As we continue to progress into the new year of 2013, several things keep coming to mind. Foremost in my mind is how glad I am to be a child of the King, the most High God, who sent His Son Jesus to be the author and finisher of my faith and who has kept me safe, energizing and taking care of me long after I was told by medical science I would be lucky to live to be 25. Should the Lord be willing, I will be 63 this year.
Next is how fortunate I am to have a wife who, loves me and cares for me in the manner Proverbs 31:10-31 describes; one that fears the Lord. I have truly been blessed beyond measure by her.
Next would be disheartening, were it not for my faith in the fact the footsteps of the righteous are ordered of the Lord and that He has everything under control. I’m really bothered by the seeming inability of the church to separate or even see the need to separate itself from battling evil using worldly means. (Wee 2 Corinthians 10:3-5.)
I’ve read the Bible through. I’ve read many of the early church fathers’ writings and I can’t find examples in the Scriptures or their writings where proclaiming God hates sinners wins souls to Christ. In fact, I’ve found quite the opposite to be true, the more the church demonstrates hate, the less the lost wants to do with the church because even the most hardened sinner knows the church is to demonstrate the love of Christ by their actions.
The saddest part is were it true, that God hates sinners (of any kind) everyone would be damned for eternity for if God hates sinners, Christ would never have died for us, because Christ dying for us is a result of God’s LOVE for ALL mankind. That is, unless the Scriptures are not true that say “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” John 3:16-17 and “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
At our church, we feel privileged to having our focus brought by the Lord back to the mandate of the church - to reach the lost with the Gospel, beginning with the good news that Jesus died for the sins of ALL mankind and only through faith in Him can salvation be had.
Continuing from that understanding, with the doctrines described in Hebrews 6:1-3 as the doctrines and promise of the church, we have been learning how much we have taken for granted that the lost understand what we mean by “being born again,” “being saved,” yet, as we have been learning, we don’t even understand the language we speak ourselves and we have to ask ourselves, as would the lost, if not so afraid of being told how much God hates them and their “sinful” condition - “What’s that mean?”
It’s not very comfortable most of the time, yet we have found that as the Lord continues to deepen our commitment to understanding His Word, and our willingness to obey Him, it is becoming apparent by changed lives that “God is in the House” and “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts” (Haggai 2:9) is becoming a reality - not just a dream.
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Editor’s note: Charlie Newman is pastor of Avoca Christian Church. To contact him, e-mail pastor@ pastorcharlie.net, or write in care of The Times at [email protected] or P.O. Box 25, Pea Ridge, AR 72751.
Church, Pages 2 on 06/26/2013