The Goodness of God

Luke 5:4-11

Children often pray, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food, Amen”. I love that prayer! It is so simple and elementary, and most adults abandon it in favor of longer, more detailed prayers, but in the simplicity of that children’s prayer is found such a wonderful truth about our God.

Somewhere along the way, as we grow older and mature, we cease to view God as “great” and “good”. We know that He is great, but life has thrown us enough curves that we begin to doubt whether or not He is always “greater” than our circumstances. We do not doubt that He is good but we have had enough bad things happen to us that it is hard to see that He is always “good” to us.

I believe that it is a trick of Satan to cause us to view God as less than good and great. While believing that God is a good God, we have a hard time seeing Him as doing well for us all of the time. Most of us limit God’s goodness to when we act good. If we do good things, then we believe that God will do good things for us in return. This concept of God’s goodness has God rewarding us for good behavior and punishing us for the bad. Paul said, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin” (Romans 4:8). If this promise only applies if we are obedient, then what is the point? Of course He won’t impute sin if we don’t commit it. What kind of promise is that? It is only “blessed” when we realize that God’s goodness is independent of our ability to earn it!

Paul said, “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Romans 2:4). When God shows us blessings and goodness, we change our mind about who He is. Watch how the Lord deals with Peter in Luke 5, bringing Simon to his knees in repentance.

Despite Peter’s arguing that they had fished all night and caught nothing, he launches into the deep at the bequest of the Master. When he does this, he encloses a great multitude of fishes and the nets begin to break. This net-breaking blessing brings Peter to repentance, “When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8) It was not necessary to tell Peter what a sinner that he was or to quote from the Ten Commandments, in order to produce repentance from Peter, but rather Jesus gave him an undeserved blessing.

The goodness of God does not come upon us by obedience. If we received only upon obedience, we would not be receiving of God’s grace, but rather we would be receiving of God’s debt. He would owe us goodness as payment for our living correctly. Paul said, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Romans 4:4).

Finally, God is great because He is first good! When He shows forth His goodness to us, we change our minds about who He is and what He is. When we accept the goodness of God we cannot help but call Him great. Our children know Him as great because they first accept Him as good. See your Father as good to you and you will know your Father is great.

It is the Sinner Who Repents

Mark 2:17

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17). The Greek word for “repent” means “a change of mind” and that definition is universal throughout the New Testament. When the Word speaks of repentance it is talking about man changing the way he thinks or the way that he views a situation.

We often interpret “repentance” as an emotional experience. We think that someone has truly repented if they cry or feel bad, and we often accept their repentance if we see those emotional outbursts; and we reject it if they don’t “show repentance”.

As we have seen, the New Testament version of repentance is to change how you think. If you are a sinner then you are being called to accept Jesus Christ as your savior. You need to change your mind, which thinks that you are able to save yourself. Your mind is convinced that you are fine and that you do not need a Savior. If you are a sinner, your thinking about eternity and salvation is all wrong and you need to change your mind. In other words, you need to repent.

Saints should often repent as well, but not in the manner in which it is often preached and taught. Christians have no need of an emotional breakdown when they fail, characterized by lamenting and fasting, begging God for forgiveness. We are the righteousness of God in Christ, and when we fail, we do not cease to be the righteousness of God. However, many of us feel that we are failures and that we owe God something. Repent of this! Change your mind and realize that you are just as saved after you fail as you were before it. Change your mind about the fact that you are a son and not a slave and when your mind lines up with whom you are in Christ; your lifestyle is soon to follow.

Jesus stated that He came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). If Jesus specifically mentions that He is not calling the righteous to repent, why are we always calling on the righteous to repent? His call was to sinners, and He said it because the religious world was frustrated with His constant fellowshipping with the lost. Jesus did not become like the sinner in order to win the sinner, but He did present a different view of God to the sinner so that they would change their mind about who God was and how He thought of them.

Many sinners think that God is angry with them and that He is about to send them to hell at any moment. By conversing with and eating with sinners, Jesus was changing the perception that the sinner had of who God was. Jesus made God personable and loving, and sinners felt themselves opening up to the Son of God. The call of repentance came next, with sinners responding in droves because Jesus had convinced them that they were wrong about how the Father felt about them.

Consequently, this verse also shows us that Jesus is not against people going to the doctor if they are sick. Some say that visiting a physician is a lack of faith. If that were the case then Jesus would not have said that those who need a physician are the sick. While He is not advocating sickness or disease, He is using it as an example as to who needs His salvation power.

Jesus Fulfilled the Law

Matthew 5:17

Early in His famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims His purpose in coming to earth, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). Christ makes it clear that He did not come to rip the Old Testament up; neither the writings of Moses nor any other prophet. Rather, Jesus came to fulfill that which the Law and the Prophets had left undone.

Paul asked if our faith has replaced the Law, and then concludes, “God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (Romans 3:31), showing us that our faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work brings the Law to completion in our lives. Since Jesus lived all of the demands of the Law and then died as a spotless sacrifice, you and I fulfill every demand of the Law, not by right-living, but by faith in the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ.

Paul said it like this, “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight” (Romans 3:20). This means that by works, no one can be declared clean in the eyes of God. He went on to say, “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (Romans 3:21, 22). Now we have “righteousness without the law”, meaning that we are declared righteous without keeping the law. The only reason that this is possible is because Jesus completely fulfilled the demands of the Law on our behalf!

Notice that verse 21 states, “being witnessed by the law and the prophets”. The law and the prophets witnessed true righteousness in the flesh when Moses and Elijah showed up at the Mount Transfiguration. Moses is a type of the Law, while Elijah is representative of the Prophets. Both of these witnessed the Righteousness of God in the form of Jesus and both of these will minister the message of grace during the tribulation period (Revelation 11:4).

There was nothing wrong with the original Law of God. Paul stated, “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). The problem with the Law was that it demanded perfection but then provided no help in producing perfection. In fact, God did not give the Law to show man how to live, contrary to what is often preached. Paul said that “the law entered, that the offence might abound” (Romans 5:20). Law was given to show man his imperfection in light of God’s perfect standard. This was to stop the mouth and declare the whole world “guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).

By never breaking the Law, Jesus was a sinless man. He fulfilled every demand of the Law to perfection and then took all of our law-breaking into His own body. He died as the punishment for all of our sins, thus giving us His perfect life. The Great Exchange of Calvary was that He became our sin so that we might become the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). He has fulfilled it, thus, so have you!

He Is Knocking

Revelation 3:20

Following the messages to the seven churches of Asia, which are types of the seven church ages since Pentecost, Christ changes from addressing the churches directly to “any man” in verse 20. Until this point He has ministered directly to the church but now shows us that the last great push before the rapture of the church will be answered by individuals, if not the entire church.

For what cause is Christ standing outside of the heart’s door in this verse? What has caused the church to push the Master to the front porch of our lives instead of allowing Him to dwell freely in the living space of our heart? This final invitation is directed to the individuals within the church at Laodicea, and I believe that we are seeing this fulfillment even now.

In this final hour there is a mixture of covenants in the modern pulpit. The cold tablets of the Law are being preached with force in most sermons, teaching people to work for their righteousness and sanctification. If that was the only message being preached then perhaps some would grow so miserable beneath works that they would long for Christ. Unfortunately, there is just as much preaching on the grace of God along with the ministry of the Law. I say that it is unfortunate because this mixture says that all are saved by grace but then maintain their salvation by individual works of righteousness. This is often referred to as “balance” in many churches, but Christ calls it “mixture”.

He tells Laodicea that because they are “neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:16). Faced with a message of the heat of God’s grace and the coldness of God’s law, the end result will be a lukewarm Christian message. It will be attractive to the sinner because of the grace of God offered freely, but it will quickly become a bondage to the one who is born again.

This combination forces the beautiful presence of Jesus to the front porch of the church, where He then knocks on the door of the church, seeking permission to come back inside. His invitation is extended to “any man”, denoting that in these last days there will be individuals within the modern church system of Laodicea who will answer the call of Jesus Christ and will open up to His wonderful New Covenant.

I see people opening up to the message of pure grace every single day. Individuals who have grown weary beneath the message of works and progressive sanctification are finding rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ. They are opening up to the simplicity of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and they are experiencing the wonder of supping with Him and He with them. This mutual relationship, in which they speak freely to Jesus and He ministers freely to them, has rejuvenated their Christian walk, and there are more and more rising up every day who say as Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ!” (Romans 1:16).

If you have mixed grace with law and are floundering beneath a sea of dead works, listen carefully for the knock of Jesus. He awaits perfect fellowship with you once again. Won’t you open the door today?

What If the Christian Fails to Confess

1 John 1:9

This verse marks the only time in the New Testament that we are told to confess our sins in order to receive forgiveness. Paul wrote 14 books of the New Testament, and was given the Covenant of God’s grace in face-to-face meetings with the Lord Jesus, and he never once mentions confession by the saint. Paul’s lone usage of “confess” as it regards salvation is found in Romans 10:9, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved”. This confession is obviously for salvation and not the repeated confessing of sins that we commit.

John’s usage is not as a foundational principle for how believers deal with sin. If it were, then we would be judged responsible for all of our sins, every moment of every day. This would take the judgment for sins off of Jesus, and place it onto the believer. The load of this is more than any of us can bear.

Do you suppose that you can remember all of your faults? If you can, then you must literally remember ALL of them. Not one can be left out. Not only would you have to confess the sins that you committed, you would also have to seek forgiveness for the ones that you committed but do not know about. You would also be responsible for the sins of omission; the things you should have done but did not do. This is overwhelming!

Within context of chapter one, 1 John 1:9 is actually written to the sinner. In verse 3, John said that he was relating these things so “that ye also may have fellowship with us”. Then in verse 8, he tells the same unbelievers that if they deny that they have sin then they are operating under a self-deception and that they need to confess their sins and find forgiveness in Christ. When he wants to address how the believer deals with sin he introduces the phrase “my little children” (1 John 2:1), a term he never uses with the lost in chapter one.

Notice what John says to the believer: “My little children, these things write I unto to you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:1, 2). Here, John does not mention confessing the sins; only remember than Jesus is your attorney in the high court of heaven. He is the “propitiation” or “satisfaction” for all of our sins. God cannot be angry with sin, for He has been satisfied by the sin offering.

By informing us that all of our sins are forgiven, John is equipping us to “sin not”. Only he who knows that he is forgiven can have the peace and joy to live free from this world of sin. Sin comes natural to us, because we did it our whole lives. Even though we are free from the old nature that we had, we still know how to sin by habit, like tying our shoes without thinking about it. The knowledge that we are completely washed and forgiven is the very thing that Satan wishes to deny us. Grasp hold of that knowledge and watch sin vanish from your life.

If Paul intended for the believer to confess their sins in order to have them forgiven, wouldn’t it have been a good idea to remind us of this at least once in 14 books? He deals with Christians getting drunk on communion wine, committing incest, suing one another and sleeping with harlots (all in 1 Corinthians alone!) and yet he tells none of these to “confess your sins”. He simply reminds them of who they are in Christ and tells them to wake up to this fact.

John is telling us of a passionate relationship that ensues when we confess our failures to Jesus. I forgive my son for whatever wrong that he might commit, even if he never asks me to. I do this because he is mine, and I love him unconditionally. However, I love for him to say I am sorry because it gives me an opportunity to shower him with love. My forgiveness is not dependent on his confession, but the hug that comes to him is so much sweeter because of it.

When you fail and you know it, confess it to the Father. Don’t do it because you think He will send you to hell without it, but rather because you know that on the other side of that confession He sheds His love on you, and that is a wonderful feeling.

The Final Word

2 Peter 3:18

Much can be learned from the death bed of men and women. In those final words, we get a brief insight into what is most important to them in this life, before they pass into the next. Joan of Arc, before burning at the stake said, “Hold the cross high, so I may see it through the flames!” Edgar Allan Poe said, “Lord, help my poor soul”, and the so-called prophet Nostradamus went down with this prophecy, “Tomorrow, I shall no longer be here”.

We have all heard of the last sayings of Christ on the cross, but we know nothing of the last words of the great apostles of the early church. What might Paul or Peter or John have said in their final moments? This side of heaven, we may never know, but we do know the last thing that they wrote down as inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Peter says, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.” (2 Peter 3:18) Peter’s final words are an encouragement to the reader to continue in the grace of Jesus Christ. “Grace” is on his mind at the end.

Paul’s final writing comes from a prison cell in Rome, where he writes to his young friend Timothy, “The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:22) Paul, just like Peter, brings us back to the Lord Jesus Christ and again prays grace on the reader. “Grace” is on his mind at the end.

John receives the Revelation of Jesus Christ and views many things that he is not even able to write down. After having seen these things, he begs Jesus to come quickly (Revelation 22:20). One would think that this would be a great place to close his final book, by begging for the return of Jesus, but John has one more thing to say, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” (Revelation 22:21) Again, just like Peter and Paul before him, John brings us back to the Lord Jesus Christ and His wonderful gift of grace. “Grace” is on his mind at the end.

I ended each of the previous three paragraphs with the same sentence, "’Grace’ is on his mind at the end”. I did this to show you that of all that each of these great apostles could have said, it was another mention of God’s wonderful grace that came from their pen. We could spend hours showing what each man’s definition of grace was but without that kind of time, let’s just say that “grace” was the topic of their hearts, all of the time.

If dying words reveal the character of the individual, then we have an insight into what moved the pillars of the early church. It was not works righteousness or shows of emotion that turned their hearts, but it was the message of undeserved grace and favor. May it be our dying word as well.

The Chosen Generation

1 Peter 2:9, 10

Please don’t skip today’s devotion if you think that title denotes that this is aimed at youth! If you are a young person, read on; it will help you. If you are not young in years, just praise God that you are wise in spirit and read on also! “The Chosen Generation” is not a new title for the latest, trendiest youth group in America, but rather the title for the church of Jesus Christ, as given by the Apostle Peter.

The word ‘chosen’ is the Greek word ‘elektos’ from which we derive the English word, “election”. It is used by Peter to show that the church of Jesus Christ is no accident, but rather we were a pre-determined act of God from the foundation of the world. Even before Adam sinned, God saw the necessity of the cross.

Along with being chosen, we are also a ‘generation’ or a “race, or nation”. This Greek word is first used in the New Testament when Jesus shares the parable of the kingdom as a “net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind” (Matthew 13:47). The word ‘kind’ is the same as ‘generation’, so we see that we come from all over the world with different races, cultures and creeds, but we are all “chosen” through Christ’s blood.

Prior to the Old Covenant, the head of each family was considered the family priest (Genesis 8:20). When God gave the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai, He promised that if Israel would obey Him perfectly, they would be a “kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). They disobeyed severely, so the Lord took that priesthood and confined it to one family within Israel; the Aaronic priesthood in the tribe of Levi (Exodus 28:1). Now, with the giving of the New Covenant, all believers are referred to as “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), and this priesthood is by birthright. As Aaron’s priesthood passed through bloodline to his sons, so does Christian priesthood pass upon us through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

We are also a “holy nation” which has nothing to do with nationality or race. This nation is not recognized at the United Nations, and it has no flag or borders. The nation that we belong to is not of this world, though we belong to nations that are. It is called “holy”, not by works which we do but by the perfect work which He has done.

Don’t be offended by Peter’s usage of “peculiar people” in verse 9. It has nothing to do with ‘weird’, though I have met a few of those too! The Greek phrase that Peter uses is also used by the Apostle Paul when he says, “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:14). The phrase “purchased possession” is the same as “peculiar” in Peter. The Apostle is telling us that we are not only chosen and priests and holy, but we have been purchased by God.

The purchase power of God is wrapped up in the blood of Jesus. Paul said, “And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself” (Colossians 1:20). His blood is what purchased all of humanity. We are purchased, and thus, we are His “possession”. It should make it a bit easier to face the world today knowing that you are chosen as His very child. Walk like it!