God's Got This

Hard to believe this month we will see democracy at its finest moment as “We the People” take to the voting booth to cast our votes for the next President of the United States of America. To say this is a tumultuous time in our nation would be an understatement. But you know, every four years is "the biggest election we’ve ever experienced". The path of our great nation continues or resets every four years. Some of those years have been our greatest moments and some would be considered only a small flicker of light. I remember Ronald Reagan as a young boy. I remember watching him, even though I really didn’t understand what all this political stuff meant at the time. He commanded attention and he was a great leader. I remember in 1986 when he spoke on the Challenger Shuttle explosion. He was my president then and at age nine, I knew it.

My parents played an informative role in my political views. They never missed a beat when it came to elections and they made sure I knew how and why they voted. They also taught me the meaning of Romans 13:1-7. That passage weighs heavy on my heart the closer we come to approaching November 8^th and the change of power that will occur in January. For me to say that we have two virtuous people of character and high moral standing running for office would be…well…overstating the truth like a bass fisherman who caught a minnow but says he landed a 15 pound monster. I’ve heard many times over through the process, “This year, it is the lesser of two evils.” But that is not a great Biblical worldview approach to what we face. Evil is evil and it does not come in degrees or stages. What we have this year are two fallen people who profess one thing and do something completely different. Sound any different than people we’ve met in the Scriptures? Moses was a murderer, David an adulterer, Solomon loved too many women…yet God used each one of them.

Ultimately, this is how Paul weighs government authority in Romans 13:1-7. (Read it!) 

·      Everyone is to submit to the governing authority.  It is a command that Paul gives the church. To submit to the authority of the government is to submit to God.

·      There is NO authority except from God, and those who exist have been instituted by God. God is sovereign and His rule is sovereign in the affairs of this world.

·      To help illustrate Romans 13, Daniel concludes from King Nebuchadnezzer’s dream that God is in control, setting up and taking down kings to accomplish His perfect will. Daniel 2:27-44 &: Daniel 4:17-27

·      Paul wants you to understand that “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; He directs it like a watercourse wherever He pleases.” Proverbs 21:1. So the tyrant Roman Emperors (who were NOT Christian) like Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, had ascended to power with God’s permission, actually by His direction. According to Romans 13, they were even “instituted by God.” The three emperors mentioned above were the emperors most likely alive while Paul is writing Romans. Nero was notorious for burning Christians in his courtyard for light at night. Yet Paul can write Romans 13, and inform us to submit to the governing authority…interesting isn’t it?

So, however the election turns out, on November 9^th we, The Church, will carry on because Jesus will be on His throne, and all these issues we face today will one day be subject to Him and placed under His feet. So be encouraged, and do not let your soul be downcast.

But is there ever a time for rebellion? We do have precedent in Scripture that we can resist if the government ever decides to force us to act contrary to God’s will. In Acts 5:29 Peter stands and says, “We must obey God rather than men.” Peter was not defending marriage or the unborn or lower taxes or gun laws or free trade. Peter just wanted to share the gospel.

On moral issues and in life, we win when we share the gospel. The key to changing our nation is not a Christian in the White House, though that certainly would help. But what will change our nation is a consistent witness of the gospel with proclamation and life-style witness. What we say and what we do must match up and we do this with the power of the Holy Spirit as we surrender ourselves to God’s will.

So pray before you go and vote on November 8. But also pray after you vote! Pray and ask the Lord to stir and awaken the Church in the United States of America. Pray and ask that God will return to our Oval Office the characteristics of a Christ follower…but remember…man will always disappoint us, but for those who call on Jesus as Lord, we will not be disappointed.

I pray this has caused you to think a bit, and I hope you have prayed about your decision. I know I have agonized over this entire election cycle. But God’s got this…no matter what…God’s got this.

Dr Chris Irving

Senior Pastor

First Baptist Church of Gonzales

Redemption Received: Gomer's Story

It may take you a few minutes to find the book of Hosea in the Old Testament, but I promise it will be worth the time to read it. Hosea isn't one of those books we go to often, but the story we find there is a tale of love and redemption and the relationship between Hosea and Gomer will leave you in awe of the redemption God offers me and you. I really want you to read it for yourself - if you don't have time for fourteen chapters and want to read the condensed version, just read this:

Hosea 1:2-10, 3:1-3, 6:1, 14:1-2    

Hosea was a prophet who lived and ministered sometime between 753BC and 687BC. He was a mouthpiece for the Lord during a time when people didn't have Bible apps on phones in their pockets. God commanded him to marry a sexually immoral woman - a prostitute, an adulteress, a harlot. Probably not quite the match that Hosea was anticipating. He obeyed the Lord (willingly? bitterly? We don't really know.) He took Gomer as his wife and together they had three children, Jezreel, "No Mercy" and "Not My People". What names! It might've seemed to Hosea that he was being punished by the Lord with a harlot wife and children who weren't loved. 

But God had another plan.

You see, Gomer's life was not about her. Neither was Hosea's about him. God wasn't concerned with their happiness or their prosperity. He wasn't bothered with their reputations, their social standing or their positions. Gomer and Hosea were put on this earth to illustrate the redemption story of God's people. Gomer and Hosea point us to Jesus's redemption of you and me. They were made for something bigger than themselves.

Hosea took Gomer for a wife but it wasn't long before she went back to her old way of life. Promiscuity seemed more alluring to her than faithfulness. Most men would've washed their hands of such a "dirty" woman, but Hosea pursued Gomer. My favorite words in the whole book of Hosea are found in chapter 3, verse 2 when Hosea says, "So I bought her". God told him to go get her back. She came at a price though and Hosea came ready to pay up. He bought her back from the pit she had chosen and redeemed her again. 

The whole idea that God loves us so much that he would find us in the midst of our sin, the pit that we have deliberately chosen, is an idea I have a hard time wrapping my head around. But just as Hosea paid the price to redeem Gomer, Jesus Christ has redeemed us on the cross by paying the price with his own blood. There's nothing good in you or me that makes us worthy of such redemption and that's the beauty of it. It's a gift. Free. We can't earn it and we don't deserve it. Gomer didn't deserve it, but Hosea bought her back. You don't deserve it but Jesus bought you back.

Hosea 6:1 says,

Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.

The pit that you may find yourself in is not one that is too far to receive the gift of redemption. There's nothing too bad, nothing too terrible that God will not redeem. He gave his only son, Jesus, so that he could pay the price for you, even while you were still in that pit. Don't stay torn and struck down. Turn to him and he promises to heal you and bind you up. What a precious promise!

And keep in mind that your story is not about you. It's all about Him and His redeeming love.

Oh Be Careful Little Ears: How Today's Women are Being Deceived

Remember that little song from when you were a kid?

Oh be careful little ears what you hear,
Oh be careful little ears what you hear,
For the Father up above is looking down in love,
So be careful little ears what you hear!

There has never been a more important time for us to be careful with our eyes and our ears and our hearts than right now. There is a war being waged against us, but it's not what we're expecting. Most of us aren't even in the battle.

I've never been real big on spiritual warfare - I've left that to the "fanatics" of Christianity for the most part. But I've noticed something lately that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The war waged against us is absolutely not a struggle "against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)

Now hear me out...

I've always been a big fan of our Christian sub-culture. I love Christian music, Christian literature, Christian movies and Christian conferences. But here lately, I've noticed that there are a lot of influences in this Christian sub-culture that are leading us astray and most of us don't even recognize the subtly twisted truth we're being fed.

I was listening to a Christian radio station last week that played a little testimonial recorded by one of its listeners. The woman told a story of how she was an "overcomer" because she had been poor and destitute, driving a beat-up old car and headed for certain demise, when she met a couple of pastors who later ended up giving her $50,000 for a Mercedes. The DJs praised God for the way this woman "overcame" her circumstances with her new car. Check 1 John for specific references to Scripture that address being an overcomer. Each time you'll see that as believers we overcome sin and death and the evil one, not poverty and the lack of a car. It's a slight twist of Scripture. Indeed, we are overcomers. But if you aren't grounded in the truth of Scripture, if you don't know what the Bible says, you'll gain a terribly wrong perspective on this concept of overcoming.

Yesterday I watched a video posted on Facebook by a very prominent Christian author/speaker/blogger that many of my friends adore. It was a video taken at the "Belong" tour that just this year replaced the old "Women of Faith" conferences. What surprised me is that this video showed a band performing a decidedly secular song at this event. I really liked their sound, so I checked out their website to learn more. I was disappointed to see that (although they could be believers), there was no evidence on their website that the members of this group are followers of Jesus. Their music is secular and their message is secular. They claim to be very involved in volunteering in humanitarian causes, but never claim to be Jesus-followers.

That led me to wonder why a conference marketed to "Christian" women, following in the footsteps of "Women of Faith" would put a secular band on their main stage. (Please note here that I have absolutely no problem with secular bands in general and I have many on my own playlists.) Instead of choosing from all the many Christian bands with Scripturally sound lyrics, this conference chose to present a couple singing a catchy love song on the stage. I love catchy love songs. But on the stage of a "Christian" event? I was surprised they went that direction.

So I checked out the website for the "Belong" tour. I was super disappointed to find that the name of Jesus was only written on their website once that I could find (in Jen Hatmaker's bio). The mission stated on the website is for every woman to know that she is not alone and that she matters. Much is made of women being their "true selves", and there is no mention of the good news that Jesus offers to sinners. This message of mattering seems so good. And at the conference it is quite possible that they did point people to the message of Christ. (I don't know - I wasn't there!) But the definite message of Scripture in Luke 9:23 is that in order to follow Christ, the believer must deny herself, take up her cross and follow Jesus. As a Christ-follower there is no room for me to be true to myself. My self is full of sin. Instead of being true to myself, I need to deny myself and embrace the new creation that I am in Christ.

Here's the problem I see with the radio station and the conference I referenced. Many of us have slowly and without realizing it, replaced our personal relationship with Jesus for things that look like "good, Christian" things. We read blogs and books and attend churches and conferences and listen to radio stations and albums that are meant to encourage us in our walk with Christ, but were never supposed to replace our relationship with him. We've been satisfied with these replacements of Scripture for so long that we hardly even notice when these things become more and more un-Christlike.

I certainly am not trying to say that K-Love is evil or Jen Hatmaker is leading us all astray. But if we are taking everything that we hear from the Christian sub-culture and its representatives as gospel truth, we need to reevaluate our spiritual lives. And upon reevaluation of our spiritual lives, if we find that we have neglected our own personal relationships with Jesus due to our acceptance of all other things claiming to be "Christian", it is time to repent and change things.

2 Timothy 3 warns us that there are people who have the false appearance of godliness and will try to worm their way into the homes of weak women. Friend, don't be that weak woman. Open your Bible. Search the Scripture. Refuse to fall victim to the subtle twists of the truth that are popping up throughout our Christian sub-culture.

Oh be careful little ears what you hear.

Click here to read more from me about 2 Timothy 3 and Weak Women and Worms.

PS - If you did attend the Belong tour or plan to, PLEASE let me know if the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached there. I pray that it will be!

Abide.

Have you ever tried to produce fruit without abiding in the vine?

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

Today's blog is going to focus on two things: producing and abiding.

PRODUCING.

Are you a Christ-follower? If you are, you should be producing fruit. The problem? Too many of us are producing fruit without abiding in the vine. That means we are producing spoiled, rotten, nasty fruit. It may look nice on the outside, but inside, the fruit is putrid. 

Think about fruit - not apples and oranges, but biblical fruit. Can you name them? Galatians 5:22 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Each one of the fruits listed in Galatians 5:22 is a character quality that an even an unbeliever can possess. We've all known good, loving, patient, gentle people who have no relationship with Jesus Christ. So what makes this fruit of the Spirit different than plain old good character? I'm so glad you asked!

ABIDING.

Your good character qualities are not the fruit of the Spirit unless you are abiding in the Vine. Your faithfulness is just your faithfulness without the power of the Holy Spirit. Your goodness is just your goodness. And you may look good and faithful for a while. The things you do and say may look like fruit, but if you're not abiding in the vine, your counterfeit-fruit will not last.

A few weeks ago, I decided to do what I thought was a really good thing. Let me tell you, I was about to produce some "beautiful" fruit. I just knew this fruit was going to really help a certain someone and it was going to give God some glory and it was going to just be really good fruit. Only it didn't work out that way. Despite my good intentions, this fruit that I produced, that I thought looked so beautiful when I produced it, was totally rotten on the inside. I hurt someone that I really love, completely unintentionally, all in the name of producing fruit! At first I didn't understand what had gone wrong. I thought I must've really misunderstood a prompting of the Holy Spirit because THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD FRUIT!

Then I opened my Bible.

I read,  "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me."

And just like that, I realized that I was producing my own fruit, completely apart from the vine, so it wasn't actually even fruit at all. I hadn't prayed, I hadn't read Scripture, I hadn't sought the Lord at all in this situation. I acted completely in my own flesh to produce imposter-fruit that looked sweet and fresh on the outside but was completely rotten on the inside because it had not grown on the Vine. Leave it to Scripture to show me my desperate need for a Savior!

Surely I'm not the only one. Have you ever done so much good that you thought "Surely God will be pleased with all of this good stuff I'm doing!" and then realized that it was all empty? That will happen when we produce our own fake-fruit. It fades so quickly. It leaves us empty. Sometimes it even hurts the ones we were hoping to help. 

Here's the good news: This person that I hurt came right to me and told me I'd done some damage and then, get this, offered me immediate forgiveness. This person knew somehow that I didn't mean to cause pain, but wanted to let me know I had so that it didn't permanently hurt our relationship. Oh, I am so grateful.

So of course that made me think of our Father, who offers us forgiveness and reconciliation when we come to Him, admitting that all these GOOD things we're doing without abiding in Him, are all for nothing. 

Make a quick mental list of all the good things you've done lately. I know most of my readers - you're all pretty good people! I bet those lists could go on for miles. But in Philippians 3:7-9, Paul tells us, 

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."

All that fruit-producing you're doing on your own is garbage because your righteousness will never come from you. Your righteousness can only be found in Christ. Only in the work that He did on the cross. So friend, check your heart. Are you abiding DAILY in the vine, allowing Him to produce His fruit in you or are you super busy producing your own fruit?  As painful as it can be, allow the Vinedresser to prune the branches in your life that aren't producing Holy Spirit Fruit. Decide now to abide in Him and just wait for His beautiful fruit to be produced in your life.