August 31, 2015
Presently, we walk through life believing in our risen Lord without actually seeing Him. We believe because of the witnesses – the witness of the Bible, of the saints who have passed the faith down to us, and because of the inner witness of the Spirit of adoption who causes us to cry out, “Abba, Father” to our God. Our faith is by God’s grace and not our sight. The world says seeing is believing. However, Jesus said to Thomas, “You have believed because you have seen, but blessed are those who have not seen, yet have believed” (John 20:29). We believe in the risen Lord. He is the Head of His body, the Church. And so, we believe that just as the Head was raised, so shall the body be raised. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead, will raise us. We live by this faith, even though our eyes have not yet seen its fulfillment.
August 30, 2015
The same God who created physical light by His command has sent His Son, Jesus to be our spiritual light. Yet, our hearts remain in sin’s darkness until they behold the light of the gospel “in the face of Jesus Christ.” Those who would seek to know God, to see His glory, must seek the face of Jesus. There is no other power to enlighten our darkened hearts. For Christ is the image of the invisible God, the Light of the world, the only way to the Father. Although our hearts now reflect His light as we share the gospel, we are not its source, so we must always direct others to seek His face. We sing: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
August 29, 2015
Job made a “covenant with his eyes” that is a much needed one for today. His covenant (pledge, sacred promise) was with God and with his wife, that his eyes belonged to God and to his wife alone. He had predetermined what he would allow his eyes to gaze upon and what he wouldn’t. Looking upon a “young woman” was not allowed. Why? Because he had made a covenant that restricted his vision. He would not let his eyes linger on a young woman, therefore avoiding the temptation to covet or lust after her. It is an accepted fact that men are more susceptible to visual stimulus than women. Yet, both should make a covenant with their eyes that protects them from temptation.
August 28, 2015
A psalm for the soul. When you are discouraged and “cast down,” learn to encourage yourself in the Lord (1 Sam. 30:6). Bring your soul to the Lord. Instruct your soul to “hope in God” and “praise Him.” Have you not yet learned that a fresh encounter with God in Word and prayer will change the disposition of your soul and therefore your “countenance,” putting a smile in place of a frown? Reset your soul’s hope from its idols and put its hope in God. Worship works.
August 27, 2015
Parents, discipline your child and teach them the right way while they are still young. It’s much easier to correct a 3-year old than a 13-year old. Focus on heart change, asking the Lord to help you, and perhaps someday you will know the joy of having your 30-year old walk beside you in friendship, holding the hand of your 3-year old grandchild doing the same.
August 26, 2015
Job’s friends kept challenging him to repent because their simplistic assumption was that since evil had befallen Job, he must have done something to deserve it. Yet, Job continued to claim that God had done him an injustice. He also questioned their hypothesis further, by asking why God would let the “wicked live and become old” and “mighty in power.” Job was wrestling with the problem of evil. Why do bad people get to enjoy good things? And why do bad things happen to good people? Where is God’s justice? Job is not the only person to ask these questions. We still struggle with them today. Perhaps we can catch a glimpse of understanding by hearing what Jesus said about this in the gospel of Matthew. He said that the Father “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). The truth is that God sheds His grace on all of us, even those who have made Him their enemy. Yet, someday an account will be given. And only those found in Christ Jesus will be saved.
August 25, 2015
From verse 8 it appears that Paul was living in Ephesus when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians. Ephesus was one of the great cities in the Roman empire located on the Mediterranean coast of Asia Minor in the country we now know as Turkey. Paul stayed in Ephesus for an extended period of time and found the city to be an “open door” for the gospel, not only for its citizens, but also as a hub of ministry in reaching those in the surrounding cities. Yet, wherever there are people coming to Christ and getting saved, there is also increased activity by the Adversary, the devil. So, Paul planned to “tarry” in Ephesus as long as the gospel door was open, knowing that such “doors” do not stay open forever. There is an urgency to such opportunities that Paul recognized. Are we looking for such open door opportunities in our world today?
August 24, 2015
As Job maintained his righteousness, his friends continued to disagree with him. Job, who had lost his children, most of his possessions and whose body was covered in sores, now had to contend with the accusing advice of his three “friends.” While there is much to learn about the problem of evil and human suffering in the book of Job, there is also something to be learned about how to be a friend to one in grief. Job’s three friends did a couple of things right at first. They showed up. They sat quietly with Job for the first seven days. These are good things. But then, they began with the advice and the accusations. When we seek to comfort a friend in grief, be present and listen, grieve with them. But stop telling them you know how they feel, or how they should feel, or what they did wrong, or what they should do next. If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. Just pray for them, hug them, bring them food, clean their house, offer to run errands. If they want your advice, they will ask. Don’t be like Job’s friends.
August 23, 2015
Paul made it clear to the Corinthians that the gospel he “delivered” to them was the same one that he had “received.” This is the gospel by which he was saved and by which they too would be saved, if only they would believe. This gospel is good news. It has certain particular facts that are well documented with a list of eye-witnesses. Paul is like a newspaper boy, he didn’t write the news, nor make the news, he is just the one who delivers it. And he delivers it whole and unchanged just as he received it. This is our task today. First, to receive the gospel ourselves and then, to deliver it to others, just as Paul did.
August 22, 2015
Apparently, the worship services in Corinth had become quite chaotic and confusing. This was not the pattern that Paul had given them when he planted the church. So, his letters to them are prescriptive in nature. He wanted them to understand that when God is present in worship there is order and peace, not chaos and confusion. Perhaps the ecstatic pagan practices of the Corinthian idolaters had infected the church. Or perhaps the disunity he described earlier concerning factions in the church had led to these tumultuous services. Whatever the cause, the church of Corinth, in a city of 800,000 population, was in danger of losing God’s presence in their worship. For wherever the Spirit of God is, there is peace.