The Gospel: Removing Blindness - 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 26:17b-18, “I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” As Paul recounts the confrontation by the Lord on the road to Damascus he tells Agrippa, Bernice and Festus the work assignment given him from the Lord. He is to open the eyes of the people, turn them from darkness to light and turn them from the power of Satan to God. All people who have not come to embrace Jesus Christ in faith live in darkness. A spiritual darkness that cloaks the things of God prevents them from acknowledging who God is, what he is like, why we are here, where we are going and what the purpose of life is all about. Even the best of theologians, students of the Bible and religious leaders persist in a darkness, blinded from the things of God if they have not embraced Jesus Christ in faith. This is exactly what we see with the religious leaders of the day that Jesus castigated in Matthew 23:16. “Woe to you, blind guides…” Jesus quotes Isaiah 6:10 when he speaks of the blinding of the hearts of men who have no faith, John 12:40. Paul tells us the “god of this age” blinds the minds of unbelievers, 2 Corinthians 4:1-6. But through the gospel message, when it is received in faith this blindness is lifted. Of the gospel Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” Romans 1:16-17. The gospel holds the power to remove our blindness, remove us from the power of Satan, bring us forgiveness and provide us a place among those who are made holy by faith in Jesus Christ! How wonderful is this gospel message! 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

Amazing What God Does! - 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 26:16b-18, “I [Jesus] have appeared to you [Paul] to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” As I read the account of Paul’s commissioning by the Lord, I see the Lord will use Paul to: Reach Jews and Gentiles alike – everyone. Open their eyes – provide a new spiritual discernment that accompanies the gospel message. Turn them from darkness (lost in godlessness) to light (to God – Jesus said “I am the light of the world”) From the power of Satan to God (freedom from our enslavement to Satan!) Forgiveness of sins (freedom from the penalty of sin!) Membership in the community of those set apart (sanctified) for God! What the Lord did through this man Paul changed the world forever! It is just astonishing what the Lord did (and can do) with someone as hostile to him as Saul! 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

A Consequential Question - 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 26:8, "Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?" As Paul gives his defense in front of King Agrippa, he asks this pregnant question. Pregnant because contained within the answer a man may give lay the certainty of one of two outcomes for his future: eternal life or eternal death – there exists no other outcome to the matter. If we consider resurrection (God raising the dead) “incredible” (meant here in the sense of “absurd”) we make God out to be a liar and remain in our sin, condemned to eternal death. However, if we consider the matter and embrace the truth and reality of resurrection, we find ourselves before our Heavenly Creator who is just as able to raise the dead as he had in bringing us into existence in the first place. I think a reasonable man would have to admit that it is more incredible that we find ourselves in existence in this life than that life continues following the death of our physical bodies leading to resurrection. And from this recognition of truth lies the potential to embrace Jesus Christ through faith, bringing eternal life! These thoughts bring to my mind how wonderful our creator God is in bringing each of us into existence, and beyond that, to make a way for us to eternal life in heaven with him through the sacrificial death of his Son on the cross. We turned our backs to God, rejected and rebelled against him. Yet in his boundless love for us he has made a way for us to eternal life with him: the resurrection of life! "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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved." Romans 10:9-10. 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

Jesus Makes It 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 26:6-7, “It is because of my hope in what God has promised our fathers that I am on trial today. This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. O king, it is because of this hope that the Jews are accusing me.” The Jews of Paul’s day were “earnestly” serving God day and night in order to receive the promise of the resurrection of life. As Paul says, this was their hope they were looking for. But for the Jews, this would be a futile hope. Their earnest serving of God was based on the notion that the hope of the Jews was obtainable by works, not faith. Paul says in Romans 9:30-33, “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone.’ As it is written: ‘See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’” Our participation in the resurrection of life is available only through faith. It is the faith modeled by Abraham in the book of Genesis that brings a righteous standing with God. “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” Genesis 15:6. The type of faith that Abraham modeled for us all was the type that manifests itself in life choices we make to serve God. James provides a wonderful explanation of this in James 2:18-24, "But someone will say, 'You have faith; I have deeds.' Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,' and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. How wonderful my participation in the resurrection of life is not dependent on my performance or I wouldn’t make it! It is my faith in the performance of Jesus Christ that brings the hope of that promise to fulfillment! What I do as a believer (my performance) manifests the saving kind of faith in my life that Abraham modeled for us. As Paul told King Agrippa, "I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds." How wonderful Jesus has made heaven possible for us! 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ Speaks Of What Is Coming - 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 25:18-19, “When his [Paul’s] accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I [Governor Festus] had expected. Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” When King Agrippa and Bernice came to call on the newly appointed governor, Festus, to pay their respects, Festus told Agrippa about Paul’s case. In his summary of it he observed that the nature of it was a dispute among the Jews of their religion and “about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” The dead man Jesus is alive! The world wants nothing to do with a dead man who is alive. If Jesus foretold his death and resurrection and if he did actually die and rise to life as he said he would, then all he taught is authenticated. It would mean that God’s coming judgment for sin is certain! For those who prefer to stay in the darkness because of their evil deeds, the resurrection of Jesus portends the certainty of a horrific future. On the other hand, for those of us who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith, his resurrection provides us every certainty of our own resurrection to a new life spent with God- in an eternity devoid of sin, sorrow, suffering and pain. Beyond the absence of these things is the promise of eternal pleasures, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Psalm 16:11b. This is certainly an exciting hope we have! But for the unbelieving Jews, the awareness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was something that had to be eradicated from the nation. Paul explains why in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16a, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.” No wonder they wanted Paul put to death! 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ Speaks Of What Is Coming - 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 25:18-19, “When his [Paul’s] accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I [Governor Festus] had expected. Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” When King Agrippa and Bernice came to call on the newly appointed governor, Festus, to pay their respects, Festus told Agrippa about Paul’s case. In his summary of it he observed that the nature of it was a dispute among the Jews of their religion and “about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” The dead man Jesus who is alive! The world wants nothing to do with a dead man who is alive! If Jesus foretold his death and resurrection and if he did actually die and rise to life as he said he would, then all he taught is authenticated. It would mean that God’s coming judgment for sin is certain! For those who prefer to stay in the darkness because of their evil deeds, the resurrection of Jesus portends the certainty of a horrific future. On the other hand, for those of us who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith, his resurrection provides us every certainty of our own resurrection to a new life spent with God- in an eternity devoid of sin, sorrow, suffering and pain. Beyond the absence of these things is the promise of eternal pleasures, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Psalm 16:11b. This is certainly an exciting hope we have! But for the unbelieving Jews, the awareness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was something that had to be eradicated from the nation. Paul explains why in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16a, “For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.” No wonder they wanted Paul put to death! 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.

Jesus' Authenticating Resurrection - 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 25:18-19, “When his [Paul’s] accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected. Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.” When Governor Festus explained Paul’s case to King Agrippa, he told Agrippa he unexpectedly found that Paul’s accusers pointed to religious issues and “a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive” when they had brought their charges against him. As Christians we are very acquainted with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a truth that I have become familiar with and am used to hearing about, as well as speaking of myself. But stepping back to consider anew the ramifications of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I find it a startling authentication of all Jesus spoke of, lived out, and made promise of when here on planet earth. Imagine: someone coming back after being dead for three days and speaking of the Kingdom of God and the things to come! Realizing that this person who had died and come back to life was God in the flesh himself provides all the motivation I need to want to know all he has to say about this life, as well as the life to come. The resurrection of Jesus Christ proves the claims he made of himself, the judgment to come and the redemption from sin we can all have if we embrace him in faith. 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! If you have someone you would like to receive these ruminations, send me their email address. I'm happy to add them to the list. If you are receiving this and would like to be removed from the list, just reply and let me know.