Bearing Real Fruit

Jesus said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). That kind of straightforward evaluation should not only be applied to “them,” but also to us. In the upper room, not long before his crucifixion, Jesus told his twelve apostles, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8). At that time, you’ll remember, one of the Twelve was secretly conspiring to betray Christ, cashing in his association with the Messiah for thirty pieces of silver. Judas wasn’t intent on bearing “much fruit,” instead he was busy keeping up appearances while working out his own selfish agenda. All too often people who associate with the church are adamant about publically “professing to know God,” while privately “denying him by their deeds” (Titus 1:16). Of course, no Christian has achieved sinlessness (1 John 1:8; James 3:2; Ecclesiastes 7:20), but we need to be honest with ourselves—fairly comparing our claims to follow Christ with an actual pattern of following him (2 Corinthians 13:5; 1 John 3:2-10). Genuine Christianity transforms lives (2 Corinthians 5:17). The indwelling Holy Spirit always conditions real disciples to repudiate hypocrisy, driving them to pursue the kind of bona fide fruit-bearing that demonstrates the reality of their faith.

For more sermons and devotionals on Bearing Real Fruit, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org. 

The God Who Is

God, by definition, is “Almighty.” In our desire to “humanize” God and relate to the softer and gentler side of Deity we often lose sight of the fact that the God who actually exists is a God who possesses all authority, all power, and all dominion. He is a Being who is unchallenged in his rank, sovereignty, and supremacy. He speaks things into existence, and at will chooses things to come to an end. There are times in life when we sense the profundity of this core truth with fresh insight—usually in some circumstance when we’ve reached the end of our own strength. Hannah, for instance, facing her own inability and experiencing God’s sovereign power over her reproductive life exhorts her generation: “Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth… The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts” (1 Samuel 3:3, 6-7). Don’t wait for some crisis or trial to sharpen your focus on the God who is. As the psalmist wrote, “Let the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm… Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. For our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you” (Psalm 33:8-9, Psalm 20-22).

For more sermons and devotionals on The God Who Is, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org. 

Life's Detours

We all experience life’s detours—those unexpected twists and turns which disappoint and frustrate us because they’ve disrupted our well-laid plans. When the next one comes our way, let’s be careful how we respond. If the disappointment turns into anger and bitterness, then we know we’ve clearly lost sight of one of the central tenets of biblical Christianity—namely, that God is sovereign. Of course this is not some kind of fatalism that gives us license to rejoice in our failures or the sins that others commit against us. God’s sovereignty doesn’t preclude the fact that sin is sin and worthy of our regret and repentance. But it should keep us from wallowing in our hurt and becoming disgruntled when circumstances beyond our control take us down an unforeseen path that lands us in a place we didn’t want to go. In part because none of it was “unforeseen” to the God who loves us, and more importantly, because the “twists and turns”, we are told, are all a part of his wise plan to accomplish with our lives something better than our well-laid plans ever could (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28; Psalm 119:71; Proverbs 19:21; Acts 2:23-24; etc.). So let’s trust in our sovereign God and get over our disappointment quickly. He is working out a plan that will glorify himself, and will be good for us in the long run.

For more sermons and devotionals on Life's Detours, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org.  

Fear of God

Here is one of the most simple, yet most serious warnings found in the Bible: “God is opposed to the proud” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The last thing we as God’s children should want is to dabble in the archetypal sin that was the initial cause of all the rebellion and corruption in the universe (Ezekiel 28:14-17). We are shown in God’s word that pride’s antithesis and remedy is the fear of the Lord (Romans 11:20; Jeremiah 44:10; Proverbs 8:13). For those who have repented of their sins and put their trust in Christ this fear is not the kind that dreads the punishment of hell (1 John 4:16-18). Instead, the fear of God that is considered a virtue in Scripture is a kind of humble awareness that our merciful Savior is also our omnipotent and omniscient Father—who will one day call us to give an account for our stewardship (1 Peter 1:16-17; 2 Corinthians 5:10-11; Romans 14:12). Because the idea of “fear” doesn’t harmonize well with the popular misconceptions of a domesticated god, many dismiss this essential virtue and important safeguard, thinking that it couldn’t possibly coexist with their quest to love God. But the truth is that “the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him” (Psalm 25:14), and any true knowledge of God is impossible to attain without it (Proverbs 9:10). So let us fight the subtle temptations to arrogance, pride, and self-promotion by humbly drawing near to God as we learn the fear of the Lord.

For more sermons and devotionals on Fear of God, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website at www.focalpointministries.org.