“I press toward the goal to the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

— Philippians 3:14

The Greek word translated in this verse as “goal” (in the King James it is “mark”) is the word from which we get scope, as in telescope, microscope, or in the common phraseology of the day, to “scope out” something. It means “to look into.”

Now in a race track the course is marked out very clearly as to where we are to go, but in the course of life there are no chalk lines on either side of us, so therefore it is important that we scope out the goal. In this Christian race, we need not only to run fast, to stretch forward, to press on. The problem with many people is they are going the wrong way. Now they may be going very fast, they may be succeeding and making great advances, but they are just going in the wrong direction.

One husband driving with his wife on vacation came to a crossroads. His wife said they ought to turn left. He chose to turn right. Then he drove the next 50 miles figuring out how he could turn around and go the other way without his wife knowing it.

As Christians we need to make sure we have not lost sight of the real goal. We have a heavenly calling that should guide our lives. We are so bombarded with the material things of this life and the world in all of its secularism, we could totally lose sight of the fact that there is any high calling at all.

Father God, we ask You to help us to keep our focus on You and Your work. Help us not to be distracted by earthly things…

BY HIS STRENGTH, WE CAN
STAY FOCUSED FOR HIS SAKE.

“My little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth.”

— 1 John 3:18

Christianity presents an incredible picture of love, the love of God in Jesus Christ. Because its ideals are so lofty and soaring, because its sentiments are so noble and so high, there is a danger that we should love in platitudes, and in ideals, and in emotional sympathies. There is a danger that we should feel that we have paid up our debt to love if we have praised its beauty, if we have felt its charm, if we have experienced its sentiment, then we feel that we have loved.

But John says no, let us not love in word or merely in feeling or in thought or tongue, but love in deed and in truth. We need to love in the practical ways of helping other people who are in need. And he says, “By this we know that we are of the truth, and shall reassure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows everything” (1 John 3:19-20). And those two verses have to be read together.

What does that mean “if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart”? He is saying that if we have lived our life and, because of the love of Christ we have loved our brethren, and we have endeavored to lay down our life for them, then we know we love because He loved us. God assures us in our hearts that we are His because we truly love.

God You who are love, what a miracle it is that any of us are loving at all. It is only Your love in our hearts which makes it so. I thank You for all the love I have received from fellow Christians, especially those closest to me…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
SERVE EACH OTHER IN LOVE.

“By this we know the love of God: that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

— 1 John 3:16

Love is personified in Jesus Christ. Rather than take, He gave…even to the point where He gave His very life that we might be saved. Christ sacrificed His own life out of love for us. And how then should we live, after accepting His love?

We should be ready to lay down our lives for those in Christ. This statement is quite revolutionary in its implications. Even though we might never be asked to actually die for another person, we are asked to daily die to ourselves.

It is important that we do so, knowing that anything that we do less than laying down our lives for our brethren is to fall short of fulfilling the obligation of that love.

This means we could share more than we do. We could give more than we do. We show our love in practical ways. Christ the Savior has shown us the way. If we are to lay down our lives for our brethren, then surely to help others who are poor and who are in necessitated conditions of one sort or another is little to ask. We should help them with the goods of this world. May God give us more grace to live unselfishly.

God of love, give me Your beautiful love in ever greater measure. Help me to live unselfishly, whether I’m giving up a nap or laying down my very life. All small and great acts of unselfish love for someone else come purely from You…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
BE UNSELFISH AND LOVING.

“Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.”

— 1 John 3:14

John is saying here if we hate our brother, this is murder and that we are a murderer. Now there are many people who cannot even imagine going so far as to murder another person, but he is saying that hatred is like unto murder.

It may be the difference between a mild case and a severe case of the same disease but it is the same infection, the same germ which pervades the body of both. It is the same type of crime, though different in degree. And you know, he says, that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. The Greek phrase translated as “and you know that no murderer has eternal life” means you know it requires no argument, it requires no demonstration, it doesn’t even require reflection. But rather instinctively you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So if you hate your brethren, it is self-evident by prima facie evidence that eternal life does not abide in you.

If you have that desire to do someone in out of revenge, if you harbor that hatred within your own heart, then says John, you are akin to a murderer—even as Cain himself was a murderer, and that type of hatred continues throughout the world.

But there is also something to be said for those who truly repent of their sins, including the sin of murder. The hymn declares, “The vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” And once saved, let us walk in love.

Lord of life, You give us life and love and the taking of life is not up to us. The germ of hatred is anti-love and leads to death. Thank You that it cannot grow in a heart where Your presence is manifest. Please remove from us any root of bitterness and any hatred…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, HATRED
CAN BE REPLACED BY LOVE.

“His master answered, ‘You wicked and slothful servant!’”

— Matthew 25:26

The Lord Jesus has some unkind things to say about the deliberately slothful person. In the parable of the talents, the Lord lambasts the third man because he was lazy.

The Bible admonishes us to be not slothful in business, but fervent in spirit serving the Lord, and therefore by our fervency in our business we are also serving the Lord. And Paul says that if a man will willfully not work then neither shall he eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

And yet we live in a day when these things are being greatly ignored to the detriment of our society. One time some counties instituted a “workfare” program which was to substitute for the welfare program that had been in effect. Sadly, many able-bodied people did not take advantage of this. Too many of them just wanted something for nothing. We are producing more and more people who are being taught by our government in effect that the world owes them a living.

This is a sin and we as Christians need to face up to that. We are producing a generation of slothful, indigent people and it does not portend well for our society.

Furthermore, it does not help the poor, especially since the wealth-transfer systems break the back of the urban family. It is a great tragedy when we as individuals or as a nation stray from God’s principles. God’s ways still work, and He has designed us for work. Granted, some people in extreme cases cannot. But the exception should not make the rule.

Dear God, thank You for creating us to work. Thank You for the blessings of accomplishments and the joy in a job well done. Help us to do work well and always help those who are unable to do so…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
DO OUR WORK TO HIS GLORY.

“The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry?…If you do well, shall you not be accepted? But if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must rule over it.’”

— Genesis 4:6

In the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, we see a great contrast between true religion and false religion. Of course, in our day when people believe truth is relative, many recoil at such a notion as true versus false religion.

The nature by which Cain’s works were unrighteous and Abel’s works were righteous was very simply this: Abel held to the right views and practice of religion, while Cain held to false views and practices of religion.

Abel you may recall came before God and brought the sacrifice of one of his flock and offered this sacrifice with the shedding of blood and the giving of a life. Whereas Cain, on the other hand, brought the fruit of the fields from his toil as a farmer and he brought that, and he offered it to God, and he was rejected, whereas Abel’s sacrifice was accepted.

Everywhere in the world there is the same picture of Cain’s type of religion where man brings the fruit of his own labors and offers it up to God—his own goodness, his own morality and piety and benevolence—and he is astonished and chagrined when it is not accepted by God, and he does not receive that inward peace of knowing that he has been forgiven and accepted by God. Whereas the Christian knows that it is only by the shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, that he is accepted.

Lord God, we see Cain and the chance You gave him to find victory over temptation. Sin is always crouching at the door. Please give us strength for today to overcome it. Help us to please You today…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE
CAN OVERCOME TEMPTATION.

“Do not marvel, my brothers, if the world hates you.”

— 1 John 3:13

We often hear people talk about a person who has a “holier than thou attitude.” Now if there is anything that we hate it is a holier than thou attitude. But there probably is one thing that we hate even more and that is a holier than thou fact; in other words, often we totally forget that there are people who are in actual fact holier than we are.

Justification admits of no degrees whatsoever—there is no one in this world who is more justified than I am, because I am completely and totally justified. I am totally pardoned from all of my sins and accepted as righteous before God. But unlike justification, which admits of no degrees, sanctification does admit of degrees and is greater in one than in another.

So there are indeed in just about any church at any given time people who are at all levels of spiritual growth and sanctification. People who are at all levels of holiness; and if there is one thing that makes many people uncomfortable, it is to be in the presence of someone that is markedly and notably more holy than they are because it is a silent condemnation of their ungodliness and of the remnants of wickedness and worldliness that still cling to their lives. That is why the world sometimes will hate us. May God give us the grace to walk in holiness and to aspire to be more holy.

Holy Father, we wish to be more holy and for Your image to be seen more clearly in us. Grant us to walk in humility and holiness. Let us seek our friendship with those who are holier than we are…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
WE ARE MADE HOLY.

“Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.”

— 1 John 3:12 KJV

Wickedness will sometimes do all it can to suppress righteousness. Jesus said that light has come into the world, but men prefer darkness because their deeds are evil.

Cain was of that wicked one, of Satan, of whom Jesus said that he was a murderer from the beginning and who inspired Cain to his terrible deed of murder. The term that is used in the Greek text for “slew,”—he slew his brother—is an unusual term, and it tells us something about the brutality of the deed that was involved. The term might very accurately be described or translated as “butchered.” The original text means to slit the throat, and apparently Cain did a very thorough job on his brother.

Why did he do it? Because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous. We see here a horrifying picture of the evil capabilities of the human heart and of the total depravity of man.

Envy had goaded Cain to such a place, because of the fact that the righteousness of his brother was an indictment against him, that he was brought to the place of even killing Abel. Sadly, virtually everyone has experienced at some time or another in his own life the feeling of envy, which, as someone noted, withers at another’s joy, while hating the excellence it cannot reach. Ask God to purify your heart from envy, so it will never take root there.

O Lord, it is hard to understand man’s cruelty to man and when we see evil all around us, we are horrified by it. But when we see the dirty fingerprints of Satan even on our own heart, we shudder and run to You for cleansing…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN KEEP
ENVY IN OUR HEARTS IN CHECK.

“…We should love one another, not like Cain, who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. …”

— 1 John 3:11 – 12

In 1 John, the beloved apostle talks about the importance of love. He contrasts that with hate as seen in Cain, who killed his brother Abel.

First, he holds up a picture of Cain and, secondly, a picture of Christ. Cain, the prototype of hatred, and Christ, the prototype of love, stand in stark contrast one to the other and are indicative of the children of the Devil and the children of God.

We will remember that Christ taught that there are two families in this world. There is not a fatherhood of God and a brotherhood of man as some people vainly wish and proclaim. But Jesus said there are two fatherhoods and there are two brotherhoods. There are two families: there is the fatherhood of God and the fatherhood of Satan. There is an antipathy on the part of the family of Satan toward the family of God, which is as long as history and is worldwide and never ending.

Cain was the prototype murderer—the first slayer of men—the one who was to begin the bloodletting that was going to end in a great river, even a great sea of blood, to this very day. Cain was of his father, of Satan, of whom Jesus said that he was a murderer from the beginning. Those born of God do not hate, like Cain, but strive to love, like Christ.

Father God, many claim to want love and world peace, but hatred is strong and seems to be all around us. Thank You that love is more powerful than hate and that one day, love will conquer and You will triumph over all evil…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
OVERCOME HATE WITH LOVE.

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with gratitude, make your requests known to God.”

— Philippians 4:6

When Abraham Lincoln was a circuit rider for the courts as a lawyer, going to wherever the courts were being held in small towns, he had to cross a lot of rivers. That included the notorious Fox River, which, in times of rain, was most turbulent and extremely dangerous.

One night he and a colleague had crossed several rivers in the days before, and his companion had said to him, “If these are this bad, what in the world is it going to be like when we try to cross the Fox?” And it just so happened that that night, as they stayed in an inn, there was a Methodist circuit rider there who had been traveling those parts for almost fifty years. And they asked him if he knew about the Fox River, and he said, “Oh, my, yes. I know all about that. I have been crossing it innumerable times for many years.” And they asked if he had any advice about how they might cross it safely. He said, “Absolutely. I have discovered that there is one secret about the Fox River which I never fail to keep in mind.” He said, “I never cross it until I reach it.”

Well, I think that all of us have faced a great many Fox Rivers that we have “crossed” when we were yet miles away. By the time we have arrived at them, we discover that a drought has come, and the river has dried up. Turn your worries over to God. Instead of worrying, pray and give thanks—and watch God take care of your Fox River by the time you get there.

Dear Lord Jesus, we thank You for taking care of so many of the problems we have worried about. We see Your hand straightening out our path, and we thank You for sending Your angel before us…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN TURN
OUR WORRIES OVER TO GOD.