Friday, May 12, 2017

Out of the Boat and Onto the Water



BIBLE MEDITATION:
“Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.” Psalm 55:22

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
It was terrible at Simon Peter’s funeral. Jesus was there and He said, “It’s a shame that Peter had to die so young. He was just getting the hang of walking on the water. I shouldn’t have told him to get out of the boat.” It was one of the saddest funerals.


Let’s hope you’re saying “Wait a minute!” right now, because we know that Peter didn’t drown when Jesus called him out of the boat (see Matthew 14:22-33). And you will not drown, either, when Jesus calls you to do something humanly impossible.


ACTION POINT:
Peter may not have walked very far on water, but we could venture to say that he walked farther than anyone else has ever walked on water! Don’t worry about getting out of the boat if that is what God calls you to do. It is safer on the waves with Jesus than in the boat without Him.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Consulting First with God


BIBLE MEDITATION:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
If Jesus Christ is Lord of your life, you are going to give Him the first consideration in every decision you make. You will ask, “What is the will of God? What is the purpose of Jesus? What will glorify my Father?”


Have you ever worked for a company and they decided to transfer you? So many people, because of their financial obligations, discuss it a little with family and friends, then make plans for the move. Sometimes the transfer happens so quickly, prayer has sometimes been forgotten.


ACTION POINT:
Friend, if God wants you to go, then go. If God doesn’t want you to go, then you need to stay. But you’ll never know until you get alone with God and let Him tell you what He wants.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

It’s An Inside Job


BIBLE MEDITATION:
“Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.” Matthew 23:26

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
What happens when we try to help others? We start on the outside, thinking if we can change the environment of a man (his home, clothes, food, education), then we can create a new man. It cannot be done. It was in the Garden of Eden that man got into trouble in the first place.


Cleaning up the outside is just reformation. When you clean up the inside, you are regenerated. Jesus is telling the Pharisees that they don’t need another bath, they need a new birth.


ACTION POINT:
It’s not that we ought not to help others. We should do these things. But men need more than soap and soup; they need salvation. They need a birth from above, not merely a boost from below.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Insight Comes Through Obedience


BIBLE MEDITATION:
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” John 15:15
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
What is the blessing of obedience? Intimacy with God. You will come to know things that you could never know any other way when you become intimate with God. And yet people are still asking, “How do I understand the Bible?” Friend, you will have a knowledge that surpasses anything you could gain from a school of learning when you serve the Lord in obedience.

Jesus said that we become His friends when we become His servants. And a friend knows all things. Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets.”

ACTION POINT:
Have you stopped growing? Perhaps it is because you have stopped obeying. The way to have insight into the heart of God is through obedience.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Monday, May 8, 2017

There Is No “Free Love”


BIBLE MEDITATION:
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5:3

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:
Real love costs. That’s right—there is no “free love,” like you may have thought if you were raised in the ‘60s. Love is a great and grand commitment. Sometimes a young man who seeks his own gratification will say to a young lady, “I love you” as a means of getting something from her. Oh, he loves her all right. He loves her like a man who loves oranges. He takes an orange, cuts a plug out of it, squeezes the sweet juice from it, throws it on the ground like a piece of garbage, wipes his mouth and says, “Man, I love oranges!”


Let me tell you, real love is not that way. Lust lives to get. Real love lives to give.

ACTION POINT:
One of the ways you show the Lord you truly love Him is by keeping His commandments.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Contemplating Saving Grace Through Faith


What is faith?
The bible says " 1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 For by it the people of old received their commendation.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. - Hebrews 11:1-3

The dictionary says " complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

God, in His infinite wisdom, gave man the simplest statement on salvation which involves grace through faith "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

What is Grace?
Unmerited favor, mercy from God

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. - Ephesians 2:4-7

4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. - Titus 3:4-7

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,
13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief,
14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
16 But 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 1:12-16


This verse encompasses faith in its purest and simple form. 
God sent His Son, God accepted His Son as payment for your sin, and God raised His Son from death thus conquering it.
God is offering you a chance to believe in this miraculous resurrection and all the power it holds.
Your belief will deliver you or if you refuse to believe, condemn you!!
There is no other way to salvation!
Jesus intercedes on your behalf!

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. - 1 Timothy 2:5-6

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:6

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 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?
33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died-more than that, who was raised-who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." 
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:31-3

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him.
8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'")
16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. - John 1:1-18

God-Jesus-Holy Spirit 

yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. - 1 Corinthians 8:6

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,
7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,
14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. - Colossians 2:6-14

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. - John 14:16-17


You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder! - James 2:19

6 Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god. 
7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me, since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come, and what will happen. 
8 Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any."  - Isaiah 44:6-8

I and the Father are one." - John 10:30

Works

24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?
26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. - James 2:24-26

8 Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof
9 and said to the men, "I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.
10 For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction.
11 And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. - Joshua 2:8-11

Sunday, May 7, 2017

My Rock



The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation-  - Psalm 18:46

Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.  - Psalm 71:3

2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
3 and all ate the same spiritual food,
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. - 1 Corinthians 10:2-6

11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.
14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. - Luke 8:11-15

"Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the LORD: look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.  - Isaiah 51:1

You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.  - Deuteronomy 32:18

35 They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer. 
36 But they flattered him with their mouths; they lied to him with their tongues. 
37 Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant. 
38 Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath. 
39 He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.  - Psalm 78:35-39

"'See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.  - Deuteronomy 32:39