Cultivating Character

Failure in church leadership can impact the faith of others. Leadership roles come with the presumption that these leaders have figured out their own spiritual walk and can now assist others with theirs. Unfortunately, that leads others to place unmerited faith in the actions of another human being rather than God. A father once sought Jesus out to heal his son. Unfortunately for him and his son, Jesus was not available, but his disciples were. The disciples confidently, and maybe pridefully, attempted to heal the boy but were unsuccessful. This caused a bit of a commotion, but more importantly, it fueled doubt in the father so much so by the time Jesus was available the father doubted whether Jesus could heal his son. His doubt was evident when he asked Jesus to heal the boy prefacing the request with “…if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”” -Mark 9:22 NASB2020. “If you can?” Jesus said taken aback by the father’s word. “All things are possible for the one who believes...

  “You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by the Law; you have fallen from grace.” ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭4‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬ Severed is such a strong term! It invokes, for me, the image of a decapitated person because of the context. Christ is the head of the church ( see Ephesians 1:22-23 ), so to be severed from Christ is to be headless, decapitated, dead. This text is taken from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia. The apostle spent a lot of time in his letters to the churches explaining to new Christians, particularly the non-Jewish ones, the fundamentals of the gospel. This letter was no different. Apparently, the Galatians were influenced to adopt what the apostle called a distorted view of the gospel. They felt compelled to follow the law given by God to the descendants of Israel at Mount Sinai as a part of their Christian obligation. These young Christians just wanted to do the right thing and please God. They understood that to pleas...

  As a child, it was always shocking to hear that God would kill God’s own child to save the world. It didn't make sense to me that God didn't just forgive the world‘s sin without requiring a blood sacrifice, after-all God is omnipotent and could do whatever God wants. Well God didn’t require Jesus to die, humanity did. Let me explain. The Bible book of Genesis tells the story of God entering into a covenant with Abraham. The book of Exodus mentions God entering a covenant, sealed with blood, with the descendants of Israel at Mount Sinai. The covenant with Abraham was apart of God’s consideration for entering the covenant with the descendants of Israel. A covenant sealed with blood remains binding until the death of one of the parties to the covenant. Until that occurs the parties have the right to enforce the provisions of the covenant. In order to terminate the covenant between God and the descendants of Israel either God would have to die or all of the descendants of Israel....