You Are Never Too Far for God to Reach

PRAY OVER THIS

“Then she lulled him to sleep on her knees, and called for a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him. And she said, ‘The Philistines are upon you, Samson!’ So he awoke from his sleep, and said, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.”

Judges 16:19-20

 

PONDER THIS

Many people today find themselves without the power of God but don’t realize it. They were once faithful deacons, Sunday school teachers, and evangelists, but they have so compromised and played in sin that the power of God is gone from them, and they don’t even know it. It is scary to think I could come and stand and preach or minister without that anointing and power of God. It’s scary to think about how many there are who have begun in the Spirit and ended in the flesh. What is beautiful about God is that this point of despair does not have to be the end of the story.

Even in his lowest moment, Samson began to pray to God (Judges 16:28). He began to repent. God had brought him low, but his eyes that were physically blind began to open spiritually. He came to God and pleaded for one more chance. I don’t care what you may have done, our God is a God of mercy. Our God is a God of forgiveness. Our God is a God of the second chance. Don’t believe the lie that you’ve gone too far from His grace.

When have you cried out to God in repentance? How can this serve as a reminder of God’s ongoing grace in your life?

What is your relationship with God like right now? How do you need to respond if you realize you aren’t where you thought you were?

PRACTICE THIS

Talk to a mentor or trusted friend and ask him or her to share areas where you may be depending on your own strength over the Lord’s.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

How Do We Imitate God

PRAY OVER THIS

“Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Ephesians 5:1-2

 

PONDER THIS

Have you ever thought about how God sustains your life? For you to live this day means God has sustained your life. For you to fail to live this day, God does not have to take your life, all He has to do is stop giving it. Every day is a gift from God. His mercies are new every morning. It is because of the Lord’s mercy that we’re not consumed.

Ephesians 2:4 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us…” Do you know how God counts His riches? Not in silver or gold, but in His mercy. When you’re merciful, you’re being Christlike. To be unmerciful is to be unlike Him. Today’s passage reminds us we are to be imitators of God. This does not mean imitation in the false sense: it means to really be like Him. Do we strive to live like Him in our mercy? In this way, we live as testimonies of who God is. We show people the mercy we have been given by the mercy we extend. If God, in love, has been merciful to us, how much more should we be merciful to one another?

Who are some people in your life who imitate God? What are they like?

What are some opportunities you have to be merciful this week?

PRACTICE THIS

Consider what it would look like to imitate God throughout your day. What would be different about your day? What would be the same? Take steps toward this imitation today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

God’s Invitation to Be Made Whole

PRAY OVER THIS

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Ephesians 2:4-7

 

PONDER THIS

God will enable your will, but God will not coerce your will. If God coerces your will—if your relationship with Him is forced—then you’re no longer a man, you’re a machine. And God can have no fellowship with a machine. If you want to come to Christ, you may. But if you don’t want to come to Christ, He’ll not force you. The Bible says “whoever believes” may come (John 3:16). If you’ve not yet given your heart to Jesus Christ, I invite you to be made whole.

If you don’t want to come, there are not enough angels in Heaven that God would allow one of them to drag you down the aisle. But if you want to come, there are not enough demons in Hell or out of Hell or wherever they may be to keep you from coming. God has given you a will. And our Lord asks you, “Will you be made whole?” Do you see the brokenness in your life that needs to be redeemed by Him? Are you sick and tired of being blind in your sin? You can be made whole.

Have you been made whole in Christ? How is God speaking to you about that today?

Why is it important to remember that you are made complete in Christ?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray for another Christian you know and take action to remind that person he or she is made whole in Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Have Mercy on Me, O God

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1)

Three times: “Have mercy,” “according to your steadfast love,” and “according to your abundant mercy.”

This is what God had promised in Exodus 34:6–7:

“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty.”

David knew that there were guilty who would not be forgiven. And there were guilty who by some mysterious work of redemption would not be counted as guilty, but would be forgiven. Psalm 51 is his way of laying hold on that mystery of mercy.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” We know more of the mystery of this redemption than David did. We know Christ. But we lay hold of the mercy in the same way he did.

The decisive thing he does is turn, helpless, to the mercy and love of God. Today that means turning, helpless, to Christ, whose blood secures all the mercy we need.

John Piper 

God Forgives and Is Still Just

Nathan the prophet comes to David after his adultery and murder and says, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” (2 Samuel 12:13–14)

This is outrageous. Uriah is dead. Bathsheba is raped. The baby will die. And Nathan says, “The Lord has put away your sin.”

Just like that? David committed adultery. He ordered murder. He lied. He “despised the word of the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:9). He scorned God. And the Lord simply “put away [his] sin”?!

What kind of a righteous Judge is God? You don’t just pass over rape and murder and lying. Righteous judges don’t do that.

This was one of Paul’s greatest theological problems — very different from the ones people struggle with today: how can God forgive sin and still be righteous? Here is what Paul said in Romans 3:25–26:

God put [Christ] 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.

In other words, the outrage that we feel when God seems to simply pass over David’s sin would be good outrage if God were simply sweeping David’s sin under the rug. He is not.

God sees, from the time of David, down the centuries to the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, who would die in David’s place, so that David’s faith in God’s mercy and God’s future redeeming work unites David with Christ. And in God’s all-knowing mind, David’s sins are counted as Christ’s sins and Christ’s righteousness is counted as his righteousness, and God justly passes over David’s sin for Christ’s sake.

The death of the Son of God is outrageous enough, and the glory of God that it upholds is great enough, that God is vindicated in passing over David’s adultery and murder and lying. And ours.

And so God maintains his perfect righteousness and justice while at the same time showing mercy to those who have faith in Jesus, no matter how many or how monstrous their sins. This is unspeakably good news.

John Piper 

God Forgives and Is Still Just

Nathan the prophet comes to David after his adultery and murder and says, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” (2 Samuel 12:13–14)

This is outrageous. Uriah is dead. Bathsheba is raped. The baby will die. And Nathan says, “The Lord has put away your sin.”

Just like that? David committed adultery. He ordered murder. He lied. He “despised the word of the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:9). He scorned God. And the Lord simply “put away [his] sin”?!

What kind of a righteous Judge is God? You don’t just pass over rape and murder and lying. Righteous judges don’t do that.

This was one of Paul’s greatest theological problems — very different from the ones people struggle with today: how can God forgive sin and still be righteous? Here is what Paul said in Romans 3:25–26:

God put [Christ] 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.

In other words, the outrage that we feel when God seems to simply pass over David’s sin would be good outrage if God were simply sweeping David’s sin under the rug. He is not.

God sees, from the time of David, down the centuries to the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, who would die in David’s place, so that David’s faith in God’s mercy and God’s future redeeming work unites David with Christ. And in God’s all-knowing mind, David’s sins are counted as Christ’s sins and Christ’s righteousness is counted as his righteousness, and God justly passes over David’s sin for Christ’s sake.

The death of the Son of God is outrageous enough, and the glory of God that it upholds is great enough, that God is vindicated in passing over David’s adultery and murder and lying. And ours.

And so God maintains his perfect righteousness and justice while at the same time showing mercy to those who have faith in Jesus, no matter how many or how monstrous their sins. This is unspeakably good news.

John Piper 

God Forgives and Is Still Just

Nathan the prophet comes to David after his adultery and murder and says, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die.” (2 Samuel 12:13–14)

This is outrageous. Uriah is dead. Bathsheba is raped. The baby will die. And Nathan says, “The Lord has put away your sin.”

Just like that? David committed adultery. He ordered murder. He lied. He “despised the word of the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:9). He scorned God. And the Lord simply “put away [his] sin”?!

What kind of a righteous Judge is God? You don’t just pass over rape and murder and lying. Righteous judges don’t do that.

This was one of Paul’s greatest theological problems — very different from the ones people struggle with today: How can God forgive sin and still be righteous? Here is what Paul said in Romans 3:25–26:

God put [Christ] 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.

In other words, the outrage that we feel when God seems to simply pass over David’s sin would be good outrage if God were simply sweeping David’s sin under the rug. He is not.

God sees, from the time of David, down the centuries to the death of his Son, Jesus Christ, who would die in David’s place, so that David’s faith in God’s mercy and God’s future redeeming work unites David with Christ. And in God’s all-knowing mind, David’s sins are counted as Christ’s sins and Christ’s righteousness is counted as his righteousness, and God justly passes over David’s sin for Christ’s sake.

The death of the Son of God is outrageous enough, and the glory of God that it upholds is great enough, that God is vindicated in passing over David’s adultery and murder and lying. And ours.

And so God maintains his perfect righteousness and justice while at the same time showing mercy to those who have faith in Jesus, no matter how many or how monstrous their sins. This is unspeakably good news.

John Piper