One Day

I have lived so much of my life for “one day.” One day I will have enough time to . . . One day I can afford . . . One day I can retire and . . . One day I will have . . . One day I will go . . . One day I won’t have to . . . But it seems that one day keeps getting pushed farther and farther away. It can be so discouraging if our hearts are focused on this life and this world that is here now and gone tomorrow. But there is another “one day” that brings me hope and peace and Joy. It is an eternal day and it makes these temporal days easier to bear.
One day I will look in the face of Jesus and I will see that everything I believed was true.
He is good.
He lived a perfect, sinless life.
He is the King of heaven and earth.
He loves me.
He calmed storms around me and in me.
He overcame darkness and evil.
He met my every need.
He made the blind see.
He made the deaf hear.
He made the mute speak.
He made the lame walk.
He made the sick well.
And He made the broken whole.
He ran to meet me on the road back to Him.
He carried me when I couldn’t take another step.
He held me when my heart was breaking.
He raised the dead to life.
He called and anointed me.
He gave me rest.
He brought peace in the middle of chaos.
He brought Joy when I was brokenhearted.
He is everything He claimed to be.
He not only gave me hope but He was my hope.
He made a way when I couldn’t see any way.
He turned this filthy sinner into a spotless saint.
He is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
He prays for me.
He died for me.
He rose from the grave.
He is with me to the end.
And when the end comes, I’ll be with Him forever. And my faith will be proven right.
“For now I see through a glass darkly: but then shall I see face to face. Now I know in part: but then shall I know even as I am known.” (1 Cor. 13:12)
Today I see by faith, and that is enough for me.

Only One Way to God

“You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself”

Do you believe that? I hope not because it is a lie from the pit of hell. It is also a popular philosophical statement from Swami Vivekananda. He was a Hindu philosopher, mystic, author, and religious teacher in the late 1800s who introduced and popularized many Hindu practices in the West, including yoga. He was the driving force behind interfaith awareness – popularized in recent years by “Coexist” bumper stickers. It’s a trendy theory, but it’s not true, and it won’t grant you eternal life. It is interesting that someone who does not know God himself would counsel the world on how to know God.

I discovered the quote while looking for an image about believing God. Google orders search results by popularity. This is what the world wants. A spirituality that is built around themselves rather than built on God. They want a God who is made in their own image, rather than recognizing that they are made in the image of God.

God wants us to know and believe in Him. The Scriptures repeatedly say that God works and acts “that you may know that I am God.” Those words are so frequent I can’t note all the references. But you and I won’t know and believe in God through ourselves. We will only know Him through His Son Jesus Christ.

Jesus declared “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Let me be clear: there are not many roads to God. There is only a one-way street. Jesus is the only way. That is not a popular statement, but it is a true one. Jesus also said, “If you really knew me, you would know my father as well” (Jn 14:6-7).  Jesus is God. He acts in accordance with the Father. He speaks for the Father (v.10). He is “in the Father, and the Father is in [Him]” (v. 11).

Jesus prayed to His Father, “Now this is eternal life; that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent” (Jn 17:3). Beloved, I don’t want you to miss this. There is no hope “if [you] ignore such a great salvation” (Heb 2:3). Oh, but if you believe, there is hope and peace and Joy and love. Don’t believe in yourself. Believe in God. Believe in His Son. And you will have eternal life.

Tell the Good News

Everywhere you go you will meet people who need the Lord. At the supermarket, at work, at school, at a football game, and yes, even at church. Somebody somewhere needs Jesus. The Jesus who saved you and made you His own. But not everyone will grasp the message of Jesus in the same way. The Apostle Paul understood that and adapted to his audience wherever he went. Please read Acts 17. There’s a lot here and we’ll be in this chapter for a couple of weeks.

Paul and his companions were in Thessalonica, an important city in Greece with a large Jewish population. Paul followed his usual custom of speaking to the Jews in the synagogue and spent three days sharing about Jesus. Luke said that his evangelism method was to “explain and prove that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. ‘This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ’” (vs 2-3). Paul went back to the Scriptures – what we know as “The Old Testament,” brought out the Messianic prophecies and proved that Jesus fulfilled them all. He tailored his message to his audience – the Jews would understand Messianic prophecies. They had been looking for the Messiah for hundreds of years. This was the perfect way to get their attention and deliver the gospel message. And some of the Jews received the message and believed.

Skip over to verse 16 and Paul is now in Athens, a large metropolis of education and philosophy – but not much Jewish influence. Paul had to shift gears, but he did not shift the message. He toured the city, getting to know the people and the culture and building a bridge to carry the truth. He approached them from their interest in religion and even referenced one of their own poets. They had built an altar “To an Unknown God” and Paul used that altar as a springboard to share the gospel. Their “Unknown God” was the God of the Universe, the Creator of everything – including them. He was worthy of all worship and obedience and He commanded “all people everywhere to repent” before He sent the judgment (v. 30-31). Paul’s message garnered interest and response.

Years later Paul wrote in Romans 10: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (v. 15). Someone you will meet today needs the good news. Wherever you go, Beloved, put on the beautiful shoes of the gospel of peace and tell the story of Jesus.

Real Questions and Real Answers

When my younger brother was little, he was full of questions and I, being the wise older sister, tried to answer all of them. Until he became obsessed with this one: “Who put outside outside?” None of our answers sufficed. Then our dad said, “When people built buildings there wasn’t enough room for the whole world to be inside, so some of it had to stay outside.” And that satisfied him.

We may not ponder questions as complex as that, but there are questions that every person on earth needs to face:

1. Where did life come from?

2. What happens when we die?

3. How can we explain human behavior?

4. How can I determine right from wrong?

5. What is the purpose of man?

These questions shape our worldview and our worldview shapes our belief system. Our entire outlook on life is informed by our answers to these questions.

The greatest tool of Satan is to numb man’s mind so he does not think about these things. Instead, he has us obsessing over worldly, useless things that have no eternal significance.  We are awed by the opulence of celebrities rather than by the Creator of the brilliant heavens.  We fill our minds with worldly wisdom and ignore the wisdom of the Bible.  We build fortresses to protect us from our enemies and the enemy of our soul laughs as he wanders into our homes through the world wide web.  We refuse to worship God but pour out our highest accolades on athletes who carry a ball down a field.  Republicans and Democrats battle each other while our true enemy has free reign in our nation.  We are chasing after success rather than chasing after God. 

Satan doesn’t want us to ponder these questions because he knows that the answers will ultimately point us to God.  Life came from God (Gen 1-2). After death, we stand before God for eternal punishment or eternal life (Heb 9:27). Human behavior is the result of the first human’s sinful rebellion against their Creator (Gen 3). Right from wrong is spelled out in the Bible (Ps 119:9). The purpose of man is to love and worship God (Col 1:16; Rev 4:11). Until we face the real questions of humanity – and discover the true answers – we will continue to see evil in this world.  We must start asking the important questions, first to ourselves then in our homes and churches and communities.  Beloved, how will you answer these questions?

Solid Faith

Waking up on Easter morning when I was a kid meant a new dress and new shoes and an Easter basket at the foot of my bed, a smiling chocolate Easter bunny who stared at me with his little frosting eyes and beckoned me to nibble on his ears. Oh, I could not resist his charms. One year I pulled my chocolate friend out of his cellophane home and bit down on his ear and got a shock. The chocolate caved in and broke apart because the bunny was hollow inside! Mom didn’t realize the bunnies she bought for us were not solid. My brothers and I felt cheated. We had counted on solid milk chocolate that we could gnaw on for several days. We got a thin veneer of chocolate that was gone before bedtime that day. There was no substance to our chocolate Easter bunnies, they were just a shell.

Paul warned believers to be on guard against “hollow and deceptive philosophies” (Colossians 2:8) of this world that will try to fool us and draw us away from the solid truth of Christ Jesus. They are a very real and present danger to Christians. Unlike Christ, in whom is “all the fullness of [God]” (v. 9), they are empty and foolish and they crumble under the bite of real life. Unlike Christ, who is eternal, these philosophies have no substance and no staying power, they are founded on the shifting values and priorities of the world. And unlike Christ who is the Truth, they are rooted in lies and deception. At their core, they deny the reality of God and His authority and put humanity on the throne of existence (Romans 1:18-25). Sadly, they are not limited to the world; they are prevalent in the church as well. In Paul’s day, it was the “higher knowledge” gospel and the “Mosaic-law” gospel. Today we have the “prosperity” gospel, the “social” gospel, the “humanitarian” gospel, the “political” gospel, and on and on. All of these are hollow shells of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Beloved, when the winds of hardship howl and the heat of spiritual battle rages, you need something more than a hollow, Easter-bunny faith. You need something you can depend on, something that will last. You need the truth of God, His Son, and His Word. You need a faith that will not crumble. You need the solid rock that is Jesus.

Have Faith

What does it mean to “have faith?” And in what is our faith to be placed? In a culture with a thousand different philosophies, how can we know what to believe?  For the Christian, faith is what we believe about God and about what He has said through His Word, His Son, and His Spirit.  God spoke two distinct things about Jesus: that Jesus is His Son (Matthew 3:17), and that God has given us eternal life through Him (1 John 5:11).  Faith that honors and pleases God holds those two professions as truth. True faith stakes everything on them.

When I say I have faith in God, I am not making a statement about my assent to the truths of Christianity; I am making a statement about the truthfulness of what God has said about Jesus Christ.  I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who came to earth, lived a perfect life, died bearing my sins, was buried, and rose to life.  When I say that I believe in Jesus, I am putting all my hope and confidence in God’s power to save me as He has promised.  That is why “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).  I cannot see Jesus with my own eyes, nor have I ever seen heaven.  But I believe that He is the risen Lord and that His sacrifice is sufficient to save me and give me eternal life.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, you are blessed in every way; for this life and life eternal.  You are blessed because you stand on the confidence of God’s testimony, not on the traditions of men.  You are blessed because “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Corinthians 2:10). But for us who believe, “we will see the glory of God” (John 11:40).  Our faith will be made sight and our hope in Christ will be confirmed.  In the chronicles of heaven, our names will be recorded among the great saints of human history, and we will be commended with those who pleased God by their faith.  Oh, what a blessing it is to believe!

God Doesn’t Make Watches

“I’ll see you in heaven,” I said to my Mom as peace fell over her still face. It’s the same thought I had when I got the call several weeks ago that my brother had passed away. For the believer, to be “away from the body” is to be “at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). Truly, I envy them. I long to be home – eternally home. But it occurred to me that I never have to tell Jesus, “I’ll see you in heaven.” Yes, I will “see” Him in the sense that I will, like my mother and brother, gaze into His face in heaven. But I am not separated from Him at all. Over and over in Scripture, He promised, “I am with you,” and I know that He is.

There was a theory espoused in the late 18^th century called “the Watchmaker Analogy.” Just as watches are set in motion by watchmakers, after which they operate according to their pre-established mechanisms, God created the world, set the laws of nature in motion, and then sat back on His heavenly throne to watch it all unfold without His regular involvement unless there was a catastrophic need to intervene. (2020 would be a good time.) It allowed for theism – the belief in the existence of a Creator – and evolution – the natural process of selection – to coexist without firmly standing in one camp or the other.

That’s not the God of the Bible, nor is it the God of my life. The God I know is not sitting back with disinterest, He is actively engaged in the world and even in the minute details of my everyday life. He is passionate about His creation and especially about His children. Recently I cried to God over hard stuff in my life, and He assured me of His ever-watchful eye and His hand poised to act at the right moment.

This life is hard. It’s doubly hard when you think you’re alone. It is comforting to know that the God who promised His presence to Abraham and Moses and Joshua and David and the Apostles and Paul has also promised to be present and active in your life as well. Beloved, you don’t have to wait for heaven. God is with you now, today. He is El Hayyay – the God of your life.

When Everyone’s a Philosopher, How Do You Know What’s True?

In this day of social media, everyone has an opinion and anyone with internet access and a keyboard can become an expert about everything from sports to food to politics to religion. Spend an hour on the web and you will know the deep thoughts of world leaders, celebrities, “influencers,” the media, the local yokel, and even the Kardashians. I’m guilty too, as I flood the cyber-world with biblical commentary. The delivery may be modern, but the idea of sharing ideas is as old as man. The trick is to figure out who’s ideas are worth listening to.

Paul warned the believers in Colossae: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy . . .” (Colossians 2:8). The Colossians were being led astray by false teachers who claimed that the secret to eternal life was a higher plane of knowledge – a knowledge that was superior to Christ and put one on the level with God. Their philosophies sounded right, but they were wrong, and anyone who listened was led astray. It wasn’t just a first-century problem. That warning still applies today. There are a lot of messages that sound like the Bible, but they are not the Word of God. There are a lot of teachings that sound like Jesus, but they are not the Son of God. They have shades of truth, but they are not the truth.  So how do you know what is true?

When bank tellers receive training to recognize counterfeit money, they are not schooled in every possible way that a bill can be counterfeited. Instead, they are taught every detail of a genuine bill, so that when someone presents money that is even a little off, they can spot it instantly. The key to recognizing a false bill is to know the real thing. The key to recognizing false teaching is to know the truth. Luke commended a group of believers in Berea because they listened to Paul’s teachings and “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11). They didn’t take Paul’s word for what God said; they checked it out in God’s Word.

I hope you do the same Beloved. I hope you take what your Bible teacher says, your Pastor, your favorite author or singer, even yours truly, and lay it beside the authoritative, infallible, inspired Word of the Living God to see if it agrees with what was spoken by the Spirit of God. And if it does not, you run from it and run to the truth. And if I said it, you call me out on it. I also hope that you are making Bible study – not just a five-minute devotional reading – a priority in your day. I hope you are digging in and soaking up the truth. I hope you are learning to recognize the ways and words of God so you are not “taken captive through hollow and deceptive philosophies . . .” I hope you know the Scriptures so intimately that anything just a shade off of the truth raises red flags in your spirit. There is far too much as stake to shrug your shoulders and reason that “it sounds okay to me.” Be a Berean. Know the truth. It’ll set you free.