April 5, 2012 … They Did Their Own Thing!

Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: Judges, Chapters 19-21 … To study these chapters, go to this link -

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Highlight Reference Passage : Judges 21: 24-25… 24 At that time [i.e., the era of the Judges] the Israelites left that place and went home to their tribes and clans, each to his own inheritance. 25 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

My Journal for Today: Reading through the last chapters of the book of Judges; and really touched by the last verse, highlighted above, is the bottom line for the history of God’s people in the time of the Judges. And I have summarized these times in a somewhat more colloquial title I’ve given to this morning’s journal entry: They Did Their Own Thing!

And if you’ve read through these last three chapters of Judges, one’s sensibilities are challenged, to say the least, by some of the horrible things which happened amongst these God-chosen people. For example there is the story of the Levite in Chapter 19 which is so reminiscent of that scene in Sodom and Gomorrah involving Lot. In this horrible scenario, the Levite sends his concubine out to be gang-raped by the men of his village; and when she comes back in, having been defiled, he cuts her into a dozen pieces.

And here is what my Parsons Commentary says about how we can look at the application of such a horrible Biblical story: ”When they [i.e., the Israelites] stopped letting God lead them, they became no better than the evil people around them. When they made laws for their own benefit, they set standards far below God’s. When you leave God out of your life, you may be shocked at what you are capable of doing.”

You know, we CHRISTIANS would like to think that we’re above such monstrous evil. We’d like to think that, being church-going believers, we could never become like a Ted Bundy, the monstrous serial killer. But my friend, if we turn away from God and His ways and His will, as did the Israelites, there’s no telling what our hearts and flesh are capable of doing. And God – at least for a season – will allow such ungodliness from His collective peoples (for example, from the Church in our day).

When I read the New Testament description – by the Apostle Paul – in Romans 1: 18-32 (linked here for your study). I shudder to think what my life might have become after 22 years of habitualized sexual sin if I hadn’t surrendered my life to Christ. Who knows, unchecked I might have become a monster like Ted Bundy.

BUT … (big “But” contrast), … I did not!!! Instead – and I’m only touting God for this! – I became something different. After I decided to do life God’s way in 1983, I stand here today as a poster child for the proclamation of truth in 2nd Cor. 5: 17 (which I hope you know by heart). I am that “new creation;” I have become like the man about which Rascal Flatts sings in their song to which I link you here. “I’m changed!”

But the Israelites in this day did their own thing; and God let them do it … over and over and over again. And it was not until their Messiah came to provide the way of redemption for His people that this cycle of disobedience and rebellion and degradation could come to a halt.

But even today, we Christians can easily let our lives get out of touch with God when we do life our own way rather than the way God has set forth for us in His word. My friend, we must ask ourselves if we are doing life our own way? If so, beware!!! … God will let us; and who knows where it will lead.

My Prayer Today: … Lord, I’m doing life Your way! Amen

July 7, 2011 … Certainty of Deliverance

Passage of the Day: Romans 5: 9 – 10 … 9 Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!

My Journal for Today: When it comes to our topic this month, i.e., the assurance of our salvation as Christians, the apologetics of the Apostle Paul in today’s passage is absolutely “error tight.” However, for it to have any weight at all for the Christians it was intended (Roman Christians, the Church, as well as you and me), one must first be a believer and declare that Christ’s finished work on the cross saved us by His atoning blood. And in believing in Christ’s resurrection and that He (as it says above in vs. 8) died for us while were yet sinners, we can (no, … we must) KNOW that we are now identified with Christ (i.e., justified). Therefore, we are adopted as children of God into His family. And as Paul went on to declare (see Rom. 8: 35 – 39), nothing can take that position (i.e., SAVED from God’s wrath) away from any believer who has received God’s saving grace, believing in Him as Lord and Savior. As we’d say today, “It’s a done deal!” (see Rom. 10: 9 – 13) to mirror what Jesus said on the cross when He declared, “It is finished!”

If one meditates on Paul’s argument in Romans 5: 19, we see that if Christ is willing to do His saving work on the cross when we were yet the vilest of sinners (see also Rom. 5: 8), how much more would He be willing, through His grace, to hold us safely in His hands for eternity, which we also read is declared by Jesus in John 6: 37. Therefore, belief in Christ as our mediator and redeemer should be – and is – our eternal security as Christians. Again I say, as Jesus Himself said from the cross, “It is finished!”

And though we’re just getting started this month, I hope, like yours truly, you are getting the picture of the truth and reality that our salvation is a completed and sealed reality if we are truly believers in Christ’s finished work on the cross. I know I’m repeating myself here; but it’s worthy of repetition; and it’s worthy for believers to get this settled now and forevermore!

My Prayer Today: You did it, Lord; and I am Yours … forever! Amen

July 5, 2011 … Hope of Glory

Passage of the Day: Romans 5: 1 – 5 … 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

My Journal for Today: Now that I’ve been looking at the first few verses of Romans 5 in the past few days of devotionals, one can’t help but note how deep with meaning, power, and truth is there for the believer to KNOW that salvation is available for all who believe and receive Christ’s hope of glory. And Romans 8: 29 – 30 [see below] also tells us that this hope WAS seared into eternity by God in His redemptive plan before time, as we know it, began. And that plan is that all who believe in Christ WILL BE glorified eternally just as Christ is NOW, even as He intercedes for believers in Heaven with the Father. Hence, our hope of glory is PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE.

SCRIPTURE: Romans 8: 29 – 30 … 29 For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.

Do you see it! God’s redemptive plan for believers is eternal (and that’s you and me if we’re born again!); and having been secured by the peace Christ made with His Father on the cross, anyone who has faith in that finished work can have the hope of glory NOW, … a hope that can never be taken away. … Stay with me here! There is nothing more important in the consciousness of the believer. You have just read the lynchpin of our salvation; and once it is driven into eternity by our faith in Christ, God’s promise assures it will be there forever. If that is not the case, then the term (below), “ETERNAL,” in probably the most quoted verse in the New Testament [John 3: 16], is meaningless.

SCRIPTURE: John 3: 16 … For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have ETERNAL life.

If we can lose our salvation after receiving it, then that salvation is not ETERNAL, is it? It would be TEMPORAL; and John 3: 16 becomes a lie; and no one could ever have the hope of salvation at any point in time because of the reality of Rom. 3: 23 … that we are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. It also makes Jesus a liar from the cross when He declared “It is finished!” Because if any believer could lose his salvation at any point after gaining it, Christ’s work on the cross was not finished and therefore His death and resurrection were trivial and incomplete.

Dear one … Jesus’ work on the cross sealed my salvation (and yours, if Jesus is your Lord and Savior) for ETERNITY!. It’s a done deal. I have been saved yesterday … I am saved today … and I am saved for eternity to come.

And all I can say to that is … HALLELUJAH!!!

Beloved, can you see it? Because if you do, you are going to KNOW that you know that you know that you are saved! And I pray that all who are reading this, as the one who is writing it, … that we all have secured that hope of glory which Christ has for all who have believed and received Him.

And I pray that we all walk confidently in that hope and assurance. Stayed tuned, fellow Christian, there’s more to come!

My Prayer Today: You are my hope of glory, Lord! Amen

July 3, 2011 … Peace WITH God

Passage of the Day: Romans 5: 1 … Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, …

My Journal for Today: As I read and meditate on this verse, I’m almost overwhelmed by the reality of this truth. Think of it! Any sinner, and we all fit into that category (see Rom. 3: 23), … yes, anyone, who has repented of his/her sin nature, believing in Christ as Savior/Lord (see Rom 10: 13), has made eternal peace WITH God. Now this is not to be confused with the “peace OF God,” which comes from God’s Spirit as a fruit of salvation and is found maturing in a deepening relationship with Christ (see Gal. 5: 22 and Phil. 4: 6 – 7), being available for Christians as we live our lives in surrender to our Savior.

No, this is the peace we make WITH God through our justification, which we attain in our faith, leading to salvation. Until we surrender our lives to the Lordship of Christ and are saved, we are at enmity with God because of our sin nature. But when we are saved, God grants us an eternal state of positional peace with the Godhead, which was accomplished by Christ in His finished work on the cross and our faith in Him as Savior/Lord. The blood of Christ and our belief in and receipt of its saving grace, allows us to be in a state of eternal peace with our Holy God.

Abraham made his peace with God and was made righteous before His God (see Gen. 15: 6). The Apostle Paul wrote all of Chapters 3 and 4 of Romans to show us that our salvation comes only by our faith in Christ and our reception of God’s saving grace; and that salvation has nothing to do with any works we might do to attain that grace (see also Eph. 2: 8, 9 and Titus 3: 5 – 6). So, the overwhelming message for me (and for all of us) is that we don’t have to put our hope/assurance in ourselves for salvation … but ONLY in Christ and His finished work on the cross (see Rom. 5: 1 – 11; 2nd Tim. 2: 13; and Heb. 10: 23). And I don’t know about you; but not having to depend on ME for my salvation gives infinitely more assurance in my salvation than I could ever have if I had to be something or do something to achieve eternal life and heaven’s rewards. Perhaps you will join me as you read this by saying, from your heart, “PRAISE GOD!!!”

So, my lesson and message today is that, by being saved and knowing it, I am no longer at enmity with God, even as I still retain a sin nature (see Rom. 8: 7 and Eph. 5: 6). I am reconciled and at peace with our God eternally; and I KNOW that my Lord ever and ever intercedes for me before the Father (see Heb. 7: 25); and He will NEVER leave me nor forsake me (see Heb. 13: 5). And you can (and should) know that as well when (and if) you have believed in the completed and perfect atoning act of Jesus Christ on the cross to save mankind.

Really, I would need no more assurance of my salvation that this – but there will be more as we delve into this topic further this month.

My Prayer Today: I am Yours, Lord !!! Amen

2010 – September 18 – The Cry of the Faithful

Study from God’s Word… Psalms from the Remnant of Israel: Psalms 44, 74, 79, 80, 85, 89 … Passage for Reflection: Psalm 44: 20 – 22 … NIV 20 If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, 21 would not God have discovered it, since He knows the secrets of the heart? 22 Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

My Journal for Today: As Dr. LaGard Smith contends in his devotional for today from The Daily Bible Devotional, the question of why God allows bad things to happen to GOOD people is an age-old dilemma. And the Psalms I was led to read today from The Daily Bible in Chronological Order reflect the frustration and confusion of those in Israel, taken captive by Babylon, who perceived themselves as loyal believers of the one, true God, and were praying, in worship, to their God, in Whom they never lost faith.

Here were people who had remained true to the Old Covenant; and yet alongside their Hebrew brothers and sisters who had been disobedient and worshipped idols, they too had been swept up by the Babylonians and punished right along with the idolatrous and disobedient Hebrews whom God was allowing the Babylonians to act as His agent of punishment for their disobedience. So, what gives with that? If today, I live faithfully to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; and my neighbor is a whore-mongering fool, why would I be allowed to have terminal cancer at a young age and he would live a healthy long life?

And that dilemma is one which believers in God and Christ will always have trouble answering for atheists who use such an argument against a belief in God. And Dr. Smith comes at the answer from one angle we should not forget; and his reasoning centers on our definition or perspective on the concept of “GOOD,” which I capitalized for emphasis in the focus question above.

When we think that we, the GOOD ones, are being punished unjustly, along side the BAD ones, are we really sure that we deserve the title “GOOD?” What about the contention of Isaiah in his pronouncement in Isaiah 53, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” Or the Apostle Paul, who wrote, in Romans 3: 23, “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” So, really; are we as “GOOD” as we think ourselves to be when we claim that somehow we’re better than our mocking, disobedient, and godless neighbors, whom we perceive getting away with their sins.

My friends, we need to remember that the ultimate rectification and redemption for our all encompassing sin has been taken care of on Calvary; and for the remnant in Israel at the time of the Babylonian captivity, it was faith in the promise of their Messiah which would be their salvation as they, as faithful believers, being punished along side their disobedient fellow Jews. And for those of us sinners in these “PC” days (and I don’t mean “politically correct,” I mean “Post Christ”), it is our faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross which allows us to be redeemed and saved along side the faithful believers in the days of the Babylonian captivity.

So, when we read Isaiah pronouncing his truth about all of God’s sheep going astray in Isaiah 53: 6, we need to read on to the end of that passage, which reads, “… and the Lord has laid on Him (i.e., the Messiah) the iniquity of us all.” And we New Covenant believers, who see injustice in this world, should take heart – in our faith – in the truth of the classic passage of John 3: 16-17 [which I hope you know by heart, not needing for me to link you here].

Being “good” does not take away my “bad,” it only allows me to hide – in my faith – behind the One Who died so that my “bad” can become His “GOOD.”

My Prayer for Today: Lord, YOU are the answer for my “bad!” My faith in You allows me to pursue Your GOOD to the glory of The Father. Amen

2010 – August 18 – Personal Accountability for Sin

Study from God’s Word… Ezekiel, Chapters 15 - 18 … Passage for Reflection: Ezekiel 18: 20 … NIV 20 The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.

My Journal for Today: There is no clearer discourse in all of the Bible on the responsibility and accountability for sin than in Ezekiel, Chapter 18. Then why, you might ask, did our merciful, loving God allow all 10 of Job’s children to be consumed and die in a storm, perpetrated by Satan, when they did not sin against their God? And I charge you to go back and read Ezekiel 18 and Job 42 as well; and you’ll see that Job’s kids were not lost to him. They were given life eternal because of their faith in God as shown by their righteous choices.

I need to make this simple for my own understanding … and perhaps for yours as well. We need to remember that God hates it when a righteous man (or woman), one of HIS children, dies because of the irresponsibility or sinfulness of some other of His creatures, such as what Satan is allow to perpetrate on mankind and what mankind does to his own kind. I must always remember that I, and I alone, am responsible for MY SINS. If you’re a sinner, … and you are, and you sin, … and you do, I’m not held responsible, by God, for your sins, as you are not held accountable for my sins. BUT, (and there’s another one of those big “BUTs”) we are held responsible, and there will be consequences, for our own sinful choices.

The Apostle Paul also made this clear after Jesus had died for the sins of all mankind, … that though all are sinners, Jesus saw fit to make it right for all believers in His atoning blood sacrifice, that we might LIVE though we are yet sinners (see Romans 5: 8). Dr. Smith makes these powerful truths quite clear in his devotional for today, as he writes, ”Whereas the trespass (sin) is always personal and never vicarious, the gift (salvation) is always vicarious and never personal.”

I hope, for our eternal sake, that each one of us truly grasps the magnitude of this truth to believe and receive God’s eternal gift of salvation wrapped up in His gift of grace.

My Prayer for Today: Lord, I am responsible for my sin; but You gave me eternal life in spite of it. May I now be accountable for Your gift by using Your grace to share Your glorious gift of salvation with others and prayerfully they will receive it – from YOU - and find the life You have waiting for all who do. Amen