Find the Life You Were Made For

“For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.” COLOSSIANS 1:16

 

PONDER THIS

What did God make a fish to do? Swim in the sea. What did God make a bird to do? Fly in the sky. If you take a fish out of the sea and put him in a tree, he’ll be an unhappy fish. If you take a bird out of the sky and put him in the sea, he’ll be an unhappy bird. Both are out of their elements.

What is the element you were created for? God Himself. Until you know Him, you will be like a fish in a tree or a bird in the sea. You’ll be out of your element.

A little girl misquoted the twenty-third Psalm, but I believe she had it just right when she said, “The Lord is my Shepherd; I’ve got all I want.” That is the secret of satisfaction. It is Jehovah Himself. “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). In Him, in the Shepherd, are the wellsprings of my heart’s desire and purpose.

Have you ever wrestled with the purpose of your life? What was that like?

How does knowing that your purpose is Christ Himself change how you live daily?

PRACTICE THIS

Encourage a friend today in his or her purpose for God’s glory.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

 

Do You Neglect Your Salvation?

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? (Hebrews 2:3)

Is there a sense of greatness in your mind about your salvation? Or do you neglect it?

Do you respond to the greatness of your salvation? Or do you treat it the way you treat your last will and testament, or the title to your car, or the deed on your house? You signed it once and it is in a file drawer somewhere, but it is not a really great thing in your mind. You rarely think about it. It has no daily effect on you. Basically, you neglect it.

But when you neglect your great salvation, what are you really neglecting? Here’s what he is saying when he says, “Don’t neglect your great salvation!”

Don’t neglect being loved by God.

Don’t neglect being forgiven and accepted and protected and strengthened and guided by almighty God.

Don’t neglect the sacrifice of Christ’s life on the cross.

Don’t neglect the free gift of righteousness imputed by faith.

Don’t neglect the removal of God’s wrath and the reconciled smile of God.

Don’t neglect the indwelling Holy Spirit and the fellowship and friendship of the living Christ.

Don’t neglect the radiance of God’s glory in the face of Jesus.

Don’t neglect the free access to the throne of grace.

Don’t neglect the inexhaustible treasure of God’s promises.

This is indeed a great salvation. Neglecting it is very evil. Don’t neglect so great a salvation. Because if you do, will there be an escape from judgment? That’s what the writer asks: “How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”

So, being a Christian is a very serious business — not a sour business, but a serious business. We should be blood-earnest about being happy in our great salvation.

We will not be deflected by this world into the fleeting and suicidal pleasures of sin. We will not neglect our eternal joy in God — which is what the goal of this salvation is. We will gouge out our eyes rather than be lured away from such a great salvation.

John Piper 

Your Shepherd Laid Down His Life for You

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.”

JOHN 10:11

 

PONDER THIS

Jesus laid down His life for the sheep. He said, “No man takes My life from Me. No man can kill Me. I lay it down.” (See John 10:18.) It wasn’t the nails that held Him to the tree. The silver cords of love and the golden bonds of redemption held Jesus Christ to that cross.

We can conceive of sheep dying for the shepherd when he wants food. But whoever heard of a shepherd dying for sheep? Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd that lays down His life for the sheep.” You say it’s unthinkable that a shepherd would die for sheep. It’s even more unthinkable that God would die for Man.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep. When He laid down His life for the sheep, He dealt with the penalty of sin. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That’s what Jesus Christ paid. Your sin will be pardoned in Christ or punished in Hell, but it will never be overlooked unless there’s a Good Shepherd who has died for your sins.

How do you feel when you consider that Jesus laid His life down for you?

How does this message of Jesus’ selfless sacrifice change how you interact with others?

PRACTICE THIS

Share the Gospel with yourself today; write it out or tell yourself in the mirror what Jesus did on your behalf.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Go After What Your Heart Really Needs

“You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

PSALM 16:11

 

PONDER THIS

Suppose you go to the doctor with a terrible headache, fever, pain, and swelling in your arm. It seems like an infection on the inside, but all the doctor does is give you strong medicine to kill the pain and reduce the fever. If he never deals with the infection, he’s not a good doctor. I want him to kill the pain if he can, but he only really helps me if he gets at the infection, which is the real problem.

People who are trying to be happy primarily in this life are only treating the symptoms. If you’ll seek after righteousness, you’ll be dealing with the infection. Seek righteousness and then you’ll be happy. What you need is to have the deepest need of your heart and your life met. It is to worship God. It is to drink of the Spirit. It is to feed on the Word of God. That’s the deepest need of your heart, and it will only be met in Jesus.

When have you chased after worldly happiness?

In what ways have you experienced joy as you began to follow Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of all the things you need or want to do in the next week. Write next to this list the quote from today’s devotional “The deepest need of your heart will be met only in Jesus.” Place this note in a place where you can see it regularly.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

 

The Good Shepherd Holds You Close

“He will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.” ISAIAH 40:11

 

PONDER THIS

We’re the flock, the Lord’s the Shepherd. He shall gather the lambs with His arms. He shall carry them in His bosom. He shall gently lead those that are with young. Isn’t that great? Aren’t you glad the Lord is so tender to us? Aren’t you glad God gives us what we need and do not deserve? Has He ever carried you closely? He takes little baby Christians; those are the lambs. They don’t know anything yet. They come down the aisle and give their hearts to Jesus. We are wrong to put them through a theological test. We are wrong to say, “Now, you can’t do that; you must do this; and why did you fail?” Jesus doesn’t do that. Do you know what Jesus does for the little lambs? He picks them up. He carries them closely. When I was a little lamb, thank God, He carried me. If He hadn’t, I never would have made it. He didn’t just say, “Get yourself together.” He is a compassionate and caring Shepherd who carries us gently.

When has another follower of Jesus led you gently in your faith?

When have you allowed correctness to distract you from grace?

PRACTICE THIS

Think about the last person you critiqued. Were you, like Jesus, tender and compassionate toward him or her? Pray and repent for those areas of your sin.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

 

Your Heart Was Made to Want Jesus

“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.”

PSALM 42:1

 

PONDER THIS

So many people think the secret to satisfaction is having a God who can give you everything. That is not the secret to satisfaction. The secret of satisfaction is the Lord Himself. Jehovah is my Shepherd. Your needs will never be met until they’re met in Him. Things will never satisfy you. So many people misunderstand Psalm 37:4, which says, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Many think that means if I love Jesus, I can have a luxury car; but that isn’t what it means. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desire of your heart. What that means is when you delight in the Lord, the deepest needs of your heart will be met.

The desire of your heart is Jesus. That’s what your heart yearns for whether you know it or not. That’s what you were made for—for Him. The Bible says it is “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). You’ll never be satisfied apart from Him. It’s not what He gives me but that He gives me Himself.

When have you felt your deep need for Jesus? What was that like?

What would it look like to have Jesus as the desire of your heart? What things would change in your life immediately?

PRACTICE THIS

Think about someone who has lived as an example of having Jesus as the desire of his or her heart. Ask that person to share his or her testimony with you.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What Will Finally Satisfy You?

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” PSALM 23:1

 

PONDER THIS

How many truly satisfied people do you know? People can have all of the things of this world and not be satisfied. John Muir, the great naturalist, was speaking to a Mr. Harriman—a man of great wealth and influence. John Muir said to Mr. Harriman, “I am richer than you are.” Mr. Harriman responded, “Well, how is that?” He said, “Because you don’t have all you want, and I do. So, I am richer than you.”

Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver.” But it's not just money that fails to truly satisfy. There’s really nothing that can satisfy us apart from the Lord. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” That's the only way that anyone will ever have satisfaction. It is only when you can say that phrase wholeheartedly that you can also say, “I shall not want.”

Is there a time in your life that you were truly satisfied?

How does living with the Lord as our Shepherd change our struggle with contentment?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of different things in which you have tried to find satisfaction. Write down the outcome of pursuing those things. Pray and ask God to help you find satisfaction in Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Great Missionary Hope

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:5)

The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God himself does what man cannot do: he creates the faith that saves. The call of God does what the call of man can’t. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come out!” And the dead man obeyed and came out. The call created the obedience by creating life (John 11:43). That is how anyone is saved.

We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God’s call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17). God’s call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God’s purpose — so much so that Paul can say, “Those whom [God] called he also justified” (Romans 8:30), even though we are only justified by our faith.

In other words, God’s call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified according to Romans 8:30. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5:1). So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly brings into being the faith that justifies.

This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44, 65). Only God can open the spiritually dead heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and calls them by name with such compelling power that they all follow — and never perish (John 10:3–4, 14).

The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the great missionary hope.

John Piper 

You Can't Clean Up What Only Jesus Can Change

“Among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” 

EPHESIANS 2:3

 

PONDER THIS

I read about a missionary who went to the mission field. They showed her where the missionary residence was, and it was a nice little cottage, but the floor was filthy so she decided she would scrub the floor. And she scrubbed the floor, but she couldn’t get the dirt up. She proceeded to put on more water and more suds.

She got down on her hands and knees and kept scrubbing, but it was still dirty. Over and over again she’d scrub but it was still dirty. Finally, somebody said, “Madam, I hate to tell you, but that is a dirt floor.” She was scrubbing a dirt floor, and the more she scrubbed the more dirt came up. You can never take your sinful nature and clean it up because your sinful nature is like that dirt floor.

All people are sinful in their nature. You may think you have not done so many bad things, but God looks at your nature. This is why we all need Jesus.

When have you tried to clean up your sin in your own strength?

How does a right understanding of our nature help us understand the Gospel?

PRACTICE THIS

List the ways you have seen God transform you from being a slave to sin to being free in Christ. Pray and ask Him to keep transforming you from the inside out.

 LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Christ Is Like Sunlight

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. 

(Hebrews 1:3)

Jesus relates to God the way radiance relates to glory, or the way the rays of sunlight relate to the sun.

Keep in mind that every analogy between God and natural things is imperfect and will distort if you press it. Nevertheless, consider for example,

There is no time when the sun exists without the beams of radiance. They cannot be separated. The radiance is co-eternal with the glory. Christ is co-eternal with God the Father.

The radiance is the glory radiating out. It is not essentially different from the glory. Christ is God standing forth as separate but not essentially different from the Father.

Thus the radiance is eternally begotten, as it were, by the glory — not created or made. If you put a solar-activated calculator in the sunlight, numbers appear on the face of the calculator. These, you could say, are created or made by the sun, but they are not what the sun is. But the rays of the sun are an extension of the sun. So Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, but not made or created.

We see the sun by means of seeing the rays of the sun. So we see God the Father by seeing Jesus. The rays of the sun arrive here about eight minutes after they leave the sun, and the round ball of fire that we see in the sky is the image — the exact representation — of the sun; not because it is a painting of the sun, but because it is the sun streaming forth in its radiance.

So I commend this great Person to you that you might trust in him and love him and worship him. He is alive and sitting at the right hand of God with all power and authority and will one day come in great glory. He has that exalted place because he is himself God the Son, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

John Piper 

Is Your Life Still Making a Difference?

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” MATTHEW 5:13

 

PONDER THIS

Salt speaks of the saving life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And what does salt do? Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth.” He was speaking to fishermen who preserved their fish with salt. For one thing, salt decontaminates. There’s a purifying element to salt. It is the salty ocean that bathes the shores of this world, that keeps this Earth from decaying. If you took the salt out of the ocean, everything would turn to a stench.

We need the decontamination of the salty Gospel in our world today. We can try to point to many different things, but the problem in our world is bigger than one issue. It is salt less saints. That’s where the problem is. The problem is in churches all around—salt that has lost its flavor in a world that is rotting. Jesus said, “You’re to be the salt of the Earth.” How will you respond?

What are some ways you can live as the “salt of the Earth?”

Who has shown you the hope and joy of the Gospel? How are those people like salt in your life?

PRACTICE THIS

Think about one person you can share the joy of being a follower of Christ with today. Share the hope of God’s cleansing Word.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

God’s Final, Decisive Word

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. (Hebrews 1:1–2)

The last days begin with the coming of the Son into the world. “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” We have been living in the last days since the days of Christ — that is, the last days of history as we know it before the final and full establishment of the kingdom of God.

The point of the writer of Hebrews is this: The Word that God spoke by his Son is the decisive Word. By the Son’s own design, that word has been captured for the ages in the writings of the New Testament. He explicitly made provision for this, lest every generation be left to itself to dream up the decisive word of God. This word will not be followed in this age by any greater word or replacement word. This is the Word of God — the person of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus, and the work of Jesus, captured by inspiration in the apostolic writings we call the New Testament.

When I complain that I don’t hear the Word of God, when I feel a desire to hear the voice of God, and get frustrated that he does not speak in ways that I may crave, what am I really saying? Am I really saying that I have exhausted this final, decisive Word revealed to me so fully and infallibly in the New Testament? Have I really exhausted this Word? Has it become so much a part of me that it has shaped my very being and given me life and guidance?

Or have I treated it lightly — skimmed it like a newspaper, clicked through like a quick series of internet postings, dipped in like a taste-tester — and then decided I wanted something different, something more? This is what I fear I am guilty of more than I wish to admit.

God is calling us to hear his final, decisive, inexhaustible Word — to meditate on it and study it and memorize it and linger over it and soak in it until it saturates us to the center of our being.

John Piper 

Do You Know the Bible But Miss Its Heart?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.” MATTHEW 23:23

 

PONDER THIS

The Pharisees had heads full of Scripture but hearts full of sin. They had religion, but they didn’t have reality. They had laws, but they didn’t have life. Oh, they were careful all right. They would dot every i and cross every t, but they didn’t understand Christ. They did not have the love of the Lord Jesus Christ in their hearts. Legalism is not the answer.

I am a Bible-believing Christian. I believe all of the Bible. I believe it is absolutely true. I believe all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God, but I am not a legalist. I pray to God that He will save me and you from the loveless leaven of legalism. Legalism is not what our world needs today. The Bible is a wonderful sword, but it is a terrible club.

How do you relate to the Pharisees? Where are you prone to legalism?

What is dangerous about legalism? How does it cause us to miss Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Discuss with a brother or sister in Christ what it looks like to walk in step with Christ instead of walking in legalism.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

 

The Master Servant

. . . so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:7)

To me, the Bible’s most astonishing image of Christ’s second coming is in Luke 12:35–37, which pictures the return of a master from a marriage feast like this:

“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”

To be sure, we are called servants — and that no doubt means we are to do exactly as we are told. But the wonder of this picture is that the “master” insists on serving. We may have expected this during Jesus’s ministry on earth, since he said, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). But Luke 12:35–37 is a picture of the second coming, when the Son of Man comes in the blinding glory of his Father “with his mighty angels in flaming fire” as 2 Thessalonians 1:7–8 says. Why would Jesus be portrayed as a table waiter at the second coming?

Because the very heart of his glory is the fullness of grace that overflows in kindness to needy people. This is why Ephesians 2:7 says he aims “in the coming ages [to] show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

What is the greatness of our God? What is his uniqueness in the world? Isaiah answers: “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4 RSV). There is no other god like this. He never relinquishes the role of inexhaustible benefactor of his ever-dependent, happy people.

John Piper 

We Can Do Nothing

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Suppose you are totally paralyzed and can do nothing for yourself but talk. And suppose a strong and reliable friend promised to live with you and do whatever you needed done. How could you glorify this friend if a stranger came to see you?

Would you glorify his generosity and strength by trying to get out of bed and carry him? No! You would say, “Friend, please come lift me up, and would you put a pillow behind me so I can look at my guest? And would you please put my glasses on for me?”

And so your visitor would learn from your requests that you are helpless and that your friend is strong and kind. You glorify your friend by needing him, and by asking him for help, and counting on him.

In John 15:5, Jesus says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” So we really are paralyzed. Without Christ, we are capable of no Christ-exalting good. As Paul says in Romans 7:18, “Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”

But John 15:5 also says that God does intend for us to do much Christ-exalting good, namely bear fruit: “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” So as our strong and reliable friend — “I have called you friends” (John 15:15) — he promises to do for us, and through us, what we can’t do for ourselves.

How then do we glorify him? Jesus gives the answer in John 15:7: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” We pray! We ask God to do for us through Christ what we can’t do for ourselves — bear fruit.

John 15:8 gives the result: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.”

So how is God glorified by prayer? Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that he will provide the help we need.

John Piper 

Best Passage Ever

God put [Jesus] 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. 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. (Romans 3:25–26)

Romans 3:25–26 may be the most important verses in the Bible.

God is wholly just! And he justifies the ungodly! Really? A just judge acquitting the guilty!

Not either/or! Both! He acquits the guilty, but is not guilty in doing so. This is the greatest news in the world!

“[God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He takes our sin. We take his righteousness.

“By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). Whose flesh? Christ’s. Whose sin condemned in that flesh? Ours. For us then? No condemnation!

“[Christ] bore our sins in his body on the tree.” (1 Peter 2:24)

“Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)

“If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)

If the most terrifying news in the world is that we have fallen under the condemnation of our Creator and that he is bound by his own righteous character to preserve the worth of his glory by pouring out his wrath on our sin . . .

. . . Then the best news in all the world (the gospel!) is that God has decreed and enacted a way of salvation that also upholds the worth of his glory, the honor of his Son, and the eternal salvation of his elect. Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

John Piper 

God’s Wise Mercy

We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:23–24)

Over against the terrifying news that we have fallen under the condemnation of our Creator and that he is bound by his own righteous character to preserve the worth of his glory by pouring out eternal wrath on our sin, there is the wonderful news of the gospel.

This is a truth no one can ever learn from nature. The truth of the gospel has to be told to neighbors and preached in churches and carried by missionaries.

The good news is that God himself has decreed a way to satisfy the demands of his justice without condemning the whole human race.

Hell is one way to settle accounts with sinners and uphold his justice. But there is another way. God provided another way. This is the gospel.

The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God. There it is. The gospel. Let me say it again slowly: The wisdom of God has ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.

And what is this wisdom? The death of the Son of God for sinners! “We preach Christ crucified . . . the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23–24).

The death of Christ is the wisdom of God by which the love of God saves sinners from the wrath of God, all the while upholding and demonstrating the righteousness of God in Christ.

John Piper 

The Grave Doesn't Get the Last Word

“In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” COLOSSIANS 2:11-12

 

PONDER THIS

When you come out of the waters of baptism, you’re saying, “I have come out of the grave of that old life. I have risen to walk with the Lord Jesus because I've been born again. I have a new life.”

Baptism speaks of your past—you’re buried. It speaks of your present—a new life. And it also speaks of your future. One of these days they are going to put each of us in the grave, but I want to tell you that the grave that could not hold the Lord Jesus will not be able to hold you down. And we will be in the likeness of His resurrection, and the God who raised up Jesus Christ from the grave is the God who’s going to raise up each of us. Therefore, we don’t need to fear death.

I want you to know, one of these days, we are all going to be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air. We’d be foolish to be afraid of death in the same way a grubby, wormy caterpillar wouldn’t be afraid of being a butterfly.

How have you experienced the hope of the resurrection in daily life?

How does the hope of your future in Christ change your perspective on death?

PRACTICE THIS

Share with a friend your testimony in terms of the things that you have buried, the new life you have, and the future of your hope beyond the grave.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Are You Ready to Show the World Whose You Are?

“Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.” ACTS 8:37-39

 

PONDER THIS

Why should you be baptized? Baptism proclaims your commitment to Jesus. The Bible says, “We were buried with Him” (Romans 6:4). Baptism says, “Jesus, I’m identifying myself with You openly and publicly.” Someone may ask, “Does baptism make you a Christian?” No. But it does show you’re a Christian.

I have a wedding ring I wear. Do you know what that ring means? It means I love Joyce. It says I belong to Joyce. It doesn’t make me married, but it shows I’m married. And it shows I’m not ashamed to let everybody know I’m married. I belong to another person. I belong to my wife that I love with all my heart, and when you get baptized, you’re saying, “I belong to Jesus.” When Jesus was baptized, He identified Himself with us, and when we get baptized, we identify ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.

What are some things that change when you make a commitment to someone?

Have you ever had a difficult time proclaiming your commitment to Jesus? Why or why not?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out a few ways you demonstrate the commitment you have made to Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Happy God

Sound doctrine [is] in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed [that is, happy] God. (1 Timothy 1:10–11)

A great part of God’s glory is his happiness.

It was inconceivable to the apostle Paul that God could be denied infinite joy and still be all-glorious. To be infinitely glorious was to be infinitely happy. He used the phrase, “the glory of the happy God,” because it is a glorious thing for God to be as happy as he is — infinitely happy.

God’s glory consists much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination.

This is the gospel: “the gospel of the glory of the happy God.” That’s a quote from the Bible! It is good news that God is gloriously happy.

No one would want to spend eternity with an unhappy God. If God is unhappy, then the goal of the gospel is not a happy goal, and that means it would be no gospel at all.

But, in fact, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says, “Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). Jesus lived and died that his joy — God’s joy — might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15:11; 17:13). Therefore, the gospel is “the gospel of the glory of the happy God.”

The happiness of God is first and foremost a happiness in his Son. Thus, when we share in the happiness of God, we share in the very pleasure that the Father has in the Son.

This is why Jesus made the Father known to us. At the end of his great prayer in John 17, he said to his Father, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). He made God known so that God’s pleasure in his Son might be in us and become our pleasure in him.

John Piper