Life: The American Idol

I have been thinking recently about life. It always seems to happen this time of year. The preservation of our life is something that we value more that anything. We will go to great lengths to make sure that we are safe and secure. We will go to the same lengths for the ones we love as well. I am not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with this. However if we are not careful we take the creation (life) and put it in the place of the creator (God). Anytime we do this we create an idol.

Paul said in Philippians 1:21 that for him "to live is Christ and to die is gain". We were created to live for God and to make much of the name of Jesus. By valuing safety and security over God we have replaced our God with an idol. For Paul life meant fruitful labor for Christ, and dying is viewed as a good thing because it means seeing Jesus. Instead of this view many of us think that we exist for OUR good, and to preserve OUR life is gain. This view forgets that our life is nor our own. We were bought at a high price, and we now belong to the King.

Hosea 1:2-3

“When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.” Hosea 1:2-3

The theme of Hosea is laid out for us in these two verses, “Take to yourself a wife of whoredom… For the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” Here we will look at the two types of whoredom in two parts. First in the post we’ll look at the believer’s whoredom. In the next post we’ll look at the unbeliever’s whoredom. Let’s begin with the believer.

As believers in the Gospel, this is our condition. We are Gomer. We are the whores. The ones pledging our affection solely to Christ, then turning to love anything else. To describe this better I default to Henry Scougal’s small yet powerful book (originally a letter) “The Life of God in the Soul of Man”. Within which he writes we must,

“…Wean our affections from created things, and all the delights and entertainments of the lower life, which sink and depress the souls of men, and retard their motions toward God and heaven; and this we must do by possessing our minds with a deep persuasion of the vanity and emptiness of worldly enjoyments.”

“This is an ordinary theme, and everybody can make declamations upon it; but alas! How few understand and believe what they say? These notions float in our brains, and come sliding off our tongues, but we have no deep impression of them on our spirits; we feel not the truth which we pretend to believe. We can tell that all the glory and splendor, all the pleasures and enjoyments of the world are vanity and nothing; and yet these nothings take up all our thoughts, and engross all our affections, they stifle the better inclinations of our soul, and inveigle us into many a sin.”

We say we love Christ Jesus more than life, and love, and freedom, and family, and friends and money, yet we spend more time worrying about, thinking upon and hoping for these things than we ever have Christ. We, the believers in the Gospel, are the whores, placing our affections anywhere but on Jesus.

Thus the necessity of the Gospel, we knew not how we ought to love, therefore Christ came; we knew not how we ought to live, therefore Christ came; we knew not what it meant to be alive, therefore Christ came. Paying our debt by dying in our place and propitiating the punishment we so justly deserved. So that, positionally speaking, we now stand before God perfect, by Christ work only. Though we are shot through with our sin, and in dire need of progressive sanctification.

Fight the good fight of faith,

Sam

Romans 7:24-25

For the guys!

Men take five minutes and watch this video...

Jesus is all satisfying, embrace Him.

Chad

DCF

It has been my very great pleasure to get to lead DCF these last couple of months, and I know that God has blessed me with the opportunity to get to know many of you. As most of you know and the rest will soon find out, DCF will be ending at the end of December and we are inviting you to join what God is doing with Journey the Way. God is in the process of starting a church in downtown Wichita KS and this could be your opportunity to be a part of this work. Many of those involved with DCF are also involved with Journey the Way. I would ask you to consider plugging into this work of God. Below is our Core Team Covenant for you to look over and consider.

Journey the Way

Core Team Covenant

c Are you confident that God has called you to Journey the Way.

c Are you willing to be held accountable in the following areas:

o Love God: It is vital for disciples to have regular encounters with God in which they worship Him, hear from Him, and respond to Him in obedience. Bible reading, prayer, private and corporate worship, and journaling are all part of what it means to Love God.

o Love People: As we interact with God, it is vital that we not approach glorifying God on our own, but that we intentionally interact with others who Love God. These “connections” will bring about transformation in us as we authentically encourage, instruct and support one another. Jesus’ love of people was radical and unconditional and so we need to Love People with no strings attached.

o Turn the World Up-side Down: True Disciples will use their gifts, talents, vocations, and time not only to touch our church, but also to touch the communities they live in, and the world. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life. When we live as Jesus lived we will be a movement of servants that have the potential to turn the world upside-down.

c Are you willing to fully pull away from your current church and embrace Journey the Way as your local church?

c Are you willing to generously give of your creativity, time, spiritual gifts and income in order to fulfill the vision of Journey the Way?

c Are you willing to wholeheartedly serve and support the mission of Journey the Way, even in the messiness, ambiguity, and adventure of the early stages?

In awareness of and submission to these expectations, I commit myself to the Journey the Way Core Team.

Chad Pearce

Hosea

Before I begin, by the grace of God and if He wills it, I will be writing an ongoing series of blog posts on the book of Hosea.

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; 
 his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, 
 as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:1-3

“For he has torn us.” More often than not when we feel torn down rather than looking to God as the one who has ripped us (directly or indirectly), we either, consciously or subconsciously, think that somehow God lost control. I do this often. Seeing circumstances that I want to go a certain way, but knowing it could very well go the opposite way, and worrying about it. This is unbelief and disobedience (sin). Unbelief that God is sovereign and disobedience to have faith in what He will do. Unbelief that what He will do will be the best for me (even though my past speaks clearly to God being in control and good coming from pain) and disobedience to act in accordance with His sovereignty. I can’t help but think of Hebrews 3:19, “So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.” ‘They’ are the Israelites who were freed from Egypt. Their unbelief led to their disobedience, and because of their unbelief and disobedience they could not enter God’s rest. The same is true for us.

“That he may heal us.” Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Let’s be honest: we’re jacked up and need healing. We, apart from God, don’t know up from down; we are blind; we are deaf; we are dead. For proof look at the Word Romans 3:10-20,23. And if that’s not enough (which it ought to be, God said it) then look at the world. Man’s (yours and mine) proclivity to do disastrous things/acts. Murder, rape, pedophilia and racial hatred to name a few; these things comprise the world that surrounds us, yet they do not shock us… We either need help and healing or to get our butts kicked for being so downright bad. So how can God heal us from our desperate state? Or better, why should He heal us?

Let’s answer the second question first. Why should God heal us? In an effort to be brief we’ll stay within these verses. “That we may live before the Lord. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord.” So, why should God heal us? So that we can live before the Lord, and press on to know Him. Does this mean that God is lonely and needs us to keep him company so he saved us? No! If we, as believers, are pressing on to know him, praise will happen. Our natural response to awe-inspiring things is to praise them. But here praise is different because this praise is holy (set apart), all other praise is praise to things, creation (idolatry), but praise that is given to God is right praise, it is God-glorifying. So the fundamental answers to why should God heals us, is not because of our value to him, but because His praise and glory are at stake.

Back to the first question; how can God heal us from our desperate state? “On the third day He will raise us up.” Ephesians 4:8-11, “ Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high He led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that He had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)” Since we’re on the honest bend, I’ll be frank. Jesus is how God heals us. We’re screwed, and getting exactly what we deserve unless we have Jesus. No ifs, ands, or buts; no Jesus, no healing. So how do we get Jesus to heal us??? Answer: Belief. Plain and simple. Belief in the Gospel, that Jesus became a man, lived a perfect life (the life you and I can never live), died the death we ought to be eternally dying, and then rose from the dead defeating sin (our biggest problem), death and Satan. Leading us, the captives from our former slavery.

-Fight the good fight of faith,

Sam Morris (Romans 7:24-25)

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Two things to remember when discussing the Church

I believe it is important to remember two things when discussing the Church.

First, that the Church is a whore, a bunch of saved sinners, like Hosea's wife, and she will always be a whore until Christ comes, yet Christ loves the Church to the point of death on a cross. Therefore as a believer I must love her, though I am the worst whore of them all.

Second, we must remember the Gospel. The good news of Jesus becoming a man, living, dying brutally (murdered) on a cross for our sins, raising to life, and now making intercession for believers in heaven.

Though it does piss me off to see churches destroy those people trapped in sin, rather than loving them, and walking alongside them, and getting to know them, and becoming their friend so that at some point to teach truth lovingly to them. We ought to build relational bridges that are strong enough to bear the weight of truth. For God uses sinners, to teach the Gospel.
So, yes, the Church is a jack-up whore; and, yes, she does an awful job at loving; but Christ loves her, therefore so must I.

~Sam

Romans 7:24-25

New Contributors

With all that is going on with Journey The Way you may have noticed that I haven't been able to post as much as I would like. It isn't that I don't have anything to say, but that I have been busy with receiving the blessings of God. So it is my pleassure to introduce you to some new contributors to the Journey the Way Blog. Sam Morris, Anthony Fiorillo, and David Campbell will be contributing on occasion to this blog. I (Chad) will still act as editor and contributor, but you will now benefit from these guys as well. Our format will be to sign off on each post. That will show you who wrote what.

Please continue to pray for us as we move forward with the Church Plant. Pray for Tuesday nights as Journey the Way now leads a worship service in downtown Wichita at Mead's corner. Pray that God continues to move and that we follow His leading.

For the praise of His glory,

Chad Pearce