Grace for the Race

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:24-25)

I have officiated at many funerals over the years. Some are filled with heartfelt memories of the one who has passed on. Some are not. I have come to understand that the difference comes down to what the deceased had been living for, and there are only two choices: We can either live for the self or live for our Savior. The choice is always ours.

I learned a long time ago that the only life worth living is a life lived out for the glory of Jesus. And if we are living for the glory of Jesus, we live to make an eternal difference in the lives of others. Living this kind of a life does not happen by accident; it only happens by choice. The impact we have in the lives of others will come down to the things we choose to do or not do . . . and we make those choices moment by moment.

Living a life that truly matters will stand the trial by fire. There will be circumstances in life that will burn us, but we will not burn up; our work “will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work” (1 Corinthians 3:13). The simplest way I can restate what Paul is saying is this: If what we are doing is done for our glory, it will burn up; but if what we are doing is done for the glory of God, it will survive the test of fire.

So . . . whose glory have you been living for lately? Who has been sitting on the throne of your life?

Remember, what we do echoes in eternity. May that echo be for the glory of God and the good of others – all others — regardless of the cost or circumstance. Then we will know we are living a life that truly matters.

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

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! (Philippians 4:4)

There are two kinds of joy we can experience in life: real joy or counterfeit joy. The first is lasting; the second is fleeting. Here are a few things to consider regarding the counterfeit joy which beckons to us every day.

Counterfeit joy seems real but leaves us wanting in the end. It was the joy Adam and Eve experienced when they decided to be their own gods and turn away from the One who had created them and breathed life into them. When their counterfeit joy evaporated, they found themselves running away and hiding from God. David experienced counterfeit joy when he decided to commit adultery with Bathsheba. He should have been leading the army of Israel onto the battlefield, but instead he took another man’s wife into his bed. The cost of this counterfeit joy was incalculable, leading to the murder of Bathsheba’s husband in an attempt to cover David’s treacherous tracks and ultimately to the death of the child that was conceived by their illicit union. Counterfeit joy is any joy you are seeking that is contingent on circumstances.  

Real joy, on the other hand, is not rooted in circumstances; it is rooted in Jesus Christ. Joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and it is produced by God’s work in our lives. Joy is a gift of God, and we need simply to receive it and rest in it, regardless of the circumstances we are facing.

We do not deny difficult circumstances; like the psalmists, we cry out to God. We pour out our hearts and we tell Him exactly how we are feeling. Once we have done that, we cast all our cares upon Jesus because He cares for us (1 Peter 5:7).

Jesus has provided two main avenues to walk in so that we can experience real joy. The first avenue is vertical: we raise our eyes to heaven and focus on our relationship with Him. We spend time with Jesus in prayer and in the Word. We cultivate our vertical relationship through intentional and intimate time spent with Jesus each day.

The second avenue that leads to joy is horizontal: we look around us and build relationships with others. I often say that we were saved individually, but we were saved to community. We each need each other to experience real and lasting joy; that’s how God made us!

Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24)

Let us encourage each other to seek out genuine joy — the joy of the Lord — which we will experience as we pursue a deep relationship with Him and build edifying relationships with each other. As we walk down those two avenues of relationship, we will truly rejoice in the Lord. I will say it again: Rejoice!

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

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 22:13)

I would like to take a moment to share one thing about the One and Only – the Lord Jesus Christ – that will be a source of eternal encouragement to you right now, right where this finds you.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

We all find ourselves in moments of darkness when we can’t see our way forward and have no idea what to do next. We must remember that God is using the darkness to draw us closer and closer into the Light. Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, and He is the One and Only who can and will lead us through any dark night of the soul.

But let’s go deeper for just a moment. When Jesus said He is the “light of the world,” He was claiming that He alone is the source of spiritual insight . . . spiritual light. The triune God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–is the only source of spiritual truth in the world.

So even when you find yourself in times of darkness because of the challenging circumstances you are facing, you will never walk in spiritual darkness with Jesus by your side. As a candle dispels darkness when it is lit, the light of Jesus Christ dispels every kind of darkness in our lives: the darkness of discouragement . . . the darkness of sorrow . . . the darkness of suffering . . . even the darkness of sin. Have you been walking in His light lately?

Jesus is the way forward whenever darkness descends on us. We must simply look up and trust in Jesus even when we cannot trace Him in the midst of difficult circumstances we are facing. Jesus has promised to use all things for our ultimate good (Romans 8:28). Rest in that truth, and when darkness seems to hide His face, as the English pastor Edward Mote wrote, rest on His unchanging grace, knowing that Jesus will guide you through to the other side of every patch of darkness in your life . . . until the day comes when you will rest eternally in His Light.

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)

We have been talking about creating a bucket list: a list of things we deeply desire to do before the Lord calls us home. On Monday, I suggested that you make reading through the entire Bible an item on your bucket list. On Wednesday, we considered the importance of a life verse. Today, I’d like you to consider memorizing a new portion of Scripture.

Item #3 – Memorizing A New Scripture Passage

Scripture memorization is one of those spiritual disciplines that has fallen on hard times these days. Because the entire Bible is at our fingertips, on our phones and tablets, we feel little need to call up Scripture from memory. Yet Jesus made it clear just how important this discipline is when He defeated the devil during His wilderness experience.

When the devil assaulted Jesus with three temptations, Jesus quoted Scripture from memory to defeat the devil. He could not look into the scrolls for the words needed to disarm and defeat the devil, and He did not need to. Jesus had committed Scripture to memory, and we should follow His lead.

You probably know some Scriptures from memory, verses like John 3:16 and Philippians 4:13. But have you ever invested the time to commit more than a verse or two to memory?

Here is a thought to consider putting on your bucket list. Pick a psalm and commit it to memory. Or perhaps one of the parables. There is absolutely nothing like having the Word of God planted deep within your heart, especially for those moments when you find yourself under the attacks of the devil. Remember, committing Scripture to memory will return to you multiplied blessings. Here are three of them; memorizing Scripture will —

Renew your mind; Recalibrate your heart; Realign your will!

I pray you were encouraged this week by the Believer’s Bucket List. I hope these articles have inspired you to write out a detailed list of things God would put on your life . . . IF He were writing it for you. With an actual bucket list sitting in front of you, start going to work on getting some of those items marked off as “Done!” You will find yourself doing some things you never thought possible for the glory of God and the good of those you come in contact with along the way into glory. What do you say? Let’s kick the bucket!

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)

On Monday I introduced the idea of creating a “believer’s bucket list” — a list of things we deeply desire to do before the Lord calls us home. I suggested that you make reading through the entire Bible an item on your bucket list. Today I’d like to encourage you to consider coming up with a life verse that truly speaks to your heart.

Item #2 – Life Verse

A life verse is a verse or even a passage of Scripture that seems like it was written by God just for you. In my years as a pastor, I have seen that those who do have a life verse usually cite powerful reasons why that verse or passage resonates so deeply with them, from a major life event to the accomplishment of a great goal. Perhaps the reason is rooted in growing and maturing in their faith. My life verse has changed over the years, due to all of those reasons and different seasons of life. Here is a verse of sacred Scripture that resonates deeply with me today:

Jesus asked, “Do you have anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:41)

After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples, who were cowering behind locked doors. The disciples were “startled and frightened” when they saw Him, “thinking they saw a ghost” (Luke 24:37). Jesus said to them, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). Then Jesus said something that resonates deeply in my heart: “Do you have anything here to eat?”

WOW! When we get to the other side of the grave, we will have resurrected bodies and we will eat! We will hug, we will dance and sing and work and play and we will EAT! I used to think that “going to heaven” meant that I would be a spirit being, floating around on a fluffy cloud, strumming a celestial harp for all eternity. And that really didn’t excite me much! But to know we will have immortal, resurrected bodies and will do many of the same things we currently are doing fills my soul with joyful anticipation. When I think of eternity that way, the invitation to the marriage supper with Jesus rocks my world! I love to eat, and knowing that food will be part of our forever existence is awesome!

When I find myself in the midst of a season when the storm winds are blowing and the waves of challenge are washing over me, I reflect on these words of Jesus, and I am reminded that the best is yet to come.

I’ll see you on Friday for our final item on our bucket list.

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)

This week, I want to encourage you with three things that should be on every “believer’s bucket list” . . . and they would be if God was writing your bucket list for you. In case you’re not familiar with the phrase, a bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket” . . . a Christian would say “before you pass into glory.” The term grew exponentially in popularity after the 2007 release of the charming movie The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Here are a few examples of bucket list items: swimming with dolphins; running a marathon; jumping out of a perfectly good airplane (with a parachute, of course); seeing the northern lights; going zip lining; climbing a mountain. Some of the most popular bucket list items involve travel.

There are many things God would put on your bucket list, and I am quite sure they don’t include parachuting or zip lining! I encourage you to take some time to prayerfully consider what some of those things might be. This week we will consider three of them, all related to the Word of God.  

Item #1 – Read The Whole Bible

If you have ever read through the whole Bible, you have already checked this off your list, and you are probably reading it through over and over again. However, if you have not done this yet, let me encourage you to make this a bucket list priority.

Years ago, the church I was attending offered a new Daily Walk Bible to anyone who would make the commitment to read through it during the next year. I accepted the challenge, and on January 1^st, 1999, I began the journey. I would love to tell you that I read each daily portion every day; I would like to say that, but I didn’t do it. What did happen, however, was that I read far more of the Bible that year than I ever had before. Eventually I was able to make it through the entire Bible in a year, and I have been doing it ever since.  

Christian, never forget that the goal God has set before us is progress, not perfection. If you set a goal of reading through the entire Bible, you will definitely read more than you would have without that goal on your list. And why would you not want to do this? The Bible is, in fact, God’s love letter to you.

We’ll take a look at a second bucket list item on Wednesday.

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

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds. (James 1:2)

Because joy is an “inside job,” given to us by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we can face trials of any kind and still have the deep and abiding joy that only comes from above. When we face circumstances in life that we don’t enjoy, God has promised us a joy that rises above the circumstances . . . and that joy’s name is Jesus.

When we keep our eyes on Jesus, we find the joy of the Lord that is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10), even when waves of challenge are crashing over us. And please note that if/when we choose not to find joy in our difficult circumstances, we will have less joy . . . but still the same amount of difficult circumstances!

Perhaps no one demonstrated this better than the apostle Paul. In spite of being beaten with rods, receiving lashes from a whip five times, and being stoned, shipwrecked, persecuted, and put in prison, he actually wrote: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4).

When we spend less time grumbling about our circumstances and more time glorying in who Jesus and what He has done, we will experience the joy of the Lord. The Bible makes it clear that a joyless Christian is an oxymoron (that is, a contradiction in terms) because one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is joy (Galatians 5:22).

The next time you find yourself in circumstances you don’t enjoy — and that may be right now as you are reading this — remember that you can still have joy if you keep your focus on Jesus. Remember, no matter what you are facing or will face in the future, you never face it alone. Jesus is with you, Jesus is for you, and Jesus is in you. Let that truth set you free to experience the joy of the Lord, which is your strength.

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

If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Has someone ever said something about you that hurt you deeply — even cut you to the core? Have you ever felt that you were unworthy of God’s love because of something you’ve done?

Can we talk? Even after becoming a Christian, we all deal with varying degrees of feeling inferior, insecure, and inadequate. So regardless of what others may say or what you have done, remember that your identity rests secure in who God says you are, not in what others say or even in the results of what you do. Period!

Here are just a few things God has to say about you that will provide eternal encouragement, no matter where this message finds you:

• “You are dearly loved.”
• “You are Mine.”
• “You are holy.”
• “You are blameless.”
• “You are forgiven.”
• “You are precious in My sight.”
• “You are unique.”
• “You are chosen.”
• “You are never alone.”

God chose you in Him before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). And He has chosen to see you only as He sees His beloved Son. You have been cleansed by His blood. You are clothed in His righteous robes. Remember, God the Father sent God the Son to die on a cross in order to have an intimate, personal, eternal relationship with you. The next time the devil begins to whisper another lie in your ear about who you are . . . or what someone said . . . or some stupid, sinful act you committed in the past . . . remember this wonderful truth: God sees you only through the eyes of love.

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

After his suffering, he showed himself to [the apostles] and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

Last week, as we were leading up to Easter Sunday, we took a brief look at some of the proofs for the Resurrection that are impossible for even the most hardened unbeliever to argue away. Today, on the day after we celebrated that the One who had undoubtedly died walked out of His grave alive and well, we will add one final point of proof under the heading, “No April Fooling!”

The Resurrection is the most important event in history, and it is the foundation upon which Christianity rests. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, conquering death, our last enemy, our faith would be as powerless as it would be pointless. But the disciples clearly believed that Jesus was and is alive, and they gave up their lives for the message of the Resurrection.

Remember, the disciples were not expecting a Savior who would come and die for their sins; they were looking for a Messiah who would come and destroy the enemies of Israel, reestablish the throne of David, and fully restore the nation of Israel to its former power and glory. When they witnessed the arrest of Jesus, culminating in His terrible death on a cross, what they had believed in died.

The disciples were there! They heard the hammers driving the nine-inch nails through the hands and feet of Jesus. They saw Him stop breathing, and they watched the spear pierce His lifeless body. They knew His dead body had been wrapped and placed in a tomb. They ran and hid, fearing they would meet the same fate. Yet something happened to cause this cowering band of disciples to begin courageously proclaiming the name of Jesus and to give up their lives for what they believed.

The followers of Jesus did not die for a religion; they died for the Redeemer, who walked out of His grave on that first Easter morning and showed Himself to hundreds of witnesses for the next forty days before He ascended to heaven.

These disciples preached the truth of a resurrected Jesus; as we saw last week, they did not die for a lie. They died for a truth that they witnessed firsthand, and they did so knowing what would happen when they took their last breath: They would be ushered into the presence of their resurrected King (2 Corinthians 5:8).

So on this day when many people will play some kind of “April Fool’s Joke,” remember that the Resurrection is not one of them. It is a literal, historical fact that you can depend on and trust in. And I have learned during my years as a pastor that if Jesus can walk out of a sealed tomb, He can walk into the most hardened, tightly sealed heart and raise it from death to life. May this be the confession of your life, and may it be the message you joyfully share with others.

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

“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Corinthians 15:14)

We have been looking at reasons to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ that do not include the divinely inspired testimony of the Scriptures. If an unbeliever says to you, “You’re saying that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead because you read it in the Bible, but I don’t believe the Bible,” you can offer up these three pieces of “uninspired” evidence. On Monday we looked at the “embarrassing evidence” of the testimony of the women who came to the empty tomb, and on Wednesday we unpacked the “enemy evidence” provided by the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. Today we will look at the Pharisee Saul, another bitter enemy of Jesus.

Saul of Tarsus

For more than two thousand years, no skeptic has been able to offer any kind of plausible explanation for Saul, the bitter persecutor of the church, becoming Paul, the beloved pastor, preacher, and disciple of Jesus who penned much of the New Testament.

Saul of Tarsus was feared among the first-century church. He was relentless in his persecution of the followers of Jesus; he frankly confessed his “zeal [in] persecuting the church” (Philippians 3:5), and he testified to that truth in several of his epistles (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13; 1 Timothy 1:13). The book of Acts also testifies to Saul being a persistent tormentor of the church. Then something happened on the road to Damascus.

Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” (Acts 9:1-6).

There may have been no greater enemy of the early church than Saul of Tarsus. Luke, ever the careful historian, recorded that Saul stood watch over the coats of those who stoned Stephen to death (Acts 7:58). Saul was blinded by his self-righteous, works-based, false religion, and he did everything in his power to extinguish the light of the Gospel, but to no avail. The resurrected Jesus appeared on the Damascus Road and transformed Saul the persecutor into the apostle Paul. How can we explain this dramatic transformation? There is only one way: It happened just like the Scriptures say it happened.

One more thing. It is beyond contestation that Paul was martyred under the emperor Nero for his faith in Jesus. The early church fathers, such as Polycarp, Tertullian, and Clement of Rome, all testify to this truth. The only way a man could go from killing Christians to being executed for being a Christian is because the resurrected Jesus showed up and changed his life. From embarrassing testimony to enemy attestation, we have lots of powerful proof for the resurrection of Jesus. So, the question is, Do you believe?

Believe it! He is risen! He is risen indeed!

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