Greater Proof

Once the chief priests and elders succeeded in getting Jesus killed, they still weren’t satisfied. They continued to live in fear.
 

Matthew 27:62-66      ⁶² The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ⁶³ “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ ⁶⁴ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” ⁶⁵ “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

 
Many of the religious leaders refused to believe the truth and seemed quite consumed by their fear.  They appeared to misunderstand Jesus while He was alive and twisted some of his words, but here they clearly remembered and understood some of Jesus’ words. I’m guessing they were recounting their conversation with Him back in Matthew 12:38-40 ³⁸ Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” ³⁹ He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
 
What’s amazing is that God worked through the religious leaders' fear in order to give them (and everyone else) greater proof that Jesus was the Son of God! The seal around the stone and the guard would be no match for the resurrected Jesus!
 
Who do you know that lives in fear? 
Do they refuse to believe God’s words and His promises? 
Do they think they can suppress or stop God?
You and I can pray for God to work through their fears to help them eventually see greater proof of the truth.

Alice

Just Smile

Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering.  Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.  Hebrews 10:32-35

People know that I love to smile.  I smile at those who I know well and care deeply about.  I smile at those who would call me an enemy because I want them to know the God I represent.  I smile because there is a joy inside knowing that I am saved from a sinful past that once told me grace was out of my reach.  I smile knowing I am God’s child.  Some people would accuse me of smiling too much.  My response is they focus on how they see the world too much and not the potential God sees in them.  This does not mean I do not have fears and struggles in my life.  What it does mean is that I believe with confidence Jesus came into the world, died for our sins, and rose to prove beyond any doubt He is Lord.

We must reflect the light of Christ even in our most trying circumstances.  Jesus says that we are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)  There are some days that we feel down, and others where the world punches us in the gut trying to take away the certainty we have in Christ.  But through Jesus Christ, we were given the precious gift of eternal life.  For that alone, we have a light within us that can endure any hardship or pain.  We must share that light without reservations, and no matter what the world may throw at us, it cannot put out His light that shine brightly within us.

With God, there is always reason to have joy in our heart.  While we may feel short term sadness over circumstances or be left with situations that concern us, we must never forget the suffering our Lord endured for us.  Knowing this, there is nothing we cannot overcome.  Where does your confidence lie?  How can you exhibit the light of God in times of struggle?  My prayer is that when the clouds of darkness head our way, we look at them, and confidently, just smile.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Great expectations

1 John 2:1-2 “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” (NASB)

Hello,

Expectation is a funny thing. One’s thoughts on expectation differ based on whether you are talking about expectations of yourself or expectations you have of others. We look at others and set expectations based on the past and our perspective of circumstance. When we set expectations for ourselves we may start with hope, but then we start to hear the expectations of others and that hope may begin to fall. We start to see the failures of the past and push them into the present. We let the outside influences overcome the inside influence.

We need to have an expectation of overcoming the battle with sin. We have an incredible inside force in the Holy Spirit and our relationship with Jesus. Our forgiveness from Jesus is satisfactory (meaning of propitiation in verse) is not just about future forgiveness, but also a strengthening reminder of not needing guilt. The Holy Spirit living in us is the power to overcome sin and temptation.

That should be enough…..but we let the expectations of the outside creep in. We see a circumstance where we have struggled before – and our expectation of victory starts to fall. We hear people talk negatively about our past, or our decision making, and we let that sink in.

I am not trying to preach any kind of “name it, claim it” – but when we do not put ourselves in the mental position of victory we are lessening our chances. To a large degree, we are saying that we are OK with sin. But that is not what we are to do. We are to have an expectation of victory because of who lives inside of us and our position of forgiven thanks to Jesus.

As you face your day, what are your expectations?

Will Hill

God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life...

Hello Friends!

The world’s most popular “gospel” message in recent times has been drawing in lost souls by promising God’s wonderful plan for their life. But behind the façade of the “wonderful plan” message is the often neglected and stark reality of the trials, temptations and persecution…

In fact, Jesus Christ promised to His disciples:  

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues – Matthew 10:16-17

The Apostle Paul certainly would not agree with the “wonderful plan” false mesage. In fact, here is just a small taste of the “wonderful plan” which was promised to Paul by the Lord via Ananias (see Acts 9:16):

Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep… – 2 Corinthians 11:25

Does Paul’s testimony of severe persecution sound anything like the “Best Life Now” foolishness that is being promoted throughout modern-day evangelicalism? I don’t think so – and I’m quite certain Paul wouldn’t think so either!

Here are a few more very important questions to consider: 

• Why do 9 out of 10 children raised in Christian homes leave the faith? 
• Why do many “professing” Christians show little or no evidence for their faith? 
• Why do 80–90% of those making “decisions” for Jesus Christ fall away from the faith?

In consideration of those telling questions, does today’s common “wonderful plan” Gospel approach align with the true Christian’s faith walk? How can we reconcile these two completely antithetical messages? These are all eternally important questions to ponder… And the Scriptures provide the answers!

The Ten Commandments will force us to reexamine our ideas about the true Gospel message and will convict us to reach unbelievers the way God intended – through His Righteous Moral Law found in the book of Exodus…

The Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:1-17

And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage…

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Loving and compassionate Biblical evangelism has always been “Law to the proud” and “Grace to the humble” – Old Testament and New Testament:

Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble – Proverbs 3:34

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble – 1 Peter 5:5

In our evangelism efforts, let’s be certain to share all of God’s Attributes – His Character and Nature – when presenting the true, Biblical Gospel message – His Love and His Law!

May the Lord Jesus Christ continue to bless you with His perfect love, mercy and grace!

Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!

Blessings!

Shane <><

God vs. Science

9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”  ...

17 This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.Exodus 7

Have we stopped seeing miracles?  Some things may happen that we have scientific knowledge as to why it happened, and we don't see it as a miracle any more, we see it as science.  We see a rainbow and may think, "How nice," or "It's just the reflection of light in water droplets."  Do we see it and think that it was something designed by God?

What about life?  We may call an unborn child a miracle of life, but we tell ourselves that God didn't really put that child in the mother's womb.  We know the stages of cellular development that happened that formed the embryo, fetus, and child.  So what happened to the miracle?

God made everything around us, including the science that governs everything around us.  God didn't just create the earth, the animals, and man, but God created each of those down to the molecular level.  He knew every piece of every thing he was creating.  There's no way I will believe that it was a random roll of the dice in the universe that happened to put proteins together and *Bang!* there was life.

I love science.  Really, I do.  When I was in school, I loved to study things to find out how and why they worked as they did.  This is why I had a hard time with some of the miracles in the bible.  When I was younger, I'd still want to know how these things happened.  For instance, the Nile turned from water to blood.  The study Bible I'm reading right now gives a scientific reasoning for this.  There are algaes present in the Nile that can change the water to a red coloring.  So, it may have been a sudden abundance of that algae that changed the color and consistency of the Nile, so much so that it killed the plantlife and animals around the Nile.

Is that something I can logically reason?  Absolutely!  About a month ago, the same thing happened outside of Toledo, where an algae bloom cropped up, and the city put a ban on drinking water.  It made people sick, and it harmed the local ecology around Lake Erie.

The point is this: We have all at times asked God for a miracle in our lives.  We don't see any way out of a situation and need God's intervention.  We receive a miracle, but don't see it as a miracle.  We reason it away and don't give the credit to God.  What miracles might you have overlooked because you tried to assign a logical reason to them?  We need to remember that God is the force behind everything, even behind things that have scientific reasons behind them.

Who do you identify with?

Would you risk your life and job to identify with a person who had been sentenced to the death penalty by your co-workers? Beyond just identifying with that person, would you and I go to the judge and beg for the person’s body so we could handle their burial?

That’s what Joseph of Arimathea did.

Matthew 27:57-60      ⁵⁷ As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. ⁵⁹ Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, ⁶⁰ and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

The book of Luke has a few more details:

Luke 23:50-52             ⁵⁰ Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, ⁵¹ who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. ⁵² Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body.

Joseph was one of the 70 members of the council, or Sanhedrin. They are the ones that arrested Jesus, tried him, and convinced the people and Pilate to have him crucified. Apparently, it wasn’t a unanimous vote. As Luke stated above, Joseph hadn’t consented to their decision. Instead of giving up, moving on, wallowing in his own sorrow, or thinking he couldn’t make a difference at that point, Joseph chose to identify with and serve Jesus (even after Jesus’ death at the hands of his own co-workers). In fact, Mark 15:43 says he “went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.”

Are you and I that bold?

Are you and I identified as followers of Christ?

How will you and I identify with and serve Christ this week, even when a situation seems hopeless?

Understanding Discipline

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.  Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.  Deuteronomy 8:2-5

The topic of corporal punishment has come up over the past week.  Many have questioned whether it is child abuse or not.  My belief is that it is necessary in certain situations.  No, I do not endorse any type of punishment that either injures or causes physical harm of children.  However as a parent who as a child saw other children that lacked responsibility and control when those forms of discipline were not in the household, one could understand why my view is what it is.  No matter which side your view on the topic might be, we all agree that in rearing children, discipline, corporal or not, is an absolute necessity.

This brings me to discuss how God disciplines us.  Just as we remember the discipline we were given by our parents to aid in our growth to becoming more responsible, God disciplines us for our spiritual growth.  There are numerous times I suffered at the hand of God’s discipline.  Poor choices led to feelings of emptiness or dealings with the consequences of those choices.  Often we live in the moment where we question God’s goodness when things are not going are way.  However, God always is faithful showing us love and protection not just in the moment but forever and always!  It is with this knowledge that Moses spoke to the Israelites as they were well into their long journey to the Promise Land.  We should embrace the Lord’s discipline the same way as Moses did; with understanding and appreciation that God loves us and does things on our behalf.

Discipline is hard.  No one wants to feel the stinging pain and heartfelt disappointment that comes with it.  However, true spiritual growth cannot happen without it.  While we should never look forward to it, we should be grateful that God loves us enough to deliver it and feel good knowing that both our faith in and relationship with God will be strengthened by the experience.  How can you be more accepting of the Lord’s discipline?  What spiritual growth can you recognize from past discipline?  My prayer is that we take the Lord’s discipline with clear knowledge of its necessity for our own spiritual growth.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Send in the backup!

Exodus 32: ”Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (NASB)

Hello,

As we come to football season, we come to the time in life where the backup quarterback is everyone’s favorite player! We don’t like what we see from the starter – performance is off, too slow to develop, doesn’t make smart decisions – and we are ready to pull them out and put in the backup. We don’t seem to have much patience for those out their performing. We have our way that we believe things should be happening –and anything less is assessed quickly and judged.

This is what Israel decided they wanted – but not only did they want the backup for Moses, but they wanted to fire the coach too! We have to stop measuring our satisfaction with God on terms related to human timetables. All that does is leave us frustrated. His timing is not ours. If God wants to move quickly, He will. If God wants to take more time, He will. That decision we are able to ask Him to change – but it is His decision. Just because He is not moving in the time or at the pace we would prefer doesn’t give us reason to look for the backup, or try to get the coach fired.

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill

Created for Holiness! (Part 7 of 7)

Hello Friends!

Welcome Back! Let’s conclude our exploration of the eternally important topic for the Christian Church today… HOLINESS!

Created for Holiness! (Part 7 of 7)

The Beauty of Humility

This is a beauty that cannot be duplicated in any other way. Not with shining youth, diamonds, clothing or make-up – but only by falling at the feet of Jesus Christ. You might say, “Well, I’m not Moses. He was special.” True. However, let me remind you of the words of our Savior:

 

Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he – Matthew 11:11

You see, according to Jesus, John was greater even than Moses. Yet, as members of the Kingdom, we Christians can be greater than he – we have our Master’s own Word on that. That is our potential!

 

We MUST lower ourselves in worship to RISE to HIS EXPECTATION!

 

Our nation – and the Body of Jesus Christ – are in crisis like never before. We must stand on the mighty promises of Jesus Christ and reach out to Him in faith and humble worship. Crying out for our congregations, America and the nation of Israel, we need to present ourselves before the Throne of Grace through the Almighty Holy Spirit lifting up our prayers up to heaven! 

 

In closing:

Remember, king David cried in humility and faith before fighting Goliath – the blasphemer of the Lord’s Mighty Name: 

 

Is there not a cause? – 1 Samuel 17:29

True worship means surrender through extreme faith! This is WAR dear friends!

Thank you for reading this series! May the Lord Jesus Christ continue to bless you with His perfect love, mercy and grace!

Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!

Blessings!

Shane <><

Off Course

1. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.” Exodus 6

God takes the credit here, but he's stating that not only will pharaoh let the Israelites go, but that pharaoh will drive them out of Egypt.  That's quite a turnaround!  There's a saying my mom said often to me growing up, "If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans."

Very true.

I planned to never get married or have kids.  I'm married and have one son.  I planned to get an engineering degree.  I got an accounting degree.  I planned to move out of Michigan as soon as I could.  I first got a job in Ann Arbor, and then after a few years my husband and I bought a house in Michigan.  Now, these were only the more recent and realistic plans.  If you would have asked me when I was younger, you would have gotten totally different ideas of what my future plans were.  The point is, circumstances change, and we need to accept these changes.  We all have free will, but God will put things in front of us that will cause our plans to change and veer off the course we had set.  

Pharaoh wanted to keep the Israelites in his service for as long as he was alive.  Yet he ends up kicking them out (and later regretting the decision).  Did circumstances change?  Absolutely.  Did he feel that there was no way out and no better option? Probably.  

All those bumps in the road are directly from God.  He's not doing it to spite you, he's doing it to help you to see the course he set for you.