TRUST IN THE LORD COMPLETELY!

 

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 20, 2025.

SUBJECT: TRUST IN THE LORD COMPLETELY!

Memory verse: "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind s stayed on You, because he trusts in You." (Isaiah 26 vs 3.)

READ: Psalm 125 vs 1 - 2:

Psalm 125:1: Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

125:2: As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever.

INTIMATION:

Trusting in the Lord completely means having faith that He knows what is best for your life, you are certain He will keep His promises, help you with problems, and do the impossible when necessary. Trusting in the Lord completely pleases Him. When you put your absolute trust in the Lord, He will surround you as the mountains surround the city of Jerusalem. You will confidently say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress." Those who trust in the Lord completely have the same claim and experience expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 91; the perfect expression of the result of our absolute trust in God. Recite Psalm 91 daily in assurance of your trust in Him.

The reason we trust in the Lord is because He is an unchanging God. As the mountain remains unmoved so do the consistency of our God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Malachi 3 vs 6; Hebrews 13 vs 8). And because "The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy," (Psalm 147 vs 11), He surrounds His people now and forever. You are continually in His presence. And "In His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore." (Psalm 16 vs 11.)

Noah was one of the people that trusted in the Lord. Even when God asked him to do something that made no sense to him, he trusted God and obeyed. Noah knew nothing about flood because there has been no rain before that time, so he knew nothing about rain. He has never seen an ark or built a ship before, but obeyed the instructions God gave him and adhered strictly to the measurements and materials God told him to use. 

Obviously Noah was faced with three problems that could have caused him to doubt. First, he had never seen rain and by extension flood, because prior to the flood, God irrigated the earth from the ground up. (See Genesis 2 vs 5 - 6.) Second, Noah lived hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. Even if he could learn to build a ship, how would he get it to the water? Third, there was the problem of rounding up all the animals and then caring for them. But he didn't complain or make excuses. 

He trusted God completely, and that made God smile at him. It took Noah 120 years to build the ark. I imagined he faced many discouraging days. With no sign of rain year after year, he was ruthlessly criticized as a ‘crazy man who thinks God speaks to him.’ I imagined Noah's children were often embarrassed by the giant ship being built in their front yard. Yet Noah kept trusting God.

Trust is an act of worship. Just as parents are pleased when the children trust their love and wisdom, your faith makes God happy. And without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11 vs 6.) Trusting in the Lord completely pleases Him, and consequently He ensures you are kept in perfect peace that surpasses all human understanding. 

We can never avoid strife around us in this world, but with God we can know perfect peace even in turmoil. When we are devoted to Him, our whole attitude is steady and stable. Supported by God's unchanging love and mighty power, we are not shaken by the surrounding chaos. Do you want peace? Keep your thoughts and your trust in God. The secret of stability is to trust in God, because He never changes. He cannot be shaken by the changes in our world, He is in control, and He endures forever. Therefore, do not trust in the world of varying circumstances but on God who controls all circumstances.

Prayer: Abba Father, in You I put my whole trust. Whatever You can’t do for me, let it remain undone, whatever You can’t give me, may I never have it, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

Amazed at the Resurrection

 Amazed at the Resurrection

1This 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.

The Kind of Cold That Kills

 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.

REMISSION AND FORGIVENESS OF SIN!

 EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 19, 2025.

SUBJECT: REMISSION AND FORGIVENESS OF SIN!

Memory verse:  "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (First John 1 vs 9.) 

READ: Hebrews 10 vs 16 - 18:

10:16: “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,”

10:17: Then He adds, “Their sins  and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

10:18: Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

INTIMATION:

It is noteworthy that it was God's Nature that was not available to man in creation. Man was created in God's image and after His likeness, but God's Nature wasn't given then to man. The absence of God's nature in man enabled Satan to influence him, led him to sin, and became his ruler. God, in realization of this, recreated man and gave him His Nature, that now Satan has no dominion over him again. This is the fallout of Christ's finished work of redemption wrought by God Himself. 

In the passage we read today, God, in His infinite mercy, planned to take away (remit) our sins, that is, it is blotted out completely as if it never existed, and that He remembers them no more. He wrought this in Christ finished work as a propitiation for our sins. The work was finished, and accepted when He sat down at the Right Hand of the Father on high. We could see that the new creation is brought into being by the Life and Nature of God, and this new creation is awaiting every unsaved man. 

It is very important that we understand the difference between forgiveness and the remission of sin. A man receives remission of sins when he is Born Again (Spiritual rebirth). This is consequent upon his accepting the finished work of Christ on the cross for us, and  confessing Christ as his Lord and Savior. Subsequently, one may receive forgiveness of sin after one is Born Again as often as one sins, and confesses your sin to Christ, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

When we come to Christ by confessing Him as our Lord and Savior, God forgives and remits all the sins we have committed, and we don't need to fear that God will reject us if we don't keep our state perfectly clean thereafter. Once we confess Christ, our relationship with God is secure. Our continuing in confessing our sins is not because our failure to do so will make us lose our salvation, but for us to enjoy maximum fellowship and joy with Him.

True confession also involves a commitment not to continue in sin. We wouldn't be genuinely confessing our sins to God if we planned to commit them again and just wanted temporary forgiveness. We should also pray for strength to defeat temptation the next time we face it. As  “Born Again,”the Holy Spirit will begin to give you the enablement to overcome temptations. It may be a gradual process.

It is therefore, necessary we appreciate Ephesians 2 vs 8 - 9 that says, "For by grace we have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is a gift from God, and not of works lest any man should glory." The new creation does not come through our repentance or the surrendering of ourselves or the confession of our sins, but it comes by grace, pure and simple. All we do is to accept it. It is ours, a gift based upon legal grounds.

Then what is grace? It is the unmerited favor of God. It is God's love for us unveiled in our redemption. It is the hungry heart of God assuming man's sins; assuming the responsibility of man's creation, acting as though He were guilty of every sin that man committed. No works that man could do would have any value. Why? Because every man was spiritually dead and the good things that he would do to redeem himself would be the works of a spiritually dead man.

But God comes in the person of His Son, and that Son becomes sin on our behalf, assumes all that man had ever done and ever was, and meets the claims of justice on our behalf (‘The soul who sins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18 vs 4)), satisfies the need for fallen man. He defeated death by His resurrection and ascended to heaven where He sits down at the Right Hand of the Father (the hand of authority with all authorities handed over to Him), and sends the Holy Spirit Who convicts men through the Word, and recreates them.

It is this great event of God, now on legal grounds, that imparts on man God’s Own Nature and make him a new creation. Only God can do this; imparting His Nature and Eternal life on man. Natural man is without God. He is without hope, and is in the world, and is Satan-ruled. 

Prayer: Abba Father, I will ever be grateful for the finished work of Christ in redeeming me, and the privilege of sonship given to me by You. May my recreated spirit ever thirst for You, in all wisdom and prudence, in Jesus’ Name I prayed, Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD!

When You Are Immortal

 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.

SERVE GOD WITH YOUR ALL!

 

EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!

TUESDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2025.

SUBJECT: SERVE GOD WITH YOUR ALL!

Memory verse: "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.” (Mark 12 vs 30.)

READ: Mark 12 vs 30 - 31:

12:30: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

12:31: And the second, like it, is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.

INTIMATION:

God is mindful of our conduct in our obedience to Him, and He reckons it for our reward; “And, behold, I an coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to everyone according to his work.” (Revelation 22 vs 12.) When your conduct is right before God, He speaks out for you, even before the adversary—the devil. God said of Job to the devil, “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). Job was faithful to God in all he did, serving Him with his whole heart. He was a model of trust and obedience to God, and God reckoned with him.

We obey God with (1) Our heart: by loving Him more than any relationship, activity, achievement, or possession; by placing God first in everything in our lives. The human heart is the chief organ of the physical body. It occupies the most important place in the human system. By an easy transition the word came to stand for man’s entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and the emotional. In other words, the heart is used figuratively for the hidden springs of the personal life. Therefore, yielding your heart to God is yielding the central and core of your being to Him, which God desires. The Bible describes human activity as in the ‘heart.’ For instance, every thought has its seat in the heart. (Matthew 15 vs 19 - 20.)

(2) Our will; by committing ourselves completely to Him. The “will” is the decision-making capacity, indicating a power of choice. God is mindful of our will—our decisions relating to our obedience to follow Him and obey His commands. Joshua was an exemplary king who showed his subjects his will to follow after God with his family: “And if it seem evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24 vs 15.) It’s easy to slip into a quiet rebellion—going about life in your own way. But the time comes when you have to choose who or what will control you. The choice is yours. Will it be God, your own limited personality, or another imperfect substitute? 

(3) Our mind. The mind is the faculty that encompasses the reflective thinking of the brain and the emotional thinking of the heart. The mind denotes, speaking generally, the seat of reflective consciousness, comprising the faculties of perception and understanding, and those of feeling, judging and determining. It is the faculty of knowing, understanding, or moral reflection. God desires our seeking to know Him and His Word. His principles and values form the foundation of all we think and do. Th apostle Paul desires that we conform our minds to God’s and His Word; “And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, Will of God.” (Romans 12 vs 2)

 (4) Our Body: The body is one’s essence. It is, as a whole, the instrument of life. It is used to denote the physical nature, as distinct from the spiritual nature, and soul. God desires we serve Him with our body, recognizing that our strengths, talents, and sexuality are given to us by Him to be used for pleasure and fulfillment according to His rules, not ours: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12 vs 1.) God wants us to offer ourselves as living sacrifice—daily laying aside our own desires to follow Him, putting all our energy and resources at His disposal and trusting Him to guide us. God wants the best for us. He wants us to be transformed people with renewed minds, living to honor and obey Him. 

(5) Our finances: All of the resources we have ultimately come from God, and we are only managers of them, and not owners. The Scripture says, “...A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” (John 3 vs 27.) The power to get wealth comes from God (Deuteronomy 8 vs 18). And He blesses us to be a blessing to others (Genesis 12 vs 2). 

(6) Our future: By deciding to make service to God and man the main purpose of our lives’ work. God knows the future. Any believer can trust His or her future to God because God already knows what is going to happen. Today people are still fascinated by horoscopes, fortune-telling, witchcraft, and bizarre cults. Often their interest comes from a desire to know and control the future. In the Bible God tells us all we need to know about what is going to happen. With the trustworthy guidance of the Holy Spirit through the Bible and the church, we don’t need to turn to occult sources for faulty information.

The Scripture says, “But as it is written: “Eyes has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” (First Corinthians 2 vs 9.) We cannot imagine all that God has in store for us, both in this life and in eternity. He will create a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65 vs 17; Revelation 21 vs 1.), and we will live with Him forever. Until then, His Holy Spirit comforts and guides us. Knowing the wonderful and eternal future that awaits us gives us hope and courage to press on in this life, to endure hardship, and to avoid giving in to temptation. The world is not all there is. The best is yet to come. 

Prayer: Abba Father, give me the grace to obey and serve You with my all; my heart, my will, my mind, my body, my finances, and my future. Help me, O Lord, to achieve this deep-rooted desire, for I know that by my strength I cannot prevail, and without You I can do nothing, in Jesus’ Name I have prayed. Amen.

PRAISE THE LORD! 

The Sweet Designs of God

 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!