The Constraining Love of God

by Terry Ivy

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What is the compelling force or impetus behind the Christian life? To outsiders or unbelievers, the answer may appear to be one of the many types of fear: fear of approval, fear of judgment, fear of rejection, etc. And sad to say, many times fear is the impetus behind the actions of believers. However, for those who have surrendered their life to the Lamb of God, the words of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians tells us what it should be.

"For the love of Christ constraineth us;" (II Cor. 5:14)

The greek word for constraineth means, "to press on every side, to hold, arrest, to compel." It is used as if a prisoner is 'held or arrested.' There is no getting away! This is what happens when we are born again through receiving the gospel. We become prisoners of the love of Christ, arrested by His compassion and truth, and held captive by the power of His great Love!

Oh, what a fresh breath of freedom in the Holy Spirit we experience when we enter into this power. Too many times we let various fears control or compel us. This produces the ultimate bondage of religious legalism! Whenever any impulse other than the love of Christ moves us, the product will not have the spirit, power or tenderness of the Lamb of God. We become talking heads with hard hearts, religious egotists with arrogant dispositions, or wild eyed fanatics with faulty doctrine.

We can check our motives very quickly by praying and asking ourselves, "Am I doing this because the love of Christ is moving me, or because of something else?" The genuine power to obey the Lord only comes from the Love of Christ pulsating in our hearts. The persuasiveness to convince others of God's truth only comes from the penetrating presence of God's Love. The freedom to walk in genuine Christian liberty only comes from the arresting force of the Love of Christ.

Let us surrender to the arresting power of Christ that we may be prisoners who are held and compelled by the power of His Love! Let us call out to Him in prayer with a fresh surrender to His marvelous Love. Also, let us refuse to allow anything other than His Love to control us. Then we can fulfill our destiny and soar like eagles!

Because of His Love,
Terry

What is Truth?

by Terry Ivy
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Jesus stood before Pilate at his trial. What a scene it must have been. Here is the Son of God standing before the cowardly leader of men. Our Lord stood there, as a lamb led to the slaughter, being questioned about the nature of truth. This had been a long night as Jesus carried the weight and sin of the world upon his shoulders in the garden of Gethsemane. Then Judas, for thirty pieces of silver, had conspired with the Pharisees to bring them to the Lord's secret place of prayer. At last, the religious leaders of the day were getting their wish. They had this miracle worker, this lowly carpenter from Galilee in the hands of the Roman Empire. Consider the scene with all of its irony and tragedy as we read this passage from John's gospel account.

"Pilate therefore said unto him, 'Art thou a king then?' Jesus answered, 'Thou sayest that I am a king. to this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.' Pilate saith unto him, 'What is truth?'..." (John 18:37-38) 

This same question haunts men of our age! With the continual promotion of postmodern thought from secular media and the modern church, we are asked this same question! So, what is the great difference between the world's philosophy and the christian worldview? It centers upon the answer to Pilate's question: What is Truth?

Thirty Pieces of Silver!

by Terry Ivy
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We all know the price. If we are familiar with the betrayal of Jesus the amount of money is burned into our minds. Thirty pieces of silver! That is the price Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for. Thirty man-made pieces of silver! Why did he do it? What did he gain? What did he give up? What is the end of the story? What about you and me?

The Scriptures teach us that the love for money is the root of all evil. (I Tim. 6:10) If you ever want to find the shady, cutthroat and underhanded reasons men do harm to others, just follow the trail of money. Jesus distilled the servitude of man down to two options: God or money. He taught that these two are mutually exclusive. It is an either/or option! One of these two options will master us!

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Matthew 6:24)

The greek word for mammon literally means, "wealth or riches." This goes with the teaching of the Apostle Paul, where he used the term "the love for money." Having money or wealth is not, in and of itself, sin. However, when the drive for riches has us, it is sin! How do we know if it has us? When our life is a constant pursuit of stuff, stuff and more stuff, or money, money and more money, it has us! Most in our society are slaves to the 'almighty dollar.' Selling the spirtual health of their marriage, their children and their personal lives just to get another dollar. Why another dollar? So they can get more stuff. It is like feeding a fire in a wood burning stove; the flame never gets enough!

"Blue Like Jazz" Book Review

by Terry Ivy
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"Blue Like Jazz," by Donald Miller, is basically a self confession by a person who is on a spiritual pilgrimage, and who is greatly confused over what the life of a Christian is all about. The honesty is refreshing, but the grasp of Christianity is both sad and lacking. Miller bounces from pillar to post along his quest to find meaning and understanding, but fails to ever investigate the biblical description of what is the spiritual reality of a genuine believer. Instead, he wallows around in his post-modern and subjective musings while attempting to present himself as a believer during the majority of this journey.

Miller presents himself as a lazy, selfish and introverted migrant. He constantly approves of several types of immoral behavior without any shame, all while claiming to belong to Christ. This book is a good representative of all that is 'out of whack' with the emergent church movement. While I applaude several of the honest observations of what is missing in much of the church world today, Miller's book offers neither a biblical solution or avenue for Godly change. He presents his own subjective and disjointed theology while bashing and looking down on historic Christian theology. In short, he sees himself as one who has discovered some new truth, while in fact, he is just presenting subjective existentialism clothed in biblical terms.

Faith and Reason (Part 2)

by Terry Ivy
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FAITH AND REASON - QUESTIONS

Please see (Part 1) before reading through this section. When we seek to understand the relationship between faith and reason, there are several questions which will arise. We mentioned this in the opening section. Let's turn our attention to some of the remaining questions which meet us concerning the compatibility of faith and reason.

1) Do faith and reason oppose each other?

No! We use reason under the illumination of the Holy Spirit to investigate the Word of God in order to come to mature and balanced truths. We use faith to submit and surrender to the truths which godly reasoning has arrived at. Through godly reasoning we do not desire to cast out any part of Scripture, for we know the Spirit and the Word are one. (I Jn. 5:7) We use the truths of God, revealed in the Bible, to come to an understanding about truth, life, meaning, purpose, direction, love and eternity. Reason protects us from embracing false teaching by bringing us to sound doctrine through biblical hermeneutics. Saving faith is when we surrender of our life to those truths!

Faith and Reason work together to protect us from extremes which lead to fanciful beliefs. If reason is unrestrained (e.g. unsubmitted to faith in God's Word and the obvious impetuses from creation and conscience), it will lead to all types of foolish and humanistic conclusions. These will include everything from denying the virgin birth of Christ to denying His resurrection. There are things 'reason' alone cannot prove or disprove, but when it considers all the evidence available, godly reason will deliver a resounding 'amen' to the truth of Christ! Therefore, faith (surrender to) in the truth of God's Word is a fail safe for reason.

Faith and Reason (Part 1)

by Terry Ivy
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Throughout church history man has struggled with the battle between faith and reason. Most struggles end with one being superior, and the other one rejected. Humanists and secularists takes 'reason,' along with sensory experience (physical evidence) as the supreme sources for discovering truth. Many religious groups take 'faith' as supreme to the exclusion of reason. The former gets locked away into an intellectual constipation of sorts, ultimately denying the totality of the design of man. While the later yields to emotional and subjective non-sense with a 'make it up as you go,' religious paradigm.

We must tackle several questions when looking at this subject. What is faith? What is reason? Do they oppose each other? Are they compatible? If so, how? Can they work together to avoid both extremes which takes place when one is upheld at the exclusion of the other? Are there limits to reason? Are there limits to faith? We must properly understand the place of both faith and reason within our perception faculties before clarification concerning their relationship can be stated.

Reasons to Believe (Part 2)

by Terry Ivy
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The next 'reason to believe' which can open dialogue with unbelievers, is the question, "How do you explain the observable order of the universe?" After discussing the 'existence' of the universe and what necessarily follows from that fact in Part 1, we will now turn our attention to the 'order' of the universe. This topic is involves the "teleological argument for the existence of God."

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THE UNIVERSE HAS ORDER

Upon a casual observation of our universe, we see there is an order which continues day by day and year by year. We see order in weather, seasons, time and life. From this observation, which is evident to every normal, reasonable and honest man, comes a simple question to ask men of our generation for the purpose of starting a dialogue.

How Do You Explain the Order of the Universe?

This is a question which demands attention by those in our society who refuse to consider the ultimate reality of the existence of God. Anyone can look around and observe the order which exists in the universe. The simple act of setting an alarm clock to awaken us in the morning is a capitulation to this fact. We set the clock because we know that a certain hour arrives at the same time each day-that is order! The seasons throughout each year also point to order as well as the astrological signs, plant and animal life.

Living Apologetics!

by Terry Ivy
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Apologetics can come across on a very dry or academic level. However, as far as Christianity is concerned, it should be one of the most living, exciting and helpful realities known to man. In fact, it will be if we recognize and adhere to several facts.

1. Apologetics - Sound Doctrine

Certainly, for believers, apologetics is the verbal defense and explanation of the Christian faith. The word comes from the greek word, "apologia" as used in I Peter 3:15, and is translated "answer." So, we see, that apologetics is about giving the answers to the questions about our faith. Therefore, Christian Apologetics (CA) involves the right ordering of the doctrines of Christianity in a coherent and systematic fashion. I cannot over emphasize the fact that we should proclaim Christianity with sound doctrine. Much of the confusion we see in the modern church is a result of unbalanced and/or unbiblical doctrines. This point alone should be exciting to believers, that is, to discover balanced truths from God's Word in order to properly understand His character and our position in Christ.

Reasons to Believe (Part 1)

by Terry Ivy
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Are there sufficient reasons for man to believe there is a God, if he does not accept the Bible as God's Word? Yes! More and more in the age we are entering today, the Bible is being set aside by those in society. We easily see this all around, from the youth of our day, to those in the market place and in academia. Where do we go in conversation? To start with the Scriptures is the last place to begin, for that is not a common ground for conversation with them.

As Christians, we can go on their turf, appeal to the reasons available to all men, and begin a dialogue with men of the world. If their hearts are seeking truth, there are plenty of areas of dialogue for those who presently reject the Bible. Paul and the early believers faced this alot in their day, and we will face it more and more in ours. If we insist on telling them what "the Word of God" says, when they do not even believe there is a God, we will only be talking to ourselves.

Our understanding in this day must go outside the small minded presentation of truth so many of us have. We must allow the Lord to make us wise in communication as we pray for lost humanity. There are plenty of areas to engage the men of this world with before we attempt to share the Scriptures. What are some of the 'reasons to believe' which we can appeal to when conversing with unbelievers who are not sure God exists? In this first part of 'Reasons to Believe,' will be look at questions which concerings the existence of the universe along with several secondary questions.