Tag: faith | Page 2

Best of Christian Holiness Daily – Jungle Book

August 25, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

What does The Jungle Book have to do with Christian Holiness? Not much, honestly, but let me explain.

I was six years old when the original Disney flick was released and I loved it. So much did i love it that I begged my mom for the book. She brought home the Disney book based on the movie. I wanted Rudyard Kipling’s novel, but school had just started and she had spent every dime she had on clothes for three school-aged boys. So I was content for a while to relive the movie through Disney’s colorful book, and even tried to imitate the voices of Baloo, Bagheera, and Kaa, but especially Bagheera and Kaa because I knew them as Mr. French and Winnie the Pooh. (Look it up.)

I eventually got the Kipling book and was as enraptured by it as I was by the movie. I read that book a dozen times growing up. Fifty years later, though, it’s not Kipling’s book that stands out in my mind, it’s the movie. Here is why I make reference to it. The elephants. Remember? In the Disney movie Col. Hathi, the commanding elephant is a true leader, a benevolent and kind figure whom every other elephant follows.

No. I am not going to compare Col. Hathi with God. I will, however, contrast him with God. In rewatching, I realize that most of the time the elephants do not follow Col. Hathi, rather they follow the elephant that follows the elephant that follows the elephant that follows the colonel.

God never asks us to follow anyone else but His Son. Not once did Christ say, “Follow James. He is following me and I am making him a fisher of men.” He never said, “Follow John. He’s young but he’s wise in spite of his youth.”

Christ inevitably called – and still calls – every man, woman, and child to follow Him. He never calls us to follow a man who is following Him. Sure, we can learn from our pastors and teachers and Christian mentors, but we follow only Christ.

Jesus sits at the right hand of the father, and, if you have accepted Him as your Savior, His Spirit lives in your heart. He acts as our advocate. He teaches us, guides us and even prays for us when our broken spirits cannot utter a word. He preserved all things necessary for salvation and discipleship in His Holy Book, the Bible. All you have to do is follow His command when He calls you.

And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. – MARK 2:14

So… Hup two three four

Keep it up two three four

Company, sound off!
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Holiness is, perhaps, the most misunderstood concept in Christianity. Anyone who has striven to follow the life of Christ can likely tell you that it is impossible to do. No one can match His love, His grace, or His compassion. For no one but Jesus is perfect. Once the believer is filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, though, he or she is filled to the brim with the love of Christ, and desires nothing more than to please God and follow in Christ’s steps. The love of sin is gone. In its place is a love and passion for others. That is Christian Holiness. This is Christian Holiness Daily.

Roots, Deep and Wide

August 22, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

When my children were young I would often find extra work to supplement the income of my full-time job. One weekend, I agreed to clean leaves out of a yard, which led to a job the next weekend at the same location. I would be taking down a tree.

I had never cut down a tree by myself but I managed it pretty well. A few days later, the same people asked me to remove the tree stump. How hard could that be? I agreed.

I spent the next two or three weekends digging and cutting and chopping, until, at last, I was ready to tie the stump to a rope and pull it from the ground with my little Ford Courier pickup.

That did not go well. I tugged and pulled, smoking my tires, and straining my clutch, until something gave. It wasn’t the stump that I felt give. It was the rope snapping, the end of which whipped across the truck and shattered the back sliding window.

I never got that stump removed. Instead I cut it off at ground level. A few years later, shoots of green sporting fourth from that stump and began to grow. What the homeowners had thought dead was rooted so deep and so wide that it could not be removed, and it could not be killed.

Those who trust in God for their salvation are given a measure of faith that leads to discipline, compelling us to walk hand-in-hand with our Lord. Consequently, we are rooted in His love, built-up in His grace, and established in the faith. Once we understand that, we cannot help but give Him all thanks and all praise.

“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” – Colossians 2:6-7 ESV

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Best of Christian Holiness Daily: Change of Plans

August 11, 2018 by ChristianHolinessDaily

Bad enough that he was a Samaritan, an outsider, shunned, looked down upon, the dregs of society, lowest of the low. More than that, he was a leper.

Levitical law separated the leper from the rest of society; lepers lived at a distance, never again to touch their loved ones, or to speak with them intimately. Never again could they hug their children or kiss their spouse.

Leprosy is highly contagious, and is spread by skin contact and through water droplets, like a cough or sneeze or a runny nose. Leprosy attacks the central nervous system, but its symptoms appear as tumors and disfigurement of the flesh and bone. Fingers twist in unnatural ways; hands become claws, and arms and legs become useless over time. The life of a leper is a painful and sad.

Lepers suffered so greatly that people in the time of Jesus naturally assumed that the afflicted must be paying for some terrible sin. And, why wouldn’t they think that? Two thousand years later, many of us still believe that way, to some extent.

It was near the end of His ministry when Jesus, passing through an unnamed village between Samaria and Jerusalem, was called on by ten such lepers. In keeping with the Law, they called from a distance. “Master, have mercy on us!”

His answer may seem strange to us, but that is only because we don’t live under the Law. “Go, and show yourselves to the priests.” Before a leper could rejoin society, he or she must have been certified to be free of the disease by a priest.

The Bible doesn’t say for sure, but I imagine an expression or two of doubt on the faces of the lepers, and perhaps a few questions among them. Still, they obeyed Him.

And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

– Luke 17:19

The healing must have been slow and progressive, rather than instantaneous. Before the lepers arrived at the Temple or synagogue, they found themselves healed. One of them – just one – was so grateful that he turned back to thank Jesus before he had made it to see the priest.

So grateful was he that he fell at the Master’s feet and worshiped Him.

“Didn’t I heal 10 people?” said Jesus. Of course, He knew the answer. “Where are the other 9? Only one has found it in his heart to return and praise God, and He is a Samaritan.” Christ once again reminded His followers that their prejudice against their neighbors is simply wrong.

“Get up, He tells the Samaritan. “Arise and go your way. Your faith has made you whole.”

The leper’s mission had changed. Before turning around to express his gratitude to Jesus, his mission had been to go see the priests. Now, healed and made whole, he received new inductions from Christ… to go his own way.

“You are made whole.”

And, here’s my point. Those who experience a real encounter with Christ are made whole, spiritually whole; theirs lives are renewed and made complete and they simply cannot continue to go on living like they once had. They are compelled to follow Jesus. Their missions change. Christ directs them in a different direction. They receive a change of plans. Theirs hearts have changed. Their entire lives change.

Have you been made whole? If not, you only need ask. Fall at His feet and praise Jesus. Ask Him to change Your heart. Your life will change. Forever.

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