What the Resurrection Means for Us

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)

What does it mean to “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead”? Satan believes that God raised Jesus from the dead. He saw it happen. To answer this question, we need to ponder what the resurrection means for God’s people.

The meaning of the resurrection is that God is for us. He aims to close ranks with us. He aims to overcome all our sense of abandonment and alienation.

The resurrection of Jesus is God’s declaration to Israel and to the world that we cannot work our way to glory, but that he intends to do the impossible to get us there.

The resurrection is the promise of God that all who trust Jesus will be the beneficiaries of God’s power to lead us in paths of righteousness and through the valley of death.

Therefore, believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead is much more than accepting a fact. It means being confident that God is for you, that he has closed ranks with you, that he is transforming your life, and that he will save you for eternal joy.

Believing in the resurrection means trusting in all the promises of life and hope and righteousness for which it stands.

It means being so confident of God’s power and love that no fear of worldly loss or greed for worldly gain will lure us to disobey his will.

That’s the difference between Satan and the saints. Oh, might God circumcise our hearts to love him (Deuteronomy 30:6) and to rest in the resurrection of his Son.

John Piper 

 

What to Do When Doubt Creeps In

“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

One day the devil began to whisper to a little boy and said, “You’re not saved. You don’t feel right. You don’t deserve it. You’re not good enough.” And all the way home, the devil was just dogging the footsteps of that little boy.

The boy sat on the couch, trying to get it all sorted out because he wanted the absolute assurance that he was saved. He remembered John 5:24, “Verily, verily I say unto you” (KJV). Verily, verily? That means truly, truly. “I say unto you,” Jesus says, “He that heareth my word,” and the boy said, “I heard it.” “And believeth on him that sent me,” and the boy said, “I believed.” “Hath everlasting life,” and the boy said, “I have everlasting life. I’ve done it. The Word says so.”

By then, it seemed like Satan was so close he was under the couch. The boy took the Bible and stuck it under the couch, and said “Devil, read it for yourself.” When the devil gets on your trail, don’t argue with him; he’s not worth it. Point him to the Word of God and step out of the way.

When have you felt discouraged in your faith? What Scriptures encourage you in these times?
Who do you know who has struggled with assurance of faith? How can you provide encouragement?

PRACTICE THIS

Encourage someone who is struggling in his or her faith and pray for your friend to grow in assurance of salvation.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Energy for Today’s To-Dos

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

God is the decisive worker here. Work out your own salvation . . . for it is God who works in you, the willing and the working. God wills and he works for his good pleasure. But believing this does not make Christians passive. It makes them hopeful and energetic and courageous.

Each day there is a work to be done in our special ministry. Paul commands us to work at doing it. But he tells us how to do it in the power that God supplies: believe him! Believe the promise that in this day God will be at work in you to will and work for his good pleasure.

It is God himself, graciously at work each moment, that brings the promise of future grace into our present experience. It is not the gratitude for past grace that Paul focuses on when explaining how we work out our salvation. I mention this simply because so many Christians, when asked what the motive is for obedience, will say gratitude. But that is not what Paul emphasizes when he talks about motive and power for our working. He focuses on faith in what God is yet to do, not just what he has done. Work out your salvation! Why? How? For there is fresh grace for every moment from God. He is at work in your willing and doing every time you will and do. Believe that for the challenges of the next hour and the next thousand years.

The power of future grace is the power of the living Christ — always there to work for us at every future moment that we enter. So when Paul describes the effect of the grace of God that was with him, he says, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience — by word and deed” (Romans 15:18).

Therefore, since he would not dare to speak of anything but what Christ accomplished through his ministry, and yet he did, in fact, speak of what grace accomplished through his ministry (1 Corinthians 15:10), this must mean that the power of grace is the power of Christ.

Which means that the power we need for the next five minutes and the next five decades of ministry is the future grace of the omnipotent Christ, who will always be there for us — ready to will and ready to work for his good pleasure.

John Piper 

Religion Is Not Enough

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 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 1:15-16

 

PONDER THIS

To explain Jesus is impossible, to ignore Jesus is disastrous, and to deny Him is fatal. We need to understand who Jesus Christ is. My speech is too limited, my mind is too finite, and my heart is too small to tell all I want to tell about the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:19 says, “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell.” Jesus is not to be prominent in our lives; Jesus is to be preeminent. Jesus doesn’t just show the way; He is the way. Jesus doesn’t just give life; He is the life. He doesn’t just tell the truth; He is the truth.

God Himself is invisible. God in His essence is Spirit. God is unseeable, unknowable, and unapproachable unless we have some way to come to Him. We need someone to bring us to Him. Reason is not enough. Religion is not enough. Ritual is not enough. Jesus Christ is the One who makes the invisible God knowable. He is the image of the invisible God. You can never fully know God the Father unless you know God the Father through God the Son. It is through Jesus that you have access to God. You can’t make yourself better so you can go to God. Come broken to Jesus, and He is the way that will lead you to God.

What are some of the ways you have tried to get to God?

What is different between Jesus showing us the way and Him being the way? Why is that difference important?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend time reading the gospels, the Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Reflect on who Jesus is. Consider what it means to live rightly with Him and how that differs from the way you are living now.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Great Exchange

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed. (Romans 1:16–17)

We need righteousness to be acceptable to God. But we don’t have it. What we have is sin.

So, God has what we need and don’t deserve — righteousness; and we have what God hates and rejects — sin. What is God’s answer to this situation?

His answer is Jesus Christ, the Son of God who died in our place and bore our condemnation. “By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he [God] condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). Whose flesh bore the condemnation? His. Whose sins were being condemned? Ours. This is the great exchange. Here it is again in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

God lays our sins on Christ and punishes them in him. And in Christ’s obedient death, God fulfills and vindicates his righteousness and imputes (credits) it to us. Our sin on Christ; his righteousness on us.

We can hardly stress too much that Christ is God’s answer to our greatest problem. It is all owing to Christ.

You can’t love Christ too much. You can’t think about him too much, or thank him too much, or depend upon him too much. All our forgiveness, all our justification, all our righteousness is in Christ.

This is the gospel — the good news that our sins are laid on Christ and his righteousness is laid on us, and that this great exchange becomes ours not by works but by faith alone. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

Here is the good news that lifts burdens and gives joy and makes strong.

John Piper 

Paul’s Salvation Was for You

Formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. . . . I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:13–14, 16)

Paul’s conversion was for your sake. Did you hear that? Here it is again: “I received mercy for this reason, that Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” That’s us — you and me.

I hope you will hear this very personally. God had you in view when he chose Paul and saved him by sovereign grace just the way he did.

If you believe on Jesus for eternal life — or if you may yet believe on him for eternal life — Paul’s conversion is for your sake. The point of his conversion happening the way it did is to make Christ’s incredible patience vivid for you.

Remember that Paul’s pre-conversion life was a long, long trial to Jesus. “Why are you persecuting me?” Jesus asked on the Damascus road (Acts 9:4). “Your life of unbelief and rebellion is a persecution of me!” And yet Paul tells us in Galatians 1:15 that he had been set apart by God for his apostleship since before he was born. That’s amazing. It means that all his life up to the point of his conversion was one long abuse of God, and one long rejection and mockery of Jesus — who had chosen him to be an apostle before he was born.

That is why Paul says his conversion is a brilliant demonstration of Jesus’s patience. And that is what he offers us today.

It was for our sake that Jesus saved Paul when and how he did. To “display his perfect patience” to us (1 Timothy 1:16). Lest we lose heart. Lest we think he could not really save us. Lest we think he is prone to anger. Lest we think we have gone too far away. Lest we think our dearest one cannot be converted — suddenly, unexpectedly, by the sovereign, overflowing grace of Jesus.

John Piper 

A Decision to Follow

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

 

PONDER THIS

Have you decided on Jesus? I remember when I did. I was sitting in Northwood Baptist Church. I’d never gone to church, but somebody came and invited my parents to a revival meeting. I knew what it was to tell lies, to take God’s name in vain, to take things that didn’t belong to me, to cheat in school, and to get in street fights. I needed to be saved.

My dad sat as the preacher preached. And when the preacher gave an invitation, my dad got up and started down that aisle. I couldn’t believe it. There went my daddy! I looked up to him so much that when my dad got up, it was just like a stake in my heart. I thought, “Well, if my daddy needs to be saved, I surely need to be saved,” and I went down that aisle, right after my dad.

I didn’t know much. I was just giving all I knew of me to all I knew of Jesus, but it was enough, bless God. I’ve learned a lot more and I’ve done a lot more repenting after I got saved than I did that day.

Some years ago, I went back to that little church. I went in. I found that same spot. I got down on my knees, and I thanked the Lord that by His grace He enabled me to make a decision. That decision changed my life. Has Jesus changed everything for you?

When did you surrender to Jesus and trust Him for salvation? If you haven’t done so, how might He be speaking to you about that today?

How has the trajectory of your life been changed because of Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Ask a Christian friend how his or her life has been changed by Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

As Sure as God’s Love for His Son

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

God strips every pain of its destructive power. You must believe this or you will not thrive, or perhaps even survive, as a Christian, in the pressures and temptations of modern life.

There is so much pain, so many setbacks and discouragements, so many controversies and pressures. I do not know where I would turn, if I did not believe that almighty God is taking every setback and every discouragement and every controversy and every pressure and every pain, and stripping it of its destructive power, and making it work for the enlargement of my joy in God.

Listen to Paul’s astonishing words in 1 Corinthians 3:21–23, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” The world is ours. Life is ours. Death is ours. Which I take to mean: God reigns so supremely on behalf of his elect that everything which faces us in a lifetime of obedience and ministry will be subdued by the mighty hand of God and made the servant of our holiness and our everlasting joy in God.

If God is for us, and if God is God, then it is true that nothing can succeed against us. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all will infallibly and freely with him give us all things — all things — the world, life, death, and God himself.

Romans 8:32 is a precious friend. The promise of God’s future grace is simply overwhelming. But all-important is the foundation: I have called it the logic of heaven. Here is a place to stand against all obstacles. God did not spare his own Son! Therefore! Therefore! The logic of heaven! Therefore, how much more will he not spare any effort to give us all that Christ died to purchase — all things, all good, and all bad working for our good!

It is as sure as the certainty that he loved his Son!

John Piper 

A Nice Car on the Wrong Road

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” PHILIPPIANS 3:8-9

 

PONDER THIS

This passage is confusing to many of us. We ask “How could Paul put striving to keep the Ten Commandments and being religious on the negative side? It may not get him to Heaven, but at least those are good things.” But Paul said, “No. I count all these things but loss.” Why? Because those were the things he trusted in that kept him from the Lord.

Once, I had an engagement in South Florida. I rented a car, and it was nicer than I expected, so I was happy to have it. It was one of those beautiful Florida days, so I turned on the stereo, and I found the most gorgeous music. The road I was on was incredible too, very little traffic. After I had driven about two hours, I said, “I should be there already. This doesn’t look familiar. Something is wrong.” And then it dawned on me. I was going the wrong way. I was on the wrong road. The good car and the music and all these things that might be good were bad, because they distracted me, and I went in the wrong direction. That’s what religion is without the Lord. The worst form of badness is human goodness, if human goodness keeps you from salvation.

What are some good things that could distract us from God?

What things are distracting you from God right now? How can you address those distractions?

PRACTICE THIS

Write down a list of good things that could potentially distract you from God. Circle the ones that you struggle with the most. Pray and surrender those things to God.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Who is Salvation For

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

ROMANS 8:29-30

 

PONDER THIS

Some people wonder, “What if the devil were to take me away from Jesus?” Do you think he could? If he could, why hasn’t he? If that were the case, you’d be going to Heaven by the goodness of the devil. The only reason he hasn’t taken you away from Jesus is because he can’t. He can’t because you’re predestined to be like the Lord Jesus. You can be sure that God foreknew you were going to be saved. You can be sure that because you’re saved, you’re going to be like Jesus. And you can be sure of your calling to salvation. When Paul wrote today’s verse, he meant there’s going to be a whole family like Jesus.

Does God call some people to salvation and not others? No. Whenever the Gospel is preached, God is calling people to salvation. When you believe the truth, that’s what makes you a part of the chosen. How does God call people? By the Gospel. God’s way to salvation is clear; it is not just for the educated, the rich, or the qualified. He has made His plan for salvation clear in His Word and accessible to all who believe through Jesus. No matter how long you have been a Christian, this is the same Gospel that saved you, sustains you, and shapes the way you live.

What does it look like to live like Jesus? How is that different from the way you live right now?

What are some things that make it hard to live like Jesus?

PRACTICE THIS

Think about someone who lives like Jesus and ask that person to share how he or she has grown in reflecting Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Saving Faith Isn’t Easily Satisfied

If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. (Hebrews 11:15–16)

Faith sees the promised future that God offers and “desires” it. “As it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” Dwell on this for a moment.

There are many people who water down what saving faith is by making it a mere decision with no change of what one desires and seeks. But the point of this text in the great faith chapter in the Bible — Hebrews 11 — is that living and dying by faith means having new desires and seeking new satisfactions.

Verse 14 says that the saints of old (who are being commended for their faith here in Hebrews 11) were seeking a different kind of country than this world offered. And verse 16 says they were desiring something better than what a present earthly existence could offer. “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”

They had been so gripped by God that nothing short of being with God would satisfy.

So, this is true saving faith: seeing the promises of God from afar, and experiencing a change of values so that you desire and seek after and trust in the promises of God above what the world has to offer.

John Piper 

Believe the Alarm Clock

Pray Over This

“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

So many of us rely on whether we feel victorious to know whether we’re living a new life. The problem is, our feelings are the shallowest part of our nature but salvation is the deepest work of God. He doesn’t do the deepest work in the shallowest part. He doesn’t say, “Feel it.” He says, “Believe it.”

A woman woke up one morning, the alarm clock went off, but it seemed like she’d just gone to sleep. She said, “It could not be six o’clock in the morning.” But she looked at the alarm clock, and it said so. She turned on the radio; the six o’clock programs were playing. She opened the window and looked out and the sun was coming up. It was six in the morning whether she felt like it was or not.

Day by day we count on what happened two thousand years ago. Day by day, every morning, every believer must wake up and say, “I’m dead to sin. I’m alive in Christ. I know it is a fact. He died for me; now I choose to believe it and live like it’s true.” Christ not only gave Himself for me but also gave Himself to me. The life I now live is by faith in the Son of God, and I must count on the life of Christ in me daily.

What are some things that make it challenging to feel close to God?

What would change if you started your day trusting God and all He has done for you as the promise that He will continue to do so?

Practice This

Write out different truths about God that you struggle to believe. Confess your doubts to God.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Working Yourself Out of a Job

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”

MATTHEW 7:24-25

 

PONDER THIS

Even though I was born in the Great Depression, do you know what I remember primarily about my childhood? I remember the good times because we had so little. I can remember times when my dad, because there was no work, would say, “Let's just load up and go fishing.” We would spend the day on Singer Island, off the coast of Palm Beach, in the pristine, clear water. We’d catch minnows when dad would fish. Those times were something money couldn’t buy.

Things don’t make us happy. If you are a parent, don’t be primarily interested in making your children comfortable. Try to build into them character and get them ready to leave the nest. Your job is to work yourself out of a job. A parent is successful when the children no longer need them to function in daily life. You work yourself out of a job, but you don’t work yourself out of a relationship.

Who in the next generation are you pouring into?

How are you seeking to disciple these individuals?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend time with someone in the next generation today and show him or her the love of Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Unlock the Mysteries

“‘To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.’”

ACTS 10:43

 

PONDER THIS

Would you like to understand the Old Testament? Well, there is a master key that unlocks the mysteries of the Old Testament: the Lord Jesus Christ. If you find a Christocentric approach to the Old Testament, it will burst into flame in your hands. As a matter of fact, if you read the Old Testament and you don’t find Jesus, you need to go back and reread it because you missed the message. The Old Testament is about the Lord Jesus Christ.

When people were challenging Jesus about His authenticity and His Messiahship, He looked them straight in the eye and said, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39). When Jesus Christ said that, the New Testament as we know it didn’t exist. It was being formed, but it was not yet written. He was talking about the Old Testament.

Without Jesus, the Old Testament is a list of unexplained ceremonies that won’t make sense. If you try to live by the Old Testament without the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not make it. If you try to read the Old Testament without Him as your lens, you are missing God there.

Have you ever tried to read the Old Testament? What did you learn?

Why do you think there sometimes seems to be a disconnect between the Old Testament and the New Testament?

PRACTICE THIS

Praise God for He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

No One is Too Far Gone

“Then Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ—He is Lord of all.’”  ACTS 10:34-36

 

PONDER THIS

No matter who you are or where you are, God is not saying, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, this must stay and this can go,” concerning Heaven. No. God wants everybody saved. I believe that. Jesus loves the little children of the world; they are precious in His sight.

While salvation is very broad in its availability, it is very narrow in its source. The source is the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s no other way. Do you believe that? If Jesus Christ is not the only way, then He’s none of the ways. If Jesus Christ is not the only way, then He is a liar, a fake, a fraud, an imposter. But He’s not one of those things because a liar is no one’s Savior. And Jesus has cornered the market on salvation.

Any people, anywhere, anytime can be saved, but if they are saved, they’re going to be saved through Jesus Christ. There’s no other way to be saved. That’s the way Peter begins his testimony to Cornelius. He said, in effect, “Look, Jesus alone can satisfy your hunger, Cornelius. Jesus alone is God’s answer to your sin. Jesus alone can give you the meaning of life and death. Jesus alone can take the sting out of sin. Jesus alone can take the pain out of parting. Jesus alone can take the dread out of dying. Jesus alone can give a hope that is steadfast and sure.”

Who are some people you know who may feel too far gone to be saved?

Who have you shared Jesus with? What did you share with them?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray and ask God to open your eyes to the people who want to know Him more. Ask Him to give you the words to show that there is no other way but through Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Greatest Salvation Imaginable

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah . . . ” (Jeremiah 31:31)

God is just and holy and separated from sinners like us. This is our main problem at Christmas — and every other season. How shall we get right with a just and holy God?

Nevertheless, God is merciful and has promised in Jeremiah 31 (five hundred years before Christ) that someday he would do something new. He would replace shadows with the Reality of the Messiah. And he would powerfully move into our lives and write his will on our hearts so that we are not constrained from outside, but are willing from inside, to love him and trust him and follow him.

That would be the greatest salvation imaginable — if God should offer us the greatest Reality in the universe to enjoy and then move in us to know that Reality in such a way that we could enjoy it with the greatest freedom and the greatest pleasure possible. That would be a Christmas gift worth singing about.

That is, in fact, what he promised in the new covenant. But there was a huge obstacle. Our sin. Our separation from God because of our unrighteousness.

How shall a holy and just God treat us sinners with so much kindness as to give us the greatest Reality in the universe (his Son) to enjoy with the greatest possible joy?

The answer is that God put our sins on his Son, and judged them there, so that he could put them out of his mind, and deal with us mercifully and remain just and holy at the same time. Hebrews 9:28 says Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many.”

Christ bore our sins in his own body when he died (1 Peter 2:24). He took our judgment (Romans 8:3). He canceled our guilt (Romans 8:1). And that means our sins are gone (Acts 10:43). They do not remain in God’s mind as a basis for condemnation. In that sense, he “forgets” them (Jeremiah 31:34). They are consumed in the death of Christ.

Which means that God is now free, in his justice, to lavish us with all the unspeakably great new covenant promises. He gives us Christ, the greatest Reality in the universe, for our enjoyment. And he writes his own will — his own heart — on our hearts so that we can love Christ and trust Christ and follow Christ from the inside out, with freedom and joy.

John Piper 

What Are You Advertising?

“To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

COLOSSIANS 1:27

 

PONDER THIS

I read somewhere years ago about a little boy who got saved in the children’s church. One of the adults instructed him to go to the adult service and to tell the pastor he needed to get saved and baptized. Well, he didn’t quite understand, so he told the pastor, “I’ve been saved, and I need to get advertised.” That’s very true. Once you get saved, you get advertised. You’re saying, “I belong to Jesus Christ. I want everybody who sees me to know I have been buried with Him by baptism into death and raised to walk in newness of life. I am identifying myself with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

What is the evangelization of the sinner? It is conviction from the Lord; it is conversion to the Lord; it is confession of the Lord; and it is control by the Lord. The Holy Spirit takes possession now of the person who has been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

Real salvation is not just to believe something or to achieve something, but to receive Someone. The Holy Spirit of God comes into you. Real salvation is not just going to Heaven when you die—that’s a byproduct. Salvation is not getting Man out of Earth into Heaven; it is getting God out of Heaven into Man. That is what we are advertising. That is what we are showing to the world.

What does it look like for the Holy Spirit to control your life?

What does your life advertise right now?

PRACTICE THIS

Share the hope of Christ with someone today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Are You Bearing Fruit?

“Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”

EZEKIEL 47:12

 

PONDER THIS

On a Sunday morning, I’ll preach and give an invitation. We’ll have some people come in the service to accept Christ and I’m grateful for that. But what would happen if, out of your life, was flowing a river of living water. What would happen if you were sharing Jesus Christ regularly?

Where the river flows, the fruit of the Spirit will show—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, mercy, faith. Where these waters flow, these trees grow, and fruit will follow. It’ll be very obvious that you’re a child of God. When people meet you and walk away from you, whether they believe in you or like you or not, they will say that you are different because they see in you the fruit of the Spirit, which is really the character of Jesus Christ.

You may be in a place where you are weak—anemic in your faith. You have no power in your prayer life. You have no substance in your witness. You have no great authority in your spiritual warfare. Very frankly, you need to be healed. The secret to healing is the Holy Spirit. Are you willing to humble yourself before God? We need to pray and ask God to make us humble, making less of us and more of His Spirit in us.

How have you seen God bring fruit from your faith?

Where is your faith weak? Have you come humbly to God for the work of His Spirit? Explain.

PRACTICE THIS

Talk to Christians you admire and ask where they have seen God bring fruit in their faith.

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 

Are Your Investments Temporary?

“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, ‘Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.’” LUKE 21:1-4

 

PONDER THIS

I have visited Pompeii—the ruins of a magnificent civilization. Pompeii was buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted back in biblical times. The scenery truly captures the moment: You can see how people lived in that culture by examining the buildings, but you can also see the bodies of people who lived in this place and were caught by this devastating eruption. You can even see the remains of a man and woman on the floor of their home who died surrounded by and clutching gold coins and expensive jewelry. In seeking to hold worldly treasures, they lost their lives.

Jesus said, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). The truth is, that thing you’re holding onto instead of God will not get you far; it is temporary. I want you to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord. And once you know Him, you start a new investment in eternity with riches that will never fade or spoil.

What is something you are holding onto instead of God?

What would it look like for you to make eternal investments?

PRACTICE THIS

Surrender to God the worldly treasures or frivolous spending habits you’re holding onto and seek to store up treasure in Heaven instead.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers