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Rejoice Without Ceasing – VOTD.06.12.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 12th, 2018 | by

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

I’ve looked at many writings on the subject of prayer and considered what I’ve learned in many books on prayer and those teachings seem to mainly fall into two categories: guilt-producing reasons we should pray (the stick) and stories and testimonies of the incredible answers to prayer that people got when they disciplined themselves to pray on a regular basis (the carrot).

I’m afraid that many teachers on prayer have turned prayer into anything but a delight. But these same teachers have turned our communion with Jesus into a duty and the Christian life into drudgery. They don’t seem to have much God-filled joy to share.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m certain that one of the things that drives me to pray is the consistent answers I’ve gotten. And as for discipline, I can choose to make room in my life to pray, but I can’t choose to ‘pray without ceasing’. That has to be something that God does in me when my heart is continually going back to Him.

The problem with the stick and carrot approaches is that they make our relationship with Jesus sterile… they ‘incline our hearts’ to self-discipline and that has some pretty dampening effects on love and communion with Him. Instead, the psalmist asks God to ‘incline my heart to your ways’ (Ps 119:36). I believe that is why Paul ties ‘rejoicing without ceasing’ and ‘praying without ceasing’ together in today’s verses.

This same tie is made in Psalm 1’s description of the person who is blessed of God: ‘His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His Word he meditates day and night’. (more…)

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Big God People Live by Faith Not Fear – VOTD.06.11.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 11th, 2018 | by

You have forsaken your first love. Revelation 2:4

As I try to wet people’s appetites for deeper levels of passion and relationship with Jesus, I encounter many Christians who are afraid of drawing closer to God–even among Christians who are quite knowledgeable in the Bible.

They usually come with the same concern: “But doesn’t pursuing a deeper experience with God open us up to doctrinal error?” The answer that concerns us in this meditation is: ‘How big is your God’? If we are ever going to reach out and be touched by God we’re going to have to believe in a God who is big enough to keep us safe in our pursuit of more of Him.

Doctrinally speaking, we all know that God is all-powerful–He’s stronger than the devil. But if you talk with many Christians who say they believe that, practically speaking, their devil is bigger than their God. Some, because of their fear of error, have not only shied away from seeking an experience with God for themselves, they’ve actively discouraged other Christians from pursuing God. 

After all, history shows us many deceived groups who based their beliefs on experiences even though it was in conflict with clear statements in the Bible. Under the guidance of such attitudes, fear becomes our teacher and walking by fear instead of by faith, we ironically end up equally in conflict with clear statements in the Bible that tell us to pursue God. Is this deception any less dangerous? (more…)

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Free to Delight in Him – VOTD.06.05.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 5th, 2018 | by

How precious is Your loving kindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And You give them drink from the river of Your delight. Psalms 36:7-8

When we’re full of ourselves, full of other things, other programs and events and people, it’s hard to ‘be still and know that I am God’ (Ps 46:10). And sometimes our lives are like that—where the best we do is carve out time to spend in meditating on what God is saying and communing with Him. Sometimes it’s hard to turn our eyes, our focus, our attention, from the things of this life and spend time gazing on Jesus. 

But this isn’t abundant life…this is what Jesus set us free from when He came. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me TO PROCLAIM FREEDOM for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, TO SET THE OPPRESSED FREE, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:16-19)

The “thing from which you derive the most pleasure is the very thing you worship. For some people it is Prozac, or the NFL… It could be a wicked or a mundane thing. But ask yourself: where do you find the most irresistible pleasure? That is what you worship.

“We must worship and serve God for one reason alone: because we can’t help ourselves. We are entranced. God is that delightful to us.

“Worship is basically adoration, and we adore only what delights us. There is no such thing as sad adoration or unhappy praise. We have a name for those who try to praise when they have no pleasure in the object. We call them hypocrites.”–John Piper (more…)

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The Life of Grace – VOTD.06.04.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | June 4th, 2018 | by

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8,9

Every true Christian knows that he or she has been born into the family of God by God’s grace alone . . . through faith in Jesus. That truth has been the motivation behind evangelism crusades, social work, and personal witnessing across the centuries. We are sinners. We cannot do a single thing to save ourselves from our deserved punishment of eternal death in hell. 

That’s the way of salvation in a nutshell: You and I are saved by God’s grace alone. We receive God’s grace by reaching out and accepting it by faith (which God will give us according to today’s verses). When this happens, there’s a lens change even for the most socially acceptable of us. What we don’t often see is that such a lens shift is the first of many.

Christians don’t have much trouble agreeing that Salvation is completely and entirely a work of God’s grace. However, the Scriptures teach us that Grace does not end on the day that we reach out and receive God’s gift of Jesus. That is only the beginning work of God’s grace. His grace is instrumental in our continued growth and our daily living. The same grace that God offers to save you and me is the grace that God offers to transform our lives into something that Jesus called, “abundant life” (Jn 10:10). (more…)

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Loving Us Loving Others – VOTD.05.29.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 29th, 2018 | by Wheels of Glory

For God proved his love for (each one of us) that he gave his one and only, unique Son as a gift… John 3:16

For the Christian walking in God’s grace, our posture is always love. Jesus, Himself, never did a thing outside of love. Even when He rebuked the Pharisees, He did not mock them. Nor did He rant. Too many of His followers, however, prefer loud to loving; yelling to relating. It is much easier. And there are plenty of Christian speakers out there who cater to the ‘Christian’ thirst for put-downs and mockery that is so popular in the Kingdom of this world.

The Bible doesn’t leave the Love matter up to personal choice: I’ve never heard a Christian get up and propose that we behave unlovingly—at least not blatantly. I have heard many redefine love so that it includes unkindness, mockery, verbal slamming, and the list goes on. So I’m wondering: Are we who comprise the local churches so blind to the implications of our love theology that we can snooker ourselves into believing that we are loving when we’re really hating?

Our theology says that we each of us has sinned. We embrace the concept of the total fallenness of humanity, but do we conveniently forget that fallenness does not display itself the same way in everyone? Our theology says that all sins are the same; to commit one is to commit them all; and the penalty for any sin is death. 

In Biblical love there is no wiggle room. Love does not allow us to decide who we will let off and who we will judge any more than it allows us to decide who we will love and who we will hate; who we will be in awe of and who we will mock.

If the love of God is not for people we fully disagree with; the person on the cover of all the supermarket tabloids, the politician who’s agenda is godless, the atheist… then it is for no one. The very essence of the Gospel is that no one is good enough to secure God’s love. And “no one” includes you and me and all those people we think we’re better than… why pretend that our hatred is ‘righteous indignation’ and as such, it’s acceptable?  

God’s grace is not a bunch of theological platitudes, but it is God’s hand finding each one of us in the miry pit. The hand that becomes coated with grime to reach down into the sewer of sin and grab us sets us on a solid rock and establishes us in righteous ways.

So, theology aside, why do many (most?) Christians consider some sins worse than others? While many would correctly reason that we can’t expect lost people to act like they are saved, why do we expect them to, anyway? Paul certainly was explicit about this. He required some standards within the group of people who claimed to be Christians, but he calls it futile to expect Christian behavior from non-Christians. (more…)

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Unity vs. Love – VOTD.05.28.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 28th, 2018 | by

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:13,14

I’ve watched churches and individuals struggle with the unity thing for most of my adult life. And I’ve watched the grapple to build unity. If I’ve learned one thing from all this observation, it’s that if our goal is unity, we’re doomed. But if our goal is love, unity will grow out of that.

The key to true unity is to make sure that unity isn’t the goal—love is the goal. So, rather than seeking unity, we should seek love, and then we can let love be the key to unity.

Love forgives when we are wronged. Love chooses to ignore differences of opinion. Love overlooks variations in behavior. When we truly love people, differing political opinions and theological persuasions become all part of the diversity of the Living Organism we call the Body of Christ, rather than opportunity for taking offense which leads to division and strife.

This way, even if a unity of beliefs/behavior is not possible, a unity of love is. Unity is not sameness. It is love lifting us above our differences in order to pursue our common goal, the glory of God. This is crucial: God loves us unconditionally, and He calls us to love our siblings in Christ unconditionally. This kind of love never demands the casting aside of convictions or truth. In fact, it leaves that sort of thing in the hands of the Holy Spirit who is the author of unity. (more…)

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Our Harmonious Response to God’s Children – VOTD.05.22.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 22nd, 2018 | by

I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.  Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1-3

We’ve already seen that unity isn’t about identicality, it’s about like-heartedness. So how do we cooperate with God to live in unity and how is it maintained? It depends a lot on our character in Jesus. Paul lists 5 characteristics that Christian unity depends on: humility, gentleness, patience, mutual forbearance, and love.

No big surprise that he begins with humility. Humility is essential to unity. Pride almost always results in discord and discord is almost always the result of pride at some level. Humility is the attitude that Jesus displayed in becoming a human being in the first place (Phil 2:3-8). In fact the word Paul used here is actually “humility of mind”—Humble-minded. That it’s an attitude that recognizes the worth and value of other people and allows for their diverse opinions.

Think about it for a moment. The people we tend to like to be around are people who show us respect even though they may not agree with us in many areas. The ones we don’t like to be with are the ones we sense disrespect or feel smug superiority from. Rather than maneuvering for the respect or esteem of others (which is the nature of pride), if we give them our respect, because we recognize their inherent God-given worth (which is the nature of this humility of mind that Ephesians is talking about), then we’ll be promoting harmony in our relationships; and result will probably be that they’ll respond to us with the same respect they’ve received. (more…)

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Our Harmonious Response to a Fathomless God – VOTD.05.21.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 21st, 2018 | by

(Present yourselves) as one united body living in perfect harmony. Form a consistent choreography among yourselves, having a common perspective with shared values.
1 Corinthians 1:10

Last time we were talking about the variety of metaphors God uses in His Word to describe Himself to us:
Potter – Clay (clay is a lump, simply receiving)
Shepherd – Sheep (sheep at least have some ability to respond)
Master – Slave (slaves work, they do their duty)
Father – Children (now we’re talking relationship, but it’s a pitched relationship)
Friend – Friend (we’re on the same playing field)
Lover – Lover (we’re in each other’s arms, entwined)
One heart, one mind (supernatural oneness, where it’s hard to define where one leaves off and the other begins)
Even deeper and deeper (the list never ends)

The diversity of metaphors exist because He is a Big God, beyond our understanding, but He wants to connect with us in ways we can fathom. (more…)

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God’s Revelation of Himself – VOTD.05.15.18

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 15th, 2018 | by

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. But now I call you my most intimate friends, for I reveal to you everything that I’ve heard from my Father.  John 15:15

Last time we ended by saying that when we are doubtful about who God wants to be for us and what He wants us to be for Him, then we’re perfectly positioned to discover Him in some new, glorious and breathtaking way.
…If we’ll let ourselves.

I wonder how many of us have lost—or maybe never had—that intimate knowledge of God as our true Father?
Or how many of us have lost—or maybe never had—that intimate knowledge of Jesus as our Bridegroom?
Our how many of us have lost—or maybe never had—that intimate knowledge of the Holy Spirit as our comforter and loving director of our path?

Our God wants to be all that to us and more. But we need to come to grips with the truth that God reveals Himself to each of us in different ways. Even in the Bible, we see God often reveals Himself as a father, sometimes as a mother… in the NT we see Him as a brother, a savior, a door, a flower, bread, water… lots of things. In the same way, God reveals His relationship to each of us in a series of ways: As a Kinsman-Redeemer to a young widow, as a brother to a sibling, as still small voice to a listening ear, as a Master to a slave, as a Friend to a friend, as a Husband to a wife or a Lover to a lover…

And not all of these relationship metaphors are equal. When Jesus said, “I no longer call you slaves, but now I call you friends,” that was a promotion, not a lateral move in their relationship. Yet in their future writings, they don’t introduce themselves as “friend of Jesus”; they introduce themselves as “servants of Jesus.” So becoming friends – experiencing Jesus at that status — didn’t negate the idea that they still identified with the “servant” relationship metaphor.

But why all the metaphors in the first place? All of these and more are needed for us to grasp the Bigness of our God and how He relates to us. But it also points to a reality that God often reveals Himself to each of us in different ways. So, my experience of Him might be a little different than yours. (more…)

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The Breadth of God – VOTD.05.14.2018

Posted in Verse of the Day | May 14th, 2018 | by

When Paul says, “Praise the Lord all you nations, and let all the peoples extol him” Rom 15:11, he’s saying that there is something about our God that is so universally praiseworthy and so profoundly stunning and so precisely worthy and so deeply satisfying that God will find passionate lovers in all sorts of different people.

Jesus’ true greatness is demonstrated in the breadth of people who identify themselves with Him and cherish Him. His glory is shown to be higher and deeper than if He was only found awesome by a narrow, insulated group of people who see everything the same way.

But instead of attracting only a single kind people, His appeal is to the deepest, highest, largest capacities of our souls. It all testifies to His incomparable glory.

And it all challenges the smallness of our personal image of God. And that’s important because our image of God drives every single part of our life and determines how we live out our lives. (more…)

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