“Then they said unto Him (Jesus), What shall we do, that we might work the works of God. 29. Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.” Throughout the four Gospels, we are reminded about the power of belief. I will share some scriptures with you that will illustrate what I mean. This is about believing in Jesus Christ. It is not just about believing about Him, or believing what He says, but it is about believing in Jesus Christ, trusting Him to work in your life. In the text printed above, Jesus gives the principle of belief. The people who had followed Jesus since He fed them from the five loaves of bread and two fish, wanted to know what they could do to really work the works of God. Jesus’ answer was that it begins with believing. Specifically, He said, “This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.” Of course, Jesus was referring to Himself. No matter what else we claim to do on God’s behalf, if we do not believe in Jesus, what we do will be in vain. So the power of belief that we are considering is specifically belief in Jesus Christ. The “work” of God today begins with believing in Jesus. Of course, people will argue about this, for they do not want to discriminate against other religions. Well, it is a matter of whether or not we believe the New Testament. It’s just that simple! We cannot say that we believe in the New Testament about Jesus and not believe what we read. There is plenty in the New Testament that we can disagree and argue about, but we cannot argue about the centrality and authority of Jesus. There is an incident in Mark 9:14-29 that illustrates the power of belief. The setting is at the foot of what we call the “Mount of the Transfiguration.” After the transfiguration, Jesus, Peter, James and John, came down to join the other disciples. There was a deaf and mute boy there who had an evil spirit and the disciples could not cast the spirit out and bring God’s healing to the boy. In Mark’s account, the boy’s father talked to Jesus about healing his son. The father said, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.” The father said, “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” The father believed and Jesus healed his son. Jesus stated the power of belief by stating that “all things are possible to him that believes.” The father’s response can help us in our dealings with Jesus when he says, “help my unbelief.” We need to honestly confess that belief is not always easy for us, even belief in what Jesus can do in our lives. The power of belief in Jesus was unleashed in this man’s life and in his son’s life when the man honestly confessed his unbelief and believed. Jesus made a statement in John 8:23-24 that speaks about the power of belief: “And (Jesus) said to them, You are from beneath; I am from above, you are of this world; I am not of this world. 24. I said therefore unto you, that you shall die in your sins, for if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins.” (The “He” in this verse is the long awaited Messiah.) Jesus challenged the people to whom He was speaking to believe in Him as the Messiah in order not to die in their sins. This has not changed. We are still saved by believing in Jesus Christ as the Messiah promised throughout the Old Testament. The ultimate power of believing in Jesus is the power to be saved from sin, and from a Godless eternity. John 1:10-11 illustrates this for us: “(Jesus) came unto His own, and His own received Him not. 12. But as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” Today would be a good day to unleash the power of belief in Jesus in your life, either to be saved from sin, or to receive His help for what you need in your life. Just Believe!!!! Bro. Joe (I added all of the parentheses in this article.)
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“Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity (worthless things); and quicken (give me life) me in your ways.”
We are always looking for something. I know that we are not always conscious of this, but it is a fact. The psalmist realized this and made a request to God that he would not spend his life looking at “worthless things.” In this case that is what the KJV word for vanity means. Why would the psalmist make this request and why should we also make this request? The pursuit of worthless things will only lead to disappointment. There is an old saying that “all that glitters is not gold.” This little ditty might seem inane, but it is true. I can remember that I when I was child, there were things that I wanted so badly that I begged my parents for them. Most of the time I did not get what I begged for, but I can remember that when I got whatever it was that my eyes were beholding, I forgot about how badly I wanted that object, and moved on to the next thing that my eyes beheld. Come on, you know what I mean. As a youngster, my great longing was cap pistols with holsters that hung down my hip like the “cowboys” I saw in movies, and later on television. I never got enough cap pistols. Those cap pistols were fun to play with, but they really added nothing to my life. They proved to be “worthless things.” It was not that the cap pistols themselves were worthless; rather, it was my longing for them that was worthless, because they did not bring full satisfaction. What are the “cap pistols” in your life? What are the worldly things that you long for that are going to disappoint you when you get them? I do not mean that whatever it is will not bring momentary happiness, but it will not bring full satisfaction. We occasionally get what we call “car fever,” and go looking for that car and we buy it. Before long, it is just our car that takes us from point A to point B, and makes us momentarily happy, but does not bring what I call “soul satisfaction.” We will never cease to need and desire “worthless things,” because that is the nature of life, but we need to look for things that are higher than the mundane things of life. A scripture that comes to mind when I think of this theme is Colossians 3:1-2: “If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. 2. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” As written above, we will always need “things on the earth,” but we should not “set our affections” on them. We should not become “other worldly” in our dealings with people, but if we are to be the best friends and witnesses to people we will look higher than the “things on earth.” In order to have soul satisfaction we need to seek God’s forgiveness, and receive it by faith when He gives it. God’s forgiveness is better than any earthly thing that we will ever receive. We need to look to the cross and observe what Jesus did to give us the forgiveness that we need. We need to seek the love of God, accept His love and share that love with people. Nothing can satisfy our souls like finally learning to love people instead of hating or dreading them. We need to look to Jesus and seek the soul peace that only He can give. Hear the heart of Jesus in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” We will never cease to need “things on the earth,” but our greatest need is to look to, and seek, things that only God can give, like forgiveness, love and peace. There is much more to look to that God can give. Take Paul’s advice and “seek those things which are above.” Bro. Joe “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto your name give glory, for your mercy (love), and for your truth’s (faithfulness) sake.”
There is a lot to write about in this verse, but I want to pick up on three words that are used in it: glory, mercy/love and truth/faithfulness. These three words give us a perfect picture of how we are to relate to God and what He means in our lives. The psalmist began, “not unto us…” He meant that glory is not ours, but it is God’s. God is referred to as the God of glory. In everything that we do, we are to pray that it will bring glory to God. We do not serve God for our glory, but for His glory. This is something that we need to constantly remind ourselves of when we serve Him. We want to take a little credit for what we do, but we need to remember that if we take the credit for what God does in our lives, we are missing the point of serving Him, and that we are using our God-given gifts for self-glory. It is certainly alright to be as creative as we can in service to God, and to be glad when people are touched, or moved, by what we do. But we cannot forget the admonition of our psalm: “Not unto us, not unto us…” We certainly don’t want people to think that we did a lousy job in serving God, whatever that service was, but we need to give Him the ultimate glory. We give God the glory because He is the God of mercy. The Hebrew word used for mercy here can also be translated “love”. Love and mercy certainly belong together. The word can also be translated “compassion.” It is good that God has compassion for us, that He loves us and that He shows us mercy. I do not like to think what the world would be like if God was the opposite of these three words. What if He were the God of only hate and retribution? This would be a miserable world. We do make God angry, but His anger is always tempered by His mercy, love and compassion. His anger becomes discipline, which makes us stronger Christians, and keeps us on the right road. Personally, I have experienced God’s love, mercy and compassion in almost every way that it can be given. What a joy it is to know that God loves me and wants the best for me, and that He will remind me through His loving discipline when I stray. Give glory to God because He loves you and wants the best for you. Give glory to God because He loved us enough to “give His only begotten Son, that whosever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” We give God the glory because He is the God of truth and faithfulness. The Hebrew word that is translated “truth” in the King James Version, can also be translated as “faithfulness.” In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus portrayed Himself as truth, because He embodied all of the truth of God, and all of the real truth for people. There are many reasons that we need to give glory to Jesus as God’s truth, but the reason that I am thinking of now is because of His faithfulness to die on the cross for our sins, to send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us, and to give us His love and favor. Again, His truth and faithfulness are tempered with discipline, but it is nevertheless eternal truth and faithfulness. Pause now and give God the glory for His mercy/love and truth/faithfulness. Bro. Joe "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and He shall thrust out the enemy from before you, and shall say destroy them.”
You are probably familiar with this text. Its context is a message to the Jews by Moses as they were nearing the time when they would enter the Promised Land. It was God’s assurance that He would see that they were able to take the land. That is the immediate context of the text, but we can also apply it to our lives, for God still looks out for His people. Let’s see what a great promise it is. It promises us that the “eternal God is our refuge.” The American Century Dictionary defines the word “refuge” as “shelter from pursuit, danger or trouble.” It is good to know that when we have problems in this life we can take them to God and find refuge in Him. David had the right idea about this in Psalm 23:4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.” God is our refuge as we walk through the crises of life. Many times He will escort us around them, but He also often takes us through them and makes us stronger in the long run. I know that it is a comfort to me when I am going through hard times to know that I can take refuge in God and that He will be with me in whatever I encounter. Of course, there are those times when He will just come to our rescue and take us around the hard times. I think that the spirit of the text is caught in Psalm 57:1: “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in you: yea, in the shadow of your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” When you are facing life’s hard times run to God, run to Jesus and you will find refuge in Him. It promises us that when we seek God’s refuge, we find that “underneath are the everlasting arms.” In other words, the Lord is our safety net. We don’t ever need to fear that we will be without that safety net, for they are “everlasting arms.” That means that there is nothing that can keep God from catching us. We will never have to worry that He will be asleep, that He will ignore us, or that He will be indifferent toward what we are encountering in our lives. We will have to go through hard times in this life, but we will always have our safety net. It is good to know that even when we are very ill, God’s everlasting arms are there to catch us. There are times when the presence of God is so strong that it is almost like He is sitting next to us. I would not want to be one of those people who say that they do not need God, or that they don’t trust that Jesus can save or help them. We who claim Christ as our savior, should thank God every day for His “everlasting arms.” How can we know that He will catch us in those arms? Well, because He promised this and because He is real and His “everlasting arms” are real. It promises that He will “thrust out the enemy before us.” In our case, the main enemy that we face is Satan. As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:8: “Be sober, be vigilant: because your adversary the devil walks about seeking whom he may devour.” Only God can be our defense against this powerful enemy. In Ephesians 6:11 Paul reminds us to “put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (You can read about the armor in Ephesians 6:11-18.) The bottom line of Deuteronomy 33:27 is that we are not alone, for God is ever-present in our lives to watch over us and be our refuge. Take God at His word and trust Him. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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