Correct Thinking

This morning I went for a three mile run. Even though it was nine in the morning, it was already really hot (living in Houston, Texas). This was one of the hardest runs I have ever went on. The weird thing was, my body felt great. Legs were strong and the knees were holding up fairly well. The thing that started to fail me was mind. When things started to get harder and the heat was kicked up, I felt like I should stop. It was a mental battle to keep going. I questioned if I should stop because of the heat. I thought "there is no way I can keep going!" For most of the run I had these thoughts and this made things extremely hard. It's not like I was running a marathon or even a half-marathon, three miles should be pretty easy for a 21 year old guy. But, the incorrect thoughts I was having beat me down.

After the run I started thinking about how this relates to the Christian Life. Our culture these days puts so much emphasis on "running" (service, living for the Lord, community ect.), that thinking correctly takes the back seat. This, to me, seems backwards to all of the New Testament Epistles. Paul, in the majority of his letters, started the first half of the book with doctrine and how the believer should think about things (Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians ect.). Never, does he ask the believer to live a certain way, before instructing them on key doctrines that relate to living. Our Christian life, and service must be founded on correct doctrine or the end result will be failure.

This is not to say that serving the Lord isn't needed but the focus in most churches has shifted from doctrinal teaching to application only. We need doctrine to think correctly with the end result of living correctly.

This is a must read in addition to this post:

http://www.brenhambiblechurch.org/pastors-blog/doctrine-is-dead/.

Dr. JB Hixson cleverly portrays the Christian culture of the day. Very good! Article titled "Doctrine is Dead"

Ponderings from Sunday Morning

This post will be pretty informal, but I want to remind y'all of some key truths that I was reminded this morning at church.

During the main service, we were in 1 and 2 Kings. I attend Kingsland Baptist Church and we're going through all 66 books of the Bible in order. So this week brought us to these two books- which are actually one book in Hebrew Bibles so I think that's part of the reason why Pastor Alex divided it like this. Long story short, there is something we must remember from these stories in the OT (Romans 15:4), and specifically from what was discussed today: How easy it is for us to get distracted, to fall into sin, and not fully render our heart, soul, mind, and body to devotion to the One True God.

Salvation and sanctification are always by God's grace through faith no matter what dispensation we're looking at.

For the wise King Solomon, his sin was 1000 wives and concubines (1 Kings 11:1-8) who he not only loved, slept with, was enraptured by, but he was a worshiper of their gods! This is a reminder to us of...

1. The simple perspective of life God gives us (Love God and Love others in faith and obedience; Or don't and experience the sin and death involved with a life not rendered fully to God).
2. The choice we have daily to serve and obey Him in faith.
   
3. The ease of falling into sin. Solomon's was unique to his situation as it can be with ours. Whether pornography, drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, murder, business, busyness, family, or even being religious, the ways in which we can love ourselves are many. The way in which we can love God and others are few but rewarding and joyous.

So let us serve God this day: To seek Him in all things!

Secondly, let us never get comfortable in our situation. Whether married, single, divorced, or widowed- wherever God has us- do not fall into the trap of being idle or being content with what the world offers: The American Dream.

During Sunday School, Steve Hyde spoke to us for 45+ minutes on the opportunity for missionary opportunity throughout the world and especially in Cambodia, where he currently resides and serves alongside the government who's trying to reconstruct a broken society: Feeding the poor and homeless, rescuing the child from prostitution, drug dealing, and slave labor, and being love with flesh on it to people in whatever situation.

I want to emphasize to everyone reading that you are, as we will continue to expound upon in the posts on our identity in Christ, valuable because of what Christ has done/who He is. We have all been made in the image of God and Christ has died for all men because He loves them. And your life is defined not by what you do or who you are or who you think you are (unless it's Biblically accurate), but it is rooted in Christ! That being said, we have the opportunity to make much of our lives for the glory of God by faith and obedience to His Word.

God doesn't expect us to be perfect, but God does want us to be obedient in faith.

Lastly, after Hyde was done speaking, I asked him about how he does evangelism. I've been really turned off lately in how many do it. The message is, as I've seen, usually very clear and precise, citing what they're saying from the Scriptures (Christ died for our sins and rose again), but the actual presentation tends to be overly confrontational, argumentative, and extremely shallow. I don't doubt the need for people to know the Gospel, but I do wonder if the people who do it actually build life relationships with people when they do this.

It was refreshing to hear Steve Hyde tell me he builds relationships while providing for natural human needs when he's out ministering/on the mission field. He even went on to say that he will not talk with others about Christ unless he can commit to being there to disciple them and grow them in Christ.

I say this last point on evangelism because of two things missing from the American Church today:

1. Real community by deep friendships.
2. Discipleship. While evangelism is certainly emphasized, it's not always backed by a strong relationship and dedication to growing that person in Christ and teaching them what that looks like.