Having issues with a fellow believer?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Romans 12:5

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

My left hand is a member of my body. So is my right hand. The right hand cannot direct the left hand and vice versa. But both hands can receive instruction from the head. If both hands are connected to the head, it follows that our hands are going to submit one to another. They’re not going to fight one another.

It’s the same way in the Body of Christ, the church. Who is the head of the body? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who are the members of the body? You and I. God put us in the church together that we might have a spirit of submission in the fear of the Lord.

ACTION POINT:

Is there someone in the church with whom you’re having difficulties? Submit yourself to the Lord and allow Him to give you grace to submit one to another.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Our Weakness Reveals His Worth

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

God’s design for suffering is that it should magnify Christ’s worth and power. This is grace, because the greatest joy of Christians is to experience Christ magnified in our lives.

When Paul was told by the Lord Jesus that his “thorn in the flesh” would not be taken away, he supported Paul’s faith by explaining why. The Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God ordains that Paul be weak so that Christ might be seen as strong on Paul’s behalf.

If we feel and look self-sufficient, we will get the glory, not Christ. So, Christ chooses the weak things of the world “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:29). And sometimes he makes seemingly strong people weaker, so that the divine power will be the more evident.

We know that Paul experienced this as grace because he rejoiced in it: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10).

Living by faith in God’s grace means being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. Therefore faith will not shrink back from what reveals and magnifies all that God is for us in Jesus. That is what our own weakness and suffering are meant to do.

John Piper 

How do you get more light?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written: “The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

One of God’s most prominent character traits is His righteousness. How is His righteousness revealed to us? Romans 1:17 tells us: “…from faith to faith… the just shall live by faith.”

What does that mean? How does it work? Here’s how: As God gives you truth…and you believe that truth…God gives you more truth. Step by step, you grow from faith to faith. The more you walk toward Him, the more light you receive.

The more you obey the light, the more light you get. And forward it goes.

The reason some of us don’t understand the Bible more than we do is because we haven’t been living up to the light God has already given us.

If you want to understand parts of the Bible you don’t understand, begin to obey the part you do understand. Then you’ll understand what you didn’t understand. Understand?

ACTION POINT:

Meditate on 1 Corinthians 2:7—“But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:” Ask God for faith that will reveal to you the hidden truths of His Word that are hard for you to understand right now.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Suffering That Crushes Faith

“They have no root in themselves, but endure for a while; then, when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately they fall away.” (Mark 4:17)

The faith of some is broken instead of built by suffering. Jesus knew this and described it here in the parable of the four soils. Some people who hear the word receive it at first with gladness, but then suffering makes them fall away.

So, affliction does not always make faith stronger. Sometimes it crushes faith. And then come true the paradoxical words of Jesus, “The one who has not, even what he has will be taken” (Mark 4:25).

This is a call for us to endure suffering with firm faith in future grace, so that our faith might grow stronger and not be proved vain (1 Corinthians 15:2). “To the one who has, more will be given” (Mark 4:25). Knowing God’s design in suffering is one of the main means of growing through suffering.

If you think your suffering is pointless, or that God is not in control, or that he is whimsical or cruel, then your suffering will drive you from God, instead of driving you from everything but God — as it should. So, it is crucial that faith in God’s grace includes the faith that he gives grace through suffering.

John Piper

Is your mind telling you what's true?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“We are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I was in an airport one day looking for something to pass the time. I saw a virtual reality motorcycle ride. I sat down and buckled my seat belt as instructed. The screen came on and I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I was riding a motorcycle, but I was just sitting in a room!

Sometimes our mind tells us something is true when it’s not true. Other times when something is true, we fail to believe it’s true!

It’s so critical for us to focus on the truth! Jesus died for you. He lives for you. You died with Him. You live for Him. Day by day, you need to take those facts and turn them into faith.

ACTION POINT:

Tell yourself this truth today. Write it down. Post it all around you: You are buried with Him. You rose with Him. You can walk in newness of life!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Suffering That Strengthens Faith

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. (James 1:2–3)

Strange as it may seem, one of the primary purposes of being shaken by suffering is to make our faith more unshakable.

Faith is like muscle tissue: if you stress it to the limit, it gets stronger, not weaker. That’s what James means here. When your faith is threatened and tested and stretched to the breaking point, the result is greater capacity to endure. He calls it steadfastness.

God loves faith so much that he will test it to the breaking point so as to keep it pure and strong. For example, he did this to Paul according to 2 Corinthians 1:8–9,

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

The words “but that was to” show that there was a purpose in this extreme suffering: it was in order that — for the purpose that — Paul would not rely on himself and his resources, but on God — specifically the promised grace of God in raising the dead.

God so values our wholehearted faith that he will, graciously, if necessary, take away everything else in the world that we might be tempted to rely on — even life itself. His aim is that we grow deeper and stronger in our confidence that he himself will be all we need.

He wants us to be able to say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26).

John Piper

An ant on a piece of cheesecake?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“. . . the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matthew 10:30

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The Lord sees you. He knows all about you. And I guarantee you on the authority of the Word of God: He loves you.

When you realize we’re just specks on a globe that’s about the size of a grain

There’s no more reason for the Lord of Glory to be interested in us than that we should be interested in an ant floating on a piece of cheesecake in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet our Lord looks down and He sees us as cherished individuals whom He loves, one by one.

The great God that runs the universe is concerned about you as though that were His only goal.

ACTION POINT:

When was the last time you counted the hairs on your head? Can you trust a God who has them numbered?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers