VIDEO Meeting God’s Conditions

We must make an important, logical distinction between earning God’s grace, which is impossible, and meeting God’s conditions, which is obligatory. We cannot earn God’s abundance, which comes only through grace; however, we are required to meet the conditions God has laid down for receiving His abundance through faith. If we do not meet these conditions, our faith has no scriptural foundation. In fact, it is merely presumption. To meet God’s conditions, our motives and attitudes must be right. We would all do well to examine our motives very carefully, especially concerning monetary gain. Impure motives concerning money include:

1. Idolizing wealth (“Covetousness…is idolatry” [Colossians 3:5]; “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” [1 Timothy 6:10]);
2. Pursuing wealth by sinful methods (“Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means” [Jeremiah 17:11, NIV]; [see also Proverbs 28:8]);
3. Trusting ultimately in wealth for security and well-being (“He who trusts in his riches will fall” [Proverbs 11:28]; “Let not…the rich man glory in his riches” [Jeremiah 9:23]);
4. Using wealth for selfish gain and self-serving interests (“There is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty” [Proverbs 11:24]).

In Luke 12:16–21, Jesus related the parable of the rich man who built bigger barns and filled them with his produce. But the Lord said to him:

“Fool! This night your soul will be required of you” (verse 20)

Jesus then added:

“So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (verse 21)

The first direction in which we need to be rich is toward God.

Prayer Response

Thank You, Jesus, for Your work on the cross. I proclaim that I receive God’s abundance for me through faith as I meet His conditions because Jesus endured my poverty that I might share His abundance. Amen.

---

The Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

Leaving a Spiritual Legacy

I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice. 2 Timothy 1:5

Your Deliverer

But deliver us from the evil one. Matthew 6:13b

The defining act in the history of the Jews is the Exodus. God delivered the descendants of Jacob from the oppression of the Egyptian Pharaoh: “Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You delivered them” (Psalm 22:4). The word deliverance became a defining biblical idea for God’s saving acts of His people in both the Old and the New Testament.

Just as God delivered the Jews from Pharaoh’s kingdom, so God delivers those who trust in Jesus from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God (Colossians 1:13-14). When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “But deliver us from the evil one,” He was likely speaking against the backdrop of God being the deliverer of His people. In the New Testament, that idea is affirmed by the apostles in terms of eternal security: Satan will do what he can to prevent us from reaching God’s eternal kingdom but God “will deliver [us] from every evil work and preserve [us] for His heavenly kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:18).

In Christ you are protected from every temporal and eternal desire of “the evil one” to harm you: “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer” (2 Samuel 22:2).

There is no devil in the first two chapters of the Bible and no devil in the last two chapters. Thank God for a Book that disposes of the devil!  Vance Havner

Out of the Wreck I Rise

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? —Romans 8:35

God does not keep His child immune from trouble; He promises, “I will be with him in trouble…” (Psalm 91:15). It doesn’t matter how real or intense the adversities may be; nothing can ever separate him from his relationship to God. “In all these things we are more than conquerors…” (Romans 8:37). Paul was not referring here to imaginary things, but to things that are dangerously real. And he said we are “super-victors” in the midst of them, not because of our own ingenuity, nor because of our courage, but because none of them affects our essential relationship with God in Jesus Christ. I feel sorry for the Christian who doesn’t have something in the circumstances of his life that he wishes were not there.

“Shall tribulation…?” Tribulation is never a grand, highly welcomed event; but whatever it may be— whether exhausting, irritating, or simply causing some weakness— it is not able to “separate us from the love of Christ.” Never allow tribulations or the “cares of this world” to separate you from remembering that God loves you (Matthew 13:22).

“Shall…distress…?” Can God’s love continue to hold fast, even when everyone and everything around us seems to be saying that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

“Shall…famine…?” Can we not only believe in the love of God but also be “more than conquerors,” even while we are being starved?

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver, having deceived even Paul, or else some extraordinary thing happens to someone who holds on to the love of God when the odds are totally against him. Logic is silenced in the face of each of these things which come against him. Only one thing can account for it— the love of God in Christ Jesus. “Out of the wreck I rise” every time.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy.  Shade of His Hand, 1223 L

Greed… Rationalization… Compromise

Recently, in the course of counseling a young businessman, I was asked if I thought insider trading was wrong.

“Is it against company policy“I inquired? “Yes,“he replied. “Is it against the laws of the land,“I queried? “Yes,“came his response.

After an awkward pause I asked, “Joe, why then, are you asking me this question?“

Silence.

In frustration I then directed him to look at Job 27:3-6:

“As long as I have life within me… my tongue will utter no deceit… Till I die, I will not deny my integrity… My conscience will not reproach me as long as I live.“

As we read this passage from his Bible, I noticed that he already had it circled and underlined.

“Had he not previously pondered and perhaps even wrestled with the truth of this passage,“I wondered? “How is it that he could consider these profound teachings and still ask whether ‘insider trading‘ is wrong“?

The answer lies in the fact that many believers who are committed to, and immersed in, the cutthroat climate of the business environment have developed an amazing ability to rationalize and sidestep the Bible’s high standard of integrity. They are able to do this simply by living in the two worlds of the spiritual and the secular as did the Old Testament Jews:

“While these people were worshipping the Lord, they were serving their idols.“(2 Kings 17:41)

And by so doing, they make Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde look like a novice.

At the heart of the problem lies our stubborn refusal to allow Christ to be the Lord of our work because we fear that if we abandon ourselves to a Biblical ethic, either:

(1) Our business will collapse under the competition, or

(2) God won’t provide for us at the standard to which we have become accustomed.

The first fear centers on a carnal lack of faith, and the second on greed. Both are sin.

“Will ye also go away?”

John 6:51-64, 66-71

Our Lord continued his address upon the bread of life and openly declared—

John 6:51, 52

They understood him literally, just as Papists do now. They were too carnally minded to comprehend that the soul feeds upon the great truth that God took upon himself our flesh.

John 6:53

He did not refer to the Lord’s Supper, for it was not instituted, neither is it absolutely essential to salvation: the dying thief received no sacrament, yet was he with his Lord in Paradise so soon as he expired. The eating and drinking are spiritual, and only regenerated persons can have part in them. How searching, then, is this word of Jesus, for multitudes of professors have no personal experience of such feeding as our Lord intended.

John 6:54-56

Participation in the person and work of Jesus leads to an abiding union with him, and to near and dear communion with him.

John 6:57

This truth cannot too often be repeated—eternal life can only be ours as we embrace by faith the incarnate God, and make him the life of our soul.

John 6:60

Carnal minds first misread the Lord’s words, and then kick against them. None but those enlightened by the Spirit of God will see the beauty of the mystery of faith; others will, by-and-by, cavil and be gone.

John 6:61-64

He knew that to many the Spirit did not go with the word, and therefore it would only be to them a savour of death unto death: but in this he was by no means disappointed, he foresaw that it would be so.

John 6:71

The eternal purpose of God to save his chosen, works its way by sending forth the enlightening Spirit upon those ordained to life. These being quickened believe the gospel, and are thereby known to be the chosen of God. The rest do not receive the truth, and never will; by this, then, may each of us judge whether he has a part in electing love or no.

Lord, the hunger of my soul

Is for food which thou dost give;

Other appetite control,

Teach me on thyself to live.

Jesus, great incarnate God,

Be thou ever dear to me,

May thy precious flesh and blood

Daily drink and manna be.

How Do We Listen?

I will hear what God the Lord will speak… peace unto his people (Psalm 85:8)

The living God has spoken to lost mankind in a variety of ways. The general response among us has been, “We did not hear His voice. We did not hear anything.”

John recorded in his gospel the reactions of an audience of people who heard God speak audibly. When Jesus talked of His coming death, asking God to glorify His name through it, “a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again’:” (John 12:28).

And what were the reactions of the bystanders? “The crowd that was there heard it and said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him” (John 12:29).

People prefer their own logic, their own powers of reason, even when God speaks, they refuse to recognize His voice. They will not confess that God has spoken through Jesus Christ, the eternal Son. When He confronts them with their sin, they consult a psychiatrist and hope they can get their personalities “properly adjusted.”

But in a coming day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all!