Give God Your Revenge

 

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

Why is this such a crucial promise in overcoming our bent toward bitterness and revenge? The reason is that this promise answers one of the most powerful impulses behind anger — an impulse that is not entirely wrong.

In many cases, real wrongs have been done to us. Therefore, it is not entirely wrong to feel that justice should be done. What’s wrong is to feel that we must make it happen and that we may feel bitter until it does. This would be a deadly mistake.

During my seminary days, Noël and I were in a small group for couples that began to relate at a fairly deep personal level. One evening we were discussing forgiveness and anger. One of the young wives said that she could not and would not forgive her mother for something she had done to her as a young girl.

We talked about some of the biblical commands and warnings concerning an unforgiving spirit.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32)

If you do not forgive others . . . neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Matthew 6:15)

But she would not budge. So I warned her that her very soul was in danger if she kept on with such an attitude of unforgiving bitterness. But she was adamant that she would not forgive her mother.

The grace of God’s judgment is promised to us here in Romans 12 as a means of helping us overcome such a deadly spirit of revenge and bitterness.

Paul’s argument is that we can be sure that all wrongs will be dealt with by God and that we can leave the matter in his hands because vengeance belongs to the Lord. To motivate us to lay down our vengeful desires he gives us a promise: “I will repay, says the Lord.”

The promise that frees us from an unforgiving, bitter, vengeful spirit is the promise that God will settle our accounts. He will do it more justly and mercifully and more thoroughly than we ever could. He punishes all sin. Nobody gets away with anything. He punishes it either in Christ on the cross for those who repent and trust him, or in hell for those who don’t. Therefore, we can back off and leave room for God to do his perfect work.

DO NOT REASON GOD’S WORD!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY JULY 04, 2021.

SUBJECT: DO NOT REASON GOD’S WORD!

Memory verse: “Casting down arguments , and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ;” (Second Corinthians 10 vs 5.)

READ: First Corinthians 1 vs 18 - 25:

1:18: For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1:19: For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

1:20: Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

1:21: For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

1:22: For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;

1:23: but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;

1:24: But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

1:25: Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

INTIMATION:

To reap the inherent benefits in the Word of God, you must discourage any form of reasoning or arguing on God’s word as it appears to human reasoning or conception. God said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55 vs 8 - 9.) God’s knowledge and wisdom are far greater than any human’s. We are foolish to interpret or argue God’s Word using our sensual or human knowledge.

In accordance with our memory verse and the passage we read today, we must cast down reasonings (arguments or imaginations), for men have deified reasonings. The great reasoners of the world and the great philosophers of the world have gained the ascendancy over the human mind. Philosophy has never given anything of any value to the body of Christ—the Church. What we call our Christian philosophers are often men who denied the miraculous and the supernatural, always wanting to explain it away through sense knowledge activities and reasonings.

We are to cast down imaginations or reasonings, everything that sense knowledge has exalted against the Word of God, and we are to bring into captivity our thinking so we will think God's thoughts instead of man's thoughts. So we will be inspired by the Word of God rather than by the word of men. And it is in doing so that we reap immensely from the inherent power in the Word of God. When we submit to the Lord with total devotion, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to capture every thought and yield it to Christ. 

When exposed to ideas or opportunities that might lead to wrong desires, you have a choice. You can recognize the danger and turn away, or you allow unhealthy thoughts to take you captive. You capture your fantasies and desires when you honestly admit them to the Lord and ask Him to redirect your thinking. Ask God to give you the spirit of discernment to keep your thoughts focused on His truth.

God said in the Scripture, “Therefore, behold, I will do a marvelous work among the people, a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.” (Isaiah 29 vs 14.) 

Now, consider the Scripture in Romans 4 vs 19 - 21, "And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform."

Abraham looked at his body and saw it exactly as it was, impotent, a worn out thing. He looked at Sarah, another broken vessel. Yet looking unto the promise of God, he waxed strong. He counted that God could make good what He had promised.  Abraham moved into God's class. He counted the things that were not as though they were, and they became. He counted his body to be as good as it was at the age of thirty five years. He considered Sarah to be as young, and capable of bearing children. He counted the thing that was not as though it was, and it became.

Reason would have conquered had he yielded to it. Reason said "Tradition shows that no man has ever had youth renewed, that no woman past ninety years of age has ever had a child.” Yet this man believed against all the evidence of human reasoning or sense knowledge, and counted that God was able to make good what He had promised.

The Good News of Jesus Christ still sounds foolish to many. He will save us from eternal death and give us everlasting life if we trust Him as Savior and Lord. This sounds so simple that many people won’t accept it. They try other ways to obtain eternal life (being good, being wise, etc.). Jesus offers His kingdom to those who have faith, not to those who do all kinds of good deeds to try to earn salvation. This looks foolish to the world, but Christ is the mighty power of God, the only way we can be saved. Knowing Christ personally is the greatest wisdom anyone can have. The “foolish” people who simply accept Christ’s offer are actually the wisest of all, because they alone will live eternally with God.

Prayer: Abba Father, forever Your Word is settled in heaven. Endue me with the spirit of complete devotion to Your Word that there will not be room for any reasoning in it, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

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.