Is my hair on fire?

 Hope none of you died since my last post. Of course if you are reading this you are not dead... unless you are extremely talented. Boy Howdee.

 In a disturbing coincidence, considering the last post, I have recently learned that the mortality rate in my town is 100%. THAT..is bad news. But if you'll remember, I said I had good news.

  The following little deal, I stole from a much older post of mine but if you don't mind, I don't mind:

  We humans prepare for everything. We prepare for tests in school that might not happen. We prepare for careers by going to college but that career might not happen. We prepare for athletic contests we might not play in (like, ya know, if you flunk off the football team in the tenth grade). OOOoohhh man! That still stings a bit. We prepare for weddings that might not happen. We prepare for a retirement that might not happen. We even prepare other people for our own death with wills and such. But there is only one thing that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt will happen. Our own death. And so many of us don't prepare for it.

   Gonna throw another Greek word at you, euangelion. That is where our word evangel comes from and it means good news. And evangelist is one who brings good news. When you think evangelist you may think of Billy Graham or some very angry man on a street corner yelling and screaming at you, doing more harm for the cause of Christ than he could possibly know. I once watched a pair of these folks yelling and screaming and starting fights for an hour in downtown Atlanta. Heartbreaking. I got real close and took a picture of one of them:

He almost bit me but lucky for me I was eating a bowl of my Alphabits cereal.... So I ate him:

 BUUUURRP!! Exsqueeze me. He tasted kinda' sour and bitter.

 Well today I am an evangelist; A bringer of Good News to you. And what is that good news? Pure and simple:

Romans 5:8 (NIV)- But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

  Do you understand what that means? As I have written in earlier posts, God demands judgement of sin...judgement of sinners. It's just the way it is, no matter how yucky or angry you may feel about it or no matter how unfair it may seem. But Christ, though undeserving, took our punishment on that hill and God has accepted his payment of the debt we owed. However, this gift must be accepted by you through repentance and faith(belief):

Acts 2:37-38A (NIV)- When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins..."

  You know, if you think about it, you all know he was there that day. The Crucifiction happening is a fact that can be proved outside of the Bible, if you need that. If you think about it some more, what the heck was He doing there...God was certainly very serious about something that day. What was it?

  So Peter said you must repent and be baptized (in that order) which means if you were baptized as an infant or too young enough to understand, it doesn't count. Sorry poopy pants. Just so you'll know, I was baptized twice. Once when I was 12 and didn't have a clue and once when I was 28 and understood. There is nothing magical in the water that "saves" you, the "magic" is in the Christ who died for you and then you truly understanding and truly believing it. And then getting Baptized is the symbolic act identifying you with Christ and showing that you agree with Him about you and ..about Him. You've changed your mind. You've repented. You've turned away from the old way of thinking and doing. I may explain more on that later. I don't want to split any (more) denominations over an interpretation of Baptism and/or repentance. I'll just shut up for a minute and let Paul speak:

Romans 10:9-10 (NIV)- That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved

  That's all really but there is a cost. I'll discuss that in the next post. We'll talk about someone the Bible calls "The Rich Young Ruler". One last brief word about belief.

Oh I believe. I BELIEVE!!

Hush up, you.

  This belief changes you. The following little word picture is also something I stole from an earlier post but explains true belief(faith) in a very good way, me thinks. I got it from my favorite pastor, Chuck Smith. Well actually, my second favorite pastor. My favorite pastor lives in Orangeburg and is the pastor at Northgate Baptist Church:

Pastor Chuck gave a good analogy of faith without works that has stuck with me for 12 years. He said that if he began to talk about there being a bomb underneath the stage from which he was speaking and was doing it casually, everyone would think that he was lying. “Hey folks, there is a big old bomb up under the stage that is big enough to blow us all to smithereens and it is going off in 60 seconds. Can you imagine someone doing that? That’s just not very nice, blowing people up. Oohhhh, the humanity.” Most people listening to that would think that Chuck obviously does NOT really believe that a bomb was getting ready to go off. However, if Chuck began running up and down the aisles like his hair was on fire screaming for everyone to “GET OUT!! GET OUT!! THERE’S A BOMB GETTING READY TO BLOW!!” Those listening would at least believe that Chuck thought there was a bomb. In both cases we could tell what he believed by his actions/works. This came from his teaching from the Book of James. Faith without works is dead.

 

Sometimes I feel like that.....Like my hair is on fire.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Andy Newell]

Joe, just a friendly word of encouragement from a brother in Christ. Please be careful about making sweeping statements from singular verses of Scripture. When you state that "Peter said you must repent and be baptized (in that order) which means if you were baptized as an infant or too young enough to understand, it doesn't count," you're suggesting that even the order of the words in Scripture is important. To that I would agree. However, if you apply that thought universally, you'd have to agree that Jesus has commanded us not to teach anyone about what he's commanded until after they're baptized. After all, didn't Jesus say in the great commission, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20, NIV)? The order is clearly stated: baptize and then teach. As such, don't those who baptize infants have a biblical reason to do so? Not to mention those who baptize those "too young enough to understand." Who after all, really understands what's happening to them in baptism? Union with Christ, forgiveness of sins, purification of all unrigteousness, being made a new creation - this is all a bit overwhelming, wouldn't you say? Maybe that's why Jesus said, "Make disciples ... baptizing them ... and teaching them ..." (in that order). My goal here isn't to discourage you or to attack you. To the contrary, I really enjoy your posts, and I appreciate you spurring me on to broader thoughts about my own faith and understanding of Scripture. I only want to caution you against making more out of Scripture than it actually says.

[Joe]

Thanks for the comment, Andy. Most of my readers don't comment but instead, send me e-mails. It's nice to get a comment once in a while.
I feel like I should know you but I don't. I would like to though so why don't you send me an e-mail telling me about yourself. I would also like to respond to your comment but not in this format as I don't want to confuse our guests about a subject that doesn't need to be confusing. I enjoy good faith banter between brothers and always try to keep an open mind to others beliefs or ideas.
I would imagine you have already but if I might suggest; A good word study on baptism and repent/repentance using a good concordance, a reputable commentary and a Greek Dictionary would be helpful.
I look forward to hearing from you Andy and if any one else would like to join you can send me an e-mail too.

Joe