Yes, We Need Each Other

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. Hebrews 10:25

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

To exhort is to comfort and encourage. We need each other. We ought to be encouraging one another, saying, “Isn’t God wonderful? Isn’t Jesus great? Don’t you love Him? What’s God doing in your life? How may I pray for you today?”

Among fellow believers, we live in a climate that keeps our hearts tender. When we stray from that climate and get away from the people of God by skipping worship services and fellowship opportunities, our hearts will grow hard.

When we encourage one another, we are sharing Christ. Fellowship among believers is vital for your spiritual growth. There’s something that happens in our hearts when we share in each other’s lives. We grow. We strengthen one another. Fellowship keeps our heart tender.

ACTION POINT:

Do you have that kind of fellowship? Are you in community with fellow believers? If you had no earthly family—no parents, no brothers or sisters, you’d be an orphan. Don’t be a spiritual orphan. Fellowship with other believers is one of the greatest joys on earth. 

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

A Dangerous Motive

“Who has given a gift to [God] that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. (Romans 11:35–36)

When it comes to obedience, gratitude is a dangerous motive. It tends to get expressed in debtor’s terms. For example, “Look how much God has done for you. Shouldn’t you, out of gratitude, do much for him?” Or, “You owe God everything that you are and have. What have you done for him in return?”

I have at least three problems with this kind of motivation.

First, it is impossible to pay God back for all the grace he has given us. We can’t even begin to pay him back, because Romans 11:35–36 says, “‘Who has given a gift to [God] that he might be repaid?’ [Answer: Nobody!] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.” We can’t pay him back because he already owns all we have to give him — including all our efforts.

Secondly, even if we succeeded in paying him back for all his grace to us, we would only succeed in turning grace into a business transaction. If we can pay him back, it was not grace. If someone tries to show you a special favor of love by having you over for dinner, and you end the evening by saying that you will pay them back by having them over next week, you nullify their grace and turn it into a trade. God does not like to have his grace nullified. He likes to have it glorified (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).

Thirdly, focusing on gratitude as a motive for obedience tends to overlook the crucial importance of having faith in God’s future grace. Gratitude looks back to grace received in the past and feels thankful. Faith looks forward to grace promised in the future — whether five minutes from now or five centuries from now — and feels hopeful. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for” (Hebrews 11:1).

This faith in future grace is the motive for obedience that preserves the gracious quality of human obedience. Obedience does not consist in paying God back and thus turning grace into a trade. Obedience comes from trusting in God for more grace — future grace — and thus magnifying the infinite resources of God’s love and power. Faith looks to the promise, I will be “with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9), and ventures, in obedience, to take the land.

John Piper 

Feel backed into a corner?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:58

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Where are the courageous children of God who will speak on their Father’s behalf—speak of His Truth, His mercy, His love? Psalm 119:46 says, “I will speak of Thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.”

They have a saying in the country: “What’s down in the well comes up in the bucket.” What happens when you are up against a wall? Do you back down and deny your faith? Or do you stand firm despite the verbal assault on your beliefs?

ACTION POINT:

Are you fearful? Do you feel backed into a corner? 1 Peter 3:14-17 has your prescription for a fearful heart:

But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience that whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

LWF Adrian Rogers 

How to Ask Forgiveness

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. (1 John 1:9)

I recall hearing one of my professors in seminary say that one of the best tests of a person’s theology was the effect it has on our prayers.

This struck me as true because of what was happening in my own life. Noël and I had just been married and we were making it our practice to pray together each evening. I noticed that during the biblical courses which were shaping my theology most profoundly, my prayers were changing dramatically.

Probably the most significant change in those days was that I was learning to make my case before God on the ground of his glory. Beginning with “Hallowed be Thy name” and ending with “In Jesus’s name” meant that the glory of God’s name was the goal and the ground of everything I prayed.

And what a strength came into my life when I learned that praying for forgiveness should be based not only on an appeal to God’s mercy, but also on an appeal to his justice in crediting the worth of his Son’s obedience. God is faithful and just and will forgive your sins (1 John 1:9).

In the New Testament, the basis of all forgiveness of sins is revealed more clearly than it was in the Old Testament, but the basis, namely, God’s commitment to his name, does not change.

Paul teaches that the death of Christ demonstrated God’s righteousness in passing over sins, and vindicated God’s justice in justifying the ungodly who bank on Jesus and not themselves (Romans 3:25–26).

In other words, Christ died once for all to clear the name of God in what looks like a gross miscarriage of justice — the acquittal of guilty sinners simply for Jesus’s sake. But Jesus died in such a way that forgiveness “for Jesus’s sake” is the same as forgiveness “for the sake of God’s name.” There is no miscarriage of justice. God’s name, his righteousness, his justice is vindicated in the very act of providing such a God-honoring sacrifice.

As Jesus said as he faced that last hour, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (John 12:27–28). That is exactly what he did — so that he might be both just and the justifier of those who trust in Jesus (Romans 3:26).

John Piper 

Are you working toward holiness?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For I am the Lord your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Leviticus 11:44 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Some people think that to be holy means to be odd—really strange.  No, we’re to be different. We have too many Christians doing—sometimes nutty, sometimes unbiblical—things, who claim to be holy when in reality they are just odd.

Holiness is not achieved by what we wear, where we sleep and eat, or how many spiritual things we do. It is not primarily a matter of dress or style of hair. And we don’t become holy if we live in a commune, monastery, or convent.

God makes us holy by the blood of His Son. And in return for this great love, we endeavor to live holy lives because we love Him. “Holy” is a state of being, not doing. It is a God-induced, God-developed character trait that grows in us as we grow in our love relationship with God.

ACTION POINT:

Instead of trying to think of ways in which you can appear to be holy or trying to convince God that you are, I recommend this: in humble submission to the One who loves you more than anyone else, ask Him: “Lord, I’m your servant. Show me throughout this day how best to honor You and serve You.”

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Reaching Out In Love

"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  - Isaiah 1:18

3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, - 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 

2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 

3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 

4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. 

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. 

6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 

7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 

8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 

9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 

10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 

11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 

12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.  - Psalm 51:1-12

Come as you are!

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Know the one and only Lord!

Jesus is your mediator.

Do you know God, the mighty One?

There are false gods who will lead you into eternal damnation! 

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. - 1 Timothy 2:5-6

And he said, "See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am he!' and, 'The time is at hand!' Do not go after them. - Luke 21:8

God Demonstrates His Love

God shows [demonstrates] his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Notice that “demonstrates” is present tense and “died” is past tense. “God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

The present tense implies that this demonstrating is an ongoing act that keeps happening today. And will keep happening tomorrow.

The past tense “died” implies that the death of Christ happened once for all and will not be repeated. “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

Why did Paul use the present tense (“God demonstrates”)? I would have expected Paul to say, “God demonstrated (past tense) his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Was not the death of Christ, when it happened, the demonstration of God’s love? And did not that demonstration happen in the past?

I think the clue is given a few verses earlier. Paul has just said that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame” (Romans 5:3–5).

In other words, the goal of everything God takes us through is hope. He wants us to feel unwaveringly hopeful through all tribulations.

But how can we?

Paul answers in the next line: “Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). God’s love has been poured into our hearts. The tense of this verb means that God’s love was poured out in our hearts in the past (at our conversion) and is still present and active.

God did demonstrate his love for us in giving his own Son to die once for all in the past for our sins (Romans 5:8). But he also knows that this past love must be experienced as a present reality (today and tomorrow) if we are to have patience and character and hope.

Therefore, he not only demonstrated it on Calvary; he goes on demonstrating it now by the Spirit in our hearts. He does this by opening the eyes of our hearts to taste and see the glory of the cross and the guarantee it gives that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38–39).

John Piper