No Condemnation

 +Rick Blumenberg @rickblumenberg

Most Christians have heard the cliché "Hate the sin, but love the sinner." It may be a cliché but I believe that is exactly how God feels about it. 

Why does God love us so much?
He loves us because he is our Creator and like a loving mother who adores the child she brought into the world, God loves each of us, with no exceptions. But he hates the sin that hurts us so terribly. 

Why does God hate sin so much?
That is exactly why God hates sin. He hates it because of how greatly it harms his beloved children. What if your beloved son or daughter was attacked by an intruder in your home after he had bound you up so all you could do was watch and suffer vicariously? How much would that hurt? I believe that's how it always feels to God when he sees sin attacking us.

Satan is always on the attack.
Just like the intruder in my make-believe tragedy, Satan is always on the attack. The Bible says "Sin crouches at the door and it would have you" and we all know that's true. Temptation can attack at any time and if we give in to it we are always hurt by it. No doubt we bring much of our pain on ourselves by the choices we make, but God still sees us as the victim of Satan's attack. He understands that we are human and therefore vulnerable. He knows that the only way we can have victory over Satan's attacks is by trusting in His strength rather than our own. When we fight temptation in our own strength we will usually or perhaps always lose. 

So God understands and he wants to help.
He didn't plan for us to go it alone. We are only supposed to resist the devil after we draw near to God (James 4:7) But he knows we are weak, impetuous and strong-willed, so we will often try to live live on our own without Him. And that is how sin enters the picture. But God still loves us even when we sin. And like a parent who sees a child mess up and wants to help, God also wants to help. He will try to show us how we went wrong and how to do it better using the tool of conviction. But he never uses condemnation!

Condemnation is not from God
When condemnation rears its ugly head it does not come from God, but from Satan or our own guilty conscience. Romans 8:1 reminds us "...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (NIV) Condemnation does not come from God (Father, Son or Holy Spirit)  God convicts and God forgives, but God does not condemn. 

God Frees us From Sin
Rather than condemning, God convicts us of our sin and forgives our sin to set us free from it's chains. Condemnation does not come from our Heavenly Father. 

And when we condemn 
We are not being like Jesus.

I'm Rick Blumenberg and that's My View from Tanner Creek.
       

I Believe! part 2

 

I believe in the authenticity of the Church. There is only one true Church, founded by Jesus Christ and kept by his Spirit. All the redeemed are members and though often hindered by artificial walls of creedalism and denominationalism, whatever name it uses, it is still God’s church. The foundation upon which the church is built is the fact that Jesus is "the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

I believe in the Vitality of Mission. Mission is the church in action. Whether one saint alone, or many in unity, the church exists to do the work of God in and for a world that doesn’t know him. The church is not an institution. It is God in the flesh. What wind is to the atmosphere, mission is to the church.

I believe in the Reality of the Kingdom. I see the Kingdom of God as a present reality with Christ as our leader. I see Satan as an enemy who is bound and thus powerless to harm the Spirit‑filled Christian. Satan’s powers are primarily the powers of deception and those which are given him by individual persons. I believe Christ is coming again to bring Satan’s final defeat and to receive those prepared for his coming. At his coming the saints will rise to meet him and go with him to the place which he has prepared.

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.
  

The god Atheists don’t believe in…

During the recent Spring floods on the Mississippi River, when they blew the levy at Bird’s Point in Southeast Missouri, I read the comments about the event. One person, who claimed to be an atheist, wrote “What good does it do to pray to god? He is the one who sent the flood?” His point was that Christians are obviously confused about their science and theology.

That’s really bad science and, if possible, even worse theology. Anyone who understands weather knows God did not send the flood. It was a major weather event and many of us think it was made worse by human intervention—but why would we blame God for that? On the other hand and contrary to our atheist or agnostic commentor, praying for the people affected by the flood makes perfect sense for those of us who believe in the Creator God who showed his love to us in Christ Jesus and continues to show it with his loving care and companionship.

It seems to me that atheists reject the same false gods that we Christians don’t believe in either. If they knew the God we know, the One who created the heavens and the earth, and who came to earth as the Creator among his creation, in order to redeem us from the sin into which we have fallen, they would find it much easier to believe in Him. If God were like how most atheist and agnostics describe him, I wouldn’t believe in him either and I certainly wouldn’t love him.

The reason Jesus came was to help us know what God is really like. Many times the Old Testament concepts people had about God were a sort of mixture of paganism and primitive thought made firm and unyielding because those same people made them into laws, and tried to force their ideas on the people around them. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now—at least it doesn’t work to make the world a better place. But when Jesus came, we got an entirely different view of God.

Looking at Old Testament Israelites through the eyes of Jesus we can see that God’s original plan was for his people to save the world rather than conquer it, but they never seemed to understand. Jesus introduced radical new ideas like turning the other cheek and walking the second mile—ideas that were totally beyond human comprehension. If Jesus hadn’t come to demonstrate how they worked, we never would have understood them. Doing them is so much more difficult than talking about them. We needed someone, not just a teaching, but a person—Jesus, to show us how to live out such a new and different concept.

Our task as the people of God is to be Jesus to the people we meet who have never met him. We need to turn the other cheek and walk the second mile and find all sorts of ways to show people that we value them. When they grasp the fact that we really do care, we have opened the doorway of their hearts to know God, the source of all such unconditional love. We know from the Word of God that God is love. It is the nature of his being. He loves everyone, everywhere and he loves this beautiful world and universe he created. His goal is not to cast us into a devil’s hell, but to redeem us from Satan’s entrapment. He is on our side! He wants to help! That’s what Jesus came to teach us, but even the teachings of Jesus are not enough for many people—they need someone to show them how such ideas work in the everyday stress of life.

Our job is to surrender our bodies to the Spirit of God so he can reveal his unconditional love in as many ways as possible to a world of people who cannot even comprehend a God like that. However, if they can see Jesus in us, they will see God in him and by thus working together with God we can help him transform the world into a place where the unconditional love of God is shared openly across cultures and beyond human barriers, breaking down walls that divide us and helping all people on earth to live together as loving and beloved siblings in the marvelous family of God!

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.

Jeremiah's Prophecy

In Jeremiah we read a prophecy of the Christ and of the times in which we now live. The key verse is 34, which reads “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

This is a prophecy of our time—a prophecy of Christ and of the times in which we live—the time from his resurrection to his return in glory. The prophecy has not been fully fulfilled but it is our task (the task of the people of God and our privilege) to help usher in the fullness of the Kingdom of God by the prayers of the saints, the witness of the risen Christ in our lives and in our testimonies, and, by the power of his Spirit fully revealed in the life and witness of the people of God!

Sometimes our hellfire and brimstone preaching sounds as if God is rubbing his hands in glee, thinking about the time when he can cast all those lost sinners into the lake of fire. But God’s word clearly states that his desire is for our salvation and for the salvation of the whole world. The Bible clearly states that hell was prepared, not for people, but for the devil and his demons. It is no place for people and God doesn’t want anyone to go there. Only Satan desires such and sin is the only thing that will put us there—not God.

Jesus asked us to pray for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now we know that in heaven everyone loves God and lives to praise him, so if the Lord ’s Prayer is answered, that means the time should come when everyone on earth loves God and serves him with all our hearts. I’m not talking about a future millennial age—I believe this is a prophecy for this present age.

The Jeremiah prophecy in chapter 31 verses 31-34 and especially verse 34, speaks of a time when everyone will know the Lord, when God will forgive our wickedness and no longer remember our sins. This can be nothing else but a prophecy of the Christ and his present kingdom.

It would appear that God’s heart is blessed more by vibrant faith than anything else and I think the reason is that it is God’s plan, through the faith, prayers, and witness of his people, to fulfill the kingdom as he saves lost souls through Christ and in so doing, transforms society, one life at a time. He is doing that now, all over the world! What a marvelous and exciting time we live in!

Just as God has poured out his Spirit into the lives of his people who have been saved through faith in Christ, he wants this same blessing for every human being on the face of the earth. God prophesied it long ago through Jeremiah and it is our glorious privilege to live in the time when the prophecy is being fulfilled. But it is not happening as fast as it ought to be!

It is not only our privilege, but our task, and our calling, to pray, as Jesus taught us, for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. It is our privilege to be Christ’s witnesses as we live transformed by his Spirit to do good works and thus glorify our Father in heaven.

I am told approximately one-third of the people on our planet are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is marvelous when you think that Jesus began with twelve not very competent disciples only about 2,000 years ago! But it’s not good enough! God loves everyone on earth! May the prophecy of Jeremiah be fulfilled in our day and may we each be privileged to join God in what he is doing and hopefully, see this prophecy fulfilled in our lifetimes!

I'm Rick Blumenberg . . . and that's My View from Tanner Creek.