Undelivered? A #JesusFollowers Message

Our lives are given importance and meaning when we accept what God has given us, and act upon it.

One day, a young woman received a notice from her local post office that she had received a special letter, and was asked to go pick it up. But she never went, and the letter remained undelivered, never knowing that the letter contained a full scholarship to college – something she had actively been seeking.

So, she embarked on a long, painful journey to make it there herself. And while many honorable people have done this successfully, she seemed to fail repeatedly and become angrier and angrier in the process. She took courses from less-than-reputable sources, teaching things that were either false or not useful to her field. She took shortcuts, only to find that she had learned the wrong things. Eventually, she dropped out of school and gave up, frustrated by the process and hating education.

Another young woman actually went to the post office and received her special letter. She opened it to learn that her college education was also paid for. Instead of being happy, though, she was intimidated by all the work that lay before her: the classes, studying and tests that are part of a college education. “Why don’t they just give me a diploma so I can start working and earning money?” she said, unreasonably.

Discouraged, she decided to forgo an education, and began working in a low-paying job, where she wasn’t challenged and could do little work.

Our first example had received the free gift of a college education, but never accepted it, so she failed.

Our second example received the gift, but did not understand that work was required to achieve her goals, so she failed.

As many correctly say, God offers us a ‘free gift’ of salvation. This is certainly true, as far as it goes. But even a free gift must be first accepted. And even if accepted, we cannot hope to achieve salvation instantly, without effort.

Without faith in God, we don’t ever learn about the wonderful gifts He has given us, and continues to give us.

We don’t ever know, without faith, about the man, Jesus, he chose from among us, sending him out to preach Good News about God’s Kingdom – a radical way to live among each other in peace, serving one another and living as neighbors even among former enemies.

Without effort, we throw away God’s love. Without performing the Good Works God and his chosen one calls us to perform, we throw away the chance to be part of God’s spiritual Kingdom here on earth, and to be with God in after this life has ended.

We should not get a free gift and then show disrespect to the one who gave it to us.

By assuming we can achieve salvation without obedience and Good Works, we show disrespect to God.

By throwing away God’s free gift in the first place, our path becomes difficult and even dangerous, because we’re throwing away the knowledge that helps us walk safely and according to God’s Will.

The path that Jesus calls us to follow is a path of Good Works done in the name of God. This path delivers us from evil, from confusion, from frustration and from a life wasted by either making things up as we go, or by dreaming of instant success that never comes.

Embracing God and the one God sent, Jesus, our paths are established on a righteous and safe road, so that we may walk with peace among all of God’s creations here on earth, and have hope that we might live with God eternally.

#Jesus Proves Godliness Is Possible #JesusFollowers

The life of Jesus shows us that we can do all things that God asks us to do, because God's chosen one has done them as an example we can follow.

God, our eternal Creator, knows us better than we know ourselves. He creates our souls and wishes us to enjoy Him and love Him.

Our lives have meaning when we are following a pattern God sets for us. But He has not given us this pattern to mock us, nor has God given us impossible tasks so that every person would fail.

God gives us, from birth, gifts that are meant to be used for Good. Therefore, we must do all that is in our power to perform Good Works, relying on these natural gifts.

We also have the perfect moral example of Jesus whom God chose and out to us, to show by his teachings, life and death how we should live our lives.

God also grants us ongoing gifts of wisdom and strength - to supplement all we have been already given - so that we might better accomplish what His chosen one, Jesus, calls us to do.

When we fail to live up to the standards Jesus sets for us, we repent and seek God's inexhaustible mercy and forgiveness. But we must not make excuses for not seeking what Jesus commands, nor hold God responsible for HIS promises if we refuse to strive to fulfill our own.

But how do we KNOW that we can do what God has required of us?

Because Jesus, God's spokesman and our example, lived in perfect obedience, doing in all things that pleased God, his and our Father, and showed by this example that ALL are able to do as he did, and to obey God.

Jesus, therefore, has made God's Kingdom possible, through his life, teachings and even through the example of his death.

It's possible for us to understand and actively pursue Godly concepts like virtue, righteousness, honesty, self-sacrifice, and service.
It's possible to treat others with dignity, serving them and loving them as Jesus did.

It's possible for us to actively pursue Godliness, and seek the Righteousness that Jesus calls us to pursue.

It's possible for us to avoid sinful behaviors that separate us from God, our Creator.

And it's possible for us to gain eternal life and reunite with God, not through vain words or demanding it, but by trusting God to be the Judge, and letting us be His children.

In truth, Jesus assures us by his life and teachings that we can achieve all that God asks of us.

We thank God that we have the ability to understand, learn and follow His Will, thanks to the teachings of His chosen Son, Jesus!

Let us go forth and do Good Works in humility and for the glory of God's Kingdom!

Let Us Do Our Father’s Business #JesusFollowers

Jesus went out into the world to do something, not for himself, but for his Father, and he devoted himself to it entirely. 

He was continually engaged in it himself, while he remained here, going from place to place, encountering hardship and danger and suffering, and all without any reference to his own selfish interests, but regarding solely the work he had to do for the salvation of men.

And at last, when he left the world, his final charge to his disciples was, that they should be faithful and persevering in carrying forward this work.

It is surprising how much the example of Christ loses its power over us, simply on account of the absolute perfection of it. If he had been partly a lover of pleasure, if he had, for instance, built himself a splendid mansion, and ornamented his grounds, and devoted some portion of his time to selfish enjoyment there.

Or if he had entered into political life, and devoted a share of his attention to promoting his own honor, and yet if he had torn himself away from these temptations, so as finally to have devoted his chief time and attention to the glory of God and the good of men, than perhaps then we would view his example as within our reach.

But as it is, since he gave himself up wholly to his duty, since he relinquished the world altogether, Christians seem to think, that his bright example is only, to a very limited extent, an example for them. 

Jesus was a man. His powers were human powers. His feelings were human feelings, and his example is strictly and exactly an example for all the world. Still few consider him a fair example. Most Christians think that the general principles which regulated his conduct, ought to regulate theirs, and the most they think of doing is to follow in his steps slowly and hesitatingly, and at a great distance behind.

How perfectly clear it is, that a very large proportion of professing Christians are doing their own business in this world, and not their Father's. There are a great number of nominal Christians who have no idea of the position Christianity takes in regard to our duty.

Our business here is to comfort everyone, and to relieve everyone's suffering. We cannot persuade great multitudes of men to love and obey God, as Jesus endeavored to, but we may lead our brothers and sisters to do it, by our silent influence and happy example. We can bear sufferings patiently, and take injuries meekly, and thus exhibit the character which God wishes to have prevail here.

The light we let shine may be a feeble light, and it may illuminate only a narrow circle around you; but if it is the light of genuine piety, it will be in fact, the glory of God.

The example of Jesus is an example for all mankind. It is intended for universal imitation, and they who pass through life without imitating it, must find themselves condemned when they come to their account.

And how strange it is, that God should find so very few willing to do His business in this world. Even of those few, most, instead of entering into it, heart and soul, do some good accidentally, and call themselves Christians, but they seem to have no idea that God has any work for them to do.

But let us return to the example of our Savior.

Jesus was in some respects the most bold, energetic, decided and courageous man that ever lived; but in others he was the most flexible, submissive and yielding.

There is something very bold and energetic in the measures he adopted in accomplishing his work. The great business which it was necessary for him to effect before his crucifixion, was, to spread it effectually throughout Judea, his coming, and the principles of his gospel.

The delivery of the Sermon on the Mount is, probably, the most striking example of moral courage, which the world has ever seen. Every sentence was loaded with meaning, and so concisely and energetically expressed, that the sentiment could neither be misunderstood nor forgotten.

By this discourse, containing, as it does, so plain and specific an exposition of the false notions of religion then prevailing, the Savior must have known, that he was laying the foundation of that enmity, which was to result in his destruction.

Yet, he brought out all the distinctive features of prevailing error, and contrasted them with the pure principles of his spiritual religion, with a plainness and a point, which was exactly calculated to fix them in memory, and to circulate them most widely throughout the land.

It was always so. The plainness, the point, the undaunted boldness, with which he exposed hypocrisy and sin, and the clear simplicity with which he held up to view the principles of real piety, have no parallel. And yet he knew perfectly well, that in direct consequence of these things, a dark storm was gathering, which must burst in all its fury upon his unsheltered head.

But the enterprising and determined spirit, with which Jesus entered into his work, was not satisfied with his own personal exertions. He formed the extraordinary plan of sending out simultaneously, a number of his most cordial friends and followers, to assist in making the most extensive and powerful impression possible, upon the community. At first he sent twelve, then seventy, who went everywhere, presenting to men the simple duties of repentance for the past, and of pure and holy lives for the future.

Does God have work for us to do? Yes! There is a world to be restored to holiness and happiness, and He asks our help in doing it. 

(Adapted from “The Man Christ Jesus” by Jacob Abbott In “The Corner-Stone,” 1834)

Faith Is Reasonable #JesusFollowers

Faith is a reasonable principle. There is nothing dark, mysterious, or unintelligible in it; nothing for which he who values himself most upon the character of his reason has any cause to be ashamed.
It is not an enthusiastic principle that first gives cause to dreams and visions, and then supports itself upon imaginations of its own creating.

It is not a supernatural impression proceeding from the immediate agency of God, capriciously bestowed where He pleases to bestow it, and denied where He wills it to be denied. 

It is not an inexplicable feeling of we know not what, conceived we know not how, and cherished we know not why; it is not the persuasion of anything, whether good or evil, concerning either ourselves or any other being, taken up without reason, and maintained upon principle, that may not be duly specified and explained.

It is not a sudden irradiation of the mind, proceeding from whatever cause; it is the natural and necessary result of the principles that compose the human frame.

To a duly formed eye, show any object of the knowable world, and it is seen: to an attentive mind, propose the evidence concerning any truth that respect the invisible world, and in proportion to the strength of that evidence, it is believed. Whatever persuasion is taken up against evidence or without it, is blind presumption, or romantic imagination, and not Faith.

Faith is as much the effect of evidence, as sight is the effect of sensible impression; nor is the one more absolutely dependent on its cause, or more closely connected with it, than the other. It is a law of our nature.

What sight is in the natural world, with respect to things visible and present, Faith is in the spiritual world, with respect to things absent and invisible: to believe, on sufficient evidence, is as natural as to perceive: and in thus believing, there is nothing more unreasonable, inexplicable, or indefensible, than in seeing with our open eyes the prospect that presents itself before us.

Faith then is a principle no more peculiar to religion in general, than it is peculiar to the Christian religion in particular. Even those who are most likely to treat it with ridicule and contempt in the disciples of Christ, are themselves obliged to act upon it every day and every hour of their lives: it is the very principle which, in the ordinary affairs of life, regulates and governs by far the greater part of their thoughts, their affections, and their conduct.

Faith is the principle upon which men resolve and act; there is no other principle that has so constant and extensive an influence upon them. You cannot even go to a place where you have never been, but it is by Faith you go thither. You cannot seek a person you have never seen, but it is by Faith you seek him: the most trivial and most important actions of our lives are almost all equally dependent on it.

Even our moral conduct, in the most serious and most momentous instances, rests on Faith as its foundation. 

The objects to which our knowledge can extend are very few; when the sphere of our affection and activity go beyond these, it is Faith, not knowledge that carries out our views, our passions, and pursuits; it is Faith that directs, supports, and animates them.

Since Faith is a reasonable principle, we have no cause to be ashamed of it.

It may not be improper to observe, that however natural and just the distinction is between faith and reason, it ought not to be made without some caution and restriction.

A great part of what we ordinarily call reason, is indeed faith; and faith is itself an act of reason. To believe upon sufficient testimony, is one among many other characteristics of reason and intelligence.

If Faith is a reasonable principle, we need not be afraid of pursuing it through its consequences. 

Nothing but what is right can come of what is reasonable; it must diverted from its natural course, or corrupted by some foreign intermixture, before it can dictate or induce to what is wrong. If our Faith is the pure result of evidence, it will give us comfort, and do us honor, to show it in our works.

(Adapted from a Sermon by Rev. Newcome Cappe, 1733-1800)

In Praise of Reason #JesusFollowers

Some view Reason as opposed to God, and its use as somehow usurping, insulting or opposing Him, as if Reason was by its nature opposed to God.

But Human Reason must be seen as a gift of God, which He implanted within us for us to discover, using the other gifts which He entrusted to us.

We should never base our opinion of a thing based on a false judgement of it, or by the worst belief someone holds of it.

Human Reason can, if not truly reasonable, lead us astray. It can lead us to believe we are greater than the creator, that Reason is itself greater than that which created us, and it.

Once it’s considered to be such a thing, it is condemned, but falsely, since that’s not human Reason IS.

Reason and Faith are not opposed to one another, but are instead both necessary for us to understand God and God's will for us.

Rationality walks hand-in-hand with Spirituality. When irrational elements of religion are stripped away, we may focus clearly on the mission God's Anointed One, Jesus sends us to do.

God gave us Reason and the ability to obey Him, and Reason is a God-given gift we must use to discern His Will.

Just as we ought to not condemn someone based on others’ opinions of them – or mere rumors ABOUT them, which often are not true or are based on false assumptions, biases or slanders – we ought to assess Reason in its truest and purest form, rather than the worst assumptions about it.

Many do the same for the Religion Jesus left us. They consider all the horrific things done it its name, the abuses done to people, the wars, the complicated and contradictory doctrines – and assume them to be the highest version of that religion. Then they say, “See, these examples ARE the religion of Jesus, therefore, we must reject it.”

Such things SHOULD be rejected, but to assume that this is the True Religion of Jesus is to start with a false assumption.

It would be as if we judged a tree in autumn, with its leaves fallen out or yellow with age to be “dead,” not knowing about, or deliberately not remembering, the vibrant greens of spring.

Those who have rejected God, also often base that rejection on only the worst aspects of the Christian religion: the toxic additions of men, not the purity of its founder, Jesus.

So too, rejecting the Godly faculty of Reason, it’s been said, prepares one for worse and worse delusions. [Channing, Discourse, 1826]

The teachings of Jesus are reasonable. Jesus calls us to love God with all understanding (Matt. 15:10.) Jesus reminds us that God wishes us to “love the Lord your God with ALL YOUR MIND” (Mark 12:30.) We cannot fully love God, therefore, unless we use ALL of the understanding and knowledge God Himself gave us, and continues to give us.

Reason in fact plays a huge and important role in God’s religion, as expressed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. And just as Reason finds a place, so also is Wisdom, knowledge and understanding greatly praised by scripture, though often, as in Jesus’ time, they are degraded by men who are assumed to be “wise” in religious knowledge.

We must fully embrace the Reasonableness of the Gospel that Jesus has taught, just as the former Prophets of God testified to God’s wisdom and knowledge, which He shares with all of us when we seek it.

When Yahweh says, “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18) He expresses his desire to engage and converse with us, His creation, and make reasonable terms by which we may be His children.

In the Proverbs, we read, "By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens. By his knowledge, the depths were broken up, and the skies drop down the dew. My son, let them not depart from your eyes. Keep sound wisdom and discretion: so they will be life to your soul, and grace for your neck. Then you shall walk in your way securely. Your foot won't stumble. When you lie down, you will not be afraid. Yes, you will lie down, and your sleep will be sweet." (Proverbs 3:19-24)

We are to use our gift of Reason, just as our gifts of wisdom and knowledge, to walk in the way of Jesus, who walked perfectly in the way of God. Our feet stumble less when we adhere to the correct path, guided by these gifts.

Hearing, And Doing, IS Our Salvation #JesusFollowers

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock." (Matt. 7:24-25)

Here in Jesus’ words we see what that rock really is which is a Christian’s security in the day of his trial; namely, the attending to and following the advice and counsel that Jesus had given in the Sermon on the Mount, and doing what he had been recommending us to practice.

Jesus had been recommending to his audience the practice of moral virtue, or the conforming men’s attitudes and actions to that law or rule of action which is founded in the reason of things.

It is both hearing these sayings of Jesus AND doing them, which is (in Jesus' words) building upon a rock, and which is a Christian's ONLY security in the day of his judgement. 

It is not professing Jesus, nor calling him Lord, nor giving him the highest praises, nor is it an “orthodox faith” or its creeds, nor is it assenting to mysteries and unintelligible propositions, that are the rock a Christian may safely and securely build upon.

It is to have our minds possessed with those virtuous qualities, and our lives adorned with those worthy and virtuous actions that Jesus in the preceding Sermon [on the Mount] had been recommending, which alone can afford a just ground of hope and comfort.

Our Master goes on in verse 26: “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

Here we see what folly and madness it is for a person to make anything besides hearing these sayings of Jesus and doing them (or the practice of moral virtue) the ground of his confidence; because anything, and everything short of this would be like building a house upon the sand, which when the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon it, it would fall, and great would be the fall of it.

Whoever believes in Jesus is called upon to become a virtuous and good person; such a person will be saved, or have everlasting life. And whosoever in this sense does not believe, that is, does not become virtuous and good, but goes on in a vicious and wicked course of life, such a person will die in his sins.

It is the doing or not doing what Jesus requires, which is the ground of our safety or danger; and this is the test by which we shall be judged, according to Christ's own words.

The Gospel are to become a principle of action in the believer, and rightly direct their mind and life.

But our Master makes the case still plainer, if such a thing is necessary, in his answer to the man's question, Matthew 19:16. “What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?” This was a plain and a fair question. And the answer which Jesus returned to this important question was, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

This answer was as plain and full as the case required. The only ground of divine acceptance, that which renders us pleasing and acceptable to God, and which secures to them the happiness of another world, is keeping the commandments. 

From all which it is most evident that by the Commandments Jesus means the moral law, or that rule of action which is founded in the reason of things; and which therefore every rational being ought to direct his behavior by, and whoever makes this law the measure of his actions shall have everlasting life.

Here again we see Jesus declare that the way to eternal life, or the true grounds of divine acceptance is to keep the Commandments, by loving God and our neighbor, which is nothing else but conforming our minds and lives to that rule of action which is founded in the reason of things. 

The questions which were put to him were of the highest importance to us all, namely, what we should do that we might obtain eternal life; and he was sent out into the world that he might be a safe guide to us in this very issue, and has given us a full and true answer to those questions, plainly declaring all that was necessary for us to know and do in order to obtain eternal life. 

We may depend upon it that the keeping the Commandments, or the governing our minds and lives by that rule of action which is founded in the reason of things will most certainly render us pleasing and acceptable to God, and secure to us the happiness of another world.

(Adapted from "The Gospel of Christ Asserted," by Thomas Chubb, 1738)

The Simplicity Of #Jesus' True Religion #JesusFollowers

The Sermon on the Mount is practical and simple, uninvolved in any abstruse, remote, or novel conceptions. It expresses no ideas that amaze and stupefy, or call for careful consideration on account of their novelty. 

It is a solemn, searching declaration of the universal religion of humanity: God is holy, wise, good; blessed are you if you are pure, meek, hungering for righteousness, and living from the heart pure, useful, holy lives. This is all the doctrine there is in it; not a word about the nature of the Godhead, the fall of man, the need of the atonement, the deity of Christ, the necessity of baptism and the saving sacrament of the communion.

And, indeed, the four Gospels are all simplicity itself, so far as they give us Christ's own words. Jesus spoke the language and the truth and the religion of a simple, artless, deep-centered representative of universal humanity — true always, everywhere, and for all. There is nothing to add, nothing to abate, nothing to excuse or to explain away in his teachings.

Because they give voice to what humanity knows to be deep and holy, they hold the allegiance of those in the twenty-first, as they will those of the thirty-first century. We cannot conceive of anything about our faith that is not already in the teachings, spirit, and example of Jesus.

Jesus has taught and illustrated our faith in ways a child can understand. But it is so plain that it looks severe; so simple that it looks cold and hard, like a marble statue. Its simplicity leaves us no loopholes of escape from its commandments. It cannot be, says the weaver of subtleties, that Jesus really expected us to be what he was and make his character our example. It cannot be that he really expected us to love God with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves!

This is very simple, but it is so exacting and so hard! It is easier to believe a much more complex and inexplicable creed than to practice this very simple one. And so, not because it was unintelligible, but because it was too intelligible — not because it was uncertain, but because it was too plain — the subtlety of the Church and of the Christian world has upholstered and stuffed and cushioned and draped the simplicity of religion, until it has been made as great a mystery as an Egyptian mummy in its endless wrappings.

How much easier it is for the soul, reluctant for duty and self-sacrifice, to spend its time in high speculation about the nature of the Godhead than in plain obedience to an imperative voice of God enjoining us to shun evil and do right!

How much lighter work it is to bow when Christ’s name occurs in the creed, and to give him all the honors and worship of a God, than to keep his moral teachings and put on his meek and loving attitude! 

The simplicity of Jesus as it reveals itself in the Sermon on the Mount is often compared disparagingly with the voluminous faith of the Nicene Creed. Call that simplicity the Christian religion, which really adds nothing to the old Jewish and the older natural religion of love to God and love to man, except the example and spirit of Jesus! 

What, then, becomes of the Fall, and the Curse, and the Atonement, and the Sacraments, and the Trinity, and the Deity of Christ, and all the rest of the dogmatic paraphernalia of religion? They become invisible, like candles in the presence of the sun; they fall, like tents rich with hangings when the sky clears and spreads its own tabernacle around us.

It is the keeping of these great commandments that discloses their richness and fullness. They are simple and few. 

But live by them, and you will find that all the bodies of divinity in the world could not contain their lessons, or describe the glorious richness of their contents. If we are to have substitutes for holy living, nothing can be more effectual than hard metaphysical dogmas, or disputes about modes of worship.

To promote and exact real morality and true piety we can conceive nothing so well fitted as the simplicity of Jesus – the plain, unequivocal, uninvolved requirement of love to God, tested by love to men and active usefulness in life.

Do not allow yourselves to fall under the dominion of these sounding subtleties, these dark dogmas, these involved metaphysical puzzles that pass for religion and Christianity. They will unsettle your common sense, and befog your conscience.

It is not the unknown we can profit by, but the known. It is not the obscure, but the plain, that should have our attention.

It takes no learning, no scholarship, no formal logic, no fine-spun reasoning, to know God so far as we need to know him, as a moral governor and father of spirits; to know Jesus as a holy, gentle, and wise master and guide of character; to know our duty well enough to live chastely, truthfully, honestly, with mercy and sympathy.

And this is all we need to know to fulfil all the obligations and to reach all the blessings of religion.

The common sense view of religion, as of life, is the true view. Eccentric or exceptional views are usually erroneous. Trust your capacity to know God and to understand Jesus by directing a plain common-sense intelligence towards them.

You have no more faith than you practice, no more religion than you live out, and no Savior unless he is found in you. This is simple, plain truth. Allow no spirit of subtlety to hide or deform it.

(Adapted from a sermon by Rev. Henry W. Bellows, 1886)