To you, Lord, I call; You are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit. (Psalm 28:1)
When was the last time you wondered if God hears your prayers? When was the list time you sensed the sound of silence as you were pleading at the gates of heaven? Notice that I said “When,” I didn’t ask, “Have you ever?” Like David, we all find ourselves in seasons when heaven seems silent, and, like David, we want to know that God has not turned a deaf ear to our pleas.
Psalm 28 provides great insight into David’s prayer life as he cried out to God from the depths of his heavy heart. We don’t know exactly what David was going through at the time he penned this psalm. Perhaps it was a season of sickness or a time of deep loneliness or a period of desperate despair. Regardless of the waves of challenge David was facing, he looked to his Lord, his Rock, for help. The question is, Do we do the same thing . . . in utter dependence upon God?
David knew where to take his weakness and fear: To the only One who could help him rise above the waves of challenge that were washing over him. He not only knew Who to go to, he also knew that the One he went to was able to act on his behalf because He is the Rock of Ages. Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th-century “Prince of Preachers,” put it this way in his commentary on the psalms, The Treasury of David:
The immutable Jehovah is our rock, the immovable foundation of all our hopes and our refuge in time of trouble; we are fixed in our determination to flee to him as our stronghold in every hour of danger.
What picture comes to mind when you read David calling God his Rock? God as our Rock is a picture of a foundation that cannot be shaken and will not be moved. For David, God was not only his source of strength, He was David’s source of stability and security. Many scholars have said God as Rock pictures His permanence and power, and David knew of these by way of personal experience.
But that’s not all! There is one more most important picture of God as Rock, painted by Paul as he described the wilderness wandering of Israel:
They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:3-4).
David was looking forward to the Rock that was to come, and this Rock was the “smitten rock” of Exodus 17:6, the Lord Jesus Christ, who provides streams of living water for the thirsty, even in the most barren wilderness we may currently be experiencing. So regardless of what you are facing, cry out to your Rock, knowing that He will never turn a deaf ear and will always answer – but in His way and in His perfect timing. May that truth set us all free to trust completely in the Rock of our salvation.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
It has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him. (Philippians 1:29)
It is only natural to do everything in our power to avoid pain. Only a crazy person seeks out painful experiences in life. But when we realize that God is in our pain, we understand one of the deepest biblical truths: Pain is profitable, and the cross of Christ makes that clear.
The six hours of pain that Jesus endured on the cross defies human description. Because “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21), Jesus endured the infinite wrath and judgment of God in our place as He hung on our cross. During the three hours of supernatural darkness that fell across the land, our Lord Jesus endured the unimaginable God-forsakenness of hell itself. And when Jesus knew that He had fully paid the penalty for our sins, satisfying completely the wrath and judgment of God, thereby securing eternal life for us, He gave out His cry of victory: “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
To be sure, we cannot comprehend the divine mystery of the pain Jesus endured on that cross, but we can comprehend this: Knowing that His pain paid the full penalty for the forgiveness of our sins — all our sins — means that there is profit in pain. When Paul tells us that those who believe in Jesus will suffer for Jesus, we can rest assured that God has a perfect plan for our profit in every painful providence we experience on this side of the grave. And this is not a specialized understanding that God gave only to Paul; more than seven centuries earlier, the prophet Isaiah declared, “Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish (Isaiah 38:17).
Regardless of the painful providences you have experienced or are experiencing in your life, every one of them is designed and delivered for your profit. The key to getting through the pain is to understand this truth and to live in the light of it each day. Painful experiences in life make far too many people bitter, not better. They wallow in self-pity, not selfless love for their Savior. Others simply see the painful experiences in life as something to endure; they “keep a stiff upper lip,” as the saying goes, and get through it as quickly as possible. In both cases, these people miss the point of the pain: Profit. Jesus told us flatly that we will have trouble in this world (John 16:33), He was preparing us for the painful experiences that will inevitably come our way and telling us to remember that because He is in it, there is profit to be gained from it.
One final point: Jesus didn’t just promise us painful providences; He promised His peace in them and through them. “Take heart!” He told His disciples. “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Nothing happens to us that does not first pass through His nail-scarred hands. Because of this truth, we can be assured that there is profit in our pain, conforming us more and more into the image and likeness of our Lord, who endured a pain that we cannot imagine so that we will never have to experience it in life or in death: separation from God.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19)
If we read the Bible as if it is a book of disconnected stories teaching moralistic and ethical messages on how to have our best life now, we have a tendency to think it’s all about us. We look at the heroes of the Bible and think that God used these men and women because of their greatness. But when we recognize that the Bible is a single story about God’s unfolding plan of redemption that finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, we look at the heroes of the Bible and understand that what made these men and women great was nothing other than the fact that God graciously choose to use them.
Who is the person that God chooses to use as an instrument of salvation and sanctification in His mighty right hand? It is the card-carrying “Triple-A member,” one who is –
AWED by the glory of God
AVAILABLE to the Spirit of God
ACTING on the Word of God
God is in the business of taking common people and making them uncommon . . . taking weak people and making them strong . . . taking foolish people and making them wise . . . taking average people and making them great. In God’s economy, it is not those with great ability whom God calls into His service; rather, it is those who are awed by His glory, available to His Spirit, and acting on His Word, regardless of the cost or circumstance. Does this “Triple A” describe you today? Is this the confession of your life right now?
When we are awed by the glory of God, we know what Paul knew: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!” (Romans 11:33 ESV). When we are awed by the glory of God, we become available to the Spirit of God, who makes us willing to follow God wherever He leads us. This, of course, leads us to live lives acting on the Word of God.
When we rightly read the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, we realize that God did not call great men and women into His service to expand His Kingdom. Rather, those ordinary men and woman — people like you and me, broken and marred by sin — were made great by God’s calling on their lives, simply because they were available to be used and acted on the words He had spoken to them. This is the person God uses.
How is with you today? Are you ready to go fishing . . . for people?
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. (Acts 20:24)
“My life is not my own!” Without a doubt, this was my mom’s favorite saying when I was growing up, and it had two distinct and different levels of truth that she was expressing. First, she would say it — sometimes in a tone of exasperation — in the context of the demands of raising five children while running the household. But there was a far deeper message Mom was teaching us, because she loved Jesus and she knew her life was not her own. Rather, her life was the Lord’s to use as He pleased.
One of the best descriptions of this biblical truth comes from the Heidelberg Catechism, which was written in 1563. The questions and answers are organized in 52 Lord’s Days; they were originally intended to be taught on each Sunday of the year.
Lord’s Day 1
Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I am not my own, but belong – body and soul, in life and in death – to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil, He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
My mom knew that there was no greater comfort in life and death than to know that her life was not her own. She knew that she had been purchased by Jesus at the cost of His precious blood, shed on the cross for the forgiveness of her sins – all of her sins. She also knew that her Lord and Savior was in complete control of everything in the universe, which included everything in her life. My mom knew that no matter what was happening, Jesus was in control of every bit of it and was all working all of it together for her ultimate good. My mom loved us best by loving Jesus and living for His glory alone.
Are you living that way? Am I?
Regardless of where this message finds you today, let me encourage you to adopt my mom’s favorite saying and make it your own. Freely confess that “My life is not my own” and know the freedom and joy of living wholeheartedly for the glory of God and the good of others. This is a life that truly testifies to the Good News of God’s grace — not just daily, but moment by moment.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. (John 14:27)
When the chaos in the world around us is heaviest, the light of Christ is the brightest, if we will but look in His direction. Think about the chaos at the wedding reception that took place at Cana in Galilee when they ran out of wine. In the ancient world, wedding receptions were week-long events; often the entire town was invited to attend to celebrate the couple’s new life together. To run out of wine at such an event was not only an embarrassment, it was an offense to the unwritten rules of hospitality. Imagine the chaotic concern that was beginning to spread. “They have no more wine!” However, Jesus and His disciples were invited guests, and when His mother went to Jesus for help. Then the light of Christ shone brightly as He turned mere water into wine — and not just wine, but the best wine they had ever tasted (John 2:1-10).
Think about the chaos on the hillside where Jesus fed the 5,000. (And because only men were counted in those days, it is estimated that as many as 10,000 to 20,000 people were actually fed.) The disciples went to Jesus, saying that it was late, the people were hungry, so Jesus should send them away to go buy food. There was simply no way to feed so many people! Then the light of Christ shone brightly as He multiplied the five loaves and two fish to feed the massive crowd — and there were still leftovers after every man, woman, and child had eaten their fill (Matthew 14:15-21). Truly He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20).
Think about the chaos in the region of the Gerasenes, when a man with an evil spirit came running from the tombs to Jesus, a man whom no one could restrain even with a chain. Night and day this demon-possessed man would cry out among the tombs and cut himself with stones. Then the light of Christ shone brightly as He cured the man and cast the legion of demons out of the man and into a nearby herd of pigs, who immediately ran over the cliff and drowned in the lake below. And the man who was being destroyed by Satan became an evangelist, traveling throughout a ten-city region and telling people all that the Lord had done for him (Mark 5:2-20).
What kind of chaotic circumstances are you facing today? Are the waves of challenge crashing over you? Are you caught up in the chaotic pace of everyday living in a culture that conditions us to emulate the Energizer Bunny and just keep going and going and going? Never forget that Christ is in every circumstance and available to carry your chaos . . . IF you will invite Him.
No life was filled with more chaos than the life of Jesus. The multitudes came to see Him and pressed in around Him, straining to hear Him, touch Him, follow Him, and be healed by Him . . . and also to ridicule Him, mock Him, trap Him, and condemn Him. And how did Jesus deal with the chaos that swirled around Him?
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)
Jesus gave us the key to rising above the chaos of life and remaining calm: time alone with God. You see, the chaos in the life of Christ was ongoing. When the disciples found Jesus they said, “Everyone is looking for you!” This was no surprise to Jesus. Yet Jesus knew He needed to withdraw from the chaos to connect with His Father in heaven. This is the key to conquering the chaos in our own lives. We need to withdraw into the presence of Christ, especially in the midst of our chaotic circumstances, and He will give us the peace that passes all human understanding. You have His Word on that!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
When I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:10)
The title of today’s word of encouragement may seem a bit strange. When it comes to our limitations and weaknesses, we tend to do everything in our power to minimize or eliminate them . . . or at least cover them up. To be sure, God’s gifts of wisdom and strength are viewed as assets, and these are the areas in life we work to increase and improve. But Paul taught that God gives both strengths and weaknesses, and they are to be stewarded and used for His glory and the good of others.
Today’s verse comes from the “thorn” passage (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Paul pleaded with the Lord three times to take away his “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan” that was tormenting him, and three times God refused. “My grace is sufficient for you,” God told Paul, “for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God dispenses both strengths and weaknesses to His disciples, and we must learn how to lean into both in order to maximize our service to our Lord.
Understand that Paul was not using the word “weakness” as a euphemism for “sin” in the way that our present-day culture substitutes syrupy phrases, such as “having an affair” for “committing adultery,” to paper over the offense of sin. In his letter to the Romans, Paul rebuked those who were boasting that their sin displayed the grace of God to an even greater degree (Romans 6:1-2). In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul freely confessed that “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3). Paul certainly was not saying that he had come to the Corinthians in sin; no he was candidly admitting that he felt dramatically underqualified — that is, weak — in his role as a teacher and an evangelist.
The best way I know how to explain the difference between weakness and sin is this: Our weakness is given by God to cause us to turn toward Him and to depend on Him more; our sin turns us away from God as we depend more on ourselves. When we lean into our weaknesses, God’s power is put on display for all the world to see as we trust more in what God can do for us than what we can do for ourselves. Indeed, Paul said that “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4-5).
Paul saw his “thorn” — his weakness — as a liability to His ministry at first, and he pleaded with God to remove it. But in time, he came to realize that God was using both Paul’s strengths and his weaknesses to advance the cause of the Kingdom of God. Now, if you are anything like me, learning to see weakness as a gift from God does not happen as quickly as it did for Paul. He asked “three times” for God to take it away; I sometimes still ask God to take my weaknesses away. But over time, I am slowly learning how to trust and depend more and more on God, and less and less on me.
When was the last time you considered leaning into your limitations for God’s glory and your good? That’s right; I said “for your good.” Paul said he was given his weakness to keep him humble, and that is one of the great blessings of our limitations. The more we lean into our limitations, the more God humbles us, and the more God humbles us, the more we are like our Lord Jesus, who made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:7).
When Paul said, “It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful,” (1 Corinthians 4:2), he was not confining the word “trust” to our strengths. He meant everything God has given to us: our strengths and our weaknesses too. May the confession of our lives demonstrate our utter dependence upon God as we lean into our limitations.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
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 both 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 condition of the walls around Jerusalem, he began praying, thinking, planning, dreaming, and creating a vision of victory. But he did not leave it there. He acted on it in the strength of the Almighty. He obtained 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 the good of His people.
What has the Lord laid on your heart these days? 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. God is not in the business of calling the equipped; rather, God equips the called. God will give you everything you need to do everything He is calling you to do.
If you feel unequipped or inadequate for something you know God is calling you to do, fear not! Moses felt utterly inadequate and gave God every excuse in the book to try to get out of his calling to deliver God’s people out of bondage in Egypt. When all else failed, Moses was finally reduced to pleading, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it” (Exodus 4:13). But God gave Moses everything he needed and used him to set God’s people free from the most powerful nation in the world at that time.
It’s not likely that God is calling you to confront some powerful world leader to expand the cause of His Kingdom. But He may very well 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 are feeling unequipped or inadequate. Remember, God loves taking ordinary people like you and me and equipping us to do the extraordinary for His glory and the good of others. We simply need to move from dreaming dreams to doing them, leaving the results in faith up to the One who gave us the dream.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. (Ephesians 4:14)
Because God’s greatest goal for us is to conform us to the image and likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are to live out the importance of growing up, not just growing old. Think about it this way: I can’t imagine anyone saying they want to be the same person today that they were a year ago. Those who are not committed to growing in their faith are mired in perpetual spiritual infancy.
Spiritual growth is not automatic after Jesus raises us from death to life. Spiritual growth requires that we desire to grow, decide to grow, do the work to grow, and persist in growing. This growth, of course, is a life-long process that will not be completed until we are brought into glory. And while our growth is all of grace, it will not be completed without our commitment.
We all know about commitment. We are all committed to something or some things. The question is, Are we committed to growing and maturing in our Christian faith? Identifying our commitments will make the answer crystal clear. Here are a few things to consider: Your prayer life . . . Your thought life . . . Your Bible reading plan . . . Your weekly church attendance . . . Your generosity . . . Your service to the expansion of the Kingdom of Christ.
To grow up and become more like Jesus, we must deeply desire to develop the mind of Jesus. We have to think His thoughts — we must take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) — and one of the best ways to begin doing is to follow this instruction from the apostle Paul:
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things (Philippians 4:8).
We must be very intentional about what we are putting into our minds. We must be careful to fill our minds with the wisdom of God’s Word, not the wisdom of this world. We must focus on “the truth that is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21), not our feelings. At this level of living, we can be certain that we will not only be growing older, but we will also be growing up into maturity.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of are doing, but let us encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:25)
Once we understand that we have been saved to be part of a family of faith, we must answer this question: How do we cultivate community? The answer is, “Frequently!” In order to grow relationships within our family of faith, we must frequently make meaningful contact in genuine fellowship. Growing any relationship takes time, which is why our verse for today exhorts us to keep coming together.
Here is something we must keep in view if we are serious about building community. Community is not built on convenience, but rather on commitment and conviction. We can’t just come together when we feel like it, because, truth be told, most often we simply don’t feel like it! We must be intentional and purposeful about setting aside time out of our busy schedules because it is vitally important for us to continue growing in community. Solitary saints are the number one target of the evil one. Just like a hungry lion patiently circling a herd of zebras, Satan is always prowling around God’s people, looking to pounce on those who have wandered away from community and devour them. This is much harder for him to do when we intentionally immerse ourselves in a great cloud of witnesses.
One of the keys that unlocks the door to building community is forsaking the self and focusing on our Savior, who died to give us a relationship with Him and with all those who are His. We must be willing to jettison . . .
Self-absorption
Self-centeredness
Self-rule
Remember this: We are going to be together forever with our family of faith in the new heavens and the new earth, so the more time we spend with them here and now, the better we will be prepared for the there and then. The church as a whole is far more important than any individual. As my friend Steve Brown likes to say, “All those who belong to Jesus belong to all those who belong to Jesus.” May that truth set us free and inspire us to cultivate community.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! (Romans 3:3-4)
The more time we spend in the Word of God, the more familiar we become with His promises. The evil one likes to sow seeds of doubt in our minds — particularly when we are messing things up — to cause us to shrink back from the life God is calling us to live and pressing into God’s promises. But today’s passage makes one thing perfectly clear: Nothing we do can nullify any of the thousands of promises God has made to His people. I’d like to encourage you with just a few of those promises today, promises taken from both the Old and New Testaments:
God has promised . . .
To be near us when we pray – Deuteronomy 4:7 To be with us wherever we go – Joshua 1:9 To be our peace – Judges 6:24 To turn our darkness into light – 2 Samuel 22:29 To fill our dry valleys with water – 2 Kings 3:16 To direct our steps – Proverbs 3:6 To bind up our wounds – Hosea 6:1 To be our refuge in times of trouble – Nahum 1:7 To make us fishers of men – Matthew 4:19 To give us rest – Matthew 11:28 To give us the Holy Spirit – John 14:16 To come back and take us to be with Him – John 14:3
Remember, what God has promised, God will do. He has assured us that “What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46:11). God is the consistent keeper of His promises. He has never broken a promise in the past, and He is not about to start now. That is because He does not change (Malachi 3:6). He does not lie, and He does not change His mind (Numbers 23:19).
Look to the promises of God. Rest in them, trust in them, and let them propel you into the perfect plan and purpose He has for your imperfect life.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 