And whatever you do, do it heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.

— Colossians 3:23

Your work matters before God. We should do it for His glory.

Look at the difference the Savior has made in reference to labor. Jesus Christ picked up the saw and the hammer and the plane; and in so doing He wrought a miracle in civilization. Most people are totally unaware of what that did. But it changed the whole concept of work. Do you realize that in ancient Greece or Rome honest work was despised as servile and was consigned to slaves?

But Christ came and He gave a new dignity to labor. Before the word of God had come and taken over countries there were only slaves. Half the Roman Empire at the time of Christ was slaves and serfs. But those slaves and serfs in the lands where the Gospel of Christ has come have been translated into the working classes. And in America where the Word of God has come more fully, they were translated into the middle class—out of poverty and into economic well-being.

All honest labor is holy unto the Lord.

Question to ponder:
How do you feel about your work? Do you see it as a service to God?

Examine yourselves, seeing whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.

— 2 Corinthians 13:5

When I told a lady in the church that my sermon was going to be on self-examination, she said, “Oh, that’s going to hurt!” Well, lassies and laddies, I assure you that I come not to hurt you, but to help you, and if you cannot stand the interrogation of a mere mortal like me, how will you do in that great day when you are compelled to stand before the Great Assize of God? If you cannot stand the probing finger of your own conscience, how will you stand the shafts of the divine inquisition?

We need to examine ourselves and prove ourselves. We need to examine our hearts and minds. Do we live lives worthy of our calling? Have we allowed sin into our lives? Have we been unkind to anyone? Are we serving the Lord? Is there fruit in our lives?

May we pray along with David in Psalm 139: Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts. And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way [a paraphrase].

Question to ponder:
Is there a difference between God’s Spirit examining our lives and self-examination?

I give them eternal life. They shall never perish, nor shall anyone snatch them from My hand.

— John 10:28

We believe that God will enable us to persevere to the end. He began a good work in our lives and will continue that work until the end. Jesus Christ is perfectly able to care for His own. Under His wings, the saints can rest secure.

We have all heard stories of people who have been kept safe in the midst of horrible danger. We might never see the car that almost hit us or the angel that kept us from violence, or the temptation God steered us away from. We do know that God is protecting us and that His hand will lead us home.

He protects us from spiritual as well as physical danger. We should never presume upon God’s grace, but we can count on His faithfulness. In Philippians 1, Paul tells us that He who began a good work in us will complete that work until the day of Christ Jesus. What a great promise!

Question to ponder:
Does it comfort to know that no one can snatch you out of the hand of Christ?

Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.

— Psalm 20:7

Self-confidence is not the virtue that modern man has made it into. In fact, there have been no doubt hundreds, if not thousands, of books written on self-confidence and how to obtain it. Do you have self-confidence? The Bible has little to say about it other than the fact that it is a curse, not a virtue.

The word “confidence” is a combination of two Latin words: con (with), and fides (faith), so “Self-confidence” means “with faith in yourself,” and that is misplaced faith. Our faith should be in Christ. What we need is not self-confidence, but Christ-confidence. If you have self-confidence, you are always going to run into somebody bigger than you are, stronger than you are. You are going to run into a problem that is bigger than you can handle; your self is going to give way and the result of that is often despair and despondency.

But if you succeed, that’s even worse. What do you get then? You get pride. The Bible tells us “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). It can be deadly for the spiritual life. Sadly, in America today, we have hundreds of books teaching people how to have self-confidence, and thousands of parents are teaching their children to “Be proud.”

Question to ponder:
Which comes easier to you—self-confidence or Christ-confidence?

And He died for all, that those who live should not from now on live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

— 2 Corinthians 5:15

General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, wrote a telegram when he was on his death bed and had it sent worldwide to every officer in the Salvation Army. It consisted of just one word: “Others.”

After I mentioned the telegram in a sermon, a young lady came up to me several weeks later and said, “You know, when you preached about Booth’s telegram, I decided right then and there that I was going to make that day “Others’ Day.”

“Good idea,” I thought. She said, “And so I tried to focus throughout all of that day on the needs and wants of other people.  “I was so blessed by the end of the day that I decided to make it ‘Others’ Week.'” Then she said, “By the end of the week, I was so filled with joy that I couldn’t believe it. It was the happiest week of my life.”

I am convinced that one reason so many people are lonely is because they are so self-centered. If they would only turn their eyes outward and consider that the world desperately needs comfort, they would find that they wouldn’t be lonely at all. They wouldn’t be rejected at all if they really showed the love of Christ to others. The key to Christian service is being focused on “Others.”

Question to ponder:
What could you do today to make it “Others’ Day”?

Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who do not see may see …”

— John 9:39

There is an old mariners’ chart drawn in 1525 by an unknown cartographer that now resides in the British museum. It depicts the coast of some forbidding and unknown continent. The cartographer wrote in various places on the chart, “Here be giants” and again, “Here be fiery scorpions,” and, “Here be dragons.” Somehow, during his lifetime, it fell into the hands of the then-renowned scientist, Sir John Franklin, a Christian, who put a line through each of those fearsome statements and wrote across it all: “Here is God.” What fearsome, unknown continent was depicted on the chart? It was the east coast of the United States. When God is near, dragons, scorpions, and giants flee.

The world says, “Seeing is believing.” But the Bible teaches believing is seeing, and when God enables us to trust in Jesus Christ, we begin to see things we have never seen before. The fear of the unknown gives way to a trust in Him who is there.

The spiritual world with dangers and foes we cannot even imagine are all overcome by Christ when He made a spectacle of them on the Cross. So put on the full armor of God, and thus we can stand.

Question to ponder:
What are the “dragons” and “giants” you may fear?

Every one of them has turned aside; they are altogether corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

— Psalm 53:3

God is the source of knowledge and wisdom. But we seem to be in a major hurry to forget that these days. Since the early 1960s, America has been plunging headlong away from God, religion, and the Bible—at least, officially—into materialism, atheism, evolutionism, and a godless secular philosophy of life. We are reaping the terrible consequences of that philosophy.

My friends, the seeds of secularism, grounded in evolution, have been and are producing a most pernicious and deadly harvest in America today. Years ago I read an interesting illustration by Dr. Ernest Gordon, dean emeritus of the Princeton University Chapel. He said that in the late 1950s, he spoke at a public school:

Twenty years later, I was invited to the same school for the same purpose. I again presented myself to the same office, but it was no longer the habitat of an educator [the assistant headmaster]. It was the command post of a police inspector. Corridors and classrooms were monitored by police officers who reported regularly to the inspector. The reasons for the change were obvious: violence, assault, rape, drug-induced madness . . . The demoralized school is the tragic consequence of a society’s rejection of the biblical worldview that provided the intellectual dynamic of Western education.

The Word of God is the source of true wisdom and even knowledge. David said, “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99).

Question to ponder:
If there is no belief in God, how will humanity be held accountable to be good?

And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

— 1 John 4:16

Truly, the most profound words ever spoken are—not with complex syntax or intricate convoluted grammar—but a simple sentence: “God is love.” Only three words: “God is love.” And those words, like a magician’s wand, forever changed the way the world thought. But they were backed up by deeds; the love of God was manifested in the life and love of Jesus Christ

We are so used to hearing about God’s love for us that we view it as our right and privilege to be loved by God. But the world into which Christ came was not at all familiar with that concept. The pagan gods were temperamental, capricious, and unpredictable. They were to be appeased, not loved. The idea of a God that loved was strange.

Then Jesus came, and now we know: God is love.

Question to ponder:
How do you experience God’s love in your life?

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with gratitude, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will protect your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

— Philippians 4:6-7

Are you a worrier? Perhaps you are beginning to realize that you have been victimized. Our enemy wants us to give in to fear and to let go of our trust in God. We must cling to Him.

Who was this that made such a statement? He did not know about the kind of problems that I face in my life. Well, maybe and maybe not. His name was Paul. He wrote these words from a dungeon in a Roman prison where he was incarcerated for Christ. Ahead of him he had a trial to look forward to—a trial before that most excellent and fair-minded judge, Nero—that lover of truth and light. Indeed Nero must have been a lover of light because he enjoyed covering Christians with tar, tying them to poles, and lighting his garden with them.

This “humanitarian” Nero was the one that Paul was preparing to stand before. He knew that the outlook was certainly very dim; ahead of him was absolute calamity and disaster. And yet, from that dungeon he cried out, “Be anxious for nothing, and “Rejoice in the Lord evermore.”

Question to ponder:
What are you worried about right now? How can you place these worries into the Lord’s care?

Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling …

— Psalm 91:9

God invites us to know His protection, as seen in Psalm 91. I would want you to understand that this psalm is not saying that everybody has the protection of the Almighty. It is not even saying that all Christians have this protection, since apparently only a few, relatively speaking, really enjoy it.

As Spurgeon said, “Here are the elect of the elect.” Here are the three of the twelve. Here are those special ones who enjoy this protection from God and are delivered from the snare of the fowler and the noisome pestilence.

Who are these who dwell in the secret place of the Almighty? It doesn’t say those who visit it occasionally, but rather the promise is given to those who dwell there. His promise of protection is very similar to the promise of peace found in Isaiah 26:3, where we read: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”

He doesn’t say He will keep everybody in perfect peace. Rather, He will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are stayed on Him—those who are leaning heavily on Him. The Hebrew word for “stayed” means those who cling to Him, those who rest upon Him.

Question to ponder:
How do we dwell with God? How do we live in His presence?