WHAT IS THE FRUIT OF BEING A CHRISTIAN?

Notes From Our Recent Seminar on Grace

This is our fourth seminar on grace. In February the topic was the flesh and Spirit conflict and how our understanding of that affects how we perceive what it means to live the Christian life. The March topic was about how the fear of the Lord fits with grace. In April the topic was the question: What is grace? Today’s topic is related to the fruit of grace. But I suggest that the fruit of grace has two aspects. And today we will look at the first aspect. The second aspect is a big subject on its own. The first aspect is about conversion. When someone becomes a Christian something radically changes. What is it and how is it visible? We Christians look for the fruit that indicates and gives confidence that someone is a real Christian. Certainly God wants us to have confidence that we are alive and free in Christ. God also wants us to be confident about the status of other people. First let’s summarize the first three seminar topics briefly to refresh our minds and and get ready for today’s question.

Review

In the first seminar we looked at the question: what is the flesh. You seemed to agree with me about the conclusion that the problem of the flesh is really all about trusting in man’s strength and wisdom and trying to avoid being weak and to avoid doing bad things. This leads right into the devil’s hands. He wants us to resist our weaknesses rather than to celebrate them. And he wants us to focus on our obedience and stumble into self-righteousness. The way of the spirit is 1) to stay aware of God’s call to always be perfect, 2) to rejoice in our weaknesses, and 3) to know that in Christ is everything a person needs. We also spoke of sin as a fruit of trusting in human ability. Maturity we described as a growing sensitivity to our weaknesses and growing confidence in Christ as all we need. Maturity also sees this as true for other people.

 Our second seminar was about how the fear of the Lord is actually the door into grace. Three good words together give us a sense of this fear: reverence, respect, and wonder. These words describe that God is good but He is not safe. Wonder conveys that He doesn’t fit in our box and is full of surprises. If we are thinking manageable thoughts about God then fear is absent. Also if we think we can manage our relationship with Him then we aren’t fearing Him. Life is precious and can end or be severely detoured at any moment by trials or critics. Are we content with that? To fear God means to be at peace realizing and trusting that no matter what comes our way He is our only hope and He is watching over us in tenderness. He is perfect love, requires perfect love, and gives it as a gift to all who rest in the finished work of Christ. When we fear God we have these thoughts not only about ourselves but about other people too. Dostoevsky put it beautifully when he wrote, “To love a person means to see him as God intended him to be.”  Do you see the door into grace?

Our third seminar was the question: What is grace? This simple question is answered by seeing the opposite of grace.  We Christians have a relationship with God of grace, which means unmerited favor. Simple, right? Our Mormon friends represent the world. They have a relationship with God that is one of merited favor. Merited favor means favor that is earned. That is pressure. The place of wisdom is for us to realize that God doesn’t mix the two. You either have a relationship with God of pure unmerited favor or pure merited favor. God keeps score perfectly: either you are totally free from the pressure of having to do good, or you are under the full pressure to have to do good all the time. The devil hates God and lies about Him all the time seeking to deceive us to go back to thinking that we have to do at least a little bit of good to get God’s full favor. Do you ever feel that pressure? Which is it? Are you under grace—unmerited favor? Or are you under law—the pressure to merit or earn God’s favor? God wants to favor everyone: either you merit his favor or Christ merits it for you. Aren’t you glad to be free from merit?

Let’s get started.

What is the Fruit of Being a Christian?

Have you heard that everyone knows about God but only a true Christian knows God personally? Likely you have used this in your style of witnessing to your Mormon friends and relatives who tell you that they are Christians too. They aren’t really Christians because they don’t really know God. But they think they do, right?

What is the difference between knowing about God and knowing God personally?

Our question today is really about the difference between the fruit of just knowing about God and the fruit of knowing God personally.  Raise you hand if you are confident that you can explain this difference clearly to someone.  Raise your hand if you feel that you could use a little help in understanding this difference more clearly. God has blessed us to live surrounded by Mormons to help us have to deal honestly with this issue. I suggest that Christians who don’t have our blessing can pretend to understand and not be challenged to think more deeply. I will tell my story about this later today. I lived here 25 years and witnessed to many Mormons before it became clear to me. 

Let’s assume that the fruit of knowing God personally is good fruit; and let’s also say that the fruit of just knowing about God is bad fruit. Raise your hand if this make sense. If this is true then we need to do two things. 1) We need to figure out what these two fruits are. 2) We need to seek to become expert fruit inspectors. This way we can be glad ministers of peace to each other and to the lost people around us that we care for.

Matthew 7:15-23—The Scary Passage

This passage is commonly explained and preached in such a way that it is threatening to Christians. As I read it aloud notice your responses or your memories from the past concerning it.

"Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’" –Matthew 7:15-23

Let’s be honest. Have you ever felt threatened by this passage? Did you feel a little of that just now? At the end of our time together today I am going to read it again. Then we will evaluate our responses to see if there is any change. Get ready for a surprise.

 The Mormon View

How does our Mormon culture understand and teach this passage? I want to reveal this by telling a true story. About ten years ago an old Christian woman called me and asked me to go with her to the funeral of her active Mormon friend. As we sat there the bishop got up and gave a talk. He spoke sternly and threateningly. He reminded me in appearance and in voice tone of the Marine sargeant in the television program I used to watch as a kid. Do you remember Gomer Pyle and his sargeant? That guy was always threatening people and making life miserable for everyone else. The bishop spoke of how wonderful the old woman had been and how she had done what was required to be welcomed to live with God forever. Then in his sargeant voice he pointed at and panned the audience and said that everyone was going to appear before God some day and that some or many in the audience were going to be surprised because God was going to send them away for not being like that woman and doing all that was needed. I suspected that many in the audience felt threatened. Later the stake president, the bishop's boss, got up to speak. He was a large friendly man. In his talk he spoke anxiously as he said that he hoped that when he got there he would have done as much as the old woman and would not be sent away.

What is your response to that story? Did you feel feel the heat of the bishop’s words? Didn’t he sound like he was trying to imitate Jesus in our passage? Have you ever heard Christians talk like that, especially about this passage?

About the same time a Mormon woman about 40 to whom I had witnessed before came in Oasis. As I engaged her in conversation about sin and salvation I commented on how her words were similar to what other Mormons had told me. She corrected me and said that the other Mormons didn’t really know God personally, but only knew about him. She proceeded to tell me about her good points and about the bad points of the other Mormons—especially about their pride and judgmentalism. At the end of that revealing conversation she commented that she was having a really proud day.

What was the fruit that she was inspecting to make the distinction between herself and the other Mormons—between knowing God personally and just knowing about Him? She drew a line somewhere as to how much good work was sufficient to prove she knew God and the others didn’t. Is that how we Christians do or should think?

Have you ever had a Mormon tell you that good works or good behavior are the fruit that God is looking for to show that a person really knows God?

What Was Lacking in My Understanding?

In my first 25 years in Utah, Mormons used to quote this passage to me to prove that their church was true because of its good fruit. They would explain all the good works of their church and its members and equate good works with good fruit. I would then open the Bible to this passage, show it to them, and then help them notice that it said that the fruit was perfect. I would tell them that they and I weren’t perfect and so they were wrong about what the fruit was. I would tell them that I didn’t know what it was talking about, but it was obviously not what they were saying because the fruit had to be perfect. That is the best I could do with this passage until Eli joined me in ministry 8 years ago. He first noticed what the fruit was and then shared it with me.

What is Perfect About You?

What is it about you that is perfect? If it isn’t your behavior, then what is it? Where does your behavior come from anyway? Jesus said that “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders." We all grew up with evil hearts and needed a new heart from God. What is the good heart? Is it just behavior, having totally good behavior? That is impossible or we are all sunk.

I suggest that a good heart is all about identity. Raise you hand if before you were a Christian you thought you had at least one good point that you used to feel good about yourself? Did you ever think that you were better than somebody else? I sure did. Any confidence I had about being forgiven was about that. When the first Christian told me that forgiveness was a free gift paid for by the blood of Jesus, I opposed those words. Did you ever think like that back then?

My Story

I became a Christian as a university student 37 years ago. One day a Christian named Don knocked on my door, invited me to some event, and then later witnessed to me. I opposed Don’s words about the free gift but hung around with him and his friends. He and his friends did Bible study, had prayer meetings, were active in Church, and put high emphasis on growing in Christ and witnessing. Over the years I have spoken with many Christians who have struggled with doubts about their salvation. I have never really doubted my salvation and wondered why. Don has been a Christian missionary now for 35 years. He told me a few years ago that he had legalistic tendencies when I met him and then 20 years ago at a conference he heard a speaker talk about grace as the way to live the Christian life. Don was angered by the message, wondering if he had wasted his Christian life in the hard work of evangelism and discipleship. He complained in tears to his wife. She told him to go to his room and pray. God spoke to him that grace wasn't the absence of good works, but rather was about grace motivated and grace empowered good works.  

I wondered what Don had thought and taught in his legalistic days about the fruit to look for to know if someone was a Christian since legalists often have a serious list of things they look for. So last fall when Don visited Logan I asked him. He said that in his legalistic days he never struggled with doubts about salvation because the Bible passage he used to understand if someone was a Christian was:

"If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." -1John 5:9-13

Don said that if a person has the Son then the person has life and is a Christian. That is known by a person having God's testimony. He said that for him it has always been that simple. He said he never looked at other things like a changed life, but said a person's life would change in some ways. I meditated on Don's words and realized that I must have learned from Don and his friends to use that one simple test for myself and for others to know if a person was a real Christian.

Have you had other tests to know if you were a Christian? Have you heard preachers give other tests besides this simple one? What if all those other passages are really different ways of saying this same simple test? I suggest that they are. Do you have the Son? Do you have the testimony in your heart that life is in the Son and that having the Son is all you need to have eternal life? Let’s ask it in a negative way. When is the last time you told someone something such as Jesus was not enough to have eternal life because eternal life was not a free gift? I said it before I was a Christian but never once since my conversion. Raise your hand if that is true for you, too. When I ask Mormons to remember the last time they told someone that full exaltation was a free gift, they say that they have never even had the thought that it was free. They have an evil heart that trusts in having some good works in order to have eternal life.  A Christian’s testimony is perfectly good and a Mormon’s testimony is perfectly bad. Your testimony changed when you became a Christian because your heart changed. A good heart knows that it is weak and sinful and Jesus is all that is needed to be with God forever. Raise your hand if you know that.

The Jewish Leaders and Sheila

If when you get to heaven there happened to be a gate, and there happened to be an angel at the gate asking each person why entrance should be granted, what would you say? Are you going to talk like those self-righteous Jewish teachers Jesus mentioned and tell about your good works, or are you going to sound something like Sheila, a simple old woman who was unsure that she was a Christian.

Angel with a smile: Why should I let you it?

Sheila: Oh no! I am a sinner. Jesus died for me. That’s it.

Isn't it obvious from her words that Sheila is a Christian?

Raise your hand if you are like Sheila.

The fruit is your testimony that you are a helpless sinner and the Son is all that a person needs to have eternal life. 
Agreed? 

The Scary Passage Again

Listen and watch your reactions as I read Matthew 7 again.

"Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’" –Matthew 7:15-23

Did you feel threatened or were you glad that Jesus was enough? 
Did you at least notice having less distress?

SEEING RIGHT-SIDE UP: GRACE FOR OTHER PEOPLE

Unmerited Favor for You

If you are a Christian then you have been saved by grace (unmerited favor) through faith without any personal works. Does that make your heart sing? As a Christian you now have a relationship with God based on unmerited favor. That ought to make your heart sing, too.

Satan is Real and a Liar

Do you believe that Satan is real? I do. I think that his big lie is all about persuading and deceiving me to think that there is somehow still some merit that I need to bring to my relationship with God. I consider that to be a lie and keep alert for it, but freely admit that I have swallowed it more times than I realize. How about you? Do you agree that it is a lie? Are you alert to avoid buying it? Have you like me been tricked at times?

The Big Identity Change

I became a Christian 37 years ago. Like everyone else, I started life with an identity under the elementary principles of the world (Galatians 4:3), under the merit system of my conscience, under the law. My conscience told me to always do the right thing. I didn't; I made excuses; I blamed others; I tried to feel good about myself by comparing myself to others; I became rather proficient at looking down on others; and I saw Jesus as a lawgiver who needed to be obeyed or placated in order to obtain forgiveness from him. Can you relate to my experience? One day a Christian knocked on my door at university and told me that forgiveness was a free gift paid for by the death of Christ and offered to helpless sinners. I couldn't believe my ears. That guy was really wrong and I told him so. "You have to be good to get forgiveness, and if I am not good enough then the line behind me is really long." I laugh at that statement now as it seems rather self-righteous, but on that day I was dead serious about it. I had quit a Protestant church and become an agnostic, but still my mind and my identity were all about merit. I resisted that guy, but went with him and his friends to Bible study and church for months to prove to myself that religion was a waste of time. But they were clean cut like I was, and they liked me, in spite of my very self-righteous attitude. I was intrigued. Watching them and reading the words of Jesus for myself for the first time slowly sensitized me to the truth that Jesus is a grace-giver, not a law-giver, and won't cheapen perfection for anyone. It is like I woke up one day rejoicing that forgiveness was a gift and I had it. My identity suddenly changed; one day I was under a relationship of merit with God and life, and the next day I knew that I was free in Christ from God requiring merit from me. My testimony of God changed from one of merited favor to unmerited favor. 

The reason my testimony changed is that my identity changed. In 37 years I have never had the thought that merit was required to be with God forever. But before I was a Christian I never had the thought that such was unmerited. I have asked Mormon students if they could remember the last time that they told someone that full exaltation (being forever with God) was a free gift that didn't require any personal works. As I have pushed them to try harder to remember, they have replied in this vain: "Why would I say that since I have never even had the thought that it was free." Their testimony is merited favor because their identity is merited favor. Which is your testimony?

The Surprise of Grace as Community

When I became a Christian, my identity changed. This was personal but it was not merely personal. In the universe there are two identities as Romans 6:14 declares, "For sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under law [merited favor] but under grace [unmerited favor]." Because of the way God created the universe, every person is born in the world under the authority of law; doing good is obligatory to avoid judgement; and favor is merited. At the creation of the universe unmerited favor existed in the heart of God but did not exist in the created universe--not until Jesus died on the cross. The conscience knew about unmerited favor but had no authority to grant it. Until the cross God had passed over sin, He had not technically forgiven it yet. (See Romans 3:25) The substitutionary death of Christ opened the door to unmerited favor, to redemption from law, which is the forgiveness of sins. (See Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14) Fifty days later at Pentecost, God poured out His promised Spirit of righteousness on Israel, freeing it from the Old Covenant of pure merited favor and giving it the New Covenant of pure unmerited favor. Sins and transgressions would be remembered no more by God. A new community was born within the old and all in Israel were commanded to change their minds, abandon confidence in merited favor, and enter this new community of the authority of unmerited favor. Then the Samaritans were welcomed in, (See Acts 8) and finally the Gentiles were welcomed in. (See Acts 10) God intended this new community to fill the whole earth. All are born in the world, and all are called, invited, commanded, and welcomed to turn from merited favor and come into the Community of grace, of unmerited favor. 

Unmerited Favor For All Other People

Do you see these two communities and their authority--the world (merited favor) and the New Covenant gathering (unmerited favor)? Every individual is in the world, but those who God has adopted into His royal family have entered the community of unmerited favor and are not of the world because they are dead to merit with God. Satan and the world hate this new community of freedom from merit, but God delights in it as it is His community built on His love and His righteousness alone. As you relate to the people around you, do you seek to notice the identity of each and relate to each based on their identity? Or do you tend to view people based on their behavior? Are you attracted to broken people as Jesus was, longing to show them the door into the community of grace? Do you see each of those still trapped under the authority of merit as hopeless no matter how much they improve? Do you see them all--the most evil ones even--as invited into the celebration of unmerited favor? You may say that you see identity clearly, but let me offer a test of your optimism. 


Jesus saw people perfectly through their identity. He was never distracted. He saw evil behavior but always saw it in light of identity. So when He was hanging on the cross naked and in great pain, He cried out to the Father for the Father to free His persecutors from their guilt by giving it all to Him: "Father forgive them, give me all their shame and guilt." So when a fellow saint--one delighted in by God, free from all shame and guilt, and free from the pressure of merit--mistreats you in some way, what is your reaction? Have you thanked the Father for the privilege you have of carrying that burden for the other person? Think over the past years and seek to remember times of great betrayal, pain, abuse, criticism, or financial deception you suffered at the hands of another Christian. How did you respond? Did you see that person as free from the pressure of merit while he was mistreating you? If so, do you think that violator sensed a warm welcome from you to a closer relationship? Did you give that violator a piece of your mind or did you give him the peace of the cross? Contact me, give me the name of the person who badly hurt you, and let me ask that person if he felt a warm welcome from you while he was criticizing you. What do you think he will say? If you gave him a warm welcome while he was criticizing you, then he will remember it--at least in general. Why? It is very rare among us Christians to welcome criticism gladly. If you did it, it will be note worthy. Let's stop pretending and admit that good behavior on the part of other Christians is what we really care about.  

Thinking of Real Life Brings Understanding

My friend John and I talk much seeking to stir each other to understand grace more clearly. It is a great blessing. He and I had a conversation last summer that reflects the following. 

John:  Brad, I know that God always smiles on me even in the middle of me being an idiot and not treating others kindly.  When my attitude is awful and my action towards others is hurtful God still looks fondly upon me.   Even through all my badness God still likes me.  The work of Jesus on the cross is all I need for God to be pleased with me.

Brad: I am glad that is true for you and me, for your wife and mine, for your children and mine, as well as for all other Christians.

John:  As hard as it is to understand I am learning to see the truth of it and usually only get depressed when I fail and in the middle of my failure forget what Christ did for me.  It is sometimes easy to forget that even at my worst God always likes me because of His Son. The really hard part for me is seeing how it works for others who are unkind to me.  I know this sounds hypocritical, but when someone sins against me I really want God to avenge.

Brad: Don't all Christians have the same grace relationship with God that you have?

John: Of course they do, but how do I see that for them when they are mistreating me?

Brad: So while you are upset at your wife and speaking rudely to her, are you totally free and God is smiling on you and likes you?

John: Yep.

Brad: The same applies to other people. Let's say you do something wrong and your wife gets really upset with you and not only speaks rudely to you, but in revenge donates your expensive golf clubs to the thrift store. She has done a terrible thing, but while she was doing all that to you God was smiling on her and likes her all because of Christ.

John:  I understand it, but that it doesn’t mean it’s easy. I’m forgetful. However, remembering this one thing would be a game changer. It would mean never getting upset with anyone again.   

Do You Want to See Grace for Others?

If you say that you want to get a vision of grace for other people then I would suggest that you talk to God about it. Be honest in your conversation and even humorously so, if needed. God can handle honest conversation. Start where you are not where you think God wants you to be. Tell God things like:

• God what I really want is for other people to behave properly and stop making my life difficult.
• God, you want them to remember what Jesus did for them so that they will change and do good things out of thankfulness. 
• But God I don't want to wait. I am tired of carrying burdens for lazy Christians. I want them to change now.
• I am glad that you have forgiven me freely and completely because of the cross, but salvation changes people and that Christian (name him or her) isn't serious about changing.
• God, you call me to rejoice always, but do you really mean for me to rejoice while other Christians are mistreating me?
• God, you do tell me to do everything without complaining, but certainly that does't apply when I feel hurt by other Christians, does it? 
• God, you do tell me to give thanks always, but you don't know how frustrating my wife and children can be at times.
• God I am really angry that my husband gives me almost no tenderness and understanding. He treats me like his servant. He is making my life miserable. He says that he is a Christian, and so why don't you fix him? 
• God, don't you realize that M_____ keeps hurting me and deserves a piece of my mind?
• God, I am not as bad a Christian as M_____, at least I am trying to do right. Of course compared to Jesus we are both failures, but do you really want me to think so negatively?
• God, thank you for not giving me what I deserve, but giving all my guilt, shame, and condemnation to Christ. Thank you that the finished work of Christ is all I need for life. Thank you that all the Christians, especially M_____, who hurt me are completely free from condemnation, even while they are hurting me. Thank you for rejoicing over me with singing and for rejoicing in song over those who bother me.  Thank you that you really like those Christians who hurt me and even like them as much as you like me. Thank you that even though M_____ can't stand me, you fully welcome him in Christ. Thank you that Jesus was glad to carry all M____'s sin. Thank you for giving me the privilege of knowing M____ and carrying all the burdens M_____ chooses to give me. Help me remind him of how much you love him. Thank your for making all my troubles, afflictions, weaknesses, and critics to be a blessing to me. Please bring them to me whenever you think I need them. Thank you for being a tender Father and for bringing into my life only what is good for me and brings you glory. Thank you for adopting us all into your royal family and promising never to cast us out. Thank you for putting me with all the saints in your kingdom of unmerited favor where we all are free from all condemnation and all have all the treasures of heaven.

Make your prayers practical about other Christians (name them individually) you perceive to be troubling you and watch your heart open toward them. You might begin to like and enjoy them while they are mistreating you. You might even feel compassion toward them for the pain they are feeling for forgetting the cross--a forgetfulness that is the cause of their mistreatment of you. You might begin to notice their failings as God does--as hell-deserving--and notice them as God does--as righteous in Christ, fully covered by the blood, and a source of joy. Wouldn't that be a novel way to think? 

THE MOTIVATION OF GRACE—the testimony of two non-Christians.

A few years ago while in conversation with students on campus, a student from India said that back home he had a Mercedes sports car which he loved to drive fast. I asked him if he was concerned that the police might stop him. He said that they did stop him. I asked what he did. He smiled and told me that he simply showed them his I.D. and then his father’s photo, and because his father was the chief of police, they smiled and always waved him on. This man had immunity from speeding tickets because of who his father was. He seemed to be saying that he takes full advantage of it, too. What is wrong with this picture?

Not long after, I met J___, a Muslim attorney from the Middle East. His wife is working on a Ph.D. here and he spends his days caring for their son and so has little pressure. His home country is ruled by a king who has real authority. This friend likely knows that the secret police there have real authority to torture people almost at will. One day I asked J___ what would happen if the King’s son raced his Mercedes through the capital city—would the police give him a ticket. He laughed at me, saying that he was the king’s son and so was above the law and could do what he wanted. I suggested that he could run over old ladies in crosswalks. He said that was true. He also said that everyone in the country wished to have this special relationship with the king so they would not have to be under the law. I then asked J___ how it would affect him if his king paid the fantastic and unheard of price to adopt him into the royal family which would give him that privilege. J___ smiled and said that he would be so thankful that he would always drive carefully watching out for the safety of others. He added that he would never do anything wrong out of thankfulness for what the king had done for him. I suggested that there would be a time where he might do something wrong. He said that would be impossible. I mentioned that if he forget the price the king had paid, he could do something wrong. J___ smiled and agreed.

Two men above the law. The first had no motivation of grace since he naturally was a son above the law. And so without the threat of punishment, he was careless about the law, being motivated by his own whims. The second man also had no obligation to law—and even a greater certainty of freedom. But he knew that his knowledge of the king’s love for him and the fantastic price paid to buy his adoption, was the obvious and sufficient motivation to always do good and not evil. The gift was so great that he didn't consider that he could ever not be thinking about it. Remembrance of the king’s grace would move him to always do good.

My Muslim attorney friend knows the heart of true Christianity. When I told him such and had him read Isaiah 53 and Hebrews 2 in a bilingual Bible, he smiled and asked if I could get for him such a Bible. He gladly took the one we were reading together. May his stay in the USA be a double blessing for him. Sadly it seems easy for us Christians to fall into the thinking of the man from India—that no threat of consequences means little or no motivation to do what is good.

God's Love in Kenya: What One Christian Can Do

I would like to introduce you to some Kenyan brothers who minister the Word and care for orphans in Nakuru district of Kenya. Please pray for God's work in and through them.

Meeting a brother

"Oh how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity." -Psalm 133:1

About five years ago, Benson Nganga, a pastor in Kenya, called me. Someone there had given him a copy of my pamphlet, Thanksgiving and Confession: The Way to an Overflowing Heart. He wanted more copies to giveaway. I mailed to him a small box of encouraging materials in addition to his request. I sent him the pdf file of the pamphlet so he could print his own copies. He told me a little about God's call to him and his wife, Florence, to care for orphans. At that time, only a few orphans were in their care. Over the years we have prayed on the phone and corresponded.

What one Christian can do

In early 2008 God led him to travel to the U.S. to visit saints here who supported his work. He stayed with us for two days in June. We called some friends together to meet him, to hear his story and to hear a word from the Lord from him. His words were a great blessing.

Benson's parents died when he was a young boy. After a short stay with an aunt who had many children, Benson and his three older brothers were put out on the street. They slept under a granary and begged food from house to house. One day they they knocked at the house of a Christian man who told his wife to give the boys all their leftover food. He then told the boys to return the next day. Every day he gave them all the leftovers. He began to teach the boys the Bible and tell them of God's great love for sinners. He paid for the boys to attend school. The boys grew up to love God under this Christian man's care.

Benson sensed a great desire to care for the physical and spiritual needs of orphans as he had been cared for, and prayed for a wife who would want to give her life caring for orphans as well. God gave Florence a heart to join that vision as He brought them together. Benson and Florence began Fiwagoh Mission Orphanage Ministries. His brothers and others help care for the orphans. They also visit nearby villages to preach, give away Bibles and Christian literature, and give away food and clothing. They oversee several village churches. Currently they care for 85 orphans. Their new orphan home on 17 acres, which will house 400 orphans, is nearly completed.

Benson reminded us that we need to not underestimate what God can do through one Christian man--like that one who, with his wife, loved four orphan boys and taught them the love of God and instilled in them a love for God's Word.

May the great God of heaven raise up an army of Christian families in Kenya to love many of the 3 million orphans there. And may God give His saints across the world a spirit of prayer and generosity to support them in this ministry. May God receive much glory.

Love and humility: introduction

Love and humility are the two most glaring blind spots in the Christian church. This is true for individual believers as well as for assemblies of saints. It is true for me and it is true for you. Do you want to shrink your blind spots? Are you willing to have help? About fifteen years ago, God in his kindness and wisdom began intensifying the light of his holiness on these two blind spots in my life. He has given me much conversation with other saints about love and humility. This has blessed me. I hope over the coming weeks to share thoughts from scripture on love and humility not simply to inform but also transform us by the renewing of our minds. “Love builds up but knowledge puffs up.” Let us seek to “grow” in love and humility not just to “know” in love and humility. We can learn from saints who have gone before us. They are part of the great crowd of witnesses testifying to God’s faithfulness. God has granted me the privilege of being a full-time literature missionary in Utah for over 20 years. Much blessing has come to me from hearing from saints from various traditions and centuries–through books and The Book. I hope to share some of that blessing through book recommendations and stimulating quotations.

“It is better to lose your pocket book than your temper.”–Robert C. Chapman

Losing which of these bothers you more?

Agape Leadership is a short biography of Robert Chapman. It is filled with humor and piercing words. It stimulates the reader to a higher vision of Christ. It is a good book to read aloud as a family.