Grace for the Race

Ever feel useless? If you are anything like me—a great sinner in need of an even greater Savior—you may have felt that way from time to time. Well, get ready for a word of cosmic comfort today!

Although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. I then, as Paul–an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus–I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.  (Philemon 8-11)

Philemon was a wealthy Christian who lived in Colossae. Slavery was a common practice in the Roman world and Paul had not received a mandate from God to abolish it. However, as several New Testament passages show, Paul intended to transform slavery through the Gospel transforming the way Christian slaves and Christian slave owners related with each other.

A slave belonging to Philemon, named Onesimus, took something of value and ran away from Philemon. Onesimus somehow met Paul in Rome, and through Paul’s teaching, Onesimus became a Christian believer. Now Onesimus needed to do the right thing: return to his owner and face whatever consequences Philemon chose to impose on him.

Onesimus wouldn’t return empty-handed, however. Paul wrote a letter—which we know today as the New Testament epistle “Philemon”—asking the Christian slave owner to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave but as a Christian brother. The name Onesimus means “useful.” Paul was appealing to Philemon’s Christian heart to overlook the offense of Onesimus, who was “useless” without Christ when he ran away, returning now as “useful” because of his faith in Jesus.

Before Jesus shows up, you and I are just as useless, from the perspective of doing anything good that brings honor, praise, and glory to God. We were just like Onesimus: runaway slaves, stubbornly refusing to bow our knee to the King of kings. But once Jesus saves us, we become useful for advancing the cause of the kingdom. We are useless no more, now that we have been redeemed from our slavery to sin in order to rejoice in sonship to our Savior.

Marinate on this for just a moment. After you have been united to Christ by grace through faith, you are useless no more, no matter what you do.

•  Abraham lied and he was still USEFUL.
•  Jacob schemed and he was still USEFUL.
•  Moses was fearful and he was still USEFUL.
•  David was an adulterer and a murderer and he was still USEFUL.
•  Matthew collected taxes for Rome, stole from his people, and he was still USEFUL.
•  Peter denied and he was still USEFUL.
•  Thomas doubted and he was still USEFUL.
•  Paul persecuted the church and he was still USEFUL.

Once you are in Christ, you are useless no more, regardless of anything you have done, regardless of anything you do or don’t do. To be sure, there are consequences to your behavior, and some of those consequences may follow you for the rest of your life. But you are always fit to be used by God, as long as you are willing to get back up and into the game of life.

In reading the biblical account of Onesimus, it is obvious that the apostle Paul set his affection upon this runaway slave for no reason that was to be found in Onesimus. And that, beloved, is a picture of Jesus . . . and you and me. Jesus set his affection upon us, slaves on the run, for no reason that was in us. Indeed, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

In ancient Rome, the only thing Onesimus deserved was punishment as a slave on the run. Instead he got grace. In our day, we deserved the eternal punishment as slaves on the run. When we trusted in Christ as our Savior, we too got amazing grace. What a beautiful picture of the Gospel—going from useless to useless no more!

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

You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.  (Exodus 20:4-5)

When we read the second commandment in the year 2013, we may have a tendency to think this word was for a primitive people who made graven images of wood, stone, and gold. But if we think this is the limit of idolatry, we will miss our portion in it!

OK, so we may not bow down to a golden calf like the children of Israel did when they grew impatient waiting for Moses to return from his meeting on Mount Sinai. But let’s not kid ourselves! We bow down to countless other things that are just as dangerous, and often even more dangerous, because the danger is hard to see. See if any of the following “graven images” resonate with you at all:

•  Money
•  Work
•  Sex
•  Power
•  Prestige
•  Pleasure
•  Position
•  Applause of man
•  Approval
•  Education
•  Relationships

This list could go on for pages, couldn’t it? There are some things there that are “good” things; the problem arises when we take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing; then it becomes a bad thing—an idol.

Take church service as an example. That’s a very good thing. But when church service becomes an ultimate thing, displacing Jesus from the throne of your life, it has become a bad thing. This happens all the time! It is one of the things pastors like me have to guard against on a daily basis. We can so totally focus on serving God that we miss God altogether.

But this is not for you!

Do men make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods!  (Jeremiah 16:20)

When we turn anything smaller than Jesus into our “god,” the blessing we seek turns into a burden that can—and often does—bury us under its weight. These “gods” simply cannot deliver on their promises because they are not God! They promise help, but in times of trouble the help never arrives. What satisfaction they may yield today steals our joy tomorrow.

The idols we bow down to today always take more than they can ever give. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Why are we so bewitched with vanities? We pity the poor heathen who adore a god of stone, and yet worship a god of gold.”

I’ve shared this quote from C.S. Lewis with you before, but it bears repeating here. “We are half-hearted creatures,” Lewis wrote in The Weight of Glory, “fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Only the truths of the Gospel can fill the longings of our hearts . . . and keep them filled too! The Gospel makes a promise: to meet you in your place of need and to keep meeting you in your place of need . . . and it delivers on that promise every time.

Everyone is living for something. And whatever that something is, it is your master. It consumes you. It enslaves you. In this life we will always be confronted with two choices. We can bow down to the one true, living God or we can bow down to something smaller. One will always bring life; the other brings death.

So . . . do you have any graven images in your life today? Is there something you might have missed seeing? Sexual immorality is easy to see; service to God is much more subtle. Becoming a slave to financial success sounds a lot like worshipping a golden idol; making our children the ultimate thing in our lives seems like such a good thing . . .

May the Lord purge us from our idolatry and lead us further up and further into our vision of the cross and the love that held Jesus on it. That is the only love that will deliver what it promises—and it delivers every time!

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

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most beloved stories in Scripture. In that story we see two sons who seem quite different on the surface, yet both were lost and looking for love in all the wrong places. Today I’d like to look at another son in the story who just might minister to you today, right where you are.

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living . . .

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”(Luke 15:11-13, 25-32)

The younger son was in a faraway country, squandering an inheritance he did not deserve to receive at the time he requested it—“demanded it” might be a better description. The older brother was in a faraway condition, busily engaged in working his way into the father’s heart, not realizing he was already there. Both sons were lost; both of them were in desperate need of a Savior.

Some of us can relate to the prodigal; we’ve wandered off into some far country, seeking to satisfy the sinful desires of our hearts. Some of us would have to confess that we’ve acted a lot like the older brother; we’ve languished in a faraway condition, cold and indifferent to the Father’s love.

But as I said, there’s a third son not mentioned in the story . . . and we all know who he is. He is not far off or in a faraway condition; he is just adrift. With no intentional departure from His father’s presence, nor any real desire to win His favor, this son is simply going through the motions. He is making a living but not even close to making a difference. For this son, Wednesday is “hump day,” and the beginning of the weekend is marked by the letters TGIF.

Many of us are neither running away from nor running toward the One who has given us everything. We aren’t openly sinful like the prodigal, nor are we insufferably self-righteous like the older brother. We are simply floating on the surface of the sea, at the mercy of the strongest wind that is blowing at the time.

So . . . which of these three sons have you been acting like lately? Have you been running away from God? Running toward Him? Or ambling along on the proverbial treadmill?

We don’t need to be any of these three sons! The Gospel frees us from the need to run off to find our satisfaction in anything smaller than Jesus. The Gospel liberates us from the need to work our way into God’s divine favor. And the Gospel releases us to respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit that flows from a heart that overflows with love and thanksgiving for all God has done. We are finally and fully freed from the “doing” in order to get—because we have already been given everything!

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

How good and pleasing it can be to our flesh when we come upon a ship that’s available to take us in the opposite direction from where God has clearly called us to go. We think, “If it’s available, it must be for me!” This is what I like to call “The Jonah Justification.”

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.  (Jonah 1:1-3)

The Gospel frees us to live a life filled with unimaginable joy. But all too often we become fearful about the demands of the Gospel, rather than rejoicing in the delights of the Gospel, and we flee to Tarshish—a destination in the opposite direction of Nineveh—on the first available ship we can find. Oh, we delight in obedience when obedience is delightful. But how often obedience demands from us that which we would rather not give! So, like Jonah, we run.

Yet the beauty in Jonah’s story is how God would not let him do what he wanted. God pursued Jonah . . . and He is pursuing you and me today. Like Jonah, we can run but we can’t hide! We may justify our retreat in our own minds . . . but that makes no difference to God! God is in the business of sending us places we don’t want to go and calling us to minister to people we don’t want to minister to.

A quick moment of meditation today might not send us racing off into the “Ninevehs” of this world, but it will go a long way in keeping us out of the ticket line for a seat on a ship that would take us in the opposite direction! Perhaps a moment of pause this day will have you making that long overdue call or writing that note of thanksgiving. Maybe it will cause you to reflect on the forgiveness that Jesus has poured out upon you—and continues pouring out upon you moment by moment—which will make you willing to forgive others.

It may seem safer and easier to board a ship that’s docked at your port, promising to take you in some other direction from the one God is calling you to take. But we must always keep in mind that every available ship is not available for us to board. Sometimes they are there simply to test our commitment and discipline.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. (Proverbs 14:12)

There is always a way that seems right to us, but if it is not God’s way, it leads to death in the end. It could be physical death or spiritual death. God knows what’s best for us. He knows exactly what we need in order to grow into the person He is calling us to be.

So . . . where are you headed today? If you find yourself on a ship heading in the wrong direction, get off immediately! God may not send a great fish to protect you and propel you to the shore of your sanctification . . . but He will provide you the means and the strength to get going in the right direction again.

One last thing: there was a way of obedience that led to death . . . and it was the way Jesus traveled. He knew that by obediently following the will of His Father in Heaven, it would lead Him to the cross. He went that way with you in His mind and on His heart. He never even glanced in the other direction!

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

When we read through the Scriptures, it seems remarkable—perhaps even incomprehensible—how Jesus sets His love, time and time again, upon those we would call the unlovable. He set His love upon people whom society had no interest in . . . and He did it to show us what a Gospel-saturated love is to look like.

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:9-13)

The term “tax collector” wasn’t simply a title for a job; it was a label of the utmost judgment. “Hated” and “despised” are two words that best describe the tax collectors of Christ’s day, and that is what Matthew was: a hated and despised tax collector. Israel’s Roman conquerors had hired Jewish men to collect taxes and gave these men the authority to keep anything they collected over and above the money that was due to Rome. So the tax collector was not only working for the hated Roman invader, who held his people in bondage; he added insult to injury by collecting more than he needed—lining his pockets at the expense of his own people! To say that the tax collector was viewed as a scoundrel is an understatement! His neighbors would have seen him as a traitorous villain.

Now enter Jesus. Jesus was well aware just how much the people despised Matthew. Jesus used tax collectors as examples of “the lowest form of life” on more than one occasion, such as the time He delivered this stinging rebuke to the Jewish elders and chief priests: “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 1:21). By equating tax collectors with prostitutes, Jesus was simply acknowledging what was a widely held opinion.

And yet in spite all this, Jesus called Matthew to “Follow me!” He even went to Matthew’s house to eat with him, a sign of friendship and intimacy. Christ knew the condemnation that would greet His decision to pour love out on the unlovable, but He never hesitated. He had come for sick sinners who desperately needed a doctor; the Great Physician had arrived to pour out His love on those who were “kicked to the curb,” so to speak. When was the last time you felt like that?

Jesus came for people like the tax collector, the prostitute, the immoral, the beggars, the blind, the crippled, the sinners, and even self-righteous Pharisees . . . people just like you and me! We all have one thing in common with Matthew, which is that we are all sinners in desperate need of a Savior. We can try to save ourselves or we can trust in the only Savior of the world: the Lord Jesus Christ. As for me and my house, we will choose the Savior of the world!

You remember the rest of Matthew’s story, don’t you? The hated tax collector became one of the twelve apostles and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gave us the very first book of the New Testament.

You see, it doesn’t matter where Jesus finds you—whether you’re in the pit or in a palace. It only matters whether or not you heed His call to follow Him, regardless of where He leads you. Matthew knew full well what everyone else thought of him; but he heard the call, got up, and followed Jesus. In keeping his focus on Jesus, Matthew never let the opinion of others derail his divine destiny.

What about you today? When you get right down to it, we are all tax collectors—our sin makes us ugly and unlovable—yet we all have a willing Savior who is ready to pour our His love on one who is so unlovable.

One last question: are we willing to do the same to others? “Freely you have received,” Jesus said, “freely give” (Matthew 10:8). Will you share Christ’s love with those who need a healing touch from the Great Physician?

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

Shrink wrap is a type of plastic that shrinks when heated. When it shrinks, it forms to the shape of the item it is covering. Shrink wrap is used to package or protect items that range in size from a bar of soap to buildings. You’ve undoubtedly discovered that shrink wrap can make it very difficult to open your new CD or DVD. It certainly delivers on its promise of protecting the item it is wrapped around!

Shrink wrap is a very useful product today; a shrink-wrapped witness is not! A shrink-wrapped witness is a witness that has shrunk under the heat and pressure of daily living. The more you shrink, the smaller your witness becomes. A shrink-wrapped existence is living for nothing bigger than yourself . . .

•  Your goals
•  Your dreams
•  Your desires
•  Your vision
•  Your advancement
•  Your pleasure

A shrink-wrapped witness for the Christian is characterized by living with one foot in the world and one foot in the Word. And when forced to choose, these double-minded Christians always go the way of the world. They settle for living a life of mediocrity rather than a living a life of mastery by living for the Master. Their faith commitments are fine . . . just as long as there is no significant cost to keeping them. In the shrink-wrapped kingdom of self, there is little room for glorifying God and absolutely no room for seeking the good of others. It is shrinking the size of your life down to the size of your life.

But this is not for you! God has called you to live large, and living large means living for the Lord. We have been made by God for God, and our lives are to be marked by advancing the cause of His kingdom, not our own. Take a look at it from the psalmist’s perspective:

1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.  (Psalm 100:1-5)

Sharpen your focus on verse 3—“It is he who made us, and we are his.” God made us to praise and worship Him. “What is the chief and highest end of man?” the Westminster Confession of Faith asks. And the answer: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.” Our lives are to be lived in the light of eternity, where every aspect of our story intersects with His Story. This is the place where our lives are driven by His love, His power, His glory, and His will. We are, as the psalmist said, “the sheep of his pasture” and we are to follow the Good Shepherd wherever He leads, trusting in His faithfulness, regardless of the cost or circumstance . . . even the path is difficult or it does not make sense to us.

CS Lewis wrote, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought most of the next.” Only the Gospel, deeply infused into the marrow of our bones, can free us to live such an incredible existence for the glory of God, an existence where a shrink-wrapped witness is as far as the east is from the west.

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

I would like to finish off this week with a word or encouragement on the need for continual commitment when it comes to pursuing a life of holiness and obedience to our Lord.

In our ongoing battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil, we must be serious enough to make specific commitments to stand against the temptations that we face every day. Here are two wonderful examples from the biblical record that are a source of great encouragement and strength for every Christian in the middle of the battle.

I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.  (Job 31:1)

Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.  (Daniel 1:8)

In The Discipline of Grace, Jerry Bridges wrote, “We are vulnerable to [two] kinds of temptations. Some arise from indwelling sin that still resides in our hearts; others come as a result of the environment in which we live or work.”

Job, who lived centuries before the time of Christ, provides insight into the Christian condition, a condition that remains sinful even after Jesus shows up. Sin no longer reigns in our lives, but it certainly remains, and we are to take sword to it every day. The temptation Job battled is one which all men and women face today: the inclination to look lustfully at someone. The ongoing temptation to do this is simply a result of the indwelling sin that remains in us.

Daniel, on the other hand, made it clear that we face temptation because we live in a sinful culture. Daniel lived in an unholy environment; but instead of giving in to it, Daniel resolved to remain holy, regardless of the cost.

Some people mistakenly think that making such commitments is “works of the flesh” and we ought not to be doing such things. We need only trust in God, they say. Well, let me provide a news flash. To be sure, we must trust in God and His empowering grace to provide the strength we need to resist temptations. But we must make the commitment to resist them! Resisting temptation must be our serious commitment if we are ever to make progress against it. We must pray and work, as much as it is within our power to do so. Job and Daniel remind us that the battle is both within and without, and we must be on guard on both fronts.

So . . . in what areas do you need to consider making specific commitments to fight against temptation? Are you willing to do so? Make no mistake; God has given you the greatest motive and motivation for sustained effort against temptation: His name is Jesus Christ. Keeping in view what Jesus has done on our behalf and will do in our future is the fuel that ignites the fire of our faith and inspires continual commitment to fight against all temptations—within and without.

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

I would like to borrow the title of a book by Michael Griffiths, Cinderella with amnesia, as the focus of our meditation for today.

First, you need to know my affection for the Cinderella story and all things Disney. I proposed to my beloved Kim in Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World in 1992. We spent our honeymoon at Disney World. And it is our favorite place to go with our four children as often as we are able. So I thought Mr. Griffiths’ title would be a great vehicle for working out a Gospel truth that we should all recall on a daily basis.

You know the story: Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl named Cinderella, who lived with her two stepsisters and stepmother. They disliked Cinderella and made her do all of housework—laundry, dishes, cleaning, scrubbing, and mending. Despite all this hard work and the dirty, ragged clothes she was forced to wear, Cinderella remained kind and optimistic.

You’ll recall that the king decided to give a ball in honor of his son, the prince. Invitations were sent out to all the young, unmarried girls in the kingdom. Cinderella and her two stepsisters were invited, but her stepmother was only concerned about getting fancy gowns for her daughters. The two sisters teased Cinderella, who had only rags to wear, and went gaily off to the ball. As tears filled Cinderella’s eyes, she heard a voice asking, “Why are you crying, child?” It was her Fairy Godmother, who had a plan to get Cinderella to the ball.

A pumpkin from the garden was transformed into a beautiful jeweled coach. Her two little mice friends were changed into prancing horses to draw the carriage. Some frogs became footmen, and two rats became the coachmen and coach driver. Finally the Fairy Godmother touched Cinderella’s ragged dress and it became a stunning white gown of silk, adorned with diamonds and pearls. On her feet was a pair of beautiful, one-of-a-kind, glass slippers. Cinderella was ready to go to the ball, but she had to leave before midnight. At the stroke of midnight, the coach would turn back into a pumpkin, the horses would become the mice, the coachmen rats, the footmen the frogs. And the beautiful gown would turn back into her ragged dress.

How impressed the prince was when Cinderella entered the ball room! Soon they began to waltz. The stepmother, not recognizing the young girl, said she was a wonderful dancer. The sisters whined that her gown and shoes were far better than theirs. The hours flew by . . . and then the clock struck midnight. Terrified, Cinderella rushed out of the ballroom, but in her haste she lost one of her exquisite glass slippers.

The next day, the prince began visiting every house in the town to find the owner of the missing glass slipper. Eventually he arrived at the home where Cinderella lived with her stepmother and two stepsisters. Both stepsisters tried to make the shoe fit, but to no avail. Cinderella entered the room and meekly asked if she could try on the glass slipper . . . and it fit! Cinderella and her prince went off to the palace, where they were married in splendor and lived happily ever after.

But what about the time between midnight at the ball and the day her prince arrived? Cinderella was . . .

• Dressed in rags
• Doing all the unpleasant chores
• Despised by her ugly sisters
• Derided by her wicked stepmother
• Disconsolately thinking about what might have been

What Cinderella had all but forgotten in her dejected, discontented condition after the ball was the feeling of being desirable, not despised . . . delightful, not derided . . . dignified, not disgraceful. Her “amnesia” had separated her from her ultimate destiny, which was the radiant bride of the prince, living a life adorned in splendor.

There’s a great Gospel truth contained in this story, one which we often forget: the pursuit of the Prince after His beloved. Just as Cinderella’s prince searched the city, our Prince is tireless in His unceasing pursuit of us. This great, true love story began all the way back in the Garden of Eden. Just as Cinderella’s spectacular ballroom gown was transformed into filthy rags upon the stroke of midnight, so Adam and Eve’s sparkling innocence was transformed into ugly sinfulness in the instant they ate the forbidden fruit. And just as terrified Cinderella ran from the prince, so Adam and Eve ran from God . . . as if any of us can hide from the God of the universe!

But just as Cinderella’s story ends in joy and delight, so does ours. God has never ceased His pursuit of us, and just as He restored Adam and Eve, He promises to restore us also. And His pursuit does not end when He saves us and raises us from death to life; God pursues us each day with a love that will not be denied and will never disappoint.

Cinderella is a wonderful picture of Christians who have been promised a seat at the royal banquet table, but all too often run away from our Prince, thinking that our ongoing struggle with sin makes us too dirty and disreputable to be fit company for His heavenly perfection. But there is no need to run or hide! One day we will be the radiant bride of Christ, without spot or blemish. The wrinkles will be gone and the ugly warts will be removed. The filthy rags we currently wear will be replaced with the resplendent robes of the righteousness of Christ.

Christian, you needn’t run from the ball; run to your Prince, no matter what the circumstance, no matter how dirty and raggedy you may look or feel. He is always waiting with open arms to receive you and He will gently slip the grace-filled, Gospel-saturated “glass slippers” of your salvation back on your feet.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love,” He whispers to us; “I have drawn you with loving-kindness . . . Again you will take up your tambourines and go out to dance with the joyful” (Jeremiah 31:3, 4b).

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

Jesus said He was going to prepare a place for the faithful in heaven (John 14:1-3). But before the faithful get there, Jesus has prepared a furnace for them here on earth. Do you know why? It is because only a prepared people will be brought into a prepared place in heaven.

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.  (Isaiah 48:10)

As a pastor, I have learned over the years that far too many people in church believe their faith in Jesus is designed to protect them from the difficulties of life. They are caught off guard by the raging seas of suffering. They are tipped over by the storm winds of wilderness wanderings. They are perplexed by painful providences. Yet the Bible makes it perfectly clear that our faith in Jesus will not preserve us from the storms of life; rather, our faith in Jesus assures us of them!

The prophet Isaiah tells us that God uses the furnace of affliction for our good. God is refining us and removing all our dross so that we will be a prepared people for His prepared place:

I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.  (Isaiah 1:25)

Who doesn’t want every impurity removed—and as quickly as possible? We all know from personal experience that we are sinners, both by nature and habit. We think things we should not think. We speak words we ought not speak. We do things we should not do. And we do it all too often. And that is why God is at work purging away all our disguising and disabling dross through the fires of affliction.

He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.  (Job 23:10)

You see, those who have not trusted in Christ as Savior and Lord simply cannot make sense of the storm winds of life. They see them as random acts of nature and chance events that happen without rhyme or reason. But the child of God knows that nothing happens to us without first passing through His nail-scarred hands. God has ordained our fiery furnace to conform us into the image and likeness of His precious Son, and He will not stop until He finishes what He has started (Philippians 1:6).

Regardless of the fiery furnace you are facing today, personally or professionally, Jesus is preparing you for the place He has prepared for you. Some are focused far too much on the removal of their fiery furnace. To be sure, it is proper to pray that God might take it away. The apostle Paul prayed three times that his thorn might be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8). When it was not, he rested in it, because he knew Jesus was with him and that the grace of God was sufficient to enable him to withstand his trial.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into their fiery furnace, to the surprise of the king, four figures could be seen among the flames. Jesus was with them and protected them and brought them out unharmed.

Let not your heart be troubled this day, my friend. Jesus is with you in every fiery furnace you face. He is there for both your comfort and your protection.

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

When you see others, what do you see? If you are looking through the lenses of the world, you see only what is before you in the way of physical appearance and performance. But if you are gazing through Gospel glasses, you see beyond the externals to what is going on inside a person with every beat of his or her heart.

The Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  (1 Samuel 16:7)

How easy it is to judge a “book by its cover,” as has often been said. What a distorted or exaggerated picture the cover can project, causing us to miss the things that matter most! God said the heart matters most—not appearance . . . not height . . . not pedigree. And the heart can only be clearly viewed through Gospel glasses worn over the eyes of our hearts.

How easy it is to see others only in the light of what they can do for us—how they can assist us in advancing our agenda, accomplishing our goals, and achieving our dreams. But this is not for you! Gospel glasses help us see in others what God sees; and when we look at them from this perspective, we are being used by God to reverse the curse. Instead of loving things and using people as a means to an end, we begin loving people and using things as a means to advance the cause of God’s kingdom in this world. Gazing through Gospel glasses helps us focus on expanding the cause of God’s kingdom rather than our own kingdom.

The Gospel teaches us to see people—all people—as the image bearers of God. This means we see every person through the lenses of value, dignity, and purpose. Every person matters. Gazing through Gospel glasses enables us to see past our autonomous and self-focused style of living. We no longer focus on our own wants and needs and begin to look to the wants and needs of others, even going so far as to begin caring for people who don’t directly benefit or bless us. Gospel glasses help us to see better, think bigger, and live larger for the glory of God and the good of others.

Gazing through Gospel glasses empowers us to see the beauty and benefits of living in community . . . in spite of the conflicts that will inevitably arise. We finally understand that everything we have experienced and endured is all part of God’s perfect process of bringing us stumbling helplessly to the end of ourselves and kneeling humbly at the foot of the cross. We recognize our need for community and the needs of the community, and we do everything within our power to meet those needs, even at great personal cost.

So . . . what lenses have you been gazing through lately? What do you see when you look at others? If you want to see others as God sees them—as God sees you—you will have to look at them through the lens of the Gospel.

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