When Will I Be Satisfied?

 

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.

Good News: God Is Happy

 

. . . the gospel of the glory of the blessed God . . . (1 Timothy 1:11)

This is a beautiful phrase in 1 Timothy, buried beneath the too-familiar surface of Bible buzzwords. But after you dig it up, it sounds like this: “the good news of the glory of the happy God.” The word “blessed” is not the one that means “praised,” but the one that means “happy.”

A great part of God’s glory is his happiness.

It was inconceivable to the apostle Paul that God could be denied infinite joy and still be all-glorious. To be infinitely glorious was to be infinitely happy. He used the phrase, “the glory of the happy God,” because it is a glorious thing for God to be happy the way he is.

God’s glory consists much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination. As the great eighteenth-century preacher, Jonathan Edwards, said, “Part of God’s fullness which he communicates is his happiness. This happiness consists in enjoying and rejoicing in himself; so does also the creature’s happiness.”

And this is a key part of the gospel, Paul says: “the gospel of the glory of the happy God.” It is good news that God is gloriously happy. No one would want to spend eternity with a gloomy, unhappy God.

If God is unhappy, then the goal of the gospel — to be with God forever — is not a happy goal, and that means it would be no gospel at all. But, in fact, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23).

Jesus said in John 15:11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Jesus spoke, and lived, and died that his joy — God’s joy — might be in us and our joy might be full. Therefore, the gospel is “the gospel of the glory of the happy God.”

LIVE A PERFECT LIFE OF FAITH IN THE WORD!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY JUNE 3, 2021.

SUBJECT : LIVE A PERFECT LIFE OF FAITH IN THE WORD!

Memory verse: "He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions." (Psalm 107 vs 20.)

READ: Matthew 8 vs 5 - 9: 

8:5: Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, 

8:6: saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” 

8:7: And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

8:8: The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed."

INTIMATION:

The best life is a perfect life of faith in the living and written Word of God. The Word of God is perfect, infallible, forever settled in heaven, yes and amen. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4 vs 12.) 

The passage we read today in Matthew 8 vs 5 - 13, recorded the story of the centurion who came to Jesus beseeching Him to come and heal his servant who was sick of palsy. Jesus promised to come and heal the servant. The centurion answered and said, "I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed." He illustrates his confidence by saying, "I also am a man of authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, Do this,' and he does it" (Matthew 8 vs 9). The centurion has faith in Jesus' word and believes that He is also a man of authority over Satan and his cohorts—the demons, and can exercise His authority over them from anywhere, at anytime, in any place, and anyhow with the power in His word.

When Jesus heard him He marveled and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!" The Gentile had faith in the Master's word that no Israelite had manifested. The centurion so trusted the word that he asked Jesus just to only speak a word, and his servant will be healed. Now, did you realize that Jesus didn’t even speak a healing word nor cast out any demons, but still the centurion received as he had believed; “And his servant was healed that same hour” (Matthew 8 vs 13). 

When you read out to many Christians Isaiah 53 vs 4 - 5,  and ask, "Do you believe that?" They will say, "Oh yes I have believed that for years." But when you have prayed, and the pain he feels is still there, he will tell you, “I am yet to receive my healing.” He has no trust in the word but on his sense knowledge of feeling.

Now, let us look carefully at Romans 10 vs 8 - 9, "But what does it say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You note he is challenging us to accept the Word that we may have heard so many times that we know it from memory. Furthermore, he demands that we confess it with our mouth, our faith in the resurrection of Jesus and the substitutionary work He did for us. We must confess that we believe in our heart before we receive. And We are promised not to be put to shame (Romans 10 vs 11),

We must act on the Word independent of any sense knowledge whatsoever. Any actions based on sense knowledge or evidence before us is not faith. This is because you require no faith when you have physical evidence. 

When we speak the word of God, we are putting Him into remembrance of what He said. And He said, “I watch over My word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1 vs 12). He said Again, “My word never return to Me void, but will achieve that for which it is sent, and will prosper in what I sent it” (Isaiah 55 vs 11).  God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: Has He said, and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken, shall He not make it good? (Numbers 23 vs 19). Never forget, no Word from God is void of power. (Luke 4 vs 32 & Hebrews 4 vs 12).

Prayer: Abba Father, let the word that I speak and the confession of my mouth be Your Word at all times, for I know as You have said it so shall it be, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

IN OUR NEW CREATION ALL OUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY JULY 02, 2021.

SUBJECT : IN OUR NEW CREATION ALL OUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN!

Memory verse: "And that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4 vs 24.) 

READ: Romans 8 vs 31 - 34; First John 2 vs 1 - 2:  

Romans 8:31: What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

8:32: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

8:33: Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

8:34: Who is He who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of the God, who also makes intercession for us.

First John 2:1: My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

2:2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

INTIMATION: 

In our new creation in Christ, all our sins are forgiven. The question now is, why and how?

Why? Because we have righteousness reckoned, imputed and imparted to us in the new creation. The new man is created, according to God, in righteousness and holiness. Our memory verse states this clearly; “the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." God's work in us in the new nature thrills the heart. It demonstrates the perfect nature of God—ever loving and merciful. 

God's knows our weaknesses and our inability to meet His standard of holiness. Our righteousness is like a filthy rag before Him (Isaiah 64 vs 6). Our best efforts are still infected with sin. If we come to Him demanding acceptance on the basis of our 'good' conduct, God will point out that our righteousness is nothing compared to His infinite righteousness. Our only hope therefore, is faith in Jesus Christ, who can clean us and bring us into God's presence, and which He has done in His redemptive work for us, as a propitiation for our sins. 

It is for that reason we have been given the “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all, who believe” (Romans 3 vs 22). He never looks at us, but on Jesus Christ, who is now our Advocate (First John 2 vs 1), interceding for us constantly, and seated at the right hand of His Majesty on high (Romans 8 vs 34; Hebrews 12 vs 2), with all authority given to Him. We are therefore, declared not guilty by trusting Jesus Christ to take away our sins. Trusting means putting our confidence in Christ to forgive our sins, to make us right with God, and empower us to live the way He taught us. God’s solution is available to all of us regardless of our background or past behavior.

And how? When you believe in Jesus Christ and His redemptive work for us, you are said to be 'in Christ.' If you are in Christ, there is no condemnation for you. Can the same Jesus in Whom you have no condemnation, condemn you? If Christ gave His life for you, He isn’t going to turn around and condemn you! He will not withhold anything you need to live for Him. The accuser of brethren—the devil will want to minister condemnation to you, but that is a lie, and remember he is the father of it (John 8 vs 44). Instead, you have an Advocate in Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father, always making intercession for you.

Therefore, our fellowship in Jesus Christ is our bait to remain beneficiaries of God's divine nature. Fellowship means 'sharing together.' Our fellowship with Jesus is God's ordained plan. In First Corinthians 1 vs 9 the Bible says, "God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." We were called into fellowship with His Son. This is a heavenly calling. We are living under grace (unmerited favor) of God. 

But will we be committing sin just because we know our sins are already forgiven by the abundant grace of God? Certainly not. Committing sin breaks our fellowship with Christ and broken fellowship is one of the the saddest facts of human experience. Though broken fellowship does not break the relationship, but it mars it and robs that relationship of its richest blessings and benefits.

Prayer: Abba Father, how great You are; ever Loving and Merciful! You have given me all things in Christ! Blessed be You forever. Everything within me is adoring and praising You. Endue me with the spirit of total commitment to You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

How Well Do You Know God?

 

“Behold, God is great, and we know him not; the number of his years is unsearchable.” (Job 36:26)

It is impossible to know God too well.

He is the most important person who exists. And this is because he made all others, and any importance they have is owing to him.

Any strength or intelligence or skill or beauty that other beings have comes from him. On every scale of excellence, he is infinitely greater than the best person you ever knew or ever heard of.

Being infinite, he is inexhaustibly interesting. It is impossible, therefore, that God be boring. His continual demonstration of the most intelligent and interesting actions is volcanic.

As the source of every good pleasure, he himself pleases fully and finally. If that’s not how we experience him, we are either dead, or blind, or sleepwalking.

It is therefore astonishing how little effort in this world is put into knowing God.

It’s as though the President of the United States came to live with you for a month, and you only said hello in passing every day or so. Or as if you were flown at the speed of light for a couple of hours around the sun and the solar system, and instead of looking out the window, you played a computer game. Or as if you were invited to watch the best actors, singers, athletes, inventors, and scholars perform their best, but you declined to go, so you could watch the TV season’s final soap.

Let us pray together that our infinitely great God would incline our hearts, and open our eyes to see him as fully as we can and seek to know him more.

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY JULY 01, 2021.

SUBJECT : WHO WE WERE BEFORE REDEMPTION!

Memory verse: "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light." (Ephesians 5 vs 8.) 

READ: Ephesians 2 vs 1 - 3 & 12: 

2:1: And You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 

2:2: in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 

2:3: among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

2:12: That at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of Promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

INTIMATION:

From the passage we read today in the Scripture, we can see the condition from which Jesus saved us. The natural man is spiritually dead. He is subject to the prince of the powers of the air. He is a child of disobedience. He is by nature a child of wrath. He is without God and without hope in the world. He has no covenant claims on God. He was a stranger to the covenant of promise. He was hopeless, Godless, spiritually dead, a child of the devil. That is the condition of the lost man. 

I know we do not like to have that told to us, but if we are not told, then we will never see the need of confession of Christ and Eternal Life. These memories are the best fuel for our gratitude to Christ for all He has done in our behalf.

Now let us look at Ephesians 2 vs 4 - 5 to appreciate God's plan and work: "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 

The natural man, before redemption, was dead in sin, and utterly separated from God, but God came to our rescue. We were dead in our sins, but God.....We were rebels against God, but God......We were enslaved by the devil and our sinful nature, but God.....These may be the two most welcome words in all of Scripture: “But God.” He had the option of leaving us spiritually dead, in rebellion against Him, and in bondage to our sins. But He didn’t. 

It is noteworthy that He didn’t save us because of our good nature, but rather in spite of our hopelessness and unworthiness. We should ever remain thankful for what He has done for us, and should also show humble patience and tolerance for others who seem unworthy or undeserving of our love and compassion. They may be spiritually dull, rebellious, and even antagonistic toward God. So were we; but God loved us anyway. We shouldn’t do less for fellow sinners.

We have been redeemed, and do not need to live any longer under sin’s power. God paid man's penalty on legal grounds and met the demands of justice absolutely. It is not a problem of pity. It is not a problem of a mother's love that overlooks a son's disobedience and rebellion, but it is the Supreme Court of the Universe dealing with our rebellion and our sin, dealing with it so effectually that it can never become an issue again. 

The penalty of sin and its power over us were miraculously destroyed by Christ on the cross. Through faith in Christ we stand acquitted, or no longer guilty, before God (See Romans 3 vs 21 - 22.) God does not take us out of the world or make us robots—we will still feel like sinning, and sometimes we will sin. The difference is that before we became Believers, we were dead in sin and were slaves to our sinful nature. But now we are alive with Christ.

God works on us In redemption; “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2 vs 10). We are now made light in the Lord, therefore, we should walk as children of light.

By faith God recreated us in the recreation of Christ when He was made alive after He had been made sin; in that recreation was our recreation. The apostle Paul gives a clear picture in himself thus: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2 vs 20.) All we have to do is accept it.  The moment we accept it, it becomes a reality to us in the mind of the Father.

Prayer: Abba Father, You displayed Your exceedingly great and unparalleled love for me in redemption.Give me the grace, O Lord,  to love You in like manner, in Jesus’ Name I prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!  

God’s Pleasure to Do You Good

 

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

Jesus will not sit by and let us disbelieve without a fight. He takes up the weapon of the word and speaks it with power for all who struggle to believe.

His aim is to defeat the fear that God is not the kind of God who really wants to be good to us — that he is not really generous and helpful and kind and tender, but is basically irked with us — ill-disposed and angry.

Sometimes, even if we believe in our heads that God is good to us, we may feel in our hearts that his goodness is somehow forced or constrained, perhaps like a judge who has been maneuvered by a clever attorney into a corner on some technicality of court proceeding, so he has to dismiss the charges against the prisoner whom he really would rather send to jail.

But Jesus is at pains to help us not feel that way about God. He is striving in Luke 12:32 to describe for us the indescribable worth and excellency of God’s soul by showing the unbridled pleasure he takes in giving us the kingdom.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Every little word of this stunning sentence is intended to help take away the fear that Jesus knows we struggle with; namely, that God begrudges his benefits; that he is constrained and out of character when he does nice things; that at bottom he is angry and loves to vent his anger.

Luke 12:32 is a sentence about the nature of God. It’s about the kind of heart God has. It’s a verse about what makes God glad — not merely about what God will do or what he has to do, but what he delights to do, what he loves to do and takes pleasure in doing. Every word counts. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”