“For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. 13. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.”
Titus was God’s man to preach the gospel to the people on the Island of Crete. Titus 2:11-13 gives us the content of the message that he was to preach to the unruly people of Crete. It was a message of God’s grace. The message of God’s grace has not changed. It is still the message that we are to give to the world. The message is, and always will be, a message of the grace of God. Grace is defined as “God’s unmerited favor.” This means that we do not deserve all that God has done for us, but He has done it, and is doing it, today. These two verses show us the essence of the profound grace that we are to share with the world. Paul reminded Titus, “for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” God’s grace is inclusive. The gospel that we preach is intended to reach all people, not just people of whom we approve, or with whom we are comfortable. There is no one who is so sinful that God’s grace cannot reach him or her. This doesn’t mean that all people will respond positively to God’s grace, but it does mean that this grace is available to them. This is why Jesus commanded His disciples, and us, to go into the entire world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why missionaries are being sent all over the world. The message of grace, the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is meant to be shared with the whole world. This means that the gospel is to be carried to remote places where people are uninformed, and it is to be carried to the erudite and sophisticated people of the world as well. We should not forget that “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all (people).” Paul reminded Titus, “teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.” God’s grace is instructive. When people accept Jesus Christ as Savior, their lives are changed. This is what the gospel of grace instructs us to share with God’s people. The grace of God brings profound change into the lives of the people who embrace it. There is no better example of the life-changing nature of the gospel than Paul himself. He knew what it meant to be touched by the grace of God and to turn from being a hateful person to being a loving person who would share the gospel of grace all over the Roman Empire, and thus to the world. It was said of the people of Crete, that they “are always liars, evil beasts…” (Titus 1:12) Titus was to take the profound message of grace to even the “liars” and “evil beasts” of Crete. The grace of God could transform their lives as well as the most amiable of people. Grace teaches us that we are to deny ungodliness and to shun worldly lusts, and that we are to live “soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.” Grace still teaches this today. Paul reminded Titus that God’s grace included, “Looking for that blessed hope, and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” God’s inclusive and instructive grace also informs us that “this present world” is passing away and Christ will return for His people. God’s grace does not save us for this world alone, but for a glorious future with Christ forever. This is the gospel of grace that Titus was to share in Crete, and that we are to share where we are. Let’s do it! Bro. Joe
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“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.”
Good news! If you feel insufficient to meet all of the challenges of your life, you are in good company. The great apostle Paul declared in this verse his own insufficiency. No one suffered for the sake of Christ more than Paul, and through it all he depended on the sufficiency of the Christ that he served. This is a lesson that we need to learn. I think that we unconsciously try to take on the challenges of our lives on our own without considering that we have a resource in Jesus that can take us over all of the challenges and trials of our lives. We just need to confess our insufficiency and trust the eternal sufficiency of our Lord and God. What does it mean to depend on the sufficiency of God? It means that we can depend on Him in whatever we face in life. We find that when we get to the end of our rope that there is a greater rope to grasp. We do not know what it means to depend on God’s sufficiency until we run out of our own resources. I have testified that after seventy-two years of life on this earth, and after over fifty years in Christian ministry, I fully realized the sufficiency of God when I had to battle illness over a two year period. I thought that I knew something about faith, grace, prayer, and all of the great things of the Christian faith, but when I could do nothing but trust God, He proved sufficient to meet all of my needs. Sometimes God brings us to the end of ourselves and our puny resources in order for us to see His real strength. We just need to trust that we can depend on God in all of life through the good and the bad. Someone has written, and rightfully so, that, "When we are flat on our backs, we can only look up." It means that we need Him to teach us how to really live the Christian life. This world is rife with temptations that call us away from the life that He wants us to live. Our Lord Jesus Christ experienced all of temptations without sin. He emerged victoriously, and enables us to contend with all of the issues of life. One of the most difficult lessons that Christ taught us was to love people like He loves us. This means that we should love people unconditionally. This is not humanly possible. We can’t live out the sacrificial love of God on our own. That is one of the reasons that Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to indwell us and guide us into the wilderness of life. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can love as Jesus loved. All of the virtues of the Christian life are possible for us because we have the sufficiency of our God to help us live them. Keep in mind that none of us lives them perfectly, but we can live good lives because of God’s sufficiency. It means that if we try to live the Christian life on our own without depending on the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we will make a big mess of it. There are Christians all over the world who are not enjoying the victorious life because they are trying to live it in the flesh and not in the Spirit. Lest I seem too self-righteous here, I know this is true because I have tried it myself. I have found that after God has done a great work in my life, I can take credit for it myself if I’m not careful. This is when Satan has come into the picture and turned victory into defeat. When we stop thanking God for His sufficiency in our lives, and when we stop giving Him the credit that He deserves, we are defeated in our spirit. There is not a person on this earth who is sufficient unto himself or herself. All you have to do is look at what a mess the world is in to see what human beings do when they do not lean on God’s sufficiency. Just take this as a reminder that He is your sufficiency too and lean on Him. Bro. Joe “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”
When I was little boy, we used to sing a chorus at the Smithville Baptist Church called “Joy Down in My Heart.” It went like this: “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart, down in my heart, I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart, down in my heart to stay…” (If you have heard it, you are probably humming the tune as you read the words.) There were other verses, but it is this first verse that always comes up in my memory. One of my favorite themes as a minister has been about joy. I try to make it a theme of my daily life and not just a theme for preaching or writing. If I tried to convince you that I am joyful all of the time, you would know that I was lying. But one thing that I learned from John 15:11 that has helped me to know that though I am not always joyful, I always have joy. Jesus has placed His joy in my heart, “down in my heart to stay.” It is not always easy to explain what this means, because we confuse joy with happiness. They are not the same. A nice lady once asked me if I smiled all of the time. My answer to her was, “Heavens no. If I smiled all of the time, I would be lying a good part of the time.” If I smiled all of the time I would be happy all of the time. I am definitely not happy all of the time, and I doubt that anybody is. You see, happiness is a temporary thing. For example, your team wins the game and you are extremely happy, but the next week they lose and you are not happy. When good things happen to us, or to our children and grandchildren, we are happy, but when bad things happen we are not happy. Happiness just comes and goes, but joy we have always as a gift of Jesus. What does this eternal joy mean to us? It means that whatever we face in this life, we can rejoice in the fact that Jesus is in control. When I think of this, I think of an incident that happened when I was a little boy. We were singing the invitation hymn at a revival service at the Smithville Baptist Church. The preacher asked everybody who knew that they were saved and that they would go to heaven if they died that night to raise their hands. I looked up and my mama had raised her hand. I remember thinking, “I wonder how she knows that.” Well, I know personally now, but when mama died on September 9, 2010, I remembered that. I knew that she was a Christian and that her hope was in Jesus. Since her death, I often think of that incident and the joy of Jesus rises up in my heart. Mama is in heaven. I am not happy that she is no longer with us, but the joy of Jesus in me reminds that I will see her again in heaven. It means that when we are at the low points of life, we are not without joy. This came to me when I went through chemo-therapy in 2011 for lymphoma, and had colon surgery to remove a cancer in 2012. You know that I would be lying if I said to you that I was happy when I was skinny, undernourished, n and bald-headed at one point and in pain from surgery at another point. But I can tell you that I was fully aware of the presence of Jesus during all of this time. I don’t think that I have ever felt His love so fully and completely as I did during those times. I am not lying when I tell you that His joy came to my rescue and kept me from asking Him why, or complaining because of what I was going through, or blaming Him for letting this happen to me. Prayer came alive to me as never before, and the Bible spoke profoundly to my heart as never before. It wasn’t a happy experience, but it was an experience that brought forth the joy of Jesus that comforts me even to this day. I sincerely hope that you can sing, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart to stay….” Bro. Joe “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before, 14. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
I am indebted, once again, to my current devotional book for this post. (Destination, David Jeremiah) When I read the points that I am about to make, the idea of living wisely came to my mind. I think that the text and the three things suggested in the article tell us how to live wisely. First, “Accept the past.” Paul wrote “forgetting those things which are behind.” Do you realize that Satan is an expert at helping us dig up negative things from the past? Yesterday I heard Charles Stanley preach on this topic. He pointed out that Satan will never bring up the good things from our past, only the negative. His reason for that is that he wants us defeated and thinking less of ourselves than we should. When I heard Charles Stanley say that, I thought, “Man, did I need to hear that.” We just have to accept that the past is the past. Nothing can be done about what we have done in the past. If God has forgiven your past, why would you want to continue to carry the guilt? If you want to live wisely just accept the past. Second, “Trust God to handle the future.” Paul wrote:“Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth to those things which are before.” He is encouraging us here to embrace the future. I know that this is an old cliché but it needs quoting here: “I do not know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.” If we realize that, just as we do not have to face the present alone, we will not have to face the future alone. When God defined Himself to Moses as “I AM," He defined Himself as God of the past, present and future. God has always been and He will always be. When tomorrow comes, He will be there waiting, just as He was the day before. I look back and think of the times that I dreaded what was about to happen in the future. And here I am still alive, well and kicking. The future has not always turned out well for me from the world’s standpoint, but it did not kill me. I love the saying, “That which did not kill me, made me stronger.” That’s probably not the exact quote, but it tells how I feel anyway. The future will be what it will be, and we will just have to utilize our faith in Jesus as we did yesterday and as we are doing today. Face the future in faith, and it will not seem dreadful. Third, “Make the most of the time He has given you today.” Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:15-16: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, 16. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The HCSB translates it: “Pay careful attention then, to how you walk- not as unwise people but as wise – making the most of the time because the days are evil.” Paul realized, as we must, that we cannot relive the past and we cannot live in the future so what we have left is today. We need to make the most of each day. This is why I start each day with a careful reading of the Bible and with prayer. I know that I need to start each day off with God so that it will be a better day. I’m not pointing out my “righteousness” to you; rather, I am pointing out my need. I need God/Jesus in this day, or it will not go right. Dr. Ted Adams, one of my seminary professors, pointed out to us that we need to encapsulate each day and live it to our fullest capacity. What we do today will determine what we can do tomorrow. If we see each day as a waste, and look forward to something better in the future, we are building our lives on a poor foundation. If we want to live wisely, we just need to make the most of each day that God gives us and live it to the hilt. Satan wants to bring up your negatives from the past, make you dread the future and he wants to ruin today for you. Don’t let him do any of it. Live wisely! Bro. Joe “But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatever He hath pleased.”
Another translation of Psalm 115:3 is, “Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases.” On the surface this verse seems to make God cold, aloof and selfish. This is the view that a lot of people have of God: “He is in heaven, I am on earth, He can do whatever He wants to do, but it will have no effect on my life.” Man, is this a misinterpretation of this text. I sometimes think that we confuse Yahweh, our Lord and God with Allah, the cold and cruel god of Islam. Psalm 115:3 is actually good news and I wanted to explain why. First, it tells us that "our God is in the heavens." It is good to know that there is a God overseeing all that happens on earth and throughout the universe.. Daniel was asked to interpret a dream of Nebuchadnezzar's, and he answered the king in this way: “But there is a God in heaven that reveals secrets, and makes known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days…”( Daniel 2:28) Daniel could interpret dreams because there was/is an all-knowing God in heaven who knows what is going on among people. Isn’t it a great comfort as we face trying days that there is a God in heaven who is sovereign and knows what is going on now and what will happen in the future? Good gracious, I feel sorry for people who do not have this assurance. I hope that you have it. Second, it tells us that “He hath done whatever He hath pleased…” Now, this looks cold and calculating, but it is far from that, for the whole story of the whole Bible is about what it pleased God to do. Where do I start? There is so much about what God has been pleased to do, and has been recorded in scripture, that we can only scratch the surface of what it means. It pleased God to love us. The Bible is full of the love of God. The Bible tells us that “we love Him because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19) Furthermore, it tells us in 1 John 4:10: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” The very concept of love did not come from the heart of human beings, but from the heart of God. What has pleased Him is to love us. But you say, “What about His wrath.” That is real too, but wrath is not the essence of who and what God is. 1 John 4:10 told us that He “sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation simply means that God’s Son, Jesus, took the wrath of God that should have been ours upon Himself so that we could be delivered from it. Those who trust Jesus as Savior need not fear the wrath of God, because it pleased Him for His Son to take it for us. It pleased God to bless us. The Bible is so full of this theme that I had to go to my concordance to find one verse that would fit it. As one good example, I found Psalm 29:11: “The Lord will give strength unto His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace…” One of my recurring themes in my teaching, preaching and writing is that God wants to bless us, but we need to want His blessings, and then we need to take those blessings and share God’s blessings with other people. It pleased God to save us by faith. Ephesians 2:8 tells us: “For by grace through faith are you saved…” “Grace” and “faith” mean that salvation is a free gift, and as Ephesians 2:9 tells us, salvation is “not of works lest any man should boast.” Hebrews 11:6 tells us that we can only please God by faith. I think that is because He chose to save us by faith. I could go on and on sharing the riches that come to mind from Psalm 115:3, but I think that what I have written will give you some idea of what I mean. Rejoice that there is a God in heaven who loves you and wants to bless you. Don’t shun the blessings that can come to you when you give your heart to Jesus. It pleases Him to bless you. Bro. Joe “And David said to Solomon, his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: the for the Lord God, even my God, will be with you; He will not fail you, nor forsake you, until you have finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.”
David’s dream had been to build a temple for the Lord, but the Lord would not let him build it. This task would fall to his son and successor, Solomon. David had gathered materials for the building of the temple, but it would be left up to Solomon to have it built.This verse is David’s last bit of advice to Solomon before his death. He was reminding Solomon about his responsibility of building a temple for the Lord. He was encouraging him to finish the work that he (David) had started. David gave Solomon some promises from God to encourage him to build the temple. First, David encouraged Solomon to “be strong and of good courage.” This would be advice not just for building the temple but for serving as the king of Israel. It is good advice for us too. We need to be strong and courageous in our day. He advised Solomon to “fear not, nor be dismayed (discouraged).” Fear and discouragement are dangers that we face every day. David knew that fear and discouragement would keep Solomon from following through with the building of the temple. We need to be aware of the presence of fear and discouragement in our lives as well. Second, David promised Solomon that God would be with him in this great work, and in all of his work as king of Israel. This is one of the great promises of the Bible. We will have to go through a lot of things that might cause us to be afraid and to be discouraged, but we have the promise that we will not go through those days alone. God will be with us through everything that we go through in life. We like to think that God will always take us around the problems of life, but the promise is not that we will never experience problems, but that when we do, God will be with us. One of the great promises of Jesus to His disciples was that He would not leave them alone when He ascended to the Father, but would send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide them in life. We need to grasp this promise for ourselves. WE ARE NOT ALONE! Third, David promised Solomon that God would not fail him as he built the temple. David knew that God would not fail him, because he had taken David through some rough places in his life. When he was just a boy, the Lord enabled David to slay Goliath. David had to run from king Saul for a long time before he himself became the king of Israel. Some of David’s psalms reflect God's care and concern during this time. David also had to escape from his son Abasalom, who tried to rend the kingdom from him. God had not failed David in any of his trying times in life, and he wanted Solomon to know that God would also not fail him. Fourth, David promised Solomon that God would not forsake him while he finished the work “for the service of the house of the Lord.” (God would not forsake Him after the building was finished either.) We also have the promise of Jesus that He will neither leave us nor forsake us in our service to Him. We need to ask ourselves at this point what it is that God wants us to finish before we leave this earth. God has work for every Christian; therefore, we need to find out what it is and do it. We can do whatever "it" is in faith, because the Lord will not forsake us. Will you take all of these promises personally, and know that they are for you as well as for Solomon? Bro. Joe “We are bound to thank God always for you, brothers, as it is meet, because that your faith grows exceedingly, and the charity (love) of everyone of you all each other abounds. 4. So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure.”
When Paul expressed his thankfulness for the Thessalonian church, he listed three of their great qualities for which he was thankful – faith, love, and patience (perseverance). These are qualities that we should desire to have in these trying days. It is not as dangerous to be a Christian in our day as it was in the Paul’s day, but we still need these qualities if we are to live for Jesus and be effective witnesses for Him. Besides, who knows what we might face in the future? Paul was thankful for their faith. Faith is all-important in the life of a Christian. According to Ephesians 2:8, it is by God’s “grace through faith, that we are saved.” But faith is not something that we use to be saved and then go about our way, living as we wish. Faith becomes part and parcel with our lifestyles. We are saved by faith and we are sustained by faith. We face each day with faith in the Lord Jesus that He is going to enable us to face and endure whatever a day might bring. There are two other words in the New Testament that go along with faith – believe and trust. When we believe in Jesus as our Savior, He saves us and indwells us with the Holy Spirit. From that point on, we trust Him to help us in all of the events of our lives. I can’t say that I never have doubts, but I can say that it is a great comfort to know that I can trust that Jesus will help me meet whatever I have to meet with on any given day. Paul was thankful that their love for each other was increasing. The Greek word for love used here, is not the kind of love that we have for friends, or even for our loved ones. It is God’s kind of love, which is sacrificial and is active in our lives. The Greek word is agape. It is the kind of love mentioned in John 3:16 and in the great love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. It is the word for love that Jesus used in John 11:35: “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for each other.” The church’s first witness to the world is the love that we have for each other. What is the world to think when they see us fussing and feuding, fussing over who is in control of our church? It was ultimately important that the Thessalonians love each other if they were to witness to their pagan world. It is no different for us. The world needs to see our love for each other increasing. Think of your own church. Think of your own attitude toward your fellow church members. Do you love them? Perhaps we all need to check our “love quotient” and determine whether or not our love is increasing. Our world is as much in need of Christ’s love as the world of Paul’s day. The only way the world will see that love is when they see it in us. Paul was thankful for their patience, or perseverance. The Greek word used for “patience” here means not just waiting patiently, but enduring while we wait. At this time, we do not have to endure the heavy persecution that the Thessalonians had to face, but we do have to face the daily annoyances and problems of life. Whatever it is that we have to face, we need to persevere in our faith and love. In other words, we should not let the problems of life cause us to throw up our hands and quit. Check these qualities in your life. Pray that you will grow in faith, increase in love and persevere in the trials of life. . Bro. Joe “Know ye that the Lord He is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.”
I imagine that most of you reading this will know all that I will write about God. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded occasionally about what a great and wonderful God we have. Psalm 100:3 is one of the best descriptions of God in the Bible. Read this article and then rejoice in and praise our Lord. We need to know that God is God. This seems to be redundant, but all redundancies are not bad. We need to know that He is not “the man upstairs.” He is the God of the universe, and is larger than His universe. The greatness of God is inexpressible. He is so great that His size cannot be measured, just as the universe is immeasurable. He is transcendent, meaning that He rises above all else. There is nothing anywhere greater than God. God is worthy of awe. We should be in awe of His holiness. We should be in awe of His power. He is all-powerful. There is nothing that God cannot do, though there is plenty that He does not do. We should be in awe of His knowledge. There is nothing that God does not know. He knows our every action and every thought. He knows what is going on all over the world at the time it is happening. He knows everything from beginning to end. Nothing surprises God. He is worthy of worship. He is worthy of worship because of His greatness, power and knowledge. He is worthy of worship because He is revealed to us through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:2 tells us that “in these last days, He has revealed Himself through His Son.” Jesus is the supreme example of God’s love for us, for He was sent to bring salvation to lost mankind. We need to know that God is our creator:“It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are not cosmic accidents. It takes more faith to believe that human beings just “happened,” than it does to believe the God created us. The intricacies of the human body show forth the creation of God. He created us in His image. We are tied to Him; we need Him. We are incomplete without God. Augustine wrote: “O Lord, you have made us for yourself and we are restless until we find our rest in you.” People fight against God because they want to live independently of Him. They do not want to think that there is a Being that can make rules that we have to abide by. No matter how people might dream of independence from God, they are not independent of Him. That image of His in us will not be denied. I’m not saying that all are saved because of the image of God. I am saying that the people who find the greatest satisfaction and those who will enjoy eternity are those who accept the One who came In His exact image – Jesus Christ. We need to know that we can be His: “We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” This was written in reference to the Jews, but it has a wider meaning that is given in the New Testament. We can know that we belong to God in a saving relationship by acceptance of Jesus Christ by faith. The wonderful truth is that we do not have to “try to be saved,” as many tell me. We can know that we belong to Him by faith in Jesus Christ. I pity the married man who when asked if he was married, answered in the presence of his wife,“I’m trying to be.” He had better know it! If we belong to Jesus we know it. I have run out of the space that I allow myself in these articles. I know that what I have written is not an adequate measure of who and what God is. I hope that enough has been written to cause you to rejoice. Bro. Joe “Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13. Bear with each other and forgive what grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them together in perfect unity.”
Some people had come to Colossae and called that church away from the primacy of Jesus to legalism. (These people were commonly called "Judaizers," who taught that one had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian.) Paul is calling upon them to keep their focus on Christ. In our text verses, he is reminding them about the Christian lifestyle. This has not changed, and it is good advice for us. In verse 12, Paul called them to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” A close look at these virtues will reveal that they are virtues practiced by Jesus in His sojourn on earth. We are called upon to be compassionate and kind. This seems simple, but if we will reflect on our feelings and reactions to other people, we will know that we need to work on these two virtues. Today people are becoming more and more callous towards each other. If we are not careful, we will be callous as well. I try to remind myself when I get in a “heated” situation that I must be compassionate and kind. All of Adam’s blood in me wants to strike back, but the blood of Christ that saved me reminds me to be compassionate and kind. (Paul didn’t promise that it would be easy.) This is where humility and gentleness (meekness) comes in. We have to remember that we are not out to win arguments or to lord it over people. Like Jesus, we are to be humble and gentle in our relationships with people. This does not mean that we lie on the ground and invite people to walk over us. What it means is that we are confident enough in our faith that we don’t have to “win” to feel good about ourselves. We are also urged to be patient with other people. To me this is the most difficult of the virtues listed here. We just need to remember that when we become impatient and argue, we have closed off our witness. This is how we should live if we want to be effective witnesses of Jesus. In verse 13, Paul told them “bear with each other and forgive what grievances you may have against one another.” We need to know that grievances are the most prominent of sins committed in churches. When we live in community with people, things happen that cause us to disagree, and, if we aren’t careful, we will form grievances. This is what causes churches to split. We are called upon to be better than that. This is what happens in the world all of the time, which a quick perusal of a newspaper will show us. It should be different in Christ’s church. Instead of holding grievances against each other, we should forgive one another. We seem to think that to forgive someone, against whom we hold grievances, will take something away from us. That is one of Satan’s great lies that keep our churches from being effective witnesses to our communities. Paul told them to “forgive as the Lord forgave you.” The Lord practiced grace on us and we are to practice grace on others. In verse 14, Paul told them, “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” If we don’t love people, we can’t practice the virtues mentioned in this text. When we love as God loves, we will be able to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient. We will be able to forgive others instead of forming grievances. We need to check our love quotient, and see if we are living as we should live based on this text. Bro. Joe “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.”
This short verse covers a wide area. God is referred to as a “hiding place.” This means God was David’s refuge. Being chased by Saul, this was a great comfort for David. He also declared that God would protect him from trouble. What caught my imagination in this verse was, “and surrounds me with songs of deliverance.” We might say that the first two referred to physical protection and the “songs of deliverance” referred to David’s heart or his sense of security. Using my “holy imagination” (lol) I thought about what such a song would entail. I can’t read David’s mind, but I can think of how the Bible portrays God’s deliverance. Following is what I came up with: A song of deliverance is a song of deliverance from sin. From Genesis 3, with the fall of Adam and Eve, throughout the rest of the Bible the main problem of humankind is sin. Sin is the cause of most of the problems of the world. Sin causes people to ignore God and to feel isolated from Him. God created us to be close to Him, but sin causes us to move away from Him. Sin is the cause of the ruin of many people’s lives. God has taken action to give us a song of deliverance from sin: “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.” (John 3:16) Which also enabled John to write: “If we confess our sins, He (Jesus) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9) Through Jesus, God has given us hope that sin does not have to destroy our lives or send us to hell. Most of the people in the world today need to hear this song of deliverance. That is why we need to sing it loudly and clearly all over the world! A song of deliverance is a song of deliverance from dread. Dread is a result of fear. It is a nagging feeling of apprehension about what might happen in the future. Looking at the world news today, I could be filled with dread. Whenever I have this dreadful feeling, I go to God in prayer and remember that He is in control. We need to remember that, “the earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof…” (Psalm 24:1) There is a song that I like to sing occasionally that reminds me of God’s control: “He’s got the whole world in His hands…” If we believe that this is true, we believe that He has us in His hands as well. We do not have to dread the future because we know that God will be there with us. There is an old cliché that I occasionally recall, “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.” As clichéd as this has become, it is, nevertheless, true. David, who wrote this psalm, knew the value of trusting in God because of all of the trouble that he encountered at the hands of Saul and his son Absalom. Paul knew the value of trusting in God because of all of the troubles that He encountered in his service for Christ. We need to develop our faith so that we can sing a song of deliverance. A song of deliverance is song of deliverance from the fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15 reminds us of why we can sing this song: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, the devil; 15. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Because of Jesus, we do not have to be in bondage to the fear of death. Jesus comes into our lives and puts the new song of deliverance in our hearts. Just as Jesus goes with us through life, He will be with us in death. There are other songs of deliverance that we can sing, but I think that the three that I have given are songs that you should sing. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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