“Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:57
“For whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. 5. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:4-5 There is yet another text that tells us about the victory that we have through our faith in Jesus Christ: "In all things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37) It is not always easy to see that we are victors. Life just sometimes wears us down and we feel defeated and alone, but according to the word of God we are victors because of our faith in Jesus Christ. There are some things that we need to realize about this. We do not always feel like victors. As I mentioned above, life has a way of wearing us down, making us weary and sometimes leaving us feeling defeated. If you feel this way, you are not the first Christian to have these moments. Just because we do not feel like victors, does not mean that we are not victors. The scriptures that are written above, and a lot of others, make it a settled fact that when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, He enters our lives through the Holy Spirit and gives us the victory. I’m not saying that it is a good thing to feel defeated; I am saying that, being human, we will sometimes feel defeated. If you are down in the dumps feeling defeated and you are a Christian, go look in the mirror and say to yourself: “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; therefore, I have overcome the world." And you might add: “Greater is He that is in me than He who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) It is not a sin to feel defeated at times; it is a sin to stay that way and think of ourselves as “losers.” We need to remember that we are not victors because of our own strength but because of the Lord’s strength. Remember what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:57: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Victory in Christ is a gift that God has given us through our faith in His Son. We didn’t earn it, and we didn’t bring it about, but it was given to us by Almighty God. If you are down in the dumps at this point in your life, get up and claim that victory that you have in Christ. If you don’t have that victory, give your life in faith to Jesus and it will be given to you. Rejoice! Bro. Joe
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“Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.”
“Redeeming the time” means to make the best use of your time. Following is my understanding of this term: We are given a hint in the admonition given at the start of the verse: “Walk in wisdom toward those without.” Those “without” are people who are not part of the church. This reminds us that we are to be good representatives of Jesus Christ in our daily lives. I think of this any time I have to deal with a recalcitrant clerk. (Come on, you know what I mean.) We can blow our witness with an ugly attitude. The time that we spend groaning and complaining is wasted time and is not the best use of our time. Verse 6 gives us another hint: “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer to man.” This means that we should be careful what we say to people, and in the attitude of how we speak. Ephesians 4:15 tells us how to speak: “But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things.” I have really worked on this in my preaching. Even when I have to be negative (“step on toes”), I try to remember that I have four fingers and a thumb staring back at me. Being followers of Christ, it shouldn’t be too difficult for us to “speak the truth in love.” Notice that Paul wrote that our speech should be “seasoned with salt.” This means that we should not be apologetic about our faith. Love does not compromise our faith in Jesus Christ. We should not waste our time being sarcastic or mean spirited when we speak to people, nor should we be apologetic about our faith in Jesus Christ. There are a lot of things that come to mind when I think of “redeeming the time.” For example, since I have been really, really retired for the past year because of illness. I have to think about this a lot. I could spend my time each day watching the tube, or playing around on the internet. I do both of those things, of course, but I have made it a practice to discipline myself to spend the first hours of my day in prayer, Bible study and writing. (You can decide whether or not you think I’m bragging.) These hours have become a real challenge, as well as a joy to me. At this time in my life, this is how I try to “redeem the time.” Give some thought to “redeeming the time” in your life. Bro. Joe “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. 24. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul: therefore will I hope in Him.”
Our text is a word of encouragement in the midst of a dark time. Jeremiah wrote this when Judah was in captivity in Babylon. In the darkest of times there is always hope in the Lord. There is always hope in the Lord because of His “mercies.” Throughout the Bible we see God’s mercy at work. One of the greatest examples is Psalm 51, which was written by David after his adultery with Bathsheba. The psalm began: “Have mercy upon me O God according to thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” You can go to the throne of grace today and the Lord will forgive you. He will have mercy on you when you appeal to Him in brokenness and sincerity. There is always hope in God’s “tender mercies.” There is always hope in the Lord because of His compassion. Jeremiah wrote that “His compassions fail not.” This means that God always loves us in spite of our sins. There will never be a time in our lives when God does not love us. Even when He disciplines us it is because He loves us. God loves you! That might sound odd to you, but it is true! You can say with confidence right now that “God loves me.” Frankly, I still have a difficult time believing that He loves me, but I know that it is true. Through Jesus Christ, I know that His compassions fail not. Jesus died on the cross because of His compassion for us. There is always hope in the Lord because of His faithfulness. Verse 23 is one of my favorite verses in the Bible: “They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” The mercy and compassion of God are new every morning. This means that there is not a minute, hour or day that God will stop loving us. God is faithful to touch our lives with His love and mercy. He is always faithful to forgive us. 1John 1:9 tells us: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” You can depend on the forgiveness of Christ. You have hope today because of God’s mercy, compassion and faithfulness. That is gospel truth. Amen Bro. Joe "Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect and the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”
Prayer is our life line. I want to share with you some ways that our prayers can be hindered. (You will understand that the hindrance is our problem and our cause, not God’s.) According to 1 Peter 3:7, bad family relations can hinder our prayers. Husbands are to treat their wives with respect, or their prayers will be hindered. I think that this is true of all family relations in principle. Our spirituality can be gauged by how we treat family members. If we are nice to everyone else but act like tyrants at home, God sees it and is not pleased. If the wife demeans and belittles her husband, she is not doing what the Bible tells her to do. If children do not obey their parents, they are not doing what the Bible tells them to do. If parents are harsh on their children without real love, they are not doing what the Bible tells them to do. We must try to keep things right within our families. According to 1 John 5:5, ignoring the will of God can hinder our prayers: “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” To me, this is the bottom line on prayer. Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:10: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Being in the will of God is absolutely necessary in all matters in the Christian’s life, and answers to prayer are no different. There are people who say that if you pray in order to accept the will of God, you lack faith. To the contrary, I think it means that we are taking our faith in the sovereignty of God seriously. When we petition God in prayer, our goal should not be what we want but what God wants. Mark 11:24 indicates that lack of belief can hinder our prayers: “Therefore I (Jesus) say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray believe that you receive, and you shall have them.” (When you read this, don’t forget the discussion on 1 John 5:5 about the will of God. ) Belief, or faith, is the key that unlocks the door to prayer power. We do not cross our fingers and pray, expecting God to answer our prayers. When we pray, we should open our hearts to God in profound trust that He will hear our prayer and answer according to what He deems best for us. I have found that in most of the answers that I have had to prayer, the answers were always for the best and brought victory into my life. It is of utmost importance that we believe that God hears and answers our prayers. There are other hindrances to prayer but these are among the most common hindrances. Bro. Joe “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever.”
We are reminded in this text, and in many other texts, that we need to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. As the text suggests, when we grow we bring glory to Christ; when we fail to grow we fail to bring glory to Him. I want to share what I call “Three Pitfalls to Christian Growth.” Disappointment We fail to grow when we are overcome with disappointment. It begins with disappointment with ourselves. It might begin because we get involved with some sin, and we know that we have let the Lord down. Seeking the Lord’s forgiveness and accepting it when He gives it would remedy this. If He is not disappointed in us, we should not be disappointed in ourselves. We are often disappointed with our fellow Christians. This is the point at which we need to practice forgiving other people instead of holding ill-will and grudges. Unfortunately, we are sometimes disappointed with God when we think that He failed us in some way. At this point, we just need to accept His will and move on, for He does not make mistakes. Discouragement Disappointments can lead to discouragement. Frankly, we need to get discouraged when we are self-absorbed. I’m not really preaching to you about this, I have seen this same thing in myself. We need to get our minds and eyes off of ourselves and put them on the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are discouraged it is not because of anything that the Jesus has done. We get discouraged and let it hold us down when we are not listening to the still small voice of the Holy Spirit. He will encourage us through reminding us of our weaknesses and encouraging us in our strengths. If you are discouraged you did that to yourself. Get up off of it! Defeat Disappointment and discouragement can lead to defeat. Football coaches are always giving pep talks to keep their players from feeling, or being, defeated. Quite often defeat is in our minds and hearts. When the feeling of defeat, and living in defeat, is always in our minds and hearts and we need the encouragement of scripture and prayer. We also need the fellowship, and friendship, of our Christian brothers and sisters to encourage us. Be aware of these pitfalls to your growth and take them to the Lord. Do it! Bro. Joe “In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath made the one over against the other, to the end that man should nothing after him.”
As we have seen in earlier articles, Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon, is unpredictable. Solomon was writing as a world-weary fellow who had everything that his heart desired and he found it rather boring and empty. The idea was that the full meaning of life is found in fearing God, or as we would say from the New Testament perspective, reverence and trust in God. In this verse he reminds us that good and bad will happen, and that we will have uncertainty about the future. His first advice was to be joyful when things are going good. This seems like unnecessary advice, but is it really? Sometimes we can’t enjoy the good things because we are worried about a lot of other things. Like Martha, we are sometimes “careful and troubled about many things.” (See Luke 10:38-42) Or like the seed in the parable of the sower that fell among the thorns, we become choked up by the cares of this life that we are so negative that we can’t really rejoice over the things that are good. We need to adopt the verse from Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It could be that one might be so depressed that they can’t recognize a good, and prosperous, time when he is in the midst of it. His second advice was then we face days of adversity that we should consider that God is part of both good and bad days. This could mean several things. One is that when we face adverse times we need to consider that they are inevitable, and that we might consider what God is trying to teach us. When Paul was enduring his “thorn in the flesh” he went to God in prayer and was told that he would keep his “thorn in the flesh,” and that Christ’s grace would be sufficient to see him through it. Considering this answer, Paul saw that through his weakness he could discover God’s strength. In other words, he saw his utter dependence on Jesus. A second thing is that we need to consider is that we are not the only ones who have gone through times of adversity, and that we are not too good to have bad days. Sometimes they might be a reminder from God that we need to make some changes in our lives. Another thing that I have discovered is that the adverse times will end. One of my favorite sayings when I am going through adverse times is to say, “this too shall pass,” and it always does. Some adverse things last longer than others, but they, too, will eventually end. Think about what this verse can mean in your life. Bro. Joe "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world and that you protect them from the evil one.”
John 17 contains the prayer of Jesus for Himself, His disciples and for future believers.Our focus is on verse 15, where Jesus prayed, basically, for the Lord to keep His discples here and to protect them. There is a word here for us. Following is what I found: Jesus did not pray for His disciples to be taken out of the world because they were needed in the world. He had a purpose for them. We can accept this as a prayer for us as well, for He has us here for a purpose. His disciples were to be His witnesses to the world, which is why He has us here. When we received Jesus as our Savior, we became His witnesses. We must witness first by example by living a Christian lifestyle. Jesus saved us to live for Him and to live like Him. For example, we should love people whether or not they are lovable. We should forgive people even when they do not ask for our forgiveness. We should speak for Jesus, even if it would make us unpopular. When Jesus gets ready to take us out of here, He will. Until then we are to be His witnesses to the world. We are not judges of the world but witnesses to the world by the way we live, and when the opportunity arises, to share with others what He has done for us, and can do for them. Jesus prayed for His disciples to be protected from “the evil one.” The “evil one” is Satan. Jesus knew that Satan would attack His people and try to ruin their witness. He is still working to ruin our witness. 1 Peter 5:8 reminds us: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour.” We need to remember that we have protection from him, but that does not mean that we will always claim it and use it. The Holy Spirit warns us, and speaks to our hearts, but He does not coerce us. Like Simon Peter, when he denied Jesus at His trial, we can get too confident in ourselves and drop our guard. This does not mean that we should “run scared,” but that we should be vigilant, as Peter reminded us. In verse 16, Jesus said that His disciples were “not of the world, even as I am not of this world.” In verse 17, He asked the Father to “sanctify them (set them apart) through your truth; your word is truth.” We have the same word to help us in our lives. Thank God, He has given us His word to inspire and remind us of His presence in our lives. We also need to pray for God’s help and protection. Remember, Jesus has given us a purpose, or purposes, to be His witnesses in the world and to the world. . Bro. Joe Friday-Sunday “A time to love and a time to hate…...”
Ecclesiastes usually leaves me puzzled. I came across this verse today and decided to give it some thought. This is not the first time that I have written about this verse, and this is probably not the last time. Following is what I got from it this time: First, Solomon wrote that “there is a time to love.” There is no puzzle here. In fact, the New Testament reminds us that we are to love people whether they are lovable or not. Now, that is not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to do. My mind went to 1 John 4:20-21, which is one of my “go to” verses on this subject: “We love (God) because He first loved us. 21. If a man says, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar, for he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen.” The “brother” here is simply another person. These two verses are why I make every effort to love people who are not lovable. If you are not making the effort, you should, because there is always “a time to love.” Second, Solomon wrote that there is “a time to hate.” I want to share my thoughts on this puzzling verse: There is always a time to hate Satan and his demons. He never means any good for us and will ruin us if we let him. There are people who claim to love Satan, but they are sadly confused. We find Jesus’ opinion about him in John 8:44: “He is a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” There is always a time to hate sin. We really need to hate our prevailing sins. These might not seem like much to us but they are important to Jesus. That is why it is so important to seek His forgiveness on a daily basis. Sin can never bring good things into our lives. I’m not guessing about this, I know this from experience. You can say the same thing if you will think about it. There is always a time to hate the evil deeds that people do. This does not mean that we should hate the people, but to hate their deeds. Isis comes to mind. I honestly pray for Jesus to enable me to love them, but I do honestly hate what they do. I constantly pray for their conversion. You probably get my point: It ain’t easy but it is the Christian thing to do. Let’s pray to love people and hate the things that we should hate. Bro. Joe "My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into diverse (many different) temptations (trials). 3. Knowing that the trying of your faith works patience. 4. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
The word “patience” in verses 3 and 4 caught my attention and my imagination. It is the KJV translation of the Greek word “hupomonay.” I want to share the various meanings of “hupomonay” that I discovered. Verse three can be translated: “the trying of your faith works perseverance.” It takes a lot of patience to persevere in hard times. James wrote this in a time when it was dangerous to be a Christian. Our faith in Jesus Christ urges us to “keep on keeping on” in spite of the problems that we will inevitably face. We have the New Testament because men persevered and lived to write about it. James was one of those who persevered. Paul was one who persevered. Paul’s friend Barnabas persevered. For example, does your faith lead you to persevere, even when you are criticized? Do you persevere when the work that you do in seems to be unappreciated? We need more “peseverers” (I think that I invented a word, but you know what I mean.) Pray that you will persevere in your work for the Lord….”in spite of…..” Another word that comes to mind pertaining to perseverance is “endurance.” This means to keep on keeping in spite of the burden that you might be carrying. It occurred to me that we would not have a New Testament if some Christians had not endured the hard times that they faced. Paul comes to mind here. After his conversion Paul had to endure many trials. He listed some of the trials in 2 Corinthians 11:21ff. Turn to this text and see what Paul endured in his service for Christ. I think of what missionaries on foreign (for lack of a better word) fields face today. Many of our missionaries are serving in dangerous places, and they could list things like Paul listed in 2 Corinthians 11. Our Christian brothers and sisters in Middle Eastern countries serve as good examples for us in both perseverance and endurance. Give some serious thought to your own endurance. Do you persevere and endure when there seems to be no reward or appreciation of your service? We sorely need “endurers” today. Have you thought about your own patience, perseverance and endurance? Do that now, and ask for the Lord’s strength. Bro. Joe “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; 12. Having your conversation (conduct) honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.” (Or “glorify God on the day He visits us.”) Does it matter what people think about us or say about us? The answer is “yes” and “no.” If we are always worried about what people think about us or say about us no matter whether what we are doing is good or bad, the answer is “no.” If we are concerned that our behavior reflects the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, then the answer is “yes.” Look at what Peter advised: Peter refers to us as “strangers and pilgrims.” Christians are citizens of two countries. We are citizens of our country, subject to the laws of our country, but we also have a heavenly citizenship, which means that we are citizens of the kingdom of God. In that sense, we are “strangers and pilgrims.” While it is important for us to be be good citizens in the earthly realm, and that we reflect the best of the values of this realm; it is even more important that our lives reflect the best of the values of the heavenly realm. Sometimes, we just have to be “strangers and pilgrims” in our behavior. This might bring us into conflict with earthly values. When that happens so be it. Our Christian witness is all-important to God, and should be for us as well. Peter demands that we “abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” There are things that we, obviously, should not do. When we give in to “fleshly lusts,” which we will if we aren’t careful, we give a bad example to the world. The world is super-critical of us when we do not “abstain from fleshly lusts.” We were admonished by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:22 to “abstain from all appearance of evil.” This is not a call for us to be self-righteous. It is not self-righteous, however, to live a clean Christian life and to help others do this as well. In verse 12, Peter wrote that our conduct should be “honest among the Gentiles (in this case, pagans): that, whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God on the day of visitation.” While people might not be impressed with our Christian lifestyles, they will be impressed when the demands of this lifestyle make us trustworthy in all of our dealings with people. If people are going to say bad things about us, it should be about our stand for Christ, with which they disagree, but not about our trustworthiness. I am not suggesting that we lay awake at night and worry about what other people think of us. I am suggesting that we should be aware that what we say and do reflects our commitment to Christ. Bro. Joe |
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