Matt Brammer

So, I know.  I failed at blogging this summer.  For all my readers, I apologize, but don’t worry, Christ has revealed a good bit to me this summer and I plan on sharing it when I get back to school.

So here is something the Lord has been teaching me.

Genesis 1:26-27

²⁶Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
²⁷So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Much is to be said about this, and I have learned much from this knowledge, but I’m just sharing two in this post.

One, before anything there was only God.  The only inspiration for anything was Himself.  Everything in creation is only the inspiration.  The beautiful waterfall in the woods, the humbling mountains and vast blue ocean all are all just a small piece of how beautiful God really is.  What is even more amazing is that us, mankind, was and is created in His image.  Meaning a direct reflection of God.  How special should we feel that the most beautiful thing created us in His image.

Which leads me to my second point.  Knowing that we are a reflection of the King should change our interaction with other people.  When we treat anyone poorly it is a smack in the face to God.  Saying that I do not care for your creation and I am better than the reflection of You in this person.

This revelation made me understand why gossip, slander, and bickering is very sinful.

A wise man once told me this.

Gossip is verbal pornography, it destroys the image of God. When gossip occurs, three people die.

1. The person gossiping

2. The person who is being gossiped about.

3. The person listening to it.

I understand why Paul wrote Philippians chapter 2 now.

I’m currently in St. Petersburg at Eckerd College for the entire summer and my posts will be very rare.  So I apologize, but I will be posting a good one tonight.  The Lord has revealed many things to me in the past week.

Check out these guys.  They are the organization I’m working with this summer.

Please pray for my humility and sensitivity to the spirit.

Grace and Peace.

Romans 10:9 is a famous passage that many people hear

“if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”\

In the south, (I have only really been in the south so I’ll go with that) we have a lot of emphasis on what Christ did-die for our sins.  Which is amazing and beautiful, but we never really put a lot of emphasis on the resurection.  According to Paul, both are required for salvation.  I’ve lead people to Christ forgetting to mention the resurection, because I was too excited and just wanted them to know Christ. Don’t make the same mistake I did, remember the resurection.

Grace and Peace

Micah Taylor, Taylor Cash and myself have been working on this site.

Please check it out

Grace and Peace.

Not only does this send a message to unbelievers that Christians are ridiculous…it also is bad theology. I know this is just a fairy tale, but the story draws away from the point of the holiday. So once the child finds out that the easter bunny is just a story, what will your child think the Gospel then? It just opens way too many doors for doubts. Christ rose and conquered death to pay for the world’s sin, not to hide eggs.

Grace and Peace

A common misconception that occurs within a lot of Christian teachings is that we have to fix ourselves before Christ saves us.  The Pharisees  had this problem.

Matthew 9:10-13

¹⁰And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. ¹¹And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹²But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³Go and learn what this means,’I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Christ came and died for the ungodly.

⁶For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

In a previous post I mentioned throwing off the old self.  This does not mean we do that before Christ saves us.  It is our response to His grace and mercy.  It means dying to ourselves daily.

*side point*

In verse 10 in the first passage I quoted, isn’t cool to think that Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was reclining.  You know, just chilling at dinner.  Our God is personal.

A little taste of a soild view on homosexuality.

 To become more like Christ involves sacrifice, which is ourselves. I cannot be okay with someone who is an openly practicing homosexual to be leaders in our churches. I cannot be okay with a porn-addict who is a pastor. Being a Christian requires us to sacrifice because we must love Christ more than ourselves and especially more than our sin.

Seriously, check it out.

I never said I was sorry.

Applying culture to the Church is a big downfall for a Church, some will argue it is paganism. But that is for another day*. Christians can’t apologize to culture, unless you have seriously hurt them with words or actions (and even then that would be a case by case basis, not a universal ’sorry’). Christians, myself included, need to repent for not living to the image of Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:16-18

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

And it does matter how people see us. Jesus even prayed for it.

John 17:20-26

20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

It doesn’t matter how cool your band is.

It doesn’t matter if your pastor wears bootcut jeans, with cool button-down shirts.

It doesn’t matter if you have a coffee shop.

None of those will draw in people (for the right reasons).

Our love for one another will draw people to the knowledge of Christ and His love.

If we are not loving, the world doesn’t see Christ in believers.

If we are loving, and don’t turn from the flesh, the world doesn’t see Christ in us (Eph 4:17 and 5:1-2).

So how is it working out? It’s called sanctification.

Wayne Grudem on why theology is important to believers.

Dr. Wayne Grudem Addresses the Advance 09 Crowd from The Resurgence on Vimeo.

It seems I’ve gotten some attention from Duncan.

He has a point, Christ was the only person who has and ever will live exactly like Christ.

As believers in Christ’s redeeming grace, our response should be to throw off the old self and walk in the new (Eph. 4: 22-24 and Col 3:12-16). It is about image. We are salt and light to the world and what culture mainly hates Christians for is the hypocrisy and malice that the overgeneralized term comes with. What culture did to Christ is because he claimed that He was already good with God and that all can access God through Him (John 10:25-30). The Jews interpreted that as heresy and ultimately crucified Him. When we live as Christ did the world hates us because we claim Christ and what He has done for us.

Christians are not perfect. Christ is.

When we live as Christ the world does not hate us for our actions, but rather our proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven and Christ’s sacrifice.

“The beauty of Grace is that it makes life not fair”

Grace and Peace