Saturday, September 5, 2020
September 5
Friday, September 4, 2020
Are You a Closet Cynic?
BIBLE MEDITATION
“Come now, and 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 be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18
DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT
Do you know what a cynic is? A cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Many people today scorn the Gospel and haven’t discerned the inherent goodness in Jesus Christ because they’re cynics. The Pharisees and Sadducees—quick to dispute everything the Lord Jesus said—were poster-children cynics. Many today are their spiritual descendants.
Cynicism is a terrible thing. Mr. Cynic, let me tell you something. God loves you and Jesus loves you, but if you are a cynic, you will probably never know the love of Jesus because of your cynicism.
ACTION POINT
Read again Isaiah 1:18, today's passage. You can hear the appeal of God, who with the heart of a loving father wants to forgive your sins—no matter how crimson they may be—and make you whole once more. This is the desire of God for you. What will you do with His offer?
LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers
What’s New About the New Covenant
“This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
Jesus shatters any absolute dissociation of commandments and love.
He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. . . . Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father” (John 14:15, 21). “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:10).
Thinking in terms of commandments and obedience did not stop Jesus from enjoying the love of his Father. And he expects that our thinking of him as one who commands will not jeopardize our love relationship with him either.
This is crucial to realize because the new covenant relationship that we have with God through Jesus Christ is not a covenant without commandments. The basic difference between the old covenant offered by God through the Mosaic law and the new covenant offered by God through Christ is not that one had commandments and the other doesn’t.
The key differences are that (1) the Messiah, Jesus, has come and shed the blood of the new covenant (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 10:29) so that henceforth he is the Mediator of a new covenant, so that all saving, covenant-keeping faith is conscious faith in him; (2) the old covenant has therefore become “obsolete” (Hebrews 8:13) and does not govern the new-covenant people of God (2 Corinthians 3:7–18; Romans 7:4, 6; Galatians 3:19); and (3) the promised new heart and the enabling power of the Holy Spirit have been given through faith.
In the old covenant, the gracious enabling power to obey God was not poured out as fully as it is since Jesus. “To this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear” (Deuteronomy 29:4). What’s new about the new covenant is not that there are no commandments, but that God’s promise has come true! “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). “I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27).
John Piper
September 4
In the Whisper
Eternity is in the minute!
What a precious way to look at each minute the Lord has given each of us.
What will we do with that minute?
Will we listen to the whispers of His teaching?
Will we share the love of Christ with the lost?
We can be bold, we can share, we can love.
Lord, whisper to us, let us get it.
Forgive us when we miss opportunities.
4 And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak, and from the dust your speech will be bowed down; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and from the dust your speech shall whisper.
5 But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,
6 you will be visited by the LORD of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire. - Isaiah 29:4-6
11 And he said, "Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.
12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. - 1 Kings 19:11-12
12 "Now a word was brought to me stealthily; my ear received the whisper of it.
13 Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
14 dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.
15 A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.
16 It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice:
17 'Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?
18 Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error;
19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.
20 Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces; they perish forever without anyone regarding it. - Job 4:12-20
Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways, and how small a whisper do we hear of him! But the thunder of his power who can understand?" - Job 26:14
"At the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity. - Psalm 75:2
For the day is near, the day of the LORD is near; it will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations. - Ezekiel 30:3
Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. - Isaiah 13:9