How to Have a Prosperous 2014

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners,  nor sits in the seat of the scornful; ² but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. ³ He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. Psalm 1

At the start of a new year we often look back and look forward.  What was the previous year like? Are we glad it’s over? Or do we know that we’ll look back at the year as one of the best of our life? At the same time we look forward to the next year.  We look with anticipation at the hope of a new year.  

People make many resolutions at the beginning of a year.  However, most resolutions are not lived out but forgotten within a couple of weeks.  This happens for various reasons: Sometimes we don’t have the willpower to hold to our resolutions or we may have never really been committed to them in the first place. Other times we don’t see the merit in our resolution; “Why did I want to do this in the first place?”  

There is a resolution we can make that is guaranteed to be worth our time and dedication -- an endeavor that is certain to bless our lives. What is it?  The resolution is to live out the precepts found in Psalm 1.  If we do this, God’s Word promises that whatever we do will prosper.

How do you live out the precepts in this Psalm?   First, Psalm 1 tells us what we should not be doing. The person living out these precepts “walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” To simplify this let’s just  say that we are not to follow the wisdom of the world. The world is full of godless wisdom and counsel.  The Bible tells us to stay away from it.

At this point you might be asking “How do I know what is worldly wisdom?”  The answer is to do what Psalm 1 tells us to do -- be in God’s Word night and day. We are told to be in God’s Word night and day and to meditate on it. To meditate on it simply means to ponder its meaning, asking “What does it mean and how do I live it out?”  When we do this not only do we begin to acquaint ourselves with the counsel of God, but we are also able to discern the truth of God from the lies of the world.

When we abide in God’s Word night and day, follow His counsel, and avoid walking in the counsel of the ungodly, we will prosper in all we do. This is not the Prosperity Gospel and this does not mean that if we just read the Bible twice a day all our selfish wishes will come true. The person who abides in God’s Word follows His Word and thus is directed by the Lord’s agenda. When our mind is renewed by His Word and we follow His counsel, we walk in a manner that the Lord can and will bless. 

2014 Bringing Anxiety?

Casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 (ESV)

A new year usually brings hope. However, with America’s gloomy economic climate many people aren’t encouraged by the hope of a new year but are anxious for what it may bring. A recent Gallop Poll shows Americans are worrying in increasing measure about such things as: not being able to pay the rent/mortgage, not being able to maintain their lifestyle, not being able to have enough money for retirement and not being able to pay medical costs.[1] All these things can add up to a mountain of anxiety. 

The question is how do you deal with your anxiety? People have different ways of dealing with anxiety. Some distract themselves and try not think about them. Some people drink to make them disappear, at least temporarily. Others convince themselves that they are strong enough to handle whatever is coming their way. And some people don’t deal with it at all, living in a constant state of apprehension.

The Bible has a prescription for anxiety.  The Bible’s remedy is to cast it on the Lord. The Greek word for “cast” is epirpto which simply means to throw up or place upon. However, there’s a neat picture from the one other time when this word is used in the Bible. In Luke 19 when Jesus is about to make His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a colt, Jesus’ followers cast (epirpto) the garments they were wearing on the colt for Jesus. In the same way we are to cast the anxieties we wear on the Lord. These anxieties weigh us down and are too much for us to handle. We are to cast them upon the Lord. They aren’t too much for the Lord to handle; they are nothing to the Lord.

Most people do not doubt that the Lord is powerful enough to handle their anxieties. However, they may doubt that the Lord is mindful of their situation, or that He cares for them and will intervene in their lives. Maybe the most powerful truth of this verse is the revelation that “he cares for you”! You probably already believe that He is powerful enough to handle your situation, so believe the Word of God and trust that He cares for you!

What anxieties are  plaguing you?  Cast them on the Lord! Cast them by giving them to Him in prayer. Cast them and don’t reel them back in. He cares about you and is big enough to handle whatever you’re dealing with. Cast them on Him -- believe that He will handle them and your anxiety will disappear.

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[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/162239/middle-aged-americans-worried-finances.aspx

The One Who Knows Us the Most Loves Us the Best

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴ In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5 (ESV)

The Gospel of John opens with several statements about “the Word.”  Who is “the Word?”  If there is any doubt or suspense at this point in John chapter 1, a few verses later John declares “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (vs. 14). The “Word” is Jesus Christ the only Son of God.

These first few verses of John are packed with facts about Jesus.  Jesus is God (vs.1), He is eternal (vs.2).  He has life in Him (vs. 4), and He overcomes darkness (vs. 5). I want to focus on the fact that He is the creator of the universe (vs. 3).   

John says that everything that was made through Jesus and without Jesus nothing was made. This is an absolute statement. In short, if it was created it was made by Jesus.  Jesus made the mountains; He made the earth, the sun and everything we know. The next time astronomers discover a planet that we never knew existed before, Jesus made that too. And, yes, Jesus also made you and me.

One of the most mind blowing things is that our Creator subjected Himself to His creation. In Philippians, the Bible says Jesus “⁷ made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

It is hard to imagine that the God who created humanity not only subjected Himself to humanity, but also to death, and death by capital punishment. Jesus subjected Himself to being mocked, beaten, bore the shame of our sin and an agonizing death on the cross. The Creator subjected Himself to His creation to save it. This is true love.

I have heard it said that the One who knows us the most loves us the best. The Lord created us and He knows us inside and out as Psalm 139 states “O Lord, you have searched me and known me!” (vs. 1)  For most of us to be fully known is a scary thing. Yet God who is rich in mercy still loves us fully and seeks a relationship with us. Let this New Year be the year that we determine to draw close to Jesus.

The Spirit of Christmas

At Christmastime we celebrate God sending His Son into the world to save the world. In doing so God met our greatest need, saving us from our sin, by giving His Son to die on the cross. This was the ultimate demonstration of God’s amazing love. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Thus, the spirit of Christmas is God giving of Himself to meet the needs of humanity.

The Christmas season has so much sentiment because most of us enjoy the celebration and tradition that accompanies Christmas.  However, we also acknowledge that there is a struggle between celebrating the true meaning of Christmas and trying to avoid the commercialization of Christmas. How should we handle that tension?  Should we have nothing to do with Christmas Trees or Santa Claus in protest to secularization and commercialization of Christmas?

As Christians who have accepted God’s gracious gift, we should live out this spirit in our relationships with others because we have the hope of salvation. Around two thousand years ago the Church of Jerusalem was going through severe financial hardships. The Apostle Paul instructed another church, the Church of Corinth, to take up a collection for the struggling Church of Jerusalem.  In instructing Corinth to give, Paul used our Lord’s great act of love for us as his basis for the Corinthians to give. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:9)  Jesus Christ, on that first Christmas morning, left the glory of heaven and humbly subjected Himself to humanity. He did all this just to save us. Knowing this to be true, we should be willing to give and to help others even if it means self-sacrifice.

However you feel about Santa, Rudolph and Frosty, if you believe that God sent His Son into the world to save the world, the most profound way you can celebrate Christmas is by acting on the spirit of Christmas. As Christians there is no better way to celebrate Christmas than by giving of ourselves to meet the needs of others. Personally, the more I live out the spirit of Christmas and give of myself to meet the needs of others, the more I feel the liberty to enjoy some of the traditional sentiment that comes with this time of year.  

The Importance of Thanksgiving

Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful,

Romans 1:21

This week is Thanksgiving week. What a great Holiday! We don’t think of Thanksgiving as a religious holiday, like Christmas and Easter, but it is right in line with Scripture. 

According to Scripture it is the normal and right response to give thanks to God. In Romans 1, we see by contrast the importance of being thankful to God for who He is and what He has done for us. The unrighteous in Romans 1were not thankful to God, and their hearts were darkened.

Our culture almost forces us to be ungrateful. Modern advertising is built on making people covet. We always think of what we don’t have or how much more others have than we do. In reality, if you live in America, you have it much better than the rest of the world.

The Bible tells us that we should be thankful to God. Acts 14 states that God“¹⁷ … did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” God is good and He has been good to all. He gives us life and sustains our life. He gives us loved ones with whom we can enjoy that life with.  At the very least we should be thankful to Him for giving and sustaining our lives.

If you have trouble being thankful, do what my wife and I do. Every Thanksgiving we take time during our drive to Tennessee where we each list everything we can think of that we are thankful for. It becomes kind of a competition as we go back and forth trying to outlast one another. People are even doing this on social media. If you take time to thank God for everything you have to be thankful for, you will begin to see just how blessed you are and you will genuinely be thankful on Thanksgiving.    

Is God Finished with Israel?

²⁵ For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. ²⁶ And so all Israel will be saved, Romans 11  

For some Christians Israel isn’t on the map. Even worse, some Christians believe that Israel has been replaced. They claim that God is done with Israel. This is not what the Bible teaches.

For the past two thousand years “blindness in part has happened to Israel.” They don’t recognize Jesus as their Messiah nor do they turn to Him to wash away their sins.  Conversely, during this time many non-Jewish people have had their eyes opened, and are calling on Jesus as Savior and being saved.

However, as the text states we are not to be “ignorant of this mystery.” One day after all the “Gentiles” that are to be saved get saved, God will move on the Jewish people and “Israel will be saved.”  This was prophesied in Zechariah 12 “¹⁰ And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”  That is, one day their eyes will be opened and they will recognize the Lord “whom they pierced” and they will “mourn.”  They will see Jesus, “the Lamb who was slain” and “mourn” but their mourning will lead to repentance. Their eyes will be opened, and hearts contrite, they’ll turn to Jesus and “so all Israel will be saved.”

So, for the record, God is not finished with Israel. Be not “wise in your own opinion” and think that God has forgotten the people He formed as a nation. We as gentile believers should have a place in our heart for Israel and a desire for the Jewish people to embrace Jesus as their Messiah. 

Observations on Sharing the Gospel from “The Parable of The Sower”

³ Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. ⁴ And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. ⁵ Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. ⁶ But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. ⁷ And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. ⁸ But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. ⁹ He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matt 13

This parable is a about how the world responds to the Gospel. Later on in Matthew 13:18-23, Jesus explains what the parable means. The seed is the Word of God and the four different types of soils are the conditions of the hearts that the Word falls on once sowed.

The four types of hearts have four different responses, and they are all interesting. The first type of heart is a heart that is as hard as pavement; the Word just kind of bounces off it.  These seem to be the people who just out right reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether they be atheist, agnostics or believe in false gods, they want nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus and make no bones about it.  

The second type of soil/heart, rocky soil with no depth,  may be the most interesting. When they hear the Gospel they receive it with joy! Sounds promising, doesn’t it?  However, Jesus says that there is no depth in them, and when hardships or persecution comes they stumble. This certainly seems like a very promising beginning, but in the end as Jesus says they “withered away.”

The third type of soil/heart is similar to the second. There is no outright rejection of the Word, but ultimately the “cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (vs. 22)  

Finally the forth soil/heart is the good soil. The Word of God falls on it and, finally, there is fruit! Producing fruit is the main reason seed is planted in the first place. In this parable fruit is changed character and good deeds that is the evidence of salvation.

I would like to leave you with a couple of quick observations from this parable in regards to sharing the Gospel: 

1. The seed/Word of God does not change. It is the one constant in all four cases. Many people and ministries try to change their approach to sharing the Gospel because they perceive that the Word will not be accepted. However, it is not the Gospel that is the variable in this parable. The variable is the condition of the heart. Stick to the Biblical Gospel. 
2. The seed/Word is thrown on all types of soils. We cannot see the condition of someone’s heart. You don’t know beforehand whether the soil is rock hard or good for sowing. Our job is just to spread the seed/Word.  You never know when that unfriendly looking person next to you might turn out to be good soil.