Luke 9:23-25 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
Luke 17:34-36 - Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. (Reflect on v.32)
John 12:24-26 - Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Note that it is emphatically declared by Christ Himself in all of the gospels that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is willing to die for Christ and the gospel. Such is the essence of giving up your life or surrendering yourself to God or to the Lordship of Christ.
One has to give up his physical life in exchange for the eternal life that Christ offers. Without this exchange, there is no deal, no true salvation.
The western gospel does not emphasize this. Many times in evangelistic sermons, it is not even mentioned or articulated properly. Yes, preachers talk about surrender of life, or submission to the will of God but such statements are no longer as clear today as they were in the first century. The correct modern articulation is "dying for Christ" or "giving up your physical life in exchange for Christ's eternal life" in very much the same way that Jihadists are recruited to die for Allah, or communist recruits are taught to give up their lives to sacrifice for the cause.
The western gospel is cheap and costs almost nothing. They postpone commitment talk AFTER salvation (assuming true salvation occurred) instead of BEFORE resulting in fake Christians or lukewarm ones. And most of these are ignorant of the fact that they are doomed to an eternity without Christ because they are indirectly encouraged to live a life without Christ being truly Lord where they have lost their will to their Lord (another first century concept that is not clearly articulated today).
Salvation is truly "by grace" which means that we do not have to work for salvation through penance and self-mortification. But salvation is also "by FAITH" and that faith SHOULD BE similar to Abraham's faith which was willing to sacrifice the most important thing in his life - Isaac. It must be understood that in Abraham's time and context, people were prepared to die anytime. What they were not prepared for was giving up all they have or their most important possession(s) while they were still living. By FAITH really means you are willing to bet your life on a truth or even die for it. Only a few Western Christians understand it this way today. Let us make it crystal-clear: FAITH AND THE WILLINGNESS TO DIE AND GIVE UP YOUR PHYSICAL LIFE IS NOT WORK. There is no work of penance or indulgence here, just a simple but genuine commitment to what you believe AND CHRIST EXPECTS that at the point of salvation.
2. Self - Denial
Self-denial is impossible unless one has committed to the life exchange described above. Why? Because the struggle is much greater. The struggle should have been done at salvation and not after. Salvation should be given out as a "take ALL of it or leave ALL of it." There should be no halfway "take it or leave it." That has never been a Biblical option.
Let's face it, if one has given up his physical life to Christ, denying the self is just a follow up on a previous commitment instead of a new thing that would shock you.
Go back and review all the Life Exchange verses above and embedded in these principles is self-denial. Now once a person becomes a Christian, he is told in Romans 6 to reckon the old self dead to sin so that it can be alive to God. Christ always required that anyone who would follow him must first deny himself and take up his cross (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). If you remember the hermeneutic principle of knowing if God is shouting or whispering, the preponderance and repetition of verses cannot be any louder than God shouting what he requires! Self-denial has never been optional for anyone who wants to be a Christian.
So how does the Bible define or illustrate self-denial? Although the principle is evident in many Bible verses, mostly indirectly, a picture parable is worth a thousand words. Recall the parable of the Lord regarding a master and his servants in Luke 17:7-10:
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Many miss the point of this important parable. In Western culture today, we talk about rights and we cling to our rights either as citizens, as human beings, as husbands, as wives, as people of a certain group, etc.
In the parable, however, the master is likened to Jesus or God while the servants are likened to Christians or disciples. The servants are already tired and weary from working in the fields or doing their chores for the whole day. Yet they are not expected to rest and please themselves until they have served the master until the master has no more need of their service.
The point of the parable is that in the same way that the servant lives only to please the master at the expense of his own convenience or comforts or even his very self, then a disciple is also expected to always live to please God, even denying himself and his comforts or leaving his comfort zone just to make the master pleased or happy. Yet today, millions of western Christians today would be absent from church mostly because they want to rest or watch Super Bowl or NBA Championship or they want to avoid someone in church. Even Jesus Christ himself would not recognize that such people are Christians since they have the loyalty of the world and the worldly system.
Bottom Line: Denying the self is the first step to pleasing the master. The inverse logic is true, whenever the master is not pleased or is disappointed, it is because we have not taken the first and necessary step of denying the self. Note that if one fails at self-denial, either he is not truly saved or on the way to losing it (Read the book of Hebrews, The central theme of the book of Hebrews TRULY UNDERSTOOD is "BE CAREFUL OR YOU COULD LOSE YOUR SALVATION"). In fact, Hebrews 6 and 9 even suggest that if you lose your salvation, it could be permanent!
3. Salvation cannot exclude Sanctification
Martin Luther was so focused on Justification by Faith that he is often, if not always, misunderstood to NOT include Sanctification by Faith. However, anyone reading in his biography regarding his struggles against the power and dominion of the sin nature will see that Luther himself experienced "full salvation" when he discovered that he could be free from the power of sin by faith, not just the penalty of sin. This is something that John Wesley discovered almost 20 years after he became ordained under the Anglican Church or the Church of England, again because of the distortions of an aberrant doctrine.
On the other hand, a diligent reading of church history will find that the Eastern Orthodox Christians who never went through the Reformation (precisely because they did not need one because their statement of faith has always included Salvation by Faith and Works!) never struggled with this issue. Their declaration that salvation is by faith and works simply meant that salvation is by faith proven through good works. This implies that sanctification (the demonstration of good works and the fruit of the Spirit) was always part of salvation, i.e., salvation include justification and sanctification starting at the point of salvation.
The book of Romans, ironically the main source of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, is also the main source of Sanctification by faith and Paul insists that they occur and start simultaneously. In Romans 6:2, to answer the ridiculous question "should I sin more so that grace will abound more", Paul adamantly replies,
"2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
Notice the aorist verbs for "died", "baptized" into his death, "buried". Aorist tense means it occurred at a point in time IN THE PAST! And this is Paul's introduction to the doctrine of Sanctification by faith in Romans 6, 7 and 8.
So, what happened in the past? Justification by faith. What happened in the past? We died, past tense. We were baptized into his death. Past tense. We were buried with him. Past tense. All of these past events occurred at the point of being justified by faith. That is what being born again is all about. The old self is dead and the new self is alive UNHINDERED in its growth by the old self if it is out of the way because it has been RECKONED DEAD.
Western Christianity today does not emphasize this NECESSARY and IMPORTANT point during evangelistic invitations to sinners seeking salvation. But it is no surprise because life-exchange is not preached and explained prior to salvation. All the Christian has is "cheap grace" instead of salvation, full and free.
Theologically speaking, Christ did not come just to free us from the penalty of sin for eternity. He came that we might have life and might have it abundantly (John 10:10). The only way we can have an abundant life is to live a life free from the POWER and dominion of sin or the sin nature. The sin nature is the old self in Romans 6, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. Even a surface study of these passages show that the old self (or the sin nature) CAN BE and SHOULD BE put off or reckoned DEAD while living this present life.
Yes though we are not yet freed from the PRESENCE of sin at salvation, Scripture clearly declares that we are freed from the POWER of sin at the point of true salvation.
4. Theology of Suffering
It is ironic and quite a contrast that whereas Christianity has a heritage of believers being persecuted violently to the point of death and martyrdom, present day Christians are scared even just to undergo a brief period pain or suffering. For readers who have reached this point in this article, the reason is obvious: fake, candy-coated salvation is what most western Christians really have because they have never gone through the life-exchange process and therefore, do not even expect that being a disciple of Christ requires self-denial and the anticipation of a life carrying their cross daily according to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
The other big reason is the lack of awareness of what is called the "theology of suffering". There may have been various theologians who have tried to explain the theology of suffering but we simplify and make it practical here. We can outline the theology into just a few points:
5. Means of Grace = Pathways to God's blessings
One final principle which has been misconstrued by "justification by faith" demagogues who do not believe that salvation ALWAYS includes sanctification are what John Wesley called the "means of grace" which we now reword in modern English to be "pathways to God's richest blessings". The following excerpt from a Methodist website explains it succinctly:
These means of grace were traditionally called spiritual disciplines (a scary word to post-modern Christians who receive a candy-coated gospel).
What we should seek:
The Goal of the Means of Grace or Pathways to God's richest blessings: Seeking God, seeking the face of God, seeking God’s face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us, seeking the very personal presence of God.
What we SHOULD NOT seek:
The narrative of Mary and Martha found in Luke 10:38-42 is highly instructive. There was nothing inherently wrong with the focus of Martha. In fact, the Lord did not rebuke her. Instead, Jesus pointed out the "better way". Mary chose a Means of Grace, Martha did not. This has very little to do with priorities as much as it simply points out why one activity is "the better way" compared to the other.
The Armor of God in Ephesians 6 is another great illustration to drive home the point of why the Means of Grace are necessities in the Christian life and walk. The armor of God can only be completed by diligent practice of the means of grace. How can you use the sword of the Spirit if you don't know the Word of God by heart? What is the shield of faith if you have not tested prayers being answered by God with perfect timing? How can you use the shoes of readiness for the gospel if you have not practice works of compassion. Yes, works of piety and works of compassion contribute greatly to getting the armor of God ready for any testing or trial.
Recall the time David went for Goliath and King Saul wanted him to use the king's armor? David obediently tried it on but what did he say after fitting it on? "Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.”" (1 Samuel 17:39b). Likewise, it would be certain defeat for the Christian to go into battle with an armor that he has never tested!
So whether we are undergoing trials and testings or not, we need to test the armor regularly, in fact, daily, mainly through the means of grace or spiritual disciplines which are the pathways to God's blessings. Then when the time of tribulation and temptations dawn on us, we are indeed prepared for battle.
*********************************************************************************
Over the the past 2,000 years since the time of Christ and the teaching of the Apostles, its seems that the Adversary has succeeded in his mission of distortion without most Christians being fully aware of such deterioration or degradation of the gospel message. Even scholars over the years have not seen the subtle distortions of Scripture caused by the huge gap of time since the original message, the introduction of extraneous traditions, cultic interpretations, highly opinionated pseudo-scholars, the bad witness of so-called "Christians" or even "saints", Bible translations and ignorance of the meaning and idioms of the original language of Scripture as well as ignorance of the environments and cultures, authors, audiences and purposes behind the writings of original inspiration have all but completely revised the simple message of God's love, purpose of creation, and kingdom project in history and Scripture.
This article will not deal with all that got lost but only the significant ones which have been notably removed or missing from the gospel message as originally declared by Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Most significant are the following:
- Life Exchange
- Self-denial
- Sanctification starts at the same time as Justification
- The Expectation of Suffering, and
- Pathway Disciplines to God's blessings
The reason we do not seem to see or discern these distortions compared to how the first century Christians received it, is mainly because the gospel message at that time amidst the context of their environment was immediately clear to the listener and the understanding was mainly correct because it is given under the right context of the first century environment, something that is not true today especially in the Western church.
Because of the dilution of the true gospel message, it would not be surprising that many Western Christians today who think they are Christian are sincerely mistaken, and that is sad, if not tragic because of the eternal consequences of ignorance. Having said that, we proceed to outline these missing essentials in the current gospel messages.
1. The Life Exchange
Note the following verses in the gospels which are so numerous, in fact, more than the number of times the Great Commandment was quoted (only 4 times).
*** Missing from the Western Gospel: The Life Exchange ***
Matthew 10:34-39 - Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:24-26 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mark 8:34-36 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.
Luke 9:23-25 - For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
Luke 17:34-36 - Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. (Reflect on v.32)
John 12:24-26 - Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
Note that it is emphatically declared by Christ Himself in all of the gospels that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is willing to die for Christ and the gospel. Such is the essence of giving up your life or surrendering yourself to God or to the Lordship of Christ.
One has to give up his physical life in exchange for the eternal life that Christ offers. Without this exchange, there is no deal, no true salvation.
The western gospel does not emphasize this. Many times in evangelistic sermons, it is not even mentioned or articulated properly. Yes, preachers talk about surrender of life, or submission to the will of God but such statements are no longer as clear today as they were in the first century. The correct modern articulation is "dying for Christ" or "giving up your physical life in exchange for Christ's eternal life" in very much the same way that Jihadists are recruited to die for Allah, or communist recruits are taught to give up their lives to sacrifice for the cause.
The western gospel is cheap and costs almost nothing. They postpone commitment talk AFTER salvation (assuming true salvation occurred) instead of BEFORE resulting in fake Christians or lukewarm ones. And most of these are ignorant of the fact that they are doomed to an eternity without Christ because they are indirectly encouraged to live a life without Christ being truly Lord where they have lost their will to their Lord (another first century concept that is not clearly articulated today).
Salvation is truly "by grace" which means that we do not have to work for salvation through penance and self-mortification. But salvation is also "by FAITH" and that faith SHOULD BE similar to Abraham's faith which was willing to sacrifice the most important thing in his life - Isaac. It must be understood that in Abraham's time and context, people were prepared to die anytime. What they were not prepared for was giving up all they have or their most important possession(s) while they were still living. By FAITH really means you are willing to bet your life on a truth or even die for it. Only a few Western Christians understand it this way today. Let us make it crystal-clear: FAITH AND THE WILLINGNESS TO DIE AND GIVE UP YOUR PHYSICAL LIFE IS NOT WORK. There is no work of penance or indulgence here, just a simple but genuine commitment to what you believe AND CHRIST EXPECTS that at the point of salvation.
2. Self - Denial
Self-denial is impossible unless one has committed to the life exchange described above. Why? Because the struggle is much greater. The struggle should have been done at salvation and not after. Salvation should be given out as a "take ALL of it or leave ALL of it." There should be no halfway "take it or leave it." That has never been a Biblical option.
Let's face it, if one has given up his physical life to Christ, denying the self is just a follow up on a previous commitment instead of a new thing that would shock you.
Go back and review all the Life Exchange verses above and embedded in these principles is self-denial. Now once a person becomes a Christian, he is told in Romans 6 to reckon the old self dead to sin so that it can be alive to God. Christ always required that anyone who would follow him must first deny himself and take up his cross (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). If you remember the hermeneutic principle of knowing if God is shouting or whispering, the preponderance and repetition of verses cannot be any louder than God shouting what he requires! Self-denial has never been optional for anyone who wants to be a Christian.
So how does the Bible define or illustrate self-denial? Although the principle is evident in many Bible verses, mostly indirectly, a picture parable is worth a thousand words. Recall the parable of the Lord regarding a master and his servants in Luke 17:7-10:
7 “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? 8 Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”
Many miss the point of this important parable. In Western culture today, we talk about rights and we cling to our rights either as citizens, as human beings, as husbands, as wives, as people of a certain group, etc.
In the parable, however, the master is likened to Jesus or God while the servants are likened to Christians or disciples. The servants are already tired and weary from working in the fields or doing their chores for the whole day. Yet they are not expected to rest and please themselves until they have served the master until the master has no more need of their service.
The point of the parable is that in the same way that the servant lives only to please the master at the expense of his own convenience or comforts or even his very self, then a disciple is also expected to always live to please God, even denying himself and his comforts or leaving his comfort zone just to make the master pleased or happy. Yet today, millions of western Christians today would be absent from church mostly because they want to rest or watch Super Bowl or NBA Championship or they want to avoid someone in church. Even Jesus Christ himself would not recognize that such people are Christians since they have the loyalty of the world and the worldly system.
Bottom Line: Denying the self is the first step to pleasing the master. The inverse logic is true, whenever the master is not pleased or is disappointed, it is because we have not taken the first and necessary step of denying the self. Note that if one fails at self-denial, either he is not truly saved or on the way to losing it (Read the book of Hebrews, The central theme of the book of Hebrews TRULY UNDERSTOOD is "BE CAREFUL OR YOU COULD LOSE YOUR SALVATION"). In fact, Hebrews 6 and 9 even suggest that if you lose your salvation, it could be permanent!
3. Salvation cannot exclude Sanctification
Martin Luther was so focused on Justification by Faith that he is often, if not always, misunderstood to NOT include Sanctification by Faith. However, anyone reading in his biography regarding his struggles against the power and dominion of the sin nature will see that Luther himself experienced "full salvation" when he discovered that he could be free from the power of sin by faith, not just the penalty of sin. This is something that John Wesley discovered almost 20 years after he became ordained under the Anglican Church or the Church of England, again because of the distortions of an aberrant doctrine.
On the other hand, a diligent reading of church history will find that the Eastern Orthodox Christians who never went through the Reformation (precisely because they did not need one because their statement of faith has always included Salvation by Faith and Works!) never struggled with this issue. Their declaration that salvation is by faith and works simply meant that salvation is by faith proven through good works. This implies that sanctification (the demonstration of good works and the fruit of the Spirit) was always part of salvation, i.e., salvation include justification and sanctification starting at the point of salvation.
The book of Romans, ironically the main source of the doctrine of Justification by Faith, is also the main source of Sanctification by faith and Paul insists that they occur and start simultaneously. In Romans 6:2, to answer the ridiculous question "should I sin more so that grace will abound more", Paul adamantly replies,
"2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."
Notice the aorist verbs for "died", "baptized" into his death, "buried". Aorist tense means it occurred at a point in time IN THE PAST! And this is Paul's introduction to the doctrine of Sanctification by faith in Romans 6, 7 and 8.
So, what happened in the past? Justification by faith. What happened in the past? We died, past tense. We were baptized into his death. Past tense. We were buried with him. Past tense. All of these past events occurred at the point of being justified by faith. That is what being born again is all about. The old self is dead and the new self is alive UNHINDERED in its growth by the old self if it is out of the way because it has been RECKONED DEAD.
Western Christianity today does not emphasize this NECESSARY and IMPORTANT point during evangelistic invitations to sinners seeking salvation. But it is no surprise because life-exchange is not preached and explained prior to salvation. All the Christian has is "cheap grace" instead of salvation, full and free.
Theologically speaking, Christ did not come just to free us from the penalty of sin for eternity. He came that we might have life and might have it abundantly (John 10:10). The only way we can have an abundant life is to live a life free from the POWER and dominion of sin or the sin nature. The sin nature is the old self in Romans 6, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. Even a surface study of these passages show that the old self (or the sin nature) CAN BE and SHOULD BE put off or reckoned DEAD while living this present life.
Yes though we are not yet freed from the PRESENCE of sin at salvation, Scripture clearly declares that we are freed from the POWER of sin at the point of true salvation.
4. Theology of Suffering
It is ironic and quite a contrast that whereas Christianity has a heritage of believers being persecuted violently to the point of death and martyrdom, present day Christians are scared even just to undergo a brief period pain or suffering. For readers who have reached this point in this article, the reason is obvious: fake, candy-coated salvation is what most western Christians really have because they have never gone through the life-exchange process and therefore, do not even expect that being a disciple of Christ requires self-denial and the anticipation of a life carrying their cross daily according to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
The other big reason is the lack of awareness of what is called the "theology of suffering". There may have been various theologians who have tried to explain the theology of suffering but we simplify and make it practical here. We can outline the theology into just a few points:
- All men whether Christian or unsaved WILL undergo suffering in this world for the Bible actually assumes or even promises its constant and continuous occurrence in this life. Suffering is and will ALWAYS be part of human existence. Read the following authors in Scripture:
Moses: Psalm 90:10
Job: Job 5:7; 14:1
King Solomon: Ecclesiastes 2:22-23; 6:2; 6:7; etc
Jesus: John 16:33
Paul: Acts 14:22; Romans 12:12 - Suffering is always intended by God to draw us closer to him instead of us complaining and questioning his wisdom and love. Many western Christians tend to resent God and question his power and sovereignty and even love against suffering whenever they experience these hurting situations.
- The PAIN of SUFFERING is INVERSELY related to our closeness to the Presence of God. Here is why we should not fear suffering, in fact, we should welcome it like St. Paul did in Philippians 3:11 where he was willing to give up everything that in life that matters, "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death..." The following visual should help...It is the PAIN of suffering that no sane person wants to undergo or experience. It is the pain that we try to avoid. Well, suffering cannot be avoided but the pain of suffering depends on our closeness to God. The illustration reinforces the principle that suffering should draw us closer to God and the closer we are to God, the less we feel or experience the pain of our suffering.
Christians experience the pain of suffering more if instead of drawing near, they run away from God increasing the distance from the Comforter of pain, and therefore increasing the pain.
One final principle which has been misconstrued by "justification by faith" demagogues who do not believe that salvation ALWAYS includes sanctification are what John Wesley called the "means of grace" which we now reword in modern English to be "pathways to God's richest blessings". The following excerpt from a Methodist website explains it succinctly:
- "Courageous and forward-leaning mission congregations practice spiritual disciplines… John Wesley taught that God’s grace is unearned and that we were not to be idle waiting to experience grace but we are to engage in the means of grace. The means of grace are ways God works invisibly in disciples, hastening, strengthening; and confirming faith so that God's grace pervades in and through disciples.
- Works of Piety
- Individual Practices – reading, meditating and studying the scriptures, prayer, fasting, regularly attending worship, healthy living, and sharing our faith with others
Communal Practices – regularly share in the sacraments, Christian conferencing (accountability to one another), and Bible study - Works of Mercy
-
Individual Practices - doing good works, visiting the sick, visiting those in prison, feeding the hungry, and giving generously to the needs of others
Communal Practices – seeking justice, ending oppression and discrimination (for instance Wesley challenged Methodists to end slavery), and addressing the needs of the poor"
These means of grace were traditionally called spiritual disciplines (a scary word to post-modern Christians who receive a candy-coated gospel).
What we should seek:
The Goal of the Means of Grace or Pathways to God's richest blessings: Seeking God, seeking the face of God, seeking God’s face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us, seeking the very personal presence of God.
What we SHOULD NOT seek:
- Any special power in the works
- That the works will gain us points in heaven
The narrative of Mary and Martha found in Luke 10:38-42 is highly instructive. There was nothing inherently wrong with the focus of Martha. In fact, the Lord did not rebuke her. Instead, Jesus pointed out the "better way". Mary chose a Means of Grace, Martha did not. This has very little to do with priorities as much as it simply points out why one activity is "the better way" compared to the other.
The Armor of God in Ephesians 6 is another great illustration to drive home the point of why the Means of Grace are necessities in the Christian life and walk. The armor of God can only be completed by diligent practice of the means of grace. How can you use the sword of the Spirit if you don't know the Word of God by heart? What is the shield of faith if you have not tested prayers being answered by God with perfect timing? How can you use the shoes of readiness for the gospel if you have not practice works of compassion. Yes, works of piety and works of compassion contribute greatly to getting the armor of God ready for any testing or trial.
Recall the time David went for Goliath and King Saul wanted him to use the king's armor? David obediently tried it on but what did he say after fitting it on? "Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.”" (1 Samuel 17:39b). Likewise, it would be certain defeat for the Christian to go into battle with an armor that he has never tested!
So whether we are undergoing trials and testings or not, we need to test the armor regularly, in fact, daily, mainly through the means of grace or spiritual disciplines which are the pathways to God's blessings. Then when the time of tribulation and temptations dawn on us, we are indeed prepared for battle.
No comments:
Post a Comment