Pastor Tommy is the senior pastor of Cross Community Church (PCA) in Deerfield Beach, FL. Rev. Tommy Boland is his official title. Pastor Tommy often seems too formal. Most everyone calls him "Coach".
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17)
There are many things in this life that we consider precious. Family is one of them. Friendship is another. Health would be high on the list. But there is something far more precious to ponder, and that is the Divine Omniscience that keeps us in His thoughts both day and night. In fact, from eternity past, our God thought about us in His covenant of grace, in which He secured our salvation by the blood of His precious Son (Hebrews 13:20).
Now, if the Lord thought about us in eternity past, we can be assured that He is thinking about us in the present, and He will continue thinking about us throughout all eternity. Ponder for a moment today what is truly precious and you will be greatly encouraged, knowing that God’s love for you . . .
Sought you
Caught you
Bought you
Taught you
and Keeps you!
God sought you in His thoughts before you even existed (Ephesians 1:4-5). God caught you when you were on the run from Him, intent on living the life you wanted to live for your own glory (Romans 5:8). God bought you with the precious blood of His Son on Calvary’s hill (Ephesians 1:7-8). God taught you the truths of His Gospel (Ephesians 2:8), and He continues teaching you those truths each day (John 14:26). Is it not precious to consider that regardless of what is going on in your life, God is working all of it for your good and His glory (Romans 8:28)? Is it not precious to consider that God has promised to never leave nor forsake you, no matter how many times you leave and forsake Him (Hebrews 13:5)? And is it not precious to ponder the truth that nothing – not Satan, not your sin, nor anything else in all creation – can ever separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39)?
Never believe what the world tries to tell us about some impersonal force that exists in the world. Your God is not only personal, He is personally thinking about you moment by moment. As the Lord lives, He lives with you on His mind. Let that truth set you free to be all God has called you to be, regardless of cost or circumstance.
Perhaps today is a good day to ponder what is truly precious? If you do, I can promise you that your heart will be filled with joy.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. (1 Peter 2:21)
Suffering is simply a fact of life after the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But there is a special kind of suffering Peter is speaking about in our verse for today. This is not the suffering that results from living in a broken and sin-stained world; no, the suffering Peter had in mind comes from being a disciple of Christ and suffering for Christ’s sake. It is suffering unjustly, as Peter explained in 1 Peter 2:19. Christian, you were called to this suffering.
The darkness hates the light, so we, as children of the light, must expect to suffer when we are living for the Light of the World. When Jesus came into the world as this Light, He suffered greatly, even unto death on a cross. And that is simply the nature of the relationship between darkness and light . . . unrighteousness and righteousness . . . evil and good. It is certain that, to the degree we live out our calling as disciples of Christ, we will experience suffering.
When James wrote, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,” he was telling us that this was indeed the pattern of Christ in His suffering in this world, “who for the joy set before him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). And what was the joy that set before Him? It was you and me and all those who are His. He took the crown of thorns, the nine-inch nails, and the condemnation of the cruel cross, all for the joy of bringing us into an eternal love-relationship with Him.
After the Sanhedrin flogged the apostles for speaking in the name of Jesus, we read that “The apostles left . . . rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41). The more the disciples spoke of Jesus, the more they suffered. And the more they suffered, the more they rejoiced, because in their suffering they were like their Savior.
And that brings you and me to an uncomfortable, unavoidable question: Have I suffered for Christ? As disciples of Christ, suffering is certain . . . but only if the darkness knows we are the children of the light. Do those you come in contact with know this truth about you? Can they see it? Many Christians — particularly American Christians — fear harsh words or sneering scorn for speaking what they believe. But do we fear hearing this? “I’ve known you for years, and I had no idea you were a Christian!” Would those not be the cruelest words of all? Or would they simply be a sad statement of fact?
Remember, whatever sufferings we endure for the glory of God are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us when we cross the Jordan (Romans 8:18). May that truth strengthen us for the certainty of suffering for our Savior.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
There is a comforting challenge contained within today’s passage of Scripture. Jesus was talking about Himself as the “True Vine” and referred to us as His branches. When He said, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” it was the same as saying “Connected to me you can do anything.”
We live in a world that is self-deceived by self-dependence. The notion of the self-dependent or self-reliant person is a myth; anyone who believes it lives in a world of make-believe. No one ever has and no one ever will live a self-dependent life. Even our Lord Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, did not live a self-dependent life when He came into this world. No, He lived in complete dependence upon God the Father through the power of God the Holy Spirit. Our Lord freely confessed, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19).
To pursue a life of self-dependence is to pursue a life our Savior refused to live. Think about it this way: Every breath you take and every beat of your heart is dependent on the will of God. Only as God purposes life for us do we have life, and that life is totally dependent upon the will of God sustaining it, “for in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Every person is God-dependent, whether they acknowledge that truth or not.
When the world speaks of “will power,” it is speaking in self-deceiving terms, because “will” has absolutely no “power” apart from God. Listen, being our own god is not only hard, it is impossible. When we attempt to do it, our vain hope that our self-dependence will mask our weaknesses actually accomplishes just the opposite. We end up appearing frail, foolish, and fearful to those around us.
So here is the question we all must ask ourselves: Are we trying to live a life of self-dependence, as branches disconnected from the True Vine? If you are sensing that there is in any area of your life where this is the case, simply turn your heart back to God and remember these words from the Sovereign Lord: “‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6).
Remember, self-dependence is self-deception. Stay close to Jesus through His Word, your prayers, and consistent connection to His people, and you will be living the only kind of life that truly matters: a Savior-dependence that brings glory to God and good to others.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Prayer is a powerful tool in the hands of God’s people. Why? Because there is infinite power in the name of Jesus Christ. Not only have we been invited to come boldly to the throne of grace, we have been assured that anything we ask for in the name of Jesus will be done.
But I must make something clear before we go on: To ask in Jesus’ name is to ask for Jesus’ sake.
“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:14)
Our prayers are to be directed at the expansion of Christ’s kingdom, not our own. Make no mistake, when God opened the way for us to come into His presence 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, He was not giving us a blank check to cash for the advancement of our personal affluence and a life of ease. To ask in Jesus’ name is to ask for the things that matter most to Him. Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17 gives us valuable insight into what matters most to Jesus: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).
As a sent people, we are to live lives of other-orientation. Jesus has commissioned us to live in a way that brings glory to God and good to others . . . all others. We are to meet people in their place of need, acting as the hands and feet of Christ. To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray for the advancement of the Gospel; when we are praying like this, we can be assured our prayers will be answered with a resounding “Yes!”
To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray to fulfill His plans and His purposes in this life. To pray in Jesus’ name is to lay aside our personal goals, agendas, dreams, and desires. It is to abandon the self as we advance in the direction of the Savior. When Jesus prayed to His Father in the garden of Gethsemane, “Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42), He was providing us with the model of a prayer life that is rooted in Jesus’ name.
Finally, praying in Jesus’ name protects you from the warning James delivered to the people of God: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3). When you pray in Jesus’ name, you are reminded to rely on His wisdom, His power, His strength, and His guidance.
Be encouraged today, and take some time to pray in Jesus’ name, being confident that whatever you ask for in His name, He has promised to do for you.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.” (Ezekiel 34:11)
Let’s begin our week with this most astonishing truth: Our Lord Jesus Christ does not send someone out in His place to search for and look after His sheep. No, the prophet Ezekiel tells us that God Himself, the Sovereign Lord of all the universe, is our Seeking, Searching, Shepherd Savior. And He is all that for you. Is that not a word of cosmic comfort to you today, regardless of where this message finds you?
Notice something else contained within today’s text. Our salvation not only begins because of our Searching Savior, but it continues and is sustained because of our Shepherd Savior. No matter where or how often we wander away from our Savior, He searches for us and returns us to His sheepfold. And this does not happen after a certain number of His flock wander away. The parable of the lost sheep makes it gloriously clear that our Great Shepherd leaves the herd to go off and find that one, single lost sheep and brings him or her back to the fold. You matter that much to Jesus!
One final point: To be looked after by our Shepherd is to be locked into our salvation. Jesus said quite plainly, “This is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:39). Jesus will not lose a single sheep; nothing can take you out of His hand (John 10:28-30). Is this not a powerful promise to plead if you find yourself feeling far off from the sheepfold and strayed from your Shepherd?
Peter felt the power of that promise. When he had denied Jesus three times on the night our Lord was betrayed and Peter heard the rooster crow (it must have sounded like a crushing thunderclap of despair to him), Peter’s heart was broken for having walked away from his Savior. But after the Resurrection, Jesus restored Peter by asking a simple question — not once, but three times: “Do you love Me?”
If your answer is the same as Peter’s — “Yes Lord, you know that I love You” — then be assured that nothing can or will ever separate you from your Shepherd Savior. Let that truth set you free today and every day until you cross the Jordan and enter into your eternal rest.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. (James 2:23)
Have you ever considered the difference between being a follower of Jesus and being a friend of Jesus? I assure you, the difference is as profound as it is personal. Let’s take a look and see if you are not greatly encouraged.
First, we must understand the order of things from a biblical perspective. You cannot be a friend of Jesus until you are first a follower of Jesus.
He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19
Jesus makes the first move in our relationship with Him. That first move, of course is that he died for us while we were still sinners, alienated from Him (Romans 5:8; Colossians 1:21). Then He comes to us and calls us to follow Him. In order to follow Jesus, we must be willing to first put down our own nets and pick up His. Jesus wants us to leave our old life behind and begin walking in the newness of our life in Christ.
This means we begin to live for something bigger than the life we are currently living in the flesh; we are to walk by faith in following Jesus. This is a wonderful place to be living as a follower of Jesus, a place where we are more concerned about expanding the cause of His kingdom than building our own little kingdom.
But there is so much more for the Christian! Jesus tells us, “I no longer call you servants . . . Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15). The disciples were still followers of Jesus, but now they followed Him as friends, a term which conveys the understanding of deep intimacy. Friendship with God is a place of the highest honor, as the Lord told the prophet Isaiah:
“You, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend . . .” (Isaiah 41:8)
Israel was God’s “servant,” Jacob was God’s “chosen one,” but Abraham was God’s friend. Here we see clearly that the difference is not found at the level of relationship; all were all in relationship with God, and they all followed their God wherever He led them. The difference is found in the level of intimacy. There was something deeper going on at a heart level between Abraham and God; that is the key to understanding the difference between being a follower and being a friend of God. Moses also enjoyed this kind of intimacy with God; “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exodus 33:11).
How is it with you? Are God’s desires your desires? Are God’s goals your goals in life? Are you able to echo Jesus from your heart and say, “Not my will, but thy will be done”? If your answer is yes, then be encouraged today, for you have entered into the intimate circle of friendship with your God.
And if you are tempted to hand your head and sorrowfully admit, “No, I’m not there,” I have a word of encouragement for you too! Actually, it is God’s Word of encouragement:
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:8 ESV)
God does not reserve His friendship only for “super saints” . . . the promise is for all who will draw near to Him with a hunger to know Him more. Start by following Him, loving Him, asking Him to help you know Him more, and you will find yourself engaged in the most incredible friendship!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. (Revelation 5:6)
I first preached on this text many years ago, and I still remember the number of people who were surprised — even shocked — by its truth: Our exalted Lord Jesus Christ still bears the marks of the wounds He suffered on our behalf, and He will forevermore. Have you ever wondered why? Let’s take a look, and I pray you will be encouraged by the witness of His wounds.
By His Wounds You Are Healed
When the apostle Peter quoted the prophet Isaiah, saying, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24), he was telling us that it was through the suffering of our Lord Jesus that our salvation was won on Calvary’s hill. The beatings and scourging of our Lord, culminating in His slow, terrible, agonizing death on a wooden cross, delivered the death blow to the evil one. Jesus took our punishment, our beatings, our scourging, our crown of thorns, our nine-inch nails, our cross, and ultimately our death. And when He walked out of the tomb three days later, giving proof positive that God the Father was fully satisfied by the atoning sacrifice of His beloved Son, we were granted access to a redeemed relationship with God, by grace through faith. We have been healed by Jesus’ wounds from the curse of sin and death. But that’s not all!
By His Wounds He Is Revealed
His wounds not only healed us, they also revealed Him. Here is how “the Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, put it in his April 23 Evening devotional:
The wounds of Jesus are His glories, His jewels, His sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is passing fair because He is white and ruddy – white with innocence, and ruddy with His own blood. We see Him as the lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with His own gore. Christ is lovely upon Olivet and Tabor, and by the sea, but oh! There never was such a matchless Christ as He that did hang upon the cross.
The glorious Trinity — God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit — revealed their unwavering eternal love for us in the deepest and most profound way through the witness of Jesus’ wounds. Jesus loved us enough to endure the most unimaginable torture . . . willingly! Every blow Jesus endured fell because He allowed it. And when the full, atoning price for our sin had been paid, He willingly gave up His Spirit. No one took our Lord’s life; He laid it down so that He might lift us up into heavenly glory (John 10:17-18).
So as you go about your day and throughout this week, pause to reflect on the witness of His wounds. You have not only been healed, but Jesus has been revealed as the Lover of your soul who refused to let you go. He loved you . . . He sought you . . . He bought you . . . and one day He will catch you up to be with Him forever.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” (John 17:4)
We were created by God for God, and thus we exist that God might be glorified in us. And because everything we do is to be an act of worship, we can be sure that there are countless ways of giving God glory. Let’s take a look at just one of these ways, which is rooted in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). Every moment of every day, Jesus was focused on His mission of being the Savior of the world. And He knew that by fulfilling His mission and finishing the work that His Father in heaven had given Him, Jesus was bringing glory to God.
Here is a phrase from the world of business that helps to crystallize the truth of John 17:4 — Begin with the end in mind. Jesus knew what He was here to do, and He would let nothing prevent Him from doing it.
What is true for Jesus is true for His disciples. We bring glory to God when we are busily engaged in finishing the work God gave us to do. I often say from the pulpit that I don’t know if God has called you to be a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, but I do know is this: Every disciple has been called to advance the cause of the Kingdom of Christ, right where God has planted us. From the boardroom to the family room, we have been called by God to demonstrate the truths of the Gospel to a watching world.
Now, let me caution you with this truth: None of us will do this like Jesus did it. Jesus brought glory to God by finishing His work perfectly. We all do our work imperfectly — wildly imperfectly at times. But God takes our imperfect work and sanctifies it; ultimately He will perfect it. Knowing this truth frees us to press on toward the goal, to finish the work, knowing full well that work will be dogged by faults and even failure along the way. Many Christians are paralyzed by the fear of failure, which keeps them from attempting much of anything for God. But the true disciple of Christ knows perfection will only come on the other side of the grave. Here the goal is simply progress.
How are you progressing in giving God glory by finishing the work He has given you to do? Let me encourage you with one final point on today’s passage. When Jesus prayed the words recorded in John 17:4, we are to anticipate His victory cry from the cross: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Knowing that Jesus finished His work for you should be all the motivation and inspiration you need to finish your work for Him.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” (Isaiah 1:14)
When was the last time you thought of God as carrying around some sort of burden? If you are like most believers, the answer is most likely, “Never!” Yet the prophet Isaiah tells us that the all-powerful God of the universe does indeed become burdened, and the reason can be found in a single word: hypocrisy.
Omnipotence wearies when we worship Him with our lips while our hearts are wandering away from Him. To weary God — to burden our Beloved — is a serious matter that must be dealt with. Like any enemy that comes between us and God, we must take sword to this sin and cut it out at its root.
To be sure, we are all affected by the sin of hypocrisy. If we are honest, all of us would confess that there are times when our practice does not match our profession. We say we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then we behave in a way that is entirely inconsistent with the inspired, infallible, inerrant, God-breathed Scriptures. But that is not the “burden” that the Lord says is wearying Him. God knows we are still sinners in need of a Savior; even after we have been saved, we need our Savior moment by moment. God knows the old sin nature is waging a constant struggle with the new saved nature (Galatians 5:17). This is simply the way of the Christian life, and we will fight this battle all the way into glory.
God’s burden is a believer with a heart that has grown cold, treating God as an unnecessary appendage, if you will, one to be jettisoned by a cool and casual commitment. I cannot find a greater statement of the evil of a divided heart than to read that Omnipotence grows weary and is burdened by it. This alone should cause each of us to examine our own heart to see what it is actually beating for. As we saw in Monday’s article, too many of us have hearts that beat for the good gifts God has given, not for God Himself. That sort of mercenary relationship with Jesus is one that has been reduced to a religion marked by empty ritual – “New Moon feasts and appointed festivals” conducted with no love, no gratitude, no sense of awe and wonder at the manifest goodness and glory of God Almighty.
So how do we ease God’s burden? We journey back to the day of our salvation, the day when our hearts burned deep within us for Jesus Christ, not the things He could give us. We remember that God will tolerate no rival and we turn back to our First Love . . . on our knees. We cry out to Jesus, knowing that He is faithful to forgive and forget. And we keep in view all the great saints who occasionally found their hearts beating for something much smaller than God.
Abraham struggled to believe God’s promise and tried to pass his wife off as his sister to save his own skin. David’s duty as king was to lead Israel’s army off to war, but he remained behind, seduced another man’s wife, and then arranged for the man to be killed in battle. Peter’s divided heart became malignantly manifest when Peter denied Jesus three times on the night He was betrayed. All these faithless actions wearied God and became a burden to Him. Yet God brought Abraham, David, and Peter through these dark valleys of disbelief with a deeper love for Him than they had before. Our gracious God transformed His burden into His blessing.
God never changes; He has attested to that in His Word. What He did for the saints of old, He will do for you today.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame. (Psalm 25:3)
The Prodigal Son lived in a palace. It was the place where he was met with the unconditional love and forgiveness of his father — not only daily, but moment by moment. But when this young man told his father he wanted to collect his inheritance, he essentially exchanged the palace for a pigsty.
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating.” (Luke 15:11-16)
We do the very same thing every time we exchange our will for God’s will in our lives. In demanding his inheritance “now,” the Prodigal Son was refusing to be patient and follow the father’s timing. To be sure, he had a time of carefree celebration in the far country, but it didn’t last. It never does. He squandered all he had been given and found himself utterly bankrupt, eating husks with the swine, and longing to be back in his father’s loving presence.
Does that resonate with you as much as it does with me? Look at it this way: The Prodigal Son already had his inheritance. It was his by birth, but it was not the right time for him to receive it. God not only knows exactly what we need, He also knows exactly the right time to give it to us. But the sin of impatience got the best of the young son. Impatience starts as an infection and winds up as an insidious disease, and it will eventually lead us away from the palace into the pigsty.
Remember, it’s not enough to want what God wants for our lives. We must wait to receive it in His timing. Often “now” is not God’s perfect timing for our imperfect lives. The shepherd boy David had to wait seven years to receive what God wanted for his life, which was the king’s throne in Israel, and that wait occurred after he had been anointed three times to become king!
So let me ask you this question: Where in your life right now are you dealing with a bit of impatience?
If this message finds you on the other side of impatience that has pushed you into a pigsty, fear not! The younger son eventually made his way back from the pigsty to the palace, where he was met with the unconditional love and forgiveness of his father. Amazing grace, wouldn’t you agree? Even when we mess it up, God turns our mess into His masterpiece. As the psalmist said, those whose hope is in the Lord will never be put to shame. Turn to Him. Experience His forgiveness. Feel His love. Rejoice in His grace!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 