Category: Uncategorized

For March 28, 2019
To the astonishment of the masses, the sick were healed of infirmaries no physician could cure. More importantly, people were introduced to wonderful, revolutionary, irrefutable teachings of an itinerant preacher, Jesus Christ, who spoke to each of them as though He knew them personally.

Jesus of Nazareth understood and empathized with the people who languished under the weight of the religious intolerance and Roman colonialism during the First Century in Palestine. His audience desired a lasting, meaningful, and personal relationship with God, which their corrupt religious leaders and the government could not provide for them. With sensitive hearts they embraced our Lord’s gripping words:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Matthew 7:19-21 (KJV)

For them it was validation at long last. Someone important—who knew God and spoke for God as though He was God—expressed their innermost desires and longings without laying a “guilt trip” on them.

They were no longer obligated to broadcast their religious fervor as did the corrupt religious zealots because He taught that God preferred our modesty and humility. In addition, fasting, sacrificial giving, moral purity, spiritual zeal, showing love to the unlovable, and rendering unselfish service towards others were now deemed as profitable since these (and other) ascetic practices allowed them to “lay up treasures in Heaven” from the heart.

Today we can find inspiration in this passage; or by the lyrics of a song that contains similar words; or when a Christian serves, shows love, or sacrificially gives to others without the thought of receiving recognition or repayment. Here, the heart is in the right place.

Unfortunately, the warning contained in this passage is also true. When people live their lives in a manner that implies their life’s purpose is “to get paid” as if acquiring material things is the key to eternal fulfillment; here, the heart is in the wrong place.

These people fail to see this earth is not our final destination. As the Bible tells us, we are pilgrims and strangers traveling through it. For some, the journey may be thirty years or less while others may exceed the seventy-year benchmark given in Psalm 90:10. Whatever time we have, Job 14:5 tells us the Lord has determined the exact day and time of our living and dying.

But while we await our departure (and/or His return), the Lord has promised everlasting communion with both He, and the Father through the Spirit. Before going to the cross, He offers us comfort with His promise to return:

Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14:1-3 (NLT)

Then just before the Ascension, Jesus reassures us He would be with us forever in Matthew 28:20. His is an intimate, communion that lasts forever. For in Christ, we have the Comforter (Holy Spirit) who gently comforts, helps, guides, teaches, and secures us until we inhabit our eternal home according to John 16:7-15.

We can find true fulfillment in a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ who instructs us to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him daily. Because if we try to save our lives, we will lose them, but if we loose our lives for His sake and the Gospel’s, we will find them. Yet, He still asks us today: What is the benefit to gain the whole world, and to lose our souls? (Matthew 16:24-26)

The condition of our heart will always determine whether we will have true intimacy with God. It will also determine where and how we will spend eternity. Some say rightly that the distance between Heaven and Hell is approximately twelve to eighteen inches—the distance between the head and the heart. In other words, there is a vast difference between knowing facts about the Lord (religion) and knowing the Lord personally (relationship).

The Lord knows the intent of our hearts, and He sees all things and will rightly judge or reward us accordingly. Very soon indeed, the Lord will return and receive those of us whose hearts and treasures are not on this earth but in Heaven. Amen!

For March 23, 2019
I am old enough to remember when if someone professed he or she was a Christian, having moral and spiritual soundness was implied and expected. The hearers of that particular faith declaration expected to witness Christ-like behavior from professors who emulated the Lord in their words and actions.

Unfortunately, moral and spiritual excellence is not the expected norm for Christian conduct. For there are those who profess to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—yet their words and actions reveal they do not know Him at all. What a tragedy.

There is a difference between profession and possession. In other words, anyone can profess to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and yet not be possessed (i.e., inhabited and controlled) by the Lord.

The Lord is aware of the “profession vs possession gap” and makes the following observation:

You do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. John 10:26-30 (NIV)

Jesus realizes there are people who claim to know Him, and yet they don’t (nor do they have any desire to know Him).

The Bible presents a radical, fundamental difference between professors and possessors. Professors (or wicked) are those whose god is the self; they do not want or need the Lord (or anyone else for that matter). Both sin and Satan motivate these people to fulfill their life’s mission: “Get all I can each day with little or no consideration for God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible or the welfare of others.” To say it in other words: “It’s all about me!”

Possessors (or righteous) are vastly different. These people recognize their need for the Lord Jesus Christ and, by faith, ask Him to live and reign in their hearts and lives forever. They earnestly seek Him like the “Pearl of Great Price” presented in Matthew 13:45. When they receive Him, He satisfies every desire and meets every need completely.

In addition, the Holy Spirit transforms and inhabits them so that they will be the distinguishable “New Creatures” presented in 2 Corinthians 5:17. As such, they practice a Spirit-driven lifestyle, which reveals they are truly in Christ.

We Christians are those who will always seek to follow the Lord and abide in Him by doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly before the Lord daily as Micah 6:8 teaches. To say it in other words: “It’s all about the Lord—and others!”

In John 8:12, the Lord declares He is the Light of the World; His followers will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life instead. Later in John 15:5, He states He is the Vine, and we are His branches. If we abide in Him and He in us, we can produce much fruit, for without Him, we can do nothing.

As Christians, we possess the Lord—and He possesses us. Thus, we do not operate under our own feeble strength exclusively. Instead we utilize His free, Spirit-powered, internal resources that enable us to practice a Christ-honoring lifestyle, which contrasts the sinful conduct of those who celebrate pretense and iniquity around us.

To secure this eternal, amazing gift of God’s grace and love, Jesus performed a wonderful sacrifice on Calvary’s Cross on our behalf we were unwilling and incapable of performing for ourselves.

Are we perfect? Absolutely not! The Lord is, however, and He gives us all we need to live nobly for Him in our world today while supplying all we will ever need to live gloriously with Him in His Heaven later (in the company of all those who have gone before us in like manner).

As Proverbs 4:18 (NIV) reads: “The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” We can demonstrate an awesome Christian witness before those we encounter daily in our private and public lives—for His glory and the benefit of others and us.

We can be grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ for the everlasting life we have now, which we will one day understand and appreciate in its fullest measure.

What a wonderful Savior!

For March 15, 2019
Christians around the world look forward to our Lord Jesus Christ’s imminent return with great anticipation. Jesus’ Disciples asked Him what would be the sign of His coming (Greek: parousia).

Over the past two-thousand years, theologians have offered many complex views concerning His glorious return¹. Yet in Matthew 24:30-31 (NIV), our Lord uses very simple language to declare His imminent return will be a glorious, unmistakably noticeable event befitting divine royalty:

Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

I am amazed at how people dismiss the Lord’s return as trivial when the signs of the times (also featured in Matthew 24) are so prevalent and irrefutable:

• • • Many deceivers claiming to be the Christ will arise.
    • Ongoing wars and rumors of war (nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom).
    • Constant world-wide famines, pestilence and earthquakes.
    • Heightening levels of hostility and persecution towards Christians and Christianity.
    • Increasing numbers of false prophets deceiving many people.
    • Increasing immorality and decreasing benevolence as the social norm.
    • The Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed around the world.

Christians need not fear the “last days” since a wonderful future awaits us—we shall see the Lord in His full glory! And as 1 John 3:2 states, We shall be like Him and see Him as He is.

Remember at Sinai, when Moses asked God to show himself? God warned him that one brief glimpse of His glory would be too much for any mortal. So instead, God placed Moses in a cleft on the mount, and He passed by, allowing Moses to see His backside only briefly.

As Moses bowed and worshipped the Lord, he caught a glimpse of God’s glory from behind. Yet that split second glimpse illuminated Moses’ face so brightly that he had to veil his face to keep from frightening the Children of Israel assembled at the base of the mount.².

If a momentary glimpse of God was this illuminating and frightening, imagine how powerful, how glorious and how magnificent a full view of the Jesus Christ, the Son of God “coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” will be? Awesome indeed!

Then in an instant, we shall forever know true ecstasy as we share His loving, glorious presence in the company of all of those who have placed their faith God since the beginning of time.

Although many speculate, no one knows the precise day and time of the Lord’s return. Yet as we wait, we can stand firm and let nothing deter us. We can give ourselves fully to the Lord’s work because we know that our labor in the Lord is never in vain, just as 1 Corinthians 15:58 teaches.

The Lord Jesus Christ’s return is imminent. Are you ready?

 

 

For February 25, 2019
The word love conveys a number of meanings, although it essentially names an emotional attraction towards someone or something. We can love our jobs, houses, cars, classical music, pizza, baseball, and that old pair of comfortable jeans. This is not a new phenomenon since the Greeks distinguished parental love (Greek: storge) from fraternal love (Greek: phileo) from the passion between lovers (Greek: eros) as well.

But, Jesus Christ established a new form of love when He commanded His followers, in John 13:34-35, to love (Greek: agape) each other unselfishly—just as He loves us—so that others will know we belong to Him. This is the highest form of authentic, eternal, selfless, pure love that only comes from God. Such altruistic love; this “true love,” is completely free of selfishness; for death is the ultimate demonstration of true love, which the Lord Jesus Christ willingly performed for us at Calvary in order to redeem us.

In our human strength alone, we are incapable of expressing it because we want to know “What’s in it for us?” before we respond. Our attempts at expressing such “true love” have failed miserably since they often produce an exploitative, self-gratifying human expression directed towards a well-defined, homogenous group that has the ability to reciprocate in kind. Here, we seek to please ourselves while those people who are in need of our love in the form of human kindness and beneficence continue to go without our intervention.

It is easy to love people who reciprocate our benevolence and to avoid people who reject us. Relationships fail when we choose not to express the love that covers a multitude of offenses. Conflicts arise when we do not consider how the other person’s needs, wants and aspirations are just as important as our own.

The miracle of true love enables Christians to express genuine, meaningful affection towards other people—without regard to race, culture or class—so that even our enemies can benefit as the Lord teaches in Matthew 5:43-48:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Although difficult, we Christians can find the ability to express His love as we yield to His Spirit, who instinctively responds to others through us in ways that serve their best interests. His Spirit inside of us loves through us without selfish motives or thoughts of recognition or repayment.

When we express this Christ-centered, Spirit-driven love, we live rightly in the eyes of God and humanity. In God’s eyes, we are His children and fully capable of experiencing and emulating His glory. In the eyes of humanity, we are a brilliant reflection of God’s practical and tangible love, which emphatically proves that we belong to His Son, Jesus Christ.

True love enables us to extend mercy and forgiveness to the vile and unforgivable. We emulate God’s perfect love when we forgive others for intentional wrongdoings, show mercy instead of judgment even when we are wronged, and extend good will towards others especially when it is not expedient or it opposes conventional wisdom and/or public opinion to the contrary.

True love gives substance to our Christian witness and makes it more than mere rhetoric. We should never think that it is strange to experience and express a rare, pure, divine, and practical true love, because our Lord practiced it, and He is faithful to complete His perfect work in us and through us.

For February 3, 2019
The level of crowd noise increased to a deafening roar as the frustration level of the angry mob heightened with every passing moment. They were infuriated by the audacity of a relatively young man—not quite 30 year old—claiming Abraham rejoiced to see Him.

They shouted at the Lord Jesus Christ: “You are not even fifty years old!” As they wondered how He could claim to have seen a person who lived about 2000 years before His birth.

Then the Lord stared intently into the faces of His critics, and without even batting an eye, He declares:

 

“I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!”    John 8:58 (NLT)

Stunned, offended, and outraged, the crowd collected stones to hurl at the young blasphemer who claimed to be God in light of the Old Testament Scriptures that declare Yahweh (or Jehovah) is God alone. Three familiar passages are:

• God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” Exodus 3:14 (NLT)
• Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV)
• This is what the Lord says—Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies: “I am the First and the Last; there is no other God.” Isaiah 44:6 (NLT)

Jesus did not deceive His critics then…or us today. He was in fact 100 percent God in human flesh as He demonstrated an imposing mastery over His creation by walking on the turbulent sea; later calming it, turning water into wine, feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, raising the dead, and then by being raised from the dead Himself.

In addition, He ascended into Heaven, where He now intercedes for us. Moreover, He sent His Spirit to inhabit and comfort us while we await the fulfillment of His imminent return. Then He will establish His glorious, eternal Kingdom with us as His grateful subjects.

Jesus being God in human flesh is one of the greatest mysteries ever, because as such, He lived a perfectly balanced life of moral and spiritual excellence. And as the perfect human being, He chose not to yield to the lusts of the flesh or to selfish motives when He was tempted.

Instead, He humbled Himself so that He could satisfy all the requirements of the Old Testament Law on our behalf lovingly, willingly, and completely as Philippians 2:5-11 (NLT) teaches:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Today we can have the forgiveness of sin because a sinless Jesus Christ paid for them with His precious blood at Calvary. Now, we can confidently approach Him by faith with broken and contrite hearts, ask for His forgiveness, and experience a complete spiritual transformation that restores our fellowship with God and leads to an abundant, eternal life.

Let us take comfort in knowing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.