No Holy Huddles

“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”

PROVERBS 17:17

 

PONDER THIS

Jesus ministered to us in His friendship. God came from Heaven down to Earth to be in human form with us. Jesus is a friend of sinners! There are lost people out there who need the love and friendship of Jesus Christ. As His body, we’re now to be reaching out to those yearning for love and friendship.

Christians need to set the tone and the atmosphere in the communities in which we live and the places we go. We need to be approachable and real. When people are experiencing heartache, tears, and real problems, they’re not primarily interested in your answers; they are interested in who will be with them.

In this way, you point to Christ, the One who is with us in our sorrows. We’ve got to show the beauty, love, grace, and kindness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You may think you are friendly, but are you letting people in? We often have little holy huddles and brag about how we love one another. But standing there are broken people who need someone to go deeper and care for what they are going through. That’s what Jesus does and what we are called to do, too.

Who is struggling around you? What are some ways you can care for them like Christ?

When has someone ministered to you by caring for you in a difficult time? How did that point to Christ?

PRACTICE THIS

Invite a non-Christian to coffee or to a meal so you can get to know that individual and understand what that person is going through.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Words for the Wind

“Do you think that you can reprove words, when the speech of a despairing man is wind?” (Job 6:26)

In grief and pain and despair, people often say things they otherwise would not say. They paint reality with darker strokes than they will paint it tomorrow, when the sun comes up. They sing in minor keys, and talk as though that is the only music. They see clouds only, and speak as if there were no sky.

They say, “Where is God?” Or: “There is no use to go on.” Or: “Nothing makes any sense.” Or: “There’s no hope for me.” Or: “If God were good, this couldn’t have happened.”

What shall we do with these words?

Job says that we do not need to reprove them. These words are wind, or literally “for the wind.” They will be quickly blown away. There will come a turn in circumstances, and the despairing person will waken from the dark night, and regret hasty words.

Therefore, the point is, let us not spend our time and energy reproving such words. They will be blown away of themselves on the wind. One need not clip the leaves in autumn. It is a wasted effort. They will soon blow off of themselves.

Oh, how quickly we are given to defending God, or sometimes the truth, from words that are only for the wind. If we had discernment, we could tell the difference between the words with roots and the words blowing in the wind.

There are words with roots in deep error and deep evil. But not all grey words get their color from a black heart. Some are colored mainly by the pain, the despair. What you hear is not the deepest thing within. There is something real and dark within where they come from. But it is temporary — like a passing infection — real, painful, but not the true person.

So, let us learn to discern whether the words spoken against us, or against God, or against the truth, are merely for the wind — spoken not from the soul, but from the sore. If they are for the wind, let us wait in silence and not reprove. Restoring the soul, not reproving the sore, is the aim of our love.

John Piper 

Sin-Sorrow-Death The Sin Caused Things

It seems we spend half our lives asking why these things happen. 

Are we really so out of touch with the Bible and its teaching that we don't have a clue? 

The downward spiral started in the garden of Eden where sin began. 

That downward spiral will continue until Christ burst forth in the eastern sky to claim His bride, the church.

Praise be to God that these three sin caused things are not the end!!

Christ came to reconcile these sin caused things on the cross.

God gave Him the power to redeem sinners and conquer sin, sorrow and death.

If you are in Christ, you are a new creature. 

You become a sojourner here on Earth waiting to go back home.

These sin caused things will come, but Christ is your Redeemer!

The battle us won!

We are victorious in Christ alone!

Will you surrender to the only One who is able?

Confess!

Repent!

Claim your blood bought pardon! 

Let Your eternity be secure through the blood of Christ that cleanses all unrighteousness!

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:17-18

16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,"

18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts,

20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. - 2 Peter 1:16-21

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. - 1 Corinthians 2:1-2

7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"- 

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

16 "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ. - 1 Corinthians 2:7-16

22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,

23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,

24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:22-24

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. - 1 Corinthians 11:3

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him.

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,

22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. - Colossians 1:15-23

Are you wounded by sorrow? Or is it guilt?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise. Jeremiah 17:14

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There are two kinds of wounds to the human psyche. One is sorrow; the other is guilt. Sorrow is a clean wound. Somehow your heart will heal as the Holy Spirit applies His healing balm. He will pour in “the oil of gladness.” Time and the grace of God will heal.

But guilt is dirty and will never heal until confessed and cleansed by the antiseptic of Calvary. Sin will destroy your testimony. King David learned that after he sinned by taking Uriah’s wife. He had sinned against Uriah, against Bathsheba, against his own family, against the kingdom of Israel—but primarily against God. When he realized the depth of what he had done, it broke David’s heart.

David wasn’t as concerned about what God might do to him as he was concerned that He had hurt his heavenly father. He cried out in Psalm 51,  “Oh God, I sinned against You and did this evil in Your sight.”

A true Christian realizes not only has he broken God’s law, he's broken God's heart. One way you can know you're truly saved is this: Does it break your heart that you've broken God's heart? A slave only fears his master’s whip, but a son fears his father’s displeasure. David said, “Oh my Redeemer, my Savior, my Lord, how could I do such a thing?"

When you cover up sin, it steals your joy. It takes your song. Praise withers and dies because sin destroys your testimony.

ACTION POINT:

What do you do? Like David, come to God. Are you suffering under a load of guilt? Allow the Holy Spirit to expose your sin. Without excuses, openly confess it and experience the joy of forgiveness in Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers