A Daily Devotional

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Called and Chosen

“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Thessalonians 2:13-14)

Note the order established by God in His great plan of salvation. God had chosen these Thessalonian believers to salvation even before they were born, for it was from the beginning. Then He called them, and they heard the gospel, believed the truth, and were sanctified (that is, “set apart”) by the Holy Spirit, eventually destined to be glorified in Christ.

To accomplish this, however, the Spirit used human messengers. He first, in a vision, directed Paul to go to Greece to preach the gospel (Acts 16:9), where he eventually reached Thessalonica and taught the truth to those he found in the synagogue. However, of the many who were “called” as Paul preached and taught, only “some of them believed” (17:4). Most of his listeners had not been “chosen,” so they resisted the “call” and refused to believe. As Jesus said, “Many be called, but few [are] chosen” (Matthew 20:16).

Such a truth may be difficult to understand with our finite minds, but (like Paul) “we are bound to give thanks” that we who believe today, like the Thessalonian believers then, have been both “chosen...in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4) and also “called...out of darkness into his marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

This same mysterious but glorious truth is found throughout Scripture. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose....What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:28, 31). HMM

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Always Rejoicing

“Rejoice evermore.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16)

Most people think that John 11:35 (“Jesus wept”) is the shortest verse in the Bible, but our text is actually even shorter in the original Greek. In one sense, these two two-word verses complement each other—because Jesus wept, we can rejoice evermore. Christ died that we might live. He became poor so that we could be eternally rich. When Christ rose from the dead and met the women returning from the empty tomb, He greeted them with the words “All hail” (Matthew 28:9). The actual Greek was the same word as “rejoice,” and surely His victory over sin and death provided the greatest of all reasons for the world to rejoice.

The contrast between suffering and rejoicing is present throughout the New Testament, with the former typically preceding and bringing in the latter. Its first occurrence is in the closing verse of the beatitudes: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you...for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12). The final passage, when the sufferings of the saints are all past and Christ comes to reign, the multitude sings in heaven, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come” (Revelation 19:7). In that great day, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4), and all the redeemed will, indeed, rejoice evermore.

Therefore, we can live our present lives in the light of our future lives, “as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:10). The apostle Paul exhorts us to “rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4), and Peter says that, loving Christ, we “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8). HMM

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Worshiping God

“And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.” (Genesis 22:5)

We tend to think of “worship” as singing, or testimonies, or hearing a message. This could hardly be the meaning in our text, however, for Abraham was intending to offer Isaac on a sacrificial altar in accordance with God’s command. Furthermore, Isaac was willing to be offered. “They went both of them together” (vv. 6, 8). Isaac, in fact, was not just a little boy at this time. The word “lad” in our text is the same word as “young men” in the same verse.

The first time the Hebrew word for “worship” is used is in Genesis 18:2. When Abraham saw three men approaching (later revealed as the Lord and two angels), he “bowed himself toward the ground.” Thus, “worship” means, essentially, “bow down” in obedience to the will of the one deserving “worship.”

Abraham’s supreme act of worship, however, was his willingness even to sacrifice his beloved son, if God’s will so required. He trusted so fully in God that he knew “God was able to raise him up, even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19), and so he could tell his two servants that he and Isaac would “come again to you.” No wonder Abraham is called “the father of all them that believe” (Romans 4:11). He was, indeed, “strong in faith” (v. 20).

The New Testament Greek word for “worship” also means essentially to bow down to God’s will. It occurs first when the wise men came to King Herod seeking the infant Savior, saying: “We...are come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2). As long ago a great man on Earth bowed down to the three from heaven, so now these great men on Earth with their three precious gifts bow down to One from heaven, the One who alone is worthy of true worship. HMM

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Glorious Liberty

“Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21)

This verse contains the first of 11 occurrences of the Greek word eleutheria, “liberty,” and defines the basic spiritual message of this splendid word. Because of sin, God has subjected the whole creation, animate and inanimate, to “the bondage of corruption.” That is, everything is governed by a law of decay—a law of such universal scope that it is recognized as a basic law of science—the law of entropy, stipulating that everything tends to disintegrate and die.

Christ died for sin, however, and defeated death so that He will someday deliver the whole groaning creation from its bondage into the glorious freedom from decay and death that will also be enjoyed by all who have received eternal life through faith in Christ.

This ultimate, perfect liberty can even now be appropriated in type and principle through looking into “the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25), the Holy Scriptures.

When we become children of God, the Holy Spirit henceforth indwells our bodies, and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

Sometimes, however, Christians may abuse this new freedom from the law of sin and death, turning it into license, and this becomes a tragic perversion of Christian liberty. “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

While not abusing our freedom in Christ, we must nevertheless “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” (Galatians 5:1), and look forward to the glorious liberty of the ages to come. HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

The King of Glory

“Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.” (Psalm 24:10)

In the upper room just before His betrayal, the Lord Jesus prayed to His Father, remembering “the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5). He had left heaven, however, when “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (1:14). Then, when He miraculously turned water into wine at the wedding in Galilee, He “manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him” (John 2:11).

In the days of His flesh, His glory was veiled, however, except in His life, words of grace and truth, and mighty works. He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).

Finally, His glory seemed to be gone forever as He lay in a borrowed tomb. But then “God...raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God” (1 Peter 1:21).

He is now “the Lord of glory” (James 2:1), who, being the very “brightness of [God’s] 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 on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).

As He ascended back to heaven, all His hosts of angels welcomed their Lord of hosts with a mighty anthem of praise: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory” (Psalm 24:9-10). HMM

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Not So, Lord

“But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.” (Acts 10:14)

This response of Peter to the Lord’s command is a self-contradiction. How could He be Peter’s Lord if Peter felt free to disobey His command?

The doctrine and practice of the Lordship of Christ have always been difficult and controversial. Many Christians who’ve called Him their Savior and Lord nevertheless often feel free to question or disregard His Word. There may be legitimate discussion concerning interpretation of the Word, but there is never justification for questioning its authority, regardless of the pretenses of modern intellectuals or the pressures of public opinion. As the Lord Jesus Christ rebukingly asked, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

There was an earlier occasion when Peter revealed this same inconsistency. When Christ told of His imminent crucifixion, Peter “began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee” (Matthew 16:22). The Lord, therefore, had to rebuke Peter. It was not Peter’s prerogative, nor is it ours, to question the Word of the Lord, even when we don’t yet understand it.

That kind of attitude can, under certain circumstances, have deadly and eternal consequences. Jesus warned those who would profess His Lordship without its reality: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord....And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:22-23).

Peter learned this lesson and was soon able to confess unreservedly concerning Christ that “he is Lord of all” (Acts 10:36). We who “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” for salvation (Acts 16:31) certainly should seek to believe and obey His Word in all things. HMM

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Walk--Don't Walk

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” (Ephesians 4:17-19)

In verses 1-3, Paul encourages believers to “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” This humble, patient, loving, peaceful walk contrasts sharply with the walk described in our text.

The walk of those outside Christ is characterized by “the vanity of their mind”—empty, futile thinking. The same word for “vanity” is used elsewhere for those who deny the obvious evidence for creation, who “became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21-22). They are ignorant and blind, our text says, with darkened understanding and a blind heart. This has led them into a position of alienation from God, dead to any prompting they might receive from within or without. The result of such a mindset is a shameless, reprobate lifestyle, full of lasciviousness, uncleanness, and greediness.

Thankfully, we “have not so learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:20). We are to be “renewed in the spirit of [our] mind” (v. 23) and walk aright. “Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us” (5:2). “Walk as children of light” (5:8). “Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise” (5:15), “filled with the Spirit” (5:18). Our Creator promises us an inward “new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (4:24). JDM

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What Does a Little Leaven Do?

“And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of…the Sadducees.” (Matthew 16:5-6)

After taking a boat to the northern Sea of Galilee shore, the disciples realized they didn’t have bread. Jesus, with time running out before His imminent death, took the opportunity to teach them what was the most critical thing for their spiritual survival: spiritual bread (Matthew 4:4). So, He warns them to “beware.” Beware of what?

Leaven is a single-cell fungus that, once activated, permeates bread dough, feeding on the natural sugars. Our Lord likens this activated yeast to an insidious weapon and points to the Sadducees. The Sadducees, sons of wealthy aristocratic families, were highly influential and controlled religious politics. They taught religious naturalism, all but denying God’s miraculous intervention in creation. These pragmatists constructed a synchronistic theology that is still alive and well.

Today’s Sadducees spin their insidious influence in churches, schools, and seminaries. Their leavening influence includes rejecting the biblical teaching of a six-day creation, adopting Darwinian ideologies like natural selection, rejecting the Noahic worldwide Flood, nullifying miracles in Scripture, and denying Jesus Christ’s deity and resurrection.

What does just a little leaven do? It blinds people from seeing the gospel. It dulls a believer’s understanding of clear biblical truth. Allowing these microbe-like single-cell ideologies to grow unopposed always spells spiritual catastrophe.

Believer, don’t allow any of these influences a foothold in your life, the lives of your family, or those lives you shepherd in your spiritual family. As our Lord warns: Believer, beware! CM

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Delighting in the Lord

“Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

Christians tend toward two extremes regarding this remarkable promise of Scripture. Some forget the first half of the verse, seeing this as an unconditional promise for the fulfillment of every desire, no matter how carnal or worldly. Yet the verse clearly states that the Lord will only give us the desires of our hearts if we first delight ourselves in Him. So the verse is not a license for the fulfillment of selfish whims (James 4:3).

Other well-meaning Christians, in an effort to guard against this first error, go to another extreme. They downplay or “spiritualize” the second half of the verse to such an extent that the promise becomes essentially meaningless. They do so by claiming that the promise only applies to the fulfillment of “spiritual” desires. But Christians can certainly have desires that aren’t sinful but aren’t necessarily spiritual either. Surely the desire for immortality would fall into this category, and God has already promised us that (Psalm 21:4)!

Christians may desire to see other parts of the world, or to play a musical instrument, or even to explore God’s vast created cosmos but cannot do so in this life. We may have to wait for His return for these desires to be granted, but grant them He will! “The LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

This should not come as a surprise. God has already given us the most selfless, lavish gift that He possibly could: “He that spared not 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). Christians have a Father who is both willing and able to give good gifts to His children. JH

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Bread and Wine

“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.” (Genesis 14:18)

After Abram’s victory over the pagan kings and the rescue of his nephew Lot, he was met by Melchizedek, King of Salem (Hebrew for “peace”). The name Melchizedek is actually a combination of two different words (malki‚-sedek) connected by a Hebrew symbol called a maqqef that functions like a hyphen in English. The word malki‚ literally means “my king,” and sedek means “righteousness.”

This King of Righteousness and Peace is also called “the priest of the most high God.” He is described in detail in the book of Hebrews as “made like unto the Son of God.” Melchizedek was like Jesus Christ, our High Priest, in that both were “without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but…abideth a priest continually” (Hebrews 7:3).

And most appropriately and prophetically, this amazing pre-Mosaic law theophany of the Lord Jesus Christ brings wine and bread to Abram. The direct redemptive connection is clearly forecasted. On the night before His sacrificial death, “Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28).

Praise the Lord Jesus Christ, our High Priest and King of Righteousness and Peace, “who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14). JPT

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What Is Wonderful to You?

“Thy testimonies are wonderful: Therefore doth my soul keep them.” (Psalm 119:129)

Wonderful is a worn-out word, overworked in our pedestrian English vocabulary. Life can be “wonderful” only because of the common graces granted by our heavenly Father. Yet, to the one desiring God and His precious Word, wonderful is the choice word earmarking the revealed truths of Scripture.

Strength comes to the psalmist by feasting on Yahweh’s wonderful Word. Why such adulation for God’s Word? Our awestruck worshiper unpacks multiple reasons why.

The unfolding of God’s Word opens wisdom’s door, lighting and giving “understanding to the simple” (v. 130). The worshiper’s intense desire to obey—his very being, or soul (Hebrew nephesh)—commits him to keeping all of Scripture’s commands. “I opened my mouth, and panted: For I longed for thy commandments” (v. 131)—his very survival depends solely on every word that proceeds “out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

The psalmist then prays that the Lord would establish him by directing, delivering, and daily discipling him. “Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me” (v. 132). “Order my steps in thy Word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (v. 133). “Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep thy precepts” (v. 134). “Teach me thy statutes” (v. 135). Finally, he expresses deep sorrow for those rejecting God’s Word. “Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law” (v. 136).

Does this psalm express the love you have for Yahweh’s Word? Do you pray for your spiritual growth and for the spiritual condition of those unbelievers whom God has brought alongside you? How wonderful is God’s Word to you? CM

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Coming Judgment

“Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.” (Zephaniah 2:3)

The theme of the book of Zephaniah is one of fearsome judgment. The immediate fulfillment took place when Babylon captured Judah about 50 years after this prophecy, but Zephaniah also speaks of a future judgment upon the ungodly nations at the end of this age.

Some theologians take this “day of the Lord” to be the tribulation period after Christ has raptured His people, while others believe that it refers to the specific point Jesus returns with His redeemed people when “the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all” (Jude 1:14-15).

Either way, you can be sure that judgment is coming. Revelation 1:7 says, “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.” And Isaiah 13:11 says, “And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”

Zephaniah 2:3 is a sober warning to not only the Israelites at that time but to this present world. The apostle Paul said, “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:4). The day of judgment is still coming. But those who have been saved through Jesus Christ don’t need to fear that day. Praise be to our redeeming God, who commands us “to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10). JPT

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The Greatest Display of Compassion

“In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat.” (Mark 8:1-2)

This is the only event in which Jesus speaks of Himself as having compassion. The Greek word used here (splagchnizomai) means inner organs, bowels, or “gut-wrenching.” Why is our Lord feeling a gut-wrenching compassion for something as simple as empty stomachs? People can survive for weeks without nourishment.

Yet the compassion of God was fleshed out through Christ as He met the basic needs of these 4,000 men and their families—a display of the heart of our God and a compassion for which there is no parallel in any other religion in the universe.

Not only is He concerned for our simple everyday needs as we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” but our Lord is profoundly concerned about our spiritual needs. Our Creator and Redeemer was taken to the cross on our behalf in the greatest display of His eternal compassion. Hebrews 2:17 says, “It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”

Theologically, this level of compassion is an attribute of God alone—an affirmation of Jesus’ deity. Yahweh’s compassions “are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:23). If the Lord Jesus showed such compassion for the crowds, how much more should we His servants show concern for the common needs of our fellow man? What’s more, we must address their spiritual needs above all else, for those needs have eternal import. CM

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Our Great I AM

“And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” (Exodus 3:14)

This verse is part of an answer to Moses’ question of what to tell the Israelites when they ask for God’s name. Notably, this is the first time God introduces Himself like this in the Bible, and it takes place immediately before the pivotal event in which He delivers the children of Israel from the bondage of Egypt and brings forth the concept of blood redemption with the sacrificial Passover lamb. Instead of a grammatically proper name (e.g., Yahweh), Elohim introduces Himself with the repetition of the verb “to be” (haya‚) connected by the particle of relation (asher, that) to form this sentence: “I Am That I Am.”

The two most dominant verbal forms in the Hebrew Bible are the perfect and imperfect, with the perfect typically indicating a completed action. As opposed to the perfect, the imperfect represents actions, events, or states that are continuing, in the process of accomplishment, or just now taking place. Profoundly, Elohim uses the imperfect form of haya‚ to describe Himself in this powerful declaration of who He is at this key point in biblical history.

In other words, Elohim is not just the Creator and sovereign God of past history, He is our active, all-powerful God of the present and future. Our Creator-Redeemer-Deliverer, the Lord Jesus Christ, employed this same power-packed theme with His series of “I am” declarations in the gospel of John, underscoring His role as “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending…which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). JPT

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Guarding the Word

“Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.” (Psalm 119:2)

In the remarkable 119th Psalm, there are 176 verses (the longest chapter in the Bible) and 176 references to the written Word of God. Eight different Hebrew words are used for the Scriptures, respectively translated (in the King James Version) “law,” “testimonies,” “precepts,” “statutes,” “commandments,” “judgments,” and two words translated “word” or “words.” Furthermore, this psalm contains 28 admonitions to “keep” the Word, and these are applied to each of the above eight aspects of the Scriptures. The first is in our text, where we are exhorted to keep His testimonies. Note the others also in the following examples.

“Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently” (v. 4); “O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!” (v. 5); “Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word” (Hebrew dabar, v. 17).

“Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law” (v. 34); “I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments” (v. 60); “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments” (v. 106); “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word” (Hebrew imrah, v. 67).

This means much more than simply obeying His commands, though this is certainly included. Both words translated “keep” or “kept” in the 28 admonitions noted above basically mean “guard” or “preserve,” as in Psalm 41:2, where both words are used: “The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive.”

In these verses and many others throughout the Bible, therefore, we are commanded not merely to obey and proclaim God’s Word, but also to guard, preserve, and defend it against all its many enemies. HMM