Alternate Plans
Bible Order: Exod 29–30
Chronological Order: Gen 41–42

The Little Ones Shall Not Perish

Matthew 18:1–20

Jesus speaks about children today.  In one sense He uses children as a metaphor but much of what He says concerns literal children.  The disciples were evidently arguing amongst themselves as to who would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.  I suspect a few of them might have thought it would be they.  Strangely Jesus’ response was to say that unless they became as children they wouldn’t even enter the Kingdom.

Matthew 18:3-4 ESV

“…Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”

So, whoever humbles himself, like the child he called over to them, is the greatest in the Kingdom.  First to enter the Kingdom of Heaven one must be born again.  Being born again means you start off as a spiritual infant.  Spiritual maturity comes with time and effort.  Now, does a child lead or follow?  A child is not given authority over others; a child has someone in authority over them and they obey that authority.  The greatest in Heaven is not a leader.  The greatest in Heaven is a follower.  A spiritually mature Christian will not be the greatest leader in Heaven; he will be the greatest follower.  He will be the one who completely submits his will to that of Jesus Christ.

You see, in Heaven Jesus will have all authority just as He will on Earth.  Jesus said that if anyone wished to come after Him he must first deny himself.  Humility is the mark of the greatest in Heaven.  The one who does not esteem himself will be the greatest.  Jesus, being God incarnate, did not come to Earth commanding worship as was His right.  He submitted Himself to the will of the Father.  He sacrificed His wants and desires for the well-being of others.  There was no greater selfless person in the history of the world than Jesus Christ.  Now we know that the greatest in Heaven will be Jesus Himself.  The most esteemed, after Christ, will be those who do not esteem themselves.

This is what you are maturing toward brothers.  As you grow spiritually your life will be less and less about yourself and more and more about Jesus Christ.  Being about Him means that you will be about His children and the lost.

Finally, as Jesus speaks about the lost sheep we see an analogy for lost people.  While I think that analogy is proper, I actually think He really is talking about children.  Jesus has a child with Him as He is speaking with the disciples so when He says “See that you do not despise on of these little ones” He is speaking about children.

Matthew 18:14 ESV

“So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

God looks out for the little children.  He has given man free will but if man abuses that freedom there will be consequences; especially if he abuses a child.  If Mr. Sandusky actually did abuse children he is in for a bumpy eternal ride.  That said, the verse above gives us assurance that when a child dies they are not condemned to Hell because they hadn’t yet submitted their life to Christ.  Children have not reached an age of accountability and God will protect them.  In fact I find the following verse rather interesting.

Matthew 18:10 ESV

 “… For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

“Their angels” – what do you suppose He meant by that?  I think God provides protection for the little ones.  That doesn’t mean they won’t suffer.  We live in a perverted world and all of creation suffers.  What I mean is that God watches over children and He will bring them to Him if their suffering comes to death.  If you lost a child my heart breaks for you.  I cannot imagine the pain you must have felt and continue to feel, but take heart in the knowledge that your child is with God and the angels.

You know I’m reminded of David who, through his adulterous affair with Bathsheba had a child.  That child became sick, and while sick David mourned terribly.  He was inconsolable.  He didn’t eat; he lay on the ground all night for seven days until his child died.  His advisors were afraid to tell him that his child had died.  They figured if he was this upset by his illness he would go nuts by his passing.  Contrary to their fear, upon hearing of the child’s death David got up from the ground, washed and anointed himself, changed his clothes, went and worshipped God in the temple and then went home to eat.

After eating his servants asked why he wept and mourned while the child was sick but got back to business when he died.  This is how David answered:

2 Samuel 12:22-23

“He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’  But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Being dead David’s child could not come to him but David said he would go to the child.  How would he do that?  My friend his young child was in Heaven and David knew that he would see that child when he too got to Heaven.  Mourning wouldn’t bring the child back but he had the assurance that he would one day go to the child.  That was his assurance and it is our assurance today.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Alternate Plans
Bible Order: Gen 40–41
Chronological Order: Job 36–38

Can You Be a Simon Cowell For Christ?

Matthew 10:26–42

I have really enjoyed our reduced reading schedule this year.  The passages we have to read every day are so much shorter which gives us more time to digest what we are reading.  Still, today’s reading contains several issues that we could discuss in length had we the time.  In today’s reading Jesus encourages His disciples by reminding them that they don’t really have anything to fear.  For a Christian death is meaningless.  Death has lost its sting because death for a Christian is the moving on to a better place.  When I was a kid there was a TV show named “The Jeffersons”.  The show was about a family that had risen up from poverty to affluence.  The theme song to that show came to mind as I considered the fate of the Christian.  Here are the first few lines to that song.

“Well we’re movin on up,
To the east side.
To a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Movin on up,
To the east side.
We finally got a piece of the pie.”

Yep, we Christians are movin’ on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky.  Once we pass through the veil we will finally get a piece of the heavenly pie.  Why would any of us be afraid of that?  Jesus tells us in today’s reading that God knows everything about us and that we are precious in His sight.  Having acknowledged Him before men, He will acknowledge us before the Father.  Hallelujah!

Jesus also says something that goes against the secular world’s understanding of Jesus.  While we acknowledge that Jesus is all about love, and that He is the prince of peace, He says that He did not come to bring peace to the earth but a sword.  Jesus says He has come to be controversial and confrontational.  Now this doesn’t seem to go with Paul’s exhortations for us to show the world love, but I’m here to tell you that confrontation, and love are not mutually exclusive.  The fact of the matter is that the way some define love we would never tell others about Jesus because we might upset them or offend them.

That is not love.  Real love does the hard things for the sake of the beloved.  Have you ever watched American Idol?  There used to be a guy on that show named Simon Cowell and he could be absolutely brutal in critiquing the performance of contestants.  People loved to hate Simon because he would just come out and say some audition or performance was just awful.  He would tell people that they had no business trying to be singers because they had no talent.

Now I’m not suggesting that Simon loved those singers, but I do think he probably showed them more love than their families.  I never once thought Simon was wrong in his assessment.  When he told someone they couldn’t sing he was right.  Unfortunately far too many people are encouraged to chase a dream they have no hope of acquiring because those that love them don’t want to hurt their feelings by telling them that they can’t sing.  They may not want to hear the message but responding to the truth would have set them free from years of hopelessness and misery.

It is the same thing with the Gospel message.  Many people today don’t want to hear it, but if someone will just love them enough to tell them, and they respond to that truth, they too will be freed from years of hopelessness and misery.  Can you be a Simon Cowell in a Paula Abdul world?  Below is a video with examples of Simon’s direct and brutal comments to contestants.  Can you be this direct with people who need to hear the truth of the Gospel?

Okay, maybe you can’t, or don’t want to be a Simon Cowell, and maybe you don’t have to be quite so direct, but if you are hoping that you can win a popularity contest while telling a lost and dying world about Jesus you are sadly mistaken.  No one is going to give you a trophy for showing people their need for a Savior.  People will actually hate you for speaking the truth, but love requires no less of you and neither does your Savior.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Hope In Christ

Mark 15, Matthew 27

Brothers, it is late and if I’m going to make my deadline for posting this to the blog for automatic e-mailing to subscribers I’m going to have to get this done quickly.

Today was an interesting day and it has me in a rather pensive mood.  Earlier today I learned that a friend of mine, a man who reads this blog regularly and has been a great encouragement to me, is unemployed.  I don’t know if this is a recent thing or has been a struggle for him for a while.  I was unemployed myself several years ago for 9 months and I remember how worried I was and how frightening it got a few months into it.   I also learned that another friend lost his father today.  My dad is still with me so I can only imagine what he must be going through right now.

I ended the day, however, at a wedding for two young members of my church.  They are not long out of college and they make a beautiful couple.  I was truly happy to see them begin their life together as man and wife.  My prayer is that their marriage will be what God intended all marriages to be from the beginning.

I look at the struggles we all face in this life and just when you think you might have to carry more than you can bear God shows you hope.  It is hard for me to explain why I found hope in the wedding of these two young people.  The wedding was proudly Christ centered and I suppose that is where I found that reassuring hope.  Can one find hope in a job?  Can one find hope in a marriage?  Can one find hope in life itself?  I believe the answer to all of these questions is no.  The only place one can find hope is in Christ.

With Christ we find hope in every situation.  With Christ we can find hope when we have a job and when we don’t.  With Christ we can find hope in marriage and we can find hope when single.  With Christ we can find hope in life, in illness, and in death.  You see the struggles and troubles of life are meaningless when Christ is the center of our lives.  Oh that isn’t to say that we shouldn’t feel our pain or bring it before God; He’s our heavenly Father and He wants us to come to him in sorrow and in joy.

As Christians, when we face trouble we know that it is only for a little while and that God will never give us a heavier burden than we can bear.  Of course he knows our capacity better than we know ourselves so it may seem that He has given us too much, but He never does.  When He is at the center of our lives He gives us peace even when we are in the center of a storm.  We can trust Him because we have several thousand years of testimony that He keeps His promises.  The record of that testimony is the Bible.

In today’s passages we read of Jesus being crucified.  He didn’t have to come to earth to be crucified.  He chose to do that.  Can you imagine suffering as He did?  Jesus came to fulfill many of God’s promises.  He came to give us hope.  As He went to the cross He knew that He would be raised from the dead three days later.  He knew that His Father kept His promises and that after the pain there would be joy.

We also read today that Judas hung himself.  He didn’t have hope.  He didn’t have Jesus.  Pain is part of life.  Hope and joy are part of life in Christ.  As Christians we get both.  We live in a fallen world so we experience pain, but we have God’s Holy Spirit residing within us so we have hope as well.

I don’t know what struggle you may be facing today.  Because you live in a fallen world I know you have struggles.  It is my hope you also have Jesus Christ, for then you have hope as well.  Turn to God in your pain and struggles brothers.  Share your hurt and your fear with your Heavenly Father.  Remember He walks with you through the fire and that on the other side is joy everlasting.

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ!

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Know Jesus, Know Hope!

Deuteronomy 34, Psalm 91, Joshua 1-3

This year we are reading through the Bible chronologically.  It has felt more like last year when we read from beginning to end.  Well, don’t worry, in April we will start to jump around a bit.  Today, in between the end of Deuteronomy and the beginning of Joshua we have the 91^st Psalm.  I’m not sure why this Psalm is placed here in this reading plan.  Moses has just passed away and the people of Israel surely needed some hope as he had been with them and guiding them all their lives.  It is when we see the face of death that our minds most strongly ponder the issue of eternity.  What hope for the future can any of us have?  In and of ourselves my friend there is no hope.  That is the stark, harsh truth.

Psalm 91 is a Psalm of hope.  The reason for this is the individual of whom this Psalm speaks is Jesus Christ.  It may not have dawned on you but Satan quotes this Psalm when tempting Christ.

Psalm 91:11-12

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.   On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”

Luke 4:9-11

“And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

So if this hopeful Psalm is about Jesus Christ, how can this Psalm give hope to you and me today?  The hope that this Psalm offers is ours when we are in Christ.  If you aren’t a Christian you may wonder what I mean by that.  When a person is broken hearted about the sin in their life and confess that sin to God and ask to be forgiven and submit their life to the Lordship of Christ, God’s Holy Spirit comes into that person’s heart and begins to change that person into the character of Christ.  That person, that “new born” Christian, has Jesus Christ.  It is His presence within that person that brings them under the wonderful hope of this Psalm.

Now some will read this Psalm and claim it isn’t true because they accepted Christ and still bad things happened to them.  I like what John Calvin said, “When we look back on our life from the perspective of eternity, we are going to see that the power of Satan was so great, that the weakness of our flesh was so feeble, and that the hostility of the world was so strong, that every day of our lives—if God had not intervened—we would never have made it through a day.”

The hope any of us have is found in our relationship with God.  To paraphrase an old bumper sticker I remember seeing: “No Jesus, No hope.  Know Jesus, Know hope.”

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

For God So Loved The World

John 3-4

The Gospel of John is written in simple words but the theological truths these words express are deep and earth shattering.  There are simple truths to be found here but John builds on those truths to reveal even more of the mysteries of God.  An unbeliever would be better off reading one of the earlier three Gospels than starting here.  As a believer, however, my mind is set on fire by John and the lessons he brings to grow us in our faith.

In today’s passages John likens the role of Jesus the Christ to that of Moses lifting up the bronze snake in the wilderness.

John 3:14-15

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

If you will remember way back at the beginning of the year, in Numbers, the people of Israel had sinned against God and a plague of poisonous snakes came upon them.  They confessed their sin and asked Moses to intercede with God for their salvation.  God instructed Moses to make a bronze serpent and raise it up on a pole.  All who looked at the serpent would live.  (Numbers 21:4-9)  This was a picture of the salvation that Jesus Christ would bring.  All of mankind is dying from the bite of that evil old snake, sin.  The anti-venom for sin is Jesus Christ.  It is to Him, and only Him, that one can be saved from the inevitable death that sin brings.

Immediately following this verse that tells us that Jesus saves is perhaps the most well known verse of Scripture in all the world.  John 3:16 tells us why God sent His son as the cure for what ails us.

John 3:16-18

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Sometimes we look at such an important verse as John 3:16 and we miss the importance of the surrounding verses.  I find it extremely important that God explains further why Jesus came; not to condemn but to save.  I get so tired of those that tell me that if I declare sin to be sin that I am “judging” people and that the Bible says that we should not judge lest we be judged ourselves.  This is, of course, an abuse of Scripture by those who have no greater use for Scripture than to justify their own sinful behavior.

If the speed limit is 55 and you are driving 65 you are speeding.  If I am riding with you and I say to you, “You are speeding”, I am not judging you; I am stating a fact of law.  Now if a police officer catches you speeding and writes you a ticket, he is not judging you either.  When you go to court and stand before the judge, you will be judged.  The judge is the one who determines guilt and punishment.  To state that sin is sin is not to judge, or even to play the role of the police, but to be that friend riding alongside a speeder simply stating a fact of law.

I remember driving my car to lunch with a good friend of mine, Vic Schneider, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to me.  I turned on to a road that had a speed limit of 40 and my speed was creeping up to 45.  My friend said to me “Watch your speed here.  They really watch this road.”  I don’t know if he had simply seen a lot of cars pulled over along this road or if he had been unfortunate enough to actually have gotten a ticket there himself but his warning was not given as a reproach or rebuke but as concern for my well being.  My friend warned me not because he viewed himself as better than me or in any way “over” me.  He warned me because he was my friend.

A few years ago a Steven Spielberg movie called Minority Report starring Tom Cruise came out.  The idea behind the futuristic story was that the police knew in advance when someone was going to commit a crime.  The police would see the future act on their screen in the police station and they would go and arrest the criminal before he actually committed the crime.  The criminal was judged, condemned, and sentenced before the police even went to collect him.  Of course, this was a man-made system and the plot revolves around the fact that it was flawed; it wasn’t always correct about what the alleged criminal was going to do.

God, on the other hand, is perfect.  He knows all of the choices you have already made and all the choices you will make.  He does not force you to make these choices but He knows what you will do.  We all are already guilty, judged, condemned and sentenced.  There is no flaw in His knowledge; there is no error.  The sentence is death.  It doesn’t matter if you think you don’t deserve death; you are no more the judge than I am.

Jesus didn’t come to condemn because we are already condemned; that would be a bit redundant.  We were condemned before we were even born, not because we were “pre-destined” to sin but because God already knew that we would.  Before you argue with me about this let me ask you, have you ever sinned?  No?  You have never told a lie?  You have never taken something that belonged to someone else?  You have never desired something or someone that belonged to someone else?  Have you ever looked longingly at a pretty girl or been angry with someone who cut you off in traffic?  I’d like to meet you.  You must be Jesus Christ Himself because other than Him “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.

God gave you free will.  He did not make you sin, nor did Satan, you chose that all by your lonesome.  He knew what you would choose and you are already condemned to death; it is what you deserve.  Jesus came to offer a reprieve from the just sentence of death.  His coming is no more condemnation of sin than your warning the lost of the consequences of their sin.  Jesus came to warn and to die in our place.  Having accepted His pardon He instructs us to warn others.  We don’t warn in anger or self-righteousness, we warn out of concern for the fate of the lost.  We warn out of love; the same love God showed us.

Like Moses lifting up the bronze snake in the wilderness, we are to lift up Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world that they might rely upon Him and be saved.  Let us not be angry with the sinners of the world, for we would have to be angry with ourselves, but let us love the world enough to warn them of their fate and inform them of the pardon that is available.  It is what He has asked us to do.

Have a day filled with the love of Christ,

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

Look Out!

Isaiah 63-66

I have spoken with a number of people who say they can’t believe that Jesus is the only way to be saved.  I have heard “Christians” say they believe there is more than one way to heaven.  It seems the crux of the problem is the idea that it would be “unfair” for God to condemn those that have never heard of Jesus.  I also get a sense that there is a desire to “get along” with people of different cultures and belief systems, so this idea that there is more than one way to get to heaven business is a misguided attempt to have peace.  It’s a bit of this “live and let live” or “to each his own” kind of philosophy run amok.

Now this topic can get into some pretty involved theological points and I’m not the person to take us there.  But let me ask you this.  What do you do with statements by Jesus like this one?

John 14:6

“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

He didn’t say “I am A way, and A truth, and A life.  No one comes to the Father except through me and a couple other dudes.”  He said He is it.  Please don’t give me this “mistranslated” nonsense.  If we can’t reliably translate documents from one language to the next then we can have no international agreements; the UN is doomed to failure and should be dissolved for we cannot make reliable contracts, diplomacy, or negotiations.  No, the text is clear.  Jesus says that He is the only way.  Now you cannot say you believe in Him but you do not believe Him.  He either told the truth or He lied.  If He lied He is not worth following for He cannot deliver what He promised.  If He told the truth, and you are His follower, then this issue is settled.  There is no way to heaven but through Jesus Christ.

“But that is unfair” you say.  My friends, I am the pot.  I do not know how the Potter does what He does.  I just know that He makes pots.  The evidence is all the many different, wonderfully crafted pots.  He gets to decide what is fair, not you.  It is His creation, not yours.  Your idea of “fair” was born in a perverted world; your idea of “fair” is perverted.  You and I cannot possibly understand how He will accomplish His purpose but look at what He said through Isaiah so many years ago.

Isaiah 65:11-12

“But you who forsake the Lord,
who forget my holy mountain,
who set a table for Fortune
and fill cups of mixed wine for Destiny,
I will destine you to the sword,
and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter,
because, when I called, you did not answer;
when I spoke, you did not listen,
but you did what was evil in my eyes
and chose what I did not delight in.”

I get a very clear picture in Scripture that when the end comes every human being will have had the opportunity to accept or reject Christ.  I don’t know how He will do it, but then I don’t know how He does most of what He does.  To say that you “can’t believe in a God that would condemn so many people” is to say that you have created your own God who will do things the way you see fit.  You realize that you’ve just made yourself God don’t you?  You have just made an idol of yourself and if you’ve been reading along with us then you know things are not going to go well for you in the end.

The passage above shows that those that are condemned are those that rejected God when He called them.  They will have earned their wages and those wages are death.  Frankly, if you really care about all of those people who will be condemned then I would think the proper attitude would not be to disregard or reject God’s Holy Word but to get out there and start telling the lost about Jesus.

Is there more than one way to be made right with God?  Jesus says no.  Do you care more about your peace than the salvation of the lost?  Tell me what you would do in the following scenario.  You are standing on a corner in New York City waiting for the crosswalk light to change.  Suddenly a man walks past you.  He is wearing earphones and looking at his phone as he dances into the crosswalk against the light.  He is clearly not paying attention, and as you look around you see that a bus is bearing down on him at breakneck speed.  What would you do?  Would you shout a warning to him?  “Look out!”  He has his earphones on.  He might not hear you.  Would you reach out and grab him and yank him back to safety?

I suspect you might do all of the above.  When you see someone in danger your natural impulse would be to yell a warning.  Would you be worried that they might be upset with you for shouting at them?  Would you hesitate to pull them back for fear that they would be offended that you touched them?  I hope not.  Their life was in danger.  I realize my little example provides a clear and present danger that all can see.  It is harder for the lost to see the looming bus of God’s wrath but their life is in danger nonetheless.

There is a video of a professed atheist who, as is the case with all atheists, thinks we Christians are deluded.  He has another view, however, that I suspect he does not share with most atheists.  He says in his video that he has no problem with Christians attempting to share their faith with him.  In a nutshell he says that if Christians believe that anyone who does not accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior is doomed to hell, how much do they have to hate him to keep it to themselves?  Do you get that?  He is saying that if you really do believe what you say you believe then it is an act of hate to keep it to yourself.

Are we not to show the love of Christ to a lost and dying world?  Could you live with yourself if you could have stopped that man from walking in front of that oncoming bus but didn’t?  Can you live with yourself if you don’t tell that lost coworker, family member, or neighbor about Jesus?  One day we will all stand before the King.  The lost will be separated and sent to eternal suffering.  Can you stand the thought of having failed those you could have at least tried to save?

If you think I’m hitting you pretty hard please understand that I am hitting myself pretty hard.  The truth is all of us Christians have not been living up to God’s call on our life.  It’s about time we started shouting some warnings don’t you think?

Have a life saving day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!