Friday, January 25, 2013

Downloading the Ultimate 'App'

"Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge" (Proverbs 22:17)

One thing you must understand about me and computer technology, beloved, is that I am always several jumps behind.  For example, my latest cell phone is a slide-out keyboard texting phone and when did they come out?  So it was a real shock for me when for Christmas my wife surprised me with my own iPad.  Talk about a technological eye-opener!  I cannot tell you how much this computer "old-timer" has enjoyed downloading different 'apps' and just generally playing with my new toy.  Perhaps the greatest advance I have made with it thus far is to learn how to use it in the pulpit for my sermon notes.  A couple of folks asked me early on if I had a new toy since they saw me keep touching the surface of something as I moved through each passage of Scripture.  Needless to day, I am always on the lookout for new apps that I can check out and possibly download for my own use.

Did you know, however, that what we might rightly call "the ultimate app" does not require an iPad or a PC connection of any kind?  In fact, it is every believer's responsibility to "download" this particular application into his or her own life!  And just what is this spiritual app that we all need so much and to which we would do well to give heed?  Note first in this particular proverb collected by King Solomon that the need is for us to "incline your ear and hear" wise words.  And where do we find such wisdom?  In the latter portion of the proverb God Himself through the writer commands us to "apply your mind to my knowledge."  The Hebrew word here translated "apply" is shiyth, pronounced sheeth and meaning literally to "place" in the sense here of setting a thing in its proper place.  The "thing" that is to be so set in place is the knowledge of God's Word and the precise "place" in which it is to be set is the believer's mind.  Very simply, we are to set our minds solidly and continually upon the truths of God's Word and apply those truths to our living by scrupulous obedience!

And did you notice, beloved, that the responsibility for such application of godly wisdom is our own, yours and mind individually?  To put it in "computer-ese," so to speak, the app is available to us but it must be our own choice, an act of our will, to "download" that truth and to make it a part of our lives.  If we do not, then we and only we are to blame for the disastrous attitudes we will hold and for the catastrophic consequences we will endure as a result.

I hope to continue to enjoy my iPad, beloved, and even to download more apps as they become available.  But more than that, my heart's desire is to make sure that God's "ultimate app" is up and running all the time in my life.  Would you like to download it right now?  You won't find it at the app store!  It is no further away than your Bible and your personal yieldedness to the Spirit of God.

Ron    

Friday, January 11, 2013

Whose Church Is It?

"I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it...But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love" (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 4:15-16)

I recently had occasion to reflect once again upon what has become a significant weakness within many local churches today, beloved, and that is the inability to answer the question posed above.  Now, please note that I did not say that we not have an answer for it but rather that the answer we are voicing so very often is just flat out wrong!  I cannot tell you how many times over the years I have heard people state emphatically that the particular church of which they are a part is their church.  Either someone's great-grandfather cleared the land on which the church sat or someone else's uncle donated the money for the building materials of which the church was ultimately built.  For whatever reason, no matter how sincerely and honestly felt, we have simply come to believe that this church is our church.

It is well past time for us as Christians to put this chicken to roost once and for all, beloved.  I find two issues inherent in rightly answering this question which we must consider.  The first has to do with whose church it really is.  Did you note that Jesus informed Peter that, beyond any shadow of any doubt, the church with which He chose to be connected would be His church and no one else's?  Very simply, Jesus made it clear that any church that is not His church has no right to associate itself with His name in any way.  You see, the truth revealed in Scripture, beloved, is that the answer to the question before us is that this is Christ's church and not yours or mine.  It doesn't matter whose family member donated the land or whose loved one stoked the wood-burning stove every week so that the building would be warm for worshipers.  Those are acts of a servant, beloved, not acts of an owner.

The second issue that I find in these verses has to do with whose authority is supreme in the church.  It is has been my experience that whenever people have insisted in times past that the church is theirs, what they mean is that they run it.  Claims of church ownership in local congregations are almost always tied to an inner struggle for power.  But did you note also in these verses what the Apostle Paul told the saints in Ephesus about who has the true authority in the church?  He told them straight out that Jesus Christ is the church's "head" and that the rest of us are its body parts.  And there is nothing more unwieldy or ineffective, beloved, than a "two-headed" church!

So whose church is it?  It is Jesus' church and only Jesus' church.  It is not mine and it is not yours.  Never has been.  Never will be.  It is Jesus' church because He is the only one who paid the ultimate price to establish it and to call it His own.  And who is the operating authority in the church?  Paul said that Jesus is the "head" and Jesus Himself said that all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him by His Father (Matthew 28:18).  Thus, we find undeniably taught in God's Word that this is Christ's church and that He is the only one authorized to run it.  The rest of us are His servants who wait upon His pleasure and then joyfully do His bidding.  Don't you think it's time that we started acting like servants?

Ron