Tag: Salvation

Don’t Hide Your Sin, Expose It

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals4 Comments

What if you did not have to hide your sins? What if you could expose your sins, admitting them to God and one another? These questions and their answers do not have to be hypothetical.

Christians Can Expose Their Sins

As Christians, we really can expose our sins. We do not have to hide them from God or one another, which allows us to honestly evaluate ourselves. When we are freed to honestly examine ourselves, we can evaluate where we are doing poorly and where we are doing well. In other words, we can determine what sins we need to work on, so we can knock down those strongholds in our lives.

Christians are Saved by Grace

The reason we can honestly evaluate ourselves is due to the nature of our salvation. As Christians, our works do not save us, merit us favor with God, nor keep us in a saving relationship with God. As Christians, we are saved by God’s grace. God’s grace is given to us as a free gift. We do not have earn it, repay it, or work to keep it.

Christians have Jesus as their Advocate

Along with God’s grace, we, as Christians, also have Jesus as our Advocate. 1 John 2:1-2 tells us that those who are truly saved have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous One.

Advocate carries the idea of someone coming alongside of you and pleading your case for you. When Jesus acts as our Advocate, He comes alongside of us, and He reminds the Father of His person (He is the Christ and the Righteous One) and His work (His death on the cross for our sins, taking God’s wrath on Himself, removing our defiling sin, and imputing His righteousness to us) and our profession of Him as our Lord and Savior, when we sin. When we realize this, we are free to evaluate ourselves.

Think about it like this:

Say you are called into your bosses, principal’s, or teacher’s office and asked to evaluate your work. To tell them where you believe you are doing well, and where you believe you are doing poorly.

Before they ask you to evaluate yourself, they say, “No matter what you tell me, your shortcomings will not be held against you. You will not be fired, demoted, or given a bad grade.”

When you hear those words, that you are going to be accepted no matter what you tell them, no matter how poorly you have done in your work, you are at that moment freed to honestly evaluate yourself. You don’t have to feel like you need to hide anything from them. You can lay it all out on the table, honestly evaluating what you have done, so that you will know what areas still need work.

Because we are accepted by God based on Jesus’ work, we don’t have to hide our short comings from God either. Rather we can honestly evaluate ourselves to see where we are doing well and where we are doing poorly, to see what sins and idols we are still allowing to affect our lives, so we can work to remove them.

A Cover Up

However, when we do not realize God’s grace is free and that Jesus stands as our Advocate when we sin, then we will never truly be free to examine ourselves. When we are not free to honestly examine ourselves, we will cover our sins up, thinking maybe God will not notice.

The reasons we cover our sins up are many, but most fall into a misunderstanding of God’s grace, which leads to people thinking we have to earn, repay, or keep our salvation through our works. If our works are subpar, then earning, repaying, or keeping our salvation is not going so well. Which means, instead of honestly looking at ourselves, we make things out to be better than they really are.

Conclusion

You see, based on Jesus’ work, we are always accepted by God no matter what we have done in the past, what we do right now, and what we are going to do in the future. That does not give us a license to sin. Rather it gives us a license to honestly evaluate ourselves, and to confess our sins to one another.

If we do not see ourselves as accepted by God through Jesus’ work alone, then we will never be freed to evaluate ourselves. And we will never truly grow in holiness. But when we have a right view of our salvation, we can honestly evaluate our sin and deal with it in a healthy manner. As we deal with our sin, we become more holy.

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How Do We Live Like the Elder Brother?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals2 Comments

In my last post, I made some observations from the parable of the prodigal son. In doing so, I highlighted the Gospel as the third way to live, with the other two ways to live being the way of the Relativist and the way of the Moralist. You can read my post here.

In the parable, the younger brother represents the Relativist, and to him everything is about self. The elder brother represents the Moralist, who lives outwardly for God, but inwardly his heart has not changed. In an effort to help us see how we live like the elder brother, so we can correct our thinking and actions, I want to ask and answer the question: How do we live like the elder brother?

We Act Like The Elder Brother:

When we believe we are saved by our works

  • This manifest itself in the following ways
    • We do this so, so we get salvation type thinking
    • When we do not think of our sin as being offensive to God.
    • When we think we are not that bad saying, “Sure Christ died for me, but I really was not that bad.”
    • Comparing ourselves to others saying “I needed God’s grace, but not as much as this person over here does. Look at their sin and look at mine.”

When we believe our works earn us favor with God

  • This manifest itself in the following ways:
    • We show up to church every time it is open thinking if we miss a service we are not in God’s favor.
    • When we believe we may get in a car wreck, or lose our job, or fail a class, or that one of our kids will not turn out right, if we are not consistent with our quiet times because somehow God will pay us back for not spending time with Him.
    • When we believe God will not use us or bless us if we are not reading His Word or doing Christian type activities often.

When we believe we must pay Christ back for our salvation

  • This manifests itself when we say things like: 
    • Christ died for you, witnessing to others is the least thing you can do for Him.
    • Christ suffered for you, the least you can do is read your Bible and pray to Him everyday.
    • Christ went to the cross for you, the least you can do for Him is go on a missions trip, part with some of your resources in order to help the church, or show up to services on Sunday.

When we believe God owes us for being such a good Christian.

  • This manifest itself when:
    • We do not receive the recognition we thought we should have received at church for helping with a ministry project, serving the church, attending regularly, and we get mad about it.
    • When we get jealous when another person who obviously has not done as much as we have gets recognized or asked to help with another ministry/task even though we said we wanted to serve as the chairman of that committee, teach that class, or serve those people.

The Christian disciplines mentioned throughout this post are good, but they can become corrupted when we believe they: 

  • Earn us salvation
  • Earn us favor with God
  • Become a way to pay Jesus back for what He has done for us
  • When they are done because we want to gain things such as recognition, or opportunity.

Should we stop coming to church, serving the body, doing our quiet time, praying, teaching a class, etc? 

  • No, we should not. The reasons we do them though should change.

Grace, Hope, and Holy Living

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals5 Comments

In 1 Peter 1:13, Peter tells Christians, based on the fact that God is a God of kept promises, that they are to confidently and fully set their hope on God’s future grace.

In order to grasp the magnitude of Peter’s command we need to look specifically at two words, which are grace and hope. Then we will look at what hope in future grace should produce in us, namely, holy living.

Grace

The context tells us God’s grace will be given to us at the revelation, or return of Jesus Christ. This means God has given us a measure of His grace now, but it is not all the grace He will pour out on us. When Christ returns, God will pour a final measure of grace on us bringing us into a state of glorification. The body of death Paul talks about that hinders him in living completely for Christ will be put away and we will receive our glorified bodies. Sin will no longer reign in our members, rather, we will be perfect.

So we see: (1) Our final salvation is completed in the future, at the return of Jesus Christ. (2) It is God’s grace and nothing else that will provide us with eternal salvation. (3) It is God’s future grace we are to place our hope in.

Now that we understand we are to place our hope in God’s future grace and what that grace will accomplish for us, namely, eternal salvation. We need to look at hope, understanding it from a biblical perspective.

Hope

The Bible defines hope differently than our modern secular society. Hope in modern English has the idea of a wish that is uncertain.

For example, if we are going to a ball game this weekend with our family, we may hope it does not rain. We don’t know if it will or will not rain, but our wish is that it will not.

So then, hope in modern English carries the idea of wishfulness, but not certainty.

In biblical terms, hope is defined differently. Instead of a wishful thought, hope is certain. When Peter tells us to put our hope in the grace that will be poured out on us at the return of Christ, he is telling us something we can be confident in. Jesus’ return and the grace that will be poured out on us then is certain. Meaning Christ’s return and the grace we will receive at His return is not a wishful thought, it will happen.

Knowing what God’s grace will accomplish for us, and that He is a God of kept promises, means we should fully place our hope in God’s future grace, knowing for certain His grace will be poured out on us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Hope in God’s Future Grace Leads to Holy Living

Our hope in God’s future grace is not just the key to heaven, but it also is the key to holy living. If we don’t hope in God’s future grace alone, trusting in faith that He will pour out that final measure of grace on us at Jesus’ return, then living a holy life will not follow.

A holy life will not follow because it is pointless. If we don’t believe God will provide us with eternal life, then why would we live according to His commands? In other words, if the promises of God are not more satisfying to us than sin, why would we not sin?

All of this means that before we can live holy lives, it is important that our hope be in God alone, that we believe life with God for eternity is better than sinning now.

Challenge

So I must ask: Do you hope in God alone, realizing He will provide you with more satisfaction than sin ever will? If you don’t, then you will not live a holy life.

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thinking Out Loud: How is God a Christian’s Judge?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Practical2 Comments

A perplexing question has had me racking my brain for several days now. In what way are we as Christians judged by God? The text that has motivated this question is 1 Peter 1:17, which says

“And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,” (1 Pe 1:17).

Context

Verse 17 comes in the midst of Peter telling his readers to place their hope in Christ alone (13), to not be conformed to their former way of life (14), but instead to be holy as God is holy (15-16). So then, the context deals with Christian conduct. More specifically, Peter wants his readers to understand that their profession of Jesus Christ as their Savior should also result in transformed living.

Verses 13, 14, 15-16 provide commands to live a certain way, as well as they provide the motivation for such living. Verse 17 seems to follow suit. It provides a command, “conduct yourselves in fear”. It also provides a motivation, God is both the Father of those who profess Christ to be their Savior and the Judge of all.

How Can God Be The Judge of Christians?

Verse 17 says God judges all impartially according to their works, which should lead to us conducting ourselves in fear during our earthly stay. Commentators and preachers differ in regard to what this judgment on Christians could be.

  • Some hold it is a judgment regarding rewards (Rom 14:12; 2 Cor. 5:10-11).
  • Others skip over the phrase, “who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds,” opting only to deal with the word fear. They then conclude fear means we need to live in reverence to God.
  • While others hold a tension between fear referring to reverence for God, and also a fear of God’s judgment.

What I Think

Based on Peter’s mentioning of God as Father and Judge, the context calling for believers to live a transformed life as a result of their salvation, as well as Romans 2:6-11, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, and John 3:36, I think Peter is presenting a tension here. A tension both John and Paul present in their writings and one that is evident in the passages above.

The tension I think Peter is presenting is that our faith in Christ should produce good works (Gal. 5:21; 1 Cor. 6:9-11). It is these works that are judged, proving that we are Christians. So then, on the one hand, our fear is to be one of reverence and respect for God. On the other hand, we are to fear God as judge, knowing that if we do not finish the race (1 Cor. 6:9-11), we will not inherit the kingdom of God. Even if at one time we did great works for the kingdom, we must continue to live a righteous life throughout our time here on earth. In other words, we must finish the race. God is not a partial judge, no matter how much good we have done for the kingdom.

I don’t believe our righteous living earns us salvation, but I do believe it proves our salvation since it would not be possible to live righteously without the Holy Spirit residing in us. The Holy Spirit would not reside inside of us, if we did not believe Christ to be our Savior.

Final Questions: I Want Your Thoughts

Those are my thoughts. I want to know what you think. To help facilitate that, here are my final questions:

  • Am I on the right track believing there is a tension between God as Father and Judge, or am I missing something?
  • Do you also see a tension between our faith and works, with our works, or obedience, proving our faith?
  • Do you believe fear in 1 Peter 1:17 is referring to reverence only, or both reverence and judgment?
  • Do you believe Peter is talking about our rewards in heaven? If so, how would those rewards motivate us to live holy lives now?
  • What do you make of verses like 1 John 4:18-21, which tells us those who fear have not been perfected?

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why Preach the Gospel to Ourselves?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Devotionals6 Comments

Preach the gospel to yourself. That is a buzz that is flying around in evangelical circles as of late. I would like to quickly answer what it means and then provide a few reasons why we should preach the gospel to ourselves.

What it means?

Preaching the gospel to yourself simple means that you remind yourself of all that takes place in the gospel. Before we can preach the gospel to ourselves we have to understand the gospel message.

The gospel tells us that we are sinners, who are headed for eternal destruction because our relationship with God is severed due to our sinfulness. Instead of allowing our relationship to remain severed, God made a way for mankind to be reconciled with Himself. When we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, we are united with Him. Through our union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection we are made righteous as our sin is imputed to Him and His righteousness is imputed to us (double imputation), and at this time we are freed from the bondage of sin giving us a choice to not sin. When we take on Christ’s righteousness our relationship with a perfect and holy God is restored because we are made perfect and holy. This all occurs because of the free gift of God (grace) and not because of anything that we have done, which would earn His gift of salvation (not by works).

Preaching the gospel to ourselves simple is a way of reminding ourselves of the truths of the gospel message.

Reasons Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves is Necessary

(1) Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us that our relationship with God satisfies us more than any sin. 

Sin will satisfy, it is why we do it. But it will not completely satisfy us, and its after effects often leave us feeling empty, ashamed, and lost. Christ is unlike any sin, He will satisfy us for all of eternity. He will never let us down, nor will He ever leave us feeling empty, ashamed, or lost. He will bring us joy that far exceeds the joy we can gain from any sinful action. When we sin, we are in essence saying that God is not sufficient enough, and what we are going to get from our sin is far better than God. However, when we preach the gospel to ourselves, we remind ourselves that we are ultimately satisfied in God and nothing else.

(2) Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us that we are accepted by God’s free grace.

God has accepted us by grace alone, not because of our works. Since God has not accepted us based on our works, then we do not have to perform works in order to keep His grace. This means we obey God’s commands not to earn His grace, but we obey out of His grace. When we are saved, God empowers us to live the Christian life (Philippians 2:13). He changes our desires (will) and enables us to obey His commands by empowering us to serve Him. Thus, we serve Him not to earn His grace, but out of His grace.

By reminding ourselves of our salvation, we remind ourselves that we cannot earn His favor, nor our salvation. Those who believe they have to do something in order to earn acceptance with God, do so because functionally they are trying to be their own Savior. They do not understand Christ has made them holy already. You see, our sanctification is based on our justification. When we try to gain acceptance with God through our actions, we are living like our justification is determined by our sanctification. Preaching the gospel to ourselves serves to remind us that God’s grace is free, not earned.

(3) Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us that we are free to live our righteousness out.

When we are saved, we are united with Christ, and we are made righteous through that union with Christ. Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us of our union with Christ and reminds us that we are free to live our righteousness out. In other words, we do not have to first earn our righteousness, we are already righteous, and, as such, we are able to live as Christ now.

Think of it this way: In Christ, we are full, meaning we do not have to fill ourselves up with righteousness like we would a gas tank. We are already full and we will forever remain full. We do not have to pull into the service station to top our righteousness tank off. Our tank never drops below full. Since we are always running on a full tank, we never have to fill up our tank by earning our righteousness. Since we do not have to earn our righteousness we can freely give to others. The reason we freely give is not to earn God’s righteousness, but because God has freely given to us.

However, when we work for our righteousness or feel we have to pay God back for saving us by being obedient, we are not living our righteousness out; rather we are evoking a debtor’s ethic.

The debtor’s ethic says I must give or do because God has given to me.

To help us understand this concept lets look at an area the debtor’s ethic is often evoked. One area the debtor’s ethic is often used is by those who want to manipulate others into evangelizing the lost. They tell us, “Christ died for you on the cross, the least you can do is tell someone about Him.” On the surface this sound good, but the underlying principle is that we are to tell others about Christ because we owe God for saving us and evangelism is a way we can pay Him back.

However, the gospel tells us that we can freely live our righteousness out. When applied to evangelism, it means we tell others about Christ, not because we owe God something, but because we want them to experience the same relationship with Him that we do. We want them to understand that the Savior is the only one who can truly satisfy, making Him better than any sin or idol.

You see the difference. One group evangelizes because they feel they have to, showing they do not understand God’s grace. The other group evangelizes because they want others to experience the grace of God, knowing that He satisfies us more than any sin will ever satisfy us. Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us of God’s grace and frees us to live out our righteousness.

(4) Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us that God is most glorified when we are happy in Him and only in Him.

We can strive to live lives that resemble Christ, not to earn God’s salvation or approval, but simple to please Him and glorify Him. You see, God is most glorified and pleased when we are happy in Him believing He is sufficient for us and that we need nothing other than Him (ie sin) to satisfy us. When we preach the gospel to ourselves, we remind ourselves of this truth.

(5) Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us of the magnitude of our sins, which brings about true repentance.

When we meditate on the gospel, we are reminded that Jesus died for our sins. In order to die for our sins, He left His throne in heaven, took on the form of a man, was beaten, mocked, and led to the cross where He died in our place.

With this in mind, we see that the gospel reminds us of the heinousness of our sins, it reminds us that our sins are so great that only the perfect sacrifice of God’s Son could atone for them.

When we understand the magnitude of our sins, and their cost, we are reminded that our sin should not be minimized. To minimize our sin proves that we do not understand the costliness of Christ’s sacrifice, nor do we fully understand the holiness of God. Preaching the gospel to ourselves serves as a daily reminder of the magnitude of our sins, which then serves to bring about true repentance.

When we understand the costliness of our sins, we are less likely to confess our sin quickly, in order to deal with our guilt; rather we are more likely to root sin out of our lives.

If we are quick to confess our sin, in order to alleviate our guilt, then we believe grace is cheap.

However, if we are willing to dig deep into our lives to root our sin out at the core, in order to truly cast it from our lives, we show that we understand the cost of our sins. True repentance understands the magnitude of sin and seeks to deal with it at the core.

True repentance also shows that we understand God’s grace and His holiness. We understand His grace releases us from the bondage of sin and His holiness means He is unable to be wed to an unholy people. Those who are truly repentant are motivated to repent not to earn God’s favor, but to glorify God. We glorify God when we delight in Him rather than in our sin and live lives that reflect His holiness. Our motivation for change is subtle but nevertheless it is a different motivation for change than what the religious/legalist puts forth. Preaching the gospel to ourselves serves to remind us of the magnitude of our sins, as well as it is a catalyst for true repentance.

Conclusion

Since we are naturally drawn to doing something in order to earn what we are given, we must constantly remind ourselves that what God has given us is free. We must also remind ourselves that God is far better than sin for if we do not we will easily succumb to its enticing lure. Furthermore, we must remind ourselves on a daily basis that God satisfies us more than sin could ever satisfy us. Moreover, we must constantly remind ourselves of the costliness of our sin, which should serve to spur us onto true repentance. Lastly, we must remind ourselves that God is most glorified when we are happy in Him believing He is sufficient to satisfy us. Preaching the gospel to ourselves reminds us of all the things mentioned here and is why it is a necessity. This means that preaching the gospel is not solely reserved for non-believers, but for believers as well. May we never forget that the gospel is not only a message that provides us entrance into God’s kingdom, but sustains us and helps us to live within His kingdom.

How do you know you are a Christian?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Practical3 Comments

I want to ask you a question, an important question. One I would like you to give some thought. Here it is: How do you know you are a Christian? Do you say you are Christian because you walked the isle one day and prayed with the pastor at the front of the church? Maybe you say you are a Christian because you confessed Christ as your Savior at a youth retreat while you were “high” on the Christian life. Or just maybe you walked down to the front at a Crusade along with 7,000 other people. Before I go on, I am not saying that you are not a Christian because you were saved at the front of the church, on a youth retreat, or at a crusade. What I am trying to get across is that these experiences alone do not make you a Christian.

There are many people who claim to be something because they participate in an activity with those who are in reality genuine. For instance, if I told you I am a minor league baseball player, you might believe me, that is until you ask me when I am playing next. That is where my logic would break down because I would explain to you that I am a minor league baseball player because I trained with the local minor league team once at a kids baseball camp. As you heard me explain how I wore their uniforms and played in a game and how that made me a minor league baseball player, you would soon realize I was not what I claim to be, and you would begin thinking my logic was a little off.

Just as it is logically incoherent for me to think I am a minor league baseball player because I once hung out with the players and trained with them at a kids camp, it is equally as illogical that we think we are Christians because we once, or currently, hung around those who are Christians, attended church, or even walked the isle.

We learn in Matthew’s Gospel that one day Jesus will tell those who think they were His followers “Depart from me for I never knew you.”

He says, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” But Jesus will turn to those and say, “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matt. 7:21-23).

If we can think we are a Christian, and not be a Christian, how do we know that we are a Christian?

First, we need to have confessed Christ as our Savior, which is what you could have been doing when you walked the isle, prayed the sinners prayer at youth camp, or went forward at a Crusade. But you see, to confess Christ once is not the mark of a Christian. Mike McKinley, in his book, Am I Really a Christian, says,

“It is true that we need to make a onetime decision to follow Jesus. But a true onetime decision is followed by the everyday decision to follow Jesus” (23).

With that in mind, I want to provide you with five additional ways McKinley gives that show we are true followers of Jesus (39).

(1) Belief in True Doctrine

You’re not a Christian just because you like Jesus. You must believe Jesus is your Savior (John 3:16-18, 36; Romans 3:21-25; Hebrews 11:6).

(2) Hatred for Sin in Your Life

You’re not a Christian if you enjoy sin (Romans 6:1-14; 1 Peter 1:13-21; Galatians 5:19-21; 1 John 3:4-10).

(3) Perseverance Over Time

You’re not a Christian if you don’t persist in the faith (Philippians 3:12-16; Hebrews 12:1; Romans 8:38-39).

(4) Love for Other People

You’re not a Christian if you don’t have care and concern for other people (John 13:34-35; 1 John 2:9-11).

(5) Freedom from Love of the World

You’re not a Christian if the things of the world are more valuable to you than God (Luke 18:18-25; 1 John 2:15-17).

Conclusion

This week I would like you to think through your answer for why you are a Christian. Considering these questions: Have you made Christ your Savior, not just your friend? Do you see a willingness to repent of the sins in your life or are you content in your sins, not wanting to repent and rid them out of your life? Have you persevered in the Christian faith for many years, or do you find yourself living for Christ only when it is the cool thing to do? Since you professed Christ as your Savior have you noticed a love for other people? Are you willing to sacrifice your time, energy, and money to help them? Do you love the world? Are you willing to sacrifice your stuff for God, or are you chasing after worldly possessions more than you are seeking God? Do you skip church on Sunday because you need to go into the office to do some work because time is money?

Your answers to these questions will either assure you of your Christian faith, or they will show you that your faith is not real. I pray God will reveal to you the answer because your eternal destiny hangs in the balance.

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