"We owe to Scripture the same reverence which we owe to God."
John Calvin
The above quote starts the section called "The Word of God" in Charles Colson's classic "Loving God". In Chapter Four, Colson tells the story of the conversion of one of the greatest Christian writers.....Aurelius Augustinus or better know as Augustine.
The story is fascinating. Augustine was the top scholar of his time in pretty much in topic or field. People would travel miles just to listen to him speak and for the majority of his life he had little to do with Christ or with Christianity.
Oh he would list to others as they tried to convince him of the true nature of the gospel. His mother Monica would plea to him to give his life to Christ, almost to the point of him tuning her out when she spoke about God. Augustine was in love with wisdom but even as a lost person he rightly understood the demands of the Gospel.
"to follow Plato, one merely thinks like Plato. To follow Christ is something much more. You must put your whole life into it and leave behind whatever hinders you from following him. I don't know what it is exactly that enables a man to give himself to God---to commit himself to a life of sacrifice and faith. That's more than adopting a particular point of view, isn't it."
BINGO!!!!!!
God used Ambrose, the bishop of Milan, to break down the intellectual walls that Augustine put up. Then one day, Augustine heard an inner voice speaking to him. "Take up and read. Take up and read" was what he heard over and over again. The Bible was laying near him and it was opened to Romans 13: 13-14, "13Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof."
Colson writes, "Instantly, as if before a peaceful light streaming into his heart, dark shadows of doubt fled. The man of unconquerable will was conquered by words from a book he had once dismiised as mere fable lacking in clarity and grace of expression. Those words suddenly revealed that which he had so long vainly sought. Now he knew with assurance he had confronted truth. The very words, 'clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ,' had settled it; whatever it cost, he would give his life to Christ."
Hebrews 4:12 states, "12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." and Isaiah 55:11 says, "so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
If you are a follower of Christ, your life has been affected by the conversion of Augustine. For the next 44 years, Augustine published some of the most famous writings like his autobiographical Confessions and his masterpiece tome The City of God.
We have Augustine to thank for the classic defense of the authority of Scripture that has lasted the test of time.
While God used others to plant and water the seeds of the Gospel, it was the very Word of God found in the 13th Chapter of Romans that the Holy Spirit used to dramatically change his life and in turn influence us today.
So it begs the questions, if God's Word is so powerful, why don't we as followers of Christ, spend more time reading and memorizing it?
Good question. What say you?
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
What is the key to loving God?
For the majority of my Christian life I wondered inwardly how could I best love and serve God. When I was saved at 11, nothing in my life was ever the same again. As a Christian teenager I knew that I needed to be a witness for the gospel, mostly in the way I lived out my life so that my verbal witnessing may be of some value.
It wasn't until I read the third chapter of Charles Colson's book "Loving God" did I completely understand the key to the Christian life was found in one simple word.....obedience. I was in my third year of seminary when a friend of mind found me in the school's library. I was just looking around and he came up to me and said, "Have you ever read this book?" pointing to "Loving God". He went on to tell me it would be a Christian Classic in the truest sense of the word like JI Packer's "Knowing God". I bought it then and there and could not put it down.
In the third chapter Colson explains "that unquestioning acceptance of and obedience to Jesus' authority is the foundation of the Christian life. Everything else rests upon this."
He goes on to explain in the Kornfeld story, "God wants from His people is obedience, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how unknown the outcome.
It was always been this way. God calling His people to obedience and giving them at best a glimpse of the outcome of their effort.
"Most of the great figures of the Old Testament died without ever seeing the fulfillment of the promises they relied upon. The great colonial pastor Cotton Mather prayed for revival several hours each day for twenty years; the Great Awakening began the year he died. The British Empire finally abolished slavery as the Christian parliamentarian and abolitionist leader William Wilberforce lay on his deathbed, exhausted from his nearly fifty-year campaign against the practice of human bondage. Few were converted during Hudson Taylor's lifelong mission work in the Orient; but today million of Chinese embrace the faith he so patiently planted and tended."
While some might think this pattern is unfair, I agree with Colson when he states, "The very nature of the obedience He demands is that it be given without regard to circumstances or results."
I find it senseless that people shout to the top of their lungs how much they love Jesus but live a life contrary to His spoken word.
When a lawyer tried to trick Jesus by asking the question "which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Christ's response was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22: 34-40)
And how do we love the Lord? Jesus gives us the answer "If you love me you will obey what I command." (John 14:15).
As Colson writes, "And that leads us to just one place: the Holy Bible. to obey His commandments, we must know His commandments. that means we must know and obey the Scriptures, the key to loving God and the starting point for life's most exciting journey."
It wasn't until I read the third chapter of Charles Colson's book "Loving God" did I completely understand the key to the Christian life was found in one simple word.....obedience. I was in my third year of seminary when a friend of mind found me in the school's library. I was just looking around and he came up to me and said, "Have you ever read this book?" pointing to "Loving God". He went on to tell me it would be a Christian Classic in the truest sense of the word like JI Packer's "Knowing God". I bought it then and there and could not put it down.
In the third chapter Colson explains "that unquestioning acceptance of and obedience to Jesus' authority is the foundation of the Christian life. Everything else rests upon this."
He goes on to explain in the Kornfeld story, "God wants from His people is obedience, no matter what the circumstances, no matter how unknown the outcome.
It was always been this way. God calling His people to obedience and giving them at best a glimpse of the outcome of their effort.
"Most of the great figures of the Old Testament died without ever seeing the fulfillment of the promises they relied upon. The great colonial pastor Cotton Mather prayed for revival several hours each day for twenty years; the Great Awakening began the year he died. The British Empire finally abolished slavery as the Christian parliamentarian and abolitionist leader William Wilberforce lay on his deathbed, exhausted from his nearly fifty-year campaign against the practice of human bondage. Few were converted during Hudson Taylor's lifelong mission work in the Orient; but today million of Chinese embrace the faith he so patiently planted and tended."
While some might think this pattern is unfair, I agree with Colson when he states, "The very nature of the obedience He demands is that it be given without regard to circumstances or results."
I find it senseless that people shout to the top of their lungs how much they love Jesus but live a life contrary to His spoken word.
When a lawyer tried to trick Jesus by asking the question "which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Christ's response was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matthew 22: 34-40)
And how do we love the Lord? Jesus gives us the answer "If you love me you will obey what I command." (John 14:15).
As Colson writes, "And that leads us to just one place: the Holy Bible. to obey His commandments, we must know His commandments. that means we must know and obey the Scriptures, the key to loving God and the starting point for life's most exciting journey."
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The Power of the Gospel, Part 2
If I have said this once, I have said this a million times and I will continue to say it, "You never know whose life you are affecting for time and eternity for the Kingdom of God when you faithfully and obediently share the life-saving, life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ." Never is that more true than the story that Chuck Colson tells in Chapter 2 in Loving God.
Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld is not a name that a lot of people in the Christian faith will know but that doesn't mean he didn't have a major impact on the Kingdom of God and it is a story of obedience and the tremendous power of the Gospel. You will be encouraged and challenaged after reading today's devotion.
Kornfeld was a medical doctor during Stalin's reign of terror in Russia in the 1950's. While it isn't know what crime he committed that sent him to the concentration camp in Ekibastuz, unbeknownst to this Jewish doctor, he was about to come face to face with the one true God.
Kornfeld had followed his parent's beliefs in Communism. Although Jewish in birth, Kornfeld was probably what was called "enlightened Jew" because he accepted the philosophy of rationalism and "cultivated a knowledge of the natural sciences."
Somehow Kornfeld found himself in a Russian gulag. A place known for its "brutality, the waste of lives, the trivialities called criminal charges made men like Kornfeld doubt the glories of the system of socialism...behind the wire prisoners had time to think." It was there that he became a Christian.
For a Russian Jew during that time period to become a Christian was rare because before the Russian Revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church's anti-Semitism made life unendurable for almost 200 years. Stalin demanded total loyalty to his government but Christians and Jewish people a like knew their loyalty belonged only to God.
So in the Russian prison, Kornfeld came in contact with a devout Christian who spoke of a Jewish Messiah "who had come to keep the promises the Lord had made to Israel. He pointed out that Jesus had spoken almost solely to Jewish people and proclaimed that He came to the Jews first. This man often recited aloud the Lord's Prayer, and Kornfeld heard in those simple words a strange ring of truth."
Colson goes on to tell the internal struggle that the Russian doctor had with his previous beliefs and this new message of hope and peace. Over time, his heart and his arguements were slowly being won over by the power of the gospel.
"He found himself almost unconsciously, repeating the words he had heard from his fellow prisoner. 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.' Having seen his own evil heart, he had to pray for cleansing. And he had to pray to a God who suffered, as he had: Jesus."
Suddenly Kornfeld was a new person. He stopped signing forms saying patients were healthy enough for solitary confinement because now he couldn't lie. While that was bad, Kornfeld did the unforgiveable; he turned in an orderly, who was stealing food from sick prisoners. In doing this, he knew his life was endanager but he had to be obedient to what he knew to do.
"Having accepted the possibility of death, Boris Kornfeld was now free to live. He signed no more papers or documents sending men to their deaths. He no longer turned his eyes from cruelty or shrugged his shoulders when he saw injustice. And soon he realized that the anger and hatred and violence in his own soul had vanished. He wondered whether there lived another man in Russia who knew such freedom."
Kornfeld desperately wanted to share his newfound faith of obedience and freedom with someone and he found it in a cancer patient. So he began to tell his story to the sickly patient. Told him of his conversion to Christ and "once the tale began to spill out, Kornfeld could not stop." Coming in and out of anesthesia, the patient missed the first part but knew he was listening to something very real and "knew he was listening to an incredible confession....he hung on the doctor's words until he feel alseep."
It was during the night that someone came up behind the doctor and hit him eight times with a plaster's mallet, killing him.
"The patient pondered the doctor's last, impassioned words. As a result, he, too, became a Christian. He survived that prison camp and went on to tell the world what he had learned there.
The patient's name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn."
For those who don't know that name, let's just say that he was one of the greatest Christian apologist along the lines of CS Lewis. Look him up.
You see, when we are faithfully sharing the gospel of Jesus we are taking part in changing the world. Look for ways to actively share your faith. Who knows, the person you lead to Christ or help lead to Christ will be the next Christian leader.
Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld is not a name that a lot of people in the Christian faith will know but that doesn't mean he didn't have a major impact on the Kingdom of God and it is a story of obedience and the tremendous power of the Gospel. You will be encouraged and challenaged after reading today's devotion.
Kornfeld was a medical doctor during Stalin's reign of terror in Russia in the 1950's. While it isn't know what crime he committed that sent him to the concentration camp in Ekibastuz, unbeknownst to this Jewish doctor, he was about to come face to face with the one true God.
Kornfeld had followed his parent's beliefs in Communism. Although Jewish in birth, Kornfeld was probably what was called "enlightened Jew" because he accepted the philosophy of rationalism and "cultivated a knowledge of the natural sciences."
Somehow Kornfeld found himself in a Russian gulag. A place known for its "brutality, the waste of lives, the trivialities called criminal charges made men like Kornfeld doubt the glories of the system of socialism...behind the wire prisoners had time to think." It was there that he became a Christian.
For a Russian Jew during that time period to become a Christian was rare because before the Russian Revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church's anti-Semitism made life unendurable for almost 200 years. Stalin demanded total loyalty to his government but Christians and Jewish people a like knew their loyalty belonged only to God.
So in the Russian prison, Kornfeld came in contact with a devout Christian who spoke of a Jewish Messiah "who had come to keep the promises the Lord had made to Israel. He pointed out that Jesus had spoken almost solely to Jewish people and proclaimed that He came to the Jews first. This man often recited aloud the Lord's Prayer, and Kornfeld heard in those simple words a strange ring of truth."
Colson goes on to tell the internal struggle that the Russian doctor had with his previous beliefs and this new message of hope and peace. Over time, his heart and his arguements were slowly being won over by the power of the gospel.
"He found himself almost unconsciously, repeating the words he had heard from his fellow prisoner. 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.' Having seen his own evil heart, he had to pray for cleansing. And he had to pray to a God who suffered, as he had: Jesus."
Suddenly Kornfeld was a new person. He stopped signing forms saying patients were healthy enough for solitary confinement because now he couldn't lie. While that was bad, Kornfeld did the unforgiveable; he turned in an orderly, who was stealing food from sick prisoners. In doing this, he knew his life was endanager but he had to be obedient to what he knew to do.
"Having accepted the possibility of death, Boris Kornfeld was now free to live. He signed no more papers or documents sending men to their deaths. He no longer turned his eyes from cruelty or shrugged his shoulders when he saw injustice. And soon he realized that the anger and hatred and violence in his own soul had vanished. He wondered whether there lived another man in Russia who knew such freedom."
Kornfeld desperately wanted to share his newfound faith of obedience and freedom with someone and he found it in a cancer patient. So he began to tell his story to the sickly patient. Told him of his conversion to Christ and "once the tale began to spill out, Kornfeld could not stop." Coming in and out of anesthesia, the patient missed the first part but knew he was listening to something very real and "knew he was listening to an incredible confession....he hung on the doctor's words until he feel alseep."
It was during the night that someone came up behind the doctor and hit him eight times with a plaster's mallet, killing him.
"The patient pondered the doctor's last, impassioned words. As a result, he, too, became a Christian. He survived that prison camp and went on to tell the world what he had learned there.
The patient's name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn."
For those who don't know that name, let's just say that he was one of the greatest Christian apologist along the lines of CS Lewis. Look him up.
You see, when we are faithfully sharing the gospel of Jesus we are taking part in changing the world. Look for ways to actively share your faith. Who knows, the person you lead to Christ or help lead to Christ will be the next Christian leader.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Power of the Gospel
In Chapter 1 of "Loving God", Colson tells the story of prisoners who come to Christ through Prison Fellowship, a ministry Colson started after he got out of federal prison. The reason I love this book so much is for the true stories that Colson tells about how God changed people's lives. In the first chapter we meet a person named Sam Casalvera, who "had been sentenced to life without parole. Sam was tough, his huge, muscled arms testifying to hours of weight lifting. His defiant gaze told me prison--even solitary confinement--had not broken his spirit."
That was his first meeting with Sam. Nine months later, on Easter, Colson went back to that Delaware prison he met a different Sam.
"Same rose, wearing the broadest grin I'd ever seen; it was obvious he was not the same rebellious convict I'd met in solitary nine months earlier. I didn't need to ask what had happened.
Sam cleared his throat and began reading:
I heard you were coming to worship once more
With souls who were floundering when you came before.
He hesitated, took a deep breath, and continued.
We had direction but needed a push
You made us a promise and also a wish.
Sam paused to take a wrinkled cloth from his pocket and dad his eyes,
Your promised was kept---Prison Fellowship you sent
Whatever I write can't tell you what it meant.
Some who attended made your wish come true
They gave their life to Jesus, as you did too."
Colson continues;
"Men and women in prison don't cry. It's a sign of weakness, and weakness can be dangerous in prison. But Same could not control his emotions. Tears flowed down his cheeks and his broad shoulders heaved.
I rose and walked to the front of the hall, put my arm around his shoulders, and took the paper from him. For a moment I thought I would dissolve along with Same, but somehow I was able to read the remaining lines of his poem."
That story never happens unless God had, in Colson's words, "only when I lost everything I thought made Chuck Colson a great guy had I found the true self God intended me to be and the true purpose of my life."
You see, Colson had bought the world's bill of goods of what makes life important and meaningful. Outwardly, he had it all. Plenty of money, political power and influence, fame. God took all that away and sent him to prison to see what his real purpose in life was and because of it, millions of prisoners have stopped being shackled by their spiritual chains and are new creations in Christ.
Colson's writes, "My greatest humiliation---being sent to prison--was the beginning of God's greatest use of my life."
He finishes Chapter 1 with these great words, "It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self."
And to that I say Amen and Amen.
That was his first meeting with Sam. Nine months later, on Easter, Colson went back to that Delaware prison he met a different Sam.
"Same rose, wearing the broadest grin I'd ever seen; it was obvious he was not the same rebellious convict I'd met in solitary nine months earlier. I didn't need to ask what had happened.
Sam cleared his throat and began reading:
I heard you were coming to worship once more
With souls who were floundering when you came before.
He hesitated, took a deep breath, and continued.
We had direction but needed a push
You made us a promise and also a wish.
Sam paused to take a wrinkled cloth from his pocket and dad his eyes,
Your promised was kept---Prison Fellowship you sent
Whatever I write can't tell you what it meant.
Some who attended made your wish come true
They gave their life to Jesus, as you did too."
Colson continues;
"Men and women in prison don't cry. It's a sign of weakness, and weakness can be dangerous in prison. But Same could not control his emotions. Tears flowed down his cheeks and his broad shoulders heaved.
I rose and walked to the front of the hall, put my arm around his shoulders, and took the paper from him. For a moment I thought I would dissolve along with Same, but somehow I was able to read the remaining lines of his poem."
That story never happens unless God had, in Colson's words, "only when I lost everything I thought made Chuck Colson a great guy had I found the true self God intended me to be and the true purpose of my life."
You see, Colson had bought the world's bill of goods of what makes life important and meaningful. Outwardly, he had it all. Plenty of money, political power and influence, fame. God took all that away and sent him to prison to see what his real purpose in life was and because of it, millions of prisoners have stopped being shackled by their spiritual chains and are new creations in Christ.
Colson's writes, "My greatest humiliation---being sent to prison--was the beginning of God's greatest use of my life."
He finishes Chapter 1 with these great words, "It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self."
And to that I say Amen and Amen.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Loving God
One of my favorite books and one that God has used to greatly influence me is Charles Colson's classic "Loving God". Written in 1987, "Loving God" is one of the five books I use when I want to personally disciple someone. The reason is because it is broken up into six sections which I feel are six key elements to a Christian life.
Colson, who has never written a bad book and I would highly recommend every single one of them, says the key to truly loving God falls within understanding these six areas: obedience, the Word of God, sin and repentance, the hunger for holiness, the holy nation and loving God.
Today's devotional and the next six we will look into and gain a better understanding on how to love God.
In the Preface and in the section called How It All Began: An Introduction, Colson goes over how God changed his life in the middle of the worst crisis in our nation's history; Watergate. A former Marine and a graduate from Brown University, an Ivy League School, Colson worked his way up the political ladder as a successful lawyer and political king maker in New England and DC area. When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, Colson was asked to work for the president and eventually became President Nixon's right hand man as Chief Counsel.
After Nixon's landslide election in 1972, Colson turned in his letter of resignation but agreed to stand on just a little while longer to help with the transition. What happened next to Colson was life changing.
Unknown to both Nixon and Colson, people who worked for the Reelection of President Nixon broke into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and were caught. Although Nixon didn't order the break in, he did cover it up once he knew and tried to obstruct justice which eventually led to his resignation in disgrace.
While Colson didn't cover it up and had nothing to do with the break in, Colson did admit to ordering the breaking into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Ellsberg copied a lot of classified papers from the Pentagon concerning the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers. Colson want to discredit him and ordered the breaking in of his psychiatrist office. For that crime he was sentenced to federal prison.
It was during all of this chaos in his life that God used a faithful laymen and a book to bring Colson to a life altering relationship to Jesus Christ. The man's name was Tom Phillips and the book "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis.
After meeting with Phillips and Phillips giving him the book Colson writes: "But in his driveway that night, the dam burst. I could not drive the car; I was crying too hard (remember this is a former Marine and Nixon's Hatchet Man), calling out to God with the first honest prayer of my life. I sat there alone for a long time---but not alone at all.
From that day on, nothing about my life has been the same. It can never be again. I have given my life to Jesus Christ."
Today I would like for you to think about the day God saved you. While it may or may not have been the emotional experience that Charles Colson had, the end results will be the same, you life wasn't the same and it can never be again. Now your desires is to love God. The following devotionals will show you how to Love God.
Colson, who has never written a bad book and I would highly recommend every single one of them, says the key to truly loving God falls within understanding these six areas: obedience, the Word of God, sin and repentance, the hunger for holiness, the holy nation and loving God.
Today's devotional and the next six we will look into and gain a better understanding on how to love God.
In the Preface and in the section called How It All Began: An Introduction, Colson goes over how God changed his life in the middle of the worst crisis in our nation's history; Watergate. A former Marine and a graduate from Brown University, an Ivy League School, Colson worked his way up the political ladder as a successful lawyer and political king maker in New England and DC area. When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, Colson was asked to work for the president and eventually became President Nixon's right hand man as Chief Counsel.
After Nixon's landslide election in 1972, Colson turned in his letter of resignation but agreed to stand on just a little while longer to help with the transition. What happened next to Colson was life changing.
Unknown to both Nixon and Colson, people who worked for the Reelection of President Nixon broke into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and were caught. Although Nixon didn't order the break in, he did cover it up once he knew and tried to obstruct justice which eventually led to his resignation in disgrace.
While Colson didn't cover it up and had nothing to do with the break in, Colson did admit to ordering the breaking into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Ellsberg copied a lot of classified papers from the Pentagon concerning the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers. Colson want to discredit him and ordered the breaking in of his psychiatrist office. For that crime he was sentenced to federal prison.
It was during all of this chaos in his life that God used a faithful laymen and a book to bring Colson to a life altering relationship to Jesus Christ. The man's name was Tom Phillips and the book "Mere Christianity" by CS Lewis.
After meeting with Phillips and Phillips giving him the book Colson writes: "But in his driveway that night, the dam burst. I could not drive the car; I was crying too hard (remember this is a former Marine and Nixon's Hatchet Man), calling out to God with the first honest prayer of my life. I sat there alone for a long time---but not alone at all.
From that day on, nothing about my life has been the same. It can never be again. I have given my life to Jesus Christ."
Today I would like for you to think about the day God saved you. While it may or may not have been the emotional experience that Charles Colson had, the end results will be the same, you life wasn't the same and it can never be again. Now your desires is to love God. The following devotionals will show you how to Love God.
Friday, March 23, 2012
The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth
When a person testify in court, he/she has to put their hand on the Bible and agree that what they are about to say is the truth. The bailliff will ask them, "I do solemnly and sincerely and truly declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me God."
At Expressway Baptist Church we have been studying about spiritual warfare out of Ephesians 6. Paul is writing to a church and encouraging them to be ready to stand firm against the "wiles of the devil." The literal word for wiles in the Greek means schemes and one of the schemes Satan will use to make a believe ineffective is to make us doubt the truthfullness of God's Word.
When Satan wanted to tempt Eve the first thing he did was put a moment of doubt in her mind about the truthfulness of God's Word. In Genesis 3 we read Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”(Genesis 3:1 ESV) Did you see that? Did God actually say? Pretty slick uh? But that's how Satan does it.
His tricks hasn't changed. He is still trying to put question marks on God's Word because he knows better than anyone that "12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12.
When Jesus stood before Pilate they had this interesting exchange found in John 18. 37Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
What is truth?
That is the question people all over the world is asking. What is truth? We live in a day were a lot, if not the majority of people don't be in truth. You have heard the phrase, "What is true for you may not be true for me." or "My truth may not be your truth." As if there isn't some objective way of measuring truth and there isn't in and of ourselves.
In John 17, Jesus gives His High Priestly Prayer to God and in it he says," 15I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.a 16They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17Sanctify themb in the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sake I consecrate myself,c that they also may be sanctifiedd in truth."
God's Word is truth. You can trust every bit of it. In the good times and bad. So start today to get to know God's Word because it is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
At Expressway Baptist Church we have been studying about spiritual warfare out of Ephesians 6. Paul is writing to a church and encouraging them to be ready to stand firm against the "wiles of the devil." The literal word for wiles in the Greek means schemes and one of the schemes Satan will use to make a believe ineffective is to make us doubt the truthfullness of God's Word.
When Satan wanted to tempt Eve the first thing he did was put a moment of doubt in her mind about the truthfulness of God's Word. In Genesis 3 we read Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”(Genesis 3:1 ESV) Did you see that? Did God actually say? Pretty slick uh? But that's how Satan does it.
His tricks hasn't changed. He is still trying to put question marks on God's Word because he knows better than anyone that "12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12.
When Jesus stood before Pilate they had this interesting exchange found in John 18. 37Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
What is truth?
That is the question people all over the world is asking. What is truth? We live in a day were a lot, if not the majority of people don't be in truth. You have heard the phrase, "What is true for you may not be true for me." or "My truth may not be your truth." As if there isn't some objective way of measuring truth and there isn't in and of ourselves.
In John 17, Jesus gives His High Priestly Prayer to God and in it he says," 15I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.a 16They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17Sanctify themb in the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sake I consecrate myself,c that they also may be sanctifiedd in truth."
God's Word is truth. You can trust every bit of it. In the good times and bad. So start today to get to know God's Word because it is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Your Word is a lamp unto my feet
"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." (Psalm 119:105 ESV)
No matter how well I think I know my way around the house in the dark, every once in a while I will bump into something. That's why I need to turn on the light when I enter a room because I don't like bumping into things. It hurts.
In the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, King David for 176 verses talks about how much he loves God's Word. In fact, you can't possibly understand any of that great chapter until you come to the grips that King David is talking about the authority, usefulness, value and truthworthiness of Holy Scripture.
Just check this out:
5 Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
24 Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors.
44 I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever,
97 Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
And that was a random sample. It goes on through verse 176 when he writes 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
So let's see, King David, a man after God's own heart, writes 176 verses on how important God's Word is. So that should tell us something right there. Usually when I see a person, even a Christian, who's life is shipped wrecked by sin, it nornmally doesn't take too long to figure out had the person just followed God's Word, chances are their life would have been a whole lot easier. That's not to say that following God's Word places our path on a bed of roses. Actually quite the opposite.
The Christian life is one of hardships. What the Word of God does is help us through it and sometimes keeps us from making a bad situation even worst.
You want to have a successful life? Read and follow God's Word.
You want to have help going through hardships? Read and follow God's Word.
You want your hard life to make some sense? Read and follow God's Word.
No matter how well I think I know my way around the house in the dark, every once in a while I will bump into something. That's why I need to turn on the light when I enter a room because I don't like bumping into things. It hurts.
In the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119, King David for 176 verses talks about how much he loves God's Word. In fact, you can't possibly understand any of that great chapter until you come to the grips that King David is talking about the authority, usefulness, value and truthworthiness of Holy Scripture.
Just check this out:
5 Oh that my ways may be steadfast
in keeping your statutes!
9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
24 Your testimonies are my delight;
they are my counselors.
44 I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever,
97 Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies,
for it is ever with me.
And that was a random sample. It goes on through verse 176 when he writes 176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant,
for I do not forget your commandments.
So let's see, King David, a man after God's own heart, writes 176 verses on how important God's Word is. So that should tell us something right there. Usually when I see a person, even a Christian, who's life is shipped wrecked by sin, it nornmally doesn't take too long to figure out had the person just followed God's Word, chances are their life would have been a whole lot easier. That's not to say that following God's Word places our path on a bed of roses. Actually quite the opposite.
The Christian life is one of hardships. What the Word of God does is help us through it and sometimes keeps us from making a bad situation even worst.
You want to have a successful life? Read and follow God's Word.
You want to have help going through hardships? Read and follow God's Word.
You want your hard life to make some sense? Read and follow God's Word.
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