“He came into the very world He created, but the world didn’t recognize Him. He came to His own people, and even they rejected Him. But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.”  — John 1:10-12

What does it mean to believe in Jesus? To believe means to hear and accept the WORDS of Jesus. With His words recorded in the Gospels, Jesus exposed our sins. He revealed God the Father to us. He promised eternal life to His followers. He explained the work He had come to do. He taught us how to live.

Jesus said: “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.”  — John 5:24

“The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  — John 6:63

“Heaven and earth will disappear, but My words will never disappear.”  — Matthew 24:35

Not only must we hear and accept the words of Jesus, but believing also means to accept and trust the WORK of Jesus. Jesus came to do something no one else could do. He suffered and died as the sinless Son of God to pay the penalty of our sins and to save all who believe from eternal condemnation.

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give His life as a ransom for many.”  — Matthew 20:28

The saving work of Jesus reconciles us to God and restores us to God’s family. At the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus said to His Father, “I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work You gave me to do.”  — John 17:4

Finally, to believe  means to acknowledge and honor the WORTH of Jesus. Jesus is worthy of all honor and praise because He is the Son of God. His rising from the dead proved this. The Bible says that He is not only the Savior of those who come to Him in faith, but the creator and sustainer of the universe, the light of the world, King of kings and Lord of lords. Even the hosts of Heaven acknowledge this.

“And they sang a mighty chorus: Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered–to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.”  — Revelation 5:12

We reject the Son of God and refuse to hear His words at our peril! We believe and accept Him to the promise of His Word and the transformation of our lives!

“But all who reject Me and My message will be judged on the day of judgment by the truth I have spoken.”  — John 12:48

“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him. But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.”  — John 3:18

Have you truly believe on Jesus, the Son of the Living God? Have you accepted His words, trusted His work and honored His worth? Some one once wrote:

Someone told me that Jesus saves.

So I looked for Jesus at Christmas.

I found tinsel and noise.

I looked for Jesus at Calvary.

The cross was empty.

I looked for Jesus in the church

and found Him.

I found Him in the hearts

of those who believe.

“If anyone has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need but closes his eyes to his made, how can God’s love reside in him? Little children, we must not love with words or speech, but with truth and action.”  — 1 John 3:17-18

One morning a mother was running late for an appointment. Wanting to look her best, she asked her son to polish her shoes. He did such a good job that she wanted to reward him. So, she gave him a dollar.

As she was putting on one of the shoes, she felt something strange. She reached into the shoe and discovered her dollar bill. With it was a note that read, “Here’s your dollar back, Mom. I did it for love.”

Love has ears to hear the size of the sorrowing. It has eyes to see the needs of those who were suffering. It has feet that run to others to show mercy. It has hands that extend themselves to help heal others. It has a heart that can feel the pain that others are enduring. Love always forgets self to serve others.

If we are not serving others, we do not love. God’s word tells us to “love in deed, not words alone.” Service is the outward, visible expression of an inward, tangible reality. Serving others to the glory of God is the clearest evidence of God’s love planted in the human heart.

May each show more of his love every day.

“When the Lord brought back the captive ones to Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting; then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad.”  — Psalm 126:1-3

It started like so many evenings. Mom and Dad at home and Jimmy playing after dinner. Mom and Dad were absorbed with jobs and did not notice the time. It was a full moon and some of the light seeped through the windows. Then Mom glanced at the clock. “Jimmy, it’s time to go to bed. Go up now and I’ll come and settle you later.”

Unlike usual, Jimmy went straight upstairs to his room. An hour or so later his mother came up to check if all was well, and to her astonishment found that her son was staring quietly out of his window at the moonlit scenery. “What are you doing, Jimmy?” “I’m looking at the moon, Mommy.” “Well, it’s time to go to bed now.” As one reluctant boy settled down, he said, “Mommy, you know one day I’m going to walk on the moon.”

Who could have known that the boy in whom the dream was planted that night would survive a near fatal motorbike crash which broke almost every bone in his body, and would bring to fruition this dream 32 years later when James Irwin stepped on the moon’s surface, just one of the 12 representatives of the human race to have done so?

Because we are human, it is all too common that our dreams abandon us at times. The grind of the everyday can be one of the greatest enemies of our dreams. As time ticks, our dreams can dissolve into a slow fade. Israel was sqandering its identity as God’s people in captivity in a strange land. Then God gave them their dream back.

We live in a culture that diminishes and discourages dreamers but God has called us to dream (Joel 2:28). To be the effective witness we were created to be, we must dream. Those who dream have their mouths filled with laughter (vs. 2a) and have tongues filled with joyful shouting (vs. 2b). Of those who dream the nations will testify, “The Lord has done great things for them (vs. 2c).” These things are woefully absent from the average church.

Those who dream by day are aware of many things that escape those who only dream by night. All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds awake to the day to find it was just an empty exercise. But the dreamers of the day are courageous men, for they tend to act out their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

I believe its time to dream again.

“Yet Zion says, ‘The Lord has deserted us; the Lord has forgotten us;’ ‘Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would never forget you!’”  — Isaiah 49:14-15

I recently read an old newspaper account of the tragedy of  “The Forgotten Woman,” Hattie Hollowell. It seems that, at the age of eighty-three, she was incarcerated in the city jail in New York for contempt. She was unwilling, or unable to give an accounting for the small estate of her deceased daughter.

Mrs. Hollowell spent three and a half years in the city jail, overlooked by the system and without being brought to trial. Her lawyer ignored her. Her family abandoned her. Her friends forgot her. However, when this injustice was discovered, the legal machinery moved rapidly and she was released.

There are probably days when we feel alone, deserted, unimportant, and ignored. The streams of life go rushing on and we are trapped in an eddy of insignificance. It seems as though we make no difference to anyone. We can become convinced that we are doomed to be forsaken by everyone, echoing the cry of the psalmist, “No man cared for my soul” (Psalm 142:4).

God’s Word tells of the time when the Israelites felt forsaken by God. It was then that Isaiah reminded them that God could no more forget them than a loving mother could forget her little child. What a wonderful thought and marvelous truth: God Himself promises us that He will not forget us!

Whenever you feel that God has forgotten or forsaken you, you need to stop and correct your thinking. He knows the number of hairs on your head, the hurts of your heart, and days of your life…even before they began. It could be that He has not forsaken us, but that we have forsaken Him.

He will never forget you…believe it!

“He did not need man’s testimony about man, for He knew what was in a man.”  — John 2:25

Just because Christ understands our weaknesses does not mean that He condones our sins. He, who was tempted like us in all respects, has called us to a life of victory through the power of His Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, those things that people like to gloss over by calling them weaknesses, and which are really just sins, rob our spiritual life of its vitality.

As far as Christ is concerned there are no insignificant sins, because all sin separates us from the Lord. Christ understands human weakness and frailty. He offers us forgiveness, purifies us, saves us, and gives us the spiritual strength to live victoriously.

Jesus looks beyond our sin and sees what we can become through the power of the Holy Spirit. He does not see us as struggling, failed, and imperfect beings, but as channels of the grace of God. He sees us as instruments of His will in the sphere of life where He has placed us. Because He knows what people are like. He knows our potential and desires to lead us to the perfection that God has ordained for us.

Because He knows and understands us, we can trust Him. Our response to Him should be to surrender our lives. What business do we have in holding back?

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  — 1 John 1:8

It is impossible to build a healthy spiritual life on the foundations of a faith that is deteriorating because of stubbornness and deliberate disobedience to God. Spiritual weakness is often the result of our unwillingness to discard things that harm our relationship with God.

Spiritual fitness begins when you open your life to the influence of God’s Holy Spirit. This can be a humbling and sometimes even painful experience. When the Spirit draws your attention to cherished sins that are festering in your spirit and blocking your spiritual growth, you need to confess them to your heavenly Father.

God requires a deliberate and specific act of confession for you, because this helps you to be delivered from the destructive influences that have tortured you for so long. Confessing the sins that you would rather forget is the first step on the path to spiritual healing.

When you place the past in God’s care and ask for His mercy, you enter a new phase of life and you can meet the future with joy, confidence and a clear conscience. It is then that your fitness and spiritual health become a living reality.

“If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?”  — Luke 15:4

The entire ministry of our Lord Jesus is an eloquent commentary upon the heart of God and the worth of a single man. With Christ it was the cry of the individual rather than the weight of the crowd that mattered–the one lost sheep, the one lost coin, the one prodigal boy, the woman by the well, the ruler by night, Zacchaeus in the tree, James and John by the lake, the thief on the cross.

This is the thing we so often do: while we are busy saving society in bloc, in toto, in mass, fashioning new measures, planning immense organizations, avidly following the progress of international conferences and developments, our eyes are blinded to the lost and dying all around us. Their spiritual condition does not move us. It is this lack of care that has chilled our hearts and rendered pulseless our hands of appeal. Our spiritual heavens have turned to brass; our spiritual earth to iron. Our undeniable guilt is evidenced by our unspoken testimonies, our unwept tears, our unsought lost, our unopened Bibles, and our unburdened hearts. We stand immobile and petrified like an image without heart, soul, or compassion, while the tragedy of the ages in each lost human life is acted out before our eyes.

A while back, I had the opportunity to preach a meeting in another town. From Sunday morning to Wednesday night the meeting was lifeless. There was no concern for the lost on the part of the congregation or their pastor. On Wednesday afternoon I had gone out for a walk. On that walk I met a man named John. Engaging him in conversation, I discovered that he was not a Christian and that he felt that there was not a Christian in that town who cared if he died and went to Hell. I share the gospel with John and he came under deep conviction. I invited him to attend the meeting and he agreed to come on Thursday night.

Wednesday night I entitled my message: “Who’s Going To Reach John?” To my surprise, everyone knew who I was talking about. They were ashamed that they had been so uncaring and committed themselves to praying for John and the meeting on Thursday night.

The atmosphere Thursday night was electric. John was in the congregation and the pre-service fellowship was abuzz with anticipation. The song service was upbeat and the message that I preached that night was the simple gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. When the invitation was extended, John responded in brokenness, publicly confessing his faith and trust in Jesus Christ as his savior.

Thursday night was a transformational moment for the Church and its pastor. There was weeping and deep conviction on the part of the people. The key to this transformation could be summed up in the statement of one of those who had responded in brokenness and repentance: “Preacher, the Lord has reminded us this week of the importance of loving and reaching John!”

The lost sheep–this is the basic doctrine of evangelical Christianity. Our awakening will begin when we once again see the infinite value which God places upon the individual soul. We must begin with the man next to us, with the congregation where we belong, in the neighborhood where we live, with the burning conviction that each man is a soul for which Christ died.

“…But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him.”  — Judges 16:20

This was a most tragic scene in the life of a man of God. Samson had been selected and protected by the Lord on many occasions. He had seen mighty feats accomplished by the Spirit of God. Victory was a way of life for Samson and he knew that very well. Then something changed.

Curiosity, compromise and complacency became the guide stones for Samson’s journey. These stones would become too heavy for Samson to bear. With each encounter of Delilah, another stone was added to Samson’s load.

Samson finally found himself resting in the lap of deception; not knowing that the power of God and the presence of God had abandoned his fruitless distractions. He was weak and alone without even a hint of what was happening. His curiosity had led to compromise and complacency and now he was clueless.

Without divine protection, Samson was soon vulnerable, visionless, and vanquished by the enemy. He could only grind corn in the dungeon of the wicked. He could only squirm in the clutches of bondage.

It is a sad story, isn’t it?

We live in a generation in which the majority of the people are also clueless in the clutches. The opportunities we have enjoyed and the privileges we have taken for granted are about to be snatched from our grasp.

Ours is a generation of curiosity seekers. We are a bit interested in many things but unwilling to commit to God. We are watchers but not joiners. We experience but we do not live.

The curiosity of the many has led us to the compromise of the crowd. Many who call themselves “Christians” have acquiesced to such soft choices that this generation of anemic professors has found itself in dangerous torrents of compromise that threaten the existence of the true message and life of the Gospel!

As the final complacency of Samson, the church in our day finds itself content to sleep in the lap of the deceiver without the power and presence of God. The sad thing is, most do not even know what has happened!

What shall we do? We must cry out to God as Samson did: “O Lord God, please remember me
and please strengthen me just this time..” (vs. 28). Dear one, God is our only hope. We must turn back to Him and cry out to Him with all our heart!

There is coming a time, very soon, when God will shake everything that can be shaken. Only that which cannot be shaken (those truly in Christ) will survive. Don’t be found “clueless in the clutches” when the judgment of God falls on this generation.

Cry out to God, for one more chance…just this time.

“You have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.”  — Hebrews 10:36

When we have trials in our lives, we always have three choices:

We can endure our trials. Of course, some people make us endure their trials with them. We ask them how they’re doing, and they’re more than happy to tell us. But when we merely endure our troubles, we run the risk of becoming bitter. Endurance in this case is passive and can lead to drowning in our circumstances rather than breaking through our circumstances into the victorious life God intends.

We can just escape. Run! Leave! Get out of there! When we do that, we get away from where we are. But if God hasn’t told us to leave, we leave the place where God is working and where God can help us. Now is not the time to run when God is silent.

We can employ our troubles. This is the right thing to do. We must make our circumstances beneficial to our life and growth by making them “work” for us. In other words, we can let God use the crisis in our lives to make us better, to help us grow in His way. We can step up on our trouble and move to a higher level.

We all have a natural “flight syndrome” that causes us to think, If I could just run away! But when we do that, if we’re not careful, we make matters worse instead of better. Someone has said that no matter how difficult our circumstances, the safest place for us is always in the will of God.

Are you allowing your circumstances to produce the active endurance needed to accomplish the will of God in your life. Have you focused in defeat on the circumstances of your life, or are you focused in victory on the Savior? Let your gaze be on God and your glance be on your circumstances. This is how to be safe in the will of God…

“My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshippers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks amid the sound of a great celebration!”
– Psalm 42:4

Years ago, I would sit in front of a country store near my grandfather’s home and listen to the “old-timers” recount the way things “used to be.” My mind raced with imagination as I pictured the times these older men were describing.

One older gentleman would always conclude his stories with a peculiar  statement that I have never forgotten: “The problem with the future is that the present just isn’t what it used to be.”

Anyone with an ounce of perception knows that things in our world are not getting better. We are racing toward spiritual, moral, social and financial bankruptcy. If you are my age (old as dirt), you can agree that this is not the world we grew up in. There is almost no resemblance to the world of our childhood.

As an “eternal optimist,” I know that I have only great things ahead in my life because of my relationship with Jesus Christ. Trials and storms will come and go, but I will not face them alone or without a source of strength beyond myself.

For the last month I have not written because of the severity of my broken heart. I have been remembering (like the psalmist) how it used to be. I remember how there used to be a deep longing for God (42:1-2). I remember how there used to be an overwhelming sense of conviction of sin and the holiness of God. I remember the terror of judgment that gripped the hearts of Christians concerning their lost
loved ones. I remember the challenging responsibility that drove the church into local and foreign fields to share the gospel. I remember the passion with which Christians worshipped; robust singing, faithful giving, passionately agreeing with the message of the pastor, and enthusiastically sharing about what God was doing where they worshipped.

I have learned that if I am passionate for God, there will be times that my remembering will bring heartbreak. The questions come: “What have I done (or not done) to contribute to the current state that we are in?” “What is my responsibility in becoming an agent of change in my/our current situation?” “Am I willing to write God a blank check with my life and thus stem the tide of this bankrupt situation?”

If our hearts are broken over the current mess we find ourselves in, how must God grieve over us! Let us turn from our sin and our selfishness and turn to the Son. Let us seek Him with all our hearts….and remember…