Grace for the Race

I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm—my great army that I sent among you. (Joel 2:25)

There is great encouragement to be found in the lesson of the locust. God will accomplish His purposes in the lives of His people by any means necessary and along the way, He alone can bring restoration and reversal to all that was lost.

The crops that the locusts had eaten were lost crops and a proverbial picture of all the loses all God’s people face. When the children of Israel were released from bondage in Egypt, they should have been but a few days walk away from the Promised Land. But in their rebellion, they lost 40 years wandering in the desert and many ultimately lost their lives. The prodigal son who rebelled against his father and ran off to the far country, lost his time, his talent, and his treasure choosing to live a life of rebellion. Yet, the Father reversed the seemingly irreversible when the son returned home.

To be sure, there are many armies the Almighty commands and He uses them to correct us when we wander away from Him. The Almighty’s Army is never sent to crush us, but always to correct us. And in the Almighty’s cosmic correction, we find a word of unimaginable comfort – “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” Our great God can reverse the seemingly irreversible and give to us great gain in spite of our loss. Jesus is in the business of reversing the seemingly irreversible.

• He reversed the lost years of Abraham and Sarah without children
• He reversed the lost years of Moses on the back side of the desert
• He reversed the lost years of the Samaritan woman at the well
• He reversed the lost years of Zacchaeus the despised tax collector
• He reversed the lost years of Saul of Tarsus
• He reversed the lost years of the paralyzed man at the pool Bethesda

So, the question is this: what lost years is our Lord ready to reverse in your life today? The lesson of the locusts is to lift our spirits above all that has been lost knowing that Jesus is ready, willing, and able to turn every loss into our great gain.

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

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead . . . (Philippians 3:13)

Just as fire can be used to both build and destroy, so too memories. What you remember about your past can be used by God to build you up or take you down. Some memories will bring you pleasure and others pain. That is why you must treat your past like a school – learn the lesson, but don’t live there. Use your past like a springboard into your promised future, not a sofa to sleep on. Living in the “If only I had done . . . “ will keep you from living in the moment you have right now and keep you from being what God is calling you to be.

Listen, when you read through the Bible, you can see just how faithful God is to His people, especially when they are not faithful to Him. You see, it is God’s faithfulness to you, not your faithfulness to Him that keeps you secure in your saving relationship. God never failed His people no matter how they treated Him and He will never fail you. When you treat your past as a springboard and not a sofa, you are making it clear that you are trusting fully in God to use even your poor decisions, detours, and dead ends for His glory and your ultimate good.

Listen, your past does not equal your future. It is the devil that wants to remind you of your past to fill you to overflowing with regrets, fears, doubts, and hopelessness. The devil knows he cannot take you out of the hands of your Lord, but he sure can mess up your life along the way into glory, with gnawing guilt and relentless remorse. But this is not for you. Getting you’re your past is a choice we all must make. We need to choose to look to Jesus, listen to Jesus, and lean on Jesus, because He has promised to never leave or forsake us, no matter what we do.

Remember, God is not finished with you yet. You are a work in progress and along the way you will mess things up. Just keep looking to the One who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. When your past is a springboard and not a sofa, God will take every set-back and use it as a set-up for your cosmic come-back. Keeping that in view will empower all of us to keep getting past our past!

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

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.  (Psalm 126:5)

I don’t know where this finds you today. You might be riding the crest of the wave, feeling like you are on top of the world. Or perhaps, you might be crushed under the weight of waves of challenge. But regardless, the psalmist is telling us we must remember to look past our challenges and struggles knowing that the tears we shed today will be like seeds that will grow into a great harvest of joy and thanksgiving tomorrow.

There are only three stations in life: you are either in a storm, coming out of a storm, or heading back into a storm. So if you are riding the crest of the wave today, get ready for the waves of challenge tomorrow. Jesus made it clear that as His disciples, we would encounter trials and tribulations on this side of the grave. The curse of sin and cosmic brokenness in this world will always find its way to our door. Ans when it knocks, even if we don’t open it ourselves, it will come crashing in, especially when we least expect it.

Today’s Word is designed to cause us to rise above the waves of challenge and to see life from God’s perspective. Whatever you are going through, you are going through it. God has promised to get you to the other side. If Jesus does not take you out of your storm, He will take you through it and He will be with you every step of the way. Keeping this truth in view will strengthen us in our faith and grow us up into Christ.

Remember, weeping may indeed endure for a night, but you can be certain that joy will find you in the morning. You have His Word on it.

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

Then Pilate asked him, “Don’t you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?” But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor. (Matthew 27:13-14)

Pilate presses our Lord to speak on His behalf and we read to our amazement that Jesus made “no reply.” Yet, in another passage of Scripture we read, “No one ever spoke the way this man spoke” (John 7:46). To be sure, there is, in the life of every disciple of Christ, a time to speak and a time to be silent. The key is to have the wisdom and discernment to know the time.

So much can be said about these two words that can bring great encouragement into the life of the Christian. Jesus made “no reply” when words might have brought a blessing to Himself. But never did He withhold His words when He could bless others. 

Jesus said to the fishermen He found down by the shore, “Come” and they became fishers of men. 

Jesus said to the man up in a tree, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately” and he rose up into the ministry of the gospel alongside of His Master. 

Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Will you give me a drink?” and she was given “living water” and became the first evangelist in her town of Samaria, and many became believers. 

Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery, “Woman, where are your accusers?  Has no one condemned you?” and she left His presence forgiven and faithful to Her Lord. 

These are just a few of the many examples of the words of Jesus blessing others. He gave “no reply” to Pilate, refusing to provide a defense against the false accusations, but He never missed the opportunity to defend and bless others. So where has Jesus spoken in your life that brought to you great blessing? Remember, Jesus made no reply because He chose to take our place and die on a cross. Jesus made no reply so He could drink the full cup of God’s wrath. This was the time for Jesus to be silent because His silence testified to Him being the True Lamb of God who was silent “as a sheep before its shearers is silent.” But regarding your relationship with Him, He has not stopped speaking life to you and will not all the way into glory.

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

Peter answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Today’s title might sound strange to you, but oh, how needed it is in the body of Christ today, for we all tend to lean toward self-sufficiency. A dependent spirit is a despised spirit, because the self wants to sit upon the throne of life. But God in His grace will strip away all the resources that we cling to in order to cause us to cry out to Him for the help we so desperately need.

I learned this remarkable truth a long time ago: You will never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have!  This was the truth that Peter expressed in our verse for today.

I think that one of the best ways to fully grasp this biblical truth about what it means to be a begging believer is to contrast it with the very opposite of this mindset. One of the best pictures of this comes from the church at Laodicea.

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. (Revelation 3:14-17)

In the eyes of the watching world, the church at Laodicea was the place to be. They were rich. They had acquired wealth. They were the picture of self-sufficiency. A beggar’s spirit was as far from them as the east is from the west. But from God’s perspective, there was no church in a worse condition than the Laodicean congregation, and they received His indictment: “You are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.” In their sense of self-sufficiency, they were neither hot nor cold, and the Lord was preparing to spit them out of His mouth.

Where in your life right now are you leaning toward self-sufficiency? What do you need to do in order to move back in the direction of being a believer who begs? What will it cost you if you don’t move? Remember, Jesus has promised to never leave you nor forsake you. He has also promised to meet your every need . . . not want. And He will meet it in His way and in His perfect timing.

May we all be like the apostle Peter and say, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

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

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:9)

Inasmuch as we simply cannot imagine how much higher the heavens are than the earth, we cannot imagine how much higher God’s thoughts toward us are than our thoughts toward Him. Beloved, let the truth of this verse comfort you today, not only are God’s thoughts higher than your thoughts, but also His plans, His purposes, His wisdom and His ways. Because they are God’s thoughts, they are better than our thoughts and working toward our good.

Think about it this way. God’s plans and purposes for your life are beyond what you could ever imagined them to be for yourself. They will take you to places you have never dreamed you could go because they come from the One who is in control of all things. They will often surprise you along the way and meet you in your deepest place of need. God can do this because He is God and delights in working all things together for the good of those who love Him.

Does this describe you today? Do you love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength . . . as much as it is within your power to do so? Remember this: We love God, but His love is higher love and is able to lift us above all the waves of challenge that confront us each day. Nothing can stand in the way of the will of God and that includes His will for your life. His ways are higher. His thoughts are higher. His love is higher. Why? Because He is God, and He has a love so high for all those who are His and that includes you.

Let that truth set you free today to live out His perfect plan and purpose for your imperfect life, even when what you are currently experiencing you cannot fully understand. Isaiah tells us that we can trust our God even when we cannot trace Him because we know that we are the object of HIS LOVE SO HIGH!

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

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.   (1 Timothy 3:16-17)

The great 19^th century evangelist preacher D. L. Moody once said, “The Bible was not given for our information but for our transformation.” Clearly Moody is echoing what the apostle Paul wrote to his spiritual son in the faith.

The Bible is the Word of God, designed to change us from the inside out. This of course, is all a work of God’s grace. But it demands our participation. We are called to “renew our minds” (Romans 12:2), by reading, re-reading, and re-reading again the Word of God. The more we meditate on and marinate in the Word of God, the more God changes us and conforms us into the image and likeness of His beloved Son Jesus. Now make no mistake, we are to have our own daily quiet time in the Word. But it is not to stop there. We are also to have our time in the Word with our family of faith.

Since we are saved individually, but saved to community, it is vital that we engage in community study of the Word of God. Because we were made for community, community group studies allow for encouragement and accountability. When you know others are looking forward to seeing you and hearing from you about what you learned in your time of study, you are far more motivated to do the work and show up to share. I like to call this, “Wielding the Word!” The more you wield it in view of sharing it with others, the greater will be your transformation.

Remember, the Word of God is far more than facts, figures, and stories of the heroes of the faith. It is God’s Self-Revelation. It is God’s Love letter to you to transform you into the person He is calling you to be to live the life He is calling you to live. So, how is God’s Word transforming your heart and your mind? 

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

“By myself I can do nothing.” (John 5:30)

If ever there was a life that could have been lived independently of the Father in heaven, it was the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. As the second person of the Trinity, Jesus had all the power of the Godhead contained within Him. But instead of using His power independently of the Father, Jesus made the decision of dependence – and this is the pattern you and I must choose for our lives too. Read on and be encouraged today!

When we read the words, “By myself I can do nothing,” it might be easy to picture someone who is utterly helpless — even hopeless. But nothing could be further from the truth when we are talking about the One who uttered those words in the Gospel of John. The omnipotent Son of the Most High God made the decision not to live in the prerogative of His power, but rather in the power of the Holy Spirit; He submitted to the will of His Father in heaven. Jesus made the decision of dependence; His message and His ministry were performed in utter dependence on the will of the Father. In the same sense that our Lord Jesus lived a life of dependence, we are to do the same. We must keep these words of Jesus ever in mind: “I am the vine; you are the branches. . . . Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

By nature, we all want to live in our own strength and for our own glory. This is exactly what happened to Adam and Eve when they bought into the lie of Satan in the Garden of Eden. They chose the way of independence, and the result of their willful rebellion against God was the utter collapse of all of creation. They actually got what they sought: a life of independence apart from God; they were evicted from the Garden and lived east of Eden. Now their lives were marked by confusion and chaos, fear and frustration, disillusionment and death. Is this not the experience of all of us when we choose the way of independence?

How have you chosen to live these days? Have you chosen the way of independence or the way of dependence? To be a disciple of Jesus is to be dependent on Jesus, and to be dependent on Jesus is to live a life of both faithfulness and fruitfulness. When Jesus called on His disciples to “Follow me,” He was calling them to follow — at the deepest level — His pattern of dependence on the Father in heaven. You and I have received the same calling 2,000 years later. But remember, dependence is always a choice . . . a choice that is always yours to make.

What choice will you make today?

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

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)

Perhaps you have heard the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews referred to as “the Let Us chapter.” That’s because you will find in the space of four verses (22-25) that the powerful phrase “Let us” appears five times. Now, all that “Let-us” is a supernatural salad that is designed to both challenge and comfort you, right where this message finds you today.

The first thing we Christians must remember is the fact that inasmuch as we are saved individually, we are saved to community. The Bible knows nothing of the solitary saint. When God in Christ saved us, He placed a new obligation on us: the obligation we have to the family of faith. The word “us” in “Let us” makes it clear that there must be a mutual responsibility in the body of Christ . . . each for the other.

Perhaps the best way to flesh this out is to look at the “one another” passages of Scripture. Here are just a few:

• Care for one another – Galatians 6:2
• Accept one another – Romans 15:5
• Serve one another – Galatians 5:13
• Confess to one another – James 5:15
• Submit to one another – Ephesians 5:21
• Comfort one another – 1 Thessalonians 4:18
• Carry one another’s burdens – Galatians 6:2
• Love one another – John 13:35

So . . . how well have you been feasting on the supernatural salad Jesus has set before you? Never forget that Jesus died to make us part of His family of faith. He wants us to live as a community of believers who put the Gospel on display in such a way that the unbelieving world begins to ask why we are so different. The answer, of course, is the grace of God that saved us is also in the process of sanctifying us. Without the grace of God, we would still be just as sinful and self-centered as we were before we were saved. Even after salvation, we must appropriate the grace of God in order to live out all the “let us” commands in the tenth chapter of the book of Hebrews.

Remember, living in community is not only God’s desire for every Christian, it is the clear and present sign of maturity — of growing in our faith. As we grow in our relationship with Jesus vertically, we are also to be growing in our relationships with others horizontally.

In the creation account, everything was good except one thing: It was not good for the man Adam to be alone (Genesis 2:18), so God created Eve to form the first human community in the world. And you are part of the most important community in the world today: the church. But in order for the church to be the church, we must do our part and commit to community – each for the other.

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