Dependable in the Mundane

 

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33)

One of the most powerful testimonies to the all-sufficiency of God’s future grace is the “faith principle” that has governed the lives of so many missionaries, notably those of Overseas Missionary Fellowship (OMF).

Without condemning those who follow a different pattern, it has been the practice of those who follow in the steps of Hudson Taylor and George Mueller to move the hearts of supporters to give by directing their requests to God and not to people.

James H. Taylor, the great-grandson of the founder of OMF, explains how this faith in future grace, rooted in demonstrations of bygone grace, honors God.

We . . . begin from a position of faith. We believe God does exist. We have become convinced of this in a variety of ways, but all of us have experienced the grace of God in bringing us to know Himself through Jesus Christ and through rebirth by His Spirit. We believe we have good grounds for believing in Him through the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead: we believe that someone who said He would die and rise again, and did it, is credible in every other way. Therefore we are prepared to trust Him, not only for the eternal salvation of our souls, but also for the practical provision of our daily bread and financial support.

OMF publishes testimonies of God’s amazing faithfulness to demonstrate the glory of his all-supplying future grace. “We want to demonstrate that God can be trusted to do all that He says He will do, by sharing how He has provided for such mundane needs as plane tickets, meals, medical expenses, and the regular support of a whole group of Christian people for well over a hundred years.”

What OMF is devoted to is glorifying the dependability of God — in their message and in their method. Hudson Taylor put it this way: “There is a living God. He has spoken in the Bible. He means what He says and will do all that He has promised.”

Lives of faith are the great mirror of the dependability of God.

TRUST NOT IN YOUR RICHES AND POSITION!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SUNDAY JUNE 05, 2022.

SUBJECT: TRUST NOT IN YOUR RICHES AND POSITION!

Memory verse: "Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10 vs 23.)

READ: Mark 10 vs 17 - 27: 

10:17: Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

10:18: So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

10:19: You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ Do not defraud,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’”

10:20: And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I kept from my youth.”

10:21: Then Jesus, looking at him loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

10:22: But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

10:23: Then Jesus looked around, and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter into the kingdom of God!”

10:24: And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again, and said to  them, “Children, how hard is it for those who trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God!

10:25: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

10:26 And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, “Who then can be saved?”

10:27: Then looking at them Jesus said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God. For with God all things are possible.” 

INTIMATION:

The problem facing man is how can a sinful man approach an all-good God. Jesus answers, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14 vs 6). The gate that leads to eternal life is called “narrow.” This does not mean that it is difficult to become a Christian but that there is only one way to eternal life with God and that only a few decide to walk that road. Believing in Jesus is the only way to heaven, because He alone died for our sins and made us right before God. Living His way may not be popular, but it is true and right. 

Jesus said it was very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God because the rich, having their basic physical needs met, often become self-reliant—trusting in their riches. When they feel empty, they buy something new to try to fill the void that only God can fill. Their abundance and self-sufficiency become their deficiency. The person who has everything on earth can still lack what is most important—eternal life.

In the passage we read today, the disciples were astonished at the teaching of Jesus concerning the rich young ruler. Their beliefs were based on the erroneous concept that riches were in some way evidence of God’s favor, especially if such was combined with obedience to the law, as was the case with the young ruler. Whatever position he had as a ruler, the disciples evidently thought that such gave him an advantage in reference to salvation. If this young ruler could not be saved, then they reasoned that no one could. 

The disciples were wrong in their assumptions because their thinking was based on a wrong premise. Their believe that one’s wealth is a sign that God is working in one’s life is wrong. The conclusion that righteousness was based on perfect keeping of the law of God was also wrong. No man can justify himself before God by keeping law, for all sin (Galatians 2 vs 18).

The problem with the rich young ruler, therefore, was not with his outward manifestation of religiosity, but with his heart. In order to come into a right relationship with God, this particular rich person had to relieve himself of that which emotionally kept him from dependence on God. He was self-sufficient in his riches and self-confident in his performance of law from youth. He, therefore, felt that he did not need to trust in the grace of God. 

The second thing Jesus asked him to do was to follow Him. In order to do this he would have to give up whatever position he had as a ruler. For those who are in power, this is a difficult thing to do. In this case, it was too difficult for the young ruler. The rich young ruler was sad at Jesus’ saying; he realized that his problem was within his heart. He was not angry with Jesus for making the statement. He realized that his performance of the law from youth was not sufficient to establish a correct relationship with God. He had to deal with the problem of possessions and position that was a problem in his heart. He went away grieved in his spirit because at this time in his life he could not make this sacrifice to be a disciple.

The young man checked off all the right points of obedience. At least in reference to the commands Jesus stated, he said that he had observed the law. When one believes he has met all the requirements for justification before the Good God by keeping law, there is always something lacking. And it is this lack that will bring condemnation. In this particular case, it was the materialism and position of the rich young ruler that stood between him and God. 

Herein is the key concept of what the encounter with the rich young ruler brought to light: It is impossible for one to perform either law or good deeds in order to justify himself before God. The apostle Paul said that there is none righteous (Romans 3 vs 10). There is no one who can keep law perfectly in order to save himself. It is thus necessary that man’s impossibility to be holy be made possible by the grace of God. Therefore, rely not on your riches or position in life to earn you a the desired relationship with God that culminates into eternal life with Him. 

Prayer: Abba Father, You are my all. My absolute trust is in You. All I have You have given me, and all I am You have made me. You have the first place in my life, and so shall be all the days of my life, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

MAKE WISE CHOICES IN YOUR LIFE’S PURSUIT!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

SATURDAY JUNE 04, 2022.

SUBJECT: MAKE WISE CHOICES IN YOUR LIFE’S PURSUIT!

Memory verse: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the world that are in it will be burned up." (Second Peter 3 vs 10.)

READ: Luke 12 vs 16 - 21:

12:16: Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully.

12:17: And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ 

12:18: So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods.

12:19: And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”

12:20: But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you, then whose will those things be which you have provided?’

12:21: “So is he who lays up treasures for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

INTIMATION:

Every choice you make has eternal consequences, so you had better choose wisely. In our memory verse, the apostle Peter warns us about the futility of earthly possessions. Then he continued in the next verse (v 20), asking the pertinent question to us all, “Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?"

Realizing that the earth will be burned up, we should put our confidence in what is lasting and eternal and not be bound to earth and its treasures or pursuits. What are you obligated to? Do you spend more of your time piling up possessions, or striving to develop Christlike character? Now that we have been warned about the impending end, the choice is yours to make. Be morally clean and spiritually alert because you don’t know the hour of His coming!

Earthly possessions are not bad or evil in themselves, but the manner of your pursuit of them is where the problem lies. The Bible, in Ecclesiastes 7 vs 12 says, "For wisdom is a defense, as money is a defense: but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it." How wisely then do you pursue these earthly things? Do you pursue them with the excellent knowledge which comes from wisdom; knowing that at the end they are all vanity? 

Even life is a vapor, stripped of the life-giving spirit breathed into us by God, our bodies return to dust. Stripped of God’s purpose, our work is in vain. Stripped of God’s love, our service is futile. Therefore, we must put God first over all we do and in all we do because without Him we have nothing. Knowing that life is futile without God motivates the wise person to seek Him first.

Wealth, possessions, and money are all good, and the blessing of God to mankind, but we are deceived by the notion that they provide answers to every problem, hence we throw them at our problems. Though these material things are good in themselves because God has given them to mankind for our enjoyment (First Timothy 6 vs 17), but being obligated to them is sinful. The apostle Paul, in First Timothy 6 vs 10, says, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through many sorrows."

These earthly possessions, are dangerous because they deceive us into thinking that they make life easy, and help us get everything we want. Consequently, we put our trust in them rather than God, who controls all circumstances. Those who pursue the empty promises of earthly possessions, rather than seeking God, will one day discover that they have nothing because they are spiritually bankrupt.

Your life is shaped mostly by what you are obligated to. They can develop you or mar you, but either way, they will define you. If you tell me what you are obligated to, I'll tell you what you will be in the years to come. We become whatever we are obligated to.

Usually many people miss God's purpose for their lives at the point of committing themselves, or being obligated to their choice in life. Many are also afraid of getting committed or obligated to anything, and prefer to just drift through life. Many others

make half-hearted commitments to competing values, which leads to frustration and mediocrity. And many more make a full commitment to worldly goals, such as becoming wealthy or famous, and end up disappointed and bitter. Your total obligation should be to God who owns and controls all circumstances.

Guard against wrongful pursuit of these material things so as not to be a servant to them. They are created by God to serve you, and not you serve them, while you are created to serve God. When you loose your mark, you will serve them instead of God which is an error, and sinful. Jesus said in Matthew 6 vs 24, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."

Can you honestly say that God, not money, possessions, and wealth, is your master? One test is to ask which one occupies more of your thoughts, time, and efforts.

Prayer: Abba Father, all things are Yours, and by You all things consist. Endue me with the excellent spirit to put You first in all things, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen. 

PRAISE THE LORD!

What Makes God Proud

 

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)

I want very much for God to say to me what he said about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “I am not ashamed to be called your God.”

As risky as it sounds, does this not really mean that God might actually be “proud” to be called my God? Fortunately this wonderful possibility is surrounded (in Hebrews 11:16) by reasons: one before and one after.

Take the one after, first: “God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.”

The first reason he gives why he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has done something for them. He made them a city — the heavenly city “whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). So, the first reason he is not ashamed to be called their God is that he has worked for them. Not the other way around.

Now, consider the reason he gives in the front. It goes like this: “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.”

“Therefore” signals that a reason has just been given for why God is not ashamed to be called our God. The reason is their desire. They desire a better country — that is, a better country than the earthly one they live in; namely, a heavenly one where God is.

When we desire this heavenly city — this dwelling place of God — more than we desire all that this world can give, God is not ashamed to be called our God. When we make much of all that he promises to be for us, he is proud to be our God. This is good news.

So, open your eyes to the better country, the city of God that he has prepared for us, and let yourself desire it with all your heart. God will not be ashamed to be called your God.

A BIG AMEN

 

Faith for the Impossible

 

He grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:20–21)

Paul has in mind a special reason why faith glorifies God’s future grace. Simply put, the reason is that this God-glorifying faith is a future-oriented confidence in God’s integrity and power and wisdom to follow through on all his promises.

Paul illustrates this faith with Abraham’s response to the promise of God: that he would be the father of many nations even though he was old and his wife was barren (Romans 4:18). “In hope he believed against hope,” that is, he had faith in the future grace of God’s promise, in spite of all human evidences to the contrary.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:19–21)

The faith of Abraham was a faith in the promise of God to make him the father of many nations. This faith glorified God because it called attention to all the omnipotent, supernatural resources of God that would be required to fulfill it.

Abraham was too old to have children, and Sarah was barren. Not only that: How do you turn a son or two into “many nations,” which God said Abraham would be the father of? It all seemed totally impossible.

Therefore, Abraham’s faith glorified God by being fully assured that he could and would do the humanly impossible. This is the faith we are called to have. That God will do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

COVET EARNESTLY THE SPIRIT OF GIVING!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

FRIDAY JUNE 03, 2022.

SUBJECT: COVET EARNESTLY THE SPIRIT OF GIVING!

Memory verse: "For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.” (Second Corinthians 8 vs 12.)

READ: Mark 12 vs 41 - 44

12:41: Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much.

12:42: Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrants.

12:43: So He called his disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury:

12:44: for they all put in our of their abundance; but she out of her put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.

INTIMATION:

Giving is love in action and love is the common thread that runs through every human being. Love is the nature of God, hence the Scripture says “God is love” (First John 4 vs 8). This nature of God fully manifested in His giving—giving of His only begotten Son to the world as a propitiation for our sins. The true spirit of giving is the true nature of human beings bestowed on us by God through love. Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others. (Proverbs 11 vs 24.) 

Christianity is not about receiving, but about giving. Those who come to Jesus must check their motives lest they are motivated to associate with the people of God in order to see what they can receive. The true Christian lives to give, not to re­ceive. Every day he prays, "Lord, open my eyes that I may see opportunities to serve, and make my heart willing in the day of Your power." So let us go on giving and praying, fulfilling God's plan now, as it was fulfilled before our day.

The spirit of all giving is love. When one gives grudgingly, or of necessity, there is little regard. The heart must be right with God to make giving a pleasure to the giver, and acceptable to the Lord—the ultimate receiver and final rewarder. To the true Christian, giving is a very part of his life. To him it is meat and drink; it is joy and peace. Every offering is a new privilege, every call a new opportunity; and to plan for these offerings, to deny self to meet these oppor­tunities, is a part of the richest Christian experience.

The spirit of giving produces inward joy and spiritual growth. God’s gift of grace should move us to willingly respond to the needs of others. As God responded to our need of salvation through His free gift of grace, we should learn that godliness responds in the same way to the physical needs of others. Christians who do not sacrificially contribute do not understand what they have received through the cross of Jesus, nor what they will receive in eternal glory. 

Our giving is a reminder of the blessings God gives us and gave to us through Jesus Christ." We find in John 3 vs 16, three thoughts that should be the foundation of all our giving. God's motivation for giving was love; he gave himself in the person of Jesus; and God gave in response to our need. Giving can inspire great positive change and healing in a world that deeply needs it. Spiritual and religious leaders espouse the blessings of giving for a reason—it has the power to immediately shift one into a state of grace.

Though sacrificial giving attracts the grace of God, but Sacrificial giving must be responsible. The apostle Paul says that we should give of what we have, not what we don’t have. He wants believers to give generously, but not to the extent that those who depend on the givers (their families, for example) must go without having their basic needs met. Give until it hurts, but don’t give so that it hurts your family and/or relatives who need your financial support. 

Your willingness to give enthusiastically is more important than the amount you give. You should give in response to Christ, not for anything you can get out of it. How you give reflects your devotion to Christ. Christianity is of little value to those who are not willing to sacrifice for their faith. Through sacrifice comes growth. But those who are not willing to make sacrifices for their faith will experience little spiritual growth. As believers, we should consider increasing our giving—whether money, time, or talents—to a point beyond convenience or calculation.

Too often, poor believers complain about their economic situation, and thus, they neglect to manifest the spirit of giving what they have. However, those Christians who realize the tremendous gift of grace that God has given to them, and the eternal glory that is yet to come, will give out of their poverty. The spirit of giving is based on the concepts that Jesus taught on giving; since we have freely received God’s gift, freely we should give to others. If we violate the principle, then we will not grow spiritually in the favor of God. 

Prayer: Abba Father, I earnestly covet the spirit of giving that I may visibly manifest the love of God shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit to others in meeting their needs to the best of my ability, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!