Month: September 2024

And having been perfected, He became the
author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him,
Hebrews 5:9*

When it comes to salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ wrote the book. He’s its author. He thought it up. He is its source. He alone saves. Without Christ, mankind is hopelessly lost.

Read the scriptures: “I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior” (Isaiah 43:11).

“Yet I am the LORD your God ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but Me; For there is no savior besides Me” (Hosea 13:4).

“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

There is one Lord, one God, and one Author of Eternal Salvation.

Christ also defines the terms of salvation. It is eternal. Far from being a mere escape from punishment, it is a condition that stays in effect forever: “But Israel shall be saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; You shall not be ashamed or disgraced Forever and ever” (Isaiah 45:17).

Oh! The height and depth of His boundless love,
And His mercy who can tell,
When He came to the cross from the throne above
To save our souls from hell!

Salvation! Salvation! Vast, full and free;
Through the precious blood of the Son of God
Who was slain on Calvary.
                     – T.D.W. Muir (1855 -1933)

*See also Hebrews 2:10

July 11

Through the tender mercy of our God, with which the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Luke 1:78-79

Malaria is a terrible disease. I know; I had it. Look up the symptoms in an encyclopedia: high fever, severe chills, uncontrollable shaking, and sweat so profuse that you soak the sheets, the blanket, and the mattress. However, the worst part of the illness is never on the list. No one ever mentions it.

When I had malaria, I went almost three days without sleep. One of life’s simplest comforts was denied to me by this horrible disease. By far, the worst part was enduring the nights. I heard every tick of the clock and felt every beat of my heart. My mind raced, but time stood still in the darkness and refused to move. I longed for sleep, and when that was not possible, I longed for the dawn. When an empty eternity finally passed away, morning broke on the horizon and lit up the world. I felt easy. I could rest. There was great comfort in that Dayspring.

At the birth of John the Baptist, his father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Spirit and began to prophesy. He foretold that his son would be a prophet of the Highest. More importantly, he announced the coming of the Dayspring from on High: Jesus Christ.

The Jewish nation had passed through a long and agonizing night. Four Gentile empires had ravished the Jewish people, yet no prophet of the Lord had come forth to speak a word in over 400 years. Herod the Great was the cruel and murderous despot who ruled the land at that time. The faithful were weary from waiting for light.

The Dayspring from on High offered them peace and comfort, just as He does today to all those who are tired and weighted down with sin.

July 10

And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was just
and devout, waiting for the Consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
Luke 2:25

It could have been worse, but then again, it could have been a whole lot better. The year Jesus was born, most of the Jewish people were living in part of the pagan Roman Empire, and those living in Jerusalem were under the control of the wicked King Herod. He was an Edomite, a descendant of Esau whom God had cursed, and not of Jewish ancestry. He had allied Himself with Marc Anthony during the Parthian war, so the Roman Senate declared him king and gave him soldiers to seize the throne. Herod was paranoid of losing his power and executed a number of his sons, whom he suspected of plotting against him. The Emperor Augustus once joked, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son.”

The glory years of Israel were a millennium in the past, and there hadn’t been a descendant of David on the throne for six hundred years. The Jewish people felt forsaken and forgotten by God.

But God hadn’t forgotten His people. He took note of a man named Simeon who was actively praying and waiting for the Lord’s Christ, the Consolation of Israel. He wasn’t satisfied with the status quo and was ready for God to do something. The Lord was also ready to radically change things, so He allowed Simeon to see and hold the baby Jesus, the promised Messiah.

The Savior came to His own, but He became a rejected king. Another two thousand years have gone by without the promises of God to the Jewish people being fulfilled. It is true that the nation of Israel has been reborn, but Jerusalem has no peace. Terrorism and the threat of nuclear annihilation make many still long for the Consolation of Israel.

The Jewish people cannot really be consoled or comforted until they acknowledge Jeshua (Jesus) as their Mashiach (Messiah). Christians need to be continually in prayer for the peace of Jerusalem and the salvation of the Jewish people.

September 19

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”
John 11:25

Words reveal the soul of a culture or civilization. The more words that you have to describe things, the deeper and more complex a society can be. Both English and ancient Greek has tens of thousands of basic non-technical words, while the language of the jungle Quichua tribe has less than one thousand. Even so, in all of these languages there is a word for “resurrection”. It would seem that rising from the dead is basic to human understanding. 

Ancient Egyptians not only had this concept, but had a god of death, the afterlife, and resurrection (Osiris). Many people recognize Baal as a renowned Canaanite god, but don’t realize that he also was a god of dying and rising again. Greek mythology describes the resurrections of Achilles, Castor, and Hercules and both Eastern and animistic religions have resurrection stories.

This is all made more interesting by the fact that none of these people groups have ever really experienced a real return from death. Jesus Christ is the one and only Resurrection and the life, so apart from Him, everything else is myth or wishful thinking.

Human beings have a spirit; animals don’t. Hardwired into that spiritual consciousness is the desire for eternal life and resurrection from the dead. Apart from the Savior there is no hope or possibility to defeat death, even though billionaires today invest their fortunes trying to do just that.

Simple faith in the only One who died and rose again can guarantee a believer’s victory over sin and death, because Christ promised: “And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:26).

Jesus is alive and well and living within every true believer. The Apostle Paul wanted the reality of the resurrected Christ to affect everything he said and did. His credo was “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). To know the Lord Jesus is to know the Resurrection and the Life. 

November 2

But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves.
Malachi 4:2

Here is an astronomical title on the order of morning star and dayspring. It makes us look to the heavens to see things we’ve seen many times before and then relate that to the character of Christ.

The sun not only radiates light and warmth, but is the source of life for everything on the green planet. Without the sun, plants would be unable to carry on photosynthesis which produces food for all living things and without global warming, all water would be ice and nothing could survive. Sunshine is so intense that it will sunburn the retinas of anyone who looks directly at it. Light also reveals the colors and patterns of everything in God’s creation.

Jesus Christ is hailed as the Sun of Righteousness. Just as Earth’s star is the source of all light, the Lord is the source of righteousness to a world of sinful men. The Bible declares, “As it is written: ‘There is none righteous, no, not one’” (Romans 3:10). Even the little goodness we have on our own is gross in the eyes of God: “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

In the Old Testament, God told the city of Jerusalem, “For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, And her salvation as a lamp that burns” (Isaiah 62:1). In the New Testament we see the source of that righteousness; “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Natural sunlight has great therapeutic value. Depression, scabies, and even rickets greatly improve by going outside into bright light. Jesus rises as the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings for a sin-sick world, because He is able to disinfect our human nature by irradiating it with His sinless perfection. That indeed is a glorious Son Rise. 

November 1

Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person,
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins,
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Hebrews 1:3

How do you go about describing color to a blind man? Words simply can’t do it, and the sense of touch is wholly inadequate to relate what it is like. The only means to communicate this knowledge would be to give the gift of sight, without which all theory about light is meaningless.

How do you go about describing an infinite God to a finite mind? A person born in a three dimensional world cannot begin to comprehend a Supreme Being who consists of neither atoms nor energy, but is capable of creating both. God and His glory are totally incomprehensible for mankind unless He chooses to reveal Himself to them.

In ancient times, God used the vehicle of light to communicate His presence. Created on the first day, light is not the essence of God, but it is somehow always intricately associated with Him. A pillar of light guided the Israelites through the wilderness, the “Shekinah” glory glowed over the Ark of the Covenant, and Mount Sinai flashed with God’s holy fire. However, no matter how intense light may appear, it’s only a shadow of what His true glory is really like.

Christ is both the effluence of divine radiance and the gift of sight by which the creature can finally see his Creator. In Him, there is no darkness at all.

The unconverted eye will never see God’s glory, because the spiritually lost are totally blind to it. But those who are saved by grace are given eyes of faith to see. For them, the focus will forever be on the Lord, who is the Brightness of God’s Glory.

July 9

He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood,
and His name is called The Word of God.
Revelation 19:13

Ask any Sunday school child, and unless he has Attention Deficit Disorder, he should be able to tell you that the Bible is the Word of God. The phrase is well understood and the New Testament uses the term thirty-six times to refer to scripture.

Fewer folks know that the book of Revelation also gives Christ this title just before describing the great battle of Armageddon. And yet there is no contradiction between these two uses of the phrase. In one sense, they are two forms of the same thing.

The Bible is the written Word of God. It was given to reveal the nature and will of God to the world. Its essential message is that since sin separates people from fellowship with their Creator, God needs to provide a way for them back to Himself. Jesus is seen throughout Holy Writ as the source of salvation, redeeming men and women from judgment. In story, symbol, and illustration, the Lord Jesus Christ is presented over and over again. Even Old Testament law was given to be a tutor to bring people to Christ so that they might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24).

The Lord Jesus is the living Word of God. He is the whole revelation of God in bodily form. When the elements of the world finally melt away on Judgment Day, there will be no need to preserve the Bible in scrolls, books, or on computer chips. The Word of God will always be alive and well, dwelling among the redeemed of earth in heaven.

July 8

From the end of the earth I will cry to You, When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
Psalm 61:2

David cried out to God when he felt afraid. Yes, big bad David, the giant killer, felt overwhelmed at times, but He took comfort in something much bigger than himself.

As strange as it might seem, I totally get what David is saying here; been there, done  that. Many years ago, I had my own secret place that no one but God and I knew about. It was my own rock that is higher than I.

Sometime during my college years, I was walking along the Chagrin River in a park  just east of Cleveland, Ohio when I came upon an interesting geological formation. A huge rock, maybe 25 feet high and at least that much wide, had broken off from the cliff face behind it. A space ranging from 3-6 feet was behind it. Front and backsides of the enclosure went straight up, giving the impression of a well-lit cave. I fell in love with the place as soon as I found it and since it was really hard to see that it was anything special, few would ever find it. I scooped up candy wrappers and cigarette butts from the dirt floor so that I could pretend that no one else in the world knew about it, and I gave it a name: “Castle Rock.”

It was really peaceful there. I could be alone with my God and just think and pray. At the end of summer, just before both my junior and senior years began, I was really stressed. College had become progressively more challenging and I was afraid that I wasn’t going to make it. I was overwhelmed, so I would go up to Castle Rock (I even took lunch once) to cry out to God and find peace.

The last time I visited there was almost 50 years ago. If I went back there now, I know I’d find it again (assuming my knees would hold up on the trail). That monolith isn’t going anywhere and that’s why I felt so secure hiding behind it.

In the years that followed, I never found any other place that was quite as special, but I’ve had the same feeling of tranquility many times since then. Now, I just take shelter in Jesus. He’s my Rock that is Higher than I.

July 7

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life…
1 John 1:1

Words are not alive. To a bored teenager enduring English class, words can be as dead as the inscription engraved in stone on some ancient tomb. Even literature that is deemed immortal often sits dead and dust covered for years until a reader takes it down from the shelf and puts his own life into it.

On the other hand, Jesus Christ is the living, moving, Word of Life. Purpose and enthusiasm are gained from knowing Him. From that perspective, life and living before the encounter seem to have been a mere illusion.

Counterfeit Christianity seems dull by comparison to true faith because it is dead. Knowing Christ produces a hunger and thirst for His fellowship that ritualism can never imitate. The redeemed of the Lord long to see their Savior because He is the source of their existence. However, because of where we are right now in God’s present plan, the priority is faith over sight.

Believers cling to the written Word because it is a vehicle for knowing the true living Word. Through scripture there is communion with Christ, a defining of direction and a strengthening of faith. The world can’t understand it, but the Bible isn’t a normal book. It’s the Reader’s Digest version of the Word of Life.

Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life,
Let me more of their beauty see, wonderful words of life;
Words of life and beauty teach me faith and duty.
Beautiful words, wonderful words, wonderful words of life.                                           – Philip P. Bliss (1838-1876)

July 6

When the Angel of the LORD appeared no more to Manoah and his wife, then Manoah knew that He was the
Angel of the LORD. And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God!”
Judges 13:21-22*

There is one God, but He is revealed to us in three separate ways. So teaches the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Christ is the “second person” of the Trinity. He distinguishes Himself from the Father and the Holy Spirit, because He has visible, physical form.  Being God, the Lord Jesus has no beginning or end. He always existed. So, what did He do with His time between creating the universe and His advent at Bethlehem? Christ did what we know Him for today: He visited His creation.

The Old Testament describes many physical appearances of God that theologians like to call “theophanies.” Since Jesus is the physical manifestation of the Deity, then we can conclude that Christ came to earth before He was born in the manger.  The most common theophany we come across is the appearance of the Angel of the LORD. The title comes up on a dozen occasions in the Old Covenant. In them, He speaks as God and identifies Himself as such.

It was the Angel of the LORD who appeared to Moses in the burning bush when He called Himself the great “I AM” (Exodus 3:2). The very ground where He appeared was Holy, so Moses took off his shoes. When Abraham saw the Angel of the LORD (Genesis 22:11), he named the place “The-LORD-Will-Provide.” Hagar called the spot of her encounter “You-Are-The-God-Who-Sees” (Genesis 16:7-16). 

Christ appeared in angelic form to Gideon, David, and others. He was not idle as He waited for the fullness of time to come. After being born of a woman and redeeming the lost creation, He still is not idle. He makes Himself known to men and women today in special ways. Many of them, like Moses, fall down on their knees, for they know that the ground of their meeting is Holy.

*See also Genesis 16:9-13, 22:11, 15; Exodus 3:2; Judges 6:11-14, plus 46 other references

July 5