Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
This is the beginning of Thanksgiving week, so I thought we would well to take a verse-by-verse look at this powerful passage throughout the week. I pray these messages will be a source of eternal encouragement to you.
Verse 16 — Rejoice Always
Notice that God’s Word does not tell us to rejoice when things are going well or when we are riding the crest of the wave or even when we feel like it. We are to rejoice always. I’m sure we would all agree that this goes against our natural inclinations. There are times when we simply do not feel like rejoicing! Whether we have encountered difficulties personally, professionally, or relationally, there are times when circumstances seem to argue vehemently against rejoicing. Yet Scripture tells us we do not get a vote on when we are to rejoice; no, we are to “Rejoice always.”
One of the more difficult and yet most valuable lessons I have learned during my years as a pastor is to maintain an eternal perspective. When we only focus on what is going on in our lives at the moment, rejoicing is sometimes the last thing we want to do. But when we look at our lives in light of eternity, we can and we will make the choice to rejoice. From life-altering news to daily frustrations and inconveniences, when we are living in the light of eternity, we are empowered to rejoice always, no matter what we are going through.
When we make the choice to rejoice, we are being proactive, rather than reactive. We are telling God we trust Him even when we cannot trace Him. Now, this does not mean that we don’t acknowledge the difficulties of daily living. We all struggle in our flesh with negativity, frustration, depression, bitterness, and countless other emotions that get in the way of rejoicing always. And make no mistake, God cares about everything we are going through and takes each heartache and heartbreak seriously. We can and should take everything to God and let Him carry our burdens.
Remember, the best place to live life is in the shadow of the cross. God cares so much for us that He sent Jesus to take our place on a cross. If we can think of no other reason to rejoice, we have this one: We have a Savior who redeemed us and reconciled us to Himself. We can rejoice in every circumstance because of who Jesus is, what Jesus has done, and what He has promised to one day do: He will bring us into a place where there will be no more tears, sorrow, brokenness, or death. We will have arrived in our Promised Land. That is maintaining an eternal perspective. And that perspective gives us all the reason we need to rejoice always, wouldn’t you agree?
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he 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)
In our verse today, we see our Lord’s response to a wealthy young man who ran up to Jesus and asked how to receive eternal life. Even though “he had it all,” as we would say today, this young man knew, deep down, that he still was missing something. There was a God-sized hole in his heart that money and possessions could not fill. With all the good things this man had in life, he was hoping to add one more thing: eternal life.
Before we move ahead, I want to be sure that we’re all crystal clear on the truth that selling all our earthly possessions is not a requirement for eternal life. You see, it was not what this wealthy young man possessed that kept him out of heaven, it was what possessed him. His possessions possessed him and had him bound up in the temporal and the earthly, rather than the eternal and heavenly. The young man’s possessions were blocking the door to heaven and a right relationship with Jesus. For others, it could be pride or power or prestige or pleasure.
Jesus knew the young man’s barrier and gave him the solution. But, as we read in Mark’s gospel account, after Jesus had told him exactly what he needed to do to receive eternal life, the young man “went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Mark 10:22).
Truly, this is a sad story. This man refused to give up his earthly wealth to gain treasure in heaven. And I’d like to add something here about him going away sad: He wasn’t sad because he had great wealth; he was sad because he was walking away from Jesus! Deep down in his heart, he knew that what he had come looking for was standing right in front of him, inviting him into a life of meaning, significance, and purpose — a life that would never end — but he refused to let go of the here and now in order to take hold of the there and then.
We do indeed have a Cosmic Cardiologist who knows the condition of our hearts and knows exactly what we need to grab hold of and what we need to release. The question is, Do we know what we need to pursue and what we need to turn away from? And are we willing to make the necessary changes now? I plead with you, as an ambassador of Christ, do not delay! Be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Until we put God first in our lives, we will always fell that nagging inner ache the rich man had, because nothing can fill up the space in our hearts that only Jesus can fill. “Come,” He says to you now, “follow Me.”
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21)
Just as the Father sent Jesus to do His will in this world, Jesus sends us too. The question is, have we answered the call to expand the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven?
We will always have two choices in life: We can focus on expanding the cause of our own little kingdom or focus on expanding the cause of the Kingdom of Christ. God will not force us to do His will. We must decide. As Joshua said, we must choose this day whom we will serve. The only way we will experience the sense of meaning, significance, and purpose we were created for is when we are serving the One who sent us.
God has chosen to use broken vessels, marred and scarred by sin, to do His work in this world because that’s all He has available to use. And when God sends us, He also equips us for the work we are sent to do. We don’t need to be plagued by “What if?” or “How do I?” questions when we are answering our call. We simply need to trust that Jesus will work out all the details of that call as we make our way through it each day.
Experience has taught me that God does not send the equipped; He simply equips those He sends as they proceed along the way. It is very much like our daily bread. God gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it, so that we can do everything He has called us to do.
God has prepared you for this moment — right now, right where this finds you — to move forward in faith to expand the cause of His kingdom. Walk by faith and not by feelings, trusting that God will guide you into His perfect plan and purpose for your imperfect life. Look to Jesus. Lean on Jesus. Learn from Jesus. You have been sent for such a time as this!
One final word of encouragement: God does not need any of us in order for His purposes to prevail. God’s will will be accomplished, with or without us. But God wants us, and that makes all the difference in the world!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Jesus said, “Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)
On the same night when Jesus was betrayed by Judas, He was also denied by Peter — not once, but three times. In today’s passage, we see a hugely important biblical truth that relates to our sanctification — that is, the lifelong process of being conformed to the likeness of Jesus. Read on and be encouraged today!
Satan, the adversary and accuser of all Christians, wanted to “sift Peter as wheat,” which means Satan wanted to violently shake Peter’s faith in Jesus and cause Peter to fail and to fall. Now, it’s vitally important for us to remember that Satan cannot steal our salvation; Jesus made it clear that nothing and no one can take us out of His hand (John 10:28). But Satan can stain our sanctification, with the goal of discouraging us from continuing in service to our Savior. Two of the greatest barriers to an effective Christian witness are self-doubt and self-condemnation, and Satan works relentlessly to attack our minds and create that sense of discouragement and despair within us.
In biblical times, wheat was sifted through a strainer or a sieve. When it was violently shaken over and over, the dirt and other impurities that clung to the grain would separate from the good, usable grain. In short, it was a process of removing the bad stuff while keeping the good stuff. Now, because God is in control of all things, including Satan, we can see how God intends to use Satan as a supernatural sifter in the process of making us more like Jesus.
Notice in today’s passage that Jesus had interceded for Peter in prayer. He did not promise to remove the trial Peter was about to undergo, but our Lord did promise to bring Peter through the trial, and said that Peter would emerge better and stronger on the other side.
This is the promise for all of us today. God uses Satan as a supernatural sifter to make us more like Jesus. Throughout the sifting process we undergo in the trials we face, God is refining our character and strengthening our faith, ultimately making us more and more like Jesus. And just as Jesus prayed for Peter, He is interceding for us (Romans 8:34). He lives to intercede for us (Hebrews 7:25).
Remember, Satan’s power to sift us is determined and limited by God. Satan can only do what God allows to be done, and all of it is used by God for our ultimate good and His glory. May that truth set us all free today.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart. (Psalm 40:8)
Just as a yield sign indicates you that should let the other driver go ahead of you, being a Yield Sign Saint means that we keep Jesus on the throne of our lives, allowing Him to go before us in every area of life. Here are two keys that unlock the door leading to a life that is yielded to God.
Key #1 – Jesus is Lord
Every believer would be in complete agreement that Jesus Christ is Lord. The challenging question is this: Is Jesus Lord of your life? Have you given Him control of every area of your existence? Your thought life? Your finances? Your health plan? The use of your discretionary time? God in Christ created all things and sustains all things. He is Lord of all at all times and in all places. If we are going to live our lives as Yield Sign Saints, we must keep Jesus on the throne of our lives.
Key #2 – We have two natures
When Jesus saves us, we are saved, fully and finally. Yet inside we have two natures: the old, sinful, fallen nature and the new, resurrected, faithful nature. Before Jesus showed up, the old nature ruled our lives. Now, as believers, we must engage in the ongoing battle between the old nature and the new (Galatians 5:17). It has been well said that because of the cross work of Jesus, sin no longer reigns in our lives, but it still remains. We will still mess things up. At times we will find ourselves yielding to sin rather than to our Savior. Yet we must remember that the new nature is more powerful than the old nature. Greater is the power that is at work within us than any power that will come against us. Keeping this truth in view empowers us to live our lives yielded to Jesus.
When Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night He was betrayed, He uttered these words: “Not my will, but thy will be done.” This is the language of the Yield Sign Saint, who understands that Jesus is Lord and knows that only in His strength can we win the ongoing battle inside the heart between the old nature and the new.
How is the battle going for you? Are you a Yield Sign Saint?
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life . . . (Matthew 6:25)
Doesn’t it feel like worry often puts a stranglehold on us in both the little things and the big things in our lives? Scripture tells us time and time again not to worry . . . but we worry anyway! Today I want to encourage by showing you how to weaken worry by using just a small portion of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.
When Jesus argued from the lesser to the greater — reasoning from clothes to life and from birds to people — He was making it clear that He has everything under His complete control.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? (Matthew 6:25)
Because the body and life are far more complex and difficult to sustain than food and clothing — and God has complete control of our lives (Philippians 2:13) — we should not be worried about the lesser aspects of life, such as food and clothing. God has promised to provide all our needs (Philippians 4:19). Additionally, when Jesus returns and consummates the new heavens and earth, we have been promised new, resurrected bodies and we will live forever in glory. Keeping this in view will weaken worry, don’t you think?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? (Matthew 6:26)
Here Jesus is telling us that God is ready, willing, and able to feed the birds, creatures far less valuable than people. If God is caring so completely for birds, will He not care for you, who are made in the image of God? Keeping this in view will weaken worry, don’t you think? We all know the ill effects of worry from personal experience. It damages our mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. It derails our productivity, both on and off the job. It disrupts the way we ought to treat others. And worry disorients our trust in God.
Remember, the key to weakening worry is to remember that God has everything in complete control, both the big things and the small things. Let me close with an argument from the greater to the lesser:
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
So do not worry, Christian; God has got this! He has got you. And you are assured of His love and care, both now and forevermore.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Peter 4:12-13)
Since the Fall in the Garden of Eden, we are living in a broken world as broken people interacting with other broken people. Because of this biblical truth, suffering is certain, as certain as the fact that sun will rise in the east tomorrow morning and set in the west.
Make no mistake: No matter how well we walk in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ, we are not shielded from suffering. Take even a cursory glance through the Scriptures at the lives of those who were living right in the center of God’s will, and you will see that, no matter how well we walk worthy of the calling of the Lord on our lives, suffering is certain. Would anyone reading this disagree with the idea that John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, was living in the center of the will of God as he preached and baptized in the name of Jesus? Yet John was imprisoned and ultimately put to death for his unflinching obedience to the Lord.
Our passage of Scripture for today came from the pen of the apostle Peter, who was intimately acquainted with suffering for his Savior, and it tells us that suffering is not to catch us by surprise. Suffering is as promised as it is painful. But we are to rejoice in suffering — not for the pain, but for what the pain is doing to us: conforming us more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. Earlier in the same epistle, Peter explained that “These [trials] have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7).
Remember, God is working everything out and everything in as well. God is working everything out according to the counsel of His will in order to advance the cause of His Kingdom. He is working everything in us to make us more like Jesus, proving the reality of our faith. May these truths set us free to be all that God is calling us to be on days the sun is brightly shining . . . and on days when the storm winds are blowing hard against us.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21)
There is a story of a woman in England who came to her vicar with a troubled conscience. The vicar knew her to be a habitual gossip; she had maligned nearly everyone in the village. “How can I make amends?” the woman pleaded. The vicar said, “If you want to make peace with your conscience, take a bag of goose feathers and drop one on the porch of each one you have slandered.” When she had done so, she came back to the vicar and said, “Is that all?” “No,” said the wise old minister, “you must go now and gather up every feather and bring them all back to me.” After a long time the woman returned without a single feather. “The wind has blown them all away,” she said. “My good woman,” said the vicar, “so it is with gossip. Unkind words are easily dropped, but we can never take them back again.”
There’s not much commentary needed on a story like that! The tongue is a very small thing indeed, but what enormous damage can be done by those we wag it indiscriminately. Gossip isn’t harmless; it is a poisonous form of communication that has shipwrecked countless relationships between family members, friends, co-workers, and our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
So how do we rise above the toxic talk that can come out of our mouths? We must remember this one simple Scripture and keep it before us every time we open our mouths to speak:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)
If we are going to speak life, we must think before we speak. We need to think about the power of our words and be committed to speaking life through words that build up, rather than tear down. Remember that unkind words, just like goose feathers, are easily dropped, but we can never take them back again. As the wise preacher observed, “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (Proverbs 12:18). By God’s grace, may we pause and reconsider before we utter reckless words. May words of life be the confession of our lives!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. (2 Corinthians 1:20)
We all know from personal experience that a promise is only as good as the integrity of the one who makes it. We have all made promises, and we have all broken promises. We have all had promises made to us, and we have all seen promises made to us broken. But there is One who has never broken a promise He has made — not one –and He never will. Read on and be encouraged today!
God is the true Promise Keeper. He is the Sovereign Creator and Sustainer of the universe, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and we can count on every promise in the Word of God. We can take God at His Word. Because the Word of God is true (Proverbs 30:5) and God does not change (Malachi 3:6), we can take every promise God has made straight to the believer’s bank, knowing He will make good on all of them. As the psalmist exulted, “He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:9). When you are praying out of the knowledge of His promises in Scripture, you can pray with the confident assurance and expectation that your answer of blessing is on the way.
Remember, God has already fulfilled the greatest promise He ever made. He promised to send a Savior, and 2,000 years ago He did just that. Jesus lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, and rose supernaturally from the grave. To all those who, by grace through faith, receive Him as Lord and Savior, eternal life is the promised reward. And if God kept the greatest promise He ever made, He will surely keep the second greatest promise He ever made: sending Jesus back to consummate His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Our God is trustworthy. Our God is faithful. Our God is a Promise Maker and the Promise Keeper. No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” and “Amen” in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You have His Word on that!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name. (Isaiah 25:1)
There are only two reasons to do anything in life: One is for personal gain and the other is for God’s glory. The Scriptures are filled with examples of both, and it is always a good idea to inventory our hearts to see just what our motivations are for the things we are doing.
We can sum it all up this way: Are we using God as a means to attain an end? Or is the end God Himself? The first desire has us pursuing God for personal gain; the second is for God’s glory. Often we may be sailing through life without giving this any thought . . . until the storm winds begin to blow. When they do, we will know the true motive of our heart, because we will either shrink back from the trial or stand firm.
Let’s take a brief look at these two categories of professing Christians. Those who are working for personal gain look to their relationship with Jesus for the great gifts He can give them. They come for hope. They come for happiness. They come for a better home life. Some come to Him thinking that will guarantee them health and wealth. These are just a few of the personal gain reasons which make it painfully clear that they do not regard Jesus as their Messiah, only as the means to their desired ends.
On the other hand, those who are working for God’s glory look to Jesus as the end itself. Jesus is not the vehicle to victory, He is victory Himself. Jesus is not the way to wealth, He is our wealth. He is not the way to happiness, He is our joy.
How would you describe your walk with Jesus right now? Is your relationship with Jesus merely a means to a desired end? Or is Jesus the end Himself? We must always remember that we were created for relationship with Jesus, not for the rewards we get from Him.
There may be no better book in all the Bible to for displaying this truth lived out than the account of Job. God allowed His servant Job to suffer unimaginable losses: his health, his wealth, and all ten of his children. Job’s own wife harshly ridiculed him for staying committed to God. Job lost every reason to stay in a right relationship with God . . . except God Himself. And it is so gloriously obvious that Job loved God more than all the good gifts God had given him. Yes, Job loved his wealth, health, and children. But He loved God more! For Job, God was not a means to a desired end, God was the end Himself. Mere moments after he had learned of all the catastrophic losses that had befallen him in a single day, Job fell to the ground and worshiped:
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. (Job 1:21-22).
May this be the confession of our lives! Let us build our relationship with God solely upon the goal of His glory and not our gain, because ultimately His glory IS our greatest gain!
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 