Crossing the Finish Line

I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles...Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.' Isaiah 42:6,9

What was the first Bible verse that really impacted you? For me, it was the verse that says, If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

We all like new things, and especially the idea of becoming new, but what exactly does this mean? I mean, I'm new, but it's still me here. How have they become new? How have things now become what they never were before?

I think actually this is where a lot of people get tripped up on this whole thing called Christianity-telling me you're new. But you're still losing your hair. You're telling me that you're new but I still see that you lose your temper. What type of new are you talking about?

Well, look at our verses today. You can claim that personally. He's saying, Yes, I made the first call. I called out to you. I called you in righteousness.

Maybe you're reading this today and, just to be totally honest with the Lord, you're like, Well, You called me, but I'm not righteous.

But He's called you in righteousness. In other words, He sees you new. He doesn't see you as you see yourself when you look in the mirror. He sees you finished. I don't know if anyone's ever told you this before, or maybe they have and they meant it in a negative way, but I mean it in the most positive ways of what Christ has done for you: You're finished.

Well, I need to prop this up and this up and this up. I need to work on this and go to the gym.

No, you're finished. Can you just relax and enjoy the fact that because of Christ, you're done? You're finished. You're complete. When He sees you, He sees the finished work. He says, I called you in righteousness. It's not something that you can earn, okay? That's only something you can receive. He calls you in righteousness.

If that's not enough then realize this: In the beginning, God's words created everything that now is. And now, by His grace and mercy, even when we weren't righteous, He called us righteous, declaring new things before they yet existed.

If God said it, it's true, and He calls you righteous. Receive that from His hand today.

Prayer Father God,

Thank You for calling me righteous! I could be righteous unless You just transform me, and I receive the truth today that You have made me righteous. I'm finished! The old is gone and the new really has come!

Amen

Beyond Belief

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. 2 Timothy 2:20-21

What are you good for?

I don't mean to be insulting, but I mean the question sincerely. What are you good for? What purpose can you serve? Are you useful for honorable things, or only for dishonorable ones?

Even more important, do you know how to become useful for honorable things?

I want you to examine your life right now and see if you are useful for the Lord. Is your heart still passionate about serving Him and following His direction for your life? Or have you grown dull, consumed by the glamour of success or the tyranny of just scraping by?

We know from God's Word that He honors the people who set themselves apart for His use, but He relegates those who live for themselves to dishonorable things. It's not as though His heart is to treat them dishonorably, it's just that He can't trust them with honorable things. If He gave them honorable things, they would use them for themselves instead of for Him. And when our eternal reward is based on faithfulness with what we are given, He wants to set us up for success and not for failure.

So He only gives honor to those who are submitted to Him, set apart, sold out, ready to serve. These are the ones He can trust to be faithful. These are the ones He will send on the special missions for the kingdom of God. These are the ones He looks for to give them help in their time of need, because He knows their need is because they have been spending themselves for Him-His help is a co-laboring with us, not a bail out!

Have you set yourself apart for God? Are you devoted to His special purposes? Are you trustworthy with His mission? Then you are useful, good for something honorable in the kingdom of God. If you are not set apart, then you are only useful for dishonorable things.

The choice is yours today. Do you want to be good for something? Then set yourself apart.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

I want to be good for something, so I give myself to you wholeheartedly. I hold nothing back today. I am Yours! Please take me, help me, and use me for Your kingdom today and every day for the rest of my earthly life.

Amen

Heaven's Open House

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife.' And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of Heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. Revelation 21:9-11

A lot of people I know are good book starters, but terrible book finishers. They read until the suspense is resolved, but can never force themselves to finish out the final details of the story over the last few chapters.

There is one book that we cannot afford to leave unfinished, and it is the Bible. We can know the essentials and end the suspense-that Jesus died and rose again so that, by faith, we can have eternal life-but the very last chapters of the Bible contain something we need.

At the very end is a picture of where we are going that is so beautiful, so inspiring, that we should all meditate on it, for if we truly understood what God has in store for us, nothing could hold us back from living all out for God.

In sports, there is an important practice called visualization. The idea is that whatever the sport, you can train yourself to see in your mind the perfect skill, match, game, shot, or race. And when you can see it clearly in your mind, something happens that takes you beyond your physical ability. Suddenly, simply by picturing your specialty done the perfect way, you are able to do it more perfectly.

Likewise, it is important for us to be able to picture where we are going. A runner does not race for the next step; they race with the finish line in mind. In our race of faith, we keep our minds fixed on where we are going.

God would not have written it in His Word if it was not important for us. I challenge you to read Revelation 21-22 in its entirety. As you read it, picture yourself in that great city. See yourself walking on its streets. Imagine the sights, sounds, and smells.

Continue to practice these things, for it will strengthen you to overcome what you face today.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

Thank You for Heaven! You have created such an incredible place for me to spend eternity with You, and I am amazed. Please help me to live today with Heaven in mind, so that I will run better for Your glory.

Amen

Hope and Healing Are on the Horizon

All the way around shall be eighteen thousand cubits; and the name of the city from that day shall be: THE LORD IS THERE. Ezekiel 48:35

We know the destination, but aside from that, we have a whole lot of messed up thinking. The destination is Heaven, right? And we all want to get there. But let me straighten a few things out.

First, no one gets a free pass into Heaven. There are no back doors, no coattails, no free passes, not even for Jews. Jewish people don't get to Heaven just because they're Jewish. Nope, they need to go through Jesus, just like everyone else. Along with this, good people don't go to Heaven, only forgiven ones. You can't be good enough for Heaven; you have to be forgiven.

Next, there's no Saint Peter standing at the pearly gates waiting to greet us in a white tux with a clipboard in his hand, asking us for our name. No, our names are known in Heaven by the One who counts-God. If we believe in Jesus as our Savior, then our names are inscribed on the palms of His hands.

Also, there will be no video of your life played out on some cosmic Jumbotron. How do I know? Because the Bible tells me that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and that sounds like a very condemning experience, if you ask me.

So if all we thought about Heaven is bogus, why would we want to go there? Do you want to get to Heaven simply because you don't want to go to Hell? Hey, I agree, Heaven's a better choice, but Hell is not what should motivate us toward Heaven. What should motivate us is what God declares about Heaven, that its name will forever become The LORD Is There.

The Lord is there! Yahweh-Shammah-The Lord Is There. If you want to know what makes Heaven Heaven, that's your answer-the Lord is there. And wherever the Lord is becomes Heaven, right?

That should be our motivation to get to Heaven-that the Lord is there-and we should want to be with the Lord wherever He is. If you want Heaven, but are unsure how you feel about God being there, then maybe you need to examine whether or not you really love Jesus.

Let Jesus set your heart free into the joyful expectation of His presence.

Prayer Lord God,

Thank You that Heaven is wherever You are, and that I will be there with You! I rejoice in the hope of living in the city that is named after Your presence there, and I thank You for forgiving me so that I can be there with You!

Amen

Trumpet Time

How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?-But to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.' Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:11-12

It was so perfect. It couldn't have been more perfect, and I've never seen it anywhere close to that perfect again.

Back when I was in high school, I was way into surfing. I was so into surfing that I sacri-

ficed to save up money to go to Hawaii to surf with nine of my best buddies. When we finally went, we found one particular surfing spot. We paddled out and it was absolutely perfect.

Hardly anybody was there. We couldn't believe it. I mean, it was amazing. It was an outer break. Then after the outer break, it surfed into a mid break that connected to a shore break. It was absolutely awesome.

I've been back to Hawaii a number of times since and I've looked for that place, and I've never, ever found it again. I've even asked people who live in Hawaii about that particular spot that I got to surf on that day and they look at me like, No way. You actually surfed there? It's almost like if I didn't know it actually happened, I would think maybe I was dreaming. It was that perfect. It was that epic. It was that awesome. And it was that rare, because it's never happened again.

The problem with that surfing spot is that the conditions are very rarely right to be able to surf there. And I wonder if sometimes the same is true about our witness, if maybe our witness so rarely shows because the conditions just aren't right.

Maybe the timing isn't convenient. Maybe we're afraid of being rejected. Maybe we feel shame from things we know we shouldn't have done. Maybe we feel like those relationships are too broken to be a witness in them. Whatever it is, we feel that the conditions aren't right.

And maybe you're right that the conditions certainly aren't ideal. But there is one thing I know, and it's that Jesus told us to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

This means that we don't get to be fake. If our faith is real, then it comes out. No masks. No hiding. Just simply living out the light of who we are because of Jesus' work and presence in our lives. Our witness shouldn't depend on our conditions, because the only condition that matters is Jesus in our hearts.

Don't let your witness come around once in a lifetime. Instead, let the light of Jesus shine every day in everything you do.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

Thank You that Your presence and work in my life is what qualifies me to be a witness! I give myself over to Your work and presence in me completely. Help me to let my light shine!

Amen

Can You Believe This?

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 1 Corinthians 3:11-14

Do you like puzzles? A lot of people do, and a lot of people don't, but there is one puzzle that all of us are stuck with-the puzzle of life.

Life is a puzzle because it's made up of lots of different pieces-our identity, family, hob-

bies, jobs, education, friends, church, etc.-and we're all trying to figure out how these pieces are supposed to go together and what they really mean to us.

In our verses for today, Paul gives us a huge key to figure out how to put the pieces of our life together. He tells us that the starting place of our life-the beginning, the foundation, the origin and point of it all-is Jesus Christ. Everything we do will be judged by how well it builds on this beginning.

It does us well to ask the question of how we build on the foundation of Jesus in our lives, and the answer is that we build with good works. Now, I must be very, very clear that no one can have the foundation of Jesus in their lives except by the grace of God. This is the salvation we receive by grace through faith. But I must be equally clear that we build on our faith, proving it with good works that honor God in our lives.

We cannot just say, Well, I believe in Jesus, and then live our lives as though He means nothing to us. If Jesus is in our lives, then He transforms our lives and we choose to honor Him in the decisions we make and the actions we take.

What's more, everything we do is recorded, but it is recorded so that we can be rewarded. Every day, every act, every thought, every deed, every opportunity, every accomplishment is recorded so that God can reward us in Heaven one day. But if we don't build well, we have salvation, but we have no reward.

Choose well to live for Jesus so that when you stand before Him one day, your works will not be burned up in the testing fire. For if they endure, then reward awaits you; if they do not endure, the no reward awaits you.

The choice is yours. Choose well.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

It's scary to me that everything I do in life might burn up one day when You test it. Please help me to choose to live for You every day so that I will receive a great reward from You on that Day.

Amen

What Hinders Holiness

And you shall be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine. Leviticus 20:26

There is a lot of talk about budgets these days, and for good reason, but do you understand what a budget is really all about?

A budget, put in different terms, is a way of intentionally setting apart portions of your income for various purposes. I make X number of dollars, and the first portion is set aside for my tithe, one portion goes to pay the house payment, another portion is set apart for the car payment, and on it goes until the bills are paid.

That much of your budget covers your commitments, but what do you do with the rest? How you apportion the rest, the things for which you set it aside, tell me a lot about what your heart loves most.

When we talk in church about holiness, we are talking about being set apart. It means that our life is budgeted for a purpose. We are given resources of time, love, money, and more, and God calls us to be holy-set apart-for His purposes.

But when we spend all these resources chasing after the things of the world-wealth, possessions, prejudices, selfishness, and pride-then we have become holy for ourselves. Or you could say wholly for ourselves, set apart for our own desires and purposes, selfishly building our own little kingdom on this earth that won't last into eternity.

We need to lay these things down and follow God's call to true holiness. Be holy as I am holy, He says, and out of His holiness, He sent His Son to die for wretched sinners. He set aside the rights of His deity-His wealth, His riches, His power, His authority, His Heavenand He came to Earth to save the likes of us.

Holiness is when we do the same thing, when we take whatever we have and we offer it up to God for His purposes, for His calling. It's when we give of what we have to help raise up those in need-the lost, the poor, the orphans and widows, the broken marriages.

Wherever we are rich, let us use that wealth for God's purposes, to build His kingdom. Then we will have treasure in Heaven. Then we will begin to understand what holiness is all about.

Prayer Lord Jesus,

Thank You for demonstrating Your holiness by coming to earth to save me! I'm sorry for the ways I have been holy just for myself; please forgive me. Help me to be holy as You are holy, setting my life apart for Your purposes.

Amen