Saturday, August 17, 2019

God is Beautifully Arranging You



BIBLE MEDITATION:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I’ve had the privilege of pastoring churches in the midst of building campaigns, and it’s been a faith-growing experience to watch God work. In fact, I will never forget the first church where that happened: in Fort Pierce, Florida.

There was an elderly architect who was over the job, and he said something I will never forget. As we were looking over the plans I said, “It can’t be expensive because we don’t have much money.” And he replied, “Oh, my boy. Good architecture is not an arrangement of beautiful materials. It is a beautiful arrangement of materials.”


ACTION POINT:

The Lord can take people like you and me from the quarry of sin, and with His grace and His Word, He can fit us together into a majestic temple of God. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a beautiful arrangement of materials. You are an irreplaceable part of His workmanship.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Remember Your Promise God


2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began
3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; - Titus 1:2-3

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. - Hebrews 9:15

17 So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath,
18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.
19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,
20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. - Hebrews 6:17-20

Grace is enough!
Christ, in God, gives that assurance!
By God's command, Jesus willingly died to bring those who will believe that He alone is able. 

To the glory of God, Amen

Soul In Need of a Savior


Hope, praise, salvation, steadfast love, mercies, and faithfulness!
Jesus offers all these!

Man deep in sorrow, cast down and in turmoil should wait quietly, hope and seek His goodness!
Are you waiting? 
Do you want deliverance? 
Repent!
There is nothing sweeter than a soul delivered! 


Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation  - Psalm 42:5

22 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 
23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 
24 "The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." 
25 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 
26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.  - Lamentations 3:22-26

13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. - Colossians 1:13-14

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

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. - 1 Peter 2:24

1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 
2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 
4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned-every one-to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 
7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 
9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 
10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. 
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.  - Isaiah 53




Friday, August 16, 2019

Why You Give In to Sexual Sin



Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. . . . Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:8, 12)

Why isn’t David crying out for sexual restraint? Why isn’t he praying for men to hold him accountable? Why isn’t he praying for protected eyes and sex-free thoughts? In this psalm of confession and repentance after essentially raping Bathsheba, you would expect David to ask for something like that.

The reason is that he knows that sexual sin is a symptom, not the disease.

People give way to sexual sin because they don’t have fullness of joy and gladness in Christ. Their spirits are not steadfast and firm and established. They waver. They are enticed, and they give way because God does not have the supreme place in their feelings and thoughts that he should.

David knew this about himself. It’s true about us too. David is showing us, by the way he prays, what the real need is for those who sin sexually: God! Joy in God.

This is profound wisdom for us.


John Piper 

Jesus: Stepping stone to Heaven or stumbling block to Hell?


BIBLE MEDITATION:

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1 Corinthians 1:23-24

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Jesus Christ will be either a stepping stone into heaven or a stumbling stone into hell. No one can be neutral about Jesus Christ. Either you rise on Him, or you fall on Him. You cannot walk around Him. Either you’re saved by Him or you’re judged by Him.

ACTION POINT:

You will encounter Jesus Christ. He is inevitable. He is unavoidable. He is inescapable. What you do with Jesus determines what Jesus will do with you. What is your relationship with Jesus Christ today?


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Thursday, August 15, 2019

What We Were Made For



Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God. (1 Peter 3:18)

The greatest good of the good news — the gospel — is the enjoyment of fellowship with God himself. This is made explicit here in 1 Peter 3:18 in the phrase “that he might bring us to God.” That’s why Jesus died.

All the other gifts of the gospel exist to make this one possible.

We are forgiven so that our guilt does not keep us away from God.

We are justified so that our condemnation does not keep us away from God.

God is propitiated so that his wrath doesn’t stand between us and God as our Father.

We are given eternal life now, with new bodies in the resurrection, so that we have the capacities for being with God forever and enjoying God to the fullest.

Test your heart. Why do you want forgiveness? Why do you want to be justified? Why do you want the wrath of God to be propitiated? Why do you want eternal life? Is the decisive answer, “Because I want to enjoy God now and forever”?

The gospel-love that God gives is ultimately the gift of himself. This is what we were made for. This is what we lost because of our sin. This is what Christ came to restore.

“In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).


John Piper 

You are safe. You are sealed for eternity.



BIBLE MEDITATION:

In Whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the Word of Truth, the gospel of your salvation: in Whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Ephesians 1:13

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

What does the Bible mean when it says you are “sealed with the Holy Spirit”?

First, the seal is a mark of authenticity. If the Holy Spirit is not in you, then you are a fake. First John 3:24 says, “And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.”

Second, the seal is a mark of ownership. You are His. Romans 8:9 says, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.”

Third, the seal is a mark of security. Queen Esther tells us what a king’s seal is like when she describes it in Esther 8:8—  “Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king's name, and seal it with the king's ring: for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse.”

The seal of the Holy Spirit is a seal “no man can reverse.”

ACTION POINT:

The way I am “kept saved” is because God sealed me. The way you are kept saved, is because God has sealed you.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers