Category Archives: The Gospel

(Jeremiah 29) No Hope

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29:11 is a precious verse. I’ve even used it to encourage friends going through hard times, for High School and College graduates, and in cards celebrating a birth of a child. But I realize today I may have been wrong to do so.

Verses 12-13 got my attention:

You will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

The promise in verse 11 isn’t for just anyone. It is reserved for people who go to God in prayer, people who seek God, who search for Him with all their hearts.

God doesn’t promise a future and a hope for people who reject Him. God’s plan for people who don’t accept Him is disaster.

I am convicted today. Let’s not give people false hope. Because there is no hope for people who aren’t right with God through Jesus.

No hope.

(Jeremiah 17-19) God Doesn’t Do Useless

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We who have met Jesus at the foot of the cross, and accepted His death as a substitute for our own, want to serve Him. We want to obey. We want to live lives that bring Him joy and show how much we appreciate what He’s done on our behalf. We want to be the clay jar; clean, emptied, ready and eager to be filled and poured out for His purposes.

We want to.

But we convince ourselves a little smudge here and there can’t do harm. A tiny crack is no big deal. The pot can be used for a lot of things, even if it doesn’t hold water, right?

Wrong.

God says He will take that corrupted clay jar and shatter it. 19:11 tells us He shatters the potter’s jar that can never again be mended. Shatters it.

Just this week a dear friend posted a picture on FaceBook of two coffee mugs, filled with dirt and a few plants, she’d set on her window sill. Those mugs had been her husband’s favorite mugs, mugs he used every day for years until his death 18 months ago. It’s a sweet picture, a tender memory of this man she misses so much. She re-purposed those mugs in a creative and even useful way.

God doesn’t do that.

God doesn’t place a useless pot on the shelf to admire, or to remember how useful it used to be. He shatters it, destroy it, gets rid of it.

Now that’s not to say that God can’t perform a miracle and restore that useless pot to it’s original state. That’s a lesson on repentance, and that’s not the lesson God is speaking to me about today.

I hear God telling me not to entertain sin in any form – not in thought, not in a careless word, not in action. Because each smudge, every crack has the potential of rendering the pot useless.

And God doesn’t do useless.

(Jeremiah 5-9) His Heart Is Breaking

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People who have the audacity to question God’s love on the basis of evil in the world and judgment for those who deny Him, haven’t allowed themselves to hear God’s heart in Scripture. Reading these chapters today, I cannot help but recognize His pain as He watches His children make choices that will end up destroying them.

Yes, that destruction will come from His hand. Yes, that judgment is inevitable. But our Holy God – who can’t NOT be holy – wants us to know He will only go so far before judgment comes. He loves us enough to warn us about the dangers.

He’ll send people to speak the Truth. He’ll show Himself in nature, His power in circumstances of life. He’s given us His Word. But He won’t make you love Him. He won’t force you to obey Him.

He’s very clear to tell us if you don’t choose Him, He won’t relent and simply suspend your death sentence. You will pay severely for your rejection, and your rejection will (and does) break His heart.

If you listen, you can hear His heart breaking in the pages of the Bible.

(Jeremiah 4) You’d Be Foolish

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God’s judgment is real – and without mercy. He doesn’t want to sentence anyone for crimes committed against Him. In fact, we know He Himself paid our penalty, took on Himself the sentence our sins deserve. But He will judge those who reject Him, and they will be found guilty.

As devastating as impending judgment will be, God is anxious and willing to forgive anyone at any time – if they surrender to Him. Obedience, a repentant heart, putting on the righteousness of Jesus renders my guilty sentence paid in full. Someone paid my debt!

Chapter 4 likens surrendering to God by five actions. It’s like plowing the ground to receive the seeds, like performing heart surgery, joining the army, taking a bath, like growing up. In each instance, the person is changed. And God demands we change. (from Warren Wiersbe’s With The Word, Chapter by Chapter Bible Handbook; Thomas Nelson Press; 1991; p 499)

God wants to be very clear – judgment is inevitable. It’s coming for you. The question is – are you going to take it on your own, or are you going to surrender to the Judge and allow His Son to take your death sentence for you? That is a decision you need to make BEFORE you meet the judge. Standing before Him after you are dead will be too late.

Don’t be foolish. You don’t want to take your own punishment. You don’t want to serve your own death sentence. That is one sentence from which there is no parole. And there is no need to serve it, if you only surrender to God and accept Jesus’ death on the cross as your own.

He’s willing to make that happen. Choose Jesus! You’d be foolish not to.

(Isaiah 61-64) A Loving God

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How can a loving God send anyone to hell? If God really loved us, why is there so much evil in the world? Isaiah seems to get what so many of us don’t.

Would it have been more loving if God had created you without the ability to make choices? Would it be love if we HAD to love Him, if we were incapable of not loving Him?

When I was a child I loved playing with my Barbie dolls. Barbie didn’t move without me. She only spoke the words I said. I loved playing Barbie dolls. But that love was not returned. Barbie was not created with the ability to choose love.

We are not Barbie dolls.

God is much more loving that He’s given credit for. Without Him there would be no love. God expresses His love to good people as well as to bad people, and really no one deserves His love considering the way we treat Him. Yet God loves us enough to want us with Him. And He loves us enough to let us choose to be with Him. He won’t make us love Him.

Read Isaiah and hear what rejecting Him costs. Read Isaiah and hear what obedience gains. God, in His love, has spelled it all out. There are no hidden rules. No secret punishments. Choose God and live forever. Choose anything else and suffer the consequences. He won’t send anyone to hell who doesn’t reject Him.

It’s a loving God who lets us choose.

(Isaiah 60) Everlasting Light

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I long for heaven. I long to be where God’s splendor outshines the sun and moon. I long to be where there is no war, no threats of harm, no illness, no hate, a place where peace reigns and righteousness describes our conduct. I long to be caressed by God like a mother holding her nursing child.

Violence will never again be heard of in your land; devastation and destruction will be gone from your borders. You will call your walls Salvation and your city gates Praise. The sun will no longer by your light by day, and the brightest of the moon will not shine on you. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor. (vs 18-19)

I long for heaven. And I know that one day I will be there, because I have repented of my sin and accepted Jesus’ work on the cross, the penalty I deserved for my sin. I am as sure of my future life in heaven as I am of my life today on earth.

I pray you can say the same. This amazingly peaceful, safe, pure, holy, place filled with love, and void of sorrow is real. It’s reserved for those who know God according to the words He inspired men to write, to those who come to Him through Jesus.

I hope to see you there, where God Himself is our everlasting light.

(Isaiah 53) It Is Enough

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God has hidden many of the gory details of Jesus’ suffering. Yet He has given us enough of a glimpse to understand the horror, the excruciating pain Jesus must have endured in order to save each of us.

The New Testament tells us Jesus’ captors beat Him, pulled out His beard, thrashed His back with scourges. Isaiah tells us Jesus was beaten so severely He no longer even looked like a human. I think Jesus must have gone through much more than any of us realize.

Did you watch “The Passion of the Christ” without looking away during the scene depicting Jesus’ beating? I couldn’t watch it. But as I sit here today I remember the sounds of those lashes tearing His flesh. It haunts me. And that was merely Hollywood’s imagination as to what went on.

I looked up what constituted a scourging (truthmagazine.com, The Scourging of Jesus, by David McClister). Maybe you know this. Three leather straps about three feet long were tied together, each with either a sharp stone or bone attached to the end. It was designed to lacerate, to cut deep. The victim was tied to a pole, stripped of his clothing, and a strong man would begin to swing the scourge at the back of the one being scourged.

The victim was “lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view.” (Ecclesiastical History, Book 4, chap. 15)

They ripped open Jesus’ back and exposed His internal organs. No wonder He was unable to carry His cross. We know that after this brutal beating, they crucified Him, nailed Him to a cross and watched Him die a slow and painful death.

Now, in my thinking, this is what makes what Jesus did so incredible: at any moment He could have disappeared. He could have struck down the soldier wielding the scourge, turned those leather and stone straps into spaghetti. He could have called ten thousand angels to wipe out the entire city of Jerusalem. Yet He chose to stay. He chose to feel each wound. He wanted to save you more than He wanted to escape.

In fact, I don’t think escaping ever even crossed His mind. He loves you that much.

So my question is, why would anyone think what Jesus did isn’t enough to save? Why would anyone think you need the cross plus something else: baptism, church attendance, good deeds? Can you seriously look Jesus in the eye and tell Him what He did was not enough?

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) He didn’t say except through me plus anything.

If you have not yet looked upon the wounded Jesus and known He did that for love of you, I pray you will do that today. God is able to forgive your sins because Jesus paid your account in full. Jesus took upon Himself your sins and took those lashes you deserved so that when you repent of your sins and accept Him as your Savior, you will be saved.

Because what He did that night is enough.

(Isaiah 47-59) Go Ahead And Choose

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Throughout Scripture we are told that, since we have the God-given ability to choose, we must choose wisely or face the consequences. We see that played out in the history of God in Israel in the Old Testament: the Exodus, the taking of the Promised Land, the years Israel was led by one king after another, etc.

We hear it from the mouths of the prophets of God. And we hear it in the New Testament from the mouth of God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Isaiah tells us to go ahead and make the choice to follow our own way, make up our own rules, live by our own wisdom and means. That is our privilege as people created by God in His image. But Isaiah, speaking for God, also warns us that if we choose to do our own thing, we won’t like what comes next.

Look, all you who kindle a fire, who encircle yourselves with torches; walk in the light of your fire and of the torches you have lit! This is what you’ll get from my hand; you will lie down in a place of torment. (50:11)

You can argue all day about whether or not there even is a God. You can twist Scripture to fit your world-view, to justify and tolerate sin. You can even flat out reject the whole thing. That, in God’s Sovereignty, is your privilege.

But your choice is not without rewards and/or consequences. God is very clear about that. You can choose Him and obey His rules and receive His blessings both now and eternally. Or you can choose something else, and receive His punishment.

Choose obedience. Choose Truth. Choose God.

If you have read this today, you WILL make a choice. Not choosing IS choosing to reject Him. Right now, this minute, you are faced with a life-changing choice.

Go ahead and choose.

(Isaiah 9-12) That’s Fair

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God is fair. He is patient and loving. He calls us to Himself and blesses us when we obey.

God is demanding. He will accept nothing short of complete obedience and holiness. And just like He blesses us when we obey, He punishes us when we disobey.

That doesn’t make Him unfair. In fact, the accepted belief today is what is unfair:

“What’s right for me doesn’t have to be right for you.”
“All roads lead to God.”
“I am master of my life and you are the master of yours.”
“I come first, and what I want trumps what you want.”
“Good people should go to heaven and bad people should go to hell. (But my definition of good and bad doesn’t have to be the same as your definition of good and bad).”

God has set the bar pretty hight – holiness. Then He inspired men to define His holiness so there would be no question as to what He demands. He was fair enough to also tell us in no uncertain terms the results of our obedience, and the punishment of our disobedience. We have no excuse. We don’t have to suppose, or learn by trial and error. God put the rules in place before we were born.

I played pickle ball for the first time this week. Even before I hit a ball, my sister went over the rules, pointed out the boundaries, explained the serve, and how to keep score. Even before I hit a ball, I knew what was required to play the game.

Now, had she handed me a paddle and served a ball to me and expected me to figure out the rules on my own while we played and kept score – that wouldn’t have been fair, would it?

Or if she had made up her own rules while we played, changed them with each serve so she’d have an advantage, and expected me to make up my own rules at the same time, would that have been fair?

Believe me, if I could have I would have made the serving area much bigger on her side of the net. But that wouldn’t have been fair.

You might not like God’s rules. Too bad. You aren’t going to change them, making up your own rules won’t work. He is very clear about that.

And that’s fair.

(Proverbs 3-5) My Worldview

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My apologetics study Bible includes an article written by Ronald H Nash entitled, “What is a Worldview?” (CSB Apologetics Study Bible; Holman Bible Publishers; Nashville; 2017; page 752). Got me thinking about how I would define my own worldview. Using the five elements in a worldview according to Nash (what people believe about God, ultimate reality, knowledge, ethics, and human nature), here is how I view the world:

My worldview can be summed up in John 3:16-17. It begins with God – not a god. It begins with God who loves.

God’s love is a blanket covering our world, and nothing can separate us from that love. But there is more. God gave His Son Jesus to live in this world, and die on a cross. Why?

Because we humans are sinful. My worldview acknowledges that no one is born good, then learns to be bad. Humans are born with a sin nature, a “want to” to have our own way, to be our own god. And because sin separates us from Holy God, Jesus (God in human form) offered Himself to pay our sin-debt so that it’s possible to connect to our loving God in a very real way.

Jesus’ death on the cross and the forgiveness of sin is available to anyone. Jesus didn’t die for some people and not for others. The “whosoever” of John 3:16 applies to children and elderly, to nice people and evil, to rich and poor, to Americans and Iraqis, to nurses and serial killers. Jesus died so that ANYONE who believes in Him will be saved. Period.

There is absolute Truth and there are lies. There is one way to God, not many. There is right and there is wrong which are not subjective or fluid or societal. Jesus (again God in human form) tells us plainly that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one goes to the Father except through Him. My worldview cannot make provisions for other beliefs and religions because God doesn’t make provisions for them.

My worldview extends beyond the physical and material and into eternity. My worldview is limitless, and those who believe in Jesus will live forever with Him. My worldview also understands that there is an eternal existence away from God for those who refuse to believe- and it’s devastating.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world. The world is already condemned. Jesus came to save the world, one repentant soul at a time.

These chapters in Proverbs reinforce my worldview. And it all centers around God; trusting Him, obeying Him, enjoying Him, believing His Word, accepting His discipline as an expression of love, worshiping Him, and treating others in a way that makes Him look good to a world lost without Him.

I want to view the world through God’s eyes. We are people loved by Almighty God, invited to join Him through the blood of His Son Jesus, and are promised that when we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us, cleanse us, and make us His own. We can know that when we believe on Him we will not die. We’ll change our address and live forever in His Presence.

It’s an amazing view, sharing God’s worldview!