Grace for the Race

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (Psalm 16:11)

We all encounter storms in this life that can send us swirling into the depths of depression . . . if we allow it to happen. Depression is one of the enemy’s greatest weapons against us. It destroys our joy and disrupts our peace. Depression can cause us to grow weary in our well-doing, taking us to a point where we find ourselves doing very little of anything at all. Once depression has its grip on us, it will cloud our vision and dull our senses in our service of our Lord. Depression will cause us to feel alone and isolated from the rest of the world.

So how do we defeat depression? First, we must not buy into the common misunderstanding that depression is a natural response to the difficulties we face in life. That is the wisdom of the world, not the wisdom of the Word. Jesus told us in no uncertain terms that we will face trials of many kinds in this life, but we are not to get depressed over them. We will be delivered through each trial, because Jesus has already overcome the world. We have been given all we need to defeat depression, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside us. We can win the war over our feelings and defeat depression in the power of the Spirit.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. (1 Peter 5:8-9)

Disappointments will come and go, but we can resist the devil, who wants us to descend into the discouragement that ultimately leads to depression. Never forget, Christian, that the power that is at work within you is greater than any power that will come against you. Resist the devil, who wants to oppress you, and he will not gain a foothold to depress you. Go on the offensive! Be proactive. When the devil comes knocking, do not let him in. Lock the door of your heart.

One final point: As you resist the devil, respond to Jesus, who has promised never to leave or forsake you. Keeping Jesus front and center in your life and counting the blessings He has given you every day are the keys to defeating depression.

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

To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes. (Isaiah 61:3)

Jesus has promised trials in the lives of all of His disciples, regardless of the length of time we have been walking with Him. And because we know God does not make mistakes, we can be sure that every single trial we endure will ultimately become a treasure to us. It has been wisely said that “What we lose in the fire, we will gain in the ashes.” Our Lord Jesus is far too wise to ever be wrong and far too faithful to ever be false. He is always at work within us, and He will use every means necessary to conform us more and more into His likeness.

Now, the devil likes to hiss in our ears, “God doesn’t really care for you! If He did, why would He allow you to face such difficulties?” Never forget, Christian, that the devil is a liar and a murderer from the beginning. His desire is to steal, kill, and destroy. Because we live in a fallen and broken world as fallen and broken people interacting with other fallen and broken people, we will face trials of every imaginable kind. This is not a sign that God does not care for us. In fact, it is just the opposite! God does care; if you doubt that, think of God the Father allowing His beloved Son to die on a cruel cross . . . for you. And that same loving God has committed to using trials in our lives for our ultimate good; He will turn all our trials into a treasure.

Regardless of where this message finds you today, never forget that God is at work in your life. As you process the trials and difficulties you are facing, keep the truth of Psalm 119:75 in view: “In faithfulness you have afflicted me.” God sends storms into our lives in faithfulness as a way to bring us to the end of ourselves. Only as we decrease will our Lord Jesus increase in our lives. And experience has taught me that this increase does not take place when the sky is blue, the clouds are fleecy, and the sun is brightly shining. It happens when the sky is dark and the storm winds are blowing.

Praise God for the storms! He is using them to forge our very own crown of beauty.

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

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

We have a tendency to think that God only leads us from the front, but that isn’t true; He also leads us from behind. The reason is clear: We all need God to push us at times! There are two reasons we need that “supernatural shove.” First, there are times when we have settled into the place we currently are without making any forward progress. Second, there are times when there is a storm looming ahead and we will need God to push us through it. Either way, being led from behind is a great grace from God.

When you look back over your life, do you not see times when God was leading you from behind? Perhaps an unexpected storm suddenly blew into your life, similar to the sudden, violent squalls that often occur on the Sea of Galilee. If God had not been pushing you through the storm, you might very well have hunkered down and simply tried to “shelter in place.” And I’m quite sure you can also recall times when God had to push you in order to overcome your inertia and get you to answer His call on your life. If you are anything like me, you have experienced both kinds of supernatural shoves.

Think about it this way: If God were only to lead us from the front, we would have a tendency to ease up a bit as long as we had Him in view. We would only grow into a fraction of the person He is calling us to be. So our loving Lord, in His gracious providence, often leads us from behind, causing us to rely not on what we see in front of us, but on what we know within us. This is one of the ways God calls us to walk by faith and not by sight, making us more acutely aware of God’s voice in our lives.  

So whether you find yourself in a season where God is leading you from the front or pushing you from behind, as long as you are trusting in Him you will ultimately reach your promised destination. And as you go, you will be growing and maturing in your faith as you look ahead of you and listen for His voice behind you.

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

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. (Psalm 57:7)

We who are the sheep of our Great Shepherd all have a tendency to wander. Sheep stray from their Shepherd; that’s why we need a Shepherd to come collect us! But there is a huge difference between straying in our way and straying in our hearts.

When we read through the Bible, we are confronted over and over again with stories of those who strayed in their way. Abraham lied about his wife Sarah being his sister in order to save his own skin. Moses murdered an Egyptian overseer who was beating a Hebrew slave. David committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. Martha presumed to rebuke Jesus, demanding that He tell her sister Mary to return to her duties in the kitchen. Peter denied Jesus three times on the night he was betrayed. These are just a few examples of those who strayed from God in their way. But they did not stray in their hearts, and that made all the difference in the world.

We all stray in our way at times. We say things we ought not say. We do things we ought not do. We think things we ought not think. And we desire things we ought not desire. Everything we do in our walk with Jesus is done imperfectly. But this does not mean we have strayed in our heart. The heart that has been changed and now beats for Jesus, by grace through faith, will always beat imperfectly.

The heart that strays is the heart that is unconvinced and unpersuaded by the truths of God’s Word. This is what happened with the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings. The Spirit of God said, “Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways” (Hebrews 3:10).

The key to making our heart stay on our Savior is to stay in the Word. The more we are in the Word of God, the more the Word of God will get into us and the more strongly our hearts will beat for Jesus. And remember, when you mess things up and stray in your way, look to the One who is at work within you and who promised to fully complete that work – but not until you are received in glory. Hold tight to His promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

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

Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

We all need rest. Some need more rest than others, but we all need rest. Our strained eyes, spent bodies, and stressed souls crave it. God established the pattern of work and rest in creation: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work (Genesis 2:2). Yet here in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus was speaking about so much more than just getting a good night’s sleep or taking a day off from work.

Jesus has removed the yoke of sin that weighed us down. He took on all our sin and nailed it to the cross. We are no longer responsible to carry its weight. He has removed the condemnation of sin from us as far as the east is from the west. To be sure, this gives us infinitely and eternally more than mere physical rest from activity.

Now, the devil loves to disturb our rest by making all sorts of accusations. But remember, Christian, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). When the devil reminds you about your past, tell him Jesus has taken care of that, and then remind him about his future in the lake of fire.

The best rest that any of us can get to rest in Jesus. We achieve this rest by living a life that is led by Jesus and a life that leans on Jesus. There is no striving when you are in Christ. He has already finished every aspect of work that needs to be done to make us right with God. All we are to do is to come to Jesus and rest in our redemption, moment by moment, knowing that He who began the good work in us has promised to bring it to completion (Philippians 1:6). To be sure, there is much for us to do throughout our lives on this earth. But none of that doing has anything to do with our right standing before God.

Along with the rest Jesus offers comes His peace too. This is the peace that passes all understanding in the face of the stuff of this life that is designed to make us restless and fearful. Keep this in view when it comes to your sin: Debt paid . . . atonement made . . . sinner saved! Do that and you will experience the deep rest your soul aches for.

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

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? 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? . . . And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? So do not worry . . . (Matthew 6:25-26, 28-30)

During His magnificent Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us all that worry is a waste of our energy in light of the fact that God has promised to meet all of our needs and so much more. If God cares so well for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, how much more will He care for you, whom He made in His image?

The care God has for you is incalculable! With no need whatsoever to create anything, God, in His infinite wisdom and unfathomable love, chose to create the universe and everything in it . . . including you. And if that isn’t enough to encourage and inspire you to live a life of meaning, significance, and purpose for God’s glory, consider this: After our first parents, Adam and Eve, willfully rebelled against God and then ran and hid from Him, God came after them and promised to save them from sin, Satan, and death.

It was one thing for God to create; it was another thing altogether for God to promise to re-create — at incalculable cost to Himself — everything that we had broken through our sin. The Savior God promised was His Son, who died on a cruel cross to pay the penalty for all our sin. God the Father invested the life of God the Son into us — not just to secure our eternal life, but our everyday life as well. Jesus has promised abundant life, right here, right now, for those who love Him. Jesus has given you His truth, His strength, and His wisdom so you can live a life that truly matters.

So regardless of where this message finds you today, know that Jesus is for you . . . He is with you . . . and He is in you. Jesus wants the absolute best for your life, and that “best” begins with an intimate relationship with Him — not just daily, but moment by moment. Remember, Jesus paid for your life with His precious blood. Let the incalculable investment He has already made in you both comfort you and challenge you to live for the expansion of His kingdom, rather than your own.

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

Then Jesus returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. (Matthew 26:40)

Have you ever wondered why Jesus continued to take His disciples everywhere He went after they had failed Him over and over again? Here, in one of His darkest hours, Jesus brought three of His disciples into the Garden of Gethsemane and told them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). When He returned from His time of prayer, His disciples were not keeping watch; they were sleeping. Three times Jesus went back to check on them; all three times they were sound asleep. Jesus woke them the first time; the second time He left them alone.

I don’t think the importance of this story can be overstated when we take an honest look at ourselves and consider the countless ways that we, too, fail our Lord. If all we read in Scripture was stories of devoted disciples who were always on their “A game” in serving the Lord, it would be pretty discouraging! It would be easy to just give up, thinking, “I can never be like those ‘perfect people.'” But the Bible tells us the truth about the spiritual frailty and abject failures of those who spent the most time with Jesus during His earthly ministry; I firmly believe that God intends to encourage us when we find ourselves falling short in our service to Jesus.

We must remember this: Failure isn’t final unless we fail to get up. Remember, when Jesus returned the third time to find His disciples sleeping, they did wake up and they did get up. They continued to follow their Lord, albeit imperfectly; in just a few hours, they would scatter to the four winds, fearing for their lives. Failure did not disqualify the disciples from serving their Lord, and it does not disqualify you or me either. We all fail. We all fall short of God’s intended mark for our lives. God knew we would fail and fall short, but He does not give up on us! He simply keeps encouraging us to get back up and begin again.

None of Jesus’ disciples failed more dramatically than Peter, who would rise from his sleep only to publicly deny that he knew Jesus three times just a few hours later, even calling down curses on himself to keep from being identified as one of Christ’s disciples. This, of course, did not catch our Lord by surprise. He had already told Peter, “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). Note well our Lord’s message to Peter: “When you have turned back.” Jesus knew that Peter’s faith would fail, and He told Peter what to do when he got back up again: “Strengthen your brothers.”

Paul echoed the Lord’s instruction in his letter to the believers at Thessalonica when he told Christians to “Encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Because we all fail from time to time, we are well-equipped to feel compassion for our brothers and sisters when they also fail. We can and should be there to remind them that their failure isn’t final unless they fail to get up. We can encourage them to return, to get back in the race, and to run that race with perseverance.

Remember, regardless of where this message finds you, Jesus has called you to serve Him to the best of your ability. He knows you will do it imperfectly. He knows you will fall short. He knows you will fail time and time again. In knowing this, you know all you need to know to keep getting back up every time you fall. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers and sisters in Christ.

One final point: With Jesus leading the way in your life, every time you fall, you fall forward.

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

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)

This week, we are looking at three ways Jesus disarmed the devil and what that means to us today. On Monday we looked at the freedom we have been given through the cross work of Christ; on Wednesday we rejoiced in our forgiveness. Today we will reflect on our . . .

Faith

Once you have been set free from the penalty of sin and received God’s forgiveness of all your sins, you are now ready to live a life of faithfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ, because “God made you alive with Christ” (Colossians 2:13). We have been raised from death to life through the cross work of Christ. God has given us a new heart, with new desires, and ultimately a new devotion to Jesus. God in Christ crucified our old sinful, rebellious nature and gave us a new, loving nature.

Before Jesus, we had no power to live a life that is pleasing, acceptable, and glorifying to God. But now we have the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from death to life on that first Easter morning coursing through our veins (Romans 8:11). We are no longer slaves to sin; we are now sons of the Most High God and have been given the ability to glorify God in what we think, do, say, and desire. To be sure, we will not do this perfectly until we cross the Jordan and are received into glory. But we will desire to live a life that is pleasing and glorifying to God and to live increasingly more for Jesus and less for ourselves.

Remember, we were once dead in our sins. We were a cold, corrupted, contaminated corpse that could not respond spiritually to God. We were “dead men walking.” But when we trusted in Christ alone, by grace through faith, we were given a new life in Christ, and we are now animated by the power of the Holy Spirit to prefer Him more . . . to prize Him more . . . to please Him more. Having trusted in Jesus, we now treasure Him above all things.  

The ultimate disarming of the devil takes place through our new, God-given desire to live for something bigger than the self. You see, once you are in Christ, the devil cannot take you out of His hand. But what Satan will try do is mess up your life along the way into glory. Now that he cannot drag you down into the abyss with him, the devil’s goal is to disrupt your life and distract you from your devotion to Jesus. But if we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, we will find that Satan’s torments and temptations will lose much of their power.

Remember, through our freedom, our forgiveness, and our faith, we have received the power to say “Yes” to Jesus and “No” to the self. The devil has been disarmed. May that truth set all of us free to love the Lord our God will all our heart and soul and mind and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

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

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)

This week, we are looking at three ways Jesus disarmed the devil and what that means to us today. On Monday we saw the freedom we have been given through the cross work of Christ. Today we will rejoice in our . . .

Forgiveness

Thanks to the cross work of Christ, we have been set free from our bondage to sin, Satan, and death. Because Jesus willingly went to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin, we have been set free from the penalty of sin; we have also graciously been given the deepest need of every human heart: forgiveness!

We owed a debt for sin to our holy, righteous, and sinless God, a debt we simply could not possibly pay. We are sinners, both by nature and by habit, but Jesus stepped up in our place, submitted to the will of His Father, and offered Himself as our substitute through His sacrificial death, receiving our just penalty for our sins on Himself. In the courtroom of heaven, God the Father has declared us “Not Guilty!” because of the substitutionary, sacrificial death of God the Son.

Jesus took our sin — all of our sin, past, present, and still to come — and nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:14). God the Father accepted the sacrifice of God the Son and has forgiven us of all our sins. We are washed clean by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. So the next time the devil tries to drag you down by dredging up your sins, remember this: Jesus disarmed the devil through His work on the cross on Calvary’s Hill.

Rejoice, Christian! You have been set free to serve God with a heart filled with love and gratitude, because you have been fully and freely forgiven. We can exult with the apostle Paul: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15)

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

Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:15)

On Easter Sunday we celebrated the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ over our archenemy, the devil. Jesus defeated and disarmed the devil through His sinless life, sacrificial death, and supernatural resurrection. This week, we are going to look at three ways Jesus disarmed the devil and what that means for us today: we have been given Freedom, Forgiveness, and Faith. Today we will take a close look into the freedom we have received in Christ.

Freedom

Both the devil and death had a hold on us because we were dead in our sins (Colossians 2:13). God appointed Adam to represent all of humanity, so when Adam sinned and was condemned, we, as his offspring, were considered sinners and justly condemned along with Adam. But Jesus has set us free from that “guilty” verdict, “having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us” (Colossians 2:14).

This written code that was cancelled is the Law of God. Jesus came into this world to satisfy the demands of the Law through His perfect obedience and sinless life. The Law of God stood in stark opposition to us because of its demand for perfect obedience, which we could never satisfy, and its requirement of a just payment, which we cold never pay. And so God, in His great grace, “made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in [Christ] we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

When Jesus went to the cross and died in our place, our debt to the Law was cancelled. This is called the Great Exchange: His righteousness was exchanged for our sin. On the cross, Jesus got what we deserved – punishment for our sin – and we got what we do not deserve: His righteous record.

The devil has been disarmed because our debt has been cancelled, and we no longer stand condemned in the court of heaven. Because of the cross, we have been set free from the penalty of sin, and there will never again will be any condemnation for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1).

As one of my good friends likes to say, “How cool is that?!” What glorious good news!!

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