Possible with God

“I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” (John 10:16)

God has a people in every people group in the world. He will call them through the gospel with Creator power. And they will believe! What a power is in these words for overcoming discouragement in the hard places of the frontiers!

The story of Peter Cameron Scott is a good illustration. Born in Glasgow in 1867, Scott became the founder of the Africa Inland Mission. But his beginnings in Africa were anything but auspicious.

His first trip to Africa ended in a severe attack of malaria that sent him home. He resolved to return after he recuperated. This return was especially gratifying to him because this time his brother John joined him. But before long, John was struck down by fever.

All alone, Peter buried his brother in African soil, and in the agony of those days recommitted himself to preach the gospel in Africa. Yet his health gave way again, and he had to return to England.

How would he ever pull out of the desolation and depression of those days? He had pledged himself to God. But where could he find the strength to go back to Africa? With man it was impossible!

He found strength in Westminster Abbey. David Livingstone’s tomb is still there. Scott entered quietly, found the tomb, and knelt in front of it to pray. The inscription reads:

OTHER SHEEP I HAVE WHICH ARE NOT OF THIS FOLD; THEM ALSO I MUST BRING.

He rose from his knees with a new hope. He returned to Africa. And today, over a hundred years later, the mission he founded is a vibrant, growing force for the gospel in Africa.

If your greatest joy is to experience the infilling grace of God overflowing from you for the good of others, then the best news in all the world is that God will do the impossible through you for the salvation of the unreached peoples.

John Piper 

Bible Study

Ephesians 2:13

[13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

1 Peter 2:25

[25] For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

John 5:25

[25] “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

Acts 28:28

[28] Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”

Are You Becoming More Like Jesus?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Romans 8:30

 

PONDER THIS

Why does God want us to be conformed to the image of His Son? When God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, He created them in His image. That was so that they could know Him, worship Him, and fellowship with Him. After sin marred that image, Jesus came to restore that image. He does so, first of all, by regeneration, when we’re saved and made partakers of the Holy Spirit. And then He does it by sanctification as we’re being made more and more like Him. Then one day, thank God, when Jesus comes in glorification, we will be made just like He is in His glorified body.

Do you want to know how you’re doing in the Christian life? Here’s a question to assess yourself: Are you becoming more like Jesus? Are you having God’s purpose fulfilled in you? This happens as we become more like Jesus. God is not primarily concerned about making you healthy or wealthy. God’s purpose is that you become more like Jesus.

What evidence does your life show that you are becoming more like Jesus each day?

Where does your life give evidence that you might be holding too tightly to things of the world?

PRACTICE THIS

Ask God to reveal where He wants to grow you to be more like Jesus. Ask Him to help you to submit to Him and release the things that hold you back from becoming more like Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

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 

Bible Study

Romans 6:5-7

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin.

John 15:16

[16] You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

Colossians 1:5-6

[5] because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, [6] which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,

Colossians 1:10-20

[10] so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; [11] being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; [12] giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. [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.

[15] He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. [16] For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. [17] And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. [19] For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

God’s Will Be Done

PRAY OVER THIS

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Romans 8:29

 

PONDER THIS

C. S. Lewis said all of life is made of two categories of persons. There are those who follow Satan and are like Satan. Isaiah 14 recounts Satan’s rebellion against God. Five times Lucifer said, “I will.” I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the side of the north. I will be like the Most High. I will, I will, I will.” Lucifer was saying to God the Father, “Not your will, but mine be done.” There are many people like this in the world today. They’ll hear the Gospel, but they’ll say, “No, it’s my life. I’m going to live it. I’m not going to yield to His lordship. I’m not going to submit myself to Him.” Not your will, but mine be done. But Lewis said there’s another category of persons. These are those who say as Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will but thine be done.” Each of us is either saying yes to self and no to God or no to self and yes to God. Lewis went on to say, “All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice, there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.”

Where in your life do you often say, directly or indirectly, “Not your will but mine?”

What needs to change so that you more readily submit to God’s will each day?

PRACTICE THIS

Take time this week to look up places in the Bible that talk about God’s will and to ask Him to help you submit further to His will each day.

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