Obeying the Gospel

FAITHFUL LOVE (FEBRUARY 6)

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"The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace" (Numbers 6:24-26).

WORDS OFTEN COME IN PAIRS. For example, consider the words “benevolent” and “malevolent.” The first means “good will” and the second, “ill will.” To be benevolently inclined toward someone is to want to help them, but if a person is malevolently inclined, that means their basic disposition is to harm.

It’s important to understand that God’s basic inclination toward us is benevolent rather than malevolent. Having given us a free will, He will not force us to obey Him, and if we refuse to do so, He will not, just for our personal benefit, suspend the laws of His creation, one of which is that the penalty of sin is death. But He loves us, and it will break His heart if we refuse His salvation.

If there is ever any alienation between us and God, there can never be but one reason: we have kept God away by insisting on continuing in our sin — and by refusing to accept His forgiveness on His terms. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear” (Isaiah 59:1,2).

But God’s hope is that we will turn back to Him. As He said to Israel through Ezekiel, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11). And much earlier, Moses had said, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

God’s faithful love is like most things about Him: it is sobering as well as encouraging. It should encourage us to know that God is always at the door of our hearts, wanting us to open up and accept His gift of life. But it should sober us to know that if we refuse, He will remain outside — and if we die in our rebellion, we will be lost forever. So with life and death set before us, let us choose life.

"Let a man go away or come back: God never leaves. He is always at hand and if he cannot get into your life, still he is never farther away than the door" (Meister Eckhart).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THAT WE SHOULD NOT PERISH (FEBRUARY 5)

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"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (John 3:16,17).

MANY PEOPLE WOULD SAY THIS TEXT IS THEIR FAVORITE. But favorite things have a way of becoming so familiar that they no longer challenge us as we need to be challenged. With a text like John 3:16,17, we need to be careful. It is a beautiful sentiment, certainly, but it was meant to do more than make us feel good.

If God had not given His Son for us, we would “perish.” That is a strong word, but it is the only word strong enough to describe what happens when we separate ourselves from our Creator. Charles Colson was right when he said that “sin is essentially rebellion against the rule of God.” It is a defiant declaration of independence against our Creator, and if sin is not remedied, its consequence is eternal banishment from the presence of God, attended by a corruption and anguish we can barely imagine right now. Of all the ways we might “perish,” this would be the worst.

Amazingly, however, God was not willing to abandon us. Although He might have justly left us to our consequences, His love moved Him to provide pardon. He did not want us to perish. But ponder with me what had to happen if He was to forgive us without violating the laws of His own justice: “he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” If we do not perish (as we surely deserve to do), it will be because of the grace of a Father who was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save us. And that grace is found in His Son, Jesus Christ.

How, then, should we respond to the truth of John 3:16,17? As I said above, it needs to be more than just a beautiful sentiment. If we are to do more than just admire its beauty, our first response should be to obey the gospel. How could we not say Yes! to a Father who has paid such a high price to bring us back home?

But second, we should respond by loving the world as God loves it: sacrificially. If He loved us enough, in our unworthy state, to save us at such great cost to Himself, is there any price too high for us to pay to help those around us with their spiritual needs?

"God loved the world. Go thou and do likewise" (Erwin W. Lutzer).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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WHEN COMFORT AND CONFIDENCE ARE DANGEROUS (FEBRUARY 4)

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"For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked" (Revelation 3:17).

AFFLUENT SOCIETIES ARE OFTEN THE LEAST OPEN TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. People who can get whatever they want to satisfy their temporal desires pay little attention to their spiritual needs.

The problem is that material prosperity breeds a false confidence in ourselves. When our immediate desires are fulfilled, we are deluded into thinking that we are self-sufficient. We don’t actually have what we need, of course, but wealth deceives us. Like candy which makes us think we don’t need any food, physical comfort tends to push our spiritual needs into the background.

Even after becoming Christians, affluence can hinder us. The Christians in Laodicea, for example, were prosperous financially, but when the Lord looked at their hearts, He saw that they were “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Doing so well on the outside made it hard for them to recognize their wretchedness on the inside. There were no doubt other congregations in those days that were just as much in need of repentance, but the less wealthy congregations would have had an easier time seeing their need.

But what about us? What should we do? Honesty and courage are always the first steps toward spiritual progress, so the first thing is to come out of hiding and bring ourselves before God’s throne. Lord, help me to see my heart as You see it. Search me and try me. Expose every idol in my heart that has kept me from You. Take away from me every comfort in this world that has blinded me to my deeper needs. Open my eyes to see how much I need You and Your forgiveness.

Whether we are rich or poor, comfortable or uncomfortable, we urgently need to understand the helplessness of our spiritual state. Our sins have put us in an absolutely lost condition before God, and we dare not let the comforts of our lives in this world distract us from our plight. What we need is more than a psychological boost to help us fill in the blanks and round out our worldly resumé — we need to be saved. The sooner we admit our woeful inability, the sooner we’ll be ready to hear the gospel.

"It is to the drowning man the Rescuer comes. To the brave swimmer who can fare well alone He comes not. And no rush of joy can be like that of a man towards his Rescuer" (A. J. Russell).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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ARE WE WILLING TO LEARN FROM OUR LIMITS? (FEBRUARY 3)

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"What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted" (Ecclesiastes 1:15).

GOD HAS MADE THE PRESENT WORLD AN UNPREDICTABLE PLACE. Lest we think figuring out which buttons to push will invariably get us what we want from the world’s vending machine, God prevents us from having this much control. He makes sure we can’t straighten out every crooked thing in our lives. Paul describes this by saying “the creation was subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20).

This means the future is frustratingly unknowable. We may push all the right buttons and life’s candy bar still not be forthcoming. “I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong . . . but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Sometimes God allows our plans to materialize, but sometimes He does not. This unpredictability is meant to disabuse us of any notion that we’re in control of what happens.

HUMAN CIVILIZATION. If we’re honest, we have to admit that conditions in the world are getting worse and worse. For every problem we’ve solved, we’ve created several new ones, each more terrible than the last. But rather than confess our powerlessness, we suppose it is just a matter of time until science solves all the riddles. This is, as David Ehrenfeld called it, the “arrogance of humanism.”

INDIVIDUAL LIVES. We may know non-religious folks who disregard God in making their plans, and we believe they will find out the hard way that human plans don’t always pan out. They should be more humble, we think. But if the “human race” and “certain individuals” need to learn the limits of human endeavor, so do all the rest of us. Godly people certainly have some advantages in life, but they are not exempt from the restraints on human activity to which God has subjected the entire world. It’s a bitter pill to swallow (and a blow to our religious pride), but not even the godliest can make things turn out the way they want them to all the time.

The truth is, none of us can figure this world out and control it — none of us. That is the message of the Book of Ecclesiastes. For that reason, Ecclesiastes is a powerful preparation for the gospel. Its purpose is to deny that we are the masters of our own destiny, and if it defeats us in that way, a great victory will have been won.

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories" (Michel de Montaigne).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE (FEBRUARY 2)

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"Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life'" (John 6:68).

IN JOHN 6, WHEN JESUS GAVE HIS DIFFICULT “BREAD OF LIFE” DISCOURSE, MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES DECIDED THEY WOULD NOT FOLLOW HIM ANYMORE. But when He asked His inner circle of disciples, the twelve apostles, if they also would turn away from Him, Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Peter understood something about Jesus that we most certainly need to understand in our own generation.

Jesus was a teacher, but He was much more than that. He claimed that what He taught came directly from the mind of God (John 8:38; 12:49,50). In fact, He claimed to be the Son of God, sent into the world to reveal truths about God that no one could know who was not God Himself (John 3:31-36; 6:41-48).

And what was the purpose of the words that Jesus spoke? It was not to satisfy anyone’s intellectual curiosity, and it was not merely to transform this world into a better place. There was a much higher purpose. Comparing Himself to the manna given to Israel in the wilderness, which gave them physical life, Jesus said that He was the Bread of Life. To His disciples He said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63).

Spiritually dead because of our sins and without hope, we need “life.” Not just a better life in this world and not merely release from the fear of physical death — but the prospect of having the kind of life God has. What we lost in sin was not just physical or biological life, but the life we would have had as “sons of God.” Jesus taught that, in Him, this “eternal” kind of life can be given back to us (Romans 8:29). And His teaching is the only path to that life.

So Jesus’ utterances are more than mere words. They are the truths and the instructions necessary if we are ever going to be reconciled to our Creator. All the other words that have ever been spoken pale by comparison. To say the least, they are important. But are we paying attention to these, the most important words in the world?

"Besides belonging to eternity, Christ belonged to his times; on the outskirts of a dying civilization he spoke of dying in order to live. Today, when our civilization is likewise dying, his words have the same awe-inspiring relevance as they had then" (Malcolm Muggeridge).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

IT IS BY GOD’S GRACE THAT WE ARE SAVED (FEBRUARY 1)

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"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).

IN HIS MAGNIFICENT LETTER TO THE CHURCH IN EPHESUS, PAUL MAKES IT CLEAR THAT ALL THE SAVED HAVE BEEN SAVED BY GOD’S GRACE. The church in Ephesus was made up primarily of Gentiles, and he wanted them to be encouraged by the fact that God’s grace had saved them, just as much as it had saved their Jewish brethren.

None of us who are in Christ deserved to be saved from our sins. It was an act of sheer grace. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7).

Then in v.8, we have our text: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” In Acts 15:11, the apostle Peter, as a Jew, courageously admitted this: “We believe that we [the Jews] will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they [the Gentiles] will.” He was right. It took as much grace to save the Jews as it did to save the Gentiles. If any of us are pardoned and given entrance into the kingdom, it will only be by the magnitude of the King’s goodness.

As great as this truth is, many have misunderstood it. What had to happen for us to be included in God’s kingdom was the forgiveness of our sins. The means whereby God was able to do that was the death of His Son — and His grace consisted in the giving of that gift, thereby making salvation possible. That does not mean there are no conditions we must obey or that God’s “gift” will fulfill the conditions for us. To the contrary, if we believe God has offered us — by His grace — the gift of salvation, our question will be, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). And humility will move us to accept God’s answer, grateful that there is any answer at all.

"We need to better understand that God applies His grace to mankind in giving Jesus Christ as our Savior, and that He calls upon us as free moral agents to commit ourselves in submissive obedience unto Him in order to receive the promises He has conditionally placed before us" (Robert F. Turner).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE GOSPEL: THE POWER OF GOD FOR SALVATION (JANUARY 31)

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"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Romans 1:16).

WHEN PAUL WROTE THIS TO THE CHRISTIANS IN ROME, HE HAD NEVER BEEN THERE. And his critics seem to have been saying that he didn’t have enough courage to leave the hinterlands and come preach the gospel in Rome, the most powerful and sophisticated city in the world. But Paul was no less ready to preach there than anywhere else. “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” he said.

Paul said the gospel is powerful, and that’s an important point in itself. If it is “the power of God,” we should expect that power to be great. But it is salvation that this power of God is for. Whatever secondary blessings may flow from Christ, His mission was to save us from our sins. We will not understand Jesus Christ until we see that sin is the problem He came to correct. Speaking of Himself as the Christ (or Messiah), He said to His apostles, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:46-48).

But while the Jewish people were privileged to be the first recipients of the gospel, it would ultimately be a universal gospel, a message of forgiveness “to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” If salvation had been limited to those under the Law of Moses, that would have restricted it to the Jews and Jewish proselytes. But all have sinned, both Jew and Gentile, and all need salvation. The gospel is God’s power to save anyone and everyone, the condition being faith and not race or ethnicity.

Since it is about sin, the gospel is not the kind of message the world wants to hear. But we dare not change it to make it attractive to those who have no interest in the forgiveness of their sins. Paul said he was not ashamed of the gospel. Are we? Would we go into the halls of power and prestige today and declare the gospel clearly — not the modernized, culturally filtered message being presented as “Christianity,” but the gospel of repentance and obedience as it was proclaimed by Jesus and His apostles?

"Humble and self-forgetting we must be always, but diffident and apologetic about the gospel, never" (James S. Stewart).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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FAITH IN THE POWERFUL WORKING OF GOD (JANUARY 30)

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". . . having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead" (Colossians 2:12).

THERE IS A SENSE IN WHICH JESUS’ DEATH AND RESURRECTION HAPPENED ONLY ONCE. But there is another sense in which these events occur every time someone is baptized into Christ.

Our baptism into Christ is not a mere ritual or insignificant act of obedience — it is the most decisive turning point in our lives. Concerning baptism, the “before” and “after” are so different that Paul can say we are “buried with him in baptism.” It’s as if we are put to death and buried along with Christ. In the waters of baptism, our old way of life dies and is sealed in a tomb, a vivid reenactment of the death and burial of Christ Himself.

But Christ did not remain in the grave and neither do we. Just as He was raised, we are “raised with him.” In Romans 6:4, Paul wrote that we were “buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ also look forward to the great day when we will be raised to live with God in eternity. “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:8). Waiting for that day, we live very differently than we would if we were still dead in sin. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:1,2).

Coming back to the text we began with, however, did you notice what Paul said about the active ingredient in baptism? The water itself does not wash away our sins, and by our obedience we certainly do not earn our salvation. It is “through faith in the powerful working of God” that our new lives are created. Baptism is an act of trust, a placing of our faith in the promise of God to save us.

But listen: doesn’t all this talk of death tell you how serious sin is? Dealing with it requires our being killed and resurrected. It is only by dying with Christ that the death of sin can be defeated.

"God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life" (A. W. Tozer).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THERE IS NO FREEDOM EXCEPT IN THE TRUTH (JANUARY 29)

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". . . and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

FREEDOM IS AN IDEA THAT RESONATES IN EVERY HUMAN HEART. We all long to be free. Many forces trap us and hold us back, but which one of our problems is the slavemaster that has harmed us the most? According to Jesus, it is sin. Whatever else may bind us, the practice of departing from what we know is our Creator’s will is our worst problem. If we’re old enough to know right from wrong, we’ve all been guilty of it over and over again. And sin is not a master we can simply decide to walk away from anytime we wish. On our own, we are helpless to repair the damage. Jesus said, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).

But Jesus did more than just diagnose the problem. As the Son of God, He not only identified the central problem of the human race; He proposed to fix it Himself. He said that He would make us free. And He would not just make us free; He would give us a freedom that was abundant and everlasting. He said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

But Jesus was very clear as to where the problem came from: it came from deception. Mankind never would have sinned if it had not believed the devil’s lie (Genesis 3:1-6; Revelation 12:9); so the only path out of sin is the path that leads us back to the truth. Truth — and particularly the truth about God — must be put back in its place. If not, the problem of sin will just get worse and worse.

So Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But I must be frank: if we are to be set free from our sins, it is not just truth about the world (or even truth about God’s plan of salvation) that we must accept. It is the truth about ourselves. The prospects for our future reality can never improve until we accept the bitter facts about our present reality. “The difference between life as it is and life as it ought to be is a frightening and distressing bit of reality” (James C. Dobson). Coming to terms with the full, ugly truth about who we really are and what we’ve really done is hard, but there is no other way to salvation. Jesus deals in facts. He intends to do far more than soothe our feelings with a heartfelt “religion” that says, “You’re fine just as you are.”

"Jesus Christ makes us real, not merely sincere" (Oswald Chambers).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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THE IMPORTANCE OF JESUS’ MIRACLES (JANUARY 28)

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"Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:30,31).

CLAIMS AS RADICAL AS THOSE MADE BY JESUS OF NAZARETH REQUIRE STRONG SUPPORT. No one should be expected to believe them without sufficient evidence. So Peter began his argument that Jesus was the Messiah by saying to a crowd in Jerusalem not long after Jesus’ crucifixion, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know . . .” (Acts 2:22). The miraculous deeds which Peter’s audience knew Jesus had performed attested to the veracity of an astonishing fact: Jesus really was who He claimed to be.

The apostle John said he wrote about Jesus’ miracles “so that you may believe.” In other words, the miracles of Jesus (which had been seen by many eyewitnesses, including His enemies) authenticated the truth of what He claimed about Himself. That is why the miracles were called “signs.” As observable events, they “signified” the truth of Jesus’ identity as “the Christ, the Son of God.”

And yes, it is important that the eyewitnesses were not just Jesus’ friends. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, “the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, ‘What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation’” (John 11:47,48).

The simple truth is, there is no historical reason to reject the miracles of Jesus. Before even looking at the records, we may have already made a decision that miracles cannot take place, and if so, no amount of historical evidence will convince us. But if we let the evidence speak, we see that we can’t discredit Jesus’ miracles without resorting to explanations that would be even harder to believe than the miracles themselves. And that is where faith begins — with a willingness to trust what the evidence tells us. “Eternal life does not begin with death; it begins with faith” (Samuel M. Shoemaker).

"Faith does not mean believing without evidence. It means believing in realities that go beyond sense and sight — for which a totally different sort of evidence is required" (John Baillie).

Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com

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