Your Choice: A set of rules? Or a friend?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. 1 Corinthians 1:30

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Paul thought it was the greatest of blessings to be “found in Him” (Philippians 3:9). Hadn’t you rather have a friend than a set of rules? Before this, Paul had the law. Now, he has the Lord. And what a difference! What a safe place—to be found in Jesus Christ. Paul exchanged a set of rules for a friend. It’s like the old hymn that says,

And He walks with me and He talks with me

And He tells me I am his own.

And the joy we share as we tarry there,

None other has ever known…

…and they can’t ever know until they receive Jesus. If you are saved, you’re not “just a church member”—you are in Christ. You’re in His Body and He is in you. Talk about fellowship divine! You may be alone, but you’ll never be lonely again, because the Lord Jesus Christ is in you and you are in the Lord Jesus Christ, “found in Him,” as Paul says. That’s a safe place to be, isn’t it?

ACTION POINT:

Meditate on the truth that “He tells me I am His own.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When God’s Love Is Sweetest

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. (Ephesians 5:25–26)

If you only hope for unconditional love from God, your hope is great, but too small.

Unconditional love from God is not the sweetest experience of his love. The sweetest experience is when his love says, “I have made you so much like my Son that I delight to see you and be with you. You are a pleasure to me, because you are so radiant with my glory.”

This sweetest experience is conditional on our transformation into the kind of people whose emotions and choices and actions please God.

Unconditional love is the source and foundation of the human transformation that makes the sweetness of conditional love possible. If God did not love us unconditionally, he would not penetrate our unattractive lives, bring us to faith, unite us to Christ, give us his Spirit, and make us progressively like Jesus.

But when he unconditionally chooses us, and sends Christ to die for us, and regenerates us, he puts in motion an unstoppable process of transformation that makes us glorious. He gives us a splendor to match his favorite kind: his own.

We see this in Ephesians 5:25–27. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [unconditional love], that he might sanctify her . . . and present the church to himself in splendor” — the condition in which he delights.

It is unspeakably wonderful that God would unconditionally set his favor on us while we are still unbelieving sinners. The ultimate reason this is wonderful is that this unconditional love brings us into the everlasting enjoyment of his glorious presence.

But the apex of that enjoyment is that we not only see his glory, but also reflect it. “The name of our Lord Jesus [will] be glorified in you, and you in him” (2 Thessalonians 1:12).

John Piper 

Do you just believe…or do you KNOW?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. Philippians 3:10

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

One day a friend and I were making a call on a businessman who’d had some sickness in his family. I said, “We’re downtown together—let’s go by and have some coffee with him.” This dear man of God began giving his testimony of how the Lord saved him. But then he said something that really shocked me. I was speechless. He said, “I used to believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross and that He was buried and rose again. But I don’t believe it anymore.”

I was stopped dead in my tracks. Then with a smile on his face he said, “I don’t believe it anymore. Now I know it!”

Oh, to go from believing to knowing the Savior! What a change of thought. What a change of heart. What a glorious revelation and transformation!

ACTION POINT:

Do you know Him? Really know Him today? Or do you just believe that He died, was buried, and rose again?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Message of Creation

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:22–23)

It would be a great folly and a great tragedy if a man loved his wedding ring more than he loved his bride. But that is what this passage says has happened.

Human beings have fallen in love with the echo of God’s excellence in creation, and lost the ability to hear the incomparable, original shout of love and power and glory.

The message of creation is this:

There is a great God of glory and power and generosity behind all this awesome universe; you belong to him because he made you. He is patient with you in sustaining your rebellious life. Turn and bank your hope on him and delight yourself in him, not merely his handiwork.

According to Psalm 19:1–2, day pours forth the “speech” of that message to all who will listen in the day, speaking with blindingly bright sun and blue sky and clouds and untold shapes and colors and beautiful designs of all things visible. Night pours forth the “knowledge” of the same message to all who will listen at night, speaking with great dark voids and summer moons and countless stars and strange sounds and cool breezes and northern lights.

Day and night are saying one thing: God is glorious! God is glorious! God is glorious! Turn away from the creation as your supreme satisfaction, and delight yourself in the Lord of glory.

John Piper 

What’s YOUR security blanket?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. Matthew 16:25

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

When I was a little boy and found something that didn’t belong to me, I’d say, “Finders keepers, losers weepers!”

But do you know what the apostle Paul said? “Keepers weepers, losers finders.”

Back up a minute. You see, Paul had a pedigree within religious circles that was the envy of his peers. He was a brilliant thinker; a star student in the best school. But what did Paul learn after he met Jesus Christ and surrendered to Him? “I count all these things but loss. All of them.”

“…Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3:7). 

That’s what Jesus meant when He said, “Whosoever shall save his life, the same shall lose it.”

What does this mean for us? To be willing to turn from my sin, but to also turn from my “righteousness,” which in God’s sight counts no more than filthy rags. Paul said, “If righteousness comes by my keeping the law, then Christ died for nothing.”

It’s hard to let go of our sins. But it’s also hard to let go of our righteousness and say, “Lord, I don’t have anything to offer You. ‘In my hand no price I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling.’” There’s something about human nature that doesn’t want to do that. We want to strut into the presence of God saying, “God look what a prize package you’re getting.”

Religion doesn’t save us. Jesus saves us. And He’s calling us not just to turn from our sins, but to turn also from our “righteousness.”

ACTION POINT:

What are you holding onto that brings you security? Background? Education? Career? Status? Good works? Church standing? Let it go to the glory of God! Trust Him to clothe you in His righteousness.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

God Is Not an Idolater

When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. (2 Thessalonians 1:10)

Paul says that Christ is coming precisely to be glorified and to be marveled at. That is why he is coming.

People stumble over the teaching that God exalts his own glory and seeks to be praised by his people because the Bible teaches us not to be like that. For example, the Bible says that love “does not seek its own” (1 Corinthians 13:5, NASB).

How can God be loving and yet be utterly devoted to “seeking his own” glory and praise and joy? How can God be for us if he is so utterly for himself?

The answer I propose is this: Because God is unique as an all-glorious, totally self-sufficient Being, he must be for himself if he is to be for us. The rules of humility that belong to a creature cannot apply in the same way to its Creator.

If God should turn away from himself as the Source of infinite joy, he would cease to be God. He would deny the infinite worth of his own glory. He would imply that there is something more valuable outside himself. He would commit idolatry.

This would be no gain for us. For where can we go when our God has become unrighteous? Where will we find a Rock of integrity in the universe when the heart of God has ceased to value supremely the supremely valuable? Where shall we turn with our adoration when God himself has forsaken the claims of infinite worth and beauty?

No, we do not turn God’s self-exaltation into love by demanding that God cease to be God.

Instead, we must come to see that God is love precisely because he relentlessly pursues the praises of his name in the hearts of his people. Our praise for his greatness is the capstone of our joy and his greatness.

John Piper 

Should you hide in the dark clouds?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Keep me as the apple of the eye…hide me under the shadow of Thy wings. Psalm 17:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Charles Wesley was walking through the woods by a swollen stream on a stormy day. A lightning storm broke out, and rain began coming down in torrents. Little birds up in a tree were shivering on a limb. A bolt of lightning flashed and one little bird was so frightened, it flew out of the tree, flew down toward Wesley, and went right under his coat.

Wesley was so moved by the scene, he wrote a song we often sing:

“Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly, 

While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high. 

Hide me, O my Savior, hide me, ‘til the storm of life is past; 

Safe unto the haven guide me. O receive my soul at last.”

That’s what our Lord does. He hides us, sustains us, and keeps us.

ACTION POINT:

Are the storms of life raging around you? Hide yourself in the dark clouds—they are just the shadow of His wing.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers