December 28, 2013 Vol 1, Issue 44

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.  The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.  This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.”

Isaiah 43:18-21

In just a few days, should the Lord tarry His appearing in the air, we will say farewell to 2013 and hello to 2014 and another new year.  During many of the opportunities that I have had to teach other preachers or church staff, I will often recommend that each individual take what I call a “30,000 foot view”.  This consists of a four part process of evaluating what progress has been made in the ministry or in business (used in a previous issue of toencourage:  1) Granular View, 2) In the Weeds, 3) Above the Weeds and 4) The 30,000 Foot View).  This exercise is performed once or twice a year and is not designed to see where we are going, but rather as a look-back to see where we have been.  It offers us the opportunity to reflect upon where we have been led by the Lord and what He has accomplished through us from the last time the 30,000 foot evaluation was performed.  The reason I suggest employing this 30,000 foot view over our lives just once or twice a year is because if we spend too much time looking back at “the former things”, we may become distracted and take our eyes off of the path we are intended to follow.  

As we reflect upon the past year and look forward to the new, we can build upon what we have experienced.  The Lord has guided us through numerous mighty and wonderful circumstances during the past year and those victories which have been achieved encourage us to move forward in the direction the Lord reveals to us each day.   

Should we see the new year, we can be assured that there are new things that God has prepared for each one of us which may include new destinations involving a new determination.  We would be gravely mistaken to engage in a search for new revelations or new doctrines in the Word of God, for  His Word is perfect and without void or error of any sort.  We must not fall prey to the beliefs of the Athenians who “… spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.” (Acts 17:21)  The new year and any new things prepared for us by God will include the continual light of understanding found in the Scriptures and the application of them in our lives to the glory and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My hope and prayer for all of you who follow this writing is that  2014 will involve a new and fresh Adoration of God.  Looking  back upon the victories of 2013 and pressing forward into the new year, we can know and trust that the Lord Who has blessed us during the past year will do so again through 2014.  We can then offer praises in a greater manner to the One who gives His never ending love for the life of those, His bride.  

 The Lord’s new thing is not only a fresh adoration for Himself, but also a clear and pure Approach.  As we reflect on the past year, we will undoubtedly find places where we made the wrong turn in a direction not in keeping with the will of God.   There is a good chance, however, that somewhere along the line the Lord will allow for a course correction, thus placing us where He ultimately intended for us to be.  Pain is a good teacher and there is much to learn from our disobedience and wayward choices.  From these we learn, so that when faced with similar choices in the new year, we will choose the clean and pure approach in our service to God keeping us on the path of His perfect will.

Finally, when our approach to the Lord is clear and pure with a new and fresh adoration of God, we will find that God’s blessings are Abundant.  As our lives are mostly spent in the tedium and minutiae of daily activities, abundant blessings, security and spiritual renewal can be found in God’s loving hands. 

Encouragement during the dark and discouraging episodes of our lives and the peace, happiness and joy found in the brightest days are granted through the goodness of God’s love and grace.  We must learn from the former things while looking forward to the new with an appreciation and understanding that God has not only blessed us in the days of yesteryear, but also that the Lord’s goodness is bestowed afresh day by day.  “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” (II Corinthians 4:16)  May God bless you richly in the new year!

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth…

I wish you all a blessed and happy new year.

toencourage December 21, 2013

I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Acts 20:35

It is that time of year again when families gather to share blessed mornings and wonderful evenings together and will exchange pleasantries and special presents one with another.   

Over two thousand years ago the Advent of Christ was fulfilled.  The birth of Jesus has been celebrated for hundreds of years and divided time as we know it. Biblically, as recorded in Luke 1 and I Chronicles 24, we know that the true miracle of Christmas was not the birth of Jesus, but rather His conception.  However, time lines and genealogies are not the theme of this week’s edition, but rather the pure reason for the season that of the Lord Jesus Christ.  No other person or character in history has affected the world in the manner that Jesus did and continues to do so.  One author reasoned about our Lord in this manner:

“He never traveled  more than 100 miles from home, but His followers permeated every country in the world with His story.  He never wrote a book, but more have been written about Him than anyone else in history. By far.  The first book about Him (the Bible), has been translated into almost 3000 different languages. The first runner-up (Don Quixote ), Only 60. He had only 12 disciples, but billions of people discuss His teachings every day.  According to one Harvard professor (not a Christian), the Sermon on the Mount alone represents the “most luminous, most quoted, most analyzed, most contested, most influential moral and religious discourse in all of human history.”  The professor adds, “This may sound like an overstatement, but it is not.“

Amazingly enough, we sometimes hear some snipet of the Sermon on the Mount quoted (or misquoted and misused) on a daily basis.  Our own president, whose policies  seem to attack and undermine Christianity through immoral legislation, has referenced the Sermon in the Mount on several occasions.  

 Nevertheless, Jesus is a Man, but Who is also God.  He is the God-Man.  Jesus was as much a human as His mother and as much God as His Father.  The Bible records the proclamation in Matthew 1:23, ”Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”.  God with us… that is Jesus!  Though  He never married, He established holy matrimony.  Outside of Christ,there is no true marriage.  Marriage is the institution and entity solely sanctioned by the Lord Jesus Christ and without Him, His words and pattern, marriage does not exist.  He is the Bridegroom and His church is the bride.  That is the plan, pattern and promise used to grant and govern marriage between man and woman as they join together to become one.  The process of the father “giving away” the bride to fall under the love and authority of another man, is analogous to the blessed reminder that we as the bride of Christ have been given to the Head and chief cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ.  

 As husbands, men are assigned responsibility to the bride by way of example in Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” (Ephesians 5:25).  As a husband, I am to give myself to my wife, to love her as Christ loved me.  That, my friend, is a sacrificial love.  I know of men (one in particular is a friend in the office of a  pastor) who speak of their brides in a manner that is a sad example of the love of Christ (yet this man in particular will stand in judgment of others; he has ruled out more men for the ministry than a Major League Baseball umpire has called out batters!).  Men such as these rule their homes outside of the example that the Lord has given us and away from the simplest form of marital love one for another.  They basically are attempting to dominate instead of depend on the Saviour, Who loved us so much that He gave His life for us.

 It is almost comical how devout atheists will celebrate Christmas in a certain sense of the season, but yet deny the existence of God.  Even those that denounce God cannot deny the power of the name of Jesus.  The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was an atheist, observed that “the name of Jesus was not so much written as ploughed into the history of the world”.   Author H.G. Wells, also an atheist, said, “a historian like myself finds the picture centering irresistibly around the life and character of this most significant man. The historian’s test of an individual’s greatness is, ‘Did he start men to thinking along fresh lines with a vigor that persisted after him?’  By this test Jesus stands first.”  There can be no gratification for those who choose not to acknowledge Jesus as Saviour but who make  statements that prove His existence. Their confession of Christ as Saviour would indeed be the greatest of all joys and would have enriched their lives immensely. 

Our belief does not prove anything.  The Lord is no more real, especially to others, just because we believe.  The awesome love story of a Father giving His only begotten Son to a lost world, humbled to be laid in a stable manger and thirty three years later to die on a cross so that sin could be atoned is the most profound and precious event that can be shared during any season of the year.  As G. K. Chesterton observed, “since Jesus died on the cross it has never been quite enough to say that God is in His heaven and all is right with the world, since, according to the Bible, God left His heavens to set it right.”

 Yes, it is true that it is more blessed to give than receive.  Jesus Christ proved this in the sacrificial death He suffered on the cross.  One of my dearest and closest friends gave an illustration in a sermon concerning Paul’s statement in Acts 20:35.  Here is the thought, paraphrased in my owns words: “It is a very true statement, especially when you consider the context in which it should be accepted.  One would think it better to receive something than to lose something.  But the reality is found in the magnitude of the event.  Why is it better to give than receive?  Simply because of the state of one’s position in order to do so. It is much better to give, because that means you are in a position to give as opposed to a position of need  thus to receive.  The Lord, at the darkest moment on earth, brought a light, a shinning glimmer of hope into what occurred on the cross.  It was a reflection of the prophesied promise fulfilled thirty-three years earlier in a manger in Bethlehem.  Jesus Christ willingly gave His life on the cross (John 10:18, Matthew 20:28) in the same way God the Father willingly and sacrificially gave His only begotten Son to this world (John 3:16).  From the cradle to the cross and eventually to the crown, the love of God has shone through two millennia of human history proving that He has and never will be surpassed.

 “…remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive”

toencourage December 14, 2014

And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.  And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.  And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.”  Luke 8:24-26

Last week we discussed the power of Christ as being: 

Delivered by God – John 17:1-2 

Derived from the Holy Spirit – Luke 4:14

Delegated to others – Luke 9:1

Determined by Himself – John 10:18

The central theme of our previous discussion revolved around our Lord’s incredible power, one manifestation of which was demonstrated by His control over the Devil.  So often in this life we find ourselves engaged in struggles which bring despair, sorrow, regret, depression and defeat.  These struggles are often spiritual in nature (either at their inception or in their results), instigated by the powers of darkness and the connivance of devils.  As believers, we recognize the absolute power of Christ over all things, including the Devil and all of his minions (devils, demons, and unclean spirits).  “And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.  And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.   When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high?  I beseech thee, torment me not.  (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man.  For oftentimes it had caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; and he brake the bands, and was driven of the devil into the wilderness.)  And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him.  And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep.” (Luke 8:26-31).  Here we have Legion, named as such due to the multitude of devils that had possessed this poor man, torturing him to the point of insanity.  The size of a Roman legion varied over the years and initially would have consisted of as many as 36,000 soldiers until they were later separated into ten groups of approximately one hundred and called Centuries.  At this time in history, however, most Legions consisted of 3,000 to 6,000 men.  The name “Legion”  was given in reference to how many devils had entered the man of Gadara, infecting him with a spiritual rot and controlling him bodily with writhing spasms.  We should not forget that this man was someone’s family member.  He most definitely had parents and may have had brothers or sisters.  He might have even been a father himself with children of his own.  The Devil and his devils have no regard for anyone’s position, stature, situation or prominence.  All humanity are viewed as potential victims.  

They ravage the lives of men, women and children with malevolence and morbid delight, “because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (I Peter 5:8).

In Luke 8:32-33, we read of the Power of Christ and the power of His spoken Word which exorcise these demons, casting them all into a herd of pigs which then stampeded down a steep hill, crazed, plunging to watery deaths drowned in a lake.  In verses 34 and 35, the confrontation had ended and the devils, having been commanded to withdraw, are now gone.  Those that had witnessed these events recognized the power of Christ and ran to tell others, while the man who had been possessed sat fully clothed and “in his right mind” at the feet of Jesus.

Praise the Lord that Christ has absolute Power over the Devil, devils and, as we will see, disease also.  “And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.”  (Luke 8:43-44).  

This woman had hemorrhaged blood for 12 years, but by the Power of Christ, she was healed after simply touching the hem of His garment which demonstrated His power over disease and illness.  As the struggles of life seem to escalate during the holidays, the power of Christ is able to overcome anything this world imposes upon us.

I am here to tell you that Christ has the Power over physical, emotional, mental and spiritual disease and illness.  We may be physically beaten, emotionally battered or spiritually backslidden, but Christ has the Power!  He and only He has the power to heal us of all manner of disease and illness in our lives!  He can do what we can not.  In your heart, you may be saying today that: 

“I’ll get back into the game…”

“I’ll make up my time…”

“I’ll become more faithful…”

“I know where I need to be…”

Friend, we can do nothing on our own, but with our Lord we can and will be made whole.  “And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” (Luke 8:48).  Only in Christ can we place our lives, trusting and depending completely on Him and Him alone for the power needed to overcome the devils and diseases that constantly attack us.

It is this power that Christ projects into our hearts, minds and souls that enables us in storms or struggles to possess the faith to know that we are able to “go in peace.”

toencourage December 7, 2013 Vol 1 Issue 41

These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come. 21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come. 22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. 23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. John 8:20-24

There is no doubt whatsoever that what Jesus Christ preached was forthright and straightforward.  He spoke eloquently without contradiction.  He preached boldly without fear of people “voting him out of office” for being “politically incorrect” or worrying that some group, such as the Pharisees, would usurp His authority or that His words were simply pleasing sermons that tickled the ears of the wayward. Simply put, Jesus Christ preached plainly with great POWER!  When one surveys the Gospel of Jesus Christ they will find that it is not just a doorway to heaven nor a dormitory of wisdom or a directing influence in one’s life.  They will find that it is power!  Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16).  We may confidently assert that there is power in the spoken word of the Living God.  It was His Word that brought forth creation in the first chapter of Genesis as He spoke the universe into existence.  Solomon said, “Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?” (Ecclesiastes 8:4).  Recognizing the authority that a president, a prime minister or a king wields, can we imagine what power the words of the King of Kings would hold?  Jesus is that King!   The Apostle Paul said, “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance…” (I Thessalonians 1:5).  There is extraordinary power and tremendous blessing in the simple belief that Jesus Christ was the One sent of the Father to assume the penalty for the unspeakable crimes and offenses of mankind and to take away the sin of the entire world, as John the Baptist had proclaimed.  Notice that John did not say sins, but SIN.  Jesus Christ died for the collective SIN of humanity, the totality of sin this darkened world has been cursed with for 6,000 years.  The key to benefiting from the power of Jesus Christ is that you must believe that He IS, not WAS and in His spoken word that “I am HE” lest ye die in your sins.

It is simple enough (II Corinthians 11:3) to be saved by believing that Christ agonized and died on the cross at Calvary, was buried and three days later rose gloriously from the grave.  Understanding this, we can begin to intellectually and emotionally grasp the magnitude of the great power our Savior commands. (I Corinthians 1:18).

Beloved, His power is seen throughout the world (Hebrews 11:3) and in the Word of God.  Christ Power is:

Delivered by God – John 17:1-2  His power comes from an eternal source and therefore cannot be destroyed, no matter what this world does to you.

Derived from the Holy Spirit – Luke 4:14

Delegated to others – Luke 9:1

Determined by Himself – John 10:18

That being said, what else could we ever want in the power of Christ?  What else could we need?  As a complement to the beauty of the Power of Christ having been Delivered, Derived, Delegated and Determined, it is also Demonstrated!

Friend, Jesus Christ’s power is demonstrated by His control over the Devil and his dark storms.  “Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth.  But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy.” (Luke 8:22-25).  Many times, God permits storms which have been activated by the Devil and his evil workings to intrude into our personal lives.  Job was allowed by God to suffer terribly and to endure great loss which included the loss of his children, his home, his wealth and ultimately, his health.

The Sea of Galilee historically is known as the “sweet sea of Galilee”.  It is normally a beautiful and tranquil body of water which is also called Lake Gennesarat as well as the Sea of Tiberias.  Yet as beautiful as it is, it also has a propensity for quickly developing storms, similar to the storms that arise in our lives.  The storms in our lives can come upon us so fast that one minute we are enjoying the beauty of God’s creation and the in the next, we are cowering beneath ominous clouds that have rolled in like a darkened veil upon the light of our very existence.

It is that darkness that we often allow to come in between us and the power of Christ.  Too often we succumb to the darkness of a raging storm which interferes with our relationship with God.  Flowing from the Sea of Galilee is the River Jordan.  It is noted to be one of the fastest moving rivers in the world and in many locations along it banks, currents are so strong that vegetation cannot take root and grow.  The River Jordan travels from the Sea of Galilee emptying into the Dead Sea, also known as the Salt Sea.

We may draw upon an interesting analogy to our lives as well in this illustration.  The Devil wants us to run from our personal storms (which he has created) by jumping into the fast moving waters of the River Jordan, seeking what appears to be an escape from the winds, the rain and the raging tempest.  The problem lies in the fact that as we see the storm passing and fade in hindsight, we never realize that we are trapped, carried downstream in the swift currents of the River Jordan.  Satan would tempt us to take the easy way out to surrender and drown never to succeed in crossing the sea of life so that we are able to minister in this world.  

I was taught that “the path of least resistance will always make rivers and men crooked”.  That easy path taken away from the course of the storm may provide sunny skies, but only for a moment, for the river ends in a place of death, the Dead Sea, where nothing grows.

That is the Devil’s desire, to have us flee from the storms resulting in ruined lives filled with remorse and loss.  The Devil depends on us not to exercise the Power of Christ which is clearly demonstrated over him.  It is in the midst of the storm that we experience Christ’s uplifting and overcoming power the greatest.  It is during those dark and stormy days when life is filled with fearsome noise and thunder that the glorious power of Christ holds us close to hear His comforting words: “Peace, be still.” 

The storms are terrible and tumultuous, but there is nothing greater than the power of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, if we would only believe.

“…for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”