… and He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For all these out of their abundance have put in their gifts for God. But she out of her poverty has put in all the living she had.”

— Luke 21:3-4

Psychologist Abraham Maslow claimed that those who demonstrate the greatest amount of self-love and have the highest self-esteem exercise dominance. In any relationship—a husband and a wife, two friends, or business partners—if one of them has a higher opinion of himself or herself than the other, the one with the highest amount of self-love will dominate. There will often be arrogance. There will be exploitive aspects involved. It does not necessarily follow that the dominant one will love the other.

Which one is able to help other people more? A man who spends all day long in a gym working out with weights, developing huge muscles, standing before the tanning machines, admiring his biceps, or a person who is poor and weak and frail and unmuscular?

I am not sure the answer is clear. It may be that a strong person is more capable of helping people. It may be that Arnold Schwarzenegger is more capable of helping people than Mother Teresa was. However, it does not at all follow logically that he has helped more people than she has. Many of the world’s greatest people have been people who have not been strong, muscular, and healthy at all, but they have sought to do for the Lord the best they could. The key is to serve others, including the widow and orphan, whenever we can.

Question to ponder:
Are you taking the opportunities you get to serve the Lord and others?

… just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless before Him in love.

— Ephesians 1:4

I know a friend who just went through major surgery and then, after he was home and thought all was well, a massive infection was found. The doctors had to go back in and cleanse that out. That is like sanctification. Sanctification deals with corruption. A beautiful apple, when cut in half, re­veals one dark spot. It is obviously rotten, and the spot must be cut out. God is purifying us in this life through sanctification.

The holiness of God is imputed to us by faith as we trust in Him, and His holiness is infused into us gradually in sanctification, as we become more and more pure. We need to pray that the impartation of the holiness of Christ might be ours. We need to pray that God would make us holy people. You can be sure that as you become holier, you will become happier in your life. We will never be completely holy before we reach heaven, but the furthest we can come is the longing to be more holy. The strange fact is that the more holy we are, the less we will be concerned with our own holiness and more concerned with the welfare of others.

Question to ponder:
How is it that the more focused we are on others, the happier we find ourselves?

…yet we know that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

— Galatians 2:16

If God had called us to climb Mt. Everest in order that we might have eternal life, there would be millions lined up to try it. However, He calls us to no such arduous task as that, but to a simple trust in Christ as our Savior. To do that, we must realize that we are unworthy and undeserving. We do not merit eternal life, and it is, therefore, a humbling experience to receive Christ. We must acknowledge our sin; we must acknowledge our unworthiness; we must acknowledge our guilt, and cast ourselves upon Him and His mercy.

When we realize that the law, and all the works of keeping the law, will not make us right with God, we are ready to have our own self-righteousness smashed. As we come to Jesus Christ, we can be justified—made right with God. This is justification—that God out of His mercy forgives us our sins, clothes us in the righteousness of Christ and looks at us through Him, as if we had never sinned.

Question to ponder:
Picture yourself clean and beautiful before God in Christ Jesus. What is your response?

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how shall it be made salty? It is from then on good for nothing but to be thrown out and to be trampled underfoot by men.

— Matthew 5:13

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t want to get out of their “saltshakers.” They are very comfortable. Why some of them even have stained glass walls! These people don’t want to get in contact with the “meat,” because maybe it is already beginning to get rotten and corrupted. They don’t want to get their hands on it, and so they avoid it. They are not functioning as salt.

Salt has a number of qualities. It stings. If you get salt in a wound, you will know it is there. Salt also heals. We are to be the healing work of Christ in the world, and that does sting. Sometimes people don’t like the thought of causing that uncomfortable feeling, and so they don’t get involved with that healing work of Christ.

Another thing salt does is to bring out the flavor in many dishes. That is what Christians should do. Salt also, of course, preserves. We, as Christians, are called to preserve that which is best in our culture. We are called to be salt, to go out and bring out the best in others.

Question to ponder:
Can you think of a recent time where you or some other believer has acted as salt in our decaying culture?

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi …

— Philippians 1:1

While visiting recently with a couple who did not know Christ, we talked about what a Christian was and I said, “Have you ever met a real live saint?” They assured me they had not.

“Well,” I said, “how would you like to meet one?”

They asked, “Do you know one?”

I said, “Yes, I do. In fact, there is one right here today.” I reached out my hand and said, “Meet Saint James, for I am a Saint. Every Christian is a saint, set aside, and sanctified unto God as kings and princes unto God our Father.”

This sainthood is achieved not by our own righteousness, but by the righteousness of Christ alone. Therefore, a saint is a forgiven sinner. God makes us saints by His Holy Spirit, forming us into His image. A saint is a person who is set apart for God’s use, a person who is being sanctified. A saint is a person who belongs to Jesus Christ, and that is who we are.

Question to ponder:
Could you live differently before the watching world today, knowing that you are indeed a saint?

For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.

— Psalm 33:9

Whether God created the universe or not makes all the difference in the world. The teaching of the “godless universe” has ramifications beyond the world of science.

It is not true that all scientists believe in evolution. One scientist who is a Christian observes, “Parents can work hard to educate their children to be patriots and morally upright citizens. But four years of college of the kind I experienced—where I was surrounded by a culture of drugs, sexual libertinism, political radicalism, and little homework—can destroy the efforts of the best parents in America.”

If that doesn’t do it, he says a couple of years of graduate school are almost certain to destroy any remaining vestige of belief in God, moral absolutes, morality, Americanism, patriotism, or any other of our values. That, my friends, is the consequence of the teaching of evolution in our public schools and universities and colleges—like the one this scientist attended. It is a mortal danger to the lives and souls of young people and has brought tragic consequences.

Question to ponder:
How does a godless outlook affect morals?

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

— Psalm 33:6

Evolution simply says that the whole universe is made up of nothing but matter; that matter, time, and chance—the trinity of materialism—have brought all things into existence and, therefore, there is no God. A great multitude of people believe this because it is what they have been taught. The results of this teaching have been devastating.

The root of the problem of most of the great ills that have afflicted society and still afflict it today is the teaching of evolution. It has been called “The Big Lie.” It has deceived hundreds of millions of people and has probably brought about more deaths than any other view in the history of the world.

For example, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were committed Darwinists. They were trying to speed up evolution by creating a master race. They exterminated millions of “undesirables” because they viewed them as genetically inferior—this included Jews (the largest sub-group of victims of the holocaust), Gypsies, Slavs, and others. The holocaust was “Darwinism on steroids.”

But God has revealed Himself in His creation and in His Word. What a difference a worldview can make in society!

Question to ponder:
What would be the value of human life if evolution were true?

Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

— Philippians 1:6

Once a man went to see a play in three acts. He came back and recommended it to a friend and said, “It was a marvelous play. You will just love it. It is so uplifting and exhilarating. You will be greatly encouraged.”  So his friend went to see it.

The next day the man saw his friend and said, “Well, how did you like it?”  “How did I like it?  I hated it. I thought it was just terrible. How could you possibly have thought that a play like that was good?  Why, the child was kidnapped, the father lost his job, and the mother was in the hospital. I was terribly depressed. How could you possibly have thought that a play like that was good?”  The man said, “But that’s not the way it ended.”  Then his friend said, “Oh, I don’t know how it ended. I got so depressed I left after the second act.”

Well, my friends, there is a final act to life. We pass through a curtain that leads us to the final act of the drama of God’s redemption. Without our belief in that we could not believe that all things will ultimately work together for our good. If you’re a Christian, God is at work in your life. Paul promises that He who began a good work in us will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. This good news puts everything in our lives in perspective and gives us great hope for those who are now fallen away from the truth.

Question to ponder:
Do you remember some of the things God did when He began the good work in your life?

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

— Romans 8:28

A physician may prescribe some medicine for us. Previously, when we would take the prescription to a pharmacist, he would gather the various chemicals from his shelves and with mortar and pestle he’d begin to mix them together. Now the interesting thing is that not infrequently there might be found among those various ingredients things which, of themselves, would be quite deleterious to your health, if not in fact, fatal. For example, arsenic is found in many medicines and yet if you were to take it by itself it would kill you. But when all the ingredients in the prescription are mixed together, they provide something that is beneficial to your health and produces healing. So it is in our lives.

The Great Physician is at work in our lives, causing all things to work together for good for those who know Him and are called by Him. The root Greek word for “working all things together” is synergeo, from which we get the word synergy. Romans 8:28 speaks of God’s synergy.

Question to ponder:
Can you think of a recent example in your life where God worked all things together for your good?

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

— Romans 8:28

We live in what appears to be a very hostile universe. Just a few thousand feet beneath us is molten lava waiting to consume us. A few thousand feet above us there are deadly cosmic rays that would slay us in a moment. The entire universe is governed by the basic law of entropy, which is determined to crush us in the final extinction of all things. This world is filled with war and pestilence and famine, sickness, disease, decay, and death. How can we say that all things are working together for good?

God is the One who is supernaturally working all things together for our good. They don’t just happen naturally. But God, the great Almighty alchemist, is taking whatever ingredients that come into our life, and working them for our good. All things, whatever they may be.

Question to ponder:
Is your universe hostile or friendly? How about in the light of Romans 8:28?