Feb.27

1 "Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. 

2 He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not. 

3 And do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you? 

4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? There is not one. 

5 Since his days are determined, and the number of his months is with you, and you have appointed his limits that he cannot pass, 

6 look away from him and leave him alone, that he may enjoy, like a hired hand, his day.  - Job 14:1-6

4 "O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! 

5 Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah  - Psalm 39:4-5

47 Remember how short my time is! For what vanity you have created all the children of man! 

48 What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah  - Psalm 89:47-48

For when a few years have come I shall go the way from which I shall not return.  - Job 16:22

What Are You Running To?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted”... 

(Galatians 6:1)

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I read that each morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up and says to himself, “If I cannot outrun the fastest lion on these plains today, I will be devoured.” And somewhere that same morning, a lion wakes up and says, “If I cannot outrun the slowest gazelle today, I will starve.” So they run.

Every morning you and I need to wake up running because we are running from sin, and Satan is running after us.

You know the difference between my life before I was saved and after? Before I got saved, I was running to sin, but now I’m running from sin. But sometimes we are overtaken by sin, and the Bible tells us to “restore one other.”

ACTION POINT:

Do you know a brother or sister in Christ who’s been running toward sin—and walked away from the faith? Ask the Lord how He might use you and other believers to “restore such a one.” We who are Christians are to be in the restoration and reclamation business!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When God Becomes 100% for Us

. . . among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:3)

All of God’s wrath, all of the condemnation we deserve, was poured out on Jesus. All of God’s demands for perfect righteousness were fulfilled by Christ. The moment we see (by grace!) this Treasure, and receive him in this way, his death counts as our death and his condemnation as our condemnation and his righteousness as our righteousness, and God becomes 100% irrevocably for us forever in that instant.

The question this leaves unanswered is, “Doesn’t the Bible teach that in eternity God set his favor on us in election?”

In other words, thoughtful people ask, “Did God only become 100% for us in the moment of faith and union with Christ and justification? Did he not become 100% for us in the act of election before the foundation of the world?” Paul says in Ephesians 1:4–5, “[God] chose us in [Jesus] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.”

Is God then not 100% for the elect from eternity? The answer hangs on the meaning of “100%.”

With the term “100%” I am trying to preserve a biblical truth found in several passages of Scripture. For example, in Ephesians 2:3, Paul says that Christians were “children of wrath” before they were made alive in Christ Jesus: “We all once lived [among the sons of disobedience] in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Paul is saying that, before our new birth — before we were made alive together with Christ — God’s wrath was on us. The elect were under wrath. This changed when God made us alive in Christ Jesus and awakened us to see the truth and beauty of Christ so that we received him as the one who died for us and as the one whose righteousness is counted as ours because of our union with Jesus. Before this happened to us, we were under God’s wrath. Then, because of faith in Christ and union with him, all God’s wrath was removed and he then became, in that sense, 100% for us.

Therefore, exult in the truth that God will keep you. He will get you to the end because in Christ he is 100% for you. And therefore, getting to the end does not make God to be 100% for you. It is the effect of the fact that he is already 100% for you.

John Piper 

Holy Lamb Of God

These few verses are about God's provision.

The OT verses speak of the coming of God's ordained prophetic provision "The Lamb of God" who is Christ the Lord.

There was no worthy substitute available to satisfy God's wrath!

Christ took away the sin of the world!

7 And Isaac said to his father Abraham, "My father!" And he said, "Here I am, my son." He said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?"

8 Abraham said, "God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they went both of them together. - Genesis 22:7-8

12 He said, "Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."

13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

14 So Abraham called the name of that place, "The LORD will provide"; as it is said to this day, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided." - Genesis 22:12-14

18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,

19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. - 1 Peter 1:18-21

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! - John 1:29

and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" - John 1:36

12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" 

13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" 

14 And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped. - Revelation 5:12-14

Feb.26

These next few days will be free form bible study!

4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in-who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery-

5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)-those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. - Galatians 2:4-6

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;

7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked

8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);

9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,

10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,  - 2 Peter 2:4-10

2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,

3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. - Revelation 20:2-3

4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day-

7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.

9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you."

10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. - Jude 1:4-10

What Burden Weighs on Your Heart Today?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

“Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you"... (1 Peter 5:7)

 DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

I read about a man whose dog was swimming. The man called to the dog because it was time to go home. The dog was having such a great time, he wouldn’t come. So the man picked up a stick and threw it in the water. When the dog saw the stick, he instinctively swam to the stick, put it in his mouth, came back, and laid it at his master’s feet.

I wonder if the burden you have has been given to you by God to cause you to come to His feet. Maybe He’s called you other ways, but you wouldn’t come. Maybe the burden is what God is using to bring you to your Master’s feet. But thank God we can cast all our cares upon Him, for He cares for us.

ACTION POINT:

What burden weighs on your heart today? Did you know we have a high priest, the Lord Jesus, who, the Bible says, is not high and mighty and aloof, but one who can relate to our sufferings and understand them? For He Himself knew the greatest pain, suffering, and loss. Read Hebrews 4:15-16, then cast your cares upon Him today.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

You Are Greatly Loved

We all once lived among [the sons of disobedience] in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:3–5)

Would you not love to hear the angel Gabriel say to you, “You are greatly loved”?

Three times this happened to Daniel.

“At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.” (Daniel 9:23)

“O Daniel, man greatly loved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for now I have been sent to you.” (Daniel 10:11)

And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” (Daniel 10:19)

I admit that each year when I read through the Bible and come to these verses, I want to take them and apply them to myself. I want to hear God saying to me, “You are greatly loved.”

In fact, I do hear this. And you can hear it too. If you have faith in Jesus, God himself says to you in his word — which is more sure than an angel of God speaking — “You are greatly loved.”

There it stands in Ephesians 2:3–5, 8: We “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. . . . For by grace you have been saved through faith.”

This is the only place where Paul uses this wonderful phrase “great love.” And it is better than an angel’s voice. If you have seen Jesus as true and received him as your supreme treasure, that is, if you are “alive,” you are greatly loved. Greatly loved by the Creator of the universe. Just think of it! Greatly loved!

John Piper