A Tinder House Life

At community group, we have been going through 2 Peter. Last week, we fell upon a verse which ended up being a very intense discussion and warning to myself and all of us about what kind of life I am building. The relevant section of text is 2 Peter 1:5-11:

"5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
 10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

For in this way (v.11) refers to the supplements to our faith in vv.5-8, which is also part of "making your calling and election sure" (v.10). So in short, "for in this way" refers to living out our faith, growing in godly qualities, and loving people through our actions. Bearing fruit to use Christianese.

Let's look at v.11 some more. "there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (ESV). Richly provided sounds wonderful. This is one of the few instances I really like how the NLT (I think) renders this:

And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The question is what does this richly/abundantly, gates of heaven flung wide refer to? Conversely, is there a way to get to heaven that would not involve a rich and abundant welcome? That is the question I will discuss below.

But first, a little preface. Because we all love prefaces. Most important, by FAR, is getting into heaven. MUCH better than hell. Once you are there, there is no mourning, or crying, or pain. The old order of things has passed away (Revelations 21). So there is no grief or regret that could leave us mourning. This is what I desire, what I try to meditate on more each day, this is what drove Paul to live such an intense life for Jesus. So in one sense, getting into heaven is a rich welcome in itself, the most important part. Jesus, on the cross, told the guy next to him he would be with Jesus in paradise. Today. If you remember the parable of the workers who each received a denarius (Matthew 20) who worked at the 1st, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and 11th hour. This tells us that whether we are saved when young, middle aged, or at the 11th hour, we get the same share of heaven (our denarius) as the guy who has been a Christian as long as he can remember. If you do not love Jesus Christ you need to right now wherever you are at in life.

But here is the challenge to Christians. Do you desire to be the 11th hour worker? Or maybe more subtly, are you living like the 11th hour worker? Are you looking forward to a rich welcome into heaven? This is where the 1 Corinthians 3 text comes into play:

"10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

So you are saved. You are called and elected, chosen by God, going to heaven. Nothing can separate you from God's love (Romans 8). That is the most important by far. That means your foundation has been laid, Christ Jesus, and no other foundation can be laid, because nothing else can save us and bring us to heaven except Jesus. On the Day of Judgment, we will stand before God and point to our foundation, Jesus Christ. It will be tested with fire and it will stand, and we will receive entrance into heaven.

But is anyone going to be waiting for you? Will there be people rushing to say "Thank you, thank you for sharing the gospel with me, thank you for giving me a sandwich to eat, thank you for doing my dishes when I was stressed out..." Or will people just say "Wow, you were a Christian. I had no idea. Cool." Will everything you have given your life to: your job, time, money, what you worship, will it all be burnt up like a big pile of cardboard? Will you look back on your life, now a smoldering pile, and say "Dang! Why did I waste it." Everything burnt and destroyed around you and just your body barley making it in. This is harsh but this is the language Paul is using. If you do what culture says, if you live the life TV and culture tell you, if you live the life many of your parents tell you, if you live a life devoid of eternal impact, it will be incinerated on that Day when you give an account to Jesus. I'm asking, are you building your life out of tinder? Are you laboring to build a paper house?

What I want deeply when I go to heaven, and what I want for all of you, is a throng of people waiting for you saying "Thank you so much!" A pile high of IOU's that people never paid back but that I knew Jesus would. It says in Matthew 6 not to lay up treasures on earth that moth and rust destroy, but treasure in heaven. I think this is the treasure in heaven, loving acts towards people in Jesus' name. I think this is what constitutes the "rich welcome" into heaven, a throng of souls you have had some eternal intersection with, you have done something for them which echoed on into eternity, which became treasure in heaven. That's desperately what I want, what I want and pray for my CG, what I want for every Christian out there.

So look at your life. If you are Christian and have the foundation that is permanent, Jesus Christ who forgives us our sins and takes us to heaven to be with God forever, then what have you put on top of that? Anything that will last? Will it stand the test of time, the Day of Judgment? Can you look Jesus in the face and say I spent my life well?

None of us are anywhere near perfect, and I have failed many times. MANY times. This exhortation in 2 Peter coming from Peter who probably fell the worst of any of Jesus' followers in history. Denied Jesus as he was on trial for the cross, then later was opposed by the apostle Paul for siding with the circumcision group. You ever been rebuked by the apostle Paul in front of your church? And I am sure there was more. So I am not saying your life needs to be a spotless or even great record. But as you look at your life, are you going the direction you want and is it toward God? Are you increasing in these qualities and supplements more and more, loving people more, loving God, praying, reading your Bible, serving, evangelizing, all of this stuff. Is there a trend you could stand before God and point to. Are you touching anyone's life eternally?

The great thing is you can start now, today, start small. Repent of your tinder house life this minute. Take one friend who doesn't know Jesus. Pray for him a minute each day. That's nothing of your time, but has an eternal impact. It is laying down a brick, putting up the first steel girder that will be your eternal house. Something that will withstand the fire of judgment. Go read your Bible and know God more, go help someone expecting no reward, give a sandwich to a homeless guy, so many ways you can have an eternal impact and receive a rich welcome into heaven. A throng of thankful people waiting for you on the other side.

Promises from 1 John

This comes from a Bible study we had at community group in August 2008. We had just finished going through 1 John, and took some time to go back and review all the promises of God to Christians in 1 John. It turns out there are many, many amazing promises given to God's people in 1 John which I found very surprising. I have always thought of 1 John as a book condemning people who do not practice what they preach or think they are Christians but are not living it. To be sure, John has many scathing remarks and warnings to people who do not love Jesus or people who are hypocrites, claiming to love Jesus but not actually doing anything that shows it. And maybe that is for another post. But to the Christians, to people who are loving Jesus, obeying His commands, loving people around them, confessing their sin to Jesus, 1 John is a letter just filled with an amazing density of all sorts of promises. And these promises made such a lasting impact on us, I have been meaning for sometime to post them.

So the list below is these promises to Christians from God. Each one of these promises, in the text, has a precondition or "if... then" statement, but assuming you do love Jesus then the promise applies and the precondition should be met.

Promise	Verse in 1 John
God forgives our sins. God cleanses us from the filth of all sin.	"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1:9
The love of God is perfected in us.	"but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected" 2:5a
We can live without stumbling into sin.	"Whoever loves his brother abides in light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling." 2:10
We will live forever.	"And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." 2:17
We know the truth.	"I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth" 2:21
We have confidence and no shame standing before the judgment of God.	"And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming." 2:28
We are children of God.	"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are." 3:1a
God is greater than the condemnation we feel, and we have confidence He will still accept us.	"Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him." 3:18-22
Jesus lives in us and is more powerful than Satan or the world.	"Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." 4:4
God's love is perfected in us. God lives in us.	"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
God first loved us before we did anything.	"We love because he first loved us." 4:19
Obeying God is loving God. God's commands are not too hard to obey.	"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." 5:3
Our faith has overcome the world.	"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 5:3-4
God hears and answers our prayers that accord with His will.	"And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of him." 5:14-15
If we pray for brothers in sin, God will lead them out of it.	"If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life…" 5:16a
Jesus protects us from Satan. Jesus helps us sin less.	"We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who has been born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him." 5:18

First Post

Hello world. I've created this blog to force me to put some thoughts or realizations into a form that is actually usable and helpful to other people, and doesn't just roll around in my head as something I thought was neat. I am not quite sure what all will end up here, or how long this blog will even persist, but I was spurred on to it by some exciting realizations a group of us had at a community group Bible study a while back, where several people said "you should write that down and email it out or something."

I'm not so worried about how many people read this blog, but am using it more as a tool to force me to think things through because I realize now other people might read them and they need to make sense.

Oh, and if you are curious, the name comes from a concept in learned in my ChemE undergrad days that stuck with me (my inner nerd leaking out). It is called the boundary layer theory, and is normally just a boring old way at solving fluid dynamics or mass transfer problems, but is a really cool idea. Basically the boundary layer is a line, plane, or surface which marks the end of somethings practical effect. Say you thrust your hand into a fast moving stream of water. The boundary layer would be where the water is going around 99% of its original speed; it is not practically affected by your hand. Or drop a pill in the water, a boundary layer at any second may be where less than 1% of that pill has dissolved and diffused into the water--the water is practically untouched by the pill.

So anyway, how does this apply to a blog? Very loosely because it is my blog, yo. But the point at which my thoughts and realizations have no practical effect I will call their boundary layer. And the hope is with this blog to push that boundary layer out a bit farther, through people reading it or through better articulated thoughts, because Jesus call us to be a light to this world and salt to this earth--not just to my head.