OBAMACARE MANDATE (URGENT!)

You don't need Snopes for this; all you have to do to confirm it is read the news, read the ACA (aka Obamacare), and the Supreme Court decision.


Since SCOTUS decided that ACA is covered under the government's taxing authority, the Internal Revenue Service is charged with enforcing the Act. The IRS is ALREADY budgeting for more than 4000 additional agents who will be charged with DIGGING DEEPER into everyone's business to make certain everyone is buying health insurance and/or furnishing it to their employees. Failure to comply - like any other tax code violation - can, after due process, result in garnishment of wages, increasingly heavy fines and penalties, seizure of your home, property and assets including bank accounts and real estate, and imprisonment.


Do we really want a stronger, bigger, and nastier Internal Revenue Service looking over our shoulders?God help us if we don't unite now to rise up against this tyranny and stop it in its tracks. The SCOTUS has forgotten the purpose of the Constitution; shot holes all through the Bill of Rights, and ignored the reason the Declaration of Independence was issued 236 years ago. "Freedom is not free," we say? No it's not! And we the people have the responsibility to fight the battles in our homeland, while our soldiers, airmen and sailors are fighting them abroad. Don't let them come home and find we have given away everything they have put their lives on the line to preserve and defend--Roger D. Stewart, American.

Celebrate Freedom

Liberty

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

2 Cor. 3:17f (English Standard Version)

Free In Christ

Freedom and liberty are words heard more often this time of the year than perhaps any other time.  The Fourth of July, also known as Independence Day, is the anniversary of the day in 1776 when the Continental Congress adopted the formal Declaration of our Independence from British rule. It is celebrated as the birthday of our country and marks the date we threw off the rule of a tyrannical government that was as foreign to us philosophically as it was geographically.  

            For 236 years our nation has marked this anniversary with many and varied festivities that always include patriotic themes, colors and music. Wikipedia describes the first celebration on July 4, 1777:

“In 1777, thirteen gunshots were fired in salute, once at morning and once again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island. Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews, and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white, and blue bunting.^”

            The day has been declared a national holiday with federal and state offices, including post offices and courts, and most banks closing. It is often celebrated out of doors with fireworks, picnics, concerts and patriotic activities. It is a festive occasion and a time of great celebration.

            The fact is however, that about 1700 years earlier there was an even greater declaration uttered that has offered freedom and hope to every human that has ever lived, or will ever live. Far more significant in its scope and benefit, it remains as powerful as it was the first day it was spoken.

            Matthew’s gospel records in 28:5-6: “But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen…” A Divine Commentary on this declaration is found in Hebrews 2:14-15 that explains the power and scope of the event: “…(H)e himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” The Devil had the power and that power was in the form of our fear of death.

            When Jesus became the “firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18), he opened the gates through which God would free any and all who would turn to him. The announcement that Jesus had been resurrected heralded freedom for the imprisoned and judgment for the prison-keeper, the Devil. This was the fulfillment of the promise made in the Garden of Eden immediately prior to God’s banishing the man and woman from the garden in Genesis 3:15. When he promised that the seed of Satan would bruise the heel of man, he was referring to the death of Jesus. When Jesus uttered the words “It is finished” and gave up his spirit, for all of mankind, and especially those there with him, it appeared to be a crushing blow. Yet, when Jesus arose victorious over death, he demonstrated that what had been intended to be a killing blow was in fact NOT a mortal wound. By arising, he himself dealt the mortal blow to Satan, the Adversary. It was a blow to his head. In doing so, he declared once and for all that he was Victor over death and hell and that his followers would be as well.

            As we celebrate freedom this Fourth of July, may God also help us to remember the true freedom that is in Jesus Christ. Freedom from oppression in this world can last no more than our lifetimes – but freedom from the fear of death is an eternal freedom. Perhaps we should do a little feasting, fireworks shooting and singing to celebrate this freedom too, do you think?

            Because I love you, and because He loves us!         

                                                                                    Roger 

Identity

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son toe me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles . . . They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”

And they glorified God because of me.

Gal. 1:13-24 (English Standard Version)

Rewind

If it were possible, would we eliminate the bad stuff from our past? I think so. If we could, wouldn’t we highlight/select incidents in our past and hit the “delete” button? My thought is “You bet!” And, I suspect everyone’s answer would be the same! Who doesn’t have an embarrassing or painful memory in their past they would like to be rid of forever? Who doesn’t carry guilt from a misdeed, misspoken word, or failure in their past? Personally, I can think of a dozen mistakes in my own past without very much effort at all. I wish they hadn’t happened and I wish I could undo the harm and embarrassment that came from them. But of course, I can’t.

            We imagine our present lives would be so much better if we hadn’t made some of those mistakes. We are like game players rehashing a hand of cards or dominoes: “If I just hadn’t trumped in so early, I could have caught that last trick and we would have won the hand,” a player might say. Life is always lived perfectly in retrospect. Someone once said that our hindsight is always 20/20.

            There are no rewind buttons in this life. We have to live with our mistakes and shortcomings. We all make them, we all regret them, but of course we don’t have to let them rule or destroy us. In fact, in Christ there is no past failure that can destroy us, without our letting it. Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life spoke to the bad things in our past when he wrote, “We are products of our past but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”

            Being a prisoner of our past isn’t always about failure though. Sometimes our successes can hold us prisoner as well. There are few things sadder than people who are only able to live in the past. There is the athlete or entertainer whose life is just one long memory after another about glory-days from a stellar career decades earlier. They are so centered on their past successes and triumphs they are unable to live in the present.

            George Santayana suggested that those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Our stories are important, and we all have our own story. We should be able to share our failures and successes with our children, because in them are found the closest we can come to perfect wisdom. The greatest usefulness to be found in our individual pasts comes in the form of lessons we learn from them. Some of those lessons are painful; some are pleasant. I remember the amazing, wonderful taste of my first pizza, dripping with molten mozzarella. (I was in college when I first experienced pizza. It was at the old Italian Inn on East Lancaster in Fort Worth.) I also remember the pain from learning how similar that molten mozzarella is to napalm-how it tends to stick to the roof of the mouth and just keep on burning!

            There is a biblical perspective we need to consider when thinking about our past—we are what we are today, because of what we were, and what we did THEN! Like the Bible characters of old, I am shaped by my past. Consider the shameful episodes in the lives of the Bible characters: Abraham lying about Sarah; David committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband Uriah; Moses murdering the Egyptian; Paul arresting and delivering Christians to be tortured and killed; Peter denying Jesus. Would Paul have been the kind of witness for Christianity that he became had he not been so dedicated to the destruction of it in his younger days? Would he have been able to fully understand the idea of a new creature in Christ without having become one? Would the power of Christ’s reconciling work been so real if Paul’s activities against the Way had been less committed and less violent? Could Peter have been as effective in speaking of the universal priesthood of the believers had he not himself denied Jesus three times in the garden? Would he have been the same man without the humbling experience of seeing his own character in a face-to-face encounter with the man he was, filled with arrogance and pride?

            I am what I am today, because of what I was yesterday. I know that today I am forgiven. When I think of the character and depth of my sin, I can better appreciate the scope of God’s grace. I have a clear sense of what it means to be reconciled to God because I can remember very well what it felt like to be alienated from Him. I know what it means to be alive today, because I know personally what it was like to be dead in sin.

            In light of all that, I know that if I die today, there is a place reserved for me in the presence of God. And I am really glad! This is the central message of God’s work with us – no matter what we have done, no matter what we have been, God calls us to his grace. He will change us; he will transform us. The ministry of Christ is transformation, rescue and reconciliation.

“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith-more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire-may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”   1 Peter 1:3-9 (ESV).               

                                    Because I love you, and because He loves us!         

                                                                                    Roger 

On the One True Church -- II

On the One True Church

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38 (English Standard Version)

Immersion

“So, It doesn’t matter where I go to church, then? Is that what you are saying, Roger?” some might ask after reading my last article.

            To which I would respond, that’s not what I said at all. I did say that I have brothers and sisters in Christ all around the globe attending very different churches and worshipping in a wide variety of ways. We are a body of people who hold widely differing views about a lot of things, but as followers of Jesus we are members of the same family.

            Within the family, there are commonly held core beliefs, and at the same time fairly significant differences of opinion. First and foremost among the commonly held agreements is a belief in Jesus Christ as the “only begotten Son of God.” Admittedly there are differences within that that truth, but the truth itself remains.

            There is at the core of discipleship, a belief in the need for immersion in the life-changing teachings of Jesus and the upward call of his mission. There is commitment to the idea of our fellowship in his death, burial and resurrection. And there is also a hopeful, patient waiting for his return.     

            While most Christians generally agree on this component of immersion, it is interesting that we do NOT all agree on what constitutes the entire action of immersion called for in scripture. Some of us – I, for one -- believe there is a requirement for immersion in water (water baptism) as a physical and symbolic part of our whole-man, mental, physical and spiritual commitment to Jesus. The physical component of immersion, taken with the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects, result in the cleansing of our consciences of sin (1 Peter 3:21).

            Others believe that the immersion called for in scripture is metaphorical and any  call for physical immersion is a misapplication of what the scriptures actually call for. They believe that scriptural immersion is mental and spiritual only. While I do not agree with that, I will say that God is the judge. God will save whom he will save, and all I can do is act on what I believe to be his will, and love those with differing opinions on the matter. And yes, they are family!

            I can and do worship with those whose beliefs on baptism differ from my own. I believe God will accept their gift of worship as quickly – if not MORE quickly – than my own and that He is a kind, merciful and forgiving God. He will forgive their flaws as quickly if not more quickly than He will forgive my own.

            Salvation comes to us through God’s overlooking our sins. We may say that our sins are “hidden”, “washed away”, or “covered” by Jesus’ blood, but the simple truth is that God overlooks them. There is no reason to think that because I have been “dunked”, God will or will not overlook my failure to take care of my sick brothers and sisters any more than he will or will not overlook their failure to be “dunked” simply because they have done a good job of taking care of one another.

            To make my personal view of baptism as clear as I can, let’s do a short review of basic chemistry. Having had only one year of High School chemistry, I use the formula for water in my illustration because it is one of the few chemical formulas with which I am familiar. Water is a molecule made up of one atom of oxygen and 2 atoms of hydrogen. While the molecule contains twice as many hydrogen atoms as it does oxygen, it must have the one oxygen atom or it will not be water. Too many oxygen atoms and you have something else entirely. If for example, we combine 2 hydrogen atoms and 2 oxygen atoms, we have hydrogen peroxide – a bleaching agent or rocket fuel component. Without the 2 atoms of hydrogen, we are left with oxygen; without the oxygen we are left with hydrogen. It is only when the 2 are bonded together in the proper ratio that we have water. Which is less important? The hydrogen? The oxygen? Of course any one can understand that they are both equally important even though there is twice as much of one as there is the other.

            I am convinced baptism can be understood in exactly the same way. There is a physical component as well as mental, emotional and spiritual components. And we are compelled to remind those who lean more heavily on the physical component, that there are also mental, emotional and spiritual aspects. Immersion of each is necessary to the complete action of rebirth. Some of us shake our heads at those who leave out the physical part of the rebirth. But when we look carefully at the practice, we see that it is also startlingly surprising how so many allow the water component to draw so much attention away from the other. Far too many have allowed water baptism to become the be-all and end-all in our Christian walk.

            Even among those who call for the necessity of water baptism, there are at least two areas where there are differences of opinion:  (1) what one must know at baptism, and (2) exactly where salvation occurs in relation to water baptism. One school of thought is that water baptism is invalid unless we are aware of exactly WHAT we are doing, WHY we are doing it and WHAT actually happens to us during the course of our immersion. Another school of thought teaches that submitting to water baptism “just because God wants us to” is sufficient reason and is therefore acceptable to God.

            As to where salvation occurs relating to water baptism, one group claims we submit to water baptism because we have been saved. Another group claims salvation occurs in the water – we go into the water in order to be saved.  We go into the water a sinner and come up out of it a new creature.

            Both debates are symptomatic of an overly legalistic approach to scripture and militate against God’s grace. They also place a far too great a weight of importance on one component of our immersion to the neglect of another.

            I am convinced God calls us to both components – to spiritual and the physical immersion -- and I don’t want to be caught dead without either of them. At the same time, I’m going to let God decide how to individually handle every one of the billions of people He and He alone will judge when the universe is rolled up like a scroll. It is far too big a job for any human.  

                                                                                    Because I love you,    Roger 

On the One True Church

And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart

and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the great and first commandment.

And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:35-40 (English Standard Version)

De-Bunking the Myth or De-Mything the Bunk

I want to be right. I REALLY want to be right! Heaven hangs in the balance and will be too wonderful to miss; and eternal separation from God is unthinkable.

            Because I am a sinner – a fallen creature living in a fallen world – my only hope of getting into heaven is found in God’s wonderful, indescribable, magnificent grace. But, I don’t want to be guilty of exploiting and testing God’s mercy – I want to be and do what God expects me to be and do. While I can’t EARN God’s salvation, I am certain there are conditions that attach to it.

            God’s love is unconditional; his grace is not. Paul writes to the Ephesians (2:8) that we are saved by grace (God’s part) through faith (our part, I believe).

            As proof that we have a part in our salvation,  I submit Jesus’ own words, “…No man comes to the Father, but by me.” Having the Spirit of God dwelling in me, and me being in the body of Christ, are conditions that attach to God’s grace. I can’t get into heaven without Jesus – no way, no how! It is through Jesus we have the ability to know God. I need to be vigilant and careful to have that kind of intimacy with God through his Son (John 17:1-3). That demands acceptance and obedience to the call from God.

            Can everyone be right about religion? That is simply not possible. James defines pure religion, by telling us that it is to take care of the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. That revelation establishes the standard for pure religion. Man’s definition of religion is often very different: one group claims pure religion demands a person has to sign off on the Apostle’s Creed; another says pure religion demands interpretation of the Bible in a certain way—Command, Example, Necessary Inference comes to mind. Another says the silence of scripture must always be interpreted as prohibitive while still another claims that silence is permissive.

            There are far too many widely varying differences and opinions concerning doctrine, worship practices, and other issues that have been addressed by theologians countless thousands of times over the centuries for everyone to be right in their individual understandings. That leaves us with the question, “Is ANYONE completely and totally right in his or her approach to theology? Is any one church the RIGHT church?” The perfect church would be the right church, but as someone put it so succinctly, the moment I become a member of the perfect church, it is no longer perfect.  It all has something to do with our being human, I suppose.

            Every church – and I emphasize EVERY church we find listed in the phone book is a product of man. Each of them may have been established with the most honorable of intentions (Reformation or Restoration) and may even strenuously deny its human origins. But, deny it or not, it is human, nonetheless. Even if a lineage could be traced back to a New Testament gathering, would exist so much human-driven evolution it would have little or no similarity to the original and would be unrecognizable to the Apostolic fathers.

            Each “tribe” has its own identity and history that is human in origin and is denominated by its very own evolved body of beliefs, credos and worship practices. It may be a quite large tribe with a general governing association, convention or universal organization that dictates policy and doctrines, or it may be a small individual church that is autonomous or independent. Whatever the case, each church is known for, or denominated by its own body of closely held beliefs and ordinances. Some groups call that body of beliefs and ordinances a creed, some call it a catechism, others call it a discipline. Our Amish and Mennonite friends call it their ordnung. Others just deny the existence of any creed at all. But deny it or not, there IS a creed – perhaps it is unwritten, but there is a creed.

            If one were able to investigate every church on every corner of our land, as well as in every town, city or village around the world, they would never be successful in finding the perfect church. They very possibly will find one that perfectly meets their needs or expectations, but it would not be the perfect church that Jesus promised to build and a short time later DID build.

            Yet such a church does exist, I am certain, and it is the one true church that is as Jesus planned and promised it. It has one head and that head is Jesus. God himself governs its population and membership. In Acts 2:47, we are told that the Lord himself brought the saved into the assembly. 

            After years of wrestling with scriptural, traditional, denominational and sectarian debates, discussions and theologies, I am now fully persuaded that the real and true church of Christ (as in the kingdom planned and built by God, bought and paid for by Jesus the Messiah) is not limited to a specific name or set of worship practices. It is not limited to the man-made churches we mentioned above. The REAL and TRUE Church of Christ today comprises every person who has been called out of the darkness of sin into the marvelous light of God’s grace regardless of where they gather to worship. I am convinced that the assembly of the called out is much broader in scope than defined by the human limits of fellowship imposed on it by human creeds written or otherwise.

            I am persuaded there are Christians in every denomination, worshipping at every neighborhood Christ-believing worship center around our world. Do I believe every denomination is right? No. Do I believe ANY man-made church is right? No. But I do believe that in every group there exits the possible presence of those who like in the church at Sardis (Revelation 3) have not soiled their garments. In fact I am absolutely certain of it!

            One of the saddest things I encounter on a regular basis is a beloved friend or group of friends who have been deceived into thinking that their faith community and it alone defines the true church that Jesus built.

            The One True Church is the collective body of the saved. They may gather in a variety of places, worshipping in a variety of ways, voluntarily submitting to a wide variety of traditions and ordnung, and still be part of the assembly that Jesus died for.

            An important key to understanding whether or not they are part of the redeemed and the household of faith is found in one of the Apostle John’s books: “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10).

                                                                                    Because I love you,    Roger