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An Observation on Sin

by JacobUncategorized

Sin is – and always has been – a major topic in Christian theology. In fact, sin is the reason why Jesus had to come and give His life. Sin is what nailed Him to the cross. And sin is what consigns a person to an eternity of punishment, unless he turns to Christ to be saved.

Sin plays a central role in the lives of human beings.

Every human being is touched by sin, and the entire world – all of the seas, landmasses, trees, animals, and plants – lives on in an imperfect and fallen state brought about by the sin of Adam and Eve. Sin forms a motif, a repeating theme, which weaves its dark and calamitous music throughout the threads of time. It is present everywhere you look. Read the pages of history, and you’re reading an account which involves sin. Look at the headlines on the newspaper, and you can bet that sin is involved somehow.

So far as we are concerned, sin is an inevitable part of the world, though it is vitally important to remember that followers of Christ are set free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2). Sin permeates the world, but Christ is able to overcome sin, and He delivers those who follow Him from sin. That doesn’t mean that Christ followers can attain sinless perfection in this life, but it does mean that Christ fundamentally transforms the relationship of His followers with their sin.

But this reading isn’t intended to fully explore the role of sin in a Christian’s life – though maybe I’ll write a post on that sometime in the future. Instead, I just want to offer a simple observation on sin.

What is Sin, Really?

Sin gets talked about often. But what is it?

The most straightforward definition of sin would be this: sin is anything that displeases or disobeys God. To put it Biblically, we can say that sin is anything that does not originate from faith in God (Romans 14:23). Sin is also a ‘falling short’ of God’s glory (Romans 3:23).

So sin can be anything. It doesn’t have to be the act of stealing, intentionally hurting someone, lying, or cheating. Sin can be simply wanting things your way. It can be laziness, gossip, or any other form of selfishness. It can be a casual disregarding of an important task. Even decisions that look ‘Godly’ on the surface – if not made in faith – can be sin.

Sin is what happens when we don’t measure up to God’s standard.

Perhaps this is why, in Isaiah 64:6, it is written “…all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Even so-called “righteous” acts – giving money, giving up your time, or helping others – are polluted if they do not come from a place of faith in the Lord. Does this mean that these are bad things? No. But it does mean that, unless coming from faith, these things too are ‘polluted garments’ – or, in other words, still sin.

Indeed, sin doesn’t have to ‘look like’ sin. It can be anywhere and everywhere. It can take virtually any form. Once again, sin is a ‘falling short’ of God’s glory. And we fall short – yes, even Christians – of this lofty goal all the time.

But if we peel back the layers a bit further, I think we can make another observation about sin.

In addition to being a failure to measure up to God’s standards, sin is also often a twisting – a deviation, or perversion, if you will – of what God has declared good.

Think about it.

What is the most famous sin in the Bible? While this is a rather subjective question, I think that infamous title may well go to the sin that started it all: the sin of Adam and Eve.

Sin: a Twisting of What is Good

In addition to being a failure to measure up to God’s standards, sin is also often a twisting – a deviation, or perversion, if you will – of what God has declared good.

In Genesis 2, God laid boundaries. He said (speaking to Adam), “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:16-17, ESV)”

In other words, God told Adam that he could have anything he wanted from the garden, but he could not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Why? Because eating from that tree would certainly result in Adam’s death. Clearly, God deemed the act of eating from trees in the garden to be a good thing – after all, He permitted it. But God set a boundary and said, “It is NOT good that you would eat from this one particular tree.”

God was implicitly declaring that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a twisting of a good thing. It was a falling short of His design and His standard. And for Adam to fall short of this design would be to bring death upon himself.

Now, as we all know, Adam and Even wouldn’t stay sin-free for very long.

In Genesis 3, the serpent (whom most scholars agree to be Satan) deceived Adam and Eve into eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Listen to the serpent’s words:

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:1-6, ESV)

Note: the serpent’s (Satan’s) lines are bolded for emphasis and ease of reading.

Not only was this the first sin, but it was also the first temptation. Something deep within Eve (and Adam, for that matter) wanted to eat of the forbidden tree. God declared something off-limits, and when Satan showed up, the first thing he did was speak to this dark desire within Adam and Eve’s hearts. There was a desire to disobey God, and to turn a good thing – eating fruit from a tree – into a sinful thing (disobeying God’s directives).

In other words, this was a twisting of good.

Most of us know what happened after Adam and Eve ate of the tree. God came into the garden, pronounced curses on Adam, Eve, and the serpent, and then fashioned clothing for Adam and Eve before sending them out of the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve took a good thing – eating fruit – and then twisted this good thing into a disobedience of God. It wasn’t the act of eating that condemned them; it was the act of going against God’s design.

How This Plays Out in Our Lives

You can think of sin as a deviation (or twisting away) from God’s design. God creates a good thing, but then the lies of Satan and of the fallen world come into play and twist our behavior into sin.

Have you ever heard a saying that goes something like, “The most dangerous lie is the one that is closest to truth?” Take a moment to ponder this statement. A good liar is skilled at infusing truth with falsehood, balancing the two in such a way that even those with good judgement might be fooled.

In the same way, some of the most dangerous sins are those which do not at first reckoning appear to be sin. Or, at the very least, they may “fly under the radar” so as to be paid little attention to.

For example, much is made today in the Christian community of the sin of lust. And rightly so – lust is a potent sin with the potential to wreck lives and destroy testimonies. We rightly identify lust as a sin that must be run away from. It must be fled from. Lust is a twisting of God’s design for sexuality, and it leads to ruin.

But what about the sin of idleness? Or the sin of self-righteousness? These sins are talked about occasionally, but not as frequently or severely as those of lust or outright hatred. They are certainly not as warned against as the more “grievous” sins.

Yet these sins too damage lives and damage testimonies.

Perhaps worst of all, they can – and do – damage our relationship with the Lord. Sin is still sin, and the consequence of all sin is brokenness. Think back to our earlier example of the fall of Adam and Eve. The simple sin of eating from a tree which God placed off-limits was enough to poison countless billions of human beings with sin. The sacrifice of Christ was necessary because Adam and Eve disobeyed God.

One sin would have prompted the need for Christ’s atonement. One sin – whether the sin of murder or that of telling a simple white lie – is enough to mark a person for God’s condemnation, and thus put him or her in need of the sacrifice of Jesus.

Sin swims about in all forms in this world, and we must be wary of all of it. From the most grievous and public sins to the most hidden and “light” sins, Christians are called to live crucified lives and to take up their crosses daily (Luke 9:23). Some of the most difficult to spot and difficult to deal with sins are those which are a simple twisting of a good thing.

Wrapping Up

Christians are called to walk in the light, as we read in 1 John 1:7. To walk in the light requires a holding fast to Jesus Christ, a clinging to Him and a fleeing from sin. It requires a rejection of counterfeit things and an embrace of God’s way of life.

Indeed, God has a design for all things. He has a design for our relationships, our words, our lifestyle, and the way we conduct ourselves. And the only way to truly live in His design is to lay down everything we are to follow Jesus.

Apart from submission to the Lord, we will embrace a twisted version of what God has declared good. If we do not walk with Him in fellowship, we will not follow Him with our lives.

Practically speaking, what does this look like?

Avoid Sin by Reading God’s Word

First and foremost, if we want to embrace God’s design (rather than chase the counterfeits of this world), we will need to read His Word regularly. The Scriptures provide the mind and counsel of God, and we must anchor ourselves there. In 1 John 4, we read, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1, ESV).”

This passage was written to a group of early Christians struggling with false teachers who preached a distorted Gospel. The Gospel they preached was a derivation, a falling short, of the true Gospel.

In the same way, sin is a distortion of God’s design. So how should we keep ourselves from it? We must test our hearts and our desires with the standards of Scripture. Only by focusing our lives through the lens of God’s Word can we expect to live in a way that is pleasing to Him.

Avoid Sin by Being in Community

In addition to saturating ourselves in the words of Scripture, we ought to also surround ourselves with Godly community. Throughout the New Testament, God’s people are likened to sheep and spoken of as a “flock.” When one of the sheep wonders off, it is in great danger. Sheep outside the flock and removed from the protection of the shepherd are extremely vulnerable to attacks and accidents.

Similarly, Christians who aren’t participating in Godly community find themselves especially vulnerable to sin. This is especially true for those who aren’t only outside of community, but outside the care of a ‘shepherd.’

As Christians, we’re all under the care of Jesus, but God also places earthly ‘under shepherds’ – that is, pastors and elders – to care for us and disciple us. These people are placed in our lives to guide, teach, and oversee our spiritual development. They are there to instruct is in the way of God, to encourage us in doing good, and to bring it to our attention when we sin.

Living within the confines of Christ-loving community helps a person to walk ‘in the light’ and to avoid falling for the counterfeit goods of the world.

Avoid Sin by Being in Prayer

Finally, it is vitally important for a Christian to be in prayer. Prayer is our direct line to God.

I once heard someone say, “Nobody has a direct phone line to the Almighty.” That is simply not true. We can’t talk to God as we would to a person on the telephone, but we do have the ability to communicate directly with Him in prayer. Each and every one of us can intimately connect with the Lord right now, if we turn to Him in heartfelt prayer.

Martin Luther, the famous 16th century theologian who sparked the Protestant Reformation, is believed to have once said, “If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day.” As you can see, prayer is of great importance in our fight against sin and our fight for God’s best.

While you probably don’t need to spend two hours each morning in prayer, you do need to be praying regularly. Scripture tells us to “Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).” Scripture tells us to make prayer the pattern of our life, not just the last resort when things are going south. Christians who spend much time in regular prayer are more joyful and more holy than those who don’t.

Avoid Sin by Focusing on What is Better

As I bring this to a close, I want to make one final observation: that it is worth it to pursue God’s design and to resist sin. As a sinner of 23 years, I understand that the world is tempting. There are things that you want to do that you know are wrong. There are moments spent sweating as you resist the temptation to do things.

When I was in college, I saw people often walking around with shirts on that said “Worth it.” While I don’t know exactly what the meaning of these shirts was, I think I can make a pretty good guess. When someone had this shirt on, he or she basically implied, “I’m a good time. I’m worth it. You may feel shame and dirtiness about what you did with me tomorrow morning, but I assure you… it’s all worth it.”

But guess what? It isn’t worth it. Sin is never worth it. Sin will take you further than you want to go and keep you for longer than you ever wanted to stay. Sin – a twisting of God’s design, a counterfeit of good things – can never satisfy you. It pulls you in and entices you, but it is empty, and ultimately leads only to ruin.

I say these things because – if you’re reading this – I care about you. And I can tell you that sin robs you. It promises pleasure and riches, but robs you and leaves you poorer and more desperate than you were before. It says, “Worth it,” but ultimately kicks you to the curb.

With that in mind, I would submit to you that the costly way of Christ ultimately yields far more joy than the cheap way of sin. Submitting to Christ and saying “no” to yourself is costly – make no mistake. It requires sacrifice. It involves pain. Dying to yourself and your desires is rarely fun, if ever. But just as sin looks great but ends in ruin, sacrificing your life for Christ looks like ruin but brings abundant life.

In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus speaks about the “wide way of destruction” and the “narrow way leading to life.” To be sure, the road to destruction is easy. It’s wide, well-paved, and full of others living what they think to be their best life now. But the narrow way? It’s windy, rough, and thin. There aren’t as many travelers there. Yet in the end, that narrow way leads to life.

Today, I would simply like to end by saying this: yes, the narrow road – the road of self-denial and crucified living – is difficult. It’s painful. But in the end, it is the ultimate “Worth it.”

By choosing the goodness of God over the counterfeit goods of this world, you will be choosing a life of joy and riches in Christ. And in eternity, you will enjoy the fruits of your labors in a way that we cannot imagine so long as we dwell on this world.

God bless.

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Safe Christianity?

by JacobUncategorized

Do you have a “safe Christianity?”

What I mean is this: is your Christianity comfortable? Is it tame? Is it neatly compartmentalized, where your time with God is totally separate from work, school, family, friends, or leisure? Is it risk-averse, where you feel the need to keep it “private,” lest you risk offending anyone?

If you’re like most others – including me – this is an all-too-accurate description of your faith.

This faith is tame, calm, beneath the surface, tucked out of sight, and unlikely to do anything big. It’s that special family heirloom which is placed in a box and then hidden on the top shelf of a closet.

It’s something that could be so powerful, yet we relegate it to be just another facet of our busy lives.

Here in Western civilization, we’ve developed a rather unique brand of the Christian faith over the last hundred years or so.

This is what I’m talking about: we’re obsessed with being comfortable.

If a new church is being built, we haggle over minute details.

How many stalls in the bathroom? Where will the speakers go in the worship center? How many lights in the entrance foyer?

Sometimes, debates such as these can cause splits within the church. It can literally drive people to leave because they didn’t get their way.

In our personal lives, we might consider it “bold” to wear a T-shirt with a cross on it, or to listen to Christian music where someone else may just pass by and hear.

We rarely – if ever – share our faith with others. Even with friends, we often don’t broach the subject.

To do so would risk offending them. And we can’t have that.

But guess what?

This “safe” faith that so many of us possess is not only weak; it’s also not what Jesus wants for us.

Jesus did not come to die on the cross for our redemption just so we could tuck our faith away in a corner and live life like everyone else.

Safe Christianity is not really Christianity.

Safe Christianity is NOT Biblical Christianity

In Revelation, Jesus gives seven messages to the seven primary churches at the time. All of the churches had their problems (the church is composed of fallen humans, after all), but perhaps the strongest-worded message that Jesus gave was to the church in Laodicea. 

I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. [Revelation 3:15-18, ESV]

When I read this passage, I cannot help but think about the current state of the Church in America (and the rest of the Western world).

We are neither hot nor cold!

This is the essence of “safe Christianity.” Safe Christianity is lukewarm. It seeks to keep one foot in the world and another foot in the Kingdom.

Safe Christianity is noncommittal.

It doesn’t take any risks for the glory of God. It doesn’t hold to Christ when things get tough. It doesn’t truly believe that there is power in our faith!

Safe Christianity dwells among the ranks of the prosperous. It especially relishes air-conditioned buildings, comfortable pews, ornate walls, rock concert worship services with bright lights and smoke machines, and preaching that is all talk and no action.

Now, do I mean that churches that have some of these things are necessarily “lukewarm” churches? No! Not at all.

But if your first focus is on the bright lights, good coffee, or emotional preaching, then a little red flag ought to go up.

What I truly intend to say is this:

Safe Christianity will never push you. It will never challenge you. It is a spectator sport. You get to sit there, eat bagels and drink coffee, and watch a performance.

It doesn’t go any deeper than that.

This is NOT Biblical Christianity. Not even close. Safe Christianity – which is, I daresay, the largest faction of Christianity in America today – is not what Jesus has in mind for us.

It’s neither hot nor cold. It exists among the ranks of the prosperous, those who are more concerned with their bank accounts than with doing the will of God.

It turns church into little more than a social club, something that you just “do” because it’s the “right thing to do.”

Does this sound like your faith? As I look in the mirror, I realize that this sounds an awful lot like my faith.

I have a lot of growing to do, and so do you!

True Faith: What Jesus Wants From Us (and For Us!)

We’ve already talked about the un-Biblical nature of “safe Christianity.” But what does real faith look like?

It’s simple: real faith will throw in with Christ!

What do I mean by this? Real faith is all about following Jesus and joining forces with Him. It’s about following Him no matter where He leads us.

Real faith risks a lot. It risks friendships, job security, and safety. It risks offending others.

Real faith compels you to share your resources generously with those around you. It compels you to put your time, money, effort, wisdom, and gifts to good use.

It compels you to give up your very life for the sake of Jesus. It compels you to die to yourself.

When you commit your life to Jesus Christ – when you become a disciple of His – you are signing away ALL of your rights, privileges, resources, and freedoms.

It’s true. You are giving everything you have to Him.

He died on the cross to save you and redeem you. The Bible tells us that He literally “purchased” us. He bought us.

We’re His. Everything we are is His.

This is not safe, is it?

Think about it. Is it safe to give complete control of your entire life to someone else?

No. In fact, giving your life to someone else is complete foolishness.

Unless that “someone” is Jesus Christ.

As it turns out, giving your entire life to Christ is the single most logical and rational thing that anyone could ever do. You see, this entire world is passing away. In 70 or 80 years, it’s very likely that both you and I will be dead.

Everything we’ve ever worked for – money, power, influence, fame, relationships, etc. – will be gone.

In 200 years, it’s likely that nobody will remember who we even were.

Without Jesus, we will NOT make an eternal impact. Our safe Christianity would tell us, “Keep one foot in the world! Work to make money, to gain power, to show others who you are. Go to church, study the Bible, but make sure that you’re prioritizing you over everything else. Don’t risk anything! Don’t share your faith; stay in your lane.”

Such a line of thinking may seem reasonable, but it’s foolish.

If you keep to comfort, to money, to achievement, you won’t do anything of real eternal significance. But if you yield all you are to all Jesus is, you will. He guarantees it.

It may sound “dangerous” to go all-in with Christ, and it is. It may (and probably will) cost you friendships, promotions, comfort, and an easy life.

But it’s worth it. To do otherwise is to follow a worthless path.

Jesus wants us to be on fire for Him. He wants us out there in the thick of things, winning souls and leading others to Him. He wants us to make disciples of all people. He wants to leverage our resources, skills, strengths, and even weaknesses for His higher purposes.

He wants us to live in radical obedience to Him, even obedience to the point of death.

That is the type of faith Jesus wants from us. And it’s the type of faith He wants for us.

You see, when you’re living life dangerously and “on mission” (and all of us should be), you will be blessed by Him in ways you never would have thought possible.

Your fellowship with the Creator of the universe will be sweeter than you ever thought possible. Your bond with other true Believers will be deeper than you ever felt before.

Safe Christianity has little risk and no reward.

True Christianity has high risk, but with infinite reward.

Today, dear Believer, I challenge you to do this: commit your life fully and totally to Jesus Christ. Throw yourself at Him. Instead of seeking comfort, seek Him. Instead of seeking to have one foot in the world and one foot in the Kingdom, hop over entirely to the Kingdom and seek Him.

Be radical in your faith and obedience to Jesus.

It will cost you much – in fact, it will cost you everything – but you will gain so much more than you lost.

God bless!

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A License to Sin?

by JacobUncategorized

Some say that God’s grace gives us a license to sin. But this is not only incorrect, it’s perilous to us in our walk with Jesus.

The body of believers, since the time of the Apostles, has been beset by heresies. Paul knew this as well as anyone, and he repeatedly wrote staunch warnings against false teachings. He wanted to make sure that those who truly followed Christ stayed true to their faith and did not stumble in the wind.

Yes, even in those days; those old days when travel between towns could take days or even weeks, false doctrine and heretical beliefs spread like wildfire and threatened to corrupt a person’s faith in the risen Christ.

Today, this effect is ever the more potent.

In the modern day, ideas can circle the globe instantly. As I write this, it occurs to me that people from other continents may read this – and they may read it just minutes or hours after I post it.

A thousand years ago, a message may have taken months to make it from one side of a continent to another, if it made it at all.

But now, ideas spread instantly and effortlessly. They spread seamlessly. Can this be a great thing? Absolutely! Can it be used to help people, build the Kingdom of God, and do great works for Him?

Absolutely. That’s why I blog 🙂

Yet this vast internet of information, this vehicle for transmitting ideas, thoughts, and calls to action, can be dangerous. It can lead to the spreading of heresies and false doctrine.

These false doctrines have one lasting outcome: they damage the faith of the person who believes them.

But I’m not here today to discuss how false doctrine or heretical teachings spread. I’m not writing to discuss strategies for fighting them. Rather, I’m here to single out and analyze one particular heresy that is extraordinarily popular in today’s evangelical scene.

And that heresy, quite simply, is this – that the grace given to us through Christ can serve as a license for sin.

This is a destructive doctrine. It is as far removed from Scripture as you can get. It is poisonous. It ruins lives. It damages faith. I believed it once – more recently than I’d like to admit, in fact – and looking back, I realize just how destructive it is to true, genuine faith in the risen Lord.

Nothing good comes from it. It promises a life of ease, but yields only pain, heartache, and brokenness.

What Makes it So Dangerous?

One of the biggest ways that this “doctrine” is so dangerous lies in its deceptive power.

Think about it.

We know the following things as Christians:

  1. We are all sinners in need of a Savior (Rom. 3:23)
  2. Jesus Christ came and died for the forgiveness of sins (John 3:16, Rom. 10:9, 2 Cor. 5:15, etc.)
  3. If we believe in Him and call unto Him for salvation, He will save us because He cannot be unfaithful to His own. (2 Tim 2:13)

To the mature or passionate believer, these facts are reason for immense celebration. They look upon their Lord with love and with great respect. They have been forgiven much, and because of their thankfulness to God, the thought of sinning simply “because it’s covered by the blood and will be forgiven” is offensive to them.

But it’s not the same way with everyone.

For immature believers, or those who may only believe that they’re believers, these facts can be interpreted as a license for sin. I’ve heard it many times in my own life, and furthermore, I’ve heard it most often from the youth – “Well, I can sin because Christ forgives me. I’m covered.”

They take their limited understandings of the doctrine of grace and they twist it to their own selfish ends.

They are using logic to make the assumption: since I’m a sinner, and since Christ died for all sins, then all I must do is believe in Him and confess Him with my words, and I will be saved from my sins. This means I can sin as much as I want, in any way I want, and Christ will still forgive me and I’ll go to Heaven.

Yes, to the immature Christian, this is logical. It makes perfect sense. That’s what’s so dangerous about this belief – it makes perfect sense unless you’ve really thought it through and walked in the faith a while.

It makes perfect sense, but it’s a trap. And a devastatingly tricky trap at that.

The Consequences of This Belief

Up until now, we’ve discussed how this belief works. It’s dangerous because it’s tricky. It’s dangerous because it’s deceptive. But why? If one is caught in this big snare, what makes it so bad?

The main reason is in the damage it does to the sinner’s conscience.

You see, we’re all born with a God-given conscience, or internal moral compass. Every human has one, whether they’re born into a Christian culture, a Muslim culture, a Hindu culture, or an atheistic culture.

In fact, if you travelled around the world throughout history, you’d find that the majority of cultures would have some sort of prohibition against killing others. You’d find prohibitions against rape, against violence, against taking advantage of people, and much more.

All human societies throughout history have had morality, and the morality has been – barring some differences – quite similar.

Now, returning to the notion of the built-in conscience, one of the biggest things that a person must realize is that he/she is a sinner in need of a savior. And your conscience, your sensitivity to sin, is what helps you to see this. This is why Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:23).

Notice the use of the word repent here. To repent is to change over, to confess and forsake, to be willing to leave something behind.

Repentance requires a person to see their sins, recognize them as bad, and then be willing to forsake their sins and turn to a new way of life – namely, the life Jesus calls them to.

However, note also that Jesus says another curious thing in that passage: “I have not come to call the righteous…” I must admit that when I read that verse for the first time, I was left in confusion.

After all, Romans 3:10 tells us, “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one.” For the longest time, it didn’t make sense to me. But then, after some examination, it suddenly made perfect sense.

What Christ is talking about here is the difference between those who acknowledge and see the nature of their sins, and those who do not.

When Jesus walked the earth, His greatest opponents were the Pharisees. You’d have expected that those who would oppose Him most would have been non-Jews. Perhaps the Romans, or maybe some other faction of society, one would think.

But instead, it was those who claimed to be God’s own people.

They claimed to be of the Lord, but when Christ commanded them to repent, they refused. They called the Son of God a madman. They were “righteous” only insofar as they trusted and believed in their own abilities to save and distinguish them.

They did not recognize their own need for a savior because they thought themselves above such a thing. Hence, Jesus essentially said, “I have not come to call those who will not listen, but rather, those who do and can listen.”

Now, we’ll take this very concept and circle back to the concept of “the license for sin.”

You see, those Pharisees had hardened their hearts. They had dulled their consciences. You can harden your heart against God. That’s not popular to say in today’s world, but it’s true.

Contrary to what popular evangelicalism will tell you, words alone cannot save you. A profession of faith alone cannot save you. It can’t save you unless you’ve got the intention and heart behind it. God knows those who are truly His, and He also sees those who are just mixed in with the flock but don’t truly want Him.

For the one who sins because he “knows Christ will cover it,” there is grave danger.

There is a point at which a person will stop caring. There is a time when, after enough intentional, willful sinning, a person can harden their heart beyond repentance. They will essentially become a Pharisee.

They believed in the idea of grace, and they claimed to believe in the Son of God, but they simply used it as an insurance policy while they did everything they wanted to do.

They treated the grace of God as a cheap thing for so long, in such a hideous way, that they moved themselves beyond the ability to repent and forsake their sins in a turn to Christ.

Yes, it can happen. And if a person keeps on sinning, if he keeps on cheapening the grace of God to cover selfish desires, then there might come a day when repentance is impossible.

This is a scary message, but it’s truth. Yet there is GOOD news!

Finding Freedom From Sin

Does the Bible teach that you can fall away from God and be condemned, even in this life? It’s a tricky issue, but I think the answer is yes.

You CAN sin against, reject, and deny God for so long that you will be unable to come to Him and seek salvation.

But here’s the good news: if the thought of this causes you concern, sadness, or a desire to change from a pattern of sin, then you’re not condemned. Those who have rejected Christ completely and firmly, who have abused His grace repeatedly and feel no sorrow and no desire to change, are in grave danger.

Yet for you – if you feel in your heart that you want to change, if you desire freedom from sin and unity with Christ – there is still all the hope in the world! 2 Peter 3:9 says, 

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

You see, the God of the universe wants you. Go up to any random person on the street, and God wants them. Our Lord is so great that He does not will that any would perish.

If you’re stuck in a lifestyle of sin, this is your call to get out. If you’re slipping into the heretical idea that you can sin as much as you want because God will cover it, you need to repent of this idea. You need to turn from it.

Run from it as you would a dangerous animal.

As you run and turn from your sins, run into the grace of God. Accept His forgiveness with open arms and a willing heart. Hold nothing back within yourself. Commit all you are to Him. Commit your actions, relationships, decisions, life, career, words, and deeds to Him.

He wants all of it. And you will not be sorry for giving it all to Him.

As I mentioned earlier, there was a time when I believed that I could keep on sinning freely, because God’s grace covered it. After I realized that was incorrect and dangerous, I grew fearful that I was beyond saving.

In my anguish, I cried to the Lord out of a desperate heart.

He came in.

He came to allay my fears and correct my wayward heart. He taught me the importance of seeing Him as the all-sufficient God, of counting Him as my highest treasure for all time.

This has been a journey, and I’m still in the middle of it, but each day I can see His mercies fresh and new.

Brother, sister, it is my prayer today that you’ll seek the Lord. It’s my prayer that you will turn to Him with a heart of genuineness. And if you feel as though you’ve gone too far, pray to Him. Pray to Him with all you have in you. Cry out to Him.

Go to your knees and weep.

If you call to Him out of a genuine desire to be reconciled to Him, He will be faithful to show you the way. He will restore you.

A bruised reed and a smoldering wick He will not put out.

He will disciple you, lead you, and show you the true path to life in Him. He loves you, and He wants your heart above all things. He is not willing that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance.

Please, repent today. Repent while you’ve still got life in you, and awake from your spiritual slumber.

Repent, because His mercy, while great, will someday run out. Run to Him, and run to Him with everything you have.

Your God awaits you with great love and great mercy.

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The Greatest Things

by JacobUncategorized

Even the greatest things in this world are nothing compared to Him. We live for our Savior, and as we live, we partake in His providence and His glory. We live by Him, for Him, and because of Him. He is our light, our sole shelter, our shepherd on high. He laid down His life for us that we might be free from sin and death.

Yet even then, sin still taints this world. Everything we do, we do in fallen, imperfect bodies. Every thought we think, big or small, is in some way still influenced by the curse of sin on the human race.

All those people we interact with on a daily basis – they’re all damaged beings living in a damaged world. All those good works we do are still tainted. In fact, it is said (in Isaiah 64:6) that our best works are no more than filthy rags to Him.

We are corrupted to such a great degree that, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Belief, trust, surrender to the Lord… that is the only thing that God can credit to us as righteousness.

Indeed, we have a Savior who loves us more than we could ever imagine. We have a perfect, clean, faultless Lord who came and died for the very people who had turned their backs on Him in the greatest cosmic outrage the universe has ever borne witness to.

Yes, through Him, we enjoy and see the blessings of Christ on this side of the great divide. He has redeemed us, and we are free! We are liberated from sin. We are still sinful, still broken, still fallen… but redeemed. Loved. Freed.

Alive.

Now this same God who loved us and loves us to this day, well, His main residence isn’t even down here. It’s in Heaven. We feel Him, we interact with Him, and we love Him while we’re here. We grow in Him. He is a father, and we follow our Father’s leading.

But I must ask – if our Father is giving us all we need in this utterly broken world, what will it be like on the other side? What will it be like when we breathe our last and our spirit passes from the body to the heavenly realm? Surely, I do not know.

I cannot imagine. I cannot comprehend. I cannot do enough to describe God’s infinite mercy as it appears in this present age. Oh, how could I possibly describe Him in all His fullness? I could spend my entire life preaching just one message – the infinite love of God – and I would be no closer to fully conveying the true nature of His love on my final day than on my first.

His love is endless. It’s wholly sincere. It’s entirely real, the most real thing there is. He is love! He is fully good, and in Him is no darkness at all.

Yes, we see Him now in part. We see Him in the skies and in the sunsets. We enjoy Him in the Word and in the Church. We interact with Him through prayer, through listening, through the quiet longings of our hearts. We watch the thunderstorms roll across the land in a roaring display of His power.

But all that – well – it’s like reading just one sentence about the Lord who could fill a hundred billion volumes and still have room for a hundred billion more. All we can read now is that one sentence, but in the next life, perhaps we will get access to those other volumes.

Paul Washer, an evangelist and preacher, once said, “Heaven will be an infinite tracking down of the glories of God.”

What a profound statement! All these things we have now – fellowship, friendship, love, family, marriage, and so forth – are intended to manifest the glory of the Creator. But these are only the very beginning! What greater glory is to be revealed in Heaven; how much more shall we come to appreciate our Father there? We have great gifts now, but then… wow.

Yes, in this world, it is necessary to be thankful for all we have. Do you have a spouse? Thank the Lord. Do you have a career? Thank Him. How about friends, a place to live, or the ability to think and reason? Praise God.

Every breath we breathe, every friend we meet, every chance we get to pray – it’s entirely there to reveal Him. But these things, why, they’re just the beginning. They constitute the first page in a narrative that stretches to a hundred trillion pages in length and forevermore beyond.

Even the greatest things in this world are nothing compared to Him. He is the treasure, the glory, the all-sufficient Savior of all those who will come unto Him.

Do you know Him? Have you truly made Him the Lord of all you are, Lord of all your life? He is there. He loves you. That infinite God that far outshines even the brightest of earthly gifts… He beckons for you to come unto Him and cast all your cares on Him, because He cares for you.

The Secret to Being Content

by JacobUncategorized

How many times have you felt discontent in your life? I can’t speak for anyone else, but if you’re anything like me, it’s a lot!

When I entered college as a freshman, I was away from home for the first time. All I’d ever known – my friends, my family, my surroundings – were hundreds of miles away. Even though I was making new friends and joining new clubs, I began to grow discontent.

Why did I have to come here? Why can’t I just be back at home with my friends and my family, where everything makes sense?

My pain was made all the more real when I would scroll through Facebook or Instagram and see all the fun that my loved ones were having. There were church events happening that I could not go to. There were hangouts happening that I couldn’t go to.

In those moments, I would hang my head and silently ask myself, “Why do I have it so bad here?”

Now, I’ve always been the type to reach for achievement. For me, getting a college degree wasn’t an option; it was a necessity. I had to have it. For the sake of my own peace in life, I felt like I had to get that degree.

But to get it meant moving away, traveling to a completely different environment and then learning the ropes there. And doing all that for four years, with only occasional breaks to go home (except during summers, that is).

You see, I wanted to enjoy college. I wanted to love what I was doing. I wanted to love going to events, joining campus ministries, and making new friends. I wanted, coveted, desired, and yearned.

But who was I kidding?

I was miserable at college.

At the end of my freshman year, I seriously considered dropping out. I’d gotten into a relationship and it had ended badly. Very badly. That, in conjunction with the feeling that I had just never truly found my footing, focused the pressure upon me to just quit.

Just drop out, go home, and live life there.

But I kept going. I prayed, pleaded, and begged God to give me some form of contentedness.

Yet I heard and felt very little.

‘If I only just had a wife!’ I thought.

‘If I only just had a house here, instead of having to live in this dorm!’

‘If only I was just able to go to college from home.’

My yearnings and pleadings took me well into sophomore year. Despite my prayers, sophomore year was perhaps my toughest year of college. Every day, I pointed my eyes heavenward and pleaded with God to give me the greatest desire of my heart: a wife.

I wanted to be connected. I wanted to feel loved. Yet I felt like I had no friends and no purpose for being at my university. I wanted to be content. I really did.

But guess what?

I wasn’t looking for contentment in the right place. You see, I thought that contentment came from my circumstances and my possessions. As humans, we tend to think that way. There’s even a phrase in our pop culture, “The other man’s grass is always greener.”

We peer over the proverbial fence to see what our neighbors have. They have a spouse, kids, a nice car, a big garden, a beautiful dog, a good job, an easy life. And we want that for ourselves.

If I was to ask you personally what your number one desire was, what would you tell me?

If you’re young, you might desire a significant other. You might desire also to graduate college or to get your first professional job.

If you’re older, maybe you desire more time. Maybe you wish you could go back in time to fix things in your past.

In any regard, there are things throughout our lives that we yearn after and wish we had.

The lonely single man – that was me for a long time – wishes to get married. He wants a wife with everything he is.

The lonely single woman feels as though nothing short of having a husband can make her feel content.

The low-income man yearns for a higher-paying job. If only he were making ten, twenty thousand dollars a year more. Then he could start saving for the future and stop worrying about paying his bills.

But look at the flip side: there are plenty of people in unhappy marriages that wish they weren’t. They look at the young single and think, “What I wouldn’t give for that kind of freedom.” There are lots of rich people who get up every morning and face the monumental task of retaining, growing, and stewarding their wealth. Usually – though certainly not always – being more wealthy comes with more responsibility.

They might look at a person with a lower-paying job and think, “It must be so simple for them.”

Truly, the other man’s grass is always greener. When we place our happiness and joy in our circumstances – our money, our possessions, our location, our job, our health, or even our relationships – we are seeking for contentment in all the wrong places.

The Apostle Paul shows us the right place to look for contentment.

In Philippians 4, we read:

"...I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."
-- Philippians 4:11-13 [ESV]

Now, if anyone had a reason to be discontent, it was Paul. Paul had once lived a life of power and honor. He’d been a member of the Sanhedrin, a body of Jewish elites that inhabited a place of reverence in Jewish society.

But once he became a follower of Christ, he embarked on a life of dangerous missionary work. He was imprisoned many times, beaten many times, and left lonely many times. He had experienced shipwreck, homelessness, stoning, and hunger. Yet look at what he emphasizes here:

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content…

Can you feel the gravity of what he’s writing? Whatever situation he may find himself in, he knows how to be content.

What might constitute a list of situations Paul had been in? Well, he’d been in far worse circumstances than what most of us have ever – or ever will – find ourselves in. It’s one thing to say, “I am content, even though my boyfriend broke up with me.” Or, “Even though I make $25,000 a year less than what I want, I will still content myself in the Lord.”

It’s quite another to say, “I am in prison. My stomach hurts from hunger. My skin itches from lice. Any day now, the jailer might come and kill me. Yet despite all this, I am content. I want for nothing.”

Wow! What a statement! Saying that one has found the way to be content in any circumstance is, on the face of it, a bold statement to make. But it’s all the more bold when we consider who it was coming from.

If Paul can endure all he endured and still be content, what’s stopping you and I from being content? Odds are, we’re not being threatened with execution or stoning or starvation. Odds are good that we probably have enough to meet at least the barebones material needs of our lives.

So if Paul can be content in a Roman prison, why can’t we be content in our lives?

The answer is simple: because we are not looking in the right place!

If Paul had looked to his situations for contentment, he would have ridden a never-ending cycle of boom and bust. When he was well-received by the Church, he would have been happy. But when he was persecuted and thrown in prison for preaching Christ, he would have been unhappy.

He would have yearned to just get out of prison; he would have spent every waking hour focusing on how – if he could just be on the other side of those bars, able to feel the sun and go wherever he wanted – he would be content.

So what is the secret to contentment in ALL circumstances? If it isn’t looking to our circumstances to make us happy, what is it?

Paul gives us that answer, too.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Boom. I know we’ve all seen that verse before. It’s plastered all over shirts and posters and bumper stickers. Usually, it’s overlaid on top of some image of a woman taking a basketball shot or a guy lifting weights.

But these things sell short the promise and weight of this verse. We’ve seen it so many times that our knee-jerk reaction is often, “Yeah, yeah. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Yada yada yada.”

Yet if we stop to really consider and analyze it, we’ll find – hidden in plain sight – nothing less than the secret to being content.

Think about it: I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

The very fact of this verse ought to rock us to our core.

Did you know that there is NOTHING you cannot bear with the help of Jesus Christ? Your debt, your sickness, your divorce, your failings, your bankruptcy, your (fill in the blank) – all of these things are bearable. And not only are they bearable, but you can find contentment in them.

If Paul could be content in Roman prison, you can be content in your situation. If Paul was content even when execution was the fate set before his eyes, then you can be content as well.

I say this not as a pep-talk nor as an admonition. The last – believe me, the last – thing I want to do is to sound like I’m talking down to you. I’m certainly not! Rather, I want you to know that this level of contentment, of freedom, of satisfaction, and of peace is available to you if you are a follower of Jesus.

Even if you’re not a follower of Christ, you can make your decision today – you can choose to turn to Him and follow Him – and He will make this available to you as well.

When we really stop to think about it, this is the true “Prosperity Gospel.” Here in the United States, we have a real problem on our hands as a Church. There are preachers – towering figures, some of whom are very nearly household names – that will claim up and down that God always wants to bless you with better circumstances. Many have called this the “Prosperity Gospel.”

‘He wants to bless you with a mansion, with a car, with a big paycheck, with glowing health,’ they say.

But this is wrong. The true “Prosperity Gospel” is laid out before our eyes right here: I can do all things through him who strengthens me. So, so often, God does not change our circumstances. So, so often, our troubles remain just as real after we’ve prayed, fasted, and sought God earnestly. But they do not need to get the best of us. They do not need to steal our joy.

Believer, we have within us the One who can grant contentment in all things. We have God, our Father, and He is more than capable of strengthening us into contentment.

All we need do is turn to Him in seriousness and trust Him in faith.

Guess what? If you pray to Him but have no intention of receiving His instruction or obeying what He says, then you’re probably going to come up empty. Will He still be with you? Yes. But you will not feel that overriding, all-consuming peace and contentment that comes with a life that is sold-out for the Lord.

Turn to Him.

Turn to Him in full, and trust that He holds you in the palm of His hand. Trust that the Lord of all creation can and will bless you with contentment. Seek after God’s transformation of your mind rather than transformation of your circumstances.

You’ll be surprised at what happens. All of this goes on in your heart, right down at the core of who you are.

Once you’ve fully trusted Him and sold out to Him, the sickness won’t seem quite as scary. Financial woes will seem temporary and earthly. Someday, you know in your heart of hearts, you will be rid of them. Singleness feels less weighty, less lonely. Dark days don’t seem so dark any longer.

Brethren, this is the message that is so often missing in our lives today: that you can be content no matter your circumstances. If you rest in Christ, if you put all you have in Him, you will receive the peace that only He can give. He waits for you to simply shoulder everything onto Him, to turn to Him and to submit fully to Him.

Admittedly, this is not easy. Sometimes, I think it would be easier if God had just handed us a checklist of stuff – a take and bake recipe, if you will – to contentment in all circumstances. But that isn’t how it works.

Instead, it requires effort. It requires doing things that go against what your fleshly instincts tell you to. It requires you to call upon the power of the Holy Spirit and then live in that power. It requires your willingness to obey. It requires long hours of pressing into Him in prayer and in seeking.

But in the end, it is all worth it.

In the end, you will find Christ’s satisfaction, no matter what season of life you might be in.

If you seek Him with all your heart, you will find Him. You will then truly be able to do all things through Him, because He strengthens you. Even if He does not change your circumstances, He promises rest and peace. He promises life.

He promises that He will grant you freedom from the fears of this life, if only you will press hard into Him.

If you do that, you will have found the secret to being content… no matter what.

The Storm Front

by JacobUncategorized

I grew up in the Midwest. In the Midwest, we have all types of weather.

There are heat waves. There are blizzards. There are cold outbreaks that make it so cold your face hurts the second you walk out the front door.

We have thunderstorms, flooding rains, hailstorms, and windstorms. We have tornadoes. And sometimes, we get all of these springtime weather events – the wind, the rain, the hail, the booming thunder – rolled together into one.

Whenever a cold front comes to visit in the spring or summer, you can get a huge line of thunderstorms to form ahead of it. This is called a squall line, and these things can bring some pretty scary weather.

They can bring damaging winds, winds capable of tearing the rooves off of houses. They can bring large hail that ruins crops and smashes windows. They can bring tornadoes, which slice through towns and take out longstanding buildings. They can bring flooding rains, which cause water to flow across streets like a whitewater rapid.

These are some pretty terrifying storms. Yet they often come with their own sort of reward. Before the storm hits, you’re usually suffering beneath the heat and humidity of summer. You walk outside and your forehead starts to sweat within seconds. Nobody wants to work in this type of heat.

But then comes the cold front, which – after an evening of furious thunder and driving rain – changes out that summertime mugginess for the clarity of dry, tranquil weather. It’s not uncommon for the high to hit 95 degrees one day, have severe storms that evening, and then to enjoy weather in the 70s the next day.

As I’ve stepped back to consider this, I have come to realize that this is a portrait of what often goes on in our own lives. We experience the stifling heat building up – the pressures, the conflicts, etc. – and it eventually reaches a point where it becomes practically unbearable. Then the storm front hits and all is washed clean.

We can breathe. We can think. There is release. There is peace.

God has a way of using intense trials to clear our lives of debris.

Before the trial – whatever it may be – we often get our priorities mixed up. We put things ahead of God. We start chasing our own desires, plotting our own paths, and seeking our own will.

Yet God does not intend for us to do life that way. He intends for us to do life His way, which is ultimately the best way. Whether we believe it or not, He has a will for each and every one of us. He has a personal will for each one of us; for you, for me, for everyone who is His child and is called according to His purpose.

God is a God of good gifts and free support. Yet when we start to walk out from underneath His proverbial umbrella, we step out into the rain. We expose ourselves to all sorts of things that might be bad for us.

Case-in-point: I’ve known lots of Christians who have gone through seasons of their lives when they were not walking in God’s will. I am one of them.

In one particular season of my life – a season where I was most assuredly not walking in the will of God – I became involved with sinful behavior that I had no business being involved with. I knew it was wrong. I knew I was disobeying God. But I did it anyway.

Over the weeks and months, I built up guilt and shame. I would cry every time I even thought about God. What I was doing broke my heart, but my flesh pulled harder than my soul. I kept indulging in this sin. I kept disobeying God, running from Him.

And then the storm came.

For a month and a half, I was crushed. The person who I’d done all this sinful stuff with, and who I thought I was in love with, decided to leave me. It came out of nowhere, at least at the time.

One day, she and I were tight.

The next day, she left.

This marked the beginning of a period of crying, seeking the Lord, and searching for answers. It was a time of great repentance. If I could have donned sackcloth and anointed myself with ashes, I would have done so. I was like David after his sin with Bathsheba.

I was crushed.

You see, all that heat and mugginess had crept into my life. It had gotten to the point where I was unable to work, unable to focus, unable to do anything except follow my sinful flesh. But then God called me back to reality. It was a tough break; it meant many days and hours of mourning, tears, repentance, and pain. It was a time of great shame and a feeling of great loss.

But it happened, and once the storm was over, I felt better. I was refreshed. I truly felt at peace and ready to pursue the Lord wholeheartedly once more.

Today, brothers and sisters, I have come to say this: although the storm may be intense, it is often God’s way of bringing peace. It feels uncomfortable, tumultuous, as though your world has been flipped upside down.

Storms are rough. Life gets tough.

But God is with you through it all. And when He brings you out the other side, once the storm clouds have rolled away and the sun has risen on a new day, you may find that it’s easier to breathe and easier to focus.

Do not fear the storm. Trust God in the midst of it, as Paul did when he was imprisoned. Trust God in all things; have faith. Put on His love for you.

He will not lead you astray.

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The Power of God

by JacobUncategorized

God is powerful. I mean really powerful. In fact, the power of God is something that we cannot really comprehend. Just when we think we’ve got some kind of handle on it, something new is revealed and our minds are blown again.

Sometime last spring, I stumbled across what is perhaps, in my opinion, one of the greatest sermons of all time. It was given by a preacher with the name of S.M. Lockridge in the early 1980’s out of Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego, California. I think it’s only an excerpt (click here to listen on YouTube), but it sure is impactful.

Anyway, a major theme that runs through this message is one that I needed – and continue to need – to hear. You see, Lockridge quotes many Bible verses throughout this 14-minute long video. He visits the Old Testament, where he references Psalms and Isaiah. He also visits the New Testament, quoting from Matthew, Revelation, and Mark. And all throughout these verses, he is proclaiming a message of great consequence….

God is powerful. All powerful.

He is so great, so far above us in every way, that we cannot even begin to comprehend His outstanding glory and might. He is to us as the sun is to a speck of dust.

Just think about that for a moment.

Genesis 1 tells us that He created the world in seven days. A huge ball of rock, metal, soil, and water, weighing in at a combined 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds, and He just snapped His fingers and it appeared! By contrast, the biggest structures in human history took decades, even centuries, to build. If we were to unite today as a species and direct all our efforts into constructing the biggest thing ever, we couldn’t build in a century what God did in a split second.

But our Creator didn’t stop there.

While He was forming the earth and separating out its seas and continents, He also created the entire universe. Now the universe is an unfathomably huge place – it’s so wide, our most powerful telescopes cannot see to its end. Light is the fastest thing known to science, and it takes 4 years to travel to earth from the nearest star aside from the sun. It’s estimated that the light from the edge of the observable universe would have to travel for over 12 billion years before reaching us.

Yet God created it all with the gesture of His hand. It takes the fastest thing in the universe an unimaginable amount of time to cross it, yet God just pointed his finger and said, “let it exist!” And it obeyed. Atoms popped into being, energy formed, stars and planets and solar systems came to be. He spoke, and it was so. The great nothingness obeyed Him at His word.

He is extraordinary, and worthy of all praise simply on the nature of who He is.

Now, here’s where things get even more mind-bending: that same God who made the earth also made you and me. The same God who can think an entire planet into existence knitted you together in your mother’s womb. He knew how all your days would turn out before they ever came to pass. And furthermore, although we are all sinners, this God gave us His only Son. He sent Christ to come, live a perfect life, and then die on the cross so that we would be justified and made alive in Him. The God who made the sun, the moon, the earth and the stars… He also made you. He lived for you, died for you, and arose once more for you.

Is that incredible or what?

Here in this world, we’d be absolutely shocked if the president, the prime minister, the king or the queen – whoever our leader is, wherever we live – came up to us, addressed us by name, and offered to take us out to dinner. We’d be shell-shocked. Beyond stunned.

Yet what many of us fail to realize – and I myself used to be one of them – is that we do have a King who knows us. We have a King who cares about us. We have a King who laid down His very life on Calvary so that we could live forever with Him.

That King is Jesus Christ.

That King has supremacy over all creation. It says in Colossians 1:15-17,

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Yes, all things hold together in Him. The stars shine because of Him – He is the one who allows them to go on doing so. If Christ gave the word, the sun would suddenly cease to give its light. If He gave the word, water would flow uphill. If He gave the word, the planets would fly out of their orbits and careen into the blackness of outer space.

All things, everything that ever has been or will be, hold together in Him. And that same Christ desires a relationship with you.

He desires you to lay down your life and come to Him, surrendering all you are to all He is. He is Lord, and He is Savior. He is Friend, and He is King. He is everything, or He is nothing. He gives life, and without Him there is none.

He calls to you. Will you answer?

For the Christian, will you answer His call to keep up the fight? Temptation is powerful. We all make mistakes: I have made them, you have made them. Our adversary, the devil, is always working against us. He’s warring for our joy, for our very life, and he is seeking whom he may devour. Do not let him devour you. Hold strong to the Lord, serving Him with a willing heart, no matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve slid. God is powerful enough to deliver you and set you upright. If He spoke the universe into being, imagine what He can do with your life if you’ll let Him.

Now, to the one who does not believe, will you answer His call in your heart? You can fill that emptiness within you with a lot of things. You can fill it with drugs; you can fill it with money. You can fill it with relationships, or even volunteer work. You can fill it with a career, or with achievement.

But it’ll never be enough.

Only Jesus Christ is sufficient. Only He can truly fill you with light and with love, with peace and contentment.

Come to Him. For He says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). Lay down your life, surrender to Him, and know true peace, joy, and contentment forevermore.

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