The Sword of the LORD

"Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." (John 8:28) There is an old hymn that we sing that says: Must Jesus bear the cross alone And all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone, And there's a cross for me. Unfortunately, these words are lost on many Christians today. It's easy to understand and believe that Jesus carried a cross to Calvary, and there died for our sins; but it is more difficult to grasp the idea of bearing crosses in our lives. The whole idea of resurrection power working in us to make us more Christ-like is based on the concept of life from death. Jesus' illustration of the kernel of wheat being buried in the ground and dying before it can sprout and grow is the perfect picture of what our spiritual life must be. It is a continual process of dying to self so that the l

There is a wonderful verse in the 2nd Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. It is found in chapter 16, verse 9: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him.” I have often aspired to be one whose heart is perfect toward Him, but thought that it seemed like a very tall order to have a perfect heart; and yet, time and time again God has proven Himself strong in my behalf. I have learned, though, that being perfect in heart is not the same thing as being perfect in thought, word, and deed. No, it is simply this: believing the Lord, and trusting His Word. Asa, king of Judah, was the man to whom these words were originally spoken. In the beginning of his reign, he did that which was right before God. He trusted the Lord for deliverance from a great army that came against Judah. He also removed the idols out of the land and encouraged the people to keep the commandments and la

A neighbor who lives behind me has an amazing apple tree. It is enormous, and has been there for a very long time. It affords a great deal of shade to them in the summer time, and an ample amount of fruit in the fall. The amazing thing about this tree, though, is not its size, or age, or even the amount of apples that it bears; no, the amazing thing is that it bears five different varieties of apple! Someone years ago took the time to graft the branches of other apple trees into the trunk of this existing tree. Now, that which was not possible for this tree to bear on its own has not only become possible, but a reality. Of course, you know that I am drawing an analogy here to the Word of God. It is something that is, unfortunately, very foreign to man in general. Paul tells us in Romans 7, “In me (that is in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing.” My nature is to be very carnal and selfish, but God in His infinite love and wisdom, grafts His own nature into me through the Word of God. Th

Baptism is often overlooked as simply a ritual or act that Christians perform as a show of obedience to the Lord. Once baptized, a Christian usually never thinks of it again. The obligation has been fulfilled. I pray that after reading this today, your view of baptism is changed, and your whole walk with God transformed forever. The sixth chapter of Romans, which teaches us the principle of baptism, begins with a question: “Shall we continue in sin?” The answer is clearly, “no;” but the reason is very intriguing. The writer asks how we, who are dead to sin, can live any longer in sin. Many Christians I know struggle from day to day to do the right things, make the right choices, and live a life that is pleasing to God. They live their life in full awareness that they are open to temptation and subject to attack, and, therefore, are ever busy fighting and resisting those temptations – sometimes successfully, and sometimes not so. The real secret to victory over sin, though, lies not

I’m sure that you have heard the popular expression, “Seeing is believing,” but I would suggest instead that believing is seeing ! Believe is an action verb. We must deliberately believe God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Substance is something that is tangible, not something elusive and vague; and evidence is something that is solid and concrete that will hold up in a court of law. That’s the kind of faith that we must have. Scripture tells us that the Jewish patriarch Abraham, “against hope believed in hope,” and “staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief.” Though he and his wife were both well beyond years to have a child, Abraham trusted God anyway and saw the promise of Isaac come to pass! Today, folks seem very timid about believing in God – they are easily swayed by their fears. Faith and fear are polar opposites, and yet the definition can be the same for both of these words: “To believe that what you cannot

It wasn’t difficult to receive Christ as my Savior as I think about it today. I was brought to a point in my life where I knew I’d messed up and couldn’t fix things or go back and change the choices I had already made that had brought me down this road. I needed help and, more than that, I needed forgiveness. I didn’t need a theologian to tell me I’d offended the Creator. What little I knew about God was enough to tell me I’d blown it. That’s when someone found me and told me about Jesus. I was amazed to hear that my past could be forgiven, and that I could have a clean slate to write my life on. It wasn’t difficult – I simply believed it. As a gift from heaven, I just accepted it and discovered the joy of salvation. It was sometime later, after I’d settled in to this thing called Christianity, that I began to struggle. Things that I suddenly felt guilty about doing, I had trouble doing without. I would want to do the right thing in my heart, but my body would fight against me and so

We are creatures of habit. We all have our routines which we cherish and protect. Some habits are good, like reading the Bible or praying at a certain time each day; but other habits are not so good (do I really have to name them?). Even our good habits can get in the way of God's will if we become so rigid that we will not allow anything to interfere with our routine. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and scribes in His day saying, "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." (Mark 7:6-9) Whenever we get too set in our ways, we are in danger of quenching the Spirit in our lives. God wants us to be a spontaneous peopl