Good Days

1 Peter 3:10

Though the world that we live in may be tossed with financial woe, and the people around us seem nervous for their future, the saint trusts in a certain God. We find that it is possible, through the finished work of Jesus to love our life and to rest in the wonderful moments of knowing our Savior.

The Apostle Peter felt the same way, giving us a way to “love life, and see good days” (1 Peter 3:10). In order to have this happen in our lives we are to “let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:” (3:10). “Guile” is craftiness or deceit; so Peter is instructing us to speak that which is good and honest.

Paul warned the believer about speaking evil, saying that it should be “put away from you” (Ephesians 4:31). He also gave us an example of what evil speaking might sound like, and it is not “cursing” or telling dirty jokes. Paul said, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers” (Ephesians 3:29). When we communicate with others without using the grace and mercy of God in our speech and in our approach, Paul says that this is “corrupt communication”. How many times have we spoken to people with a judgmental attitude, administering law and works into their lives?

When we speak to one another in this manner we grieve the Holy Spirit of God (3:30). The Holy Spirit wishes to minister grace to each person that we come in contact with, but He is limited by the words that come out of our mouths. Don’t grieve His design and desire by saying things to others that are not covered over by the grace of Jesus Christ.

As we minister these words of hope and grace into people’s lives, we begin to love life and see good days (1 Peter 3:10). One of the reasons that we love life more when we minister grace to others is because we begin to rest in the grace that God has for us. Actually, it is impossible to minister pure grace to those in your life if you do not have an understanding and acceptance for grace in your own heart. Life is “worth the living” when you rest in His finished work.

Note that Peter says that you will “see good days”, not “a good day”. When we are resting in Christ, ministering His grace to the world around us, it is not just an occasional day of happiness in Jesus, but there are multiple “good days”. In contrast, when Paul tells the believer to put on the whole armor of God in order to stand against the tricks of the devil, he says that he is preparing us for the “evil day” (Ephesians 6:13). In the world there is an evil day, but in Christ there are good days!

Accept His mercy and grace towards you, and then minister that into someone’s life and watch your good days increase. May these “good days” begin today!

The Better Covenant; The Better Promises

Hebrews 8:6-8

If you were to ask many Christians, “What makes the New Covenant a better covenant?” many would respond, “We don’t have to kill lambs anymore”. This is due to the fact that Jesus died for sins, thus there is no need for animal sacrifice when we fail. Let me be blunt, if that is all that the New Covenant accomplished then that was a royal waste of time.

Jesus obtained a more excellent ministry than his priestly predecessors (Hebrews 8:6). He brought in a “better covenant, which was established upon better promises”. The purpose for bringing a better covenant was because the first covenant was found to have fault (Hebrews 8:7). The fault was not within the law itself, for it was holy, just and good (Romans 7:12). Instead, the fault was in the people on the other end of the covenant, “For finding fault with them…” (Hebrews 8:8). The “them” is Israel and Judah, just as it would be you or I.

The first covenant was faulty because it demanded perfection from a people that could never live perfect. No matter how hard someone tried, they would always be found in contempt of the law in one area or the other. Either they did things that were contrary to the law, or they failed to do the many things that the law demanded. Even in the atoning system of the Old Covenant, man was condemned constantly. If you failed and brought a sacrifice before the Lord, everyone saw you bring it and they knew that you had sinned in some respect. The law provided no privacy and no personal relationship. It was cold and it was distant, unable to help you in any way.

Jesus came to live that Old Covenant to perfection; fulfilling all of its many demands. When He died at Calvary, He cut a New Covenant with His Father, taking the faultiness out of the way. We were at fault under the Old Covenant for we could not keep the Law. Jesus has no fault, thus He stepped into our place and cut the Covenant between His Father and His perfect life. Now, we are the recipients of Jesus’ work, receiving benefits of a Covenant that we are not obligated to live up to.

The Old Covenant held man’s sins against him, while the New Covenant says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12). The Old Covenant is now decayed and truly old, “ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13), so to return to it for guidance or instruction is to go back to a system found faulty by God.

We have a better covenant and a better promise because we have a better sacrifice. Jesus did what no lamb or bull or goat could ever do; He removed the sin problem (John 1:29; Hebrews 10:4). If we are still dealing with sin it is because WE are doing it and not resting in what HE has already done. When we fail now, we are covered by the better covenant and the better promise and the knowledge of that causes us to live as we should, for His New Covenant is written on our minds and in our hearts (Hebrews 8:10).

Thank God for a better covenant, where Jesus keeps His end of the deal with the Father so that we get the blessings of heaven. Hallelujah!

Denying the Power

2 Timothy 3:1-9

In the last days before the return of Christ, there will be perilous or troublesome and dangerous times. This will be characterized by a “falling away” from the faith (2 Thessalonians 2:3), with various other identifiers in men’s lives as well (2 Timothy 3:2-5). This time period has been preached with great warning for many years, with messages pointing at men’s lifestyles and the lack of holiness that they exhibit as evidence that we are approaching the end.

If you have an understanding of what Paul and the rest of the early church was preaching in the time of the New Testament, it becomes easier to see what they meant by a “falling away” or “perilous times”. Paul preached a doctrine of pure grace, in which man is saved by faith alone, apart from his works and that salvation is a complete justification based upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. Paul considered God only as righteous as His willingness to save man based upon faith in Jesus (Romans 3:26).

For Paul to prophecy of a time when the church would fall backwards or experience perilous times, he was seeing a time when the most accepted message in the church would not be the message of pure grace. That time is upon us, when there is more and more a mixture of pure grace with the trappings of law. Many churches specialize in preaching grace to the sinner and works to the saint in an attempt to “balance out” the message of law and grace. What man calls balance, God calls mixture! (Luke 5:36-39).

“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power therof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:5). I used to interpret this verse to mean that many people speak of holiness and living right but they deny the mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost, thus they are denying the power source. Paul never gives any such indication in his writings, but does in fact give us the answer to this statement. In his letter to Rome, Paul tells us what the power of God is, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16). The power of God is the good news of Christ’s finished work; namely, the message of pure grace. He then goes a step further, showing us true godliness and where it comes from, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:17). Within the power of the finished work is where true righteousness grows. If we want godliness, we must want pure grace!

There will always be those who like Jannes and Jambres standing in front of Moses (2 Timothy 3:8), resist the truth. We must not back down from telling others of the wonderful love of God just because there are some who deny salvation could be that simple. Never back down from the message of pure grace, because it truly is the power of God to see men changed.

We are in perilous times, when people are hearing less and less of the glorious good news of God’s grace, but do not be dismayed believer. You and I are also living in an awesome time, when God is raising up voices all over the world to tell mankind of the love of the heavenly Father and of His awesome finished work. Will you be one of those voices today?

Lay Hold on Eternal Life

1 Timothy 6:17-19

Jesus promised each one of us life more abundant (John 10:10), which means that we are to have a glorious experience in this life, happy and free in His finished work. His promise was not referring to our life to come, though that will be wonderful as well, for the New Testament makes it clear that we are to be living a great life in this present world (Romans 5:17; 1 Peter 3:10).

There are things that we can do in this present life that allow us to apprehend the glory that is found in the next life. Paul refers to this as laying hold on eternal life (1 Timothy 6:19). There are no works that we can do that can qualify us for heaven, but there are some actions that we can take while on this earth that will lead to days of heaven on earth. It is the simple principle of sowing and reaping that is a recurring theme of the New Covenant, and if the believer follows its pattern, they will reap if they faint not (Galatians 6:9).

Paul addresses young Timothy in two letters that bear Timothy’s name. Near the close of the first letter, he tells Timothy to give a charge to the wealthy members of his congregation that they not trust in their “uncertain riches, but in the living God” (1 Tim. 6:17). All wealth that we accumulate on this earth is uncertain riches, for the economies can shake and crumble, as we have well seen! The living God is unshakeable, thus He is a firm foundation. When we trust in Him we see that He “giveth us richly all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).

The word “communicate” in verse 18 is an unfortunate translation. The original Greek word is ‘koinonikos’ which means “inclined to share with others; a free or liberal giver”. Paul uses this word 4 times in the New Testament and each time he is referring to giving financially or in any other way in which you are contributing to someone else. This is the heart of sowing into good ground, where you believe that your giving makes a difference in a church, a ministry or a life. Paul encouraged those that could spare the money to give it, for it would lay up a store for themselves against bad times to come (1 Timothy 6:19). Where the world’s system says “save your money for a rainy day”, Paul said “Give to others and you are prepared for the rainy day”.
When you learn the concept of sowing and reaping, you lay hold on a piece of eternity. The glory and the joy that permeates the next life will become yours on this earth and in this life. Days of heaven on earth are possible, but only if the redeemed become less attached to the system of this earth and more in tune with the music of heaven.

Jesus warned us about laying up treasure here, which was not His way of saying “Don’t save your money”. Instead, He wants us to focus our investments in the spirit realm, confident that our heavenly Father is a firm foundation, unshakeable in a world of uncertain riches. Invest wisely in ministry and the work of the Lord and you too will “lay hold on eternal life”.

A Religious Show

Colossians 3:20-23

Christianity is about a relationship between God and man through the finished work of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Throughout the history of the church, which is another name for the collective body of believers that are all followers of Christ, man has done a little here and a little there to make that relationship look more like a religion. Religion denotes man’s activities to become more like God; while relationship is founded on love and compassion, and Christ’s complete victory at the cross.

When we become a Christian, or “get saved”, we die with Christ, identified in His death at Calvary. That death is not physical of course, but is spiritual, and it kills us off from the attractions and trappings of this world. If we are dead to the “rudiments” or principles of this world (Colossians 3:20), why are we making ourselves subject to ordinances or laws that do not apply to us? For instance, if we are alive in Christ, and He is living His life through us, why would we place physical restrictions on ourselves like, “touch not; taste not; handle not”? These are “commandments and doctrines of men”, and we are not like other men!

Religion quickly imposes a series of “do’s” and “don’ts”. If you “do” the “do’s”, and “don’t” the “don’ts”, you get rewarded with blessings and goodness. If you fail to do when you should, or you don’t watch the “don’ts”, you are cursed and punished. Relationship deals with us based on the merit of Jesus’ work at the cross. He did all that He was supposed to do and didn’t do what He wasn’t supposed to do, thus fulfilling all of the demands of God’s holy law (Matthew 5:17).

When we begin to restrict what people can watch, listen to, be involved in or wear, we are imposing a series of ordinances onto them. Why would we bind them to a system that they have been delivered from? Jesus delivered us from the trappings of law, so we should live free without it. Paul said that when you impose these things on believers, they certainly appear to be holy, but they do nothing to change the heart. Look closely at his words:

“Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23).

Following after these ordinances has an appearance of wisdom in “will worship” which is “self-imposed” worship, and it makes you look humble because you are neglecting certain physical desires and comforts and entertainments, but Paul says that they will not “honor to the satisfying of the flesh”. In other words, they lack value in restraining the sensual desires. In fact, if you impose regulations and ordinances on people, it causes the sensual desires to explode (Romans 5:20).

If you want to be closer to God, don’t make a mental list of things to exclude and include in your life; that is religion. Instead, seek a relationship with Jesus Christ by going to His finished work and accepting His price paid at the cross. He will embrace those who embrace by faith what Christ has accomplished.

The Peace of God

Philippians 4:6-9

There is a difference in making your peace with God and having the peace of God. When someone accepts Christ and His forgiveness, they have “made their peace with God”. As life goes on, many of these who have made peace with God find that there is no peace in their hearts. This is not to be blamed on Jesus, the Prince of Peace, for His work is a finished work; so why do we feel this absence of God’s peace?

Paul said for the believer to be “careful for nothing”, which means “anxious” in Greek. Instead of having anxiety and worries over our lives, we should cover everything with “prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” as we let God know what we need (Philippians 4:6). When we live a life of thanksgiving, quick to thank God in spite of our circumstances, we have the peace of God, “which passeth all understanding”. This peace keeps our hearts and our minds at rest in Jesus.

Jesus said to the woman that washed his feet with her tears, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace” (Luke 7:50). This woman had just been commended by Jesus for her acknowledgment of sins forgiven. She knew how forgiven that she was, thus she showed Jesus great love. Many want to “love God more”, but they have no knowledge as to how forgiven that they are. When you get a sense of His wonderful mercy and forgiveness for you, you naturally love God more.

The knowledge of your forgiveness and the peace of God go hand in hand. This woman knew who she was in Christ and this empowered her to live a life of peace. If you walk in this revelation, your peace will increase, and you may not even understand how. When you begin to show this calmness and peace in your workplace or your home, people may even question you as to why you are not worried, when everyone else seems to be worried. You can tell them of Jesus and His love for you, but not even that will explain to them how you are at peace. This is because the peace of God “passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7).

Paul goes on to tell the church to think on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8). When you focus your thinking on the beauty of Christ and His finished work instead of you and your circumstances, you are dwelling on the things that lead to peace. Continue on in the mighty grace and favor that you are learning about, as Paul said, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you” (Philippians 4:9).

Please dwell on Isaiah 53:5 that tells us that Jesus was chastised for our peace, which means that Jesus was disciplined so that you and I could have peace. His discipline was not for His failures but for ours. He took your punishment so that you can be at peace with God. Hallelujah!

Mess With the Saint, You Mess With the Savior!

Acts 9:1-5

Saul was “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). His mission was to stop this new religion known as “The Way” by taking anyone captive who claimed Jesus as their Savior. This form of intimidation was sponsored by the church but was spawned by Satan to stop the spread of the good news of Jesus Christ.

In choosing Saul to do the dirty work, Satan had went after the most learned of the law teachers in all of Judaism. A Pharisee of Pharisees, Saul was everything that a law-abiding Jew strived through their efforts to be. It is of no little significance that God would choose to bring His message of grace and New Covenant through this one who had trusted in his efforts at keeping the Old Covenant his entire life. By choosing a vessel that was “spotless” in the eyes of the church, God brings credibility to the choice of Paul to be the one to preach pure, radical grace. If the first minister of God’s grace had been one who had sin issues and questionable lifestyle practices, then people would accuse him of preaching grace to cover his failures. This should be noted by us today as we minister and walk in the glorious grace of God.

As Saul (who would later begin to use his Greek name, “Paul”) travelled to Damascus to persecute the early church, he was met by a great light from heaven, which blinded him and stopped his journey. From the midst of the light, he heard the typical greeting of the Father when He speaks tenderly to someone close to His heart, “Saul, Saul” (verse 4). There is nothing as tender to us as the sound of our own name on someone’s lips that loves us. From the Father, it sounds so nice He says it twice! “Samuel, Samuel” (1 Samuel 3:10); “Martha, Martha” (Luke 10:41); “Simon, Simon” (Luke 22:31); “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (Luke 13:34).

Jesus asks Saul, “Why do you persecute me?”, which must have seemed confusing to Saul, for he did not feel that he was persecuting anyone. Remember, Saul felt that he was doing God’s work in exterminating this new-found faith. Even if he felt that what he was doing was persecution, he surely would not have felt that it was against one individual but rather against the collection of individuals known as “The Way” (later to be referred to as Christians). To be asked, “why do you persecute me?” is to denote that one person is being attacked.

Shocked, Saul asks who is speaking to him, and the reply is, “I am Jesus whom thou persecutest” (Acts 9:5). The persecution that Saul was breathing out was against the Christians, but Jesus claims that it was against Him personally. This humbles Paul and leads to his salvation, for he sees Jesus as the defender of the church and thus personally invested in the lives of His followers.

When Satan attacks a believer, he is essentially attacking Jesus Christ. This is a lost battle for Satan, for he was de-fanged at Calvary, but he continues to roar like a lion anyhow. You and I are no match for Satan on his terms, which will always be performance and works related, so we must rest in the finished work of Christ’s cross to find the victory that Jesus has already won. Allow all attacks by the enemy to lead you back to the resting place in Jesus, for if Satan is coming after you what he should find is Jesus. Praise God!

The Walk of the Believer

Ephesians 4:17-25

Even though the Apostle Paul was a preacher of radical grace, he in no way endorsed sinful lifestyles or failure on the part of believers. He was accused of this sort of doctrine however, as he tells us in Romans 3:8, “…we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, ‘Let us do evil, that good may come’…” However, Paul’s approach towards getting believers to live right was different than what many people then, and just as many now, tend to use. He felt that an introduction of law preaching and teaching into believer’s lives would cause sin to revive in them (Romans 7:9). It is for this cause that when Paul wanted to emphasize a lifestyle problem in his churches, he introduced a different tactic.

Paul maintained that believers were already complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10), but that their minds were lagging behind their hearts. He felt that if a believer thought like a believer, he would live like one, but if he thought like a sinner, then he would see sin take root. He told the church at Ephesus to “walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind” (Ephesians 4:17). Sinners walk according to a mind “void of truth” which is what “vanity” means in Greek. They have their “understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18). Again, Paul is showing the saints that in many ways they are acting like sinners through their lifestyles. Now, he appeals to who they truly are:

“But ye have not so learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:20).

With this statement, Paul introduces a three-fold plan for the believer to live right:

1. Put off the old man and the way he lived, which was according to his lusts and desires (verse 22).

2. Renew the way they think, concentrating on who Jesus is in them (verse 23).

3. Put on the righteousness of God which is Jesus Christ (verse 24).

When you do these things, it will lead you to live right which is why the next verses begin to give instruction on not lying, not letting our anger get the best of us, not allowing Satan a foot hold in our life, not stealing, etc. Why doesn’t he just say, “Thou shalt not lie”, or “Thou shalt not steal”? Surely that would be easier, right? That would be Old Covenant preaching, and Paul is better than that. Instead, he appeals to who you are in Christ, and convinces you to change how you think of yourself. When we do this, we put away lying and stealing and everything else because we stop thinking like sinners and start thinking like the sons which we are.

Go in God’s wonderful grace and mercy today, putting off who you used to be by knowing who Jesus has made you to be. Renew your mind on His wonderful finished work. Stop thinking like you thought as a sinner and see your heavenly Father as well pleased with you, His adopted son or daughter.

Under the Curse

Galatians 3:10-13

When Jesus died on the cross, He took all of our sins into His body, but He also took upon Himself the curse that accompanied the law. That curse could not come upon Jesus for His own law-breaking, for He had none, so it came upon Him because at Calvary, Jesus took our place. What was meant to come upon the whole of humanity was put upon Christ with full force at the cross. The curse was death, and its application on Jesus freed the rest of us from torment.

Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). Not only did Jesus take the curse intended for law-breakers, but He actually became the cursed object at Calvary. As the perfect sacrifice, He became the object of scorn for the wrath of God, and literally, the lightning rod for God’s judgment. The fullness of that punishment gave liberty to all of those who would accept Jesus by faith, thus coming under His wonderful grace.

When a believer sins, they do not fall out of God’s grace, nor do they go under the curse of the law. They can’t fall from God’s grace for they are positioned under grace, not above it (Romans 6:14). At the same time, while under His grace, they are truly surrounded by it, for Paul told us that if there is an abundance of sin, there is a super-abundance of grace (Romans 5:20). This means that when the believer fails, they do not fall from grace, but rather they fall into grace!

Failure by a saint does not put them back under the curse of the law either, for Jesus has already been made the curse for us. He fulfilled the law in its entirety; therefore no failure on your part can put any portion of the curse on you. If Jesus had failed to completely finish the work at the cross, there would be something left to be done by you and I, but thank God He meant it when He said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

How does one go back under the curse of the law? Paul makes it clear that “As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse” (Galatians 3:10). He does not say that if you fail to keep the law you are under the curse, for we know that is why Jesus became the curse. Instead, he emphasizes that everyone who works the law to achieve righteousness is going back to their own performance of the law, and they must suffer the curse that accompanies failure. Why would we want to take upon us that which Jesus has already taken upon Himself? Why would we desire to seek justification by our ability, when Jesus has freely justified us based upon His finished work?

It takes no faith to live according to the letter of the law; it simply takes obedience (Galatians 3:12). You can obey the instructions of the law and not even like it. You can obey the law and have no heart change. You can obey the law and hate the law-giver! You cannot help but rejoice in pure righteousness, and have a change of heart and fall in love with Jesus when you receive His free gift of salvation and sanctification by faith and none of it comes from your talent.

You are not cursed believer, for Jesus was cursed for you. That which is blessed cannot be cursed so reject the lie from Satan that you have been hexed or any such foolishness. Take your stand in the knowledge that Jesus bore your curse so that you can always bear His blessing!

Held Together By Christ's Love

2 Corinthians 5:14

On my first trip missions trip overseas, I was struck with the power of this verse, and used it in the first meeting that I had with a group of preachers in that country. No matter where we are from, or what our backgrounds are, it is the love of Jesus Christ that holds us together and makes us one big family. It is both the love that He has for us and the love that we have for Him that gives us a mutual interest.

“Constraineth” is “hold together” in Greek. There is a law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus that is at work in every believer (Romans 8:2). This law has made us free from living under sin and its partner, death. Acknowledging the love of Christ in us confirms in our heart that we are as dead to sin as Jesus is, which the rest of this verse brings out: “if one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

In a world of varying cultures and creeds, it seems almost fantasy that there could be one simple code that would bind these various entities together. The finished work of Jesus Christ is that one beautiful, simple thing that makes us who we are. There is something warming and encouraging about being in a foreign land, where you are thousands of miles from anyone else that you know, and hearing the name of your Jesus mentioned with worship and praise. The peace that He has given to you has also been given to others and it has a lasting effect on both your relationship with Him and your ability to show forth His love to others.

No one that does not know how loved that they are in the eyes of God can ever truly show forth His love to a lost and dying world. We do not have perfect love to give, neither are we capable of generating it. Even the love that we have for our children, which is as close to God’s love as we can naturally formulate, is imperfect in that it is effected by emotion. God’s love is a perfect love which knows no ups and downs and when we know that love, there is no room in our hearts for fear or for torment (1 John 4:18).

The further promise of the constraining love of Christ is that we are alive with Christ in His resurrection. We live this Christian life not after our own fleshly lusts and desires but we live it “unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Living our lives for Him means that we dwell on Him and His finished work, not on us and our unfinished work. Acknowledge that the old things are passed away and that all things are become new (5:17), and you will know that all things are of God (5:18), and that you have been reconciled to Him by the finished work of the cross. When we have this knowledge, we gladly accept the ministry of reconciliation.

I believe that those who do not rest in the love that the Father has for them can never fully embrace the ministry of reconciliation. Without a personal revelation of His love and forgiveness, you are always trying to impress Him and reconcile yourself to Him through your performance. The only way that you can reconcile yourself back to God is through His prescribed order and that is the cross of Jesus Christ.

May you go with God’s abundant grace and favor today, held together by the wonderful love of Jesus!