Ephesians 2:8-9

Recently I was talking with a fellow about his spiritual life. When I asked, “Are you saved?” he answered, “No, but I’m working at it.” When I pressed him, he explained that he was making some changes in his life. He had given up smoking and drinking, among other things. I knew that I should help him understand a few important principles, as his only guarantee so far was better health.

What this gentleman needed to realize was that what we do or what we give up for Jesus doesn’t amount to much. The Lord isn’t looking for people who change a few habits by sheer force of will; He’s calling people to surrender themselves to Him. The only action God expects of a “seeker” is to believe in Jesus–that He is who He says, He will do what He says, He has the authority to forgive, and He will equip His people to live a godly life. Because of those convictions, a new Christian is empowered to turn away from his old life–in other words, to repent–and begin the process of becoming “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

We don’t evolve into a saved people by deleting old habits and instituting better religious ones; we are transformed by the saving power of Jesus Christ when we believe in Him.

Since salvation isn’t something we earn, no one can boast before God. All of our moral living, good deeds, and strenuous efforts to change bad habits amount to a pile of trash compared to the holiness of Jesus Christ (Isa. 64:6). Only His righteousness can cover our sins and make us right before the Fathe

History has a way of provoking life’s most basic questions, sometimes with deadly force. Standing beside ruins and devastation, newscasters daily relay horrors. As harsh realities take hold, the irrepressible “why?” often surfaces in the mind of the beholder. Occasionally, even international conscience is so aroused as to ask “why?”

Yet in reality, the question of “why?” in a violent act, as painful as such a mindless atrocity can be, is nevertheless meaningless to raise unless we also ask the question of life itself—why are we here? But alas! that question is dismissed as no longer relevant in an academically sophisticated culture. Is this not, then, a self-destructive contradiction for one who debunks the notion of objective morality? Those who reduce the world to merely the physical cheat when they stray into the metaphysical.

In stark distinction, it is here once again that God beckons with his pleas to a morally deaf world. Granted, the questions raised come from two groups. The deep and private pain of those for whom the loss is personal and devastating cannot be simplistically addressed. For them there is one who speaks from a cross. But there is another side to this query, and that is in understanding how and why hatred and murder can be conceived and nurtured in the human heart in the first place.

Interestingly enough, the very first murder in the Bible did not occur because of two irreconcilable political theories. The murder of a man by his own brother was an act unmistakably borne out of their differing responses to God. Trapped by the temporal, Cain was deluded by the belief that he could vanquish spiritual reality with brute force. God saw the inevitable result of the jealousy and hatred deep within Cain’s heart, and in a challenge that would determine his destiny, warned him to deal with it. “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7).

There are only two options: either come to God on his terms and find our perfect peace in his acceptance of us, or play God with self-defining morality and kill—becoming as a result restless wanderers, ever running from the voice of our brothers’ blood that cries out from the ground. At its core life is sacred and of inestimable value, whether it is the life of a darling child in the fresh blossom of childhood, or the life of an elderly, weak, and frail recluse. Both have one thing in common: they are made in the image of God. That is why murder is described in Scripture for what it is, an attack upon God’s image—a denial of our spiritual essence. It is that essence which gives us our dignity and our worth. It is that essence which is our glory and true home.

We may try by intellectual duplicity to rearrange the furniture of life and define it only in material terms, but each time we sit back and read of the human experience in Darfur or Virginia, Bosnia or Rwanda, we shift and turn with revulsion, realizing that there is no harmony in the secular “decor,” for the cry within of the sacred cannot be suppressed. That is the reason we scream forth “why?” at the headlines: we cannot silence the still, small voice inside that speaks of the intrinsic sanctity of life, and that it ought not to be violated.

Try as we will, the logical outworking of a denied absolute cannot be escaped. God said it to Cain then and God says it to us now. “If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door, and desires to have you.” Cain became a murderer because he willfully refused to worship the living God and chose, by violence, to enthrone himself. This is an aspect of modern society we have grossly underestimated, and in the process we have robbed ourselves of even common sense. God is not only the Creator who defines us philosophically, but God is also the Provider who meets us existentially in our greatest need and gives us the confidence and comfort that we are beloved and not orphaned in this world.

If we are to ever find an answer to the haunting problem of violence, there will need to be a radical shift in our understanding. We must recognize not only the seen, but also the reality of the unseen, for the latter precedes the former. We would do well to take note that long before headlines hit like explosives in our minds, an even greater implosion takes place in the minds and hearts of those who set the news in motion. Human rule cannot deal with that internal devastation, but God can. That “unseen” war is a spiritual struggle—the choice between turning to God or playing God. For that triumph only God is big enough, and the sooner we realize and acknowledge our need the closer we will be to moving from the symptomatic rearranging of furniture to the cure of coming home.

Ravi Zacharias is founder and chairman of the board of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

Morning    “Behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.”    Matthew 27:51

No mean miracle was wrought in the rending of so strong and thick a veil; but it

was not intended merely as a display of power–many lessons were herein taught

us. The old law of ordinances was put away, and like a worn-out vesture, rent

and laid aside. When Jesus died, the sacrifices were all finished, because all

fulfilled in him, and therefore the place of their presentation was marked with

an evident token of decay. That rent also revealed all the hidden things of the

old dispensation: the mercy-seat could now be seen, and the glory of God gleamed

forth above it. By the death of our Lord Jesus we have a clear revelation of

God, for he was “not as Moses, who put a veil over his face.”

Life and immortality are now brought to light, and things which have been

hidden since the foundation of the world are manifest in him. The annual

ceremony of atonement was thus abolished. The atoning blood which was once every

year sprinkled within the veil, was now offered once for all by the great High

Priest, and therefore the place of the symbolical rite was broken up. No blood

of bullocks or of lambs is needed now, for Jesus has entered within the veil

with his own blood. Hence access to God is now permitted, and is the privilege

of every believer in Christ Jesus. There is no small space laid open through

which we may peer at the mercy-seat, but the rent reaches from the top to the

bottom. We may come with boldness to the throne of the heavenly grace. Shall we

err if we say that the opening of the Holy of Holies in this marvellous manner

by our Lord’s expiring cry was the type of the opening of the gates of paradise

to all the saints by virtue of the Passion? Our bleeding Lord hath the key of

heaven; he openeth and no man shutteth; let us enter in with him into the

heavenly places, and sit with him there till our common enemies shall be made

his footstool.

 

Evening    “The Amen.”     Revelation 3:14

The word Amen solemnly confirms that which went before; and Jesus is the great

Confirmer; immutable, forever is “the Amen” in all his promises. Sinner, I would

comfort thee with this reflection. Jesus Christ said, “Come unto me all ye that

labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” If you come to him, he

will say “Amen” in your soul; his promise shall be true to you. He said in the

days of his flesh, “The bruised reed I will not break.” O thou poor, broken,

bruised heart, if thou comest to him, he will say “Amen” to thee, and that shall

be true in thy soul as in hundreds of cases in bygone years. Christian, is not

this very comforting to thee also, that there is not a word which

has gone out of the Saviour’s lips which he has ever retracted? The words of

Jesus shall stand when heaven and earth shall pass away. If thou gettest a hold

of but half a promise, thou shalt find it true. Beware of him who is called

“Clip-promise,” who will destroy much of the comfort of God’s word.

Jesus is Yea and Amen in all his offices. He was a Priest to pardon and cleanse

once, he is Amen as Priest still. He was a King to rule and reign for his

people, and to defend them with his mighty arm, he is an Amen King, the same

still. He was a Prophet of old, to foretell good things to come, his lips are

most sweet, and drop with honey still–he is an Amen Prophet. He is Amen as to

the merit of his blood; he is Amen as to his righteousness. That sacred robe

shall remain most fair and glorious when nature shall decay. He is Amen in every

single title which he bears; your Husband, never seeking a divorce; your Friend,

sticking closer than a brother; your Shepherd, with you in death’s dark

vale; your Help and your Deliverer; your Castle and your High Tower; the Horn

of your strength, your confidence, your joy, your all in all, and your Yea and

Amen in all.

 

But you said, I will surely do you good.   Genesis 32:12

When Jacob was on the other side of the brook Jabbok, and Esau was coming with armed men, Jacob earnestly sought God’s protection, and the ground of his appeal was this: “But you said, I will surely do you good.” What force is in that plea! He was holding God to His word—”You said.”

The attribute of God’s faithfulness is a splendid horn of the altar to lay hold upon; but the promise, which contains the attribute and something more, is mightier still—”You said, I will surely do you good.” Would He say it and then not do it? “Let God be true though everyone were a liar.”1 Will He not be true? Will He not keep His word? Will not every word that comes out of His lips stand fast and be fulfilled?

Solomon, at the opening of the temple, used this same mighty plea. He pleaded with God to remember the word that He had spoken to his father David and to bless that place.

When a man gives a promissory note, his honor is engaged; he signs his name, and he must honor it when the due time comes or else he loses credit. It shall never be said that God dishonors His bills. The credit of the Most High was never impeached, and never shall be. He is punctual to the second: He is never before His time, but He is never behind it. Search God’s Word through, and compare it with the experience of God’s people, and you will find the two tally from beginning to end. Many an ancient patriarch has said with Joshua, “Not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass.”2

If you have a divine promise, you need not plead it with an “if”; you may urge it with certainty. The Lord meant to fulfill the promise or He would not have given it. God does not give His words merely to keep us quiet and to keep us hopeful for a while with the intention of putting us off in the end; but when He speaks, it is because He means to do as He has said.

1Romans 3:4 2Joshua 23:14

The family reading plan for April 18, 2012

Ecclesiastes 5 | 2 Timothy 1