Accept His Challenge

July 31

"And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you,’” Revelation 3:1-3.

The Lord was not pleased with His Church in Sardis. He accused them of being virtually dead even as they went about their works. We can imagine that the works they did were admirable—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, taking in the refugee, guiding the blind, seeking the lost, lifting the down-trodden—but they were on the verge of spiritual death.

The risen Christ admonished them to strengthen themselves that they should not perish but live. He counseled them to “hold fast and repent,” so they would not be overtaken in their lostness, ensnared by their sin when He returned. If Jesus had this harsh criticism of the thriving body of believers at Sardis, can we not imagine what He would say to His people today!

How would He address the way we conduct ourselves as Christians? We fill our churches with songs of praise and words of admonishment, but what fills our hearts? Are we among others of like mind because we long to extol the virtue of our Savior and King or are we gathered together to enjoy the entertainment?

Do we sit in our pews to soak up the atmosphere produced by skilled musicians and expounders of the Word or do we join the congregation of the faithful that we might add to the praise and worship of the Savior who has died that we might live? Do we come in order to support the outreach of the Church in all its functions or do we come merely that we might be supported?

The Holy One does not want us to merely play church. He isn’t impressed by our raised hands and our vibrant singing or our enthusiastic hallelujahs if they do not emanate from hearts of surrender to the Lord and faith in His holy name. If our giving to the poor and needy does not flow from our understanding of the words of Paul that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” Acts 20:35, then it is of no effect.

Indeed, we shall be among those who stand before Him on Judgment Day proclaiming, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons and in Your name perform many miracles?” And we shall hear those awful words, “Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity,” Matthew 7:22-23.

Jesus went on to explain in Matthew 7:24-25, “ Therefore whosoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken to a wise man, who built his house upon a rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.”

If we are to please Him as a collective body of believers in Church or as individuals who profess faith in Him, we must give Jesus our all. We must not be mere Sunday morning believers; we must be people who live our faith and serve our King.

May He help us to take up the gauntlet He cast before the Church at Sardis—may we accept His challenge to “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) in complete surrender to Jesus and in resolute faithfulness to the work He’s set before us to do.

Walk Among The Stalwarts

July 30

“Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil,” Hebrews 5:12-14.

The philosophy in the American public education system seems to be, ‘I’m OK, you’re OK.’ Nobody fails; nobody is held back a grade because of neglect to master the required battery of material at a certain grade level. Some school systems go so far as to give certificates of achievement to students who improve their grades from the ‘F’ level to the ‘D’ level!

This in a nation that demands excellence from its athletes—we don’t give ‘runner-up’ awards to the losing team in the Super Bowl and March Madness eliminates all but the best college basketball team. Only in academics do we allow there to be a sense of achievement for mediocrity. Only in matters of scholastic achievement and in matters of faith do we compromise our expectation from the excellent to the ordinary.

The Apostle Paul is addressing the latter here in his letter to the Hebrews. He is challenging them to be mindful of the necessity for their growing beyond the stage of infancy into the stage of mature believer in Christ. Paul determines the stature of a man’s faith not by his chronological age or by his status in the community or by his financial acumen but by his ability to partake of the Word of Life.

What consistency of the truth of God can a believer tolerate? Can he consume and digest “strong meat, which belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil,” according to Hebrews 5:14? Or is he continually among the “newborn babes” of the Church of the Living Christ who cannot bear strong meat but partakes only of “the “milk of the Word,” I Peter 2:2?

We love our babies. We delight in holding them and cuddling them and singing lullabies to them, but we don’t want them to remain infants. Watching them “grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man,” Luke 2:52, is one of the great joys of parenthood.

How then can we not know that God desires those who profess faith in the finished work of salvation that Jesus completed on the cross to grow beyond infancy and dependence upon the nurturing of the mature Christians around them into the fullness of total sufficiency in Christ?

Let us become partakers of solid truth that we may enjoy the strong meat of the word! Let us be among the faithful men of complete commitment to the Savior who share His salvation with the lost and dying who are everywhere around us.

Let us emerge from our infant beds to walk in faith and power among the stalwarts of the faith, partaking with them of the full table Christ sets before us.

The Fullness of the Deity

July 29

"In Christ, all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority," Colossians 2:9-10.

In Christ. Not in self-realization of any sort—not in professional achievements, not in romantic conquests, not in political power, not in financial acumen, not in societal acceptance—does a man find fulfillment. Fullness of joy and completeness as a human being are found in nothing but the fullness of Christ.

No matter how far up the ladder of success and acclaim an individual climbs, he will not find the satisfaction that drives him still higher in any of the accolades he receives along the way. No matter which rung of the ladder of life a person finds himself upon, he will not know personal fulfillment there apart from the fullness he can discern as one who has placed his life at the feet of Jesus.

The prestige and power that accompany success are sweet to the tongue but become as gravel in the belly. What seemed at its ingestion to be the ultimate taste of success will quickly unsettle the palate of the one who consumed it. In fact, the things for which a man might grasp in order to attain the pinnacle of success might well become the source of his undoing.

As Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived stated in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.” And Solomon should know, for he allowed the trappings of power and prestige and wealth to diminish him from wisdom to apostasy. He is said to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines whose religious perversions caused him to fall away from true faith.

Solomon had an amazing and exceptional spiritual endowment from God at the beginning. What he sought from God, wisdom so he could justly rule over Israel, was pleasing to God.

In I Kings 3:9 Solomon asked of God, “Give Your servant a discerning heart to govern Your people, to discern right from wrong, for apart from You I cannot govern this great people of Yours.”

In response to the King’s request, God gave Solomon wisdom and more: “God said to him, ‘Because you have asked for wisdom and not for long life or wealth for yourself or victory over your enemies but for discernment, I will give you what you ask but also I will give you riches and honor so that you will have no equal among kings,” I Kings 3:11-13.

“As a result, King Solomon was given riches and wisdom greater than that of all other kings and the whole world sought audience with him in order to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart,” I Kings 10:23-24.

His Godly wisdom allowed him to rule wisely until his proclivity for ungodly marriages and associations robbed him of God's favor. In I Kings 11:1, 2, we are told, “King Solomon loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites—nations from which God had told the Israelites they should not take wives for they will turn your hearts after their gods; yet Solomon held fast to them in love.”

We are told that the LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from Him, that the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice became angry because Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command but followed other gods (see1 Kings 11:9,10).

If one who enjoyed the wealth and power of Solomon could fall away as described in I Kings 11:6-8, “So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods,” how much more can we deny ourselves of the fullness of Christ if we allow the allure of the world to turn us from the true faith?

Solomon’s sad tale of falling from grace and honor in the sight of the Holy One must have a sobering impact upon us, for the words of Ezekiel 33:18, 19 are still true: “If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die in his sin and if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live.”

Can we not, must we not therefore, forsake the way of the world that seems right but leads to death, in order to embrace the way of the Lord which is the fullness of the Deity and life eternal!

Washed and Set Free

July 28

“When it was full they drew to shore and they sat down and gathered the good fish into vessels but the bad fish, they threw away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and separate the wicked from among the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” Matthew 13:48-50.

“When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of his glory. And before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was an hungry, and you gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink. I was a stranger, and you took Me in. I was naked, and you clothed Me. When I was sick, you visited Me. When I was in prison, you came to Me.’

“’Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You or thirsty, and gave You water to drink? When did we see you a stranger, and take You in? When did we see You naked, and clothed You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and came to You?’

”And the King shall answer and say to them, ‘Verily I say to you that inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these My brothers, you have done it to Me.’ Then shall He say also to them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,’” Matthew 25: 31-46.

A lot of people dispute the veracity of the doctrine of hell. The rationale to their thinking is that a loving God would not relegate anyone, no matter how bad he had been during his lifetime to such an abysmal and eternal punishment. But in the two passages quoted here, Jesus seems to believe otherwise.

Perhaps it is because they misunderstand the reason for eternal separation from God that those who deny the existence of hell assume the position that they do. The first thing we must understand is that hell was not designed for men but for Lucifer and his fallen angels.

It was instituted because they had engaged in open revolt against the Holy God they had known and served intimately. They had abode in Heaven and their insurrection separated them from the God against whom they had rebelled.

The second point we must make is that man is not relegated to hell because of crimes he’s committed or sins he’s indulged. He goes to hell for one reason only—he has rejected the salvation that Jesus provides that sets him free from the penalty of his sin.

The Word tells us, “The wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 6:23.

The one who rejects Jesus rejects eternal life…he relegates himself to eternal damnation! Because God has given every man a free will, each of us decides for himself whether he will accept Christ’s “unspeakable gift,” II Corinthians 9:15, or reject it.

The fact of the matter is that Jesus has paid a great price to give the gift of eternal life to man. It is God’s will that all men be saved (see I Timothy 2:4) that none be lost but all men come to a knowledge of the truth in Christ (see II Peter 3:9.)

May each of us do the one thing that assures our inclusion among those who inherit life eternal—may each of us receive the free gift of Jesus Christ’s propitiatory life, death and resurrection in our behalf. May we be washed in His shed blood and set free from sin so we may abide with Him forever.

Found and Purged

July 27

“But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:22-26

Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the life of a man. As Paul declares here in his letter to the Galatians, “…the whole world is a prisoner of sin…” but the man who finds his Savior is set free from the prison of sin and death. The immutable law of God held him accountable for his transgression until the Lord set him free.

When a man places his life at the feet of Jesus and receives the washing of the blood that makes him clean, he is made new. As Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come, let us settle the matter. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be washed white as snow.” When a sinful man places his life under the cleansing flow of Calvary, he is forever transformed from sinner to saint.

Whether a drunken slave boat captain or a ruthless terrorist, the one who has been compelled by the entrance of the Holy Spirit into his heart to come to the foot of the cross will be renewed in the inner man, will be set free of the chains of sin in all its manifestations and be raised up to new life in Christ.

In the freedom a man receives from the Holy One, he is set free to glorify God with his life. John Newton, the slave boat captain who in the wretchedness of his sin was a heartless and ruthless abuser of his fellow man, upon his conversion to Christ became a minister of the gospel who reached out to other lost sinners with the knowledge of the Christ who brings the lost out of darkness into light—as Newton stated in his matchless hymn Amazing Grace, “I once was lost, but now I’m found…”

Walid Shoebat, a former terrorist, now extols the Christ he once disdained, rescues the persecuted Christians he once hated, supports the Jews he once wished to destroy. Like Newton before him, he can say, “I once was blind but now I see.” Only Christ can have such a transformative impact on a life. Only Jesus can cause a man to be “born again,” John 3:3, and remade—no longer in the image of the world and its sin but in the image of Jesus Himself.

The man without Christ—whether a tax cheat, an adulterer, a murderer, a terrorist—is a prisoner to the sin that binds him to the purposes of the evil one. If a man—no matter the depth of his sin—will receive the cleansing only Jesus can provide, he will be washed clean, he will be made new, he will emerge from darkness into light.

If the lost man will allow the Holy Spirit to stir within him, he can, like Newton and Shoebat, emerge from the lost-ness of sin to be found in Christ Jesus his Savior for evermore. May each man be found in the Savior and purged of all sin that he may become an eternal son of our eternal God.

The Truth That Sets Us Free

July 26

“The Lord is faithful and will give you strength and will protect you from the evil one,” II Thessalonians 3:3.

“God is strong and can help you not to fall. He can bring you before His glory without any wrong in you and can give you great joy. He is the only God, the One who saves. To Him be glory, honor, power, greatness and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord for all time past, now, and forever, Amen,” Jude 24:25.

The gulf between God and His errant creation is a vast divide that is so wide that man cannot even begin to fathom the distance between himself and our Holy Lord. It is as though we were standing on the seashore of the Eastern United States and attempting to see the coast of Europe. We simply can’t see it.

From our vantage point as sinners who are swallowed into the deception of the enemy of our souls, we cannot perceive the treacherous sea of indifference and licentiousness that stands between us and Heaven. We are busy with the interests of our lives—advancing our careers, building our financial portfolio, establishing our power base, indulging our romantic interests, raising our children to be reflections of ourselves—all without the attention to our relationship with our God and King that is our ultimate purpose.

We give little importance to the admonition of our Savior in Matthew 6:33 where He says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all good things will be added unto you.” His promise is that if we make Him and His Kingdom’s purposes our priority, He will assure that we have all we need to abide in His truth and to abound in His eternal provision.

Will the evil one endeavor to steal away our promise of eternal glory in the presence of the Holy One? In fact, he will, but our promise is that the strength of God will protect us from him! Will God’s ancient foe try to trip us up in our pursuit of the will of the Lord? Indeed, if he does, he must fail because our promise is that our Savior can bring us before the presence of His glory with great joy.

Might we falter along the way? Indeed, we might, but our confidence remains unshaken for our complete faith has been placed in the One who has promised. Our confidence is not in ourselves or in our own ability to forge ahead to His Kingdom but in the complete and perfect work Christ has accomplished in our behalf.

Jesus’ exchange of His righteousness for our unrighteousness; His sinlessness for our sin assures us that as we believe and appropriate all He’s provided for us we shall see the fulfillment of the Lord’s claim, “The Father gives Me My people. Every one of them will come to Me and I will always accept them,” John 6:37.

When we come to Him in sincere repentance and true abandonment of the sin that besets us, we will “Know the Truth (Jesus is the Truth) and the Truth will set us free,” John 8:32.

In Christ Alone

July 25

"Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well; his branches run over the wall. The archers have bitterly grieved him, shot at him and hated him. But his bow remained in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob.

“From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel, by the God of your father who will help you, and by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, the blessings of the deep that lies beneath, the blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

“The blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers.” Genesis 49:22-26.

Blessings are promised and those promises involve strength of mind and body and spirit. The one who loves the Christ and is devoted to His purposes has the assurance of the Father that the good things that the Holy One held out to their ancestors would also play a large role in the lives of the current generation.

Believers today may stand on the assurances that were given to generations past because the truth, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you are not consumed,” Malachi 3:6. The second part of the word, “…that you are not consumed,” shows us that the promise is not contingent upon us. The promise is all about God’s faithfulness.

Does that mean we may flagrantly transgress the law of the Holy One? No, it does not. But it does make clear the reality that it is not our goodness that saves us. It is the goodness of Christ that transforms us from sinners to saints. Of ourselves, we have nothing to commend us to our holy God. That is why He does not hold our breach of His law against us.

It was never our compliance with His immutable law that made us candidates for salvation. It has never been acts that we have done (see Titus 3:5) that made us worthy of salvation. It has always been Jesus Christ and Him crucified that enables us to be washed free of sin and made righteous in the eyes of the Holy One.

In the beautiful words of Keith Getty’s glorious hymn, “In Christ Alone” are all the wondrous promises of the Living God fulfilled. May we stand on them in faith in His truth and in hope of His complete provision—and power to “supply all we need according to His riches in glory,” Philippians 4:19.

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm

What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save

Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again

And as He stands in victory
Sins curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life's first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny

No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Til He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ Ill stand.

In Him, in His complete power and provision, we stand eternally.

Emulate Our Savior

July 24

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world,” I John 2:15, 16.

It is difficult to turn ones back upon the allure of the world. To the natural man, the world is all we know. From an early age we evidence a sense of ownership of what is ours as well as of desire for more things to possess.

What child in a toy store or in a candy shop does not manifest his innate proclivity to want the things he sees! The lust of the flesh, of the eyes, and the pride of life are quite discernible in our species from the earliest stages of life.

So how can God expect that we will forsake the love of the world? How can He expect that we will not desire the things we can see and handle and possess? Of course, He knows we cannot. We cannot, that is, in our own strength or of our own will. If we are to abandon the world’s pursuits and the accolades the achievement of them brings to us, we must first embrace Christ.

When we have received Jesus as our Savior and Lord, when we have opened our inner-most being to the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, we will find a transformation has occurred within us. We will find that just as Jesus had “nowhere to lay His head,” Matthew 8:20, Luke 9:58, neither will we care if, “The foxes have dens and the birds have nests,” but we have no place to claim as our own.

Not only was He without a home, but His possessions were meager. We know that when He was crucified the Roman soldiers “cast lots for His garments,” as prophesied in Psalm 22:18 and as the prophecy was fulfilled in Mark 15:24. The only ‘valuable’ thing He owned was His seamless robe (see John 19:23).

Does He expect believers to take a vow of poverty and live in a monastery? He may call some to that degree of abandonment of the world, but for most believers He requires only that we allow Him to sit on the throne of our hearts—in spite of what we may possess.

If we are wealthy, He does not want our wealth to own us. If we are of humble means, He does not want our lack of earthly treasure to own us. He wants us to be as Paul was in Philippians 4:12, “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound:, and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”

Whatever our temporal circumstances might be, the Lord wants our focus to be upon the eternal, for He has said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be,” Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34. The God who loves us and gave up all things to save us wants us to follow the example He set in Philippians 2:6-11 which says:

“Christ, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

“Therefore God has exalted Him to the highest place and given Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Are we willing to emulate our Savior who gave up Heaven’s glory and the worship of angels to be a mortal man who subjected Himself to ridicule in life and to death, hell, and the grave in our behalf? Are we willing to give up earth’s fleeting badge of honor to receive Heaven’s “crown of life that the Lord has promised to them that love Him,” James 1:12!

Victory in Every Circumstance

July 23

Faith does not mean trusting God to stop the storm, but trusting Him to strengthen us as we walk through the storm!

What do you do when the storms of life seem to be raging against you? Once when Jesus was with His disciples in a boat out on the water a great storm came up suddenly. The disciples were very afraid and they accused Jesus of being indifferent to their plight.

When they had awakened Him in the midst of their fear, Jesus simply arose and spoke to the storm, “Peace! Be still,” and the sea was calm again. Then He said to them, “How is it that you were so afraid? Have you no faith?”

Among themselves they marveled, “Who is this that the wind and the sea obey Him!” (See Mark 4:38-42.)

When difficult times come, our frail human nature tends to fold under the pressure. Our first inclination is to be overwhelmed by our own frailty and frustrated by our lack of ability to quell the storm of our own resolve.

But we don’t have to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the deluge of waves of worry or fear. Just as Jesus spoke to the storm, we have power to take authority over our winds and waves. Our words have power; in fact, Proverbs 18:21 tells us, “There is life and death in the power of the tongue.”

To believers in Christ, Paul says in Romans 8:11, “the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.” That means God’s miracle-working power is within you.. He has given you His authority to declare peace, health, prosperity of spirit, abounding blessings for time and eternity over your home, over your family over your future.

He has told you that nothing you ask of Him in accordance with God’s will shall be denied. I John 5:14, 15 takes it a step further and states that we may ask anything that is His stated will for us with absolute confidence that it shall be done!

The Lord’s brother says in James 1:6 that we must, “Ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that asks must not be driven and tossed as a wave of the sea, but must believe God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Remember, no matter what storms may come against you, the One lives within you is greater than all your storms, and through Him you have the power to live in victory in every circumstance of your life—even the storms!

Found Alive In Truth

July 22

“For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: "Seek Me and live… Seek the LORD and live, lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, with no one to quench it in Bethel… He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning and makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the face of the earth; The LORD is His name. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; so the LORD God of hosts will be with you,” Amos 5:4-14.


As the Holy One spoke to His people Israel of old, so He speaks to mankind today. His admonition to them, “You shall seek Me and find Me when you shall search for Me with your whole heart,” Jeremiah 29:13, is viable today to those who want to know Him in truth.

The God who holds the constellations in the hollow of His hand can make darkest delusion and sorrow into glorious awakening. When man, lost in trespasses and the deception of the evil one that swaths him in sin has caught a glimmer of the light that is Jesus and desires freedom from “the wages of sin which is death,” Romans 6:23, he shall indeed receive, “the gift of God which is eternal life.”

But the key to any man’s release from the clutches of evil is that he seek the true and living God. To neglect His counsel to look for Him is to relegate oneself to the encumbrance of the devil’s shroud of darkness. It is to “prefer darkness rather than light,” John 3:19. Why would anyone desire darkness above light? As the verse goes on to say, it is because “his deeds are evil.”

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death,” Proverbs 14:12, and we need look no further than the evening news to see thousands of people who are deluded into believing they do their god a favor by ruthlessly slaughtering people whose ideology does not strictly comply with their own.

While this is perhaps the most blatant illustration of lostness in today’s world, it can also be seen when we look at our neighbors—or perhaps when we look in the mirror. Though we may not soak the ground around us with the blood of innocents who do not subscribe to our view of god and his ultimate purposes, unless we have made Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord, we have fallen short of the treasure we seek and find when we search after the Holy One with all our heart.

Rather than presume we are justified as we are, rather than compare ourselves to the worst example of blatant misunderstanding of who God is and what He wants from those who believe in Him; rather than adjudge ourselves righteous, should we not heed His word which tells us to, “examine yourself to see if you are in the true faith,” as Paul admonishes believers to do in II Corinthians 13:5 ?

Should we not desire above all things to be found alive in the truth that is Christ who said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me," John 14:6.

Nothing of Time Will Matter

July 21

"Look among the nations and watch— Be utterly astounded! I will work a work in your days which you would not believe, though it were told you. For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, a bitter nation which marches through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

“They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; their cavalry comes from afar; they fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

“They all come for violence; their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. They scoff at kings, and princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, for they heap up earthen mounds and seize them. Then his mind changes, and he transgresses; he commits offense, ascribing his power to his god," Habakkuk 1:5-11.

God tells Habakkuk that he is not going to believe what He is about to tell him. He says He is already at work to deliver him and punish the sinners around him. Then He tells the prophet that He is sending the ferocious, bloody, terrifying Chaldeans to conquer Judah!

This was not what Habakkuk expected as an answer to his prayers for his people. How could their deliverance into the the hand of these barbaric and godless people effect God’s will? Habakkuk must have disdained the concept that God would punish Israel through this godless and ruthless enemy. From what Habakkuk understood of God, this made no sense. How could a loving God punish His chosen people by the hand of the vile and unbelieving Chaldeans?

God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, but the lack of man’s understanding does not mean that there is not method to what the Holy One is doing in our midst. At times, it seems God is going in a confusing or even wrong direction, but that is merely our erroneous perception of what He’s doing. We will ultimately discover that He has been following a purposeful plan all along.

The main thing that prevents our grasp of what God is doing is that our perception is temporal while His purposes are eternal. As Derek Prince, a great expounder of the Word of God once said, “God will never sacrifice one moment of eternity for all of time.”

God will allow every scheme of man, every purpose of humankind, every achievement of technology, every accomplishment of man’s great mind to fall apart so in the process of their collapse man might find Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And when man has found Him—when he truly understands his need of Jesus—nothing of time will matter.

Yesterday, Today, Forever

July 20

“I have become a fool in boasting; you have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you; for in nothing was I behind the most eminent apostles, though I am nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were accomplished among you with all perseverance, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. For what is it in which you were inferior to other churches, except that I myself was not burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong!” II Corinthians 12:11-13.

That the unbelieving world around us is oblivious to the workings of God among us is no surprise. From the ungodly laws of man that should be abrogated to the demonic rage of terrorists that seems unabated it is apparent that those who have not made Jesus Christ their Savior and Lord are insensible to the move of the Holy One among men.

Yet Paul is here addressing that spirit of unbelief as it is found within the walls of the Church. He establishes his own credentials as an apostle among them in humility but without equivocating as to the power of God that has been evidenced among them.

He reminds them that they have fallen short of nothing regarding the move of the Holy Spirit in their midst through his evocation of the Word. In only one thing has he caused them to be ‘inferior’—he has not required their financial support.

Paul could be admonishing the Lord’s people today rather than those who sat in the shadow of the apostles. We deserve his chastisement, for we, too, tend to be dismissive of the promise, “You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall witness to Me in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth,” Acts 1:8.

How many of us languish in poor health because we do not appropriate to ourselves the promise that Jesus is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” Hebrews 13:8, and therefore His healing power is available to us in our sickness?

How many of us accept our lack of daily needs because we forget that He has said, “God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:19? It is as though we are unmindful of the glorious words David has spoken of His faithfulness in II Samuel 22:1-7:

“And David spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul: he said, The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer. He is my God of my rock; in Him will I trust: He is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my Savior; He saves me from violence.

“I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid; when the sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me; but in my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God: and He did hear my voice out of His temple, and my cry did enter into His ears”

We, like David, must remind ourselves that we serve a miracle-working God who delights to demonstrate His goodness and mercy among His people. We must receive the correction of Paul that compels us to trust fully in the Holy One who inhabits eternity, in the One who has the power and the will to move among us in the fullness of who He is and what He can do to bless those who will simply receive all we need from His loving hand.

Even the Elect

July 19

“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect,” Matthew 24:24.

“He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived,” Revelation 13:13-14.

“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" Matthew 7:22-23.

"If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods’—which you have not known—‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice; you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst,” Deuteronomy 13:1-5.

There’s an old saying, ‘Everything that sparkles isn’t gold,’ and an application of that truth can be made in the spiritual realm. We are admonished by the God who loves us and who gave His perfect sacrifice to save us (see John 3:16) that we must, “Try the spirits to see if they be of God,” I John 4:1.

The above verses make it abundantly clear that there is a coming day when deception will be profound’ it will be a day when, as Jesus said, even the elect would succumb to diabolical delusion if it were not to be that God Himself would prevent it.

The evil one is a master of deception. Of himself he has stated, “I would be like the Most High,” Isaiah 14:14, and he has practiced his delusion since man has walked the planet. It is impossible to watch current events unfold without being aware that a significant portion of our race live under his aberrant version of truth.

From those in the seat of power who legislate against the law of God that is eternal, bringing upon themselves His wrath—“Woe unto them who call evil good and good evil,” Isaiah 5:20, to those who terrorize the world with their vitriolic hatred of everything that is in opposition to their perception of how the world should be, we see an ever-increasing noose of lawlessness wrapping itself like a constrictor around our lives.

And that makes us ripe for a ‘savior,’ for an ‘answer-man,’ for someone who can sort through the strife and bring us peace. And the antichrist will seem to fill that expectation.

The time of his reign is normally divided into two halves. The first three and a half years are characterized by some degree of apparent world peace as the false Messiah (Revelation 13:11-18, II Thessalonians 2:1-10, Matthew 24:15) in Israel negotiates a favorable Middle Eastern peace treaty.

That peace treaty, described by Isaiah as Israel's covenant with death, will fail--and terrible war will break out in Israel. The second half of the tribulation period is usually called The Great Tribulation (see Matthew 24:21).

Jeremiah calls it "the time of Jacob's trouble," Jeremiah 30-31, (See also Daniel 12:1).

The Book of Daniel, chapter 9, states, "the ruler who will come" will confirm a covenant, presumably with Israel. This evil one will confirm a covenant with many, but in the middle of the seven year period, he will put an end to sacrifice and offering and he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him." (Daniel 9:26-27). This "ruler who will come" is the Man of Sin.

When mankind realizes the snare of lies in which he has been trapped, the only way to escape the fiend will be through martyrdom as described in the Book of Revelation.

Knowing that the age of deception is upon us and realizing the horrific end that awaits those who are found in the clutches of the evil one, should we not turn to Christ now? Should we not give our lives to Him, for as Paul said, “Behold now is the accepted time; behold, today is the day of salvation,” II Corinthians 6:2.

The Faith Chapter--Hebrews 11

July 18
Hebrews 11

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speak. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.

By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshiped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the Passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.

By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace.

And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented, (of whom the world was not worthy.) They wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.

And what can anyone add to that wonderful chapter! Nothing, except that the Lord our God does wondrous things through our faith! May we ever hold fast to Him, to His Word of Promise, that He may use us to glorify the Holy Name of Jesus through exploits He will do as we believe.

Blessed Because He Is Pleased

July 17

“But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body,” I Corinthians 11:28, 29.

The more profoundly we understand Christ's sacrifice for us, the more fully we will appreciate the magnitude of what He has done for us. To prevent taking it in a careless and unappreciative manner, Paul charges us to examine ourselves to discern our grasp of what the Lord has done for us in His body. Examine as Paul uses the word here means to test, prove or scrutinize to determine whether a thing is genuine. The word discern means to discriminate, to make a distinction for the purpose of giving preference.

We cannot fully value what we don’t understand and it is difficult to comprehend what we have not experienced. An illustration might come from professional sports. Whether American football or soccer, fans of the game watch with great enthusiasm. They not only cheer for their favorite players and teams but they shout out directives as to how they should be playing the game.

While some ardent supporters may have played high school or college versions of the game they greatly admire, most fans have never actually participated in the sport they love so well, therefore their ‘armchair quarterbacking’ is totally without merit.

This is at complete variance with what Jesus Himself did when He took on flesh and was found in all manner as a man. As Hebrews 4:15 clearly states, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin.”

Although God knows all things and understands man at the very heart of who he is, He eradicated the accusation that He could not grasp what man goes through because of His lofty estate.

Jesus left the portals of glory, He forsook the splendor of Heaven in order that He would be totally immersed in humanity. By His mission to earth He stilled forever the accusing tongues that would deny that He knows us, for He became one of us.

Perhaps this is best illustrated in Matthew 3:13-17 where we are told, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him but John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?’

“But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’

“Then John consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and the Spirit of God descended like a dove and came to rest on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’”

Jesus would have believers do no less, for He would have God to be pleased with us. As He took on the form of a man and was found in all manner like as we are, so we should examine ourselves to ascertain exactly where we stand in the faith we profess. Then, when we participate in the sacraments, when we worship with the congregation, when we expound the word of truth, it will be with clear understanding of and complete commitment to what we do.

Then, whether we traverse the globe in the behalf of the Gospel or sit at the table of the Lord to partake of His body and blood, we will know the impact of our actions and will reap the joy of our understanding—and we will be blessed because He is well pleased with us.

Let No One Deceive You

July 16

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,” II Thessalonians 2:3

“The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness,” II Thessalonians 2:9-12.

Anyone who has a mind and heart to love and serve the Living and Eternal God, who desires to discern the times and seasons, cannot but be aware that the day in which we live is fraught with extraordinary signs of Christ’s imminent return.

While on one hand, things continue as they have ever been as Jesus stated in Luke 17:26, 27, “And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building and sudden destruction came upon them,” yet on the other hand there is a sense that man has gone too far in the pursuit of his rebellion.

Yes, man has always pursued sin. Since Adam and Eve fell, jealousy and theft and murder have been in the hearts of our species, but there is a distinction to be made regarding sinners of old and sinners of our day. Once, even the most hardened of men would say, “Don’t do as I do.” There was recognition of his own fallen condition and he counseled the young to avoid his pitfall.

Today’s sinner, however, denies his sinful condition and demands respect for and acceptance of his depravity. The law, which was once anchored in the eternal and immutable law of God, has now become corrupted in its accommodation of the foibles of men.

The Word tells us, “Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter,” Isaiah 5:20. We have become so drunk with our sin that we are self-deluded, we are deceived. The evil one has made us complicit in our own decent into the pit!

So lawlessness swallows our once-great land as evil men rule over us and impose ever more of their diabolic perversion of God’s truth upon us and we are so numb in our own foibles and proclivities to sin that we complacently accept their corrupt legislation.

Perhaps our downfall began in 1973 when it was ruled by the wisest men among us that a woman had the ‘right’ to murder the baby in her womb. As we have accepted that fallacious perversion of the liberty we hold dear, we have also embraced to ourselves myriad departures from God’s immutable truth.

As we have done so, we have made ourselves ripe for an age of delusion, an age of perversion, an age of lawlessness. So when that “man of perdition” II Thessalonians 2:3 is among us, we will see him as a miracle worker, as god among us.

As we see the evil day approaching, may we repent of our sin, may we seek the Living Christ in the fullness of who He is and what He has done for us. May we “know His unchanging truth that sets us free,” John 8:32; may we “study to show ourselves approved of the Lord, as workmen that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,” II Timothy 2:15.

May we not be “overcome of evil but may we overcome evil with good,” Romans 12:21.

As Jesus Walked

July 15

“Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," I Peter 5:5.

Humility is not something most people consider to be a virtue. The human proclivity is to self-assertion, self-realization, even self-aggrandizement. In the mind of the world, humility is for losers. Humility is the natural state of the inferior. If we can’t produce, if we are substandard, self-effacement becomes our lot.

This flies in the face of the Biblical point of view, of the way God sees things. From the vantage point of the One in whose hands resides all power, all authority, all life for all eternity, humility is the reasonable mindset for His fallen creatures, but we instead assume the arrogance of Lucifer who exalted himself above the Holy One who inhabits eternity (see Isaiah 57:15.)

We become like the essence of evil that he is when he said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High,” Isaiah 13:14.

We further emulate him when we live our lives on the ‘edge’ of righteousness as he tempted Christ to do (see Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13). When his ultimate scheme against the Savior, the crucifixion, failed at Christ’s resurrection, he proceeded to attempt to ensnare as many men into his failed scheme as he could.

It is the greatest ‘Ponzi Scheme’ of all time. The failed contender for the role of Ruler of the Universe mitigates the utter futility of his rebellion against God by suckering foolish men into his ploy. How can he succeed to any degree? How can anyone be so deluded into believing a defrocked angel?

The only way such a bogus misrepresentation of truth can succeed to any degree is the fact that satan plays upon the weakness of men—he plays upon their pride. Because he well understands the lengths to which a prideful entity will go to realize the object of its arrogance—self-aggrandizement in all its aspects—he can allure the deceived into his failed scheme.

But the man who emulates Christ resists the evil one as Jesus did. The humble man understands that the Lord, who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father,” Philippians 2:6-11.

The wise man shall put on humility before God and allow himself to be “exalted in due time,” I Peter 5:6. May we walk as Jesus walked—not in the arrogance and foolish pride of men, but in the grace that God Himself gives to those who are humble.

Accrue Heaven's Treasure

July 14

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God,” Romans 12:1, 2.

We are in the world, but we are not to be of the world. In 1 John 2:15 the Beloved Apostle says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world for If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in him.”

We are rather like the individual who is an accomplished swimmer. He can perform great feats in the water, he can traverse great distances in the water, he can attain a high degree of mastery of the water, but he cannot remain there indefinitely. The water is not his natural environment.

We who are Christ’s are in a similar circumstance. We function here among every-day people who go about ordinary tasks as we do. We breathe the same air, we long for the same basic needs of food and love and peace. We enjoy the comforts that life can bestow upon those who are diligent to the tasks before them, but we are not to be ‘conformed’ to this life or to any of its pursuits.

Our endeavors while we occupy this tabernacle of flesh are to be of only secondary significance to us, for the heart of who we are is to be anchored in the Father’s will for us. If we attain wealth, may we invest it to His Kingdom’s purposes. If we achieve fame, may we use it to promote an understanding of the Holy One and His “unspeakable gift,” II Corinthians 9:15, among the lost. If we wield the world’s power, may we employ it to minister to the needs of the powerless that they may know the Savior’s hand of love extended to them at the point of their need.

And may we hold loosely to life, for we know it is as “a vapor that is here as morning dew and then is gone,” James 4:14. If we desire, pursue, embrace the trappings of the world, we will find our arms are empty when we stand before God. But if we hold the things of time lightly so we may rather cling to the truth of the Lord, so we can hold fast to Jesus, so we may share our knowledge of Him with others who dwell in this tabernacle of flesh, then we will be eternally rich!

We will have indeed, proven that “good and perfect and acceptable will of God.” We will indeed have accrued to ourselves the treasure of Heaven which is eternal.

Look upon Us

July 13

“Thus says the Lord: Heaven is My throne and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build for Me? Where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist by My hand, says the Lord. Yet, on this one thing will I look—on him who is of a poor and contrite spirit, on him who trembles at My word,” Isaiah 66:1, 2.

In a spirit of humor a preacher once said, “God’s eyebrows never go up.” We can’t take Him by surprise, neither can we impress Him by our exploits or our achievements. We can’t ‘out-smart’ Him. There is literally nothing we can do that goes beyond what He knows of us, but this passage in Isaiah tells us something regarding man that does touch Him.

The Holy One who claims Heaven as His throne and earth as His footstool is touched by our humility. The term “poor in spirit” conveys an unassuming attitude that does not attribute ones successes or accolades to himself but to the graciousness of God who gives all gifts to men as He chooses.
The man who is of a contrite spirit further recognizes his own culpability before our Righteous God and lays his faults, his foibles, his failures before Him with thanksgiving and praise that a Savior has come to wash away all forsaken sin. As Psalm 51:2 says, "Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin."

Only the man who “trembles” at the truth which is eternal has the capacity to turn to Jesus as Savior and Lord. Only the man who understands the great gulf between himself and a Holy God can fathom the meaning of the words of Paul in I Corinthians 15:50, “I declare to you, brothers and sisters that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor can the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

Until the light of the Gospel of Truth that reveals Christ in His glory shines upon us, we remain blinded by the god of this age (see II Corinthians 4:4). As long as we desire our sin more than we desire the salvation that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection has supplied, we remain “dead in trespasses and sins,” Ephesians 2:1.

But once His Holy Spirit comes to us to “teach us all things,” according to John 14:26, and as Jesus said again in John 16:13, “He, the Spirit of truth, will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; He will speak only what He has been given, and He will tell you what is yet to come.”

Girded by God’s revealed truth, fallen man, arrogant man, deluded man may come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Fallen man, arrogant man, deluded man may become humble man who falls at the feet of the Savior in praise and thanksgiving for the washing away of his sin in the cleansing blood of the Lamb.

In the words of the old hymn by Elisha Hoffman:

Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Are you fully trusting in His grace this hour?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you washed in the blood,
In the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb?
Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Are you walking daily by the Savior’s side?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Do you rest each moment in the Crucified?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

When the Bridegroom cometh will your robes be white?
Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Will your soul be ready for the mansions bright,
And be washed in the blood of the Lamb?

Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin,
And be washed in the blood of the Lamb;
There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,
O be washed in the blood of the Lamb!

O, Jesus! Help us to overcome our natural proclivity to pride and arrogance and blatant sin in order that we may be among those who are of a poor and contrite spirit, who tremble at Your word and receive Your grace. Let salvation be our portion, for Jesus has paid the incalculable price to give us Your “unspeakable gift,” II Corinthians 9:15. Look upon us with mercy and grace and forgiveness as we bow before You, O holy and righteous God!

Great and Precious Promises

July 12

"If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father. The mouth of the LORD has spoken." Isaiah 58:14.

God rewards our obedience. “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the earth,” Exodus 20:12, is said to be “the first commandment with promise,” Ephesians 6:2.

In Jeremiah 33:3 the prophet speaks in the behalf of the Lord, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things you cannot imagine.” The great scientist, George Washington Carver comes to mind with the reading of this verse of scripture. It is said that he asked the Lord to teach him the secrets of the universe. The Holy One answered him, “Little man, the universe is too big for you. I will teach you the secrets of the peanut.”

We know that through his research, Dr. Carver discovered over 300 uses for the peanut, including chili sauce, shampoo, shaving cream, glue and plastic. When God makes a promise, and a man steps out to claim that promise, remarkable things occur.

Jesus said in Matthew 19:29, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” This promise affirms the saying in Christian circles that a person can’t out-give God.

Yet we as people of faith do not lay hold of the promises because we desire the reward. We step out in faith to claim His assurances because our doing so brings honor to His name. When He shows Himself faithful in our behalf, He is manifesting His integrity to a lost and dying world. He is showing Himself to be faithful to those who establish their lives on the sure foundation of His Word that cannot fail and cannot lie.

As Isaiah 55:11 states clearly, “My word that goes forth out of My mouth shall not come back to me void but shall accomplish that which I please and prosper in the thing to which I send it.”

I Samuel 15:29 says, “ He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.”

God’s holy Word is true forever. He will not repent of the law He has given or the truth He has spoken. He has not modified His irrefutable law to compromise with a rebellious generation. In Numbers 23:19 it is unequivocally stated that, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: has He said, and shall He not do it? Or has He spoken, and shall He not make it good?”

God’s Word is “yea and amen,” I Corinthians 1:20 and the fullness of His promises is in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. May we learn to stand on His truth, abide in His word, and claim all His promises, for He says that it is His “good pleasure to give us the Kingdom,” Luke 12:32.

Our part in the matter is to walk after the Lord, to be faithful to Him in all our ways, to trust fully in Him rather than to lean on our own understanding (see Proverbs 3:5) and then to expect Him to fulfill His promises in His time, in His way, and to His glory.

Abide in Me

July 11

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup...but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

“So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?" Matthew 23:25-28, 33.


“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’

“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell—and great was its fall.'” Matthew 7:21-27.

The old joke in Christian circles is that upon arriving in Heaven believers will not so much be surprised at who is and who isn’t there as that they will be surprised that they are there! Oh, yes, we know we’re born again. We know we’ve wept tears at the altar where we have placed our sins. Yet we know we know there is no good thing within us and we would perish but for the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

And we know we have fallen short of our lofty estate. We know we have disappointed the God who loves us and who saves us by His own inestimable sacrifice. We know the transaction of salvation is totally one-sided and that even though we are blessed beyond measure to be recipients of His grace and mercy, we are totally undeserving.

He knows that, too, and He accepts the one-sided transaction. But the reality is that there must be sincerity within the bosom of the one who receives. We cannot presume that because we have gone through the motions of salvation, or that we have applied the gifts He’s given toward His purposes that we are satisfying His expectation of us.

If we flagrantly defy His law, if we are “hearers of the Word rather than doers of the Word,” (see James 1:22), we are deceiving ourselves. A man builds his house where he intends to live. If we intend to abide in Christ, we will build our house upon the rock of His truth and love. If we intend to trifle with God’s truth, we will build our house upon the shifting sands of the world and merely dabble in our salvation.

The Lord will not be deceived by our dalliance with the devil’s allurements while we program a time for Jesus into our schedule. Jesus said of us that we must "Abide in Me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine, neither can you bear fruit apart from Me," John 15:4.

If we are serious about our salvation, we will abide in our Savior and bear fruit to His glory. Our faith will not be a mere social pursuit. We must build our lives upon the Rock of our Salvation and we must live our lives there. Anything less may allow us to fool ourselves, but we will never deceive the Holy One who knows our hearts.

A Clear and Complete Reflection

July 10

The following words from Tozer’s A CRUCIFIED LIFE have great relevance to us today. May we read them with the sobering understanding of the warning they are of the age in which we live:

"This study does not advocate any kind of Christian experience not based squarely
on the plain teachings of scripture. Too much of contemporary Christianity is borrowed from the philosophies of the world...that on the surface look great but are not rooted in
Scripture.

“Whatever the teaching might be or whoever the teacher might be, we must strongly demand scriptural proof. If such proof cannot be presented then the teaching must
be rejected out of mind and out of hand. This may sound legalistic but it is one of the absolutes that is part of the Christian experience. The Christian lives and dies by the book.

"Does it seem strange that the generation with the most advanced technology and
the easiest read Bible translations is the weakest generation of Christians in the history of our country...and the Christian influence in our culture has never been weaker?"

Tozer;s words were spoken over fifty years ago. As we reflect upon them today, we may assuredly affirm that they were prophetic. And the words of the early Twentieth Century preacher and prophet ring with the authority of II Thessalonians, Chapter Two which says:

“Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

“Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.

“For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

“But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.

“Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.”

Oh, Lord Jesus! Hear the cry of our hearts! We would be faithful to You! We would be on fire for You! We would be steeped in Your Word! We would be vessels filled and overflowing with Your truth in a godless age!

Help us not to be consumed by the world and deluded by its subtle deception. Help us to so fully live Your life before men that when they look upon us they may see a clear and complete reflection of You. It is in Your mighty, matchless name we pray, Jesus. Amen.

Let God Be God

July 9

“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’

“And Aaron said to them, ‘Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’

“So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.

“Then they said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’

“So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.’

“Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go, get down!; for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said to one another that it is their god that brought them out of the land of Egypt,’” Exodus 32:1-8.

How many of us have lost patience with God? One truth that we have extreme difficulty appropriating is the reality that He does not operate on our timetable. We, for example, recognize a problem, and make it a matter of prayer. And when we do, in our mind, it’s as though He hadn’t observed it before we brought it to His attention.

When He doesn’t act immediately upon bringing a remedy to the matter, we behave as though the whole of creation will whirl out of orbit. Rather than seek the Lord in the matter of how we can best interject ourselves into His prescription for solving the difficulty we’ve observed, we presume that it can’t be solved if He does not fix it in our way and in our time.

Like the Israelites of old, we often react in that faithless manner after seeing a great move of God’s Holy Spirit or after praying through to a great miracle. With our focus now on the mighty thing He has done, we can’t fathom more great things in response to our next prayer.

The Hebrew children had spent 400 years in bondage in Egypt. They had been miraculously freed when Pharaoh capitulated to the pressure of the plagues that God had put upon him; God’s people even escaped the hot pursuit of Pharaoh and his army when the arrogant Egyptian leader had repented of setting his slave laborers free.

The Hebrews did not only escape the power of Egypt but they escaped miraculously when the Lord parted the Red Sea to allow them to flee on dry land while their pursuers were swallowed into the depths of the sea. But now, with the relatively small inconvenience of having Moses delay his return from his meeting with God on the mountaintop, they became impatient to the point of capitulating to sin!

Not only did the people demand a brazen idol be constructed to be their ‘god that delivered them out of Egypt,’ but Aaron, Moses brother who had been by Moses’ side throughout the ordeal with Pharaoh, acquiesced to their demands! Can we see ourselves here?

We come from a spiritual victory. We have seen the hand of the Lord move in response to our prayers and we know that we know that we know He has bridged the gulf between the natural and the supernatural in our behalf. We are on a spiritual high that is equivalent to that of the people of Israel. We expect something dramatic in response to our every prayer and when normalcy is our portion we become disgruntled. Perhaps we even lapse into sin.

The lesson we must take from the experience of our Hebrew brothers is that God’s schedule is not necessarily our own. He does not move on our timetable but on His. Our trust must be in His will, not in our perception of what His will must be.

The bottom line of the matter is that we must focus on the Lord and His plan for us. As the great Pentecostal preacher of the Nineteenth Century, Smith Wigglesworth, said regarding his position in prayer, “I must have no mind in the matter.”

Like this great man of God, we must take our supplications to the Throne of Mercy and Grace and leave them there. We, too, must let God be God.

Let God Be God

July 9

“Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’

“And Aaron said to them, ‘Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.’

“So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.

“Then they said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’

“So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ‘Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.’

“Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

“And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go, get down!; for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said to one another that it is their god that brought them out of the land of Egypt,’” Exodus 32:1-8.

How many of us have lost patience with God? One truth that we have extreme difficulty appropriating is the reality that He does not operate on our timetable. We, for example, recognize a problem, and make it a matter of prayer. And when we do, in our mind, it’s as though He hadn’t observed it before we brought it to His attention.

When He doesn’t act immediately upon bringing a remedy to the matter, we behave as though the whole of creation will whirl out of orbit. Rather than seek the Lord in the matter of how we can best interject ourselves into His prescription for solving the difficulty we’ve observed, we presume that it can’t be solved if He does not fix it in our way and in our time.

Like the Israelites of old, we often react in that faithless manner after seeing a great move of God’s Holy Spirit or after praying through to a great miracle. With our focus now on the mighty thing He has done, we can’t fathom more great things in response to our next prayer.

The Hebrew children had spent 400 years in bondage in Egypt. They had been miraculously freed when Pharaoh capitulated to the pressure of the plagues that God had put upon him; God’s people even escaped the hot pursuit of Pharaoh and his army when the arrogant Egyptian leader had repented of setting his slave laborers free.

The Hebrews did not only escape the power of Egypt but they escaped miraculously when the Lord parted the Red Sea to allow them to flee on dry land while their pursuers were swallowed into the depths of the sea. But now, with the relatively small inconvenience of having Moses delay his return from his meeting with God on the mountaintop, they became impatient to the point of capitulating to sin!

Not only did the people demand a brazen idol be constructed to be their ‘god that delivered them out of Egypt,’ but Aaron, Moses brother who had been by Moses’ side throughout the ordeal with Pharaoh, acquiesced to their demands! Can we see ourselves here?

We come from a spiritual victory. We have seen the hand of the Lord move in response to our prayers and we know that we know that we know He has bridged the gulf between the natural and the supernatural in our behalf. We are on a spiritual high that is equivalent to that of the people of Israel. We expect something dramatic in response to our every prayer and when normalcy is our portion we become disgruntled. Perhaps we even lapse into sin.

The lesson we must take from the experience of our Hebrew brothers is that God’s schedule is not necessarily our own. He does not move on our timetable but on His. Our trust must be in His will, not in our perception of what His will must be.

The bottom line of the matter is that we must focus on the Lord and His plan for us. As the great Pentecostal preacher of the Nineteenth Century, Smith Wigglesworth, said regarding his position in prayer, “I must have no mind in the matter.”

Like this great man of God, we must take our supplications to the Throne of Mercy and Grace and leave them there. We, too, must let God be God.

When It Comes

July 8

“Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.'

But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, 'Send her away, for she cries out after us.'

But He answered and said, ‘I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, 'Lord, help me!'

But He answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.'

And she said, 'Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.'


Then Jesus answered and said to her, 'O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.'

And her daughter was healed from that very hour,” Matthew 15:21-28.

Persistent faith…what an amazing exchange occurred between this Canaanite woman and the Lord! The woman loved her daughter and anguished at the thought of her demon possession. Jesus loved the woman but made a show of seeming indifference to the plight of this foreign woman.

Rather than being offended in His ‘prejudicial’ response to her plea for His help she not only persisted to beseech Him in the matter but she WORSHIPED HIM! When Jesus rebuffed her, she did not turn away in a huff. She did not discredit Him by asserting that if He were who He claimed to be, He would have compassion on her child. Rather, she worshiped Him!

How many of us express such confidence in the One who has promised? How many of us, when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling are willing to persist in bombarding Heaven with our requests? How many of us are able to see beyond God’s silence to His perceive His promise? How many of us have this kind of “mustard seed” faith (see Matthew 17:20, Luke 17:6).

How many of us would continue to worship a God who seemed to express His disdain for us? Would we be emotionally injured by the seeming rebuff and sulk off? Would we dismiss the notion of a God who hears and answers prayer because our experience had appeared to be negative?

If we did, we would in so doing, rob ourselves of the blessing of seeing the desires of our heart fulfilled. In His parable about the unjust judge (see Luke 18:1-8) Jesus made it quite clear that persistence brings reward.

He said that if the judge who cared nothing about the widow in her plight would capitulate to her request because of her persistence, how much more should the children of God anticipate that He will respond to their unrelenting prayers.

Let us take heart as we read the Word of God that assures us that although His response may not come in our time, we may trust that it will indeed come in the Lord’s time—and that it will come in His way.

And when it comes, the answer to our prayers will not appear to be mere crumbs from the master’s table but will be the fullness of the solution to our profoundest need.

Forgive and Heal

July 7

"Even now," declares the Lord, return to Me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity.

“Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing, grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

“Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, Spare your people, Lord! Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?

“Then the Lord was jealous for His land and took pity on His people. The Lord replied to them: I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations,” Joel 2:12-19.

There’s a penalty to be paid by the nation that forsakes the Lord. The Israelites discovered this truth over and over throughout their history of the cycle of rebellion and repentance. Because the Lord is faithful, He would always receive them back and restore them when they had turned from their wickedness to once again pursue the Living and True God.

The Holy One has said of Himself, “I am the Lord; I change not,” Malachi 3:6. In Matthew 24:35, Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My Word shall not pass away.” Jesus is the living Word of God in that He is God’s greatest revelation of Himself, and He forever stands as the image of the Godhead.

Colossians 1:15 states unequivocally, “Jesus is the image of the invisible God.” He who no man can look upon and live is clearly revealed in Christ unto life eternal, and any man or any nation that returns to Him shall be fully restored to Himself that they may not be ashamed, that they may never again be made an object of scorn among the nations.

May we who are steeped in trespasses and sins accept His gracious and unspeakable gift of restoration. May we, undeserving, vile, lost creatures that we are embrace the One who has exchanged our sin for His righteousness so we may receive the fullness of His gift of eternal salvation as well as of temporal provision.

May we fast and pray and, according to II Chronicles 7:14 repent in the behalf of our nation. Let us beseech the Holy One to "forgive our sin and heal our land," even as He counseled Israel, His people of old to do.

Hidden Under His Shadow

July 6

“And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains,” Revelation 6:15.

There is a great and awful day approaching. It will be a time of upheaval and bloodshed. It will be a time of indiscriminate hatred and violence. We see shades of it today, evidenced in church bombings, in mothers being chained in dungeons with their babies, in the actions of ultra-vitriolic sects that seem unable to grasp the truth that God is a holy and merciful God, who says of Himself that He is love (see I John 4:8) and that whoever does not love, does not know Him.

We see shades of it when 50,000 men flee before 8,000—hiding themselves in dread of the ruthless butchers who gave them flight. Can we not see in this the foreshadowing of the army of the “one who comes to steal, kill and destroy,” John 10:10 wreaking havoc upon the earth as his demon-possessed minions soak the land with the blood of the martyrs! (See Revelation 18:24.)

But the ultimate day of anguish, the “great and terrible day of the Lord,” Malachi 4:5, will not be the horrific period of time when the devil’s minions run in vile terror through the landscape, it will be when the vile men who furthered the purposes of the evil one are arrested in their demonic mischief by the Lamb of God who will destroy them in His wrath!

We are told in Revelation 16: 16-17, “Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

People, there is a day coming when the only secure place to abide will be in the hollow of the hand of Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. There is a day coming when every other hope of safety will fail. As we see the stirrings of the final day approaching, should we not empty ourselves of self, empty ourselves of the world and its fleeting allurements.

Should we not fill ourselves with Jesus, the One in whom we have meaning and hope and truth and righteousness—the One in whom we have life forevermore! We will then have no need to flee to the mountains or to call on them to cover us, Luke 23:30, for we will be “hidden under the shadow of the Almighty,” Psalm 91:1.

One Thing Matters--Jesus

July 5

"The Lord will keep you from all harm — he will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore," Psalm 121:7-8.

Nations may rise and fall. Freedom may ebb or flow. Happiness may attend our way or elude us. Human love may be our portion or it may be far from us. Our only constant in a world fraught with upheaval and transition is” Christ and Him crucified,” II Corinthians 2:2, and as the Apostle Paul affirmed, that truth is the only thing worth knowing.

At opposite ends of the human spectrum we have the great achievers who develop amazing technological and medical and military advancements and at the other end of the equation we have the people who languish on government handouts who expend no effort toward enriching mankind or themselves.

Neither the former nor the latter probe the truth of God or desire a relationship with Him, although He lovingly extends it to all who will receive. In this one immeasurable regard, all—from the most gifted to the most inert—perish for a lack of the knowledge of “the One whom to know is life,” John 17:3.

Yet to those who know His name, to those who abide in His salvation, to those who honor His Word, He has made great and precious promises! Whatever life may hold; whatever trials may be encountered in this Vale of Tears, whatever successes or failures, whatever loves gained or lost, whatever prizes won or forfeited, the child of God knows that he “abides under the shadow of His wing,” Psalm 91:1.

Our Father God assures us that “He keeps us as the apple of His eye,” Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalm 17:8. Just as the entire structure of the face is configured to protect the eye—eyebrows, eyelashes, eyelids, bridge of the nose, cheekbones, forehead—so the resources of God are available for the protection of His children.

His love covers His people so they may say even if trials come, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him,” Job 13:15. If His hedge be removed and we perish, we may say as did Stephen, the first Christian martyr as he was stoned, “I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God,” Acts 7:56. Jesus was standing to receive Stephen to Himself as he transitioned from the fleeting life in this veil of flesh to Eternal Life at the footstool of the Holy One.

If our hope were in this life only, we would, as Paul said, “be of all men most miserable,” I Corinthians 15:19. But our confident expectation transcends time so we have “joy unspeakable and full of glory,” I Peter 1:8. May we abide in His joy, which is our strength, Nehemiah 8:10; may we rest in His love which never fails, I Corinthians 13:8; and may we hope in His coming which is promised, Acts 1:11.