Cut Flowers - Eric Metaxas

Q. But right-thinking people want to do good...right?

A. Of course. But it is as if we're cut flowers. We might look great, but we are dying. We've been cut off from our Source. And He wants to reattach us so that His life can flow through us again.

But many people say, "Hey, I'm looking great! Check out the color of my petals! The bees are all over me!"

But because we're cut flowers, it's only a matter of time until we wither and die. It's inevitable. Without God we have no life, no goodness that lasts. We were meant to live forever, but until God reattaches us to Him--until we choose to allow Him to do that--we have no eternal life.

--From Everything You Always Wanted to Know about God...by Eric Metaxas...

       I am the vine; you are the branches.

 If a man remains in Me and I in him,

he will bear much fruit;

apart from Me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

Lord's Supper - John Stott

Thoughts from John Stott:

During the meal in the upper room Jesus took bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19).

These are immensely significant words and actions, for they tell us Jesus's own view of his death.

Three truths stand out:

1. The first is the centrality of his death. Jesus was giving his own instructions for his memorial service. They were to eat bread and drink wine in memory of him. Moreover, the bread would stand not for his living body but for his body given for them and the wine for his blood shed for them. In other words, death would speak from both the elements.
 So it was by his death that he wished to be remembered.

2. The second truth we learn from the Lord's supper concerns the purpose of Jesus's death. According to Matthew, the cup stood for "my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matt 26:28).

This is the truly fantastic claim that through the shedding of his blood in death God would establish the new covenant promised through Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31), one of whose greatest promises was the forgiveness of sins.

3. The third truth taught by the Lord's Supper concerns the need for us to appropriate personally the benefits of Jesus's death.

For in the drama of the upper room the disciples were not spectators only but participants. Jesus not only broke the bread but gave it to them to eat. Similarly, he not only poured the wine, but gave it to them to drink.

Just so, it was not enough for Christ to die; we have to make the blessings of his death our own. The eating and the drinking were, and still are, a vividly acted parable of receiving Christ as our crucified Savior and of feeding on him in our hearts by faith.

The Lord's Supper, as instituted by Jesus, was evidently not meant to be a slightly sentimental "forget me not" service; it was rather a drama rich in spiritual significance.

What Does Prayer Really Do? C S Lewis

 

                          

                    What Does Prayer Really Do? C S Lewis

"Prayer is either a sheer illusion or a personal contact between embryonic, incomplete persons (ourselves) and the utterly complete Person.

Prayer, in the sense of petition, asking for things, is a small part of it; confession and penitence are its threshold, adoration its sanctuary, the presence and vision and the enjoyment of God its bread and wine.

In it God shows Himself to us."

So in prayer God shows Himself to us....don't we usually get it backwards?

Important People We Never Heard Of -- #1

 

There was a farmer in North Carolina, in the 1930's, who greatly influenced history.

He was a Christian and excited about a revival going on near him. The preacher, Mordecai Ham, was well-known and great crowds were attending and many were receiving Christ as their Savior.

The farmer decided to invite his neighbors to attend the meetings with him and he loaded them into his pickup!

A sixteen-year old boy joined the group. Every night he went to the revival and the farmer kept praying for his salvation.

Finally, the last night, the lad went forward and received Christ as his Savior.

That young man was Billy Graham!

Just think how the world has changed, for millions of people, by that farmer's obedience to proclaim God's message. 

Today's challenge: we might not have a pickup, but we have a multitude of other ways to get out the joyous message of freedom in Christ. God loves us and invites us to co-partner with him to change people and so change the world. We don't have  to be famous, or rich, or powerful. God can use us just as we are! With or without a pickup! 

How can He use you today?

My Worst Day - Jerry Bridges

Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord (Ephesians 5:10).


Does He care?

The good news of the gospel is that God's grace is available on our worst days.

That's true because Christ fully satisfied the claims of God's justice and fully paid the penalty of the broken law when He died on the cross in our place. Because of that, Paul could write, "He forgave us all our sins" (Colossians 2:13).

Does this mean God no longer cares whether we obey or disobey? Not at all. The Scripture speaks of our grieving the Holy Spirit through our sins (Ephesians 4:30).  And Paul prayed that we "may please God in every way" (Colossians 1:10).

Clearly, He cares about conduct and will discipline us when we refuse to repent of conscious sin. But God is no longer our Judge. Through Christ He is now our heavenly Father who disciplines us only out of love and only for our good.

If God's blessings were dependent on our performance, they would be meager indeed. Even our best works are shot through with sin--with varying degrees of impure motives and lots of imperfect performance.

We're always, to some degree, looking out for ourselves, guarding our flanks, protecting our egos. It's because we don't realize the utter depravity of the principle of sin remaining in us and staining everything we do that we entertain any notion of earning God's blessings through our obedience.

And because we don't fully grasp that Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins, we despair of God's blessing when we've failed to live up to even our own desires to please God.

Your worst days are never so bad that you're beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you're beyond the need of God's grace.