True to His Word

"I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. ¹¹ For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations ."

Isaiah 61:10-11

 

What God has promised He is able to perform.  Our intellect can get in the way of trusting the Word of the LORD.  When my children were in preschool, they learned how plants grow from seeds.  They wrapped dried beans in a wet paper towel sealed in a Ziploc bag.  After placing the bag in a sunny spot, with childlike enthusiasm they couldn't wait until the first tender shoots peeked out from those seemingly dead, dry beans.  When we grow plants from seeds as adults, we carefully amend and prep the soil, plant certain seeds in certain seasons, properly space the seeds, regulate the depth, fertilize, and build a fence.  We have sprays for pests, various plant food, and consider all the work of weeding and irrigation.  Though the process of growing beans is the same for either children or adults, the knowledge we gain by adulthood makes things so difficult!

This is why God desires we have faith like a child.  A child does not look at all the hindrances of growing a plant because his mind is fixed on the surety of the process:  plant a seed in the ground, add a little water and sunlight - and he knows a plant will grow.  This is how we ought to be when God gives us His Word.  We ought not look at the obstacles which seem to contradict God's Word, but consider the character of God who speaks.  He will never lie, mislead, or be incorrect.  If God says He will make righteousness and praise spring forth to God before all the nations, He will do so!  Nothing is too hard for our God.

When God told me in 2002, "You shall preach, and you shall be sent," it seemed very unlikely.  I wondered how such a thing could come to pass.  God used a quote from Spurgeon's from Lectures to My Students to encouraged me to believe His word spoken to my heart:  "Neptune had long been shining before he was discovered and named; and you and I brethren, may remain unknown for years, and possible the world may never discover us; but I trust that our influence, like that of Neptune, will be felt and recognized, whether we are seen of men, or only shine in solitary splendour to the glory of God."  Soon after I received a call from my pastor who invited me to teach a home fellowship.  Then in 2005 I came on staff at Calvary Chapel El Cajon and was ordained as a minister in 2006!  I had preached, but I had not yet been sent.

It was in 2005 when God placed a desire in my heart to pray for the east side of Australia.  Every morning in my prayers I would turn my face towards Australia!  Little did I know at the time that He would not only open a door to visit the east side of Australia in 2009, but I would be offered a pastoral job at Calvary Chapel Sydney in 2010!  Yesterday my wife and I had a meeting with a pastor to discuss our vision for the fellowship in Sydney.  At the end of the meeting, he prayed for us.  As he prayed, I was blessed beyond measure by what was said, which was something to the effect of:  "Thank you Jesus for sending Ben and Laura to this church at this time."  My mind flashed back to words that God has impressed upon my heart more than once.  In front of the Castle Towers in Castle Hill, there is a large Australian flag.  As I waited at the light and watched the flag wave in the breeze, God encouraged me with the words, "I will establish you."  It is God who will establish, and it is God who has sent us.  His prayer only confirmed it was Jesus Christ Himself who had sent us!

If it was a church fellowship or a group of elders who sent our family to a foreign field, I could doubt their judgment.  But if it is God who has sent me, He can certainly fulfill His will concerning me.  If God says He will establish, He will do it!  He has already fulfilled His word spoken in 2002:  "You will preach and you will be sent."  Won't He establish us as well?  Because God's Word endures forever, it is like good seed that will never be without fruit.  It will never return to Him void, but always accomplish what He intends.  Isaiah 55:9-11: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. ¹⁰ "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, ¹¹ so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

 

What God says He will do!  Let us purpose in our hearts to believe God no matter what.  Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to Him for righteousness.  Joshua 21:45 is as true today as it was then:  "Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass."  Do we live our lives like this is true?

The Righteous Rise

Sometimes in reading the Bible I come across verses that shatter my misconceptions I didn't know I had!  I read Proverbs 24:15-16 which states, "Do not lie in wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; do not plunder his resting place; ¹⁶ for a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity."  Both the wicked and the righteous will fall into sin, for they live in a body of flesh.  The difference between them is the righteous will rise again and again, while the wicked will fall and be unable to rise.  The wicked have no resting place under the oppressive weight of their guilt and sin before God, while the righteous are those who rest in the forgiveness offered through the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ.

We might think that a righteous person is one who no longer sins, while in actuality those who are righteous are those whose sins are forgiven.  There is none righteous, not one is righteous in his own strength save Jesus Christ.  The devil will use our faults against us, to condemn us by saying:  "You think you are righteous?  See what wicked thoughts you entertain!  Look at how you acted!  There's no hope for you now!"  The righteous can be duped to remain down when it is Christ who lifts us up!  David says in Psalm 32:1-2, "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. ² Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit."  A righteous man is he who has his sins forgiven by the blood of Christ.

Since God in His grace and justice has forgiven us of our sins, we are now free from sin and are given the responsibility to live righteously.  This righteousness is not according to the law, but according to the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells us in faith.  When we are disillusioned by our own faults we can know we have begun to think of ourselves more highly than we ought.  As long as we live in this flesh, we are sinners in need of cleansing and salvation.  We are called to work out our own salvation - not that we could earn our salvation through doing good - but that we would walk worthy of our high calling as children of God.

When you fall into sin, ask God to lift you up!  Let us reach out to Him.  As Jesus rose from the dead and defeated sin and death, we too can be raised up by the same power which works in us by His grace.  A righteous man will fall, but we will rise again!  Praise God for this incredible truth!

It's GO Time!

"Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: you will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger." ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: ¹⁴ "Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!" ¹⁵ So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us." ¹⁶ And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger."

Luke 2:8-16

Christmas is the celebration of the divine revelation of Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.  On a quiet night in the countryside of Bethlehem, angels proclaimed the birth of the Son of God to shepherds who dwelt in the fields.  What I find fascinating about this interaction is the angel says,  "And this will be the sign to you: you will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger."  The shepherds were never told to go to Bethlehem.  They were not commanded to leave their flocks or seek the child Jesus.  But with great enthusiasm and desire the shepherds said to one another, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us."  God had revealed Himself from heaven as a child in a manger, and they desired to experience His presence firsthand.  Verse 16 reveals their zeal:  "And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger."

Funny isn't it, how these men did something they weren't even asked or commanded to do?  The angel simply said, "You will find...."  He might as well have said, "Get up right now and GO!" by their actions!  The shepherds responded to the revelation not by putting another bundle of sticks on the fire, leaning back with hands behind their heads saying, "Wonder how this will turn out!"  They went immediately to seek their LORD and Savior.  Later in the life of Christ, He spoke in Matthew 7:7-8: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."  Jesus extends to us an open invitation to ask, seek, and knock.  This is not an invitation for us to satisfy our own selfish desires, but to experience firsthand what God has revealed.  I must ask myself:  do I have that same enthusiastic response to seek God like those shepherds?  And if not, what is that thing which is so important that seeking God must be second?

These shepherds left all to seek their Savior.  No career, no relationship, no earthly goods, and no self-imposed responsibilities should keep me from seeking my LORD.  Sometimes we have this idea that God must command us to do something before we will do it.  The fact is, sometimes God will reveal something He wants us to act upon by simply taking Him at His word in obedience.  In this case, the men saw angels and were given a sign.  But it was a sign they had to seek, not for the sign itself but for who it pointed to:  the Son of God, born of a virgin in the City of David, our Savior Christ the LORD.  These men were not seeking revelation.  Their responsibility was to trust that revelation and live according to the truth of it.  My friends, this is the Christian existence summed up very well.  These shepherds made haste to find the Babe, widely proclaimed all they had seen and heard to everyone they met, and returned to their flocks glorifying and praising God.  May this kind of super-abundant joyful evangelism in the purest form mark my life and that of every believer!

What has God revealed to you, and what does He want you to do about it today?

My Responsibility to Remember

For all of those who envision God as a soft old man similar to a cross between Santa Claus and a benevolent Genie, I am here to set things straight.  There is no fitting comparison found on earth for God.  Yes, God is full of love, compassion, and mercy.  But that does not make Him soft or manipulated by the whims of men.  The God I serve, the God who shed His own blood for my sins, is more fierce in His love, justice, and grace than we could imagine.  The same God who says, "My peace I give unto you" is the same God who says this in Psalm 50:22-23:  "Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: ²³ whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God."  Now there's a verse we don't hear read too often!

As much as I appreciate and love every aspect of God's character (and perhaps because I am a man!) I really love to read of the awesome power and glorious might of my God.  Just like we love to see strongman competitions or watch someone perform a great physical feat, I relish passages that focus on the majestic strength of Jesus Christ.  Take Revelation 19:11-16 for instance:  "Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. ¹² His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. ¹³ He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. ¹⁴ And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. ¹⁵ Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. ¹⁶ And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."  This is a God who can literally tear the universe in half with his word alone!

Those who would call Christ pallid and incompetent will bow the knee in reverence before Him!  This passage simply oozes of the power and majesty of the Son of God:  Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us.  It speaks of His truth and faithfulness, His royalty, His unsearchable mind and ways, His power to conquer, to kill and make alive, the Ultimate Ruler, a God of fierceness beyond compare, the KING of ALL!  Doesn't the ALL CAPS scream out His rightful place in the universe and in our lives?

Yet for all His strength and praiseworthiness, our feeble minds can forget Him.  We can be so caught up in the daily routine or the holidays that we take our eyes off of Jesus.  Since our family will be leaving in about two weeks for Australia, my son Abel received notes from his classmates who are sorry to see him go.  One note in particular was very touching.  The last part read, "I hope you never forget me."  How wretched it is to be forgotten!  We may forget God, but He will never forget us!  He is faithful and true!  Jesus told His followers to remember Him in the celebration of Communion.  The thief on the cross pleaded with his dying LORD, "Remember me when you come into your kingdom."  Jesus would not forget and said, "Assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Our God will never leave us or forsake us, and He will certainly never forget us.  We have a responsibility to remember God now and always.  We find it amazing that no one could find a place for Mary and Joseph when they looked through Bethlehem.  We think it impossible and inhumane that people would leave them and the soon to be born baby Jesus in the cold.  With heavy hearts we must confess we are no better:  we do it all the time.  There was no room for Jesus then, and many of us have no room for Jesus now.  As the lovely carol "Joy to the World" exhorts, "Let every heart prepare Him room."  We can sing right along with heaven and nature if we will but remember Him.  "Joy to the world, the LORD is come!"  From a feeding trough to the heights of heaven, our LORD reigns!  Let us adore Him today and always!