Judge Yourselves That Ye Be Not Judged

“Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.”  — Daniel 5:27

 It is well frequently to weigh ourselves in the scale of God’s Word. You will find it a holy exercise to read some psalm of David, and, as you meditate upon each verse, to ask yourself, “Can I say this? Have I felt as David felt? Has my heart ever been broken on account of sin, as his was when he penned his penitential psalms? Has my soul been full of true confidence in the hour of difficulty as his was when he sang of God’s mercies in the cave of Adullam, or in the holds of Engedi? Do I take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord?” Then turn to the life of Christ, and as you read, ask yourselves how far you are conformed to his likeness. Endeavour to discover whether you have the meekness, the humility, the lovely spirit which he constantly inculcated and displayed. Take, then, the epistles, and see whether you can go with the apostle in what he said of his experience. Have you ever cried out as he did—“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Have you ever felt his self-abasement? Have you seemed to yourself the chief of sinners, and less than the least of all saints? Have you known anything of his devotion? Could you join with him and say, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”? If we thus read God’s Word as a test of our spiritual condition, we shall have good reason to stop many a time and say, “Lord, I feel I have never yet been here, O bring me here! give me true penitence, such as this I read of. Give me real faith; give me warmer zeal; inflame me with more fervent love; grant me the grace of meekness; make me more like Jesus. Let me no longer be ‘found wanting,’ when weighed in the balances of the sanctuary, lest I be found wanting in the scales of judgment.” “Judge yourselves that ye be not judged.”

Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and evening : Daily readings (Complete and unabridged; New modern edition.). Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers.

FaceSpace - The Pastoral Repsonse to Social Networking

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.””  -Ephesians 5:11–14, NIV

Social networking has changed the way we communicate with each other inside and outside the church. In the last 5 years these sites have opened a window of our personal lives to the world, revealing the good, the bad, and at times, the ugly. As electronic communication devices get smaller and easier to use and the influence of social networking grows we will see the line between virtual and physical relationships continue to blur.

The advent of social networking has been a great leap forward in personal communication. We can simultaneously communicate with hundreds, even thousands of people in seconds, alerting them of what is happening in our personal lives, business, church, or school. We are able to reconnect with old friends, classmates, and family members. Social networking has also expanded the influence of music and art giving artists an avenue to affordably expose the world to their creations. The effects on the church have been profound as well. Many churches have learned that to communicate with people effectively they must employ the use of social networking sites. This medium for communicating allows churches to "get the word out" to hundreds at once making it effective and easy.

As the church continues to use social networking to reach out to congregations as a whole and members of our congregation connect with each other, problems do arise. Like any good thing, social networking can be misused, abused, and transformed into a bad thing.

The nature of social networking lends itself to the easy dissemination of gossip and slander. God's Word tells us that “A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. ” (Proverbs 16:28, NIV). Gossiping in the virtual world is as much a sin as gossip in the physical.

Another aspect of social networking that is both good and bad from a pastoral perspective is the view of a church member's life as presented on their profile page. A profile page is a window into who people really are, what they are doing, and what motivates them. This is good in that it helps a pastor see where people really are, physically, emotionally and spiritually. This is bad in that it can be extremely frustrating and defeating to see people praising for the Lord on Sunday morning and then see what they are doing throughout the week, especially Friday and Saturday night.

Living a double life as a Christian is not a new concept. Jesus said “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. ” (Matthew 6:24, NIV), He was talking about money but His meaning was more broad reaching to anything that we worship or serve more than the triune God. Social networking just reveals what has been going on for thousands of years and pastors can no longer fool themselves that everyone who comes to church on Sunday morning is living a holy life before God the rest of the week.

Some pastors have reacted by burying their head in the sand and deleting their Facebook or Myspace account, trying to revert to the ways things were before, see no evil, there be no evil. They wish they had never taken the red pill and been exposed to the reality of a church where not everyone lives happily ever after. Of course this does nothing to serve the kingdom, in fact it is a disservice to the kingdom.

Down and dirty is where Jesus served during His earthly ministry. He did not turn a blind eye to the sin of the hypocrite or Pharisee, He confronted, rebuked, and extorted these men and women to live a holy life by the grace of God. I believe that we are to do the same. We are to expose virtual sin and hypocrisy just as we would if we were present during the act. By doing so we proclaim the Word of God to those who perishing that they may hear and be saved by the grace of God.

Pastors need to embrace social networking, it's not going away. Use this tool to further the kingdom of God by examining where your congregation is and tailor your messages to address their issues and struggles. Hold members of your church accountable for what they post and how they conduct themselves online and encourage them to do the same for others. Finally, guard what you post and share online because you will be judged more harshly than anyone.

The Sin Bay, What Does The Bible Say About Pirating Software?

Last year Microsoft made $13.7 billion. Big budget movies like Transformers 3 and Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince made $300 million each. The music industry made $10.4 billion. With all these people getting rich, what is wrong with downloading software, movies, and music from illegal pirating websites? If I download a copy of Microsoft Office will Bill Gates go hungry?

There is no question that pirating software (making copies of illegally or legally obtained media in your possession for further distribution regardless of financial gain) is against Federal Law. But many have convinced themselves that pirating music, movies, and software for personal use is not a violation of the law.  Some also reason that the law is overly restrictive and senseless and have decided that they will not obey it.  Even more are compelled by their sense of need for whatever they are stealing that they ignore their conscience and take whatever they want.

Of course whatever your reason for stealing intellectual property, it is still stealing.  Exodus 20:15 clearly says "You shall not steal." Stealing is taking the property of another without permission. When you make or receive a copy of any intellectual property that you have not properly paid for you are taking from the creator of that property the right to receive compensation.  This is the textbook definition of stealing.

Our opinions o f whether or not copyright law is right or wrong is irrelevant.  The fact is that it is the law and we are admonished in Scripture to "be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient" (Titus 3:1). Pirating software is illegal in the United States and whether or not we agree with this law or not Scripture instructs us to submit to these laws. Paul tells us in Romans 13:1 “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” (Romans 13:1) Paul is saying that we obey the authorities because they receive their authority from God alone.

 What really drives the pirating community is greed. Christians and non-Christians alike have convinced themselves that their need for a song, movie, or software title far outweighs whatever God has to say on the subject.  They have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.” (Romans 1:25) God has spoken in regards to stealing and obeying the authorities but some have exchanged that knowledge for the lie that it isn't stealing, or they are not hurting anyone, or that God doesn't care about pirating, or these industries are ripping us off and deserve it.

Of course these are all excuses that allow us to keep doing what we know is wrong. We are good at justifying our sin.  However, God desires that we would simply repent of our sin and turn to Him.  Do you really need that song, movie, or program that badly?  Is separating yourself from God worth it?  If you are pirating software, music, or movies delete them today and commit to live above reproach in this area of your life.

Out of the Wreck, I Arise

 

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? -Romans 8:35

"If we desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and therefore, through trial, be strengthened." -George Mueller

God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says—“I will be with him in trouble.” It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man’s life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are “more than conquerors in all these things.” Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there.
 

“Shall tribulation …?” Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may—exhausting, galling, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you.
 
“Shall anguish …?”—can God’s love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?
 

“Shall famine …?”—can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved?
 

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are all against God’s character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it—the love of God in Christ Jesus. “Out of the wreck I rise” every time.
 

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

Getting a Hold On Grace

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ” -Romans 5:1–3, NIV

"Just as the sinner's despair of any hope from himself is the first prerequisite of a sound conversion, so the loss of all confidence in himself is the first essential in the believer's growth in grace." -A.W.Pink

The concept of grace is defined as God’s active involvement on behalf of his people. In the New Testament Divine grace becomes embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, who demonstrates visibly the dynamic nature of God’s grace and fulfills in his ministry of redemption the old covenant promises relative to God’s gracious dealings with humanity (Jn 1:14, 17).
 
God’s grace manifested in Jesus Christ makes it possible for God to forgive sinners and to gather them in the church, the new covenant community. During his ministry, Jesus repeatedly pronounced the words of forgiveness on a great number of sinners and ministered God’s mercy to a variety of desperate human needs. Through teachings such as the father’s forgiveness of the prodigal son and the search for the lost sheep, Jesus made it clear that he had come to seek and save those who were lost. But ultimately it was his redemptive death on the cross that opened wide the gate of salvation for repentant sinners to find access to God’s forgiving and restorative grace. 

This simple truth is formulated in the doctrine of justification by faith through grace (Rom 3:23; Ti 3:7). According to this teaching, God’s gracious provision of the substitutionary death of Christ enables him to pronounce a verdict of “just” or “not guilty” on repentant sinners and to include them in his eternal purposes. As a result, they enter into the realm of God’s gracious activity, which enables them to implement the process of individual sanctification in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

God’s grace manifested in Jesus Christ also makes it possible for God to bestow on believers undeserved benefits that enrich their lives and unite them together in the church, the body of Christ. Their acceptance on the basis of grace endows them with a new status as children of God, members of the household of God, so that they relate to him as to their heavenly Father (Gal 4:4–6). Consequently, they become members of a community where race, class, and sex distinctions are irrelevant, since they all became equal inheritors of God’s age-long promise to Abraham of universal blessing. In order to enrich their individual lives and to assure the usefulness of their participation in the life of the new community, the Holy Spirit graciously energizes believers with a variety of gifts for the performance of ministries designed to benefit the church (Rom 12:6–8). 
 
Finally, God’s grace manifested in Jesus Christ makes it possible for God to cause believers to reflect his grace in their character and relationships. The uncompromising condition for receiving God’s grace is humility (Jas 4:6; 1 Pt 5:5). Such humility in relation to God enables believers to practice humility in regard to other people. From a position of grace, they can set aside selfishness and conceit in order to treat others with deference (Phil 2:3–4) in an attitude of mutual servanthood (Eph 5:21), and in a spirit of mutual forgiveness (Mt 18:23–35) so that even their communication can exhibit divine grace (Col 4:6). Since the grace of Jesus Christ constitutes the existential context of the lives and relationships of believers, they are exhorted not to pervert the grace of God into ungodly practice (Jude 1:4) but instead to grow in the grace of the Lord (2 Pt 3:18).

The essential meaning of grace in the Bible refers to God’s disposition to exercise goodwill toward his creatures. This favorable disposition of God finds its supreme expression in Jesus Christ. By its very definition, this grace is rendered fully accessible to all humans with no other precondition than a repentant desire to receive it (Ti 2:11–12). As a result, the human condition of alienation from God and from his purposes becomes replaced with access to the otherwise unapproachable majesty of God represented by a throne, so that his grace may become available to meet human need (Heb 4:16). The tragic alternative to receiving God’s grace is to remain in hopeless alienation or to pursue sterile attempts to merit God’s favor through human efforts doomed to futility (Rom 1:21). God’s unconditional acceptance of sinners may be conditioned only by their rejection of his acceptance.

Because Christ represents the fulfillment, the embodiment, and the dispenser of divine grace, the early Christians freely referred to God’s grace as “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This grace was conceived as being so basic and so pervasive to their individual lives and to the existence of their communities of faith that they naturally coupled the traditional greeting of shalom (“peace”) with a reference to the grace of Jesus Christ. This is the reason for the repetition of numerous variations on the basic greeting formula found in almost every book of the NT, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all” (2 Thes 3:18).
 
Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference library (551). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.