Do you know a cardboard Christian? Are you one?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.” Matthew 23:27

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I read an article one time about Art Linkletter, who was a highly respected and famous TV personality for many decades. Art Linkletter said he was a professing Christian. But one day he had a great crisis in his life. He really needed help.

He was meeting with some young people who were on-fire Christians. There was no pretense with them, no holds barred. They were in a hotel lobby in San Francisco. It came time to pray, and those young people got down on their knees in that hotel lobby. Being a recognized public figure, Art Linkletter said, "I really felt funny about getting down on my knees in a public place like that. But I had such a need of God. I realized, all this time I had not been a true Christian. I was a cardboard Christian. I threw all of that away, humbled myself before God, got on my knees, broke through to God, and met reality."

Reality is what this world hungers for. It’s sick and tired of make-believe, cardboard Christians. Reality, not hypocrisy, is the greatest need in the church today. The greatest argument for Christ—and the greatest argument against Christ—is the life of a Christian!

ACTION POINT:

There always have been hypocrites. There always will be. The Lord Jesus Christ devoted the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew to the problem of hypocrites. But how wonderful it is to know Jesus Christ. Serve Him and love Him with reality in your heart and life.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Key to Radical Love

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:11–12)

One of the questions I posed while preaching on loving our enemies from Matthew 5:44 was, How do you love the people who kidnap you and then kill you?

How can we do this? Where does the power to love like this come from? Just think how astonishing this is when it appears in the real world! Could anything show the truth and power and reality of Christ more than this?

I believe Jesus gives us the key to this radical, self-sacrificing love, described in Matthew 5:44, earlier in the very same chapter.

In Matthew 5:11–12, he is again talking about being persecuted, just like he was when he said in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What is remarkable about these verses is that Jesus says that you are able not only to endure the mistreatment of the enemy, but rejoice in it. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you. . . . Rejoice and be glad.”

This seems even more beyond our reach than praying for our enemies or doing good to them. If I could do this humanly impossible thing — namely, rejoice in being persecuted — then it would be possible to love my persecutors. If the miracle of joy in the midst of the horror of injustice and pain and loss could happen, then the miracle of love for the perpetrators could happen too.

Jesus gives the key to joy in these verses. He says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.” The key to joy is faith in God’s future grace — that is, being satisfied in all that God promises to be for you. He says, “Rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.” Our joy in persecution is the joy of heaven streaming back into this moment of horror and setting us free to love. So, this joy is the freeing power to love our enemies when they persecute us.

If that is true, then the command to love is implicitly also a command to set our minds on things that are above — all that God promises to be for us — not on things that are on the earth (Colossians 3:2).

The command to love our enemy is a command to find our hope and our deepest soul-satisfaction in God and his great reward — his future grace. The key to radical love is faith in future grace. We must be persuaded in the midst of our agony that the love of God is “better than life” (Psalm 63:3). Loving your enemy doesn’t earn you the reward of heaven. Treasuring the reward of heaven empowers you to love your enemy.

John Piper 

If you're looking for the right church, look for the 3 B's.

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Any great church is built on these four things that begin with the letter B.

The Book - the inspired, infallible Word of God. 

The Blood – the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Birth – the new birth. 

The Blessed Hope – the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God tells us in Hebrews 10:25, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” He wants us to find a Bible-believing church and connect with the people there.

ACTION POINT:

If you’re looking for a church, find out if they take a stand on the Book, the Blood, the Birth, and the Blessed Hope. If they don’t, saturate that place with your absence. Look for one that does.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Afraid to Stray

Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind! (Psalm 31:19)

Consider two important truths in Psalm 31:19.

1. The goodness of the Lord

There is a peculiar goodness of God. That is, there is not only God’s general goodness that he shows to all people, making his sun rise on the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45), but also a peculiar goodness, as the psalm says, for “those who fear” him.

This goodness is abundant beyond measure. It is boundless. It lasts forever. It is all-encompassing. There is only goodness for those who fear him. Everything works together for their good (Romans 8:28). Even their pains are filled with profit according to Romans 5:3–5.

But those who do not fear him receive a temporary goodness. Romans 2:4–5 describes it like this: “Do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” Kindness. Forbearance. Patience. Goodness. But it does not meet with the fear of the Lord, but hardness.

That’s the first truth: the goodness of the Lord.

2. The fear of the Lord

The fear of the Lord is the fear of straying from him. Therefore, it expresses itself in taking refuge in God. That’s why two conditions are mentioned in Psalm 31:19 — fearing the Lord and taking refuge in him. “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have 1) stored up for those who fear you and 2) worked for those who take refuge in you!”

They seem to be opposites. Fear seems to drive away and taking refuge seems to draw in. But when we see that this fear is a fear of running away — a fear of straying from him — then they work together.

There is a real trembling in the heart of the saints. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). But it is the trembling one feels in the arms of a Father who has just plucked his child from the undertow of the ocean. It is the trembling at the terrible prospect of thinking we don’t need a Father.

So, cherish the goodness of the Lord. Fear straying from him. Flee from every sin and take refuge in him. “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you!”

John Piper

Wait - Jesus Doesn't Have Any Strong Points?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, Who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Hebrews 9:14

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

What an amazing life the Lord Jesus lived. Do you realize that Jesus never corrected, withdrew, or amended any statement He ever made? I wish I could say that! Jesus Christ never apologized for anything He ever did or said. Jesus Christ never sought advice from anyone, never had to ask for forgiveness.

Jesus Christ doesn’t have any strong points. For Him to have strong points, He would have to have weak points! Robert Clark has rightly given this assessment of his character: 

“There was meekness without weakness, tenderness without feebleness, firmness without coarseness, love without sentimentality, holiness without sanctimoniousness, lowliness without lowness, truth without error, enthusiasm without fanaticism, passion without prejudice, heavenly mindedness without forgetfulness, carefreeness without carelessness, service without servility, self exaltation without egotism, judgment without harshness, seriousness without somberness, mercy without softness.”

What a person was the Lord Jesus Christ!

ACTION POINT:

The greatest question that can be asked was the question Pontius Pilate asked the crowd when Jesus stood before him: "Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called Christ?" Now I'm going to ask that question of you. What will you do with Jesus? No greater question could be asked.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

A Future for Failures

Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.” (1 Samuel 12:20–22)

When the Israelites have been brought to fear and they repent of their sin of demanding that Samuel give them a king to be like the other nations, then comes the good news: “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.” Do you hear how backward that sounds — how wonderfully backward? You might expect him to say, “Fear, for you have done all this evil.” That’s a good reason to fear: you have done the great evil of demanding another king besides God! But that’s not what Samuel says. “Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil.”

He goes on, “Yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty.”

This is the gospel: Even though you have sinned greatly, and terribly dishonored the Lord, even though you now have a king which it was a sin to demand, even though there is no undoing that sin or its painful consequences that are yet to come, nevertheless there is a future and a hope. There is mercy.

Fear not! Fear not!

Then comes the great ground — the basis and foundation — of the gospel in 1 Samuel 12:22. Why don’t you need to fear, even though you have done all this evil? “For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.”

The ground of the gospel is God’s commitment to his own name. Did you hear it? Don’t fear, though you have sinned, “The Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake.” This should have two effects on you: heart-breaking humility and toe-tapping happiness. Humility because your worth is not the foundation of your salvation. Happiness because your salvation is as sure as God’s allegiance to his own name. It can’t get more sure.

John Piper 

Between warring factions, could you be a peacemaker?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I remember reading about a preacher boy who was in a class in a liberal college, and the professor said, “Christians ought never to have any enemies. We ought never to be controversial.” Then he said, “What we need to do is to follow the example of Jesus.”

The boy lifted his hand and asked, “If Jesus Christ was so beautifully tactful and diplomatic, how did He manage to get Himself crucified?”

Peace is not appeasement. It is a right relationship with God that leads to a right relationship with self and guides us into right relationships with others. Literally, peace is a fruit of righteousness. It is the righteousness of God ruling and reigning in your heart.

ACTION POINT:

Read Hebrews 12:14. Are there conflicts which you can resolve by becoming a peacemaker? If so, confidently place your hand in His and bring peace.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers