• Tag Archives amazing grace
  • REINDEER / RABBITS and REDEMPTION

    My dear friend, who led my father to the Lord many years ago, poster the following:
    REINDEER / RABBITS and REDEMPTION

    Christmas, Easter
    Amazing Grace
    Days for everything
    Measuring time
    Holidays, holy days
    Birthdays, parades
    Let’s pretend,
    Don’t tell the kids
    A game
    Things rule,
    Want reigns
    Entertain me
    Technology galore
    No relief
    Tired minds!

    To and fro
    Fro and to
    Going nowhere
    Malls full
    Things galore
    People grazing
    Reindeer and gifts
    Rabbits and baskets
    Stuff goes fast
    Nothing lasts
    Glad to sad
    Life’s endless cycle
    Bored empty hearts
    Lost in the void
    Troubled lives
    Real pain!

    Amazing grace
    Love and hope
    Hunger for meaning
    Desiring the eternal
    Reindeer, rabbits
    Can’t satisfy the heart
    Grace and peace
    Life from the designer
    GOD sent His Son
    Father wears skin
    Jesus His name
    Greatest of Gifts!

    Flying reindeer
    Bearded round men
    Gifts galore
    Rabbits, colored eggs
    Sweet goodies
    A lowly donkey
    Carries a servant King
    Hands scarred by nails
    Offering hope
    A cross
    Love and forgiveness
    A second chance
    An empty tomb
    He is risen
    New life forever!
    RISEN INDEED 24/7

     


  • Is it true Jesus never addressed same-sex marriage?

    My dear friend, Danny Akin, recently wrote the following article that you might find very interesting and useful.

    Danny AkinWAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP) — Today it is popular among those promoting same-sex marriage to say that Jesus never addressed the issue, that He was silent on the subject.

    Those who affirm the historical and traditional understanding of marriage between a man and woman often are admonished to go and read the Bible more carefully. If we do so, we are told, we will see that Jesus never addressed the issue. So, the question that I want to raise is, “Is this assertion correct?” Is it indeed the fact that Jesus never addresses the issue of same-sex marriage?

    When one goes to the Gospels to see exactly what Jesus did say, one will discover that He addressed very clearly both the issues of sex and marriage. He addresses both their use and misuse. And, as He speaks to both subjects, He makes it plain that issues of the heart are of critical importance.

    First, what did Jesus say about sex? Jesus believed that sex is a good gift from a great God. He also believed that sex was a good gift to be enjoyed within a monogamous, heterosexual covenant of marriage. On this He is crystal clear. In Mark 7 Jesus addresses the fact that all sin is ultimately an issue of the heart. Jesus was never after behavioral modification. Jesus was always after heart transformation. Change the heart and you truly change the person.

    Thus, when He lists a catalog of sins in Mark 7:21-22, He makes it clear that all of these sins are ultimately matters of the heart. It is the idols of the heart that Jesus is out to eradicate. Among those sins of the heart that often give way to sinful actions He would include both sexual immorality and adultery (Mark 7:21). The phrase “sexual immorality,” in a biblical context, would speak of any sexual behavior outside the covenant of marriage between a man and woman. Therefore, Jesus viewed pre-marital sex, adultery and homosexual behavior as sinful. And, He knew that the cure for each is a transformation of the heart made possible by the good news of the Gospel. The Gospel changes us so that now we are enabled to do not what we want, but what God wants. Here we find real freedom and joy.

    Second, what about the issue of marriage? Is it truly the case that Jesus never spoke to the issue in terms of gender? The answer is a simple no. He gives His perspective on this when He addresses the issue in Matthew 19:4-6. There, speaking to the institution of marriage, Jesus is clear when He says, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” That Jesus was committed to heterosexual marriage could not be more evident. A man is to leave his parents and be joined to a woman who becomes his wife. This is heterosexual marriage. That He also was committed to the permanence and fidelity of marriage is clear as well.

    So, how might we sum up the issue? First, Jesus came to deliver all people from all sin. Such sin, He was convinced, originated in and was ultimately a matter of the heart. Second, Jesus made it clear that sex is a good gift from a great God, and this good gift is to be enjoyed within heterosexual covenantal marriage. It is simply undeniable that Jesus assumed heterosexual marriage as God’s design and plan. Third, Jesus sees all sexual activity outside this covenant as sinful. Fourth, it is a very dangerous and illegitimate interpretive strategy to bracket the words of Jesus and read into them the meaning you would like to find. We must not isolate Jesus from His affirmation of the Old Testament as the Word of God nor divorce Him from His first century Jewish context. Fifth, and this is really good news, Jesus loves both the heterosexual sinner and the homosexual sinner and promises free forgiveness and complete deliverance to each and everyone who comes to Him.

    John 8 tells the story of a woman caught in adultery. The religious legalists want to stone her, but Jesus intervenes and prevents her murder. He then looks upon the woman and, with grace and tenderness, tells her that He does not condemn her. Then He says to her, “go and sin no more.” In Matthew 11:28 Jesus speaks to every one of us weighed down under the terrible weight and burden of sin. Listen to these tender words of the Savior, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” This is the hope that is found in Jesus. This is the hope found in the Gospel. Whether one is guilty of heterosexual or homosexual sin, one will find grace, forgiveness and freedom at the foot of the cross where the ground is always level.

    When I came to fully trust Jesus as my Lord and Savior at the age of 20, I determined that I wanted to think like Jesus and live like Jesus for the rest of my life. When it comes to sex I want to think like Jesus. When it comes to marriage I want to think like Jesus. That means I will affirm covenantal heterosexual marriage. It also means loving each and every person regardless of their lifestyle choices. It means, as His representative, proclaiming His Gospel and extending the transforming grace of the Gospel to others that takes us where we are, but wonderfully and amazingly, does not leave us there. That is a hope and a promise that followers of Jesus gladly extend to everyone, because we have been recipients of that same amazing grace.

    Daniel Akin is president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.