Today’s reading is Philippians 1:1-2:30.

“…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

I can relax today. I don’t have to give myself ulcers worrying about how I’m ever going to be pleasing to God. I don’t have to fret that I’m just not ever going to be good enough for Him. He’s working on that. He is working in me both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Part of me wants to rebel against that. Part of me wants to say, “NO! I will do this.” But a very real part of me has come face to face with exactly how badly it goes when I am trying to do this. I have failed again and again and again. Today, instead of failing, I can just give up. That’s right. I can quit. I can surrender. I can admit I am powerless and only botch things myself, so I’ll just have to surrender my life to God and let Him be in control, simply doing what He says.

No, this doesn’t mean I sit on my backside and wait for the cosmic puppet master to pull my strings. It means I can have confidence to work out my salvation with fear and trembling. Why? Because God is working in me. It means all I have to do is learn God’s will and surrender to that. My job is simply to do the next right thing. God is working in me. I can trust that He will get me where I need to go if I simply surrender to Him today.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

PS. What struck you in today’s reading?

Today’s reading is 2 Peter 2:1-3:18.

First, my apologies for missing last week. We were traveling and then working through the death of Marita’s Maw-maw. 

Second, I want to ask for your prayers. My family and I have decided to relocate to work with the church in Brownsburg, Indiana. The next three months are going to be a very stressful time (I haven’t been very good about keeping our house in ready-to-sell condition). I don’t know how that will impact my blogging over that time, but I’ll try to keep it up.

On to today’s reading.

God Doesn’t Want Us to Perish

I love today’s reading because it reminds me that God is patient. He doesn’t want me to perish. He doesn’t want you to perish. He doesn’t want anyone to perish. 2 Peter 3:9 says so:

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

I don’t know how many times I get asked what will happen if I get cut off in traffic, lose my cool, give someone the finger and shower them with profanity and road rage only to end up in a fatal accident without time to repent. I believe this question is looking at God all wrong. God is not looking to wipe us out. He is looking to save us. God is giving everyone time to repent. I don’t have to fear that there will ever be something that I would have repented for if given the time but God cuts the cord of my life before I have that opportunity. God is not willing for any to perish, but is patient wanting everyone to repent. What that means is you, me, everyone will have enough time to repent. If we die without saving penitence, it won’t be because God didn’t give us the time.

The great comfort for me in this passage is not simply that God is patient. The great comfort is that God wants us to be saved. God wanted us to be saved so badly that He sent Jesus to die for us. Surely, if He went that far to make sure I could be saved, He is still working to help me be saved. The question is not about what God is doing. The question is about me. Will I surrender to His work to save me or keep trying to go my own way?

God doesn’t want me to perish. How badly do I not want to perish?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

P.S. What struck you in today’s reading?

Today’s reading is 1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:19.

Yesterday I learned about being willing to test my own heart to see if I’m in the faith. Today, I think it is interesting that Paul wrote, “For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity of any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts” (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

I’m certainly no Greek scholar and I rarely try to make any arguments or points from the original language for that matter, because I think it is so easy to make mistakes in that way. However, I can’t help but notice the parallels between this verse and the one that stood out to me yesterday. In 2 Corinthians 3:5, the statement was to test ourselves to see if we are in the faith. In this one, Paul says God tested them and found them trustworthy. The words for test are similar. The words for “the faith” and “entrusted” are similar. I’m not saying these verse go together. I’m really just explaining why the verse jumped out at me today.

Yesterday, I learned I should be willing to test myself. This one talks about God’s testing. Interestingly, the root Greek word translated “approved” and “tests” in 2 Thessalonians 2:4 is the same as the root word for the word “search” found in Psalm 139:23, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!”

Anyway, all of that is just interesting background to Paul’s point that really impacted me today.

Why do I speak? To please men or to please God? This can easily be a problem for me. Sometimes I spend more time trying to impress men than just doing the right thing with my preaching. No doubt, this can be a gray area because I also think it is important to the very best I can do in order to glorify God by honoring Him through my effort. However, when I’m truly honest, I have to say that sometimes my motivation is not, “I have to work really hard on the presentation because that shows honor to God.” Sometimes my motivation is, “I have to work really hard on this because I want people to think I’m an awesome preacher.”

Where this becomes really dangerous is when the desire to please men shifts from just trying to do an outstanding job of presentation, to actually changing God’s message because I fear people might not like it. I think it is just as wrong to preach the truth from a motivation of trying to impress men, but I commit two wrongs when my desire to impress men also causes me to change God’s message.

What does Paul remind me today? God is the one who is searching my heart. The grievous ways in my heart are defined by God’s will, not by what is pleasing to man. I need to ask Him to search my heart and remove every grievous way because I want to please Him, not in order to impress men with my spirituality or my ability.

So, I got the double whammy two days in a row. I need to be willing to test myself and I need to remember that it is God who tests me. He is working to approve me and help me grow. I need to recognize the hardships, the refining fires (however they come) are not simply meant to see if I have a bad motivation but to highlight any improper motivation and help me remove that.

My prayer, “God, please keep the refining fires coming. Left to myself, I will strive to impress and please men. Please, search my heart and see what grievous ways are there. Bring them to the top so they may be easily removed. Thank you for testing me.”

***Question: How do you thank God for His tests?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

Today’s reading is Acts 5:1-6:15.

To me, Acts 5 contains one of the most shocking stories of the entire New Testament. Ananias and Sapphira lied about the price of their property when they laid the money at the apostles’ feet. With very little time to repent, God took extreme measures and killed the couple. Admittedly, that seems a little harsh to us. Death for lying? When some read this today, they believe God is immoral, hateful, cruel. That is sad, because they are missing the point.

The story is not to teach us that our God is an immoral killer. The story is to teach us exactly how bad sin is. Ezekiel 18:20 had said, “The soul who sins shall die.” Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” 

Here, at the beginning of the new covenant, God gave a great demonstration. Our sins are not light matters. Our sins make us worthy of death. God, as judge of the universe, has every right to meet out that judgment immediately. The fact is with every lie we’ve told, we deserved death from God for sinning against Him. When we think that is harsh, that doesn’t mean we are more enlightened than God; it means we lack the understanding of how tragic every sin really is. Have you ever lied? Then you need a Savior.

What is truly amazing is not that God struck down Ananias and Sapphira immediately. Rather, it is amazing that the pages of Scripture are not covered with the blood of sinners. It is amazing that you and I are still standing, having been given time to repent and receive the free gift of God which is eternal life (Romans 6:23). The pages of the New Testament are not covered with the blood of sinners because they are covered with the blood of Jesus who died so we don’t have to. Praise God!

***Question: What are some other shocking things you find in Scripture and what do you learn from them?

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC

I thought about titling this post “Second Verse, Same as the First.” The ends of Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 4 make almost the exact same point. I’m sure there is some scholarly name for this kind of parallel. Whatever we might call it, the point is clear that the Hebrew writer wanted us to turn to Jesus when we were tempted. He can and does help.

However, there was another point in the reading that jumped out at me. I don’t want to be too negative today, but for some reason Hebrews 4:1 struck a chord with me. In the ESV it reads, “Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.”

This verse was certainly not written by 21st century mainstream religionists. There are two key points in this verse that just don’t wash with modern mainstream “Christianity.” First, the suggestion that some who had become Christians might fail to reach the promised rest in eternity. Second, that we should fear the possibility that even though we have become Christians we might not reach the promised rest.

Now, I have no desire to propagate a fear-mongering approach to Christianity. I don’t think our service to God should be governed by fear. After all, perfect love casts out fear according to I John 4:18. Clearly, God does not expect fear to be the main motivator of our service.

However, having said that, here is this verse smack in the book of Hebrews. What should we do with it? Well, we certainly shouldn’t ignore it just because it doesn’t fit with modern sensibilities and the desire to be religiously popular. We need to recognize how it fits within the greater biblical context. The point is, while fear is not the governing principle of motivation in our lives, we need to understand that if we let the Bible’s teaching on grace so cloud our minds that we think we can just live how we want, we had better be afraid. 

Certainly, because of God’s grace, we who love God (interpret that, keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome-cf. I John 5:3) have no need for fear. However, if we think God’s love and grace for us means we can live without loving God (see above definition again), then we had better fear because we will not enter the rest.

The fact is, as unpopular as fearing God is today, a healthy dose of godly fear is a good thing when we keep it in its proper perspective. Love and fear God today and you will be walking the right path.

Keep the faith and keep reading,

ELC