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".
Jesus said, “Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)
On the same night when Jesus was betrayed by Judas, He was also denied by Peter — not once, but three times. In today’s passage, we see a hugely important biblical truth that relates to our sanctification — that is, the lifelong process of being conformed to the likeness of Jesus. Read on and be encouraged today!
Satan, the adversary and accuser of all Christians, wanted to “sift Peter as wheat,” which means Satan wanted to violently shake Peter’s faith in Jesus and cause Peter to fail and to fall. Now, it’s vitally important for us to remember that Satan cannot steal our salvation; Jesus made it clear that nothing and no one can take us out of His hand (John 10:28). But Satan can stain our sanctification, with the goal of discouraging us from continuing in service to our Savior. Two of the greatest barriers to an effective Christian witness are self-doubt and self-condemnation, and Satan works relentlessly to attack our minds and create that sense of discouragement and despair within us.
In biblical times, wheat was sifted through a strainer or a sieve. When it was violently shaken over and over, the dirt and other impurities that clung to the grain would separate from the good, usable grain. In short, it was a process of removing the bad stuff while keeping the good stuff. Now, because God is in control of all things, including Satan, we can see how God intends to use Satan as a supernatural sifter in the process of making us more like Jesus.
Notice in today’s passage that Jesus had interceded for Peter in prayer. He did not promise to remove the trial Peter was about to undergo, but our Lord did promise to bring Peter through the trial, and said that Peter would emerge better and stronger on the other side.
This is the promise for all of us today. God uses Satan as a supernatural sifter to make us more like Jesus. Throughout the sifting process we undergo in the trials we face, God is refining our character and strengthening our faith, ultimately making us more and more like Jesus. And just as Jesus prayed for Peter, He is interceding for us (Romans 8:34). He lives to intercede for us (Hebrews 7:25).
Remember, Satan’s power to sift us is determined and limited by God. Satan can only do what God allows to be done, and all of it is used by God for our ultimate good and His glory. May that truth set us all free today.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart. (Psalm 40:8)
Just as a yield sign indicates you that should let the other driver go ahead of you, being a Yield Sign Saint means that we keep Jesus on the throne of our lives, allowing Him to go before us in every area of life. Here are two keys that unlock the door leading to a life that is yielded to God.
Key #1 – Jesus is Lord
Every believer would be in complete agreement that Jesus Christ is Lord. The challenging question is this: Is Jesus Lord of your life? Have you given Him control of every area of your existence? Your thought life? Your finances? Your health plan? The use of your discretionary time? God in Christ created all things and sustains all things. He is Lord of all at all times and in all places. If we are going to live our lives as Yield Sign Saints, we must keep Jesus on the throne of our lives.
Key #2 – We have two natures
When Jesus saves us, we are saved, fully and finally. Yet inside we have two natures: the old, sinful, fallen nature and the new, resurrected, faithful nature. Before Jesus showed up, the old nature ruled our lives. Now, as believers, we must engage in the ongoing battle between the old nature and the new (Galatians 5:17). It has been well said that because of the cross work of Jesus, sin no longer reigns in our lives, but it still remains. We will still mess things up. At times we will find ourselves yielding to sin rather than to our Savior. Yet we must remember that the new nature is more powerful than the old nature. Greater is the power that is at work within us than any power that will come against us. Keeping this truth in view empowers us to live our lives yielded to Jesus.
When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed, He uttered these words: “Not my will, but thy will be done.” This is the language of the Yield Sign Saint, who understands that Jesus is Lord and knows that only in His strength can we win the ongoing battle inside the heart between the old nature and the new.
How is the battle going for you? Are you a Yield Sign Saint?
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life . . . (Matthew 6:25)
Doesn’t it feel like worry often puts a stranglehold on us in both the little things and the big things in our lives? Scripture tells us time and time again not to worry . . . but we worry anyway! Today I want to encourage by showing you how to weaken worry by using just a small portion of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus argued from the lesser to the greater — reasoning from clothes to life and from birds to people — He was making it clear that He has everything under His complete control.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? (Matthew 6:25)
Because the body and life are far more complex and difficult to sustain than food and clothing — and God has complete control of our lives (Philippians 2:13) — we should not be worried about the lesser aspects of life, such as food and clothing. God has promised to provide all our needs (Philippians 4:19). Additionally, when Jesus returns and consummates the new heavens and earth, we have been promised new, resurrected bodies and we will live forever in glory. Keeping this in view will weaken worry, don’t you think?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)
Here Jesus is telling us that God is ready, willing, and able to feed the birds, creatures far less valuable than people. If God is caring so completely for birds, will He not care for you, who are made in the image of God? Keeping this in view will weaken worry, don’t you think? We all know the ill effects of worry from personal experience. It damages our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. It derails our productivity, both on and off the job. It disrupts the way we ought to treat others. And worry disorients our trust in God.
Remember, the key to weakening worry is to remember that God has everything in complete control, both the big things and the small things. Let me close with an argument from the greater to the lesser:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
So do not worry, Christian; God has got this! He has got you. And you are assured of His love and care, both now and forevermore.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13)
Since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, we are living in a broken world as broken people interacting with other broken people. Because of this biblical truth, suffering is certain, as certain as the fact that sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning and set in the west.
Make no mistake: No matter how well we walk in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, we are not shielded from suffering. Take even a cursory glance through the Scriptures at the lives of those who were living right in the center of God’s will, and you will see that, no matter how well we walk worthy of the calling of the Lord on our lives, suffering is certain. Would anyone reading this disagree with the idea that John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, was living in the center of the will of God as he preached and baptized in the name of Jesus? Yet John was imprisoned and ultimately put to death for his unflinching obedience to the Lord.
Our passage of Scripture for today came from the pen of the apostle Peter, who was intimately acquainted with suffering for his Savior, and it tells us that suffering is not to catch us by surprise. Suffering is as promised as it is painful. But we are to rejoice in suffering — not for the pain, but for what the pain is doing to us: conforming us more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. Earlier in the same epistle, Peter explained that “These [trials] have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7).
Remember, God is working everything out and everything in as well. God is working everything out according to the counsel of His will in order to advance the cause of His Kingdom. He is working everything in us to make us more like Jesus, proving the reality of our faith. May these truths set us free to be all that God is calling us to be on days the sun is brightly shining . . . and on days when the storm winds are blowing hard against us.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21)
There is a story of a woman in England who came to her vicar with a troubled conscience. The vicar knew her to be a habitual gossip; she had maligned nearly everyone in the village. “How can I make amends?” the woman pleaded. The vicar said, “If you want to make peace with your conscience, take a bag of goose feathers and drop one on the porch of each one you have slandered.” When she had done so, she came back to the vicar and said, “Is that all?” “No,” said the wise old minister, “you must go now and gather up every feather and bring them all back to me.” After a long time the woman returned without a single feather. “The wind has blown them all away,” she said. “My good woman,” said the vicar, “so it is with gossip. Unkind words are easily dropped, but we can never take them back again.”
There’s not much commentary needed on a story like that! The tongue is a very small thing indeed, but what enormous damage can be done by those we wag it indiscriminately. Gossip isn’t harmless; it is a poisonous form of communication that has shipwrecked countless relationships between family members, friends, co-workers, and our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
So how do we rise above the toxic talk that can come out of our mouths? We must remember this one simple Scripture and keep it before us every time we open our mouths to speak:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)
If we are going to speak life, we must think before we speak. We need to think about the power of our words and be committed to speaking life through words that build up, rather than tear down. Remember that unkind words, just like goose feathers, are easily dropped, but we can never take them back again. As the wise preacher observed, “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18). By God’s grace, may we pause and reconsider before we utter reckless words. May words of life be the confession of our lives!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
We all know from personal experience that a promise is only as good as the integrity of the one who makes it. We have all made promises, and we have all broken promises. We have all had promises made to us, and we have all seen promises made to us broken. But there is One who has never broken a promise He has made — not one –and He never will. Read on and be encouraged today!
God is the true Promise Keeper. He is the Sovereign Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and we can count on every promise in the Word of God. We can take God at His Word. Because the Word of God is true (Proverbs 30:5) and God does not change (Malachi 3:6), we can take every promise God has made straight to the believer’s bank, knowing He will make good on all of them. As the psalmist exulted, “He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:9). When you are praying out of the knowledge of His promises in Scripture, you can pray with the confident assurance and expectation that your answer of blessing is on the way.
Remember, God has already fulfilled the greatest promise He ever made. He promised to send a Savior, and 2,000 years ago He did just that. Jesus lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, and rose supernaturally from the grave. To all those who, by grace through faith, receive Him as Lord and Savior, eternal life is the promised reward. And if God kept the greatest promise He ever made, He will surely keep the second greatest promise He ever made: sending Jesus back to consummate His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Our God is trustworthy. Our God is faithful. Our God is a Promise Maker and the Promise Keeper. No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” and “Amen” in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You have His Word on that!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name. (Isaiah 25:1)
There are only two reasons to do anything in life: One is for personal gain and the other is for God’s glory. The Scriptures are filled with examples of both, and it is always a good idea to inventory our hearts to see just what our motivations are for the things we are doing.
We can sum it all up this way: Are we using God as a means to attain an end? Or is the end God Himself? The first desire has us pursuing God for personal gain; the second is for God’s glory. Often we may be sailing through life without giving this any thought . . . until the storm winds begin to blow. When they do, we will know the true motive of our heart, because we will either shrink back from the trial or stand firm.
Let’s take a brief look at these two categories of professing Christians. Those who are working for personal gain look to their relationship with Jesus for the great gifts He can give them. They come for hope. They come for happiness. They come for a better home life. Some come to Him thinking that will guarantee them health and wealth. These are just a few of the personal gain reasons which make it painfully clear that they do not regard Jesus as their Messiah, only as the means to their desired ends.
On the other hand, those who are working for God’s glory look to Jesus as the end itself. Jesus is not the vehicle to victory, He is victory Himself. Jesus is not the way to wealth, He is our wealth. He is not the way to happiness, He is our joy.
How would you describe your walk with Jesus right now? Is your relationship with Jesus merely a means to a desired end? Or is Jesus the end Himself? We must always remember that we were created for relationship with Jesus, not for the rewards we get from Him.
There may be no better book in all the Bible to for displaying this truth lived out than the account of Job. God allowed His servant Job to suffer unimaginable losses: his health, his wealth, and all ten of his children. Job’s own wife harshly ridiculed him for staying committed to God. Job lost every reason to stay in a right relationship with God . . . except God Himself. And it is so gloriously obvious that Job loved God more than all the good gifts God had given him. Yes, Job loved his wealth, health, and children. But He loved God more! For Job, God was not a means to a desired end, God was the end Himself. Mere moments after he had learned of all the catastrophic losses that had befallen him in a single day, Job fell to the ground and worshiped:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:21-22).
May this be the confession of our lives! Let us build our relationship with God solely upon the goal of His glory and not our gain, because ultimately His glory IS our greatest gain!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites our of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)
After Moses had spent forty years tending sheep on the back side of the desert, God was ready to use him to deliver His people out of bondage in Egypt. Moses started out well; when God called to him, Moses readily replied, “Here I am.” But as soon as God declared His plan to make Moses the divine deliverer of God’s people, Moses began to hastily back away from the opportunity to be a servant for God’s use, offering up excuse after excuse. Let’s take a look, and I promise you will be as comforted as you are challenged to answer whatever call God has placed in your life today.
When Moses said, “Who am I . . . ?” he was speaking the truth; he was not qualified for God’s call in his life to do anything, at least from his human perspective. Forty years earlier, when Moses was in the court of Pharaoh, he killed an Egyptian slave master who was beating a Hebrew slave. When Moses’ crime became known, he fled Egypt and spent the next forty years as a shepherd in Midian.
God knew who Moses was. God knew that Moses had tried, in his way and his timing, to free his countrymen from their bondage in Egypt, but he went about it the wrong way – in his own strength, rather than in the strength of the Almighty. Yet now God was calling Moses into His service to deliver His people out of slavery. Truly, this is one of the greatest comforts we find in all of sacred Scripture: God sees past our past, and He looks all the way to our current potential as an instrument of usefulness in His mighty right hand. This was the case with Moses, and the same is true for you and me.
Have you ever wondered why God chooses to use such messed up people in His service? It’s because that’s all He has to work with! We are all messed up. We are all sinners with a past that would crush us under the weight of shame if those closest to us knew what God knows about us. Yet God, in His magnificent mercy, raises us out of the pit of our sinful past and brings us into His promised plan and purpose for our lives.
That is why God refused to accept Moses’ excuse that he wasn’t good enough to answer God’s call. It is true that Moses was not good enough in his own strength, but in the strength of the Almighty he was more than good enough; he was God’s ordained instrument of usefulness. Moses threw up several more excuses, and God simply took Moses from excuse to use, and that is exactly what God wants to do in each of our lives.
Have you answered God’s call on your life today? Remember, God knows everything about your past, yet He still wants to use you in the present for two simple reasons: His glory and your ultimate good. So when you sense God’s call, your answer should not be “Who am I?” but rather, “Here am I! Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3:9).
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
We all feel weak from time to time. When we do, we must remember the promise we have in Christ. Read on and be encouraged today, especially if this message finds you in a season of weariness and weakness, because weakness is strength for those who are in the Lord.
Christians know about the incomparable, supernatural strength of Almighty God. Our God is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He spoke everything into existence, and if He withdrew His hand at any moment in time, everything would cease to exist. But do you know when God’s strength is demonstrated most vividly and effectively in our personal lives? That happens when His strength intersects with our weakness.
Our human frailty has been a fact of life from the moment sin entered into our humanity when Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. Because of their sin, we all receive the wages of sin – death – and we are all dying at the rate of sixty minutes an hour. Sometimes our weakness presents itself in our distress and difficulties; at other times it appears in our struggles and sorrows; at still others our weakness rears its malignant head in our insecurities and iniquity. However, regardless of the challenges we are facing, we have the Source of supernatural strength to rely on and rest in. When we are weak, He is strong.
Here is a very important point to remember: The promise of His strength in our weakness does not mean God will remove the source of our struggle. Jesus promised that we will have trials, troubles, and tribulation in this world. But He also promised that He has overcome this world, which means we have a power at work within us that is greater than any power that can come against us. Often, rather than removing the storm, Jesus strengthens us in the middle of it. That way, when we emerge on the other side of of the trial, we are more conformed to His image than we were before.
Are you facing any storm winds today? How would you describe the witness of your weakness? Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with praying for God to remove the storm. Paul prayed three times that God would remove his “thorn.” But when God does not remove our difficulty, we can trust that the storm has been delivered to help us decrease and for Jesus to increase. This is the process of sanctification – where God is bringing us to the end of ourselves and making us more and more like Jesus as we continue through this life.
Christian, let your heart be filled with hope, regardless of the storms you are facing, because you can rest in the promise of God: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in [your] weakness.” Thank you, Lord!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:3)
One of the most important character traits for the people of God is perseverance under pressure, because pressure produces, and in that production, pressure returns blessings multiplied. Read on, and be greatly encouraged today!
The Bible is filled with examples of those who persevered under pressure. Joseph was sold into slavery by his resentful brothers. He certainly persevered under pressure; years later, he rose to the position of second-in-command in Egypt. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego persevered under pressure, accepting the flames of the fiery furnace rather than bowing down to the giant statue King Nebuchadnezzar ordered to be made of gold. Like Joseph, these three faith-filled young men were promoted to positions of prominence by the pagan king. Esther persevered under pressure when she chose to approach the king uninvited, which could have resulted in the penalty of death; her faith and courage saved the people of Israel. Stephen persevered under pressure, preaching the truths of the Gospel to the religious leaders, literally with his very last breath, even as the religious leaders were stoning him to death. The Lord Jesus stood to receive him.
Of course, there is no greater example of persevering under pressure than the one we see in our Lord Jesus Christ. From his infancy, Jesus was pressured on every side. King Herod sought to kill the newborn King and sentenced all the male children in Bethlehem aged two and under to death. An angel warned Joseph, and he took Mary and the baby Jesus down into Egypt. Throughout His entire ministry, Jesus was plagued and pressured by the religious leaders, who plotted to kill Him time and time again. And in His hour of greatest need in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was sweating drops of blood as He prayed about what would happen the following day, His pressure produced perhaps the greatest word of inspired instruction in the history of the world: “Father, if you are willing; take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
God’s grace is most magnified when we are navigating in the storms of life. It all comes down to trusting God even when we cannot trace His hand. The positive production of pressure cannot be overstated. It is God’s ordained way of conforming us to the image and likeness of Jesus. Our lives are hammered out on the anvil of pressure. Remember, when you squeeze a grapefruit, you get grapefruit juice. Squeeze an orange, and you get orange juice. The question is, What do those around you get when you are squeezed by the pressures of life?
The pressures you face in life are the passageway that produces a deeper intimacy with the One who died to make you His.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 