The Bulletin
of the
Church of Christ at
New Georgia
Tim Johnson, editor
July 25, 2004
In
This Issue:
What
are you Worth?
by
Steve Klein
"Give
No Provision for the Flesh"
by
Jonathan Dvorak
What are You Worth?
I like some of the recent MasterCard commercials on TV -- they're priceless! They illustrate that the things that are the most valuable in life are worth more than any dollar amount.
In Luke 12:6-7 Jesus said, "Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. 7But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows." That raises this question: If a human being is more valuable than many sparrows, just exactly what am I worth?
It may be that we can place a monetary price on the life of an animal, but the soul of a human being is too great for that. Jesus asked, "For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). All of the wealth of the world is not enough to equal the value of one soul.
But the souls of men are not exactly priceless, because a price has been paid for them. In 1 Corinthians 6:20 the apostle Paul informs us that we "were bought at a price." And in 1 Peter 1:18-19, the apostle Peter tells us what that price was: Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
What am I worth? God has appraised the value of my soul to be equal to the life of His Son. That's what He paid for you and me. We might do well to remember that the next time we get to thinking that we're worthless. And we definitely need to remember it when we're tempted to be careless or unconcerned when it comes to the salvation of our souls.
by Steve Klein
A Cuban gentleman named Mr. Rodriguez sat beside me on a recent flight from Miami to Newark. In a few minutes, he dispensed with the conversational niceties and was telling me of torture and imprisonment that he and his family had suffered under Fidel Castro. As he talked, his eyes burned with hatred for anything related to the communist system. It was immediately obvious that, when Mr. Rodriguez thinks of Marxism, he has no illusions about its propaganda of equality and justice for the poor, because to him it has meant separation from loved ones, pain, shame and anguish. There is absolutely no possibility that he will ever be a communist or give help or sympathy to that system in any shape or fashion.
Mr. Rodriguez 's attitude toward communism is much like the attitude we should have toward the sins of the flesh. The thought of giving provision (literally forethought) to the flesh to fulfill its lusts should be as foreign to us as the idea of sending arms to communist subversives would be to my anti-Communist friend.
Sadly, instead of abhorring the sinful desires of the flesh, too many Christians are mesmerized by the avalanche of gaudy appeals to carnality in the media and join the world in rushing along like lemmings trying to get all the gratification they can, not realizing that they are headed over the cliffs to destruction.
How can we maintain our purity and give no provision to the flesh when its appeals are so prevalent in almost every aspect of our lives?
How To Give No Provision to the Flesh
1. Hate it! Contemplate the broken homes, pain, lost confidence and hopelessness suffered by those who succumb to the flesh. Consider the wrecked lives of loved ones and once strong Christians who have fallen and are therefore spiritually crippled, if not dead.
By looking beyond the glamorous front the flesh tries to present and coming face to face with its harsh reality, we will be injected with a healthy dose of hatred towards it that will render us as unmoved by its shallow enticements as my Cuban friend by the propaganda of communism. We won 't naively associate the flesh with glamour, partying, or Hollywood, but with anguish, selfishness, greed and other fruits of the flesh - and thus won 't have any difficulty obeying the Lord 's admonition in Psalm 97:10: "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil."
2. Flee it! People who love life do not play with barrels of nuclear waste, bottles of nerve gas, or test tubes of the AIDS virus. Pure Christians who love God and their souls learn not to play with suggestive movies, excessive flattery, alcohol, scanty clothing (on beach or street), compromising situations, get rich quick selling schemes or any other activities that involve one in flirting with the lusts of the flesh. Weak Christians who insist on practicing or defending such activities are frankly naive about their dangers and are the first to see their children swept away into the world or be swept away themselves.
Flee fornication and youthful lusts, avoiding every appearance of evil! (I Corinthians 6:19; II Timothy 2:22; I Thessalonians 5:22).
3. Be optimistic about victory over it! "Nobody 's perfect." "Everyone is wrong about something." "I 'm just so weak and temptations are so strong." These statements, though true in certain contexts, are often made in an effort to build the flesh up as some kind of invincible monster so that we won 't look or feel so bad when we join the world in giving in to it. Such a defeatist attitude reveals a lack of confidence in God who has given us a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline (II Timothy 1:7). Ultimate victory can be won by anyone who truly wants it, in spite of our stumbling, because God gives adequate armor to overcome the flesh. Consider yourself to be more powerful by God 's grace than any shallow lust Satan might use to defeat you and refuse to make hackneyed excuses for giving in to it or treating it as unconquerable.
Christians who give no forethought to the sins of the flesh by hating them, fleeing them and being confident of victory over them will win the victory. And, after 10,000 years in heaven, we won 't have much difficulty in seeing such lusts as the shallow and empty bait that they really are.
--By Gardner Hall
via Susquehanna Sentinel, Merietta, Pennsylvannia