Grace for the Race

On Monday, we looked at the “one thing lacking” in the life of the rich young ruler, which was the only thing he truly needed. On Wednesday, we saw the “one thing needed” in Martha’s life, which her sister Mary had widely chosen by sitting at the feet of her Savior. Today we’ll close out this series of “one things” with the “one thing I do,” as presented to us by the apostle Paul.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

If your name ever gets into someone’s book with the phrase “one thing” attached to it, make sure it is this one thing that Paul set before the Philippians! Nobody wants to have the “one thing needed” or the “one thing lacking” attached to their legacy, when we see before us just how simple it is to have this “one thing I do” forever linked to the life we have lived.

Like the rich young ruler, Saul (Paul’s name prior to his conversion) had it all going for him in the eyes of the world. He was young, very likely from a wealthy family, he had been taught by the widely respected Gamaliel, and he was a member of the Pharisees, the prominent religious sect of Jesus’ day. Yet when Saul was confronted by the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, he was willing to forsake everything he had once valued for the surpassing riches of Jesus. What Saul once possessed—noble birth, excellent education, religious zeal, good reputation, applause of man—obviously did not possess him. When Jesus called him, he let it all go; he forgot what lay behind him, actually regarding it as “rubbish” (Philippians 3:8) and strained ahead toward his calling in Christ.

Paul’s life was not marked by the avarice that had enslaved the rich young ruler or the tunnel vision that kept Martha working out her service to her Lord (which was a good thing), while missing a chance to sit at His feet (a better thing). Paul’s letter to the Philippians stands as a testimonial to a life lived Coram Deo—before the face of God. How easy it would have been for the great apostle Paul to be distracted with “much serving”—missionary journeys, strengthening the church, writing nearly half the books of the New Testament. Martha got sidetracked simply by preparing a meal! But with this “one thing I do” statement, Paul eliminated every possible distraction that could derail his ministry.

Notice the key in focusing forward on that one thing our Lord called Paul to: he was able to rise above his persecuting past and rest in his redemption and the call that his Redeemer placed on his life.

The inability to get past the past is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in the church today. Far too many Christians simply cannot get on with life because they are living in some painful past. The key is to learn from our painful past and not live in it. Paul had much to hold him back if he had allowed himself to focus on it. He had been persecuting the church, putting people in prison, and even held the coats of those who executed Stephen (Acts 7:58). Yet, by God’s grace, the same grace given to each of us, he was able to leave the past in the past and press on into his calling. Can the same be said about you?

This week we have seen “one thing lacking” in the life of the rich young ruler, “one thing needed” for Martha, and the “one thing I do” that kept the apostle Paul pressing forward. When the Lord Jesus Christ is our first priority, we can be certain that it will never be said about us that one thing is still lacking. We will have the Only Thing that truly matters in a life marked by the “one thing I do,” regardless of the cost or circumstance.

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

On Monday we looked at the account of the rich young ruler and the “one thing lacking” in his life—the only thing he truly needed. Today I want to give you a different view of the “one thing needed,” as presented in the story of two sisters, Martha and Mary.

“Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42)

Jesus was welcomed into the home of Martha and Mary, who were preparing a meal for him. When Jesus began to teach, Mary stopped her preparations and sat at the feet of Jesus to listen to His every word. Martha, on the other hand, kept right on preparing the meal. Like the rich young ruler, there is much to be admired about Martha, at least on the surface. She was focused and faithful in her service to Jesus. She was busily engaged in the many things that were needed to complete the preparations for the meal.

Yet, once again, with all the good stuff that Martha was engaged in, to the penetrating eye of our Savior, there was still “one thing needed” in her life. Just as there was one thing lacking in the life of the rich young ruler, who seemed to have it all, Martha, in spite of her wonderful hospitality and focus on the task at hand, was still lacking the one thing that she needed most.

You see, the difference between the sisters, Martha and Mary, was that Mary knew when to stop serving and start sitting at the feet of Jesus. Martha complained to Jesus that Mary had left her alone to make the necessary preparations. So Mary had been, in fact, serving alongside of her sister. But Mary knew when sitting was more important than serving, and that is when you have the opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Do you and I know the same truth? We can be so busily engaged in doing the Lord’s work that we forget all about the Lord Himself. Giving our service to our Lord is a very good thing . . . but giving ourselves to our Lord is a better thing. Jesus made that clear by saying, “Mary has chosen what is better,” which was taking a place at the feet of Her Master.

What does the confession of our lives say about this truth? Remember, there was nothing wrong with the preparations Martha was making for her Lord. What was wrong was giving the work a higher priority over the Lord Himself. This is the message we are to glean from this “one thing needed” in the life of Martha, as we, like Mary, choose what is better than service: Our Savior!

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

This week I’m planning to take a look at three different verses containing the same phrase—“one thing”—yet each occurrence conveys a very different meaning. It is my prayer that this week’s series of messages will prove as instructive as they are inspirational.

Here are the three passages:

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” [Jesus] said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)

“Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42)

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)

Today we will look at the account of the rich young ruler, whom Jesus instructed about the “one thing lacking” in Mark 10:21. To the watching world, this man had it all together. Certainly, today’s society would regard him as a Very Important Person:

• He was rich.
• He was young.
• He was a ruler.

This man would have been on the top of everybody’s party invitation list; he had everything going for Him! No doubt many of our churches would be scrambling to enlist him in a position of leadership.

Even when you look at the man’s spiritual condition, there was a great deal that seemed commendable, at least in his outward actions. Mark 10:17 relates that . . .

• The man ran up to Jesus (earnestly seeking an audience with Him).
• He knelt before Him (demonstrating humility and reverence).
• He addressed Jesus as “Good Teacher” (a sign of respect).

Yet with all he apparently had going for him, the penetrating eye of our Savior discerned that there was one thing lacking in his life. This rich young ruler had everything a man could ever want except the one thing he truly needed: a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We know this because Mark’s account reports that after Jesus had spoken, “The man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:22).

You see, the problem for this rich young ruler was not that he had great possessions; rather it was what possessed him. His stuff was more important to him than his Savior. He was utterly unwilling to give up his possessions and take up his cross and follow Jesus. This “one thing lacking” was the only thing he truly needed: Jesus as Savior and Lord over his life.

So . . . do you feel that there might be one thing lacking in your life? I hope you’ll be back for the next two blogs. We’ll be looking at this concept some more!

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

That’s an odd question, isn’t it? At first glance, we all know that imperfection cannot also be perfection. The two words are antonyms; you simply can’t have perfection when there are imperfections! Yet in today’s passage we see that there is indeed a time when imperfection is perfection.

When this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:12-14)

“This priest” is our Lord Jesus Christ, and after He had completed His work—sinless life, sacrificial death, supernatural resurrection—He ascended back into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

It is important to understand the significance of our Lord sitting down. In the Old Testament Levitical priesthood, there was never a time for the priest to sit down because his work was never done. Every morning and every evening—one sacrifice after another sacrifice after another—the priest was busy offering sacrifices for the sins of the people. This tells us that these sacrifices that could never fully atone for sin; they were intended to point us to a better and perfect sacrifice. And when Jesus Christ came as the unblemished Lamb of God, His sacrifice was accepted as payment in full for all sin, once for all!

The next thing I’d like to point out in the passage from Hebrews is that by His sacrifice Christ “has made [past tense] perfect forever those [you and me] who are being made [present tense] holy.” In other words, in the eyes of God we are already perfect because we have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And yet, in the reality of daily living, we are not yet perfect; we are being made perfect.

We know this to be true by way of personal experience. We realize that we are far from perfect; on many days, perfection seems to be completely out of view! Yet because we are in Christ, God chooses to see our imperfections as perfection because they are covered by the blood of His precious Son. Every sin—past, present, and those to come—has been forgiven in Christ and covered by His blood. Someone once said that another way to explain this amazing truth is to think of the word “justification” as meaning . . .

Just as if I’d never sinned!

Think for a moment of how graciously God chooses to deal with us: He chooses to see us only through the perfect radiance of His Son. He chooses to love us in spite of our massive imperfections. He chooses to take our current mess and turn it into His eternal masterpiece. When we live in the light of this truth, we begin to live for nothing smaller than Jesus, the One who took our imperfection and made it perfect.

So when is imperfection perfection? When Jesus has covered it with His precious blood!

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

It was the sixteenth-century Polish astronomer Nicolai Copernicus who proved that the theory of an Earth-centered universe, which had been taught by Aristotle and Ptolemy, was not accurate. Copernicus proposed and proved that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of our solar system.

A “Copernican moment,” then, is when we realize we are not the center of the universe, but rather, the Son of God is. Instead of everything revolving around me, everything revolves around Him.

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.  (Psalm 33:6-9)

Everything in all of creation, including you and me, is under the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. A Christian Copernican moment is a great grace of God! To realize the truth that we are not the center of the universe frees us to live for the One who is. It also frees those around us to live according to His purpose, rather than ours.

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were created by God to live for God, which meant God was the center of their universe. God was to sit upon the throne of their lives. They were to find their identity in God. They were to find their purpose through God. Tragically, our first parents chose to remove God from the center of their universe and put themselves there.

You know the rest of the story. Man was never meant to be what only God can be—the center of all things. Only when we center our lives on Jesus do we begin recapturing the humanity lost when our first parents turned away from God. We simply cannot know who we truly are apart from God being our center and the focal point of life.

You see, life is not about the expansion of our own little kingdom, which is exactly what Adam and Eve sought to do in the Garden of Eden. Life is about the expansion of God’s BIG kingdom, which means that all of life—our work, our families, our dreams, our goals, our agendas, our recreation, everything—is to be centered on the Lord Jesus Christ.

By him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. (Colossians 1:16)

It is my prayer that you will start this day and every day after with a Christian Copernican moment that keeps Jesus at the center of every aspect of your life.

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

Most Christians have heard about the power of prayer, but I have found that far too few have heard about the power of praise. Have you? Your answer to this question can be determined by the confession of your life as it relates to praising God. Everything in the created order—including you—was created by God as a hymn of praise to His glorious name.

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. (Psalm 150:6)

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. (Hebrews 13:15)

It’s easy to praise God for a glorious sunset, a gracious providence, a good gift, or a generous blessing. But do we praise our God simply for being our God . . . the only One who is worthy of our continual praise?

Great is the LORD, and most worthy of praise . . . (Psalm 48:1)

Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. (Psalm 96:4)

Great is our God, who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, who was and is and is to come. So now, beyond the fact that we have been commanded to praise God, who is wholly worthy of our praise as the King of kings and the Lord of lords, let me share with you some other reasons for praising God that we might easily overlook:

• Praising God pleases Him
• Praising God points others to Him
• Praising God proves His presence
• Praising God purges our pride
• Praising God proclaims our love
• Praising God protects us from Satan’s power
• Praising God produces more praise for God

Because Jesus was the final sacrifice for all those who would, by grace through faith, trust in Him for eternal life, the only sacrifice left for us to offer is a sacrifice of praise. Awe and reverence for our Redeemer is the mark of a sacrifice of praise, and it produces a peace that passes all earthly understanding within those who are doing the praising.

You see, because we are made in the image of God, we were made for praising God. And the more our lives are marked by praise, the more we connect with our humanity. Adam and Eve denied their humanity when they turned away from God and leaned toward the serpent. But now, even though the image of God in us is marred by sin, we can still connect at the deepest level of our humanity when we praise the One who created us to glorify His name.

Plug into the power of praise and let it light up your life, both for God’s glory and the good of others!

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

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Husbands . . . have you made the call to the florist yet?

As the thoughts of so many will be fixed on love tomorrow, I’d like to devote one more day to focusing on the Lord’s Love Letter to us. On Monday we examined God’s love from the perspective of God is Father; Wednesday’s article exulted in the truth that God is Faithful. Today, let us give thanks and praise because God is Forgiving.

God Is Forgiving

He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13-14)

The one thing everyone needs is forgiveness, and our Faithful Father God is willing to provide it to us through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. It’s almost unfathomable to think of God in hot pursuit of rebels on the run from Him—not to punish them but to restore them—but that is exactly the picture the Bible paints for us in the aftermath of the first sin in the Garden of Eden.

God had told Adam clearly and directly: “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). When Adam and Eve turned away from God and violated His command, the Lord had every right to utterly destroy them both and start over. These two traitors had, in essence, given God the back of their hand and taken up fellowship with Satan!

But God didn’t destroy our first parents; this takes us back to the theme of Wednesday’s blog—God’s eternal covenant. Our Faithful God was not caught off-guard by the fall in the Garden; we know that because we’ve read Hebrews 13:20, which reveals that the promise of sending Jesus had been established in the eternal covenant. And because God is Faithful to keep all of His promises, He chased after Adam and Eve—not to do away with them, but to tell them of the promised Redeemer (Genesis 3:15).

Christian, did it ever occur to you that He chased after us too? We must remember that God not only forgave us when we were first brought into relationship with Jesus; He forgives us every day, moment by moment.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

We are not only sinners by nature; we are also sinners by habit. Yet our God is faithful and just and He forgives all our sins. We need never fear going to our Father in heaven and telling Him how badly we’ve failed. God is faithful to forgive, because every sin you will ever commit has already been forgiven in Christ! They all were nailed to the cross. When Jesus uttered His great victory cry, “It is finished” (John 19:20), He was announcing to you that you had been released from the penalty of sin forever!

As you consider God’s amazing grace and love, there is one other thing to remember: when God forgives, He forgets. He will never dredge our sins back up to remind us about them and make us feel sorrow all over again.

I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Regardless of how you may observe the day, never forget the Lord’s Love Letter, written just for you by your Faithful, Forgiving Father in heaven. Now that’s a love letter worth reading over and over again!

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

With Valentine’s Day approaching, many of us are thinking of love. I thought this was the perfect time for us to focus on the Lord’s Love Letter to us. On Monday we examined God’s love from the perspective of God is Father. Today let us rejoice in the truth that God is Faithful.

God is Faithful

The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy. They are steadfast forever and ever, done in faithfulness and uprightness. He provided redemption for his people; he ordained his covenant forever—holy and awesome is his name. (Psalm 11:7-9)

God is our Faithful Father. When you read the word covenant in the passage above, what should come to mind is the fact that God has chosen to relate to His children by way of covenant—a solemn promise which God guarantees by His Word. When God makes a promise, He keeps it! And He has promised to relate to us—personally, intimately, and faithfully.

Part of the covenant that God ordained forever is that the redemption He has provided for His people was determined in the eternal counsel of the Triune God.

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 . . .(Hebrews 13:20)

Do you see the power in that text . . . the virtually indescribable grace and love? You were always in the heart of your faithful heavenly Father. There was never a time when you were not a child of the Most High God, thanks to the promised cross work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Mary, the mother of our Lord, was found to be with child, her betrothed husband, Joseph, thought to divorce her. Joseph naturally assumed that Mary had been unfaithful. But God sent an angel to reassure Joseph that he should take Mary as his wife. And part of the angel’s message to Joseph was this:

[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)

Did you catch that? “He will save his people.” That’s you! God determined before the creation of the world that you would be saved, and He is faithful to you, from everlasting to everlasting, because every one of His promises is “Yes” and “Amen” in Jesus Christ.

God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. (1 Corinthians 1:9)

To be sure, we all go through seasons where God seems distant and heaven is silent. The key to getting through these times is trusting God even when we cannot trace Him. We must cling to His promise never to leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). I often remind our congregation that when we feel distant from God, we must understand that it was we who moved, not God.

Yet even when our thoughts and actions take us away from God, we can still rest in the truth penned by the apostle Paul: “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

Wow! To know that God’s faithfulness to us does not depend upon our faithfulness to Him, but rather on His eternal, unchanging promise, that is a truth that truly sets us free to rest in the arms of our Faithful Father in heaven.

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

As we approach Valentine’s Day, a day that encourages so many people to focus on love, we have a wonderful opportunity to tell others about the Lord’s Love Letter to us. We will look at the Lord’s Love Letter under three headings: God is Father, God is Faithful, and God is Forgiving.

God is Father

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. (Ephesians 3:14-15)

As hard as it is to believe, the God who created everything in the cosmos created you to be His child . . . and He promises to be your Father. That’s right; the Creator God who spoke the sun into existence also knit you together in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). He is as powerful as He is personal when it comes to His relationship with you.

You see, God created you out of His good pleasure. He didn’t need to create you—He wasn’t lonely or bored—He simply wanted to create you and enjoy an intimate, personal relationship with you. You are the apple of the Almighty’s eye; before you existed physically, you existed in the mind and heart of God your Father.

The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)

Marinate on the Scriptures you see here for a moment and feel the immensity of the love your heavenly Father has for you! Ephesians 1:4-5 tells us that God “chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.” Did you see that? God loved you—you—from before the beginning of time!

Sadly, I counsel men and women who grew up in environments where they were told they were not wanted. They were told that they were “an accident.” Well, there are those who were not wanted or planned for by their earthly parents, but no one is an accident. There are no “accidents” with the Almighty. Everyone ever born was known and set apart for a specific purpose before they were formed in the womb by God the Father. David exulted that “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16).

Think about it this way: the One who made heaven His throne and earth His footstool also made you His precious child. But He did it at incredible cost. He loved you—you—so much that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as an atoning sacrifice to take your place on a cross and pay the penalty for your sins—all of your sins—so that you would have eternal life. As sinners, we desperately needed a Savior, and that is exactly what we have in Jesus Christ. When we, by faith, confess Him as Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we enter into a forever relationship with our Father in heaven.

Oh, one final thing. Go to the end of your Bible right now and read the last verse, which is Revelation 22:21. Now imagine that these words, which are not actually written on the page, are written on your heart . . .

I Love you,

Your Father in heaven.

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

What do you think of when you hear the phrase “cover-up”? Most of us immediately think of some government agency trying to hide its wrongdoing from us by manipulating the truth or hiding information in order to avoid being found out. But did you know there is a cosmic cover-up? In a word, it is LOVE!

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  (1 Peter 4:8)

Peter is telling us that the cosmic cover-up is LOVE. Now, when you read this verse in its context, you’ll see that it is highly unlikely that Peter is pointing to the love of God in Christ Jesus that covers our sins with the blood of the Lamb. No, Peter is instructing us in the love we are to have for one another that will, by God’s cosmic grace, cover a multitude of sins.

Notice that Peter is talking about sin—not a mistake or a misstep, but sin. So, the first truth we must absorb is that we sin against each other. That’s fairly easy for most of us to take in; it gets a little more uncomfortable when we move on to the next level of understanding: Because we are sinners, love can—and often does—mean confronting someone in that love.

But there’s an even deeper layer to this truth! I believe that Peter’s major point is that a Christ-like love will refuse to bring up the past in order to bury someone in the present. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that when God forgives our sins, He removes them as far from us as the east is from the west; He promises to remember them no more and He will not remind us of them ever again. Satan, on the other hand, is constantly trying to remind us of our sin, and frequently others will try to remind us as well . . . but God never will.

The love Peter is talking about is a love that forgives as God forgave us, refusing to remind others of their past actions, even those that were hurtful to us. It is a love that “keeps no record of wrongs,” as Paul wrote in the famous “Love Chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13. It is a love that gives—freely and without reservation—the same kind of grace to others that we have received from God.

The key is to remember how God chooses to deal with us and to intentionally choose to deal with others in the same way. Love will cover a multitude of the messed-up things that others have done to us.

Now, let me be clear that this does not mean that we are to accept any kind of behavior others deliver to us. If, for example, you have a friend who is prone to exaggeration or even outright lies, you should lovingly confront that person. If they persist in this behavior, and refuse to change their sinful behavior, you should avoid them. Continue to pray for them, yes, and continue to love them, but move forward without them. There are times when biblical love must be as tough as it is tender. (Our Lord spoke directly and specifically about how to confront a Christian brother or sister who is engaging in sin in Matthew 18:15-17.)

But in order to be effective in applying the cosmic cover-up to the lives of others, we must always consider Christ’s cosmic cover-up in our own lives. Remember, in the Lord’s Prayer, we ask our heavenly Father to “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” If we are sincere when we pray that prayer, we will love as Christ loves and forgive as Christ forgives . . . regardless of the cost.

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