Posted on

When You Are On God’s Side

Want A Guaranteed Win? Get On The Right Side!

Your victory, whatever that may mean to you, is guaranteed when you are on God’s side. Are you? Take a moment to realign your thoughts, feelings and actions to the Word of God. Repent where you need to, adjust where you are off, then watch and wait for the hand of God in your situation. If you are on God’s side, you cannot fail. If you are on God’s side then God will be on your side, and your victory has been secured.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Psalm 54:4

Surely God is my help; the Lord is the one who sustains me.

You will often hear people talk about God being on their side. Politicians, religious leaders, even ordinary people like you and me toss that belief around like a pro athlete guaranteeing a victory in the big game. But just saying it doesn’t make it so!

President Abraham Lincoln was once asked during the Civil War if he believed that God was on his side. His response was one that we would all do well to think about, since it represents the only true guarantee of Divine help and victory. Lincoln said, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side, my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”

Here’s the deal: If we’re on God’s side, we cannot fail. If we’re on God’s side then God will be on our side, and our victory is guaranteed. David, the future king of Israel, discovered that—the story can be found in I Samuel 23:7-29—which is the basis for this psalm. He was on the run from the current monarch, King Saul, because the king was bent on having David killed. The young shepherd had just landed in the next of what had been too many hideouts, Ziph, when the people of that village turned him in to Saul. Saul seemed to finally have David cornered—it looked like it was game, set and match this time.

But David was on God’s side—and God was on David’s side. Suddenly, just as Saul was ready to pounce, the king got some bad news that enemies on another front, the Philistines, were attacking, so he left pursing the cornered David to tend to that pressing business. And David was once again delivered when there seemed no way possible to escape. (I Samuel 23:27-29)

Was it a coincidence that Saul was distracted in that moment when he had David dead to rights? Not at all! You see, God was at work here, bringing about his purposes in David’s life. David was destined to be king, but through this life and death struggle, God was teaching him how to be a good king. And good kings need to know that God can be counted on for help and sustenance when the king is on God’s side.

God wants you to know that too. Even when there seems to be no way out for you, God is close by; he is working out his plan; he is teaching you how to be a king; he is showing you that he can be counted on to help and sustain you. And there is only one way to really learn that, which like David, means that you will have to have your back against the wall so that the only way out is through a mighty and miraculous deliverance through the strong hand of God.

And when you are on God’s side, sooner or later, like David, that will be your story too!

Thrive: Your victory, whatever that may mean to you, is guaranteed when you are on God’s side. Are you? Take a moment to realign your thoughts, feelings and actions to the Word of God. Repent where you need to, adjust where you are off, then watch and wait for the hand of God in your situation.

Posted on

God, We Long For Christ’s Return

52 Simple Prayers for 2018

To those who have opposed Christ, ridiculed the faith, actively sought its demise…to those who have persecuted believers, burned churches, tortured the faithful, and martyred the saints…to governments that have perpetuated evil, rulers that have ruled cruelly, systems of philosophy and politics that have leeched the hope out of people…to child molesters, rapists, drug dealers, pornographers…to those who were responsible for nailing Jesus to the cross…there is a day coming when they will look upon Jesus, and in the twinkling of an eye, recognize him his the Righteous Judge, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And they will weep! Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.

A Simple Prayer for the Second Coming:

God, send your Son back to this earth and set our world aright. Bring justice to your people and judgment upon the evil that has enslaved this world since the Evil One deceived Adam and Eve. Establish your eternal throne over all creation so that ceaseless praise will flow from hearts that pour forth awestruck wonder, unstoppable gratitude and indescribable love.
Posted on

Holy Fear

Those Who Fear God Have Nothing To Fear!

Too many people today are trying to live a God-confident life without a God-fearing life. It can’t be done! Living without deep reverence for God and healthy respect for his laws, including awareness of the consequences of breaking them—will only produce the other kind of fear: fear that our past will catch up to us, high anxiety because of what we’re going through today, and terror of what might happen tomorrow.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Proverbs 9:10-11

Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment. Wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life

“Be afraid! Be very afraid!”

That’s probably the most famous line from the 1986 movie The Fly. In the movie, as Jeff Goldblum, who plays a brilliant but quirky scientist, is turning into an insect — how cute! — he exhorts the lovely reporter, played by Geena Davis, not to be worried by his metamorphosis: “Don’t be afraid.”

That’s why Geena tells Jeff to bug off—if you know what I mean.

Fear! The word doesn’t conjure up very positive images does it? These days in our cultural context, parents don’t usually teach their kids to live in fear of anything and teachers don’t instruct their students to be afraid. So why should preachers stand in pulpits and preach the “fear of the Lord” to their congregations? That seems a bit incongruent with our image of a loving and gracious God.

The problem is that we misunderstand what the Bible means when it talks about the fear of the Lord. A better way to think of it is the old term used a generation or two ago: God fearing. That simply meant to have a deep reverence of God and a healthy respect for his laws. It did not mean to cower in terror because a capricious and vengeful Deity was fixing to squash you like a bug if you displeased him in the least. Rather, while acknowledging that disobeying God’s law would bring painful consequences—just try ignoring his universal law of gravity and see how that works for you—it recognized that obeying that very same law would bring life-giving benefits.

To live with a healthy and holy fear of God provided that foundation for a prosperous journey through this life as well as preparation for entering into the joy of the eternal kingdom in the life to come. The fear of the Lord was what enabled people to navigate daily challenges with good judgment and grace. And the icing on the cake for a fear-of-the-Lord approach to living was the promise that God would add years to our life—and better yet, life to our years.

Too many people today are trying to live a God-confident life without a God-fearing life. It can’t be done! Living without deep reverence for God and healthy respect for his laws, including awareness of the consequences of breaking them—will only produce the other kind of fear: fear that our past will catch up to us, high anxiety because of what we’re going through today, and terror of what might happen tomorrow.

If you don’t learn to have a healthy and holy fear of the Lord, my advice to you is, “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” But if you can wrap yourself around what it means to be God-fearing, this gracious God himself will not only add years to your life, he’ll give life to your years.

Those who fear the Lord have nothing to fear!

Thrive: What kind of fear is your fear of the Lord? A healthy and holy fear, or one that is unhealthy and unholy? Spend some time today thinking about what it means to be a God-fearing person—and what changes you may need to make to be one.

Posted on

What Matters Most To God

Why Heaven Throws A Party

What God prioritizes we must make our priority! If heaven celebrates repentant sinners, we ought to throw a party when one finds salvation. Lost people matter to God; they must matter to us as well!

Enduring Truth // Focus: Luke 15:7

In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

The message of this chapter is unmistakable: Lost people matter to God!

Jesus tells three parables that make up the entirety of Luke 15: The parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Each story features something lost—something of such value—that no expense and no effort are spared to see to their return.

At the end of each of these three stories Jesus uses a line to speak of the unmitigated joy expressed in their recovery:

In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! (Luke 15:7)

In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents. (Luke 15:10)

We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found! (Luke 15:32)

Again, the message is clear: God’s highest priority is the reclamation of lost people. They matter to God. And all of heaven celebrates their return.

Likewise, there is a clear application of utmost importance here for you and me: Since lost people matter to God, they ought to matter to us as well. No expense and no effort should be spared to aid in their recovery. Furthermore, we ought also to celebrate what heaven celebrates—the return of even one sinner to God.

But with these stories comes a clear warning: Watch out for we might call E.B.S.—the Elder Brother Syndrome (see Luke 15:25-30). E.B.S. resents the attention and effort made in the recovery and repentance of the sinner, and it is so easy to slip into it. It grows out of self-righteousness. It questions the authenticity of the sinner’s repentance. It refuses to rejoice at what heaven celebrates. And it couldn’t be further from what is at the very the heart of heaven, and our Father who resides there.

The call of Luke 15 must be our calling, too! What God prioritizes we must make our priority! If heaven celebrates repentant sinners, we ought to throw a party when one finds salvation. Lost people matter to God; they must matter to us as well!

Thrive: Honestly, have you been infected with E.B.S., even just a little? Perhaps you should go to God and ask for forgiveness, and his help in getting a right attitude.

Posted on

God, In My Weakness, Reveal Your Strength

52 Simple Prayers for 2018

Our suffering for the cause of Christ, even the inner pain we feel at our own failures, weaknesses and shortcomings, is our only basis for boasting. When we are able to live in victory and accomplish great kingdom advance through faith, still our spiritual accomplishments have been enabled only as God empowered us in our flawed humanity and revealed his strength in our deep brokenness. Make no mistake, on our best day, we accomplish nothing through our own charisma, ability and power. And on our worst day, it is God who reveals his strength in us.

A Simple Prayer for God’s Strength in My Weakness:

God, I have far too many areas of weakness in my life, so often I have failed, and I have nothing but a poor track record of falling short of being the kind of person you have redeemed me to be. Yet I thank you for your all-sufficient grace. Today, in my weaknesses, failures and shortcomings, I boast insofar as that they show how your strength is revealed in me.
Posted on

Beware Of Cheap Forgiveness

God's Transactional Reset for Broken Relationships

Forgiveness alone may not restore a broken relationship. It may led to relational détente, but God’s reset for reconciled relationships requires a transaction of confession with repentance and restitution.

Enduring Truth // Focus: Mark 11:24-26

I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. But if you refuse to forgive, your Father in heaven will not forgive your sins.

Don’t skip past these words too quickly! Far too many Christians claim an exemption on this one—to the Lord’s dismay and their own harm.

Having said that, there is another side to the forgiveness coin that we need to consider if we are going to have theological balance in this matter. The question that always comes up when you begin to talk about forgiveness is: Do we have to forgive everyone who has offended us?

I think there is a fair amount of confusion on this, and a lot of misguided theology is to blame. Perhaps you’ve been taught that you are to forgive others even when they don’t repent of the wrong they have committed. And the scriptural justification for that is Jesus’ words we read here. That might be leveraged, for instance, to say to the wife of a chronically unfaithful husband, “You gotta’ forgive him, or God won’t forgive you.”

But that interpretation fails to reconcile Jesus’ teachings with the rest of scripture, best summarized in Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:32, where we are commanded to forgive others in the same manner that God forgives us.

How does God forgive us? Only when we confess. Confession opens the door to forgiveness. I John 1:9 says, “If…” underscore that conditional clause, “…if we confess our sins…” then comes the apodosis, or the consequence, “God will forgive our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Nothing in the Bible indicates that God forgives sin if people don’t confess and repent of the sin.

Furthermore, the Bible always calls the sinner to repentance—that is, a radical reversal of the attitudes and actions that resulted in the sin. Confession without repentance is always hollow. (Matthew 3:7-8, Acts 2:37-38)

So when a wife is encouraged to forgive her adulterous husband while he’s continuing in his sin, she’s being asked to do something that God himself doesn’t require. What Scripture does teach is that we must always be ready and willing, as God is always ready and willing, to forgive those who repent.

But forgiveness without confession and repentance doesn’t lead to reconciliation. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great theologian who was martyred by hanging in a Nazis concentration camp in 1945, said forgiveness without repentance is “cheap grace… which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner.”

Let me suggest that when there is no confession for a moral wrong committed against you, the better response would be to release that person to God’s justice in hopes that God will deal with them in a way that brings them to repentance and reconciliation. Further, we are never to give into bitterness, hold grudges, or let anger over sin pull us into sin. We must be very alert when we find ourselves in such a situation.

If you forgive cheaply, as Bonhoeffer warns, you may very well circumvent God’s process to bring that person to repentance and in so doing, close the door to reconciliation in your relationship.

Be very discerning about cheap grace. Genuine forgiveness and Biblical reconciliation require a two-person transaction that is enabled by the confession and repentance.

Yes, forgive! Do it early and often, quickly and fully. Be a forgiver, for sure, but don’t go beyond what Scripture teaches.

Thrive: Is there someone you have not forgiven? Why? Did their offense against you rise to the level of a moral offense? Are they continuing in harmful behavior against you or others? If the offense doesn’t rise to that high threshold, then go before the Lord and ask him to help you forgive. If the offense does meet that threshold, make sure you are not holding on to destructive anger, allowing bitterness to take root in your soul, or nursing a grudge. Don’t let their sin pull you into the sin.

Posted on

Desperate For God

He Waits To Be Wanted

How desperate is your faith? Not very, you say. Perhaps that’s the reason God doesn’t seem to do as much in our lives as we read about in the Bible or hear about in third-world Christianity. When we become truly desperate for God, maybe we will see God move as he did in days of old. May the God who waits to be wanted set us ablaze with a desperate desire for his holy presence!

Enduring Truth // Focus: Mark 2:2-5

Soon the house where Jesus was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God’s word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.”

I am not recommending that you knock over the pews to get to the altar or anything, but I wonder what you would be willing to do just to touch Jesus—either for yourself or someone you care about very deeply. I personally like things a little more calm and controlled than that, but there was just something about a person’s holy desperation that seemed to move Jesus to action:

The blind man named Bartimaeus who wouldn’t shut up until Jesus healed him…

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:46-52)

The Canaanite woman who wouldn’t back down just to get Jesus to deliver her demonized daughter…

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment. (Matthew 15:22-28)

The woman with the issue of blood that pressed through the crowd just to touch Jesus …

A large crowd followed Jesus and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5:24-34)

The guy named Zacchaeus who shimmied up a tree just to see Jesus…

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything,I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)

So how desperate is your faith?

Not very, you say. Well, perhaps that is the reason God doesn’t seem to do as much in your life, and mine, as we read about in Scripture or hear about in third-world Christianity. When we become truly desperate for God, maybe we will see God move as he did in days of old.

May the God who waits to be wanted set us a blaze with a desperate desire for his holy presence!

Thrive: Are you desperate for God? If you would like to have the kind of desperation that the men in Mark 2 had, a good place to begin would be to simply go to God and ask him to give you that kind of holy desire.