Something Good About Bad Times

Psalms 119:75 - "I know, O LORD, that Your judgments are right, and that You in faithfulness have afflicted me."

As people of God, we can learn much from David, the man after God's own heart. As he learned, so must we learn. We need to be corrected by our Heavenly Father. We must guard our heart against thinking evil of God or His chastening hand.

We must grow to understand the Lord's correcting hand is guided by eternal love, and there is a nail print in it to prove such correction is administered in His infinite wisdom. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb", as the old proverb states.

Not only are His judgments carried out in love, they are fair and impartial. We can know God knows our situation and is fully able to discern between an evasive excuse and a real reason.

We must learn to not despise on-going correction or grow weary of daily demonstrations of His authority over all His sons and daughters. The very fact that we are the objects of God's correction, argues for us being real members of His forever family.

We can rejoice we are not getting the full due of our sins and failures, since Christ already bore that unbearable burden. Yet the law of sowing and reaping has not been repealed even under grace.

Perhaps no affliction has ever been allowed in our lives without the basic aim of driving us to the scriptures. Psalms 119:71: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Your statutes." In God's Word, we find ready forgiveness, renewal and redirection into the proper paths for God's dear children.

Disobedient children of God reflect on their God, just as children in the natural show the care and character of their natural parents. This is why the Apostle Paul said, "This is a faithful saying, and these things I want you to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men." Titus 3:8

"Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." 1 Peter 2:12

"keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." 1 Peter 3:16

Finally, let us not reject God's correction because it is delivered in a clumsy fashion by a man: "Let the righteous strike me; It shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; It shall be as excellent oil; Let my head not refuse it." Psalm 141:5 (NKJV)

The Continuing Problem of Sin in Believers

The Continuing Problem of Sin in Believers

In Romans 4, Paul teaches that salvation from sin is by grace. He uses two outstanding Godly men from the Old Testament as examples to New Testament believers to demonstrate the reality of salvation through grace imputing righteousness to believing sinners.

One example is Abraham, saved and sanctified by faith in the coming Christ, 430 years before the Law was given. This shows again the observance of the Law, the Ten Commandments, is not the means of salvation or sanctification.

The second example, King David, is pictured as enjoying the blessing of salvation apart from any works to merit such grace. Indeed, Paul utilizes King David when he is least worthy of being blessed, right after his restoration from his ugly sin with Bathsheba! Lust, lies, adultery and murder have just been wiped from David’s record by the mercy of God.

Paul quotes King David from Psalm 32 in his teaching the truth of salvation by grace through the death of Christ for all sins:

Psalm 32

¹ Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.² Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity,

 The Apostle Paul was a “wise master builder” so we must understand that he purposefully omitted part of verse 2 from Psalm 32. We can understand this omission when we remember Paul is limiting his teaching here in Romans 4 to how a person receives eternal righteousness through faith. He is not at this time, teaching how such faith is to be lived out.

Paul’s omission from Psalm 32:2 reads; “and in whose spirit there is no guile.” The reason he left this out is because sin continues to live in every believer, even though we are justified from all things forever. The imputation of righteousness does not eradicate the old sinful impulses as the new believer soon learns by experience if not by the Word.

 

This “guile” (many translations use the term “deceit”) is the characterization of the sin nature we were all born with. It is that innate power within us which always seeks its own way and is entirely resistant to God in every way, always. The venom of the Old Serpent entered the blood stream of our original parents in the Garden and it continues to taint the bloodstream of all who are born of them. Our glorification with Christ in Heaven will include then, and only then, the eradication of our sinful nature.

Even after conversion, our old man, our sin nature, is cunningly devising ways to gain control of our bodies AGAIN in defiance of all we (the new persons in Christ) hold precious. This old nature is dead in God’s eyes, as it died with Christ. Death here does not mean ceasing to be active, but rather separated from God. Christ cried out in agony of spirit, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” That is when we died with Him, separated as sinners with Him, the perfect sacrifice.

 

Then we rose as new creations, when He arose. This is how God now views us; perfect, seated already in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are in Jesus forever and be sure there is no sin in Jesus. We can celebrate this wonderful deliverance from sin and death every day and be strengthened by the joy of our salvation for the on-going battle against indwelling sin. Remember Paul when describing the battle between the new and old natures within every believer, states twice in Romans 7 it is not the “real” me, the “new me” that sins.

(Romans 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Romans 7:20: Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me.)

So the Apostle Paul, with the precision of a skilled surgeon, uses the Word of God to teach the security and blessedness of all God’s justified children. Yet he leaves room for the operation of the Spirit of God to teach us the further truths of sanctification. Let us arm ourselves with truth for winning the inner battle to the glory of God

Heaven: It's Not for Everyone

Heaven Is Not For Everyone

The general assumption in America seems to be that everyone will go to Heaven when they die. Some profess to not care where they go, even if it’s Hell. Still others insist this life is it, and death ends everything.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said all should strive to enter into Heaven. Yet, amazingly, He also said that many would want to enter but would be denied access!

And Jesus said to them, 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”
How can it be many will want to be saved, and yet will be rejected? Three reasons…because:

1. Many do not realize the “narrow gate” is Jesus Himself. He stated in John 10:9: “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” The “narrow” description points to trust in Him alone for salvation, nothing else. This same truth is repeated by Christ in John 14:6: Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." Only Christ’s blood can remove our sin in the Father’s sight.

2. Many will not strive to enter in until it is too late. Jesus pointed this out when He said, “When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open for us,’ and He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know you, where you are from.”

God’s timetable for this world is right on schedule and will soon culminate in the return of Christ. It will be too late then to seek salvation. The Bible consistently urges all sinners to flee from the wrath to come…now! Flee to the arms of Jesus, who bore the penalty for our sins and has risen again to give us a sure hope of Heaven here and now. The door (Jesus) is open now but will close at any moment.

3. Many will strive to enter in the wrong way. Instead of trusting Jesus Christ, they will trust their own understanding of things. Or perhaps they will trust their church, their philosophy, or their own self-righteousness. Of these Christ says they are not only denied access to Heaven, they have also been “workers of iniquity”! This because everyone is a preacher/teacher by influencing others. To teach others to trust something or someone other than the Son of God for salvation, is to be antichrist, intentionally or unintentionally.

Jesus described the reactions of those excluded from His Kingdom at the last day when the door is closed.

"then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ 27 But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’ 28

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves thrust out. 29 They will come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and sit down in the kingdom of God."

Anyone not trusting Jesus Christ as the Son of God, His atoning death, and bodily resurrection will be “thrust out of the Kingdom”. Some will weep bitter tears of regret while others will gnash their teeth in frustration that their assumptions about spiritual matters were so wrong. God’s truth will prevail and His Son will be exalted in all the earth. If you are not saved (in right relationship with God through Christ) the Bible urges you to realize today is the day of salvation. You can believe on Christ and receive eternal life here and now.

The Bible plainly states; “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13 For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” Romans 10:9-13

Call on Christ today and be saved today… as no one is promised tomorrow.

Except for the Romans passage, all other scripture references are from Luke 13 (NKJV)