Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Make The Most of Every Opportunity

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. (Galatians 6:9,10 ESV)

What about now? What about today? You realize that tomorrow has not been promised to any of us. What I do today is important. Don't let the failures of yesterday spoil today. Even a cup of cold water will not go without reward. For those of us who have "living water," let us offer some to others today. Freely you have received, freely give. Stay faithful!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Being Occupied With God

"Praise the LORD! Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD! Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised!" (Psalm 113:1-3 ESV)

In other words, every place on this mortal soil, is a proper place to worship and offer praise! Note, I didn't say the only place.

In the early '60's, when JFK was our president, his brother served as Attorney General. While on tour of Brazil, Robert Kennedy was introduced to a farmer from the interior of Brazil. He decided to ask this simple farmer a deep philosophical question. "What did the farmer esteem as his highest calling throughout the day in his existence in the interior of Brazil?" Without a moment's hesitation, the farmer replied, through his interpreter, "Being occupied with God."

Certain that the farmer had misunderstood his question, Kennedy asked him the same question once again. Again, the simple farmer immediately responded through his interpreter, "Being occupied with God." Unbeknownst to the Attorney General, the simple farmer living in the immense Amazonian Rain Forest had recently responded to the Gospel call of a missionary and had come to know the Maker of the Universe in an intimate way.

Being occupied with God is one simple way we can fulfill the Scriptural admonition to praise the Name of the Lord from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Predestined To Be Conformed

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,..." Colossians 3:16a ESV "I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." Psalm 119:11 ESV

Scripture, God's Word, is to be at home in our lives in a very copious, magnanimous way. It is the Spirit's work to conform believers to the likeness of Jesus Christ. However, the Holy Spirit does not work in a vacuum. The Spirit always uses the Word of God in our day-to-day transformation.

During His earthly ministry, Jesus told his disciples that when the Holy Spirit comes He would bring back to their memories all that Christ had taught them. The Word that we hide in our hearts, is the same Word that the Holy Spirit uses to conform us to the image of the Son that He loves. Just as a potter keeps his hands wet as he molds the clay, the Holy Spirit wets His hands with the "water" of God's Word as He molds and makes us into the image of the Beloved Son.

Let us renew our efforts of hiding God's Word in our hearts so that God's Spirit may continue His work in our lives

Monday, August 31, 2009

God Is Still On His Throne

"The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will." Proverbs 21:1 ESV

Take heart timid souls, at the top of every organizational chart is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. Rejoice, everything is under His control!!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Luther reflects on his conversion

"Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, “As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!” Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, “In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live.’ ” There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.” Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scriptures from memory. I also found in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is, what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us strong, the wisdom of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word “righteousness of God.” Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise."[1]



[1]Martin Luther, Luther's Works, Vol. 34  : Career of the Reformer IV, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999, c1960). 34:III.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

And Can it be That I should Gain (Charles Wesley)

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore;
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Savior in my heart.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,

And claim the crown, through Christ my own

Friday, April 10, 2009

Nuggets from Owen

“That the beholding of the glory of Christ is one of the greatest privileges and advancements that believers are capable of in this world, or that which is to come. It is that whereby they are first gradually conformed unto it, and then fixed in the eternal enjoyment of it. For here in this life, beholding his glory, they are changed or transformed into the likeness of it, 2 Cor. 3:18; and hereafter they shall be “for ever like unto him,” because they “shall see him as he is,” 1 John 3:1, 2.Hereon do our present comforts and future blessedness depend. This is the life and reward of our souls. “He that hath seen him hath seen the Father also,” John 14:9. For we discern the “light of the knowledge of the glory of God only in the face of Jesus Christ,” 2 Cor. 4:6 (John Owen, The Works of John Owen., ed. William H. Goold (Edinburg: T&T Clark). 287.)

“No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight hereafter, who doth not in some measure behold it by faith here in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory, and faith for sight.” (John Owen, The Works of John Owen., ed. William H. Goold (Edinburg: T&T Clark). 288.)