Who Is Jesus? God or Man?

 WHO IS JESUS? GOD OR MAN?

The Bible teaches that Jesus is God! But it also teaches that He is human. We know this can certainly be confusing, in fact, it is one of the great mysteries of Christianity. But even though it's hard to understand, it's essential to Christian teaching.

If Jesus wasn't fully human, He couldn't have paid the price for human sin, and He couldn't have experienced a real death in order to pay that price (Romans 6.23). On the other hand, if Jesus wasn't fully God, He couldn't have lived a perfect life without sin, and therefore, He wouldn't be able to count us as righteous (2 Corinthians 5.21) and give us new life through the power of His resurrection (1 Peter 1.3).

Christians throughout history have referred to this as the hypostatic union. That is a fancy way of saying that Jesus Christ has two natures united in one Person: He is both fully God and fully man. These two natures cannot be separated, and neither can they be devalued, for if He was any less human or any less God, His death and resurrection wouldn't be able to save humanity from their sin.

Hope In The Midst Of Failure

 Adam and Eve: Hope in the Midst of Failure 

Read: Genesis 1.26–31, 2.15–17, 3.1–24 

You’re likely all too familiar with the expectation to follow rules. You’re expected to follow the rules of your parents, your teachers, and your bosses. And while it might be hard to believe, required obedience doesn’t disappear outside of home, school or work. Everyone everywhere has rules or laws they’re expected to obey and consequences to face if they fail to do so. This has been true for every human who has ever lived, even for Adam and Eve. Their story teaches us about the connection between obedience and trust, and most importantly, it shows us the hope we can have in God and His trustworthiness, even when we fail to obey. 

Meet Adam and Eve 

As we read the Creation story in Genesis, we see that humans, specifically, Adam and Eve, are God’s final work of creation. Of all the things God creates in the beginning, plants, animals, oceans, stars, these humans are set apart as the one thing created in God’s image (Genesis 1.27). This means they share qualities with God, and because of these qualities, they are given a job to do. 

They are to care for and rule over the rest of creation as the hands and feet of God. They are told to plant things and create things, to have children, and to make the earth their home. It’s a wonderful job, and only humans, God’s image-bearers, can fulfil this task. But God gives them just one condition, “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2.17). Simple enough, right? Do not eat the fruit. All they have to do to continue to live in this good garden is obey their Creator. 

The thing about obedience, though, is that it requires trust. If we are to obey someone, we first have to trust them, and they must be trustworthy. Nobody wants to do what an untrustworthy person asks of them. When a mean older sibling or a bully at school tells you to stick your finger in an electrical outlet or lick a battery, you’d be wise not to listen. Sometimes, however, it can be hard to trust people who really are supposed to be trustworthy, people like teachers or parents. These people most often have your best interest in mind and want good things for you, but there’s often a voice in your head causing you to question their goodness, I don’t really have to do my homework to be able to do well on my test. It’s not really dangerous to text and drive. 

The serpent in the garden functions just like that voice in your head, Did God really say not to eat the fruit? No, you will not really die (Genesis 3.1, 4, paraphrased). And just like that, Eve no longer trusts the words of God. She looks at the fruit and wants its goodness more than the goodness of God Himself. Then she turns to her husband, Adam, who was with her the whole time and also heard the words of the serpent. And Adam, too, takes the fruit and eats it. 

God announces the consequences of their actions, which will affect all of humanity thereafter. Every part of their life becomes difficult and is tainted by pain, sin, and death. And worst of all, because they have lost their place in the garden, they have lost their access to the Tree of Life, and they will certainly die (Genesis 2.17, 3.22–23). 

Adam and Eve and Advent 

In the same breath that God announces the consequences for Adam and Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:16–19), He also offers hope. Though the serpent will continue roaming the earth and sin will continue dwelling in the hearts of humanity, we see that God will one day send a human Redeemer who will defeat the serpent and restore peace between humanity and God (Genesis 3.15). 

This is the first mention of Jesus Christ, whose birth would institute the beginning of the original Advent season. Adam and Eve left the garden, and humanity looked forward with hope to the arrival, to the advent, of that promised Saviour. It is the fulfillment of this hope that we celebrate during Advent. God is indeed trustworthy. He did send this Redeemer, His own Son, to defeat the serpent. 

What Does This Mean for Me? 

When reading this story of sin entering the world, it’s tempting to throw accusations at Adam and Eve. Deep down, however, we all know we would have done the same thing. In fact, we do the same thing everyday. We know God’s commands, yet we don’t always trust and obey. But like Adam and Eve, we can have hope in spite of our disobedience. 

We read in 1 John 1.9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus was born all those years ago so that He could take the consequences of our disobedience if we confess our sins and place our faith in Him. God proved His trustworthiness when He sent Jesus, and this trustworthiness is what gives us hope, even when we fail. Application Questions 

In what areas of your life do you struggle to trust and obey God’s commands? 

How does God’s promise of forgiveness offer you hope in those struggles?

What other effects of sin have you experienced in your life? 

Pray and confess any disobedience to God and thank Him for sending Jesus to take the consequences of your sin.

Jesus Our Hope

 Jesus: Our Hope 

John 1.1–18 

When we read a story, we know that one of the first things we need to look for is the main character, or the protagonist. We know that this person, though they may not seem like it immediately, will usually be the hero of the story. Every other character we meet will only be important because of their relationship to the main character. 

It’s only fitting, then, that the first person we meet on our Advent journey is the main character in this story, Jesus Christ. Because it is only through trusting in Christ that we can have all our needs and longings met. 

Who Is Jesus? 

The story of the Bible is the story of Jesus Christ, but it’s also our story. It’s the story of our creation and the story of our rebellion. But God, our Creator, loved us too much to leave us in our sin and brokenness, and He decidedly and mercifully intervened. In that way, the story of the Old Testament is the story of Advent. It tells us of God’s plan of redemption in which He promised to send a Messiah, a King, to His creation, to us, to meet our needs by saving us from sin and death. 

Today’s passage from John 1 tells us that this Messiah was with God in the beginning and that He is God Himself (John 1.1). John calls Him the Word (John 1:1, 14) and the Light (John 1.4–5, 7–9). And at the end of the passage, John finally reveals that He is writing about Jesus Christ, “the one and only Son, who is himself God” (John 1.18). 

Jesus Christ is God. He was there at the very beginning of creation. Before there was an earth, before there was water, and before there was sunlight, there was Jesus, the Light of the World (John 8.12). Through Him, all of creation came into being. Stars, land, plants, animals, and human beings, all were created through the power of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. 

But John also tells us that Jesus became human and walked on the earth. This means that God, the Creator of all things and Giver of all life, took on human flesh. This is what we remember when we celebrate Advent, that God came into the world as a human being, the same way you and I did. He came as a baby, small and weak. But in His great power, He also came as One who would save us from our sin. 

Jesus Shows Us the Heart of God 

At the end of this passage, John tells us that Jesus has revealed God to us (John 1.18). This means that the God of the universe, too great for our small, frail human minds to understand and too perfect for our sinful selves to measure up, chose to reveal Himself to us as a human in Jesus Christ. Therefore, Jesus is definitely the main character! We are told that when we look at Jesus, we see God. In listening to Jesus’s words, we hear God’s words. In Jesus’s miracles, we see God’s miracles. In Jesus’s actions, we see God’s actions. 

The heart of God was ultimately revealed when Jesus died on the cross on our behalf and was resurrected on the third day. Now, all who place their trust in Him for salvation will have their ultimate need met, their need for a relationship with God. They will spend eternity with Him rather than face the consequence of their sin, which is death (Romans 6.23, John 3.16). 

Our Hope Is in Jesus 

Before Jesus was born, God’s people longed with hope and confidence for the promised Messiah. And God showed Himself to be truly trustworthy when He sent Jesus, fulfilling His promise and the deepest longing of His people. Now, God’s people long, with the same hope and confidence, for Jesus’s return, when He will once and for all remove sin and brokenness and set all things right. 

What Does This Mean for Me? 

This is why Advent matters for Christians. It reminds us of God’s character and trustworthiness. We wait for Christmas each year, knowing that God has already given us the gift of salvation through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus. But as we wait, we are also reminded of the hope we have when Jesus comes again. Because God was faithful to send Christ the first time, we can have all the more confidence that He will do it again. 

When we choose to trust Jesus as our Lord and walk in obedience stemming from that trust, we find hope that the things of this world are not all there is. Jesus, God Himself, came to earth as a human baby, lived life in human flesh, and died a human death for your sake. He has promised now that He is coming again. Will you trust Him? 

Application Questions 

Is there anything in your life preventing you from trusting Jesus? 

Read John 3.16–17. What hope is there for those who trust in Jesus? 

Pray and thank God for taking on human flesh that first Christmas Day two thousand years ago so that you might have eternal life. 

Trust That Brings Hope

 TRUST THAT BRINGS HOPE

Read Psalm 71.5

Christmas is coming! We string lights around our homes, hang ornaments on our trees, and drink hot chocolate. There is just something about this season that causes us

to feel warm and fuzzy. You might even say it fills us with hope.

How Does the Bible Talk about Hope?

We're beginning our study with that idea of hope. Typically, we might think of hope as the feeling we get when we want or expect something to happen. You might think of the feeling you have when you watch a school sports game and anticipate a win for your team, or you might imagine the feeling leading up to Christmas when you're thinking about all the things you dream of seeing under the tree on Christmas Day.

While today we often use the word "hope" interchangeably with "wishful thinking," the authors of the Bible primarily used it to describe a confident expectation that something was going to happen. They didn't use "hope" when speaking of things they merely desired, instead, they used it when speaking of things they knew would come to pass. Therefore, when the biblical authors spoke of God offering hope to His people, they were speaking of their full confidence and trust that God would fulfill His promises.

This week's main verse is Psalm 71.5, which reads,

"For you are my hope, Lord God, my confidence from my youth." 

This verse tells us that the hope God offers us is one of confidence, and such hope can be attained even at a young age. Hope in God is not reserved for adults or even just for the biblical figures you'll read about this week. The hope of God is available to all, young and old who put their trust in Him.

God Gives Hope to His People

As we begin our Advent journey, we'll learn about the lives of people from the Old Testament and events that took place before Jesus's birth. In doing so, we'll see the challenges those people faced and the hope that God offered them. We will meet Adam and Eve and see the promise of hope they received that the evil in this world will be defeated. We will meet Abraham and learn about his hope for a purpose and a family. Moses will show us his hope in God's deliverance, and David will

teach us to hope in God's timing. But before we meet these people, we'll first look at the person of Jesus, the man who truly fulfills all hope. We'll see Him for who He is as the God of the universe but also as a human being. Every person we learn about this week will reveal how God invites us to trust Him and offers us hope through Jesus Christ. This hope is not only for our present situations but also for our future.

Reflect on the word "hope." What does it mean to you? 

What are things you hope for? 

What songs or movies make you think about hope? 

What comes to mind when you read the phrase "the hope of God"?

Pray and ask God to reveal how He offers you hope through Jesus Christ this week.

Song to reflect on: "At Last, the King" from the album Ghost of a King by The Gray Havens.

What Does It Mean To Trust God?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO TRUST GOD?

Whether you have grown up in church or you were just recently introduced to Christianity, you've likely heard the words "belief” and “faith." You've also likely heard that believing in, or having faith in, Jesus is how you're saved and become a Christian. Perhaps one of the most widely known Bible verses is John 3.16, which says,

"For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” 

The natural question, then, is, 'What does it mean to believe in Jesus?' Is it simply believing that He exists, or does it involve more than that?

In the New Testament, the Greek word for "belief" is the same word for “faith,” and it's also the same word for "trust." Using that third word, the word “trust" can help us better understand what Jesus is calling us to when He asks us to believe in Him. Trusting Christ means believing He exists, believing He is who He says He is, and believing He did what He said He did.

We can only truly trust someone when we believe the right things about them. And in Jesus's case, this means believing that He is truly the Son of God, the promised Messiah. It means believing that He took on human flesh, died for our sins, rose from the dead three days later, sits enthroned at the right hand of God, and is coming again.

We must believe all of these things to truly trust in Jesus, but trust also goes beyond mere head knowledge. It's important that we pause here for a moment and consider an important distinction that must be made between trusting Christ for your initial salvation and trusting Him every day afterward.

First, you must trust Christ for salvation an event that happens once in the life of a Christian. This involves recognizing your sin and your inability to save yourself from it. You recognise that you are unable to be in the presence of a holy and good God, and therefore, you need Christ's sacrifice to pay the penalty of sin on your behalf.

Then, by trusting that Jesus's death and resurrection cover your sin and make it possible for you to be with God for eternity, you are saved. This salvation counts for you once and for all.

Then, you must learn to trust Christ in the day-to-day. This process is much like trusting a friend or a teacher, it involves believing that God is good and will act in your best interest for His glory. It involves listening to Him and reading His Word, even when you don't understand. It involves obeying His commandments and trusting that they are for your good. It involves having a relationship with Him, one in which you grow in your knowledge and love of Him and learn to trust Him in all aspects of your life.

From the moment you trust Christ as your Saviour, you enter into a lifelong relationship with Him, a relationship that will continuously present you with further opportunities to trust God in your day-to-day life. As we go through this series of advent thoughts, you'll be encouraged to trust God daily. If you don't yet consider yourself a follower of Jesus, I invite you to take this opportunity to trust Him as your Lord and Saviour and receive the free gift of salvation that He offers you. We encourage you to speak to a Christian in your life about what this looks like for you. However, if you've already taken that first step of trusting Jesus for salvation, then these thoughts will invite you to live out your identity in Christ through your daily decisions (both big and small) so that you may grow to trust God in every aspect of your life.

Guarding Our Words

 Guarding Our Words

A fool utters all his mind: but a wise man keeps it in till afterwards.

PROVERBS 29.11 

So many conflicts could be avoided if people simply understood the truth of this verse. The Bible says that it is a fool who speaks whatever he is thinking at the moment. A wise person guards his words and speaks at the right time.

Have you heard someone say, “Well, I just say whatever I think!” That person has unwittingly revealed something negative about himself. In contrast, a wise person knows when to speak up and when to be quiet.

As you deal with people, some of them will irritate you. Sometimes people or situations can be so annoying that we find words rising up in our minds that almost demand to be spoken. Don’t give in to that impulse.

You are empowered by grace and have authority over what you say and don’t say. Don’t give life to angry thoughts by inappropriately expressing them. There is a proper time, place, and manner for expressing thoughts in words. Be sure that when you speak, it is a godly response and not an impulsive reaction.

Living Boldly

 Living Boldly

The wicked flee when no one is pursuing,

But the righteous are bold as a lion.

PROVERBS 28.1

There is no reason to be paranoid or even tentative about living each day with boldness. You are a righteous person who possesses the life of Jesus Christ. Your success is as certain as His commitment to you. Don’t worry about the outcome of your endeavours instead, be focused on moving through the process in the power of His indwelling Spirit. It isn’t the destination that requires faith. It’s the daily journey toward it that calls for trust in Him.

When a person doesn’t know or believe that Christ expresses Himself through him or her, there’s a legitimate reason to be afraid. If you were the guarantee of your future, the future would be uncertain at best. But your future is in the hands of the One who guides you with every step you take. So don’t be afraid. Trust that He has set your course, and move onward.

When Jesus Christ is guiding your steps you cannot fail! Regardless of the outcome, He is your success in life. For that reason, don’t be timid about life. Live boldly in the confidence that He is in full control

Changing The Environment

 Changing the Environment

A joyful heart makes a cheerful face.

PROVERBS 15.13

As a grace walker, you have a great potential within you that people seldom exercise. You have the ability to affect every environment in which you function. Your very presence in a room can change the atmosphere.

Have you known people who seem to brighten up a room simply by their presence? You may have known others who had the opposite effect. Still others respond to whatever the prevailing mood may be.

The grace of God in you can enable you to be a sort of “thermostat” in every place you find yourself. While others may act like thermometers and adjust to the atmosphere around them, you have the ability to change it. Jesus Christ lives inside you, and He is your source of joy.

Walk in faith and allow the joy of Christ that lives inside you to affect your whole demeanor. Smile. Laugh. Love others. Be a change agent wherever you are. As a conduit of grace you can have a greater influence than you might have imagined.

Don’t follow the crowd. Choose to let your outward demeanor be an expression of your inner condition, where Jesus Christ lives.

Acknowledging Him

 Acknowledging Him

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He will make your paths straight.

PROVERBS 3.6

Acknowledging God is a mindset. It is an attitude toward the Lord of complete trust. It is not some kind of constant verbal reassurance to Him that we are acknowledging Him. It doesn’t mean we’re going through our day saying, “Lord, I’m acknowledging you, I’m acknowledging you, I’m acknowledging you…” It doesn’t even necessarily require that we express it verbally at all. Nor does it necessarily even mean consciously, as if every moment we are aware we are acknowledging Him, thinking to ourselves, “I’m trusting, I’m trusting, I’m trusting…” It’s not praying a certain number of prayers to reassure Him or ourselves that we are acknowledging Him.

To acknowledge our Father is to trust Him completely. It means calmly resting in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ within us. It is an underlying perspective, not a religious mantra we chant in our minds.

The One who loves you more than any other lays out your course for you. He delights in revealing his purposes to you. Know that He is your life, and trust totally in Him that He will direct your path.

Ordained Days

 Ordained Days

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

PSALM 139.16

The details of your life don’t just happen by chance. Before you were born, your heavenly Father was already intimately acquainted with you. He planned the days of your life before you breathed your first breath. Nothing that happens in your life catches the One who loves you most off guard. He sees what is going on now, and He has already orchestrated those events to work together for good in your life.

To recognise the divinely ordered structure of your lifetime can enable you to avoid needless anxiety over the temporary trials and frustrations you encounter. As you face trying moments, reaffirm the truth to yourself that everything is under control. Even when things aren’t under your control, remember that they are all under His control.

To worry is to imagine a future without God in it. It is to act as if you are an orphan with nobody to care for you. Reject such lies. There is Somebody who cares for you, and He will see you through the tough times. In fact, He already has the solution worked out. You only need to walk through it by faith.

Horrible Choices

 Horrible Choices

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

PSALM 139.7-8

Your God will never abandon you. David said, “If I make my bed in Sheol (Hebrew for “the grave,” but rendered in some translations as “hell”), behold, You are there.” Somebody may say, “But I’ve created my own living hell. I may as well be a dead man. How can I possibly move forward from here?”

The answer is this, God is there with you in the hell you created. Trust Him! He will lead you out and guide you. Don’t believe the lie that you have forfeited God’s best for your life because of wrong choices you’ve made. Trust your Father instead.

You may argue, “My decision was intentionally wrong. I decided to do it. How could God work in this?” Before you were ever born, God saw everything from start to finish. He saw every decision you were ever going to make. Based on His sovereign decrees, every decision you were to make in your lifetime was incorporated into the master plan.

Your Father is a redeemer of bad situations. Yield yourself and your circumstances to Him. His grace still offers miracles.

Sovereign Supervision

 Sovereign Supervision

The LORD has established His throne in the heavens,

And His sovereignty rules over all.

PSALM 103.19

The events of your life aren’t unfolding by random chance. A sovereign God rules over what happens in this small space-time box called Earth. The world is not hanging in the balance, with the outcome yet to be determined. Some people seem to believe that the throngs of heaven are on one side of the stadium and the demons of hell are on the other, each hoping their side wins. Within the context of this twisted theology, it becomes man’s decisions that determine who wins, and meanwhile, God is keeping His fingers crossed. With that perspective, it’s no wonder that so few find spiritual rest!

That line of thinking is nothing less than religious humanism. It is an insult to God’s sovereignty. It puts man in the driver’s seat and makes God nothing more than a nervous passenger who is doing all He can do to make sure everything turns out all right. God is portrayed as sometimes encouraging us, sometimes threatening us, but always hoping that we will respond in the right way.

All of heaven isn’t holding its breath waiting to see how things turn out in the end. Your God superintends this world and your life. Affirm His sovereignty and experience peace as the result.

Creatures Of Dust

 Creatures of Dust

He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.

PSALM 103:14

The tender patience of your Father toward you can be one of the most comforting aspects of your grace walk. We all tend to be hard on ourselves at times. We find ourselves disappointed that we didn’t do better in a given situation. We may criticise ourselves or even feel disgust when we look at our shortcomings.

Your Father doesn’t have that kind of critical attitude toward you. Jesus lived in this world as a man, and He understands what it is to live in a human body. He sits beside the right hand of His Father right now and, as a man, mediates your humanity to the Father. The wonder of that reality is that God understands.

He isn’t angry toward you. He isn’t impatient. He isn’t frustrated because you won’t get your act together. Your Father is patient and kind, tenderly working in your life to bring you to maturity. He won’t give up on you but will lovingly nurture you toward becoming the person outwardly He has already made you to be on the inside. Just trust Him and show yourself plenty of grace. He does.

There Is No West Pole

 There Is No West Pole

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

PSALM 103.12

There is an unhealthy obsession with sin in modern Christendom. We preach about sin, discuss sin, think about sin, and study it. Such a focus is neither helpful nor necessary. God has dealt with our sin in such a way that the only response we really need is to believe that our sin is gone and walk in freedom from it.

Our sins have been separated from us as far as the east is from the west. That statement is very revealing. If a person travels north they will eventually find the North Pole and begin to travel south again. If they travel far enough south, they will once again meet north. North and south come together at the poles. However, one can travel east and never find oneself going west again, and vice versa. East and west never meet.

God has separated your sins from you in that way. The chance of your sins being attached to you again is as great as the likelihood of a traveller discovering the West Pole. It won’t happen because it can’t happen. Your sins are gone and nothing will ever change that.

Wise Choices

 Wise Choices

The LORD gives wisdom;

From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

PROVERBS 2.6

Wisdom is more than knowledge. It is knowing what to do with knowledge. The Old Testament promised those who sought the Lord that He would give them wisdom. What an encouragement that must have been to them.

However, the grace walk is even better. You live under a New Covenant, in which your Father doesn’t offer to give you wisdom. Instead, He already has given it to you in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote, “By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1.30).

You possess divine wisdom because you have Wisdom living in you! Don’t lean on your own understanding. When you face a decision, pray and ask Him to express wisdom in your thoughts.

Then confidently make your decision knowing that you didn’t do it alone. Don’t second-guess the decision you’ve made. Move forward in faith that, just as He expressed wisdom in you as you made the decision, He will guide you to execute the choice you have made. To live this way is to walk in faith.

Numbered Days

 Numbered Days

Teach us to number our days,

That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

PSALM 90.12

Once a day is past, it can never be reclaimed. How you spend the time you have in this world is an important matter. Our days are a commodity that can be spent to bring honor to God and great blessing to the lives of others and us.

We mark the days on a calendar, looking forward to an event. But we are also marking off the days behind. We can never recapture them. How do you want to spend each day? If days were money to be spent, how carefully would you contemplate spending each one?

God’s plan for you is to lead you forward so you don’t leave this world with a multitude of regrets. You have the potential to live the kind of life that will stand as an ongoing tribute to the goodness and grace of God.

We become wise in our approach to life as we realize we won’t be here forever. Don’t allow others to control your time. Decide for yourself how to be a wise steward of the days you have left in this world. Investing them well will leave a legacy that honours Him and blesses others.

God Is For You

 God Is for You

This I know, that God is for me.

PSALM 56.9

Have you ever found yourself in a place where it seems like life is against you? Sometimes it seems like nothing works in our favour. In those moments, we may be tempted to wonder where God is in all that’s going on.

The answer is simple. He is with you. Not only is He with you, but God is for you. This is a fact you need to settle in your mind once and for all time. Unless you have established firmly in your heart and mind that God is for you, you will be an easy target for attack every time things seem to go wrong.

When we can’t see the hand of God at work in our circumstances, then we have the opportunity to exercise our faith. There is no room for faith when there is no room for doubt. So the fact that the situation seems to suggest your Father isn’t involved makes it a perfect time for declaring in faith and faith alone, “This I know, that God is for me!”

God Isn’t Hungry

 God Isn’t Hungry

If I were hungry I would not tell you,

For the world is Mine, and all it contains.

PSALM 50.12

The world of religion puts such an emphasis on what we are to do for God. This mistaken emphasis isn’t benign, because it gives people the impression that there really is something we could do for God. That false understanding easily leads to the notion that He needs us to do His work.

God doesn’t need anything. With divine wit, He spoke through the psalmist, “If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you.” God has everything that He needs. Our service is His way of allowing us to participate in what He is doing in this world. He certainly could do it without us.

Renounce the idea that God is expecting you to do something for Him. Replace that faulty view with the truth that He allows you to join Him in what He’s doing in this world. God doesn’t need you, but the beauty of grace is that He enjoys it when you partner together with Him in what He is doing in this world. Gain that perspective and you’ll find that service becomes a real joy.

The Desires Of Your Heart

 The Desires of Your Heart

Delight yourself in the LORD;

And He will give you the desires of your heart.

PSALM 37.4

Sometimes you may wonder if the things you want are desires that your Father wants to fulfil or if they are selfish desires. This verse gives assurance that if you delight in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart. Does that mean that God is like a cosmic Santa Claus, who will give us a Rolls-Royce and a mansion with a Jacuzzi simply because we want them?

The key to the meaning of this verse is to understand that God doesn’t simply give us what we desire. He is the one who places our desires within us as we delight ourselves in Him. In other words, He causes us to want what He wants us to want. And then He gives us those things.

Focus on Him, and then trust Him to put the desires in you that are right for you. Don’t overanalyse your motives. Just put your desires in His hands and know that He will deal with them in His way and timing.

Taste And See

 Taste and See

O taste and see that the LORD is good!

PSALM 34.8

Once you have encountered your Lord’s love up close and personal, you become addicted for life. It’s impossible to experience enough of Him. It’s as Jesus reveals Himself to us that we find ourselves hungering to know Him more intimately and to love Him more earnestly.

Speaking from his own experience, St. Augustine said, “You flashed, You shone; and You chased away my blindness. You became fragrant; and I inhaled and sighed for You. I tasted, and now hunger and thirst for You. You touched me; and I burned for Your embrace.”

Spiritual hunger is the result of encountering Christ in our lives. That hunger then becomes the bridge by which we gain a heightened experience of Him with us in our circumstances. An authentic knowledge of Him will cause you to move through life with your spiritual antenna up, looking for signals of His presence nearby.

Ask the Lord to reach into your life like He did with Augustine. Then patiently wait for Him to flash, to shine, and to chase away your own blindness to His presence. He will come to you and do just that.

All Things Sacred

 All Things Sacred

The earth is the LORD’s, and all it contains,

The world, and those who dwell in it.

PSALM 24.1

There is no area of your life that is segregated from your union to God. Because you are in Him, everything is spiritual. The Lord owns everything.

One of the greatest deceptions that has ever slipped into our minds is the idea that there is a difference between secular and sacred. There is no such dualism. Everything is sacred because of Christ’s pervasive presence and He lives in you. The word sacred comes from the Latin word sacer, which denotes something uncommon because of its intimate association with the Divine.

You are one with God through Jesus Christ. Everything in your life is intimately associated with Him through your union with Him, thus making it sacred.

One man told me, “I like to keep my business life and my spiritual life separate from each other.” What a sad thing. Do we leave Christ at home when we go to work? Does He go to our business appointments with us, but do we then politely instruct Him to sit quietly in the background? Our union with Christ defines the sum total of our lives.

Cloud Talk

 Cloud Talk

The heavens declare the glory of God.

PSALM 19.1 

Our Father can speak to us in so many ways that are outside the box of religion. Clouds aren’t religious. The blue sky isn’t religious. God doesn’t communicate only through church-talk, but also through cloud-talk. These are only two of His many dialects.

The means by which God declares His love and presence are without limit. Many ancient saints understood themselves to be living in a “God-bathed” world. If you want to deeply experience intimacy with Him, it helps immeasurably to view the world in the same way. Our loving God reveals Himself in many ways. Jesus is whispering to you right now, every day, in a thousand ways, and many of them aren’t religious. We need only to be watching and aware.

Continual awareness of Christ in our daily lives is inseparable from a hunger to know Him. Ask Him to make Himself known to you, and then go through your day with your eyes and ears open. As He leads you into a growing awareness of His voice speaking in various ways, you will discover that heaven and earth are His platform, a platform from which He constantly declares His love for you.

The Fear Of Judgment

 The Fear of Judgment

She said to Elijah, “What do I have to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and to put my son to death!”

1 KINGS 17.18

When Elijah showed up at the house of a widow whose son was terribly sick, she became afraid when she saw the prophet. She imagined he had come to her because of her sins and that her son would now die as punishment. That’s how the Old Covenant mentality always works.

Perhaps you have been in legalistic environments that have left you with a mental attitude that anticipates judgment by God. You can relax. That day doesn’t exist for you. You are in Christ, and there is no condemnation to you.

Elijah actually acted as a type of Jesus in this instance. The woman’s son didn’t die. Instead, he was healed through the prophet’s ministry. Throughout the Old Testament Scriptures there are glimpses of grace like this.

Jesus didn’t come to visit retribution upon you. He came to rescue you and restore you to humanity’s original innocence before the Father. He accomplished that so that you never need to fear Him.

Your True Self

 Your True Self

The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.” Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

JUDGES 6.12-13

Gideon was a small man in the smallest tribe of Israel. When God called him to lead the people in battle, his own sense of inadequacy flooded his thoughts and feelings. Note how the Angel of the Lord addressed him: “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”

God sees things about you that you may not see or know about yourself. He saw Gideon’s true identity when the man himself didn’t see it at all. He knows the same about you. Believe what He says about you in Scripture. Embrace and act on the identity He has given you, regardless of whether you feel it or think it. What God says about you is true. You can base your actions on your true identity even when your emotions contradict the truth.

Healing In The Soul

 Healing in the Soul

When they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.”

JOSHUA 5.8-9

The whole time Israel wandered in the wilderness, her men had not kept the covenant sign of circumcision. Upon entering Canaan, they were circumcised in obedience to God. God had delivered them from their old life in Egypt. Their circumcision verified that, but they still needed to heal.

Your old life has been put to death. But don’t assume that everything connected with that lifestyle will instantly disappear. Although your spirit is now filled with the life of Jesus Christ, the soul must be gradually renewed, and that takes time. The soul is personality, consisting of your mind, will, and emotions. Part of the ongoing sanctification process that the Holy Spirit does in your life is to bring healing to your damaged emotions and to renew your mind to the truth of God’s Word. The grace walk is not a lifestyle of sinless perfection, but it is a place where God can gradually bring about the healing that we may need in our feelings and beliefs.

A New World

 A New World

You have not passed this way before.

JOSHUA 3.4

This may be one of the great understatements of the Bible. God’s people were about to enter a new world, one that was so unlike anything they had ever known that they couldn’t even imagine what it would be like. So it is with the person today who moves from the wilderness of religious legalism into the land of grace. To experience the reality of who we are in Christ is totally different from mere religious commitment. To compare living a religious lifestyle and experiencing a grace walk is to compare two different dimensions of living. They are more diametrically opposed than we can comprehend until we have crossed over from one to the other.

As you move further along in your own grace walk, remember that there is no place where legalistic religion and grace can intersect. Law and grace can never coexist together. You must move out of the wilderness of legalism into Canaan. To accept grace means to renounce legalism, a system of living in which you try to make spiritual progress or gain God’s blessings based on what you do. It is a major move but one that will transform your life.

Entering Canaan

 Entering Canaan

Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.

JOSHUA 1.2

Moses wasn’t able to lead Israel into Canaan. It took Joshua to do that. This isn’t an incidental matter. Moses is remembered primarily as the one who brought God’s Law to the people. The name “Joshua” is the Hebrew equivalent of the name “Jesus.”

When God told Joshua that Moses was dead and that he was to lead the people across the Jordan into Canaan, His instructions convey an important message for us today. We will never experience the abundant life our Father wants us to know by following religious rules. Moses, who represents the rules-keeping system, is dead to us and us to him. Our leader is Joshua (Jesus). He alone is our guide into the awesome life God has given us.

Moses is dead. Don’t try to build your lifestyle around religious rules. The grace walk is a journey with Jesus. He will lead you from a lifestyle of struggling to get to where you want to be to the place of entering in by faith in Him alone.