Under new management

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?.“ – Vs 20 NET

I’m a control freak. At least when it comes to controlling me. I want to control everything about me – what I do, where I go, what I think about, what I enjoy, what I classify as sin, and what I’m willing to give up. I want to control the hours in my day and how I use them. I want to control all my possessions and who I share them with. I want to control the present and the future. And if anyone tries to wrestle control away from me, they will be in for quite a fight. Sadly to say, I sometime even find myself fighting God for control of my life. Paul says that I am no longer the manager of my life. My life, my body, my soul … it all belongs to God. He purchased my life with the life of His own Son. Paul reminds me, “for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body” (Vs 20 NLT). I was purchased out of slavery to sin by God, and at a very high price. Peter puts it this way: “For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. He paid for you with the precious lifeblood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God” (1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT).

Not only did God purchase me, He filled me. He filled me with His own Spirit. I have the very Spirit of Christ living in me. So as Paul puts it, “Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for?” (Vs 20 MSG). My body is a sacred place. It is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. I am under new management and I have a new tenant. On top of that, I am under a constant state of renovation as God transforms me into the likeness of His Son. I am being sanctified daily…a process Paul explains in verse 11: “…now your sins have been washed away, and you have been set apart for God. You have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you.”

I am no longer in control. Sure, I try to take back control all the time. But the Holy Spirit gently reminds me that He lives in me so that He might direct my life. He knows the will of God and wants to direct me life into that will each and every day. He wants to use my body and my life to glorify God. That is what it means to be set apart or sanctified. I have been set apart by God for His use. I belong to Him. I am not to be used for anything else. My hands, feet, mind, eyes, heart, emotions…they all belong to Him. And I am not to take what is holy and use them for unholy purposes. “The person who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (Vs 17 NLT). I am His and He is mine. I am under new management.

Father, may my life increasingly reflect the fact that I am under new management. May I show with my actions that it is You who are is control of my life and not me. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

Bad company corrupts good morals

“What I meant was that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a Christian yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Don’t even eat with such people.“ – Vs 11 NLT

Whoa! In a world that worship at the altar of inclusivity, Paul sounds like some kind of stone-age, moralistic, authoritarian figure. He’s delivering people over to Satan, commanding people to “clean out the old leaven,” and not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. It all sounds rather harsh and condemning. But we have to keep in mind that Paul is writing to believers, to members of the church at Corinth. He is talking about the family of God, the church, the organism that he described to Timothy as the pillar and foundation of the truth. The health of the church is vital to the spread of the truth about Jesus Christ. If the church is morally weak and indistinct from the rest of the world, the truth will appear to have no power and the Gospel message will have no attraction to it.

So Paul says to, in essence, clean house. In their case, the Corinthians had a man in their midst who was having sexual relations with his own mother. And rather than the church doing anything about it, their lack of action came across as arrogant and indifferent. They would rather tolerate this man’s sinful behavior in their midst than stand up for the truth of God’s Word and the integrity of the Gospel. But Paul would not tolerate it. He was going to do something about it. And so should we.

We wrestle with the idea of judging someone else, lest we be judged. But Paul makes it clear. We have every right and responsibility to judge those who claim to be Christ followers but who are dragging His name in the mud through their persistent acts of sinfulness. Listen to what Paul says:

“It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your job to judge those inside the church who are sinning in these ways. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, You must remove the evil person from among you.” – Vs 12-13 NLT

Why are we so willing to tolerate blatant sin in the church? Why are we so afraid to speak up and confront someone who we know is living a lie? Maybe it’s because we fear someone discovering the hidden parts of our lives and pointing the finger at us. But we are called to live lives of distinctiveness. We are called to be salt and light. We are called to confront the sin in our own lives and the lives of those around us. We need to take our faith seriously. Paul did. Later on in this letter to the Corinthian believers he makes the often quoted statement that “bad company corrupts good morals.” He tells them to “come back to your senses as you should, and stop sinning! For some of you – I say this to your shame – don’t fully know God” (1 Corinthians 15:34 ISV). Paul was calling for them to live according to their new identity. Stop putting up with sin. Stop tolerating the hypocrisy that spreads through the body like a cancer. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. We exist to uphold the integrity of the Gospel message by the purity of our lives. Willful, continual, unrepentant sin in our midst cannot be tolerated. Paul wouldn’t put up with it. So why do we?

Father, give me a boldness to speak truth even when it might hurt those who hear it. Give me the strength to stand up for what I know to be right. Forgive me for tolerating sin in my own life and in the body of Christ. May we be willing to clean house if necessary in order to restore the integrity and distinctiveness of Christ’s body, the church. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

All Talk, No Action

“For the Kingdom of God is not just fancy talk; it is living by God’s power.“ – Vs 20 NLT

James put it this way: “I can’t see your faith if you don’t have good deeds, but I will show you my faith through my good deeds” (James 2:18 NLT). In The Message, Eugene Peterson puts the thoughts of James into words we can all understand: “You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.” In other words, we can’t just talk about our faith, we have to live it out. It has to become concrete and real. Yet, too much of what we call faith is “just fancy talk,” We say one thing and do another. We express in words our belief, but the words never seem to impact our behavior.

Because the Kingdom of God is not just fancy talk; it is living by God’s power. It’s an empowered life that radically reflects the reality of the truth – the Gospel message of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross. The Kingdom of God isn’t just about a kingdom to come, but it’s about a kingdom that has come. Jesus came that we might have life and have it to the full, not just in the future, but right now. In his letter to Timothy, Paul put it this way: “godliness is valuable in every way. It holds promise for the present life and for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8 NIV). The life of godliness or life in the Kingdom of God holds promise for the here-and-now as well as the hereafter. It is powerful and life-transforming right now, not just in the future. It holds promise for today!

But is all our talk about the Kingdom just talk? Do we talk a good game, but fail to live it out on game day? Paul encouraged the believers in Thessalonica with these words: “We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you into his Kingdom to share his glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:12 NLT). Live your lives in a way…behave in a way…conduct yourselves in a way…that God would consider worthy. Don’t just give lip service to your faith, put shoe leather to it. “Teach believers with your life: by word, by demeanor, by love, by faith, by integrity” (1 Timothy 4:12 MSG).

Father, I want my life to be characterized by Your power, not my persuasive words. I don’t want to live a life that is all talk and no action. At least, not any more! I want to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God who is backed by the full power and authority of God. I want my life to be an example of what it means to believe – in my words, my actions, my love, my faith, and my moral purity. Thank You that I can because You have given me the power to do so. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

God Doesn’t Need Men of the World

“Are you not acting like mere men?“ – Vs 3b NIV

The first few verses of chapter three are very sobering. Whenever I read them they speak volumes to me. They are a reminder that I have been called to something far greater than the status quo. God didn’t save me through the sacrificial death of His Son so that my life would blend in with the woodwork of this world. No, I have been chosen by God for a life of holiness. I have been set apart. I am called to a life that is to be distinctively different than the rest of the world. I have a wisdom they don’t have. I have access to a power they don’t possess. I have a peace they can’t experience. I have an inheritance that makes their possessions look paltry in comparison. I am a child of the living God.

But I am struck by what Paul says to the Corinthians, “I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but instead as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ” (Vs 1 NET). There was a time when Paul had to talk to the Corinthian believers as spiritual babies. They were immature and weak. They lacked spiritual wisdom and understanding. He had to give them spiritual milk to drink because they couldn’t handle the “solid food” of God’s Word. That was normal and expected. But then Paul says something that really hits home: “…even now you are not yet able” (Vs 2 NASB). You can almost hear the disappointment in Paul’s voice as he writes these words – even now. Instead of growing in their faith and maturing in their knowledge of the ways of God, they had remained just as they were. They were still spiritual babies. Paul describes them as fleshly or carnal (sarkikos). The Greek word means “having the nature of flesh, i.e. under the control of the
animal appetites.” It is to be governed by mere human nature instead of by the Spirit of God. Their lives look no different than the lives of the lost. They have no distinctiveness. How does Paul know this? Because their lives are marked by jealousy and quarrelling. They can’t seem to get along. And the sad thing is, they are fighting over spiritual matters. They have taken up sides in the church. One group has sided with Paul and another with Apollos. They had become followers of men instead of followers of Christ. They were debating over which leader was the most important for crying out loud!

Paul was looking for spiritual maturity, but what he found was spiritual immaturity. These people had been saved long enough to grow up. But they were still being controlled by their sensual appetites. They were living according to their flesh instead of the Spirit within them. Paul describes the outcome of this kind of life in Galatians 5:

“It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits;the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on” – Galatians 5:19-21 MSG

Whenever we see these characteristics in our life, we know that we are walking like mere men. We are acting as if we are not saved. We are exhibiting the characteristics of the lost and not the redeemed. But Paul goes on to remind us that we belong to Christ. We are His. We have His Spirit within us. We are to be growing, maturing, changing, and becoming more and more like Him every day. Yes, we will still struggle with our old fleshly desires. When we do, it should remind us just how much we need His Spirit to lead and guide us. It should make us more dependent on Him than ever. Our sinfulness should lead us to repentance. We should desire change from the inside out. We should long for maturity. We are not mere men, but sons of God.

Father, I don’t want to live my life like a mere man. I want to see Your power revealed in my life each and every day, transforming me from infancy to maturity. I want to see my childish habits fade away with time. I want to see my life characterized by the fruit of the spirit, not the deeds of the flesh. I want these things because that is what You desire for me. That is why Your Son died for me. May I continue to grow in Christ-likeness so that every day I become less and less like a mere man. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

It’s No Longer A Mystery to Me

“And God has actually given us his Spirit (not the world’s spirit) so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.” – Vs 12 NLT

Having the Holy Spirit is like having that secret decoder ring that came in the serial box, except the Holy Spirit really works. He has the ability to decode the mysteries of God that had been hidden for generations, and He reveals them to us. How else would we ever be able to understand what God is doing? According to Paul, without the Spirit, no man would be able to understand the mysteries of God. “But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his Spirit, and his Spirit searches out everything and shows us even God’s deep secrets” (Vs 10 NLT). Paul goes on to say that “…no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit” (Vs 11b NLT). So God has given us His Spirit so that we might know hidden things of God.

Think about it. Without the Spirit within us, we would be totally unable to understand what God is doing in the world and in our lives. Nothing would make sense to us. Those who do not have the Spirit of God within them, in other words, those who are unsaved, can’t see God at work around them. They are incapable of understanding or comprehending God’s work in the world. Paul says, “people who aren’t Christians can’t understand these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means” (Vs 14 NLT). They’re like a radio receiver that is tuned to the wrong frequency. The signal is being sent, but they can’t pick it up. Like an AM radio trying to pick up an FM signal, it will never happen. But we can understand the things of God. In fact, “we who have the Spirit understand these things, but others can’t understand us at all” (Vs 15 NLT). We become a mystery to those around us because we have the capacity to see, hear, and understand the things of God. We see the world from a different perspective. We can see God at work in the everyday affairs of life. We can see God working in the trials and sufferings of life. We can hear God speaking to us when we read His Word. But our lost friends and family members can’t quite understand where we’re coming from. Because they lack what we have: the Holy Spirit who lives within us. They operate out of a worldly wisdom. They don’t have the capacity to understand God or us. “How could they? For, “Who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who can give him counsel?” But we can understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ” (Vs 16 NLT).

We have the mind of Christ. Thanks to the Holy Spirit who lives within us, we can know the things of God. The mystery has been explained. We understand what God is doing in the world and in our lives. It all has begun to make sense. And now, “…we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.” – Vs 12 NLT

Father, thank You that You chose to reveal the mystery of your kingdom to me. Your Holy Spirit opened my eyes so that I could understand the gospel message and accept it. I could see that I was a sinner in need of a Savior and that You had prepared a way for me to have a right relationship with You. There are still so many things about You and Your Word that I don’t understand, but Your Spirit is speaking to me every day as I read Your Word and listen to what He has to say to me. Help me to remain sensitive to His leading and obedient to His promptings. Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org

You’d Have To Be A Fool To Believe This.

“I know very well how foolish the message of the cross sounds to those who are on the road to destruction. But we who are being saved recognize this message as the very power of God.” – Vs 18 NLT

Have you ever stopped to think just how foolish this thing called the gospel sounds to someone who’s lost? Paul says the message of the cross is foolishness to them. It’s silly, absurd, ridiculous. It just doesn’t make any sense. In spite of the fact that they are facing eternal destruction and the gospel message offers them salvation, they can’t accept it because it just sounds too far fetched to even be believable. Christ, the Messiah, was crucified on a cross in their place in order to pay for the penalty God demanded for their sins. Christ  paid a debt they owed and that they could never pay in order that they might be reconciled or made right with God. To the world this whole thing sounds like some kind of ancient myth created by men and perpetrated by the weak-minded and the ignorant. Nobody with an ounce of intelligence would believe a story like this. Or would they?

Paul says that same message about the cross and Christ crucified makes perfect sense to those of us who are being saved because of it. The cross represents the power of God. It is a symbol of His defeat of death and our ultimate victory over sin. This message of salvation made possible by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ on the cross sounds completely idiotic to the lost. They’re too smart, too clever to buy into something so silly. But Paul says, “where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense?” (Vs 20 MSG). Their wisdom is no match for God’s wisdom. They can’t explain or explain away the message. So they simply try to ignore it.

But to those of us who have placed our faith in the reality of the cross and it’s representation of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, we not only embrace the message, we live by it and hope in it. And we acknowledge that even we are examples of God’s power. Because we couldn’t save ourselves, He did it for us.

God alone made it possible for you to be in Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made Christ to be wisdom itself. He is the one who made us acceptable to God. He made us pure and holy, and he gave himself to purchase our freedom. – 1 Corinthians 1:30 NLT

Paul says, “God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful” (Vs 27). God’s ways are inexplicable and incomprehensible. We can’t explain or understand them. But we accept them. God’s ways are not our ways. He doesn’t do things the way we would do things. He chose to use a Roman instrument of torture and death to bring about salvation and eternal life. God chose to send His Son as a sinless, sacrificial substitute to satisfy His own demands for justice and to pay the debt incurred by men for their sins.

The foolishness of the cross. I don’t know about you, but this fool loves it. I would be lost without it. I don’t fully understand it, but I most certainly accept and appreciate it. It is the wisdom of God and the power of God. It is hope of man and the key to eternal life. And this fool is eternally grateful.

Father, thank You that Your ways are not my ways. Thank You for coming up with a plan that on the surface looks completely ridiculous and sounds completely far-fetched, but it is a demonstration of Your incredible wisdom and power. Your plan leaves us completely dependent on You and allows no one to boast in their own self-effort. We are weak, ignorant, foolish, and shameful. Yet You chose to save us. Thank You! Amen

Ken Miller
Grow Pastor & Minister to Men
kenm@christchapelbc.org