Zeal with Wisdom

“. . . who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.” TITUS 2:14-15

 

PONDER THIS

We all need to learn to live by grace. The cause of Christ has too often been hurt by misguided zeal.

Jesus told Simon Peter that He would go to the cross, but Peter’s response was “No Lord, be it far from you.” Jesus responded, “Get behind me, Satan.” Then Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the Garden of Gethsemane, and said, “Watch and pray with me and for me.” As Jesus prayed, troops came to take Jesus. When Peter saw what was happening, he went for the servant of the high priest, Malchus, and cut off his ear. Jesus rebuked Peter and healed the servant miraculously (John 18). Peter was full of misguided zeal.

Peter had the wrong enemy. Malchus was a servant of the high priest. He was a slave. Many times, we're fighting those who are slaves of Satan. Did you know that? The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. We have the wrong enemy. Whatever our justification, we must ask Christ to change our zeal to patience and trust in Him.

What are some things that bring out your passion? When have you had zeal for Christ but responded by doing something that was not Christlike?

What are some harmful things that happen when we let our zeal get in the way of showing God’s grace?

PRACTICE THIS

Think about some Christian values you are passionate about and consider how you handle them. Is your zeal misguided or guided by Christ? Be honest about that with God.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Are Not Reading This by Accident

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

EPHESIANS 2:8-9

 

PONDER THIS

There are many today I believe God is speaking to. How does God speak? He speaks through Scripture. He speaks through song. He speaks through suffering. He speaks through His servants. The Lord takes the initiative, and He speaks to us.

Thank God for the way He rules over our affairs to put us in situations where we can hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank God it is seeking grace, that He takes the initiative, and He speaks to us so that we can speak to Him. His grace is also a satisfying grace.

What is grace? Grace is the love that God shows to sinners such as we, where there is no merit. It is love that we do not deserve, cannot earn, and would not even seek unless He first touched our hearts. G-R-A-C-E—God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. He initiated it and gave it to you. If you will put your hand of faith in God’s hand of grace, the same God that took a pagan girl from Moab and made her the bride of Boaz will take sinners such as we and make us the Bride of Christ. That’s the story of redeeming love. Ruth was not in the fields of Boaz by accident (see Ruth 2:8-9). You’re not here by accident. God is speaking to you, and He wants to extend His grace to you.

How has God spoken to you by His Word?

How does it feel to know God has taken the initiative to pursue you? How can that change how you approach Him?

PRACTICE THIS

Write down the different ways God has pursued you. Keep this list as a reminder of His love for you.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Simultaneously Evil and Redeemed

Wow!

Romans 11:32

[32] For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Isaiah 44:22

    [22] I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud

        and your sins like mist;

    return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Romans 3:9

No One Is Righteous

[9] What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,

Proverbs 20:9

    [9] 

    Who can say, “I have made my heart pure;

        I am clean from my sin”?

Romans 3:10-12

[10] as it is written: 

    “None is righteous, no, not one; 

    [11]     no one understands;

        no one seeks for God. 

    [12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

        no one does good,

        not even one.”

Galatians 3:22

[22] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Romans 3:19-26

[19] Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20] For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

The Righteousness of God Through Faith

[21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—[22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

It has always been Christ alone!

Sinner pray for mercy.

Flee evil.

Repent!

Long for His second coming!

Are You Religious or Redeemed?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1

 

PONDER THIS

It is “by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). You can’t beg it, you can’t buy it, you can’t borrow it, you can’t steal it, and you can’t earn it. It is the grace of God; salvation was bought by Christ on the cross. When Christ finished, it was accomplished. You cannot deplete it, and you can’t add to it—it is the supernatural work of God. It is the grace of Christ. He is the subject of the Gospel. It is about Him: the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You may say, “Well, I believe the plan of salvation.” You can believe the plan of salvation and go straight to Hell, because you’re not saved by the plan of salvation, you’re saved by the man of salvation. It’s not a creed. You may say, “I believe if you live right, you’ll go to Heaven.” Paul said if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain (Galatians 2:21).

Do you know why we have so much religious mayhem in the world today? Because people have met creeds, not Christ. They’ve entered into codes of living but not met Christ. They’ve joined churches without meeting Christ. Salvation is not believing something; it is receiving Someone. Jesus is just not a good way to Heaven; He’s the only way to Heaven.

What are some other things you can think of that people put their faith in instead of Jesus?

What are you tempted to put faith in over Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray for a friend or loved one who has not put his or her faith in Jesus. Confess any ways you need to turn back to Jesus or turn to Jesus for the first time.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Long-Awaited Visitation

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” (Luke 1:68–71)

Notice two remarkable things from these words of Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, in Luke 1.

First, nine months earlier, Zechariah could not believe his wife would have a child. Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is so confident of God’s redeeming work in the coming Messiah that he puts it in the past tense: “he has visited and redeemed his people.” For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done. Zechariah has learned to take God at his word and so has a remarkable assurance: God “has visited and redeemed!” (Luke 1:68).

Second, the coming of Jesus the Messiah is a visitation of God to our world: The God of Israel has visited and redeemed. For centuries, the Jewish people had languished under the conviction that God had withdrawn: the spirit of prophecy had ceased; Israel had fallen into the hands of Rome. And all the godly in Israel were awaiting the visitation of God. Luke tells us that another old man, the devout Simeon, was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). Likewise, the prayerful Anna was “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

These were days of great expectation. Now the long-awaited visitation of God was about to happen — indeed, he was about to come in a way no one expected.

John Piper 

What Does It Mean to Redeem?

“And I thought to inform you, saying, ‘Buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants and the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it; but if you will not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know; for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am next after you.’ And he said, ‘I will redeem it.’” Ruth 4:4

Ponder This

I did a study on the word redeem. It means to buy or to take out of the marketplace, that is, to take off the slave block. When our Lord redeemed us, He not only bought us, but He also took us out of the marketplace. We’re no longer for sale. That speaks of our eternal security. And then to redeem means to set free. That’s what happened to Ruth and that’s what happened to Adrian. I have been bought, I’ve been taken off the marketplace, and I have been set free in the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s redemption. That’s the wonderful doctrine of redemption we read over and over again. Even better, it’s not just Ruth, and it’s not just me—it’s all who have trusted in the Lord Jesus. If you’ve put your faith in Him, it’s you too.

Have you been redeemed by Jesus?

How is He calling you to respond further to Him today?

Practice This

Share with another person the way you’ve been redeemed by Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Who is Our Close Relative?

PRAY OVER THIS

“And the close relative said, ‘I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it.’” Ruth 4:6

 

PONDER THIS

Who was this nearer kinsman? If Boaz pictured the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the nearer kinsman who cannot redeem? He pictured Adam. Everyone is either in Adam or in Christ. Who is my real close relative? Adam. We’re all related to Adam, and in Adam, all die. He is the near relative to us all.

I was preaching in a revival one time. A woman came up afterward and said, “You’re a Rogers, aren’t you?” I said, “Yes ma’am.” She said, “Well, I have been doing some work on our genealogy.” She stood up real tall. She said, “Because I’m a Rogers.” And she said, “You will be happy to know that the Rogers came over on the Mayflower.” I said, “Well that’s wonderful.” But then I said, “I traced it back further than that.” Boy, did she get excited, and I said, “I traced it all the way back, and you need to know that we came from a crooked farmer and a drunken sailor. The farmer was Adam, and the sailor was Noah. That’s how far back we go.” Thanks be to God—our story didn’t end there. Adam was our near relative, but Jesus has acted as our Redeemer.

How have we all experienced the reality that Adam is our “near relative”?

How did Jesus act as our Redeemer?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list today comparing the work of Adam and the work of Jesus. Prayerfully reflect in worship over the work of Christ your Redeemer.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

To Die Unredeemed

Unredeemed-eternity spent

Where-Hell

Eternal Judgment

Redeemed-Ransom paid

by Whom-Christ Alone

How-on the cross by the blood of the Lamb

Result-gift of unmerited grace

Result-new creature

Result-obedience 

Result-repentance 

Result-forgiveness 

Result-purification 

Result-justification 

Result-reconciliation 

Result-redemption 

Hebrews 9:27

[27] And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

Luke 12:4-5

[4] “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. [5] But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

2 Peter 2:4

[4] For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

Luke 16:19-31

[19] “There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. [20] And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, [21] who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. [22] The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, [23] and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. [24] And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ [25] But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. [26] And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ [27] And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—[28] for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ [29] But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ [30] And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ [31] He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

Hebrews 10:29-31

[29] How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? [30] For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” [31] It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 9:15-20

[15] Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. [16] For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. [17] For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. [18] Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. [19] For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, [20] saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.”

Matthew 26:28

[28] for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

You Are Twice God's

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” ... 

(1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There’s a familiar story about a little fellow who lost a little red sailboat he had made. It sailed away from him across the pond. Later, he saw it in a second-hand store, and the proprietor made him buy it back. He bought it back, and as he carried the little sailboat out of that second-hand store, he hugged it to his chest and said, “Little sailboat, you’re mine. You’re twice mine. You’re mine because I made you, and you’re mine because I bought you back.”

Not only did God create you, then He redeemed you. God bought you with His blood. And God says, “Christian, you’re mine. You are twice mine. You’re mine because I created you, and you’re mine because I redeemed you.”

ACTION POINT:

We must live out this verse, today and every day: “You are not your own. You are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What more do you want?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For the Lord your God is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you. Deuteronomy 20:4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Do you remember the miracle God performed when He parted the Red Sea and brought the Israelites through it “on dry ground,” safely—when they were being hunted down by Pharaoh’s army? It was incredible. Now, let me ask you: What happened three days later? The Israelites began grumbling because there was no water! Do you think God would invest in such a miraculous deliverance for them, and then abandon them just days later? Absolutely not!

But what happens to us when we’re down in the dumps and wondering where God is taking us? We begin to act just like the Israelites! And yet God did something more for us than He did for the Israelites at the Red Sea—He sent His precious and only Son to die on Calvary’s cross for you and for me. God redeemed us for all eternity.

ACTION POINT:

More than God bringing you out of a watery grave, He delivered you from eternal damnation into glorious communion with Him forever! God saved you! What more could you possibly want?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

God’s love redeems you

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people. Luke 1:68

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Hymn writer Fanny Crosby wrote, “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child and forever I am.” Do you love to proclaim it? Oh, how I pray you do.

Isaac Watts wrote, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small: Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” Have you given your soul, your life, your all to this Amazing Love?

ACTION POINT:

Jesus did not bathe this planet with His blood to have you serve the world, the flesh, and the devil. He died to make you holy. You are not your own. First Corinthians 6:20 says, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Final Reality Is Here

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. . . . They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:1–2, 5)

We’ve seen it before. But there’s more. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.

Hebrews 8:1–2, 5 is a kind of summary statement. The point is that the one priest who goes between us and God, and makes us right with God, and prays for us to God is not an ordinary, weak, sinful, dying priest as in the Old Testament days. He is the Son of God — strong, sinless, with an indestructible life.

Not only that, he is not ministering in an earthly tabernacle with all its limitations of place and size while getting worn out and being moth-eaten and being soaked and burned and torn and stolen. No, Hebrews 8:2 says that Christ is ministering for us in a “true tent that the Lord set up, not man.” This is not the shadow. It’s the real thing in heaven. This is the reality that cast a shadow on Mount Sinai for Moses to copy.

According to Hebrews 8:1, another great thing about the reality which is greater than the shadow is that our High Priest is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. No Old Testament priest could ever say that.

Jesus deals directly with God the Father. He has a place of honor beside God. He is loved and respected infinitely by God. He is constantly with God. This is not shadow-reality like curtains and bowls and tables and candles and robes and tassels and sheep and goats and pigeons. This is final, ultimate reality: God and his Son interacting in love and holiness for our eternal salvation.

Ultimate reality is the persons of the Godhead in relationship, dealing with each other concerning how their majesty and holiness and love and justice and goodness and truth shall be manifest in a redeemed people.

John Piper 

The Long-Awaited Visitation

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” (Luke 1:68–71)

Notice two remarkable things from these words of Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, in Luke 1.

First, nine months earlier, Zechariah could not believe his wife would have a child. Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is so confident of God’s redeeming work in the coming Messiah that he puts it in the past tense: “he has visited and redeemed his people.” For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done. Zechariah has learned to take God at his word and so has a remarkable assurance: God “has visited and redeemed!” (Luke 1:68).

Second, the coming of Jesus the Messiah is a visitation of God to our world: The God of Israel has visited and redeemed. For centuries, the Jewish people had languished under the conviction that God had withdrawn: the spirit of prophecy had ceased; Israel had fallen into the hands of Rome. And all the godly in Israel were awaiting the visitation of God. Luke tells us that another old man, the devout Simeon, was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). Likewise, the prayerful Anna was “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

These were days of great expectation. Now the long-awaited visitation of God was about to happen — indeed, he was about to come in a way no one expected.

John Piper 

The Final Reality Is Here

Day 13 Advent

Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. . . . They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:1–2, 5)

We’ve seen it before. But there’s more. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing.

Hebrews 8:1–2, 5 is a kind of summary statement. The point is that the one priest who goes between us and God, and makes us right with God, and prays for us to God is not an ordinary, weak, sinful, dying priest as in the Old Testament days. He is the Son of God — strong, sinless, with an indestructible life.

Not only that, he is not ministering in an earthly tabernacle with all its limitations of place and size while getting worn out and being moth-eaten and being soaked and burned and torn and stolen. No, Hebrews 8:2 says that Christ is ministering for us in a “true tent that the Lord set up, not man.” This is not the shadow. It’s the real thing in heaven. This is the reality that cast a shadow on Mount Sinai for Moses to copy.

According to Hebrews 8:1, another great thing about the reality which is greater than the shadow is that our High Priest is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. No Old Testament priest could ever say that.

Jesus deals directly with God the Father. He has a place of honor beside God. He is loved and respected infinitely by God. He is constantly with God. This is not shadow-reality like curtains and bowls and tables and candles and robes and tassels and sheep and goats and pigeons. This is final, ultimate reality: God and his Son interacting in love and holiness for our eternal salvation.

Ultimate reality is the Persons of the Godhead in relationship, dealing with each other concerning how their majesty and holiness and love and justice and goodness and truth shall be manifest in a redeemed people.

John Piper

The Long-Awaited Visitation

Day 3 Advent

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.” (Luke 1:68–71)

Notice two remarkable things from these words of Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband, in Luke 1.

First, nine months earlier, Zechariah could not believe his wife would have a child. Now, filled with the Holy Spirit, he is so confident of God’s redeeming work in the coming Messiah that he puts it in the past tense: “he has visited and redeemed his people.” For the mind of faith, a promised act of God is as good as done. Zechariah has learned to take God at his word and so has a remarkable assurance: God “has visited and redeemed!” (Luke 1:68).

Second, the coming of Jesus the Messiah is a visitation of God to our world: The God of Israel has visited and redeemed. For centuries, the Jewish people had languished under the conviction that God had withdrawn: the spirit of prophecy had ceased; Israel had fallen into the hands of Rome. And all the godly in Israel were awaiting the visitation of God. Luke tells us that another old man, the devout Simeon, was “waiting for the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25). Likewise, the prayerful Anna was “waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

These were days of great expectation. Now the long-awaited visitation of God was about to happen — indeed, he was about to come in a way no one expected.

John Piper

God Is Invested In You!

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“For the Lord your God is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.” Deuteronomy 20:4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Do you remember the miracle God performed when He brought the Israelites through the Red Sea, when they were being hunted down by Pharaoh’s army? It was incredible.

Now let me ask you: What happened three days later? The Israelites began grumbling because there was no water!

Do you think God would invest such a miraculous deliverance in them, then abandon them just days later? Absolutely not!  But what happens to us when we are down in the dumps and wondering where God is taking us? We become just like the Israelites!

And yet God did something more for you than He did for them! He sent His precious and only Son to die on Calvary’s tree for you. God redeemed you.

More than God bringing you out of a watery grave, He delivered you from eternal damnation into glorious communion with Him forever! God saved you! What more could you possibly want?

ACTION POINT:

Are you down in the dumps today? Do you feel like the victim of a bad situation? Do you feel like God has abandoned you? Then write down Deuteronomy 20:4 on a piece of paper and meditate on it until you believe it.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Set Free and Redeemed

The battle is won.

Victory belongs to Christ Jesus!

You are set free by the Lamb of God !

According to the mercy of God and by His power bestowed on His Son to be the only worthy sacrifice to satisfy your sin guilt, you have been redeemed!

So what will you do with this gift?

Will you call on Jesus? 

Declare your sin, ask for mercy and repent! 

But this gift, if received in faith, goes far beyond your gift. 

You have a command from Jesus to share this gospel gift with the world by making disciples from every nation!

God alone is sovereign over all things.

He will accomplish His purpose!

And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,  - Revelation 5:9

I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, "Here I am, here I am," to a nation that was not called by my name.  - Isaiah 65:1

9 "For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. 

10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. 

11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.  - Isaiah 48:9-11

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.  - Habakkuk 2:14

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. - Ephesians 1:4-6

6 I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, 

7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."  - Isaiah 43:6-7

7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. 

8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make known his mighty power.  - Psalm 106:7-8

15 For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." - Romans 9:15-17

29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience,

31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy.

32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

34 "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" 

35 "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?" 

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. - Romans 11:29-36

18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." - Matthew 28:18-20

The Value of a Soul

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold...but with the precious blood of Christ.” 1 Peter 1:18-19

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I was talking to a man who sold real estate and asked him, “What determines the worth of a piece of property?” 

He said, “What a person is willing to pay for it.” 

In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you paid for it yourself. It’s what another person is willing to pay to have it for himself or herself. 

That makes me want to shout! You and I must be worth something if Jesus would pay His life to have us for His own. Jesus is the proof of how much we’re worth. 

ACTION POINT:

Do you know how much you weigh? Call a jeweler or a bank today and ask how much your weight is worth in gold. Then realize there’s no comparison to your worth in blood…the blood of Jesus Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Who Owns You?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people.” Luke 1:68

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Fanny Crosby wrote, “Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it! Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; Redeemed through His infinite mercy, His child and forever I am.” Do you love to proclaim it? Oh, how I pray you do.

Isaac Watts wrote, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small: Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.” Have you given your soul, your life, your all to this Amazing Love?

ACTION POINT:

Jesus did not bathe this planet with His blood to have you serve the world, the flesh, and the devil. He died to make you holy. You are not your own. First Corinthians 6:20 says, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers