About / Preface

Welcome to the "God's Clay God's Way" blog and podcast. I'm Brother Mark, and I'm glad you're here. These messages look at what's in God's heart for us. Here's a secret: we're really looking at what's in God's heart for Himself. 

Taking Another Swing

Ephesians 2:8-9

"Salvation is by grace through faith, not by works, so no one can boast."

I've recently visited this topic from several different directions. But the Holy Spirit keeps putting it on my heart, so here's another swing at it. May this one hit it out of the park.

Repentance: More Than A Definition

True repentance is something you choose to do. It becomes a habit of deep and endless surrender. When it's coupled with trust in Jesus' payment and Sovereignty, true repentance is life-changing.

Don't be like people whose religious, pious-sounding words of repentance are near Him while their hearts are far away.

In Matthew 15:8-9 (NKJV), Jesus quotes from Isaiah:

‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

You'll need a new heart to pull this off. He's more than happy to give you one.

What Repentance Is and Isn't

 God's plan for your eternity kicks in when you

• Confess and repent,

• Accept Jesus' payment of your sin debt, and

• Surrender to His Lordship in and over your life.

That makes it important to know what repentance is and what it isn't. 

Prayers I Adapt from Scripture

There's an almost unlimited number of prayers you can adapt and personalize from Scripture. It's a great way to pray.  

Here's some of my favorites followed by the Bible verses that helped inspire them. There's nothing official about these prayers. It's okay -- maybe even better -- to use your own words.

Again, as always, heart attitude is more important than the words. I hope these will inspire you. 

Heaven's Open Door

When Jesus took it upon Himself to pay off humanity's sin debt, He opened the door to Heaven. Without His payment, that door would have stayed closed.

Here's what I mean. Before Jesus died on the Cross, the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem's Temple was closed off by a heavy veil. That symbolized that the door to God's full presence in Heaven was closed. 

Repentance: What and Why

God created people to give Himself more to love in Heaven. But the fall of man put up a roadblock to God's unlimited love.

To better understand this, we must consider two immutable things about God: His love and His holiness.

• God's love is an integral part of His very essence. He IS love. He can't turn it off. He wouldn't turn it off even if He could (1 John 4:8).

• Holiness is also a part of His very essence. He IS holiness. He IS perfect purity that cannot be compromised (1 Peter 1:16; Revelation 4:8). 

I look at it like this: His holiness puts a barrier around His love. It's a fence line that can't be crossed. The barrier of holiness reinforces His love by keeping impurity out. 

Here's what I mean.

The Gospel's Two Anchors

There are many layers to the Gospel story. Today, I'm going to focus on two of them. At first glance, they’ll seem to be things you’re already familiar with. But many Christians…maybe most Christians…get these at least partially wrong.

The more we get them wrong, the more we limit Jesus’ work in and through us. If we get them too wrong, we’re in danger of not even being Saved. I can’t tell you where God draws that line, but wherever He draws that line, I want to be very far away from it.

If we get these Gospel truths right, any person can live in a restored relationship with God...a real, vibrant, personal, living relationship, like what Adam first had in the Garden of Eden. That's what Jesus died to give each of us.

I call these "The Gospel's Two Anchors". Without BOTH of them, no one will pass Judgement Day.

Without our input or help, Jesus took care of the First Anchor. But we are responsible for the Second Anchor. 

A Debt You Can’t Pay

Sin is anything that's incompatible with God's holy essence and commands. Sin doesn’t come in to be nice. It is a ruthless taskmaster that separates us from God.

Collaborate or Die

God’s unlimited love clearly wants to take as many people into heaven’s eternity as He can. But the reality is that His unlimited love is limited by the physics of heaven’s holiness. Nothing unclean or out of synch with God’s essence can be there.

God’s plan to take hopelessly fallen people to Himself has to account for two inescapable issues:  

1. Mankind can’t pay its own sin debt.  
2. We have free will to accept or reject His Lordship.

Choices

God chose to give you free will to use as you see fit. But that doesn't mean He's okay with the choices you make.

What God Won’t Do

There are some things God won't ever do. Here's just a few of them. You can probably think of more.