The Highest Calling In Life

Life is brief!

What do you do with your life?

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, 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.

2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,

3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God,

4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?"

7 Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand."

8 Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me."

9 Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!"

10 Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you."

11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean."

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you?

13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.

14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

18 I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, 'He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.'

19 I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." - John 13:1-20

1. Give your life to the one who created it.

Give your life to Jesus.

Serve Him with all your heart and mind.

How do you live your life to the highest level?

Serve others.

Encourage others.

Minister to others. 

You are blessed, therefore bless others!

3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. - Philippians 2:3-4

2. Understand your identity.

Are you secure enough in your identity to serve others?

Be humble.

Don't think highly of yourself because every task in the kingdom of heaven is important.

3. Get busy.

So much darkness, can you be the light?

Christ will use you!

He has given you talents.

Find God's will for you.

Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. - John 4:35

Thanks Pastor Kevin!

When Reason Serves Rebellion

The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!” (Proverbs 22:13)

This is not what I expected the proverb to say. I would have expected it to say, “The coward says, ‘There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!’” But it says, “sluggard,” not “coward.” So, the controlling emotion here is laziness, not fear.

But what does laziness have to do with the danger of a lion in the street? We don’t usually say, “This man is too lazy to go do his work because there is a lion outside.”

The point is that the sluggard creates imaginary circumstances to justify not doing his work, and thus shifts the focus from the vice of his laziness to the danger of lions. No one will approve his staying in the house all day just because he is lazy. But they might excuse him if there is a lion in the street.

One profound biblical insight we need to learn from this is that our heart exploits our mind to justify what we want. That is, our deepest desires precede the rational functioning of our minds and incline the mind to perceive and think in a way that will make the desires look right, even if they’re wrong.

This is what the sluggard is doing. He deeply desires to stay at home and not work. There is no good reason to stay at home. So, what does he do? Does he overcome his bad desire — his laziness? No, he uses his mind to create unreal circumstances to justify his desire.

Jesus said, “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19). We love the darkness so that we can keep on doing what we want without exposure. In this condition, the mind becomes a factory of darkness — a fountain of half-truths, equivocations, sophistries, evasions, and lies — anything to protect the evil desires of the heart from exposure and destruction.

Consider and be wise.

John Piper 

Don't tell me you can't believe

BIBLE MEDITATION:

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son. 1 John 5:9

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I’ve been asked, “Pastor Rogers, do you expect me to believe in Jesus Christ just because your book says that He lived? That’s not enough for me.”

I agree. You need something else. If you want to know who Jesus Christ is, ask the Holy Spirit.

God says, “If you want to believe, I will help you to understand and to know that these things are true.”

Don’t tell me that you cannot believe. You may refuse to believe, but I will tell you this. If you want to believe in Jesus Christ and if you seek Truth, God the Holy Spirit will speak to you and confirm to you that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Read Deuteronomy 4:29— 

“But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.”

ACTION POINT:

Do you want to know the living God? He is there if you seek Him with all your heart. 

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Prayer Is for Sinners

Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1)

God answers the prayers of sinners, not perfect people. And you can become perfectly paralyzed in your praying if you do not focus on the cross and realize this.

I could show it from numerous Old Testament texts where God hears the cry of his sinful people, whose very sins had gotten them into the trouble from which they are crying for deliverance (for example, Psalm 38:4, 15; 40:12–13; 107:11–13). But let me show it from Luke 11 — in two ways:

In this version of the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:2–4), Jesus says, “When you pray, say . . . ” and then in verse 4 he includes this petition, “and forgive us our sins.” So, if you connect the beginning of the prayer with the middle, what he says is, “Whenever you pray, say . . . forgive us our sins.”

I take this to mean that this should be as much a part of all our praying as, “Hallowed be your name.” Which means that Jesus assumes that we need to seek forgiveness virtually every time we pray.

In other words, we are always sinners. Nothing we do is perfect. As Martin Luther said, on his deathbed, “We are beggars. This is true.” Even if we have achieved some measure of obedience before we pray, we always come to the Lord as sinners — all of us. And God does not turn away the prayers of sinners when they pray like this.

The second place we can see this is in Luke 11:13: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Jesus calls his disciples “evil.” Pretty strong language. And he did not mean that they were out of fellowship with him. He did not mean that their prayers could not be answered.

He meant that as long as this fallen age lasts, even his own disciples will have an evil bent that pollutes everything they do, but doesn’t keep them from doing much good as they rely on his grace and power.

We are simultaneously evil and redeemed. We are gradually overcoming our evil by the power of the Holy Spirit. But our native corruption is not obliterated by conversion.

We are sinners and we are beggars. And if we recognize this sin, renounce it, fight it, and cling to the cross of Christ as our hope, then God will hear us and answer our prayers.

John Piper

What's real inside that heart?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Psalm 51:6

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Have you ever gone to a sawmill and watched them process timber? They take a big log out of the woods that may have bumps and knots on it, and they lay it on a cradle, running it through a saw, cutting off one side. Then they bring it back, turn it, and run it through again to cut off another side. When they’re finished, if you stand and look down it, it’s perfectly straight. But if you look at the end of it, the heart is still crooked. That’s the way it is with some individuals who are outwardly living the Christian life. But Jeremiah 17:9 warns the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We need regeneration. We must be born again.

ACTION POINT:

Read Psalm 19:14— 

“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”

Pray it from your heart—that today you would desire with everything within you to be pure in thought, word, and deed. 

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Glorify God in Your Body

You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

“Worship” is the term we use to cover all the acts of the heart and mind and body that intentionally express the infinite worth of God. This is what we were created for. It might be singing in church. It might we sweeping the kitchen floor.

Don’t just think about worship services when you think about worship. That is a huge limitation which is not in the Bible. All of life is supposed to be worship.

Take breakfast, for example, or mid morning snacks. First Corinthians 10:31 says, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Now eating and drinking are about as basic as you can get. What could be more real or more ordinarily human than eating and drinking? And Paul says, in effect, let all your eating and drinking be worship.

Or take sex. Paul says the alternative to fornication is worship.

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18–20)

That is, worship with your body by the way you handle your sexuality.

Or take death for a final example. We will experience death in our bodies. In fact, it will be the last act of the body on this earth. The body bids farewell. How shall we worship in that last act of the body? We see the answer in Philippians 1:20–21. Paul says that his hope is that Christ would be magnified — worshiped, shown to be worthy — in his body by death. Then he adds, “For to me . . . to die is gain.” We express the infinite worth of Christ in dying by counting death as gain.

You have a body. But it is not yours. “You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

You are always in a temple. Always worship.

John Piper

Trolling for hidden treasure

BIBLE MEDITATION:

In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:3

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Many years ago, the Spanish Armada was sailing off the coast of Florida. A hurricane struck, and the ships laden with gold and silver ingots sunk to the bottom. People knew the treasure had been lost and believed one ship went down near Vero Beach in Fort Pierce, Florida. Fishermen fished over that spot, sometimes doubtless hanging a hook on a lump of gold.

One day some explorers went diving, and there it was in the shallow water. In fact, the water was so shallow that any of us could have swum to the bottom and brought up millions of dollars. In the same way, I believe there are many of us yet to discover the full treasure we have in Jesus Christ.

ACTION POINT:

Have you plunged your heart deep into the treasure of the Lord? Or are you living life in the shallow end, wondering if the treasure will ever come to you?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers