I’m going there

I’m going to go there. Honestly my own fearful flesh I battle has kept me from going here sooner with written words for the internet world to see. I think it’s a fear of being misunderstood. A fear of offending someone I love. A fear of being looked at as some kind of religious freak. A fear of my own reputation and coming across as someone yelling scripture to you. If you read further know you are choosing to read so I am ok. I will be ok if I offend you. My heart is not one of condemnation in writing but love. Jesus offended people. He did so much people put him to death.

The truth is I don’t see myself as religious in the least bit. I am a follower of Jesus and he is either just religion to you or reality. He truly can’t be both. He’s either fairytale or truth. Know if I offend you its because I love you and I hurt more than ever for Truth to be heard not someone’s idea of it. Truth is not an idea. Truth has a name. Truth is Jesus. Have you ever thought about why Jesus offended people so much? Jesus came saying he is Lord and he had all authority. Why would people kill someone if all he was saying was to love people and doing good deeds for them? Jesus can not simply be a good person to you and someone’s teaching you like. Tim Keller says it beautifully here.

“I believe you’ll see that in the end you can’t simply like anybody who makes claims like those of Jesus. Either he’s a wicked liar or a crazy person and you should have nothing to do with him or he is who he says he is and your whole life has to revolve around him and you have to throw everything at his feet and say command me.”

 Jesus taught come and die so you can live. Pick up your cross daily and follow me. We are to die to our own self righteousness and come to Jesus receiving his righteousness. This is so radical. Jesus paid a radical price when he died for our sin. Death could not hold him because no sin was in him before his Father and its when we come to Jesus we can come to the Father being adopted into the eternal family of God. Apart from the atoning blood of Jesus the wrath of God lays fully on each one of us for the sin we have committed against God who is set apart, not like us. He alone is without any need  and is all powerful, good, omnipresent, omniscient, and sovereign over all things. To call any sin, sin you have to look at who you sinned against. God reveals himself to us in his Word. We can not choose bits and pieces of what to believe and what is relevant. Truly the whole Bible is true to you or none of it is. You can not pick and choose.

If you believe the Bible is God’s Word you have to believe everything that’s in it. If you don’t believe the Bible is fully true how can you even know who God is? You see the thing about the Bible is it’s not just an ordinary book and can not be read in an ordinary way. All scripture is God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The Bible is God’s Word and if you dismiss away the Word  of the Great I am you are dismissing God himself.

The Bible is all or nothing. It is either foolish or truth revealed in written words. Jesus is all or nothing; he spits out the lukewarm.

You can not explain away scriptures that speak about homosexuality as a sin without changing God’s Word.

You can not ever ever ever say your body is your own and you have the right to kill life that God is creating in the womb without changing God’s Word.

You can not ever say that there is any other way to God through any other than Jesus without changing God’s Word.

You can not say its ok to turn your back on refugees as a follower of Jesus without changing God’s Word.

You can not put your ultimate hope in a countrys’ safety and prosperity as a follower of Jesus without changing God’s Word.

Whew….Did I miss any of the hot topics that Christians are misunderstood about and cause division? Now you know the reason for the title.

It was through reading my Bible alone by myself when I was 26 years old that the Lord poured out his grace upon me showing me my deep, deep sin. I saw my sin for the first time because I saw who my sin was against for the first time. Woe is me, I come undone before the Lord God Almighty. The only way to ever draw near, to know him is through coming to him under the precious blood of God himself who took on flesh because of his great love and mercy. It’s all grace so no one can boast(Ephesians 2). Oh how he loves us that we may become children of God!

And if the God who revealed himself to me in his Word has any error about himself or anything in the Bible that I can take at my own understanding and twist and he is ok with then I will say I am to be pitied above all men.

The Bible is either God’s Word to you or its another book with religious ideas. It can not be both. And if it’s God’s Word I have to say reading it might just change your life. Coming to the Bible humbly asking God to help you understand will cause you to fall on you face and rest in the blood of Jesus and not looking back.  If you need to know where to start please reach out.

So friend wherever you are reading this know I love you. I do. Forgive me for being slow to share. It was my own reputation I had to learn to be willing to die too and being ok counting the cost.

Thankful for the precious blood that saved a wretch of a sinner like me,

Lane