“The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).
The gist of salvation is that you’re not who you were before. The Bible says that anyone who is in Christ is a brand new creation. It’s not old you with a new outlook. It’s not an improved you with better morals. It’s a brand new you with a new nature and a new heart.
One of my favorite sayings is that the gospel isn’t about making bad people good. It’s about making dead people alive. Before salvation, we’re all dead spiritually. We’re dead to the things of God and unable to respond to God’s call or even hear His voice. But when the call comes and we’re made alive, then it’s a whole new world opening up.
If you claim to be born again but there is not difference in your life, people have a right to wonder if your faith is genuine. I don’t mean you’ll be perfect or even close to perfect, but you should be different from before. People should be able to tell. You have a testimony to share, but the way you live should speak as loudly as the words you use.
Lord, make us different. Not in a weird or obnoxious way, but in a way that shows that we’re becoming more and more like You. May that difference be what draws people not to us but to You and makes them want to know more about You. Thank You for saving us. Amen.
I ran across another gem of a post on the social medias today. Specifically, it was the Facebooks. There’s so much wisdom in it that I’m going to copy it and share it as is. It’s called “Habits I Stole from My Grandma that Make me Disgustingly Calm & Unbothered.” Of course there will be a link to the actual post after:
“1. Wash the stress off in the shower, then leave it there. She said your bed is for rest and your shower is for release — never mix them up. Let the water carry the day’s weight down the drain, step out, and start clean. Some things are meant to be rinsed off, not slept with.
2. Move slow, especially when everything feels fast. She walked slow, spoke slow, poured her tea slow. Rushing tells your body there’s an emergency even when there isn’t one. The calmest person in any room, she said, is almost always the one who simply refused to hurry.
3. Say your no plain, with nothing after it. No apology, no explanation, no reason someone can argue with. “That doesn’t work for me” was a full sentence to her. She said every excuse you add is just a handle for them to pull. Give them nothing to grip, and they let go.
4. Keep a little money tucked away that’s only yours. Not for secrets — for peace. She said a woman with her own quiet cushion never stays anywhere for the wrong reason. Calm isn’t just a feeling, she told me. Sometimes it’s a small amount saved that nobody can touch.
5. Don’t argue with anyone who needs to be right. You can’t reason a person out of a story they’ve chosen to believe about you. So she let them keep it and kept her own peace. Unbothered, she said, isn’t winning the fight — it’s quietly deciding not to show up to it.
6. Eat something warm when the sadness comes. Not for comfort — for the body. She said a cold meal on a cold mood makes both of them worse. Warmth is the oldest signal there is that the danger has passed and you’re safe now. Let your body hear it and settle.
7. Leave while you’re still enjoying yourself. She ended the call first, left the gathering early, walked away from talk that only circled. Staying past your limit, she said, is exactly how resentment is built. People remember the woman who left while things were still good.
8. Treat other people’s panic as their weather, not yours. Their urgency is a report on their own planning — it’s not an alarm your body has to answer. She paused before absorbing anyone’s emergency, and most of the time, she simply chose not to pick it up.
9. Keep your hands busy when your mind won’t quiet. Knead the dough, tend the garden, fold the washing slow. Idle hands, she said, let worry take the wheel. Give the restlessness something useful to do, and the storm inside quiets while something small gets made.
10. Set the grudge down — you’re the only one carrying it. The anger you hold punishes you, not them; they sleep just fine. Letting it go, she said, wasn’t forgiveness for their sake. It was finally unclenching the hands you’d kept in fists for years. Set it down.
11. Sit in the quiet every day, even for a few minutes. No radio, no chatter, no phone — just you and the silence most people run from. She said you can’t hear your own life over everyone else’s noise. The answers you keep searching for are already waiting in the still.
12. Keep one small ritual that belongs to no one but you. Tea at the same hour, the same slow evening walk, the same quiet moment before bed. Never shared, never explained. A truly unbothered woman, she showed me, always keeps one room that only she holds the key to.”
“When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will. Record it with ink and with blood–work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).
My pastor once said that if you don’t live it, you don’t believe it. If you say you have a private faith, but it doesn’t affect the rest of your life, then it’s not faith at all. Faith may be personal, but it is never supposed to be private. People should be able to tell by how you live.
Something else I’ve heard from the pulpit is that you need to take what you just heard in a sermon and immediately apply it to your life. Otherwise, it stays in the room, and you walk out unchanged. If it’s more head knowledge that has no effect on your behavior, you basically wasted an hour of your time.
The good news is that God is looking for a saint who is ready and willing to obey. You don’t have to have perfect motives or perfect results for it to count as obedience. You just have to be willing to step out in obedience to put into practice what you’ve learned.
Jesus says that the one who hears the Word without obeying it is like people building houses on shifting sand. It won’t last. But if you go out and obey what you’ve heard, you’re building your house on a solid foundation. No amount of storms or winds can tear it down when Christ the solid rock is the foundation.
So the takeaway is this: if you don’t live it, you don’t believe it. If you believe it, you will live it.
“We have no merit, no claim, no righteousness of our own. Dear savior, we look up to you. Oh, that some might look for the first time, and those of us that have long looked would fix our happy gaze again upon that blessed substitutionary sacrifice wherein is all our hope. Dear savior, we do take you to be everything to us, our sin-bearer and our sin-destroyer. We do not have a shadow of a shade of hope anywhere but in you, your life, your death, your resurrection, your ascension, your glory, your reign, your second advent; these are the only stars in our sky. Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).
That’s my prayer every Sunday — that many people will hear the gospel and believe. That many people will become disciples who make disciples and not just seat warmers. That God would call out missionaries and ministers to take His gospel to the ends of the earth. That we would fall more in love with the gospel and the Jesus of the gospel every single day until Jesus comes back to take us home to stay.
The Book of Revelation is weird. It can be intimidating. A lot of people don’t like it because it gives them anxiety. Usually, that’s because they were taught to focus on the wrong things. Like what does this symbol mean? Are there tanks and atom bombs in this book? Are Russia and the United States in there somewhere, and when does World War III start?
But the book is not primarily about warfare. It’s about worship. It all centers around the throne room in heaven where all the saints and angels are gathered around the Ancient of Days. So much of the dialogue is familiar to a lot of people, especially if they’ve ever listened to Handel’s Messiah.
Once you understand that the main theme is Jesus ruling and reigning in victory, the rest makes a little more sense. At least I’m not nearly as concerned about what this dragon means or that woman giving birth. All of it points to how evil is finally getting its comeuppance. All the injustice in the world is finally vindicated. There is a battle, but it’s over before it even begins. Spoiler alert: Jesus wins.
I saw a quote a while back that sums it up perfectly: Revelation wasn’t written so that we’d build bigger bomb shelters in the back yard but so we’d build bigger tables and invite our friends over for meals and tell them about Jesus. John Piper says that missions exists because there are places in the world where worship of the one true God doesn’t exist yet. Missions leads to worship when everyone on earth has heard the good news.
Revelation is a celebration of the victory that is now and not yet. It’s about a Kingdom and a rule that is now and not yet. We see it in part and in certain places, but one day everyone will see it and every eye will see Jesus whom they pierced with the nails to put Him on the cross. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, whether in worship or under duress when they realize it’s too late to choose.
The enemy is a defeated foe, but he’s lashing out in his death throes, trying to take as many with him in his downfall as possible. But his time is short. All pain and suffering has an expiration date, and that date is getting closer and closer. And one day it will end. Death will end. And then real eternal life will truly start.
You still love me, You still like me, You still lavish me with acceptance.
When I am fed up with me, You invite me to Your feast,
When I am done — with me, with life, with everything,
You whisper, ‘Hang on — I am making *all things* — *you* — new.’ (Rev21:5)
And when I want to quit, You cup my face: ‘This great work I started in you? I won’t stop that beautiful work until you are fully, completely, gloriously beautiful’ (Phil1:6, 1Cor2:7)
So this becomes our brave & broken-hearted hallelujah, the one we sing into the dark, even when it’s hard to believe:
I am His Beloved, His Beloved, His Beloved… and even now I will be held.
In the name of the only One who loved us to death & back to the real & forever life… Amen” (Ann Voskamp).
I think we can have a harder time accepting the fact that God likes us than believing He loves us.
We can say that God loves me because He has to. He’s God. It’s His job. We can think of a million and one reasons why God must love us.
But saying that God likes us? That He actually wants to be around us and spend time with us? That’s a whole different story.
But it’s true. God loves me AND likes me. Even when my parents don’t like me? He does. Even when my spouse doesn’t like me? He does. Even when my kids don’t like me? He does.
God loves and likes you because He made you and redeemed you. He spoke you into life and then gave His life to bring you back to life.
Lord, thank Your for loving me. Thank You for liking me, You didn’t have to like me, but You did . . . and You still do. Everything I am is because of You. Amen.
“It is not only wrong to worry, it is real infidelity because it means we do not believe God can look after the little practical details of our lives; it is never anything else that worries us” (Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount).
First of all, I plead guilty. I am a worry wart much of the time. If I don’t catch myself, I can see myself imagining all sorts of worst case scenarios that almost never come to pass. I can work myself up into a good state of anxiety.
But what does my worry accomplish? Does it actually make my problem go away? Does it improve my situation even a little bit? Or does it keep me from making sensible and rational decisions?
Note: it’s one thing to worry and quite another to have anxiety brought on by chemical imbalances. Everyone has anxious thoughts, but what matters is what you do with them, or where you take them.
I heard the analogy that thoughts are like birds. It’s one thing to let them fly over, but another entirely to let them land in your hair and built a nest. The best way is to take them to God. The Bible calls it taking every thought captive. Don’t let it rule in your head and in your heart. Determine to think about things that are good and lovely like it says in Philippians 4:8.
You don’t want to worry. You also don’t want a Pollyanna type theology where you pretend that your anxiety doesn’t exist and manipulate your emotions into a constant state of faux peace. It’s best to be honest, and take that honesty to God like King David did in the Psalms.
“Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life’ (Philippians 4:6-7, The Message).
“This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?’ God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!” (Romans 8:15-17, The Message)
I think too many of us are guilty of thinking that eternal life starts after we die. We think that the resurrection life when the good stuff starts and that doesn’t start until we’ve been dispatched to our heavenly rest. But if I read my Bible right, it starts the moment we say YES to Jesus.
Too many of us go through our lives without ever tapping into that resurrection power. Too many of us are like that old lady back in the day who only turned on her electric lights so she could see to light her candles. We’ve settled for trying to do God-sized work with human-sized strength, and that never works.
Did you know that the same power that raised Christ from the dead now lives in you and me? It belongs to anyone who belongs to Jesus. Yet most of us live defeated because we either don’t know the victory has already been won or we’re too distracted to care. Our lives are small because our view of God is too small.
Lord, help us to remember how big You are. You’re bigger than all our problems put together. You’re bigger than anything we’ll ever face. You’re bigger than the whole world. Remind us that Your resurrection power is ours for the asking. Help us to live victoriously because the battle is already won. Be glorified in each and every one of us today. Amen.
“Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:9, NLT).
That’s discipleship. It’s not learning new information so you can impress others with your knowledge. It’s watching godly people and how they live and speak and act, then doing what they do. It’s called practice because you won’t get it right the first time — or the thousandth time. But a lifetime of watching others and doing what they do will lead you to maturity.
The Apostle Paul got it directly from Jesus. He literally had a blinding encounter with the Messiah on the road to Damascus. Paul later says that he spent three years in the wilderness after his salvation and before he began his ministry in earnest. That’s where he learned about faith. Plus, I imagine he spent time with the other apostles and older believers who had spent time with Jesus.
It may seem arrogant for Paul to say in essence, “Do what I do,” but that’s how we learn. I never have been one to learn how to do something by reading instructions out of a book. I do best by watching someone else who knows what they’re doing. Then I basically imitate what I’ve seen.
That’s why it’s vital to be in a church community and also in a smaller group within that community. It’s best if we have people older and wiser than us to show us how to be Christians and how not only to believe but to live out what we believe in real time. Obviously, you start with the Bible, but sometimes you need help in knowing how to practice your faith in obedience.
Lord, help us to spur each other on to godliness and maturity. Keep us mindful that as we watch those we want to be like in the faith, others are watching us and seeing if what we confess is what we really believe. Keep us humble and teachable, but help us to set a good example for those who will follow after us. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.
“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘Ye were bought at a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship).
I finished listening to an incredible biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Mataxas. It’s no small read (or listen), but it’s worth it if you want to learn about someone who who stood up against an ungodly dictator even though very few stood with him. He was not a Jew, but he defended Jews and their right to live because he believed they are God’s chosen people and the first ones the gospel went out to.
Bonhoeffer believed that true justice comes from a true understanding of the gospel of Christ. It’s not a matter of either taking care of people’s spiritual needs versus taking care of their physical needs. It’s both. In fact, it’s no good if you only meet their need for food and shelter and leave their greatest need for a Savior unmet.
When Bonhoeffer knew that his time was up, he told a fellow prisoner, “This is the end — for me, the beginning of life.”
He knew that his real life was just beginning. I think he’d agree with C. S. Lewis’ assessment that all this earthly life is just the preface to the real life that begins in heaven. So Bonhoeffer was not hesitant to lay down his life for the cause he believed in. He not only said the words, he lived them out — when Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
May the Lord raise up future Bonhueffers who will stand against the majority and fight for what is right. May God stir up prophets who will reawaken the Church in America to true godliness and zeal for the gospel of Jesus Christ. May we never become complacent or try to achieve peace through compromising our convictions, but may we always stand for the costly grace that cost God everything.
