In reading the story of the life of Abraham, we see multiple places where Abraham attempts to take control of his circumstances. Sometimes the Lord allows Abraham to cause himself some disastrous consequences. Other times, the Lord simply tells Abraham how things will go.
As we read this story and see it unfold, we need to keep our focus on the real story God is telling us. Yes, we can learn from Abraham’s faith and his failures. Yes, we can learn from the miraculous way that God provides. But the big story in the book of Genesis is how God makes the promise of one to come to rescue his children, and how
God preserves that promise even when people do everything they can to mess it up. And the life of Abraham shows us God’s sovereign hand at work.
Take a peek at this one instance of Abraham attempting to give his 2 cents on how the plan of God should go.
Genesis 17:17-21 – 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before you!” 19 God said, “No, but Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes, and I will make him into a great nation. 21 But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this time next year.”
Abraham is 99 at this point. He had a son 12 years earlier. And now God is continuing to promise Abraham a son, Isaac, to be born to Abraham through Sarah. Abraham still has trouble believing that this will come to pass.
Even worse than Abraham’s doubt, at least for the main point of the story, is Abraham’s attempt to alter the line of promise. Abraham asks God to simply let Ishmael be the one who carries the promise of God so that this whole thing with Sarah does not have to happen.
Notice, in this case, that God does not entertain the suggestion from Abraham. In this instance, God has a plan, and God will carry it out. Abraham and Sarah will have a child together at ages 100 and 90 respectively. That child, Isaac, will be the one to carry the line of promise from God. Isaac will be the next step in bringing to the world the Messiah. And
Abraham has no say in the matter.
If you read the rest of Genesis, you will see things like this happen with each step of the process. God chooses Jacob over his brother Esau. God shapes some crazy life circumstances to make Judah the one of the 12 sons of Jacob who carries the promise. God performs a miracle to determine that Judah’s son Perez will be the one carrying the promise. In all this, God shows us that he is in control.
All of the Bible is about the promised one from God, the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus. All of the Bible is about God doing what man would mess up. All of the Bible is about God showing us that he is holy, glorious, just, merciful, and sovereign (among so many other things. God is in control. God will carry his plan to completion. We can trust him. We must submit to him. We should give him glory for accomplishing all that he sovereignly wills to accomplish. And we should learn not to try to change his plans as if we could ever have a better idea.
Folding Under Pressure
I think we all know that, as believers in the 21st century, there are a lot of pressures to compromise. Our world is more aggressively against the basic standards of morality in Scripture than in any time of the existence of the United States. Basic assumptions about human life, about sexuality, about the goodness of following God are all no longer understood truth. Yes, I know that the world has always been bad in this way or that, and I know that many generations have said that things are worse than ever, but in the measure I am presenting, we are living in a unique age for the US.
As the world and its understanding of morality moves away from the basic Judeo-Christian ethic that was ingrained in the founding fathers of our country, even those who were by no means Christian, the church has a new type of obstacle to face. For centuries, we could survive, even be respected in the culture, while holding to our values. Even those who disagreed with or simply refused to live by Christian ethics did not, for the most part, condemn the church for her ethics. But that is changing.
The big question is: how will we live in this era? How will we function? Will we hold to the word of God? Will we fold under pressure?
Genesis 12:10-13 – 10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. 11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.”
Just after God promised Abram that he and his family would be the chosen people of God, a famine hit that sent Abram to Egypt. On the way, Abram realized that he was in danger in Egypt. His commitment to his marriage put him at risk. Abram feared that the men of Egypt would kill him in order to take his wife from him.
This put Abram into a crisis point. Should he be faithful to the morality of marriage? That would put him in danger. Or, might he compromise on this particular moral issue in order to survive?
We all see what Abram did. In an immoral move, a cowardly move, an abusive move, Abram commanded his wife to lie about their marriage. Abram stepped away from the standards of God in order to try to win for himself safety in a hostile land. And the word of God is clear as the story continues that this was wrong, faithless, and dishonoring to the Lord.
Do you see the parallel? We sit in a land that demands that we let go of the standards of God. This could be in the area of marriage and sexuality. It could be in the area of elicit drug use. It might be in the area of other forms of basic morality. But our world tells us that the morals of society are changing and that we must adapt, even approve of what the Bible forbids, in order for us to be safe and accepted. What will we do? Will we compromise?
Every time a church steps away from the word of God in order to please the culture, we are like Abram saying, “No, she is my sister.” Every time we pretend that it is OK to do that which God forbids, we dishonor the Lord. Every time we hide the word of God in order to gain the favor of the town we live in, we fold under pressure.
Friends, may we never be like Abram here. We will be tempted. The pressures will come to bear. What will we do? May we cling to the promise of God, the word of God, and the standards of God. May we rather be ridiculed, ostracized, or even persecuted than to fold under the pressure of the world to turn from the way of God for a supposed safety.
Kingly Thoughts
For most in the world today, the concept of being ruled by a king is a very foreign thing. We do not have in our minds a genuine picture of yielding ourselves to someone with absolute authority in the land. And here I am not talking about a brutal dictator, nor am I talking about a figurehead monarch, but simply a single person who is the total ruler of the land.
But when Scripture talks about the Lord, the Bible talks in kingly terms. God is not the head of a government that keeps him in check. God is not the president who must compromise with a congress or the prime minister making deals with parliament. God is the supreme, the sovereign, the only Lord and king.
A common thread in the Bible is the fact that humanity, at the core of our sinful nature, has tried to throw off the rule of God and be our own masters. In Genesis 3, the woman was tempted by the idea of herself being her own master, sitting in the place of God.
Also hear the words of the enemies of God in Psalm 2.
Psalm 2:1-3
1 Why do the nations rage
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us burst their bonds apart
and cast away their cords from us.”
Verse 1 tells us that the scheming to come is in vain. They cannot win. But the rulers of the earth, the people who should be bowing down to God as King are scheming. And the language is that of revolt. They act as though being ruled by God is to be bound, tied up, imprisoned. And so these enemies of God have determined in their own lives to throw off the bonds of god and be free, their own masters.
But the remainder of Psalm 2 shows us that God is not threatened by the schemes of the kings of the world. He is not thrown off his game by people thinking that they will be their own masters. Instead, the Lord scoffs at our foolish schemes. The Lord promises to send his own King, his Son, into the world to rule. And God commands all, from smallest to greatest, to bow to the Son before it is too late.
What should we take away from such a Psalm? I suggest two kingly thoughts. First, recognize that, when we sin against God, whether we think it to be big or small, we are rebelling against the king. WE are saying that we want to burst the bonds of God and be unrestrained in our self-rule. This makes us see our sin as more ugly, more rebellious, and more ungrateful, which is exactly how we should see it.
We should also grasp that, in our determination to escape the rule of God, we are making two great mistakes. One is the simple fact that we cannot win. WE will be ruled by the Lord. The other is the fact that the rule of God, if we will submit to it in Christ, is not a burden but a glorious grace.
Christians, think of God as your King. Do not let that thought slide past you too quickly. The Lord you have asked to be your Savior is also the Lord who claims absolute authority over every aspect of your life. He is good. He is wise. He is kind. But he is King. To battle against him is crazy and self-destructive. To surrender to him is wise and right.
Starting 2018 Wisely
It’s a new year. At this time, we all love to make plans for somehow modifying our lives and doing things better. We plan to exercise more, read better books, eat better food, and all the rest. And while all this is good, I would like to propose to us one simple commitment for the year that carries with it a promise of the blessing of God.
Psalm 1
1 Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
Psalm 1 starts off the worship song book of the Bible with a simple reminder. We are blessed by God when we walk, not in the ways of our naturally evil hearts, but when we instead make our lives and focus center on his holy word. The blessed person is one who delights in the word of God and meditates on it, reading it, studying it, applying it, obeying it.
We should be careful not to look at this passage as a do this to get that sort of passage. God has never been like the pagan fertility gods of the world’s false religions. God does not perform for us on a payment system. Rather, the point of the passage is that the one who loves God will love his word and obey it. The one who loves God’s word and obeys it will experience the blessings of God because he or she is a child of God. Loving the word of God is both a symptom of being a true child of god as well as an avenue to the blessings of God.
As this new year begins, I would urge us all to love the Lord our god by loving his word. In doing so, we will experience the glory of God and the soul-satisfying blessings he promises. This is good and wise.
How then will we love the word of God this year?
- Read it – You will not love the word of God if you spend no time in it. Make this a priority.
- Read it with a plan – I like to use a Bible-in-a-year plan. But that is not the only way to read. However, choosing to read a different passage every day, whatever pops into your head at the time, is not wise. That will leave you outside of the context and flow of Scripture. And reading without a plan makes it far easier to skip.
- Read with someone – It would be wise to find a friend or three and see about reading through the same plan or the same book together. This will not only promote accountability, but it will also give you a great topic for conversation as you share convictions and insights together.
- Attend worship – This would be a good year to make worship attendance a higher priority. You need to be with the people of God hearing the word of God faithfully taught.
We could say so much more, but for now, let me simply encourage us to love the Lord by loving his word. This is a way to start 2018 aimed at the blessings of god.
Is God Still Good?
When you pray, Christian, my guess is that you declare God to be good. Often, you will do so based on the things that the Lord has done for you. He has healed a family member, allowed a friend to get a job, or brought new people to your church. God is so good.
But what do we do when the Lord does not do these things? What do we say when the family member does not get better, when the friend does not land that new job, or when the church is shrinking though the elders are faithful? What then? If God was good for giving us what we wanted in the first example, is he no longer good when we do not get what we want in the second?
Of course we know, looking at a computer screen, that God is still good and worthy of praise no matter what our circumstances. But how hard is it for us to say that when we are in a hospital room or a funeral home? Those are the places where the rubber meets the road.
We need to be ready for the good times and the bad. We need to be personally prepared to declare the Lord good whether or not we have what we want in this life. We will not figure it out and get it right in the moment of pain. WE must have it figured out beforehand. As I heard John Piper say once, the hospital room is not the place to work on someone’s theology. We need to have a biblical theology of the goodness of God and of response to sorrow and suffering worked out before we actually face the pain.
Many books of the Bible show us hard-to-understand suffering. Habakkuk, one of those minor prophets that we seldom spend time on, is a great example. When the book opens, Habakkuk is bothered that God is not taking action to clean up the world and judge those in his nation who are doing wrong. God tells the prophet that he is at work, bringing the Chaldeans to be his instrument of judgment. Habakkuk can’t believe it, knowing that the Chaldeans are even worse than the people he is complaining about. But God will deal with them too.
Eventually, as the book unfolds, as Habakkuk asks questions and realizes the sovereignty of God, he comes to a place to accept that the will of the Lord is more sure and more perfect than anything Habakkuk could come up with on his own.
Look at the prayer of Habakkuk as he gets ready to close this short book.
Habakkuk 3:17-18
17 Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
Though the world go wrong, though everything I want fails, I will take joy in the Lord. This is glorious. This is not a prayer that declares God to be good only when we get what we want. Instead, it is a prayer that truly glorifies God as the prophet says that, no matter what his earthly circumstances, God is good and worthy of praise. No matter how hard life is, the joy of the prophet will not be in whether the nation is sustained or whether things go his way. The joy of the prophet will be in the Lord, his only source of lasting joy.
What would it look like for you to grab this prayer and start making it part of your character? How valuable would it be for you to have this in your pocket as a truth before a time of suffering hits? This is a pair of verses worth memorizing and meditating on. Life is hard. It gets tough. Things do not work out always in the way we want. Will we still find our joy in the Lord?
Friends, God is good. He is good when we are full and when we are empty. He is good when we get better and when we do not. He is good when the nation is praising him and when he must judge the nation for rebellion. He is good when the world believes in him and when the world hates all who truly follow him. God is good because God is good. God is our source of joy, because he designed us so that he is the only one who truly fits our longing for joy.
Today, whether you are in joy or in pain, consider bowing before the Lord and declaring him good no matter what. Speak to the Lord and let him know that he is your joy no matter what the circumstances. Of course we would prefer pleasure and ease. And sometimes he gives us those things. But we must be ready, before the hardest times come, to declare him good at all times, in all circumstances. And this is the joyful truth: he is good. God is perfect by definition. He is holy. May we see this and let it prepare us to rejoice, not in circumstances, but in the Lord who made us.
Preparing for Reproof
How easy it is to be defensive. How easy it is to turn away from reproof. How easy it is to fight back or switch off or excuse away the words we do not want to hear. But, if we desire to live godly in this hard and fallen world, we must prepare ourselves to receive reproof graciously.
Psalm 141:5a
Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;
let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;
let my head not refuse it.
Remember that psalms are songs and prayers. The words above are the words of a worshipful prayer. The psalmist wants the Lord to bring into his life righteous people who will reprove him. Even more, he wants to receive it well.
Why is this necessary? We are blind to our blind spots. Though that should be obvious, you’d be amazed how often it is that we do not see our own failings. Just consider how often you see someone do something or hear someone say something and then you think to yourself, “How can they not see that is wrong?” If that happens to people around you all the time, why would you think that you do not do the same? When you walk into a room, you see everyone except yourself. When you evaluate lives, you often evaluate everyone except yourself. And this is why you need others to speak into your life.
How can you be ready for reproof? First, like the psalmist, ask God to give you righteous friends who will be daring enough to speak into your life. Pray, asking the Lord who loves you to bring such people into your church and your circle of friends.
Second, be open with your friends. Do not hide who you are. No, do not revel in your folly either. Just be real. And ask honest questions. Give the godly and mature around you the right to speak into your life.
Third, be wise enough to keep your mouth shut when someone risks speaking into your life. It is so easy, so very easy, to find a way to nitpick the reproof you receive. You might get mad at them for how they say it, for when they say it, or for a minor error they make as they try to make their point. But if you do this, you will keep them from speaking into your life in the future as you miss the point that you need to learn in the present. Listen. Be humble. Be gracious. Assume that your friends who are risking much to speak into your life are wanting the best for you.
Finally, act. Be kind and thankful to friends who will speak into your life and to the Lord who would give you such friends. Then, when the heat of emotion has died down, honestly take a look at what they said. Your friends could be evaluating you wrongly. But if they are, there is probably still something wrong in your life or personality that led them to that conclusion. Be humble. Be godly. Repent when you need to repent. Perhaps even follow up with your friend after a while to see if they see a change.
It is hard to hear hard truth. But it is good. May we pray as the psalmist prayed that God would give us righteous people to speak into our lives. May we respond in a right way to honest reproof. May we prepare for it, receive it well, and react to it wisely for our good and God’s glory.
A Roadblock to a Sweet Life
What if I told you, Christian, that there is something you might be doing that is keeping your life from the spiritual sweetness you want? What if I told you that there is something about your life that you can work to change that will increase the pleasantness of your experience here on earth? Would you want it? Would you do it?
Psalm 133 (ESV)
1 A Song of Ascents. Of David.
Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brothers dwell in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.
What would give us all a more pleasant life as believers? According to the word of God, there is a glorious sweetness when brothers dwell together in unity. I think it is safe to say that this is a pointer to the fact that it is good, very good, when the people of God are strongly committed to one another. If we want a sweet life in the here and now, part of how to get it is to be deeply committed to the local church.
God wants you and me to see just how sweet it is when the people of God share their lives together in a common, unified cause. This is what the church is about. We are those called out of the world and gathered together for worship and mutual edification under the word of God and in the Spirit of God.
Now, examine your own life, Christian. Are you committed to your local church? Do not think, by the way, that you are if it is easy for you to skip the gathering of the saints together for worship. Do not think that you are committed to the local body if it is easy for you to have weeks go by without you connecting with other Christians other than in passing in a church hallway on a Sunday morning. We are to dwell together. Our lives are to interconnect. This cannot happen if we are skipping church for just any old thing that comes up. Nor can it happen if we are keeping to ourselves in every aspect of our lives other than a plastic smile on a Sunday morning as we go through the motions of the worship service.
Let me urge us all as believers to be sure that we are committed to life together in Christ. That means we do not forsake the gathering of the saints for worship (cf. Heb. 10:24-25). It also means that our lives are lived in a connected fashion. So go to small groups. Go to Sunday School classes. Go to home-based Bible studies. Go to prayer groups. Get together for coffee or dinner or whatever fits your style. Speak to each other in kindness. Genuinely care. Make the people of God be a delight to your soul, and you will find that what God has shown us in Psalm 133 is true. It is a good, pleasant, fitting thing when we live together as family in unity.
A Missing Balance
Consider the question of whether or not God should forgive you? If your answer is an automatic, “Of course God should forgive me,” there may be a problem. If you doubt even the potential need for forgiveness, there is a huge problem.
On the other hand, if your response is a thought that God could never forgive you, your problem is just as big as the person who thinks they need no forgiveness. And if you think that you have to do a lot of work to earn forgiveness from God, you are tragically misled.
Psalm 130:3-4
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
Look at these two verses from the Psalm side-by-side. They give us the balance we need. Verse 3 shows us how desperate we are for forgiveness. We are sinners. WE need grace. If God is not merciful to us, we are dead. There is no way out. We have no excuses we can make. Left to ourselves, we are without hope. WE must know this if we are going to get a relationship with God right.
But then verse 4 comes in and marks the forgiveness of God. He is merciful. He is gracious. He is willing, even eager, to forgive those who repent of sin and turn to him in faith. That is why he sent Jesus.
Put those two concepts together, and you will have a right view of our need for grace. WE are hopeless on our own. That keeps us from the presumptuous view that God obviously must forgive us no matter what. But the look at verse 4 shows us that God is merciful, which keeps us from the fear that we could never be forgiven, no matter what. That balance is key to right thinking. And if we get it right, we approach God humbly, confessing our sin, and seeking his mercy in Christ.
Intentionality
Sometimes, when we read the story of Scripture, we get caught up in the drama. We see events come to pass, and we feel the unfairness of it all. We bemoan the fact that wrongs are done, that corners are cut, and that evil things happen.
Reading through John’s account of the life of Jesus, I find myself reminded that Jesus did not have the cross happen to him. The Lord Jesus shaped his life and his actions to very intentionally go to Jerusalem and to the cross. Yes, he was treated wrongly. Yes, the Jews broke any number of their own laws to try him and send him to Pilate. Yes, Pilate pronounced Jesus not guilty on several occasions. But the Savior was in charge and he was not going to fail to get to the cross.
Consider this scene at Jesus’ arrest. Was the Savior taken advantage of? Or was the Savior in total control? Did the scheme of Judas catch Jesus? Or did Jesus do exactly what he had planned all along?
John 18:4-8 – 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” 5 They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. 7 So he asked them again, “Whom do you seek?” And they said, “Jesus of Nazareth.” 8 Jesus answered, “I told you that I am he. So, if you seek me, let these men go.”
Jesus, on the night of his arrest, already knew Judas intended to betray him. So what did Jesus do? He went to a garden that Judas knew well. He did not hide. And Jesus waited there until Judas and the soldiers arrived.
When the soldiers arrived, how would they identify Jesus? It was dark. There were at least 12 men in the garden, Jesus and 11 disciples. Judas had worked out a secret, sneaky signal. He would go up and greet his master with a kiss on the cheek as was common in that culture. But what does Jesus do? He walks forward, does not wait for Judas to kiss him, and he asks the soldiers whom they seek.
When the soldiers say they seek Jesus, he could have said all sorts of things. He could have said, “You know, Jesus was just in Jerusalem a little bit ago. Hurry that way and you might catch him.” Jesus could have tried to hide. But Jesus did not use any sort of subterfuge. Instead, Jesus boldly identified himself.
But Jesus more than identified himself. He used the “I Am” that points to his own deity. And when those words came from Jesus’ lips, the entire group of soldiers fell to the ground. Jesus showed that he was totally in control. He could flatten that group of armed men with a word and simply walk away.
But what did Jesus do? He asked the question again, insured his disciples could walk away, and went with the soldiers to the mockery of a trial that he was soon to face.
The point is that Jesus very intentionally went to the cross. He knew that his mission on earth was to go to Jerusalem, suffer, die, and then rise from the grave. Jesus went to the cross because he was born to go to the cross. He was born to be the perfect sacrifice for all of the sins that God would ever forgive. Jesus came for that purpose, and he would not let anything stand in his way.
Abiding
What does it look like to live as a Christian? Get practical. What does the week of a Christian look like? What do you do from day-to-day?
Years ago, that question was easily answered, though the answer could smack of a form of legalism or moralism. We all knew that good Christians went to church on Sunday morning and again on Sunday evening. They also would attend Wednesday night prayer services, and perhaps would meet with believers again in the week for fellowship, visitation, Bible study, or something else.
Today, many of our churches have thrown off that template of defining solid Christianity by attendance every time the church doors are open. And we must understand that there is a good to calling people to focus on their family lives and to freeing them from arbitrary, man-made standards of holiness. But, what have we lost in the process? What have we let go of when we threw out the old church schedule?
I wonder, if we are honest, if we have not let go of too much when we let go of the old-style schedule. Is it possible that, in freeing people from an arbitrary schedule, we have also, unfortunately, allowed ourselves to spend too much time in our given weeks apart from the people of God?
All of this hit my brain as I read through John 15, and as I repeatedly came across the word, “abide.”
John 15:4-6 – 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
Now, first-things-first, to abide in Christ is to live in faith and repentance as a child of God in Jesus Christ. This passage is about unity with the Savior and living life in him before the face of God. Yet, with that said, what else must be a part of abiding in Christ?
What I think we must consider is that God calls us to abide in Christ, to center our lives in Christ. We are to live each day focused on Jesus in much the same way that we live in our houses. The idea of living in my house but never actually being in it is silly. Similarly, the idea of abiding in Christ while only worshipping him or talking about him once per week is silly. If I am to live as a Christian, I must center more and more of my focus on the person of Jesus Christ. I have to make him my home from day-to-day, not merely as the point of salvation, but also as the step-by-step growth of sanctification.
Here is what I think we have lost. In doing away with the old church schedule, a schedule I’m not trying to reestablish, we did away with regularly meeting together throughout the week for the purpose of worship, prayer, study, accountability, and fellowship. And what Jesus wants us to know is that we cannot survive like that. Once per week is not enough to abide in him. We need to abide, to live in him. That includes daily time in the word and prayer. But it also must include regularly getting together with other believers to grow together. We cannot make it on our own. We cannot live this life in our own strength. We need each other to assist one another in abiding in Christ. And we need to make that community Christian living a high priority.
So, maybe you do not need a twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday schedule. But you do need more than once per week to live the Christian life with other believers. You need people to ask you hard questions. You need people to get into your life. You need people to tell you that an idea you are having is a good one, or a bad one. You need people to remind you to focus on living daily before the face of God. We must work and live together as we abide in Christ for the glory of God.
Pastor Travis Peterson 