Tuition

“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

There are kids whose parents are spending big time money to send their children to college. I just saw on television about a man who has worked at night as a janitor at Boston college for the past eighteen years. Because of his employment at Boston College he has been able to send each of his kids to Boston College tuition free. But his children had to earn acceptance and keep the GPA up.

The Lord Jesus paid a big tuition for each of us to get eternal life. One man said, “I want to be spent for God to the very last cent before He carries me home.” God paid a big price for you and me. Are we truly living?

The Lord God is watching. We best study how we live and trust the rest of the folks we love to God Almighty. Too many kids go to school doped up, drunk on this world, unprepared, and waste their mama’s money. Oh may we not do so with God. Time is too precious. And His blood is too golden.

There is a mean devil and he hates God and he hates you. He will use us and disillusion us and trick us into thinking that this world is all there is. God sent His only Son into the world to buy us back for a purpose.

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  • Don’t Build A Golden Calf

    “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.”
    –Exodus 32:9The children of Israel were too fast to blame Moses and easily became critical. Out of bondage they were led from a life that was not fulfilling nor appealing. God sent them a deliverer and his name was Moses. Moses led them under God’s discipline and direction and yet the children of Israel were not mature in their feelings and thoughts. They always gave this man a hard time but Moses loved them.The Word of God gives us the illustrations (I Cor. 10) so the 21st century church can learn. The rebels came to Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Exodus 32:1). So quick to blame Moses and in their state of impatience and lack of faith they wanted something to see, to feel, and to quench their flesh’s desire.

    At another time the Lord Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “How long should I be with you before you get it?” We have a God who disciplines and directs us, but we must wait upon Him so that we may learn. Moses was up in the mountain meeting with God and God was giving him the instructions for lawful living and also the instructions of how to build the tabernacle, so that God could come down and dwell with His people.

    God gives to us the test of patience, purity, and faith in His seeming delays.  The question to us is, “When we do not see the tangible presence of God will we continue to trust Him?” Joseph was placed in situations where he did not see the presence of God but when Potiphar’s wife wanted him, he fled. He did not fail in patience and purity but he placed his faith in a Faithful God. Will we? Or do we have to see to believe?

  • Rich in God

    “So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him…Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left. Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company…” (Genesis 13:1; 9-10).

     

    Abraham and Lot were men who both acquired wealth from God. Abraham developed his wealth to do the work of God, while Lot used his wealth to build his own empire, pleasure, and building.

     

    At the end of life we find Abraham won more, for his inheritance was of the Lord. Lot lost it all, even his own family. His resources were depleted and he ended up in heaven with his soul but lost his life and all things he lived for.

     

    Lot depended on Abram early on. He had a second-hand faith, a faith that was dependent on another, even though he had a genuine faith. But a Lot cannot live like that forever. It will show up eventually. His dependence was with Abraham as long as the heat was on. But one thing that Lot could not handle was his prosperity.

     

    There is one type of test that a carnal Christian cannot handle or stand – it is the test of prosperity. And it will show up eventually. When all is going well then a Christian will let go of his dependence, a strong Abraham, and will find himself dependent in his prosperity. He has moved on

     

    May we realize that if our faith is lived by the presence of another, that eventually we will fall to the test of prosperity, and most of the time prosperity and materialism will win. There are too many Lots in our midst who have lost their way to glory. May we learn from the lesson of Lot!

  • Terminal

    “Return, and tell Hezekiah, the captain of my people, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David, thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will heal thee. On the third day thou shalt go up into the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 20:5).

    Hezekiah, the king, the captain of God’s people, was a godly man but he had great troubles heaped upon him. His country was under siege and he was deathly sick. National crisis is bad enough but to have a personal crisis is trouble piled high.

    What do you do? He turned to the Lord with tears and used the means God had given him for healing. Sometimes God will alter things in His universe just to meet our needs. Sometimes God heals on earth and other times He heals in glory.

    Friend, we do not know when we will die, but we do know we will. It is up to us to live and to live well in the power of the Spirit of the living God. To live in lethargy, complacency, or self-sufficiency, is to live with the threat of settling down in a world that is cursed with sin and death.

    This is not God’s best. God’s best is to allow our needs to continually drive us to Him upon our knees and for each of us to stay close to Him. Let your troubles drive you to Christ. This is the power of the third day. And by the way, we are all terminal, for we do not know when or where, but we do know we will not live forever in this body of clay.

  • Behold Your King

    “Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod, the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem” (Matthew 2:1).

    Head knowledge is useful, but unless it is sanctified by the Holy Spirit it can be the most dangerous thing in the world. It will rob you of right thinking and give you nothing but wrong living. Gipsy Smith, when asked how he kept fresh in soul well into the eighties, replied, “I have never lost the wonder.”

    God never intended His Word to remain indoors. It was designed for the outdoors! It was made to be communicated to the world by means of our own walk and our talk. The gospel is for lifeboats, not showboats, and a man must make up his mind which boat he is going to operate.

    God left heaven to communicate to us…God! He has shown to us and is revealing to us Who He is and who we are. God meant that we adjust to the Gospel–not that we fit the Gospel to us. When the Gospel hurts the devil’s business, trouble begins. God came to destroy Satan’s work. The story of Christmas is about this great enterprise of our great God and Savior.

    Christmas lights are seen from the road as we travel by. People light up their homes so that the joy of Christmas, the hope of a better time, is revealed in us and to us. The lights are not shut up and closed down, but opened up to be seen by others. When the gospel is fully given in its most powerful manner, then the Light of the World is seen.

    The church is not a gloried glee club staging holy hootenannies and the Gospel was never meant for entertainment. Nor is the gospel meant to be hoarded but a story to be heralded. Too many of us, too many Christians are stuffing themselves with Gospel blessings, while millions have never had a taste or a look.

    There is so much more than what the eyes see. The heart feels it and desires it, so God gives us Himself, the Light of the World. The grace of our God transcends all our feeble efforts to describe it. God’s amazing Christmas grace cannot be poured into any of our mental receptacles without running over. May our hearts enlarge and our eyes behold Jesus this Christmas season so that our cups runneth over.

  • Values are Timeless, not Temporary

    “And these words , which I commanded thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7a).
    As parents, we need to see our kids at the age of the twenty- or thirty-year-olds they will one day become. This is not trying to grow them up before their time. But it is a vision that says to the world and to the culture that your children will not be had by them. We are talking about placing before them and within them the vision of training them into adulthood, growing them into disciples.
    One of the values of Scripture, for instance, that has always been before us is this matter of being not “yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14), especially in the terms of the marriage relationship. Of course, this wasn’t an issue when they are only ten, twelve, and fourteen. But since this issue would arise in their lives in a short period of time, as Christians who love our God, we as parents place these values of the sanctity of Christian marital vows before them as they grow.
    It is imperative that Christian parents know their core values and express them along the way. Before you know it the child has grown before you in a manner that is faster than a speeding bullet. God has taught us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto His wisdom. Don’t start tomorrow. Begin today to make those choices that will change and bend the hearts of your children toward Christ and His Word.

  • An Unclouded Day

    “And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds, as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain” (2 Samuel 23:4).

    The political parties are at extreme odds with one another. One is considered to be dark while the other is considered to be light. One is negative while the other is positive. The Democrats say our country is up. The Republicans say our country is down. We are living in a clouded day, a day of confusion.

    The Lord Jesus was neither an optimist nor pessimist but a realist. He saw things as they were and one day we will too. There is coming a day when there will be no more clouded days and heaviness of heart. God will take away away the clouds and the rain and the Light of Day will forever shine without clouds in the sky.

    We are going to a land of unclouded day and it is not just a pie in the sky mentality. It is God’s forever provision for His people who may weep through many a dark day but who are bound for the world where not only darkness is not present but even tears are passed away.