Grace for the Race

I think we would all agree that it is a great privilege to be invited to come before the throne of grace and offer our prayers to the Creator of the Universe. But there is something even beyond this great privilege of which we must be mindful: we are commanded by God to pray to Him both day and night.

Pray continually. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

The command is clear; we are to “pray without ceasing,” as many English translations render this verse. And why would we not want to call on our Lord, who encourages us to, “Call to me” and promises, “I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3)?

Perhaps you should pause for a moment and marinate in that word from the weeping prophet Jeremiah. God promises to answer our prayers. Now, as I have said many times before, we may receive one of three answers: YES, NO, or WAIT. But regardless of which answer we receive, our God promises to tell us great and unsearchable things that we did not know before we came to Him in prayer.

Remember what the psalmist tells us:

Does he who fashioned the ear not hear?

God not only hears our prayers, He knows them before we know them and He is always available to give to us a ready answer. Think about this for a moment: looking back on your life, aren’t you glad God answered some of your prayers with a resounding NO? Or with WAIT? I can tell you from personal experience that I certainly am! So much of what I cried out for years ago did not come about, and I praise God today that He withheld it from me. God always knows what is best for each of us and knows exactly what we need, moment by moment. He may not always give to us everything we want; but He will always give us everything we need, exactly when we need it, which is why WAIT is such a great and gracious response from God.

So . . . how is your prayer life today? Do you find yourself in close communion with Jesus? Or are you in the habit of calling on Him only when you are in desperate need? Remember, if the gates of Hell shall not prevail against our Prince, nothing will stand in the way of your petitions other than God’s omniscient understanding of your needs and the best way to meet them at the best possible time.

Let me close out today’s message with a few verses that I pray will encourage you to pray continually.

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15)

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. (James 5:13)

I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer. (Psalm 17:6)

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

Inasmuch as our God is pleased to use us in the process of expanding the cause of His Kingdom, we must never forget that He is the one who is ultimately the Keeper of His Kingdom and the Vinedresser of His Vineyard.

Receive this truth from the prophet Isaiah as a word of encouragement and comfort today:

I, the Lord, watch over it; I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it. (Isaiah 27:3)

To be sure, every Christian has been called by God to cultivate and care for His Vineyard . . . His Kingdom. But behind every Christian is the Christ. Behind all that we do is our God, who is doing it all. Jesus Himself is the Cosmic Cultivator, who waters His Vineyard continually and guards it day and night. Our God never slumbers and never sleeps (Psalm 121:4). He is always at His work and caring for His own. And that, beloved, includes you!

Now if the Cosmic Cultivator is watering you day and night—even moment by moment—oh, how you should be growing up into Christ! Never are you in a season of drought. Never are you overtaken by noxious weeds and busy bugs. God Himself is the Keeper of the gate and will allow no evil or harm to uproot you from Himself. Yes, we are all troubled from time to time by the “little foxes” (Song of Solomon 2:15) that seek to ruin the vineyard, but what harm can truly come our way when our God is the One responsible for watering, tending, and guarding us?

That personal pronoun “I” in today’s verse should give you great comfort and encouragement, regardless of where this message finds you. God says:

•  I WATCH
•  I WATER
• I GUARD

What have we to fear when the great I Am is watching over us—nourishing us and guarding us every step of the way into glory? Who can resist His will? Who can overcome His omnipotence?

So . . . as you consider this great promise today, is your faith flourishing because of His faithfulness to you? Remember God’s immutability—the fact that He changes not. His promise given through the prophet Isaiah centuries ago is as sure today as it was the moment God uttered it! Every promise from God is “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Remember, what God has promised to cultivate and keep will be cultivated and kept. Leave no room for doubt in your mind today; your God has given this promise to you. Receive it and respond to it by living it out with the joy of the Lord, which is your strength, knowing that even when you mess it up, He will use even your evil to accomplish His good.

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

Martin Luther, the great reformer of the 16^th century, taught that man’s human nature is incurvatus in se, a Latin phrase meaning “curved in on itself.” In a word, we are SELF-ABSORBED! Make no mistake, this “curved-in-ness” is the cause of many of the trials and tribulations we face in this life. Remember, the greatest obstacle to living the life God has called us to live is not “out there” somewhere; it is right here, embedded deep within every human heart.

Let me ask you to consider this question for a moment: on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your level of self-absorption—right now, today, right where this finds you? How would those closest to you, those who know you best, rate you?

After honestly evaluating your own level of self-absorption, you may be anxiously wondering if there is any cure for incurvatus in se. As you may have guessed, Scripture provides the answer:

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39).

And there you have it! The cure for incurvatus in se is to shift our focus away from ourselves and toward God and others. The cure for our profound self-absorption is to become other-oriented. Now I understand that this is far easier said than done! Nonetheless, it can be done by shifting our focus away from the self and toward these two commandments that sum up all of the Law and the Prophets: Love God and love people! The more time we spend with God and His Word, the more we will begin bending outward toward others and upward toward God.

By nature, we are bitterly determined to sit upon the throne of our lives. Even after we are saved, by grace through faith, and receive our new nature, we still must consciously surrender our self-worship and self-importance to Jesus every day so that He can take His rightful place in our lives. It is only when we have invited Jesus to sit on the throne of our lives that we can begin bending away from ourselves—blending more and more into the background of our lives—because God has taken center stage.

The more we meditate on our Savior and His overwhelming other-orientation, the more we will begin to model this kind of behavior in our own lives. Our Lord’s other-orientation sought you, caught you, and bought you with His precious blood. He left His throne in heaven to sit upon the throne of your life. And with His last breath and beat of His heart, you were the object of His affection. When He cried, “It is finished” from the cross, He wasn’t saying, “I’m glad that’s over with.” He was uttering the victory cry that caused the earth to shake and the rocks to split, a triumphant proclamation that He had accomplished your salvation!

Remember, the goal of the Christian is to be Christlike. Jesus refused to live for Himself in every way. Even when He was sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking if the terrible cup of God’s judgment could be removed, He closed with these words, “Yet not my will, Father, but Your will be done!” The life of Christ was marked by living vertically (for God) and horizontally (for others). And since we are to be called His followers and disciples, our lives are to be marked by this type of living as well.

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

When was the last time you gave some thought to just how amazing grace truly is? Well, I have a word of encouragement for you today that will shine light on the unbelievably amazing grace of Almighty God.

To be sure, the grace God showers on us is beyond our comprehension; no mortal man can fully understand the magnitude and majesty of God’s grace. The unbeliever knows nothing of this grace, even though God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). Unbelievers certainly benefit from what we call God’s common grace, but they are entirely unaware of it, because Satan, called “the god of this age” by sacred Scripture, “has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). It is only the child of God who is able to peer behind the veil and catch a glimpse of God’s amazing grace.

To begin to unpack this, let’s see what grace is not.

Grace is not justice – Why? Because God’s grace goes far beyond what would be considered “fair.”

Grace is not love – Why? Because there is love in grace, but not all love has grace in it.

The amazing grace that our God extends to us is His unmerited, unearned favor, which is freely extended to those who are only worthy of His disfavor. God’s amazing grace is a gift of everything that is good given to those who deserve to receive everything bad. God’s grace gives life to those who are dead. God’s grace gives love to those who are unlovely and unlovable. And know this: we will never rightly appreciate this amazing grace until we fully understand our need for it—not just daily, but moment by moment.

God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Can you think of anything more amazing than that? Jesus did not die for those who loved Him, served Him, and were His friends. He died for His enemies (Colossians 1:21). Jesus died for you and me while we were still dead in our sins. Our natural, sinful, unsaved nature hated Him. When Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, they broke fellowship with God and were at enmity with Him. And every child of Adam and Eve lives in this condition of broken fellowship with God until Jesus shows up.

So . . . have you experienced God’s amazing grace? Have you received God’s unmerited and unearned favor, the grace that raises you from death to life? Think about it this way as you go throughout your day: the Lord Jesus Christ took your place on a wooden cross and died the death you should have died so you could spend eternity with Him. He took your scourging. He took your nails. He took your crown of thorns. He then took the wrath and judgment of Almighty God to pay the penalty of your sins. Can you think of anything more amazing than that?

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me . . . and you!

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

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, I am always struck by these words:

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  (Matthew 6:12 KJV).

Really? Do you really want God to forgive you in the same way you forgive others? I didn’t think so; neither do I! But what I do desire is to be able, by God’s grace, to live out this truth in my life. And this should be the desire of every Christian, because Christianity is all about forgiveness.

You see, we are commanded to receive the vertical forgiveness that comes to us through our Lord Jesus Christ . . . and then expand it out horizontally to all those who have offended us. In other words, we are to model—albeit imperfectly—the grace God has shown us so that others may see it.

The key to living this out is to recognize just how much we have been forgiven by God. And the only way to begin to plumb the depths of this truth is to know what the apostle Paul knew about himself:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. (1 Timothy 1:15)

What did Paul know about himself? First, he knew the truth about who he was: he knew he was a sinner by nature, having been born in trespasses and sins. But he also knew the truth that he was a sinner by habit, repeatedly doing things he did not want to do and not doing the things he knew God was calling him to do. Paul eloquently explained this paradox in Romans 7. And because he understood these twin truths, Paul understood that the forgiveness he had received from Jesus (and that he continued to receive every day) was simply immeasurable. Paul knew he was in need of God’s forgiveness—not only in the moment when he was saved, but every day thereafter on his way to the Celestial City.

Do you know this truth? Only those who truly recognize that even their so-called righteous acts are no more than filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) can “forgive as they have been forgiven.” They can forgive those who slander them. They can forgive those who wrong them. They can forgive those who hurt them.

In addition, those who understand the truth about the depth of their forgiveness know that it is also imperative to forget . . . just as God forgets our sins. “I will forgive their wickedness,” He has declared, “and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). Now, we know God does not really “forget” anything! But He has deliberately chosen not to recall them. Isaiah exulted to God, “You have cast all my sins behind Your back” (Isaiah 38:17 NKJV). What this means is that God chooses never to remind us of our past sins. He never brings up old trespasses and sins.

To forgive as we have been forgiven is to forgive and forget. We are not to rehash past wrongs that have been done to us. When we forgive, we are to lay the offense down at the foot of the cross and give it to Jesus. We are never to say (as far too many in the church do), “I forgive you, but I will never forget what you did!” That simply is not biblical forgiveness! Is that the way you would want God to forgive you?

God refuses to remember any of our past sins. He tells us that they are as far from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). You know how far that is don’t you? It is a distance than can never be bridged! You can travel east forever and never once be headed west.

So . . . is there anyone in your life right now who needs your forgiveness . . . forgiveness as God has forgiven you? One anonymous writer opined that “Every person should have a special cemetery lot in which to bury the faults of friends and loved ones.” The Christian’s “special cemetery lot” needs to be a little larger: it must have room to bury the faults and failings, not of just our “friends and loved ones,” but of all those who have wronged us!

If you’re struggling with this—as so many of us do—let me leave you with one last golden truth from Scripture:

God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

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

It never ceases to amaze me how many believers never give much thought to the plan and purpose God has for their lives. Far too many simply seem to be careening from wall to wall along the way to the Celestial City.

BUT THIS IS NOT FOR YOU!

“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Here we see a wonderful promise from God about His plans for our lives. If God has plans for our lives—and His Word clearly reveals that He does—I think it is absolutely critical that we prayerfully consider what those plans might be and get in line with them. Remember, if you are not living according to the plan and purpose God has for your life, you will always be living according to the plan and purpose of someone else. And, make no mistake, the plan and purpose someone else has for you, just might not be the plan and purpose God has for you . . . especially if you are the one making the plans!

This was one of the most important life lessons I had to learn . . . the hard way! I always wanted to follow my plans and my purposes for my life. It wasn’t until I realized (thanks to the help of my beloved wife, Kim, and a few good mentors) that it was not my life, but the life God had given to me to live for Him that I began to follow God’s plan for my life. And that, as the poet said, has made all the difference!

Notice two things the prophet Jeremiah is saying:

#1. God has a plan for your life. Now, that only makes sense. The Creator has a plan for all that He has created . . . and that includes you!

#2. God’s plans are good. What a word of encouragement we find in this promise from God! But we must understand what the phrase “plans . . . not to harm you” truly means. It does not mean we will not endure hardship or difficulties and then one day die. What it does mean is, when we do suffer, there is a glorious conclusion to the hardship: eternity with Jesus. To be sure, pain is part of God’s plan. But the pain He sends our way is always for our gain.

So . . . whose plans have you been following lately? Have you been working toward the accomplishment of your agenda . . . or God’s? The only way to find what everyone is looking for—that is, meaning and purpose in life—is to follow the plan and purpose God has for your life. And the only way to discern the plan and purpose God has for your life is by spending adequate amounts of time with God. The more time you spend with God, the more sensitive you will be to His leading. And the more sensitive you are to God’s leading, the more likely you are to be led into the plans God has for your life . . . “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

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

Most readers know that the bulls-eye is the round spot, usually black or outlined in black, at the center of a target, surrounded by concentric circles and used in a variety of target practices. Today I hope to both challenge and encourage you with the concept of the Believer’s Bull’s-Eye and the contemplation of this all-important question:

What target have you been aiming at lately?

Hitting the Believer’s Bull’s-Eye is living a life with Jesus at its center. In other words, it is living a Christo-centric life. There is only one place for Jesus to be in the life of the believer, and that is right at the center . . . at the bull’s-eye. May God always forbid us from moving Jesus to the periphery of our lives because we have brought the things of this world into the center of our existence!

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

Remember that this incredible statement came from the pen of a man who persecuted the first century Christians prior to his Damascus Road conversion. Paul (formerly Saul) went from being a passionate persecutor of the church to a powerful preacher to the church. And here he wrote to the Philippians that the reason for the life he was living was nothing smaller than the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ was the absolute center—the bull’s-eye—of Paul’s existence.

In spite of enduring unimaginable hardships in preaching the Gospel—from being beaten and imprisoned to being shipwrecked—Paul kept Christ at the center of his life. He knew that regardless of what the world was doing to him, even if they killed him, he would simply be closer to Jesus and enjoying a deeper relationship with Him. With Christ at the center of his life, outer circumstances could not affect Paul in the least. And remember, Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians while sitting in a Roman prison.

When Christ is at the center of your existence, you will never find yourself crushed under the weight of circumstance . . . regardless of the circumstances you are facing. Philippians is a letter of joy; Paul used the word “rejoice” eight times in his short epistle. And Paul expressed his joy while sitting in chains on a prison floor! Paul powerfully demonstrated that, with Christ as the Believer’s Bull’s-Eye, nothing can get in your way from becoming all God is calling you to be.

Here is the difference between happiness and joy: happiness is based on outer circumstances, whereas joy is based on Christ. And the only way you will experience this kind of joy is when Christ is at the center of your life.

So let me ask you again: What target have you been aiming at lately? If it isn’t Jesus, it doesn’t matter what you are pursuing. As Paul said, “It is rubbish!” (Philippians 3:8). Regardless of what you may be facing today—personally, professionally, or relationally—make it your aim in life to be able to say what Paul said: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:8-10). It is this glorious pursuit—aiming for this bull’s-eye—that will create a life filled with passion and rejoicing.

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

In our word of encouragement today, I want to remind you of something: it is very good to maintain the habit of “Reminding the Redeemer.”

But you have said, “I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.” (Genesis 32:12)

Now, we certainly know that reminding the Redeemer is not for His benefit. Our God knows everything and forgets nothing. It might seem a bit silly to say that it is a good thing to be in the habit of reminding God of something He has said. But here in today’s verse, we see Jacob repeating (and applying to himself) the covenant promise God had made to his father Abraham years before (Genesis 22:17).

The prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, explained it this way:

This is the sure way of prevailing with the Lord in prayer. We may humbly remind Him of what He has said. Our faithful God will never run back from His word, nor will He leave it unfulfilled; yet he loves to be inquired of by His people and put in mind of His promise. This is refreshing to their memories, reviving to their faith, and renewing to their hope.

Think about it this way. God set His Word down in writing through the inspired writers, not so He would remember it, but so we would remember it. And the only way we will remember it is if we are reading it in the first place. The Word of God cannot be refreshing to the memory if it has not been put in the memory first!

So let me ask you: When was the last time you entered the throne room of grace with the words “But you have said . . .”?

God loves when we approach Him in humility and He has invited us to do so. He has even provided us this reminder for our minds: “But you have said!” God has said so much in His Word that is intended to be a fountain overflowing to refresh and strengthen our faith. Promise after promise, given freely to all those who are in Christ Jesus, and not one of them will fall by the wayside. Every one of God’s promises is YES and AMEN in Jesus (2 Corinthians 1:20). And notice these divinely inspired words from the Genesis 32:12 passage above:

I WILL SURELY MAKE YOU PROSPER!

God has planned prosperity for you, but not as the world defines it. God has promised to prosper you in things above, not things below. Yes, there are those Christians who find themselves enjoying great prosperity in all things below. God blesses us to be a blessing to others, but remember, it was once wisely said:

He who has God and everything else, has no more than He who has God and nothing else!

So . . . what promise do you need to remind God of today? When Jacob was reminding God of His promise to his father Abraham, he was in fear of his angry brother Esau. Is anything causing you anxiety today? Take it to God, being fully confident that He will surely do you good, in His perfect time and in His perfect way.

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

In the 15^th chapter of John’s gospel, we read a remarkable verse about our Lord Jesus Christ. On the night He would be betrayed, He said . . .

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  (John 15:13)

There are two aspects to this powerful proclamation. The first, of course, is the fact that Jesus did indeed “lay down His life” for others. Years later after that Good Friday, John would write to us about this truth:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16)

The Old Testament prophesied about this “dying love” time and time again, and Jesus foretold it in all four gospel accounts. But clearly there is something more here than just His atoning death, as magnificent as that is. Jesus was not just talking about dying; He was also talking about living!

There is a sense of “laying down one’s life” when we are living for another. Our Lord Jesus came and lived for us before He died for us. He laid down His glorious, perfect life in heaven, took on flesh, and lived a sinless life. He was tempted in every way, just like us, and yet He sinned not—not one time—because of His love for us.

So the question I want to ask you today is: Are you laying down your life for our Lord Jesus Christ? Are you laying down . . .

• Your Agenda?
• Your Goals?
• Your Desires?
• Your Dreams?
• Your Vision?
• Your Plans?

It really comes down to a single word: SURRENDER! When Jesus raises us from death to life, He calls us to surrender everything to Him, including our lives. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart . . .” the inspired Proverb commands. “In all your ways acknowledge him . . .” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Jesus didn’t save us so we could have more of the life we were currently living; He saved us so we could have a new and different life, a life fully rooted in Him. It will only be when Jesus is seated on the throne of our lives that it can truly be said we are laying down our life for Him.

The only place we will ever find meaning, significance, and purpose is when we are living for nothing smaller than Jesus. This is what it means to lay down our lives for Him. And perhaps . . . if He calls us to lay it all the way down one day, we will say with Paul, “To live is Christ, but to die is gain . . . great gain!”

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

There is a lot of talk these days about starting something . . . a new business venture; a new exercise program; a new relationship; a new course of study . . . there are any number of “new starts” that we announce we’re going to make. But as important as it is to begin something, it is equally important to finish it. Let this word today encourage you to that end and remind you that your God is always a Faithful Finisher.

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)

Inasmuch as each one of us is a work in progress—“unfinished business” in the hands of the Almighty—we can be fully confident that God will not leave any of His work undone. We have His Word on it! Our heavenly Father always finishes what He has started, and that includes His work in you! However much good God has worked, both in you and through you, none of it is perfect yet, and God will not stop short of perfection. He will not stop until His ultimate purpose for us has been completed . . . when we have been conformed to the likeness of His Son. This, beloved, should be a source of great encouragement to you today and every day on this side of the grave.

Make no mistake, none of us can perfect the work of grace in our lives in any way. We constantly fall short in our thoughts, words, deeds, and desires each day. But that cannot be said about our God. God is perfecting us as we advance toward the Celestial City. God is perfecting our . . .

• Character
• Calling
• Faith
• Love

As I’ve said, God is conforming us to the image of Christ and it would shroud His glory if He stopped short of that mark in our lives. God is using all things as part of the process of perfecting us . . . in spite of everything that is against Him. The world is against Him. Our flesh is against Him. The devil is against Him. And yet God has promised to overcome everything the evil one can set up as an obstacle to our perfection.

David knew this truth and built his life upon its foundation:

The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. (Psalm 138:8 NKJV)

David knew by way of personal and, at times, excruciating experience that God was in the process of perfecting him. David knew his own flaws, but he also knew his Faithful Finisher. He knew God would not abandon him, no matter what he did. Remember, it was God who sent the prophet Nathan to confront David about his sin with Bathsheba, because God refused to let David stay the way David was. David knew that God was for him, so it didn’t matter what came up against him; God would ultimately get the victory.

So . . . how is God working in your life right now as He is conforming you to the image of His Son? Are you in need of a “Nathan-like” rebuke in order to continue advancing in the conforming process? God is faithful to finish what He started and He will use any means necessary.

May our faith be strengthened this day as we contemplate the love and grace of our Faithful Finisher!

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