Month: April 2018

49. Saved

 Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end the same shall be saved.

Mark 13:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Luke 21:19 By your endurance you will gain your lives.

 The Promise of Salvation is given to those who are already saved; endurance is not the cause of salvation but the assurance of it. The promise is given by Jesus because He knows that we will be tempted many times during the process of living: to fall away, to give up on God, to be disappointed in Him, to compromise our faith, to have doubts about God, to despair of salvation, to wonder if there really is a God, to go along with the world,

We can be sure that we will face temptations like this all along the way, but we can be assured that when we endure through all the trials and hold on to Jesus through it all that we will be saved. And what’s more, God Himself gives this endurance and the grit to hang on to Jesus in the midst of life’s temptations; the Holy Spirit “keeps me in the one true faith.”

The so-called “end time prophecies” of Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 and the Book of Revelation pertain to the life span of each individual Christian’s life; Jesus says that during each life temptations from the devil, the world, and the flesh to give up will always be present. But you won’t do it; you will endure, and you will be savedand you will gain your lives. Whenever we are going through hard times or just having a bad hair day we remember a promise like this: we shall be saved and we will gain our lives.

God is the only thing that is too big for us; so put all you trust in Him and relax. He promises to overcome every problem and enemy you face, and in the end you shall be saved and gain your life.

48. Exalted

 Matthew 23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

 If you humble yourself, then you will be exalted. This principle of the created universe runs throughout Scripture in stories, parables, prophecies, psalms, proverbs and sayings. It has a literary name: The Great Reversal. It is most obviously and blatantly seen in the humiliation (virgin conception and birth, suffering, death and burial) and the exaltation (descent to hell, raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, sits at right hand and will come to judge) of Jesus.

We need to believe this promise so that can more faithfully endure the hardships and adversities of life with an uncomplaining joy. We learn and become strong when we thrive under the humbling hand of God, when we maintain our composure in the most difficult circumstances when God is doing a work in us, when we remain faithful to praise God and trust Him even when it seems like He is letting us down.When we believe the promise of a coming exaltation we will hang on and rejoice in the face of pain and suffering. If we believe that life will never change and things will never get better we will be tempted to give up in despair, to be disappointed in God, and to ultimately ignore and reject Him.

It is true that the prideful, selfish, sinful human being cannot “humble himself,” for he is not capable of choosing or doing that. To “humble oneself” is to allow oneself to be humbled under the chastising hand of Almighty God, admitting that one is a sinner needing correction, repenting in dust and ashes, turning to God for help when all seems lost, knowing that discipline later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. It is praising God anyway and believing that God is always good.

 If we believe Jesus was humiliated for us and exalted for us, then we believe that we die with Him (are humbled) and rise with Him (are exalted). The Father humbled and exalted His Son; Jesus humbles and exalts us.

47. Be Broken

 Matthew 21:44 And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind hi to powder.

Luke 20:18 Whosoever shall fall upon that stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

 It may not look like a wonderful promise; it may not feel like something you really want; it may seem like such a good thing; but the promise of brokenness is a very beautiful thing. This is a conditional promise: ifyou fall on Jesus, thenyou will be broken. This is God’s desire for us and this is our desperate need. The self needs to be broken: the selfish soul must die; this breaking occurs when one repents of sin and self and believes in Christ. Then the life of God can come in and take over by giving life to the inner spirit;this renewed and resurrected spirit then begins to affect the sinful selfish soul, at least as much of it as the self will allow (as much as it is broken by trust in Jesus).

Jesus Christ is the center and focus of this saying: fall on Him in repentance and faith granted by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, OR, He (the stone) will fall on the impenitent and unbelieving and the self will be crushed, judged, and ground to powder. Either way, the Self will go: willingly, by being convinced of the judgment of self and sin on the cross, or unwillingly, at the final judgment of eternal damnation.

No one wants to be broken, but it is better than being ground to powder; no one wants to be broken, but it is necessary to give life to the soul; no one wants to be broken, but it is the only thing we can do with the flesh, crucify it; no one wants to be broken, but the forgiveness of sins, eternal salvation and the gift of the very life of God makes it more than worthwhile. There is nothing anyone can do about the sinful, selfish nature: it will be judged either at the cross or at the Judgment Day.

The promise of brokenness is truly wonderful when we consider the alternative: being ground to powder. The promise of brokenness is truly wonderful when we consider the consequences: eternal life and salvation. The promise of brokenness is truly wonderful when we consider the result: a new man and a renewed spirit.

46. Receive everything asked

Matthew 21:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Mark 11:23-24 Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he said shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith, Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

 You already have enough faith, even if it is as small as a mustard seed, for it is God, not faith, that moves mountains.This promise is not urging us to have more faith, or better, or stronger, or deeper faith; it is encouraging us to pray with the faith that the Holy Spirit has already created in us through the Gospel.

This is a really amazing promise that we are reluctant to take at face value because it does not seem to work out in our experience. The hard part is the “whatsoever, or what things soever.” We can all vouch for the fact that we have not received everything for which we have asked; our common experience denies this clear promise of Jesus. All good believers with a simple faith can point to some things that they did not receive when they asked for it with believing prayer. So what gives? Jesus is wrong or I am wrong; it must be my faith since His promise cannot fail. But it is clearly not a weak faith since a little is enough. It is neither His promise nor my faith.

Once again, the promise is given to show us what we cannot see. The truth, often invisible to us, is that God did answer the prayer and move the mountain: it was just not in the way that we wanted or expected, not when we wanted, nor how we expected. God may have done exactly what we asked but we missed it; God may have given something better than we asked; God may have given the actual essence of what we asked for in a different way; God may have granted what we actually needed in place of what we thought we wanted; God may have done His will instead of ours; God may have refused to grant what we asked for because it was not His will and it would not have been good for us. This is why we need this kind of promise and the faith in this promise, because our human vision and understanding is so very limited. With the eyes of faith we see the big picture and we take the long view (eternity) and we declare without a doubt: “God answered me and gave me what I prayed. Even if I cannot see it, I believe it.” Faith is needed, yes, not to get God to do it, but to “see” that He has done it. The faith is in what God has done, not in what He will do.

45. Eternal Life

 Matthew 19:29  And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

Mark 10:29-30 Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Luke 18:29-30 Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left houses or wife or brothers, or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to come eternal life.

 It is possible, though not likely, that one person could lose house, family, land and all that pertains to this life on earth. It is less likely, though not impossible, for a Christian to lose everything, family and property, because of Christ. This has happened and still happens with persecutions throughout the world. But the promised compensation for the losses will be 100 times. The blessings and rewards in the spiritual life more than make up for any losses in physical enjoyments; in fact, spiritual blessings can’t even compare with physical loss.

Not only is spiritual life so much greater than all the creature comforts of earthly life, but also the further guarantee is that we cannot lose them and we have the certainty of everlasting life; blessed spiritual life goes on forever and cannot be taken away. We have eternal life right now with the promise that we cannot lose it.

The key condition (the if clause) is that one would forsake all earthly delights and comforts and even necessities for the sake of Jesus; one would count it all as loss for the sake of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord; one would hold lightly everything, even family, in order to hold on tightly to Christ. When one is willing to let it all go he is happy, free and blessed: he lets it go before he is forced to lose it all. This is the claim of Jesus on our life that every believer is willing to submit to: “Let it all go; nothing is more important than Christ alone.” Then your spiritual life will be blessed one hundred times over forever.“Don’t hold on to what you cannot keep; then you will keep hold of what you cannot lose.”

44. Among them

 Matthew 18:20For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

 The promise that Jesus will be “with” us, that He is “present” where we are, that He will be by our side and He will walk with us and come to us are prevalent enough in Scripture, but this one is a bit of a special promise for us when we “gather together in His name,” then He will be among us. “Among, or in the midst of” is distinguished from the other “Presence Promise” in that He will be between us: He will touch, influence, enhance and smooth out the relationships between believers when they gather together in his name.This “presence between” is a little more than presence “in or with” the believers.

Two or three gathered together in Jesus’ name is a definition of The Church; the invisible Church becomes visible on earth when more than one believer with Christ in them meet for godly purposes of hearing the Word, Sacraments, prayer, worship and for the mutual consolation and conversation of the brothers (mutual fellowship and encouragement of one another). Jesus Christ is the focus and center of attention for the group.When sin, selfishness, strife and bitterness enter in and attempt to distract from the purpose of the meeting the effect and power of the presence of Christ is diminished. When the focus and attention of everyone present is on Him then He is free to minister to the spiritual and emotional needs of the people through the Gospel. This activity is connected to the previous verse (v. 19) where two of you agree: they agree on the centrality and Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The “two or three” can be any group of Christians, but it can powerfully apply to the marriage and the family (when a child is added to the two). The power of husband and wife gathering together for daily prayer in His name can be truly awesome in the strengthening of the marriage bond and the mutual edification of each other; Jesus is among you ministering to the intimate “one flesh” relationship of the two. Jesus promises to be in the midst, and He does not come to harm but to bless.

43. Done for them

Matthew 18:19 If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing hat they shall ask, it shall be done for themof my Father which is in heaven.

 The conditional promise: If two of you agree on anything you ask, then it shall be done for them. Jesus says, “Ask and you will receive.” Now, to the general promise of answered prayer He attaches a condition, “If two of you agree.” John says, “If you ask anything according to His will He hears us.” It is as if two believers gathered in Jesus’ name agree in unity on a matter that it is in accordance with God’s will; it is a way of determining the will of God before the prayer is asked. Two people may seek the Lord separately and then get together later to compare mental notes to see if they are agreed that this matter is the will of God. Then they ask.

Unity and union are beautiful things to see and experience, but they are probably a lot less frequent than we would hope or suppose. Unity among brothers is beautiful and pleasant; that unity is given by grace; it is a spiritual reality that can be recognized and then maintained, but it cannot be manufactured or determined by any group of human beings. There is a mystery to the Unity of the Spirit that is just beyond the grasp of the humans involved, for it is the Lord who controls it. When they find themselves in agreement about a matter of request in prayer they should certainly ask. The heavenly Father directs the individuals, leads them into unity, prompts them to ask, and then He does it for them.

God grants the agreement, as well as the request itself, and then He moves us to pray. We do not just outwardly say “Amen” to another’s prayer and superficially agree to the will of God, but we wait for the Lord to grant the agreement and the desire of the heart to prompt the “Ask.” Agreement is not a condition that we make happen, but it is a reality that we recognize is present and then we act on it.

42. Greatest in the Kingdom

 Matthew 18:4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Luke 9:48 He that is least among you all, the same shall be great.

 Who doesn’t want to be great? This is a conditional promise: if you humble yourself like a child and be the least, then you will be the greatest in the kingdom of God. The condition of being the humblest and the least in the kingdom of the world leads to greatness and being great in the kingdom of God. This principle permeates the Scriptures and is repeated throughout. There is a definite correlation, a cause and effect relationship, between being humbled and being exalted. The principle is most clearly defined in the Event of the Cross and the Empty Tomb. The same spiritual principle applies consistently to the lives of the Disciples of Jesus.

How can many people be the greatest? The superlative usually applies to one, but in this case it applies to many. You will be greatest and I will be the greatest, if we allow ourselves to be humbled; we are all “greatest,” and in God’s economy each is greater than others and others greater than each of us. This is beyond human understanding: I am the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) and you are the GOAT at the same time. Great does not mean better; it means being highly regarded, esteemed, honored, exalted, especially loved by God, and set on a pedestal of His adulation. If we are humbled enough the adulation will not “go to our head,” but it will cause us to further and forever praise the Lord.

We cannot, however, make ourselves humble nor denigrate ourselves to become the least noticed. The humbling and making the least (or as Paul says of himself, “the leaster”) is all God’s doing. He does all the humbling; He makes us nothing; and Jesus does it in such a way as to keep us from being proud of our humility and nothingness. God has highly exalted Jesus, and us with Him by faith. We can slow down, but not speed up, God’s humbling process by complaining, griping, resisting, rebelling, and kicking against the pricks. But the Lord will finish what He started.

When God has brought us closer to the point of honest humility it is a beautiful thing to behold, for it looks like Jesus, our Beautiful Savior. Meanwhile, it is left to us to trust the process and that’s why He gives the promise. The Lord is making me great. We don’t see the greatness, but we believe God does.

41. Nothing impossible

 Matthew 17:20 If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed…nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Mark 10:27 With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.

 This unconditional promise is subject to so many explanations and interpretations as to render the promise and its condition so mitigated as to be impossible of fulfillment itself. The normal experience of every human being argues against taking this promise seriously. If you have faith, then nothing will be impossible for you. Can this be literally true?

First, “faith as a grain of mustard seed” signifies a small amount of faith; any amount of faith is enough. One cannot say, “You don’t have enough faith.” Jesus’ answer is simple, “You have enough faith.” The answer to prayer is not dependent upon the degree, amount or kind of faith inherent in the prayer. The answer to a prayer is dependent on the will of God. Period. Faith does not make it happen, nor does lack of faith keep it from happening. It is the power of God, not the human faith, which makes it happen. God’s power is unlimited and, by definition, He can do the impossible. The example used is moving a mountain from here to there. I have never heard of this event suddenly or magically happening. It is not a question of “mountain-moving” faith but of a “mountain-moving” God. In Mark, Jesus is talking in the context of a spiritual mountain: Salvation, entering the Kingdom (camel through a needle). You can’t save; only God can.

However, our experience is not allowed to, nor able to, make a judgment as to whether something may or may not happen; but our experience cannot sit as judge over the Word of Jesus. “Moving a mountain” is simply impossible for any human being, but it is not impossible for God. This graphic physical representation is used to get us to visualize the possible in the hands of God. The mountains in front of us are often used as pictures of spiritual obstacles that are too big for us. It doesn’t take great faith to believe that nothing is too big for God. Use the old advice, “Don’t tell your God you have a big problem; tell your problem you have a big God.”

We are quite often confronted with problems that look too big and too impossible for us to handle. The point of this promise is get us to see that no problem is too big for God to handle. Though it looks impossible and feels overwhelming we do not need to be afraid to ask the Lord and believe Him. That is why Jesus gives us this promise: to encourage us to ask big.

The promise is not that God will do the impossible but that He can. Naturally, we also recognize a difference between what God can do and what He will do. Is it His will? What is His purpose? We do pray, “Thy will be done…” This promise of Jesus about the impossible does not address that question. But we also have this promise in 1 John 5:14-15: “If we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that have the requests that we have asked of him.” For us who “believe in the name of the Son of God…this is the confidence we have toward him.” (1 John 5:13). Therefore we pray, “Our Father (He will) who art in heaven (He can).”

40. Reward 

Matthew 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.

Jesus gives an unconditional promise that every person will be rewarded according to his works on the Judgment Day. Rewards according to works means both quality and quantity of rewards according to the worth of each work and the number of works done. Jesus says that the Final Judgment will be based on works and rewards given accordingly. God is keeping a complete record of every thought, word, and deed. This record will be disclosed for all to see on That Day, all at once.

The goats, on the left, the unbelievers, will not have any good deeds to be seen and so will receive no rewards; they will only have evil deeds and sins that will be disclosed for all to see and will receive the just penalties for them. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin,” (Romans 14:23) and therefore, no good works. The sheep, on the right, the believers, will receive many rewards for the records show many good works they have done, each with a great reward. These are all rewards of grace because God did the works in the believers without their conscious awareness (“When did we see thee…?”). These works were done out of faith by Jesus in us. We do not get the credit for the works, but we receive the reward for them. That’s grace. The record of his life shows all these good works, but shows not one sin, since they have all been erased, taken away, by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The place in the judgment and the eternal fate of every person in the judgment is determined by only one thing: faith in Christ. The evidence of the inward faith is the outward works done by Christ in us. So the promise is that He will reward everyone according to his works. Rewards are coming! And I didn’t earn them!