Grace For The Journey

  How is your prayer life?  When you pray, what do you pray for?  Are your prayers more self-centered . . . or other-centered?  Inevitably, when I teach on prayer, some Christians insist that we should always be praying for others and never for ourselves.  What do you think?

To be sure, we live in a self-centered and self-absorbed age – both inside and outside the church.  Our sin nature, which will contend against the Spirit until the day we pass into glory, is easily seduced into praying for all things personal.  Yet there is one personal prayer petition that should be on the heart of every believer, every day of our lives.  It is David’s prayer In Psalm 51.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  (Psalm 51:10)

When was the last time you prayed this prayer?  David knew how sinful he was, and he knew his sin was rooted in his heart, not his hands or even his head.  Jesus patiently explained to His disciples, “From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:21-23).

David desired a clean heart more than anything else, because without a clean heart nothing else would be clean in his life.  And he knew there is only one place where he could receive one: at the throne of grace.  It is grace that first gives us the desire to want a clean heart; and it is grace that determines to do it by the power of the Gospel and the Spirit of God.

Sin makes each heart black and ugly, and only the Holy Spirit can clean it.  David knew this, and he cried out to God for deliverance from his broken, fallen condition.  Grace reorients the human heart and empowers it to beat for the Savior, rather than for self.

David knew that what shaped his heart ruled his life.  He lived this truth when he plunged deep into sin with Bathsheba . . . dragging all of Israel down with him.  Before he cried out to God for a clean heart, leisure and lust shaped his heart and ultimately ruled his life.  But after grace finished its work, David’s heart was reshaped by the desire to beat as one with God’s heart.  And springing from this desire we find the perfect personal prayer petition: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

We must remember that our hearts will never be totally clean on this side of the grave.  But that should not stop our desire to possess one!  Only the awesome power of the Gospel can take a sinner and make him a saint . . . while he is still a sinner!  The Gospel is at work scrubbing away the sins of the flesh, and the Divine Cleaner will not stop until our heart is totally clean and devoid of all sin.  It will be painful!  It will be a prolonged process.  But it has been promised, and so it shall be performed.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey …

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  What kind of pressures have you been facing lately?  What has it been producing in your life?  The longer I walk with Jesus the more I am convinced that there are some blessings that can only come as a result of intense pressure.  God puts us in the pressure cooker not to drive us into the ashes of defeat, but to demonstrate His radical and powerful grace in our lives.  The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s grace is most magnified when we are navigating the waters in the storms of life.  It all comes down to trusting God’s heart … even when we cannot trace His hands.  Whether pressures in our…singleness – friendships – marriage – parenting – school – work – Christian service … we all face them and we are responsible to deal with them in a way that glorifies our God.  When we do, we can be certain that the pressures we are facing are producing fruit that will last.  The Bible tells us that “pressure produces perseverance” (James 1:3).  Hammered out on the anvil of pressure, God is honing, shaping, and molding His adopted children into the likeness of His precious Son.  What more could we ask for.

When you squeeze an orange you get orange juice.  When you squeeze a tomato you get tomato juice.  What do those around you get when you are squeezed by the pressures of life?  God’s commitment to you, demonstrated on the cross, makes it clear that pressure is merely a passageway into producing deeper fellowship with our wonderful Lord and more delightful fruit from which God will get greater praise!

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey …

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  When we read through the Scriptures, it seems remarkable – perhaps even incomprehensible – how Jesus sets His love, time and time again, upon those we would call the unlovable. He set His love upon people whom society had no interest in . . . and He did it to show us what a Gospel-saturated love is to look like.

The Bible says in Matthew 9:9-13, “As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The term “tax collector” wasn’t simply a title for a job; it was a label of a group of people whom the Jews greatly “hated” and “despised.” These words are two words that the Bible uses to best describe the tax collectors of Christ’s day … and that is what Matthew was: a hated and despised tax collector. Israel’s Roman conquerors had hired Jewish men to collect taxes and gave these men the authority to keep anything they collected over and above the money that was due to Rome. So the tax collector was not only working for the hated Roman occupier, who held his people in bondage; he added insult to injury by collecting more than he needed – lining his pockets at the expense of his own people! To say that the tax collector was viewed as a scoundrel is an understatement! His neighbors would have seen him as a traitorous villain.

Now enter Jesus. Jesus was well aware just how much the people despised Matthew. Jesus used tax collectors as examples of “the lowest form of life” on more than one occasion, such as the time He delivered this stinging rebuke to the Jewish elders and chief priests: “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 1:21). By equating tax collectors with prostitutes, Jesus was simply acknowledging what was a widely held opinion.

And yet in spite all this, Jesus called Matthew to follow Him! He even went to Matthew’s house to eat with him, a sign of friendship and intimacy. Christ knew the condemnation that would greet His decision to pour love out on the unlovable, but He never hesitated. He had come for sick sinners who desperately needed a doctor; the Great Physician had arrived to pour out His love on those who were “kicked to the curb,” so to speak. When was the last time you felt like that?

Jesus came for people like the tax collector, the prostitute, the immoral, the beggars, the blind, the crippled, the sinners, and even self-righteous Pharisees . . . people just like you and me! We all have one thing in common with Matthew – we are all sinners in desperate need of a Savior. We can try to save ourselves or we can trust in the only Savior of the world: the Lord Jesus Christ. As for me and my house, we will choose the Savior of the world!

As Paul Harvey used to say, “Now, for the rest of the story!”  We must not overlook it. You remmeber the rest of Matthew’s story, don’t you? The hated tax collector became one of the twelve apostles and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gave us the very first book of the New Testament.

You see, it doesn’t matter where Jesus finds you – whether you’re in the pit or in a palace. It only matters whether or not you respond to His call to follow Him. Matthew knew full well what everyone else thought of him; but he heard the call, got up, and followed Jesus. In keeping his focus on Jesus, Matthew never let the opinion of others derail his divine destiny.

What about you today? When you get right down to it, we are all tax collectors – our sin makes us ugly and unlovable – yet, we all have a willing Savior who is ready to pour our His love on one who is so unlovable.

One last question: are we willing to do the same to others? “Freely you have received,” Jesus said, “freely give” (Matthew 10:8). Will you share Christ’s love with those who need a healing touch from the Great Physician?

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey …

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  I would like to start off this week with a word of encouragement on the need for continual commitment when it comes to pursuing a life of holiness and obedience to our Lord.

In our ongoing battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil, we must be serious enough to make specific commitments to stand against the temptations that we face every day. Here are two wonderful examples from the Bible that are a source of great encouragement and strength for every Christian in the middle of the battle .

“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl.?  (Job 31:1)

“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way.”  (Daniel 1:8)

In The Discipline of Grace, Jerry Bridges wrote, “We are vulnerable to [two] kinds of temptations. Some arise from indwelling sin that still resides in our hearts; others come as a result of the environment in which we live or work.”

Job, who lived centuries before the time of Christ, provides insight into the Christian condition, a condition that remains sinful even after Jesus shows up. Sin no longer reigns in our lives, but it certainly remains, and we are to take sword to it every day. The temptation Job battled is one which all men and women face today: the inclination to look lustfully at someone. The ongoing temptation to do this is simply a result of the indwelling sin that remains in us.

Daniel, on the other hand, made it clear that we face temptation because we live in a sinful culture. Daniel lived in an unholy environment; but instead of giving in to it, Daniel resolved to remain holy, regardless of the cost.

Some people mistakenly think that making such commitments is “works of the flesh” and we ought not to be doing such things. We need only trust in God, they say. Well, let me provide a news flash. To be sure, we must trust in God and His empowering grace to provide the strength we need to resist temptations. But we must make the commitment to resist them! Resisting temptation must be our serious commitment if we are ever to make progress against it. We must pray and work, as much as it is within our power to do so. Job and Daniel remind us that the battle is both within and without, and we must be on guard on both fronts.

So . . . in what areas do you need to consider making specific commitments to fight against temptation? Are you willing to do so? Make no mistake; God has given you the greatest motive and motivation for sustained effort against temptation: His name is Jesus Christ. Keeping in view what Jesus has done on our behalf and will do in our future is the fuel that ignites the fire of our faith and inspires continual commitment to fight against all temptations – within and without.

He has given us the victory – let’s live within that reality!

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey …

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

 

  The Bible says in Psalm 84:7, “They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”   That seems like a strange statement doesn’t it? We know from both history and personal experience that we all go from whatever strength we have to weakness . . .  and ultimately to death.

The comfort in Psalm 84:7 is not found in our physical strength, but rather in our spiritual strength. In our journey toward the Eternal City, we actually find ourselves going from weakness to weakness physically. All the valleys, deserts, and wilderness experiences we encounter in this life take their physical toll on us over the years, until one day we pass through the veil.

But through every physical challenge we face on this side of heaven, we are strengthened by drinking from the wells of our salvation that God has set before us. You see, we have been promised every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3; 2 Peter 1:3), so as we weaken in our physical nature we are strengthened in our spiritual nature, which is being perfected as we progress toward our Promised Land.

Going from strength to strength is simply a matter of growing in God’s grace. We know where we are ultimately going and we know we have been given everything we need to get there. We also know that we don’t go alone . . . and that, beloved, is a source of increasing strength in the lives of the saints of God.

We can go from strength to strength because we know that He who began a good work in us will carry that work on to completion (Philippians 1:6). Nothing – not even our own failures or faithlessness – can stop God from finishing what He started in us. That truth allows us to tap into the streams of strength that flow from our Savior. One day soon, we shall all appear before God in the heavenly Zion. And on that day, we will fully realize the truth that we did indeed go from strength to strength on our way to spending eternity with our Savior.

How comforting to know that as we “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” we get stronger and can do more for our precious Savior!

This is God Word For Today …This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest & Rejoice In The Wonderful Truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  Shrink wrap is a type of plastic that shrinks when heated. When it shrinks, it forms to the shape of the item it is covering. Shrink wrap is used to package or protect items that range in size from a bar of soap to buildings. You’ve undoubtedly discovered that shrink wrap can make it very difficult to open your new CD or DVD. It certainly delivers on its promise of protecting the item it is wrapped around!

Shrink wrap is a very useful product today; but, a shrink-wrapped witness is not! A shrink-wrapped witness is a witness that has shrunk under the heat and pressure of daily living. The more you shrink, the smaller your witness becomes. A shrink-wrapped existence is living for nothing bigger than yourself . . .

•  Your goals
•  Your dreams
•  Your desires
•  Your vision
•  Your advancement
•  Your pleasure

A shrink-wrapped witness for the Christian is characterized by living with one foot in the world and one foot in the Word. And when forced to choose, these double-minded Christians always go the way of the world. They settle for living a life of mediocrity rather than a living a life of mastery by living for the Master. Their faith commitments are fine . . . just as long as there is no significant cost to keeping them. In the shrink-wrapped kingdom of self, there is little room for glorifying God and absolutely no room for seeking the good of others. It is shrinking the size of your life down to the size of your life.

But this is not what God wants for you! He has called you to live large, and living large means living for the Lord. We have been made by God for God, and our lives are to be marked by advancing the cause of His kingdom, not our own. Take a look at it from the psalmist’s perspective:

“Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.  (Psalm 100:1-5)

Look closely at verse 3 – “It is He who made us, and we are His.” God made us to praise and worship Him. “What is the chief and highest end of man?” the Westminster Confession of Faith asks. And the answer: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever.” Our lives are to be lived in the light of eternity, where every aspect of our story intersects with His Story. This is the place where our lives are driven by His love, His power, His glory, and His will. We are, as the psalmist said, “the sheep of his pasture” and we are to follow the Good Shepherd wherever He leads, trusting in His faithfulness, regardless of the cost or circumstance . . . even the path that is difficult or that it does not make sense to us.

CS Lewis wrote, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought most of the next.” Only the Gospel, deeply infused into the marrow of our very being, can free us to live such an incredible existence for the glory of God, an existence where a shrink-wrapped witness is as far as the east is from the west.

This is God Word For Today …This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest & Rejoice In The Wonderful Truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  On a scale of 1-10, how content are you?  What would those closest to you say regarding your level of contentment?  How would your coworkers rate you?  Honestly now, does your score depend upon the circumstances you are facing at the time and God’s “painless” providence for your life?

The Bible says in Hebrews 13:5, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”

There lies the key to exchanging chaos for contentment.  Chaos is found in the love of money, because regardless of how much you have, you never have enough. Contentment is found in what you have by faith – and His name is Jesus Christ. Knowing that you will never walk this life alone is the key to exchanging chaos for contentment.  And the choice is always yours . . .

• Whether you are in plenty or want . . . He is with you!
• Whether you are in sickness or health . . . He is with you!
• Whether you are in prosperity or poverty . . . He is with you!

You see . . .

Contentment is never found in the stuff of life.

It is only found in the Savior.

He is enough.

We wander into quicksand when we look for satisfaction in anything other than God.  Nothing in this world was ever designed to do for us what only Jesus can do, and that is to replace a life of chaos with contentment.

In God’s economy, the things He gives us was never intended to satisfy us at the deepest level.  Only God Himself can do that, because only God is big enough to fill the God-sized void inside of us that He placed there, so that we would cry out to Him alone and depend on Him alone (Ecclesiastes 3:11)!

When we focus on what the world offers, we find chaos instead of contentment.  But when we focus on what the living Word offers, we find true contentment, because we understand all our gifts must be held loosely.  It is never “the stuff” that destroys our contentment and fills our life with chaos; it is how tightly we hold on to it that does.

God’s key to satisfied living is –

Hold on loosely to all your stuff

and

Cling tightly to your Savior.

One last thought: if you ever find yourself losing your grip on Him, relax.  You were never holding Him in the first place!  He has had a hold on you from before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4), and He has promised to never let go! The Bible reinforces this wonderful truth in Romans 8:38-39, “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Now that is the ultimate source of continual contentment!

This is God Word For Today …This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest & Rejoice In The Wonderful Truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  In my Pastor’s Discovery Class that I teach to help new members and inquirers discover the truths about the Gospel, what the Christian life is all about, and what our church is all about I encourage everyone to read three Books of the Bible which help them in this discovery …

The Gospel of John  – shows us clearly Who Jesus is and what He has done.

The letters of John – shows us very compellingly what Jesus can do for us and through us.

The book of Romans – contains marvelous truths about what our salvation should mean to us.

When you read the first three chapters of Romans, God shows us that there is no one on earth who can stand guiltless before a perfectly holy God.  From our human perspective, the book of Job records the three most important questions that you and I must ask and have answered for us in this life:

“(1) How then can a man be righteous before God?

(2) How can one born of woman be pure?

(3) If even the moon is not bright and the stars are not pure in His eyes,How much less man, who is but a maggot – a son of man, who is only a worm!  (Job 25:4-6)

Paul’s epistle to the Romans answers these question with stark clarity:

“As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no not even one;
there is none who understands;
there is none who seeks after God.
They are all gone out of the way (All have turned away),
they have together become unprofitable;
there is none that does good,
no, not even one.” (Romans 3:11-12)

We are NOT righteous before God. Whether we think of ourselves as a “good,” moral person” or a “righteous” religious person, we stand before God unworthy and with nothing to place us in good standing with Him!  The Bible says in Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

There is nothing we can do, in our own strength, to make ourselves right or get ourselves in good standing before God. There is no amount of clean living, no amount of religious service, no amount of money we can contribute that will wipe the slate clean for us.  Everyone of us have become worthless in His sight.

We are dead in our sins; we should be doomed and damned . . .

if not for Christ!

Apart from Him, we don’t even have eyes to see that He has provided the solution for us!

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receives (accepts) not the things that come from the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know (understand) them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Our precious Savior, our wonderful Redeemer, has done it all, or as the centuries’ old hymn says,

“Jesus Paid It All.”

• God graciously provides us with the only possible solution to our sin problem.
• God became a man to pay the purchase price for our redemption from sin and death.
• Jesus is our propitiation – it is He who fully and finally paid the price for all our sins.
• Because of His atoning work, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
• God’s righteous wrath against our sins was completely poured out on Christ at Calvary.
• God gives us the faith to see this offer of salvation. It is not something we work out or work up to; it comes as a gracious gift from Him (Ephesians 2:8).
• God takes away all the charges of sin that stood against us – “Blotting out (cancelled) the handwriting of ordinances that was against us (stood opposed to us).” (Colossians 2:14).

Those stone tablets that Moses carried down from Mount Sinai almost 3,500 years ago had words that meant nothing but death for you and me; the perfect law of God painfully reveals our sinful state and carries a word of condemnation and a sentence of death that no human hand can erase or remove – only the nail-scarred hand of God can do that!

So . . . where do you stand today? Do you know that you can be righteous before holy God? You need only accept that truth that He has, in Christ, provided the perfect, eternal pardon for your sin. I plead with you, as a preacher of the Gospel and an ambassador of Christ: if you have not placed your trust in that truth, will you do so today?

This is God Word For Today …This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest & Rejoice In The Wonderful Truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Grace For The Journey

  When you look at others, what do you see? If you are looking through the lenses of the world, you see only what is before you in the way of physical appearance and performance. But if you are gazing through Gospel glasses, you see beyond the externals to what is going on inside a person with every beat of his or her heart.

The Bible says In 1 Samuel 16:7 that the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

How easy it is to judge a “book by its cover,” as has often been said. What a distorted or exaggerated picture the cover can project, causing us to miss the things that matter most! God said the heart matters most – not appearance . . . not height . . . not pedigree … not resume.  And the heart can only be clearly viewed through Gospel glasses worn over the eyes of our hearts.

How easy it is to see others only in the light of what they can do for us – how they can assist us in advancing our agenda, accomplishing our goals, and achieving our dreams.

But this is not the way God wants us to view people!

Gospel glasses help us see in others what God sees; and when we look at them from this perspective, we are being used by God to reverse the curse. As someone has said, “instead of loving things and using people as a means to an end, we begin loving people and using things as a means to advance the cause of God’s kingdom in this world.” Gazing through Gospel glasses helps us focus on expanding the cause of God’s kingdom rather than our own kingdom.

The Gospel teaches us to see people – all people – as the image bearers of God. This means we see every person through the lenses of value, dignity, and purpose. Every person matters. Gazing through Gospel glasses enables us to see past our autonomous and self-focused style of living. We no longer focus on our own wants and needs and begin to look to the wants and needs of others, even going so far as to begin caring for people who don’t directly benefit or bless us. Gospel glasses help us to see better, think bigger, and live larger for the glory of God and the good of others.

Gazing through Gospel glasses empowers us to see the beauty and benefits of living in community . . . in spite of the conflicts that will inevitably arise. We finally understand that everything we have experienced and endured is all part of God’s perfect process of bringing us to the end of ourselves and kneeling humbly at the foot of the cross. We recognize our need for community and the needs of the community, and we do everything within our power to meet those needs, even at great personal cost.

So . . . what lenses have you been gazing through lately? What do you see when you look at others? If you want to see others as God sees them – as God sees you – you will have to look at them through the lens of the Gospel.

This is God’s Word … This is Grace for your Journey …

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

 Grace For The Journey

  There is a great deal of confusion regarding what Jesus said in John 17 about Christians being in the world but not of the world.  Today we are going to unpack this important truth and find some practical application to living out these two little words with one big difference.

First, what is meant by “the world”?  Jesus is not referring to the created order, which God said is very good (Genesis 1:31); nor is He referring to the universal community of humanity.  What Jesus is talking about is the godless, sinful systems of this world that are ruled by Satan (see 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2, 6:12).  This is exactly what the apostle Paul is referring to in the following verse.

“Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”  (Romans 12:2)

Jesus and Paul are both telling us not to be conformed to the sinful patterns of this current world system, because born-again Christians are no longer ruled by sin and Satan (Romans 6:14).  In brief, we are to avoid worldliness.  We are not instructed to retreat from contact with the people, places, and things in this world (see 1 Corinthians 5:9), which God is in the process of redeeming.  We are not to seek the quiet solitude of the monastic life simply to avoid our surrounding culture, as many over the centuries have done.

We are, however, instructed to resist the sinful direction this world seeks to lure us into (see James 4:4), a purely horizontal direction devoid of God and the revealed truth of His sacred Scriptures.  The Bible says in 1 John 2:15-16, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world.”

Sin has corrupted everything!  Everything God made good has been twisted, marred, and corrupted by sin.  That is why God hates sin so intensely . . . so much so that He sent His Son, Jesus, to atone for it on the cross.  Because God hates sin, we too must hate sin, which is why we are to understand the difference between being in the world but not of the world.

• We are not to think like the world
• We are not to act like the world
• We are not to talk like the world
• We are not to desire like the world

God has placed us in this world to be both salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16).  Jesus emphasized this truth throughout His ministry.  The analogy of light suggests an unmistakable presence.  When the light goes on, the darkness disappears.  When we let our “light” shine before others, the world is impacted by both the “good news” we preach and the “good works” we practice.

“Salt” needs to be understood in its historical context.  In the first century, salt was used primarily to preserve food, rather than to enhance its flavor.  God wants to use His people to preserve the world from its evil influences by flavoring it with the truth and preserving it with the power of the Gospel.  God wants the distinct difference between His unchanging truth and the world’s fleeting philosophies to be preserved.

Where there is war we are to bring peace.  Where there is sorrow we are to bring comfort.  Where there is hatred we are to bring love.  Where there is unforgiveness we are to bring reconciliation.  Where there is error, we are to speak truth.  We do this by preaching the Gospel with both our lips and our lives.

As someone has said “we are to actively engage the culture around us by being countercultural.”  We make a difference in this world by being different from this world.  We live against the world by living for this world, refusing to become consumed by worldly pleasures.  Not being of this world means we are consumed by Christ alone.  Because Jesus is making all things new, He is for this world.  And because we are Christ’s (Romans 8:29), must we be for this world.

So how are you doing at shining light into the dark places?  Are you enhancing the flavor of eternal life in this fallen, broken, and hurting world?  Remember, only the Gospel and God’s Word provides the answers to the questions that matter most in life.  Only God’s Word explains the beginning (creation), the problem (fall), and the solution (redemption through the blood of the Lamb).  Only God Word weaves together the past, present, and promised future for all those who are in this world but not of this world . . . and we must proclaim that truth to all the world!

This is God Word For Today …This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest & Rejoice In The Wonderful Truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”