Gospel ADD

I remember watching cartoons on Saturday morning while eating my cereal and seeing one of the characters that was just put in a dilemma. You've seen them where the character has to make a choice and then *POOF* there are two figures one on each shoulder and one in a red devil outfit and the other wearing a white gown with a halo. They were trying to convince the character to either do the right thing or the wrong thing. Did you ever wonder where they cartoonist got the idea for that? Well in the book of James of course.

What is the source of the wars and the fights among you? Don't they come from the cravings that are at war within you?
James 4:1 (HCSB)

How many times per day are you bombarded by thoughts that conflict with each other? I mean that while we know that we are to be honoring God all the time and we are to put Him first in all things BUT we also have our own desires that are "at war" with holy thoughts.  All the time right!?!

I am not saying that we have bad thoughts all the time. I am saying that sometimes we have a disordered mind in that we tend to the selfishness side (or we listen to the character in the red suit on our shoulder).

Do a self test. List the top 5 things that you want to do today. Things you want to get accomplished. Things you want to acquire. Now look at your list and ask yourself where did God fall into the mix?

According to James, the war that rages in our minds as Christians is due to our desires that battle against each other. The disordered mind, or what I what dubbed it the "Gospel ADD", has both good and bad desires jumbled together with little order. This will is not in control of thinking. Therefore little tought is given to what we think about. Then our thoughts often lead to actions. Godly thoughts lead to Godly actions. Wrong thoughts lead to wrong actions.

The minds of Christ was not disordered but ordered. He controlled His thinking in such a way that only godly actions came through His life. This is one reason you and I need the mind of Christ.

You mean there's more?

Yes, there is more. Check out the other pages that we have. Feel free to comment. I'm still working on a few other things such as the "About" page for our class.
I would like to start a discussion via email on what do yall think our class is about. Mission minded? Evangelistic? Encouragers? etc...

Christ's unfathomable decision

I love the Lord's Supper. I treasure the reminder that it brings of Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross. As I was driving to work this morning, I began thinking about how undeserving we all are of God's grace and about how undeserving Christ's punishment was.

But while we talk much about Christ's ultimate act on the cross, we tend to consider less his earthly acts before that event. We should be constantly perplexed by the fact that Jesus, lord over all features of the universe in a broad sense and over each detail of our lives in a narrow sense, left His high and exalted position to seek and save a human race that, multiple times each second, rebels against His authority. The pain and heartache we experience on earth has general or specific causation to sin. Jesus came, however, with full knowledge that his pain and heartache would be due to His untainted righteousness.

As the old hymn puts it:

Man of Sorrows, what a name
For the Son of God, Who came
Ruined sinners to reclaim.
Hallelujah! What a Savior.

Guilty, vile, and helpless we;
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
Full atonement can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior.

Or as a more contemporary song poses, how many kings could ever do what Jesus did?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noz8hc8u7Xc.

Just take a moment over the next few days to thank Jesus for his amazing acts that made available our redemption.

We'll be in the third and fourth chapters of Ecclesiastes this week. Hope to see you on Sunday morning!