God Gives Us Free Will (And A Lot Of Responsibility!) - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 14:1-2,

“At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.”

There is an underlying truth in these verses about the way God has wired us that is quite sobering to me. It is that God has given each of us a free will. In these two verses we see people who have exercised their own volition to bring about two very different outcomes of many people.

As I think of salvation, I think of that which determines the destiny of each one of us. Will we spend an eternity in the agonizing torment of the Lake of Fire or will we enter into the resurrection of life and spend an eternity in the endless pleasures of enjoying our Lord God and all he has created us for?

As Paul and Barnabas take the gospel message to Iconium, this is what lies in the balance for each of the individuals they had the opportunity to reach. I recognize that God gifted Paul and Barnabas with those things that would enable them to take the gospel to previously un-reached regions and that the Holy Spirit himself commissioned Paul and Barnabas to just this task at hand. But there is something to notice in this passage.

We are told that there were “a great number of Jews and Gentiles” that believed the message that Paul and Barnabas brought. The cause for it, according to Acts 14:1, was that Paul and Barnabas “spoke so effectively”. Certainly this is an exercise of the gifts the Holy Spirit had endowed them with, but just as certain was the willingness and effort these two men took in order to speak effectively.

Just because we are gifted by God to serve him with the work he wants us to do does not mean it happens automatically, or that we will even comply with what God wants done. This is why Peter exhorts his readers to use the gifts given them to serve others, 1 Peter 4:10. Why exhort readers to use the gifts they have received from God unless a choice needs to be made to do so? I see a wonderful coming together of the Holy Spirit and the commitment of two godly men that result in the saving of many in Iconium. While other disciples might be discussing theology in the coffee shop, Paul and Barnabas are out making things happen for the Kingdom of God because they made a choice to do so.

Another thing I notice is the opposition to Paul and Barnabas by those “who refused to believe”. They made their choice and the text could not be clearer. They themselves refused to believe. They were culpable for the choice they made. It was not made for them. They made a conscious decision to refuse the gospel message.

Free will is an awesome thing. With it we can serve our God and participate with him in the change of outcomes of many: from eternal damnation to eternal life. Also with it, we can refuse our God and suffer the consequences that such a horrific choice will certainly bring, and possibly influence others to do so as well.

God has given us a wonderful thing in providing us with free will. But, as I say, how sobering it is to consider the responsibility and eternal destiny that flows from the exercise of it.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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Complete Forgiveness Through Jesus Christ - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:38-39,

“I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the Law of Moses.”

It is the law that condemns us to an eternity in hell. God gave the law through Moses and it shows us how unlike God we are, as it expresses the nature and character of God.

Jesus taught us how to apply the law to our lives in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:21-22 we read that, let alone murder, anger toward our brother is enough to cast us into the “fire of hell”. He told us if we have looked at a woman “lustfully” we have already committed adultery with her in our heart, Matthew 5: 27-28.

In Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus said that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it and that nothing will be taken away from the Law until “everything is accomplished”. This leaves us all condemned to an eternity in hell.

That is the bad news.

But the good news, the gospel, is that through Jesus Christ we will be forgiven for “everything you could not be justified from by the Law of Moses”.

All of us who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith will be forgiven of all the sins we have ever committed. Every thought, every feeling, every word, every action that has violated the Law will be forgiven.

Every man, every woman and every child who has come into the world stands condemned before our holy and righteous God. But, because of our wonderful Savior, who has paid the price for all of our sins, we now have a certain future of eternal blessings.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.” John 5:24-27.

Just how wonderful is that?!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God's Boundless Love Makes Forgiveness Possible! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:38-39,

"Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses."
 
When Paul and Barnabas got to Pisidian Antioch they went to the synagogue and proclaimed the gospel to the folks there.

At the heart of his message, as always, was his point that through Jesus Christ the forgiveness of sins is available by faith (alone). Earning forgiveness by serving God by the law will never bring justification.

As the judge of all creation, God’s justice always prevails, and we all face a certain fate of eternal death because of sin.

But now, through Jesus Christ’s death on the cross, we have forgiveness of sins for everyone who embraces him in faith.

How remarkable that God would choose to send his Son to take our punishment! What a boundless love that is expressed here!

Today I worship our God of boundless love that has provided us believers forgiveness of sins and eternal life with him!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God Always Fulfills His Promises! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:32-33,

“We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father.’”

As Paul addressed the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he related the gospel message with a truth about God that has withstood the test of all mankind’s entire experience: “What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled…”!

Faith is predicated on the notion of fulfilled promise. Will our Creator do what he says he wil dol? The answer to that question is as certain as our very existence itself: what God promises, he will do. He told Adam and Eve, if they ate from the tree in the garden they would die. He promised to send his Savior to the world and he did. God has made promises, and he always, without fail, thoroughly fulfills every one of them!

The basis of our salvation is faith. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, Romans 4:3, 4:9, 4:22, Galatians 3:6. Paul brings this out clearly in Romans 4:19-22, “Without weakening in his faith, he [Abraham] faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness.’”

Just as Abraham’s faith in God’s promises was rewarded, so is ours today, as Paul goes on to explain in Romans 4:23-24, “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”

Nothing in all of life is more certain than the fulfilled promises of God!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ Authenticates Who He Is! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:30-33a,

“God raised him [Jesus Christ] from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.”

Here is an astonishing message! Jesus has been raised from the dead!

As Paul preaches to the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, he tells them Jesus is the Savior that God had promised the patriarchs of Israel centuries earlier!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ authenticates all God has said and all Jesus taught while he was here. Whatever we learn from our Bibles is true and authoritative, as God has demonstrated to all men that Jesus Christ is exactly who he said he was when he was here - by raising him from the dead.

Our belief in this truth brings us salvation. "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9. "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you." Romans 8:11. Our sins are forgiven and we will be raised from the dead as well!

As we read of all of the blessings that are ours through our embracing Jesus Christ in faith, and of the horrific judgment for those who reject God’s one and only Savior, we best heed what is said! “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24.

No Muhammad, no Joseph Smith, no other individual who has ever asserted himself as someone of importance has this authentication.

Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone has been raised from the dead, never to die again!

“I [Jesus Christ] am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God Can Use Even Our Worst Impulses For His Purposes! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:27-31,

“The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.”

It is amazing to me how it is that God can use even the sinful impulses of mankind to carry out his purposes. God sent his Son into the world to provide a sacrifice to pay for the sins of all mankind.

Paul tells us in Romans 3:25, “God presented him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

John tells us in 1 John 4:10, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

And Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Also, in Luke 19:10 Jesus simply says, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

For those unfamiliar with their Bibles, Jesus saves us from God’s wrath, his judgment of our sins, (and every soul that has lived has sinned.) He died in our place, to take the punishment due us onto himself.

As Paul spoke to the people of Pisidian Antioch, he noted that it was the failure of the people and rulers of Jerusalem to recognize God’s Son, so far removed from God they were, that in their jealousy and hostility to the One sent from God, they asked Pilate to put him to death. Without grounds for a death sentence, they demanded that Jesus be put to death, so great was their murderous hostility. In this, God used these sinful impulses of man to bring about his own agenda, something far beyond the small-minded purposes of sinful man: in God’s great love he brought about redemption for them!

The transcendence of God is something to behold! Nothing any of us can come up with is beyond our Creator’s ability to manipulate and/or use for his own purposes!

As Paul articulates in his wonderful doxology of Romans 11:33-36, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God Sends His Word To The World! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:5,

“When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues.”

As I read of the beginning of Barnabas’ and Paul’s first missionary trip, I see that it was “the word of God” they proclaimed at their first port of call at Salamis on the island of Cyprus.

As we continue to read of the events that took place, it was the word of God that Paul and his team carried into new territories. The message they took was not the word of the church, the word of the denomination, the word of this or that new  movement. It wasn’t the word of some new world religion or the latest teaching from some seminary or university. It was the word of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Not the traditions developed or the doctrines hammered out at the epicenter of Antioch: It was the word of God himself.

In that town we are introduced to a “sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus”, Acts 13:6. Saul (Paul) and Barnabas were opposed by this man and Paul condemned him as a man who never stopped “perverting the right ways of the Lord.”

Not the ways of Paul and Barnabas and not the ways of the church in Antioch. Not the ways of the early New Testament church, not the ways of the circumcised believers nor the ways of the Gentile believers, it was the ways of the Lord that Bar-Jesus was opposing as Paul and Barnabas brought the word of God to Cyprus.

We are told it was “the word of God” that the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, wanted to hear that Bar-Jesus was in such opposition against. Imagine the insanity of opposing God!

Two men, Paul and Barnabas, (three if we include John Mark), who set out on a journey to take the very words of God to mankind!

We’re talking about the words of the Creator of the cosmos: it is his communication to mankind that Paul and Barnabas are taking to these new areas!

The more I think of it the more astonishing I find it!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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