Christianity – Page 3 – goodchristianfiction

Enough Foolishness Already

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

(I hope you enjoy this “reading” of the first half of Paul’s letter to the Romans. The verses quoted are from the New Living Translation.)

If the only record of our culture for the future to see were limited to what they show on television, what kind of people would we appear to be? Almost every show has “lowered the morality bar.” Sex is casual. Language is vulgar. Reality TV makes us all appear to be gossips who don’t mind talking behind other people’s backs, but also embrace a “live and let live” philosophy that is diametrically opposed to a life that leans on God. As my grandparents would have said, “It’s all just a bunch of foolishness.”

Paul wrote about the same kind of foolishness in his letter to the church in Rome:

Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. . . . They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too (Romans 1:28, 32).

Just because we exist in a culture that wants to say everything is OK because that culture doesn’t have any solid base on which to stand does not mean that we as Christians should back down from the truths of living a life in the Spirit. Paul makes it clear that we are meant to follow the law of God’s Spirit, especially because we have that Spirit to guide us as part of the gift of Jesus’ sacrifice for us:

“For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight” (Romans 2:13). “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are” (Romans 3:20). “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith” (Romans 3:27). “Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the law” (Romans 3:31). “Now [that you have accepted Christ as your Savior] you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life” (Romans 6:22b). “Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit” (Romans 7:6b).

As sinners, if we received from God what we actually deserve for our behavior, we would have no hope. Instead, as Paul writes, “Can’t you see that His kindness [in giving us the opportunity to accept the grace of Christ] is intended to turn you from your sin?” (Romans 2:4b) The discipline to choose the Spirit over the flesh every day of our lives is tantamount to a life, not of foolishness, but of faith:

“Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey?” (Romans 6:16a) “Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit” (Romans 8: 5). “And a person with a changed heart seeks praise from God, not from people” (Romans 2:29b).

What kind of world would it be if we Christians determined to really live the law of the Spirit and not just read about it? Would we have such a high divorce rate? Would we have so many single parents or abandoned children? Would our headlines be filled with information people could really use, or with political agendas that try to convince us that what is true is actually contrary to what is found in the word of God?

Maybe the world isn’t any better or worse than it has ever been. Maybe in a world where we exist in information overload, we just know too much about everything, including what was once kept secret–except no life is secret from the eyes of an omnipresent God:

“And this is the message I proclaim–that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life” (Romans 2:16).

We can live a life that needs no secrets if we will only embrace the promise of our living God. My goal is to live the Word and not just read it. And to stop my foolishness!

Christian Living, Christianity

Christianity Is A Verb

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:8)

When I was around 8, my 15-year-old uncle went around singing the lyrics to a song he really liked. I can still remember walking on the sidewalks of the open-air elementary school near my grandparents’ house that summer, feeling the dry, West Texas wind tickle across the back of my neck as my uncle belted out:

Only the good die young, bum, bum, bum. Yeah, only the good die yo-o-o-ung.

Being 8 and a hypochondriac, I took the lyrics at their literal level, and I wondered why my uncle would like a song that seemed to say that if I were good, I would certainly ensure my premature demise. I found the familiar swings on the playground and concentrated on the clear, blue sky, trying hard to forget about the tune floating somewhere in the air above us.

Only years later, hearing that song again, did it dawn on me that what the lyrics really meant was that being good was somehow like a living death. This concept of goodness is typical of a world view governed by the ruler of the dark. But God is the ruler of the Light, and everything about a life following the Light is far from the world’s concept of a living death.

Everything about the Christian life involves action. James reminds us that “. . . faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (2:17). If you truly believe in Christ as your Savior, then your walk by faith is not just a statement of feeling but a way of being. You do things for others because of what Christ did for you.

Sometimes, your greatest action as a Christian is to keep yourself from acting. In Charles Martin’s book, Wrapped in Rain, one of the main characters symbolizes this kind of Christianity. Rather than taking the revenge that is human nature to desire, Miss Ella Rain instead chooses to hold onto the Light that is the Holy Spirit in us. She warns one of her charges:

“”Tucker, I want to tell you a secret.” Miss Ella curled my hand into a fist and showed it to me.”

“”Life is a battle, but you can’t fight it with your fists. You got to fight it with your heart.””

A heart actively in the heart of Christ truly practices forgiving what seems unforgivable, giving when your first instinct is to take, and using the gifts of the Spirit to show others the truth about our loving God.

When we make Christianity a verb in our lives, surely Christ will ensure that our efforts bear fruit for His Kingdom. A life lived in the Light of Christ is so active, how could anyone really think that the “good die young?”

I am overwhelmed with joy in the LORD my God! For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit or a bride with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)

Christian Living, Christianity, Love

Even as He Loved Me

Posted on May 23, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Do you ever read a verse you may have seen a hundred times before and suddenly see it in a different, clearer light?

Besides underscoring the importance of continual Bible study, these moments always take me one step closer to understanding the Spirit in me. As I become more knowledgeable about my relationship with that Spirit, I find myself more comfortable in my own skin. The “peace that surpasses understanding” is always there, these ah-ha moments remind me, we just have to push away the cares of this world that keep us from seeing and feeling our connectedness to the One and Only.

I grew up in the ’70s in the Bible belt. My first Bibles were hard core King James Versions. When I read the Bible through for the first time, it was with a King James version book. It took me until well into my twenties to “trust” any other version of the Lord’s Word. Besides, the poet in me loved the lyricism, the alliteration, the rhythm and the language of the King James Word, even when the phrasing that I loved sometimes made the meaning in a modern world more difficult to comprehend.

For example, even though, “When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17) has a rhythm and parallelism that any writer can truly appreciate, when I read the New Living Translation version of these words, I see an even fuller picture:

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor–sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

When Jesus came to sacrifice Himself for us, ALL of the people around Him needed it. Always before, when I would read the KJV of this verse, I would think to myself that the verses meant Jesus came to call those who had not already been following the Word of God, those who weren’t going to believe what Jesus was saying at that time. But the NLT version of these words makes it clear that this verse speaks to all of us. Jesus came to heal those of us who are willing to admit that we are sinners and thus are in need of Him.

Knowing I am a sinner as opposed to thinking I am righteous is also a daily reminder of my need to be on my knees in humility before the God who made me. In that position, I cannot judge others or think I am better than a task I have been called upon to do. On my knees, I know my sin and have a chance to repent of it, be healed daily if necessary by the cleansing power of Jesus, and keep moving forward in my relationship with the Holy Spirit that became a part of me the moment I accepted Christ as my Savior.

Because of the power of the salvation of Christ, I am not only delivered from a damned eternity, I am delivered from the vise grip of a life filled with sin. This is the freedom that Paul writes so frequently about. This is the element of the salvation story that we tend to spend the least time on, but that we need the most on a day-to-day basis. We need Jesus every day to help us not step into the darkness but rather to shine His light.

But, I still haven’t shared my verse in a new light for this week, and it is a doozy! Turn to John 13:34 and read a verse I am sure you may already know by heart. Jesus is speaking to His disciples as His coming crucifixion approaches. One of the things He tells them is this:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (NASB).

In the past, I have read this verse and assumed it to be another way to say the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But the footnotes in my Ryrie Study Bible helped me to see that this commandment takes the Golden Rule to a completely different level.

Think about the implications of the phrase, “even as I have loved you.” How did Jesus love His disciples and all of us, for that matter? He, being God, was willing to be abused, mocked, and even slain for sins He didn’t commit. He loved us so much, He died for us!

How many times do we turn the other cheek, not in the way that Christ turned His cheek, but to keep ourselves from seeing another person in need? I live in a big city where people make a living by holding a cardboard sign asking for money at every other corner. I have gotten good at turning another cheek, justifying my action by deciding that a con artist doesn’t deserve a quarter.

Jesus, on the other hand, took the servants’ role and washed the feet of Judas Iscariot, the disciple Jesus knew was going to betray Him, even as the Lord knelt at Judas’ feet at the Last Supper.

From us humans, blanket statements are dangerous, so don’t think I am trying to interpret this one verse to mean that women who are in abusive relationships are just supposed to keep getting hit or anything like that. We always have to take the Bible in its totality, not just in the one or two verses that seem to serve our purpose. It is the veracity and consistency of the Word that is part of the reason that we KNOW that we worship the one, true God.

Besides reminding me just how much God loves me, my ah-ha moment in the Word this week also has me thinking about ways I can up my game in the loving others department. I am a far cry from achieving Christ’s level of love, but He promised that the great Helper, the Holy Spirit, is in me to guide me on this narrow path that leads to the Light. I may stumble; I may fall; but Christ will always pick me up.

Through true repentance, I can continue to grow in God. Because of how He loved me, I may fall, but I will rise again.

Christianity, Faith

Reliable Mercy

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

I have never been a parent, unless you want to count my cat. He is a true tomcat who prefers to watch you from a good five-foot distance. He does not want my bids for affection unless they involve some fish-flavored kibble or tuna flakes. Despite the claw and tooth scars I have to prove his need for independence, I continue to try to figure out ways to cuddle him and still respect his “space.” He has trained me to turn the tub faucet on at his command. I have learned to “punish” him with unwanted hugs even when I might want to knock him across the room instead.

If I, being human, can go through all of this for a furry “child,” how much more must my parents feel for me, how much more any parent must feel for his/her child, no matter how rebellious that child sometimes becomes. Even when a child goes against what his parents want him to do, I can understand how much the parent must long for the child to return to the roots of his raising again, or themselves struggle with trying to understand the world from their child’s perspective to find a place of restorative peace.

This Sunday, we are geared up to celebrate the most merciful “parent” of all time–our living God! His mercy is always present, always available, and always ours alone to lose because He has given us the free will to choose the gift of His grace which was His sacrifice on the Cross to bring us back into relationship with Him.

You will read a lot of Scripture from the New Testament this week if you are studying about Easter, but I want you to consider a passage from the Old Testament instead: the story of Jonah. When the reluctant prophet decides to do the job he didn’t want to take from God, the LORD doesn’t immediately destroy the people who don’t want to listen to Jonah’s message from God.

So, Jonah does what any of us humans would do at times like this. He pouts. He goes and sits at a distance from the town of Nineveh and waits for God to drop down the punishment God made Jonah go talk about. Instead of destroying the city, however, God has a plant grow over Jonah, offering the pouting prophet shade from the unrelenting sun. However, almost as quickly as it grew, the plant gets infected by a worm, withers and dies, leaving Jonah exposed to the elements again and ready to himself die:

Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?”

“Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!”

Then the Lord said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” (Jonah 4:9-11)

You might be tempted to read the Old Testament and think that God is a judgmental, even brutal, Creator. But, the Old Testament is as full of His merciful attitude as the New. Think about all the times that the people God talks to often argue with Him. There is more than one instance when a prophet will repetitively ask God, will you save the city if you can find 50 good people? 40 people? 20 people? 10? God patiently agrees each time. He tolerates a created thing that deigns to argue with its Creator! He wants to save not only the people of Nineveh, but the animals as well.

Don’t be surprised, then, when you discover that the God whose shoulders are big enough to take every complaint you have to hurl in His direction still loves you enough to die for you. He wants a relationship with YOU. And He is patient about waiting for you.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

I can’t rely on my cat for anything except his desire to be fed on a regular basis. Even my husband of twenty years sometimes gets angry with me. But God is the only ONE in my life who is reliably merciful. Read His word from beginning to end, forwards and backwards, and what you will discover is a God just waiting to show His love for you.

As you celebrate the risen Christ this Easter, don’t forget to celebrate His reliable mercy as well. He is waiting and much more ready to show you love than the anger we all deserve.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Christianity, Faith

Is Your God Big Enough?

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Ayiesha Woods’ song, Big Enough, asks us why we ever doubt the help that an uncreated God who created everything out of nothing can offer us:

You turned water into wine – how extraordinary
Gave sight to the blind – and still I carry
My own load when you told me
To take your yoke ’cause yours is easy

And I don’t wanna box you in
You’ve been doing big things since the world began
Sometimes I just don’t wanna believe
That you’re big enough – but you’re big enough yeah!

(http://www.lyricsmania.com/big_enough_lyrics_ayiesha_woods.html)

Jesus proclaims the definitive surety of our safety in the hands of an almighty God:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Matthew 6:26

Still, we humans find it difficult not to worry when we are waiting for test results in a doctor’s office or watching serious weather bear down on us. We even often get so caught up in worrying about our personal issues that we often forget to look outward, failing to help others because we are so busy trying to take care of our own problems that we suffer from a tunnel vision that keeps us from even seeing anybody else.

Besides keeping us from truly loving others because we are too busy worrying about ourselves, failing to trust that God is “big enough” also keeps us further away from Him.

In his series, “Amazing Place,” preacher Rick Atchley points out that besides worry, another thing that keeps us from fully trusting God is having too small a vision of what His promise of eternity really means. If your idea of heaven is small, then what you manage to learn in this life in your preparation for the next one inevitably suffers.

But instead, if you embrace the infinite power and possibilities that our Creator God IS, then how you live moves towards the goal of His perfectness:

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen (Jude 1:24-25)

So, what does having a big enough God look like? How about putting the needs of other people before your own, even people you do not know? Or what about having the courage or gumption to help out at a local food bank, even though doing that is out of your comfort zone? Maybe it looks like waking up in the morning feeling anxious and immediately saying a prayer that gives that anxiousness to God, that asks for the insight during the day to see the lessons He wants you to learn, that thanks Him for times in the past when He has proven that He will see you through tough situations.

God doesn’t lie. People make mistakes. People get zealous and condemn before learning all the facts. People fail to keep their promises. But God doesn’t lie.

And God has promised through His Son to save us from ourselves, to forgive us for every sin we profess as long as we are willing to accept Christ as our Savior. But that forgiveness is the promise of more than just escaping eternal damnation. It is the reality of an eternal existence that is so awesome, that even the apostle whom Christ most loved found it difficult to describe the vision he was given of it:

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)

God is big enough.

Christian Living, Christianity, Faith

This Road to Love

Posted on December 9, 2014December 9, 2014 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

³By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. ⁴And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.

⁵In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, ⁶and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, ⁷and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

⁸The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1: 3-8 NLT)

I have read these words from 2 Peter on many occasions, but they never cease to strike me as a clear roadmap to the kind of life that truly reflects a belief in Christ. Still, no matter how clear this roadmap is, it also involves steps that we can only survive if we take them knowing we need God every step of the way.

So, let’s begin by spelling out the steps on the road to “love for everyone” that should be the end goal of every Christian. As Peter makes clear, each step on the path to love leads to the next, as skills build upon skills to reach the greatest skill of all. Here, then, is the list of these skills:

Faith
Moral Excellence
Knowledge
Self-Control
Patient Endurance
Godliness
Brotherly Affection
Love for everyone

I just completed a trip to Disney World that proved my secret plan to spend the last decade or so of my life as a missionary in some country where my paltry retirement might actually keep me just above poverty level went up in smoke about as quickly as you can sing the Mickey Mouse Club theme. Besides having no physical stamina, I ran out of patient endurance after the first three hours in an overcrowded theme park. Self-control drifted skyward as I sighted the first Mickey sandwich ice cream trolley. The only love I had for everyone was the kind where I would have loved for no one else to be in the park!

So, how do we achieve the seemingly unachievable? Peter tells us we are able because of God’s promises to us: These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires (2 Peter 1:4). Becoming a Christian is as easy as admitting to God that you are a sinner who needs redeemed. Becoming Christ-like is a daily, conscious practice of making one’s Christianity not a mantle to be put on and off, but the very act of being.

Because of faith, I seek moral excellence. I want to say only what is uplifting and/or holy. I strive to do what is right always. As I grow in my ability to be right more than I am wrong, I gain a kind of knowledge that can’t be found in a book, the knowledge of ways to act in belief and the knowledge of the superior path of righteousness over worldliness. As we realize that doing right feels better than doing wrong, we increase our ability to control the self. When we can control ourselves so that we do not give in to the human desires that lead us further from the ways of God, we are more likely to actively be patient with our circumstances and with others.

A Godly person reflects the daily practice of sowing seeds of righteousness in good soil. When we join like-minded people in our enthusiasm for living a Godly life, we approach the brotherly affection to which Peter refers. Our brothers include all those who believe in Christ like we do (including, of course, our sisters as well).

When we can love those who think as we think (which is the easiest way to love), we may just be ready to step out in faith to love even those who do not believe what we believe. Loving everyone else means turning the other cheek, as Christ instructs. The Golden Rule is Golden because, not only does it make this world more bearable, it stores up for us the treasures in heaven that Jesus says are our end goal instead of the treasures on this earth where moth and rust can and will destroy.

Like the Fruit of the Spirit of Galatians 5:22, the steps to love of everyone in 2 Peter is your roadmap to a healthier relationship with Jesus, our Lord. Remembering that our relationship with God must be on the right track for our relationship with other people to have a chance of growing is especially important.

As we enter the busiest time of our holiday season, I hope to bring to mind the lessons of 2 Peter as I wrangle through the increased traffic and crowds. I will begin by remembering why we have this holiday in the first place: because our loving Creator chose to sacrifice a piece of Himself for the sins of all of us so that we all have the opportunity to grasp with both hands the promise of eternal life.

Now, that’s a road to love that I will gladly travel. I look forward to seeing you on the journey.

Christian Living, Christianity

Why We Remember

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

Memory is a tricky thing. We all have a tendency to remember events in such a way that makes us look the best. Sometimes, or in some areas, we remember events so that we can see ourselves in our worst possible light, feeding our own insecurities or personal issues. The inability of we humans to remember accurately is part of what makes eye witnesses so unreliable.

Having created us, God knows our faults. He knows that we will have to consciously make the effort to remember our own fallacies in order to maintain our healthy fear of Him, the fear that is the knowledge of His awesomeness and makes us want to worship Him and do what is right. On their trek through the desert once they escaped Egypt, even though God perpetually saved the Israelites from their own follies, they seem to fail to remember. They complain, they want to return to Egypt, they doubt God will keep His promises, they worship other gods.

Because God’s memory never fails, He remembers His promises. As He has Moses prepare the Israelites to finally enter the promised land, He has Moses implore them:

“Listen, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deut. 6:4-9 NLT)

God intends to keep His promises to make Israel a great nation, but He expects them to remember His instructions. (At one point late in the 40-year journey through the desert, God is ready to wipe out the entire bunch and begin again until Moses talks Him out of that plan because God is so disgusted by the Israelites perpetual forgetfulness and thanklessness.) And why was the remembering of God and His promises so vital for the Israelites? They were about to embark on the final length of their journey, into a promised land that was filled with pagan peoples who might easily tempt the Israelites into forgetting that God was the one and only, thus allowing them to slip into actions detestable to God, like making idols or touching unclean things.

But the most important reason for remembering is this: For we will be counted as righteous when we obey all the commands the LORD our God has given us (Deut. 5:25 NLT) In the New Testament, Grace makes a difference about our source of righteousness: I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; Paul writes, rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. (Philippians 3:9 NLT)

Faith versus works does not lower the bar of our commitment to remembering God. In fact, it raises it. Paul explains:

But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. . . .I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. (Philippians 3: 12-14 NLT)

Remembering God means forgetting the wrongs or perceived wrongs done to us by others, putting God’s wants before our own, and even forgetting what good we may have done so as not to rest on our laurels and fail to achieve all that we might through the Holy Spirit working in us. When we remember how much God has done for us, it makes us love God even more, and it should make us love others, no matter what perceived hurts they cause us.

Remembering God also means pouring out our thankfulness to Him. God wants to hear our gratitude and our acknowledgement that all we have and all we are, we owe to Him. Paul implores us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 NLT).

Christ instructs us to pray with this attitude of gratefulness: Our Father, who art in heaven, Christ tells us to begin, hallowed be thy name. In acknowledging our relationship to God as Father, we are reminded that He who made everything wants to have a relationship with us. In acknowledging His holiness, we realize how grateful we should be to have a relationship with God, to know His love for us because of grace.

When you are faced with the challenges of life, whether you are having physical problems, mental problems, work problems, family problems, or financial problems, it can be so easy to just whine to God or be mad at Him and ignore Him (as if that somehow hurts God instead of us!). But when we are in times of peril it is even more important to remember first to be thankful, to acknowledge what God has done for us through the grace of Christ.

Finally, when we remember to be thankful, I think it makes it easier for us to be the love of Christ to those who do not yet believe, to shine His light as Christians are supposed to do. In his book, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, Abbot Christopher Jamison describes Christian patience this way:

“Patience is more subtle: it is the attempt to live out in a positive frame of mind the difficulties that come from trying to obey and love other people”

It is so easy to forget. But a successfully run race with Christ can only be accomplished when first we remember.

Christian Living, Christianity, Faith

3 Lessons from Numbers for Christians

Posted on July 19, 2014 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

My Bible readings have me in the beginning of this only Book that truly matters, and so I am asking God to help me see the lessons I should be learning from what can sometimes seem tedious study, since so much of the story of the Jews’ time in the desert is filled with specifics about measurements for building the tabernacle, the specific punishments for different crimes, etc. Still, I believe God is showing me some pretty interesting things because I have asked for Him to, in faith.

Reading in the book of Numbers, I tried to see myself in the shoes of the Jews. They might have had the privilege of witnessing God’s miracles and seeing His presence up close–like having manna and water delivered to them out of nothing and seeing God appear in a great cloud and column of fire to guide them, but I have the knowledge of God’s greatest miracle: that He gave His only Son to die for our sins.

Knowing this, can I see my own worries and misplaced concerns about everyday life as the same kind of backsliding that I scoff at when I read about the Jews and their golden calves or whining about being tired of the same kind of food every day? Reading the early parts of Numbers in this way, I have come up with three conclusions I can try to apply to my walk with Christ.

God keeps His promises
- God said He would rescue the Jews from Egypt and take care of them. But, every time you turn around, the Jews keep wanting to go back to Egypt, back to slavery and harsh taskmasters. However, the Jews don’t remember these negative sides to life in Egypt when they are whining to Moses. All they remember is having a variety of food there and not just manna.
- Don’t we Christians do similar things? Christ promises that He will be with us always. Christ admonishes us to look toward treasures in heaven and not on earth. He wants us to understand that our relationship with Him is what matters most, not the car repair we have to find a way to pay for. And yet, how many times do we fret instead of trusting that Christ also keeps His promises? He brings us through the storms in this life, often not in ways we expected, but usually we can look back and see the good Christ works in the things that happen to us, especially when we approach those things by putting our belief in Him first.
God doesn’t want us to fail.
- I think it is a mistake to place on an omnipotent God an understanding of emotions that is limited by our human perceptions. In other words, when God gets angry, it is in no way the same as when we humans get angry. There just isn’t a way for us to understand God’s “emotions” unless He chooses to reveal them to us.
- I say all that to propose that the punishments that God metes out when the Jews fall short should not necessarily be seen so much as an anger response as a disappointment that borders on mourning. And what, exactly, is God mourning except the loss of those who fail to have faith in Him despite everything He is doing to show the Jews that He alone is God?
- If God mourned the failure of the people He had chosen to establish Himself as the one and only God of the universe, how much more must he mourn when people reject Christ, or when we Christians reject the lessons Christ worked so hard to teach us?
- The bottom line of the cycle of lack of faith and punishment as the Jews wandered in the desert is the lesson that God does not want us to fail. Think about how many times God allowed the Jews to begin again with their relationship with Him. Then, think about how Christ allows us to awake each morning as a new creature. As long as we acknowledge our sins to Him and repent of them, we get to walk with Christ in the presence of God once again!
- No greater love….
God wants our BEST.
- Every sin or uncleanness in the book of Numbers requires sacrifices that begin with the offering of the best that the person has to offer. Lambs with no defect, the best grain, the finest incense. Only by giving the very best that a person owned could the person really feel the sacrifice required to make things right with God again.
- The Jews’ relationship with God in the desert always involved barriers. God spoke to Moses directly, who then conveyed God’s messages to the people. Thick, wonderfully made curtains separated the unconsecrated masses from the inner sanctuary, where only the anointed, clean priests could enter to present the best of the best to God to redeem those who had sinned.
- With Christ, the inner curtain has been rent in two! With the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and with Christ as our High Priest, we can speak to God directly and know that He is listening and hears us.
- If God wanted the best of what the Jews in the desert had to offer, what do you think He wants from those of us who have chosen to accept the Grace and gift of the Cross? Do you give Christ your BEST every day? Do you at least think about giving Him your BEST?
- If you are wondering what the BEST is for a Christian, begin with a study of the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ expounds what it looks like to be a true citizen of the kingdom of heaven. He doesn’t promise that it will be easy, but He does promise to be with us every step of the way.

There are lessons in the Bible for all of us, not just in the New Testament. Even though the Old Testament books include some cultural references and ways of life that are thousands of years removed from modern life, people still retain the same basics of human nature that can bring us closer to God or push us farther apart from Him.

The choice, as always in a fallen world where free will exists, is ours to make. As you study the Bible, remember to ask God to show you ways you can apply what you read in your every day life, no matter how far removed the events you are reading about seem to be from your usual experiences. God keeps His promises. And one of those promises is that those who ask, believing, will receive.

Christianity, Faith

This Cup of Wrath: Part 3 of 3

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

We all get angry, some more than others. Think about the last time you got really, really angry, the kind of angry that makes your whole body shake as you clench your teeth. Chances are the person who made you so angry is someone related to you or someone you otherwise know quite well. Why is that the case? Perhaps because we feel safe to be angry at that person. They can’t make themselves unrelated to us, can they? Perhaps it is because we share a past that is so similar that we do not understand how the person who made us angry could have made decisions so different from what we might have done.

But none of these examples of anger are comparable to the wrath of God. He who made all things is the only One who has the right and full knowledge to be angry. Pride, jealousy, hatred–the human emotions connected to anger have nothing to do with the wrath of God. His wrath is reserved for those who refuse to follow His edicts, no matter how patient He is in explaining them to us. The great essayist Annie Dillard explains it this way:

A high school stage play is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since the year one. In two thousand years, we have not worked out the kinks. We positively glorify them. Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God, for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our dancing bear act to smithereens.

Who can believe it?

The greatest wonder of all is that the same God whose wrath can and has wiped out the entire human race (don’t forget Noah), is tempered by an even greater love. Because of God’s love for us, He sent His one and only Son, who took on the wrath of God unto Himself, the wrath that you and I deserve, so that we would be saved from it.

In his series on the book of Revelations, preacher Rick Atchley spends some time discussing the cup of wrath that is mentioned throughout the book. Rick makes a clear connection between the full, judgmental wrath of God that will be poured out on all who do not repent at the end of times with the cup that Jesus prays to God about in the garden of Gethsemane before He was sacrificed on the cross:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42

In dying on the cross for my sin, Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath for me. None of us is perfect. None of us can say we are without blame, without reason for God to be angry or disappointed with us. But because Christ drank from the cup of wrath, we are free to face God and feel the full force of His love for us.

As you take your next Lord’s Supper, think about the cup you drink not only as a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice, but also as a symbol of the wrath of God you so deserve but from which you have been so lovingly spared. You may, as I, find it hard to actually swallow.

There is no greater knowledge than this: that God’s love for us is such that He gives us what we need and not what we deserve. The cup of wrath is real, but not a thing to fear for those who believe in Christ. Instead, we Christians should use the cup of wrath as a reminder to be more patient, more loving with others, just as Christ is patient and loving with us. We have been saved from God’s wrath. Shouldn’t we long to help Him in His quest to see that all are saved?

Because of Christ, God’s wrath is like words scrawled on the sandy shore, where the waves can wash them out to sea over and over again, holding nothing against us.

Christianity, Faith

This Cup of Wrath, Part 2 of 3

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Ramona Levacy Billingslea

I have to write some hard things. I have to ask some questions that have no clear-cut answers. I have to begin with the assurance that despite what I have to write today, the end of any thoughts on the cup of wrath is the promise of the mercy of God that gave us Christ to save us.

Before the New Testament, people who sinned had to “get right” with God through the offering of different sacrifices. The Book of Leviticus spells out what sins call for different animal or grain offerings and just how those offerings were to be carried out. Then, Leviticus starts to spell out what makes a person unclean. Touching dead animals, being a woman in her cycle, even having a boil can make a person unclean, requiring yet another set of procedures–different procedures for each different circumstance. In one instance, the poor, afflicted person had to go around with a shaved head outside of the camp for a week or more, covering his/her mouth and saying out loud, over and over, “unclean, unclean.”

Maybe 4000 years ago, people didn’t get acne like we do today. Maybe words didn’t carry the same power so that a person having to call out their uncleanness all the time would really believe their own cleanness when the priest finally declared it. These are questions God knows the answers to, and my faith has to leave at that.

But, what I realized as I read through Leviticus this morning was that once the book covers the sin offerings, it very clearly delineates that the cleanliness procedures have to do with ceremonial cleanness. When God saved the Jews from Egypt, He was beginning to establish the practice of worshipping one God, HIM.

Part of establishing monotheism among a people who had always believed in Him but also still worshipped other gods was making those people understand just how perfect, pure, powerful and different the God of the Jews really was. Remember how there were several of the plagues in Egypt that even the Egyptian magicians could imitate? As slaves, the Jews had been surrounded for more than 400 years with masters who worshipped a pantheon of gods.

To set Himself apart, God rightfully wanted His people to understand the Holiness of His temple. Only Moses spoke with Him directly, and afterward Moses’ face glowed so that he had to cover it because the glow scared the Jews. To enter even the outer sections of the temple that was dedicated to the one and only LORD, therefore, God needed to make very clear-cut delineations between what was clean and unclean. Those who did not take God’s commands seriously, literally died.

Fast-forward to a New Testament world, and I come to the tough questions. These are the kind of questions that can keep Christians apart, even though they really shouldn’t be “deal breakers.” I only ask them because they came to me as I contemplated the importance placed on ceremonial cleanliness in Leviticus.

First, the only reason we have the right to enter the Holy of Holies is through the sacrifice that Christ made for us. With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that comes from our acceptance of Christ as our Savior, we have full access to the one and only God. But, in a modern world where we have tried so hard to make our churches “welcoming,” have we gone too far away from the symbolic importance of the Holiness of the worship sanctuary?

In the church I attend, some people wear jeans, others wear dresses and suits. The church has a coffee bar in the Atrium, and people bring their coffee into the worship service. It is a friendly, comfortable environment, but is it Holy? In other words, I’d like to think that we humans have advanced in the last 4000 years, but I also know that in the 2000 years since Christ declared His kingdom, we haven’t put forth the greatest track record. We are all stubborn and stiff-necked people.

Would wearing our best (or the equivalent of the Sunday best that the least affluent member of the church is able to wear so that church doesn’t become a glamour contest) and entering the sanctuary with only our Bibles in our hands make us more cognizant of the honor we have in being able to worship God in this way? Have we lost a bit in translation by making our worship centers more comfortable than sanctified?

I’m not making any judgments or trying to start any arguments here. I think this is a practice each person can decide for him/herself. I, for one, am going to stop the habit I had begun of taking a drink into the sanctuary just because others were also doing it. I didn’t feel right about it for myself from the get-go. After being reminded about the importance of ceremonial cleanliness to God in the time of the Old Testament, I feel that I need to uphold the sanctity of the sanctuary in this way even though I am already sanctified by Christ.

As I heard a preacher once remark, if God wanted this much from us before He sacrificed His one and only Son, what makes us think He would want less of us now that that sacrifice has been made?

It seems like foregoing a beverage and dressing with care before entering the sanctuary on Sunday are some simple steps I can take to remind myself of the holiness of the worship in which I am about to partake. Leviticus serves as an awesome reminder of the depth of God’s love for His people and the extent of His wrath when His very, very long patience finally wears out.