TerryLema

Romans 5:17: “How much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” [NIV]

There are two phrases in that verse that just ring out … “How much more” is the first. The NKJV simply says, “much more,” but either way it’s a stand-out! Paul had been writing about how sin, condemnation, and death entered the human race through the actions of one man, Adam. Then he goes on to write about how the actions of a second man, Jesus the Christ, did so much more. Through His cross (life, death, resurrection and ascension), Christ Jesus brought life, justification, and righteousness to all who come to Him in faith.

The second phrase that rings out in the verse is “abundant provision of grace.” The NKJV simply says, “abundance of grace.” The Greek word means superabundance.

Yesterday we looked at God’s provision of grace as sufficient for every trial we face. It is the means by which we stand steadfast and unmovable in every storm and difficulty of life. [2 Cor 12:9]

But I was reminded this morning that God’s provision of grace is not just sufficient for the storms and trials, it is superabundant so that we might reign in life, so that we might be more than conquerors. Victory is ours, guaranteed, when we appropriate the superabundant provision of grace that God willingly gives us in Christ Jesus.

Let me say that again … maybe we should read it out loud … victory is ours, guaranteed, when we appropriate the superabundant provision of grace that God willingly gives us in Christ Jesus! Amen!

“My grace is sufficient for you.” [2 Cor 12:9 NIV]

It is in the times of greatest trials that we prove this promise to be true. If we were never tried or poor or needy, how would we know the depths of God’s grace?  Spurgeon wrote: “The master-works of God are those men [and women] who stand in the midst of difficulties, stedfast, unmoveable,– ‘Calm mid the bewildering cry, Confident of victory.’ He who would glorify his God must set his account upon meeting with many trials.”

How many times have I cried out in worship, “Oh God, be glorified in my life!” I forget the “many trials” that will often lead the way.

Glorifying God requires obedience. It requires sacrifice. It requires picking up my cross daily and following Christ Jesus. Glorying God requires the spirit of John the Baptizer, “He must increase, I must decrease.”

Glorying God cannot be achieved in our own strength, however. It cannot be achieved through willpower. It requires the all-sufficient grace of God. When Paul faced his toughest challenge, he cried out to God in prayer three times for healing. God’s promise was that His grace was sufficient – it was enough. It was all Paul would need to be triumphant.

What are you facing? Are the trials of life many and deep? Then be comforted, beloved, God’s grace is available, and it is sufficient. It will be enough to make you “stand in the midst of difficulties, stedfast, unmoveable.”

Psalms 103:1-5: My soul, praise the LORD, and do not forget all His benefits. He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases. He redeems your life from the Pit; He crowns you with faithful love and compassion. He satisfies you with goodness; your youth is renewed like the eagle.    [CSB]

Do not forget – is the way Psalm 103 begins. And then just in case we have forgotten, the author reminds us what we should remember.

We are to remember that the LORD Almighty forgives all our sins and heals all our diseases. When we approach Him in faith, with true repentance, He forgives (and forgets) our sins. That means He will never hold them against us. He heals our diseases, things like bitterness, loneliness, anger and greed. Sometimes He will heal us physically, and we know that when we enter His presence one day, even our bodies will be new and like His glorious one.

The Lord redeems us from “the Pit” and crowns us with faithful love and compassion. I remember “the Pit” that held me before Christ Jesus lifted me from it. I remember the pit of sin and its promise of judgment and death. He lifted me from that and set my feet upon a rock—and that rock is Christ. Now I am promised crowns instead of destruction. Now I am flooded with His faithfulness, love, and compassion, no longer an enemy of God.

I am satisfied with goodness and renewed with the strength of young eagles. Every good and perfect gift that comes from the Father is mine. My exterior may be weak, but my interior, my spirit and my soul, soar with Him.

We are to remember what He has done. We are not to forget all His benefits. What a gracious God we serve!

Ever wondered what it must have been like for the residents of Jericho when Joshua and the Israelites crossed over the Jordan River?  They had heard the stories of what Israel had done to the kings on the other side of the river. Now, Joshua 6 tells us, they were shut inside the city because of fear.

God commanded Joshua to have seven priests march ahead of the Ark around the city, each blowing a ram’s horn. The entire army was to march with them (counted as 603,550 in Numbers 14). They were to march around the city once a day for six days, and then on the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times. They were not to speak at all until Joshua told them to shout on the seventh day. “Do not shout; do not even talk,” Joshua commanded. “Not a single word from any of you until I tell you to shout. Then shout!” [Josh 6:10 NLT]

How unnerving that must have been for Jericho’s residents—the Ark, the priests blowing trumpets, the silent army.

There was only one person in the city who had any hope of a happy ending. She had gathered her relatives into her house marked by the scarlet cord. She was probably the least likely one to be saved—Rahab the harlot inn-keeper who hid Israel’s spies when they were sent into the city to explore the situation. And who would have thought that this survivor of Jericho, this professional prostitute, would end up in the lineage of King David, his great-great grandmother. [Matthew 1:5-6]

Last night as I slept the line of a song kept repeating in my mind … “Oh to be a friend of God. How sweet to be a friend of God.” What an amazing God! He numbers His friends from the great (Abraham the patriarch, Daniel the prophet) to the lowly (Rahab the prostitute, Levi the tax collector). Do you hear Him calling you His friend?

You were one of the lucky ones. You arrived early and are now sitting and listening to Jesus preach. Others, not so lucky, are standing outside or hanging in the windows. Suddenly dirt and grass and pebbles begin to fall from the ceiling. A bright light appears as the roof of the house is torn apart. You look up and see four men begin to lower a litter containing their paralyzed friend. (Read the story in Luke 5:17-26)

Luke tells us that the power to heal was present with Jesus. Initially, He forgives the paralyzed man’s sins but after a minor debate with the religious authorities present, Jesus also heals him physically.  Then “everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe. And they praised God, saying over and over again, ‘We have seen amazing things today.’” [Luke 5:26 NLT]

They certainly had, but the day was not over. They were about to see something perhaps even more amazing.  “Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax-collection booth. ‘Come, be my disciple!’ Jesus said to him. So Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.” [vs27-28]

A despised tax collector? In those days, tax collectors could gouge as much as they wanted from people over and above what they were required to collect. They were instruments of Rome, hated and shunned. Even though they were Jews, they were treated like the worst kinds of sinners and prostitutes.

And when Jesus saw Levi, He said, “Come, be my disciple!”  No one, not even those considered by society to be among the worst kinds of sinners, is beyond the scope of God’s salvation. No one, not Levi, not me, not you. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen.

I was walking on my treadmill the other day since it was one of those wintery days outside and walking on the icy sidewalks isn’t what I wanted to do. I was reading in Psalms as I walked. (My Kindle fits just perfectly on the treadmill.) Psalm 96 gave instructions to “sing a new song.” It also directed me to declare and proclaim the glory of the LORD to the nations and to all people.

Midway through the song there was another command.  “Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.” [vs9 NIV]

“The splendor of his holiness….” Our God is Holy. His Holiness is His splendor. The word that the NIV translates as splendor is defined as “beauty, honor.” If there is anything about God’s Holiness that is vivid in Scripture it is that when man comes face to face with it, he comes undone. Remember Isaiah when he saw the vision of God high and lifted up and the seraphs crying, holy, holy, holy? [Isa 6]

Verse 9 commands us to worship God according to His Holiness. When we do that the result will be that we will, as Isaiah did, “tremble before Him.”  When we enter the presence of God, it will become apparent that one of us needs to change, and it won’t be God. It will be us.

I love to praise and sing and clap and dance freely in God’s presence as I think about His salvation and all He has done for us. But I need to also remember He is Holy, and that I need a good healthy “trembling” before Him also as I worship Him.

I love this time of year in Idaho. Some days are winter, some are almost spring-like. It can be confusing at times to wake up to snow when we were walking outside in shirtsleeves the day before. It was pretty cold last Monday, and overnight we got 3-4” of new snow in Caldwell. It continued snowing throughout the morning. I had to get lab work done at 8 AM and then off to the bank and Walmart, so I put the Jeep in 4-wheel drive and headed out. I took my time, reminding myself that 4-wheel drive helps you go but doesn’t help you stop!

In the Walmart parking lot, I was met by employees in heavy coats spreading ice melt and shoveling out the basket return areas and clearing the walkways around the handicapped parking. When I walked into the store I started to laugh. At the entrance against one wall were stacks of snow shovels and ice melt. On the opposite wall someone had recently set up a display of summer patio furniture, BBQs, and beach toys. I know it’s getting a bit warmer each week, but we still aren’t to the place where we are ready for beach toys!

Anticipation!  Walmart knows springtime and summer will come and they are making preparation for when they do arrive. They don’t want to be caught unawares or unprepared when people want patio furniture or beach balls.

Temptation! We need to be aware that it will come, and we should be preparing now for when it does arrive. We need to decide what we should be doing, or not doing. We need to know our vulnerabilities and have made plans to shore up those areas where we are most often tempted.  Jesus warned us to “Watch and pray so that [we] will not fall into temptation.”  [Matthew 26:41]

Watch! That means to be aware that we will be tempted and must be prepared to handle it.

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” [Revelation 3:20 NIV]

We probably recognize the verse above from Jesus’ message to the lukewarm church at Laodicea.  I’m sure we are also familiar with the pictures of Jesus standing on the outside of the door knocking for entrance.

The verse that precedes that verse is a verse about discipline that leads to repentance. “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.” [3:19]

Take a moment and read those two verses again, beginning with verse 19 and then verse 20, the way they are in the message Jesus had for the Laodicean church.

Jesus’ reminds us that it is out of His love for us that He disciplines us. Discipline is the knock at the door of our hearts.  Our part is to earnestly repent and open our hearts when we hear Him. It is then that fellowship with the Living Lord Jesus is restored.

Lord, I open my heart to your discipline. I want nothing to close the door of my heart to Your love and fellowship. Amen.

We watched much of the 2018 Winter Olympics. I enjoyed the cross-country skiing, bob-sledding and some of the snowboarding events. Loved the USA-Canada hockey game, but I’m not sure about curling.  What I really enjoyed were the backstories. It made the games more personal to know about the athletes and how they got there.

It was evident that each athlete was highly disciplined. I remember an interview with a bob-sled pilot who said that people thought they started ‘practicing’ for events just before the Olympics, when the truth was as soon as they finished one Olympics they were back to training for the next one in four years.  That’s discipline.

Ps 94:12: “Blessed is the man you discipline, O LORD, the man you teach from your law.” [NIV]

Discipline.  Everybody who loves discipline raise your hand! Be interesting to know how many did, wouldn’t it? Discipline is probably not something we love. It is, however, a necessary part of life, especially our Christian life. Sometimes discipline is self-imposed, as with Olympic athletes. Sometimes discipline is imposed by others; we tend to think of that as punishment. I think the discipline definition I like best is “training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.”

The psalmist reminds us of one thing about discipline that we tend to overlook—blessing. We are blessed when the LORD disciplines us. Thank you, LORD, for training and teaching us from Your Word. Amen.

1 Tim 6:9-11:  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. [NIV]

We are to flee from the love of money, flee from the many griefs that come when we chase after wealth. John D. Rockefeller started Standard Oil.  Rockefeller was at one point the world’s richest man and first ever American billionaire.  He became a billionaire in the early 1900’s so many consider him the richest person in modern history.  When a reporter asked him, “How much money is enough?” He responded, “Just a little bit more.”

The unfortunate thing about the pursuit of wealth is that it never ends. It’s always, “just a little bit more.”

Paul tells us that we (children of God) are to have different pursuits. We are to pursue godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. These pursuits have eternal value. We are to be eager for godliness to rise in our lives. We are to have faith and love increase more and more. Endurance will pay many dividends as we go through life’s difficulties. And gentleness … gentleness reaps a wonderful reward.

Money, wealth, stuff remain on this side of the veil. Godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness fill our eternal bank account on the other side!

Father, may we always eagerly pursue the things that truly matter!  Amen.