Trust

“God’s promises were never meant to be thrown aside as waste paper; he intended that they should be used. God’s gold is not miser’s money, but is minted to be traded with. Nothing pleases our Lord better than to see his promises put in circulation; he loves to see his children bring them up to him, and say, Lord, do as thou hast said. We glorify God when we plead his promises.”
-C.H. Spurgeon

I think it would do us well to please the Lord by simply trusting in His given promises:

"For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him."
1 Thessalonians 5:9-10

"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want."

Psalm 23:1

1. Who is the LORD?

• "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen. 1:1)
• "Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment." (Ex. 6:6)
• "Our God comes; he does not keep silence; before him is a devouring fire, around him a mighty tempest." (Psalm 50:3)
• "On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God." (Ps. 62:7)
• "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
• "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)
• "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'" (John 8:58)
• "I and the Father are one." (John 10:30)
• "For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him." (Col. 1:16)
  

2. What does the Shepherd do?

• "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father." (John 10:11-18)

3. Why will I not want?

• "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (Revelation 21:3)

We get Jesus. In Him, our search ends.

Jeremy Camp - There Will Be A Day

I picked up my diploma today.

Finally, I was able to behold what the last four years of (arguably) fruitful labor had brought into my lap. Gawking at the nice gold and shiny UCLA emblem fixed on the middle of my diploma with my name was pretty rewarding - like a bright red cherry on top.

But even in the middle of my excitement, something seemed eerily missing.

I started thinking about first stepping foot onto UCLA's campus and feeling like an ant in the middle of a giant farm that just produces Bruins to infest the working world. Tons of all-nighters (or attempts), midnight Yoshinoya runs, so many Jack-in-the-Crack tacos until your eyeballs pop out, the dorms, all of my mistakes, and God's grace. In that moment I felt like the past four years couldn't really fit into this tiny 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock.

Probably because I was reminded of Philippians 3. I don't have nearly as many credentials as Paul does; far, far less. And as much as I'm glad that I'm really done with undergrad, it really doesn't compare to the most precious gift that I left with: Christ. Salvation doesn't really have too much room to fit on a diploma with my name.

I'm really happy to get my diploma, but it's probably not going to see much daylight once it gets filed away for a long, long time.

Follow-up: What you don't know can kill you.

Stephen and I had the privilege of watching the best sermon that you haven't listened to last evening on proclaiming truth in Christ to a postmodern world. Call it chance (I call it providence), but I stumbled across an article with leading atheist, Christopher Hitchens, being interviewed by a Unitarian minister some time ago.

I'm not sure what kind of taste this article leaves in my mouth, but it's not saponaceous. It's one thing to be convicted and knowingly come to a decision on something - I appreciate that Hitchens, although an atheist, says things as they are; no mysterious ambiguity. What troubles and saddens me more than the atheism is the ambiguous sort of Christianity that is prevalent in not only this article but our culture today.

I hope you would be reminded that following Christ does not leave things like the death and resurrection of our Savior to ambiguous, metaphorical thinking; I'll let you decide what to think on this:

Minister: The way I believe in the resurrection is I believe that one can go from a death in this life, in the sense of being dead to the world and dead to other people, and can be resurrected to new life. When I preach about Easter and the resurrection, it’s in a metaphorical sense.
Hitchens: I hate to say it—we’ve hardly been introduced—but maybe you are simply living on the inheritance of a monstrous fraud that was preached to millions of people as the literal truth—as you put it, “the ground of being.”

Minister: Times change and, you know, people’s beliefs change. I don’t believe that you have to be fundamentalist and literalist to be a Christian. You do: You’re something of a fundamentalist, actually.
Hitchens: Well, I’m sorry, fundamentalist simply means those who think that the Bible is a serious book and should be taken seriously.

Minister: I take it very seriously. I have my grandmother’s Bible and I still read it, but I don’t take it as literal truth. I take it as metaphorical truth. The stories, the narrative, are what’s important.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints."
Jude 3

What you don't know can kill you.

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children."
Hosea 4:6

The better part of the Old Testament involves God sending His prophets to remind Israel of their sin and that they should turn and repent. Hosea was no exception. The message he brought to the people was one that showed the seriousness of sin and the sweet reconciliation that Christ would bring to sinners one day (even to all the "Gomers" and worse).

There's much to be learned from Hosea for us today. Hosea's message dealt with a holy and just God who will deal with sin at the final judgment and no one will be able to turn a blind eye in His courtroom. At least two things to consider:

1. The weight of knowing your sin and knowing redemption's cost is eternally important.
The Christian doesn't need to know a whole lot of things to be saved, but he better know a lot about the one thing that matters: Jesus. Paul says in Romans 5:1 that our justification through faith has brought us "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." If we now have peace with God, this also means that at one time, we did not have peace with God. Friends, we're being saved from God (his justice against all sin), by God (through His Son, Jesus Christ), and not knowing the reason for the gospel will have eternal ramifications.

R.C. Sproul says: “When the Scriptures tell us that God saves us, that salvation is of the Lord, we tend to forget that salvation is also from the Lord. What do we need to be saved from? We need to be saved from God– not from kidney stones, not from hurricanes, not from military defeats. What every human being needs to be saved from is God. The last thing in the world the impenitent sinner ever wants to meet on the other side of the grave is God. But the glory of the gospel is that the One from whom we need to be saved is the very One who saves us.”

2. "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."
Peter says it well, let us press on to learn and apply that sweet, heartfelt, life-changing knowledge that has the power and force to lift lifeless souls like Lazarus from the grave. Digging into the Bible is savingly sweet. Paul says that he wouldn't trade anything in the world for it; I hope you or I would stand alongside him in saying that as well.

Pray for Haiti

When natural disasters and horrendous tragedies befall us, it doesn't take a Christian to realize that there's something horribly wrong with the way things are turning out. But it takes someone who hopes in Christ to see that there is good coming, and it's eternal.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 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.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

A call to prayer:
1. Pray for comfort to those affected by the earthquake.
King David in his psalm says that the Lord is with him in his walk through the valley of the shadow of death and as he goes through, the rod and staff of God are his comfort. Rods and staffs are tools to straighten out the sheep but also for the shepherd to lovingly guide his flock to the safe destination. And for those who believe, that destination is the bosom of Christ Himself. He is making all things new. Destruction will, one day, be no more. Tears will, one day, be no more. Even death will, one day, be no more. Pray that the people in Haiti would be able to hope and trust in the promise of Revelation 21.

2. Pray that people would turn to and stay in Christ.
There is no promise of future hope or grace if, even, we ourselves do not hold to Christ's atoning sacrifice; only second death. Pray that believers in Haiti would mobilize by living out the gospel with their lives as they tend to the immediate needs of their neighbors but that their helping of their bodies would be a means to show the need for Christ. Also, pray that this would not lead people away from Christ lest they become as those who are called faithless like the Apostle John says. Let's hope that something of this magnitude would lead many to Jesus.

3. Pray for prayer.
There is no greater work that man can invest in than the work of prayer. Yes, Jesus commands us to do our part in standing alongside those in need; we absolutely must go! But consider the inability of man to do any of the above: man cannot comfort with his own words nor can he make people believe in Christ. But God can. Pray to the God who works all things together for good. And be confident knowing that Christ, the most obedient servant of them all, is interceding on your behalf for even those that are suffering thousands of miles away.

Live to Declare, Sow to Reap.

A pastor recently tweeted the following:

“Preach the gospel; if necessary use words” is like saying “Tell me your phone number; if necessary use digits.”

Now, we've all heard it said before that "if necessary used words." I like what this pastor has to say, but I want to be cautious about how we should treat this because there is truth on both sides of the fence whether you're declaring with your mouth and your lips the heralded gospel or living the life that Christ set you apart for. But here's the truth of the matter: you don't separate the two.

1. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the preaching of the gospel, which is the Word of God.
There is no way around proclaiming the truth of the gospel without declaring what is behind the message; and the message cannot be delivered unless it is spoken. Paul in Romans 10 says: "And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!'” Gospel means good news, but if you don't preach it, it can't be heard. And lest you think that this is a legalistic matter and you're tired of hearing people talk, talk, talk the gospel I would ask you not to forget the ramifications of sharing the gospel in certain parts of the world. People die for talking. Don't forget Stephen who died speaking the Word of God in front of the Jewish council. Words are costly and weighty; choose the right ones.

2. Spirit-filled action accompanies heartfelt words.
James says, "Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works." There is a way to do ministry where you can simply do what you ought to do without having the heart that the task requires. The practical example is a preacher who doesn't strive to be intimate with what he preaches. I can love the Puritans for writing what they wrote because of how eloquent and convicting their words are, but if their words are not backed by the history of immense suffering that they endured then they lose weight. So when the old Puritan, Thomas Watson, says, "Faith lives in a broken heart," I want to believe it.

But who cares what people have to say, I want to hear see from Jesus. Why are Christ's words so heavy and piercing? Because He accomplishes what He says He will. Everything. He claims Godhood and owns up to every prophetic word ever delivered about Him and crucifies it on Himself. Jesus isn't just talk. He accomplished redemption to the dot. Why else would God tell His people: "Be holy as I am holy." He cannot demand of His people what He is not; shouldn't we struggle against ourselves to be likewise?

I do agree, you can't call upon Jesus unless you tell people how and you give people His "phone number" (which is the gospel). Pray for those around the world who are involved in God's work and preaching the gospel with their lives but are looking for the right opportunity to PROCLAIM it to those they are working with. Pray that God would use both their ability to live out the gospel but also that they wouldn't shrink when given the chance to declare the truth to those who need Christ.