Acts 20:16-24

The apostle Paul was consumed by a passion that was even greater than his desire for life or the dread of suffering. He had a ministry to fulfill and a message of salvation to deliver. His words in Acts 20:24 help us understand the foundational concept involved in our salvation. Paul called it “the gospel of the grace of God.”

We’re saved simply because the Lord is gracious. He knew we could never be good enough to bridge the gap between our sin and His holiness. That’s why you will never hear of “the gospel of the Law of God.” That would not be good news at all! Can you imagine singing, “Amazing law, how fearful the sound, that saved a wretch like me”? We could never fulfill the requirements, especially the way Jesus enlarged the meaning of the law in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). But grace–that’s totally different. It has nothing to do with our worthiness or good performance, but is solely based on God’s unmerited favor towards us.

What’s most amazing is that the avenue for our salvation is through faith alone. The grace that God extends in saving us is His gift, and not anything we can add to by our works (Eph. 2:8-9). Otherwise, we’d have to clean up our lives in order to be saved, and that would nullify grace.

Praise the Lord for His wonderful plan of salvation. Christ paid our sin debt with His death, and all we have to do is believe it. Even after salvation, God’s grace keeps flowing. We never have to worry that we aren’t good enough and will fall out of favor. His grace is forever.

The dictionary defines the word “vacation” as “a period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation.” Though I imagine it happens less often than not, it seems the ideal vacation would come to an end just as the life we left behind begins to seem preferable. Yet even if it is with reluctance that we let go of our last vacation day, most of us can imagine why we must. By definition, a vacation is something that must come to an end. To vacate life as we know it on a permanent basis would be called something different entirely.

Though we know that the days of a vacation are short-lived, we nevertheless enjoy them. Even as they fade away into the calendar, they are remembered (and often nostalgically). That they were few does not hinder their impact. On the contrary, a few days devoted to relaxation are made valuable because of the many that are not.

And we know this to be true of life as well—that it is fleeting, makes it all the more momentous.

As one musician candidly notes, “There are arbitrary lines between bad and good that often don’t make a lot of sense to me. I don’t want to die, obviously, but really, the wonder of life is amplified by the fact that it ends.”(1)

Like withering grass and dwindling summers, fading flowers and vacation days, life cannot escape its end. Like the seasons we live through, generations spring forth and die away. Like the vacations we take, so our days pass away into the calendar. If we refuse to look at any of these endings we live foolishly; if we look only to their ends we miss something about living.

The psalmist saw the importance of seeing our lives as they are and living in this reality. “Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life” (Psalm 39:4). It is a prayer said with an eternal hope even as it is aware of the fleeting nature of time. “But now, Lord, what do I look for?  My hope is in you” (39:7).

To see our lives as they are is to see that we are, as one theologian observed, “a vision of God and a mountain of dust.” It is to embrace a fearful but hopeful thought that gaining one’s life might somehow involve losing it, that endings though sometimes painful are often necessary, and that somehow to die is gain.

When Jesus stood with the disciples staring down the very hour he came to face, he told his friends that his time with them was coming to an end. He told them that his departing would usher in the Great Comforter, that he was leaving to prepare a place for them, and that in his coming and going the world would see that he finished exactly what the Father sent him to do. He reminded them that in the ending of this season was the budding hope of another. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14:3-4). Jesus did not just go and so end his days as a human on earth; he went to prepare a place for an extended time together.

The psalmist writes, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” Into this great mystery we can live our days, knowing that within the giving of a life to God and in the ending of a life given to God is a great and imperishable beginning.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. 

(1) Dave Matthews, Washington Post, August 16, 1998.

Morning   “The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”   Psalm 126:3

Some Christians are sadly prone to look on the dark side of everything, and to

dwell more upon what they have gone through than upon what God has done for

them. Ask for their impression of the Christian life, and they will describe

their continual conflicts, their deep afflictions, their sad adversities, and

the sinfulness of their hearts, yet with scarcely any allusion to the mercy and

help which God has vouchsafed them. But a Christian whose soul is in a healthy

state, will come forward joyously, and say, “I will speak, not about myself, but

to the honour of my God. He hath brought me up out of an horrible pit, and out

of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my

goings: and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. The

Lord hath done great things for me, whereof I am glad.” Such an abstract of

experience as this is the very best that any child of God can present. It is

true that we endure trials, but it is just as true that we are delivered out of

them. It is true that we have our corruptions, and mournfully do we know this,

but it is quite as true that we have an all-sufficient Saviour, who overcomes

these corruptions, and delivers us from their dominion. In looking back, it

would be wrong to deny that we have been in the Slough of Despond, and have

crept along the Valley of Humiliation, but it would be equally wicked to

forget that we have been through them safely and profitably; we have not

remained in them, thanks to our Almighty Helper and Leader, who has brought us

“out into a wealthy place.” The deeper our troubles, the louder our thanks to

God, who has led us through all, and preserved us until now. Our griefs cannot

mar the melody of our praise, we reckon them to be the bass part of our life’s

song, “He hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.”

 

Evening   “Search the Scriptures.”   John 5:39

The Greek word here rendered search signifies a strict, close, diligent, curious

search, such as men make when they are seeking gold, or hunters when they are in

earnest after game. We must not rest content with having given a superficial

reading to a chapter or two, but with the candle of the Spirit we must

deliberately seek out the hidden meaning of the word. Holy Scripture requires

searching–much of it can only be learned by careful study. There is milk for

babes, but also meat for strong men. The rabbis wisely say that a mountain of

matter hangs upon every word, yea, upon every title of Scripture. Tertullian

exclaims, “I adore the fulness of the Scriptures.” No man who merely skims the

book of God can profit thereby; we must dig and mine until we obtain the hid

treasure. The door of the word only opens to the key of diligence. The

Scriptures claim searching. They are the writings of God, bearing the divine

stamp and imprimatur–who shall dare to treat them with levity? He who despises

them despises the God who wrote them. God forbid that any of us should leave our

Bibles to become swift witnesses against us in the great day of account. The

word of God will repay searching. God does not bid us sift a mountain of chaff

with here and there a grain of wheat in it, but the Bible is winnowed corn–we

have but to open the granary door and find it. Scripture grows upon the

student. It is full of surprises. Under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to the

searching eye it glows with splendour of revelation, like a vast temple paved

with wrought gold, and roofed with rubies, emeralds, and all manner of gems. No

merchandise is like the merchandise of Scripture truth. Lastly, the Scriptures

reveal Jesus: “They are they which testify of me.” No more powerful motive can

be urged upon Bible readers than this: he who finds Jesus finds life, heaven,

all things. Happy he who, searching his Bible, discovers his Saviour.

 

. . . Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.   Numbers 11:23

God had made a positive promise to Moses that for the space of a whole month He would feed the vast company in the wilderness with meat. Moses is then overtaken by a fit of unbelief, looks to the outward means, and is at a loss to know how the promise can be fulfilled. He looked to the creature instead of the Creator. But does the Creator expect the creature to fulfill His promise for Him? No; He who makes the promise always fulfills it by His own unaided omnipotence. If He speaks, it is done—done by Himself. His promises do not depend for their fulfillment upon the cooperation of the puny strength of man. We can immediately see the mistake that Moses made. And yet how routinely we do the same!

God has promised to supply our needs, and we look to the creature to do what God has promised to do; and then, because we perceive the creature to be weak and feeble, we indulge in unbelief. Why do we look in that direction at all? Will you look to the North Pole to gather fruits ripened in the sun? You would be acting no more foolishly in doing this than when you look to the weak for strength, and to the creature to do the Creator’s work. Let us, then, put the question on the right footing. The ground of faith is not the sufficiency of the visible means for the performance of the promise, but the all-sufficiency of the invisible God, who will definitely do what He has said.

If after clearly seeing that the onus lies with the Lord and not with the creature we dare to indulge in mistrust, the question of God comes home forcefully to us: “Is the LORD’s hand shortened?” May it also be that in His mercy the question will be accompanied by this blessed declaration: “Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.”

Family Reading Plan       Isaiah 40       Revelation 10