Thursday, October 3, 2019

Absolute, Sovereign, Almighty Love



“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6)

God abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Two images come to my mind:

The heart of God is like an inexhaustible spring of water that bubbles up love and faithfulness at the top of the mountain. Century after century the spring keeps on flowing.

Or the heart of God is like a volcano that burns so hot with love that it blasts the top off the mountain and flows year after year with the lava of love and faithfulness.

When God uses the word “abounding” — “abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” — he wants us to understand and feel that the resources of his love are not limited. You can drink at this mountain spring all day, year after year, generation after generation, and it never runs dry.

You might even risk saying that God is like a government that simply prints more money when there’s a need. Inexhaustible, right? Well, there’s a difference. God has an infinite treasury of golden love to cover all the currency he prints. The government is in a dream world. God banks very realistically on the infinite resources of his deity.

The absolute existence, the sovereign freedom, and the omnipotence of God are the volcanic fullness that explodes in an overflow of love. The sheer magnificence of God means that he does not need us to fill up any deficiency in himself. Instead his infinite self-sufficiency spills over in love to us — to sinners — who need him, and the gift of himself in Jesus.

We can bank on his love precisely because we believe in the absoluteness of his existence, the sovereignty of his freedom, and the limitlessness of his power.



John Piper 

What if Jesus returned today?


BIBLE MEDITATION:

And every man that hath this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.
1 John 3:3



DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Two little girls were talking in school one day, and one said to the other, “I hear the school board is making an inspection of our school this week.”

The other girl’s desk was messy, so she said, “I’ll clean it up tomorrow.”

The first one asked, “But what if they come today?”

Her friend said, “You know, I think I’ll clean it up right now—and keep it clean.”

Since we are people who look for Jesus Christ to come at any moment, we ought to be living clean lives. For example, if you knew for certain that Jesus Christ were coming this afternoon, are there some things you'd get right in your life? Would there be someone you might call this afternoon and want to make up with before Jesus came? Would there be some literature in your home you'd like to get rid of? Are there some things that would change if you absolutely knew that this afternoon you were going to meet Jesus Christ?

You see, that's what John meant when he said that those who have this hope (that is, the expectation of the coming of Jesus) purify themselves.

ACTION POINT:

What a motivation to commit ourselves to living a holy life, once we fully realize that at any moment we might meet Jesus face to face.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

God Isn’t Gloomy



The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations. (Psalm 33:10–11)

“Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Psalm 115:3). The implication of this text is that God has the right and power to do whatever makes him happy. That is what it means to say that God is sovereign.

Think about it for a moment: If God is sovereign and can do anything he pleases, then none of his purposes can be frustrated. “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (Psalm 33:10–11).

And if none of his purposes can be frustrated, then he must be the happiest of all beings.

This infinite, divine happiness is the fountain from which the Christian (Hedonist) drinks and longs to drink more deeply.

Can you imagine what it would be like if the God who ruled the world were not happy? What if God were given to grumbling and pouting and depression, like some Jack-and-the-beanstalk giant in the sky? What if God were frustrated and despondent and gloomy and dismal and discontented and dejected?

Could we join David and say, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1)? I don’t think so.

We would all relate to God like little children who have a frustrated, gloomy, dismal, discontented father. They can’t enjoy him. They can only try not to bother him, or maybe try to work for him to earn some little favor.

But that is not the way God is. He is never out of sorts with frustration or discouragement. And, as Psalm 147:11 says, he “takes pleasure . . . in those who hope in his steadfast love.” So the aim of the Christian Hedonist is not to avoid this God, not to run from him, or tiptoe through the living room lest his gloominess become anger. No, our aim is to hope in his steadfast love. To run to him. To be happy in God, to delight in God, to cherish and enjoy his fellowship and favor.


John Piper 

Have to? Need to? Or WANT to?


BIBLE MEDITATION:

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
1 Corinthians 9:19



DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

There are three reasons for being obedient:

A slave obeys because he has to.
An employee obeys because he needs to.
But a loving son obeys because he wants to.
So many of us live like slaves, obeying out of obligation, when Jesus has said, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth. But I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father, I have made known unto you” (John 15:15).

ACTION POINT:

I don’t work for my salvation—that work has been done by my Lord. But I will work like any slave for the love of God. What about you?


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

My Sin Is Ever Before Me


Help me Lord.
My sin is always there.
Forgive me by Your majestic power.
How can I do what I don't want to do instead of doing what I want to do? 
Evil draws me, I run but it catches me. 
But You O Lord bring deliverance. 
I desire You Lord.
I speak of Your great mercy.
I share Your wonderful truth.
That truth is life to those who are perishing.
Save Lord according to Your word.

26 Help me, O LORD my God! Save me according to your steadfast love! 
27 Let them know that this is your hand; you, O LORD, have done it! 
28 Let them curse, but you will bless! They arise and are put to shame, but your servant will be glad!  - Psalm 109:26-28

But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." - Matthew 15:25

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.  - Psalm 51:1-4

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:1-2

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. - 1 John 1:7-10

21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship.
22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own,
26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. - Hebrews 9:21-28

14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. - Romans 7:14-25

15 For 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.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. - Hebrews 4:15-16

4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? - 1 John 5:4-5

8 The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 
9 The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made. 
10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O LORD, and all your saints shall bless you!  - Psalm 145:8-10

21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:21-24

13 For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?"
17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for "Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world."  - Romans 10:13-18

10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead-by him this man is standing before you well.
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.
12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." - Acts 4:10-12

My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to your word!  - Psalm 119:25

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.  - Psalm 119:37

Let your steadfast love come to me, O LORD, your salvation according to your promise;  - Psalm 119:41

Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope!  - Psalm 119:116

I entreat your favor with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise.  - Psalm 119:58















The All-Satisfying Object



Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

The quest for pleasure is not even optional, but commanded (in the Psalms): “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4).

The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” (Psalm 36:8 NASB).

I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8). Taste. Taste! And see.

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

As C.S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in him (Psalm 43:4). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).


John Piper 

What’s on both sides of your valley?



BIBLE MEDITATION:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4



DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

Psalm 23 is perched between Psalm 22, which tells about the crucifixion of Jesus, and Psalm 24, a prophecy of the coronation of Jesus. It is a beautiful trilogy about the Savior’s cross, the Shepherd’s crook, and the Sovereign’s crown.

Psalm 23 is the valley between the blood-drenched slopes of Mount Calvary and the sunlit peaks of Mount Zion. Thank God for every valley, because there must be a mountain.

ACTION POINT:

If you are in the valley today, remember that you wouldn’t be there had there not been mountains to cross. There is vision in the valley and hope in the hills.


LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers