The greatest daily battle against our enemy is all in
our heads. And, he attacks us continually in such a
way that we tend to agree with him. Yuk!
"...which accused them before God day and night"
(Rev 12:10)
When Adam fell he instantly sided with Satan and
against God. When Jesus came He became our
High Priest. Check out Hebrews 9:11-14. Jesus is a
High Priest who shed his own blood on our behalf,
so man is now back on the side of God. The blood
restored man to God and God to man. Because of
this, when we are accused before God by Satan,
the Lord confronts Satan on our behalf.
"The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from
every sin." (Darby 1John 1:9)
Every sin? Yes. The worst of sins? Yes. We are
tempted by the enemy to think there are sins that
are unforgivable, but scripture says,
'the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin!'
Now the reason why we so readily accept the
accusations of Satan as truth, is that we are still
hoping to have some righteousness of our own!
However, if we have learned to put no confidence
in the flesh, we shall not be surprised if we sin,
because the very nature of flesh is to sin. Never
should we try to answer Satan with our good
conduct but always by the blood. Our faith is in
the precious blood and our refusal to move from
that position alone silences Satan's charges and
puts him to flight. (Romans 8:33, 34)'
(Watchman Nee paraphrased)
Reader, I had forgotten how much the blood
of Jesus has accomplished for me. It surely is
by revelation that we are able to stand against
the accusations of the accuser, our vile foe!
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Love Conquers All
Paul prayed in this way for the church at Ephesus:
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. —Ephesians 3:16:17
Christ resides in us, and we reside in Christ by our trust that what God says about himself and us in the person of Jesus Christ is true. By faith we participate in the triune love of God. Paul’s prayer is for this divine participation to be increasingly experienced as we are increasingly “rooted and grounded in love.”
Through the work of the Spirit in our lives and through the discipline of our minds, the roots of our lives must become firmly planted in the reality of God’s love as revealed in Christ. Like the ground from which a tree’s roots are nourished, God’s love is the one source from which we are to drink and derive nourishment.
When we are empty, we are to drink the fullness of God’s love.
When we face temptation, we are to drink the strength of God’s love.
When we catch ourselves feeling superior, we are to drink in the mercy of God’s love, remembering that we ourselves are forgiven sinners.
When we feel condemned, we are to drink the forgiveness of God’s love.
When we feel despair, we are to drink the hope of God’s love.
When we feel lifeless, we are to drink the abundant life that is God’s love.
When we feel hate, we are to drink in the love that led Christ to give up his life for those who hated him.
It is all there in Christ. He is the truth and he is the life (John 14:6). We must be rooted in him and in him alone. Love conquers all.
God’s love, as revealed in Christ, is also the source of our grounding, our stability in life. Trees with deep roots bend when strong winds come, but they are not uprooted like trees with shallow roots. So too, our stability in life depends on our being firmly grounded in the reality of God’s love as it is revealed in Christ. If our lives are grounded in idols from which we try to get life, we are building our house on sinking sand. But if our lives are grounded in Christ as “the source of [our] life” (1 Cor 1:30), our house is built upon an immovable rock (Matt 7:24-27).
We live in a world under the influence of the Accuser, who roams about as a lion seeking to devour us (1 Pet 5:8). He is continually accusing God before us, just as he is perpetually accusing us before God, just as he is perpetually accusing us before God, ourselves, and each other. If we are not rooted and grounded in God’s love, we will invariably find ourselves unconsciously or consciously judging and accusing God, and then ourselves and each other. We will live in judgment, and the flow of love from God to us and through us will be suppressed.
May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, being rooted and grounded in love.
I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. —Ephesians 3:16:17
Christ resides in us, and we reside in Christ by our trust that what God says about himself and us in the person of Jesus Christ is true. By faith we participate in the triune love of God. Paul’s prayer is for this divine participation to be increasingly experienced as we are increasingly “rooted and grounded in love.”
Through the work of the Spirit in our lives and through the discipline of our minds, the roots of our lives must become firmly planted in the reality of God’s love as revealed in Christ. Like the ground from which a tree’s roots are nourished, God’s love is the one source from which we are to drink and derive nourishment.
When we are empty, we are to drink the fullness of God’s love.
When we face temptation, we are to drink the strength of God’s love.
When we catch ourselves feeling superior, we are to drink in the mercy of God’s love, remembering that we ourselves are forgiven sinners.
When we feel condemned, we are to drink the forgiveness of God’s love.
When we feel despair, we are to drink the hope of God’s love.
When we feel lifeless, we are to drink the abundant life that is God’s love.
When we feel hate, we are to drink in the love that led Christ to give up his life for those who hated him.
It is all there in Christ. He is the truth and he is the life (John 14:6). We must be rooted in him and in him alone. Love conquers all.
God’s love, as revealed in Christ, is also the source of our grounding, our stability in life. Trees with deep roots bend when strong winds come, but they are not uprooted like trees with shallow roots. So too, our stability in life depends on our being firmly grounded in the reality of God’s love as it is revealed in Christ. If our lives are grounded in idols from which we try to get life, we are building our house on sinking sand. But if our lives are grounded in Christ as “the source of [our] life” (1 Cor 1:30), our house is built upon an immovable rock (Matt 7:24-27).
We live in a world under the influence of the Accuser, who roams about as a lion seeking to devour us (1 Pet 5:8). He is continually accusing God before us, just as he is perpetually accusing us before God, just as he is perpetually accusing us before God, ourselves, and each other. If we are not rooted and grounded in God’s love, we will invariably find ourselves unconsciously or consciously judging and accusing God, and then ourselves and each other. We will live in judgment, and the flow of love from God to us and through us will be suppressed.
May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, being rooted and grounded in love.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Christ's Gain
In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. --Hebrews 2:10
On a recent international trip I was sitting on the front pew waiting to preach. During the song service I looked on the wall at a picture of Mary holding Jesus. God becoming a man! I have always thought of the great loss Jesus experienced in having to leave heaven to become a man. I had never before thought there was gain for Him, but there are two areas of gain that I see. First, though I know little about Him, I know He is the lover of my soul. God created man like a fine automobile, but a car cannot drive on its own. I have seen in the bottom of a ferryboat a tangled and beaten-up heap of cars after a storm at sea. Those lost cars had no drivers. Jesus stepped in to become the driver in man and to make the creation perform perfectly. He comes to dwell in each of us, to drive, so to speak.
Second,when spirit dwells in flesh, the spirit will either be perfected or destroyed. In heaven, without hindrances, spirit never really sees its limitations. This is partially the problem that Satan had, thinking he was equal to God. Putting spirit in flesh is redeeming for the spirit as the short course in revealing weakness. Once spirit has lived in flesh and found that it is conquered by flesh (spirit is willing but the flesh is weak), spirit enters into humility. Clinging to and empowered by God, spirit perceives something it never would have if not presented with that new level of need: a deeper experience of the glory of God as He meets the need. Spirit as it lives and is being perfected in flesh reveals the glory of God. Having descended and ascended, does Jesus see the Father differently? If so, is it gain? Jesus was made perfect through suffering. What does this mean for me? Jesus put Himself in a place of great need, but God did more than meet the need. So maybe God the Father will never seem the same for Jesus. Has the Father gotten even more wondrous and beautiful to Jesus? Maybe for the first time in my life, I am happy that I began as a man. Having God help me in my weakness gives me a view and experience of God that no angel will ever have. We are spirits trapped in flesh; in our weakness He becomes our strength.
Fears and Fleeting Faith
The disciples were afraid. Terrified, even. The wind was howling, the waves pounding. Several of them were fishermen by trade and they knew this water, they knew of colleagues who had been swept away and lost in these sudden, vicious squalls. They knew the situation was fast becoming perilous. Yet Jesus slept, resting contentedly at the bottom of the boat. How could he be so callous? Didn’t he know the danger? Didn’t he care?
Finally they could take it no longer. “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Get up! What’s wrong with you! Jesus awoke. Jesus spoke. Jesus rebuked the storm, told it to get lost, to go away. And like an ant before an elephant, that great storm dissipated and retreated. It was beaten, licked, replaced by a dead calm.
Jesus turned to the disciples and asked a question, just four short words: “Where is your faith?” Where, indeed.
The disciples had the right idea, of course. In their troubles they fled to Jesus. In their uncertainty they cried out to their master. But they came to him in fear and doubt, not in faith. Jesus’s words to them were a rebuke, a gentle scolding. Kent Hughes points out the irony: The great storm had not awoken Jesus. No, it took doubting little men to wake him from his rest. Their fear had led them to doubt his goodness, his kindness, his care for them. After all they had seen, all they had witnessed, all they had experienced, how could they be so silly? How could they remain so naive?
The disciples had assumed that their experience of the storm was the same as his experience of the storm. They had assumed the storm was happening to Jesus in the same way it was happening to them. But that wasn’t the case at all, because he was not one of them. Even while he was in the storm, he was above the storm. Even while he was caught up in it, he was controlling it. Even while it happened to him, it happened by and through him (Hebrews 1:3). The great storm was always in the hand of this great God. Every wind blew only at his command, every wave rose only by his hand, every raindrop fell only with his knowledge, his assent, his approval, his delight.
We marvel at the disciples for their lack of faith. They had seen miracle after miracle, had experience after experience. They had walked with him and been taught by him as his dearest friends, his closest allies. Yet in one moment of uncertainty they forgot it all. We marvel, but we shouldn’t. If we are honest with ourselves we know we have done the very same thing. As Hughes says, “Fear comes, and all the reasons for trust depart—all our past experience, all the knowledge God has given us.”
Our faith is shockingly shallow on the day of uncertainty. Our fears quickly overwhelm our fleeting faith. Yet this story tells us, reminds us, assures us that there is no situation beyond God’s knowledge, no condition beyond God’s control, no circumstance beyond God’s power. The one who holds us in the storm is the very same one who holds the storm. I give the final words to Charles Spurgeon:
There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought to more earnestly contend to than the doctrine of their Master over all creation – the Kingship of God over all the works of His own hands – the Throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne…for it is God upon the Throne whom we trust.
Finally they could take it no longer. “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Get up! What’s wrong with you! Jesus awoke. Jesus spoke. Jesus rebuked the storm, told it to get lost, to go away. And like an ant before an elephant, that great storm dissipated and retreated. It was beaten, licked, replaced by a dead calm.
Jesus turned to the disciples and asked a question, just four short words: “Where is your faith?” Where, indeed.
The disciples had the right idea, of course. In their troubles they fled to Jesus. In their uncertainty they cried out to their master. But they came to him in fear and doubt, not in faith. Jesus’s words to them were a rebuke, a gentle scolding. Kent Hughes points out the irony: The great storm had not awoken Jesus. No, it took doubting little men to wake him from his rest. Their fear had led them to doubt his goodness, his kindness, his care for them. After all they had seen, all they had witnessed, all they had experienced, how could they be so silly? How could they remain so naive?
The disciples had assumed that their experience of the storm was the same as his experience of the storm. They had assumed the storm was happening to Jesus in the same way it was happening to them. But that wasn’t the case at all, because he was not one of them. Even while he was in the storm, he was above the storm. Even while he was caught up in it, he was controlling it. Even while it happened to him, it happened by and through him (Hebrews 1:3). The great storm was always in the hand of this great God. Every wind blew only at his command, every wave rose only by his hand, every raindrop fell only with his knowledge, his assent, his approval, his delight.
We marvel at the disciples for their lack of faith. They had seen miracle after miracle, had experience after experience. They had walked with him and been taught by him as his dearest friends, his closest allies. Yet in one moment of uncertainty they forgot it all. We marvel, but we shouldn’t. If we are honest with ourselves we know we have done the very same thing. As Hughes says, “Fear comes, and all the reasons for trust depart—all our past experience, all the knowledge God has given us.”
Our faith is shockingly shallow on the day of uncertainty. Our fears quickly overwhelm our fleeting faith. Yet this story tells us, reminds us, assures us that there is no situation beyond God’s knowledge, no condition beyond God’s control, no circumstance beyond God’s power. The one who holds us in the storm is the very same one who holds the storm. I give the final words to Charles Spurgeon:
There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought to more earnestly contend to than the doctrine of their Master over all creation – the Kingship of God over all the works of His own hands – the Throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne…for it is God upon the Throne whom we trust.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Utter Weakness
"Abide in Me and I in you."
John 15:4
"It is when I feel my utter weakness most deeply, and
fully accept Jesus in His wondrous union to myself as
my life, that His wondrous power works in me. Then I
am able to lead a life completely beyond what my own
power could obtain. I begin to see that abiding in Him
is not a matter of moments or special seasons, but the
deep life process in which--by His keeping grace--I
continue without a moment's intermission, and from
which I act out all my Christian life."
Andrew Murray
John 15:4
"It is when I feel my utter weakness most deeply, and
fully accept Jesus in His wondrous union to myself as
my life, that His wondrous power works in me. Then I
am able to lead a life completely beyond what my own
power could obtain. I begin to see that abiding in Him
is not a matter of moments or special seasons, but the
deep life process in which--by His keeping grace--I
continue without a moment's intermission, and from
which I act out all my Christian life."
Andrew Murray
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Civilian or Soldier: Which Are You?
The Bible makes it clear that the people of God are to be on the offensive in storming the gates of hell (See post) and that Christians are to put on the armor of God (See post). However, in modern Western Christianity, it is much more common to behave more like civilians on a vacation than soldiers in God’s army.
A soldier in battle conducts himself very differently from a civilian. The civilian naturally wants to indulge his or her interests and desires while avoiding inconveniences as much as possible. But soldiers understand they are called to sacrifice their interests and desires, if not their lives, to advance the cause for which they fight.
The NT clearly calls us to live like soldiers. As good soldiers, we are to always seek to please our “enlisting officer” and not become involved in civilian affairs (2 Tim 2:4). We are always to be on guard against our enemy who perpetually seeks to lure us into sin and lull us into compromise. We are to crucify ourselves, set aside all concerns for worldly comfort and security, and at every moment seek first the kingdom of God (Mt 6:24-34). We are to live with the singular mission of advancing God’s kingdom by the unique way we live, the self-sacrificial way we love, the humble way we serve, and the power we demonstrate against oppressive forces.
In sharp contrast to this, almost everything about the consumeristic, materialistic, and hedonistic culture in the West encourages us to live as if we are on vacation. From childhood on we are bombarded with messages that in various ways tell us “the good life” is centered on pursuing “the American dream”: indulge yourself as much as possible; acquire as much wealth as possible; live with as much comfort, convenience, and pleasure as possible.
The extent to which Western Christians have succumbed to the consumer culture that engulfs us is evidenced by the numerous studies that reveal that the lifestyle and core values of most professing Christians in America are almost indistinguishable from those of their secular neighbors.
While it’s understandable that secular people would want to live life as self-indulged and carefree as possible, for a soldier this is equivalent to going AWOL. We are called to wear the armor and retain the mind-set of a good soldier.
—Adapted from Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views, pages 151-152
A soldier in battle conducts himself very differently from a civilian. The civilian naturally wants to indulge his or her interests and desires while avoiding inconveniences as much as possible. But soldiers understand they are called to sacrifice their interests and desires, if not their lives, to advance the cause for which they fight.
The NT clearly calls us to live like soldiers. As good soldiers, we are to always seek to please our “enlisting officer” and not become involved in civilian affairs (2 Tim 2:4). We are always to be on guard against our enemy who perpetually seeks to lure us into sin and lull us into compromise. We are to crucify ourselves, set aside all concerns for worldly comfort and security, and at every moment seek first the kingdom of God (Mt 6:24-34). We are to live with the singular mission of advancing God’s kingdom by the unique way we live, the self-sacrificial way we love, the humble way we serve, and the power we demonstrate against oppressive forces.
In sharp contrast to this, almost everything about the consumeristic, materialistic, and hedonistic culture in the West encourages us to live as if we are on vacation. From childhood on we are bombarded with messages that in various ways tell us “the good life” is centered on pursuing “the American dream”: indulge yourself as much as possible; acquire as much wealth as possible; live with as much comfort, convenience, and pleasure as possible.
The extent to which Western Christians have succumbed to the consumer culture that engulfs us is evidenced by the numerous studies that reveal that the lifestyle and core values of most professing Christians in America are almost indistinguishable from those of their secular neighbors.
While it’s understandable that secular people would want to live life as self-indulged and carefree as possible, for a soldier this is equivalent to going AWOL. We are called to wear the armor and retain the mind-set of a good soldier.
—Adapted from Understanding Spiritual Warfare: Four Views, pages 151-152
A Mystery
Everyone loves a mystery! However, the Bible speaks
of mystery as a secret, something unknown in earlier
ages. God the Father had a divine secret that He carried
throughout the Old Covenant. He worked through the
years, never fully disclosing His heart until the fullness
of time when the Father sent forth the Son of His love;
then by the Holy Spirit, made known the fullness of His
love toward the gentiles. The Apostle Paul became a
"minister...to make the word of God fully known,
the mystery hidden for ages and for generations
but now revealed to his saints."
It is in the first chapter of Colossians that this divine
secret is disclosed as the matchless, incomparable
unveiling:
"That in all things he might have pre-eminence."
Its beginning is within the heart of every believer.
The mystery is: (trumpets please)
"Christ in you, the hope of glory."
of mystery as a secret, something unknown in earlier
ages. God the Father had a divine secret that He carried
throughout the Old Covenant. He worked through the
years, never fully disclosing His heart until the fullness
of time when the Father sent forth the Son of His love;
then by the Holy Spirit, made known the fullness of His
love toward the gentiles. The Apostle Paul became a
"minister...to make the word of God fully known,
the mystery hidden for ages and for generations
but now revealed to his saints."
It is in the first chapter of Colossians that this divine
secret is disclosed as the matchless, incomparable
unveiling:
"That in all things he might have pre-eminence."
Its beginning is within the heart of every believer.
The mystery is: (trumpets please)
"Christ in you, the hope of glory."
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