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 

You Don't Have to Live the Old Way Anymore

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ROMANS 6:1-2

 

PONDER THIS

Baptism speaks about what God did for you when He saved you. When we get saved, we die to sin. That’s the old way; being saved means dying to the old way. There was a teenage boy who lived in West Palm Beach. He gave his heart to Jesus Christ, and when he did, that teenage boy died. His name was Adrian Rogers. The old Adrian died. When did he die? He died not as a teenage boy, but he died 2000 years ago when Jesus died on that cross, because His death had my name on it. He took my sins, carried them to the cross, and was hung up there for me. He suffered, bled, and died in agony for me. He bore my sins in His body on the cross. He paid my sin debt in full. When He died, through faith, I died with Him.

How have you experienced a death to your old way of living through Jesus?

Why is this a requirement for every follower of Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of things that you have died to or need to die to now from your old way of living. Ask God for the power through His Spirit to die to those old-way things that remain.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Your Old Life Is Buried for Good

“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” ROMANS 6:3-4

 

PONDER THIS

I visited our wonderful missionaries in Kenya, Jim and Peggy Hooten. Jim took me out in his Land Rover. We went on the hard road, then we got on the gravel road, then we got on no road. Then we kept going further and further out to the foot of Kilimanjaro, there in the Maasai country where those great tall magnificent Maasai warriors are. Jim Hooten had a tent out there. That was his church, and he was telling those warriors about the Lord Jesus. Then he said, “Come over here, I want to show you this.” He had dug a pit in the ground that looked so much like the graves that I have stood beside so many times when I preach funerals. He’d lined that pit with plastic, and he had brought water on his land Rover and filled the pit with water. He baptized the Maasai in that grave. It looked like a grave because indeed that’s what the baptistery is—it is a liquid tomb.

What connection is there between a grave and the practice of baptism?

Why is it important to recognize the death that takes place in our baptism?

PRACTICE THIS

Journal today about your experience of being baptized into the death of Jesus and how it has changed your life.

LWF Dr, Adrian Rogers 

 

The All-Satisfying Object

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

The quest for pleasure is not even optional, but commanded (in the Psalms): “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” (Psalm 36:8 NASB).

I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). Taste. Taste! And see.

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103).

As C.S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in him (Psalm 43:4). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

John Piper 

Give the World the Answer It's Searching For

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  EPHESIANS 6:12

 

PONDER THIS

Is there anybody who would deny that these are evil days? We’re up against the organized, mobilized, and demonized forces of Hell—and those forces come at us in every way. Sometimes it’s a direct attack. Sometimes it is very subtle. There is a war, but there also has never been a greater day, a greater age, and a greater opportunity to preach the Gospel of Jesus. There is more hunger for the Gospel now than ever before. There is more openness to the Gospel than ever before. You say, “Pastor Rogers, I thought you said things were getting bad?” They are. As the night grows darker, the saints grow brighter. The hungers are also more intense. There are people who are looking, waiting, and wondering, “Can we find a way? Is there an answer?” And there is an answer. The answer is Christ. But we need a generation of Spirit-filled people.

How does awareness of our spiritual battle better prepare us to fight it?

Who do you know who is struggling and looking for answers today?

PRACTICE THIS

Initiate a connection or conversation with the person who came to mind who might be struggling with answers today. Take opportunities to share the hope of Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Make War with Unbelief

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:16–17)

When I am anxious about getting old, I battle unbelief with the promise, “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4).

When I am anxious about dying, I battle unbelief with the promise that “none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:7–9).

When I am anxious that I may make shipwreck of my faith and fall away from God, I battle unbelief with the promises, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6); and, “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

Join me in this battle! Let us make war, not with other people, but with our own unbelief. Unbelief in the promises of God is the root of anxiety, which, in turn, is the root of so many other sins. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God, Paul said in Ephesians 6:17. The shield by which we quench Satan’s fiery deceits is faith (verse 16) — faith in that very word of God. So take up the shield in your left hand and the sword in your right hand, and let us fight the good fight of faith.

Take up the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit for help, lay the promises up in your heart, and fight the good fight — to live by faith in future grace.

John Piper 

Why Is Your Christian Life So Hard?

“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

ROMANS 8:37

 

PONDER THIS

I used to play football. My team would work and practice and hit and do all these things to take a bag full of zipped-up air across a pasture and over a white line on that field. It actually sounds kind of dumb when you think about it. But when you finally get that piece of pigskin over that white line, they call it a touchdown, and everybody goes bananas. That’s the goal, but there’s a group of fellows on the other side that says, “You’re not going to do that.” That’s what the game’s all about.

But let’s say I have figured out a secret to victory. We need to come out on the field at about 2:00 a.m. when the other team is not there. And then we can take that ball and shove it over that white line as many times as we want. Right? Well yes, theoretically. We could do that, but why don’t people do that? Because that’s no victory. If there’s no opposition, there’s no victory. God has not called you to a life of ease, but He has called you to a life of victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be unto God who causes us always to triumph in the Lord Jesus Christ.

How does today’s illustration help you understand what it means to have victory in Jesus?

Who or what is the opposition you face each day as a follower of Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Journal about the opposition you are currently facing in your walk with Jesus. Pray over these thoughts and thank God for the promised victory in Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Jesus’s Pursuit of Joy

 

[Look] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

Does the example of Jesus contradict the principle of Christian Hedonism? Namely, that love is the way of joy and that one should choose it for that very reason, lest one be found begrudging obedience to the Almighty or chafing under the privilege of being a channel of grace or belittling the promised reward.

Hebrews 12:2 seems to say fairly clearly that Jesus did not contradict this principle.

The greatest labor of love that ever happened was possible because Jesus pursued the greatest imaginable joy, namely, the joy of being exalted to God’s right hand in the assembly of a redeemed people: “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross!”

In saying this, the writer means to give Jesus as another example, along with the saints of Hebrews 11, of those who are so eager for and confident in the joy God offers that they reject the “fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25) and choose ill-treatment in order to be aligned with God’s will.

It is not unbiblical, therefore, to say that at least part of what sustained Christ in the dark hours of Gethsemane was the hope of joy beyond the cross. This does not diminish the reality and greatness of his love for us, because the joy in which he hoped was the joy of leading many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10).

His joy is in our redemption, which redounds to God’s glory. We share the joy with Jesus and God gets the glory.

John Piper 

Nothing About Your Life Surprises Jesus

“‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who would betray Him.” JOHN 6:64

 

PONDER THIS

Do you think Judas’ betrayal took Jesus by surprise? Do you think He said, “What a revolting development this is! Oh no, how could I have chosen Judas? Wow, look, here’s a man I was trusting, and now he’s betrayed me!” Oh no, friend. Jesus chose Judas with His eyes wide open. Jesus knew Judas never believed in Him. John 6:70-71 says, “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?’ He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.”

Peter endured. Judas didn’t. Why did Peter, who denied Jesus, endure to the end, and why did Judas not endure? Very simple. Peter had faith; Judas didn’t have any. Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe. Judas never believed. Simon Peter did. And those who endure to the end, those are they who are saved.

Today we have discussed the way Peter and Judas were different. How were they similar? What might have led people to believe Judas would be the one to endure at the time?

How does the difference between Peter and Judas help you further understand the distinguishing mark of those who endure to the end in following Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out a list comparing Peter and Judas. List how they were the same and the defining mark that made them different.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Only Need to Be Saved Once

“For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”

HEBREWS 10:14

 

PONDER THIS

I want to give you a challenge. Find anywhere in the Bible where anybody was ever saved twice. You can’t do it. Do you know why? It’s impossible to be saved twice. Nowhere in the Bible will you ever find someone who was saved twice. Some people believe you can get saved and lose your salvation. They believe you must be born again and again and again and again. They believe you keep on getting saved. But as today’s verse reminds us: by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. Did you know for you to be saved twice Jesus would have to die twice? When you were saved, you received a ticket marked good for one salvation. You are perfected forever. Jesus is never going back to that cross. He’s never going to die again. By one offering we’re perfected forever.

What kinds of things cause you to question the validity of your salvation?

What might give you further assurance of your salvation? What might indicate that you’ve never been saved?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend time looking up passages that speak of the once-for-all assurance of salvation. If you have doubts about your salvation, ask God to reveal the truth to you based on His Word.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Are Safer Than You Think

“And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” JOHN 10:28

 

PONDER THIS

In 1937, the Golden Gate bridge was built. I can remember very vividly the first time I saw that monumental structure as they began to build. At that time, it was the world’s longest suspension bridge. But as they worked, they built it high above those swirling, perilous waters. Many of the workers were afraid that they might fall—and it seemed like the very fear of falling caused them to fall. At first, they failed to build a safety net when they were building the bridge and 23 fell from the first section of the bridge.

On the next section of the bridge, they spent $100,000 to build a safety net. Back in that time, that was a monumental sum, but they felt it was worth it. After they built the safety net, only 10 fell. But all 10 that fell were caught and were safe; lives were not lost. With the safety net there, the work went 25 percent faster. The people could concentrate on their work because they knew that beneath them was a safety net. So it is with the child of God! When we know our future is secure, we can concentrate on God’s work in the present.

How does it change your perspective to be reminded that nothing can take you from God’s hand?

How would you live differently today if you really believed you were totally secure in Christ?

PRACTICE THIS

Take one action today based on your security in Christ. This doesn’t mean living recklessly, it means living with bold faith.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Are You Trusting Jesus Right Now?

“He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 JOHN 5:12

 

PONDER THIS

I’ve heard it said that if you cannot name the time and the place you were saved, you’re not saved. Have you ever heard that? There’s just one thing wrong with that—it’s not in the Bible. The Bible never tells you to look back to past experiences for proof of your salvation. It does not say, “He who believed has eternal life.” It says, “He who believes.”

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past. If you’re not believing on Jesus today, you’re not saved. And if you are believing on Jesus today, you did believe on Jesus in the past. It’s impossible to presently believe on Him without having believed on Him in the past. Indeed, there was a time. Indeed, there was a place. But, if you’re not believing on Jesus now, whatever you call the past time and the place, there’s something wrong with it. The big question is: are you believing Jesus now? If you have the time and the place, wonderful. But if you don’t, that doesn’t mean you’re not saved. If you’re trusting Jesus right now, you are saved.

Are you more prone to rely on past or present evidence as assurance of your salvation?

What evidence is there in your life right now that you are trusting Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out the current fruit in your life that displays your trust in Jesus. Be honest with yourself. If the fruit is not there, respond to God, seeking salvation in Him today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Do You Know You’re Saved?

“These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” 1 JOHN 5:13

 

PONDER THIS

The assurance of your salvation is extremely important. We’re not talking about denominational preference. We’re not talking about little idiosyncrasies of doctrine. We’re not talking about political opinions. We’re not talking about matters that only count in this world. We’re talking about eternal life. We’re talking about your soul. When God made you, God breathed into your nostrils the breath of life, and you became a living soul. You could no more cease to exist than God Himself could cease to exist. Your soul will go on endless, timeless, dateless, and measureless—either in Heaven or in Hell. How important it is, therefore, that you absolutely know you’re saved.

What are the ways we can know that we have been saved by Christ? (Read all of 1 John 5 for more on this.)

How is God calling you to respond to Him today? Are there further steps you need to take?

PRACTICE THIS

Journal the steps you feel God is calling you to take today in response to Him. Take action to obey.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

 

You Are No Longer for Sale

“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