Life Project Blog

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”

Romans 1:16

Are you ashamed of the Gospel?  Of course not!  How about at work, at the store or at the diner?

The Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of the world.  That makes it about the most powerful force in the universe.  The power of the Gospel can move mountains… and it can change lives; it is powerful indeed.  As Christ’s ambassador, it is the most powerful force in your arsenal, and is one that we all must respect and be bold enough to bring up.  Here’s another way of looking at it: Do you love people?  Do you care about your neighbor; would you help him or her out if they had a problem?  If so, how can we let them die without hearing the Gospel from someone they know and trust?

Just think, God put you where you are and gave you the glorious message of power; the Gospel.  Can we keep it to ourselves?

Guilt.  What a force for destruction! Every single person who reads this has sinned, the person who is writing it has too.  The question for today’s reflection is this: Do we torture ourselves with guilt over our sin, or are we forgiven?

I don’t know why, but I often run into people who are Christians and who have a terrible time getting past feelings of guilt for their sins, even to the point of questioning their faith.  Every time I hear this, I am surprised by it for some reason!  Why would a Christian be filled with guilt over their forgiven sins?  Didn’t Jesus give His life on the cross to set us free from all that?  Yet within Christianity there are some who teach in a way that centers on guilt. I do not question the faith of these people, nor do I criticize their motives, for they are repeating what they have been taught.  I guess all I can really say is that I grieve for them, because this is so hurtful and damaging to those they teach.

A Christian has already been forgiven for their sins, even the ones they haven’t quite committed yet.  God knows our weaknesses, but He loves us anyway: This is simply a fact. Yes, we all mess up sometimes, but God has taken that into account:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

If we believe the Word of God… no, let’s say it this way: If we believe God, then when we come to Him and confess our sins, He forgives them. Period.  So why the guilt?  We are forgiven, the slate is clean, we have been justified by our faith.  End of subject. Wouldn’t we be more appropriate if we responded with thanksgiving and praise, rather than with guilt? After that, our response might be to serve Him with joy and gladness for all that He has done for us.

May we all ponder and reflect on these things, and pray for our brothers and sisters who find them hard to cope with, asking the Lord to open their eyes to the reality of all that He has done for His children.

With Christmas past and the new year looming, all of us have the opportunity to make a new start.  Most of us have areas of our lives that we aren’t entirely satisfied with, why keep doing the same things?

I’m not really talking about the traditional “New Year’s Resolutions” here, because as most of us have discovered, they really don’t work all that well.  I think the reason for that is that they are an attempt to deal with a symptom of something, rather than dealing with the underlying problem.

Now I guess that is a big statement to make; what ‘underlying problem’?

Here’s a theory:  Most of us have a problem with focus.  Here’s what I mean:

Are you focused on good things?  Are you focused on others, on your relationships, family, job…?  Are you focused on your relationship with Jesus?

You see, most of us are focused on a lot of things at once; so many in fact, that we really aren’t focused on anything.  ‘Focus” tends to be exclusionary, that is to say, that if we are focused on one thing, the others slip…

There’s one exception to this rule; our focus on our relationship with Jesus Christ.  If we are focused on our relationship with Jesus Christ, the other necessary areas of focus will not slip, but rather we will be motivated to do all of them better.  If we focus on our relationship with Christ, our relationships with other people will improve, our job performance will improve, and our entire outlook on life will improve.  The only area of focus that will slip is in being focused on self… that will begin to wither, and maybe that’s the part that will allow us to live a better life.

I don’t know about you, but my strategy for being a better human being in the new year will be to focus on Jesus!

There’s something about fresh snow that’s sort of comforting, although it also seems a little dangerous at the same time.  Yes, it is cold, and it can be uncomfortable physically, and heaven knows I’m not all that crazy about shoveling it; in spite of all that there is a comfort in seeing it.

It does have a nice way of covering the brown of winter… not to mention the left-over Fall leaves, and it all looks so very clean.

The clean look of fresh snow is more than just in covering up the ground with a fresh white covering, it is representative of something much more profound… and a little scary.

Fresh white snow is mentioned several times in the Bible in connection with the righteousness of God and the purity of His Word, and I don’t know about you, but to me there is something slightly intimidating about that, since I am so acutely aware of the fact that I just can’t measure up to His standard.

The comfort, however, is greater than the danger, for in Christ we too can be made to “measure up”.  Not, of course, by our own work but instead by His.

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

Isaiah 1:18

Our sinfulness and imperfection, our unholy thoughts and motivations, our inadequacies and unfaithfulness are made white as snow by the blood of Jesus Christ.  It doesn’t matter than I am my own worst critic, it doesn’t matter than somebody might not like me or that I might stumble and fail.  What matters is that our Lord has taken care of all of that ‘stuff’ and in God’s sight, by His great mercy and love, we are as white as snow in His sight by and through Jesus Christ.

Since Jesus has done this for us, doesn’t it motivate you to redouble your efforts to live a life pleasing in His sight?