Conversation Pieces [Nutshell]

Conversation pieces patching smoky screens
Across the silent spaces hanging in between
Crossed lines on the telephone, you overheard
Pretending not to listen
But hearing every word
Lives laid on the tabletop for all to see
The superficial counterpane of make believe
Bottles standing empty now reflect the face
Of lives filled up with broken dreams
And empty space.

Moonshine on the water, as the ship comes in
The light upon our faces, revealing everything
Where has all the love gone Lord
Is it too late now to start
Or can your love reach tired spirits
And broken hearts.

Father you can see your children turn away
And leave you waiting open armed
Day after day
I wish that I knew better
How to show them where you are
To talk of love is easy
But to love is very hard
To sing of love is easy
But to love is very hard.


Moonshine on the water, as the ship comes in
The light upon our faces, revealing everything
We've forgotten how to love Lord
But it's not too late to start
For your love saves tired spirits
And broken hearts
Your love saves tired spirits
And broken hearts.
__________________

Love, truth, forthrightness...

Could You?.......Did You?........What Then?

If you could live your whole life to the fullest and honestly love everyone (not just LOOK like you love everyone), yes, God would have to let you into heaven...the only problem is that you've already blown your chances at a pure, holy life, because somewhere along the line, you have broken God's law:

Have you ever told a lie (or a "half-truth")? Have you ever stolen something? (I have...and I was raised by God-fearing Christian parents). Have you ever used God's name as a curse word? Have you ever hated your brother? (Jesus said that to hate someone is just the same as murdering them). Have you ever looked at a girl (or a guy) and lusted after her (or him)?...that's adultery (or fornication) Have you ever envied your neighbor's (or brother's/sister's/friend's/etc.) stuff?

If you (like me) have broken even one of these laws, you are a lawbreaker...and God doesn't let criminals into heaven - you can't make it if you've messed up just once...and if you don't make it into heaven, there is only one place left for you.

BUT...there is a way. Because God loves us humans so much, He wanted there to be a way for us to be saved ('cause by our own works, there is no way we would make it). So He sent His Son, Jesus (who didn't sin), to become human, just like the rest of us, to live a perfect life, and then to be sacrificed, so that God could forgive us.

Now, in order to make up for a sin that I've done, I would have to do over and above what God's law requires of me. But since it was hard enough to even live up to the law, it would be absurd to think that I could surpass it and do more good than the law requires...so how can my sins be forgiven, if I can't make up for them?

Jesus had not sinned even a single time...he did not have to die...but He chose to die -- this was the one thing that He could do that was over and above His duty...Jesus had to keep the law just like everyone else - He couldn't obey for us (He had to obey for himself), but since He had never broken the law, he didn't need to be punished. Jesus suffered in order to "make up" for my (and your) sins; public justice was satisfied - this means that all could see that God upholds the punishment of the law, and at the same time, was willing to forgive people who have sinned.

If you have sinned -- you have two options; you can suffer the consequences (not a pretty thought), or, thanks to God's grace (Jesus' sacrifice), you can be forgiven.

How does a sinner receive this forgiveness? It is not by trying our best to do better (we tried that already), and it is not by any merit of our own (we deserve to be punished). It is through faith in Jesus Christ...this means two things: that you believe that He died for your sins (and that He will forgive you), and you repent (this means that you stop serving yourself, and give yourself wholly to God). These two things, repent and believe, are all God requires...these are easy, and yet at the same time hard. There is no work involved (all we can do is accept the gift of forgiveness), but at the same time, we are giving our entire lives to God - we are not our own anymore.

If you have accepted God’s gift, God has said that he will give you the power to actually keep His law, so that, as a believer, you don’t ever have to sin again – “live in holiness and righteousness all the days of your life” is how the Bible puts it – and God will admit you to heaven.

How to Overcome Sin [Part 2 of 2]

[By Charles G. Finney, originally published in the Independent of New York in 1874]

All such efforts to overcome sin are utterly futile, and as unscriptural as they are futile. The Bible expressly teaches us that sin is overcome by faith in Christ. "He is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." "He is the way, the truth, and the life." Christians are said to "purify their hearts by faith" --(Acts xv, 9). And in Acts xxvi, 18 it is affirmed that the saints are sanctified by faith in Christ. In Romans ix, 31,32 it is affirmed that the Jews attained not to righteousness "because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law." The doctrine of the Bible is that Christ saves His people from sin through faith; that Christ's Spirit is received by faith to dwell in the heart. It is faith that works by love. Love is wrought and sustained by faith. By faith Christians "overcome the world, the flesh, and the Devil." It is by faith that they "quench the fiery darts of the wicked." It is by faith that they "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and put off the old man, with his deeds." It is by faith that we fight "the good fight," and not by resolution. It is by faith that we "stand," by resolution we fall. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. It is by faith that the flesh is kept under and carnal desires subdued. The fact is that it is simply by faith that we receive the Spirit of Christ to work in us, to will and to do, according to his good pleasure. He sheds abroad his own love in our hearts, and thereby enkindles ours. Every victory over sin is by faith in Christ; and whenever the mind is diverted from Christ, by resolving and fighting against sin, whether we are aware of it or not, we are acting in our own strength, rejecting the help of Christ, and are under a specious delusion. Nothing but the life and energy of the Spirit of Christ within us can save us from sin, and trust is the uniform and universal condition of the working of this saving energy within us. How long shall this fact be at least practically overlooked by the teachers of religion? How deeply rooted in the heart of man is self-righteousness and self-dependence? So deeply that one of the hardest lessons for the human heart to learn is to renounce self-dependence and trust wholly in Christ. When we open the door by implicit trust he enters in and takes up his abode with us and in us. By shedding abroad his love he quickens our whole souls into sympathy with himself, and in this way, and in this way alone, he purifies our hearts through faith. He sustains our will in the attitude of devotion. He quickens and regulates our affections, desires, appetites and passions, and becomes our sanctification. Very much of the teaching that we hear in prayer and conference meetings, from the pulpit and the press, is so misleading as to render the hearing or reading of such instruction almost too painful to be endured. Such instruction is calculated to beget delusion, discouragement, and a practical rejection of Christ as he is presented in the Gospel.

Alas! for the blindness that "leads to bewilder" the soul that is longing after deliverance from the power of sin. I have sometimes listened to legal teaching upon this subject until I felt as if I should scream. It is astonishing sometimes to hear Christian men object to the teaching which I have here inculcated that it leaves us in a passive state, to be saved without our own activity. What darkness is involved in this objection! The Bible teaches that by trusting in Christ we receive an inward influence that stimulates and directs our activity; that by faith we receive his purifying influence into the very center of our being; that through and by his truth revealed directly to the soul he quickens our whole inward being into the attitude of a loving obedience; and this is the way and the only practicable way to overcome sin. But someone may say: "Does not the Apostle exhort as follows: 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure[']"? "And is not this an exhortation to do what in this article you condemn?" By no means. In the 12th verse of the 2d chapter of Philippians Paul says: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure." There is no exhortation to work by force of resolution, but through and by the inworking of God. Paul had taught them, while he was present with them; but now, in his absence, he exhorts them to work out their own salvation, not by resolution, but by the inward operation of God. This is precisely the doctrine of this article. Paul had too often taught the Church that Christ in the heart is our sanctification, and that this influence is to be received by faith, to be guilty, in this passage of teaching that our sanctification is to be wrought out by resolution and efforts to suppress sinful and form holy habits. This passage of Scripture happily recognizes both the Divine and human agency in the work of sanctification. God works in us, to will and to do; and we, accepting by faith his inworking, will and do according to his good pleasure. Faith itself is an active and not a passive state. A passive holiness is impossible and absurd. Let no one say that when we exhort people to trust wholly in Christ we teach that anyone should be or can be passive in receiving and co-operating with the Divine influence within. This influence is moral, and not physical. It is persuasion, and not force. It influences the free will, and consequently does this by truth, and not by force. Oh! that it could be understood that the whole of spiritual life that is in any man is received direct from the Spirit of Christ by faith, as the branch receives its life from the vine. Away with this religion of resolutions! It is a snare of death. Away with this effort to make the life holy while the heart has not in it the love of God. Oh! that men would learn to look directly at Christ through the Gospel, and so close in with him by an act of loving trust as to involve a universal sympathy with his state of mind. This and this alone is sanctification.

How to Overcome Sin [Part 1 of 2]

[By Charles G. Finney, originally published in the Independent of New York in 1874]

In every period of my ministerial life I have found many professed Christians in a miserable state of bondage either to the world, the flesh, or the Devil. But surely this is no Christian state, for the apostle has distinctly said: "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace." In all my Christian life I have been pained to find so many Christians living in the legal bondage described in the 7th chapter of Romans--a life of sinning, and resolving to reform and falling again. And what is particularly saddening, and even agonizing, is that many ministers and leading Christians give perfectly false instruction upon the subject of how to overcome sin. The directions that are generally given on this subject, I am sorry to say, amount to about this: "Take your sins in detail, resolve to abstain from them, and fight against them, if need be, with prayer and fasting, until you have overcome them. Set your will firmly against a relapse into sin, pray and struggle, and resolve that you will not fall, and persist in this, until you form the habit of obedience and break up all your sinful habits." To be sure, it is generally added: "In this conflict you must not depend upon your own strength, but pray for the help of God." In a word, much of the teaching, both of the pulpit and the press, really amounts to this: Sanctification is by works, and not by faith. I notice that Dr. Chalmers, in his lectures on Romans, expressly maintains that justification is by faith, but sanctification is by works. Some twenty-five years ago, I think, a prominent professor of theology in New England maintained in substance the same doctrine. In my early Christian life I was very nearly misled by one of President Edwards's resolutions; which was, in substance, that when he had fallen into any sin he would trace it back to its source, and then fight and pray against it with all his might until he subdued it. This, it will be perceived, is directing the attention to the overt act of sin, its source or occasions. Resolving and fighting against it fastens the attention on the sin and its source, and diverts it entirely from Christ.

Now it is important to say right here that all such efforts are worse than useless, and not infrequently result in delusion. First, it is losing sight of what really constitutes sin, and, secondly, of the only practicable way to avoid it. In this way the outward act or habit may be overcome and avoided, while that which really constitutes the sin is left untouched. Sin is not external, but internal. It is not a muscular act, it is not the volition that causes muscular action, it is not an involuntary feeling or desire; it must be a voluntary act or state of mind. Sin is nothing else than that voluntary, ultimate preference or state of committal to self-pleasing out of which the volitions, the outward actions, purposes, intentions, and all the things that are commonly called sin proceed. Now, what is resolved against in this religion of resolutions and efforts to suppress sinful and form holy habits? "Love is the fulfilling of the law." But do we produce love by resolution? Do we eradicate selfishness by resolution? No, indeed. We may suppress this or that expression or manifestation of selfishness by resolving not to do this or that, and praying and struggling against it. We may resolve upon an outward obedience, and work ourselves up to the letter of an obedience to God's commandments. But to eradicate selfishness from the breast by resolution is an absurdity. So the effort to obey the commandments of God in spirit--in other words, to attempt to love as the law of God requires by force of resolution--is an absurdity. There are many who maintain that sin consists in the desires. Be it so. Do we control our desires by force of resolution? We may abstain from the gratification of a particular desire by the force of resolution. We may go further, and abstain from the gratification of desire generally in the outward life. But this is not to secure the love of God, which constitutes obedience. Should we become anchorites, immure ourselves in a cell, and crucify all our desires and appetites, so far as their indulgence is concerned; we have only avoided certain forms of sin; but the root that really constitutes sin is not touched. Our resolution has not secured love, which is the only real obedience to God. All our battling with sin in the outward life, by the force of resolution, only ends in making us whited sepulchers. All our battling with desire by the force of resolution is of no avail; for in all this, however successful the effort to suppress sin may be, in the outward life or in the inward desire it will only end in delusion, for by force of resolution we cannot love.

Holiness in the Church

My goal and God’s command is holiness in the church.

II Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Luke 1:74-75 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Ephesians 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
I Peter 1:15-16 But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
I Peter 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
I Peter 2:9 But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:

This holiness means:

First, it means doing what God has given us to do. Not some of what God has commanded, not most of what He has said, but all His commands – we are not to leave out any of them. If we are neglecting any of God’s positive commands, we need to correct this sinfulness immediately.

Second, it means not doing what God has told us not to do. God has called us to refrain from murder, and it is of paramount importance that we do not murder. God has told us not to covet – we are not to covet, at all costs.

Thus, at the very least, holiness in the church means that the actions taken by the church and its members positively fulfill the commissions of the Lord, and in no way violate them, and taking great care to abstain from all of our Lord’s prohibitions.

Thirdly, holiness in the church affects the church’s actions in the “gray areas” – when there is no scriptural command for or against a given activity – here, several scriptural principles must guide the church in her decisions:

(1) Does it have any appearance of evil
(2) Does it edify the brethren
a. In knowledge of God and the truth
b. In Grace – the gift given to us whereby we are made new creatures, created for good works in Christ
(3) Are any of the brethren encouraged (whether overtly, or in effect) to engage in an activity that would go against their conscience, or lead them into a situation that their conscience would become compromised?
(4) The church should ask – in doing the activity, whose interests are being served: the “self” of the church, or God’s interests?

All these guidelines simply serve as a more thorough explanation that in all things, the two greatest commandments are the hanging point of all God’s law. We as a church must first of all love God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength; any action, decision, or choice that in any way weakens, reduces, or interferes with our love toward God ought never to be allowed. Second, we as a church must never forget that we are to love our neighbour as ourselves; this commandment has two implications: (1) that we do love ourselves, and (2) that we extend this love to all those we interact with. (John 13:35, Gal. 6:10) This is the way that we, the church, are to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation," this is how we are to "shine as lights in the world." (Philippians 2:15)