Be Thankful for the One Who Paid Your Debt  

Recently my wife received a phone call from the fraud prevention division of our financial institution because some unauthorized person had tried to use her credit card. The incident resulted in her current card getting shut down and a new one getting issued to her. During that interim waiting period before she received her new card, she and our granddaughter went out to breakfast one morning. When it came time to pay the bill, she discovered that her other credit card as well as her debit card from the same institution were not working either. It appeared as if they all may have been rendered inoperative as a safety precaution. Therefore I received a call to come to their rescue so that they wouldn’t end up in the restaurant kitchen washing dishes. However, before I arrived the server informed my wife that her bill had been paid. It turned out that a nice gentleman in the next booth who had overheard their predicament generously took care of their check. My wife told him that it wasn’t necessary but expressed her profound gratitude for his very kind gesture.

 One of the great truths of the gospel, or good news, of Jesus Christ is that He has paid our bill for us. No, He hasn’t paid off your mortgage or your car loan, as helpful as that might be. He has paid off a debt much greater than any others we might owe. The Bible teaches that we all have sinned. As a result, we owe a debt to a holy God that we are incapable of paying. However, He Himself made a way for that debt to be repaid. He sent His own Son into the world to pay the ultimate price through the shedding of His own blood as the sacrifice for our sins. “In Him (Christ) we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

Another key point here is that it is totally by grace. It is not anything we deserve or have earned. It is solely through the love and kindness of God that this offer is made to us. We have a tendency to want to keep offering our “credit” cards – things we hope might earn us credit with God – rather than humbly acknowledging our inability to take care of our sin problem ourselves. Maybe we pull out the card that shows how many times we have attended church. Or we show the card giving an account of our tithes and offerings. Or we display the card that shows how often we read our Bibles or say a prayer. Maybe we even pull out our card showing the times we were kind to others – maybe we helped pay someone’s bill one time when they were unable to do so. Whatever we resort to with the hopes that it will earn us credit with God, it simply isn’t sufficient. The only thing that can reconcile our account with God is through what Jesus did for us. We simply need to receive it humbly, penitently, and with faith that Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to pay our debt.

 If we are grateful to someone for paying for our meal, how much more should we be thankful for the One who paid the price for our sin. It is only because of Jesus that we can have a right relationship with God. It is all because of Him that we can enjoy peace with God now and the hope of a heavenly home. We owe our lives and our eternal destinies to Him.

Some of us need to quit trying to earn credit with God and simply accept the gracious gift of Jesus who has paid our bill in full.

 

What Should Be Our Attitude Toward Israel?  

With the conflict involving Israel dominating the news in recent days, it raises questions about how we view this particular nation. While all terrorist attacks and wars should concern us, why do we pay special attention when Israel is involved? Why do many believe it is important for us to support the Jewish nation? We hear people refer to them as God’s chosen people. Why is that? Is it still a valid designation for them today?

There are two main reasons why we tend to give greater attention to Israel. One is because of their role in certain biblical prophecies, especially concerning the end times. God’s Word indicates that Israel will be involved in some of those final battles which are foretold. So while we shouldn’t necessarily proclaim prophecies being fulfilled every time Israel goes to war, we watch closely to see if this incident escalates into a greater conflict that will involve other nations. We know that eventually such prophecies will be fulfilled, so we wonder if this may be the precursor to one of those final battles.

Secondly, we view Israel differently from other nations due to their history and relationship with God. It began with God’s promises to Abraham which were repeated and expanded on to his descendants. Several of these promises serve as a basis for our attitude toward Israel. First is the promise that God has given them a land. Later the Bible describes the exact area and borders of that territory. Therefore we see them as having a God-given right to that land and tend to support their occupation of it.

Another significant promise is that God has chosen Israel from among all the nations of the earth for a special purpose and to have a unique relationship with Him. HHe has used words such as “chosen”, “special treasure”, and “a kingdom of priests” to describe this relationship. He set them apart from all other nations to be a blessing to the world. However, do these promises still hold true? Has Israel forfeited that relationship by failing to keep the covenant with God, and especially by rejecting His own Son as their Messiah? It is interesting that the New Testament applies some of the promises God gave to Israel to the Church, the body of true followers of Jesus. Even some of the same language is used in reference to believers. Peter wrote to Christians, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people” (I Peter 2:9). There is no doubt that believers are God’s chosen people, but does that mean that Israel no longer holds that distinction? Some of God’s promises to Israel seem to suggest that in spite of their unfaithfulness, in the end they will experience some degree of restoration and favor with God. Some believe many Jews will turn to Christ in the last days. I encourage you to read Romans 9-11. These and other scriptures suggest that God has not completely cast away the people of Israel.   

A third promise that affects our attitude toward Israel is that God will bless those who bless Israel and will curse those who curse them. Those who hate the Jewish people and want to destroy them may find themselves fighting against God. However, those who bless and support Israel are inviting God’s pleasure and favor. Does this mean that Israel can do no wrong? Of course not. They may make poor choices or take wrong actions which we may need to expose and disagree with. Nevertheless, we should continue to seek Israel’s good. Our attitude toward them should generally be one of favor and support.

So let’s be prayerful for Israel and for all who are involved in and affected by this current situation.

 

How Fresh Is Your Experience with the Lord?  

Last Saturday our church had an event that included a yard sale and bake sale with the proceeds going toward a missions project. One family in our congregation also brought over a few of their animals to create a mini-petting zoo. It included a small goat, a couple of cute rabbits, and two chickens. During the course of the occasion, we were treated to the sight of each of those hens laying an egg. Maybe they were trying to make their own contribution to the event, allowing us to offer fresh eggs for sale. And you can’t get much fresher than that.

We tend to value freshness when it comes to the produce we buy at the grocery store or the food we eat. This time of year, I also often hear people talk about a sense of freshness in the air when cooler weather moves in. When viewing TV programs, people often prefer fresh, new programming rather than reruns of shows they have already seen. We like things to be fresh.

Do we let that desire for freshness carry over into our relationship with God? I am concerned that too often we tend to rest on our past spiritual experiences while failing to have anything current we can look to as evidence of our having a healthy, growing relationship with the Lord. Hopefully, we do have significant moments from previous encounters with God that we can remember as being life-changing and meaningful. Those landmark events in our spiritual history can encourage our faith and provide rocks of stability on which we can stand during turbulent times. We know what God has done for us in the past, so we know He will be faithful in our present and future circumstances.

It is especially important that we be able to look back to a time when we realized our sinfulness, repented, and put our trust in Jesus as the only one who could save us. However, there should be more to our walk with the Lord than simply pointing to something He did for us previously, no matter how wonderful it may have been. We can be grateful for having been baptized twenty years ago, or for a tremendous answer to prayer we experienced ten years ago. Nevertheless, we should also be able to provide some good answers to the question, “What has God done in your life recently?”

   Is there a freshness in the spiritual atmosphere of our lives, like that breeze from an autumn cold front moving through? I am not just talking about being busy in church activities or even being faithful to read our Bibles and spend time in prayer. We all know how those activities can easily degenerate into stale habits that can lose their meaning. Are we hearing God’s voice as we study His Word? Do we sense His presence as we gather with other believers to worship Him? Do we see Him answering prayers and working in our lives today? Are we experiencing God using us in some way to impact the lives of people around us? Are we spiritually fresh?

I have always liked the statement made in one of the psalms about the “righteous”. It compares them to growing trees that are continuing to bear fruit. And it declares that even in their old age, “they shall be fresh and flourishing” (Psalm 92:14). Regardless of what age we are, we should desire to be fresh and flourishing spiritually. And God can enable us to experience such freshness if we will earnestly seek Him and let Him work in us.

Thank God for past encounters with Him, but look for Him to keep working in your life today in fresh and new ways.

Be Willing to Seek God and Truth  

I know of someone whose old truck currently isn’t working. He thinks it might be a problem with the battery. However, he hasn’t been able to check it out because when he went to pull the latch to release the hood, it didn’t work. He wasn’t able to begin to figure out the reason for the main issue due to his inability to gain access to where the problem lay. He couldn’t even examine it, much less do anything about it. Therefore, he is first going to have to work to get the hood open before he can tackle whatever is causing his truck not to start.

It reminds me of where we are in our society today. We know that there are some major ills in our world. Our engine isn’t running as it should be. Repairs are desperately needed. Additionally, many individuals find themselves in a similar situation in relation to certain issues in their own personal lives. Something isn’t working right. They know there are problems that need to be addressed.

However, there is a major roadblock standing in the way of our finding appropriate solutions to the brokenness in both our society and in our individual lives. We can’t even pop the hood in order to come to terms with the real issues. We refuse to confront the truth about our world and our own personal condition. We aren’t willing to see reality. We don’t want to hear or accept what God says about it all.

In the days of the prophet Isaiah, he wrote about how people were being encouraged to look elsewhere for guidance about their problems rather than seeking God (see Isaiah 8:19-20). They were being told to “seek those who are mediums and wizards.” He responded. “Should not a people seek their God?” Then he declared, “To the law and to the testimony!” In other words, they needed to look to God for direction. And the main way He had revealed truth was through His Word. Instead of seeking answers from all these other spiritual advisors, they needed to get back to the clear record of what God had already said. If they would listen to Him and accept the truth, then they could get to the heart of all these other issues they were dealing with.

The same holds true for us today. We should quit looking for answers from worldly celebrities, ungodly politicians, and deceptive religious teachers. We need to get back to the Bible – not just using it as a helpful reference from which we can gain a little inspiration or from which we can pull a verse or two out of context in order to prove our own opinions. We need to get back to treating the Scriptures as sacred. We need to view this holy revelation not as man’s ideas but as the uniquely inspired and authoritative Word of God. We have strayed from such a high view of the Bible and as a result are suffering from it.

   We aren’t going to be able to deal successfully with our society’s ills, much less our own personal ones, if we can’t even discern between right and wrong. Not only are the lines being blurred between good and evil, but in many cases we are saying that which is sinful is good and that which is good is evil. We are deceiving ourselves and seem to prefer living our lives in such a fantasy world. We don’t want to look under the hood because the truth makes us uncomfortable and will direct us to change in ways we may not want to change.

Honestly seek God about those issues in our world and in your life today. Go to His Word. See what it really says. Dare to pop the hood and face reality.