Our Footsteps: Clueless

Friday, March 6, 2009

Clueless

“Now I want you to know, brethren…”, Paul says in Philippians 1:12. It’s a common phrase that the Apostle uses. In this case, he was writing to the church at Philippi to let them know of his condition. With Paul being under house arrest, being in high spirits was the last thing they might be expecting. But, oh no… Paul didn’t want them having wrong thoughts about him or his condition or the progress of the gospel. He didn’t want them being clueless or ignorant of his situation.

Paul uses a similar phrase in Colossians 2:1, “For I want you to know”. And again in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “For I want you to understand”. Or yet in two more places, Romans 1:13 and 1 Corinthians 10:1, “…I do not want you to be unaware, brethren…”. Do you get the impression that Paul did not want the Christians of his time to be clueless, ignorant or unaware? How about in 1 Thessalonians 4:13? “We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren…”. Galatians 1:11: “For I would have you to know…”. The fact that Paul repeats himself (repeatedly), tells me that the Holy Spirit is emphasizing something to us.

Ours is a generation of Christians who are probably the most unaware in all of human history… am I right? Don’t we all (myself included) walk around in our own comfortable Christian bubble, completely oblivious of the spiritual famine around us? We’re unaware and I wonder why. We’ve developed spiritual calluses three feet thick and our hearts are like granite. All the while our relatives, friends and neighbors are running headlong through the wide gate that leads to destruction.

We professing believers (myself included again) are often unaware of our creation around us. We miss a delicate rose, a horse galloping in a field, even a beautiful sunset because from the moment the alarm clock goes off in the morning until our heads land in the pillow at night we are going 90 miles per hour. We ignore a baby's laugh, or are oblivious to an act of kindness - because we rush from one meeting to the next and from one shopping center to another... when one TV show is over we click to the other station. Clueless. Ignorant. Unaware.

“Now I want you to know”, that I plan to make some changes so I don’t remain in my clueless, ignorant, unaware state. Will you too?
Mark

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I Believe...

1). I believe that there is one God. I believe God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
2). I believe that God is holy, righteous, loving, and just.
3). I believe that mankind is separated from God by sin; that sin entered the world through Adam and death through sin.
4). I believe that, because of sin, man is condemned. Because of God’s utter hatred for sin, there is an eternal conscious punishment in hell for all those who do not come to God on His terms, dealing with their sin.
5). I believe that confessing our sins and confessing Jesus Christ as Lord is the only way to properly deal with the sin that has infected everyone. Jesus Christ paid our sin debt on the cross; reconciliation by substitution. There is nothing we can do to add to the finished work of Christ.
6). I believe in the security of the believer, that once he is truly born-again, there is nothing that would cause him to lose his salvation.
7). I believe that upon the death of a true believer in Christ, that he is ushered immediately into the presence of the Lord, where he will live in everlasting joy in Heaven, experiencing eternal fellowship with God.
8). I believe in believer’s baptism by immersion. I don’t believe baptism is necessary for salvation, but it is a beautiful outward profession of an inward possession.
9). I believe in a literal 6-day creation where God created the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day.
10). I believe that the words written in the Bible are truth. I believe that the Bible is inerrant in its parts and in its whole. I believe that the 66 books that make up the canon of scripture make the Bible complete and that God inspired the words written therein. The things that were written down in the Bible are sufficient for every need we have. Not only is God’s Word sufficient, but it is far superior to any other method of handling the problems that man faces, since He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness.