A Daily Devotional

[Soldier4Christ]

When . . . Then
 
"Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations." (Deuteronomy 7:9)
 
Moses knew Israel would tend to succumb to various temptations in the Promised Land, and encouraged them not only to obey God's law, but to use temptations as an opportunity for growth in character. Standing on the border, he proposed three "when . . . then" situations and exhorted the people to decide in advance how they would react.
 
"When the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land . . . to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildest not, . . . Then beware lest thou forget the LORD" (6:10, 12). Moses knew that a satisfied people, recipients of easy wealth, would forget the Lord. The remedy: "Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name" (v. 13), and "ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God" (v. 17).
 
Next, "when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies . . . which the LORD our God hath commanded you?" (v. 20), the fathers were to instruct them with: "The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand" (v. 21). "And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive" (v. 24).
 
God also knows our tendencies to compromise, and "when the LORD thy God . . . hath cast out many nations before thee, . . . thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; . . . Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; . . . For they will turn away thy son from following me" (7:1-4).
 
In these and other situations, we would do well to follow Moses' exhortation and decide beforehand how we will react. JDM

[Soldier4Christ]

Love's Product
 
"That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:10-11)
 
Knowledge and judgment that are motivated by love (Philippians 1:9) are directed very carefully to certain end products that will fulfill our Lord's design and desire for His adopted sons and daughters while they are still on earth.
 
A repository of facts can be nothing more than a curiosity, and is often an arrogant distraction. A growing intellectual ability must be useful. It is no different in God's kingdom. Our knowledge and judgment must be used to "approve things that are excellent."
 
Paul's challenge to the Roman church was that they use their minds to "prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Romans 12:2). To his young son in the faith, Paul insisted that Timothy study to show himself "approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15).
 
The "proving" (testing, affirming) has a twofold goal: that our life on this earth would be "sincere and without offence" and that we would be "filled with the fruits of righteousness." Purity and productivity are earthly spiritual goals that are reiterated many times in the Scriptures. They, of course, are mere reflections of the holiness that our Lord creates in us when we are born again (Ephesians 4:24), but they are nonetheless an often repeated demand for those of us who claim a kinship with Christ Jesus.
 
The Bible sums it up this way: "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15-16). HMM III

[Soldier4Christ]

The Trumpet of God
 
"And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice." (Exodus 19:19)
 
This is the first reference to trumpets in the Bible, and it is significant that the "voice" of the trumpet was coming not from man, but from God. The setting was the awesome scene at Mount Sinai, when the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments for His people.
 
The last reference in the Old Testament to trumpets again refers to God's trumpet. "And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the LORD God shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south" (Zechariah 9:14).
 
The trumpet, as used in Israel (Hebrew shofar), was made of ram's horns and was used on many important occasions. One of the most notable was when the Israelites finally entered the Promised Land at Jericho. "So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and . . . the wall fell down flat, . . . and they took the city" (Joshua 6:20). These were human trumpets, of course, but they were sounded with the authority of God and God gave the victory.
 
We also today can speak with the authority of God, if we speak His Word plainly and clearly. But "if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (1 Corinthians 14:8).
 
We ourselves may soon hear the trumpet of God, for the return of Christ is drawing near. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven . . . with the trump of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). As we are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, we (like John long ago) will hear a voice "as it were of a trumpet," saying, "Come up hither" (Revelation 4:1), and then "shall we ever be with the Lord" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

Christ the Son of God
 
"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." (Romans 1:4)
 
The opening verses of Paul's epistle to the Romans stressed that the gospel of Christ was actually the fulfillment of that "which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures" (v. 2). This promise was centered in God's eternal Son who had promised to redeem the world from sin and death.
 
To do this, He must become a man, "made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (v. 3), yet He also must be sinless in both nature and practice before He could become God's perfect sacrifice for sin. He must be perfect man--man as God intended man to be. He must be a "second Adam," created without sin, yet He must not fail as did the first Adam, being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15).
 
He must, therefore, be miraculously conceived. "A body hast thou prepared me" (Hebrews 10:5)--a perfect body unblemished either by inherited mutations or by a sin nature genetically inherited from His parents. Then, for nine months, His body would grow, finally to be born of the virgin and to live a life "holy, harmless, undefiled" until that perfect, sinless man could be made "one sacrifice for sins for ever" (Hebrews 7:26; 10:12).
 
But how would the world ever know that all of this was really true? How could lost sinners be assured that their Creator had now become their Redeemer?
 
By His resurrection from the dead--that's how! He has been "declared to be the Son of God with power . . . by the resurrection from the dead" (today's text). Jesus Christ is "that man whom he hath ordained;" and of this we can be sure, because "he hath raised him from the dead" (Acts 17:31). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

The First Day of the Week
 
"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight." (Acts 20:7)
 
Given the fact that everything about God's Word was specifically inspired by its Author, it is appropriate that this important phrase, "the first day of the week," occurs exactly eight times in the Bible. The first six of these (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2, 9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1, 19) all stress the fact that it was on this day that the greatest event in history (since the creation) had taken place. The creation of the universe had taken place on the first day of the week, and now its Creator had conquered sin and death itself on that day. In the Bible, of course, the number "seven" represents completeness, so "eight" represents a new beginning--a new creation, a resurrection.
 
The last two references tell us just how the early Christians remembered this day. Our text verse tells us this was a day on which the disciples assembled together, had a preaching service, and then "broke bread." This was not a special assembly called just for Paul, for he had already been waiting there six days (see previous verse). This was about 25 years after the resurrection itself and the Jewish believers were evidently still observing the seventh day as a rest day, but then they also observed the first day of the week as the time to commemorate the Lord's death in "breaking of bread" to celebrate His resurrection, and especially to hear the preaching of His Word. The final reference tells us one other vital thing they did: "Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him" (1 Corinthians 16:2). The first day of the week should always be a time of remembering Him in these joyful ways, for He is our living Lord and Savior. HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

The Living Savior
 
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:9)
 
There is a popular Christian song whose chorus ends with these words: "You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart." This may sound spiritual, but this is not how we know He lives! We are saved because of the objective fact that He died for our sins and then rose bodily from the tomb, triumphant over sin, death, the curse, and Satan, alive in His glorified body, for evermore. It is this which we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips. For Him to rise bodily from the grave means that He is nothing less than God, the very Creator Himself. It is only because of who He is that He could do what He did, and this is what we must believe in our hearts.
 
There are people who believe that Buddha lives in their hearts, or the spirit of "the gods" indwells their hearts, or even that "the Christ" is in their hearts, but "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9). We can believe many things, and feel many things that are not so. We know Jesus Christ is a living Savior, not because we feel His presence in our hearts, but because He rose from the grave on the third day and "shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days" (Acts 1:3). The gospel of our salvation does not rest on our feelings, nor on someone's teachings, but on the objective, proven, certain facts of history. Jesus Christ is alive, whether anyone feels Him living in their hearts or not, and He is at this moment bodily in heaven, at the right hand of the Father (e.g., Romans 8:34).
 
"Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

The Prepared Body
 
"Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me." (Hebrews 10:5)
 
The author of Hebrews had just pointed out that, despite all the animal sacrifices offered up by the people of Israel over the centuries, "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). That would require the once-for-all offering of "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
 
But that perfect Lamb could be none other than God Himself, in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. No ordinary man, however powerful or wise or morally upright he might be, could ever accomplish such a mighty task. Neither could an angel remove human sin from the world. Only God could do that, but He must also be a man in order to pay the death penalty for man's sins, then also defeat death and live forever with those who would receive Him as Savior. He must be both eternal God and perfect man.
 
For this mission, He must have a human body, but it must be a very special body, with no genetically inherited mutational blemishes and no inherited Adamic sin nature. Thus His great testimony: "A body hast thou prepared me."
 
The Greek word for "prepared" is a strong word, connoting something like "made perfect" in most of its occurrences. It is used only one other time in Hebrews, in the very next chapter. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God" (Hebrews 11:3). This correlation assures us that God "prepared" the human body of His Son, to be placed in Mary's virgin womb with the same perfect wisdom and care with which He had "framed" the worlds. Both were made "very good," perfectly designed, created, and made to accomplish His great eternal plan. HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

Filled with Fruit
 
"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." (Philippians 1:11)
 
The unique phrase "fruits of righteousness" has many supporting teachings, the most famous of which is where the Lord Jesus compares Himself to a "vine" and we who are His adopted sons and daughters to "branches" (John 15:1-6).
 
Paul reminded the Philippian church that the fruits ultimately result from Jesus Christ, just as Jesus illustrated. We "cannot bear fruit" by ourselves (John 15:4). Not only does our very life come from God, but the ability to produce godly fruit can only come through and by God.
 
Isaiah noted that all of our self-produced righteous deeds are like "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). The fruit for which we are "ordained" (John 15:16) has its source in the thrice-holy Godhead and its manifestation by the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23).
 
Those Holy Spirit character traits are the innate property of the vine that becomes instilled in the branches, or us. This enables us to bring forth the fruit that represents the "DNA" of the vine in which we are abiding. Being connected to the vine makes it possible for us to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God" (Colossians 1:10).
 
The "husbandman" (God the Father) is superintending the vineyard (John 15:1). When branches wither and do not produce fruit (see also Matthew 13:18-23), they are taken away. The branches that do produce are purged (Greek kathairo, "cleaned up"). As Peter noted, "his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3). With God, "all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26). Without Him, "|we| can do nothing" (John 15:5). HMM III

[Soldier4Christ]

Opening the Ear
 
"Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required." (Psalm 40:6)
 
That Psalm 40 is primarily a Messianic psalm speaking mainly about the work of Christ is evident from its quotation as such in Hebrews 10:5-10. The psalm is prophesying particularly of His incarnation, as He says: "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me" (Psalm 40:7).
 
Burnt offerings and sin offerings had indeed been required from God's people under the law, but these were not an end in themselves. These sacrifices were meaningless unless they were offered out of a willing heart, obedient expressions of submission to a forgiving God.
 
That was the implication of the "opened ear," a symbolic expression indicating one's willingness thenceforth to hear only the voice of his master and to submit to His will in all things. If a freed bondservant "shall plainly say, I love my master . . . I will not go out free: Then his master shall . . . bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever" (Exodus 21:5-6). This was the testimony of the coming Messiah, as reported in our text.
 
Then note its application as recorded in Hebrews 10:5: "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me." That is, the phrase "mine ears hath thou opened" is translated by the Holy Spirit as "a body hast thou prepared me." The perfect submission of the Son to the Father required that He become a man, with a very special human body prepared by His Father. Then Psalm 40:7 becomes (in Hebrews 10:7): "Lo, I come . . . to do thy will, O God. . . . By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:9-10). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

Accepted in the Beloved
 
"To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." (Ephesians 1:6)
 
This wonderful verse assures that all who have been saved by God's grace have been "accepted" by the Lord. However, this is not just a marginal acceptability. The Greek word occurs only one other time in the New Testament, and there it appears in the words of the angel Gabriel to Mary. "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women" (Luke 1:28). That is, we are not merely accepted; we are highly favored by God!
 
This is not because of our own personal merits, of course. It is because God sees us as in His Son; He loves us because He loves Him, and we are in Him.
 
Although Christ is called God's "beloved Son" seven times in the New Testament (each time directly by the Father Himself), there is only one other time when He is spoken of simply as "the beloved." This is in Matthew 12:18 (quoting Isaiah 42:1), "Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him."
 
The love of God the Father for His beloved Son is the root source of every other love in the universe, for it is the one love that is eternal. "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24). This is what it means to be highly favored in the beloved! This was the prayer of Christ on His way to Gethsemane the night before He went to the cross.
 
We who are in Him are predestined to be with Him in glory, to behold His glory, and forever, as redeemed sinners saved by grace through faith, to be "to the praise of the glory of his grace" (today's text). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

Buried with Him
 
"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)
 
The burial of Christ after His death was extremely important for two reasons: First, it assures us that His death was a physical death and that His resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Secondly, His burial--like His death and resurrection--has profound doctrinal and practical significance for the believer's individual life.
 
All this is pictured, as our text points out, by the ordinance of baptism, displaying symbolically the death of Christ for sin and the death of the believer to sin, then the burial of the corruptible body of flesh (which, for all but Christ, returns to dust in accordance with God's primeval curse). And finally, the resurrection, demonstrating Christ's eternal victory over sin and death, and, in the case of the believer, the beginning of the new life in Christ.
 
The same truth appears again in Colossians 2:12:  "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Although these are the only New Testament passages where the doctrinal implications of Christ's burial are specifically mentioned, the spiritual truths taught thereby permeate all the Scriptures. If our old bodies of sin are--at least positionally--already in the grave, then it is altogether grotesque for them still to be walking around in sin. "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:5). We shall (not "should," as misleadingly rendered in our text) walk in newness of life, triumphant daily over sin through the implanted resurrection life of our victorious Savior. HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

Risen with Christ
 
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (Colossians 3:1)
 
The wise believer revels in the fact of Christ's resurrection. Some things in Scripture may be easier to identify with and apply, including Christ's substitutionary death, but it is the resurrection which gives us power to live victoriously. "Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4).
 
We have been "crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed" (Romans 6:6). Nevertheless, we are risen with Him, as our text and elsewhere (Romans 6; Ephesians 2:1-10; etc.) clearly teaches. This resurrection is an inward one, of course, but our bodily resurrection is also guaranteed by Christ's bodily resurrection, should we physically die. "Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus" (2 Corinthians 4:14).
 
Power to serve Him effectively comes through His resurrection, for we have access to the "exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead" (Ephesians 1:19-20). We have authority over all human and demonic institutions through Him who even now operates as head of the living church of His followers.
 
Perhaps the most precious of all benefits of the resurrection is that "we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens" who is sympathetic to "the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:14-16). JDM

[Soldier4Christ]

Other Preachers
 
"What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." (Philippians 1:18)
 
This verse seems to conflict with warnings about false teachers (2 Peter 2:1) and another gospel (Galatians 1:6-9). The key is identifying what Paul is allowing on the one hand and condemning on the other.
 
Some teachers of his day (probably both in Philippi and in Rome) appeared to be taking advantage of Paul's imprisonment to enhance their own reputations. Indeed, some were trying through their public preaching to "add affliction to |his| bonds" (Philippians 1:16).
 
Even though some with ungodly motives stood out among those preaching of "good will," Paul was able to rejoice that "Christ is preached" (today's text) by both categories, and therein is the source of the "power of God unto salvation" (Romans 1:16).
 
The stern denunciation of "another gospel" (Galatians 1:6) exposes the untruth of all hybrid messages, whether human or angelic, that would attempt to preach anything other than "Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2).
 
Here is the message for us. When the full gospel of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection--according to the Scriptures--is preached (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) by whatever means and even under sometimes questionable motives, the "good news" is cause for rejoicing. It is the gospel that has power, not the messenger.
 
However, when some people attempt to change that gospel to make it seem more attractive to those who wish to continue in sin, or change its message to allow for human works, we are to see such preachers as dangerous and under condemnation. May God keep us from both mistakes. HMM III

[Soldier4Christ]

The Watchers
 
"I saw in the visions of my head upon my bed, and, behold, a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven." (Daniel 4:13)
 
It is only in this chapter of Daniel (see also verses 17 and 23) that certain angelic beings called "watchers" are mentioned. Whether the term applies to all God's holy angels or only to a certain order of angels has not been revealed in Scripture.
 
However, we do know that at least some of the angels, if not all of them, are intensely occupied with observing events among humans here on earth. For example, Paul said that he and the other apostles had been made "a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men" (1 Corinthians 4:9).
 
The word "spectacle" in this verse is actually "theatre," and is so translated the only other time it is used in the New Testament (Acts 19:29, 31). It is sobering, as well as surprising, to realize that Christians--especially Christian leaders--are on a stage, as it were, being carefully watched by an audience which even includes the angels.
 
Paul also cautioned Christian women to maintain a covering on their heads "because of the angels" (1 Corinthians 11:10). Perhaps the watching angels are also included in the great "cloud of witnesses" who observe us as we "run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).
 
But why should these mighty angels, these "holy ones," these heavenly "watchers," have such a "desire to look into" these things here on earth? (1 Peter 1:12). Perhaps they are anxious, like us, to "see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God" (Ephesians 3:9-10). HMM

[Soldier4Christ]

Christ the King
 
"Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords." (1 Timothy 6:15)
 
Of the many descriptive titles of the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps the most significant is that of King, because this speaks of His universal dominion. The day is coming when "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth" (Philippians 2:10).
 
First of all, since He created all things, He is the King of creation. "For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land" (Psalm 95:3-5).
 
In a special sense, of course, He is the King of the Jews. "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end" (Luke 1:33).
 
He is also our King of redemption, having set us free from the kingdom of the wicked one. He "hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:13-14).
 
There is a day coming in which all the kings of the earth shall unite against Him. "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful" (Revelation 17:14). "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. . . . And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS" (Revelation 19:15-16). Until then, let us serve Him as King, and submit to Him as Lord. HMM