God Preserves the Faithful

“Oh, love the LORD, all you His saints! For the LORD preserves the faithful, and fully repays the proud person.” PSALM 31:23

 

PONDER THIS

Many years ago, my wife and I visited Yellowstone National Park. We were fortunate to stay in the old lodge just outside the geyser known as Old Faithful. Every sixty-five minutes, it would spew water a hundred and seventy feet in the air. You could set your watch by it. Now, there were more spectacular geysers in the park, but people love this one because, as the name suggests, it can be counted on.

Faithfulness is a basic, fundamental ingredient of character. You will not know God’s blessing apart from faithfulness. You want God to watch over you and take care of you? God preserves the faithful. Faithfulness is God’s requirement for your stewardship. Faithfulness is God’s measurement for your blessing.

One day, we’re going to stand before God, and the reward or the lack of reward will be according to our faithfulness. I want to hear Jesus say to me, “Adrian, well done my good and faithful servant.” Do you have that same desire? Faithful people are people who can be counted on to live with integrity, not just in our relationship with God but in our relationships with others too.

What does faithfulness look like in your everyday life? Why is it important to keep growing in faithfulness?

How have you struggled with faithfulness? What could help you remain faithful when life is hard?

PRACTICE THIS

Find an accountability partner to pray with and encourage you in your quest to be faithful.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Sin, Satan, Sickness, or Sabotage

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:8–9)

Is the suffering that comes to the Christian because of persecution the same as the suffering that comes from cancer? Do the promises given to one apply to the other? My answer is yes. All of life, if it is lived earnestly by faith in the pursuit of God’s glory and the salvation of others, will meet with some kind of obstacle and suffering. The suffering that comes to the obedient Christian is part of the price of living where you are in obedience to the call of God.

In choosing to follow Christ in the way he directs, we choose all that this path includes under his sovereign providence. Thus, all suffering that comes in the path of obedience is suffering with Christ and for Christ — whether it is cancer at home or persecution far away.

And it is “chosen” — that is, we willingly take the path of obedience where the suffering befalls us, and we do not murmur against God. We may pray — as Paul did — that the suffering be removed (2 Corinthians 12:8); but if God wills, we embrace it as part of the cost of discipleship in the path of obedience on the way to heaven.

All experiences of suffering in the path of Christian obedience, whether from persecution or sickness or accident, have this in common: They all threaten our faith in the goodness of God, and tempt us to leave the path of obedience.

Therefore, every triumph of faith, and all perseverance in obedience, are testimonies to the goodness of God and the preciousness of Christ — whether the enemy is sickness, Satan, sin, or sabotage. Therefore, all suffering, of every kind, that we endure in the path of our Christian calling is a suffering “with Christ” and “for Christ.”

With him in the sense that the suffering comes to us as we are walking with him by faith, and in the sense that it is endured in the strength he supplies through his sympathizing high-priestly ministry to us (Hebrews 4:15).

And for him in the sense that the suffering tests and proves our allegiance to his goodness and power, and in the sense that it reveals his worth as an all-sufficient compensation and prize.

John Piper 

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.

Real Love Produces Maturity

“…but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” 

EPHESIANS 4:15B-16

 

PONDER THIS

The way all parts of the body work together is beautiful. Joints connect different parts of the body to be a whole. When Paul spoke about the joints, he spoke to not only unity but flexible harmony. My elbow is a joint—it’s what connects my forearm to my upper arm. So, it keeps me connected, but it’s also flexible and enables me to bend my arm. That is how the Body of Christ should be, but some people get stiff. We get spiritual arthritis. And rather than having this flexibility, we become rigid.

When I studied human anatomy and physiology in college, I found out that we have synovial fluid that lubricates these joints. When the cartilage becomes dry and the synovial fluid is not there, the joint gets inflamed, swollen, stiff, and painful. Just like our physical bodies need the right amount of synovial fluid to keep our joints healthy and moving, the Body of Christ also needs “synovial fluid” to keep it healthy and active.

The synovial fluid in the Body of Christ is love. When we love one another, we don’t inflame one another, and we don’t become immobile. We become mature in stature: we become like Christ. We become mature in stability: we’re not blown about. We become mature in speech: we know how to speak the truth in love. And we become mature in service: we serve one another, and the Body works together to serve others.

What have you done intentionally to love those in the Body of Christ?

When have you struggled with being flexible in the Body of Christ? How did you get through it?

PRACTICE THIS

Intentionally love and pour into someone at your church.

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

Luke 14:26

[26] “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

Mark 8:35

[35] For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

1 Corinthians 9:23

[23] I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Philemon 1:13

[13] I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel,

Are Your Investments Temporary?

“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, ‘Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.’” LUKE 21:1-4

 

PONDER THIS

I have visited Pompeii—the ruins of a magnificent civilization. Pompeii was buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted back in biblical times. The scenery truly captures the moment: You can see how people lived in that culture by examining the buildings, but you can also see the bodies of people who lived in this place and were caught by this devastating eruption. You can even see the remains of a man and woman on the floor of their home who died surrounded by and clutching gold coins and expensive jewelry. In seeking to hold worldly treasures, they lost their lives.

Jesus said, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). The truth is, that thing you’re holding onto instead of God will not get you far; it is temporary. I want you to know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord. And once you know Him, you start a new investment in eternity with riches that will never fade or spoil.

What is something you are holding onto instead of God?

What would it look like for you to make eternal investments?

PRACTICE THIS

Surrender to God the worldly treasures or frivolous spending habits you’re holding onto and seek to store up treasure in Heaven instead.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers