Category Archives: General

Prayer is a powerful tool in the hands of God’s people. Why? Because there is infinite power in the name of Jesus Christ. Not only have we been invited to come boldly to the throne of grace, we have been assured that anything we ask for in the name of Jesus will be done.

But I must make something clear before we go on: To ask in Jesus’ name is to ask for Jesus’ sake.

“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (John 14:14)

Our prayers are to be directed at the expansion of Christ’s kingdom, not our own. Make no mistake, when God opened the way for us to come into His presence 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, He was not giving us a blank check to cash for the advancement of our personal affluence and a life of ease. To ask in Jesus’ name is to ask for the things that matter most to Him. Our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17 gives us valuable insight into what matters most to Jesus: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).

As a sent people, we are to live lives of other-orientation. Jesus has commissioned us to live in a way that brings glory to God and good to others . . . all others. We are to meet people in their place of need, acting as the hands and feet of Christ. To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray for the advancement of the Gospel; when we are praying like this, we can be assured our prayers will be answered with a resounding “Yes!”

To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray to fulfill His plans and His purposes in this life. To pray in Jesus’ name is to lay aside our personal goals, agendas, dreams, and desires. It is to abandon the self as we advance in the direction of the Savior. When Jesus prayed to His Father in the garden of Gethsemane, “Yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42), He was providing us with the model of a prayer life that is rooted in Jesus’ name.

Finally, praying in Jesus’ name protects you from the warning James delivered to the people of God: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures” (James 4:3). When you pray in Jesus’ name, you are reminded to rely on His wisdom, His power, His strength, and His guidance.

Be encouraged today, and take some time to pray in Jesus’ name, being confident that whatever you ask for in His name, He has promised to do for you.

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

“This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.” (Ezekiel 34:11)

Let’s begin our week with this most astonishing truth: Our Lord Jesus Christ does not send someone out in His place to search for and look after His sheep. No, the prophet Ezekiel tells us that God Himself, the Sovereign Lord of all the universe, is our Seeking, Searching, Shepherd Savior. And He is all that for you. Is that not a word of cosmic comfort to you today, regardless of where this message finds you?

Notice something else contained within today’s text. Our salvation not only begins because of our Searching Savior, but it continues and is sustained because of our Shepherd Savior. No matter where or how often we wander away from our Savior, He searches for us and returns us to His sheepfold. And this does not happen after a certain number of His flock wander away. The parable of the lost sheep makes it gloriously clear that our Great Shepherd leaves the herd to go off and find that one, single lost sheep and brings him or her back to the fold. You matter that much to Jesus!

One final point: To be looked after by our Shepherd is to be locked into our salvation. Jesus said quite plainly, “This is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:39). Jesus will not lose a single sheep; nothing can take you out of His hand (John 10:28-30). Is this not a powerful promise to plead if you find yourself feeling far off from the sheepfold and strayed from your Shepherd?

Peter felt the power of that promise. When he had denied Jesus three times on the night our Lord was betrayed and Peter heard the rooster crow (it must have sounded like a crushing thunderclap of despair to him), Peter’s heart was broken for having walked away from his Savior. But after the Resurrection, Jesus restored Peter by asking a simple question — not once, but three times: “Do you love Me?”

If your answer is the same as Peter’s — “Yes Lord, you know that I love You” — then be assured that nothing can or will ever separate you from your Shepherd Savior. Let that truth set you free today and every day until you cross the Jordan and enter into your eternal rest.

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

“Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. (James 2:23)

Have you ever considered the difference between being a follower of Jesus and being a friend of Jesus? I assure you, the difference is as profound as it is personal. Let’s take a look and see if you are not greatly encouraged.

First, we must understand the order of things from a biblical perspective. You cannot be a friend of Jesus until you are first a follower of Jesus.

He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19

Jesus makes the first move in our relationship with Him. That first move, of course is that he died for us while we were still sinners, alienated from Him (Romans 5:8; Colossians 1:21). Then He comes to us and calls us to follow Him. In order to follow Jesus, we must be willing to first put down our own nets and pick up His. Jesus wants us to leave our old life behind and begin walking in the newness of our life in Christ.

This means we begin to live for something bigger than the life we are currently living in the flesh; we are to walk by faith in following Jesus. This is a wonderful place to be living as a follower of Jesus, a place where we are more concerned about expanding the cause of His kingdom than building our own little kingdom.

But there is so much more for the Christian! Jesus tells us, “I no longer call you servants . . . Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15). The disciples were still followers of Jesus, but now they followed Him as friends, a term which conveys the understanding of deep intimacy. Friendship with God is a place of the highest honor, as the Lord told the prophet Isaiah:

“You, O Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
you descendants of Abraham my friend . . .” (Isaiah 41:8)

Israel was God’s “servant,” Jacob was God’s “chosen one,” but Abraham was God’s friend. Here we see clearly that the difference is not found at the level of relationship; all were all in relationship with God, and they all followed their God wherever He led them. The difference is found in the level of intimacy. There was something deeper going on at a heart level between Abraham and God; that is the key to understanding the difference between being a follower and being a friend of God. Moses also enjoyed this kind of intimacy with God; “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exodus 33:11).

How is it with you? Are God’s desires your desires? Are God’s goals your goals in life? Are you able to echo Jesus from your heart and say, “Not my will, but thy will be done”? If your answer is yes, then be encouraged today, for you have entered into the intimate circle of friendship with your God.

And if you are tempted to hand your head and sorrowfully admit, “No, I’m not there,” I have a word of encouragement for you too! Actually, it is God’s Word of encouragement:

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 4:8 ESV)

God does not reserve His friendship only for “super saints” . . . the promise is for all who will draw near to Him with a hunger to know Him more. Start by following Him, loving Him, asking Him to help you know Him more, and you will find yourself engaged in the most incredible friendship!

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

I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. (Revelation 5:6)

I first preached on this text many years ago, and I still remember the number of people who were surprised — even shocked — by its truth: Our exalted Lord Jesus Christ still bears the marks of the wounds He suffered on our behalf, and He will forevermore. Have you ever wondered why? Let’s take a look, and I pray you will be encouraged by the witness of His wounds.

• By His Wounds You Are Healed

When the apostle Peter quoted the prophet Isaiah, saying, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24), he was telling us that it was through the suffering of our Lord Jesus that our salvation was won on Calvary’s hill. The beatings and scourging of our Lord, culminating in His slow, terrible, agonizing death on a wooden cross, delivered the death blow to the evil one. Jesus took our punishment, our beatings, our scourging, our crown of thorns, our nine-inch nails, our cross, and ultimately our death. And when He walked out of the tomb three days later, giving proof positive that God the Father was fully satisfied by the atoning sacrifice of His beloved Son, we were granted access to a redeemed relationship with God, by grace through faith. We have been healed by Jesus’ wounds from the curse of sin and death.  But that’s not all!    

• By His Wounds He Is Revealed

His wounds not only healed us, they also revealed Him. Here is how “the Prince of Preachers,” Charles Spurgeon, put it in his April 23 Evening devotional:

The wounds of Jesus are His glories, His jewels, His sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is passing fair because He is white and ruddy – white with innocence, and ruddy with His own blood. We see Him as the lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with His own gore. Christ is lovely upon Olivet and Tabor, and by the sea, but oh! There never was such a matchless Christ as He that did hang upon the cross.

The glorious Trinity — God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit — revealed their unwavering eternal love for us in the deepest and most profound way through the witness of Jesus’ wounds. Jesus loved us enough to endure the most unimaginable torture . . . willingly! Every blow Jesus endured fell because He allowed it. And when the full, atoning price for our sin had been paid, He willingly gave up His Spirit. No one took our Lord’s life; He laid it down so that He might lift us up into heavenly glory (John 10:17-18).

So as you go about your day and throughout this week, pause to reflect on the witness of His wounds. You have not only been healed, but Jesus has been revealed as the Lover of your soul who refused to let you go. He loved you . . . He sought you . . . He bought you . . . and one day He will catch you up to be with Him forever.

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

“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” (John 17:4)

We were created by God for God, and thus we exist that God might be glorified in us. And because everything we do is to be an act of worship, we can be sure that there are countless ways of giving God glory. Let’s take a look at just one of these ways, which is rooted in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.   

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). Every moment of every day, Jesus was focused on His mission of being the Savior of the world. And He knew that by fulfilling His mission and finishing the work that His Father in heaven had given Him, Jesus was bringing glory to God.

Here is a phrase from the world of business that helps to crystallize the truth of John 17:4 — Begin with the end in mind. Jesus knew what He was here to do, and He would let nothing prevent Him from doing it. 

What is true for Jesus is true for His disciples. We bring glory to God when we are busily engaged in finishing the work God gave us to do. I often say from the pulpit that I don’t know if God has called you to be a butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, but I do know is this: Every disciple has been called to advance the cause of the Kingdom of Christ, right where God has planted us. From the boardroom to the family room, we have been called by God to demonstrate the truths of the Gospel to a watching world.

Now, let me caution you with this truth: None of us will do this like Jesus did it. Jesus brought glory to God by finishing His work perfectly.  We all do our work imperfectly — wildly imperfectly at times. But God takes our imperfect work and sanctifies it; ultimately He will perfect it. Knowing this truth frees us to press on toward the goal, to finish the work, knowing full well that work will be dogged by faults and even failure along the way. Many Christians are paralyzed by the fear of failure, which keeps them from attempting much of anything for God. But the true disciple of Christ knows perfection will only come on the other side of the grave. Here the goal is simply progress. 

How are you progressing in giving God glory by finishing the work He has given you to do?  Let me encourage you with one final point on today’s passage. When Jesus prayed the words recorded in John 17:4, we are to anticipate His victory cry from the cross: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Knowing that Jesus finished His work for you should be all the motivation and inspiration you need to finish your work for Him. 

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

“Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” (Isaiah 1:14)

When was the last time you thought of God as carrying around some sort of burden? If you are like most believers, the answer is most likely, “Never!” Yet the prophet Isaiah tells us that the all-powerful God of the universe does indeed become burdened, and the reason can be found in a single word: hypocrisy. 

Omnipotence wearies when we worship Him with our lips while our hearts are wandering away from Him. To weary God — to burden our Beloved — is a serious matter that must be dealt with. Like any enemy that comes between us and God, we must take sword to this sin and cut it out at its root.

To be sure, we are all affected by the sin of hypocrisy. If we are honest, all of us would confess that there are times when our practice does not match our profession. We say we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then we behave in a way that is entirely inconsistent with the inspired, infallible, inerrant, God-breathed Scriptures. But that is not the “burden” that the Lord says is wearying Him. God knows we are still sinners in need of a Savior; even after we have been saved, we need our Savior moment by moment. God knows the old sin nature is waging a constant struggle with the new saved nature (Galatians 5:17). This is simply the way of the Christian life, and we will fight this battle all the way into glory. 

God’s burden is a believer with a heart that has grown cold, treating God as an unnecessary appendage, if you will, one to be jettisoned by a cool and casual commitment. I cannot find a greater statement of the evil of a divided heart than to read that Omnipotence grows weary and is burdened by it. This alone should cause each of us to examine our own heart to see what it is actually beating for. As we saw in Monday’s article, too many of us have hearts that beat for the good gifts God has given, not for God Himself. That sort of mercenary relationship with Jesus is one that has been reduced to a religion marked by empty ritual – “New Moon feasts and appointed festivals” conducted with no love, no gratitude, no sense of awe and wonder at the manifest goodness and glory of God Almighty.    

So how do we ease God’s burden? We journey back to the day of our salvation, the day when our hearts burned deep within us for Jesus Christ, not the things He could give us. We remember that God will tolerate no rival and we turn back to our First Love . . . on our knees. We cry out to Jesus, knowing that He is faithful to forgive and forget. And we keep in view all the great saints who occasionally found their hearts beating for something much smaller than God.

Abraham struggled to believe God’s promise and tried to pass his wife off as his sister to save his own skin. David’s duty as king was to lead Israel’s army off to war, but he remained behind, seduced another man’s wife, and then arranged for the man to be killed in battle. Peter’s divided heart became malignantly manifest when Peter denied Jesus three times on the night He was betrayed. All these faithless actions wearied God and became a burden to Him. Yet God brought Abraham, David, and Peter through these dark valleys of disbelief with a deeper love for Him than they had before. Our gracious God transformed His burden into His blessing. 

God never changes; He has attested to that in His Word. What He did for the saints of old, He will do for you today. 

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

No one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame. (Psalm 25:3)

The Prodigal Son lived in a palace. It was the place where he was met with the unconditional love and forgiveness of his father — not only daily, but moment by moment. But when this young man told his father he wanted to collect his inheritance, he essentially exchanged the palace for a pigsty.  

“There was a man who had two sons.  The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating.”  (Luke 15:11-16)

We do the very same thing every time we exchange our will for God’s will in our lives. In demanding his inheritance “now,” the Prodigal Son was refusing to be patient and follow the father’s timing. To be sure, he had a time of carefree celebration in the far country, but it didn’t last. It never does. He squandered all he had been given and found himself utterly bankrupt, eating husks with the swine, and longing to be back in his father’s loving presence.

Does that resonate with you as much as it does with me? Look at it this way: The Prodigal Son already had his inheritance. It was his by birth, but it was not the right time for him to receive it. God not only knows exactly what we need, He also knows exactly the right time to give it to us. But the sin of impatience got the best of the young son.  Impatience starts as an infection and winds up as an insidious disease, and it will eventually lead us away from the palace into the pigsty. 

Remember, it’s not enough to want what God wants for our lives. We must wait to receive it in His timing. Often “now” is not God’s perfect timing for our imperfect lives. The shepherd boy David had to wait seven years to receive what God wanted for his life, which was the king’s throne in Israel, and that wait occurred after he had been anointed three times to become king! 

So let me ask you this question: Where in your life right now are you dealing with a bit of impatience?

If this message finds you on the other side of impatience that has pushed you into a pigsty, fear not! The younger son eventually made his way back from the pigsty to the palace, where he was met with the unconditional love and forgiveness of his father. Amazing grace, wouldn’t you agree? Even when we mess it up, God turns our mess into His masterpiece. As the psalmist said, those whose hope is in the Lord will never be put to shame. Turn to Him. Experience His forgiveness. Feel His love. Rejoice in His grace!   

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

Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. (Hebrews 10:24)

You know the difference between sedatives and stimulants, yes? A sedative is designed to “take the edge off” and help you fall asleep, while a stimulant is designed to “take you to the edge” and keep you going and going and going. I want to share a story about a time in the life of God’s people when past blessings acted like a sedative rather than a stimulant; they sedated God’s people into a sense of sinful, self-centered security, rather than stimulating them into a season of sold-out, Savior-centered service. 

After Israel spent 400-plus years in bondage in Egypt, God sent His servant Moses to deliver His people from slavery. The Sovereign Lord performed a series of incredible miracles: the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, manna from heaven, water from a rock (twice!), and a pillar of cloud guiding the people by day and a pillar of fire by night. Tragically, these many blessings acted like sedatives on God people. They slumbered into the sinful thinking that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. Their past blessings sedated them into a season of self-absorption, because they focused on the blessings they had received rather than the One who had graciously given them. And here is the warning from Paul: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us” (1 Corinthians 10:11). When we shift our focus away from the Giver of our blessings to the blessings themselves, they become like sedatives, and sin begins to envelop us.

The warning is clear: When we allow past blessings to sedate us, we are lulled into a false sense of security.  We begin to see past blessings as a present promise. We start to expect only good from the hand of our good God, as if we are somehow deserving of it. We lose our sense of appreciation for the many good gifts we have received from the hand of Almighty God.

However, when past blessings serve as stimulants, we shift our focus from the gift to the One who is the Giver of the gifts. When we do that, we never lose our sense of dependence on Him. We understand that past blessings can be replaced by present burdens in an instant, so we keep our spiritual eyes on our Savior, which keeps our hands and feet from slackening into sinful self-reliance.

How is it with you today? Have past blessings sedated you or stimulated you in your walk with Jesus? Is your focus on what you have been given, or on the One who has given it to you? Remember, our greatest gift is God, not what He so graciously gives to us. Keep looking up and let your past blessings stimulate you to a life of sold-out service to your Savior.   

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

My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. (Hebrews 12:5-6)

I once heard someone say, “I am a spoiled saint of the Most High God!” Now, depending on your definition of the word “spoiled,” I submit to you that there is no such thing in God’s family of faith!

The best possible definition of the term “spoiled child” that I can come up with describes children who consistently exhibit behavioral problems caused by being overindulged and under-disciplined by their doting parents. In a word, these parents have raised a brat! Are there any kids you know who come to mind when you read that definition?

How should we understand the term “spoiled” as it relates to the child of God? That would be rooted in our definition of overindulged. To be sure, we are overindulged with . . .

• Love
• Mercy
• Grace
• Goodness
• Forgiveness
• Kindness

The list could fill this entire blog! Is there anyone reading this who can fully describe the “overindulgence” we receive from our omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God? But when we read this list of “overindulgences,” we are never to think it includes words such as pampered, babied, coddled, or spoiled. Loved by God? Most definitely! We are infinitely loved by Him! Spoiled by God? Not a chance! Make no mistake about this truth: God would have none of us as His children rather than coddle a bunch of self-centered, self-absorbed, self-seeking, and self-interested ones. 

We must keep in view the fact that the grace that saves us is the same grace that sanctifies us, and the business of sanctification is often a painful process. God’s greatest goal for every one of His children is to conform them into the image and likeness of His beloved and precious Son. And that takes discipline . . . discipline that is designed to deflate the ego that is continually edging God out. The self does not die in a day, but daily, and God will not stop short of conforming us perfectly into the image of His Son.

It will never be said of our Father in heaven what was said about King David concerning his parenting of his son Adonijah: “His father [David] had never corrected him by saying, “Why do you do such things?'” (1 Kings 1:6 NET). No, Scripture tells us that we should expect the rod of discipline from our loving, heavenly Father:

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. (Hebrews 12:7-8)

Nobody wants a spoiled child. So we discipline our children in love, with the goal of course correction and heart transformation. God will not settle for a spoiled saint. So He disciplines us by every means necessary, which is a kind of love that will never spoil!

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

Peter said, “Never, Lord!” [Peter] said. “This shall never happen to you!” (Matthew 16:22)

When Jesus told His disciples that He was going to Jerusalem to be betrayed into the hands of evil men and crucified, Peter objected sharply, “Never Lord!” You remember the stinging rebuke from our Lord don’t you? Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23).

Well, what was true of Peter’s sinful failure to understand the cross as an almighty instrument of death leading to eternal life is also true of the sinful failure of far too many in the church today to recognize the cross as a way of life for the disciple of Jesus. Let’s take a look at our Lord’s teaching on this matter:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

Make no mistake, every time we refuse to take up our cross, we demonstrate to our Lord that we do not have in mind the kingdom of our God, but the kingdom of self. The Christian is called by God to live in a culture marked by the cross. We are to deny ourselves — to die to self — and follow Lord wherever He leads, regardless of the cost or circumstance. The apostle Paul living in the culture of the cross this way:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Yet all too often we are marked by the words of Peter more than we are by the cross we are to carry.   

• Service over status . . . “Never, Lord!”
• Loving the unlovable . . . “Never, Lord!”
• Giving until it hurts . . . “Never, Lord!”
• Denying the self . . . “Never, Lord!”
• Forgiving someone who has hurt us deeply . . . “Never, Lord!”

Over and over again, we tend to cry out like Peter rather than setting our shoulder under the cross we have been given and following in the footsteps of our Lord. And Satan cheers us on every time we allow ourselves to get caught up in human concerns. Our enemy has been doing that ever since the Garden of Eden, when he convinced Adam and Eve to neglect the concerns of God and focus on their own desires. 

Where in your life have you been crying out like Peter? At the office? In your family? At your church? In your community? Where have human concerns held you captive to yourself? Remember, you have been set free, but that freedom is to be understood as a life that is lived for the glory of God and the good of others. And that is a life that can only be lived under the weight of the cross that has been given to you by the One who hung on His to pay the penalty for your sins. 

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