His Timing Is Perfect

 

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may find grace for a well-timed help. (Hebrews 4:16, my literal translation)

I know this precious verse is usually translated, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” But that is a paraphrase — a true one — to show that God shows up just when we need him. But the literal focus is on how timely the help is.

All ministry is in the future — a moment away, or a month away, or a year, or a decade. We have ample time to fret about our inadequacy. When this happens, we must turn to prayer.

Prayer is the form of faith that connects us today with the grace that will make us adequate for tomorrow’s ministry. Timing really matters.

What if grace comes too early or comes too late? The traditional translation of Hebrews 4:16 does not make clear a very precious promise in this regard. We need a more literal rendering to see it. The promise is not merely that we find grace “to help in time of need,” but that the grace is well-timed by God.

The point is that prayer is the way to find future grace for a well-timed help. This grace of God always arrives from the “throne of grace” on time. The phrase “throne of grace” means that future grace comes from the King of the universe who sets the times by his own authority (Acts 1:7).

His timing is perfect, but it is rarely ours: “For a thousand years in [his] sight are but as yesterday when it is past” (Psalm 90:4). At the global level, he sets the times for nations to rise and fall (Acts 17:26). And at the personal level, “My times are in [his] hand” (Psalm 31:15).

When we wonder about the timing of future grace, we must think on the “throne of grace.” Nothing can hinder God’s plan to send grace when it will be best for us. Future grace is always well-timed.

WHAT KINDS OF FRUIT ARE YOU BEARING?

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY JULY 19, 2021.

SUBJECT: WHAT KINDS OF FRUIT ARE YOU BEARING?

Memory verse: "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?" (Matthew 7 vs 16.)

READ: Matthew 7 vs 17 - 20:

7:17: Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

7:18: A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.

7:19: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

7:20: Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

INTIMATION:

In the passage we read today, fruit metaphorically denotes works or deeds. The fruit being the visible expression of power working inwardly and invisibly, and the character of the fruit being evidence of the character of the power producing it. Our speech and actions largely reveal our true underlying beliefs, attitudes, and motivations which are the fruits in our lives. What is in your heart, that is, the fruit in your life, will come out in your speech and behavior. And usually the good impressions—the good fruit in your life—you make cannot last If we are being deceptive. 

What then are the visible expressions of the power working inwardly and invisibly in your life—the fruit in your life? As the visible expressions of hidden lusts are the works of the flesh, so is the invisible power of the Holy Spirit in those who are brought into living union with Christ and produces the fruit of the Spirit. 

But our lives can even be of no fruit, and God abhors such life. Now, see what Jesus did to a fig tree in Matthew 21 vs 18 - 19; “Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fid tree withered away.”

The question is why did Jesus curse the fig tree? Jesus was showing His anger on religion without substance—Christianity without results. Just as the fig tree looked good from a distance but was fruitless on close observation, so is Christianity without commensurate good works. If you only appear to have faith without putting it to work in your life, you are like the fig tree that withered and died because it bore no fruit; fruitful in appearance only but spiritually barren. Genuine faith means bearing fruit for God’s kingdom. 

In the Scripture, in John 15 vs 16, Jesus said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” As Christians, we are evaluated by the kind of fruit we bear. Good Christians consistently exhibit good behavior and high moral standards as they seek to live out the truths of the Scripture. Jesus is not expecting a perfect character, but rather a show of genuine commitment in the works of the Christian toward His kingdom. It is only Jesus that will perfect us on His return, but our sanctification is continuous until His return (Hebrews 10 vs 14).

The Scripture in John 15 vs 1 - 8, Jesus gave us requirements for a fruit bearing believer. “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15 vs 1 - 2; 4 - 5.)

Christ is the vine, the branches are His followers, and God is the vinedresser who cares for the branches to make them fruitful. The fruitful branches are true believers who by their living union with Christ produce much fruit. But those who become unproductive—those who turn back from following Christ after making a superficial commitment—will be separated from the vine because they are as good as dead and will be cut off and tossed aside. 

The fruit of Christian life are; godliness (crucified flesh with its passion and desires), faith, virtue, knowledge, perseverance, soul winning, answered prayer, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control. All these are unified character of the Lord, hence the Scripture usually refers to them singularly as “fruit,” instead of “fruits.” They are all in contrast with the confused, and often mutually antagonistic “work of the flesh.” They are referred to in the Scripture as “The fruit of righteousness,” that is, all of the character traits flowing from a right relationship with God (Philippians 1 vs 11). 

In Hebrews 12 vs 11, the fruit of righteousness is described as “peaceable fruit”; the outward effect of Divine chastening sown in peace in the believer. It is also called the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5 vs 22 -24). The fruit of the Spirit is the spontaneous work of the Holy Spirit in us. The Spirit produces these character traits that are found in the nature of Christ. They are the by-products of Christ’s control. To obtain the fruit, we must abide in Him  (join our life to His), we must know Him, believe in Him, receive Him as our Savior and Lord, love Him, obey Him, remember Him, and imitate Him. As a result we will fulfill the intended purpose of the law—to love God and our neighbors. 

Our desire as Christians should be to produce fruit in likeness of Christ and acceptable to God, and outlasts death. The Scripture, in Revelation 14 vs 13, says, “Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on’” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” God’s people should produce fruit that survives even death. Yes, God will only remember our love, kindness, faithfulness, and our kingdom advancement endeavors. While it is true that money, fame, and possessions are good, but they are abandoned here on earth when you die, and God does not reckon such for you, but is only mindful of what you achieved with them in your relationship with Him and others while you lived on earth. Now, the choice is yours. What kinds of fruit are you bearing?

Prayer: Abba Father, give me the grace to bear good fruits that survive even death, and are remarkable, and approved by You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

WHO WILL THE LORD SAY YOU ARE?

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY JULY 18, 2021.

SUBJECT: WHO WILL THE LORD SAY YOU ARE?

Memory verse: "Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?” (Job 1 vs 8.) 

READ: Job 1 vs 6 - 12:

1:6: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.

1:7: And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come? So Satan answered the LORD, and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”

1:8: Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God, and shuns evil?”

1:9: So Satan answered the LORD, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing?

1:10: Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

1:11: But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.”

1:12: And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.  

INTIMATION:

Have you ever thought of such idea or bothered about who God will say you are? Interestingly, this should be the most important question in everybody’s life, and requires a sincere answer from every one of us. This is because of the day of “Judgement” when every one will appear before Christ. The Bible says, ”For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what He has done, whether good or bad.” (Second Corinthians 5 vs 10.) And “As it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9 vs 27). 

Christ will judge each and everyone of us, both the living and the dead, and He will reward us for how we have lived. Although judgment is already working in our lives, there will be a future, final judgment when Christ returns (Matthew 25 vs 31 - 46), and everyone’s life will be reviewed and evaluated. For the believers, their eternal destiny is secure, but Jesus will look at how they handled gifts, opportunities, and responsibilities in order to determine their heavenly rewards. God’s gracious gift of salvation does not free us from the requirement of faithful obedience. Everybody, Christians and non-Christians,  must give account of how they lived before Christ.

The question is, “How will Christ see you?” Can He testify of your goodness, obedience, and faithfulness? In our memory verse, God testified about Job; He Inquired from Satan if he had seen His servant Job. God’s servants are faithful to Him in all they do. They serve Him with their whole lives. It was a great honor to Job; it placed him amongst His known servants as Moses and David. God was boastful about His servant Job, and reposed great confidence in him. 

Job was a model of trust and obedience to God, and because of God’s confidence in him, He permitted Satan to attack him in an especially harsh manner. God trusted Job not to cave in to Satan’s wicked ploys to make him doubt whom he believed. Can God say this of you? Can God repose such confidence in you as a believer? This calls for concern to each and every one of us.

Satan attacked Job with the false impression that Job was blameless and had integrity before God, because he had no reason to turn against God that had blessed him exceedingly. Ever since he had started following God, everything had gone well for Job. Satan wanted to prove that Job worshiped God, not out of love, but because God had given him so much. Although, it was an obvious falsehood about Job’s motives, Satan accurately analyzed why many people trust God. They are fair-weather believers, following God only when everything is going well or for what they can get. 

Adversity destroys this superficial faith. But adversity strengthens real faith by causing believers to dig their roots deeper into God in order to withstand the storms. How deep does your faith go? Put the roots of your faith down deep into God so that you can withstand any storm you may face.

Although God loves us, believing and obeying Him do not shelter us from life’s calamities. Setbacks, tragedies, and sorrows strike Christians and non-Christians alike. But in our tests and trials, God expects us to express our faith in Him to the world. How do you respond to your troubles? Do you ask God, “Why me?” or do you say, “Use me!”?

The conversation between God and Satan teaches us an important fact about God—He is fully aware of every attempt by Satan to bring suffering and difficultly upon us. While God may allow us to suffer for a reason beyond our understanding, He is never caught by surprise by our troubles and is always compassionate.

We should be concerned about how we live, and lead our lives hear on earth; our obedience, faithfulness, and trust in God in words and in deeds. We should also be mindful of what our fellow believers say or think of us, knowing that those who are faithful to the end will reign with Him as He judges the world. (See Revelation 2 vs 26 - 27).

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of raw obedience to You and Your Word, that I may be found worthy on the day of judgment, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

God’s Grace in Spiritual Gifts

 

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. (1 Peter 4:10)

When we use our spiritual gifts, we are stewarding grace — not yesterday’s grace, but today’s, arriving in every moment of need. And this future grace is “varied grace.” It comes in many colors and shapes and sizes. This is one of the reasons spiritual gifts in the body are so diverse. The prism of God’s gifts in your life will refract shades of divine glory that would never come through my prism.

There are as many future graces as there are needs in the body of Christ — and more. The purpose of spiritual gifts is to receive and dispense the future grace of God to those needs.

But someone may ask, “Why do you take Peter to refer to future grace? Doesn’t a steward manage a household store that is already on hand?”

The main reason I take Peter to refer to future grace is because the next verse illustrates how this works, and the reference there is to ongoing supplies of future grace. He says, “Whoever serves, [let him serve] by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). The word is “supplies,” not “supplied.” As you serve, serve in the power of the ongoing supply of God’s grace to do what you need to do.

When you fulfill your spiritual gift to serve someone tomorrow, you will be serving “by the strength that God supplies” — and the supply will be tomorrow, not today. “As your days, so shall your strength be” (Deuteronomy 33:25).

God goes on, day-by-day, moment-by-moment, supplying the “strength” in which we minister. He does this because the ongoing, inexhaustible supplier of power gets the glory. “Whoever serves, [let him serve] by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

PERFECT BLESSINGS BY PASTOR E A ADEBOYE

 

The Power to Profess Christ

 

With great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. (Acts 4:33)

If our ministry is to witness to Christ tomorrow in some unsympathetic situation, the key will not be our brilliance; the key will be abundant future grace.

Of all people, the apostles seemed to need least help to give a compelling witness to the risen Christ. They had been with him for three years. They had seen him die. They had seen him alive after the crucifixion. In their witnessing arsenal they had “many proofs” (Acts 1:3). You might think that, of all people, their ministry of witnessing, in those early days, would sustain itself on the strength of the past glories that were still so fresh.

But that is not what the book of Acts tells us. The power to witness with faithfulness and effectiveness did not come mainly from memories of grace; it came from the new arrivals of “great grace.” “Great grace was upon them all.” That’s the way it was for the apostles, and that’s the way it will be for us in our ministry of witnessing.

Whatever added signs and wonders God may show to amplify our witness to Christ, they will come the same way they came for Stephen. “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). Grace was arriving from God for all that Stephen needed — eventually all that he would need to die.

There is an extraordinary future grace and power that we may bank on in the crisis of special ministry need. It is a fresh act of power by which God “bore witness to the word of his grace” (Acts 14:3; see also Hebrews 2:4). The ever-arriving grace of power bears witness to the ever-given grace of truth.

SATAN’S PLAN AGAINST US—HIS 5Ds!

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY JULY 17, 2021.

SUBJECT: SATAN’S PLAN AGAINST US—HIS 5Ds! 

Memory verse: "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3 vs 5.)

READ: Genesis 3 vs 1 - 6:

3:1: Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

3:2: And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;

3:3: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”

3:4: Then the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die.

3:5: For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

3:6: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave her husband with her; and he ate.

INTIMATION:

Satan is our enemy. He will do anything he can to get us to follow his evil deadly path so as to break our relationship with God. He tempts us to give in to his kind of life and give up on God’s kind of life. Satan tempted Eve and succeeded in getting her to sin. Ever since then he is busy getting people to sin.

Satan’s plan against us is in five different ways, and I called them the 5Ds, namely; (1) Doubt—makes one question God’s Word and His goodness, (2) Discouragement— makes one look at one’s problems rather than at God, (3) Diversion—makes the wrong things seem attractive so that one will want them more than the right things, (4) Defeat—makes one feel like a failure so that one don’t even try, and (5) Delay—makes one put off doing something so that it never gets done. 

Adam and Eve fell to the devil’s temptation by his employing the doubt ploy. He tempted Eve by getting her to doubt God’s goodness. He implied that God was strict, stingy, and selfish for not wanting Eve to share His knowledge of good and evil. Satan made Eve forget all that God had given her, and instead, focus on what God has forbidden. We fall into trouble, too, when we dwell on what God forbids rather than on the countless blessings and promises God has given us. He convinced her to doubt God’s integrity, love, and care for them. She became convinced that they were shortchanged, and her way was better than God’s. 

Again Satan diverted their attention from the numerous good and wonderful provisions of God for them, to just that single restriction—the forbidden fruit. Consequently, they were discouraged to obeying God. Rather than concentrate on God, they centered their attention on what God forbade them to do. They became defeated, self-conscious, and hid themselves. Again they delayed or put off the obedience to God’s instruction, and tired to excuse and defend themselves. 

 

Satan’s 5Ds appeal to our lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and pride of life (First John 2 vs 16.) The same tricks he used on Eve; she saw that “the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), the fruit was “pleasant to the eye” (lust of the eye), and the fruit “desires to make one wise” (pride of life). To defeat Satan must crucify the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eye, and the pride of life. And this we can do by building a relationship with God. To build a relationship with God we must reverse these steps: (1) We must become convinced that God’s way is better than ours,(2) we must stop trying to hide from God, and (3) drop our excuses and self-defenses; 

The battle with Satan is a difficult, ongoing struggle. This will be a lifelong battle that will not be over until we are face-to-face with Christ. Victory over sin and temptation comes through faith in Jesus Christ, not through our own efforts. If we obey Jesus and align ourselves closely with God’s purposes, Satan can have no power over us. We cannot master sin in our own strength. Instead, we must turn to God to receive faith for ourselves and to turn other believers to receive encouragement and strength. The Holy Spirit, our Helper, will help us master sin.

Prayer: Abba Father, give me the grace to be steadfast in You, in complete obedience and trust in You, so that Satan’s ploys will be completely unconvincing to me, in Jesus’ Name I prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!