Category Archives: General

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”  (Isaiah 1:18)

Is it right for a mere mortal, stained by sin and self-absorption, to reason with God? As long as we understand the biblical meaning of the word “reason” as it is used her in Isaiah’s prophecy, it is not only right, but it is commanded.

Let’s start with an understanding of what “reasoning with our Redeemer” does not mean. First, it does not mean that we come to the throne room of heaven in the posture of a criminal’s defense attorney and plead our case by defending our wrongdoing and making excuses for our actions. Self-justification is as unwelcome as it is unwarranted when we stand before the revealed truth of Scripture, having knowingly violated it at virtually every turn.

Second, reasoning with our redeemer does not mean that we engage in arguing with the Almighty regarding any set of circumstances. You can see both these sinful forms of “reasoning” placed on dreary display by our first parents as they crouched, shivering in fear before the Lord God Almighty, clad in the flimsy fig leaves of their own self-righteousness.

[God] said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:11-13)

“It’s not my fault,” was Adam’s protest. “You put me in bad circumstances! This woman you gave me is the reason I sinned!” How gracious is our God to listen to such blasphemy and not destroy the one who spoke it!

Eve sought to create an alibi for her actions. “It’s not my fault,” was her feeble defense. “The devil made me do it!” This kind of reasoning does not move the heart of God. All we do is compound our sin by even uttering it!

Reasoning with our Redeemer means that we come humbly and yet confidently to the throne of grace, according to His will, acknowledging the truth of His Word and His promise.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. (1 John 5:14)

When we are operating from the organizing principle that directed the entire life of Jesus—“Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42)—we can be assured that God will hear and respond to our reasoning. And so the only way we can effectively reason with our Redeemer according to the will of God is to know and understand the will of God, and that knowledge comes primarily through meditating on and marinating in the sacred Scriptures.

Remember, God had His Word written down so that we would read it. He could have left it up to the Holy Spirit to inspire, motivate, and guide us, and that would have been sufficient. But God gave us even more—He gave us His God-breathed Bible.

Because Jesus was in constant communication with His Father in heaven, He was always sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit into the will of His Father. There are many ways to commune with God, but the two primary ways are prayer and the reading of the Word. The more time we spend in these two disciplines, the more we will be aligned with God’s will. And the more we are aligned with God’s will, the better we will be able to rightly reason with our Redeemer and receive grace to help us in our times of need.

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

The man who had received the one talent came. “Master,” he said, “I knew that you are a hard man . . .” (Matthew 25:24)

How do you see God?  Do you see Him like the servant who had received one talent in the Parable of the Talents? Know this: how you see God will determine, to an altogether unsuspecting extent, how you serve Him.

The man who received one talent from his master buried it in the ground because he believed his master was a hard man, harvesting where he had not sown and gathering where he had not scattered seed (Matthew 25:24). Make no mistake, if we see God as “hard,” rather than holy, it will affect everything about the way we serve Him . . .

• Our work will be unrewarding.
• Our service will be slavery.
• Our labor will be lukewarm.
• Our giving will be without gladness.
• Our toil as trying as it is tiresome.

If we see God as “hard,” we will serve Him out of fear rather than joy, just like the servant in the parable, who was sternly rebuked by his master. Fearful service is faithless service, which brings no glory to God. So we must make the distinction between hardness and holiness. God is not a hard taskmaster; He is holy, and in His holiness God demands that we do the best we can with what He has given us to do it with.

We are to serve by faith, not in fear. When we do, we will experience the freedom and joy that comes from knowing that God is holy, not hard. God expects our best and deserves our best. When we give Him our best—whatever that ends up looking like—we can be assured that He receives it and smiles down upon it.

How is it with you these days? Have you confused holiness with hardness regarding your personal relationship with God? You can know immediately if you have by checking your attitude in your service to the Almighty. If God seems hard to you, you will see your service as a joyless and heavy burden. But if God is holy to you, you will see your service as a huge blessing that will return multiple rewards to you now and which will echo in eternity as well.

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

We will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. (Ephesians 4:15)

Today’s word of encouragement is rooted in the fact that, as a disciple of Christ, you have been called to be good at the basic skills of math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. How are your mathematical skills? Have you been putting them to good use for the glory of God? Let’s take a look.

ADDITION

Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8)

SUBTRACTION

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)

MULTIPLICATION

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. (1 Thessalonians 3:12)

DIVISION

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15)

To be sure, our Master has called us to be mathematicians. And it is equally certain that we are all stronger in some areas and weaker in others, which is why we need to examine ourselves on a regular basis, just as our math teachers tested us when we were in school. We are to be adding knowledge to our faith . . . subtracting all that is earthly and fleshly from our lives . . . multiplying our love for all those God puts on our path . . . and rightly dividing the Word of truth.

The better we become as mathematicians for our Master, the better we will be able to glorify our God and bring the Good News of eternal good to others . . . all others.

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

These all died in faith. (Hebrews 11:13)

Christians have received great grace from God: we have been raised from death to life so that we can live by faith. But it is an even greater grace from God to be preserved throughout the entirety of our lives so that we can die in faith. That is indeed a divine death which brings almost unimaginable blessings to those who experience it.

The epitaph for the faithful, given from the pen of the inspired writer of Hebrews, echoes in eternity. It matters not how “these all” died. Some died at a ripe old age after many years of fruitful service to their God. Others were called home during the springtime of their lives. Still others died a martyr’s death. But regardless of the timing of their departure, they went out through the veil in faith, and that is all that truly matters.

What starts in faith will end in faith because the Faithful One has promised to preserve us to the end (Philippians 1:6). The saints of God who died in faith did not trust in their own merits nor rest in the glory of their own good works. No, they looked only to Him who gave them the faith they lived by and died in. Living by faith looks both to the past and to the present. Dying in faith looks to the promised future which we do not presently possess, yearning with confident expectation for “the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14), where the saints of God will enter into the unbroken and unchanging presence of their Lord and Savior and rejoice in every spiritual blessing.

Here indeed is cosmic comfort: Whether we live or we die, we do so in faith, trusting in the Lord’s faithfulness to His covenant promises. God is not a man that He should ever lie or change His mind (Numbers 23:19). The promises of God are as certain and secure as they are satisfying, and each one of those promises finds its “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).

We all die; the question is how we will die. Either we die in faith or we die in our sin. To die in sin is to spend eternity separated from the love of God and surrounded by His eternal wrath and judgment. But to die in faith is to live submerged in the shining sea of the Savior’s eternal light and love.

So . . . how will your epitaph read when you breathe your last? If you are trusting in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, it will read as it does for all those in the “Faith Hall of Fame”—These all died in faith. And that is a divine death indeed!

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

“Do this in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:24)

The Word of God commands us to remember our Redeemer, because, even with a renewed nature, we are apt to forget. To be sure, there would be no need for our Savior to remind us to remember Him if our minds were not so prone to be forgetful!

We forget the One who took our beating.

We forget the One who took our nails.

We forget the One who took our cross.

We forget the One who took our crown of thorns.

We forget the One who took our death.

We forget the One who took our grave clothes.

We forget the One who took our tomb.

Forgetfulness should be an unknown intruder into the minds of the faithful of God, but if we spend just a moment in prayerful consideration of how we actually live day-to-day, the Spirit of God will convict us of our cosmic treason. With countless voices vying for our attention, we often forget the One who never forgets us, having bought us with His precious blood. The One who said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” is often pushed to the periphery of our lives when we should be striving to make Him both the center and the circumference of our lives every day!

So how do the faithful keep from becoming forgetful? Only by seeking Jesus first in all things. Remember, the Bible never tells us to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness . . . it tells us to seek them first (Matthew 6:33). If we seek Jesus first as we begin each day, we will not forget Him. If we seek Jesus first at the office, we will not forget Him. If we seek Jesus first at school, we will not forget Him. If we seek Jesus first as the day is ending, we will not forget Him.

Yet with all of these “forget-me-nots,” there will still be times when we forget Him. Then what do we do? We must follow the command of Scripture: we remember. We are to set our minds on the One who forgives us completely, which will set us back on the pathway of doing all things in remembrance of Him.

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

Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” (Mark 1:38)

Take just a cursory glance around you and you can see that there is great need in this fallen and broken world. You’ll also quickly realize that there are far more needs than we could ever meet in any meaningful way. Brokenness abounds, and if we are not sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can head off in a direction of service motivated by sentiment . . . and when we do, it is not long before our humanitarian hunger descends into doubt, disillusionment, and utter despair. That is why need never determines the call.

A word of caution before we go on: we must be careful never to turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to the needs around us. We must always be compassionate and Christlike as we encounter needs as we go through life. Having said that, however, I will also assert that we must not let anything derail us from the call God has placed on our lives. And we will only maintain that kind of focus when we are clear on what our call from God truly is.

Jesus modeled this perfectly for us in Scripture. Today’s verse records His response to His disciples, who had told Him, “Everyone is looking for you!” (Mark 1:37). And why was everyone looking for Jesus? Because He was healing countless people who had a myriad of diseases, as well as driving out many demons. Jesus was meeting need after need, but never did He let those needs derail Him from His call. The sense of purpose Jesus demonstrates for us here is as profound as it is predictable. Jesus knew who He was and what He had come here to do—to testify to the truth (John 18:37)—and He maintained an unwavering course because of His constant communication with His Father in heaven.

We read throughout the gospels that Jesus frequently went off to a solitary place to pray. Seasons of prayer kept Jesus focused on His purpose; prayer will do the same for you and me.

How is your prayer life right now? How much time are you spending on your knees with God? The more often we are in communion with our Lord, the more certain we will be about His call on our lives. Without consistent communion with Christ, we may very well become distracted by the many voices vying for our attention. Only when we model the prayer life of our Lord will we sense our purpose, hear our call, and respond with these words of the prophet Isaiah: “Here am I Send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). Remember, need never determines the call . . . Christ does!

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

Elijah was afraid and ran for his life . . . He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. (1 Kings 19:3-4)

I find great inspired irony in today’s passage and word of encouragement. The man who would not see death prayed that he might die! God denied Elijah’s request because He had something far better in store for the great prophet. Instead of death, Elijah would be ushered into heaven on a chariot of fire. Ultimately, Elijah did receive what he had prayed for—that he might be taken from this world into the next, where he would enjoy the unbroken presence of his God. As Charles Spurgeon once said, “God does not always answer prayer in kind, though He always does in effect.”

After a great and mighty victory over the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Elijah was now on the run from Jezebel, fearing for his life. This great man of God, who had demonstrated lion-hearted faith, was now so fearful that he thought it best that God would end his life.

Isn’t it a great comfort to you to know that God does not always answer our prayers with a “Yes”? We can all look back over certain periods in our lives and thank God with a full heart that He did not give us what we were asking for at that time. God knows what is best for us. He knows just what we need and just when we need it. Elijah did not die in the way that he asked for. But he did get the fruit of his request when he was ushered into the presence of his God.

Elijah, in his despondent state of mind, was asking for something that was contrary to the will of God. And you and I often do the very same thing. I hope this message will serve as a cosmic comfort to you and as a reminder that your God will always answer your prayers in the best way possible to maximize His glory and your ultimate good. Even when we ask in faith and according to the will of God, His answer often comes in a form that we did not express or expect . . . yet it comes with far greater effect and blessing in our lives.

What have you been asking God for lately? Seek His face and stay on your knees, knowing that His answer is on the way and it will bring to you so much more than you could have ever imagined.

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

When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. (Luke 2:45)

Jesus said that He would never leave nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). In other words, He has promised to always be with us. So how could it be possible to lose the presence of the Ever-Present One? Let’s take a look.

As disciples of Christ, we must understand the difference between the word union and communion as it relates to our relationship with Him. Our union with Jesus is the fountainhead from which all the blessings of God flow. Whatever is true of Jesus is also true of us because of our union with Him. His death is our death. His resurrection is our resurrection. The love of the Father to the Son also flows to all those who are in union with Christ, making us sons, as Paul assures us, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:26). This union is as unwavering as it is undisturbed. Nothing can separate us from the love God has for us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But our communion with Christ is another thing altogether. Inasmuch as Jesus is always with us, there are times when His presence may seem as far as the east is from the west. We can lose the sense of His presence, just as Mary and Joseph lost His physical presence when they were returning home from Jerusalem with the caravan of family and friends.

Jesus vanishes from our vision as we begin to focus on anything other than Him. We begin to neglect our alone time with Jesus. We begin to neglect our community time with Jesus. Nothing major, mind you, just a little neglect here and a little neglect there. But what starts as an infection winds up a disease, cutting us off from any real sense of our communion with Christ. To be sure, our union has not changed in any way, but our communion has become transient, and transient communion will never satisfy the soul.

So how do we keep from losing Jesus and the communion we so desperately need? We don’t assume, as Joseph and Mary did, that Jesus is in our company and that our communion with Him is as secure as our union with Him. We must continue to seek Jesus in all things. We cannot get caught up in the cultural caravan around us, or we will cut ourselves off from our communion with Christ. We must continue looking for Jesus, listening to Jesus, and leaning on Jesus. At this level of living, our communion with Jesus will be every bit as constant as our union with Him. Draw near to the Lord . . . and He will draw near to you.

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

He saw and believed. (John 20:8)

On that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, saw that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, and went running to Peter and John. When she told them someone had taken the Lord from the tomb, they ran to see for themselves. John reached the tomb first and looked inside, but Peter went straight into the tomb and saw the strips of linen lying there. Finally John also went in, and we read the words of our verse today: “He saw and believed.”

Now, John didn’t see what he thought he would see: the dead body of his Lord. John saw nothing, and it was at that point that the Scriptures tell us he believed. This was indeed a time when seeing nothing was something. Why? Because, for the very first time, the disciple whom Jesus loved was looking through the eyes of faith. Only when we are looking through the eyes of faith can we see nothing and it becomes something substantial . . . something life-changing. By faith, John saw that the tomb was empty on that first Easter morning, and he believed that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead, just as He had told His disciples He would do.

In our natural selves, we see so little. For the most part, we live by the phrase, “Seeing is believing!” If we don’t see something, we don’t believe. By nature we are all just like Thomas, who said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Well, John saw nothing and he believed, because John was looking beyond the fleshly veil. John looked through the eyes of faith, and the eyes of faith are able to see the invisible.

The enemy armies of Aram surrounded the city of Dothan; the servant of Elisha saw them, and he was panic-stricken. What he saw was real and true. The city was surrounded by the enemy, but the servant was only looking in the natural. But Elisha prayed that the Lord would enable his servant to see through the eyes of faith and when he did, “He saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:17). God gave Elisha’s servant the eyes of faith—an act very similar to Jesus healing a blind man, and he learned the absolute truth of Elisha’s words: “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).

Only when we are looking through the eyes of faith do we begin to see all that God is doing in our lives. God has surrounded you with legions of angels led by the Lion from the tribe of Judah and has promised to protect and provide for your every need. Fear not what you may be seeing through your physical eyes, for they see only a tiny portion of what is actually going on around you. Ask God to open your eyes of faith, and you will begin seeing God’s hand in everything that is happening in your life. At that level of living, seeing nothing is indeed something!

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

“Is not my word like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:29)

It would be to our great disadvantage to see the Bible only as a book designed to bring cosmic comfort to the soul. To be sure, this is one of the things the Word of God does in the lives of all those who read Scripture with the eyes of faith. But the prophet Jeremiah declared that the Bible also strikes a blow like a holy hammer, breaking a rock in pieces. What is that “rock”? It is your rock-hard heart and mine, with all its self-righteousness and sinful pride.

The problem in far too many pulpits today is that the preacher is more concerned with pleasing man than he is with pleasing God. Messages designed to tickle the ears and minister to felt needs dominate the theological landscape. But when the whole counsel of God is preached, it wields a holy hammer that begins breaking away pieces of our pride and self-righteousness, exposing more and more of the image of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are many false prophets who preach “Peace, peace,” but God would have us know there is no peace for those whose eyes are fixed on self, rather than the Savior. The natural man craves this false peace, for his greatest goal in this life is to be happy. But God desires so much more for His people! In God’s perfect plan for our imperfect lives, holiness, not happiness, is the path God intends for us to travel. And the pathway leading to holiness is not lined with peace, but rather, persecution.

Here is a phrase I learned many years ago that I have repeated from the pulpit on many occasions: as a minister of the Good News of Jesus Christ, God has called me to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. The Christian life is not designed to be lived within a “safe space” of comfort, for a comfort zone is not conducive to conformity to Christ.

The Bible’s blow is the believer’s blessing. Comfort must be mixed with challenge; peace must be mixed with pain. On more than one occasion, the apostle Paul used the metaphor of a race to describe the life of a disciple of Christ. One of those metaphors is that of a runner, who will never reach the goal of winning a race without developing the discipline required to push past the pain and discomfort of training.

We are not called to comfort; we are called to Christlikeness, and Jesus Christ “was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). The Word of God is designed to train us up in the way we should go, and that way is marked by weeping as much as, if not more than, by rejoicing.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.  (Hebrews 4:12-13)

So . . . when was the last time the Scriptures caused you to weep? When was the last time you felt the Bible’s blow, hammering away at your old sin nature within, penetrating to the essence of your soul and laying bare that which is displeasing in God’s sight? Remember, Jesus promised that the truth would set you free, and the truth of God’s Word is designed to turn your life inside-out and upside-down as God reshapes and redesigns His image in you.

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