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".
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. (2 Corinthians 1:8)
Did you know that believers get down and depressed? Some Christians mistakenly believe that once they have trusted in Christ for salvation, depression should be as far from them as the east is from the west, as if they are now immune to depression, despair, and despondency. Now, to be sure, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), but the joy of the Lord is not always present! In today’s passage of Scripture, we read that the great apostle Paul despaired even of life. If Paul got down, it should not surprise us when we too get down at times. But just like Paul, we have all that we need in Jesus to deal with our “down” so that we are never “out.”
Here are three truths to lift you out of what may feel like the ashes of defeat:
Jesus is FOR You
If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)
Jesus is WITH You
“I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
Jesus is IN You
To [the saints] God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
Like Paul, we all succumb to times of depression, despair, and despondency. We are not perfected yet, and we won’t be until we cross the Jordan. Until that day, there will be circumstances in life that will come against us in surprising and disheartening ways. When that happens, we must remember to keep our focus on Christ, not our circumstances. When we do that, we will be reminded of our Lord’s assurances that He is for us, He is with us, and He is in us.
Regardless of what you are facing today, remembering those three truths will help you rise above the waves of challenge that will inevitably crash over your life. As Paul also said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9). When you do find yourself in periods of depression, despair, and despondency, remember that you are only down; you are never out!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1)
There’s a tremendous line in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump that surely resonates with all of us. “Forrest,” played by Tom Hanks, looks at worldly Jenny and says, “I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.” Is this not true of each and every one of us? Not many of us have anything approaching a genius-level IQ, but do we not all know, regardless of our age or station in life, what love is? And why do we all know this? Because God is love, and the entire story line of the Bible is God’s unfolding plan of redemption . . . it is the story of God’s LOVE for us!
This love is unlike any other kind of love. God’s love is a saving love. God’s love is a sacrificial love. God’s love is a supernatural love. And there is no better picture of this love than the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And Jesus was not speaking figuratively; He expressed His love for us in exactly that way: He willingly set aside the glories of heaven and entered our world to lay down His life so that we could have eternal life in Him.
Here is something we must always remember regarding the love God has for His friends: It is a love that is ready, willing, and able to afflict both the One who is demonstrating the love and the object of His affection in order to work a greater good that could in no other way be accomplished. Christian, you are to find great comfort in this truth! God does indeed love us just the way He found us–He descended to us, because it is impossible for us to ascend to Him. But He loves us far too much to leave us in the condition He found us in. God is at work, both in us and through us, to change us and conform us into the image of His beloved Son, and He will use whatever means necessary to complete the work He has begun in us.
Regardless of where this message finds you today, keep the wisdom of Forrest Gump in view and the love your Savior has for you. He took the punishment for your sin: He experienced the unimaginable horror of taking on the full wrath of God in order to have a personal relationship with you forever and ever. He took your condemnation. He took your scourging. He took your crown of thorns. He took your nine-inch nails. He took your cross. And He took your death. Why? Because He loves you enough to die for you!
STOP! Read that last sentence again. Don’t just nod your head and read on; think about it for a moment. God loves you enough to die for you! Perhaps committing the verse that follows to memory will bring you great comfort when you are feeling a bit unloved or unlovable:
“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness'” (Jeremiah 31:3).
Jesus appeared some 2,000 years ago–He was born, He lived a perfect, sinless life, He died on the cross, and He was raised to life again–as proof positive of God’s everlasting love for you. No matter what great difficulty you may be enduring right now, no matter what terrible storms are looming on the horizon, those trials are not there because God does not love you. I’m not a smart man, but I know love when I see it, and “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God. (Hebrews 4:9)
Christians believers know full well the promise of the Sabbath rest that awaits us on the other side of the grave. But is there any rest for us now? Does the writer of Hebrews have a promise for us in the here and now? Read on, and be encouraged today!
To be sure, the promise of a Sabbath rest will find its fulfillment when we are living in the new heavens and the new earth with our God and His people. But before we experience that fulfillment, we are to experience the first installment in this lifetime. So great a salvation has been given us that we can rest from trying to save ourselves. When Jesus enters our lives, He puts an end to our self-salvation project. When He cried out from the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), He meant what He said! The work of salvation has been completed. We can cease from trying to earn God’s favor through our good works, which, as the Bible tells us, really aren’t that good at all (Isaiah 64:6).
There is no more wearying a work than trying to earn our way into God’s continued favor and blessing. Millions of people are laboring under this great weight week after week, month after month, and year after year. The joy of the Lord is as far from them as the east is from the west, because they are crushed under the weight of working for a blessing, rather than simply resting in the ones they have already been given in Christ. You see, it is only by trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ that we can experience this Sabbath-rest in a world that is marked by restlessness.
Remember this truth: Jesus Christ not only earned this perfect rest for us, He is this perfect rest. By resting in Him, we begin to experience in part what we will one day experience in full: the Sabbath rest that remains for the people of God. If you need a little rest, live in the shadow of the cross, where your Lord paid the penalty for all your sins in full, satisfying all the demands of God’s justice. Living in the light of this truth will set you free to enjoy the fruits of your labor, rather than laboring for the fruit that Jesus gives you freely and without cost.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13 ESV)
In the verse before us today, we have a word of great instruction for the humbly inquiring mind that desires to know all the truth. Is that you today? Let’s take a brief look at three wonderful truths in these words from our Lord.
First, let us rejoice that the Spirit of Christ has come, and He has come to every believer. Just a few verses earlier in that same passage, John recorded these words from Jesus: “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.” (John 16:7 ESV). Jesus has ascended into heaven and is sitting in His rightful position of power and authority at the right hand of God the Father, but He has not left us alone. He promised His disciples–and He promises you and me–“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18). He has sent His Holy Spirit to be with every one of His children (Ephesians 1:13).
Second, let us rejoice that the Spirit of Christ has come as our Guide. We all painfully aware that we are as prone to wander as we are prone to err, and so we are in tremendous need of our Guide. Left alone, we will stray from the truth. We need our Divine Guide to keep our feet on the straight and narrow path, lest we drift to the left or to the right. The Holy Spirit is your personal Guide and Teacher, and it is His job to transmit the truth of God’s Word into our hearts and our minds.
Third, let us rejoice that the Spirit of Christ has come to guide us into all the truth. We do not want just some of the truth, which would lead to living a life that is out of balance. Without the whole counsel of God, we would only grow into a fraction of the person God is calling us to be. Only when we are guided into all the truth will we be prepared to weather any storm wind that blows our way. Those who receive only a portion of the truth find themselves buried under waves of challenge, rather than rising above them.
Do you have an inquiring mind that wants to know all the truth? I love the way the Amplified Bible renders Psalm 143:8 — “Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my inner self to You.” Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your steps, to guide your thoughts, and to shape your desires. You have the perfect Guide, living in you, as one of the many great and precious gifts you have received as a result of your faith in Jesus Christ.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble. (Psalm 119:165)
The truth contained in today’s verse may come as a surprise to some, but it is as certain as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west: Those who love the Word of God have great peace. The path to great peace runs through the place God’s Word holds in our hearts.
If you have not read Psalm 119 lately, let me encourage you to do so today. Psalm 119 celebrates the Word of God. It celebrates its comfort. It celebrates its challenge. It celebrates its correction. It celebrates its commandments. It celebrates the covenant promise made to all God’s people. It is the longest psalm in the Bible, longer than many of the Bible’s books, and out of 176 verses, only a few do not explicitly mention the Word of God. It opens with, “Blessed are those . . . who walk according to the law of the Lord,” and it closes with, “I have not forgotten your commandments.” And what lies in between paints a breathtaking picture of the path to great peace.
In our verse today, look at the promise for those who love God’s law: Nothing can make them stumble. The reason for this promise is not found in our faithfulness to God, but rather in His faithfulness to us. God has given us a divine power that is greater than any power that can come against us (Isaiah 54:17; 1 John 4:4). When we stay connected to that power, we experience a peace that passes all understanding. Think about it this way: When you love something, you want to spend time with what you love. If we truly love God’s law, we will want to spend time in it each day. We will read it from beginning to end; we will meditate on it and marinate in it. When we do that, we can rest assured that “great peace” will be coming our way.
Even when we do not understand what is going on around us, we can still have peace deep within us, because we know that our God is in control of all things. When chaos comes knocking at our door, a chaos that makes others cry out in fear — something that might sound very much like, “Lord, we’re going to drown” (Matthew 8:25) — those who love the Word of God will trust in the God of the Word and pass through the storm with great peace.
One last thought: If you are in any way lacking some of this great peace, perhaps you need to spend a bit more time in God’s Word, knowing that the living and active Word of God will work this love and peace into you all the way into glory.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
This is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3)
When you read today’s verse, do you wonder why John was inspired to add, “And his commands are not burdensome”? We can all remember times–probably lots of times–when it seemed like keeping God’s commands was an incredible burden . . . perhaps an impossible burden! Forgiving someone who has wronged us . . . Loving someone who is unlovable . . . Serving someone who is never satisfied . . . All of these are very difficult things to do, even on our best days. Of course, the answer to this dilemma is found on the front end of the verse, where John tells us that love for God equals obedience to God. When we keep our focus on our love for God, obedience to God is not burdensome. In fact, this is how we move from obedience feeling like an onerous duty to being a Spirit-filled delight.
In the parable of the prodigal son, we see just how odious obedience had become to the elder brother. When his younger brother, the prodigal, returned home after squandering his inheritance and was welcomed by their father with open arms, the elder brother growled at his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders” (Luke 15:29). Do you see it? He believed that he had been perfect in his obedience to his father, but his obedience was not a delight; it was a duty that had obviously descended into drudgery. He was not obeying his father out of love; he was obeying out of self-love and what he hoped to get from his father.
How is it with you? Is your obedience a delight? Have you found the path of righteousness and holy living to be not burdensome? Are you able to say from your heart, “I delight to do your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8)? Only to the extent that your heart beats for Jesus will your answers to these questions be a resounding “YES!” Our Lord provided us with the most magnificent model of obedience being a delight when He told His disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).
Think about it this way: Jesus forgave those who had wronged Him, He loved those who were unlovable, and He served those who were never satisfied, yet He said that obedience was His very “food”–His nourishment that gave Him strength. He delighted in living in obedience to the commands of His Father in heaven. Shortly before He was going to submit to beatings, scourging, crucifixion, and the unimaginable horror of being subjected to the righteous wrath of God against your sins and mine and the sins of all who would ever and will ever trust in His atoning death, Jesus said:
“My heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27-28).
Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. . . . He humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8). This is the example that our Lord set for us. The desire of our hearts should be to do the will of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness (2 Peter 1:3). Obedience is never a burden for those who love God, because one of the primary blessings God gives His children is a transformed heart that turns the duty of obedience (which we all owe to Him) into an unimaginable delight.
May that be the confession of all our lives.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” (Revelation 12:10)
As a child of the Most High God, it is right and required to repent of our sins, but it is wrong to rehearse them over and over again. One of the great goals of the accuser is to get us to do exactly that, and here is the reason why Satan keeps reminding us of our sins: When we rehearse our sins time and time again, we take our eyes off the victory won by our Redeemer and keep them on ourselves, with all our sins and shortcomings.
Rehearsing our sins is not of God; repentance of sins and restoration is of God. Rehearsing our sins is of the devil, who takes poisonous pleasure in shifting our focus away from our Savior and setting it squarely on ourselves. His goal is to keep us groaning, “What a miserable person I am!” (Romans 7:24 NLT). Life at this level becomes all about us, which prevents us us from growing into the person God is calling us to be.
I speak with far too many Christians who are locked in the rhythm of rehearsing and revisiting past sins. The accuser has convinced them that this is a sign of maturing in the faith, mulling over past sins and repenting over and over again, as if the depths of despair over past sins is a way to convince God we are truly sorry. But this is not for you! As Steve Brown says, “This smells like smoke and comes from the pit of hell.”
The sign of maturing in the faith is taking God at His word. He has promised us that He has removed our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12); He has hurled all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19); and He has put all our sins behind His back (Isaiah 38:17). Oh, what a tremendous encouragement this is for all those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation! In essence, God is saying to you and me, “Why would you continue to rehearse your past sins over and over again, when I have promised to remember them no more?” (Hebrews 10:17).
Self-condemnation is one of Satan’s sharpest arrows, designed to weaken our faith and water down our witness in every way. Let us all keep one of God’s great promises in view, which is, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). When you mess up, exchange repenting for rehearsing, because then you will conquer the attacks of the accuser, who has been overcome by the precious blood of the Lamb and by the triumphant testimony of His victorious saints (Revelation 12:11).
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. (Romans 6:13)
Take a moment to think of a former boss. If you ran into that person today and he/she said that you are expected to work overtime this weekend, what would you say? My first response would be, “I don’t work for you anymore!” (And I might be tempted to ask, “What’s wrong with you?”)
I think we would all respond in pretty much the same way. When you did work for that former boss, you had to do what you were told to do. You took your marching orders from that individual. But now you have moved on to another position, and you no longer take orders from your previous boss. That person has lost all authority over you.
Once you became a Christian, the very same principle became true in the spiritual realm. Before Jesus raised you from death to life, you were a servant (a slave) to sin. Sin was your boss . . . your master. But after you were given the divine gifts of repentance and faith, you were set free from your old boss; now you are under the authority of your new Boss, the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul set this truth before us beautifully:
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18)
When was the last time you took orders from your previous boss? When was the last time you marched to the beat of your former employer’s drum? We all do this from time to time; we sin because we are all still sinners in need of a Savior. Paul himself, in the very next chapter of his epistle to the Romans, admitted, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18). What we must keep in view is that we have a new Boss now, the One who has come from above. Jesus has complete authority over you; He has every right to ask whatever He wants of you in order to advance the cause of His kingdom and bring honor and glory to His name. He laid down His life in order to become your new Boss; there is nothing He cannot ask of you . . . nothing!
The first thing Jesus is asking you today is this: “Regardless of where you go and what you do, remember Whose you are!” Remembering who our true Boss is will go a long way in helping us to follow His commands and to ignore the malevolent marching orders from our previous boss.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
. . . [T]he Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)
Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan? A man was beaten and left for dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest and a Levite both came to the place where the man lay, naked and bleeding, and both passed by on the other side of the road. But a Samaritan man, who was hated and despised by the Jews solely because of his ethnicity, had compassion on the man, stopped and bandaged his wounds, and took him to an inn. After caring for the man, he paid the innkeeper and asked him to look after the man while he was gone. The good Samaritan promised that he would pay the innkeeper for any additional expense upon his return. In essence, he said, “Charge that man’s debts to my account!” (Luke 10:30-35).
Jesus, like the good Samaritan, has said of each and every one of our sins–past, present, and sins still to come–“Charge them to My account!” The Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world took upon Himself every one of the sins of all those who will place their trust in him. One could spend a lifetime of meditation and still not come close to plumbing the depths of this blessed assurance. Jesus, as our substitute, had laid upon Himself a debt we owed but could never pay, and He did it freely for the unimaginable joy that was set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).
The accuser wants you to forget this truth and live with gnawing guilt, which will keep you from doing all that God has called you to do. Satan wants you to believe that you are so polluted with sin that you are paralyzed from doing the kingdom work God has given you to do. Sadly, far too many in the church have forgotten about their day of deliverance. They do not understand the Lamb’s shout of triumph from the cross: “It is finished!” Our debt was charged to His account and paid in full. Our sins have been forgiven. Eternal life has been secured.
Remember, the devil is a liar, and he will do everything in his power to muddy your mind and wreck your witness for Jesus. The next time you find yourself dealing with a bout of gnawing guilt, remember the story of the good Samaritan, who was willing to pay any debt incurred by the beaten man he brought to the inn. This is a clear picture of your beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is greater than the good Samaritan. He has not only nailed every one of your sins to that cross, but He washed them white as snow with His cleansing blood. Hear Him say, “Charge those sins to my account,” and let that truth strengthen you to go and sin no more. The good Samaritan spent his money to help the dying man, while Jesus spent His precious blood to raise you from death to life!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I will strengthen you and help you. (Isaiah 41:10)
As we embark on yet another new year, let these words from the prophet Isaiah both comfort you and challenge you each day as you hold fast to the truth that God will give you all the strength you need to go through every season of life. Let’s take a closer look.
First, notice who has given us this guarantee of strengthening: It is none other than God Himself. Omnipotence has promised us strength, and who would dare doubt such a guarantee? There is an endless, inexhaustible stream of strength in the Sovereign Lord, strength that is not in any way diminished when He gives us a portion of it.
Next, notice that we are not told that there is a particular season in which we will be strengthened. Therefore, we must take this promise to mean that we will be given strength and help in all of them! God has promised to strengthen us in our seasons of successful service and He has promised to strengthen us in our seasons of sorrowful service. Regardless of the season we find ourselves in, we have this guarantee from the Lord God Omnipotent: I will strengthen you!
To be sure, this guarantee from God is a source of unimaginable comfort, but that’s not all! God’s promise is also a challenge to rise above any obstacle that stands in our way, since our strength does not come from within, but rather from above. Human weakness is no obstacle for divine strength. In fact, Paul tells us that when we are weak, our God is strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Regardless of what we are currently facing, God has promised to strengthen us.
The fearful are given courage.
The doubting are given conviction.
The lonely are given company.
The weak are given confidence.
The broken are given compassion.
These are just a few of the challenges we will face throughout life; through them all, God has promised to give us the strength we need to see them through.
So let me ask you a very important question right now: “What strength are you in short supply of today that would help you get through another year of life?” Fear not! Go to your Savior and cry out to Him . . .
Lord, please strengthen me supernaturally according to your Word!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 