Passionate for God and Truth

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.” (Romans 3:3–4)

Our concern with truth is an inevitable expression of our concern with God. If God exists, then he is the measure of all things, and what he thinks about all things is the measure of what we should think.

Not to care about truth is not to care about God. To love God passionately is to love truth passionately. Being God-centered in life means being truth-driven in ministry. What is not true is not of God.

Ponder these four sets of texts on God and truth:

1) God Is the Truth

Romans 3:3–4 (God the Father): “What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar.”

John 14:6 (God the Son): Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 15:26 (God the Spirit): “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”

2) Not Loving the Truth Is Eternally Ruinous

Second Thessalonians 2:10: The wicked will perish “because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”

3) Christian Living Is Based on Knowledge of the Truth

First Corinthians 6:15–16: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her?”

4) The Body of Christ Is Built with Truth in Love

Colossians 1:28: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”

May God make us passionate for him and for truth.

John Piper 

Gathering In His Name

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There is something wonderful about unity. I heard about a fellow who courted a girl by writing her a beautiful love letter every day for two years. He thought that would be a wonderful way to court her. Do you know what happened? She married the mail carrier! There is nothing like being there. There is nothing like personal contact. There is a sense in which Jesus Christ is present when His people gather that’s not in any other sense. You cannot get it the same way at home.

ACTION POINT:

Do you have a church home? If not, I encourage you to find one today. If church attendance isn’t important, I wonder why Satan works so hard to keep folks away. If you do have a church home, make a special effort this week to meet a new friend and find a need they have which you can meet.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

The Truth of the Gospel Revealed

2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."

3 So he told them this parable:

4 "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?

5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'

7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. - Luke 15:2-7

Love, forgiveness, seeking the lost, joy, repentance and hope. This is the true gospel! 

Let us be concerned with the eternal spirit instead of the outward sin-filled body which we all have. It is a matter of judging others which we all do. But this is keeping us from those who are lost! How will they be convicted if we can't love them in the condition they are in? Sound familiar?

How will they hear the saving words from the Gospel if we stay away because of their life style?

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." - Acts 4:11-12

How Believers Will Be Judged

I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. (Revelation 20:12)

What about the last judgment? Will our sins be remembered? Will they be revealed? Anthony Hoekema puts it wisely like this: “The failures and shortcomings of . . . believers . . . will enter into the picture on the Day of Judgment. But — and this is the important point — the sins and shortcomings of believers will be revealed in the judgment as forgiven sins, whose guilt has been totally covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.”

Picture it like this. God has a file on every person (the “books” of Revelation 20:12). All you’ve ever done or said (Matthew 12:36) is recorded there with a grade (from “A” to “F”). When you stand before “the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10) to be judged “for what [you have] done in the body, whether good or evil,” God will open the file and lay out the tests with their grades. He will pull out all the “F’s” and put them in a pile. Then he will take all the “D’s” and “C’s” and pull the good parts of the test out and place them with the “A’s”, then put the bad with the “F’s.” Then he will take all the “B’s” and “A’s” and pull the bad parts out of them and put them in the “F” pile, and put all the good parts in the “A” pile.

Then he will open another file (“the book of life”) and find your name, because you are in Christ through faith. Behind your name will be a wood-stick match made from the cross of Jesus. He will take the match, light it, and set the “F” pile, with all your failures and deficiencies, on fire and burn them up. They will not condemn you, and they will not reward you.

Then he will take from your “book of life” file a sealed envelope marked “free and gracious bonus: life!” and put it on the “A” pile (see Mark 4:24 and Luke 6:38). Then he will hold up the entire pile and declare, “By this your life bears witness to the grace of my Father, the worth of my blood, and the fruit of my Spirit. These bear witness that your life is eternal. And according to these you will have your rewards. Enter into the everlasting joy of your Master.”

John Piper

Burning Brightly For The Glory Of God

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” Exodus 3:2

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Major Ian Thomas has imagined Moses saying something like this when he encountered God in the burning bush, “Would you look at that bush? It just keeps on burning for God. I wish my life could burn for God like that and keep on burning.” Then Major Thomas imagined God replying, “Moses, you think this bush is so wonderful? Do you see that bush over there? I could do the same thing with it. Moses, it’s not the bush—it’s God in the bush. Any old bush will do.”

It’s not you! It’s not me! We are only the vessels of God’s anointing. As you surrender yourself to God today, He will fill you and use you for His glory.

ACTION POINT:

Surrender yourself to God today. And as you do, He will use you. Allow His flame to burn brightly for all to see.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Only a Little While

After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

Sometimes in the midst of the afflictions and ordinary stresses of daily life, we may cry out, “How long, O Lord? I can’t see beyond today’s pain. What will tomorrow bring? Will you be there for that affliction too?”

This question is utterly urgent, because Jesus said, “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mark 13:13). We tremble at the thought of being among “those who shrink back and are destroyed” (Hebrews 10:39). We are not playing games. Suffering is a horrible threat to faith in God’s future grace.

Therefore, it is a wonderful thing to hear Peter promise the afflicted and weary Christians, “After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).

The assurance that he will not delay beyond what we can endure, and that he will abolish the flaws we bemoan, and that he will establish forever what has tottered so long — that assurance comes from the God of “all grace.”

God is not the God of some grace — like bygone grace. He is “the God of all grace” — including the infinite, inexhaustible stores of future grace, that we need to endure to the end.

Faith in that future grace, strengthened by the memory of past grace, is the key to enduring on the narrow and hard road that leads to life.

John Piper

He Alone Is Worthy

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.” Revelation 5:12

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There’s an interesting story about how a gifted violinist named Fritz Kreisler acquired a Stradivarius violin. Kreisler heard about the violin owned by an old Englishman and offered to buy it, but the old man said it wasn’t for sale. One day Kreisler ventured to the old man’s house and said, “If I can’t buy it, may I touch it?” The old Englishman invited him in and even allowed him to begin making music with it. Great tears welled up in the old Englishman’s eyes and he said, “It is not for sale, but it is yours. You are the Master and alone are worthy of it!”

That is what worship is all about. God is the Master and He alone is worthy.

ACTION POINT:

Starting with the letter “A” and going through the alphabet, praise Him for all that He is, has been, and will be!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers