Looking For A Better Home

What are you seeking?

Who are you seeking?

Do you have contentment?

Are you happy with this place?

Sin abounds!

There is a place that is so much better, far beyond our imagination! 

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.

16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. - Hebrews 11:13-16

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.  - Psalm 33:6

And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, "I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham's sake." - Genesis 26:24

7 Then the LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings,

8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. - Exodus 3:7-8

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. - Hebrews 11:10

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. - Matthew 25:34

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. - John 14:1-3

Christ as Means and End

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Why did God create the universe? And why is he governing it the way he is? What is God achieving? Is Jesus Christ a means to this achievement or the end of the achievement?

Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of God. He is God in human form. As such, he is the end, not a means.

The manifestation of the glory of God is the meaning of the universe. This is what God is achieving. The heavens, and the history of the world, are “telling the glory of God.”

But Jesus Christ was sent to accomplish something that needed doing. He came to remedy the fall. He came to rescue sinners from inevitable destruction because of their sin. These rescued ones will see and savor and display the glory of God with everlasting joy.

Others will continue to heap scorn on the glory of God. So, Jesus Christ is the means to what God meant to achieve in the manifestation of his glory for the enjoyment of his people. No one would see and savor and celebrate the glory of God apart from the saving work of Christ. The aim of the universe would abort. So, Christ is a means.

But in that accomplishment on the cross, as he died for sinners, Christ revealed the love and righteousness of the Father supremely. This was the apex of the revelation of the glory of God — the glory of his grace.

Therefore, in the very moment of his perfect act as the means of God’s purpose, Jesus became the end of that purpose. He became, in his dying in the place of sinners and his resurrection for their life, the central and supreme revelation of the glory of God.

Christ crucified is therefore both the means and the end of God’s purpose in the universe.

Without his work, that end — to reveal the fullness of the glory of God for the enjoyment of God’s people — would not have happened.

And in that very means-work he became the end — the one who forever and ever will be the focus of our worship as we spend eternity seeing and savoring more and more of what he revealed of God when he became a curse for us.

Jesus is the end for which the universe was made, and the means that makes that end possible to enjoy by justified sinners.

John Piper

Be Angry And Sin Not

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” Ephesians 4:26

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

God’s Word tells us to be “slow to wrath” (Proverbs 14:29, James 1:19). There’s nothing that will do more damage to your relationships than unwanted, unwarranted anger. If you are given to anger, let me tell you a couple of things the Bible says, and it won’t be flattering.

First, the Bible says you are foolish. Ecclesiastes 7:9 says, “For anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”

Second, you have a weak character. Proverbs 16:32 says, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” Uncontrolled anger is like throwing a rock into a wasp nest.

ACTION POINT:

Do you have a short fuse? If so, confess it to the Lord. Don’t let Satan get a stronghold in your life. If you get angry today, ask yourself, “What need is not being met?” Give that need to the Lord.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Perfect City

He has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)

No pollution, no graffiti, no trash, no peeling paint or rotting garages, no dead grass or broken bottles, no harsh street talk, no in-your-face confrontations, no domestic strife or violence, no dangers in the night, no arson or lying or stealing or killing, no vandalism, and no ugliness.

The city of God will be perfect because God will be in it. He will walk in it and talk in it and manifest himself in every part of it. All that is good and beautiful and holy and peaceful and true and happy will be there, because God will be there.

Perfect justice will be there and recompense a thousandfold for every pain suffered in obedience to Christ in this world. And it will never deteriorate. In fact, it will shine brighter and brighter as eternity stretches out into unending ages of increasing joy.

When you desire this city above everything else on the earth, then you honor God, who, according to Hebrews 11:10, is the designer and builder of the city. And when God is honored, he is pleased and not ashamed to be called your God.

John Piper 

To Tell The Truth

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.” Ephesians 4:25

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

When I was in college, I pastored a little church 130 miles away. One night as I was driving back home, I realized one of my headlights was out. I was hoping I wouldn’t get stopped when a highway patrolman pulled me over.

He said, “Son, did you know one of your headlights is out?” I replied, “One of my headlights is out?” He said, “Son, you’d better get that fixed.” I said, “Yes, sir.”

When I got back in the car, the Holy Spirit said, “Adrian, you lied.” I said, “No, I didn’t lie. I told the truth.” He said, “You lied.”

If there is any area in your heart that is not based on truth, you’ve made the devil a home.

ACTION POINT:

I want you to play a game of catch today, but this will only involve one person – you! When temptation urges you to lie, catch yourself and tell the truth.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Lincoln’s Providence

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)

Abraham Lincoln, who was born on this day in 1809, remained skeptical, and at times even cynical, about religion into his forties. So, it is a most striking thing how personal and national suffering drew Lincoln into the reality of God, rather than pushing him away.

In 1862, when Lincoln was 53 years old, his 11-year-old son Willie died. Lincoln’s wife “tried to deal with her grief by searching out New Age mediums.” Lincoln turned to Phineas Gurley, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington.

Several long talks led to what Gurley described as “a conversion to Christ.” Lincoln confided that he was “driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I have nowhere else to go.”

Similarly, the horrors of the dead and wounded soldiers assaulted him daily. There were fifty hospitals for the wounded in Washington. The rotunda of the Capitol held two thousand cots for wounded soldiers.

Typically, fifty soldiers a day died in these temporary hospitals. All of this drove Lincoln deeper into the providence of God. “We cannot but believe, that He who made the world still governs it.”

His most famous statement about the providence of God in relation to the Civil War was his Second Inaugural Address, given a month before he was assassinated. It is remarkable for not making God a simple supporter for the Union or Confederate cause. God has his own purposes and does not excuse sin on either side.

Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war might speedily pass away. . . .

Yet if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

I pray for all of you who suffer loss and injury and great sorrow that it will awaken for you, as it did for Lincoln, not an empty fatalism, but a deeper reliance on the infinite wisdom and love of God’s inscrutable providence.

John Piper 

What Is Your Top Priority?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in His salvation.” Psalm 35:9

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

Do your children believe that the most important thing to you is God? We must celebrate God in front of our children.

Let me tell you what my children think and what they know.

They know that their Daddy’s imperfect. They know that I love God. I wouldn’t be ashamed for you to ask them that. You can ask any one of them, “What’s the most important thing to your Dad and Mom?” They would say, “The most important thing to our parents is their relationship with God.”

ACTION POINT:

Are you a parent? Then ask your children what they think the most important thing is to you. If they say anything other than your relationship with the Lord, make some changes in your life to reflect your top priority.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers