The Piercing Power of the Word

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

The word of God is our only hope. The good news of God’s promises and the warnings of his judgment are sharp enough and living enough and active enough to penetrate to the bottom of my heart and show me that the lies of sin are indeed lies.

Abortion will not create a wonderful future for me. Neither will cheating, or dressing provocatively, or throwing away my sexual purity, or keeping quiet about dishonesty at work, or divorce, or vengeance. And what rescues me from this deception is the word of God.

The word of God’s promise is like throwing open a great window of bright morning sunlight on the roaches of sin masquerading as satisfying pleasures in our hearts. God has given you his good news, his promises, his word to protect you from the deep deceptions of sin that try to harden your heart and lure it away from God and lead it to destruction.

Be of good cheer in your battle to believe. Because the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, it will penetrate deeper than any deception of sin has ever gone and reveal what is truly valuable and what is truly worth trusting and loving.

John Piper 

Twelve simple men turned the world upside down

BIBLE MEDITATION:

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. 1 Corinthians 1:27

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The people God chooses to do His work are plain, simple folks. All you have to do is look at the twelve men Jesus chose to be His disciples. Fishermen, a tax collector, a “zealot.” What a ragtag bunch! But they turned the world upside down.

“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13

Maybe you didn’t make the “Who’s Who,” or worse, the “Who’s Not”! That’s all right. God has a plan for you. God knows what He is doing. He turns the table on the world’s idea of success, wealth, fame, and acclaim. None of these are necessary for you to be used of God.

ACTION POINT:

What a glorious truth for you to share with someone today who may be feeling like they’re not worth much. Ask God to lead you to that someone right now.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Change Is Possible

Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:24)

Christianity means change is possible. Deep, fundamental change. It is possible to become tenderhearted when once you were callous and insensitive. It is possible to stop being dominated by bitterness and anger. It is possible to become a loving person no matter what your background has been.

The Bible assumes that God is the decisive factor in making us what we should be. With wonderful bluntness, the Bible says, “Put away . . . all malice” and be “tenderhearted” (Ephesians 4:31–32). It does not say, “If you can . . . ” Or, “If your parents were tenderhearted . . . ” Or, “If you have not been terribly abused . . . ” It says, “Be . . . tenderhearted.”

This is wonderfully freeing. It frees us from the terrible fatalism that says change is impossible for me. It frees me from mechanistic views that make my background my destiny.

And God’s commands always come with freeing, life-changing truth to believe. For example,

God adopted us as his children. We have a new Father and a new family. This breaks the fatalistic forces of our “family-of-origin.” “Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9).

God loves us as his children. We are “loved children” (Ephesians 5:1). The command to imitate the love of God does not hang in the air, it comes with power: “Be imitators of God, as loved children.” “Love!” is the command and being loved by God is the power.

God has forgiven us in Christ. Be tenderhearted and forgiving just as God in Christ forgave you (Ephesians 4:32). What God did in Christ is powerful. It makes change possible. The command to be tenderhearted has more to do with what God did for you than what your mother or your father did to you. This kind of command means you can change.

Christ loved you and gave himself up for you. “Walk in love, as Christ loved [you]” (Ephesians 5:2). The command comes with life-changing truth. “Christ loved you.” At the moment when there is a chance to love, and some voice says, “You are not a loving person,” you can say, “Christ’s love for me makes me a new kind of person. His command to love is just as surely possible for me as his promise of love is true for me.”

Don’t be a fatalist. Be a Christian. Change is possible. God is alive. Christ is risen. The promises are true.

John Piper 

You never need to panic

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee. Isaiah 41:13

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Once I had the rare opportunity of visiting with Corrie Ten Boom. I drank in her words. I listened and kept my mouth shut. One of her statements went straight to my heart: “There is no panic in heaven, only plans.” That is how God operates — no panic. Did you know the Holy Trinity never meets in an emergency session? God has never stepped down from His throne. Jesus has not left His right hand, and the Holy Spirit has not stopped interceding for you, His child. Refuse to listen to Satan’s lies of fear, discouragement, and despair. You are a victor. And God is in control!

ACTION POINT:

Repeat the following throughout the day today, “God is in control of my life. He will not leave me. His right hand will sustain me all the length of my days.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When I Am Anxious

. . . casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

There is a promise suited to every sin you are tempted to commit and every form of unbelief that takes you off guard and makes you anxious. For example:

When I am anxious about being sick, I battle unbelief with the promise, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). And I take the promise with trembling, “knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3–5).

When I am anxious about getting old, I battle unbelief with the promise: “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save” (Isaiah 46:4).

When I am anxious about dying, I battle unbelief with the promise that “none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:7–9).

When I am anxious that I may make shipwreck of faith and fall away from God, I battle unbelief with the promises, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6); and, “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

So, let us make war, not with other people, but with our own unbelief. It is the root of anxiety, which, in turn, is the root of so many other sins.

So, let us fix our eyes on the precious and very great promises of God. Take up the Bible, ask the Holy Spirit for help, lay the promises up in your heart, and fight the good fight — to live by faith in future grace.

John Piper 

The will of God is not a road map

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and mother. Mark 3:35

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Major Ian Thomas, English author and founder of a worldwide missionary fellowship, once wrote, “Which of these things in the life of Jesus is more spiritual? When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount? When He raised Lazarus from the dead? When He washed His disciples’ feet? Or when He spat on the ground and made clay to anoint the blind man’s eyes? None was more spiritual than the other. Jesus did not divide His life up into little segments of spirituality. He was simply available to do whatever His Father willed.” The will of God is not a road map. It is a relationship! You just simply set yourself apart to do the will of God.

ACTION POINT:

Are you segregating your life into activities that are more spiritual than others? Surrender all you are to Him and make yourself available for whatever He calls you to do today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Death Comes Soon To All

1 "Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. 

2 He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not. 

3 And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? 

4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. 

5 Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass, 

6 look away from him and leave him alone, that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day. 

7 "For there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. 

8 Though its root grow old in the earth, and its stump die in the soil, 

9 yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant. 

10 But a man dies and is laid low; man breathes his last, and where is he? 

11 As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, 

12 so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep. 

13 Oh that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath be past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me! 

14 If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come. 

15 You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands. 

16 For then you would number my steps; you would not keep watch over my sin; 

17 my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity. 

18 "But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place; 

19 the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of man. 

20 You prevail forever against him, and he passes; you change his countenance, and send him away. 

21 His sons come to honor, and he does not know it; they are brought low, and he perceives it not. 

22 He feels only the pain of his own body, and he mourns only for himself."  - Job 14