I’m all in, but only by His strength!

Correction

God is constantly reminding me the importance of His scriptural command for correcting or rebuking a brother/sister in Christ.  And not only for correcting but also for seeking reconciliation with them and seeking repentance from sin.  The main scriptural command for correction is found in  Matthew 18:15-20.  This scripture lays out four steps for biblical correction that should be our priority to follow.  I mean if our goal is to please God, which as Christians it should be, shouldn’t we  be doing  things His way?  And is His way not freely available to us in scripture?  And if we don’t know what that is by being in the scriptures how will we be equipped to live godly lives?  So I guess the purpose of this post is twofold, to implore you to be in the word more and in doing so build sound doctrine to live a life of godliness and to encourage you to correctly follow the biblical outline of correction.   And this encouragement is not for you alone but for myself first and foremost or else God would not continue having to remind me of these things.  Fortunately for you what I continually lean hopefully you get to see here.  

The four steps outlined in Matthew 18 scripture are:

1.  Talk to him/her alone about his/her sin.

2.  If they do not repent take one or two more witnesses with you, that every word may be established.  

3.  If they still do not repent take the matter to the church.

4.  If they refuse even to listen to the rebuke of the church he/she is to be regarded as a heathen or tax collector to the church.  That is to excommunicate them.

The command is plain and simply put, however it is so difficult to follow.  But I am convinced that no matter how difficult it is, it is not impossible by God’s strength and enabling.  Not only should we know how to deal with these things properly by scripture but we should also by scripture know what things are sin and what things are not that we will know what constitutes this biblical correction.  As it is made clear by the text and all scripture sin is a serious thing and must be dealt with as soon as it is brought to attention.  And sin must be repented of.  

It absolutely astounds me how easily the world, the flesh and the Devil can creep into our good fellowship and cause so much division.  We are supposed to be united in Christ by the scriptures.  It is so utterly important that we know what things are godly and that we do them and if there are brethren who are in sin they should be corrected and called to repentance and brought back to the path of godliness.  

The good news is the pressure is not on us.  Although we are called to do it and therefore must all we have to do is correct with scriptural support and God will back it up.  If the person repents you have gained a brother and if not that person probably isn’t saved and you now have someone to minister the gospel to.  

Praise God for the work that He is doing in those people who are His saints.  

That’s it for now.  God bless!

CP Brights

Just an update on the CP brights meeting last night, the presentation.  They listened to it and they were very appreciative for our time and preparation.  We had a Q & A thing afterward that went pretty well.  They got the gospel in the presentation so the seeds are planted hopefully God will make some of them alive.  Praise God!  We’ll see what He will do with all of this.  God bless you all.

CP Brights

Hey all I just wanted to remind you that tomorrow Jonathan and I will be making our presentation to the Cp brights group.  I’m a little nervous because i really don’t do well speaking to groups but praise the Lord!  I know that it will be Him speaking the gospel through Jonathan and I and I know that His word will accomplish what He sends it out for and that it does not return to Him void.  Praise God for God!  It gives me much comfort to know that these people’s salvation does not rely on the words that I say but rather on God making them spiritually alive or not.  Because apart from Him making us alive we are dead in our sins and completely unable to repent and come to Him for salvation.  The burden is lifted all I have to do is share the gospel and God will do the rest and the cool thing is that I don’t even do that…God enables me.  Praise God!

Anyway i just wanted to remind all of you about the presentation and ask for your prayers as we go out that we would stand boldly in the scriptures, that we would be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, that we would share the scriptures rightly and in love and most importantly that we would please God in it.  Thank you all for your prayers.  I will be praying for you too.  God bless you!

Chelsea

the gospel as promised

Hello all, 

So today I finally hunkered down and started working on my gospel presentation for the CP Brights meeting.  So here it is… Man I love the gospel.  Praise God!

I will be set up in the presentation so that i can say something to this effect.

 

We believe that God was not created, but rather he created everything from nothing by merely speaking it into existence (Genesis 1).  We hold that He has always been (Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.) and He never changes (Malachi 3:6 For I am the LORD, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob., Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.).  Not only is He these things He is also perfect, holy, righteous and just.  He has given us His standard of righteousness as a tutor to righteousness and a mirror to show us our state before Him.  This standard is presented as the ten commandments:

 

1.  I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods besides me.

2.  You shall not make for yourself or bow down to any carved image.

3.  You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

4.  Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. 

5.  Honor your father and your mother.

6.  You shall not murder.

7.  You shall not commit adultery.

8.  You shall not steal.

9.  You shall not lie.

10.  You shall not covet.

 

Have you ever…?

 

Used God’s name as a swear word?  Have you ever disobeyed your parents?  Told a lie?  Desired something that was not yours to a point that you wished the person who did have it didn’t?

 

Did you know…?

 

If you are angry at your brother without cause you are worthy of the same judgment as if you had murdered.  Matthew 5:22

            But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.

 

I you look at a person with lust you have already committed adultery with that person in your heart.  Matthew 5:28

            But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

 

James 2:10

For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point he is guilty of all. 

 

Have you ever done any of these things?  I have. 

 

Breaking the commandments is called sin. 

 

God says in Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

 

All we can do is sin and turn away from God, it is our nature to do what we please and not to obey these commands.

 

Romans 6:23 states that the wages of sin is death.

 

When we die we will stand before God in His righteous judgment if we have sinned, which we all have done, we are guilty before God (Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, Romans 3:23 all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God).  Since God is just He must do what He says and judge us guilty of breaking His law and our punishment for our sin is death and eternal separation from God and punishment in hell and the lake of fire.

The good news to all this is that there is redemption from our sins through the work of Jesus Christ who is God’s Son, He is God come here in the flesh (John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.) and the only one who has ever kept the whole law, He was tempted in every way yet He did not sin (For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.)  He came as the sacrifice for the sins of believers and He took God’s wrath upon Him for the payment of their sins. 

 

The second part of Romans 6:23 states that the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

And Romans 5:8 states but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 

It is only by the work of Jesus Christ and His payment for sin that anyone is able to be forgive of their sins and able to avoid judgment.  It is through Jesus Christ that we get the good news, the gospel that we can be forgiven, that we can be reconciled to God.  Will you be judged righteous unto life?.. or guilty unto death?

 

Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

 I will be making changes to this however after i read and study Acts 17 so that i can gear it more toward the Agnostics intellectual type thought.  Should be pretty sweet.  Can’t wait.  

Please continue to keep all of this in your prayers.  I’m praying for you all.  God bless you!

Chelsea

 

Update on the brights.

I am so excited about this opportunity to talk to the brights.  Next Wednesday night at their next meeting Jonathan and I get to do a presentation for all of the members and then probably have open discussion or question and answer to follow.  Our presentation will include the gospel and a basic overview of what Christians believe.  I will be presenting the gospel and i am so excited because it is for sharing the gospel that we are attending these meetings and it is my prayer that God would prepare their hearts and use us to spread the gospel to these people and that we would be used in their lives.  Hopefully that God would save them and grant them repentance,  even if only one our time would not be in vain.  

I just ask for your prayers as we are preparing this presentation that we would represent Christ rightly and that we would stick to God’s word and that this time would be well spent, pleasing and glorifying to Him.  Please pray for us that we would be bold.  

I know that God’s word accomplishes what it is sent out to accomplish and that it does not return to Him void.  As i am reviewing and studying the gospel i’ll be adding it to my blog for all of you to see.  I hope it sharpens us all.  Love you all.  I’m praying for you please be praying for me.  

Chelsea

Brights

Recently my friend Jonathan and I have had an amazing opportunity and open door if you will to be light to the Cal Poly Brights.  “What is a bright?” you might ask.  Well, Bright is a new term coined in 2003 for those people who have a naturalistic world view.  The club at school likes to consider themselves as a type of bridge group between spiritual believers and atheists/agnostics.  Many of the members of the Brights club at school also belong to the secular society club.  

Anyway it’s a really good opportunity for us to go and represent Christ and to share His truth correctly and in love.  If anything it is a great opportunity to be sharpened in the gospel.  So far we have had the opportunity to share our basic theology explain to them a little about faith and various other topics.  Not only that but we were invited to the secular society club meeting next week to share our side on what I guess they would call chaos theory.  Basically they want us to explain our beliefs on trying to explain how since we believe God created everything and since everything is so complex how much more complex God is since He made it all.

Also another hopefully great opportunity that may stem from this is that I saw a girl in the meeting from one of my classes and now she knows i’m a Christian and where I stand with all that so hopefully it will open the door to share the gospel with her and hopefully have some awesome conversations and be used by the LORD.  May His will be done.

I ask that you just pray for us please that there would be open doors here and great opportunities to share the gospel with these people.  That we would stand firmly in the word of God and not rely on our own understanding nor to resort to intellectual or scientific debates because I know that only by God’s word will they be saved not by our words.  Thank you for all your prayers.  I love you all.  Pray for me, I’m praying for you.  

love, Chelsea

The struggle between flesh and spirit!

This one has been a work in progress for a few weeks.  As most of you may know I used to be a frequent attender of thursday country line dance night at the graduate (a local 18 and over night hang out) and you probably also know that I stopped going I would say about two years ago.  Because of a lack of boldness in the past I failed to mention that the reason I stopped going was due to the bad fellowship that I was getting there.  Although my motives were not to go to get picked up on or specifically to get attention from others for something that I was actually pretty good at they also were ungodly in that my motives were not to share the gospel with the many people that attend that are not saved.  I was going to have fellowship with all these people who I truly have nothing in common with scripture even says that unbelievers are haters of God.  Why do I want to hang out with those who hate my Father.  God calls believers to be separated from unbelievers, and this is why I stopped going line dancing.  

There is a great sermon by A. W. Pink on God’s call to believers not to be unequally yolked together with unbelievers, to be completely separate from them.  I encourage you all to read it because it is a biblical argument for believers not to have fellowship with unbelievers.  http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=1124  Psalm one says we are blessed if we do not walk on the same path as the ungodly, we are supposed to stay as far as possible from the path.  Also another good scripture is 1 Corinthians 15:33 and there are so many more.  

I do not believe that believers should be completely separated from unbelievers.  I firmly hold that God puts us in places with unbelievers such as school and work for evangelism purposes and that we are sent to be among them but not of them.  We are to be around them to share the gospel with them but not to just be buddy buddy to them.  We are not to be influenced by their bad habits but rather to be light to them and call them to repentance.  We have no other purpose for them but to proclaim the gospel to them.

I recently went back to the graduate after not having been in the last two years.  It was after all this that I felt the conviction to call you all to this calling of God to be separated from unbelievers.  It was then also that I re-realized my initial purposes for my discontinued attendance.  I realized how different sanctification makes you from the world how joyful and truly alive believers are compared to the spiritually dead people in the world.  I am exposed to unbelievers daily at school and in everyday tasks but it didn’t really hit me.  It is truly heartbreaking.  As I was at the graduate I recalled past memories of the liveliness of the dancing and the fun and this time it wasn’t fun it had somewhat of a sadness to it like all the people there were not having as much fun as they used to, the liveliness seemed almost completely extinct.  It was as if they were aware of their future.  Now this very well could be my own perception as if the spiritual growth in my life over the past few years had made me less joyful from such fellowship and therefore I saw it differently.  But I don’t know.  This is just some food for thought.  

I hope for you all to be in the word.  May God bless you!  Pray for me, i’m praying for you.  

much love in Christ,

Chelsea

The command to rest.

Yeaterday morning in the sermon pastor Tim spoke on genesis 1:31-2:3.  He spoke to us about God’s day of rest after He had made the entire world and how He commands us to do the same thing.  Can you believe it God commands us to rest.  Who would have thought?  Well we already knew…it is the fourth commandment.  We just need a little reminder every once and a while.  Pastor Tim said that as the commanded day of rest for us was intended for us as a gift and we have a knack of turning it into a burden.  We are so go, go, go wanting to get things done that we don’t take the time to sit back relax and reflect on the things God has done for us and to read His word and truly know who He not by what we think with our natural minds but rather by scripture and who He says He is.  It was very convicting.  Not only do I not set aside the time to read scripture enough but I also fail to reflect on what I do read and how amazing God is and how He is so worthy of my entire life.  So much more growth is needed in my life but praise God He is doing it.  God bless you all and please pray for me.  I’m praying for you.

chelsea

Why I decided to add a new blog.

Hey all!  My first blog was such a hit I thought I would continue my success although in a very different way.  As enjoyable as it is to poke fun at the amusing daily happenings of my life I would also like to share with you, my close friends and family, my daily struggles as well as encouragements that I get from being a follower and child of the living God, the LORD Jesus Christ.  As both aspects of my life affect me greatly I would like to share both with you.  When considering adding this to my other blog, the diaries of a trailer park princess I decided it best to keep my story of walking into the guys restroom separate from my walk with Christ.  I thought it would be awesome to have a whole blog devoted to how great God is and all that He is doing in my life because He is my life and it is a pleasure to serve Him and encourage others to walk more worthy of Him daily.  I’d like to share the blessings, the growth, the correction and all the other happenings all of which are a very big and important part of my life and hopefully encourage others through it and spurn you all to godliness and further sanctification.  So here it is…

I call it “I’m all in, but only by His strength.”  And here’s why!  I know that God has me here for a reason otherwise the moment I was saved I would have had a first class ticket to heaven.  I know that purpose is for me to live out the time God has blessed me with being sanctified by His word (John 17:17), serving Him fully and growing in His ways by knowing and obeying what His word says, making disciples and most importantly, I believe, sharing the gospel to find my family in Christ and get this plan finished already (no sooner than God has ordained of course, all in His timing).  I know that it is only by God’s strength and enabling that I even  able to desire to do these things and most certainly that they are actually being accomplished through me (John 15:5, Philippians 1:6, Ephesians 2:8-10).  Praise the LORD!  It is also because of this that I am able to say that “I’m all in” and that my life belongs to Christ and to serving Him to the fullest in every aspect of my life.  It is also safe to say that apart from Christ I am a complete failure and that anything good I have ever done and ever will do is by His strength and enabling.  All honor and glory is His.  Hence the reason for the name of my blog.  

Oh yeah, I chose the grass motif because i wanted to capture the essence of growth.  It is by the word of God that believers grow and are conformed to the image of Christ and it is a daily process that all believers are actively involved in until the day they die and are face to face with the Lord.  It is for this reason that the theme of my blog is not only that I am all in but also the growth that God is producing in my Life.  1 Corinthians 3:7 “So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.”

I would venture to say that much of what I will be saying in this blog will be offensive to many if not all who read it because to the best of my ability (that is relying on God and the knowledge of Him that has been granted to me through scripture) I will try to keep the leaven (my own understanding) out and it will be based on scripture, and I know that the word of God offends.  It is not my goal to offend however, just to encourage and challenge.  Challenge in the hope that we will all seek to further understand God and His word and to know what we believe and why we believe it by God’s word.  So…Buckle up!  Because…I’m all in!

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