Good Morning, My Friends.  Pam and I had a great weekend.   The weather was perfect so on Saturday, after cleaning up our hot-rod (2002 Thunderbird convertible), we sported around downtown St. Charles and ended up at our favorite Grassy knoll in Frontier Park overlooking the river  for a picnic.  Awesome.  Yesterday was the opening concert of our sixteenth season for The Saint Louis Wind Symphony.  That too was awesome!!  So, all in all it was a great weekend, and as soon as I finish my blog I’m giving myself the rest of the day off to sit on the deck  to read or snooze.  Life is good…

I had a plan for my message today, but I saw a posting on Facebook earlier that completely changed my direction.  A friend of mine, Mark Wuestenberg, posted a powerful clip this morning portraying a man hanging from a cliff and the verse read, “Before man can be saved, he must first learn he cannot save himself.”  The power of the visual and the truth of the verse prompted me to change direction and write about that very subject.  Unfortunately for those who have never been exposed to the truth of God’s word…they do not even realize they are living in sin and in need of a Savior.  They are just living their life according to the standards of this world; doing what “everyone else” is doing while being completely oblivious to the truth found in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…” (I will complete this verse later in this post because the completion of the verse is the solution to the condemnation).

As I have talked about in previous messages, the insurmountable obstacle standing between man and an eternal relationship with God is SIN.  And what is sin?  When used as a noun it refers to a state of being, meaning living a life separated from God.  As a verb it means being disobedient to God’s standard (The Ten Commandments, or the Law).  For an example, let’s go back to Genesis (2-3) and to the creation.  Man was created in God’s image; for his pleasure and for his purpose.  Man was created spiritually connected to God, but that changed when Eve was tempted by the serpent (Satan) and disobeyed God’s warning: “You may freely eat any fruit in the garden except fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  If you eat of this fruit you will surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17)  But Satan, as he always does, offered an appealing alternative to God’s plan: “You won’t die the serpent hissed.  God knows your eyes will be opened when you eat of it.  You will become just like God, knowing everything both good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5) In other words you won’t need God.  You can be your own God.  (FYI…that is the same lie Satan uses today)

Through that one act of disobedience sin entered the world because man took the focus off of God’s will and put the focus on satisfying his own will.  That was the original sin and that caused the spiritual connection between God and man to be severed.  As a result of that action, Adam and Eve were cursed and put out of the garden, so consequently every generation following inherits the same curse that befell Adam and Eve.  We are now born spiritually separated from God, meaning our focus is on “us” and not on “Him”.

Let’s look at the delivery room in a hospital as an example.  When a baby enters the world, what is its first action?  It cries.  Why?  He/she wants something… to be held, to be nursed?  In other words, the first thing a baby becomes aware of is itself.   People can go from the cradle to the grave, and if the focus of their existence is all about “ME” and satisfying their own lustful passions and desires, that “state of being” is referred to in God’s Word as sin (or our sin nature.)  Again, all that means is we live our life to satisfy Me!  We don’t need God; we are our own god. (sidebar: I find it interesting that what the Bible refers to as our “sin nature,” our culture refers to as our “human nature.”)

Before man can understand the necessity for a Savior, he has to first come to understand his own state of being, and living in a fallen world makes this a challenge We learn our thoughts and our patterns of behavior from what we see and hear going on around us. The sad reality is… most people aren’t even aware  they are living in sin because most people today are ignorant (uninformed) of the truth of God’s word.  Satan, the god of this world, has done a great job of clouding their minds to the truth.  2 Corinthians 4:4 states: “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God” 

Apostle Paul knew the answer.  “Don’t conform to the behaviors and patterns of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.”  Romans 12: 2

Remember, God has a plan and a purpose for each one of us.  Regardless of who you are or what you are doing now, if God is not part of your life you are not experiencing life to the fullest.  As stated in the previous scripture, God’s plan…his will for our life, is both pleasing and perfect.  When we are in line with His will, he promises to bless us abundantly.  Jesus said in Matthew 6:31-34, “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing.  Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things?  Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” 

While the connection between God and man was severed by man’s sin at creation, the good news is…that connection can be restored any time man is ready to repent…meaning, becomes ready to turn from our plan and ask God what his plan is for our life.  As the prophets of old proclaimed, “turn from your sins and turn to God”. (Matthew 3:2).  The history found in the Bible clearly shows that when man is in line with God’s will, he is blessed; when he is out of line with God’s will, there are consequences that follow.  In Malachi, God even challenges the people to trust in Him; “Try it!  Let me prove it to you!”  (Malachi 3:10).

Unless man becomes aware of God’s truth and His love for us, we can go from the cradle to the grave and miss out on God’s amazing plan for our life.  As I have said in every previous message, God is love and God wants a relationship with us…an eternal relationship with us.  The only thing standing between us and that eternal relationship is the issue of SIN!  Man had from creation to 2000 years ago to find a way to achieve God’s standards laid out for us in the 10 Commandments, but continued to fail time and time again.  Therefore in Romans 5: 6,9 it states, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment”.

The statement “While we were utterly helpless” is powerful.  That means in God’s eyes we were totally incapable of meeting his standard through our own effort.  And why was that?  Because we were, and are, sinners!  It’s vitally important you see this difference.  We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.  We don’t necessarily get up in the morning and say, “humm, I think I’ll sin today.”  We don’t do that, but our nature (our sin nature – or as our culture calls it, our human nature) is to live with the emphasis on “ME”.  That is how we instinctively live when we are separated from God.  Again, this means that we live our life not to bring honor and glory to Him, but to ourselves.

It would seem that unless some transformation takes place in us, we are programmed, so to speak, to live in a state of sin.  That is absolutely correct. And  Romans 6:23 is also correct, “the wages of sin is death”. But because of God’s loving kindness and because he wants an eternal relationship with us, he provided THE answer to man’s dilemma with sin.  The whole verse reads, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

God’s plan for our salvation is perfect.  He knows that man is weak and that we are slaves to our sin nature.  He also knows we live in a fallen world; we live in our fleshly bodies; and that we have to contend with Satan, who mocks all of God’s standards by offering the delights of our worldly self.  Therefore He gave man (mankind) a Savior to do for us what we have proven since creation we are incapable of doing for ourselves. And that is…conquering sin.  When we are in Jesus Christ (meaning when we have accepted Him as our Lord and Savior), we are a new creation…our old nature (self) is taken away and we have a new spirit (the Holy Spirit) living in us, empowering us to become the person God created us to be.  So why do we need to be saved?…to save us from ourselves!  This is the only way we can attain eternal life.  Jesus said, “no one comes to the father but through me.” (John 14:6)

So my question to you is….Have you accepted God’s free Gift of Grace?  Is Jesus Christ not only your savior, but also the Lord of your life…and what does that mean?

Let me know your thoughts about this, and I’ll see you again next week.

May God Bless ya,

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

Good Day, My Friends:  Pam and I had a great end to last week by spending Saturday with two friends, Candy and Andy, on their boat at Lake St. Louis.  Then I had a great beginning to this week by spending it with The Saint Louis Wind Symphony as we prepared the opening concert for our 16^th season next Sunday, September, 22; 3:00 p.m. at Chaminade College Prep School, 425 S.  Lindbergh Blvd.  Everyone is invited to come as my guest. Just go to the ticket table and tell them you are a friend of Pastor Dan and your admission will be free.  See, the blessings I am about to write about are already coming to pass.

Last week when I wrote about developing faith, I referred to a specific kind of  faith: evidential faith as opposed to blind faith.  Blind faith is accepting something at surface level; perhaps it “seems to make sense to you” or perhaps someone told you “it was so”.  In other words you accept information without testing its validity (or experiencing its truth).   Evidential faith is based on our experience with the object of our faith.

I ended last week’s message by presenting a life situation involving a burglar alarm.  The story began with the realization of increased burglaries in your neighborhood; then a decision to take action; and finally the feeling of security with the implementation of a security product.  At this point you believed you had taken the appropriate steps to increase your security, and you had hope that the product would work.  The only thing standing between you and evidential faith was experiencing the product in action, (i.e. doing what the advertisement claimed it would do)!

The same is true when it comes to developing faith in God.   To repeat again Neil Anderson’s insightful statement found in “Victory Over the Darkness”; You cannot have faith in something you do not know anything about”, he surmises you cannot have faith in God  if you do not know God.  Therefore, to come to know God and to develop a relationship with him, we have to spend time and effort learning what he says; what he says about us; what his standards are; what his promises are; how we can achieve his promises, AND we have to learn about his nature –  God is love. (1John 4:8) Knowing his nature is vitally important because if God is love, he can only beget good (1John 1:5…God is light [goodness] and there is no darkness [evil] in Him at all).  

Since God is love; and since he wants a relationship with us; and since he has chosen a way to reveal himself to us so we can enter into that relationship, his desire is for us to experience His truth.  That’s what the Word of God is…God’s Truth.  (the term “word” comes from the original Greek word, “logos”,  meaning logic, rational thinking or “the truth”.) Romans 10:17 says, “faith comes by hearing, and  hearing by the word of God”.  The source of everything we need to know about God is found in The Holy Bible, or the “living word” as it is sometimes called.  Every word spoken by the prophets or written by scribes was inspired by God.  2 Peter 1:21-22 states “…you must understand that no prophecy or scripture ever came about from the prophets themselves or because they wanted to prophesy.  It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak the word of God.”  2  Timothy 3:16 says,  “ All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”

1 Chronicles 28:9 states: “And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the LORD sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him.”  The highlighted part of that verse is a promise from God, and like almost all promises it begins with the first two words, “if you”. (Sidebar:  I will refer back to an earlier message, “Does God Have a Plan for My Life?”  August 26^th.  In that message we learned that at creation Man (mankind) was spiritually connected to God.  That connection was severed by Man’s act of disobedience and sin entering the world.  Remember…God gave us free-will; He does not impose his will on us.  Therefore it is up to Man to restore that original spiritual connection with God by choosing to enter into the process of restoration by seeking Him.  God’s promise to us is, “if we seek Him, we will find Him”

The Bible meets us wherever we are in our spiritual journey.  If you are a newcomer, you reap what you are ready to reap from the initial experience.  But the more we grow in our knowledge of God through our effort to seek Him, the more spiritual truths are revealed to us.  It is through that process of revelation that we can start connecting the spiritual dots that opens the door to God’s plan for our life.

Now we can begin building our faith.  Through the study of His Word, prayer and meditation we have built a foundation of God’s truth on which we know we can stand!  Now the Bible has become the “living Word” because we are standing on the scriptural principles (truths) that are positively affecting our life.  Just like the story of the burglar alarm last week, when we experience the truth coming alive in our life, our faith grows.

The 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous states this principle in a very user-friendly and succinct statement:  Step III: “We became willing to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understand Him.”  Notice this statement also  begins with willingness (or choice) on the part of the participant.  But the part I find appealing is the key word “care” of God.  Not control but care!!  When someone has a caregiver, what does the caregiver do?… they look out for their clients best interest; they keep them safe; they make sure their needs are met.  This is what God wants for us!  We are his proudest creation.  He wants to care for us; to meet our needs just like in the Garden of Eden, which, by the way, was paradise.

And what is God’s will for our life?  It is for us to have an eternal relationship with Him in paradise.  But as you know from previous messages, the only stumbling block for mankind since creation has been the issue of SIN!  The good news is…that problem was solved 2000 years ago by a loving God who was willing to sacrifice his son, Jesus Christ, for the sin of all mankind.  Now we can come boldly before God with no fear of condemnation, (Romans 8:1) because when we have accepted God’s gift of Grace (the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.)  God said “I will remember their sins no more!” (Hebrew 8:12).

Everything I have written about in this message is available to anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  When we accept His sacrifice for our sin, we are a new creation in Christ.  We are filled with the Holy Spirit (more on that later) and we are now a Child of God.  What’s more…we inherit all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm AND we are heir to all the promises in the Bible.  That, my Friends, is good news!   This was all made possible because we chose to grow in the truth of God’s word. As a result of our willingness to participate in this growth process, our faith also grew.

I would like to leave you today with three promises from God.  I will encourage you to pray and meditate about these truths throughout this coming week.   Ask yourself, “How will this affect the way I live  my life?”

“Anything we ask for, that is in line with God’s will for our life, will be given to us.” 1John 5:14-15

“God works for the good in all things for those who love Him and are called to his purpose.” Rom. 8:28

“The Spirit in us (Holy Spirit) is God’s guarantee he will give us everything he promised long ago.”

Ephesians 1:14

May God bless ya…and HE WILL!

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

Good morning, My Friends.  This is a bit later than my usual post because when I went to bed last night, in my quali-sleep-awake state instead of setting the alarm I changed the time on the clock.  Consequently  I’m a couple hours behind schedule, so I’m going to skip the rest of the morning ritual and get started writing…but not without my coffee and Respighi (Roman Festivals) in the background.

As I mentioned in a previous message, the uniqueness of Christianity is found in the Gospel of Grace.  It is the cornerstone, the very essence of Christianity.  Every other religion in the world is about man earning favor with God through his own effort and through his works.  Christianity is about  a loving God reaching down to  a fallen man and offering to each of us His plan for our salvation, not based on our effort or our works, but based on our faith in Him and in the fulfillment of His plan through Jesus Christ.  The Christian belief is based on faith.  Not blind faith (because someone told me it was so), but because of evidential faith (we have experienced the manifestation of  God’s truth in our own life, so our faith grows.)

To be a Christian means to be a believer in, and a follower of Jesus Christ.  What that means is that we have heard the “Good News” that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; that he came as the sacrificial lamb to pay the price for the sin of all mankind, past, present, and future, and through Him we have eternal life.  In last week’s message we learned that “when we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time to die for us sinners.” (Romans 5:6)   That action on God’s part is his ultimate show of love for us. When we accept that gift it is our ultimate show of faith in Him.  This was always God’s plan for our salvation.

When we make the decision to accept His gift, we are grafted into His family.  Now when God looks at us he no longer sees a sinner, but he sees his child, washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ.  We are now in Christ; our old self is gone (our sin nature), we are a new creation (filled with the Holy Spirit.  Much more about this later.)  Because we are in Christ, we are heir to all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm. (Ephesians 1:3 and Romans 8:17)  That last statement should get your attention!

But why would I accept the Gospel of Grace as truth?   The two most common skeptical comments are “why would someone die for my sins?” and “I know I’m not worthy of such a gift.”   It’s a challenge to accept, especially if one has not grasped the two fundamental truths I have referenced in each of the previous messages:  God is love and God wants a relationship with us… an eternal relationship with us.  One of my favorite Christian authors, Neil T. Anderson makes this statement in his book, “Victory over the Darkness”: you cannot have faith in something you do not know anything about.  But if we put forth the effort to learn about God (to seek him), his promise to us is…we will surely find Him. (Jeremiah 29:13)  The good news about that statement is once we put forth the effort to find Him, He meets us in our brokenness (our sinful state).  Then through revelation of truth contained in His Word, we begin to grow in our knowledge of Him and our relationship with Him deepens.  First comes belief (revelation of the truth), then hope (confident trust with the expectation of fulfillment) and finally faith (the truth manifested in our own life).  The more we experience the truth of God’s word coming alive in our own life, the more our faith grows.  Why?  Because we know we can trust His word.  We know we can stake our life on it!!

With the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins, God’s plan for our salvation was revealed to mankind.  It has been referred to as the Gospel of Grace or the New Covenant.  God’s first covenant with man was the 10 Commandments (or The Law).  The problem presented by The Law was that man proved that he was incapable of adhering to God’s standard based on his (our) own effort.” As mentioned in the previous two messages, the only obstacle standing between us and an eternal relationship with God is SIN.  If we are not free from the stain of sin, we cannot come into the presence of God.  As stated in Hebrews, 8:7, “If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.”  But the old covenant, while clearly representing God’s moral standard, became an obstacle in itself. Man’s precarious situation is revealed in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned, all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”  But the good news is in the following verse (24), “Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.”

God knows the only way we can enter into a relationship with him and spend eternity with him is by coming to know who he is.  That is why he chose to reveal himself to us through his word, The Holy Bible. (For clarity on this statement, refer back to the message dated August 19^th paragraphs 6-8)  In this book He tells us who he is, what he thinks, what he thinks about us, what his standards are, what his promises are, and how we can reap the benefit of his promises.  (Remember, His promises are available only to those who have chosen to accept His Gift of Grace.)  The more time we spend with God in his Word, in prayer and in meditation, the more truth is revealed to us.  John 15, 4-5 states: “abide (remain) in me and I will remain in you. Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.  Apart from me you can do nothing.”  Our strength comes not from our own effort but from our faith in the truth of God’s word and the finished work of Jesus Christ.

In John 8:32, Jesus said, “if you follow my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” It is clear from that scripture that the truth is found in Jesus teachings.  And what did Jesus teach?  The truth of God’s Word.  Jesus was the Word ( John 1;1 “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God.)  When He was on this earth, he not only taught the word but modeled the word through his behavior.  John 1:14 tells us “…the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.  And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.” 

The answer to how we develop faith is found in the truth of the first sentence in the paragraph above.  And make no mistake, it all begins with the first two words… “if you”.   If you are willing to become involved in the process of abiding with God, He will reveal his truths to you.  Why?  Because he wants to spend eternity with each one of us – “no matter who we are or what we have done.” (Romans 3:22)  As hard as that may be for us to understand, God loves us unconditionally and thinks we’re worth it. After all we’re his proudest creation.  But it gets even better.  Once we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are elevated to a new position.  We become his masterpiece. (Ephesians 2:10)  Because we are in Christ, we are now capable of becoming the person God created us to be.

Let me close with a life situation.  Suppose you are outside watering your grass and you hear one neighbor tell another neighbor, “The burglaries are getting out of control in our neighborhood.  Thieves are boldly breaking into people’s homes and robbing them at gun point.”  You think, “Wow, I’d better do something to protect me and my family.”  So you go home, sit down at your computer and look up burglar alarms.  You find one that has impressive credentials and you deem it to be the best, so you make a purchase.  You go get it, bring it home, get it installed, and right away you feel safer.  The only thing you don’t know for sure is…“does it really do what it says it will do.”  Hmmmm…  A week goes by, all is well, but one evening when you are watching your favorite show on TV, the lights and whistles on the control panel go off.  A person is entering your property from the east side of your house.  But before the intruder can get to your porch, a police car shows up and they arrest the culprit. WOW!  Now you’re really excited about this new purchase. Two weeks later that same scenario repeats itself.  WOWzer! Now you’re even more excited about this system because you know it works.  What’s more, you have just become the latest volunteer salesman for that product.  Why?  Because you know it works.  The truth of the purchase has been  manifested in your life, so now you have faith in it.

So my question to you:  How is your personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ??  Is your faith becoming stronger?  Feel free to chime in below.

May God Bless ya,

Dan Presgrave, (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)

Good morning, my Friends.  Same scenario as last week…. I just got in from both my dog walk and then my walk with Pam, its 6:40 am; its 68 degrees in St. Louis ON AUGUST 5^TH; there is virtually NO HUMIDITY.  What a treat.  Thank you God!

As Pam and I were driving back from Lake of the Ozarks yesterday, I couldn’t get this topic out of my mind.  It was probably sparked by a recent conversation I had, but the question lingered and wouldn’t go away.  “What is truth?”  What I find interesting is… that’s the same question Pilate asked Jesus, and it is the same question I get many times when I speak of the truth of scripture.  I frequently hear “what truth are you talking about…there are many truths”.  Humm…as I recall Oprah said that too.

I will concede that there are many truths.  There are the truths (or laws) of mathematics, of physics, of aerodynamics, there are laws of nature, there are truths of life (ie. if you place your hand on a hot surface, you will get burned;  if you disturb a hornet’s nest, you’d better run).  But the truth I am talking about is the truth Jesus was talking about when he told his apostles in the Gospel of John, 8:32: “…if you hold to my teachings you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” 

As I see that verse there are three distinct sections.  From the back to the front, the nugget of truth is, “the truth will set you free”.  But not just any truth; Jesus is VERY specific.  The truth he is talking about is found in “MY teachings.”   In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life….”  Jesus was the Word incarnate; he was the Word of God in the flesh.   That was one purpose for which he came; so we could not only hear the truth but to see it in action.  Jesus modeled God’s truth in everything he said and in everything he did.  Oh yes, FYI… Jesus response to Pilate’s questions was… “I was born for this purpose.  And I came to bring truth to the world.”  John 19:37

The unfortunate truth about the truth listed above is this truth:  it is all predicated on the first two words:  “IF YOU…”  In order to reap the blessings of the truth of God’s word, one first has to participate in the process of being exposed to Jesus’ teachings.  It all begins with a willingness on the part of the “newcomer” to put forth an effort….to explore the possibility of “what if”; to be willing to open their eyes, their minds and their hearts to the transforming power of Jesus’ teaching, ie. the truth of God’s Word.   This is the only way faith can develop.

Only when we begin to see and experience the truth of the scriptures can we begin to grow our faith and build our new life on that solid rock known as The Word of God!

I hope you all have a great week, and I’ll see you next Monday.

God Bless ya…

Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)