“Amaziah was twenty and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Jehoaddan of Jerusalem.
And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a perfect heart.”

                                                  -2 Chronicles 25:1, 2

We are told in Ephesians 2:10 that it is God’s will for all of His children to follow after good works. We are saved by grace through faith apart from our works (v. 8), but are instructed to express our gratitude for that salvation through service to both God and others. Despite this truth, today’s verse is a sobering reminder that it is very possible for a person to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons.

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?...”

                                                     -John 21:15

I believe that, in order to fully comprehend the significance of what Jesus is saying here, we must first look at Peter’s background: this is the same Simon Peter who walked on water with the Lord during a raging storm (Matthew 14:29). This is the same Peter who zealously cut off the right ear of the High Priest’s servant for trying to take Jesus captive (John 18:10). He was the one who spoke up and expressed His resolve to stay with God even when everybody else was walking away (John 6:68), and couldn’t understand why the Son of God should wash his calloused and dirty feet (John 13:6). Of course he made his fair share of mistakes along the way but, at least most of the time, was the one everybody else needed to be more like. Yet in spite out his outward devotion, Christ presented the question, “Do you really love Me?” He didn’t ask whether he’d been faithful to go through the motions of Christianity, but instead wanted to know whether or not it was truly in his heart. When it comes down to it, a filthy heart will eventually corrupt our actions anyway (Luke 6:45), so it’s best to make sure we have everything right on the inside before concerning ourselves with the rest.

Perhaps you, like Peter, seem to be on par with everybody else when it comes to the external aspect of your faith. You raise your hands during church, never miss a youth group meeting, and read Christian devotionals on the internet during your spare time. And yet despite the fact that you’re doing everything you know you should be doing on the outside, it still feels like something’s missing in your life and you wonder what it is. Could it be that the Lord is asking you the very same question He asked Peter?

“And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.”

                                                      -Luke 21:11

By now I’m sure you’ve all seen the news headlines of the enormous earthquake in Japan. It topped the Richter Scale at 8.9 which is about as big as they get, and nearly 3,000 have already been confirmed dead with many still missing. This was no ordinary earthquake and shouldn’t be treated like one. Millions (think about that number for a minute) are in need of food, water, and other basic essentials  most of us have never had to live a day without. Meanwhile, with no telephone lines or internet access, a large part of them still have to worry about whether or not their friends and family made it through alive. They are going through the darkest moments of their life and looking to us for help.

So what do we do?

First of all, pray….right now. Don’t wait until you’re done reading this post and give yourself the opportunity to forget; stop right where you are and pray. Pray for their broken homes and broken hearts. Pray for those in charge of relief efforts and that they would do their job as efficiently as possible. Pray for those mourning the loss of their parents, their children, and their best friends. Those are wounds the Red Cross simply can’t fix.

Secondly, if God has blessed you with more than you honestly need, let me urge you to seriously consider getting involved tangibly (see II Corinthians 8:14). I know we tend to be skeptical of charities and other organizations that ask for our hard-earned cash, but we can’t spend all of our time questioning their integrity while losing ours in the process. There are many honest and faith-based organizations that truly care about meeting the needs of the broken and will not misuse your donation. I’m sure none of us would hesitate to give if it was our family that was starving to death.

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

                                                       -James 2:17

This tragedy is the perfect opportunity to prove the faith we’re so quick to profess. Yes, the Lord said He is a father to the fatherless and a defender of the poor (Psalm 10:14; Deuteronomy 24:15); but it is only through His body that His light can shine in this world (I Corinthians 12:27; Matthew 5:14). We can’t sit back and wait for someone else to move when God is calling us to.

“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

                  -Romans 5:10

If you’ve been in more than a few church services and listened to more than a couple Christian songs throughout the course of your life, then you’ve probably heard it said that Jesus Christ is a “friend of sinners.” This is a very common misconception that has its root in Matthew 11:19 where the Lord quoted His enemies who, in an attempt to discredit Him before the people, proclaimed, “Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”  Yet if this verse indicates that Christ is indeed a friend of sinners, then it would also indicate that He is a gluttonous winebibber and thus in violation of Old Testament teaching (Proverbs 23:21).

“Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.” 

                                                        -John 15:14

Not only did Christ intentionally cast a negative light on the insults He received by the modern-day religious leaders, but completely contradicted their claim by describing His true friends as those Who keep His commandments. Since 1 John 3:4 defines sin as the breaking of God’s law and a sinner is one who does this habitually (3 John 1:11), it is utterly impossible for a nonbeliever to be meet God’s requirement for friendship. Just like the great patriarch Abraham, being called God’s friend requires us first to be justified and cleansed of the sin which serves as a divider between us and the Most High (James 2:23; Isaiah 59:2). It is only then that we can be saved from eternal destruction and enjoy personal and intimate fellowship with the Lord Himself (Revelation 3:20, 21).

Despite the sobering truth that all sinners are under the wrath of God (Ephesians 2:3), our Lord is One Who practices His Own teaching. That is, just as He instructed us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44), He also loves His, and desires above all that we be reconciled by the blood of His Son (Colossians 1:21; II Peter 3:9). Unfortunately, this does not always happen and many choose instead to always pursue a life of sin and rebellion without ever acknowledging the grace and forgiveness of God. Don’t let yourself be numbered among those who rejected the offer of God’s salvation; those who stand against the Lord will never prosper (2 Chronicles 13:12; Proverbs 28:13).

“And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

                  -II Corinthians 12:9, 10

Think for a moment about how many times in a day you use the word “need.” If there’s something we want but don’t have - even if it’s nothing more than a new video game - we somehow think we can’t live without it and determine not to be contented until our often selfish desires are satisfied. After all, we reason, doesn’t God want us to be happy?

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.”

                                               -Psalm 144:15

The fact is, God does want you to be happy. As I mentioned in my last post, giving you more abundant life in Him is a stated priority of our heavenly Father and the joy of the Lord is something no Christian should be without (Galatians 5:22). Where we often make our mistake, however, is in assuming that the answer to our unhappiness could ever be found in earthly and material things and then set our heart on them in hope of fulfillment. According to Scripture, though, the abundant life described in John 10:10 can only be found when we delight ourself in the Lord and make Him the most sincere desire of our heart (Psalm 37:4), realizing the pleasures of this world last only for a season (Hebrews 11:25).

“He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.”

                                                 -Ecclesiastes 5:10

Despite how much you’d love to have a new car, a nicer home, and a bigger salary, those things simply do not bring lasting satisfaction and never will. If you had more money, you wouldn’t be happy unless you spent it; if you spent it, you wouldn’t be happy until you had more money again. It’s a hopeless and endless cycle that leads to nothing but dissatisfaction and, as Solomon wrote, vanity (see also 1 Timothy 6:6). God can do without us, but we certainly can’t do without Him. The joy is there for the taking; don’t fly around the world just to get across the street.

I don’t know about you, but John 10:10 rates among the most frequently quoted verses I hear from fellow Christians. This is justifiable since it truly is a great passages that gives us clear insight into the intentions of the most influential beings ever to exist: Christ’s desire is to give us a more abundant life, while Satan’s is to steal, kill, and destroy us in any way possible. Unfortunately, I think that  many times we focus solely on Satan’s intentions while forgetting the fact that Christ, too, has an agenda worth mentioning.

Unlike the devil who goes about seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8), “…the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9) With such an amazing contrast between our two options, it is obviously important to make the decision of who we serve very, very carefully since, based on these verses, it will either destroy or fulfill us. Oftentimes the path that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13) seems to be the most fulfilling, and the path of righteousness (Psalm 2:3) full of destruction; yet we must be careful to look past the brevity of this life and it’s hardships, and focus on the eternal fruit of the the decisions we make. In reality, 1,000 years from now whatever joy or sadness we are now experiencing will be long since forgotten as we finally begin to understand the concept of eternity.

Whether big or small, we make countless decisions on a day-to-day basis that we rarely take the time to notice. Even though we generally consider big decisions to be the ones that permanently alter our life in a matter of minutes, those seemingly insignificant choices we make each day are the ones that impact us the most. The decision to serve God falls into both categories: we are saved at a specific moment in time as we make the decision to repent of our sins and believe the Gospel (Luke 13:3; Romans 10:9), but the decision to serve Him is one we must continue to make on a daily – even and hourly – basis in the little things we do. When we learn to make Christ part of every aspect of our lives, we will finally attain what He promised us in John 10:10. We will have life, and we will have it more abundantly.

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

                    -Hebrews 2:14, 15

For most people death is a scary concept. It reminds us all that, contrary to what we’d like to believe, we are not immortal beings and that life as we know it will one day come to an end. Our wealth will be gone (Ecclesiastes 5:15), our accomplishments forgotten (Ecclesiastes 9:15), and our eternal destiny embraced once and for all. While some people allow their entire life to be consumed with the fear of death, I believe many more simply coast through life without giving  it a second thought. However a person chooses to look at it, though, research shows that 1 out of every 1 persons will die some day and that none of us are getting out of this alive (Hebrews 9:27). The only hope we have of escaping it is if the Lord hastens His return, which has all of the same effects of death mentioned above and will happen even more suddenly.

“…God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”

         -Luke 12:20

Statistics show that around 64% of Americans believe they are going to heaven when they die, and that less than 1% believe they might go to hell. At first I didn’t find these numbers overly surprising, but when I considered the fact that 92% of Americans believe in God I was simply blown away. This means that more than 30% of those Americans who believe in God think they are neither going to heaven or hell when they die! Exactly what they believe I’m not sure, but I do know that these numbers perfectly illustrate the point I was making earlier: the vast majority of people simply don’t give death a second thought. If they did they would realize that, if God exists, we would naturally be held accountable to Him for the way we live our life (Romans 14:12) -  being either punished in hell according to our actions (Revelation 20:15), or rewarded in heaven according to Christ’s action on the cross (John 14:3; Revelation 5:9). It’s either one or the other.

Death, while probably not your favorite subject, isn’t something you can afford to sweep under the rug and pretend doesn’t exist. It does exist, and those who have ignored its reality won’t have time to consider the way they’ve lived their life when it comes knocking on their door. It will be too late then to pray or seek for second chances, so it’s best to get those things taken care of now while we still have time.

“…behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

                                                  -2 Corinthians 6:2

 

By now, I’m you’ve all heard me talk about memverse.com. I don’t hesitate in saying that I truly believe this website to be the most powerful and effective tool out there when it comes to helping you memorize Scripture, and that I would have far fewer verses memorized without it. Rather than having to review all of your verses day after day, the software automatically determines the precise moment when you need to be reminded of each Scripture and quizzes you accordingly. In other words, it’s possible to memorize 100+ verses and only have to study a few each day while still retaining them firmly in memory!

Anyway, the owner of memverse recently mentioned that he would love to have a tutorial video explaining how to use the site, and so I spent last night making just that. This video shows you how to navigate the most important aspects of memverse, including how to add/delete a verse and complete a memorization session. It’s all very simple anyway, but I hope this makes the learning process a bit easier for those who sign up.  You can watch it here if you’d like, or on youtube to see the full-screen, HD version (which I would recommend). Enjoy!