Archive for the ‘April’ Category

Arguing from the greater to the lesser

Posted: May 25, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Mark, May
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Mark 16:6-7 And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” 

“Just as He said….”  Jesus always keeps His promises!  Coty Pinckney explains,

milliondollarsSuppose I promise to give you a million dollars Monday at noon, and then a thousand dollars Tuesday at noon. You might have reason to doubt my promise – particularly if you could see my bank balance! But suppose I manage to fulfill the promise on Monday – you get the million dollars! What do you expect to happen on Tuesday?

thousand dollarsIf I fulfilled the promise to give you a million dollars on Monday, surely I’ll give you the thousand dollars on Tuesday! You will have no doubt! I’ve kept the hard promise – surely I’ll keep the easier one.

Think, now: Isn’t the promise to rise from the dead the hardest promise to keep anyone has ever made? Jesus kept the hard promise. He lived up to His word. Shouldn’t we then believe the rest of His words, and trust Him to be speaking truthfully? He’s fulfilled the million-dollar promise – surely He’ll fulfill all the thousand dollar promises He made. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”

I’m reminded of a promise given to us in Romans 8:32….“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all (a HARD thing), how will he not also with him graciously give us all things (EASY for God)?”   The argument here is similar.  The greater to the lesser.  If God can do a hard thing, he can do an easy thing!

Spurgeon: He who boasts of grace has little grace to boast of.

Posted: April 30, 2013 by Pam Larson in 1 Corinthians, April, Devotionals/Commentaries
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Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10 that we are to take heed of the examples of the Old Testament, because we should learn from them and not repeat their mistakes. In verse 12 he warns:  Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. 

C. H. Spurgeon comments in “Morning and Evening,”

It is a curious fact, that there is such a thing as being proud of grace.

  • A man says, “I have great faith; I shall not fall; poor little faith may, but I never shall.”
  • “I have fervent love,” says another; “I can stand; there is no danger of my going astray.”

He who boasts of grace has little grace to boast of. Some who do this imagine that their graces can keep them, knowing not that the stream must flow constantly from the fountain head, or else the brook will soon be dry. If a continuous stream of oil comes not to the lamp, though it burn brightly to-day, it will smoke to-morrow, and noxious will be its scent.

Take heed that thou gloriest not in thy graces, but let all thy glorying and confidence be in Christ and His strength, for only so canst thou be kept from falling. 

  • Be much more in prayer.
  • Spend longer time in holy adoration.
  • Read the Scriptures more earnestly and constantly.
  • Watch your lives more carefully.
  • Live nearer to God.
  • Take the best examples for your pattern.
  • Let your conversation be redolent of heaven.
  • Let your hearts be perfumed with affection for men’s souls.

So live that men may take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and have learned of Him; and when that happy day shall come, when He whom you love shall say, “Come up higher,” may it be your happiness to hear Him say, “Thou hast fought a good fight, thou hast finished thy course, and henceforth there is laid up for thee a crown of righteousness which fadeth not away.” On, Christian, with care and caution! On, with holy fear and trembling! On, with faith and confidence in Jesus alone, and let your constant petition be, “Uphold me according to Thy word.” He is able, and He alone, “To keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.”

Tough-minded but loving letter

Posted: April 25, 2013 by Pam Larson in 1 Corinthians, April, Devotionals/Commentaries
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Love in the body of Christ is a message proclaimed loud and clear in 1 Corinthians, and especially in chapter 15, which we come to in our read-through-the-Bible plan today:

  • Verse 14: “Let all that you do be done in love.”
  • Verse 20: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” …. love expressed among believers in the body.
  • Verse 22: “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed.” … love must be genuine in the body of Christ, not hypocritical.
  • Verse 24: “My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.” 

On 1 Corinthians 15, from a 1999 message “Living and Loving” by Doug Groins of Penisula Bible Church:

Now, if you’ve been studying through this very long letter, you know that most of it is in the form of rebuke and correction.

  • Chapters 1-14 dealt mostly with bad behavior among believers.
  • Chapter 15, the great resurrection chapter, dealt with bad theology.
  • Even chapter 13, the beautiful love chapter, was written because Paul had to deal with lovelessness and insensitivity in that body of believers.

Yet this letter comes out of deep, loving concern for and commitment to these people. It’s like God’s love for us. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “…Those whom the Lord loves He disciplines” (12:6). So this is very loving discipline from the apostle. Remember how Paul began his letter. Even though he had hard things to say, in the opening paragraph he wrote, “I thank my God always concerning you, for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you….” (1 Corinthians 1:4-6). We see from Paul that love may have to be tough-minded at times, but it’s always hopeful, confident, optimistic, and very grateful.

His death was the great end for which He came into the world

Posted: April 25, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Mark
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They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he did not want anyone to know, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.
—Mark 9:30-32

J. C. Ryle with a timely reminder:

The immense importance of our Lord’s death and resurrection comes out strongly in this fresh announcement which He makes. It is not for nothing that He reminds us again that He must die. He would have us know that His death was the great end for which He came into the world. He would remind us that by that death the great problem was to be solved–how God could be just, and yet justify sinners. He did not come upon earth merely to teach, and preach, and work miracles. He came to make satisfaction for sin, by His own blood and suffering on the cross. Let us never forget this. The incarnation, and example, and words of Christ, are all of deep importance. But the grand object which demands our notice in the history of His earthly ministry, is His death on Calvary.

How foolish are those who think that God does not know their actions

Posted: April 25, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Psalms
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He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?
    He who teaches man knowledge—
        the LORD—knows the thoughts of man,
        that they are but a breath.
    Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O LORD,
        and whom you teach out of your law,
    to give him rest from days of trouble,
        until a pit is dug for the wicked.
    For the LORD will not forsake his people;
        he will not abandon his heritage;
    for justice will return to the righteous,
        and all the upright in heart will follow it. —Psalm 94:10-15 ESV

Spurgeon, in The Treasury of David, comments on Psalm 94

Whether men admit or deny that God knows, one thing is here declared, namely, that The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Not their words alone are heard, and their works seen, but he reads the secret motions of their minds, for men themselves are not hard to be discerned of him, before his glance they themselves are but vanity. It is in the Lord’s esteem no great matter to know the thoughts of such transparent pieces of vanity as mankind are, he sums them up in a moment as poor vain things. This is the sense of the original, but that given in the authorised version is also true—the thoughts, the best part, the most spiritual portion of man’s nature, even these are vanity itself, and nothing better. Poor man! And yet such a creature as this boasts, plays at monarch, tyrannises over his fellow worms, and defies his God! Madness is mingled with human vanity, like smoke with the fog, to make it fouler but not more substantial than it would have been alone. How foolish are those who think that God does not know their actions, when the truth is that their vain thoughts are all perceived by him! How absurd to make nothing of God when in fact we ourselves are as nothing in his sight.

Frequent signs: “The best is yet to come.”

Posted: April 25, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Ruth
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John Piper, in the last sermon in a series on Ruth, “Ruth: The Best is Yet to Come”

What one main thing does the author want us to take away from reading this story?

Here’s what I would suggest as the main lesson: The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory, but they do get there. The life of the godly is not an Interstate through Nebraska, but a state road through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee. There are rock slides and precipices and dark mists and bears and slippery curves and hairpin turns that make you go backwards in order to go forwards. But all along this hazardous, twisted road that doesn’t let you see very far ahead there are frequent signs that say, “The best is yet to come.” And at the bottom right corner written with an unmistakable hand are the words, “As I live, says the Lord!”

The book of Ruth is one of those signs for you to read. It was written and it has been preached to give you some midsummer encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in your life lately are not dead-end streets. In all the setbacks of your life as a believer God is plotting for your joy.

Paul: A resurrection analogy

Posted: April 24, 2013 by Pam Larson in 1 Corinthians, April, Devotionals/Commentaries
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John Piper comments on 1 Corinthians 15:29-58, our “Read-through-the Bible” passage for today:

Verse 50: “Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”

What does that mean? Is it a wholesale denial of the bodily resurrection? No. “Flesh and blood” simply means “human nature as we know it”—mortal, perishable, sin-stained, decaying. Something so fragile and temporary as the body we now have will not be the stuff of the eternal, durable, unshakable, indestructible kingdom of God. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be bodies.

It means that our bodies will be greater. They will be our bodies, but they will be different and more wonderful.

Verse 52: “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”

When he says “the dead will be raised” he means we—the dead—will be raised. If God meant to start all over with no continuity between the body I have now and the one I will have, why would Paul say, “The dead will be raised”? Why would he not say, “The dead will not be raised” since they are decomposed and their molecules are scattered into plants and animals for a thousand miles and so God will start from scratch since there are no bodies to raise, and he will make totally new bodies that have no connection with the old ones? He did not say that, because it is not true.

The Dead Will Be Raised and They Will Be Changed

He said two things; the dead will be raised (that teaches continuity); and he said they will be changed—they will be made imperishable and immortal. The old body will become a new body. But it will be your body. God is able to do what we cannot imagine. The resurrection is not described in terms of a totally new creation but in terms of a change of the old creation. “We shall all be changed” (v. 51b).

An Analogy to Seeds and Plants

Look back now at verses 37–38. Paul compares the resurrection to what happens to a seed when it goes into the ground. “That which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as he wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.” The point is that there is connection and continuity between the simple seed and the beautiful plant. When you plant a wheat seed, you don’t get a barley plant. But on the other hand there is difference. A plant is more beautiful than a seed.

Verses 42–44 apply the analogy to the resurrection body:

“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”

The God who points to His son

Posted: April 24, 2013 by Pam Larson in 1 Thessalonians, April, Devotionals/Commentaries
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In June 2012, the first-ever Gospel Coalition National Women’s Conference was held in Florida.  Here is the message from Nancy Leigh DeMoss, speaking about the Transfiguration. 

http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/on_another_mountain_the_god_who_points_to_his_son

All things are ordered according to his eternal purposes

Posted: April 24, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Psalms
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The Lord reigns; he is robed in majesty;

the Lord is robed; he has put on strength as his belt.

Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

Your throne is established from of old;

you are from everlasting. Psalm 93:1-4

C. H. Spurgeon on Psalm 93 (Treasury of David):

Whatever opposition may arise, his throne is unmoved; he has reigned, does reign, and will reign for ever and ever. Whatever turmoil and rebellion there may be beneath the clouds, the eternal King sits above all in supreme serenity; and everywhere he is really Master, let his foes rage as they may. All things are ordered according to his eternal purposes, and his will is done.

God is gracious and sovereign even when he is silent.

Posted: April 24, 2013 by Pam Larson in April, Devotionals/Commentaries, Ruth
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Today we read Ruth 2-3.  Here is  commentary from John Piper, in a series on Ruth, Ruth: Under the Wings of God

But before we leave verses 1–7, did you sense a merciful providence behind all this? Notice verse 3: “So she set forth and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers; and she happened to come to a part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the family of Elimelech.” She “happened to come”? You don’t have to write your theology in every line. Sometimes it’s good to leave something ambiguous to give your reader a chance to fill in the blank if he has caught on. The answer can be given later. It will be. In fact, Naomi, with her grand theology of God’s sovereignty, is the one who will give the answer. The answer is God—the merciful providence of God guiding Ruth as she gleans. Ruth happened to come to Boaz’s field because God is gracious and sovereign even when he is silent. As the proverb (16:9) says, “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

To read or listen to the rest of the sermon, click here:

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