Daily Archives: August 19, 2016

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Defeating False Teachers

Leave a comment

2 Peter 2:1-3

Outside a grocery store one evening, I watched two young men confronting shoppers with an erroneous statement about scriptural teaching. Anyone who seemed vague about the Christian faith was invited to learn “what God really said” at a Bible study. I was not invited. In fact, the men abandoned me quickly when I used Scripture to defend my beliefs.

False teachers want to create uncertainty in their listeners. In order to gain followers, these deceivers claim to possess knowledge that their audience lacks. The people who accept this misleading information as absolute truth will usually return to the false teacher for more. Having followers, in turn, strokes the misguided leader’s ego and provides “proof” that he’s right.

Those who have a sound doctrine won’t be led astray. That’s why it is so important for our faith to rest on biblical truth—for example, the fact that Jesus Christ died for the sins of mankind, the Holy Spirit dwells in believers, and Christians will one day be resurrected bodily. Defeating false teachers takes more than “my pastor says … ” When confronted, we must defend our faith with Scripture that we ourselves have studied. By regularly reading and applying God’s Word, we will be better prepared to defend our beliefs when presented with untruth.

Building a sound doctrine protects believers from misleading messages and arms them to defend the faith. Do not be caught unprepared. If you haven’t already started, begin to study the Bible today. Should you need help, ask your pastor or a godly mentor for guidance.

Bible in One Year: Jeremiah 33-36

 

http://www.intouch.org/

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Comparison Obsession

Leave a comment

Read: Matthew 20:1–16 | Bible in a Year: Psalms 103–104; 1 Corinthians 2

Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? Matthew 20:15

Thomas J. DeLong, a professor at Harvard Business School, has noted a disturbing trend among his students and colleagues—a  “comparison obsession.” He writes:  “More so than ever before, . . . business executives, Wall Street analysts, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals are obsessed with comparing their own achievements against those of others. . . . This is bad for individuals and bad for companies. When you define success based on external rather than internal criteria, you diminish your satisfaction and commitment.”

Comparison obsession isn’t new. The Scriptures warn us of the dangers of comparing ourselves to others. When we do so, we become proud and look down on them (Luke 18:9–14). Or we become jealous and want to be like them or have what they have (James 4:1). We fail to focus on what God has given us to do. Jesus intimated that comparison obsession comes from believing that God is unfair and that He doesn’t have a right to be more generous to others than He is to us (Matt. 20:1–16).

By God’s grace, we can overcome comparing ourselves with others.

By God’s grace we can learn to overcome comparison obsession by focusing on the life God has given to us. As we take moments to thank God for everyday blessings, we change our thinking and begin to believe deep down that God is good.

I need a better focus, Lord. Help me to keep my eyes off others and instead on You and Your good heart for all of us.

God expresses His goodness to His children in His own way.

INSIGHT:

Jesus taught the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1–16) to show His disciples the generous heart of God. God is not unjust. He has no favorites and treats every Christian generously and equally (vv. 13–15). Paul later taught this same truth: “There is no favoritism with [God]” (Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25). This extends to believers and the way we view others (1 Tim. 5:21).

 

http://www.odb.org

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Collective Memory

Leave a comment

Aldous Huxley likened a person’s memory to one’s own collection of private literature. Housed within the confines of memory are countless pages of our own stories, perspectives, and thoughts—vast libraries uniquely existing within our own heads. It is this personal nature of memory that no doubt feeds our dismay when minds begin to slip. Forgetfulness is a fearful quality particularly because it is a quality that seems to erase part of the very person it describes.

The implications of memory are made known in the earliest pages of God’s story as told in scripture. But added to the cultural adage of Aldous Huxley is the idea that this ‘private literature’ can be edited. In other words, what we choose to remember affects who we are. And at that, our private literature is not entirely private; there is a communal aspect to memory as well. Surely we see this played out within the grumblings of the rescued Israelites. From the wilderness, the writer of Numbers reports:

“Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, ‘Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.’”(1)

Recollection, like resentment, is often contagious. In this moment of hunger, Israel together remembered Egypt as a place of produce instead of prison, and together they declared their longing to return to the very place from which they had been rescued. Together they wept; together they remembered; and together they remained lost in the wilderness. What we choose to remember indeed affects who we are—individually, collectively, boldly.

The great creeds of Christianity aim themselves at a similar principle. The Church confesses what we need to remember, what we long to remember. We confess the promises of God; we confess who God is; we confess who we are. The word “creed” comes from the Latin credo, meaning “I believe.” Confessed in unison, we follow the command of God to remember collectively: “These truths I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”(2)

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Collective Memory →

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Strength for Today – Dare to Be a Daniel

Leave a comment

“‘Thine is the dominion, O Lord, and Thou dost exalt Thyself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from Thee, and Thou dost rule over all’” (1 Chronicles 29:11-12).

Trust God, who controls everyone and everything.

In Daniel 6, King Darius chose 120 princes to help him govern his kingdom. Over the princes he appointed three presidents, with Daniel being the first president. The princes and other two presidents were jealous of Daniel, so they devised a scheme against him. They told the king that he should make a law requiring every person to make his requests only to the king for the next thirty days. They said, “Anyone who makes a petition to any god or man besides you . . . shall be cast into the lions’ den” (v. 7). The king approved the idea and signed it into law. The princes and two presidents were glad because they knew Daniel prayed daily to his God (cf. v. 10).

As soon as Daniel’s opponents found him praying, they reported the matter to the king. Although Darius did not want harm to come to Daniel, the king could not reverse his law. As a result, Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den. When the king went to the den early the next morning, Daniel said to Darius, “My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me” (v. 22). “So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he had trusted in his God” (v. 23). Daniel trusted God because he knew that He was in control of everything.

Since God both owns and controls everyone and everything, don’t put your hope in riches or fear for your needs. God will take care of you. In his book Trusting God, Jerry Bridges wrote, “God . . . so directs and controls all events and all actions of His creatures that they never act outside of His sovereign will. We must believe this and cling to this . . . if we are to glorify God by trusting Him.” Dare to be a Daniel: trust God, who controls all and promises to care for you.

Suggestions for Prayer

Thank the Lord for being in sovereign control of your life.

For Further Study

What does Lamentations 3:37-38 say about God’s control?

 

http://www.gty.org

Wisdom Hunters

Wisdom Hunters – How to Bless Your Children

Leave a comment

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. Matthew 11:1

Leaders who take the time to explain the “why” behind the “what” to do—expand the team’s capacity. Anybody can dictate what to do, but the wise are patient to instill why you do what you do. This applies to all platforms of leadership: to parents, to preachers, to politicians and to policemen. If a leader only intimidates the staff for short term results—they sacrifice the opportunity to train individuals for long term effectiveness and retention. Why should anyone do what they do? The greatest motivation is to serve for the overall mission of the organization.

Though God in the flesh—Jesus took the time to flesh out the disciples’ faith by instructing them in why to live for Him and serve with Him. Before the Lord went to teach and preach to other people—He invested in training the twelve to understand why they do what they do. Christ’s followers would eventually comprehend they could only do what He taught by surrendering to His Spirit working in and through them. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount only frustrates us if we seek to serve in our own strength, but when empowered and instructed by the Holy Spirit, we are able.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, NKJV).

Continue reading Wisdom Hunters – How to Bless Your Children →

Turning Point

Today’s Turning Point with David Jeremiah – Unreasonable People

Leave a comment

Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Titus 2:14, KJV

Recommended Reading

Titus 2:11-15

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world,” wrote George Bernard Shaw. “The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”1

Christians are, in a sense, unreasonable people. We are nonconformists and counter culturists. We don’t love the world or the things in the world. We’re citizens of another kingdom, and we don’t adapt well to this one. We do our best to get along, to love our neighbor, to do all the good we can, and to be wise and winsome. But the older translations called us “peculiar.”

Exodus 19:5 says if we obey His voice and keep His covenant, we’ll be His “peculiar treasure.” Deuteronomy 14:2 says God has chosen us to be a “peculiar people unto himself.” First Peter 2:9 says we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.”2 The essence of who we are matters, for we belong to Almighty God and we’re His peculiar treasure.

Our business today is to be New Testament Christians, proclaim New Testament Christianity, and build New Testament churches. That seems simple enough … but just try it in dead-earnest and see what happens!

Vance Havner

1George Bernard Shaw, Men and Superman (Cambridge, MA: The University Press, 1903), 124.

2References quoted from the King James Version.

Read-Thru-the-Bible

Jeremiah 49

http://www.davidjeremiah.org/

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Complete Your Work

Leave a comment

Jesus said to them, My food (nourishment) is to do the will (pleasure) of Him Who sent Me and to accomplish and completely finish His work.- John 4:34

I believe the Lord wants us to finish whatever He calls us to do, even when it requires patience, preservation and hard work. God wants us to grow roots and learn to endure until the fruit of His promise is manifested.

Be willing to endure patiently to see God’s plan take place in your life. If God has given you a vision of something He wants you to accomplish, keep doing whatever He has given you to do, even when the excitement for the work is over, and all the goose bumps are gone. If you don’t have a vision, ask God to show you something that you need to do, and then commit your work to the Lord until it is completed.

From the book Starting Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Girlfriends in God

Girlfriends in God – About That Whole Control Thing

Leave a comment

Today’s Truth

Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.

Psalm 86:11

Friend to Friend

I had been out of town at an event. Gone just one night. While I was away, my then eight-year-old daughter, Kennedy, had spent the night at her girlfriend Catherine’s house. I came home to a groundswell of enthusiasm.

“Mom! We have to go to Walmart to buy sponge rollers! They are incredible! Last night, before we went to bed, Mrs. Robertson rolled our hair in sponge rollers and when we woke up this morning our hair was CURLY! Can you believe it? My hair was curly! We just have to get some!” my flaxen-haired buttercup exclaimed.

My daughter is many wonderful things, but patient is not one of them. So, the very next day we went to Walmart and got us some. Fast forward to that evening. I gave her a few basic sponge roller instructions: “After your shower, blow dry your hair to be mostly-dry. Leave it just an itty bit damp and then I will come up to roll it. And in the morning your hair will be bouncy and curly for school!”

“No, Mom! I know how to do it. I watched Mrs. Robertson last night. I don’t need help.”

Right.

Continue reading Girlfriends in God – About That Whole Control Thing →

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Guardian Angels 

Leave a comment

“For the angel of the Lord guards and rescues all who reverence Him” (Psalm 34:7).

For many years my travels have taken me from continent to continent, to scores of countries each year. I have traveled under all kinds of circumstances, not a few times faced with danger. But always there was peace in my heart that the Lord was with me and I was surrounded by His guardian angels to protect me.

In Pakistan, during a time of great political upheaval, I had finished a series of meetings in Lahore and was taken to the train station. Though I was unaware of what was happening, an angry crowd of thousands was marching on the station to destroy it with cocktail bombs.

The director of the railway line rushed us onto the train, put us in our compartments and told us not to open our doors under any circumstances – unless we knew that the one knocking was a friend. The train ride to Karachi would require more than 24 hours, which was just the time I needed to finish rewriting my book Come Help Change the World.

So I put on my pajamas, got in my berth and began to read and write. It was not until we arrived in Karachi some 28 hours later that I discovered how guardian angels had watched over us and protected us. The train in front of us had been burned when rioting students had lain on the track and refused to move. So the train ran over them and killed them. In retaliation, the mob burned the train and killed the officials.

Now we were the next train and they were prepared to do the same for us. But God miraculously went before us and there were no mishaps. We arrived in Karachi to discover that martial law had been declared and all was peaceful. A Red Cross van took us to the hotel and there God continued to protect us. When the violence subsided we were able to catch a plane out of Karachi for Europe.

Bible Reading: Isaiah 63:7-9

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Today I will make a special point of expressing my gratitude to God for assigning guardian angels to watch over me, protect and help me in my time of trouble. I will not take for granted the protection that many times in the past I have overlooked, not recognizing God’s miraculous, divine intervention, enabling me to live a supernatural life.

 

http://www.cru.org

Ray Stedman

Ray Stedman – In His hands

Leave a comment

Read: Jeremiah 26:1-24

Then Jeremiah said to all the officials and all the people: The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the things you have heard. Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the Lord your God. Then the Lord will relent and not bring the disaster he has pronounced against you. As for me, I am in your hands; do with me whatever you think is good and right. Be assured, however, that if you put me to death, you will bring the guilt of innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on those who live in it, for in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your hearing. Jeremiah 26:12-15

This is an official gathering, a trial being held. Jeremiah has been impeached by the people. And the religious authorities of the nation, the priests and the prophets, are behind this. They have laid a serious charge, a charge of treason, against the prophet. These people felt that because the temple was God’s house, God would defend that temple no matter what happened within it. They thought the temple was inviolate, and that the city was protected, because it was the city of God. They were saying, It can’t happen here! But Jeremiah said it would happen. So they laid against him a charge of blasphemy and treason against the temple of God and the city of God.

Notice in Jeremiah’s response that there is not the slightest deviation on his part. This would have been the time, if he were so inclined, to have said to these people, Now just a minute. I want to make one thing perfectly clear! I have indeed prophesied, but I didn’t mean to have it taken as seriously as you are doing. I’m sure that if you’ll let me off, I can intercede before God for you, and perhaps he’ll change his mind. But he does not say that. He does not alter his word one bit: Amend your ways and your doings, and the Lord will repent of the evil which he has pronounced against you.

Continue reading Ray Stedman – In His hands →

Words of Hope

Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Solomon’s Wisdom

Leave a comment

Read: 1 Kings 4:29-34

He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. (v. 33).

The rainforest was abuzz with birds. This early morning some friends and I were bird watching in a rainforest in Belize. I, the novice birder, was just barely finding one bird in my binoculars, while my friend Joe was already identifying three others. I was amazed and humbled and inspired to learn more.

Solomon is known for many things: his wealth, his wives, his wisdom. What often gets overlooked is his reported acumen as a naturalist. In this text we are told that Solomon spoke of birds and animals and reptiles and fish. And he spoke of trees, such as the cedar of Lebanon and the hyssop.

One hundred feet tall and nine feet wide, with a broad crown and horizontal branches like a white pine, a mature cedar of Lebanon could live to be more than 1,000 years old. A mighty, beautiful, long-living tree, the cedar of Lebanon was the giant sequoia of ancient Israel. It took your breath away. It was the Tree of trees.

The hyssop, by contrast, was a shrub, one to two feet high, with slender branches and small white flowers. Strongly aromatic, smelling like mint, hyssop branches were cut and used as brushes to sprinkle blood for the Passover sacrifice. Small and seemingly insignificant, the hyssop had an important place in Jewish religious practice.

Trees of grandeur and humility. God made them all.

Prayer:

God of wisdom, help us to learn about, and from, your trees.

Author: Steven Bouma-Prediger

 

https://woh.org/

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – A Man of Sorrows

Leave a comment

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. —Isaiah 53:3

I was watching a movie with my wife the other day. It was funny, but then it got sad in the end. I was kind of choking up and holding it back because I didn’t want to cry watching a movie. That is the nature of men in general. We hold it back.

Sometimes it is even thought that it isn’t manly to cry. But I have a two-word answer to that: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). There was never a more manly man than Jesus of Nazareth. He truly was the man’s man.

Even Pontius Pilate, after Christ had been scourged, said of Him, “Behold the Man!” (John 19:5). Look at what Jesus went through—the whipping, the scourging, the beating. Still, He carried that four-hundred-pound cross through the streets of Jerusalem after that loss of blood, after that trauma. He fell beneath the weight of it, and He got up again. That was a man like no other.

Yes, Jesus is God, but Jesus wept. He felt Mary and Martha’s pain when Lazarus died, and He feels our pain, too. If it touches us, it touches Him. The Bible says, “[God] hears the cry of the afflicted” (Job 34:28). David wrote, “He does not forget the cry of the humble” (Psalm 9:12), and “the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry” (Psalm 34:15).

When God sees us cry, He cares. Jesus has walked in our shoes. Isaiah 53:3 says that He is “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It was our weaknesses He carried. It was our sorrows that weighed Him down. He felt our sorrow. He cares about our sorrow. And if it concerns you, it concerns Him.

Jesus weeps with us in our time of pain.

 

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Kids 4 Truth

Kids 4 Truth International – God Cares for His People

Leave a comment

“Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” (1 Peter 5:5-6)

After weeks of preparing, Luke and his twin sister, Jill, were finally spending the night in their treehouse. Dad had helped Luke put some finishing touches on the treehouse – like sanding out the splinters. Mom and Jill had made hot chocolate and poured some into a tall thermos for Luke, and some more into a tall thermos for Jill. Luke and Jill had dragged their sleeping bags and pillows up the ladder and spread them out on the plywood floor. For a nightlight, they captured lightning bugs and put them into a large glass jar with tiny airholes poked in the lid.

It was a beautiful night for stargazing, and the crickets were chirping happily. Jill had brought extra blankets and sweatshirts, in case it cooled down during the night. Setting the jar in the center of the treehouse, they nestled down into their sleeping bags and whispered and laughed and stared up at the stars until they finally began to feel sleepy.

Suddenly – creak!

Luke sat straight up in his sleeping bag. He had been dozing off, but he knew he had heard a noise. Creak. There it was again! Crackle, swish, creak.

Someone was climbing up the ladder! And whoever it was had to be heavier than a squirrel or a raccoon or a possum. By this time, Jill was awake and sitting up, too. Luke could see from the glow of the lightning bugs that she was as scared as he was. Clunk. Creak!

Continue reading Kids 4 Truth International – God Cares for His People →

The Navigators

The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Grace That Works Harder

Leave a comment

Today’s Scripture: 2 Corinthians 3:5

“Our sufficiency is from God.”

If you feel incompetent in God’s service you are in good company. Paul felt that way also: “not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5).

If there’s anyone in the history of the church who could have relied on his own God-given endowments, surely it would have been Paul. He was a brilliant theologian, a gifted evangelist, a tireless church planter, and a sound missionary strategist. He was also adept at cross-cultural ministry—”To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law” (1 Corinthians 9:20-21). Yet Paul, with all his abilities, acknowledged that we aren’t competent in ourselves.

We are not competent, but God makes us competent. That’s what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.” God’s grace in its concrete expression of divine power was effective in Paul—so effective that Paul could say he worked harder than all the other apostles. At first glance, that statement seems to put Paul in a position of unconscionable boasting, and I used to be troubled by it. It seemed quite out of character with Paul’s obviously genuine humility. But I’ve come to realize Paul wasn’t boasting. He was exalting the grace of God. He was saying that God’s grace at work in him was so effective it caused him to work harder than all of them. The grace of God motivated him, enabled him, and then blessed the fruits of his labors. (Excerpt taken from Transforming Grace)

 

https://www.navigators.org/Home

The Navigators

The Navigators – Leroy Eims – Daily Discipleship Devotional – Great Deliverance

Leave a comment

Today’s Scripture: Romans 6:13-14

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. – Psalm 107:6

During the height of the Vietnam War, a young man named Larry Bleeker spent an evening in our home in Colorado Springs. He was on his way to Travis Air Force Base the next day. He’d stopped in the Springs to talk to me about what he should do after the war was over and he was discharged from the Marines.

I had known Larry for a number of years. He’d been involved in the ministry of The Navigators at Iowa State University and had become an outstanding young man of God. I asked him what he would like to do when he got out of the service. He told me he would like to spend more time with me and get some further training in the Christian life.

I assured him I would look forward to that, and he left for Travis the next morning and off to Vietnam. Very soon I received a letter from him lamenting the ungodly surroundings in which he was living. He looked forward to being in our home where he could draw closer to Jesus and enjoy a godly atmosphere.

He had already experienced God’s salvation from the penalty of sin and deliverance from the power of sin, but he longed to be delivered from the presence of sin. The next news I received was that he had been killed in action, and I knew he was now delivered from the very presence of sin itself.

Christian, you have been delivered from the penalty of sin, and you look forward to deliverance from the presence of sin, in heaven. But are you experiencing God’s deliverance from the power of sin right now?

Prayer

Lord, thank You for Your great salvation that delivers me from the penalty and power of sin in this life and from the presence of sin in eternity. Amen.

To Ponder

“For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).

 

https://www.navigators.org/Home

BreakPoint

BreakPoint –  Dropping Fertility Rates: Is America in Trouble?

Leave a comment

We’ve talked before on BreakPoint about the fertility crisis facing China, Japan, and much of Europe—all of which face what has been called a “demographic winter.”

Until recently, the United States has been an exception to this distressing trend, but this seems no longer the case.

To understand why, here’s a primer. Demographers use two numbers to measure fertility rates: the average number of children a woman gives birth to during her lifetime—that’s called the “total fertility rate”—and the number of births per 1,000 women, often referred to as the “birth rate.”

If the “total fertility rate” drops below 2.1 children per woman, a country’s population will shrink unless there are compensating levels of immigration.

And that’s what’s been happening in the U.S. since at least 2008. Our total fertility rate has dropped below replacement levels, but has been masked by high levels of immigration in two distinct, but related, ways.

First, immigrants replaced children that native-born Americans weren’t having. Second, immigrant women had higher than replacement-level fertility rates, which, as Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard pointed out in his book, “What to Expect When No One is Expecting,” made our total fertility rate significantly higher than it would have otherwise been.

The boost from immigration, however, appears to have ended. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, our total fertility rate mirrors Sweden’s, Norway’s, and the United Kingdom’s, and is even lower than France’s.

And a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control suggests it may drop more. According to the report, the U.S. birth rate has dropped to an all-time low of 59.6 births per 1,000 women.

Continue reading BreakPoint –  Dropping Fertility Rates: Is America in Trouble? →

Moody Global Ministries

Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word – THE TRINITY AND TRUTH

Leave a comment

Read JOHN 16:12–15

According to theologian Peter J. Leithart, the term perichoresis, which means “mutual indwelling,” is used to describe the interrelationships and the inner life of the Trinity; that is, the love and unity that characterize the Three-in-One. He also suggests that since “created things were intended to communicate something about God . . . we might discover perichoretic fingerprints—traces of the Trinity— throughout the creation.”

Another theological term for this is circumincession, defined as “the reciprocal existence in one another of the three Persons of the Trinity.” Though impossible for us to understand completely, this doctrinal term helps us to grasp the point of today’s reading. Jesus said that when the Spirit comes, His words would not be His alone but also the words of the Father and the Son (v. 13). This again confirms the essential unity and mutual indwelling of the Three-in-One. They have one will and speak with one voice.

Specifically, the Spirit receives from the Son what He will make known to the disciples and to us (v. 14). In doing so, He glorifies the Son, which is exactly in line with the rest of His ministry. Furthermore, the Father has made all that belongs to Him the Son’s as well. Since He is the sovereign Lord, everything does belong to Him, including words (v. 15). Therefore, the words of truth from the Spirit ultimately come from the Father and the Son as well. This is why the church’s ministries of preaching and teaching the Word can be effective only by the Spirit.

As quickly as we have differentiated the three Persons of the Trinity and their respective roles in the work of salvation, just as quickly must we reaffirm their essential unity and shared divine attributes. “Who is like you, LORD God Almighty?” (Ps. 89:8). No one!

APPLY THE WORD

To help our finite minds better understand the Trinity, theologians create terminology, artists paint masterpieces, and poets craft sonnets. One powerful example is “Sonnet XIV” from the Holy Sonnets by John Donne, which begins, “Batter my heart, three-person’d God; for you / As yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend.”

 

http://www.todayintheword.org

Denison Forum

Denison Forum – USOC APOLOGIZES FOR RYAN LOCHTE’S FALSE CLAIMS

Leave a comment

Two American Olympic swimmers are on their way home this morning from Rio de Janeiro. The lawyer for a third US swimmer says he will make a $10,800 payment and leave Brazil later in the day. Authorities have determined that Ryan Lochte and the group were not robbed as he had claimed. The US Olympic Committee apologized last night for this “distracting ordeal.”

This is not the only distraction marring the Games. A member of the British team says he was robbed at gunpoint earlier this week. Before the Olympics began, a New Zealand athlete says he was kidnapped by Brazilian police and forced to withdraw $800 from his bank account.

Some 450,000 condoms were allocated for the 10,000 Olympic athletes, more than three times as many as for the 2012 London Games. It seems that Olympic officials expected the athletes to have an average of forty-five sexual encounters during the sixteen days of the Games, or three per day.

In the midst of such bad news, Abbey D’Agostino continues to share good news. The best news, in fact.

D’Agostino made global headlines this week when she fell over New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin, then helped her finish their 5,000-meter race. It turns out her fall will cost her the chance to run in today’s final. She tore a ligament and the meniscus in her right knee and strained another ligament as well.

How did she have the fortitude to get up and help Hamblin get up so they could finish the race together? She told USA Track & Field, “Although my actions were instinctual at that moment, the only way I can and have rationalized it is that God prepared my heart to respond that way. This whole time here he’s made clear to me that my experience in Rio was going to be about more than my race performance—and as soon as Nikki got up I knew that was it.”

Her testimony is all the more remarkable since she shared it on a secular media platform. She is a terrific example of what James Davison Hunter calls “manifesting faithful presence.” Be salt and light where you are, as you are, and the Holy Spirit will use your influence for Kingdom good.

An overlooked teaching of Scripture is that God’s people will reign with him in eternity. Jesus promised, “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Revelation 3:21; see 5:10; 20:6). In his classic work, Biblical Basis of Missions, Avery Willis comments: “If we are to reign with Christ in the coming kingdom, we must serve during its rise to power.” Then he suggests: “Make a list of the things that you feel you should be doing during the remaining time God has allotted you on earth.”

What is on your list?

 

Denison Forum