“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.”
“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation: and uphold me with thy free spirit. 13. Then will I teach transgressors your ways; and sinners shall be converted unto you.” This psalm was written after David committed adultery with Bathsheba and had been confronted by the great prophet Nathan. Nathan told David a story about a wealthy man who owned a lot of sheep and took away the one sheep that belonged to a poor man. When David heard that story, he was irate. Nathan answered back to him, “You are the man.” Of course, David was conscience stricken and this psalm was a result. We don’t have room on this page for the whole psalm, but I have quoted four verses that give us the gist of the meaning of the psalm. Verse 3 gives us the clue as to how we should react when we know that we are not right with God: “For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.” Acknowledging our sins is absolutely necessary in getting right with God. After Nathan’s story, David came face-to-face with the murder of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, and his adultery with her. David had to stop denying that he had sinned and that he needed to acknowledge what he had done. We will get right with God when we acknowledge our own sins. Like David, it is so easy for us to see the sins of other people, but we whitewash our own sins. Until we acknowledge our sins, we cannot be right with God. God is willing to forgive us for any sin, but He wants us to admit that we have sinned. Verse 2 shows us what it was that David wanted from God in relation to his sins. When we realize that we have sinned, we feel unclean. There is no uncleanness like the uncleanness of our souls, for this is what sin does to us. The realization of the greatness of his sins left David feeling guilty and dirty. Being “a man after God’s own heart,” David was not accustomed to feeling that way. The sad thing is that many people come to feel at home with feeling dirty and they are satisfied with it. If you want to be cleansed of guilt, you need to repent, confess and ask God to cleanse you from sin. There is no need for sin to rob you of the joy that you can have in your life. God is ready and willing to forgive you and cleanse you. Come to Him like David and ask God to cleanse you. Verse 12 shows us what David really lost when he sinned and did not seek God’s forgiveness. He said: “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me with your free spirit.” Overt sin caused David to lose the joy of the salvation that God had given him. Jesus died on the cross to cleanse us from sin, and He wants us to enjoy the salvation that He has given us. Sin has a way of coming between us and our joy. If you are not joyful now, perhaps you need to look deeply within your heart and discover the source, if you don’t already realize it, and rush to God for forgiveness as David did. Verse 13 gives us the result of being forgiven and cleansed. Until he confessed, David could not “teach transgressors their ways.” David was accustomed to being the one right with God, and felt comfortable helping others see the right way. But until he confessed, and was cleansed, he knew that he was in no position to witness and minister to other people. If you want to be an effective witness for Jesus, follow David’s example and repent, confess and ask for forgiveness. Bro, Joe
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“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24
“Again, He limits a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time, as it is said, today if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Hebrews 4:7 Have you ever wished that you lived in another time or another place? I guess we have all wished this at some time or other, but it is a useless exercise. We are living in a certain time at a certain place, and the way I see it, we are living in this time and place because that is what God wants of us. I have often said that I would go back to simpler times if I could take air-conditioning and medical science with me. I think you get my point. If we could live in another time and another place, we would still have to face the hardships of each day. I think that the Bible teaches us that we need to live today, because we can’t relive yesterday and we can’t live tomorrow until it gets here. That’s right, that only leaves today. We should live each day to the fullest, giving our time to the Lord, and following His will for our lives. I want to point out some things about living life to the fullest today. What we do with each day will determine what will take place in the future. I remember that when I was in high school, I decided that studying was a waste of time, and that homework was just a nuisance, so I gave them up. Each day passed, and life just kept going on. It took awhile, but I finally decided that I had better make better use of my days. Suppose I had not wised up and had kept on like I was going. The days would have kept passing and I would have gotten sorrier and sorrier. (Some of you are probably thinking that I couldn’t be any sorrier – shame on you. lol) How we use the time that we have each day will determine the quality of our lives as we live from day to day. It is important that we embrace each day. The psalmist gave us some wise advice: “This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It is worth noting that he did not write: “We should rejoice and be glad in it,” but he wrote “we will rejoice and be glad in it.” The NIV translates it: “Let us rejoice and be glad in it. ”Either way it is a positive statement about living each day that God has given us and rejoicing in Him and in the fact that He has given us another day. You can rejoice in the day or bemoan the day, but it is all you have at the moment. We can meet each new day with rejoicing, or we can bemoan each new day, and it will still be all thhat we have at the moment. Too many people are putting off today what they plan to do tomorrow. We need to take advantage of the fact that we are alive today, and that we can live it in a positive way. I have heard it said many times that we can greet the day with “good morning Lord,” or with “good Lord, it's morning.” Which do you think will give you a better day? It is today that we can take care of the things that we know need to be taken care of. One of these has to do with our spiritual lives. We can start off the day with prayer and reading God’s word. We know that if we want to draw closer to the Lord, we need to communicate with Him, and that we need to delve into His word. Today is a good day to start your day, as best you can with the time that you have, in fellowship with God and His word. I have found that the exercise of prayer and Bible reading has helped me “rejoice in the day that the Lord has made.” Today is the day to get right with the Lord. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:2b: “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”In the spirit of that text, we can say that today is the accepted time to draw near to the Lord. You have today! What are you going to do with it? There are choices before you as you face today. You can spend some time praising God and thanking Him that you have today. You will be surprised at how much difference that will make in the rest of your day. Try it! Bro. Joe “And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishermen. 17. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
I want you to think about the possibility of Jesus using you to be a part of carrying out His purposes in the coming year. It is possible that you feel that you didn’t do a very good job of that in 2019. I guess that’s about par for the course for a lot of us, because it is difficult to determine when we have adequately served the Lord. If you are like a lot of people, and I mean A LOT OF THEM, you question whether God can use you at all. This is where Peter and Andrew come in, as well as James and John who were called to be used by the Savior right after Peter and Andrew. These men prove to us that Jesus can and will use us. The four men that Jesus called that day were not out of the ordinary. In fact, they were very ordinary – they were fishermen. There was nothing wrong with that profession. It was just not one that qualified people in the eyes of people that day to do anything remarkable. That should be an encouragement to us, for most of us are ordinary. (I remember that Abraham Lincoln said: “God must really love common people, because He made so many of us.”) Take Billy Graham for example. He was just a raw bone North Carolina farm boy. Who would have thought when they saw him at school, church and at work, that God would use Billy Graham to be the evangelist to the world? (No one was more incredulous than Billy Graham himself.) I am not putting myself in the league with Billy Graham, but who would have thought that God would use me to touch people’s lives with the gospel? My cousin Johnny and I were nicknamed “worry warts” at the Smithville Baptist Church. God started calling me when I was about twelve years old to preach His word, but I had a lot foolishness to overcome before I finally surrendered at age 21. If Jesus could use Peter, Andrew, James, John, Billy Graham and me, He can use you as well for whatever purpose(s) He has for your life. Notice that Jesus called them to be “fishers of men.” What Jesus meant by that was that they were to tell others about Him. While He called them from their fishing boats to follow Him and evangelize the world, that is not what He demands of everyone. There have been millions of people who have become “fishers of men” and stayed at whatever location or task that they were doing before. It is important that we realize that Jesus is using people who work at ordinary jobs to reach other people for Him. First of all, Jesus wants us to live lives before people that will reflect Him. Second, He wants us to give a verbal witness to people that we encounter when He leads us to do so. He wants to use us right where we are, doing what we do every day to reach people for Him. As you start this New Year, resolve that you are going to make yourself available to the Lord to be used of Him in whatever way He wants to use you. He wants to use you at your church, but He also wants to use you in the community where you live. I don’t know what He wants to use you to do, but there are plenty of opportunities to be used of Him as you encounter people daily. He wants to use you in the mundane things of life. For example, when you encounter a cashier and he or she makes a mistake, He wants to use you to show them how Christians are supposed to act. He wants to use you at work around the people with whom you work every day. People should be able to tell by your actions that Jesus is making a difference in your life. Of course there are also things that He can use you for at your church, just be available to Him to use you as He sees fit. Just remember this – God can use you!!!!! Bro. Joe (I reached back in the archives for this one. I hope that it will bless and encourage you.)
“Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and love which you have for all the saints, 5. for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel…” The idea for this post came up when I heard a gospel song by the same title. It is true that “everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” If we really believe that there is “hope laid up for us in heaven,” why would we not want to die to get there? After all, Jesus said of heaven, “That where I am there you may be also.” It is in heaven that we will spend eternity with Jesus. Paul wrote: “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Why wouldn’t we want to be absent from the body? I think that I can explain the reasoning behind this dilemma – if that’s what it is. In the first place, life on earth is a gift from God. When God created Adam and Eve, “He breathed the breath of life into (their) nostrils.” In other words, this life that we have here and now was given to us by the breath of God Himself. This is why we reverence life. I think that the people who enjoy this life more than anyone else are those of us who recognize that we have life in the first place because of the will of God. Every breath that we take is a gift from God. All of the great Old and New Testament saints had a reverence for life on this earth and they lived life to the fullest. It is my opinion that I enjoy life because I know that it is God’s gift to me. In the second place, we are not given life on earth just to take up space. We are born into this life for a purpose, or for the purposes of God. At this point you might be thinking: “But not everybody realizes or cares about God’s purpose for their lives.” That’s not God’s problem. Not every person in the Bible lived for God’s purpose, but that doesn’t mean that God didn’t have a purpose for their lives. Jeremiah had a unique testimony about God’s purpose for his life: “Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: "Before I formed you in the belly I knew you; and before you came forth out of the womb, I sanctified you, and I ordained you a prophet unto the nations.” Another example of this would be the Apostle Paul. With all that he did before becoming a Christian, do you think that God did not have an ultimate plan for Paul's life? Even while he was persecuting Christ’s people, the call of God was upon his life and it came to fruition on the Damascus Road. Could Paul have gone his own way? I’m sure that he could have, but he didn’t – thank God. Moses was eighty years old before he realized God’s purpose for his life. Seeing what his ultimate purpose was –to lead the Israelites out of Egypt – it probably took God eighty years to prepare him for that task. Moses didn’t just take up space on earth to tend his father in law’s sheep. There was a purpose for him in the heart of God. That leads me to challenge you to consider what God’s great purpose for your life might be. It could be that He wants you to be the best doctor, insurance agent, lawyer, factory worker, farmer, or the best husband, wife, father, mother, etc. that you can be and lead people to the Lord. Life will have more meaning when you know that you are realizing God’s purpose(s) for your life. In the third place, life here is but a prelude to what we have in store for us in heaven. That is for those who have put their faith in Jesus. There is another eternity to deal with, but our purpose is to deal with what God has in store for believers. The Bible promises life after this life, but it does little to describe it for us. We couldn’t understand it if the Bible did try to fully describe it for us. It is enough for me that Jesus has prepared a place for each of us and that He will be there. The fact is that we have to have life here and now to have life by and by. That’s why I say that this is a prelude. It is my prayer that you have given your present life to Jesus in order to have the eternity with Him that only He can give, and that you are realizing God's purpose(s) for your life here and now. Bro. Joe “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked devices to pass. 8. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not yourself in any wise to do evil.”
The word for “rest” can also be translated as “be still.” My interpretation is that the word basically calls upon God’s people to relax and wait patiently for the Lord to do His work. The reminder here, as was given in verses 1-2, is not to worry about those who prosper through evil means. The meaning is that God wants us to relax and not worry about the people who seem to be winning by devious deeds. Instead we are to trust in the lord, delight in Him and commit ourselves to Him and relax and trust Him. My thoughts on this: We might as well relax because the world is always going to act like the world. This does not mean that we should not take steps to make things better in the world. It does mean that we live in a fallen world and after we have done all that we can do it is still a fallen world. History tells us that this is true. Biblical history tells us that this is true. Our task is to witness to people by living the Christian life and by telling them what Christ has done in our lives and leave the results to God. This is not a call to resignation and to throw up our hands and say “it’s no use.” It is a call to supremely trust in the Lord to act in His own time. Then David reminds us that we are to wait patiently for God to act. This can also be translated to “wait expectantly” for the Lord. This reminds us that God is taking care of things, and is going to take care of things in the future. The evil people of the world think that they are winning, but the reality is that the world is heading for a day reckoning. We have to wait patiently and expectantly because these things are in God’s hands, not ours. We can wait expectantly because we have a promise in Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” The world is in bigger hands than ours, and our lives are in greater hands than our own. This is not a call to resignation, but a call to greater faith in the Lord.. We are to work for righteousness, being sure that we are in God’s will and that the victory is already won by our faith in Christ. Then David reminds us that we are not to be overcome with anger and end up trying to defeat evil by our own devices. Notice the wording: “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” We are bound to get angry about some things, but we need to bring it under control and don’t say or do too much. Sometimes we would do better if we would shut up and let God be God. We need God’s wisdom to know when to speak and when to shut up, and when to act and when not to act. Relax. You are in God’s great hands!!!! Believe it! Bro. Joe “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. 7. Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God for he still abundantly pardons.”
Isaiah 55 is a heartfelt cry of God through Isaiah to the wandering People of Judah. I want to share the invitation that Isaiah gave to them. He called upon them to “seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near.” The distance between the people and God was on their part not on God’s part. If we feel that God is not with us, or that He is not near us, we need to check our own lives. We are assured throughout the Bible that God is always ready to hear our prayer. God longs to be an integral part of our lives. Jesus certainly emphasized this in His ministry. He sent the Holy Spirit into our lives to guide us in our daily lives. We need to seek His guidance. Isaiah shared with them what they needed to do to seek the Lord. It is a timely lesson for us. It is a call to repent. First, he calls for people to forsake their wicked ways. This meant to stop worshiping other gods and to stop living any way that they wanted. We still need to heed the call to repent. Second, he calls for people to forsake their unrighteous thoughts. Isaiah realized, as should we, that our actions are guided by our thoughts. That is why we need to watch our thought lives. There is much to call our thoughts to unrighteousness. Actually, it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to have unrighteous thoughts today. There is often little left to the imagination. Third, he calls for them to return to the Lord. When wandering thoughts and actions call us away from sweet fellowship with God, we need to return to Him in a spirit of repentance. Isaiah shared with them what would happen when they returned to good fellowship with God. First, they would receive the mercy of God. No matter how far we have wandered, God will have mercy on us when we repent and return. He will give mercy, not because we deserve it, but because He loves us and will forgive us. Second, they would receive a pardon from God. We are guilty when we wander, but God will give us a pardon and set us free to live for Him. You can find God’s mercy and pardon now. Just repent and sincerely seek God’s forgiveness. What a great invitation this is. Accept God’s invitation to His mercy and pardon. Bro. Joe “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides, and for joy thereof goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.”
This verse comes in the middle of series of parables that Jesus was using to describe the kingdom of heaven. It portrays a man who came across treasure that someone had hidden in a field. He hid the treasure, then went and sold all that he had to buy that field. Jesus does not tell us what the treasure was, but it was surely precious for the man to put his whole livelihood on the line for it. However, we know what the treasure was that Jesus was illustrating. It was the kingdom of heaven. In this case, I will say that the treasure was the gospel of Jesus, which is our entryway into the kingdom of heaven. There are some good thoughts for us in this verse. The first thought that came to mind was that the gospel, good news, about Jesus coming to earth, dying on the cross for our sins, rising from the grave and eventually ascending to the Father is hidden treasure to many people in the world. We do not have to go to other nations to discover this. There are plenty of people in the USA who, though surrounded by churches of all descriptions, have no idea what the gospel is all about. This is why Jesus told us to “go into all the world” and spread the good news about what He has done. We can call it evangelism or missions, but it is important that we share the “hidden treasure” of the gospel with a world that is oblivious to what Jesus can offer. People think that the Bible and church are about religion and being religious. In fact, they think that those of us who believe in Jesus are odd and “on the wrong side of history,” as they are prone to say. We need to tell them that the “hidden treasure” is not about religion; rather it is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Those of us who know about this “hidden treasure” should uncover it for the multitudes around us. The second thought that came to mind was that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not really hidden, but has been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote about the mystery of the gospel. We usually think of a mystery as something that is unknown and that we need to try to uncover. What Paul means by mystery, however, is the reverse of this. He means that what had been a mystery in the past, was now made known through the coming of Jesus into the world. He described this for us in Colossians 1:26-28: “Even the mystery which has been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest (revealed) to His saints: 27. To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28. Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Jesus Christ.” We have discovered and uncovered the “hidden treasure” of the gospel, accepted it and now, like Paul, we need to share it. The gospel need not remain hidden as long as there is one Christian left in the world. The third thought that came to mind was that the gospel of Jesus Christ is worth everything that we have. After he discovered the treasure in the field, the man went and sold everything that he had and went and bought it. That was a valuable piece of property for the man to lay everything on the line as he did. This means that the gospel of Jesus Christ is worth everything that we have as well. Jesus told the “rich young ruler” that what he needed to do was sell all that he had, give it to the poor and follow Him. We will not have to sell everything that we have, but we need to surrender to the Lord whatever it is that is holding us back from either finding the gospel or sharing it with the world. What are you willing to surrender in order to discover and/or share the “hidden treasure”? Bro. Joe “And whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him.”
In the last article I wrote about letting “the peace of God rule in your hearts,” being thankful, and letting “the word of Christ dwell in you.” I called it “Three Good Rules for Christian living.” Notice that this text begins with the conjunction “and.” This means that Colossians 3:17 is a continuation of the theme of Christian service and fellowship given in verses 15-16. When we are equipped with peace, thankfulness and the word of Christ, we are ready to serve the Lord effectively. This verse tells us how to serve the Lord. Notice the word “whatsoever.” (It is translated “whatever” in NIV.) “Whatever,” tells us that no matter what the service we are to render we are to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. This suggests to me that there is no service that we can render for the Lord that will be of little consequence. One might think that being an usher is not as important as teaching a Sunday School class, leading the singing or preaching. (We could say that about any number of services that go on at a church.) Ushering would fall under “whatever.” If you are going to be a church usher, don’t just give out bulletins, but make it a ministry of hospitality so that people will not just feel welcome but will realize that what is going on in this church service is important. The usher is the first person that a new visitor meets at a worship service, and they make a good or bad impression according to how they greet people. Whatever you have been gifted to do, whether it seems like a big job or a small job, it is to be done in the name of the Lord and it will definitely not be a small job. “Whatever you do in word” is important and should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. In other words, we need to be careful what we say to people so that what we say is worthy of the name of Jesus. I have heard some words at church that did not seem like service to the Lord. In fact, I have probably said a few words to people that were not worthy of the name of Jesus. We should make sure that the words we use will have a positive effect on people. This does not mean that we should never speak negatively, because sometimes a negative word will have a positive outcome. We should just make sure that what we say is the truth and that it will help the person that we speak to in a positive way. In the third chapter of James we find a scathing denunciation of misuse of our words. James 3:6 is an example: “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity, so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell.” We should make sure that the words that we use are not “set on fire of hell” if you get my drift! We should make sure that our words will serve the Lord Jesus. “Whatever you do in…deed” is important and should be done in the name of the Lord Jesus. I think that we should be careful that our words match our deeds, or vice-versa. You know the old saying: “What you do speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you are saying." We have been saved to work and to do deeds for the Savior. Our works cannot save us, but they can make us effective and can serve as a witness for the Lord. We need to ask ourselves if what we are doing can be done in the name of Jesus. In other words, we should make sure that our deeds are good deeds. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” If our works are done in the name of Jesus, they will glorify the Father. Make sure that whatever you say or do can be said or done in the name of Jesus. Bro. Joe “Jesus said unto them, My meat (food) is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.”
In John 4, while Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar, Jesus’ disciples went into the city to get food. When they returned, they asked Jesus to eat and He told them that He had “meat to eat that you know not of.” Jesus added that His food was doing the will of the Father. Not only did Jesus do His Father’s will, He has called us to do the same. We need to ask ourselves how carefully we follow God’s will for our lives – or if we even think about it. It is important that we know and do God’s will for our lives. God wants us to know and to do His will. God called upon people in the Bible to do His will. Abraham left his native Ur of the Chaldees in order to obey God’s will for his life. Moses left a comfortable shepherd’s job in Media to lead Israel out of Egypt because it was God’s will for his life. Moses was initially reluctant, but he did it anyway. We could cite many times in the Bible when people did God’s will, but we must remember that doing God’s will wasn’t just for people in the Bible. Both Abraham and Moses were flesh and blood people like we are, but they surrendered to God’s will. We should do the same. In His “Model Prayer” in Matthew 6:10, Jesus prayed: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." All of us should pray for God’s will to be done, not just in a general sense, but in reference to our own lives. Jesus is the prime example of doing God’s will. We not only have the statement that He made in John 4, but we also have His prayer in Gethsemane, where He prayed: “…nevertheless not my will but your will be done.” Because of the will of the Father, Jesus did what was necessary for our salvation. All of this being true, we should take God’s will for our lives seriously as well. We need to know and do God’s will for our lives. The first step is for us to know God’s will for us. It is as simple as asking God what His will for you is. He will give you an answer in your heart and mind. Jesus knows what His will is for you, and He is ready to let you know what it is. Perhaps you need to know that He wants you to teach a certain Sunday School class, sing in the choir or be the outreach leader in your church. You just need to ask Jesus what He wants of you and listen with heart, mind and soul. The next step for us is to do God’s will for our lives. Obviously, it is not enough just to know what God’s will is. We must put hands, feet, hearts and minds to that knowledge and actually do God’s will. I remember that when I had to make a public decision concerning my call to the ministry, I was so nervous that my hands were sweating. I don’t recall a lot of what the preacher said that day in his sermon, because I knew that in order to do God’s will I had to take the next step. I knew that when I made that decision, my life would change and the way that people viewed me would change. There would be no turning back. That was fifty-three years ago, and I still remember the nervousness and excitement of following through on God’s will for my life. To be in God’s will, I had to do what I had to do. Though God’s will for you might not be as radical for you as it was for me, it will still be the same for you. Determine that once you know God’s will, you will do whatever it is. Are you presently living in God’s will for your life? Is what you do each day in your life now God’s will for your life? Reflect for a few moments on what you just read. Are you ready to do God’s will for your life? Bro. Joe |
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