Alive in Christ

When I think back to the years before I came to know Christ in a meaningful way, I shudder at my behavior and my habits. I knew Christ from an early age, but He did not matter to me. My actions testified to that fact. Not only was I not very nice to be around, I didn't even like myself.

I often wondered why I was ever born, what possible purpose was there for me in this world? Have you had these feelings?

The thing is, once I had a desire to change and felt like I really needed to change, it was as if God heard my heart.  I know I didn't pray and ask Him to do anything, but He did it anyway.  Perhaps He looked back over my life and declared it was time; that I was ready for Him to intercede. I also know that I had a grandmother who was praying for me. This fact, which I recognized after she left this world, probably is the reason God grabbed me by the hand and showed me how to turn around.!!

He truly is a Life Changing King!

Ephesians 2:4-5 (NIV)
 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. 

How do these words make you feel? I get very excited when I read them and understand they were meant for me.  Even while I was dead from the sin in my life, God made me alive with Christ.  As I stated above, it wasn't any prayer I uttered, but it was totally by God's grace I was changed, I was saved.

Do you have a salvation story to share?  We are supposed to share our story with one another - tell the Good News to the world, shout it even!

Read Ephesians 2:1-10

The Life Changing King

Mark 7:1-23

Religious people have predictable patterns. The whole identity of God’s people, in Jesus day, was, “we are not like other people…” It is predictable that God’s people will have a proclivity to draw clear lines of who is in and who is out so that they can feel good about their ‘in-ness’ and better than people who are on the ‘out list’.

There was plenty of Law to follow; Moses’ teaching was revered, and at different points, added to. Jesus pushes back against these ‘traditions’ and even voids part of the cherished Law of God’s people. It is not your traditions that make you ‘clean’, it is not even your rigorous adherence to the dietary Laws. It is not what goes in that makes you ‘clean’ it is what comes out that makes you ‘unclean’. 

Therein lies the problem…all the stuff that comes out of our lives…now what do we do?

Read this passage several times and then spend some time with the following questions, make this a time of prayerful examination and repent of anything that comes to mind: Lord, am I living in obedience or am I using traditions as a way to avoid following Your law? 

Am I thinking about the sins of others too much and too little about the sin that is within me? End your time with this prayer, “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.”

                                                                           Pastor Brodie Taphorn