“Artist at Work”—on Your Life"

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:6

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

In Scotland some men were sitting around drinking tea and swapping fishing stories. One man, with a flamboyant gesture of his hand, knocked another man’s hand, splattering his tea on the white plastered wall, creating an ugly brown stain. He was horrified, but the man said, “Never mind.” And he started to sketch around that stain. Suddenly there emerged a royal stag with his antlers spread.

The artist was Sir Edwin Landseer—England’s foremost painter of animals. He was able to take that old stain and make something beautiful out of it.

ACTION POINT:

Jesus Christ is that kind of an artist. He can take a life that has been stained, and by His transforming power He can make something beautiful out of it.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Let Goods and Kindred Go

Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. (Hebrews 10:32–35)

The Christians in Hebrews 10:32–35 have earned the right to teach us about costly love.

The situation appears to be this: In the early days of their conversion, some of them were imprisoned for their faith. The others were confronted with a difficult choice: Shall we go underground and stay “safe,” or shall we visit our brothers and sisters in prison and risk our lives and property? They chose the way of love and accepted the cost.

“For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property.”

But were they losers? No. They lost property and gained joy! They joyfully accepted the loss.

In one sense, they denied themselves. It was real and costly. But in another sense, they did not. They chose the way of joy. Evidently, these Christians were motivated for prison ministry the same way the Macedonians (of 2 Corinthians 8:1–9) were motivated to relieve the poor. Their joy in God overflowed in love for others.

They looked at their own lives and said, “The steadfast love of the Lord is better than life” (see Psalm 63:3).

They looked at all their possessions and said, “We have a possession in heaven that is better and lasts longer than any of this” (see Hebrews 10:34).

Then they looked at each other and said — perhaps sang — something like Martin Luther’s great hymn:

Let goods and kindred go

This mortal life also

The body they may kill

God’s truth abideth still

His kingdom is forever

John Piper 

How to get prayer back in schools

BIBLE MEDITATION:

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.

Hebrews 10:24

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

One area where Christians can shed the light of Christ is in our school system. We have a generation who has no standards of right and wrong—everything is relative. In our schools, children are taught that they’ve descended from animals. Is it any wonder so many have begun to act like animals?

What can you and I do? We must “love” our way back in!

Get involved by becoming members of the PTA.

Encourage teachers and tell them we’re praying for them.

Go to school board meetings and find out about policies and curricula.

Pray daily for our classroom teachers and administrators.

Volunteer to be a tutor!

Find out which teachers would welcome one-on-one mentoring for some of their students.

Many children come from homes where there is no father in the home in the evening, and the mother works away from home all day. Godly men and women can help fill in the broken places in children’s lives by becoming a friend and mentor.

ACTION POINT:

You can be that friend. Find out where you can plug in and share the light of Christ! We must seek to be holy people in a godless world. And if we don’t, we are contributing to the demise of the next generation.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Ammunition Against Anxiety

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6)

One of the things we are thankful for when we let our requests be known to God is his promises. These are the ammunition in the cannon that cuts down the unbelief that produces worry. So here’s how I fight.

When I am anxious about my ministry being useless and empty, I fight unbelief with the promise of Isaiah 55:11. “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

When I am anxious about being too weak to do my work, I battle unbelief with the promise of Christ, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

When I am anxious about decisions I have to make about the future, I battle unbelief with the promise, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you” (Psalm 32:8).

When I am anxious about facing opponents, I battle unbelief with the promise, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

When I am anxious about the welfare of those I love, I battle unbelief with the promise that if I, being evil, know how to give good things to my children, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11).

And I fight to maintain my spiritual equilibrium with the reminder that everyone who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for Christ’s sake, shall “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).

When I am anxious about being sick, I battle unbelief with the promise, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).

And I take the promise with trembling: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3–5).

John Piper 

Do you need to know the end first?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

Revelation 1:8

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

A boy was reading a murder mystery one day, and he became anxious about whether the heroine was going to live. To alleviate his anxiety, he read the last chapter and discovered that she survived!

Afterwards, when he read that the villain was planning a dastardly deed, he chuckled to himself and thought, “If you knew what I know, you wouldn’t be so haughty.”

ACTION POINT:

Christians know the last chapter, and that helps us cope with the present. Indeed, the glories of the future can help dilute the sorrows of the present. The devil’s doom is pronounced in Genesis—and it’s executed in Revelation.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Not Nearly Hedonistic Enough

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matthew 6:19–20)

The message that needs to be shouted from the houses of high finance is this: Secular man, you are not nearly hedonistic enough!

Quit being satisfied with the little 2% yields of pleasure that get eaten up by the moths of inflation and the rust of death. Invest in the blue-chip, high-yield, divinely insured securities of heaven.

Devoting a life to material comforts and security and thrills is like throwing money down a rat hole. But investing a life in the labor of love yields dividends of joy unsurpassed and unending:

“Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. [And thus] provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail” (Luke 12:33).

This message is very good news: Come to Christ, in whose presence are fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. Join us in the labor of Christian Hedonism. For the Lord has spoken: It is more blessed to love than to live in luxury! More blessed now, and forever.

John Piper 

Who Is the Real Fool?

BIBLE MEDITATION:

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.

1 Corinthians 3:18

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT:

One day, a great preacher of yesteryear, Harry Ironside, was traveling with friends on a ferry. They were having a glorious time, singing praises to the Lord when someone interrupted them, saying critically, “Who are you people? What are you doing?”

Dr. Ironside replied, “We’re just some Christians having a good time, praising the Lord.” The heckler replied, “You’re a bunch of fools!” Ironside said, “You’re right! We’re fools for Christ’s sake.”

ACTION POINT:

The way of the Christian is sometimes foolishness in the eyes of the world. When was the last time you made a fool of yourself for Christ’s sake?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers