Dynasty: The Bold and the Biblical Week One

It has been about two weeks since my last post. I hope that everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I had a wonderful time with family boating on Lake Keystone in Mannford, Oklahoma. It was a wonderful start to a very busy summer that will include a heavy dose of sermon series, weddings (My brother and my own), and overall preparation for the beginning of a new life with my wife to be Dacia...

Week One: Dynasty

Isn't is a bit strange how God chose to save the world?

Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, in the first chapter, speaks about the foolishness that is preaching, he talks about the folly of the Cross of Jesus and how it is a stumbling block to the intellectual, military, and logical minds of the world. Paul in this portion of Holy Scripture comes the closest, I believe, to shedding even the smallest bit of light on the will and totality of God's eternal plan.

God is in the business of doing the complete opposite of human instinct, logic, and intuition.

He uses the foolish things to confound the wise, the weak things of this world to overcome the strong, He delights in death to reign in life.

Paul had to learn this conclusion the hard way as he prayed three times for God to remove 'a thorn in the flesh' as he called it, only to have God's reply to be that in weakness His strength is made perfect.

What does all this apply to Matthew chapter one? It answers the question on the lips of every single human and it reveals an error in the practical understanding of God' Word and eternal plan.

It delights God to use broken, weak, and incomplete people to bring about His perfect will on earth as it is in Heaven.

The people of the family of Christ were both Heroes and Villains of the faith simultaneously. Their lives resemble the most dramatic of soap operas... But shortcomings would not hinder them from coming boldly to the throne of grace.

I am aware that these two statements fly in the face of 20 years of Sunday School, and 50 years of pew dwelling. Abraham was 'The Father of the Faithful'! David was a 'man after God's own heart' and a perfect worshipper of God... These are the types of men and women that God calls, uses, and befriends. These are the men, the bloodlines, of whom God, birthed the Savior into this world. And all we are today are fragile children with limited faith, striving to be like our father Abraham, with less power, less faith.

The reality of the situation could not be more opposite. To this generation, God has sent His Holy Spirit to turn the world upside down. With us here, today, the power of the Holy Ghost grants us the power to lay hands on the sick and see them recover, to say to any mountain or obstacle, Be removed and be cast Into the sea. The book of Hebrews speaks of the heroes of the faith, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their exploits... But then it continues to speak of nameless eternal followers of Christ, whose faith is greater than there names, who shut the mouths of lions, 'of whom the world was not worthy!

This my friend can be me and you... While our names are not written in Matthew chapter one, they can be written in the Lambs book of life.

Learn from Biblical characters, their triumphs and their defeats, their success and failure. They are an example but not your goal. God used them in spite of them and how much more will He use you in spite of you?

In the family of God we find men lacking faith, liars, cheaters, men who slept with their daughter in laws, that's just the beginning. We find, heathens and strangers, adulterers and murders, and prostitutes... We find bad fathers, bad mothers, disobedient sons and daughters... We even find a man with a thousand wives... This alone should make you feel better about you situation

God likes a dysfunctional family... And that is precisely why He is trying to adopt you.

The Bold and the Biblical

We are excited to announce a new summer series (Sunday mornings June and July) entitled The Bold and the Biblical.

Hebrews 4:16
Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

This series will follow the first chapter of Matthew through the soap opera genealogy of Jesus Christ, revealing the strengths and weakness present within the family of Christ. Our point is that God uses imperfect people to bring about His perfect plan of redemption. Our application is that if Jesus invited Murders, Liars, Prostitutes, and Heathens into the earthly family of Jesus, there is then no fault or sin that should keep anyone from the heavenly family of God!

Sunday June 6- Dynasty: The Sins of the Father (Abraham and Isaac and Jacob)
Sunday June 13- All My Children: The Past Always Catches Up (Jacob and his 12 sons)
Sunday June 20- The Days of Our Lives: Imperfect Praise (Judah and Tamar)
Sunday June 27- Another World: Strangers in the Midst (Salmon and Rahab, Ruth and Boaz)
Sunday July 4- Passions: (David and Uzziah's Wife)
Sunday July 11- The Young and the Restless: (Solomon and Rehoboam)
Sunday July 18- One Life to Live: (Hezekiah and Manasseh)
Sunday July 25- Never to Young: (Amos and Josiah)

If you have any ideas or input, please let me know throughout the month of May.

The Wikipedia Effect: WikiFaith

WIKIFAITH… 'Always Searching, Never Finding'

The promise of the world is the grass is always greener on the other side, there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that never ends… Continual access is given to limitless information that never runs out. We create new, fast, powerful search engines… to satisfy our desire for endless information. Keep clicking on the search engine, eventually a justification or a result will come along.

Searching is not longer the task it is become the point… finding is optional.

We are becoming a wikireligion lead by wikifaith on a wikijourney. We have become obsessed with constant searching, obsessed with the fantasy of something new.

'We have become the church of search'- Bro. Paul Mooney.

Wikifaith is placed in what lies ahead… not in what has already been established.

Isaiah 28:7-12
7. But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way ; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
8. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.
9. Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
10. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
11. For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
12. To whom he said , This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest ; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.

The good report is the world filled with people actively searching for answers… people of every nation, creed, and tongue are searching. The bad news is that searching is all that a wikifaith can offer. Isaiah prophesied that people would err through wine and strong drink… they would become drunk and intoxicated on searching for some high, some enlightenment. Insomuch that their religion would compare to binge drinking and drunkenness. Isaiah reveals they will turn to their spiritual leaders, (priests and prophets) who will lead them on old paths, disguised as new. But these are the same paths of searching on which many a previous traveler has tread.

The end result: Many are called but few are chosen. Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. The world will become an unclean place filled with of the vomit of broken dreams and marriages, the filthy stains of endless searching.

But straight is the gate and narrow is way that leads to life everlasting. Knowledge and truth is revealed to those who seek with the purpose to find!

We have been given the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost.
At the end of searching is a resting place… to dwell in the Holy Ghost. We end our search at the foot of the cross, finding in Jesus our ALL in all! Do not exchange reality for an experience… but find your answer, your rest!

Blog One: Wiki Gospel
Blog Two: WikiTruth
Blog Three: WikiChurch
Blog Four: WikiJesus
Blog Five: WikiFaith

The Wikipedia Effect: WikiJesus

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved.

WIKIJESUS… 'Not Authoritative'

Wikipedia is not allowed in any university or high school in America as an academic source.

It simply does not carry the accuracy or authority required of a quoted source. Yet this little factoid does not stop over 2.5 billion people a month from using Wikipedia, many of them multiple times. People don't need authority or accuracy because we have become their own authority for their own life and hate any claims that challenge our own perspectives. Life dictates that we still need daily flow of information, we just want it on their own terms. We need a Jesus... but the biblical character is too absolute, so we have created a WikiJesus.

Simple Solution?

Hebrews 12:2
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 13:8-9
13. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
14. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

The spirit of Antichrist is in the world today

The WikiJesus is very strange and ridiculous, yet has ascended as the dominant view of Christ in the world today. Its this idea of a weak minded, effeminate, crybaby Jesus walking around hugging, kissing, and loving everyone. The idea is that Jesus came to justify sin through association with sinners and not through His sacrifice on the Cross, the idea that justification is based on His words instead of His actions. The WikiJesus throws ideas at a global dartboard of problems to see which one sticks. He gives options, lessons, suggestions for living a better life. He carries as much authority as you, me, or the text books for anatomy class we neglected to purchase. But we keep Him around because we enjoy His love, His lack of requirement, and His social opportunities and constructivist tradition.

This is a fable, a farce of the real Jesus as the gospel of Matthew records:

Matthew 7:28-29
28. And it came to pass , when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
29. For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Jesus taught with all the authority of God. He taught with the urgency of the kingdom of heaven being at hand. He taught with the passion and fervency of saving the whole world. He wrote our faith… and He finished it on the cross. It requires a man to be scourged and nailed to a tree without crying out, not the work a life coach. It takes a man, a strong husband to endure undeserved shame for His bride the church's infidelity.

In a world of change… Jesus never changes. In a religion of changing doctrines as diverse as the wind, Jesus stays the same, yesterday, today and forever. He is the authority of this world, at His name every knee should bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.

Which Jesus do you follow? Does He come with a label like this one:
The neutrality of this Savior is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove His message until the dispute is resolved.

Blog One: Wiki Gospel
Blog Two: WikiTruth
Blog Three: WikiChurch
Blog Four: WikiJesus
Blog Five: WikiFaith

A Video is Worth a Thousand Pictures