Your good works are no ticket to Heaven

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Romans 3:25-26

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

When I was a little boy, I thought God was like Santa Claus with a long beard sitting up in heaven—making a list and checking it twice, trying to find out if I was naughty or nice. Then when my life was over, I would face Him and He would pull out these massive scales and weigh my good works against my bad to see if I made it into heaven.

Do you know what thinking this did to me? It made me fearful that at the end of my life I would face God and He would say, “Adrian. I’m sorry, but according to My calculations, you didn’t make it.” Then I would have to turn and ashamedly walk past my family and friends, separated from them and from God forever.

Friend, maybe you too believe this. But let me set the record straight: Salvation is not an attainment, it is an atonement—it is the reconciliation of man with God through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. You cannot achieve it—you must receive it.

ACTION POINT:

You cannot atone for your sins. Your good works cannot do it. None of us could produce works good enough or fast enough to atone for sin. Don’t even try. Rest in the finished work of the Cross.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

If He Calls, He Keeps

[The Lord] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9)

What are you depending on to ensure that your faith will last until Jesus comes?

The question is not, Do you believe in eternal security? The question is, How are we kept secure?

Does the perseverance of our faith rest decisively on the reliability of our own resolve? Or does it rest decisively on the work of God to “keep us trusting”?

It is a great and wonderful truth of Scripture that God is faithful and will keep forever those whom he has called. Our confidence that we are eternally secure is a confidence that God will do whatever is necessary to “keep us trusting!”

The certainty of eternity is no greater than the certainty God will keep us trusting now. But that certainty is very great for all whom God has called.

At least three passages put the call of God and the keeping of God together in this way.

“[The Lord] will sustain you (keep you) to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:8–9).

“May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23–24).

“Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you” (Jude 1–2). (See the same reality in Romans 8:30, Philippians 1:6, 1 Peter 1:5, and Jude 24.)

The “faithfulness” of God guarantees that he will keep safe forever all whom he has called.

John Piper 

What’s your “safe place”?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in Thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of Thy wings. Psalm 61:3-4

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Of the 6500 hymns written by Charles Wesley, founder of the Methodist church, one of the finest is “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” It’s been said that Wesley was inspired to write it after walking through the woods on a stormy day. A cloud burst and a lightning storm broke out. The rain began to come down in torrents.

By a swollen stream, little birds were shivering on a tree limb. A bolt of lightning flashed, and one was so frightened, it flew down toward Charles Wesley and tried to hide inside his coat. Wesley was so moved by that, he wrote,

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

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

Hide me, Oh my Savior, hide, till the storm life is past,

Safely to the haven guide. Oh receive my soul at last.

That's what our Lord does; He hides us. He guides us. He sustains us. He keeps us.

The song’s lyrics are a poignant picture of a young man’s journey into discovering the love of his life—Jesus.

Another hymn says it like this: “Hiding in Thee, hiding in Thee. Oh blessed Rock of Ages, I'm hiding in Thee.”

ACTION POINT:

Where is your heart today? Are you suffering from a broken relationship or the loss of a loved one? Run, don’t walk, into His waiting arms of love. Jesus wants to bind up your hurt and bring hope to your heart.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

As Sure as God’s Love for His Son

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

God strips every pain of destructive power. You must believe this or you will not thrive, or perhaps even survive, as a Christian, in the pressures and temptations of modern life.

There is so much pain, so many setbacks and discouragements, so many controversies and pressures. I do not know where I would turn, if I did not believe that almighty God is taking every setback and every discouragement and every controversy and every pressure and every pain, and stripping it of its destructive power, and making it work for the enlargement of my joy in God.

Listen to Paul’s astonishing words in 1 Corinthians 3:21–23, “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” The world is ours. Life is ours. Death is ours. Which I take to mean: God reigns so supremely on behalf of his elect that everything which faces us in a lifetime of obedience and ministry will be subdued by the mighty hand of God and made the servant of our holiness and our everlasting joy in God.

If God is for us, and if God is God, then it is true that nothing can succeed against us. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all will infallibly and freely with him give us all things — all things — the world, life, death, and God himself.

Romans 8:32 is a precious friend. The promise of God’s future grace is simply overwhelming. But all-important is the foundation: I have called it the logic of heaven. Here is a place to stand against all obstacles. God did not spare his own Son! Therefore! Therefore! The logic of heaven! Therefore, how much more will he not spare any effort to give us all that Christ died to purchase — all things, all good, and all bad working for our good!

It is as sure as the certainty that he loved his Son!

John Piper 

Actions speak louder than words

BIBLE MEDITATION:

And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight. Colossians 1:21-22

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A man stretched a tightrope across Niagara Falls and pushed a wheelbarrow across it. Next, he filled the wheelbarrow with 200 lbs. of cement and pushed it across. The onlookers were astounded.

Then the tightrope walker asked the crowd, “How many of you believe I could do this with a man in the wheelbarrow?” The hands flew into the air. He pointed to a man who had his hand up and he said, “All right sir. You get in first.” Well, you couldn’t see the man for the trail of dust he left behind.

ACTION POINT:

It’s not enough for you to say you believe in God. Are you willing to act upon your belief? God is calling you to a relationship with Him. Will you answer His call?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When Everyone Deserts You

At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (2 Timothy 4:16–18)

This morning I was lingering over these magnificent and heartbreaking words. Paul is in custody in Rome. So far as we know, he was never released. His last letter comes to an end like this.

Consider and be astounded!

He is deserted: “no one came to stand by me.” He is an old man. A loyal servant. In a foreign city, far from home. Surrounded by enemies. In danger of death. Why? Answer: So he could write this precious sentence for our discouraged, or fearful, or lonely souls: “But the Lord stood by me!”

Oh, how I love those words! When you are deserted by close friends, do you cry out against God? Are the people in your life, then, really your god? Or do you take courage in this magnificent truth: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) — no matter who deserts you? Do you strengthen your heart with this inexorable oath: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5)?

Then let us say, “The Lord stood by me!”

Question: What was threatened in 2 Timothy 4:18? Answer: that Paul might not attain the Lord’s heavenly kingdom! But over against the threat Paul cries, “The Lord will . . . bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.”

Question: How was Paul’s attaining the heavenly kingdom threatened? Answer: “evil deeds.” “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom.”

Question: How could an evil deed threaten Paul’s attaining the heavenly kingdom? Answer: by tempting him to forsake his allegiance to Christ through disobedience.

Question: Was this temptation the “lion’s mouth” from which he was rescued? Answer: Yes. “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9).

Question: So who gets the glory that Paul did not yield to this satanic temptation, but endured to the end in faith and obedience? Answer: “To him [the Lord] belong glory and dominion forever and ever” (1 Peter 5:10). “To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (2 Timothy 4:18).

Question: Why? Wasn’t it Paul who stood firm? Answer: “The Lord stood by me and strengthened me!”

John Piper 

God Never Takes His Eyes from You

BIBLE MEDITATION:

O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Psalm 139:1

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

God sees everything you do. God knows all about you. God loves you. It is an amazing thing that the Lord would feel this way about any of us, when we are less than a grain of sand compared to the universe He created.

There is no more reason for God to be interested in us than for the President of the United States to be interested in an ant floating on a piece of cheesecake in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. And yet God is interested...very interested.

The sun that stays in the sky and warms the earth will ripen a bunch of bananas like it has nothing better to do. In the same way, Almighty God runs the universe and is concerned about you as though you were His only concern.

ACTION POINT:

Don’t move on until that sinks deep into your heart.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers