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Post by Obadiah on Apr 23, 2023 4:08:15 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 23RD
To Walk With God
And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters... Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. Genesis 5:22, 24
This account says twice that, before he was taken up, Enoch walked with God. I love the story of the little girl who was telling her mother the story of Enoch. She said, Enoch used to take long walks with God. One day he walked so far God said, 'It's too far to go back; come on home with me.' That is what happened to Enoch.
What does it mean to walk with God? Here is a man who, in the midst of a brilliant but godless generation, walked with God. What does it mean? Enoch did not literally walk with God; this is unquestionably a figurative expression, but a figurative walk involves the same thing today as it did then. First, it means he went in the same direction God went. He was moving the way God was going. God is forever moving in human history. He is moving now to accomplish certain things in human life, and He has been doing so for centuries. The person who walks with God is the person who knows which way God is going and goes the same way. Now what is that? Perhaps we cannot indicate it positively, but we certainly can negatively: God moves always in unswerving hostility toward sin. He is opposed to that which destroys and wrecks human life. No matter how good it looks, no matter how attractive it seems, God is against it. And the person who walks with God is the person who walks in unswerving hostility toward sin in his or her own life and refuses to make up with it or permit it to rule or to reign. That is the first thing in a walk with God.
Second, it means to keep in step. You cannot walk with somebody if you do not keep in step with him or her. Sooner or later there comes unbalance, and one of you bumps into the other. A walk is not like moving on one of these endless belts. It is not smooth; it is a repetition of almost falling. Have you ever analyzed your walk? Every time you take a step you almost fall. You allow your body to go off balance, and then you catch yourself with your other leg. Then you shift to that one and you almost fall again, only to catch yourself. The man or woman who walks with God is the man or woman who lives on the verge of a fall. That is an adventurous life. That means if God is not there to support and strengthen you, down you go. You are counting on Him to come through and to keep you steady. That is what a walk with God involves. It is always a walk of venturing out. It is never satisfied with the status quo, never content to remain in a quiet state, doing nothing, waiting, enjoying one's self. It is forever moving at the same pace God moves. It means taking a step when God insists.
The third thing is that there was no controversy between God and Enoch. They were in agreement. Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? says the Scriptures (Amos 3:3). They must be in agreement. And this is how we must be. There must be no controversy between us if we are going to walk with God, but we must agree with things as He sees them. What changes this makes in our lives!
Lord, may it be said of me as it was said of Enoch: He walked with God. I want to go in Your direction, keeping pace with You.
Life Application
Jesus' name Immanuel means God with us (Matthew 1:23). What does it mean today to walk with God? What are three things involved in walking with God?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 24, 2023 4:56:14 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 24TH
God's Grief, God's Grace
The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain... But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Genesis 6:6, 8
When the account says God was grieved, it is really the word God repented. We know from other Scriptures that it is impossible for God to repent. He does not change His mind like humans do. But this is a powerful figure to express in a vivid way God's anger and determination. When society reaches this stage of dissolution and deterioration, God's anger burns. It appears that He has changed His mind completely, even though He is but acting on principles that are entirely consistent with His own being.
Yet, in the midst of this, we read that it grieved Him, and grief is always the activity of love. What we finite human beings do not understand is that God's love and wrath are exactly the same thing. They are two sides of the same coin. What entrances us and warms us about God and draws us to Him is love. He is the God of love who loves regardless of merit. This is what attracts us. But it is because we respond that He appears to us in that way. To those who reject His love, the same quality in God becomes wrath, and it seems to be a wall of fire, burning and consuming everything.
We can see this also in ourselves. It is our love that causes us to be angry at anything that injures what we love. You injure a mother's child in the mother's presence, and watch her love flame out in anger against you. Thus we have here clearly described a time when humanity, in its rejection of God, passes beyond the place of seeing God as love and begins to experience His love as wrath. But it is exactly the same thing.
But there is always the shining of grace, as in verse 8: But Noah found favor [or, literally, grace] in the eyes of the LORD (Genesis 6:8). God was calling throughout this whole age, just as He is calling in our age today, pleading with people to turn from their ways, to resist the widespread lie of Satan. One man and his family turned and found grace in God's sight. He did not deserve it, and he could equally have turned and gone the other way, but he responded to the wooing and pleading of God and found grace in His sight.
Bring this down to this century and draw the parallel between the days of Noah and the days in which we live. We must remember that if we are delivered from the wrath to come, if we escape the judging hand of God upon society, it is not because of anything we have done; it is the manifestation of God's grace.
God wooed us and won us, sought us out and, through many influences upon us, brought us at last to see that the age in which we live is an age under the bondage of a lie. He has opened our eyes to the truth, till we have turned to the Lord Jesus and rested under the grace of God.
As our age deteriorates, and our civilization nears the point of utter collapse, we can thank God that we have been snatched away as brands from the burning, like Noah and his family, if our hearts are responsive to the appeal of God's grace.
How I thank you, Father, for Your grace, which has snatched me out of the fire and brought me into a relationship with Your dear Son.
Life Application
God's love and wrath are two sides of the same coin. Are we believing Satan's widespread lie, still striving to please God, or are we walking in His grace?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 25, 2023 5:05:20 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 25TH
The Way Of Escape
But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark — you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. Genesis 6:18
When Noah came into the ark, God said to him, I will make my covenant with you. It was not merely the ark that saved Noah. That was the means by which his salvation was accomplished, but what really saved Noah was God's agreement with him. The word and promise of God—that is what saved him. Therefore, we too must look beyond the means by which we are saved to the great motivation that brought Christ to earth, to the promise of God that underlies everything else and makes covenant with us, a new arrangement for living. Whenever you see this word covenant in Scripture, do not think of it as a contract that God makes with people. It is that, in one sense, but it is primarily a new basis for life, an arrangement for living. This covenant here goes further than simply saving Noah; it is to govern his life and the life of the world after the flood is over. It requires but one attitude on Noah's part, that of obedience.
I am disturbed by the ease with which many seek to use the Lord Jesus as a Savior to save them from going to hell when they die, but they have no intention of allowing Him to govern their lives while they live. But here the story of Noah is very clear. It was not merely the fact that God brought Noah into the ark that saved him; it was that Noah was obedient to a new arrangement for living. Noah obeyed God.
This is what saved Noah, and this is what saves us. It is not the fact that we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, thus agreeing that we belong to Him and will be saved when we die. It is the fact that we have received Him as Lord. We recognize His rights over us, His right to rule, His right to regulate, His right to command us and for us to obey. The heart is to respond immediately in obedience to all that God commands, as Noah did here. That acknowledgment of lordship is the basis of salvation. That is the basis on which we not only will survive the disaster that hangs imminently over our age, threatening to strike at any moment, but also the individual disasters of every life that can cut the ground out from beneath the house of life and demolish it, washing away the sands upon which we build.
We must, rather, establish it upon a rock that cannot be moved, which rests upon the most unshakable thing in all the universe--the Word of God. That is what created the universe. There is nothing more dependable than the Word of God. Ultimately, everything that is present in all the universe around us has come from that source. When we rest, therefore, upon the word of God, the covenant of God, we rest upon the most certain and sure thing the universe knows anything about. Heaven and earth, Jesus said, will pass away, but my words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35).
Lord, thank You for the New Covenant, which is a new arrangement for living, and which grants to me the freedom and power to obey You.
Life Application
God established a covenant whereby through obedience we can be saved and enter into a new Life. How does the story of Noah picture this new way of living?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 26, 2023 3:54:11 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 26TH
The End Of The Old
Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.
Genesis 7:23
What a striking thing, the extent of the judgment of the flood! Many today raise the question, Was the flood universal? It is very difficult to answer that. But one thing is certainly clear: The flood destroyed the civilization of that day. The world of that time, says Peter (2 Peter 3:6), was deluged and destroyed. The civilization of that day came to an abrupt and sudden end. The Scripture warns throughout its whole extent of the suddenness of God's judgment. Every day bears testimony to the suddenness with which death can strike in individual lives.
This was underscored for me once when I had a near-fatal accident. Driving down the highway, I was about ready to enter the freeway when a man in a pickup truck, waiting by the side of the road, suddenly pulled into my path when I was traveling about sixty-five miles an hour. My immediate thought was, Well, this is it. I'll not get through this, for it looked impossible. But, by God's grace, I was able to swerve around him to the front, and he stopped enough so that I was almost able to get by him. None of us were hurt. But it was a very close shave.
That sort of thing can happen to an age as well. That is the whole meaning of this passage. The fabric of our society can grow so rotten it can no longer support itself. Like a sail in a tempest, a tear appears that rapidly rips open, and soon the whole thing is in tatters. A total collapse follows once the process begins.
That is the lesson of the flood. It is clear from this that the great and fateful questions of faith are addressed to us privately and almost inaudibly. Seldom does God confront us with dramatic moments of decision. These people before the flood surely would have wished that the thunder would have rolled a week ahead. That would have tipped them off. But the skies are clear, and Noah is shut into the ark while there is no physical sign of impending judgment. They are shut up to believing or disbelieving the offer God made them through Noah.
A lady handed me a note from her son the other day in which he said, When I see the world burning in obedience to the prophecies, then I'll believe. That is too late. That is also what these people said. When we hear the rain coming and the thunder rolling, we'll believe. But God had shut the door, and it was too late.
Do you take that seriously? You may die tomorrow. The great question of Scripture is that if life is that uncertain, why not live now? Not in the empty death of the world's delirium, but in the full swing of the Spirit's power, knowing that all that is truly vital is kept safe in the ark of Jesus Christ—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time, says the apostle Peter (1 Peter 1:4b-5).
Thank You for this day, Lord. May I live this day knowing that it is a gift and that at any time You could choose to take me home.
Life Application
Many people have heard the story of Noah & the flood. What is the lesson of the flood that everyone should dwell on? Have we fully entered into the ark of Jesus Christ?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 27, 2023 4:37:14 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 27TH
The Pleasing Aroma
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: Never again will I curse the ground because of man...
Genesis 8:21
What is striking is that the first thing Noah does when he leaves the ark is give thanks to God. Wouldn't you think he would at least have stopped to build a fire and cook a meal? No, this man knows how to put first things first. The first thing he does is to give thanks to God. What a scene, as Noah's family knelt down in the mud and gave thanks!
It is the constant call of God to people: give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:18). It is because, of course, giving thanks means we recognize reality. When you give thanks, you are recognizing the undergirding of God, the presence of God, in the midst of life and His control over the affairs of life. Thus, you cannot give thanks without recognizing the situation as it really is.
In Romans 1, God's charge against a false and godless world is that although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him (Romans 1:21a). They did not recognize the basis upon which their life depended. Though they would not hesitate to thank someone who so much as picked up a handkerchief for them, they could find no time to stop and give thanks to the God upon whom their life depended. But Noah built an altar, and he gave thanks to God for his deliverance.
God said, Never again will I send a flood upon the earth, because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. There's nothing that a flood can do to change the heart. Destruction does not change it, so God does not send a flood again. Another means must be found to change people. Thus, God lays the groundwork for a fresh proclamation of the message of redemption to a new world. We read that Noah's thanksgiving was a sweet savor in the nostrils of God. God delights in a person's thanksgiving and praise.
God saw, in this act of Noah, the total givingness of Jesus, the fact that here was one who, like these sacrifices, yielded up His life for the sake of what would be accomplished thereby, without reluctance, but gladly, willingly. As God saw that reflected in sacrifice, it was to Him the fragrance of Christ. That is what God is after in our lives. How do you glorify God? How do you live for His honor? By giving yourself. That's the way. That is what true love is.
The world is constantly talking to us today about rights. Demand your rights! That is exactly the opposite of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. If you lose your life, you will save it, he said (cf. Mark 8:35). If in selfishness and greed you demand your life and try to hang on to it, you will lose it. God has written that across the pages of history, and He writes that across the page of every individual life. To lose your life is a sweet savor of Jesus Christ.
Thank You for the offering of Your Son, which is a pleasing aroma to You, Father. May my own life be an offering that is pleasing to You.
Life Application
We cannot truly give thanks without recognizing the situation as it really is. Is God's presence in our lives evidenced by our constant thankfulness for His givingness?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Redeemed on Apr 28, 2023 8:21:17 GMT -8
I love these.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 28, 2023 8:23:26 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 28TH
The Price We Pay
And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. Genesis 9:5b-6
After the flood, God is reinstating this prohibition against taking human life, but He controls it by another tactic. He says He will extract a price for any blood that is shed. That is more than the process of justice. Human justice does not always do the job; it sometimes fails. But notice what God says: And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. God does not look at humanity as we do. We look around and see so many isolated individuals. We think of ourselves as separate from one another. But God never does. He looks at us and sees the ties that bind us together, the ties that unite us to the past and to the past beyond that. In God's sight, the human race is one vast body of humanity, a brotherhood of one flesh in Adam. God says that He will require of this entire race a price for the shed blood of a single individual. Murder will be avenged against the race, not merely against the guilty individual.
We are touching now upon a principle that has been active in history and that is extremely important to understand. It is that violence begets violence. God has ordained it so. The price of bloodshed is more bloodshed—and still more—until the fact of humanity's evil looms so large that people cease their delusive, naive ideas and recognize the stark, naked fact of human evil and turn to the God who alone can deal with the problem. Since the human race is a brotherhood, it means that the innocent can suffer as well as the guilty. The innocent individual will be struck down as well as the guilty, because we are all tied together.
When people resort to violence to gain their ends in one area, they may justify it as being peculiarly needed to accomplish their specific goal, but what they don't see is that, though God apparently does nothing to correct it in that one area, soon a war breaks out or the accident rate increases or a senseless murder occurs or violence sweeps a city or a public figure is assassinated. People are then forced to learn that God does not take lightly the distorting and despoiling of His image in them. That is why violence inevitably breeds more violence, until people, at last, in horror at what they have loosed in society, face up to the fundamental act that they are infiltrated with evil. Only God can cure it. Only the cross of Jesus Christ can smash this evil in any one of us. That is what God wants us to learn.
Lord, I pray for peace in a world filled with violence and bloodshed. Let that peace be in my own heart as I seek to honor Your image in each person.
Life Application
In God's collective created humanity, we soon learn that violence by individuals begets more violence in society. What do all need to recognize & learn from this?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 29, 2023 3:37:28 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 29TH
God's Funnel
These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations. Genesis 10:31
A funnel is an instrument or device for narrowing a flow of liquid or powder from a wide expanse to a narrow one. That is what God is doing here in Genesis 10. Shem, the oldest son of Noah, is listed last because God is narrowing the flow of sacred history down to the Semitic races. Shem is the neck of the funnel. [There is some debate in the translation of Gen 10:21 as to if Shem or Japheth is the oldest son of Noah.] God is restricting the stream of humanity that He will deal with personally and directly down to one family group, the family of Shem. In chapter 11, He takes this up again and narrows it still further to one man, Abraham. From there it begins to broaden out again to take in Abraham and all his descendants, both physical and spiritual. The rest of the Bible is all about the children of Abraham, physically and spiritually. Here we have then a most important link in understanding the Bible.
Why does God do this? He has been accused of showing favoritism in picking the people of Israel for His link with humanity. But it is not that. God is no respecter of persons. He does this because it is necessary in view of the limitations of our minds, not of His. No one person can grasp the whole widespread, varied world of humankind. We cannot do so even today. At election time we take polls to determine what people are thinking because we cannot grasp or assimilate in any way what the entire mass of a people are thinking. We must take samples. God is doing this with Israel. Israel becomes the sample people. Through the rest of the Bible, whatever is true of Israel is true of everyone; their story is our story. Their stubborn rebellion is the same rebellion that we display, and their spiritual blessing under God is the same kind that we can expect if we open ourselves to respond to the grace of God. One fact comes drumming through all this otherwise dry genealogy: that God is seeking somehow to break through into our hearts and wills. He presses upon us in great historic sweeps and in the minor incidents that happen to each of us.
The great question we must raise is, Are you listening? Are you getting the message God wants you to get? He writes it large upon the landscape of history, and also He writes it small in the incidents of your daily life. But in every case it is the same truth pressing through to us. God is essential to us. We cannot live without God. You cannot fulfill yourself, you cannot find yourself without Him. He loves you, is seeking you, wants you, and is drawing you to Himself.
Father, thank You for Your love, demonstrated through generations of people and kingdoms that have come and gone, but now fully revealed in the sending of Your only Son.
Life Application
The Bible focuses on the nation Israel as a sample of the human story. Are we willing to learn from generational lessons, and respond to God's seeking of us?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Apr 30, 2023 5:46:40 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR APRIL 30TH
Controlling God
Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other. Genesis 11:7
What is behind God's actions here? Is He jealous of man? Is God threatened after all by this tower of mud and slime that these men have built? Does it mean that He is afraid that men will master all things and that He cannot any longer control them so that the very foundations of the universe will be threatened by these inventive ones? No. That is the way people want to read this. Forever we have been telling ourselves that we can do anything we want, if we want it badly enough! Therefore, we don't need God; God is optional in human life.
It is true that God admits that humans can do things if they put their minds to them. They can do seemingly anything, but what about be? That is the question. You see, there is a fatal flaw in people's thinking. What do they actually purpose or propose to do? The final answer is to glorify themselves—to be God, in other words. God knows that people are incapable of this; they are creatures. The very forces they think they can manipulate to accomplish their aims are forces that are part of their own lives that they did not make and upon which they continually depend. Therefore, human beings are incapable of being the gods they attempt to be.
Remember the story of the boy who hired himself out to a sorcerer to be his servant and to carry his water for him? Like all boys, he looked around to find some easier way of getting the job done. One day when the master was away, he prowled around among the sorcerer's magical paraphernalia.
He found certain books with magic words in them. He learned a few of these and tried them out on the broom. To his amazement, he found that he could command the broom to carry water in buckets. He sat back, opened a magazine, and read while the broom carried in the water, bucket after bucket. But after a bit he detected a little moisture on the floor. To his consternation, he realized that the tubs and basins were all full, and the broom was still carrying in the water. He arose and uttered the magic incantation, but the broom kept on carrying in the water. As it began to rise around his ankles, the boy panicked. He didn't know what to do. He cried out every magic word he knew, but nothing worked. Soon the water rose around his neck, and he began to cry out in anguish, realizing that he hadn't learned enough. He was saved at the last moment by the return of the master, who cleared up the whole situation.
That fairy tale reflects the same truths as the Tower of Babel. Human beings, in their inventiveness, think they can master the earth. But the very solutions they work out become the bigger problems that they can no longer manage. The whole vast scheme of things eludes them; they are not able to put them all together. Thus, for the human race's sake, not because God is afraid of them, but for their sake, to protect them from themselves, God says, Let us go down and confuse their language. Let us stop people from destroying themselves from the face of the earth, because they are not God enough to handle it.
Lord, in Your grace You humble me and keep me dependent on You. I confess that I am not You, and I cannot do what You do.
Life Application
In spite of incredible progress in communication technologies the world is as divided as ever. Are we God-playing trying to make God optional with our self-inventiveness?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 1, 2023 4:57:26 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 1ST
Life With Father
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 1 John 1:3
Why is it that some Christians seem to be transformed by contact with Jesus Christ, but others are not? Some Christians, even Christians of long standing, still seem to be very much conformed to the world around them, even deformed in their views and outlooks. Yet all of them stoutly assert that they are Christians, that they too have been born again by faith in Jesus Christ. It is not strange that the world asks, What is wrong? Why is this condition true? The secret, John says, is fellowship.
What is fellowship? In the Navy we used to say it was two fellows on the same ship, and there is a sense in which that is true. They do have something in common—the same ship. That is the basis of fellowship, for essentially this word means to have all things in common. When you have something in common with another, you can have fellowship with that person. If you have nothing in common, you have no fellowship. We all have things in common. We share human life in common. Most of us share American citizenship in common. But John is talking about that unique fellowship that is the possession only of those who share life in Jesus Christ together. This makes them one, and this oneness is the basis for the appeal of Scripture: to live together in tenderness and love toward one another. Not because we are inherently wonderful people or remarkable personalities or that we are naturally gracious, kind, loving, and tender all the time—for at times we are grouchy, scratchy, and irritating to others. But we are still to love one another. Why? Because we share life together. We have something in common. We share the life of the Lord Jesus, and therefore we have fellowship with one another.
We must understand the difference between relationship and fellowship. Relationship is becoming a member of the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ. It is established by asking Him to come into your life and heart. John makes that clear at the end of this letter. He who has the Son has life [that is relationship]; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life [he does not have a relationship] (1 John 5:12). The Christian life starts right there with this matter of relationship. Relationship is accepting Christ; fellowship is experiencing Him. You can never have fellowship until you have established relationship, but you can certainly have relationship without fellowship. Relationship puts us into the family of God, but fellowship permits the life of that family to shine through us. That is what marks the difference between Christians. Fellowship is the key to vital Christianity. That is why this letter, which calls us back to fundamental issues, focuses first on that. The important question is, as a Christian, are you enjoying fellowship with the Father and with His Son?
Father, teach me more of the richness and the glory of this warmth of fellowship with Christ, where everything that I am is made available to Him and I am experiencing all the wonderful joy of everything that He has made available to me.
Life Application
Do we sometimes wonder at the differences we notice in our experiences with professing Christians? What is a key difference between relationship and fellowship?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 2, 2023 4:56:23 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 2ND
Ignoring The Light
If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
1 John 1:6
What is the problem presented in this verse? Here are Christians who have established a relationship with God; they have come into the family of God by faith in Christ. That means that they are experiencing the full flow of the life in the Spirit. But there is no sign of it in their lives. They lie. They do not live according to the truth. Their lives are harsh, perhaps, and loveless, critical, and demanding of others.
Well, what is wrong? Nothing is wrong with the relationship. It is no good talking to these people about becoming Christians; they are Christians. The problem is that they are walking in darkness. Most of us mentally read this as though it refers to having fallen into sin, what was once called a backslidden condition. It is the opposite of walking in the light. But if we view this phrase that way, we are confusing cause with results. The fact is, we sin because we are walking in darkness! Walking in darkness is not a synonym for sinning. We are sinning because we walk in darkness.
What is darkness? We must answer that first on the physical level. How would you go about making the room you are in dark? It is now filled with light. Would you somehow have to scoop out the light and shovel in the darkness? Of course not—we need only to turn off the light. Darkness is simply the absence of light. That is precisely what John means here. To walk in darkness means to walk as though there were no God, for God is light. It is to be a practical atheist. We believe there is a God, we know He exists, but we live as though there were none. That is walking in darkness.
It is possible to be a Christian and yet walk in darkness by turning God off. John starts with this problem because it is one of the most widespread and commonplace of problems. You can miss the benefits of God's presence in your heart and life by ignoring the light.
How then do people actually do this—turn off the light and walk in darkness? There are some very obvious ways in which they do this. Some people stop coming to church. The Word of God is a channel of God's light. The Word itself is light. It penetrates and searches, it seeks out our inner life and exposes it to our view. If we stop coming to church, we escape the light that way. We are no longer made uncomfortable by the Word. Another way is to stop reading the Scriptures. An amazing number of Christians have simply turned off the light by ceasing to read the Scriptures. Underneath all the excuses that are given for this—no time, lots of pressures—there is really a desire to escape the light.
Another way is they never examine themselves. This is an almost certain way of walking in the darkness. We seldom stop to examine ourselves. We never ask ourselves searching questions as to where we are in the Christian life. The apostle Paul says, Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). Ask yourself, Where am I?
Father, grant to me the faith and the grace to come to the light, exposing myself to Your word and being willing to examine myself.
Life Application
In what ways is it possible to be a Christian and yet walk in the darkness? Are we being exposed to God's Word and are we willingly examining ourselves in His light?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 3, 2023 4:08:50 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 3RD
The Person Who Denies Sin
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
The word confess does not mean to ask for forgiveness. Christ's work for us upon the cross has already done all that is necessary to forgive us. What God wants us to do is to look at the sin before us and call it what He calls it. That means to agree with God about it, and that is what the word confess means: Fess comes from a root which means to say, and con means with. To say with God what He says about something is confessing sin. There is a popular song that you sometimes hear in Christian circles: If I have wounded any soul today, If I have caused one foot to go astray, If I have lived in my own selfish way, Dear Lord, forgive. That is not a confession at all. Do not say if, say, Lord, I have caused some foot to go astray, I have lived in my own selfish way. That is confession, agreeing with God.
The cleansing is not based upon God's mercy or His kindness or His love or, least of all, His caprice; it is based on the work of Jesus Christ. On that basis God is faithful and just to forgive, and He would be utterly unjust if He refused to forgive a penitent sinner. God Himself would be wicked if He refused, on the basis of the work of Christ, to forgive a penitent sinner. That is how certain we can be of the cleansing that comes when we agree with God about these things.
Whenever we are aware of having fallen into a fleshly reaction, into sins, then let us stop right there, and in our hearts agree with God about it and experience anew this wonderful cleansing, this faithful and righteous cleansing of our lives, [purifying] from all unrighteousness.
Do you know what happens when you do not confess? You become very unpleasant to live with. As a schoolboy in Montana I endured many bitter winters when the temperature would sometimes go down to sixty degrees below zero for a week at a time. In our homes, where we had no running water, no indoor plumbing, and no electricity, taking a bath was relatively akin to major surgery. In that painful setting, we performed our ablutions. It was difficult enough that some people did not think it necessary to bathe at all during the winter months. If you went into the heat of a one-room schoolhouse on a cold winter's day, with about fifty or sixty sweating bodies there, you became very much aware of this fact.
Now I do not mind living with someone who knows he or she is dirty and therefore frequently washes, but it is terribly distressing to live with someone who thinks he or she never gets dirty. That is what John is saying. If we say we cannot get dirty, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we face up to it and confess it, then the cleansing that the Lord Jesus has fully and abundantly provided for on the cross is immediately ours, and we are as though we had never sinned.
Father, in such practical terms does this reveal the tendency of my own heart to deceive myself and also the readiness of Your heart to cleanse me? May I learn to walk in agreement with You.
Life Application
Even though we can be freed from sin, we cannot claim to be without sin. What is the difference between asking forgiveness and confessing our sin?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 4, 2023 4:49:14 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 4TH
The Person Who Rationalizes Sin
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins...
1 John 2:1-2a
There is never any need to sin, but if we find ourselves doing so, we have a perfect defense available to us—a defense that the Father will gladly receive, one that He already assures us will be welcomed. We have an Advocate with the Father who will rush to our defense immediately, but His defense is of no avail to us if we are still defending ourselves. There cannot be two advocates in this case. You either rely on His defense of you—the manifestation of His work on your behalf, which has wiped away every stain, every sin that you ever will commit or ever have committed—or you must rely on your own defense. Here you are, standing before God, defiantly telling Him that you are not to blame, that you have a defense. You can explain all this by saying that you acted under the pressure of circumstances or by claiming that your sin is not what God says it is.
As long as you remain defiant or evasive, you are still justifying and excusing yourself, and therefore the judge can only permit the inevitable, built-in judgment that follows to upset you, overthrow you, harass you, baffle you, and leave you in weakness and folly. But if you will stop justifying yourself, He will justify you. The blood of Jesus Christ cannot cleanse excuses. It only cleanses sins. If you will say, Yes, it wasn't the pressure, it wasn't the circumstances, it wasn't that these things are not as bad as you say they are; it's that I chose to be impatient or resentful. I decided to be worried and let anxiety grip me. If we come to that place, then we discover that there is one who stands before the Father and reveals to Him the righteousness of His life, and God sees us in Him, and we are cleansed and accepted. Strength again flows into the inner person, peace comes back to our hearts, we are cleansed of our sin, washed and restored to the grace of God. Then we can go back into the same circumstance, under the same pressure, and find our heart kept by the grace and strength of God.
Why does John say, He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world? The answer is this: It is to help us see ourselves. Why is it that these others, whose sins have already been atoned for on the cross, are living in estrangement and hostility to the God who loves them and who seeks after them? The answer is, of course, because they will not believe Him. They will not accept His forgiveness. That is the same reason we Christians are not enjoying the full flow of the Spirit of power, life, love, and wisdom in our experience. It is all available to us, but we will not receive it. Like the world, we are turning our back on it. We are saying to God, I'm not interested in cleansing, because I really don't need it. After all, this is not a sin; it is simply a weakness. I can't help it. That kind of thing is cutting the ground out from under the whole redemptive work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Though His power is all-available, we do not experience it because of that.
Father, search my heart. Make me open and honest. Teach me to stop excusing myself and accept completely the work of my advocate, Jesus Christ.
Life Application
When we sin, what happens when we justify our actions or make excuses for our disobedience? Do we have God's forgiveness for our past, present, and future sins?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 5, 2023 7:47:44 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 5TH
How To Walk As He Walked
By this we may be sure that we are in him: he who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:5b-6
This phrase, abides in him, means exactly the same thing as fellowships with him. The Lord Jesus made that clear when He said, as is recorded in John's gospel, No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me (John 15:4b).
You can be in Christ, as a member of the vine, and bear only leaves. That is mere relationship. But if you want fruit in your life, there must be that further attitude of abiding in Him, resting in Him. That is what produces significant results in life.
The sign of abiding is to walk in the same way in which Christ walked. That does not mean to do the same things that Jesus did; that means to act from the same principle upon which He acted, to reflect the same kind of relationship to the Father that He had. That is the sign of fellowship.
What was the secret of our Lord's power? That is what brought Nicodemus to Him by night: to try to ferret out the secret if he could. Many others came wondering what the secret of His power was. The amazing thing was that He kept telling people what it was. But we skip over it with easy disregard. He said, the Son of Man does not do these things of Himself. That is, I'm not doing this; the Father who dwells in Me is doing it. I don't speak these words of Myself, but I speak only that which I hear the Father say. It's the Father who speaks the words; it's the Father who does the work. I am a man, available to Him, but He is in Me, and His working in Me is the secret of the things that I do. I am simply counting on Him every minute to be at work and to do these things, and He does them (John 14:10-11).
That is the great secret, and that is one of the hardest things for Christians to learn. How did He walk? He walked in total, unrelenting, unbroken fellowship and dependence upon the activity of the Father who indwelt Him. But that seems so hard for us to learn. With us, it is the Son of God who lives within us, and He has come to reproduce the effect of His death and the power of His resurrection—to live again His life in us. But we have such difficulty with this. Our attitude is, Please, Father. I'd rather do it myself We are brought up with the idea that we have in ourselves an ability to act significantly, that God is looking to us to act on His behalf, and if we fail Him, the whole program will fall apart, but if we do accomplish something for God, He should be eternally grateful to us for our faithfulness.
But this is not what a Christian is called to do. A quiet, unrelenting dependence upon an indwelling God to be always at work in us, reproducing the value of His death and the power of His resurrection—that is what Christianity is, that is what fellowship is, and that is what abiding in Him means.
Thank you, Lord, that You are making provision for me, filling me with Your very life. I pray that I may grasp this more and more and cooperate with You in it.
Life Application
What does it mean to have the life of Christ in us? Have we grasped this abiding reality that Jesus demonstrated to us as the way for us to walk with God?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 6, 2023 4:00:57 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 6TH
Visible Christianity
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. 1 John 2:11
John says that he who hates his brother is not a Christian. He is in the darkness, and he has never come out of it. To say you are in the light and yet hate your brother is a basic denial of faith. Such an attitude of hostility, indifference, or unconcern toward another is a mark of an unregenerate life.
The apostle John says that he who hates his brother is in the darkness and does not know where he is going. He has no understanding that this can lead to murder or to mayhem. He goes blindly on, stumbling on in his hateful attempt to do evil to his friend, brother, or companion, whoever it may be. But the result is, he is only damaging himself and all he loves.
Furthermore, he is blinded. John says, the darkness has blinded his eyes. The word that is used here means to make insensitive, and it implies that if we live in this way, we ultimately come to the place where we no longer can respond. Hatred grips us and hardens our heart, and it can no longer be softened.
Christians may temporarily succumb to this kind of thing. They can walk in darkness temporarily, but they no longer are children of darkness. The light of God's love has come into their hearts. If they are not aware of a struggle between the expression of hate or don't have a sense of concern or guilty conscience over their hateful attitude, then they ought to wonder whether they have really passed from death into life. This is something that the Spirit of God will inevitably deal with in the Christian and break, and it may sometimes be by very difficult measures.
I remember an occasion when I was counseling with a woman about a physical problem that really had a spiritual basis in her experience. I discovered she hated another person for years. Hate had turned her bitter and rancid and had poisoned all her thoughts. I said to her, You must find it in your heart to forgive this person, as God has forgiven you.
She looked at me and said, I can't forgive her; I'll never forgive her!
I said, But God says you must. If you can't, then you need to face the fact that you are not a Christian, because if you can't forgive, then you've never been born again.
She looked at me and said, I guess you're right. I know I am a Christian, and I see I have just been deceiving myself. I need to forgive. And she did! There came a change in that woman's life that was like night turning to day.
Christians can delude themselves into going along with the world's attitude that they cannot forgive. When worldlings hate, they find themselves locked in an unbreakable grip from which they cannot escape. But when the Son of God comes into their lives, the power of the evil one is broken, and they are delivered from this and can forgive. But we still must agree to it. God is not going to make us forgive apart from our own will, though the ability to do so is there.
Lord, I pray that Your love might be manifest in and through me, not because I am trying so hard, but because I know You, and You have loved me and come to live Your life through me.
Life Application
True Christians are marked by the ability to forgive anyone despite how they feel. Do we need our eyes opened so we can willingly escape the grip of unforgiveness?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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