Thursday ♥ February 14 ♥ Miriam

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 39-40; Psalm 33; Mark 5.

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 3:4-6.

⁴ Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. ⁵ You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. ⁶ No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.

I'm going to borrow from Mark Driscoll's sermon again.  He's talking about how some Christians hold themselves to the wrong standard, a standard of outward perfection.  There is a big difference between loving God and wanting to be like him, the way a child looks up to his or her parent(s) and wants to be just like Dad or just like Mom, but messing up along the way, and having a heart of rebellion and purposefully doing the opposite of what you know you are supposed to do.  Here is an excerpt:

God is a Dad who thinks you’re funny, especially when you take yourself seriously, and providing you don’t have a heart of lawlessness that just says, “Forget you. I disobey you. I defy you. I won’t listen.” Provided you have a heart that loves your Dad and says, “I want to be like my Dad. I want to obey my Dad. I want to be close to my Dad. I want to enjoy my Dad.” If you should make a mistake that’s not a sin, guys, calm down. It’s all right. Okay, God doesn’t want you to be, you know, perfect in that you never lose your car keys. You never spill your coffee.

He wants you to be holy, which means you obey him and love him. I’ll give you an example. My kids. They won’t go to bed. Why is that? When you’re an adult, if somebody came and said, “Go to bed,” you’d be like, “Okay.” Like if you were in your cubicle at work and your boss came and said, “You’re cranky. Go take a nap. Here’s some cookies and juice.” You’d be like, “Yes.” You know, you would never have the child – the child response is, “No, no.” You’re like, “Cookies and a juice and a nap. Praise God. This is the job I prayed for.”

You know, kids don’t want to go to bed. I don’t know why. There’s nothing going on. They’re not missing anything. So my kids the other night, I got four kids. Getting them to bed is like herding cats. They just – they won’t get in line. They won’t. They just stall and they, you know, they got to pee 75 times and, “Oh, I forgot something,” and I finally – we’re downstairs. I looked at them. I said, “That’s it. I’m done. I’m your Father. I’m gonna tell you to do something. You’re gonna do it, okay?” And I meant to say, “Brush your teeth and get your buns to bed.” What I said was, “Brush your buns and get your teeth to bed.”

So my five-year-old son literally falls on the ground, grabs his gut. He thinks this is the coolest thing. My two-year-old son gets his toothbrush, one of those electric toothbrushes and sticks it on his rear just to mock me. You know, I made a mistake. You know, you’re gonna make a mistake. What we’re talking about here is the person who ignores God, who disobeys God, who just rebels against God. We’re not talking about the person who loves God, pursues God, and is just not perfect.
Okay, I mean I’ll say this. Jesus was perfect. Does that mean he never lost his car keys? I don’t know, but if he did, would he have ceased to be God? I don’t know, but I think sometimes you get this picture of Jesus like, “My car keys are here, and it’s, oh, I got an appointment at 7:30 and” – like he never once ever like tripped like walking to school. “Oop, oh, I didn’t – oh, I tripped over a rock. Oh, I’m not God anymore.” You know, I – Jesus Christ was a perfect man. I don’t think that necessarily means that, you know, he never took a bite of his breakfast and it fell off his fork.

“Oh, now we lost God.” You know, because that is not the breaking of the law, and that’s not lawlessness. That’s humanity. You guys understand the point I’m trying to make here. Some of you are so intense. Go to bed. Take your nap. Get your juice. What God is looking for is that you would love your Dad. You would listen to your Dad. You’d obey your Dad. You’d trust your Dad. By grace, you would want to be like your Dad, and if you should cross the line by disobeying his Word, you would immediately purify yourself by bringing your sin to Jesus and getting back in relationship with your Dad.  

Jesus is the one who takes away your sin. Here’s a great thing. Everybody in the world agrees there’s sin. We’ll use different words. People say, “That’s a dysfunction. That’s a disorder. That’s bad.” You know, we’ll use different words. It’s sin. The only person who could deal with sin is Jesus because he’s the only one who has no sin in him.

Jesus, God comes, lives without sin, dies for sin. We give him our sin. He gives us his righteousness. Our sin is dealt with. (emphases mine)

Roxie talked last week about abiding.  When we abide in Him, our heart's desire is to be more and more like Him.  Our actions follow our attitudes and we actually become more and more like Him.  When we abide in Him, even though we are not perfect all the time in all things, we obey.  Or at least, we obey better more of the time.  Isn't that great?

Happy Valentine's Day!  ♥♥♥

Tomorrow's scripture focus: 1 John 3:7-8.

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Leviticus 1-2; Psalm 34; Mark 6.

Wed Feb 13, 2013 -- Sandy

Today's scripture focus: 1 John 3:2-3

Tomrrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 37-38, Psalm 32, Mark 4

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, becausewe shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
1 John 3:2-3

This is a prime example of a simple verse of two packing such hope and love!

*We are God's children now*  Even if you grew up in a delightful, wonderful home, the thought of having a Heavenly Father who cares for you....the One who created the earth and the sky!  Almost overwhelming, isn't it?

*We know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.*  Such hope for us!  Lowly sinners.  That we, a broken and sinful people, would even be able to see him, much less be like him!  That's such a wonderful beacon of hope, that I in my sin, doubt, anger, and constant battles with my flesh, should have a hope of being like him, and being with him.

*And everyone who hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.*  It begins!  It's a lifelong process, and won't ever be completed this side of heaven, but each day, each struggle, each prayer, brings us one step closer to being like him.  Being pure and holy.

Tuesday Feb 12, 2013 -- Sandy

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is: Exodus 35-36, Psalm 31, Mark 3

Today's scripture focus is: 1 John 3:1

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be calledchildren of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1

Has anyone else struggled with grasping the concept of God's love?  I know I have.  It doesn't help that we as humans often have a perverted and misguided sense of love.  All kinds of sins have committed under the guise of "love".  How can a sinful and broken people wrap their heads around the concept of God's perfect love?

Only by His power and grace, obviously. :D. Which is easy to say, but our own shortcomings and heartbreaks can often still muddy the waters.

But that's really what makes it to beautiful.  Our lack of love, our sin, our brokenness, our ugliness...God's love is bigger than all of them.  The unadulterated, unending, undiminished, boundless, persistent, overwhelming, delightful, beautiful, perfect love of God.  His love is in the cross.  He didn't have to give Jesus for us.  He didn't have to redeem us.  He didn't have to love us.

But he did.  "Pay attention!" this verse says.  "God loves us."  More than anything has ever been loved, is God's love.  Bigger, more amazing than any love we could ever have on earth, is God's love.








Tomorrow's scripture focus: 1 John 3:2-3

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 37-38, Psalm 32, Mark 4

Monday, February 11 ~ by Pamela

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 29, 30, Psalm 29, Mark 1

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 2:29


If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him. (ESV)

God calls us to live as examples. We were created in His image, we are to live as He instructed. Yet, we fail...again ... and again ... and again. We desire to be like Christ to mirror His righteousness and yet it impossible without Grace and forgiveness. I could identify this part of MacArthur's sermon:

I always think of the story when I was a kid, crazy story but I did crazy things as a kid. When the teacher left the room when I was a kid, I often felt it was my opportunity to take over the class for no good reason. And I remember one time I happened to be jumping from desk to desk and failed to hear the orthopaedic wedges coming back toward the door, you know. All of a sudden the door is thrown open and she comes in and I'm in mid-flight. Anticipation of the coming of someone who has authority has a marked influence on how we conduct ourselves. Don't you know? Like the way you drive when there isn't a policeman around, and the way you drive when you think there might be one around the next corner. The Lord understands the powerful motivation of living in the light of the imminent revealing and appearing of Jesus Christ. All of that to take us to the text.

By nature, I am not a speedy driver but I have to admit that the first thing I do when I see a police car as I drive to school (which is often weekly) the very first thing I do is to check my speedometer. I am more aware of my teaching practice when my Principal enters my room during a lesson. My classroom looked better than ever on the day our Education Minister came for a visit to our school. We adjust our attitudes and our environment when we are in the presence of authority.

Shouldn't God be deserving of our best behaviour and attitude too??

The reality is that no one knows when Jesus will return. We don't know when we just know that He is going to come. We don't know when we need to be on our best behaviour because in reality, we are supposed to live in His righteous at all times.

So our hope is secured by remaining faithful. That is the means by which God secures us, by means of our preservation. It is by faith as the means that He saves us. It is by faith and obedience as the means that He sanctifies us. It is by perseverance and endurance as the means by which He secures us. And being secure and abiding, we will have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. Those who abide have a kind of fearless trust.....

...Secondly, it is manifest by righteousness...it is manifest by righteousness and this is in verse 29. "If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him." Now our future hope begins to take on some behavioral impact. The people who really have this hope, the people who abide will not only be blameless at the time of His appearing and stand before Him confidently and not shrink away from Him in shame, but they are here manifesting righteousness because those who have this hope have this hope because they've been born of God. Wonderful, wonderful reality of new birth, regeneration. This, of course, unmasks the phonies again, doesn't it? John does this so well. People who claim to be, "Oh yes, I'm waiting for Jesus to come...Oh yes." And you look at their life and there's no righteousness there, there's no love of righteousness, hatred of sin. So this unmasks the phonies who claim to have Christian hope and have absolutely no right to it. It is a hope that belongs to those who manifest righteousness.

 If you know He's righteous, you know that everyone practices, present-indicative pattern, the pattern of their life, not perfection, but direction...pattern of life. If you know that He is righteous, that is He is without sin, without error, He is just, He is free from evil. Psalm 11, "The Lord is righteous. He loves righteous deeds." Great verse. If you know that He is righteous, you know that anyone who has been born of Him, past completed action with present continuing results, anyone who has been born of Him is going to manifest righteousness. And you're back to this same thing again that a believer is known not by what they claim but by how they live.

Our hope is secured by remaining faithful and a believer is known not by what they claim but by how they live. Powerful words.

You would be reluctant to believe a fitness trainer that told you to diet and exercise while smoking and eating junk food. Their lives are reflective of their beliefs and if they don't model the behaviours that they endorse it affects their credibility. Our lives are the reflection of our beliefs and our actions (which should be as if we are under the power of authority!) can help bring others to a saving eternity or turn them off by our hypocrisy. Are we "walking the walk" and "talking the talk" or is it hard to see God's influence on our actions? Is it easy to see who we are reflecting? When Jesus arrives (and we know he will) what will He walk in to find??

Tomorrow's scripture focus: 1 John 3:1

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 35-36, Psalm 31 , Mark 3

8 February 2013 ~Roxie

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 27, 28; Psalm 29; Mark 1

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 2:28

28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

Today’s verse, once again, uses beautiful language throughout the multitude of translations: continue in, live in, stay with, and my most favourite of all: abide in. I know that it is an old word, used in the King James and the different “Standard” versions and the very old English of the Darby and the Wycliffe versions, but I love the ambiance established by the word abide. 

Once again, I clicked on my New Oxford American Dictionary and read that to abide means to “continue without fading or being lost” or to “live;dwell” (they call that the “archaic” definition). I read a wee bit further and found that the origin of the word abide is in the Old English word meaning “wait”. Beautiful. 

Now I can get all dreamy romantic about words (odd, I know), but dreams and romance are, sadly, not my reality very often. I am not at all good at waiting...sure, I can bring a book and sit in a doctor’s office all afternoon without pulling out my hair or making the receptionist cry in my fit of impatience...but I rail and whine and weep and stamp my feet and yell at my husband and snivel to my friends about things for which only God knows the timing...and not only knows it, but has planned it to the last millisecond to bring out the very best in me...and yet, I complain. Can this be considered “continuing without fading”?

No. I confess, I fade. I fade a lot. 

John, an older pastor, a man of vast experience is writing to his beloved students of all ages...beloved Christians of all stages of maturity, wavering about in a world that wants to deceive them and draw them away from the place they have chosen to dwell. John sees that they may fade or be lost and he tells them to wait; to hunker down and just be with Jesus, the one and only Good Teacher. Stay, my friends, John says, just bide.

How do we just wait? How do we bide? It reminds me, very much, of the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself ? Tell her to help me!" 41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

I am a Martha. I find myself stuck being “distracted by all the preparations” and forgetting “what is better”. Maybe those are the false teachers in my own life, the “anti-christs” like we talked about a few days ago. I get so caught up in all the things I feel like I have to do, allowing myself to be overwhelmed, feeling like I have let myself and others down. I forget about being an anointed child of God. I forget about seeking out “what is better”. Jesus is our Rabbi, our Teacher, the anointing we received at whose feet we may stay and listen...learning how to wait, how to continue without fading. 

Why is this important? This biding? This waiting? This sitting at the feet of Jesus? So that we will have confidence (GW) and boldness (HCSB) when He returns (not if, but when!!) and NOT be ashamed!! That’s right: we do not need to be ashamed. We are covered by the blood of the Lamb, washed whiter than the freshly fallen, glittering in the moonlight snow. We have new robes on, dear ones. Robes that wipe off every blemish, every shameful act, every word we have wanted to take back, every thought we have blushed (or winced, if you are not a blusher) at thinking; all gone in a brilliant sheen of purity and newness.

And now, children, stay with Christ. Live deeply in Christ. Then we’ll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives. 

1 John 2:28 (MSG)

Monday's scripture focus: 1 John 2:29

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 29, 30

Thursday, February 7 ~ Miriam

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 25-26; Psalm 28; Matthew 28.

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 2:24-27.

²⁴ As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.

The Promise Is Eternal Life

²⁵ This is the promise which He Himself ^[a]made to us: eternal life.

²⁶ These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, ^[b]you abide in Him.

I'm going to take a chunk from Mark Driscoll's sermon for this passage, for two reasons.  #1 - it's thought provoking, and I like his sense of humor.  #2 - my brother-in-law (husband's brother, who was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer last June) passed away last night, and I don't have the energy right now to make my own thoughts coherent.


Now anointing means this: That you have the Ghost. We’re not gonna call it the Holy Spirit because Oprah’s got a section on her show called “Spirit,” and I hate that section. So we’re gonna go with the King James. The King James calls it the “Ghost.” Now that is much better. That, you can mark it the Ghost.

That’s got a little more to it. So we’re gonna go with the Ghost. The anointing is the Ghost. Everybody say it. One, two, three, Ghost. Whoo, see that’s good. That’s good.  Okay, now in the Old Testament, there was anointing with oil. You get anointed with oil. It was prefiguring, typologizing, foreshadowing the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would anoint you.

Jesus, we’re told in Isaiah, would be anointed in his earthly ministry, and he was. He was baptized. He came up out the water, and what came down from heaven? The Ghost anointed the Lord Jesus for his ministry. We now are anointed by the Ghost. One of us or all of us? Read it. “You” – plural – “have an anointing from the holy one, and all of you know the truth.” All Christians have the anointing of the Ghost. This is hugely important because if you go to the wrong church, they’ll tell you one guy has the Ghost.

He yells a lot, and he’s always got a hanky to do this. Apparently, the Ghost makes you sweat a lot. You know, the Ghost sort of triggers the secretion glands and the sweat in the guy. “Oh, the Ghost is on me now.” So he’s got the hanky. He’s doing a lot of this, a lot of this, and he’s always got a handheld mike. “Whoo,” and he’s doing a lot of this. You know, he pulls a hamstring, comes up ____. That guy’s busy. That guy’s – and you know that guy’s got the Ghost because he’s just, “Look what I can do. You know, you can do it, too,” and everybody’s, “Yee, whoo, hoo, ha, ha. The Ghost, he’s anointed. I’m anointed. We’re all anointed.”

The problem with that is it sets up. I wore myself out. I don’t know how they can do that in a suit, in a suit. How do you do that? I don’t – they must have the Ghost, and now the problem with that theology is that God only has one man in every church, and that man is the fourth member of the Trinity, and that man. God speaks to that man. He’s the Lord’s anointed. You don’t come against the Lord’s anointed, and he’s real powerful and authoritative and does a lot of this stuff, and the problem with that is that if you believe that only one man has the Ghost and only one man’s anointed, you put your Bible down.

You stop praying. You stop asking Jesus. You just go to that guy, and you walk around quoting that guy, and not the words that were inspired by the ghostwriter. Yeah, it was supposed to be – it wasn’t as good as I was thinking, but it was still a pretty good line. Now that’s what happened, I think, in this church. These guys show up. “We got the Ghost. Everybody, Bible’s down. We got new revelation. Listen to us, secret things we know. All you need is us.” Everybody’s like, “Hmm. That’s good,” and then, they start quoting all their teachers and leaders, not their Bible anymore.

They’re not going to the Holy Spirit saying, “Holy Spirit, you wrote the book. Holy Spirit, you live in me. Teach me the Scripture. I want to know the truth.” Don’t quote me, okay? Don’t test sound doctrine by me. If I do my job well, which I aspire to, I want you to learn the Scriptures, okay? That’s my goal. You then should check everything by what the Ghost has said. You should take it to the Bible, and if anyone, myself included or especially myself, should say something that is in disagreement with what the Ghost has said, please go with Ghost. Please go with the Scripture.  (emphases mine)
The rest of the sermon talks about what our posts for the last couple of days have been discussing, so I purposely pulled out the part that talked about the anointing because that is what I was most curious about in these verses.  If you'd like to read or listen to the entire sermon, you can find it HERE.

Happy Thursday.

Tomorrow's scripture focus:  1 John 2:28.

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage:  Exodus 27-28; Psalm 29; Mark 1.

Wednesday, February 6th

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 23-24, Psalm 27, Matthew 27

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 2:19-23

¹⁹ They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. ²⁰ But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. ²¹ I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. ²² Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

There are antichrists within the church.  That sounds scary, doesn't it? but, as we saw yesterday - everyone that is not a Christian is anti-Christ.  And Satan loves to infiltrate the church with antichrists.  That's what he did with Judas after all.  For 3 years, Judas lived with Jesus and his disciples, and not once did any of them think he was against Christ.  He clearly was against Christ, but that wasn't noticeable for 3 whole years of 24/7 study under Jesus Himself.

I've always had a problem with the "once saved, always saved" philosophy, but I'm beginning to think I'm wrong about that.  Maybe it should be slightly changed to say "once truly saved, always saved".  People can appear to be Christians, say all the right things, do all the right things - but their heart could be far from God.  And you wouldn't know.  You could be deceived.  Some even deceive themselves!  Some people think they're Christians when they're not.  That is a scary thought indeed.

But I'm beginning to see that once you have truly accepted Christ, you would never ever walk away from that.  So those that do walk away, show that they were never genuinely saved to begin with.

Now, there are cases where you stray, or backslide - but genuine Christians will come under conviction by the Holy Spirit and will return to the Lord.

That's what v19 is saying.  The ones that left the church were not genuine believers and had never been genuine believers.  I think we all know people that have walked away from the faith.  And some of them were probably really shocking to you because they seemed like really solid Christians - maybe even pastors or missionaries.  But if they abandoned Christ, if they walked away, then they were never genuinely Christians to begin with.

Mark Driscoll adds this...

This doesn’t mean that if you keep being a Christian, that you’ll be saved in the end. What it does mean is if you were really saved in the beginning, you will persevere to the end, that the person who loves Jesus and meets Jesus sticks with Jesus. It’s evidence that they love him. It’s evidence that they belong to him.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t rebel and sin, but it does mean you come back.

Those who are truly saved, will never abandon Christ.  Never.  They will be kept by His grace (Jude 24) through the power of His Spirit that we received when we became Christians.  All Christians have been anointed by the Holy Spirit who helps to guard us from error and deception as we read and study the Word of God.

And, once again, John confirms that anyone who denies Jesus as the Christ is a liar and an antichrist.

Jesus is God, Jesus is the Son of God - a fact that only those of the Christian faith will proclaim to believe.

The stakes are huge.  The stakes are eternal life.  We will all live forever - it's a matter of where we're going to live - with Jesus in heaven, or without Him in hell, for eternity.

For Christians, eternal life begins the moment we become a Christian. It's both a quality of life and a duration of life. Our life with God starts the moment we accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour, and lasts forever.

There are only two types of people - Christians and non-Christians/antichrists.  One receives eternal life, the other eternal death and suffering.

Those are huge stakes indeed.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: 1 John 2:24-27

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 25-26, Psalm 28, Matthew 28

Tuesday, February 5th

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 21-22, Psalm 26, Matthew 26

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 2:18

¹⁸ Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 

What is the last hour?  The time we're living in right now.  The time John was living in when he wrote this epistle.  It's the time between Jesus' death/resurrection/ascension and when He comes again.  This is the last hour.  There was eternity past. There was creation and the fall.  There was the promise of a redeemer.  And finally the Redeemer came.  And now we are in the last hour. And we will continue to be in the last hour until He comes again.

The antichrist is coming.  Yes, the big antichrist is coming at the end of the age. But there are millions of little antichrists in the world right now.

MacArthur puts it pretty bluntly....
Any denial of Jesus as Lord and Redeemer, Lord and Savior constitutes an antichrist attitude...

to say anything less about Jesus than what is true, to deny anything about Him that is revealed concerning Him in Scripture is to take your place among the antichrists. Any misrepresentation of Christ constitutes an antichrist attitude. Anybody who rejects Jesus Christ as Messiah, Lord and Savior, anybody who rejects Jesus Christ as God, anyone who rejects Jesus Christ as man cause He was fully the God/Man is antichrist. You cannot reinvent Jesus. You cannot patronize Him with some definition that you think is perhaps good enough, if you say less than what God has said about Him, you are guilty of being antichrist.

To make it very simple, Jesus said this in Matthew 12:30, "He who is not with Me, is against Me." And there isn't any middle ground. You're either with Him, or you're against Him, that's it. You're either a Christian, or an antichrist. 

Driscoll echoes MacArthur's thoughts and adds this....

Am I anti academic? I’m not. Am I anti reading books? I’m not, but I do think that you and I need to be discerning, discretionary people, who when we read a book, when we take a class, when we go to a seminar, when we listen to a talk radio show host, when we watch a television talk program, when we pick up any piece of media or literature, which is overwhelming amount of information, we have to ask ourselves, “Is this causing me to love and trust Jesus more or less?”

Is it pro Christ or is it antichrist? Is it compelling me toward Jesus or is it pulling me away? Is it trusting in him or is it distrusting him? Is it believing him or is disbelieving him? This is intensely practical because many of us, our first inclination is when we have a hard time. We have questions, and we have needs. We immediately default to the antichrist. We’re having marital troubles. Well, let’s go talk to this person that doesn’t know God and won’t quote any verses.

Is that the best place to begin? Will we end up being like Christ, for Christ, with Christ through the instruction of someone who is against Christ? Obviously not. If their agenda is not Jesus, then they’re on the wrong mission. I’m not saying that everything that everyone who is a non-Christian teaches is wrong. I’m saying there are bits and pieces of accuracy that they’re working with from general revelation, but you have to ask yourself.

Those most influential teachers and leaders and friends and people in your life, those people you give highest authority and weight to, are they pro or antichrist? Do they love Jesus and encourage and inspire you to love Jesus or do they not love Jesus and encourage you and inspire you to things other than the love of Jesus?...If you or those that you admire and aspire to be like are not for Jesus, worshipping him as God and wanting to live like he lived and love as he loved, the marks of a true Christian, then you are antichrist. You’re against him. Many people don’t think of it that way. They just think that indifference is okay. I don’t love Jesus. I don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t follow Jesus, but I’m not against him. Jesus says you are. Jesus says you are.
What an intensely practical question to ask ourselves - Is this causing me to love and trust Jesus more or less?

Are the people I trust, lean on, give authority to, allow to speak into my life - do they point me to Jesus or away from Him?

There is no middle ground.  Indifference is not ok.  Indifference towards Jesus is being against Jesus.  Choosing not to choose, is choosing against Jesus.  You are either for or against Him.  There is no middle ground.

Tomorrow's scripture focus: 1 John 2:19-23

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 23-24, Psalm 27, Matthew 27

February 4 - 1 John 2:17 - Tiffany

Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Exodus 19-20, Psalm 25, Matthew 25

Today's scripture focus is 1 John 2:17

The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

1 Corinthians 7:30-31 (condensed) says "Time is short.  From now on, those who use the things of the world should live as if not engrossed by them.  For this world in its present form is passing away."

The things of this world are not in and of themselves evil.  It is ok to have the nice house, the good car, to want a secure job that allows you to support your family and keep them safe, to want food on the table.
It is when those things become more important than the will of God, it is when those things take place in your heart so you strive more for them than for the Lord that problems happen.  Those things will pass away, they will become dust, and the only thing that will remain is the work we have done for the Lord.

My husband, the pastor, preaches often on works of eternal significance.  That in your relationship with God, you should be willing to work for Him, because of all He has done for you.
Works of eternal significance, the will of God, looks different for each person.

There was a grandmother who learned golf, not because she was retired or loved golf, but because her grandson's loved golf.  In learning golf, she began spending more and more time with her grandsons, and has led 2 of them to Christ.  Is golf eternally significant?  No.  Is leading her grandsons into their own personal relationship with Jesus eternally significant?  Definitely!

When I think over my life, several people stand out as ones that have made an eternally significant impact on my life.  Nothing they did was really all that amazing.  But they prayed for me, they loved me no matter where I was, and they followed God daily.  And through their example, they led me to follow God daily as well.

It is what I strive for, that someday, when I look back over my life, I can see, not the things of the world that I collected, not the houses we lived in, or the cars or the clothes, but the things I did that encouraged others, that showed Jesus's love to all, that were in line with the will of God.
I want the highlight real of my life to be filled with shots of Jesus and His love.

 

 

 

Tomorrow's scripture focus: 1 John 2:18

Tomorrow's Bible In a Year Passage passage: Exodus 21-22, Psalm 26, Matthew 26

Friday, February 1 ~ tammi

Today's Bible In a Year reading: Exodus 13-14; Psalm 24; Matthew 24
Today's scripture focus passage: 1 John 2:16 ~ "For everything in the world -- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does -- comes not from the Father but from the world."

Accompanying MacArthur sermon: The Cardiology of Worldliness

Happy February!!  Hard to believe, but the temperatures, even on the Canadian prairies will start to rise this month.  Spring is on its way!!!  Of course, we won't FEEL the increase until we're well into March, but still...  :)

And let's face it, almost ANYTHING is warmer than what we've experienced the last two days!!

ANYWAYS, getting down to business...  I like the section in MacArthur's sermon where he addresses common ideas for where sin originates as it relates to us.  What makes us sin?  Some say "the devil made me do it," some claim we and our sin are merely products of our society and surroundings, some even say that because God allowed Satan's rebellion before time began, GOD is ultimately responsible for causing us to sin.

While there are shreds of truth to some of these arguments, MacArthur draws our attention to a little sermon Jesus gave in Mark chapter 7:14-17 and shows that:
 

"The problem is inside of you.  We have met the problem and the problem is us. This is basic. Genesis 6:5 says, "All the imaginations of man's heart were only evil continually." Jeremiah 17:9 says, "The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Then as I noted earlier, the passage in James chapter 1 perhaps it's worth looking at, "Let no one say when he is tempted, verse 13, I'm tempted by God, God cannot be tempted by evil, He Himself does not tempt anyone." Here's the problem, verse 14, "Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust." It's not about the outside, it's not about God and it's not about Satan and it's not about society. It's about you. And if you lived in a cave, you'd be living with sin. If you lived in a cave, like a monk, if you isolated yourself from every societal influence, if you hold yourself up in some assumed to be holy environment in a church monastery, away from the realm of Satan and demons, you would still be literally in the grip of sin because it's not outside, it's inside. It originates in man's sinful nature. It's really important to understand that."

And why is it important to understand that in relation to this verse?  Because it is through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life that sin enters our lives.

"Those are the three gateways to which the world system finds its way into the fallen heart and generates sin. All that is in the world, the world is the anti-God, anti-Christ, anti-Scripture, anti-righteous, deceptive order, controlled by Satan. The world is synonymous with the kingdom of darkness. It is dangerous. It is deadly. It is designed by Satan to appeal to these three avenues into the fallen heart."

This is all kind of a downer, eh?  But fortunately, there's a big "BUT" after all this.  BUT...

"That's not us. Let me close with this. Back to 1 John for a minute. That's not us. We're not a part of that anymore. Gratefully all that is in the world is not from the Father and the world is passing away and also its lust, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. That's not us. We are not driven by the world, we are driven by the will of the Father. We don't always do it the way we should, but that's always the longing in our hearts, always the longing in our hearts. We don't love the world. We don't love the things in the world because the love of the Father is in us, we are not of the world. We still have the residual impact of sin in us. We still can be tempted that way. But it goes against the grain of who we are. We do not love that system. When we fall victim to it, we hate the system and we hate the sin. This is how we are distinguished as true believers."

Whew!  And hallelujah!!  That is NOT us!  As guilty as we are, as easily as we are still tempted like anyone else, succumbing goes against the grain of who we are because we have been TRANSFORMED and are continually BEING transformed into His likeness.

Amen?  AMEN.









Tomorrow's Bible In a Year reading: Exodus 15-16
Monday's scripture focus passage: 1 John 2:17