Author Archives: Pastor Tommy

What comes to mind when you read the words “Sustained Supernaturally”?  Here are several examples from Scripture of those who were sustained supernaturally.

• Israelites walking through the Red Sea on dry ground . . . sustained supernaturally

(Exodus 14)

• Moses with the Lord forty days without food or drink on Mount Sinai . . . sustained supernaturally (Exodus 34)
• Israelites wandering in the desert 40 years . . . sustained supernaturally
• The woman of Zarephath with just enough food for a last meal for her and her son . . . sustained supernaturally (1 Kings 17)
• Ezekiel lying on his side for 40 days . . . sustained supernaturally (Ezekiel 4)
• Jonah three days in the belly of a great fish . . . sustained supernaturally (Jonah 1)
• Jesus without food for 40 days in His wilderness experience . . . sustained supernaturally  (Matthew 4)
• Jesus and Peter walking on the water . . . sustained supernaturally (Matthew 14)
• Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating droplets of blood . . . sustained supernaturally  (Luke 22)
• Saul at his conversion without sight, food, or drink for three days . . . sustained supernaturally (Acts 9)

I am sure you can think of many other examples, but I don’t want to focus your attention on the more remarkable examples in the Scriptures, but rather the ordinary examples in all of life.  Every one of us is being sustained supernaturally right now.  Your next breath is a gift of God.  Your next heartbeat is a gift of God.  Your next moment in time is a gift of God.  You are being sustained supernaturally at this very moment, and that truth should land afresh on your heart today and change your perspective in life.   

If God is the reason behind all of life—and He is (see Acts 17:25)—then all of life should be living for God.  What is stunning about the human race is that we are the only life form that refuses to live for the glory of God.  It started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and it continues today.  We live for our glory and the expansion of our own kingdom, rather than the glory of God and the expansion of His kingdom.

But this is not for you!  The Lord cried out to His people through the prophet Isaiah:

You whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you.  I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

                                                                                                (Isaiah 46:3-4 NIV) 

From conception to completion, and all points in between, God has, is, and will continue to sustain you.  God will sustain you in your self-centeredness.  God will sustain you in your self-righteousness.  God will sustain you in your self-focus.  God will sustain you in your self-absorption.  God will even sustain you in the area where you might think you don’t need it—in your success.  The sovereign love of the Great Sustainer will never fail, falter, or fall short in carrying you every step of the way until you get home.  Remember, His grace is sufficient to sustain you, no matter what you are facing today! 

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

We are living in an age of “instant” insanity.  Everyone knows about instant coffee, instant oatmeal, instant replay, and instant messaging.  Have you heard about instant buttons?  If you lose a button all you have to do is take an instant button, peel off the backing, stick on the item of clothing and you have a quick and easy solution.  Of course, all of these “instant” products are designed to satisfy our insatiable need for instant gratification.

The age of “instant” insanity says, “I want it all and I want it now!”  Our grandparents and parents lived a lifetime of patient, faithful labor; what took them a lifetime to acquire, our children want right now.  And many of them believe they are entitled to it!  At 16 they expect to have a car of their own, or at the very least, at their disposal.  When they get their first job, they expect far more than minimum wage and starting at the bottom rung of the ladder.  For far too many young people, the benefits of hard work and waiting upon the Lord is as far from their thinking as the east is from the west.  Sadly, many of us never grow out of this adolescent stage of “instant” insanity. 

As a coach and personal trainer for nearly three decades, I helped people who wanted to change their bodies or increase their performance; they did it the old fashioned way—they watched your diet and exercised regularly—they worked for it!  Today we look for the latest “magic” bullet (pills, performance enhancement products, fat removal surgeries) that will do it for us, or at least greatly reduce the time period to get what we are looking for.

So what is the cure for “instant” insanity? 

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  (James 1:2-3)

James tells us that God has a purpose in perseverance; it must finish its work in us.  And what work is that?  To become more and more like Jesus.  Christlikeness and growing in grace was never designed to happen in a day . . . but daily.  It happens through difficulties.  It happens through trials.  It happens through suffering.  And it is designed to take a lifetime.  We will not be perfected until we pass into glory.  Along the way, we are to persevere and trust God even when we cannot trace Him. 

As he neared the conclusion of his epistle, James exhorted:

 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.  (James 5:7-8)

Instead of trying to quickly get to the other side of our desires, perhaps God would prefer that we spend some time reflecting on what He is doing in the middle of our times of waiting.

One word of caution: Paul had a strong word of warning for believers in Thessalonica who misunderstood the purposes of God in their waiting and decided to stop working while they waited (see 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13).  We are to work for the Lord while waiting on the Lord, and in so doing, we are being conformed into the image and likeness of Jesus. 

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

Mahatma Gandhi once observed, “There’s more to life than increasing its speed.”  That one statement has done a lot to help keep my priorities straight.  There was a time when I found my identity in the pace of my performance.  I figured if a fast pace was good, ramming speed was better!  In reality, it was “better” for one thing, and that was driving me to continue doubting, denying, and dodging God’s love for me while I was doubling my efforts.   

When I am challenged, my default mode is to speed up.  And as I hurried along at my frenzied pace, my grumbling and complaining was no different than what I was hearing from those around me.  I’d groan that “My plate is so full I don’t have enough hours in the day to get it all done!”  My solution: step on the accelerator!  I was running in the rat race of life, never fully realizing that even if I crossed the finish line first . . . I was still a rat!

Does this resonate with you?  Let’s take a look at two sisters who paint a wonderful portrait of what to do and what not to do as it relates to increasing the speed of life.

As they went on their way, Jesus entered a village.  And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.  And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.  But Martha was distracted with much serving.  And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?  Tell her than to help me.”  But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.  Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”  (Luke 10:38-42)

In other words, as Jesus explained to Martha, “There’s more to life than increasing its speed.”  Both sisters were doing “good” work.  They were both focused on serving their Lord.  But Mary knew when to stop serving and start sitting at the feet of Jesus.  Do you?  Martha’s “ramming speed” only produced anxiety and a troubled heart.  Mary’s sitting resulted in the “good” portion. 

God gives all of us work to do to expand the cause of His kingdom.  He uses all of our gifts, talents, and abilities and gives us the perfect amount of time to get it done.  If we continually find our plate to be overloaded, we can be sure it was not God ladled on too many labors!  If God knows the number of hairs on our head (Matthew 10:30), we can be sure He knows the number of hours we need to do what He has called us to do each day . . . both to serve Him and to sit at His feet.

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

When you hear talk about idolatry what do you think about?  For many, a picture of a golden calf comes to mind, like the one Aaron childishly maintained had jumped out of the fire at the foot of Mount Sinai.  For others, it is a picture of something considered “sacred” by those who bow to a tree, a cow, or some form of graven image.  Many world religions encourage adherents to bow before statues, icons, and images, a practice expressly forbidden in the Word of God (Exodus 20:3-5). 

When idolatry is kept in this context, we can be fooled into thinking that we are immune to it.  Does anyone reading this blog right now bow down to a golden calf, graven image, sacred cow or a tree? Probably not.  However, we can also be fooled into believing these objects are indeed “idle” idols—that they have no power to obstruct or obliterate our worship of the God of the Bible.  The fact is, however, that every one of us is greatly affected by the sin of idolatry, and our idols are by no means idle!

Idolatry defined: the worship of anything that takes the place of the one, true, living God and it is not limited to the worship of images.  It is misplaced trust in the created thing rather than the Creator and at its core is the god of self. 

Most of us are far too sophisticated to bow down to a graven image.  But we have replaced the golden calf with idols that are subtle and powerfully seductive—treacherous idols like materialism, pride, selfish ambition, obsession with career advancement, self-centeredness, greed, lust, and a hoard of others things.  Pulpits across the country propagate idolatry through the preaching of the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, which is built upon the idol of the self.  These idols will ultimately rule our hearts and shape our lives.  And because idolatry is a matter of the heart, there are NO “idle” idols, because our heart is in a never-ending pursuit to worship something! 

The more we focus on satisfying self, the less we focus on serving God and others.  Self-indulgence—not self-sacrifice—defines the condition of many in the church today.   As John Calvin once rightly observed, “Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.”  By nature we are all prone to substitute self for the Savior, having been enticed by the same five words Satan used in tempting Adam and Eve: “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5).  This desire for self-rule has defined the desires of the heart of every man and woman ever since that dreadful day.

All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.  (1 John 2:16)

John makes it clear that there are no idle idols.  The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life control our minds, seduce our hearts, and bend our wills.  Our only way to escape from our natural tendency to idolatry is the Gospel.  Only when God is at the center of our lives (Matthew 22:37) will idolatry be rooted out of our hearts and replaced with the only One who deserves to be there: Jesus.

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

I spend a lot of time speaking with Christians who are crushed under the weight of crippling conclusions.  Take a look and see if any of these resonate with you:

• What’s the use in being obedient? The disobedient are prospering!
• God must be angry with me; look at all the problems I’m facing today!
• With a thought life like mine, God can’t really love me!
• This disease must be payback from God for all the stuff I did when I was young!
• If I put more money in the collection plate, God will put more money in my paycheck!

The list of crippling conclusions is virtually endless.  Each one represents an overwhelming obstacle to our walk with Christ.  They obstruct our view of God’s omnipotent holiness, goodness, and kindness and make Him out to be a monster, exacting His pound of flesh from us every time we mess up, cross the line, or miss the mark.  And that, my friend, is the most crippling conclusion a Christian could ever have. 

Please understand: God is not angry with you, because God is no longer your Judge.  He judged Jesus in your place on the cross and nailed all of your sins to that dirty tree.  To think that any of the circumstances in your life are a result of “pay-back” from God is a notion that smells like smoke and comes from the pit of hell.  Satan would love for you to believe such things!  They bind your mind, blacken your spirit, and break your heart.  These conclusions shackle you in a prison of your own making.  Crippling conclusions are the currency of the crippled Christian; but this is not for you!

As we have continually discussed in this blog, God is not blessing or cursing you because of what you are doing.  Jesus took your curse upon Himself, and every blessing you receive is now a result of your union with Him.  We cannot earn God’s favor and we cannot forfeit His blessings.  If we could it would cease to be grace.  As Paul explained, “If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace (Romans 11:6).  Grace is a gift from beginning to end and it is always at work in the life of the Christian . . . from conception to completion.

One final point about crippling conclusions: many Christians mistake an open door of opportunity as God’s providential care.  Not every open door is a door God wants you to walk through!  Remember Jonah, who was rebelling and running from God; he happened upon a boat that was ready to set sail in the opposite direction God was calling.  Was that ticket to Tarshish an open door from God?  Hardly!  It was an opportunity for Jonah to have his faith tested and he failed the test miserably.  Yet even in Jonah’s failure he found a faithful God.

“I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever,” Jonah exulted; “yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God” (Jonah 2:6). In Jonah’s rebellion we catch a glimpse of a God who would pursue a rebel on the run and rescue him from himself.  He does this each day for all of us.       

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

Have you ever wondered why God delayed the deliverance of His people Israel for so long after He sent Moses to deliver them?  The primary reason is clearly outlined in Exodus 7:5.

The Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the people of Israel from among them.

 Not only would the Israelites know who God was, but the Egyptians would know who God was too!  This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite lines from the movie The Ten Commandments.  Pharaoh (played by Yul Brynner) was speaking about the God of Moses after being hammered by the ten plagues and watching the Israelites walk through the Red Sea on dry ground while his own army, chariots, and horses were swallowed up by the Red sea. “His God,” Pharaoh/Brynner gloomed, “IS God!”

 God was making it clear for all the world to see that the deliverance of His people came as a result of His power to deliver them—not the power or will of any man.  As we read in Romans 9:17, “The Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’”

 Yet I believe there was another reason for the delay; the delayed deliverance of Israel was also designed to deliver Moses from himself.  Self-reliance was in his sinful DNA—just as it is in yours and mine—and it had to be completely removed.  As the Bible tells us, it took some time to accomplish this!

 You will remember that Moses tried to take matters into his own hands when he struck down the Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave (Exodus 2:11).  Apparently he believed that the plan for freeing the Israelites would come from his hand, by his strength, and not God’s.  So God sent Him to the back side of the desert for 40 years of preparation.  And yet, even after 40 years of physical and spiritual “boot camp” in the wilderness, self-reliance was still seducing Moses to trust in his own strength. 

Moses cried out to God that he could not speak well, that neither the Israelites nor Pharaoh would listen to him.  “If the Israelites will not listen to me,” Moses objected, “why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?” (Exodus 6:12).  You see, Moses was still relying on Moses, and God had to deliver Moses from himself before He would use Moses to deliver His people from bondage.   

So . . . where in your life right now is God using a divine delay to deliver you from yourself: career advancement . . . financial increase . . . new relationship . . . loan qualification . . . increased responsibilities in your church?  Sometimes God delays so that His glory will be increased when deliverance finally comes.  And sometimes God delays so that we can be delivered from ourselves.  Either way, when God delays deliverance it is for two reasons: His glory and our good!

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

Have you ever said this to someone else?  If you’ve not said it out loud, you probably thought it on more than one occasion.  Now, it’s one thing to say this to another person; it is another thing altogether to say this to the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, who sought you, bought you, and caught you with the blood of His precious Son.

If you were to say, “If You really loved me, You would . . . ” to God, how would you finish the sentence?  The answer we give to that question will go a long way in uncovering what matters most to us in life.  The primary problem with a statement like that is the fact that it shouts to Omniscience that we are the ultimate authority of defining what love is.  How utterly ridiculous—especially in light of the clear, complete definition of love given in Scripture:  

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Based on the biblical definition of love, it’s easy to see just how absurd a statement like “If You really loved me” really is when directed to God.  As remarkable as the Corinthians passage on love is, the most striking portion is found in the last three words: “love never ends.”  Regardless of the circumstances you are experiencing in life right now, GOD’S LOVE FOR YOU NEVER ENDS!  Marinate in that truth for just a moment as you consider the Corinthians passage above.

• When you are impatient . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you are unkind . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you are envious and rude . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you are arrogant and boastful . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you insist on getting your own way . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you are irritable and resentful . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you rejoice in wrongdoing rather than in truth . . . God’s love for you never ends
• When you fail to bear, believe, hope, and endure all things . . . God’s love for you never ends!

It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?  No matter what you do, no matter what you fail to do, God’s love for you never ends!  And remember, all of the attitudes and actions listed above are sins; and yet, in spite of our sin, we are still loved by God.  I know these are not the spectacular, fall-from-the-sky, crash-and-burn kind of sins, but they are sins nonetheless.  God hates sin with an implacable, holy hatred, but He still loves the sinner so much to have sent His precious Son to the cross to pay for every sin of commission and omission.  True love expresses itself in the face of being wronged, hurt, inconvenienced, let down, betrayed . . . and even sinned against.  

Because of what Jesus has done for you, the love of God is forever yours.  Next time you think of saying to God, “If You really loved me, You would,” remember that He does love you with an eternal and everlasting love, regardless of what your circumstances in life say to you.

There are a lot of people in the church today that would say their love for God has no limits.  The Rich Young Ruler said the same thing in his encounter with Jesus.  But was it true? 

A ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good except God alone.  You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”  And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.”  (Luke 18:21)

You would be hard pressed to find a statement that shouts “Limit lover!” more than this one.  The ruler tells Jesus that he has kept all of the commandments from the time he was a young boy.  Let’s say this young man had indeed kept all of the commandments from his youth, as he so proudly proclaimed to Jesus (which he most certainly had not; see 1 Kings 8:46), his love still had limits.  When Jesus told him to sell his stuff, give to the poor, and follow Him, it placed far too much demand on the young ruler and exposed his heart and the limits he had placed on his love of God.  His love found its limits when it came to his stuff. 

Being a “no limit lover” is not easy, but it is possible by the power of the Gospel and the fruit of the Spirit.  You see, the Gospel frees us from bondage to the stuff of this world so we can give our heart—all of our heart—to our Savior.

Here are two marks that characterize “limit lovers” like the young ruler:

1. Unconditional Loving – when forced to choose between his love for Jesus and his possessions, the young ruler showed his true colors.  His love for Jesus was conditional; he would love his Savior with no limits . . . just as long as he could keep his stuff too! 

2. Sacrificial Giving – when forced to choose between his possessions and the Prince of Peace and the poor of this world, his true colors beamed brightly once again.  His love for Jesus and those Jesus loved was conditional; he would love just as long as it did not hurt, inconvenience, or deprive him of the stuff of this world.   

So . . . do you have any limits on your love for your Lord?  Is there something you are holding on to more tightly than Jesus?  Is there something you believe you simply cannot live without that is smaller than God?

Or maybe you truly are a “no limit lover.”  Do you love unconditionally, regardless of the cost or circumstance?  Do you give sacrificially until it hurts, disrupts your style of living, or moves you out of your zone of comfort?  No limit lovers of the Lord Jesus Christ are ready, willing, and able to sacrifice all for Him.  They could never be confused with those who are said to be “lukewarm” in their love for Jesus . . . those who have one foot in the world and one foot in the Word . . . those who have divided their affections between their Savior and their stuff.  No limit lovers live out the truth of the two greatest commandments.

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  There is no other commandment greater than these.

(Mark 12:30-31) 

Do you see that the rich young ruler broke the very first commandment by making his possessions his god and greatest goal in life?  The key to being a “no limit lover” of the Lord is to keep the fact before you that you are a great sinner in need of an even greater Savior, and His name is Jesus Christ.  And instead of giving sinners what they deserve—hell—He purchased us with His precious blood and gave us . . . heaven!

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

Have you been on the run from God lately?  Before you answer, let me describe two ways we run from God.  The first is by breaking the rules (riotous living) and the second is by keeping the rules (religious living).  There is no better place to see both of these errors in action than in the parable of the prodigal son.

It’s easy to miss the fact that both sons were running from God.  The son who demanded his inheritance and took off for the far country, wasting all of his time, talent, and treasure on riotous living is easy to spot.  But what about the son who stayed behind?  How could he have been on the run from God?  Let’s take a look.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”  (Luke 15:25-32)

The heart of the older son was finally and fully exposed when his brother returned from his riotous living.  Instead of sharing in the father’s joy when his lost brother returned home, “he was angry and refused to go in” to celebrate with his father and everyone in the household.  The older son was running from God by keeping the rules; his obedience flowed out of a heart anchored in duty, not devotion.

Tim Keller provides great insight into the condition of the heart of the elder brother who lives in all of us: 

The first sign you have an elder-brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply angry and bitter.  Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road if they try very hard to live up to standards.  What happens, then, if you are an elder brother and things go wrong in your life?  If you feel you have been living up to your moral standards, you will be furious with God.  You don’t deserve this, you will think, after how hard you’ve worked to be a decent person.

Elder brothers’ inability to handle suffering arises from the fact that their moral observance is results-oriented.  The good life is lives not for delight in good deeds themselves, but as calculated ways to control their environment.

So, have you been running from God by riotous living or religious living—by breaking the rules or keeping the rules?  Either way, the only cure is the Gospel.  The power of the Gospel frees our hearts to find our satisfaction, meaning, purpose, and identity in Christ—no one and nothing else.  Both sons were trying to get these things by the way they were living.  Only when we find these things in the One we are living for are we truly free.

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

The Bible paints a stark picture of our spiritual condition before Jesus shows up; that picture is both bleak and black . . . but thank God the Bible doesn’t leave us there!  In the midst of this desolate picture, God gives us a word of tremendous comfort: BUT.  Here are a few of what I call the “Beautiful Buts” of the Bible:

You meant evil against me, BUT God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.  (Genesis 50:20)

My flesh and my heart may fail, BUT God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  (Psalm 73:26) 

When they had carried out all that was written of [Jesus], they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. BUT God raised him from the dead . . .(Acts 13:29-31)

By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.  BUT now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. (Romans 3:20-22)

You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.  BUT God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.  (Ephesians 2:1-5)

We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.  BUT when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.  (Titus 3:3-5)

We are unrighteous, BUT God provides our righteousness.  We are in darkness, BUT God sends His Light.  We are lost, BUT God sends our Great Shepherd to find us.  We are in prison, BUT God has come to set the captives free.  We are dead, BUT God provides life.  We are utterly ruined, BUT God provides our rescue.  There are so many beautiful “BUTS” in the Bible that are designed to free us from the helpless and hopeless feelings that beset us all apart from Christ. 

You don’t have to be a believer to know that something is radically wrong in this world.  BUT you do have to be a believer, by God’s grace, to understand what God has done about it.  What makes God’s provision so incredible is that we do absolutely nothing to secure it.  That was done on the cross by Jesus Christ on our behalf.  How incredible to know that in our rebellion and lost condition, God shows up with the keys to the Kingdom!  We were once objects of His holy wrath, BUT now we are objects of His unconditional love and deepest affection.

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