Jesus’ Final Instructions to His Apostles (June 5)

Away from the Presence of the Lord (June 29)

AWAY FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD (JUNE 29) View on Website -- https://wordpoints.com/away-from-presence-lord-june-29/ "They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed" (2 Thessalonians 1:9,10). THE STARK TRUTH IS THAT OUR CHOICES WITH REGARD TO GOD WILL HAVE ETERNAL CONSEQUENCES. Having been created in the image of an eternal God, we also are eternal. Whether we accept Him or reject Him, we will live eternally. And as Paul taught in the text above, those who reject God will have an eternity “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” The doctrine of eternal punishment is not acceptable to the modern mind. The current trend, even among conservative Christians, is toward “universalism,” the belief that all human beings are going to be saved (or at least that the unsaved will simply be annihilated rather than punished eternally). Francis Chan worded it well: “Does everyone go to heaven? Based on what I hear at funerals, the answer is an overwhelming ‘Yes!’ How many funerals have you attended where this was even in question?” Yet, as Chan has forcefully argued, the Bible simply cannot be taken seriously if the reality of eternal punishment is not accepted. Unfortunately, many people do not take the Bible seriously. Universalism is fueled not by biblical exegesis but by emotional preferences. Hell is simply incongruent with the way people want to feel about God. As Arthur Climenhaga has said, “The issue of the new universalism is no longer ‘God hath spoken’ but ‘Man hath reasoned.’” So this debate presents a challenge. Will we let Jesus be our Teacher in texts like Matthew 10:28 or will we not? The knowledge that those who are lost right now will, if they fail to receive salvation in the gospel of Christ, be lost in eternity is the reason our evangelism should be so urgent. So let me ask you: is the reason why we Christians are not any more urgent in our evangelism the fact that we don’t really believe the lost will be lost? Why is there so little passion to rescue the lost? Concerning hell, non-Christians need to accept what the Scriptures teach — and the evidence suggests that many Christians need to believe it too. "The true universalism of the Bible is the call to universal evangelism in obedience to Christ’s universal commission. It is the conviction not that all men will be saved in the end, but that all men must hear the gospel" (John Stott). Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

Learning About Love from God (June 28)

LEARNING ABOUT LOVE FROM GOD (JUNE 28) View on Website -- https://wordpoints.com/learning-love-from-god-june-28/ "Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, "Show us the Father"?'" (John 14:9). NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN OUR CONCEPT OF GOD. What we think of our Creator — both His character and His will — is the principal force that shapes our lives. Since ideas have consequences, the bigger the subject, the more our ideas need to be true. There being no bigger subject than God, we should be extremely careful. In the end, the way we have lived will have been the outworking of our real (not our pretended) beliefs about God. When Jesus said that “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32), He had more in mind than just the truth about God’s plan of salvation. I believe He meant, first and foremost, the truth about God Himself. The path that He has designed for our redemption must be accepted (untruths about God’s plan are deadly), but out of all the errors that must be corrected, none are more crucial than wrong ideas about God. The problem of sin arose when we started acting on the basis of falsehoods about Him, and if the problem is to be fixed, those falsehoods must be rooted out of our thinking. So let me ask you a practical question: what do you think about the “love of God”? And more importantly, where did you get those ideas? Most of us have some concept of what love is and how it behaves, but unfortunately those notions have often been picked up from pop psychology, pop theology, and even pop culture. Rather than letting our definition of love be formed by God, we imagine love as the world has taught us to see it, and we then transfer that shallow, sentimental view to God. Even when we flatter ourselves that we’ve gone beyond the worldly view to an understanding of “unconditional” love, we are still limited by the world’s concept of what love would actually do in specific situations. Clearly, our minds are still fettered by a good bit of untruth. Nothing about Jesus was more revolutionary than His exemplification of love. If we take all of what He did (and not just our favorite parts), even our most “advanced” ideas about love will be disrupted. It will be a disturbing, and truly liberating, experience. "The Christian does not understand God in terms of love; he understands love in terms of God as seen in Christ" (Joseph Fletcher). Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

Jesus’ Mission: He Came to Save Sinners (June 27)

JESUS' MISSION: HE CAME TO SAVE SINNERS (JUNE 27) View on Website -- https://wordpoints.com/jesus-mission-save-sinners-june-27/ "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Timothy 1:15). EVEN BEFORE JESUS DIED, PEOPLE DISAGREED AS TO WHAT HIS PURPOSE WAS. And those disagreements continue today. Whatever He may have done or not done, what was it that He intended to do? What was His mission (and His apostles’ mission) in this world? What is the main point of the gospel of Christ? In other words, if the gospel is the solution, what is the problem that it was meant to solve? Writing to his young coworker Timothy, Paul left no doubt about the object of Jesus’ work: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). This echoes Jesus’ own words, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Many secondary benefits flow from the forgiveness of our sins, but we must never forget the message Christ commanded to be preached in His name. Paul never forgot it, because many years later he recalled that Christ had sent him to the Gentiles “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). Christ ordered Paul to preach a specific message — and that message was about the forgiveness of sins. But going back to 1 Timothy 1:15, did you notice what Paul said about himself? Christ came into the world to save sinners, “of whom I am the foremost.” If we see the gospel as providing what others need most, the forgiveness of their sins, each of us should see our own need for the gospel very personally. And when forgiven, we must not suppose it took any less of God’s grace to forgive us than might have been required for a really “sinful” person. So let’s not misunderstand what Jesus came to do, and in our preaching, let’s not misrepresent what the gospel offers. Tempted to get lost in details and side issues, let’s come back to the center. The cancer the gospel proposes to cure is this: our sins against God. "We shall never understand anything of our Lord's preaching and ministry unless we continually keep in mind what exactly and exclusively his errand was in this world. Sin was his errand in this world, and it was his only errand. He would never have been in this world, either preaching or doing anything else, but for sin. He could have done everything else for us without coming down into this world at all; everything else but take away our sin" (Alexander White). Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

Learning About the Father From the Son (June 26)

LEARNING ABOUT THE FATHER FROM THE SON (JUNE 26) View on Website -- https://wordpoints.com/learning-about-father-from-son-june-26/ "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:15). IF YOU HAD DOUBTS ABOUT THE EXISTENCE OF GOD, WHAT IF SOMEONE TOLD YOU THAT HE HAD COME FROM THE PRESENCE OF GOD AND COULD PERSONALLY VOUCH FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE? And suppose that person gave compelling evidence that he was telling the truth? Well, that is exactly what we have in the case of Jesus. If (1) Jesus of Nazareth lived in the world as a real person, we need to pay attention to the historical data that can be known about Him. And if (2) a historical case can be made for the fact that His resurrection actually occurred, then He was not just a man but the Son of God. This crucial fact means that (3) of all the people who have ever lived, Jesus is the one who had the most direct information about God: everything Jesus said about God should inform our thinking on this, the most important issue in our lives. Jesus is described as “the faithful witness” (Revelation 1:5), which means He told the truth in everything He reported to mankind about God. He claimed He came from God, had direct knowledge of Him, and bore accurate testimony about Him. To one audience, He said, “I speak of what I have seen with my Father” (John 8:38). And He said to His disciples, “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). These are bold claims, but the resurrection proved them to be true. If Jesus said God is real, His testimony should supersede any doubts we may have, since we’ve never been where God is. If Jesus, by His teaching and example, contradicts our opinions about the nature of God, He was in a better position to know what God is like than we are. If Jesus gave commandments for our obedience, these must be seen as having the authority of God. And finally, if Jesus taught that God’s plan for our salvation was based on His death, we can stake our lives on that. It simply can’t be emphasized too much: Jesus is the ultimate proof of God — and of God’s true nature. "Jesus' claim to speak the things which he had 'seen' in the Father's presence (John 8:38) echoes his language in John 6:46: 'he who comes from God, he has seen the Father' . . . But no one can speak of heavenly realities except one who has come down from heaven and imparts to his hearers on earth what he has seen and heard in that transcendent realm" (F. F. Bruce). Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com

God’s Steadfast Love (June 25)

GOD’S STEADFAST LOVE (JUNE 25) View on Website -- https://wordpoints.com/gods-steadfast-love-june-25/ "'For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,' says the Lord, who has compassion on you" (Isaiah 54:10). ONE OF THE GREAT ANCHORS OF OUR CONFIDENCE IN GOD IS THE STEADFASTNESS OF HIS LOVE. Unlike our human love, which is tragically fickle and fluctuating, God’s love will still be there though “the mountains may depart and the hills be removed.” The Hebrew noun hesed is translated as “steadfast love” by some modern translations. Like many of the most meaningful words in any language, hesed is almost impossible to translate. There is no rendering for it that is entirely satisfactory, so translators have struggled to do it justice. Basically, hesed meant “mercy,” and in many contexts it comes close to the idea of “grace.” And yet it also has the connotation of “kindness.” To make matters even more complicated, when used in reference to God, hesed often connotes the covenantal aspect of God’s love, hence “steadfast love.” God’s love is enduring. It is, as Lois Tverberg says, “long acting love.” It would often take a sentence in English to say what Hebrew could say in one word, hesed — but for today’s meditation, let’s stick with “steadfast love.” Because God has entered into a “covenant” or “contract” with us, we can count on Him to be loving, kind, merciful, and gracious to us because He promised He would. The steadfastness of God’s love does not mean He will never discipline us. Indeed it is His love that will move Him to discipline us when that is what we need (Hebrews 12:5-11). Nor does God’s love mean He will not banish us from His presence in eternity if we persist in our earthly resistance to Him and refuse His offer of salvation. But until we have completely exhausted our opportunity to come back to Him and died in our rejection of His forgiveness, He will not give up on us. He will keep His covenant. I don’t know about you, but I’m mighty glad that God’s love is steadfast. Were it not for His lovingkindness, this weak son of His would have been disinherited long, long ago. And, in Christ, I yearn for the sweet day when I shall be able to thank Him more properly. "The love of God is consistent and cannot be altered or deterred. His love stands firmly fixed as the motive for all He asks and for all He provides. His love never changes" (Dee Bowman). Gary Henry - WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com For more information, visit http://AreYouaChristian.com