Worship for Today: Boasting in the cross of Jesus Christ.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 6:14,

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

Where Paul accuses the false teachers, who attempted to lead the
Galatian churches astray, of wanting to boast in the number of
circumcisions they were able to effect (something akin to believers
today boasting in how many souls they have "let to Christ"), Paul
tells his readers the only thing he would ever want to boast of is the
cross of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Paul's point is that, unlike these false teachers, there is really
nothing about himself that he would ever care to boast of... but of
his Lord, well, now, that is entirely a different story. I can picture
sitting down with Paul and listening to him say of Jesus Christ, "Let
me tell you about our wonderful Savior... just look at what he has
done!" In glowing and excited terms he would tell us all about how the
Lord he loves came to earth to die a miserable death, how, out of his
great love for us, he endured the cross to secure our future with him.
Paul would speak of the wonderful love our Lord has for each one of us
and how he wants each one of us for himself. He would speak of the
extent to which Jesus Christ was willing to go to save us from our
heavenly Father's justice, a fate of none other than an eternity spent
in a fiery lake of burning sulfur.

Paul loved his Lord and like so many other believers, I do as well.
All of us should be like those grandmothers who walk up to
acquaintances, pull out the wallet of pictures of the grand kids and
exclaim with unbridled pride, "let me show you my grandchildren!"

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: The value of Jesus Christ.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 5:2,

"Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be
circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all."

As Paul continues to point to the uselessness of turning from the
gospel of grace to the law, he warns his hearers: if you do this
"Christ will be of no value to you at all." This causes me to think of
the value Jesus Christ holds in my own life.

Certainly the chief value of Jesus Christ to anyone is that we can
obtain a right standing with God as our judge through him. He died for
the sins of mankind and so his value is inestimable to any one of us.

Other things that hold value: bank accounts, possessions, retirement
(at my advanced age...), family, children and grandchildren are all
things that are important. My wife, marriage, our home, friends and
relatives all hold value. The value of any of these things is defined
by what I invest in any one of them. My time, my resources, my
talents, whatever it is God has given me, help express what holds
value in my life by how much I invest those things in what I deem of
value to me.

In a very self-centered way, I can say that what holds value to me
does so because of what it represents to me, what it brings me, how it
effects my life. All I have listed here holds obvious value to me for
the likewise obvious reasons. But what about Jesus Christ? Of what
value is he to me? Here is someone who loves me, for no apparent
reason whatsoever. Given all of my faults, my shortcomings and sins,
all of the blemishes in my own character and nature, he nevertheless
loves me. He loves me so much that he was willing to take my sins on
himself and die a miserable death on that cross. He loves me so much,
he made a way for me to become a co-heir with him of all our Heavenly
Father gives him. He loves me so much he sent someone to me with the
gospel message, that I might hear of him and all he has done for me.
He loves me so much he sent the Holy Spirit to be my constant
companion, that my life might begin to bear the fruit of what defines
his character and nature. Jesus Christ has sealed me, guaranteeing my
place at his Father's table, providing me eternal and abundant life!

To contemplate rendering Jesus Christ of no value to me is beyond
comprehension. He is of the greatest possible value to me and
certainly worthy of investing all I have for what he desires.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Jesus Christ has redeemed believers!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 4:4-5,

"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman,
born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the
full rights of sons."

When I was a kid, some of the stores we shopped in carried S&H Green
Stamps. The stamps were an incentive the store used to get customers
to come into their place of business. When you bought something you
received the stamps to paste in a book. When you had enough books,
you took them to an S&H Green Stamp redemption store where the books
could be exchanged for all kinds of things you might want: cameras,
radios, tableware, etc. You got stuff by taking the stamps in to
redeem it.

In this passage, Paul talks about Jesus Christ redeeming people who
were under the condemnation of the law. Because all people are
sinners, all are law breakers. The Son of God came to redeem those
under the law, condemned to an eternity in the lake of fire. He did
this by taking our punishment on himself when he died on the cross.
This secured our "redemption".

God did this to purchase for himself a people he wanted for himself,
to populate his kingdom, his family. God had decided before time began
that he wanted to purchase from his own judgment all those who would
embrace him in faith. Now that we have been redeemed, we have received
"the full rights of sons". This is because we are now co-heirs with
his Son, Jesus Christ, Romans 8:17.

When you think about this, and think on it more, how can it not result
in a tremendous outpouring of appreciation on our behalf for what God
has done? How could anything be more awesome, more fantastic than
this? And to think that God did this for people who had gone their own
way, who had turned their backs on God in sin and rebellion!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Jesus Christ was crucified for us!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 3:1b,

"Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified."

As Paul excoriates the Galatians for embracing the false teaching that
had come to them, he points to a key central theme of the true gospel
message he had brought the Galatians: Jesus Christ had been crucified!
In another letter by Paul, to the church in Corinth, Paul refers to
the death of Jesus Christ as a key theme of the gospel message, "Now,
brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which
you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel
you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you.
Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on
to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according
to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third
day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter..." 1
Corinthians 15:1-5a.

How can the death of anyone be of good news? In this letter to the
church in Corinth Paul explains why. Jesus Christ suffered and died on
that cross as a payment for our sins: "Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures". In Jeremiah 9:24 the Lord says, "I am
the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight". The Lord has his own system of justice and it
will be satisfied. In order to save us from his punishment of our
sins, he sent his Son to die on our behalf, to pay the penalty for not
just our sins but the sins of the whole world.

In the efforts of the false teachers who had come to the churches of
Galatia, keeping the law nullified the impact of the death of Jesus
Christ. Since full payment for sins had already been made, why attempt
to earn God's acceptance by keeping the law? All who embrace Jesus
Christ in faith already have God's full acceptance.

As I think of these things I can't help but think of the wonderful
kindness, love and mercy our God has demonstrated to us in sending his
Son to die for us!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God's wonderful, matchless grace.

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 2:9,

"James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and
Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace
given to me."

As Paul provides his Galatian readers an account of his apostolic
ministry, he speaks of the acceptance the leaders of the church in
Jerusalem embraced him with. He says that the leaders of the church,
James (the Lord's own brother), Peter and John recognized the grace
given Paul by God that established him as an apostle.

God's grace is a wonderful thing. It is the label we put on that
aspect of God that prompts him to do wonderful things for us that we
have not earned and/or do not deserve. A wonderful passage that helps
us understand this aspect of God's character is Ephesians 2:8-9, "It
is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can
boast."

The gifting that God provides individuals such as Paul, (in his case
apostleship) is a wonderful expression of this grace of God. Healings,
miracles, the equipping of the saints, and of course our very
salvation are all seen as God's magnificent grace. One passage that
comes to mind relative to special enablement God, in his grace, gives
certain individuals to aid others is seen in 1 Peter 4:10, "Each one
should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully
administering God's grace in its various forms."

This fascinating and beautiful disposition of God to do things for us
out of his love of us is one of a myriad of qualities that makes our
God so easy for us to love!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today God's foreknowledge, foreordination and agenda...

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 1:15-16a,

"But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace,
was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among
the Gentiles..."

Here Paul tells us God had set him apart from birth, ("from my
mother's womb") for the purpose of preaching the gospel to the
Gentiles. Because of my love of God, I seek to know all I can of him
and this tells me a few things about my God.

This comment by Paul tells me that God plans things out. He has his
own agenda and he does what he intends to do. I may have my own
agenda, my own purposes, but God has his. Paul had his own agenda and
that was to persecute the infant church in his misguided zeal. But God
had set this particular man apart for himself for a specific purpose -
to serve the very church he persecuted. He was to be God's hand-picked
emissary to take the gospel to the Gentiles.

This speaks to me of God's foreknowledge. He knew ahead of time what
he wanted to do. He knew Paul before he was born and had tapped him
for his own purposes. This also speaks to me of God's foreordination.
There are those things God has predestined to take place beforehand. I
am reminded of God's intention with his Son to be a propitiation for
our sins before the world was even created, "For you know that it was
not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were
redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your
forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without
blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but
was revealed in these last times for your sake." 1 Peter 1:18-20.

Paul was not the only person God foreordained before their birth. John
the Baptist and Ezekiel are among others that are specifically
mentioned as those hand-picked by God before their birth for specific
purposes. I realize there are those who look at these examples, and
though well-intentioned, they mistakenly attempt to ascribe these as
God's design for how he saves each individual. While I reject such a
misunderstanding, I never want the beauty and grandeur of God to be
robbed of the brilliance of its full glory and I marvel at the
incredible aspects of God's foreknowledge, foreordination and
purposeful agenda. When God, who harbors a divine-sized love of us has
an agenda for us, that has to be a wonderful thing!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Confidence in the resurrection...

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 6:17,

"Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks
of Jesus."

One thing is for certain: Paul suffered for Jesus Christ. Anyone who
approaches the commitment of life to the cause of Jesus Christ as Paul
did has to be thoroughly convinced of the claims of the gospel and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul knew first hand of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his
ascension into heaven because that is exactly as Jesus Christ was when
Paul met him: raised and ascended. It seems to me that our walk with
Jesus Christ both begins and ends on our faith in the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Paul says in Romans 10:9-10, "If you confess 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 confess
and are saved."

If anyone were to ask me what it takes to make it into heaven this is
the passage I would point to. Calling Jesus Christ as my Lord and
believing in the resurrection brings me heaven-bound. When I call
Jesus Christ my Lord it means I bow to him and follow him (and no one
else - no other Lord!). When I believe in the resurrection it means
that I have faith and trust in the literal raising of Jesus Christ
from the dead by God the Father demonstrating his satisfaction of the
payment Jesus made for the sins of all mankind. If the Father's
justice for sins had not been satisfied for all time Jesus Christ
would not have raised from the dead. But he did raise from the dead
because he was sinless and qualified to give his life as a ransom for
others.

All we are asked is to embrace this in faith. If I believe in the
resurrection just as confidently that I am sitting here writing this,
I will be saved. Here is an amazing thing! While most folks feel they
have to earn a place in heaven - out of his matchless kindness, mercy
and love, God offers us a place at his table by simple faith!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Free to love!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 5:13,

"You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom
to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love."

In another letter of Paul's, we are asked, (that is, commanded) to do
something that almost all Christians refuse to do. It is found in
Colossians 3:13, "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances
you may have against one another." While we sing our hymns of worship:
"Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee...", etc. we
harbor resentment against brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so. They
wanted the nursery painted a different color than I did and so I
harbor an irritation or some resentment toward them. They pushed for
one music style for worship and I wanted another. "He doesn't agree
with my perspective on baptism..." Backbiting, gossip, unmet
expectations, all kinds of opportunities to hold grudges and harbor
resentment toward one another. I know it and you know it. We have seen
it in the many churches we have attended over the years. Where is the
love? We help out in the food pantry, we give toward a family who had
a house fire, we take meals to the sick and infirm, but we can't seem
to bear with each other in love and forgive grievances.

Paul tells us in that same Colossians passage, "Therefore, as God's
chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Because we
have embraced Jesus Christ in faith, we have become God's chosen
people. As such he has made us holy and he dearly loves us. As his
chosen people he has asked us to emulate him: he wants us to love one
another.

What is remarkable about this is that God has not just asked us to
love one another, and bear with one another, forgiving one another -
he has provided us freedom from our sinful natures to serve one
another in this way. Where we were once incapable of loving one
another, our wonderful heavenly Father has freed us to do so. How
wonderful he has provided us this. What our experience tells us is
that although God has enabled us to love one another, bear with one
another, forgive one another, he isn't going to do it for us. It is a
choice each of us makes. Ignoring the wonderful freedom he has
provided us to do so just won't do.

How wonderful God has freed us to love one another. living in a
community marked by love has to be the very best to live in. Hopefully
more will embrace the freedom God has given each one of us to serve
one another in this way.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: We have been set free!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 4:31,

"Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of
the free woman."

Paul points out to the Churches of Galatia that believers have
experienced a release from slavery and are now living in freedom.
False teachers who had come to Galatia were trying to persuade these
new Christians to return to law-keeping as a means to find acceptance
by God. Paul tells these believers that the law was given to folks
caught up in slavery to sin. Such is the case for all mankind: we are
all born into the world as slaves to sin and under God's law - a law
that is hopeless to keep. But when faith in Jesus Christ was revealed
to these believers through the gospel Paul had preached to them, they
found freedom from sin and the law! In this passage he uses the Old
Testament illustration of the free woman, Sarah and the slave woman,
Hagar.

In Romans 6:17-18 we read, "Thanks be to God that, though you used to
be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to
which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have
become slaves to righteousness." All who have placed their trust in
Jesus Christ have been freed from both sin and the law! We are free!
We are now free to become "slaves to righteousness"!

How wonderful is our liberator, Jesus Christ who has wrought such a
wonderful freedom for us! No longer consigned to the dungeons of our
sinful natures and the condemnation of such, the gates have swung open
wide and we new stand in the breath-taking sunlight of the freedom of
our wonderful Savior!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Jesus Christ redeemed us!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 3:13a,

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us..."

In making his argument that escape from God's judgment of our sins is
by faith and not by trying to live an exemplary life (by keeping the
law), Paul points out why it is so. Jesus Christ has already done all
the heavy lifting by suffering for us! He took our sins on himself. He
bore the punishment that was due us. He provided a perfect atonement
for sinful mankind - all of mankind! Later in the chapter Paul will
make the point that the purpose of the law was to lead us to Jesus
Christ, by showing us how sinful we are and in need of a savior as we
discover the impossibility of living up to God's standard (through the
law).

We can't add to the perfect work of Jesus Christ. The redemption he
provided us is already complete and requires nothing further for it to
be secured. It becomes our possession simply by embracing him in
faith. He became a curse for us! I am reminded of the famous passage
in Isaiah 53:4-6 "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our
sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and
afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed
for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all."

Surely the heart of our God is overflowing with love for us to do such
a thing! Surely our God is full of mercy and kindness! This is one
big, big heart!!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God chose emissaries with a message for us!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 2:8,

"For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to
the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the
Gentiles."

The God of the cosmos, the Creator of all that exists, the One who
formed the galaxies and set them in motion, the One who filled the
oceans with sea creatures and the air with birds and bugs and other
flying things, the One who created all that exists on land, mankind,
as well as the land itself, the One who designed the molecular
complexity of all of life chose certain men to accomplish his agenda!
God himself sent Peter to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles as his
emissaries, his ambassadors, his apostles!

And what is the message our Creator has sent to us through those he
hand-picked? That he loves us! That he is a God of grace who has made
a way for us to sit at his table! Not by charging us with having to
prove how good we are, but by simple trust in him! By embracing him in
faith we can share in the very inheritance of Jesus Christ as God's
own Son!

What a message! And to think that God stooped down and chose a few to
bring this message to the world! God in his great love of all mankind
reconciled sinful man to himself by providing mankind's payment for
sins, the punishment due us, by having his Son die a miserable death!
All this, not by works, but by trusting in him!

How wonderful is our God who has invaded the activity of mankind with
his emissaries to bring us good news!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: God's invitation of grace!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 1:6a,

"I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called
you by the grace of Christ..."

Paul expresses his astonishment at the Galatians drift from God. He
points out that the very person they are deserting is God who had
"called" them. This calling is an invitation from God that he extends
to us all. God extends his arms, opened wide, and invites us through
the gospel message! He wants us to participate with him throughout all
eternity in all of his plans and purposes. He offers us abundant,
eternal life filled with meaning and purpose as the objects of his
love and affections. He wants us to share in the very inheritance that
is Jesus Christ's as God's own Son. What an invitation this is!

Paul says God has extended this invitation to us, not because we are
deserving of it in any way, but by his grace. God's grace is his
expression of love manifested to us in all of the wonderful things he
offers us. He loves us in spite of the things we think, say and do. He
loves us in spite of our rebellion and sin against him. He loves us
even though we, as a race of people, have turned our backs on him to
serve another. Certainly, nothing can surpass the exceeding grace of
God than his sending his Son to die a miserable death to pay for the
penalty of all our sin! What grace this is!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com

Worship for Today: Vacation all next week!!

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him in Galatians 1:1,

"Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ
and God the Father, who raised him from the dead..."

God the father raised Jesus Christ from the dead!

Death is God's judgment of sin. God created us for life and when Adam
and Eve rebelled against God, it brought death to creation, just as
God had warned them. Since that time all die, since all sin, following
in the footsteps of Adam.

When Jesus Christ offered his life as a payment for the penalty of
sin, his payment was fully enough for all sin. We are told in the
Scriptures that Jesus Christ took the sin of the world upon himself
and then offered his own sin-free life as a payment for all the sins
ever committed by all men for all time. "He is the atoning sacrifice
for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole
world." 1 John 2:2.

Having made the payment for sin, death could not keep Jesus Christ in
its grip. God's judgment was satisfied and so God raised him up, just
as he will raise those of us who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith.
Having ample witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are
assured of Jesus' payment for our sins. It is our proof of God's
satisfaction for the payment of sin! This is so key to our faith that
we are told that belief in the resurrection is what brings us
salvaiton, "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved."

How wonderful an event was the resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd
love to hear from you!

I'm on vacation until May 11. See you all then!

Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com