Category Archives: Christian Living

Posted on

Grace and Truth

That Is What God Is

Getting Closer to Jesus: There is a cute story about a family who brought their newborn daughter home from the hospital for the first time. The mom was a little concerned how the baby’s 4-year-old sister—who had been the only child to that point—would handle this new addition to the family. So, mom and dad instructed “big sister” that she could be around the baby only when they were there, and that she had to be very loving and very gentle.

It wasn’t long after that mom walked by the baby’s room only to discover the sister hovering over the crib. Mom was alarmed, so she snuck up behind the little girl to see what was going on, and noticed she was gently stroking the baby’s hair with her hand and whispering, “Baby, can you tell me what God is like…I’ve forgotten.”

That’s one of the deepest cries of the human heart, you know: To know what God is like.

Bible teacher R.C. Sproul was once asked, “What, in your opinion, is the greatest need in the world today?” His answer was that people needed “to discover the identity of God.” He was then asked, “What is the greatest spiritual need in the lives of church people?” His answer was much the same: “To discover the true identity of God. If believers really understood the character and the personality of God, it would revolutionize their lives.”

The good news is that God has made himself knowable. He is not some unapproachable deity way out there in a galaxy far, far away. He is the God who is here, who is near, and who will reveal himself to those who long to know him.

Jesus, the one who knew the heart and nature of God better than anyone, taught us in the opening line of the Lord’s prayer to approach God as “Our Father in heaven,” which literally means, “Our Father, who is as close as the air we breathe.” Moses exclaimed in Deuteronomy 4:7. “What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?”

What does God want us to know? He is near and he is knowable, that’s what. Furthermore, he has made himself knowable in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And what do we know of God through Jesus? Primarily, God is the perfect blend of grace and truth!

Grace and truth are what Jesus perfectly modeled. Remember Jesus’s interaction in John 8 with the woman caught in the act of adultery who was about to be stoned? After embarrassing her executioners into inaction, he gently asked this guilty woman, “Where are your accusers? Has no one judged you guilty?”

She replied, “No one, Sir.”

At that, Jesus offered these grace-truth words that would utterly right this sinner’s upside-down life: “Then I don’t either. Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Behind this amazing display of grace and truth, as Walter Trobisch said, what we find is that Jesus “accepts us as we are but when he accepts us, we cannot remain as we are.” Jesus brings our sin to the surface, and when we acknowledge it by confession and repentance, he totally, graciously, and forever forgives it. The adulteress went away forgiven, with a new clean heart and a brand-new chance at life.

Only grace and truth can do that for sinners.

Becoming a Christian—not just in name only, but placing life-altering, radical trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior—is predicated upon forgiveness. God’s forgiveness of our sins is the pivot point of authentic faith. When we accept Jesus, Jesus accepts us—just as we are but when he accepts us, we cannot remain as we are. Jesus brings our sin to the surface, and when we acknowledge that sin by confession and repentance, he totally, graciously, and forever forgives it. That’s why, when you read the Gospels, prostitutes, publicans, and other big-time sinners responded to Jesus so readily. At some level, they recognized their sin. That was why forgiveness was so appealing to them—and still is!

What does the world need more than anything right now? What does your sinful next-door neighbor so desperately need? The same thing you need: God’s forgiveness! And when you meet Jesus, you meet God’s full forgiveness—given freely but costing you a changed life.

And when you meet Jesus, you meet God. And when you meet God, you get a whole lot of truth and a big dose of grace—and it completely revolutionizes your life.

Take the Next Step: As best as you can, examine your life from the point of view of those who know you best. Would they say that you are completely truthful but at the same time overflowing with grace? If not, offer your life to God today and, if you dare, ask him to do whatever it takes to make you more like him.

Posted on

An Offer You Shouldn’t Refuse

You Are a Fully Loved Child of God

Getting Closer to Jesus: What an unbelievable invitation the Apostle John is describing! Anyone who personally accepts Christ as Lord and Savior is granted the privilege of becoming a fully loved child of God—including all the authority and benefits of being fully included in God’s forever family. Now that is an invitation to which no other compares!

Because of statements like that, arguably, the Gospel of John is the best-loved of the four Gospels. John speaks from a closeness to Jesus that few have ever experienced—and it leaks through every line in his account of Jesus. There are more memorable verses in this Gospel than the others—John 3:16, for instance, the entire Bible is summed up in just one verse. Each chapter inexorable draws the truly interested and open-hearted seeker to desire Jesus more and more. It’s no wonder people love John’s clear and compelling story.

And what John is describing in this stunning invitation is nothing less than unfathomably profound! Think about the One who is really making this offer: It is none other than the eternal and exalted Christ himself. John describes him in the most eternal and lofty language possible in the opening lines of chapter one. Let me offer you this paraphrase (from the Living Bible) of how John sees Jesus:

Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is—nothing exists that he didn’t make. Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind. His life is the light that shines through the darkness—and the darkness can never extinguish it. (John 1:1-3)

It was God himself, in the person of Jesus, who came into a world he created—a world that for the most part, not only missed the true consequence of his arrival but actively rejected it: “But although he made the world, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. Even in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a few would welcome and receive him” (John 1:10-12)

But here is the good news—and it is the best news you will hear today, or any day hereafter for that matter: “But to all who received him, he gave the right to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them.” (John 1:12b)

What that means is that if you are trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior (the only one who can forgive you and cleanse you from your sins), and have personally invited him to be the Lord of your life (the one to whom you have turned over control of your moment-by-moment life), then you have been given the right (authority given by God himself) to be made right with him, brought into his eternal family, given the gift of eternal life (John 3:16) and given the opportunity to walk in intimate relationship each and every day with the very Agent and Owner of Creation (the One who spoke everything into existence by his own breath for his eternal purpose and therefore has the sovereign right to rule over all of it and everything within it).

Wow! You matter to God that much; you are that important to him!

You have been invited into a close, personal fellowship with Jesus—the Designer, Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of the universe. If you can begin to fathom what that means, it will absolutely blow your mind, in the best sense of the phrase.

The right to become a child of God—now that is an unbelievable invitation! I hope you will believe it—and live like God’s true children are meant to live.

Take the Next Step: Memorize John 1:12 in your favorite version. Each day this week, list a benefit of being a true child of God. Throughout the day, declare that to be true of you.

Posted on

How To Save Planet Earth

Let Your Little Light Shine

Getting Closer to Jesus: An insightful person pointed out that some people change their ways when they see the light, others only when they feel the heat.

First, some good news: God is in control. He has an unstoppable plan—and if you are a fully devoted follower of his Son, Jesus Christ, you are in the very center of that plan. Good things are in store for you. Hang on to that as you read on.

Now a dose of reality: Most people would agree that Planet Earth is in serious trouble; it is rapidly, steadily being engulfed in moral, cultural, and spiritual darkness. We don’t need a prophet of doom to tell us that; we are reminded of it every time we open our eyes. Ask the average man or woman on the street and they will tell you that humanity is headed in the wrong direction.

Obviously, this present world has a growing list of seemingly unsolvable needs—poverty, ignorance, climate upheaval, famine, disease, political instability, crime, violence, the threat of war, war, drug abuse, human trafficking, intolerance, religious persecution, the breakdown of the family, and on and on the list goes. Though these problems are nothing new to the world scene, there is now a sense of foreboding in both high officials and ordinary citizens around the globe that these problems are swallowing up any chance for progress toward civility and stability that we might have been moving toward at some point.

 

 

The writer of Judges prophetically summed up our twenty-first-century world in the last verse of his book when he wrote, “There was no controlling moral authority to govern people’s lives, so everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) Unfortunately, in the day of the Judges, and in our day, “what was right,” with no presence of the “Controlling Moral Authority”, without fail produces moral, cultural, economic, and global chaos. Predictably, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn famously lamented, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Yes, what we see and sense today is what happens when humanity forgets God. In his famous Templeton Address, “Men Have Forgotten God”, Solzhenitsyn said

The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century…Yet we have grown used to this kind of world; we even feel at home in it.

Don’t get used to it! Don’t ever feel at home in this present world. Don’t accept the growing darkness as inevitable. Why? The light that has come into this dark world, and while most reject the light for the growing darkness, you can live in that light and even be a reflector of that light in the darkened corner of the world in which you live.

Take the Next Step: The Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 1:27, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Since Christ Jesus lives in you by his Holy Spirit, how about you let his light shine through your life in the darkened corner of the world to which he has assigned you? How? Re-read Matthew 5:1-16 where the Lord calls us to let our lights shine. I think you might come up with a few ways to turn on your high beams for Jesus.

Posted on

Righteous Wrath—What A Relief

God is Just—And God is Fair

PREVIEW: Ask most people and they will tell you they prefer a God of love, not wrath. They like a Jesus who is “full of grace,” but they are not so sure about a Christ whose grace is perfectly balanced with “truth.” They have, at least in their minds, as Dorothy Sayers notes, “efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him ‘meek and mild’ and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies.” You see, most people are very uncomfortable with a Deity who actually punishes sin, preferring a world where “all dogs go to heaven”—as do all people. All of which would render judgment, punishment, and hell entirely irrelevant. However, though perfectly loving, resplendent with grace, unequaled in patience, and a place of safety for his children, God is also a bit dangerous because he is organically just. God is just, and like it or not, we should all be eternally grateful!

Auto Righteous Wrath—What A Relief - Ray Noah

A JOURNEY OF WORSHIP // Psalms 76:7-9

It is you alone who are to be feared. Who can stand before you when you are angry? From heaven, you pronounced judgment, and the land feared and was quiet—when you, God, rose up to judge, to save all the afflicted of the land. Surely your wrath against mankind brings you praise, and the survivors of your wrath are restrained.

Ask most people, and they will tell you they prefer a God of love, not wrath. They like a Jesus who is “full of grace,” but they are not so sure about a Christ whose grace is perfectly balanced with “truth.” You see, most people are very uncomfortable with a Deity who actually punishes sin, preferring a world where “all dogs go to heaven,” as do all people. All of which would render judgment, punishment, and hell entirely irrelevant.

Yet throughout the Bible we find in the Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—a capacity for righteous wrath: Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by fire, moneychangers are given the bum’s rush right out of the temple, greedy Ananias and Sapphira drop dead in church, and at the proper time, the living and the dead will face the final judgment. Though perfectly loving, resplendent with grace, unequaled in patience, and a place of safety for his children, God is also a bit dangerous because he is organically just.

I prefer a God like that. I don’t want the syrupy, doting eternal Santa Claus who does nothing but dispense goodies to one and all—even the bad ones. I want a God who is fair and true and just…and dangerous.

However, what I prefer, what anyone prefers, matters little. Like it or not, the kind of God we get is a God of love—and of justice! Likewise, the kind of Savior we get wasn’t the sugary sweet version so many in our culture have made him to be—a sanitized, tame, Mr. Rogers version of Christ. Dorothy Sayers was right,

To do them justice, the people who crucified Jesus did not do so because he was a bore. Quite the contrary, he was too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have declawed the lion of Judah and made him a housecat for pale priests and pious old ladies… To those who knew him, however, he in no way suggests a milk-and-water person; they objected to him as a dangerous firebrand.

But the Bible is quite clear: Jesus is no pussycat—he is the Lion of Judah, and one day, as 2 Timothy 4:1 says, “Jesus Christ [will] judge the living and the dead.” And on that day, all of heaven will thunder, “You are just in these judgments, you who are and who were the Holy One…Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are your judgments.” (Revelation 16: 5,7)

All of creation, including you and I, will be utterly amazed at the justice and fairness of God’s judgment, and we will stand in solidarity to declare in unison, “That’s exactly right—true and just are your judgments!”

Justice will finally be served by the only One who can be trusted to judge in righteousness and fairness. What a relief!

MY OFFERING OF WORSHIP: As you read scripture, the next time you come across a passage where God is meting out punishment or issuing a law that seems so incredibly harsh to our modern, sophisticated ears, just stop and by faith, thank God that he is both just and fair.

Posted on

God Rules—Live With It!

God's Sovereignty Means You Can Get a Good Night’s Rest

PREVIEW: If we could truly absorb the truth that God rules over all—big and small—and embrace it as a guiding principle for our everyday lives, what a difference would it make in how we approach life! We would live with less anxiety about the current global climate. We would be a great deal less upset about our current leaders or a lot less dependent on them to solve our every problem. We would be a lot less worried about whether we would have a job, good health, or a happy family when the sun comes up tomorrow. In fact, we would not lose any sleep at all about the sun coming up tomorrow or not. Why? Because God truly does rule over all, big and small!

God Rules—Live With It! -Ray Noah

A JOURNEY OF WORSHIP // Psalm 75:6-7

No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man. But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.

What a great reminder! It is neither the Democratic nor the Republican National Committees that get their candidates elected; it is not how well organized the parties are at the grassroots level; it is not the hundreds of millions of dollars that we now spend to “buy” elections—although those factors certainly play into the outcome. But at the end of the day, it is what God permits that determines who will rise and who will fall.

The truth is we see only a little slice of history. From our perspective, the country was desperately needing change, or we were at war, and we needed a wartime leader in the Oval Office, or the economy was in shambles and we needed an administration with financial savvy to fix us, or whatever other scenario we used to describe our current context. But God lives outside of time and above circumstances, and he is moving human history to a foreordained conclusion. Daniel 2:20-21 reminds us,

Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

If we could truly absorb that truth and embrace it as a guiding principle for our everyday lives, what difference would it make in how we approach life? I think we would live with a lot less anxiety about the current global climate. I think we would be a great deal less upset about our current leaders or a lot less dependent on them to solve our every problem. I think we would be a lot less worried about whether we would have a job, good health, or a happy family when the sun comes up tomorrow. In fact, we would not lose any sleep at all about the sun coming up tomorrow or not.

Now, I’m not claiming that we should adopt a do-nothing, careless approach to life. Of course not—that would make us unworthy servants (see Matthew 25:24-30) of a Master who expects us to do our best with what we have been given (Colossians 3:23-24). But remembering that God rules over all, big and small, that God controls all, big and small, that God uses all the events of this world, big and small, to bring about his perfect plan, and helps me to live out my life in a much more purposeful, peaceful, and productive way.

Here’s the thing: God rules—live with it!

MY OFFERING OF WORSHIP: When you pray today, bring every concern that you have, big or small, to God’s throne. After you have expressed them to God, let your ending statement be, “God, you rule over them all.”

Posted on

Forever, And Right Now

He is the God of Yesterday, Today, and Forever

PREVIEW: The testimony of history is that the Lord alone is a great and gracious God. Therefore, we should always cast our lot with him, for in the long run, he always wins, and so do his people. When in doubt, put faith in the God of history rather than fear in the difficulty of today and the uncertainty of tomorrow. God is the God of forever! However, most of us, while we might appreciate the importance of history, are more focused on what is facing us today. And the question that always arises for us is if God is great and gracious for us today. And the answer to that concern is a resounding yes.

The testimony of history is that God alone is great and gracious. Therefore, we should always cast our lot with him, for in the long run, he always wins—and so will we.-Ray Noah

MY JOURNEY OF WORSHIP // Psalm 68:19,35

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens….You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people. Praise be to God.

Honestly, it took me a while to “get” this psalm. Not only did I have to read it through a couple of times, but once I was within the psalm, I had to stop and restart several more times just to figure out what David was trying to say. I now have greater sympathy for those of you who are daily readers of this blog.

My conclusion: This is a great psalm! David is tracing the glorious history of God and his people from their mighty and miraculous deliverance from Egyptian slavery to the enthronement of God’s presence in the sanctuary in Jerusalem. And, in case you didn’t know, that history covers several hundred years—years of ups and downs. But through it all, God always cared for his people, and at the end of the day, led them inexorably toward a preordained victorious conclusion.

The testimony of history, then, is that the Lord alone is a great and gracious God. Therefore, we should always cast our lot with him, for in the long run, he always wins, and so do his people. When in doubt, put faith in the God of history rather than fear in the difficulty of today and the uncertainty of tomorrow. God is the God of forever!

Most of us, however, though we might appreciate the importance of history, are more focused on what is facing us today. And the question that always arises is if God is great and gracious for me today. And the answer to that concern is yes. That is why, after praising God for his mighty and miraculous work throughout Israel’s history, David then says, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” He is not only the God of forever, but he is also the God of right now.

You see, history is simply a series of daily experiences. String enough daily events together, and you’ve got history. God’s historical track record is comprised of revelations of his mighty and miraculous character as well as demonstrations of his great and gracious work in the daily lives of people like you and me. And since God is always true to his character, since he is always faithful to his covenant, you can trust that he will bear your needs today and lead you inexorably to a foreordained victorious conclusion, too.

So, what is the takeaway from this psalm? Simply this: How God proved himself to his people, Israel, he will prove himself to you today. He has the history to back that claim up.

He is the God of forever, and of right now!

My Offering of Worship: Are you concerned about things you are facing today or worried about what may happen tomorrow? Since God is faithful, why don’t you declare, “You are the God who never changes, the victorious One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Posted on

Audacious Expectations

Delight Yourself in God … Then Watch Out!

PREVIEW: Don’t ever feel selfish for asking God to bless your family, your church, and yourself! In fact, that is a highly spiritual thing to do. How is that? If you want Divine blessing so that people will look at you and see God’s favor in your life and be attracted to the God of your salvation, then God guarantees his blessings. But if that is going to happen, then you cannot ask for selfish blessings. You cannot misspend God’s graces in foolish ways. You cannot ask for stuff that you will spend on your own humanistic desires. Rather, your motives, plans, hopes, and dreams need to be sanctified, which means that you need to delight yourself in the Lord first for him to grant you the desires of your heart:

"Delight yourself in the Lord first and foremost if you expect the Lord to grant you the desires of your heart." - Ray Noah

MY JOURNEY OF WORSHIP // Psalm 67:1-2

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.

I never feel selfish for asking God to bless my family, my church, and even me! In fact, I think it is a highly spiritual thing to do. How is that? The second verse of this psalm provides the key: I want Divine blessing so that people will look at me and see God’s hand. I want them to see God’s favor in my life and be attracted to the God of my salvation.

Now if that is going to happen, then I cannot ask for selfish blessings. I cannot misspend God’s graces in foolish ways. I cannot ask for stuff that I will spend on my own humanistic desires. My motives, plans, hopes, and dreams need to be sanctified, which means that I need to delight myself in the Lord first if I am to expect that he will grant me the desires of my heart:

Take delight in the Lord, and he’ll give you your heart’s desires. (Psalm 37:4)

That really puts the onus on me to clean up my desires, doesn’t it? But if I can live with the purest of intentions—if I can live with a kingdom mindset—then I can expect God’s extraordinary grace, his undeserved blessing, and the favor of his face to shine down upon me every day of my life. I love how Ken Sande puts it:

“When you draw on God’s grace to put off your self-centered attitudes and act on His principles, you put His glory on display. Your life points to His vast wisdom, compassion, and transforming power, and as you look for God’s glory, the impact reaches far beyond yourself because you give everyone around you a reason to respect and praise God. Glorifying God is not about letting others see how great you are. It’s about letting them see how great the Lord is.”

Now, that’s the way I want to live. I want to be living proof to this lost world of a loving God. So, I am going to pray this prayer today: “God, bless me a lot! May I know your grace in new ways. Let the bright glory of your favor cause my life to shine so much that others will see me and be attracted to you!”

And I am audacious enough to expect that God will do that for me!

Incidentally, there was another Old Testament character who dared to pray that way: Jabez. Here is his short story from 1 Chronicles 4:9-10:

Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

He dared to ask God for the moon, so to speak, and guess what? He got it. I love the profound simplicity of the last line of that story: “And God granted his request.”

Ask God for the moon…and the earth, too! Perhaps God will grant your request, and you’ll be the next Jabez story—unless I beat you to it!

MY OFFERING OF WORSHIP: “Delight yourself in the Lord,” the Psalmist declared, “and he will grant you the desires of your heart.” So, here is the $64,000 question: Are your desires aligned with what pleases and honors God? If not, I think you know what to do.