Archive for the ‘September’ Category

Storm: Christ knew it, and Christ appointed it, and it was working for their good.

Posted: October 19, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, John, September
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When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. —John 6:16-18 ESV

J. C. Ryle comments on this passage at Grace Gems:

We are told that they were sent over the lake by themselves, while their Master tarried behind. And then we see them alone in a dark night, tossed about by a great wind on stormy waters, and, worst of all, Christ not with them. It was a strange transition. From witnessing a mighty miracle, and helping it instrumentally, amid an admiring crowd, to solitude, darkness, winds, waves, storm, anxiety, and danger, the change was very great! But Christ knew it, and Christ appointed it, and it was working for their good.

Trial, we must distinctly understand, is part of the diet which all true Christians must expect. It is one of the means by which their grace is proved, and by which they find out what there is in themselves. Winter as well as summer–cold as well as heat–clouds as well as sunshine–are all necessary to bring the fruit of the Spirit to ripeness and maturity. We do not naturally like this. We would rather cross the lake with calm weather and favorable winds, with Christ always by our side, and the sun shining down on our faces. But it may not be. It is not in this way that God’s children are made “partakers of His holiness.” (Heb. 12:10.) Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and Job were all men of many trials. Let us be content to walk in their footsteps, and to drink of their cup. In our darkest hours we may seem to be left–but we are never really alone.

Our Great Shepherd gives us what we need

Posted: September 25, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Hebrews, September
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    Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. —Hebrews 13:20-21 ESV

John Piper:

shepherd-sheep

The God of peace does two things for us through our Great Shepherd.

First, he equips us with everything good that we may do his will. That does not mean that you have everything you need to be rich and famous and healthy and beautiful. It means you have everything you need to do his will. If he calls you to do a thing, he will give you what you need to do it. Our Shepherd does not promise to make us rich in this world. He promises to give us what we need to do his will.

That’s why Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). You will have everything you need to do God’s will for you. Including everything you need to die well for his glory (John 21:19).

jesus-shepherdAnd, second, it says in verse 21 that through our Great Shepherd, God is “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.” Our Great Shepherd doesn’t just give us the green pastures and quiet waters that we need. He gives us the inner strength that we need. This is how he keeps us from making shipwreck of our faith. When he paid with his blood for the eternal covenant, here is the promise from that covenant that he bought for all of his sheep: “I will make with them an everlasting covenant [there’s the eternal covenant], that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jeremiah 32:40).  Our Great Shepherd works in us what his pleasing in his sight. That is, he works faith in us, and he will not let us become unbelievers. That’s what it means to have a Great Shepherd. So what does it mean to have Jesus as our great Shepherd? It means that he provides everything we need to do his will, and he works in us the faith to persevere in this to the end.

Pray for eyes to see

Posted: September 25, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Luke, September
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Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. —Luke 24:45-47 ESV

Have you ever read your Bible, seeing the words, but not really comprehending? Ever get to the end of a chapter and wonder what you just read?

We see in our passage for today that one of the final things Jesus did for his disciples was to open their eyes to understand Scripture.  Oh how we need that today! Sin, pride, prejudice,busyness…all throw a blindfold over the eyes of our heart and keep us from understanding.

Start off your Bible reading with prayer, asking the Lord Jesus to open your eyes. Commentaries are okay after you have thoroughly studied a text.  But nothing compares with the teaching of Christ.

J.C. Ryle said, “A humble and prayerful spirit will find a thousand things in the Bible, which the proud, self-conceited student will utterly fail to discern.”

    Open my eyes, that I may behold
        wondrous things out of your law.
Psalm 119:18 ESV

What does it mean to “fear the Lord?”

Posted: September 25, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Proverbs, September
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“Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.”  Proverbs 31:30

John Piper tells a story to illustrate “the fear of the Lord:”

Noël and the boys and I went out to Dick and Irene Tiegen’s place last week. They have a big dog as tall as Benjamin which greeted us with barks and growls from where he was chained. But after we were there and in the house with the dog, he was friendly. Then we went outside again and Irene gave the warning: Don’t run from him. But as Karsten was heading out to the car, the dog came trotting up behind, and instead of slowing down and petting the dog, Karsten started to run, and immediately the dog barked and growled. What a lesson in the fear of God. Irene was Moses and she says to us Israelites, the Piper family, “Do not fear to draw near, but keep the fear of the dog (the fear of the Lord) before your eyes, lest you try to run away (lest you start to fall into sin).” God is a joy to be near and a terror to those who flee. The comparison breaks down, however: Irene put the dog in the basement, but nobody puts God in the basement.

dog_chase_man1If you are running from God because you are afraid of him, then you are not yet as afraid as you ought to be. In fact, your very flight is a mockery of God, presuming to think that you could outrun this German shepherd.

dog hug

 

If you really fear him and love your own life, stop running, turn around, and hug his neck for dear life, and he will lick your face. The fear of the Lord is fear of fleeing out of his fellowship into the way of sin. Therefore the fear of the Lord is full of peace and security and hope. It keeps us near to the merciful heart of God, our fortress, our refuge, our sanctuary, our shield, our sun. Isaiah 8:13 says, “The Lord of Hosts, . . . let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he will become a sanctuary.” A proper fear of the Lord keeps us under the shadow of his wings where we need not be afraid.

Therefore the fear of the Lord is accompanied by tremendous blessing. Listen to the psalms. Psalm 25:14, “The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him; he makes known to them his covenant.” Psalm 31:19, “How abundant is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for those who fear thee, and wrought for those who take refuge in thee.” (Notice that fearing God and taking refuge in him are parallel. Those who keep the fear of God before their eyes will not run from him but take refuge in him.) Psalm 34:7, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.” Psalm 103:11, “As the heavens are high above the earth so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.” Verse 13, “As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him.” (Hug his neck and he will lick your face.) Psalm 145:19, “He fulfills the desire of all who fear him.”

The promises God makes to those who fear him are so staggering that the summons to fear God and the summons to hope in God are inseparable. And so the psalmist puts them together, for example, in Psalm 33:18, “The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his mercy.” Psalm 147:11, “The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his mercy.” A woman who fears the Lord will not run away from God to satisfy her longings and relieve her anxieties. She will wait for the Lord. She will hope in God. She will stay close to the heart of God and trust in his promises. The prospect of departing into the way of sin will be too fearful to pursue; and the benefits of abiding in the shadow of the Almighty too glorious to forsake.

The God of the Amen

Posted: September 25, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Isaiah, September
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    So that he who blesses himself in the land
        shall bless himself by the God of truth,
    and he who takes an oath in the land
        shall swear by the God of truth;
    because the former troubles are forgotten
        and are hidden from my eyes. —Isaiah 65:16 ESV

Alexander Mclaren:

The full beauty and significance of these remarkable words are only reached when we attend to the literal rendering of a part of them which is obscured in our version. As they stand in the original they have, in both cases, instead of the vague expression, ‘The God of truth,’ the singularly picturesque one, ‘The God of the Amen.’

I. Note the meaning of the name. Now, Amen is an adjective, which means literally firm, true, reliable, or the like. And, as we know, its liturgical use is that, in the olden time, and to some extent in the present time, it was the habit of the listening people to utter it at the close of prayer or praise. But besides this use at the end of some one else’s statement, which the sayer of the ‘Amen’ confirms by its utterance, we also find it used at the beginning of a statement, by the speaker, in order to confirm his own utterance by it.

And these two uses of the expression reposing on its plain meaning, in the first instance signifying, ‘I tell you that it is so’; and in the second instance signifying, ‘So may it be!’ or, ‘So we believe it is,’ underlie this grand title which God takes to Himself here, ‘the God of the Amen,’ both His Amen and ours. So that the thought opens up very beautifully and simply into these two, His truth and our faith…

…Ah! my friend, what a miserable contrast there is between the firm, unshaken, solid security of the divine word upon which we say that we trust, and the poor, feeble, broken trust which we build upon it. ‘Let not that man think that He shall receive anything of the Lord’; but let us expect, as well as ‘ask, in faith, nothing wavering’; and let our ‘Amen!’ ring out in answer to God’s.

The Apostle Paul has a striking echo of the words of my text in the second Epistle to the Corinthians: ‘All the promises of God in Him are yea! and through Him also is the Amen!’ The assent, full, swift, frank —the assent of the believing heart to the great word of God comes through the same channel, and reaches God by the same way, as God’s word on which it builds comes to us. The ‘God of the Amen,’ in both senses of the word, is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the seal as well as the substance of the divine promises, and whose voice in us is the answer to, and the grasp of, the promises of which He is the substance and soul.

 

He is the same

Posted: September 24, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Hebrews, September
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Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

John Piper comments, in a sermon “Jesus Christ is the Same Yesterday and Today and Forever”

Why does it matter that the Jesus Christ of today be the same as the Jesus Christ of yesterday and tomorrow? Let me try to put the significance of each time period in a single sentence.

Yesterday: It is crucial that Jesus Christ be the same yesterday as he is today because yesterday is when Jesus Christ showed us in history what he is really like.

Today: It is crucial that Jesus Christ be the same today as he was yesterday because today is where we have fellowship with him and relate to him as the person we know by reading about his life and work yesterday.

Tomorrow: It is crucial that Jesus Christ be the same tomorrow as he was yesterday and today because all our hope for everlasting joy hangs ultimately on relating to him, not just his gifts.

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

Never seen a God like ours!

Posted: September 24, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Isaiah, September
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From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.—Isaiah 64:4

No one has ever heard or seen this God.

Our Bible reading for today suggests that in working for those who wait for him, God does something quite special and  unique…he works for those who wait for Him!

This is in contrast to the Babylonian gods in Isaiah 46:1–4. Bel and Nebo are the Jupiter and Mercury of Babylon, and they are as helpless. They have to be carried. Their worshippers have to work for them. But the Lord of Israel, Jehovah,  is the creator, and HE does the carrying.

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, their idols are on beasts and cattle; these things you carry are loaded as burdens on weary beasts. They stoop, they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. Hearken to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel who have been borne by me from your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am He, and to grey hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save (cf. Jeremiah 10:5).

Our God does not need to be carried. He has made us, and he will carry us. Our God will work for those who wait for him.  Isaiah 30:18 says, “He exalts himself to show mercy to you.”

Our God is unique, wonderful, awesome and worthy of our worship. He forgives us and works for us! We can hardly imagine such a wonderful God!  The Creator of the universe comes down and works for us, His creatures.

Unshakeable kingdom

Posted: September 23, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Hebrews, September
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John Piper, in a sermon from Hebrew 12 “A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken”

Before the end of this age, God is giving to everyone who believes in his Son a kingdom that cannot be shaken and will never end.

This is the message of the whole Bible. But to see it we should look at verse 28 of our text:

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Notice: we have already received it. Verse 27 says that what can be shaken will be swept away in one last great shaking, and that what is unshakable will remain. Then verse 28 says that we have already received that unshakable kingdom.

Close up of the damage caused by the Loma Prieta Earthquake to the Nimitz Freeway in Oakland.1989

This is the great joy of being a Christian. It doesn’t matter whether you live Santa Cruz, California, or Charleston, South Carolina, or on the banks of the Ganges in Bangladesh—you have a kingdom which has already been given to you, and your life in Christ is unshakable. It does not mean there weren’t any Christians crushed under the Nimitz Freeway. There probably were. [San Francisco, October 1989] Romans 8:23 says that “not only does the creation (the geological plates beneath northern California) groan with birth-pangs, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit groan inwardly, awaiting the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” We share in the futility and decay and calamities of creation as long as we are in the body. When the flood comes, we may drown. When the hurricane comes, we may lose our homes and churches. When the earthquake strikes, we may be under the freeway.

No. Receiving an unshakable kingdom does not mean safety for the body in this world. It does not mean that we’ll escape the earthquake. It means that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It means the deep and abiding certainty that “whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:9). It means that “here we have no lasting city, but we seek a city which is to come” (Hebrews 13:14): a city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10), a city that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28)—forever. It does not mean that the judgment will not begin at the household of God. It will.

God grant us eyes to see and a passion for Your Word

Posted: September 23, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Luke, September
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And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.  They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” —Luke 24:31-32 

Just two simple observations:

1. Jesus affects our spiritual sight- He opens our eyes to see Him for Who He really is!  2 Corinthians 4:4-6 states it this way:

“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2.  Jesus affects our spiritual passions-  He opens the Scriptures, the Word of God, the Bible to us, and we see the truth and it burns within our hearts.  He ignites a passion for God! Pray as you read the Bible.  Pray for God to open your eyes to see Him and His eternal truth.

Here’s the way Henry Law puts it:

Lovely light may beam upon us, and wondrous scenes surround; but the gain is none if sightless eyes survey. By nature we are thus blind; unless God grants sight, we cannot behold the wonders which His law contains. Let us weary heaven with cries for enlightening grace. When the command goes forth, Let there be light, there will be light. — as quoted at Grace Gems!

Beware the snare

Posted: September 23, 2012 by Pam Larson in Devotionals/Commentaries, Proverbs, September
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“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” Prov. 29:25

“Fear” in the biblical sense is a much broader word. It includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putting your trust in people, or needing people…However you put it, the fear of man can be summarized this way: We replace God with people. Instead of a biblically guided fear of the Lord, we fear others. —Ed Welch, When People are Big and God is Small, p.14)

If  “fear of man” that Proverbs refers to is replacing God with man, then it seems this is a worship problem. It also leads to seeking approval from other people rather than from God.

 “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.” Matthew 23:5-7

“Fear of man” also means that we fear being rejected by others, to the point of caring more about our approval rating with people than God.

“Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” John 12:42-43

It’s a trap.  Proverbs says the “fear of man” lays a snare for us.  Beware!

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