No one can match this gift 12-25-18

During the celebrations of the day, I forgot to put this devotional on. So sorry!!

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Christmas is spelled L-O-V-E.  What is the Christmas message?  John 3:16. God gave us the gift of love on Christmas Day.

It is truly said, “What the world needs now is love.” I need it. You need it. Your spouse needs it. Your child needs it. An elderly man or woman sitting alone in a nursing home today needs it. A child abandoned and alone in a children’s home needs it, too.

God sent His one and only Son as the Savior. He knew we couldn’t save ourselves. So He sent His Son to be born in a manger, to die on a cross, to rise again into glory, and to come again to redeem His church.

ACTION POINT:

Where are you spending your Christmas day? Maybe you can spare a few minutes with your family and friends to share His gift of love with someone who is all alone today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

How long is eternity?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Your soul, made in the image of God, will exist forever. Evangelist Billy Sunday explained it this way:

“Imagine a little bird taking a grain of sand and flying to a distant planet. It would take him a million years to fly to that distant planet. Then he would drop that grain of sand. Then the bird would fly back to earth, taking another million years. He gets another grain of sand and flies back to the distant planet.

“Back and forth, back and forth he goes. When he will have transplanted every speck of sand on earth to that distant planet, it will only be breakfast time in eternity.”

Your soul will go on, and on, and on.

ACTION POINT:

Where do you plan on spending eternity? Where do your loved ones think they will spend it? Are you depending on “living a good life” to get you to Heaven? Are they? If you don’t know, ask them today. Make sure their salvation is on the right side of eternity.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Outfitted and Empowered

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20–21)

Christ shed the blood of the eternal covenant. By this successful redemption, he obtained the blessing of his own resurrection from the dead. That is even clearer in Greek than it is in English, and here it’s clear enough: “God . . . brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus . . . by the blood of the eternal covenant.” This Jesus — raised by the blood of the covenant — is now our living Lord and Shepherd.

And because of all that, God does two things:

he equips us with everything good that we may do his will, and

he works in us that which is pleasing in his sight.

The “eternal covenant,” secured by the blood of Christ, is the new covenant. And the new covenant promise is this: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). Therefore, the blood of this covenant not only secures God’s equipping us to do his will, but also secures God working in us to make that equipping successful.

The will of God is not just written on stone or paper as a means of grace. It is worked in us. And the effect is: We feel and think and act in ways more pleasing to God.

We are still commanded to use the equipment he gives: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” But more importantly we are told why: “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12–13).

If we are able to please God — if we do his good pleasure — it is because the blood-bought grace of God has moved from mere equipping to omnipotent transforming.

John Piper

A Horrible Destiny

. . . Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

Do you remember the time you were lost as a child, or slipping over a precipice, or about to drown? Then suddenly you were rescued. You held on for “dear life.” You trembled for what you almost lost. You were happy. Oh, so happy, and thankful. And you trembled with joy.

That’s the way I feel at the end of the year about my rescue from God’s wrath. All day Christmas we had a fire in the fireplace. Sometimes the coals were so hot that when I stoked it my hand hurt. I pulled back and shuddered at the horrendous thought of the wrath of God against sin in hell. Oh, how unspeakably horrible that will be!

Christmas afternoon I visited a woman who had been burned over 87 percent of her body. She has been in the hospital since August. My heart broke for her. How wonderful it was to hold out hope to her from God’s word for a new body in the age to come! But I came away not only thinking about her pain in this life, but also about the everlasting pain I have been saved from through Jesus.

Test my experience with me. Is this trembling joy a fitting way to end the year? Paul was glad that “Jesus . . . delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). He warned that “for those who . . . do not obey the truth . . . there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8). And “because of [sexual immorality, impurity, and covetousness] the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6).

Here at the end of the year, I am finishing my trek through the Bible and reading the last book, Revelation. It is a glorious prophecy of the triumph of God, and the everlasting joy of all who “take the water of life without price” (Revelation 22:17). No more tears, no more pain, no more depression, no more sorrow, no more death, no more sin (Revelation 21:4).

But oh, the horror of not repenting and not holding fast to the testimony of Jesus! The description of the wrath of God by the “apostle of love” (John) is terrifying. Those who spurn God’s love will “drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night” (Revelation 14:10–11).

“And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15). Jesus will “tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Revelation 19:15). And blood will flow “from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 184 miles” (Revelation 14:20). Whatever that vision signifies, it is meant to communicate something unspeakably terrible.

I tremble with joy that I am saved! But oh, the holy wrath of God is a horrible destiny. Flee this, brothers and sisters. Flee this with all your might. And let us save as many as we can! No wonder there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous (Luke 15:7)!

John Piper

Are you an encourager? or Discourager?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;  Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Someone has well said that discouragement is a darkroom where the negatives of fear and failure are developed.

Some people are encouragers and others are discouragers. Have you ever met a discourager? They’re like a drink of water to a drowning man. They can brighten up a room by leaving it. They leave you drained and depressed.

But an encourager leaves you full and refreshed. God has cornered the market on encouragement. All encouragement comes from God. You’re never more like God than when you’re encouraging people and never more like the devil than when you are discouraging people.

ACTION POINT:

Find a needy person and enrich him; a lonely person and include him; a misunderstood person and affirm him; an undiscovered person and develop him; a failing person and restore him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

It's not what you say...

BIBLE MEDITATION:

But love your enemies and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great. Luke 6:35

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I’ve seen bumper stickers exhorting us to “show random acts of kindness.” That’s a good thing. What is kindness?  It’s love in the little things.

A woman came down the aisle of a church to give her heart to Christ. The pastor wanted to know what had impacted her life for Christ.

She said, “You did.”

“Well, I’d be interested to know what I said that brought you to Christ.”

“It was nothing you said. It was something you did. I was standing nearby when someone criticized you very unfairly. I saw the kindness with which you responded. That’s when I knew your faith was real.”

ACTION POINT:

What random act of kindness can you do today that will demonstrate your faith is real?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

Glory Is the Goal

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2)

Seeing the glory of God is our ultimate hope. “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). God will “present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Jude 24).

He will “make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory” (Romans 9:23). He “calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:12). “Our blessed hope [is] the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13).

Jesus, in all his person and work, is the incarnation and ultimate revelation of the glory of God. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). “Father, I desire that they . . . may be with me where I am, to see my glory” Jesus prays in John 17:24.

“So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed” (1 Peter 5:1). “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

“We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7). “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). “Those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).

Seeing and sharing in God’s glory is our ultimate hope through the gospel of Christ.

Such a hope, that is really known and treasured, has a huge and decisive effect on our present values and choices and actions.

Get to know the glory of God. Study the glory of God and the glory of Christ. Study the glory of the world that reveals the glory of God, and the glory of the gospel that reveals the glory of Christ.

Treasure the glory of God in all things and above all things.

Study your soul. Know the glory you are seduced by, and know why you treasure glories that are not God’s glory.

Study your own soul to know how to make the glories of the world collapse like the pagan idol Dagon in 1 Samuel 5:4. Let all glories that distract you from the glory of God shatter in pitiful pieces on the floor of the world’s temples. Treasure the glory of God above all this world.

John Piper