May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21)
After uttering one of the most amazing benedictions in all of sacred Scripture, Paul tells us that our Lord Jesus is our Eternal Equipment Manager. Having spent most of my life working with and coaching athletes, I absolutely love this picture of our Lord Jesus! All those who, by grace through faith, are in Christ have been equipped by Christ to do everything good that we are called to do for the glory of God, the expansion of His kingdom, and the human flourishing of others.
You see, God did not save us to live an average life . . . a life lived as far from the bottom as it is from the top. We are saved to live in a way that brings honor and glory and praise to Jesus. Now, that does not mean we will live perfectly! Everything we do we will do imperfectly, but we are to do it with the goal of pointing others to Jesus while expanding the cause of His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
We must remember that the grace that saves us also sanctifies us. God’s grace equips us for every good work. God’s grace changes our wants, our wills, and our witness. The more time we spend meditating on and marinating in the Word of God, the better we will understand His will for our lives and the better we will be able to live that out in His strength.
One final thing. Don’t forget that when you mess things up — and you will — you have a Savior who loves you unconditionally and has already forgiven you completely. Let that truth set you free to live for the glory of your Eternal Equipment Manager.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14 ESV)
One thing we all must remember about the past is that it is indeed past. We cannot redo the past, so we must stop reliving our past and trying to rewrite it. We cannot take back the harsh and hurtful words we spoke into the lives of others. We cannot undo the poor choices we made that negatively impacted our lives and the lives of others.
I am always amazed when people tell me that they live their lives without regret. I can’t get through most mornings without incurring some kind of regret. Who has ever fulfilled God’s two greatest commandments – Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself — for even a single moment, let alone an entire day? Our transgression against these two commands alone is reason enough for massive remorse and regret.
But God has a wealth of grace to redeem a past life that is littered with the ugly messes created by living less than God’s best for us. Everything we look back on and would like to redo has been covered and cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. That is why we must learn from the past and refuse to live in the past.
Where have you been living lately? In your painful past or in the here and now? Satan loves it when we live in the past. Looking over our shoulder at our past sins and failures prevents us from leaning prayerfully forward into the present and doing what God has called us to do for His glory and the good of others. God’s grace frees us from trying to relive the past and rewrite our history. And it is God’s grace that empowers us to treat the past like a school: We are to learn the lessons it has for us and move on with life, knowing that He who began the good work in us will one day bring it to its glorious completion. We have His Word on that!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)
“God saved you then; is He saving you now?” I heard these words from my first spiritual father, Dr. D James Kennedy, when I was serving under him many years ago. I didn’t know what he meant by that statement then, but over time, I began to understand the great biblical truth contained in this most important Christian concept.
The two aspects of our salvation in this life come under the heading of (1) Justification – we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ; and (2) sanctification – we are being conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ each day. When we were initially saved, we were justified and declared righteous in the sight of God because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Justification is a once-for-all legal declaration made over us by God. But each and every day after that, God is at work sanctifying us and making us more and more like Jesus. So we have been saved and we are still being saved as we make our way toward glory.
Each and every day we give proof of needing to be saved from ourselves. We say things we shouldn’t say. We do things we shouldn’t do. We think things we shouldn’t think. We are still sinners after we have been saved, sinners very much in need of God’s mercies, which are new for us every morning. And that is exactly what we get: God’s mercies that continue conforming us into the image of Jesus.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV)
Far too many in the church believe they have been saved by grace but must then live on by the spiritual sweat of their brow. This notion smells like smoke and comes from the pit of hell, as my friend Steve Brown likes to say. We are being conformed to the likeness of Christ; we are not conforming ourselves. To be sure, we must be obedient to and cooperative with the work of the Spirit of God in our lives, but it is still His work, not ours.
So . . . God saved you then. Is He saving you now? Remember, sin no longer reigns in your life, but it most definitely still remains. It takes God’s mercies to complete the work of redemption He began inside each one of His children. There is not a day that goes by in which sin does not surface in our lives in our thoughts, words, deeds, and desires. And there is not a day that goes by when God’s fresh mercies are not poured out in abundance in our lives. Truly we have been saved . . . and we are still being saved!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Today is the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, a day and date that is stamped on the national consciousness of our nation. The cry of America is, “We will never forget!” Like most Americans, we will never forget the pictures of those two planes flying into the World Trade Center. We will never forget the pictures of the first responders arriving at the scene and moving quickly to help the victims. (I spent nearly a decade serving on the Hollywood Fire Rescue Department; those pictures stab at my heart to this day.) We will never forget the Twin Towers dropping off the landscape of lower Manhattan as they crumbled to the ground, taking nearly 3,000 victims with them. We will never forget Todd Beamer’s words, uttered just before he and other passengers charged the cockpit on United Flight 93: “God help me . . . Jesus help me . . . Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” We will never forget how a nation came together to mourn and then mount up against sin and evil in this world.
September 11, 2001 is to be remembered for many reasons. To be sure, one reason is that is provides a stark reminder of the fragility and brevity of life. None of those victims could have known that day would be their last day on this earth. And that reminder comes to us each and every day as we read about and personally experience this truth in our own lives. Nobody knows when their life will come to an end or how it will happen. Since the fall in the Garden of Eden, death has been the debt all men must pay. When death comes suddenly and unexpectedly, it can rock us to our core. And 9/11 did indeed rock the foundation of our very world.
For many disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, that dreadful day lit a fire of faith deep within that would not go out. The shocking reality of that day and the loss of so many lives strengthened our understanding that we have been saved to serve. God saves us to serve Him and to surrender our lives completely to His control. The Great Commission became even greater than it had been in our lives before that day. Many church doors all across America remained open 24 hours a day in the days immediately following the attack, and people entered in, looking for comfort and community. We were confronted, not only with the importance of the good news of the Gospel, but the urgency with which we are called to share it today, because we may not have the opportunity of sharing it tomorrow.
Let us remember in prayer all those who were so deeply touched by the terror that forever altered their lives on that terrible day. May it be a source of eternal encouragement to go into all nations and share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The great evangelist D. L. Moody learned this truth through painful personal experience. On October 8, 1871, while preaching at Farwell Hall, Moody asked his congregation to give serious thought to their relationship to Jesus Christ and return next week to make their decisions for Him. That crowd never regathered. Even as they were singing the closing hymn, the growing din of fire trucks and church bells scattered them forever. Chicago was on fire. The Y.M.C.A. building, church, and parsonage were all destroyed during the next 24 hours.
Thinking back on that fateful evening, Moody said, “Giving my congregation a week to think over in their minds their decision for Jesus is my greatest regret in life. Never again would I give my listeners time to go home and think about their response to the gospel.” And he never did.
May this be the confession of our lives today and every day that God is gracious to give to us on this side of the grave.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT…AMEN!
When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth – people getting no sleep day or night – then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 8:16-17)
Some people spend a lifetime trying to figure it all out — why this happens and why that happens and why some other thing happens. Why this? Why now? Why me? Now, there is nothing wrong with thinking seriously about life and trying to make sense of it all. The pursuit of knowledge and understanding is commended in sacred Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. The mind matters to God, and we must use our mind to think and grow and mature in our faith. The Bible knows nothing of anti-intellectualism. In fact, the wise preacher Solomon, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, tells us that God has put a sense of mystery into our hearts, which drives us to want to know more about life and the One who created it.
And yet, with all that said, there is something we must always remember: There will be much in this life that we simply cannot understand. It is called mystery. No matter how serious we are as we embark on our quest to know, there are some things that we will never know. God is God and we are not. Even before their terrible fall in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve did not have complete knowledge. How much worse is our condition? We are sinners with finite minds, and the image of God in us has been broken and marred by sin.
But here is the grace in all of this; inasmuch as we we will never know the answers to all our questions — in fact, we don’t even know all the questions to ask — we do know the One who created it all and is working everything out according to the counsel of His will. Growing and maturing in the faith is also learning how to live with mystery. No matter how advanced we become technologically, perhaps even arrogantly believing that we will one day be able to solve all the mysteries in the world, mystery is simply part of our lives. And those who are being transformed by the renewing of their minds rest in this biblical truth:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29 ESV)
Our lives are full of surprises, and we will be met with interruptions and the unexpected time and time again. God will not reveal all there is to know, but He will continually reveal all we need to know, and thus we will be able to obey His command to “Love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and to hold fast to him” (Deuteronomy 11:22). This is the ministry of mystery.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30)
We are always talking to ourselves all day; for many of us, that conversation continues on into and perhaps even through the night. This means that we never stop preaching the Gospel to ourselves. The vitally important question that we must ask ourselves — and answer — is, Which gospel am I preaching to myself?
The gospel of good works or the Gospel of grace?
The gospel of merit or the Gospel of mercy?
The gospel of the self or the Gospel of the Savior?
The gospel of “Do” or the Gospel of “Done”?
Which one is it for you? Are you on the left side of the equation or the right side? The kind of gospel you preach to yourself will absolutely determine, not only what kind of day you will have, but what kind of life you will live. The gospel of good works, merit, self, and “Do” leads to doubt, fear, anxiety, and disappointment. The Gospel of grace, mercy, Savior, and “Done” leads to freedom, joy, hope, and faithfulness to Jesus.
The key to staying on the right side of the equation is to remember that we live under the banner of the finished work of Jesus Christ. When He was hanging on the cross, having endured the full wrath and judgment of God the Father against the sins of all who will believe, Jesus uttered His great victory cry: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Christian, Jesus meant what He said! This is one of the things that makes the good news of the Gospel so incredibly good! Christ’s work is complete; your sin debt has been paid in full. You cannot add anything to what has been “Done” on your behalf. Only by living in view of the finished work of Christ will we be able to rise above the waves of challenge that wash over us each day, knowing that we are fully forgiven and unconditionally loved.
What kind of preacher are you? Preach this truth to yourself each and every day, and you will be set free to be all Jesus has called you to be in this life and the next:
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:23-24)
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work. (Exodus 20:9-10)
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday, which is observed on the first Monday in September. Signed into law by President Grover Cleveland in 1894, Labor Day was initiated to celebrate the economic and social contributions of workers. Today I would like to take a moment to celebrate the contributions of all workers who are busily engaged in the labor of building the kingdom of God.
Some of you may be thinking, Who are the kingdom builders?Isn’t that term reserved only for those who are in full-time vocational ministry, like pastors and missionaries? If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know that I will answer that question with a resounding “NO!”
Author and social critic Os Guinness explained it this way in his 1997 book, The Call. This is a longer excerpt than I usually share, but I believe you will find it to be well worth the read.
There is a great distortion which argues that Christ gave two ways of life to his church. One is the perfect life, the other is permitted. The perfect life is spiritual, dedicated to contemplation and reserved for priests, monks, and nuns; the permitted life is secular, dedicated to action and open to such tasks as soldering, governing, farming, trading, and raising families. Higher vs. lower, sacred vs. secular, perfect vs. permitted, contemplation vs. action. Sadly, this two-tier or double-life view of calling flagrantly perverted biblical teaching by narrowing the sphere of calling and excluding most Christians from its scope. If all that a believer does grows out of faith and is done for the glory of God, then all dualistic distinctions are demolished. There is no higher/lower, sacred/secular, perfect/permitted, contemplative/active, or first class/second class.
Calling is the premise of Christian existence itself. Calling means that everyone, everywhere, and in everything fulfills his or her (secondary) callings in response to God’s (primary) calling. For the Reformers, the peasant and the merchant—for us, the business person, the teacher, the factory worker, and the television anchor—can do God’s work (or fail to do it) just as much as the minister and the missionary.
The recovery of the holistic understanding of calling was dramatic. William Tyndale wrote that if our desire is to please God, pouring water, washing dishes, cobbling shoes, and preaching the Word is all one. William Perkins claimed, “Polishing shoes was a sanctified and holy act, and the action of a shepherd in keeping sheep, performed as I have said in his kind, is as good a work before God as in the action of a judge in giving sentence, or of a magistrate in ruling, or a minister in preaching.”
The cultural implications of recovering true calling were explosive. Calling gave to everyday work a dignity and spiritual significance under God that dethroned the primacy of leisure and contemplation. Calling gave to humble people and ordinary tasks an investment of equality that shattered hierarchies and was a vital impulse toward democracy. Calling gave to such practical things as work, thrift, and long-term planning a reinforcement that made them powerfully influential in the rise of modern capitalism. Calling gave to the endeavor to make Christ Lord of every part of life a fresh force that transformed churches and cultures. Calling gave to the idea of “talents” a new meaning, so that they were no longer seen purely as spiritual gifts and graces but as natural and a matter of giftedness in the modern sense of the term.
Calling demanded and inspired the transforming vision of the lordship of Christ expressed in the famous saying of the great Dutch prime minister, Abraham Kuyper: “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine! This belongs to me!'”
WOW! That should help us all see the vision and value of calling from God’s perspective. Beginning with our first parents in the Garden of Eden, all of life was to be lived coram Deo — before the face of God. It didn’t matter if one was a butcher, baker, or a candlestick maker, or a priest, monk, or nun, every service was sacred when it was lived out in the light of eternity for the glory of God. And that is every bit as true today as it was millennia ago.
So who are the kingdom builders for the King of kings and the Lord of lords? Everyone who is putting his or her gifts, talents, and abilities into faithful service in order to glorify God and expand the cause of His kingdom. This Labor Day, take a moment to do a personal evaluation in the area of your own calling. Could it be that you have, perhaps quite unconsciously, created a sacred/spiritual split in your own thinking? How is your work impacting the kingdom of God? Are you allowing God to use you right where you currently are to expand the cause of His kingdom?
Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
I often tell our congregation that there is indeed one menial job in this world; that is the job where Jesus cannot be found. If your labor is a labor of love for the glory of God, the good of others, and the expansion of God’s kingdom, you can rest assured that what you are doing, regardless of how others may view your work, echoes in eternity. Let that truth bless you this Labor Day and all the days of your life as you labor for your Lord.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him 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)
This is the call on every disciple of our Lord Jesus: To say “NO” to yourself. And speaking from personal experience, self-denial is one of the hardest things to do. Does this in any way resonate with you?
Self-denial is foundational for the disciple of Jesus. We are called and commanded to reject the natural, sinful human tendency toward satisfying the self at all costs. And there is no better example of this in all of sacred Scripture than Jesus Himself.
Who, being in very nature God, 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. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:6-8)
Jesus, being fully God, set aside His right to His glory, His power, and His privilege in total submission to His Father’s will (John 4:34). Jesus limited His knowledge as a man (Matthew 24:36) and was subject to time and space and a myriad of other human limitations — fatigue, hunger, thirst, and more. The question we must ask ourselves is, “Are we willing to lay aside our rights and privileges and deny ourselves for the glory of God and the eternal good of others?” Our sinful human nature has little or no desire for self-denial, much less the power to actually do it, but our new nature, having been buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in the newness of life, has been given the divine power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
To say “No” to the world is to say “Yes” to the Word. To say “No” to yourself is to say “Yes” to your Savior. Remember, the same power that raised Jesus from death to life — the Holy Spirit — is the power that is at work within you. Let that truth set you free to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus Christ wherever He leads.
Why deny yourself? Because with every act of self-denial, you draw nearer to Jesus and become more and more conformed to His image and likeness. And that is how you will live the life of meaning, significance, and purpose that we all long for.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
When Jesus said He had come to give us the abundant life, we must be careful not to confine that idea to eternity. The abundant life begins on this side of the grave, in the here and now. Are you experiencing life to the full, the abundant life — life with a capital “L” — right here, right now?
In order to experience life to the full, we must remember that no matter what is happening in our circumstances, God is for us and not against us (Romans 8:31). God is for us when the sun is brightly shining, and He is for us when the our sky is blanketed by dark, ominous clouds. God is for us when we are in seasons of abundance and seasons of scarcity. God is for us when we are experiencing good health and when we are struggling through times of sickness.
Never forget that life with a capital “L” is the Lord. Here is one of greatest verses in all of sacred Scripture to encourage you to live a life with a capital “L” –
To me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)
The apostle Paul knew that his life would achieve its ultimate purpose if he was living in such a way that Christ was exalted, magnified, and glorified. Paul’s life was Christ. Period. From the moment of his conversion on the road to Damascus right up to his martyrdom in Rome, Paul lived every moment of every day to expand the cause of Christ’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Paul preached. Paul prayed. Paul penned much of the New Testament. All of this was done with a single purpose: to point his audience to Jesus. Paul lived life with a capital “L” and this is to be the confession of our lives too.
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 1:3)
God has given us more good gifts than we could ever number. Family is a good gift. Money is a good gift. Health is a good gift. Food is a good gift. Our work is a good gift. A good night’s sleep is a good gift. The clothes we wear, the car we drive, and the place we live are all good gifts. But if we love the gifts more than the Giver of those gifts, our hearts will never be satisfied and we will never be able to enjoy all those good gifts we have received from God. When we love any created thing more than we love our Creator, we have created a massive problem for ourselves. When even the best of gifts become ultimate gifts, they become bad gifts that remove the Gift Giver from the throne of our lives.
Before sin entered into humanity, Adam and Eve loved God and loved the good gifts of God; they lived in holy harmony with their Creator. There was no disordered love for the good gifts that pulled their hearts away from the Good Gift Giver. There was no sinful self-absorption or self-centeredness, because they were not sinners. But after the Fall, sin entered into the heart of humanity, and we all began to turn our good gifts into God-alternatives. We began to love the gifts more than the Giver of those gifts. We began to believe that our gifts could give us more life than God. The great Reformer Martin Luther once said, “Whatever your heart clings to and relies upon, that is your God.”
The key to avoid falling into this idolatrous trap is to love God through His good gifts. God created us to worship Him by enjoying His good gifts and using all of them for His glory and the expansion of His Kingdom in this world. We must remember that everything we have comes from God; the more we have, the more we are indebted to Him. Satan thought that Job only loved God because of all the good gifts God had given him, but the accuser was wrong. Job still loved God supremely, even after losing everything — his health, his wealth, and all ten of his children.
If this is to be the confession of our lives, no matter what we experience, we must look at life as Job did, and see that God is the ultimate Gift. When we do that, we will see everything He gives as just the sweet icing on the cosmic cake.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 