… Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion …

— Hebrews 3:7-8

I have invited countless people to come to faith in Jesus Christ and to participate in the great wedding feast of the Lamb, and they have made light of it. I cannot imagine it, but some do just that.

I talked to a 95-year-old man and invited him to the feast. He said no; he didn’t want to be bored. I tried to deal with that in an intelligent manner, but I really, upon reflection, think that what I should have said is, “What would ever make you say a stupid thing like that? Here you are teetering on the very edge of the precipice of eternity, about to plunge into the lake of fire, where you won’t have time to be bored because you will be howling and gnashing your teeth forever—and you talk about being bored in heaven!” When we witness to people we want to make it sound good and appealing. Remember, we are only the messenger. We cannot scare anyone into heaven, only invite them.

Question to ponder:
How do you feel about people rejecting the Lord, when you try to witness?

… God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their sins against them, and has entrusted to us the message of reconciliation.

— 2 Corinthians 5:19

How are we reconciled with each other? By repentance and faith. By faith we rest in the atoning blood of Christ and claim that cleansing stream. We are made one with Him, being one with Christ and one with the Father, and then we can be one with one another.

There must be reconciliation from man to man, woman to woman, individual to individual. That is accomplished by repentance and confession. As you think about your relationship with God, are there things separating you from Him—things you have not repented of, things you have not turned from, things you have not confessed, things you have not claimed His forgiveness for? As you think about your brothers or sisters, are there those from whom you are estranged?

We have been reconciled to God by the death of Jesus. Therefore, we should be reconciled with others—especially to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Question to ponder:
Are there those whom you are holding grudges against? Are there those who have hurt you that you need to forgive or whom you have hurt and need to confess that sin to?

And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

— Matthew 22:39

Our society puts an inordinate amount of emphasis on self-image. Look out for #1 (that is, yourself), cry the pundits. How is a good self-image achieved and does it matter?

A self-image is very much like happiness. Someone once wrote about the “unhappy pursuit of happiness.” The unhappiest people are the ones who pursue happiness, because happiness is not something you can find by directly pursuing it. It is something which is a by-product of pursuing something else. It is something we discover when we are not really looking for it.

When we serve God and Christ and help other people, when we fulfill His commandments, when we see our lives being used to build up other people, to transform their lives and to bring in the Kingdom of God, we discover that God has already taken care of our desire for a good self image and we have a very adequate sense of who we are. A self-image is not some balloon inside of us that has to be pumped up; it is simply our reflection of who we are and what we are doing in this world. A right picture of God leads to a correct picture of self.

Question to ponder:
What is the relationship between Christ-confidence and self-confidence?

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you.

— Matthew 6:33

There are many people who begin life with a very poor self-image. They are helped along the way by others who criticize them, ignore them, make fun of them, pooh-pooh their ideas, and contribute to their general feeling that they really have nothing to offer, that they are not worthwhile, that nobody wants to hear what they have to say, and certainly that no one could care how they feel. Therefore, they withhold all of these things and the result is a breakdown in communication.

Do you help contribute to a poor self-image in your spouse or in those around you? Many men do so by continually putting their wives down, by being sarcastic and not interested in their ideas. They may find themselves increasingly living in a lonely world and losing out on a great deal. Do you treat your wife that way? There are women, of course, who do the same thing. They enjoy putting their husbands down. They try to lord it over them and belittle them.

I believe that if we seek God’s kingdom first and His righteousness, then all things shall be added to us. Included in that list is a healthy self-image. I am uncomfortable with an unhealthy emphasis on self-image. As we love God and our neighbor as ourselves, a healthy self-image tends to emerge, because we are made in His image.

Question to ponder:
Can you think of anything you can do to build up anyone around you?

For we have not followed cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.

— 2 Peter 1:16

It is interesting that in the radical left wing of Protestantism, back about two hundred years ago, they were concocting in their ivory towers all kinds of theories about how the Bible was not the Word of God, how these were but mythological stories, inventions of creative minds, things that never happened in this world at all.

Interestingly, about the very same time, there was another science that was beginning; it was the science of archaeology. In fact, Napoleon contributed to it. When he went to invade Egypt, he took with him scientists who examined all the many wonderful finds in Egypt and gave great impetus to the new science of archaeology. Since then archaeologists have dug up hundreds of thousands of different finds confirming the Bible over and over again and totally demolishing the liberal radical documentary hypothesis of the Old Testament. Today no reputable Old Testament scholar would maintain the kind of things that were previously taught in many seminaries (including the seminary I attended), because it has been given the coup de grâce by archaeology.

Nelson Glueck, the renowned Jewish archaeologist said, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.” Dr. Paul L. Maier, a noted scholar of ancient history, said, “There is no question but that archaeology is the Bible’s best friend.”

Question to ponder:
How does God defend His own Word?

Then I said, “Here am I. Send me.”

— Isaiah 6:8

In 1956, five American missionaries were killed in the jungles of Ecuador by fierce Indians. One of them was Jim Elliot, who famously said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

In his senior year at Wheaton College, Elliot wrote some words in his diary, which I recall reading and being awestruck that any college senior could write such words: “[God] makes ‘His ministers a flame of fire.’ Am I ignitable? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Satu­rate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be a flame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul—short life? … ‘Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.'” Some seven years later, that fuel was consumed.

What is it that holds us back from total surrender or unconditional service? We are often afraid that God will ask us to do something too hard or too difficult.

I am sure Jim Elliot did not regret his decision. (Certainly his writings before his death would indicate as such.) Whatever God calls us to do, it will be an adventure, and He promises to go with us every step of the way.

Question to ponder:
Can I commit myself to God at a deeper level? Is there anything I am holding back from Him?

See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, and death and disaster. What I am commanding you today is to love the LORD your God, and to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments …

— Deuteronomy 30:15-16

God has set before us the “maker’s manual.” If you obey the commandments, you will do well. If you don’t, you will destroy yourself. The commandments are basically simple, but they are not easy. If we seek to live a godly life, we can only do this by His power and by His grace.

Human success or failure in this life is largely dependent upon the requisite yielding of ourselves in obedience to the commandments of God. It is not some great mystery. It is simply doing what God told us to do. Apparently, there are many people in this nation and the world who are mostly ignoring those commandments or outright disobeying them. That, of course, is to their own hurt and detriment.

We do not keep the law in order that we might be saved or be acceptable to God; but having been transformed by Christ, having been forgiven and redeemed by Jesus Christ, having been made new creatures by His grace and His mercy, we now desire to live by His Commandments and His law. God gives us a new heart, a heart that delights in our God and a heart that desires to live by His statutes.

Question to ponder:
We are told to keep God’s commandments in word, thought, and deed. Which one is hardest for you?

“I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.”

— Psalm 119:99

It has been well said that prosperity is the natural consequence of acting on good advice. Many people have received advice from counselors concerning their financial lives—investments in stocks, bonds or businesses. They have acted on that advice only to discover that the advice given was poor and they destroyed their lives and ruined themselves in the process.

But the advice that is contained in the Word of God is invariably good advice. He who consults Omniscience will be helped by Omnipotence. That is a great truth we should remember. If we will meditate upon His Word day and night and determine to live our lives according to it, then God says that He will make our way prosperous and then we shall have good success.

Marion E. Wade, through meditating on the Scriptures, discovered that success in life would come through reading, meditating, and living according to them. He determined to do precisely that and became the founder and chairman of Servicemaster, Inc., one of the great corporations of this nation.

One popular Bible teacher, as a young man in school, wasn’t doing well with his grades. Someone asked him if he would like to become wiser than all of his teachers. How? By meditating upon the Word of God and hiding it in his heart. And so he learned great passages of Scripture. He went on to teach popular seminars. By hiding the Word of God in our heart and meditating upon it, God will shape us into the person that He would have us to be.

Lord, thank You that You know all things and can do all things, yet You have taken the time to reveal Yourself in the pages of holy writ. Help us, Lord, to do our part in learning what You have shown us there. Forgive us for biblical illiteracy…

BY HIS STRENGTH, WE STUDY TO
SHOW OURSELVES APPROVED.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will protect your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

— Philippians 4:7

James Cash Penney, better known as J.C. Penney, built that tremendous chain of retail stores. Penney was a Christian, but he, like many Christians, had not yet fully learned the lesson of walking by faith. Though his business survived the economic crash of 1929, he had become involved in some personal commitments that were causing him great trouble and stress. In fact, the stress was so severe that it caused the dormant virus of chicken pox, which he had had as a child, to spring to life again in the form of that very, very painful disease of shingles.

He was so crushed and overwhelmed by the constant pain and agony of this disease that he came to the very end of himself and had to be hospitalized. That night in the hospital he was sure he would not survive, so he wrote farewell letters to his wife and son.

He finally went to sleep. The next morning he awoke to singing. It was coming from the hospital chapel just a few doors from his room. He managed to get up, put on his bathrobe, and shuffle into the chapel where he heard a group singing a hymn. As he listened to the words, he was transformed. This was the turning point for him. He said later, “I am seventy-one years old, and the most dramatic and glorious minutes of my life were those I spent in that chapel that morning listening to the hymn: ‘God Will Take Care of You.’”

Oh Lord, our hearts cry out to You for Your grace and Your protection from ourselves. Indeed, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Thank You that You alone are able to keep us from falling and to present us before Your glory…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE MAY LIVE OUR LIVES SO
THAT ONE DAY WE WILL HEAR HIM SAY, “WELL DONE.”

“I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

— Philippians 1:6

Jude is one of the shortest books in the New Testament, but it has much to say. For example, even in the opening, after identifying himself as the author, Jude speaks of those to whom he is addressing his letter: “To those who are sanctified and called by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ…”

We see that when we are Christians we have been called by God, by His Holy Spirit unto Him. This is that effectual calling, which by the Spirit, combining with the Word, quickens a person from the deadness of sin and brings them into a condition of saving faith and repentance. They also have been preserved.

Here is the perseverance of the saints—we are preserved by God. We are kept, as Peter says, by God. It is good to know that we are saved by Christ, we are saved by His grace, but we are also kept by that same grace.

The very same grace that saves us, keeps us, and holds us. At this point in my Christian life, after decades of following the Lord, it is more astonishing to me that He has kept me over all of these years than that I was converted in the first place. And when I think of all of the ways that I have failed Him, and have come so far short of what He would have had me to be, I am astonished that He preserves me in the faith. What the Lord has started, He promises to finish.

Faithful Father, thank You for keeping us in the faith. Thank You for upholding us by Your mighty hand and thank You that You will complete the work You started in us…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
WE ARE KEPT FOR ETERNITY.