Baptized for the Dead

Consumerism is rampant in society. I'm not just referring to the marketplace. The same ideology that drives the year end blow out sales, post black Friday, has crept into almost every aspect of our lives. Believing that our spiritual experience is just another commodity to bought or sold has obscured the drawing nature of the Holy Spirit. God implores us to taste and see that He is good. Yet what He offers cannot be contained in shiny packages with red ribbons. It seeps into us like a refreshing drink that when drunk restores our spiritual vitality and a connection with our creator. Jesus explains to His follower that His sheep hear His voice. It follows in this analogy of sheep and shepherd that we must be led by Christ. Consumerism is about control: control over what we take in, where we go and what we do. Ultimately however our walk with God is about giving up control. Jesus once said to aggressive argumentative Pharisees "give to caesar what is caesar's and to God wha...

It's so easy to do. After all how many times did I do something my parents told me to do without consequences? A lot. Of course there were all those times that I did something my parents told me not to do and there were consequences. Like forgetting my coat one too many times only to come down with a cold or not going to sleep when I should've to find out that life was a little harder the next day. It takes us so many years to realize that are parents knew what they were talking about if we ever come to that conclusion at all. Unfortunately for those that believe our parents knew a thing or too there is an even smaller contingent that take God's word at face value. Perhaps we put aside the gentle warnings and admonitions of God because the spiritual subtlety is lost on us. When we don't acquire a terminal illness or lose everything to a fire we somehow believe all that we do is condoned. You see we don't miss what we don't even know exists and the devil is bent ...

I've never really thought of myself as an apparition. But sometimes and sadly more often than it should ever be the case this is all that I am. David declares "Surely every man awalks about as a phantom." Psalm 39:6 How can he make such a bold pronouncement and does this really apply to me? The word that David uses here for phantom is the Hebrew word tselem . In this context it means phantom, but this is not the first place that this word is used. In Genesis 1:26 we find the first occurrence of this word when God says "Let Us make man in our " image ." We were made to look like God, think like God and act like Him. We were made in His image. Unfortunately for most of us this means that we only have His form. This is sort of like meeting a young man or woman that is the spitting image of their father or mother. Yet as you talk with this person it becomes quite obvious that they are nothing like their parents. Their perspective is different, their values are ...

Recent reading has inspired me to explore how we as Seventh-day Adventists should be approaching our most sacred work of soul winning and fishing for men and women. The concern for this subject is valid because of the overwhelming amount of competition we experience for the minds of men in this modern world. Take a look around if you can wrestle yourself from your nearly implanted electronic crutch of choice and ask yourself if the distinct Adventist message crosses your periphery. The third angel's message otherwise known as the loud cry often seems to be shouting into the wind. True Christians or God-fearers have always been in the minority and yet their is cause for concern. The last warning to the world seems to increasingly fall on deaf ears and this creates a plethora of remedies for our lack of effectiveness. How should we deal with the lack of receptivity to what we believe is humanity's last warning? For some the problem lies in the fact that we are more often than no...

"How deep is the hold of sin on the human heart?" DA p753 It is no accident that we have hope. Our destinies are not left to chance or happenstance. Yet we are so unintentional in our reception of Jesus. In the battle of the human mind against sin it often takes every resource that we have. Deliberate focus on heavenly truths and eternal principles are our only foothold as we cling to God. I've heard it said that we must "let go and let God," but I know that the chasm of sin is deep. We must not let go but hold on with every ounce of strength. Even as a climber must grip the crevaces with acute attention so we must grasp the evidences of God's leading in our lives. Is our battle greater than Christ's struggle on the cross? Of course not, but we must all bear our cross. God did not say that because Jesus death was difficult our life with Him would be easy. He said that through Christ's suffering there is now a way out. The darkness that surrounds us t...

Religous terms can be complicated. They can also exclude those who misunderstand their true meaning from benefiting from God's blessings. Justification is one such term. I often heard the statement of explanation that the term justified simply means "just-if-I'd" never sinned. While there is truth in this statement I believe that it oversimplifies the term and perhaps misleads. Justification refers to our legal debt before God. For this reason justification is often lengthened to "legal justification." I think this is fitting because it implies the purpose of justification. When we come before God it should be apparent that we owe Him an innumerable debt. David explains the debt that we really owe to God when he says in Psalm 51:4 "Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done evil in Your sight -- That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge." NKJV You see we owe God something and we will all appear before Him at one t...

With each passing day it seems that there is less and less veracity to the truths we hear passed on to us through our favorite news sources. The term "just the facts" has been watered down to "your facts." Its sad really. What can we trust? Whom can we trust? Its not like there isn't enough information out there. I heard recently that the average person in the year 1800 was only exposed to about as much information as there is in a Sunday newspaper in there entire life! Its an amazing thought. We live in an age where a first grader has probably been exposed to more information than many adults in previous ages (This doesn't mean the first grader is retaining all that information or even understands it). Yet it is unbelievable that we have access to so much. The enlightenment of our world has been the hope and goal of many including the founders of our country: "The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illumina...

I'm still a young man and yet I can see the ravages of time creeping forward. Like a tiger stalking its prey occasionally I get glimpses of the beast peaking at me from behind the bushes of life. It's not easy growing older. For many of us it's downright painful. As a result of this we've conjured up all sorts of "remedies" for what ails us and we clamor to prevent the smallest signs of aging. With as much time as we spend staving off the the signs of experience perhaps we are neglecting something even more important. God calls us to live in newness of life. If we have accepted Christ's death as our own we are also to accept His life as our own. The rejuvenation that comes from being restored to the image of God is truly life changing. The old thoughts and patterns once surrendered to the Lord begin to lose their grip on our lives. The mortar that once held up the walls of resistance begin to crumble and break as new walls are built on immortal foundations...

For some reason or another when I used to play basketball quite a bit I was often confronted with a problem: tunnel vision. Now I didn't have an actual medical condition that only exhibited itself when I played my favorite sport, but I did have a problem. As the action progressed and my heart pumped in excitement I noticed that I often had difficulty perceiving anything outside of my immediate gaze. This caused problems as you can imagine. Occasionally open teammates were unnoticed and even more often I was unaware of the opposing players' advancement. This meant my dribbling skills did very little for me when someone came out of nowhere to pop the ball out of my hands. I used to be frustrated very much by this condition of tunnel vision. Granted it didn't happen all the time and often I was able to keep a watchful eye on my would be assailants. However it certainly happened more than I desired so I began to give it some thought. You see it often happened when I was overly ...

Most Christians realize that they are engaged in a battle. Too often however they are fighting the wrong people and the wrong things. Striking out in frustration we beat against the wind and we bemoan our circumstances. If only life weren't so hard we'd be able to accomplish all that the Lord wants us too. If only we knew what was going on behind the curtain we'd be able to fight the good fight. The problem with this thinking of course is that it implies God should reveal to us the inner workings of the spiritual warfare all around us. We believe that if we could only see why bad things happen we would be able to step forward. What we forget is that if God did this He would remove the very reason why we have a fighting chance at all: faith. We now know in part and occasionally the curtain is drawn back part of the way for a select few among us. However God does not practice this type of revelation for our own good. The devil was privy to the glories of heaven and yet He rem...

"The only boy who could ever reach me was the son of a preacher man." These words were first sung by Dusty Springfield and recorded in 1968 on her album "Dusty in Memphis." The song invokes a romantic relationship,but the words are representative of many people's understanding of religious hierarchy. That is to say that many people look exclusively to preachers, priests, and clergy for their spiritual growth. But is this really what God intends? The history of spiritual leadership throughout the bible evidences the great blessings that can come through spiritual leadership. However spiritual leadership can and should come in different forms and capacities. This is perhaps exampled by the advice given to Moses by his father-in-law Jethro. After witnessing how Moses micromanaged all of Israel's problems Jethro counseled Moses to create a hierarchy among the people to distribute the leadership. The hierarchy reflected their circle of influence. Moses along with...

Just today I was explaining to some students the apparent contradictions that exist on the earth. At times we see the beauty of the earth and the blessings of healthy relationships. However we also see natural disasters that wreak havoc and relationships that do more damage than the most deadly storms. There is certainly a mixed revelation. How are we to understand these events? Unaided observation leads us to confusing answers. However with the aid of divine revelation we can see what is happening and that restoration is possible. Peering into scripture and the annals of history we can see God's intervention: Jesus Christ. Yes there continues to be a struggle with all of the fall out conflict brings. But Jesus began the process of piecing back together the parts that can still be saved. Like a giant needle and thread He pierces both God and man to sew us back into conformity with His will. He is the Repairer of the Breach. This is such an illustrative title. Like a diligent worker...

Have you ever tried to figure out how something works? Perhaps as a child you pulled apart a watch to see what made it tick. Maybe you dismantled a radio to see how sound could travel out of such a small space. Discovering the mechanism behind an invention provides fascination for many people. Many people throughout the years have also tried to find out how living things work. Unfortunately living things cannot be put back together after they've been taken apart. There's really no way around this. In fact if we truly take apart something that is living the organism will have to sacrifice its life in order to satisfy our curiosity. Strangely enough God has taken apart something that is very real and living in order for us to be able to understand how it works. He has dismantled His everlasting covenant so that we might understand the parts of a loving relationship. Carefully exposing each part He has pulled back the covering to label each piece for our benefit. God's disclos...

I want to be ambitious. Ambition is a gift from God. It drives people to varying degrees of success. It enabled weary, tired and barefoot soldiers to overcome dismal odds to establish a nation with unparalleled freedoms and opportunity. Ambition has been the engine of prosperity in this country for hundreds of years. Ambition is a very important component of success, but many people limit it's use in their life. They use it to further their careers. Some people use it to corral more possessions: i.e., houses, cars, and even relationships. Often people utilize ambition to simply further their influence or agenda. None of the aforementioned uses of ambition are inherently wrong. We should be ambitious and earnest in our careers. How else will we succeed unless we try to be our best? In addition enlarging our world can be beneficial if we are good stewards of our resources. Furthermore advancing a worthy idea or cause is always precipitated and carried out with ambition. However ambit...

The light of truth needs to shine brighter with each passing day. The concept of progressive revelation is very important. This is because we are in darkness and do not fully comprehend the light. Cut off from the God's presence by our collective and individual sin humanity needed God to slowly pull back the shades of night. Following the barrier that was imposed by man's first sin, God has been attempting to restore His image through a greater revelation of himself. First speaking through nature, then through His law, then through the prophets, He finally provided the ultimate revelation through His Son. This revelation was encapsulated through the written word and has been handed down to us through the ages. Now Christians believe that the cannon is closed and in their ardent desire to preserve God's word they have limited the Holy Spirit. Galatians 3 tells us that the law was to be a tutor that leads us to Christ. The words of scripture testify of Christ, but they are no...

Each time has it's purpose and our time is no exception. "Fear God and give glory to Him for the hour of His judgment is come...Worship Him who made heavens and the earth, the sea and the springs of waters...Babylon is fallen, is fallen...Come out of her My people." Rev. 14:6,8; 18:4 We believe that the remnant message calls people to acknowledge that Jesus began His heavenly ministry when He ascended to heaven, but He moved to the most holy place in 1844. This is our understanding of the statement the "hour of His judgment is come." Furthermore we understand that we are to worship Him as creator by observing His memorial of creation: the Sabbath day. Those that are not worshiping Him in this manner are described as Babylon and God wants His people who are a part of Babylon to come out of this false system of worship. With the change of political power in the United States as a new presidency is inaugurated we must preach the living word of God that Jesus' m...

When Jesus stated that His yoke was and is easy what did He mean? Rob Bell the author of "Velvet Elvis" has something to say about this subject: "A rabbi's set of rules and lists, which was really the rabbi's interpretation of how to live the Torah, was called the rabbi's yoke." Jesus then is inviting His followers to take up His set of rules on how to live. Jesus was much more than a rabbi, yet He was called one by His followers. The English equivalent of rabbi is teacher in the New Testament. We find the disciples and others, including Nicodemus, giving this title to Jesus. While Jesus was more than a human rabbi He related to the people on their own terms: in ways they could understand. The people had been taught to observe a myriad of customs and rules in order to have the right "halak" or walk with God, but the other rabbis of Israel had made these rules difficult and they were often disconnected from the principles they were supposed to e...

Have you ever longed for a cool refreshing beverage on a hot day? Perhaps you have whetted you whistle under less extenuating circumstances. So many of us indulge our appetites and desires on a rather continual basis without thought to the message this sends heavenly hosts. Without inquiring if something is essential we incorporate wish fulfillment as a regular part of our daily regimen. Are we too live like paupers avoiding the pleasures God has given? We reason God gave us food and wants us to happy right? This rhetorical question is misleading because happiness has not been defined. If we define happiness on our own terms than we can freely justify the pleasures we seek. Furthermore we often elevate our own happiness at the expense of others. This is perhaps the crux of the problem. In determining what the rights would be of the future citizens of this United States of America the framers of the constitution had to determine when and how the rights of others could be fulfilled. They...