Pressing Forward in 2008

Philippians 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Looking back, would you have ever imagined all of the things that have happened in the course of one year? At the end of each year, I like to take time to reflect on the major events that happened. It helps me to see the hand of God leading me through valleys and up mountains. At the beginning of the year, I preached a message entitled “Blessings from Heaven in 2007.” Certainly, we have all been blessed in many different ways. For me, God gave me a deeper understanding of life by giving me a wife and a home. He also taught me how well He comforts His children during the loss of a church member and grandparents. Every year has challenges and God’s greatest desire for us is that we may know and understand Him (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

It would be easy for us to grow stagnant and paralyzed by the events of 2007. Some people will want to live in the past and forget there is much more to learn in the present and future. Everyday is an opportunity to learn which creates vitality in a person’s life. Have you noticed that those who refuse to learn often are bitter and mad? Be careful not to be paralyzed by the fear of the future or in your present condition. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever (Hebrews 13:8). Remember the Psalmist’s words, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Psalms 23:4).

With yesterday behind, we have a fresh start to make a difference in this world for the glory of God. The Apostle Paul wrote, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). He was telling us that He was fully persuaded that His life was in the hands of God. He feared God above all others and was totally committed to do what He asked of him while he was on earth. The Apostle Paul was powerfully motivated by the Holy Spirit. He knew that he had been saved by God’s grace. He knew that he had a home awaiting him in heaven with the Lord for all of eternity. He knew that there was a place called Hell where every person who did not repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ would live eternally separated from God in torment. With heaven awaiting him, he knew that he could not waste a moment being paralyzed by the things of the world. He knew God and realized that the only hope for the lost world was the good news that Jesus came to saved people from their sins!

As 2008 approaches, where does God fit into your plans for this year? Are you confident in your salvation? Are you sure that you have peace with God in your heart? Being born again is where life begins. I hear many people say that they have been saved or born again maybe once, twice or three times, but their lives are filled with a lack of love for God and His church. You can only be saved once and the evidence is a changed life. God gives you a new heart and new start. He also promises you an eternal home with Him when this life is over (1 Peter 1:3-4). Where does this leave us? If you know that you have made peace with God and that you have an eternal home awaiting you in heaven, what are you going to do with the time that God blesses you with?

Time. Everyone thinks that they will grow old and slowly pass away. Some do and some do not. The writer of Proverbs 27:1 reminds us, “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for you know not what a day may bring forth.” Whatever amount of time that you and I have left, it should be devoted to growing closer to the One who holds tomorrow, living as Jesus would each day and helping those who are in need around us. Until our Lord Jesus Christ returns, let’s press on to make His name great in 2008!

The Real Meaning of Christmas

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14)

Are you beginning to feel the surge of the Christmas rush? For many, the Christmas rush began the first day after Thanksgiving. The shopping malls began to extend their hours by opening up early for those crazy enough to get up for the morning specials, and now they are staying open late for the last minute shoppers. You can literally shop yourself to exhaustion. The weeks before Thanksgiving and Christmas are turning into a spectacle of lights with credit cards getting maxed out and tons of presents under the tree. According to society, the climatic moment is only a few days away.

What if every home on the corner didn’t have any lights hanging? What if you were going through a difficult time financially and could only afford to buy your meals this Christmas? What if you had someone in the hospital or had lost a loved during this year that was not going to be at the family gathering? Could you still have a Merry Christmas? If your standards of Christmas are based solely on the next few days of joy and excitement, then the Christmas message has been lost in your home. Every child loves to get presents and to know that they are loved. Parents love being able to give their children their needs and a few of their wants. These next few days are precious moments where families become close, love begins to abound and the hustle and bustle seems to cease for a few days. However, what will you and I be doing on December 26th when the celebration is over?

The real meaning of Christmas is not found in the city lights of Main Street but in a lowly manger. God had been speaking throughout the years that a Messiah would be born who would take away the sins of the people. He promised Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of Satan. He later promised Abraham that in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. God promised King David that his throne would be established forever. This promised person would be born by a virgin birth. He would also be born in Bethlehem. His name would be called Immanuel meaning “God with us”! God had dwelt with the children of Israel in the tabernacle and the Temple, but now He would come to dwell with us. What an overwhelming thought that the God of all Creation would take on the form of man!

As the Son of God entered the world, He came for a specific purpose. He came that we might know God. First Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Although you and I have failed miserably in living up to God’s standard of holiness, God in His mercy and grace sent His only begotten son to this earth to wear the sinner’s crown. He came to bear our sins. From his birth in a manger, he was showing us that He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Through His birth, sinless life and death, we can now be reconciled to God. The greatest thing about God’s gift to man is that you do not have to have a dime in your pocket. God does not look on the outward appearance but directly at your heart. “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Psalms 34:18).

The birth of Christ changes everything. Its truth can bring hope to the hopeless, possibilities to the impossible and peace to the hearts of men. When the Christmas rush ends, remember that everyday is a day to celebrate the greatest gift—eternal life through Jesus Christ, God’s Son!

A Name above All Others

Matthew 1:1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Have you ever been interested in studying your ancestry to find out all of the people that you have descended from? For most children, they could care less about anyone beyond the grandparents that spoil them and the parents that feed them. All those outside the immediate family are only blurs that you might see occasionally at a family reunion or on a holiday. Studying your family lines may seem to be a boring task, but much can be learned from studying your descendents.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the New Testament opens up with a list of names that seem to be a mile long. If you happen to read through the Bible on a yearly basis, you probably skip over the genealogies because this person begat this one and that person begat that one and then they died. It could be very monotonous reading unless you look a little deeper to get the full meaning. Every name has a special significance. In Proverbs 22:1 we learn “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.” We can either have a good name or a bad name, and how we live our lives will shape the only precious thing that we will leave behind.

The first name that we notice in Matthew’s genealogy is Abraham. He was the father of faith though he came from a pagan home (Joshua 24:2). He believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness (Gal 3:6). The next name is Isaac. He is well known for asking Abraham, “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:7)? Abraham told him that God would provide Himself a lamb. Third, Jacob grew up as a deceiver most of his life until he became a believer when He saw the ladder from Heaven one night (Genesis 28). He went on to father the twelve tribes of Israel. The forth person on the list is Judah. He had two illegitimate sons with Tamar the harlot. This might be getting a little too graphic. Let’s go a little further. Rahab is listed in verse 5. She was the harlot who hid the spies that Joshua had sent into Jericho. She had heard of the living God of Israel, was converted and her family was rescued from destruction. Another questionable person is Ruth. She was a former pagan who married an Israelite, lost her husband, and eventually was redeemed by a man named Boaz to become the grandmother of King David. God’s grace was working in the activities of these lives to bring about His promises in the fulfillment of His Son’s coming to earth.

The point of the genealogy is to prove that the bloodline of Jesus came through King David and Abraham. He was the promised seed that God told Abraham “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). God later promised to David that He would establish the throne of His Kingdom forever (2 Samuel 7:13). All the promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. His name is above all others. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Whether you are like Abraham who lived in a home that didn’t worship God or like David who believed yet failed God many times, let’s respond with faith and humility this Christmas saying, “Who am I, O LORD my God?” What can we give to God in exchange for His great love for us? Your name does matter in the eyes of God. The most important place it can be written down is in the Lamb’s Book of Life which records all those who have been saved by God’s grace. Many may look at your family tree one day and only see a blemished past, but it is how God sees you that will forever last.

The Holy Spirit: My Direction

(9-25-03 Dallas, TX 9:30AM)
Romans 8”14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Where is it coming from?
I can’t see it nor hear
My mind is numbed
By the presence that’s near

As the wind bloweth
I can see the effects
As a paddle roweth
It continues to direct

Where am I going?
What am I doing?
Slowly falling in Love
With my God who is wooing

Hear am I, send me
Is my earnest plea
I want to go forth
To every nation
East, West, South, and North

I beg thee to allow those fires within to spread
This world is too full of the walking dead
They need a Savior
To be born again into your favor

An experience
The repentance from sin’s obedience
Everyone must pass through the same portal
For man is just a mortal

We are desperate, longing moral agents
Seeking to win the World’s pageant
Many times forgetting about the Heavenly display
Too consumed in ourselves
We forget to pray

Master, forgive our land
Allow me to stand
In the midst of the Truth
That my soul may be soothed

I can’t hold your power within
For my vessel may break
Instead help me to win the souls of man
For their lives are at stake

I long to be a Moses, a John, or Paul
Everyone must know who loves them
The most of all

My God
My Creator
My Reconciliator
My Redeemer
My Sustainer
My Heartbreak Healer
My Soul Filler
My High Tower
My Only Power
My God of all gods
My Great I AM
My Horn of Salvation
My God saving tribes from every tongue and nation

The “my’s” may sound selfish
But I want to share
He loves you more than I
Trust Him, I dare

He will transform your life
By renewing your mind
Replaced with a heart so pure
That the outside will shine

His countenance upon you is unexplainable
Undeniable
Mr. Reliable
In every trial

I beg you to trust
In life this is a must
To have peace, hope, and love
Coming from the Holy Dove

Do you understand this occurrence?
It’s more than a resurgence
Is your mind is reflection?
Of the Holy Spirit: My Direction

Reconciled

Romans 3:23-24 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”

Have you ever thought that you were good enough to get into heaven on your own? You may have always been raised up under solid gospel preaching, however, the majority of people today think that if they buy a few gifts for others at Christmas and give a little money to charity then their good works are enough to inherit them an eternity with God. In fact, one reason some do these good deeds are only to appease their own conscience from a god they have created in their mind. In the end, good people at best are covering up their guilty heart and mind with the “fig leaves of man-centered works” which has been the fashion from the beginning.

It does not take us very long to realize how good we actually are. When was the last time you balanced your checkbook? I have always tried to be good about keeping an accurate written record about what I have spent each day. Every time I buy something, I try to immediately write it down so that I will not forget. This can often be difficult when using the debit card that allows money to flow freely. This week, I finally sat down and began to balance my financial situation. While using electronic banking, I began to scroll down the list to find about seven transactions that I had totally forgotten about. The bank was telling the truth, and in my weak memory, I had to find a way to make reconciliation.

In Luke 18, a certain ruler asked Jesus, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus questioned him, “Why do you call me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.” You might think Jesus was trying to say that He was not good in this passage; however, He was actually questioning the heart of the ruler. Jesus went on to ask him about five of the Ten Commandments. The ruler told Jesus that he had kept them from his youth up. Jesus said, “Yet you lack one thing: sell all that you have, and distribute unto the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.” The ruler went away sorrowful because he was rich. His idol was money. The goodness he thought he had was a false image of reality much like my unbalanced checkbook.

Can you imagine trying to live a perfect life everyday? It is impossible. No matter how hard we may try to do good and right, we still come miserably short. Jesus said in Matthew 12:36, “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” I thought balancing my checkbook was going to be a scary picture, but the day that God asks every man to give an account of their lives will be horrifying if they have not made preparations. It will be impossible to argue with God, just like it is impossible to argue with the bank when everything is recorded with dates, times and places of transactions.
Where does this leave us today? We have a major problem between God’s standards and ours. There is a mighty gulf that must be crossed. Even with our best efforts, we come so short.

What can we do? When I realized that I had missed the mark in my checkbook, I turned to my savings account and transferred enough money to cover all my mistakes. In God’s economy, we can’t repay the debts of our sins. They are too great, but what a promise we have in Jesus Christ “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled” (Colossians 1:20a, 21) This truth compels us to confess our mistakes, turn to God’s revealed truth and worship Him in humble submission for His saving grace!