Do you bow your knees?

Posted on by kevinjandt

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Ephesians 3:14-16 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man…

When’s the last time you bowed your knees to the Lord Jesus Christ?

Is this a spiritual discipline worthy of pursuit?

Is it a requirement for growth?

This is the question that I was faced with recently and something I found myself desiring to rebel against.  I can pray lying in my bed, I can pray driving to work, I can pray doing anything, in fact I’m to pray without ceasing and I can do that almost anywhere and anytime.  Yes, that is true right?

But what is it about humbling yourself and actually climbing out of bed to get down on your knees and seek God in prayer that really focuses your attention?  I agree that it’s not a requirement; we have lots of scriptural examples.  However I want to say this plainly, it should be a regular part of your spiritual life and I mean often.  Why?

Well Paul is telling us why.  “For this reason” is the answer.  That “He” would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened.  It’s so obvious and it’s so simple that we can easily miss it.  Who doesn’t want to be strengthened in their Christian walk?  Of course we want that but what we really want is for God just to zap us and we be strengthened.  That would be a lot easier.

That’s the problem.  We always want the easy way out.  I don’t want to work at this, it would be really nice if God just took that away from me or if He just gave this to me.  That’s what it really comes down to lack of discipline and spiritual strength.  A lack of “working out your salvation” with what?  Fear and trembling says Paul.

If you would like something from God, according to His will, try spending the next 30 days on your knees each morning right when you get out of bed, seeking Him diligently with fear and trembling, on your knees, in humility.  Today I testify to you that you will have a more peace and strength than you would have ever imagined.

The truths that I know best I have learned on my knees. I never know a thing well, till it is burned into my heart by prayer. —John Bunyan

Kevin

A Sure Guide to Heaven – Part 3 – The necessity of conversion

Posted on by kevinjandt

John 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

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This statement is every bit as shocking to people today as it was to Nicodemus at the time Jesus spoke these words.  John 3:9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”  Here was a leader of the Jews, a religious man, with lots of training and he missed the simple fact that he needed to be converted to enter the kingdom of God.

Conversion is necessary.  That is exactly what Jesus is telling us today, just as He did when He walked this earth, just as Joseph Alleine is explaining to us in this remarkable third chapter of his book.  There is a “disconnect” among evangelicals today about what it means to be converted.

Conversion is radical and violent.  It comes at a great cost because there is pain involved, pain at the recognition of your sin.  Imagine your heart being ripped out of your insides and being replaced with a new heart.  This is major surgery and without anesthesia.

Ezekiel 36:25-27 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

The conversion described is not a high attainment of some advanced Christians, but every soul that is saved undergoes this change…

What is it that you count necessary?  Is your bread necessary?  Is your breath necessary?  Then your conversion is much more necessary.  Indeed, this is the one thing necessary.  Your possessions are not necessary; you may sell all for the pearl of great price, and yet be a gainer by the purchase.  Your life is not necessary; you may part with it for Christ, to infinite advantage.   Your reputation is not necessary; you may be reproached for the name of Christ, and yet be happy; yes, you may be much more happy in reproach than in repute.  But your conversion is necessary; your salvation depends upon it; and is it not needful in so important a matter to take care?  On this one point depends your making or marring to all eternity.  But I shall more particularly show the necessity of conversion in five things. Page 50-51

Does this resonate with you today?  If not I plead with you to read it again and meditate on these words.  It is all that really matters.  Your conversion is necessary.

1: Without conversion your being is in vain

Verily you are in vain, except you are for God.  It were better you had no being than not be for Him.  Would you serve your end?  You must repent and be converted; without this you are to no purpose; indeed, to bad purpose. Page 51

Did he really say that?

What a blow to our self esteem…

This is a reality check…

2: Not only man, but the whole visible creation is in vain without conversion

O dreadful thought! That God should build such a world as this, and lay out such infinite power, and wisdom, and goodness thereupon, and all in vain; and that man should be guilty, at last, of robbing and spoiling Him of the glory of all!  O think of this.  While you are unconverted, all the offices of the creatures are in vain to you. Page 54

3: Without conversion your religion is vain

O soul! Do not think when your sins pursue you, that a little praying and reforming your ways will pacify God.  You must being with your heart.  If that is not renewed, you can no more please God than one who, having unspeakably offended you, should bring you the most loathsome thing to pacify you; or having fallen into the mire, should think with his filthy embraces to reconcile you. Page 55

4: Without true conversion your hopes are in vain

The hope of comfort here is vain.  It is not only necessary for the safety, but comfort of your condition, that you be converted.  Without this, you shall not know peace (Is. 59:8) Page 56

Spiritual sloth is but a scurvy in the mind, and carnal security a mortal lethargy. Page 57

Now, to say God is merciful and to hope that He will save us without conversion, is in effect to say, ‘We hope that God will not do as He says.’  We must not set God’s attributes at variance.  God has resolved to glorify His mercy, but not to the prejudice of His truth, as the presumptuous sinner will find to his everlasting sorrow. Page 58

5: Without conversion all that Christ has done and suffered will be, as to you, in vain

That is, it will in no way avail you to salvation.  Many urge this as a sufficient ground for their hope, that Christ died for sinner; but I must tell you, Christ never died to save impenitent and unconverted sinners, so continuing.  A great divine was accustomed in his private dealings with souls to ask two questions.  What has Christ done for you?  What has Christ wrought in you?  Without the application of the Spirit in regeneration, we have no saving interest in the benefits of redemption.  I tell you from the Lord, that Christ Himself cannot save you if you go on in this state. Page 59

It would be dishonourable to God to bestow His choicest riches on them that have more pleasure in their sins than in the heavenly delights that He offers.  God would lose the praise and glory of His grace, if He should cast it away upon them that were not only unworthy but unwilling. Page 61 & 62

Are you unwilling? 

Hear then His own words; ‘Except ye be converted, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.’  ‘Ye must be born again.’  ‘If I was thee not, thou hast no part in me.’  ‘Except ye repent ye shall perish’ (Mt xviii 3; Jn iii 7; Jn xiii 8; Lk xiii 3).  Page 63

These are powerful words.  Very few preachers say these things anymore because it seems so harsh to the listener.  Yet imagine if your child was playing on the train tracks and a train was coming.  How would you want me to communicate the impending disaster that was coming his way?  Should I do it in a gentle easy tone or scream at the top of my lungs to “GET OUT OF THE WAY!”  So why would those living a life that will condemn them to hell be any different?

If you don’t have testimony of your conversion, maybe you aren’t converted.  Do you know when God removed your heart of stone and placed in you a heart of flesh?  Do you know the day you were born again?  If not do something about that.  I suggest get on your knees and beg Him to show you your sin and then beg for His converting grace.  This is sorrow not to be regretted.

Kevin

Mike Kelly

Posted on by kevinjandt

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Before I began blogging I would consistently send out messages to friends and family via email that I had either written or read.  When I started blogging that became my primary medium of communication, although I do occasionally send out specific messages, I primarily now reach out through Uncommon Faith.

For those of you that don’t know me personally, I’ve never spoke about my profession on this blog, although I may have referenced a business trip I’ve never shared that I don’t blog for a living (sarcasm with a grin).  I enjoy my work for the most part; it continues to be the place the Lord has placed me for now.  Someday I believe there is something different coming, something I hope is centered on building His kingdom and not my own, but for now I do my best to write my blog and share the gospel whenever I can.

I have an unusual profession.  I own an event timing business along with two business partners.  We provide timing services primarily to running events such as marathons and other distance road races.  Along with triathlons and any other events that would require participants to be timed.  We are busy and by any standard the world sets we are successful.   For the past four years I’ve timed the marathon that occurs the first weekend in March in Little Rock Arkansas.  A man named Mike Kelly died while running the race last year and I thought it was important to write something about it.  Below is the email I sent out to a group of people that had worked with me at the event and probably some others I was hoping to minister to at the time.

I thought it would be interesting to share that.

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Friends,

This past Sunday at the Little Rock Marathon a man died while running, he was 37 years old.  I’ve been at several events where people have died and it effects me more each and every time.

I was grieving for this man today as I thought about his death but I also have hope.  I don’t know this man, interestingly enough unbeknownst to me at the time I saw his wife finish the race.  It stuck out at me because they called out her name “Ebony” as she finished and as I read about him today I now know that was his wife.

Here is an excerpt of the statement from the church he was a member.

“It is with heavy hearts that the people of Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas acknowledge the passing of our dear brother, Mike Kelly. Together with his wife, Ebony, Mike was a vibrant member of our community of faith who joyfully lent his time and talent to advancing our collective vision of seeing diverse people walk, work and worship God together as one. Through the years we have had the privilege of seeing Mike embrace God through faith in Jesus Christ, watching him grow as one with us, and uniting he and Ebony in marriage.”

I don’t know if he was a believer in Jesus Christ but I have hope through the testimony of his friends and leaders of his church.  I prayed for him and for his family and more importantly I prayed for a lost and dying world.  I’m overcome with grief that those we love will perish in their sins.  I can only do what I can do but God is glorified in all this and I hope I can bring Him glory as He deserves through the proclamation of the Gospel.

I hope today we take some time and consider our own lives (me included and especially).  The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5-6 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith,  Test yourselves.  Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless indeed you are disqualified, But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified.

How should we do this?  We must see if our lives line up to God’s will as the Bible lays out its clear instructions.  That’s God’s standard for our lives and when we fall short of the mark (sin) we must repent and turn from it.  Life is short and we have one opportunity to submit to Christ’s Lordship.

Grace and Peace

Kevin

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Mike Kelly is no different from any of us.  The Lord just had a purpose for ending his life, and we won’t know that reason while here on earth.  Without God’s redemptive work in our lives we are only a heartbeat away from eternal separation from God (Hell).  I hope that’s a sobering thought.

The next installment of a Sure Guide to Heaven will be my focus for this coming Friday, as we explore the Necessity of Conversion.

Iniquities of the father

Posted on by kevinjandt

Exodus 20:4-6 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image-any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.  For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

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The second commandment seems pretty straightforward.  Don’t worship anything other than God.  Most of us don’t carve images, place them on our fireplace mantles and bow down to them anymore.  Of course we get that some of the eastern religions still do this sort of thing and we even understand that is a clear violation of the second commandment.  Very few Christians will debate that.

But I find it very fascinating and somewhat confusing what God meant in the second half of this commandment.  What an odd thing where He tells us He’s going to visit the iniquities of the father on the children.  What in the world does this mean?  Have you ever considered this?  It’s so easy to gloss over in our desire to not really deal with it.  It’s kind of frightening really.

That doesn’t sound like a loving God?  What kind of a twisted being would hold innocent children responsible for what the fathers have done?

I was flying recently on a business trip and a man and his son were sitting in front of me.  The flight attendant asked where they were going.  The father proudly declared it was his sons twenty-first birthday and they were on their way to Las Vegas.  Everyone around me chirped in with an “oh” or an “ah”, “oh happy birthday”, how fun to go to Vegas.  Then she proceeded to discuss the free alcohol they would provide for his birthday on the plane.  My heart was grieved as I considered this is the standard the world deems fun and exciting and worthy of celebration; a father bonding with his son.

Now I suppose this father and son duo could be headed to Vegas to stand on a corner, to preach the gospel and hand out tracts but I didn’t gather that from the responses and the subsequent conversations that ensued.

Do you see the point I’m making about Exodus 20 verse 5.  Perhaps this man’s father took him to Vegas for his twenty-first birthday, and now this son will probably take his son and so on and so on.  If God has mercy on someone in this familial line, perhaps the gospel will be preached and souls will be saved otherwise the father’s iniquities are being visited upon the next generations.  God didn’t specifically do it to this man, He just allows them to go their own way (Romans 1:28).

This man hates God, although he may not think that he does.  Scripture tells us this very plainly, because you don’t take a son to Vegas for gambling and drinking and who knows what else without hating God.   Ephesians 6:4 And you fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Fathers, may God have mercy if we love Him and keep His commandments.

Kevin

A Sure Guide to Heaven – Part 2 – Mistakes about conversion

Posted on by kevinjandt

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This is a very sobering and humbling article to write, as I think about my own life and the lives of so many that are dear to me.  I think of those that I believe have truly been converted.  I marvel at God’s work and how He is the author of salvation.  He does the work … according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace… (Ephesians 1:5-6).

I also consider those, just like I once was that are deceived in their conversion and have a false hope.  They don’t know they have a false hope; they are comfortable in their “christianity” and you can’t convince them otherwise because they are blinded with pride.  They’ve been “good”, they’ve been moral, they’ve gone to church, they know the right people, and they have been properly set up to believe in their hope.  Yet if you were able to really dig deep and really examine the claims closely you would get a troubling picture that may actually challenge their lives, yet they won’t allow it.

It is my earnest prayer, and desire that those of us that are truly regenerated, and are new creations in Christ can lovingly call those to examine their lives by the truth of God’s Word and these powerful words penned over four centuries ago will have an impact on us today, as it has for centuries.  It will awaken those out of their slumber, it will turn off this cruise control “christianity” that so many have become accustomed to and the Lord of Glory will shine His light in a dark place and reveal their true natures.  May His name rise above all names as the “One” that is worthy.

Alleine gives us (5) mistakes about conversion that continue to condemn people to hell the same today as they have since time began.    Let’s take a look at those today as outlined in this first chapter of A Sure Guide to Heaven.

Conversion is not the taking upon us the profession of Christianity

With a twenty dollar bill in my hand I can get anyone I want to profess the name of Christ.  Just try it and see.  Approach someone and say if you say these words I will give you this twenty dollar bill.  “Jesus is Lord and Savior”.  Are they now saved and on their way to heaven?  Of course not that’s ridiculous; anyone that has any sort of knowledge of God knows this.  Don’t they?  Yet many will think because they said a prayer at one point in their life they are okay with God.

Are there not many that name the name of the Lord Jesus, that do not depart from iniquity (2 Tim ii 19), and profess they know God, but in works deny Him? (Titus I 16), And will God receive these for true converts?  What! Converts from sin, when they still live in sin?  It is a visible contradiction. Page 19

Conversion is not putting on the badge of Christ in baptism

‘If this is true, thousands may go in abreast; and we will no more teach that the righteous are scarcely saved, or that there is need of such a stir in taking the kingdom of heaven by violence, and striving to enter in (1 Peter iv 18; Mt xi 12; Lk xiii 24).  Surely, if the way be so easy as many supposed, that little more is necessary than to be baptized and to cry out, ‘Lord, have mercy’, we need not put ourselves to such seeking, and knocking, and wrestling, as the Word require in order to salvation.  Again, if this is true, we shall no more say, ‘Few there be that fine it’; we will rather say, ‘Few there be that miss it.’ Page 20

… If men are evidently unsanctified, they must be renewed by a thorough and powerful change, or else they cannot escape the damnation of hell.  ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked.’  Whether it be your baptism, or whatever else you pretend, I tell you from the living God, that if any of you be a prayerless person, or a scoffer, or a lover of evil company (Prov xiii20), in a word, if you are not a holy, strict, and self denying Christian, you cannot be saved (Heb xii 14; Mt xv 14). Page 21

Conversion does not lie in moral righteousness

Paul, while unconverted, touching the righteousness which is in the law was blameless (Phil iii 6).  The Pharisee could say, ‘I am no extortioner, adulterer, unjust’, etc. (Lk xviii 11).  You must have something more than all this to show, or else, however you may justify yourself, God will condemn you.  I do not condemn morality, but I warn you not to rest in it.  Piety includes morality, as Christianity does humanity, and as grace does reason; but we must not divide the tables. Pages 21, 22

Conversion does not consist in an external conformity to the rules of piety

It is manifest that men may have a form of godliness, without the power (2 Tim iii 5).  Men may pray long (Mt xxiii 14), and fast often (Lk xviii 12), and hear gladly (Mk vi 20), and be very forward in the service of God, though costly and expensive (Is i 11), and yet be strangers to conversion.  They must have more to plead for themselves than that they go to church, give alms, and make use of prayer, to prove themselves sound converts. Page 22

Please don’t let this one slip past you.  Consider this in your life.  Do you have a form of godliness?  Have you been converted?  Do you know when this happened?  Do you have a testimony?

Conversion is not the mere chaining up of corruption by education, human laws or the force of affliction

It is too common and easy to mistake education for grace… Page 22

In short, conversion does not consist in illumination or conviction or in a superficial change or partial reformation.  An apostate may be an enlightened man (Heb vi 4), and a Felix tremble under conviction (Acts xxiv 25), and a Herod do many things (Mk vi 20).  It is one thing to have sin alarmed only by convictions, and another to have it crucified by converting grace.

Others think that because they have given up their riotous ways, and are broken off from evil company or some particular lust, and are reduced to sobriety and civility, they are now real converts.  They forget that there is a vast difference between being sanctified and civilized.

O sinner, let the Word convince you now in time, and let go your false and self-deluding hopes, than have death open your eyes too late, and find yourself in hell before you are aware?

O wretched sinners, with whom God is scarcely in all your thoughts; that are so ignorant that you cannot pray, or so careless that you will not?  O repent and be converted, break off your sins by righteousness… O that you would heed the warnings of God!  In His name I once more admonish you.  Turn ye at my reproof.  Forsake the foolish, and live.  Be sober, righteous, and godly.  Wash your hands, ye sinners; purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Pages 21, 22 & 23

Friends are you double-minded?  Do you want to hold things of the world dear?  How much do you dwell on God in your thoughts and in your mind on a daily basis?  How much do you read His Word?  How much time do you spend in prayer?  How much time do you speak of His glory with others?

Test yourself and be challenged, if Christ dwells within you, this should not offend you.

Kevin