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

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

Generosity

A Christian who is walking in the Spirit of Christ is generous.  The Spirit of Christ in every believer is a river of generous living water.  A Christian does not have to create or sustain this river of generosity.  The Christian must believe Jesus within is the source of this river and simply release the river of generosity.

Human generosity exists because Jesus exists.  Jesus and generosity are one and the same.  The Christian and generosity should also be one and the same.

Generosity and sin do not mix.  They are opposites.  Sin is afraid to be generous.  Sin is concerned with acumulating and taking.  Generosity is open and unafraid.  Generosity always believes the source named Jesus will never run out of resources.

All of the metaphors Jesus used to describe the kind of human life and behavior the Father desires are metaphors of generosity.  Light is generous.  Salt is generous. Seeds are generous.  Sheep are generous.  Even children are happilly generous when deeply loved.

If we want to witness to others about who Jesus is, we would do well to begin with acts of generosity and then speak generous words.

“Preach the Gospel always and when necessary use words.”  These words attributed to Francis of Assisi are a good place for generous Christians to start. Perhaps we can also say “Be continuouly generous. When the right moment comes explain with words that Jesus is the source of your generosity.”

Walk in the Spirit and you will walk in generosity.  Sooner or later someone will want to know where your generosity comes from.

Bud McCord

Abide International

Jesus. The Cure for Paralysis

“There is nothing that the presence of Jesus cannot cure.” Mike Wells

There are many types of paralysis.  Physical paralysis is the most obvious kind, but there are many forms of paralysis that limit our movement with God.

In Luke chapter 5: 17-26, concerned friends bring their paralysed friend to Jesus for healing.  Ripping off the tiles of the roof of the house where Jesus was curing people, these men literally dropped their motionless friend into the presence of Jesus.

The story ends with these words from Jesus:  “ ’I tell you’ he said to the man who was paralysed, ‘get up, pick up your bed and go home!’  Instantly the man sprang to his feet before their eyes, picked up the bedding on which he used to lie, and went off home praising God.”

In the same chapter in Luke, verses 27-28,  Jesus heals Levi from an entirely different kind of paralysis.  This is the same Levi who became one of Jesus disciples.

“Later on, Jesus went out and looked straight at a tax-collector called Levi, as he sat at his office.  ‘Follow me,’ he said to him.  And he got to his feet at once, left everything behind and followed him.”

Levi was just as paralyzed as the other man who was healed by Jesus. Both needed to get to their feet as Jesus spoke and head home praising God.  Both of them needed to be made able to leave behind the paralysis of their past and folllow Jesus.

All of us are paralysed by something that holds in one limited reality.  When our friends take us to the presence of Jesus or when Jesus comes to where we are paralysed, everything will change when we hear Him say “Get up! Follow Me!”

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill.  I have not come to invite the ‘righteous’ but the ‘sinners’---to change their ways.”  Luke 5:32 Phillips

Bud McCord

Abide International

God Speaks With His Hand

“For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand...”

Isaiah 8:11

How does God speak with His strong hand?   The same way a parent speaks to a child with his or her strong hand.  The parent takes hold of the child’s circumstances with a strong hand until the child will  finally be still and listen.

When God speaks to us by taking hold of us and our circumstances it is unmistakeable.  When God speaks with a strong hand, we find ourselves literally in the grip of circumstances we are powerless to overcome.  We can fight, run, resist and complain but our circumstances hold us.  We cannot move away. We are held too firmly by an unseen hand.

By his strong hand God gets our attention.  We have come to the end of ourselves and we know it.   Finally we grow still and begin to  understand that we are not God,  God’s strong hand brings tears of repentance to our eyes. The tears are the stress of our resistance finally leaving us.

By holding us in the grip of our circumstances God educates us.   Once we have felt the grip of God orchestarated circumstances we are much easier to educate. We learn to be still before God.

When God’s hand has made its point,  we know God is greater than our circumstances. We know we are really in the grip of the hand of His will and voice.

Being stil and knowing He is God is such a relief!

Bud McCord

Abide International

Cain Still Kills Abel

In the first two chapters of the Bible things in the world are “very good”.  By the time one reads on to chapter 4 of the Bible Cain murders his brother Abel in a religious rage. Evil moves fast.

Based on this Biblical story of the rapid human descent into family, social and religious violence, it is hard to defend the idea that today’s world is essentially worse than it has ever been.

Things have been as essentially bad as they are for a very long time.  What has changed is the scale and size of evil, not the essential nature or speed of evil.  In reality there are simply more Cains killing more Abels.

The  Bible narrative continues to be relevant because it always tells the truth about humanity.  No matter how ugly or beautiful the human story may be the Bible still explains it perfectly.

Though humanity may not be all of “one religion”, we are all biological blood brothers and sisters. We are all biological family and Cain continues to kill Abel.

“And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, " Acts 17:26

Whenever one person in the name of religion murders, they murder their own “blood brother”.   In doing so,  they are Cain killing a truly innocent family member.  This kind of orginal, religious hatred is exactly what the Apostle John pointed out in John 3:10-12.

"In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous."

In God’s eyes the murderous religious rage that afflicts our world today is nothing new.  It is the same religious rage that led Adam and Eve to conduct the first family funeral.

Bud McCord

Abide International