Bible Study

Isaiah 43:1-2

Israel’s Only Savior

    [1] But now thus says the LORD,

    he who created you, O Jacob,

        he who formed you, O Israel:

    “Fear not, for I have redeemed you;

        I have called you by name, you are mine. 

    [2] When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

        and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

    when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

        and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 40:29-31

    [29] He gives power to the faint,

        and to him who has no might he increases strength. 

    [30] Even youths shall faint and be weary,

        and young men shall fall exhausted; 

    [31] but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;

        they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

    they shall run and not be weary;

        they shall walk and not faint.

Philippians 4:13

[13] I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

1 Corinthians 2:5

[5] so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Do You Have a Clear Conscience?

PRAY OVER THIS

“For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” 1 John 3:20-22

 

PONDER THIS

Imagine you and your spouse are having one of those arguments that can be heard about three blocks away. Christians can do this. They take their eyes off the Lord and they're at one another's throats. Whatever else they're doing, they are not dwelling together as heirs of the grace of life. Imagine right after this argument and the storming off, the mother goes in to check on the baby and she comes out with a frightened look on her face. The baby is very sick and you're both believers and you know you need to pray. What happens? Usually, at that moment, you feel like fools praying in that atmosphere, that hostility, that venom, but you know what you do? You say, “I'm so sorry, I was wrong, I was a fool, forgive me.” She says, “It was my fault too” and you reconcile. After that, the conscience is clear, the assurance is back, and you can pray. But you cannot pray with a condemning heart. When you still have enmity between one another you won’t be united in prayer. If you don't have a good conscience, you cannot have great confidence, and if you don't have great confidence, you can't get your prayers answered. Love gives a good conscience and when love gives a good conscience, love gets great confidence.

When have you lost sight of your identity in Christ in a hard moment?

Why is reconciliation with others so important in the Christian life?

PRACTICE THIS

Consider the last angry argument you had. If you have not already, pursue peace with the person with whom you were angry.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Radical Recompense

“Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29–30)

What Jesus means here is that he himself makes up for every sacrifice.

If you give up a mother’s nearby affection and concern, you get back one hundred times the affection and concern from the ever-present Christ.

If you give up the warm comradeship of a brother, you get back one hundred times the warmth and comradeship of Christ.

If you give up the sense of at-homeness you had in your house, you get back one hundred times the comfort and security of knowing that your Lord owns every house.

To prospective missionaries, Jesus says, “I promise to work for you, and be for you, so much that you will not be able to speak of having sacrificed anything.”

What was Jesus’s attitude to Peter’s “sacrificial” spirit? Peter said, “We have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). Is this the spirit of “self-denial” commended by Jesus? No, it is rebuked.

Jesus said to Peter, “No one ever sacrifices anything for me that I do not pay back a hundredfold — yes, in one sense even in this life, not to mention eternal life in the age to come.”

John Piper 

Bible Study

1 Corinthians 4:4

[4] For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

1 John 5:14

[14] And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

Job 22:26

    [26] For then you will delight yourself in the Almighty

        and lift up your face to God.

Romans 14:22

[22] The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.

Do You Trust God’s Guarantee?

PRAY OVER THIS

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:11-14

 

PONDER THIS

Do you know what the word “guarantee” means in verse 14? It means a down payment. If you are going to buy a house, you put down some money to begin with and that means you’re coming back for the whole thing. Now, the Holy Spirit that you have in your heart who seals you into Christ is the earnest, the pledge, that one day our Lord is coming back for his purchased possession. Why? He’s got so much invested in me. He put the down payment in my heart. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. Thanks be to God for this salvation and guarantee we have in Jesus. When others are wandering like ships at sea on a dark and stormy night without a rudder or a compass, God has pulled back the veil of eternity and shown us what happened before the world was brought into space. He has shown us what we’re going to be and what we’re going to have. And even more than that, He has put the down payment in our hearts. It is a promise that He is with us until He comes again.

What excites you about the gifts you have received from Jesus?

How are you reminded of your inheritance in Christ?

PRACTICE THIS

Take some time to write about what it would look like if you always remembered your heavenly inheritance. Pray over what you’ve written.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

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

Isaiah 56:8

    [8] The Lord GOD,

        who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

    “I will gather yet others to him

        besides those already gathered.”

Ezekiel 34:11-13

 Will Seek Them Out

[11] “For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. [12] As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. [13] And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country.

1 Peter 2:25

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

Ephesians 2:13-18

[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. [17] And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. [18] For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.