You Cannot Lose in the End

“You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” (Matthew 27:65)

When Jesus was dead and buried, with a big stone rolled against the tomb, the Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for permission to seal the stone and guard the tomb.

They gave it their best shot — in vain.

It was hopeless then, it is hopeless today, and it will always be hopeless. Try as they may, people can’t keep Jesus down. They can’t keep him buried.

It’s not hard to figure out: He can break out because he wasn’t forced in. He let himself be libeled and harassed and blackballed and scorned and shoved around and killed.

I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. (John 10:17–18)

No one can keep him down because no one ever knocked him down. He lay down when he was ready.

When it looks like he is buried for good, Jesus is doing something awesome in the dark. “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mark 4:26–27).

The world thinks Jesus is done for — out of the way — but Jesus is at work in the dark places. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). He let himself be buried — “no one takes [my life] from me” — and he will come out in power when and where he pleases — “I have authority to take it up again.”

“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Jesus has his priesthood today “by the power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16).

For twenty centuries, the world has given it their best shot — in vain. They can’t bury him. They can’t hold him in. They can’t silence him or limit him. Jesus is alive and utterly free to go and come wherever he pleases.

Trust him and go with him, no matter what. You cannot lose in the end.

John Piper 

Are you willing to obey at any cost?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. Hebrews 11:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Who knows what marvelous opportunity God has for you when you’re sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading. Don’t say, “Show me what You want me to do; then I’ll decide whether or not to do it.” Instead say, “I’ll do it – whatever it is. You tell me. If You explain it, fine. If You don’t, fine. But God, I’m going to do it.”

Abraham is known as “the father of the faithful’ (Romans 4:16). His name is in the Bible 230 times. He went out from his familiar homeland not knowing where God would send him. The “Faith Hall of Fame” (Hebrews 11) devotes verses 8-19 to Abraham and his wife, Sarah.

What level of faith did he have? Faith so strong, Genesis 15:6 says his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness.” “In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, ‘so shall your descendants be’”(Romans 4:18). God Himself even called Abraham His friend (Isaiah 41:8).

ACTION POINT:

Are you ready to travel under sealed orders? If you are married, talk to your spouse about your availability as a couple to God. I know some who were willing to sell their home, take their children and go even to another city or country to share God’s plan of salvation. Would you do that if He called you there? If not, ask Him to change your heart. It may not be anything so dramatic as that for you. It may be in your office or on your own street. Say, “Lord, make me willing to be willing for whatever you would have me do.” He is the potter; you are the clay.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Great King’s Wine

We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

I have never heard anyone say, “The really deep lessons of my life have come through times of ease and comfort.” But I have heard strong saints say, “Every significant advance I have ever made in grasping the depths of God’s love and growing deep with him, has come through suffering.”

This is a sobering biblical truth. For example: “For [Christ’s] sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Paraphrase: No pain, no gain. Or:

Now let it all be sacrificed, if it will get me more of Christ.

Here’s another example: “Although he was a son, [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). The same book said he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15).

So learning obedience does not mean switching from disobedience to obedience. It means growing deeper and deeper with God in the experience of obedience. It means experiencing depths of yieldedness to God that would not have been otherwise attained. This is what came through suffering. No pain, no gain.

Samuel Rutherford said that when he was cast into the cellars of affliction, he remembered that the great King always kept his wine there. Charles Spurgeon said, “They who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.”

Do you not love your beloved more when you feel some strange pain that makes you think you have cancer? We are strange creatures indeed. If we have health and peace and time to love, it can become a thin and hasty thing. But if we are dying, love becomes a deep, slow river of inexpressible joy, and we can scarcely endure to give it up.

Therefore brothers and sisters, “Count it all joy . . . when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2).

John Piper 

Are you…Available? Expendable? Adaptable?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Jesus never put the “traditions of men” above the Word of God (see Mark 7:1-13). What about you? Are you willing to adapt your life so God might use you? Or had you rather hold onto comfortable, familiar traditions?

I believe every Christian should exhibit these 3 qualities:

availability

expendability

adaptability

We need to be walking with the Lord so closely, we’re ready to witness at a moment’s notice—availability. Ready to be spent in His cause--expendability. Ready to be sent on a commission from Him--adaptability.

It’s the joining together of God’s ability and your availability that gets His work done in this world. It’s His power and your personality. It’s His work and your witness. That’s God’s plan!

ACTION POINT:

Let’s say someone comes to you right now with the sole purpose of asking you how they can have a personal relationship with God. What would you say? Would you be prepared? Be ready today to give an answer for the hope that is within you (see 1 Peter 3:15).

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What Is Well-Placed Shame?

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. (Romans 6:20–21)

When a Christian’s eyes are opened to the God-dishonoring evil of his former behavior, the Christian rightly feels ashamed. Paul says to the Roman church, “When you were slaves of sin . . . what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?”

There is a proper place for looking back and feeling the twinge of pain that we once lived in a way that was so belittling to God. To be sure, we are not to be paralyzed by dwelling on this. But a sensitive Christian heart cannot think back on the follies of youth and not feel echoes of shame, even if we have settled it all with the Lord.

Well-placed shame can be very healthy and redemptive. Paul said to the Thessalonians, “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). This means that shame is a proper and redemptive step in conversion, and even in a believer’s repentance from a season of spiritual coldness and sin. Shame is not something to be avoided at all costs. There is a place for it in God’s good dealings with his people.

We can conclude that the biblical criterion for misplaced shame and for well-placed shame is radically God-centered.

The biblical criterion for misplaced shame says, Don’t feel shame for something that honors God, no matter how weak or foolish or wrong it makes you look in the eyes of other people. Or another way to apply this God-centered criterion of misplaced shame: don’t feel shame because of a truly shameful situation unless you are in some way participating in the evil.

The biblical criterion for well-placed shame says, Do feel shame for having a hand in anything that dishonors God, no matter how strong or wise or right it makes you look in the eyes of others.

The reason we should feel shame is disapproval for behavior that honors God. The reason we should not feel shame is behavior that honors God, even if people try to shame you for it.

John Piper 

Are You Ashamed of Jesus?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Many of us chicken-out when it comes to witnessing for Jesus Christ. We cluck and duck when the subject of God or religion is raised. We hope no one’s looking when we ask God to bless our food in a public place.

Are you willing, no matter the blood, sweat and tears, to spend and be spent for the Lord? 

Maybe there are just too many other things on your agenda. Maybe you’re too focused on where you’ll spend your next vacation. 

We need more of the spirit of those saints who are suffering for the sake of the Gospel this very minute in prisons, in torture, in abuse – all because they profess love for Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).

God is calling you to leave your comfortable Christianity behind and tell someone that Jesus loves them and wants to save them. Will you do it, or will you be too ashamed?

ACTION POINT:

Let this be the year you bring the light of Christ to your dorm, your neighborhood, your apartment building, your baseball team – wherever God has placed you. Let Him use you for His glory!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Talk to God, Not Just About Him

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. (Psalm 23:4)

The form of the 23rd psalm is instructive.

In Psalm 23:1–3 David refers to God as “he”:

The Lord is my shepherd . . .

he makes me lie down . . .

he leads me . . .

he restores my soul.

Then in verses 4 and 5 David refers to God as “you”:

I will fear no evil, for you are with me;

your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me.

You anoint my head with oil.

Then in verse 6 he switches back:

I shall dwell in the house of the Lord.

The lesson we can learn from this form is that it is good not to talk very long about God without talking to God.

Every Christian is at least an amateur theologian — that is, a person who tries to understand the character and ways of God and then put that into words. If we aren’t little theologians, then we won’t ever say anything to each other, or to God, about God, and will be of very little real help to each other’s faith.

But what I have learned from David in Psalm 23 and other psalms is that I should interweave my theology with prayer. I should frequently interrupt my talking about God by talking to God.

Not far behind the theological sentence, “God is generous,” should come the prayerful sentence, “Thank you, God, for your generosity.”

On the heels of, “God is glorious,” should come, “I adore your glory.”

This is the way it must be, if we are feeling God’s reality in our hearts as well as thinking it in our heads and describing it with our lips.

John Piper