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  “I was blind but now I see...” How many times over the span of your life have you sang that line from the song, ‘Amazing Grace’...or at least have heard it sung? Now, imagine adding another stanza to that line that goes something like this... “I was blind but now I see...and yet I still run into trees and walls and trip over things because ‘my spirit sees but my flesh is weak and won’t really see until I get to heaven’. Do what? That...is exactly what a multitude of professing ‘believers’ subscribe to these days to hear them explain their theology. Now don’t get me wrong...I ‘get’ where they are coming from. I too...’used’ to believe that way, basically because that is what I was always taught to believe. We humans have a bad habit of doing lots of things (or believing things) because that’s the way we’ve always done it. I know that the subject of ‘English’ which we all had to take in school was not a favorite for many students, but there really were a lot of important thing...
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  “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” “Everybody sins.” “We are just saints who sin.” Friends...we have normalized this conduct and behavior amongst ourselves (in the ‘church’) for so long now...why would we expect anything different? In fact, we’ve become so adapted to this mindset...that to suggest otherwise will quickly earn you the label of ‘heretic’. Tell you what...while you look up the verses in your Bible for those three statements above, let me offer you these verses real quick – ‘Whoever abides in Him (Jesus) does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him...He who sins is of the devil.” (1 John 3:6-8) “We know that whoever is born of God does not sin...” (1 John 5:18) “He who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.” (1 Pet. 4:1-2) “Most assuredly, I say to you...whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in t...
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  Sin is our problem, and Jesus is the cure. And let me be perfectly clear- Jesus is not some cheap band-aid either, where you continue to ‘slap one on’ to cover it up every time you do sin. If we truly understood and believed in our hearts what it actually means to be ‘set free from sin’ (Rom. 6:18,22; John 8:34-36), it would change everything about the way you live and walk, day in and day out. It’s amazing how many people tend to read 1 John 2:1 as saying ‘when you sin’, since it actually reads ‘IF’...you sin...and then we are reminded that we have an advocate to whom we can run to 'if' we do. When I say that Jesus is the ‘cure’, I should also point out that it is not some complicated and expensive surgery one has to undergo in order to find this cure or freedom. Well, I suppose the case could be made that it is a bit on the ‘costly’ side, since Jesus does lay out it will cost us our ‘lives’ (Luke 9:23; 14:25-33), but not in the way you might think. There is no getting aro...
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  “If ...the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” I don’t know where you will find in scripture, a more powerful and strategically placed use of that two letter word ‘if’...than right there in Romans 8:11. The word “if” hints at a question, something that is uncertain and not clearly established yet. And are you ready for this? The question of ‘if’ is not directed here at the fact of whether Christ was raised from the dead...or not. What is being called into question...is whether or not that ‘same Spirit’ dwells in us. Take a moment with that one, if you would please. I’m guessing that is why we are encouraged to: “examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail the test.” (2 Cor. 13:5) Can I speak some truth here, in love...with you today? ...
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  Jesus said a lot of hard things. In fact, more often than not, He would say things that caused people to take offense, or it would confuse them and yes...even drive ‘many’ away where they no longer walked with Him. (John 6:60,66) And even at the risk of being misunderstood by those who were closest to Him, He still said things that were hard for people to grasp, let alone accept and embrace. Fortunately for some of those followers, who in those moments just didn’t ‘see it’, when asked if they too wanted to walk away, it was Simon Peter who looked at Jesus and replied: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68). So Jesus kept on saying those hard things. And He meant what He said too. I worry that many fail to believe that, that Jesus meant what He said, because if we did believe all those things...we would ‘do’ them. What was it that Paul told Titus, that many would ‘profess to know Jesus, but by their actions ( or inactions) they would deny...
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  If you read yesterday’s message and even began to ‘take it to heart’, then perhaps the words of Peter might begin to make more sense to you now, when he writes: “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you...” (1 Pet. 4:12).  These 'trials' have a way of exposing, or 'revealing' what is in our hearts (Luke 6:45), hearts, we  should all be reminded of... that are in need of being 'purified' because they are defiled. (Jer. 17:9; 2 Cor. 7:1; Mark 7:21-23; Matt. 5:8; 1 John 3:3) Earlier in that letter, Peter spoke to the various ‘trials’ the believers were going through, suggesting their faith was being ‘tested by fire’ as a part of a purifying process, much like what gold goes through (1:6-7). Or how about when James writes: “ My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect ...
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  When Adam and Eve broke the one command that God gave them (Gen. 2:17), and ate from that one tree, their ‘eyes were opened’ and both were overtaken with shame and fear, especially when they heard the voice of God calling for them in the garden. So they tried to hide themselves in their nakedness by sewing fig leaves together and then hid among the other trees or shrubbery. (Gen. 3:6-10). When God asked them what they were doing, they replied, saying they were hiding because they were  afraid and naked. That’s when God inquired: “Who told you that you were naked?” (11). Clearly, it wasn’t God who told them that. Do you think it is possible that the same ‘serpent of old, the devil...who deceives the whole world’ (Rev. 12:9)...and who presumably told Adam and Eve they were naked...could also be deceiving countless people today, telling them that they are ‘fully clothed... in God’s righteousness’ ...simply because they verbally acknowledge they ‘believe in Jesus’? Oh...the iro...
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