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Month: November 2019

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A Grateful Witness

“There is an old Jewish legend which says that, after God had created the world, He called the angels to Him and asked them what they thought of it; and one of them said, “One thing is lacking: the sound of praise to the Creator.” So, God created music, and it was heard in the whisper of the wind, and in the song of the birds; and to man also was given the gift of song.”[i]

Thinking about the praise due our Creator Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Doth not all nature around me praise God? If I were silent, I should be an exception to the universe. Doth not the thunder praise Him as it rolls like drums in the march of the God of armies? Do not the mountains praise Him when the woods upon their summits wave in adoration? Doth not the lightning write His name in letters of fire? Hath not the whole earth a voice? And shall I, can I, silent be?”

When I consider all the reasons to thank and praise God today; two immediately come to mind:

God gives.

God gives “life, breath, and all things” (Acts 17:25), “power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18), “food to the hungry” (Psalm 146:10), “hope” (Romans 15:13), “grace to the humble” (Proverbs 3:34), “wisdom” (Proverbs 2:6), “power to the weak” (Isaiah 40:29), “rain on the earth” (Job 5:10), “songs in the night” (Job 35:10),  “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3), “victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57)

God gave.

God gave us “His Son” (John 3:16), “His righteousness, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe” (Romans 3:22), “eternal life” (1 John 5:11), “His Spirit” (Romans 5:5 and 2 Corinthians 5:5)

Because the Lord redeems, the psalmist wrote in (Psalm 107:1-3)

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and gathered out of the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.”

Psalm 107 is about God’s mercy toward sinful rebels who finally come to see their need of rescue, cry out for it, receive it and then joyfully rejoice in the rescue and the rescuer. God’s grace and mercy revealed to and outpoured upon them gave them a story to tell!

Likewise, each of you who has believed that what Jesus did through His death, burial and resurrection, He did for you personally – has a story to tell!

“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story.”

It is when we tell our story that we truly communicate the goodness of God and declare His wonderful works. Can we but give grateful witness to our God among those around us and in the assembly of His people in the church? Our story is “the song of the redeemed,” it is the “celebration and love song borne of a grateful choir” as the Newsboys lyric states. Our story is life changing, inspiring and worth telling. Our story is the gospel according to us and it tells of the power of God to deliver captives, restore hope and instill within all who trust in the Lord – peace.

This Thanksgiving, your story is bound to touch someone close to you – if you’ll tell it.

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing psalms to Him; Talk of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!”

“Sing to the Lord, all the earth; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is also to be feared above all gods.” (1 Chronicles 16:8-10, 23–25)

Go, tell your story!

To listen to the full message please click this link: https://www.thetextmessages.org/sermons/810/

[i] Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 479). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.

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The Time is Now


“Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)

Jesus Christ did not die on the cross and rise from the grave so that you could have victory SOME DAY. He did not reveal Himself so that people could have victory over the evil power and influences in their lives SOME DAY. He died to give people victory over sins power NOW! He died to transform lives NOW!

There is not merely a hope of victory and peace with God in the future. Jesus Christ didn’t die so that we’d be different when we arrive in Heaven. He did not die so that until the moment we are with Him in Heaven we’d be as we’ve been and then finally be changed in the kingdom.

He died so the we’d be different NOW!

Have victory NOW!

Be made new, NOW!!!

He didn’t merely give His life so that you’d have a place in Heaven SOMEDAY but so that Heaven would have a place in you…Today.

Now IS the time of salvation!

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The Mark of a Lifetime

I have often used these words found in (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2) as I began a funeral service:

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die…” and in the middle is the dash.

I always used those words to tell others about the life of the one who had passed – to celebrate him or her and in some way to offer the family some comfort with those memories but I never applied the point to the survivors. The fact is that our lives are like a vapor (James 4:14) – here today and gone tomorrow and in a world full of distractions its easy to waste every moment we’ve been given and fail to make the most of the dash – that mark of a lifetime between our earthly beginning and end.

There is a time to be born and a time to die but whats done in between makes all the difference.

Is a life only well lived if its full of risk and adrenaline? Is it a well lived life if you never ‘colored outside of the lines‘ of it? Is a well lived life one that is void of any bad choices or is a well lived life simply one that at the end of the day was lived without regrets? Is it about the hindsight analysis of those taking a look at your life after you’ve passed that determines whether or not your’s was a well lived life or is it simply a day by day determination by the one living it?

In the end, we will each give an answer for the contents of our “dash.” The Bible declares in (Hebrews 9:27) that “it is appointed for men once to die but after this the judgement.” God will ultimately be the judge of your life. Listen, His judgement is righteous but it comes down to one thing – belief in Jesus Christ – did you or didn’t you. Do you or don’t you. Apart from belief in Jesus every man will be judged and condemned by the contents of their dash.

In my mind, a life lived well is one that makes the most of Jesus. The apostle Paul learned to be content in his life (Philippians 4:11) simply because of who was in his life – have you? My friends, we all only go around in this life once; we only have one life – the space between the day of our birth and the day of our death, to make a choice that will shape our forever – to quote Mark Spence of Living Waters Ministries: “don’t waste your dash!”

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Love Does the Harder Thing

When I was just a boy, my dad asked me a mind blowing question; he asked me, “What is love?” I defined it the only way I could at that age – by how I had experienced it; I replied, “Love is caring for a friend.”

Love is a lot of things but in my mind before it’s anything else it is a verb, in other words, it is the act of a person or persons which evokes an intellectual, emotional and sometimes sentimental response from the recipient(s).

The Bible says that love is patient and kind; it bears, believes, hopes and endures all things and is never failing; that is, in part what Paul said about it in (1Corinthians 13:4-8). It bears with people, believes the the best about them, hopes the best for them and NEVER gives up on them.

The Apostle Peter added in (1Peter 4:8) that love covers:

“And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “’love will cover a multitude of sins.'”

Love won’t make public another persons sin by way of gossip or conversation rather it comes alongside and restores the errant brother or sister (Galatians 6:1); it believes, bears, covers and one more thing…it speaks truth. That’s actually how the church is grown and strengthened, by “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15)

In other words, loving people tell the truth, even critical and perhaps even controversial, unpopular and maybe even unwelcome truth… love tells the truth for the good of the other person. It doesn’t tolerate, overlook or otherwise accept and validate falsehood or sinfulness it lovingly confronts it.

Love is a command. Jesus said in (John 13:34) “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (see also John 15:12, 15:17)

The Bible says that love is not only the only debt we ought to owe anyone (Romans 13:8) but that it is also a fulfillment of the law in the same verse.

Let me leave you with a thought from Josh McDowell:

“Tolerance says, “You must approve of what I do.” Love responds, “I must do something harder: I will love you, even when your behavior offends me.”

Tolerance says, “You must agree with me.” Love responds, “I must do something harder: I will tell you the truth, because I am convinced the truth will set you free.’ ”

Tolerance says, “You must allow me to have my way.” Love responds, “I must do something harder: I will plead with you to follow the right way, because I believe you are worth the risk.”

So love your neighbor, brother, the one who loves you and the one who doesn’t; love your friends and your enemies… love acts ~ love does the harder thing.

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The Prime Directive of Love

Last Sunday at Parkway Church Pastor Mike Hurt reminded us from the words found in (1 John) that “God’s love for us shapes all of our relationships:” (https://parkwaychurch.tv/sermon/relational-change) the section we dialed down on (1 John 4) concludes with these words in (v.20): “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”

Those words, as powerful and convicting as they are can lead the proud among us to ask the same question posed to Jesus by a lawyer in (Luke 10:29): “And who is my neighbor?” As if trying to find some way out of the prime directive of love found in both the Old and New Testaments (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18 Luke 10:27): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself; ” we ask , “who is my brother and who is my neighbor – do I really have to love him or her like that?”

In so asking aren’t we really asking “is there anyone I don’t have to love?”

It’s an honest question and a believer might ask it but asking it may also indicate a far greater area of concern in the life of the person asking. Jeremiah wrote in (Jer. 17:9):

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

Before we met Jesus, our hearts were incurably sick; our hearts were full of the wrong things. Jesus said that “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” (Matthew 15:19, NKJV) In short, we didn’t and couldn’t love others or God because we loved ourselves too much. Think about it – why do we lie; for our sakes or for others? Why do we steal – to benefit others or ourselves?

The heart is tricky. It so cloaks its true intentions and condition that the one in whom it beats may not even know how wicked it really is – but God knows. He searches the hearts of men (Jeremiah 17:10; Romans 8:27) and while others are making distinctions based on appearances, God looks deeper (1 Samuel 16:7) – “He looks at the heart.”

Does what He perceives in our hearts repulse and repel God from us? No, Paul told us in (Romans 5:8) “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This was the mission of the Savior who said in (John 3:16):

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Far from shrinking back from, hating or condemning us, God, in His love made a way for all of us, since all of us suffer from this incurable heart condition, to be made well. The writer of (2 Samuel 14:14) made it clear that God, in His mercy, “…devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him.”

When a person believes in Jesus, he is born again (John 3:3) in this sense – God gives him or her “a new heart and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 36:26). Because of that new life, he who once upon a time only loved himself can now love God and others because of the NEW condition of his heart.

When we consider the lengths that God went to in order to express His love toward us and what He had to both overlook and endure in terms of our sin to draw near enough to us so as to forgive us the penalty due for our sin by dying in our place and rising again victorious AND that nothing will EVER separate us from His love (see Romans 8:38-39); when we remember that He did THAT for US and believe it, we will then be able to also see and hopefully treat our fellow man with a similar kind of love.

Is there anyone you don’t have to love? The question might be better put like this – is there anyone you just can’t love? Mankind spit in Jesus’ face – He loved them anyway. Mankind beat Jesus to a pulp – He loved them anyway. Mankind hung Jesus on a cross and mocked Him there – He died for their sins anyway. If anyone had a reason to hate it was Jesus. If anyone had a reason to withhold grace and mercy it was Jesus. What stood between you and the Lord that in love He forgave you of even after you first believed? What now stands between you and those who are like you were “without Christ…having no hope and without God in the world?” (Ephesians 2:12)

May the Lord’s enduring love for you inspire you to love those around you for their sake and to His glory…without exception.

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Miserere Mei, Deus

King David, arguably the greatest Old Testament king of Israel was brave in the face of danger, courageous before giants, humble before God, respectful of God’s anointed and a worshipful man of God. Of him, Paul quoting (1 Samuel 13:14) wrote in (Acts 13:22):

“…‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’”

But King David was not without his flaws, he was after all – human and EVERY human since Adam is a sinner at heart. The Bible tells us of a time when David was in the wrong place at the right time; this was at the time (see 2 Samuel 11:1) “when kings go out to battle;” his warriors went out but David stayed home. I do not know why David stayed back but I do know that just as “idle hands can be the devils playground” – “If you are where you shouldn’t be, it is very likely that you will be tempted to do what you shouldn’t do.”

We all KNOW his story and by the way, that is one more evidence that the Bible is a work of God and not men – if men alone had written it of themselves they surely would never have spoken of all the flaws and failings of their lives as the scriptures do. David saw a woman bathing in the evening light, he looked twice (at least), inquired about her, ignored the fact that she was another mans wife, slept with her and later, after learning that she was pregnant attempted to cover up his sin. First he tried to trick Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba by bringing him home from the battle and encouraging him to spend the night with his wife in the hopes that he might claim the child as his own, conceived on that night; but Uriah was more honorable than that and he would not go in to his wife. Then David further attempted to cover his sin up by seeing to it that before Bathsheba began to be obviously pregnant her husband would have died in battle.

Now, I’m not sure that I know what David was thinking except that he was experiencing the same kind of panic we do when we sin and frantically attempt to cover it up as if covering it up changes the fact that we did it.

The fact is that you cannot pull the wool over an all seeing God’s eyes; His word declares in (Galatians 6:7) that “God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” and (Numbers 32:23) “(y)our sins will find us out.”

At least nine months passed from the time of his adultery and the birth of the child conceived between David and Bathsheba when Nathan the prophet came to confront the king (see 2 Samuel 12) about it. It was then that David confessed and the penalty of sin, which is always death was assessed – David would live but the child born in adultery would die (see 2 Samuel 2:14).

Did God act out of spite, vindictiveness, unreasonable wrath or hate? No, He had a plan to forgive and restore David. (Psalm 51) is the prayer which David prayed after Nathan departed and during the fast which the king entered into until the moment he knew that his child was gone. The Psalm is a penitential psalm, that is, it is a psalm of confession and repentance to the Lord from the heart of David. In it we see conviction of sin (v.3), acknowledgement of sin (v.4, 14), sorrow for sin (v.17) and a cry for the mercy and forgiveness of God concerning the relationship damaged by sin (v.10-12). I recently heard a recording of (Psalm 51) sung in Latin and titled “Miserere Mei, Deus” taking its title from the first verse of that Psalm: “have mercy upon me, God; ” reading the Psalm as I listened led me to think that I was literally hearing David’s heart in that moment (click the link to listen to that recording on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3v9unphfi0)

Perhaps you’ve been in David’s shoes and as a lover of God, found yourself in the wrong place at the right time where you took advantage of the moment and sinned big. Perhaps you, like David have concealed and covered up rather than confessed your sin to Him. Perhaps you confessed and were forgiven by Him but failed to forgive yourself. Whichever the case may be, once you have dealt with the sin and understand that God has forgiven it you still need to do a few things:

  1. Put it behind you (Phil.3:13).
  2. Set a guard over your heart (Prov.4:23; Job 31:1).
  3. Cultivate an extreme sense of the immediate presence of the Lord – whenever you’re in a room alone consider that Jesus is actually in the room with you.

My friend, I get the feeling that for those nine months or so King David found it hard to pray and even harder to hear from the Lord. Has He been silent in your life lately? If He has, I’m guessing that you know why and while His silence may be the consequence of some yet to be dealt with sin or a test to see if you’ll wait to hear from Him before you act it is always meant to draw us into a deeper search and greater desire for His voice and presence in our lives.

Draw near to God and He WILL draw near to you….cry out to Him today.

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