Press On

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already obtained at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Phil. 3:12).

 

When you and I see the future, we can face anything in the present. The outward form of religion is but a husk, and we must resolve to feed upon the kernel. Oh to have substance, not its shadows.

 

We are a people stuck on doing things that draw us away from God. We draw from pleasure, prosperity, power, and prominence. And yet these things do not satisfy nor give life. In and of themselves they are nothing without Christ!
We will not find what we need in this world or even what is inside of us. There is nothing outside of Jesus that truly satisfies with perpetuity. If you and I decided to retire, and could, we would find greater dissatisfaction if all we do is live for self. We can run up and down the east coast, east to west, jump on any and every airplane, and you will find the same conclusion:  what we are searching for is God and God alone. Just doing things to fill the day and to fill the soul, finding something new under the sun, just will not work.
There is an emptiness that only God can fill. God made us for Himself. For those who are saved from sin, self, Satan, and the selfish things of this world, we find that ONLY God fills and satisfies. One can be poor in this world and be rich in the world. One can have many sorrows in this world and yet have great joy inside.
Ask any movie star, any affluent person out there, any who has this world by the tail, and if they are honest, they will tell you they are not content. “Friends all around me are trying to find, what the heart yearns for, by sin undermined; I have the secret, I know where ’tis found, only true pleasures in Jesus abound.”
Take fast hold upon Christ. Take hold of that which is invisible. Have this clear conviction and devout reverence. Let criticism rattle your armor like a hailstone, stand fast and defile it all.

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  • Lost Boy

    “I looked on my right hand…no man cared for my soul” (Psalm 142:4).

    When it comes to witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ, I remember while I was in college that no one every spoke to me about my soul.  As a matter of real knowledge, I do not ever recall anyone speaking to me directly about my eternal destination.  It was all so vague to me.  As a young man, a teen of maybe fifteen, I remember shutting my Bible during a worship service and saying to myself, “One day I will understand but for now I choose to wait it out.”

    I did not shut my Bible in rebellion but in mild frustration.  I said “Maybe one day I will understand.”  I just didn’t get it.  I wasn’t trying to harm or hurt anyone; I, with all of the changes going on in my body, mind, and soul of a teen, just gave up and I just shut down.

    There are a lot of youth walking around the same way today.  They don’t know what the Bible, Jesus, the Church, and prayer, etc., is all about.  They are lost and headed toward a dream world that does not exist.  And there are hardly any out there who care enough to pray and prepare their own lives to tell the good news to them.

    Do you remember in the first paragraph that I remarked that no one spoke up for my soul?  Well there was one.  I was in my second year of college and I traveled to the State Fair in Raleigh, NC.  While there, minding my own business, I was walking with a girl and out of nowhere God appeared.  You say, “What?” Yep!  In just a moment in time this girl stopped out in front of us and asked ME “If I were a Christian?”  I said, “Yes,” for I was taken by surprise.  The next step, I took after giving her my answer, the Holy Spirit of God stopped me dead in my soul and in such a real way said to my lost soul, “You are lying.”  And He was right.  Never before had I been confronted in that manner.

    God used that girl to speak to me.  He was awakening my soul out of the lap of the evil one.  Later I understood the gospel!  He opened my eyes.  I have never gotten over it.  Someone cared for my soul.  She doesn’t know what she did for me.  I laughed inside when I saw her in front of me with her “Howdy Doody smile“.  But now it is me who has the smile.  I can’t wait to see her.  I don’t know exactly how it will happen, but one day I will thank her for her bravery, courage and her love for a lost college boy headed toward Hell who didn’t understand.  And one day I will thank the Lord God Almighty for using this young college girl in my life who stood up for Him!

  • A Mind to Work

    “So built we the wall, and all the wall was joined together to half of it in height; for the people had a mind to work.”  (Nehemiah 4:6)

    The people in Nehemiah’s day worked hard at that wall — almost as if they were going to finish it in one day.  It took them fifty-two days, which was quick work at that, but they labored at it so desperately that it looked as if they were trying to do it in a day.  It was that spirit that was with them which roused the attack of the enemy.

    Satan never bothers half-hearted Christian people, but once you are desperate for God and become burdened for the salvation of men, then all hell will oppose you.  Sanballat and Tobias were both the agents of Satan.  Their scorn was a cloak for something else, they were angry that the work was progressing.  If the people jeer at our Christian testimony today, it is because they have no argument against the gospel.  The world will always be angry at any message which exposes sin.

    Watch what happens when you get up with others and try to rebuild the walls that have fallen down.  See if all hell will not come against you when you rise up to build.  The enemy of God will try to ridicule and loathe the work you are trying to complete.  But if we stay away from the rubbish of the wall that has fallen, and refuse the activity of action, then you will find your own life surrounded by passivity and selfishness.  Satan has no reason to disturb you for he has you in his catch and he knows the work will not be approached.

    If we are not building then we are tearing down.  If we are not with Christ then we are against Him.  Either we will love Him or hate Him, there is no middle ground.  Thank God for Nehemiah and the people who had a mind to work, a heart to pray, and an eye to watch.  The apostle Paul said, “…I labored more abundantly then they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (I Corinthians 15:10).

  • Don’t Miss This

    “The Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to
    go forward” (Exodus 14:15, ESV).

    The children of Israel were facing a dilemma. The army of Pharaoh behind
    them and the Red Sea in front of them. The mountains flanked them. What
    would they do?

    God said to Moses to take the children of Israel forward. “Go forward” the
    Lord God said. Moses did not choose to be nostalgic about the past to what
    God has already done.  He could have prayed and not listened to God. After
    whining Moses could have said, “You are on your own.” Moses could have
    disobeyed God.

    Moses led the children of Israel forward into a massive sea. In that moment
    of crisis he led them forward. This is a Red Sea Rule. Quit marinating on
    the ups and downs of your life. Fix your gaze on the present and look to the
    future and go forward. Do what God has said to do.

    Solomon says, “Let your eyes look forward; fix your gaze straight ahead.
    Carefully consider the path for your feet, and all your ways will be
    established. Don’t turn to the right or to the left; keep your feet away
    from evil” (Proverbs 4:25-27).

  • Not I, But Christ

    “…for by works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Galatians 2:16c).

    “…for in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Psalm 143:2).

    Our Lord suffered in His death for our disobedience. In His life His obedience to the law was perfect. Since the Law was perfect (revealing the heart and mind of God), it says that any who break it is condemned to death. Jesus Christ is and was the only One who ever obeyed all points of the law perfectly and obediently. All that is required of us to be justified, therefore, is to acknowledge our sin and helplessness. We are to repent of our life of self-assertion and self-righteousness, and to put our whole trust and confidence in the finished work of Christ to save us.

    Faith in Jesus Christ is more than intellectual consent only, but personal commitment. We believe “into” Christ Jesus. It is through faith we are justified. The law kills but faith in Christ makes alive. “For it is through the law I die to the law, so that I might live to God” (Gal. 2:19). The law slays but Christ saves. So we have no good works we can do to earn justification. Because the works we do, under the law, only condemn us to death; while faith in Christ bypasses the law of condemnation for us but trusts in Christ who died according to the law for us, who did not bypass the law but died our death’s penalty.

    Salvation is an act of committal, not just assenting to the fact that Jesus Christ lived and died, but running to Him for refuge and calling unto Him for His mercy. Justification is not only a legal fact when we are saved in Christ, whereby we are declared righteous by a holy God; it is also a transforming experience through a living identification with Christ.  By union with Christ we are radically transformed; we can no longer go back to our old life, for in Christ we are “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are saved by the faith of Christ: past, present, and future.

  • The Third Day

    An Expensive Delay Led to a Third day of Death

    “And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males” (Genesis 34:25).

     

    Jacob should have continued to Bethel. God instructed him to return to the place where he first met the Lord. But instead Jacob bought a parcel of land, pitched his tent, built a house and dallying in Succoth and buying more time in Shechem.

     

    Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom and lost his daughters (Genesis 19:30ff), and Jacob moved too close to Shechem and lost Dinah. Jacob was not in a hurry to get back to where he first met God.

     

    Jacob’s delay in obedience to the revealed will of God indirectly brought heartache to the family. Jacob’s granddaughter Dinah was raped and his two sons became murderers because Jacob tarried. When we fail to comply fully to God’s will we place ourselves and our loved ones in danger. Delay led to defilement to deception to disgrace.

     

    Don’t settle “twenty miles short of Bethel” in willful, halfway obedience. We can build our altars to God and it will not “alter” your life. Disobedience never makes up for whatever sacrifices you may give. Morally weak, still deceiving, the old nature lingers in us and we must reckon ourselves dead in Christ everyday. Pay the high cost of right actions before God. The welfare of your life and your children matter.

  • Galactic Starveyors

    What a joy to study God, not just about God, but God. What a privilege to get outside of the world and come back to the center where we meet God who creates new things. What joy there is to know that God has revealed himself in the pages of his Word. We know Him, we embrace Him, and then we reveal Him as we obey Him.
    I am amazed at the Scripture. I’m amazed and stand in awe of God’s Word. It speaks. It is living, and this breathing Scripture gives breath and life. It transcends sin and death. It conquers all. God is in control and He is winning and has won.
    “Be broken, you peoples, and be shattered;
    Give ear; all you far countries;
    Strap on your armor and be shattered;
    Strap on your armor and be shattered.
    Take counsel together, but it will come to nothing;
    Speak a word, but it will not stand,
    For God is with us.”     (Isaiah 8:9, 10).

     

    There will never come one moment when we will say, “I’ve seen it all.” As you know and trust God through His Son by the power of His Spirit, you and I will not be bored.