Friday, February 1

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Genesis 3:6-7

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

We don’t use the word “sin” much anymore. We may refer to so called “sin-taxes” or to “Sin City,” but we don’t talk much about personal sin. “Sin” seems to be a quaint, old fashioned and hopelessly out-of-touch word. 

But it’s an important word; a word that God wants us to understand.

What is sin? 

We know that sin is “doing wrong things” but that’s a little like saying a toothache is “something that hurts.” That’s a description of the symptom and not the cause. To understand sin we must understand the symptom, the cause and the process.

Many years ago I had a conversation with a man who had become involved in an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. He knew he had done something wrong. He knew he had sinned against his wife, against the other woman and against God. But he was not aware of why he had sinned. When I asked him how it all came about, he said something like, “I don’t know, it just happened.”

Now he and I both knew that wasn’t true. The truth was that he made a thousand little decisions; told himself a thousand little lies; and made a thousand excuses to rationalize the decisions and lies.

Genesis teaches us that sin doesn’t just “happen.” Sin is a thousand little decisions that lead to one decision.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

Sin is a decision based on three things.

First, sin is a decision driven by our selfish desires. We are told that the fruit of the forbidden tree was “good for food and pleasing to the eye.” Simply put, the fruit looked good and Eve wanted to taste it. 

Here’s a truth to consider: Satan never makes sin look bad! He never says, “Hey, you, why don’t you get into an extra-marital affair and destroy your family!” He never says, “Hey, that dress would look good on you, why not steal it and wind up humiliated when your crime is splattered across the local newspaper!’

No, that’s not what Satan does. He doesn’t tell us the truth about sin; why would he? Rather, Satan makes sin look goooooood. 

Second, sin is a decision driven by our distrust of the goodness of God. Remember, God had given Adam and Eve freedom to eat from “any tree in the garden” except one. God had created a perfect environment for their happiness and have given them everything they needed to enjoy each other and to enjoy him. When he told them the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was off-limits, he was asking them to trust him; to trust that he was telling them the truth; to trust in his goodness. But the serpent convinced them that God was withholding goodness from them, so they disobeyed him. 

All sin is the result of distrusting the goodness of God. When we sin we are saying to God, “You have withheld goodness from me, so I need to take the goodness I think I deserve and I am willing to disobey you to get it.”

Finally, sin is a decision driven by our rejection of the love of God. As we have already seen, God’s limits are an expression of his love; just as parents express their love by establishing limits for their children. Therefore, when we disregard those limits we disregard the love of the one who established them. 

So sin isn’t just “doing bad things”; sin is rejecting the limit of God; sin is rejecting the goodness of God; sin is rejecting the love of God; and sin is rejecting the gospel of God.

Brian Coffey

Thursday, January 31

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Genesis 3:6-7

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Most of us have seen the “Where’s Waldo?” children’s books that became popular a number of years ago. On every page there are pictures filled with images of hundreds of tiny figures and your task is to find the character with the striped shirt named “Waldo.”

The question that should come to mind in Genesis 3 is, “Where’s Adam?”

According to Genesis 2, God created the man, Adam, first and gave him the very clear instructions:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are to free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17)

Then in Genesis 3 we are told that the serpent approached the woman, Eve,  with the question and the lie:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

So the question is why? Why did the serpent approach Eve, and where is Adam? If we read closely, we see where Adam is:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Italics mine)

There he is! Adam was standing right there when the serpent twisted the command of God; questioned the goodness of God; and lied to Eve about the promise of God. Adam was there; but Adam was silent.

We have to ask, “Why? Why was Adam silent when he knew the serpent was misrepresenting God and lying to his wife?”

Maybe Adam was afraid of the serpent. Maybe he was intimidated by the serpent’s intelligence or appearance. 

Maybe Adam secretly wanted to try the forbidden fruit himself, so he just let the serpent do his thing and hoped Eve would fall for it.

Whatever the reason, Adam knew God’s command, and he failed to use God’s word to protect his wife from the serpent’s lies.

We tend to think of the first sin as Eve eating from the forbidden fruit. Not so; the first sin of the garden was Adam failing to protect his wife with the truth of God’s word.

What a powerful and poignant reminder that we will be held accountable not only for what we do; but also for what we fail to do.

Brian Coffey

Wednesday, January 30

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Genesis 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

According to people who study these types of things, two of the worlds most successful advertising campaigns focused on fast-food products. Remember these?

• “Have it your way” (Burger King’s popular campaign in the 1970’s)
• “You deserve a break today” (This campaign from McDonalds was chosen by “Advertising Age” magazine as the best advertising campaign of the 20^th century.)

Most of us who live in North America; at least those of us who watch T.V., listen to radio, or visit the internet occasionally; are bombarded daily with thousands of messages designed to convince us to purchase and use products, some of which are actually harmful to us in the long run. Notice how these ad campaigns echo the serpent’s approach to Eve in Genesis 3:

He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

First, notice that the serpent begins with a question, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” But notice that the very question itself twists the words of God. God never said that Adam and Eve could not eat from any tree in the garden! He actually gave them freedom to eat from all the trees in the garden, with the exception of one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Next, notice that Satan, in the form of the serpent, lives up to his reputation as the “Liar” when he says, “You will not certainly die…” God had been very clear that the consequence of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be death. 

Finally, notice the promise that Satan delivers to Eve: “…you will be like God…”

In other words, Satan is tempting Eve by both questioning the limits of God and offering Eve the opportunity to have what she wants, to have it her way, because she deserves it.

The serpent’s strategy is quite simple: make that which is not good look so good that the woman can’t resist!

Now I’m not saying that modern advertising is evil, or that McDonald’s is evil! But I am saying that Satan knows what we want to hear. He knows that we want to hear that we have no limits; that we deserve what we want; that we can have it our way; that we can be like God!

I am saying that Satan knows how to make God’s limits look bad, and how to make sin look good. Satan knows how to get us to want that which ultimately destroys us.

In a sense, Satan is the best marketer the world has ever known.

So how do we defend ourselves against his lies? How do we recognize his counterfeit gospel? By knowing the true gospel; the gospel of God’s authority, God’s love, God’s limit, and God’s grace; we stand against the counterfeit gospel by standing on the gospel according to God!

Brian Coffey

Tuesday, January 29

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Genesis 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Some 40 years ago rock-n-roll legend Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones sang a song called “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Please allow me to introduce myself,

I’m a man of wealth and taste.

I’ve been around for a long, long year,

Stole many a man’s soul and faith.

And I was around when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain;

Made **** sure that Pilate washed his hands and sealed his fate.

Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name.

But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.

Just over a month ago we all watched our TVs with horror as the tragedy of Sandy Hook elementary school unfolded. Just yesterday I saw a story on the news of a teenage boy who killed five members of his own family with an assault rifle.

I am always somewhat surprised by the reaction that so many, including those in the media, have to events like this. 

“Why?” people ask. “Why do such awful things happen?” Sometimes they even use the word “evil”: “Why is there such evil in the world?”

I’m surprised because the Bible explains the origin and nature of evil very clearly.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

The “serpent” here is the embodiment of Satan himself, who is described in scripture as a liar (John 8:44), the deceiver (Revelation 12:9), and the “adversary” or “opposer” (translation of the Hebrew word “ha-Satan”). 

In the Book of Job, Satan is described as a spiritual being who “roams through the earth and going back and forth in it” (Job 1:7). 

In 1 Peter, we are warned that, “your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

So, simply put, Satan is a created spiritual being who rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12-14) and who seeks to destroy all God made as good. The Bible indicates that God has granted Satan limited authority to tempt and destroy on the earth, but that, ultimately, Satan will be completely destroyed by the triumph of Christ (Revelation 20:10).

So, let’s return for a moment to the question of evil. Why do terrible things happen? Why is there evil in the world? The answer, Biblically speaking, is, because the world is a broken place, and it is broken because Satan is actively seeking to destroy everything God made as good.

Therefore, perhaps a better question, at least from the Biblical perspective, might be, “Why is there good?”

In a recent blog post, John Piper wrote:

How can God be a God of justice, yet allow so much good to happen to people who dishonor him by disbelieving in him, by giving lip service to his existence, or paying no more attention to him that the carpet in their den, or rejecting the kingship of his Son, or scorning his word, or preferring a hundred pleasures before him?

Where was God in 2012?

Where was God when nine million planes landed safely in the United States?

Where was God when American farms produced ten million bushels of corn, and 2.8 million bushels of soybeans – enough food to sell $100 billions to other nations?

Where was God when no new plague swept away a third of our race?

Good questions. The answer, of course, is that God was here all along, restraining the evil and destruction that the enemy, the opposer, the adversary, the serpent of the garden so desired to inflict on his creation.

Right at the beginning of the story God wants us to know that we have a spiritual enemy who seeks to destroy. He wants us to know that this enemy offers a kind of “counterfeit gospel”; a counterfeit gospel that lures us with the lie that there are no limits; a counterfeit gospel in which we get to be god; a counterfeit gospel that is no gospel at all.

So whether or not he was aware of it, Mick Jagger was speaking the truth when he sang:

Pleased to meet you, hope you know my name.

But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.

God doesn’t want us to be puzzled or confused. We have an enemy who is real; and while that enemy has many names, he has only one game. In Genesis, he is called “the serpent,” and his game is question God; to lie about God; and to destroy all God made as good.

Brian Coffey

Monday, January 28

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Genesis 2:15-17

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

Like most of you, I would guess, I have a kind of love/hate relationship with speed limits. You know, those rectangular black and white signs posted all along the highway that say “SPEED LIMIT 65 mph” while everyone around you is going 75 mph!

I respect and appreciate speed limits because I understand they have been established for my own good and for the safety of all the other drivers on the road with me. But speed limits also irritate me at times because they, well, they limit me! They limit my freedom to drive as fast as I think I need to drive!

We see that same tension between freedom and limits in Genesis 2. 

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

See it? 

It’s as if God said, “You are free to drive your car and to drive it wherever you want to go; you can turn right, turn left, you can drive from here to Malibu; but you must not drive your car over 65 mph, or you will surely get a ticket.”

Right at the beginning, God is teaching us about the relationship of freedom to limit; and that the gospel begins with the limit of God.

As parents we all know instinctively that our children need limits. 

“Don’t play with matches.”

“Don’t play in the street.”

“Don’t stick your finger in the electrical outlet.”

We also know that the limits we place on our children are good because they are an expression of our love.

So it is with the limit of God. The limits of God, whether those limits are about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or about murder, or about stealing or adultery or any of the “Ten Commandments”, are good because God’s limits are an expression of his love.

The problem is; we don’t like limits. We don’t like it when our parents don’t let us eat candy for breakfast. I don’t like it when the government tells me I can only drive my car 65 mph when it is designed to go 100 mph.

We don’t like limits because, deep down, we really want to be God. And that desire to be like God started in the Garden of Eden.

But we are not God. And when we try to live without God and his limits, we quickly forfeit the joy and peace for which he created us. 

Genesis tells us that the gospel begins with God’s love. All creation itself is an expression of the goodness and love of the Creator. God’s love is further expressed in the creation of man and woman in his own image. God then expresses his love by establishing limits for Adam and Eve, and for us.

And when we violate God’s limits, which Adam and Eve eventually do, and which we all do, we discover how much we need not only his love and his limits, but his grace as well. 

In God’s limit we see both his love and our own need for the gospel.

Brian Coffey

Friday, Jan. 25

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This week we have been reflecting on what it means that we are all made in the imago dei, the image of God.  We have talked about how this truth gives each individual human being a concrete sense of value and dignity.  We have also looked at how the image of God impacts how view and treat the people around us.  The doctrine of the image of God is also meant to give us a clear sense of purpose.  When we come to the New Testament, we begin to see that we were not only created in God’s image, but we were also created to be God’s image in the world!  We are created to “imagers” of God, reflections of the Divine character. 

we have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.  - Colossians 3:10

To put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.  - Ephesians 4:24

In a sense we are created to be little mirrors, all turned toward Christ and reflecting His glory and beauty back to the world.  Now of course we are not perfect reflections, we have all been tainted and tarnished by sin, the image of God is broken and damaged in us.  None of us can restore or repair that image on our own.  We have no power to fix the broken image of God in us. 

In the same way, a mirror has no power to generate its own light or image, it can only reflect the image it is facing.  Think about that analogy for just a minute...you are created in the image of God, and you are created to be the image of God in the world, but you can only do that if you are turned toward Him!  We can only reflect that which we are facing.  You can pretty quickly tell which way a persons heart is facing can’t you?  Just look at how they spend their  time, how they spend their money, what they talk about most often, and how they respond to disappointments.  Whatever a person turns the affections of their heart toward, that is what they will reflect back to the world.  So, the question is...What, or Who are you facing?  What is your heart turned toward?

I think the key to being an imager of God in the world is to be an imager of Christ in your life! 

Colossians 1:15 tells us that He (Jesus Christ) is the image of the invisible God.  Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.  Jesus Himself says in John 14:9 says that anyone that has seen Him, has seen the Father.

Perhaps no New Testament writer has put this better than the Apostle Paul when he wrote these words in 2 Corinthians...
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever -increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.   - 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

What an incredible promise!  When we turn toward Jesus, wen we look to Him, we begin to see things clearly, and we are gradually transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory!  We cannot fix ourselves, we cannot repair the damage that is done in our hearts through sin.  We can only turn our hearts and minds toward Jesus, and He will restore His image in us!

Jeff Frazier

Thursday, Jan. 24

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The historical biblical account of the creation of Adam and Eve states that God made the first man and woman 'in His own image'.  The occasion was the sixth day of Creation, after God had prepared the earth as a perfect environment for life and prepared the garden of eden for the crown of His creation, and after He had created the fish, the birds, and the other animals. These were all created by His divine word, which means that God spoke, commanded (or willed) each event to happen and it was done. In the case of the creation of man, there is a difference. 

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  - Genesis 1:26-27

In this intriguing verse God appears to be talking to someone.  John Calvin said, “This is the language of one apparently deliberating... he enters into consultation.”  Many other commentators refer to it as 'a council'. But if this is so, with whom is God consulting? And why? Does the Bible give us any hint?  Some Jewish scholars have supposed that this is a description of God talking with the angels.  However, this is problematic on several levels; first, there is no evidence that the angels were involved in the creation act (other than to praise it) and there is no indication that we are made in the image of God and angles.  Since God needs no help or advice on how to create, any such consultation must have taken place within the Godhead - between God the Father and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

God could easily have commanded the creation of man by His own Word, as He had done in the case of the animals and the plants.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.  - Genesis 1:11

But God did not choose to create man in this way...

the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.   - Genesis 2:7

When God created the vegetation and the animals, He made them all “after his/their kind” (the phrase occurs nine times in the first chapter of Genesis) When He created man, He made him after the “God-kind”, in His own image!

Our existence (breath of life) is therefore not the result of spontaneous reorganization of molecules within our body, nor is it derived by evolution from any animal or 'lower hominid' (as some theistic evolutionists teach), but is a direct gift from God.  You really cannot reconcile the Genesis account of the creation of man in the image of God with Darwinian Naturalism.  We are clearly made distinct and different.  We are not a close cousin of the animals, nor a distant relative of primitive plant life, nor a product of primordial slime. Rather, we are as David wrote in Psalm 8,” crowned with glory and honor”... 

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
    the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under his feet:

all flocks and herds,
    and the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air,
    and the fish of the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

We are the crown of His creation, wonderful and different, the most excellent of all God's works, and a special expression of the divine nature, created by God's own personal activity, injected with God’s own image, and animated with the very breath of Life from God Himself.  

Jeff Frazier

Wednesday, Jan. 23

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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.     - Genesis 1:27

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.  - Genesis 9:6

A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God.   

- 1 Corinthians 11:7

and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.   

- Ephesians 4:24

The concept that we (all human beings) are created in the image of God is expressed in various ways throughout the Bible.  This idea is absolutely foundational to everything the Bible has to say about our identity, purpose, salvation, and ultimate destiny as human beings.  Not only is the doctrine of the imago dei (image of God) foundational to understanding the message of the Bible, it has tremendous implications for how we understand our own culture and society.  

Implications for our sense of self-worth...

Secular counselors and therapists are quick to tell us that we need to have a strong sense of self-esteem and self-worth, and that we need to improve our self-image.  he problem is that secular philosophy can offer us no grounds on which to base this sense of self.

I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or to a grain of sand.  - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Man is the product of causes which had not prevision of the end they were achieving; are but the outcome of accidental collocation of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.     - Bertrand Russell

Quotations like these may sound cold and heartless, but this is simply the logical conclusion for those who reject the idea that we are made in the image of God.  Only Christianity can tell people that their value and worth as a human being is based not on any philosophical or psychological ideas of men, but the very image of God Himself!

Implications for how we view and treat other people...

Where did the concept of basic human rights come from?  Was it an invention of human philosophy?  Some claim that it is a Western idea and it originated with the ancient Greeks.  This sounds good, but the problem is that the ancient Greeks regularly practiced infanticide, euthanasia, and the killing off of those with mental or physical defects (not exactly espousing basic human rights).  The great Greek philosopher Aristotle said that some races are born to be slaves!  No, the concept that all human beings have certain value, dignity and rights, is a Biblical idea, it comes straight from Genesis 1:26-27 - the Imago Dei!

C.S. Lewis put it best in his brilliant essay called “The Weight of Glory”...

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.     - C.S. Lewis

Today, ask God to help you see His image in the face of every single person you encounter!

Jeff Frazier

Tuesday, Jan. 22

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.  
- Genesis 1:1-3

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  
- Genesis 1:26-27

It is interesting that the Bible does not start with who we are, it starts with who God is.  Most people today think of religion in terms of who they are and what they are receiving; my salvation, my blessing, my healing, etc.  But the gospel does not start with you, it starts with the character and nature of God.  When we read through the creation account in Genesis 1, we discover that God is the eternal, all-powerful, creator of everything that exists.  We also find out that He is a good and gracious God that takes delight in His creation.

The gospel message is not fundamentally about you (although you are a part of it), it is fundamentally about God and His glory.  It is only after we know something about who God is that we can begin to understand who we are.  Who are we?  King David asked and answered this very question in Psalm 8...
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  - Psalm 8:3-5

The simple biblical answer to the question of who we are is that we are made in the image of God!  What does this mean?  Among other things, it means that we share some of the attributes of our creator!  Now of course we don’t share every attribute God, we are not all-knowing or all-powerful (though sometimes we act like we are), and even those attributes that we do share are often marred and obscured by our sinfulness.  Nevertheless, we are still created in His image, and that means that we have the capacity to reflect that very nature of our creator!   Here are some the divine attributes we share with the God who made us in His image...

Holiness - God is absolutely separate from any evil.  While we are never perfectly holy, we can reflect God’s holiness when we repent of our sin and fight against it in ourselves and in the world.  
As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.  But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.   - 1 Peter 1:14-16

Love - God alone is perfectly good and loving, and He alone is our source of goodness and love.  But we can reflect His loving character when we love Him and love those around us.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.  - 1 John 4:10-12

Truth - God is the source of all truth and His Son Jesus Christ is the embodiment of all truth.  We reflect His image when we believe His truth over the lies of our culture and when we speak truthfully to one another.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”   - John 14:6
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.  - Ephesians 4:25

Mercy - God is compassionate and merciful, He forgives our sins through Christ and He is patient with us when we fail.  We bear His image when we show mercy and forgiveness to those who have wronged us.
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.      - Titus 3:4-5
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.   - Ephesians 4:32

Beauty - God is beautiful and glorious beyond description, and His creation reflects His beauty and glory.  We bear His image when we worship Him for the beauty we see in His creation, and when we create and enjoy works of beauty.
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.          - Psalm 27:4
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.   - Ecclesiastes 3:11

We could go on and talk about how we reflect God’s justice, faithfulness, righteousness, etc. The point is that you and I (and everyone else in the world) are made in the image of God!  If you are in Christ, then you have the Holy Spirit working in you to enable you to increasingly reflect that divine image to the world!

Jeff Frazier

Monday, Jan. 21

To download an audio version, click here.

Monday

"And God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness."
-Genesis 1:26

This is one of the most significant verses in the Bible.  Our sense of our own self-worth, our treatment of other people, our understanding of human rights and dignity,  - all of it stems from one indisputable fact of our existence: we are made in the image of God!

Think of it this way: every outward manifestation of our practice of religion changes throughout our lives: what we sing, how we sing, what we wear to church, how we pray, even the breadth and width of our smiles. What doesn't change is what goes on inside us the moment we rise in the morning to a consciousness of God's reality.  What doesn't alter is our fellowship with him.  And that fellowship occurs in a relationship even more intimate than that which we have with any human being.

Even our sin does not alter the fact that we bear the image of God. There's no question that sin has defaced something of what he gave us when he imparted part of himself into us. But our regeneration in Christ, something essential to belief, restores that image, an imprint only humans share with the Creator.  

When God said, "Let us make man in our image," what he did was to fashion beings fully capable of close fellowship with him. If true religion is defined most precisely by an intimate fellowship with God, then when God created us in his image, he was creating religion.

Birds are wonderfully blessed with beaks, elephants with trunks, trees with bark, and cats with nocturnal vision - in all these ways God filled nature with glory; but on nothing else in his world did he invest his image. Only human beings can fully know his love by intimate fellowship with him. 

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for these desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.  - C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

So what does that mean, really?  That we have opportunity to know God like no other member of his created world means at least this: that our warmest and most intimate moments with him are not accomplished solely for our benefit, but for His. We don't practice religion - don't pray and sing and study Scripture - simply for our benefit.  Our righteousness is not our own. He made us in his image, not only so that we could enjoy him - although of course we can; we carry his likeness so he can enjoy us. God gives us his love because we are his, not because of what we are on our own. He wills our lives of praise. He wants to know us, in the deepest and richest sense of that word, because we are like him.

Everything we do out of faith, everything we know of God, begins in the fact that we are His!  God’s ultimate plan for us is that we would find our joy in Him, the one in whose image we are made!

Jeff Frazier

Friday, January 18

To download an audio version, click here. 

Psalm 100:4-5

Enter his courts with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Once, when our boys were very young, one of them referred to the senior members of FBCG as “the grandmas and grandpas at church.” He knew his own grandparents, who lived in different states, also had graying hair so he just assumed that the people with gray hair at FBCG were “grandmas and grandpas.”

One of the things Lorene and I have always loved about our church family is that it is growing older and younger at the same time! That is, FBCG is a church of multiple generations. Our church family includes as many people over 75 years old as we have in our 5^th and 6^th grade ministry! And I think that makes FBCG somewhat unique. Many churches tend to grow either older or younger; that is, churches either fail to attract younger families, and therefore grow older over time; or, they attract only younger families and lose contact with the older generation.

I believe that God’s intent for the church, just as it is for a family, is to include both older and younger generations.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

The thing about generations is that they are always coming and going. There is always a generation that has gone before us and there is always a generation coming up behind us. Therefore, it is the responsibility of one generation to both celebrate the next generation as well as pass on to that younger generation the truth of God’s goodness and love.

Just this week, as I was preparing a message called, “The Story of FBCG”, I was looking through some old FBCG archives. I saw a lot of stuff I had seen before; old dog-eared black and white photos, yellowed newspaper articles and a few dated church publications. But I also found a couple of things I did not know existed.

I found a kind of slogan printed on church letterhead from 1947 that read, “First Baptist Church: A church with a purpose.”

I found a second slogan printed on an invitation card from around 1954 that read, “First Baptist Church: A Bible church with a family spirit.”

Then I found a mission statement from a building fund campaign in 1983 that read:

To give that we may grow,

To grow that we may serve,

To serve that others might come to know Christ.

As I read those words my heart leapt to my throat because those words sound so much like the four words we say every week: reach, connect, equip, serve! It hit me that the DNA strand that we now call “Serve the World” has been there all along!

It struck me that the generations that have gone before us – beginning in 1894 - might not recognize or feel comfortable with our music choices, or with our technology, they would absolutely recognize and be comfortable with reach, connect, equip and serve! They would wholeheartedly agree with our focus on the gospel and our deep desire to Serve the World!

It struck me that we aren’t reinventing the church wheel here in 2013 – but it is our job to keep that wheel rolling!

So, as I look back on those grainy black and white images of people who wore funny looking clothes and worshiped in Swedish, I see the faithfulness of God and I see the faithfulness of his people.

And it occurs to me that someday 20, or 40, or 118 years from now, someone will look back through ancient DVDs or flashdrive images from this time when we serve as stewards of a church called FBCG. I hope and pray that as they smile at our funny clothes and hairstyles – they will also see the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of his people!

Brian Coffey

Thursday, January 17

To download an audio version, click here.

2 Corinthians 9:10-11

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Most of us have a kind of love/hate relationship with money! We know money is necessary for life in our culture, but we struggle to manage our financial resources in a manner that is balanced and healthy. This, by the way, is why we offer the “Financial Peace University” program to our church family!

But the same things are true for the church. While the church is not a business and must never become a business, the church must manage resources in a sound and responsible way.

For example: the leadership of FBCG must respect the annual budget approved every year by the congregation. Part of that respect is taking care not to spend more than we receive. When the national economy began to show signs of recession in 2008, and our leadership noticed a drop in giving to FBCG’s General Fund, we immediately took steps to cut our spending by 10%. This wise decision allowed us to continue our ministries without overspending our available funds.

Sound financial stewardship is especially important when it comes to facilities. FBCG now utilizes 2 campuses that include buildings and property worth nearly $13 million. We owe just $1.5 million on our West Campus that was built in 2004 at a total cost of over $8 million.

When we were planning Phase 1 of the West Campus in about 2002, it was assumed that Phase 2 would include a worship center capable of seating some 2,000 people at one time.  But much has happened in the years since to change that assumption.

First, a worship center of that size would cost in the neighborhood of $25 million to build. FBCG simply is not large enough to take on a project of that size and the debt that it would create.

Second, the growth of the Fox Valley has slowed dramatically. While FBCG is still growing, we are not growing at the rate we were growing a decade ago and therefore we do not believe we can or should attempt a building project of that size.

Third, fewer and fewer churches in North America are building very large worship centers. The primary reason seems to be because churches are unwilling to invest that much money in a room that is only used one day a week. Congregations are also much more hesitant to take on long-term debt than they were just 10-15 years ago. The economic climate today demands that churches build more flexible and multi-use space in order to maximize the stewardship of resources.

Over the past 8 years our leadership has gradually realized that it would not be good stewardship of our financial and material resources to attempt to build one campus big enough to handle all of our ministry needs. We now believe that God has given us two campuses that can both be used in a manner that allows us to fulfill the vision he has for FBCG and to do so in a fiscally responsible manner.

For example: market analysis shows that our East Campus is worth roughly $2 million to prospective buyers; but it would cost nearly $10 million to reproduce that square footage at the West Campus.

We have a beautiful sanctuary at the East Campus; it doesn’t make good fiscal sense to take on debt to rebuild a similar space at West Campus when we already have the space at East. The East Campus also has a nice chapel and a renovated Student Center. Rather than seek to rebuild that space somewhere else, it seems that the wiser thing is to seek to maximize the use of space that is both functional and paid for.

We envision FBCG using multiple campuses for the foreseeable future. We believe God would have us maximize our ministry while minimizing our debt by pursing both campuses as vital parts of our total ministry.

When I read the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians, one of the things I notice is the connection between generosity and ministry, what Paul calls “the harvest of your righteousness.”

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

I think, when translated into our modern culture, Paul’s challenge can be understood from both an individual and a corporate point of view. As an individual, I am challenged to see that God has blessed me with a “supply of seed” so that I may, in turn be generous. God promises to use my generosity to enlarge the harvest of the gospel. 

Likewise, as a church we are to see that God has abundantly blessed us in order that our collective generosity would produce an even greater harvest.

Paul’s reference to “store of seed” might be interpreted as any and all of the blessings and resources God has provided: money, time, talent and even facilities. 

Therefore, as we look toward the future of FBCG, the question is not so much “Should we invest in adding to our facilities?” but rather, “How does God want to enlarge the harvest of our righteousness?”

If new or improved facilities simply make us more comfortable, I’m not sure that’s a good investment. But if new or improved facilities serve to enlarge the harvest of the gospel, how can we not make that investment?

Brian Coffey