The LORD your God in your midst... He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)
See the Lord's love in your midst - casting out fear and granting you peace, and love courageously.
See His joy surrounding you - putting a song in your heart and giving you strength, and live joyfully.
We love because He first loved us.
We rejoice because He first rejoiced over us.
Showing posts with label right living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right living. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Saturday, November 21, 2009
How do we teach righteousness - right standing, right doing, both?
Below are extracts of exchanges that took place in Stanley's facebook page in response to his blog posting titled "Close Encounter of the Fourth Kind" http://thelogicalchristian.blogspot.com/2009/11/close-encounters-of-third-kind.html
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Stanley wrote:
There is no such thing as "the process of making you righteous"; you are either righteous or not righteous ie. you either have a right standing before God or you don't.
C wrote:
Why did Paul wrote the following verses if growing in righteousness is not a process?
"PUT to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the WRATH of God is COMING. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you MUST RID yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, CLOTHE yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
Lip Kee wrote:
We are all for righteous acts by Christians. We delight in witnessing right behavior among believers.
I suppose we differ only when it comes to HOW we can or should cause or help or encourage ourselves and our fellow siblings in Christ to manifest the righteous acts that glorify our Lord.
Some of us believe that we should focus on INSTRUCTING fellow believers on the what-to-do's and the what-not-to- do's. So when such among us read Col 3:5-14, we see a list of instructions and commands: YOU must put to death...YOU must RID yourselves of...YOU should not lie...YOU are to clothe yourselves with....YOU are to forgive
Some of us, on the other hand, believe that we should focus on AFFIRMING ourselves and our fellow brothers and sisters of our right-standing before (and intimacy with) our loving Father and our identity in Christ. Therefore, when reading the same passage, we would choose to read it in its wider context (i.e. to start from Colossians chapter 1, or at least from Colossians chapter 3 verse 1 onwards), and we see affirmations and promises: you were raised with CHRIST...your life is hidden in CHRIST with God...when CHRIST who is your life appears, then you also will appear with HIM in glory, THEREFORE put to death...rid yourselves of...do not lie...; as the elect of God, HOLY AND BELOVED, put on...even as CHRIST forgave you, so also forgive.
I used to belong to the first group, but I've switched to the second, and I intend to stay put. I believe the power to bear fruit (act righteously) does not come from focusing one's attention on the fruit, but by putting one's attention on the root (right standing before God in Christ).
For he who lacks these things (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love) is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. (2 Peter 1:9)
According to Peter, the reason why a believer is not fruitful and does not exhibit godly behavior and righteous acts is because he has lost sight of or is ignorant of the precious truth that he is a forgiven person.
If we wish to see more manifestation of godly behavior and righteous acts in the Church and in the communities we live in, we would do well to relentlessly preach the good news of God's forgiveness, to share the life-liberating message of no condemnation, and to build one another up in the teaching of righteousness (right-standing before God because of Christ's work on the cross).
My 2-cent worth. :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stanley wrote:
There is no such thing as "the process of making you righteous"; you are either righteous or not righteous ie. you either have a right standing before God or you don't.
C wrote:
Why did Paul wrote the following verses if growing in righteousness is not a process?
"PUT to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the WRATH of God is COMING. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you MUST RID yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, CLOTHE yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
Lip Kee wrote:
We are all for righteous acts by Christians. We delight in witnessing right behavior among believers.
I suppose we differ only when it comes to HOW we can or should cause or help or encourage ourselves and our fellow siblings in Christ to manifest the righteous acts that glorify our Lord.
Some of us believe that we should focus on INSTRUCTING fellow believers on the what-to-do's and the what-not-to- do's. So when such among us read Col 3:5-14, we see a list of instructions and commands: YOU must put to death...YOU must RID yourselves of...YOU should not lie...YOU are to clothe yourselves with....YOU are to forgive
Some of us, on the other hand, believe that we should focus on AFFIRMING ourselves and our fellow brothers and sisters of our right-standing before (and intimacy with) our loving Father and our identity in Christ. Therefore, when reading the same passage, we would choose to read it in its wider context (i.e. to start from Colossians chapter 1, or at least from Colossians chapter 3 verse 1 onwards), and we see affirmations and promises: you were raised with CHRIST...your life is hidden in CHRIST with God...when CHRIST who is your life appears, then you also will appear with HIM in glory, THEREFORE put to death...rid yourselves of...do not lie...; as the elect of God, HOLY AND BELOVED, put on...even as CHRIST forgave you, so also forgive.
I used to belong to the first group, but I've switched to the second, and I intend to stay put. I believe the power to bear fruit (act righteously) does not come from focusing one's attention on the fruit, but by putting one's attention on the root (right standing before God in Christ).
For he who lacks these things (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, love) is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. (2 Peter 1:9)
According to Peter, the reason why a believer is not fruitful and does not exhibit godly behavior and righteous acts is because he has lost sight of or is ignorant of the precious truth that he is a forgiven person.
If we wish to see more manifestation of godly behavior and righteous acts in the Church and in the communities we live in, we would do well to relentlessly preach the good news of God's forgiveness, to share the life-liberating message of no condemnation, and to build one another up in the teaching of righteousness (right-standing before God because of Christ's work on the cross).
My 2-cent worth. :-)
Friday, November 20, 2009
Teaching personal responsibility in church - a discussion
The exchanges below follow those that took place in another posting titlted "How do we teach righteousness?": http://livelearnloveleavealegacy.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-do-we-teach-righteousness-right.html
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C wrote:
There is nothing wrong if you wish to emphasize what God has already done.
I choose to emphasize on the things WE DO because the context of my comments is that the righteous who believe themselves sinners is the biblical kind of people. This is what the Bible teaches and I have provided scriptural texts to support this point.
The righteous believe themselves sinners as the Apostle Paul did, is because they know that sanctification and righteous living is a process and that although they are righteous, having a position of right standing before God, yet they must pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and] gentleness. ( 1 Tim 6:11).
I stress on personal responsibility knowing that God will do His part and enable us, if we DO our part. For example, it is irresponsible for a believer to say " I don’t know why God allows me to fail my exam when I’ve already surrender my studies to Him”, when the person who makes this statement did not put in effort in His studies.
I close with this quote: "Tell me not that you are righteous, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ's work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit's work in you."
Lip Kee replied:
Yes, Charles, I agree with you that it is important to teach about personal responsibility.
I believe that by affirming ourselves and our fellow siblings in Christ of what God has done for us, and how Jesus by His Finished Work on the Cross has made us fully righteous and completely acceptable before our Abba Father, we are reminding and encouraging ourselves that we HAVE THE ABILITY TO RESPOND to God and to His promises.
This is how I teach people about personal responsibility (response-ability) - by affirming them of their God-given, Christ-powered ability to respond.
So like you, I am for teaching personal responsibility. It's just that our approach and our focus are different. :-)
As for the verse in 1 Tim 1 where the apostle Paul claimed to be "the Chief" of all sinners, my interpretation is that in that particular context, Paul was speaking of himelf in the natural, in the flesh, NOT of himself in Christ, in the Spirit.
In and of myself, outside of Jesus Christ, I am but a hopeless and helpless sinner.
But thanks be to God, because of the Finished Work at the Cross, I am now and forever in Christ. And in Him, I am the righteousness of God!... Read more
All throughout Paul's letters, he repeateded affirms and assures us that we are accepted in the Beloved, that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, that we have the propitiation for our sins, that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
In John's first letter, we are told that "as Jesus is (present tense), so are we in this world".
As Jesus is fully righteous in heaven, so are we fully righteous in this world.Knowing this precious truth compels, motivates me, empowers me to perform acts that are righteous, to behave in ways that are godly, in this world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
C wrote:
There is nothing wrong if you wish to emphasize what God has already done.
I choose to emphasize on the things WE DO because the context of my comments is that the righteous who believe themselves sinners is the biblical kind of people. This is what the Bible teaches and I have provided scriptural texts to support this point.
The righteous believe themselves sinners as the Apostle Paul did, is because they know that sanctification and righteous living is a process and that although they are righteous, having a position of right standing before God, yet they must pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and] gentleness. ( 1 Tim 6:11).
I stress on personal responsibility knowing that God will do His part and enable us, if we DO our part. For example, it is irresponsible for a believer to say " I don’t know why God allows me to fail my exam when I’ve already surrender my studies to Him”, when the person who makes this statement did not put in effort in His studies.
I close with this quote: "Tell me not that you are righteous, unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ's work for you, unless you can show us the Spirit's work in you."
Lip Kee replied:
Yes, Charles, I agree with you that it is important to teach about personal responsibility.
I believe that by affirming ourselves and our fellow siblings in Christ of what God has done for us, and how Jesus by His Finished Work on the Cross has made us fully righteous and completely acceptable before our Abba Father, we are reminding and encouraging ourselves that we HAVE THE ABILITY TO RESPOND to God and to His promises.
This is how I teach people about personal responsibility (response-ability) - by affirming them of their God-given, Christ-powered ability to respond.
So like you, I am for teaching personal responsibility. It's just that our approach and our focus are different. :-)
As for the verse in 1 Tim 1 where the apostle Paul claimed to be "the Chief" of all sinners, my interpretation is that in that particular context, Paul was speaking of himelf in the natural, in the flesh, NOT of himself in Christ, in the Spirit.
In and of myself, outside of Jesus Christ, I am but a hopeless and helpless sinner.
But thanks be to God, because of the Finished Work at the Cross, I am now and forever in Christ. And in Him, I am the righteousness of God!... Read more
All throughout Paul's letters, he repeateded affirms and assures us that we are accepted in the Beloved, that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, that we have the propitiation for our sins, that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
In John's first letter, we are told that "as Jesus is (present tense), so are we in this world".
As Jesus is fully righteous in heaven, so are we fully righteous in this world.Knowing this precious truth compels, motivates me, empowers me to perform acts that are righteous, to behave in ways that are godly, in this world.
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