Category Archives: 5x5x5 Reading Plan

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Why We Suffer

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: II Corinthians 1
Meditation: II Corinthians 1:3-4

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

Shift Your Focus… Why do we suffer? The easy, theological answer is that we live in a world broken by sin, and the sad fruit of sin is suffering. However, suffering was not a part of God’s original plan for human beings, nor will it be permitted in the glorious age to come. But in the meantime, since sin entered the human race through Adam’s sin, suffering will be a part of the human story until the Day of Redemption ushers in that eternal age.

At a personal level, however, quick and easy answers do not salve the pain of suffering. When pain hits close to home, all of those nice, neatly packaged theological explanations go out the window. For sure, they are still true, but they don’t take away our heartache. When there is a tragic death, or a disheartening diagnosis, or a rebellious child, or the unexpected loss of a job and our heart cries out, “Why God? Where are you in all of this?” the last thing we need to hear is, “Well, because Adam sinned, sin entered the human race and now suffering is just the natural part of being human…blah, blah, blah.” We hurt, and at that moment, life stinks!

Yet in hindsight, our experience of suffering reminds us that a depth of character and a quality of life have been produced in us that would not have been otherwise possible. Through our disappointment and pain, we have gained some priceless treasures. One of those priceless treasures that Paul speaks of in these verses is the discovery of a wonderful dimension of God that cannot be experienced apart from pain: “the God of all comfort.” How would we know what his comfort is unless we really needed his comforting?

That has certainly been true for me. My deepest trials have produced my deepest experiences in God. I have learned more about God when slogging through the valley than singing on the mountaintops. I prefer the peaks, mind you, but in hindsight, I would not trade the “valley of the shadow of death” for anything in the world. It is there that I have found “the God of all comfort who comforts me in all my troubles.”

Another of these priceless treasures that Paul mentions here is a greater understanding and empathy for fellow sufferers. The ministry of care and counsel to which each of us has been called is incomplete until we ourselves have found God in our grief.

As I have discovered deeper dimensions of God in painful times, there has also been the forging of a greater ability to understand the pain of others who are going through their own valley. Out of my pain and suffering, I am now able to come alongside them, not as a theologian, but as an empathetic friend and fellow sufferer. I am able to give counsel, comfort and encouragement not from what I learned in a seminary textbook, but from the school of hard knocks. I am able to give aid and comfort with “the same comfort I myself have received from God.”

Why do I suffer? That is not really the best question, is it? The better question is, “how can I find purpose in my suffering?” For the child of God, at the heart of every pain is a purpose. Finding that redemptive purpose requires that I trust him patiently and cooperate with his plan completely. When I find God’s purpose in my pain, I have found a pearl of great price.

Did you know that a beautiful pearl is formed when a grain of sand embeds itself in the wall of an oyster? In its pain and suffering, the oyster secretes a milky substance that coats the grain of sand and makes it bearable. The substance then hardens and there you have a beautiful pearl. You might say that at the heart of every pearl is a pain.

At the heart of your suffering is a pearl of invaluable worth. It is painful to get there, but allow your trust in God and your patience with his sovereign plan to make it bearable, and one day you’ll be truly able to thank God for your suffering.

“No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.”  ~William Penn

Prayer…  Dear Father, thank you for working everything out for my good and for your glory.  I don’t like everything that I go through, but I like what you are producing in me.  I’d rather have your perfect plan fulfilled in my life than avoiding the pain that is sometimes a part of that plan.  So I will embrace my suffering and lean into you as you develop yet another pearl of great price in my life.

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An Open Door To Spiritual Opposition

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 16
Meditation: I Corinthians 16:9

“A great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.”

Shift Your Focus… We are accustomed to associating open doors and effective work with freedom from opposition, but such is not the case.  In fact, every open door will be strongly opposed by Satan. Effectiveness in our work only invites resistance from our Enemy. Rather than rolling over and playing dead, Satan resists every good work of God, and the more successful that work is, the fiercer the fight he will put up.

If you have stepped out in faith to do something for God, opposition will come. Wear it as a badge of honor. Take it as a sign that you are on the right track. Use it as motivation to press into God for more grace. The more you are opposed, the more you should ramp up your commitment to carry through on what you have been called to do. And whatever else you might do because of opposition, do not give up!  It is very likely that the greatest opposition Satan will throw at you will come right before your breakthrough moment.

Have you taken a step to share your faith with an unbeliever?  Don’t be surprised if they suddenly appear disinterested or get distracted. Don’t give up! Are you praying for an unbelieving spouse or family member? Don’t get discouraged if conviction is accompanied by sudden grouchiness. Don’t back off! Have you taken a step to tithe your income to the Lord? It is quite possible that a financial test will be thrown your way.  Press in with your commitment! Have you taken on a new ministry? Be prepared for various kinds of opposition. Don’t quit! Have you taken steps to move closer to God? It should come as no shock that your quiet time will get interrupted early and often. Don’t let it!

Satan doesn’t want you doing anything for God.  And the greater the faith, the greater the obedience, the greater the potential impact, the greater the effective work and open door you have before you, the greater the Satanic opposition you will face.

But greater is he that is within you than he that is within the world opposing you! (I John 4:4).  So go with the Greater!

“Satan, the Hinderer, may build a barrier about us, but he can never roof us in, so that we cannot look up.”  ~J. Hudson Taylor

Prayer… Lord, teach me to embrace opposition as opportunity for greater kingdom impact.

 

 

 

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A Better Kind of Grief!

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 15
Meditation: I Corinthians 15:50

“I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

Shift Your Focus… I suppose I have conducted close to a hundred funerals as a pastor.  You have been to your fair share of them as well—or you will by the time you reach the end of your journey.  Death is simply a part of life.  It has been ever since the fall of Adam and Eve when sin entered the human race, and with sin came death.  You and I will die someday, too, because the death rate persistently hovers around 100%.

What is so profound is the amazing difference in the funerals I have conducted for non-believers and memorial services that I have led for Christians.  I use the terms “funeral” and “memorial” as a very purposeful distinction.  And I can sum up the difference in three words: hope, joy and peace.

Funerals don’t have much hope; there is not much deep and lasting joy there at the death of an unbeliever; people don’t leave a funeral service for a non-Christian with much peace—if any at all.  I am not saying that a non-Christian didn’t leave good memories.  In many cases, they did.  They just didn’t leave eternal hope, joy and peace.

To be sure, in a memorial service, there is the grief of loss at the passing of a Christian.  But there is an amazing and undeniable sense of hope that pervades the atmosphere and sustains those who are grieving.  It is the hope that Paul describes here in I Corinthians 15 that the lifeless body of that Christian has been transformed into a eternally living, spiritual body.  As the wife of the great preacher R. A. Torrey said at the death of their twelve-year-old daughter, “I’m so glad Elisabeth is with the Lord, and not in that box.”

There is also a special kind of joy that just doesn’t make sense in the natural.  I have often sat in amazement at such services as songs of praise and gratitude are lifted to the God of all comfort.  That just doesn’t happen at the funeral of a non-Christian, where typically, wailing rather than worship fills the air. But at a Christian’s memorial, it is not untypical for worship and wonder to drown out the sounds of death.

And then there is the peace that passes all understanding that accompanies the believer’s death.  It is the kind of peace that guards the hearts and minds of those whose lives have been touched by loss.  It is God’s gift of peace, and it makes such a loss endurable.  It is the kind of peace that comes from knowing that our gracious God is in control—even in the death of a loved one—and that our God does all things well, and will bring good out of loss and glory out of grief.  It is peace that the world cannot give and the world cannot take away.

Of course, there is grief at the loss of a Christian loved one—but it is a good grief.  How can that be?  One word:  Jesus.  Sin and death entered the human race because of Adam, Paul says in I Corinthians 15:45-48, but through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the power of sin and the sting of death has been neutralized.  Thanks be to God for our resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus.  Through him, we can defiantly declare to death,

“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

Yes, thanks be to God!

“Death stung himself to death when he stung Christ.” ~William Romaine

Prayer… All thanks to you, Father God, for you have given me victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ my Lord.

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Prophecy In Everyday Language

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 14
Meditation: I Corinthians 14:4-5

“Proclaiming God’s truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength.”

Shift Your Focus… I grew up in a tradition that embraced all the gifts of the Spirit, and actively welcomed their expression in our church services.  Judging from the church’s collective reaction to a “move of the Spirit,” the gift of prophecy seemed to rank at the top of these expressions.

What I witnessed in both the drama surrounding a prophetic outburst as well as the congregation’s response to it led me to the conclusion that this gift was, for one thing, a very spooky, quite mysterious gift. A corollary to that conclusion was that the one speaking the prophecy must therefore have attained some high-ranking level of spirituality to be used in such a manner, i.e., they were a bit “spooky” too!

Another observation led me to conclude that the manifestation of a prophetic gift was synonymous with either predicting the future or revealing a secret sin or a deep dark struggle of someone sitting in the church service, and although we never knew whom that person might be, it was sure fun trying to guess.  In retrospect, neither of those outcomes—prediction and revelation—occurred, at least to my knowledge.

To be sure, if the Holy Spirit wants to reveal either an upcoming event or a personal struggle, he is free to do that—and the church ought to embrace that aspect of the prophetic.  But I think the more healthy and helpful approach to practicing the prophetic in the church would be to take the mystery out of it and look at it as a much more practical gift.  I agree with Eugene Peterson’s rendering of this verse in The Message version of the Bible, which defines the prophetic gifts simply as “proclaiming God’s truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength.”

If we embrace that definition of this gift, then we’ll see prophecy as not just reserved for the few spiritual elite, but as something the common Christian can be used in as well.  We will also understand that an expression of the prophetic gift will be more authentic if it is delivered in the “common language” of the church rather than the special “God language” that often is worked up for a prophecy.  Not only that, prophecy will not be relegated to foretelling the future, but in foretelling truth; not revealing secret spiritual stuff, but affirming what should be commonly known and embrace.  Finally, this definition of the prophetic gift shows us that an authentic prophetic word should bring growth and strength to the congregation.  If it weirds people out, spooks the saints, and causes the cringe factor, it is likely that the prophetic expression was either inappropriate and off the mark, or it was delivered in a way that was over-the-top, inartful, and inauthentic.

So, and this is just my opinion, but I am convinced of it, we ought to demystify prophecy (and the other utterance gifts as well).  We would enjoy them and be edified by them much more often than we are now.

“The gift of prophecy is not a new revelation, but a clearer understanding of already-given truth.”  ~Ray Melugin

Prayer… Lord, let there be a resurgence of all the gifts of your Spirit in the body of Christ, rightly understood and authentically expressed.

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Love Is…

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 13
Meditation: I Corinthians 13:13

“Now the greatest of these is love.”

Shift Your Focus… Love is… Love is the beginning, the end, and everything in between. Love is the motive, the fuel and the goal of life. Love is the thing, and there is really nothing else.

God is love. Love is the highest law of his universe. It is the most powerful force in existence. Love is what God intended human beings to know and give. Since God is love, God intended that his highest creation, man, should be love too. That Divine intent was obviously and tragically broken at the fall of man, but in the restoration of his eternal plan, now expressed through the church, God’s love once again is to reign supreme. The church, made up of believers like you and me who have been the unlikely and undeserving recipients of God’s redemptive love, is to embody and express love as God designed it before a watching world.

Love is… Love is a verb much more than it is a noun. Love is a choice. Love is not a poem, it is a principle. Love is a universal law, much like the law of gravity, or the law of sunrise and sunset. Love is an action that originates with God and flows from the redeemed life. Like water naturally flows from a spring, so love should naturally flow out of the life of a Christian unconditionally. Love is, not because of what is done for it, but because of Who the true, overflowing and inexhaustible wellspring of love is.

Your assignment as a Christian, above all, is to love. In all that you do—in thinking and interacting, in acting and reacting, in serving, sharing, and singing, even in expressing the gifts of the Holy Spirit as Paul has been talking about in the two chapters that sandwich this “love chapter,” love is to motivate you, love is to guide you, love is to be the outcome.

Everything else in life comes in a distant second to your willingness to be the conduit of God’s love for you flowing through you today. Nothing else is as important.

Love is… And if you will permit it, love will change your world today!

“Open your hearts to the love God instills… God loves you tenderly. What He gives you is not to be kept under lock and key but to be shared.”  ~Mother Teresa

Prayer… Lord, above all else, will you remind me today that I am the living proof of your amazing love.  Make me ever mindful of allowing your love flow through me in every situation I encounter.  Use me to change my world through the power of your love.

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The Common Good

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 12
Meditation: I Corinthians 12:7

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

Shift Your Focus… Attitudes toward the manifestation of spiritual gifts vary from congregation to congregation. Some churches believe that the gifts of the Spirit ceased at the end of the New Testament era. Other churches would fall more into the category of the Corinthian church—anything goes as it relates to the operation of the gifts. In those churches, there are manifestations of spiritual gifts early and often, more akin to a free for all than a finely orchestrated Spirit-event.

The churches with which I am most familiar tend to embrace the gifts, at least in theory, but their use in church gatherings seems to suffer from a kind of benign neglect. This neglect primarily arises from what I would call the “cringe factor.” Let me explain:

The “cringe factor” occurs typically when one of the more mysterious and sensational gifts is expressed in a church service, like a message in tongues or a word of knowledge or a prophecy. When one of those occurs, a significant portion of the crowd “cringes” because they are not sure that the timing of that manifestation was appropriate, or if its content was substantive, or if the style and delivery of the message was authentic and relevant (it is amazing how God tends to use King James English when speaking through one of these dear folk), or if the one expressing the gift has much spiritual credibility. Frankly, because of these factors, it is easier not to have any expressions or manifestations of the Spirit at all.

Paul would advise differently. He would warn us not to forbid the expression of the gifts, and in fact, would encourage us to eagerly desire them (I Corinthians 14:39). However, Paul has laid down some pretty clear metrics for the authentic manifestation of the Spirit in I Corinthians 12,13 (the love chapter was written not for marriage ceremonies, but for moderating the gifts of the Spirit), and 14.

In a nutshell, both the motives and metrics for the manifestation of the Spirit is found in our verse for the day, I Corinthians 12:7. Three important governing rules are revealed:

First, every Christian has been given spiritual gifts. As you read the rest of the chapter, one gift is not better than the other. They are all needed. They are the internal organs that make the body of Christ work. We need the whole body and all the gifts to work in order for the church to be a healthy representation of Christ.

Second, the gifts are a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. We do not conjure up and wish into existence these gifts, nor are they given as rewards to the spiritually mature or talented. We need to remember that the gifts originate with the Holy Spirit; he gives them as he chooses. Therefore, we ought be very careful how we steward them.

Third, the gifts are given, and to be expressed, for the common good. If you wonder how to measure the effectiveness of both the gift and the one expressing it, this is the best metric I know. Is it building up the body of Christ, or is it, in reality, nothing more than a “self-authentication” of the one expressing it? Is the gift interrupting the service, or does it contribute to the flow of the Holy Spirit? Is it a fine stroke that disappears into the portrait, or does it distract from the Master’s masterpiece? Does it bless and build up, or does it bother and break the momentum of what God had in mind for his people at that particular moment.

If we could ever truly grasp this “for the common good” concept, I have a feeling there would be a lot less weirdness in our services, the cringe factor would all but disappear, and there would be a much needed resurgence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the church today.

“If God were to take the Holy Spirit out of this world, most of what the church is doing would go right on, and nobody would know the difference.”  ~A.W. Tozer

Prayer… Lord Jesus, you have declared us to be a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Now fill your temple, I pray, and let your Spirit freely manifest his gifts again in our day.

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Remember!

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Corinthians 11
Meditation: I Corinthians 11:24

“Do this to remember me.”

Shift Your Focus… Several years ago a highly acclaimed movie called “Saving Private Ryan” hit the theaters.  I will never forget that heart-wrenching opening scene as the Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, sacrificing their lives by the thousands for the cause of freedom.

The story centered around an army officer, Captain John Miller, and a small unit of men assigned to search the interior of France to find one soldier and bring him out.  This was a search and rescue mission.  This soldier, Private James Ryan, had three brothers who had been killed in three different battles in this war.  The military brass decided it just wouldn’t be right if he, the fourth brother, lost his life as well.

So this search and rescue party was dispatched, and ultimately, Private Ryan was found, and saved.  In the process, several men gave their lives to save this one man, including the heroic Captain Miller.  The captain was mortally wounded in the final battle to get Private Ryan into allied territory, and with his final breath, he pulled Private Ryan close and whispered, “Now, go and earn this!”

What Captain Miller was really saying was, “Remember this…don’t ever forget what others have done for you…your life has taken on higher value because of their sacrifice…so remember this moment and these men by making the rest of your life count.”

As the movie ended, it fast-forwarded to the present, with Ryan, now an aging man, visiting a military cemetery and kneeling before the marker of Captain Miller. Moved to tears, he remembered the sacrifice of Miller that had saved him. With a deeply emotional, trembling voice, the now elderly Ryan whispers to the grave of Captain Miller,  “Everyday I’ve thought about what you said…I hope, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what you’ve done for me.”

These scenes from Saving Private Ryan remind me of another search and rescue mission. About 1900 years before Private Ryan was saved, there was another warrior who was sent out.  Instead of the many sent to rescue the one, this was the story of one sent to save the many.

This warrior gave his life to deliver the many out of the enemy’s territory safely into his Father’s kingdom.  And as he was about to go into his final battle, knowing that his would be sacrificed, he uttered these moving words we reread each time we come to the Lord’s Table:

“This is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”  (I Corinthians 11:23)

What was Jesus saying?  He was pulling us close and whispering in our ears, “Remember what I am about to do.  Never forget it!  Your life will never be the same because of this. What I am about to do for you shows that your life has infinite value in my Father’s eyes.  So don’t live a day without thinking about what I’ve done.  Do this in remembrance of me.”

When you receive communion in your fellowship, is the Lord’s Table truly a time for remembering what Jesus has done for you, or do you simply perform your way through it?

I read of a youth pastor who led his youth group in a re-enactment of the crucifixion.  He played the role of Christ, the students the jeering mob who shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”  Then they dragged him into the yard of the church and hung him up on a cross.

As this “Christ” hung there, the kids grew quiet, and he said, “Even though you are doing this to me, I still love you.”  The pastor of the church had been watching, and he noticed one of the younger girls in the front of the group, transfixed by the scene. He looked at her and saw real tears streaming down her face.  The pastor, moved by her love, said, “I was envious of her. For the rest of us, this was a ‘performance.’  For her, it was the real thing. She was there, she was remembering.”

Next time you come to the Lord’s Table, don’t let it be a performance.  Make it a remembrance. 

“If we show the Lord’s death at Communion, we must show the Lord’s life in the world. If it is a Eucharist on Sunday, it must prove on Monday that it was also a Sacrament.”  ~Maltbie Babcock

Prayer… Lord Jesus, I will never forget!