Month: October 2017

Lie:      Jesus’ resurrection means we will live forever in heaven.
Truth: Jesus’ resurrection means we too will be raised from the dead and signals that the new creation has begun.

God is always painting on a much bigger canvas than we can imagine and resurrection is his master stroke. But Christians normally interpret this, the watershed of all history, too narrowly. Consequently, what we’re often left with is a diluted, pie-in-the-sky sentimentality. Resurrection is typically stored away to only be dusted off briefly at Easter.
We know that the death and resurrection of Jesus is central to history and to our own Christian lives, but our limited grasp of it often dilutes the impact that it should have. We need to go deeper to really understand . . .

Lie:      I don’t need God.
Truth: Believe me, we need God.

“There is practically nothing that men do not prefer to God. A tiresome detail of business, an occupation utterly pernicious to health, the employment of time in ways one does not dare to mention. Anything rather than God.” — Francis Fénelon

You may be thinking, ‘Sure, I need God for my eternal future, to get my sins taken care of, to help me make the big decisions in life, but beyond that, to be honest, I really don’t need God.’ Maybe we wouldn’t actually admit that, or we may be a little afraid to, but truth be told . . .

Lie:      God won’t judge Christians.
Truth: All Christians will stand before the judgment seat of Christ.

Many Christians do not think that God will judge them. They cannot imagine why they, who have already received the grace and mercy of God, should need to be judged. They wrongly assume that the only divine judgment is a judgment on the unrighteous, which will end in condemnation. But that simply is not the case.
Here is Paul on the subject:
“Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. “