October 7 – Being Approved

“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.” – 2 Timothy 2:15 (NASB)

Our promise today is that by studying, reading and learning what God’s word teaches, our shame is removed. Most people in the world think their life after death would be better with God. They also think the way to qualify for that is by being “good enough,” coupled with being “not that bad.” Scripture clearly teaches we are naturally kept out of God’s presence because the sin nature we are born with. Our good deeds never secure a spot in God’s Kingdom. The Bible calls that “heaven.” It is a real place. Another real place is “hell” where those who reject God’s will spend eternity. The only way to eternal life in heaven is by believing in Jesus and receiving His gift of salvation. This is done by grace through faith in God; a faith gifted to us by God so that we can believe and receive what we don’t deserve by deeds. All who receive Jesus are granted the right to become children of God. Each person born with a sin nature rejects God naturally. To never believe and to always reject God’s offer of eternal life eventually results in being ashamed.

 

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March 8 – The Only God Who Can

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.” - Jude 24–25 (ESV) 

How is it that we’ve received this promise from God? After all, we possess very little perfection to keep us from stumbling⸺actually no perfection or ability of our own. But, in this one-chapter book of Jude, we are promised that “Him who is able to keep you from stumbling…does so in order to present us blameless to God.” Wow! If that is not a promise that causes our hearts to leap for joy, it should. The ‘Him’ is God the Holy Spirit. After saving us by grace through faith⸺a bundled gift from God⸺we are promised that we will stand before the one and only God who chose to save us and we will do that through what the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.  It is a bit mind blowing if we mediate on this promise. God is One and he is able to keep us from stumbling. God’s Holy Spirit  presents us blameless in the glorious presence of God who saved us according to His will. All this is accomplished because God the Son provided a way through His obedience to death on a cross and God raised Him up from the tomb. 

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February 22 - Whole and Holy Sacrifice

“I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  - Romans 12:1 (NASB)

The Apostle Paul is urgently telling all who believe in Jesus that God desires us to be a whole sacrifice.  Not just part of ourselves. But our whole being, holding nothing back.  This presentation is to be a living sacrifice.  It is to be a holy sacrifice.  It is to be acceptable to God.  And it will be all that because God is merciful to us.  We really have nothing God needs to accomplish his will.  His desire as revealed in our verse is for us to know that His abundant mercies are for us, and are only available through our service to God.  As the One who has given us new life He requires us to do this. Before our salvation we were dead and could not offer our bodies as living or holy and nothing we did would be acceptable to God.  As regenerated and made new creatures spiritually, we belong to him.  This is our spiritual service and it is a spiritual worship when we obediently present ourselves in this way.  It brings glory to God for it is He who has shown us mercy and given us the life we have in Christ Jesus. 

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November 26 – Prayer Wrapped in Thanks

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6 (NIV)

There are verses in God's Word that we find ourselves thinking about frequently and today's verse is one of those.  But we look at this familiar passage this week because of one very important word which is often overlooked when the verse is considered.  The verse reminds us about the importance of thanksgiving in prayer.  It is possible that many times we consider this verse as an instruction on how to not worry or be anxious but instead we are to pray about things that we might otherwise find our anxiety growing.  God does not want us to worry, fret, or be anxious.  So of course it encourage us to pray about such things. We notice that it very importantly encourages us to thank God. Our prayers and petitions are presented wrapped with our thanksgiving to God. We give our thanks because we know God hears and cares and will answer.  So let us never forget that when we pray we should also thank God for all His goodness and love for us.

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May 2 – Always In This Place

“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”” Genesis 28:16 (NIV)

These words spoken by Jacob and recorded in our verse for today were uttered at a time that Jacob saw a vision at night of a stairway reaching from earth to heaven. Angels were going up and down the stairway. It was, of course, God who had given him the vision and had talked to him. The next day Jacob named the place Bethel, meaning the “House of God.” This was a special vision of God's presence but God had been with Jacob before that. Jacob should have known that God is everywhere and that He was always near to him. So it is with us, and it's our promise to keep. We don't need a special vision to prove to us that God is with us. We might be like Jacob who said, 'I was not aware of it,' but we can at anytime also say as Jacob said, 'surely the Lord is in this place,' because he always is. Today, we can hold this promise and know for certain God is with us wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever we say.