TODAY IN THE WORD

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Philippians 3:1-11
I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own . . . but that which is through faith in Christ. - Philippians 3:8-9
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 2003, the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted Lebron James, then a high school senior from Akron, Ohio. James was the youngest number one overall draft pick in NBA history. Though he was young, his high school career had won him national attention. And his performance in his first two seasons in the NBA suggests the Cavaliers picked well.

We take a lot of pride in getting “picked.” Early on in elementary school, we want to be picked for a team at recess. Later, we hope to be selected for a university, and then a job. Paul got “picked” by God to be an apostle, but it wasn't because of his superior credentials.

Paul had an incredible resume to offer God. He had the right family name (v. 5). He'd taken God's Law seriously and observed it faultlessly (v. 6). He seemed the right man for God's job. But Paul diminishes all these reasons for pride. He insists he'd have been better off without them (v. 7). He's come to realize that God's call to salvation and sanctification wasn't just for the top performers. God's call doesn't demand extraordinary talent or religious perfection. It is instead a call to union with Christ. Ordinary men and women can answer the call to receive “righteousness . . . through faith” (v. 9).

We're back to the grace of God in Jesus Christ! We cannot have righteousness apart from Him. Forgiveness of sins is not earned by work but enjoyed as a gift. And freedom from sin depends less on our steely resolve to be good and more on a growing desire to know Christ.

At our conversion when we desperately sense our sinfulness, we readily acknowledge the importance of being found in Christ, but later we sometimes turn to self-effort for continuing the race. To progress in the pursuit of holiness, however, we need to forsake self-reliance and understand that sanctification comes as a result of desiring Christ to rule in us.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How do we gain Christ and be found in him? Our spiritual disciplines are vital for our continuing desire for Christ. We must spend daily time meditating on His Word. We also need regular fellowship with other believers where there is deliberate accountability and prayer (cf. Heb. 11:24, 25). And we must rely upon the Holy Spirit moment by moment. These things are not hassles, drudgeries, or good works that earn us forgiveness. They are God's grace available to us at every moment of each day.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Ephesians 1:1-14
In him we were also chosen . . . in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. - Ephesians 1:11, 12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Sequels in movies and books satisfy our hunger to know, “What next?” The cliffhanger ending of the original work finally resolves in the sequel. Prequels, on the other hand, answer an entirely different question, not, “What next?” but, “Why?” For example, J. R. R. Tolkien's Silmarillion sets out to explore the origin of the races, characters, and conflicts that he depicted in his trilogy The Lord of the Rings. The prequel gives us behind-the-scenes understanding to the story line.

Ephesians 1 is a kind of prequel to Genesis 1. Where Genesis recounts the “what's” and “what's next” of Creation, Ephesians 1 answers the “why's.” Why did God make the world? Why did God make a human race destined to rebel and disgrace His image?

Before earth and sky, Adam and Eve, before the Fall and Flood, God made a very good plan. Ephesians 1 outlines God's design in that plan. Every action word in this first chapter of Ephesians demonstrates God's pleasure (vv. 5, 9) and God's will (vv. 5, 9, 11). Every verb declares that God's eternal plan for humanity was never an “uh-oh” or “oops” plan after Adam and Eve sinned. Before “Let there be light,” God said, Let me make a family. Let them bear my image. God wanted sons and daughters (v. 5), and He wanted them to resemble Him, to be “holy and blameless in his sight” (v. 4).

This great family would be an announcement of His glory (v. 12). As men and women radiated God's image, God would gain praise. This is the ultimate reason for our sanctification.

Sin would of course threaten to thwart this plan, but human rebellion did not surprise God. Before the Tree and before the Garden, God made a way for redemption and forgiveness (v. 7). He made His family plan possible because of Christ (v. 9). And God always finishes what He starts.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Ephesians 1:11-12 assures us that God will use anything and everything that happens in our lives to sanctify us. He will use our suffering, our times of waiting; He will use our blessings, and the daily stuff of life to make us resemble Him.

What circumstance in your life are you eager to change? Will you ask God today that He use even this to make you more like Him?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 John 1:5-2:6
God . . . has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. - 1 Corinthians 1:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
David Shannon began his career at the age of 5, writing and illustrating a book about a naughty boy with the same two-word phrase on each page: “No, David!” He's since remade the book, No, David!, which won the Caldecott Honor Award (given to children's picture books) in 1999. “I thought it would be fun to do a remake celebrating those familiar variations of the universal ”˜no' that we all hear while growing up.”

Some Christians think that the Bible is a sophisticated version of No, David! But God cares about the list of “dos” and “don'ts,” not for His heavenly bookkeeping but because of His love for us. His call to holiness is a call to friendship. Yesterday, we saw it begin before Adam and Eve. Since then, it has continued without change. In Leviticus 11:45, God tells Moses that He wants to be Israel's God. “Therefore, be holy, because I am holy.”

John makes it plain and simple why every Christian must be holy: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1:5). Light stands for all righteousness, purity, and truth. Darkness is sin, deception and impurity. If Christians want to know God and walk with God, they must not deliberately choose sin over obedience. This is why the prayer of every Christian should come from Psalm 19:12-13: “Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me.”

Lest we become paralyzed by fear of falling short of this call, today's passage makes clear that “walking in the light” does not equal perfection. Christians should strive to learn the commands of God and obey them (2:1), yet when they fail, they should turn to confession, not cover-up. We can confess to God our failures, asking for His forgiveness. We can know He grants His forgiveness through Christ (vv. 7, . We should also confess to one another where we have failed. The pretense of “having it all together” isn't fooling God or others. We only deceive ourselves when we pretend we're self-reliant (1:.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This emphasis of consistent obedience in today's passage doesn't neglect the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The themes that we've already explored in our study of sanctification emerge again here. Because we sin, we need the grace of God through Christ. No fellowship with God is possible apart from Christ (2:1-2). But holiness is an unmistakable by-product of that grace. 1 John 2:6 is the marching order of every Christian.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 2 Timothy 1:6-14
[God] has saved us and called us to a holy life not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. - 2 Timothy 1:9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Billy Graham preached what may have been his final crusade in New York in late June of this year. According to the Graham organization, 3,198,522 people have come forward and pledged their lives to Jesus at Billy Graham crusades. As they've prayed a prayer of repentance, these men and women have confessed their sins and pledged to surrender their life to God's control as well as to ask for His strength daily to stay on that pathway.

Billy Graham has made it clear that being a Christian is much more, though, than stepping forward for an altar call. Forgiveness of sins is first base—following Christ day to day is the rest of the game. The gospel preached by Billy Graham is the same gospel that Paul preached. It's the very same gospel that Paul asks Timothy to guard (vv. 13-14). The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for forgiveness and for transformation.

Mercifully, God has saved us (v. 9). We are no longer objects of God's wrath (cf. Eph. 2:3) but children of God (cf. 1 John 3:1). We would have spiritually drowned had God not thrown us the life vest, “this grace . . . given us in Christ Jesus” (v. 9). And yet God's mission isn't just about that moment of rescue; it's about every day that follows. He “called us to a holy life.”

We rightly affirm salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ. We cannot earn salvation by our good deeds. Any message that insists upon the necessity of good works to earn God's favor is no gospel!

At the same time, our good deeds matter to God, not because they impress Him or make Him favor us, but because it's the only proper response to His amazing grace.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
What is holiness? Paul gives us a glimpse in verse seven. Holiness is God's Spirit in us, giving us the courage to live for God and speak on His behalf. Holiness is His strength for impossible situations and love for both God and others. Holiness is the practice of self-discipline, not laziness or self-indulgence. Are these character qualities developing in your life? Remember that God not only wants to save you, He wants to change you.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 2 Corinthians 5:9-21
And [Christ] died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him. - 2 Corinthians 5:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Two thirds of all American ambassadors come up through the Foreign Service and earn their ambassadorships through diplomatic credentials. The other third, however, are selected on the basis of personal political connections, not experience. America's most recent ambassadorial appointment to Canada gave an embarrassing interview on Canadian radio. He couldn't name a single city or region he had visited, nor could he hum a few bars of the Canadian national anthem.

We expect our ambassadors to know American policy and the particulars of the country to which they're sent. Both are required for diplomacy. Our passage today outlines our call to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ. Each Christian is required to serve. Ambassadorship for Jesus is another aspect of the holy life to which we've been called. So we focus first on the policies of the sending agent, God Himself.

The message He sends with His ambassadors is a message of peace. God isn't antagonistic, seeking to make enemies. He is sending an olive branch to every individual who has rebelled against him. He will disregard their sins and their former opposition to Him because of His Son, Jesus Christ (vv. 19, 21).

But we proclaim that peace with God comes at the highest price: complete surrender (v. 15). Reconciliation with God is possible, but those accepting this wonderful gift must relinquish their selfish ambitions at the foot of the Cross. They “should no longer live for themselves.” God calls them to sanctification, to a holy life, to the pursuit of pleasing Christ, not self (v. 9).

The “country” to which we're sent as ambassadors doesn't receive this message well. Many are not eager to hear that their agenda doesn't impress God. They don't want to admit that pleasure and comfort aren't life's highest goals. But as faithful ambassadors responding to the call of God and compelled by the love of God, we continue in our service.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Have we taken seriously the call to live no longer for ourselves but for Christ? In his book, Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges challenges us to “consider then [Jesus'] statement, ”˜I always do what pleases Him.' . . . Are we truly willing to scrutinize all our activities, all our goals and plans, and all of our impulsive actions in the light of this statement?” One way to reorient our focus is to begin and end each day with a prayer to God, affirming your desire to please Him.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Peter 2:4-12
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
On Ash Wednesday, 2004, Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ was released to movie theaters. Its cinematic realism shocked and horrified, and moved audiences. Never before had the suffering of Jesus Christ been portrayed so realistically or so graphically. In Gibson's words, “My ultimate hope is that this story's message of tremendous courage and sacrifice might inspire tolerance, love, and forgiveness. We're definitely in need of those things in today's world.”

In one sense, Gibson got it right. Jesus' suffering on the cross is a story of courage and sacrificial love meant to inspire us. But more than this, the Cross is about holiness. Jesus Christ, God's Holy Son, paid sin's penalty. We can be holy because of the Cross. And yet the Cross is more than a historic event, more than just a symbol of our salvation. The Cross casts its shadow on all of the Christian life. If we follow Christ, we follow Him in the way of the Cross. This will be the topic for our upcoming days as we study sanctification.

When we become part of God's family, we become the children of God. Today's passage examines the family resemblance. Because Jesus is a Living Stone in God's house (v. 4), so, too, are we “living stones . . . being built into a spiritual house” (v. 5). Just as Jesus was “chosen by God” (v. 4), we are a “chosen people” (v. 9). And if, because of the Cross, Jesus suffered and was rejected by men (v. 4), we can expect no less.

The message of the Cross is “a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall” (v. . It's an unpopular message, even within conservative Christian circles. We demand to hear how God longs to bless us, refusing to hear of the suffering we'll have to endure for His sake. Yet the reality of the Cross in Christian discipleship is unavoidable.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
We've so far explored the topics of God's grace for and God's call to sanctification. Now we turn to God's way for our sanctification: the Cross. Just as Jesus learned obedience by what He suffered (Heb. 5:, we, too, can grow in holiness by embracing self-sacrifice. Dietrich Bonhoeffer affirms that “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross.” May God's grace for our sanctification enable us to take up our crosses daily and follow Him.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Matthew 16:13-28
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. - Matthew 16:24
TODAY IN THE WORD
Sheila Walsh, in her children's books, depicts the happy life at the Gnoo Zoo. By day, Big Billy and his friends are mute carousel animals, but by night, they come to life—until one night when they are taken hostage by Reptillion. Only the Great White Tiger, the Christ figure of the story, can help. He sends this message: “If free and happy you would be, take the path that leads to me—not the easy way ahead; choose the harder road instead.”

This difficult path of Christian discipleship is the way of the Cross. First John 2:6 describes the high calling of holiness: becoming like Jesus means walking as He did. And as Jesus walked the road to Calvary, we must follow Him. This uphill road to the Cross certainly wasn't what Peter had initially envisioned.

Peter's theology at first was impeccable. He knew Jesus' identity (v. 16), and Jesus commended him for his confession of faith (v. 17). And his zeal was palpable. Jesus had promised Peter that he would be an integral part to the kingdom He was building (vv. 18-19). Visions of such grandeur thrilled Peter, and he wasn't going to let Jesus ruin the plan by His talk of suffering and death (vv. 21-22)!

But for all his theology and zeal, Peter presumed wrongly about God's methodology. Suffering and death aren't accidentals in God's plan. They are essentials to His design. Indeed, the death of Jesus accomplished our salvation, and God uses our own suffering to accomplish our sanctification. By following Jesus, we choose not self-gratification, but self-denial. We're not aiming to “gain the whole world” (v. 26). We're making preeminent our spiritual pursuits, even if that comes at the expense of our comfort today.

This means the criteria for decision-making in the Christian life aren't about what is easiest, most expedient, or suited to our tastes. By declaring our allegiance to Jesus Christ, we've committed to following wherever He leads, whatever the cost.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Holiness has a high price tag (cf. Luke 14:28). Indeed, it cost Jesus His life. It demands no less of us. To make our spiritual pursuits preeminent, we have to prioritize loving God and loving others. Practically this may mean prayer and Bible study before television and the telephone. It may require regularly serving at our church before taking up another hobby. It will entail dedication to our families before our careers. These decisions cost us time and money, but the eternal payoff is worth it.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Galatians 1:6-10; 6:12-16
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Galatians 6:14
TODAY IN THE WORD
According to a small sect in rural North Carolina, no one with any body piercings can be a faithful Christian—not even women with pierced ears. Another group in Idaho maintains that only people with pure Caucasian ancestry are eligible for salvation. While these examples may strike us as silly or even horrifying, unfortunately they are just two of the ways that people throughout the centuries have tried to add to the message of the gospel.

One of Satan's greatest strategies has been to convince Christians that the message of sanctification and salvation exists apart from the Cross. In Paul's day he battled the Judaizers, to whom he refers in this passage (1:7, 6:12), whose distortion of the gospel message threatened to undermine an entire church. They wanted Gentile Christians to comply with the rite of circumcision, declaring it necessary for salvation. It wasn't that these Judaizers had innocently misunderstood a message they were proclaiming with sincerity. It was that protecting their own interests had eclipsed the true message of the Cross.

The Cross always offends human pride, for it demands that we admit that we cannot earn salvation by our own effort. In order to protect their pride, these Judaizers still wanted to control others (1:10). By refusing to tell people that they were sinners in desperate need of God's grace, they proclaimed a message of dos and don'ts (1:6). They preferred gaining converts and counting their “successes” to preaching the truth (6:13). And certainly they feared the persecution that allegiance to the Cross could bring (6:12). Preaching a message of self-effort avoided the consequences of following the Cross.

To accept the Cross of Jesus Christ for our salvation is to believe that we are powerless to earn God's favor. To accept the Cross of Jesus Christ for our sanctification is to admit that old habits and former ambitions must die when we become a “new creation” (6:16, cf. 2 Cor. 5:17).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
According to today's key verse, the temptations of the world are as good as dead to those in Christ. Giving should be preferred to hoarding, servanthood to power, God's glory to our comfort. Are you still striving for what will ensure your own “happiness?” May you today willingly embrace the Cross, asking God to put to death the allegiance you have to yourself and to the world, and to make you fully a servant of Christ.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Philippians 2:1-15
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. - Philippians 2:5
TODAY IN THE WORD
John Calvin wrote about the implications of Christian sanctification: “If we are not our own, but the Lord's, it is clear to what purpose all our deeds must be directed. . . . We are not our own, therefore let us forget ourselves and our own interests as far as possible. We are God's own; to him, therefore, let us live and die.”

According to Calvin, humility, or self-forgetfulness, is the tell-tale sign of the work of the Cross in a believer's life. Today's passage calls us to imitate the humble example of Jesus Christ. When we do, we'll see miraculous transformation in our interpersonal relationships, especially those within the church.

If the sanctified life sows the seeds of humility, then the sanctified church reaps the fruit of unity. Humility reconciles relationships. Be like-minded and unified, Paul pleads with the Philippian church (v. 2) where relational conflicts were erupting (cf. 4:2-3). Paul begs them to imitate the humble obedience of Jesus Christ.

Humility means surrendering the right to demand what we “deserve.” When Jesus took on human flesh, He didn't consider His rights (v. 6). He didn't “deserve” the humiliation of the Cross, but He embraced it because of obedience. We cannot and should not demand fairness in this life. Doing so means rejecting the Cross. Our sanctification depends upon our willingness to take the short end of the stick for Christ's sake.

Humility doesn't consider questions like, “What's in it for me?” or “What will I gain?” This is death to friendship and marriage and ministry. To follow the example of Christ is to crucify our desires and needs for “the interests of others” (v. 4). We can gladly sacrifice our time to listen, our money to lend, and our home to welcome, even when it costs us greatly.

The good news is that as we sacrifice humbly and obey God fully in action and in attitude, God promises to sanctify us (v. 15). And our God always keeps His promises! We can rest in this truth.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Consider how this week you can put into practice “consider[ing] others better than yourselves” (v. 3).

Is there time you had allotted for yourself that you can use to serve someone else? Can you take money that you've saved for a personal purchase and give it away to someone in need? At the end of a long work week, will you invite someone over for dinner even when you're really in the mood just to relax?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Colossians 3:1-17
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. - Colossians 3:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
The atrocities of genocide in the modern era occurred in Rwanda in 1994 when over one million people were brutally murdered. The world in large part turned a blind eye to what was happening. Under strict orders not to shoot, the United Nations peacekeepers, too few in number, were powerless to stop the killings. Keeping the peace without stopping the violence was an impossible task.

Our spiritual peace requires stopping the violence in our own souls, the violence of the battle between new and old (vv. 8-9), eternal and earthly (vv. 1, 12). This is not the impossible task of the UN peacekeepers just described. We have the resources we need. Peace can rule in our hearts as we deal ruthlessly with sin.

Sanctification promises us two different kinds of peace: inner peace that results from peace with God as well as relational peace with others. First, let's examine inner peace. This isn't just feeling serene, but resting in right priorities. Peace comes as we make God first, others second, ourselves last. The first sins Paul mentions in verse 5 threaten our desire for God. We were made to live according to the first of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me.” When we indulge in greed or lust, we say we desire these more than God. We cannot be ruled by these temptations while confessing a love for God because these sins are ultimately idolatry (v. 5). As long as we tolerate God being in second place, we cannot have Christ's peace.

Second, sanctification promises relational peace. Notice the second list of sins (v. 8, 9). These sins destroy our unity in the body of Christ, causing mistrust. God hasn't meant His people to live with constant quarreling, but rather with forgiveness and love (vv. 13-14). How many fewer fractured relationships would exist in the church if we truly submitted ourselves to these imperatives of Scripture! How much more peace we would have.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Does the peace of Christ rule in your heart and relationships? We've talked the last several days about carrying our cross in sanctification. Today's passage gives us a strong command regarding our sin. “Put [it] to death” (v. 5). Have you ever uttered these excuses to rationalize your sin? Just this once. It's not that bad. I'm not hurting anyone. It's my personality. This kind of thinking prevents us from dealing the deathblow to our sin. Ask Christ to help you let go of these excuses and to walk more fully in obedience.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Hebrews 12:1-14
God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. - Hebrews 12:10
TODAY IN THE WORD
Having a personal fitness trainer is no longer just a luxury for Hollywood celebrities. Now even regular Americans have started to hire personal trainers to help them meet the fitness goals they've failed to achieve time and again. The benefits of a personal trainer are obvious. “A trainer can guide you, write out your goals, and assist you in getting the right equipment and reaching those goals,” says personal trainer Kathy Kaehler, who has worked with celebrities Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Cindy Crawford, and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Our spiritual fitness, like our physical fitness, requires our active participation along with some expert training. To get physically fit, we must rid our diet of excess calories and fat. And we've got to get off the couch. Likewise, to be spiritually fit, we've must “throw off” everything that makes us spiritually flabby. And when we've thrown these off, we'll find the running that much easier (v. 1).

Nevertheless, even our best intentions to get spiritually fit fall short. The Bible clearly states that the condition of our hearts eludes our understanding (cf. Ps. 19:12; Jer. 17:9; 1 Cor. 4:4). While we might recognize certain areas of sin, we are blind to others. And that's why we desperately need God's discipline, or training, in our lives.

One way God trains us is by the suffering He allows into our lives. For this reason, the message of the Cross is essential in our discussion of sanctification. Hebrews 12 brings us good news about our suffering. First, God uses it for our sanctification (v. 10). God has the expertise, He knows our sin, and He knows the best method of eliminating it.

Second, the difficulties God permits in our lives prove His love for us (vv. 7, . He wants to make us more like Jesus. This is precisely why He must allow the hardship. We might not learn obedience another way (cf. Heb. 5:.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Imagine a child thanking his dad for a spanking! It sounds absurd! This passage, however, encourages us to thank God for the suffering He allows in our lives. We thank Him because He's using the circumstance to sanctify us and prove His love for us. As God's children, we sometimes resist the discipline of God—for one thing, it's painful (v. 11). God can use every circumstance to shape us, so we can thank Him for His redemptive work to sanctify us for our good and His glory.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 2 Corinthians 1:12-22
He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. - 1 Corinthians 1:8-9
TODAY IN THE WORD
Ron Ziegler, White House Press Secretary for President Nixon, will be remembered for his famous euphemisms during the Watergate scandal. “This is the operative statement,” he insisted during one press briefing, unwilling to admit that previous statements had either been purposefully or inadvertently deceptive. It then became clear that “yes” might not mean “yes” and “no” might not mean “no.”

We'll now turn from our topic of the Cross and look at the subject of God's faithfulness in our sanctification. Today's reading reveals that our hope for sanctification is not of confusing “maybe” but a resounding “yes” in Jesus Christ. By seeing His promises, we'll gain great confidence that the goal of making us more like Jesus Christ will be accomplished by God. And yet what should be said for the days and weeks and months where we meet failure after failure? When our best resolutions dissolve once again into broken promises to God? When our fear of disappointing God takes us another step further from enjoying His fellowship? Despite all this, our holiness is as certain as God's faithfulness. Christ Himself is the guarantee of this promise (v. 20).

Paul's language is this passage is confident to the point of boasting (vv. 12, 14, 15). He is confident that he, along with the Corinthian church, will “stand firm in Christ” (v. 21). This is no small vote of confidence Paul gives to the Corinthian church, especially since he just sent the church a severe letter of rebuke (cf. 7:8-12).

Paul can be fully confident because the assurance of our sanctification—and ultimately our salvation—rests on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. The focus of this passage is on God: His Son (v. 19), His promises (v. 20), His glory (v. 20), His power (v. 21), and His guarantee (v. 22). And so our study brings us to another aspect of God's transformation of His people—His faithfulness to complete the job.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
A product with a warranty generates a lot of consumer confidence. Even if it breaks, we reason, it will be fixed at no cost to us! Similarly, our spiritual confidence can come from knowing we have a guarantee for our sanctification from God Himself.

When the sinful habits in our lives seem impossible to change, when we feel powerless in the face of our addiction, God's power is available to us through prayer.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24
May God himself . . . sanctify you through and through. - 1 Thessalonians 5:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
Talk-show host Dr. Laura gives her listeners “to-the-point” advice. On air, Dr. Laura unabashedly criticizes and challenges her callers, ignoring political correctness in her admonishment. Many people seem to welcome this admonition, as her show is second in popularity only to Rush Limbaugh.

What is biblical admonition? Two words in our reading from today mean “to admonish.” In verse 12 it is translated as “admonish” and in verse 14 as “warn.” The second translation gives a sense of how this word admonish is different from simply teach (cf. Col. 3:16). As Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary states, admonish “has mainly in view the things that are wrong and call for warning.”

With yesterday's reading we began to explore how God's faithfulness impacts our sanctification. It is, in fact, the ultimate guarantee of its completion. Today's passage emphasizes this (vv. 23-24). But as we've already seen in past readings and as we'll see again today, this doesn't exempt us from the process. We have a role to play, not only in our own sanctification, but also for the sanctification of others. Admonishment is a tool we must wield in the body of Christ.

First, those in spiritual authority over us have the right and responsibility to warn and instruct us (v. 12). They might call into question our motives, challenge us toward certain spiritual disciplines, question our interpretations of Scripture, or confront us when we choose to deliberately sin. Admonishment is not easy for our leaders to give nor for us to receive. By respecting their authority and recognizing their hard work (v. 13), we can lessen our own defensiveness.

Second, everyone in the body of Christ must admonish his brothers and sisters in Christ (v. 14). Our words need not be unnecessarily harsh. Instead, taking into account each person's individual situation, we can admonish by warning, encouraging, and helping. Patience and kindness should flavor all godly admonition (vv. 14-15).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
In his book, The Connecting Church, Randy Frazee identifies our lack of accountability, or admonishment, in the church today. “We really don't have accountability; we only have disclosure. [Someone] is often willing to disclose personal struggles and decisions, but there usually is no invitation to challenge the choices or to hold the person accountable to an objective standard.” Is this true in your Christian relationships? When was the last time you admonished someone or invited someone to admonish you?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
So, if you think that you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! - 1 Corinthians 10:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
In an election year, political analysts eagerly predict who will be the next officeholder. But even those candidates that seem most assured of winning have narrowly lost elections in the final ballot count. The same is true of athletic contests. Until the final buzzer sounds, the game is guaranteed to neither team.

Just as political and athletic upsets are a possibility, today's key verse cautions us against “spiritual upsets.” For example, the Israelites leaving Egypt enjoyed significant spiritual blessings: the visible assurance of God's presence through the pillar of cloud (v. 1), the witness of miracles such as the parting of the Red Sea (v. 1), and the leadership of Moses (v. 2). The odds seemed undoubtedly in their favor. Surely with such evidence of God's power and faithfulness, their faith would not waver.

However, they did prove miserably unfaithful. “God was not pleased with most of them,” (v. 5). Their sexual immorality (v. , their persistent testing of the Lord (v. 9), and their grumbling (v. 10) all testified to the grievous sin of idolatry (v. 7). Rather than giving God the trust and the obedience He deserved as God, they turned from Him, doubting His Word.

We, too, must be cautious on our journey of sanctification during those seasons of spiritual “prosperity.” Following the times when we most sense God's nearness and blessing, we can be pulled under the current of temptation. Paul insists that we must not consider ourselves immune to temptation (v. 12). Neither must we excuse our sin by considering our temptation more difficult to resist than another's (v. 13).

We must again consider God's faithfulness. When our obedience is tested, we shore up our defenses by considering that God has always provided an exit strategy (cf. 1 Cor. 1:. Just as in Job's situation, God has sovereignty over everything in our lives, our sufferings and our temptations. And He's not simply waiting to see us fail. He's cheering us to the finish line!
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
How are you most commonly tempted now in your spiritual journey? For example, are you tempted to gossip? Look for the ways that God has provided for you to avoid those sinful conversations. Maybe you can politely excuse yourself when such conversation is started or you can proactively turn it in another, more positive direction. In each of your temptations, know that God has given you the means to be holy and pure rather than to give in to sin.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Luke 15:11-31; Hebrews 10:19-31
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. - Hebrews 10:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
In the familiar Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), the younger son demands his inheritance payment prematurely, skips town, and squanders it. On the other hand, the older son remains home, dutifully performing his familial responsibilities. When the younger son later returns repentant, the older son is angry that the fattened calf is killed for his brother's homecoming party. You never so much as gave me a goat, he grumbles to his father. His father faults the son for forgetting his inheritance: “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (Luke 15:31).

Our sanctification is an inheritance promised us by our Heavenly Father (see Nov. 5). Our reading from Hebrews outlines two ways that we can abuse this inheritance, mirroring in some respects the two sons in the parable in Luke 15. While the Father is always faithful, the children sometimes prove faithless. One son abused his father's generosity by unabashed rebellion, the other by neglect.

For example, we, like the older son of the Gospel parable, can neglect our Father's generosity by not seizing the intimacy God offers with Himself. God has given us free and complete access to His throne room (vv. 19-21). Unlike the Levitical priests who feared death in God's presence, we can enter the Holy of Holies with empty hands and without fear. We are not required to bring an atoning sacrifice for sins; Jesus presented the final sacrifice at the time of His own death. God invites us to “draw near” (v. 22). It is an invitation to fellowship, and by extension, an invitation for sanctification (see Nov. 9).

Aside from neglecting God's great invitation, another way that we can abuse our inheritance is if we “deliberately keep on sinning” (v. 26). We really despise His forgiveness when we think we can have “easy” Christianity—salvation without sanctification, forgiveness without discipleship, heaven without holiness. Our sin is a serious matter to God, an affront to His generous gift of grace.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Mercy there was great and grace was free, are the jubilant words of the hymn, “At Calvary.” And while God's grace is free for the sinner, it came at great expense to the Savior.

No wonder the second half of today's passage is frighteningly severe: God will judge those who despise His grace (vv. 26-31). Your personal holiness can measure how much you value Christ's sacrifice for your sins. Is His blood precious to you?