CHAPTER TWO – I Surgery

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “You reap what you sow.”  Did you know it’s really true?  It’s not just a saying.  If you live a good life and help others and always do what’s right and obey God in everything you do, then you will reap the good fruit of integrity and character and peace and joy.  But if you sow dishonesty and gossip and sinfulness, you will reap judgment and punishment and death.  Do you believe it?  Do you believe it enough to change the way you live?

Either way you’ll end up believing it.  On that day when you stand before the Great Judge of the universe, you’ll believe you reap what you sow because you’ll experience it in a deeper reality than you’ve ever experienced before.

My suggestion: get right with Jesus today.  Change your life and ask God to forgive you so that you can start living for him now and reap a good fruit rather than a bad harvest.

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Do you think you’d get a better report on the Civil War from a modern historian or by spending some time with Abraham Lincoln?  Do you think you could get a better picture of what the Apollo 11 moon landing was like by checking out the NASA website or by sitting down with Neil Armstrong and having him tell you the story about when he took that small step/giant leap?

Obviously, if it were possible to talk to the people who had been a part of events in the past, you’d get some amazing stories about those events.  You could get a feeling for what it was like by talking to the people who were there when it happened.

Did your parents ever tell you about when you were born?  Did your grandparents ever tell you about what it was like to live through the Great Depression or to watch the Apollo Moon Landing on live TV?  Wasn’t it cool to hear those stories from the people who’d seen it happen?

So along those same lines, would it be better to learn about the history of the world from somebody who was never there but had made a guess about what might have happened as the world started or from Someone who was there, Someone who actually built the Earth, Someone who designed the universe as a star spangled backdrop for His favorite creation to enjoy when the sun went down?

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Paul said, in 1st Corinthians, that if Christ has not risen from the dead that our faith is pointless.  What use is it to believe in a man who said he would rise from the dead who never rose from the dead?  So all of Christianity is hinged on the fact of Christ’s resurrection.  And if Jesus did not really live, die, and then live again, then it makes no sense to put our faith in anything else about Jesus.

In the same way, if you can’t accept part of the Bible, then what’s the point of accepting any of the Bible?  There are plenty of things in the Bible that people have a hard time accepting–Jonah and the fish, Noah’s flood, the creation of the universe in 6 days, etc.  But if you can’t take those things at face value, how can you put faith in other parts?

Jesus taught from Genesis.  So if you believe Jesus, then you need to take the whole Bible seriously.

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I’ve heard people say they think Jesus is cool–he was a nice guy, a good teacher, a miracle worker–and they say they believe in him because he was all about love and peace and helping people.  But some of those same people say they don’t like church or they don’t like Christians or they don’t like the Bible.

The sad thing is that there is only one Jesus.  In spite of all the opinions about him today.  There are cold, hard facts about who Jesus was and what he taught.  And a lot of people who are confronted with that truth don’t want to follow Jesus–just like a lot of people who heard Jesus speak blunt truth and walked away from him.

Jesus is great, but he also taught hard truths, like real love for Jesus is shown by total obedience to his commands, and you aren’t worthy to follow him unless you are willing to walk away from everything else.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think Jesus is awesome.  And the benefits of knowing him totally outweigh any sacrifice you might make to follow him.  But if you REALLY want to know Jesus, you have to accept him on his terms, not yours.

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“Don’t judge me.”

I’ve heard that a lot.  In other words, they’re asking for you to ignore the decision they’ve made.

“Yeah, I decided to do what I know is wrong.  And I know that you know it’s wrong”  But I’m trying to convince myself that I’m not a bad person for doing it.  So please don’t mention that it’s wrong to me.  Don’t use your brain when you think about me.”

Well, you know, I wouldn’t have to “judge” you if you used good judgment yourself when you made the decision to do something wrong.  If you would do good, then you would want me to judge you and notice the good.  It’s only when you do bad that you don’t want people using discernment about your behavior.

And keep in mind that my judgment can’t do much more than cause embarrassment or inconvenience to you.  But we will all be judged by God for all of our thoughts and actions, and his judgment determines our eternity.

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Do you know what you believe in?  Can you explain it?  If someone has serious and complex questions about your faith, can you put it in terms that anyone can understand?  Can you answer deep questions about the Bible?

1st Peter 3:15 says if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.  Are you always ready to do that?  Or do you not know what you really believe?  Do you know what the Bible teaches?

Did you know that rat poison is mostly good food?  It’s made of 99.5% wheat, fillers, sweeteners, solvent, flavor enhancers, and coloring.  And it’s only 00.005% poison.  So it doesn’t take much of a toxic substance to make something really bad for you.  If you claim to believe in Jesus, you ought to be 100% informed on who he is, what he teaches, and what he requires of his followers.

Always be ready to give an answer!

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Hey Church!  I have a bone to pick with you.  Yeah you–the whole Church–all you people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.  Do you remember what Jesus prayed for you before he was crucified?  He prayed that we would all be ONE–just like he and the Father are one.  And do you remember why he prayed that?  So that the world would KNOW that God sent Jesus.  Well guess what?  You have fractured the church into so many opposing groups that the world looks at you and says, “Ok, so which one of these factions should I believe in?  They all seem to disagree.  So why should I believe in Jesus, if his prayer for his church didn’t even work?  How can I be any worse off by not believing in what any of these groups say?”

Real nice job church!  You’ve made quite a mess of Christ’s prayer.

So how about working on that problem?  Why don’t you start living like Jesus did…in PERFECT unity with God.  Don’t let there be even a hint of immorality and sin in you.  Let the world see a body of believers who live pure lives from pure hearts made pure and kept pure by cooperating with the power of the Holy Spirit.  Do you remember how upset Jesus was by those who claimed to be “religious” but were really just religious hypocrites?  Don’t be anything like that.  Let your life be lived the way your Lord commands it to be lived–RIGHTEOUSLY!

I guarantee if every person who claimed to follow Jesus actually lived like Jesus, that the world would have no choice but to understand exactly who Jesus is and that God sent him into the world.  And, if the church (the whole church) lived in perfect unity with Jesus and obeyed all of his commands, she would automatically live in perfect unity as the “body” of Christ.  The church would be ONE.

Read John 17 and think about it.

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There are people who think they can talk to the dead.  There are people who think they can leave their bodies and enter the spirit world on demand.  There are people who think they can access spirits of various kinds.  Some people even think they can control these spirits.  Just about everybody I can think of—even some atheists—want to know more about the spiritual side of life.  So what does it mean to have a spirit, to live by the spirit, to be spiritual?

It’s probably smart for all Christians to understand, because it’s how we are called to live.  After all, God himself is spirit…

John 4:24 For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

And you and I, underneath this coating of skin and bones, we are spirit.

Romans 8:16 For his Holy Spirit speaks to our spirit and tells us that we are God’s children.

What a wild thought!  Have you ever really stopped to consider what that means?  That you have a spirit—that you ultimately are spirit.

I know it’s much easier to think of things in their physical sense.  That’s what we’re used to.  We breathe and walk and bleed when we are cut.  Our life is sustained by food and drink.  We exercise for better health.  We wear coats when we’re cold and shorts when it’s hot out.  We can get sick and worn out.  Understanding things as physical is second nature to us…or maybe it feels more like first nature to you.

But the truth is that the spiritual part of us is in a sense far more real than the physical.  Our physical bodies wear out over time.  They can develop sicknesses and sore spots.  They get old and eventually die.  After that they go right back to dust.  In fact, the bodies that we’re used to have to die for us to continue.  Like a seed that goes into the ground, we have to shed our outer shell in order to continue as spirit.

Now the average person might last a good 70 or 80 years these days.  And to you and I that can seem like a good long time.

But our spirits last a whole lot longer than that.  It might be difficult to comprehend, but even if we live well over 100 years, the time that our spirit goes on and on makes this physical life seem like the tiniest speck of insignificance.

1 Cor. 15:45-54 The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit.  What came first was the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later.  Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven.  Every human being has an earthly body just like Adam’s, but our heavenly bodies will be just like Christ’s.  Just as we are now like Adam, the man of the earth, so we will someday be like Christ, the man from heaven.

What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These perishable bodies of ours are not able to live forever.

But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, the Christians who have died will be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will be transformed so that we will never die.  For our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die.

When this happens—when our perishable earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will never die—then at last the Scriptures will come true: “Death is swallowed up in victory.

So we can grasp the basics of this concept.  It’s easy to say sure I’m a spirit.  But how do you really relate to that idea—that you exist in a realm of nonphysical.  Because when it comes down to it, it can be an amazing thing to really try to grasp.

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Christmas is a great time for cute little stories.  I’m sure millions of people’s e-mail inboxes get filled with forwarded emotional drivel to make people go “aaaww.”  But the real Christmas is not cute things on cards and in movies.  The real Christmas is about God who so loves the world, that he was willing to come to Earth and make the biggest sacrifice possible to save the people who turned their backs on him and lost themselves in sin.  The whole world needs to hear about the real meaning of Christmas and how it can completely change their lives!

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Jesus made a lot of claims about himself, and backed up his words with his actions.  On top of that a lot of the things we know about Jesus come through the prophesies that were fulfilled by him–how and where he was born, how he lived, how he died, and even coming back to life.  So the Bible is pretty clear about who Jesus is.

Now, thinking about all the different people who claim to believe in Jesus or to be his followers, can you really believe in Jesus if you don’t believe all the things that he said about himself or if your opinions about who you claim to follow don’t match up with the facts of Scripture?

In Matthew 7, Jesus said that on Judgment Day many people will claim to know him and will claim to have done great works in his name, but Jesus will say “Go away, I never knew you.”  The sad thing is it’s obviously religious people who will be making that claim because they will be telling of all the things they did for Jesus.  So just claiming to know Jesus and doing religious stuff won’t get you into Heaven.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a big motivator for me to make sure I know Jesus for real, for who he claims to be, and to focus on doing what he wants me to do and not just various religious acts.  Lots of people talk about having a relationship with Jesus.  Clearly having a relationship is more than just knowing somebody’s name or doing things in someones name.  So common sense would say, if you want a relationship with Jesus, don’t repeat some empty prayer and expect that will save you, but learn about who he is from what he said.  Then if you’re really willing to invest your life in a real relationship and maintain ongoing communication and caring (like you would for any other real life, love relationship), when Judgment Day comes, Jesus will recognize you and not have to say “Go away, I never knew you.”

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