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Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Poor, Blind and Naked

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“You say, ‘I am rich, with everything I want; I don’t need a thing!” And you don’t realize that spiritually you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17).

George had come for a week of lay training at Arrowhead Springs. Following one of my messages on revival, in which I explained that most Christians are like the members of the church at Ephesus and Laodicea, as described in Revelation 2 and 3, he came to share with me how, though he was definitely lukewarm and had lost his first love, he frankly had never read those passages, had never heard a sermon such as I had presented and therefore did not realize how wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked he was.

If there were such an instrument as a “faith thermometer,” at what level would your faithfulness register? Hot? Lukewarm? Cold?

Jesus said to the church at Laodicea, “I know you well – you are neither hot nor cold; I wish you were one or the other! But since you are merely lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth!” (Revelation 3:15).

Again, I ask you, where does your faithfulness register on that faith thermometer?

The greatest tragedy in the history of nations is happening right here in America. Here we are, a nation founded by Christians, a nation founded upon godly principles, a nation blessed beyond all the nations of history for the purpose of doing God’s will in the world. But most people in this country, including the majority of church members, have without realizing it become materialistic and humanistic, all too often worshiping man and his achievements instead of the only true God.

Granted, the opinion polls show meteoric growth in the number of people in America who claim to be born-again Christians. But where does their faith register on the faith thermometer? America is a modern-day Laodicea. We are where we are today because too many Christians have quenched the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Bible Reading: Revelation 3:14-19

TODAY’S ACTION POINT:  Realizing that America cannot become spiritually renewed without individual revival, I will humble myself, and pray, and seek God’s face, and turn from my wicked ways. By faith I will claim revival in my own heart.

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; J.K. – Slowly and Deliberately

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The Mount of Olives – it was there Jesus and the disciples spent time in quiet and peace away from the crowds. It was where He agonized in prayer before being betrayed by Judas. And now, in that same place with their eyes fixed upon Jesus, the disciples received final instructions from their resurrected Savior.

This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

Acts 1:11

As He blessed them (Luke 24:50), He was lifted up into the heavens. Not in a whirlwind and chariot of fire as Elijah (II Kings 2:11), but slowly and deliberately. The disciples had time to realize that their Teacher had come in bodily form to put away sin through the sacrifice of Himself. Now He was ascending into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God. Someday, He will come again in the same manner, bodily and visibly. In joy, the disciples worshipped their Lord and preached the message of salvation everywhere (Mark 16:20).

It is true – Christ will return! In the meantime, pray for those who have yet to believe. Intercede for this nation and its leaders that they may know the Savior…for they shall see Him when He comes again.

Recommended Reading: I Thessalonians 4:13-18

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Four Things We Should Know   

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He has planted eternity in the human heart. —Ecclesiastes 3:11

There are four things we should know about every person on earth. No matter how successful or unsuccessful they are, how famous or obscure they are, or how attractive or unattractive they may be, everyone shares these four traits.

One, there is an essential emptiness in every person who hasn’t yet come to Christ. Everyone is essentially empty. No matter how much money or prestige someone has, he or she has to deal with that emptiness. Scripture says that God made His creation subject to vanity, or emptiness, meaning there is a void, a hole if you will, inside every man, woman, and child.

Two, people are lonely. We can assume there is a sense of loneliness in every individual. Albert Einstein once wrote, “It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.” People are lonely. We need to know that.

Three, people have a sense of guilt. They may try to mask it with alcohol or have a psychologist or psychiatrist tell them it is not there. But they have to deal with their guilt over the things they have done wrong. The head of a mental institution in London said, “I could release half of my patients if I could find a way to relieve them of their sense of guilt.”

Four, people are afraid to die. Some may strut around and say, “Not me. I’m not afraid to die.” But they are.

So don’t be so intimidated by the facades that people hide behind and assume they don’t want to hear what you have to say about your faith in Christ. Remember, you used to be one of those people. I used to be one of those people. We responded to the gospel. And so will they.

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Jesus Takes Away the Sin

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Max Lucado

Some people feel so saved they never serve.  Some serve at the hope of being saved. Does one of these sentences describe you? Do you feel so saved that you never serve? So content in what God has done that you do nothing? The fact is, we’re here to glorify God in our service.

Or is your tendency the opposite? Perhaps you always serve for fear of not being saved. You’re worried there is a secret card that exists with your score written on it; and your score is not enough. Is that you? If so, know this: The blood of Jesus is enough to save you.  John 1:29 announces that Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

The blood of Christ doesn’t cover your sins, conceal your sins, postpone or diminish your sins.  It takes away your sins, once and for all! So…since you are saved, you can serve!

From He Chose the Nails

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Understanding God’s Holiness

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Charles Stanley

Leviticus 22:29-33

If you’ve ever read through Leviticus, you may have wondered why God gave the Israelites so many rules and details about sacrifices and worship procedures. When I was a boy, I remember thinking all those cows could have fed a lot of people. To me, the sacrifices seemed like a big waste, but that’s because I didn’t understand what the Lord was teaching His people.

Today we have the finished Scriptures to help us understand who God is and what He desires of us. But in the days of the Old Testament, He taught His people by example. He wanted them to grasp three things: His holiness; their sinfulness and the consequences of disobedience; and His care for them—that He was the source of every good thing. The rules and regulations He instituted were visible object lessons.

In every detail, He revealed His holiness—and in every sacrifice, the cost of sin. The rules of the tabernacle taught the people not to take worship lightly. It was a serious and awesome privilege to approach a holy, righteous God.

Today, it’s rather easy to lose sight of the Lord’s holiness. To prevent that, try re-examining the Old Testament sacrificial system for a fresh perspective on the seriousness of worship.

God is our heavenly Father, and we have instant access to His throne room. Yet we should think about whether we’re treating Him with the reverence He deserves. At church, instead of being preoccupied and distracted, we should understand what a privilege it is to come into His presence.

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Shout Hallelujah!

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Our Daily Bread

1 Corinthians 15:50-58

O Death, where is your sting? —1 Corinthians 15:55

A few days ago, I spied my old friend Bob vigorously pedaling a bike at our neighborhood gym and staring down at a blood pressure monitor on his finger.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Looking to see if I’m alive,” he grunted.

“What would you do if you saw you were dead?” I countered.

“Shout hallelujah!” he replied with a radiant smile.

Over the years I’ve caught glimpses of great inner strength in Bob: patient endurance in the face of physical decline and discomfort, and faith and hope as he approaches the end of his life journey. Indeed he has found not only hope, but death has lost its power to tyrannize him.

Who can find peace and hope—and even joy—in dying? Only those who are joined by faith to the God of eternity and who know that they have eternal life (1 Cor. 15:52,54). For those who have this assurance, like my friend Bob, death has lost its terror. They can speak with colossal joy of seeing Christ face to face!

Why be afraid of death? Why not rejoice? As the poet John Donne (1572–1631) wrote, “One short sleep past, we wake eternally.” —David Roper

For the Christian, dying is the last shadow of earth’s night before heaven’s dawn.

Bible in a year: 2 Samuel 16-18; Luke 17:20-37

Insight

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is more concerned with dealing with problems than it is with teaching doctrinal truth to the church. However, in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul’s focus is not on problem-solving but on the vital importance of the doctrine of the resurrection. Obviously, the resurrection of Christ is one of the central truths of the Christian faith, so it is not surprising that the apostle would want his friends to grasp its reality and significance.

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – On the Third Day

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The earliest creeds of the Christian church confess that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.” It is then confessed, “On the third day, he rose again.”(1) While modern presuppositions may tempt us to interpret the death and resurrection of Jesus as symbolic or spiritual in nature, there was nothing abstract about the events and details confessed by those who first beheld them. Jesus’s suffering was an actual, datable event in history, his crucifixion a sentence inflicted on an actual body; the proclamation of both was the remembrance of a cold reality, something akin to remembering the Holocaust or the Trail of Tears. Likewise, “the third day” was a tangible, historical occasion—albeit an occasion of unfathomable proportions.

Yet the resurrection of Jesus was not viewed as merely a static fact on this particular third day, a fixed event to remain in this history alone. “We believe that Jesus died and rose again” wrote the apostle Paul, “and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.”(2) For those who first beheld it, the resurrection was an event with inherent consequences for everything—for order and purpose, for what it means to be human itself. The earliest confessions of Christ’s death, burial, and third day rising from the dead are immediately followed by certain understood implications. As the Misfit in Flannery O’Connor’s short story observes of this resurrected one, Jesus went and “thrown everything off balance.”

In the eyes of Jesus’s contemporaries, the Misfit is exactly right. This rabbi who was accused of blasphemy for calling himself equal to God was immediately here shown by God to be speaking the truth. The resurrection verified Jesus’s ties with the Father and his claims to divine authority; the Sonship of Christ was visibly and unmistakably confirmed by the Father. “For God raised him from the dead” writes Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:10. This connection was clear.

And therefore, the resurrection was recognized as being far more than an event. For if “God raised Jesus from the dead,” as Paul, the unlikely Jewish believer, testified, then history is a display of God’s movement among us, a glimpse of the profound and ongoing invitation of God. The resurrection provides ground for seeing Christ’s life in light of each and every prior act and Word of God, vindicating and verifying the ministry and person of Jesus and his vicarious humanity among us. The prophets’ words, like the whole of Scripture, take on new dimensions in light of this truly human one before us: “On the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence” (Hosea 6:2). “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole” (Isaiah 53:4-5). Through the life of the risen Son, the resurrection directs us to the movement of the Father in all of history to nothing less than the uniting purpose of a redemptive God today.

For those who first confessed it, the identity of the risen Jesus was a pronouncement of divine authority, wisdom, messiahship, and humanity—in the present. As one New Testament scholar observes, “[F]or Paul and probably for most early Christians, it was precisely the resurrection of Jesus which declared that he was lord, saviour, and judge, and that Caesar was not.”(3) The risen Jesus is a pronouncement that it is God’s very Son who has come among us, bringing with him a very human means to the Father here and now. In the death and resurrection of the Son, humanity itself becomes the stuff of which God’s final assurance of life is once and for all established. The resurrection pours instant light on what it means to be fully human and what it means to truly live in the vicarious humanity of the Incarnate Son.

Thus, Paul is abundantly clear on the far-reaching, present significance of the third day. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”(4) With implications for both today and tomorrow—for bodies collective and individual, for lives and for deaths—the resurrected Christ has indeed “thrown it all off balance” in a world that may well prefer to “leave the dead lie,” as another O’Connor character suggests. In this mysterious space, Christians continue to discover what it means to live further into both the unfathomable and the real, the truly human and the gloriously divine:

We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord. He was crucified, died, and was buried. And on the third day he rose again.

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

(1) Excerpts from the Apostles’ Creed. Similar wording is found in both the Nicene Creed and the Creed of Athanasius.

(2) 1 Thessalonians 4:14.

(3) N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 371.

(4) 1 Corinthians 15:19-20.

Alistair Begg

Alistair Begg – Christ’s Precious Wounds

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Alistair Begg

And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a lamb standing, as though it had been slain.

Revelation 5:6

Why should our exalted Lord appear in glory with His wounds? The wounds of Jesus are His glories, His jewels, His sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is altogether lovely. We see Him as the lily of matchless purity, and as the rose crimsoned with His own blood. We behold the beauty of Christ in all His earthly pilgrimage, but there never was such matchless beauty as when He hung upon the cross. There we saw all His beauties in perfection, all His attributes developed, all His love drawn out, all His character expressed.

Beloved, the wounds of Jesus are far fairer in our eyes than all the splendor and pomp of kings. The thorny crown is more than an imperial diadem. It is true that He no longer bears the scepter of reed, but there was even in that ignominy a glory that never flashed from a scepter of gold. Jesus wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as His royal dress in which He wooed our souls and redeemed them by His complete atonement. And these are not only the ornaments of Christ: They are the trophies of His love and of His victory. He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for Himself a great multitude that no one can count, and these scars are the memorials of the fight. If Christ loves to retain the thought of His sufferings for His people, then how precious should his wounds be to us!

Behold how every wound of His

A precious balm distils,

Which heals the scars that sin had made,

And cures all mortal ills.

Those wounds are mouths that preach His grace,

The ensigns of His love;

The seals of our expected bliss

In paradise above.

Devotional material is taken from “Morning and Evening,” written by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Copyright © 2003, Good News Publishers and used by Truth For Life with written permission.

The family reading plan for   April 23, 2014   Ecclesiastes 10 | Titus 2

 

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Hindrances to Peace

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John MacArthur

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9).

Just as righteousness and truth are the noble companions of peace, so sin and falsehood are its great hindrances. The prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately [evil]; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Jesus said, “Out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:21-23).

People with sinful hearts create a sinful society that resists true peace. Ironically, many who talk of peace will also pay huge sums of money to watch two men beat the daylights out of each other in a boxing ring! Our society’s heroes tend to be the macho, hard-nosed, tough guys. Our heroines tend to be free-spirited women who lead marches and stir up contention. Psychologists and psychiatrists tell us to stand up for our rights and get everything we can for ourselves. That breeds strife and conditions people to reject the peace of the gospel.

Beyond that, the unbelieving world has never tolerated God’s peacemakers. Christ Himself often met with violent resistance. His accusers said, “He stirs up the people” (Luke 23:5). Paul’s preaching frequently created conflict as well. He spent much time under house arrest and in filthy Roman prisons. On one occasion his enemies described him as “a real pest . . . who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world” (Acts 24:5).

All who proclaim the gospel will eventually meet with opposition because sin and falsehood have blinded people’s hearts to true peace. That’s why Paul warned us that all who desire to be godly will suffer persecution (2 Tim. 3:12). You can avoid strife by remaining silent about the Lord, but a faithful peacemaker is willing to speak the truth regardless of the consequences. Let that be true of you.

Suggestions for Prayer:

•             Thank God for Christ, who is the solution for the world’s problem of sin and falsehood.

•             Follow Paul’s example by praying for boldness to proclaim God’s truth at every opportunity (Eph. 6:19).

For Further Study:

Read Matthew 10:16-25, noting the kind of reception the disciples were to expect from unbelievers.

 

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Well-Laid Plans

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For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.—Ephesians 6:12

“How could you?” Helen screamed. “How could you ever do such a thing?” Tom stared helplessly at his wife. He had committed adultery, faced his sinful actions, and asked his wife to forgive him.

“But you knew it was wrong,” she said. “You knew that was the ultimate betrayal of our marriage.”

“I never planned for an affair to happen,” Tom said with tears in his eyes. Tom wasn’t lying. He knew he was making a few bad choices, but he hadn’t looked ahead at the consequences of his actions. After almost an hour of pleading, he said something that helped Helen begin to understand and eventually to forgive.

“I was unfaithful to you in hundreds of ways before I ever committed adultery.” He spoke of their being too busy to spend quality time together, his critical attitude, her occasional lack of emotional response, her not listening to him when he talked about problems at the office. “Just little things, always little things,” he said. “At least in the beginning they seemed that way.”

That’s exactly how Satan works in human lives. He begins by bombarding our minds with cleverly devised patterns of irritation, dissatisfaction, nagging thoughts, doubts, fears, and reasonings. He moves slowly and cautiously (after all, well-laid plans take time).

Tom said he began to doubt that Helen truly loved him. She didn’t listen, and she didn’t always respond to his amorous moods. He dwelt on those thoughts. Whenever she did anything he didn’t like, he kept track. He kept track by remembering and adding that to his list of dissatisfactions.

One of his coworkers listened, and she offered him sympathy. One time she said, “Helen doesn’t deserve a warm, caring man like you.” (Satan also worked in her.) Each time Tom took a tiny step off the right path, he justified his actions in his mind: If Helen won’t listen to me, there are people who will. Although he said the word people to himself, he really meant the woman in the next cubicle.

The coworker listened. Weeks later, he hugged her and as he did so, he wished he could feel that caring response from his wife. It was a harmless embrace—or so it seemed. Tom didn’t grasp that Satan is never in a hurry. He takes time to work out his plans. He doesn’t immediately overwhelm people with powerful desires. Instead, the enemy of our minds starts with little things—little dissatisfactions, small desires—and builds from there.

Tom’s story sounds much like that of a forty-two-year-old bookkeeper who was indicted for stealing nearly three million¬ dollars from her organization. She said, “The first time I took only twelve dollars. I needed that much to pay the minimum amount on my credit card. I planned to pay it back.” No one caught her, and two months later, she “borrowed” again.

By the time they caught her, the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. “I never meant to hurt anybody or do anything wrong,” she said. She never intended to do anything big—just to take small amounts. The prosecutor said she had been stealing from the company for almost twenty years.

That’s how Satan works—slowly, diligently, and in small ways. Rarely does he approach us through direct assault or frontal attacks. All Satan needs is an opening—an opportunity to inject unholy, self-centered thoughts into our heads. If we don’t kick them back out, they stay inside. And he can continue his evil, destructive plan.

We don’t have to allow those wrong thoughts to take up residence in our heads. The apostle Paul wrote, “For the weapons of our warfare are . . . mighty before God. . . . [We] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ . . .” (2 Corinthians 10:4–5).

Lord Jesus, in Your name, I cry out for victory. Enable me to bring every thought into obedience. Help me not to allow Satan’s words to stay in my mind and steal my victory. Amen.

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Abounding Therein

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“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: Rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:6-8, KJV).

Some years ago, while speaking at the University of Houston, I was told about a brilliant philosophy major. He was much older than most of the other students, having spent many years in the military before he returned to do graduate work.

He was so gifted, so brilliant, so knowledgeable that even the professors were impressed by his ability to comprehend quickly and to debate rationally. He was an atheist, and he had a way of embarrassing the Christians who tried to witness to him.

During one of my visits to the university, I was asked to talk with him about Christ. We sat in a booth in the student center, contrasting his philosophy of life with the Word of God. It was an unusual dialogue. He successfully monopolized the conversation with his philosophy of unbelief in God.

At every opportunity, I would remind him that God loved him and offered a wonderful plan for his life. I showed him various passages of Scripture concerning the person of Jesus Christ (John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1). He seemed to ignore everything I said; there appeared to be no communication between us whatsoever.

A couple of hours passed, and it was getting late. I felt that I was wasting my time and there was no need to continue the discussion. He agreed to call it a day. A friend and staff member who was with me suggested to this student that we would be glad to drop him off at his home on the way to my hotel.

As we got into the car, his first words were, “Everything you said tonight hit me right in the heart. I want to receive Christ. Tell me how I can do it right now.” Even though I had not sensed it during our conversation, the Holy Spirit – who really does care – had been speaking to his heart through the truth of God’s Word which I had shared with him.

Bible Reading: Colossians 2:1-10

TODAY’S ACTION POINT:  I will not depend upon my own wisdom, my personality or even my training to share Christ effectively with others, but I will commit myself to talk about Him wherever I go, depending upon the Holy Spirit to empower me and speak through me to the needs of others.

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; P.G. – Go Fish

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There was a television account of a man who caught the biggest fish in American history. A school for fishermen invited him to teach others how to catch fish like that. He soon was writing books on how to fish and even appearing on late night talk shows, until he had no time for fishing anymore. Unlike the man who fishes for fun, the one who fishes for his dinner takes his task much more seriously – selecting the right bait, properly preparing his equipment, observing the motion of the water, and patiently waiting for the hook to set.

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.

Matthew 28:19

Jesus still calls His people to be “fishers of men.” Your instruction book – the Bible – is there; you are properly equipped through a close walk with the Lord and through prayer; and then you watch for the opportunities and boldly share with others. Once “caught,” you are ready to disciple that person, teaching him or her to fish also!

Be ready always to witness to the hope that you have in Christ (I Peter 3:15) and pray that you will be a reliable fisher of men. Pray for those in Congress to do likewise.

Recommended Reading: Matthew 4:18-25

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – The Key to Answered Prayer           

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If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

—John 15:7

How often have you felt that your prayers were hitting a glass ceiling — as though the Lord were saying no? Maybe it is because you were praying outside of His will. Maybe it’s because you were praying for something that God didn’t want you to have.

We need to remember the promise Jesus spoke of in John 15:7, which says, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” Another version puts it this way: “But if you live your life in me, and my words live in your hearts, you can ask for whatever you like and it will come true for you” (PH). I really like that version — especially the part that tells us to ask for whatever we like.

But let’s also remember the condition: “If you live your life in me, and my words live in your hearts. . . .” If you are maintaining a living communion with God and His words are at home with you, then your desires are going to change. Your prayers won’t necessarily be the same as they were before. As you get in sync with the will of God, you will see that prayer is not getting God to do what you want Him to do, but prayer is getting you to do what God wants you to do.

You will discover the important truth that prayer is not bending God our way — it is bending us His way. And then, you just may see your prayers being answered in the affirmative.

Today’s devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – A Done Deal and a Daily Development

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Max Lucado

Are a bride and groom ever more married than they are the first day? The vows are made and the certificate signed—could they be any more married than that? Imagine fifty years later. They finish each other’s sentences, order each other’s food. They even start looking alike– a thought which troubles Denalyn deeply. Wouldn’t they be more married on their 50th anniversary than on their wedding day? Marriage is both a done deal and a daily development.

The same is true of our walk with God. Can you be more saved than you were the first day of your salvation? No. But can a person grow in salvation? Absolutely. Like marriage, it’s a done deal and a daily development. Do you feel so saved, you never serve? The fact is, you and I are here for a reason, and that reason is to grow and glorify God in our service.

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – The Lordship of Jesus

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Charles Stanley

Philippians 2:5-11

Whether you’ve been a believer for many years or just recently trusted Christ as your Savior, there’s one crucial thing you must settle in your heart. Many Christians understand that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. But who is He today?

Scripture tells us that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God who took on flesh and entered our world in the form of a servant. He came to walk among us and make it possible to know Him. Then after His death, burial, and resurrection, He was exalted back to His rightful place as Lord and sovereign Ruler.

It’s essential that every believer understand the person and position of Jesus Christ. We often call Him “Lord,” but what does that mean? The answer is that as Lord and Creator, He made and sustains all things (Col. 1:16-17). And by trusting in the Savior, we accept His rightful place in our life.

As Lord, He has authority over every single element of our daily lives. We are sheep, and who should follow the Shepherd; going our own way, we’d fall off the mountain and end up destroyed (John 10:2-15). Won’t you acknowledge that He has the right to determine what you do and where you go? You can trust that His way always results in fullness of life.

Jesus is not some distant, judgmental ruler; He’s your awesome, supportive Lord, who loves you and has gone before you, having lived a human life and suffered unimaginably. So when He says, “Follow Me; I’ll make your life count,” you can be confident that He is trustworthy every step of the way.

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Acts Of Kindness

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Our Daily Bread

Acts 4:1-13

By the name of Jesus . . . , whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. —Acts 4:10

I was traveling with some men when we spotted a family stranded alongside the road. My friends immediately pulled over to help. They got the car running, talked with the father and mother of the family, and gave them some money for gasoline. When the mother thanked them over and over, they replied, “We’re glad to help out, and we do it in Jesus’ name.” As we drove away, I thought how natural it was for these friends to help people in need and acknowledge the Lord as the source of their generosity.

Peter and John exhibited that same joyful generosity when they healed a lame man who was begging outside the temple in Jerusalem (Acts 3:1-10). This led to their arrest and appearance before the authorities who asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?” Peter replied, “If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man . . . let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole” (Acts 4:7-10).

Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and a powerful context in which to genuinely speak to others about the Lord. —David McCasland

Lord, help me to love with both words and deeds,

To reach out to others and meet their needs;

Lord, burden my heart for those lost in sin,

With mercy and love that flows from within. —Fitzhugh

One act of kindness may teach more about the love of God than many sermons.

Bible in a year: 2 Samuel 14-15; Luke 17:1-19

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Easter Present

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Ravi Z

An empty tomb, abandoned linen burial wrappings, and the reversal of all that was expected and anticipated—heralds the dawning of a new day. The resurrection of Jesus was the reason, the impetus for a new age—a new way of living and being in the world as residents and heralds of God’s new creation begun. Without this event, there would be no Christian faith and on its significance, the apostle Paul was clear: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain” (1 Corinthians 15:13-14).

As Christians emerge from worship services around the country, and indeed, the world, looking back on the historical significance of the resurrection, and looking forward to the promise of life after death for our eternal future, I wonder if we miss the significance of Easter present—and the significance of the resurrection of Jesus in our lives here and now. If we only associate the resurrection with life after death, something not for this age but for a spiritual age to come, we fail to see the resurrection as anything more than a symbolic promise for another time. But if the only significance of Easter is a spiritual metaphor for new life and re-birth in the future, this message is just as easily told through colored eggs rabbits, and spring flowers.(1) Similarly, if we only celebrate the resurrection as something that happened long ago, we fail to do the creative work of drawing conclusions about what resurrection means for the present day.

God’s raising of Jesus is the sign in history that God had begun the work of new creation—namely, what began in the bodily resurrection of Jesus could now, and would now, continue in the present day. Indeed, Paul tells us in Romans 8 that “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body” (8:19-23). God’s new creation has begun with the bodily resurrection of Jesus. As Paul writes in Colossians, Jesus is the first born of all creation. Thus even now our work in this world is the work of resurrection as we walk with Jesus into the consummation of God’s future.

N.T. Wright, who has written extensively on the central importance of Christ’s bodily resurrection for Christians, says it this way: “The resurrection of Jesus means that the present time is shot through with great significance. What is done to the glory of God in the present is genuinely building for God’s future. Acts of justice and mercy, the creation of beauty and the celebration of truth, deeds of love and the creation of communities of kindness and forgiveness—these all matter, and they matter forever. Take away the resurrection, and these things are important for the present but irrelevant for the future and hence not all that important after all even now. Enfolded in this vocation to build now, with gold, silver, and precious stones, the things that will last into God’s new age, is the vocation to holiness: to the fully human life, reflecting the image of God, that is made possible by Jesus’ victory on the cross and that is energized by the Spirit of the risen Jesus present within communities and persons.”(2)

Indeed, in Paul’s great exposition of the resurrection of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15, he ends by telling the Corinthians, “Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (15:58). The point of the resurrection, and why it must remain central to our entire Christian experience, is that entropy and death do not have the final word—either for humans or for God’s creation. God’s last word is resurrection.

And God declares it today. This final word gives great hope for our present existence with all its pains and struggles. In light of resurrection, our work, our toil, even our blood, sweat, and tears are far from in vain. For our present work brings the work of God in the past forward, as we live out of the power of the resurrection. Indeed, the historic event of the resurrection coupled with the hope of future resurrection fill our “today” with the fullest of human life.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Eggs were often used as a sign for the resurrection, the yolk representing new life, hidden within the shell. In addition, rabbits are always associated with fecundity. For additional information see http://www.history.com.

(2) N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 126-127.

Alistair Begg

Alistair Begg  – The Sleepless Guardian

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Alistair Begg

You will not fear the terror of the night.

Psalms 91:5

What is this “terror”? It may be the cry of fire or the noise of thieves or intrigued appearances or the shriek of sudden sickness or death. We live in the world of death and sorrow; we may anticipate facing ills and difficulties during the night as well as in the glare of the noonday sun. This should not alarm us, for whatever the terror may be, the promise is that the believer shall not be afraid. Why should he be?

Let us put this more closely—why should we? God our Father is here, and will be with us all through the lonely hours. He is an almighty Watcher, a sleepless Guardian, a faithful Friend. Nothing can happen without His direction, for even hell itself is under His control. Darkness is not dark to Him. He has promised to be a wall of fire around His people—and who can break through such a barrier?

Unbelievers may well be afraid, for they have an angry God above them, a guilty conscience within them, and a yawning hell beneath them. But we who rest in Jesus are saved from all these by His rich mercy. If we give way to foolish fear, we will dishonor our testimony and lead others to doubt the reality of godliness. We ought to be afraid of being afraid, in case we should grieve the Holy Spirit by foolish distrust. Down, then, you dismal forebodings and groundless apprehensions—God has not forgotten to be gracious, nor held back His tender mercies. It may be night in the soul, but there need be no terror, for the God of love does not change.

Children of light may walk in darkness, but they are not therefore cast away. No, they are now enabled to prove their adoption by trusting in their heavenly Father in a way that hypocrites cannot do.

Though the night be dark and dreary,

Darkness cannot hide from Thee;

You are He, who, never weary,

Watchest where Your people be.

Devotional material is taken from “Morning and Evening,” written by C.H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Copyright © 2003, Good News Publishers and used by Truth For Life with written permission.

The family reading plan for  April 22, 2014  Ecclesiastes 9 | Titus 1

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Full redemption

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CharlesSpurgeon

“There shall not an hoof be left behind.” Exodus 10:26

Suggested Further Reading: Revelation 20:1-10

A man once wrote a book to prove the devil a fool. Certainly, when all matters shall come to their destined consummation, Satan will prove to have been a magnificent fool. Folly, magnified to the highest degree by subtlety, shall be developed in Satan. Ah! Thou trailing serpent, what hast thou now after all? I saw thee but a few thousand years ago, twining around the tree of life, and hissing out thy deceptive words. Ah! how glorious was the serpent then—a winged creature, with his azure scales. Yes, and thou didst triumph over God. I heard thee as thou didst go hissing down to thy den. I heard thee say to thy brood,—vipers in the nest as they are,—“My children, I have stained the Almighty’s works: I have turned aside his loyal subjects; I have injected my poison into the heart of Eve, and Adam hath fallen too; my children let us hold a jubilee, for I have defeated God.” Oh, my enemy; I think I see thee now, with thy head all broken, and thy jaw-teeth smashed, and thy venom-bags all emptied, and thou thyself a weary length of agony, rolling miles afloat along a sea of fire, tortured, destroyed, overcome, tormented, ashamed, hacked, hewed, dashed in pieces, and made a hissing, and a scorn for children to laugh at, and made a scoff throughout eternity. Ah! well, brethren, the great Goliath hath gained nothing by his boasting: Christ and his people have really lost nothing by Satan. All they lost once, has been re-taken. The victory has not simply been a capture of that which was lost, but a gaining of something more. We are in Christ more than we were before we fell. “Not a hoof shall be left behind.”

For meditation: Victory over Satan will be celebrated with joy (Revelation 12:10-12; Romans 16:20) but for the moment we must remain on our guard against him (1 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 2:11; Ephesians 4:27; 6:11; 1 Timothy 3:6,7; 1 Peter 5:8,9).

Sermon no. 309

22 April (1860)

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Risking True Peace

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John MacArthur

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matt. 5:9).

People often define peace as the absence of conflict, but God sees it differently. The absence of conflict is merely a truce, which might end overt hostilities but doesn’t resolve the underlying issues. A truce simply introduces a cold war, which often drives the conflict underground, where it smolders until erupting in physical or emotional disaster.

James 3:17 says, “The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable.” Godly wisdom, purity, and peace go hand- in-hand. Peace is wisdom in action and is never established at the expense of righteousness. It brings righteousness to bear on the situation, seeking to eliminate the source of conflict and create right relationships. Feuding parties will know true peace only when they are willing to admit that their bitterness and hatred is wrong and humbly seek God’s grace to make things right.

Some people equate peacemaking with evading issues, but true peace can be very confrontive. In Matthew 10:34 Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” That may seem to contradict Matthew 5:9, but it doesn’t: Jesus knew that sinful people have to be confronted with the truth before they can experience peace. That can be a painful and difficult process because people usually have a hostile reaction to the gospel before they finally embrace it. Even believers will sometimes react negatively when confronted with God’s truth.

Being a biblical peacemaker has its price. You can expect to upset unbelievers who openly oppose God’s Word as well as believers who compromise its truth for the sake of maintaining “peace” among people of differing doctrinal persuasions. Some will call you narrow-minded and divisive for dealing with controversial issues. Some will misunderstand your motives or even attack you personally. But that’s been the path of every true peacemaker– including our Lord Himself. Take heart and be faithful. Your efforts to bring peace show that you are a child of God.

Suggestions for Prayer:

•             Ask God for the boldness never to compromise His truth.

•             Pray for those you know who are suffering for the sake of the gospel.

For Further Study:

Read Luke 12:51-53, noting how the gospel can bring division even among families.