“Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us….”
The Holman Christian Standard Bible translates this verse: “Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to His power that works in us.” What this tells us is that God can do a whole lot more than we believe that He can. We sometimes limit the power of God in our own minds. That brings me to the conclusion: God can use you! Our problem in serving God is not that we underestimate ourselves, but that we underestimate God. We do not realize that if God/Jesus wants us to do something, He will give us the wherewithal to do it. Doesn’t the Bible teach us this? Take, for example, the Children of Israel in Egypt. They were held captive by the most powerful nation on the face of the earth at that time. But God heard their cries and he sent a man named Moses to deliver them. Moses did not feel up to the task, so God had to educate him about His power. Put yourself in Moses’ place and ask yourself if you would have been up to the task? If you within your own power are up to the task, it is not a task worth doing and is probably not of God. It was with the hand and power of God that Moses was able to lead the Jews out of Egypt. But God used Moses to do the human part of the task. I know that when they got to the Red Sea, Moses probably felt a little despair, but his faith in God had become so strong that He believed that God could get them beyond it. Of course you remember that God parted the Red Sea for them. God could have done it without Moses, but that’s not how He chose to do it. There are plenty of things that God might ask you to do that are beyond your capacity. You might feel that He has placed too much on you. Understand this: God will never put more on you than He knows that you can bear. We need to learn that God’s adequacy overrules our inadequacies. Do you believe that if God was with Moses that He will be with you as well? Another example is the battle between David and Goliath. Understand that I am not in favor of betting, but if they had laid odds at that battle, Goliath would have been an overwhelming favorite. Here was a man over nine feet tall going up against a boy, who was of normal height. However tall David was, he came nowhere near the height of Goliath. The situation looked impossible. David told Saul that as a shepherd he had fought a lion and a bear and had killed them and that he would do the same with Goliath. Here is what David said to Goliath as he faced him in battle: “This day the Lord will deliver thee into mine hand, and I will smite thee…” Notice that David said that “the Lord will deliver thee into mine hand.” As our text suggests, God was more than adequate to enable David to defeat Goliath. Now, thinking of Moses and David, what is it that God wants you to do? That is a very personal thing and unless you tell somebody it will be between you and God. There might be a Sunday School class that you can teach, a youth group that you can work with, or a ministry to the elderly that God wants you to lead. There are numbers of things that God might want you to do. Your feeling of inadequacy is no excuse. Whatever it is that you are being led of God to do does not depend upon your strength but on God’s. If you believe the Bible, you can believe that God can use you to do whatever it is that He wants you to do. If you are a Christian, He has something for you to do. Put your trust in Him and do it. Bro. Joe
0 Comments
“For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
Someone has said that Jesus is written on every page of the Bible. The name is not there but the reality of His coming is evident throughout the Old Testament and is positive in the New Testament. In Genesis 3:15, after Adam and Eve had sinned, the Lord told Satan: “And I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.” This is generally considered the first prophetic statement about the coming of a Savior into the world. Isaiah 9:6 declares: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of peace.” In Revelation 13:8, Jesus is referred to as “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” It was always in the heart of God to provide salvation for sinful humanity through the sacrifice of His Son. Now, I cannot tell you that I fully understand why that had to be. Figuring it out is not my responsibility, but accepting it as true is my responsibility. When the Bible is as plain on something as it is on this, our only choice is to accept it. John 3:16 plainly states: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Notice that John 3:16 did not say “whosoever believes about Him.” There are people who think that it is enough to just believe in the existence of Jesus. That is not believing “in Him.” When we really believe in Him, we give our lives to Him. If we just believe about Him, we can hold Him at arm’s length and call on Him when we need Him. What He wants is to be part of our lives every minute of every day. That’s what Paul meant when he wrote: “that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” He comes into our lives and changes us for the better. The only hope that we have for righteousness is through Jesus. The Heartbeat of the Bible is that if we want to be right with God, we have to be right with Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us this: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (creation): old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” I know that it is not popular today to say that Jesus is the only way to salvation. People will take offense because they think you are demeaning whatever their religious persuasion is. Well, for myself, I have to believe the Bible instead of the world. It is not difficult to understand what Jesus said in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” If I do not believe what He plainly said, I am calling Jesus a liar. I want to be real careful not to call Jesus a liar. Only Jesus became sin for us. “For He hath made Him to be sin for us…” When Jesus died on the cross, He took all of the sins of the world upon Himself. That’s quite a load. I know that just my sins would be a load. This fact is illustrated for us in Jesus’ cry from the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” That was the profound moment that Jesus took your sins and mine upon Himself and died so that we could be saved. That was real sacrifice! For myself, I cannot look at that moment and laugh in the face of God by refusing to accept that sacrifice for myself. I hope that is true of you as well. Jesus is the central fact of the Bible and the reality that, “He was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” This should be the central fact of our lives; If it is not, then make it so now. Bro. Joe “But the Lord said unto (Ananias), go thy way: for (Saul/Paul) is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings and the children of Israel: 16. For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”
The above text was the Lord’s message to Ananias for Saul of Tarsus after his conversion on the Damascus Road. Ananias was reluctant to go to Saul, for he knew that he had come to Damascus to persecute Christians. In the message the Lord did not mince any words in his challenge for Saul: “For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my sake.” He called the Christian hater, Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the apostle to go to the Gentiles and suffer many things among them. This was God’s challenge to Paul, and he took it. The message that he would suffer did not cause the great apostle to back away from the commitment that he made on the Damascus Road. The Bible tells us that Paul went right to work preaching Christ in Damascus among Jews and Gentiles. In the same way, the Lord is good at issuing challenges to us. Perhaps there are things that you know that God wants you to do at your church, but it seems too much of a challenge. When you think about these things, think about Paul and how he handled the challenge in Damascus. It could be that there are things that God wants you to do in the community where you live, things that will lift up Christ in the community, but you are afraid of what people might think if you do them. There are probably even things that you know God is leading you to do in reference to your family, but you feel that you just can’t do it. (I know that the most difficult challenges that God gives us have to do with family.) The Lord does not issue these challenges to make us feel uncomfortable. He issues these challenges to help us get beyond our timidity and our reluctance to speak up, or act up, for Him. There are people that the Lord wants us to speak with that we are reluctant to approach. They might be people who have authority of some kind in our lives, and we don’t want to alienate them. There are people we know who are hostile to the faith and that they will be antagonistic to what we have to say to them. This is where we can practice what Paul admonished us to do, i.e., “speak the truth in love.” What we have to do when we are challenged as Christians to do tough things for the Lord, is to trust that the Lord knows the people He is sending us to, and He knows us. I’ve got to tell you that I have taken these challenges and didn’t come away feeling like a great victor, but what I said, or did, did ultimately make a difference in the life of the person. There have also been those times when what I said, or did, made no impression at all on the person. My responsibility was to do what God challenged me to do, not to necessarily walk away a big winner. Even the great Apostle Paul was not always what we would call “successful.” There were even times when he was stoned for taking God’s challenge. I’m not going to tell you that the Lord will not give you a challenge that might seem too great for you, but I know that He will never give you one that will be too great for Him. When these challenges come to me it is good to know that I have God at my back, and that He is there with the “everlasting arms” to catch me. The same is true for you. When the Lord gives you a challenge to say or do something, have the faith and courage to do it. You will be the winner for it, and you will know that you have been an obedient servant. Bro. Joe “18. And I said, my strength and my hope is perished from the Lord. -- 21. This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. 23. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”
One does not usually think of going to Lamentations for encouragement. It is, after all, the book of Jeremiah's lamentations over the destruction of Jerusalem. Yet in the middle of his lamentation, Jeremiah sees a glimmer of hope. He could have been called the Old Testament’s version of “chicken little” who went about saying “the sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Except that the “sky” was really falling. He is like the watchman who says, “All is lost, all is lost.” At this time in Judah’s history it would certainly seem that all was lost. Look at what had happened: (1) The king had been taken into exile, (2) The walls of Jerusalem were or are being torn down at this time, or have already been torn down. (3) The temple at Jerusalem had been destroyed. (4) The people were being carried into exile in Babylon everyday or they were being killed. It would certainly seem that all is lost. In one sense, all was lost. A whole civilization, which had been ordained by God, was being torn down person by person and brick by brick. There was death and destruction on every hand. No wonder that Jeremiah said, “My strength and my hope is perished from the Lord.” Don’t you think that if we saw all of our great institutions being destroyed, and our people being either killed or taken into exile, that we would think that all was lost? But then, Jeremiah had a thought: “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.” The Lord was letting Jeremiah see all of the death and destruction around Him, but He was also working in Jeremiah’s mind the hope that is always ours in Him. Here is what the Lord put on Jeremiah’s mind: “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” In the midst of all of the negativity, to put it mildly, Jeremiah saw a glimmer of hope, not in the situation, but in Yahweh, the great God of Israel and the world. Jeremiah knew that all was not lost because God was not dead. In the midst of his great depression, Jeremiah fell back on some things about Yahweh that he knew he could depend on. First, he remembered that God is a God of mercy and grace. Just because God allows us to be disciplined for disobedience does not mean that He does not love us anymore, or that He is no longer the God of love and mercy. Whatever you are going through might not be discipline from the Lord, but it is at least allowed by the Lord. This doesn’t mean that God has ceased to be whom and what He is in His very nature. He has not stopped loving you and He will show His mercy in His time. No matter what is going on around us, God has not ceased to be the God of mercy and hope. Second, Jeremiah remembered that Yahweh is the compassionate God. This means that not only does God love us, He feels deeply for us and His actions show the great agape (ah-gah-pay) love that was eventually revealed in Jesus Christ. The temple being torn down did not mean that God’s compassion had been torn down. Our circumstances can, and must change, but God does not change. Take great joy in that. Third, Jeremiah remembered the faithfulness of God. His love, mercy and compassion for us are new every morning and in all things He will prove to be faithful. Isn’t this what the coming of Jesus meant in the economy of the whole Bible? Take heart! This God described in Lamentations, is at work in our lives through the Holy Spirit. Praise Him! Bro. Joe “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
When Paul wrote 2 Timothy he knew that his days were coming to an end, and he was ready to die and go to heaven. 2 Timothy 4:7 reveals that Paul was satisfied now that his life had been worthwhile. It also gives us some insight into Paul’s character – what made Paul the outstanding person that he was. This text can also help us build character in our own lives. Paul wrote that he had “fought a good fight.” What did he mean by that? His life, like ours, was a daily battle to do the right thing. Like us, he had to fight with Satan every day, because Satan wanted to pull the great apostle down and ruin his witness. It is no different in our lives. Every Christian has a target on his back and Satan takes aim at that target every day. We are never free of his temptations. Also, Paul’s fight was with false witnesses who wanted to call people’s attention away from the centrality of Christ. It was a constant fight. It is still a fight today. There are always people who want to get us sidetracked on religion and ritual instead of focusing on Christ. Christian character is obviously built on devotion to Christ. We cannot be Christlike in our character if we don’t give our complete devotion to Him. There were other things that Paul had to fight, but what I have shared should suffice to help us build our character. Like Paul we need to fight a “good” fight. That means that we should hang in there and keep on fighting even when things are difficult. Paul wrote that he had “finished the course.” Another translation of this is, “I have finished the race.” Paul saw his ministry through to its conclusion, i.e., he did not quit. You know the old saying: “A winner never quits and quitter never wins.” What was this race that Paul was running? He was primarily called to be the missionary to the Gentiles. This would have been difficult for Paul in the beginning, because until his Damascus Road experience, Paul had been a devout Jew. This meant that he could have nothing to do with Gentiles. After that experience his ministry was mostly to Gentiles. Think of all that Paul had to do to overcome his lifelong prejudice. The fact is, though, that he did it. He went all over Palestine, Asia Minor, Greece, and eventually to Rome, carrying the gospel to Gentiles. Now that he was about to die, Paul could look back on his life and see that he had finished what God had given him to do. If you want to build Christian character in your life, you need to find out what it is that God wants you to do, if you don’t already know what it is, and do it to the best of your ability, following the leadership of the Holy Spirit. When we get away from God’s will, God’s purpose, for us we are not making the best use of our time. What is the “race” that God has given you to run? Will you see it through to the end? Paul wrote that he had “kept the faith.” I interpret this to mean that through it all Paul stayed true to his faith in Christ, and to the doctrines that His faith led him to. Paul did not stray from preaching Christ and from living for Christ. If we would build Christian character, we would stay true to Christ and to His plain teachings in scripture. We cannot let ourselves get sidetracked with minor arguments over faith and practice. Are you “keeping the faith”? Pray that the character that you are building is true Christian character. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|