Amazed at the Resurrection

 

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder. (2 Peter 3:1)

As Easter approaches, let’s stir up our thankfulness and joy and admiration and amazement at what the resurrection of Jesus means for us. The curse of our fallen nature is that what once thrilled us becomes ordinary. The reality hasn’t changed. We have changed.

This is why the Bible exists. Peter says of his two letters that they are written to “stir up” or “arouse” by means of “reminder.”

So, let’s stir up our sincere minds by way of reminder.

What has God done in raising Jesus from the dead? Here are a few biblical answers.

Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we are born again to a living hope.

1 Peter 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Because of Jesus’s resurrection, he now has the glory for which we were made. Our ultimate destiny is to see him as he is.

1 Peter 1:21: “God . . . raised him from the dead and gave him glory.”

John 17:5, 24: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. . . . Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

May the risen Lord Jesus himself awaken and arouse your sincere mind to new depths of worship and allegiance and joy.

ESSENTIALS OF FAITH THAT PLEASES GOD!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2022.

SUBJECT : ESSENTIALS OF FAITH THAT PLEASES GOD!

Memory verse: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3 vs 16.)

READ: James 2 vs 20 - 26:

2:20: But do yo want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?

2:21: Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

2:22: Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?

2:23: And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the Friend of God.

2:24: Ye see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

2:25: Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

2:26: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

INTIMATION:

The Bible also shows us that not just any faith will do. We cannot expect God to be pleased with a faith just because we approve of it. The faith that pleases God is a belief that comes from God, not from some other source or from within ourselves. Therefore, the essentials of the faith that pleases God must be (1) Faith in Christ, (2) Obedient faith, (3) Faith that passes the test. 

1. Must be Faith in Christ. 

There is a popular idea that you need a genuine and enthusiastic faith of some kind, but it doesn't really matter what you believe. It could be a belief in yourself, or your guardian angel, or the spirits of your ancestors, or in the earth mother, or in a god, or in some great teacher. God teaches us however, that only faith in His Son Jesus Christ will be pleasing to Him. Since Jesus Christ is the only way to God, the Father, it is very essential for all people to have faith in Him (See John 3 vs 16 & 36; 14 vs 6). 

2. Must be obedient faith with works.

Though we are not justified by what we do in any way, but true faith always result in good deeds. Faith brings us salvation, active obedience demonstrates that our faith is genuine. The deeds referred to here is good deeds toward one’s fellow man. Such deeds are the manifestation of one’s faith. 

There is this popular idea is that faith stands alone and is not complemented by anything, certainly not by anything we do. It is a belief without works, and cannot be perfected by works. But this is not true. The Bible certainly teaches that works on their own, without belief, are useless. The apostle Paul especially makes this clear. However this does not mean that works are out of the question, because the Bible also certainly teaches that belief on its own, without works, is equally useless. James especially makes this clear. So we need to know that neither works alone nor belief alone will please God. (See James 2 vs 20 - 24.) 

3. Must be Faith that Passes life’s tests.

Another popular idea is that faith makes all troubles go away, and if you have troubles then this shows a lack of belief on your part. This was not true for Job. His troubles came because he had faith rather than because he lacked it. The same was true of the apostle Paul. Disciples of Christ may find their belief tested by troubles. This is not a time to question your belief, but rather a time to lean on it. A faith that endures through trials is pleasing to God.

The godly life in Christ brings persecution because Satan will rise up against all that God represents in this world. Certainly God uses Satan’s work against him, therefore, many trials are an occasion for spiritual growth and development of character. Since God uses Satan’s work against him, then persecution and trials manifest that God is going to use Satan’s work to accomplish something that is good in the life of every believer in that stead. (See James 1 vs 2 - 3; First Peter 5 vs 6 - 11.)

Let us, therefore, covet the faith that will make us well pleasing to God. The apostle Paul states thus; “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in his body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (Second Corinthians 5 vs 9 - 10.)

Prayer: Abba Father, thank You immensely for the gift of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and Your grace to build up myself on my most holy faith in Him. I most sincerely wish to covet the faith pleasing to You, that I may please You in my good works, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

The Kind of Cold That Kills

 

He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. (Psalm 147:15)

Tonight it will be forty degrees warmer in our kitchen freezer than it is outside here in Minneapolis. The high temperature tomorrow will be five degrees below zero (Fahrenheit). We receive this from the Lord’s hand.

He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs;
who can stand before his cold?
He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow and the waters flow.
(Psalm 147:15–18)

This is the kind of cold you do not play with. It kills.

When I came to Minnesota from South Carolina, I dressed for it. But I did not prepare life-saving support in my car in case of a breakdown.

One Sunday night on the way home from church, in this kind of cold, my car died. This was before cell phones. I had a wife and two small children in the car.

There was no one on this road. I suddenly realized, this is dangerous.

Soon it was very dangerous. No one came.

I saw in the distance through a fence a house. I am the father. This is my job. I climbed the fence and ran to the house and knocked on the door. They were home. I explained that I had a wife and two small children in the car, and asked if they would let us in. They did.

This is a kind of cold you do not play with.

It is one more way God says, “Whether hot or cold, high or deep, sharp or blunt, loud or quiet, bright or dark . . . don’t toy with me. I am God. I made all these things. They speak of me, just like the warm summer breezes do, and the gentle rains, and the soft moonlit nights, and the lapping of the lakeside, and lilies of the field and the birds of the air.”

There is a word for us in this cold. May the Lord give us skin to feel and ears to hear.

WE CANNOT KNOW GOD COMPLETELY!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 19, 2022.

SUBJECT : WE CANNOT KNOW GOD COMPLETELY!

Memory verse: "”Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him; nor can the number of His years be discovered." (Job 36 vs 26.)

READ: Job 11 vs 7 - 9:

11:7: Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the Almighty?

11:8: They are higher than heaven—what can you do? Deeper than Shoel—what can you know?

11:9: Their measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.

INTIMATION:

One theme in the poetic literature of the Bible is that God is incomprehensible; we cannot know Him completely. We can have some knowledge about Him, for the Bible is full of details about who God is, how we can know Him, and how we can have an eternal relationship with Him. But we can never know enough to answer all of life’s questions, to predict our own future, or to manipulate God for our own ends. Life always creates more questions than we have answers, and we must constantly go to God for fresh insights into life’s dilemmas. 

God will never be known absolutely, but we can know things about Him that are absolutely true, so much so that we can be willing to live and die for those beliefs. God has provided knowledge of Himself that is personal, relational, and sufficient for fruitful, faithful, godly living. No one will ever be able to say he lacked the necessary revelation to know God and to start living as God intends.

Because God can never be fully known, those who seek to know God should be deeply humbled in the process, realizing that they will always have more to learn. The appropriate response to God is a heart of wonder and awe in light of His incomprehensible greatness.

God’s incomprehensibility also means that beliefs can be held with firm conviction even though they may be filled with inexplicable mystery. God has given us a glimpse of the perfection of His creation. But it is only a glimpse, we cannot see into the future or comprehend everything. So we must trust God now and do His work on earth. 

The tremendous truth is that faith in God is more important than our desire to know the reason behind any predicament we find ourselves in. God is sovereign over all of nature and over our lives. God is in control—He directs, preserves, and maintains His created order. Although we can’t see it, God is divinely governing the moral and political affairs of people as well. By spending time observing the majestic and intricate parts of God’s creation, we can be reminded of His power in every aspect of our lives. 

The incomprehensibility of God is majorly due to: 1. God is infinite and His creatures are finite. By definition, creatures depend on their Creator for their very existence and are limited in all aspects. Yet God is without limitations in every quality he possesses. This Creator/creature, infinite/finite gap will always exist. 

2. The perfect unity of God’s attributes is far beyond the realm of human experience. God’s love, wrath, grace, justice, holiness, patience, and jealousy are continually functioning in a perfectly integrated yet infinitely complex way. 

3. The effects of sin on the minds of fallen humans also greatly inhibit the ability to know God. The tendency of fallen creatures is to distort, pervert, and confuse truth and to use, or rather abuse, it for selfish ends rather than for God’s glory. 

4. A final reason God can never be fully known is that in His sovereign wisdom God has chosen not to reveal some things: “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29 vs 29). 

God is beyond the comprehension of man, and thus He is not the invention of man. God’s ways are unsearchable by man because He does not deal with man after the nature of the flesh. He does not deal with man after the nature by which man often deal unmercifully with one another in man-made religions. Only those who are frustrated in their efforts to understand God fully, or want God to behave as they so choose, seek to create false gods whom they can understand. 

In heaven, God’s incomprehensibility will no doubt be lessened when the effects of sin no longer ravage minds, and when He will most likely share some of His secrets. However, God will always be infinite and humans will always be finite, so He will always be beyond human ability to know exhaustively.

Prayer: Abba Father, You are beyond human comprehension, Your ways past finding out. One thing I know is that Your thoughts for me are of good, and not of evil. My absolute trust is in You. What You can’t do for me, let it remain undone. What You can’t give me, may I never have it. My faith is completely anchored on You, and may nothing take my attention off You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

UNBELIEF IS THE CAUSE OF NOT ENTERING GOD’S REST!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2022.

SUBJECT : UNBELIEF IS THE CAUSE OF NOT ENTERING GOD’S REST!

Memory verse: "For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it." (Hebrews 4 vs 2.)

READ: Hebrews 4 vs 1 - 7:

4:1: Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 

4:2: For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

4:3: For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

4:4: For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works";

4:5: And again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest."

4:6: Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience,

4:7: Again He designates a certain day, saying to David, "Today," after such a long time, as it had been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts."

INTIMATION:

The Bible says that, when people hear God's Word but do not believe it, "the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Unbelief results in disobedience. One cannot claim to believe in God if he or she does not obey the will of God—the Word of God. If the Christian’s faith does not move him or her to continue to obey the will of God, he or she will not enter into God’s final rest of heaven. 

Many of the Christians filling our churches today know a great deal about Christ, but they do not know Christ personally—they do not combine their knowledge with faith. They do not believe completely in Him and do not act on what they know. Consequently, they turn back on the promises of God, and doubt that God would fulfill His promises. Especially when a problem shows up in their life, they will be overwhelmed by the difficulties of the present moment, and allow that to overshadow the reality of God's promise. They are tempted to trust in their abilities to handle their problems. Never trust in your efforts that are never adequate, but rather on Christ’s unfailing power, or else you can be in danger of turning back.

What keeps us from God's ultimate blessings ("entering His rest")? (1) Not worshipping or submitting to Him. (2) Hardening our hearts, especially to sin. (3) Trying God's patience because of stubborn doubts. (4) Ungrateful hearts—not being thankful. In the passage we read today, the Bible warns us not to harden our hearts, but to reject the glamour of sin and anything else that would lead us away from God. 

Although the works of the promised rest were finished from the foundation of the world, only those who believe do enter that rest (do obtain His promised blessings). God even swore in His anger that the unbelieving hearts would not enter His rest (Psalm 95 vs 11). For the Christians that believes, the apostle Paul has a word for you in First Thessalonians 2 vs 13, "For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe." The Word only works in the life of those who believe.

God wants us to enter His rest; to be at peace with Him now and rest eternally with Him later. He offers the opportunity to enter His ultimate place of rest, that is, invites us to come to Christ. To enter His rest, you must believe that God has this relationship in mind for you (Jeremiah 29 vs 11). It is not subject to your creating it; it is already in place, and you must trust in Christ for it; and you must determine to obey Him. We do not need to wait to for the next life to enjoy God's rest and peace; we may have it daily now! Our daily rest in the Lord will not end with death, but will become an eternal rest in the place that Christ is preparing for us.

Prayer: Abba Father, You have said it, I believe it, and that settles it. In Christ Jesus I have rest round about, and in Him I live, and move, and have my being. Give me the grace never to shift my focus on Christ at anytime. Blessed be Your name forever, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

When You Are Immortal

 

When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. (Acts 23:12)

What about those hungry fellows who promised not to eat till they had ambushed Paul?

We read about them in Acts 23:12, “When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.” It didn’t work. Why? Because a string of unlikely events happened.

A boy overheard the plot. The boy was the son of Paul’s sister. The boy had the courage to go to the Roman centurion guarding Paul. The centurion took him seriously and brought him to the tribune. The tribune believed him and prepared “two hundred soldiers, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen” to take Paul to safety.

Every one of those events was highly unlikely. Strange. But that’s what happened.

What had those hungry men lying in ambush overlooked? They failed to reckon with what happened to Paul just before they made their plot. The Lord appeared to Paul in prison and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome” (Acts 23:11).

Christ said Paul was going to Rome. And that was that. No ambush can stand against the promise of Christ. Until he got to Rome, Paul was immortal. There was a final testimony to be given. And Christ would see to it that Paul would give it.

You too have final testimony to give. And you are immortal until you give it.

The Sweet Designs of God

 He set me apart before I was born, and called me by his grace. (Galatians 1:15)

Ponder the conversion of Paul, the sovereignty of Christ, and what Paul’s sins have to do with your salvation.

Paul said that God “set me apart before I was born,” and then, years later, on the Damascus road, “called me by his grace” (Galatians 1:15). This means that between Paul’s birth and his call on the Damascus road he was an already-chosen, but not-yet-called, instrument of God (Acts 9:15; 22:14).

This means that Paul was beating and imprisoning and murdering Christians as a God-chosen, soon-to-be-made-Christian missionary.

As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 22:6–7)

There was no denying or escaping it. God had chosen him for this before he was born. And now he would take him. The word of Christ was sovereign. There was no negotiating.

Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do. (Acts 22:10)

Damascus was not Paul’s final, free will yielding to Christ after decades of futile divine effort to save him. No. God had a time for choosing him (before he was born) and a time for calling him (on the Damascus road). God called, and the call produced the yielding.

Therefore, the sins that God permitted between Paul’s birth and his calling were part of the plan, since God could have called him sooner.

Do we have any idea what the plan for those sins might have been? Yes, we do. They were permitted for you and me — for all who fear that they might have sinned themselves out of grace. Here’s the way Paul relates his sins to your hope:

Formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. . . . But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:13, 16)

Oh, how sweet are the designs of God in the sovereign salvation of hardened, hopeless sinners!