The Truth Shall Make You Free

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

Have you ever been to a circus and seen an elephant chained to a stake in the ground? Why doesn’t he break free? Because as a young elephant he was tied to a tree. And try as he might, he couldn’t break free. Now the thought that he cannot break free is ingrained.

How true that is of you and me who have ingrained thought patterns in our lives. We say, “I am chained to this habit and I can’t break free.” Or we say, “I’m not good enough.” All kinds of lies keep us in bondage, but real truth is what God says, not what we think.

ACTION POINT:

Are there any strongholds in your life that keep you chained to the past? Write down these verses and memorize them.

2 Corinthians 10:4 

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;”

Galatians 5:1

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Now break free from the lies of the past as you tell yourself the truth!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Every Calvary Step Was Love

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. (1 John 3:16)

The love of Christ for us in his dying was as conscious as his suffering was intentional. If he was intentional in laying down his life, it was for us. It was love.

“When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

Every step on the Calvary road meant, “I love you.”

Therefore, to feel the love of Christ in the laying down of his life, it helps to see how utterly intentional it was.

Look at what Jesus said just after that violent moment when Peter tried to cleave the skull of the servant, but only cut off his ear.

Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 26:52–54)

It is one thing to say that the details of Jesus’s death were predicted in the Old Testament. But it is much more to say that Jesus himself was making his choices precisely to see to it that the Scriptures would be fulfilled.

That is what Jesus said he was doing in Matthew 26:54. “I could escape this misery, but how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”

In other words, I am not choosing to take the way out that I could take because I know the Scriptures. I know what must take place for my people to be saved. It is my choice to fulfill all that is predicted of me in the word of God. It is my choice — every step of the way — to love my people to the uttermost. And I want them to feel this. And be utterly secure and free and radically different from the world.

John Piper

You Are Loved!

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” Jeremiah 31:3

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: 

Valentine’s Day is a day for lovers. Did you know that Jesus is the lover of your soul? He is. You, as part of the church, are His bride…His chosen one.

Our Lord loves us with an infinite love, an everlasting love, and an indescribable love.

Are you without a valentine today? Take heart…His heart. He has set His affection on you. Jesus has purchased you, not with silver or gold as a bridegroom would have in Jesus’ day, but our Lord has purchased you with the silver of His tears and with the gold of His blood.

You are loved!

ACTION POINT: 

Every time you get a Valentine or see an advertisement for Valentine’s Day or hear someone say, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” remember that Jesus is the Lover of your Soul.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

To Testify

Discipleship, are you able? 

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. - Acts 20:24

Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." - Acts 21:13

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. - 2 Timothy 4:7

For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry." - Acts 1:17

I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, - 1 Timothy 1:12

Paul, an apostle-not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead- - Galatians 1:1

but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. - 1 Thessalonians 2:4

But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, - Acts 26:16

and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; - Titus 1:3

testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. - Acts 20:21

And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. - Acts 15:7

And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. - Acts 20:32

and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. - 1 Timothy 1:14

When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, - Acts 11:23

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