Today, September 22, I was reading Oswald Chambers who challenged my thinking with the idea that many people like to think of Jesus Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer, but not so much as Teacher, Master, Lord.  Chambers jolted my brain to think about the book The Gospel according to Jesus, by John MacArthur.  MacArthur’s theme throughout the book is the modern trend within the Church of people to profess having been saved by Christ but they do not want to recognize Jesus Christ as Lord. 

This seems to be a historic problem within the Church since Chambers ministered in the early 1900s and MacArthur is a successful minister since the 1970s.  We can even see this attitude in the New Testament writings of Paul, Peter, and John.  Jesus Himself warns us to make Him Lord of our lives.

Why is it people get saved?  Why is it people get saved and do not want to grow into a more mature relationship with Jesus that expects more from them?  What happens in their spiritual maturing when a believer refuses to allow Jesus to be Lord?  Can the local church help new converts better understand the purpose of our salvation is not just to be saved but to become fully and totally committed to Jesus as Lord?

“And Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the great and foremost commandment.  The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Matthew 22:37-38

"If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  John 14:15

It seems Jesus wants nothing less than a total adaptation to His teachings and His being Lord.

It is a wonderful thing to be saved but after being saved there comes a time of committing this new life within us back to Jesus.  We grateful acknowledge the new life is from Him and now we ask Him to help us live this new life for Him.  Savior and Lord – both is the rich blessing of God’s born-again and then filled children.

A quote from G.A. Studdert Kennedy in Lead Us
Not Into Temptation, alerts us to keeping proper
focus on better quality in the things that we allow
into our beings: art, music, movies, TV programs,
worship, and discipleship. His quote concerns art
but the principle applies to all aspects of Christian
living.
“It is the realism of second rate art which, because
it has neither the skill not the technique to touch
the finer chords of human nature and awaken their
music to life, makes a frank appeal to the crude
animal instincts… It is always the line of least
resistance for the artist to appeal to some strong
primitive instinct, and make sure of a response…
There is therefore a tremendous temptation to
prostitute the art whatever it might be, to be
content with a crude sensationalism.”
We need to focus our spiritual, mental, emotional,
and physical life on the quality of an activity to lead
us into the finer, better, more uplifting qualities.
What inspires us in worship, in prayer, in activities,
or in ministries? Is it the things that are truly
making us better or the things that titillate the
baser side of our beings? Are we not to be
pursuing those things which have the capability of
conforming us more to Christ-likeness?
Francis A. Schaeffer in How Should We Then Live,
gives us warning that the things that a culture
considers art or music reveals what that society is
becoming — bombastic music versus harmonious
music; crass, erotic art or movies or television
versus art that depicts realistic portrayals of beauty
and life. As disciples of Christ what is our approach
to life to be? Are we to live in the flesh or are we
to live in the Spirit?

Just some thoughts gathered in my reading of he Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person, by E. Stanley
Jones .
“Emmanuel Kant – Two things strike me with awe, the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”
“You have Christian nerves, Christian brain cells, Christian heart, Christian tissues – Christian everything. They work well in a Christian way and badly
in an un-Christian way.”
“Man has become naturalized in unnatural sin. Sin is anti-life.”
“God has made us for Himself and for holiness of being. Sin is the ultimate disruption of that creation. We are at rest and in harmony with ourselves when we live as God has shown us we are to live. Sin kills, is killing, and will kill people. Only in Christ is life.”
Ponder these thoughts and determine what you think about them. You might read John 1:3-4, 10; Hebrews 1:2; Colossians 1:15-16; Romans 8:29; I John 5:3

Have a great July.