The Bolt from the Blue

By Elizabeth Prata

SYNOPSIS

A young man on his honeymoon in Florida was tragically struck by lightning, highlighting the unpredictability of death. The piece reflects on the inevitability of mortality and emphasizes the importance of preparing spiritually for death through repentance and faith in Jesus. Life’s fleeting nature calls for persistent devotion to God.

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven— A time to give birth and a time to die; (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).

From Fox news: “Very sad update: A 29-year-old Colorado man, visiting Florida on his honeymoon with his new wife, was tragically killed by lightning on New Smyrna Beach. The storm was located 6–8 miles inland, and conditions at the beach were partly sunny when he was struck while standing in ankle-deep water. It was what’s known as a “bolt from the blue.”

Death didn’t concern me when I was younger. ‘All that’ (not daring even to say it’s name) seemed so far away. It won’t happen to me yet was my never-voiced thought. But wasn’t it Elbert Hubbard in 1900 who said “Do not take life too seriously—you will never get out of it alive.” Death is a fact and people die suddenly, instantaneously, and in strange ways, said Adrian Rogers, in a sermon I heard 20 years ago and never forgot. “The Day Death Died“.

The grass withers, the flower fades,
When the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
Surely the people are grass. (Isaiah 40:7).

Death can come at any time. It’s not only the elderly, the stage 4 cancer patient, an Alzheimer’s grandfather who pass on. Sometimes death takes its sweet time arriving. Other times it comes as a bolt from the blue.

This young couple had their lives in front of them. Not even 30 yet. Just married mere days before. Their happiness was as sunny as the skies overhead. Yet death came. It arrived and left quickly, striking down the happy man and causing untold pain for those he loved still staring in shock.

The man was no doubt happy at the moment he met eternity. Yet happiness is no insulator from death. For those with a dread diagnosis, sadness, melancholy, and resignation to the inevitable are part of their life from that moment on. The tunnel if life is narrowing with each passing day. They see it coming. But the happy man, looking to the boundless ocean, seeing it as it is- a great bowl of infinite possibilities, endless waves of joy, never saw his end coming. Perhaps he was thinking about he children he and his new wife would have. Or perhaps thinking of their future together as a united couple, growing old together, not even knowing that their growing old would only be minutes long.

“I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die…(John 11:25-26a)

There are two points. One is that Jesus left his proper place in glory to pour Himself into human flesh, live a perfect life, and die agonizingly and unjustly so he could absorb and exhaust all of Gods wrath for sin. This act of holy and inexpressible sacrifice opened the door to heaven for sinners, if they repent and go through Jesus.

Secondly, HAVE you repented and trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior? He prepared for His duty in the Incarnation every day. He taught, prayed, obeyed God, waited for His time, and died. What are you doing to prepare for the inevitable death that will come? As we have seen, it may not be far off. Or it may be far off and you must be patient to see the Savior. Either way, preparing by first repenting unto salvation is critical. Then, our chief duty in this life “is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” says the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Prepare for our eventual reuniting with Him by diligently seeking His face so as to grow in His likeness.

Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Always working for the Lord. Always, constantly. Don’t sleep, drift, waver, or stumble.

Finally, brothers, rejoice! Aim for perfect harmony, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. (2 Corinthians 13:11)

Revelation

 

From Elizabeth Prata's blog on June 7, 2023

The word apocalypse comes from the Greek for “revelation,” or “unveiling.” It’s about future things dealing with the return of Christ and the events of the end time. Do you know that a third of the Bible is prophecy? Did you know that every book in the NT except Philemon speaks about the end times? It’s not just a Revelation thing. It’s a Jesus thing, and Jesus is throughout the entire Bible.

So what IS going to happen? Jesus is going to punish sin, plain and simple. Punishment is never pleasant, and Jesus said that the Apocalypse will be the worst time on earth there will ever be. (Matthew 24:21; Daniel 12:1b). Daniel 9:24 explains the 6 things God will do during the Apocalypse punishments. God, who is loving, wants us to be righteous so we can be with Him in heaven, so He sent Jesus. God, who is holy, is going to punish the unholy, who reject Jesus.

There will be earthquakes so bad that entire mountains crumble and islands flee away. One hundred pound hailstones will squash men. Plagues (and wars and beasts) will kill 1/3 of people. Demons will be let out of the abyss to inflict a painful bite so bad that people want to die: but can’t. They’ll chew their tongues in agony. Starving people will die in the streets, but no one will care. Things will come upon the earth so frightening that people have heart attacks on the spot. The sun and moon go dark, stars fall from the sky. Jesus said it will be so bad that if He let it go longer nobody would survive. As it is, 4 billion die within the 7 years. (Revelation 6-19).

Sin is real. God’s judgment of sin is real. Satan is real. Hell is real. The coming Antichrist is real. Everything in the Bible is real. Not any other book. Apocalypse will happen. The rapture will be the signal that it’s beginning.

How can I be so sure? Because for 43 years I had everything I ever wanted. Money, fame, comforts, ease, professional recognition, world travel, and yet I felt empty. I felt in my soul that there had to be something more. What was this longing? This hole I felt within me? (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Is this all there is? Live a life and then die? It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through just to die. Is there a heaven? Will I go there? I wondered all these things.

It was the lack of knowing Jesus that was the problem. He created us. (Rev 4:11) and because we are born with a sin-nature, I was separate from him. THAT’S what I was feeling. I had been trying to fill that hole with temporary and unfulfilling things. I finally found the answer, at middle age without ever having gone to a church (so I’m not brainwashed into Christianity, lol). When you confess your sins and repent to Jesus, He forgives you and He brings you to fellowship with Him. He sends the Holy Spirit to make the things of God understandable, like the Bible. (2 Corinthians 3:14). Before I was saved, the Bible made no sense. I thought it was stupid. I thought Bible thumpers and Jesus followers were stupid. After I repented, the Bible made total sense and I loved Jesus.

I now see death differently from all the rest of the world that has no hope. It is simply a transition, from something tiring and full of struggle, to something wondrous and glorious beyond compare. I have no fears of the Apocalypse, because I won’t be here to experience it. Those in Christ will be taken out of the way, because He is not angry with us. We’re forgiven sinners. He is angry with unrepentant sinners. O, it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God!

I am very sure this age will come to a terrible end. I am sure that time is not long away. I am very sure that I will be lifted bodily away from earth to meet Jesus in the air at the rapture to live with Him forever. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:50-54.) If you want that certainty too, then repent of your sins and turn to Jesus. Believe He is Lord, who sacrificially died to satisfy God’s wrath about sin and who was raised on the third day. I will be in heaven. I hope you will be too.

On The Chosen: Jesus Is Not the Law of Moses. He is Far Better.

 by Grayson Gilbert  

Recently, The Chosen posted an image of the actor who plays Christ with a line from season 3 that is supposedly a “mic drop” moment for the show’s producers. It shows the character responding to one of the Pharisees by saying, “I am the Law of Moses.” While many flocked to the post in support of the “mic drop,” many others expressed how flatly unbiblical this is. They rightly said that Jesus is not the Law, but that the Law instead reveals the righteous standard of our thrice holy Lord. Likewise, they were right to say that Jesus came to fulfill the Law in His perfect, active obedience to it all His earthly life.

Contrary to the expression of infamous pastors like Steven Furtick, the active obedience of Christ means that He in no way “violated the Law” out of love. More importantly, the active obedience of Christ is a vicarious obedience. We think of the vicarious substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, meaning that He died in our place as our Substitute, and paid the wrath that we deserved. In the vicarious obedience of Christ, Jesus lived in perfect obedience, likewise, on our behalf. He fulfilled what we could not do: Jesus obeyed the Law, and due to His active obedience, and His passive obedience on the cross, we actually gain the benefit of being counted righteous before God. This is the doctrine of imputed righteousness, which is an alien righteousness—a righteousness not of our own, but Christ’s. This is important, so hang with me.

As we come back to the “mic drop” moment of season 3 in The Chosen, this becomes all the more nefarious. In fact, nowhere in Scripture does Jesus say to anyone, “I am the Law of Moses.” In the book of Mormon, however, you will find such a statement in 3 Nephi 15:9, “Behold, I am the Law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.” That alone should give people enough pause on the show, owing to the fact that Mormonism is a false religion that teaches a contrary gospel to the gospel of our Lord. In short, Mormon doctrine holds that it is your active obedience that will please God in the end, and earn your salvation.

2 Nephi 25:23 states, “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do” (emphasis mine). Often this verse from 2 Nephi is used in conjunction with Moroni 10:32 to give clearer meaning, which says, “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God” (emphasis mine). It is quite important to notice the all-important temporal modifiers to these Mormon scriptures, because they explicitly teach that grace is a commodity earned only after one has exhausted their own spiritual muster.

The LDS Bible Dictionary puts it like this:

“This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts. Divine grace is needed by every soul in consequence of the fall of Adam and also because of man’s weaknesses and shortcomings. However, grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation, ‘It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do’ (2 Ne. 25:23)” (p. 697).

But what does the Bible say of all of this? It is bupkis. Rubbish. Ultimately, it is damnable doctrine. Romans 3:10-20 lays out the plight of mankind so incredibly clearly that it leaves anyone without a source of comfort in their own ability to earn grace. Likewise, Ephesians 2:1-10 displays not only the hopelessness of those born under the dominating power of sin—but it lifts up the reality that we are saved “by grace through faith…and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). The good works which we walk in were prepared beforehand for us by the Father (Eph. 2:10), meaning that even our good works are a production of this grace in us. In other words: even our active obedience to Christ is a display of the riches of God’s grace. They are not what produces salvation, but a production of salvation.

The lynchpin of my argument today though is not the tie The Chosen has to Mormonism, which is without dispute at this point. That should be enough—but for many, it is not. What I want to do then is simply take this “mic drop” moment from The Chosen and show just how flatly unbiblical, and truly sad it actually is. The reason for this is quite simple: Not only does Scripture simply never say in any one of the great “I AM” passages that Jesus Christ is the Law of Moses, Jesus is far better than the Law. Here’s why.

The apostle Paul begins in Romans 7 by describing the plight of mankind before the Law of God because of the dominating power of sin. The problem is not the Law. The Law, as Paul says, is “holy, righteous, and good” (Rom. 7:12). The problem is us. The Law is spiritual, but we are not; we are sold as slaves to sin, bound under obedience to the Law, but unable to keep the Law in perfection as it demands—and the result is that the Law produces death in us. Ultimately, we are caught up between the power of sin and death—we are bound by the flesh, and it is so bad that Paul tells us four results of being bound by the flesh, according to Romans 8:5-8:

The mind set on the flesh is death.


The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.


The mind set on the flesh does not subject itself to the Law of God because it is not even able to do so.


Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

This is the fundamental problem of the Law. As holy, righteous, and good as it is, it cannot free man from this body of death we bear under the weight and power of sin. The Law was never designed to do this. Even if one takes into account the threefold use of the Law—all should recognize that the Law was never designed to be a means by which sinners are freed from the power of sin and death—but Jesus is powerful enough to deliver us from sin and death. This is why is it so heinous that The Chosen depicts Jesus Christ saying, “I am the Law of Moses.” It equates Christ with the Law, rather than with Him being the second person of the Trinity, who is far greater than the Law.

The Law could not set you and I free from sin and death—but Jesus did. The Law was powerless to free one from the condemnation they deserve—but Jesus is not. This is why so many find comfort in Paul’s argument in Romans 8:1-4:

“Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

What rendered death in us before and bound us all under the power of sin—is no longer binding us. We’ve been freed, not only from the power of sin and death, but from the judgment to come, and this is particularly why the gospel is such good news. The hopelessness of being bound by the flesh in death, hostility toward God, our inability to subject ourselves to God’s Law, and our utter inability to please God, has been replaced by a renewed hope under the law of the Spirit. The Spirit dwells within us (Rom. 8:9), gives us life (Rom. 8:10-11), enables us to put to death the deeds of the flesh (Rom. 8:12-13), allows us to be called “Sons of God” (Rom. 8:14-15), and testifies that we are His children (Rom. 8:16) and heirs to the promises of God (Rom. 8:17). The Law does none of these things.

Perhaps greatest of all though is that the Law was powerless to cleanse us from the stain of sin, but Christ’s sacrifice was not. Hebrews 10 speaks of this wonderful reality, showing that the Law was merely a shadow of the glorious things to come through Christ. It could never, by the same sacrifices offered year after year, make perfect those who draw near to God in worship (Heb. 10:2). But Jesus can. Instead of a continual reminder of the power of sin and death, we have a perfect sacrifice found in Jesus Christ, who satisfied the wrath of God and rendered us pure and blameless before the Father. In other words, we are truly counted righteous.

And this is where the vicarious obedience of Christ comes full circle—because it is only through the active obedience of Jesus Christ that we have come to be counted righteous (Rom. 5:19). It is only because the Son lived in perfect obedience to the Law that He could offer up His life in our place, and truly satisfy the wrath of God. To tie that all together: Christ proved that He was not only greater than the Law by this, but showed He was greater than the power of sin and death. Sin might take advantage of the commandment and produce death in us (Rom. 7:8), but it could not in Christ.

Did the producers of The Chosen intend to knock against all of this? Perhaps not. It is difficult to say, simply owing to how steeped in Mormon doctrine the show is—but I am inclined to not give them the benefit of the doubt as so many wish to do. This is their “gotcha” moment. This is their proverbial “mic drop.” But this isn’t quite the mic drop they believe it to be. Rather than showing people a genuinely biblical portrayal of Christ and His power over sin and death, they display an impotent Jesus, who is powerless to actually save people from their sins. Instead, they show a Jesus who is mastered by the dominating power of sin. That’s what truly gets communicated in one little line, because that’s what the Scriptures say about the Law. When you equate Jesus with the Law of Moses, that’s what you get.

Unfortunately, many don’t see this, but have fawned over the mic drop and been reduced to tears. They have, in other words, been profoundly impacted by the show—but in all the wrong ways and for all the wrong reasons. The sad reality is that until professing Christians start to pick up their Bibles and critically examine shows like these, those of us who do so will continue to be labeled curmudgeons, and “fun-ripper-outers.” In part, I’ll take that because I am sardonically asking along with Maximus Decimus Meridus to the blood-thirsty crowd who watched him dispatch of another in the gladiatorial arena, “Are you not entertained?” Things should not be this way, but they are.

What the show relies on is an ignorance of what the Scriptures actually teach, which is to say precisely why it is so popular. It offers much of the same style of Christianity pervading the Evangelical world currently, where the inch-deep, mile-wide preaching of the Word, the “At the Movies” canned sermon series, and the vapid emotionalism brought on by manipulative “worship” music laden with sentimental musical prompts, are commonplace. Indeed, it brings people to see Jesus—just not the biblical Jesus; but it is highly entertaining, is it not? The problem is that we keep asking the wrong question. The question isn’t if it is entertaining, but why so many are entertained at the expense of biblical truth.

Why Is Christianity Different?

by Billy Graham

    He is not here, but is risen.
—Luke 24:6

Something distinguishes Christianity from all the religions of the world. Not only does it carry the truth of the redemption, by the death of our Savior for our sins on the cross, but it carries the fact that Christ rose again. Only the Christian faith claims that its Leader died and rose again and is alive at this moment. Many gravestones carry the inscription, “Here lies . . . ,” but on Christ’s tomb are emblazoned the words, “He is not here.” Christianity has no shrines to visit, no dusty remains to venerate, no tombs at which to worship. Many good men have lived, and still live, in the memory of those who knew them, but there is only one Man who conquered death—Jesus Christ—and He will live forever.

War and Rumors of War Matthew 24:6

So many people, including many Christians, cannot make sense of what is happening in Ukraine. They cannot believe in 2022 something like this could occur and nothing or no one seems to be able to stop it. After all, we are a civilized world now with the voice of reason and we all want peace. Ah, wait a minute . . . . open the Bible, God's Word . . .  start reading.  Almost one third of the Bible is prophecy - some already fulfilled and some to be fulfilled. And because so much of past prophecy has already been fulfilled, we can rely on future prophecies to also come true. God actually tells us in His word the world will become increasingly evil and dark (Matt 24:12).

Man loves to believe that he is inherently good, but the Bible tells us how man's heart is corrupt and selfish (Gen 6:5). Humanists prefer to believe that we will eventually weed out evil and good will remain. Yes, there are stories of compassion coming from the war and we can thank God for those acts of kindness. His Holy Spirit and Angels are working to keep complete darkness from taking over. But the day will come when that very thing will take place and darkness will overtake the world (Joel 3:15). And what is happening today will seem like child's play. God help us.

Yes, God help us - and He does. He has provided a way out and that Way is Jesus Christ. Jesus came to reconcile us with the God who created all of us. Jesus who is God incarnate, took all of our sins upon himself and died a sinner's death in our place - my place and your place. He rose after 3 days, alive and victorious, so that we, too, may have eternal life with him. He defeated Satan and his demons, whose day of judgement is coming. Satan and his demons will be thrown into a lake of fire where they belong. Those who have chosen to repent and surrender their lives to the Lord will be forever with him, joyful and holy. There will no longer be any tears. (Rev 21:4).

So when you read on social media, "whatever your religion or belief," know that isn't true. There is only ONE WAY to the God of eternity - the true God - and that is through His Son, Jesus Christ. ALL other ways will fail and only take you to a destiny separated from God - an eternity in hell. We ALL have an eternal life. Make your choice to believe and surrender to Jesus today. The way things are going, the end could be closer than you think.

The Only Way is Jesus

 

The Hope and Darkness of Advent

Bonnie Kristian

Paris Orlando/Wikimedia Commons
December 8, 2019



Christmas is coming, but it is not yet.

Commercially, of course, this year's Christmas season is already long in the tooth. But if you are a Christian in a tradition which keeps the full Western liturgical calendar (and not all traditions do), it has yet to begin. Advent is the four Sundays before Christmas Day, the season of preparation for Christmas, for re-enacting the anticipation of God's rescue of humanity that starts with the birth of Jesus. It is a time of expectation rather than fulfillment, of longing rather than joy. It is the season for waiting.

Coming to this as we do, two millennia after the fact, it is difficult — for me, anyway — to feel this wait as real. I can't pretend I don't know the end of the story. I've heard its spoilers my whole life. And I am not by nature sentimental: The Christmas tree in our home is a concession to my marriage, not something I'd bother with on my own. (Among my earliest memories is when, at 3, I took my mother up on her threat to cancel Christmas if I continued to refuse to dress for the Christmas Eve service — and considered it a fair bargain.) But while I struggle to share in the Advent wait for Christ's first coming, I have no such difficulty participating in its dual anticipation of his return. And the yearning that entails is a yearning I think we all share, whether or not you're a Christian in an Advent tradition, or even a Christian at all.


It is, most basically, a yearning for justice. I don't mean the unsatisfactory justice we habitually encounter, the justice of courts and cops and prison. I don't mean anything so empty as retribution, which as the subject of yearning nearly always takes the uglier form of revenge.

The justice Christians hope for in the return of Jesus is far more than that. It is no sterile terror, no cruel machine that gnaws the innocent and guilty alike. It is the sense — more than that, the reality — that all is as it should be. It is as small as a perfect dinner with loved ones and as grand as the greatest wrongs of history coming under divine judgment, their victims finally, fully made whole. It is God dwelling among his people on a renewed Earth, where "there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." It is the redemption of everything, not only humanity, as "creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God."

It is an end to war and terrorism and abuse, yes, but also to the suffering of animals and the disfigurement of our planet. It is the realization of our hope that darkness will be broken by light, that death, evil, and oppression will not have the final word.

It may be tempting, when reading this, to say, "Well, that's all very nice, and naturally I would like that too, but that's not the real world. It's just a fairy tale for adults, or perhaps a falsely pious excuse to avoid the work of justice now, to imagine a future when God fixes it all for us so we are not responsible for fixing it ourselves." And that reaction would be very understandable, because too often Christians have used our expectation of Jesus returning in exactly that manner. There are even distorted theologies which explicitly make this move, condoning callousness about poverty because, in this age, "the poor you will always have with you" or dismissing concern over environmental destruction because "the Earth is going to be all burned up anyway. It's in the Bible."


But it's not, not like that, anyway. What the Bible describes, albeit in poetic, apocalyptic language very difficult for us to read in a culture which has lost the genre of apocalypse, is not "the abandonment of the present world, but rather its fulfillment," as N.T. Wright, a New Testament scholar who is among the most important living Christian theologians, has explained. "You don't liberate something by destroying it," Wright continues. "All the beauty, all the goodness, all the pulsating life of the present creation, is to be enhanced, lifted to a new level, in the world that is to be. ... [So] there is a strong incentive to work, in the present, to anticipate the new world in every possible way."

The occupation of those who live in this hope of justice is not to muck things up so God has more to make right. It is to work with God toward that good end, to act now, insofar as it is possible, as the sort of people we will be then. And I'd submit the appeal of this narrative is not an item of evidence for its falsehood: If the hope Advent offers is real, we would quite expect to find a longing for it in every human heart.

Advent, then, is a season of hope and darkness. It is a season which looks unflinchingly at the evil that now besets us and stubbornly insists its days are numbered. And then the joy of Christmas comes, bringing with it a gaiety which, T.S. Eliot tells us, must "not be forgotten in later experience/In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium/The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure," so that our "accumulated memories of annual emotion/May be concentrated into a great joy/Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion/When fear came upon every soul:/Because the beginning shall remind us of the end/And the first coming of the second coming."

Christmas is coming, but it is not yet. Advent bids us wait, declaring justice is not yet either, but it will just as surely come.

Where Are You Going?

Sermon by Bill Warren, Oct 13, 2019 (click here)

What God Says to Your Tears

Article by
Scott Hubbard
Editor, desiringGod.org


For centuries, Christians have called this world a “valley of tears.”

Yes, Christ has come. Yes, he is risen. And yes, he will come again. But still we mourn and ache and weep — and walk alongside those who mourn and ache and weep. We plod through the valley with hearts heavy laden, grieving for any one of a thousand reasons: our depressed children, our distant spouses, our dashed hopes, our deceased loved ones, our ruinous sin.
“The God of all comfort keeps watch over your weeping.”

Sometimes, we cry because life’s sorrows have become chronic, filling our life like unwelcome houseguests who just won’t leave. Other times, we cry because some unexpected misery lands like a meteor and carves a crater in our soul. And still other times, we cry and don’t know quite why; the grief evades description and analysis.

To such mourners, the Bible’s message is not to dry up your tears. No, the Bible says weeping is typical of life in the valley, and its message to mourners is much more sympathetic — and much more steadying.
“I See Them”

Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from God’s notice (Matthew 10:29), and neither does one of your tears.

When Hagar lifted up her voice in the wilderness of Beersheba, God drew near (Genesis 21:17). When Hannah wept bitterly outside the temple of the Lord, God noticed and remembered (1 Samuel 1:10, 17). When David became weary with moaning, God didn’t become weary with listening (Psalm 6:6–9).

The God of all comfort keeps watch over your weeping. He gathers up all your tears and puts them in his bottle (Psalm 56:8). Like a mother sitting beside her child’s sickbed, God marks every sigh of discomfort and pain. No matter how much of your anguish has gone unnoticed by others, not one moment has escaped the attention of the God who neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:4).

As God says to King Hezekiah, so he could say to each of his children, “I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears” (2 Kings 20:5).
“I Care About Them”

Many of us feel ashamed of our tears, especially if others see them. In a culture that prizes strength and grows uncomfortable with prolonged grieving, many of us respond to our own tears with a hasty wipe of the sleeve and a quick “Get over it.”

Not so with God, whose fatherly compassion compels him to draw near to the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds (Psalm 147:3). The God who said, “Blessed are you who weep now” (Luke 6:21) will not reproach you for the tears you shed as you walk through the ruins of our broken world.
“God will not reproach you for the tears you shed as you walk through the ruins of our broken world.”

When Jesus joined a crowd outside the town of Nain and watched a widow weep over her son’s body, “he had compassion on her” (Luke 7:13). Later, when Mary fell apart at Jesus’s feet over the death of her brother, the man of sorrows went one step further: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Jesus had compassion, and Jesus wept — even though Jesus was about to speak the word to snatch them both back from death (Luke 7:14; John 11:43).

Just because Jesus loves us and knows how to fix our problems doesn’t mean he takes a shortcut through our grief. The same one who raises the dead first stops to linger with us in our sorrow — to climb down into our valley of tears and walk alongside us.

To be sure, not all tears awaken our Lord’s compassion. God has little patience when we weep in misery over the idols he removes from us, as when Israel preferred Egypt’s meat to God’s presence (Numbers 11:4–10). But every tear you shed in faith — shattered but trusting, gutted but believing — has this banner hanging over it: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted” (Psalm 34:18).
“I Will Turn Them into Shouts of Joy”

A few hours before Jesus was betrayed, tried, beaten, and crucified, he told his disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20). Sorrow and sighing will flee. Tears will dry up. Grief will lose its grip. So it was for Jesus’s disciples, when a resurrection sunrise scattered the shadows from their hearts. And so it is for every child of God.

Every tear you shed is preparing for you “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Every drop of agony and heartache sinks down into the ground like a seed, waiting to sprout up into an oak of laughter.
“The same one who raises the dead stops to linger with us in our sorrow, to climb down into our valley of tears.”

Maybe that sounds impossible. Maybe you wonder, “How could this sorrow, this heartache, this grief ever give way to joy?” That’s alright if you can’t understand the howright now. God’s ways are often too high and too marvelous for us to grasp. But can you believe — in hope against hope — that what is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27; Romans 4:18)?

Believing that God will turn our tears into shouts of joy does not mean that we no longer grieve. But it does mean that we cling to him through the pain, and let every calamity crash us into his arms. And that we learn to lament to God instead of curse his name.

We’ll keep reading our Bibles, even when we feel dead to God’s word. We’ll keep on crying out to God, even when he feels deaf to us. We’ll keep on gathering with God’s people, even when they don’t understand what we’re going through. We’ll keep on serving others, even while we carry our sorrow wherever we go. And we’ll keep on sowing the seeds of truth and grace into our barren souls, waiting for the day when God takes us home.
“I Will Wipe Them All Away”

As Andrew Peterson sings in “After the Last Tear Falls,”

In the end, . . .
We’ll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms of the Giver of love and the Lover of all.
And we’ll look back on these tears as old tales.

Our weeping may tarry for a long, long night. As long as we journey through this valley, we will be vulnerable to the assaults of loss and disappointment and death. But joy will come in the morning, when God turns this valley of tears into a city of everlasting joy.
“God will turn this valley of tears into a city of everlasting joy.”

In that day, God himself will stoop down to each of his grieving children and — somehow, someway — he will dry up tears forever. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

And then your cracked and weary voice will swell to a shout as you testify with heaven’s multitudes, “You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:8–9).

And in a moment, tears will become the stuff of old tales.

What Does it Mean to Walk by Faith?

by Dena Johnson Martin 

"For we walk by faith, not by sight ."(2 Corinthians 5:7).

Those words seem simple enough.

However, I am learning that fleshing out those words, that simple concept, can be a much tougher assignment. It requires tremendous courage and strength. You must be willing to be misunderstood and even abandoned. You must be willing to give up any semblance of control of your life that you thought you might have. You must be willing to look like a complete fool.

But it is a journey of tremendous blessing and reward. It is a journey that is exciting, life-altering, and mind-boggling. It is a journey that will allow you to see and experience God as he was meant to be: in all his fullness and grace. 

What Does it Look Like to Walk By Faith and Not By Sight?

Walking by faith and not by sight requires you to go to a place you do not know, one that God will reveal as you walk in obedience. Just look to Abraham as an example (Genesis 12:1).

Walking by faith means that you continue to cling to the dreams God has planted in your heart, even when you’ve been thrown away, taken to prison for crimes you didn’t commit. Just look at all Joseph endured (Genesis 37-50).

Walking by faith requires a strong determination to follow God’s plan regardless what life throws your way. Look to Daniel to discover how to have the resolve not to sin (Daniel 1:8).

Walking by faith means you have the courage to stand up for the hurting, broken, and down-trodden, to face death yourself for the good of others. Look at Esther and how she risked the death penalty to save the Jews (Esther).

You just may have to play the part of a fool. Think about Noah building an ark for a flood when it had never even rained on earth. Think about Abraham clinging to the promise that he would be the father of many nations even though he was childless at the age of 100. Think about Moses standing before the Israelites in the wilderness telling them they would eat meat until it disgusted them but having no idea where that meat would come from. Think about Joshua marching around the walls of Jericho as God had told him to and wondering what good it was going to do.

If you choose this path, you must be willing to get out of your comfort zone, to run from the Americanized brand of Christianity that so many of us have known our entire lives. You must be willing to let God take your world and turn it upside down, shake it up, and start all over again. You must be willing to let God out of the neat little box that you have put him in, to let him show up as he sees fit.

Maybe it will be a calling to do something you never dreamed before: foster or adopt children, leave your job and become a missionary, trade in the worldly comforts for heavenly treasures.

Maybe it won’t be that clean and neat and socially acceptable. Maybe, like me, your world will be turned upside down by the pain of adultery and divorce. Or maybe you will be faced with infertility or addiction. Maybe you will have a prodigal child that completely changes the direction of your life. Or, maybe you’ve experienced the loss of a child—a hurt like no other.

I don’t know what your shake up might look like, but I know that if you will give it to God—throw up your arms in surrender and ask him to use it to change your life—he will honor your request. He will take you on a journey, teach you to walk by faith, entrust you with some of life’s most treasured moments.

He will build a faith in you—faith that moves mountains and moves God’s hands. He will teach you to live this life with abandonment, giving you a freedom to walk in all his fullness and grace. He will prepare you to be used mightily in this life for his glory.

Perhaps you’ve already experienced your life being turned upside down, toppled without any control. Perhaps, like me, you’ve found yourself wandering in the wilderness, watching his fire direct your every step by night, a cloud lead you by day. Perhaps you sense you are on the edge of the Promised Land, just waiting for him to give the command to take possession.

And yet, you are tired and weary. You’ve lost friends who don’t understand how you can continue to cling to a promise that is so obviously dead and gone. You are so close and yet feel so far away. You are struggling with temptations to just settle, even though you know it is less than God’s best. You simply don’t know how much longer you can stand.

You are not alone. I see God raising up a remnant of believers, those he knows will be obedient. He is looking for those with clean hands and a pure heart, those who will choose obedience even if it costs them everything this world has to offer. He is looking for those who will throw caution to the wind, believe that he has an abundant life (John 10:10) waiting if we will follow his ways. He is looking for those whose hearts have been purified, whose faith has been strengthened by the trials of this life (James 1:2). He is looking for those who will cling to his promises even when it seems there is no hope.

Be strong and courageous, my friends!

God has specifically chosen you to be a part of this remnant, those who will allow him to take their lives and mold them into what he wants. He has chosen you to have your faith tested and tried, and he promises that the fire will only purify you—not burn you. He has promised that he will be with you every single step, walking with you, carrying you, supporting you. He promises that he is still in control even when life seems to be spiraling wildly out of control.

He is teaching you to trust him so he can do something bigger and better than you ever dreamed possible (Ephesians 3:20-21). He is teaching you to let go and trust him with your heart, your soul, your life (Proverbs 3:5-6). He is teaching you to walk every single day in the spirit so that he can do even greater works in you and through you (John 14:12). He is preparing you to be a beacon of light and hope to a world which desperately needs to see Jesus.

I don’t know where you are on this journey of walking by faith, but I encourage you—beg you, plead with you—to wave the white flag of surrender. Let God take your life, your pain, your loss and use it for his glory. Ask him to do an amazing work in you so he can do an amazing work through you.

Get out of that boat and step onto the water…and never take your eyes off him. It is a decision you will never regret!

Dena Johnson is a busy single mom of three kids who loves God passionately. She delights in taking the everyday events of life, finding God in them, and impressing them on her children as they sit at home or walk along the way (Deuteronomy 6:7). Her greatest desire is to be a channel of God’s comfort and encouragement. You can read more of Dena’s experiences with her Great I AM on her blog Dena's Devos.

None Other

by James MacDonald

There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12, esv).

“There are many roads to God.” Have you heard people say that? They say, “As long as you’re sincere, it doesn’t really matter. Every path leads to the same God.”

But have you found this principle at work in any other area of life? Does your experience really tell you that everything is equivalent? Every restaurant, the same? Every coffee choice, all the same? Can every answer to a math problem be considered right? Do all recipes lead to the same quality meal?

What would you say to a young guy who’s ready to buy an engagement ring, but whose plan is just to grab the first one in the case he can afford? “They’re all just rocks. What’s the difference? You’ve seen one rock, you’ve seen them all.”

Or what would you say to someone living in the Midwestern plains who has no interest in ever traveling to see the mountains? “They’re just hills. What’s the difference? We’ve got hills around here. You’ve seen one hill, you’ve seen them all.”

See how silly it sounds to say that? See how dangerous it is to spout the foolish phrase, “All roads lead to God”?

“Enter by the narrow gate;” Jesus said, “for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13–14, nkjv).

The cross of Jesus is not one of many ways to God; it is the only way to God. In fact, the shocking thing is not that there is only one way to God; the remarkable thing is that there is any path at all!

Do you find that too narrow? Too exclusive? No. Truth by definition is intolerant of error, and is exclusive by nature. How many temperatures does water freeze at? How many answers to 2+2 are correct? Drop a five-pound rock off a building, and see if you can make a solid argument for the relativity of gravity before it hits the ground.

Right?

So why would the study of God—who Himself made math and science and the other disciplines which are “intolerant” toward error—be the only subject known to mankind in which truth does tolerate error?

There is but one road to God. And instead of being resistant to that, we should be forever thankful for it. What could we produce as evidence for why the God who created the world should save us? Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense if He just pushed the whole thing over the cliff and into hell itself?

Instead, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, nkjv). “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, nkjv). Only Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One. Here He is. Follow Him into the narrow gate, for He alone is the Way.

PRAY

Lord, on this day between Jesus’ death and resurrection, fill me with wonder at what You’ve done. You’ve made a way where we don’t deserve one. Help me to not take lightly Your grace and mercy that have opened this one path for me to be forgiven and reborn and to have promised abundant life with You for all eternity. I worship You today in the stillness of this moment, in the mournful hours after the death of Your Son, praying only in His name—my only Way—amen.

Days of Atonement

by James MacDonald

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21, nasb). Not everyone believes what I hope you believe (what the Bible actually says) about the reason Jesus Christ had to die. Some believe, for example, that God didn’t require a payment for sinners—that He forgives people simply because He chooses to do so, without resolution of any kind. But if that’s true, what was Jesus doing on the cross? Believing this view doesn’t make God more gracious; it makes Him cruel in the extreme. Others believe that the death of Christ merely served as an example. They say the cross shows us how much God loves us. But this view fails to take into account numerous Bible passages that say Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (Galatians 1:4, esv), how “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3), that He “suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Here’s the truth: Christ took our place and suffered our punishment for sin. He became our substitute. That’s where the term substitutionary atonement comes from. His death was the legal act whereby He fulfilled the demands of God’s holy law and paid the penalty for sin. He became “sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Even in the Old Testament, Isaiah prophesied, “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Be sure you know the word atonement. The death of Jesus Christ atoned for sin, made payment for it. If the gospel were a dartboard, the word atonement would be the bull’s-eye. Throughout this Passion Week, as you read and are reminded of the suffering Jesus underwent, atonement is what you see happening every step of the way. The flogging, the mocking, the blasphemous taunting. The twisting of the crown of thorns, piercing into His scalp. A scratchy robe laid across His open, throbbing wounds. His face, eyes, and mouth, swollen and disfigured. And so much blood—spilled, splattered, shed. This is Jesus Christ, atoning. He would complete it on the cross, but it didn’t begin on the cross. The atonement didn’t somehow start with the nailing. For example, Isaiah 53 describes Christ’s scourge as part of His atonement when it says that “by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5b, nkjv). All of it is the atoning work of Jesus. It is the wrath of God poured out upon His Son to satisfy the inherent demands of holiness. Someone had to pay. A holy God could not casually dismiss sin with a wave of His hand and the presentation of a hall pass. Holiness demanded that sin must be paid for. What you see then, in Christ’s suffering and death, is Love finding a way to pay for sin Himself. The closer your journey leads you to the cross this week, try to avoid detours that would induce you to think of Jesus merely as your example. Don’t be distracted by signs that point to ways following Christ improves your life. Walk as though you’re moving deeper into a funnel, drawing nearer and narrower, until all you see is “Jesus, my Substitute,” taking upon Himself the demands of holiness so that you can be forgiven. PRAY Lord, what kind of worship is appropriate for such total atonement? “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116:12–13, esv). I will come to You amazed at what Your Son Jesus has done for me. I will surrender my all to You for as long as I live. I will praise You every day for the gift of grace and the sacrifice of Christ, in the name of Jesus, my Substitute, amen.

Oswald Chambers

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16

God has allowed the finger of decay to come to your body and lay you completely aside, and you begin to see what a slight hold you have on life, and the thought comes -- "Well, I expect I will have to cave in. I have not the strength I once had; I can never do the things I thought I would for God."

It may come in a hundred and one ways and you realize that the outward man is wasting, that you have not the might you once had, and this is where the cowardly surrender is apt to come in - only we give it another name. The great craze today is to be healthy - "a sound mind in a sound body." Very often the soundest minds have not been in sound bodies, but in very shaky tabernacles, and the word comes "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Paul faces the possibility of old age, decay, and death with no rebellion and no sadness. Paul never hid from himself the effect which his work had upon him; he knew it was killing him, and, like his Master, he was old before his time; but there was no whining and no retiring from the work. Paul was not a fool; he did not waste his energy ridiculously, neither did he ignore the fact that it was his genuine apostolic work and nothing else that was wearing him out. Every wasting of nerve and brain in work for God brings a corresponding uplifting and strengthening to spiritual muscle and fiber. 

If the outward man is perishing because of an injudicious waste of physical strength or because of wrong habits, then it will always make us faint, or cave in; and if we give up prayer and communion with God, then the decay goes on to a terrible extent; there is no corresponding inward weight of glory, no inner winging.

The apostle Paul continually had external depression, he had agonies and distresses, terrible persecution and tumults in his life, but he never had the "blues," simply because he had learned the secret that the measure of the inner glory is the wasting of the outward man. The outer man was being wasted. Paul knew it and felt it but the inner man was being renewed. Every wasting meant a corresponding winging on the inside. Some of us are so amazingly lazy, so comfortably placed in life, that we get no inner winging. The natural life, apart altogether from sin, must be sacrificed to the will and the word of God, otherwise there is no spiritual glory for the individual. With some of us the body is not wearing away. Our souls are stagnant and the vision spiritually is not getting brighter. But once we get into the heavenlies, live there, and work from that standpoint, we find we have the glorious opportunity of spending all our bodily energies in God's service and corresponding weight of moral and spiritual glory remains all the time. No matter how wearied or expended the body may be in God's work, there is the winging of the inner man into a higher grasp of God.

We have to beware of the pagan notion that our spirit develops in spite of our body; it develops with our body, and the way that spiritual insight develops in the worker is, as Paul states here, in the wasting of energy for God, because in this way the inner man is renewed. It is not a question of saying "Oh, my body is so lazy, I must drag it up to do something," but a question of working on God's line to the last lap, spending and being spent for one purpose only, and that purpose God's. If we put the body and the concerns of the body before the eternal weight of glory, we will never have any inner winging at all. We will always be asking God to patch up this old tabernacle and keep it in repair. But when the heart sees what God wants, and knows that the body must be willing to spend and be spent for that cause and that cause alone, then the inner man gets wings.

Oswald Chambers, The Love of God

Contemporary Christianity

In entering human history God shattered all previous conceptions of who God is and what people are meant to be.  In the New Testament we are presented with a God who suffers crucifixion, a Supreme Being with spit on his face.  What He went through in His passion and death is meant for me too; the invitation He issues is, "Don't weep for Me! Join Me! The life I have planned for Christians is a Christian life, much like the life I led.  I wasn't poor so that you  might be rich. I wasn't mocked so that you might be honored.  I wasn't laughed at so that you could be lauded.  I was revealing the Christian picture of man and woman, one that is meant to include you, too."  Paul wrote to the Colossians, "We are meant to fill up what is wanting in the suffering of Christ."

We get so used to the ultimate Christian fact - Jesus stripped, flogged and crucified - that we no longer see Him for what He actually is:  a living injunction to strip ourselves of earthly cares and worldly wisdom, all desire for human praise, greediness for any kind of comfort, spiritual consolations included; a living summons to let go of every kind of worldliness - including that which prefers the more attractive duty to the less attractive, which prods us to put more effort into relationships with the people we want to stand well with.  Even the last rag we cling to - the self-flattery that suggests that we are being rather humble when we disclaim any resemblance to Jesus Christ - even that rag has to go when we stand face-to-face with the crucified Son of Man.

The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus by Brennan Manning
 

Live Before You Die - Day 12

Where Adam failed in the Garden of Eden, Jesus prevailed in the Garden of Gethsemane. And the key to Christ's victory here was the secret of His whole life, embodied in those seven immortal words, "Not my will, but thine, be done." The Roman soldiers seized Jesus and crucified Him, but they could not take His life, for He had already laid it down in Gethsemane.  "No one takes My life from Me," was Jesus's confession, "but I lay it down of Myself."

Many times people embark on the journey to discover God's will having already made up their minds about what they think God wants them to do.  And often what they are actually seeking is divine validation of what they desire.  If you truly want God's will for your life, you cannot simply pray, "your will be done." You must include, "Not my will."

The kingdom of God is present wherever God's authority is acknowledged and submitted to.  Jesus was praying for God's will to be done exclusively - the way it is done in heaven.  In other words, all other wills bow to the divine will, God's authority is recognized and submitted to, and everything comes into alignment with what the Father desires.

It all begins with the heart - it all begins with us.  Jesus said "The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). What was Jesus talking about?  He was talking about God's will being done in the hearts of men.  Human kings fight over land and spoil, but the real estate God desires is that of the heart.

Jesus said in John 7:38, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" He didn't say we would see rivers of water flow from heaven - He said they would flow from inside His people! God's kingdom is not coming out of the blue sky; it's coming from within us! God's will is that every believer becomes an annexation of His kingdom, a portal through which He can pour His glory and release His power into the world.  If you want to see God's kingdom come on earth, it starts with God's will being done in earth - in you!

Daniel Kolenda, Live before you die