20 posts from March 2008

READ: Revelation 3:14-22
He says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (Rev. 3:20). You can find Him at the door of your heart—the core of your existence—waiting to come in.  He doesn’t just want to meet you at church, or to be kept at bay on the outer edges of your life. Rather, He longs to be in the center of your dreams, deliberations, and desires. He wants a real relationship with the real you.
And as wonderful as that is, I need to warn you that it may be a little unsettling. Your heart is no doubt harboring a few things that He will want to deal with. But there is nothing that is more valuable than intimacy with Him. Welcome Jesus in and He will clear out the clutter until the air is fragrant and fresh with the purity, power, and pleasure of His presence.
Who’s knocking at your heart’s door? It’s Jesus! How wonderful is that!

READ: 1 Corinthians 3:1-10
I have heard it said, “It is amazing what can be accomplished when we don’t care who gets the credit.” This is certainly true of Christian service. Paul told the church at Corinth, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6-7). Paul had learned that great lesson of the servant’s heart, has learned—it’s entirely about God. What we do is accomplished by His power and grace, and all the glory must go to Him.
God often uses lowly things, His purpose to fulfill, because it takes a humble heart to carry out His will.
Pride and grace cannot dwell in the same place.

God doesn’t expect us to avoid all contact with wickedness. Jesus—God in the flesh—loves sinners. But in the book of Ephesians, Paul said: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret” (5:11-12).

Our responsibility is to expose evil by living a life of “goodness, righteousness, and truth” (v.9), and by not taking part in “the unfruitful works of darkness” (v.11). Hendriksen’s New Testament Commentary says that the conduct of believers as children of light exposes the deeds of those in darkness and reveals the vast contrast between the two.

It’s not realistic or wise to hide in a “holy cocoon.” But we don’t need to see evil to understand our propensity to sin. Expose the darkness by living in the Light.

Read John 3:1-21

According to the apostle John, Nicodemus “came to Jesus by night” (John 3:2). Was this Pharisee skulking under cover of darkness, embarrassed or ashamed that he, as one of the ruling class, was curious about Jesus?
Some have suggested that it was just cooler at night. Others have said that evening was a better time to ask Jesus questions because it was quieter and there were fewer distractions.
We really don’t know the reason Nicodemus went to Jesus at night, but John seemed determined to make a point of that specific fact. Every time he mentioned Nicodemus, he identified him by saying something like: “You know who I’m talking about—the guy who came to Jesus by night” (see 7:50; 19:39).
Nicodemus, no doubt, was quite moral and lived according to Mosaic Law. People probably thought he was a pretty good person. Yet none of that mattered. He was in the dark about who Jesus really was, and he wanted to know the truth. So he was drawn from the darkness into the presence of “the light of the world” (John 8:12).
Jesus calls us “out of darkness” too (1 Peter 2:9) and promises that whoever believes in Him will not stay in the dark (John 12:46).
Our search for truth is hindered by the darkness of the night, until the Bright and Morning Star reveals His brilliant light.
Faith in Christ is not a leap into the dark; it’s a step into the Light.

And this is the way to have eternal life by knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ the one you sent to earth!

¹⁴ In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, ¹⁵ so that no one can speak a word of blame against you. You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of people who are crooked and stubborn. Shine out among them like beacons.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8).
Purity is not innocence— it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character— it is "the pure in heart " who "see God."

Christ defeated death on mortality’s own turf, declaring the power of God to give us new life and hope.
Paul wrote “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11).

The cross is a sign of His death, and must not be taken lightly. This should cause us to examine what the cross means to us. Is it a witness to our eternal hope in the saving death of Jesus on Calvary? Our Lord commands that we “take up [our] cross daily” and learn what it means to follow in His footsteps (Luke 9:23). God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). Because Jesus bore the cross for us, we should be willing to take it up for Him.

Our lives matter because God loves us.