God Wants Your Obedience

PRAY OVER THIS

“‘For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’”

(Hebrews 12:6)

 

PONDER THIS

As God confronts your sin, first comes conviction. When you’re convicted of your sin, if you confess and forsake your sin, you’ll receive mercy. But if you do not respond when God convicts you, the next step is chastisement. And that chastisement may take many forms. God will chastise you, not because He doesn’t love you, but because He does love you. God chastened David, and that’s what Psalm 32 is about. The hand of God was on David.

In today’s verse, the word scourge is a strong one. A scourge was a whip, like a cat-o'-nine-tails. The writer was not talking about a slap on the wrist. God is more interested in your obedience than He is your temporary happiness in the world. God will deal with you with chastisement as He confronts your sin, and He will do so because of His love for you.

When have you experienced the Lord’s chastisement over your sin?

What does it tell you about God’s love that He refuses to let you be content with your sin, even if you don’t desire change on your own?

PRACTICE THIS

Take a walk today and dwell on the truth that God refuses to let you stay the same and will pursue your nearness to Him in every circumstance.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

The Root of Ingratitude

Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:21)

When gratitude springs up in the human heart toward God, he is magnified as the wealthy source of our blessing. He is acknowledged as giver and benefactor and therefore as glorious.

But when gratitude does not spring up in our hearts at God’s great goodness to us, it probably means that we don’t want to pay him a compliment; we don’t want to magnify him as our benefactor.

And there is a very good reason that human beings by nature do not want to magnify God with thanksgiving or glorify him as their benefactor. The reason is that it detracts from our own glory, and all people by nature love their own glory more than the glory of God.

At the root of all ingratitude is the love of one’s own greatness. For genuine gratitude admits that we are beneficiaries of an unearned bequest. We are cripples leaning on the cross-shaped crutch of Jesus Christ. We are paralytics living minute by minute in the iron lung of God’s mercy. We are children asleep in heaven’s stroller.

The natural person, apart from saving grace, hates to think of himself in these images: unworthy beneficiary, cripple, paralytic, child. They rob him of his glory by giving it all to God.

Therefore, while a man loves his own glory, and prizes his self-sufficiency, and hates to think of himself as sin-sick and helpless, he will never feel genuine gratitude to the true God and so will never magnify God as he ought, but only himself.

Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

Jesus did not come to minister to those who insist they are well. He demands something great: that we admit we are not great. This is bad news to the arrogant, but words of honey to those who have given up their charade of self-sufficiency and are seeking God.

John Piper 

Bible Study

2 Kings 17:14-15

[14] But they would not listen, but were stubborn, as their fathers had been, who did not believe in the LORD their God. [15] They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them. They went after false idols and became false, and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.

Jeremiah 2:5

[5] Thus says the LORD: 

    “What wrong did your fathers find in me

        that they went far from me,

    and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?

Ephesians 4:17-18

[17] Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. [18] They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

Ephesians 2:12-16

[12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [15] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Are You Covering Your Sin?

PRAY OVER THIS

“He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”

(Proverbs 28:13)

 

PONDER THIS

Some are reading this who once walked with God. And you’re truly saved, but rather than confessing your sin, you’ve been covering your sin. There used to be a time when you praised God continually and experienced deep fellowship with Him. Jesus Christ was nearer and more real to you than the members of your family. But it’s all gone now, and sin is in your heart because you have failed to confess. You’ve covered your sin. How do we cover our sins? We cover our sins today by rationalization. We explain them away and reason that it really isn’t our fault. Or maybe we cover our sin by activity. We get busy, but we won’t confess our sin. We may even be busy with church work. David continued to be the king of God’s people, but he was covering his sin. Some cover their sin by hypocrisy. They act like nothing is there and nothing is wrong. But when we cover our sin, there’s no joy. There’s no peace. There’s no victory.

Is God speaking to you about ways you might be covering your sin or about specific areas of sin you might be attempting to hide?

How do you need to respond to Him today?

PRACTICE THIS

Invite the Lord to help you assess your heart rightly. Ask Him to show you clearly any place you are covering your sin, and then confess fully before Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers

How to Magnify God

I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. (Psalm 69:30)

There are two kinds of magnifying: microscope magnifying and telescope magnifying. The one makes a small thing look bigger than it is. The other makes a big thing begin to look as big as it really is.

When David says, “I will magnify God with thanksgiving,” he does not mean, “I will make a small God look bigger than he is.” He means, “I will make a big God begin to look as big as he really is.”

We are not called to be microscopes. We are called to be telescopes. Christians are not called to be con-men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality, when they know the competitor’s product is far superior. There is nothing and nobody superior to God. And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is.

That’s why we exist, why we were saved, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is. Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.

This is what it means for a Christian to magnify God. But you can’t magnify what you haven’t seen or what you quickly forget.

Therefore, our first task is to see and to remember the greatness and goodness of God. So we pray to God, “Open the eyes of my heart!” (Ephesians 1:18), and we preach to our souls, “Soul, forget not all his benefits!” (Psalm 103:2).

John Piper 

Bible Study

Isaiah 61:6

    [6] but you shall be called the priests of the LORD;

        they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;

    you shall eat the wealth of the nations,

        and in their glory you shall boast.

Isaiah 43:21

        [21]     the people whom I formed for myself

    that they might declare my praise.

Revelation 1:5-6

[5] and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. 

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood  [6] and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Acts 26:18

[18] to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

How Do You Live in Dark Days?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls—yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

(Habakkuk 3:17-18)

 

PONDER THIS

What do you do in dark days? Number one, remember God’s glory. Habakkuk asked God for a reason and what he got was a revelation. We don’t need to know why; we need to know who. And then we need to rejoice in God’s goodness.

What if everything goes awry in the future? What if the pandemic lingers on? That’s the type of uncertainty he’s talking about right here. Habakkuk reminds us that no matter what happens around us and in the world, we still have a reason to remember God’s glory and we can always rejoice in Him. Our hope is set in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. No circumstance can take that away. Even on the darkest day, we can hope in the Light of the World.

Have recent events filled you with fear and anxiety?

How might you remember God’s glory and rejoice in Him each day?

PRACTICE THIS

List some characteristics of God that reveal His glory. Take time to thank God for these specific things and ask Him to help you set your hope fully in Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers