Monthly Archives: December 2013

People often approach me before or after a service at Cross Community Church and ask, “What do I need to do to experience more of God’s love in my life?” To which I respond, “Nothing! It’s not what you must do; it’s a matter of what you must believe.” What you believe in your heart about God’s love for you and the unchanging status He has granted you as a member of His royal family will determine, to an altogether unimaginable extent, the amount of love and grace you experience in your daily life!

Bryan Chapell puts it this way:

Many people feel that the means of grace (prayer, Bible study, church attendance, etc.) are the instruments by which we secure God’s love on a daily basis. In our humanity it is natural to think in terms of such a barter system of love, but such thinking creates the impression that these Christian disciplines are not means of grace but means to grace. We reason, as a consequence, that practicing more of the means of grace will cause God to love us more and, thus, the more we do them the more of his love we will get. Conversely we reason that we will have less love by not adequately pursuing these practices. We damage ourselves and our spiritual walk with God by reasoning that practices even as noble as the means of grace will gain us more of God’s affection. We will inevitably be forced to ask, “How much more must I do to earn his love?” And of course, the answer will not be pleasant.

You and I must constantly remind ourselves that God has given us His means of grace, not as a way of gaining His love and approval, but simply as a way of experiencing the love and approval we already have in Christ. There is no need to strive for God’s affection because we already have all of God’s affection, thanks to our relationship with His beloved Son—a relationship that is established wholly by God’s grace and apprehended solely through faith.

The way we experience more of God’s love is by keeping in view the love we have already received, which was purchased for us on the cross . . . paid for in full by the blood of the Lamb of God. From the moment we put our trust in Jesus’ sacrificial death on our behalf, God loved us completely. To be completely accurate, God bestowed His love on us before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). He cannot love us any more than He has from all eternity, and He will not love us any less. We are completely and unconditionally loved. The more we marinate in this truth . . . the more we meditate on this truth . . . the more we will experience the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).

God’s love for you is as unconditional as it is undeserved. In your disobedience you are loved. In your weakness you are loved. In your self-centeredness you are loved. In your unbelief you are loved. In every moment that you are unlovable you are still unconditionally loved. If you’re a regular attender at the Cross, you’ve probably heard me exclaim, “If that doesn’t light your fire, your wood’s wet!”

God’s love for us is not based on our performance, but rather on our position in His beloved Son. And that position, dear reader, never changes, for “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind” (1 Samuel 15:29). Let that truth increase your experience of God’s love today and every day—until that day when you are received into your eternal glory.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

We are entering into our second Christmas season as a church plant family, and I have to tell you that there is nothing like it in the world! As much as we looked forward to Christmas during the years before God called us to plant Cross Community Church in Deerfield Beach, those years were nothing compared to the sense of joy and anticipation that we feel as part of a growing church family.

We start gearing up for Christmas in November and focus the whole month of December on the One named Immanuel: God with us. And this year our observances built to a Christmas Eve where we held three candlelight services.

It is my desire this Christmas day to share a word of encouragement that I pray will stay with you, not just throughout the remainder of this Christmas season, but throughout the rest of your days until you are received into your eternal rest.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

In one of the most familiar verses in all of sacred Scripture, we see that Christmas has its promises to keep for those who believe in the Son of God as the Savior of the world. Let’s take a look at three of them.

PROMISE #1 – God gave His one and only Son

The first promise that Christmas keeps is the promise God made all the way back in the Garden of Eden to send a Savior (Genesis 3:15). Adam and Eve had committed their grotesque act of cosmic treason and were hiding from God. Yet God, in His infinite grace and mercy, gently called Adam to Himself. Instead of simply wiping Adam and Eve off the face of this earth and hitting the reset button with some different dirt, God promised to provide the solution to their sin problem; God promised a Savior, and His name is Jesus Christ.

PROMISE #2 – Whoever believes in Him shall not perish

The second promise that Christmas keeps is the promise that all who believe in the accomplishment of the first promise shall not perish. Let me be blunt: as children of Adam, we are all under a death sentence. We are perishing as sinners, both by nature and by habit, and we should expect nothing but the condemnation and wrath of Almighty God. But to those who believe that the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger is the Savior of the world, that death sentence has been erased.

Jesus grew up and lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, and was raised from the dead on the third day. Because Jesus took the full punishment and made the full payment for sin, those who believe in Him shall not perish.

PROMISE #3 – Whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life

The third promise is found in the already and not yet context. We already have eternal life in Christ, by grace through faith, but we will not fully possess it until we get to the other side of the grave. We have been given the Comforter—the Holy Spirit—and we possess all of the promises that are in Christ, but we are still clothed in our sinful flesh and cannot yet fully experience that eternal life. When we are received into glory, we will know a life of everlasting, unimaginable joy and pleasure, free from the pain, sorrow, tears, sickness, and death because the old will be passed away and the new will have come.

With all of the excitement and great joy surrounding the Nativity story at Christmas, we can easily miss the great comfort found in a promise-keeping God. When God makes a promise, you can count on it! God promised to send His Son as the Savior of the world, and He kept His promise on that first Christmas morning. The shepherds saw this promise kept and believed. The Wise Men saw this promise kept and believed. How about you?

I pray that this Christmas day you will be reminded of these three Christmas promises kept. If you believe, you shall not perish, but have eternal life. You have God’s Word on it.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Today is the final message in our Advent Devotional Series. We have worked through the What, the Why, and the How of Advent. We will close our series with the most important question in all of life, one that every man, woman, and child needs to ask and answer. Let’s dive in!

1. Who Does God The Father Say He Is?

After Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, plunging all of humanity and creation into ruin, God did not abandon them. He did not leave them there, shivering in their fear and sin; He chased down those two rebels on the run. And in their presence, He made this promise to the serpent who had deceived them:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

God promised Adam and Eve that He would send a Savior who would redeem His children from both the penalty of sin and the power of sin. And at the end of the third chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, God the Father announced that this promised was fulfilled in His Son, Jesus, in whom He is well pleased.

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17)

2. Who Does Jesus Say He Is?

The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ), when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” (John 4:25-26)

When this woman used the term “Messiah,” she was speaking about the expected King of the Jewish people who had been promised by God and anticipated by the nation of Israel for hundreds of years. There are many Old Testament prophecies of a promised descendant of David who would come down from heaven and save His people. Those promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above, you are of this world, I am not of this world.” (John 8:23)

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:58)

Notice that Jesus did not say, “Before Abraham was born, I was born.” Instead He said “I am,” which means He is eternally existent and immediately calls to mind the words spoken by God to Moses at the burning bush: “I AM WHO I AM!” (Exodus 3:14.) But just in case any of us failed to make that connection, Jesus clearly claimed equality with God the Father. He told the Jews, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Jesus told His disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6.) Jesus made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that He is the ONLY WAY to God . . . the ONLY TRUTH of God . . . and the ONLY LIFE through God.

3. Who Do You Say He Is?

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:13-17)

Jesus made it clear that only God can open the “eyes of our hearts” to know Jesus. This knowledge does not come through human reason; it does not come through the witness of miracles; it will not come through a burning bush or Damascus Road experience. It will only come through the revelation of God, which makes the blind see, the deaf hear, and the dead rise to new life.

So . . . what will you do with this Jesus, who is called Christ? Who do you say this Jesus is? This is the most important question you will ever answer.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

This third installment in our Advent Devotional Series will take a brief look at the How Of Advent.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  (Isaiah 9:6)

At first glance, this verse might seem to contain needless repetition of the same idea. “A child is born . . . a son is given.” But make no mistake, there is an incredible distinction to be made between “a child born” and “a son given.” Let’s take a look.

1. A Child Is Born!

God promised back in the Garden of Eden that a child would be born as a descendent of the woman Eve.

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.  (Genesis 3:15)

In spite of Adam and Eve’s act of cosmic treason in the Garden, God was gracious to chase after those rebels on the run. He promised to send the solution to their sin problem: a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.

When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law.  (Galatians 4:4)

Just as any child was born of a woman, Jesus was born of a woman too. However, there is one critical difference. The “seed” of every child born of woman belongs to a man, but the “seed” of Mary belonged to God the Holy Spirit and did not originate from a human man. It was a virgin birth, but a birth nonetheless; and in His humanity Jesus was a child born.

2. A Son Is Given!

There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”  (Luke 2:8-12)

In His humanity, Jesus Christ was a child born. But as God’s only Son, He is not born, but given as the Savior of the world, begotten of His Father from eternity past.

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.  (Psalm 2:7)

A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”  (Matthew 3:17)

Who can fully comprehend this incredible truth? The prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon profoundly put it this way.

The doctrine of the eternal affiliation of Christ is to be received as an undoubted truth of our holy religion. But as to any explanation of it, no man should venture thereon, for it remaineth among the deep things of God—one of those solemn mysteries indeed, into which the angels dare not look nor do they desire to pry into it—a mystery which we must not attempt to fathom, for it is utterly beyond the grasp of any finite being.

As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God. A God whom we could understand would be no God. If we could grasp him he could not be infinite, if we could understand him, then were he not divine. Jesus Christ then, I say, as a Son, is not born to us, but given. He was not born in this world as God’s Son, but he was sent, or given, so that you clearly perceive that the distinction is a suggestive one, and conveys much good truth to us. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.”

Knowing that the “secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29), we can receive this truth of the How Of Advent: that a child was truly born . . . and a Son was given for you and me. And if we have received this truth by grace through faith, then we can be certain that it has been done “unto us” and that, dear reader, is the good news of great joy!

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Today I have a word of encouragement for you that just might surprise you! We will take a brief look at what “The Why of Advent” was not . . . and then what it was.

1. What It Was Not

It was not SIN!

As a pastor who labors to point people to Jesus each week, I stress the point that we are sinners in need of a Savior.

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:6)

Adam and Eve were the federal heads of our humanity, perfectly created by God for this privilege. When they fell, we fell, making all of humanity sinners in desperate need of a Savior. But sin could not have been the primary “Why” of Advent, because sin was already in the world.

In Isaiah’s and Ezekiel’s references to the kings of Babylon and Tyre, we see the fall symbolically described . . . and we also see references to the spiritual power behind those kings: Satan.

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12-14)

You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. (Ezekiel 28:15-17)

Here we are given a glimpse behind the veil of heaven, where we see the fall of Lucifer and the sin that was in this world before the first sin of man. Jesus confirmed this in Luke 10:18, when He said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

If sin was “The Why Of Advent,” God would have sent Jesus to redeem the fallen angels. But that was not the purpose for His coming, as the writer of Hebrews confirms.

Surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:16-18)

So, if sin is not “The Why Of Advent,” what was it?

2. What It Was

LOVE!

God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

God came after fallen and sinful man, and the reason is located in the heart of God and His love for man: a special love . . . a redeeming love . . . a love purchased by His beloved Son on a cross so that we could be the spouse of the Son—the bride of the Bridegroom.

And that is why everything works toward your salvation. God so loved you that, if you have trusted in Christ’s redeeming work on your behalf, God is working every circumstance of life (the good, the bad, and the ugly) for your eternal good (Romans 8:28).

May this truth of God’s amazing love for you bring you glad tidings of great joy this Christmas season and all the days God gives to you!

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

I would like to shift our focus for the next four messages leading up to Christmas Day to our Advent devotional series, in hopes that we might experience afresh the passion and power of waiting on God during these last few days leading up to Christmas Day. In this first message we will look at what Advent is in the life of the Christian.

The word advent simply means the coming or the arrival of something anticipated and important, such as the advent of the electric light bulb . . . the advent of the automobile . . . the advent of the computer . . . the advent of the cell phone. The word Advent, as it relates to the Christian calendar comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming” or “visit.” It generally covers the four Sunday’s leading up to Christmas day. It is the time when Christians prepare to observe the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ through prayer, fasting, and repentance. We remember the hope of the Jewish nation and their longing for the coming of the Messiah.

During the Advent season we celebrate two profound events in the life of one promised person: the promised person, of course, is the Lord Jesus Christ; the two things are His first Advent—the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem—and His promised second Advent when He returns to consummate His kingdom.

This is our second season as a church plant in Deerfield Beach and our second season of celebrating Advent as a church family. The comments from the congregation truly bless my soul! Everyone, including our many visitors, is incredibly excited to participate in celebrating the Advent season. Some have said it brings back great childhood memories of Advent calendars, Advent wreaths, and Advent candles. Others have said it is something they knew very little or nothing about; they find it both fascinating and faith-building. All of them are affirming that it is quite helpful in shifting our focus away from the “commercialism” of Christmas and on to the “Christ” of Christmas.

As the pastor, I can tell you that the Advent sermons are enriching the worship in our church. Jesus truly is the reason for the season! However, in our increasingly secular society, the Christmas season— with all the “parties we’re hosting and marshmallows for toasting”— has a tendency to “X” Christ out of our hearts and minds if we aren’t careful.

Advent should remind us, not only of the coming of our Savior, but of our continual need of Him day by day. D. James Kennedy said, “God saved you then. Is He saving you now?” God not only saves us from the penalty of our sin; He saves us from the power of sin. God is saving us daily from our old way of living and empowering us to live a new way—with a new heart, new goals, new desires, and a new direction in life. The season of Advent helps us to keep these Gospel truths in clear vision.

It is my prayer that this Advent Devotional Series will help us all to be ready, willing, and able to celebrate—not so much the presents under the tree, but the Present who made the tree and was nailed to it in our place, taking on Himself all our sin and giving us His righteousness, that we might have eternal life.

I hope you find the next three messages a source of encouragement that will strengthen your hope and sharpen your focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come and is coming again. As the Scriptures promise:

He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. (Revelation 22:20)

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Change is happening all around us. Everything changes: lawns never stay cut; shelves never stay dusted; babies never stay dry. Amidst all of the ongoing changes in this life—changing relationships, changing careers, changing addresses—there is a great comfort for the Christian in knowing that one thing never changes…GOD!

I the LORD do not change. (Malachi 3:6)

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

There is truly no end to the comfort found in the unchangeable character of our Creator. In a world of ceaseless change, we can depend on our unchanging God. What God was in the beginning, He still is today, and will be forever!

His purpose is unchanged

His plan is unchanged

His power is unchanged

His promise is unchanged

His wisdom is unchanged

His justice is unchanged

His mercy is unchanged

His grace is unchanged

His truth is unchanged

His forgiveness is unchanged

His love is unchanged

How incredibly reassuring to know that our God changes not!

We could never in a lifetime exhaust these precious truths about our God, but I would like to sharpen our focus for a moment on His unchanging love. His love is an everlasting love: he loves us today as much as He did yesterday and as much as He will tomorrow. And this is not because of anything we have done to cause God to love us, but simply because He chose, from before the foundation of the world, to love us.

This truth sets us free from the anxiety and fear of losing a love we did nothing to earn. The love that God in Christ lavishes on us is a gift. It was not gained by our merit, but given by His mercy. And because we did nothing to earn it, we can do nothing to lose it! If we did not gain the affection of the Almighty by being good, we cannot lose His affection by being bad. We are eternally loved . . . even when we are messing it all up. Romans 8:38-39 plainly asserts that nothing can separate us from the love of God . . . nothing . . . period!

Now, there are certainly times when you and I are not loving God as we should. But our Cosmic Constant loves us with an everlasting love. We must remember that we love simply He first loved us (1 John 4:19). We are kept by His love for us, not by our love for Him. It is His faithfulness to us, not our faithfulness to Him that keeps us in our faith.

This truth of God’s unchanging, eternal love liberates us from the prison of our past and propels us into the promise of our future with the freedom and joy of knowing we are securely held in the nail-scarred hands of our Cosmic Constant.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Self-righteousness is an inner feeling that springs forth from the wicked well of moral superiority. By nature, as children of Adam, we all drink from this well daily. We are like the Pharisee described in Luke’s gospel who thanked God that he was “not like other men” who (he imagined) were far less noble than he.

So if we are all afflicted by this scourge by nature, how will we ever be rescued from it? The answer is found in clearly seeing the portrait Scripture paints of who we truly are:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

My Greek professor—Dr. Sam Lamerson, who has become my dear friend—unpacked a more literal reading of this verse, explaining that the phrase “what is common to man” is translated from a single Greek word: anthropinos (manlike). The deepest meaning of this verse goes far beyond acknowledging that we are all tempted in ways common to everyone. It actually reveals the awful truth that the seeds of the most sinful man are planted deep within the hearts of every man. In other words, the seeds of the worst sins, sins committed by the most depraved people, are in all of us. When this truth seizes us, we are on the road of being rescued from self-righteousness.

What sin is beyond your reach? When we see sin in others that we believe we could never commit, we become their judge, and self-righteousness drives its roots deeper into the soil of our sinful hearts.

Shortly after trusting in Christ in September of 1995, I told my first spiritual mentor that I simply could not accept the Scriptural assessment of King David as being a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22). You will recall that David was the guy who should have been on the battlefield leading his troops instead of in bed with another man’s wife. And if that wasn’t wicked enough, he tried to cover up his sin by arranging for the woman’s husband to be killed in battle! How could this David be a man after God’s own heart? I have never forgotten my mentor’s explanation:

“Tommy, your problem is that you don’t see David’s story as your story.

And until you do, you will not begin to plumb the depths of the truths of the Gospel!”

Well of course, he was right. There was no way I saw my life story as David’s life story. I had not committed adultery. I had not committed murder. I was not what David was. Or was I?

In his book, Holiness By Grace, Bryan Chapell put it this way, “The scandal of Scripture is nothing less than the revelation of our own humanity. However untouched by the world’s corruptions we may believe ourselves to be, the Bible says our humanity makes us no more beyond the most detestable sins than was King David.”

I have been rescued from self-righteousness by coming to understand that I am never more than one poor decision away from damaging my witness, disgracing my family, and disqualifying myself from pastoring the church God called me and my family to plant. That sobering thought protects me from any misguided notion of moral superiority and keeps me focused on this truth: like the apostle Paul, I am the chief sinner, with the seeds of every sin within me. And that is why I need Jesus!

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Far too many Christians in the contemporary church have exchanged the Almighty for Aladdin, expecting God to grant their daily wishes for wealth and health. To them, Jesus is little more than a genie in a bottle, just waiting to be released to respond to their every desire. They mistakenly believe God has saved them and exists in their lives to give to them the things of this world that will make their Christianity comfortable and convenient.

The problem with a comfortable and convenient Christianity is that it is, more often than not, Christ-less! But this is not for you!

To be sure, God often gives His people wealth and health; these are good gifts from a good and loving God. But these happy providences are not the primary “good” God has ordained to give to His children. God’s good for us may very well include storms and suffering, challenges and conflict . . . all of which accomplishes the purpose of Romans 8:29 —

Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

I have learned over the years that a comfortable and convenient Christianity is a poor “conformer” to the likeness of Jesus. God did not save you to make you comfortable and to make much of your salvation; He saved you to conform you to Christ so that you would make much of your Savior. God saved you to give you “every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3), not every temporal blessing. It’s true that our Father has given most Christians in this country tremendous temporal blessings. Like manna from heaven, He rains down blessing upon blessing to His people, but those blessings are not intended to make us comfortable!

Even a cursory glance through the Scriptures will affirm that God was not concerned about making His children comfortable. Where were the temporal blessings in the lives of the apostles? All but John died a martyr’s death, and John died in exile on the Isle of Patmos. God was not Aladdin to the apostles; He was the Almighty, and they knew He did not exist to give to them possessions. The apostles were His possessions, and they poured themselves out to expand the cause of His Kingdom.

Far from “comfortable and convenient,” Christianity for the apostles was about a sold-out commitment to Christ and His Kingdom. They gave no thought to expanding their own little kingdom. They understood that they had been bought at a price, and that price was the precious blood of their Savior (1 Peter 1:18-19). They also knew their salvation was not primarily about them; it was about the One who saved them. So they lived lives of self-sacrifice, not self-protection. They gave no thought to what they were getting; it was always and only about what they were giving in service to God, for His glory and the good of others.

So . . . are you serving the Almighty or seeking to be served by Aladdin? What does the confession of your life say? What would those closest to you say? Is your greatest goal to be conformed to the likeness of Christ or to be comfortable in your Christianity? Only when our greatest goal is Christlikeness will we be ready, willing, and able to exchange Aladdin for the Almighty, receiving with glad hearts whatever God delivers . . . knowing that its ultimate purpose is to make us more like Jesus.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Don’t be! One of the qualifications for being a servant of the Most High God is found, not in your strength, but in your weakness. God will not have His servants seeking success in advancing His kingdom in their own strength; when we head out into service in our own strength, defeat looms in our future.

He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

The apostle Paul was not worried about his weakness, in spite of the “thorn” (some unidentified source of great discomfort) God had given him. Far from it! Paul boasted all the more gladly in his weakness, because he knew he would only advance in the service of his Savior to the extent that he advanced in the power of God.

Kingdom servants must serve the kingdom in His strength, not their own, or God will not receive the fruit of their labor. Make no mistake; Omnipotence does not rely on our feeble efforts to accomplish His purposes in this world. To be sure, God uses our efforts, but our efforts advance and accomplish only in His strength that He imparts to us.

You see, the apostle Paul knew who very well who he was before Jesus showed up: his name was Saul, the vicious persecutor of the early Christian church. Saul held the coats of those who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and personally dragged Christian believers off to prison (Acts 8:3).

But Jesus stepped in on the road to Damascus, and Saul was forever changed. Saul was renamed Paul and commissioned by God to pen nearly two-thirds of the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Paul went from persecutor to preacher, but he knew that none of that happened in his own strength. As a student of Old Testament Scriptures, Paul knew the truth of Zechariah 4:6—“‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

Paul was not worried about his weakness because he knew that where he was weak, God would be strong. He knew that his weaknesses were simply opportunities for God to demonstrate his power: accomplishing His purposes, through His apostle, in His strength.

So . . . what weakness has you worried? Perhaps God has called you to do something for Him that doesn’t seem to play to your strengths? Fear not! If God is calling you to do it, He will provide you all the strength you need to get it done. God’s strength will make you sufficient for any task He has set before you.

Remember, God is not surprised by your weaknesses. He created you with those weaknesses so that you will rely on Him and not on yourself. The years have taught me that weakness has a tendency to keep us on our knees, and it is only from that position that we will ever advance in the Christian life.

One final point: weakness is never an excuse for not doing what God has called us to do, regardless of how we feel about it. In the fourth chapter of Exodus, we read how Moses tried to make an excuse before God when he was called to be the deliverer of the Israelites. God would have none of it, and He sent Moses off to do His work—not in the strength of Moses, but in the strength of the Master.

We want to walk in the faith of Abraham. Paul lifts him us as a model to us in Romans 4:20-21, saying, “[Abraham] did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”

Whatever God is calling you to do, do it with the confident assurance that the One who called is able to complete the task through you, working through your weakness as a witness to His strength and the power of His promise.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!