Today’s Scripture: Matthew 19:26

“With God all things are possible.”

To take Christ’s blessing and reign to the ends of the earth, not only must people go, but we must provide financial support for them or for modern communication means to reach places where people cannot go. Some of us must literally go, and all of us should participate in financial support. But the going is impotent and the financial support is futile if God doesn’t go before us to open the eyes of the blind and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. And God does this as we plead his promises in prayer.

The scope of the Great Commission is vast, and the obstacles to its fulfillment are formidable. But as we pray let us remember the words of Paul: “now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21). God is more than able. The Great Commission will be fulfilled. Will you be a part of it? Will you help others discover the unsearchable riches of Christ that you now enjoy?

Meanwhile, I pray that you continue becoming more aware of those unsearchable riches you possess through your union with Christ. I pray you’ll realize the abundant riches of your inheritance in Christ and will not rest content with the spiritual equivalent of “fifty cents to buy a sack of cornmeal.” And I pray just as fervently that you will be challenged to get on board with God’s great plan to bless all nations, so that the ends of the earth will turn to the Lord.

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Today’s Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:24-25

“God has so composed the body . . . that the members may have the same care for one another.”

Ministering grace is a two-way street. We’re to pray for one another, encourage one another, teach and admonish one another, spur one another on, carry each other’s burdens, share with one another, and so on. Truly the body of Christ should be constantly alive with this reciprocal ministry to one another.

Ministering grace to one another means being an agent available for the Holy Spirit to use to convey his grace to someone else. Allowing others to be ministers of grace to us takes some grace in itself, and we may need to pray, “Lord, help me to be transparent and open to my friend, even though doing so seems humiliating to me right now. And make my friend a minister of your grace to me.”

All of us, if we’re exploiting this avenue of God’s grace, should find ourselves at various times on both the receiving and the giving end. To borrow a principle of reciprocity from Paul’s teaching on giving, “your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need” (2 Corinthians 8:14).

How can we be ministers of grace to others? In the same three basic ways that they can be ministers to us: prayer, the Word of God, and help in submitting to God’s providence. But there’s a crucial difference between receiving and giving. In receiving we must give permission to the other person to share Scripture with us and to help us submit to God’s providence. In giving, we must receive permission. Usually this means we must first earn the right to minister to the person through a relationship of mutual sharing, openness, and trust that we have already established. (Excerpt taken from Transforming Grace)

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Today’s Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:17

“This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

Paul wrote that our sufferings produce perseverance, which in turn produces character (Romans 5:3-4), and James said that the testing of our faith develops perseverance, which leads to maturity (James 1:2-5). Our ultimate hope, though, is not in maturity of character in this life, as valuable as that is, but in the perfection of character in eternity. John wrote, “When he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2, NIV). The often painful process of being transformed into his likeness will be over. We shall be completely conformed to the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul wrote, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18, NIV). I visualize in my mind a pair of old-fashioned balance scales. Paul first puts all our sufferings, heartaches, disappointments—all our adversities of whatever kind from whatever source—onto one side of the balance scales. Then he puts on the other side the glory that will be revealed in us. As we watch, the scales do not balance, but completely bottom out on the side of the glory that will be revealed in us.

This is not to say that our present hardships are not painful. We see from Hebrews 12:11 that they are indeed painful, and we all know this to some degree from experience. But we need to learn to look by faith beyond the present pain to the eternal glory that will be revealed in us.

The God who disciplines us will also glorify us.

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Today’s Scripture: Matthew 6:9-10

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Consider the prayer Jesus taught us in Matthew 6:9-13. It seems evidently intended as an example to be followed. Notice the sequence of the requests. The first three are that his name be hallowed, his kingdom come, and his will be done. There’s a certain degree of overlap here: God’s name will be hallowed as his kingdom comes in the hearts of people; God’s will shall be done as people acknowledge the kingship of Christ in their lives and in their societies. All these requests will be answered through the successful advance of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

In seeking to stimulate us to lift up our eyes to God’s great objective for all nations, I don’t intend to minimize the importance of evangelism and disciple-making at home. What I’m seeking to do is to broaden our spiritual horizon, to get on our hearts what, according to Scripture, is on God’s heart: The Gospel is not just about God and me, or even about God and the people among whom I live and work. The Gospel is about God and the world.

Obviously, there’s more to carrying out the Great Commission than prayer. People must go to the ends of the earth. As I write this chapter, our son, daughter-in-law, and one-year-old grandson are preparing to go to one of the more difficult areas of the world. Is it hard to see them go to a people who are so resistant to the Gospel? Absolutely! But if we’re praying for the penetration of the Gospel among those people, we must be prepared for God to use us or our loved ones to help answer those prayers. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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Today’s Scripture: Hebrews 12:11

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.”

I once knew a person who would recount some of the adversities her family was facing and would then put on a forced smile and say, “But we are victorious.” She apparently thought believers should not admit pain. But the writer of Hebrews was honest. He said the discipline of hardship is painful.

“But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11). This “fruit of righteousness” is essentially equivalent to sharing in his holiness. Discipline, then, is one of the chief means God uses to make us holy.

The discipline of hardship also produces peace for those who have been trained by it. This, wrote Philip Hughes, “bespeaks the rest and relaxation enjoyed by the victorious contestant once the conflict is over.” Hughes was speaking of the rest that comes to the believer when we go to be with the Lord. But there’s also a peace to be enjoyed in this life for those who have learned to endure adversity as the evidence of God’s fatherly hand upon them to make them more holy.

F.F. Bruce captured this thought well when he wrote, “The person who accepts discipline at the hand of God as something designed by his heavenly Father for his good will cease to feel resentful and rebellious; he has ‘calmed and quieted’ his soul [Psalm 131:2], which thus provides fertile soil for the cultivation of a righteous life, responsive to the will of God.”

The road to holiness is paved with adversity. If we want to be holy, we must expect the discipline of God through the heartaches and disappointments he brings or allows to come into our lives.

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Today’s Scripture: Psalm 72:17

“May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!”

If God has promised that all nations will be blessed and that “all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord” (Psalm 22:27), how should we respond? I maintain that our response should begin with prayer. We should boldly and persistently plead in prayer the promises of God.

Daniel, one of the Bible’s great men, is our example. He lived during the Babylonian captivity of Judah. He understood, from reading Jeremiah 29:10, that the captivity would last seventy years. So he took God at his word and began to pray that he would fulfill his promise to restore the Jews to their home (Daniel 9:1-19). He pleaded the promise of God. This is what we should do in response to God’s promises of the success of the Gospel. We should earnestly pray over such Scriptures as Genesis 22:18 and Psalm 22:27-28, asking God to fulfill his promises.

I’m dismayed at how little we Christians pray for the success of the Gospel among the nations. If we honestly examine our prayers, we find that we give the greatest priority to our own earthly needs. Perhaps we even pray about our own or our loved ones’ spiritual needs. But how many are praying about the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth? How many are pleading the promises of God?

As a personal application of this challenge, I keep a small world map with my morning devotional material. I try to pray “around the world” over the course of a week, putting my finger on specific countries, especially those more resistant to Christianity, and asking God to bless them with a significant penetration of the Gospel, so his name will be glorified among them. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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Today’s Scripture: James 4:6

“God . . . gives grace to the humble.”

It’s not enough to see God’s mighty hand behind our adversities, nor to view him as a loving Father disciplining his children. I’ve seen the doctrine of God’s sovereignty in the Scriptures for so many years that I instinctively see his hand behind every circumstance. I regularly acknowledge, almost reluctantly sometimes, that all hardship is God’s discipline, either corrective or remedial. The rub comes in submitting to it. Sometimes we resist it. But if we’re to appropriate God’s grace in our trial, we must first submit to his hand, which brought the trial.

God gives grace only to the humble, to those who are not only humble toward other people, but are humble, or submissive, under his mighty hand. John Lillie expressed this idea well: “?umble yourselves, therefore,’ receiving in silent, meek submission whatever humiliation it [God’s hand] may now lay upon you. For this is your time of trial, and, when paternal rod meets thus with the child-like spirit, will be surely followed by another time of healing and joy.” Then Dr. Lillie added this word of exhortation: “see that you do not frustrate the gracious purpose of God and lose the blessing of sorrow. Rather make that purpose yours also.”

After the death of my first wife, a friend sent me a sympathy card on which she had copied the following verse, apparently from an ancient hymn, which I’ve now put in my notebook to meditate on frequently when I pray: “Lord, I am willing to receive what you give, to lack what you withhold, to relinquish what you take, to suffer what you inflict, to be what you require.”

We must have that spirit if we are to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand and receive the grace he has promised to give.

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Today’s Scripture: Deuteronomy 8:14-16

“The Lord your God . . . led you through the great and terrifying wilderness . . . to do you good in the end.”

The writer of Hebrews contrasted the finite wisdom of human parents in disciplining children with the infinite, infallible wisdom of God. Even the best human parents can only discipline as they think best. Their judgment is fallible, their actions are sometimes inconsistent and are often guided by the impulse of the moment. As is often observed, they have to learn by doing. Anyone who has tried to rear children in a godly, responsible manner knows there are times when parents simply do not know what is the appropriate manner or degree of discipline for a child.

God, however, always disciplines us for our good. He knows what is best for each one of us. He doesn’t have to debate with himself over what is most suitable for us. He knows intuitively and perfectly the nature, intensity, and duration of adversity that will best serve his purpose to make us partakers of his holiness. He never brings more pain than is needed to accomplish his purpose. Lamentations 3:33 expresses that sentiment this way: “For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men” (NIV).

Returning to Hebrews 12:10: “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness” (NIV). Observe how the writer equated our good with becoming more holy. Paul wrote in a similar manner when he said, “and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son” (Romans 8:28-29, NIV). To be conformed to the likeness of Christ and to share in God’s holiness are equivalent expressions. That is the highest good to which the believer can aspire. (Excerpt taken from The Discipline of Grace)

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Today’s Scripture: Psalm 72:8

“May he have dominion . . . to the ends of the earth!”

As people believe the Gospel and are saved, the reign of Christ is established in principle in their hearts. They’re delivered from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of Christ (Colossians 1:13). God’s will is that this process be carried out among every nation on earth.

This, then, is our task: proclaiming the Gospel in each nation so that people there will trust in Christ and be brought under his authority in their lives. We cannot quantify what it means for a nation to be “blessed,” nor what is meant by “all the families of the nations will bow down before him” (Psalm 22:27, NIV), but surely these expressions signify more than just a token few from each nation. Surely they promise a significant penetration of the Gospel among every nation, tribe, people, and language.

Vast numbers of people still live in spiritual darkness. There is yet much spiritual ground to be possessed. We find ourselves in a situation similar to the Israelites after conquering much of Canaan, when God said to Joshua, “There are still very large areas of land to be taken over” (Joshua 12:24?3:1, NIV). While we rejoice in the Gospel’s progress in many parts of the world, we acknowledge that there’s more work to do before we can say every nation has been blessed.

When Jesus commissioned us to make disciples of all nations, he clearly intended that we meet this objective. Furthermore, he has the power to ensure that we do. He’s not like a helpless football coach standing on the sidelines watching his vastly inferior team take a sound beating. While we don’t know the final score, we do know that Jesus’ “team” will eventually win. God will not be defeated by the powers of darkness.

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Today’s Scripture: Psalm 72:18

“Blessed be the Lord . . . who alone does wondrous things.”

David said, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14, NIV). We might say, “That’s well enough for David; he was handsome, athletic, skilled in war, and a gifted musician. But look at me. I’m very ordinary physically and mentally.” In fact, some people feel they don’t even measure up to ordinary.

I understand people who feel that way. In addition to having hearing and vision disabilities, I’ve never been excited about my physical appearance. But God didn’t give his own Son handsome features in his human body: “he had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2, NIV). Jesus, at best, was apparently nondescript in his physical appearance. This never bothered him nor interfered with his carrying out his Father’s will.

David praised God not because he was handsome but because God made him. Dwell on that thought: The eternal God, infinite in his wisdom and perfect in his love, personally made you and me. He gave you your body, your mental abilities, and your basic personality because that’s the way he wanted you to be—and he loves you and wants to glorify himself through you.

This is our foundation for self-acceptance. God sovereignly and directly created us to be who we are, disabilities or physical flaws and all. We need to learn to think like George Macdonald, who said, “I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God’s thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest, and most precious thing in all thinking.” (Excerpt taken from Trusting God)

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Today’s Scripture: 1 Peter 5:6

“Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God.”

Job and Joseph are examples of those who saw God’s hand in their circumstances. In one day, Job’s oxen were stolen, his camels carried off, his servants murdered. Lightning burned up his sheep, and a mighty wind struck the house of his oldest son, killing all his children. Later Job himself was afflicted with painful sores from head to feet. He responded, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1:21). With respect to his own affliction he said, “shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (2:10).

Note that Job ascribed his sufferings to the hand of God. He saw beyond the actions of evil men and the disasters of nature to the sovereign God who controlled those events. At the close of Job’s story, we read that his relatives and friends “showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). Though the writer had himself reported the malicious activity of Satan in Job’s life at the beginning of the narrative, he still ultimately ascribed Job’s troubles to the Lord.

Joseph, when he finally revealed his identity to his wicked brothers who had sold him into slavery, saw beyond their evil acts and said, “It was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:8). He recognized that God in his sovereignty used even the heinous sins of his brothers to accomplish his purpose.

If you and I are to appropriate God’s grace in our times of need, we must see his sovereignty ultimately ruling in all the circumstances of our lives. And when those circumstances are difficult, disappointing, or humiliating, we must humble ourselves under his mighty hand.

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Today’s Scripture: Matthew 11:27

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father.”

The concept of Christ’s reign is stated most explicitly in the words of Jesus commonly known as the Great Commission: “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).

Here Jesus first asserts his universal authority, then commands his disciples to go and make disciples—to bring people of all nations under the sway of his authority. Whatever other meanings we may include in the word disciple, it must capture this idea of coming under the reign and rule of Jesus Christ.

The reign of Christ among all nations is a parallel goal to that of bringing the blessing of Christ to all nations. The goal of Christ’s universal blessing focuses on people’s needs. They desperately need to be rescued from God’s coming wrath, and to be redeemed from their futile, destructive ways of life.

The goal of Christ’s reign focuses on his authority in the hearts of those people. Jesus came “to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:14). This speaks of the rule and reign of Christ in the heart of every individual believer.

Both these goals—the blessing and the reign of Christ—are accomplished through the successful proclamation of the Gospel among all nations, or to the ends of the earth.

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Today’s Scripture: Ephesians 6:17

“Take . . . the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

If you desire to appropriate God’s grace, you must have the sword of the Spirit—the Word of God—available in your mind for the Spirit to use. In fact the structure of Ephesians 6:17 provides a very instructive insight into the interaction between the Holy Spirit and the believer. Paul said we’re to take the sword of the Spirit. That’s something we must do. And yet it is the Spirit’s sword, not ours. He must make it effective. The bare quoting of Scripture does not make it effective in our hearts; only the Spirit can do that. But he will not make his sword effective unless we take it up.

Often God’s Word is not made effective immediately. In fact, there are many times when I struggle over an issue for a period of days, mulling over several pertinent passages of Scripture and crying out for grace, before the Holy Spirit finally makes them effective and gives his grace, helping in time of need. The Spirit of God is sovereign in his working, and we cannot squeeze him into the mold of our spiritual formulas: “Pray for grace, quote some verses, and receive a guaranteed answer.”

God also has his own timetable. Sometimes he grants grace to help almost immediately. At other times, he allows us to struggle for days, perhaps even weeks or months, before we receive the grace to help. Regardless of the delays he may impose, we must continue to come to the throne of grace believing his promise to grant grace to help, and we must continue to resort to appropriate Scripture until he makes it effective in our hearts. Our responsibility is to take up the sword of the Spirit; his prerogative is to make it effective. (Excerpt taken from Transforming Grace)

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Today’s Scripture: Psalm 37:31

“The law of his God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.”

I strongly advocate Scripture memorization. In our warfare against Satan and his emissaries, we’re told to take “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). Charles Hodge commented on this statement: “In opposition . . . to all the suggestions of the devil, the safe, simple, and sufficient answer is the Word of God. This puts to flight all the powers of darkness. The Christian finds this to be true in his individual experience. It dissipates his doubts; it drives away his fears; it delivers him from the power of Satan.”

To take up this sword, we must have it at hand, in our hearts. We must be like the psalmist who said, “I have stored up your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). This principle of storing up God’s Word has a much wider application than only keeping us from sin. The Word, stored in the heart, provides a mental depository for the Holy Spirit to use to mediate his grace to us, whatever our need for grace might be.

I recently received a phone call with disturbing news, and I went to bed that night feeling as if I’d just received an emotional kick in the stomach. The next morning, however, I awakened with 1 Peter 5:7 going through my mind: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (NIV). I was given grace by God’s Spirit to believe that he did care in this specific situation. That is only one in a series of incidents occurring frequently in my life—and I’m sure in the lives of all other believers who store up God’s Word in their hearts.

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