Nothing Else Matters

The Resurrection Changes Everything

The resurrection is the fulcrum of our Christian faith and indeed, the pivotal point in all of human history. As historian Jaroslav Pelikan said, “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen, nothing else matters.” Indeed, Christ is risen, and since this is true, is there anything else that truly matters as we go about our day?

Enduring Truth // Focus: Romans 1:4

Jesus was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.

The late Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the world’s leading scholars in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history, wrote, “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.”

The resurrection is the fulcrum of our Christian faith and indeed, the pivotal point in all of human history. As C.S. Lewis said, “If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the earth.” If Jesus rose from the dead, then he is Lord of all. If he didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is useless and, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, Christians are hopeless and to be pitied above all people:

If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.

But we believe Jesus rose from the dead. We have staked our faith, our lives, and our eternities on the scriptural and historical evidence that Jesus broke the chains of death that bound him in that garden tomb and rose again to life, thus defeating death, hell and the grave.

  • Since that is true, nothing else matters—Jesus is the Son of God and Lord of all!
  • Since that is true, we can place our trust in Jesus Christ to save us from our sins and deliver us to eternal life.
  • Since that is true, we can have confidence in Jesus Christ to be with us every step of the way in our earthly journey, knowing that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
  • Since that is true, we can experience the same resurrection power that coursed through the body of Jesus Christ coursing through our mortal bodies, enabling us to live the abundant life that he came to give us—God’s favor in the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual dimensions of living.
  • Since that is true, we can experience the same overcoming life that Jesus Christ lived, living above sin and in holiness to God.
  • Since that is true, we can boldly share the Good News with lost people of how Jesus Christ has made a difference in our lives. We do not need to be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). We do not have to be timid about our faith—in fact, if he is truly risen, to be timid would simply not be an option. If Jesus is risen, then he is either Lord of all, or not Lord of all.
  • Since that is true, we can place our lives squarely in God’s sovereign care, get busy fulfilling his purposes through our lives, and commit all of our energies, efforts and resources to glorifying him in everything we say and do.

He is risen! He is risen indeed! And nothing else matters.

Thrive: Ask yourself this important question: Am I living as if Jesus rose from the dead? If not, why not?

Give Me Chastity–Just Not Yet

Get Your Parts Right

You have been freed from the slavery of sin in order to live in the freedom of a different kind of slavery: slavery to the glory of God. Now you are to use your parts—all of them—as instruments of praise and righteousness. Are you? Have you consecrated every part of your body as an instrument of righteousness to the glory of God, or are there some parts that are still doing their own thing? After all that God has graciously done to redeem you from the slavery of sin, the least you can do is exert your will and consecrate your whole life as an instrument of praise.

Enduring Truth // Romans 6:13

Use your every part of your body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

A six-year-old little girl burst through the door one afternoon, excited to tell her mother what she had learned in school that day. “Mommy, guess what I learned today?” she blurted out.

“What, honey?” her mother replied. “What did you learn?”

Pointing to her head, the girl began to describe her first official lesson in human anatomy, “Mommy, I learned about my parts. I learned that this is my head, and it’s where my brains are.” Then she held out her hands and her looked down at her feet, “these are my hands and my feet, and they help me to do things and to go places.” Then she touched her chest and said, “here is my chest, and inside it is my heart. And it keeps me alive.” Finally, she put her hands on her tummy, and exclaimed, “and mommy, these are my bowels, and my bowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.”

She got most of her parts right, anyway. And that’s what Paul is calling us to do, to get our parts right by offering them every day in every way for the glory of God.

But do you? Is your brain an instrument to do what is right? Are the things that you allow your mind to dwell on the kind of things that will bring glory to God? If your thought life were to be played out in living color on the big screen, what kind of rating would it be given: P? PG? How about R? What? Really…you’d have to give it an X? What about the kind of things you allow to come into your thinking? Are those things—the TV shows you watch, the places you go on the Internet, the books you read—do they count as instruments of righteousness?

What about the things your hands do, or the places your feet take you? Would Jesus be comfortable doing those things and going to those places? What about your heart—have you closely guarded it, since it is the wellspring of life? (Proverbs 4:23) And your “vowels,” I mean, your bowels—what about what you take into your body? It is the temple of the Holy Spirit, after all. (I Corinthians 6:18-20) How are you treating the temple, the dwelling place of God? Are you treating the ol’ bod more like a temple, or a sewage treatment plant?

Paul’s point in Romans 6 is that we have been freed from the slavery of sin in order to live in the freedom of a different kind of slavery: slavery to the glory of God. We are to be instruments of praise and righteousness with every fiber of our existence:

When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10-11)

Have you consecrated every part of your body as an instrument of righteousness to the glory of God, or are there some parts that are still doing their own thing? Far too many of us are like Augustine, who once prayed, “Oh Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Dedication and consecration are an either/or thing: Either you are, or you aren’t. God wants you to be totally dedicated to him; fully consecrated in mind, body, heart and energies. And he deserves it, particularly in the light of his costly investment of grace in your life.

You have been saved by grace—God’s unmerited favor. You have been freed from the slavery of sin; you are no longer under the threat of death—all because of God’s rich and undeserved mercy. You have been given the free gift of eternal life—all at Christ’s expense. Even the faith to believe was supplied by God. Don’t you think that in response, God deserves you to give “your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of him”? Since God has graciously done all that, the least you can do is exert your will and consecrate your whole life as an instrument of praise.

Now I’ll admit, what I’m suggesting won’t be easy. In fact, it will be the toughest thing you ever do. (See Romans 7:14-20 if you don’t believe me.) C.S. Lewis said, “The full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination.” St. Augustine finally got it; he surrendered his desires to God, fully dedicating his wandering will to the glory of God. Having experienced that spirit-renovation, Augustine made this observation: “Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”

Will! So the question is, will you? God has given you his grace. Now mount up and get going! Use your whole body—every part—as an instrument to do what is right to the glory of God.

Thrive: Read Romans 6:1-23, then memorize verse 23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Compare Romans 6:21 with 6:23. Do a cost-benefit analysis of the particular sin that you seem to struggle with on a recurring basis.

Everybody Gets Cave Time

Core Curriculum in the School of Spirituality Maturity

If you are in a cave-like experience and you are complaining to everyone else but God, you are missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

Enduring Truth // Psalm 142:1

A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer. I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.

We all prefer to live out in the sunshine of grace, but from time to time we get the cave of hardship instead. Everybody get’s “cave time.” It is just core curriculum in the school of spirituality maturity. Call it whatever you want: the pit, the prison, the desert, the wilderness—the cave is basic training for believers.

Joseph had a prison; Moses had the desert; Jeremiah had a pit, Daniel had a den, Paul was in and out of jail so many times, like Motel Six, they “kept the light on for him.” Even Jesus had a wilderness. Oh, he got a cave, too. He once spent three days in one. If Jesus had “cave-time,” the cave won’t be optional for you. Every believer gets “the cave.”

What is the cave? The cave is a place of death, where you die to self. The cave is the place of testing, the blast furnace for moral fiber. The cave is where your mettle gets tested, your maturity gets revealed, your heart gets exposed! Put a person in the cave of distress, discouragement or doubt, and true character will show up. And if you are brave enough to open up to the truth about you, the cave will reveal just how much work God still has to do to get you ready for great things. What Moses spoke of as the wilderness of want was true of the cave of testing for David:

Do you remember how the Lord led you through the wilderness for all those forty years, humbling you and testing you to find out how you would respond, and whether or not you would really obey him? (Deuteronomy 8:2)

Likewise, the cave is the place of separation. Not only does God reveal the true you in the cave, he also strips you of every misplaced dependency. In the cave, God separated David from everything he had once depended on, and all that was left for David was God himself.

Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to both you and your ancestors. He did it to help you realize that food isn’t everything, and that real life comes by obeying every command of God. (Deuteronomy 8:3)

The cave was perhaps the most frustrating period in David’s life—but in hindsight, it turned out to be the most fruitful. That’s because the cave is also the place of forging. The cave is where God breaks you down in order to build you up.

For all these forty years your clothes haven’t grown old, and your feet haven’t been blistered or swollen. So you should realize that, as a man punishes his son, the Lord punishes you to help you. (Deuteronomy 8:4-5)

That’s what God does in the cave. And by the way, God does some of his best work in caves. It was there in the cave of Adullam that David wrote three of his most moving psalms—Psalms 34, 57 and 142, including our key verse: “I cry aloud to the Lord…I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.”

If you are in a cave and you are complaining to everyone else but God, you are missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

If you doubt that, just remember that empty cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. For three days, it held a crucified body. But God does great work in caves—best of which is resurrection. Perhaps that will change your mind about caves.

Thrive: If you are in a cave experience, I would encourage you to pray the prayer of Scottish hymn-writer George Matheson, “My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorns. I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorns. I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross: but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross: teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow.”

Cavetime

Where God Sends Believers To Boot Camp

We prefer to live out in the sunshine of God’s grace, but sometimes we get the “cave” instead. Cave time is core curriculum in the school of spirituality maturity. Call it whatever you want: the pit, the prison, the desert, the wilderness—the cave is basic training for believers. It’s where God breaks you down in order to build you up. By the way, God does some of his best work in caves.

Read: Psalm 142 // Focus: Psalm 142:1

A Maskil of David. When He Was in the Cave. A Prayer
“I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.”

We all prefer to live out in the sunshine of God’s grace, but from time to time we get the “cave” instead. “Cave time” is just core curriculum in the school of spirituality maturity. Call it whatever you want: the pit, the prison, the desert, the wilderness—the cave is basic training for believers.

Joseph had a prison; Moses had the desert; Jeremiah had a pit, Daniel had a den, Paul was in and out of jail so many times, like Motel Six, they “kept the light on for him.” Even Jesus had a wilderness. Oh, he got a cave, too—he spent three days in one. If Jesus had “cave-time,” the cave won’t be optional for you. Every believer gets “the cave.”

What is the cave? The cave is a place of death; it’s where you die to self. The cave is the place of testing; it’s the blast furnace for moral fiber. The cave is where your mettle gets tested, your maturity gets revealed and your heart gets exposed! Put a person in the cave of distress, discouragement or doubt, and true character will show up. And if your brave enough to open up to the truth about you, the cave will reveal just how much work God still has to do to get you ready for great things. (Deuteronomy 8:2)

Likewise, the cave is the place of separation. Not only does God reveal the true you in the cave, he also strips you of every misplaced dependency. (Deuteronomy 8:3) In the cave, God separated David from everything he had once depended on, and all that was left for David was God himself.

The cave was perhaps the most frustrating period in David’s life—but in hindsight, it turned out to be the most fruitful. That’s because the cave is also the place of forging. (Deuteronomy 8:4-5) The cave is where God breaks you down in order to build you up.

That’s what God does in the cave. And by the way, God does some of his best work in caves. It was there in the cave of Adullam that David wrote three of his most moving psalms—Psalms 34, 57 & 142, including our key verse: “I cry aloud to the Lord…I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.”

If you’re in a cave and you’re complaining to everyone else but God, you’re missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

If you doubt that, just remember that empty cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. For three days, it held a crucified body. But God does great work in caves—best of which is resurrection. Perhaps that will change your mind about caves.

Making Life Work: If you’re in a cave and you’re complaining to everyone else but God, remember, he is the only one who is there with you. Besides, you’re missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

Everybody Gets Cave Time

Read Psalm 142

Featured Verse: Psalm 142:1

“A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer. I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.”

We all prefer to live out in the sunshine of God’s grace, but from time to time we get the “cave” instead. “Cave time” is just core curriculum in the school of spirituality maturity. Call it whatever you want: the pit, the prison, the desert, the wilderness—the cave is basic training for believers.

Joseph had a prison; Moses had the desert; Jeremiah had a pit, Daniel had a den, Paul was in and out of jail so many times, like Motel Six, they “kept the light on for him.” Even Jesus had a wilderness. Oh, he got a cave, too. He once spent three days in one. If Jesus had “cave-time,” the cave won’t be optional for you. Every believer gets “the cave.”

What is the cave? The cave is a place of death, it’s where you die to self. The cave is the place of testing; it’s the blast furnace for moral fiber. The cave is where your mettle gets tested, your maturity gets revealed, your heart gets exposed! Put a person in the cave of distress, discouragement or doubt, and true character will show up. And if your brave enough to open up to the truth about you, the cave will reveal just how much work God still has to do to get you ready for great things. (Deuteronomy 8:2)

Likewise, the cave is the place of separation. Not only does God reveal the true you in the cave, he also strips you of every misplaced dependency. (Deuteronomy 8:3) In the cave, God separated David from everything he had once depended on, and all that was left for David was God himself.

The cave was perhaps the most frustrating period in David’s life—but in hindsight, it turned out to be the most fruitful. That’s because the cave is also the place of forging. (Deuteronomy 8:4-5) The cave is where God breaks you down in order to build you up.

That’s what God does in the cave. And by the way, God does some of his best work in caves. It was there in the cave of Adullam that David wrote three of his most moving psalms—Psalms 34, 57 & 142, including our key verse: “I cry aloud to the Lord…I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.”

If you’re in a cave and you’re complaining to everyone else but God, you’re missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

If you doubt that, just remember that empty cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. For three days, it held a crucified body. But God does great work in caves—best of which is resurrection. Perhaps that will change your mind about caves.

“We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good; if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.”
~C.S. Lewis

Romans 6: Give Me Chastity—Just Not Yet

Read Romans 6:1-14

Give Me Chastity—Just Not Yet

“Use your every part of your body as an instrument
to do what is right for the glory of God.”
(Romans 6:13)

Food For Thought… A six-year-old little girl burst through the door one afternoon, excited to tell her mother what she had learned in school that day.  “Mommy, guess what I learned today?” she blurted out.

“What honey” her mother replied.  “What did you learn?”

Pointing to her head, the girl began to describe her first official lesson in human anatomy, “Mommy, I learned about my parts.  I learned that this is my head, and it’s where my brains are.”  Then she held out her hands and her looked down at her feet, “these are my hands and my feet, and they help me to do things and to go places.”  Then she touched her chest and said, “here is my chest, and inside it is my heart.  And it keeps me alive.”  Finally, she put her hands on her tummy, and exclaimed, “and mommy, these are my bowels, and my bowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.”

She got most of her parts right, anyway.  And that’s what Paul is calling us to do, to get our parts right by offering them every day in every way for the glory of God.

But do you?  Is your brain an instrument to do what is right?  Are the things that you allow your mind to dwell on the kind of things that will bring glory to God?  If your thought life were to be played out in living color on the big screen, what kind of rating would it be given: P? PG?  How about R?  What?  Really…you’d have to give it an X?  What about the kind of things you allow to come into your thinking?  Are those things—the TV shows you watch, the places you go on the Internet, the books you read—do they count as instruments of righteousness?

What about the things your hands do, or the places your feet take you?  Would Jesus be comfortable doing those things and going to those places?  What about your heart—have you closely guarded it, since it is the wellspring of life? (Proverbs 4:23) And your “vowels,” I mean, your bowels—what about what you take into your body?  It is the temple of the Holy Spirit, after all. (I Corinthians 6:18-20) How are you treating the temple, the dwelling place of God?  Are you treating the ol’ bod more like a temple, or a sewage treatment plant?

Paul’s point in Romans 6 is that we have been freed from the slavery of sin in order to live in the freedom of a different kind of slavery: slavery to the glory of God. We are to be instruments of praise and righteousness with every fiber of our existence:

“When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:10-11).

Have you consecrated every part of your body as an instrument of righteousness to the glory of God, or are there some parts that are still doing their own thing?  Far too many of us are like Augustine, who once prayed, “Oh Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

Dedication and consecration are an either/or thing: Either you are, or you aren’t.  God wants you to be totally dedicated to him; fully consecrated in mind, body, heart and energies.  And he deserves it, particularly in the light of his costly investment of grace in your life.

You have been saved by grace—God’s unmerited favor.  You have been freed from the slavery of sin; you are no longer under the threat of death—all because of God’s rich and undeserved mercy.  You have been given the free gift of eternal life—all at Christ’s expense.  Even the faith to believe was supplied by God.  Don’t you think that in response, God deserves you to give “your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of him”?  Since God has graciously done all that, the least you can do is exert your will and consecrate your whole life as an instrument of praise.

Now I’ll admit, what I’m suggesting won’t be easy. In fact, it will be the toughest thing you ever do.  (See Romans 7:14-20 if you don’t believe me.) C.S. Lewis said, “The full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination.” St. Augustine finally got it; he surrendered his desires’s will to God, fully dedicating his wandering will to the glory of God.  Having experienced that spirit-renovation, Augustine made this observation:  “Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”

Will!  So the question is, will you? God has given you his grace.  Now mount up and get going!  Use your whole body—every part—as an instrument to do what is right to the glory of God.

“Just as a servant knows that he must first obey his master in all things,
so the surrender to an implicit and unquestionable obedience
must become the essential characteristic of our lives.”
~Andrew Murray

This Week’s Assignment:

  • Read Romans 6:1-23
  • Memorize Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
  • Compare Romans 6:21 with 6:23.  Do a cost-benefit analysis of the particular sin that you seem to struggle with on a recurring basis.

Psalm 142: Everybody Gets Cave Time

One Year Bible: II Kings 6:1-7:20, Acts 15:36-16:15; Psalm 142:1-7; Proverbs 17:24-25

Everybody Gets Cave Time

A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer.
I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.
I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.
(Psalm 142:1)

We all prefer to live out in the sunshine of God’s grace, but from time to time we get the “cave” instead. “Cave time” is just core curriculum in the school of spirituality maturity. Call it whatever you want: the pit, the prison, the desert, the wilderness—the cave is basic training for believers.

Joseph had a prison; Moses had the desert; Jeremiah had a pit, Daniel had a den, Paul was in and out of jail so many times, like Motel Six, they “kept the light on for him.” Even Jesus had a wilderness. Oh, he got a cave, too. He once spent three days in one. If Jesus had “cave-time,” the cave won’t be optional for you. Every believer gets “the cave.”

What is the cave? The cave is a place of death, it’s where you die to self. The cave is the place of testing; it’s the blast furnace for moral fiber. The cave is where your mettle gets tested, your maturity gets revealed, your heart gets exposed! Put a person in the cave of distress, discouragement or doubt, and true character will show up. And if your brave enough to open up to the truth about you, the cave will reveal just how much work God still has to do to get you ready for great things. (Deuteronomy 8:2)

Likewise, the cave is the place of separation. Not only does God reveal the true you in the cave, he also strips you of every misplaced dependency. (Deuteronomy 8:3) In the cave, God separated David from everything he had once depended on, and all that was left for David was God himself.

The cave was perhaps the most frustrating period in David’s life—but in hindsight, it turned out to be the most fruitful. That’s because the cave is also the place of forging. (Deuteronomy 8:4-5) The cave is where God breaks you down in order to build you up.

That’s what God does in the cave. And by the way, God does some of his best work in caves. It was there in the cave of Adullam that David wrote three of his most moving psalms—Psalms 34, 57 & 142, including our key verse: “I cry aloud to the Lord…I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.”

If you’re in a cave and you’re complaining to everyone else but God, you’re missing a great opportunity to pour out your heart to the only one who can do something about it. Good things always happen when you get honest with God. So try talking to him—and be patient, God does great work in caves.

If you doubt that, just remember that empty cave on the outskirts of Jerusalem. For three days, it held a crucified body. But God does great work in caves—best of which is resurrection. Perhaps that will change your mind about caves.

“We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good; if bad, because it works in us patience, humility, contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.”
~C.S. Lewis