Fear of Failure

A fear of failure often dogs our steps.

Dennis F. Kinlaw, Sr. wrote: "There is a 'tide in the affairs of men' that if seized leads to greatness. If it is missed, one is left to wander. Opportunities do not stand waiting at the door. Are you among those who wander?"

Why do we often fail to seize the moment? Why do we often fail to sail the tide? Wy do we reject the opportunities?

When I was 6 years old I sensed God's call to preach and teach. I immediately accepted and embraced the call. I did not know rebellion was an option. That call has defined every choice that I have ever made. 

However, my hunger to obey God had a consequential dark side in my own psychology. It was a fear of failure. School came easily to me. I could get As and Bs with less work than many classmates. I was a quick study on most courses. As a firstborn child, I carefully controlled my world so that I could succeed. I avoided things that exposed my weaknesses. My brother was a great athlete. I followed sports closely, but apart from some pickup games, never sought to excel. Athletic aptitude was harder for me. Avoid failure. Focus upon what you do well. That was my thought.

As an adult, I have had a hard time accepting failure. Even performance that attains something less than perfection is difficult for me. I have had to learn to surrender these matters to God. But sometimes, I find myself worrying over them... to excess.

In recent years, I have learned that I lack the power to judge events in my life as good or bad. If I try to list the top five defining events in my life, I will inevitably identify events that I characterize as both good and bad. Then, when I ask myself about the bad things, I find myself identifying the good consequences that God has worked in my life both in and through events I identify as bad. I am not diminishing the presence or work of evil in the world in any way; however, I have found that surrendering my right to judge many of life's events as good or bad to God is freeing.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28 NKJV).

Only God can transform bad things into good. Only God can redeem consequences of evil events. Only eternity will reveal the eternal reality. Joseph identified with that eternal reality when he witnessed to his brothers.

"But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive" (Genesis 50:20 NKJV).

I serve a Lord who accepts me as I am. You do, too. He is ever working to transform me more and more into His likeness. I choose, by His grace, to embrace that journey of transformation. I am asking God to continue freeing me from my selfish assessment of my life as a success or a failure. Only He determines my final grade. 

Yes, I don't like failure. Of course, public failure is embarrassing, sometimes even humiliating. Teddy Roosevelt said: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”

Lord Jesus, help me to pursue excellence for your glory. Deliver me from my fear of failure. Help me to "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" (William Carey). I love you and want to hear your welcoming words, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Amen.

Christ Calls us to a New Humanity

Jesus Christ is calling us to a new humanity. His ethic is based in holy love. E. Stanley Jones develops this thought in The Christ of the Mount (1931).

Jones declares the summary thesis of Jesus' call to a new humanity in The Sermon on the Mount: "Reverence for personality is the basis of Jesus' teaching in regard to our duties to man" (p. 132).

Jones says that Jesus "believed that all men were of infinite worth apart from race and birth and color and money and social standing" (p. 133).

Jones speaks profoundly to the American mistreatment of African-Americans through slavery and subsequent segregation. His words may shock and offend, but he declares a call to holiness in human relationships that is thoroughly Christian.

"He that says to his brother 'N-----,' shall be in danger of the council of growing collective judgment, and he who says, 'Thou fool,' shall be in danger of the hell of fire of seeing the Negro surpass him in intellectual and moral character. 'Thou fool' comes back to you with terrific and terrifying force" (p. 137).

"Jesus has been called 'the great believer in man.' The common people heard him gladly because he did not treat them as common people. Three words were constantly upon his lips: the least, the last, and the lost" (p. 139).

"The Christians of the United States, knowing that the Negro has aught against them, should leave their gift before the altar and go and be reconciled with their Negro brother in a a thoroughgoing reconciliation and then come and offer their gift" (p. 140).

"The white races of the world, knowing that the colored races have aught against them for their snobbery and their exclusiveness and contempts, should go and be reconciled to their brother or else be prepared to pay the utmost farthing--a clash of color" (p. 141).

"The acceptability of our giving to God is determined by our way of living with man" (p. 142).

"Religion that gazes at stars while human needs are crying to it for solution will find itself demoted by the collective judgment of mankind. Religion that cannot discharge its moral and social obligations may be kept alive by means of artificial respiration, but not for long" (p. 143).

E. Stanley Jones highlights the reverence of Jesus Christ for all of humanity. Jesus calls us to a new covenant that embraces a new view of human potential through the transforming grace of God at work in our lives. "Reverence for personality is the foundation of the New Humanity" (p. 145).

Jesus is the Fulfillment of the Law

I am reading a chapter from E. Stanley Jones book, Christ of the Mount (1931), this morning. He says some earth-shattering, mind-bending things!  I am still reeling as I seek to process truth.

Jesus said, "I am not come to destroy the law, or prophets, but to fulfill."

Jones writes: "God intends to save a race" (p. 101). By this, Jones is referring to the human race. He embraces the Biblical perspective that "race" is a social construct. The Biblical perspective is that all humanity is part of one race. Within the human human race, the Bible speaks of tribes, tongues, and nations. Jones' worldview is that the law is being fulfilled through the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God made flesh, who has come to be the Savior of the world. As such, all social truths within world cultures are collapsed into the Person of Jesus Christ, all the while remaining subservient to His Person.

Jones presents Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the quest of each kingdom, nation, and civilization.

• The Egyptian desire for immortality is fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, declaring, "I am the resurrection and the life."
• The Greek naturalism is fulfilled in Jesus' becoming the wellspring of life.
• The Roman authority is fulfilled in Jesus' authority of life.
• The Buddhist longing for the end of suffering is fulfilled in Jesus' declaration of the Christian joy in the midst of suffering and pain.
• The Islamists' demand to submit to truth is fulfilled in Jesus' pronouncement that all thoughts are to be brought under captivity to His Lordship.
• The Chinese reverence for ancestry is fulfilled in the Christian understanding of the self-giving love of the Trinity within the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the extension of that love to humanity, where we, in turn, extend that self-giving transforming love to God and man.
• The Japanese honor of loyalty is fulfilled in the Church, the Body of Christ, and her call to live in unity in community.
• The Hindu emphasis upon unity is fulfilled in Jesus Christ's High Priestly prayer (John 17) and the call for Holy Spirit filled unity through the sanctifying Presence of the Holy One.

Jones emphasizes Jesus' words, that salvation comes from and through the Jews.  He then shows how fine qualities of various national spiritual pursuits are collapsed in the Person of Jesus Christ, not as a syncretistic patchwork or an eclectic smorgasbord of contradictory spirituality, but as a new and complete whole.

"The Hebrew word was Righteousness--salt; the Greek word was Illumination--light. Jesus said that his disciples were to be both Righteousness and Illumination--they were to sum up the finest in each national just and genius.  If the Hebrew word was Righteousness and the Greek word was Illumination, the Buddhist word is Desirelessness, the Hindu word is Unity, the Confucianist word is Superior, the Japanese word is Loyalty, the Christian word is Life.  Because the Christian's word is life, he sums up all the lesser qualities of life found in each national bent and genius" (pp. 108-109). 

"Add up all the fine qualities that inhere in a each nationality... when you add all these together in the sum total you have something akin to Christian character" (p. 109).

Wow! Pondering all of this richness. 

The Beatitudes of Jesus with a twist of E. Stanley Jones

E. Stanley Jones, the great Methodist missionary to India, develops the Beatitudes this way (The Christ of the Mount).

• Blessed are those who are the renounced in spirit and suffer for others and thus become the meek who inherit the earth (p. 75),
• The renounced in spirit gain the kingdom of heaven (p. 71),
• The mourners gain the kingdom of inner comfort (p. 71), 
• The meek gain the earth. So the world above, the world within, and the world around belong to this man. Wanting nothing he inherits all worlds. (The Christ of the Mount, p. 71).
• Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and are merciful to others, and thus become the pure in heart--these see God." (p. 75).
• Having renounced themselves they are in a position to speak the authoritative word and breathe the authoritative spirit in self-asserting, and here chasing, human situations (p. 76)
• The kingdom of heaven only really belongs to the renounced in spirit as they become the persecuted peacemakers (pp. 78-79).
• The renounced in spirit and the pure in heart are not called the sons of God until they become lovingly aggressive and become peacemakers (p. 76).
• The peacemakers must get used to the sight of their own blood (p. 77).
• He who has learned the secret of using pain is now safe, for he can stand anything that can happen to him.  He snatches the club from the hand of circumstances which would smash his head and turns it into a baton with which to lead the music that breaks forth from within (pp. 80-81). 

Cheap Grace--Bonhoeffer

The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace... Cheap grace therefore amounts to  denial of the living Word of God, in fact a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God."

"That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs... Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate."


"Costly grace is the Incarnation of God... Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says:  'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'"

"The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ.  Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace.  But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves."

"This cheap grace has been no less disastrous to our own spiritual lives.  Instead of opening up the way to Christ it has closed it.  Instead of calling us to follow Christ, it has hardened us in our disobedience... The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works."

Do You Bear Good Fruit?

Luke 13:6-9 NKJV
6 He also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 

7 Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ 

8 But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. 9 And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.’”

Proverbs 12:12 "The wicked covet the catch of evil men, but the root of the righteous yields fruit."

Matthew 3:10 "And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

Galatians 6:7 "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."

Dear Jesus,

Your compelling question is "Do you bear good fruit?"  That's really Your bottom line for my life.  

Thank You for the position of favor that You have granted me.  You have shared the light of Your Gospel with me!  You pricked my heart with conviction.  I felt the pangs of Your marvelous gift of guilt in my conscience which led me to confession and repentance of my sins.  Your Holy Spirit witnessed to me that I was adopted as Your brother, a son of Your Father, a child of God. Forgiveness!  New life!  Called to follow You and to become Your disciple.  Thank You.

But what about that "follow" part?  What about that "disciple" part?  What about Your call to "Christ-likeness"?  Do I bear the fruit of righteousness?

Thank You for the opportunities that You have given me.  I have far more spiritual opportunities than most people.  Just as the fig tree was a sort of national symbol for the Jews and granted appropriate favor, it was held accountable by the owner and the gardener to bear fruit.  In the same way, You require me to bear fruit.  The favor of opportunity demands productivity.  

The simple truth is that "uselessness invites disaster" (William Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, 1953, p. 180).  Do I bear good fruit?

Productivity is a matter of multiplication.  Just as the fig tree had to multiply itself with bearing fruit, You call Your disciples to bear fruit personally and in the lives of others--multiplication.  

C. T. Studd (1860-1931) the English missionary to China, India, and Africa, wrote:

Some want to live

within the sound

of church or chapel bell;

I want to run

a rescue shop

within a yard of hell.

Studd's passion creates multiplication. His life, testimony, and writings are still bearing fruit.

"The fig-tree was drawing strength and sustenance from the soil; and in return was producing nothing. That was precisely its sin. In the last analysis, there are two kinds of people in this world--those who take out more than they put in, and those who put in more than they take out.  In one sense we are all in debt to life. We came into it at the peril of someone else's life; and we would never have survived without the care of those who loved us. We have inherited a Christian civilization and a freedom which we did not create. There is laid on us the duty of handing things on better than we found them" (Barclay, p. 180).

Lord Jesus, I follow You in the journey of discipleship today.  Help me to bear the fruit of multiplication.  

In the Name of Jesus,

Amen.

Freedom in Relationship

Ronald C. Calhoun:  "There is a positive and negative side to living life in the image of God, the negative necessitated by the positive.  On the positive side, there is  a freedom for or openneess to the other person, divine or human, wherein one stands in a condition of integrity before the other without hiddenness or deception.  On the negative side, there is a freedom from or closedness to self-domination and earth domination (domination of things), which, if they were allowed, would cancel out the intended openness between oneself and God and oneself and the other human person." (In Ronald C. Calhoun's Life in the Image of God: the Sermon on the Mount as a Hillside Holiness Message, Westbow Press, 2013).

Social Justice or Biblical Justice?

My friend, Ron Calhoun, is a retired missionary and educator.  He served for 37 years, primarily in South Africa.  Ron is a tremendous Bible scholar, missionary, and deep Christian.  He observes the contrast between the prevailing neo-Marxist model of social justice and a Biblical view of justice.

"It is essential to note here that the Old Testament teaching on social justice is not compatible with the Marxist teaching on social justice.  It is impossible to wed the two.  The OT teaching begins with a God who loves all human persons, the rich and the poor.  God promotes a revolution of love.  He addresses those rich who are guilty of oppressing the poor, reminds them of his love for the poor, advises the rich that they are to love the poor as he does, and warns of his judgment if they do not treat the poor compassionately and with justice.
"Marxism, at its base, eliminates God from the equation.  The pattern of history is determined by economic forces which mysteriously move forward in a dialectical manner.  The capitalist-oppressor class and the oppressed-laborer class are caught up in stages of ongoing struggle until, finally, a classless society emerges.
"Marxism promotes a revolution of hate.  It addresses the poor as a class inciting them to indiscriminate violent revolution against the rich as a class.  What is supposed to emerge is a society of redistributed wealth in which each individual gives according to his-her ability and each receives according to his-her need.
"Of course, the fallible, fallen persons who implement the system are the ones who determine what each person's ability is and the need each person actually has.  It is a system of external compulsion, not of freely chosen love, and thus reduces persons under the system to manipulated pawns, lacking freedom and unable to build righteous character through freely chosen, right choices producing just and compassionate action toward the poor."
From Ronald C. Calhoun (2013).  Life in the Image of God:  The Sermon on the Mount as a hillside holiness message.  West Bow Press, p. 225-226.

God's High Ideal of Christian Marriage

"...The Jewish ideal gives us the basis of the Christian ideal.  The Jewish term for marriage was Kiddushin.  Kiddushin means sanctification or consecration... This means that in marriage the husband is dedicated and consecrated to the wife, and the wife is dedicated and consecrated to the husband.  The one becomes the exclusive possession of the other, as much as an offering and a sacrifice become the exclusive possession of God.  That is what Jesus meant when He said that for the sake of marriage a man would leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife; and that is what He meant when He said that man and wife become so totally one that they can be called one flesh.  That was God's ideal of marriage as the old Genesis story saw it and that is the ideal which Jesus restates."  (William Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, p. 223).

Barclay goes on to describe specific consequences of God's design for holy marriage.

1.  Total Unity.  "Marriage is not given for one act in life... but for all acts in life.  That is to say that while sex is a supremely important part of marriage, it is not the whole of marriage... Marriage is given, not that two people should do one thing together, but that they should do all things together."

2.  Total Union of two personalities.  Humanity can exist in pairs in a variety of ways:  dominant-submissive partners, armed neutrality, or resigned acceptance.  "The ideal is that in the marriage state two people find the completing of their personalities... Marriage should not narrow life; it should complete it.  It is the union of two personalities in which the two complete each other" (Barclay, p. 224).

3.  A sharing of all of life's circumstances.  "Unless two people are prepared to face the routine of life as well as the glamour of life together, marriage must of necessity be a failure" (Barclay, p. 225).

4.  Marriage is togetherness and considerateness.  "Selfishness is the murderer of any personal relationship with other people... It is the Christlike love, which knows that in forgetting self it will find self, and that in losing itself it will complete itself." (Barclay, p. 226).

Lord Jesus,

Empower me to love as You love.  Fill me with Your Spirit and let Your perfect love saturate my marriage in total unity, interpersonal union, sharing, and forgetting myself.  Only then can my marriage be what You want it to be.

Through my lifelong marriage on earth, prepare me to be part of Your Bride, united with You, the Bridegroom, in heaven throughout all eternity.

I love You, and I anticipate heaven with You.  Help me to construct my marriage as a little bit of earthly heaven, filling me with longing to see You!

In Your Name,
Amen.

The Curse of Sterility

After his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt toured Europe. His speech to people of France is legendary. What does it suggest to a nation that has voluntarily chosen and celebrated sterility as its preference for marriage and family?

"Finally, even more important than ability to work, even more important than ability to fight at need, is it to remember that chief of blessings for any nations is that it shall leave its seed to inherit the land. It was the crown of blessings in Biblical times and it is the crown of blessings now. The greatest of all curses is the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon willful sterility. The first essential in any civilization is that the man and women shall be father and mother of healthy children so that the [human] race shall increase and not decrease. If that is not so, if through no fault of the society there is failure to increase, it is a great misfortune. If the failure is due to the deliberate and willful fault, then it is not merely a misfortune, it is one of those crimes of ease and self-indulgence, of shrinking from pain and effort and risk, which in the long run Nature punishes more heavily than any other. If we of the great republics, if we, the free people who claim to have emancipated ourselves from the thralldom of wrong and error, bring down on our heads the curse that comes upon the willfully barren, then it will be an idle waste of breath to prattle of our achievements, to boast of all that we have done."

The curse of sterility is a self-imposed curse we have embraced, and called it good. Ours is a self-imposed curse against nature. Surely, we shall unnaturally manipulate the natural, and declare it good. Nevertheless, our sterility shall haunt us.

Living and Praying in the Spirit

Wesley Duewel writes:  The Spirit so sanctifies you to the will of God, so yearns within you for the will of God, so illumines for you the will of God, and so believes through you for the will of God that He sanctifies your intercession until the intercession of God the Son, God the Spirit, and your heart-cry are as one.  In this holy and irresistible unity of intercession, heaven and earth can be moved as necessary." (Duewel in Mighty Prevailing Prayer, p. 116).

"How can Christians be tearless in a broken world and think that they are representing Jesus?" (Duewel, p. 120).

Dennis Kinlaw writes:  "When the minister becomes the pivot around which his ministry revolves, the results are deadly.  The Lord will not be fully present in any ministry where the minister gets the glory.  The Holy Spirit comes to exalt Christ, not to exalt you and me.  Anything that draws attention to our cleverness, our brightness, or our competence is ultimately sterilizing.  This is why we must eve remember that we are called to work with Him."  (in Preaching in the Spirit, p. 45).

Following Jesus

Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Lord Jesus,

Today, I reaffirm my commitment to follow You.  I reaffirm that commitment, not because of any diminished resolve or any lack of obedience to continue following You.  I reaffirm my commitment simply out of love and worship.  I will follow You.

You tell me that following You means denying myself, taking up my cross and following You. Radical stuff.  Grant me courage.

Barclay says that "To deny oneself means in every moment of life to say no to self, and to say Yes to God.  To deny oneself means once, finally and for all to dethrone self and to enthrone God.  To deny oneself means to obliterate self as the dominant principle of life, and to make God the ruling principle, more, the ruling passion, of life.  The life of constant self-denial is the life of constant assent to God."  (William Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, p. 167).

I assent.

Taking up my cross is a call to sacrifice.  Barclay says that the one who embraces the cross "may well have to sacrifice certain things he could well afford to possess in order to give more away... The really important thing is not the great moments of sacrifice, but a life lived in the constant hourly awareness of the demands of God and the needs of others."  (pp. 167-168).

I obey.

Now help me to follow in obedience.  Dear Jesus, I choose afresh to follow You today.  Lead me. Nudge me.  Guide me.  Help me to have a fresh awareness to listen to Your whispers.  I love You.  I need You.  I follow.

Where You lead me I will follow.

Amen.

Increase my Faith!

Matthew 15:21-28

Dear God,

I grant You my permission to do that which Your Authority allows.  You have shifted the tectonic plates of my life.  The cataclysmic quakes reverberate yet today.  Thank You.

Thank You for teaching me faith in the midst of uncertainty.  You have taught me much about praying in faith, yet I have so much to learn.  I feel as if I have only completed Kindergarten in God's School of Faith!  Advance my studies.  Strengthen my resolve.  Steady my emotions.  Steel my will.

Wesley Duewel (Mighty Prevailing Prayer,1990) identifies 7 steps to greater faith.

1. Recognize your own helplessness and need.
2. Feed your soul on the Word of God.
3. Spend adequate time in prayer.
4. Read accounts of how God has answered prayer.
5. Obey God in everything.
6. Begin to trust God for specific answers.
7. Begin praising God.

Oh, Lord, increase my faith!  I testify to obedience in each of these areas; however, I must repeat them over and over again if  I am to become the man of faith that You are calling me to be.  Teach me to pray with a confident and believing faith.

Duewel describes a prayer of faith as prayer that is:

1. Totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit.
2. Totally committed to seeing God's answer realized.
3. Willing to believe and prevail for God's answer  in a situation that is utterly impossible.
4. Believes regardless of feelings or emotions.
5. Convinced that it is in accord with God's highest will.
6. So sure of God's will that it will not accept denial of the answer.
7. Eager to obey God in any way He leads so as to help hasten the answer.
8. May include prayer warfare in resisting and routing Satan.
9. Willing to pray through every detail of the answer or victory.

"So many people, as it has been said, pray really because they do not with to miss a chance.  They do not really believe in prayer; they have only the feeling that something might just possibly happen, and they do not wish to miss a chance" (William Barclay in The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 136). You are not my last resort, but sometimes I fail to come to You as quickly as I should.  I default to worry for a brief season, then arrested by Your Holy Spirit, I come.

You know the desperate cries of the needy, clamoring for Your help.  You heard the cry of the Canaanite woman pleading for her daughter's healing.  She brought You a "gallant and audacious love, a faith which grew until it worshipped at the feet of the divine, an indomitable hope, a cheerfulness which would not be dismayed.  That is the faith which cannot help finding an answer to its prayers" (William Barclay in The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 137). You heard the cry of the lepers, the blind, the lame, the epilectic, the sick, the dying, the bereaved.  You listened.  You responded.

Now, hear me.  Hear my prayer.  Receive my feeble faith.  Answer.  Then embolden me to ask for more.

In the Name of the Faithful One, I believe You.
Amen.

Heart Condition

Matthew 15:10-20

10 When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear and understand: 11 Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

12 Then His disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

13 But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.”

15 Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.”

16 So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17 Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? 18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

William Barclay: "If religion (meaning Christian faith) consists in external regulations and observances it is two things. It is far too easy... Further... it is quite misleading. Many a man has a faultless life in externals, but has the bitterest and the most evil thoughts within his heart, and the teaching of Jesus is that not all the outward observances in the world can atone for a heart where pride and bitterness and lust hold sway. It is Jesus' teaching that the part of a man that matters is his heart. 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8)...

"What matters to God is not so much how we act, but why we act; not so much what we actually do, but what we wish in our heart of hearts to do. 'Man,' as Aquinas had it, 'sees the deed, but God sees the intention.'

"It is Jesus' teaching--and it is the teaching which condemns every one of us--that no man can call himself a good man because he observes external rules and regulations; he can only call himself a good man when his heart is pure. And that very fact is the end of pride, and the reason why every one of us can only say, ' God be merciful to me a sinner.'" (Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 2, pp. 131-132).

Oh my Lord,

Having prayed the sinner's prayer in faith, I know Your genuine forgiveness.  You have granted me spiritual adoption into the Your family and regeneration to a new life in Jesus Christ.  You have opened the door to intimate relationship with Yourself, Triune God.  Your new life calls me to deeper holiness and wholeness--a transformed heart, Spirit fullness, unified motives, relational integrity, surrendered ambitions, and crucified rights.  Only in the active and ongoing experience of the Spirit-filled life may I be sourced with Your power to meet Your requirements for pure motives from my heart.

Oh make me clean, Oh make me clean, 

My eyes thy holiness have seen! 

Oh send the burning, cleansing flame; 

And make me clean, in Jesus name!

(Author Unknown)

Your inner holiness in me will offend those who insist that external rules and regulations define holiness.  Fill me with Your irrefutable perfect love.  

I love You.  I need You.  I trust Your cleansing and infilling grace to make me clean and unite my heart in Your holiness.  

Amen.

The Adventure of the Cross

Matthew 10:34-39

"The Christian may have to sacrifice his personal ambitions, the ease and the comfort that he might have enjoyed, the career that he might have achieved; he may have to lay aside his dreams, to realize that shining thing of which he caught a glimpse are not for him. He will certainly have to sacrifice his will, for no Christian can ever again do what he likes; he must do what Christ likes. In Christianity there is always some cross, for Christianity is the religion of the Cross...

"There is no place for a policy of safety first in the Christian life.  The man who seeks first ease and comfort and security and the fulfillment of personal ambition may well get all these things--but he will not be a happy man; for he was sent into this world to serve God and to serve his fellowmen.  A man can hoard life, if he wishes to do so.  But that way he will lose all that makes life valuable to others and worth living for himself.  The way to serve others, the way to fulfill God's purpose for us, the way to true happiness is to spend life, for only thus will we find life, here and hereafter" (William Barclay in The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1, pp. 408-409).

Are you a missionary?

William Barclay (The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1, p. 368):

"Jesus still wants men to hear of the good news of the gospel, but men will never hear unless other men will tell them.  Jesus Christ wants a child taught; that child will never be taught unless a teacher emerges to teach him.  Jesus Christ wants all me to hear the good news; men will never hear it unless there are those who are prepared to cross the seas and the mountains and bring the good news to them...

"It is the dream of Christ that every man should be a missionary and a reaper.  There are those who cannot do other than pray, for life has laid them helpless, and their prayers are indeed the strength of the laborers.  But that is not the way for most of us, for those of us who have strength of body and health of mind.  Not even the giving of  our money is enough.  If the harvest of men is ever to be reaped, then every one of us must be a reaper, for there is someone whom each one of us could--and must--bring to God."

Charles Spurgeon on Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Charles Spurgeon wrote: “Do you see that the Lord's promises have many fulfillments? They are waiting now to pour their treasures into the lap of those who pray. God is willing to repeat the biographies of His saints in us. He is waiting to be gracious and to load us with His benefits (Psalm 68:19 KJV). Does this not lift prayer up to a high level?”

Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon on Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Troubles?

From Sarah Young's devotional Jesus Calling (January 26)

"Give up the illusion that you deserve a problem-free life.  Part of you is still hungering for the resolution of all difficulties...  Link your hope not to problem solving in this life but to the promise of an eternity of problem-free life in heaven...  My Light shines most brightly through believers who trust Me in the dark...  I am much less interested in right circumstances than in right responses to whatever comes your way."

Lord Jesus,

I am afflicted with the disease of problem-solving!  I try to fix things!  I get angry and frustrated when I cannot correct problems.  I feel like I have failed.

How arrogant!  Teach me to surrender my problems to You.  Teach me to let go!  I want to WORK things to pass, and You want me to TRUST things to pass!

Here I am again at the tension between the ideas of faith and works.  Believe God and work hard!  So often we tend to pit these ideas against each other as if they were polar opposites, but that cannot be true, can it?

I choose to trust You.  I choose to believe You.  I choose to embrace the problems of life.  I choose to accept their reality.  I will be cling to You.  I will work for You.  I will obey Your call to be Your hands and feet.  I ask one thing in this regard.  Define me by my trusting You, not by my hard work. Protect me from delusions that I accomplish anything apart from total dependence and surrender to You.

I consecrate myself, my work, my trust to You afresh today.

Thank You.
Amen

When I am Tempted

William Barclay shares some observations on temptation while looking at the temptation of Jesus recorded in Matthew 4.

"Just as metal has to be tested far beyond  any stress and strain that it will ever be called upon to bear, before it can be used for any useful purpose, so a man has to be tested before God can use him for His purposes.  The Jews had a saying, 'The Holy One, Blessed be His Name, does not elevate a man to dignity till He has first tried and searched him; and if he stands in temptation, then He raises him to dignity.'

"Now here is a great and uplifting truth.  What we call temptation is not meant to make us sin; it is meant to enable us to  conquer sin.  It is not meant to make us bad, it is meant to make us good.  It is not meant to weaken us, it is  meant to make us emerge stronger and finer and purer from the ordeal. Temptation is not the penalty of being a man, temptation is the glory of  being a man.  It is the test which comes to a man whom God wishes to use"  (Barclay, Matthew, vol. I, pp. 55-56).

Barclay describes temptation as "an inner struggle.  It is through our inmost thoughts and desires that the tempter comes to us.  His attack is launched in our own minds.  It is true that the attack can be so real that we almost see the devil.  To this day you see the ink-stain on the wall of Luther's room in the Castle of the Wartburg in Germany; Luther caused that ink-stain by throwing his ink-pot at the devil as he tempted him.  But the very power of the devil lies in the fact that he breaches our defenses and attacks us from within.  He finds his allies and his weapons in our own inmost thoughts and desires" (p. 58).

Barclay is right in His emphasis of God working purpose in allowing these attacks of temptation and testing in our lives.  No weightlifter ever becomes strong without lifting weights.  Opposition is essential for strength.

Barclay reiterates the truth of James 1:13-15.  "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."

However, a qualifier must be made here.  The Son of God, faced with temptation, knew nothing of sinful motivations or desires.  He wanted to do the will of the Father.  However, his constitutional fears and incarnate flesh--human--included fear, the desire to avoid pain, and the desire to complete the Father's will.  

The enemy attacked our Lord Jesus to satisfy legitimate desires through illegitimate means.  Attacks will come to you similarly.  Remember, it is no sin to be tempted.  Sin takes place when I yield to temptation.

I pray that God will help you to endure the tests, trials, and temptations of life you face today, and to emerge victorious.