Can God actually be for us?

When we think about God being for us, a belief can be used can be used to support some pretty silly stuff. There is right and wrong, good and evil; but often in the middle of chaos and hidden selfishness with dark motives, we can be fooled. There is a sense in a personal way we can experience God being for us. I for one think we need some encouragement.

I read an encouraging post from Rick Warren about God being for us. He was very positive as he took up the argument of God being for us. When I looked at the scripture I was reading the context and I saw little bit more about the subject. So I thought I share…

http://danielplan.com/blogs/dp/god-is-on-your-side-2/

"12 So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose. 14 Do everything without grumbling and arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world. 16 Hold firmly to the message of life. Then I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn’t run or labor for nothing." HSCB

Paul writes here in Philippians 2 some very encouraging words. The true character of Christianity comes out when we are obeying the Lord when nobody's looking. In this case the Philippians mentor is in another location and they are still trying to apply what he thought. Salvation in verse 12 refers to the "active present" where God is delivering us from sin, Satan, the World. 

When we came to Christ, God forgave and saved us from past, present and future sins. When God saves a person and that gives eternal life it is always God who secures salvation. But with the new birth comes a lifelong process in which we continue to grow, and challenged to live like Christ lived. It is in this process that you can see where God is for us. This isn't a bumper sticker that we can put on our car and then go live our life as if God doesn't exist. Nor is it a life of perfection where we never fail and if we do others can throw stones.

If we are living or practicing a life without God, that contradiction, rest assured that if we are a Christian God himself is going to confront us and challenge the lifestyle. The emptiness that would be the reality if we say God is for us and live in a contrary way. 

But isn't it wonderful to see the promise that God is for us. God actually works or enables us to make progress in our spiritual life. HCSB uses the word enabling as does the NRSV. NASB, NKJV uses “works”. The Greek word is “ἐνεργῶν” 1) to be operative, be at work, put forth power 1a) to work for one, aid one 2) to effect 3) to display one's activity, show one's self operative from 1756; to be active, efficient:-do, (be) effectual (fervent), be mighty in, shew forth self, work (effectually in). see GREEK for 1756

When God works in a life that life operates as it should. That life is not dysfunctional, Quite the opposite that life becomes more effective. 

We have all seen lives and maybe ourselves be very dysfunctional. But God is in business of making sinners into saints. If you read Romans carefully you will see that that is the theme of the book. We may have been dysfunctional now are more functional may be how we think of it these days. 

Here in Philippians there is a great promise that God is working in us to grow and mature to love like Christ did and walk (act) like Christ. At the heart of it we are living the moral attributes of God in love and righteousness. In this life it remains a goal, but a goal that we get closer to. There will be times when we are spot on, but God knows he has more work to doing in our life. A victory or pattern of victories he will then move on to a new area that we need work. All the time he is with us in our ups and downs. Keep walking

Summing up my not so secret disciple

Church built on the ruins of the fist church built in England

• I spent today researching Joseph of Arimathea, and I discovered rather directly how many tradition and legends have him in the very King Arthur story. And after a while the legend becomes very fanciful. I spent some time trying to figure out his age. And right now I don't have anything definite. I think his age has a lot to do with what he could have done in the future. So here's some things that I found out.

I am of them the opinion that he would be older being one of  Jewish elders of the Sanhedrin. One source says he's eight years older than Jesus was and that would put them about 41. I looked up the source and I don't know how I could verify it, but I think he is the older based on the fact that he had taken the effort to buy a grave and usually we do those kind of things as we get a little bit older. Not that you couldn't do it at 41 and that's that's possible. You would be considered an old man if you made it into your 60's during this time so he may not been that old. If he was old it would be much harder for him to go out have a long history of reaching out to people and making a big impact as a disciple called an apostle to England. He was not an apostle according to the Bible. He is talked about being robust some 30+ years later. I think it is possible but not probable.

The story goes that he had mine interest in tin in Cornwall. So he might have been in the area were Doc Martin of the series on PBS. He is said to have built the first church in the first century before the church of Rome. Most churches in the first century were home churches.

Now we move into the area of legend. You may remember hearing the reference watching Indiana Jones. In the voices of Indy's father and Marcus Brody they recount the myths of Joseph's part in the Holy Grail that was in the notes of Henry's notebook they had to retrieve from Hitler. Hitler himself was fascinated by such legends.  Joseph is also said to brought the shroud of Turin. Legend also has the queen of England comes from bloodline of Joseph.

A few lines challenge some of these legends:
There is a contrast between the real segments of a real person struggling in good and evil in

Summit of Glastonbury, seen this on
Doc Martin

the Gospels versus the imagination of the Arthur legends.
The cup of Christ and the Shroud of Turpin are both objects that could lead to meet people worshiping them. These fanciful items have taken too many peoples on a silly chase from the truth and the real things that happened in the Bible and an early church history. It is along the same lines of Chasing Bigfoot or vampires. 
Considering his age being older and the effort for an older man to do move from his comfortable dwelling in Jerusalem to a harsher place in England should be factored in. Did he do church work in England? Middle Age traditions say yes. History may not be as certain. The linens that wrapped Jesus were several pieces and the face covered with a separate cloth. The Shroud of Turin has a Middle Ages origin. His activity is not in the book of Acts, but what we know from the gospels is pretty cool. 

How secret was he as a disciple? But a disciple is a learner, a follower. His faith is really between him and God. It is Paul says in Romans of faith that God sees, (Romans 2:2) what we see is what James talks about faith you see the action, 2:24 "you see", the external things that show to us some indication what the heart is like. Joseph here gives us several indications where he stands.

1. One he probably states his disapproval of the Sanhedrin's actions. He puts himself politically in a minority situation.

2. He gathers up the courage to ask Pilot for the body. Bodies of criminals who died in on the cross were put into a public poor man's grave. Probably a grave that had many bodies in it. Once again it was a public action that Joseph took for all to see.

3. Here we see him lovingly taking down the body of Christ and preparing it for burial. Joseph went for the body and Nicodemus got the supplies for burial. The spices dried the body and masked the smell of decomposition. He becomes unclean in a major holiday to care for Jesus he loved and respected. His actions here go against many of the ceremonial actions of the Pharisees.

4. I believe he's already an outsider who is excluded from the trials. Like our own politics it is well known where people stand, not so secret. Annas and Caiaphas knew.

5. He places Jesus in a grave that he himself had for himself. To me this suggested he was probably an older man. But it also shows he was willing to back up what he believed with this very important property.
He is a good man willing to help others. He is a righteous man in that he is honest before God about his sins and walks with God. He is not a perfect man as we see. He overcomes his fear to act bravely which I find fascinating. He stands up for right and shows compassion. Not bad for a secret believer. Keep walking