The Light Beyond the Light

 

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. (Colossians 3:1–2)

Jesus Christ is refreshing. So, seek the things that are above. Don’t replace Christ this summer with trifles. Flight from Christ into Christless leisure makes the soul parched.

At first it may feel like freedom and fun to skimp on prayer and neglect the word. But then we pay: shallowness, powerlessness, vulnerability to sin, preoccupation with trifles, superficial relationships, and a frightening loss of interest in worship and the things of the Spirit.

Don’t let the coming of summer make your soul shrivel. God made summer as a foretaste of heaven, not a substitute.

If the mailman brings you a love letter from your fiancé, don’t fall in love with the mailman. Don’t fall in love with the video preview and find yourself unable to love the coming reality.

Jesus Christ is the refreshing center of summer. He is preeminent in all things (Colossians 1:18), including vacations and picnics and softball and long walks and cookouts. He invites us this summer, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Do we want it? That is the question. Christ gives himself to us in proportion to how much we want his refreshment. “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

Peter’s word to us about this is, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19–20). Repentance is not just turning away from sin, but also turning toward the Lord with hearts open and expectant and submissive.

What sort of summer mindset is this? It is the mindset of Colossians 3:1–2, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

It is God’s earth! It is a video preview to the reality of what the eternal summer will be like when “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23).

The summer sun is a mere pointer to the sun that will be: the glory of God. Summer is for seeing and showing that. Do you want to have eyes to see? Lord, let us see the light beyond the light.

Five Digital Dangers

 

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:14)

Christians do not just coast through life like jellyfish floating in the current of contemporary culture. We live by the power of the Spirit and find our course by the word of God. We swim. Like dolphins, not jellyfish. Part of that course setting and power is expressed in thoughtful engagement with the digital realities of our day. Dangers included. Here are five.

1) The hook of constant curiosity

Digital devices offer a never-ending possibility for discovery. Even the basic operating systems can consume hours of curious punching and experimenting. Then there are the endless apps consuming weeks of your time as they lure you into their intricacies.

All this is very deceptive, giving the illusion of power and effectiveness, but leaving you with a feeling of emptiness and nervousness at the end of the day.

Resolution: I will strictly limit my experimental time on the device and devote myself more to truth than to technique.

2) The empty world of virtual (un)reality

How sad to see brilliant, creative people pouring hours and days of their lives into creating cities and armies and adventures that have no connection with reality. We have one life to live. All our powers are given to us by the real God for the real world leading to a real heaven and real hell.

Resolution: I will spend my constructive, creative energy not in the unreality of “virtual reality” but in the reality of the real world.

3) “Personal” relations with a machine

Like no other invention, a computer comes closest to being like a person. You can play games with it. It will talk to you. It will always be there for you. The great danger here is that we really become comfortable with this manageable electronic “person,” and gradually drift away from the unpredictable, frustrating, sometimes painful dealings with real human persons.

Resolution: I will not replace the risk of personal relationships with impersonal electronic safety.

4) The risk of tryst

“Tryst \’trist\ noun: An agreement (as between lovers) to meet.” Sexual affairs begin in private time together, extended conversation, and the sharing of soul, which can now be done in absolute seclusion through digital devices. You can think that “it’s just nothing” — until she (or he) shows up in town.

Resolution: I will not cultivate a one-on-one relationship with a person of the opposite sex other than my spouse. If I am single, I will not cultivate such a relationship with another person’s spouse.

5) Porn

More insidious that X-rated videos, we can now not only watch but join the perversity in the privacy of our own den. Interactive porn will allow you to “do it” or make them “do it” virtually.

I have never seen it. Nor do I ever intend to. It kills the spirit. It drives God away. It depersonalizes women. It quenches prayer. It blanks out the Bible. It cheapens the soul. It destroys spiritual power. It defiles everything.

Resolution: I will never open any app or website for sexual stimulation, nor purchase or download anything pornographic.

THE HARDENED HEART!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY MAY 17, 2022.

SUBJECT: THE HARDENED HEART!

Memory verse: "God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against Him and prospered?" (Job 9 vs 4.)

READ: Psalm 95 vs 6 - 11:

95:6: Oh come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

95:7: For He is our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. Today if you will hear his voice,

95:8: Do not harden your heart, as in the rebellion, and as in the day of trial in the wilderness:

959: When your fathers tested Me, they tried Me, though they saw My work.

95:10: For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways,’

95:11: So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest.

INTIMATION:

The hardening of heart is dulled spiritual perception. It’s refusing the Word of God—unwilling to keep HIs commands. Even Christians can be hard-hearted to Jesus’ words. We can be informed about what His Word says, and we can be amazed at how He has worked in other people’s lives, but we can refuse to believe He will come to our aid in our time of trouble. Such a reaction is not unbelief, but willful, hard-hearted rejection of Christ’s ability to help. 

Our hearts turn away from the living God when we stubbornly refuse to believe Him. If we persist in our unbelief, God will eventually leave us alone in our sin. To prevent having an unbelieving heart, stay in fellowship with other believers, talk daily about your usual mutual faith, be aware of the deceitfulness of sin (it attracts but also destroys), and encourage each other with love and concern. But our God is so merciful, He can give us new hearts, new desires, and new spirits (Ezekiel 36 vs 22 - 27). 

Spiritual hardening begins with self-sufficiency, security in one’s self, and self-satisfaction. The real danger is that at some point, repeated resistance to God will yield an actual inability to respond, which the Bible describes as a hardened heart. Insensitivity indicates advanced hardening.

A hardened heart is as useless as a hardened bread. Nothing can restore it or make it useful. The writer of Psalm 95 warns against hardening our hearts as Israel did in the wilderness by continuing to resist God’s will (Exodus 17 vs 7; Numbers 13; 14; 20) The people were so convinced that God couldn’t deliver them that they simply lost their faith in Him. People with hardened hearts are so stubbornly set in their ways that they cannot turn to God. 

The hardening of heart does not happen suddenly or all at once; it is the result of a series of choices to disregard God’s will; constant stubbornness to God’s will. The danger here is that those who resist God long enough, He will toss aside like hardened bread; useless and worthless.

God may harden further the hardened heart to confirm their own choices. This doesn’t mean that God is intentionally preventing them from believing in Him, rather it’s allowing them their own choice, and wallow in their permissible will. After a lifetime of resisting God, such people had become so set in their ways that they wouldn’t even try to understand Jesus’ message. For such people, it is virtually impossible to come to God—their hearts have been permanently hardened. 

The prophet Jeremiah tells such people to break up the hardness of their hearts as a plow breaks up unplowed ground—soil that has not been tilled for a season. When the heart becomes hardened to God’s will, the entrance of God’s Word becomes very difficult. Unless the heart is broken and cleaned up, the good seed of God’s Word can’t take root. We must remove our heart-hardening sin if we expect God’s Word to take root and grow in our lives. Old habits and hidden sins had to be uprooted and rejected.

Hardened heart keeps us from God’s ultimate blessings; “entering His rest.” The hardened heart is an ungrateful hearts, not worshipping or submitting to God, always trying God’s patience because of stubborn doubts. It’s very sinful and rebellious to God to harden our hearts. Instead we should reject the glamour of sin and anything else that would lead us away from God.

Here are some warning signs of a hardened heart: (1) willful disobedience (see Exodus 4 vs 21), (2) Having wealth and prosperity that leads to taking God’s blessings for granted, and cause us to feel as if they were owed to us (see Deuteronomy 8 vs 6 - 14), (3) Rebelling and being discontented due to suffering or discomfort that creates an attitude that blames God (see Psalm 95 vs 8), (4) Rejecting a deserved rebuke (Proverbs 29 vs 1), (5) Refusing to listen which leads to a loss of spiritual hearing. (Zechariah 7 vs 11 - 13). (6) Failing to respond—listening to God with no intention of obeying produces an inability to obey (Matthew 13 vs 11 - 15).

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of obedience and absolute trust in You, for I know that Your thought for me is of good and not of evil, always thinking of the best for me which I may not. By You all things consist, and may I never lean on my own understanding, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

The Freest Love

 “Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.” (Deuteronomy 10:14–15)

God’s electing love — the love by which he chooses a people for himself — is absolutely free. It is the gracious overflow of his boundless happiness guided by his infinite wisdom.

Deuteronomy 10:14–15 describes the delight God had in choosing Israel from all the peoples of the earth. Notice two things.

First, notice the contrast between verses 14 and 15. Why does Moses describe the election of Israel against the backdrop of God’s ownership of the whole universe? Why does he say in verse 14, “To God belongs everything in heaven and on earth” and then say in verse 15, “Yet he chose you for his people”?

The reason seems to be to get rid of any notion that God was somehow boxed in to choose this people — that there were some limits to his choosing and he was somehow forced to choose them. The point is to explode the pagan idea that a god may have the right and authority to have his own people but no more.

The truth is that Yahweh is the only true God. He owns everything in the universe and has the right and authority to take any people he wants for his own special possession.

Thus the unspeakably wonderful truth for Israel is that he chose them. He did not have to. He had rights and privileges to choose absolutely any people on the face of the earth for his redeeming purposes. Or all of them. Or none of them.

Therefore, when he calls himself “their God” he does not mean that he is on a par with the gods of Egypt or the gods of Canaan. He owns those gods and their peoples. If it had pleased him, he could have chosen a totally different people to accomplish his purposes.

The point of putting verses 14 and 15 together in this way is to stress the freedom and the universal rights and authority of God.

The second thing to notice (in verse 15) is the way God exercises his sovereign freedom to “set his heart in love on your fathers.” “He delighted in your fathers to love them.” He freely chose to take pleasure in loving the fathers.

God’s love for the fathers of Israel was free and merciful and wasn’t constrained by anything that the fathers were in their Jewishness or in their virtue.

This is a lesson for us. For us who are believers in Christ, God has chosen us just as freely. Not because of anything in us, but because God simply delighted to do it.

WHAT HAS THE LORD SAID?

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

MONDAY MAY 16, 2022.

SUBJECT: WHAT HAS THE LORD SAID?

Memory verse: "So David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I pursue this troop? Shall I overtake them?” And He answered him, “Pursue: for you shall surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.” (First Samuel 30 vs 8.)

READ: First Samuel 23 vs 1 - 5:

23:1: Then they told David, saying, “Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and they are robbing the threshing floors.”

23:2: Therefore David inquired of the LORD, saying, “Shall I go and smite these Philistines?” And the LORD said to David, “Go, and attack the Philistines, and save Keilah.”

23:3: But David's men said to him, “Look, we are afraid here in Judah. How much more then if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?”

23:4: Then David inquired of the LORD once again. And the LORD answered him and said, “Arise, go down to Keilah. For I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.

23:5: And David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and fought with the Philistines, struck them with a mighty blow, and took away their livestock. So David saved the inhabitants of Keilah.

INTIMATION:

What has the Lord said in that matter? What has He said in your situation? What has He said in that endeavor of yours? Such questions aforesaid are the beginning of a wise decision and action. Inquiring from the Lord puts us on a safe drive to God ordained destination. It makes us triumphant in all our life’s endeavors. This truth is known from ancient times.

God is the source of all truth. Whoever seeks the truth from Him will receive it and will be preserved from error. This is His promise. Knowledge of this led the faithful of ancient times to enter into communion with God when seeking the truth and the right ways. In ancient times they did not expect this communion to come about and to bring conviction by way of inner illumination, but by way of revelations of the truth received from without, and sent by the Lord in a manner perceptible to the human senses.

They inquired of God by means of human expedients, and were answered by Him through the same channel. They were well aware that the good spirit world in the service of God is the agent of His will, and that to consult the spirit beings of God's Kingdom is equivalent to inquiring of God Himself. They were equally well aware that there is such a thing as an evil spirit world, and daily experience had taught them the possibility of communicating with this also.  

      

At all times before the birth of Jesus Christ and in the early days of His era, the godly made liberal use of the privilege of inquiring of God. The writings of the Old and the New Testament abound in instances in which it is related that the faithful, when desirous of learning the truth, inquired of God and received their answers, transmitted to them through God's spirits. If you will open your Bible and carefully read through its Books one by one, you will find my statement confirmed. Wherever in the Scriptures you find a reference to inquiring of God, you will also find confirmation of the truth that God will send His answer, to all those who obey Him, turn to Him, and who appeal to Him for counsel, in a way that they can clearly understand.  

David was a classic example of a man who was extensively used to the practice of inquiring from God, and the results are known to all Bible scholars. David sought the Lord’s guidance before he took action. He listened to God’s directions and then proceeded accordingly. This is the way to go by all believers in God. This privilege is given to us by God Himself. He said, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33 vs 3.) 

David’s trust and confidence in God’s guidance among other things is unparalleled in the Scripture. David fought his battles the way God instructed him. In each instance he (1) asked if he should fight or not, (2) followed instructions carefully, and (3) gave God the glory. He never, at any point, tried helping God like King Saul. 

For Christians, we can err in our “battles” by ignoring these steps of David, and instead: (1) Do what we want without considering God’s will, (2) do things our way and ignore advice in the Bible or from other wise people, and (3) take the glory ourselves or give it to someone else without acknowledging the help we received from God. All these responses are sinful.

Wisdom demands that rather than trying to find God’s will after the fact or having to ask God to undo the results of our hasty decisions, we should take time to discern God’s will beforehand. We can hear Him speak through the counsel of others, His Word, and the leading of His Spirit in our hearts, as well as through circumstances.

For instance, David knew he would become king (First Samuel 16 vs 13; 23 vs 17; 24 vs 20), and although the time seemed right when Saul was dead, but David still asked God if he should move back to Judah, the home territory of his tribe (Second Samuel 2 vs 1). Before moving ahead with what seems obvious. He first brought the matter to God, who alone knows the best timing. This should be the pattern of all believers in Christ.

Only those who put their whole faith in Him and who look to Him for help, will God allow to inquire of Him.  But all those who hold communion with the ‘evil one’ and who look for help to the spirits of the Abyss, God will reject.  It is not the half-hearted, not those who today turn to God and tomorrow to evil, not those who today pray and devote tomorrow to wickedness, whose appeals for counsel God will answer.  This was true in olden times and it is true today.  

Prayer: Abba Father, the end is known to You from the beginning. Endue me with Your excellent spirit that I may seek You, and Your counsel at all time, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

What Is Meekness?

 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)

Meekness begins when we put our trust in God. Then, because we trust him, we commit our way to him. We roll onto him our anxieties, our frustrations, our plans, our relationships, our jobs, our health.

And then we wait patiently for the Lord. We trust his timing and his power and his grace to work things out in the best way for his glory and for our good.

The result of trusting God, and the rolling of our anxieties onto God, and waiting patiently for him is that we don’t give way to quick and fretful anger. But instead, we give place to wrath and hand our cause over to God and let him vindicate us if he chooses.

And then, as James says, in this quiet confidence we are slow to speak and quick to listen (James 1:19). We become reasonable and open to correction (James 3:17). James calls this “the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13).

Meekness loves to learn. And it counts the corrective blows of a friend as precious (Proverbs 27:6). And when it must say a critical word to a person caught in sin or error, it speaks from the deep conviction of its own fallibility and its own susceptibility to sin and its utter dependence on the grace of God (Galatians 6:1).

The quietness and openness and vulnerability of meekness is very beautiful and very painful. It goes against all that we are by our sinful nature. It requires supernatural help.

If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ — if you trust him and commit your way to him and wait patiently for him — God has already begun to help you and will help you even more.

And the primary way that he will help you is to assure your heart that you are a fellow heir of Jesus Christ and that the world and everything in it is yours (1 Corinthians 3:21–23). The meek inherit the earth.

FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY MAY 15, 2022.

SUBJECT: FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH!

Memory verse: "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." (First Timothy 6 vs 12.)

READ: Second Timothy 4 vs 6 - 8:

4:6: For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.

4:7: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

4:8: Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will give me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

INTIMATION:

Christianity is religion that anchors on our faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ—His Son, and the exercising of that faith in our day to day life. It is not a passive religion that advocates waiting for God to act while we watch. Your believe or faith must be active; training, working hard, sacrificing, and doing what you know is right. 

Christianity is a faithful calling by God into relationship with Him, and fellowship with His Son. He is calling you to come and walk with His Son, to live with Him, to carry on the Son's work in His absence. Our discipline and obedience largely define whether or not we will be contributors or merely spectators.

The obedience and discipline associated in this “calling” is hard work. But the beauty of the work is that you are not alone; an Helper—the Holy Spirit, has been freely given to us by God the Father and the Son to help us in the fight. To fight the good fight of faith is to allow faith do its work in you. It’s to contend perseveringly against opposition and temptations of your faith in God. 

As Christians, we are running toward our heavenly reward. The essential disciplines of prayer, Bible study, and worship equip us to run with vigor and stamina. Don’t merely observe from the grandstand, don’t just turn out to jog a couple of laps each morning. Train diligently—your spiritual progress depends upon it.

The main elements of faith in its relation to the invisible God, as distinct from faith in man, are (1) a firm conviction, producing a full acknowledgement of God’s revelation or truth; (2) a personal surrender to Him; (3) a conduct inspired by such surrender. In fighting a good fight of faith, all these elements are given prominence in the life of the believer.

As followers of Christ, our goal is to know Him, to be like Him, and to be all He has in mind for us. This goal should take all of our energies, and not let anything take our eyes off our goal—knowing Christ. With the single-mindedness of an athlete in training, we must lay aside everything harmful and forsake anything that may distract us from being effective Christians. When you are totally committed to serving Christ, sacrificing to build the faith of others brings a joyous reward.

The Christian life takes hard work, self-denial, and grueling preparation. Anyone who is lazy and timid cannot carry out the struggles of warfare in which a disciple is constantly engaged. Godly passion is having goals and energy to accomplish those goals. It requires us to give up whatever endangers our relationship with God, to run with endurance, and to struggle against sin with the power of the Holy Spirit. To live effectively, we must keep our eye on Jesus. We will stumble if we look away from Him to stare at ourselves or at the circumstances surrounding us. We should be running for Christ, not ourselves, and we must always keep Him at sight.

The winning streak in our faith fight is self-discipline, and it requires an honest look at your strengths and weaknesses, with emphasis on the latter. It means building the will to say no when a powerful appetite inside you screams yes. For example, when you have self-discipline, you can (1) say no to friends or situations that will lead you away from Christ, (2) say no to casual sex, saving intimacy for marriage, and (3) say no to laziness in favor of “can do” and “will do.” 

Self-discipline is a long, steady course in learning attitudes that do not come naturally, and also channeling natural appetites toward God’s purposes. We can lose our privilege of telling others about Christ in our self-disqualification by not living rightly. It is easy to tell others how to live, then not to take our own advice. We must be careful to practice what we preach.

The Scripture, in Hebrews 12 vs 1 - 2, is a perfect reference to encourage us in the fight. It says, “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

We have read in the Bible of many that fought the good fight of faith and prevailed (See Hebrews chapter 11), and have so many great cloud of witnesses around us today. This simply tells us it is doable. To effectively run the race that God has set before us, we must not let anything deter us; life’s circumstances, worldly pleasures, and pressures. We must strip off the excess weight that slows us down. 

How can we do that? (1) Be God-focused, “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” (2) On worldly pleasures and pressures, drop certain activities that are distractions to your heavenly race, choose friends who are also committed to the race. Wrong friends will have values and activities that may deter you from the course. Much of your own weight may result from the crowd you run with. Make wise choices. (3) Get help for addictions that disable you. For instance, if you have a secret weight such as photography, gambling, or alcohol, admit your need and get help today.

Prayer: Abba Father, endue me with the spirit of obedience and steadfastness that I will fight the good fight of faith, putting my hope in my desired final destination—eternal life with You, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!