Live for Christ Today

Peter motivates his readers to pursue godliness and holiness by reminding them that the world’s enticing temptations are a part of a value system that God has promised to destroy. He poignantly describes the complete decimation of the current order of things. “The day of the Lord will come” he writes, “like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved” (2 Peter 3:10). Because the present world is the source of endless distractions and sinful enticements that assault our devotion to Christ, Peter calls us to remember what endures. What we do for God will last. How we invest our hours in Christ’s agenda will have a transcendent worth. “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved,” Peter goes on to ask, “what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” (2 Peter 3:11). Clearly it makes no sense to dabble in the world’s agenda and imbibe in the passing pleasures of sin. Every sinful impulse that is denied and every idolatrous path that is forsaken will yield eternal dividends and be pondered from the next world as a small sacrifice in such an advantageous investment. You can be sure that one day soon this world will be gone and “the time for rewarding God’s servants will come” (Revelation 11:18). So remember what lasts and live a godly life for Christ today.

For more sermons and devotionals on living for Christ daily, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Unbiblical Thoughts

To grow in our understanding of God and the Christian life requires that we leave behind wrong ideas about God and the Christian life. This may be a self-evident observation, but it’s one we need to think about more often. When we gain a more accurate knowledge of God or his word, we need to purposefully and willingly abandon our previous, inaccurate knowledge. And that is not always as easy as it sounds. We can unconsciously acquire a liking of our aberrant views of God. They can serve us and our sinful tendencies well. Wrong thoughts of God and the Christian life can allow us to cling to comfortable, familiar, yet defective “doctrines” which allow us more latitude in holding onto to the habits and lifestyles we enjoy. Forsaking inadequate or immature views of God’s word can cost us in a variety of practical ways, but as students of God and the Scriptures we must decide ahead of time whether we love the truth or our preferred understanding of the truth. I pray that it is our resolve to willingly suffer the periodic discomfort of exchanging cozy ideas about how we would like things to be, for a more precise understanding of the way things actually are. Decide to let your life “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” as you study God’s word always being ready to renounce every unbiblical thought or inferior idea (Romans12:2).

For more sermons and devotionals on unbiblical thoughts, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Compartmentalization

It is easy to compartmentalize our lives. While sitting in church we can approvingly nod at the biblical lessons that call Christ’s followers to sacrifice, deny themselves, and leave behind earthly pleasures to store up treasure in heaven. But come Monday morning when self-denial has a quantifiable price tag, nods at ancient principles are often replaced with rationalizations regarding the impracticality of letting go of some very concrete and preferred realities. We must be bold to call ourselves out on our own hypocrisy. We dare not applaud the Abrahams, Daniels, and Stephens of the Bible when we won’t willingly risk our own monetary advantage, or sacrifice something of our social status or corporate “success” for Christ’s glory or the advancement of God’s kingdom. Thinking clearly about how each biblical principle might practically be applied in our everyday lives will make Bible study an entirely different experience and will inject a kind of sobriety that is due the eternal and timeless commands of God’s authoritative word. So let’s go ahead and affirm the truth of every biblical sermon, while always being ready to put it all into practice regardless of what it may cost.

For more sermons and devotionals on following Christ no matter the cost, please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Real Trust

Trust in God is often expressed by our restraint. We are expected to recognize that God is present, aware and lovingly involved in every difficult situation we face. It is required that Christians curb many of their “natural” responses, and learn to patiently, and often quietly, wait for God’s resolution. Of course there are times he calls us to stand up, speak out or fight, but more times than we’d prefer, God demands that we slow down, keep quiet, and wait for his intervention. We need to remember that in most cases “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). So the more you consider the character of God and his omnipresent concern for his kids, the more you will be able to sincerely say with the psalmist, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord” and you will gladly heed the call to “wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord” (Psalms 27:13-14).

For more sermons and devotionals on trust please go to the Focal Point Ministries website.

Bible Critics

The Bible has many critics.. Many brash and outspoken people in our society take pleasure in criticizing, maligning and disparaging the Bible – most of them have very little knowledge of what they are attempting to disparage. When I happen to be present to hear such remarks, I am sure to ask some simple questions regarding how much of the Bible these critics have actually read, or if they can tell me why there are two “Testaments,” or any number of orienting questions which are usually quick to reveal how little familiarity these detractors actually have regarding the content of the Scriptures. It’s not that I am asserting some Gnostic ideology that only a few enlightened initiates could possibly understand the Bible, it’s just I find that most hecklers have never fairly considered the book they so vehemently belittle. I can only imagine the outcry were I to take the same approach and scornfully dismiss their favorite novel, movie or sports team with a similar lack of familiarity concerning what I am disdaining. What would they do if I were to definitively criticize their job, industry, or family without any real knowledge of what I was talking about? They certainly wouldn’t take any of it to heart. And neither should we. Occasionally we encounter thoughtful concerns regarding the Bible’s validity which warrant our consideration, but we can be sure that most of the time the critics are clueless.

Communion

Examining yourself before communion...

The Bible tells us that we need to take a good, long look at what is going on in our hearts when we partake in the Lord’s Supper. “Let a person examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup,” Paul told the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 11:28). In Corinth this intended act of “communion” with the Lord had become a thoughtless and even selfish church ritual. Their minds had clearly shifted from Christ’s substitutionary sacrifice and had wandered elsewhere. We must not ever let that happen to us. We must stay mentally engaged when we partake of these elements. They have been ordained to soberly remind us of the high cost of God’s forgiveness (1 Peter 1:18-19). Eating and drinking them vividly depicts our union and solidarity with Christ as our Savior, Lord and Source of spiritual life (1 Corinthians 10:16). We should also take the time to examine ourselves to ensure that our relationship with Christ is authentic and genuine. Not only recalling the inauguration of our relationship with Christ, but also seeking to discover if there is any unconfessed sin impeding our current fellowship with God (1 John 1:6-9). Lastly, we would be remiss to ingest these symbols of Christ without a heart that is purposefully thankful. Paradoxically, the Lord’s Supper is not only a reminder of his brutal death, but it is also a celebration of the incredibly generous grace of God and the invaluable privilege of being forgiven. Partake with a grateful heart that can say along with generations of Christians, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

Praying Well

We may imagine it an easy thing to pray a simple prayer. But it turns out to be an incredible challenge to pray often and pray well. Even so, God calls his people to a kind of continual and thoughtful communication that saturates every area of life. We are told to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), which will obviously necessitate an outlook that never forgets that we live each hour in God’s presence. It requires that we consciously affirm his attendance in all the activities of our day. It will take a level of mental and spiritual discipline to turn our thoughts and our words to our ever-present Help in all the tasks we are given to do. Likewise, any success at focused and undistracted prayer will require a kind of spiritual tenacity that is able to say “no” to other people and other things so that we can truly pour out our hearts to God (Matthew 26:36-46). Good and effective praying will also rely on a conscious shift from the trivial to the profound, from temporal things to things that will matter a thousand years from now. So be reminded of the importance of good praying. And don’t be surprised if it doesn’t come easy. Give yourself to prayer and know that these efforts foster a divine intimacy and a connection that far exceeds all the effort and sacrifice that prayer requires.