The Manna May 2012

MMthe Manna | May 2012

Holiness

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Stay in Touch

Mthe Manna | May 2012

Columns07 | Signals09 | On the Air

Features12 | Holiness is a GiftPutting away our “to-do” lists.

15 | One and the SameIt’s our fault, but still He reaches out.

16 | Christian ClubGetting rid of a members-only mindset.

19 | Set Apart to Die and LiveWhat’s really going on.

20 | Being and BecomingBecoming what we already are.

22 | Does God Know Your Name?Isn’t being a “good person” enough?

25 | One of Those DaysOops, we did it again.

28 | Supermodels and HolinessThe impossible standard of perfection.

28 | The Sleeper PitcherUsing skills we never knew we had.

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Statement of FaithWe Believe…that the Holy Bible is the inspired, infallible and authoritative source of Christian doctrine and precept;that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit;that the only hope for man is to believe in Jesus Christ, the virgin-born Son of God, who died to take upon Himself the punishment for the sin of mankind, and who rose from the dead so that by receiving Him as Savior and Lord, man is redeemed by His blood;that Jesus Christ in person will return to Earth in power and glory;that the Holy Spirit indwells those who have received Christ, for the purpose of enabling them to live righteous and godly lives;and that the Church is the Body of Christ and is comprised of all those who, through belief in Christ, have been spiritually regenerated by the indwelling Holy Spirit. The twin mission of the Church is worldwide evangelization, and nurture and discipline of Christians.

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Signals

SanctificationJust the idea of being fully holy is more

of a challenge than most can consider. It’s easier, perhaps, to consider that holiness is a process that occurs over time. It is a pro-cess of sanctification, a transformation of the mind and behavior that occurs after jus-tification. Justification occurs the minute a person turns to and accepts Christ as Lord and Savior. At that instant they are justified by Christ, claimed as His own. But the process of sanctification, of holy living, has just begun.

In this issue you will explore the pro-cess of sanctification and holiness. You will learn that Christ loves you through the process, but challenges you to understand that God doesn’t abide where holiness, or a striving towards holiness, doesn’t exist. The hypocrisy of worshipping God with our lips can’t simultaneously ex-ist while chasing after the world in our thoughts or actions.

In this issue, W. Duncan Rankin explores the process of holiness; Burk Parsons considers the lives of those set apart for God’s purposes; and Phil Bohaker invites us to consider the gift of holiness and the “inextricable relationship between holiness and God’s presence.”

Karen Tull reminds us that God loves us when we are our ugliest and meanest, but encourages us to dust ourselves off and try again the next day, refining the process.

By God’s grace we are set aside, called, for His glory. We are justified by our faith in Him. We choose to live a life growing in Christ and His ways—the process of sancti-fication - forever striving to mold ourselves after His image—pure holiness.

Debbie Byrd is General Manager of Maranatha, Inc., a ministry that includes Joy! 102.5 and the Manna.

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Listen Now!Check out our Program Guide at wolc.org

9

On the Air

Unrestrained

Over his stellar 10-year career, Jeremy Camp has established himself with some pretty incredible accolades: More than three million albums sold; 25 number one radio hits; the #3 Christian Artist of the Decade (including five songs in the Top 50 Billboard Christian Songs of the Decade); four ASCAP Songwriter of the Year awards; the ASCAP Song of the Year award; and five Dove awards, including be-ing a two-time Male Vocalist of the Year.

Jeremy most recently received his 25th number one single with “Overcome” from his album We Cry Out: The Worship Proj-ect. Jeremy says this about the new project: “It’s common to say, ‘It’s not about me, God. It’s about You.’ Yet I’m really at that point right now. The Lord says in Jeremiah 29:13, ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’ But we live in such a distracted society. We let the world’s noise divide our focus and our hearts. Our generation is in desperate need of crying out to God.”

Jeremy states that he felt he needed to get himself out of the way and make an in-tentional return to worship on We Cry Out.

One of the songs on the album is called

“Unrestrained,” which confirms the unas-suming artist’s prayer for himself and all souls:

So take this selfish heart of mine / I want to give it all / And melt away every-thing that’s not of You / I want to know You more, so much deeper than I do / Com-pletely unrestrained

Jeremy says,“That’s where I am to-day—seeking the face of God. I feel like I’ve had a growth spurt the past two years in my walk with the Lord, and I think this album reflects that deepening. There’s a purity behind this record that I can’t even describe. But I didn’t write most of it, so I can’t take the credit. And I love that.”

You can hear many of these great songs from this new project on Joy! 102.5. Plus, throughout the month, we’ll be sharing free copies of his new CD during some of our on-air contests.

Rodney Baylous is Program Director of Joy! 102.5. Visit www.wolc.org.

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By Phil Bohaker

Holiness is a Gift

The ancient Greeks thought of holiness as a special quality possessed by a person who could ap-proach a god. Holiness could be aided by puri-fication rites or some other means by which a

person could be consecrated to the gods. The emphasis in this pagan worship was on human action. We reach up to the level of deity.

The Bible gives a much different picture of holi-ness. A distinctively Christian view of holiness sees it as inseparable from God’s grace. As grace is an unmerited gift of God, so too is holiness. Paul reminds the wavering Corinthians, “…you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Sanc-tification—from the same Greek word as holiness—is something that happens to us, not something we do. God performs the action; we receive the gift.

This distinction has major implications for the Chris-tian life. If I see holiness as the outcome of strict adher-ence to a religious program, then I will externalize it and make it into a formula. If I do A, B and C, then God owes me D, E and F. Jesus saved His most biting criticism for adherents to this brand of externalized religion. Such people only give the appearance of purity. Internally—that is, spiritually—they are “full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27).

If, on the other hand, I see holiness as an effect of God lavishing his unearned favor on me, then I will understand that holiness is really just the gift of God’s presence. Where God is, there is holiness. This is true even in Israel, where God’s command, “Be holy as I am holy,” was fol-lowed with extensive instructions for external purification. The rituals alone could never effect the holiness of God’s people. It was through His presence that God imprinted His holiness on them.

A.W. Tozer remarked of the Israelites during their wilderness wandering, “By innumerable distinctions God taught Israel the difference between holy and unholy. There were holy days, holy vessels, holy garments. There were washings, sacrifices, offerings of many kinds. By these means Israel learned that God is holy. It was this that He was teaching them. Not the holiness of things or places, but the holiness of Jehovah was the lesson they must learn.”

In Ezekiel 10, God’s glory (i.e. His presence), departs from the temple and the nation is doomed to exile. This is the just consequence for the nation’s defilement with idol-atry. Only in Ezekiel 43, after the command for the people

of Israel to “put away their harlotry,” do we see God’s glo-rious presence return to the temple with the promise that He will “dwell among them forever” (vv. 4-9). There is no holiness apart from God’s presence.

The inextricable relationship between holiness and God’s presence erodes the commonly held distinctions be-tween the sacred and the secular. Behaviors understood as sacred would include corporate worship, prayer, fasting, and Bible reading, to name a few. Secular pursuits would include such things as work, eating, and recreation. But this distinction becomes a false dichotomy for the body of Christ. How else could Paul exhort us in 1 Corinthians 10:31 to do everything, even eating and drinking, to the glory of God?

Since God’s Spirit indwells every believer, there is no longer a distinction between the sacred and the secular. The body of Christ is God’s mobile temple. In other words, the experience of God’s glorious presence is no longer the special privilege of the priestly order, reserved for a specific time at a centralized location. Rather, the supreme priesthood of Jesus brings all believers near to God (Hebrews 7:25).

There is nothing inherently holy about eating or walk-ing the dog or sitting in front of a computer. But even the most mundane tasks are made holy when they are performed with a heart dedicated to bringing honor to the Lord. The holy sacrifice required of believers in Romans 12:1 is our physical bodies. We worship God with our bodies as well as our spirits. In this sense, holiness is about “wholeness.” I cannot simultaneously offer my spirit to God in worship and my body to the desires of the flesh. True sanctification involves God’s holy character infusing the totality of my being.

I have heard more than a few sermons that give me a list of “shoulds” and “should nots.” In most cases, these guidelines are valid. However, I do not become holy by following them. The most succinct definition of sanctifica-tion I’ve heard is “becoming who you are.” To quote the hymn Jesus Paid It All, “Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.” This is in the past tense—it’s a done deal. Even so, there is a progressive aspect to sancti-fication on the other side of the coin. Though I have been declared spotless, I have not yet attained, in a practical sense, God’s standard of perfection.

This realization can be either frustrating or freeing. Those who rely on their religiosity to bring them in line with God’s character will soon enough discover that they are rotting on the inside. But those who are willing to let the Gardener do His pruning will find ever-increasing freedom as each dead branch is lopped off and a new shoot springs to life in its place.

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By Josh Millwood

One and the

Same

Holiness, at its core, means set apart for God. In the Old Testament, things were made holy by ad-hering to strict purification rituals. The Israelites went to great measures to insure cleanliness and

to follow all of the rules laid out by God through Moses. They had seen what happens when you cross Him. When things weren’t done as commanded, people got hurt... or worse. In the Old Testament, God takes what belongs to Him very seriously. For example, if you even accidentally grazed the Ark of the Covenant—instant death. The Ark was holy. One time, a young man reached out to prevent the Ark from falling from its perch—a noble gesture. But it was forbidden to touch the Ark and so he died. We can imagine that his family bore some resentment towards God for such a strict punishment. After all, the guy was only trying to keep the Ark from falling.

Because of such stories of God’s absolute merciless behavior in the Old Testament, it can sometimes be hard to meld Yaweh of the Israelites with Jesus of the New Testament. We think of Jesus dying on the cross for us - not Jesus smiting people for touching Him. With Jesus, it’s exactly the opposite! When a sick woman touched Jesus’ robe she was healed by faith in Him - not burnt to a crisp for daring to touch the Son of God. Jesus openly welcomed children to play at His feet while He taught selfless love and forgiveness of sins. It seems like Jesus is the nice version of God—the people’s God—as opposed to the mystic smiting force of the Old Testament. But they are the same Person. And that might challenge your faith.

How can Jesus, God-made-Man, who came to take away the sin of the world, be the very same God that flooded the world, killing everything but a boat full of people and animals? He is the same God who sent the Angel of Death to kill firstborn Egyptian babies, who opened up the earth to swallow disobedient Israelites and who commanded His army to utterly destroy entire civilizations. There aren’t easy answers to questions like

these. But to have faith in Christ—to trust Him to be who He said He is—means to believe that they are one and the same.

God’s violent reaction to humanity is actually our fault. God made us. We are subservient to Him. When it all began, God walked through the garden with man-kind—as Creator/Friend/Father. He wasn’t hashing out plans to level civilizations. There wasn’t even the concept of punishment in that beautiful place. Everything was holy - perfect - for God, Himself to enjoy. Then we sinned. We were warned about the repercussions of sin, but chose to believe a lie instead of God. We can’t even just blame Eve and Adam for setting us down this path, because we choose sin daily! Ever since that moment, God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has been putting into action His plan to restore holiness to His beloved creation. He didn’t just scratch it all and start over—God commit-ted Himself to restoration.

Jesus was the sacrifice that ended ritual purification. Holiness was attainable, for the first time, through faith rather than ordinance. Not only did Jesus fulfill hundreds of prophecies and the law of Moses, but He fulfilled His own requirement for holiness on our behalf. God, who is Love, did not enjoy punishing the wicked. He did not enjoy destruction. God is the creator. He requires holi-ness of His creation—and that is His right. Thankfully He made a way through Jesus for us to be set apart for good.

While sitting on a hillside with a crowd of people Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Mat-thew 5:48). That statement was the last nail in the coffin. Everything Jesus said that God wanted from His people was simply not possible to accomplish. It was not something any one of them or us could accomplish on our own. God’s holy standard is completely impossible for us to reach. But Jesus reached it. And then reached back for us.

By Karen Tull

Christian Club

“Therefore, come out from among unbelievers and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord” (2

Corinthians 6:17). If you ever visit an area in the U.S. that

has a large Amish community, you will see a live-action demonstration of the verse above. Cars whizzing past horse-drawn buggies. Tractors chugging along in one field while a long-bearded man manually plows up the ground in another.

Though the self-described “plain peo-ple” do occasionally have to intermingle with outsiders, either on the roadways or in markets where they sell their goods, in every other way, they are a world apart. To say the Amish have taken the command to “be separate” and run with it would be an understatement indeed.

Is this what being separate from unbe-lievers truly means? Should we, then, find a robe and purchase a one-way ticket to a monastery? Perhaps we could all board a rocket and blast off to create a Christians-only planet.

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church with the instruction to “come out” from unbelievers, he was refer-ring to the need to make a clean break from their former lifestyles. The culture there was saturated with idolatry and immoral-ity, and some believers were dabbling in their old practices again. The exhortation to “separate” was not to literally get out of town; but rather, to rid themselves of sin and live completely for the Lord.

In striving for this, however, we are not called to cloister ourselves away from those who don’t share our faith. Actually,

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it’s quite the opposite. Instead of operating as an exclusive club, we are to follow the example of Jesus and pursue those who do not yet know the Truth.

Author Arron Chambers writes, “We must be careful not to confuse morality with isolation from the world. In my expe-rience, the more committed some Chris-tians become to God, the more isolated they become from lost people. Truly moral people hang out with lost people.”

Jesus regularly ate with those in society who were deemed the lowest of the low—sinners, tax collectors, and generally “un-clean” people, as viewed by the religious leaders of the day. And in the ancient Near East, the people with whom you ate carried a lot of significance. Eating with someone denoted your regard for that person as your equal.

Here was the Son of God—perfection personified—leveling with the morally defiled. He didn’t bash them over the head with His message of repentance, but sought to develop relationships with them. Like-wise, followers of Christ are called to en-gage unbelievers, not from a lofty seat, but from a remembrance of our own vileness before God prior to salvation—and that we, too, are still sinners in need of grace.

Arron Chambers concludes: “As we eat with sinners, it would be wise to start each meal with a slice of humble pie, because it seems to me that it’s too easy to position ourselves safely on a comfortable perch and look down with pity on those so far below us. This is absurd and un-Christlike. If we really want to reach lost people, we must be humble—and true humility comes from standing next to the cross.”

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Set Apart to Die and to

LiveBy Burk Parsons

“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer was about thirty years old when he penned these words in his class work

The Cost of Discipleship. Eight years later he was ex-ecuted for his crimes against the Third Reich. The prison doctor who witnessed Bonhoeffer’s execution wrote, “In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.” The doctor’s words could not have been more appropriate to describe not only the manner in which Bonhoeffer submitted himself to God in death but also the manner in which he submitted himself to God in life. In his life and at his death, Bonhoeffer grasped one crucial truth: To be set apart to God is to be set apart to die, to die to sin, to self, and to life itself - to take up our crosses daily and live unto Christ and embrace the true freedom that only comes when Christ calls a man to die and live abundantly in Him.

Sanctification is a most simple biblical doctrine, yet it is perhaps the most difficult doctrine to understand. In one sense, sanctification is as simple as understanding the biblical language of being set apart, consecrated, or holy. And in another sense, it is as comprehensive as the application of sacred Scripture to all of life and worship. The Westminster Assembly provided us with one of the more helpful and succinct explanations of sanctification (WSC 35), still questions remain as to the precise nature of God’s work and our work in the Spirit-wrought work of

sanctification. By grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone we are positionally sanctified, yet in some mysterious way, God has chosen to sovereignly work in us, through us, and with us to sanctify us progressively by His free grace through repentance, faith, and obedience that we might die more and more unto sin and live unto righteousness.

However, even though a certain degree of mystery may exist with respect to how we are sanctified in holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, we do know this: Our sanctification is established in Him who knew no sin but became sin for us and died for us that we might die in Him and live for Him in order that we might reign with Him without the power or presence of sin within us. It is only then that our countenances will reveal our genuine and uninterrupted contentment in the One who has bid us to come and die and live in Him.

Burk Parsons is editor of Tabletalk magazine.

This article appeared in the May 2010 edition of Table-talk magazine.

From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: [email protected]. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.


Begun in an instant, the normal Christian life is a journey of sanctification in which God’s grace conforms us more and more to the image of His beloved Son. Making sense of this voyage and

our sanctification in it, however, requires the spectacles of Holy Scripture.

As we examine the Word of God, the first startling fact we see is that our journey of sanctification begins when God pins on us a most surprising nametag. In Colossians 3:12, the apostle Paul identifies the Colossian church as “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.” This same label—“saints,” literally, “holy ones”—is given to believers in Ephesus (Eph. 1:1) and Philippi (Phil. 1:1). Even Chris-tians in Corinth are recognized as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2).

How can believers with all their many problems (see James 3:2 and 1 John 1:8) rightly be branded “holy,” “sanctified,” and “saints”? How can a holy God say such a thing about you and me?

The reality of our divine nametag is rooted deep in the Old Testament. At the burning bush, God said to Moses, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Ex. 3:5). God’s Sab-bath was also different from the other days of the week—“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (20:8). Israel herself was to be set apart from the Canaanite peoples and uniquely identified as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (19:6). Thus, to be “holy” is to be cut off, to be separated from the common or profane for God’s special use.

In this light, it is easy to see why Jesus would refer to Christians as “those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). At the moment that they trust in Christ, new believers are called “holy,” “sanctified,” and “saints” because they are different from the rest, united to Him by faith and by the Spirit (John 15:1-5; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:4-6; Col. 2:6-7). No wonder Paul could boast about the Corin-thians: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).

This first aspect of our sanctification occurs at the beginning of our journey through the Christian life and

continues forevermore: all Christians are called holy. Termed positional, declarative, or definitive sanctification, this shocking biblical truth means that we have undergone a change of relationship and that we are now part of God’s peculiar people: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priest-hood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). In this way, Christians are “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), now able to believe, to repent, to love God, to love God’s people, and to love a world in need of the Savior. Now we are able to hunger and thirst for God. Now we are able to loathe sin and fight against it.

And fight we must! This first aspect of our sanctifica-tion leads naturally to the second, which is called progres-sive sanctification. Not all we experience as Christians is instantaneous. There is also a progressive, unfolding aspect to our Christian life. We, by God’s grace, must con-tinue the journey of sanctification day by day. In addition to being called holy, Christians are also becoming holy.

God’s standard for our progressive Christian lives is hardly unclear: “As obedient children, do not be con-formed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your con-duct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:14-16). Old Testament Israel received the law of God on stone from Mount Sinai. What better place to find the Lord’s standard for proper Christian living than in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21; 1 Tim. 1:8-11) carved with His own finger?

This tenfold summary of God’s law first humbled our hearts before we began our Christian journey, teaching us how righteous God really is and how far short of His glory we actually fall. This same moral law also restrained sin inside us and out as we trembled with the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai every time the Ten Com-mandments rang in our ears. But the third use of the law is the sweetest to us in our Christian walk of sanctification, as we learn there what pleases our heavenly Father and how we should seek to serve Him.

As so we fight sin because we love God and want to bring Him glory. But this is not a lonely struggle of our


Being and BecomingBy Dr. W. Duncan Rankin

flesh against all the demons that plague us. Rather, it is a deliberate and conscious battling against sin in our lives, but always in union with Christ (Rom. 8:13-18). We do not fight alone or even merely in our own strength. In-stead, we are one by faith and by the Spirit with our Sav-ior and Head. And so by His grace and strength, we are able to engage in this battle against sin, using all the tools He has provided, because He Himself also fights for us.

This mortification of sin is one side of our progres-sive sanctification. It is not automatic but something that requires our positive effort. It is grounded in the fact that through our union with Christ we are dead to sin, having died to it because of His crucifixion (Rom. 6:3-7; Gal. 5:24; Col. 3:3). With that stark reality in mind, it is easier to see why we must therefore strain every nerve to kill the sins that plague us so (Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5). Thus, our union with Jesus has tangible implications for the way we live as Christians.

Our journey in progressive sanctification is not defined merely by this ongoing struggle against sin. We also live in Him, in the light and strength of Christ’s resurrection, because our union with Him extends beyond Calvary and into the empty tomb (Rom. 6:5). Death no longer holds Him, and so death no longer holds dominion over those who are His, and they live in Him for God (vv. 9-11). Thus, our walk in the normal Christian life includes a spring in our steps as we push ahead with every effort by His grace and strength to the kind of life and lifestyle He desires (Phil. 3:13-14).

This vivification brings both renewal and growth in our Christian lives. Renewal impacts every facet of our human personality, including our desires, our dreams, and our emotions. But these aspects of our lives are changed most profoundly through the portal of our minds: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2). In this way, we “are being trans-formed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). This is a work of God’s Holy Spirit on us, in us, and through us, making us more like Christ (Eph. 4:23-24), but at the same time we must exercise “the

mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).Growth in grace is also a part of our progressive

sanctification. The apostle Peter plainly stresses the impor-tance of such development at the end of his second epistle: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (3:18). Paul calls on the Colossians “to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (1 Cor. 1:10). Here again we see that, like renewal, growing in grace does not exclude the importance of Christlike thinking. Such Christian growth in sanctification also carries with it a corporate, social dimension in the life of the church—sharing in one an-other’s gifts and graces, “we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph. 4:11-16).

Progressive sanctification is, therefore, a synergistic effort, involving both the work of God (1 Thess. 3:12-13) and the work of man (1 John 3:3; 2 Cor 7:1; Rev. 7:14). By His grace, God expects us to conform our progressive experience of the Christian life to our definitive status as His saints.

What an exciting journey through sanctification we can see in the pages of Holy Scripture! God begins it in an instant when He names us as those who are set apart to be His own, and then walks with us every step of the way. Holy by His creative Word, we become more holy in our own experience by His grace and Spirit as we march forward to His glory each day.

Dr. W. Duncan Rankin is minister of Christ Church, Presbyterian, in Evans, Georgia. He also serves on the board of directors for GRACE—a Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.

This article appeared in the May 2010 edition of Table-talk magazine.

From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: [email protected]. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.

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Does God Know Your Name?

By Keyanna Butts

I am a Christian: I go to church. I celebrate Christmas and Easter. I’m nice to people and give to the less fortunate. I listen to Christian radio. I even have one of those fish bumper stickers on my car. Obviously, I

am a Christian. Have you ever thought about what it means to be a

Christian? For some, it may just be adhering to the above-mentioned activities. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I began to really think about what being a Christian really meant, and what constituted my Christianity.

My father is a pastor, so I was “birthed” into Christi-anity. Growing up in a Christian household, I was taught how to live like a Christian. And so I did. I went to church, I prayed to God, I read my Bible (on occasion), and I tried to be an all-around good person. Therefore, in my eyes, I was a Christian…or was I?

Although I didn’t see it then, looking back, it’s appar-ent that the only thing that comprised my Christianity was my actions. I was merely acting how I thought a Christian should act, and doing what I thought a Christian should do. But as “Christ-like” as I may have appeared, I had no real relationship with God. I was calling myself a Chris-tian, without truly knowing God.

It’s important not to confuse believing in God with knowing God. I absolutely believed in God. But to know God is more than just believing in Him; it’s having an intimate and personal relationship with Him. That, I did not have.

Jesus made a very profound statement when He said, “Many will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast

out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works?’ And then will I profess unto them, ‘I never knew you: de-part from me, ye that work iniquity’” (Matthew 7:22-23).

This passage clearly points out that unless God knows you (meaning, you have a relationship with Him), all the “wonderful works” that define your Christianity is for naught. Realizing that our godly rituals do not indicate where we are in Christ is discomforting for those who say they are Christians because of their practical applications and social surroundings.

Unfortunately, many cannot recognize this Christian facade because they are blinded by their own self-righ-teousness. It is not easy confessing that you do not know God after proclaiming and “acting” like a Christian for so many years.

It takes humility.Sometimes, humility comes in the form of a “what

if” question. What if I’m missing something? What if I have deceived myself? What if there is more to being a Christian than what I’m experiencing? This place of self-interrogation cracks the door to your mind and heart allowing God to step in and reveal truth. This begins the relationship.

“Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).

Having a relationship with God is the pure essence of what it means to be a Christian. God’s companionship is readily available to those who desire more depth to their Christian status. Seek Him and you will find Him.

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One of Those DaysBy Karen Tull

“Do you ever feel you’ve become the worst version of yourself?”

This is a line that the character Joe Fox writes in an e-mail to his anony-

mous pen pal Kathleen Kelly in the romantic comedy film You’ve Got Mail. The characters, played by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, meet in a chat room and then begin regular online correspondence, pondering life’s quirks with each other while leaving their true identities hidden. This par-ticular question is posed after he feels remorse for a verbal dig he had leveled at someone the night before.

For some reason, this line from the movie has stuck with me. Maybe it’s because I can relate to what his character is saying. It puts into words a feeling I’ve had at times where I was sure I had sunk to a new personal low as a human...and a “Christian” one at that.

Have you ever had one of those moments? Things seem to be going along okay, but then something triggers you. Trivial as it might be, it’s too late. All the suppressed irritations have already sprung to the surface and—boom! Words are coming out of your mouth that you didn’t even know were in your vocabulary.

Maybe it’s more than just a moment. Maybe you’ve noticed a growing contempt for people that’s been fester-ing for days, weeks, or even months. Maybe your personal disappointments have turned into anger, depression, and bitterness. Maybe you’re no longer turning to God for help, but to unhealthy—and sinful—outlets. Eventually, you look at yourself and wonder, “How on Earth did I get here?”

Now think of your “best” day as a Christian. You know, the day where you actually got up early to have devotions before work. During your commute, you didn’t exceed the speed limit whatsoever. Heck, you even slowed down so somebody could yield in front of you. On the job, you had smiles and words of encouragement for your co-workers. At the drive-thru window during lunch, you paid for the food for the driver behind you. Back at home, the family atmosphere is chaotic, but you exhibit self-control. Your spouse throws a cutting remark your way, but you grant forgiveness. If there were ever a poster child for Christianity, on this day—it would have to be you.

Maybe you’re in a place now where it seems like a gulf is separating the person you’ve become from who you

used to be. But the truth is, Christ died for the ugliest ver-sion of ourselves as much as the loveliest. We’ve always needed His redemption—both on our “best” days and on our “worst.” When it comes down to it, we’re still sinners who fall short of God’s holy standard. Our very best ef-forts still miss the mark by a landslide.

Scripture says, “If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me” (Psalm 139:9-10). We can take comfort in remembering that Jesus is in the business of cleaning and restoring, and no matter how far we drift, we are never beyond His ability to reach us and pull us out of the trenches—again and again.

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I focused on the score, but I could never win Trying to ignore, a life of hiding my sin To label me a hypocrite would be Only scratching the surface of who I’ve been known to be

Turn me around, pick me up Undo what I’ve become Bring me back to the place Of forgiveness and grace I need You, need Your help I can’t do this myself You’re the only One who can undo What I’ve become

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Rearranging the FurnitureBy Ravi Zacharias

History has a way of pro-

voking life’s most basic questions, sometimes with deadly force.

Standing beside ruins and devasta-

tion, newscasters daily relay horrors. As harsh

realities take hold, the irrepressible “why?” often

surfaces in the mind of the behold-er. Occasionally, even international conscience

is so aroused as to ask “why?”Yet in reality, the question of “why?” in a violent act,

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as painful as such a mindless atrocity can be, is neverthe-less meaningless to raise unless we also ask the question of life itself—why are we here? But alas! that question is dismissed as no longer relevant in an academically sophisticated culture. Is this not, then, a self-destructive contradiction for one who debunks the notion of objec-tive morality? Those who reduce the world to merely the physical cheat when they stray into the metaphysical.

In stark distinction, it is here once again that God beckons with his pleas to a morally deaf world. Granted, the questions raised come from two groups. The deep and private pain of those for whom the loss is personal and devastating cannot be simplistically addressed. For them there is one who speaks from a cross. But there is another side to this query, and that is in understanding how and why hatred and murder can be conceived and nurtured in the human heart in the first place.

Interestingly enough, the very first murder in the Bible did not occur because of two irreconcilable political theories. The murder of a man by his own brother was an act unmistakably borne out of their differing responses to God. Trapped by the temporal, Cain was deluded by the belief that he could vanquish spiritual reality with brute force. God saw the inevitable result of the jealousy and hatred deep within Cain’s heart, and in a challenge that would determine his destiny, warned him to deal with it. “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7).

There are only two options: either come to God on his terms and find our perfect peace in his acceptance of us, or play God with self-defining morality and kill—becoming as a result restless wanderers, ever running from the voice of our brothers’ blood that cries out from the ground. At its core life is sacred and of inestimable value, whether it is the life of a darling child in the fresh blossom of child-hood, or the life of an elderly, weak, and frail recluse. Both have one thing in common: they are made in the im-age of God. That is why murder is described in Scripture for what it is, an attack upon God’s image—a denial of our spiritual essence. It is that essence which gives us our dignity and our worth. It is that essence which is our glory and true home.

We may try by intellectual duplicity to rearrange the furniture of life and define it only in material terms, but

each time we sit back and read of the human experience in Darfur or Virginia, Bosnia or Rwanda, we shift and turn with revulsion, realizing that there is no harmony in the secular “decor,” for the cry within of the sacred cannot be suppressed. That is the reason we scream forth “why?” at the headlines: we cannot silence the still, small voice inside that speaks of the intrinsic sanctity of life, and that it ought not to be violated.

Try as we will, the logical outworking of a denied absolute cannot be escaped. God said it to Cain then and God says it to us now. “If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door, and desires to have you.” Cain became a murderer because he willfully refused to wor-ship the living God and chose, by violence, to enthrone himself. This is an aspect of modern society we have grossly underestimated, and in the process we have robbed ourselves of even common sense. God is not only the Creator who defines us philosophically, but God is also the Provider who meets us existentially in our greatest need and gives us the confidence and comfort that we are beloved and not orphaned in this world.

If we are to ever find an answer to the haunting prob-lem of violence, there will need to be a radical shift in our understanding. We must recognize not only the seen, but also the reality of the unseen, for the latter precedes the former. We would do well to take note that long before headlines hit like explosives in our minds, an even greater implosion takes place in the minds and hearts of those who set the news in motion. Human rule cannot deal with that internal devastation, but God can. That “unseen” war is a spiritual struggle—the choice between turning to God or playing God. For that triumph only God is big enough, and the sooner we realize and acknowledge our need the closer we will be to moving from the symptomatic rear-ranging of furniture to the cure of coming home.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Rearranging the Furniture by Ravi Zacharias, A Slice of Infinity, No. 2704, originally printed April 18, 2012 (www.rzim.org). Used by permission of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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What is beautiful? It is always changing. From blonde to ethnic, twig-like to curvy, stick-straight hair to natural curls. The face of beauty varies with the seasons. Even as

it changes, we continue to chase it. We long to achieve external beauty and will do almost anything to attain it.

During the Great Depression, a term was coined. It was called “The Lipstick Factor.” There were so many basic commodities that needed to be sacrificed for the sake of the common economic good of society. But one thing women would allow themselves as a small luxury was lipstick. Lipstick sales actually increased during the Great Depression. And, surveys during our current recession have shown women are faithfully visiting their hair styl-ists just as often as ever and purchasing high-end quality cosmetics.

We buy—and yet we are lacking. Nearly every time I open a women’s magazine, I see a gorgeous 53-year-old Andie MacDowell posing for L’Oréal. I wonder how she has not aged a bit since her 1993 role in Groundhog Day (the same certainly could not be said of her co-star Bill Murray!). MacDowell is there on a two-page spread displaying nearly flawless skin and thick black cascading curls. I wince as I think about how significantly younger I am, yet have to work to cover skin flaws and use plenty of gel and mousse to give my hair a texture beyond cat fur! I feel somehow “less than” whenever I look at those ads.

I share a birth year with actresses Amy Adams, Eliza-beth Banks, and Penelope Cruz. Believe me, with enough “work,” you and I could both look like they do. Photo editing has a way of making anyone appear long, lean, and beautiful. With several clicks of a button, it is possible to airbrush, remove wrinkles, and even lengthen necks.

The wonderful thing about internal beauty is, through

the Bible, Jesus Christ has given us one standard: Him-self. There is no need to scour magazines for the latest and greatest because Christ is the ultimate in spiritual perfection. But as I read the words in 1 Peter, “Be holy as I am holy,” I am overwhelmed. I feel almost like Jesus is posing as Andie MacDowell telling me to use L’Oréal and I too will be beautiful. I use His products. I read God’s Word and pray, yet I sin. I use L’Oréal and still have a zit that is not flawlessly covered.

1 Peter 1:13-16 reads: “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the rev-elation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

Holiness can be defined as “perfection” or as simply being “set apart.” When I think of holiness I usually think of the former. Since the passage in 1 Peter is a command, it would almost appear as though we are irrationally be-ing commanded to do something that is impossible for our sinful selves to accomplish. It’s similar to a parent demanding a two-year-old tie his own shoes. He could try but could not physically accomplish the task. Only a cruel parent would demand something like that from his child.

Holiness is an internal change that happens because of a change of ownership. The Apostle Paul writes about becoming a slave of righteousness, just as at one time we were once slaves to sin. The process of sanctification (or becoming holy) is a life-long process. It is growing in the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and becoming less focused on self.

Fixation on external beauty causes us to focus on how

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we do not meet the standard; fixation on Christ causes beauty to naturally appear in us internally. We will never fully be holy on this side of eternity, nor are we physically perfect. But as our bodies age, our spirits can grow ever more beautiful.

2 Corinthi-ans 4:16-17: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inward-ly we are being re-newed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

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The Sleeper Pitcher

We have two boys who play Little League baseball—two very different little boys. One seems to have a lot of what

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Our older boy has to work for every-thing he gets. Very little seems to come naturally for him. He is also in his second year, and is now playing with some highly-skilled 11- and 12-year-olds.

He has been coached in how to throw, how to catch, how to bat, and how to run bases. While he has been very teachable in the areas of batting and base running, he has adopted his own style of throwing and catching.

Just the other day, I asked him to pitch to me. His throwing form has been an is-sue from the beginning. He tends to throw

side-armed, with his elbow tight against his body. But as he pitched, I noticed less of that. What I did notice was that he threw hard, without much forethought, and right down the middle. My goodness, our son may be a natural pitcher.

While his form may not be perfect, the way he addresses the pitch is. He does not over-think the task. He just heaves it, and it goes straight. But the greatest thing of all is that after every strike, I noticed a smirk on his face—something I haven’t seen since he started playing.

I think that smirk says, “Daddy, did you see that? That is the last thing you expected out of me, isn’t it?” Or maybe it says, “I just threw a strike, and it had nothing to do with my perfect form.”

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The Sleeper PitcherBy B.A. Timmons

expect his coach to allow him to pitch, but Elias has such a good rapport with him that it wouldn’t surprise me if he did.

What we have here, potentially, is a sleeper pitcher—a secret weapon. The right fielder approaches the plate to pitch, the opposing team lets its guard down, and there you have it—strike-outs—perhaps the greatest relief pitcher in the history of Little League.

One day our son may start thinking about his place in the Body of Christ. Early on in his walk with the Lord, he will probably pick up the truth that we all have some place in that body. He will come to an understanding that believers have been set apart for the Lord’s work.

He may labor to figure out what that looks like and nervously attempt to walk in that place. He may look at the skills he has

and wonder how the Lord will use them. He may walk a long time before he is sure he has found that place, and his confidence may be shaky at times.

Or, he may not labor at all. Instead, he may set his heart toward the Lord and rest in the thought that the Lord will live within him and use him as He sees fit. If I could give a blessing to my son, it would be that he would walk with that attitude.

That blessing would free him of the temptation to worry about his place. Instead of a preoccupation with finding it, one day he will just start throwing strikes out of the blue. And he will get a smile on his face and say to himself, “Yeah, I just threw a strike, but I have no idea how.”

Get Planted,Grow Spiritually,Reap the Harvest

Service Times:Sunday, 10 amWednesday, 7 pm

Children, Youth and

AdultMinistries

800 Snow Hill Rd.Salisbury

410-546-2121

Pastors John & Rochelle Tyler

www.harvestfieldschurch.net

List Your Church OnlineFind out more about our Area Church Directory by clicking here.

Saturday, June 9th at 7 amJoy! 102.5 studios, 11890 Crisfield Lane, Princess Anne

$10 to set up | Vendors and shoppers invited | Lots of room for your items (please limit your items to things appropriate

for sale on ministry property) | Tables not provided

Call 410-543-9652 for details

• Rain Date is Saturday, June 16th

Huge Regional Yard Sale

http://www.wolc.org/acd/


I Have a Dream (This Feels Like Home): The City Harmonic

Someone forgot to tell The City Harmonic about the sopho-more slump. A break-out band is legally obligated to put out a fan-disappointing album of introspective love songs that whine about how hard life is on the road. It’s like an unspoken rule for the second album. Instead, The City Harmonic put out I Have A Dream, an album that trumps their debut with soar-ing harmonies, piano-driven melodies and accessible worship songs.

The album kicks off with the triumphant “Yours” and picks up steam from there. Some songs are like the most epic Psalms of David, while some are quiet confessions. All are held together by a common denominator: Awe towards the Creator. And for good measure, the guys include their hit “Manifesto” at the end of the CD to remind you why you picked up the

second album in the first place.

The Hunger Games: Gary Ross

Set in a future dystopian society trying to exist in what’s left of North America, the nation of Panem has an annual sporting event called The Hunger Games. It’s to serve as a reminder of a rebellion some 75 years prior. Each of the 12 Districts of Pan-em must offer up a male and female tribute, drawn from a pool of the district’s young people. Then, all 24 must fight to the death for the amusement of the government. The film (based on the first of three Young Adult novels) follows Katniss Ever-deen, a 16-year-old girl from the poor District Twelve. Katniss

volunteers for The Hunger Games to protect her younger sister who was selected by the lottery system.

The movie is not any more violent than most PG-13 action-adventures, but made more shocking by the simple fact that it is child versus child. The protagonist’s point of view heightens the terror of how a society could find such a slaughter of inno-cents as entertainment. Katniss’s obvious disdain for the ruling authority makes her the rallying point for an entire nation, which plays out in what is sure to be a successful trilogy.

The Circle Trilogy: Ted Dekker

Written first as a trilogy, Black, Red, and White, explore parallel dimensions, one in current world and one two thou-sand years in the future, predominantly through the eyes of one young man, Thomas Hunter. Asleep in the now equates to awake and functioning in a future world, and vice versa.

This series is a high point in Dekker’s writing and his cre-ative imagination and craft in developing the parallel worlds, while at the same time drawing parallels from Biblical sym-bolism and tradition, is no less than awesome. The drama in either world is so engaging that the reader can’t wait to find out what’s happening in the other.

Dekker is to be credited for a brilliant success in relay-ing biblical concepts in extraordinarily imaginative ways that help readers comprehend that with which they may otherwise struggle - such as good and evil, salvation, the nature of God, eternal life.

The fourth book, Green, while possibly even more exem-plary in presentation of many of these same concepts, screams of being an afterthought. And succumbing to popular use of vampire-type characters cheapened the effort. Still, the fourth book has great value and, in fact, helps wrap up the story in a way that the original trilogy did not.

A fantastic read for those that love sci-fi and fantasy - es-pecially if the reader is imaginative enough to take the basic

truths therein to heart and head!

These reviews are provided by Maranatha, Inc. staff and contributing writers.

UnfilteredThink Out Loud

Grace Notes Music Studio

Voice, Piano, Guitar,Woodwind and Brass Lessons410-603-8585

David and April Wilson, Instructors

206 Walston Avenue, Salisbury, Maryland | gracenotesmusicstudio.musicteachershelper.com | [email protected]

Follow the link below to see the Grace Notes website for more information and for free online music education resources!

http://www.gracenotesmusicstudio.musicteachershelper.com

mailto:aprilrose62%40comcast.net?subject=I%20learned%20about%20you%20in%20the%20Manna

ResidentialCommercialandRoll-OffServices

DAVISD ISPOSAL

P. O. Box 128, Craddockville, VA

757-442-7979 | 757-442-7099 (fax)

Locally Owned & Operated

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clicking here

Get Plugged InRobbin Gray Reverse Mortgages

877-543-8174

John Charles SeippAttorney And Counselor At Law

410-546-3533www.seipplaw.com | [email protected]

Nelson Insurance410-651-3667

Melody NelsonAgency

Scott Rice Pest Controlscottricetermite.com

Waterfowl HuntingYou’ve hunted with the rest –

now hunt with the best!

For a good day’s hunt,call Captain Andy Linton at

(757) 336-1253 or (757) 990-2499 (cell)

Geothermal • Industrial Domestic • Irrigation

Goulds & Grundfos Pumps30170 Ritzel Road, Westover, MD

(410) 651-3721 (office-24 hrs.)[email protected]

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http://readthemanna.org/advertise/

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The Manna May 2012