Grace For The Journey

With springtime here and the summer quickly approaching, the atmosphere is beginning to change for a lot of folks.  While I typically enjoy all the seasons during a calendar year, the warm weather really seems to be a better friend to me and my family than the darker, colder, and rainy days of Fall and Winter.

Unlike the change of the seasons, there is a Bible truth that is difficult to deal with.  Jesus says in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  I am by nature a laid back, easy going guy.  My default position is not to get uptight and fretful about people and things.

But the teaching from Jesus like the one mentioned above does not help to relieve spiritual stress or help me to relax spiritually.  Jesus tells His followers to be perfect. What?! Those words turn up my internal pressure cooker to level 11. Jesus’ teaching here stresses me out.  I am expending intentional effort to learn how to chill a little about this truth, yet, at the same time I feel the intrusive heaviness of this seemingly impossible command from the Son of God for me to be perfect.  Contrary to my nature, I want to go immediately and work hard on being … perfect!

Maybe you too have been troubled by what Jesus says in Matthew 5:48. It could be that you live under the presumed pressure of perfectionism.  We need to really consider what Jesus meant when He gave this word to His followers. His command is actually the last verse in Matthew chapter five. In this chapter, He has been sharing transformational life-principles with the listeners who had gathered to hear Him preach. Jesus was calling them to an elevated understanding of what it means to live in His Kingdom. He was strongly dealing with their hearts. He was telling them that a human understanding of a “good life” was simply not a high enough aim for them.

In essence, Jesus was opening up a whole new way of living to them. He was causing them to thirst for something more. Perhaps the hardest part of His message came right before verse 48 when He told them that they must become people who were committed to love even their enemies.  It was immediately after that when Jesus answered the listeners’ discomfort with His command to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

So, what does Jesus mean when He commands this of us?

We all have already failed to be perfect, so He cannot be requiring sinlessness of us.  Neither is Jesus saying that we must live with the obsessive focus of never again sinning.  The Bible is clear that we are all born into sin and, although we can be born again spiritually through faith in Christ, the Bible teaches that all Christians will continue to commit occasional sin during their lives (1 John 1:8-9).

Jesus is not saddling us with some moral code of perfect behavior when He calls us to be perfect. The Greek word translated twice in this verse as perfect is a word that signifies completeness and fullness. The Greek verb tense teaches us that we are being commanded by Jesus to live continually in an active commitment towards this goal for all our days.

There is zero teaching in Scripture that we will ever fully attain this reality in this life, but, in the pursuit of it, we grow in intimacy, love, and likeness with the Father. Jesus is not commanding us that we agonize and strive for constant moral perfection as our chief aim in life. What He is imparting here is something much more than mastering the flesh and obeying the rules. So, how should we understand what the Savior is telling us when He calls us to be perfect like our heavenly Father?

Jesus is calling us to live toward the character of God. He is assigning us a trajectory in life. He is elevating our focus off even the best horizontal expectations, as He tells us that our goal for life is the personhood of the Father. Succinctly put, Jesus is calling us to always go after God with all that we are.

Watch how it plays out: “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Perfect here is one of many adjectives we find in the Bible which describe God to us. “Holy,” “mighty,” “loving,” “glorious,” “wise,” “kind,” “just,” “faithful,” and “sacrificial” are all words that are used to describe the Father to us. We could replace perfect with any of these other adjectives, and not lose anything from our calling to become like Him.  Yet, I want to suggest that the adjective is not the main focus in what Jesus was teaching. Do not get me wrong – Jesus was clearly making a point here. Yet watch what happens when we take a step back and get a macro-view of what the Master is saying.

You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect

              You must be as your heavenly Father is.

                             Be as your heavenly Father.

I hope I am not misunderstood here as advocating any kind of removal from what Jesus is teaching. What I am seeking to do is to elevate the focus and the fretting off the intimidating word perfect, and to clarify the big picture call on our lives to become like the Father. For some of us, when we consider Matthew 5:48, the immediate compulsion is to fixate on what it might mean to become perfect.  We leap into action. We inventory the last 24 hours, the last week, the last year of our lives, and then start scurrying in our minds in an unhealthy concern over every place we might have failed.  We lament our failings. We enter into regret. We panic as fear knocks on the door and as we are forced to confess aloud, “Oh no! I am NOT perfect!”

But are you becoming like your heavenly Father?  Hopefully. Are you in process? Definitely. Is your trajectory pointing in the big-picture direction of your calling from Jesus? Are you intentionally living in such a way that, while yet being imperfect, you are still actually yielding to the work of the Holy Spirit as you are being perfected by Him? You see, if we grasp the larger understanding of Jesus calling us TO BE, rather than him calling us TO DO, we find ourselves moving into the person of the Father rather than running off to do something for the Father.

Our calling is to the Father, not primarily for the Father.

Our completion or fullness (the meaning of the Greek word translated as perfect) arises from our going after God with the understanding that this is a life-long pursuit.  In our commitment to “be…as your heavenly Father is…,” we are processed by His presence and power toward the commanded fullness. I believe the best way for me to approach Jesus’ intentional use of the word perfect is to view it as a catalyst that motivates me toward pursuing completion and fullness in God for all my years.  It is not there to frighten or intimidate me. It is there to free me and motivate me to pursue the personhood of the Father as the singular goal of my life.

The bottom line lesson for me is that most of us are hardwired to want to be without going through the reality of becoming.  We want to arrive without traveling.  We are more inclined to live as human doings rather than human beings.  Maybe after considering these things today, you can release the internal pressure valve, embrace the Father’s provision of Jesus’ perfection on your behalf, and then rest in becoming as He is, rather than striving after obtaining what He has already provided you. Yes, Jesus commands us to be perfect just like our heavenly Father. Yet, what we naturally hear is not the reality of what He is supernaturally calling us unto. He gives us the command, and then serves us as a chauffer guiding us to the fulfillment of the command.

He brings us to the very place that He send us.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Do you know what the world’s greatest labor-saving device is? Tomorrow! That’s right; why do today what you can put off until tomorrow, right?

But this is what God wants for you!

The Bible says in Proverbs 22:13, “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!’ or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’

Notice that it is not the fearful who cry, “There is a lion outside,” but rather the lazy. Why? Because they’re lazy! The sluggard creates all sorts of reasons and excuses in his mind for his inactivity. Rebellion always finds its reasons, and what better reason for being lazy than a lion?

You see, deep down the sluggard knows that his laziness is a bad thing and that he will receive no sympathy – and certainly no reward – for his procrastination. But who could fault someone who postponed his work because there is a lion on the loose, looking for someone to devour?

OK, perhaps you never actually talked about lions, but . . . have you been making any excuses for not doing what you know you ought to be doing at home, at work, or for your church family? Scripture is piercingly painful in its description of our procrastination: “As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed” (Proverbs 16:24). There will always be a lion for the lazy to rationalize laziness. We all have a tendency to put off what we ought to do in order to do what we would rather do.

So how do we overcome this tendency?

We stay focused on the Lord, rather than the lions!

Think about this truth for a moment: Jesus was born to die. He came into this world to pay the price for your sins and mine with His precious blood. When our Savior said, “There is a lion crouching at the door,” there really was one – Satan, the roaring lion who would stop at nothing to disrupt and destroy our Lord’s perfect purpose.  Yet even though Jesus knew that pressing on meant that He would die the most horrible of all deaths, He rejected the way of the sluggard: “He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and kept pressing on in His amazing work of love and grace.

This is what the Bible means when it says we are to keep God’s mercy in view. God’s mercy is to be both the motive and motivation throw aside procrastination and set our hearts to do what we have been called by God.

Procrastination is simply not an option for the people of God, if for no other reason than that it boasts in what it will accomplish tomorrow. But the Bible clearly says in Proverbs 27:1, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1).

As someone has said, “The past is gone, the future is promised to no one; all we have is the now, and that is why it is called ‘the present’” – because that is exactly what it is: a gift from God!

Remember, even if there truly was a lion outside, it should not keep us from doing what God has called us to do.  As disciples of Christ, we are to be devoted to Christ.  That devotion may lead us down lonely paths of pain and persecution, but what better road to travel than the one that our Savior traveled before us – the road that makes us more like Him!

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Over the last few days, both through my own mind and from outside sources, the Father has been speaking to me concerning this important issue of His children unnecessarily (and dangerously!) listening to the voice of the accuser. Have you ever pondered this passage from Revelation?

 “Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now the salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”  Revelation 12:10-11

There is so much for us to rejoice in as we read these two verses. Right off the bat, the loud voice in Heaven declares the fixed authority of Jesus Christ. His salvation has come. His power has come. His Kingdom has come. Notice that the establishment of these glorious components of the majesty of Jesus coincided with the stripping of authority from Satan, the accuser of God’s people.  This is one of those passages in Revelation that we understand as having already occurred, occurring presently, and appointed to occur in the future.  Jesus testified in Luke 10:18 that He witnessed Satan being thrown down from Heaven. Satan (and the fallen angels who pledged loyalty to him) was evicted from Heaven! Yet we clearly see here that his ministry of accusation continues unto this very hour. What does this type of activity from the enemy look like?

He accuses you to God.  He accuses God to you. He accuses others to you by working suspicion and fear in your heart towards people in your life. He accuses you to other people (this is one reason why some people treat you improperly with no reason to do so). Ultimately, the enemy’s favorite type of accusation is to accuse you to you. He magnifies all your failures, and wants you to live in perpetual fear, dread, and guilt. He whispers in your ear that terrible scenario of not being enough, not doing enough, not succeeding enough, not loving enough, not serving enough … his list of enough’s is perfectly tailored by him to fit your own personal areas of weakness.

The accuser traffics in guilt, fear, and dread.

• In the present, he is skilled at getting people to succumb to the paralysis of analysis, trying to get things just so in our lives.
• Concerning the past, he works tirelessly at keeping our greatest failures loud in our ears and clear before our eyes.
• When it comes to our future, Satan counteracts God’s promises with half-truths, doubts, and fears of many varieties.

By the way, Satan doesn’t need to employ a demon every time he desires to minister accusation to you. He has a whole host of humans that he can send your way to beat you down with their unending measuring stick, with which they seek to daily smack you down.  Accusation may very well be Satan’s most effective tool against those who have been truly born again. He can no longer assign you to Hell, but he will work tirelessly at making you wonder if you are truly destined for Heaven.

I find three things from the above passage in Revelation that reveals our source of fighting the voice of the accuser and getting victory over him::

1. We have conquered Satan by the blood of the Lamb.

Your acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is not merely some admission pass into Heaven. Yes, Jesus purchased Paradise for those who trust in Him, but faith in Christ also provides power which produces victory in this life we are living by faith. Jesus, God’s Lamb, has made you forever acceptable to the Father (Ephesians 1:6).  No condemnation sticks to you (Romans 8:1). Your record has been cleared (John 1:8). You are completed through Christ (Colossians 2:10).

Because of this, it is foolish to give place to any accusation in your life. You are renewed in the spirit of your mind (Ephesians 4:23) as you intentionally learn and live by the power of the resurrected life Christ’s gives you.  The blood of the Lamb has secured your position as a child of God. You have the privilege of ignoring the enemy’s accusation as you revel in the Father’s affirmation.

2. We conquer Satan by the word of our testimony.

Many read Revelation 12 and make the mistake of leaving it only in the “yet future” category. While the passage certainly speaks of a future generation who overcome Satan at the end of the age, it also has a valid present-moment application. The “word of their testimony” speaks of a life-governing confidence that lives in the heart and is communicated through the lips. It is the walk-and-talk of the Christian life. Our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord is what begins the Christian life, but it is also what defines the Christian life.  We have believed, therefore we speak (2 Corinthians 4:13). The endurance of our faith proves the validity of our faith. We never renounce Christ, we never abandon the faith, we never allow anything to cause us to stumble at the truth of the Gospel. We live what we preach, what we sing, what we testify, and what we pray.  Our faith is lived though both what we say and how we live.

3. We are conquering Satan through the blood of the Lamb and a life of dying to self.

This is the key to defeating the enemy in this area of his accusing us. Satan and his demons are liars. They want us to live on the defensive so they unleash a constant barrage of accusation. They want us focusing on what is lacking in us, rather than what is glorious and gracious in Christ.  The power of the cross helps us stand against these attacks. The cross defeated Satan and his strategies to defeat us.  Furthermore, we have been bought with a price, therefore we will not love our lives, even unto death.  As we live a life of self-denial, married with a lifestyle of renouncing this world system (Romans 12:1-2), we render Satan’s accusation ineffective.  He is firing blanks at us, and we know it because we can see that our daily lives are not our own anymore. The cross is the cushion in our conscience.  We become more aware of Jesus’ love, the Father’s grace, and the Holy Spirit’s leading as we carry our cross. Satan’s voice fades because we have entered that bliss of having nothing to lose and nothing to prove to anyone – including our own selves.

So, my hope is that all of you who are reading this today will engage in militant opposition against every source of accusation in your life. We are not always able to control what enters our ear, but we are well able to control what stays in our heads. So much more than mere positive thinking, the call to protect your mind from the strategies of the accuser is crucial to living the abundant life which Jesus provides. Start with these practical helps I have shared today. The battle never ends and it is high time that you start winning.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Over the last few days, both through my own mind and from outside sources, the Father has been speaking to me concerning this important issue of His children unnecessarily (and dangerously!) listening to the voice of the accuser. Have you ever pondered this passage from Revelation?

 “Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now the salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”  Revelation 12:10-11

There is so much for us to rejoice in as we read these two verses. Right off the bat, the loud voice in Heaven declares the fixed authority of Jesus Christ. His salvation has come. His power has come. His Kingdom has come. Notice that the establishment of these glorious components of the majesty of Jesus coincided with the stripping of authority from Satan, the accuser of God’s people.  This is one of those passages in Revelation that we understand as having already occurred, occurring presently, and appointed to occur in the future.  Jesus testified in Luke 10:18 that He witnessed Satan being thrown down from Heaven. Satan (and the fallen angels who pledged loyalty to him) was evicted from Heaven! Yet we clearly see here that his ministry of accusation continues unto this very hour. What does this type of activity from the enemy look like?

He accuses you to God.  He accuses God to you. He accuses others to you by working suspicion and fear in your heart towards people in your life. He accuses you to other people (this is one reason why some people treat you improperly with no reason to do so). Ultimately, the enemy’s favorite type of accusation is to accuse you to you. He magnifies all your failures, and wants you to live in perpetual fear, dread, and guilt. He whispers in your ear that terrible scenario of not being enough, not doing enough, not succeeding enough, not loving enough, not serving enough … his list of enough’s is perfectly tailored by him to fit your own personal areas of weakness.

The accuser traffics in guilt, fear, and dread.

• In the present, he is skilled at getting people to succumb to the paralysis of analysis, trying to get things just so in our lives.
• Concerning the past, he works tirelessly at keeping our greatest failures loud in our ears and clear before our eyes.
• When it comes to our future, Satan counteracts God’s promises with half-truths, doubts, and fears of many varieties.

By the way, Satan doesn’t need to employ a demon every time he desires to minister accusation to you. He has a whole host of humans that he can send your way to beat you down with their unending measuring stick, with which they seek to daily smack you down.  Accusation may very well be Satan’s most effective tool against those who have been truly born again. He can no longer assign you to Hell, but he will work tirelessly at making you wonder if you are truly destined for Heaven.

I find three things from the above passage in Revelation that reveals our source of fighting the voice of the accuser and getting victory over him::

1. We have conquered Satan by the blood of the Lamb.

Your acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is not merely some admission pass into Heaven. Yes, Jesus purchased Paradise for those who trust in Him, but faith in Christ also provides power which produces victory in this life we are living by faith. Jesus, God’s Lamb, has made you forever acceptable to the Father (Ephesians 1:6).  No condemnation sticks to you (Romans 8:1). Your record has been cleared (John 1:8). You are completed through Christ (Colossians 2:10).

Because of this, it is foolish to give place to any accusation in your life. You are renewed in the spirit of your mind (Ephesians 4:23) as you intentionally learn and live by the power of the resurrected life Christ’s gives you.  The blood of the Lamb has secured your position as a child of God. You have the privilege of ignoring the enemy’s accusation as you revel in the Father’s affirmation.

2. We conquer Satan by the word of our testimony.

Many read Revelation 12 and make the mistake of leaving it only in the “yet future” category. While the passage certainly speaks of a future generation who overcome Satan at the end of the age, it also has a valid present-moment application. The “word of their testimony” speaks of a life-governing confidence that lives in the heart and is communicated through the lips. It is the walk-and-talk of the Christian life. Our confession of Jesus Christ as Lord is what begins the Christian life, but it is also what defines the Christian life.  We have believed, therefore we speak (2 Corinthians 4:13). The endurance of our faith proves the validity of our faith. We never renounce Christ, we never abandon the faith, we never allow anything to cause us to stumble at the truth of the Gospel. We live what we preach, what we sing, what we testify, and what we pray.  Our faith is lived though both what we say and how we live.

3. We are conquering Satan through the blood of the Lamb and a life of dying to self.

This is the key to defeating the enemy in this area of his accusing us.  Satan and his demons are liars.  They want us to live on the defensive so they unleash a constant barrage of accusation.  They want us focusing on what is lacking in us, rather than what we have in our relationship with the glorious and gracious Christ.  The power of the cross helps us stand against these attacks. The cross defeated Satan and his strategies to defeat us (Colossians 2:13-15).  Furthermore, we have been bought with a price, therefore we will not love our lives, even unto death.  As we live a life of self-denial, married with a lifestyle of renouncing this world system (Romans 12:1-2), we render Satan’s accusation ineffective.  He is firing blanks at us, and we know it because we can see that our daily lives are not our own anymore. The cross is the cushion in our conscience.  We become more aware of Jesus’ love, the Father’s grace, and the Holy Spirit’s leading as we carry our cross. Satan’s voice fades because we have entered that bliss of having nothing to lose and nothing to prove to anyone – including our own selves.

So, my hope is that all of you who are reading this today will engage in militant opposition against every source of accusation in your life. We are not always able to control what enters our ear, but we are well able to control what stays in our heads. So much more than mere positive thinking, the call to protect your mind from the strategies of the accuser is crucial to living the abundant life which Jesus provides. Start with these practical helps I have shared today. The battle never ends and it is high time that you start winning.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Do you know what the world’s greatest labor-saving device is? Tomorrow! That’s right; why do today what you can put off until tomorrow, right?

But this is what God wants for you!

The Bible says in Proverbs 22:13, “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!’ or, ‘I will be murdered in the streets!’

Notice that it is not the fearful who cry, “There is a lion outside,” but rather the lazy. Why? Because they’re lazy! The sluggard creates all sorts of reasons and excuses in his mind for his inactivity. Rebellion always finds its reasons, and what better reason for being lazy than a lion?

You see, deep down the sluggard knows that his laziness is a bad thing and that he will receive no sympathy – and certainly no reward – for his procrastination. But who could fault someone who postponed his work because there is a lion on the loose, looking for someone to devour?

OK, perhaps you never actually talked about lions, but . . . have you been making any excuses for not doing what you know you ought to be doing at home, at work, or for your church family? Scripture is piercingly painful in its description of our procrastination: “As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed” (Proverbs 16:24). There will always be a lion for the lazy to rationalize laziness. We all have a tendency to put off what we ought to do in order to do what we would rather do.

So how do we overcome this tendency?

We stay focused on the Lord, rather than the lions!

Think about this truth for a moment: Jesus was born to die. He came into this world to pay the price for your sins and mine with His precious blood. When our Savior said, “There is a lion crouching at the door,” there really was one – Satan, the roaring lion who would stop at nothing to disrupt and destroy our Lord’s perfect purpose.  Yet even though Jesus knew that pressing on meant that He would die the most horrible of all deaths, He rejected the way of the sluggard: “He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) and kept pressing on in His amazing work of love and grace.

This is what the Bible means when it says we are to keep God’s mercy in view. God’s mercy is to be both the motive and motivation throw aside procrastination and set our hearts to do what we have been called by God.

Procrastination is simply not an option for the people of God, if for no other reason than that it boasts in what it will accomplish tomorrow. But the Bible clearly says in Proverbs 27:1, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1).

As someone has said, “The past is gone, the future is promised to no one; all we have is the now, and that is why it is called ‘the present’” – because that is exactly what it is: a gift from God!

Remember, even if there truly was a lion outside, it should not keep us from doing what God has called us to do.  As disciples of Christ, we are to be devoted to Christ.  That devotion may lead us down lonely paths of pain and persecution, but what better road to travel than the one that our Savior travelled before us – the road that makes us more like Him!

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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 our daily devotional time the other day, Kay and I read these words from God’s precious Word, “And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the LORD was with him” (1 Samuel 18:14).

As we have been reading about David in 1 Samuel and seen God work in David’s life, it has created a great hunger and desire in my life.  God chose David for a significant purpose in his generation.  He ordained a lasting destiny for this young man who would become a king.  His choice of him is mysterious.  His protection of him is undeniable.  God’s favor upon him helps us to see His generosity to His children.

We are tempted to believe that David somehow deserved this lavish grace that the Lord poured on him.  His early years were marked by faith, integrity, patience, endurance, loyalty, and uncommon valor.  His enemies wanted to destroy him from the very onset, but God kept protecting and prospering him as he moved from trouble to trouble.  It seems that he did everything right, and that deeply moves us to live such a life.   I am struck by how long David followed and served the Lord in those early years, when it was clear that the odds were constantly stacked against him for nearly twenty years?  Yet, David never gave up, and the Lord conferred the description upon David that we all desire: “a man after His own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14).  Even though David was severely challenged in his living for God, he pressed on through outward opposition, circumstantial pain, and inward struggles.

As I read through David’s life I wonder, why is it that we are tempted to crumble under lighter loads today?  What was it that David had that we might be lacking?

The verse above gives us the answer.  The verse above tells us that “God was with David.”  What a glorious truth!  it was not that David was a better person than we … His high marks are embedded in God’s presence and power.  David needed God in his life – this is evident from his sinful impulses that are recorded in God’s Word.  David both soared and crashed.  He knew both the holy fire of worship and the unholy blaze of carnality.  He was an adulterer and murderer (He stole Bathsheba from Uriah, and then he sent Uriah to the heat of battle where he knew he would die).  We are left with no other conclusion but that God chose to prosper, advance, and establish David, all the while knowing that He would do these evil works.  Clearly, David’s awful sin did not negate God’s destiny for him.  In some way, God was with Him even while his heart was given to some treacherous sins.

David’s story motivates me to believe two things about my life with God:

1)   I need to admit that I am also one who sins, and can do things that are an affront to God’s holy character;

And

2)   I need to recognize that God’s unconditional covenant of grace through Jesus          abounds higher than any level of sin that might rise from my life.

God is a very merciful God to serial stumblers like David and me; this even includes everyone reading this blog today!  I am learning just how relentless God is in His pursuit of His children.   God will perfect those whom He saves.  He will not render to us what we deserve for our sins.

He surprises us with kindness when we full-well deserve wrath.

I have not murdered or committed adultery with my physical body … but I have done both in my heart.  Yet, God has forgiven me as I have confessed to such anger and lust.

What manner of love is this?

It is breathtaking in that it far surpasses what my mind and heart could expect or process.

Truthfully, I am overwhelmed at times when I consider that I am so loved by God!

Within my convicted heart I hear the frightened whisper that says to God, “Don’t You know who I am? Don’t You know what I have done? Do you not see my repeated struggles? Why is it that You continue to love the unlovable?”  I know the answer theologically but, at times, I simply cannot grasp it in any other context.

The bottom line is that I am God’s beloved because He wanted it that way.

Most of us sense our unworthiness of God’s love.  God has taught me that I can trust His grace and love.  It seems that God draws the most near to me when I feel the least worthy of His love.  God offers me love and forgiveness as I confess my sins, even when I am still mourning over and paralyzed by my failures of my yesterdays.

The great lesson that we can learn from studying how God worked in David’s life is that God does not change in how He loves us and seek to rescue us.  It has taken me decades to fully grasp how essential this is to my sense of inward peace.  The Bible says “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).  God “remained with David.”

God cared for David in both relational and practical ways.  God disciplined Him when He failed but, incredibly, He moved closer to Him every second of His life – no matter what his actions were.  Someone has said, “God is the chaser of His children.”  It is a good thing because some of us tend to wander.  Others of us get discouraged, or tired, and walk away in the direction of lesser things.  Still others want to flee God without a cause.  When we have these tendencies, let’s remember that it is God’s eternal tendency to: Keep chasing us … Keep loving us … and keep calling us His very own. He will remain relentless with us until things are completed here.

The lesson of David’s life is this: It began with God … It remained because of God … It  culminated with God.  This is the rest God wants for our souls today.  God is the God of big-time mercy – let’s yield our minds, hearts, and souls to this beautiful reality today.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

 

Would it surprise you if I told you there is sarcasm in sacred Scripture? Well, get ready for some supernatural sarcasm that will bless your heart today!

The dictionary definition of the word sarcasm is: “The use of words that mean the opposite of what you really want to say, especially in order to insult someone, to show irritation, or to be funny.”

What I am about to share with you is, perhaps, the most striking example of sarcasm I have ever heard, especially when it is understood in its proper context. And it comes from the inspired pen of the apostle Paul!

He writes in 1 Corinthians 15:55-57, “O death, where is your sting?  O grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Isn’t the sarcasm almost palpable? The most feared enemy of all men and women – death itself, an enemy we all must face one day – has been crushed under the heel of the Lamb of God, who has utterly destroyed death (2 Timothy 1:10). Paul’s pen is dripping with divine derision and disdain directed at the devil, because our Lord Jesus Christ has conquered the grave. Paul actually seems to be taunting death!

O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?

These are not questions Paul is asking with any expectation of receiving an answer. This is supernatural scorn and sarcasm at its finest. For all those who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ, death has utterly lost its sting. It is simply a stepping stone into glory! The grave has lost its victory, having been defeated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, who has broken, once-for-all, the bonds of death. When Jesus got up and walked out of His grave, that was the death of death . . . period!

The disobedience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden brought death to us all, and even to all of creation (Romans 5:12-14).  But God the Father sent His only begotten Son to become the death of death and to swallow up the grave.

In the course of my pastoral ministry, I have stood over many open graves and alongside many grieving and broken hearts, but those who are in Christ do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We know that Jesus Christ uttered the last word over sin, death, and the grave when He exclaimed: “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Everything changed on that first Easter morning, because Jesus did exactly what He promised He would do: He rose from the dead, and, in so doing, He paved the way for all those who trust in Him alone to have eternal life.

May Paul’s supernatural sarcasm strengthen your walk with Christ today, knowing that He is walking beside you every step of the way into glory!

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Trials are not a random roll of the dice.  They are an integral part of God’s providential rescue plan for making all things new.  That plan includes you . . . and that includes you going through trials.  God is on a mission to restore His image in His people, and part of that process is worked out by taking His people through trials.

The Bible says in James 1:2-4, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

And in 1 Peter 1:6-7, the Bible says, “In this [salvation] you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

So . . . what trials have you been experiencing lately?  Are you trusting God for His good plan in your life, even when you’re smack in the middle of the howling storm winds?  Charles Spurgeon is reported to have said, “God is too good to be unkind.  He is too wise to be confused.  If I cannot trace His hand, I can always trust His heart.”

Now, I know that it is far easier to discern the loving and kind purposes of the Almighty in the storms others are going through.  We are quick to quote a few Scriptures, provide godly counsel, and offer up our prayers of comfort and support.  But how well do we do this when we are the ones being tossed and thrown about by the waves in the midst of the storm?  Do we see and accept God’s loving hand as much in our struggles as we do in our successes . . . as much in our valleys as we do in our victories?

The promises of Romans 8 make it clear that our God is using all things – even those things that seem like they will certainly destroy us – to accomplish His glorious purposes and to advance our ultimate good.  We are being conformed to the image of Christ, and often it comes through the fiery furnace of affliction.  The Heidelberg Catechism beautifully describes the providence of our good and gracious God:

“The almighty and everywhere present power of God; whereby, as it were by his hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.”

One of the great blessings in knowing that God is in complete control of all things is found in recognizing that we are not.  There is no such thing as “chance” or “luck” anywhere in the universe.  As Dr. R. C. Sproul once told a group of seminarians, “If there is even one maverick molecule floating around in the universe outside of the control of God, we simply cannot trust in any of His promises.”  Either God is in complete control of everything, or He is in complete control of nothing.

So if all things are working together for your good, regardless of how bad they may seem today, how should that impact the way you are living?  Jesus suffered from the cradle to the grave, and He did it so we could be with Him forever in the new heavens and the new earth, where there will be no more tears . . . no more sorrow . . . no more pain . . . no more death . . . because the old will have passed completely away and the new will have come!

May the glorious hope of that day help us all live through this day with a spirit of peace that passes all understanding, regardless of what trials today may bring.  God is restoring His image in every child born of grace, and He is doing it in both the good and seemingly bad providences of life.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Have you ever felt the sting of rejection? Perhaps you are carrying some deep wounds from past rejections that are negatively impacting your life today. We have all felt the sting of rejection at one time or another, and it is for this reason that today’s message should be a source of great comfort and healing.

In Mark 15:43, the Bible records the greatest rejection Jesus experienced, “At the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

When we plumb the depths of the price Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, we are numbed at what happened from the sixth to the ninth hour. As awful as it was for Jesus to endure the beating, the scourging, the crown of thorns, and the metal spikes driven through His wrists and feet, the excruciating physical pain was nothing compared to what happened during the darkest hours in the history of the world: those terrible moments when the Father rejected His beloved Son. And because of the rejection Jesus endured on the cross – the rejection we deserved – we will never have to face God’s rejection. Rejection has been rejected, and that Gospel truth is both the power and comfort we need to deal with all of life’s many rejections.

The life of our Lord was a life marked with rejection:

• The inn where He was born rejected Him
• Friends rejected Him
• Disciples rejected Him
• Religious leaders rejected Him
• His home-town synagogue rejected Him
• Roman authorities rejected Him
• Roman law rejected Him
• Crowds rejected Him
• Roman soldiers rejected Him
• One thief on the cross rejected Him
• Some of those He healed seemingly rejected Him when they did not return to thank Him.
• Even some in His own family rejected Him, believing Him to be “out of His mind” (Mark 3:21).

The prophet Isaiah perhaps put it best when he said of Jesus, “He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). And Jesus took the ultimate rejection of His Father in heaven so that we would never have to experience that.

So . . . what rejection have you been facing lately? Personally? Professionally? Relationally?

The devil loves to use rejection in the lives of believers because it wounds so deeply. The ultimate goal for the devil is to see the pain of rejection grow abundantly in the lives of believers, bearing malignant fruit through emotional baggage, negative feelings, and the desire to get a little “pay-back,” regardless of the cost.

But this is not what God wants for you! Keeping the rejection Jesus endured in both life and death in view will help us to rise above the rejections we encounter in our daily lives, resting in the inconceivable love and acceptance we have because of our union with Jesus. God loves us so much that He sent His Son to endure every imaginable rejection and one that is unimaginable – God’s rejection of His very own Son – all for us!

May the Gospel truth of “rejection rejected” reach deep into our hearts to heal old wounds, jettison emotional baggage, and strengthen our resolve to live with freedom, joy, forgiveness, and faithfulness to our Savior . . . even in the face of rejection.

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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

  Can you imagine the last 30 days of your life playing up on a video screen in church next Sunday, revealing your every thought, word, deed, and desire? If you are anything like me, that is a possibility you would rather not consider! Yet, we all know there is Someone who is watching that movie of our lives as it unfolds moment by moment. Indeed, He is the director of the production!

The woman at the well declared in John 4:29, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

Can you imagine what that stunned Samaritan women must have been thinking when Jesus confronted her with the inside story of her life?

That encounter is recorded by the Holy Spirit in John 4:16-20, “[Jesus] told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’  ‘I have no husband,’ she replied. Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’  ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet.’”

We can easily conclude one thing when we see how she recounted her encounter with the Living God: “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” This Samaritan woman was terrified by the truth revealing presence of Jesus; she was touched by the transforming power of the grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What a remarkable picture of God’s disrupting grace when it shows up in our lives! Here the woman came to Jacob’s well for some drinking water and instead left with the living water that quenches the driest and deepest thirst known to man.

Jesus exposed everything about her sinful past, yet we do not find in her response a hint of offense, despair, or suicidal thoughts. She was, for the very first time, completely known, and yet completely secure in that uncomfortable thought. Far from any thoughts of crawling into a hole and dying, she ran to tell her circle of friends about her encounter with the Redeemer.

How remarkable to find in this encounter . . .

Compassion rather than condemnation

Acceptance rather than accusation

Redemption rather than rejection.

This is why we need to center our lives on the truths of the Gospel. The Samaritan woman was set free from being a prisoner of her painful past. Jesus broke the chains of her sinful choices and led her into a new direction of what she could be, instead of what she had been. And Jesus does the same for us each day.

Jesus knows every thankless thought, every wicked word, each disgraceful deed, and every depraved desire. And yet . . .

Despite knowing who we really are,

He pursues us

With a love that is unconditional

And a forgiveness that is unending.

Because Jesus is the Messiah, we can rest in the truth of being fully known and yet fully accepted. That is why the story of this Samaritan woman is such a comfort for every born-again believer today. She went to the well to draw some water at “the sixth hour” (noon), a time when she could be reasonably assured she would not run into anyone looking for water. What she never expected was the divine appointment Jesus had set with her and His accurate disclosure of her dreadful past.

To be sure, every closet has some skeletons hanging in it. But in the closet where Jesus enters, those skeletons turn to dust and are blown away by the winds of the life-changing Gospel. Being completely known without being embarrassed or suicidal is only possible when we find our meaning, significance, and purpose in the One who knows us completely, yet forgives us completely and loves us eternally in spite of what He knows about us!

This is God Word … This is Grace for your Journey

… Rest And 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.”