What Tense Is Your Salvation?

2 Comments January 16, 2019 Jim Duggan

One of the most important elements of grammar is Verb Tense. Tense tells us the time in which the action took place – past, present, and future. When it comes to our salvation, we should think of it in all three tenses.

I WAS saved from the penalty of the sins of my past. I WILL BE saved from all future sins, and ultimately from the presence of sin when I get to heaven. And I AM BEING saved as the Holy Spirit works to make me more like Jesus with each passing day.

Salvation – Past Tense “I WAS Saved”

We most often think of salvation in the past tense. You may remember a specific time in your past when you repented of your sin and turned your trust to Jesus. At that moment the blood of Jesus covered all of the sins you had committed, and you stood forgiven. The Bible teaches us that God shows us grace – undeserved favor – and forgives all of our sin. By GRACE we have been saved. (Ephesians 2:1-9)

Often when you talk to a believer about her or his relationship with Jesus, you might hear, “I was saved when I was ______.” Theologically speaking, we call what happens when an unbeliever turns from their sin and places trust in Jesus “regeneration.” We call it that because the Holy Spirit gives life to our spirit formerly dead because of our sin.

Salvation – Future Tense “I Will Be Saved”

But we also understand salvation in the future tense. Not only did Jesus forgive our past sins, He also provided us perseverance until we reach heaven, our final destination. Theologically, we refer to future salvation as “glorification.”

2 Comments January 3, 2019 Jim Duggan

Recently, I shared an article from a Christian site that raised questions about the public’s trust of my profession – pastor. I originally shared the article on an online forum for pastors of small churches like my own. Most reacted, as did I, with sadness and a desire to do all we can to make the situation better. Other responses fell to the more negative side. Criticism is not easy to receive.

The responses of the forum members were varied and set me to thinking. How do I react when presented with news that I may not want to hear?

All of us hear or read critiques that challenge us personally, our behavior, and/or our thinking concerning certain issues. How we respond to those critiques reveal our heart and could determine whether or not we grow.

Here are a few thoughts centered around the various reactions to the post and what I think they may mean.

December 31, 2018 Jim Duggan

New Year’s resolutions get a bad rap. Many people scoff at others who make them, prophesying the fact that the resolutions will not stick. And with good reason, since most of us who make resolutions often abandon them early in the year.

I’ve also noticed that those who scoff at others who make resolutions usually fail to grow personally themselves. They mock others who have a plan to grow but fail. Yet, they have no plan nor growth themselves. Seems to me it’s better to try and fail than to not try at all.

I think New Year’s resolutions are a good idea. I firmly believe in the principle of living an INTENTIONAL life. On old saying reminds us, “Aim at nothing, and you are sure to hit it.” New Year’s resolutions provide us a goal, a pathway to growth.

In 2 Peter 3:18, Peter challenges us to grow, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” Notice the first word, “BUT.” Why did he start the verse that way?

In the preceding verse, Peter warns them not to not get carried away into error and lose their stability. Then encourages them to grow. So he presents two options – decline or grow. No middle ground, we either grow or we backslide. New Year’s resolutions at least give us a plan to grow.

The Benefits of Resolutions

First of all, New Year’s resolutions are an admission they we need to improve. Socrates famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Trust me. You, just like me, have lots of room to grow. Unwillingness to own our shortcomings robs us of the opportunity to become a better version of ourselves. Even worse is knowing our shortcomings and being unwilling to address them.

Moreover, New Year’s resolutions provide a framework of intentionality within which we can work to better ourselves. It’s not enough to want to “be a better person.” We will make greater improvements when we specifically choose one or two shortcomings to work on at a time.

Additionally, resolutions present the opportunity for accountability. When we specify parts of our lives we want to improve, we reveal plans and are more likely to follow through. Without resolutions, our desire to improve is nothing more than a nebulous, non-specific dream.

Setting Resolutions

If you plan to establish some resolutions for the coming year, maybe these ideas will help you successfully establish and achieve them.

Make your goals challenging yet reasonable. Most people err in one of two extremes – goals that are either too easy or too difficult. Push yourself, but keep it real.

Break your plan down into increments. If your goal is to lose weight, set a goal to lose a fraction of amount in the first three months. You will gain added momentum from the small victories on the shorter terms.

Put your resolutions in writing. Make a list of what you want to accomplish and why you want to accomplish it. Look at your list every morning to remind yourself of the improvements you desire. As you look at the list each morning, you can strategize plans for that particular day that move you toward your goal.

Finally, share your goal with a trusted friend who will hold you accountable. You might also have a friend who has a similar resolution. The two of you can challenge, motivate, and encourage each other as you move toward your intended results.

Questions to Consider

What are some areas of my life I would like to improve in 2019?
What changes must I make to see these improvements happen?
Do I have a trusted friend to whom I can make myself accountable for working on these areas?

Comment section is open. What have you done it help your resolutions become reality? What are some areas you want to improve in 2019?

Click here for a look back at last year’s New Year’s post.

Your Vision is Your Life’s GPS

September 7, 2018 Jim Duggan

vision I love the GPS on my cellphone. The GPS app that I use on my phone guides me along the path to my destination. The app also warns me of road hazards, traffic jams, and other potential pitfalls in my path.

But for my GPS to work, I must enter a destination. My GPS will not tell me where to go, it will only tell me how to get there. I have to supply the destination.

In life, we often wander aimlessly in our lives because we have no idea where we are going. We react to circumstances as they come and make decisions based on the whims of the moment. We are like the old man who told his wife as they travelled on vacation, “I don’t know where we are going, but we sure are making good time.”

Vision is the one element that gives our life true direction. Without it, we may think we are making good time, but we have no sense of direction in our life. In Genesis 37-50, we read the story of Joseph, a man whose life was guided by vision. Let’s consider some lessons we can learn from the life of Joseph.

Getting A Vision

In Genesis 37, Joseph receives his life’s vision in the form of two dreams he understood to be from God. The dreams let Joseph know that God would one day place him in a position of leadership.

Many times, we try to come up with our own vision rather than asking God to show us HIS for us. We think of all the things we want to do, and we set our lives on course to achieve them. We ask God to bless our plans for Him, but He only blesses His plan for us. Commit yourself to a season of prayer, maybe even several years of prayer, seeking God’s vision for you. God’s vision for us is always bigger and more amazing than any vision we could imagine for ourselves.

Chasing the Vision

When my GPS guides me to the destination, it does so one turn at a time. As long as I follow the course, I know I will end up at the destination. So also, vision keeps us on God’s course for our lives. In Genesis 37 –

His brothers wanted to kill him, and eventually sold him into slavery (37). In a foreign land, an influential leader’s wife falsely accused him of sexual assault (39). Two of his jail mates did not keep their promise to speak for him when they got outside (40). It seemed often his life GPS was taking him on different journey.

Vision gives us hope when our circumstances threaten to discourage us. Also, God’s vision for us provides a guiding light for big decision in our life. We can make decisions based on what moves us toward God’s vision and what presents a detour from His path.

Living in the Vision

We also need to remember that God’s vision for our lives involves how HE wants to use us for HIS glory. When we pursue a selfish vision apart from serving God, we wind up lost and living aimlessly.

In Chapters 41 – 50, we see that God brought His vision for Joseph to pass. God had a reason for placing Joseph in his position in Egypt. During a time of famine, Joseph had the wisdom to provide food for the entire empire as well as sojourners. Some of those sojourners turned out to be his brothers and his father.

When God begins to bring His vision for us into play, the time is right to use those opportunities for God’s glory. The moment we being to take ownership of God’s vision, He will send us back to another place on the journey.

I pray God will show you what He wants to do in your life, that He will enter a destination in your life’s GPS. With equal fervor, I pray that you will pursue His vision relentlessly and faithfully. And, when the it becomes reality, I pray you serve God in greater ways than you every imagined you could or would.

For further reading: What to Do When Your Dream Takes a Detour

Click here to learn more about using the WAZE GPS app on your phone

The Most Important Hour of Your Day

August 13, 2018 Jim Duggan

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On the very first day when God created the earth, He first created light. Then He separated the light from the dark to form the first day. “And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.” (Genesis 1:5) So from the beginning, the 24 hour day became the standard of time for all of creation.

But what if I asked you to choose which on the 24 hours in your day is the most important? What would you say?

I am sure the first reaction would be that it depends on the day. But I want to suggest that the most important hour of the day is not a consecutive 60 minutes. It is two 30 minute segments.

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How to Do A Verse Analysis for Bible Study

July 15, 2018 Jim Duggan

In high school I was a grammar nerd; I REALLY enjoyed English class. I even remember what an indirect object is! Because I was (and still am) a visually oriented learner, I especially liked diagramming sentences because the diagram was a good analysis that helped me see and understand the relationships the words in a sentence had with each other.

Verse analysis is not as involved as sentence diagramming

The same type of analysis can help us in our Bible study through what I call a verse analysis. The verse analysis is not as in-depth as the sentence diagram, but useful nonetheless to help us see the relationship of the words in the verse to one another.

I believe that not only did God inspire EVERY word of the Bible, but He also inspired EACH word is. Words matter and their relationship to one another in a given passage reveal the truth that God wants us to know about Him, His precepts, and His purposes for us.

At the end of this blog, I have included a video tutorial demonstrating how I do a verse analysis, and I invite you to watch it and let me know if it is helpful to you.

A Working Example

Let’s consider as an example Proverbs 3:5

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

My first step is to isolate the main verbs in a passage. Once I’ve isolated those verbs, I study their context and meanings. I use many of the tools I mentioned in the “Tools Blog” to help with this task.

Garden Lessons for Spiritual Growth

July 1, 2018 Jim Duggan

garden My dad was a master gardener. We always had good fresh vegetables during the summer. We had a clear division of labor in our house, too. My dad grew the food, my mom cooked it, and I ate it. Soon enough I became old enough to join in the work preparing, planting, and tending the garden.

After marrying, I had a garden a few times, but with mixed results. I always enjoy playing in the dirt but haven’t always had the time. After several years’ hiatus, I decided to plant a garden this year.

My garden started out with the idea to plant just a few heirloom tomato plants. Of course, I soon had the idea that a few pepper plants would be good as well. I was probably the last person in Georgia to finally plant my garden. By the time I started I had added squash, cucumber, and watermelon to my roster of veggies.

Spiritual Lessons from the Garden

I hate to report that this year’s garden has been a moderate failure. I am starting to remember why I went all those years without a garden. But along the way I have learned some spiritual lessons from my garden.

June 13, 2018 Jim Duggan

I am finally writing about a burden my heart has carried for some time now. I believe there is a missing element in the faith practiced by many believers these days. The missing element? An understanding of the holiness of God.

What Is the Holiness of God?

I find it best to think of God’s holiness in at least 3 ways.

3 Comments June 10, 2018 Jim Duggan

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” So Mark Twain quoted his friend, writer Charles Dudley Warner. With floods, hurricanes, and unseasonable heat, the weather has been the topic of conversation lately, but no one has offered any doable solutions. The weather remains in God’s hands (thankfully) and He continues to serve His purposes through it. In the meantime, we will probably keep talking a lot about it and continue doing nothing about it. Unfortunately, prayer is another topic that garners more TALKING than DOING.

We admit the ever-present need for prayer, we profess our belief in the power of prayer, and we talk about the potential of prayer to “change things,” but we continue to allow other things to distract us from the work of prayer. Yes, prayer is hard work, because when we stop to focus on prayer, our enemy throws everything in his arsenal at us to stop us. He, too, recognizes the potential power our prayers wield against him and he aims to stop us.

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Today, I will add to the talk – or in this case the writing – about prayer, but I do so in hopes that this will remind us of our need to talk less about praying and engage a consistent, intentional, and daily time of prayer. I want to share from the example of Jesus in Mark 3:7-12, when Jesus withdrew with His disciples from the crowd so they could give time to prayer.

Three Reasons You Need a Consistent, Intentional, Daily Prayer Time

If Jesus, the son of God, withdrew regularly to pray, how much more so do we need to establish the discipline for our lives? Let me suggest at least 3 reasons.

May 16, 2018 Jim Duggan

“I’m gonna be a wheel someday, I’m gonna be somebody.”

So goes a lyric from one of my favorite 60’s artists, Fats Domino. Sadly, I think a lot of people share the same aspiration. They want to be a “big wheel.”

The world’s concept of a big wheel is someone who has made a name for themselves. People know who they are. They are celebrities. In the business world, big wheels run big corporations. Big wheels in the entertainment world win the awards and appear on TV and in magazines. In sports, big wheels make the big bucks. Everyone wants to buy the products they endorse

Yes, many people want to “be a wheel someday.” But most go about it the wrong way.

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The Paradox of the Big Wheel

Jesus often used paradox to communicate the most important life truths. A paradox is a self-contradicting statement that at first seems impossible, but actually presents a deeper truth. Here are a few examples.

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