Law or Light

If you wanted to change the behavior of human beings, including yours, would you choose law or light to inspire change? 

When confronted with humanity’s need for change, which did God choose?

"For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” John 3: 17-21

Law can inform, educate and inspire but law cannot change human behavior.  Human behavior needs Divine light if there is to be hope for real change.  Human behavior needs the light that Jesus is.

When we sense a need for change in ourselves or others we will choose something that we hope will work.  We often choose law but according to Jesus we should choose Him.

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” John 8:12

The most practical thing I have ever learned about Christianity is that I need to take all of my behaviors to Jesus so I can see them for what they are and from where they originate.  When I come with myself and my behavior into the light of Jesus,  I can see what matches with Jesus and what does not. 

When I walk in the light of Jesus I see the change I need in Jesus and then I can receive the change by His grace and generosity.  

When you want yourself or others to change, take them to the light of Jesus not the law.

Bud McCord

Abide International

The Final Week and a Good Death

As Jesus lived his last week He knew certain things were true about Him.

"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." John 13:1

During His final week He knew…

That His hour had come.

That He would leave this world and go to the Father.

That he had loved His own who were in the world.

That He loved them to the end.

Take a close look at this list of Jesus’ certainties.  See which of these are yours.

Can you say…

I know my hour will come.

I know I will go to the Father.

I know I am loving those given to me to love.

I know I will love them to the end.

Jesus lived with “the end in mind”  and so should we.  Our final week will come and our final week should even include a good death.  Jesus made this clear for us by the way His final week was full of certainty about who loved Him and who He had loved to the end. This is how His final week included a good death.

Make your final week certain by knowing right now who loves you and by loving right now who you should love.  Make your final week and death good starting today.

Bud McCord

Abide International

"Where Am I?"

Anyone who travels regularly and sleeps often far from home knows what it is to awaken in a dark room and ask “Where am I?”.  This disorientation disturbs sleep and makes falling back asleep hard.  Until the question of where we are is answered rest just will not come.

When this happens to me I stay very still and ask Jesus “Jesus, where am I?”.  He kindly says “In Me.”  The peace comes quickly and I can rest again.

It really does not matter where I am, what time it is or how dark it is around me because I am always “in Christ”.

In Christ abundance of love, peace, water and bread await me.  Jesus is all.

In Christ I know what work awaits me in the light. My work is to believe in Jesus.

In Christ I know that I will be surrounded by equality.  In Christ there are no men or women, no slaves and free and no Jews and Greeks.  There are only people living equally in Christ.

In Christ I know that everyone’s goal is the same.  We all exist to love those we need to love in the right moment, in the right manner and in the right measure.  I know that this love will come to me and through me from being in Christ.

It really does not matter where I sleep because I will sleep in Christ.  It does not matter where I awaken and it is dark, I will awake in Christ.  It doesn’t even matter if today is my last day in this world because I will leave this world and live on in Christ.

In Christ is where every believer is at all times.  Orient yourself to Jesus and rest.

Bud McCord

Abide International

Nothing

The word “nothing”  should be rarely used.  Once this word leaves a person’s mouth there is all the time in the world for someone to prove us wrong.

Jesus used this word nearly 2000 years ago when He explained to His disciples they could never do the will of God on their own.  Here is how He used the word:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

When we set out to produce what the Father wants, we can do “nothing’ without a living connection to Jesus.  2000 years later no one has found a way to prove Jesus wrong.

Anyone who has ever seriously tried to live the same kind of life Jesus lived always comes to the conclusion they cannot.  Only those who have seriously tried to live what the Father wants from us are useful witnesses concerning Jesus’ famous statement.  Those who simply want to debate the subject of doing God’s will have no credibility in this debate.  Only those who have tried to repeat Jesus’ cooperation with the Father’s will know there is nothing they can do.

According to Jesus,  true cooperation with the Father’s will requires direct contact with the kind of life that does the will of God naturally.  Jesus called this continuous contact “abiding”  or “remaining” in Him like a branch in a vine. 

Doing the Father’s will on our own is not natural to us.  When we abide in Jesus we can do something instead of nothing. Jesus can enable us to do the will of God fruitfully. 

Abide in Him and nothing can become something God wants.

Bud McCord

Abide International

Jesus Christ Only

The Apostle Paul reached a place dealing with believers where he knew that the only focus He could use to help them calm down and grow was a Jesus Christ only focus.  Here is how he put it in his own words:

And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I Cor. 2:1-2

Paul’s only  Jesus Christ focus included two very important parts. First, he focused believers on who Jesus Christ really is.  Second, he focused them on what Jesus Christ really did.

Focusing a Christian only on who Jesus is and what Jesus did seems too limited.  It seems like the Christian would never be able to become what the Father wants with such a limited focus. 

It may seem that way at first, but anyone who has learned Jesus for who He is and what He did will never say it is not enough.

Paul came to this conclusion because the Scriptures and his own experience with who Jesus is and what Jesus did was the only thing that calmed him down and made him grow. He was the one who wrote “Jesus is all and is in all.”  Col. 3:11

It would be wonderful if the churches of today thought this highly of Jesus again.

Bud McCord

Abide International