I am writing to thank all of you for your prayers, support and grace.  You have been a great encouragement to me and I cannot wait to resume teaching in the New Year!  In the meantime, there is a host of classes available on the website.

We will keep you informed via this blog and the newsletter.  If you haven’t signed up, you may visit www.archangelministries.org and scroll down to the bottom left of the page.

Jeremiah 29:11,

Henry

Have you ever pondered what the Apostle Paul meant by “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12)?  It appears at first glance that we as Christians must maintain our so great salvation by works, and if we fail it’s off to hell.  Uh oh, we better attend church regularly, work in the nursery, and tithe.  Is that tithing gross or net by the way?

When I read 2 Corinthians 9:7 it states, ‘Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart; not begrudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver”.  This applies not only to monetary contributions but giving our precious time and effort as well.  We should do all things cheerfully, in other words, with joy because of what God has done for us!  So how does all this relate to working out our salvation with fear and trembling?  Fear and trembling appear to contradict the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23, but do they?

Since there are no real contradictions in the Bible because it is God-breathed, we seek for the answers from the One who inspired it, God Himself.  Scripture must be compared with Scripture to arrive at the answer as the Holy Spirit illuminates our hearts to the truth.

There are peaks and valleys in the spiritual life – sometimes we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and at other times it is as easy as pie.  One thing remains constant, the filling of the Spirit.  Was our Savior cheerful in the garden as He agonized over drinking the cup that the Father placed before Him?  Was He cheerful when He could perform no miracle in His hometown because of everyone’s lack of faith?  Did He rejoice when He lamented over Israel whom He longed to save and protect?  Was He happy when He drove those who had turned the temple into a house of  profit?  The answers to these questions are an emphatic ‘no!’.  He was a man of sorrows according to Isaiah 53, aquainted with grief – that is why He can sympathize with our weaknesses.  It is why He remains available 24/7 to bring all our anxieties to Him (1 Peter 5:7).  You see, the Lord Jesus knows what you are going through because He has experienced it to the extreme.

I understand that your perception is your reality, but who knows what is really happening with divine objectivity?  Who knows how you really feel?  Only your Savior!  And does He not know what you need at a time like this?  Sure He does because, whatever you are going through, He experienced it to a greater degree!  When He was in the deepest darkest valley of His life agonizing over the will of the Father sweating blood – He was working out His salvation with fear and trembling.

That last statement probably raised more than an eyebrow for you Bible doctrine robots so I’ll elaborate.  The word ‘salvation’ also has the range of meaning, ‘deliverance’.  Salvation comes in three tenses and He was seeking through prayer deliverance from coming into contact with sin.  He knew what the Father’s will entailed – drinking the cup of redemption which would result in broken fellowship with the Father – yet, He endured for the joy that He would experience after traversing the valley of the cross.  So yes – the Christian life is not a bed of roses.  We all have valleys we must carry our crosses through yet there are peaks when we shout, ‘Blessed be Thy Name Oh Lord thy God!”

Why do we have to endure such valleys? Why does God permit them?  There are many reasons but one remains – to hone our dependence upon Him.  To facilitate our abiding in Him.  God uses these unpalatable circumstances to mold us into who He desires us to be.

Never forget, through these difficulties, that He is with you every step of the way!  He is there to work in you to will and to do when you allow Him to and He does it for His good pleasure.  So let go, be still, and place everything in His capable hands to direct.

For those of you who truly venture to wait upon the Lord, you will experience new strength.  You will run and not become weary.  You will mount up on wings of eagles!  No matter what happened yesterday, the Lord’s mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness!

Being encouraged by our great God as He works in fellow Christians to encourage each of us and use us to encourage one another is a wonderful blessing!

o

God’s infallible Word commands us to encourage one another often.  “Encourage one another, and build up one another . . .” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).  You are even persuaded to “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but such as is good for edification according to the need, that it may give grace to those who hear (Ephesians 4:29).

Why do you think God commands us to do such things?  Because we all need encouragement and we are prone to refrain from encouraging others.

What we say to one another ought to encourage rather discourage.

It ought to build up rather than tear down.  It ought to be grace to those who receive it.  If you wonder why, just read James 3:5-6.   What we say, text, and even email to one another can destroy and discourage or build up and encourage.

Therefore, here is a bit of encouragement for you!  I don’t know what valley you may be trudging through, but you can not shake the love of God nor His mercy or grace.  Did you know that God loves you just as much as His beloved Son? There is wonderful encouragement to be found in Romans 8:38-39 because there is nothing that can separate you from God’s love!  How awesome is that?  No failure, no valley, no mistake, not even physical death can separate you from His immutable love.  Not even our adversary the devil and one third of the angelic host who followed him in rebellion can separate you from God’s love.  No governing authority can legislate it away, not even any created thing under the sun can prevent God from loving you!

“Really?” you ask.  Yes! And more than that, “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; Great is Thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23).  The great God and Savior we love is none other than Jesus Christ the righteous. He loves you so much and you are secure in Him as a Christian.  Nothing can snatch you from His grasp (John 10:28-29).

As He encouraged, let us also encourage, and all the more as we see the day drawing near when we assemble to meet Him in the clouds – the blessed appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Hang in there and look for God’s encouragement today and keep on encouraging one another! You never know whether you will be used by Him to offer encouragement or receive that encouragement which is grace in time of need.

Either way, you will be blessed!

Warning Light #4 on the dashboard of our lives is . . .

An Unhealthy View of Failure!

“How do I respond to failure or being exposed as a sinner?”  [You can either allow it to define you the rest of your life, permit it to be a blip on the radar screen of your life, or forget it as God has because you have confessed it and moved on.  The choice is yours because of God's unfailing grace!]  “In the parable of the mistreated son (Matthew 21:33-46), Jesus implicated the Pharisees in His looming execution.  Jesus depicted the Pharisees as those who were planning to kill the son of the vineyard owner and as those who had rejected the chief cornerstone.  The parable was a stern warning designed to produce repentance [a change of mind].  But the Pharisees, rather than taking the rebuke as a warning and turning to God, turned on the Lord and tried to arrest Him (vv. 45-46).  His exposure of their heart produced not repentance but revenge; not cries for mercy but cries for murder.

What do we do when we are exposed, when we fail or are found out?  Do we fall prostrate before God or do we attack the prophet?

A warning is in order, however, about our response to personal sin and failure:  There can be an unhealthy brokenness and a false humility.  We must not emphasize the depravity of man, as some do, to the extent that it denies the dignity of being created in God’s image and denies the worth of being the object of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.  That is a religious conterfeit of the genuine work of God.  The Christian virtue of being “poor in spirit” displays genuine humility and dependence on God, even in failure and sin.  But being poor in spirit is sometimes debased into poor-spiritedness: ‘I’m just a failure; there is no hope for me and I’m going to quit.’  That is a poor caricature of what Christ had in mind.  Some also emphasize our fallen nature but do not communicate adequately the positive resources that God has given to triumph, in effect elevating Romans 7 at the expense of Romans 8.  Exposing depravity without accessing divine resources is a counterfeit.  Morbid introspection, likewise, is a cheap substitute for true brokenness and often leads to depression.  Is the failure light flashing on your dash?  Warning!

Contempt, forgiveness, fairness, failure.  Each of these is a telltale sign of self-righteousness, a warning light on the dashboard of our lives.  Each can help us see self-righteousness within.  However, religious people [evangelical Christians] routinely ignore these subtle warnings.  Jesus did not” (Hovestol, Extreme Righteous, pp. 53-54, brackets mine).

This book has served to open my eyes to many things and I’m not done with it yet, but thus far it is a must read.  One of the most enlightening things I found as a pastor was listed in the author’s top ten reasons for accurately portraying the Pharisees: “Reason #5:  Understanding the Pharisees Helps Pastors Survive”.

I want to thank everyone for their encouragement to “kindle afresh the gift of God which is in me” and resume teaching in the new ministry format right here in Atlanta.  “For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline” (2 Timothy 1:6-7).

Sunday services will begin at 11:00am on August 28th when the foundation for this ministry will be established on Christ by grace through faith.  The only thing you need to bring is the compassion and love of Christ with your grace orientation toward others. God will take care of the rest!

Since you are not spiritual because of what you wear, come as you are – be yourself – if you are comfortable in a Hawaiian shirt with flip flops, great!   This ministry will be one that embraces you for who you are just as God does all of us.

There will be plenty of opportunities to use your spiritual gifts.  If you aren’t sure what your spiritual gift is, God will reveal it to you and provide the opportunity to serve Him.

Forgetting that which lies behind and pressing on toward the upward call of God in Christ Jesus!  God has great and mighty plans for us!

Click here for location, directions, and our exciting new vision.

Warning Light #3:

A Wrong Sense of Grace & Fairness

“How do I respond to working hard and being ignored when the less-deserving are rewarded and promoted?”  [Hopefully you employ 1 John 1:9 regarding self-pity and begin claiming the promises of God - faith-rest drill while you continue to do your job as unto the Lord and not to men].  “Fairness is a sense learned early in life; in fact fairness is one of the most well developed senses of a child.  One phrase I hear frequently as a father is, ‘That isn’t fair!’  Something deep within children recoils against perceived unfairness, particularly from parents.  Why is this so?  Why do children (and adults) react so strongly when it seems that they are not getting what they deserve or that they are being treated less desirably than another?  We all have an innate sense of self-interest and fairness that we seek to protect at all costs.  We demand at least equal treatment.

But grace and fairness do not mix well.  Grace by definition is unfair.  It extends favor to the undeserving.  Mark well what happened in the soul of a goody-two-shoes-son when a prodigal younger brother returned and dear old dad graciously threw a party (Luke15:11-32).  He felt resentful.  All the tightly guarded venom of his soul spewed out on his father.  He could not bring himself to rejoice with those who rejoice.  His father’s grace to his wayward brother brought to the surface the poison of the elder’s self-righteousness.

A similar complaint was heard when those who expended little time and effort received the same wage as those who had worked longer and sacrificed more: ‘It isn’t fair!’  Jesus told a parable about grace couched in the activities of the daily workplace of His culture (Matthew 20:1-16).  Some farm workers who had worked for one hour were paid the same as those who had worked for the entire day.  The full-day workers cried ‘unfair!’

Take careful note when your heart cries unfair.  God may be giving an opportunity for a sneak peak into the self-righteousness of your heart.  One reason you and I so strongly react to perceived unfairness is that we cherish a too-lofty view of ourselves.  We convenienty forget, ‘There is none righteous, not even one; there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; all have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one’ (Romans 3:10-12).  We forget that we were self-indulgent children of wrath upon whom a gracious God piled priceless gifts; we were spiritual trash whom God turned into trophies (Ephesians 2:1-10).  Fairness without grace would have condemned us all to hell.  Is the fairness light flashing on your dash?”  (Hovestol, Extreme Righteousness, p. 52-53).

It is so important to understand that God saved us according to His mercy and by His grace (Titus 3:5; Ephesians 2:8).  We did not deserve it!  This is why the believer must orient to the cross when he is mistreated or views others with contempt.  Without orienting to the grace he received at the cross and the forgiveness that He will always have in Christ, he will ultimately withhold forgiveness when wronged – bitterness will take root in his heart and he will take his seat amongst the Pharisees.  Although his doctrine may be right, he is right for the sake of being right which is wrong because he has not the love and compassion of Christ.  For those of you who were saved late in life, you experienced the mercy and grace of God in action.  Therefore it is much easier to be grace oriented.

Check back for Part V – “An Unhealthy View of Failure”

Here’s Warning Light #2, from Tom Hovestol’s book, Extreme Righteousness, Seeing Ourselves in the Pharisees:  [There is a purpose in this series of posts by the way and we will get to that after the 4th warning light]

A Shallow Sense of Forgiveness

“How deep and well-developed is my personal sense of God’s forgiveness?  This subjective sense is another telltale symptom of my level of self-righteousness.  Our personal awareness of God’s forgiveness will profoundly impact our level of self-righteousness.  Our response to sinners, particularly those who wrong us, is an excellent gauge to measure potentially self-righteous hearts.

One day Jesus accepted an offer to dine at a Pharisee’s house (Luke 7:36-50).  An uninvited local sinner dropped in and made a scene by washing and anointing Jesus’ feet.  The host, appalled at the unfolding events, muttered under his breath that Jesus could not be a holy man or He would know the magnitude of this woman’s sin.  Jesus, knowing the Pharisee’s told a story about a creditor and two debtors.  Since neither debtor could pay, the creditor forgave both debts, one large and the other relatively small.  Jesus then asked, “Which of the two will love the creditor more?”

“The one whom he forgave,” answered the Pharisee Simon.  Jesus praised Simon’s understanding of forgiveness but then exposed his blindness to its personal application.  His final words to Simon are, “He who is forgiven little, loves little” (v. 47).  There is a close connection between our personal sense of God’s forgiveness and the depth of our love for Him – and, may I add, our level of self-righteousness.

We tend not to see the depths of our depravity.  Our goodness, our affluence, our ability to control many facets of our lives, our propensity to rationalize, blame-shift, and justify ourselves, our focus on particular sins rather than sin itself – all contribute to a superficial awareness of our critical need for God’s forgiveness.  We simply do not believe that there is a Hitler in us until we are forced out of our comfort zones, fall flat on our faces, lose control, or commit some major public transgression.  Since good religious people are better than the norm in society, we are less likely to see the depths of our depravity.  Our love for Christ may well be shallow.

Perhaps an even more telling gauge of our self-righteousness is the stance from which we offer our forgiveness to those who have wronged us.  Is our forgiveness offered from a pedestal?  When sinned against [I would say we sin against God and God alone because the standards we violate are His, but you get the point] it is easy to occupy a superior position, extending forgiveness like a benevolent dictator to those who demonstrate their sincere repentance.  Our stance is top down; our demeanor is paternalistic; our attitude is self-righteous.  In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus contrasted true piety with people-pleasing religiosity.  Speaking about prayer, Jesus delivered a stern warning about forgiveness.  Forgiveness, He said, is a natural and necessary fruit of our having been forgiven by God.  We must forgive those who sin against us, not like benevolent dictators from the top down but rather as fellow sinners from the bottom up.  Is the forgiveness light flashing on your dash?”

If the warning lights have been flashing, it’s vital to understand that we do not have the ability ourselves to forgive others as God has forgiven us in Christ (Ephesians 4:32).  Yet we have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who is present to enable us to forgive. This occurs when we depend upon Him and the very love of God which was demonstrated on the cross is manifested in our life (Galatians 5:18, 22-23; Romans 5:8; 1 Corinthians 13:5).  It is that fruit produced by the Spirit that enables the Christian to meet the heavenly standards he has been called to in the Word of God.  Apart from that, we will fall short and it profits us nothing.

Check back ‘en la manana’ as my grandmother used to say for the next warning light . . .

Are the warning lights of self-righteous Pharasaism present in your life?  Here’s warning light #1 from Tom Hovestol’s book, Extreme Righteousness: Seeing Ourselves in the Pharisees.

A Contemptuous View of Others

“Do I compare myself with others and look down on those who do not live as I do?  Of course, all the time!  This tendency to compare my righteousness with others is endemic to humanity.  Any level of contempt for others is a telltale sign of hidden self-righteousness.

Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collectors to some who were self- righteous and viewed others with contempt (Luke 18:9).  This contempt is a warning light of self-righteousness.  How do we regard sinners who do not measure up and saints who have blown it?  Do we subconsciously gloat over their misdeeds and glory in their shame?  Do we subtly believe that we are incapable of their level of depravity and they are unlikely to achieve our level of goodness?  Are we arrogant about our own avoidances and achievements?

For me the answer is yes, and then some.  I rarely verbalize these thoughts, or even acknowledge them to myself.  But they are there.  They surface in my secret reflections and in what I mutter under my breath.  They come out in unguarded conversations about people not present.  They pop out in my prayers as I lament the evils of the culture more than personal and corporate sin.  They slip out in my conversation about failing parishioners and fallen fellow pastors.  Is the contempt light flashing on your dash too?  Warning!  A critical, contemptuous spirit emanates from a self-righteous heart.”

Transparency is a wonderful thing whether it’s present in one’s writings as Tom is here or in the pulpit.  It helps us realize that we all struggle and fall short but thanks be to God for His amazing grace and the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ the righteous!

That’s a harrowing statement for those of us who are blinded to our own self-righteousness.  I’ve been reading the book, “Extreme Righteousness:  Seeing Ourselves in the Pharisees,” authored by Tom Hovestol.  The book has been an eye opener.  Outside of God’s infallible Word only four books have had a profound influence on my life as a Christian and this is one of them.

There are four warning lights the author describes as indicators of the Pharisee that lurks in each one of us.  “Where do we look for symptoms of self-righteousness?  Unfortunately, it does not come with a warning label;  self-righteousness is not easily detected.  If asked, hardly a single Christian (or any person, for that matter) would admit to being self-righteous.  Our theology abhors self-righteousness.  Even our secular culture shuns self-righteousness.  We are sufficiently sophisticated and self controlled to cover up self-righteousness.  And our minds are seldom as creative as when justifying ourselves.

So what subtle clues expose the hidden condition of our hearts?  Certain stirrings in our psyche, like warning lights on a car’s instrument panel, can help us to identify our self-righteous attitudes.  In fact, through several encounters with the Pharisees, Jesus has pointed out the flashing warning lights that indicate self-righteous attitudes in our lives.”

Check back each day to see if the warning lights are flashing on your instrument panel!

Thus far I have visited three churches over the past three Sundays.  I won’t list the names but wow, how different they are from welcoming you to everything else under the morning sun.

God keeps on teaching me things to incorporate into the new ministry except one thing; preaching in flip flops, lol.  I have to admit that as the pastor walked out in flip flops, I was caught off guard and had to suppress the Pharisee in me who has a tendency to hold on for dear life to tradition.  You may know and believe, “it’s about the message not the man” but applying it is an entirely different thing.  So I was challenged to focus on the message as opposed to the pedicure!

Amazing how a few changes to what we are accustomed to can result in the mental attitude sin of judging someone.  If that goes unchecked by 1 John 1:9 followed by an application of Hebrews 12:2, we end up defiling the body with its’ most destructive member, the tongue.  Once I looked through the man to the Lord and His message everything became crystal clear.  Flip flops may not be your preference, but is that what it’s really about?