Monthly Archives: June 2018

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

The word diet can simply mean the food and drink we consume to have the nourishment we need to stay alive. “Diet” can also mean a carefully controlled regimen of food and drink that is intended to accomplish some intended goal—weight loss, weight gain, improved performance, positive change in blood chemistry, etc. Today’s word of encouragement is about a different kind of diet, one that every that every child of God should be on and never come off: that diet, beloved, is the Divine Diet.

Jesus went forty days without eating and drinking earthly food; if God so willed it, we could do the same. But how long can we go without the Word of God? Not one, single, solitary second! You see, the Word of God is Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. Our next breath and heartbeat come because He graciously gives them to us. The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus sustains “all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). And that “all” includes you!

In the beginning God spoke His Word, and everything came into existence. In salvation, God speaks a Word of recreation, and we are raised from death to life. Take away the Word of God and you take away life itself. The enemy does everything within his power to keep us from that Word. He bombards us with busyness; he distracts us with delicacies; he entices us with entertainment; he sidetracks us with strongholds. But he will only succeed when we forsake our Divine Diet. A week without a diet of the Word makes us weak! And when we are weakened because we have neglected time in the Word, we are vulnerable to Satan’s slings and arrows.

So . . . what have you been feasting on lately? There is nothing that will satisfy the hunger of your soul other than the Word of God. The stuff of this world may seem to satisfy for a while, but you will soon grow faint and fall into the snare of Satan. Nothing can truly slake your thirst except the Truth Himself.

Jesus knew this truth when He did battle against Satan, and He countered every attack with the Word of God. You will remember that the devil knew the Word of God also, but here is the key difference: both Jesus and the devil were in the Word of God . . . but the Word of God was only in Jesus.

It is not enough to merely be in the Word. You must let the Word get inside of you. Meditate on it. Marinate in it. Make it your pillow at night and your guide by day. The more you get into the Word of God, the more the Word of God will get into you. Perhaps today is a good day to renew your commitment to your Divine Diet. God will be glorified and you will be blessed!

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

I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. (Hosea 2:14)

Regardless of where this message finds you today, I assure you that these words should greatly encourage you. Take a moment to really marinate in today’s verse; when you do, you will notice that God is speaking to His wayward people Israel, who had turned to lesser gods time and time again. But instead of a harsh rebuke, God speaks tenderly to Israel with a holy heart full of love—wooing her, if you will, into the wilderness.

Why does God lead His people into the wilderness? Because He loves us too much to let us continue in our worldly ways. Intimacy and intercourse with our Lord are best achieved when we are not focused on the cares of this world. And that, beloved, is The Wonderland of the Wilderness. Even the wilderness is a paradise, because God makes it so by His presence.

The love of our God is so great that He refuses to let us stay forever entangled with the cares of this world. Instead He withdraws us to His wilderness, where He can gain our undivided and unwavering attention and speak tenderly to us.

After His baptism, Jesus demonstrated the wonder of the wilderness when He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested. During our Lord’s testing, Jesus was continually in communion with His Father in heaven. He was hungry and tired, yet His wilderness was a wonderland because His Father sustained Him every step of the way until Jesus vanquished the devil and angels came to minister to Him.

Make no mistake, paradise has been promised, and it is indeed coming to all those who have, by grace through faith, trusted in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. But this promised paradise will not be experienced until we cross the Jordan. Until then, whenever we treat this world like this is all there is, holding on to all this world offers with a white-knuckled grip, God will lead us into the wonderland of His wilderness and speak loving words to correct us, comfort us, and challenge us to return to our first love.

Remember, God so loved you that He gave His one and only Son in order to bring you into an intimate, personal relationship with Him. He did not send His Son to die for your sins so that you would give Him half of your heart. He has no desire to let you live with one foot in the world and one foot in His Word. God tolerates no rival. He wants all of you, and He will use whatever means He must to get all of your attention.

The next time you realize that your Lord has led you into a wilderness, know that it is for your good and His glory. Be still and listen for His voice, speaking tender words of hope and grace to you:

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

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

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3)

If you have seen The Visual Bible: Matthew movie, you’ll definitely remember the holy humor Jesus used in this part of His Sermon on the Mount. That humor was amplified in the movie when Bruce Marchiano, the actor who portrayed Jesus, picked up a long staff and held it next to his eye as he looked around at the crowds who were listening to him. The point was obvious; it is absurd to be concerned about the speck in someone else’s eye when you have a six-foot-long plank protruding from your own eye! In fact, as you approach the other person to take the speck out of his eye, your plank will keep bumping into him, causing a great deal of irritation. And so, our Lord tells us, it is best to Yank the plank before you check the speck.

It is interesting to note in the original text that the words “plank” and “speck” come from the same Greek root, which means they are of the same substance. Now, there is some truly inspired irony. Since both are of the same substance, it makes it easy for those with the plank to quickly notice those with the speck, because the faults and shortcomings in our own lives are the easiest to pick out in the lives of others. It is not at all uncommon for us to direct anger toward the speck we see in the eyes of others due to a level of suppressed guilt we have because we are dealing with the same exact sin!

Jesus was instructing His disciples, and you and me also, to first focus on our own sins and shortcomings and deal with them. Self-examination is the way of the disciple of Christ, rather than inspecting the lives of others. That does not mean that we do not come alongside of a brother or sister who is caught in a particular sin with the goal of gently restoring him or her, as Galatians 6:1 instructs. The Bible makes it clear that we are indeed our brother’s keeper. But in order to be truly helpful, we must yank the plank first. Otherwise our own sin will bump so roughly and rudely into the other person that they will find our well-intentioned words of correction to be an irritation at best . . . and gross hypocrisy at the worst.

How would you evaluate yourself today? Are you better at self-examination? Or speck inspection? Sometimes an honest answer to that question will go a long way toward setting us on the right track of dealing with our own plank before we begin dissect the speck in the eyes of others. Remember, what bothers you most in the lives of others is probably the very thing you need to deal with in your own life!

Take your plank to Jesus and lay it at the foot of the cross. The more time you spend in self-examination, the less time you will have to inspect the speck in others. That’s better for you, quite likely better for them, and far more glorifying to God.

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