Why I took down my Confederate flag… 12 years ago

July 10, 2015 by Leave a Comment

I read an article about the problem of race in our country. It was written by a black man who although he tried to make his point that we must communicate in order to overcome racism in our country, his examples lead me to think that he was doing more to lead us to view racism as a hopeless obstacle, so why try.

Why try?  That is the question that needs answered. Especially right now. The answer is not a presumptive claim that is it just the right thing to do. (although it is.) Nor is the answer rooted in equality. (although we are.)  Nor is the answer ‘we need to.’  (although we do.)  The answer for me came from the source that all answers really come from, the Bible.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”
– Jesus in John 13:34

“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirt, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
– Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20

No, neither of those verses tell me to take down anything. Or do they?  Let me review… The Bible teaches me that Jesus is God come to earth on a rescue mission for all who will follow Him out of this hell bound path.  He gives up His right as the Sovereign King of all to be one of His own creation. He dies in our place on a cross. Why? To save us. To show us He loves us.  To call us to come follow Him.  To remove the obstacle between humanity and God… to remove sin.

If that is true, than anyone who completes this life without surrendering themselves to Christ suffers eternally in hell. Knowing this, it is my responsibility to both God and my neighbor to do everything I can to bring people to know Jesus.  Part of that effort includes introducing people to Jesus, but also to remove any obstacle that I may put in the way.

Now as a matter of life and death, and even more impactful and lasting than the work of a surgeon, a follower of Christ must lead people to this Gospel.  No sacrifice is too great.  The greatest sacrifice has already been given in the life blood of God the Son.  What ‘heritage’ do I need to defend that is greater than the one that has been given?  None.

Make no mistake, it was (sometimes is) hard.  I was a member of ‘Sons of Confederate Veterans.’  I was raised in a home that remembered the lives and stories of a Confederate Soldier and his wife.   A great grandmother who would speak of an ‘illegal government.’  I know what it looks like to see the Confederate flag as something more than racism.  (Notice I said ‘more.’) I know that the flag is just one small part of a much larger problem.  Every journey must have a begining.

More than knowing about a flag, I know is this: I am not my own. I have been bought with a price.  So I glorify God above all.  My ‘heritage’ is no longer good or bad because its not a question.  It is irrelevent.  As far removed from me as anything sin in my past.  I am a child of God called to love other people. I am an ambassador for Christ. All this accomplished by Jesus work on the cross, his resurrection and now the faith that He has given me by His grace.

So 12 years ago, as I realized that my emotional attachment to my history could not stand in the way of sharing the love of Jesus with anyone, I took down artwork and a flag.  They were no longer what I wanted people to know about me.  Up went a cross….  Because that is what all who enter my home must know… about me, about my family, and if they are willing to hear it, about themselves.

“You are from God, little children, and have overcome… because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” – 1 John 4:4

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Understanding Sin In Our Lives

June 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment

We really don’t understand sin.

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

What does that mean? We are all sinners. You and me included. That is why we insist on acknowledging sin for what it is. God is the moral law giver. So we submit to His authority and seek His mercy which He has promised to give.
The real problem comes not in admitting our wrongs, but in denying that there is a wrong in the first place. That denial places us in a position of continual denial of Gods authority in our lives and His creation. Hence we admit that all things the Bible condemns are in fact sin. The right way of dealing with that sin is not a claim of the changing times, but admitting the sin and seeking His mercy found displayed at the cross.

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Born this way… A personal reflection.

December 19, 2014 by 1 Comment
“You cannot hold it against a person for being who they were born to be.”  I have heard this, and so have many of you.  We hear it most often about a very sensitive subject of our day.  But my response to it applies directly to myself, and I’d encourage others to look at this idea critically as well.
Truth is, I suffer from this line of thought. “I was born this way.” I struggle with pride and greed and even from time to time unholy sexual impulses.  I was born this way.  I didn’t grow up saying to myself, “I want to be arrogant and selfish.” But I was born this way, I grew up with it. I knew I was this way from my childhood. Then, as I grew to know right from wrong, I found that some of the ideas and feelings in me were wrong. Not because I decided that but because God had said so.
I, like many, reached 17 years old and ready to graduate High School when I realized I knew more than most other people. Not that I knew everything, but more than most. (That was my idea of humility back then.) But as I got out into the world, at university and at work, I became increasingly aware of how little I really did know. It was a time of confusion, frustration and anger.Then 24 years old, I committed myself to finding a job I could actually keep and do well at.  I found it.  A call center in my home town was just opening and within just a few months I had been promoted and had a good salary.
Well that’s it right? I mean, that is what we study for.  It is what we prepare our kids for.  I thought so.  I bought a house, bought a car, had a wife and kids.  American success!  And the pride and greed grew. I was infatuated with myself, my image and my stuff. I was born for this….
Except it wasn’t enough. I wanted more… I thought.
I can’t tell you the moment it occurred, but I’m sure it happened.  A moment when I sat with what John Bunyan called ‘the best of books,’ and I realized, I was born this way, but that doesn’t mean I have to live this way. I can be free of all this stuff.  I can be free of living like I have to hold this job with a certain salary and have debt on a big house and car payments on a vehicle I’ll never own.  I can be free.
Were there sacrifices…? Yes. But those sacrifices were nothing to what I received. It took a lot of faith. Now, not Oprah Winfrey faith, but real faith, in the real God. I had to trust that Jesus Christ would be my everything. I had to trust that He would give opportunities and provide for what was needed.
God had been good to me my whole life. A life that few in the world get to experience. I had a Mom and Dad who loved me, my siblings and Jesus. They provided for us and made sure we knew Christ. Later came my wife, Eyvonne, who had a wonderful family herself and later the two of us would have four children.
But even with all that, I had to acknowledge some things. I was born self-centered. I had my own desires that did not care for others or for God. When I really came to know Jesus, that required my repentance. Repentance that was more than confession, but an admitting of sin in my heart and an acknowledgment that God calls me to walk contrary to my natural born tendencies. That is what I work toward now.  It is what I pray about. It is a journey to become more like Jesus Christ every day. To care about what He cares about. To adopt His ethic as my ethic. To trust Him to know better than me.
I live a peace now with the conflict within me. I am a sinner. A man who is very self-centered. But I am also a saint. A man who has been made right with God by the blood of Jesus Christ.
His grace has saved me. I have faith in that: In Jesus, in His grace, not in me and it does not matter how I was born.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Filed Under: Personal Thoughts

Goals of Grace: Notes from the week of 7-13-14

July 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

  • Missions are about Relationships.
  • Christianity is about relationships.  Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor as yourself. – Matthew 22:37-39
  • “One soul won to Christ is better than a thousand merely moralized and still sleeping in their sins.” – Charles H. Spurgeon
  • The one who needed grace and the one who received it. Luke 7:36-50
  • In March 1873, in a periodical that He published called The Sword and Trowel, Charles Spurgeon wrote these words:  Every Christian here is either a missionary or an impostor. Recollect that. You either try to spread abroad the kingdom of Christ, or else you do not love him at all. It cannot be that there is a high appreciation of Jesus and a totally silent tongue about him. Of course I do not mean by that, that those who use the pen are silent: they are not. And those who help others to use the tongue, or spread that which others have written, are doing their part well: but that man who says, “I believe in Jesus,” but does not think enough of Jesus ever to tell another about him, by mouth, or pen, or tract, is an impostor.
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MIT student worried about the divisive force

May 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment

So I heard a quote from an MIT student this week that claimed that our founding fathers included a separation of Church and State so that the latter would not have a “divisive force” on the former (my paraphrase).

I have heard and read many things about the decision that followed this letter.  But my only observation about it has almost nothing to do with MIT.  Rather, I wonder how we came to think that the founding fathers were worried about the church being a “divisive force” upon the state.  As I read history I see something quite different.

I see a group of separatists who had just recently broken off from a government who at one point had required them to be a part of the Church of England.  Hence we see the early settlers coming to the US being from other protestant lines.

The reason the separation of Church and State is such a big deal is not to protect the State from the ideas of the Church, but to protect the Church from the requirements of the State.

This is reflected also in our election process.  If a people in an area are electing a representative, they have the freedom to elect a Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, or whatever other world view their candidate may have.  But the candidates world view will drive him or her.  To insist that a candidate, or later representative should not rely upon that world view that has guided them to where they are is the same as to give them permission, or even an expectation, to abandon their driving principles for the sake of popular opinion.  None of us expect that.

My point is this:  The state is subject to the people, not the other way around.  The church is to love and serve people, not follow the state.

  • Here Albert Mohler on this topic here.
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Its only Friday…

April 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

I am in a bad mood today.  I admit I have fallen into that situation by allowing some outside opinions to affect my judgment.  But why wouldn’t a person be in a bad mood today?  (4-18-14)  It is called Good Friday, but it is only good because of God’s grace.  For me, a sinful human being, it marks the low point of human history.  The day we people decided the best plan was to attempt to protect our will over that of Gods.  So we killed Jesus Christ.  We killed God in the flesh, come to us to show us what love is.  We were so wrapped up in protecting what we thought was our right to power that we not only rejected, but gave a tortuous death to the one who gave us life in the first place.

Was that His plan all along?  Yes, I know it was.  Jesus said it himself long before it happened.  Even prophets long before described how He would die.  (Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 most obviously, and slightly veiled to us but clear to Satan – Genesis 3:15)

The cross may have been part of His knowledge, wisdom and plan, but that in no way changes the fact that we did this.  We sing the words:  “It was my sin that held Him there, until it was accomplished.  His dying breath has brought me life.  I know that it is finished.”

So yes, I am in a bad mood.  And rightly so I believe.  The good news is (and means) I don’t have to stay that way.

Maybe we will close with this tonight at church….

Sunday’s comin’  (can be purchased here)

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The Danger of Abusing the Bible

April 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

We live in an age of biblical illiteracy.  To be illiterate is to not be able to read.  Another phrase that might help us understand is practical illiteracy.  That means that where as a person can read, they don’t, so they are practically illiterate.  The phrase I used a moment ago, biblical illiteracy, means that the bible is largely unread.  And many who claim to read it make no effort to read and understand how the whole thing works together.

Just this last week I saw two opposing, but dramatic examples of biblical illiteracy.   One is New Your Mayor Bloomburg concluding that if there is a god, he is clear to go to heaven because of his work towards gun control.  Second was an online post claiming that because the bible says divorcées should be stoned and we no longer do that, that means that we clearly regard part of the Bible as antiquated and should also dismiss the commandment to condemn other lifestyle issues that are popular today.

Both of these conclusions demonstrate a total biblical illiteracy.  First, Mayor Bloomburg cannot go to heaven for any political action he takes because there is no such thing as earning your way to heaven by what you do.  Only the grace of God allows that.  Second, the online post was ridiculous because the bible does not command us to stone the divorced woman.  And those of us who know the bible, know that even if such a law existed, it is covered by the work of Christ on the cross and we no longer need to stone anyone.

The primary danger of biblical illiteracy is that people will manipulate what they have heard about the bible and thereby misuse it.  We have a long history of that and that is the kind of thing that gets us in trouble.  A couple examples, see how Satan talked to Eve in Genesis 3, and consider the real reasons and causes of what history calls the “Holy Crusades.”

People often conclude that the answer is not to take the Bible literally.  The answer is actually the opposite, take it literally (according to the authors intent), and take it as a whole.  Not just selecting certain parts to do either good or bad in the world around us.  Jesus has fulfilled the law and called us to trust in Him and show love and grace to one another.  You cannot implement any part of the bible without a full view of scripture and what the author was intending to communicate in the first place.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes – Romans 10:4

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Growing In Wisdom

April 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

I always try to be slow to speak about naive or ignorant believers because the more I learn, the more aware I become of how naive and ignorant I was just a short time ago.  With that in mind, how naive and ignorant will I view myself in just a few more years.

Below is a link to an article written by atheist author Matthew Paris.  It has been wide spread on other internet sites.  Initially it was shared by leading atheist Richard Dawkins, but has now been removed.  I encourage you to read it as soon as possible.

Click Here to read Matthew’s article.

We all are growing and learning.  This is what Jesus had in mind.  In Him we find truth because He is truth.

Keep growing.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever! – Psalm 111:10

Filed Under: Personal Thoughts

Read and Believe Romans

March 31, 2014 by 19 Comments

I will begin Monday 3-31-14 to read Romans.  Please feel free to offer commentary or questions on Romans as we go in the comment section below.  The way the site is set up, I must approve all comments so don’t worry if it doesn’t show immediately.  You can also private message me on Facebook or email me at sharp@esharp.net if you desire.

Monday – Romans 1 through 3
Tuesday – Romans 4 through 6
Wednesday – Romans 7 through 9
Thursday – Romans 10 through 12
Friday – Romans 13 through 15
Saturday – Romans 16

Martin Luther once commented concerning Romans:

“This Epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament and the very purest Gospel, and is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul.  It can never be read or pondered too much, and the more it is dealt with the more precious it becomes, and the better it tastes.”

Filed Under: Answers to Questions, Personal Thoughts

Women in Ministry

February 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Do you believe the Bible?  Acts 2:17-21, a quotation from the book of Joel that clearly speaks of both men and women.  And Acts 21:9 where we learn of Philips four daughters who were prophetesses.  (This in no way conflicts with the teachings of Paul.)  Now what does this mean for you and your church?

“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.” – Acts 2:17-18

See also “Women Deacons.”

Filed Under: Personal Thoughts
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