VIDEO By All Means!

I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. 1 Corinthians 9:22

 

Danica McKellar, a star from The Wonder Years, recently used Instagram to surprise her fans with an announcement. After years of skepticism, she has embraced Jesus as her Savior. Her decision followed a conversation with a fellow actress who gave her a Bible and invited her to church. Though her spiritual journey is new, it’s already been spread to thousands.¹

Like every other channel of human communication and technology, Satan wants to dominate our modern laptops and phones, but the followers of Christ are to use every means available to share the Gospel and encourage others with the power of Scripture.

Technology has allowed our world to become smaller, making it easier to share the Gospel with people who haven’t heard the Good News. Should we take advantage of new technology and use it to share the Gospel with others? By all means!

How beautiful upon the web are the thumbs of him who shares good news, who publishes the peace of God in Christ, who shares the good news of our happiness and joy in him, and who publishes in his feeds: “God reigns!”
Tony Reinke
 

¹ Talia Wise, “‘Wonder Years’ Actress Closes 2022 Grateful for New Relationship With Jesus Christ: ‘It Feels Miraculous,’” CBN News, December 27, 2022.

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1 Corinthians 9

Tired Tents

While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened. 2 Corinthians 5:4

“The tent is tired!” Those were the words of my friend Paul, who pastors a church in Nairobi, Kenya. Since 2015, the congregation has worshiped in a tentlike structure. Now, Paul writes, “Our tent is worn out and it is leaking when it rains.”

My friend’s words about their tent’s structural weaknesses remind us of the apostle Paul’s words regarding the frailty of our human existence. “Outwardly we are wasting away . . . . While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened” (2 Corinthians 4:16; 5:4).

Though the awareness of our fragile human existence happens relatively early in life, we become more conscious of it as we age. Indeed, time picks our pockets. The vitality of youth surrenders reluctantly to the reality of aging (see Ecclesiastes 12:1–7). Our bodies—our tents—get tired.

But tired tents need not equate to tired trust. Hope and heart needn’t fade as we age. “Therefore we do not lose heart,” the apostle says (2 Corinthians 4:16). The One who has made our bodies has made Himself at home there through His Spirit. And when this body can no longer serve us, we’ll have a dwelling not subject to breaks and aches—we’ll “have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven” (5:1).

By:  Arthur Jackson

Reflect & Pray

How does it make you feel that Christ resides in you by His Spirit (5:5)? When you find yourself “groaning,” how does prayer help you?

Father, thank You for Your continual presence. When I’m physically uncomfortable, help me to trust You even as I anticipate an eternal dwelling that will last forever.

Crucified With Christ

Realize that your past no longer has any power in your life Romans 6:1-11

The message of salvation is simple enough for a child to understand yet so profound that no human mind can ever fully comprehend it. One thing many people find perplexing is the concept of dying with Christ—a phrase that comes from Romans 6:6. There Paul writes, “Our old self was crucified with Him,” but what exactly does that mean? 

With Jesus’ crucifixion, all of mankind’s sin—including yours—was nailed to the cross and canceled (Colossians 2:14). Or, as Galatians 5:24 says, “the flesh with its passions and desires” has been put to death. This means the person you were prior to salvation was crucified with the Savior, and you can never be that person again. The old you is dead, and the person you are today is a brand-new creation: a child of God, clothed in His righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). 

While our full victory over sin won’t be complete here on earth, we can be confident that Jesus has declared believers holy, righteous, and blameless. Paul explained it this way: “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11). If you believe Jesus is your Savior, move forward with confidence and peace in your new identity today.

Action Verbs

“Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.” (Psalm 148:5)

The concept of “fiat creation” is opposed by evolutionists and all who believe in the so-called geologic ages. Nevertheless, this is clearly the teaching of the Word of God, and God was there! Psalm 148 exhorts all the stars to praise the Lord, and then notes that, as soon as God spoke, they “were created.” Similarly, “by the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth…. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:6, 9).

It is worth noting that whenever the verbs “create” and “make” are used in reference to God’s work of creation, they are never in the present tense. God is not now creating or making stars or animals or people as theistic evolution requires; at the end of the six-day creation period, in fact, God “rested from all his work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:3).

This is the teaching of the New Testament also. “The worlds [that is, the space/time cosmos, the ‘aeons’] were framed [not ‘are being framed’] by the word of God [not ‘by processes of stellar evolution’], so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear [not ‘out of pre-existing materials,’ as required by theories of chemical and cosmic evolution]” (Hebrews 11:3).

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself confirmed the doctrine of recent creation. “From the beginning of the creation [not, that is, four billion years after the solar system evolved] God made them [Adam and Eve] male and female” (Mark 10:6). Thus, those who believe in the geologic ages are rejecting both the biblical record and the authority of Jesus Christ in order to attain ephemeral acceptance by the ungodly. This is a poor exchange! HMM

Humility Is Focusing Attention On Others

Recently I received a letter from a person I had not heard from in over 25 years. To my amazement, his dispatch contained 43 references to himself as he chronicled his many impressive accomplishments.

Then, without warning, the communication abruptly ended with his signature. Not one inquiry about my family or me. It would appear that his letter evidenced an amazing degree of

SELF-CENTEREDNESS.

Ever observe how people crowd their way into an elevator or onto a bus? Or jump up to be the first to get off an airplane? Or leave their McDonalds Hamburger tray un-bussed?

SELF-CENTEREDNESS.

And what about conversations? Amazing, is it not, the verbal dexterity people will employ to insure that the focus of the interchange somehow centers on them?

SELF-CENTEREDNESS.

By contrast, HUMILITY IS FOCUSING ATTENTION ON OTHERS.

HUMBLE people have a quiet, softness about them. They step to the back of the crowd. They quietly pick up other’s bags. They defer. They are unpretentious. They remain unperturbed at being inconvenienced. They are humble folk who are likable and easy to be around.

By contrast, PRIDE has a stiff, arbitrary quality about it. Like bumping into a fire plug: There’s no give. It’s bruising. Always right.

Ponder St. Paul’s admonition on HUMILITY:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. In humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.“(Philippians 2:3-4)

In His humility Jesus gave up all His rights, and He calls us to do exactly the same:

“If any man wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself… and keep close behind me… the Son of Man himself has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life to set many others free.“(Luke 9:23; Mark 10:45 – Phillips)

HUMILITY THEN IS FOCUSING ATTENTION ON OTHERS. THE QUESTION IS, “ARE YOU UP TO THE CHALLENGE?”

“O keep my Soul and deliver me.”

Numbers 16:41-50

Numbers 16:41

Wonderful audacity! Yesterday they fled in terror while they saw the earth open and swallow up the rebels, and now they, themselves, break out into revolt, and charge Moses with murdering those whom the Lord, himself, so justly executed. Is there any bound to human sin? Lions and tigers may be tamed, but man breaks off from all restraint, and follows his own devices, despite every warning and instruction.

Numbers 16:44, 45

This was the second time in which the Lord had spoken thus to his servants, and a second time they fall upon their faces in reverent but earnest intercession. They pleaded for those very people who were up in arms against them; such is the true love of God’s ministers. Never will they give sinners up while they have breath in their bodies.

Numbers 16:27-46

His spiritual soul could see what others could not, for he perceived that danger was near. Those who have had communion with God possess a sensitiveness unknown to others. Moses bade Aaron hasten, and, indeed when men are dying, we must make no delay in our efforts to save them. Lord, help us to fly on the wings of love.

Numbers 16:48

He stood as a champion, blocking the pathway of the destroyer. He came to the front of the danger, as though he would either die with the people, or else if he lived, they should live. Was it not bravely and kindly done of Aaron thus to stand in the gap for his enemies? What a noble type he was of the Lord Jesus, who interposed on our behalf!

Numbers 16:49

Who slew all these? Or rather, what slew them? Was it not sin which is a murderer from the beginning? Sin will slay us also unless we are sheltered behind our great High Priest.

Numbers 16:50

By such a terrible event of judgment, and such a wonderful miracle of mercy connected with Aaron’s priesthood, one would think that the question of his right to the sacred office would be settled for ever beyond all dispute, and yet it was not so. How set on mischief sinners are! Sin is ingrained in our very nature. Alas! alas! Let us, by faith, see our Lord Jesus standing between his living people and dead souls, waving his censer, and keeping off death from all his believing ones. He is our shield from the destroying plague of sin and all the powers of evil. His sacred person bars the way. Vengeance cannot smite those to whom the Lord’s Anointed is a shield. Happy they who have Jesus to stand before them. On one side all is ruin, on the other all is safely. On which side of Jesus are we at this hour? Are we with the living in him, or are we numbered with those who are without him, and consequently are condemned already? Lord save us, or we perish.

Jesus the merciful and true,

Between the dead and living stand;

The numerous dead, the living few,

Who now divide this sinful land.

Now in our midst, great Priest, appear,

For sin thou hast atonement made,

Present the incense of thy prayer,

And let the plague of sin be stayed.

Christ Does in Us What We Cannot Do

When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Colossians 3:4

Writing to the Corinthian believers, Paul promised full spiritual deliverance and stability in the knowledge that Jesus Christ “is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.” He also assured the Colossian believers: “You are complete in Him!”

Our great need, then, is simply Jesus Christ. He is what we need. He has what we need. He knows what we need to know. He has the ability to do in us what we cannot do—working in us that which is wellpleasing in God’s sight.

This is a difficult point in spiritual doctrine and life for many people who may have been prominent and ambitious, and used to doing their own thing in their own way!

But no matter who we are, we must acknowledge that it is a gracious plan and provision for men and women in the kindness and wisdom of God. Brothers and sisters, we get Christ and glory and fruitfulness, a future and the world to come and the spirits of just men made perfect; we get Jesus, mediator of a new covenant, and the blood of the everlasting covenant; an innumerable company of angels and the church of the firstborn and the New Jerusalem, the city of the living God!

And before we get all that, we have the privilege and the prospect of loving and joyful service for Christ and for mankind on this earth!