Greater Glory

"Many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God." (John 12:42-43 ESV)

"For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God."  That really sums up the reason we do a lot of the things that we do.  Romans 1:22-23 says "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creepy things."  It's so easy for us to give up the truly wonderful thing that is more intangible and abstract, for the counterfeit that we can see and feel and experience right now.  The problem is, the counterfeit eventually leaves us empty and unsatisfied.  It pleases for a moment, but is then revealed for what it truly is.  But it's such a temptation.

So how do we combat this?  We do what Paul said in Collosians 3: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.  Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.  Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."  (Colossians 3:1-17 ESV)

Life can be a constant battle between focusing on the temporal or the eternal.  Let's not lose that battle by settling for lesser pleasures.  There is no greater satisfaction than getting to know the God who made us.  And this comes primarily through reading His word, which is His revelation to us.  If you want to get to know Him, go to the source.  He wrote the book for you.  Open to John 1 (about 3/4 through the Bible), and just start reading.  When you finish John, just keep going.  You will be amazed at how your life is changed.

Freedom to Die

It is amazing how faithful the Spirit of God is in His ministry of interpretation, conviction, and teaching.  About 8 hours after writing the rough draft of what you will read below, I was studying the same passage again and it hit me at a whole different angle.  In short Romans 14 and 15 in context is a call for us to bear with the weakness of less mature believers and build them up where they are at, instead of being intolerant of the weakness and expecting them to be in the same place we are spiritually.  (This is not implying there is some line separating the weak and the strong, for they are relative terms.  For each one of us there are weaker brothers/sisters and there are stronger brothers/sisters.)  This truth hit me straight between the eyes and deeply convicted me, for there are specific situations in my life where I have been called to grace and selflessness but am currently living in intolerance and condemnation.  This is the aim of the author, and the way (I believe) these chapters should be properly understood.  The direction I am going below is not the aim of the author in this passage, but a truth that is mentioned that helped me connect some other things I have been studying.  Below is simply a culmination of it all…

The past couple of weeks have been difficult for me.  I have struggled to spend my full time in the word every day, and when I have I’ve been distracted.  I also haven’t spent as much time as I usually do with brothers encouraging me in the Word, challenging me, and holding me accountable.  As always happens when I am not solid in my daily reading, every day has seemed like a torturous battle between my flesh and the Holy Spirit living inside of me.  Trying to live life as a Christian in your own power (the power of your flesh) is arguably the most miserable and futile way to live.  When you are not empowered by the Spirit through soaking your mind and spirit in God’s word, pouring your heart out to Him in prayer, and spending time with other God-loving believers, you are dead in the water.

I was reading Romans this morning and an awesome truth jumped out at me that connected a lot of other truths I knew, but now make sense in a new way.  This is in the context of ch 14 where Paul is talking about not judging others according to the freedom you have received in Christ pertaining to grey areas, and to not cause a weaker brother/sister to stumble by partaking in those areas of freedom in their sight if they feel differently than you about it.  (A modern day example would be if you feel you have the freedom to drink a small amount of alcohol, and you’re with a brother/sister who feels it would be a sin to do so, you shouldn’t do it in their presence because that would be a stumbling block for them.)  That thought brings us to our current text: Romans 15:1-7…

“We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.  For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written,  'The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.'  For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.  May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”

The part that really hit me is in verse 1:  “and not to please ourselves” which goes back to “have an obligation”.  In short, we do not have an obligation to please ourselves.  Sounds like a silly little thing, but it made a lot of connections for me about what it means to be a slave to Christ and free from sin.  Romans 6:12-23 says “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.  Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.  For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.  What then?  Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!  Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.  For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As humans, we are all slaves to something.  1 John 3:10 says “by this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”  We are either children of God or children of the devil, there is no other option.  We are all born children of the devil, and the only way we can become children of God is by placing our faith in Christ Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins, to take our punishment for our wrongdoing so that we don’t have to.  The rest of this post will be speaking to those who have done that.  If you are not sure if you have, or if you have not and would like to, please read my previous post “How Good Am I” and/or call me right now at 708-257-9214 so we can walk through that together.

When we were children of the devil and slaves to our sin, we were just that: slaves to our sin.  We did not have a choice but to continue down that same road of wrongdoing.  Now that we have been redeemed we no longer are under obligation to follow our sinful desires.  Our only obligation is to pursue the God who created us and saved us, and who continues to sanctify us day by day.  This is such a freeing truth that we now only sin when we choose to, when we choose to turn away from the God who loves us and go back to wallow in the mud.  When we are pursuing Him, and finding our satisfaction in Him there is no longer that empty hole that we try to fill with other things.  And therein lies the power to overcome temptation.  The reason that I go through seasons of such struggle, and the reason we as believers can be caught in this same cycle of sin and repentance, is that we do not fully understand, or we are choosing not to partake in the satisfaction that God offers.  And this satisfaction is only found in a life of pursuing God.  If there is anything in your life that you pursue more than God, it has taken the place of God in your heart, and is what the Bible refers to as an idol.  Many things can be idols in our lives: drugs, alcohol, money, possessions, lust, relationships, religion, rituals/traditions, fun, food, family, children, spouses… you name it, and it can take the place of God.  Here’s a good test to see what, if any, idols there are in your life.  In what areas do you spend the majority of your money?  Are they on things that serve God, yourself, or something else?  What things do you spend most of your time doing?  Pursuing God, or pursuing something else?  A good way to find what takes first place in your heart is to ask yourself what is the first thing you would do if/when you have free time?  Do you want to spend the extra time reading the Bible or watching tv or doing something else?  Very convicting questions for all of us, but my point is, if we are struggling with the same old sin, year after year, the problem is not that God is not powerful enough or even that we are obligated to please the flesh, the problem is we are not tapping into the source of power, and we are choosing our flesh over God by not pursuing Him the way we would if we really understood the satisfaction that only He can give.  This is where I have been.  But today is the day of change.  I ask that you would take the following challenge with me: if your answers to the questions above are not God-honoring, as mine have not been, identify the idols in your heart and go to war with them.  Drastically decrease the time you spend on those things and replace them with time getting to know God by reading His word.  Our hearts will resist, but it is necessary in cultivating a heart that loves God.  If we discipline ourselves to do this, we will find ourselves craving the goodness of God that He showers on those who pursue Him.  As we become more and more satisfied in His word, we will want nothing more than to spend time with Him.  Every day is a spiritual battle, and we need to start making some drastic decisions and changes, and not just keep wishing things were different.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping to get a different result.  Let’s make the change today!  Please call or email me so that we can do this together (708-257-9214  mdeezyh2@yahoo.com).  God Bless You.

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.”  (Psalm 1:1-3)

“Whom have I in heaven but you?  And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”  (Psalm 73:25-26)

How Good Am I?

A few weeks ago, we took a family vacation to the Northwoods of Wisconsin.  One day, my brother Kyle and I decided to go into town and play some basketball.  We are average basketball players at best.  But that day we met someone truly exceptional, at least that’s what he would tell you.  He dubbed himself “the white Lebron James”.  For the few of you who have never heard of Lebron James, he’s one of the best basketball players alive.  Now James was very outspoken about his excellence.  He was convinced that his skill level was head and shoulders above everyone else.  The only reason he is not currently in the NBA, he said, is because he has not met the right people.  Despite the warnings of our demise, Kyle and I decided to play two-on-two with James and his friend.  Immediately preceding the contest, we overheard James telling his teammate the game plan: “Just get the ball to me and I’ll run circles around these guys.”  We decided not to play make-it take-it until after point 4 to make sure there was no run-away advantage.  So we played a rather quick game.  Final score?  11-0, our victory.  Though the score is entirely lopsided, it still does not do justice to how bad the white Lebron James was beaten.  He of course blamed every defensive mishap on his teammate, because he was too good to make a mistake.  Reality and his self-perception were far-removed from each other in every way.  He was terrible at basketball.  True story.
How could someone be so confident yet so far removed from reality?  The answer was clear to me.  James grew up in a small town playing basketball with his friends.  He never played someone who was good at basketball.  Everyone he played was even worse than him, which led him to believe he was pretty darn good.  After all, he won most games he played.  He was the best in his town.  He would watch Lebron James on TV beating everybody else, so the connection was obvious.  The problem was, unlike the real Lebron James, James was simply the best of the worst.  Once he was exposed to even mediocre basketball players, his false perceptions were shattered.

We are all “the white Lebron James”.  To call any human “good” is ludicrous, but we do it every day because we are using a relative standard.  We look around and see all of the evil in the world and think “I’m really not that bad after all.  I’ve never killed anyone, or intentionally hurt anyone.  I try to do good when I get the chance.  Surely God looks upon me with favor.”  The problem is, like James, we are the best of the worst.  Let’s look at it another way.

Would anyone criticize a judge for putting a proven child-molesting murderer in prison?  No one in their right mind would.  Why is there no gray area?  Because that man is so far from our standard of goodness that we have no problem condemning him.  Any rational person would admit that they are not perfect.  So in a sense this is the imperfect condemning the more imperfect, and it is perfectly just.  So what is the greater chasm, between the imperfect and the more imperfect, or between the perfect and the imperfect?  We raise our fists at God’s judgment because we think we are good, but we are not measuring with God’s standard.  God’s standard is perfection, and His righteous wrath is rightly poured out on the imperfect, in a similar way to the judge’s wrath being poured out on the criminal.  The bad news is, we are all in the same boat.  As the imperfect, we are all justly condemned to hell.  This is our sentence.

Why, you ask, can’t God just overlook our sin?  He must understand.  Give us a break!  I mean we were born like this.  We can’t help it!  You are right in that we can’t help it.  We were all born sinners.  But let’s look at the example of the judge and the proven criminal again.  What if the judge were to say to the proven child-molesting murder, “you know what, it’s obvious that you committed these heinous crimes, but I think you should get another chance.  I’m going to let you go free.  Just try not to do it again.”  There would be absolute outrage throughout the community and anywhere this case was heard of.  There would be calls for the judge himself to stand trial, because he has neglected justice, and is obviously not a righteous judge.  It is the same with God, except more so.  God is righteous, and cannot overlook sin.  He is fully just and cannot neglect justice.  We all stand rightly condemned.  We all have sins that need to be paid for.

The situation is bleak, but there is good news.  God cannot violate his justice, but He also loves us, and wants to restore us to right relationship with Him.  So He provided payment for our sins the only way He could, by the sacrifice of His perfect son.  If we turn from our sin to follow Him, the just payment of God’s wrath for our sin can be turned away from us and put on His son Jesus Christ, which took place on the cross.  What a sacrifice!  Can you imagine subjecting your only son to ultimate suffering and death?  This was the absolute last resort for God.  To say that there is another way is a complete slap in the face to God.  Why would he subject His son to such suffering if it was not the only way to forgive our sin debt?  No good parent would do such a thing unless it was the last possible option.

Yet, despite this incredible sacrifice from God, many choose to continue rebelling against God in their hearts.  In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus gives a picture of the grim reality that most people will choose to reject God’s gift to them and pay for their own sins.

Don’t pay for your own sins by living a meaningless, unfulfilling life and then spending eternity suffering in hell.  Romans 2:5 says “because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”  Three times in Hebrews chapters 3 and 4 it says “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”  “Now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2b).  If you die today, are you paying for your sins, or have you put them on Christ?

Repent.  Turn away from your sin, and place your trust in Christ.  He calls us to give Him our entire life.  Upon putting your faith in Christ, you receive the promised Holy Spirit to live in you.  This is not about anything you do.  It is about submitting to God, and then allowing Him to live through you.  When you give everything up to Him, this is what happens.  It is the only life worth living.  No longer spend your life seeking the meaningless pleasures of this world that please for a short time and then fade away.  And in an even more dangerous scenario, do not spend your life trying to earn God’s favor, because you cannot.  If you had the capacity to earn God’s favor, he would not have subjected His son to punishment and death.  Enjoy your life in the satisfying relationship with God that you were created for.  A great place to start is by reading the book of John.  It’s about ¾ of the way through the Bible.

If you feel God tugging at your heart, trust in Him today.  It’s not about believing in your head, for “even the demons believe, and shudder!” (James 2: 19b), it’s about trusting your entire life to Him.  If you think you may have done this, but are not sure, read the book of 1 John near the end of the Bible.  It gives a clear description of what the believer’s life does and does not look like.  The works we do as believers do not earn us any credit with God, they are simply a result of us putting our faith in Him.  So if you don’t see God working in your life, turn from your sin and put your trust in Him today.

If you want to know more, or have any questions, please call me right now at 708-257-9214.  I don’t always get reception so leave me a message if you get my voicemail.  You can also email me at mdeezyh2@yahoo.com.  Thank you for reading, and God Bless.

Introduction

Thank you for checking out my blog.  I have never done this before, so bear with me :)  My goal through this blog is to share scripture that God has been speaking to me through.  I often make posts on Facebook, but this seems like a more appropriate forum, in that I will have more than 250 characters to explain what the Lord is teaching me.  I'll start with this short introduction of myself, and will make my first official post within the next few days.  I also encourage conversation, so please post below with any questions or comments you may have.

My name is Matthew Hagemann and I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.  I work as a software engineer to pay the bills.  At home I have a wife, Laura (married 7 yrs), and two sons, Caleb (4 yrs old) and Joshua (1 yr old).  I love the Word of God, and have a passion for sharing it, and teaching people how to properly interpret the text for themselves.  I graduated from Ravencrest Bible College in 2004 with two certificates, one in Biblical Studies, and one in Leadership Training, and have led corporate worship for 12 years (3 years vocationally).  I came to know Christ almost 20 years ago, and my walk has been marked by gradual growth from then on.  These past 2 years have been a new season of growth for me, in which I have felt a special calling of complete abandonment to the Lord, and have grown much deeper in my relationship with Him.  Two things that have really accelerated this growth have been spending extended time in His Word, and spending a lot of time around solid brothers in Christ, mentoring and being mentored.  I have a deep passion for discipleship, and believe that this is the primary way through which God intends to grow the church.  Yes, through sharing the gospel, but it is much more than just a passing witness.  It is coming beside others and helping them grow deeper in knowledge and depth of insight, and helping them cultivate a heart that loves God and His Word.  The Christian life was never intended to be lived alone.  We (the Church) were built to function as a body.  We're yoked together to love, encourage, help, keep accountable, teach, learn from, and even (when necessary) rebuke each other.  We are His bride, and He has a special purpose for us as a whole: to share His light with the world.  Let's do this thing together!