The Golden Chain That Cannot Be Broken

“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

ROMANS 8:30

 

 

PONDER THIS

There is an eternal, golden chain of redemption that cannot be broken. God predestined you, then God called you, then God justified you, and then God glorified you. You see, salvation is not your work, it is God’s work, and that’s the reason the Apostle Paul said he was “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). This should cause us to say amen. What has been decreed by Heaven cannot be annulled by Hell. What has been settled in eternity cannot be undone in time. We were in the heart and mind of God before He spun this world into space. And we are the ones He has called.

How would you live differently today if you really believed you were this secure in God’s hand?

What usually keeps you from believing this?

PRACTICE THIS

Read Romans 8:31-38 for further reflection on God’s matchless love for His people.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Justified, Sanctified, Glorified

 

“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” 1 JOHN 3:2
 
PONDER THIS

When you get saved, you are justified immediately in your spirit. This means you are made right with God. The Bible speaks of the spirits of just people being made perfect. Every sin, every blot, every blur, every blemish, every stain is buried in the grave of God’s forgetfulness.

Not only are you justified immediately in your spirit, but you are also sanctified progressively in your soul. God is working on you each day to make you more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, you are glorified ultimately in the body. One of these days, He’s going to change my vile body so that it might be like His glorious body. What I’m going to be like, I don’t know, but I know one thing: I’m going to be like Jesus, and that’s good enough for me. We can’t be dogmatic about details we can’t understand. We just hold onto the hope and joy that we are going to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. That is not just a far-off hope but a present reality that we see more each day and will see ultimately in glory.

What are some ways God has shaped you to be more like Him during your time as a Christian?
What are some areas of your life that don’t reflect Jesus? How can those areas begin to change and reflect Christ?

PRACTICE THIS

Ask God to help you in the areas where you don’t reflect Him. Ask Him to make you more like Him each day.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

We Honor What We Enjoy

“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth.” (Isaiah 58:13–14)

It is possible to pursue God without glorifying God. If we want our quest to honor God, we must pursue him for the joy of fellowship with him.

Consider the Sabbath as an illustration of this. The Lord rebukes his people for seeking their own pleasure on his holy day. “Turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day.” But what does he mean? Does he mean that we should not seek our joy on the Lord’s Day? No, because the next thing he says is, “Call the Sabbath a delight.” And in verse 14, “You shall take delight in the Lord.” So what he is criticizing is that they are delighting in their own business on the Sabbath rather than delighting in the beauty of their God and the rest and holiness that this day stands for.

He’s not rebuking their hedonism. He’s rebuking the weakness of it. As C. S. Lewis said, “We are far too easily pleased.” They have settled for secular interests and thus honor them above the Lord.

Notice that calling the Sabbath “a delight” is parallel to calling the holy day of the Lord “honorable.” “If you . . . call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable . . .” This simply means you honor what you delight in. Or you glorify what you enjoy.

The enjoyment of God and the glorification of God are one. His eternal purpose and our eternal pleasure unite in one experience of worship. This is what the Lord’s Day is for. Indeed, this is what all of life is for.

John Piper 

Unable to Be Undone

PRAY OVER THIS

“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Romans 8:30

 

PONDER THIS

There is an eternal, golden chain of redemption that cannot be broken. God predestined you, then God called you, then God justified you, and then God glorified you. You see, salvation is not your work, it is God’s work, and that’s the reason the Apostle Paul said he was “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). This should cause us to say amen. What has been decreed by Heaven cannot be annulled by Hell. What has been settled in eternity cannot be undone in time. We were in the heart and mind of God before He spun this world into space. And we are the ones He has called.

How would you live differently today if you really believed you were this secure in God’s hand?

What usually keeps you from believing this?

PRACTICE THIS

Read Romans 8:31-38 for further reflection on God’s matchless love for His people.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Why You Have a Body

For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

God did not create the physical-material universe willy-nilly. He had a purpose, namely, to add to the ways his glory is externalized and made manifest. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).

Our bodies fit into that same category of physical things that God created for this reason. He is not going to back out on his plan to glorify himself through human beings and human bodies.

Why does God go to all the trouble to dirty his hands, as it were, with our decaying, sin-stained flesh, in order to reestablish it as a resurrection body and clothe it with glory and immortality? Answer: Because his Son paid the price of death so that the Father’s purpose for the material universe would be fulfilled, namely, that he would be glorified in it, including in our bodies, forever and ever.

That’s what the text says: “You were bought with a price [namely, the death of his Son]. So glorify God in your body.” God will not disregard or dishonor the work of his Son. God will honor the work of his Son by raising our bodies from the dead, and we will use our bodies to glorify him forever and ever.

That is why you have a body now. And that is why it will be raised to be like Christ’s glorious body.

John Piper 

The greatest way to give God glory isn't what you think...

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” Psalm 18:2

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Do you know the greatest thing you could do to give God glory? It’s not to give a million dollars. It’s not to give your body to be burned. It’s not to go overseas as a missionary.

The greatest thing you could do to glorify God is to believe God. Faith says, “God, You are trustworthy.” Don’t just sing about your belief in a great God or pray about your belief in a great God or even read about your belief in a great God. You must believe God. A strong faith glorifies God!

ACTION POINT:

Meditate on the names of God today: Prince of Peace, Lamb of God, Bright and Morning Star, Dayspring, The Good Shepherd, Messiah, Alpha and Omega.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Glorify God in Your Body

You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for. It might be singing in church. It might we sweeping the kitchen floor.

Don’t just think about worship services when you think about worship. That is a huge limitation which is not in the Bible. All of life is supposed to be worship.

Take breakfast, for example, or mid morning snacks. First Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Now eating and drinking are about as basic as you can get. What could be more real or more ordinarily human than eating and drinking? And Paul says, in effect, let all your eating and drinking be worship.

Or take sex. Paul says the alternative to fornication is worship.

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18–20)

That is, worship with your body by the way you handle your sexuality.

Or take death for a final example. We will experience death in our bodies. In fact, it will be the last act of the body on this earth. The body bids farewell. How shall we worship in that last act of the body? We see the answer in Philippians 1:20–21. Paul says that his hope is that Christ would be magnified — worshiped, shown to be worthy — in his body by death. Then he adds, “For to me . . . to die is gain.” We express the infinite worth of Christ in dying by counting death as gain.

You have a body. But it is not yours. “You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

You are always in a temple. Always worship.

John Piper

What Is Your Aim?

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. . . . And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (1 Corinthians 10:31; Colossians 3:17)

When you get up in the morning and you face the day, what do you say to yourself about your hopes for the day? When you look from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because you have lived?

If you say, “I don’t even think like that. I just get up and do what I’ve got to do,” then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means of grace and a source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy. It is crystal clear in the Bible, including these texts, that God means for us to aim consciously at something significant in our days.

God’s revealed will for you is that when you get up in the morning, you don’t drift aimlessly through the day letting mere circumstances alone dictate what you do, but that you aim at something — that you focus on a certain kind of purpose. I’m talking about children here, and teenagers, and adults — single, married, widowed, moms, and every trade and every profession.

Aimlessness is akin to lifelessness. Dead leaves in the back yard may move around more than anything else — more than the dog, more than the children. The wind blows this way, they go this way. The wind blows that way, they go that way. They tumble, they bounce, they skip, they press against a fence, but they have no aim whatsoever. They are full of motion and empty of life.

God did not create humans in his image to be aimless, like lifeless leaves blown around in the backyard of life. He created us to be purposeful — to have a focus and an aim for all our days. What is yours today? What is yours for the new year? A good place to start is 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

John Piper

What Would Jesus Do?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Did you know that the best argument for Christianity and the best argument against Christianity is…your life? That’s right. Not only are you to be a witness of and for Jesus, you are to be a part of the evidence of His reality. What would happen if every Christian began to walk as Jesus walked, talk as Jesus talked, and love as Jesus loved? The world would take notice.

ACTION POINT:

Before you say or do anything today, ask yourself, “What Would Jesus Do?”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers