Free The Church

God is a Father to the fatherless

And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. (Matt 23:9 KJV)

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26 KJV)

God is my father.  I had no problem accepting His Fatherhood in my life when I came to saving faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.  Yet, as I have come to know many believers over the last 25 years, I could not understand why so many have difficulty in embracing this truth in their own relationship with God.

For some it is the difficulty of knowing the fatherhood of God because their own fathers were such poor examples.  Their natural tendency is to superimpose the image of their earthly father onto their heavenly father.  For others it is a theological abstraction that blocks  their grasp of  the fatherhood of God.   For them, only Jesus is the Son of God, and we are merely adopted creatures.   To think we are actually the children of God is to imply  that we are divine, too, and that would be blasphemous to that theological frame of mind. Read the rest of this entry →

The ultimate corruption

It is a complete misunderstanding to think that Christianity is a religion. It is not. It is biology and physics. Preachers warp it into a religion through thoughtlessness and the needs of running a business. They are ignorant of how Adam and Eve broke the laws of physics and what God did through Jesus Christ to restore those broken laws.

Instead they water it down to mere “personal relationship” with God. I do not say that lightly! Personal relationship with God is the reason we were created. But it diminishes the magnitude of what happened with Adam and Eve and the cosmic work of Jesus Christ Himself.

Adam and Eve Knew Yahweh Their Whole Lives

Sin and judgment are clearly attributes of the the fall and redemption, but they, too, diminish the Truth. Adam and Eve did not just “sin” and lose relationship with God. In fact Genesis 3:21 implies more than it says in that Adam and Eve were given a means to retain their relationship with God all their lives.

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Gen 3:21 NIV)

An animal had to die for the “garment of skin” to be made for Adam and his wife. In Jewish custom the Paschal lamb was kept in the house for three days before it was butchered for the Sedar. The head of the house slit the lamb’s throat. This created a great sorrow in the whole house as they watched the innocent animal die. I have no doubt that Adam had to kill the animal, perhaps a lamb, himself. They saw the horror and felt the grief for the loss of the animal life that was used to make their garments. The implication is clear: this was a blood sacrifice that pointed the way to Christ, which they knew of from earlier in Genesis 3:15. They understood that blood was shed for their sins. The blood sacrifice began with Adam and Eve and has been practiced by cultures throughout all of the world’s history. Read the rest of this entry →

Christian game programmers could create a discipleship online game

I first heard the Lord of the Rings read to me in 1965 by my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Lum, who read the entire trilogy every day for the school year. Since my attention span was not good back then, I decided in 1967 to read the trilogy for myself as a 7th grader. Since that time I have re-read the entire series about 20 times.

Indeed, God used the Lord of the Rings as stepping stone to Christ in my life. In 1973 He gave me a dream with the Silmarillion in it. At that time the book was yet to be published. He gave me the dream because I was reading the Bible for myself just to see what was in it. I was reading many Christian fantasy books at that time: George MacDonald’s “Curdie” books; C.S. Lewis’s “Perelandra” trilogy; and the many Frank L Baum “Oz” books. I had bought those from a Christian bookstore, although I was not aware of the religious significance. The store had all these great fantasies that Tolkien had enamored my heart towards. So when I told the book store owner of the dream, he told me that it was written by Tolkien and was going to be published in a few more years. That convinced me that my dream was from God. Read the rest of this entry →

Jesus was the last Old Testament Prophet

We usually do not think of Jesus as an Old Testament prophet because He is both God and the Savior of the world through the New Testament. The gospels are part of the New Testament canon because they show how the New Testament came into being, but the New Testament did not come into being until His death and resurrection, which are the end of the gospel narratives.

The writer of Hebrews (I believe to be Paul) makes this point, too.

Heb 1:1-2
1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, (KJV)

As you can see,  Jesus, as the Son of God, is listed as the last Old Testament prophet.  Which means that we should view the gospel narrative as the last instruction of Yahweh to the Jewish people still under the Mosaic Covenant.  This is what Jesus meant when He said:

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (Matt 5:17 KJV) Read the rest of this entry →

Miracles occur when faith in the heart is a reality.

Getting my athletes to believe in their ability to perform a gymnastics skill is most of my job.   The technical mechanics of how the skill is performed is usually taught in just a few lessons.  But it can take months and years for some skills to be repeated through drills, spotting and other training practices before they become convinced that they can do it on their own.

Confidence means “with faith”.   There are two  roads to faith, and both are necessary.

Head Faith

Our thought life is the core of discipleship. What we think determines what we feel. Emotions are the expression of our thoughts. The film industry knows this well. They deliberately craft stories to create an emotional viewing ride for the audience. They know what they need to put in a scene to bring us to tears, or to burst out with laughter. Fear in an athlete is an emotion resulting from the of thoughts about the possibility of accidental injury. Fear is important because it creates caution and carefulness. No athlete will survive long with reckless abandon. However, panic is an extreme fear that causes loss of control of the body and is more deadly than the reckless abandon.

Getting an athlete to control fear begins with the path of discipleship: controlling their thoughts. We are told in 2 Corinthians 10:

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10:5 NIV)

While many believers tend to see this passage in context of spiritual warfare, they may misunderstand what “spiritual warfare,” truly is. They may imagine that they are physically wrestling with demons. Thoughts are not demons, and demons may plant those thoughts, but as thoughts, they belong to us. Our natural view of life will bring in thoughts that should be rejected that are contrary to the way of Christ. Read the rest of this entry →

The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation

The Revolutionary War was not fought to create a federal government. The states were already sovereign. They did not want to lose their sovereignty. But they did want to increase their revenue. Independence was declared to form a confederation of the states that would have greater international clout. Just as the later federal constitution only declared the rights already possessed by Americans, the Declaration of Independence only declared the independence Americans already possessed. As soon as the Declaration of Independence was published, the 1st congress convened to ratify the Articles of Confederation. All during the Revolutionary War, Americans operated as a confederated nation, called the United States of America. The government the states agreed to join was the Confederation, not a federal government.   The fighters of the Revolutionary War did not fight to impose a central government upon the states. They fought to establish the Confederation.

Today we misunderstand the difference between a confederation and a federal government. Consider these definitions:

Confederation vs Federation

A union of states in which each member state retains some independent control over internal and external affairs. Thus, for international purposes, there are separate states, not just one state. A federation, in contrast, is a union of states in which external affairs are controlled by a unified, central government.

The Free Dictionary/Legal Dictionary

In a confederation the sovereignty of the individual states is retained, but in a federation the states are subservient to the central government.  Americans back then did not want another variation of a monarchy and realized that a federal government would be just that.  Consider what one writer of the Anti-Federalist Papers had to say about this. Read the rest of this entry →

Triune Man

Editor’s Note: This post was written for the Stunt Gym blog, but I felt that it would be appreciated by a wider audience, therefore has been reprinted here, too.

Christian Dancer

I recently had a conversation from a dancer in California who found the school site and was surprised that I call my school a “Christian Gymnastics School.” She wanted to know how I could consider it a Christian school since she had been told that dancing was carnal. She desperately wants to dance before the Lord, but has been discouraged by her congregation.

For the sake of her privacy, I am going to call her, Sydnee. Sydnee seems to be a new believer and was very confused. The congregation she attends seems to be legalistic. She had questions about the Sabbath and other matters which hindered me from explaining how physical activity can be an expression of the spirit.

God has no interest or joy in religion. Religion did not come from God. It came from Adam and Eve who tried to cover their sin with fig leaves. That was the first religious act of mankind. Religion is inherent in our carnal nature, which is why most of the world is religious. The books of Romans and Hebrews explains God’s take on religion. He gave Moses the law to show the world that it was impossible to please God through religious effort. Through Jesus Christ He took away religion completely. But mankind hangs onto religion because the carnal nature wants to justify itself through religion, not to please God. Read the rest of this entry →

This speaks for itself. Corruption in our government is systemic.

Creating Thirst

Jesus said,

Matt 5:13
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. (NIV)

For years I have heard that salt is a preservative and that we are the preservative, I assume, of righteousness.  To interpret this meaning into what Jesus said, however, fails as a metaphor.  As a preservative, salt prevents spoiling of meat.  To say that the Church prevents spoiling of society, by extension,  lacks any fundamental change in society.  Is the gospel so weak that all it can do is retard decay?  Of course not!  The gospel transforms a person into a new creature.  Therefore, to assume that Jesus is using salt as a metaphor for preserving society is error.

It has also been said that salt adds flavor, therefore, by implication, the Church adds flavor to society.  Once again, this falls short of the Lord’s intention.  Adding flavor does not change, only modifies,  the other ingredients of society.  The other ingredients of a meal remain the other ingredients and are not changed.

Salvation has only one way of reception: voluntarily.  A person receives the new birth because that person asked for it.  There is only one interpretation of salt that fits the gospel message:   thirst.     Eating salt creates thirst.  Thirst motivates a person to drink water.  No one can be forced to drink water.  They have to want to drink.  No one can be forced to accept salvation.  They have to want to be saved.

Everyone knows that taverns and bars provide salted peanuts free of charge for a simple reason.  They know that the salted peanuts will create thirst in their patrons, who will then spend money voluntarily for more beer.  Of course, the more they eat the salted peanuts the more beer they will buy in an never ending cycle.

This is the saltiness that Christians in America are losing.  The living water of Christ should flow freely from our bellies.  Our lives should be such that people around us want to have what we have.  A thirst for Christ should be stimulated in those around us because of the saltiness of Christ in us.

The problem is works.  If we try to be like Christ through human effort, we lose our saltiness, because we can not be like Christ.  The only way the saltiness of Christ is experienced by the lost is when we die to self and let Christ live through us instead.   We don’t try, we let Christ have His way in us by accepting His will.

Paul said,

2 Cor 2:15-16
15    For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.
16    To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? (NIV)

When we die to self we are a  fragrance of life to the lost.  We can not be a fragrance of life through our own efforts.  Only when we die to self.   There is our saltiness.  To continue in works trying to be like Christ is to lose saltiness, thus to be rejected by the world and to be trampled underneath.   Organized religion has encouraged saints to live by the arm of the flesh,  thus they are losing their saltiness.

The good news is that we can stop trying right where we are.  We can let Christ have His way in whatever circumstance we are in.   If God can transform the prostitutes and drug addicts, don’t you think He is still capable of transforming a saltless believer? Of course He can.  He can restore our saltiness immediately.  All we have to do is let go  and let God. Be the salt of the Earth.  Jesus Christ alone is the salt.  Let Him live through you instead of imitating Him.

Living foolishly

This morning I heard a news report on Phoenix Jones in Seattle. Phoenix is a young black adult who is married with kids that has taken on the self styled role of “superhero” vigilante. He and others of the same desire dress up in costumes and walk around Seattle with no super powers looking for trouble. According to him there are many others throughout the nation doing the same thing. My immediate reaction to the news report was, “What an idiot.” I later did some more internet searching for further information on him. The last report I found was that he suffered a broken nose trying to stop an armed man.

When I came home, Charles Stanley was going through the Armor of God speech that I had heard from so many other preachers. He spoke as if we are to imagine putting on a real armor suit one piece at a time. As a young Christian I took this advise seriously and did the same thing in my prayer life. Such an approach to understanding this metaphor is superstitious fantasy. There is no protection in imagining that you are dressing up in an armor. Paul’s metaphor in Ephesian 6 is an illustration of a lifestyle trust in God, and nothing more. Nor is our trust in God some kind of invincibility that prevents all harm. We get harmed as Christians just as anyone else can. Read the rest of this entry →