VIDEO Memorize and Obey

How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. Psalm 119:9

There are many ways that health-conscious folks try to ensure the purity of their physical bodies and improve their health. Eating organically-grown foods, drinking pure water, breathing clean air, engaging in cleansing fasts, cutting out junk food—are all ways to help detox our body. Our world grows less pure, from a physical standpoint, every day due to pollution and other toxicities.

What about our spiritual life? Our world certainly seems to grow more spiritually toxic all the time, and it is impossible to avoid encountering snares and temptations. So how do we keep our spiritual “body” pure? The psalmist had a solution: Store up God’s Word in our heart so that we might not sin against Him and apply the wisdom and direction His Word offers into our life (Psalm 119:9, 11). Think about it: If we obey (apply) God’s Word, we won’t choose to sin. And if we memorize (store up) God’s Word, it will be within a thought’s reach when we are faced with temptation.

The more we live “in” God’s Word, the purer our life will be in the midst of a toxic world.

God requires an inward purity as well as an outward performance.  John Blanchard

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The Purifying & Preserving Power of the Word of God – Psalm 119:9-11 (4.5.17) – Pastor Jordan Rogers

Working with God

We are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.  1 Corinthians 3:9

During his 1962 visit to Mexico, Bill Ashe helped fix windmill hand pumps at an orphanage. Fifteen years later, inspired by a deep desire to serve God by helping provide clean water to villages in need, Bill founded a nonprofit organization. He said, “God awoke me to ‘make the most of the time’ by finding others with a desire to bring safe drinking water to the rural poor.” Later, having learned about the global need for safe water through the requests of thousands of pastors and evangelists from more than 100 countries, Bill invited others to join the ministry’s efforts.

God welcomes us to team up to serve with Him and others in various ways. When the people of Corinth argued over which teachers they preferred, the apostle Paul affirmed his role as a servant of Jesus and a teammate of Apollos, fully dependent on God for spiritual growth (1 Corinthians 3:1–7). He reminds us that all work has God-given value (v. 8). Acknowledging the privilege of working with others while serving Him, Paul encourages us to build each other up as He transforms us in love (v. 9).

Though our mighty Father doesn’t need our help to accomplish His great works, He equips us and invites us to partner with Him.

By:  Xochitl Dixon

Reflect & Pray

How does leaving the results to God give you the courage to risk doing what seems impossible? What hard thing has He invited you to do with His help?

Father, thank You for providing all I need as You continue to accomplish great things in me.

Be Fully Alive

Colossians 2:9-14

John 10:10 says that through Christ, we are offered a life that’s abundant and fully alive. Yet how many of us would say we’ve fully appropriated that life? Sadly, not many. We tend to define “fully alive” by earthly things like relationships, physical health, and tangible possessions. But Jesus had more in mind—specifically, spiritual treasures. Some of these belong to us now, and some are reserved for heaven (Matt. 6:19-20).

In today’s reading, when Paul wrote about being alive in Christ, he used illustrations of circumcision and baptism. To what spiritual treasures do they point?

Treasure #1—New Nature. From the moment we are saved, Christ lives within us; our old nature is replaced by a spiritually healthy one.

Treasure #2—New Freedom. Our salvation liberates us from the penalty of sin because Jesus canceled our debt at the cross—there is no more guilt (Rom. 8:1). True freedom is more valuable than any earthly possession.

Treasure #3—New Standard of Conduct. Upon salvation, we are delivered from legalism, the expressing of faith by adhering to rules. Instead, we live by faith in Christ and experience an intimate relationship with Him through His Spirit.

We who are alive in Christ possess great, lasting riches (2 Corinthians 8:9). Now that’s living!

The Joy of the Lord

“Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our LORD: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)

Jerusalem’s wall had been completed, God’s Word had been honored, and there was a great day of rejoicing. The real joy in the hearts of the people, however, was not their joy—it was the joy of the Lord. They rejoiced because He rejoiced, and they shared His joy.

The Lord’s joy is satisfied when His love is received and His purposes fulfilled. “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

To attain His joy, He must first redeem from the penalty of sin and death those whom He had created in His own image. Therefore, He “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

There will be a great day of rejoicing in the age to come when all the redeemed will be presented “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 1:24). Until that day, however, “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10).

Joy is in the Lord’s heart whenever His saving grace is received by a believing sinner. That same joy is likewise experienced by each believer whose testimony of life and word brings such a sinner to God.

Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (John 15:11). His joy is our joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength. HMM

Been Saved to Worship

She unto the LORD me glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

—1 Chronicles 16:29

 

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with signing a card. It can be a helpful thing so we know who has made inquiry.

But really, my brother or sister, we are brought to God and to faith and to salvation that we might worship and adore Him. We do not come to God that we might be automatic Christians, cookie-cutter Christians, Christians stamped out with a die.

God has provided His salvation that we might be, individually and personally, vibrant children of God, loving God with all our hearts and worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness.   WHT014

Lord, I don’t need another name in my file, another notch on my belt. But I would like the privilege of bringing someone to the point of salvation so he could become a genuine worshiper of You. Use me, I pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Not I, but Christ in Me

…that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.

—Colossians 1:18-19

 

Someone wrote the godly Macarius of Optino that his spiritual counsel had been helpful.

“This cannot be,” Macarius wrote in reply. “Only the mistakes are mine. All good advice is the advice of the Spirit of God; His advice that I happen to have heard rightly and to have passed on without distorting it.”

There is an excellent lesson here which we must not allow to go unregarded. It is the sweet humility of the man of God….In this day when shimmering personalities carry on the Lord’s work after the methods of the entertainment world, it is refreshing to associate for a moment even in the pages of a book with a sincere and humble man who keeps his own personality out of sight and places the emphasis upon the inner working of God. OGM015-016

Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord!

Oh, to be lost in Thee!

Oh, that it might be no more I, but

Christ that lives in me! HCL264

 

Christ’s Last Beatitude

John 20:29

 

Scattered throughout the resurrection stories in the Gospels are wonderful statements of Christ. Shining among the words of the risen Lord is Christ’s last beatitude.

We all know the beatitudes in our Lord’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. No doubt, as He taught the crowds which followed Him wherever He went, He uttered other beatitudes. But His last beatitude, which we treasure for its contemporary relevance, was given in the Upper Room in Jerusalem one week after His resurrection.

Jesus had come to the Upper Room especially for the disciple Thomas, who has been labeled throughout history as “the doubter.” Now, we should not be too hard on Thomas, because he wasn’t much different from you or me.

He had given his support wholeheartedly to Jesus throughout His years of ministry. But his hopes had been dashed as he saw Jesus arrested and ignominiously hung upon a cross. His dreams shattered, he had gone off in despair.

In his sadness, he had gravitated back to the disciple band, to discover them in a state of excitement. They told him the staggering news that Jesus was alive, and had come to that very room.

Thomas was incredulous, unconvinced. Perhaps with bravado, with the air of one who doesn’t lose his head in an emotionally charged atmosphere, he calmly says, “Seeing is believing. I have to see for myself the nail marks, the wounds. Even to touch Him, before I will believe He is alive.”

When Jesus came for Thomas, the testimony of his senses was not needed. In that thrilling moment he believed, and from his lips came the joyous confession,

“My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). A confession so deep that Thomas went on to do service in which he gave his life for the sake of Christ.

Looking at the kneeling Thomas, Jesus spoke His last beatitude. They were words for us today: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”

(John 20:29). What blessing has come to the multitudes of people down the centuries who, never having seen Christ, have believed and found Him to be their living, loving Savior and Lord.

Jesus understands us each one. He wins us, not by coercion, but by His steadfast love. And when we confess Him as Lord, the rich blessings of His presence follow us through all our days.

Eva Burrows, The War Cry