God never gives up on you......never!

I write this in honor of my son's birthday April 30

I Corinthians 1:7-9 (Message)

God Himself is right alongside to keep you steady and on track until things are all wrapped up by Jesus. God, who got you started in this spiritual adventure, shares with us the life of His Son and our Master Jesus. He will never give up on you. Never forget that.

Are you suffering in some way right now as you read this?  Are you physically hurting, under a lot of stress, significantly depressed, grieving over the loss of a loved one, anxious over what you are facing with your life and/or work, and any other countless reasons for suffering?  If you live a “normal life” 70-80 years (Psalm 90:10), for some longer living, for others shorter, you go through many transitions.  Examples include leaving home for work or college, getting married, having children, new jobs/careers, children leaving home, loss of job or retirement, losing loved ones, and so forth.  Through all these examples of suffering and transition, when life seems most vulnerable, uncertain, and insecure, the Bible promises that “God Himself is right alongside you…”

Are you able to believe this promise to the point that you feel peace with your circumstances?  Likely, yes, for a few minutes, but then the harshness of the reality of your life circumstances crowd out the Lord and you isolate yourself from His protective care.  However, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, God promises to be with you.  This passage reminds me of perhaps the most comforting phrase in all of Scripture:  “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” (Hebrews 13:5).  

We use the adjective “awesome” a lot to describe people, events, and things, but years ago, a friend, Connie Medlock, led a devotional discussion of a small group where I learned that “awesome” should only be used to describe God.  In the Bible the use of the word “awe” or “awesome” always refers to God.  The original Hebrew and Greek words that are translated as “awe” or “awesome” literally mean “fear” or “trembling”.  In fact the Greek word translated as “awe” is “phobos” where today we use “phobia” to describe a strong fear.  Job 25:2 says that “dominion and awe belong to God” and Acts 2:43 says that “everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles”.

So I think of the word “awe” when I read passages like I Corinthians 1:7-9 where I am in awe of a God who will never give up on me.  I hope that you too, when you reflect on this passage, will have a clear sense of awe of God who promises to protect you and never give up on you.  Never.

Refrain from anger

Psalm 37:8 (NIV)

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil. 

How often do you get angry?  If you honestly can say that you never get angry then you are truly blessed and don’t need to read the rest of this.  In fact, you are truly Christlike in that if you never get angry you likely possess many of the other qualities of Christ (gentleness, humility, patience, joy, well, all the fruits of the Holy Spirit).  However, I’m assuming that anyone who reads this has experienced moments of anger.  Who is the target of your anger (e.g. your spouse, your children, your employees?).  Are you ever the target of anger (e.g. your parents, your spouse, your boss or a coach)?

I’m telling on my father and I hope that he would smile at this rather than be upset with me.  Dad was a gentle a man as you could find and rarely did I see him display any anger, certainly not against his children.  However, dad cursed like the Marine he used to be when at the end of a sporting event, he got stuck in traffic.  Many a game we as a family saw and enjoyed in person was ruined by dad getting so angry at stalled traffic and people cutting in and so forth.  I know that dad later regretted his anger and it taught his children to do better in controlling our tempers.   

When you are angry you do not have self-control.  Not having self-control means that you are controlled by your evil nature, not by the Holy Spirit in you.  Think about when you have become angry, when you have lost your temper.  What happens?  You hurt your loved ones with horrible words.  You curse.  You behave in a manner that can quickly ruin your good reputation.  Almost always one someone has had an outburst of anger and then cools off later, there is great regret of that person for what he/she said and did. 

The Bible is very clear about the sin of anger.  Some strong passages that speak against anger are found in Proverbs 14:17, 14:29, 15:1, 15:18, 16:32, 19:11, 22:24-25 and 29:22   

My granddaughter, Alexa, (age 11 at the time) sent me this wonderful story that will close this vignette.  Read and reflect on its truth as it illustrates the irreversibility of evil in the form of anger.

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence. Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there.”

If you know the right thing to do and don't do it, this is a sin to you

James 4:17 (NASB)

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Often in my past when I taught new Christians the Bible, I gave them fair warning  They were going to learn a lot about what the Bible teaches and this, in turn, was going to create problems for them.  The problems relate to knowledge.  New knowledge about God and His ways and His commands that heretofore they had no idea existed.  And now that they were going to learn this new knowledge they would then have no excuse that they didn’t know that they were to act and speak and think in certain ways.  James 4:17 was what I had in mind when giving this warning to people about to begin their first serious efforts to learn some of what the Bible teaches. 

James is saying is that if you know that you are to do something and you don’t do it, you have sinned.   It’s the same line of thought as he wrote earlier in his letter that if you say you have faith, but don’t prove it through your good works, your faith is dead (James 2:14-26).  Here, what you are not doing is a sin for you, but not necessarily for another person who also does not do it.  You cannot judge what another person knows about what are the right things to do.  Only that person knows and, of course, God knows.  You only know for sure what God wants from you.   

You learn from your Bible that you are to read it, study it, meditate on it and memorize some of it.  Once you know this is God’s command for you and you don’t do it………..you have sinned.  Your neighbor, co-worker, best friend, spouse, who does not read the Bible or study it or meditate on it or memorize it, if they have never been taught that this is the right thing to do, then they have not sinned like you have for not doing this.  Even if you know that they have been taught that this is the right thing to do, you cannot judge them.  You can only judge yourself.  You are judged on what you know, not on what you don’t know. 

You learn that you should pray.  If you don’t pray, it is a sin you have committed (or, more correctly, omitted) while not a sin for another who does not know that he/she should pray.  You learn to put others first.  You learn serve and encourage others.  You learn to give thanks in all things.  You learn to help “the least of these”.  You learn to worship God and attend church to encourage others.  You learn to stop cursing, stop sinning sexually, stop telling dirty jokes, stop calling others names, stop boasting, and so forth, but if you continue to do these things, to you it is sin.  You also learn that you have a spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit in you that needs to be used for the benefit of others in the church.  If you are not using that gift, if you are not active in your church, you have sinned.   

God holds you accountable for what you know, not what you don’t know.  That’s why I warned those who wanted to learn what the Bible teaches that what they learn will elevate them to a higher standard of obedience and accountability.

So, does this mean that you are better off to remain ignorant so that you cannot be judged for what you know?  No, of course not.  Whatever God commands you are to do, He does so in order to enable you to live the most abundant, enjoyable, glorious, joyful, peaceful and contented life possible.  Do you want to miss all this?

Think over carefully what you are not doing that you know you should be doing.  Whatever that omission is, to you it is sin.  Remove it by confessing your sin and taking action to do what you know the Lord wants you to be doing for Him and others.   

A reborn Christian is God's masterpiece

Ephesians 2:1-2, 7-10 (NLT)

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world…So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.  God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Biblically, to be dead is not necessarily to be physically dead, but to be spiritually dead.  To be spiritually dead is to have your soul separated from God.  Some believe that spiritual death makes one unable to repent and believe in God.  In Genesis 2:17, God told Adam that he would “surely die” if he ate the forbidden fruit and that death meant both physical eventually and spiritual immediately.  Jesus experienced spiritual death on the cross as He was dying for the sins of the world.  He cried out “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? (Mark 15:33-34).  This is the only time recorded in the gospels where Jesus did not refer to God as His Father because during His time on the cross He was spiritually separated from His Father.

What causes a person whose soul is separated from God to be reunited with God?  God’s grace!  Spiritual death, even physical death, is not yet eternal death so a person who is separated from God because of his sinful nature still has hope of seeing the light of Jesus Christ and having his soul and spirit reborn and saved.  A dead spirit is separated from God, but that spirit can make the decision any time to enter into the presence of God and be saved.

The disciple Matthew exemplified being dead in all his sins, yet being saved in Christ.  It is not because of anything Matthew did; it was all because of what Jesus did.  Matthew’s story (including all those people listed in his genealogy in Matthew 1) is your story and mine.  Salvation is a free gift from God.  This truth is so simple that so many people refuse to believe it.  There is nothing you can do to earn your salvation, to earn your way to heaven, to earn God’s favor.  Salvation is free and is a gift from God because of what Jesus came to the earth to do.  We celebrate Christmas because:

·  “…..it is He who will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21)

·  “…..I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13)

·  “…..the son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10)

·   "…..just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:28)

·  “…..Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” (I Timothy 1:15).

In my early career I wrote a scientific document that the vice-president of my division called a “masterpiece”.  I didn’t think it was, but someone of importance for my future thought it was. That simple compliment inspired me to become a writer within my scientific field and also in the church.   Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10 that we are God’s masterpiece.  You may not think of yourself as God’s masterpiece, but God says that you are.  Doesn’t that thought inspire and encourage you?  You are God’s masterpiece because you have accepted His gift of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, you have been created anew—reborn into the Kingdom of God---so that you will fulfill His will for your life.   Put a smile on your face as you meditate upon being a masterpiece of God!  Yes, you are!!!