Fiery trials and sweet tea

“Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. (1 Peter 4:12-13)

   This week I have reflected upon the suffering of Christ on the cross and what He was willing to do for you and me so that we might be saved and washed clean of all our sins. He knew what He was doing and what He had to endure to be obedient to the Father who had sent Him to live among us to be our sacrificial Passover Lamp. We don’t have to suffer for our sins. He has paid the full price and we have been declared “not guilty” even though we are so very guilty!

   So now that we have come to the realization that we have been saved and “born again” why is it that we have to still endure trials in this life? One of the best illustrations I have read about this has to do with what Steve McVey in his book “The Secret of Grace” has to say about my favorite drink, sweet tea! Yes, I said sweet tea. Mr. McVey is gracious enough to first give us a recipe for “real sweet tea:”

   “The first step in making sweet tea is to turn up the heat so the water will boil. The sugar and tea won’t permeate the water until it is very hot. This is the same way God works in people when He is preparing to reveal a beautiful creation in them. Have you ever noticed how much more receptive you are to Him when the heat is turned up in you life? When you are in hot water, you usually get into the receiving mode fast! If you have ever asked God to do something powerful in your life, then don’t be surprised when trouble comes. He may turn up the heat in your circumstances to prepare you to experience His life. The glory of having Jesus expressing His life through you requires that you pass through the fire. It’s not pleasant while it is happening, but when the process is complete the finished product is quite a treat!”

   (Read 1 Peter 4:12-13 above again)

   “Unlike cold tea and sugar, hot tea and sugar are totally compatible with each other. In fact, the sugar quickly dissolves when stirred into hot tea. Once the sugar has dissolved, the very nature of the liquid is changed. The tea and sugar are combined and will never be separated. Their distinct elements have merged together in such a way that they are now one new entity. This isn’t the case with iced tea. It is impossible to get sugar to dissolve in tea once it has been served over ice. No matter how much you stir it, the two just won’t mix.”

    “When God prepares to manifest the sweet presence of His life within us, He uses heat to cause us to be receptive to His permeating our whole being. It’s amazing how hard circumstances can cause us to warm up to His working in our lives.”

   “His indwelling life has transformed our very nature. Just as the sugar and tea have become one, we have been united with our God through Jesus Christ and can never be separated. The Apostle Paul wrote, ‘In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to praise and glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:5-6)”

   “Through your adoption in Jesus Christ you have a nature that is in union with God. This union is more than a lofty theological precept. It’s a down-to-earth practical reality that can transform the way you live your life every day. It’s the realization that our lives aren’t independent and separated from the God who created us. To the contrary, our very existence is bound up in Him. There is no God-up-there and you-down-here. You and He are one just as the Father is one with the Son and the Spirit. It is an irreversible, unchangeable union.”

   “The Bible says, ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.’ (2 Corinthians 5:17) That union is what gives you your identity. When have you heard someone refer to tea as ‘water with tea and sugar in it’? It’s nature has been changed; therefore, it is identified by a new identity—sweet tea.” (The Secret of Grace by Steve McVey, pp.42-44)

Sweet tea anyone?

    If you are a born again believer you are a “new creation!” Are you and I acting like one? Are we are allowing the Holy Spirit that lives within us to control us, and are we resting in Him everyday? If we are, then we will be acting like He wants us to, and how He has prepared for us to live for Him in this life, and in the next.

PRAY

1.    Thank You Lord Jesus for living within in me through Your Holy Spirit. Fill me  and control my thoughts, my will, and my actions this day.

2.    Help me to rest in You today, and to “cast all my cares upon You.” You are my Hiding Place” and my “Shelter from the storm.”

3.    Help me to see through the eyes of Your heart those that I come in contact with today and help me to talk to them about You, if they do not know You as their Lord and Savior.

He Arose!

“Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of a rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed.” (Matthew 27:57-60)

   British Major General Charles Gordon (Also know as Chinese Gordon, and Gordon of Khartoum) was visiting Jerusalem in 1882 and as he was walking by a bus station he looked up to the hill that was behind it and marveled at how much it looked like a human skull. He asked the local Arabs if the hill had a name and he was told that it was called Skull Hill. Further examination found that there was a garden nearby that dated back over 2000 years that included an empty tomb where there was no evidence of ever having held a dead body. This garden is now administered by the British Bible Society. When I visited this site in 1983 we were told that although they couldn’t say for sure this was the tomb where Jesus was buried or whether Skull Hill is the Skull Hill (Golgotha) mentioned in the Bible they could say that wherever that tomb is it is exactly like this one; It is empty!

    “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lighting, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28: 1-3)

   Don’t you wish you could have been there? Those mighty Roman soldiers who are supposed to be guarding the body of Jesus from being stolen by those wimpy disciples are laying prostate on the ground, shaking with fear, and are acting like “dead men!” Isn’t that awesome? It doesn’t matter what kind of odds you are facing. God is the one who is in charge, and when He purposes to do something, no plan of man can thwart it. (Even if his name is Pilate and he is Governor of Judah or he is Caiaphas and is the High Priest of the Jewish people.)

   “But the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold I have told you.’ So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.” (Matthew 28: 5-8)

Wow! “He is risen, as He said” How many times did Jesus tell the disciples that he would die and rise again in three days? At least three times: (Matthew 20:18-19, 17:22-23, 16:21), and probably other times that were not written down. He knew what God’s plan was because He was perfectly attuned to the plans of His Father. “that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they  also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21)

   So the question before us today as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Easter morning is this: Do you really believe that Christ died on a cross for your sins and that He is reigning in heaven today and that He is coming back to take you to heaven to live with Him and the rest of the saints for eternity? 

1.    If you do, you are saved (born again) and you can live whatever remains of your time on earth with the certainty that you are Christ’s child and He has a plan to use you for His church and for His kingdom. Are you living for Him? Are you making a difference in the lives of your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, or strangers you meet? If not, start today! It is never too late to be obedient to God’s Word. 

2.    If you do not believe this, what will it take to for you to accept this marvelous gift that God is offering you? Perhaps you are a skeptic like Lee Strobel was when he set out to disprove the truth of the gospel but ended up writing the book, The Case for Christ. (Which has now been made into a movie and can be seen on Netflix or DVD.) If you are a skeptic I encourage you to check out the movie or the book. Or you can do it the old fashioned way: Read the Bible for yourself and see what Jesus has to say to you through His words and actions! Start with the book of John. Seek out a godly pastor or layperson and study the Bible together. See for yourself that Jesus, the Son of God, is who He says He is.

Jesus said: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (John 14:3)

   Jesus has had over 2000 years preparing a place for those who believe and follow Him. You can not imagine what He has and is still preparing for His children to enjoy in fellowship with all the other believers from “ever nation, tribe and tongue, and people!”

PRAY:

1.    Thank You Lord Jesus for dying on that “old rugged cross” for my sins and for adopting me into Your family with all the rights and privileges of a son or daughter. 

2.    I know that my salvation was bought and paid for at a tremendous cost of pain and suffering and that all my sins past, present, and future have been forgiven.

3.    Help me to be obedient to the Holy Spirit who lives within me and to be quick to respond to the needs that others, who You have put into my life, to serve and to make sure they know You also.

4.    Help me to spend time with You every day in prayer and in the reading and meditating on Your precious Word, the Bible.

  

Prophecy fulfilled on Palm Sunday

“Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command To restore and build Jerusalem Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, Even in troublesome times.” (Daniel 9:25)

  The Scripture above indicates that 69 weeks (weeks of years) after the order to rebuild the temple was commanded by the King of Persia, the Messiah would come to His people, the Jews. In his book The Handwriting on the Wall, Pastor David Jeremiah has these words to say about this prophecy that was given by the prophet Daniel: 

   “The sixty-nine weeks began with March 14^th445 B.C., when Artaxerxes’ decree went forward. We need to remember that the weeks are counted as years and each year had 360 days. Simple calculation of this time element is this: 69 weeks (of years) x 7 (days in a week)=483 x 360 (days in a year) = 173,800. Now if you take March 14, 445 B.C., when the decree to rebuild Jerusalem went forth, and add to it 173,800 days, you come to April 6, A.D. 32. According to Sir Robert Anderson in his chronology, it was on that day that Jesus Christ rode into the city in His triumphal entry.”(“The Handwriting On the Wall” by David Jeremiah, p.195)

   All four gospels describe Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on that exciting Palm Sunday! Doctor Luke describes it this way:

   “And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road. Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying; ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’”

   “And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’ But He answered them and said to them: ‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.’” (Luke 19:36-40) 

  Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies that are found in the Old Testament. This is just one more that proves that He was who He claimed to be: The Son of Man, The Son of God, the Messiah, and after next Friday; The Savior of the World!

  As He continued riding the donkey toward Jerusalem He was moved with emotion as He contemplated the fact that the majority of the Jewish nation did not recognize Him as the Messiah even though they had numerous Scriptures that He had fulfilled and even more miracles that proved He was God’s Son. Luke continues:

   “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build and embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’” (Luke 19:41-44)

    This prophecy by Jesus would be fulfilled less than forty years later when the Roman Army under Titus destroyed Jerusalem, and the Temple. The entire nation was removed from the land that God had given to them centuries earlier, and would not return in significant numbers until the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

PRAY

1.    Lord, put on my heart the people you want me praying for today and throughout this week. Lord give me a heart like yours to angonize over those I know who don’t know you as Lord and Savior.

2.    Help me today to remember with excitement what it was like that day when you rode on a lowly donkey into Jerusalem just as the prophet Zechariah had predicted centuries before.

3.    Help me to be faithful today to cry out for those who are hurting because of lost loved ones and who are battling disease or spiritual warfare.

Spiritual tool box

  “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15, NKJV)

     When the Lord gives us an opportunity to talk to someone about the things of God do we know the Scriptures that will help us talk to them about their eternal soul? Are we comfortable with the doctrine of sin, and how our sin has been paid in full, by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Perhaps you are familiar with the Roman Road, The Model Presentation, or Faith Evangelism. Whether you are or not, you need to have some Scripture in your hip pocket so that you can tell people what God has revealed to us through His Scripture. Here are a few that you can meditate on today and maybe even memorize so that you can talk to someone else this week.

“These things I have written unto you who believe in name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.” (1 John 5:13)

   “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. ” (John 3:16,17)

   “For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)

   “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned everyone to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

  “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe on His name.” (John 1:12)

   “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)

  “For by grace are you saved through faith; and not of yourselves it is a gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

  “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heard one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10: 9-10)

PRAY

1. Lord help me to understand and memorize what You Word says about salvation and sin and why You came into the world and died for our sins.

2. Help me to be bold enough and obedient to talk to others about You and to look for opportunities to   

speak about what You have done to save me from death and hell.

3. Fill me with Your Spirit so that I can look at others with the same compassion that You have when you look upon others You place in my life so that they might know You as I do. 

I'm with Him!

   “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with jewels.” (Isaiah 61:10)

   When Miriam and I were living in the Philippines we were fortunate enough to be able to minister to some girls that were in a home for sexually abused girls. We took them to our home once a week and did crafts and memorized Scripture and just had fun with them, to show them what a Christian family could look like. We started with three but it soon grew to six as one asked for her sister to come and two others petitioned for their best friends. We had to stop at six because that was already more than our little car could handle!

  Sometimes we would take them to eat and on one occasion we were going to a hamburger place and as we were going in we couldn’t help but notice three boys that were begging near the restaurant. The security guard at the door was making sure that they did not get close enough to bother the patrons coming and going and was definitely making sure they did not enter the restaurant.

    After we had entered one of the girls asked: “Can we invite the boys outside to come and eat with us? We quickly said, “Yes, of course!’ So three of the girls immediately jumped up from the table and went outside, and I went also to make sure there was no trouble from the security guard. You should have seen the faces of those three boys as they realized that someone was inviting them into the restaurant! They stood up straight and proud and walked right past the guard with big grins on their faces!  One of the boys, as he passed by the guard, looked up at him and pointed to me as if to say,   “I ‘m with him!”

   We had a great time talking to the boys through the girls who spoke both English and Tagalog (the language of the Philippines), and they told them about Jesus and how He had transformed their lives in the home they lived in. Each boy ate half of their hamburger and fries and asked if they could take the rest home to their family. We, of course, said yes.

    After we had said goodbye and were headed back to the girls’ home, Miriam said to me: “You know, that is a great picture of when we get to heaven. We are going to show up at those Pearly Gates, and if someone asks us why we think we can get in, we just point to Jesus and say, ‘I’m with Him!’”

   Yes, Yes, and Yes! He is the One who died on a cross and paid the penalty for our sins! He is the One who arose from the dead and ascended into Heaven and sits on the right hand of God and is our Great High Priest! He is our Righteousness! He is our Kinsman Redeemer! He is our Savior and Lord! Hallelujah and Hallelujah, Amen!

  “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed thought the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16)

   PRAY:

1.    Lord thank You for being such a loving and capable High Priest to all who call you Lord. 

2.    Use me today to be a reflection of Your love to everyone I come in contact with and help me always to put the needs of others over my own selfish desires.

3.    Lord, I praise You for being such a loving Father and Friend that is always looking out for my interests so that I can freely focus on the people around me that need encouragement and prayer.

Sold out soldier

 “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you…… For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:11,14)

  Major W. Ian Thomas of England was a soldier in all respects that you would think a soldier should be. He served in an infantry battalion in Belgium at the outset of World War II and took part in the evacuation at Dunkirk after the British, and French were soundly defeated by the Germans in 1940. He went on to serve with his unit in combat in France, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere during this long and bloody war. He found that the Lord Jesus was sufficient to carry him through many a difficult and arduous task during the conflict.

   Born into a middle class home he grew up in church and had a life changing experience as a 12-year old boy attending a Bible study offered by the Crusaders Union and he asked the Lord to save him. At the age of 15 he decided to give his life completely to the service of his Savior and he told God he would be a missionary. To fulfill this promise he enrolled in a college in London at the age of seventeen to become a doctor so that he could go and serve in Africa. 

  At college he became very active as a leader in Inter-Varsity Fellowship and spent every spare moment he could when he was not studying to be in a whirlwind of activity for the next two years. By the young age of 19 he was already burned out and was in a state of complete exhaustion spiritually. He went to the Lord in prayer one night and after hours of crying out and reading Scripture here is what Major Thomas says God told him:

   “It just came from every area of God’s Word, and very kindly and very lovingly the Lord seemed to make it plain to me that night, through my tears of bitterness: ‘You see, for seven years, with the utmost sincerity, you have been trying to live for Me, on My behalf, the life that I have been waiting for seven years to live through you. I have been there the whole time. All the things you have been pleading for, all the things for which you have been asking, have been yours since the day seven years ago, at your request and invitation, that I came into your heart…: but you see, although you have given mutual assent to the truth that I have been in your heart, and have accepted it as theory, you have lived totally ignoring the fact. You have been busy trying to do for Me all that only I can do through you.’ (They Found the Secret by F. Raymond Edmond, pp167-168)

    That night Ian Thomas says that he discovered the secret of the adventurous life. “He said: With nothing to support the theory and without the testimony of any other known Christian to the facts, I simply said to the Lord Jesus Christ that night, ‘Well, it is that or nothing! If this is true, then I am going to thank Thee for it in sheer cold-blooded faith, with no other evidence to support it, and nothing but a history of failure behind me! I am going to thank Thee that if Thou art my life, and this is true, then Thou art my victory; Thou art my strength, Thou art my power, Thou art my future! Thou art the One Who is going to go out now, clothed in me to do all that I so hopelessly have been trying to do in the past seven years!’ Then I went to sleep!

   “I got up the next morning to an entirely different Christian life, but I want to emphasize this: I had not received one iota more than I had already had for seven years! I had had the Lord Jesus, equal to all my need in whom I had been blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly things, for the whole of those seven years; but I stepped out on my way to the university that morning with a new song in my heart. I was saying, ‘Lord Jesus I thank Thee for the first time in my life, this is Thy day! I no longer have the burden of running my own life. At last I have a governor capable of governing!’” (Ibid, p.171) 

    As he walked to class he thought about the boys Sunday School class he was to teach the next Sunday. “I said, ‘Well Lord, thou art going to speak to that boys class isn’t wonderful? Yesterday I thought I was going to, but Thou art going to now! I thank Thee dear Lord , for the boys that thou are going to save.’” (Ibid, pp. 171-172)

   That Sunday 90 boys showed up for his class. He invited any to come back in the afternoon if they would like to be saved after he had spoken very simply about the Lord Jesus Christ. 30 boys came back! It did not just happen once, God came through day after day after day! It seemed that every person he bumped into that week wanted to know about Jesus! He had been bumping into all the wrong people for 7 years. More were saved in next weeks Sunday School class also and he became a new man being used by God because he had finally learned to abide in Christ and let Him do all the work!

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

PRAY

1.    Dear precious Jesus, thank You that You are the One who does it all. My job is just to abide in You and be obedient to go where You want me to go and do what You want me to do.

2.    Lord help me this day to remember first thing in the morning that this day belongs to You and my job is to allow you to use me for Your agenda.

Thank you Jesus for being my branch and keep me attached to you throughout this day and the next and the next so that Your name will be glorified and others will see that I belong to You.

Have you confessed?

“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10)

  I know that you probably have read or heard these words preached on numerous occasions. If not, then I definitely encourage you to read on. But even if you have heard this Scripture before, but have never really acted on it, then now would be a really great time! Paul, in this letter to the church in Rome, lays the cornerstone of what it means to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, a disciple. But what exactly is Paul trying to tell us here?

   “In the Bible confession and testimony are put in a prominent place, and the test of a man’s moral caliber is the ‘say so.’ ‘Heart’ means all that is meant by ‘me.’ If I say with myself what I believe and confess it with my mouth, I am lifted into the domain of that thing. This is always the price of spiritual emancipation. If a child is to be taken out his sulky mood he has to go across the disinclination of his reserve and say something; and this is true of all moral and spiritual life. If I will not confess with my mouth what I believe in my heart, that particular phase of believing will never be mine actually. Assurance of faith is never gained by reserve but only by abandonment. In the matter of human love it is a great emancipation to have it expressed; there may be intuitions of love, but the realization of it is not ours until it is expressed. Morally and spiritually we live, as it were, in sections, and the door from one section to another is by means of words, and until we say the right words the door will not open. The right word is always based on the killing of the disinclination which belongs to a lower section (baser human nature).” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost Devotional Bible, p. 755)

  “For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For ‘whoever calls upon the name of the LORD shall be saved,’” (Romans 10: 11-13)

  I think the most important word in the commentary by Mr. Chambers above is this one: abandonment. Have you abandoned all that you thought important in this world to follow the only One who has the spiritual key to this life and key to eternal life? His name is Jesus! 

He is the One who died on that rugged cross and rose again on the third day to save us from our sins. His is the One we need to confess daily and proclaim to a lost and dying world so that they too can be saved and serve the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

PRAY

1.    Lord I confess that You are who You claim to be. You are the Alpha and Omega, You are my Savior, and my God. You are the Bright and Morning Star, the Son of God, and You are coming again to take us to the place You have prepared for us to spend eternity with You.

2.    Lord, help me this day to live it for You and to be obedient to the example You have given to me in Your Word.

3.    Holy Spirit, fill me now that I might reflect the love of God and Jesus in every thing I think, and in everything I say and do in the presence of those You put in my path today.