Grace For The Journey

  When was the last time you overlooked an offense?  You know, when someone said something that got under your skin . . . when someone did something that really ticked you off.  Perhaps it was the time someone changed their plans without telling you and that disrupted your plans.  Or when someone put together a special invitation list that included everyone and his uncle—except you!

We’ve all been offended.  And we have all offended others.  Today I want to tell you about the Gospel power that helps us overlook offenses, regardless of the cost.  Look at what God says in His Word about this . . .

“Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult.”  Proverbs 12:16.

“A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” Proverbs 19:11.

It is so much easier to go on the offensive when we are offended!  We build our case, review the record of wrongs, and plan our counterattack.  But the Bible tells us there is another way that will yield better fruit, fruit that will last: that fruit is overlooking offenses.

To be sure, there are some offenses that demand our attention and our appropriate response.  But I think we would all confess before the Lord that we are far too thin-skinned and ready to get back at those who have offended us, often in the most trifling matters.

Because it is not in our DNA to overlook offenses, we need to rest more securely in the truths of the Gospel.

The Gospel frees us to overlook when we are offended and slighted.

• We can overlook the thoughtless mistake.
• We can overlook the quick quip.
• We can overlook the hurtful action.
• We can overlook the snide remark.
• We can overlook the rude comment.
• We can overlook the insidious insult.

The Gospel not only empowers us to overlook offenses, it empowers us to stop trying to vindicate ourselves to the offender or the onlookers.  In the eyes of the only One who truly matters, we are already vindicated by His blood poured out on Calvary’s Hill.

Jesus endured every imaginable offense to make us His.

• He endured the offense of unbelief.
• He endured the offense of betrayal.
• He endured the offense of false accusations.
• He endured the offense of denial.
• He endured the offense of ridicule, gossip, and slander.
• He endured every offense, including cruel scourging, tearing thorns, and crushing nails.

And at the end, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  So the Gospel is ready to help us endure and overlook offenses, and it will do it by a power beyond ours.

One final point!  It is in our DNA to want to get back at those who have offended us.  “Vengeance is mine!” says the one who was offended.  But the glorious Gospel frees us from our incessant need to want to get even.  Here is where the grace of forgiveness kicks in and allows us to pay down the debt of an offense rather than demanding that the offender pay it.

Only the Gospel can help us steward our emotions, actions, and words to respond to an offense in a way that glorifies God and brings good to others.  Remember, overlooking offenses is a decision; and it is a decision we must make every time we are offended.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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

  Now I know the title of this blog may sound a little radical, but radical is what the Gospel is all about.  Someone has put it this way:

“The Gospel doesn’t make bad people good; it makes dead people alive.  That’s the difference between the gospel of Jesus Christ and every other world religion.  All other religions exhort their followers to save themselves by being good, by conforming their lives to whatever their worshiped deity is.  But the gospel is God’s acceptance of us based on what Christ has done, not on what we can do.”

In other words, Jesus didn’t die to make you good; He died to make you His, by raising you from death to life.  And that, my friend, should change everything for you!

Life in Christ is not about what you can do for Him,

But rather what He has already done for you.

Life in Christ is not about what you can give to Him,

but what He has already given to you.

Because you are His, you are loved – not because of what you do, but because of who you are: His!  And as a child of the Most High God, you are forever loved unconditionally, no matter what you do.

If Jesus died to make you good, the Bible would be nothing more than a how to book for the religious.  It would instruct you on what to do in order to be loved, accepted, and blessed by God.  In essence, the Bible would be all about you.  However, if Jesus died to make you His – before you did anything good and in spite of your sin – then it has to be all about Him and what He has already done for you.

You see, your goodness (obedience) does not precede acceptance.  It flows out from it.  The Bible says in 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.”  The moralists, who think the Christian life is about being good, believe that can they expect God’s favor only when they are good.  They are trusting in their own goodness to broker God’s approval, not in their Savior.  They believe God is keeping score, and at the end of the day, they hope to have more points on the “good” side of the ledger rather than the “bad” side, so that God will bless them instead of condemn them.

But those who know they are already accepted in Christ find their desire for obedience flowing like a river out of a heart that is overwhelmed with thanksgiving for all that Jesus has done for them.  I have learned over the years that only those who know they are loved, in spite of their sin and shortcomings, find the continual strength to get back up and go further into their so-great salvation.

Think about it for a moment: How good would the “good news” really be if the only way you could share in it was because you earned it and deserved it?  I don’t know about you, but no way would that be “good news” for me!  If I thought for a second my relationship to Jesus and the blessings He gives to me was dependent upon me, I would be driven into the ashes of utter despair.  The “good news” would cease to be good; instead it would be “impossible news.”  I know just how bad I really am!

So,the next time you are feeling down because you have fallen short of the biblical mark for your life in some area, remember Jesus died to make you His.  When He said, “It is finished!” He was speaking about more than His atonement for our sin; He was also speaking about His love for us.  Jesus can’t love you anymore because of the good things you do, and He can’t love you any less because of the bad things you do.

Make no mistake . . .

The finished love of Jesus is a love that is never finished!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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 are countless sermons preached, seminars held, and books written on the pursuit of greatness. Yet we find very few sermons, seminars, and books on the pursuit of service. But did you know that service is God’s way to greatness?

Jesus says in Matthew 23:11, “The greatest among you will be your servant.”

Now, the world has its own view on greatness, which it trumpets to us at every opportunity. From movies to music to television to the internet, the devil’s enticements are laid out for us, like a shiny lure designed to shift our focus and our affections from the things above to things below. Things like . . .

• Fame and fortune
• Power and prestige
• Achievements and the applause of man

To be sure, the things of this world often seem quite attractive and make grand promises about the paths that lead to greatness. But they can never deliver on what they promise. The serpent in the Garden of Eden promised Adam and Eve greatness in this life: they would be like gods! All they needed to do, Satan assured them, was reject what God had said and trust in their own wisdom, their own feelings. Tragically, they did, and in so doing passed a death sentence on themselves. Just like a fish that eagerly chomps on the lure, only to feel the sudden, shocking pain of the jagged hook ripping through its mouth, Adam and Eve eagerly bit into the forbidden fruit . . . and the results were catastrophic for them and for the rest of humanity.

But God has something far greater planned for you! Greatness God’s way is the way of “other-orientation.”  It is putting others first. It is serving others rather than being served. It is giving water to the thirsty and food to the hungry. It is clothing the naked and providing shelter to the homeless. It is walking past the chief seats to stand in the back. And this is just what our Lord did when He came; He chose not to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45). On the night He was to be betrayed, our Lord knelt before His disciples and washed their feet, one by one (John 13:5) – the King of kings and Lord of lords taking on the posture of a slave! And, of course, the Cross provides the ultimate example our Lord’s other-orientation for all the world to see. He died to demonstrate God’s love for us, so that we who were still sinners might yet have life in Him (Romans 5:8).

We must remember that God has told us that the first will become last and the last will be first (Matthew 20:16). In other words, in order to rise, one must fall; and in order to live, one must die. And the key that unlocks the door leading to greatness God’s way is dying to self.

So . . . how are you doing in the area of death to self – both personally and professionally? Whose feet have you washed lately? Whom have you given a cup of cold water? When was the last time you shared Christ with someone? Greatness God’s way is the only way to lasting greatness, greatness that brings with it unimaginable joy and satisfaction.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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 104:16, “The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that He planted.”

Lebanon is a land of immense beauty and important history.  Located on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanon mountain range rises majestically from the sea to snow-capped mountain peaks that reach over 10,000 feet.  Deep in the mountains in the north are the famous “cedars of Lebanon” which are often referred to in the Bible.  We read about the cedars of Lebanon in the books of Kings, Song of Songs, Isaiah, and in the Psalms. These trees, which can grow up to 130 feet tall with a trunk size of over 8 feet in diameter, are symbolic of every Christian for a two important reasons.

1. THEY ARE PLANTED BY GOD

As the cedars of Lebanon are planted by God, so too is the Christian.  It is not a work of man and machinery scattering seed that sprouts up into the cedars of Lebanon . . . any more than it is the work of man and machinery scattering seed that sprouts up into Christians.  It is only the hand of God that plants the seed in the right soil to produce the desired results, whether He is planting cedars of Lebanon or Christians of the Lord.

2. THEY ARE PROVIDED FOR BY GOD

The second reason these majestic trees are symbolic of Christians is the fact that you will not find an irrigation system watering them.  In His providence, God not only plants these beautiful trees, but He also waters them and cares for them . . . just as He does for the Christian.  The grace that planted the Christian in the soil of salvation is the same grace that sanctifies him as he grows to maturity.  God does not plant the Christian and then expect him to grow on his own, by the spiritual sweat of his brow.  God graciously creates the perfect environment for growth and maturity.  The Bible proclaims this truth in Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28).

What a comfort to know that our faith is rooted in the work of God and not our own!  Is there anyone reading this today who would take any comfort whatsoever in knowing that you were the one who was responsible for your salvation?  Have you not done many things that would cause you to doubt the reality of your faith if you were the one who was responsible for generating it in the first place?  I know I have, and it is only in knowing that I played absolutely no role in my salvation that I am secure in knowing it is real, even in the face of my many failures.

In the very same way, is it not also a comfort to know that our Christian growth is rooted in the work of God and not our own?  To be sure, God’s Word commands us to work and to practice the disciplines of grace: Bible study, prayer, fellowship with the saints, service, giving, fasting, etc.  But it is not in the practice of these and other disciplines that we grow.  If this were so, our growth would be dependent upon our effort.

Thank God it doesn’t work that way!  Who has the strength and stick-to-itiveness to continually stay on track?  The grace that made us Christians also matures us as Christians.  What starts in grace continues in grace, and will one day be completed in grace.  God finishes everything He starts and that includes you!  (Philippians 1:6).

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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 was the last time you let your history mess with your destiny?  I can tell you when it was for me.  It was when I was wasting valuable time trying to rewrite it!  Our history is what it is – history – and spending time regretting it or trying to rewrite it is wasted time that distracts from the destiny God is calling you to do.

The most common way we let our history mess with our destiny is when we bog down in blaming others.  We blame others for our failures.  We blame others for our current station in life.  We blame others for our lack of meaning and purpose in life.  Blame-shifting is simply the blank page upon which we attempt to re-write our history and justify in our minds why we are not moving in the direction God would have us go.

There is a solution to overcoming the problem of our history messing with destiny.  The Gospel!

The Bible says in Romans 8:1-4, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

For those who understand the truths of the Gospel, history can never mess with destiny.  Paul tells us that there is NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Jesus.  The key phrase is not just “no condemnation” but “in Jesus.”  Because we have admitted out sin, turned from it, and trusted Jesus as our Savior, we don’t have to waste time grieving over our past.  We don’t need to shame or blame people in our past.   There’s no need to rewrite our histories.  We never again need to sink into blaming others to help us deal with our current circumstances in life.

Jesus has set us free from our past, no matter what was in it . . .

• We need not fear our past.
• We need not deny our past.
• We need not blame others for our past.
• We need not be chained to our past.

We need to simply embrace the truths of the Gospel, which assure us that we have been set free from our past and from the desire to recreate it or whitewash it in order to make ourselves look better or feel better about it.

The devil is a liar; he wants your history to mess with your destiny!  So he keeps trying to get you to focus on a painful past, littered with bad decisions, broken dreams, unfulfilled promises, and unrealized potential.  Don’t waste your time trying to rewrite all that old news.  You have been freed from the pain of your past and can submit to God’s call into the promise of your future. The prophet Micah rejoiced in the freedom God has granted us from our past history.  He made this declaration, “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”  (Micah 7:19)

God is for you.  That is why he sent Jesus to the cross and raised Him from the dead!  He has not only wiped the slate of your past clean; He has broken it and promised to never use it again.  He has hurled that slate into the depths of the sea.

Every time we attempt to rewrite our history in order to make ourselves look or feel better, we are denying the power the Gospel.  We are forgetting, just as Peter warned we might, that we have been cleansed from our past sins (2 Peter 1:9).  We are ignoring Jesus’ victory cry from the cross (John 19:30) that all that history is finished!

The Gospel is not only the power of salvation; it is the power of sanctification that increases our reflection of Christ.  It is the power that propels us past whatever history we have, knowing that we are completely forgiven and unconditionally loved.  These Gospel truths free us from living in the guilt of the past so that we can live today with the joy of forgiveness and experience His power in our lives, and look toward our future confident hope!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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

  How do you see the Bible?

• Is it primarily a manual of rules and regulations, designed to tell you how to live life?
• Is it just a story book about Bible characters – some who were heroes to inspire us, others who were sinners to instruct us?
• Or, do you see the Bible as a compilation of sixty-six disconnected books, each one telling different stories about a variety of characters, designed to provide us a menu of moralistic lessons?

Well, here is how God sees the Scriptures: A supernatural revelation about the greatest hero of all, His name is Jesus Christ!

Contrary to ever-increasing popular belief, the Bible is not a manual of moral lessons for wise Christian living, or a “how to” book on how to live for Christ.  The individual books and passages of the Bible are to be understood within the framework of the greater whole, which sets forth the Lord Jesus Christ on every page as the only Hero of humanity.  God, through the pages of Scripture, is telling us one epic story, which exposes and exalts the Hero of that story: Emmanuel, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is vitally important that we understand the Bible in this way.  For you see, outside of Christ we do not know how to live, nor do we have to power and ability to live as we should.  The Christian life is Christ living His life through me.  Many think the Christian life is Christ and me working together to live as we should.  A proper view of the Bible corrects that misconception.

Jesus said in John 5:39,46, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me . . . if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote of Me.”

Jesus Christ is not only the Sum, Substance, and Subject of all Scripture, He is the Source of it.  The biblical narrative in both the Old and New Testaments guide us into a greater understanding, knowledge, and experience of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

The Bible says in John 1:1,14, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Jesus Himself brought His disciples deeper into this truth by showing them that what was concealed in the Old Testament was revealed in the New Testament.

“He said to them, ‘This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.’ Then He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”  (Luke 24:44-45)

The New Testament clearly sets forth Jesus as the Hero of the story.  The overarching message of the Gospels is the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  The apostles preached Christ.  The epistles teach Christ.  The apostle Paul made it clear that the New Testament is all about Jesus: “We preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:5).  Martin Luther said it succinctly: “Jesus Christ is the center and circumference of the entire Bible.”

The New Testament clearly sets Jesus forth as the Hero, but what about the Old Testament?  The Hero of the Bible is not found in the giants of the faith in the Old Testament, including Moses, Joshua, and David.  Jesus is the fulfillment of these men: the new Moses . . . the new Joshua . . . the better David . . . all who pointed to and foreshadowed the coming of Christ.

Jesus is the pattern of and the Person in the entire Word of God.  John Calvin rightly observed, “The Scriptures should be read with the aim of finding Christ in them.  Whoever turns aside from this object, even though he wears himself out all his life in learning, he will never reach the knowledge of the truth.”

So how do you see the Bible?  If Christ is not at the center of every paragraph, page, and book, you are not seeing it clearly.  There really is only one revelation in all of Scripture, and that revelation is to be found in Jesus. I do no violence to Scripture whatsoever when I put the words of Colossians 1:16-18 into the mouth of our Lord:

“By Me all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Me and for Me. I am before all things, and in Me all things hold together.  And I am the head of the body, the church; I am the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything I might have the supremacy.”

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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

  Have you ever said, “I can’t” only to find out that you can? Well, you are not alone. In fact, you are in some very good and godly company who said the very same thing . . . only to learn “When Can’t Can!” Let’s recall the experience of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:4-8:

“The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’ ‘Ah, Sovereign LORD,’ I said, ‘I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.’ But the LORD said to me, ‘Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,’ declares the LORD.”

When God first called Jeremiah into His ministry of service,

Jeremiah’s response to was,

“I CAN’T! I do not know how to speak.”

To which God replied, “You CAN” and

He supplied He all the “CAN” Jeremiah needed.

Isn’t it amazing to see how God chooses to work out His purposes in this world? He could have decided to use angels, but He didn’t. Instead God chooses and calls fallible, frail, and fearful men and women into service – people just like you and me – and then He both equips and empowers them to do exactly what He is calling them to do.

Jeremiah’s initial response may have reminded you of Moses, who also balked at God’s call, protesting that “I CAN’T” go back to Egypt and into the court of Pharaoh speaking your words, “Let My people go that they may worship Me!” Remember that Moses had struck down the Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave, and then Moses fled for his life. He spent forty years tending sheep on the backside of the desert. And when God called him to go back to Egypt as the deliverer of God’s people, Moses said, “I CAN’T.” But God said, “You CAN!”

It’s important to point out here that both Jeremiah and Moses were absolutely right. They could not do what God was calling them to do in their own strength.

But God never calls His people without equipping them for the call.  Moses and Jeremiah were not going alone, and they were not going in their own strength.  They were in the place where “can’t” CAN!

“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” (Zechariah 4:6)

So . . . is God calling you into something today that you believe you cannot do?

• A new career?
• Going back to school?
• A change of address?
• Forgiving someone who has wronged you?
• Recommitment in a relationship?

If you have been questioning God’s call and fretting that you are up to the task, remember this: You’re right! You are not up for the task, but God is! And the truth the Scriptures teach us is this . . .

WHEN WE CAN’T . . . HE CAN!

Take your “I CAN’T” to God and ask Him to remove your doubt and fear. Freely confess that you have no might, no power, which will enable you to do the work He has called you to. Then get ready to see just what God CAN do, both through and in you, for His glory and your good.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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

  Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September to celebrate the economic and social contributions of workers.  Today I would like to celebrate the contributions of all workers who are busily engaged in building the kingdom of God.

First we need to ask, “Who is a kingdom builder?”  Is the designation reserved only for those who are in full-time vocational ministry, like pastors and missionaries? If you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know how I’ll answer to that question . . . with a resounding “NO!”

As we study the Bible and discover its life-altering truths we discover a whole new way of looking at what some would distinguish between the secular and the sacred.  There is a great distortion accepted in some circles which argues that Christ gave two ways of life to His church.  One is the perfect life, the other is permitted.  The perfect life is spiritual, dedicated to contemplation, and reserved for priests, monks, and nuns; the permitted life is secular, dedicated to action and open to such tasks as soldering, governing, farming, trading, and raising families.  Sadly, the result of this thinking is to divide what believers do into categories: Higher vs. lower … sacred vs. secular … perfect vs. permitted … contemplation vs. action.”

Unfortunately, this two-tier or double-life view of work flagrantly perverts biblical teaching by narrowing the sphere of life-calling/life-work and excluding most Christians from its scope.  If all that a believer does grows out of faith and is done for the glory of God, then all dualistic distinctions are demolished. There is no higher/lower, sacred/secular, perfect/permitted, contemplative/active, or first class/second class.

Life-calling/life-work is the biblical premise of Christian existence itself.  Life-calling/ life-work means that everyone, everywhere, and in everything fulfills his or her (secondary) callings in response to God’s (primary) calling.  For the Reformers, the peasant and the merchant . . . for us, the business person, the teacher, the factory worker, and the television anchor – can do God’s work (or fail to do it) just as much as the minister and the missionary.

The recovery of the holistic understanding of life-calling/life-work was dramatic.  William Tyndale wrote that “if our desire is to please God, pouring water, washing dishes, cobbling shoes, and preaching the Word is all one.”  William Perkins claimed “polishing shoes was as sanctified and holy act, and the action of a shepherd in keeping sheep, is as good a work before God as is the action of a judge in giving sentence, or of a magistrate in ruling, or a minister in preaching.”

The cultural implications of recovering true life-calling/life-work were explosive.

• It gave to everyday work a dignity and spiritual significance under God that dethroned the primacy of leisure and contemplation.
• It gave to humble people and ordinary tasks an investment of equality that shattered hierarchies and was a vital impulse toward democracy.
• It gave to such practical things as work, thrift, and long-term planning a reinforcement that made them powerfully influential in the rise of modern capitalism.
• It gave to the endeavor to make Christ Lord of every part of life a fresh force that transformed churches and cultures.
• It gave to the idea of “talents” a new meaning, so that they were no longer seen purely as spiritual gifts and graces but as natural and a matter of giftedness in the modern sense of the term.
• It demanded and inspired the transforming vision of the lordship of Christ expressed in the famous saying of the great Dutch prime minister, Abraham Kuyper: “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is Mine! This belongs to Me!’”

WOW!  Now that should help us all see the vision and value of life-calling/life-work from God’s perspective.  From our first parents in the Garden of Eden, all of life was to be lived coram deo – before the face of God and for the glory of God.  It didn’t matter if one was a butcher, baker, or candle-stick maker . . . or a priest, monk, or nun, every service is sacred when it is lived out in the light of eternity for the glory of God.

So who are the “kingdom builders” for the King of kings and the Lord of lords?  Every surrendered and yielded Christian who is putting their gifts, talents, and abilities into faithful service in order to glorify God and expand the cause of His kingdom.

This Labor Day, take a moment to do a personal evaluation in the area of your calling/work and see if you have been imagining any sacred/spiritual split?  How is your work impacting the kingdom of God?  How are you allowing God to use you right where you currently are to expand the cause of His kingdom?

Remember God’s desire, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31}

There is only one menial job in this world -that is the job where Jesus cannot be found.If your labor is a labor of love for the glory of God, the good of others, and the expansion of God’s kingdom, you can rest assured that what you are doing, regardless of what others might think of it, echoes in eternity.

Let me close out today’s mediation with this quote:

“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music … Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.’”

You are to be celebrated today for living for something that will outlast your life on this side of the grave.  Laboring for the Lord means you are living for the transcendent glories of God, regardless of what you do for a living.  Let that truth bless you this Labor Day.

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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

  Do you know what the sin of self-sufficiency is?  Quite simply, it is prideful independence.  Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we who commit this sin believe we can live autonomous, independent lives apart from the One who created us.  We believe we are self-sufficient.  Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the great expository preacher, explained it well:

“Anyone who reads the New Testament objectively can see clearly that the Pharisees of our Lord’s time were greater sinners (if you can use such terms) than were the publicans and open sinners.  Why?  Because they were self-satisfied, because they were self-sufficient.  The height of sin is not to feel any need of the grace of God.  There is no greater sin than that.  Infinitely worse than committing some sin of the flesh is to feel that you are independent of God, or that Christ need never have died on the cross of Calvary. There is no greater sin than that. That final self-sufficiency, and self-satisfaction, and self-righteousness, is the sin of sins; it is sin at its height, because it is spiritual sin.”

Our sinful nature desires more than anything else to be independent from anything or anyone who would rule over us, and that includes Almighty God.  We think freedom is to be found in doing what we want to do, when we want to do it, and how we want to do it, apart from the authority of anyone over us – Almighty God or anyone else.

This is one of the reasons why God allows us to stumble and fall into sin, to remind us that we simply cannot live autonomous and independent lives apart from the help and assistance of God.  When we get ourselves into trouble, we come running back to the only One who can deliver us from that trouble.  “Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities,” the Psalmist recalled. “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.” (Psalm 107:17, 19).  Every stumble is designed to bring us back to sit at the feet of our Savior.

When we are sitting at the feet of Jesus, we are given the “secret” of slaying the sin of self-sufficiency; that secret will be found in no other place.  We see in the teaching of our Lord that even He was dependent upon His Father in heaven.  Jesus said,

“By Myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is just, for I seek not to please Myself but Him who sent Me.” (John 5:30)

The secret to slaying the sin of self-sufficiency is found in the fact that Jesus lived a life that was fully dependent on His Father.  Not only that, but He was not afraid to acknowledge this truth.  Jesus made it clear that all of us are dependent on God.  Jesus modeled a life of dependence upon God and gave us the secret to slaying the sin of self-sufficiency.

Think about this for a moment: Jesus actually said, “By myself I can do nothing”!  In His fully human nature He made it clear that He was fully dependent upon His Father.  His spirit of dependence is to be our spirit of dependence.

We must look to God for everything.  He will meet us in our place of need.  He will even meet us in our places of the needs we don’t realize we need yet!  It is freeing to know there is a God . . . and it is not us!  When God is sitting in His rightful place – on the throne of our lives – we begin living the life we were designed by God to live.  It is a life that is created by God, to be lived for God, and to be lived in God.

Now that I have told you the secret to slaying the sin of self-sufficiency, pass it along – because there isn’t a person you meet who isn’t struggling with it!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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

  As a pastor, I hear that question often.  Generally after a service someone will come up to me and ask, “If Jesus did it all and we are no longer bound by the law, what difference does it make if we are obedient or not, seeing as we are fully loved and completely forgiven?”

To which I invariably reply, “It makes all the difference in the world!”  We are finally and fully motivated to please God because we are fully loved and completely forgiven.  Our obedience flows from a heart that overflows with thanksgiving for all Jesus has done for us and has promised to complete in us.

So . . . why obey if Jesus is the only way?

For one reason . . . LOVE!

Love for God, then, is the only acceptable motive for obedience to Him.  This love may express itself in a reverence for Him and a desire to please Him, but those expressions must spring from love.  Without the motive of love, my apparent obedience may be essentially self-serving.  Negatively, I may fear God will punish me, or at least withhold His blessing from me, because of some disobedience.  I may abstain from a particular sinful action out of fear I will be found out or because I don’t want to feel guilty afterward.  Positively, I may be seeking to earn God’s blessing through some pious actions.  I may conform to a certain standard of conduct because I want to fit in with and be accepted by the Christian culture in which I live.  I might even obey outwardly because I have a compliant temperament, and it is simply my “nature” to obey my parents, or my teacher, or civil authorities, or even God.

Think back for a moment: can you remember a time when your obedience was rooted in either the negative or the positive – the desire to avoid punishment or to gain a reward?  To be sure, negative and positive motivations may in fact change behavior.  But make no mistake; these motivations simply cannot transform the heart.  Only love for our Lord can do that; and only behavior that is rooted in the love of God is worthy of being called obedience.

We don’t obey because of what we can get or avoid getting; we obey because we love the One who loved us enough to give us everything good we have:

• Pardon
• Forgiveness
• Adoption
• Salvation
• Power to live the changed life
• Eternal Life
• Everyday life in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit

We obey because we are overwhelmed by the amazing love of our willing Savior, who hung on our cross in order to give us every spiritual blessing.  Jesus suffered the penalty we should have suffered for our sin . . . and He was without sin.  He was perfect in every way, yet instead of being glorified by us He was crucified by us.  Instead of being honored, He was dishonored in the worst way.

Because of that, we understand the Bible’s declaration, “For Christ’s love compels us . . .”  (2 Corinthians 5:14)

Jesus took our place out of love.  He was born because He loved us.  He lived a sinless life because He loved us. He died a sacrificial death because He loved us. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father because He still loves us and will continue loving us for all eternity.

So the only right motive for any kind of obedience on our part must flow out of a heart that loves Jesus.  The Bible says that in 1 John 4:19, “We love because he first loved us.”

Think about this: more important than our obedience is the motive behind it.  Obedience that does not come from a heart that beats for the love of Christ is disobedience.  Only obedience that is rooted in love is true obedience.  Make no mistake . . .

What we do matters to God.  But why we do it matters more.

Jesus is the only way, and we obey to simply say, “Lord, how I love you!”

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The 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.”