Author: rickkhol

Masters, give your bondservants what is just and
fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
Colossians 4:1

In this day and age, it is hard to imagine that there were ever slave owners who were true Christians. During the time of the Roman Empire, when slaves comprised 75% of the population, it would have been difficult to imagine that society could function without the practice. Christianity changes people, and from there, the civilization changes.

The Apostle Paul advocated for slaves, because many of the early believers were considered the property of others. He appealed to their Masters that they were Christ’s slaves and had a Master in Heaven. They needed to show mercy and respect to the men and women who served them, if they believed that Christ would give them mercy and forgiveness.

The applications of these verses are still valid today even though the socioeconomic structure of our culture is very different. In the modern church, there are business owners and administrators who still boss people around and can make or break those who work for them. They, too, need to be reminded that they have a Boss in Heaven who is also watching them to see how they handle their own human resources.

In the first century, sometimes slaves would be elders in the church and teach their owners spiritual truths. God wanted everyone treated with love and without partiality. The Christian boss in the last-century church needs to realize that God is more interested in just and fair treatment of employees than He is about the business’s bottom line. That employer needs to remember that he also has a Master in Heaven.

 February 1

To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He
might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:26

Many years ago, my family lived in a small Quichua village in Ecuador, South America. Our house was separated from a Christian school by a short path that ran about 500 feet through the jungle. I’d make the trip from home to school several times a day, and even our two year old son, Stephen, would often go back and forth.

Once as I was studying in my office, I heard my son give off a horrifying scream. I instantly knew what was happening. Ants!!

I ran as fast as I could and saw him standing in a swarm of army ants. I picked him up and immediately started ripping off his clothes as I ran back to the house. As soon as I touched my son, the ants started biting me too, but that didn’t matter. Those ants could kill a toddler, but I planned on hurting them more than they hurt me. We bathed my boy in cold water, and then he cried himself to sleep. That was good; he was safe.

The next day, I went out with a five-gallon can of gasoline and poured the liquid down every ant hill I could find around our house. When I lit one hill, I could hear the flames moving back and forth under the ground and then a plume of flame would shoot up from another entrance. I could hear the fire working its destruction under my feet. I know that I killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ants that day, but I felt no remorse and no pity. Those ants had attacked and could have killed my son! They tried to hurt me! They were not going to hurt my family again. What I did was just.

My justice protected my loved ones, but nearly wiped out the offending creatures. If I had love for the ants and could speak their language, maybe I could have warned them of the fiery judgment that was coming. If I could have saved them from their destruction, I would have been their justifier because I would have given them a way to escape. Of course, that part didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that what I did wasn’t just.

The Lord Jesus Christ is both Just and the Justifier of the believers. He not only has judged sin, but has also taken that judgment on Himself, so that His people can escape the wrath of God to come.

 January 31 

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you
and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come,
and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne.
Revelation 1:4

I heard the angel of the waters saying: “You are righteous,
O Lord,The One who is and who was and who is to be,
Because You have judged these things”
Revelation 16:5

Jesus always was, always is, and always will be. That’s the main idea in these verses, but timelines are a little blurred when it comes to Him who is eternal. Christ existed before time was conceived and will be so even when every clock and calendar have melted away. Therefore, things past and things future are written in the present tense in the book of Revelation.

The Apostle John had a vision of angels pouring out bowls of the wrath of God on planet Earth on the Day of Judgment and heard those same angels praising Him who is to be. This future event is so sure that it’s as if it already happened. It’s a done deal.

In the same way, the return of Christ is an absolute because He said it would happen. “He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

The imminent return of Christ was constantly on the minds of the Apostles and the New Testament church. The church in Thessalonica even thought that they blinked and missed it. During each of the ten major persecutions of the Roman Empire, Christians expected the Lord to come at any moment. Then, during the religious wars of the Reformation, and now with Christians tortured and killed for their faith in the Middle East, true believers expect the King of kings to return soon and very soon.

In C.S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, there is a dialogue between Aslan and Lucy: “Do not look sad. We shall soon meet again,” says Aslan. “Please, Aslan,” said Lucy, “What do you call soon?” “I call all times soon,” said Aslan; and instantly he vanished away.

The same Jesus Who is to Come is also The One Who is to Be.

 January 30 

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you
and peace …from Him who is and who was and who is to come,
and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne…
Revelation 1:4

Jesus was a historical figure. The fact that He existed and was crucified by Pontius Pilate is almost universally accepted by all serious historians. Flavius Josephus mentioned Him in his Antiquities of the Jews, written for the Emperor Domitian in AD 93, and the effect of Christ’s life and teachings on the Roman Empire and Western Civilization are undeniable. Obviously, Christ is Him Who Was.

Yet there is great debate on exactly who He was. Many refused to believe that the founder of one of world’s biggest religions was God incarnate, the Son of God, King of kings, or the High and Lofty One. So, beginning in the 1700s, scholars have pursued “quests for the historical Jesus.” They discounted the thousands of ancient manuscripts of the New Testament as biased and unreliable, instead embracing any piece of secular commentary to form their opinion. Views of who Jesus really was range from heretic to healer to charismatic teacher, but none of these extra-biblical searches concluded that He was anyone capable of changing the known world or someone worthy to die for.

Herein lies the fallacy of their conclusions. Christ did change the world, and millions of martyrs preferred death to denying their Lord of lords.

Those who reject who Jesus says He was reject Him Who Was. World scholars never undertook quests to find the historical Buddha or historical Muhammad. Why would they? The leaders of these religions also discount the deity of Christ, so they are basically in agreement.

The miraculous and supernatural aspects of the Lord Jesus can never be proved to someone who refuses to believe, and “historical facts” are really myths if they are written by critics of the Jewish Messiah or to counter the Christian faith.

The gospels declare the life and teachings of the Christ, Him Who was. Everyone eventually either accepts Him or rejects Him.

 January 29 

John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you
and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come,
and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne.
Revelation 1:4

In the introduction to the book of Revelation of Jesus Christ, the Apostle John begins with a benediction from Him Who Is, and who was, and who is to come. The blessing came from Jesus Christ who occupies all the aspects of the time-line.

The title “Him Who Is” is significant in two distinct ways. The first, in a very real sense, is a title of God. Yahweh told Moses that His name was “I am” (Exodus 3:14), and Jesus took this title for Himself on a number of occasions (John 8:24 and 58, 9:9, 18:5). Grammatically speaking, the term is given in the first-person singular. The same term, to be referred to in the third person, would be “He is,” or a more literary phrase, “He Who Is.” John starts his book of Revelation focusing on Jesus Christ the Divine.

The name communicates the same message as “I am,” which is that He is eternally present – always existing. His relationship with Abraham was as fresh and contemporary as it was with Moses or the Apostle Paul. Therefore, Christ’s role as HimWho Is means that He is also there for me. The Savior doesn’t grow old or get too busy.

The second aspect of the title is the reality of the Son of God. Jesus is. He exists. He is here and now. He is real.

Too many people today regard Jesus as a myth. There are even theologians who don’t literally believe the miracles and stories of the gospels, so are prone to mix fiction with these facts. Christ takes on the person of a folk hero who is famous and interesting, but not real.

The Lord was not only a historical figure who lived and breathed 2,000 years ago; He is alive and well today. Believers still walk and talk with Him and can testify that He is real. In fact, just today I had a conversation with Him Who Is.

 January 28 

Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men,
but chosen by God and precious.
1 Peter 2:4

How do you tell the difference between a living stone and a non-living stone? Ask it a question and if it doesn’t respond, assume it is dead.

Earth is a living sphere with organisms abounding on every square inch of the planet’s surface. Hundreds of millions of bacteria can live in a drop of water, and scores of dust mites can fit on the head of a pin. Yet, if you add the weight of every whale, elephant, insect, and all of the other living things in the world, it would still be less than 1/1000th of 1% of earth’s total mass.

Most everything around us is inert matter. Rock, sand, water, air, minerals, and magma are most of what this place is made of, and none of it is alive. Heaven is a different story. I imagine life to be everywhere, even in things that are quite dead down here. The old laws of physics and biology won’t apply in the New Jerusalem. After all, the Bible talks about living stones and living water.

Probably 99.999% of all preachers will tell you that the verse above is to be interpreted figuratively, meaning it’s an illustration to help us understand spiritual truth. Old Testament worship centered around the temple in Jerusalem, which was built with massive, beautiful, quarried stones. Under the new covenant, the church is not a building or even an organization, but an organism. Its believers are edified together as living stones on the foundation of Christ, who is the principal Living Stone. The idea is to compare and contrast how things were before Christ died on the cross and the change that happened afterwards. It’s really not supposed to be taken literally.

However, if you want to have a little fun with it, think outside the box. John the Baptist preached that “God is able to raise up children of Abraham from […] stones” (Matthew 3:9). If we’re supposed to take this power of God literally, why can’t I, with my wild imagination, do the same with the verse above. I can see Jesus in heaven somehow manifesting Himself as a real, honest to goodness Living Stone, with the beauty of a ruby, the luster of a diamond, and the intricacies of marble. Wow – that’s no ordinary stone!

 January 27 

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45

As long as there have been villains who are willing to kill and hurt innocents for profit, there have been wealthy people willing to pay the bad guys off so that it doesn’t happen. Since there is no standard rate for a kidnapping, the size of the ransom doesn’t depend on the value of the victim as much as the bank account of the one paying the tab.

In 1932, Charles Lindbergh paid $50,000 to the kidnappers of his son, only to discover later that they murdered the boy even before the ransom was paid.

The ransom of Patty Hearst was $6 million in 1974. The enormity of the sum shocked many people, but 22 years later, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ku Shing, paid $134 million for the release of his son.

Historically, these prices are low. When Julius Caesar was 25 years old, he was captured by Sicilian pirates and ransomed for 8,522 pounds of silver. King Richard the Lion-Hearted was released by his captors after 65,000 pounds of silver was paid – the modern equivalent of $3.3 billion. Atahualpa, emperor of the Incan Empire, was strangled by Spanish Conquistadors after 13,000 pounds of gold and 26,000 pounds of silver were paid for his release (roughly $34 billion today).

But none of these compares to the ransom paid by Jesus Christ for the lost human race. There are no deeper pockets than those found on the Creator of the Stars. He could have made a solid gold planet or listed a galaxy on the real estate exchange, but none of these could “ransom mankind” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

In giving the only thing in heaven that couldn’t be recreated, God overpaid for the deliverance of sinful man. Jesus paid it all and for all. He’s not only the ransom for many; He’s the ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:6). Not everyone is saved, because not everyone responds in faith to the salvation that is already paid for. What a pity!

 January 26 

There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save
and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?
James 4:12

At first glance, I’d put this name of Christ in my folder of “Who’da thunk it?” titles. After all, we’re now under grace and not under the law. This sounds more like the God of the Old Testament and not like Jesus Christ of the New.

At second glance, it’s my theology that needs reworking, and not the classification of this title. There are not two Gods, one for each Testament. We don’t even have three, which is how some people understand the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. There is one God who always existed and never changes. Anything different from that is just wrong.

Lawgiver is one name given to the LORD in the Old Testament: “For the LORD is our Judge, The LORD is our Lawgiver, The LORD is our King; He will save us” (Isaiah 33:22). The verse also mentions the LORD as Judge, King, and the one who saves. All these titles belong to Christ.

It’s true that grace is emphasized in the New Testament, but grace was shown all through the Old Testament (e.g., in Genesis 6:8 when it says “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD”).

Jesus clearly taught that He didn’t come to undo the law, but fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). The Savior never sinned; He kept the whole law and taught His disciples to keep the law and not to sin (John 8:11). If we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), we’ll naturally want to do what is right, because God’s laws are written on our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10).

It’s dangerous to think that God’s laws are ever optional. Christ Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from the curse of the law, but He wrote every law in the Book. In the New Testament, He gave us New Commandments (John 13:34), and we’re told to fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). We’re not saved from the law; we’re saved from sin by the Lawgiver Himself.

 January 25 

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.
1 John 5:20*

Many years ago, when I was suffering from a case of buyer’s remorse, a wise man told me, “Salesmen are a part of everyone’s practical education.” They teach you not to believe everything people say and or trust that they have your best interest at heart.

Over the years, I’ve been scammed by telemarketers and have bought things on the internet that weren’t as described. However, the worst are the “free downloads” for checking for computer viruses. With one click, I once added dozens of pop-ups, malware, and advertisements, but was told that I could get rid of them all for $29.99. The result of this practical education is that I never do business over the phone, nor do I download anything from the internet. It seems that you can’t trust anyone anymore.

Salesmen, politicians, advertisers, and even preachers often lie or twist the truth to gain advantage over people. At that point, I can only trust Him Who is True. I can believe Christ’s promises and the Word of God. When I’m in doubt, I go over in my head what I know for sure.

       I know for sure, sin is destructive. No good ever comes from pornography.
       I know for sure, the love of money is the root of all evil. I don’t need get-rich schemes.
       I know for sure, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. I don’t need to glorify myself.
       I know for sure, I should owe no one anything but love. I don’t want the loan “I deserve.”
       I know for sure, trials and tribulations are part of the Christian life. I reject the health-and-wealth gospel.

Lord Jesus, you are the only One I can trust, because you are He Who is True.

*see also Revelation 3:7

 January 24 

“Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?”
Exodus 15:11

After the children of Israel witnessed the total destruction of the Egyptian army, Moses led them in a song of triumph: “I will sing to the LORD, For He has triumphed gloriously! The horse and its rider He has thrown into the sea!” Excitement and emotion filled the multitude of escaped slaves because they saw the power and glory of God.

The song continues for 18 verses in Exodus chapter 15. At verse 11, two questions are asked: “Who is like You among the gods?” and “Who is like You, glorious in holiness?”

To answer the first, Egypt had plenty of gods – even “puddy” cats were worshiped – but none of them could save the Egyptian army from the power of the living God. Nothing compares to the incomparable Creator of the universe.

The second question concerns God’s glorious holiness. Again, no comparison. Glory is a hard concept to define, but it is pretty easy to see the absence of it. Idols have no power, no splendor, no supernatural qualities, and no glory. God’s glory was not just demonstrated in His power to defeat the ancient world’s Number One superpower; He showed it in His holiness. He not only neutralized the bad guys – He obliterated them.

Christ is in all things the outshining of God’s glory. He was in the burning bush when Moses was commissioned, and He was there when the waters of the Red Sea parted. John saw the glorified Lord as he was exiled on the Isle of Patmos and was overpowered by the vision. Certainly the Son of God is glorious in compassion, grace, might, and authority. But above all these, we must remember that He is Glorious in Holiness.

 January 23