October 28, 2011 … The Law Devastates the Sinner

Romans 7: 9 – 11 [highlight verse in bold/underlined] … 7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

My Journal for Today: Again we look at the effect God’s Law has on our dealings with sin. And The Law not only REVEALS and even AROUSES sin in mankind (see my last two devotional entries); but when man is really able to look into God’s mirror of truth (i.e., God’s Law), sin DEVASTATES US with the realization that we are utterly incapable of living up to the Law’s demands for righteousness. The lies of the master of deceit (Satan) and the condition of our deceit-ridden hearts (see Jer. 17: 9) would have us perceive that our good works could or would make us blameless. Paul once saw himself in this way (see Phil. 3: 16); and the Apostle recognized that his own deceitful heart gave him the tendency to be blind to his own sin. That’s why he wrote with such conviction about his own sinful condition in the passage with which we all probably identify - Romans 7: 14 – 24.

Unfortunately today many, as did Paul when he was Saul of Tarsus, fall prey to Satan’s con-game, leading the lost, and even some Christians, to believe the lie that our good works can satisfy God’s Holy Law. However, anyone who is really able to look honestly at The Law, will realize their need of a Savior (see Rom. 5: 6 – 8). And Jesus (see Matt. 9: 12) said that it is not the healthy who needs a doctor; … it is the sick. And most certainly The Law is a devastating tool for God’s diagnosis of our sickness of sin.

So, as you read this, as I have meditated writing it, you (and I) must decide where we stand with regard to satisfying God’s Law. Just because we live now under the dispensation of grace, i.e., under the New Covenant, it doesn’t mean that God’s Law is null and void in its demands. It still is our mirror of Holiness, revealing the horror of our human weakness to sin. Have we been conned by Satan’s lies and his world to think that our good works will usher us into Heaven? Or do we see that trusting in Christ, i.e., being in total surrender to His truth, is our only way to be justified when we stand before a Holy God and His Holy Law.

I pray that the latter is our response to God’s call for holiness from His Law; and that you, like the writer of this entry, have found salvation, and are in pursuit of our ongoing sanctification, … in Christ.

My Prayer Today: I am saved unto Your Law, Lord, … only in You. Amen

February 24, 2011 … God Is True

Passage of the Day: John 3: 33 [see bold/underlined in context] … 31 "The One who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The One who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what He has seen and heard, but no one accepts His testimony.33 The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the One whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.”

My Journal for Today: I present the focus verse (John 3: 33) today in the context of Jesus’ teaching to Nicodemus (and all believers), where He declares that for one to believe in Jesus as the Son of God also accepts His word as the word of God [i.e., God’s truth]. And I personally do not believe that one can call himself/herself “Christian” and question the authenticity of God’s word (i.e., the Bible). But there are a lot of people claiming to be “Christian” out there who are doing just that.

If one cannot believe in the truth of God’s word in 2nd Tim. 3: 16, … that “all scripture is inspired by God,” then any writings from the Bible could be brought into question as unreliable – and the only judge as to the authority of scripture would be an individual’s interpretation as his/her own standard, not an absolute truth from God’s word. Balaam, though not a righteous man himself and one whom some scholars label as an apostate, spoke in Lam. 23: 19, “God is not a man that He should lie…;” and the Apostle Paul even more firmly declared, “God … does not lie.” (see Rom. 3: 4 and Titus 1: 2). And several times in the “upper room discourse,” Jesus taught that God’s Spirit was/is Truth (see John 14: 16 - 17; 15: 26; 16: 13).

SCRIPTURE: John 14: 16 … [Jesus] … “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth.”
SCRIPTURE: John 15: 26 … [again, Jesus] … " When the Counselor comes, Whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth Who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me.”
SCRIPTURE: John 16: 13 … [once more, Jesus] … " But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth.”

And so, because God is truth, by extension, His word, inspired by God, the Holy Spirit, becomes His living truth [again 2nd Tim. 3: 16]. We read the Psalmist say [in Ps. 119: 160], “The sum of Your word is truth,” which was echoed by Jesus in John 17: 17 … [from the prayer of Jesus for His disciples] “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.”

Well, you may have heard a non-believer, perhaps a declared “atheist,” deny the reality of God and/or disclaim the truth of the Bible, labeling it as interesting literature or an outright fable. However, in doing so, these “devil’s advocates” label themselves according to God’s very own truth, where it says [in Ps. 14: 1 or 53: 1), “… the fool has said, ‘There no God.’ "

Hey, … I know about such foolishness; … I used to be one of them! However, now I know, in faith, experience, and testimony, that in our speaking and living as Christians, we, who know God’s truth (in the Bible) must become witnesses of THE Living Truth, … Who, of course is Jesus (see John 14: 6b). And in living the truth in our lives, we become living torches for The Truth, glorifying God (see Matt. 5: 16) in a very dark, and ever darkening, world.

My Prayer Today: May everything I do and say, Lord, shine Your light of truth! Amen