Posted by: jakinnan | April 17, 2013

The Leaning Tower of You

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Workers laid the foundation for one of Italy’s most famous structures in 1173, a tower designed to stand next to a cathedral. During construction, however, they discovered the soil was softer than previously thought, and the tower began to sink.

Today, the top of that tower is nearly thirteen feet off center. People come from around the world to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and scientists travel to Pisa yearly to measure its slow descent. They calculate that, at its current rate of decline and without taking any countermeasures, it will one day collapse.

Nothing is more important in construction work than making sure you have the foundation right. If you don’t get that correct, then nothing else will matter. It may be more fun to decide what color to paint the rooms and how you will decorate the finished structure, but without a proper foundation, nothing else you do will last long enough to make any difference.

Smart and successful Christians build their lives on the right foundation. Scripture makes it clear that the only foundation possible for a sound spiritual life is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). And where do you learn about Jesus? In the Word of God. The Word is Truth and it will never lead you astray. If you are building your life on the right foundation, which is Jesus Christ, then you’re also regularly getting into the Word. Only that foundation will stand the test of time.

Don’t become The Leaning Tower of You.

Build your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ, as you learn of Him in Scripture, and stand straight and tall as the years pass.

– Greg Laurie

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 17, 2013

Every Day

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You have come…To the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. – Hebrews 12:22-24

Reader, have you come to “the sprinkled blood”? The question is not whether you have come to a knowledge of doctrine or an observance of ceremonies or to a certain form of experience, but have you come to the blood of Jesus?

The blood of Jesus is the life of all vital godliness. If you have truly come to Jesus, we know how you came–the Holy Spirit kindly brought you there. You came to the sprinkled blood with no merits of your own. Guilty, lost, and helpless, you came to take that blood, and that blood alone, as your everlasting hope. You came to the cross of Christ with a trembling and an aching heart; and what a precious sound it was to you to hear the voice of the blood of Jesus!

The dropping of His blood is as the music of heaven to the penitents of earth. We are full of sin, but the Savior bids us lift our eyes to Him; and as we gaze upon His streaming wounds, each drop of blood, as it falls, cries, “It is finished; I have made an end of sin; I have brought in everlasting righteousness.”

Sweet language of the precious blood of Jesus! If you have come to that blood once, you will come to it constantly. Your life will be “looking to Jesus.” Your whole conduct will be epitomized in this–“to whom coming.” Not to whom I have come, but to whom I am always coming. If you have ever come to the sprinkled blood, you will feel your need of coming to it every day. He who does not desire to wash in it every day has never washed in it at all. Believers constantly feel it to be their joy and privilege that there is still a fountain opened. Past experiences are doubtful food for Christians; a present coming to Christ alone can give us joy and comfort. This morning let us sprinkle our doorpost fresh with blood, and then feast upon the Lamb, assured that the destroying angel must pass us by.

-Alistair Begg

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 17, 2013

In Defense of Discontent

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By the grace of God, we cannot quite pull it off. In the quiet moments of the day we sense a nagging within, a discontentment, a hunger for something else. But because we have not solved the riddle of our existence, we assume that something is wrong—not with life, but with us. Everyone else seems to be getting on with things. What’s wrong with me? We feel guilty about our chronic disappointment. Why can’t I just learn to be happier in my job, in my marriage, in my church, in my group of friends? You see, even while we are doing other things, “getting on with life,” we still have an eye out for the life we secretly want. When someone seems to have gotten it together, we wonder, How did he do it? Maybe if we read the same book, spent time with him, went to his church, things would come together for us as well. You see, we can never entirely give up our quest. Gerald May reminds us,

When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments. (The Awakened Heart)

He says that even though we sleep, our desire does not. “It is who we are.” We are desire. It is the essence of the human soul, the secret of our existence. Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without it. Desire fuels our search for the life we prize. The same old thing is not enough. It never will be.

-John Eldredge, Desire

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 17, 2013

04/17/2013 Scripture

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This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.  So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

-1 John 1:5-7 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 16, 2013

Why Does God Judge?

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Why must God judge people? Answer: because He is righteous and holy. We see this repeated again and again in Scripture. In Revelation 4:8, we read about angelic beings coming before the Lord, not resting day or night, and repeating over and over again, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.”

Notice they don’t say, “Faithful, faithful, faithful” or “Eternal, eternal, eternal,” though He is all of those things. Instead, they emphasize God’s holiness. And because God is holy, He cannot look at sin (see Habakkuk 1:13).

And although God’s judgment is a horrible thing, there are still some positive aspects to it.

It frightens us. And guess what? It is supposed to. When we see what happens to others who disregard what God’s Word says, it should cause us to think twice about what we are about to do.

It sobers us. It forces us to reassess the way we have been living our lives and hopefully change our priorities. As C. S. Lewis pointed out, pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

It humbles us. God’s judgment strips away our self-righteousness and reminds us about how sinful we are. It reminds us that we are not really in control of our lives and how we really need God.

It reassures us. The fact that there will be a final judgment reassures us there is justice in the universe. We all know of wicked people in the world who deserve judgment. The Bible says there is a final court of arbitration, and God keeps meticulous records of everything that happens in this world. The wicked will be held accountable for what they have done. And it is reassuring to know there ultimately will be justice.

-Greg Laurie

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 16, 2013

Precious Blood

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Standing at the foot of the cross, we see hands and feet and side all distilling crimson streams of “precious blood.” It is “precious” because of its redeeming and atoning efficacy. By it the sins of Christ’s people are atoned for; they are redeemed from under the law; they are reconciled to God, made one with Him.

Christ’s blood is also “precious” in its cleansing power; it cleanses from all sin. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” Through Jesus’ blood there is not a spot left upon any believer; no wrinkle nor any such thing remains. O precious blood that makes us clean, removing the stains of our iniquity and permitting us to stand accepted in the Beloved despite the many ways in which we have rebelled against our God.

The blood of Christ is also “precious” in its preserving power. We are safe from the destroying angel under the sprinkled blood. Remember, it is God’s seeing the blood that is the true reason for our being spared. Here is comfort for us when the eye of faith is dim, for God’s eye is still the same. The blood of Christ is “precious” also in its sanctifying influence.

The same blood that justifies by taking away sin also quickens the new nature and leads it onward to subdue sin and to obey the commands of God. There is no greater motive for holiness than that which streams from the veins of Jesus. And “precious,” unspeakably precious, is this blood because it has an overcoming power. It is written, “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb.” How could they do otherwise? He who fights with the precious blood of Jesus fights with a weapon that cannot know defeat.

The blood of Jesus! Sin dies at its presence; death ceases to be death: Heaven’s gates are opened. The blood of Jesus! We shall march on, conquering and to conquer, so long as we can trust its power!

-Alistair Begg

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 16, 2013

A Loss of Heart

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It was to the most religious people of his time that Jesus spoke his strongest warnings about a loss of heart.

It is tragic for any person to lose touch with the life of their heart but especially so for those of us who once heard the call in our heart and recognized it as the voice of Jesus of Nazareth. We may remember him inviting us to a life of beauty, intimacy, and adventure that we thought was lost. For others of us, when he called, it felt for the first time in our lives as if our heart had finally found a home. We responded in faith, in hope, and in love and began the journey we call the Christian life. Each day seemed a new adventure as we rediscovered the world with God by our side.

But for many of us, the waves of first love ebbed away in the whirlwind of Christian service and activity, and we began to lose the Romance. Our faith began to feel more like a series of problems that needed to be solved or principles that had to be mastered before we could finally enter into the abundant life promised us by Christ. We moved our spiritual life into the outer world of activity, and internally we drifted. We sensed that something was wrong, and we perhaps tried to fix it—by tinkering with our outer life. We tried the latest spiritual fad, or a new church, or simply redoubled our commitment to make faith work. Still, we found ourselves weary, jaded, or simply bored. Others of us immersed ourselves in busyness without really asking where all the activity was headed. At one point in my own spiritual pilgrimage, I stopped to ask myself this question: “What is it that I am supposed to be doing to live the spiritual life in any way that is both truthful and passionately alive?”

– John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 16, 2013

04/16/2013 Scripture

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Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

-1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NLT

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 15, 2013

Be Careful What You Say

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And the king of Israel answered, “Tell him, ‘Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off.’” – 1 Kings 20:11

In a world where everyone thinks they are great or exceptional, we think we can accomplish more than we actually can. Because of this, the things we promise to do often don’t get done. We like to tell people our plans, and then promptly forget what the plans are. While this is deemed normal in many sectors of the business world, this must not be so for the believer in Jesus Christ.

There is a great section in 1 Kings 20 that illustrates this truth perfectly. The head of the Syrian army is bragging about how he will defeat the army of Israel. He starts pressing demands on the King of Israel, the wicked Ahab, and Ahab concedes to many of themuntil the commander tries to cheat him by taking more than he had originally asked for. Ahab says, No more, and the Syrian king readies his army and threatens Ahab and the people of Israel. He tells Ahab he is going to wipe out Israel and the king as well. This is when Ahab delivers this great truth found in 1 Kings 20:11. The meaning of this profound statement? It is easy to brag about what you are going to do before you do it. The proof in your ability to do it is in the completion of the action. Or, how we most commonly say it today, The proof is in the pudding.

We need to take this warning to heart. We must not be like the Syrian king, boasting about what we are going to do tomorrow and then not doing it. This king certainly tried to destroy Israel, but he was soundly defeated not once, but twice.

If you say you are going to pray for someone, do it!

If you tell your kids you are going to take them somewhere, take them!

If you say to your neighbor, We need to have you over for dinner sometime, have them over for dinner!

We must not be people who say one thing and do another. We must not over-promise and under deliver. Say what you mean and mean what you say!

– Hayden Norris

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Posted by: jakinnan | April 15, 2013

Good People

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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. – Romans 3:23 

Not long ago I was a guest on a morning television show. We were having a nice chat when, near the end of the program, the host dropped a bombshell. He said, “Greg, I have a question for you. You believe that most of the world is non-Christian and that because of that, they are going to burn in hell for all eternity. What kind of loving God would ever create such a scenario? Is that like a petty boss that some people have created, not understanding God?”

I had about two minutes to respond to that question. But after the show ended and the cameras stopped rolling, our conversation continued. He went on to ask me about good people and how a God of love could allow good people to face judgment.

I pointed out that we have to define what “good” is. It seems as though we have a sliding scale of good. Everyone seems to believe they are good. They are always the moral center of their universe. They immediately give themselves a free pass, but other people aren’t as good as they are. The problem is that we have conflicting views regarding what is good.

So how do we determine what good is? We all have the answer, and it is found in the Bible. God says, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).

This doesn’t mean there aren’t good people in a broad sense; it means there is no one good enough to get to heaven on their own merit. That is where the judgment of God comes in if we reject His offer of forgiveness.

It is not about being the nicest person or the kindest person. It is about being a forgiven person. That is who will be in heaven: forgiven people.

-Greg Laurie

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