VIDEO The Love of Christ

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. John 13:34-35

Do you know how to share the Good News of Christ? According to a Lifeway Research survey, 66 percent of Christians “are not familiar with any ‘methods for telling others about Jesus.’” Additionally, 70 percent of the Christians interviewed “have not shared with a stranger how to become a Christian in the past six months.” John Sorensen, president of Evangelism Explosion, said, “Now, perhaps more than ever, people are open to conversations about faith, yet this study reveals few Christians actually take the opportunity to engage in personal evangelism.”[1]

Finding the right words to say to share the Gospel may be intimidating. But when Christians demonstrate Christ’s love to each other, the unsaved recognize a difference in us. It is through our actions that people see Christ in us.

Today, commit an act of love toward someone and shine a light on the love of Jesus.

Jesus gives the world the right to judge whether you and I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all Christians. Francis Schaeffer

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The Explosive Power of Real Love – John 13:34-35 – Skip Heitzig

God in the Details

She saw the basket among the reeds and . . . she opened it and saw the baby. Exodus 2:5–6

It had been an awful week for Kevin and Kimberley. Kevin’s seizures had suddenly worsened, and he’d been hospitalized. Amid the pandemic, their four young children—siblings adopted from foster care—were taking cabin fever to a new extreme. On top of that, Kimberley couldn’t scrounge up a decent meal from the fridge. Oddly, at that moment, she craved carrots.

An hour later, there was a knock at the door. There stood their friends Amanda and Andy with an entire meal she’d prepared for the family. Including carrots.

They say the devil is in the details? No. An amazing story in the history of the Jewish people shows God is in the details. Pharaoh had commanded, “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile” (Exodus 1:22). That genocidal development turned on a remarkable detail. Moses’ mother did indeed “throw” her baby into the Nile, albeit with a strategy. And from the Nile, Pharaoh’s own daughter would rescue the baby whom God used to rescue His people. She would even pay Moses’ mother to nurse him! (2:9).

One day from this fledgling Jewish nation would come a promised baby boy. His story would abound with amazing details and divine ironies. Most importantly, Jesus would provide an exodus out of our slavery to sin.

Even—especially—in the dark times, God is in the details. As Kimberley will tell you, “God brought me carrots!”

By:  Tim Gustafson

Reflect & Pray

What stories can you tell where you’ve seen God in the details? How did that help strengthen your faith?

Thank You, Father, that You show up in the little things as well as the big things.

How the Cross Impacts Death

Because of the cross, death for believers is just the doorway to heaven Genesis 3:1-24

Most people prefer to focus on living, but death is a reality we must all face. Scripture says, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned” (Rom. 5:12 NLT). In the garden of Eden, Adam—together with Eve—broke the only command God had given them: “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen. 2:17 NIV). Disobedience broke their intimacy with God and brought physical death to humanity. 

Because of sin, then, our bodies are mortal (Romans 6:23)—and there’s no escape unless Jesus returns while we’re living. As Adam’s descendants, we are born “dead in [our] offenses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), and we remain spiritually dead unless we unite with God through faith in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22). By receiving the Savior, we are reconciled to our heavenly Father and guaranteed eternal life with Him (John 3:15). How thankful we should be that Jesus gave His life to free us from our fear of death (Hebrews 2:15).

So even though our bodies die, we have hope because of the everlasting life we are promised in heaven. The cross transformed death from a dead end to a doorway into Jesus’ presence

The Scarlet Hope

“Behold, when we come into the land, thou shalt bind this line of scarlet thread in the window which thou didst let us down by: and thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and all thy father’s household, home unto thee.” (Joshua 2:18)

These words were spoken to Rahab by Joshua’s spies after she had protected them from discovery by the officials of Jericho. She had testified to the spies that “the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath” (Joshua 2:11). Therefore, “by faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace” (Hebrews 11:31).

Rahab’s spiritual salvation came because of her faith in the true God; she soon entered into the covenant family of Israel and eventually even became a member of the family line leading to Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5). Her physical deliverance, on the other hand, and that of her family depended on a “line of scarlet thread” suspended from her window, identifying her home as “under the blood,” so to speak, when Jericho fell and all its other inhabitants perished.

This thin, blood-red line constituted a very slender hope for Rahab in the midst of such a scene of judgment and total destruction, but it sufficed. It is fascinating to note that the Hebrew word for “line” (occurring here for the first time in the Bible) is everywhere else translated by the key word “hope.” Perhaps “line” soon came to mean “hope” because of this very experience, when a “scarlet hope” extended all the way from a repentant sinner to the very God of heaven! Note the same thought with the same word: “For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD” (Psalm 71:5).

“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). HMM

The Holy Spirit Acts Like Jesus

God, who is rich in mercy…even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. —Ephesians 2:4-5

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life and light and love. In His uncreated nature He is a boundless sea of fire, flowing, moving ever, performing as He moves the eternal purposes of God.

Toward nature He performs one sort of work, toward the world another and toward the Church still another. And every act of His accords with the will of the Triune God. Never does He act on impulse nor move after a quick or arbitrary decision.

Since He is the Spirit of the Father He feels toward His people exactly as the Father feels, so there need be on our part no sense of strangeness in His presence. He will always act like Jesus, toward sinners in compassion, toward saints in warm affection, toward human suffering in tenderest pity and love. POM071

What Christ did for us on the cross, the Spirit must do in us as a personal experience.

CDP095

He has offered us Himself as the life and power to be obedient and to be holy, and nothing less than his own perfect example should ever satisfy our holy ambition! LCL060

Precise Scripture

This is what the Lord said.—Jeremiah 13:1

Let us focus on what is meant by the phrase—”the sword of the Spirit, which is God’s word.” The sword is the Word of God—the Bible, the inspired Scriptures.

In Matthew 4:4 and 4:7, we see a perfect illustration of how Jesus used the sword of the Spirit when rebutting the temptations of the Devil when He begins His response, “It is written …” and “It is also written …” Notice how, prior to the temptation, Jesus was anointed by the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:13-17). Next we are informed that Jesus was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil” (4:1).

During the temptation, our Lord, filled with the Spirit, resisted every one of the Devil’s statements by using the precise words of Scripture. Follow me closely, for this is extremely important: Christ did not merely utter a newly formed statement or something that came to Him on the spur of the moment, but quoted a text which had already been given by God and written down. The weapon used by our Lord was the Word of God, the Scriptures.

Can you see the point I am making? Satan is not rebuffed by clever phrases that are made up on the spur of the moment and sound theologically sophisticated and refined. He is defeated only when we quote to him the precise words of Scripture. If this was the strategy Jesus had to use, then how much more you and I.

Nothing defeats Satan more thoroughly and effectively than the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Prayer

O God, open my eyes that I might see more clearly than ever the power and authority that lies in Your sacred Word, the Bible. Help me to know it better. For Your own dear name’s sake. Amen.

Further Study

1Pt 1:13-25; Ps 119:89, 103; Jr 15:16

What did Jeremiah do with God’s Word?

Prepared for Worship

He will be like a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.—Malachi 3:3

The quality of our worship is not based on our activities but on our character. Churches can mistakenly assume that the better the music, the more impressive the building, and the more eloquent the preaching, the more worshipful the experience will be. Genuine worship, however, originates from within our hearts. If our relationship with God is not healthy, all these things are nothing more than religious pageantry.

The Levites were the worship leaders of their day. Their task was to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. God declared that before they could worship Him in righteousness, He would first refine them with His refiner’s fire, purging them of any impurities. Merely being members of the religious profession, having official responsibilities in the temple, and going through the rituals of worship, did not guarantee that their religious activities would be acceptable to holy God.

Today, we tend to look to external things to enhance our worship. The true quality of our worship, however, rests within us. If we have not allowed God to purify us first, our worship will be void of His presence. If we do not have a pure heart, we may give offerings, but they will be unacceptable to God. Attending a religious service will not automatically ensure an encounter with God.

If you are not satisfied with the quality of your worship, don’t be too quick to blame your environment. Look first to your own heart. Allow God to refine your heart until it is pleasing to Him, and you will be free to worship God as He intends.