Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble. (Psalm 119:165)
The truth contained in today’s verse may come as a surprise to some, but it is as certain as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west: Those who love the Word of God have great peace. The path to great peace runs through the place God’s Word holds in our hearts.
If you have not read Psalm 119 lately, let me encourage you to do so today. Psalm 119 celebrates the Word of God. It celebrates its comfort. It celebrates its challenge. It celebrates its correction. It celebrates its commandments. It celebrates the covenant promise made to all God’s people. It is the longest psalm in the Bible, longer than many of the Bible’s books, and out of 176 verses, only a few do not explicitly mention the Word of God. It opens with, “Blessed are those . . . who walk according to the law of the Lord,” and it closes with, “I have not forgotten your commandments.” And what lies in between paints a breathtaking picture of the path to great peace.
In our verse today, look at the promise for those who love God’s law: Nothing can make them stumble. The reason for this promise is not found in our faithfulness to God, but rather in His faithfulness to us. God has given us a divine power that is greater than any power that can come against us (Isaiah 54:17; 1 John 4:4). When we stay connected to that power, we experience a peace that passes all understanding. Think about it this way: When you love something, you want to spend time with what you love. If we truly love God’s law, we will want to spend time in it each day. We will read it from beginning to end; we will meditate on it and marinate in it. When we do that, we can rest assured that “great peace” will be coming our way.
Even when we do not understand what is going on around us, we can still have peace deep within us, because we know that our God is in control of all things. When chaos comes knocking at our door, a chaos that makes others cry out in fear — something that might sound very much like, “Lord, we’re going to drown” (Matthew 8:25) — those who love the Word of God will trust in the God of the Word and pass through the storm with great peace.
One last thought: If you are in any way lacking some of this great peace, perhaps you need to spend a bit more time in God’s Word, knowing that the living and active Word of God will work this love and peace into you all the way into glory.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
This is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3)
When you read today’s verse, do you wonder why John was inspired to add, “And his commands are not burdensome”? We can all remember times–probably lots of times–when it seemed like keeping God’s commands was an incredible burden . . . perhaps an impossible burden! Forgiving someone who has wronged us . . . Loving someone who is unlovable . . . Serving someone who is never satisfied . . . All of these are very difficult things to do, even on our best days. Of course, the answer to this dilemma is found on the front end of the verse, where John tells us that love for God equals obedience to God. When we keep our focus on our love for God, obedience to God is not burdensome. In fact, this is how we move from obedience feeling like an onerous duty to being a Spirit-filled delight.
In the parable of the prodigal son, we see just how odious obedience had become to the elder brother. When his younger brother, the prodigal, returned home after squandering his inheritance and was welcomed by their father with open arms, the elder brother growled at his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders” (Luke 15:29). Do you see it? He believed that he had been perfect in his obedience to his father, but his obedience was not a delight; it was a duty that had obviously descended into drudgery. He was not obeying his father out of love; he was obeying out of self-love and what he hoped to get from his father.
How is it with you? Is your obedience a delight? Have you found the path of righteousness and holy living to be not burdensome? Are you able to say from your heart, “I delight to do your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8)? Only to the extent that your heart beats for Jesus will your answers to these questions be a resounding “YES!” Our Lord provided us with the most magnificent model of obedience being a delight when He told His disciples, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34).
Think about it this way: Jesus forgave those who had wronged Him, He loved those who were unlovable, and He served those who were never satisfied, yet He said that obedience was His very “food”–His nourishment that gave Him strength. He delighted in living in obedience to the commands of His Father in heaven. Shortly before He was going to submit to beatings, scourging, crucifixion, and the unimaginable horror of being subjected to the righteous wrath of God against your sins and mine and the sins of all who would ever and will ever trust in His atoning death, Jesus said:
“My heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27-28).
Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. . . . He humbled himself and became obedient to death–even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:6-8). This is the example that our Lord set for us. The desire of our hearts should be to do the will of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness (2 Peter 1:3). Obedience is never a burden for those who love God, because one of the primary blessings God gives His children is a transformed heart that turns the duty of obedience (which we all owe to Him) into an unimaginable delight.
May that be the confession of all our lives.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” (Revelation 12:10)
As a child of the Most High God, it is right and required to repent of our sins, but it is wrong to rehearse them over and over again. One of the great goals of the accuser is to get us to do exactly that, and here is the reason why Satan keeps reminding us of our sins: When we rehearse our sins time and time again, we take our eyes off the victory won by our Redeemer and keep them on ourselves, with all our sins and shortcomings.
Rehearsing our sins is not of God; repentance of sins and restoration is of God. Rehearsing our sins is of the devil, who takes poisonous pleasure in shifting our focus away from our Savior and setting it squarely on ourselves. His goal is to keep us groaning, “What a miserable person I am!” (Romans 7:24 NLT). Life at this level becomes all about us, which prevents us us from growing into the person God is calling us to be.
I speak with far too many Christians who are locked in the rhythm of rehearsing and revisiting past sins. The accuser has convinced them that this is a sign of maturing in the faith, mulling over past sins and repenting over and over again, as if the depths of despair over past sins is a way to convince God we are truly sorry. But this is not for you! As Steve Brown says, “This smells like smoke and comes from the pit of hell.”
The sign of maturing in the faith is taking God at His word. He has promised us that He has removed our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12); He has hurled all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19); and He has put all our sins behind His back (Isaiah 38:17). Oh, what a tremendous encouragement this is for all those who have trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation! In essence, God is saying to you and me, “Why would you continue to rehearse your past sins over and over again, when I have promised to remember them no more?” (Hebrews 10:17).
Self-condemnation is one of Satan’s sharpest arrows, designed to weaken our faith and water down our witness in every way. Let us all keep one of God’s great promises in view, which is, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). When you mess up, exchange repenting for rehearsing, because then you will conquer the attacks of the accuser, who has been overcome by the precious blood of the Lamb and by the triumphant testimony of His victorious saints (Revelation 12:11).
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. (Romans 6:13)
Take a moment to think of a former boss. If you ran into that person today and he/she said that you are expected to work overtime this weekend, what would you say? My first response would be, “I don’t work for you anymore!” (And I might be tempted to ask, “What’s wrong with you?”)
I think we would all respond in pretty much the same way. When you did work for that former boss, you had to do what you were told to do. You took your marching orders from that individual. But now you have moved on to another position, and you no longer take orders from your previous boss. That person has lost all authority over you.
Once you became a Christian, the very same principle became true in the spiritual realm. Before Jesus raised you from death to life, you were a servant (a slave) to sin. Sin was your boss . . . your master. But after you were given the divine gifts of repentance and faith, you were set free from your old boss; now you are under the authority of your new Boss, the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul set this truth before us beautifully:
Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. (Romans 6:16-18)
When was the last time you took orders from your previous boss? When was the last time you marched to the beat of your former employer’s drum? We all do this from time to time; we sin because we are all still sinners in need of a Savior. Paul himself, in the very next chapter of his epistle to the Romans, admitted, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18). What we must keep in view is that we have a new Boss now, the One who has come from above. Jesus has complete authority over you; He has every right to ask whatever He wants of you in order to advance the cause of His kingdom and bring honor and glory to His name. He laid down His life in order to become your new Boss; there is nothing He cannot ask of you . . . nothing!
The first thing Jesus is asking you today is this: “Regardless of where you go and what you do, remember Whose you are!” Remembering who our true Boss is will go a long way in helping us to follow His commands and to ignore the malevolent marching orders from our previous boss.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
. . . [T]he Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. (Revelation 13:8)
Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan? A man was beaten and left for dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A priest and a Levite both came to the place where the man lay, naked and bleeding, and both passed by on the other side of the road. But a Samaritan man, who was hated and despised by the Jews solely because of his ethnicity, had compassion on the man, stopped and bandaged his wounds, and took him to an inn. After caring for the man, he paid the innkeeper and asked him to look after the man while he was gone. The good Samaritan promised that he would pay the innkeeper for any additional expense upon his return. In essence, he said, “Charge that man’s debts to my account!” (Luke 10:30-35).
Jesus, like the good Samaritan, has said of each and every one of our sins–past, present, and sins still to come–“Charge them to My account!” The Lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world took upon Himself every one of the sins of all those who will place their trust in him. One could spend a lifetime of meditation and still not come close to plumbing the depths of this blessed assurance. Jesus, as our substitute, had laid upon Himself a debt we owed but could never pay, and He did it freely for the unimaginable joy that was set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).
The accuser wants you to forget this truth and live with gnawing guilt, which will keep you from doing all that God has called you to do. Satan wants you to believe that you are so polluted with sin that you are paralyzed from doing the kingdom work God has given you to do. Sadly, far too many in the church have forgotten about their day of deliverance. They do not understand the Lamb’s shout of triumph from the cross: “It is finished!” Our debt was charged to His account and paid in full. Our sins have been forgiven. Eternal life has been secured.
Remember, the devil is a liar, and he will do everything in his power to muddy your mind and wreck your witness for Jesus. The next time you find yourself dealing with a bout of gnawing guilt, remember the story of the good Samaritan, who was willing to pay any debt incurred by the beaten man he brought to the inn. This is a clear picture of your beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is greater than the good Samaritan. He has not only nailed every one of your sins to that cross, but He washed them white as snow with His cleansing blood. Hear Him say, “Charge those sins to my account,” and let that truth strengthen you to go and sin no more. The good Samaritan spent his money to help the dying man, while Jesus spent His precious blood to raise you from death to life!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I will strengthen you and help you. (Isaiah 41:10)
As we embark on yet another new year, let these words from the prophet Isaiah both comfort you and challenge you each day as you hold fast to the truth that God will give you all the strength you need to go through every season of life. Let’s take a closer look.
First, notice who has given us this guarantee of strengthening: It is none other than God Himself. Omnipotence has promised us strength, and who would dare doubt such a guarantee? There is an endless, inexhaustible stream of strength in the Sovereign Lord, strength that is not in any way diminished when He gives us a portion of it.
Next, notice that we are not told that there is a particular season in which we will be strengthened. Therefore, we must take this promise to mean that we will be given strength and help in all of them! God has promised to strengthen us in our seasons of successful service and He has promised to strengthen us in our seasons of sorrowful service. Regardless of the season we find ourselves in, we have this guarantee from the Lord God Omnipotent: I will strengthen you!
To be sure, this guarantee from God is a source of unimaginable comfort, but that’s not all! God’s promise is also a challenge to rise above any obstacle that stands in our way, since our strength does not come from within, but rather from above. Human weakness is no obstacle for divine strength. In fact, Paul tells us that when we are weak, our God is strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).
Regardless of what we are currently facing, God has promised to strengthen us.
The fearful are given courage.
The doubting are given conviction.
The lonely are given company.
The weak are given confidence.
The broken are given compassion.
These are just a few of the challenges we will face throughout life; through them all, God has promised to give us the strength we need to see them through.
So let me ask you a very important question right now: “What strength are you in short supply of today that would help you get through another year of life?” Fear not! Go to your Savior and cry out to Him . . .
Lord, please strengthen me supernaturally according to your Word!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)
On Wednesday we took a moment in our “backward glance” to ponder the wonders God had done throughout 2023. Today we will pause to consider our “forward march” as we prepare to launch out into 2024.
Over the course of the next few days, a common greeting from people you encounter will be, “Happy New Year!” Yet if that was all we had as Christian believers setting out into a new year, it would be a scant portion indeed. As Christians, we have much more than a “hopeful greeting” given to us by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. In our verse for today, we have the promise given to Joshua — and to us — by God: I will be with you wherever you go.
You may remember that Joshua was preparing to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land after Moses had completed his ministry of service to the Lord. Joshua knew quite well the challenges he would inevitably face in leading God’s people. He had learned from serving with Moses just how difficult the task would be. But he also knew that, just like Moses, he would not be alone in the work God had called him to.
The very same thing is true for you and me as we begin our march forward into this new year. To be sure, the new year brings with it questions and concerns . . . doubts and fears . . . obstacles and opportunities. Will we get a less than positive report from the doctor? Will we be confronted by professional challenges? Will our marriage of many years march on for many more? Will we suffer the loss of a loved one? Will the world erupt into war? The list of uncertainties is almost endless. Yet we can hold on to something infinitely greater than a hopeful, “Happy New Year!” Why? Because we have the promise from God that wherever we go, He will go with us.
I want you to remember something in that lovely promise: This “going with God” is not a going by chance. It is not a random roll of the dice. God is guiding, governing, and directing your every step. He is in sovereign control of everything; nothing is a matter of “luck” or “chance.” So do not be discouraged! This promise is given to cause us set aside every fear and confidently march forward into God’s perfect plan and purpose for our lives.
One final point: Approximately 3,400 years after God told Joshua that He would be with him wherever he went, Jesus reaffirmed that promise before He ascended back to heaven: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
Forward, march! You have nothing to fear. Your Master marches by your side!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced. (Psalm 105:4-5)
Today and Friday we close out yet another year of Grace for Your Race. Today I want to encourage you to take a backward glance over the past year — to remember and reflect on the many and multiplied wonders God has done in your life. On Friday we will look forward to the starting line of another year . . . and crossing the finish line of 2024, if God is so pleased to give us that time here.
Someone once wisely said, “It is difficult to climb to the summit of the mountain when you are always looking over your shoulder.” Yet the backward glance is extremely beneficial for the believer to be reminded of all that God has done. Yes, that look back must be brief if we are going to make forward progress throughout 2024. But make no mistake, it is the best way to close out another year of blessings that God has bestowed upon us.
A backward glance is not the same as walking backward. We cannot go back, nor should we want to. God is moving us forward into His perfect plan and purpose for our lives, inasmuch as we live that plan out imperfectly. I have said it here before, but it bears repeating: We must always treat the past as a school. We are to learn the lessons from our past, but not live there. Far too many live in the past, which prohibits any measurable forward progress. But this is not for you!
Take some time this week to reflect on the past year. Make sure your backward glance includes both your successes and your storms. There is much to glean from both life experiences, because God has delivered both to us in order to conform us into the image and likeness of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Let your backward glance bring to mind God’s . . .
Faithfulness and Friendship
Discipline and Devotion
Mercy and Ministry
Love and Leading
Your brief backward glance will encourage you and strengthen you to set out on another year, with Jesus sitting on the throne of your life, guiding you through every twist and turn and growing you through every up and down . . . every step of the way.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
What begins with waiting, advances through preparation, and results in the experience of great joy, is rooted in the love of God in Christ Jesus. God is love (1 John 4:16). God created love. And God loves us!
How much does God love us? He sent His Son — His beloved Son, His one and only Son — to die for us on a cross to pay the penalty for our sins so that we could live with Him forever. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).
Notice: “While we were still sinners.” God did not wait for us to get right with Him. He did not wait for us to get cleaned up. He did not wait for us to get our act together. He demonstrated His love for us while we were still sinners. Now, if that doesn’t light the fire of your faith on Christmas day . . . your wood is wet!
So what are we to do with the knowledge of a love so deep on Christmas day? We are to rest in it and respond to it. First, to rest in this love is to rest assured that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39). When Jesus said “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20), He meant what He said! Nothing – not storms, not Satan, not even our sin — can come between us and the love that Jesus has for us.
Second, to respond to this kind of love is to share it with others. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). God loved us when we were incapable of loving Him . . . while we were still sinners and separated from Him. But because God has poured out His love upon us, we can now share that love with others. This is what is called the Greatest Commandment: To love God and love others.
This Christmas season, take some time to share the love of God with those around you. Invite a neighbor to your church. Bake someone some cookies. Write a note of encouragement to someone. Visit someone you haven’t seen in a long while. Remember, love is the primary way we are to be recognized by others: Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).
The question that needs to be answered by all of us this Christmas season is this: Does everyone know that we are disciples of Jesus by our love? May this be the confession of our lives.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:10)
As we continue with our series of Advent articles, we will see today that what begins with waiting and advances through preparation ultimately results in the experience of great joy.
At the deepest level, joy from a biblical perspective is something altogether different from happiness. Where happiness is based on circumstances and what is going on around us, joy is based on Christ and what is going on within us. While we wait and prepare for Christmas, we must remember that joy is an inside job, and it is always a choice for the Christian.
What was the “great joy” the angel promised to the shepherds? It was the coming of Jesus. Jesus is our joy. And knowing that He has promised to never leave nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), we can be assured that joy will be a continual experience. Joy sees problems as possibilities. Joy see obstacles as opportunities. Joy sees life from God’s perspective, not our own; when it does, we can exult with David, “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Psalm 34:4).
When the Bible speaks of the joy of the Lord, we are to understand it as something much more than simply a feeling. If that were not so, how in the world would we ever be able to experience joy during storms of loss and grief? Only when we understand joy as being Jesus, with we the branches living in union with the Jesus the Vine, will we be able to experience unspeakable joy. And as we saw on Wednesday, we will increase our joy by means of preparation, which is accomplished through both time in prayer and time in the Word.
Here is one more thing to think about: When we consider the character of Christ, we make deposits in our joy bank. Jesus lived a sinless life for us. Jesus died a sacrificial death for us. Jesus rose supernaturally from the dead for us. Jesus is coming back from heaven for us. Jesus has loved us unconditionally and forgiven us completely. The more we consider His character, the more joy we will experience in this life, regardless of the circumstances we are currently facing.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 