Don’t Falter

“But we hoped that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel; and, besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done” (Luke 24:21).

A.B. Bruce said, “If crosses would leave us alone, we would leave them alone, too.” The Lord Jesus took up His cross and followed completely the Father’s will. It was the will of the Father for His Son to die upon the very tree that He had planted years before.

Why do we find it hard to believe that taking up our cross and following Jesus is not the way for us? Why do we not believe that as we die daily to the world and our desires that it is best? We are men just like the ones on the road to Emmaus who did not believe in the resurrection power of Christ.

We can be so slow of heart and foolish not to believe all that the Scripture gives to us. When we follow our own desires and refuse the intuitive desire of God in us we refuse His life. Hope in the Redeemer of Israel and believe that the third day is the power of resurrection in you. Don’t disregard your cross for today. Report to God ready for His will as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

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  • Momentary Marriage

    “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor or given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25).

    There is no human marriage after death. The shadow of the covenant made before God turns into reality in the moment of death. It is the reality of marriage to Christ–the marriage of His glorified Church. Nothing is lost. The music of marriage is transposed into something much higher.

    Those who have departed this world are closer to each other in love than they were on earth. They “shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). They are perfect which points to the glory of Christ.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer was engaged to Maria von Wedemeyer before he was hanged at dawn on April 9, 1945. He was a young pastor in Germany. He opposed Hitler and Nazism, and because of this he was arrested and assassinated. While in prison he wrote these words from the military section of the prison at Tegel, Berlin. He called it “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell.”

     

    Marriage is more than your love for each other…in your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal–it is status, and office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sights of God and man.

     

    Marriage is more than your love for each other. Much more! The meaning of marriage is the display of the convent-keeping love between Christ and those who have been born from above. Romance, sex, and childbearing are temporary gifts of God. They are not part of the next life. And they are not even guaranteed for this life. May marriage be recognized “for the praise of his glory.” May we realize that marriage is more than about us but about Him.  Amen.

     

     

     

     

     

  • When Pain is Allowed

    “Saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day” (Luke 9:21).

    Being confident in God doesn’t make the pain we experience less deep but it can become less broad. If you and I have some things settled with God, there are boundaries around the field of pain we experience. With God our pain doesn’t have to spread out into the endless spaces of limitless meaning. God allows the touch of pain to test us and to see if we will trust Him and find His reward to be better.

    God set His plan in motion before the foundation of the world. His glory is seen in this aspect of His omnipresence. Before time was, He was. He sits upon time and He spans all time, history, and future. He circumscribed all things to happen to His people.

    We mainly think of the glory of God when it comes to OUR salvation, but have you ever thought of the glory of God because of who He is? God overturns all things to bring glory to His name. He sets all things into motion. Therefore our salvation is to His glory.

    If we confess Christ as the Son of God and Savior, and take up our cross and follow Him, He will reveal to us His kingdom and His glory. When you and I experience the glory of God, the demands of discipleship become blessings that carry us along in joyful obedience. Passing the test means loving God to the end.

  • The Third Day

    Reigning in Grace

    “And if it be eaten at all on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be accepted” (Leviticus 19:7).

     

    The peace offering was to be a offering of voluntary measures. It was not forced upon the people of Israel to offer. But if it were not offered, or offered with a heart that was cold and indifferent, the worship of the people was not acceptable in the sight of God.

     

    The offering was to be celebrated together in appreciation of God’s grace through the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, and the peace offerings. They each represented facets of the love of God expressed by sacrificial giving.

     

    You and I should study these offerings and learn the value and virtues of the sacrifice of Christ for each sinner. The more we dive into the Old Testament the more we will understand the New Testament cross of Calvary.

     

    When you and I try to worship or serve God in our flesh we fail to appreciate and have true communion with God and other worshippers. In the sight of the Lord it is an abominable thing to sit in a worship service and be out of contact with Him. That worship, either in a Sunday gathering or a Lord’s supper celebration, is not accepted by Him.

     

    Why do so many stay at home while God has called us to gather? Why is there seemingly dullness and boredom in church? We have forgotten the power of the third day. God says that every day is to be a day of communion and when we forget and fail to remember we fail to reign in grace by One who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

  • Get Alone

    “For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him; and after he is killed, he shall rise the third day” (Mark 9:31).

    Why did the Lord Jesus have to teach His disciples about His death and resurrection when it should have been plain to see? One reason was that the nation of Israel was in denial and ignorance because they had not been taught the pure Word of God. Past generations were in the dark concerning God’s remedy for sin and its dominion. They did not take time to hear.

    Sin will blind and deafen a soul to the voice of God. In Daniel’s day the LORD revealed by books and scripture the plan and purpose of God to Daniel. Daniel realized the people had sinned, and brought reproach unto their own head, which degenerated the minds of the people toward their promise. God’s chosen people did not hearken to the servants, the prophets, who spoke God’s name to the Kings, princes, and the fathers, and to the people of the land (Daniel 9:6).

    Do you want to know how to know God? Get alone with God and allow Him to instruct you. Read His word, pray unto Him in prayer, in secret private prayer. It’s been said that the pious, religious hypocrite needs an audience to pray because he prays to be heard. To impress. But, friend, if you and I really desire God’s voice then we need to take time to hear and to be heard by God above. There in the secret place He will instruct in righteousness which yields fruit everlasting.

  • Revival and Integrity

    “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6)

    Authenticity is a product of integrity. Integrity is defined as “wholeness, completeness, soundness.” A person with integrity is not divided (that’s duplicity) or devious (that’s deception) or merely pretending (that’s hypocrisy). People with integrity have nothing to hide nor anything to fear. Their lives are transparent. Though, and it is very unfortunate, they are also somewhat rare.

    There is a shortage and a crisis of integrity today. The church has blemished itself with integrity issues. The church is more like a defeated army, naked before our enemies, and unable to fight back because they have made a frightening discovery: the church is lacking in integrity.

    Warren Wiersbe said, “For nineteen centuries, the church has been telling the world to admit its sins, repent, and believe the gospel. Today, in the twilight of the twentieth century, the world is telling the church to face up to her sins, repent, and start being the true church of that gospel.”  Wiersbe said this back in the early 1990s.

    We boast that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, but perhaps the gospel of Christ is ashamed of us. It seems as if ministry and life does not match our message and lips. The salt has lost is potency. It has become good for nothing. The world has influenced and contaminated the message of the messenger. And now the world walks upon the church.

    The integrity crisis has infiltrated the church and it involves the whole church. In the body of Christ, we belong with one another, we affect one another, and we can’t escape one another. When one member suffers, all the other members suffer with them (I Cor. 12:26). What the church needs today is not a quick fix that touches only the surface, which is only cosmetic; what we truly need is a surgeon who cuts deep and removes the cancer.

    Remember this: God is wanting to make integers and Satan is wanting to make fractions. God’s purpose is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (Ephesians 1:10). God does not accept neutrality. Let us look up, look around us, and look within.  The Christian whom God wants to bless and use must have the courage to be different and the conviction to keep going in the right direction, come what may.

     

     

  • Not Knowing Enough To Talk Sense

    “Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ” (Matthew 16:20).

    “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead”          (Matthew 17:9).

    There were times when the Lord Jesus told his disciples not to speak to anyone about what they saw or heard.  Why? They did not know enough to talk sense about what was before them.

    Unless we know Jesus as the risen, living, and indwelling Savior, as a present-tense reality in our hearts and life, then the Lord Jesus wants our mouth to be kept closed. Why?  Because we will not know enough about Him worth saying.

    God wants us to know Him through His Son by an ever-present reality.   When life becomes an adventure in dependence upon His life in us, dead to yourself and alive to God, you and I will share the Life of Jesus Christ and we will share His victory, though a thousand or more temptations assail us.  Then we will have something to tell.  And something to see.  And someone to love.

    It is not a matter of our doing our best for Him, but of Christ being His best in us.  This is the Good News that is ours to tell!