Opened Minds

Understanding the scriptures comes from God alone.

He searches the heart.

He knows Your every thought.

He gives true meaning to what you study.

He allows you to teach and share with others.

He warns you of sin.

Lord, open our hearts to Your life giving word.

Let us cherish it, teach it, obey it, and never let the world twist its meaning. Let us repent when we fail. We praise You for Jesus. He alone is able to give salvation according to Your command and by Your power. Amen

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, - Luke 24:45

They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" - Luke 24:32

then he opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings,  - Job 33:16

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. - Acts 16:14

20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. - 1 John 5:20-21

39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

41 I do not receive glory from people.

42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

43 I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" - John 5:39-47

Medicine for the Missionary

“All things are possible with God.” (Mark 10:27)

Sovereign grace is the spring of life for the Christian Hedonist. For what the Christian Hedonist loves best is the experience of the sovereign grace of God filling him, and overflowing for the good of others.

Christian Hedonist missionaries love the experience of “not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). They bask in the truth that the fruit of their missionary labor is entirely of God (1 Corinthians 3:7; Romans 11:36).

They feel only gladness when the Master says, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). They leap like lambs over the truth that God has taken the impossible weight of new creation off their shoulders and put it on his own. Without begrudging, they say, “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

When they come home on furlough, nothing gives them more joy than to say to churches, “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience” (Romans 15:18).

“All things are possible with God!” — in front the words give hope, and behind they give humility. They are the antidote to despair and the antidote to pride — the perfect missionary medicine.

John Piper 

The link between sexual immorality and mental health

BIBLE MEDITATION:

For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. 

1 Thessalonians 4:7

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A former president of the American Psychiatric Association said, “Premarital sex relationships resulting from the so-called new morality have greatly increased the number of young people in mental hospitals.”

Dr. Billy Graham said he talked to the head psychiatrist at one of our great universities. At that time he said, “Over fifty percent of the students at that university are suffering psychological problems because of immoral relationships.”

ACTION POINT:

Friend, why does God tell us to live a pure and holy life? It’s not only so that we can have fellowship with Him, but also it is for our own mental health! He knows holiness brings life to our bones, healing to our hearts, and joy to our steps!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Great Missionary Hope

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:5)

The great missionary hope is that when the gospel is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, God himself does what man cannot do: he creates the faith that saves. The call of God does what the call of man can’t. It raises the dead. It creates spiritual life. It is like the call of Jesus to Lazarus in the tomb, “Come out!” And the dead man obeyed and came out. The call created the obedience by creating life (John 11:43). That is how anyone is saved.

We can waken someone from sleep with our call, but God’s call can summon into being things that are not (Romans 4:17). God’s call is irresistible in the sense that it can overcome all resistance. It is infallibly effective according to God’s purpose — so much so that Paul can say, “Those whom [God] called he also justified” (Romans 8:30), even though we are only justified by our faith.

In other words, God’s call is so effectual that it infallibly creates the faith through which a person is justified. All the called are justified according to Romans 8:30. But none is justified without faith (Romans 5:1). So the call of God cannot fail in its intended effect. It irresistibly brings into being the faith that justifies.

This is what man cannot do. It is impossible. Only God can take out the heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). Only God can draw people to the Son (John 6:44, 65). Only God can open the spiritually dead heart so that it gives heed to the gospel (Acts 16:14). Only the Good Shepherd knows his sheep, and calls them by name with such compelling power that they all follow — and never perish (John 10:3–4, 14).

The sovereign grace of God, doing the humanly impossible, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, is the great missionary hope.

John Piper 

What it will cost you to compromise with Satan

BIBLE MEDITATION:

In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and His children shall have a place of refuge.

Proverbs 14:26

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

The devil hates families who worship together. He will allow parents to be religious, but he does not want them to take their children to heaven with them. As a result, we’re losing an entire generation. Our children are being left behind to die and go to hell because we are compromising with Satan.

Catherine Booth, wife of the founder of the Salvation Army, prayed, “Oh God, I will not stand before Thee without all my children.”

ACTION POINT:

There are many fathers and mothers today who need to say that. Stand firm, Mom. Stand firm, Dad. Gather those children close to you and love them to Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Christ Is Like Sunlight

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. (Hebrews 1:3)

Jesus relates to God the way radiance relates to glory, or the way the rays of sunlight relate to the sun.

Keep in mind that every analogy between God and natural things is imperfect and will distort if you press it. Nevertheless, consider for example,

There is no time that the sun exists without the beams of radiance. They cannot be separated. The radiance is co-eternal with the glory. Christ is co-eternal with God the Father.

The radiance is the glory radiating out. It is not essentially different from the glory. Christ is God standing forth as separate but not essentially different from the Father.

Thus the radiance is eternally begotten, as it were, by the glory — not created or made. If you put a solar-activated calculator in the sunlight, numbers appear on the face of the calculator. These, you could say, are created or made by the sun, but they are not what the sun is. But the rays of the sun are an extension of the sun. So Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, but not made or created.

We see the sun by means of seeing the rays of the sun. So we see God the Father by seeing Jesus. The rays of the sun arrive here about eight minutes after they leave the sun, and the round ball of fire that we see in the sky is the image — the exact representation — of the sun; not because it is a painting of the sun, but because it is the sun streaming forth in its radiance.

So I commend this great Person to you that you might trust in him and love him and worship him. He is alive and sitting at the right hand of God with all power and authority and will one day come in great glory. He has that exalted place because he is himself God the Son, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”

John Piper 

Just give me Jesus

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Psalm 29:2

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A man lived a long life as a believer and a follower of Christ, and now he was dying. His loved ones came and asked him to sign his name to a necessary legal document. They explained, “Daddy, if you would sign this, it would help us with a lot of legal difficulties. We hate to mention it, but it needs to be done.”

Facing eternity, with a quivering hand the old man willingly signed the paper. Before long, he went to be with the Lord.

When his family saw the document, to their amazement he had signed, “Jesus.” More than likely, it was the only name that meant anything to him in those moments.

ACTION POINT:

What name means the most to you right now? There will come a time when the only name that will mean anything to you is—Jesus.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers