by Ed Allen | Apr 11, 2022 | Articles
Psalms 77:11-15 11 I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 12 I will meditate on all Your work And muse on Your deeds. 13 Your way, O God, is holy; What god is great like our God? 14 You are the God who works wonders; You have made known Your strength among the peoples. 15 You have by Your power redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah. NASU (Observation) In verses 11 through 15, the Psalmist turns from lament over his present circumstances in the previous 10 verses, to remembering “Your wonders of old.” As the psalmist remembers, he turns from questioning God to praising Him. (Interpretation) The psalmist purposefully changes his focus away from his own circumstances to God’s past “redemption” of His people. Similarly, today we purposefully change our focus away from our own present circumstances to the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who “died for our sins” just as the Scriptures promised and was “raised on the third day” just as the Scriptures promised. (Cross-reference) 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, (Application) As I look back to the resurrection of Jesus and what He has done in my life I cannot help but also look forward to the fulfillment of His promise of eternal live in heaven with Him, for everyone who believes, even “a...
by Trevor McDowell | Mar 29, 2022 | Articles
“Your way was in the sea and Your paths in the mighty waters, and Your footprints may not be known.” Psalm 77:19 The way God works is a mystery most of the time. Jesus promises that He will build His church (Matthew 16:18). He does not need us, but He gives us the opportunity to participate with Him in what He is doing in the lives of people. My mom was a tough nut to crack. When my father came to the Lord she was not interested, and neither was I. Then ten years later I came to faith and a few years after that my two brothers came to know the Lord as well. My mom continued in her unbelief for many years until she was stricken with lung cancer. Prior to her cancer, our family had shared the gospel with my mom through the years with no response. When she was informed she had cancer, my brothers and I planned on taking her to lunch to share the Gospel with her again, hoping she would be more open to it. A few days after our lunch was scheduled, my mother sent an email to my brothers and I that she was trusting Jesus with her cancer. We were amazed with this email. When our scheduled lunch happened a few days after her email, she was open to talking about Jesus. God beat us to our prayerful plan of bringing our mom to faith. My mother battled cancer for just over a year and then passed away. She has now been gone for over three years. Sometimes as...
by Chris Martin | Mar 7, 2022 | Articles
One of the early teachings that I was exposed to as a young man who was beginning to take his faith seriously was the benefit, and the need, for the man of God to “strive for obscurity.” After hearing this a few times, I felt compelled to dig into what I was being challenged to do. What does “obscurity” mean? How do I Strive for it? When can I know that I am successful or have failed in this endeavor? First, I needed to get my arms around what it means to be “obscure.” A summary research of definitions yielded the following: “the state of being unknown, inconspicuous, unimportant,” another definition reads “relatively unknown,” and yet another reads “the state in which somebody/something is not well known or has been forgotten.” These definitions certainly were a help to me in my understanding; however, this was not something that I was certain I wanted to pursue, let alone “strive” to be. To strive for something does not simply mean to focus on it or work towards it. It means “to struggle or fight vigorously.” This means that one must expend a great amount of effort, determination, and diligence toward the goal of striving to be being unimportant, in the background, unseen, unknown, etc. In reality, I am ashamed to confess that this goes against every fiber of my flesh that screams “here I am!” or “Look at and notice me!” or “Tell me how great of a man I am!” Jesus addresses this topic in Matthew 6:1-18 that we should give, pray, and fast in secret. At the heart of...
by Lee Yih | Feb 21, 2022 | Articles
Romans 2:6, “Who will render to every man according to his deeds”, is one of the most important, yet mostly ignored verses in the Book of Romans. I remember an encounter with this verse in a Bible Study in Boston where I was an invited guest. Things were getting uncomfortable as we moved through this chapter, reading about the judgment of God falling upon hypocritical believers, and how we store up wrath for ourselves when we are stubborn and unrepentant before God. Then reading verse 6, it summarizes what has been said and introduces further principles of judgment – detailing glory, honor, and immortality for doing good, and wrath, indignation, and tribulation for doing evil. Suddenly the host broke the tension by saying, “Don’t worry, grace is coming!” referring to Romans 3:21ff. I have heard people refer to Romans chapter 2 as a “Flyover” chapter because leaders hurry through the material to get to the “good stuff.” As a result, important concepts about no partiality with God (vs. 11), Paul introducing justification by works (vs 13), God seeing and judging our deepest secrets (vs. 16), and how believers’ actions blaspheme the reputation of God among non-believers–all get short-changed. It’s as if nothing matters for our Christian walk once we fully realize that we have been saved by grace. The rest of the chapter says that circumcision, and by implication, baptism, is worthless if we don’t practice the Law and that is something that further encourages us to say, “Don’t worry, grace is coming!” To say this, is the wrong approach to the important theological truths being introduced in Romans...
by Jason Bradford | Feb 4, 2022 | Articles, Testimonies
Purpose seems to be largely made up of two questions: Why I exist (noun)? and What is my objective (verb)? Success is determined by whether or not I accomplish these things. If success is determined by whether or not purpose is accomplished, then purpose drives success. And therefore, being Biblically successful means determining a Biblical purpose and executing on it. In examining my existence, I ask, why am I here? Romans 8:28-30 tells us a bit about God’s purpose, His purpose for us, and why we exist. While the emphasis in these verses has nothing to do with anything we do, the elect are on some level Biblically successful in that they exist for His purposes. We are called, foreknown, predestined, conformed, called, justified, and glorified. This is all certainly part of our purpose; because of what He has done we can exist with a very Biblical purpose; for Him and His purposes. This is why we exist. Being Biblically successful also means accomplishing our aim or purpose, and that the objective of that purpose was Biblical. Therefore, in addition to existing for Him, I must also determine for myself Biblical intentions and objectives. These intentions and objectives are revealed in Scripture. He enables us to understand this revelation, to get to know Him, and frame up what He wants from us. There are many ways to say this, and many synonyms for the following words, but the Bible seems to indicate our intentions and objectives ought to focus on: holiness, ministry, and profit. We ought to be determined to conduct ourselves in holiness (2Corinthians 1:12), ‘put on’ holiness...
by John MacKay | Jan 20, 2022 | Articles, Testimonies
Let’s take a moment to walk thru Hebrews 12:1. This verse divides itself into six simple parts. The first part is “Therefore.” Of course, we must ask what is therefore, there for? This is leading us from the previous verse, and probably Chapter 11, which emphasizes faith. You could also say this references the entire previous part of the book of Hebrews. Hebrews is the “Christ is better than book.” He is better than angels, Moses, Melchizedek, and the Aaronic priesthood, and more. It is about the power of Jesus and appeals to the converted Jew. The second part is “since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us.” The literal meaning of witnesses surrounding us is “martyrs lying around.” The men and women described in chapter 11 lived out their faith. They committed before they would know what would transpire. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Sampson, David, and Samuel trusted God facing significant trials and even death. God delivers believers either from trials or thru them. This concept of these heroes of the faith “lying around us” should encourage us to stay in the race. The idea of these men and women observing us from heaven is not evident in Scripture, but their example and many others that have gone before us, should encourage us to stay the course. The believer must trust God in trials knowing He has purpose in it. Have you considered others in your personal hall of faith? The third part is “let us also lay aside every encumbrance.” This literally means to cast off...
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