What Cost Christ? 5

We began with what it cost Christ for us to become sons of God.  It cost Him the glory of heaven for no permanent earthly abode.  It cost Him the worship of angels for the rejection of men. It cost Him fellowship with the Father to God’s forsaking of His own Son while on the cross.  Truly He endured the cross and despised the shame as Hebrews tells us.   

What cost for Christ was there for us?  It cost us the arrogance of our own self righteousness.  I have known many people who have not wanted to pay that cost.  They were so self assured that they were right in who they were and what they thought that they could not see sin and its judgment.  They were the god of their own mind. 

Essentially the idea is a little broader than just the god of their own mind.  The fundamental idea is that man is god which is the very central lie that Satan offered Eve in the garden.  Collectively mankind has the power to find all the answers.  Collectively through the means of politics, economics, education, science and reasoning we will create heaven on earth.  That it hasn’t yet been achieved only means there is more tweeking to do, but we will get it.  Eve wanted to be god.  The citizens of Babel wanted to be god.  Ultimately pagan worship offered everyone a chance to touch the gods through the debauchery of their practices.  What it really costs then to know Christ is the cost of admitting the utter failure of fallen man and to declare the absolutely perfection of the Christ. 

That declaration of the perfection of Christ is what leads to obedient faith and faithful cross bearing.  If something is absolutely true, then that something deserves our absolute best. Therefore it is our reasonable service, as Paul told the Romans, that we present our bodies as a living sacrifice to Christ.  We offer ourselves up daily to die daily to self.  That is the cost of being His disciple, but it is a reasonable cost because we are serving the absolute perfection of Christ.  When we take our eyes off Him we will swim in the shallow waters.  We want the easy food on the bottom near the shore and relief from the current always running against us. But it is in the shallows where we become easy prey for the wolves that prowl along the shore and the joy of serving the sublime Christ is lost in the frenzy of the ravening wolves of the world.

Helen Lemuel wrote this beautiful song that has inspired many to turn their eyes away from the ease of the world and focus them clearly on Jesus.  “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”. 

Through death into life everlasting He passed, and we follow Him there;

Over us sin no more hath dominion, for more than conquerors we are! 

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.

The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.  

What Cost Christ? 4

“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish.” (Philippians 3:7-8)

Jesus had said to His disciples that the conditional requirement of being His disciple was that a person must bear the cross.  He laid out some rather harsh conditions of what that meant.  Paul is a great illustration of what it meant.  He viewed all that he had in the past or the present as simply rubbish to be thrown away for the joy of walking in close fellowship with Christ and being used by Him in powerful ways.  Later in Philippians he would say that he knew both how to have much and how to have little, but that in whichever condition he found himself to be content and rejoice in Christ. 

Many Christians today find that the cross makes a fine ornament.  We wear them as jewelry, and there is nothing wrong with that by itself.  But, when we wear it as jewelry do we testify to that same cross as being the defining moment and aspect of our lives?  We put the cross on the doors of our homes or the bumpers of our cars.  The same question must be asked wherever we display the cross.  Is it fully displayed in our lives? 

Paul made another great statement about the cross and his relationship to it.  He said in Galatians 2:20 that he died daily.  That is what the cross is all about.  It is a place to die.  It is the place for each believer to die to self and to come alive in Christ to new life and then new purpose in Him.  In baptism we are to see ourselves dying to who we were as lost creatures of wrath and as we pass through the water to see how we are resurrected to new life with Christ.  Each day we are to hold that confession and renew our baptismal vow of dying with Christ and then living with and for Him.

Thomas Shepherd wrote a hymn over 300 years ago that is timeless in its expression of our call and hope in Jesus Christ.  “Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?”

Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for me.

The consecrated cross I’ll bear till death shall set me free;
And then go home my crown to wear, for there’s a crown for me.

O precious cross! O glorious crown! O resurrection day!

When Christ the Lord from Heav’n comes down and bears my soul away.

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.  

What Cost Christ? 3

This is our third look at the same question.  First we saw what the cost was to Christ for us to be saved.  Second we saw the cost of conviction of our sin and the need of Christ. He is not a mere ornament that we add to our life.  He is the greatest need of our life.  Now we want to look at another view of the question – “What Cost Christ?”

Jesus said that there was a cost to follow Him.  What happened to free you might be saying.  Salvation is free.  We enter the Kingdom of God all debts against us being fully paid by Christ at the cross.  So how can there be a cost to follow Him?  It is the cost of testifying to a change in brand loyalty.  If all our friends were Coke drinkers, if indeed it was a requirement to be in the group of friends to be a Coke drinker, and we changed to Pepsi, what then? 

Jesus warned that those who followed Him would find they were in disagreement with their families.  Paul noted that those who followed Christ would be in disagreement with their pagan religions and the practices of their pagan religions.  Here pagan is defined quite simply as anything outside the parameters of biblical teaching.  There is no God but God and we can only know Him through His Son Jesus Christ.  What we saw in Christ by the grace of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit was our peril of eternal damnation and our need of a real Savior.  Led by the Holy Spirit we received Christ by faith and in effect changed brands from whatever we had been. 

Not everyone who didn’t change brands will be happy with our change.  People may lose their friends, their families, their jobs and in many countries in the world even their lives.  Jesus asked the question, the question that began this whole thought process, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”  I am a writer.  Some of my books are not popular with the lost community.  It has been suggested that I hide those books and only present my “acceptable” books in order to sell more books.  I need to sell more books. Therefore I am tempted to make my other books less noticeable.  But what have I gained if I deny the truth in my less popular books?  That is the original thought behind, “What Cost Christ?”  I was at the door of a major publicity opportunity when there was a sudden need to stand up for truth or bail on truth.  Standing up can cost me a lot.  Bailing can cost me even more.  “What Cost Christ?”

This song is from India where following Christ can cost a person everything.

I have decided to follow Jesus.  I have decided to follow Jesus.  I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.

The cross before me, the world behind me; the cross before me, the world behind me; the cross before me, the world behind me; no turning back, no turning back. 

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.  

What Cost Christ? 2

What might it cost a Pepsi truck driver to be caught drinking a Coke while on break?  Well, if he’s in the Pepsi uniform it may just cost him his job.  There is such a thing as brand loyalty.  A person might say, “Well, I will wear a Pepsi shirt just as long as I can still drink Coke.”  Maybe he would do it for a friend or maybe to impress someone or maybe because he needed a new shirt, but his brand loyalty is still Coke.  That is how a lot of people approach Christ.  I will take His name if I can still be the same old me. 

What cost Christ?  What does it cost to come to Christ?  Isn’t it free?  Yes, Christ paid the full price of our redemption.  It is paid in full and so it is free.  But it is not like a shirt we can put on just because we need a new shirt or want to impress someone with our new shirt.  When we put on Christ we are supposed to do so because we have been convicted of the true need for a change in brand loyalty.  Our original brand loyalty was to self.  We loved the world, the flesh and the devil.  We might not have thought about it in those terms, but those are the terms God uses so they will do.  When we have been moved by the Holy Spirit to see Christ we also are moved by the Holy Spirit to understand that who we are is wrong and we need a new brand.  Peter said to the people in Jerusalem, “Repent!”  That means to turn away from what has caused the curse on our life – sin and the love of it – and to turn to Christ.  Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “How you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” (1 Thess. 1:9) 

The Thessalonians had changed brands. They turned from the one (repented) and turned to the other.  What does it cost to come to Christ?  It costs us the conviction that we are wrong.  It costs us the conviction that our way is the wrong way.  I have heard people who have said, “Sure I will become a Christian if I don’t have to change.”  They don’t understand that coming to Christ is coming away from something else.  They don’t want to change brand loyalty.  They simple want to have the supposed benefit of having things both ways.  The need isn’t to change first.  Christ will change us. The need is to see that we need to be changed.  That is the cost.  It is the cost of conviction of sin and the Spirit’s moving us to repentance.  Even that is free and supplied by God’s grace, but we cannot pretend to come without it. 

William Sleeper wrote the hymn “Jesus, I Come” in which he makes clear the coming from something when coming to something – Christ.

Out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come.  Into Thy freedom, gladness and light, Jesus, I come to Thee.  Out of my sickness into Thy health, out of my want and into Thy wealth; out of my sin and into Thyself, Jesus, I come to Thee.

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.  

What Cost Christ? 1

When I first framed the question for this blog I had one idea in mind.  Then as I thought about the question I realized how many different ways that the question could be asked using the exact same words.  I am not even sure that the punctuation needs to be changed.  Then I thought about what order the questions might come in and there was an order to them.  But the first thought I had with the question wasn’t the first in order.  So let’s begin at the beginning.

What cost Christ?  What cost Christ what?  First we will consider what cost Christ His life?  Why did He have to die?  A major truth of Scripture is that “The wages of sin is death.”  Jesus never sinned.  Therefore Jesus never had to die.  So what cost Christ His life?

Paul wrote the Corinthians and said, “For He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21)  Jesus put on the cloak of our sin that we might be able to wear the cloak of His righteousness.  It was the great exchange and we came out ahead.  We turned from certain death to everlasting life and He, the Prince of Life, took on death for us.  But the Father declared Him righteous and He was raised from the dead so that all who believe in Him might also be raised from death to life.

So what cost Christ His life?  I did.  You did.  Everyone did.  But what would make someone make such a great sacrifice for us?  Love would.  “For God so loved the world,” Jesus said to Nicodemus.  “But God demonstrated His own love toward us that while we were in sin Christ died for us,” Paul said to the Romans. (5:8) Or as Jesus expressed it in John 15, “Greater love has no man than this that He would lay down His life for His friends.”  What cost Christ His life was the very essence of who He is – Love.  The love of the Triune God wrapped the Son of God in humanity so that He could pay the just cost for our sin, the cost of death.  Praise God He was willing to pay the cost.

It is great to pull out the hymnbook and look up the topic of God’s love.  One that really connects the ideas of His love and our sin together is “Love Lifted Me” by James Rowe.

I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore

Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more

But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry

From the waters lifted me, now safe am I

Love lifted me. Love lifted me.  When nothing else could help, love lifted me.

Love lifted me. Love lifted me.  When nothing else could help, love lifted me.  

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.  

What to Do?

I picture in my mind a cartoon character pacing in circles around his room.  In total abstraction he keeps asking himself over and over, “What to do?  What to do?  What to do?”  In a cartoon it is funny, but in life it isn’t always so.  This week we have been looking at the manifold dangers that Christ and the Apostles warned the church were to come.  False teachers, wolves from their own midst, greedy men who would seek to fleece the flock for personal gain, unrighteous leaders who would fall into the pit of open and unrepentant sin, others who would turn the grace of God into law; these were the sad road ahead that would plague Christ’s Church.  As we saw yesterday, these problems are not new, but they do need to be dealt with.  But we ask, “What to do, what to do?” 

God’s word gives us the answer.  God’s word always gives us the answer in every area of faith and the practice of faith.  Therefore, God’s word is the first answer.  Paul says that we are to study the word and learn to rightly use it.  The word is our first defense.  If we don’t know it then we can more easily be led astray by those who would deceive.  Acts 17:11 says that the people of Berea were more noble minded because they searched the Scripture to see if what was being said was true.  Since the entire Scriptures reveal the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, we can be aware of false doctrines that deny the Trinity or the equality of the members of it.  Since from Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures show that the just shall live by faith and that God’s grace, not man’s work saves, then any teaching that requires man’s work for salvation is wrong.  Since the entire Scriptures teach that God is holy and that those who serve him are to be holy as well, then we can identify those who are not his by their works.  And since the entire Scriptures verify that they are true and since Christ Himself verified their truth, then anyone who comes denying the absolute truth of God’s word is known to be a charlatan and a fraud.  The Scriptures will guide us to know and see the truth.

But what then?  From those who deny these truths we are to turn away.  (II Timothy 3:5)  This means we separate our worship from them.  We find a place that teaches the truth of the Scriptures that God is holy, salvation is by grace alone, the absolute truth of the Word and the grandeur of the Trinity.  In such a place we get refreshed and renewed in soul and spirit.  We find a grand work to do for the glory of Christ.  We stand together and sing the praise of His glorious Name and grace. 

Great God, eternal Trinity, Eternal One in three,

We thus adore Your holy Name and holy too would be.

The blood of Jesus Christ alone, sufficient for our sin

Your Word of Truth, fore’er affirmed, by grace we enter in.  

The Friday Benediction

Until Monday, my friends, may the good God envelop you with His grace; may you prove the common confession of faith, “I believe in the holy Christian church and in the fellowship of the saints”, and may you be enriched with joy and hope as you exercise that confession this weekend.  Amen

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.  

Not a New Problem

If you have lived in the same home for many years it has probably developed some small idiosyncrasies that you have adapted to.  They are just part of the normal functioning life of your house.  But, if you decided to sell your house and the realtor gave it the check-up we talked about yesterday, what would they say about those idiosyncrasies?  They would say that you had problems that needed to be fixed.  They were not new problems.  They were not problems in your own mind.  The realtor, however, saw them differently.  They were old problems that needed fixing.

Putting up with error in the church is not a new problem.  People have been content to just focus on their own worship and let problems slide by if they don’t stop them from personal worship.  It is an attitude that worship is really just about me and God and not anyone or anything else.  That is a nice idea, but it is false.  We are part of a body and not the body by ourselves.  Corporate worship is part of the whole body functioning in unison and not each member functioning alone.  God has called us to corporate worship; therefore problems in the body, especially leadership, are not an issue that can be ignored.  Their error will trickle down into the very nature of our own obedience to God.  Input that is wrong will ultimately create output that is wrong.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were constantly at odds with the false prophets of their day.  Those false prophets did not declare themselves to be prophets of Baal or some other foreign god.  They declared themselves to be prophets of the One True God.  But God said of them, I did not send them nor speak to them.  This is a repeated refrain.  The problem was that the false prophets spoke lies about God.  They said that what He was saying through His current prophets and what He had said through His past prophets was false.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel were saying the same things that had been said by prophets before.  That was the clue to God’s people about who was right and wrong among the prophets.  A new message that changed an old message was not acceptable to the God who changes not.  The people, however, were more inclined to listen to the soft words of the new prophets and reject the harsher words of the old.  They had itching ears, as Paul said, and chose the path of sweetest sounds. 

God’s message is eternal.  The declaration of what sin is has not changed.  The declaration of how God will deal with it has not changed.  His promise to all who will repent and believe has not changed.  In our world today there are many new voices that actually say, “The Bible doesn’t really mean that.”  Those are the voices of false prophets.  Friends, hold fast to the true Word of God.  Sing these old words penned by Haldor Lillenas from “The Bible Stands”.

The Bible stands like a rock undaunted mid the raging storms of time.

Its pages burn with the truth eternal and they glow with the light sublime. 

The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,

It will firmly stand though the earth may crumble;

I will plant my feet on the sure foundation for the Bible stands. 

You can contact me and find inspiring Christian books at my website: www.davidccraig.net

You may also find some of my selected daily devotions at http://blog.febc.org/

You may also enjoy my new Gospel dog blog, The Gospel According to Molly Blog and my new Alzheimer’s blog, “Taking Care of Joe: An Alzheimer’s Blog” found on my website.