Month: September 2024

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,To God our Savior, Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen.
Jude 24 and 25

It’s very clear in scripture that grace is the power of God that saves us. The same grace that saves also sanctifies and protects the believer in his walk of faith. Since Jesus is the channel through which grace reaches humanity, Christ is our Savior, Sanctifier, and “Him Who is Able to Keep You From stumbling.”

The very short book of Jude serves as a warning to Christians that apostates (defectors from the faith) will try to throw spiritual roadblocks in their path. He urges the saints to be strong and contend earnestly for the faith.

Progress in the Christian life is like walking or running. Anything thrown on the path, not just false doctrine, can cause a believer to stumble. Believers can fall into sin, get tripped up by doubts, or be sidelined by fears and depression. When a follower of the Lord Jesus goes to Him in moments like these, it not only keeps him from stumbling, but also presents him faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.

Through the years, I have counseled many struggling believers. Although their problems might be about doubts, fears, finances, or relationships, sin is usually at its core. Drug addiction, alcoholism, and pornography have huge holds on people, and rarely do generic advice and a simple prayer ever work.

It takes time and a lot of hard work to rebuild trust and dependency on Christ. It’s easy to believe that, as Savior, Jesus can keep you out of hell. It takes desire to grow deeper in the spiritual relationship to trust Him to be your Sanctifier who sets you apart for the Master. Finally, it takes a fresh, new revelation from God to see Christ as Him Who is Able to Keep You From Stumbling. When you do, though, you realize He can give you the power to break free from the things bringing you down.

August 9

….You are a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 5:6*

Talk about job security – forever is a long time. As priest, Christ has offered the sacrifice, atoned for the sins of God’s people, and interceded on our behalf to God. The perfect priest offered the perfect sacrifice, so that part of His service is over; “It is finished” (John 19:30). The intercession aspect of His ministry is ongoing.

The Lord Jesus pleads our case before God when we sin, fail to see his revealed will, or are unthankful. He’s also there to instruct and encourage us, as well as set us apart for God’s service. These are wonderful and necessary things He does, but He won’t be doing them forever.

When the saints of God are called up to glory, our old sinful nature will finally be destroyed and, entering heaven, we will be holy, just as He is holy, never to sin again. We’ll be with Him; we’ll be like Him. At that point, we won’t need an intercessor.

Every time the title “Priest Forever” appears in scripture it’s always followed by the phrase, “according to the order of Melchizedek.” This added information is also very important, or it wouldn’t occur in the Bible five times.

Melchizedek was the Priest/King of Salem that greeted Abraham after his victory over the four mighty kings of the east. He blessed the Patriarch and received tithes from Him. He was God’s representative to Abraham and demonstrated power and authority.

Since the Savior is a Priest Forever according to the order of Melchizedek, He will bless God’s people throughout all eternity. As the King/Priest of the universe, He will reign over everything with justice and raise up the banner of holiness.

*see also Hebrews 6:20, 7:17 and 21; all quoting from Psalm 110:4

August 8

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1 Corinthians 1:24

Many of the classic paintings of Christ from the Middle Ages and Renaissance show an emaciated man with a pale face, scrawny arms, and ribs showing through His skin. The idea was to show the horrors of the crucifixion, but the Lord looks pathetic. It would make one think, “How could this skinny guy be ‘Savior of the World,’ much less the ‘Power of God?’”

Certainly, “the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25), but people tend to miss the strength of God even when it’s obvious. Jesus was no weakling. He walked through the middle of an angry mob that wanted to kill Him in His home town of Nazareth, and then the crowd just melted away at His boldness (Luke 4:28-30). He called the Jewish religious leaders hypocrites to their faces (Matthew 23:13-15) and threw the buyers and sellers out of the temple – twice! (John 2:14-15; Matthew 21:12-13). He stood up to Judas and his army of thugs and impressed Pontius Pilate with His self-control at His trial. If He wanted or felt He needed them, He could have summoned twelve legions of angels at any time, but this powerful man had everything under control. He was, after all, the Power of God on earth.

As Creator, He made both visible and invisible worlds by the power of His Word and is, in fact, the force that holds the universe together (Colossians 1:16-17). He is the commander-in-chief of all the good angels and has disarmed all the principalities and powers of Satan and his demonic host (Colossians 2:15).

Immanuel is God with us, man’s very present connection to the Almighty. Christ Jesus is the source of all energy, the force behind the universe, the Power of God.

August 7

This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying,
“These men are the servants of the Most High God,
who proclaim to us the way of salvation.”
Acts 16:17

The Apostle Paul and his evangelistic team were led by the Holy Spirit to take their message to Europe, so they began preaching in Philippi, one of the chief cities in Greece. This was a whole new territory, and the satanic opposition was evident. Almost from the very beginning of their time there, a demon-possessed girl followed them and became very distracting. In her spirit-affected voice, she announced the missionaries to be “Servants of the Most High God.” Paul cast the demon out, but the opposition just intensified.

It is a very curious thing to note that this title of Christ actually came through demonic channeling. Demons are nothing more than the fallen angels who were cast out of heaven by the LORD of Glory, so they know who He is. When Jesus approached the demoniac in the county of the Gadarenes, the man fell down before the Lord and the voices inside him also recognized Christ as “Jesus, Son of the Most High God” (Luke 8:28). This was no profession of faith on the part of the evil spirits, but an acknowledgment that He was their God and would one day condemn them to go into the abyss.

The Apostle James makes this point when he wrote: “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe — and tremble!” (James 2:19). Actually, the dark host has a better response to the Savior than the stiff-necked human race does. Demons acknowledge Christ’s deity, bow down before Him, and believe that their punishment is sure. They, however, rebelled willfully against their Creator, so the grace of God was never extended to them, and their doom is a sure thing.

People, on the other hand, were deceived into sinning, so God provided a way to escape through the blood of the Crucified One. Salvation is extended to those who approach Christ in faith, confessing their sin, and acknowledging Him as the Most High God.

August 6

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you
are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Colossians 2:9,10

Not 10%, not 50%, not even 90%, but 100% of the fullness of the Godhead belonged to Christ. What does that mean, exactly? It means that all that is God (i.e. His power, His majesty, His holiness, His character) was bound up in the body of Jesus. Nothing was missing. He wasn’t a condensed form of deity; He was the real deal.

Having the  Fullness of the Godhead in bodily form took nothing away from the Father, but allowed the Creator to touch and redeem His creation in ways He couldn’t do as a distant deity. “For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:19,20).

True faith in the Savior includes and concludes that He is God. He always was and always will be. There is only one True God, and the Lord Jesus is the manifestation of that Supreme Being. The Son of God isn’t inferior to God the Father and never took away anything from the Father. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Philippians 2:5,6).

The realization that Jesus is the Fullness of the Godhead should shake people up. It certainly did in the first century. Many of those who shouted “Crucify Him!” or jeered at Him, or spit on His face, later fell down on their knees with fear and repentance when they realized they allowed the Prince of Life to be put to death.

Today, most people just don’t get it. They either don’t know that Jesus is the Fullness of the Godhead, or they really don’t understand what that means. They demean and reject Christ’s sovereignty and control over their lives by viewing Him as less than God.

Christ knows all, sees all, and has existed for all eternity. When He lived and walked on earth, in His body was the Fullness of the Godhead.

August 5

Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
John 8:48

Samaritan – the word doesn’t bring up any emotional response or gut reaction in our day and age, but at the time it was given, it was a put-down of the basest sort. Jewish people looked down on their neighbors to the north because they were foreign transplants to the land of promise and, even after centuries of living there, were still unwelcome.

The term also had connotations of being a heretic, because although the Samaritans wanted to worship Yahweh, they did so at the wrong mountain and in the wrong manner. By equating Jesus with those undesirables, the Jewish leaders could switch from discussing issues with the Master to simply dismissing any argument He could give, because He was beneath them.

The main problem with trying to use racial slurs to insult Christ is that He loved everyone, including the Samaritans. He purposely traveled through Samaria to reach out to a wayward woman, and then preached to her village, where He was hailed as “the Christ, the Savior of the world” (John 4:42). In Jesus’ parable of “the Good Samaritan,” the Samaritan was portrayed as the good guy and the Jewish leaders as hypocrites. Finally, when the Lord healed ten lepers, only the Samaritan in the group came back to give thanks. Jesus commended him and told him “Your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19).

The Lord Jesus wears all His titles well, even the derogatory ones. Bigoted men and women appear in every age and culture. They would try to ignore Christ because they feel He is unworthy of their time and effort. He still loves them all the same and wants them to break through their hate and prejudice so they can approach Him in faith as Savior of the World.

August 4

Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
James 5:4*

The names of Christ can be a little confusing if you don’t expend some effort  to figure it out. For instance, a lot of people think that the title above is just another spelling for “Lord of the Sabbath” which is found three times in the gospels. That is certainly not the case.

Lord of Sabaoth has its root in the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh Tsebaoth, which was transliterated into the Greek and then into English. An actual translation would be “LORD of Hosts” or “LORD Almighty.” This name emphasizes God’s absolute power over everything in both the physical and spiritual universe.

The verse above comes from a section where the apostle James addresses rich believers in the church in very unflattering terms. When he reaches the point where he brings up the fact that they are defrauding their workers of their wages, he presents the Lord Jesus as the Lord of Sabaoth. Instead of using a title of Christ that might invoke thoughts of love and mercy, the apostle tries to show how serious the offence was. The LORD of hosts, the LORD Almighty is hearing the cries of the workers; they should consider this and tremble.

The only other reference to Lord of Sabaoth is found in Romans 9: 29 where it is quoting Isaiah 1:9. That Old Testament verse reads “Unless the LORD of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, We would have become like Sodom, We would have been made like Gomorrah.”

Again the writer is trying to invoke the fear of God into the reader. Sometimes even blood-bought Christians forget who the Lord Jesus is. He is not only our Savior, Redeemer, and friend; He is the Lord of Sabaoth, the LORD Almighty.

*see also Romans 9:29

November 19

And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David.
Luke 1:69

The day John the Baptist was born, God gave his father, Zacharias the priest, a special prophesy that not only related to his son being chosen by God to be a “prophet of the highest” (Luke 1:76) but also of the coming Messiah. Filled with the Holy Spirit, the old man proclaimed that God had risen up the Horn of Salvation from the house of David.

The horn of a bull or ox was a well-established symbol of power in the Old Testament (see Deuteronomy 33:17; 1 Samuel 2:10; Psalm 75:10). The bronze altar had horns at its four corners representing God’s strength available in every direction. The false prophet Zedekiah made a set of iron horns to convince King Ahab to attack Ramoth Gilead saying, “Thus says the LORD: ‘With these you shall gore the Syrians until they are destroyed.'” (1 Kings 22:11). Truly the object lesson was impressive, but the message did not come from God, so Ahab was killed in battle just as the true prophet, Micaiah, predicted.

King David twice called the LORD the “Horn of his Salvation (2 Samuel 22:3; Psalm 18:2) because he realized that it was God who gave him his victories and delivered him from his enemies. The Horn of Salvation also refers to God’s mighty power to save a soul from sin and death and hell. Jesus, whose very name means Salvation, was God’s instrument for thrusting through and bringing down the strongholds of Satan.

Salvation seems so easy from the human viewpoint, even a little child can ask for and receive salvation. However, most people aren’t saved, because the enemies of God (the world, the flesh, and the devil) set up obstacles to faith to prevent them from ever being saved. The good news is that there is no force in the universe that can stand up to Jesus Christ when they are gored with the Horn of Salvation.

November 16

You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image
on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces.
Daniel 2:34

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon struck terror in the hearts of his subjects and all those in the neighboring countries around him. His word was law and his laws weren’t always rational. One night the king had a disturbing dream, but by morning he couldn’t remember a thing, so he called all his wise men and magicians. “You guys are supposed to be smart,” Nebu said, “Tell me what my dream was!”

When no one in the national think tank could do what the king commanded, he went into a rage and ordered the execution of all his advisers. A young, Jewish captive, named Daniel, had just started interning for the wise men when he found out that he was also scheduled to die. Concerned about his future, Daniel asked God to fill him in on the dream, so that night, the Lord gave him the same vision He had given to the king.

Daniel then related to Nebuchadnezzar what he saw in his dream. There was a huge statue made with parts of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay, but an even greater stone cut out without hands fell from heaven and ground down the awesome image into powder.

The king also heard the interpretation of the dream. Babylon was the golden head of the statue, which meant it was the richest and greatest. Lesser kingdoms would follow one after another and each would have less glory than the one it replaced. The young eunuch then explained the pulverizing stone: “Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold [—] the great God has made known to the king what will come to pass after this” (Daniel 2:45). All the great empires of the world will come to nothing by the power of God.

Egypt once ruled the world. now it’s a big sand box. Babylon the Great lies desolate and uninhabited in the desert. Greece is bankrupt, Rome is a tourist trap, and the Soviet Union has ceased to exist. Even the greatness and power of the United Sates is waning in the shadow of the Stone cut Out Without Hands, the Lord Jesus Christ.

November 15

By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.
Hebrews 7:22

“Better” is a key word in understanding the Epistle to the Hebrews. Although the words appear a total of 34 times in ten different New Testament books, it occurs 13 times in 12 verses in Hebrews. Here, Christ is presented as better than the angels and offers us a better hope, better promises, a better sacrifice, and a better resurrection. The Savior is also a Surety of a Better Covenant, whatever that means.

Let’s start with a better known word, covenant. The idea is an agreement or contract. The Old Testament was a pact between God and the descendants of Israel. In the arrangement, God would provide a land for their inheritance, protect them from their enemies, and bless them with prosperity. The Jewish people, for their part, promised to obey God’s law and worship Him at a designated place. However, in the end, they refused to do their part, so the whole agreement broke down.

That’s when Christ came offering a better covenant based on better promises. This new deal was for everyone, not just the Jewish people. It allowed God to unilaterally take care of the sin problem by transforming the sinner into a child of God with changed actions and attitudes. People had to simply believe that Christ conquered sin by dying on the cross. They needed to sign the contract by agreeing with God that what He said was true.

Now comes the part that few people understand. Jesus is the Surety of a Better Covenant. He’s the guarantee that the deal is going to go through. He’s the signing bonus, the proof that everything in the rest of the contract (i.e. eternal life, home in heaven, spiritual blessing, etc.) will be honored. The Savior already died on the cross for mankind’s sin; that was the hard part; all the rest is easy by comparison. “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Christ is faithful and true, because He is the Surety of a Better Covenant.

November 14