October 15, 2024

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  8 Love never ends.

Endurance isn’t an easy thing to find. Some rare folks have a natural tenacity, but most of us don’t. The Greeks told of Sisyphus having to push a rock up a mountain forever, never reaching the top, never allowed to stop. That monotony and lack of progress perfectly sum up most of our relationships, certainly our sanctification. How do we keep at it?

It’s not easy to define love, but the quality of valuing someone even when they aren’t particularly useful is a great place to start. Only love can continue to push a rock up a hill with no sign of a finish line. Only love can continue to endure all things, believing the best, hoping for real change. Only love never ends. When we see the gospel message, is it any wonder that the Bible says God is love?

Prayer prompt: Lord, I love You and I am forever amazed that You love me.

October 14, 2024

Luke 15:20

20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

So what is Heaven really? Americans are uniquely able to ask that question as we live, even now, in unprecedented wealth. You have more access to pleasure than almost any other group in history. So what is it? If we are going to make the perfect moment, the perfect situation, what would it entail?

Love truly is the only answer. Heaven is love without the restrictions of our sin, love from the only One who can really love. Heaven is that hug from the Father that bestows a name, an acceptance, and a joy that overwhelms us. One day we will know that love fully, but even now we can know it in part. Heaven is reaching out to you right now. Stop and enjoy His love this morning.

Prayer prompt: Lord, I love You. Help me to experience Your love today.

October 12, 2024

Luke 6:35-36 

35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 

I want to be like my dad. He’s a generous soul who desperately cares for others. He may see wickedness and hate it, but when the wicked come close, his heart fills with compassion. He models another One we would be blasphemous to call Father. Except that’s what He makes Himself for those who are in Christ. 

Our Father in Heaven is influencing us all the time. Our love for Him is going to end up molding our actions and the way we react to even the enemies around us. In a world filling with enemies, this is no light task! Are you prepared to be kind to the ungrateful and the evil? If you need a model, be merciful even as your Father is merciful.

Prayer prompt: Lord, I’m so thankful for the way You loved an enemy like me and made me into a son. Teach me to love like You love.

October 11, 2024

Jeremiah 29:11

11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Have you read this verse before? It is super encouraging. It’s the kind of verse a grandpa would write in the card of a graduating senior. They look forward to big things with a blazing optimism, the kind of optimism that sours in most people. If you don’t know the story with this verse, you can get pretty upset when evil does come instead of what we would call welfare. 

This isn’t God’s promise to a young man or woman with the world at their fingertips. This was spoken by God to the nation of Israel as Jerusalem burned and Babylon conquered. Everything they hoped for was just taken apart, brutally, before their eyes. God’s wrath was being poured out on their sin. And even there, God’s steadfast love continued. Even in ashes and smoke, God’s promise continued. In this strange year, look up to God’s steadfast unconditional love. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, I know You will never leave me or forsake me.

October 10, 2024

Proverbs 5:3-5

3 For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, 4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. 5 Her feet go down to death her steps follow the path to Sheol;

If an enemy were going to poison me, where would he hide the poison? If he put it in many healthy foods, I’d continue a long, happy life. But if he hid it in the kettle corn, or the Ruby Snap cookies, I’d be dead in 5 minutes time. The sweet can hide the bitter. Our enemy knows this very well. 

Temptation doesn’t have to be sexual to fit into the verses above. Anything God warns us against will be used by the enemy to entice us down to death. Sin is always going to be honey on top and death underneath. Look away from these false pleasures, these poison injected cookies, to the life that we find in Christ. He too stands with open arms, ready to embrace you as friend, son, and co-heir to God’s pleasures forever more. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, help me to see through the bait to the hook and hate sin so that I may much more love the good pleasures you give.

October 9, 2024

Luke 16:26

26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’

Are Christians happy about people being separated from God forever in Hell? Some think we look down on those far from God as being inferior to us and are snickering behind our Bibles at their eventual destruction. If any church person feels that way, and I’m not sure who does, they don’t have Christ’s love for the lost. 

If we begin to have a heart like Jesus, we will be willing to go anywhere, even terrible places, to bring the lost to God. A great evidence is this verse from Jesus’ teaching on the rich man and Lazarus. Abraham tells the rich man that a chasm exists between Heaven and Hell to stop traffic in either direction. Are we willing to take steps today, when no chasm exists, to find people far from God and bring them to His grace?

Prayer prompt: Lord, send me a love like You have and send me to the world.

October 8, 2024

Luke 16:25

25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.

What are your good things? It may seem like an odd question, but that one question distinguishes Lazarus from the rich man. It will determine Heaven or Hell. It is what the Old Testament Law was built to show you. In the end, God will judge you based on what you loved most. As Jesus said, the whole law rests on the command to love God and loving God, to love others. 

So, what are your good things? If God is not it, you’re missing out on Heaven. You will miss out on Heaven in the ultimate sense of where your soul goes, but more than that. Heaven isn’t primarily a gold-plated city without disease. Heaven is the place where God is and where we are with Him forever. If you can know Him now, Heaven will invade your life even now.

Prayer prompt: Lord, I want You more than anything else.

October 7, 2024

Isaiah 55:8-9

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Our kids are still young, but I already dread the teenage years. It won’t be easy to lead them when they are only sure of one thing: They know more than their parents. While there is a moment when teenagers come back around and gain a small amount of humility in dealing with mom and dad, most people struggle to have that humility toward God. We are extremely quick to call Him a tyrant, cold, or even to insist He can’t exist. 

We need a reality check. God’s ways are infinitely higher than our ways. We should fall on our knees in gratitude that we don’t understand everything He does. If we could, it would mean He is no greater, wiser, or smarter than we are. When I look at the mess we’ve made of the world, I thank God that His ways are higher than ours. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, I submit my will to Yours knowing You know better than me.

October 5, 2024

Isaiah 49:14-16

14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. 16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

Early in my marriage, I had a nightmare that Rachael had just forgotten me. I had to remind her of who I was and that we were married. It wasn’t dementia, she forgot me like you might misplace your keys. That nightmare is a real fear for many Christians, especially when we suffer. Has God forgotten us? 

These verses from Isaiah are amazing. A woman would never forget her nursing baby. Even if she did, God would never forget us. He has proved it by carving us into His hands. More permanent than any tattoo, Jesus could show doubting Thomas the holes that the nails had made. Those scars of love are still with Him and should preach a sermon to our fearful hearts every time we remember them.

Prayer prompt: Lord, I trust that You will never forget me, even when the enemies surround me or dark depression comes.

October 4, 2024

1 Corinthians 4:5

5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. 

We don’t judge other people because Jesus commanded it and because we use such vastly different standards for others and ourselves (Matthew 7:3-5). We don’t judge ourselves because God is our judge and the Gospel is our identity. In 1 Corinthians 4:5 we get one more reason to withhold our judgment on others: we just don’t know enough.

“Don’t judge my story based on the chapter you walked in on.” We don’t know other people’s history, the set of gifts and intelligences they were given, or the motivations in their hearts as they act. How can we be so quick to assume we know all this and can therefore pronounce a judgment of good or bad? It’s so manifestly proud and hypocritical. Determine today to believe all things and hope all things in love toward others. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, I resign as a judge over the Universe. Thank You for correcting my thinking.

October 3, 2024

1 Corinthians 4:4

4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.

As hard as it would be, I do see the appeal in something like Islam. In that rigid religion if you do the right things someone will pronounce you Good. No matter how nagging your insecurities, if you follow all the commands all the time then you can walk around with your head held high. Of course, everyone who tries such a thing ends up proud or decimated by the attempt. It’s just not possible to stand up under God’s judgment.

That total inability is the beginning of the gospel and why we need the gospel so much. We can’t stand before God’s judgment, but Jesus can. We have to stand in Him. If you know that all the way down then you can live the kind of life that religion promised but never delivered. You can pursue good things and hate wicked things while still able to quiet shame and guilt with assurance of God’s acceptance in Jesus. Is that how you think?

Prayer prompt: Lord, teach me to live in a gospel way not in a religious way.

October 2, 2024

1 Corinthians 4:3

3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.

In 1 Corinthians we are told not to be judged by people and our culture gives a surprised “Amen!” Culturally, we’ve been told to follow our heart, to make our own right and wrong for ourselves for generations. But then, the Scripture checks us by saying we don’t judge ourselves either. Let this light shine over your identity: you are not what people around you say you are, or even what the shame and insecurity in your own head say you are. You are who God says you are. 

As we’ll see as we dig into the scriptures further, God goes way further than we would in the way He judges and in the way He loves. You are both way worse than you thought and infinitely more loved than you ever dreamed. If you can stop judging yourself and start trusting God’s truth about who are then Heaven itself will open up to you.

Prayer prompt: Lord, thank You for loving me despite it all my sin!

October 1, 2024

Romans 5:1

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Reality shows leverage the moment of judgment. Talent shows squeeze every last ounce of tension from the moment before a judge allows a contestant to continue or sends them home crying. Imagine being in a more serious version, in a real courtroom. The presiding juror hands the decision to the judge to read, then gets it back as everyone sweats with anticipation. Your freedom, maybe your very life, hangs on that judgment.

The gospel tells us a different story. We have been, in the past, justified by faith. It has already happened. The judgment has already come and you are declared innocent. Even now, right now, you have peace with God through Jesus Christ. It isn’t a hope for the future but a present reality. Live in the incredibly free joy of that most lovely truth!

Prayer prompt: Lord, thank you so much for giving me certainty of my future in Jesus.

September 30, 2024

Hebrews 10:30-31

30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

If I forgive you, does that mean you got away with it? Doesn't it seem like the only person who will pursue justice on my behalf is me? I know movies have those dogged detectives who stay up at night looking at giant tack boards of clues and pictures, but can I count on justice in my life? I think that may be the biggest hurdle to forgiveness.

The hard truth of scripture is that God is the judge who will bring about vengeance on any and all who do evil. No one escapes, and His justice is perfect. That means I can forgive, but it also means I really, really need forgiveness. I may not be a picture on a detective’s cork board, but God has seen the way I’ve lived. Go to Jesus to be forgiven for your sin! Otherwise, well, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, please forgive me my debt of sin as I forgive those who hurt me.

September 28, 2024

1 Corinthians 3:11

11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

So whose truth is really true? We live in a world that’s pretty sure of two things which can’t both be true. We believe each person can decide on what is true for him or herself, and we believe the lots of people who disagree with us are evil. You are encouraged to “live your truth”, unless of course it involves stepping on mine. So is truth something individuals come up with or is it something true for everyone?

The Bible is clear about where truth comes from. God’s view on truth is the True Truth. What He says goes. If you then, like you should, question who knows God’s truth, look with us at Jesus. That life and teaching which has unlocked the hearts of so many billions across time and culture is a sublime indicator. Look to that foundation and live. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, teach me to tell the world Your Truth with humility and out of love.

September 27, 2024

Matthew 7:3

3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

God doesn’t have to give us the reasons behind His commands. I can’t explain all of my decisions to my children because sometimes the reasons are beyond their reasoning. Here though, God gives us a pretty plain sense of why we shouldn’t judge. We are hypocritical judges who use different standards for ourselves and other people. 

We are willing to tolerate and even approve of massive transgressions in ourselves while at the same time finding the smallest infractions in our neighbors. Imagine a society where each legal case was decided by completely different, and arbitrary, laws. One person is fined $100 for murder while another is hanged for jaywalking. I don’t want to live in that world. Be glad that God, the only righteous one, is our Judge.

Prayer prompt: Lord, thank You for bringing order to the moral universe. Teach me to see myself and others the way You do.

September 26, 2024

Matthew 7:1

1 “Judge not, that you be not judged.

I don’t know what the civil war would have felt like. Brother against brother, the country was filled with people who loved and hated the same people. Our world today is taking on some of that tinge. We are mandated to vilify a huge number of people, and while it used to be a manageable group, it’s now just about everyone. It's here that Jesus’ radical command strikes like a lightening bolt. 

Jesus has commanded the finger waving Pharisees and the easy-going tax collectors to hand God’s responsibilities back to God. It just isn’t our job to judge other people. Right is still right and wrong is still wrong, but we can never overstep our role. We tell the world about sin and about God’s grace and forgiveness not as God’s judges, but as fellow sinners amazed by God’s grace. 

Prayer prompt: Lord, teach me to see things through Your eyes, loving all and trusting You to judge.

September 25, 2024

Romans 5:1

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

They say war is Hell. The Bible makes it clear that war with God will inevitably end up in Hell. He is always undefeated, a perfect record against all challengers. His enemies have to be a hopeless, pitiable rabble. How terrifying then that God considers us His enemies. We rebel and rebel and disregard and disrespect Him in 1,000 ways daily. Being His enemy, what incredible joy would we have in finding peace with Him?

An old preacher said, “Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace dancing.” In Christ, we are either resting in peace or whirling around changing the world with joy. God Has made peace with us through Jesus. He took His own Son and paid our debt of Hell on the cross. We need to more regularly honor God for that peace and relish the sensation of a cease-fire with the All-Powerful.

Prayer prompt: Lord, thank You for giving me peace and making peace at such an unimaginable cost.

September 24, 2024

Psalm 130:3-4

3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. 

If you’ve tried to talk to people about the Bible, you’ve probably heard them set the Old Testament against the New. The Old Testament God was angry, vengeful, and a judge. The New Testament God is forgiving, kind, and grandfatherly. If that were true, it would mean God perjured Himself, as if He was simply making it up as He went along. Does the message of the Old Testament anticipate and set the stage for the message of the New Testament? Are they the same?

The message of the New Testament is summed up perfectly in the Gospel. God has made a way to forgive sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Does the Old Testament prepare us for that message? Look at the verses above. We are sinners before God and yet He forgives. Let the weight of the whole bible assure you: God can forgive you. Do you trust Him? 

Prayer prompt: Lord, I praise You for Your unending work of salvation for sinners like me.

September 23, 2024

Psalm 124:2, 4-5

2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, … 4 then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5 then over us would have gone the raging waters.

Israel had a thing about water. When you read through the Bible, Israel was never a sea-faring race. Think of what they saw when they looked out over the waters: the flood in Genesis, the storm that took Jonah, the monster Leviathan that God described to Job, and the chaos of dark waters that took many sailors down to death. While a sunset over the ocean is definitely beautiful, Israel was also right. 

When we see the waters like the Psalmist, then we’re ready to see how our God makes a way through death. All of Scripture shows us, in more and more elaborate ways, the beauty of God’s salvation. Israel passed through the Red Sea on dry ground. They passed through the Jordan on dry ground. Jesus went down in baptism, then went down in the tomb. When He came back up, He declared for all time a way through death. Let that picture explode on your imagination and inform your praise!

Prayer prompt: Lord, help me to see Your salvation and praise You for it every day!