“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”

— Revelation 2:11

In Greek mythology, Orpheus, the golden voiced, loses his beautiful wife, Eurydice, and so with lyre in hand he makes his way down through the darkness of the infernal regions in quest of the lost Eurydice, singing his plaintive melodies.

As he goes forth and fills the chambers of that nether world with the rich sonorous tones of his plaintive cry, Tantalus stops his futile bending after the receding waters and listens for a while. Even the cheeks of the furies are wet with tears as they hear the poignant plea of Orpheus for his lost wife.

At last, Orpheus reaches Pluto, the god of this nether world, who finally condescends to allow him to take his wife back on one condition: that he will not set his eyes upon her until they fully reach the land of light above. They set off, Orpheus before, and his beautiful wife, Eurydice, behind.

They pass one obstacle and one danger after another. All hell holds its breath as they make their way tortuously upward, ever closer, until finally they can see the light. So elated is Orpheus, he turns to tell his wife that soon they will be there—and in that moment, all his labor is lost and Eurydice vanishes.

That ancient and familiar myth teaches us a great truth: that it is only he who perseveres until the end who shall be saved. It does not really matter how well we start. It is the finish that counts. As the Apostle Paul said: “You ran well. Who hindered you…” (Galatians 5:7).

Lord, give me the strength to finish well. If I have previously allowed obstacles to hinder my race, as happened to the Galatians, please forgive me and then give me the grace to get up again and continue with the race you have marked out for me…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
MAKE IT OVER THE FINISH LINE.

“…forgetting those things which are behind…”

— Philippians 3:13

Years ago we had a guest speaker at our church who made the point so well that we need to forget the things that are behind and press forward in Christ.

Lt. Clebe McClary is a veteran of the Viet Nam War. He unfortunately experienced the blast of dynamite which blew off his arm, which he only discovered when he couldn’t reach his rifle because there was nothing on his shoulder any longer. It also blew out his eye and half of his face, his teeth, his nose, and did all sorts of other damage. I think he has had over 35 major surgical operations. Despite all these hardships, he reminds himself regularly to forget.

He has a license plate on the front of his car which says “FIDO.” That’s F-ID- O. No, that’s not the name of his dog. It stands, he says, for “Forget It, Drive On.” And let me tell you he has a lot to forget. Have you been hurt? Is your eye gone, your teeth, your arm? How many surgical operations has it taken to correct your injuries, and, of course, it is still not corrected—the damage from the hurt that you or I have experienced? Forget it, drive on. “…Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal…” (Philippians 3:13-14a).

Too many people allow the past to destroy their present and their future. FIDO is a message like that of the Apostle Paul—to consciously not drag the baggage of the past forward.

Lord God of Justice, we ask that You help us to forget what is behind. Help us to not let past hurts define and hinder us. Thank You that one day You will right all wrongs…

BY HIS STRENGTH, WE CAN
LEAVE THE PAST BEHIND.

“Do this in remembrance of Me.” Luke 22:19 “…forgetting those things which are behind…”

— Philippians 3:13

I am sure that Christians must get confused when they read a verse like this. Paul says, “This is what I do, I forget those things which are behind.” And yet I have preached sermons on a number of occasions on “remember.” Jesus said, “Remember Me.” We are told over and over again in the Bible to remember.

Are we to forget or are we to remember? Well, obviously we are to do both, and the question is: What are the objects of the verbs, remember and forget? There are certainly things that we are to remember. We are to remember what Jesus Christ has done for us upon the Cross.

The things that Paul is talking about forgetting would be of two classes. Just like a runner or skater skating for 1500 yards, they have to forget their successes or failures in a hurry and not sit back and rest upon those laurels.

I think it is particularly true that as they get older people begin to rest more and more on their laurels and stretch less and less toward the prize, the mark of the high calling of God. We need to forget about our victories and not simply float on them, but to reach out to the things that yet remain to be done. Nor should our past failures weigh us down.

Let us thank God for what He has done in the past, as we strive to serve Him in the present and future.

My Lord and Savior, thank You for what you have done for me. Help me to not be a prisoner of the past with its failures or its victories…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE ARE
ABLE TO STRETCH FORWARD.

“Then Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant. But I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.’”

— Exodus 4:10

When God commissioned Moses, the latter gave excuse after excuse to try and wriggle out of it. One was that he was a poor speaker. Well, in trying to recruit Christians to try and share their faith, I’ve heard that excuse myself. “Lord, I’m not articulate.” “Well, I can’t express myself like you can.” How clearly I’ve heard that said many, many times.

There are similar excuses that are given many times. “I just can’t talk to others.” “I’m too shy.” “I can’t speak in other people’s homes to strangers,” and so on. Well, I remember clearly feeling the very same way myself. And yet God said to Moses, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who made the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?” God has made our mouths and if we are slow of speech, God can help that.

We certainly know that many times in the Scriptures in those days God made the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. Surely He can make the slow of speech more eloquent than they are, and yet how many times we limit the power of God in saying that He cannot change us. Nevertheless, I have seen and I know of many people in our church, and people around the world, who have been transformed by this experience.

If you have trouble sharing your faith, ask God for His help. This is a prayer He is delighted to answer.

Oh, Lord God, help me to share my faith and to teach others Your words. Thank You for Your words, which are both eloquent and true. You who made my mouth, teach me to speak rightfully…

BY HIS STRENGTH, HE CAN USE MY
LIFE AND MY MOUTH FOR HIS CAUSE.

“…we declare to you that which we have seen and heard, that you also may have fellowship with us…”

— 1 John 1:3

Some Christians hold back from being witnesses for Christ because they don’t feel qualified somehow. But you are not called to be an expert witness—just a witness, and there is a great deal of difference. The preacher is supposed to be an expert witness, but the layman is not.

You recall that in the Bible there was a man who was a witness, and they tried continually to change him into an expert witness and he would not be changed. Remember him, the man born blind described in John 9? They said to him, “Now tell us the truth. We know that God does not hear sinners and this man (Jesus) is a sinner and, therefore, God wouldn’t hear His prayers, so how can you see?” And he said, “That’s systematic theology 302, and I haven’t even been to seminary. I don’t know. But one thing I know: Whereas I was blind, now I see.”

You don’t have to be a walking biblical encyclopedia to be a witness for Christ; you simply have to know the Gospel and know what has happened in your life. Of course, then there is the excuse, “Well, that’s the preacher’s job. He’s the one who knows the answers to all of those questions.”

In Evangelism Explosion, we teach you the answers to a few basic objections, which are heard over and over again. In answering about a dozen questions, we take care of about 99 percent of the objections raised in evangelism. If you are in Christ, you were once blind, but now you see.

Jesus, give me strength for today that I might share Your love with someone who needs to hear how You have touched my life. Let me be a faithful witness and thank You for the opportunities You give me…

BY HIS STRENGTH, WE CAN
HAVE SPIRITUAL SIGHT.

“Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name…”

— Philippians 2:9

There is a certain exclusiveness about Christmas. There is a uniqueness to it. Jesus Christ stands alone—the unique God-man in the world. He cannot be put in a row with other so-called founders of religion. Jesus Christ claims to be God, who has come into the world to save the lost. One day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord of all.

I talked to a woman at a dinner not so long ago who was a member of some Christian church and she endeavored to defend to me her belief that, “Of course I’m a Christian, but I believe that anyone who lives a sincere life and tries to do good will eventually get to heaven.” She missed the point entirely.

By saying this, she is simply saying she’s not a Christian. She doesn’t understand what Christmas means and what Christianity is. If it were true that Christianity were a religion that said, “Try to do the best you can. Do what God has said in His word. Try to live by the teachings of Jesus Christ, who is a great prophet. Follow the Sermon on the Mount. Do what your conscience tells you. Be kind to your neighbor, and perhaps you’ll get to Heaven,”—if Christianity were a religion that said that, then I maintain that any other religion would be equally as good, because they all have their ethics. They all have their principles. They all have their rules. But none of them has a Savior except Christianity.

Jesus, my Savior, thank You for humbling Yourself and opening the way to heaven for us, who cannot get there on our own. Give us the strength to live humble lives and follow in Your footsteps…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE
CAN ACQUIRE HUMILITY.

“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘Look! I am making all things new.’”

— Revelation 21:5

Some people have made transformational changes in one department of human learning or in one aspect of human life, and their names are forever enshrined in the annals of human history. But Jesus Christ, the greatest man who ever lived, changed virtually every aspect of human life—and most people don’t know it. The greatest tragedy of the Christmas holiday each year is not so much its commercialization (gross as that is), but its trivialization. How tragic it is that people have forgotten Him to whom they owe so very much.

Because of Jesus and the church, we see historically all sorts of positive ways in which life on earth had been transformed for the better. This includes transforming the value of human life, the creation of the hospital, education for the masses, and giving birth to modern science. All the early pioneers of science believed that a rational God had a made a rational universe and it was their job to “think God’s thoughts after Him,” as astronomer Johannes Kepler put it.

More than a century ago, poet James Russell Lowell, author of the hymn “Once to man and every nation” said this: “I challenge any skeptic to find a ten square mile spot on this planet where they can live their lives in peace and safety and decency, where womanhood is honored, where infancy and old age are revered, where they can educate their children, where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has not gone first to prepare the way.”

Jesus Christ, we thank You today for coming into our world and transforming it. Help us to transform our particular sphere of influence where You have placed us…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE
CAN CHANGE THE WORLD.

“And being found in the form of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

— Philippians 2:8

A strategic way to oppose Christmas is by distorting its meaning. Tragically, this has been done very successfully by millions of Americans who would never think of denying the facts of Christmas, and yet, they haven’t the foggiest idea of what Christmas is really all about.

There is the method of commercialization. They keep their eyes on Santa Claus and they never see the cross that stands in the shadows behind a manger. And if not commercialization, then pure, unadulterated sentimentality. Christmas is so sweet, and light, and loving they say with vague generalities and a foggy haze.

Christmas, of course, is all about the gift of the Son of God. When we come to experientially know the saving power of Jesus Christ, He transforms our lives. He was not only born in a filthy stable some 2,000 years ago, but when we come to know Him, He is born in our sinful heart and He cleanses us. He died in our place, paying for a gift that we could never buy, and He offers it to us freely when we trust in His saving work. This is the meaning of Christmas and of One who was born to die, and pay the wages of sin, who came into this slimy world and took all of the slime upon Himself and endured the penalty for it.

Do not let the true message of Christmas be crowded out by the celebration of Christmas.

Thank You, God, for the gift of Your Son, as we give gifts this season, help us to be truly generous, reflecting Your heart and love. Give us the strength to celebrate this Christmas right…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
REFLECT GOD’S GENEROSITY.

“But He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”

— Philippians 2:7

As Christmas approaches, it is interesting to reflect on the impact of Jesus. Consider a sampling:

• Suppose we would gather a group of literary men together and ask them what is the greatest masterpiece of literature ever written by man, and many will tell, perhaps the majority, the greatest work ever penned by merely human hands was Paradise Lost, written by John Milton—a believer of what some would call “the delusion of the Christian faith”—a believer in the Bible.
• Even the sagacious Ben Franklin, not known for his piety in his life, in his later years wrote to Thomas Paine and implored him not to release the manuscript, of his Age of Reason. Of Jesus of Nazareth, Franklin said, “I have this to say, that the system of morals that He left us, and the religion that He has given to the world is the greatest thing that it has ever seen, or is ever likely to see.”
• How about men like Patrick Henry, that great speaker who championed freedom? He said, “The book worth all other books in the world is the Bible.”
• And then there was Dr. Benjamin Rush, anatomist and physiologist, who said that the only true and perfect religion that man has ever seen is the religion of Jesus Christ.
• And Isaac Newton, the scientist and philosopher, said that the only perfect philosophy in the world is the philosophy of the Gospel.

We are all infinitely better off for Jesus Christ’s having been born.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming and thank You for the Christmas celebration. Thank You for changing our world in so many positive ways. Give us strength to live out the Christian life so we, too, may be a source for good…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN IMPACT
THE WORLD AROUND US.

“…who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.”

— Philippians 2:6

Jesus Christ was not merely a man, and Christmas doesn’t celebrate the birth of a man. Christmas is a celebration of the birth of the God-man. This is not some apotheosis like that of the Caesars in which a man was elevated to “God” status. This is the great condescension of the Trinity when almighty God deigned to become one of us and to be born among men.

This fact, however, of the supernatural origin and essence of Christianity is often denied today in our world. For example, consider the remnant Communist countries where the idea is inculcated daily into people’s minds, both young and old, that Christianity is a myth and an opiate of the people.

But these denials are not restricted to other lands—in our own midst on many campuses parents have found that children have come back from school and have been divested of their earlier beliefs.

The essential supernatural character that Christmas is a birth of God into the world is often denied. But the fact is that Christmas cannot be successfully denied, though it has been tried for twenty centuries. No, the victories are too many.

The historical record is clear that Jesus Christ lived a remarkable life, and He changed all of history through His death and resurrection. In a sense you could say: At Christmas time, we also celebrate Good Friday and Easter.

Lord, give me strength for today to live on the supernatural plane, as we praise You for the grand miracle of Your incarnation. Help me to be Christ-like to those around me…

BY HIS STRENGTH, WE CAN DAILY
RELY ON HIS MIRACULOUS POWER.