Do you ever wander from God?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

With my whole heart have I sought Thee: O let me not wander from Thy commandments. Psalm 119:10

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

In 1758 Robert Robinson wrote a hymn that echoes in my heart from time to time:

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Do you ever wander from God? Then you know how it feels and how hard it is to return. If you feel far from God today, I implore you with all that I am to return to Him with all your heart.

ACTION POINT:

Make Psalm 86:11-13 your prayer today: “Teach me Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth: unite my heart to fear Thy name. I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify Thy name for evermore. For great is Thy mercy toward me: and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Every Calvary Step Was Love

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. (1 John 3:16)

The love of Christ for us in his dying was as conscious as his suffering was intentional. If he was intentional in laying down his life, it was for us. It was love.

“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” (John 13:1).

Every step on the Calvary road meant, “I love you.”

Therefore, to feel the love of Christ in the laying down of his life, it helps to see how utterly intentional it was.

Look at what Jesus said just after that violent moment when Peter tried to cleave the skull of the servant, but only cut off his ear.

Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 26:52–54)

It is one thing to say that the details of Jesus’s death were predicted in the Old Testament. But it is much more to say that Jesus himself was making his choices precisely to see to it that the Scriptures would be fulfilled.

That is what Jesus said he was doing in Matthew 26:54. “I could escape this misery, but how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”

In other words, I am not choosing to take the way out that I could take, because I know the Scriptures. I know what must take place for my people to be saved. It is my choice to fulfill all that is predicted of me in the word of God. It is my choice — every step of the way — to love my people to the uttermost. And I want them to feel this. And be utterly secure and free and radically different from the world.

John Piper 

Do you want a clean heart? A renewed mind?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to Thee; but his heart is not with Thee. Proverbs 23:7

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A teacher asked a little boy to finish this proverb: “Cleanliness is next to...” He answered, “Cleanliness is next to impossible.” Well, friend, he wasn’t far wrong, was he?

It’s amazing what people do to try to  purify themselves – fast, pray, kneel, walk, self-flagellate, hibernate, isolate. But sadly, they discover that human efforts aren’t the pathway to purity because they keep doing what Zig Ziglar calls “stinkin‘ thinkin‘.” Before we can hope to have a life of purity, we must have a clean thought life.

God works from the inside out. He knows you can’t purify the water by painting the pump.

When was the last time you memorized a verse of Scripture? It’s easier to stay away from “stinkin’ thinkin’” when your mind is focused on the Word of God.

ACTION POINT:

This is a good time to memorize yesterday’s passage, Psalm 51:10-13:

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.”

Start working on memorizing this passage today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Christ as Means and End

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Why did God create the universe? And why is he governing it the way he is? What is God achieving? Is Jesus Christ a means to this achievement or the end of the achievement?

Jesus Christ is the supreme revelation of God. He is God in human form. As such, he is the end, not a means.

The manifestation of the glory of God is the meaning of the universe. This is what God is achieving. The heavens, and the history of the world, are “telling the glory of God.”

But Jesus Christ was sent to accomplish something that needed doing. He came to remedy the fall. He came to rescue sinners from inevitable destruction because of their sin. These rescued ones will see and savor and display the glory of God with everlasting joy.

Others will continue to heap scorn on the glory of God. So, Jesus Christ is the means to what God meant to achieve in the manifestation of his glory for the enjoyment of his people. No one would see and savor and celebrate the glory of God apart from the saving work of Christ. The aim of the universe would abort. So, Christ is a means.

But in that accomplishment on the cross, as he died for sinners, Christ revealed the love and righteousness of the Father supremely. This was the apex of the revelation of the glory of God — the glory of his grace.

Therefore, in the very moment of his perfect act as the means of God’s purpose, Jesus became the end of that purpose. He became, in his dying in the place of sinners and his resurrection for their life, the central and supreme revelation of the glory of God.

Christ crucified is therefore both the means and the end of God’s purpose in the universe.

Without his work, that end — to reveal the fullness of the glory of God for the enjoyment of God’s people — would not have happened.

And in that very means-work he became the end — the one who forever and ever will be the focus of our worship as we spend eternity seeing and savoring more and more of what he revealed of God when he became a curse for us.

Jesus is the end for which the universe was made, and the means that makes that end possible to enjoy by justified sinners.

John Piper 

What’s your #1 desire?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Psalm 24:4-50

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

James Nicholson wrote a song which expresses the desire of my heart:

“Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole;

I want Thee forever to live in my soul.

Break down every idol, cast out every foe;

Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”

Nothing beats closer to my heart than yearning to be pure before my Lord. I’ve experienced the sweet fellowship with Jesus that comes when my heart is clean. And nothing—no nothing—surpasses that in this world.

Are you failing in your Christian life because you’re not pure? If you are, you’re not alone. It seems as though a sewer pipe of filth and debauchery has broken and poured out into our world. Someone has well said, “Not since Manhattan Island was sold for 24 dollars has so much dirt been sold so cheaply as it is here in America.”

ACTION POINT:

Take the words of that song and make them your prayer to the Lord right now.

Then close with Psalm 51:10-13: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation and uphold me with Thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Perfect City

He has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:16)

No pollution, no graffiti, no trash, no peeling paint or rotting garages, no dead grass or broken bottles, no harsh street talk, no in-your-face confrontations, no domestic strife or violence, no dangers in the night, no arson or lying or stealing or killing, no vandalism, and no ugliness.

The city of God will be perfect, because God will be in it. He will walk in it and talk in it and manifest himself in every part of it. All that is good and beautiful and holy and peaceful and true and happy will be there, because God will be there.

Perfect justice will be there and recompense a thousandfold for every pain suffered in obedience to Christ in this world. And it will never deteriorate. In fact, it will shine brighter and brighter as eternity stretches out into unending ages of increasing joy.

When you desire this city above everything else on the earth, then you honor God, who, according to Hebrews 11:10, is the designer and builder of the city. And when God is honored, he is pleased and not ashamed to be called your God.

John Piper 

What do you want to be recognized for?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy word. Psalm 119:9

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A child delights in what he has.

A youth delights in what he does.

An adult delights in what he is.

The more mature you are, the more you will desire to be something—not just to have something or do something, but be something.

What do you desire to be today? Someone known for the way they dress? The deals they close? The house they live in? Or do you want others to know you for who you are: one with a pure heart—a heart utterly devoted and surrendered to God.

ACTION POINT:

Matthew 5:8 says, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” They will know the unknowable, they will do the impossible, and they will see the invisible. I want to have a heart like that. What about you?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers