Video Bible Lesson - The Priesthood of Believers by Dr. Charles Stanley

1/2 Hour of God’s Power with Scott Ralls

02/14/2020

The Priesthood of Believers
Dr. Charles Stanley
Revelation 5:9-10
According to Scripture, the believer’s citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). In other words, we’re not going to be citizens of an eternal kingdom; we already are.
What’s more, every person who professes Jesus Christ as Lord is part of God’s priesthood. In the ancient Israelite culture, priests were the privileged servants of Almighty God. They carried out all the tasks related to keeping the Law and preserving the spiritual well-being of the people. They cared for the temple, offered sacrifices, and interceded on behalf of the community.
When John says in Revelation 1 that you and I are priests, he is placing us among the ranks of a people set apart as God’s servants. It is a blessing and calling to worship the Lord, to adore and honor Him, and to ensure that all glory is given to His name. Our duties also include interceding on behalf of others.
The one priestly task we do not have to do is perform sacrifices. God Himself offered the final sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, when His Son died in our place. Our part is to bear witness to the breadth and depth of His love for all people. Once you grasp the fact that God looks on His children—every one a former slave to sin—with unconditional devotion, you can’t keep quiet about it.
Believers are special in the eyes of their God and King. We are a sacred people and a holy order. What are you doing with your life? As a believer, you are not your own anymore (1 Corinthians 6:19). You are a priest and a privileged servant of the Most High God.

#Jesus, #Christian, #Bible, #Salvation, #Heaven, #God, #HolySpirit

Streams in the Desert

Streams in the Desert

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! (Philippians 4:4).

It is a good thing to "rejoice in the Lord." Perhaps you have tried it but seemed to fail at first. Don't give it a second thought, and forge ahead. Even when you cannot feel any joy, there is no spring in your step, nor any comfort or encouragement in your life, continue to rejoice and "consider it pure joy" (James 1:2). "Whenever you face trials of many kinds" (James 1:2), regard it as joy, delight in it, and God will reward your faith. Do you believe that your heavenly Father will let you carry the banner of His victory and joy to the very front of the battle, only to calmly withdraw to see you captured or beaten back by the enemy? NEVER! His Holy Spirit will sustain you in your bold advance and fill your heart with gladness and praise. You will find that your heart is exhilarated and refreshed by the fullness within.

Lord, teach me to rejoice in You - to "be joyful always" (1 Thess. 5:16).
--selected

The weakest saint may Satan rout,
Who meets him with a praiseful shout.

Be filled with the Spirit... Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.
--Ephesians 5:18-19

In these verses, the apostle Paul urges us to use singing as inspiration in our spiritual life. He warns his readers to seek motivation not through the body but through the spirit, not by stimulating the flesh but by exalting the soul.

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings.

Let us sing even when we do not feel like it, for in this way we give wings to heavy feet and turn weariness into strength.
--John Henry Jowett

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and signing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.
--Acts 16:25

O Paul, what a wonderful example you are to us! You gloried in the fact that you "bear on [your] body the marks of Jesus" (Gal. 6:17). You bore the marks from nearly being stoned to death, from three times being "beaten with rods" (2 Cor. 11:25), from receiving 195 lashes from the Jews, and from being bloodily beaten in the Philippian jail. Surely the grace that enabled you to sing praises while enduring such suffering is sufficient for us.
--J. Roach

Oh, let us rejoice in the Lord, evermore,
When darts of the Tempter are flying,
For Satan still dreads, as he oft did before,
Our singing much more than our crying.

No Greater Love.........Dr. Charles Stanley🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

No Greater Love

Dr. Charles Stanley

John 15:12-14

Perhaps the most intense love and protective instinct in the experience of mankind is that of parents toward their children. There is little that most mothers or fathers wouldn't do for a baby. If a truck posed a threat to the little one, it wouldn't surprise us if they jumped in front of the moving vehicle without a second thought.

Wouldn't you like to be cared for with this kind of intensity? You are. In fact, the Lord's love toward you is far deeper and more secure than that of even the most caring, tuned-in human parent. And what God did for us is proof. Romans 5:8 says that while we were living in disobedience, He sent His only Son to die on the cross for us.

Think about a father giving up his child for people who choose to rebel against him. What a tremendous sacrifice and cost! Jesus' death took the place of the punishment that we deserved. If we accept this gift and decide to follow God, He no longer sees us as guilty. Rather, He justifies us, makes us righteous, and changes our ultimate destiny: instead of facing everlasting separation from Him, we will enjoy His presence eternally. What's more, almighty God adopts us as His children forever. Our heavenly Father guides, protects, and counsels us as we walk through life—and promises us that we are secure in Him throughout eternity.

How incredible that the Creator of the universe would love you and me in this way! Do you know and experience the security and sweetness of His care? Gratitude and praise should flow from your heart. In turn, love others deeply out of thankfulness for the love that you have received.

If You Don’t Get Flowers Today

If You Don’t Get Flowers Today
SARAH GERINGER

“It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in people.” Psalm 118:8 (NLT)

I carefully lifted my windshield wiper to retrieve the frozen pink rose that cold Valentine’s Day years ago. A freshman in college, I had stopped by my car to eat a snack between my morning classes and excitedly wondered who sent me this surprise. My heart pounded in anticipation.

Starting up the engine for warmth, I rubbed my palms together before opening the attached card. The rose was from … my mom. Her words in the card were kind and encouraging. So why did I still feel empty inside?

The truth was, I wished the rose was from a secret admirer. A young man, not my mom. Since my last date had been an embarrassing dud, spaced far after the previous one, I longed for a new romance to fill me up. My guilt and loneliness combined into a frustrating mixture.

I felt like a cup with no bottom.

No matter what I put inside the cup, I didn’t feel full. Roses, chocolate, books, TV shows, fantasies and even relationships couldn’t fill it. Loneliness seemed to be the only thing filling that bottomless space, and I was weary of its constant, haunting presence.

My parents divorced when I was 4 years old, and the day my daddy left was the day loneliness took up permanent residence in my heart and mind. Though I wished it would go away, I had no power to push it out the door. Loneliness lingered every time I craved love and attention that was in such short supply.

Then in high school, I developed resentment over the flowers and gifts I saw lined up in the cafeteria every February 14. None of them were for me. I believed the devil’s whispered lie — None of them will ever be for you. You’ll always be lonely.

About 15 years after that frozen-rose morning, I sat in a counselor’s office. After listening to my stories of constant loneliness, he observed, “Relationships are very important to you, aren’t they?” His simple, judgment-free question was a pivotal point in my spiritual journey.

A few days after the counseling session, God nudged me with a new idea: Perhaps relationships were too important to me. Though I was a wife, mother of three and friend to many, I still felt lonely. But God was showing me a truth I needed to learn from His Word: “It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in people” (Psalm 118:8).

For far too long, I had looked to people to fill me. But my husband, children, best friend and small group companions couldn’t remove my loneliness. They were never designed to completely fill my needs. I began to realize only God could serve as my refuge, my safe place and my salvation.

Though people are wonderful, they are not infinite. They aren’t always available when we need them, and none of them provide perfect understanding.

However, God is infinite (Revelation 1:8), ever present (Deuteronomy 31:6) and all-knowing (1 Chronicles 28:9). As we study His ways, we learn God is ready, able and willing to fill us up with His love. We learn this best by hiding away with Him in a place of refuge.

The more time I spent in God’s presence, the less I depended on relationships to meet all my needs. Time with loved ones became bonuses on top of the loving intimacy I enjoyed with Jesus. I no longer required proof of human love on Valentine’s Day — or any other day. God is our refuge in lonely times, and that’s more than enough proof He loves us.

Lord, thank You for never abandoning me in my lonely times. I confess I have tried too hard to fill up my lonely spaces with relationships or things that can never fill me up. Remind me when I hide away in my safe place with You, I will experience Your perfect peace. Meet me in my loneliness with Your loving presence. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:
Psalm 59:17, “O my Strength, to you I sing praises, for you, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love.” (NLT)

Psalm 142:5, “Then I pray to you, O LORD. I say, ‘You are my place of refuge. You are all I really want in life.’” (NLT)

A Valentine’s Day Prayer to Find True Love

A Valentine’s Day Prayer to Find True LoveBy Gregory Coles

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Dear God, Help me today to understand what love really means.

I need a love that’s big enough to include all of us. Big enough for the dating and engaged couples, of course, with their giddy daydreams of a future together. But also big enough for the married folks, whether their passion for each other is still blazing brightly or barely more than a smoldering wick. Big enough for the singles toasting their independence, and for the singles wishing someone would come along and make that independence disappear.

For the lonely and widowed and brokenhearted, I need a love that understands, a love that welcomes in hurt and sorrow instead of excluding them. I need a love that knows how to weep.

The love I need more than anything is Your love. Without Your love, no other love will ever be sufficient. And with it, every other love becomes richer and truer and more life-giving than it could have been otherwise. We have learned all our best loves from You: the love of faithful friends, of spouses and significant others, of parents and siblings and children. Love that commits. Love that sacrifices. Love that lays down its life. You authored each of these loves, taught us how to recognize them and long for them and give them away. Our best efforts at Valentine’s Day are just a fraction of the wholeness of love.

So today, I ask that you would refresh my vision of love. Remind me of the love that fashioned me in my mother’s womb and dreamed up beautiful plans for my life. Remind me of the love that wept when humanity fell, the love that still weeps each time I break Your heart. Remind me of the love that sent heaven’s royal Son to inhabit our humble Earth. Remind me of the love that died to carry me home.

Today, let everything I see remind me of Your love.

Fill me with that love until I am saturated. And then keep on pouring, until I’m overflowing and flooding my surroundings, until I can’t help but give Your love away to others.

Give me love for those who are easy to love and for those who are difficult. Give me love for my enemies, a love that confounds feelings and explanations. Make me love You so deeply that it becomes impossible not to love anyone created in Your image.

Let today be a day for love. Real love. Big love. Your love.

God is So Much More than Love

God is So Much More than Love
By Mike Nappa

“God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (1 John 4:16)

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately (big surprise). When that happens, I usually pass the night trying to pray through questions I have about faith and life, and lately I’ve been praying about love. You see, I have known great love, intimately, purposely, lavished on me with unwavering determination for 30 years, three months, and three days. Then, too soon, came the day when cancer took my wife’s body, set her spirit free, and left me behind sleepless and alone. Now, more than a year after hearing the hum of Amy’s last breath, I keep wondering why the pain of losing this love (at least here on this earth) has kept such a stranglehold on me for so long after she has died.

I’ve thought about it a lot, and read about love and the meanings of love. I’ve also studied the Greek terms for love, especially the Greek word agapē which is supposed to be the highest expression of love—a pure, selfless, unconditional thing. But as I meditate on the love I’ve experienced, examining how it shaped and reshaped me, even agapē seems not enough to explain it.

I know that Amy’s love for me was rooted in the truth that “God is love”—something the Apostle John taught us both (1 John 4:16). If that’s really true, then love encompasses more than just the highest expression of selflessness. Inherent in Christ’s personhood is every shade and texture and breath and aspect and heartbeat and death knell and meaning of whatever love is. This is probably why 1 Corinthians 13 describes love (and by extension God) with a laundry list of concepts: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…” This is also why, within each of us, the presence of God (who is love) naturally expresses itself in “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

So if God is love, and God is all these things, then love is all these things, which makes it more than simply agapē. His love is not just the highest form of love, it is ALL of love—love that laughs, that rests, that waits and forgives and so much more.

Even love defined as all of love is not adequate to explain the kind of love I’ve experienced, both from Amy and from our Christ. And here’s why:

Language at its core is a collection of symbols that society agrees will represent reality. Our words for love are, at best then, tokens of meaning, not exact expressions of substance. We cram letters together and say “this is what those letters mean” but symbols alone can never fully communicate the truth of what they represent.

L-o-v-e is not just what we’ve all agreed that those letters should define. It is unfathomably, immeasurably, inexpressibly more. We know it instinctively, deep within the soul, but we can never adequately define or even understand it.

And so tonight, while I can’t sleep, I look at 1 John 4:16 (“God is love”) and no longer see just a definition of God or love or agapē to catalog and quote with casual indifference. Those three words, those simple alphabetical symbols have now become for me a moment of awe… a reason to worship… an unbreakable promise that the best is yet to come.

The Month of Love

The Month of Love
by Shawn McEvoy

Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church - a love marked by giving, not getting. - Ephesians 5:25, The Message

For once in my marriage, I really did something right.

My wife's name is Valerie - Val for short - so she's always held Valentine's Day in even higher esteem than most women. Not only that, but her birthday is March 15, so she's always believed (with a smile, of course) that February 14 through March 15 equals "The Month of Love" equals "it's all about her" for one-twelfth of the year.

One year, I decided to agree. Each morning for 31 days when she woke up, there was a small hand-made red envelope (amazing what useful skills one can learn watching children's programming) stuck on some wall of our house. Written in sparkly marker (chicks dig the sparklies) on the outside of the envelope was one of her top character qualities. Inside the envelope was a Bible memory verse related to that quality. Embedded in the memory verse was a clue to where a small hidden gift could be found in or around our home.

I just thought this could be a nice little way to tell her I love her. Boy was I short-sighted. I could have bought her the Taj Mahal and she wouldn't have appreciated it more, been more thoroughly impressed. "He went to Jared"? No way. He went to PBS and Hobby Lobby with a detour to Wal-Mart. But already Val is considering how to pass this story down to our grandchildren. She says I will never top myself. And she was saying these things before she even knew about the surprise at the end, where all the envelopes could be arranged so that the first letter of each character quality would spell out the grand prize: that she had her choice of a new wardrobe, upgraded wedding ring, or vacation, any of which would be shopped for together, 'cause she's big on that. Even so, she never took me up on the grand prize. I can't say I wasn't a little bit disappointed, but she was definitely exercising the wisdom of foresight. And anyway, to her, the biggest gift had already been received.

Valerie thinks this took me ages to dream up and hours to prepare, but it took me about 10 minutes per day, plus a weekly trip to the store to stock up on a few minor gifts. But the outcome net me - if not crowns in Heaven - at least major returns in this life. Anytime a group of gals gathers together and asks each other, "What the best gift you've ever received?" that ends up being a fun day. Several times during the Month of Love itself I was told to take an evening to myself and go see a movie. And I learned something I thought I already knew - diamonds aren't a girl's best friend. Her husband is, if he even shows a rhinestone's-worth of interest in her.

Not every wife speaks the same "Love Language." I know some who truly would have preferred a simple one-time big purchase, while others would be thrilled to see him voluntarily wash dishes and dust shelves. But this I can be fairly sure in saying about wives: what all of them really want is a husband that makes an effort to understand them and speak their language, whatever it is, without being told. Yeah, I know, and all one has to do to make millions in the majors is hit a curveball. But unlike the major leagues, in marriage, most of the time, simply making the effort is appreciated.

Intersecting Faith & Life: If you haven't already, read The Five Love Languages with your spouse. Once you learn what says, "I love you" to him or her, come up with a special way of saying so.