day no. 15,561: the blaze of the midday sun

"Faith is the sensibleness of what is real in the work of redemption... so the soul that believes doth entirely depend on God for all salvation... It is the delight of a believing soul to abase itself and exalt God alone." -- Jonathan Edwards, God Glorified in Man's Dependence from Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards edited by H. Norman Gardiner

Faith reinforces the factual reality of redemption. Faith infers the excellence of the object and the futility of the subject. When a man places his faith in Jesus alone, He is communicating, by necessity, that his salvation is from God, through God, for God and to God alone. It is itself a statement of abasement. To have faith in Jesus is to exalt Him to the exclusion of anything else.

Faith looks not to itself, but to Jesus alone. It excludes the seer in favor of what is seen. It ignores what is seen by sight and looks to what is seen by grace. It makes much of God's invisible qualities made visible and little of the Christian's visible qualities made invisible in His presence. Like a candle's flame swallowed up by the blaze of the midday sun, faith takes no credit for the light of day and adds nothing to it.

day no. 15,560: the price and the prize

Romans 11:36
For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.

"All that we have is of God, and through Him, and in Him." -- Jonathan Edwards, God Glorified in Man's Dependence from Selected Sermons of Jonathan Edwards edited by H. Norman Gardiner

God is the price, the payor, the payee, and the prize. It is to God that payment must be made. It is God Himself who pays the fine. It is God Himself who is provided as the payment. It is God Himself who is the purchase of those redeemed. He is the price and the prize, the payor and the payee. He is our everything. The source and the sustenance, the cloud and the ocean, the ground and the treetop, the thirst and the slake, the hunger and the feast.

day no. 15,559: sing and swing

Psalm 149:6-9
Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, to bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to execute on them the judgment written! This is honor for all his godly ones. Praise the LORD! 

It is an honor and a privilege to sing God's praise and swing His swords. It is our glory to demolish demonic strongholds and take captive to Christ all powers, principalities and philosophies that dare to erect their edifices in opposition to His sovereign rule. May we see His Kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven where His enemies amount to a footstool before His throne and His people praise His name in spirit and in truth both now and forevermore.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

day no. 15,558: while looking for the fine print, don't forget the headline

Psalm 115:3

Our God is in the heavens:

He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.

Luke 12:54-56

And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass.Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?

(The following was originally written a few days before Easter 2020 when the corona-monium seemed to be accelerating with each new press release.)

It stands to reason that many are asking, "What's going on?" To that, I say,

What is going on is what is always going on... God is sovereign and commanding all creation to acknowledge His Son as the one, true, Savior King by turning from wickedness in repentance and turning toward righteousness in faith. It isn't wrong to try and read the times, but there are wrong ways to read the times as Jesus points out in Luke 13. The problem isn't trying to read, but not knowing how to read. The lessons we can clearly observe in these days are that God is in the heavens and does as He pleases and that He has provided His Son as an acceptable sacrifice for our sins so that whether we live or die, we may live forever in the joy of our Master.

So while trying to read the fine print, don't forget the headline.

Luke 13:1-5

There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.

day no. 15,557: ish

"Sermonettes produce Christianettes."

Abbreviated sermons create abbreviated Christians.
If you merely preach the cliff notes, you will get Christians composed of cliff notes.
A miniature message makes miniature members.
Beliefs expressed briefly give birth to believers only briefly.

Doctrinish produces Christianish, and Christianish doesn't cut it.

Ish can't cut anything. 

Acts 2:36-37
"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

day no. 15,556: words of affirmation

1 Chronicles 9:20
Phinehas the son of Eleazar was the chief officer over them in time past; the LORD was with him.

God stands with those who stand by Him. He graciously extends a word of approval to His servant, Phinehas. God is not ashamed to put in writing His allegiance to a man who demonstrated allegiance to Him. God goes out of His way to make mention of this and to honor His friend, Phinehas, by stating emphatically for everyone else to hear, "I'm with Phinehas. He is with Me and I am with him."

Hebrews 2:11
He is not ashamed to call them brothers

Jesus became a man in order to die for men and He gives His word of affirmation to those who have affirmed their love for Him in their actions. 

day no. 15,555: we fight from, with and for joy

Nehemiah 8:10
Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Joy is a weapon. It is our ammunition. It is what we need in order to fight, how we fight and what we win when we fight.

It is like a battle over a bullet factory. You must first have bullets in order to engage in the battle. If you do not have any ammunition, you are at the mercy of your enemy. You need bullets in order to win the bullet factory. But beyond merely having ammunition, you must use it. Just having bullets is of no advantage if you don't fire them. You must aim them in the direction of your enemies if you are to hold them off or advance to claim their territory. And what you get when you win is a factory that produces bullets in abundance. You use bullets to gain more.

Proverbs 11:25
The liberal soul shall be made fat:
and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.

So we fight from joy, with joy and for joy. We must be given joy from God to begin with. Then using that joy, we fight. We claim more territory for joy and find that the more we lean into the joy we have and spend it in the battles we face, the more joy we have. We use joy to gain joy.

It is also like muscle. You must have muscle if you want to move. If you don't have any muscle, you can't move a muscle. But if you have muscle, you must move it. You use muscle to move and the more you do, the more muscle you gain. You must have it and you must use it and your reward is more of it. God grants the energy, you invest it in His endeavors and find more muscle at the end of it. When we exhaust our energy, we discover more of it.

2 Chronicles 20:20-22

And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, “Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.” And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say,

“Give thanks to the Lord,

    for his steadfast love endures forever.”

And when they began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.

Praising God in triumphal joy is our best weapon. It comes from Him. It slays its ten thousands. It wins the day and multiplies itself. Joy and praise sown into the darkness yields a bumper crop. It is increased in being relied upon and faith fires away!