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.

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  • The Up-and-Outer

    “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

    Confession means to simply admit unfaithfulness to God through your sinful thoughts and actions; to totally agree with God’s point of view regarding your thoughts and actions as inexcusable; to humbly accept any consequences brought about by those thoughts and actions; to diligently act in renewed faithfulness toward your gracious, forgiving God.

    The Son of Man majors in sinners.  He doesn’t major in sin — He majors in sinners.  But then, everybody’s a sinner, right?  Then what kind of sinner does He focus on?

    Hungry ones.  Desperate ones.  And still today, Jesus gives His attention to sinners who desperately need Him to address their sin because of who they know He is.

    Could it be that many of us are just too righteous for Jesus?  You know…we’re too “okay” for Jesus.  We’re part of the crowd.  We have not broken loose to go climb the sycamore tree as Zacchaeus did.  We just haven’t realized, as of yet, that unless we’re galvanized into Jesus’ mission, we’ll miss Jesus.

    How hungry are you?  How bad do you want Him?  That’s what God wants to know from us.  Are you up in a tree looking for God?  Are you out of fellowship with God?  Then look no further for God is passing by and He is passing for you and me.

  • The “Red Cross”

    “He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean” (Numbers 19:12).

    When you and I feel overwhelmed with fear, guilt, or weariness, picture yourself at the foot of the cross, with your arms wrapped around it, hanging on as tight as you can. You will be covered by the blood and God will protect you.

    God desires His people to be holy and separated from sin. To touch the dead things of the world is to contaminate ourselves and those around us. God has given us the solution in the cross of Christ. There we find life…His life in us, alive and well.

    Someone has penned these words:

    I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place; I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face; Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss. My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

     

  • They Didn’t Want To Hear

    “And the children of Israel went up against the children of Benjamin on the third day, and put themselves in array against Gibeah, as at other times” (Judges 20:28).

    In the closing pages of Judges you find reports of wife abuse, blatant homosexuality, gang rape leading to murder, injustice, brother killing brother, and kidnapping.  When David Jeremiah said, “I never thought I’d see the day,” you and I have never encountered a day as the day we live in. It is bad. Violence, vice, immorality, idolatry, and blasphemy are rampant.

    This is the daily food people enjoy. TV and film violence is habitual and routinely accepted. It has become the fodder of unredeemed America. What is happening on the screen is being duplicated in the streets. When a nation is entertained by acts of violence, is there much hope for that nation?

    Brother went against brother in Israel because evil was not properly dealt with punitive action. The Word of God tells us that “brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death” (Matthew 10:21).

    Sin in the city will infect those in it and around and it will lead to war. The center cannot hold with stability. The home, the ministry, and society are disintegrating before our very eyes, and it seems as if people disdain the truth! But whether people want truth or not, the world must be told that Jesus Christ died for lost sinners, and that the power of Christ can transform homes, hearts, churches, and society if people will only trust Him.

    “Christ beats His drum, but He does not press men,” said English preacher and poet John Donne in 1631; “Christ is served with voluntaries.”

  • Cream Puff or Rattlesnake

    “God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in Him sets us clear”

    (Rom. 3:25 MSG).

     

    One Sunday President Calvin Coolidge, a man of few words, attended church. Upon his return from the service he was asked what the sermon was about. He responded, “sin.”

     

    “Well, what did the preacher say about it?”

     

    “He said he’s against it,” replied Coolidge.
    No Christian can live with sin – day in and day out, year in and year out, without even the slightest change or attempt to stop – and remain a Christian! Christianity without any change in behavior over the long haul is synthetic Christianity – it is a false assurance. We either go to God in repentance and turn away from our sin, or we give over to sin.
    Here is the truth of the matter, we need to be afraid of sin. We have to treat it more deadly than a rattlesnake. That means we never dally with it.
    You play with fire, you will get burnt. You mess with a snake, you get bit. You dabble in sin, you slide down the slippery slope that separates from God. There is NOTHING more dangerous than accepting and excusing sin…that has the power to cast into hell.
    As we walk through life we need to follow the Appalachian warning about river trails: NEVER stop watching for rattlers! We have got to be alert and be on our guard. Sin can creep up when we least expect it.
    When it does we need to do as Barney Fife says, “Nip it in the bud.” We need to root it out even before it is a half-formed thought, before it is said…before it is done. Don’t touch sin with a ten-foot pole. And if you do, deal with it immediately.
    Stay close to Christ. Stay in God’s Word. Read it. Meditate upon it. Eat it. Memorize it. Pray it through.

  • Courage

    “Now it came to pass after many days, that the word of the LORD came to Elijah in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the face of the earth” (I Kings 18:1).

    A little lady by the name of Amy Carmichael spent her life for the gospel in India. Amy became aware of the terrible practice that was so common in the Hindu Temples. Little girls as young as six and seven would be sold by their parents into lives that prostituted their little bodies. Amy Carmichael was shaken to the core of her being. So she decided something must be done

    Through miraculous means, the first girl was brought to her in 1901. The little seven-year-old girl showed Amy her hands that had been branded with hot irons because she had tried to escape once before. By 1943, Amy was taking care of eight hundred children, and she was the hated woman by a powerful system of prostitution. God protected this woman who stood for Him and His Word.

    Oh, if men, God’s men, would rise up and have just a tenth of the courage of this woman then we can change our churches and our homes. Why? Because God would stand up for these mighty men as He stood for Stephen as Stephen stood for Him. It is going to take courage and holiness for this new era of American history. That is why some of you are going through trouble because God is getting you ready for leadership.

     

     

     

     

  • The Third Day

     

    “And the evening and the morning were the third day“ (Genesis 1:13).

     

    If you notice God begins in the evening to the morning and calls it “day.” Whether it is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth day, the Creator God named a “day” beginning in the evening and concluding with the morning. Twenty-four hours in the day that God does His marvelous work.

     

    Would it not be a good and holy thing for us to concentrate on God in the evening hours? So many times we think we must begin in the morning to set the day before us. But God sets the day beginning in the evening hours.

     

    In the evening, many times, we throw off restraints and we fall into the arms of the flesh. Child care, dinner time, tv, pjs, or special events–dinner with friends, movie, ballgame, etc. and we can neglect to rest in God’s evening day to recreate us for the whole day.

     

    Give God your evening. Meditate upon the One who began creation’s story with the evening. It just might be He wants to create His image in you to reflect His glorious creation through you. Life begins in the evening and runs through the morning and afternoon and God calls it the “third day.” May every day be His glorious image in us.