Thursday, August 18, 2005
Losing my salvation part two.
My friend came back with a very reasoned and persuasive reply. The following was my response:
You gave me a lot to think about. No doubt you were saved at 13. I guess maybe this is my struggle. I did all the stupid stuff before I got saved, then I got saved but there was a time where I was distant after that. I don't have all the answers but I knew that every time I cried out to him he was still there even in my rebellion. Of course I didn't realize I was cheating on Him, (okay part of me did) I thought I was using my God given gifts, guess that was my way of rationalizing what I was doing.
This was during the period of time when I was trying to be a professional artist full time. I figured it was my God given gift so it must be what I was supposed to do. What I didn't see, or more correctly, what I ignored, was that I was offering my whole life and everything that was important in it to my gift. I always rationalized that when I became successful I would pay back to my family everything they lost while I pursued the dream. The jobs that I had all seemed like failure and made me feel like a loser because it wasn't my God given gift.
What I wasn't seeing was that my family was a God given gift too and the non art work that I was getting was a way God was providing for that gift. One day as I was driving from one job to another (I was in sales, traveling) He convicted me, your work is your God. We had a big argument, okay I railed and he listened til I was done. A week later I was at Promise Keepers face down in the dirt, wailing over all I had done. The speaker started by having us lay face down on the ground prostrate before God but instead of praying with our eyes closed he had us take out pictures from our wallets of someone in our families that we had wronged. It didn't take long to wash all my arguments away.
He never left me nor forsook (?) me and when I came back for good, he was right there to lift me up to where He wanted me. I told him after I finished the last one or two pieces I had promised that I would never pick up a pen again unless I was doing it for Him. I quit art all together (other than finishing a couple of things that I had committed to do) for six months and then he began to give that back showing me how to use it for his glory. I am still very hesitant to take money for a piece of art because of that. I don't believe I ever lost my salvation. I believe God waited patiently for me to lose my stupidity and see my need for Him, like the father of a very stupid prodigal and then welcomed me back.
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My friend came back with a very reasoned and persuasive reply. The following was my response:
You gave me a lot to think about. No doubt you were saved at 13. I guess maybe this is my struggle. I did all the stupid stuff before I got saved, then I got saved but there was a time where I was distant after that. I don't have all the answers but I knew that every time I cried out to him he was still there even in my rebellion. Of course I didn't realize I was cheating on Him, (okay part of me did) I thought I was using my God given gifts, guess that was my way of rationalizing what I was doing.
This was during the period of time when I was trying to be a professional artist full time. I figured it was my God given gift so it must be what I was supposed to do. What I didn't see, or more correctly, what I ignored, was that I was offering my whole life and everything that was important in it to my gift. I always rationalized that when I became successful I would pay back to my family everything they lost while I pursued the dream. The jobs that I had all seemed like failure and made me feel like a loser because it wasn't my God given gift.
What I wasn't seeing was that my family was a God given gift too and the non art work that I was getting was a way God was providing for that gift. One day as I was driving from one job to another (I was in sales, traveling) He convicted me, your work is your God. We had a big argument, okay I railed and he listened til I was done. A week later I was at Promise Keepers face down in the dirt, wailing over all I had done. The speaker started by having us lay face down on the ground prostrate before God but instead of praying with our eyes closed he had us take out pictures from our wallets of someone in our families that we had wronged. It didn't take long to wash all my arguments away.
He never left me nor forsook (?) me and when I came back for good, he was right there to lift me up to where He wanted me. I told him after I finished the last one or two pieces I had promised that I would never pick up a pen again unless I was doing it for Him. I quit art all together (other than finishing a couple of things that I had committed to do) for six months and then he began to give that back showing me how to use it for his glory. I am still very hesitant to take money for a piece of art because of that. I don't believe I ever lost my salvation. I believe God waited patiently for me to lose my stupidity and see my need for Him, like the father of a very stupid prodigal and then welcomed me back.
Losing my salvation, part one.
Right now a good friend and I are having a discussion. He is of the view that you can lose your salvation and I am not. Now I think I should warn you in advance that this is a position I am still working through as there are passages of scripture that seem to support both positions, and this discussion will no doubt create much research, study and maybe even a few sermons over the next few months. I read the following in his blog and had to comment about it.
I had a thought on this part of your blog, that I wanted to share.
"3)Unfruitful Christians. Yep, those people that think "Hey I'm in now!" and try to do very little or try to ignore the knife. The unfruitful ones. What's He do with these? The Bible says"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He cuts off." John15:2a
and then
"If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered: and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." John16:6
I think that's pretty obvious, don't you?
"Once saved, always saved." is a lie!Or the Bible is. You decide, but just remember, Jesus is the Word. You deny Him and He will deny you! I personally believe the Word of God.
I'm not going to be a "Hell bound Christian"."
We have a disagreement here. I don't believe once saved always saved is a lie. The way I see it, if we can lose our salvation then our salvation is based on works and we are saved by grace and not by works. The thing about it is this, I would question whether a person who does no works is saved to begin with, but that decision is not up to me.
In the church, we have far too big an emphasis (in my opinion) on getting conversions and nowhere near enough on making disciples. In a lot of cases the reason that there is faith without works is that we get someone to give their heart to Jesus and we jump right away from them to get that next conversion leaving the person to sit there and say okay, now what. The believer's faithlessness is at least partly due to a church that is not following the full spirit of the great commission. We are too busy making mega churches to make disciples.
The other side of all that is this, I don't have time to figure out whether another person is really saved and in the end it is not up to me to judge that anyway. What is up to me is to follow the leading of the holy spirit and to faithfully make DISCIPLES, If we can lose our salvation, how do we lose it? sin. I hope not or try as I might, I'm still damned. lack of fruit? by whose standard. God's plan for each person is different. I remember EV Hill speaking at a promise keepers meeting on night. He's gone to be with the Lord now and if you missed him you missed one of the great preachers I have ever heard, but that particular night EV was really disappointing. He started by talking about all that he accomplished. All the places that he had been and all the millions of people he had spoken before and the tens and hundreds of thousands that came to Christ at his altar calls. Just when I was about to scream it's not about you, he turned it around and became a personal word of prophecy in my life. He said and the pastor that led me to the Lord never spoke to more than 70 people in his whole life. Who gets the credit for all those people. EV or his pastor. Neither, it's Jesus. Each of them was used mightily by God each bore the fruit that was expected of him. Some of use will be great teachers and prophets and others will be begats. The one who gets to measure the fruit is the one who made the tree.
You can disagree with me on this if you want and I won't think any less of you if you do ( hopefully you don't think less of me either. I have been struggling with this issue for a long time, because somehow it doesn't make sense that I could do so much more work than someone else and receive the same reward. On the other hand someone could look at me and say I can't believe he gets the same reward as me after all the bad that he's done. That passage you mentioned is not so much about doing as it is about being. We can't earn it, so we have to abide in him, trust in Him hold on to him and hopefully in all that abiding and holding on and trusting we will follow the spirit into faithful service.
Â
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Right now a good friend and I are having a discussion. He is of the view that you can lose your salvation and I am not. Now I think I should warn you in advance that this is a position I am still working through as there are passages of scripture that seem to support both positions, and this discussion will no doubt create much research, study and maybe even a few sermons over the next few months. I read the following in his blog and had to comment about it.
I had a thought on this part of your blog, that I wanted to share.
"3)Unfruitful Christians. Yep, those people that think "Hey I'm in now!" and try to do very little or try to ignore the knife. The unfruitful ones. What's He do with these? The Bible says"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He cuts off." John15:2a
and then
"If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered: and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned." John16:6
I think that's pretty obvious, don't you?
"Once saved, always saved." is a lie!Or the Bible is. You decide, but just remember, Jesus is the Word. You deny Him and He will deny you! I personally believe the Word of God.
I'm not going to be a "Hell bound Christian"."
We have a disagreement here. I don't believe once saved always saved is a lie. The way I see it, if we can lose our salvation then our salvation is based on works and we are saved by grace and not by works. The thing about it is this, I would question whether a person who does no works is saved to begin with, but that decision is not up to me.
In the church, we have far too big an emphasis (in my opinion) on getting conversions and nowhere near enough on making disciples. In a lot of cases the reason that there is faith without works is that we get someone to give their heart to Jesus and we jump right away from them to get that next conversion leaving the person to sit there and say okay, now what. The believer's faithlessness is at least partly due to a church that is not following the full spirit of the great commission. We are too busy making mega churches to make disciples.
The other side of all that is this, I don't have time to figure out whether another person is really saved and in the end it is not up to me to judge that anyway. What is up to me is to follow the leading of the holy spirit and to faithfully make DISCIPLES, If we can lose our salvation, how do we lose it? sin. I hope not or try as I might, I'm still damned. lack of fruit? by whose standard. God's plan for each person is different. I remember EV Hill speaking at a promise keepers meeting on night. He's gone to be with the Lord now and if you missed him you missed one of the great preachers I have ever heard, but that particular night EV was really disappointing. He started by talking about all that he accomplished. All the places that he had been and all the millions of people he had spoken before and the tens and hundreds of thousands that came to Christ at his altar calls. Just when I was about to scream it's not about you, he turned it around and became a personal word of prophecy in my life. He said and the pastor that led me to the Lord never spoke to more than 70 people in his whole life. Who gets the credit for all those people. EV or his pastor. Neither, it's Jesus. Each of them was used mightily by God each bore the fruit that was expected of him. Some of use will be great teachers and prophets and others will be begats. The one who gets to measure the fruit is the one who made the tree.
You can disagree with me on this if you want and I won't think any less of you if you do ( hopefully you don't think less of me either. I have been struggling with this issue for a long time, because somehow it doesn't make sense that I could do so much more work than someone else and receive the same reward. On the other hand someone could look at me and say I can't believe he gets the same reward as me after all the bad that he's done. That passage you mentioned is not so much about doing as it is about being. We can't earn it, so we have to abide in him, trust in Him hold on to him and hopefully in all that abiding and holding on and trusting we will follow the spirit into faithful service.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
The DaVinci Code
A friend, Tony Snipes has a great elist called Art Lessons from God. He writes a lot of articles meant to challenge artists to use their talents to live out their faith. Tony recently posted this to the A.M.O.K. list to challenge the list. His writing made me think of an example from my own life right now. You see I am reading the DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. It's a real page turner, well crafted but they way he portrays Christ and the church is AGONIZING.
Here's what Tony had to say and my response.
Satan wants access to your talent.
His desire is to destroy God's greatest creation, mankind. Satan
recognizes the power of influence in the Arts. Since he has no
creative ability himself, he seeks to influence artists, musicians,
dancers, film makers, actors, etc. to use their God given talents
for his purpose. He pursues access to our talents in order to use
as a "weapon" that influences the thoughts, moods, feelings and
ultimately, the choices and actions of people.
Yes If you don't believe Tony's statement, read the DaVinci Code. I really hate to tell you to read this book, but it is going to be a major motion picture in May directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and it will cause the world to have major questions and major doubts about the church and about Jesus. We need to be ready to answer those questions when they come. If you are shaky in your faith, do not read the book, it is a prime example of exactly what Tony is talking about. Remember your enemy the devil goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour. (1 Peter 5:8) Read Tony's article ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artlessonsfromGod/message/111 ) then read it again and then recommit yourself to reading the HOLY scriptures and living them out through the gifts God has given you.Each one should use whatever gifts he has received to serve others faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. (1 Peter 4:10)
One more word on the DaVinci Code, How will we react when the movie comes out? Will we march on the theaters in protest? Will we have book burnings? I sincerely hope not, because if we do we will only further the image Brown paints of the church, an image of a corrupt body that will go to unmentionable measures to hide the fact that our faith is full of holes. Instead I pray that we would follow Jesus' admonition to be salt and light and show a faith that is real no matter what Dan Brown believes, no matter what Hollywood says. Listen to the words of Peter. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, (1 Peter 3:15) Our actions in this matter will say a lot about us and our Lord. Hopefully we will soon learn that protesting Hollywood does no good. To quote the words of the OC Supertones, The problem's not in Hollywood, the problem's not in Washington, the problem's a weak divided church of schizmed Christians. Brothers and sisters we need to unite behind our Lord and take these words from Peter as our example. It is time to stop spending so much time showing the world what we're against and start showing them WHO we are for. I know there is a brother or sister out there somewhere that can create a better book than the DaVinci Code. Let's fire up those gifts and use them to point people to the truth.
Â
(0) comments
A friend, Tony Snipes has a great elist called Art Lessons from God. He writes a lot of articles meant to challenge artists to use their talents to live out their faith. Tony recently posted this to the A.M.O.K. list to challenge the list. His writing made me think of an example from my own life right now. You see I am reading the DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. It's a real page turner, well crafted but they way he portrays Christ and the church is AGONIZING.
Here's what Tony had to say and my response.
Satan wants access to your talent.
His desire is to destroy God's greatest creation, mankind. Satan
recognizes the power of influence in the Arts. Since he has no
creative ability himself, he seeks to influence artists, musicians,
dancers, film makers, actors, etc. to use their God given talents
for his purpose. He pursues access to our talents in order to use
as a "weapon" that influences the thoughts, moods, feelings and
ultimately, the choices and actions of people.
Yes If you don't believe Tony's statement, read the DaVinci Code. I really hate to tell you to read this book, but it is going to be a major motion picture in May directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks and it will cause the world to have major questions and major doubts about the church and about Jesus. We need to be ready to answer those questions when they come. If you are shaky in your faith, do not read the book, it is a prime example of exactly what Tony is talking about. Remember your enemy the devil goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour. (1 Peter 5:8) Read Tony's article ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/artlessonsfromGod/message/111 ) then read it again and then recommit yourself to reading the HOLY scriptures and living them out through the gifts God has given you.Each one should use whatever gifts he has received to serve others faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. (1 Peter 4:10)
One more word on the DaVinci Code, How will we react when the movie comes out? Will we march on the theaters in protest? Will we have book burnings? I sincerely hope not, because if we do we will only further the image Brown paints of the church, an image of a corrupt body that will go to unmentionable measures to hide the fact that our faith is full of holes. Instead I pray that we would follow Jesus' admonition to be salt and light and show a faith that is real no matter what Dan Brown believes, no matter what Hollywood says. Listen to the words of Peter. But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, (1 Peter 3:15) Our actions in this matter will say a lot about us and our Lord. Hopefully we will soon learn that protesting Hollywood does no good. To quote the words of the OC Supertones, The problem's not in Hollywood, the problem's not in Washington, the problem's a weak divided church of schizmed Christians. Brothers and sisters we need to unite behind our Lord and take these words from Peter as our example. It is time to stop spending so much time showing the world what we're against and start showing them WHO we are for. I know there is a brother or sister out there somewhere that can create a better book than the DaVinci Code. Let's fire up those gifts and use them to point people to the truth.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Getting Back to Nature and the Nature of the Beast
Things have been going well here lately, my latest art project has been a personal one. I am installing a backyard pond in my yard. What does that have to do with art ministry. Well I'll tell you. It is ministering to me. As I do all the work that it takes to make these plants and animals (well, okay, fish) a few things happen. First of all I work hard and sweat a lot which is good for my health. Second I get the chance to be upclose and personal with God's creations and marvel at the complexity of even his most overlooked creations and third, I see the amount of work that it takes to maintain just a small corner of God's earth. We look at all these things and take them for granted, but I have to tell you, doing this work has given me a new appreciation for my creator. Painting with God's "paints" is creating a masterpiece in my soul. Don't forget folks, ministry is a lot more than external, we also have to take time to work on the internal.
Speaking of external ministry, a lot of the folks in my church are under attack right now. Physical ailments and external pressures are really taking their toll on some of my folks. It has inspired a series of sermons called Preparing for battle. We've looked at Job and the enemy's attacks against him, we have looked at young Joshua in a battle with the Amalekites that depended on 80+ year old Moses' ability to hold his staff in the air and it led me to a point of demonstrating that everyone is needed in the battle. We need physical warriors (like Joshua) who have the strength and the stamina to do the physical work involved. We need the spiritual warriors (Moses) to keep lifting our cause to the Lord, and we need the rest of us no matter how weak, no matter how inept, to support the effort and keep Moses arms in the air. The painting I have done for this series has a mighy and armed warrior, lifting his sword high above his head. Behind him is a giant hand. This is to remind my congregation along with all of you, that no matter how tough the battle gets, the battle is the Lord's the way to victory is to lift our cause to the Lord and let Him fight on our behalf. He has already won.
Â
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Things have been going well here lately, my latest art project has been a personal one. I am installing a backyard pond in my yard. What does that have to do with art ministry. Well I'll tell you. It is ministering to me. As I do all the work that it takes to make these plants and animals (well, okay, fish) a few things happen. First of all I work hard and sweat a lot which is good for my health. Second I get the chance to be upclose and personal with God's creations and marvel at the complexity of even his most overlooked creations and third, I see the amount of work that it takes to maintain just a small corner of God's earth. We look at all these things and take them for granted, but I have to tell you, doing this work has given me a new appreciation for my creator. Painting with God's "paints" is creating a masterpiece in my soul. Don't forget folks, ministry is a lot more than external, we also have to take time to work on the internal.
Speaking of external ministry, a lot of the folks in my church are under attack right now. Physical ailments and external pressures are really taking their toll on some of my folks. It has inspired a series of sermons called Preparing for battle. We've looked at Job and the enemy's attacks against him, we have looked at young Joshua in a battle with the Amalekites that depended on 80+ year old Moses' ability to hold his staff in the air and it led me to a point of demonstrating that everyone is needed in the battle. We need physical warriors (like Joshua) who have the strength and the stamina to do the physical work involved. We need the spiritual warriors (Moses) to keep lifting our cause to the Lord, and we need the rest of us no matter how weak, no matter how inept, to support the effort and keep Moses arms in the air. The painting I have done for this series has a mighy and armed warrior, lifting his sword high above his head. Behind him is a giant hand. This is to remind my congregation along with all of you, that no matter how tough the battle gets, the battle is the Lord's the way to victory is to lift our cause to the Lord and let Him fight on our behalf. He has already won.
