Setting God-Given Goals

BIBLE MEDITATION:

 “We ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.” Hebrews 2:1

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Have you ever written some God–given goals to keep you from being a drifter? Without goals, you’re a ship without a rudder, a compass, a sail and an anchor. What kind of ship is that? One that is doomed to failure. Most people don’t plan to fail. They simply don’t plan. How can you tell whether or not your goal is a God–given goal? 

First, have you prayed over it and asked for God’s blessing? 

Second, does it create in you enough spiritual enthusiasm and excitement to see it fulfilled? 

Third, does it demand the very best in you? 

Fourth, does it touch every area of your life? There is no area of your life that is out–of–bounds from God.

ACTION POINT:

Take time today—or surely this week—to write down some goals and even a mission statement focused on the following areas of your life: spiritual, physical, relational, intellectual, and financial.

 LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Setting Sail for a New Year

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” Proverbs 29:18

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Helen Keller was born with sight, but became blind as a young child. Yet she had vision. A reporter asked Miss Keller, “Is there anything worse than losing your sight?” 

“Yes,” she said, “It is to have sight but no vision.” 

Do you have a vision for your life at the threshold of a new year? On New Year’s Day, I review the goals for my life. These are spiritual, relational, intellectual, physical, and financial goals. I pray over these and ask for God’s will to be done in each one. I hold them in an open hand and ask that God would give me wisdom as to the direction He wants for my life. I don’t want to be a man without vision. I don’t you to be one, either.

ACTION POINT:

Begin to think about some goals you would like for your life. Pray and seek the Lord’s face as you ponder the future.

LWF  Dr. Adrian Rogers

A Vision for Your Life in the New Year

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“…which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast…even Jesus.” Hebrews 6:19-20

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A New Year is like an ocean. There will be untested winds and waves. We’ll meet ships we never knew and we’ll have all kinds of opportunities as we sail into an uncharted sea. In our quest to discover the good life this year, we must be careful that we do not drift into an aimless life. The worst thing that could happen to us this coming year is that we just let this year happen to us rather than charting a course and getting into God’s appointed harbor. More than likely, you won’t decide to drift. It’ll just happen. You’ll be coasting along at a good clip, and then before you know it you’re drifting away. . . that is, unless you have an anchor.

ACTION POINT:

Take a few minutes to reflect on this past year. What were some things you did right... what were some things you would do differently this next year?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Hope for the Approaching Year

BIBLE MEDITATION:

"For thou hast delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." Psalm 116:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Yes, believers can experience loneliness. I believe the Holidays are the loneliest time of the year. People are told everywhere they're supposed to be happy and they realize they're not. They see everybody else acting happy, and they feel so lonely. 

Death, divorce, desertion—even travel can make you lonely. Success can make you lonely. You often hear “it's lonely at the top.” Old age makes you lonely. You can be lonely in a big crowd. You can be lonely in a mall. Loneliness is one of the chief maladies of our age, but Jesus promised, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." 

What I am saying, my dear friend, is that when I am discouraged, His presence sees me through. When I am lonely, His presence cheers me up. And when I am worried, His presence calms me down.

ACTION POINT:

When you are tempted—and oh, you will be tempted this coming year—His presence will help you out. Begin now to practice the presence of the Lord as you enter this new year.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Who Was This Child

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary, thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus; for He shall save His people from their sins.”  Matthew 1:20-21

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Who was this Child born that day? Who is this One we call Jesus? There’s one right answer; there are many wrong answers. Some say He was a great man. Beyond any doubt, He was a great man, but if you just tip the hat to Jesus Christ, you’ve missed it all. Jesus is more than Jesus the Great. He’s Jesus the One and Only. 

The late Dr. W. A. Criswell said: “To compare the greatest men on earth like Alexander, Caesar or Shakespeare with Jesus is like comparing a grain of dust to the whole universe, a mole hill to Mount Everest.”

Others speak of Him as a moral teacher, but as C.S. Lewis said, “We don’t have the option of just simply calling Him a moral teacher and moving on. I’m trying to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus Christ as a great teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he would be either a lunatic, on the level of a man who says he’s a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a mad man or something worse.”

ACTION POINT:

Be prepared to share that concept with someone today. C. S. Lewis went on to say, “You can show Him up for a fool. You can spit at Him. You can kill Him as a demon. Or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let none of us come away with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He’s not left that open to us.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Your Second Chance

Non-believers, every time you are permitted to draw a breath, God is giving you a second chance to repent!
Christ will return for His church!
I will humbly and faithfully see His return or I will die waiting for His return!
We all will face judgment!

Acts 3:
13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.
14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,
15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.
16 And his name--by faith in his name--has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
17 "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.
19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,
20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,
21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
22 Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.

Daniel 7:
13 "I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Ps. 90:
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You return man to dust and say, "Return, O children of man!"

4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

John 14:
1"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
4 And you know the way to where I am going."
5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

2 Thessalonians 1:
5 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering--
6 since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you,
7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels
8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power,

12 so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, You delay Your second coming because of Your great mercy toward the lost!  We ask for Your great wisdom to be spread and hearts to receive the good news of salvation through Christ! Amen

The Promise of His Return

2 Peter 3:1-18
1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,
2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles,
3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
4 They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!
13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Final Words
14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.
18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

What? – The world trashes what we treasure.

Scripture declares Christ’s return repeatedly. (1-2)
Scoffers dismiss Christ’s return rationally. (3-4)
So What? – We can stumble at the world’s scoffing.
Remember that God is sovereign. (5-7)
Remember that God is timeless. (8)
Remember that God is merciful. (9)
Remember that God is just. (10)

Now What? – Our response to this temporary venue is eternal
values.
Practice righteousness for now. (11-14)
Prepare for righteousness forever. (14)
Share God’s salvation for now. (15-16)
Strengthen your salvation forever. (17)
Grow in Christ for now. (18)
Glorify Christ forever. (18)

Thanks Pastor Jim!