WHEN THE FEELING OF SALVATION FAILS US (NOVEMBER 19)
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"Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior" (Titus 1:1-3).
FEELINGS ARE IMPORTANT, BUT THEY ARE NOT INFALLIBLE. If our feelings are based on erroneous thoughts, those feelings will be inappropriate. So the constant challenge in life is to make sure our thoughts (and our actions) are based on truth and not on fiction.
As indicated in the text above, the hope of eternal life rests on the promise of God. (What Paul says about it here is similar to what Peter said in 1 Peter 1:3-5.) And dependence on God’s promise is the main component of faith — the decision to trust His promise.
Since life can be a hard business, there are times when we won’t “feel” forgiven. What should we do at such times? We should go back to the Scriptures. It is only in the Scriptures that we will find a dependable, objective assessment of our relationship to the Lord.
Looking into the Scriptures, we may find that having accepted God’s salvation on His terms, our hope in Him is well-founded. Despite our feelings, we must count on the dependability of what God has said.
But looking into the Scriptures, we may find that we are not, in fact, in a right relationship with the Lord. In that case, we need to repent and seek His forgiveness. When Paul said, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5), he raised the possibility that some of his brethren in Corinth might not have as secure a relationship with Christ as they thought they had.
Either way, the Scriptures need to be our guide. Our feelings may err on the high side or the low side, but the only reliable basis for our confidence is God’s promise. And never forget: the only thing we know about God’s promise is what we find in the Scriptures.
Someone asked Luther, “Do you feel that you have been forgiven?”
He answered: “No, but I’m as sure as there’s a God in heaven.
For feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God, naught else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned for want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart whose Word cannot be broken.
I’ll trust in God’s unchanging Word till soul and body sever;
For though all things shall pass away, his Word shall stand forever!”
(Martin Luther)
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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CONFIDENT IN CHRIST . . . AND CAREFUL (NOVEMBER 18)
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"Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward" (2 John 8).
TOWARD THE END OF JOHN’S LIFE, THE CHRISTIANS IN ASIA WERE IN DIRE STRAITS. Threatened with persecution, heartbroken at the doctrinal apostasy that was taking place, disturbed about the prevalence of moral corruption among Christians, and concerned about the complacency of so many churches, the faithful brothers and sisters were hard pressed. And John was concerned about these faithful disciples: “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.”
To be watchful does not mean to be afraid. It does not require paranoia, anxiety, or uncertainty as to our salvation in Christ. But it does require vigilance. Given the problems that confront us (no less today than in the first century), it would be dangerous not to guard our faith carefully — there are none more vulnerable to the devil’s malice than those who are not paying attention.
Like it or not, we have an enemy whose intent is to destroy us. Peter compares him to a lion looking for his next meal. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). This enemy is no match for the power of the King, of course. But until the last battle has been fought, we need to be cautious. As long as it is possible for us to become lackadaisical and drift away from the Lord (Hebrews 2:1), we need to be very careful (Ephesians 5:15).
In Christ’s letters to the seven churches of Asia, we hear Him warning even the most faithful of these churches to be steadfast. To Philadelphia, He said, “Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown” (Revelation 3:11). The “armor” that Christ has given us (Ephesians 6:10-20) is quite capable of guarding us against the devil, but only if we strap it on . . . and use it.
Unguarded strength is double weakness, as the saying goes. Even with our strengths, blessings, and advantages, we must take care. Being naive is not a virtue. So Jesus said to His apostles, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
"The thing we have to watch most of all is our strength, our strong point. We all tend to fail ultimately at our strong point" (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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EVEN IN CHRIST, WE ARE NOT YET FULLY ALIVE (NOVEMBER 1)
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"And this is the promise that he made to us -- eternal life" (1 John 2:25).
WHEN GOD ENTERED THIS WORLD AND TOOK UPON HIMSELF HUMAN FORM, A NEVER-BEFORE THING BEGAN TO HAPPEN. The miracle of the Incarnation was not just that God became man but that in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, God brought into this world a new kind of life. This new life is nothing less than the kind of life that God Himself has always had, and based on what Jesus did, God has been offering this life to all who will agree to be delivered from the death of sin and made alive in this new way. “This is the promise that he made to us — eternal life.”
When we obey the gospel of Christ, we receive the forgiveness of our past sins and there is a sense in which we pass, at that point, from death to life. We who “were dead . . . God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses” (Colossians 2:13). But there is a greater sense in which obedience to the gospel puts us into a process of growth that will lead to life, the kind of life that, in its fullness and perfection, will only be ours when Christ returns. “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3,4).
Right now, God is working on our character with a hammer and chisel, as it were. The ravages of sin are being chipped away, sometimes painfully. The hearts we were meant to have are being created anew by our Father. What a thrill it is to get a glimpse of the joy that will be ours when the process has finally been completed and we think and act as creatures perfectly alive in every way. No more damage, no more death — just perfect, unending life.
In Christ, therefore, we live in great anticipation. And since we live in anticipation, we also live with focused concentration and resolute patience. Excited, enticed, and intrigued by the foretaste of what real life will be, we can hardly wait. But wait we must. So Peter says, “Preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).
"This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going around the shop that some of us are someday going to come to life" (C. S. Lewis).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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OPPORTUNITY TO SEEK GOD (NOVEMBER 16)
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"For this reason every one of your faithful followers should pray to you while there is a window of opportunity" (Psalm 32:6 NET).
GOD GRANTS US THE TIME TO SEEK HIM, BUT THE SPAN OF THAT TIME IS NOT UNLIMITED. Eventually, our time in this world comes to an end; after that, there will be nothing left but the rendering of God’s judgment on the way we responded to His salvation. “Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27,28).
In Hebrews 3:13, the writer encouraged his fellow Christians with these words: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” There are many reasons to do what is right in a timely way and not postpone it, but one of the most practical reasons is that waiting to obey God always puts us in danger of being hardened by our sin. The longer we delay, the more our conscience becomes callous. For all practical purposes, our window of opportunity begins to close on the day when we start telling those who try to help us to mind their own business.
Just days before His death, Jesus stood outside Jerusalem, surveying the city: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate” (Matthew 23:37,38). To be lost, then, is a double tragedy. It is to have separated ourselves from God by our sins and then to have refused the salvation which He tried to offer us.
If we are cut off from God, standing under the penalty of eternal death which He has justly decreed, we need to obey the gospel of Christ. But, to use an old idiom, we need to “strike while the iron is hot.” If we fail to use the opportunity which His grace has provided, the word “regret” will crush us with horrible force. There is no love more painful than a love that dies untold. So tell Jesus Christ that you love Him. Tell Him today — by your obedience.
"You cannot repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late" (Sir Thomas Fuller).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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THE CHURCH IN SPLENDOR (NOVEMBER 15)
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". . . so that [Christ] might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27).
IT IS INTRIGUING TO THINK OF CHRIST “PRESENTING THE CHURCH TO HIMSELF.” The basic image is that of a bride being presented to her bridegroom (as in 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 21:2), but here Christ is pictured as presenting His own bride to Himself. Christ gave Himself up for His bride, in the words of Richmond Lattimore’s translation, “so as to set the church next to himself in glory, with no spot or wrinkle or anything of the sort upon her, but to be holy and without flaw.” Or as Ronald Knox renders it, “[Christ] would summon it into his own presence, the Church in all its beauty, no stain, no wrinkle, no such disfigurement.” The idea is that if the church is at any time to be a bride worthy of the Lord’s own purity, He Himself will have made her so.
In the ESV, “splendor” is the word used to describe the Lord’s bride, the church. Other possible translations would be “glory” or “radiance.” These are words that all refer, in their literal sense, to things that shine brightly, but we often use words like “glory” to mean “majestic beauty” (American Heritage Dictionary). And that phrase — majestic beauty — wouldn’t be a bad way to characterize the church which Christ died to cleanse and set apart for Himself.
The object of Christ’s sacrifice was a bride “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” This object will be fully realized in heaven, but even now those who have been washed from their sins in baptism (Acts 22:16; Ephesians 5:26) are in a process leading to that goal: “beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). For after all, Jesus Christ is the key to the church’s splendor, both now and in eternity. The bride’s beauty is that of her Bridegroom.
"The enemies of Christ are triumphant, Christianity is a failure, they say, and the church of God herself looks on in pain at the shortcomings in her midst. But lo, at length from the very heart of the shadows appears the majestic figure of Jesus, his countenance is as the sun shining in his strength, around those wounds in brow and side and hands and feet -- those wounds which shelter countless thousands of broken hearts — are healing rays" (Oswald Chambers).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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THE POWER (AND BEAUTY) OF COMMITMENT (NOVEMBER 14)
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"But Ruth said, 'Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you'" (Ruth 1:16,17).
THERE IS NOT IN THE SCRIPTURES A MORE BEAUTIFUL EXPRESSION OF FAITHFUL “FOLLOWERSHIP” THAN THE WORDS OF RUTH TO HER MOTHER-IN-LAW, NAOMI. Not knowing what the future might hold, she pledged to stay with Naomi and help her — no matter what might happen. And while this is a touching statement of the faithfulness of one human being to another, it reminds us of the even greater power and beauty of our commitment to God.
For one thing, Ruth’s commitment did not depend on whether it would be easy to keep. And just as Ruth’s commitment to Naomi was unconditional, our commitment to God needs to be so. We will surely fail in our discipleship to Christ if we’re not willing to bind ourselves with a do-or-die pledge of faithfulness.
All of the serious commitments in life are costly. They rarely end up being kept if we’re not willing to make significant sacrifices. Jesus had sacrifice in mind when He said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). What that cross will require of us, we don’t know. What we do know is that heaven will be worth more than anything it may cost us in this world (Mark 10:28-31).
It is obvious that Ruth loved Naomi very dearly — and her pledge to follow Naomi was motivated by a love that showed up in faithful action rather than mere feelings. In the end, it is only love for God that will hold us steady as we make life’s hard choices.
Most of us (or at least many of us) will do what is right in the big tests of life, especially if the test is public and other people are watching to see what we will do. But it may be that the truly “big” tests of life are the “little” ones, the many daily decisions that call for us to remember our promises to the Lord and faithfully do the best we can do. Over the long haul, that is how godly character comes into being. And that is how, if we are followers of Jesus Christ, most of the good is done that we hope to do in our lives.
"Faithfulness in little things is a big thing" (John Chrysostom).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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THE GOSPEL IS TRUE, BUT WE MUST PAY ATTENTION (NOVEMBER 13)
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". . . how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will" (Hebrews 2:3,4).
THE RESULTS OF THE SURVEY STRUCK ME. In a recent poll, people in Western Europe who have abandoned religion after being raised in a religious home were asked why they became unreligious. The most frequent reason, cited by 68% of those surveyed, was that they just “gradually drifted away from religion.”
In the New Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews was written to a group of Christians whose commitment was wavering. In 2:3,4, there is a reminder of the strong foundation on which the gospel of Christ rests. Whether we are Christians or we’re just considering Christianity, we would do well to ponder these points:
DECLARED AT FIRST BY THE LORD. Jesus preached, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14,15). But Jesus said not only that the “good news” had come to pass, but that, in fact, He was the good news. “Come to me,” He said, “and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
ATTESTED TO US BY THOSE WHO HEARD. The apostles were eyewitnesses. They had been with Jesus for three years, hearing everything He said, and they had seen Him after His resurrection. Even under threat of persecution, they could not remain silent: “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
GOD ALSO BORE WITNESS. Paul said that he had performed the “signs of a true apostle” (2 Corinthians 12:12). So the witness of the apostles to the gospel’s truth was further backed up by the miracles they could perform. These miracles provided a final, conclusive proof, one in which God Himself was saying, “This message is true.”
Shall we neglect such a great salvation and simply drift away from it? The evidence that the gospel is true has never changed since the days of Jesus and the founding of His church. Our circumstances may have altered. Our emotions may have fluctuated. But here is one thing that has not changed: the powerful three-fold witness to the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
"If you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?" (C. S. Lewis).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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NO CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT CORRECTABILITY (NOVEMBER 12)
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"They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth" (Amos 5:10).
THE PROPHETS SENT BY GOD TO CALL FOR REPENTANCE IN ISRAEL DID NOT ALWAYS FIND A RECEPTIVE AUDIENCE. Israel, desperately in need of a radical return to God, often rejected the pleas of the prophets for a change of heart. Apparently this was characteristic of the attitude of many of them about correction in general. Even when it came to listening to the daily wisdom of their elders in the community, they were incorrigible. “They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks the truth.”
In the New Testament, we hear Jesus lamenting the fact that Jerusalem had for so long rejected those sent by God to call them back from their sin, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matthew 23:37).
But what about you and me? Are we innocent of this error? Honestly, can any of us say that we’ve listened any more openly when confronted with the need for change at the deepest level? Israel’s tendency to “abhor him who speaks the truth” is, unfortunately, a human tendency. Every one of us resists being reproved.
And if the Hebrew prophets were hard to hear, the gospel of Jesus Christ is hard also — for the very same reason. It requires enough honesty to admit that our fellowship with God is broken: unless we change direction and seek God’s forgiveness on His terms, we will remain alienated from Him forever. Frankly, not many people are “correctable” enough to listen as humbly as the Bereans did in Acts 17:11: “they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
Wisdom is a curious thing in that it hurts us before it helps us. Although its benefits are enjoyable, wisdom usually requires some painful adjustments at first — starting with the admission that our present situation is not all right. And so it is with the gospel of Christ. It promises eternal salvation, but only to those bold enough to leave behind their current state. It’s a journey that many will not make because it is far too uncomfortable and costly.
"Wisdom is a good purchase though we pay dearly for it" (Old Proverb).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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DON’T LIMP! DECIDE! (NOVEMBER 11)
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"And Elijah came near to all the people and said, 'How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.' And the people did not answer him a word" (1 Kings 18:21).
ELIJAH DID NOT PULL ANY PUNCHES. Challenging the people to choose between the worship of God and the worship of Baal, he mocked their wishy-washy attitude: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?” Or as the ERV so colorfully paraphrases it: “You must decide what you are going to do. How long will you keep jumping from one side to the other?”
In this book, we’ve been discussing the importance of obeying the gospel of Christ — both the “how” and the “why” of that obedience. I hope I’ve made it clear that the commitment to follow Christ is not one to be entered into lightly. The question of whether the gospel is true is extremely — indeed, eternally — important and should be considered carefully. But sooner or later, a decision has to be made. If you’ve seen that the gospel is true, and you know what the New Testament teaches about how to obey it, the question is unavoidable: What do you choose to do? You can’t waver between obeying the gospel and rejecting it any more than Israel could waver between God and Baal. You must decide.
When we’re faced with momentous decisions, we sometimes think we have decided when, in reality, we have not. Often, we think we’ve decided when all we’ve done is congratulate ourselves on knowing what we should do, thinking, “I’ll do it as soon as a good opportunity presents itself.” In an age that worships feelings (substituting feelings for thinking and even for action), we suppose that we’ve made a choice simply because we feel a certain way. But ponder this statement by Eric Greitens, with which I agree: “Remember that deciding is not doing, and wanting is not choosing. Transformation will take place not because of what you decide you want, but because of what you choose to do.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them.” The weak vacillate and procrastinate. But the people of strong character decide. And they know that backing away is always the wrong decision.
"Not to decide is to decide" (Harvey Cox).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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THE SAMARITAN SYNDROME (NOVEMBER 10)
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"So these nations feared the Lord and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children's children -- as their fathers did, so they do to this day" (2 Kings 17:41).
THE PEOPLE DESCRIBED IN THIS TEXT ARE THOSE WHOSE DESCENDANTS WERE KNOWN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT PERIOD AS THE SAMARITANS. Descendants of intermarriage between Israelites and the foreigners imported by the Assyrians in 722 BC into Samaria, the central section of Israel, the Samaritans practiced a religion that was a mixture of elements from Judaism and the religions of the lands from which the foreigners had come.
Today, we might say the approach of the Samaritans to the worship of God was eclectic (“combining elements from a variety of sources”). A religious historian might call it syncretism (“reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief”).
By whatever name it might be called, however, it was a dishonor to God and a clear violation of the covenant He had made with Israel at Sinai: “The Lord made a covenant with them and commanded them, ‘You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them . . . you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods’” (2 Kings 17:35-38). It might have been expected that the polytheists imported into Israel would incorporate the God of Israel into their pantheon of deities, but for the Israelites to reciprocate by adding the practices of these nations into their worship of God was the very kind of idolatry they had been warned against for centuries. Before they even crossed the Jordan, Moses had said, “If your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish” (Deuteronomy 30:17,18).
But what bearing does this have on our study of obeying the gospel of Christ? Just this: Jesus calls on us to make a radical choice. The choice Israel needed to make was a prefiguring of the greater choice that confronts us today. The very worst decision we can make is to try to have every possibility at once. It is no more possible to serve two masters now (Matthew 6:24) than it was in Samaria ages ago.
"Progress always consists in taking one or another of two alternatives, abandoning the attempt to combine them" (Albert Schweitzer).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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A DECISION ONLY WE CAN MAKE (NOVEMBER 9)
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"'Return to me . . . and I will return to you,' says the Lord of hosts" (Zechariah 1:3).
THE MESSAGE PREACHED BY THE PROPHETS WAS THE MESSAGE OF REPENTANCE. Despite their blessings, Israel had frequently strayed from God, and they needed to turn back. This was not a popular message. Nobody ever likes to be told that they have departed from God, but in Israel’s case, this would have been especially true. Given the privileges of their role in God’s plan to save the world, there would have been many who presumed that Israel’s unique relationship with God guaranteed that His favor was automatically theirs. So when the prophets called upon the Jews to return to God, many in the audience might have said, “What in the world are you talking about? We’ve never left God.”
Yet Israel did need to return to God. The preaching of the prophets was desperately needed (even if it was not wanted). And today, we need to hear God’s appeal no less: “Return to me . . . and I will return to you.” It does no good to suppose that (a) we have such a privileged status before God, or (b) we are such good people, there could never be a breach between us and God. Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:1,2; 4:17), Peter preached repentance on Pentecost (Acts 2:38), and Jesus even called upon several of the congregations in Asia to repent (Revelation 2:5; etc.). And not only is there a universal need for repentance; there is a universal possibility of repentance. The fact that it is commanded presumes that it is possible for us to do it. While there is still breath in our lungs, none of us is a hopeless case. We are never so distant from God that, by His grace, the trip back home can’t be made.
As long as we sojourn in this world, God will never give up on us. He will always, always, always be calling us to come back home, just as He called Israel through Zechariah. Since God gave us a free will, the decision to return is one that only we can make, but we shouldn’t underestimate the desire with which He longs for us to make that choice. He loves us more than we can imagine, and He will pursue us down all the hard pathways of life, persistently pleading, “Return to me . . . and I will return to you.”
"I strayed, and yet I remembered you. I heard your voice behind me, telling me to return" (Augustine of Hippo).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU (NOVEMBER 8)
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"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
THE INVITATION OF JESUS IS AN INVITATION TO THE WEARY. The satisfied may find Him “interesting,” if even that, but those who recognize the toll that sin has taken upon them are desperate for relief. Poor in spirit, mourning for their sins, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness (Matthew 5:3-6), they long to hear more of what He meant when He said, “I will give you rest.”
It may seem odd that what Jesus offers to the weary is a yoke. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” But He knows the nature of our problem. We have worn ourselves out running away from reality and refusing to accept the rule of our Creator. Rebellion is, after all, an extremely exhausting enterprise, and we have found it to be so (despite the lie we were told by the tempter, who said that disobedience would be the way to real “life”). So what we need is not the “freedom” of more lawlessness; we need to return to the will of God and find our rest therein. In comparison to the yoke of the enemy, the yoke that Jesus offers is easy. It requires nothing but what contributes to our true and lasting good.
Jesus’ invitation is to learn from Him. The rest and refreshment He wants to give us can only be ours if we learn to think differently. Untruth must be replaced by truth. Dysfunctional concepts must be replaced by healthy ones. In short, we must learn a new “mind” (Philippians 2:5). “Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul wrote, “but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).
The truth will liberate us from what has enslaved us (John 8:32), but only if we submit to it — not just intellectually but in our deeds. Submission is hard, at least at first, since old habits die hard. But if rejecting the King’s rule is what killed us in the first place, we should not expect peace of mind if we won’t relearn the laws of obedience.
"It is not in understanding a set of doctrines, not in outward comprehension of the scheme of salvation, that rest and peace are to be found, but in taking up, in all lowliness and meekness, the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ" (Frederick William Robertson).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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HASTENING THE COMING (NOVEMBER 7)
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". . . waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!" (2 Peter 3:12).
THE APOSTLE PETER SPEAKS IN THIS PASSAGE OF SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE TODAY DON’T THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN, IF THEY THINK ABOUT IT AT ALL. The “day of God” is coming, he says, and it will be a day when the present universe will come to an end. Having been created by God, it will be brought to its conclusion by Him.
We don’t know (and it’s wrong to try to predict) when this cataclysm will occur. Peter said it will arrive unexpectedly: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief” (v.10). But it would be foolish to be lulled into complacency. The past is not always the key to the future — one-of-a-kind events do take place, as the people in Noah’s day found out. Those today who say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (v.4) are dangerously forgetting that God always keeps His promises, the long passage of time notwithstanding. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness” (v.9).
But for the faithful in Christ, the coming of this day is not to be dreaded. In his first letter, Peter had spoken of the “living hope” that has been made possible (1 Peter 1:3). Because of Christ’s resurrection, those who have responded obediently to His gospel have “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (vv.4,5). In this great hope, he said, “you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials” (v.6).
So, as Peter teaches us, we should be “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God.” Paul said that “the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16). Oh, to hear the glorious, triumphant sound of that trumpet! May we hear it much sooner rather than later!
There’s a great day coming,
A great day coming,
There’s a great day coming by and by.
(Will L. Thompson)
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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TURNING FROM THE POWER OF SATAN TO GOD (NOVEMBER 6)
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". . . to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26:18).
PAUL WAS AN APOSTLE AND WE ARE NOT, BUT THE MISSION ASSIGNED TO HIM IS ONE WE CAN LEARN FROM. He was given the task of taking the gospel to the Gentiles, and in the text above, God was telling Paul what the purpose of his preaching would be. We, no less than Paul, need to understand the purpose of the gospel. Indeed, there is nothing more important for us to understand.
TO OPEN THEIR EYES. The gospel provides the solution to our worst problem, the remedy to our worst illness. But in order to help us, the first thing the gospel has to do is open our eyes to the truth about our situation. We must see our need for the gospel.
SO THAT THEY MAY TURN FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT AND FROM THE POWER OF SATAN TO GOD. If our problem is sin, and if God is offering forgiveness, what we need to do is turn around. In denial of the truth about God, we’ve been going in the wrong direction. We’ve submitted ourselves to the power of Satan. That can change — and God will forgive us — but not without a real conversion (or “turning”) to Him.
THAT THEY MAY RECEIVE FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND A PLACE AMONG THOSE WHO ARE SANCTIFIED BY FAITH IN ME. Here are the two things that result from the gospel. First, the forgiveness of sins. This is why Jesus died, and it is what the gospel is about. Second, those forgiven have “a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” This is what is unique about those who are faithful to Jesus Christ. They still struggle, as all do, but they have a hope based on “the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9).
All of this is a wonderful plan, of course, but it requires life’s most serious choice and its greatest love. For those living under the deadly power of Satan, no moderate remedy will do. Jesus Christ can save us, but we must turn to Him decisively. In sin, we took our hearts away from our God and Father. We must give them back. For after all, there are only two alternatives, only two possible “fathers” waiting for us in eternity. We must choose between them.
"There is no heaven with a little of hell in it -- no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather!" (George MacDonald).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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TESTING EVERYTHING BY THE SCRIPTURES (NOVEMBER 5)
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"Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so" (Acts 17:11).
THE PROPHETS IN ISRAEL HAD PREDICTED THE COMING OF A MESSIAH. This Messiah or Christ (literally, “Anointed One”) would reign over a kingdom superior to any of the kingdoms of mankind (Daniel 2:44). But Jesus of Nazareth was not the only individual in the first century (or even later) to claim to be the Messiah. Messianic pretenders were a dime a dozen, as we might say. So how could a person know? How could one be sure?
When Paul came as a former Jewish rabbi and spoke in the synagogue at Berea, he proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the very One who had been predicted in the Jewish Scriptures. Paul was an eyewitness that Jesus had been resurrected (Acts 9:1-9), and Paul could perform miracles to verify his claims (2 Corinthians 12:12). But to their credit, the Berean Jews knew that the ultimate test of Jesus’ messiahship was scriptural in nature: if this Jesus truly was the person the Hebrew prophets had spoken of, then everything about Jesus would interlock with what had been said about the Messiah in the prophecies themselves.
So listening respectfully to Paul’s claims, they were “examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” In the final analysis, that is the test every religious teaching has to pass. Does this teaching match up with what God is known to have revealed in the past? God does not contradict Himself, and any new revelation has to be consistent with what we know God has already said. (The shocking story in 1 Kings 13 makes this point very dramatically.)
Fortunately, there is an abundance of Jewish Scripture against which Jesus can be measured (Psalm 16 & 22; Isaiah 53; Micah 5:2; etc.) — and there is no detail of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that does not match up. For His part, Jesus was willing to be tested against the Scriptures, and He even upbraided those who had not done this. “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:25,26).
"In the Old Testament the new lies hidden, in the New Testament the old is laid open" (Augustine of Hippo).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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CHOOSE LIFE! (NOVEMBER 4)
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"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him" (Deuteronomy 30:19,20).
WE ARE ABLE TO CHOOSE OUR DESTINY. If the alternatives are obedience to God (which leads ultimately to life) and disobedience (which leads to death), it is possible to “choose life,” as Moses urged Israel to do. And God, who gave us the power to choose, is always hoping that life is the choice we will make. As He instructed Ezekiel, “Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11).
When we come to the New Testament, we hear Jesus exhorting people to make the same choice: to reject death and choose life. But since the road to life requires sacrifice, many people — indeed, most people — turn away from it, preferring instead a course of less resistance. “Enter by the narrow gate,” He said, “for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13,14).
Even in the little decisions of daily life, the power of choice is amazing. But those who know its power know that choosing is more than simply having a preference — it requires action. And certainly with regard to God, we haven’t “chosen life” if we’re not doing the kinds of things Moses commanded Israel to do in Deuteronomy 30: “loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to him” (v.20). Choosing life is not a passive experience.
I have lived for threescore and ten years in this world, and among the things I am most sure of is this: when you come down to the end, the thing that will break your heart will not be the choices you made; it will be the choices you didn’t make. And if we spend eternity away from God, never having chosen to accept His forgiveness in Christ, the worst part of it will be knowing that we didn’t have to end up this way. We could have chosen life.
"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice" (William James).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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HENCEFORTH (NOVEMBER 3)
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"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:7,8).
A CURIOUS THING HAPPENS AS THE YEARS GO BY AND WE GROW OLDER IN CHRIST. Toward life’s end, we grow weary; the body deteriorates and the toll taken by the struggles of life can no longer be ignored. But at the same time, we become more excited and enthusiastic. The thought that we’re getting close to the goal for which we’ve always lived fills us with a zest that simply can’t be experienced any earlier in life. With each passing day, Paul’s words become ever more real to us: “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).
Paul was getting close to the end of his life when he wrote the words we find in 2 Timothy 4:7,8. Meditate with me on the phrases in this text. They tell us much about what life in Christ is about.
FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT. Our adversary, Satan, will make our path to heaven as hard as he can make it. He cannot separate us from God against our will (John 10:28,29; 16:33), but Jesus Himself said that the way would be hard (Matthew 7:14). In this world, there happens to be a war going on, and we need to be able to say, as we come to the end of life, that we have fought the good fight.
FINISHED THE RACE. If life is a war, it’s also a race. Unless we die when we’re young, it will be a long race, one in which we’ll often be tempted to give up and quit running. Lately, I have found myself saying almost every day, “Feet, don’t fail me now.”
KEPT THE FAITH. Of all the things Paul could have said, this is the grandest. To be able to utter these words as we come down to the end is, in a sense, the principal goal in life. To say that we have “kept the faith” does not mean that we never betrayed the Lord. It means that when we saw that we had betrayed Him, we sought His forgiveness, got back on our feet, and kept striving forward.
“Henceforth,” Paul wrote, “there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.” It is only the rugged who will receive this crown, those who have fought and run and been tested in the fire.
"The devil tempts that he may ruin; God tests that he may crown" (Ambrose).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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SELF MUST BE CRUCIFIED (NOVEMBER 2)
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"Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it'" (Matthew 16:24,25).
FOR JESUS, THE JOY WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CROSS. The “joy that was set before him” could only be His after He “endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). If we wish to follow Jesus, what will we do? We want the joy He now has with the Father, but will we follow Him to the cross? “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”
There have been some of the Lord’s disciples who have died by crucifixion as Jesus did. Peter seems to have suffered such a death (John 21:18,19). But that is not what the Lord was talking about when He said we must “take up our cross.” Regardless of what happens to our physical bodies, there is something else about us that must die. There is something that must be “denied.”
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself.” For all of us (at least those old enough to have committed sin), it is “self” that must be crucified. Paul said of his own conversion, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
God created us for the joy of living inside the limits of His love. He never wanted anything for us but “life.” Yet we rebelled. We threw off His restraints. And what we found was not greater life, but “death” in all of its many forms. So this “self” — this stubborn, greedy demand to grasp what is “ours” — is what got us into trouble. If we’re to be saved, it will have to be gotten rid of.
If we’re not willing to put our self-will to death, we make a tragic and foolish mistake. Jesus said, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” It is life’s ultimate irony that we only get what we’ve given up.
It sounds like a good thing to be “resurrected,” doesn’t it? But there is some dying that has to be done before a resurrection can take place. If there is anything other than God that we can’t or won’t give up, then the devil has our heart. “Give it up,” Jesus says. “Hold on to it, and you will die. But die, and you will live.”
"Without sacrifice there is no resurrection" (André Gide).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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AFTER BAPTISM, WHAT’S DIFFERENT? (NOVEMBER 1)
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". . . but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance" (Acts 26:20).
IN THIS TEXT, PAUL GIVES US A SUMMARY OF THE MESSAGE GOD SENT HIM TO PREACH. To one and all, he preached that “they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.” This preaching called for a change much deeper than simply changing one’s “religious affiliation.” If the only thing that is different after we’ve been baptized is that we “now go to the right church,” it may be that we’ve still got some changing to do.
ATTENDING A DIFFERENT CHURCH. Some have the idea that heaven is simply the reward given by God to those who have identified the right religious group to be a part of. For them, baptism means little more than the doorway between the wrong church and the right church. On this point, let us be clear: unscriptural religious affiliations will jeopardize our souls. But there is more to the gospel — and to salvation — than getting into the right church.
BECOMING A DIFFERENT PERSON. In the text above, Paul said that he called on hearers to “turn to God.” This is the heart of the gospel: turning to God. If we have been religious people and have been affiliated with a group whose doctrines and practices are out of sync with the Scriptures, that will need to be corrected. But those things are symptoms of the problem. The problem the gospel addresses is that our hearts have been taking a disobedient, self-willed stance with regard to God, not just in our religious affiliation but in everything else. The gospel, therefore, calls on us to turn to God, seeking the gracious forgiveness He offers and committing ourselves to a completely new life in Him. This new life will come from an admission that the problem with our previous life was not merely the church we were attending; the problem was us. So yes, the matter of “church” will need to be addressed, but the deeper (and much harder) issue is whether we’re ready to die to what we used to be and learn to be a person with a very different kind of heart. Without this kind of turning to God, baptism is an empty act.
"Conversion is a deep work -- a heart work. It goes throughout the man, throughout the mind, throughout the members, throughout the entire life" (Joseph Alleine).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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EVERY DEED WILL BE TESTED (OCTOBER 31)
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"For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:14).
THE LAST VERSE IN ECCLESIASTES GIVES US THE REASON WHY WE SHOULD FEAR GOD AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. Reverence and obedience must define the way we live because “God will bring every deed into judgment.” All that we do is going to be tested, not by the trial of any human evaluation, but by the judgment of God Himself. Not wanting to deal with it, we may pretend this testing won’t come, but we will be tried by it nevertheless.
It is not just some of our deeds, but “every deed” that will be brought into judgment by God. Even “every secret thing” will be judged by Him. “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). This truth should jolt us. We may present to other human beings only what we want them to know, but God knows even the most secret contents of our hearts.
Our deeds will be judged “whether good or evil.” Just as we may temporarily deny God’s judgment itself, we may also deny the existence of objective right and wrong, but our denial doesn’t make it go away (any more than closing the blinds makes the sun go away). There is an eternal, unalterable difference between good and evil, and it has its origin in God’s own character.
Because He is our Creator, God has a right to bring us into judgment. Having given us life and a free will, He will hold us accountable for the use of our freedom of choice between good and evil. Think of it in terms of “stewardship.” Having been entrusted with great gifts, we will answer for our faithfulness in using them. Surely it is the right of the Giver to conduct such a reckoning.
At the final judgment, and even before, we won’t be able to hide from that which Thomas Merton called “the implacable light of judgment.” Apart from the forgiveness of God, which is what the gospel of Christ is about, none of us has any hope at the judgment. But if we won’t face reality, not even the gospel can help us.
"What we need is not a false peace which enables us to evade the implacable light of judgment, but the grace courageously to accept the bitter truth that is revealed to us; to abandon our inertia, our egotism and submit entirely to the demands of the Spirit" (Thomas Merton).
Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
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