What It Means that Christ Died for God's Elect.....By Jonathan Gibson

 What It Means that Christ Died for God's Elect

By Jonathan Gibson

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”  - Romans 8:29-30

Christ's Death Really Did Atone for Sin

I think a helpful way to understand the doctrine of definite atonement is that in the death of Jesus Christ, the triune God intended to achieve the redemption of every person given to the Son by the Father in eternity past and to apply the accomplishments of his salvation to each of them by his Spirit.

In other words, the death of Christ was intended to achieve the redemption of God's people alone. But not only was it intended to do that, it actually achieved it as well. So, in a nutshell, Jesus will be true to his name, he will save his people from their sins.

In the phrase definite atonement, the adjective definite does double duty. The death of Christ is definite in its intent. Christ died in order to redeem a specific group of people, his elect. And it's definite in its nature. Christ's death really will atone for his people's sins.

Renewal of Your First Love.....Denison Ministries

 Renewal of Your First Love

Denison Ministries

Weekly Overview:

One of the best aspects of spending time alone with God is being renewed daily by his word and presence. When we make space for God in our lives, especially at the beginning of the day, he is faithful to renew and prepare us for all we will face out in the world. Scripture says, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Where do you need renewal? How greatly do you need God’s mercies in your life? He has a plan this week to both teach and guide you into an encounter with him that will renew you with his overwhelming goodness and love. Make space for God. Make time to encounter him. And experience the refreshing spring rain he longs to bring to heal the dry and weary places of your heart.

Scripture:“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4

Devotional:    

Out of God’s great desire to be truly loved by his people, we have been given the gift of free will to choose who and what we will give our affections to. God, knowing full well that not all of us would  choose to love him, still created us out of his longing for close relationship with us. You see, so great is our heavenly Father’s desire for relationship with us that he suffers as he watches his children choose to love people, ideas, and possessions that will never fully love us in return. So great is his love for us that he responds to our sin of idolatry with grace and mercy every single time. And so vast is his affection for us that he sent his only Son so that we might be restored to close relationship with our heavenly Father once again. But still, we choose to love things other than God. Still we seek out satisfaction and love from creation rather than the Creator. Still we choose to place our hope and affections in the world instead of in God. If we are to live the life God intends for us, the only fulfilling life possible, we need a renewal of our first love.

Thousands of years ago, the church in Ephesus was much like we are today. Revelation 2:4 says in reference to the church in Ephesus, “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” The Ephesians were still working and waiting for God. They hadn’t abandoned their faith, just their first love. But Scripture makes it clear that when it comes down to it in the end, what will be most important is the way in which we have loved God. When asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). Loving God is our first priority. Our love for God is the foundation on which all of life is to be lived. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” This life is all about the posture of your heart.

Reflect for a minute on just how incredible the love of our God is. Scripture makes it clear that he isn’t after our service first, but our love. He only desires us to work with him if it is done out of our love for him. If we prophesy, show incredible acts of faith, or even give up our lives for him out of anything but love, he calls it “a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” God is after your heart. More than anything else in the world, he wants to love you and be loved by you. Of course he wants you to co-labor with him and obey his commandments, but only out of love for him. Yes, he wants you to lead others to him, but out of the desire to share the incredible love you’ve been shown. Too often we size up our relationship with God based on how often we’ve gone to church, how many mission trips we’ve been on, how many people we’ve won to Jesus, how many committees we’ve served on, or how much of our finances we’ve given to God. And too often we do all of that trying to win over a God who already loves us more than we could ever ask or imagine. God is the father in the prodigal son story running out to meet you and celebrate you regardless of anything you’ve ever done or will do. He’s the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one. He’s the God who leaves his throne to die for the very people who shouted, “Crucify him, crucify him!” And he’s the God who waits patiently every day to show you the depth of his love, that nothing you could ever do will change the way he loves you.

Nothing could be more important than living your life on the foundation of God’s greatest commandment: to love him. And while it’s incredibly important to spend your life loving God, he knows you will only be able to do so if you’ve encountered his love first. 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” Experiencing God’s love is the beginning and end to everything we do as his children. It’s out of encountering the affections of our heavenly Father that our hearts will be stirred to love him back. Let’s take time today to encounter the love of our heavenly Father and let his kindness draw us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Encounter the heart of God, and let his love renew within you your first love.           

Guided Prayer:

1. Meditate on God’s love for you as revealed in his word. Receive his presence. Let him speak his love straight to your heart.

“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39

2. Reflect on your own life. Where do you seem to chase after the affections of the world before God? What idols are in your own heart? Who or what do you love more than God?

“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.” Revelation 2:4

3. Ask the Lord to heal those places of your heart. Be drawn to repentance from God’s kindness. Repent to him the places where you’ve idolized someone or something. Receive the healing that happens when you confess your sins.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

The Bible is clear that God will always forgive our sins as believers. His heart is always for restoration. He always desires to lead us to a life where our hearts are in no way veiled before him. Idols and sin tie us down to the world in ways that keep us from the fullness of relationship available in God. Engage in the act of confession. Spend time consistently giving your sin over to God, and receive the healing and renewal he longs to bring you. May your day be filled with peace as the result of God’s forgiveness, nearness, and loving-kindness.

Extended Reading: 1 Corinthians 13

The Wonder of His Love.....ASHERITAH CIUCIU

 The Wonder of His Love

ASHERITAH CIUCIU

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” 1 John 3:1 (NIV)

“Why, Mommy?”

My toddler’s “why” questions stop me midmotion, whether I’m folding laundry or buckling him into his car seat. Why are the clouds white? Why did our pet fish die? Why do I have to go to bed?

My answers often seem self-evident, until he continues countering (“Why?”), and we end up with the ultimate answer to every 3-year-old’s life question: “Because God loves us.”

That response had always satisfied him. Until the day it didn’t.

“Why does God love us?”

His simple question left me scrambling.

How would you answer that question?

Maybe we know the Sunday-school song: “Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so.” But that doesn’t answer the question: Why does God love us?

Ponder this mystery for a moment: The Creator of our universe, who places the constellations and puffs cumulonimbus clouds, who paints peacocks and sunsets and rainbows, who knows the end from the beginning and spoke the world into existence — that same God sees us, knows us and loves us.

He sees you. He knows you. He loves you.

The Bible tells us that, before we breathed our first breath, God knew every sunrise we’d live to see, every gray hair we’d try to hide and every mistake we’d ever make. (Psalm 139:15-16) He knows us intimately, and He invites us to be His beloved children anyway.

God Himself took on flesh — living, dying and resurrecting to life again — to demonstrate the extent of His great love for us.

Who can comprehend such love? The singer-songwriter King David said it’s too marvelous for his understanding. (Psalm 139:6) The persecutor-turned-preacher Paul prayed we’d grasp the immeasurability of Christ’s love, (Ephesians 3:17-19) and John, the self-described disciple whom Jesus loved, used the word “love” 57 times in his short first letter. Our key verse comes from John’s letter:

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1).

Yet for all we learn about God’s love on the pages of Scripture, there’s no simple answer to my toddler’s question: Why?

So I try to cobble together an answer for him: “God loves us … because He created us.”
“Why?”
“To love Him.”
“Why?”
“Because He loves us.”
“Why?”
So we’re back to where we started.

But perhaps some questions don’t require a quick answer but rather quiet wonder.

Maybe God loves us simply because it’s His good pleasure, because He delights to lavish His love on us. Maybe the point isn’t to decipher an intellectual enigma. Maybe the point is to respond with an open heart that receives and echoes back love.

A little hand tugs on my sleeve, wide eyes waiting for an answer.

“Why?”

So I wrap my arms around him and snuggle my nose in the crook of his neck, breathing in the fragrance of this little human, wondering, If this is how I feel about my son, how much more does God love us?

But out loud I say only, “I don’t know why, buddy. But I know God loves you, and I love you, too.”

Heavenly Father, how great is Your love for us! I can’t comprehend it, and I confess that I often take Your love for granted. Would You grow in me the capacity to grasp more of Your love for us in Christ Jesus? I trust You to continue Your good work in me. And God — I love You, too! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Recognizing God's Handiwork.....Dr. Charles Stanley

 Recognizing God's Handiwork

Dr. Charles Stanley

Psalms 33:3-11

The work God does is creative. He made heaven, earth, and all living creatures. He formed Adam and Eve in His image and knitted each of us in our mother's womb.

His work is also powerful. Through His Son Jesus, He accomplished a great salvation for all who trust in the Savior. Our heavenly Father worked mightily to open a way for us to be reconciled to Him and adopted into His family. Not only that, but God's work is ongoing, and Jesus is the One who holds all things together (Col. 1:17).

In order to recognize God's handiwork, we need to pray in an active, persistent manner. Christ-centered prayers narrow our focus to the Lord. Then we can more readily identify His actions and see how to join Him. Self-centered petitions serve to distract us from Him.

The Father also wants our heart and mind yielded to His will. Pursuing our own agenda shifts the focus to ourselves and makes us lose sight of the Lord. But a submissive attitude prepares us to listen and obey. Regularly concentrating on God's Word will clear our minds and help us understand what the Lord is doing.

When we combine these disciplines with discernment and patience, we will have positioned ourselves to discover how God is working in our lives and in our world.

Our Lord is at work today--calling nonbelievers to saving faith and the redeemed to a closer walk with Him. His plans include individuals, families, and nations. Have you been too busy or distracted to notice what He's doing? Confess your inattention and refocus your heart and mind on Him.

A White Bread Faith.....By Ryan Duncan

 A White Bread Faith

By Ryan Duncan

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.- 1 John 3:10

When I was still in high school my mother became a vegetarian. Now, I have nothing but respect for vegetarians, but as a guy who likes his steaks extra-rare, this created a few problems in our household. Suddenly our family was exploring what people called “organic” dishes. Tofu, quiche, we dined on whole-grain pasta sprinkled with nuts, strange cheeses, and enough broccoli to kill an entire fourth-grade class. It wasn’t all that bad actually; my mother was very gracious and still cooked meat for the carnivores in the house, but I suspect a soy-based meat substitute found its way into our meals on more than one occasion.

The worst part though, was the bread. My family went from using your typical sleeve of wheat bread to buying those thick, iron cast loaves so brown they were almost black. I can remember sitting in the cafeteria during lunch, watching my classmates as they flagrantly devoured their delicious, white-bread PB&J’s, while I chewed the same bite of sandwich over and over for almost an hour because chunks of grain were still floating around in it. Back then, I would have given anything for a sandwich made from white, Wonder Bread.

How many of us Christians are looking for a “White Bread” relationship with God? We show up at Church on Sunday and pray before each meal, then tell ourselves that should be enough to help us grow in our faith. It’s a sweet deal with all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks. Don’t fool yourself; God wants to be so much more in our lives than our Sunday morning service. He is looking to make us lights of the world, to bring peace where there is strife, hope where there is despair, and grace where there is hate. You won’t be very prepared for that if you just stick to the Sunday Sermons. Don’t deny yourself a good, healthy, relationship with God. Read the Bible, get involved, and above all, be sure to make him a part of your daily life.

Intersecting Faith and Life: Find ways to get involved with your home church. Volunteer for events, or try mentoring some of the younger students. Parents, are your children involved in a youth group? Encourage them to give it a try.

Further Reading: Revelation 3:15-17

The thing is though, ask any nutritionist and they’ll tell you white bread barely counts as grain at all. It tastes good, but that’s because it’s been almost entirely drained of nutrients. All the beneficial vitamins and minerals have been lost, and in the end, we are left with food that really isn’t as healthy as we’d like to think it is.

A Prayer to Remember God’s Faithfulness.....By: Alisha Headley

 A Prayer to Remember God’s Faithfulness

By: Alisha Headley

Only be on guard and diligently watch yourselves so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren. - Deuteronomy 4:9

Do you ever go through seasons where God does a miraculous work in your life? From freeing you of sins from your past, or answering a specific prayer? You find yourself in so much awe of Him, His Word, and His faithfulness, that you vow to never stop praising Him. This season brings praise in the morning, the evening and throughout your day.

But as each day passes from the divine marked moment, you forget that moment of His miraculous handiwork on your life. Therefore, when the next and new circumstance comes up in your life where you need help or answers, you find yourself doubting God. You begin “leaning on your own understanding” instead. Over time, you begin trying to control the situation on your own, forgetting God’s faithfulness.

It’s easy to let God’s faithfulness to slip from our minds. Especially when He is not answering our prayers, moving in our situation, or speaking in the moment that we need Him to.

In today’s verse the Israelites, led by Moses, had just escaped the pursuing Egyptians. Moses held out his staff and God parted the water of the Red Sea. Once the Israelites had safely crossed, Moses dropped his staff, the sea closed, drowning the pursuing Egyptians (Exodus 14:21). This was a miraculous work of the Lord. It’s something that if I saw in person with my own eyes, I would hope I would never forget the Almighty God’s personal sovereignty and protection freeing me from my enemies.

But we too, like the Israelites, are human. We too, forget God’s faithfulness. In today’s verse, Moses speaks to the Israelites, telling them to never forget what they saw. To never forget all that the Lord did for them. This is the same message for us today. To continue to be patient knowing that God hears our prayers and He knows exactly what is happening in our situation. He sees it all, and He is working, even if we don’t see it yet in our circumstances.

We know He is working because He is faithful. He has proven that time and time again, throughout every story in the Bible and throughout every story of our life, too. Let’s not forget what He has done and what He will continue to do. Don’t stop praising Him, our worship is our reminder to never let His faithfulness slip from our mind.

Let us pray for this beautiful reminder:

Father God,

You have shown yourself faithful all throughout Scripture. Thank you for being faithful in our lives too. Forgive us for all those times we have doubted you in the past and at times, taken things into our own hands, and not trusted you with our situation. You love us and want the best for us. Your love for us is immeasurable and unconditional.

Everything that happens in our life you allow, even if it’s painful at times. Remind us that “you work all things out for good for those who love you.” (Romans 8:28) Prompt us in our moments of doubt to never ever forget all the things you have done in our life. To never forget that you sent your very own son to die a brutal death on the cross at Calvary because you love us (John 3:16). To never forget all the answered prayers and comfort you have provided us over the years. To never forget that you are God, and we will one day spend eternity with you. To never forget that your “plans for us are good as they are plans to prosper us and not to harm us, they are plans that give us hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). Lord, we trust you today because you are faithful, and we know your faithfulness never runs dry. We love you and we remember you, we remember all that you are, and we remember all that you have done today.

In Jesus’s mighty name we pray,

Amen

The Death of Death.....Greg Laurie

 The Death of Death

Greg Laurie

Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:26)

When Jesus died on the cross, He conquered sin. But when He rose again from the dead, He defeated death.

Death is not a subject we usually want to discuss. But when you get down to it, that is what Easter is all about. Easter is about the death of death, because Jesus came to conquer death.

We don’t like to discuss this subject of dying. It is a hard subject for us to talk about. Many don’t even want to use the word death. They will use other words, like passed away or expired. We will refer to someone who has died as “the dearly departed.”

Some, in an attempt to avoid its seriousness, will make light of it with expressions like “kicked the bucket” or “cashed in their chips.” We don’t want to deal with death. It is a hard subject to grapple with.

Easter is a day that marks the death of death. Death died when Christ rose. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25–26).

You may be thinking, “Greg, are you crazy? What are you talking about—death died? People still die. Don’t you watch the news? Haven’t you heard about all of the horrible things that are happening in our world right now and the deaths of so many people? How can you say that death died?”

I understand that we die. I understand that our bodies go into a grave. But here is what I am saying to you: death is not the end. Sure our bodies go into the ground, but the soul lives on forever. The Bible says that one day our bodies will be resurrected as well.

This is the hope of Easter. Death is not the end of the road; it is only a bend in the road. When Jesus died and rose, He rendered death powerless.