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Archives for April 2015

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365 devotional

Meditation (Matthew 26:40–46)

Jesus said, “Keep watch with me.” If you have ever sat with a loved one while waiting for that person to die, perhaps you know something of how the three men who waited with Jesus might have felt. He had told them, repeatedly, that he was going away. But now they see him in anguish, and they can see that it is all starting to happen, in perhaps a more terrible way than they had imagined. They could not understand what would come in the next few days, so the waiting was full of dread, the dark kind of sadness that feels unbearable.

Jesus said, “My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” But instead they fell asleep. Still, if we disparage the disciples for their inability to stay awake, maybe we haven’t spent enough time thinking about this scene, and maybe we have never prayed to the point of exhaustion. There is a point at which our circumstances can no longer be examined. There is a point after which a person can pray no more. This is when the Holy Spirit must take over for us “through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26), perhaps even while we sleep.

Jesus asked God three times to take away the suffering that was coming, not just the torture and ridicule, but the unbearable thought of facing all of God’s wrath at once, the Father’s hatred for sin all falling at once on the head of his innocent Son. But Jesus followed his request with “may your will be done.”

When we ask God for something three times, and he does not give us what we want, we are often angry and begin to question his goodness. And when our friends fail us, we may want to find new friends. But Jesus, even as he faced the beginning of the most terrible time there ever was on earth, went back to encourage the friends who had failed him and to face his mission before God: the price of our salvation.

Prayer

Loving Father, I gripe and grumble when I encounter painful circumstances. I complain about bad luck or not getting the breaks in life. I wonder why you allow such pain to occur to me and to others. Yet I know that I can take my grievances directly and openly to you. I can admit my confusion and my disappointment. I know I am approaching the only One who can really do something in my times of need. Thank you for your patience and your kindness to me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Taken from Once a Day 40 Days to Easter

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johnpiper

God Strengthens Us Through Others

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31–32)

What about the other ten apostles (not counting Judas)?

Satan was going to sift them too. Did Jesus pray for them?

Yes he did. But he did not ask the Father to guard their faith in the very same way he guarded Peter’s.

God broke the back of Peter’s pride and self-reliance that night in the agony of Satan’s sieve. But he did not let him go. He turned him around and forgave him and restored him and strengthened his faith. And now it was Peter’s mission to strengthen the other ten.

Jesus provided for the ten by providing for Peter. The strengthened becomes the strengthener.

There is a great lesson here for us. Sometimes God will deal with you directly, strengthening your faith alone in the wee hours of the morning. But most of the time (we might say ten-elevenths of the time) God strengthens our faith through another person.

God sends us some Simon Peter who brings just the word of grace we need to keep on in the faith: some testimony about how “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5).

Eternal security is a community project. Whenever God encourages your heart with the promise that in Satan’s sifting your faith will not fail, then take that encouragement and double your joy by using it to strengthen your brothers and sisters.

 

For more about John Piper’s ministry and writing, see DesiringGod.org

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Streams in the Desert – April 5

Thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons” (2 Kings 4:4).

They were to be alone with God, for they were not dealing with the laws of nature, nor human government, nor the church, nor the priesthood, nor even with the great prophet of God, but they must needs be isolated from all creatures, from all leaning circumstances, from all props of human reason, and swung off, as it were, into the vast blue inter-stellar space, hanging on God alone, in touch with the fountain of miracles.

Here is a part in the program of God’s dealings, a secret chamber of isolation in prayer and faith which every soul must enter that is very fruitful.

There are times and places where God will form a mysterious wall around us, and cut away all props, and all the ordinary ways of doing things, and shut us up to something Divine, which is utterly new and unexpected, something that old circumstances do not fit into, where we do not know just what will happen, where God is cutting the cloth of our lives on a new pattern, where He makes us look to Himself.

Most religious people live in a sort of treadmill life, where they can calculate almost everything that will happen, but the souls that God leads out into immediate and special dealings, He shuts in where all they know is that God has hold of them, and is dealing with them, and their expectation is from Him alone.

Like this widow, we must be detached from outward things and attached inwardly to the Lord alone in order to see His wonders.  –Soul Food

In the sorest trials God often makes the sweetest discoveries of Himself.  –Gems

“God sometimes shuts the door and shuts us in,
That He may speak, perchance through grief or pain,
And softly, heart to heart, above the din,
May tell some precious thought to us again.”

https://meetmyfriend.com/1025/

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Gods story

Don’t Be Deceived

Read 2 John 1:4-11

How happy I was to meet some of your children and find them living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded.

I am writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning. Love means doing what God has commanded us, and he has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning.

I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent so that you receive your full reward. Anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God. But anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son.

If anyone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don’t invite that person into your home or give any kind of encouragement. Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work.
(2 John 1:4-11)

Reflect

In John’s day, many false teachers taught that spirit was good and matter was evil; therefore, they reasoned that Jesus could not have been both God and man. In strong terms, John warns against this kind of teaching.

The term translated “deceivers” can also be translated “impostors”; it carries the idea of leading another astray. Notice that the verse refers to “many” such charlatans and pretenders. There are still many false teachers who promote an understanding of Jesus that is not biblical. These teachers are dangerous because they distort the truth and undermine the foundations of Christian faith. The great danger of deceitful leaders is that they seem so sincere and believable. They are not easy to spot in a crowd. Usually they are winsome and attractive; otherwise, how would they gather people to themselves? We do not want to become paranoid and suspicious about everyone we meet, but we do need to be wise in evaluating the character and conduct of those who would seek to influence people.

Respond

In the past how have you evaluated the veracity of a speaker’s message? The way your teachers live shows a lot about what they believe about Christ. John’s advice in 1 John 4:1 can help you prayerfully evaluate what you hear this week. Diligent study of the Scriptures is a good way to be well versed in truth.

https://meetmyfriend.com/1023/

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365 devotional

Meditation (Isaiah 52:2–3)

It is nearly Easter, and we will hang crosses on the walls of our homes and churches. How do we think of it when it’s a decoration? With all of our present-day associations with the cross—an object of Christian identification and adoration—it is almost impossible to see the cross for what it actually was. And when we fail to understand the cross, we fail to properly understand what our Lord suffered on our behalf: shame.

Jesus despised the cross. To even speak of the cross in his time was disgusting. It was a punishment reserved for the worst of the nation’s criminals. It was designed to bring about the utmost torture to lawbreakers.

So to say that Jesus “endured the cross, scorning its shame,” is not to say “poor Jesus.” It is to say that Jesus loved us so much and was so submitted to the Father that he not only endured torment, but also public humiliation. And when it was over, he was exalted to the highest place of dignity and honor in the universe.

Prayer

Jesus, Lord of glory, you came to earth and took the form of a servant and willingly suffered an unimaginable death on the cross. You died for me, a sinner. You paid the penalty for my sins. Such amazing love is utterly incomprehensible to me. Help me to understand that the path to glory often requires a sojourn through difficulties and challenges, but that you are always with me. I seek to follow you in all my ways. I know that serving you is true freedom. In your name I pray. Amen.

Taken from Once a Day 40 Days to Easter

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Streams in the Desert – April 4

Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes so he can see.” The Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw that the hill was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:17)

This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, “Lord, open our eyes that we may see”; for the world all around us, as well as around the prophet, is full of God’s horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are thus opened, we shall see in all events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful or sad, a “chariot” for our souls.

Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such; and, on the other hand, even the smallest trial may be a Juggernaut car to crush us into misery or despair if we consider it.

It lies with each of us to choose which they shall be. It all depends, not upon what these events are, but upon how we take them. If we lie down under them, and let them roll over us and crush us, they become Juggernaut cars, but if we climb up into them, as into a car of victory, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward, they become the chariots of God.
—Hannah Whitall Smith

The Lord cannot do much with a crushed soul, hence the adversary’s attempt to push the Lord’s people into despair and hopelessness over the condition of themselves, or of the church. It has often been said that a dispirited army goes forth to battle with the certainty of being beaten. We heard a missionary say recently that she had been invalided home purely because her spirit had fainted, with the consequence that her body sunk also. We need to understand more of these attacks of the enemy upon our spirits and how to resist them. If the enemy can dislodge us from our position, then he seeks to “wear us out” (Daniel 7:25) by a prolonged siege, so that at last we, out of sheer weakness, let go the cry of victor

https://meetmyfriend.com/1019/

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Gods story

Love One Another

Read 1 John 4:7-21

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.
(1 John 4:7-13)

Reflect

If no one has ever seen God, how can we ever know him? John in his Gospel said, “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (John 1:18). Jesus is the complete expression of God in human form, and he has revealed God to us. When we love one another, the invisible God reveals himself to others through us, and his love is made complete.

God is the source of our love. He loved us enough to sacrifice his Son for us. Jesus is our example of what it means to love; everything he did in life and death was supremely loving. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to love; he lives in our heart and makes us more and more like Christ.

Respond

John isn’t telling us how many people to love, but how much to love the people we already know. Our job is to love faithfully the people God has given us to love, whether there are two or two hundred of them. If God sees that we are ready to love others, he will bring them to us. No matter how shy we are, we don’t need to be afraid of the love commandment. God’s love always involves a choice and an action, and our love should be like his. How well do you display your love for God in the choices you make and the actions you take? God provides us the strength to do what he asks. In what creative way will you show God’s love to someone?

https://meetmyfriend.com/1017/

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365 devotional

Meditation (John 10:17)

Easter begins at Christmas. Joy to the world! For unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given. Away in a manger. Silent night. This is where it begins. And yet we know the rest of the story. This baby was born for one primary purpose: to die.

Surely Mary and Joseph would have been worried, as all first-time parents are, that their newborn would be healthy. They probably experienced relief that he survived his unorthodox birth and lived to his eighth day when they could present him in the temple. And, though they had not been told exactly what it meant, they believed the angel’s words—that this baby would somehow save his people from their sins. The angel did not tell them that he would cause trouble. And so it must have come as some shock to hear the words of the old man Simeon. Their son, their only son, whom they loved, would bring pain. People would say terrible things against him. As Jesus grew, he understood this, hinting to his friends that his destiny would not be a pleasant one. But they failed to understand. Eventually, he stated it explicitly. He would be condemned and murdered, but he would return. One of his closest friends shouted, “Never!” But Jesus was resolute. This Christmas baby was born to be subjected to brutality and humiliation. He would lay down his life so that he could bring eternal life to us all. Joy to the world, indeed.

Prayer

Sovereign Lord, I am mystified by the incarnation of your Son. God taking on flesh. The Creator of all becoming one of us. This is astonishing, too marvelous for words. You willingly offered the life of your Son in exchange for ours. You transferred our sin to him and his righteousness to us. Knowing he would be betrayed, rejected and murdered by the people he came to save, he still came. He willingly became the sacrifice by dying on the cross. He overcame death. May I always be thankful for your glorious gift and recall the awful price you paid to make it possible. In Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

Taken from Once a Day 40 Days to Easter

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Streams in the Desert – April 3

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Glorify ye the Lord in the fires” (Isa. 24:15).

Mark the little word “in”! We are to honor Him in the trial–in that which is an affliction indeed and though there have been cases where God did not let His saints feel the fire, yet, ordinarily, fire hurts.

But just here we are to glorify Him by our perfect faith in His goodness and love that has permitted all this to come upon us.

And more than that, we are to believe that out of this is coming something more for His praise than could have come but for this fiery trial.

We can only go through some fires with a large faith; little faith will fail. We must have the victory in the furnace.  –Margaret Bottome

A man has as much religion as he can show in times of trouble. The men who were cast into the fiery furnace came out as they went in–except their bonds.

How often in some furnace of affliction God strikes them off! Their bodies were unhurt–their skin not even blistered. Their hair was unsinged, their garments not scorched, and even the smell of fire had not passed upon them. And that is the way Christians should come out of furnace trials–liberated from their bonds, but untouched by the flames.

“Triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:15).

That is the real triumph–triumphing over sickness, in it; triumphing over death, dying; triumphing over adverse circumstances, in them. Oh, believe me, there is a power that can make us victors in the strife. There are heights to be reached where we can look down and over the way we have come, and sing our song of triumph on this side of Heaven. We can make others regard us as rich, while we are poor, and make many rich in our poverty. Our triumph is to be in it. Christ’s triumph was in His humiliation. Possibly our triumph, also, is to be made manifest in what seems to others humiliation.
–Margaret Bottome

Is there not something captivating in the sight of a man or a woman burdened with many tribulations and yet carrying a heart as sound as a bell? Is there not something contagiously valorous in the vision of one who is greatly tempted, but is more than conqueror? Is it not heartening to see some pilgrim who is broken in body, but who retains the splendor of an unbroken patience? What a witness all this offers to the inducement of His grace!  –J. H. Jowett

“When each earthly prop gives under,
And life seems a restless sea,
Are you then a God-kept wonder,
Satisfied and calm and free?”

God’s Story… For My Life – A Lifelong Struggle

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Gods story

A Lifelong Struggle

Read 1 John 3:1-10
But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God.
(1 John 3:8-9)

Reflect

We are “born into God’s family” (1 John 3:9) when the Holy Spirit lives in us and gives us Jesus’ new life. Being born again is more than a fresh start; it is a rebirth, receiving a new family name based on Christ’s death for us. When this happens, God forgives us and totally accepts us; the Holy Spirit gives us new minds and hearts, lives in us, and begins helping us to become like Christ. Our perspective changes, too, because we have a mind that is renewed day by day by the Holy Spirit (see Romans 12:2; Ephesians 4:22-24). So we must begin to think and act differently.

Accepting citizenship in heaven means that we’ve left our country of origin—the devil’s kingdom. But he doesn’t give up his citizens easily. He fights tooth and nail against us. That’s why we all have areas where temptation is strong and habits are hard to conquer. These weaknesses give the devil a foothold, so we must deal with our areas of vulnerability. The battle over sin, however, is one we’ll fight for the rest of our lives.

In this passage, however, John is not talking about people whose victories are still incomplete; he is talking about people who make a practice of sinning and look for ways to justify their actions. “They can’t keep on sinning” (1 John 3:9) means that true believers do not make a practice of sinning, nor do they become indifferent to God’s moral law. All believers still sin, but they are working to gain victory over sin.

Respond

We all struggle with “pet” sins—those things we can’t stop doing. Three steps are necessary to find victory over prevailing sin: (1) seek the power of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word; (2) stay away from tempting situations; and (3) seek the help of the body of Christ—be open to their willingness to hold you accountable and to pray for you.