How To Love The Lord Your God

24 December, 201623 December, 2016Marissa

Jesus told us “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment” (Mark. 12:29-30).

Even though this commandment forms the basis of all other commands and is most important for us to remember and obey, it can also be easy to overlook. It sounds so simple: “Love God, check. Yup. I’m good.” But Jesus went into more detail than just “love God.” He started out by reminding us Yahweh is echad. He is united, preeminent, and the only one worthy of the title Lord.

With that reminder in place, Jesus goes on to quote an Old Testament passage telling us how to love God. The way we should love our Lord isn’t left up to our imagination or emotions. We’re told what we’re supposed to do.

With All Your Heart

As today, most people in Jesus’s day didn’t just think of the heart as a muscle pumping blood. It was seen as the “seat of emotions” and the core of your “inner man” (labab, H3824). In Greek, kardia metaphorically referred to the “center of all physical and spiritual life” and the “fountain and seat of thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors (G2588, Thayer). That’s the first way we’re supposed to love God — with all our emotions, thoughts, and yearnings that come from the very core parts of who you are inside. Read more →

Our Feelings Don’t Define God’s Truth

17 December, 201617 December, 2016Marissa

“Do what feels right.” “Follow your heart.” That’s the sort of advice we’ve steeped in living in Western culture. Problem is, that’s not really good advice. Sometimes your heart is wrong. Sometimes what feels good isn’t right.

Speaking more specifically to Christians, one of the hard truths we need to learn is that something can feel okay to you yet still be a sin in God’s eyes. Just because you’re okay with something doesn’t mean God is. And, on the flip side, your dislike of something doesn’t make it a sin. In short, how we feel does not define God’s truth.

God defines truth. Those truths are contained in His word (John 17:17), His law (Ps. 119:142), and His commandments (Ps. 119:151). Either you accept His standards as the basis for truth, or you’re not a Christian. You might be a decent sort of person on the whole, but you’re certainly not a follower of Christ. The Bible is our main link with God. It’s how He has revealed Himself to us. Rejecting the standards outlined in God’s word means we reject His mind and block the Spirit’s work to enlighten and transform us.

A Simple Test

Accepting an outside source as our ultimate authority doesn’t sit well with modern society. We tend to focus on individual freedom and self expression to the exclusion of objective morality. But the Bible says “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord” (Jer. 17:5). A heart following its own desires is moving away from God.

Don’t Hate Me For Rejecting Your Holiday

12 December, 201612 December, 2016Marissa

The season touted as “the most wonderful time of the year” is my least favorite. I’ve found a few things I can appreciate about December (BBC specials, Star Wars film releases, Hanukkah, sales on baking ingredients). But mostly the unrelenting holiday cheer blaring from radios and dripping from public locations tries my soul.

Even though I don’t keep Christmas I try not to be a Grinch about it (which, by definition, means a person “who is mean-spirited and unfriendly” and “spoils or dampens the pleasure of others”). If you wish me a “Merry Christmas” I’ll just smile and thank you. I might even appreciate it because I understand the sentiment behind your greeting. I’m certainly not going to launch into a rant about how much Christmas offends me or how insensitive you are to assume everyone keeps Christmas.

But for some reason, not enjoying/keeping Christmas horrifies some people. In an age where people go nuts if someone tries to “cram your religion down my throat,” you can still be shamed for not keeping Christmas. And I think that’s weird.

Here’s one example of people “grinch-ing” someone for not being Christmassy enough. Yesterday I saw an article from Young Conservatives critiquing the fact that the Obama’s final White House Christmas card doesn’t feature the White House and wasn’t explicitly Christmas related. “It’s basically a ‘Holiday’ card,” they wined, “because writing the word ‘Christmas’ would hurt too many feelings.” Apparently, their feelings were hurt by the leader of a very diverse country trying to cover all the winter holidays observed by the people he’s leading.

It’s not just articles from biased political sites about public figures. It’s the unrelenting Christmas music for a full month on the radio. It’s the pressure to enjoy the decorations and participate in the “spirit of Christmas.” It’s when you say don’t keep Christmas and someone shoots back “Couldn’t you just go caroling?” or “Don’t you love Jesus?”

I don’t really deal with much pressure to keep Christmas. Most of the people I attend church with don’t keep Christmas either (a few Messianics do, but most people I know gave up Christmas when they discovered God’s holy days). When people ask, I’ll explain why I don’t keep Christmas. Mostly, though, I just try to ignore it. But I still see people, mostly online, talking about Christmas and shaming those who don’t get into the seasonal spirit. I don’t care if you want to keep Christmas. I’d just like a little space peacefully not keep it without being bombarded with holiday cheer that makes me feel anything but merry.

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Grace To Build An Ark

10 December, 20162 June, 2017Marissa

When we think of “grace” we typically throw out definitions like “unmerited favor,” “free gift,” and “unearned salvation.” And those concepts are certainly included in the meanings of the Hebrew chen (H2580) and Greek charis (G5485). Both words translated “grace” are about good things we don’t deserve being graciously given to us by God.

But we also tend to make assumptions about God’s grace that aren’t necessarily found in scripture. For example, we assume that because the favor is unearned there aren’t any expectations laid on those who accept it. We think because the gift is free it can’t be revoked, rejected, and/or lost. We project cultural and traditional assumptions onto scripture that can cloud the meaning.

Several weeks ago, a Messianic Rabbi gave what’s probably the best message I’ve ever heard on grace (click here to listen to it). My goal in this post isn’t to share his entire message, but to narrow-in on one of the points he made that really captured my attention.

Saved By Grace

The very first time we see the word “grace” in the Bible is in reference to Noah. At this time, God looks down from heaven and sees “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). For that reason, God chose to bring judgement on the earth in the form of a flood. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen. 6:6). Read more →

Are You Who You Say You Are?

26 November, 201626 November, 2016Marissa

If we say we’re followers of Jesus Christ, there are certain things we should, nay, we must do. As we talked about last week, there are observable markers of being someone who follows God — things we should be able to notice when we examine ourselves. Those things are inseparably connected with Christ’s presence in us.

There is plenty of freedom within the perfect law of liberty, but there are absolutes as well. God is highly personal and He’ll work with you on a personal level. That does not, however, mean He has different requirements for how different people follow and worship Him. He’s also a just God who is not inconsistent in His commandments, laws, and expectations. We might have different understandings of what God expects, but as we grow toward God we should also be growing in unity as we understand His mind more fully. There isn’t one law for you and one law for me. There’s just God telling us all to walk in His ways.

Love + Obedience + Indwelling

John begins both his gospel and his first epistle with a focus on Jesus Christ’s role as the Word of life. Then, in the epistle, he focuses on how we can have fellowship with this great Being and His Father. We must “walk in the light as He is in the light,” “confess our sins” so He’ll forgive us, and then keep His commandments (1 John 1:5-2:3). We cannot claim to know God unless we’ve keeping His word and walking as Jesus walked (1 John 2:4-6). God wants us to be part of His family and that means becoming like Him (1 John 3:1-2). Read more →

Watching Your Spiritual Condition

19 November, 201618 November, 2016Marissa

We’re each getting closer to the time when we’ll stand face-to-face with God. At that time, “each of us shall give account of himself to God” for the way we lived our lives, including “every idle word” spoken (Rom. 14:12; Matt. 12:36-37). How we conduct ourselves now matters to God.

click to read article, "Watching Your Spiritual Condition" | marissabaker.wordpress.com — Photo credit: “Watching Sunset,” CC BY via Flickr

If we’re in His family, then our time of judgement has already begun (1 Pet. 4:17). God is determining right now who will end up in His family by calling whom He wills, choosing those who respond, and then watching to see who remains faithful (Rev. 17:14). His mercy is unfailing and God is ever ready to forgive those who repent, but the simple truth is that He won’t have the sort of people in his family who chose to reject His teachings on how to live our lives. When God tells us how to live, it actually matters to Him that we listen.

Be a Growing Person

In his second letter, Peter talks about Christ’s approaching return and the day of judgement. He asks an important question: “What manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness”? (2 Pet. 3:11). Even in the question, we start to get an answer. The type of person we should be involves holy conduct patterned after God’s example. Peter goes on, counseling, “be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless” (2 Pet. 3:14). Read more →