New Testament

Nothing I Desire But… – VOTD.01.08.18

(Paul prays that) you will be given the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the riches of wisdom and knowledge. Colossians 2:2-3

Stretching back into the achieves of Christian worship music, there was a song that was hugely popular in its day. It’s one of the early vertical worship songs I ever knew, and it went like this:

  Lord, You are more precious than silver;
  Lord, You are more costly than gold;
  Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds;
  And nothing I desire compares with You. (Lynn DeShazzo-1982)

Playing off of Proverbs 8:10-11, the song compares God to a number of things that are considered of great value—silver, gold, diamonds—Even 2500 years ago, these were seen as valuable in and of themselves. “Choose my instruction instead of silver, my knowledge rather than choice gold, for (God’s) wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with it.”

That song’s popularity was probably, in part, due to the fact that in its day there was little competition for worship songs that spoke adoration directly to God. Something in our souls was crying out to express to Jesus how much we loved and valued Him. He was always doing such great things for us and we simply wanted to tell Him how grateful we were and how wonderful He was.

Which brings up a point: How much do we desire Jesus? Does our desire for Him surpass all other desires? Or does our preoccupation with currently unmet desires overshadow our gratitude and joy for all He’s already done for us? (more…)

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All Things New – VOTD.01.02.17

And the one who sat on the throne spoke to me and said, “Consider this! I am making everything to be new and fresh.” Revelation 21:5

One of the things that runs through our New Year celebration is Hope. Somehow, starting again gives us hope as we consider all that God has for us in 2018. God promises us that He is continuously making things new for His glory and for our good.

1) God restores us to a right relationship with him through the gift of forgiveness and new life in Jesus. He restores relationships between people. And He even restores days and years that have been lost due to our own sin (Joel 2:25). That’s one of the greatest evidences of the extravagant nature of God’s mercy. Not only does He renew our lives and redeem our future, but He also redeems our past.

In the New Testament, we see Jesus live out a lifestyle of restoration. He restored sight to the blind, the ability to walk to the crippled, hearing to the deaf, and new, clean skin to the diseased (Mk 8:22-26; Matt 9:2-8; Mk 7: 31-37; Lk 5:12-25). In all of these accounts, Jesus didn’t just heal a physical condition. He restored lives, giving hope to broken people. (more…)

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The Old is Gone the New has Arrived – VOTD.01.01.18

His divine power has given to us everything that we need for a godly life, through our knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, through which he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them we may participate in the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world caused by sinful desire. 2 Peter 1:3,4

Today we celebrate a new beginning, and that seems to be the theme in today’s verses. Everything we need to reflect God’s true nature has already been given to us (past tense), so we move out in God’s own nature.

Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm has already been lavished upon us as a love gift from Father God—all because he sees us wrapped in Jesus (Eph 1:3). So everything we could ever need for a life of godliness (the goodness of Jesus expressed in and through us), has already been given to us as a gift because He is powerful enough to do it. All this was lavished on us through our experience of knowing Him.

He called each of us by name, inviting us to experience His goodness for ourselves. That’s a new year resolution I think we can all live with: Experience God’s goodness for myself.

Through this amazing expression of God’s glory and goodness he has imparted to us these fantastic promises: 1) participation in Jesus’ own nature; 2) escape from the corruptive influences and desires that drive this world we live in. (more…)

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We Have Seen His Glory – VOTD.12.25.17

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only. Who came from the Father full of grace and truth. John 1:1,2, 14

We hardly get into John’s Gospel – his attempt to tell a story that is beyond telling (Jn 21:25) – and he explains: “We have seen His glory!” We’ve handled, touched and heard… We encountered the ‘One and Only’…we’ve experienced Jesus.

Everything else John writes is based on that pivotal fact: This is what I’ve experienced. This is my testimony to what I’ve seen; the character of the one I know; “We have seen His glory”.

‘Glory’. Christians often use this biblical word, but we don’t always recognize what it reveals about our God—and the beauty of all He is and does. Moses asked God “I pray You, show me Your glory!” (Ex 33:18). We, today, might long for the same opportunity, because the glory of God attracts us, draws us, and compels us to seek more of Him.

The most common Hebrew word for glory is kabod, meaning “heavy in weight.” When you glorify God, you recognize His importance, or the “weight,” of His uniqueness. Beauty, majesty, and splendor are what we’re attributing to God when we glorify Him. You and I are probably more familiar with the Hebrew word ‘shekinah’. That word never appears in the Bible, but the concept certainly does. (more…)

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Wisdom is Peace-filled – In Heart – VOTD.12.19.17

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons and daughters of God. Matthew 5:9.

Last time we ended with the question, ‘Since Jesus left His peace for all believers (Jn 14:27), why don’t we see more of it?’ Especially since the peace that Jesus gives is often sited in evangelistic messages as one of the greatest reasons to give your life to Jesus? Not all followers of Jesus walk in this kind of peace on a consistent basis. Ever wonder why?

That’s exactly what Jesus was talking about when He spoke today’s verse: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons and daughters of God.” The Body of Christ at large does not put much of a value on sonship and daughtership. We focus on a lot of things, but often that’s not one of them, even though we routinely refer to God as our Father.

So first of all, a peacemaker is known as a son or daughter of God. That means we enjoy peace with God. That’s where peacemaking starts. But peace with God does not display itself in our lives automatically…it’s not simply a byproduct of ‘saying the sinner’s prayer’, or of becoming a Christian.

Of course Jesus has already made peace and we come to God accepting His terms of peace which is Jesus (Rom 5:1, Col 1:19,20). But living in that peace comes from trusting God, and that is a continual growing activity. The more we experience the faithfulness of God, the more we trust Him from the heart, and the more at peace our hearts become. (more…)

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Wisdom is Peaceable – Within – VOTD.12.18.17

But the wisdom from God is always…filled with peace… James 3:17

Christ-like wisdom is filled with peace. It’s peaceable and peace-loving. But what does that mean? Many people think that the opposite of being peaceable is being hostile and mean. But more often, the opposite of peaceable is the perversion of peaceable:

It’s a spirit of wishy-washy. It’s the spirit of ‘don’t make waves’. It’s standing for nothing. It’s selling out to keep the peace. It’s so focused on the absence of conflict that it trades off its personal peace to try to establish a fake peace—an outward appearance that looks like it has no conflict, but turmoil is just below the surface as tensions go underground, swept under the carpet, hoping it will just go away. That kind of ‘peace’ is just a powder keg waiting to blow up. (more…)

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Wisdom is Pure – In Heart – VOTD.12.12.17

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8

Last time we saw that Christ-like wisdom is empowered by the Holy Spirit and is constantly being drawn toward more complete holiness both in our hearts and in how we live. To that we add today’s verse which was spoken by Jesus: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”

And there you have the goal of the Christian life: seeing God… Experiencing our Christian faith in such a way that we are seeing God. It’s all present tense here. Psalm 73:25 says, “Whom have I in heaven but you (that’s future) and on earth there is no one I desire besides you (that’s here and now).”

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that today’s verse is the glue that holds all the rest of Scripture together. It’s the context for the teaching, the history, the stories. “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” How does that work in our everyday life…with our family, at work, in ministry…what does that look like?

To understand that we have to begin with the ‘heart’. In the Bible the ‘heart’ is used to describe the command center of our life. Who you and I are in our totality. It includes our emotions, our rationality, our reason, thoughts, decision-maker (where we make decisions), the place from which our words speak forth… Put it all together and we have a very comprehensive description of who we are. “As a mirror reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person” (Prov 27:19).

Next we need to understand ‘pure’. Pure means ‘undivided’. “Give me an undivided heart, O Lord, that I may wholeheartedly revere your name” (Ps 86:11). Sure, a pure heart is cleansed, but it’s clean because it’s undivided. It’s undivided between God and everything else. Jesus was still talking about this a chapter later when He said, “You can’t serve both God and Mammon” (6:24). You and I can’t server God and stuff—God and anything else. That’s not being pure in heart. That’s a divided heart. (more…)

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Wisdom is Pure – By Faith – VOTD.12.11.17

But the wisdom that comes from God is most of all, pure… James 3:17

Christ-like wisdom is pure since it is a gift from God, but we make a mistake when we think the opposite of pure is always impure—it isn’t; at least not all the time. The opposite of pure is the perversion of pure: it’s puritanical. It’s keeping rules and exerting discipline. It’s adhering to the “traditions of the elders”. Pure wisdom is not a mixture of rules and good intentions. Christ-like wisdom is empowered by the Holy Spirit and is constantly being drawn toward more complete holiness both in our hearts and in our life experience.

When the Holy Spirit is transforming our minds, then our thoughts are being purified…not only that, our desires mirror Jesus’ desires (that’s what real holiness is) in all aspects of life. We desire what God desires and He gives us the desires of our hearts because they are in line with His wisdom.

BUT, when we don’t allow the Holy Spirit to fill our thinking, attitudes, actions and desires, we are left trapped in all kinds of impurity. That’s when we start to rely on rules and traditions to achieve a pseudo-holiness—and the result is that we are puritanical and legalistic. Kind of like the Pharisees of old: hypocrites, knowing the right rules but powerless to actually carry out their ideals. (more…)

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Wisdom: Trustworthiness Brings Trust – VOTD.12.05.17

Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful (trustworthy) over a few things; I will make You ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord. Matthew 25:21

We ended last time asking the question: What do being trustworthy and wisdom have to do with each other? Just this: Wisdom recognizes trust for the incredible value it bestows upon us. Fools can blow off trust, and then wonder why no one believes them—even when they are sincere.

But when we treat the trust of others as a fragile gift… When we recognize that in trusting us people in our lives make themselves vulnerable and that in trusting us they have given us the power to harm them… We begin to recognize just how important maintaining a reputation of trustworthiness is.

When we are trustworthy, people can rely on us. We can be counted on to do what we say we will do. If we make commitments, we follow through on them. Being trustworthy doesn’t mean we will never let others down… we would have to be perfect to pull that off. But it does mean that we take the trust placed in us seriously and have a reputation of living up to it. So trustworthiness is both an attitude and a pattern of behavior that honors the trust placed in us. (more…)

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Wisdom Brings Peace – VOTD.11.28.17

The wisdom from above is always pure, filled with peace… Let your heart be always guided by the peace of Christ, who called you to peace as part of his one body, by always being thankful. James 1:17, Colossians 3:15

There are so many verses in the Bible that combine wisdom, peace and thankfulness. But the bottom line is Peaceless people don’t give thanks. Thankless people don’t have peace.

The expression and mindset of thankfulness has an amazing cleansing or healing nature within us that results in inner peace and when we’re at peace on the inside, external circumstances are changed. “The peace of God which passes understanding” permeates our lives in such a way that it is contagious. Gratitude brings the Spirit of peace to the giver and the receiver alike.

To really experience God’s peace, we must come to Him with thankful hearts. To really express thankfulness within us (and outwardly), we must “let the peace of Christ guide (our) hearts, since as members of one body (we) were called to peace and thankfulness” (Col 3:15)

Peace isn’t the absence of difficult circumstances. And we know that we can pray about these difficulties. But praying is not all that we can do. Paul wrote, “Do not be anxious about anything”—good start, but how? He continues, “but in everything by prayer and supplication WITH THANKSGIVING let your requests be made known to God. And THEN the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7 emphasis added). (more…)

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