10 Results of the Resurrection

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. (1 Corinthians 15:17)

Here are ten amazing things we owe to the resurrection of Jesus:

1) A Savior who can never die again. “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again” (Romans 6:9).

2) Repentance. “The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel” (Acts 5:30–31).

3) New birth. “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

4) Forgiveness of sin. “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

5) The Holy Spirit. “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:32–33).

6) No condemnation for the elect. “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34).

7) Jesus’s personal fellowship and protection. “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

8) Proof of coming judgment. “[God] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

9) Salvation from the future wrath of God. “[We] wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10; Romans 5:9).

10) Our own resurrection from the dead. “[We know] that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence” (2 Corinthians 4:14; Romans 6:4; 8:11; 1 Corinthians 6:14; 15:20).

John Piper 

Bringing down the walls of your Jericho

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. James 4:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Joshua had an encounter with the pre-incarnate Christ in the Old Testament near Jericho (see Joshua 5). His first words to Him were, “Art Thou for us, or for our adversaries?” (v.13).

Joshua was scouting out Jericho because it was a formidable city standing between the children of Israel and their land of promise. It looked like there was no way Israel could take Jericho.

In each of our lives, the devil has placed a special Jericho, looming before us as an impossible barrier between us and what God wants for us, between us and the dreams of our youth, between us and the will of God, between us and the best ambition of our hearts. Our Jericho says, “You would have made it, but I'm here to keep you from entering your promised land.”

Your Jericho may be an unhealthy body, an unhappy marriage, an unholy life, lack of education, past defeats–something insurmountable. You can do one of two things: turn around, go back, and die in the wilderness of unbelief. Or, as Joshua did, face that fortress by faith and conquer it.

Notice the Lord’s answer to Joshua: “Nay; but as Captain of the host of the Lord am I now come” (v. 14). He didn’t come to take sides, He came to take over.

Jesus is the Captain of the host of heaven. This Conqueror with the drawn sword came to give Joshua a message of victory.

ACTION POINT:

The victory of Jericho was a victory of faith. Nothing less will achieve victory. The lesson in all the book of Joshua can be found in one sentence: Victory is not achieved by fighting; it is received by faith. You will never know victory until you lay your sword at His feet, bow yourself before His Mighty Throne, and worship Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

How to Delight in God’s Word

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:103)

Never reduce Christianity to a matter of demands and resolutions and willpower. It is a matter of what we love, what we delight in, what tastes good to us.

When Jesus came into the world, humanity was split according to what they loved. “The light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19). The righteous and the wicked are separated by what they delight in — the revelation of God in Jesus, or the way of the world.

So someone may ask: How can I come to delight in the word of God? My answer is twofold:

1) pray for new tastebuds on the tongue of your heart;

2) meditate on the staggering promises of God to his people.

The same psalmist who said, “How sweet are your words to my taste” (Psalm 119:103), said earlier, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). He prayed this, because to have spiritual eyes to see glory, or to have holy tastebuds on the tongue of the heart, is a gift of God. No one naturally hungers for, and delights in, God and his wisdom.

But when you have prayed, indeed while you pray, meditate on the benefits God promises to his people and on the joy of having Almighty God as your helper now and forever. Psalm 1:3–4 says that the person who meditates on God’s word “is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

Who would not delight to read a book, the reading of which would change one from useless chaff to a mighty cedar of Lebanon, from a Texas dust bowl to a Hawaiian orchard? Nobody deep down wants to be chaff — rootless, weightless, useless. All of us want to draw strength from some deep river of reality and become fruitful, useful people.

That river of reality is the word of God, and all the great saints have been made great by it.

John Piper 

Are you too far gone to be saved?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:9

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A business man came, sat in my study, and said, “Pastor, I need to be saved.”

“Wonderful. Let’s get on our knees.”

He got on his knees with me and prayed: “God, I’m a sinner; I’m lost and I can’t save myself. Jesus, You died to save me. You promised to save me if I would only trust You. I do trust you, Jesus. Now, with all of my heart, forgive my sins and save me.”

Right there, God saved him. That’s what it’s all about. You see, it’s so wonderful, so easy, because the Lord Jesus Christ does it all.    

But don’t think for a minute that because salvation is easy, available to all, that it’s cheap. Jesus Christ died in agony and blood for you to have it.

On one hand, here is your self‑righteousness, your legalism, “trying to” be saved. On the other is the righteousness of God, which is yours by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. By grace alone through faith alone. “Not by works, lest anyone should boast.”     

Now, which do you choose?

Self-righteous people, do you understand you’re a lost sinner and you, too, must be born again? Sinful people, you may be a murderer or committed some heinous sin, and think God cannot save you. Listen: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

I promise you on the authority of God’s Word, every blot, every stain that ever came across a human soul, Jesus’ blood can cleanse. If you think you’re too sinful to come, you’re wrong. Jesus will save you.

ACTION POINT:

Jesus said, “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and He who comes to Me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). Jesus will save you if you ask Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Forever Satisfied

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

This text points to the fact that believing in Jesus is a feeding and drinking from all that Jesus is. It goes so far as to say that our soul-thirst is satisfied with Jesus, so that we don’t thirst anymore.

He is the end of our quest for satisfaction. There is nothing beyond, and nothing better.

When we trust Jesus the way John intends for us to, the presence and promise of Jesus is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin (see Romans 6:14). This accounts for why such faith in Jesus nullifies the power of sin and enables obedience.

John 4:14 points in the same direction: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In accord with John 6:35, saving faith is spoken of here as a drinking of water that satisfies the deepest longings of the soul. And the satisfaction becomes productive, like a well overflowing.

It’s the same in John 7:37–38: “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

Through faith, Christ becomes in us an inexhaustible fountain of satisfying life that lasts forever and leads us to heaven, and on the way sets us free from the sinful illusions of other satisfactions. This he does by sending us his Spirit (John 7:38–39).

John Piper 

What are you wearing today?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Philippians 3:9

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A woman worked as a maid in the house of a mean innkeeper. One day God saved her and she could not hide her happiness. What used to be drudgery turned into joy. The innkeeper was furious and began to belittle her. He hated her for being happy.

Finally, he said, “You say you’re saved and I can see your happiness. Can you tell me what being saved means?”

She answered, “To me, it feels as though I am standing in Jesus’ shoes, and He is standing in mine.” A theologian couldn’t have said it better.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For He hath made Him [Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin [Jesus never sinned]; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

When God looks at me, He sees me as righteous as Jesus Christ. Not because of my righteousness! You say, “Who do you think you are?” A Christian, that’s who. Born again, cleansed by His blood. Philippians 3:9—“Not having my own righteousness, which is by the law, but the righteousness which is through Jesus Christ…by faith.”

That’s what Christianity is all about. When we see the bankruptcy of our old self—not just our sinful things, but even our “good” things—we lay them all aside, that we might gain Him. How do you gain Christ? By faith. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

ACTION POINT:

Have you come to realize that in Jesus you are now clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and you’ve been “made the righteousness of God”? It is the gift of God, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Get Up and Go

We are many!

We are one!

Be a doer instead of a hearer!

Do you ever wish you could get a do over of a past life event?

God is on His throne, high and lifted up!

Grace abounds!

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. - Isaiah 6:1

2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

3 And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" 

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

7 And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." - Isaiah 6:2-7

Behold the glory of the living God!

Behold His great mercy!

Fall on your knees for forgiveness!

Are you holding onto your sin?

Get rid of that trash, your sin clings!

Jesus is the same everyday, every year and every second!

Come to Jesus you who are heavy laden!

Grace abounds!

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am! Send me." - Isaiah 6:8

Dress for battle!

Sword, spirit, faith and truth!

You will have battle scars!

Go and serve!

Except the free grace and the love of Almighty God!

Go and love people in Jesus name!

Thanks Pastor Waid!