I will pour out my Spirit on all people – your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28)
The Scriptures are filled with accounts of men and women who dreamed dreams and saw visions and brought them to life because of their faith in God. One of the best examples is Nehemiah. When he heard about the dilapidated condition of the walls around Jerusalem, Nehemiah began praying, thinking, planning, dreaming, and creating a vision of victory. But he did stop there; Nehemiah acted on his vision in the strength of the Almighty. He secured permission to return to Jerusalem, organized a task force, and stayed focused when facing criticism, distractions, and opposition. And in 52 days, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt to the glory of God and for the good of His people.
What has the Lord laid on your heart? What is Jesus calling you to do to expand the cause of His Kingdom? Know this: God never gives a dream or a vision to someone without giving them every resource needed to make it come to life. I have said many times here that God is not in the business of calling the equipped; rather, He equips the called. God will give you everything you need to do everything He is calling you to do.
If you feel ill-equipped or inadequate for something you know God is calling you to do, fear not! Moses felt completely inadequate, and he gave God every excuse in the book to try and get out of his calling to deliver God’s people out of bondage in Egypt. Yet God gave Moses everything he needed and used him to set His people free from what was the most powerful nation in the world at that time.
It’s not likely that God is calling you to go up against some world leader to expand the cause of His Kingdom. But He might be calling you to volunteer to help out in Sunday school or some other ministry at your church. Perhaps He is calling you to start a new ministry, and you feel like you just don’t have what it takes to make it happen. Remember, God loves taking ordinary people like you and me to do the extraordinary for His glory and the good of others. We simply need to go from dreaming dreams to doing them and leave the results up to the One who gave us the dream.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The men of Ephraim, though armed with bows, turned back on the day of battle. (Psalm 78:9)
There are many things in this life that can tempt us to turn back and go in the opposite direction from the one God is calling us to take. Sin can and often does cause us to shrink back from the call of our Lord. Forgetting the promises of God can do this as well. We see that the men of Ephraim were well-equipped, but apparently they were trusting in their arms and not the Almighty, and they turned back on the day of battle.
How do we protect ourselves from turning back when we are tempted to do so? Jesus warned us that there will be storms in this life; we may be tempted to turn back during those storms. How can we come to the end of our lives and be able to say, as Paul did, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7)? We keep our focus on our Savior and not on the storms.
It’s hard to find anyone in sacred Scripture, other than Jesus, who endured more storm winds in life than the apostle Paul. Yet through it all, Paul never let the waves of challenge wash out his witness for Jesus. He was able to rise above the circumstances in life because he rested in the reality of his Redeemer.
Far too many men and women who profess faith in Christ turn back from following their Lord when they are confronted by the hardships and difficulties that are part of life on this earth. Rather than submitting to Christ, they let circumstances control the outcome of their lives. Regardless of what you are facing today — and I am not minimizing any tragedy or difficulty that has befallen you — remember this: Greater is the power that is at work within you than any power that comes against you. When you are tempted to turn back, trust and press on, knowing that He who began the good work in you has promised to bring it to completion.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Know that the Lord, He is God! It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise! (Psalm 100:3-4)
Inasmuch as we are known as the people of God . . . children of the light . . . followers of the Way . . . more than conquerors . . . disciples of Christ . . . we see today that we are also known as “the sheep of His pasture.”
Sheep get a bad rap, and for good reason! No one has ever described these creatures as “intelligent.” I saw a blog post from a man who owns sheep and described them as “mind-numbingly stupid.” Sheep frequently wander away from the flock and get lost. They are easy prey for predators, and they need constant care and protection if they are to survive in even the most benign environment.
But today I want to encourage you that, as one of the Lord’s sheep, you have a wonderful character trait: Sheep know the voice of their shepherd and will not respond to unfamiliar voices. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me” (John 10:27). Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and we are to follow Him just as four-legged sheep follow their shepherd.
To know and respond to the voice of our Good Shepherd means we are in an intimate and personal relationship with Him. Jesus calls us by name (John 10:3) and we are empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit to listen and follow wherever He leads. How do you know that you are one of Jesus’ sheep who knows His voice? The answer is simple: Are you obeying Him?
We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. (1 John 2:3-6)
Remember, when Jesus speaks of “My sheep,” He is affirming that there are true sheep and false sheep. The false sheep do not know Him, hear Him, or follow Him. But the true sheep know Him, hear Him, and follow Him. We still follow Jesus like sheep – imperfectly . . . sometimes even stupidly – because we are still prone to wander. But when we do, we know that our Good Shepherd will rescue us and bring us back into His sheepfold.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. (Philippians 2:13)
All true disciples of Christ want to live lives devoted to Christ. The problem for many, though, is that they are fixated on behaving better before believing better. Our failures in our walk of faith are not rooted in our behavior, but rather in our belief. What we believe about our salvation determines how we will behave.
Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying here; I am not saying that believing is more important than behaving. Both are important; belief and behavior both matter to God. James, the brother of our Lord, famously warned that faith without works is useless (James 2:20). But we must understand that what we believe determines how we behave, and how we behave demonstrates what we believe.
Maturing in the Christian faith is based on remembering Whose we are and what He has done on our behalf. Our verse for today tells us that God works His work in us, and that work that has already been accomplished by Christ. Philippians 2:12 is also telling us that our behavior is strengthened by a deeper understanding of — and beliefin — His behavior on our behalf. The more we believe in the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ, the better we will engage in the works God has given us to do.
Believing better is believing that we are secure in our relationship with Jesus, not because of our faithfulness to Him, but rather His faithfulness to us. When we have that settled in our mind, our behavior will begin to change, and we will start living more and more for the glory of God and the good of others.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one. (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
The reality of opposition in this life is as promised as it is personal. Jesus made it clear that we will have trouble in this life (John 16:33); that trouble will come at us from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Yet our God is in complete control of all things, including the opposition we face (Psalm 119:91). And because our God is Omnipotent, no weapon formed against us can possibly prevail (Isaiah 54:17).
All of the promises of God are ‘Yes’ and ‘Amen’ in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:20). Not one promise of God will fail, in spite of the opposition we face in this life. Satan cannot overcome or overturn any of God’s promises to us or His purposes for us. The Lord is faithful, not only to strengthen us but to protect us too (Isaiah 41:10). Regardless of the opposition you may be facing today, the truth of today’s passage is to be received and responded to. No matter how attacked or assaulted you may be, the Almighty is assisting you to rise above it all. Take just a cursory glance at your past; can you not see how faithful God has been to you during every storm that blew your way?
Christian, what God has done in the past, He has promised to do in the present. Never let any opposition you are facing cause you to question the validity of God’s promises and purposes for your life. Because of your relationship with Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, who resides within you, greater is the power at work in your life than any power that is trying to work against you (1 John 4:4). Because of the Omnipotent God who is working all things together in your life for your ultimate good (Romans 8:28), receive every opposition as simply another opportunity to cling to the One who has promised to never let you go.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)
God’s grace not only saves the unworthy, it strengthens the inadequate . . . and that includes you and me. God’s grace in Paul’s life was not without effect, and it is not without effect in our lives either. I’ve said it here several times, but it bears repeating: God never calls the equipped; rather, He equips the called. God glories in calling the inadequate into His service, and then, by His grace and through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, He makes them adequate.
We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me. (Colossians 1:28-29)
Paul knew he could nothing apart from God’s enabling grace. Nothing of any eternal value could or would ever be accomplished in his own strength. But because Paul relied on the grace of God and responded in the strength of the Almighty, his ministry changed the world.
To be sure, Paul had to do his part. He had to work and minister where God called him to go. But he knew he had to do all of it fully surrendered to the strength of his Savior, Jesus Christ. The power of Christ was at work in Paul’s life, and that same power is available to each one of us — “the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength” (Ephesians 1:19 NET).
Remember, if there ever was anyone who could have relied on his own strength, upbringing, background, and education, it was Paul. Trained under the widely respected rabbi Gamaliel, Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews and a scholar of scholars. Yet he considered all his accomplishments to be rubbish (“dung,” if you read the King James Version) after Jesus showed up in his life. He surrendered everything he had been and everything he was in service to His Lord and Savior. And in surrendering his entire existence to Jesus, Paul not only received God’s unmerited favor, he received God’s enabling power.
What about you today? Is the grace that saved you also strengthening you for the work God has called you to do? May this be the confession of all our lives.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Members of my congregation and visitors to the church often ask me, “How can I know that I am in the will of God?” That’s a good question, and I am happy to reply that the most important aspects of God’s will are clearly outlined in the Scriptures. The more we marinate in and meditate on the Bible, the better we will understand God’s will for our lives. To be sure, God’s Word will not tell you what car to buy, what clothes to wear, or which person to marry. But the Scriptures do give us a framework for making the best possible decisions in life that will bring the greatest glory to God.
Jesus modeled this truth throughout His entire earthly existence. Perhaps the best place to see this in action is in His wilderness confrontation with Satan and our Lord’s thrice times repeated, “It is written!” For every attack the devil threw His way, Jesus countered with the Word of God, and every counter conquered His adversary. What was true for Jesus then is true for us today. But we cannot counter with the Word of God unless we know the Word of God, and we cannot know the Word of God unless we are reading the Word of God.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
God’s inspired, inerrant, infallible Word is telling us that being a disciple of Jesus Christ goes beyond behavior modification. It is simply not enough to keep from doing what those in the world are doing. The mind must be renewed in order for the heart to be reoriented, which results in the will being realigned to the will of God. This is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, but we are called by God to take part in this process. We must discipline ourselves to read the Word of God. We must discipline ourselves to pray and go to church. We must submit to the leading of the Spirit and not yield to the desires of our own mind.
Think about it this way: God has given us the great privilege of participating in the process of growing to maturity in our faith. It is all of grace, but God empowers us to play our role. And the more we play our role, the better we are able to discern the will of God for our lives. As the Spirit of God is transforming us from the inside out, our will begins to align with the will of the Almighty. We make decisions that are both pleasing to God and beneficial to others.
How are you doing at living out God’s will for your life? Could you use a little tune-up in the area of the renewing of your mind? If yes, follow the prescription given in our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount:
Ask . . . Seek . . . Knock
“Everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:8)
Ask God to transform your mind. Seek to know His will better by reading His Word. And keep on knocking at His door of grace! Don’t give up. Our loving heavenly Father loves to give good gifts to His children!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
When was the last time you gave thought to just how merciful Jesus really is? It is my prayer that you will continually contemplate the multiplied mercies of your Master after reading this word of encouragement today.
A ruler of the synagogue came to Jesus and fell at His feet, crying out for Him to come to his house and heal his 12-year-old daughter, who was dying. Jesus agreed to help, and then something remarkable happened. While He was on His way to heal the girl, Jesus healed a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years! This shows me the limitless supply of mercy within our Master. While He was on a mission of mercy to one, He extended mercy to another.
Our Lord’s ministry was marked by mercy beyond measure everywhere He went. He healed the sick, made the lame walk, caused the blind to see and the deaf to hear, and raised the dead to life. All these mercies were delivered while He was on His way to the most magnificent errand of mercy the world has ever known.
When Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. (Matthew 27:50-51)
Every act of mercy performed by our Lord was done while He was on His wayto the cross. He took time for the little children. He had a divine appointment with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He received prostitutes and tax collectors. He ministered to His fearful disciples on a boat in a storm. He wept with two sisters who were grieving the loss of their brother Lazarus. He even celebrated with his mother and disciples at a wedding. Everything Jesus did was a mercy to all those He did it with.
Did you notice in Matthew 27:51 that the curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom? Do you know what that means to you today? It means mercies beyond measure are ready for you to receive. The temple was divided into three primary parts: courts, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place (which only the high priest could enter once a year on the Day of Atonement). This curtain that was torn from top to bottom was the one separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place, which means that the barrier between God and His people has been once-for-all removed by the cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If that is not mercy beyond measure, I don’t know what is! Our access to the Almighty is unrestricted. The only Mediator is Jesus. We can go to Him morning, noon, and night, 24/7, knowing that we will be received and met with mercy beyond measure because Jesus has never stopped being merciful to His people . . . and He never will.
What mercy do you need today from your Master? What’s keeping you away?
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
How do you know if you love the gift more than the Gift Giver? Check your heart response when you start losing the gift! When the sky is blue, the clouds are fleecy, and the sun is shining brightly, it’s easy to love the Lord. But what about those times in life when the storm winds blow and waves of challenge crash over you?
Satan told God that Job loved the gift more than the Gift Giver; God knew that Job loved the Gift Giver more than the gift. Satan threw down the gauntlet of challenge, and the Lord God took it up. What followed in Job’s life was catastrophic. In a matter of mere moments, Job received reports that he had lost all of his wealth and all of his children. This was his response:
At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said, “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 1:20-22)
Did Job love his children? Of course! Was he grateful to have wealth? I’m sure he was. But he did not love either more than he loved his God. Satan believed that Job’s obedience and love for God was rooted in his self love — that Job loved God because God had showered so many blessings on him. “Remove the blessings,” the devil reasoned, “and You will remove his love for You.” God knew better.
Later in the biblical account, Job wrestled with God and asked some very penetrating questions. But Job never did sin by charging God with wrongdoing, and God blessed Job with even greater blessings than those he had before. Job knew that everything he had was simply a gift he had received from God. And as much as he loved the gifts God had given, not one of those gifts ever sat upon the throne of his life. God was always Job’s first priority in life.
Would you or I be able to say along with Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart” after having suffered such unimaginable loss? To lose his wealth and later his health was one thing. But to lose all ten of his children in one cataclysmic instant seems like a loss too great for anyone to bear. And it certainly would have been if Job loved the good gifts God had given him more than he loved the Gift Giver Himself.
So how do we arrive at the place Job was? Surely it will only be by the grace of God. But in that grace, we need to see the gracious Hand that provides everything we enjoy in this life. When you and I read the book of Job, we understand the whole story. But Job, who was living it out at the time, did not. He had no knowledge of all that was going on behind the scenes, and that demonstrates with dazzling clarity that Job really did love God more than any of the gifts he had received from His hand.
Job’s friends were convinced that his suffering was a result of some sin in Job’s life. They believed his trials were a punitive and corrective action from God. They were wrong. What all God had in mind we cannot know, but one thing we do know is that part of the purpose of Job’s suffering was to deepen His relationship with God.
Elisabeth Elliot, wife of murdered missionary Jim Elliot, penned these profound words that will close, far better than I ever could, this word of encouragement to love the Gift Giver more than His gifts:
God is God. If He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere but in His will, and that will is infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
If you have spent much time in church, you are probably familiar with the last half of the verse above. There is great encouragement to be drawn from the fact that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” But as awesome as that truth is, we must be careful not to miss the encouragement that is offered us just before that truth.
The key word in the first half of Romans 5:8 is demonstrates, because it is written in the present tense. In the koine Greek that was used to write the New Testament, the present tense indicates an ongoing, continuous action. Romans 5:8 tells us that God is continually demonstrating His love for us. It would seem to have made better sense for Paul to have written “demonstrated” in the past tense, just like the word “died” that follows. Because Christ died for us in the past, you might well think that “demonstrated” would be the best choice of words. But Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, kept demonstrates in the present tense, no doubt to provide us with ongoing, continuous encouragement. In context, Paul was addressing the suffering and persecution that the Roman Christians were going through when he declared that God “demonstrates” His unwavering love for us.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:3-5)
Paul was reminding the Christians then — and you and me today — that God’s love is being continually poured into the lives of His people. Paul knew that the only way the Roman Christians would be able to deal with the severe suffering they were experiencing was to be reminded of the ever-present, continually-poured-out love of God. The Holy Spirit is demonstrating the love of God in Christ Jesus for His people 24/7. There is no time out and no days off. God demonstrates His love for His children moment by moment.
It is one thing to meditate on the love God demonstrated on the cross where Jesus took our place and paid the penalty for all our sins. But it is another thing altogether to keep in view the love of God that He demonstrates to us in countless ways with every beat of our hearts. Paul does not want us to miss the eternal encouragement found in experiencing every ounce of God’s past love in our lives as a profound, present reality.
Is this the confession of your life? Paul’s inspired pick-me-up will help you remember the fact that God demonstrates His love for you with every breath you take. Rejoice, Christian. Rejoice!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!
Grace for the Race 