Daily Devotionals: Wil Pounds, Section F - In Search Of A Better Tomorrow

Daily Devotional: Getting Near To God

Message by Wil Pounds

Getting Near to God

The essential work of our great High priest is to bring us near to God. The Lord Jesus Christ gives us perfect confidence in drawing near to our heavenly Father. He has opened up and keeps open for us the blessed access into God’s presence and fellowship. Therefore, the Kingdom of God is a reality in the heart of every believer.

The measure of nearness to God is a good indication of our knowledge and intimacy of Jesus Christ. This confidence is what the Holy Spirit works in us as the inward participation in Christ’s entrance into the Father’s presence. He takes us by the hand and brings us into the presence of the Father (Eph. 2:18).

Our great High Priest has entered into heaven and there intercedes on our behalf. He understands us and our deepest needs because “we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15 NET).

Our great High Priest has been where we are, and tempted in every way. He is able to “sympathize,” lit. “to feel or suffer with” our weakness. “The sinless One has a greater capacity for compassion than any sinner could have for a fellow sinner.” A sinless person would feel temptation in a much greater way than you and I could ever experience.

Thus, the writer of Hebrews says, “Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help” (v. 16 NET). We are invited and encouraged to come to the “throne of grace” of the Sovereign King any time we are in need.

It is the marvelous teaching of Hebrews that we can actually, in spiritual reality, draw near to God, and live in that nearness in a living fellowship with Him all day, every day. We can live our daily life in a living communion with God. Our entrance into the holiest is by means of the cleansing of sin through the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other means of access and maintenance in the presence of the Holy One.

The work of our great high priest is so perfect, and His power in heaven so sovereign that he not only gives us the right and freedom to draw near, but by his high priestly activity he takes us into the presence of God so we can abide there.

Our great high priest takes possession of our innermost being and enables us to live in God’s holy presence.

Once we learn to appropriate the present work of our great High Priest, our Christian life takes on an even greater personal meaning to us.

We can enter often with confidence or boldness before the “throne of grace.” This is essential for a healthy Christian life. It should be the passion of the Christian to strive to maintain an unbroken fellowship in drawing near to God.

Every believer can enter into the presence of God with the full blessing of a life spent in the power of Christ’s heavenly priesthood. Let us come with confidence and tarry before the throne of God in grace and prayer so that we may find life within the veil, in the power of the sinless One who has entered there for us.

Do you desire with deep, intense longing to be made free from sin, as free as God can make you in this life? Then come boldly to the throne of grace and mercy. The only way we can come is by means of His blood.

This is where we find sustaining grace for daily life and power for ministry. Our great High Priest “has gone right up to heaven itself, let us continue to keep a firm hold on our profession of faith in Him . . . so let us continue coming with courage, to the throne of God’s unmerited favor to obtain His mercy and to find His spiritual strength to help us when we need it” (Williams translation of Hebrews 4:14, 16).

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Finish Your Work, Lord

Message by Wil Pounds

Finish Your Work, Lord

Since we are the very workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus for good works, it is imperative that we yield to His creative hand, and allow Him to finish the work He has begun.

With the new birth God has commenced the character of His people fashioning us in the likeness of His Son. No human mind could ever conceive or fully comprehend the full design of God’s infinite wisdom and love. We will have to wait until that day when Christ comes, or when we meet Him in death, to know His perfect character. We really are even right now now the children of God, but “it has not appeared as yet what we shall be.” But we know “when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).

We are loved by God and have been born again; we are now His children. But even now, it has not been revealed clearly to us what we shall be. However, we know absolutely that whenever He comes we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope continually set on Him is constantly purifying himself just as He is pure.

The present reality is we are God’s children because of the new birth and adoption into the family of God. He wants us to spend eternity with Him. Only a person who knows God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ knows what it means to be a child of God.

When Jesus Christ comes a second time all true believers in Him will become like Him (Phil. 3:20-21). They will have new, glorified, resurrected bodies adapted for heaven. Such a hope in His coming leads to a life of personal integrity. We want to live lives that are pleasing to Him.

“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9; cf. Isa. 64:4).

We do not know the complete details of this “likeness of God.” But we do know that we will be like Christ because our destiny and glory is to be like Him (Rom. 8:29). We will be like Jesus who is like God (2 Cor. 4:6).

Since we do not know the final outcome of our redemption, who are we to dictate to God what we want to become? He is the Potter; we are the clay. Let’s let Him choose the outcome. Let’s let the Author of our salvation also be the Finisher.

Pop psychology, self-help philosophies, new age movements lead many astray with their secular humanism (1 John 3:10). Because they can only reform depraved man they cannot do what God alone can do through His Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:24; Heb. 12:10). We, on the other hand, are “made partakers of His divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:9; Eph. 4:13).

God’s workmanship is to “present every man complete in Christ” (Col. 1:28; cf. Eph. 4:13).

Who am I to impose on God’s handiwork my flaws of humanism when He has a greater goal in mind? How much better it is to come to Him, and yield to the Holy Spirit to apply God’s truth to our lives.

We were designed to be like Christ. Therefore, it is in our best interest to find out in God’s Word what He is like and yield to the divine Potter. “Not I, but Christ.” Not man created in man’s selfish, depraved, sinful image, but in all the pure character and holiness of Christ.

A. T. Robertson said, “The transforming power of the vision of Christ (1 Cor. 13:12) is the consummation of the glorious process begun at the new birth (2 Cor. 3:18).”

C. H. Spurgeon wisely wrote: “That which is your own work, you may well blush to own; that which is the devil’s work, you are bound to detest; but that which is the work of the Holy Spirit in you, will bear inspection, and no guilty fear should cause you to conceal it. Let your meekness, your kindness, your uprighteousness, your truth, your purity appear unto all men. Never let it be a question whether you are a Christian.”

You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. Let Him finish His product. He does not make junk. His work is always perfect and it is always beautiful in His eyes. Why settle for second best by choosing for yourself? We are God’s workmanship and that always means He gives us His very best. What is there that God cannot do for you far better than you can ever do for yourself?

“We are His workmanship created in Christ for good works.” Don’t mar His new creation.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Consequences of Unbelief

The gospel writer Luke described Zacharias and Elizabeth as an elderly couple, “both advanced in years,” and without children. “Elizabeth was barren.” Zechariah was a priest who married a woman of priestly descent. “They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord” (Luke 1:6).

Zacharias had the honor “to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense” (v. 9). “And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering” (v. 10).

It was a very special time for the elderly priest. He and his wife had prayed often and for many years for a son to carry on his family name, and to fill their lives with joy.

Imagine what it was like that day in the temple when “an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense” in the Holy Place (v. 11). “Fear gripped” Zacharias as he listened to the angel.

“Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear a son, and you will give him the name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth” (vv. 13-14).

God answered the prayers of this righteous couple in a most impressive manner. But it was not a message of importance just for this humble couple; it was an important word for the people of Israel.

“For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and he will drink no wine or liquor; and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. And he will turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God” (vv. 15-16, cf. v. 41). God has chosen this child for a special purpose. He will have a special anointing of the Holy Spirit “while yet in his mother’s womb,” and his message will be the instrument of God to bring a revival in the nation.

His presence will remind people of “the spirit and power of Elijah,” and his message will be used “to prepare a people” for the coming of the Lord (v. 17). This child to be born will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah.

God answers prayers! He does the impossible. He accomplishes His eternal purposes in the most astonishing manner. “And after these days Elizabeth his wife became pregnant . . .” (v. 24). It was not a virgin birth, but a natural conception. Elizabeth became pregnant. How beautiful.

What was the reaction of the father to be when God’s messenger brought the good news? “How shall I know this for certain? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years” (v. 18).

It was enough that God said He was answering Zachariah’s prayers. Gabriel had just given Zachariah the evidence. God’s word is a good enough reason.

When the answer came Zachariah was astounded and filled with amazement. He was not expecting God to answer his prayers, because a secret unbelief lay hidden away in his heart. God is faithful, and His consistent faithfulness reveals our hollow and shallow faith. When the answer came, Zachariah could not believe it!

When God answers our prayers we often are astonished and filled with amazement. Like Zachariah, we have heard the promises and we have asked God in sincere prayer, and when God says yes we are surprised. We are not strangers to the blessings of God’s eternal and unchanging love. The angel said, “Your prayer has been heard.” God’s purposes are being fulfilled in you.

Zachariah wanted a sign. He wanted a fleece, and he got it! Gabriel was put out with Zachariah’s unbelief. “And behold, you shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things shall take place, because you did not believe my words, which shall be fulfilled in their proper time” (v. 20).

Zachariah did not speak a word for nine months! What if God did the same thing to you and me in our unbelief? How long would we remain silent? Do we tempt God in a similar manner? What guarantees do we go asking for when God speaks? Do we go “looking for some minute circumstances to verify a magnificent promise”? Do we make our feelings a kind of test of our acceptance of God’s word? I will not believe unless I ____? What? Why should God tolerate our unbelief and chastise Zachariah? What has God done to chasten your unbelief? What if God said to you or me, “If that is the way you witness to My faithfulness, you shall never speak again”? God be merciful to your servant for we, too, are like Zachariah. Thank God, “If we believe not, yet He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”

Zachariah could not bless the people who waited anxiously outside for the blessing. He could not speak a word. He could give no instruction, or a word of praise, or even tell them what God has said to him. He was a useless servant. He was as good as dead for nine months until his son John the Baptist was born.

After John’s birth, God loosed his tongue, and he poured out praise to God and prophesied under the power of the Holy Spirit (vv. 64-79). May the God of grace loosen our tongues as well.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: “Christ Much and Christ More”

Have you ever thought what it would be like if you could not die? How terrible it would be if your body had wasted away with a terrible disease and you could not die. I have conducted many funerals when loved ones have reluctantly said the deceased was better off because he was no longer suffering.

On the other hand, Francis Bacon echoed the attitude of many when he said, “men fear death as children fear the dark.” Apart from an intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ no man is prepared for his encounter with death.

Moreover, death for the believer in Christ is presented in the Bible as an improvement over the very best in this life. How wonderful it would be if Jesus came for us on the very best day this life could offer when everything is going great. It would not be a terrible tragedy. The apostle Paul’s life was full and he could write, “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain” (Philippians 2:21 NET).

Paul did not say his death would be “better by far” because he wanted to escape this life. The death of the Christian is never portrayed as an escape or improvement on the worst of life.

The heartbeat of Paul’s life was Christ. “For to me to live is Christ and to die is better yet.” Christ was everything to Him.

H. C. G. Moule with keen insight said, “Life and death . . . look to him like two immense blessings, of which he knows not which is the better. On either side of the veil, Jesus Christ is all things to him.” The only difference will be that “on the other side” everything Paul longed for in this life “in Christ” will be more perfectly realized there.

The apostle’s desire was to “depart” and be with Christ. He had tasted the delights of God’s righteousness and longed for freedom from evil that he would never have in this life on the earth. He would know perfect freedom.

For the Christian death will be freedom from all sin, pain, suffering, persecution, cares, etc.

I am sure the apostle Paul had in mind that this freedom would mean that finally he would be like Christ in His perfect righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8). Crowned with His righteousness! It is not our self-righteousness, but our being clothed in righteousness that Christ imputes to us (2 Cor. 5:21).

We will know him as he is known. Every spiritual truth that has puzzled us in this life will be clearly revealed to us in Christ. In that day we will know as he knows (1 Cor. 13:12).

But the blessed thought, most precious of all is we will be with him. Every born again believer will be with Christ. Yes, we know him and he is with us in our present life, but oh the fullness of our knowledge of him and his wonderful, glorious presence when we are with him clothed and crowned with his righteousness!

The Psalmist said, “precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15 NASB).

For the unbeliever death is an eternal separation from a righteous, loving God. It is something to be feared and dreaded. However, for the believer death is just the opposite; it is also precious to the believer just as it is to God. There will be no separation from him.

Moule says it well. For Paul it was a dilemma “between Christ and Christ, Christ much and Christ more, Christ by faith and Christ by sight.” And that is our dilemma, too.

As you read these words is it true of you? Do you long to be like Christ? Do you long to see Him in all His gory? Do you earnestly desire to be perfect as he is perfect?

The apostle John said, “And everyone who has this hope focused on him purifies himself, just as Jesus is pure” (1 John 3:3 NET).

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Do You Have the Mind of Christ?

“Have you the mind of Christ?”

Do I see the beauty of a holy life as Jesus saw it? Do I see lost people through His eyes? Do I understand the eternal purpose of God with the same conviction that Jesus had?

The apostle Paul said, “We have the mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16). What are the implications of having that mind?

In contrast to the pagan false “wisdom” Paul sets forth the wisdom from God, “That is found in the righteousness and sanctification and wisdom of God in Christ. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

In God’s magnificent wisdom, He has been “well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe,” and the message preached is “Christ crucified.”

The unregenerate, sensual person who lives his life as if there is nothing beyond the physical “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised” (I Cor. 2:14).

In contrast Paul says the believer in Christ has “received” not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things freely give to us by God” (v. 12).

We have the mind of Christ because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. Therefore, since we are new creatures in Christ, our habit of mental activity needs to be like that of Christ.

The apostle Paul uses the word “mind” signifying the exercise of the mind, including our emotional and spiritual responses creating activity. It refers to understanding, intelligence, and mental presence. It is the whole knowledge of Christ including emotions and volitions based on thought.

Perhaps John 17 reveals the mind of Christ in its rare beauty. “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life’” (John 17:1-2). That is the passion of God incarnate. He came to reveal the Father and give eternal life to all who will believe on Him. In the mind of Christ, we understand the cross. Only then will the passion our preaching be “Christ crucified.” “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2).

The mind of Christ is revealed in the cross. In the mind of Christ we see “the beauty of holiness.” Christ came to reveal the holiness of the Father and the sinfulness of sin. The cross of Jesus exposes our sins, and we stand condemned before a righteous God. The cross reveals the mind of our Savior who knew no sin and became so identified with us that He gave Himself as the substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. The mind of Christ reveals an attitude of self-emptying and humility so profound that He would empty Himself “taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in the likeness of men” and give Himself a ransom for sin. “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

Jesus saw everything in perpetual relationship to His Father. He saw the whole universe related to the Father and for that reason He gave His life in obedience to Him. The master passion of Christ Jesus was to glorify His Father in saving sinful man.

“We have the mind of Christ” when we see the Father in all of His holiness. “We have the mind of Christ” when we sin as it breaks the heart of a holy and righteous God. We have the mind of the Savior when we understand the penalty for sin must be paid in full by a divine, sinless substitute. “We have the mind of Christ” when we feel the passion of His soul in submission to the will of God, even unto death.

If I have the mind of Christ, I can see the infinite beauty of holiness as He saw it when He clothed me in the robes of His perfect righteousness. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Do I have that same passion to see lost people as He saw them? If I have the mind of Christ, I will pour out my life in obedient sacrifice and believe and trust in Him.

Hear my prayer, oh God. I give my mind to you; let me think the way Christ thinks. Help me make the choices the way You would choose. I want to do what You would do and feel as you feel. Help me to obey You—even unto death!

Selah!

Daily Devotional: The Carnal Mind And A New Mind

Message by Wil Pounds

The Carnal Mind and a New Mind
George Whitfield, the eighteenth century evangelist, was correct when he said, “If the unregenerate man could enter heaven, he would be so unhappy in heaven, that he would ask God to let him run down to hell for shelter.”

How could the enemies of God sit down at the banquet of the Lamb of God?

Universalism wants us to bury our heads in the sand.

The carnal mind is enmity against God all the time. So why would such a person ever want to be in God’s holy presence? It is against everything God is for in His universe. It sets the world system and all it teaches in opposition to the LORD God.

The carnal mind is a “depraved spirit that is set on those things which are not proper” (Romans 1:28). How would you know one if you saw it? Romans 1:29-32 says, “Being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful; and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

It is a dreadful picture of human depravity. The apostle then declared, “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things” (Romans 2:1-2).

There is a day coming when “God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus” (v. 16). It is not because we do not deserve it. The Bible testifies that we are all guilty. “But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5-6).

After a detailed presentation of our sins against us in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul concludes, “But glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:10-11) “You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?” (Romans 2:23).

How many of us have not wished in the depths of our hearts, “Would to God these sins were not forbidden!” Spurgeon asked, “Who among us has not been so foolish as to desire that there were no God?”

But neither solution makes the problem go away. We still stand guilty before God. “Every carnal mind in the world is at enmity against God.”

The carnal mind declares that by our very nature we are the child of evil. What part of man was affected by the fall? The entire man, every part of him – every power, every passion is at enmity with God. You may say, “Oh, Wil, I am not really that bad.” God says, “The heart is deceitful above all things.” It is desperately wicked.

Why would any carnal person want to be in the holy presence of a righteous God? It would mean to be guilty and condemned twenty-four hours a day. We would never be able to escape His holy, hot wrath. Our sense of guilt would always be a state of awareness.

The only solution to the desperate plight of man is to have a new mind and a new heart. If we have not experienced a change of heart, our carnal mind will always be at enmity against God.

Our thoughts, our decisions, our behaviors all testify that we deserve God’s holy wrath. Every person born into this world deserves God’s wrath and damnation.

Because we are guilty sinners, God must provide the solution. Since the carnal mind is at enmity with God, salvation cannot be by any merit on our part. It must be by God’s grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. If we are at enmity with God, what merit can we have? How can we deserve anything from the person we hate? Therefore, God must step in and rescue us by His grace.

The Spirit of God must lay His hand on you and renew your heart or there is no chance of your entering into heaven.

Jesus Christ can make peace through His blood. If the Spirit of God has convinced you of your sin as you read this, you can become a new creature, a new person, with a new heart if you will ask Jesus Christ to be your Savior.

By our physical birth we are at enmity with God, but by the new birth we are made His friend. Our nature must be changed if we are to enter into God’s holy presence. Here is the most precious promise for every sinner to believe. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Do You Seek A Deeper Life With God?

Message by Wil Pounds

Do you Seek a Deeper Life with God?

The apostle Paul prayed, “That I may know Him . . .” (Philippians 3:10).

The late missionary to South Africa Andrew Murray was a holy man. At one point in his life he was going through a painful experience. Murray was quiet for sometime before the Lord and then he wrote these words for himself: “First, He brought me here, it is by His will I am in this strait place: in that fact I will rest. Next, He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace to behave as His child. Then, He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow. Last, in His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows.”

The Christian is here:

· By God’s appointment,

· In His keeping,

· Under His training,

· For His time.

No natural man can produce that kind of life. It comes as a by-product of a Spirit-filled life. It is the fruit of patient submission to the perfect will of God.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “One’s will must always be abandoned to the divine will, that one’s own will must be given up, if the divine will is to be manifested.”

Of course, the key to everything in the Christian life is the “in Him.” All that we might rightly expect from God, and ask Him for, is to be found in an intimate personal love relationship with Jesus Christ.

Such a life is the manifestation of a life lived close to God and in the light of His holy presence. That is the new life in Christ.

How do you experience such a holy walk?

“No man has a right to be so immersed in active life as to neglect the contemplation of God,” said Augustine of Hippo.

Have you gone before God and asked Him to enlarge your soul, to give you an intense hungering and thirsting for God? Jesus said, “Blessed are those who huger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt. 5:6).

Has the richness of God’s fellowship overwhelmed you? May God enlarge your soul that we contain more of Him and be a fit mansion for our Lord.

Have you a habit of continually conversing with God? Do you talk to Him as you would a faithful companion throughout the day? Go for a long walk in a park or in the woods and talk out loud to God. Grow daily in that kind of fellowship with Him.

“Lord, I cannot do what You are telling me to do unless You go with me.” “Lord, this is impossible. Only You can do that. You will have to do this through me. I make myself available to all Your availability.”

Nothing on the face of this earth can touch the believer without God’s will, and that situation however evil it may be can only drive us closer to Him.

Have you learned to journey inward and go into the deeper life to the secret dwelling places of your soul to find the deep joy of your vital union with Christ? It is there we commune with Him in quietness and listen to His voice. We give Him the freedom to break in upon us and make us aware of Him at any moment (Eph. 1:15-23).

God is seeking us even before we think we are seeking Him. He is always there in the shadows waiting, watching, and listening for us to call upon Him so He can answer with the fullness of His glory.

It is by quiet, persistent practice in turning of all our being, day and night in prayer and inward worship and surrender, toward Him who calls in the depths of our souls that we know the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. An inner, secret turning to God can be made fairly steady, after weeks and months and years of practice and lapses and failures and returns. It is a growing, learning experience of daily trust. We can have “the eyes of our understanding enlightened and know the hope of His calling in our lives.” We can begin to enjoy the riches of the glory of His inheritance even now.

Take time now to offer Jesus your whole self in utter joyful selfless abandonment.

Do you know that quiet, blessed surrender and abandonment to Him who secretly dwells within?

Take time today to begin to recover a sense of awareness of the presence of God.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: What Is God Like?

Written by Wil Pounds

What is God like?

This is not a child’s question. There is nothing and no one with whom we can compare Him. He is in a unique category, and we can know Him only as He has chosen to reveal Himself.

The psalmists were always calling men to praise the name of Yahweh. “Praise the LORD” is repeated in the Psalms.

The LORD God is an infinite person. We can come to know Him only as He has chosen to reveal Himself in nature and in His own Word. “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1). God has chosen to reveal Himself in His creation (Col. 1:16-17; John 1:3; Rev. 4:11; Rom. 2:14-15). The Creator did not leave Himself without a witness to His grace and mercy. He reveals Himself to the world by His common grace (Acts 14:17; 17:24-29).

God has revealed Himself in His personal name. In Exodus 3:14 He revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush as “I AM WHO I AM.” “I AM” is the LORD, “the God of you fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (v.16).

This is the “four letter” name of God, called the Tetragrammaton. It has four consonants commonly spelled YHWH, YHVH or JHVH. The vowels are supplied and hence the spelling “Yahweh.” Several English translations of the Bible use the word LORD in all capital letters to signify Yahweh. Others use the name “Jehovah.” All of these are attempts to communicate the unpronounceable Name. The meaning can be “I AM,” or “I will be,” from the verb HAYAH, “to be.” It can also correctly be used with other vowels and translated, “He who causes to be,” or “He who brings into existence.” The simplest meaning is “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be.”

As a divine person, He has revealed Himself and communicates His person to His creation made in His image. He has revealed Himself as three persons in one – The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. There are not three Gods. He is One God in three persons. He can be known, and He wants us to have fellowship with Him.

This great personal name Jehovah, or LORD, reveals to us that He is eternal. He is the great “I AM.” He is God eternal, everlasting, without beginning and without end.

Hebrew scholars tell us the name contains each tense of the verb “to be.” You could translate “I was,” “I shall always be,” and “I shall always continue to be.” He is the eternal I AM, the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is always the same in His eternal being, so we can depend upon Him to be consistent.

Not only is He eternal, He is also unchangeable. He is immutable. What He was to Moses, Abraham, Isaac, David, etc., He will always be to us. He does not evolve, as if an evolutionary religious hocus pocus created Him. He acts with self-dependence. He answers to no one.

He is the Self-determining One, absolute, independent in harmony with Himself throughout eternity. He is today what He will be tomorrow. He has no needs and therefore not dependent upon anyone or anything in His creation. He does not need anyone to defend Him, love Him, or support Him. He is the only All Self-sufficient One.

“We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

He is the One we worship and praise. “Who is a God like you, who pardons sins and forgives the transgressions of the remnant of His inheritance?” (Micah 7:18)

Yes, He is the God of salvation, and the God of grace. The God who reveals Himself in Jesus Christ will always be like Jesus Christ and never change His eternal attributes (Heb. 1:1-3).

In a confrontation with the Pharisees Jesus declared, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am” (John 8:56-58).

He is “our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purity of Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (Titus 2:13-14).

“To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and forever” (Rev. 5:13).

Selah!

Written by Wil Pounds

Daily Devotional: The Heart Of The Gospel

The Heart of the Gospel

The very heart of the Gospel can be stated in the words of the apostle Paul, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

As sinners we justly deserve condemnation in our unregenerate state. Our trespasses and sins condemn us. However, God in His grace declares, “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It is a declaration of acquittal based on the substitutionary death of Christ. Our eternal security and safety is found in the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus.

“No condemnation” (katakrima) refers to the punishment following the sentence, i.e., the punishment, doom. Christ bore our punishment on our behalf on the cross. He paid it all in full for us. The verdict was guilty and the punishment was death. “The wages of sin is death.” No punishment is inflicted upon us because of what Christ did on our behalf as our substitute.

The apostle uses an intensified strong negative (ou de) at the beginning of the sentence. “No condemnation!” The believer is not in a state of condemnation now, and he can never be in that state again. It is impossible to condemn him to the wrath of God because he is justified by grace through faith in the work of Christ.

Sin must be judged and the penalty paid in full. Since Christ met the conditions of a holy God there is now no condemnation for those who are “in Christ Jesus.” “Therefore” takes us back to chapters five and six, and the foundation Paul has already laid in his presentation of the Gospel.

The apostle Paul uses a forensic term, “condemnation,” which includes both the idea of the sentence and the execution of the sentence.

The believer is “in Christ” federally just as all individuals were in Adam. Moreover, we are “in Him” in a vital union such as the branch is in the vine, or the head is to the members of the body in a vital union. We came into this union with Him by grace through faith in Christ.

Paul is stressing a close intimate personal relationship with Christ. To be “in Christ Jesus” is to be one with Him.

We are reminded of Romans 6:3-11 where Paul stressed this union with Christ in virtue of His death, burial and resurrection. We died to sin and have been raised in the newness of life in Christ. Christ is exalted to the right hand of the Father and we share His life. We are seated with Him in the heavenly places.

“Those in Christ Jesus can lead the consecrated, the crucified, the baptized life,” writes A. T. Robertson. “We are pardoned, we are free from the old law of sin and death (7:7-24), we are able by the help of the Holy Spirit to live the new life in Christ.” God condemned our sin in Christ Jesus, so that His righteousness might appear in us.

We have this “no condemnation” status before God the Father because our sin was condemned and executed in Christ. God could therefore declare us just because we are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).

God declares “no condemnation” because He condemned His Son as our sin offering, and turned the wrath of God aside. Only God in the person of His Son Jesus Christ could become a propitiation, and turn the wrath of God away from us.

As with all vital issues with salvation, a person is either saved or lost, a believer or an unbeliever, saved by grace through faith or by works, so here condemned or justified. You cannot have both. It is an act of God based on the atoning sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. Those who are “in Christ” are not under condemnation. Those who are not “in Christ” are under the condemnation of the law and await the execution of the wrath of God.

The emphasis of the whole of God’s Word is God’s work, and not of man. We do not earn it by our good works, or merit it by our good virtue, or our good standing with the church, etc. We are lost, condemned sinners whom God the Father has chosen in His grace to save based upon the merits of the death of Jesus Christ alone. We who were justly condemned have been declared just in God’s sight through faith in Jesus Christ.

The good news is that this great truth has already taken effect because there is “now no condemnation” based upon what God has done in Christ. The word “now” points to the change that took place the moment we believed on Christ for salvation. It was the moment God declared us just in His sight. Our status changed from death to life. We stood condemned by the law because we are sinners, but now by God’s grace we are no longer condemned and headed to the execution chamber

Jesus says to every sinner who comes to Him confessing their need of His saving grace, “Neither do I condemn you; go in peace.”

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Faith Defined: Knowledge, Belief and Trust

Message by Wil Pounds

Faith Defined:
Knowledge, Belief and Trust
“By grace you are saved, through faith” in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8).

The grace of God is the open fountain that saves the sinner. “By grace you are saved.”

The grace of God is an infinite attribute of God. The first and last moving cause of our salvation is God’s grace. “No man comes to Me, except the Father which has sent Me draw him,” said Jesus. The effectual call of God is of grace. Even our faith is the result of a divine operation. Our salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

“In due time, Christ died for the ungodly.” God in His marvelous grace provided that sacrifice which covers all our sins.

Why is faith so important? Faith is the channel or conduit through which we receive God’s free girt of salvation.

Let us make it very clear that you faith does not save you. We are saved by the grace of God. Faith is not an independent source of salvation. It is not how much faith we have as if we are to psych ourselves up to a certain level of faith. Salvation is received by “looking unto Jesus,” not by looking at our faith. Faith is not the power that saves. God saves us by His grace. The saving power of God is found in His grace, and not in our faith. Faith focuses our eyes upon Jesus Christ alone who died for our sins.

“By grace are you saved, through faith.” You would think that you could not get much clearer than that. C. H. Spurgeon said faith is made up of three things—“knowledge, belief, and trust.”

We must have knowledge of certain facts in order to be saved. What is the good news of Jesus Christ? How do you receive God’s free gift of salvation? We must know certain facts about sin, and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. Without this knowledge we cannot be saved.

“For while we were still helpless [sinners] at the right time Christ died for the ungodly . . . God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8). That is essential knowledge we need in order to be saved. Without knowing that we are sinners, and that Jesus died for our sins, we cannot be saved. You cannot be saved without knowing the fact that Jesus died for you, in your place, on the cross.

“He [God] made Him [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). We receive “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith” (3:22-25).

God displayed “His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (v. 26). “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law” (v. 28). “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (4:3). “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness” (v. 5).

Faith begins with knowledge of certain facts, and moves on to believe that these things are true.

I believe the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me of all my sins, and that His sacrifice is completely and fully acceptable to God on my behalf. Since I have believed on Jesus Christ as my Savior I will never be condemned. “Believe these truths as you believe any other statements; for the difference between common faith and saving faith lies mainly in the subjects upon which it is exercised. Believe the witness of God just as you believe the testimony of your own father or friend. ‘If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater’” (Spurgeon).

Faith believes that Jesus Christ will do what He has promised to do. Therefore, we can trust Him.

True faith believes certain things. It rests upon this sure knowledge. When we trust in Jesus we are making a commitment that His sacrifice on the cross is complete and fully acceptable by God on sinful man’s behalf. The object of our faith is Jesus Christ.

When we trust in a chair or hammock to hold us we make a commitment by placing all our weight upon it. It is a leaning upon a thing. When we have faith in Christ we are leaning with all our weight upon Him. We “fall at full length, and we lie on the Rock of Ages. Cast yourself upon Jesus; rest in Him, commit yourself to Him.” When you do that, you have exercised saving faith. Faith is not a blind thing, because faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. We must each one trust in Christ. “He that believes on Him has everlasting life.” We trust Jesus to save us.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Faith Defined: Knowledge, Belief and Trust

Message by Wil Pounds

Faith Defined: Knowledge, Belief and Trust

“By grace you are saved, through faith” in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8).

The grace of God is the open fountain that saves the sinner. “By grace you are saved.”

“In due time, Christ died for the ungodly.” God in His marvelous grace provided that sacrifice which covers all our sins.

Why is faith so important? Faith is the channel or conduit through which we receive God’s free girt of salvation.

“By grace are you saved, through faith.” You would think that you could not get much clearer than that. C. H. Spurgeon said faith is made up of three things—“knowledge, belief, and trust.”

“He [God] made Him [Jesus Christ] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Faith begins with knowledge of certain facts, and moves on to believe that these things are true.

Faith believes that Jesus Christ will do what He has promised to do. Therefore, we can trust Him.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Holiness Made Practical

Message By Wil Pounds

Holiness made Practical

Holiness. The word frightens most people. Even Christians fear the word. Perhaps that is because religious people have abused the word.

Holiness is mandatory in the life of a true Christian. I am not pretending that we can be perfect in this lifetime or reach a point in our lives where we will no longer sin (Phil. 3:12-14). The Bible does not teach sinless perfection in this life time (1 John 1:8-10; 2:1-2). Moreover, the Bible clearly teaches that we must walk in the Holy Spirit (Gal. 4:6-7; 5:16-26). It is the work of the Spirit to conform us to the image and likeness of Jesus Christ. The third person of the Godhead’s very name is “Holy.”

God’s goal in saving us is to make us holy unto the Lord. God saves us so that we who were dead in trespasses and sins might live a holy life. W. E. Vine says hagios, “holy” “signifies ( a ) separation to God, 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2; ( b ) the resultant state, the conduct befitting those so separated, 1 Thess. 4:3, 4, 7. . . Sanctification is thus the state predetermined by God for believers, into which in grace He calls them, and in which they begin their Christian course and so pursue it. . . character is in view, perfect in the case of the Lord Jesus, growing toward perfection in the case of the Christian. Here the exercise of love is declared to be the means God uses to develop likeness to Christ in His children.”

When we put our trust in Christ for salvation we were set apart to God by the Holy Spirit. Relationships changed in that we were taken out of the First Adam’s family with its sin and condemnation to death, and placed in the family of the Last Adam with His righteousness and eternal life.

We have a new position before the Lord God that never changes. We were set apart to God (1 Cor. 1:2). This is our positional sanctification. We are “in Christ.”

The work of the Holy Spirit in the yielded saint, in which He sets the believer apart for God in his experience, by eliminating sin from his life and producing His fruit, is a process which goes on constantly throughout the believer’s life. This is called progressive sanctification (1 Thess. 5:23).

How does God do it? The key to a holy life is to base everything we do on what God has already done for us in Christ Jesus. We are to conform our behavior to what we know to be the right thing to do. Jesus died for us on the cross “in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us” (Romans 8:4).

However, holiness is not keeping a list of man-made doe’s and don’ts. It is not a check off list that a person devises. The apostle Paul said, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (v. 3).

What does Paul mean by fulfilling these righteous requirements of the Law? It is to follow the Lord Jesus Christ who is perfect in righteousness. The character of God is fully seen in the person of Jesus Christ. Yes, the boundaries of the Christ life are the requirements of God’s Word. It is our responsibility as Christians to stay within the boundaries on God’s playing field. To do this we must keep our eyes clearly focused on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ broke the power of sin by going to the cross and dying in our place. Christ delivered us from sin’s penalty. When we believed on Christ we were justified and acquitted by God. Justification by grace through faith always leads to holy lives.

God condemned sin in Christ, so that His righteousness might appear in us. Salvation is the result of God’s choices and action, and not ours. We are saved by the merits of Christ alone apart from human merits (Eph. 2:8-9). It is all of grace. God made us alive in Christ so that we would produce good works for Him. He saved us so we might be trophies of His grace and a demonstration before a watching world as to what He can do with sinners dead in trespasses who believe on Him for salvation. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).

Holiness is the work of the Holy Spirit as He takes the finished work of Jesus Christ and applies it to our lives. It is a progressive work that began when we were born again and made new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

The means to holiness is to act upon what God has already done for us in Christ. “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:11-14).

When we received Christ as our Savior we received “all things that pertain unto a life of godliness.” You do not need another experience. You do not need some new gift. You have been given everything in Christ; you are “in Him” from the beginning of your Christian life.

There is no secret magical formula about holiness. Our responsibility is to realize what God has already done in Christ and just do it. Christ produces holiness by bringing us into a growing mature love relationship with Him (Eph. 5:22-27).

Yes, it is possible for the Christian to live a life of holiness through the power of God. All that God asks is that we make ourselves available to Christ, and let Him lives His life out in and through us moment by moment.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: God Knows Me

God Knows Me

Message by Wil Pounds

God knows me, and He still wants to pursue a personal relationship with me. That is truly amazing. He knows everything about me, and still wants to enjoy my fellowship with Him.

What does it mean to know God? How do you come to an intimate personal knowledge of Him?

I am not thinking of intellectual knowledge or facts about Him, but the importance of knowing a close friend.

The apostle Paul prayed that believers would know God the Father who chose us, God the Son who redeemed us, and God the Holy Spirit who applied salvation to us personally through the new birth. Now that He has saved me do I have a growing knowledge of Him? Perhaps in our busy schedule and pressures of modern life we should ask do I even want it? How do I fit a hunger for God into a complex worldview?

In Ephesians 1:17-19 the apostle Paul prayed that God would give believers “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation . . . to know Him better.” Paul wanted them to have a “true knowledge of Him.” But you say, they already knew Him as their Savior, and had obtained eternal life. But what I am asking is has God placed within your heart a hunger to know Him better?

With every relationship in life we make deliberate choices as to whether we want to pursue the relationship. God has invited us to get to know Him better. Have we responded to that invitation to belongingness? Do we have that “we” feeling with Him? Have we taken the first few faltering steps and halted? Have we reached a plateau, and is it now time to respond to further instruction in His Word?

Has the Holy Spirit opened the “enlightened eyes of our hearts” in order that we may know “the hope to which He has called us, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe”?

Paul’s prayer for knowledge of God is based on a plea to have a greater knowledge of God’s saving grace. God takes the initiative and invites us to a personal involvement of our whole person. It is a permanent relationship based on the awesome knowledge that He knows me and desires a personal, abiding relationship with me.

Perhaps Paul had in mind the great prayer of Jesus, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Do you know Him? Do you want to know Him better? It is true that we have a great deal more to learn about Him in His Word. Knowing about Him is important, but knowing Him personally is more important. We must act on what we have learned in His Word.

How do I get to know God better in His personal dealings with me? It begins with a hunger or thirsting for the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to our soul and to open the living Word of God to our inner person. Such a knowledge is not found apart from a study of the Scriptures. It is to the person who sits at Jesus’ feet that God opens His heart to reveal Himself. It is time spent with God on our knees with the open Word that issues in an intimate knowledge of Him. You cannot get to know a real person without spending time with him or her. We cannot know God without time in His presence. We know truth about His attributes from His revealed Word as the Spirit applies them to our lives, and as we act upon that knowledge we experience Him personally.

God chose us, and called us “to be holy and blameless in His sight” as His full grown adopted children. We grow in our knowledge of God as we become more like the Lord Jesus Christ in every way, every day. As we grow in the knowledge of His grace we grow in His likeness. One day we will know Him in perfect character. My prayer is that He will hasten that day. Today, we live in the tension of the here and now and that which is yet to be.

Because we are His unique possession, purchased by His blood, “we share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light” (Col. 1:12). God has rich blessings in store for those who get to know Him better. Are we claiming our inheritance now? We can only as we get to know Him intimately. The apostle Paul said, “We know little; and we know imperfectly.” One wonderful day when He comes we will know fully and perfectly.

Do I know Him in the power of His resurrection? This is to know God’s power by personal experience. Do I know the power that God exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead? The knowledge of God is experienced in the power of Christ’s resurrection in our lives today. Oh, God that I may know you today!

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Evidence of Members of God’s Family

Message by Wil Pounds

Our possession of the Holy Spirit is the very essence of what it means to be a Christian. “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9). Those who belong to Christ have the Holy Spirit living within them. Moreover, if you have Him indwelling you, you will live like Him (vv. 10-13).

We know that we are true Christians because of the Holy Spirit’s presence in us, and because our lives have been changed by His indwelling presence.

Moreover, we have a new status and relationship with God. “All those who being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God” (v. 14). We have a new relationship to God; we are members of His family. Paul speaks of our being “sons,” “sonship,” “children,” “heirs,” and “co-heirs with Christ” (vv. 15-23).

John Calvin said, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God; all the sons of God are heirs of eternal life; and therefore all who are led by the Spirit of God ought to feel assured of eternal life.”

We are His children by the new birth, and the status of “adopted” children.

Let me be very clear, not everyone is a member of God’s family. We are all His creatures having been created by God, but only those who are “led by the Spirit of God” are the sons of God. Those who are not led by the Spirit are not Christians, and therefore not His spiritual children.

Jesus made this fact clear in John 8:39-47. Specifically note what Jesus says, “If God were your Father, you would love Me; for I proceeded forth and have come from God. . . He sent Me. . . You are from your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your Father. . . . He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God” (vv. 42, 44, 47).

Only those who possess the Holy Spirit and are led by Him are the children of God. Indeed, Paul is telling us that all believers in Jesus Christ are members of God’s family.

In the passage above Jesus says there has been a radical change in our status with God. We have been delivered from Satan’s realm to God’s family. We were children of the devil, but now we are children of God. We are “in Adam,” but now we are “in Christ.” We were “dead in trespasses and sin,” but now we are “alive in Christ Jesus.” We have received eternal life. We were unrighteous sinners, but now we have been clothed with the righteousness of God in Christ. We were slaves who have been emancipated by the redemption that is ours in Christ Jesus. We are children of God by a spiritual birth. He has placed us as full-grown children by adoption in His family.

This new relationship with God in His family is something He did for us in His grace. God imparted to us this new life and status when we repented and believed on Him as our Savior. The “new birth” gives us this new spiritual life. The Holy Spirit stirs and quickens our hearts to cause us to repent and to love God. It is such a radical change that we observe a renewing of our minds after God’s things, our emotional responses to God’s Spirit and our volitional choices are the outcome of this new mindset.

The Holy Spirit uses His Word, the Bible, to convict us of sin, God’s righteousness, and causes us to be born spiritually into God’s family. Then a Christians He uses His Word to guide us in the Christian life.

When the Holy Spirit renews your mind, you will demonstrate it by the way you live.

Have you experienced in your life this radical change that God brings about when He makes us His children? Where is the evidence that you are now a child of God? Do you love Him? Do you love the things of God? Do you love His Word? Are you trying to please Him? Is the Spirit leading you? Are you submissive to His will? Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” If you are a member of His family you will bear resemblance to Him in all you do.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: All Sufficient Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

Message by Wil Pounds

The very same all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ that enabled God to save us is sufficient to keep us saved for all eternity.

Does sin have the power to set at naught the saving power of God? Is it possible for the power of sin to be more powerful than the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God?

The LORD God has effectively dealt with every sin that has ever been committed (Heb. 9:11-12; 10:10-14). The Son of God is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). He was not just any person dying on a cross, but the sinless Son of God who was giving Himself as a substitutionary sacrifice for all who would call upon His name.

When Jesus died on the cross, all of our sins were imputed to Him. They were charged to His account, like putting money in the bank. God treated Christ as though He had actually committed those sins (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Jn. 3:5; Rom. 4:25; 1 Pet. 2:22, 24).

The result of the death of Christ was that all those sins have been paid for in full and God no longer holds them against us, because we have trusted Christ as our Savior. That is not all; the demands of God’s holy law have been fully met by Christ in His death once for all.

Those who believe will never have their sins imputed against them again (Ps. 32:1-2; Rom. 4:1-8). As far as their records are concerned, they share the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.

The present condition of lost sinners is not because of their sin, but because of their unbelief. The Bible says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:17-18).

The blood of Jesus is sufficient to cover every person’s sin, past, present and future. The sacrifice has been made once for all. No other sacrifice can or will be made. It is all-sufficient for all sin for all mankind forever. However, no one is automatically saved by that death. The death becomes effective when the lost sinner calls on the name of Jesus putting his faith in Him to save and give everlasting life. The only condition is to believe on the saving work of Christ on the cross. All that a person has to do to be lost is nothing. To not believe is to say in effect Jesus did not die for me. To believe on Christ is in effect to declare that He is all-sufficient to cover all my sins for all eternity. The sacrifice has been paid in full. There need be no other and no more. All my sins, past, present and future are under that blood that cleanses.

Judgment is already passed on all who refuse to believe on Christ as their Savior sent from God (John 3:18, 36). However, “As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12). “God has given us eternal life” (1 John 5:11). The problem is people love spiritual darkness rather than the “Light” of Jesus.

Salvation is received through believing in the finished work of Christ on the cross. People who reject the saving gospel of Christ are already under condemnation because they have not believed. They stand condemned. However, the believe in Christ is “not condemned,” and he “will not be condemned” (John 5:24). The person who believes on Christ has “everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life.” The believer has eternal spiritual life now, which is endless (Jn. 3:36). When we trust in Jesus, we have in the present time “eternal life.” No judgment will come in the future regarding eternal life. He will not be judged “because he already passed from one realm—“death”—into another—“life” (Eph. 2:1, 5). We have passed from eternal death to eternal life. Jesus described the resurrection of the lost sinner into eternal life. With the apostle Paul we can also proclaim, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ” (Rom. 8:1).

The believer is a sinner, even though he is a redeemed sinner. The difference is that he confesses his sins and claims the forgiveness of God in Christ (1 Jn. 1:6-7). “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (v. 7).

The only difference between condemnation and salvation is faith in the atoning work of Jesus. Acts 4:12 says, “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Jesus gives eternal life to anyone who believes on Him because He has already died for that person.

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Fully Equipped with Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding

Message by Wil Pounds

When an individual is born into God’s family by faith in Jesus Christ, he is born with all that he needs to grow toward spiritual maturity.

How many believers fail to realize “you are complete in Him” (Colossians 2:10)? You are complete in Christ for the only experience you need is the new birth. You do not have to look for something else, something new, something different, and something in addition to Christ.

What is needed in the Christian life is to continue to grow in what we received when we received Christ at the new birth. We have been fully equipped in Christ.

The apostle Paul wrote, “We have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to sharer in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:9-12).

There were false teachers telling these Christians they had to have some additional experience in the Christian life. They were suggesting that Christ is not enough. The apostle Paul writes this letter to refute that nonsense. Christ is all-sufficient for every believer in everything.

Paul prayed that God would fill them “with the knowledge of His will.” He prayed these believers would be filled out to completeness with a full, deep understanding.

The Holy Spirit enlightens a believer’s inner person (1 Cor. 2:5-6; Eph. 3:14-21) with the truth from the Word of God. The Spirit of God makes known the will of God through the Bible and gives spiritual stability (Eph. 2:14).

Where do we find this “spiritual wisdom and understanding”? We discover it “in Christ.” The false teachers were saying you find it in their exclusive possession of their kind of knowledge. The apostle Paul said no you find it in an intimate personal knowledge of the Son of God. This knowledge is not a hidden secret to be whispered in the ear of an initiate. It is open to all and it is to be broadcast to the world. Paul’s prayer is that every Christian be filled with this knowledge. The end result of such knowledge is to “walk worthy of the Lord.” What we know will affect the way we live. Right thinking leads to right conduct.

Paul says that you will be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual, wisdom and understanding so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. That comes from the study of the Word of God under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We can please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Spiritual growth is not automatic, but we have been equipped us by the Word and the Spirit.

The best person in any church well knows that he is unable to come into the presence of God on the basis of any self-merit. No one can receive anything from God on the grounds of his or her own goodness. However, on the merits of the shed blood of Jesus Christ even the worst sinner who turns from his sin and accepts Christ as his Savior can come with boldness and be “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might.” That “strength with all power, according to His glorious might” comes from God. It is what God gives us “in Christ.” It is possible only on the basis of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ.

True prayer is prayer to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

We “receive from Him anything we ask, because we obey His commandments and do what pleases Him” (1 John 3:22). “We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19), and ask Him for whatever we need that we may “be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.”

Selah!

Daily Devotional: Getting Near To God

Daily Devotional: Finish Your Work, Lord

Daily Devotional: Consequences of Unbelief

Daily Devotional: “Christ Much and Christ More”

Daily Devotional: Do You Have the Mind of Christ?

Daily Devotional: The Carnal Mind And A New Mind

Daily Devotional: Do You Seek A Deeper Life With God?

Daily Devotional: What Is God Like?

Daily Devotional: The Heart Of The Gospel

Daily Devotional: Faith Defined: Knowledge, Belief and Trust

Daily Devotional: Faith Defined: Knowledge, Belief and Trust

Daily Devotional: Holiness Made Practical

Daily Devotional: God Knows Me

Daily Devotional: Evidence of Members of God’s Family

Daily Devotional: All Sufficient Sacrifice of Jesus Christ

Daily Devotional: Fully Equipped with Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding

Leave a Reply Cancel reply