May God continue to be especially nigh to those who are being persecuted. May He use our prayers and our concerns and our monies to help the persecuted church. We know that the primary mission of the church is not to protect itself from the world, but to protect others from the world to come
In the economy of God’s time today, what do we do for those who are being hurt by others who have no regard for God and the church?
1. We mourn the loss of the victims. The Lord Jesus wept many times in His life on earth. Yet, God is afflicted with our afflictions even now.
2. Pray for the Terrorist’s Salvation. Ours is to persist in loving, even if men persist in enmity. We are to bless when they curse, pray while they persecute. We are to “do good to them, and pray for them.”
3. Keep Calm and Preach On. We are to continue to preach the gospel. It is the Master’s mandate, and it is the Master’s power.
4. Forgive the Evil. The Christian man is not allowed to hate anyone.
5. Live Each Day in Light of Eternity. If God had willed it we might have entered into heaven at the moment of our conversion, but He has not. Why are God’s ships still at sea? One breath of His wind might waft them to the haven of rest. We are not here in vain. We are here to glorify God, and that we may see others come to know his love.

There are certain things that drive people to drink. The pressures of life, the demands that are severe that lead to some type of stimulation to overcome it. There are some things in life that causes one to take a drink to undergird, to give confidence, to help, and to give strength. There are a lot of situations that stir people to drink.

In contrast Paul says that we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  For He will stimulate, strengthen, subdue the human failures and feelings and satisfy us with His workings. There is no shame to feel the sense of need. We were not made to be self-sufficient, independent creatures. We need Someone to help us feel adequate to face life; do not be troubled by that.

Herein is the real and great secret of Christianity. It is the possibility of being filled with the Spirit of Christ. Each child of God has the Holy Spirit living in them, but many are not filled with the Holy Spirit. They have the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit does not have them. The Holy Spirit is present but He is not president. He is resident but He is not residing. He resides in you but maybe He does not preside through you. He is our inner supply for every need.

Christianity is not just about coming to church, getting a blessing, and then going away to live in the light and warmth of the blessing until it leaks away. No, we have much more than that. We drink {believe} into Him and “Out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water,” John says, “By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:39a). That is the strengthening that comes from within, and He is plenty for the situation. So drink in and drink up, for by Him we live and move and have our being.

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.

No one plans on dying in Moab. But Elimelech did. His two sons did. This man, whose name means “My God is King” left Bethlehem (The House of Bread) to go down to the place of backsliding. Moab came into being by Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and his oldest daughter. It was incestuous and ungodly. The child’s name was named Moab (Genesis 19:37). The Moabites had a false god by the name of Chemosh (Numbers 21:29). When a Moabite man was desperate for the help of Chemosh, it was a common practice for the father to sacrifice one of his children to this demonic god (2 Kings 3:26-27).

It was to this land that Elimelech took his family. He left the land of Bethlehem to “improve his family.” Elimelech lived a lie. Elimelech was the king of his own life, and it’s certain the Lord wasn’t. During the days of judges this man typified a man “who did what was right in his own eyes.” Instead of following the path of repentance and faith, trusting the Lord to provide for his family’s needs during the famine months, he moved to follow what seemed best to him. He chose the road to Moab.

Don’t streak down to Moab. It’s not worth it. Stay the course! Stay with God! Don’t become a platinum member of this club. The price and cost is too high. Elimelech, preoccupied with packing his U-Haul for Moab, never sought the solution: Jehovah God. Whatever you do–whatever I do–we both need to turn and run to the Lord. Ride out the hard times while trusting in the goodness of God.

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.

“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!