The Misunderstood Principle Of Submission

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: 

Submission is a term that has been grievously distorted because there are men who have used the word as a weapon to club their wives rather than as a hammer to build their homes.

When God tells a wife to submit to her husband, He also tells the husband to love his wife “even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Ephesians 5:22-25).

When God tells children to obey their parents, He also instructs the fathers to “provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

When God tells you to submit to Him, it is for your good (James 4:7). Jesus is the head of the church, and He leads by love. The same should be true in the home.

ACTION POINT:

Discuss the principle of submission with your family and friends this week. Contrast what the world would say it means to submit with what God desires for us.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Eleventh-hour Breakthroughs

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:42)

One of the greatest hope-killers is that you have tried for so long to change, and have not succeeded.

You look back and think: What’s the use? Even if I could experience a breakthrough, there would be so little time left to live in my new way that it wouldn’t make much difference compared to so many years of failure.

The former robber (the thief on the cross next to Jesus) lived for another hour or so after his conversion. Then he died. He was changed. He lived on the cross as a new man with new attitudes and actions (no more reviling). But 99.99% of his life was wasted. Did the last couple hours of newness matter?

They mattered infinitely. This former robber, like all of us, will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of his life. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). How will his life testify in that day to his new birth and his union with Christ? How will his life confirm his newness in Christ?

The last hours will tell the story. This man was new. His faith was real. He is truly united to Christ. Christ’s righteousness is his. His sins are forgiven.

That’s what the final hours will proclaim at the last judgment. He is changed! And his change mattered. It was, and it will be, a beautiful testimony to the power of God’s grace and the reality of his faith and his union with Christ.

Now back to our struggle with change. I am not saying that struggling believers are unsaved like the robber was. I am simply saying that the last years and the last hours of life matter.

If in the last 1% of our lives, we can get a victory over some long-standing sinful habit or hurtful defect in our personality, it will be a beautiful testimony now to the power of grace; and it will be an added witness (not the only one) at the last judgment to our faith in Christ and our union with him.

Take heart, struggler. Keep asking, seeking, knocking. Keep looking to Christ. If God gets glory by saving robbers in the eleventh hour, he surely has his purposes why he has waited till now to give you the breakthrough you have sought for years.

John Piper

Just As I Am

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.” Ephesians 1:6

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

Do you have a “know-so” salvation? What I mean is, do you know that you are saved and have the assurance that if you died tonight, you’d spend eternity with the Lord in heaven?

Many folks don’t have that assurance, and in some cases it is not a spiritual problem. It is a psychological problem. They cannot accept the fact that God has accepted them.

Charlotte Elliott penned these words to a timeless hymn of assurance:

“Just as I am, without one plea, 

But that Thy blood was shed for me, 

And that Thou biddest me come to Thee, 

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!”

You are accepted just as you are. It is all grace.

ACTION POINT:

Find the hymn “Just As I Am” and sing it to the Lord. Make it your song throughout the day when Satan tries to make you doubt God’s love and eternal gift of salvation.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Reviled Here, Rewarded There

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:3)

How does the promise in Psalm 1:3 point to Christ?

It says, “In all that he does, he prospers.” The righteous prosper in everything they do. Is this naïve or profoundly true?

In this life, it certainly seems that the wicked prosper. “Fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!” (Psalm 37:7). “Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape” (Malachi 3:15).

And in this life the righteous often suffer and their goodness is rewarded with abuse. “If we had forgotten the name of our God . . . would not God discover this? . . . Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Psalm 44:20–22). The psalmists themselves knew this. We are not protesting something they didn’t already know.

Therefore, when the psalmist says, “In all that he does, he prospers,” he is not naïve. He is pointing through the ambiguities of this life to life after death, where the true effectiveness — the true prosperity — of all that we have done will appear.

This is the way Paul thought.

First, he celebrates the victory of Christ over death. “‘O death, where is your victory?’ . . . Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55, 57).

Then, he draws out the implication that, because of this triumph, every work that believers have ever done will prosper. “Therefore, my beloved brothers . . . in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). When something is not in vain, it prospers.

Because Jesus died in our place, he guaranteed that every good deed prospers — sooner or later. “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord” (Ephesians 6:8). “Blessed are you when others revile you. . . . Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11–12). Reviled here. Rewarded there.

What seems naïve in the Old Testament (“in all that he does, he prospers”) points profoundly to the work of Christ and the reality of resurrection. As the words of that great hymn by Katharina von Schlegel, “Be Still My Soul,” says, “Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay / From his own fullness all He takes away.”

John Piper 

Defining Your Personal Value

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” Romans 12:3

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

Do you try to be the best or do you simply try to do your best? The perfectionist has to be the best. He has to be #1. He can’t accept himself.

The grace of God exalts a man without inflating him, and it humbles a man without debasing him. The person who strives for excellence says, “I am what I am by the grace of God.”

Do you value yourself by what you do or by what you are? You have a choice. You can either choose to see yourself as God sees you, or you can choose to see yourself as the world sees you. Whose opinion will you listen to today?

ACTION POINT:

Is there someone in your life whose opinion matters deeply to you? Instead of defining who you are by their opinions, measure yourself by God’s standard in His Word.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

The Main Purpose of Ministry

We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Hebrews 10:39)

Don’t look at the temporary cost of love, and shrink back from confidence in God’s infinitely superior promises. If you shrink back, not only will you lose out on the promises; you will be destroyed.

Hell is at stake in whether we shrink back or persevere. It’s not just the loss of a few extra rewards that hangs in the balance. Hebrews 10:39 says, “We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed.” That is eternal judgment.

So, we warn each other: Don’t drift away. Don’t love the world. Don’t start thinking nothing huge is at stake. Fear the terrible prospect of not cherishing the promises of God above the promises of sin. As Hebrews 3:13–14 says, “Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”

But mainly we must focus on the preciousness of the promises and help each other value above all things how great the reward is that Christ has purchased for us. We must say to each other what Hebrews 10:35 says: “Do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.” And then we must help each other see the greatness of the reward.

That is the main task of preaching, and the main purpose of small groups and all the ministries of the church: helping people see the greatness of what Christ has purchased for everyone who will value it above the world. Helping people see it and savor it, so that God’s superior worth shines in their satisfaction and in the sacrifices that come from such a heart.

John Piper

Perfection Found In Jesus Alone

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

A perfectionist in the church is a miserable person. And not only that, but he makes everybody else miserable, too. The fellowship is never sweet enough. The teacher is never prepared enough. The music is never spiritual enough, and on and on it goes.

Jesus supplies the only perfection that we will ever attain until we get to heaven.

It is not perfection that God is looking for in His children; it is excellence.

God is working in you to achieve His purpose for His glory.

ACTION POINT:

Memorize this statement, “I am worthy apart from my performance because Christ died for me and gave His life to me. My life is hidden in Him. Jesus loves me.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers