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Post by Obadiah on May 7, 2023 4:45:37 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 7TH
The Maturing Process
I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. 1 John 2:14b
I believe John placed this purpose last for a very important reason. He has already described these young men as those who have overcome the evil one. He repeats that again, but he adds this explanation: You are strong, and the word of God lives in you. He put that last because here is revealed the secret of growth. What makes one who is a spiritual child become a spiritual young man? The Word of God abiding in him! What makes a young man become a father? The Word of God abiding in him! That is the secret of growth. That is what will move him from one stage to another until at last he becomes a father, able to reproduce himself in others.
Here is the divinely designed instrument of growth: the Word of God. It is absolutely impossible to grow up as a Christian, or as a real man or woman, unless the Word of God abides in you. This is why the devil fights this whole matter of Bible study, the building of your life around the centrality of the Scriptures, and why there is loosed a constant barrage of attack at this level. It is the supremely important thing to move us into maturity. Though the devil cannot stop us from being Christians, he can certainly keep us from becoming strong Christians, and this is exactly the way he does it. He tries to divert our attention and get us off onto spiritual sidetracks. He brings in certain apparent shortcuts that offer to bring us to maturity in an instant. Instant spirituality, instant maturity!
Across the experience of years I have watched many things prevent maturity by diverting attention from the divinely designed instrument that will bring it about, the knowledge of the Word of God. I am not talking merely about Bible study. There is a very mechanical, wooden approach to Bible study that can acquaint a person with the teachings of the Bible, but that is not enough. This passage, remember, says the Word of God lives. That means a knowledge of the Bible plus obedience to the Spirit. When the Scriptures speak of knowing the Word of God, they are never merely talking about the instrument of the Bible; it is always the Bible plus the Spirit. It is the Word understood in the light of the illuminating, searching power of the Holy Spirit. It takes these two together to produce maturity. It is not a matter merely of taking the teaching of the Word into the mind, but it is something deeper. The Word lays hold of us. We first lay hold of it, and then it lays hold of us, and thus the Word lives, it penetrates to the conscience, it lays hold of the will, it exposes the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12b), and that is what produces maturity.
This means that our studying must be deliberate. The knowledge of the Word must be more than a hobby or a diversion with us, an option in life, a kind of low-calorie dessert that we can take or leave as we please. No, this demands time and strength. The exhortations of Scripture are to be diligent in this. Be diligent about searching the Scriptures and studying the Word.
Father, thank You for exposing my laziness, my unwillingness to read, and my slowness to obey. Help me to lay hold of the great provision for my maturity in Christ.
Life Application
What joy is experienced when deliberate Bible study moves from a 'have to' to a 'want to!' How is our desire for, time with, and practice of God's living Word growing?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 8, 2023 7:16:30 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 8TH
The Enemy Around
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. 1 John 2:16 RSV
The specific areas mentioned in this verse are where we must fight this battle against sin. It is not enough to say, Don't love the world. It must be brought down to specifics. It must be reduced to that with which we actually come in contact. So John adds, all that is in the world, and he defines this. He gives a list of these areas and says, These do not come from the Father but are of the world. To reject a philosophy, we must do so in certain specific actions.
There is first, he says, the lust of the flesh. In the Scriptures this word flesh is usually something more than simply the body. It is the sinful nature, the fallen condition of humanity, which is present in the body. What is this lust of the flesh? There are certain things that our body desires that are perfectly proper, God-given. God has made us, as humans, to have certain urges and hungers, and to satisfy these is not wrong. But the flesh, that sinful propensity within us, always seeks to add something, to go beyond the satisfying of God-given desires.
There is a second division John sets before us: the lust of the eyes. What is this? The eye symbolizes that which pleases the mind or inner life. The lust of the eyes, like that of the flesh, goes beyond simple needs. Our minds were made by God to search and inquire, to take the great facts that revelation or nature set before us and to explore them. But there are certain limits to these. There are limits within nature, and there are limits within revelation. But the flesh takes this basic permission of God and pushes it beyond God's will to extremes we are forbidden to follow.
There is still a third division, which is the pride of life. This is the desire to awaken envy or adulation in other people. The first two divisions had to do with satisfying ourselves, not as God intended us to be satisfied, but beyond that. But they were directed toward us and only incidentally involved others. The pride of life, however, cannot exist except as it relates to others. It seeks to create a sense of envy, rivalry, and burning jealousy in the hearts of others and gives us pleasure in doing this to them. It is the desire to outshine or to outrank someone else.
What does John say about this? John does not say, Do not have anything to do with any of this. But what he does say is this one phrase, Do not love these things, do not set your hearts on them, do not think of them as important. Do not give yourselves to amassing things, do not love luxury and ease, and do not strive to outshine others. Oh, the subtlety with which this whole philosophy makes its appeal to us! When the love of these things, the importance of them, occupies our major interest; when we find them using up most of our money; when we find them looming large in our thoughts so that we are constantly dreaming of that new something we hope to get, then we are in danger, terrible danger. This is what the apostle wants to make clear.
Father, open my eyes to my own self. Make me to hear the probing question from the Holy Spirit, What is your heart truly set upon? What is your true love?
Life Application
What are three areas in which we are engaged in battle against our lusts and pride? How does this evidence itself in how we spend our time and our money?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 9, 2023 4:30:32 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 9TH
On Heresy
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. 1 John 2:19a
Notice that the mark of an antichrist is finally breaking away from New Testament Christianity. All such invariably do. And when they do, they will insist that they are the true mainstream of Christian truth and that we are living in the backwaters of Christian doctrine. John puts this very plainly. The mark of genuineness is continuity in the truth, continuance in true faith. What does he mean by us? Surely not Christendom in general. He means, as he makes clear in the context of this whole letter, those who love the Word of God and who possess the Spirit of God, those who seek to obey the Word in the power of the Spirit. The emphasis he has been making all along is on those who share the life of Christ by the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God. Heretics will invariably cut themselves off from these people.
If you suggest studying the Scriptures to those who are involved in heresy, you will immediately feel their scorn of the Scriptures. If they read the Bible at all, they cull out certain portions, omitting the parts they do not like, and then they say, Yes, we'll study the Scriptures right along with you. But if you read what they are studying, you find it to be emasculated of essential truth. We need not fear heresy if we find someone who wishes to study the Scriptures as they are. There are many people today who are utterly ignorant of the Scriptures and perhaps have very peculiar viewpoints about them, but they are quite willing to learn. Do not worry about the fact that they are way off about a lot of things now. Get them into the Scriptures. The Word of God has a marvelous ability to correct error and to channel interests into vital matters. They will soon be brought into line with the great, marvelous, glorious, all-pervasive truth of God, these tremendous themes that grip the hearts of men and women wherever they are set forth in power.
Through the centuries there have been cyclical outbreaks of heresy arising within Christian circles to twist, distort, and pervert the truth. We see the confluence of these in our own day. We will be disturbed and confused unless we view them in the light of the revelation of the truth of God. What a wonder this Word is, which has been given to us that we might understand what is happening to us, understand the world in which we live, and thus be made to know what is going on. We can thus realize that history is utterly in the control of God and is moving exactly the way He planned. Our own individual lives can be brought into line with this to produce not that which is transient and ephemeral, but to be engaged in that which abides, that which will end up at last fulfilling the purpose of God in history, moving to the last consummation that He has in view.
Father, my heart is moved anew as I see what is happening in my own day in the blazing light of these amazing Scriptures. God, grant that I might remain true to Your Word.
Life Application
Heresy results from failure to study and accept the whole of Scripture. What effect does the powerful Word of God have on those who see through its revelation?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 10, 2023 5:01:19 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 10
No Gray Areas
...no lie comes from the truth. 1 John 2:21b
Have you learned yet that no lie is of the truth, that there is no possible harmony between a lie and the truth? In other words, that there are no gray areas in life; that a thing is either black (a lie) or it is white (the truth), and there are no gray areas, though there may be a mingling of black with white. Every Christian has an ability to exercise moral judgment to distinguish right from wrong. It is amazing how many Christians have not learned this yet and still go on echoing the lie of the world, that there can be a blending of truth and error. John utterly cuts the ground out from under that. I wrote to you, he says, because you have found this out, if you know Jesus Christ. You may not have thought through the implications, but you must know that there is no possibility of blending a lie with the truth.
One of the glorious things about God's secret purpose, which is the restoring of the life of God to the spirit of man, is that it also reestablishes standards of absolute values and makes moral judgments possible. It shifts us from control by a conscience of convenience to control by a conscience of conviction. These days we are hearing much about situational ethics, relativism in the realm of moral judgments. What are these? If you cheat on an examination because you do not like the teacher, that is wrong. But if you do it because you are desperate to get a good grade and there is no other way to do it—you have been letting the whole thing slide until exam time and there is no other way but to cheat, then, that is right.
But John says, No more! Now you know the one who is the truth, and you cannot get by so easily any more. Sooner or later you must explain your actions to Him, and all those wonderful excuses that went over so smoothly with your spouse or friends sound very lame when repeated to Him. He is totally unimpressed by them. He does not say anything; He simply folds His arms and looks at you. You start stammering, and pretty soon you stop, because, as John says, No lie comes from the truth, and you know that now.
Give heed to these things. Begin to examine the philosophies around you, the suggestions and explanations of life that are presented to you. Measure them according to the truth. Have you come to know the truth as it is in Jesus? Are you ready to listen to the Word of God, unfolded by the Spirit of God, in order that you might understand the world in which you live and the person who lives in it—you? Are you willing to understand how God made you, how He intends you to function, how He wants you to react to situations? Will you let Him teach you to depend no longer upon the false sense of ability that you have lived on all your life, but to renounce that and rely instead upon His life within? That is why John is writing. He writes these things, he says, because he knows the necessary equipment is there. Now use it!
Father, help me to understand the truth as it is in Christ. Help me to turn from every siren voice that beckons me away from Him and to bring all the things I discover, all experiences, all reasonings, to Him.
Life Application
Excuses we make can merely echo the lies of the world. Have we found the absolute truth as it is in Christ or do our excuses reveal gray areas where none should exist?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries. For permission to use this content,
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Post by Obadiah on May 11, 2023 4:15:29 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 11TH
No Son, No Father
No one who denies the Son has the Father...1 John 2:22a
To deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Father and the Son. Here we are confronting something of the mystery of the nature of God. I grant immediately that there is much that we cannot understand about God and the Trinity. We know there are three persons who eternally exist as one God. Our minds boggle when we try to understand fully what that means and to grasp how it works out in its implications.
You recall, in that profoundly significant passage that we call the Upper Room Discourse, when our Lord is gathered with His own, that He Himself reveals to us something of the wondrous relationship that has eternally existed between the Father and the Son. We know that in the beginning was God—God in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. The supreme characteristic of God is that He loves: God is love. Therefore, the Father loved the Son, and it was always the Father's delight to take the fullness in Himself and, through the eternal Spirit, to give it to the Son. Love always gives, and God is forever giving. The Father gives of Himself to the Son. All that is in the Father is given to the Son through the Spirit. This is why Jesus said in the Upper Room Discourse, All that belongs to the Father is mine (John 16:15a).
But the Son also must love and give, for He too is God. This is where creation comes in, for John has told us, Through him [the Son] all things were made (John l:3a). Why? In order that all the fullness that is in Him, which the Father has given to Him, might be given to the whole creation, headed by man. Paul says, All things were created by him and for him (Colossians 1:16). He is the full expression of the Father, and the creation is to be the full expression of the Son. Everything that we see about us, the universe in all its wonder of complicated structure, is but an expression of the life of the Son.
The whole program of creation was intended to be the Father, taking of the fullness that was in Him, and, through the eternal Spirit, imparting it to the Son. The Son, in turn, takes of the fullness that He has received, and, through the eternal Spirit, imparts it to humans and the whole creation to the end that the fullness may be reflected back in visible manifestation to the Father, and so the whole created world would glorify God. That is God's design for the universe.
This program was interrupted by people's deliberate choice to repudiate their dependence on the Son and to be their own god, to turn creation to their own purposes. Then the Spirit of God was removed from the spirit of humans, and they lost their ability to love God and their capacity to know God as Father. This is why the devil attacks so vehemently this truth that Jesus is the Christ. Through a denial of this, he can get at that secret, that relationship that God desires for His people, the glory of knowing the Father and His love.
Father, I thank You that everything that is in You—the fullness of the Father—is imparted to the Son, and everything that is in Him is available to me. All that I need for everything has been provided in Him. Lord, teach me to live on this level.
Life Application
The tri-unity of God is a profound mystery. The three persons, eternally One, are a love-giving unity. Are we allowing Christ in us to continue His ministry of love?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 12, 2023 3:54:06 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 12TH
The Living Word
And this is what he promised us — even eternal life. 1 John 2:25
Most of us read the words eternal life as though they only apply to heaven in the future. Everlasting life, we call it, life that never ends. That is not inaccurate. Eternal life is life that never ends, but the essential factor about eternal life is not quantity, but quality. What John is speaking of here is not merely something we are going to get in heaven someday, but it is something we can experience and enjoy now. It is fullness of life, the full quality of divine life lived out in your situation, right now, and increasing in fullness of enjoyment forever. In other words, eternal life is the daily adventure of experiencing God's solution to every problem instead of your own. It is the discovery of God's program for every opportunity, instead of yours. Every time we are confronted with a problem, there are two things we can do.
In the weakness of our own intellect, relying upon our own human resources, we can try to work out the problem. When we do, the result is inevitably the same. Life dissipates into a drabness, a boredom, a routine that leaves us utterly uninterested and desiring to be uninvolved. That is our program.
Or we can have God's solution to any problem or any opportunity. In any situation we can say, Lord, You are in me, and You have come in me to live through me. This situation has been brought about by your planning and your programming. Father, I wouldn't be in it if it were not for you. Now, Lord, do through me what you want to do with it. Then we watch to see what God does, and we become instantly available to Him to move in whatever direction it looks like the situation demands. As we do, we discover that His program begins to unfold in that situation. Every obstacle becomes a glorious opportunity to display the fullness of glory, wisdom, and power that is in the God who has come to live and make His home within us.
I remember as a young Christian reading that great promise in Ephesians, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us... (Ephesians 3:20). I remember looking at that verse and saying to myself, Is that really true? Does God really offer to do for me beyond that which I can ever ask or think at this moment? That's fantastic! I can ask a lot of life. I can dream and imagine a great many wonderful experiences that I would love to have, to bring satisfaction to my life and heart. I even had the program outlined in my mind, just how God could do it. But as I look back across these thirty years, I can see that God did not take my program and do it my way, but He has abundantly fulfilled the promise. My life is richer than I ever dreamed it would be when I was a young Christian.
If we are ready to give ourselves to the Word of God, to let it possess us, to understand it, and to obey it—if that which you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. The experience of that is eternal life!
Father, grant to me, through all the feeble searchings of my heart, the discovery of eternal life in my everyday experience.
Life Application
What is the daily adventure of experiencing God's solution to every problem instead of our own called? Are we willingly letting the living Word possess us each day?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 13, 2023 4:18:34 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 13TH
The Teaching Spirit
...just as it has taught you, remain in him.
1 John 2:27b
The emphasis in these verses is on the words as it has taught you. What the Spirit has taught you, not what He has taught the other fellow. After the resurrection, Jesus said to Peter, Feed my sheep. And Peter turned and looked at John and said, Lord, what about him? Do you remember what Jesus said? That is none of your business. You follow me. What I teach this man to do is for him to know. What I have said for you to do, that is for you to do (John 21:15-22).
This is an intensely personal thing. What you have learned from the word of the Spirit, through the intermediacy of human teachers, is to be the ground of your actions. But your activity must always be based on the conviction of what has come home to you. In other words, you walk by faith in the Word of God as God has taught it to you and not by what you have learned by tradition. Tradition has, historically, been one of the most deadly foes of the church and has held people back from advancement in their spiritual life.
Any time you condition people to take their truth secondhand through some other individual, some line of authorities standing in succession above them, you have conditioned them to respond immediately to falsehood as well if it starts from the top. That is why hierarchies go astray so quickly and so easily. No, in the Christian life, all truth is intensely personal and comes directly to you from the Holy Spirit.
That means you do not need to have a scholar interpreting the Word of God for you. You can be grateful for scholars, you can read their helpful comments, and the Lord will use them to teach you something, but you are not dependent upon them. You have no need that any person teach you at that level, for the Holy Spirit can instruct you. We must be open, of course, to hear all that others have to say. Charles Spurgeon once said, I do not understand those men who have such a high opinion of what the Holy Spirit says to them, and such a low opinion of what he says to anyone else. We must remember that the Spirit of God does speak through other people, as well as through us. But, finally, we must act only on what the Lord has said to us. That is what made it possible for Martin Luther to stand alone before the emperor, with all the assembled dignitaries of state and church arrayed in opposition to him, and to say, Here I stand! I can do no other, God help me. He was listening to the voice of the Spirit to him.
Now this obedience is absolutely necessary because it is only on this basis that you can abide in him, and that is where fruitfulness comes from. You cannot go another's route, you cannot live another's spiritual life for him or her or force him or her to go your route either. You are to open the Word, pour over it, listen to the Holy Spirit in it, listen to others as the Holy Spirit has taught them, and then, faced with this entire array of external testimony, obey that which the Spirit confirms to your heart is the truth. John says when you do that, you will abide in Him.
Father, thank You for this amazing phenomenon of a teaching Spirit within me. Make me willing to hear, having eyes to see and ears to hear. Let it penetrate to that depth of spirit by which I shall understand and grasp these amazing riches in Christ Jesus.
Life Application
The Holy Spirit is our personal teacher as we spend time in the Word of God. Are we open to listening to the Spirit of Christ in our brothers and sisters also?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 14, 2023 4:32:52 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 14TH
The Most Astonishing Thing
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 John 3:1
Here is an astonishing thing. It is not the fact that God loves, but how God loves. What manner of love is this! Literally, the Greek for what manner is of what country is this! It is an exclamation of astonishment, of surprise. What kind of country is this, what foreign land is this, that is represented in love like that! It is the strangeness of God's love that is in view in this whole thing. How is God's love strange? Well, John says, in that it makes us the children of God.
Perhaps some of you are thinking, You may be surprised at this, but I'm not. Why shouldn't I be a child of God, like anyone else? If you think this, then you do not understand righteousness. Romans 5 reveals to us how God saw us when He found us: When we were still powerless, when we were helpless, when we were unable to make any contribution to the redemption we desperately needed, when there was not a thing we could do about it, and even our good was tainted with self-interest so that we could make no contribution whatsoever, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly,—for us (Romans 5:6). But it does not stop there: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). While we were still sinners, or while we were proud, overbearing in our attitude toward God, treating Him with condescension and indifference. When we were this way, Christ died for us. Even this does not exhaust His description.
He goes on a verse or two later to say, if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son... (Romans 5:10). If, when we were God's enemies; not only without strength, not only sinners, proud and prickly in our attitude, but also when we were absolutely opposed to God, enemies of His grace, treacherous, hateful, resenting what God was doing and resisting every attempt He made to reach us. Now, John says, what amazing love! God flings the bloodstained mantle of His love over us and calls us His children. And He not only calls us this, but He actually makes us so: And that is what we are (1 John 3:1b)!
Isn't that amazing? Do you ever think of yourself as in this condition when God found you, and you would still be like that if God had not found you? What kind of pride is it that makes us think of ourselves as some kind of special catch that God has made? How fortunate He ought to feel that we have consented to join his side! No, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons of God.
That is the extent of God's love. God desires that His enemies should become His children and that his children should become mature sons and daughters.
Lord, I echo these words of John: What manner of love has been bestowed upon me, that I should be called a child of God; and so I am. I know it is true, even though I do not always act like it. Teach me to live as Your obedient child.
Life Application
God is the Creator of all mankind, but not the Father of all mankind. We are only children of God by faith in Jesus Christ! How has this truth astonished & affected us?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 15, 2023 5:10:13 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 15TH
Becoming Pure
Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.
1 John 3:3
What a powerful motivation this is to become like Him now; to accept your circumstances, to stop quarreling with what God sends to you, and begin in everything to give thanks, allowing these strange instruments of God's grace to do their work in your life. Paul says, suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:3-4).
A few experiences like this and you know absolutely that God is adequate, that He is able to work everything out. You know that every testing is another opportunity for God to demonstrate His great ability to work things out. Thus hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:5); it gives confidence, a sense of unbeatable confidence that keeps you poised and assured under any circumstance. All that is what happens now, as God begins to work through our circumstances to make us like Him. That is why John says that all those who have this kind of hope—this certainty—and understand this process purify themselves, even as Christ is pure.
But you say, Purify myself? That's the one thing I can't do. That is true. God knows that. He knows you cannot purify yourself, yet here He says to purify yourself. What does He mean? You purify yourself when you use the means He has provided for purification. You mothers know how this works. Your little boy has been playing outside and is covered with dirt. He comes in, and you send him into the bathroom to purify himself. Like all boys, he turns on the water, runs his hands through it, turns the water off, wipes his hands on the towel, and comes out. You look him over and say, But you're not clean.
Well, he says, I washed myself.
But look at the dirt on your hands and on your arms and on your face and behind your ears. You're not clean at all. Then every wise mother asks, Did you use soap? Of course he hasn't, so she sends him back to use soap. What is soap? It is a purifying agent, a cleansing agent. It will do the job if it is employed. So when he comes back the second time, he has washed with soap, and the soap has cleansed him, purified him. Now he says, Look, Mom, I've cleaned myself up. It is true that he did it, but he did it by using his mother's provision.
The provision for our cleansing is the Word of God and the Spirit of God. The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7). 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). This means we must begin to take seriously this matter of a break of fellowship with Christ because of an impatient spirit or an ugly word or a lustful idea or thought that we have dwelt on. We must realize the stain of it does not disappear with the passage of time. It has interfered with our fellowship with the Son of God, and we must do something about it. We cannot simply forget it; we must do something about it. We must purify ourselves using His provision, that we might be clean.
Lord, teach me to purify myself using the means You have given to me to do it.
Life Application
Thank God for simple soap that helps wash us clean when we are stinky, greasy or muddy! What is God's provision for purifying ourselves after we fall into the pit of sin?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 16, 2023 4:40:48 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 16TH
Taking Away Sins
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 1 John 3:5
Jesus Christ was manifested to take away sins. This is the great purpose of His coming into the world. Linked with that purpose is the great possibility that flows from it: in him is no sin. This is the glorious gospel of hope. There is a way, but there is only one way. That is like saying that air is the only thing to breathe. We need only one way out of this human dilemma. There is only one way, because there is only one who has ever appeared in human history who can take away sins.
He does not do it by an act of magic. He does not wave a wand or utter some religious abracadabra and the problem is solved—poof! Suddenly you are free from sin, lawlessness is gone, and you will never have any problem with it again. If that is your idea of Christian faith, then you are badly mistaken. But as we have been seeing through this letter of John, the Lord Jesus Christ has appeared to take away sins. How does He do it? He does it by the impartation of life, by the turning on of light, by the awakening of love. These are the things that answer the manifestations of lawlessness. What is lawlessness? It is that which produces death, the destruction of life; darkness, the extinguishing of light; and hatred, the violation of love.
What does Jesus Christ give? He gives life in place of death, light in place of darkness, and love in place of hatred. When you receive Jesus Christ, that is only the beginning. The whole Christian life follows. As we have been learning, it is a process of growth, but the results are inevitably the same. There is the taking away of sin, there is the elimination of lawlessness, and there is the restoration to the human heart of order and peace.
That has been the demonstration throughout human history. Repeatedly in every generation, the hardest cases have responded to this amazing remedy—homosexuals, alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, murderers, and thieves. Even more difficult cases have surrendered—the proud, the intellectuals, the bitter, the cynical, the angry young men, the jaded old people. And always there have been the despairing, the wounded in spirit, the hopeless, the pathetic, the pitiful, and the lost, broken derelicts that float through life. No matter where or when people have lived, it has always been the same story, always the same deliverance, always the same results: the healing of lawlessness. The miracle occurs when people come to know Jesus Christ and receive Him into their lives. Then the sickness begins to heal.
Lord, may I have the privilege of being a part of this, the greatest cause of all, that I may see clearly that there is nothing greater that I could possibly give myself to than the thrusting forward of this mighty message of healing.
Life Application
What was the purpose of Jesus Christ being born in our world? How does the giving of His life affect the recurring death, darkness, and hatred that exists today?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 17, 2023 4:40:33 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 17TH
Abide In Him
No one who abides in him sins. 1 John 3:6
John puts it plainly: No one who abides in him sins. Or, to use the interchangeable terms for sin that he has just given us, No one who lives in him lives lawlessly. This is the good news.
Perhaps some will say, Wait a minute! Isn't this a contradiction? In the first chapter, verse 8, John says, If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). And now in chapter 3 he says, No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. How is this? And isn't it even more positively put in verse 9 of chapter 3, No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God (1 John 3:9)? Surely this is a bit of a problem. Admittedly, we have come to one of the most difficult passages of Scripture. Yet it is a very important one, and it is not a contradiction. The man who writes this is no fool; John is an intelligent person. He does not say on one page something that is contradicted on another page. He is an inspired apostle, and he writes with wisdom, intelligence, and understanding.
The problem is really settled by the tense of the verb the apostle employs here, No one who abides in him sins. He uses the present continuous tense for the word sins, to mean no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. If John had wanted to refer to a single act of sin, he would have said, without any question, No one who abides in him can commit even one single act of sin. But he did not say that. He used instead this continuous tense, and to note this will help us a great deal in understanding the passage. So he is saying, Anyone who abides in Christ does not go on living in sin.
But now we must not miss the trees because we are so intent upon the wood. How do you avoid living lawlessly? How does one come to this place of not living sinfully? Well, as he puts it, it is all in this one word: abides. No one who abides in him sins. The key is abiding. We have already seen that the relationship of believers to Jesus Christ involves them in two aspects. Abiding in Christ is an advance on simply being in Christ. Our Lord Himself spoke of these two aspects of a disciple's relationship to Him. He described them by these words: You are in me, and I am in you (John 14:20b). Those two aspects are very important.
You are in me is to be in Christ. It is to believe, to receive Jesus Christ. It is to be joined in a union with Him that results in new birth. It is to act upon His invitation to come into your life. When you do, you are in Christ. You are in me—that is the first union.
But what frees us from sin's reign is the second relationship: I am in you, which we experience by an attitude of faith Christ in us, as He makes His home in our hearts. We allow Him to live through us. We expect Him to do so in every moment of our experience. It is this that is called abiding, and it is this that results in freeing us from the bondage and power of sin so that we can live godly lives.
Thank You, Lord, that this is the continuing experience of those who come into relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, who offers Himself to me for this very purpose. Make me a living example of this revolutionary exchange: you in me and I in you.
Life Application
Christ's righteousness literally and radically revolutionizes lives. The power of His indwelling Presence is life-changing. Have we in faith accepted the abiding Truth?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 18, 2023 4:49:14 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 18TH
One Or The Other
This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are; Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.1 John 3:10
Someone has said that people may be divided into two classes, the righteous and the unrighteous, and the classifying is always done by the righteous! Certainly it is true that humanity is divided into two classes—not three, as we often fondly imagine. We would like to think there are the children of the devil, the children of God, and then a vast group in between who are morally neutral, neither devilish nor godly. But God says No, there are not three classes.
Nor is there one class. There are many today who would have us believe that all people everywhere are, by virtue of their natural birth, children of God. But the Bible never sustains that idea for even a moment. These words of John are the echo of the words of the Lord Jesus Himself when He said to certain Pharisees of His day, You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire (John 8:44). This is what the phrase children of the devil means. It does not mean that the devil created them, but it means that they reflect the nature and characteristics of the devil.
All of this is in harmony with the scriptural view of humanity. People, the Bible says, are vessels. They do not have power in themselves, nor do they have life in themselves. They are made to contain life. They are made to hold someone, designed to contain and express the life of another. In the original intention of God, that life was to be the life of God Himself. People were made for God. Pascal said there is in every person a God-shaped vacuum that only God can fill. We were made for God.
But because of humanity's fall in the garden, people today are no longer containing and expressing the life of God but are expressing the perverted, twisted life of the devil. Every one of us was born into the family of the devil. We were born children of the devil because we are part of the fallen race of Adam. The tendency and proclivity toward sin, that twisted perversion, is passed along to us from our forefathers, along with the color of our eyes and all other physical features. We are born with a bent toward evil. You need to live with only a few babies to see this demonstrated. How utterly self-centered babies are! In their thinking, everything exists for them. The whole world is there only to serve their particular need, and that, in essence, is the expression of the life of the devil.
It is only by new birth that we become children of God. This is why Jesus said to that cultured, honored, respected leader of his own day, Nicodemus, who came to him by night, No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:3) All your knowledge, your education, your morality, or your religion is of no value here. Unless you are born again, you are still part and parcel of the family and kingdom of Satan. The whole thrust of the gospel is always in this direction. It is to deliver people from the kingdom of Satan and to bring them into the kingdom of God.
Lord, grant that I may see my own life, see where I am heading, see the forces that are gripping me, mastering me, whether they are of God or of Satan.
Life Application
How piercing, stunning, and incredible is today's passage of Scripture that is presented to us! What is the whole thrust behind God's gospel message to the world?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 19, 2023 6:10:43 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 19TH
The Path Of Love
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 1 John 3:14
It is rather fascinating that the apostle who wrote this has become known as the apostle of love. But if you read the gospel records of John, you will note that this is not his nature at all. He and his brother James earned from Jesus the title Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17) because they were constantly wanting to blast back at those who opposed them. John's temperament was not naturally inclined to show love. But when he was born again, there was born into his heart the life of God, and this man began to show love.
Jacob De Shazer bombed Tokyo early in World War II. He was captured by the Japanese and put in prison. He hated his Japanese captors and was so violent and vicious that they feared him. They kept him in solitary confinement because of the hatred with which he lashed out against them. But he obtained a copy of the Bible and began to read it through. In the loneliness of his cell, he came to realize the life that is in Jesus Christ. An amazing change came over this man. His hatred of the Japanese changed completely. He began to love his captors and to show love toward them, and they were utterly astonished by what had happened to him. Instead of burning with wrath, resentment, and viciousness against them, he became the most docile of prisoners, eagerly cooperating with his captors and praying for them.
Eventually, the story of his change of heart was written up in a little tract, and, after the war, it fell into the hands of a young Japanese captain, Mitsuo Fuchida, the man who led the air raid against Pearl Harbor and gave the command to drop the bombs on that fateful day of December 7. Mitsuo Fuchida was a hero in Japan after the war because of that exploit and others, but his own heart was empty. Somehow he read the tract that told the story of De Shazer's amazing change of heart. He was arrested and puzzled by the story. From somewhere he obtained a New Testament and began to read it with growing interest. At last he came to the story of the crucifixion. When he read the Lord's words from the cross, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34), his heart broke. He realized that this one who could love His enemies and pray for those who persecuted Him was manifesting a quality of life that no natural human being could possibly show. Mitsuo Fuchida became a Christian and an evangelist, telling the story of a love that can change human hearts.
Such love is the sign of the new life. It is a love that you not only extend toward those who love you, but toward those who do not love you. It is a love that does not depend upon a reciprocal relationship but loves the unlovely, the unqualified, the ungrateful, the selfish, and the difficult. This, then, is the character of true love, and it is always evidence that a new life has come, the life born of God.
Lord, I realize that I am not to love others because they love me but because I have been loved by God, and I have in me a life that loves despite any reason to love. Teach me to let that life show through me.
Life Application
Is one of our prerequisites for loving others that they love us first? Apart from having a new Life within we cannot at all evidence the love God commanded us to show.
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 20, 2023 5:15:47 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 20TH
The Murderer Within
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
1 John 3:15
Does your heart burn with hatred toward another today, or has it this week? You just cannot stand him. In fact, if the circumstances were right and the penalty could be avoided, you would murder him if you could! This verse reveals the implications of hatred. All that keeps you from committing murder is a fear of reprisal from God or humans. If you could get away with it some way, hatred would always, invariably, lash out into murder—as it did in that first scene between Cain and Abel. Wherever hate is, murder is always the possibility, and, in the eyes of God, it is as good as done. God reads the heart, so He does not need to wait for the actions. This is what the Lord Jesus Himself taught in Matthew 5:21-22 in the Sermon on the Mount.
What does it reveal when a Christian hates? Let's be honest and admit that it is all too frequently true. Christians hate one another and show hatred toward each other and toward others outside of Christ. But John tells us, You know that no murderer has eternal life in him, meaning that the eternal life that Christ has given is no longer in control of that individual; it is no longer abiding in him.
This relationship of abiding is an additional one to that of the indwelling of God's life. It does not mean that people cease to be Christians when they hate, but they cease to act like Christians. They are no longer living like the Christians that they have become. Eternal life is no longer abiding in them, and they have slipped back into the control of the devil. It is not that love is not available to them but that it does not abide in them. If we hate someone, we have become the temporary slave of Satan. We are God's child doing the devil's work, and we need to face it on that level.
What is the way to control hatred? For the world in general, there can be no answer apart from the regenerating work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the cross of Calvary. It takes the power of God to break the power of hate. But what about with Christians? Do you resort to the folly of trying to suppress it? Do you bite your lip and say nothing but go away with your heart burning, seething, miserable, and unhappy? You are still under the control of the evil one, and, sooner or later, he will take you farther than you want to go. The only control is what we read about here in the epistle of John.
Judge this thing. Deal with it as God sees it. Call it what it is—hatred—originating from the devil. Then confess it, agree with God about it, tell Him so. You will then receive the answering power of love from the Son of God who dwells in your heart. The fount of the Holy Spirit is ever ready to pour out words of love and appreciation, approval, and acceptance in place of hatred. Until we live on these terms, we have not begun to demonstrate the life that is in Jesus Christ. That is why the exhortation comes: Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).
Lord, may I be drawn to You to understand anew the power of love over hate, and the need to be open and honest with myself in these areas. Help me not to excuse these attitudes but to remember that every manifestation of hate is an attack against You and Your rule in my life.
Life Application
In our season here on earth everyone will have times filled with hate for another; and suppression just increases it. How do we return control to the One who is Love?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on May 21, 2023 7:12:19 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR MAY 21ST
The Christian's Tranquilizer
This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us...1 John 3:19-20
On the phrase whenever our hearts condemn us, the apostle John is recognizing that the problem we face is that of a condemning heart. He suggests here in this phrase that this is a rather frequent and often involuntary experience on our part. Who of us as a Christian has not had trouble with a bad conscience or a condemning heart? There are physical problems that affect us spiritually, but all too often this is the result of an attack of the evil one upon our faith, an attempt to try to dislodge us from faith in Jesus Christ, to annul our effectiveness as Christians. And all too often this attack succeeds.
Perhaps there is nothing more common than this problem—Christians who are suffering from a bad conscience, a condemning heart. Sometimes these attacks come upon us in the midst of our most spiritual moods, catching us when we least expect.
What is the remedy? Look at what John says. We must know that we belong to the truth. That is the essential thing. We must reestablish the great fact of our relationship to Christ. We must have ground for believing and reassuring ourselves that we are indeed justified by faith, standing in God's presence not by our own righteousness but by the righteousness of the Son of God, that we are accepted in the Beloved, that we are in Christ, because, as Paul tells us in Romans 8, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). If we are going to silence the doubts of our hearts, we must know that we belong to the truth.
How do you do that? Notice his argument here. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth. We must know that we belong to the truth in order to reassure our condemning hearts, and how do we do it? By this! By what? What he has just mentioned in verse 18. Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue [only] but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18). By this we will reassure our hearts by the knowledge that we are of the truth. He is referring here to an act of love; that is, we deliberately and with specific intent do a kind and helpful deed or speak a loving word to the one who has injured us or caused us to be plunged into this morass of condemnation. Return good for evil, in other words.
You do not have to wait until you are forced to be nice to somebody. Do it deliberately. Set yourself to the task of finding others in need and helping them out. Let us not love in word and tongue but with actions and in truth. It has been a joy to see how many times these words have proved true. People have discovered that much of the loneliness and emptiness of their lives was simply a result of shutting themselves away from the needs of others. As soon as they began to minister to another's life, they discovered that there was an accompanying wonderful sense of reassurance and an awakening of the spirit of joy in their own hearts.
Grant to us, Lord, to find the lonely and the distressed and to encourage them and share something of ourselves with them, that we might thus express this kind of love. By this shall we know that we are of the truth.
Life Application
When we suffer loneliness, a guilty conscience, or our hearts feel pressured with condemnation, how do we avail ourselves the joy & healing power of His Presence?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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