Passage of the Day: Revelations 2: 4 – 5 … 4 Yet I hold this against you [i.e., the Church @ Ephesus]: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.
My Journal for Today: Why don’t we (the Church in the USA) see it? The last few days we have read [in Ephesians 5: 15 – 16] how the Apostle Paul tried to wake up the Church in Ephesus about the evil influences of the world; and then, God, through John’s Revelation in today’s passage, warned the same Ephesian Church, about 30+ years after Paul, to return to their first love. God perceived that the Church in Ephesus had waned in their love of Christ [see also John’s warning in 1st John 2: 15 – 16]. But history tells us that the church at Ephesus did not heed God’s warning; and God, the Holy Spirit, apparently removed the lamp stand from that church which God had planted there in Ephesus, … the church about which Paul instructed Timothy (in 1st and 2nd Timothy) as to leadership. Sadly there has not been a viable Christian church in Ephesus for some 20 centuries now; and we in the U.S. should learn from those warnings and wake up to sense the urgency of what is happening in our midst today.
I totally agree with John MacArthur in his devotional for this date (from Strength for Today) that it may take a nationwide or worldwide persecution of Christ’s Church for the spark of revival to be lit for what appears (at least to this observer) to be a church [in America] who is slowly succumbing to the evils of the world. Actually we see these revival fires burning in China, in South America, and in Africa today where Christianity is outlawed or under great oppression and where the first love of the church in these areas – i.e., their love of Christ – burns ever so brightly and is growing in intensity.
We need to take heed of Paul’s warning to Timothy and again to the Ephesians (see 2nd Tim. 3: 13 - 14) where he wrote, “… while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of.” That church (i.e., at Ephesus) did not ultimately heed Paul’s warning through Timothy; and God lifted their lamp stand, their church dwindling into oblivion.
Therefore, if it takes evil growing in our midst to awaken us to God’s prescription for revival in 2nd Chronicles 7: 14, … well, bring it on; but … Lord have mercy on us!
My Prayer Today: Whatever it takes, Lord; wake up Your Church here in America! Amen
Showing posts with label hope in Christ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope in Christ. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
October 30, 2011 … The Solution to the Sin Dilemma
Passage of the Day: Romans 7: 24 - 25 … 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
My Journal for Today: If you’ve read my devotional entry for yesterday, you read my exposition of Paul’s passage of self-deprecation in Romans 7 (i.e., vv. 14 – 24). As I said in yesterday’s journal entry, some have questioned why Paul would seem so down on himself when he was such a mature and victorious Christian at the stage in life when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. I posited that it is likely that the Apostle was using a writer’s tactic, i.e., using himself – positioned at his worst (probably reflecting back to his early days as a Christian) – to help believers of lesser maturity to be able to identify with the reality of our sin nature. But I also believe that Paul was laying a foundation for the great victory chapter, which he then wrote to Christians in Rome and everywhere (i.e., Romans 8).
Paul’s rhetorical question in Rom. 8: 24, “Who will rescue me from the body of death,” is, I believe, the great fulcrum truth in the battle for all Christians; and that battlefield, of course, is our life. It is said, and I believe it’s true, that a sure sign of sanctification and maturity in a Christian is the degree to which he hates his own sin and then acts on that hatred to become more like Christ. But as much as we hate our own carnality, as Paul expresses in today’s passage, we also, in faith, must be able to revel in the realization that our bodily and fleshly transformation will one day be completed in a glorified Christlikeness (see Romans 8: 18 – 19 and 1st Corinthians 15: 53, 57 and Phil. 1: 6).
Therefore, knowing what our flesh (i.e., our sin nature) is predestined to become (i.e., see Romans 8: 29), we can – and should – empathize with Paul’s declaration of frustration, as he laments to be rescued from his human condition, that who we are now is merely a foreshadow of Whom we will become in Christ. And Paul’s cry, “rescue me” (or “set me free” in the NASB), is the Greek term “rhoumai,” which is another battle field word picture of a soldier, possibly wounded, being rescued from the battlefield by his comrades.
And you may have been reminded, as I was from today’s study, of Paul’s word pictures in Ephesians 6: 10 – 13, where the Apostle describes the battle in which we find ourselves everyday as Christians for our spiritual lives. Beloved, it is true that we are at war, every moment of everyday. But as Paul also states in Philippians 3: 20 – 21, we, who know Christ as Savior, will one day be rescued from the warfare of this life. Therefore, leaving the frustrations of Romans 7 behind, we must fight on in faith toward the realities of Romans 8 with the hope we have in Christ.
Hope is ours in Christ!!!
My Prayer Today: Amen and Amen!!!
My Journal for Today: If you’ve read my devotional entry for yesterday, you read my exposition of Paul’s passage of self-deprecation in Romans 7 (i.e., vv. 14 – 24). As I said in yesterday’s journal entry, some have questioned why Paul would seem so down on himself when he was such a mature and victorious Christian at the stage in life when he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. I posited that it is likely that the Apostle was using a writer’s tactic, i.e., using himself – positioned at his worst (probably reflecting back to his early days as a Christian) – to help believers of lesser maturity to be able to identify with the reality of our sin nature. But I also believe that Paul was laying a foundation for the great victory chapter, which he then wrote to Christians in Rome and everywhere (i.e., Romans 8).
Paul’s rhetorical question in Rom. 8: 24, “Who will rescue me from the body of death,” is, I believe, the great fulcrum truth in the battle for all Christians; and that battlefield, of course, is our life. It is said, and I believe it’s true, that a sure sign of sanctification and maturity in a Christian is the degree to which he hates his own sin and then acts on that hatred to become more like Christ. But as much as we hate our own carnality, as Paul expresses in today’s passage, we also, in faith, must be able to revel in the realization that our bodily and fleshly transformation will one day be completed in a glorified Christlikeness (see Romans 8: 18 – 19 and 1st Corinthians 15: 53, 57 and Phil. 1: 6).
Therefore, knowing what our flesh (i.e., our sin nature) is predestined to become (i.e., see Romans 8: 29), we can – and should – empathize with Paul’s declaration of frustration, as he laments to be rescued from his human condition, that who we are now is merely a foreshadow of Whom we will become in Christ. And Paul’s cry, “rescue me” (or “set me free” in the NASB), is the Greek term “rhoumai,” which is another battle field word picture of a soldier, possibly wounded, being rescued from the battlefield by his comrades.
And you may have been reminded, as I was from today’s study, of Paul’s word pictures in Ephesians 6: 10 – 13, where the Apostle describes the battle in which we find ourselves everyday as Christians for our spiritual lives. Beloved, it is true that we are at war, every moment of everyday. But as Paul also states in Philippians 3: 20 – 21, we, who know Christ as Savior, will one day be rescued from the warfare of this life. Therefore, leaving the frustrations of Romans 7 behind, we must fight on in faith toward the realities of Romans 8 with the hope we have in Christ.
Hope is ours in Christ!!!
My Prayer Today: Amen and Amen!!!
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