We've Got It All

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:3)

Peter knew this firsthand by having been near Jesus. He walked on the water as he drew near to Christ; He said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" by divine revelation (Matt 16:13-17). When he was away from Jesus, he denied Him. However, when Christ left the earth in His ascension, Peter remained powerful, preaching the hard truths of the Gospel (Acts 2), healing the lame (Acts 3), and remaining strong under persecution (Acts 4). How, you might ask? "He was filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:4).

In the same way, so we can be filled powerfully with the Holy Spirit, since He indwells us (1 Cor 6:19). Do you pray, "God, give me more love for so-and-so," when Romans 5:5 says "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts?" Do you ask, "God, I need more grace," when 2 Corinthians 12:9 promises this His grace is sufficient? Do we pray, "Lord, give me more strength," knowing that Philippians 4:13 says that we can do all things through Him, regardless of our circumstance?

As we seek an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, may we know indeed that we've been given everything we need for life and godliness. We need only tap the source of our strength, our knowledge of Him. I would encourage you, then, to get in the Word. We want to know Him, we want to see Him, we want to understand His will. What better way than to drink deeply of His Word?

One way to do that is to read over and over again portions of Scripture, until it saturates your mind, so that you do the will of God without much thought, as it is ingrained in you. John MacArthur, which much of this is excerpted from (in Found: God's Will) recommends reading 1 John every day for 30 days, and then a 1/3 of John's gospel for 30 days, and so on. Can you imagine how much of God's Word, and will, you would absorb with that kind of exposure? Be encouraged.

I have recently been impressed with the persistent call to holiness that has resonated in our church's laymen sermons. I must admit, it has led me to some deeper introspection than which I would typically subject myself. It has called into question, most especially, how I spend my time, my thoughts, and my energies. We all, I think, need constant reminder that we have but one life to live, and it is not our own. It’s with that thought in mind that I submit to you these gleanings from Jim Cymbala’s classic, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. It is my heart’s desire that as we look towards the calendar event of our upcoming Renewal Services, we will do the hard work now of preparing, prayerfully, for God to speak and move.

My Prayer Requests

1. That I not merely “mark time,” lest my life slip by without seeing God show Himself mightily on our behalf. (Chapter 1)

2. That we would sense our need to pray, and would want to pray, the more we do it. (Ch. 3)

3. That we as a people would never grow lax in our spirit of brokenness and the need for calling on God. (Ch. 3)

4. That I and my church would be marked by a spirit of prayerfulness, which is a defining mark of a Christian (Acts 2:42) and the people of God (Deut. 4:7). (Ch. 4)

5. That I would not succumb to the anti-authority spirit in America that says, “Nobody can tell me I need to change.” May I be humble and wide open to correction. (Ch. 8)

6. That in revival, our “congregation does the preaching,” so that there’s no need of preachers or musicians, simply “God’s dwelling in close communion with His people.” (Ch. 8)

7. That I remember that “the first step in any spiritual awakening is demolition. We cannot make headway in seeking God without first tearing down the accumulated junk in our souls. Rationalizing has to cease. We have to start seeing the sinful debris we hadn’t noticed before, which is what holds back the blessing of God.” (Ch. 10)

8. That I always seek to draw nearer to God, lest I fall away, since there is no holding pattern or middle ground. (Ch. 10)

9. That I never believe myself to have attained, but that I persistently press on toward the goal to which I have been called heavenward (Phil. 3:14). (Ch. 10)

10. That I will step out and take risks for the sake of His glory, not sheltering myself under “Bible discussions among ourselves, or complaining to others about the horrible state of today’s society.” (Ch. 11)

I pray this is helpful, brothers and sisters. Whatever your prayer, may it be persistent towards the end of seeing God’s visible glory in our lives. “As for me and my house,” we will “humble ourselves, prayerfully seeking His face, and (may it be so, Lord) turn from our wicked ways.”

This Body of Death

I find myself reading over and again the 7th and 8th chapters of Romans, and I am overcome, yet again, with the doxological response it requires. How can we read, as Christians, that nothing, in all of the created order, is “able to separate us from the love of God (8:38-39),” and not render praise to our God? Couple this with the fact that we are adopted as sons, being “children of God, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ (8:15-17),” and we have no answer but to be blown away!
But note from where such blessings stem: suffering (8:18); groans and birth pangs (8:22-23); weakness (8:26). Even this should come as little surprise, as we hear time and again of the sufferings of Christ’s followers throughout the pages of Scripture. We know, for example, the writer of Romans found himself beaten, stoned near to death, imprisoned, shipwrecked, in hunger and thirst, cold and exposure, and in dangers galore from innumerable fronts (2 Cor. 11:25-27).
We so often read these accounts and wrestle with a guilt complex, of sorts, as American Christians, since we have, by and large, seen very little, if any, of this type of suffering. But, we must not overlook the context in which Paul writes Romans 7 and 8. We find especially in chapter 7 that Paul has written at length of his wrestle with sin, finding that “nothing good dwells in me,” so that while the “willing is present in me, the doing is not (7:18).” Again, “the body is dead,” not because of floggings or imprisonment, but “because of sin” (8:10). He counts himself a “wretched man (7:24),” not because of physical travail, or loss of friend and countrymen. No. He is bound to this “body of death” by the “evil that is present” in him (7:21).


So, what does this mean for us? It would seem that, like Paul, our greatest struggle is not with those around us, or our circumstances, but rather it is against “the enemy within.” We must war with the flesh, especially as believers, because now we have been shown, “through the Law,” sin for what it really is; being, in fact, “utterly sinful,” “proving to result in death for me” (7:7, 13, 10).
At this point, however, we must be careful not to err in the opposite extreme. While Paul despairs at the wretched man that he is, he almost simultaneously lifts his song to Christ, in whom there is “no condemnation” (8:1). We must never fall prey to the idea that we somehow, in our own strength, can do that which the Law requires, so as to merit God’s favor. It is only in our constant admission of weakness, our “groanings too deep for words,” that we find how to “pray as we should,” and allow the Spirit of God to make us “overwhelmingly conquer” in all of these things (8:26, 37). While we may wrestle with “flesh and blood,” it is our own, acted upon by our own sin nature, as it succumbs to the “wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:12, 11). And, “thanks be to God,” that through Jesus Christ our Lord, we have the victory (Rom. 7:25).
So, in your warring with sin, beloved, know that “He condemned sin in the flesh” already (8:3). He suffered, so that yours would not be in vain. In fact, His power and grace is perfected in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9), so that, when we are faced with temptation, we need simply give it to Him who has already conquered death and its condemnation, so as to experience true freedom in Christ, whatever our trial.

Slow Progress for this Pilgrim

As our Tuesday night Bible study finished up going through 1 Peter and I start preparing to study Philippians, I am really being convicted about my worldliness. In 1 Peter, he is writing to Christians in Rome who are being severely persecuted (read: burned, imprisoned, beaten) for their faith and Peter is writing to them to encourage them to stay faithful. Right in the beginning of the letter he encourages them by reminding them that they are strangers of the world (aliens, pilgrims, sojourners, exiles, foreigners), meaning that they may live under the authority of the Roman government, but they are merely strangers in the land; citizens of a different world.

Paul similarly displays this attitude in his letter to the Philippians; describing how he is willing to give up all that seems good in the world so that the gospel can be proclaimed. He takes Jesus call to deny himself very seriously and says he counts all the seemingly great things he has as "rubbish."

In my own life I have found myself too busy to really get serious about proclaiming the gospel to the world and personally investing more time in discipling those who are young in the faith. My personal prayer and study time has been diminishing as I find too many excuses to ignore such vital components of the Christian life. This summer, I thought, would be a season of great growth for me and the ministries I am involved in. But I have found myself along for the ride as every single weekend is planned out for me doing something different and I am sacrificing my prayer time, Bible study, personal reading, and ministry opportunities.

The difficult thing is that the things that are taking up my time aren’t necessarily sinful. Going to cousins weddings, visiting aunts and uncles, family reunions, playing baseball with unsaved neighbors and attending graduations aren’t bad things and are actually good things because I get opportunities to discuss the gospel with many different people. But it comes at a cost of my first ministries; my own sanctification, my wife (and soon my first child), and serving in my own church.

During the week it is so easy to go through the routine of life that I forget that I am a pilgrim simply passing through this world. I think that too often we justify our worldly behavior by pointing out that it isn’t specifically defined as a sin. However, anything that takes time away from what we have been called to do is also a sin and that is where I find myself battling right now. We are called to deny our personal desires and to gain holy desires to serve the King who is coming soon to take us home.

Imagine how much time we would have to read our Bibles if we got rid of our televisions. I know, I know. Watching TV isn’t in itself a sin. But it is so easy to be distracted by it. It consumes an hour of your life before you realize what happened. How much more time would we have to serve in a church ministry if we spent less time surfing the internet for no reason or being entertained by some game.

Often times in our efforts to be relevant to the world by “becoming all things to all men” we lose focus on the fact that we are not of this world. Even though we live in America, our citizenship is of another world. We work daily at our jobs and live in an entertainment culture and it is too easy to end up going through life like people who are of this world.

I pray that we can all be reminded more often that Christians are not of this world. We are called to deny ourselves and take up the cross daily. Being a Christian isn’t about doing the same things as everyone else while wearing a name tag that says “Christian.” It isn’t an easy life that involves being everyone’s friend so they might like Jesus too. It often involves losing friends, sacrificing some of our favorite things, and delaying gratification until Christ returns. We are foreigners to this land. People should recognize us as foreigners by how we talk, what we are entertained by, what consumes our free time. I pray that I can become a much better example of the pilgrim life.

"If it doesn't matter the day you die, it doesn't matter." -Mark Cahill