Where do you take your questions?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

And Jesus answering saith unto them, “Have faith in God.” Mark 11:22

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I ask some Christians, “How are you doing?” They say, “Okay—under the circumstances.” How did you ever get there?

Circumstances are like a mattress. You’re supposed to be on it, not under it. Under the circumstances, you suffocate; on them you rest pretty well.

The only way you can run the race is to take your eyes off things or people around you and look to Jesus. He’s the author of the race. He’s the goal to which you run. If you look to Jesus to supply your every need for the race, you’ll find faith growing in your heart and in your life. You see, it’s not great faith in God; it is faith in a great God.

ACTION POINT:

Make the hymn “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” your anthem today. Elisabeth Elliot said, “Faith does not eliminate questions. But faith knows where to take them.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Think You Are Anonymous But You're Not

My mother always said "if you can't say something nice, then be quite". 

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me"

No so, words cut you to your core.

They can tear down or build up.

Tear down definition 

To pull apart by force, cause distress

Build up definition 

Praise that boost confidence 

Faceless trolls on the internet are really nasty. 

They bully with words.

Their words cut deep wounds that bleed little bits of who you are.

Sadly, some people will carry the scars a life time.

Those who are insecure in who they are will suffer as if they were physically wounded.

Trolls viciously attack people for being different, in appearance, in looks and because you disagree with their view.

A troll is a person who thinks his deeds are hidden and he can spew his nastiness without repercussions.

They hide behind what they think is anonymity.

Trolls make a habit of spewing hate.

Some will graduate to being a bully.

They will use their fist to inflict suffering.

Their families will suffer.

What is wrong with their soul?

Is it bitterness, evil, inadequacy, stupidity or just foolishness? 

For sure, it is yielding to Satan and the destroying road of sin!

You will be held accountable!

The word of the Lord is very clear about your secrets and your careless words.

Lord, help us not to judge.

15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. - Romans 2:15-16

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. - 1 Corinthians 4:5

10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;

11 for it is written, "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." 

12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. - Romans 14:10-12

35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,

37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." - Matthew 12:35-37

There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.  - Proverbs 12:18

My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts- the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.  - Psalm 57:4

What It Means to Love God

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. (Psalm 63:1–2)

Only God will satisfy a heart like David’s. And David was a man after God’s own heart. That’s the way we were created to be.

This is the essence of what it means to love God: to be satisfied in him. In him — not just his gifts, but God himself, as the glorious person that he is!

Loving God will include obeying all his commands; it will include believing all his word; it will include thanking him for all his gifts. But all that is overflow. The essence of loving God is admiring and enjoying all he is. And it is this enjoyment of God that makes all of our other responses truly glorifying to him.

We all know this intuitively as well as from Scripture. Do we feel most honored by the love of those who serve us from the constraints of duty, or from the delights of fellowship?

My wife is most honored when I say, “It makes me happy to spend time with you.” My happiness is the echo of her excellence. And so it is with God. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

None of us has arrived at perfect satisfaction in God. I grieve often over the murmuring of my heart when I lose some earthly comfort or convenience. But I have tasted that the Lord is good. By God’s grace I now know the fountain of everlasting joy.

And so I love to spend my days luring people into joy until they say with me, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

John Piper 

Found your wings yet?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

How that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded…..  2 Corinthians 8:2

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A man watched a butterfly trying to emerge from a cocoon. Thinking he would help, the man took his penknife and slit the side of the cocoon, and the butterfly flopped out. It lay there for a while, feebly beating its wings, then collapsed and died.

“How sad,” you say. You’re right—God designed a plan for butterflies. The struggle to break free builds the strength they will need to fly.

God doesn’t want you to live weakly and die feebly. He wants you to grow and mature.

ACTION POINT:

Find the wings in your trial today. 

Strengthen them by the promises in God’s Word.

Venture on new heights of freedom in Christ today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Pleased with His Precepts

This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:3–5)

What is plain in these verses is that being born again — being born of God — turns the commandments of God from being burdensome to being our delight. How does that work?

How does being born of God make the commandments of God a delight rather than a burden?

The apostle John says, “This is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith” (1 John 5:4). In other words, the way that being born of God overcomes the worldly burdensomeness of God’s commandments is by begetting faith. This is confirmed in 1 John 5:1, which says, literally, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”

Faith is the evidence that we have been born of God. We do not cause ourselves to be born again by deciding to believe. God creates our willingness to believe by causing us to be born again. As Peter said in his first letter, God “caused us to be born again to a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3). Our living hope, or faith in future grace, is the work of God through new birth.

So, when John says, “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world,” and then adds, “And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith” (1 John 5:4), I take him to mean that God enables us, by the new birth, to overcome the world — that is, to overcome our worldly disinclination to keep God’s commandments. The new birth does this by creating faith, which evidently includes a disposition to be pleased by God’s commandments, rather than put off by God’s commandments, so that they feel burdensome.

Therefore, it is faith that overcomes our inborn hostility to God and his will, and frees us to keep his commandments and to say with the psalmist, “I delight to do your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8).

John Piper 

Are you fair-weather or full-out?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

If we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself.  2 Timothy 2:13

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Are you a fair-weather Christian? There are some who, if their children get sick, or finances  go south, or they get a bad report from the doctor, will stop tithing, stop praising, stop trusting. If somebody hurts their feelings, they stop going to church.

You can tell the commitment level of a Christian by their “fair weather” gauge. 

The test is, when everything goes wrong or doesn’t add up, what will you do?

I’ll give you some hints. Keep giving. Keep praying. Keep praising. Keep witnessing. Keep worshipping. Think of three things you can do today to bring the light of God’s Son to someone who may be struggling with his or her faith. Then go do it!

ACTION POINT:

“There are rare Christians whose very presence incites other to be better Christians. I want to be that rare Christian.”—A. W. Tozer. Don’t fail to be faithful. Want to find out how deep your faith is? Measure it in the dark.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Don’t Serve God

The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)

What is God looking for in the world? Assistants? No. The gospel is not a “help wanted” sign. Neither is the call to Christian service.

God is not looking for people to work for him. “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). He’s the great worker. He’s the one with broad, burden-bearing shoulders. He’s the strong one. And he is looking for ways to show it. This is what differentiates God from the so-called gods of the world: he works for us. Isaiah 64:4, “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you [in other words this is his uniqueness], who acts for those who wait for him.”

What does God want from us? Not what we might expect. He rebukes Israel for bringing him so many sacrifices: “I will not accept a bull from your house. . . . For every beast of the forest is mine. . . . ‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine’” (Psalm 50:9–10, 12).

But isn’t there something we can give to God that won’t belittle him to the status of beneficiary?

Yes. Our anxieties. Our needs. Our cries for power to do his will.

It’s a command: “[Cast] all your anxieties on him” (1 Peter 5:7). God will gladly receive anything from us that shows our dependence and his all-sufficiency.

Christianity is fundamentally convalescence. Patients do not serve their physicians. They trust them for good prescriptions and therapy. The Sermon on the Mount is our Doctor’s therapeutic regimen, not our Employer’s job description.

Our very lives hang on not working for God. “To the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:4–5).

Workmen get no gifts. They get their due. Their wage. If we would have the gift of justification, we dare not work for it. God is the workman in this affair. And what he gets is the glory of being the benefactor of grace, not the beneficiary of service.

John Piper